ISP Battles.

I live and work in Kingston Upon Hull. Here we have one telephone and broadband suplier. They are one and the same company.

They constantly lie to customers about issues that they know exist but claim they do not.

They claim other service providers can come here but they do not sue to their assessment of the market and that these other service providers do not come here due to lack of market availability. Etc, drone drone drone.

They know their prices are too high. They know they set these prices high because then other service providers could not make a profit.

Their customer service is abysmal. It is so bad that they immediately assume all and every problem a user of their service has is the customers fault. They never admit when something is wrong at their end.

Recently, some hardware labled as "complex" by their technical team (a term I use lightly) broke down. This "complex" piece of equipment had no immediate replacement. They had to source a new "complex" piece of equipment from their supplier. Wouldn't you think that if this "complex" piece of equipment was so vital to the operation of their broadband service they would have had at least 1 backup piece ready to be deployed should the main one fail? No, Not this company. They would rather, as actually happened, fuck their customers in the arse and let the qhole service slow down and for some customers grind to a virtual halt.

That above is only one example of many failings this company has had over the years but they will always tell you it isnot their fault.

Some of us home customers have more knowledge then their technical team and yet they insist on blaming their own customers for all the faults that have ever happened on the service.

Going back to other service providers and how this company sets their wholesale prices too high knowing other service providers will look at those prices and work out that it is not feasible to come here. This is a calculated plan by their marketing team and even by their directors. They know their prices for wholesale broadband are too high to make it worthwhile for other service providers to come here so, by trotting out the same old tired lines of "marketing forces" and "calculated decisions by" are exactly that. Tired.

The constant abuse of their customers is however coming to an end. There is a concerted effort being mounted not just by their own customers but my people within the European Union. I can claim having my hand in this concerted effort as they have lied to me one too many times. If, I can bring about their downfall I will. And I will use whatever means I have open to me to do it.

This company seriously sucks in every possible way and worse of all they bloody well know it.

Prisons.

Are the U.K. prisons lacking in certain areas such as education for inmates and training courses?

Should those who by their very actions and subsequent internment be allowed such things?

Are our prisons too soft?

Should the inmates be allowed T.V.'s, pool tables, portable game players etc as they are currently?

I am not in any way saying our prisons should be draconian and offer nothing by way of relaxation materials nor should the inmates be offered just bread and water but the current drive to offer all manner of good things that many good law abiding citizens cannot afford in all prisons is just extracting the Michael and putting two fingers up in the direction of good law abiding people.

Look at the questions above again and think seriously before answering each one. Now look at and read the various reports done by the likes of the Prison Reform Trust and the Inspectorate of Prisons http://inspectorates.justice.gov.uk/hmiprisons Now read again those questions above. Where do you sit in the debate compared to those two ersewhile organisations?

If you are like myself who is a law abiding citizen then you will probably come to the same conclusion I do and that is that the U.K.'s prisons are too soft and offer way too much relaxation things to the inmates.

I have 3 children all currently under 12 years old and they want all manner of things we can simply not afford. Should my wife and I tell them that they can get all they want in prison because in prison they have all those things and more. All you will lose is your freedom to come home or go out with your mates for a few months.

Think about it. And they wonder why the prisons are over subscribed.

Dialing 999.

And so it ever has been and so it ever will be.

The police in the U.K. are once again moaning about 'inappropriate' usage of the 999 number.

For those outside the U.K. '999' is the emergency line which gets you the relevant service (police, fire service, ambulance service). Once dialed you give, in my opinion excessive irrelevant, details and then you are sent the relevant service dependent on 1) What you requested or 2) What they consider the relevant service dependent on what you told them.


People here ring this number for not just emergencies but sometimes for none emergencies like "There is a spider in my room" or "My mobile phone isn't working" and other none emergency things along the same lines.

Now, it does not take a genius to realise that for each none emergency call there is a serious possibility that a true emergency call could be missed. As since seemingly forever the police, as seriously undermanned as they are, are once again whining about this 'inappropriate use of' the 999 number.

Are they ever going to get it? I doubt it.

People will always ring this number for it is they who consider whatever it is to be an emergency. To them whatever it is IS and emergency at that point in time and quite possibly at that given time the only number they can think to ring is 999.

Plus, the only number one could ring to get the police at one time was 999. Police sub stations had a number, usually a local number with local charges. While the little police stations still have a local number to get the police on a none emergency line you have to remember and ring an expensively charged number.

Commonsense dictates that people, that is the general public, do not want to ring these expensively charged lines nor can they remember the local mini, often unmanned, police station so instead they ring 999.

Wake up you lot in charge of our police force and realise what is so brazenly obvious.

Will they ever get it? I seriously doubt it.

Next year the police will once again moan about 'inappropriate use' of the 999 number and so it will go on and on year after year.

That is, until such a time as this little island is a police state by which time no one will dare to ring the police ever.

Surveys and Statistics.

Survey after survey done or commissioned usually by those with a vested interest in whatever the survey is about almost always come out in support of those who commissioned or did the survey.

Statistic after statistic almost always slewed in favour of those who need a favourable statistic. We all know, or should know, that any statistic or set of statistics have an alternative reading and can in fact be read any way one wants determined by what side you are supporting. Any statistic can be made to look good towards the person or company using the statistic to punt their wares or ideas. As with any percentage based number system there is the good number and the bad number and depending which side you are fighting for depends on which end you settle on.

The results of surveys and statistics are dependent on many factors. Not least of which is geographical location. If you ask a question in an affluent southern area on the U.K. the answer would likely be different if you ask the same question in a not so affluent southern area. Indeed, one can get entirely different figures within a short distance within the same city.

Let us take an example of 4 people. All reside in the same city with an adult population of 200,000 people. All are married with 2 children. All are males. The reason they are all alike is because that is what the survey company was told to find. Charles works as a bank manager and is well up on all things technical. Bill is unemployed but is also well up on all things technical. Michael is an electrician but has no interest in technical things. John works for the local council and has some interest in technical things Now, the survey asks the question. "Do you own or will you be buying a 42inch HDTV within the next 6 months?". Charles states he already owns one. Bill states he has not got one and will not be buying one within the given time frame. Michael states he does not have one but is planning to buy one within 6 months. As does John. In this short survey the results are as follows:

Has or will have = 3
Has not and will not = 1

So, we can see from the above survey that 75% of those surveyed said they have or will have a 42inch HDTV within a 6 month time frame. 25% will not.

Now, those figures are sent back to the company or organisation that paid for the survey who have a vested interest in the sales of HDTV's. They now proclaim that 75% of the U.K. have or will have a HDTV within 6 months.

There was only 4 people in our survey so how come they state 75% of the U.K.? Well, they claim that the 4 people who took the survey are a sample of the U.K. population but of course we all know that not every area of the U.K. is the same and by extension will not fall within the stated percentages but that will not stop this company or organisation from touting the "75% of the U.K." angle as that is the answer they wanted.

Surveys and statistics are utter rubbish and should be read in that light.

The NorthWest

So, the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk are moving to the NorthWest from their current Southern base. Well, part of it is. Something of a surprise move they reckon but in the end it boils down to cheaper costs for what they are doing. Nothing more, nothing less. Apparently they are creating a 'media village', whatever one of those is, and of course it is cheaper to run such a place up North than it is down South. It is cheaper in wages and operating costs.

So, it comes as no surprise to find out that the Northwest is starting to infiltrate the otherwise Southern slant of the BBC's news. Oh sure, the BBC reports on all geographical areas of the U.K. as well as reporting on the worlds news but, in previous times both Manchester and Liverpool would not rate a mention for anything other than gun crime in Manchester and the music scene in Liverpool. All that is set to change as the BBC trundles up North and slightly West.

And so, we come to articles on the BBC web site such as this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6956608.stm One would be forgiven if they thought the only cities above Birmingham were Manchester and Liverpool. But then in recent times it is no surprise to learn that the BBC's narrow field view creates such articles as that one. It also shows how little the BBC writers know about those two cities as well as how little they know about the North in general.

The BBC used to be none partisan in their reporting but in recent years with the infiltration of very poor lefty (we have two major political parties here in the U.K. One leans to the left while the other one leans to the right. There is a third party which sits somewhere in the middle but their support is so small compared to the other two they are hardly worth a mention) leaning writers their outward facing public face is a laughing stock amongst the general public. That will not change no matter where they base themselves.

Articles such as that one above will become all the most prevalent as the BBC moves part of its bohemoth organisation up North and they will, as only the BBC can, turn the Northwest into meaning only Manchester and Liverpool.

As ever it was.

Survey after survey done or commissioned usually by those with a vested interest in whatever the survey is about almost always come out in support of those who commissioned or did the survey.

Statistic after statistic almost always slewed in favour of those who need a favourable statistic. We all know, or should know, that any statistic has an alternative reading and any static can be made to look good towards the person or company using the statistic to punt their wares or ideas.


The results of surveys and statistics are dependent on many factors. Not least of which is geographical location. If you ask a question in an affluent southern area the answer would likely be different if you ask the same question in a not so affluent northern area.

And so it goes. If those conducting a survey want statistics that go in their favour they will ask their pointed questions to a group of people in an area or areas of the country they know will give the answers they want thereby making the statistics come out in their favour.

Next time you read about a survey or some erstwhile person or company or organisation trots out some statistic or other take it with a rather large dose of salt.

Fighting back.

There is an element of our society that has always been there but these days there are very few people who will fight back.

This element are commonly known as 'bullies'. The turn on people on a whim. They often times just fight someone for the sake of fighting. They are often fueled by alcohol and drugs. They have a heighten sense of themselves. They should not be given any quarter. They have no right to live amongst us good people.

In previous decades this element was kept in check but nowadays they run amok with no fear of retribution. This situation has come about for several reasons not least of which is the general publics fear of being arrested, hauled before a court and possibly interned. If one fights back then the 'bully' and worse the police see you as the problem not the bully. This situation must stop.

People are being killed from protecting what is rightfully theirs. Not a day goes by without someone being maimed by some bully because they looked at the bully in a funny way.

This situation is simply intolerable. The police have a huge role to play in this and it is they who must not allow bullies to bring charges against those who are willing to fight for what is theirs or willing to fight for just walking down the streets.

This http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/6953609.stm is the sort of thing that happens when the police have lost all respect from the tiny 'bully' minority from amogst the very people they serve. People who take part in such things should not be allowed the same freedoms law abiding people have as a basic right.

The time is now for fighting back against the growing number of bullies on our streets. Forget the police and their inertia whenever you see or indeed if you are a target yourself, some bully attacking someone, anyone of any age, then step in and smack that bully into next week. Protect others as well as yourself and we shall all live in a better place.

I do.

Ugh.

So now the BBC has joined the folly of putting 'dig' 'delicious' 'facebook' etc links at the bottom of most every article.

Bless them, they even have a 'what are these' link to help the hapless. These 'social' bookmarking links are a stain on the Internet. It is bad enough when the BBC technical articles are plainly wrong in whatever it is they are trying to write about and can be seen to plainly wrong by anyone but the socialite group who know nothing about technical things anyway.

But these social bookmarking links are the silliest of the silly. They totally distract from the main article content. The BBC web site designers are so desperate to be seen as hip, as far as the Internet goes anyway, anywhere else they fail miserably as well, that they will seemingly spoil an otherwise excellent web site with folly like this.

They were late to this particular party but even being late does not make it any less tacky. The BBC are playing catch up in many areas and this is one area I would prefer to have seen them avoid.

I know I am not alone in my dislike for these things.

Social bookmarking is all well and good but they are pervasive and because of that they are in ones face everywhere all of the time and because of that they are fast becoming annoying. No, scratch that. They are annoying.

If I want to bookmark something I will and I will bookmark it within my browser not on some external web site that may or may not be around in a few years time or some social bookmarking web site that is so slow to load one may as well have gone back to the web site one bookmarked on it and searched that for the link and still have it load within ones browser before these social bookmarking web sites have loaded.

To make matters worse. Just about all major, and some minor, news outlets on the Internet have these silly links. being so well used does not make it good however.

As one who has been on the Internet since before it was called the internet these things, along with many other things, just plain annoy. I have seen the Internet (or Interweb as some hapless people call it) grow up into something useful that anyone from anywhere who has an internet connection can enjoy. But these social web sites and worse, these links to social web sites are just plain and simply annoying and should have no place whatsoever on a fantastic web site like the BBC.

Aunty Beeb should know better. The problem with the BBC is that it has been infiltrated by 20-somethings who think they know what their readers want, whether they want it or not, and every now and again they do something that irks in the back of ones mind and these links to social bookmarking boxes simply distract from the main story. Because the social bookmarking box is so damn big it really does distract from the main story they are so desperate for you to link via these social bookmrking sites.

Sorry Beeb, you have got this one very very wrong. You annoyed a certain proportion of your user base when you made the Iplayer MS Windows XP only and you will annoy a large proportion of your user base with this madness.

I for one will be voting on my dismay by not using the BBC web site as my opening page in Firefox any more.

Easy targets.

Parents. Parents are easy targets. Anyone and everyone who should be controlling children blame outside of the home blame the parents. Schools blame parents. the police, blame parents. The establishment, blame parents. They are easy targets.

Don't get me wrong. Parents have a role to play, a huge role to play, in their children lives by being good model citizens themselves and by showing their children right from wrong.

But, it is those outside the home who should shoulder their own responsibilities. Especially the police.

In recent times the police through various rules setup in parliament, that are now backfiring (more on that further down), are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. They cannot touch children, they have to simply say "stop it" and hope they do so. Rarely do they however.

Teachers are weak now compared to those from 10, 15 years ago and certainly weak compared to the teachers from my childhood (1965-1976). The reason for this is they themselves decided to ban the cane, then the slipper, then any form of chastisement.

Now, those two establishments should both have a role to play in the formative years of our children but they abdicated that role themselves several years ago and now it is all coming home to roost.

Who do they blame? The parents! How can the parents be to blame when those two cannot and will not do the roles they had 30 or 40 years ago? They are to blame. Not parents.

There are, of course, some parents who should not be allowed children but the overall reason for todays problems with kids are young as 5 years old roaming the streets are those idiotic people from the late 70's and throughout the 80's who said NO_ONE should touch children. Amongst those where the teachers and the police.

Think about it.

Another bandwagon rolls on.

And on and on and on.

As a parent of 5 children, the youngest 6 months old and the eldest 22 years old I wrote this with a heavy heart. Heavy heart because as a parent of 5 children I cannot get my head around the fact they left their children alone in a ground floor flat whilst they buggered off to have their evening meal.

There is something that has happened in this case that no-one is seeing or if they have seen it they have not publically said it.

It has been over 100 days since that little girl who has doctors for parents went 'missing' and they are no closer now than they have ever been to accepting blame for what they did to their own child.

The Portuguese police have said they have ruled out the parents in their inquiries. But there is growing disquiet here in the U.K. that two doctors, who one assumes are intelligent people, could leave their own children alone in a ground floor room while they buggered off to have a meal a few hundred yards away. How they hoped to see everything and everybody that went passed that room full of little children only they know. Even with 100% clear line of sight they cannot possibly have hoped they saw everything. Human nature being what it is would ensure that every now and again neither parent was looking at that fateful room.

The parents have danced around the world drumming up 'support', but enjoying themselves all the same, for their missing child. They stayed on an extended 'holiday' paid for by others whilst their daughter remained 'missing'. The bandwagon rolls on and on and on. Not a day goes by without some report of the parents going off to yet another country.

It all smells of a setup that has gripped the world. A world where fools exist. A world where parents have hearts that hope against hope that the child is fine. Now, over 100 days later, that tide of goodwill is turning. Questions that where not asked at the beginning are now being asked.

What child protection laws in the U.K. can be used against the parents? You can bet your last penny that what happened, irrespective of the fact that a child has gone missing, was child abuse. Leaving children alone of those ages is illegal in the U.K. so if there is someway, some law, to throw at the parents it will be done.

One has to wonder if that is the reason why they have stayed abroad. Hoping perhaps that by the time they do come home all will be forgotten regarding their responsibilities for their children.

The Portuguese police have recently said that they now think the little girl is dead. I, as a parent of 5 children myself, hope they are wrong. But, that feeling of 'it is the parents fault' is digging deeper and deeper into the pit of my stomach and there are many here in the U.K., and possibly the world, who are starting to feel the same.

If my words here offend anybody then I am sorry. I am not sorry for that which I have written. I am sorry that you are offended by reasoned words.

Are they accountable?

For making the worlds people live in fear? I reckon they are.

Land locked newspapers and Internet based news outlets, far too many from both fields to list here but they are\all the same in this regard). They rarely note anything good. 99% of the news from those outlets is bad news. Another murder. Another knife attack. Another beating. Another robbery. Etc, etc, etc. Same sort of news reported day in and day out. None, and I do not include satirical news outlets for obvious reasons, have a 'Good News' or 'Feel good' page or pages or section. Sure, they may now and again, put out some article that is good news but the vast majority of news reported is bad news.

Take the BBC web site at http://www.bbc.co.uk as a prime example. Every single day the report the same bad news. From home and abroad, same old tired format. They split the World up into sections and the U.K is further split up into smaller chunks so you can read more bad news about an area closer to wherever you are! Very thoughtful I am sure.

What is stopping these news outlets from dedicating some space every day to some good news to cheer up their readers? Nothing. Well, nothing except bad news is good news for news outlets as that, they claim, is what their readers want. But, as a reader myself of several of the top online news outlets I can state I would rather read about some good being done somewhere than read about yet another death or fire or plane crash or war or whatever is happening in a given BBC mandated area that is bad.

'Welcome to the Good News only section of the <insert news outlet here>'. Will we ever see something along those lines in any serious news outlet? I doubt it. Are the worlds peoples so downtrodden and nasty that all they want to read about is something bad like someone being killed or an areoplane crash that killed all 203 passengers or yet another country is attacked by the U.S.A. because that country does not conform to what the U.S.A. considers correct? I think not. I think, and this is world over not just in the U.K., that if the news outlets produce a page or complete section relaying only the good things that happen in this world, and there is a lot, then that page or section will quickly become the first page a user goes to.

Our society is bad enough these days without these news outlets reporting on things that make our society seem much worse than it is. I'll ask again. Why can they not set aside some space to report only good news. I bet you that that space will be widely read and will probably get more hits then anything else they report on.

As an aside, my dear old long dead Grandmother always held that the U.K. is no worse now and no more violent than it was in her youth during the 1926-1936 than it is nowadays. The only reason is seems worse is because nowadays news travels much faster, the police are better equipt and that people are more inclined to report crime against themselves or a crime they have witnessed. Was she correct? She had a habit of oversimplifying things in such a manner but if you read the statistics then she was not far wrong.

Are they accountable?

Newspapers, Internet based news outlets. They rarely note anything good. 99% of the news from those outlets is bad news. Another murder. Another knife attack. Another beating. Another robbery. Etc, etc, etc. Same sort of news reported day in and day out.

Take the BBC web site at http://www.bbc.co.uk as a prime example. Every single day the report the same bad news. They even split the country up into chunks so you can read more bad news about your area! Very thoughtful I am sure. Other, noteworthy, news outlets do exactly the same.

What is stopping these news outlets from dedicating some space every day to some good news to cheer up their readers? Nothing. Well, nothing except bad news is good news for news outlets as that, they claim, is what their readers want. But, as a reader myself of several of the top online news outlets I can state I would rather read about some good being done somewhere than read about yet another death or fire or whatever is bad.

Our society is bad enough without these news outlets reporting on things that make our society seem much worse than it is. I'll ask again. Why can they not set aside some space to report only good news. I bet you that that space will be widely read and will probably get more hits then anything else they report on.

I know this is oversimplifying things but I still think news outlets, be they online or in paper form have a lot to answer for regarding how our society sees itself.

My foray into the murky world of Operating Systems.

Or, A potted history of my computer usage.

I have used the Linux kernel and the same GNU based distribution since 1991. Yes, I was one of the masochists back in those days who saw Linus Torvalds work and the associated GNU tools as something radically different from what was quickly emerging as the default operating system ("OS").

I had previously used the Amiga OS, which was so far ahead in what it offered that even in todays OS world it would not be out of place. I started by foray into the murky waters of computers with a Commodore-PET, carried on through the C64/128 phase then the Plus4. Then along came the Amiga 1000. I immediately saw this machine for what it was and jumped on it. Over the following few years I went through the entire Amiga range ending up with what was their finest hour, the Amiga 3000 Tower.

By now it was 1991 at which time it had become painfully obvious the Amiga was going nowhere fast. Over the next few years I started looking at what else was available. IBM, and compatibles, where everywhere but lacked something I had grown used to having with the Amiga. Apple had machines out but they too lacked that something. Eventually, around 1996 and knowing nothing about them at that time, I bought my first and only pre-build IBM compatible machine which came with the awful MS Windows OS of that time. The OS itself stayed on that machine just long enough to download a Linux distribution, Slackware as it turned out, and install it. I have never used another OS on my main workstation since that time.

I had used NetBSD on my Amiga 3000 Tower setup since around 1990. Running it alongside the Amiga OS. It wasn't until around 1996 that I sold all my Amiga equipment and went full time into the Linux world which I have remained with ever since.

And that is my potted history of computer OS's I have used over the years.

I have said I started using Linux around 1991 and that is correct. Someone had given me an IBM clone on which had, if I remember correctly, MS Windows 1.0 or maybe 2.0, I forget. I ran this box alongside my Amigas for about 5 years, never upgrading it, save for an extra floppy drive and generally not doing much at all with it as it paled in comparison to my Amiga. Anyway, that OS, on the IBM clone. was quickly replaced with what was at that time the all new Linux kernel add in some GNU tools and a new OS was born.

What did the GNU/Linux combination have that the Amiga had that MS Windows, then and now, had that made me decide to use it? Freedom. Freedom to tinker with the underlaying OS and bend it whichever way I wanted to bend it. No MS OS has ever allowed for this and that alone made using the, any, MS OS a huge no-go for me.

Fast forward to today.

Through all of those machines and OS's I have been on a learning curve. Sometimes that curve has been steep, very very steep, and other times it has been easy. I am now the proud owner of several certificates which proclaim to the world I am fit and able to do all manner of IT related work.

I build all my own machines now as they work out cheaper that way plus one gets the ability to add-in whatever hardware one wants and often needs. Plus, I can tailor the hardware to ensure it works 100% with my choice of OS, which is GNU/Linux. Of course, today that tailoring of hardware is not really required anymore as GNU/Linux works with just about everything available, save for a few hardware pieces that tie themselves so close to the MS OS the coders and hackers cannot be bothered to create code that would make them work. If a hardware vendor is so short sighted they only make hardware that works on one OS then that hardware is not worth the time of day in my humble opinion anyway.

As a final note. If you enjoyed reading this and if you are located in Kingston upon Hull or at least somewhere close to it, and you are thinking of using a Linux OS within your company or as an individual at home, but the very thought of it is giving you nightmares, then feel free to contact me and if you want I will help you install a Linux based OS of your choosing. Perhaps you need someone to explain the finer points of the GNU/Linux OS versus MS OS, and there are many plus points for GNU/Linux over an MS OS, GNU/Linux is in 99.9% of cases cheaper to run and has no license fee mess to worry about, plus there is help everywhere on the Internet plus a few good GNU/Linux users locally who can offer guidance if you so need it. But the plus and minus things are best left for another blog post or possibly put somewhere on the Internet for all to see, read, inwardly digest and finally a decision made.

To my credit I have built from scratch upwards of 50 seat networks for various companies, that have at their heart a GNU/Linux based server. So, if you are such a person of company but are afraid of what GNU/Linux offers or perhaps the installation phase bothers you for some reason then feel free to contact me and we can perhaps have a chat about it. One thing you will find, be you an individual at home or the owner or manager of a small to medium company, GNU/Linux is not hard to install and with someone like myself at your elbow it will all become easy.

The savings that your company, be it a 2,4,16,32 or 64 seat one are not something your company can ignore or at least should not ignore.

As a side note and something that is, I am sure, always in your mind. I do not charge much, in point of fact I am confident you will find my services cheaper than most, if not all, of those who offer the same services, which is surely a plus for you. I charge nothing at all for email contact so what have you got to lose? Nothing, so go on. Contact me and let me show you the cost savings you can surely make.

Childhood and crime.

Can these two things be related? I think not. Taking my own childhood as a reference point and my adult life as another linking these two things not only appears stupid but can easily be debunked.

Admittedly, my own circumstances cannot be related to the wider circumstances but I can add in all my friends from my childhood as well.

For myself, I was physically abused by my father. This alone made me not so much as hit my own children as I am scared witless that I will turn out like my father.

Some of my childhood friends where physically abused by their father and sometimes by their mother. I am not talking about the modern definition of physical abuse here I am talking about a beating that oftentimes left the abused physically unable to move for short periods. We all know what was happening but back in those days nobody cared about children or cared about their wellbeing. There were some that were sexual abused by their parents as well.

That said, back in the 1960's a child was still to be 'seen and not heard' and because of this attitude children often huddled into small close knit groups of likewise abused children. Adults, including those in a position to actually helping the abused child, did nothing. Even when told what was happening, they did nothing.

So, where I lived as a child abuse by parents seemed a normal thing. Children, such as myself, where made stronger in our adult life, not made into criminals as they now say happens.

Childhood and eventual adult crime have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. At least, not in the case of the children I grew up with as every single one, now in their late 40's and some in their early 50's, are fine upstanding citizens who have, mostly, children of their own who they would never think of doing what their parents did to them and  have certainly, to a man or woman, never turned to a life of crime because of what happened to them as a child.

The price one pays.

I run a news server for the local news group using population. I run it because I was asked to and because our local incumbent ISP stifled the one they ran before eventually closing those they ran. As the ISP run news groups where in the process of being strangled (no such thing as free speech for a twitchy ISP) it was decided to create our our own. First, a bulletin board (forum) was discussed and quickly disgarded then the idea was struck to start up a proper news Usenet news service. It was also decided at around the same time that I should create and run it. So, that is what I did. We made it username and password protected and created 4 news groups. Invited a few people in to it and that as they say was that.

I have always somehow managed to attract Usenet kooks. On the fully fledged Usenet server I have been followed around for years so it came as no surprise to me that within our private Usenet server I attained such a Usenet kook. Eventually, he was driven out, not by me but by other posters, much to my dismay. Dismay not because I missed him but because his removal went against the whole ethos of the private server. Still, driven out he was and that, I thought, would be the end of that.

Then out of the blue I asked 2 questions of a local lad on ICQ and instead of answering my questions he set off on a tirade any 6 year old would be proud of. What prompted this tirade? I am not sure but taking a guess I would think it was because I attacked his beloved Billion router as being crap (they are not but until this time it has always been fun to 'play' him over them). Added to this was the fact he had apparently done some 'research' on me by asking 'a few people not connected to the internet side' (of our incumbent ISP) about me. Apparently I have 'lied about a lot of things since we started talking'. Considering we rarely talk, he bores me, and considering I spend our time talking winding him up about various things his claim that I have lied about something came as no surprise at all. Plus, whoever he has talked to 'not on the Internet side' cannot be verified as he will not tell me names. All in all, he is, as usual, full of himself and also full of the warm brown stuff that falls from peoples arses.

Now, considering our incumbent telephone cum ISP has been trying to discredit me for years. I have made it something of a passtime to email someone there about many things, some things of which have rankled a few feathers over the years from front line teleworkers to boardroom level. I can only assume that whoever these 'few people not on the Internet side' are they where simply carrying on the 'let us discredit the guy' stance and sadly for this local lad, who is 17 years of age but that is no excuse, he has obviously fallen for it.

These 'few people not connected to the Internet side' remain a mystery to me as the local lad refuses to name names which in all honesty does not prove whoever said what was telling the truth. Further, his complete lack of skills in anything made him look an utter fool. Now, given the local lad is 17 or 18 years old and as far as I know has skills in not a lot and is known to spout utter crap at times and is even laughed at in some quarters I am not going to lose any sleep over his second hand claims.

Could his actions signify jealousy? I am not sure, however, I am much more well liked within our small community than he is and we all know how teenagers react in such circumstances. I have done many more things in my life time than he could ever hope to achieve. I have much better work skills in just about every area than he is ever likely to gain. I have work certificates, notably IT related, running out of my ears none of which he is ever likely to gain. Hmm, jealousy does seem to fit.

After talking with many other people within the private Usenet server group it seems this local lad is on a hiding to nothing. Still, it is things like this that make life interesting does it not? I think so. It is also the price one pays for providing a service such as the private news server.