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A good weekend, all in all. Friday night was spent drinking copious quantities of alcohol in a pub in Camden, where Icelandic schemes were hatched, and Saturday saw the Apache problems resolved once and for all. I've even sorted myself out with a bearable text editor, Jedit. It's not quite Textpad (which is the only sane reason to boot to windows, other than games), but it'll do for the moment - although I'll probably have to bite the bullet one of these days and properly learn a vi-alike or emacs. But which to choose? 8) There's no reason to rush...
Sunday was quite good fun, although Thomas decided that he wanted to redecorate (again) with his "Bob the Builder" paints. At least this time they were water-based...
I've just realised that I've not yet commented on the Brass Eye special last Thursday. Wasn't it good? 8) A bit patchy, but it certainly had it's moments. Of course, Nanny State is very cross with Channel 4 for having the balls to show it in the first place. Maybe she'll decide that in order to counter the threat of free speech all media output should be vetted and/or edited by the Ministry of Information? After all, nearly 3 × 10-5% of the UK population complained when it was broadcast (a figure dwarfed by the number of actual registered paedophiles across the same population - how ironic is that?).
In a country where a paediatrician's house was vandalised at the peak of the tabloid-generated paedophile-hysteria last autumn, it's a bit rich to see those self-same "organs" trying to take the moral high ground on a case like this (even Alanis might think that was ironic). Of course, "paedophiles are genetically closer to crabs than they are to human beings" (which obviously makes it OK to lynch them rather than arrest them and imprison/treat them for their crimes/sickness, I suspect).
I suppose that the point of all this isn't about freedom of speech per se, but the responsibilty which it entails. Fear is a powerful motivator, and has been used to devastating effect in the past - now at last, a tiny, tiny minority of seriously ill individuals can be demonised with impunity. Who cares if a few innocents are caught in the crossfire - like our friendly paediatrician - after all, it's for the kids, isn't it?
And on that note, I think I'll finish. I'm sure there was a point in there somewhere...