After dinner though it really opened up, I can honestly say I haven’t heard it rain as bad at least here in the UK. It really pissed it down. The clothes I’d left out were still dripping this morning and it was sunny and warm, and looked dried up. It was too dark to take pics.

I can’t say I come across many, the only experience is when I was a kid up at the farm one summer. It seemed big but then I wasn’t so to adult eyes it was probably a mouse.

At last we’ve apologised for Hiroshima – well, sort of. We’ve recognised the suffering our atom bombs caused –well, kind of. President Obama was showing off his anti-nuclear credentials in the killing grounds of Hiroshima, but this was not to be confused with saying sorry.

I was shocked to say the least. And I’m glad that we’re not saying sorry – let’s be honest with one another here, because it seems to me these days that people aren’t taught the real history of things. The Japanese were engaged in a brutal war against the Chinese for years in the 1930′s, then in 1941 they attacked the Americans at Pearl Harbour and us (the British) at Singapore and Hong Kong.

At that time, the Japanese were brutal, they were cruel, ask any surviving soldiers from the work camps. They weren’t “honourable” as movies might portray today, this wasn’t Shogun in any way. It was a war of conquest plain and simple.

Estimates at the time of the Americans invading the Japanese homeland were that 1 million casualties would result. That’s perhaps one of the main reasons the Americans dropped the bomb. Yes, that’s right, the -Americans- dropped it, not us. Sure, the British and other nations were involved in developing it, but the Americans had their fingers on the button. And for this Brit, I’m damned glad they pushed it. They have nothing to apologize for in my opinion.

The author of that article puts things into perspective at the end:

But it raises another question. When do our war “crimes” have an expiry date. Blair gave his half-hearted apology to the Irish a century and a half after the Brits exported Ireland’s food instead of using it to save Irish men and women who were found dead in ditches after trying to eat stinging nettles. The Americans and the Australians have said sorry to their native peoples. But what about Cromwell and Drogheda? Or the Thirty Years’ War, or the Hundred Years’ War? Or the sack of Rome – a Goth war crime (poor Mrs Merkel)? – or the Roman destruction of Carthage? Or the death of Jesus – I guess Rome’s imperial history means Berlusconi has to apologise, though an awful lot of Catholics have spent centuries living in their anti-semitic world by blaming the Jews. Poor Benjamin Netanyahu!

He’s right, when is there an expiry? And for what? War today is much different than even one hundred years ago, civilians died back then too. Do we take into account who dies, and what led to it, or who won? Magnanimous us, we apologize for the deaths caused by our ending of the war. I’d say that since then the Japanese have done quite well, if the shoe were on the other foot, would we have done so well under German or Japanese hegemony? Would they be apologizing?

So I’ve been trying to force myself to use a reader, mostly because I forget sites. And yes, clearly, forget to bookmark them too.

Here I was again though, thinking about it then I realised I hadn’t read blogs in a while, and had forgotten to use the reader. Either I’m going batty, getting old (not that old though, ok), or just busy. Must be busy I suppose…

The downside as I see it: I just visited Mel‘s blog post.

My mother uses this really old mobile phone, a simple Nokia with no frills, barely even a digital display and fairly large buttons (although not too large IMHO). She doesn’t need anything else, as it’s only for emergencies anyway. She can’t see well, and she’s not too tech savvy, so it’s perfect for her.

My father on the other hand, a bit more tech-savvy although still like comparing a four year old with a five year old. He at least knows he can get information on train/plane times on the internet and recently started asking me about phones that do this. He got a Nokia X6 the other day, but today he called me to say it was awful and he couldn’t get on with it.

So my question is, why haven’t these large mobile phone companies, with all their resources, made phones for the aging? Big buttons, less gadgets and stuff on them, perhaps more intelligent voice control or large video displays or at least bigger icons and text? There must be a market for it, as more and more people use mobiles phones on a daily basis, and generally speaking people don’t see as well when they get older, or hear as well etc.,

I suppose that it’s good because they want to ensure that the customers stay with them and keep paying them regularly, but surely they can mail us all this stuff rather than keep us on the phone for 15 minutes going through bullshit!

You can download the new beta version and read about all the new goodies in the release notes. But the real question that I thought the Independent missed on was, or rather what they glossed over quickly, if Microsoft didn’t have a stranglehold on the PC market, would IE be the market leader?

Surely, with something like 31% of the market, Firefox has a good grip on things. Like most people, most journalists, most newspapers, the Independent in that article simply forgot the fact that the “most popular” (it coined Firefox as the “second” most popular) browser has been losing market share for years now…

A few years ago, the local council decided they wanted to build a leisure centre in town. This had a new swimming pool, gym, and so on. It was largish for a town of our size, very well designed and put together. Of course, our money, our -tax- money paid for it.

Now, fast forward to today when it’s running (it opened a few months ago) and we have to pay for the privilege of a membership to the place. Let me just refresh your memory: our -tax- money paid for it.

So it’s something like £20 a month, all access kind of thing, I suppose it’s a fair price if it was a gym.

Ok, move on Richard.

Today I hear that there is a certain Royal someone coming to our charming little town. Wow, I am so graced! They’re coming (although, to be fair, I’m not sure if it’s -just-) to see our new leisure centre.

What’s pissing me off? The fact that certain local bigwigs are being invited to the Royal reception for the leisure centre. Let me refresh your memory again: our -tax- money paid for it. So even though the tax money went into it, and it’s -for- the public (yet we have to pay for membership/access), to have someone say ‘Ooh aah’ at it, only the bigwigs get invited. How nice.

Surely if it is public money that went to construct it, the public should be involved in any praise, not the local businesses that made money from it’s construction? I really do feel like we, the public, are just the (government/ruling class)’s piggy bank.

I want to move to another country.

Oh, and although I know it will do NO good at all (as I’ve done it in the past), I’m writing to my local MP to complain and whine about it.

For one, their beds are are just ridiculously soft, the proverbial mattress ready for the pea and the princess. You almost sink right into it.

It’s also rather warm right at the moment, the humidity is intolerable. Well, I say intolerable, but I’ve had much worse in the US, but at least in the US there were ceiling fans. We don’t expect such weather here so we don’t install ceiling fans.

Then this morning, at 5am, I hear this raucous sound from the local murder of crows. Let me tell you, I was thinking of murder… I’ve heard crows are some of the most intelligent animals, but at 5am that wasn’t very comforting.

I think I prefer life in towns and cities, at least there you don’t get the added sounds of the country!

So, here’s crossing fingers, all hope against hope. Come on Murray, we know you can do it.