My grandfather passed away in his sleep at my grandparent's home in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania some time during the night. He was around 85 years old and I'm told that he was not in too much pain when he died. My aunt (who also lives with them together with my uncle) called mum to let us know around 05:00 this morning. I've spoken to both of them to give my condolences but understandably, they're both very busy making arrangements for the funeral later this afternoon and with letting the rest of the family know. Two other grandchildren are in the US/Canada so it'll be at least a few more hours before news reaches them. I guess it hasn't really sunk in yet but that'll probably happen once all the immediate rush settles down. My heart and love go out to my grandmother who i think is taking it hardest of all, them having both lived and grown together for a very long time.

I'm not really sure how to feel right now. I'm sad of course that he's died, but I can't say I knew him all that well. Even though we usually visit every two years or so, I haven't really spoken to him much since our last trip back in 2007. Grandfather was ill with suspected Alzheimer’s disease, but ironically, he was reportedly getting better following a change of medication about a fortnight ago. I guess fate, or Karma, or whatever you want to call it just works in strange ways like that; either that or they just have a damned weird sense of humour. Anyway, I guess I'm feeling a little remote from it all right now, and not sure whether to be sad, fall to pieces or just be philosophical about it all and accept that these things happen and hope wherever he's moved on to on his next great adventure he's happy and free from pain.

Mum's also upset about it but I guess she's trying to brave it and continue with life as best she can (EDIT: The company she works for have been quite sympathetic about it all and have given her time off until Monday on compassionate grounds. They were quite angry that she even chose to go in in the first place. At least it's good to know they can be understanding when the need calls for it). She's not going to go over to Tanzania, even though I've said its fine by me if she does and she should go over now if she really wants to rather than possibly regret it later. I can't for obvious reasons, which I think and hope everyone will understand.

Well, I have a list of jobs from mum and for myself to work through today, and will probably spend the rest of the time fielding calls from friends and family and generally trying to move on with life with something resembling normality.

Grandfather, rest in peace, wherever you are, Ameen. We love you, always have and forever will.

Yes indeed. I was in this morning to see Nicola Duncan, the admissions coordinator at the University to find out what stage I'm at regarding my degree classification and what mark I can expect given performance over the summer. To my surprise, I'm still on track for a distinction but I'll need a CAS 18 or above for the Student Engagement Programme report to qualify. I asked about the grades for Business Development and Research Methods & Professional Conduct in Business but was told that it wouldn't have mattered if they were any higher - it's the summer work that counts. Nicola also re-affirmed my impression from last week that nothing will be done regarding the outcome of those courses' examinations. Word must spread like wildfire in this department - she seemed to already know about my feelings on the subject and perhaps also my talk with Lyn and Russell last Thursday. Well, I guess I'll have to accept that but as I said this morning, with all due respect we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this matter as I don't think it's one which I can change my stance on. It's truly unfortunate that we can't reach a consensus here, but life's like that I suppose. For now, I can rest happy that I'm on track for success if I can keep it together over the summer. I'm just going to forget the past for now and look to the future.

Yesterday's meeting has got to have been one of the worst I've had with the University since I started my Masters in September.

The whole sorry saga started when I received an e-mail from someone in my class complaining about the marking for the Business Ethics (or Professional Conduct in Business to be more P.C about it) last Friday. They wanted to remaining anonymous as they didn't want to be seen to be arguing against the University in case it backfired on them (which itself speaks for people's trust in the University) but asked me to pass it on to the appropriate personnel. As the student rep for my degree programme (MSC in Management Innovation & Change) I have a duty to and feel honour bound to help students where I can. Over the weekend and following the exam results being released on Tuesday, I heard from another student with similar and additional complaints. The original student then forwarded me e-mails from others in the class who all had the same grievance and also ones relating to the Business Development course. I too have an issue with the marking for Business Ethics, but I've tried not to let this cloud my judgement in dealing with the above.

I was due to meet with Ms. Lyn Matchelor, the programme leader on Thursday to discuss my summer placement with Cornerstone, but following a separate e-mail from me on the above she said we could discuss both topics at the same meeting. This was the precursor to what I think is fair to say was a not insignificant disaster. Less than two minutes after I started airing the class's concerns, she was off to summon Russell Williams, Postgraduate Director of the Business School. I've no issue with that, the more people that know what's going on, the better. However, it was the way she stressed the urgency of the situation to him that got to me, as if she didn't feel she could defend or argue herself without him being there. If there's one thing I can't stand it's people who can't think for themselves. Anyway, to cut a long story short, both of them stood behind their procedures and University policy and seemed to dismiss any suggestion of a re-marking out of hand. When I raised the point that due to all these issues and a failure to communicate with students on the part of departmental personnel trust in them was as good as non-existent, they seemed surprised that anyone would feel that way. Doesn't that in itself show how out of touch they must be? I wasn't just making this all up as I went along to sound impressive, and if it weren't for that fact that people don't see the use in complaining any more as obviously nothing will get done, I'd have brought other students along with me to strengthen the overall case. Anyway, the end result is that all that's going to happen is an e-mail will (and indeed now has) been sent to all students regarding the Business Development course, outlining the fact that marks were given due consideration at the exam board, re-marked again, etc, etc, but it stops far short of what I expected given what was said during the meeting. Maybe next time I should ask to record the meeting and then see how they try to hide behind their procedures then! Nothing was said about the Business Ethics course however it was suggested I meet with the course coordinator next Tuesday to discuss issues with him. I'll have to see how this fits with my placement schedule. One positive thing was that I was told I could take other students with me if I wished. I may well do that if they wish to and if they're free.

I can honestly say that at no point during the meeting did I feel that either Lyn or Russell really seemed to understand the feeling behind these issues. They seemed to take the general 'procedural' issues on board, but none of their solutions really matched what the students will be looking for. Oddly enough, Russell even commented that I should not fan the flames of these matters as it will detract from finding a viable solution (although he didn’t use those exact words). I thought that was ever so ironic. I know there is protocol that has to be followed in all cases, but there is always an exception to the rule where new ways of resolving crisis must be developed. After all, that's how we learn and move forward when the unexpected happens. As a student rep I was disappointed, and as a student whose marks have also suffered due to all this I'm totally outraged at the way this was handled. It's like giving a dog a bigger bone and hoping they'll be satisfied and not come back for more. At this time I'm torn between just letting things lie and not making myself an outcast (even though I probably am already, with the staff anyway) or causing an even bigger scene about this.

People have an odd way of trying to see a personal motive whenever something serious like this comes up. I’d just like to say for the record that at no point during this affair have I exaggerated my own feelings or issues to try to add fuel to the fire. I speak on behalf of the students who have come to me as their student rep seeking a resolution to existing issues and nothing else.

And it’s a very major but. The exam results were out today and I have to say I've got mixed feelings. I have a CAS 19 and 18 in Business Innovation & Change and Understanding Organisational Change respectively, a CAS 17 in two other courses, 16 in Enterprise Creation (that's the group mark and we're all given the same individually) and an upsetting 15 in Research Methods & Professional Conduct in Business. It’s the last one I'm really disappointed about, as even though I admit it wasn't my best course, I'm not at all happy about how the two courseworks were marked. For example, I've been marked high for spelling and grammar in one, but low for the same in the other. Now, I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here, but even on a bad day I'd think I'd have at least spell checked the essay before submitting it? It's the same for formatting and layout. I have the paper here with the marks and there was not even any explicit demand for a particular layout style, which I may have ignored to justify the low mark.

The problem, and here's where I get really annoyed, is that there's no procedural way for me to appeal this. If I tried to make a fuss about it, the University wouldn't listen. They'd probably say I got good grades in other courses, and call me a petulant child for causing a scene because I was less than perfect in one course. And I know other students who feel the same way. OK, they are somewhat fair to mark me down for the lack of concrete theory used in the paper, but I'm sorry, the aesthetics were fine and I really don't feel there are any grounds for complaint on their part.

My friend who's in a similar position has cautioned me against rocking the boat too much, and I can see her point. Better to keep the personnel who can still be of use to me on side and sort this out after the summer if I can but before the Graduation Board meets than alienate myself now and have problems when it matters most.

I’m not happy with all this, but if there is a plus side to this all it’s that mum was pleased with the majority of the outcome. I’ve explained my grievances about the marking and whereas I think she sympathises a little I don’t think she gets the full gravity of the situation.

All for now, from a very unhappy and disillusioned me.

Hello!

I have what amounts to a rather good past seven days in complete contrast to the week before.

We finally had enough of the heating problems on Wednesday as well as waiting for our regular engineer to call, so we called Scottish Gas and, after taking out a repair contract costing £2 per month had one of their guys out first thing on Thursday morning. He quickly diagnosed a heating fault and after conducting all the standard safety tests identified the problem as being a clogged tube in the boiler that was causing it to overheat from lack of water-cooling. This also cause water to flow back through the system and out through the overflow outside the house. The tube was promptly cleaned, after which at my request the guy checked out the water tank in the loft, pronouncing it perfectly safe and in full working order. The same was said for the hot water tank and associated systems. The only downside was that he advised us that the current overflow system poses a safety hazard to the neighbours due to the potential for scalding water to escape from it. We must now make the decision as to what to do given that caution. After all this, the heating works much more efficiently than ever before, heating up quicker and meaning we don't have to raise the thermostats as high. I expect the whole job to cost around £120 (discounted due to the contract) but have not received papers for it yet. It's a lot of money but its worth it for the peace of mind it has afforded us and the potential for fuel savings during the winter.

Our insurance claim for the garage doors is almost sorted. It turned out we hadn't heard back from them before now, as they had apparently not received confirmation from our contractor as to the legitimacy of the claim. What actually happened was that the contractor spoke to the insurance company two weeks ago, but their computers crashed taking the records of the claim with it. It makes us wonder why they did not contact us about this directly, as they must have known about the crash and surely would have checked to see if anything was missing. Anyway, I asked the contractor to call back and he spoke to a rep at the insurers, co-incidentally, the same one he spoke to before. The long and the short of it is that a cheque for the quotation amount should be with us shortly so we can have the work commissioned this week or next.

Ali and I are on speaking terms again, and the whole issue of his volunteer expenses refund seems to have blown over. Co-incidentally, I had a call from the club treasurer yesterday regarding a discrepancy between the amount owed and the total shown on the expenses receipts. This was quickly sorted and was probably an error by whoever added up the original total. Ali should have his cheque later this week, which he was really happy about. What greatly pleased me however was an assurance that the treasurer has no problems with honouring the volunteer expenses for next year, should we once again attend the championships at Wolverhampton. I just have to raise it with the Committee nearer the time to have it formally ratified.

I don't know if you recall my battle with Maplin from a few months back? Basically they sent me different halogen bulbs to the ones I ordered and to those listed on the website, confirmation e-mail and despatch note. They refunded the cost of the bulbs when I returned them, but not the delivery charge. I'd written two letters and sent two e-mails to them since then to no avail. Yesterday I spoke to trading standards who assured me I have a solid case against Maplin, but advised that I should send them one last letter outlining my intention to escalate the matter if I didn't hear from them within seven days from the date of the letter. I was half way through writing that letter this morning when I received a short, one line e-mail from Maplin stating that they would refund the delivery, but not the excess cost of the replacement bulbs ordered from elsewhere. I guess this is the best I can hope for and I'm going to accept this offer as opposed to pushing the matter further and just causing more stress and hassle for myself. Discretion is definitely the better part of valour here.

My Tesco Credit Card finally arrived and was activated on Friday. However, just to add another chapter to the saga, they failed to add my mother's maiden name to their security records despite asking for it during the card application process. Thus, I couldn't register for online banking. I phoned them and it was all sorted, but I still have to wait for a stupid code to be sent to me by post to complete the registration. This after the electronic signature mechanism breaking down, three lost customer agreements, one of which was incorrectly signed due to misleading instructions on the covering letter, and the details of my card not matching those on their system. Honestly, why can't things be simple like with MBNA, which was the smoothest experience I've ever had with a credit card provider? However, at least the balance transfer has now gone through so I can stop worrying about interest piling up on my Virgin card. The balance transfer will remain interest free with Tesco until next summer, at which point if needs be I'll start the whole transfer process again with another card.

In other news, all my phones are now working again, my air conditioner is up and running after Ali gave me a bung for it to replace the one lost in transit when my friend originally sent me the unit from London, and I finally sold the chainsaw I bought two years ago ()never used) for a slight profit.

Overall, a good week, don't you think?

Wow! Quick or what? I just received a call from the Internship Coordinator letting me know I've been accepted for the Cornerstone placement. I thought they would take a few days at the least to reach a decision, but apparently, they were happy with both my CV and myself. I have to read over the Terms & Conditions of the placement and confirm my acceptance, after which we'll presumably have meeting to clear up any final points before I officially start.

Wonderful news and a wonderful start to the week.

Hi!

Following being rejected for a summer placement with Aberdeen Foyer (their loss!) I had an interview with Cornerstone this morning, which I think, went rather well. Their offices are in Atholl House, the same building as the old tax offices used to be but a devil to get to by taxi, as there is no parking outside the building so it's a walk up from the Station Hotel (which in turn has restricted parking). BTW, anyone else in Aberdeen know when those never-ending works on the Guild St. Bridge are ever going to finish? The funny thing is they don't actually seem to be doing anything there, but I guess that's nothing new. Anyway, Cornerstone seem like a likeable and open-minded lot. I met with a Ms. Jayne Wood, the head of department, and later with three other personnel. It was a good discussion, I thought, with a few laughs and discussion about the undertaking of the project. In simple terms, it's determining whether an SVQ (Scottish Vocational Qualification) would enable staff to offer a better service to clients. I can see several ways this project could be expanded, so although ten weeks seems like a long time to work just now, I think if I were successful, it would pass quite quickly. One interesting point was that Jayne raised the possibly of extending the remit of the project into other areas, something which the Foyer hadn't considered. There's also the possibility of travel here to Cornerstone's other offices around Scotland.

I wasn't able to ascertain whether there are any other candidates up for consideration for this placement, but wish me luck anyways. I hope that they won't take too long to get back to me whatever the result. Speaking of results, the exam results are out tomorrow. For some reason, I'm quite worried about them. This has not been the best session what with illness and more than a few teaching issues, so I can only hope I havne't damaged anything beyond repair. I'm still aiming for the top and will continue to do so.

It seems like forever since I last updated this, but there is at once plenty but yet not very much to say. Life has taken on a sort of monotony, which is at once both exciting yet tedious. I find myself carrying a burdened mind this evening, and thought writing it here was perhaps the best way to get it out of the system.

This week has been somewhat of a disaster. Last Thursday mum reported that the pipe outside the house was leaking again. She suspected that it was the heating system, and upon contacting our regular engineer, we were told to bleed the radiators with the heating off. This made almost no difference at all. Yesterday, my regular taxi driver, who also incidentally worked as a plumber previously, had a quick look, only to tell us that we have been told almost complete and utter rubbish all this time. He proved by example that you are supposed to bleed the radiators with the system on, and indeed even after he did just two of them we noticed a significant reduction in the leakage. This is quite depressing. We put our trust in people who know their trade, and trust them to give us sound advice. We pay good money for them to come out and repair problems, yet we are never told how the problems were repaired, or how to avoid them happening in the future. Our regular engineer was the person who installed the heating, and indeed did most of the plumbing around the house about 15 years ago. He has always proved reliable, and we have had no reason to question his judgement. Now, we found out from someone with whom the situation was discussed purely by chance that what we have been doing all this time has had no effect whatsoever, and that we have in fact been pouring money down the proverbial drain in trying to fix problems, which recur every few months. I have decided I will bleed all the radiators this weekend, following the new set of instructions and hopefully this will solve the problem. The worst-case scenario is that the large water tank in the loft has overflowed, and is therefore saturating the ceiling. This would leave us in exactly the same position as four years ago, when half of the upstairs ceiling collapsed due to being waterlogged. That’s just not something I even want to contemplate right now.

Another issue causing frustration is that relating to the replacement of our garage doors. The front door has been either vandalised or damaged by a reversing car, and the side door is falling off its hinges. We filed a claim with our insurance company, and after taking some photos and sending them a quotation from a local repair outfit, thought that was the end of the matter. Nearly 10 days later, when trying to follow up the claim, we were told that we needed a crime reference number from the local police, which we did subsequently obtain. However, it makes us question why we weren't told this before, as it is hardly a difficult thing to do and would have saved so much time, stress, and inconvenience. Now that we have filed the relevant details with the insurance company, we can only hope that the local repairperson contacts us soon to arrange a time and date for the work to finally be completed.

This week also started badly as one of my friends who is also on the same course as me at university was accused of plagiarism and had to attend a formal meeting to discuss it. This is bad enough, however what is worse is that she was only told of this accusation the day before the exam for that same course. My friend has completed seven course works before this without problems, so it is understandably very distressing for her. Fortunately, but quite ridiculously as well, the result of the meeting was that it was concluded that it was a computer fault which detected an unusually high level of similarity between her work and that of other students. However, in a university, which prides itself on excellence, one must wonder how such a situation could arise, and how such a contingency was not anticipated beforehand. Luckily, for my friend, no sanctions will be taken against her, and a high mark she obtained for that particular coursework will be retained.

Another depressing situation is that which arose with my friend Ali earlier this week. In a nutshell, he is due reimbursement from the rifle club to cover the money he paid to Jim, which in turn cover his volunteer expenses during our recent trip to Wolverhampton. For one reason or another, the club treasurer has been dragging his heels over this matter, and as the representative for all the visually impaired shooters who is also on the club committee, it was my responsibility to ensure that the correct papers were filed to ensure that the payment could be made. It now appears after some communication with the treasurer, that he confused the payment of this year's expenses with last year's, as well as the fact that the reimbursement had already been approved by the committee in April. It doesn't help that the treasurer's day job often takes him out and about travelling, so he has little time to spend doing admin work. Ali is waiting for a new computer to be delivered, and needs the money to balance his bank account in order to pay for it. Understandably, the delay in getting his money back, together with the swings and roundabouts being perpetrated by the treasurer is getting to him. This all came to a head on Wednesday, when he called me to tell me of the latest developments. The guy started ranting and raving about the incompetency of the treasurer, the committee, and how all of this was just too much hassle. He even threatened to give up shooting altogether and withhold any equipment currently on loan to any of the shooters, and basically said that he could 'sod the lot of us'. I know this is quite selfish of me, but this is the last thing I want to see happen, given that he has given his rifle to me on loan, and it's a darned good rifle at that. The whole conversation became rather heated, and whereas I'm not one to take things too personally, I was trying to offer what I hoped was constructive help. Ali has always said that he doesn't want to burn any bridges with members of the club or the committee. I therefore suggested that he should write to the treasurer one last time, explaining the position, outlining the confusion and stating clearly in black and white what the solution was. His retort was that his forte was doing DIY and shooting, and not writing long-winded e-mails. When I offered to write a template for him, whom he could then send to the treasurer, he said I could do it if I wished but from the tone of his voice, he couldn't care less. Personally, I don't really care if he's angry or not. What bothers me is the fact that he seems to be getting angry at completely the wrong person, and it's far from constructive. I know that often we just need someone to speak to who can be a good listener and that's that. And I'm more than happy to play that role, and I've done it for several of my friends over the last few years. However, when the tone of the discussion turns personal, and has underlying sentiments that it is my fault that the current situation is as bad as it is, that is something I find very hard to take, especially as there is nothing really more that I can do to resolve the situation. As things transpired, I did write two e-mails to the treasurer that same afternoon, and I now understand that he will review the entire matter over the weekend. I have also sent him electronic copies of all the papers on file with the committee detailing the expenses incurred, which the treasurer had apparently not received. I have also alerted the committee secretary to the problem, and he will be looking into this as well. Since then, I've probably only said about three sentences to Ali, although I think I'm still on good terms with his wife. Ali admittedly has apologised to me, although it wasn't very much. I would just be happy with an understanding that one must not get angry at the wrong person, that it is very easy to lose friends and more difficult to make and keep them, and leave it at that. As far as I'm concerned that would be water under the bridge, and everything could return back to normal. What happens is yet to be seen, although I think a few days for everyone to cool off would not be a bad thing.

Apart from this, life has been fairly uneventful. I sat four exams towards the end of May, all of which I think past of at least somewhat successfully. Each of the exams had accompanying coursework earlier in the session; however, I'm still waiting for the results for some of these. I received a somewhat lower than expected mark for business development, however I am still considering whether or not to appeal this. Other than that, I am waiting to see what I will be doing over the summer. I have a choice between either a dissertation or a student engagement placement. The latter involves working over the summer for a local organisation selected by the university, the work for which will be assessed in the same way as the dissertation. I have already had one interview with Aberdeen Foyer, however as there was also a second person interested in the placement I must wait for them to be interviewed, and for the organisation to make a decision as to who they want to take on board. I was also told today that Cornerstone would be interested in seeing me for an interview; however, I am still waiting for a date and time to be confirmed. I would not mind working at either of these organisations, however as Cornerstone have worked for me before providing support when I was younger, I could probably empathise with them more however this may affect our working relationship. Until such time as I know more on any of these, I pretty much have the time to myself.

As if this week weren’t bad enough, other things that went wrong included my phone crashing just one too many times requiring the firmware and all applications to be reinstalled, my laptop going kaput after I tried out a new anti-virus program (Avira Premium Security Suite) recommended to me by one of my other friends, Tesco’s taking an age to sort out my credit card application and my having to fork out a boatload of cash for shooting pellets and target cards. After all that, I’m just about ready for the whole rotten week to end and to start afresh on Monday.

That's about it for now, however I'm only sorry that I wasn't able to report anything more positive this time. Unfortunately, that's just the state of mind I'm in at the moment, but as I said before hopefully putting this down in print will help to clear my head. Also, I'm using speech recognition for this, so apologies if it comes out somewhat more verbose than usual. And yes, I know there are far too many commas here, but that’s just something I’ll have to watch out for when using speech.

Hello,

Once again, it’s been ages since I posted anything really newsworthy about my life, and once again, it is only due to someone nudging me on MSN and asking me about it a couple of days back. For the last month or so life has been somewhat of a painful blur, interspersed with Uni and the odd administrative toil so I guess you could say I haven’t really been living much of a life.

It all started when I got back from holiday in April, and went to see the doctor about this whole feeling so tired that I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning business. He suspected anaemia, as I have had a history of this over the last few years, and he therefore ordered a blood test. This came back positive for anaemia, and also revealed a rather high glucose level. I was put on iron tablets almost right away, but it took two more blood tests before the doctor was satisfied with the results for my glucose levels, namely that they are dangerously high to the point where I am on the borderline between being diabetic and not. I’ve been taking the iron tablets since then, and I have to say that I am noticing a slight difference, but probably not as much as I would have liked or hoped.

At the same appointment in early April, my doctor also decided to advise me that he was recommending I stop taking the effervescent paracetamol tablets, which I take for both the neuralgia in my feet and the headaches. Apparently, they are trying to reduce all soluble tablet prescriptions, due to the high sodium content. The result of me moving to regular tablets was that my feet both rebelled and it left me in agony for about a week, even after I started taking the original ones again. It almost got to the point where I was going to the hospital for morphine injections several times a week, and I was told that if this continued my only option might be to return to taking the effervescent codeine-based tablets of the past. Needless to say, this is something I wanted to avoid with a passion. Things are starting to get back to normal now, or whatever serves as normal these days, however there are still long spells of pain where it is difficult to focus on anything else other than the agony flowing through my veins.

Then, about a week into the new University session, and coincidentally on the same day as yet another blood test, I started noticing that both hands were tingling, and would go numb from time to time. I went to see the doctor and he diagnosed me with carpal tunnel syndrome and provided me with a splint for my left hand. To cut a long story short, almost a month later the left hand is starting to feel a little bit more normal, however the right hand is still almost the same as it was, partly due to it taking them nearly 3 weeks to find a splint for it. you would think that with the new outsourcing of health facilities to local medical centres, that they would be able to obtain these things a little faster, but clearly not. The result of all this has been that I have been unable to take notes in lectures, which is quite upsetting as I feel it significantly, diminishes my understanding of the subject. More importantly, I have had to get an extension for two pieces of coursework, which will now probably only be handed in a few days before the exams which start next Wednesday. It was actually quite funny as I originally hoped to only use the extension for one weekend, but was almost ordered by the secretarial personnel at the business school to take it easy and not work at all. I’m a little ashamed to say I took this advice literally, hence the major backlog of work. I’ve been trying to get around my hands being disabled by using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, which I finally installed and configured. I’m pleased to say that the accuracy seems to be significantly better than in version 9. Also, to my pleasant surprise, the preferred version works with Microsoft Outlook, something I only thought was possible with the professional version before. I would be interested to hear back from you as to whether you think my style of writing has suffered in any way given that I’m not really used to speaking what I want to write aloud. I definitely feel this has an impact on the way in which I phrase things, but I guess this is not something you realise fully until someone points it out to you.

Honestly, the way things have been going recently it’s quite hard to find anything really positive to say. I suppose one interesting thing was that I received a new talking book player from RNIB after writing to them expressing interest in testing the new device. There are several functions, which I really like, such as the faster fast forward and rewind, time and date announcement, and best of all the ability to copy from CD to USB, or the internal memory. I am also part of the focus group providing feedback on the player. Another exciting thing that happened was that my interview for the NB magazine was finally published, as well as that for the BBS Target magazine. I’ll have both of these on the website as soon as I can get round to it.

I guess that’s really all for now. I should get back into the habit of updating more regularly, especially as I don’t have the excuse of not being able to type any more what with the speech recognition and all. I’m really hoping my mood and life in general will pick up sooner rather than later, as now really isn’t the time for a major breakdown. Here’s hoping life has been good to you all, or at least better than it has for me.

Until next time, take care and all the best.

Today marks a very, very sad day for us all.

This morning the Stockholm District Court handed down guilty verdicts, including one-year prison terms and a 30m SEK fine to four of the key members of The Pirate Bay Bit torrent website. The charges included the promotion of copyright infringement by the site's estimated 22m worldwide users and accessory to the same. This case marks the first of its kind in Sweden, which has always taken a relatively liberal attitude to file sharing in the past, and could set a dangerous precedent for other states in the years to come. The four men charged have vowed to appeal. This case comes after several years during which TBP offices have been raided and noises made about putting a stop to their activities, however this is the first time legal action has been sought.

Today marks a dark day for the freedom of online communication and collaboration, a hallmark of the modern times we live in and one, which we have accepted as fundamental in our 21st century global society. For me, this case rings sinister alarm bells. Granted, and setting any economic nuances aside for a moment, an argument can be made that illegal file sharing of copyright material is an unacceptable offence, but I feel this sidelines the many non-illegal uses of file sharing technologies, which are used every day. These include, for example, the wide distribution of open-source material so as to increase its accessibility to a worldwide audience, and the sharing of individually created material for mass, non-profit consideration and benefit where no copyright is intended or enforced. Linux and the considerable work related to it contributed by the end-user community is just one example of this.

This is why this case is so appalling. In many ways, this case is no different to the prohibition of freedom of expression rampant in so many countries, yet which is denounced so vigorously by the general international community. If one can be allowed to share one's view verbally on the street, or publish articles in the press, why cannot one share one's media online? Granted, this is far short of major copyright infringement, but this just proves my point that this case has tarred all these activities with the same brush. This is apart from the fact that, under both Swedish law and those of many other countries, it is not an offence to provide links to any material, no matter how legal or illegal, which is not hosted by the link provider. This is akin to saying that putting up a signpost in the street pointing to a house that is not yours is illegal. It is not. Even if someone then went and used your signpost as a directive to rob that house, it is still not illegal. It's not your fault the house was robbed, unless of course you instructed the robber to do as such, which is a different kettle of fish entirely.

I suppose it is just good that not all politicians have completely lost their minds, and that even those at the European Parliament level agree that this whole affair is nothing short of ludicrous. I have to agree also that there is definitely a level of political jockeying here, as the decision of the court is almost a complete turn-around from what was being said just a few months ago.

Two articles, which I hope, shed light from both sides of the case:
TheLocal.se - Pirate Bay Guilty
Svenska Dagbladet - Peter Sunde Kaller Domen Bisarr

I just hope that this does not spawn negative repercussions, which spill over into other areas, and that it does not provoke society into becoming even more insular than it already is. That is anything but what we need in the here and now and far from conducive to a brighter, more liberal future.