Ok: so today’s complaint is about the state of humanity.
Today I saw on the news footage of a man being denied entry to a train in France because he was black. The taunters were British football fans (Chelsea) and pushed him back out of the train when he tried to enter as well as singing racist songs.
Ok: that’s bad but what bothered me is that there are people stood around doing nothing about it. What could they do I hear you ask. well: they could have told the trouble makers that they were in the wrong; they could have stood side by side with the black man showing solidarity; they could have done anything except just standing there.
I have already told Rowan (my 5 year old son) on many times that if he sees something is wrong it is his duty to do something about it: whether it is helping somebody who is being picked on or telling somebody they have dropped their money. He has also seen me do this on several occasions and after each and every occasion I have reaffirmed our responsibility to help others in need.
If you want to watch the footage for yourself then here is the BBC news link. So what can you do if you see something wrong? I beg you! If you see something happening that you know to be wrong, please do something about it. Don’t just stand by and let society deteriorate into one were people don’t give a shit about each other.
By the way, for the people who say that I shouldn’t be calling a black man such a thing and instead should call him coloured or something similar then I say get a life. In my mind it doesn’t matter what you call people it is the intent behind it. It is similar to the situation when Prince Harry called his army friend his “Little Packi Friend”. I can see why some people would take offense to this but the point is that his “Little Packi Friend” didn’t take offense to it, it was and probably still is a term of endearment. Should be stop calling old people old because some take offense? I don’t bloody know I’ll let you all decide that, after all I have digressed from the original subject.
OK, so what is it with big business and getting away with it.
When I listen to big business and the likes talking about things they have been caught doing I’m reminded of one of my favourite 80s song by Electronic where it says “I’ve been getting away with it all my life”.
If anybody is caught then it’s as if they can say “We have changed our ways” and expect to get away with it. I wrote this post with HSBC in mind and regarding the recent tax evasion issues. However listening to the BBC ten o clock news tonight I hear about the Daily Mirror saying that it is sorry for tapping into peoples phones and it has not changed it’s ways…what’s that you say: “turn that music down”, ok, 2 seconds…
“I’ve been getting away with it all my life…allmylife“
Ok, the music’s off, now back to the discussion. What sort of government lets these people…wait: people is such a sort word…let’s call them Bastards, yeah. What sort of government lets these bastards get away with this corruption.
If I didn’t pay my tax bill I would have my arse thrown in jail so fast I wouldn’t have time to say “…but I’ve changed my ways”
…rant over: please carry on with your normal business!
After watching the news today I find myself yet again watching news articles on countries such as Ukraine.
This is only a short post so that I can vent my anger and frustration but here’s why I’m writing this.
Lets’ take Ukraine for example. We (the west) stand by day after day while many hundreds/thousands of civilians lose their lives. We are in a position where we are too scared to take action against President Putin despite the amount of evidence that Russia is involved in the conflict.
All we can do is penalise Russia with “sanctions”.
It has got to the point where President Obama is debating whether to arm the Ukraine side of the conflict. However if he does it will just give President Putin legitimacy in his actions. All he will do is say “If you are arming the Ukraine side of the conflict I have to arm the side of the conflict that is trying to gain autonomy” and will then send his troops in carrying their heavy artillery only for the troops never to return back to Russian territory.
If the rebels get their way they will have the borders re-drawn and then the conflict will move further up the country so that Putin can start the fight all over again taking more chunks of Ukraine away from them time after time: all the time the West standing by and saying “If you don’t stop this then we will ask you to stop it again”!
These are just my thoughts on Ukraine, never mind my thoughts on Syria!
After reading several books by the brilliant Skellie I am now in the midst of moving from a traditional freelance “business” to an actual Freelance Business.
That means that instead of thinking of myself as the sole person in the business I now think of “GrandadEvans” as a business in itself.
Now that I have a new frame of mind I can now stop thinking about my own small bubble and start looking for work that may not be in my area of expertise. It also means that I am steadily creating systems that can handle things that before just got handled as they cropped up.
Time is Money
Now, when certain actions happen I have a set of SOPs to deal with them. For instance if I send an invoice off I bring up the relevant SOP and make sure that each item on the list is completed in turn. Following these SOPs I am now able to save valuable time. It may not be much per task, but several tasks per day times several days per week times several weeks per month times several months per year equals…well…it equals a lot time that I am now able to devote to the things I enjoy the most like developing clients projects.
Upcoming Freebie
Once my SOPs are more complete I shall be releasing them as a free downloadable zip file.
What else does it mean?
Well, it means that I no longer have to put up with doing many of the tasks that I neither good at nor enjoy. For instance before when I would have struggled to do some design work I now have a set of SOPs to deal with this situation. They involve outsourcing the work to a suitable person who does enjoy that kind of work. The results of such actions are many:
I get to spend even more time doing the actual development work I enjoy
My clients no longer have to cope with my attempts at design. Although I have always made clients aware that I am not a designer I am now able to offer them an all round service
My reputation gets better
The possibility arises for not only cross-sourcing but for exchanges of skills with like minded freelancers who do not possess the skills that I do and visa versa.
My Blog
Currently my blog is a mixture of personal and professional posts. This will likely change and my personal posts will more than likely move back to a dedicated site. That means that I will be free to create a blog that reaches out to a more targeted audience; it will also be an SEO boost for the site (I would say don’t quote me on that but you have it here in print).
Will I still be making my views known on social media etc? Damn right I will. Part of the “GrandadEvans” brans will be just that. I make no bones about that fact that I am very opinionated about many subjects be they political; social or even military. I would hope however that this will be seen as it is intended: an opinion. I would not want to work with people who see my opinions and think this is a reflection on my work, or even worse, let this get in the way of a good working relationship.
point and case
One of (if not my best) client, Matt Bradley from Invent Partners is also a very opinionated person who also has many views on many subjects. When it comes to our opinions we couldn’t disagree more on a whole rafter of subjects. However; we have a brilliant working relationship. Our opinions are confined to social media where we often publicly disagree with each other and it has never interfered with my work.
Since I am now outsourcing some work out it does mean that I am also able to take more work in. There is though, so much of me to go around and I can only take on a certain amount of work. For this reason I anticipate having to actually turn down work for the first time this week.
The “GrandadEvans” brand USP
What on earth could I use as a USP. Well let’s think about this for a minute shall we? What makes me stand out from other web developers:
Ex British Army
I live and breath the “Vales and Standards” which the British Army instils into it’s soldiers even as a civilian
I more or less refuse to use the phone unless I am already comfortable talking to somebody (this means that I enjoy personal meetings)
I am totally honest. I know that others will say that but anybody who has worked with me before will know that I am completely honest when it is not in my best interests and I stand to lose face; a contract or whatever it may be.
I am loyal. I am the sort of person who would rather stay with the same car insurer even if they just didn’t put my price up. I hold loyalty to be amongst one of my best qualities.
Clients can trust me: What the last two points above mean could well be expanded on by opening up the “Guide to British Army’s Values and Standards” book and choosing any page. What all this boils down to is that my clients can trust me, and after all, isn’t that what a client ultimately wants?
As a sign of my system of transparency and honesty I bet there aren’t many Freelancers out there who not only list their prices but give you a list of their bad points (as well as the good points of course). Does this make me a fool? Maybe: but that’s part of the package you get…take it or leave it.
What’s next in the blog?
Well from the blog side of things I shall next outlining a test series I plan to run on converting from procedural code to OOP in PHP. This not inly includes “Idiot’s guides” and examples but also examples of how to fit OOP techniques into procedural projects and how to convert entire projects.
You may think that I am hard after my post asking if it right for us to ctitisize the Police after they shoot someone. However you will remember that I made a point on more than one occasion that Police Officers are paid professionals. So you should expect them to do a professional job and face disciplinary action when they overstep the mark.
If you watch the video of the struggle that resulted in this an losing his life you might come to several conclusions.
It might Be that you are like my Wife and decide that the man was trying to lift his shirt up and put his hands up.
It might be that you are like me and your initial thoughts are that he was trying to stop the Officer to the front of him getting hold of his hands. I also can’t decide whether this coincides with the Officer under scrutiny putting his hands around the mans neck from behind.
As it happens there is such a thing as Justifiable and Excusable Homicide (you will see that I didn’t realise that when I started writing this post by reading what I actually post before I looked the definition up). For this reason I have no opinion on the verdict not to indict the Officer in question with charges.
You should let me know what you think though by commenting below. Do you agree with the decision or do you think he should face trial…and why.
It is correct that many suspected criminals complain of not being able to breath and if you give them the benefit of the doubt quite a few will try to run away…especially after resisting arrest which you may say that he was doing.
Regardless: you should expect an Officer to be held accountable for his actions when things go wrong.
My thoughts are with the family and friends of the deceased.
This is what I wrote before I actually read the legal definition of Homicide
Whatever you decide, the Coroner who investigated the killing decided that his death was due to Homicide. What you may not believe is that although the coroner ruled his death a homicide a Grand Jury have decided that the Officer should not face charges.I mentioned earlier that you should expect the Police protecting us to be brought to account when things go wrong. This for me is a prime example of that not happening. It seems to me that the Grand Jury are acting on behalf of a Trial jury and finding him not guilty.
You would think that a Coroner’s verdict of homicide is in enough to indict the Officer but that is not the case given that the legal definition of Homicide is .
Nearly every comment on the post was very critical of the Police Officer who shot the 12 year old & obviously there were questions such as:
Why didn’t he wait more than 2 seconds?
Why couldn’t he see it was a fake gun?
Why didn’t he ask questions first & shoot later?
…and so on.
Put your self in the cops shoes
You are now that Police Officer
Ok, are you ready? Let’s go!
You’re in your patrol car when it comes through on the radio that a member of the public has reported there is someone in a park with a gun. When you get to the scene you see a boy (well a 12 year old) with a gun & he immediately points it at you. You haven’t had a chance to examine the weapon yet so you don’t know the state of it. Now the 12 year old is no longer a boy: he is pointing a deadly weapon at you & is now a threat to your very life. Your training kicks in & you fire two shots in to the suspect to neutralise the threat.
Wow. It all happened so quick – but what options did you have really?
Lets take a look at some of your options.
Let’s get the ludicrous one out of the way. When the call comes through on the radio you think “I’m not going to see to that, are you mad!”. Obviously that would [hopefully] never happen. If it did you would last a week as a Law Enforcement officer at the most.
Option 1: “He looks like my boy!”
You pull up at the scene and get out your car in order to assess the situation. You see a 12 year old boy immediately raise what looks like a weapon to face you. Your a father of a 12 year old yourself & you think “he looks the same age as my little boy. This can’t be right”.
Outcome
The 12 year old who looks like your little boy pulls the trigger & kills you.
Option Conclusion
As a professional Law Enforcement officer you are paid to make quick decisions & tough choices in very little time. Maybe that wasn’t a real gun that he had but you are paid to protect your own life as well as the lives of others. If you wait to make the decision to fire you are putting your life & the lives of others at risk.
Option 2: You jump out of the way
You pull up at the scene & get out of your car in order to assess the situation. You see a 12 year old boy immediately raise what looks like a weapon to face you. You would like to talk to him & ask him some questions. You decide that it would be wrong to shoot without asking the right questions so you dive behind your car & try to talk to the boy.
Outcome
He sees a lone female walking by & shoots her instead.
Option Conclusion
Now that an innocent member of the public has been shot because of your inaction everybody is pointing out that a 12 year old has exactly the same potential to fire a weapon as an adult. Everybody is pointing to examples such as the Columbine high school massacre & a family no longer have their Mother; Wife & Daughter.
The above examples are just that… examples & of course they are worse case scenarios. However; If a member of the public is believed to be in danger, a Police Officer’s duty is to:
make split second decisions
formulate an immediate plan of action with the best information available at the time
Tell me: what would you do in this situation? Would you do any of the options above or would you have done something different?
What are Police Officers paid for?
Police Officers are paid to protect the public: that includes everybody from themselves to people who try to kill them. It is of course best to diffuse situations before taking permanent action such as discharging firearms, however, there are situations where their lives & the lives of others are under immediate threat. In these situations their job is to preserve life.
We have to put our trust in someone
Who exactly do you want to protect us and keep us safe at night? I will assume that as a responsible law abiding citizen you want the Police Department to protect you & keep you safe when you’re in bed at night.
Should the Police even carry firearms?
If you live in the United States of America or indeed many other countries then Police Officers are armed as standard & it's a way of life. Whether this is right or not is not for this post but consider this. In a country where guns are so easy to get hold of is it right that you ask the Police Officers protecting you not to carry them?
In the United Kingdom & many other countries we do not have armed Police Officers as standard but this debate does crop up from time to time.
Airsoft guns are not toy guns
Can you tell if this is a toy gun?
A lot has been made in the comments of the mentioned post that this was a toy gun. Let’s get this right: an airsoft gun is not a toy gun. It has the facility to fire projectiles. People are hurt every day because others think that air guns are safe. My own cat lost its eye after being shot with an air gun.
Staff who work in financial institutions such as banks & post offices aren’t trained to spot air guns. A member of staff who has an air gun thrust into their face may have the same nightmares as one who has a real gun thrust into their face.
Are Body Cameras An Ideal Solution?
In the UK some Police Forces have started experimenting with body-cameras. Although freedom activists aren’t too happy with this they have to ask themselves what they prefer. I however believe that this is an ideal solution and would stop many complaints from members of the public.
My Own Experiences
As a former soldier in the British Army there have been occasions when I have had make rough decisions. I can say from personal experience that although I was fully aware that an individual was someone’s Son, Husband & Father that completely changed when that individual became an immediate threat to either myself or anybody else. I could have asked questions first & shot later on several occasions but that was not an option. Failure to act on my part could have meant that someone else could have been killed.
I totally sympathise with any Police Officer who has to do this terrible act. With regards the incident in Ferguson, Missouri I totally understand when Office Wilson says that his conscience is clear. When you do your job properly & you fire your weapon as a last resort you DO have a clear conscience. There is nothing else you could do & like I said before… a lack of action could easily mean that you or other die.
Conclusion
The Police Officers who are charged with your protection have much training & they are paid for their work. If you do not like the Police Force or the way that they are doing things it is your responsibility to write to your MP (In the UK)/Congress person (in the US) or other elected representative. If you live in a country without elected officials then you’re basically out of luck… sorry!
The next time this happens you should stop and think not only of the conciquences of any lack of action but about what options an individual had before taking a life. You should ask yourself who you want protecting our streets. On one hand do you want a body of weak Police Officers who let themselves be walked over all of the time? This would be the outcome of a Police Force that gives people the benefit of the doubt all the time.
On the other hand do you want to get rid of the Police Force and have a gang of Vigilantes patrolling your neighbourhood. I don’t know about you but that IS NOT OK with me.
What do you think? I’m keen to know what you think & maybe what you would have done in the example above.
Today many retailers in the UK adopted an American tradition: Black Friday. In what may have been a coordinated campaign several major supermarket chains had sales that were so silly they were irresponsible. Police had to be called to various locations & there were many fights & acts of violence.
So why has an American tradition turned into an opportunity for decent British citizens to be ashamed of their fellow countrymen/countrywomen?
A brief history of Black Friday
There are rumours (which I believe started on Facebook) that Black Friday is a term from the days of slavery when slave traders used to try & sell off their remaining slaves before the winter.
The truth is that the term “Black Friday” was’t used in general terms until around the 1950s; a full century after slavery was abolished.
Since then it has many meanings ranging from:
A term used by Philadelphia Police to describe the sales on the day after Thanksgiving.
A day when people would call in sick in order to get a “shopping&rduo; day off of work.
It looks like Black Friday is here to stay. Let's just hope that the health & Safety Executive take a look at the practices used by retailers such as Tesco & Asda this year & conclude that next year there must be systems in place that will keep the shoppers safe. My suggestion would be security guards/stewards & barriers. More realistically there could be a ticketing system similar to the one used in many Argos stores.
Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come and we won’t see Black Friday in the UK again.
Irresponsible retailers
This year there have been several scenes that the major retailers should have anticipated. By not having enough staff on to deal with their sudden increase in traffic these retailers have broken a basic rule of business: keep your customers safe.
I feel for the people who were attacked today simply for purchasing a TV. It would not surprise me (in this age of litigation) if these retailers didn’t see any legal action against them for a range of claims.
Ashamed to be British
Scenes like this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PpJMjGYIUw
…make me ashamed to be British. What happened to queueing, remember that? It’s the art of waiting in line until those before you have finished fulfilling their requirements & needs.
Upon viewing scenes like this my immediate reaction was to feel disgusted that fellow Human Beings could act in such a way. Were they trying to buy discounted food in order to feed their family on a very tight budget? No…they were trying to get their hands of cheap underwear; TVs & the like.
A 72” TV for a 5 year old’s bedroom anyone?
Yesterday whilst I was waiting for my son’s school to open it’s I overheard a “parent” telling her friend that Asda was to be selling off 72” TVs & she was thinking of getting one for her child.
Her child is in my son’s class & so is only 5 or 6. Our 5 year old son doesn’t even have a basic TV in his bedroom. If he did he would fall asleep watching TV every night. Instead he has books and toys in there.
I mean, come on! Who on Earth buys their 5/6 year old a 72” TV for their bedroom? No doubt it is to go with their consoles & all their bloody killing/war games.
Yesterday I witnessed a post that chastised an Irish Football player who plays for a British football team for not wearing a poppy. The posts main image was a head shot with the word “traiter” written on his forehead. The post text then went on to say
“He refuses to wear a poppy on his football jersey….name and shame…..disrespectful, ignorant, anti-British”
And then call for the club in question to sack him. They obviously haven't considered the legalities of sacking somebody for refusing to wear a charitable emblem.
I had until this time respected this Facebook group and also followed them on Twitter but as soon as I commented on their post I “unliked” and left the group.
A poppy is a personal choice
Whether to wear a poppy or not comes down to personal choice and should not be dictated by the minority or even the majority. The moment that it becomes a sense of social duty to wear a poppy the poppy itself loses all of it's meaning.
A poppy is meant to reflect an individual's personal remembrance of the fallen from all the wars. In my opinion it is not only meant to remember those of British origin who have lost their lives. No doubt the Facebook group fails to recognise the work done by members of other nations Armed Forces as part of the British Nation. In my mind poppies represent respect and remembrance for all those who have fought and fallen in order to save their way of life. Be they British servicemen killed in Afghanistan; German soldiers killed in the World Wars or even members of the Zulu nations in the late 19th/early 20th century conflicts.
Personal Remembrance
After spending 2 years of my life on tour as part of the British Army I have lost several friends and I am sure that like me they did not fight for people to be forced to wear poppies.
Picture courtesy of The Royal British Legion
No Remembrance Ceremony for me today
Unfortunately today I am choosing not to go to the remembrance ceremony that I usually attend in Barnsley Town Centre. I instead shall be watching it on BBC TV. Does this make me Anti-British too? If people choose to feel that way then so be it. As it happens my 5 year old son is doing his favourite impression of Satan this week and it would be selfish of me to go up to the war memorial and leave my wife to cope with the situation alone (well…she would have the dog). I normally got for a few pints afterwards with my neighbour to celebrate the lives of fallen friends as is tradition. I’m sure those have fallen will understand my decision to stay at home and support my wife.
I haven’t even bought a poppy this year yet
As of yet I haven’t even bought a poppy this year. Does this mean that my employer should also sack me (ok, I’m self employed so that doesn’t count). As it happens I like to buy my poppies from a certain old veteran that stands in the centre of Barnsley each year as he is a pleasure to deal with. The fact that I haven’t seen him yet would mean nothing to this Facebook group. I have however purchased a British legion t-shirt and car sticker which are both still in their wrappers but the poppy watchers will not see this.
I wear poppies throughout the year. When I am having a bad PTSD day or to commemorate a certain anniversary. A have a many poppies placed throughout my home and I often get weird looks from people when I wear a poppy in March. No doubt they want to know why I am wearing a poppy when it is not November.
A poppy is not just for November
An act of remembrance is not just for November: it is one that can be carried out anytime to show that we are remembering the fallen.
Picture courtesy of The Royal British Legion
Are poppies losing their meaning?
When the wearing of poppies becomes a social task and something that one thinks they should do because that is what is expected of them then it loses it's meaning.
Barnsley Veteran refuses to wear poppy because of MPs
This year as Mark Ansell tweeted a Barnsley Veteran will no longer wear poppies as he believes that MPs have hijacked the who thing. After watching the video feed I have to agree with his sentiments that the wearing of poppies is becoming the expected thing. I do not agree with him regarding MPs hijacking the occasion but then I believe that unless one has suffered human loss due to war then they can never understand and can only sympathise with those who have.
So is it Anti-British not to wear a poppy?
Well… you decide. My opinion in that it is neither ant-British nor dis-respectful. There may be many reasons why people are not or don't wish to wear a poppy and I along with many many others fought for the right for the individual to make that choice all by themselves.
This is just a quick poll for a consensus of opinion. Every time I run vagrant up I normally forget that it is running and when it comes time to shutdown or reboot I have forgotten that I have vagrant running. How many of you also suffer from this problem?
If there’s enough call for one then I shall write a shell script to suspend all instances of vagrant on shutdown or reboot. Let me know what you think.
Please leave your comments below or reply on Twitter
