You don't say

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Emails 'are the office timewaster'
Emails have gone from being a useful office tool to a curse that takes up huge amounts of work time, it was claimed yesterday. The average employee now spends an estimated 90 minutes to two hours a day wading through hundreds of messages, much of which is spam and junk mail.
Worldwide email traffic has hit 196 billion messages a day, according to the research firm the Radicati Group. It is predicted to reach 374 billion per day by 2011.
And yet I still notice people 'boasting' about just how many emails they have in their inbox. Still, if you make something effortless it's use is bound to increase. A single mouse click and your missive flies off to thousands of unsuspecting victims at a stroke. Progress? Bah!

Give that man a cigar!

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Reason Magazine - Cigar Bar


In 2003 President George W. Bush ordered the Department of Homeland Security to tighten enforcement of the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Now the Government Accountability Office  says the effort going into policing Cuban cigars might be reducing the security of the homeland. A report finds that Miami International Airport personnel are so occupied by seizing “small amounts of Cuban tobacco, alcohol, and pharmaceutical products” that they have little time left to look for “terrorists, criminals, and inadmissible aliens.”

While only 3 percent of non-Cuban international arrivals are subjected to secondary inspections at the airport, 20 percent of Cuban arrivals wait in line to be searched again. The eight daily flights from Cuba demand most Homeland Security resources at the airport, one of the busiest in the nation.


I'll ponder on that while I'm puffing on my Romeo y Julieta Belicosos (available at Oddbins, two minutes walk away) later this evening.


All white on the (News)night**

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I haven't got much to say about this or the BBC 'White' season in general. I know some bloggers are dismissive - and for good reasons, to be fair - but even if it is just a load of cock it does lead to debate of some sort and I happen to think that's not a bad thing.

John Gaunt (Ooooh, get ya crucifix out) actually spoke pretty well for most of the time and in particular when he challenged Wark to justify having the 'knuckle dragging' Nick Griffin on the show. I'll give him credit for speaking out.

Make sure you take note of the undisguised smirks on the faces of the supercilious New-Labour groupie, Kirsty Wark and that gruesome, patronising Hodge woman - especially when Bob Crow first speaks. Oooh, I say, a working class accent, how amusing. Arseholes!



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**nods to Justin

Even bloggers have to wash

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Walking past a shop in Aberdeen's Union Street this morning I noticed a huge pair of pants in the window with the slogan "FAIR TRIAL MY ARSE" on them and a poster outside alerting the public to the fate of Sami Mohy El Din Muhammed Al Hajj (Sami  A'-Haj).
Sami Al-Hajj, prisoner 345 at the United States Detainment Centre in Guantanamo Bay Cuba, has been on hunger strike since 7th January, 2007.

Sami was arrested in Pakistan in December 2001 whilst travelling with a legitimate visa to work in Afghanistan as a cameraman for Al Jazeera. But he is being held as an ‘enemy combatant’.
The shop was LUSH, which you may remember as Cosmetics To Go from a few years back, founded by ex- Body Shop suppliers Mark and Mo Constantine and now a world-wide chain of retail stores. They run charity campaigns in their shops and at the moment that charity is Reprieve, founded by the indefatigable humanitarian lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith. His book, 'Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay And The Secret Prisons', is also on sale in the shop.

I nipped in for more information and the two lovely ladies were very informative and helpful, offering to pose in their knickers for me. Well OK, they actually offered to put their 'Fair Trial My Arse' knickers on over their trousers. So here they are. Please check out the Reprieve website, make a donation, buy the book or some of LUSH's lovely products. Make bath-time fun! Come on you smelly bloggers, get scrubbing!





Does my bum look big in this?

No girls, really its the pants! Kate Moss would look gross with those horrors on.


The girls, Anna and Jenny, were great sports and a lot of fun. And I got a free sample as well. I may have to shower tonight! Sorry about the poor quality picture. I think the sight of young women in underwear must have given me the shakes :)