[Raak] The car-torching was in full swing when Sarkozy made his comment that rioters are "scum" (rough tranlsation). Of course, the minority group interpreted this as "minority groups are scum". Also, what I fail to see, as I failed to see during the LA riots, is how the actions of the police - detestable as they may have been - justifies such behaviour. Some may say that this is the only form of protest that these particular minority groups have. I vehemently disagree thinking rather that a peaceful demonstration on a massive scale would be much more effective in garnering sympathy amongst the larger population. From this I draw my conclusion that rioters do what they do because they get a kick out of rioting.

[Huxley] The actions of the police don't justify the actions of the rioters, but on the other hand, if the police did incite the riot, the riot doesn't justify the incitement.

This site used to be steam-powered, but apparently it is no longer! What are you using now? I hope it's environmentally friendly, and doesn't involve grinding up penguins.

Also, please wish me luck for the appointment I have at the dentist in 1 hour to remove a wisdom tooth. It's not causing me any pain, so hopefully the nerve is dead, but it is falling apart. I still expect to be sore as it's quite a fiddly place to extract from, though.

I had a single wisdom tooth removed about two years ago, and it actually wasn't bad at all.

[snorgle] Good luck! Expect some discomfort, but console yourself with the fact that it's not real pain, and you'll never have pain in that tooth, nor the pain of an emerging impacted wisdom tooth, again. Besides, it gives you the excuse to drink medicinal strong spirits over the weekend until it feels better. :o)

AVMA killed my accent again. (I wish....)

Yes, unlike CdM, I found it did sting rather. Pace pen, be careful not to drink alcohol if they put you on strong antibiotics afterward! Oh, and if it does hurt, a cloth damped with hot water held to the face is a lifesaver, better (although more short-lived) than Ibuprofen.

[Projoy] I don't remember having antibiotics after an extraction about three years ago. You probably don't get them unless the procedure throws up complications. Where's Lib when you need her?

One of the poular antibiotics prescribed after dental ops is Metronidazole - do not take alcohol while taking - or for a couple of days after taking - this anti-b otherwise you'll get flushes, palpitations and symptoms like food poisoning.

[Metronidazole] Yes, that was the one they gave me. The first time I had w/t operation I was put on a course of anti-fungals, the second time it was just salt mouthwashes... until the inevitable infection happened, and they had to give me antibiotics anyway.

It came out without much trouble, and it's a bit sore, but the 3 pints I drank this afternoon, and the ibuprofen has helped. It wasn't impacted, it had just become quite decayed. All my wisdom teeth came through without much trouble, they're just a little jammed in, and tend to point backwards as they don't have much room. The root on the one I had out today wasn't that long, comparted to what molars normally are, and was a bit of a funny shape, so this made it easier to pull!

I didn't need any antibiotics and it's not been bleeding too much, either. So thanks for all your good wishes!

*thinks* Chavs and Chav-nots...

A frost on the ground and the car lock is frozen, all the more reason to go back upstairs to start the decorating on of the bedrooms. On the other hand while I have the house to myself I'll do a bit of surfing first and a cup of tea.

[Néa] Does your accent come out both properly and as a splurge when you're using the same browser on the same computer? If so that's very weird... if not, I may be able to concoct a solution.

*notes that the last three games have slowed down* - not that I play them, mind.

It works in this game but not in AVMA (I don't think it ever worked there). Same browser (Firefox), same computer. I have started writing my accent as HTML in the AVMA game and that works.

Well that is very strange, since obviously it's the set of instructions is followed to interpret your input and display it on this page as on AVMA. For the moment, I guess doing the thing with HTML accents is reliable but a pain as it increases the amount of typing threefold.

Hmmm... what's happening I think is that when you just type the character, your browser is sometimes sending it in an ISO-8959-1 encoding (which my script transforms correctly into the appropriate 7-bit clean HTML encoding) whereas other times it decides to go down a two-byte UTF-8 route. It's not clear why it would choose one rather than another. I shall try and see if I can get this server to ask your browser always to use ISO-8959-1 (which will mean people typing in Mandarin will become unstuck); if not I shall investigate PHP's abilities to look at what you send and see if it can do the transformation properly.

[rab] you're going to an awful lot of trouble for the sake of my accent...

Wow, that's the worst one yet!

[Néa] Oh I don't know - it makes you look exotic! ;o)

If that hasn't fixed it, I've still got two lines of defence.

Oh, and by the way, I meant 8859-1 above, not 8959. Silly me...

That seems to have done it!

I got the front page picture story on this week's Motor Trader for one of my less highly-visible clients *grins*

[pen]Happy clients can only mean two things, a big bonus and cakes all round.

[Inkers] happy clients are clients who give you even more work to do - yay!! But with a bit of luck, I'll be working on next year's London to Brighton run as well as the Goodwood FOS :o)

I do like Goodwood FOS and free tickets from the Sunday Times but not the rain that drenched us from the finish line back to the paddock, though the black bin liner with makeshift arm holes was better than nothing. Sunburnt and drenched all in one fantastic day.
To my emailbox Google sends me news alerts fo my home town. These days it is usually about the new natural gas terminal and pipeline. But today it sent me a suprise item from the US Navy . A little bit of Milford history I never knew before.

[Inkers] How do you get the home town stuff from Google then? I'm fed up of writing to complain to the editor of my home town's online local paper when they write things sooo badly and make funadamental mistakes. I used to work on that paper (under a different editor)and it was brilliant.
Weather report: Colleagues report temperatures ranging from -5 last night in the woods, -3 this morning in Uxbridge and -1 at the traffic lights as I was pulling in to the office. Brilliant sunshine, no wind whatsoever (the flags are hanging straight down).

(pen) -5°C in the woods? How did they know? Surely they can't be such a dedicated weather nut as I am. I once went for a walk 'round midnite with a thermometer in Slines Oak Valley, near to me. By torchlight I read it at -15°C, better than the paltry -11°C in my back garden up on the hill. -15°C is bloody cold whatever you're doing. This was 6/7 Feb '91.

[Rosie] Because he left his car there while he and a friend were out mountain biking in the dark (yes, they're both nuts) and the temperature sensor said so when he returned to the car two hours later. When I lived in deepest Wiltshire, the yard thermometer registered an overnight low of -11 once or twice... we were on a country estate kind of in a dip at the bottom of the downs close to Sandy Lane/Nine Elms near Calne. This would be December '97/Jan '98. I'd concur with bloody cold but hell, I love it! ;o)

[pen]If you go from the Google home page to About Google to Google Services & Tools in the Services go to Alerts. I put in Milford Haven - News, to be sent once a day.

This frost in the morning is giving some wonderful clear skies these last few evenings it looks like another big chill tonight.

[Inkspot] They do frost forecasts too?

Not sure as Google will be picking up from news or entertainment sites. But if you want to know about Jenny and whether or not she will win I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here try William Hills or one of the other bookies for the latest odds.

[Inkers] No, I don't want to know. I'm restricting my viewing to BBC2 for the next 6 weeks.

Can nearly 10 million viewers of the GBP be wrong? Missed it last night as I was playing with my new toys, but I'm starting to warm to Carol Thatcher which surely must be wrong.

I love my new computer... except for the Microsoft Home Suite which is awful it is more like the old Lotus Suite with 1-2-3 and WordPro the writer and spreadsheet are very poor relatives to Excel and Word and the package has no Powerpoint.

[Inkspot] In answer to your question, yes. They were wrong in the General Election too.