The US and Guns

I presume that if you're reading this, I won't need to tell you what prompted a post about gun control in the US. I presume that to have found your way here, you are already aware of the shooting of twenty elementary (primary) school children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. It is a deplorable act, but as we speak, investigations are still ongoing into the mindset of the individual deemed responsible. We have seen unhelpful talk about his mental health, seen him labelled a 'goth' and a 'loner', as though these tags are somehow cast iron indicators of derangement, bubbling under the surface, ready to erupt at any time.

At Sandy Hook, the media circus will quietly disengage when the answers to the questions on a million lips tell us nothing about how to avoid the same things happening again. As Sandy Hook on an innocuous December morning, so Virgina Tech or Columbine. Once the revulsion of the immediate aftermath of Sandy Hook wears off, there is a quiet resignation to what will happen next - the NRA-lovin' Good Ol' Boys flex their muscles and make statements about how if more people owned guns, more deranged individuals would get shot before they did serious damage. The political establishment wrings their hands, cries their tears, and declares that now is not the time to talk about gun control. We, safe behind a statistic that shows only 0.25 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people per year in the UK, can shake our heads and wonder why the States just don't get it.

So, to look at the underlying statistics, exactly how many gun-related deaths in the US are there each year? Wikipedia cites statistics from the World Health Organisation and gunpolicy.org, showing that the US, with 9 gun-related deaths per year per 100,000 people, you are 36 times more likely to die as a result of a gun-related incident in the US than you are in the UK. However, of those deaths, nearly two-thirds are suicides.

The US has 2.98 gun-related homicides per 100,000 per year. Assuming that the US has a population of approximately 350 million, this equates to 10,430 gun-related homicides from the years that these statistics were taken, and assuming that this trend continues, your chances of dying in a gun-related homicide in the US are 0.00298% in any given year. To put that in context, homicide remains the fifteenth most likely cause of death in the US, with heart disease claiming nearly 600,000 people in 2011, and cancer 565,000 of the 2.5 million people who die each year in the US.

If debate about senseless loss of life features in US political discourse, the figures suggest that it should be overwhelmingly focused on cheeseburgers and healthcare rather than gun control.

The statistics shown here are not an attempt to make light of any aspect of the killings in Connecticut, nor to play down the impact that such events have upon American society. However, they are a genuine attempt to try and extract some facts from huge walls of data and the emotive, political rhetoric that follows. Nonetheless, the arguments against assault weapons and weapons with large-capacity magazines would seem to be compelling. Your chances of dying in a car accident may be higher than your chances of being shot, but while a car is a functional method of transport, an assault rifle can really only be used for one thing.

There are signs too that the US is starting to ask the right questions. I followed the news surrounding Columbine and Virginia Tech, and at that time, there was much talk about youth disenfranchisement and almost nothing about mental health care. The fact that there now seems a willingness for such things to be discussed suggests that US society is now willing to accept that headway may be made by offering greater support to those individuals who might commit these crimes. The Republicans might do well to reflect that a legacy of Obamacare might be that they get to keep relaxed gun laws in the long term.

So if you'll forgive the unfortunate nature of the analogy, if the ongoing debate about mass killings is a lost battle for those opposed to gun control, are there signs that they are winning the war? The fact remains that however grim the media make gun crime in the US seem, the stats still show that the chances of the average American dying in a gun-related incident are miniscule - and that even then, the chances of said incident being a suicide are double the chances of it being a homicide. This may be small comfort for those families that are currently burying their children, but evidence suggests that such incidents don't severely impact upon public opinion about gun control.

Indeed, when you consider that there are supposedly nine guns in America for every ten people (that's 315 million guns, if you're counting), why is the murder rate not higher? Psychotic individuals will have the capacity to inflict greater casualties if they have access to guns, but statistics still suggest that the overwhelming number of American gun owners are responsible gun owners.

Violent crime is a reality for all societies, but whether we in the UK agree with it or not, the US still shows every sign of choosing their individual liberties over stricter gun controls. Despite this, perhaps the real unsavoury truth about America is that actually, despite appearances, statistics would suggest that it remains a very safe place to live. Unless you like cheeseburgers.

All the Iowa Caucuses

Mark Mardell wrote a wonderful article on the BBC last week in which he posed (and answered, with an admirable degree of restraint) the question of whether the prospective US Presidential Republican candidates are all crazy. The sheer fact that this is a genuine question posed by a respectable blogger on the UK's premier news site probably goes some way towards explaining the British perception of the American presidential race.

Even the names of some of the candidates - Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, to name but two of the colourful characters participating in the first stinging round of the US electoral process - cause a degree of consternation for UK commentators.

Then, after the names, come the policies. Rick Santorum wants to annul every gay marriage that has already taken place in the country. Herman Cain suggested that he wouldn't attack Iran because it has mountains. Rick Perry forgot which government departments he was committed to closing in the middle of a key speech. Michele Bachmann said that even if she became president, she would follow the command from the Bible to be submissive to her husband.

Mardell made the concession of admitting that when the question was raised about the relative sanity of the candidates, it had usually been asked of him by left-wingers, and he was quick to point out that even mainstream American politics exists several notches to the right of the relatively liberal UK.

Tonight, Republicans will gather at more than 1,700 precinct locations in Iowa. Each caucus, or electoral meeting, starts with the election of a caucus chairman and caucus secretary. The caucus leadership conducts a presidential preference vote, usually a via a secret ballot. It is worth noting that the caucus ballots are simply straw polls, with candidates subsequently picked at county and district conventions later in the year. Nevertheless, despite their nonbinding nature, the caucuses receive huge media attention and give prospective candidates the chance to display their electoral credentials.

Of course, both major American political parties hold caucuses. However, with Presidential incumbent and Democrat representative Barack Obama likely to stand unopposed, the focus of the world's attention will be on the far-right representatives of the Republican party. These are America's uber-Conservatives, wealthy plutocrats and billionaire businessmen. The world in which they live is a million miles from that inhabited by most of us, but now as the voting starts in Iowa, they will be the absolute centre of attention.

Within a few short hours, the candidates will know whether they are likely to get an opportunity to rattle sabres and draw first blood in the lengthy campaign that each of them hopes will end in glory in Washington in November 2012.

However, before they can get there, there are the little matters of a sceptical electorate, worldwide and domestic economic crises in dire need of resolution, not to mention having to compete against one of the slickest campaigning machines that has ever graced a political stage. In the presidential election, the chosen Republican candidate will have to move away from party in-fighting over issues like gay rights, abortion and immigration and focus on jobs and the American economy if they are to have any hope of defeating Obama in the Autumn.

Dateline Samoa

By far the most entertaining news of the week prior to yesterday's new year celebrations was the little-heralded item that saw Pacific nations Samoa and Tokelau jumping westwards over the international dateline. The change was made in an effort to boost trade links with Australia and New Zealand, and comes 113 years after the decision was made to travel in the opposite direction in order to attract the trade attention of the United States.

The change was heralded by Samoan Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi, who clearly enjoyed the opportunity to promote the tourist industry in his nation when he appeared in front of international news cameras wearing the shirt below.

Now, if this decision was as clean cut as it seems that it might be, it would make perfect sense. However, a minority of Samoans have good reason to be a little upset, because the change meant that earlier this week, Samoans went to bed on 29th December, and woke up on the 31st, having skipped the 30th entirely. What about people frantically preparing parties for new year? You think you have a couple of days to pick up the beer and prepare the food, and then you lose an entire day just like that. The change also meant that people born on 30th December now face a metaphysical quandary. Have they aged at all this year? If you were due to retire, have you now lost your chance? I should imagine that all the people born on 29th February are probably looking at this and thinking, 'Now do you see what a bloody pain in the arse this is?'

Of course, in any island nation where the average daily temperature all year round is a balmy 28 degrees centigrade, we can expect that such issues will not prove troubling for long. In 2009, Samoa made the decision to switch from driving on the right of the road to driving on the left, becoming the first nation in the 21st Century to do so. They also have a pretty fascinating colonial history, which culminated in an eight-year civil war that resulted from German, American and British interests funding and training indigenous troops in the region. The situation came to a head in March 1889, when all three nations sailed large warships into Apia Harbour and full-scale war seemed inevitable. However, at the last possible moment, a giant storm struck the bay area and sank all the ships, returning the country to temporary calm.

There is just one other potential issue with the decision to skip the international dateline - the possibility that it might set a worrisome trend. The decision by Samoa and Tokelau sees the west coast of the US as the final stop on the international dateline. It doesn't take a giant leap of faith to imagine one of the loony Tea Party presidential candidates might choose to take a break from bashing homosexuals and shooting Communists to imply that America's position at the back of the queue is an insult by the world against their nation, and demand that the US also skips a day to go to the front. It would probably suit a few of the emerging economies like Brazil too, though the outcome in Canada and other South American nations is probably a little less clear cut. Still, you can imagine the phone call from President Obama to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela - 'Damn it Hugo, if you won't sell us your oil, we're going to skip Thursday!'

And of course, once nations get a taste for hopping around the dateline, where does it end? David Cameron could skip whole years to bring the next general election forward, then skip back again to continue dismantling the NHS. Vladimir Putin could go back to his entirely fairly contested Duma election in December 2011 and this time, he could arrange to fix a few of the ballot boxes. And most prominently of all, Bashar al-Assad could have delayed his crackdown on pro-democracy campaigners long enough to ensure that Syria had a presence at the Royal Wedding.

When Time Called Time on Heroes

The significant details in life are often the small ones. The appointments forgotten, the words said or left unsaid, the people we meet and engage with - these are the details that determine the bigger picture in our lives.

When a Tunisian military policewoman insulted and slapped a fruit vendor in the market square of a tiny, unremarkable town just south of Tunis a year ago, she could not have expected that her small act of disrespect and violence would be seen as the trigger that has started a worldwide democratic protest that has inspired and involved the actions of millions worldwide.

That fruit-seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, enraged when his subsequent complaint was ignored, took himself to the local provincial capital building and set himself on fire. Those around him who were similarly upset with years of corrupt dealings with police and local officials, began to protest at the way in which they were treated. So began the Arab Spring, a movement that toppled governments, ended dictatorships and prompted similar explosions of discontent as far afield as Russia and the US.

2011 will be remembered as as a watershed in world history. The most singly defining year since the major financial crisis that has impacted all our lives, this was the year that people worldwide stood up as one and demanded a new form of social contract from the people that governed them. No longer would they accept corrupt systems that saw the richest siphon off the main share of the wealth as long as some reached the rest of us via the trickledown.

The decision of Time magazine to award the title of 'Person of the Year' to 'The Protester' is an interesting one in the context of the small details I mentioned earlier. To those of us in the UK who have defended our rights and the rights of those around us in the last year, it is a moment in which to reflect and be proud of the way in which we have conducted ourselves and been a part of something far more significant than the simple goals we hope to achieve. However, we should also remember that there is a world of difference between our struggles and those of protesters in Russia and the Middle East, who stand up against totalitarian regimes in the full knowledge that some of their number may never return to their homes.

For me, the most telling aspect of Time magazine's decision not to select a person of the year is instead that in a world which is desperately crying out for leadership, not one leader or prominent person of influence has conducted themselves in such a way as to deserve the title. In Russia, Putin is pictured as the pointlessly macho leader of a discontented people. In the US, the UK and Europe, the likes of Barrack Obama, David Cameron and Andrea Merkel stand at broken tillers as their countries swirl in a whirlpool of conflicting financial interests. Worst of all, in Egypt and Syria, strong militaries and politicians like Bashar al-Assad continue to oppress the populations they are supposed to protect and represent.

So arise to defend your rights, protesters, and bear your title with pride. 2011 was the year that you became heroes when your leaders could not.

Protests in the US: Occupy Wall Street

America! Greatest of nations, shining democratic example, policeman to the world's oppressed.

What is not to love about the other green and pleasant land? Bono once said that America is more than just a country, it is a idea, and a contagious one. They are a nation that has freed slaves and torn down barbaric regimes. They gave us Hollywood, rock and roll and the great road stories of Jack Kerouac. You can have just about every kind of experience you could imagine somewhere across 50 huge states, most of which are bigger than the entire whole of the UK. It is famously described as a land of opportunity where anybody can grow up to be President, and the calm, collected black boy from Hawaii proved it to be so.

Perhaps most of all, I like Herbert Hoover's description of America as a "great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose." It is easy as a non-American to deride the country for the things that it does badly, such as assisting the low-paid with welfare and protecting their interests politically. However, it is also easy to forget that the American principle of self-reliance makes for a resourceful and resilient people, and they are fiercely proud of their country. There is much to admire about America.

While British politics has come to be dominated by a narrow band of socialite nitwits with silly hair and no idea about the real world, American politics is about polished media excess, and despite the supposed opportunities, political office is generally reserved for those with big money, or those who can influence the same. The self-assurance of those who have influence in the world's most capitalist country is buoyed by the knowledge that there is little chance of social unrest among the populace.

However, signs are that this may not be the case for much longer. After proposed legislation in Wisconsin that would have limited collective bargaining rights, 100,000 people came out in support of state workers and the the Wisconsin Capitol building was temporarily occupied. Supportive actions were seen in every other state.

Erosion of incomes and living standards for the majority need not be a cause of great social unrest if the austerity measures employed by governments are perceived to have a fair impact upon all members of a society. But while media moguls continue to twist the truth in a harmful fashion and CEOs and top-level bankers continue to make millions, normal working people will show their anger and discontent at the skewed excesses. Is there a danger that sustained protests could strike the US this Autumn?

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg certainly thinks so. He suggested recently on a local radio show that students graduating college could not find jobs and that protests of the type seen earlier this year at Tahrir Square in Cairo could be replicated in American cities. There are certainly others too that believe that youth disenfranchisement could lead to despair and unrest. But at the moment, there is still a lack of will and organisation by those who are suffering and who might wish to take collective action.

That could be about to change. A trending Twitter update - #occupywallstreet - called for people to occupy Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhatten in an effort to raise the profile of the group's aims, which it claims are to defend the rights of 99% of Americans against the greed of the other 1%. Initial gatherings were broken up by police and there were arrests, but subsequent gatherings are now taking place and at least some of the protesters are there in response to the arrests made earlier. There are currently an estimated 2000 protesters in the area, with numbers reported to be rising.

If you support the goals of the Zucotti Park protesters, you can log onto Twitter, send them your support using the hashtag #occupywallstreet and spread the word about their actions. As in our own country, there are many people in the US who could benefit from hearing their voices heard, and well-supported peaceful protests to achieve specific goals for the disadvantaged majority may just inspire the noble, far-reaching outcomes that Hoover once described.

Guest Blogger: Alun Jones - Policing in the USA

In a(nother) break from ordinary service this Independence Day, Four Thousand Words would like to present guest blogger and fellow local government employee Alun Jones. His previous observations on Tahrir and Tiananmen Squares can be found by clicking here.

If anyone else fancies a stint in charge of the editorial desk here at FTW, please let me know, I'm delighted when other people want to be involved (not least because it means I can take a day off...)

Policing in the USA

The plethora of films and television series that come from Hollywoodland got me thinking the other day. I know they're not meant to do that, but this isn't going to be another discourse on the mind-numbing qualities of main-stream entertainment. It's just this; how many bloody law enforcement agencies does one country need??

In the course of my brief research on this subject, it seems that at any one time in the home of the 'free', 68 different agencies at federal, state and local level could take an interest in your affairs!! I tried to think of a scenario where you would involve all of them, but that was too much! However, if you were a native american former convict and discharged soldier driving a lorry whilst drunk to deliver contraband alcohol, bush-meat, counterfeit currency and books stolen from the Library of Congress to the University in Fairbanks, Alaska having previously made threats against the President you would be in trouble with at least 13 different agencies! All of them of course would resent the others and mouth the immortal line, "And don't give me any of your jurisdiction crap!!"

Similar counts yield the following information. The UK has 14 layers of law enforcement, whilst the North Korea has only 5 or 6!

Does this mean that we are 3 times as paranoid as the North Koreans and that the USA is 5 times more paranoid still? Not really, as the numbers in each arm are widely different, especially when you take into account the size of population they are meant to serve. But there must be a high degree of paranoia, otherwise why would we have so many different agencies? After all, the right-wing governments in control both here and in the USA are dead-set on cuts.

I'm not a big fan of cuts. I work in the public sector and believe that you need it to make the state run efficiently. For example, how would Mr Cameron's army of 'hungry' entrepreneurs be able to generate wealth if they had to stay at home to look after their elderly parents? Or if that simple cold became double pneumonia because there was no healthcare? However, I believe that both here and in the USA, concern about crime levels and the possibility of terrorist attacks means that we have allowed this proliferation and the erosion of many liberties. So come on Theresa May and Janet Napolitano (Secretary of Homeland Security), make some cuts, save some money and restore some sanity to our law enforcement.

Shame about the films though...

'Necessary, Legal and Right'

I made the mistake today of getting involved in one of the BBC's fiscal blogs, when I became incensed at a suggestion on the website that the ideal way to tackle the country's financial crisis was to do away with the minimum wage and send those Jonny Foreigners back where they came from. What an idea! Let's add skills shortages and an ever-decreasing wage spiral to our many, many problems. Just don't tell Dave, right?

Fortunately, David Cameron is currently distracted from bothersome domestic difficulties by channelling the spirit of Tony Blair and carving himself a Legacy as a Politician on the World Stage.

Except of course, he's at great pains to point out that he is not Blair and this is not Iraq. In Libya, France led the charge to force the resolution through the UN and has seized the moral high ground by doing so. The US has shown that it has learnt from past indiscretions by indicating its desire to transfer its lead role in Libya within days of becoming involved. The Arab League has skirted around the issues raised by the situation in Libya, but has carefully avoided supporting the idea of further regime changes in the region. In the midst of the maelstrom Britain strode around, an overzealous and wizened schoolteacher with an ever-shortening ruler, looking for a way to assert some authority over proceedings.

It was a familiar feeling for me as I turned on the evening news. Hand-wringing MPs jostled uncomfortably in the House of Commons as justifications for British involvement in the conflict were bandied around. The news cut to eerie green night-vision pictures of tracer fire in the sky over Tripoli and I thought, 'Here we go again.' Just once, it would be nice to get through a five-year political term in Britain without our involvement in another yet another futile, expensive and unnecessary war.


After reading an article in the 'i' newspaper today by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a writer I am really beginning to appreciate, I have taken the time to consider the position I felt initially when the bombs began to drop.

As an self-described Arab exile in Britain, Alibhai-Brown admits to a feeling of political anxiety about the UK's involvement in Operation Odyssey Dawn. I'm not of Arabic descent but I can assure her that she is not alone. I am in agreement that allowing the conflict (note that no-one uses the word 'war') to escalate would be to offer a permissive stance towards a potential civilian genocide, but nonetheless I am still very uncomfortable about our role in proceedings.

While I am willing to give David Cameron the benefit of the doubt with regard to the genuine issue of defending human life, it is unfortunate (or very fortunate, depending on your viewpoint) that supporting this cause has so many potential positive aspects for Britain that could be viewed sceptically from a retrospective standpoint. Yes, we are defending civilians by bombing strategic military targets - in the full knowledge that contracts will surely be offered to British firms when rebuilding work needs to begin and new military hardware is purchased. If we go the whole hog and support the removal of Gadaffi from power entirely, we do so knowing that any potential replacement will make their gratitude clear when determining the price of their oil.

The irony is that the Libya conflict could potentially be a watershed for the countries involved in the coalition force. Britain can go a long way towards cleansing our international reputation by making it clear that our loyalties are not determined solely by the money that lines our pockets. The true measure of our role in this saga will be determined by what happens next. So far, what we have done is indeed, to use David Cameron's own words, 'necessary, legal and right'. It is a phrase he will do well to remember and observe in the weeks ahead.

Should the UK cease production of arms and their sale to foreign powers?

I'm going to polarise opinion today. I apologise in advance but I have to do it once in a while or otherwise the doctors won't give me my pills.

I was watching the Ten o'Clock Show on Thursday night (sad that a comedy show should be the best way to educate people about politics, but never mind) and there was a very interesting debate about Britain's role in supplying arms to foreign countries.

Britain has a long and proud history of supplying munitions to despots, and you may already know that in the last week alone, British tear gas was used on peaceful protestors in Bahrain, and British missiles supplied to Colonel Gadaffi are at this very moment killing innocents in Libya. UK readers, I hope you're forming an opinion on how you feel about this. It's being done in your name, and chances are you're barely feeling the benefit of the corporation tax.

Dominic Raab MP made the point that 55,000 UK jobs rely on the arms industry. War on Want's Yasmin Kahn made the counter-point that while these jobs may be important to the UK's commerical interests, this is not enough to justify the inevitable suffering and death that results from the sales.

This represents a massive dilemma for a union representative. I do not represent workers within the arms industry but unions are supposed to promote employment and I would not want to be the one telling these communities that they can expect their jobs to vanish and their standards of living to plummet. That said, 55,000 jobs is a relative drop in the ocean and there could be alternative job options made available to the redundant workers. This is, after all, what our current government is saying to the 500,000 public sector workers who will be jobless by the end of 2014 if events continue down their current destructive path.

On a personal level I am absolutely opposed to arms sales. As Yasmin Khan said on Thursday, we may be able to make even more money by dealing in crack cocaine, but that doesn't make it the morally correct thing to do (notice that a legal comparison is not the issue here.)

Of course democracies need to defend themselves but once we have handed over those tanks and sophisticated military aircraft, we have no way to determine whether they will be used for defensive or offensive purposes. I further believe that we shouldn't try to cloud the debate by saying that just because we sell guns doesn't mean we are the ones pulling the trigger. As far as I can see, that is an irrelevant debate. If we don't sell the gun, it will be sold by someone else and we will lose a competitive advantage while the recipient of the bullet will still be just as dead. However, at least then we can be sure that the blood is not on our hands and this would allow us to go some way towards setting a moral example to the rest of the world in the manner that we previously did with landmines.

Of course, the economic system in the UK means that each individual has the personal power to resolve their ethical dilemmas via the free-market system. You do not have to buy meat if you are a vegetarian, or petrol if you are an environmentalist. However, you cannot divorce yourself from the ethical implications of this debate, because the benefits that we receive from the industry are partly intangible (thinking back to those workers, their communities and their social cohesion rather than just the monetary consideration).

So the question I ask you is this: Do we, as Britons, want to be a producer of weaponry sold to other countries? In comparison, how do my US readers feel about their country selling weapons to others?

Death - The High Cost of Living

Bloody Egypt. I'm supposed to be on holiday there in a few weeks and after thirty years of meek subservience in the face of oppression, the minute that I click the 'Book Now' button they decide to kick off and overthrow the government, simultaneously sending a message of hope and freedom that will spread fear in the hearts of despotic administrations throughout the world. Now, it may just be coincidence, but I'm a little afraid to do my shopping online in case I cause a general strike that brings down an industry.

Of course, this story is the very definition of history in the making, and as an international officer I'm ideally placed to critique the possible consequences of the uprising. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood will be working behind the scenes to try and promote an Islamic government. The army, currently in control, have released a statement saying that they will listen to the wishes of the people but will they really be pro-democracy when they can install one of their own? What influence will powerful foreign interests in the US, Israel and the Arab world bring to bear?

As I said, I'd be ideally placed to do just that. But it's Friday night and frankly, I'm off the clock now so instead, I'm going to talk about something frivolous that came out of a discussion at work earlier this week.

A few people had read my last entry and said that they weren't really too sure about the optimistic direction that I was taking. It was widely agreed that I was deviating unnecessarily from a tried-and-tested model of politically-motivated doom-mongering, and all agreed that the change of tone didn't really fit with the current climate. Suitably chastened, I have returned to form with a topic that eventually comes to matter to us all: Death.

Death is an occupational hazard for me. I work with the elderly, my friends are fatally inattentive and my extended family are numerous and sickly. Of course, that doesn't even begin to account for the many fish-related incidents I have had to deal with since I bought my fishtanks. If guppies go to heaven, I may well opt for hell if there's a choice. Otherwise I'll have a lot of explaining to do to those little guys.

But I digress. A co-worker was explaining earlier this week about her phobia of being interred whilst still alive. I was happy to help her face her fear by sharing tales from centuries past about bodies being buried with a string tied to a toe and the other end attached to a bell to alert passers-by that they were still alive, or of bodies being exhumed only for horrified gravediggers to find that the undersides of the coffin lids were scratched by the nails of those who were not as dead as they appeared at the time that they were buried.

Happily, such occurrences in modern life are ruled out by the wonders of technology, and now it's possible for your final resting place to be swathed in comfy linen, heated to your personal tastes and even fitted with digital music players and TVs. Frankly, we're not taking chances on an arbitrary afterlife when we're comparitively wealthy in this one. Karma may as well be blowed if you can't take it with you.

Michael Jackson was buried in a solid bronze casket lined with blue velvet with a hand-polished 14-carat gold plate finish. The coffin was worth over $25000. Even so, it pales in comparison to the beauty in this picture. Well, that's me sorted. Now the only question is, can you get free broadband in the afterlife?

World Cup? Wimbledon? Pah, I just bought a fish tank

So I've been away from work for a few days, preparing for my final AAT exams, which (thank Christ) will be finished this time next week. I'm preparing myself for a massive sense of anti-climax (which won't be difficult for me to deal with, given the life I've had) but it will be nice to get them out of the way, as I've been feeling a dose of pre-exam adrenaline for days now, and if it goes on for much longer I fear I may just have an aneurysm.

A shout to Kev and Corinne, who came over earlier this evening and entertained me massively by bickering over which of them was the greatest attention seeker and then proceeded to prove the point by taking lots of pictures of themselves eating scotch eggs and so on. Thank you both, and there, I've blogged about you now. I hope you're happy :)

I bought a fish tank! I've wanted to own one for as long as I can remember. My parents owned one when I was very little, and I would come downstairs at night and press my nose against the glass as tiny neon tetras zipped around the plants inside the tank. Furthermore, to my eternal pride, I have paid for the tank, the stand and most of the peripherals entirely with my poker winnings. It'll leave a big hole in the account where several hundred dollars used to be, but if I really am a good player I should be able to put it back there in time. Plus I won't be playing any poker in the near future, what with revision time and work commitments.

I have a very thorough book on how to prepare a working fish tank, and there is more science to it than first it seems. You cannot just add water and fish, because the water needs to be dechlorinated first to make it safe for the fish. Then you have to get the water temperature and pH balance right for the species that you want, add substrate and plants to create the right aesthetic conditions, and run a filter through a cycle of bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate. And this is all before you even begin!

It's silly but it's exciting. The tank looks great, though I'm having some issues with plants dying due to the lack of light in certain areas of the tank. I'm certain I can remedy that. I also have a regular chemistry set of water testing tools that show the filter process is underway, though it's still too early yet for fish to survive. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.


My best friend Erin is very excited about Wimbledon because she loves Rafael Nadal. I hope he wins, because it will make her happy.

Blah blah blah, World Cup...England, USA, Rob Green...blah blah blah.

At least Emile Heskey played well. Perhaps it's something in the water.