UnorthodoxY Archive It's wasn't what you thought

Took my first steps into this years madness on Wednesday night. I’ll get to the show in a second but I forget ever year just how mental town gets, it’s barely started and there’s already people everywhere. It makes me glad that I can stay pretty much out of it down in Leith and I only need to go into town when I want to. Anyroads, brief thoughts on Phil Kay and some other rambling after the jump.
(more…)

“Are you going to Mongolia?” asks the postman, handing me a card to sign.

Under other circumstances that might be an odd question but he’s holding a silver special delivery envelope, it’s roughly passport shaped and I expect it has “Embassy of Mongolia” as a return address. My answer, the rest of the conversation and some explanation is after the jump.
(more…)

I’m not about to turn this site into political soapbox but I would like to share a few thoughts. In the past I’ve scoffed at people who worried that our civil liberties are being chipped away, I may have suggested that they’re being paranoid. This article, which makes pretty scary reading, may have changed my views a bit. A snippet to encourage you to click the link:

The right to a jury trial is removed in complicated fraud cases and where there is a fear of jury tampering. The right not to be tried twice for the same offence – the law of double jeopardy – no longer exists. The presumption of innocence is compromised, especially in antisocial behaviour legislation, which also makes hearsay admissible as evidence. The right not to be punished unless a court decides that the law has been broken is removed in the system of control orders by which a terrorist suspect is prevented from moving about freely and using the phone and internet, without at any stage being allowed to hear the evidence against him – house arrest in all but name.

I have to admit that I didn’t know that it had gotten quite that bad, which does make me wonder what else has passed me by. Sadly a great deal of the comments on the internet falls a bit too far into tin-foil hat territory, which is a shame as it damages the sane commentary that exists out there and means that people may miss what’s going on.

Those who argue, as I have often done, that the innocent have nothing to fear might also want to check out the Londonist post where I found the link originally. Maybe now is the time to start worrying.

Hmmm, another weekend with no posts. I blame the heat. Next weekend will be no different as I’m off to T in the Park. Yay.

I got a little preview of the T in the Park site at the weekend, it was surprisingly unfinished, only a few tents up and no sign of the main stage. I guess it doesn’t take them long to put all the necessary bits and bobs together. Find out how I got that picture after the jump.
(more…)

Two ‘interesting’ shows on TV earlier this week, Baby Mindreader and Mindshock: Transplanting Memories. Let me state upfront that I’m not a closed to the possibility of mysterious powers or previously undiscovered medical marvels. I don’t, however, believe we’ve seen any evidence of them and most of the people we do see on TV or in print are deluded at best or an outright scam artist at worst. Read on after the jump to see if either show changed my opinion.
(more…)

I was going to write a post about X Factor: Battle of the Stars which took trainwreck TV to a level that Big Brother can only dream of. But there’s not much to say, if you saw it you know what I mean — if you didn’t then I doubt I can describe it adequately. All I’ll add is that I was glad I was watching a recording and had a Fast Forward button …

So, instead of that post, you get a Big Brother prediction.

Overall Winner: Nikki. Yes. Really. Not saying that’s who I’d like to win, but it’s what’ll happen. Just wait and see.

SpaceDog has spoken.

Coming back from lunch I pass a man running up the stair of our building. Nothing unusual about that, except he appeared to have a fair quantity of salt cradled in the palm of his hand. I’ve been unable to come up with the sort of scenario that would involve having to transfer so much salt up the stairs where you wouldn’t just grab whatever the salt was it, or at least a glass or something to hold it in.

Maybe it wasn’t salt, but sugar. Perhaps he’d popped into the other office under the pretence of “borrowing a cup of sugar” so he could meet the girl of his dreams, but was out-foxed when they didn’t have any spare cups, thinking on his feet he carried the sugar away in his hands to keep up the deception …

Or maybe not.