Category Archives: Life

C.S.I. Cumnor

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Only 10 miles walked this weekend – we must be slipping. 4 around Watlington on Saturday to demonstrate the red kites to my parents, and 6 around Cumnor on Sunday, finishing to gaze in awe at a stone fireplace in a churchyard.

The kites obligingly went through their paces, swooping and diving and soaring like they were being paid for it. Go up Watlington Hill and you can look down on them swooping and diving etc, which is even more fun. Beautiful, fantastic birds, and even though I had exactly nothing to do with their extinction, reintroduction or subsequent success I do feel immensely proud of them.

The Cumnor fireplace is an Elizabethan crime scene, the site of a scandal that rocked England at the time. Amy Robsart, wife of the Queen’s favourite Robert Dudley, fell mysteriously to her death down a staircase in Cumnor Place, after which he was not perceived to act as a grieving husband ought. Cumnor Place was pulled down in 1810 and its site is now an overflow graveyard next to the church. The fireplace is set into a bank and is all that’s left of the building.

Robert may not have valued his wife that much. At the top of Watlington Hill we unexpectedly encountered what I’m guessing was a local mosque picnic, 10 or so families with the girl children already sporting headscarves on top of the usual kid attire and the women utterly featureless in full hijab. Some at least allowed to show faces, some with just the eyeslits. What the kites made of all the penguins, I don’t know. Left wondering exactly what kind of culture regards women as irresistably tempting, wanton, slutty etc if they don’t have everything but the eyes covered up. You can value your wife too much, too.

Worth £35 of anyone’s money

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[Previous posts here and here]

So, names can be named. Back in February I mentioned an individual living north of Watford who was under investigation for suspected eBay fraud. My involvement was that I was one of the ones he defrauded, to the price of one boxset of Battlestar Galactica, third series.

Then things went quiet …

Until today. From DC957 Rich Clarke, Doncaster Reactive CID:

“On the 20th May 2009, the suspect in this case Ryan HERRING was charged with 6 specimen charges of “Fraud by False Representation” and wishes to take another 408 offences into consideration. His first court appearance will be on Friday 29th May 2009 at Doncaster Magistrates Court.

Basically, Mr HERRING has made full admissions to his fraud activities over the last 2 years and has created a number of Ebay Accounts resulting in the advertising of 1000’s of items and the subsequent sales where you’ve become victims. In view of his admissions the Crown Prosecution Service decided to charge initially with 6 specimen charges that cover the full 2 year period and too allow other offences to be taken into consideration. Based on the replies I received via email from yourselves I have completed a schedule to include the 408 similar offences to be taken into consideration.

I have spoken to the complainants in relation to the 6 charges and so if you havn’t received a telephone call from me in the last 2 days, assume that your complaint is one of the 408 other offences.”

Render therefore to all their dues, and all that.

One more reason Skynet won’t work

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So, I needed to photocopy multiple copies of a manuscript that included blank pages. The helpful photocopier saw that I was trying to copy blank pages and concluded I obviously didn’t really want to do that, so left the blank pages out. Result: pagination all mixed up in the multiple copies.

I had to copy another manuscript. This time I was cleverer. I wrote BLANK in large, friendly letters on the blank page. The copier still couldn’t quite believe I wanted to waste valuable time, paper and toner on a page with BLANK scrawled on it and so again left the blanks out.

Please will machines stop trying to be helpful. It really doesn’t help.