Nixta Sinks

To label it a bandwagon is somewhat unfair since it obviously is an important issue, but it's infuriating when some of the closest of one's friends are passionate about a subject that one knows too little about to debate with them, having not had a vested interest in it through a) living abroad (in the US) and b) already using an ID system (in the US). One can't engage them in debate, nor see where they're coming from.

They have linked to articles in the past, but if I were to read those I wouldn't be cultivating a balanced opinion.

As far as I can tell, the UK ID system is flawed merely because it's not being run very well, is over budget and behind schedule (as rushed IT systems and millennium domes tend to be). I myself have a prototype card and the process was unobtrusive and quick (if it had worked properly - I seemed to bring all the networks down). Of course, it told our PM he was a known US criminal, so that's a bit bolloxed.

But that only manifested itself in last night's argument in the waste-of-taxpayers-money guise, which is perhaps slightly fair but really neither here nor there in the long term. Having an ID in the US is, if you're not interested in getting up to no good, a very useful and simple system. One card (for which you pay a nominal fee yourself) proves your age, that you have passed a driving test, validates your address, and shows visually that you are you, with records held on file and replacements purchasable by mail for $10 the first time you lose one (and they're not particularly easy to doctor).

The point at which I realised I was really lost was that I had been trained heavy-handedly by friends in Denver to always carry my ID (I even carry it here in the UK to help any confusion over my very large and squiggly signature, and because it's useful in banks and so forth), and I couldn't even remember if it was a legal requirement to carry it, or merely hellishly inconvenient to the police if one did not. Of course, thinking about it now, carrying a state ID *is* optional since you are required to pay for it. The upgraded driver's license must be carried when you're driving, as in this country, but that's included in the cost of a driving test.

Ultimately though I love my ID card because in Denver, waving the card out of the driver's window resignedly to a policemen approaching my car having pulled me over for speeding got me off a ticket with a smile and a "don't do that again". What such visual pacification is offered the British driver?

I awake with cloudy influenzed head today and stumble towards the kitchen via the TV remote to be greeted by non-stop looped-archive coverage (CNN style) on the BBC of the announcement that CPB and Jug-ears are to be wed.

While I make and consume breakfast and much camomile tea, the Beeb spends a hectic 45 minutes weaving a confused picture of titles (will she be Princess Of Wales - "of course she must, just as my wife is Mrs. XXXXX"), Kings and Queens ("oh no - she can't be Queen - that would be very unpopular"), approval and disappointment, the complexity of legal changes to avoid CPB becoming Queen (which would require ratification throughout the realm, in Australian and Canadian parliements amongst others), studiously avoiding the Camilla tapes, Dianagate and other such shit only to be stunned into wonderful silence by a very specific announcement from Clarence House: Camilla will be HRH Duchess of Cornwall, and will be Princess Consort when Charlie is King.

What a bullshit title. Princess Consort! Ha! That's nothing more than a cheap hooker. Consort, escort, hooker - it's all the same these days. If they're going to be all popular and modern-day (as they must be to get married after the divorce happened as it did - not long ago the church would never have condoned such a thing), at least come up with a better name. Partner Royale?

Having found myself with little in the way of potential gainful employment just a matter of weeks ago, I now find myself in the middle of a veritable deluge. Let's not even talk about YesButNoButYes and my fortuitous position as an initial invitee to what I hope and trust will become a foundation-stone of latter-day bloglication (which in truly incalcatrant fashion I shall subversively snub in the name of nose-face spiting). No, let's not. Now I find that I am in good demand not only to support and roll-out the project that I have been working on here in London for the past year (minus 3 months dossing around in New York - yes, life could be worse), but I have also been invited out to Indonesia to be Tech Lead on a project to introduce GIS to help the Tsunami Relief effort, which I have sadly (though nothing's yet set in stone) had to decline. And conjugate. And consummate.

BTW, apparently, "Incalcitrant" though a familiar word to me, has no definition in Les Dictionaires. Quoi?

I refuse to be cowed! INCALCITRANCE RULES OK!