Diary post 1

Me
I want to say thanks to the very kind person who emailed me with the address of a directory of online newspapers. No name needed but thanks, it was much appreciated. A lot of stuff has happened this week and I've started to sort out some things which really needed sorting. I'm going to start trying to avoid buying as many US products as possible just because I think it will make me feel less guilty. I suppose if enough people tried this it might make a difference to the way those evil corporations behave. It means giving up lots of stuff I like but the more I learn the more I think I need to do this. I'll update how this goes in future posts. Today I resisted buying a fizzy drink and my wallet and my teeth are both better off. I've also come close to persuading someone I know to cancel a certain TV subscription service and switch to Freeview instead. More work is needed but I think it is only a matter of time. I'm going to use this blog to chart my attempts to change the way I live. Mr Bush and Mr Blair should be proud; they have radicalised quite possibly the most apathetic man in Britain.

The News
As I said I've been doing a lot this week so I'm not fully up to speed on everything so here are my own thoughts about what has been happening. I'm sure I'm not the first or the best person to write about this stuff but I'm stubborn so I'm going to do it anyway.

The BBC licence fee is secured for the next twelve years. I think this is good but I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels uneasy about the current government reforming the BBC. Is Mr Campbell still lurking around in the background at No10? He is you say. Oh well that makes me feel much better. Michael Grade seemed happy enough with it all when I saw him interviewed on BBC News 24. Is it just me or is there something intrinsically bizarre about a reporter giving the top man in his own company a grilling. I'd like to see Mr Murdoch get that sort of treatment on Sky News.

In Iraq thing are getting no better. The insurgency seems to be getting stronger and stronger and more and more Iraqi civilians are the innocent victims. Does anyone know how this is going to be resolved? In my more cynical moments I think that the war in Iraq was specifically designed to be bloody and messy so as to draw all the Islamic fundamentalists into the country where they don't threaten the US homeland and where the only people who get killed are Iraqi civilians, extremists, and US soldiers. If 16,000 US citizens had died in a war of liberation I'm not sure just how free they would feel.

I also heard on the radio that Afghanistan has produced a bumper opium harvest this year. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the US installed administration in the country. The war on drugs seems to have been forgotten in the enthusiasm for the war on terror.

Sorry but there are no links to these stories today. The bbc.co.uk website is good for impartial coverage. These are just some of my own thoughts.