39 not out

I have to renew my driving license next month, the picture is 10 years out of date, though everything else remains the same. I'm one of those oddities with a clean current driving license having avoided (off times by luck) various speed traps, entrapment and sometimes weird stop and enquire attempts by the various local constabularies I travel through. I was stopped last year as they thought I was using my mobile phone whilst driving, I wasn't, I was just leaning on my arm bored and stuck in traffic, my phone where it normally is, in my pocket irradiating my gonads. No, I'm not making myself out to be a super driver either, I've just been lucky. Still I knew (or thought I knew) that if I got up to 12 points on my license, I would face a ban save only in the most unusual of circumstances and I would certainly have thought if I offended again I would certainly face a ban and of course I would have been wrong.

BBC.

A Swindon motorist has 39 penalty points on his or her licence - the most in Great Britain - but not been banned.

A Freedom of Information request to the DVLA showed 638 drivers in Bristol, Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Gloucestershire have 12 or more points.

Twelve points usually means a temporary ban for a driver unless they can prove it would cause exceptional hardship.

A court decides if a driver is banned and the Magistrates' Association agreed the Swindon case needs investigating.

The DVLA's response to the Freedom of Information (FOI), from BBC West, did not say which offences the penalty points related to and gave no further information about the driver from Swindon.

It explained that although it compiles the figures on court cases involving driving offences it has no influence on verdicts.

39 points, something we mere mortals would not believe possible, believing despite growing evidence that our justice system is far from fair and professional. But seriously, 39 POINTS! Didn't someone in the system notice the steady climb and decide to nip it in the bud? The person involved is still driving too, I wonder if they'll make it to 42+ points before being stopped from getting behind the wheel of a vehicle. Ok, the reasons may be trivial, I can accept that, a few miles over the limit in some cases perhaps, but sooner or later you'd think your luck would run out, exceptional hardship or not.
Yes, I know in a libertarian society speed limits would be advisory, safe driving under the conditions mandatory and the sooner the government stops picking on the motorists the better. I can agree with all that, I just can't agree with anyone abusing the system as is, be it the driver or the judge. I know I wouldn't get away with it, I doubt any of us would get away with it, why should they.

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Stalking by blog

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but apparently it is...

Mail.

A hospital administrator has made British legal history by becoming the first man to be jailed for stalking a woman by blog.

Stephen Andreassen, 38, compiled up to 35 website blogs in which he repeatedly insulted an ex-girlfriend after she ended their month-long relationship, Manchester Magistrates' Court heard.

Over 18 months Andreassen regularly updated his sites telling men to stay away from mature university student Rebecca Pattinson, 36, while bombarding her with Facebook messages, texts, phone calls and e-mails begging for her to take him back.

Ok, the guys obviously obsessed, but stalking by blog? I don't see how it can be done, it's not like the lady in question or other people were forced to read this guys blog and he's certainly no Guido with hundreds of thousands of readers. There are also a good few swearblogs around who do pick targets and go around being very insulting too, but you don't hear of them being closed down by the police either. I suspect this is probably just additional material to justify (rightly) imprisoning the guy for his campaign against Miss Pattinson.
Normally I'd just ignore Daily Mail sensationalism, but it does seem as if the judge and the police used his attempts at blogging as part of the evidence against him, though my own thoughts on the matter having blogged for about 2 years in this incarnation are that he would have struggled to get any hits on any of his 35 blogs. New blogs in particular don't normally tend to be high profile unless the blogger is high profile and blogging from a high profile site as witness Norman Tebbit. The way it's normally done for us lesser mortals is to go around commenting on others sites and gradually attract notice that way, assuming you want to be noticed of course, but it is satisfying in a way to get the odd comment, even if they don't agree with what you have to say. I blog because it helps release the occasional anger and frustration I feel at the direction this country is going in and it alleviates my frustration at not really being in a position to do anything about it (for which you should probably be thankful) Mostly like today I pass comment on something I read, sometimes about something I do and I don't really attract a lot of notice, even after 2 years, yes it's grown steadily, but I'd be deluding myself if its because of my talent, more I suspect my persistence in outlasting a good few better (in my opinion) bloggers than myself..
So, Andreassen was convicted of stalking, though mostly it was harassment by facebook and text which seem to be the usual medium of the stalker today, but he did use blogs as well to advertise his mental state, I suspect though he'll be unique, not as a stalker, but as someone who used blogs to stalk.
Unless you know different?

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Contraband

Spotted in Morrisons supermarket whilst shopping today and yes they are a standard bayonet fit.

I thought they'd been banned in favour of mercury laden, unrecyclable, dim glowing, flickering, heavily subsidised, EU friendly compact fluorescents?

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