You get an email, apparently from your hotmail account, which you know you did not send.
It has an attachment with an odd name.
Do you open it?
There are people who would, and one of them works here.
"I thought it was a bit odd, and I was curious, so…"
The law in (edit!) England & Wales used to be absolutely clear: STI infection during consensual sex was not assault, even when the infection was deliberately concealed from the partner.
But in the past couple of years, there have been three successful prosecutions of men for sexual transmission of HIV. They're going through various retrials and appeals, but the basic question remains:
Should sexual transmission of HIV be a criminal offence?
What about when someone lies about their HIV status in order to get their partner to consent to unprotected sex?
From the top left of poster for the original Manchurian Candidate, before even Frank Sinatra's name:
You must not miss the first five minutes to know what it's all about!
Erm… I know I can be like Woody Allen in Annie Hall, declining to go into a film he's seen before because he would have missed two seconds of the opening text-only credits (and nothing else) but…
In June last year, someone was wondering which DTP program would be a better bet to teach students.
A number of people disagreed when I said Quark was the Word Perfect of DTP – a formerly dominant but outdated program (in its media niche) in the process of being overthrown – and Adobe InDesign was the one to go for:
"Quark. Quark quark quark quark quark quark. I work in a design company. The professionals here wouldn't touch anything else. I assume they know what they're talking about."
"If they want to have jobs later they should use Quark. If you want them to make tea at a designers, give them PageMaker. And if they are to sleep rough after they graduate give them [InDesign]."
So what's happened since?
The Guardian & Observer have dumped Quark and gone to InDesign.
The BBC's forty-odd magazines have dumped Quark and gone to InDesign.
And what prompted this was browsing National Magazines and seeing that they – Cosmopolitan, Company, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Best, Prima et al – have dumped Quark and gone to InDesign.
I'm sure there are more…
Want 15 minutes of fame and can't think how? Why not do what's worked in the past again again, but not recently?
And today's Sun has…
Mr T Henry ("a player of Association Football, m'lud") saying that he thinks bullying is wrong.
Nothing else, at least in the online edition. I'll try to check a printed version later.
Mind you, the DFES website is stunningly quiet about the 'Stand Up for Us' anti-homophobic bullying guidance that's supposed to be launched today.
Looking for Stephen's non-constituency matter contact details, I see from the DFES website that
On Tuesday 23 November, Stephen Twigg will also be launching new guidance, Stand Up for Us, which will be made available to schools. Stand Up for Us sets out a practical approach for schools to quickly assess the scale of homophobic bullying they face.
Hmm, so it's possible that the issue of homophobic bullying was being 'postponed' to tomorrow as part of that launch.
Let's see what The Sun carries about it, because omitting it from today's list still leaves a nasty taste in my mouth.
They've done a major article and 'The Sun Says' on bullying (they're against it) including a piece by Stephen Twigg, schools minister.
Part of the article includes the 'why' box:
KIDS are bullied for a whole variety of reasons which stop them “fitting in”. Here are some of the main categories which can lead to taunts and violence:
Any kind of DISFIGUREMENT of the skin or face such as birth marks, eczema, severe acne, prominent moles or hare lips.
Having an odd BODY SHAPE, such as being too fat, skinny, short or tall. Dodgy HAIRCUTS, especially old-fashioned styles, ginger hair, headlice and loss of hair because of illness.
Any SPEECH peculiarity such as a stutter, stammer or markedly different accent.
A MEDICAL condition such as asthma or short-sightedness. Kids wearing thick glasses, a brace on their teeth or orthopaedic shoes may be seen as weak.
Children from ETHNIC MINORITIES, foreigners or refugees may be picked on, especially if the school has few other kids from different backgrounds.
The wrong type or make of CLOTHES, particularly trainers, and ill-fitting, second-hand uniform. A lack of talent at SPORT, especially football, and a liking for “geeky” or “sissy” hobbies.
Anything unusual in the FAMILY BACKGROUND, for example if the parents are very poor, can lead to victimisation.
Note the omission of sexual orientation?
Particularly odd given that Stephen's gay.
(Was at http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004541372,,00.html but pages aren't kept for very long.)
The Marines' Hymn, 2004 version
From the Halls of Montezuma
To the mosques of old Iraq
Us Marines are so much better
At killing men who can't shoot back
It's easy if they're wounded
Like shooting a sitting duck
The line 'Keep our honor clean'?
We say: who gives a fuck!
… what's the point of the '3 day travelcards' that are being introduced to London from January?
They're touted as a partial replacement for the weekend travelcard (which gave a 25% discount over the cost of two one-day cards) but…
To add insult to injury, the LT cards (allow peak-time travel on tube, bus, DLR etc but not trains) are going: everyone who can get to work without using the train is going to be charged more anyway.
I presume they've still not implemented the promised feature of Oyster cards whereby if you buy enough single tickets, it will start behaving as a travelcard thus saving you money…