But it’s a shame. It happens more so these days and, whilst it’s nowhere near as serious as he hoped, it’s all playing out to Osama bin Laden’s aim to polarize: to polarize West from East; Muslim from non-Muslim; America from fellow Western nations; to cut the (American) head off the (Western) snake.

Like I said, it’s not as serious or as immediate as he hoped, but it’s what he wanted, and it’s not healthy. So we chip, chip away at one another and bicker. People muse the fall of America and how it’ll benefit us (which it won’t – far from it – but that’s another story). In the words of a wiser and more pacifist friend of mine, “why are we fighting like this”? We have so much more we can be getting on with.

This smells of cartel-like behaviour, with Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse pan-handling for tax-payers money with exactly the same fatuous arguments. The BBC already carries most of the cost by producing iPlayer and its content. That these ISPs have sold that which they cannot afford to give is not the BBC’s  (or old Missus Jones who has a TV but no internet) fault or problem: that’s those ISPs’ poor business models of offering unlimited bandwidth for too low a price.

The ISPs should bear the cost of their own mistakes – make a loss, change their business model, go bust, renegotiate their terms with their customers, stop advertising unlimited services that are limited. They should not be subsidised for failure.

I happen to think MPs should be paid a good salary – 5 times the national average – and have no expenses whatsoever. That would mean covering second homes, constituency offices, travel and so fourth out of the c. £120k salary. But if enough people in Britain are willing to change their vote to prevent that happening then the shareholders have spoken.

Had I instructed our payroll officer to steal from my employer in order to pay me tax-free made-up expenses I’d expect both of us to be charged for our crimes. I want to know who told the Fees Office that stealing from the public was their main purpose, and I want fraud charges brought against them and the Fees Office staff that colluded in this.

It isn’t about the money, really. It’s about double standards and thievery. Maybe we collectively want monkeys running the country. Maybe politicians could argue successfully for having a slightly more clever primate in charge. However, if you want a pay rise then ask the boss, don’t just take it from the petty cash.

We ought to not regulate risk out of the entire system. Without risk their is no room for big rewards for big successes. However, we have currently insulated banks from risk by nationalising them. Big rewards for big success only work when they are accompanied by big penalties for big failures. Now the banks can take big risks and if it screws up the man on the street foots the bill. If it succeeds, the banks get their lolly.

So separate gee-gees from retail: the banks should be forced to split their operations into completely separate entities. The resulting retail banks should then be heavily regulated as to how they can borrow and lend, but also be heavily backed by government to protect depositors & borrowers, and ensure you and I get our pay cheques. The gee-gee banks should be lightly regulated and not at all backed by government. Goldman Sachs is where you go to take risks, make (or lose) your millions. Barclays Retail is where you get your mortgage and current account. Exciting and dangerous need to be conjoined, as do boring and safe. Presently we have exciting and safe for our bankers: a disastrous combination.

Surprisingly I received a letter from him and someone at the then DTI. They told me that there is in fact a legal requirement for “information society services” to publish a contact email address on their web site. Hooray! Brussels red-tape working in my favour. The requirement is covered in 6(c) of the The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002.

I suspect this is quite an little known piece of legislation. So little that, in fact, DBERR (nee DTI) themselves do not publish an email address on their Consumer Direct web site. I know this because I recently submitted an information request to Cambridge City Council to find out how much it costs to replace a black bin because they recently quoted £50 for doing such, but you can buy the same bins online for £31 if you buy in bulk – which councils do and £19 to drive it 400 yards up the road to my house is a bit steep.

Anyway, whilst I was on the What Do They Know site filing my information request I noticed someone was trying to get a contact email address from the Student Loans Company, which is where I stepped in and left a note to let her know about the legislation. The SLC replied that they don’t have a contact email address. Not good enough. They are required to have one. So, I decided to complain to the people that told me about the requirement in the first place, and went to the Consumer Direct site, run by DBERR for consumers to get advice. And that’s how I ended up submitting another information request – this time to DBERR to get the contact email address for Consumer Direct service. Let’s hope they are more helpful than the SLC. Then we can get the SLC to be more helfpul.

The Prime Minister has moaned at OPEC for not producing more oil in order to bring prices down. Will he be capping the prices charged for North Sea oil? Demanding increased output? Reducing fuel duty? No. Brown wants the extra money just as much as OPEC countries do. And higher prices means higher revenues from North Sea oil. There’s also the fact that we don’t have a shortage of fuel, but we also don’t have extra capacity in our refineries. Saudi Arabia – the only OPEC member that could increase output – could pump millions more barrels out but we couldn’t use them because we can’t refine them. Brown’s demand on OPEC is hollow retoric with undertones of racism. Higher prices are okay for Gordon so long the economy isn’t stalled by them and he’s the benificiary rather than Arabs, Russians, Nigerians or Venuzualians maximising their profits.

Here’s my reasoning: the last 60 years growth have been based on the assumption of plentiful and cheap natural resources such as oil, metals, crops, fuel, fish – you name it, it’s scarcer and in more demand and therefore more costly than before. Many of these resources are diminishing – we’re almost certainly at or beyond peak oil, for instance – whilst demand from emerging economies such as India and China is adding to the acceleration in demand in emerged economies. Add to that the shrinking workforce and growing old age pensioners, which is already happening in some parts of Europe and will rapidly be happening here, and you have rising underlying costs. And they are rising irreversably for the next couple of decades, at least.

Now this doesn’t mean anything should be done. In fact, it’s pretty clear nothing can be done, other than to expect slower growth of our standard of living. Which, might, tenuously, lead into thoughts of what is our standard of living and how do we measure it beyond material wealth. Kids on sink estates in England feel they’ve got the shitty end of the stick, but materially they have massive advantage over their Malawian counterparts. And, providing it’s not a drought year, generally, the kid in Malawi has a better standard of living, in my limited experience. They are happier, better adjusted, more pleasant, inquisitive and able to enjoy the moment.

Just as Aldous Huxley said that morality is dependent on some basic material wealth, beyond that absolute amount of material wealth there’s a welter of ways in which our standard of living can and should be considered. As we enter an era where fast material gains become scarcer would could, as people – not states – consider, adjust, improve, perfect our non-material lives.