The building opposite is exercising its burglar alarm again. I’m trying to mask it with random music without playing the music loud enough to disturb the neighbours*. A remix of Lil Louis’ ‘French Kiss’ plays, and syncs perfectly with the alarm outside. It sounds great!

So it’s only natural to dance along with the burglar alarm/house mix.

A: “Oh god, we’re acting like Tyres”. The alarm stops.

• One neighbour seems to be a trustafarian club DJ wannabe with no concept of time or noise pollution, so he doesn’t count.

There are at least 15,000 people living in Manchester city centre. There are 3 NHS GPs.

Not to worry! David King of the Manchester Primary Healthcare Trust says: “There is only one surgery in the city centre, but there are surgeries close in Collyhurst and Rusholme where lots of people go.”

Who told me I couldn’t register. But wait: “there has been a huge rise in the numbers of people in residential accommodation in the city centre, but that does not mean that demand for GPs has risen.” A population increase of 1,000 to 15,000 in a decade, but no rise in demand, that is amazing Mr King.

How is this possible? “Mr King also argued that many young professionals with a pad in the city were likely to have private healthcare as part of their employment package, or many were registered with a doctor close to their family home where they could return at weekends.” Ah, so I should go visit Newcastle upon Tyne, or go private, I see.

If I sound a little miffed here it’s because I’ve got just been told that I might have a problem with my eyes after an eye test, and I ended up having to beg a tiny place miles away to take me - they actually said they didn’t want me to register with them as they’re struggling already, but the other places they suggested I go to had already refused to let me register.

So now I feel guilty enough to consider going private, which I can’t afford, because I’m a burden on a surgery that already has enough to deal with in a poor part of Manchester without IT people clogging up their waiting room.

Anyway, it seems Mr King is (or has) looked into the situation to check if his bizzare statements are true, so hopefully we’ll get some doctors.

Link: City centre patients shut out

If this story is true (and it’s almost too weird to be true), then wheat is required to get into heaven. Rice won’t do.

Surely if the wafer transubstantiates, then the girl would be OK? She doesn’t claim to be Body Of Christ intolerant, just wheat intolerant. Or does the transubstantiation occur later in the digestive process?

Link: Church Says Girl’s Communion Not Valid

An award winning animation for children about a dog poo.

“Once upon a time, a little doggy poo lived on the side of a road. He felt all alone in the world. He believed that nobody needed him for anything, and that he had no purpose in life. If only Doggy Poo had a reason for being, then he wouldn’t give up on his dream to be useful to the world.

One day, Doggy Poo meets a lovely dandelion sprout. Will she explain his purpose in life? Will she help make his dream come true?”

Link: Doggy Poo World

The Internet is the biggest, most complex thing humans have ever created, and although there can be many internets (groups of networks) there can be only one “The Internet”. It deserves a capital letter, surely?

Link: Dropping Internet’s big I

There have been no posts here from me for a while, as my old PC failed, then after I’d put together a new one, I decided to try to really focus on getting a completely new version of Fljud out. It’s now two years since the original hacky little script was put on Sourceforge. I’ve failed to get a new one out in time for the anniversary. I’m still bogged down in the back-end library side of things, and having sleepy, dull headaches from the muggy weather, and being distracted by ‘Prince of Persia’ on the Gamecube. It’s no Zelda, but it’s still rather good.

I’ve been trying to get in a couple of hours work each evening, and this week was meant to use up some vacation days in a blaze of programing productivity. So far, that hasn’t happened - I’ve been stuck on some problems, with a non-functioning brain. However, the huge cake from The Earth Cafe was very, very nice.

Is Manchester’s postal delivery service particularly bad, or is it just that Newcastle’s is quite good?

How can a “First Class” parcel take over five days (still counting…) to be delivered to a central Manchester address?

• Despite appearances Manchester is quite a distant and difficult place to find
• The postman has just left the parcel next to the building’s front door as he did last time*, only this time someone has stolen it
• Because I complained about that, the parcel is on a shelf labelled “Wait a week”
• Since First Class is the new Second Class, it’s just been lost
• It’s in a dog-dirt bin

To answer the question, I’ve talked to friends and relatives in Manchester, and it does look as if residential deliveries aren’t particularly good, particularly for flat-dwellers.

Link: “Angry CWU representatives believe post is often being delivered by people who do not care whether it reaches the correct destination on time.”

Here’s another late/lost presents rant.

• I was at home too - he didn’t bother to ring the bell, or leave it with a neighbour. Or leave a card in my postbox saying “Left parcel next to front door where about 100 people will walk past it”. I just happened to notice it when I was leaving.

Still, it might eventually arrive. At least I’ve not broken my rib.

[Victor Meldew style rants are now only permitted when supported by something vaguely useful or informative, or just a couple of links.]

Update: Mea culpa, a bit. I have now got the parcel: there was a letter in my postbox today (Friday) saying that they’d tried to deliver it on Monday. I’d given up waiting on Monday as I needed to go shopping, and left at about 4.40pm. Delivery turned up around 4.50pm. Grrrr. So it was fast, it just wasn’t left with the block management or neighbours, and I wasn’t told until four days later. I also got a letter for a business down the road today.

“The Church of England is calling on the Royal Mail to limit the design of Christmas stamps to Christian themes.”

Since people in Britain have been celebrating Yule with old, shamanic, Father Christmas symbols for a few thousand years longer than Christianity has existed, that’s a bit cheeky. There’s very, very little Christian content in any of Britain’s festivals, and it’s never been any different.

Link: Church wants end to Santa stamps

Dear Odeon,

In December 2002 I wrote a small article on my website, describing how astonishingly badly written the Odeon website was. I was unable to use your your website at all. Using most browsers, your website is simply the word “Odeon”. I went to the local UCI instead.

In August 2003, I discovered a way to use your site: via the efforts of a good designer, Mr Somerville, someone who clearly understands how to use the web. I visited the Odeon again.

Now I can no longer access your information, as you have decided to threaten Mr Somerville for giving people access to your site.

Your marketing director appears to possess the same effectiveness as your website designers.

I will now be boycotting the Odeon cinemas.

Link: Accessible Od*on

(Is this a sort of viral-anti-marketing campaign? Or are Mac OS X and Linux users not wanted at the Odeon? “Oi! We don’t want you smart-arse types in here! Clear off and take your fancy glasses and film analysis with you!”

… you can use Akamai’s global network of servers as simple proxies to avoid crude censorship/routing issues.

Using Akamai to bypass Internet censorship