Written in response to a conversation about whether the UK has a constitution, on The Register.
Ooh, a chartist!
Magna Carta isn’t a written constitution, though it does contain elements that would later be incorporated into the constitution of the United States and many of their state constitutions.
We don’t have a written constitution. We have several documents [...]
Long rambling legal post removed after I realised it might not be a good idea to have it lying around just yet. It’ll be back later.
Got me a project to work on and writing the spec right now (which makes a change from some of the other projects I’ve worked on. Spec? What’s that? But that’s another story) so, busy busy busy and all that.
I need to update the blogroll, hopelessly out of date so it is. Until I get [...]
Politics being what it is you can only take so much before resorting to a drink or two. Or ten. Fortunately I have a well-stocked cask to tide me over.
I was just looking through the backs of cupboards when I found a tube that claimed to be an Aberlour. It isn’t. Inside there’s a bottle, [...]
In Wales, Carmarthen to be precise, there is a museum of various oddities and bits charting the history of Carmarthenshire, from the roman period to the present (which apparently stops when the Commodore 64 was invented). Amongst the roman artefacts on display were numerous coins – there are always coins – showing elements that later [...]
An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can.
The laser process [...]
“That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart [...]
Another odd conversation I had while I was in Swede was with Christina’s mother and sister, on the use of certain words. It made me surprisingly uncomfortable given what I know about this family, Swedish culture and so on. It was about the “n-word”, as people call it. I’ll let the classic film Blazing Saddles [...]
A few days ago my wife, of the golden hair and golden skin, was applying for jobs. She was telephoning various places inquiring about positions in secretarial, administrative and research work. Now this requires a momentary diversion as we explore a cultural issue.
The accepted way of answering the phone in English speaking countries is normally [...]
Within four years, people will be complaining very loudly about Obama. They will be saying he’s worse than Bush, worse than Carter, more of a warmonger than all combined. They’ll say he’s destroying jobs, destroying culture, invading countries without reason, corrupt, venal…
His entire campaign has been built around the concept of “change”. Change is what [...]
