So, farewell, McVeigh Timothy McVeigh has been executed by injection for the deaths of 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing. The warden of the Terre Haute federal jail in Indiana said he was pronounced dead at 7.14am - 1.14pm British time. The bombing in 1995 was the worst terrorist atrocity on US soil. The execution is the first carried out by the federal government since 1963.
This is a difficult one to call. On the one hand, we have a lot of people who have no claim on being dead. People who really ought to be with us now. On the other hand, we have a clear expression of just how little value the USA places on human life, that they can collectively mandate the extinction of one of their own. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and it strikes me as a backwards, almost inhumane, step.
Amnesty agrees: "By executing the first federal death row prisoner in nearly four decades, the USA has allowed vengeance to triumph over justice and distanced itself yet further from the aspirations of of the international community."

Another busy day One in which I hardly get to see the manager probably isn't a bad thing. Meeting to thrash out the technical specifics behind constructing a new PC. If it works from the start, it works throughout. And continuing the job of setting PCs for a demo next week. Just two to do, and we don't install till Friday. 'Peasy.

The smell of progress Pissed off by unceasing traffic james? Fuming at perpetually delayed trains? Why not do what Chris Clifton has done, and start your own airline. Clifton, a management consultant, has launched Linkair to fly from Exeter to Luton in 55 minutes, connecting the capital of the south-west to the capital of the lower Thames basin in 75 minutes. The Cessna Caravan seats nine, and costs �239 return. Nuts included.
Clifton told the press a really bad pun. "I only need to sell four or five tickets to break even, so I am confident that it will take off. It saves people time and hassle, it is convenient, and is even fun if you enjoy flying like I do." The initial flight was almost delayed after a passenger spotted a deer trotting along the Exeter runway. "You don't get this at Heathrow," said an airport official before jumping into a car to chase the animal away. Railtrack is looking into the prospect of blaming their delays on deer on the line.

While dredging through old posts, I came across this little questionnaire from last summer. Answers are from now.

LIVING ARRANGEMENT
Like Beaker off the Muppets, it's all me, me, me.

BOOK YOU ARE READING NOW
Flitting between a guide to Dallas-Fort Worth, and John Major's autobiography. Thinking about getting "No Logo" for the flights - reviews anyone?

WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSEPAD
Still the harbour of St John's.

FAVOURITE BOARD GAME
Uno isn't a *board* game, but it's great. I'd like to try out the ('scuse the pun) Heath-Robinson contraption that is The Weakest Link table game, but that needs more people than can fit into my house.

FAVOURITE MAGAZINE
Observer Sports Monthly is great, as is Private Eye. Uncut has its moments, so do the Spectator and New Statesman. But you really can't beat the Beano.

FAVOURITE SMELLS
Coffee.

FAVOURITE SOUNDS
It's gotta have a tune.

WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD
Need to blow nose ... can't blow nose coz the Chief Honcho is on the other end of the phone.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING
Not raining. Again.

ROLLER COASTER- SCARY OR EXCITING
Pass the sickbag.

HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE TELEPHONE
At work, 1. At home, three or so.

DAUGHTER'S NAME
Guffaw.

SON'S NAME
Titter.

GRANDSON'S NAME
Muffled laughter.

GRANDDAUGHTER'S NAME
Gives up and laughs out loud.

DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE
Don't drive, trains are far better. Until last autumn, they were also faster. These days, cycling backwards while wearing a straw bonnet would be faster.

DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL
No.

FAVOURITE FOODS
Pizza is good. So is ice cream. And chocolate, though not together. Pizza-flavoured ice cream is just *yucky*.

ARE STORMS COOL OR SCARY
Cool if I'm inside. Scary if not.

WHAT WAS THE KIND OF YOUR FIRST CAR
Included for completeness.

IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE
Dead has to be Our Kent.
Alive would be Cory. Put my money where my mouth is.
Or Christopher Price.

FAVOURITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK
White wine.

FAVOURITE NON-ALCOHOLIC DRINK
Still, unsweetened lemonade.

WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN
Junction 10a of the M6.

WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE POET
Don't know. Think I need to listen to more OneWord

DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI
But of course.

IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED, WHAT WOULD IT BE
Game Show Correspondent. At least I'd be *paid* to watch Survivor. Or music controller for Radio 2.

IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOUR, WHAT WOULD IT BE
I think a regal purple would suit.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE
More often than I'd like.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FLAVOUR OF SNAPPLE
Liquid is good.

FAVOURITE MOVIES
Romeo + Juliet was a classic.

ARE YOU A LEFTY OR A RIGHTY
Right-oh.

DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS
Eventually.

WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED
Two coathangers, one copy of Cosmopolitan (but not for long) and probably a few spiders.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE NUMBER
Eleven.

FAVOURITE SPORT TO WATCH
Crikey, old bean, it's got to be cricket. Sitting in the sun, drinking plenty of cups of tea, eating chocolate cake. Bliss.

SAY ONE THING NICE ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU.
She *is* Jaeda. She is taking a complete stranger - and they don't come much stranger than this one - into her house. She is more fun than one can expect. Last year, she was new and charming. One of those still holds.

Day trip To our site in Nottingham; plotting a route very, very carefully has its rewards. Tasks are to install a print server for the label printer (easy.) To install drivers for this (easy.) To perform general maintainance on the PCs (trivial.) To crack a problem with the email software (non-trivial, and requiring education for the people sending messages with huge attachments.) Re-vamping a completely botched Office installation (v difficult, working through the Total Uninstall Guide.) Just when we're preparing to go, find that they want to print labels from a Really Old PC, running Really Old Software. It's not networked, and was attached by a Heath-Robinson contraption to the printer. They'll get a second-hand printer by the end of the week.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Prime Minister Tony Blair grants himself a �47,000 pay increase, taking his annual earnings to �163,000. Assuming Blair stays in office for the remainder of this parliament, this will bring his total earnings to over �1.125 million. There's the usual priggish posturing from the left-wing bleaters, comparing teaching and nursing with the more demanding task of deciding policy for the whole country. That doesn't really explain how come the rest of the Cabinet also gets a huge pay rise.

chelle:
> 1) chelle is not a member of people. chelle is an alien from outer space.
altogether likely.
begins to write lengthy, long-winded explanation, deletes, and moves on.
It's the two green spikes poking out of your glasses that are the giveaway.

> 2) chelle is pretending to get sarcasm.
how can one pretend to get sarcasm?
There is this argument, too. But if one's a good enough acter, one can convince anyone of anything. Especially online. (Hi, Debbie S;)

> 5) chelle just rocks.
why, thank you. i'm flattered, truly. :+)
Occam's Razor suggests that when in doubt, go for the simplest option. So, number 5 it is.

And some printer problems One of the things to do is connected with a new software suite, which requires a laser printer to be installed in our training room. They don't do much printing usually, and a basic bubble jet suffices. It takes two printers, three leads, two power cables, and two different PCs before it finally loads correctly. We also need to create a directory on a server, only the security settings are so tight that not even the administrator account can do anything. Grr and double Grr.

Our next-but-one Prime Minister? Michael Portfolio, the erstwhile finance spokesman, is the first to throw his hat ringwards to become leader of the party. The reformed Thatcherite says that he wants to make huge changes to the party, broaden its appeal, and "adopt a tone that is moderate and understanding."
Francis Maude (Foreign affairs) who is running Portfolio's campaign, said he had the support of 12 of the 18 members of the shadow cabinet. Leading middleweights such as Theresa May (education) and David Willetts (social security) gave him their backing. Potential rivals Anne Widdy (tough on crime) and Iain Duncan-Smith (who?) were conspicuously silent.

A friend was on a walking holiday in Yorkshire and staying in Richmond, the heart of the soon to be ex-Tory leader's seat. William Hague was holding a Q and A session and my mildly curious friend and his girlfriend decided to go along. Afterwards, when he circulated among the audience and stopped by the couple. "Now, you two don't look like Tories to me," he said cheerfully. "What brings you here?" My friend is fortyish. He has his hair cut regularly. His dress sense is unexciting. He does not wear a "Kill the Bitch Thatcher" T-shirt. In other words, he looks like a lot of other people, but not, as Hague was effectively admitting, like a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain. When a political organisation reaches that stage when it can spot an outsider by the fact that he's pretty average, it has consigned itself to the margins of relevance. And in this brief encounter, Hague was effectively admitting that the Tory party's reach had not extended beyond the shrunken core of the old, the disaffected, the uncommonly ideological or the odd vested interest. You cannot weld a parliamentary majority from that lot. Anne McElvoy, The Independent

The perils of not knowing basic HTTP Right, quick question, where does this web address point to? www.bbc.co.uk/news/[email protected]/fake/news.htm The correct answer is foo.com/fake/news.htm. It has nothing to do with the BBC. This is a minor point, lost on most web users, but not on some hoaxers in California. They set up a fake BBC News report claiming that Birtney's Pears are no more. Just to be a show-off swine, anything to the left of the @ sign is used as a login name (and password, after a : colon.) So the URL above will log on to foo.com as user www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment QED, and an excuse for a completely gratuitous shot of the Pears. You have to trust that people are smart enough to spot the hoax... but then these *are* Britney fans...

One of the comics that passes itself off as a serious magazine has been running a reader's poll about what was the most important IT development ever. Some said the internet, some suggested Enigma, or the ZX80, IBM workstation, Microsoft's formation, the year 2000 panic, the spreadsheet, and Pong.

My personal vote goes to the concept of Boolean logic, the collection of AND, OR and NOT devices that allow computers to perform millions of operations per millisecond. Without Boolean logic, there would be no computer, and hence no IT hits, great or otherwise.

...And I'm Going *Here*? Dramatic thunder and lightning as a nasty front moves over Fort Worth. It's similar weather here today, as the cold weather of the past couple of weeks turns warm, and then breaks down into thunder.

But not before we wrap up the big computer set up. 12 crappy computers, demonstrating software that's still in beta and probably doesn't work, and twelve monitors (from 17 candidates.) A morning humping and shuffling proves to give good results.

Bye, Stuart Second out of the Big Brother house, and with something like 900,000 votes, it's a massive majority to give him the boot. Stuart had been involved in flaming rows with Penny and Amma, and tended to boss everyone around. An unsavoury character, and a winker to boot.

The day between Yesterday was the last day at work this month. Tomorrow is flying out. Today is the day between. Packing, clearing up the house, powering things down. Not able to commit to doing anything, so head back to the parents' (it's en route to the airport *anyway*.)

Wit 'n' wisdom Quinn: So what *do* you call people who believe in peace and love and wear strange clothes anyway?
Daria: Trekkies.

Snigger of the day BBC radio's coverage of a soggy Fleadh, following heavy showers at the music festival site. One record played back in the studio is Belinda Carlisle's Summer Rain.

Thence to the airport cafe, and a cooked breakfast. Through security, out of the formal UK. Onto the plane, and airbourne. Thanks to a low pressure system in the mid-Atlantic, the journey should be about 30 minutes shorter than scheduled. However, the low pressure means that there's a low level of turbulence throughout the flight, and there's only about 30 minutes when we're over Nova Scotia that the seatbelt signs are turned off. The inflight meal is sweet and sour vegetables with rice, which seems to go down better than the usual pasta dish, accompanied by Plane Salad and Plane Sweet. Grapes.

Though we *could* have landed 30 minutes early, we reckoned without Allison's Final Blast. The tropical storm of that name is blowing itself out in the area, depositing a huge chunk of water over greater Noo Yawk. We finally land, pretty much on time. Customs is slow, but tolerable, and I get through without any problems at all. The transfer from terminal B to A is via a monorail that turns up every three minutes. In terms of joining the terminals together, this is the strongest link. However, terminal A is Under Renovation. There will be plenty of shopping and eating in six months' time, but that's a really long time to wait for some nibbles. Eventually get some chips, cookies and canned lemonade from the newsagents. As eating, this is the weakest link. Step outside for a breath of fresh air, then step straight back in - it's about 20 C there, but relative humidity must be around 90%, and the air hangs amazingly heavy. A guy tries to flog me a .com credit card - I have to remind him about the clause that makes the offer unavailable to guys with any sort of British accent.

Gate shuffle is the lowlight of the stay at Newark, though. From 27 to 26A to 24, with the Chicago flight moving around to accommodate us. Something to do with the backlog of flights caused by the earlier storm. Though we're almost 20 minutes late starting, the aftermath of the storm means winds are lighter, and we get into Dallas on time. I'm seated next to a couple of students from an English university. This is very bad news for the rest of the flight, as we can discuss burning issues such as Big Brother and the lack of entertainment on the flight in that lovely accent.

Which brings me to Jaeda, and Heather, and their house, and their bizarre family. None more so than Toby, but there hangs another tale. Or tail... Read on, next week.