For those of you who have flown with KLM (the world’s worst airline, in my opinion), you will be aware that in their long-haul cattle-class cabins, the “entertainment” consists of, among other things, the BBC World News. You see, when the plane lands at its destination, they plug it into the ‘net and download the latest program especially prepared by the BBC (it even has something like “made especially for KLM” in the credits).

Since China are hosting the Olympics in a few weeks, you can imagine that the country will be the subject of considerable media attention. Especially when it comes to human rights in relation to said even - and the BBC is no different in its editorial decisions. So, what would you think would happen when, say, the BBC decide to broadcast on the plane the brutal relocation of Chinese citizens all in the name of the Olympics? And when I mean brutal, I mean people disappearing at 2am because their house is in the way of a flower bed that must be built on the official route from the airport to the main venue. I mean ‘officials’ dragging  citizens from their homes with their hair, dropping them on the floor and kicking them repeatedly in the head, all in the shadow of the bulldozers waiting to demolish their homes. So what do you think would happen?

Would the European airline respect European rights of free speech and show the news item anyway? Or would they cower in the thought that maybe, just maybe, there is a party official on board who might get offended by such coverage?

Yes, you can guess what they did. The screen went black just as the party ‘official’ started kicking the heads of innocent people. 30 seconds later, a new and less politically challenging program appeared - some stupid American sit-com, in fact.

And what do you think said airline staff did when I asked them why they pulled the plug? Apparently, the program never existed, even though coming on for 400 people saw the start of it. I pointed this out. Apparently, the Captain did it because he wanted to speak, even though he spoke some 3 minutes after the screen went blank and 2.5 minutes after the new program had started - which, incidentally, was paused whilst he spoke and continued again when he stopped speaking. I pointed this out. Apparently this is normal. What is normal then? Is it normal in Europe to cut off the news when Chinese ‘officials’ kick innocent people in the head for not wanting to have their house bulldozed for a flower bed? I pointed this out. And then, after threatening to write down the names of the two cabin crew so I could write to their company, did they relent. Only then did I get a satisfactory reply - that they would play the news again.

So the answer to the question above is: When you are on a KLM flight from China to Amsterdam.

A small, but very satisfactory, victory for human rights and freedom of speech.

One can be found here… the other isn’t on cond-mat.

What a good week it has been…

Simply purchase one of these:

Quite amazingly, the note above is worth about 7p, yet it is selling for over 60USD… So seriously… you could be a billionaire in more wayas than one.

The swing doesn’t matter and neither does the fact that Labour lost. The key to understanding how bad it is for Gordo is the number of ministers that come out fighting. So far on the BBC Radio 4…..

8:15 Des Browne, who is apparently fighting to keep his cabinet position. Doesn’t look good so far for Gordo…

12:00 The next Labour MP to be quoted by Radio 4 is….. Graham Stringer. ‘Who?’ I here you ask…. Quite. And what is more, he isn’t even supporting the PM…. “We need a new start and that can only come from a debate around the leadership. I hope those discussions will take place.”

13:10 Brian Iddon, Bolton, on the World at One… wasn’t pleasant listening for Gordo

13:20 Finally… someone who is actually important (if puppets can be defined this way)…. we have… Alistair Darling! He discusses economic policy, the problems we are facing (credit crunch and oil prices), trying to make things sound positive (extra tax allowance, 2p petrol tax freeze…). Then onto future things he can do (e.g availability of mortgages). Aaaah now he brings in how terrible it was under the Tories… harking back to 1997… Labour has been a government you can all trust. And after a 5 minute interview, we finally have support for Gordo - but only briefly (less than a minute), as we are now back to how great Labour is. And that is it! Goodness me, the 30 seconds “Gordo is great” 2/3 of the way through a 7 minute interview was far from convincing.

This is was a ‘live’ blog post, updated every time someone speaks spoke about ‘that result’, as it will be known in time, I am sure. I have now got bored and decided to do some work instead… I might be back for PM.

I see articles with “The App Store—oh, man, the App Store” in them. Apparently, it is

 a “single, centralized, utterly complete source of software” that makes “the iPhone (or the iPod Touch) do absolutely amazing things…stunts a cellphone has no right to perform.” 

And what is the justification for these rather over-the-top phrases? Apparently, the App-store allows one to turn your iphone into an internet radio, allows one to recorder ones own voice, draw pictures, record a video, use it as a remote control, automatic song identification and play computer games.

Well my 4+ year old Windows Phone/PDA can record video and voice without the need for additional software, it plays games (some even come for free!) and can listen to the radio via RealPlayer (a free download). I can install drawing software, for a fee, and whilst it cannot act as a remote control (it has no IR transmitter), my older Sony-Erricson mobile can. So that leaves just one feature than my 4+ year old technology cannot do - and that is automatic song identification. Hardly amazing or a stunt that no cell phone has the right to do. In fact, the only discernible use I can think of this function is to cheat at the local pub quiz.

Oh, and my 4+ year old Windows phone also has a built in GPS receiver, just like the iphone. But I can (and have) installed TomTom on it, which gives me turn-by-turn navigation. And I have had this turn-by-turn navigation for more than 4 years - put that in your pipe and smoke it, Apple.

A few weeks ago I wrote about moving to Colchester and how even though there was a PPC, there was no website. Well I have just been informed there is a new one here. It’s also added to my blogroll.

Whilst on my travels I decided a beer was needed. The photograph linked below shows the bottle, as (probably illegally) exported from China. The only English apparent on the bottle is written in white on a red background, stating “Free From Formaldehyde”. The really bad news was that this was not the first beer of the trip - the first two had no such assurance.

The moment I left the plane, I knew there was a problem with Shanghai. And that is polution. I was hit by it as soon as stepping outdoors - a heavy smog that reduced my ability to breath. One could barely see for 1km before the haze inhibited vision. And this is what explains the assurance of no Formaldehyde in the beer - it is normally made from ground water, and if that is polluted, so is the beer.

The basic problem comes down to the following. My trip to China was based around three cities - I went from Shanghai to Nanjing, then the Hanzhou (three relatively large industrial cities) and then finally back to Shanghai, effectively forming a triangle as shown below. It was almost like one city didn’t end as the next began.

Indeed, the population in this region is phenomenal. Coupled with the complete lack of regard for human health due to the lack of regulations regarding emissions, coupled with the lack of land-type zoning (petrochemical plants are situated next to mixed small scale farming, commercial and residential buildings.

As a final note, just to drive the point home, on my last night in Shanghai I was shopping on one of the many “Western” parades when it started to rain quite heavily. Earlier that day I had scratched my hand, and within 10 minutes of the rain starting, my scratch had started to hurt. A further 10 minutes later the whole of my body started to itch. I can only assume that the rain was so packed with polution disolved from the air as it fell. I have sensitive skin to certain chemicals (such as those found in certain washing liquids). The scary thing was that I had been breathing that air for several days, until it started to rain. That explains precisely why I could only see for around 1km in the day…. I knew the world (second?) tallest building was directly in front of me, but that did not mean I could see it.

Unfortunately, I could not write about my experiences in China as they happened, because the computer that hosts this website decided to have some technical difficulties. Now that I am home, 5 minutes of tinkering fixed it. Over the next few days I will reflect on my trip, making comment on how I think China will develop in the future.Apologies for the break.