It could be argued that every day is historic, but today is perhaps more so than many. Not only has today seen MPs voting in a total ban on smoking, but it’s also been a day of love.
Today we all learnt, if we hadn’t already, to love PIN. Such was the campaign that told us that from today we can no longer sign for our credit card transactions. Instead, we are now fully reliant on Chip and PIN.
I’ve known about Chip & PIN technology for quite a while longer than most people, working where I did with the things I did. Therefore it was perhaps genuinely a little more interesting for me than many. Still, I don’t think the technology is half as good as it’s being made out to be. Far too many flaws for my liking.
There are much better, more intuitive but as-yet proven fraud proof solutions that could have been used to verify cardholder identity, but sadly we’re stuck with another generic set of four digits.
I say generic, but realistically a lot of people will chose something they’ll be able to remember, usually being something related to them and thus easy to guess. No, your birthday is not a good PIN to choose. Nor are numbers from your phone number. 1066? Don’t even go there.
So what to do on this most historic of days? Well, we went for lunch at Pizza Hut. In celebration I paid with my credit card. Oh, the joy that filled me when I was presented not with a numeric keypad to confirm my identity, but rather a good old fashioned pen. And a very ugly horrible pen at that.
For Pizza Hut at least, I love PEN. Still. I’m guessing Pizza Hut will leap into the 21st century sometime in the next few years. Up until then, they’re leaving themselves open to be responsible for a lot of fraudulent transactions.
So it looks like Tony won’t be in the House of Commons for another crucial vote tonight, this time on ID Cards. As an aside, it would be rather amusing if the back benchers managed to cause the Government to lose by 1 vote (again)!
With the PM away, everybody seems to be talking about how Gordon Brown is in charge in the crunch week when two key votes will take place.
Now therein lies my confusion. I’m fairly certain Gordon Brown is still Chancellor. Even though it’s almost certain the premiership will be handed over to him, I thought it was the Deputy PM rather than the Chancellor who took over when the PM was otherwise engaged.
So why is Gordon Brown in charge rather than John Prescott? Or is this just more media spin?
I’m really looking forward to the 14th February this year. It should be very special. The beginning of a new era. I’m pinning my hopes on it being extraordinary.
The 1st of February, four days into the New Chinese Year, six years into the Age of Aquarius. There’s a lot of numbers in the news this morning:
100 British soldiers killed in Iraq
8100000 BSkyB subscribers
10000 tonnes of phosphoric acid sinks into the Channel
8 Oscar nominations for Brokeback Mountain
Some good, some bad, all numerical, all important.
Generations of school children in South East England have experienced the rite of passage seeing one of the shows at the London Planetarium.
According to an article in today’s Independent, that’s all to change.
No longer will you be able to journey into deep space at the attraction alongside Madame Tussauds. Apparently star shows aren’t popular anymore. People would rather journey “around the worlds of fame and celebrity” instead.
I’ll tell you why nobody bothers to visit the Planetarium anymore: because the shows are rubbish. Audiences are spoken down to, as if they didn’t know what a planet or the Sun actually were. Bring back a bit more content and the visitors will return.
To be honest, this has been on the cards for sometime. Ever since Tussauds dumped the world famous star projector in the middle of Alton Towers as a bit of ride scenery, it was obvious the days of the serious Planetarium were numbered.
I woke up a little before 6am this morning. Shortly after I heard something that sounded like a huge rumble of thunder and then the whole house shook.
My two initial reactions were either one of those small earthquakes or a plane coming down at Heathrow.
Sky News are reporting that it was an explosion at a fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead. That’s 25 miles away.
