Friday 17-05-19 Sofie Hagen

TW & I went to see Sofie Hagen at the Blue Man in Brighton on Tuesday night. It was a rare night out together, and we enjoyed it. M&P took on the babysitting duties, and we caught the train into town.

The Blue Man is on Queens Road just down from the station, so we went straight there. The staff were relaxed and welcoming, and put us at ease straight away. Since we both like a glass of wine we shared a bottle of picpoul which was quite nice. The barman accidentally undercharged us by a couple of pounds and although we offered to pay the difference, he wouldn't hear of it, which was nice.

The Blue Man serves North African cuisine and the decor reflects that. There was a Moroccan feel to the place; it is small and cosy and the table layout encourages a communal experience. We sat for few minutes upstairs until the barman announced that downstairs was open and we could go down.

Downstairs holds about 30 people so it was a very intimate gig. The audience were a diverse bunch, there were older folks, mostly women, a couple of cross dressers/transsexuals, and just a handful of men. Again the communal experience was encouraged, with long benches down the sides, and the Moroccan feel continued. They had also decorated the ceiling with 7" vinyl singles which was nice.

Sofie's set was good, given that it was an Edinburgh preview, so a few rough edges were to be expected. A few years ago I saw a preview by Richard Herring and that needed much more polish. TW & I both properly laughed and I think everyone enjoyed it.

I hadn't seen Sofie before; I was introduced to her when she was interviewed by Richard Herring on his RHLSTP podcast. I listened to her "Comedians Saying Stuff" podcast, which I enjoyed. Going to see a full stand-up show was a bit of a punt but it was worth it. And if I see anything even remotely interesting at The Blue Man, I'll probably go - it was so nice. 

After Sofie's show we went back upstairs and had a shared platter of food and played backgammon. The food was delicious, it was a very relaxed affair. We did consider seeing a second show, but decided we couldn't do that to M&P, so we headed home. While we were preparing to leave, I put on my hoodie and accidentally elbowed one of my neighbours in the head - that's how snug the venue is. Of course I apologised and no harm was done (I think), and we headed up to the station.

Sunday 17-05-14 I NHS & Hack Attacks

I've been reading this article on the Guardian website  by Charles Arthur, and I do have to ask myself, if there have been 88 attacks of this kind in the previous 18 months or so, why haven't the NHS bosses prioritised updating to Windows 10? Especially if the contract with Microsoft for supporting XP had expired? Irrespective of politics, these systems need to be reliable as people's lives depend on them; results are stored and communicated across these systems, and people's medical histories are stored here. If someone is allergic to a particular treatment, you could find that on these databases, or if someone is due a check-up then that information is also here.

It's okay to run old systems, as long as the information there is not important in any way. If ransomware infects that system, you need to be able to dispose of that system without loss. That's not the case here. The fact that the NHS and the Health Minister have been warned about this and no action appears to have been taken is very worrying, especially in light of the fact that there have been 88 separate incidents. It seems to me that the tories have been caught napping at the wheel, and there is no excuse.

TTFN.

Wednesday 17-05-03 May the Fourth be With You

Tomorrow is local elections day here in the UK, and it is also Star Wars day. It is known as Star Wars day because it is May the Fourth, which sounds a bit like "May the force (be with you)". See what they did there? That's funny and smart, right? May the Fourth / May the force be with you... Can you see how similar they sound?

Anyway, I shall be performing my civic duty tomorrow by voting in the local elections, and then I shall return to the same polling station a month later on June 8th to vote in the General Election. Should that be capitalised? I don't know really, but it's an important event, so maybe the capitals are warranted. It's a pointless election, but no-one seems to have questioned the crazy groupthink that led to all except 13 MPs voting for the election, like turkeys voting for Christmas. We had a general election (okay, no caps there) in 2015, and then we had the Brexit referendum in 2016. We weren't supposed to have another general election until 2020. Theresa May reckons that her mandate for Brexit will be strengthened if she gets a bigger majority, but she does run the risk of losing seats. She hasn't actually had any of her Brexit plans thwarted by Parliament or the Lords, and the current crop of MPs seem to think it anathema to vote against Brexit in any form, as that would be going against the "will of the people". But it was not the will of the people; only 37% of the UK of voting age voted for Brexit.

I listened to Nick Clegg on the Slacktivist podcast, which is run by Andy Hamilton, and Clegg stated that there were no thresholds, no 60% limits or any safeguards applied to the vote because Cameron was arrogant and thought he would win the vote, i.e., that the general public would not vote for Brexit. If that is the case, Cameron needs to be denied any of the normal trappings that are awarded to ex-PMs. His arrogance and carelessness have cost this country millions, even if it turns out that Brexit does actually lead to bright sunny uplands. The administrative costs involved in Brexit will be astronomical, and will be levied at a time when austerity hasn't worked and we just keep having stuff taken away from us. There will be the "divorce bill", which will probably amount to what we were due to pay into the EU coffers anyway (i.e., about £350m per week that we remain in), then there will be the cost of duplicating all the industry bodies that are currently maintained by the EU. And those will have to be set up while we are still paying into the EU, so there will be an overlap, where we are paying twice, into the EU for ongoing costs as well as set-up costs for new regulatory bodies. all in all, the more I think about it, the more of a clusterf*ck the whole thing is shaping up to be. And then you get Theresa May and David Davis seemingly not talking the same language as the EU negotiators - and I don't mean that May & Davis are speaking English while Barnier & Juncker are speaking French; I think they are not even looking at Brexit and what is involved and the consequences from the same perspective - and all of a sudden the near future looks quite scary indeed.

Anyway, it's voting time tomorrow (again), and it will be voting time (again) in a month's time. And if we don't use our votes, we can't complain when we get shafted over by politicians who are really no cleverer or smarter than we are. So get out there and put your tick in the box, whichever box you prefer.

TTFN.