Big Sticks and Small Carrots

I don’t often write about my own life here but the most extraordinary thing happened to me yesterday afternoon and I want to share it with you. It was a lovely crisp sunny day, the sort of day which reminds you that spring is on the way, so I went for a stroll around town. With the light twinkling off the granite buildings, Aberdeen city centre looks good in the sunlight.

Passing by HMV, I decided to pop in and pick up some Blackadder DVDs. I’d been meaning to get the full set for a while now so I was pleased to see that they were all available. They also had the Planet Earth DVD box set so I got that too. All things considered, it was turning out to be a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. (It’s the small things in life…)

Unfortunately, my good mood wasn’t to last long. As I attempted to leave HMV, I appeared to trigger their security alarms. As the  beeping and flashing continued, two rather burly security guards hurried over and blocked my path. With forced politeness, one asked whether I’d paid for the DVDs I was carrying. “Yes, of course” I replied, “now if you don’t mind…”

That didn’t satisfy the security guards though; they demanded that I produce a receipt for the DVDs. A receipt? Why on earth would I have a receipt? Are the BBC going to charge us twice for watching their programmes now? First the license fee and then again for the DVD?

When I told the security guards that I didn’t have a receipt but could go home and then return with my TV licence if it was absolutely necessary, they laughed in my face. When I argued that Iain Dale said I shouldn’t have to pay again for something I’d already paid for, they said they didn’t know who Iain Dale was and didn’t care either. They accused me of shoplifting and called the police. I was arrested. Arrested! All because I didn’t want to pay for the same thing twice. I can think of nothing more outrageous!

If there was ever any doubt that the BBC is run by Stalinists, Leninists and Trots, this travesty of justice surely proves the point! These leftists are destroying our way of life and must be resisted at every turn. Next thing you know, there’ll be a tax on totally spurious blog posts. I remember when this country used to be great, you know…

PS, Iain really was caught stealing from the BBC. Maybe if he understood that bandwidth costs money, he’d be on his way to answering the question in his update*. He might even spare himself further embarrassment instead of causing even more.

* A I understand it, there are other reasons why iPlayer programmes are only available for seven days. As well as bandwith costs, there are storage costs to consider. Without the limit, what would soon become an essentially infinite archive would have to be stored in a format which would allow for streaming; the costs would soon mount up.

There is also the issue of licensing and repeat fees (or rather the avoidance of repeat fees). Similar fees are certainly an issue when the BBC sells permanent copies of programmes. When content is made available to download from the interwebs, the introduction of a small charge might help to cover these costs…

I hope you had an enjoyable festive period. I did.

Before getting back to the usual political fun and games, let’s take a moment to consider the plight of Jeremy Clarkson. Ha ha! Even though I disagree with almost everything he stands for, I do find him quite entertaining. But still. Ha ha!

He has had the good grace to admit that he was wrong to claim that losing the details of 25 million people was not a big deal. And, unlike many of the 25 million people whose details were lost, he can afford to lose £500.

If I had one small suggestion, it’d be that I wish the money had been donated to Greenpeace. That’d really have got him going.

If you were really, really cynical, you could build a brilliant conspiracy out HMRC’s astonishing behaviour.

The lost discs contain an enormous amount of information which would be useful to identity thieves . The information on the discs is password protected but not encrypted so it really isn’t very secure at all. (If the Conservatives had been in power, the password would probably be 1234 but that’s by the way.) The government have created what is essentially a Holy Grail for organised criminals and identify fraudsters. The difference being that these discs definitely do exist, of course.

If they do fall into the wrong hands, it’s almost certainly going to lead an increase in identity spoofing and other identity related crimes.

And if identity related crimes are on the increase, well, that’ll just confirm the need for the government to implement it’s secure and infallible National Identity Register and ID Card scheme…

In reality, the idea that this was in any way intentional is a non-starter. You only needed to see Alistair Darling’s face as he addressed the House to know that. In fact, I have marked this with the introduction of a new post category - “Incompetence”. Incompetence on a really extraordinary scale was what this undoubtedly was.

If in due course we did see an increase in identity related crimes because of this however, who would really be surprised if the government argued that this was a clear sign that we should trust them with even more of our own personal details?

(Changing the subject completely, blogging might be slightly hit and run here for a few more days. That “time” has a lot to answer for, I tell you.)