Fed up with the Harlequins Bloodgate saga

In a very British form of torture, the General Medical Council is hearing the case of Dr Wendy Chapman, who was suspended after she was involved in the "Bloodgate" scandal resulting from the Heineken Cup quarter final between Harlequins and Leinster in April 2009.  She's been suspended from her job, without pay, since then.

This is disproportionate and unfair treatment, and the reason that it's so unfair is that it's taken so long.  Justice delayed is justice denied.  Everyone else involved is back in business apart from Dean Richards, who according to The Guardian on 16 August 2010, is acting as a consultant for Premiership teams and still doesn't know the exact terms of his suspension..

I'm not a Harlequins supporter, and have no connection with anyone involved.  It's not as if Harlequins cheating was sensible - the player brought on to kick was crocked - and it didn't pervert the result of the match.  I think enough is enough.  GMC: please let Dr Chapman get on with looking after patients.  

iTunes 9 - too much to manage

iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.
Too bloody right.

I upgraded my iPhone 3GS to the iOS4 operating system in the week of 23rd June, shortly after the update became available through iTunes.  The download and sync failed, and I ended up with a phone that couldn't make calls, load software, or anything else.  I tried uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes - no use, then uninstalling and reinstalling all of the Apple components on my PC - again no use, and finally, under the guidance of the help line, creating a new user account and uninstalling and reinstalling everything.  At last, I was able to make the update (even though that failed a couple of times).  Every uninstall/reinstall is a long process, including restarting the PC and a couple of hours a time is not too far of the mark.

Unfortunately, to get my phone back to my own user account and user name, I had to reset it to factory settings and so I will have lost some content - photos.  Very annoying, but at least the phone was back in action.

The real irritation now is that iTunes falls over while syncing music and/or podcasts.  I'm losing content because it stops downloading podcasts that I haven't listened to for a while - the reason I haven't listened is because I can't get them onto the iPhone.

The process suggested on the web site to fix this is too time consuming to be bearable, but it was failing tonight on file 4 of 220 that it meant to sync.  The file was downloaded at about 22:30 this evening. I have a few thousand files that may or may not be the cause of the issue.  Or not at all.

iTunes is now such a complicated set of software that if anything goes wrong, there's no way to fix it.  Now I daren't buy that lovely iPad because I may not be able to sync it.  Shame.

BBC - The History of British Music pt 1

I missed this four part series on its previous showings, but it's started magnificently, with the first truly great British composer, Henry Purcell. It's the BBC at its phenomenal best. Conductor Charles Hazlewood takes us through the music, palaces, and even pubs, with some brilliant performances.  The programme started with familiar works, but then Sir John Tomlinson sang a piece I'd never heard "They that go down to the sea in ships" and later "Cold Genius" from King Arthur.  He was superb, as was Elin Manahan Thomas, who performed Dido's Lament, and later "Fairest Isle", also from King Arthur.  And thank you to the Band of the Grenadier Guards, for their dramatic performance of the Funeral Music for Queen Mary (and for Purcell himself).

This wonderful programme was first shown on BBC4 on Saturday 9th May 2009, most recently on 26th June at 03:00 and now is only available on BBC iPlayer until 20:59 pm Friday 2nd July 2010. Link here. Catch it if you can!

Give football referees the 10 metre rule and the power to sin-bin

Uruguay v France, the second match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a dire 0-0 draw, largely because the referee, who had a good game and made lots of good decisions, was hampered by players who stood their ground arguing the toss after free kicks were awarded.  This shouldn't be allowed.  It's just a professional foul, stopping any quick attacks, running the clock down, or giving enough time for defensive walls to set up.  

If players had to move immediately to 10 metres distance from the point where the kick is awarded, much of this nonsense would go away. If trouble makers could be removed for an immediate sin bin, discipline would get even better.  And how about a red card for diving?

Not a hope.  

Reasons to be cheerful

Now that we've left behind the mess of last weekend, I'm feeling optimistic.  It looked as if there was a real possibility (as seen from outside) that a Lib-Lab pact could be formed, keeping Brown in power for months or years.  The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats seemed to be struggling to reach an agreement, and various die-hards in both parties were telling us all about red lines.

In important ways, the components of the new Government fit my views perfectly.  I'm an economic conservative, strongly so; I believe in markets, opportunity, rewards for enterprise and penalties for failure, and having been a borrower, I hate uncontrolled debt and spending money that can't be paid back.  Socially, many of my views are liberal; some views expressed by readers of some of the more right-wing papers make me sick, and I think that we should fight hard to maintain the tolerance for which this country is renowned. This Government can steer a middle path, leaving extremists behind - the best of all worlds.

I think that both party leaders have played a blinder.  Clegg has achieved more for the Lib-Dems than could have been thought possible last weekend, and Cameron has gone further too.  Maybe Brown's death-bed conversion to the faith of electoral reform was the catalyst, but never mind.

The combined parties have offered Cameron a much larger pool of talent from which to fill the roles in the new Government.  His appointment of more Lib-Dems than demanded by the coalition agreement is a master stroke, money in the bank when decision-making gets tough in the fight against Labour's legacy of debt.

All in all, it's been a great start.  I'm concerned about electoral reform; I don't want to see BNP MPs at Westminster. The horse trading that we saw in the last week could have allowed a cynical Lib-Lab pact to deny the people the change of Government that we so badly needed; 'first past the post' elections usually allow the electorate to choose.  I'm nervous about the consequences of fixed term Parliaments that stop the country from voting when a vote might be the best solution.  But these questions can at least be addressed with careful consideration rather than as the sort of stitch-up deal that could have happened.  Reasons to be cheerful...