Until next year...

This is likely to be my last blog until the New Year. I tend to write these in my lunch-hour at work, and tommorow I'm fully intending on not sticking around much past lunch-time!

I was thinking about what to write about today and had decided to write about the daftness of allowing people in full face-covering veils to go through security at airports unchecked, but decided against it. You all know it's daft without me telling you.

So instead, I shall wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year, and leave it at that.

Normal bloggage shall return on the 2nd of January.

-Neil

Happy non-denominational, seasonal celebrations, everybody!

Today I read that a primary school has rebranded their Christmas party as a "Winter Celebration" in order to avoid offending anybody in the "current climate".

I don't know what the weather has to do with it, so I suspect that they are referring to world affairs.

I don't know many six year olds who keep up with domestic and foreign policy, the situation in Iraq and the antics of Al-Qaeda, so I presume this particular school dishes out copies of The Times to it's pupils every day.

To put it another way: The kids don't care. They care about Christmas. To them it's the most exciting time of the year. To take it away from them is stupid and mean. And you know what? The school has only 6% "ethnic minorities". Did they even ask the parents if they were offended? I bet not, and I bet the parents would be happy for their kids to attend a Christmas party. And if a couple weren't? Sorry, but 2 out of three-hundred is not reason to change anything. It's called majority rule.

So why take it away? Who does it offend? I've never met anybody who is offended by Christmas. And if they are? Too bad. This is a Christian country, and Christmas is celebrated throughout our culture. If it offends you, sod off somewhere that it isn't celebrated.

I can't say I've ever been offended by Ramadan, or Deepavali or anything. I used to install computers into Dry Cleaners (exciting life I lead, I know...) and one place shut up shop for prayers during the afternoon. No problem, I went to a local cafe and had a cup of coffee.

I've been to Malaysia at Christmas time. Their religions go something like this: Muslim, Bhuddist, Hindu, Christian. Yet at Christmas all the shops are adorned with lights and decorations. Christmas trees are everywhere, along with huge Happy Christmas signs. Offended? Nope.

The convenience shop around the corner from me is run by some Hindus, who have a little shrine to one of their Gods (Vishnu? The one with too many arms, anyway). And, you guessed it, the shop is decorated with Christmas spirit.

Christmas means everything to the kids. Lets remove the stupid grown-up political correctness and let them keep it.

And do you know the really, really, stupid thing? The school actually had a nativity play...

Feel my wrath, Telewest

If you were the man from Telewest who is in charge of scheduling a 2 hour firmware update to the TV Drive box (the box of tricks that lets me record multiple programs at the same time, watch them when I want and pause/rewind live TV. Believe me, once you've had one you'll never want to be without it), and that this upgrade would leave the box unusable during the update, would you decide that a good time to carry out said upgrade is either:

a) 3am Sunday morning, as long as there are no recordings scheduled to take place.
b) 6:30pm on Saturday evening, just before the X-Factor final.

Yep, the best time is obviously b).

I was so angry with Telewest for doing such a stupid thing that I decided to call them. Only I couldn't, because I got a message saying "We are experiencing high call volume. Please call back later, loser." and then it hung up.

why why why do it during the day at all? Yet alone just before the X-Factor final that I had setup to record, because I can't watch the beginning of it as it clashes with Joe's bath/bedtime.

It just makes no sense in the slightest to do it at this time. And why did it take so long? The firmware in this box is not large, because firmware isn't. A couple of meg, max. This should take under a minute to download. Then to verify the checksum, backup the old firmware, write the new one in and verify it again should take a couple of minutes. But it took nearly two bloody hours.

The most stupid part is that I thought I'd record it onto DVD instead, but I couldn't because the DVD recorder is patched in through the TV Drive, through the VCR pass-through port, but that wasn't even available during the update. So, short of re-wiring my entire TV/TV-Drive/DVD Recorder/Surround Sound/VCR/Playstation/PC setup (NOT going to happen!) I was going to miss the program, or at least miss what was going on whilst Joe was bathing and bedding. I caught the last twenty minutes or so on normal, analogue TV. In a couple of years that'll be switched off as well, leaving me reliant on Telewest and their hopeless, clueless management.

Great.

Well done, Mr Blair

Two entries today, as I had to comment on the whole Saudi Arabia bribes issue.

Let me say that I don't like Blair. On the whole, he and Brown have not done a good job with the country. I don't support Labour's values and I didn't vote for them.

But this time, he was right. Stopping the Serious Fraud Office from investigating the BAE deal was absolutely the right thing to do.

If you do business with the Saudis - and in the defence world this is BIG business - you have to deal with the corruption. This means paying bribes. No, it's not big and it's not clever, but in order to get the deal (and therefore ensure continued employment for thousands of British civilians, and deliver billions of pounds to the British economy), you have to grease a few palms. It's just the way it works over there. Take it or leave it.

It's worth it. The alternative is not to pay the bribes, and another country will get the gig, meaning we lose out. We may have obtained some moral highground, but that won't mean much to the jobless guy who is now losing his home.

It's also worth it from a strategic point of view. Saudi Arabia is a bit of a terrorist hotbed, and having the authorities on our side is invaluable.

For once, Mr Blair, you did the right thing.

Diana, RIP

In a change from it's usual headlines, the Daily Express today ran one about Princess Diana (those who don't read the Daily Express will need to note the sarcasm in that previous sentance).

But of course today was the big one - the results of the enquiry.

And guess what, it was all an accident.

Now, I don't necessarily subscribe to the whole conspiracy theory, although the evidence is reasonably compelling to believe that something is not right. The report didn't answer a bunch of the important questions, and ignored key witnesses to the events of that fateful night. Accident or not? We'll never know for sure. Mohommed Al Fayed is apopletic, understandably, and wants the truth to know what happened to his son. I would, too, in his situation. But he isn't going to get it.

This is the salient point here - the report was never going to say there was a conspiracy, was it? If it were MI5 that did the nasty deed, and it was reported as such, then the whole country would be in turmoil. The security services would be decimated and the government would fall. If the Royal Family were behind it, they would also fall. If it was proved to be the USA, or the French or whoever (all our allies), then international alliances (both trade and military) would be over.

There was no way in hell that report was ever going to say anything like this - even if it did happen. The consequences would have been too great, and the people behind it knew this from the start.

This raises the question of why do it? Well, there had to be an enquiry. She was far too important for it to go uninvestigated. If there was no investigation, there would be an outcry.

And now the report has been delivered, it doesn't answer all the questions - because it can't - so there is an outcry anyway.

They were damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I think it's time we leave her alone now, and let her family get on with their lives.

Barmy weather

Well, it looks like the doom-mongers were right.

Last year, the average temperature rose in Britain to it's highest level in over 350 years.

But, let's examine the facts, rather than the hysteria for a moment. The average temperature rose from 10.63C to 10.84C. Yes, that's right. A huge rise of 0.21C. A fifth of a degree. This was reported as "smashing the previous record". Hardly "smashing", is it?

Now that is certainly an increase. But the highest in the last 350 years? Just how accurate were those temperatures recorded 350 years ago? And how accurate the records? I somehow doubt that they were as accurate as those recorded today, which means that in terms of data validation, they are illegal entries and must be discarded.

Now, it is true that the ten hottest years on record have occured in the past 12 years. Irrefutable proof of global warming? Well, no. If the past 12 years had been the 12 hottest years then yes, but 2 of those years do not feature in the top 10. This proves that the temperature has been going down, as well as up. The overall trend may be slowly upwards, but it is not a linear increase. Sometimes it'll go the other way, too.

What it actually proves is that we have no effect, or minimal effect, on the temperature of the earth. If within the last twelve years the temperature can go down, even though our CO2 emissions are increasing, doesn't this prove that C02 emissions - and all other activities - are nothing to do with it? Why yes it does.

Of course the temperature varies a bit (or a lot, depending on which raving newspaper you read). Varying by a fifth of a degree is frankly nothing. Look back 10,000 years to the last ice age. I bet it was a hell of a lot colder than a fifth of a degree less than today, then. And yet, without the invention of the aeroplane and the 4x4, it warmed up all by itself.

The earth has been heating and cooling since the dawn of time. And let's not forget the sun (the fiery ball of hydrogen gas, not the newspaper similarly full of hot air) has it's hotter and colder years, and varies it's sunspots and so on.

I'm sure the earth actually is on a slightly warming trend at the moment, though. I'm also sure that it's nothing to do with us. I'm further sure that it'll cool again, and there probably will be another ice age at some point in the future. I'm most certainly sure that there is NOTHING we can do about it. Cutting carbon emissions, raising taxes for green initiatives and so on only pander to the political parties and celebrities who want to cash in on public mis-information for their own greed.

Rather than these ridiculous schemes, we should accept the fact that it is going to happen and plan accordingly. Raise the Thames flood defences so they can cope with another 10 feet of water. Build up sea-defences, move housing back from the edges and out of flood plains. Just don't predict these catastrophic events with no plans to fight them, other than a £25 congestion charging zone. Take some proper action for crying out loud. All that's going to happen is London will start to get flooded and it'll be too late to do anything about it, because everyone thought that putting 5p on a litre of fuel would save the planet.

They're all so busy pointing the finger of blame that no proper action is getting taken.

If the sea levels rise it'll be the fault of politicians and greenies, not BP or Shell.

Warmth and happiness

Well, British Gas passed the test, but barely. They promised a visit with 4 hours, and on the stroke of 3 hours and 59 minutes, as my finger was hovering over the redial button, there was a knock on the door. The man diagnosed the problem within seconds and had the whole thing sorted in under 5 minutes. Now we have hot water and heating again, which is obviously a good thing in December.

A huge contrast to Barclaycard, I'm sure you'll agree.

Another company that deserves an honorable mention, is BT. Recently my parents' phone line stopped working, taking their internet with it. They contacted BT from a mobile (on a Sunday), who informed them an engineer would be around on Monday morning. In the meantime, they diverted all calls to their landline to my mum's mobile. On Monday morning, the engineer arrived as promised and diagnosed the problem as the actual wire from the telegraph pole to the house. He warned it could take a few days to fix as they needed a special lorry to access it.

Ok, it's one of those things, but the lorry actually turned up the next day and fixed the problem. The new engineer came and checked the lines and got the call-forwarding removed.

It was all dealt with very effectively and efficiently, and another example of how big companies can give good service.

British Gas - good. British Telecom - good.

Perhaps Barclaycard should become British Barclaycard.

Feel my wrath, Barclaycard

Grrr. And Arrgh.

On Saturday, Ele went to do some Christmas shopping. As is customary, she took my credit card (chip and pin is great, isn't it? Before that happened, she couldn't use my card, but now all that's required is a pin, she can use it all she wants. Very secure...). As isn't customary, it didn't work when she tried to use it.

She rang me in distress, so I called Barclaycard to find out why I was now unworthy of credit. The reason, as it transpires, was that I had forgotten to pay the bill. Fair enough, how late was I? One day. One single bloody day. Bear in mind I've been a customer for ten years and have a perfect payment record and they decide - TWO BLOODY WEEKS BEFORE CHRISTMAS - that cutting off my card because I'm a day late is a good way to treat a loyal customer. I've paid cards late before. They charge you £15 or something and your card keeps working. Ok, the charge is annoying, but it is my fault. But cutting off my card because I'm a single day late making the damn payment, with only two shopping weekends left before Christmas? Not acceptable. I bet they charge me £15 as well.

So anyway, I merrily pay the bill over the phone and ask for my card to be re-activated. He tells me it'll take 24 hours. This is now a bigger problem, because we need to use that card (severe lack of actual cash this year), and Ele has gone shopping nice and early to buy all sorts of lovely things that might even be for me. But there's nothing he can do. So the shopping trip is ruined.

The next day, Sunday, I took Jess into town to do some shopping for Ele's presents. I carefully made sure that more than 24 hours had passed, then handed my card over to the chap in the shop, who told me that, sadly, it had been declined, and did I have another method of payment at all, sir? This was not an expensive item, so I did have another means, and then I went outside to yell at Barclaycard again.

I got a snotty little shit on the phone who told me it wasn't 24 hours, but one working day. He wouldn't even get his supervisor on the phone ("They are unavailable, sir", "Doing what? Talking to other customers, drinking coffee, looking at porn on the internet?", "I'm afraid I can't tell you that, sir" Looking at porn, then...). He wouldn't even let me hold until one became available. In fact, he wouldn't do anything at all. If Daniel from Barclaycard Customer Services should happen to ever read this, then let me tell you: You are a moron of the highest order, I hope your dog gets run over and that your children are born with extra fingers and toes. Eventually, I had to give in and give my mobile number for somebody to call me back within 2 hours, otherwise he was going to terminate the call because we were just going round in circles. Guess what? They never did call back.

Whenever I've worked in Customer Services (fortunately not at Barclaycard), if I had a really irate customer on the phone who needed a call back, they got a call back INSTANTLY. And when I was a Customer Services Supervisor, if a customer was angry and wanted to speak to me, I spoke to them IMMEDIATELY, or if I was on another call, I rang them back AS SOON as I had finished. The fact that the department is called CUSTOMER Services should tell the employees something. They are there to do the bidding of their customers, the people who pay lots of money to Barclaycard every month and therefore pay their wages. But they don't. They think that customers are just annoying bastards who call up and harrangue them unfairly.

Compare this to British Gas. This morning I woke up to no gas. My meter said "FAIL" on it and nothing else. I call them, they answer, I explain the situation, they apologise and tell me an engineer will be round within 4 hours to fix it. He's got 2-and-a-half hours left, so let's hope they don't let me down...

So the lesson is this - if you want a credit card you can rely on, and Customer Services that actually care avoid Barclaycard like the plague.

The jury's still out on British Gas.

Grrr

I had written a nice long entry about how much I hate Gordon Brown for stealing all of my money, when my computer crashed about a micro-second before I could press "Publish Post".

I can't be bothered to type it all in again, so here's the sort version:

Gordon Brown is a bastard.

I hope that will suffice.

Torchwood

Recently the BBC started showing a programme called Torchwood. It's a spin-off of Dr. Who, in that the name is an anagram of it, and it stars one of the companions from the 2005 series of it. It is based on the activities of a bunch of agents from the top-secret agency of Torchwood, who operate seemingly outside of the law, dealing with aliens and alien artifacts. For some reason, they are based in Cardiff (the actual reason being that it is filmed by BBC Wales, but the plot reason being that there is some kind of space/time rift there).

It's had some bad reviews (by critics who gave it bad reviews simple because it is a Dr. Who spin-off), but I've thought it very good, and so have most people that I know. It's like Dr. Who for grown ups. Dr. Who without time travel, but with plenty of gore, some swearing and some lesbians. A good mix, I feel.

Until this week, when there was a plot so ludicrous that I almost found myself laughing.

The plot centered around an alien glove that had the power to bring dead people back to life, albeit for only thirty seconds or so. Fair enough, that's an interesting idea.

It then went on to show us that there was a psychopath on the loose who was murdering people in a grizzly way, painting the word Torchwood in his victims' blood. Now there's a link. Some DNA analysis revealed he had been given their "amnesia pill", which they give to those who find out about Torchwood and Torchwood would rather they forget all about it. Kind of like the "flashy thing" in Men In Black.

Some deeper digging revealed that an old team-member - who killed herself in the first episode by shooting herself in the head - was somehow connected to all this.

So they bought her back to life with the glove. Only she didn't just last thirty seconds. She stayed alive. Spooky.

But then it went downhill. For starters, the dead-but-now-alive woman was shown eating and drinking. She had killed herself by blasting herself with a gun, from under her chin. Surely eating and drinking, yet alone talking, is not really going to happen? Her tongue must have been obliterated, along with most of her mouth and throat. Yet, it was all Ok.

Some "clever" analysis revealed that she was still alive as she was drawing energy from the one who used the glove to bring her back to life. The one who had used the glove was slowly developing a gun-shot wound to the head. Kind of like sympathy pains in pregnancy, I suppose. But dead-but-now-alive woman had disappeared with the one-who-held-the-glove and managed to lock down the entire Torchwood building, cutting all the power, so nobody could get out to stop her.

Then, it was somehow worked out that she had planned all this whilst she was still alive. She had given the psychopath the amnesia pill every week for two years, meaning that he became a bit dependant on it, and when he couldn't get it it would turn him mad at the mention of the word Torchwood. She had then "programmed" him to recite a specific bit of poetry and somehow tied this poetry to a voice-recognition system that locked down the Torchwood building and killed the power. She had also known that somebody would work out how to use the glove, and would bring her back with it, and that she would defy all previous evidence and stay alive, at the expense of the glove user, despite this never happening before.

So the simple question is: Why go to all that bother. Why not just NOT kill yourself in the first place? Not to mention the fact that such a far-fetched plan with so many variables is almost bound to fail (ok, it didn't, but that wouldn't make a TV programme).

There were then a couple of other sillies; they had worked out that the psychopath had caused the lockdown by speaking poetry (an amazing act of deduction that would have Sherlock Holmes gasping aloud), and reckoned another bit of poetry by the same author would reverse it. They tried but it wasn't working, so one of the team had the revelation of "maybe if words caused it, numbers would reverse it", so they tried the ISBN number of the book. Of course it didn't work, because all the power was off as part of the lockdown. How they didn't realise this when reading out all the previous poetry, I don't know, especially given their amazing powers of thought. So the "computer-whizz" reckoned that it might work typing it on the keyboard. "But the power's out" said one, although why he didn't come up with this argument for the poetry recital I don't know. "Ah, " said the whizz, "there's probably enough left in the membranes of the computer keyboards for it to work."

??? Keyboards need power. They also need computers to decode the keystrokes. They didn't have those. But it worked anyway and they were able to effect their pursuit of dead-but-not-dead woman, and glove-holding woman, whom dead-but-not-dead woman had taken hostage.

They pursued them via the tracking device on glove-holding woman's car. It was pitch-black. "How long has glove-holding woman got left before she dies?" asked the boss. "A few minutes, no more." replied the team doctor and ellicit love-interest for glove-holding woman.

A few minutes. Yet, when they arrived at their destination, it had gone from being pitch-black to bright daylight. This was a passing of at least a couple of hours.

So boss-man shot dead-but-not-dead woman. A few times. But she couldn't die. Why he didn't shoot her fifty times in the head, pulverising her to pieces is not explained. You might be alive, but you're going to look pretty stupid walking around like that, love.

Anyway, destroying the glove sorted it all out, but by that point I was so fed up with the ridiculous plot and the continuation errors that I'd stopped caring.

I hope next weeks' is better.

Spy In The Sky

Every now and then, on a slow news day, the newspapers print another story about Road Charging, and how GPS satellites are going to track our every movement and charge us depending on how far we drive, and on what roads.

This weekend was no exception, with a report published by the ex-chief of BA (his name escapes me at the moment), recommending it as a good measure to cut congestion.

Given that I work for a firm that could conceivably supply such a system (and has supplied other government transport systems so already has a foot in the door) and that my job involves writing software for such systems, I probably have a slightly better viewpoint than most.

And my view is this: It won't work. (my view, not the company view!)

Sure, for businesses, telematics is a useful tool. Knowing where your vehicles (and valuable loads) are, how long they stop for and the whole host of other info we provide is great business info. For individuals, getting your car back after it's been nicked is also rather handy.

But nationally? I don't think they've thought about the technical details, yet alone the entire ridiculousness of the scheme, which we'll examine shortly. So why won't it work?

1. Data collection. How will the data be transmitted? For accurate charging you need a very frequent reporting rate - once every ten seconds or so realistically - and this all needs to be transmitted to a server somewhere. Private radio? Too many vehicles and not enough bandwidth. Plus it would be severely open to jamming and would require receivers all over the country. Mobile phone network? Again, capacity is a bit of a problem, but mainly the cost is the issue here. Who is going to pay for the data transmission costs and the network subscription? A lot of people seem to be under the impression that the vehicles would transmit up to the satellites. Wrong, I'm afraid.

2. Coverage. GPS is pretty good most places, but not everywhere. In cities, multipath error is very frequent (the signal "bounces" off of buildings, leading to a greater margin of error), plus the number of visible satellites is smaller. Same goes for heavily foliated areas, tunnels and valleys. Newer GPS chipsets are getting better at this, and EGNOS will help somewhat (provided you can see the EGNOS satellite) but it is still an issue. Galileo (the European GPS system) should solve much of this when it goes live, however.

3. Ownership. The GPS network is owned by the US Dept. Of Defence, who can literally turn it off should they want, or move the satellites around to provide greater coverage to different areas. They threatened to do this in the last gulf war, but didn't. I don't think it would ever happen really, as too much shipping and aviation relies on it now, but the possibility is there. If the uS thought a GPS-guided missile was headed their way I'm sure the C/A ("civillian") code would be turned off, leaving just the military (much more accurate) code on for their own use. Again, Galileo would solve much of this issue, although US has reserved the right to shoot the Galileo satellites out of the sky, should they so desire.

4. Hackability. The term "Faraday Cage" will become very well known soon after introduction. If the unit can't receive or transmit any kind of radio signal, you won't be charged. A piece of metal over the antenna would do the same trick, or disconnecting the antenna. Or simply removing the box and leaving it at home whilst you go out. And what happens when the unit "breaks"? To solve some of this you'd need to patch it into the CANbus in the car, but doing this for each model of car would be tricky to say the least.

5. Installation. Getting ten million or so of these things fitted is not a trivial task. Nobody is going to volunteer to be the first to have it, so it would have to be enforced somehow, and each one is likely to take an hour at least to fit. Getting through ten million is likely to take a looooooong time. And what happens when the installer breaks something in the car whilst doing it? Or wires it up wrong. This happens a fair bit, and I speak from experience here. Trying to track-down a problem with a unit that works sometimes and not others, is not easy when the engineer has wired it up to the windscreen wipers or something instead of the ignition. Yes, that is a true story.

And so onto the entire ridiculousness of the scheme:

The fact remains that most people don't make really unnecessary journeys; petrol simply costs too much. So roads are crowded because they have to be. People need to make these journeys. Public transport is not an alternative in many cases, and neither is walking. If I were to walk Jessica to school, it'd take a good hour to do the three miles there. She would then be knackered for the rest of the day. By the time I'd have got home another hour later it would be 09:30 and I'd be half an hour late for work before I've even left. So, get a bus? Only there isn't one. House and school are at opposite ends of a dual-carriageway A-road that bypasses the town, and there is not one bus that actually goes down it. I'd have to go a very long way round - bypassing the bypass - to get to it.

And then my journey to work: My house and office are about 7 miles away by road (not as the crow flies, but actual driving distance). This takes me about 30 minutes, during which I can listen to music as loud as I want, listen to the news on the radio, pick my nose, whatever I want to do. Sometimes it only takes 20 minutes (i.e. when the schools are on holiday). To do this journey by public transport would take a minimum of 45 minutes on three trains (and let's face it - that is never going to work as at least one train is bound to go wrong), followed by a fifteen minute walk, or an hour and twenty minutes by three buses. That's only to the nearest station though, I might need a fifteen minute walk on top of that as well. So it's two to three times longer by public transport. Given that public transport is inhabited by strangers, teenagers, terrorists and drunks, you are squashed into a tiny space with no room to sit, and can't sing along to your music (at least without strange looks), it's hard to see the appeal, to be honest.

Clearly, public transport is not an alternative for me. I HAVE to make this journey. I already pay for it with fuel tax and road tax. Why should I have to pay more than I do now? Even if fuel and road tax are abolished, I can't see the cost going down, somehow.

The only way charging will cut congestion is by forcing people off the road. Children won't visit their elderly parents and parents won't take their children to out-of-school activities. Families will not go on weekend visits to parks or farms or wherever they feel like going. Everybody will sit at home, miserable as hell, because they won't be able to afford to go out.

Also, as motorways are to be more expensive than A/B roads, it'll have the effect of moving traffic back onto the roads the motorways were designed to keep them off of in the first place. If the A-Road bypass I use daily is to be more expensive than the rat-runs through town, what am I going to drive, even if it takes longer?

In one article I read, somebody idiotic in the government said "We can't build our way out of trouble", and then went on to say "The M6 Toll is a great example of how charging cuts congestion". ??????? How contradictory is that? The M6 Toll WAS building out of trouble. Even if it weren't a toll road it would have cut congestion on the M6, because half the traffic would use it instead. In fact, it would cut congestion EVEN MORE if you didn't have to pay to use it because the traffic would be split evenly over the two routes, instead of 80/20 or so. But that wouldn't favour the rich, would it?

Stupid, stupid, stupid. And why can't we build our way out of trouble? We aren't "paving over the countryside" as the greenies would have us think. Fire up Google Earth and have a browse over the country. You'll be amazed at just how little of it is roads. Frankly, building some more isn't going to remove all greenery from the place.

Hopefully this scheme will not get off the ground. Mr Cameron - you are lacking somewhat in policies, testicles and any kind of public esteem. Rathern than kow-towing on green taxes and crazy plans, promise the nation that you will NOT introduce environmental taxes and that road charging under the Tories would never happen.

You'll find yourself with the keys to No. 10, I guarantee.

Record downloads

The US, and it's record labels, have been trying to exert their influence where it is not wanted, once again. This time, they are trying to force Russia to shut down the AllOfMP3.com website, or Russia's entry to the WTO will be blocked.

Naming a specific business is strange enough. Even more so given that AllOfMP3.com operates completely legally under Russian law, and they also claim that US citizens are able to use the site legally.

For those who have not come across the site before, let me explain. AllOfMP3.com sell music online. You can specify the bitrate (quality) of the recordings you want, and also the format, so you can have it in MP3, OGG and a few others should you desire. The thing that has made them so successful (second only to evil iTunes) is that they charge per megabyte, at a rate of 1 US cent. Therefore a typical song can be downloaded for about 5c, compared to 99c from iTunes. And the AllOfMP3.com version will not be stuffed full of Digital Rights Management stuff that restricts you from playing it on anything other than the PC you downloaded it with and an iPod. These files can be played anywhere.

No wonder the US is scared. The cost is a fraction of the exact same thing from iTunes. And the US hates competition.

But, here comes the moral debate. AllOfMP3.com is legal because they operate under an oddity of Russian law that allows them to sell anything like they like for whatever price they like. They pay 15% of their profits to the Russian copyright people, who are supposed to distribute this to the copyright holders. Whether this happens or not is unknown - they claim it does - but it isn't actually AllOfMP3's problem. They are complying with the law.

So the record labels don't like this. When a song is purchased from iTunes, the record labels get a nice big chunk of that 99c (70c to be precise). When it's bought from AllOfMP3.com they don't. But, the thing is, the artists actually don't get as much from the record labels as you might think from their online sales.

When a CD is sold, the artist will get around 10-15% of the cost of sale. Minus packaging costs. They also would normally get 50% of licencing costs (i.e. if it's used in a film or a TV show). Here's the kicker: When a song is sold on iTunes, it isn't a physical sale in the normal go-into-HMV-and-buy-a-copy sense. It is a licence deal; you buy a licence to use the song on your computer and your iPod. You don't get a physical copy. But, the labels treat this is a normal sale - not a licence - and so the artist gets 10% instead of 50%. And then - incredibly - they still get the packaging costs removed, despite there being no packaging at all.

Given these packaging costs are about 30% of the artists royalties, the label is making more from online sales than from traditional sales because they simply don't have to pay these costs, although they are charging the artists for them anyway. So out of the 70c that iTunes pays the label for the song, the artist makes about 5c, compared to the label's 65c. Really fair, huh? If it was treated as a licence sale (which is what it is), the artist would get 35c. Somehow, they get away with this.

AllOfMP3.com is to be commended to refusing to back down. It has proved it's legality under Russian law, and has quoted from US law as well that implies it is legal to use from the States.

Record labels must start realising that times are changing and that they must move with them.