Quote on the Hutton report by Mark Steel in the Independent


"Its been like an investigation into Fred West that ignored the murders and issued a 378 page report on the shortcomings of the patio," .

NASA and ESA Mars Missions

Well I thought I would show some of the results from the Mars Missions, talk about some of the failures and some of the success.

Mars Express and Beagle 2

Although Mission Control never managed to contact the Beagle craft it was a success for a number of reasons, firstly it showed the UK could get funding and plan a project to budget and time. It also proved some of the actual key technologies which will be used again and it showed that in our own special way we could get knowledge, education and the sense of exploration in to the wider public domain. It was done how we do it best, by using good old fashioned British stubborn mindedness (and of course getting Blur and Damien Hirst involved). there are proposed plans for another Mars mission in 2007 and 2009 and I hope they bring out a Beagle 3, I have e-mailed Professor Colin Pillinger already offering my services for the next attempt!!!

The Mars Express has been a wonderful success and has already got some good results seeing its first water and also taking some spectacular pictures such as the top picture which shows a channel (Reull Vallis) once formed by flowing water. The picture was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) in colour and 3D, on 15 January 2004 from a height of 273 km. The area is 100 km across, with a resolution of 12 m per pixel.


NASA Mars Rovers

After losing contact with Spirit, they have finally started to get somewhere and are back on their way to fixing the ill rover, which is a success in itself seeing as they had lost contact with it completely on Wednesday. Also Oppertunity landed this morning succesfully so the other fella will be on its way to do some useful experiments. There have been many good things to come out of this mission as well, mostly the political ramifications that have been declared off the back of this mission. The one thing this mission has given me personally is the bottom picture, if you click on it you get the medium resolution picture, but here is the high resolution (3M) version. Just look at it, this complex human made device in the middle of another planet, just beautiful. The NASA website has a great flash animation of all its Mars landers through out it's life and has some good information on Mars

Couple of good BBC Mars pages
BBCi-Space-Mars
Race for Mars


Top photo courtesy of ESA
Bottom photo courtesy of NASA/JPL/Cornell

Naked rambler completes his trek

Never heard about this dude before a couple of days ago. He walked the 900 miles from Land's End to John O'Groats questioning society's attitude toward the human body. It is something I also believe in but I think I may try to tackle the problem in a slightly different manner as it must of been bloody cold as he only walked in socks, shoes and a hat. He got arrested several times and spent months in jail. You gotta to say the man had balls (even if they were quite small and cold)

O'LEARY WARNS OF IMPENDING PLAYER CRISIS

Well this was always going to happen with Deadly Doug killing us slowly, I have no idea how we can get rid of this virus of a man from slowly starving what was once a proud and vibrant club. The worst thing is that shity are at the moment trying to spend £10m on three players. I know we are desperate for a centre back and a forward but I think the most difficult position to get is a defensive midfielder and there is a decent one being sold at the moment in Nicky Butt (I hate saying that). It is vital we get a midfielder, forward and a centre back and it is vital that we get the players when the best are available as apposed to when we are desperate and any will do.

ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!! ELLIS OUT!!

Aston Villa Supporters Trust (check out the t shirt they are selling)

Questions from the Friday 5

At this moment, what is your favorite...

1. ...song?
Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell

2. ...food?
Paella

3. ...tv show?
Football Focus

4. ...scent?
Mango

5. ...quote?
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. - Donald Rumsfeld (the boy genius)

Add your own favourites in the comments

Athletico Cowley - The title is down to us!!!

The league table mysteriously changed today. Apparently PSV - Food Barbers which they had down as 2-1 to PSV was actually a 2-2 draw so PSV have lost 2 points. All this means that we are now level on points with PSV but top on goal difference. So, if we win our last league game, as long as PSV do not thrash IRS, we win the league!!!

MATCH REPORT by Andy Clyde - Athletico Cowley all we can do is keep wining!!!

Athletico Cowley 2 (0) vs (0) 1 Allen's Men
Goals: Tom S, Nick

Well, that was close. An incredibly close match against a very physical (cheating!!) team. If my foul last week was a yellow card, then at least one of their players should have seen red. Anyway, we won. After a tight goal-less first half, the mighty Cowley sprung into action and took the lead. The lack of defensice cover saw Allen's men get a crucial equalizer with just minutes left. Although, how, with a crocked keeper and cynical defending, they were still in the game, we will never know. And then, at 1-1 with our championship aspirations hanging by a thread, Nick charged through from inside our half and scored what has to be one of the goals of the season. Certainly, in terms of importance, it was THE most important goal.

Overall, we defended badly and didn't take advantage of their obvious weakness (in part, dare I say it again, due to some deliberate fouling), but we won and the 3 points coupled with IRS' draw means it's all to play for. If we win our last game and PSV fail to beat IRS, we win the league. Quite simple, but all we can do now is beat Allders and hope... Cup nex week.

Check out the League Table - COME ON THE COWLEY!!!!!!!

Government bring out £1m campaign to inform people that cannabis is still illegal.

On the 29th January cannabis is reclassified from a class B to a class C drug and the government is trying to inform people that cannabis is still illegal, and you can still be prosecuted. Micheal Howard is reported saying

"Cannabis should either be legalised or remain a class B drug - there was no case for this 'massive muddle in the middle'".

I tend to agree although Mr Howard would like it moved back to class B and I would like it legalised. I think I will leave the final words to Mr. Peter Lilley (Conservative, Hitchen and Harpenden) who says far better than I ever could

"Unless and until we are prepared to move from reclassification to providing legal outlets, we will not break the line between the suppliers of hard drugs and the suppliers of soft drugs. We will continue to drive soft-drug users into the hands of hard-drug pushers, and we will not achieve the advantage of breaking the link, restoring respect for the law and enabling a health warning to be put on a legally available product and displayed in outlets in which the product is available"

"The Government have got the worst of all possible worlds. They will simultaneously encourage more people to use the drug because people will know that there is no effective punishment for its use, but it will remain illegal and thus be available only through illegal gangs....."

Previous Blog Links

Legalize

Bolton 5 - 2 Aston Villa or as the BBC put it Bolton crush Villa

Well we are out of the cup then, unless we can put three goals away at Villa Park (have we ever scored three goals in a game??). That is so poor, what I think is amazing is the fact that Bolton has a good team with a couple of match winners, people who have technical ability. Villa don't have the personnel to put up a decent fight against Bolton. Doug Ellis, we are Aston Villa, leave our club and let someone else take over and actually buy us a few players to make us look like a premier team and not a first division side.

Another blinding result for the Wolves though, four points from Liverpool and ManYoo they can't have hoped for any better than that surely!!!!

Top up fee's - Tony Blair on BBC 2 Newsnight

Managed to catch Tony Blair talk last night on the BBC 2 Newsnight program talking about top up fee's where, controversially I suppose, I happen to agree with the government. I think when we were students we had it far too easy and now unfortunately everyone else has to pay for this mis-management. I have only about 5-6K debts, but because of my education, I can demand a wage which makes the paying back of these debts a minor inconvenience. I appreciate that this debt is tiny to what it would be now if I was in education but the payments they are talking will still not be stifling. This exact question was asked by someone to Professor Ivor Crewe from Universities UK.

Newshost:
His other concern is the point at which you have start paying it back. It's currently once you start earning £15,000 - that's not very much is it? To be earning £15,000 newly in work and trying to find rent and so on, is that really a point which you can start to afford to pay your fees?

Professor Ivor Crewe:
Well at the moment, students have got to start paying back their loan on a £10,000 salary. So again this is an improvement - I think to some extent it's been slightly under-estimated, slightly neglected, in the coverage of the Government's proposals. A graduate has got to repay back 9% of the difference between £15,000, which is the starting point and whatever they are earning. So if, for example, a graduate in his or her first job, say in London, is earning £18,000, which is the common starting salary, they will have to pay back each year, 9% of £3,000, which is £270 a year, which is just over £5 a week. It's a reasonably modest amount, £5 a week.

Before you all go anti-government on me, just stop for one second to think about this. The government don't have enough cash to put into the University system and need to get it from somewhere. The Universities say they will be in crisis if nothing is done. They are trying to get extra funds as fairly as possible, deferred for University graduates when they are making some money. So once you earn over a certain amount of money you start paying back and there is also a 25 year cap which after that you don't give them anything again.

What made my blood boil was some stupid mare called Julia Prague, who said and I quote

"It really infuriates me that you [Tony Blair] say: 'Why should the dustman fund the doctor?'"

"When he has a heart attack, he'll be pleased that I went to university and graduated as a doctor and therefore he should contribute towards the cost of my degree."

FACT 1, STUPID - THE DUSTMAN CONTRIBUTES ALREADY FOR THE NATIONAL HEALTH, THAT PAYS YOU. IT IS HIS FECKING RIGHT TO HAVE TREATMENT YOU DUMB SPOILT COW.

Right calm Dave, lets go slow, so you can all look at the figures I have trawled the ether for.

The dustman in Cardiff earns £15,679 (MG2 scale including "plus payments", whatever that means) which rises to around £17K if he drive's the nice shiny van. Couldn't get any details for Oxford but got the average wage for a street sweeper (I would imagine they have similar wages give or take a few K) is that he earns £14,817.

Let's now take the average wage for a GP working under a Personal Medical Services (PMS) which is £91,885, lets take the worst case scenario lets say a GP in Scotland in 2002 earned £67,306. Let's go even a little worse and they charge stupid whining cow tax and you only get 50K.

This person is already 10K in debt lets say it is her first year then after four years its 40K (with her final year exempt under the current rules), then she could pay her debt off in two years and still earn more money than the refuse collector/street sweeper. I know this is the extreme case but really is everyone really saying these new top up fee's are more unfair to the less fortunate then it was before, even though people from a less well off background get extra money than the current deal. Are we so cross with the government that because they did bad in Iraq (and boy did they do BAD), then we refuse to actually listen to anything else they bring to the table.

Maybe I have missed a major point, Slater if I have please tell me where I am going wrong.

Go on the Wolves

What a great gutsy performance from the boys beating ManYoo (HA HA HA!!!!!!!). What needs to happen is Villa win the Carling Cup, Wolves stay up and we will be on to a winner!!!!!

Homfray and Google

OK, this is going to sound real geeky but I have a massive problem, when you type Homfray into Google I am not even on the first page!!!! More annoying the only pages that are on their are for my old job (fortunatley still have access to the old works server and they now redirect here). Who cares I hear you say, well I do, I have played around with technology now for a long time and have been writing stuff down on the web since '95 and therefore why am I not number one.

Doing a Google search on your own name is very interesting, an example is that there has recently (this month, Jan 2004) been a NASA spacecraft called Stardust, which travelled very close to a comet called Comet Wild-2, collected a sample in a gel and is now returning to Earth where it will drop the sample and will then continue to fly out of the solar system. Somehow this spacecraft has my entire family's name and Ailsa's set on a microchip on board and is taking it out of the solar system. Who put that on, I can't remember doing it and neither can my family, the first time I heard about this was yesterday checking out Homfray on Google.

Also you get cool squash stories about my dad - Allan Homfray defeats last year's winner

The top of the Homfray pops are two brothers, Stuart and Dave Homfray, also born in Wolverhampton. I have emailed them to find out if we are related but it doesn't seem that way, my Wolverhampton Homfray family is different to their Wolverhampton Homfray family (I wonder if people always spell their sodding name wrong as well). I have also warned them that I am on a Google mission and I will triumph (well until the next thing that I must do, comes along).

MATCH REPORT by Andy Clyde - Athletico Cowley have yellow fever

ACFC 3(1) - (0)0 Allders
Goals: Dave, Dean, Maz
Yellow: Andy

With just a point needed to make absolutely sure of a semi-final spot, the Cowley did it in style and clinched top spot in our cup pool with a game to go. Our first clean sheet of the season (not including the walkovers) tells only half the story. Graeme was excellent in goal, including a smart reflex save from a goalbound header. They always looked dangerous with their quick passing and movement but a combination of dogged defending from us and the lack of the killer instinct from them handed us the game. Which brings us to the most 'controversial' incident of the game and our first yellow card (ever?). Sure he was clean through and sure it might have looked deliberate and cynical but I swear I never intended to take him out. Still, I only brushed his legs and he did go down somewhat theatrically. I'll just have to stump up the fine and be done with it. Anyway, well played everyone from last night. We can and will play better than that but if we can win 3-0 when not at the top of our game, the rest of the season could be promising.

Next week is the must win league game against Allens Men.

Bush proposal to send man to Mars

He has gone up in my estimation. I now rate him above the ebola virus, only just mind.

Mans right to work or society's right to evolve

I have been reading an article on the EU cutting fishing quota's and the fishing leaders warnings that these cuts would devastate their communities and it got me thinking (BBC Article - Fishing industry 'on brink'). There are a whole lot of people who have jobs which are threatened by the very nature of them either using a resource to exhaustion, having an negative effect on the environment or doing something where an increasing majority of the public find those activities morally repugnant. I wonder how on earth you can change an entire community's social identity after years, even centuries of habit. Here are a few examples of this problem.

The fishing industry is a text book example of this, take the ex-Canadian cod fisheries (this is the best article I have ever read on over fishing). In 1500 the Genoese explorer John Cabot stumbled across the fisheries off the coast of Canada as he attempted to find a new route to the spice riches of the Orient. The waters were so teeming with codfish, he reported, that to catch them all his men had to do was hang a wicker basket over the side of the ship and it would come up laden. It was still going strong 5 centauries later, until in the spring of 1954, a new Scottish fishing boat appeared off the coast of Newfoundland. It was a complete factory ship not just content with catching a few cod it just strip mined everything and to compete everybody wanted one. Within thirty years they had decimated the cod stock so badly that there seems to be little recovery to cod even after a decade. A few men with huge greed have destroyed what could have been a symbiotic relationship between us and a wonderful and plentiful resource. Now what do we do; the fishermen say that if we cut their quota's then they will be unable to provide for their families and the scientists say if quotas aren't cut there won't be any fish in a little while anyway!!

In 2000, lorry drivers blockaded fuel depots to raise awareness about taxation increases in fuel and how it was destroying their business, this again is an example of an industry which can see the beginning of the end. As the UK has a extremely poor rail network the majority of goods spend their time on lorries. Is this really the best way, lorries clog up our roads, they create pollution and they use up lots of fuel. Obviously the way would be to use a train which would lose less fuel and carry many lorries worth of stuff. What should be the cost of allowing damage to our environment or natural resources, 10 jobs, 1000 jobs, 100,000jobs.

I would go on to talk about hunting as a job where increasingly it is deemed as a morally questionable past time but I find it very difficult to keep my personal views out of it so I will leave it alone (apart from saying make it equal, let the foxes get some of the boys together, give them some weapons training, and then have a go. That's not sport it's like Man Utd playing Runcorn FC every weekend).

If anyone has a clue then answers on a postcard, winning answer gets a substation23 mug and pen (not that I have these, but if someone can work out a solution to this massive problem I am willing to get some made up)

MATCH REPORT by Andy Clyde - Athletico Cowley go marching on!!!

Athletico Cowley 5 (2) vs (0) 1 The Food Barbers
Goals: Dave, Morgan, Dean, Faraz, Own Goal (down as an own goal my arse, I scored this goal, Deano add a comment and back me up, this is my fricking goal!!!!)

Having lost 4-0 to this lot and having lost our last game, we really needed to win this one to even the score and kepp any championship hopes alive. And win we did. On paper, we might have looked a bit stretched - no Maz, Dave back for his first game after injury and looking rusty, and Tom having crawled off his sick bed - but on the night there was only one team in it. Our passing, movement and shooting were all good, and the fact that their one goal game from a freekick because we didn't make a substition quick enough shows how solid our defence was. Generally a great performance from everyone which means the league is getting very interesting. Our game against Allen's Men now takes on great significance (and the IRS vs PSV game). Effectively, if we beat Allens Men and IRS draw with PSV on the last day, we could win the title!! Our goal difference is better than everyone except Allens Men (ditto goals scored).

We do need to tidy up substitutions; be sensible when you come on or off. i.e. don't substitute yourself when we are defending a corner or a throw in, and wait for a good gap to come off. Lets avoid a repeat of last night when we were penalised for just that.

Key dates:
21st Jan - League match vs Allens Men
11th Feb - Cup finals day
22nd Feb - Friendly vs Truck (tbc) and end of season bash

Colonels abroad - Nash

Hi all,

Im still in Los Lagos in Chile and enjoying it very much. As we are are so
far south Im on 16 hours of sunshine a day and I mean sunshine .... its been
baking hot everyday and the lakes have been the perfect cool down method
(perhaps a bit too cool at times).

Spent NYE in a town called Pucon and BBQd it with the hostal folks, cool
place and wicked hostal with cool quests so cant ask for more than that.
Hiked up an active volcano on the 2nd which was a blast ... although a bit
tedious on the pace front the sliding back down 1000m on ya ass was great
fun.

Then legged it off to a mad remote town called Panguipulli and then down
again to do some more trekking type business and viewing waterfalls. Just
got back from a rafting trip down a crystal clear river ... cold but good
sport.

Will leaves tomorrow so thats me kinda on my own for 2 and a half months
... I might well be travelling down the careterra austral with a tent and
kit I bought so will be out of communication for a while but that wont be
for another week yet.

Its all very cool and enjoying it massively.

Much love to ya all.

Nash
xx

Aston Villa 2-1 Portsmouth

We are above shity, hurrah and in sixth place in the premiership. Whats is going on has the rest of the teams forgot we have no midfield. The true test is Liverpool and Arsenal in the next few games. If we can get some points out of those games then we will be ready for the two games after, the two legs against Bolton in the Carling Cup.

Come on the Villa

Happy new year colonels!!!!