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Friday 21 July 2017

We internet veterans have seen it all before ...

Many seasoned web users will recall when Netscape Navigator was the browser to have, when your modem had to dial the BT internet number, usually managing to connect after about six tries, when newsgroups were the means of downloading huge 56k jpg pics, sometimes downloading an entire image in fewer than ten minutes. Your modem would drop the connection every hour or so, and data lines were so congested that even a page of plain HTML 1.0 text would take several minutes to load. 

So the dire state of the web today - the results of a mash between secure browsers, greedy Flash, ad-blockers and the attempts of commercial sites to overcome them, is really nothing new. The Telegraph crashes Firefox every other time I load it, one can't watch a streaming video and look at the Evening Standard at the same time (browser locks) and the machine sends at least three crash reports a day back to Firefox HQ.  

Even Blogger is becoming unusable - capcha routines that frustrate participation and make commenting a chore, and unexplained faults that just freeze the screen (oops - there's another one!).

Is this all some great plan to get us out in the open more? Because really I'm as brown as a nut already from working outside and graft hard on house renovation during all the lighter hours. C'mon computer folks - the internet wasn't made for mono-tasking. We're quite capable of placing an eBay order, watching the news and making backgammon moves on the same screen at the same time - so sort yourselves out. 

Wednesday 19 July 2017

Unimaginative Federasts trying to repeat Greek treatment

Dreary and unimaginative Brussels Federasts are keeping true to form - and are repeating every one of the dirty tricks used on Greece and as described by Yanis Varaufakis. Do these tedious little Eurocrats really have nothing else in their toolbox?

The Telegraph carries a report that details the dirty dealings. First, the outrageous gangster demands and the bullying to agree them. Then a total refusal to provide fiscal and legal justification. Then threats to unilaterally suspend the talks unless the UK agrees to their demands. All to a background of propaganda fed to the Remoaner press that the UK 'isn't coping' - a meme that has gulled even the gifted.

The grubby Federasts even appear to use photo opportunities to try to wrong-foot the UK. However, we have many years of watching our national football team deal with this sort of tactical dirty play from johnny foreigner, and every football-watching Brit will see the sly shin-kicks, ball handling and shoulder-barging for what it is.

So, second session in and I remain hopeful. 

Sunday 16 July 2017

Has Brit Brexit strategy has got Brussels on the back foot?

The next Brexit negotiations resume tomorrow - with an increasingly nervous Brussels starting to whine that David Davis and his team are not following their rules. The EU has already published a whole series of comprehensive position papers in damning detail and is starting to realise too late that this may not have been the best idea. 

The Federasts imagined that they would dominate the whole process to the extent that we would have no choice but to fall in with their programme, but so far what we have done is largely to question the basis of their published positions; what exactly are the legal grounds on which they make their grasping financial claims? How precisely have these sums been calculated?

We have responded to their citizenship / movement proposals but they say we don't go far enough. Shrug. However, having now published their own comprehensive proposals, they can hardly row back on promised rights; to do so would be to appear unbearably spiteful. So they're stuck. 

They simply can't accept that this is a bi-lateral negotiation and we're an equal player in the game, with our own plan and agenda. Our refusal to obey their rules has got them on the back foot, and a nervous and unstable Brussels is starting to aim bitter barbs at Britain. I can find nothing so far for which to criticise David Davis and his team. 

If we get a petulant Federast temper tantrum tomorrow evening, it will be a good indication that things are going well.