Feh, why…

am I so surprised by how simplistic the news coverage of the G8 protests in Germany is? Maybe because i have clearer insights than i did a few years ago into what is actually happening. Still, the ‘peaceful protesters plead with the crowd to go to a pop concert instead of joining riots’ voiceover stuck in my craw.

For information from the inside, the sources i know are:
<a href=”http://www.dissent.org.uk”>Dissent blog</a>
<”a href=http://de.indymedia.org/ticker/en”>German Indymedia protest timeline</a> (Dissent blog tells you how to get updates from here on your mobile – i haven’t bothered due to being in the Duckarchy where my phone doesn’t work properly)
<a href=”http://g8-tv.org”>G8 TV</a> (another thing that doesn’t work in the Duckarchy due to male progenitor’s old version of ‘fox – may have to brave the ‘other browser’ later to see it)
<a href=”irc.indymedia.org #g8-info”>Indymedia news dispatch irc</a>

If you know of anyone blogging from Rostock (yeah, i know it isn’t likely anyone will get the chance, but if you have a mate who escaped to a cybercafe or something…) please let me know. Likewise, if you see any good blogging in the aftermath – doesn’t have to be up to the standard certain readers of this blog set, i’d still like to see it!

Improvement comes (invisibly) slowly…

So there’s this one book I really need for the paper i’m writing. One book that the whole thing hangs on, as the main source of practical examples. I have this book in my possession. It was next to my bag last night. The step i missed was putting it *in* my bag. One. Little. Thing. that would have made my day and it isn’t here because i’m chronically thick first thing in the morning. Now i have to *think* about what to do today. I’m teaching in an hour. I don’t have time to think. It is these gaps that make the blogosphere seem a tempting place to play hooky.

Seasonal (toilet) humour

Tony Blair was at Chequers on a snowy day. He went out into the front garden, and was confronted with a horrible sight: the words ‘Blair must die’ emblazoned on the lawn in fresh piss. So he did what any paranoid PM would do, and called the police. An hour later, at the police station, Blair was talking to the Inspector (and, due to the actions of some of his friends, feeling a bit more nervous). A constable rushes in at that point and blurts out ‘First forensics report – it was John Prescott’s urine!’ Blair had about three seconds to absorb this information, before another PC rushes in, elbows his mate out of the way and announces, slightly breathlessly, ‘Latest from forensics – it was Gordon Brown’s handwriting!’

Threats in my inbox

You see, this is why I never take a blogging hiatus if i’m going to be near a computer. Something will always crop up that has to be blogged about.

So anyway, i just received this link in an email from the department manager entitled ‘Suspect Packages’. While really curious about what triggered the forwarding of this link from the registry to apparently every member of staff on site, and fascinated by the website itself and the lists of alleged threats and how to handle them, i’m not entirely sure how it relates to a politics department. I kind of hope the terrorism experts around here would already know how to check their post if it came down to it.
Of course, i hope it doesn’t come down to it. I’ve been caught up in bomb scares before, and being evacuated really isn’t funny, particularly when you’re trying to travel or do a job and people are panicking and the police are being arses just because they can. And that’s just when there isn’t actually a bomb.
One possibly relevant factor for this morning’s email – there is currently a game going on called ‘assassins’. I’m told that this involves pulling another player’s name out of the hat, following them around and pretending to kill them (hitting them with a paper dart, leaving a fake bomb in their pocket etc) before they do the same to you.
But i can’t help thinking there is a lot of paranoia around and that maybe stirring up people’s fears isn’t such a great idea. Neither is giving people ideas, for that matter.
PS: Just so you know, the nearest thing my department has to a post room is the same place where about half of us eat our lunch. So we’re at more risk in general from the milk going off (smug vegan smirk) or that month-old tupperware-clad something that may once have been food. Our fridge contains things that Saddam’s scientists would have given a lot for.

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