Representative Expression

It was my first time to Omaha beach and to say it was a very humbling experience is an understatement.

We had arrived towards the end of the years D-Day Remembrance 'celebrations' so there were quite a few visitors to the American D-Day Museum and Cemetery.

You've seen the films, read the book, watched the series on UK History, but nothing prepares you for the sheer scale of the place.

Standing at the top of the hill where 1000's if not more soldiers from both sides died leaves you with a rather dry lump in your throat.  Arriving at the top of the hill, you can only imagine the look of the awaiting German forces as they witnessed the mass of boats coming towards them.

When you are standing on the beach looking back up the hill, you can't even appreciate the nerves it must have taken to even get off the landing craft and attempt to attack the hill.

I believe the beach is 6.9miles long. The day we were there, there must have been less than 20 people visible along the whole beach.  It was so quiet, peaceful and there is absolutely no evidence of the action that took place some 63 years previous.

My two boys who are very interested in that era as most young boys are were visibly moved by what they saw.  It was no longer an Xbox game where they could hit 'restart' and the game would begin again when they "died".  This was reality for them.
In the museum at the top of the hill, you could sit and watch footage taken at the time of the landings.  They sat for ages listening to the real soldiers tell their own stories.  There was no glorification, no Hollywood spin applied.  It wasn't gory, nor horrific, but they left with tears forming in their eyes as did I.

I think every world leader, politician or in fact every man, woman and child should visit Omaha Beach, (or any of the Normandy Beaches or just any battlefield). 

They should be allowed to walk the cemeteries alone and consider what those who went before us gave up so that we may live in the name of peace. 
Yet when we look at events that are going on in the world today, do we really live in peace?
Is there any need for war and the death, destruction and misery it causes. 

I left Omaha Beach with more questions than answers. It taught me humility when I wasn't really expecting it.  Those who control, start or fuel wars are never the ones at the front line. I think if they were to see what really goes on, you'd would at least hope they would think twice about starting something that causes so much death and destruction.

I've served in the Royal Navy and am very proud of doing so.  If you were to ask me to do so again now, I probably wouldn't.  Yet, I would do anything to defend my family and my way of living, so I contradict myself.  It is those responsible for the wars and violence who need to see and understand the consequences and perhaps one day there would be no need for all the suffering that it causes.

We are about 30-40mins west of Wimbledon, so when it rains here, with the direction of the wind and clouds, you can bet that the covers will be going on pretty soon.

One such time, it began raining really heavy outside, so I went out the back yard for a quick check of the sky to see this fairly young stag about 30ft away at the end of my garden.
 

He walked off into the maize that the local farmer is growing this year and stood and watched me for ages. 

If it had not be absolutely throwing it down with rain at the time, (and if I had recharged the batteries in my camera), I would have taken more photo's.

He comes round quite often of late. I guess he's been kicked out of the woods by the older stags so he's off trying to find his own new patch.

It wasn't until a few months back that I realised just how many deer there are in Bramley Woods.  I was walking my two dogs and as I turned into one of the fields, there must have been hundreds of dear just ambling around in the middle of the field enjoying the sun and eating the new grass.  They didn't mind the two dogs until we got within a few 100yards of them , when they just bounced off back into the woods.

Earlier on in the day, I had already seen a Green Woodpecker on a tree in the neighbours garden.  I could hear a tapping on the tree and there this was.  Usually they are quite timid and have only got hear the slightest noise and they are off.  But this one I think had a few youngsters waiting for it in the field.

Again it was absolutely throwing it down with rain and was standing against a fence under a tree in my back garden.  I took these on min the way aximum digital zoom and low resolution.

And a few days before, one of the Red Kite's was flying over.

We have about 4 of them living around here and every now and then they will soar on the thermals above the fields (assuming that there is any sun, which for the last few weeks we haven't seen much of). In fact I really should upload a picture of the damn thing so I can remind myself what it looks like. I'm sure the last time I saw it in anger was in France a few weeks back.

Again, this photo was taken at the maximum range of my zoom, but you can still make out the profile.

They look absolutely amazing close up and I often spend an hour or so watching them soaring. Clicking on the last image of a Red Kite will take you the the UK's best Red Kite web site. (Note: If you couldn't tell by the standard of the last picture, I didn't take it and I 'borrowed' it from their web site)

I hated that damn thing when I was a kid. We had a guy in our class who could solve the thing with his eyes shut, it wasn't worth competing with him (at least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).
Only way I could ever solve it was by peeling all the damn stickers off.

I don't know whether the thing above can actually solve it, or whether it's just a simple, muck it up, and then reverse it's changes (screen doesn't match the cube).
See, I hate it that much, I'm still skeptical about people solving the damn thing.

Those damn nightmares are going to return again...

PLANS TO MARK THE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE LONDON BOMBINGS

The second anniversary of the attacks will be marked by a public act of remembrance and opportunities for private reflection.  Tessa Jowell, the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy will formally mark the second anniversary of the atrocity by laying flowers at Kings Cross station at the time of the bombings.

7th July Assistance Site

There will be no national 2 minutes silence this year, but that shouldn't stop each one of us from reflecting on past events and ensuring that we do something to help prevent this from happening again.

He qualified first at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix, the first Englishman to do that for 11 years.

In the very last lap of qualifying (by all of the drivers), he drove superbly and beat Kimi Raikkonen by 0.102seconds.
(Raikkonen probably robbed himself of pole position by hitting the dirt in the very last bend).

Lewis probably gained half a second from the support of the local home crowd as evident by the massive roar that could be heard as he crossed the line at the end of Q3.

For someone so young to handle the immense media pressure is a testament to Lewis, his father (and family) and the support from McLaren.

I keep waiting for him to make a mistake and throw the car off the track, but the more pressure there is, the better he seems to perform.  8 podiums in 8 races is a dream start for a rookie in his first full season of F1 racing.

But as much as I want him to win this afternoon (1pm July 08th 2007), I have a sneaky feeling that in an effort to keep up with the apparently faster Ferrari's of Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, today is the day when a podium finish will elude him. If it does happen, it will be interesting to see how he handles the disappointment in his home Grand Prix.  Only Lewis knows what he himself is capable of, and only he knows what his level of expectation is.  Of course he has to go out there each race believing he is 100% capable of winning or there would be no point.
Take Jenson Button who yesterday was alleged to have claimed he would quit F1 rather than be content with finishing 8th every race.  When you believe you have the ability to win, but don't have the car to do it, things can be very difficult.

But the F1 following expect Lewis to win today, more so the British contingent.  The disappointment of not winning today, would be bad enough, not finishing on a podium would be unthinkable, and not finishing at all would be a total disaster. But is this how Lewis thinks, or is he really that level headed to know this is just his first season and that everything that has happened so far is a bonus.  Don't forget, Lewis has been prepared for F1 racing for years, so he's not where he is at the top of the F1 Driver standings for no reason. He is there because the guy has the skill and determination to succeed.

Of course I don't want him to fail today, I'll be there screaming out loud when he crosses the line in first. But at the same time, it would be a massive test of his character if he did fail today, and would let us know what he is really made of.  For him to finish in every race in a podium position in his first season would be something extraordinary.  

Images From: http://www.mclaren.com/interactive/wallpapers.php

What with all the recent rain and floods of late, I've just only found a great site for checking out the latest UK Weather Radar.

There is one at the UK Met Office but the advantage of the new one I found at Meteox is that they provide an RSS Feed (see below).

They also allow you to define your UK location using a neat Google Map API interface to give a picture of your actual location.

With the weather coming up this weekend, it might be a good idea to use something like this to keep an eye on the rain.

If you want to use the following JS on your site, just cut and paste the following code into your template where you want the feed to be used:

<script language="JavaScript" src="http://yaps4u.net/feed2js/
feed2js.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Frss.meteox.co.uk%2F&chan=y&
num=1&date=y&html=a" type="text/javascript">
</script> 

<noscript>
 <a href="http://yaps4u.net/feed2js/feed2js.php?
src=http%3A%2F%2Frss.meteox.co.uk%2F&chan=y&num=1&date=y&
html=y">View RSS feed</a> 
</noscript> 

Over at RealTravel.com they have a great online trip planner that allows you to build your itinerary for your complete trip.

Once you have added all of your intended destinations, you can sort out the dates and route that you intend to take.
They also have a great dynamic route map that shows your planned trip in an easy to follow layout.

When trying to organize a trip like this, one of the hardest parts is having to visit multiple sites to find all the information you need.  I've used the site to plan an upcoming trip, and the trip planner made the whole thing painless.

And if you are unsure of the place you are visiting, there are plenty of reviews and photographs from others who been there previously.

It even allows you to create your own notes and any other useful links that you find and save them with your itinerary.

Once you have saved your trip, you can email it to friends and family to keep them informed about your trip. (A great idea for young people to keep parents aware of your plans).

When we first moved to the US we were offered a 'cultural exchange' course.  At first we thought things can't be that different, after all, they do speak "English".
After living their for a few weeks you do begin to see differences between the way we live.  Obviously you would expect there to be some differences, you just don't think about all the little things.

Take the good old postman.  Post is post right? Here in the UK we expect our mail to be delivered in the morning, (although gone are the days of first and second post, where if you didn't get your mail in the morning, you'd hope it would come later on that day).  Then there are the old jokes and stories of postman being attacked by dogs as they made their way to the front door.  In the UK, when I want to post something, I have to go to the post office or find a post box.  There are 1000's of postboxes dotted all around the country, some dating back hundreds of years.

Now they still have the humble postman in the US, but delivery and pickup is much different than here in the UK.  I actually preferred the US version, (though I am not saying the UK doesn't do a bad job).  

At our house in Texas, we had a box similar to the one shown which was a Locking Mailbox.

Every house would have their own mailbox at the end of their drive.
Some places would have them attached to the house, but in our area, most were curbside. Some just had a box on a post, others had the builders leave enough bricks so that the postbox matched the house.

The mail vans were all right hand drive and the driver sat at a height whereby he just drove past each post box and delivered the mail without even getting out of his van. 

In apartments or gated communities, there was often a central mail collection point.

So rather than your mail being delivered to your door, when you left for the morning and/or on your return at night, you would drive by the post collection point and pick up your post from the security mailboxes.

Unless you actually wanted to buy some stamps, or drop off a large parcel or letter, when you wanted to post something, you would leave it in your post box.  Each post box would have a flag that you would raise to let the postman know you had mail to collect.  On his rounds, he's see the flags, drop by and pick up your mail to send.

We brought our dogs back from the US with us and they just cannot get used to some stranger stuffing paper through our letter box in the front door.  Most often they will just rip the letters out of his hand before he gets a chance to drop them. Whereas in the US, they never got near the postman because he was tucked safely away inside his van (and the dogs were usually out the back yard).

It was only because I came across a web site that it got me thinking about it.
Click on the image below had check out the different kinds of postboxes that you can get in the US.  All we have is a slot in the door/doorframe !!

A soldiers Story (fictional)

You're on your last patrol before your unit returns home after a 9month stint in Iraq.  You're on point covering for your squad as they return to the Warrior after inspecting a suspected arms dump on the outskirts of Basra.

Spirits are high because tonight's scran in the mess tent will be the last meal before you get home to your mum's Sunday roast.  In 8 hours, you'll be on the plane home in to the arms of the family you've been away from for so long. 

Your squad mates begin shouting, they are pointing towards 3 youths running out of a nearby building.  You are almost at the Warrior when there is an almighty 'whoosh', followed by a loud explosion.

 

When you open your eyes, you find yourself 20ft away from the Warrior.  You can't focus on anything, you can't hear anything. The dust is settling and you begin to see your surroundings. You try to clear the dust from your eyes, but there is something wrong. You look down towards your hand and there's nothing there. In a panic, you try to stand, but you fall over.  The bottom of your left leg is missing. In pain you slump down to the ground as the rest of your unit reaches you.

The next time you wake, you find yourself in the Military Hospital in Basra.  The medics have had to amputate your right arm from below the elbow, you've lost the left leg below the knee, and you are blind in your right eye.
After a week or so, you are transferred to the facility at Headley Court.

The above could have happened to any number of our serving personnel in Basra or in fact any of the current overseas theatre of operations.  But in this case, it's a fictional story. But there have been many of our service personnel over the years who have and are still going through similar experiences.

But the hardship doesn't end there. Once the injured personnel come back to the UK, there is yet more pain to endure, but this time by the families of the victims themselves. 
Often families have to travel hundreds of miles to visit their loved ones.  Living in a hotel or bed and breakfast is fine for a brief business trip or a short holiday, but when the family themselves are having to deal with the emotions involved with supporting an injured loved one, it creates unwanted stress.

In the US an organization known as "The Fisher House" exists which quotes the following on their web site.

Supporting America's military in their time of need, we provide "a home away from home" that enables family members to be close to a loved one at the most stressful time -- during hospitalization for an illness, disease or injury

Headley Court and the SSAFA

RAF Headley Court near Epsom in Headley, Surrey, England deals with with UK Military Forces personnel with physical disabilities obtained during service, and also deals with patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

With a dedicated staff of around 200, the care it provides is essential to the recovery of the personnel.  In 2005, Major David Bradley of the Princess of Wales‘s Royal Regiment was given a five per cent chance of survival as a result of injuries received whilst on duty in Iraq during 2004. Headley Court played a vital part in ensuring he had the best chance of recovery.

Having family around you during recovery is an important factor (and I know this from personal experience). Not only do families have to deal with looking at the some times horrific injuries to their loved ones, many patients will often reject the attention of their families, pushing them away as a result of their injuries, which causes further stress. 

The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) exists in the UK to help out where ever it can.

The Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA) Forces Help is the leading national charity committed to helping and supporting those who serve in our Armed Forces, those who used to serve, and the families of both.  We provide a reliable, caring and trusted service to more than 50,000 people each year.

36 Grays Lane

 The SSAFA were hoping to provide a home away from home for the family members visiting loved ones being treated at Headley Court, but met with some unexpected resistance from local residents.

It appears that a bunch of NIMBY's have been coming up with all sorts of reasons why 36 Grays Lane should not be used by SSAFA.  To see some of their reasons, visit the 36grayslane web site.

36grayslane has been set up to highlight the actions of the Management Company representing the local residents and to gain support for the SSAFA campaign.
If ever there was a perfect example of the phrase NIMBY, they are it.

It as if they don't want their neighborhood spoiled by having "the lower class" families of our service personal living in their area.
None of their concerns expressed (detailed at this page at 36grayslane have any merit what so ever.

Every single resident who has signed up in protest to the SSAFA proposal should be given a guided tour of Headley Court and spend time with the visiting families.

Each of the residents who signed up, should be ashamed of their selfishness and total disrespect for the families of our service men and women who have given more than most to protect our beliefs and interests.

The people at 36grayslane have a guestbook that you can sign to show your support.

There is also a petition set up on the 10 Downing Street E-Petition site.

The rest of the UK needs to show those residents of Grays Lane who are objecting just how pathetic their actions are.

I wouldn't mind if they founded their objections on anything reasonable, but they are not. Laughable at best.
If it were a travelers camp, nightclub, sex shop or something similar to those, I could see their argument. But the truth of the matter is that the house run by SSAFA would hardly be noticeable. Their argument shows snobbery and contempt beyond belief.

For those web masters or indeed visitors out there that are not aware, StopBadWare.org is a site that lists sites that contain malware.  This article doesn't discuss how they malware got there, but more the way that Google lists them in its index.

StopBadware.org is a "Neighborhood Watch" campaign aimed at fighting badware. We will seek to provide reliable, objective information about downloadable applications in order to help consumers to make better choices about what they download on to their computers. We aim to become a central clearinghouse for research on badware and the bad actors who spread it, and to become a focal point for developing collaborative, community-minded approaches to stopping badware.

From: StopBadware.org

When a site is listed in Google as having badware on it, a warning is displayed similar to the following:

The contentious part of the above warning is the "This site may harm your computer".
When you click on the link within the Google index to a badware infected site, Google actually displays an information page telling you why you should not visit the site. (Note: I have purposely masked the name of the site above in order to protect the web site owner from being mentioned, the reasons why are discussed below).

If you want to see a warning for yourself, just go to the StopBadware.org site. In the search box, enter ".co.uk" for the search term.
Copy the 'domain name part' part of it but do not include the TLD and enter it in a Google search box.  (So if the domain was www.example-alien-web-design.co.uk, search for "example alien web design" not "example-alien-web-design.co.uk".
This 'should' display a list of search results which will have the warning displayed.
Then click the search result to see the warning page.

My personal thought is that Google should just temporarily remove the site listing from the index rather than apply a label against that site.
You have to ask why Google apply that label and prevent 'its' users from clicking on that link within it's index.
I can only guess at the following:

• Google wishes to protect its users from visiting a site that has malware on it.
  (Google has checks in place, or one would hope that they do, that prevents falsely labelling a site as hosting malware).
  
• Google is also expressing it's desire to help remove malware from the 'internet' by contacting and informing web masters of malware upon the sites it finds.
  It doesn't just list web sites, it does make a concerted effort to contact the web master of the site involved.

Google do have a right to stop users from visiting those sites infected, as potentially one could argue that they could be held responsible for forwarding its users to a site which ultimately costs the visitor time/money or both.
The problem is, that web masters feel that the label Google applies next to their entry in the index causes damage to the reputation of that web site as well as a loss of income. 

So why does Google apply a label?
Some have argued that it is the quickest method to ensure that the web master contacts them and the problem sorted.
(Sticking a big red flag next to your site does tend to bring it to your attention rather quickly when your users start complaining to you, OR, as should be happening, a good web master will find this out when he does his daily/weekly check).

I would rather Google remove the entry from the index altogether, not stick a "label" against the entry.  You can't visit the site from the link in the index anyway (without a spot of cutting and pasting - at least you can't in Firefox with my setup).You could say the link in the index is non-functional, so why bother putting it there in the first place?
Removing the infected site from the index achieves both points from above.

• It prevents Google users from visiting the site.  The result is simply not returned.
  It is no different from the supplemental index, or at least very similar to the supplemental index.
  After all, the StopBadware database is exactly that. It is an index of sites that contain or are believed to contain malware.
  Just like the supplemental index, the results are still there, but you have to search for them in a specific index. 
  
• Google can still contact web masters and let them know that their site has been placed into the 'malware' index as before.

The removal or placement into the "malware" index would be temporary. Rather than display a warning, it doesn't display anything.  No harder to code than it is at present. 

Any decent web master will be monitoring his PR and his SERP placement.  Suddenly dropping off the main Google index should be pretty obvious to them.
And if his visitors complain that they are not finding the web site in the index, that too should draw the web masters attention to a possible problem.

Google will still be trying to contact the web master and the web master should also be encouraged to join Webmaster central (http://www.google.com/webmasters/) to keep an eye on their site anyway...

However, web masters have no right what so ever to complain about the damage to their reputation.  Malware is a problem, and is far more serious to their users than a lot would lead you to believe.  Ok, you could say that around 85% of your visitors would be vulnerable to being attacked by malware (due to the browser type, security settings and whether javascript is enabled). Of of that 85%, at least 50% of them would be very vulnerable, due to no firewall, no or an outdated Antivirus/Antispyware.
So there would be a large percentage of your visitors that could potentially be damaged or effected by malware.

• You cannot say that some malware is less harmful than others.
  Malware is malware. Plain and simple.
  
• You cannot say I have a set of known visitors and I know them to be safe.
  (You are complaining about being in the Google index, therefore you are potentially available to everyone who has access to the Google index).

What damage would be done to your reputation IF, one of your users blogger on a popular forum that they went to www.example.com and they got hacked.  That www.example.com has no protection, or www.example.com has bad security. Or they blame www.example.com for them installing the malware on their computers (regardless of the fact that www.example.com had NO knowledge of the exploit in the first place).
At least an entry in the Google index as at present is temporary and will be removed once Google are assured that the malware has been removed.
An entry on a web site would be within the index for a lot longer (if not ever).
And that's if there was just one entry on one blog.  What you would do if your sites name was spread around the web by a disgruntled visitor (who was infected as a result of visiting your www.example.com)
There is no argument that the web master purposely allowed their site to become infected.
A web master of a major site earning major money will be running a much more secure system than a small time web hosting company (on a dedicated server or a shared web hosted account).  They are less likely to be the victim of an attack.
So it could appear that Google are against the smaller web hosts and web masters since you won't find big web sites listed. That is simply not the case. 
It is just the simple fact that the smaller web site, web host or web master is more vulnerable to attack since they cannot or do not spend money on massive security defenses against malware attacks.

A web master has a responsibility to protect the visitors to their site. (Whether they rely upon the web host to do this , or whether they takes charge is another matter for discussion).
Google have the same responsibility to it's users. They have chosen to protect their users by displaying a warning and not giving a clickable link to the infected web site.

I'd like to hear from Google as to why they chose the method they did, and for them to state why they don't just remove the link temporarily from the index.