Diebold/Chad '04.

Frank ran as fast as he could through the mud. If one moves too slowly in this kind of mire, ones feet sink in to the ground, making things much harder. He had already lost his left shoe about 300 yards back there at the bottom of a hard gravely mound which he had leaped from.

He was now far enough from the motorway that everything was pitch black and he ran in the direction of some street lights that were perhaps half a mile ahead of him. He stopped to catch his breath and looked back in the direction he had run from. He half expected to see torches flashing, helicopters buzzing overhead, the headlights of off-road vehicles, to hear a commotion and dogs barking. But there was nothing. He decided to trudge slowly forwards. No point in wasting energy he reasoned. The sudden rush of blood inspired a giddy moment of soberness.

A shape slowly appeared, it was a church, the car-park was surrounded by hedges which separated the field Frank stood in from the town this church belonged to. He ran to the hedge and tried to scissor jump it. He landed on the left side of his face, his body slumped on the smoothly tarmacked ground. He became suddenly aware of his appearance, a drunk man of his late 30s in a pinstripe suit, shirt open, tie stuffed in the top pocket, one leg torn badly, a shoe missing, a beard (now looking rather unmaintained), a pocket full of change and broken glass, slightly malodorous with a distinctly tramp-like bouquet. At least he hadn't wet himself.

Frank realised that his only chance to travel home without looking out of place would be to abandon his car and use public transport. Public transport was the only way for the insane (criminally and otherwise), the drunk, the retarded, the disturbed, depressed, too old, too short, too fat, too poor, too thin, too smelly, and various misfits of miscellany to travel unencumbered by the unreasonable pressures of ordinary society.

Iraq owes Britain about 1 billion dollars which, along with 199 billion debt from others, the US is trying to get us to drop.

Iraq produces something around 3 million barrels of oil per day. Thats 1.1 billion a year. At the current price touching $50 per barrel, thats about 55 billion dollars a year, with estimates suggesting 165 billion a year by 2006.

That aside, what I'm really interested in is what Iraq owes us $1 billion for? What did we supply to Iraq that they haven't paid for yet?

"I say. You get some right funny ones on the bus don't ya?"

"How do you mean funny? Enaging random passers-by in insipid coversation?"

i've just posted the first photo ever of my genitalia on the internet

but i'm not telling you where.

mwuahahaha

I forgot to mention that I went to a NOFX Gig at Manchester Academy in May 2004. I met guitarist El Hefe. I told him I downloaded their last album (War on Errorism) from the Internet and felt bad so wanted to give him the cash, and handed him 10 quid. He told me it didn't matter and I could have it for free.

I think my ticket cost more than covered it. Though I bought that from a tout outside.

I wonder if the news about Kenneth Bigley escaping before being caught and executed was just made up to make him sound heroic; to help his friends and family avoid imagining his 30 days of hopeless waiting, just to be beheaded. It sucks that another human life has been brutally ended, but tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have died due to our war on terrorism and not one of those subscribed. Not one of those were paid a thousand quid a day by the US government. Every one of them would have preferred to have been elsewhere but didn't have the choice. Bigley went out there for the big bucks. We shouldn't forget that.

We see that the preparations for the US November elections are in full swing.

Also, in perhaps related news, see photos of some dumb undercover Swiss cops at the anti-G8 riots.

My suggestion for Tony Blair's epitaph: "here lied Tony Blair".

I heard someone from the Conservative party on the radio this morning talking about their policies. After I got over the shock news that they had actually some and weren't just photocopying Labour/UKIP/BNP's, I was delighted to hear that they have a new policy on prison-overcrowding. They're going to solve the problem by building more prisons cells.

Yes. That will solve the problem. Definitely. Uh huh.

There is no point trying to tackle the inequalities and problems in society that cause people to turn to crime because

1. that would take longer than any 4-year government term and
2. well, it's a bit tricky isn't it? and it might piss off Middle England if they have to pay £20 more tax each year to raise the standard of living for the 3.6million children living in poverty (particularly the one million of those living in 'severe poverty') in the UK.

Imprisoning people after they've been found guilty doesn't take away the crime or the victim of the crime but I guess all those new cells will provide nice lucrative building contracts to certain companies who probably donate to the Conservative party. And isn't that what politics is really all about?