I was doing some research for a talk later today, and came across some lovely images of Magna Carta. To be fair, I was choosing sample search terms to demonstrate search engines, and this issue was on my mind. This evening is the UK House of Commons vote on whether suspects can be detained and held in custody for 42 days WITHOUT CHARGE. If you ever thought that people’s concerns about Britain becoming an Orwellian police state were overstated and alarmist, this might change your mind. 42 days is plenty of time for your life to go to (excuse me) hell in a handcart.

Imagine explaining to your employer what happened, when you don’t even know! I doubt that many MP’s visit my blog, but if they did stop by I would say to them - is this really what you want on your CV? The demolition of ancient rights that we always talk about as if Britain invented them Because It Did?

19:19 - Depressing, predictable update: the government won this vote, barely. What a disgusting travesty of democracy. Note to self: might want to actually Write Down Constitution if ever starting a country to avoid nonsense like this in times of tabloid-stoked public hysteria. There is now literally NOTHING Gordon Brown could say that would ever, ever persuade me to vote for him.

Help us House of Lords, you’re our only hope…

Have you ever been mid-story, and as you are speaking, the whole thing sounds so implausible that you begin to doubt that it ever occurred? This happened to me yesterday when I was telling two colleagues about the existence of a Mock Apple Pie in which the filling consists of Ritz crackers. As a dual-citizen, I have a good line in tales of “funny American customs”, but this threatened to veer into the realm of fantasy. Could there really have been such a recipe? Enter the ever-useful Internet with the answer: yes. I hasten to add that I only remember *reading* this recipe - this starch-meet-starch concoction never darkened our door. My mother made only lovely pies that contained actual fruit. Clearly just seeing the description was enough to etch it in my memory though.

photo of Ritz cracker by flickr user Velo Steve

Thanks for all the kind comments and understanding about this year’s hiatus. I am especially delighted to hear about the adopted black kitty. Thankfully, I recovered some time ago from my minor surgery and related woes - currently I am just fighting a run-of-the-mill winter cold. As for the computer, it is now in rude health after two weeks in intensive care in the shop. It all started when I decided to add some memory and upgraded my video card in order to speed up Vista. When I got it back from the shop, it would just randomly power off with no warning. I defy anyone to troubleshoot this problem while remaining calm and collected - I developed a phobia about going into my office to see if it was still running. When I took it back, the techies did many hours of testing and found that the motherboard was bad. They replaced it with a new one, put in a new power supply, then also discovered that my hard drive was about to die. So they replaced that as well. Luckily they are the masters of backing up and moving data, so I did not lose much. About the only original hardware left at this point is the case and some memory. I am now running XP again - I don’t know how other people find Vista, but on my setup it was way too slow and unpredictable. I am usually an enthusiastic early adopter, but I’m going to wait awhile before trying it again.

Once again boing boing has found something quite delightful… purrcast.com. Check out the dulcet tones of Piglet and Fatty…

Dear friends of Tate and the advent calendars,

I had hoped to do the calendar story again this year, but it’s just not possible for various reasons, including serious computer problems at a critical time. I have sent Tate and Pierre on vacation for some much deserved rest and relaxation - you can see their postcard at catwholaughed.com. I am very sorry to disappoint those who have been counting (so to speak) on the calendar, but I do hope to see you next year! Have a lovely holiday season, and best wishes for 2008.

–Penny

www.canhas.com

Here’s a quote that seems to capture something essential about the American mindset. Monica Goodling, in her recent testimony before the US Congress, said the following:

“It just snowballed into a not good situation.”

Indeed.

I really hate to jump back into blogging with a rant. I had a great Artweeks, met a local family that shares my surname who bought one of my prints - pleasant, interesting topics abound. And I will get to them. But honestly, why blog if you can’t occasionally give voice to the soul-destroying frustration that results when you try to reason with a large corporation. Name and shame, that’s what I say. (At least until m’learned friends see fit to get involved. That’s lawyers, for you stateside readers.)

OK. The story so far… I have had, for many years, an American Express card. Amex saw fit to give me this card when I was a just-graduated fine art major in the United States. Leaving that inanity aside, we move on to the present day, where I am now living in the UK (since 2002). Not, and this becomes crucial later, a US city called Oxford UK. Not a country called ENGLAND G, BR either (that one’s for you, Bank of America.) Recently, when trying to use said card online and filling in my billing address, I have been greeted with the error message “Incorrect Billing Address”. This seems to happen only on one particularly fussy website, but hey, my address should be correct in all situations, not be a good approximation that some sites might accept through poor practice. So I log on, check my account details, and sure enough, my billing address on file is some mutant hybrid of my UK address smooshed into the template of a US postal address. The website even warns that your address may appear formatted for the US postal service. An AMEX customer service rep on the phone admitted that they could not deal with my UK address. This crime against data may be a convenient workaround for someone, but it sure as &%^$ does not do me any good when I am trying to do an online transaction with my actual address. It also strikes me as the kind of muddle that is in no way conducive to “national security”. This is what I see when I look at my account details:

Address Line 1:<blank>

Address Line 2: Here they have my correct number and street, but on the wrong line

City: Oxford UK

State: <blank>

Zip Code: Here we have the first *5* characters of my *6* digit UK postal code.

Helpfully, as I once declined to give them my work phone number, it has been entered by someone as 777-777-7777. I can only guess what it would look like if I had given the full international phone number.

I understand that the US government seems bent on discouraging US citizens from living in “foreign” countries by taxing them anywhere in the world. Forever. I had until now not appreciated that large US companies seem to have jumped on the bandwagon and made it virtually impossible to keep your account when you move abroad. People - this is not quantum physics. If you are going to allow someone to keep an account when they move overseas, it might, and this is just an idea here, be a good idea to figure out how to format their address properly. Earth to USA, not everybody lives in a State. And remember, this is a specifically Travel Related Company we are talking about. It doesn’t inspire confidence for the next time you lose your travellers’ cheques, does it? I have a related gripe about how US political campaigns also conveniently forget that they might have supporters not currently living in the land of the “free” but who still, in hopes of rendering the political situation less noxious, bother to vote. But that will have to wait for another day.

This is a tiny sample of my new handwriting font. I’m finding that the kerning aka letter spacing is a bit problematic. In the sample above, I’ve had to move the capital “T” way over toward the “a” using Photoshop for instance, there was too much space around it. This is not really practical for large amounts of text, so I may need a workaround. Ideally I would be able to edit the letters in the font myself - I might look at tools that allow you to scan in your own letters and edit them. This is still pretty cool though. It wasn’t terribly expensive, and is a good start. The hardest part was writing the special characters that I never write - and will probably never use!