But it won’t be the tallest for long, there’s even taller buildings in central London on the way.

Dear webmaster at PMO.gov.uk,

As the owner of the gravitystorm.co.uk domain, I frequently choose different email addresses to use on different websites, so that I can trace who is providing my email addresses to third parties. The email address petitions@[redacted].co.uk has been used exclusively on the “petitions.pm.gov.uk” website. I’m sure you can see how I can be certain that it is only you, and I, who have knowledge of this alias.

Can you please inform me as to whether you, or your contractors for the site (”MySociety”) are responsible for passing on my address to the fraudsters who emailed me (see below). I can provide the full messages that I received today if this helps in any way.

Please note that I am fully aware that you have nothing to do with the spam itself, but you are quite obviously leaking my email address to third parties without my permission.

Many thanks,
Andy Allan

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: LOTTERY WINNING NOTIFICATION{CONGRATULATIONS}
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:32:37 -0800
From: UK COVENTRY PROMOTIONS <coventrylotterypromotions @coventrylotto.com>
Reply-To: covpayer34@aim.com
To: petitions@[redacted].co.uk

I doubt this will get anywhere, but I may as well fish for an apology (and who knows, it might even prod them into fixing whichever hole these email addresses are leaking from).

He’s probably unlucky that this happened to me a few months ago in a quiet part of East Putney – a guy shouted across the road to me, and started waving keys and talking about petrol. It’s a bit hard, since if the story was legit, the only option you would have is to approach strangers and rely on their generosity. But in both cases, it’s word for word exactly how a short con would play out, so I walked away both that time, and last night.

Most times when I get approached by people looking for change to get the tube home, I say no (although my plan for next time is to offer to top up their few coins if they are actually willing to put them into a ticket machine!).

I think I’ve fallen for a short con once when I was drunk and walking home through Chelsea many years ago – a well dressed drunk guy on a Friday night had lost his wallet and asked for directions to Victoria Mainline, and needed some cash. He seemed perfectly legitimate, but again, it would happen exactly the same way if he had been a con artist, so he probably was. Nowadays I’m much more sceptical – I’ll hear people out, up until they ask for cash. If they can come up with some way of me helping that doesn’t involve them getting cash – say, asking me to buy the petrol and put it in their car, or asking me to buy them a ticket, they would be slightly more likely to get my help.

“I feel like going home, changing into shorts and spending the rest of the day in the park”

Hell yeah. Well, I managed to spend lunch down by the river, and bumped into Stu running down the Thames path, which will have to do I suppose.

They said on the news that the good weather would help the turnout at the local elections. I don’t think it would have stopped me voting even if it was chucking down, but it’s very sad that so few people take it seriously enough that the weather plays a noticeable impact.

Cargo Cult Science.

In the reporting of any tragedy, there will be misery, but the BBC seem to be continually focused on it. They even have a section of the Breakfast program, at 8.20am each day, which seems strangely pre-disposed to getting on some members of the public who have something distressing happen to them – generally the death of a relative – and interview them about it. But why? Generally these people have nothing else to narrate to the world other than to delve into their personal misery. It’s not as if the story is of a courageous bounce back from tragedy to do something remarkable, they’re just victims.

And the BBC revel in it. You can feel them drooling over another story full of raw personal misery, just desperate to get them on air in all it’s glory. I wish they would stop.

Well, yes. Once again, someone who has their head firmly on their shoulders makes a case against ID cards. The flaws in the idea behind ID cards can be easily pointed out – such as the fact that they wouldn’t have helped prevent any of the terrorist attacks so far – but they do need repeating.

I hope Lord Mackenzie is a “former government crime advisor” because of his rubbishness of his advice:

“Let’s look at the Soham murders. If Ian Huntley had had an identity card, would he have got the job at Soham school which allowed him to commit the murders? I think not.”

Of course not. Let’s not point out the flaws in the way Police handle data (if indeed there were any problems), let’s blame the lack of ID cards. After all, never mind what else they’ll have stamped on them, I’m sure they’ll have “Possibly a Potential Murderer” written nice and bold across them too.

I’m with the naysayers on this one. The scenarios where ID cards will be of any use are when every person has only one card, and they can be used as absolute proof of identity. But that’s just not going to happen, not now, not anytime, so you may as well work from the assumption that some people won’t have them, and many people will have fake ones. So what’s the point in having them at all?

Also, my favourite politician resigned (again) today. I’d love to say “good ridance”, but I know he’ll be back.

Impunity – Exemption from punishment, penalty, or harm.

Politicians earn a fair amount of money. But they get to employ staff as well, and often their partner or children get hired. But seeing as nobody ever suggests that they’d be better off hiring professional staff, instead of just using it as a dodge to earn more money, they get away with it year after year. Impunity.

If you’re a European parliamentarian, you can claim travel expenses for journeys to the parliament. But – sickeningly – you don’t actually have to spend the money to claim it back. So if you spend £100 on EasyJet, you can claim £250 for a BA flight you didn’t take. And that’s the rules. Last time I heard that they were going to change it, the politicians were demanding something like a 60% pay rise to compensate. Impunity.

David Blunkett resigned from government under a cloud for fiddling with the immigration system while he was in charge of it. But he’s back already (and continuing to be a prick, too). Peter Mandalson did similar things in the past – broke the rules, resigned, and then bounced back. Impunity.

We went to war in Iraq after having been given dodgy information from the Prime Minister and others. And now we know how dodgy it was, nobody has apologised, or resigned over the matter. Soldiers were buying their own boots, and struggling with dodgy equipment, but nobody took the blame. Impunity.

They don’t minute meetings in Downing Street, despite having the most important meetings in the country. This has been brought up in at least three enquiries that I know of, including the most recent one into the forced collapse of Railtrack. But it’s convenient for the politians to be able to weasel their way out of situations, so they don’t minute things. Hell, I even minute our team meetings at work, and they aren’t exactly the most important meetings happening in London on a particulary day. Impunity.

I could go on, but I’m not going to. But if politicians want to work out why we all hold them in contempt, think that they’re a waste of space and don’t turn out to decide which prat gets the cushy job this time, then they should stand up and take responsibility now and then. And that doesn’t mean saying “I take full responsibility”, optionally going on holiday for 4 months, and then jumping straight back in as if nothing had happened.