Poker chums

Eastbourne in the spring time..

Hi all,

I took a few photos while we were in Eastbourne last weekend, but this one came out pretty well. I was just taking a couple of close ups of the flower beds along the seafront, and due to the angle I took this one at, it shows an out of focus Eastbourne* in the background quite nicely.


A Rose by any other name.

Cheers

Liam


* Seeing Eastbourne out of focus was not a first on this weekend trip. :) Those sweet sherrys can be rather overpowering.

Sideblogging, across the universe..

Hi all,

Okay the title is a bit a bit dodgy (from "Startrecking", by The Firm), but what the hey..

As you may have seen, I stuck a side blog thingy on here a few days ago. Now I'm not entirely sure to what purpose it will serve yet, but that shouldn't stop me.

I've seen more than a few comments regarding sideblogs. One that appears often is the fact that once you sign up, it states that..

Your Sideblog will be wrapped in 4 tags:

1. DIV class='sideblog' for overall styles

2. SPAN class='sideblogtitle' for post titles

3. SPAN class='sideblogdatetime' for the date/time

4. SPAN class='sideblogpost' for the post body

Create classes in your CSS and you're off and running!

.. check out the last line??? "Do what with classes in my what??" Hands up, if you got that far and decided, "well it works, and I can always add a bit of HTML to make it pretty".

Of course most people who blog through a purpose built medium such as blogspot do so because all they need is to be able to type, and can run a blog without knowing anymore than the basic layout of a keyboard, let alone how to code web pages.

Well to demonstrate the relative ease with which you can do this, I've "Created classes" in my CSS to show you how it's done. Below is the code that I've used for my own sideblog.

/* Start of Sideblog Styling ----------------------------------------------- */ .sideblog { background-color:#FFFFFF; border-style: outset; padding: 5px; height: 320px; overflow: auto; margin-bottom: 20px; } .sideblogtitle { text-transform: capitalize; font: bold; font-size: 85%; color: #ee0000; } .sideblogdatetime { color: #0000ee; font-style: italic; font-size:62%; } .sideblogpost { font-family:"times new roman"; font-size:90%; } /* End of Sideblog Styling ----------------------------------------------- */

To begin with, CSS stands for "Cascading Style Sheet". This is basically a site wide standard that keeps all your text, layout etc. the same over the whole site. When you type your posts to your own blogs, I'm sure that you've used the HTML codes to bold your text, or to change the size of a word or two. What css does is to cut out many of these local commands by adding them to the styling of the page. Right click on your own blog, and you will find the css code between the {style type="text/css"} and {/style} tags.

As a side note, and a handy hint, when adding your own custom styling, look for the closing style tag (/style) and put your styling immediately above it. This way, you'll find it again quickly if you wish to change anything. Also, you can see that I've inserted an opening and closing note to it, so I know when I've found it. To put invisible comments in your styles, just..

*/put your text inside an asterix and a forward slash*/

.. and then close with the same.

It's a simple enough task to add the areas to be formatted, to your css and then just insert any styling that you want. The corresponding formatting has already been added to your sideblog template (where you fill in your sideblog text, title etc.) but you can't see it. Don't worry about it.. :)

The first one you add will be the ".sideblog" class. This is where you can control the overall size, shape colour etc of your sideblog area. You start by typing..

.sideblog

then you insert as few or as many styling commands as you want to. The formatting is surrounded by curly brackets {}. Inside these you can describe background color (this stays transparent if you don't mention otherwise, keeping your original background color), borders size etc. You can see that I've designated the height of the sideblog area. I've then put in an overflow command. This means that I can add lots of text, and if it becomes too large to fit in the box, it will automatically create a scroll bar. This keeps the size to what ever you want it to be, to fit with your overall design.

The next three classes are all designed to control the formatting of the text that you actually see. Although it is probably obvious, these are for the title of your post, ".sideblogtitle" The date and time ".sideblogdatetime" and the body of text that makes up your post ".sideblogpost".

You do exactly the same as above, except that this time your are defining the text colour, it's size, font and weight. There are many things you can do to text to make it stand out. At the bottom I have placed a couple of links to help you with all this, but I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I'm not an expert at this, but I have been at it long enough to find most of the info I need.. :)

CSS Tutorial Site. This will explain just about everything you need to know about Cascading Style Sheets. Follow the links in the left hand menu to check out all the various aspects of styling.

Colour Chart. All colours are written in hexadecimal form (although for the basic ones you can just write the color) and as you can see from my own example are always prefixed by a #.

So, what are you waiting for.. lets see those pretty sideblogs come to life. Leave a link in the comments so I can check them out. I might nick your ideas. :)

And please don't be afraid to ask for help, that way I'll get better at this by looking stuff up occasionally.

Cheers

Liam


Disclaimer. The above works, but please copy and save your template, just in case you go wrong somewhere. And don't be scared off by this comment, you can't really go wrong, it just covers my bottom from hoards of bloggers with broken sites, kicking my door down in the middle of the night..

Morning all,

I've just been having a quick read through the list of blogs I link to.. yes, I do read them all, and jolly good they are as well. This is probably why I link to them.

I was over at Alan's* blog a few minutes ago, and found this.. which was found here.

---

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Conservative

Your actual outcome:

Labour -29
	Conservative 24
Liberal Democrat -5
	UK Independence Party 29
	Green 39

You should vote: Green

The Green Party, which is of course strong on environmental issues, takes a strong position on welfare issues, but was firmly against the war in Iraq. Other key concerns are cannabis, where the party takes a liberal line, and foxhunting, which unsurprisingly the Greens are firmly against.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

---

I'm fairly sure that those of you who read here often have a good idea of my politics, so it probably isn't that surprising that the chances of me voting for Labour are in the realms of pure fantasy, but I was surprised at the Greens coming out in first place.. hmm

Back in a minute. I'm just going to have a quick look at their pledges/manifesto. If it's been published yet of course. Grab a coffee, I won't be long.

...................

OK, I'm back. The overriding question to my mind, as was stated in an earlier post, was that of the view taken of further european integration. I did literally take only a few minutes to read the Green's position on Europe, but it looks vaguely in accordance with my views. Don't quote me, it was only a few minutes after all. It's a long document to digest in one go, so I'll read more fully later.

Second on the list were UKIP. I'm not sure. I certainly don't want us to have anything to do with Europe in a political sense, but if the agreement could be taken back to basics where there is a free market economy across Europe.. yes I know it'll not happen until France float out into the Atlantic.. then it might work.

In the past I've always seen them as the ideal protest vote, but again, reffering to my previous post, this is such a critical time for Britain's place in Europe, I have to be practical. The first step is to make sure that we don't slide further into Europe. At the end of the day, it will either be a victory for Labour or Conservative. The Liberal Democrats are third in the polls, and look attractive, with everything they are promising to do for you all.. and I'm sure that has as much to do with a general dissolusionment over the two main parties. They know however, that they can promise absolutely anything they want in the sure and certain knowledge that they won't have to deliver any of it.

My third choice (according to the quizlet above) is for a conservative government, and they are, surprisingly going to be the one I vote for. If you don't want to see this country being sucked further and further into the European Superstate, then is no other option.

On a related note, I found it incredible that, according to the news the other day that there was such a large scale problem with postal voting. This particular piece involves Labour, but even though I really have no time for them, I'm sure that it was a fairly isolated case. We have in this country a version of democracy, that although not perfect has been seen by most as an honest way to decide future governments.

You won't normally be threatened by the local militia into voting for X person, with the understanding that something awful is going to happen to yourself or your family if you do otherwise. I never knew though that political parties can and do collect ballot papers and forward them to the electoral registrar. I've never applied for a postal vote, so it didn't occur to me that it would go anywhere else other than directly to a presiding officer of some description. In my case, I am lucky to know, at least to some extent, every Councillor in Bracknell, and I would be happy to pass on my ballot paper through any of them regardless of political leaning, in the full knowledge that it would get to it's destination untampered, and I'm sure that that's the case for most areas of the country.

A quote from the linked news article states..

The [Electoral] commission says it wanted a requirement for applications to be returned directly, but the political parties wouldn't agree.

As I said earlier, the likelyhood of fraud is probably minimal over all, but if so, then why are the parties so against having an independant collection point for ballot papers? I think that perhaps if you feel so inclined, you could lobby your local MP with a view to getting this arrangement changed for future elections.

Oh well.. enough of this. There's a bunch of us going to Eastbourne for a long weekend today, and I have to pack.. okay, I'm packed. I also have to check my camera and have a cup of tea or three.

See you all Monday

Cheers

Liam


* I keep meaning to alter the css to save me having to manually insert the blue colour for text links.. maybe I'll do that next week. So much to do etc. I may even go a bit more radical with the template.. I'll see how I feel. :)

Hi all,

Well, it's that time again.. the general election has been announced for the 5th of May. As no-one else has blogged about this.. well maybe the odd couple of thousand, but hey.. it's my blog, and I can't think of anything else to write about.. I thought I'd add my views to those already committed to the ether.

One thing that really confuses me is the insistance on the importance of personalities. It shouldn't matter to domestic politics whatsoever, although I suppose there is an argument for a certain air of appeal when forging friendly links in the international arena. As far as we in the UK are concerened, it should be all about policy.

Now the first thing to remember, is that it is only really those more marginal of seats that will really make any tremendous effect on the outcome of the election. A sudden urge to singularly vote Labour in the Henley-upon-Thames constituency isn't likely to change the outcome any more than a Tory vote would in the Liverpool Riverside constituency.

Those voting for the Liberal Democrats are, with a few exceptions, only going to change the fortunes of Labour and Conservative chances at the election also.

So, what do they all stand for. This prompts me to paraphrase Tony Benn, (as I can't find the original quote) and in this case I whole-heartedly agree with him when he states that..

..no government should have the power or the right to introduce any law or regulation that cannot be repealed by a future administration, if the country so decides..

I think that this is one of the biggest strengths in a democracy, and a fundamental right of the people of this country. It means that at any time, with the consent of the people, a law or regulation that has outlived it's usefulness in these changing times can be negotiated or even struck from the law books, should the need arise.

With this in mind, consider the control that the powers that be in the EU already have over us. Our own laws are being dictated to us by faceless polititions sitting in Europe. Remember the red lines that Tony Blair said were set in stone, over our taxation systems? Did you know that we already have mandatory minimums on taxation levels imposed by Europe? Well we do, and we have to abide by them.. although with the amount of tax that this government takes from us, you'd never see these, as it's highly unlikely that Gordon Brown would ever get into trouble for not taxing us enough.

We also have minimum thresholds set by Europe on immigration and border controls.. again a red line set in custard.

Lets consider the most unlikely election result first.. namely that the Liberal Democrats win by a large enough majority to form the new government on May 6th. With their, admirably honest admission, of intending to throw us onto the rails and thus head on into the headlights of the gravy train known as the European Federalist Superstate, that will be the last time that any domestic election will make any difference whatsoever. From that moment on, there will be NO meaningful policy for this countries electorate that doesn't hail directly from Brussels. There is no turning back from it, as without a complete withdrawal from the EU; we will have little, or no, effective control on domestic policy whether we like it or not.

A vote for the Lib Dems will be your last democratic vote ever.. end of story.

Lets now turn our attention to New Labour. I make this distinction because along with many, I fail to see any real connection with the Labour party of old.. except for the government thinking that they can invade every facet of our lives, because they are under the mistaken impression that they know what is best for us in everything that we do, be it concerns of work, family life or any other matter that makes up our daily lives.

Their only real success as Tony Blair will agree, because he is the veritable scratched record on the subject; when questioned on all points of failure in his dismal premiership, is the strong economy.

An open letter from me to Gordon Brown..

Dear Prudence,

you were given the purse strings to the strongest economy in Europe, and the fourth strongest in the world. You would have to have been a pretty poor chancellor to screw it up, especially when most of your successes have been in the main, due to relinquishing the government's powers to set interest rates, and let an organisation.. namely The Bank of England.. who know what they're doing manage that vital part of fiscal arrangements. This was a good thing, but once done, you've not really had that much to do, except to tax us to the hilt twice a year, and any day with a Y in it just to make absolutely sure. Oh, and due to measures brought in early on in your first term in office where you removed the tax benefits from pensions, we have seen a reduction of more than £50billion in funds and lost double that in investments.

Yours sincerely

The old and skint..

What else have we got.. the council tax. This all came about from the community charge, which it still is.. a thorn by any other name. I remember the days of the supposedly dreaded poll tax, as I'm sure most reading will. That was a good idea run badly. The householder of a three bedroom house with Mum, Dad and three grown up children, will pay exactly the same council tax bill per dwelling as a 65 year old female pensioner living on her own in the old family home. Who do you think should pay more?

The poll tax, although badly engineered attempted to level out this anomaly by billing all people over the age of 18 equally. This meant that in the former example, the large grown up family would effectively pay five times the money that the pensioner would. If we take a sample figure of £900 per annum under the current scheme, this would mean that under the old scheme, all things being equal, the pensioner would be paying only £300 or a third of the current bill. The five occupants of the family house, using in effect, five times the services would be paying £1500 pounds a year between them. And that was deemed to be an unfair tax? Of course there would be no payment for those still in full time education etc, but I think that it was.. in principal at least.. a good idea. The protests in the '80s were largely based on all people who'd never had to pay a household bill in their lives suddenly being asked to pay, if I remember correctly, around £300 a year that they never had to before pay.

Yes I realise that there are various credits that can be applied for, but this is basically nothing short of an admission that too much tax is being taken from us. They take all our money, and then grudgingly give back as little as possible, when they have to.

Of course, even though they are much more deceitful in their intentions than the Lib Dems, New Labour are slowly but surely moving us closer and closer to a federal Europe, where once in, we can't get out. It is after all, Tony Blair's dream, and his only possible legacy to get us into Europe and go down in history on the back of it. He's got little else that, in years to come; he could in his own twisted mind look back and be proud of.

So, who are the alternative? Well I can see only one party that at least want to stop us spiralling ever deeper into a United States of Europe, and that's the Conservatives. Tony Blair always warns us of the eighteen years of Tory government that supposedly wrecked this country. Anyone remember the late '70s? Probably the darkest days of this country. Margaret Thatcher, for all her faults, turned this country from a failed socialist state, where the unions had more power than any other single body, including the Labour government, into one of the most powerful and respected economic powers in the world. Not everything went right, but what we were left with in 1990, was a world economic power.. then we had John Major. That was the start of the downfall of the Conservatives, mainly due to this being around the time that the European Socialist Agenda started to roll on a grander scale than seen previously.

Remember when interest rates went up to 15%, for a day? We got thrown out of the EMU. This is shown as a bad thing by both the Lib Dems (no surprise) and also New Labour. I think it was probably the luckiest get out in modern history. Since then, through no fault of his own, the current chancellor has been able to just sit back and take our money. It was only our escape to monetary independance back then, that we still have some modicom of control over this country's budget. We've still paid tens of billions of our hard earned money into Europe in the last few years.. that's several thousand pounds per person, that you've paid to feed this ever enlarging almost completely unnaccountable regime.

If you don't want us run entirely by the EU, then I see that there is only one real choice, because whatever they do, they at least want to wrest some semblance of control away from Europe, and give the British people the chance to do for themselves, rather than be dictated to. Didn't millions of people have that very thought just 60 years ago? They didn't give up their lives for our freedom, only to see it flushed down the pan for their grandchildren.

For those that would like to think that the union of European nations has given us the longest era of peace ever seen in Europe, think again. Russia lost far more than any other country. They decided that it would never happen again, and became the strongest military in the world. They were never going to give up the lives of another 25 million of their people. That was the start of the cold war. The very real (at the time certainly) threat of Russia and the US going to war was enough to stop any piddling country in Europe wanting to join in.

I feel as though I've been writing this for ever.. well I have.. :)

I'm now going to sign off as it's my Birthday today, and I've got a new toy to play with. A wireless tablet to draw lots of pretty pictures with.. I'll see if I can get it up and running quickly enough to post my first one here this evening. I have yet to install it, let alone know how to use it.. :)

Cheers

Liam

ps. As you asked, I'm 38 today. So in true style, I'll mark the occasion with a pint for each year. It may take a week to do, I'm not as young as I was.. but I'll do my best.. :)