At last, at last, the European Parliament is in the news.
At last, at last, elected MEPs are named in the news.
At last, at last, the words of elected MEPs are quoted in the news.

I am in tears typing this. I am in Hazlemere, in Buckinghamshire, UK. Why has it taken so long?

For so long, the news media in the UK has behaved as if there is no such thing as the European Parliament. Newspaper after newspaper has been printed without mentioning a single word said in the European Parliament. Or any of the other 6 institutions of the European Union, or any of the 33 agencies of the EU. The only UK daily paper to mention the EP regularly is the Financial Times.

The UK has 73 elected MEPs out of the 751 in the EP. Three-quarters of UK MEPs have a constructive attitude. Catherine Bearder MEP, Richard Corbett MEP and Keith Taylor MEP are examples of MEPs with a good attitude. I have met the first two and had replies from the third.

In the European Parliament on 28 June 2016, Guy Verhofstadt MEP said, "What is so hard for me, is the way it succeeded". Talking about the referendum. My heart went out to him because he truly spoke for me.

Manfred Weber MEP said, "Our message to the young generation of the United Kingdom is, you can continue to trust in your friends in Europe. We don't leave you on your own". Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said, "No country on earth, nor Europe has a whole, can isolate itself from a world in turmoil. We must face these challenges together, as best we can..." (tinyurl.com/hapsdkq)

Yesterday I got a reply from a man who works as a political administrator in the Council of the European Union. The Council is the meeting of heads of government departments of the 28 national governments. Such as farm ministers. His name, Leo Schulte-Nordholt. I met him at the rally in Brussels last year. He replied to me with, "We are here, waiting, full of hope". Again I was in tears, bittersweet, I want to be part of the European family, I am in tears again now!

We have a new national weekly paper in the UK now, it's called The New European. It's for people who support EU.

I have joined the ALDE Party, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe. It's the sister party of the UK Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament.

For those of you who are new to EU, may I recommend "The European Parliament - The Citizens' Voice in the EU". For more detail, "The European Union explained - how the European Union works". Both from EU Publications Office (bookshop.europa.eu).

You have the name of the chief executive? Write to him on paper with a stamp and tell him that his company is causing yours a nuisance. Say that under the provisions of statute X (whatever that may be in your country) you are entitled to claim compensation under the civil tort of harassment, or equivalent in your country. Enclose a copy of the relevant page of the legislation. There's sure to be plenty of legislation to choose from, take your pick. Enclose some printouts of the firewall warning messages.

That CEO will have to cancel his game of golf. He will be furious about that. He doesn't want to think about tiresome technology matters. He wants to think about golf. Above all, he must avoid the electric fence and not have any silly legal troubles. He will bang some heads together and the port scans will stop.

Someone asked me about receiving automated renewal reminders by email for an antivirus program he had ordered in error and then cancelled. He had asked not to receive such reminders anymore but they kept coming. The above steps worked for me.

I have two. One to charge one of the three spare batteries. The other to use all the time. The battery lasts for days. The LCD black/white screen is readable in direct sunlight, like a Casio digital watch. The feel of the buttons means I can operate it without hardly looking at it. I dropped it onto tarmac while cycling. The front and back came off. I snapped the three pieces back together and it still worked. If I do break it, another costs £10. The mobile reception is good so it can make calls when others cannot. When the numbers wore off the keypad, a new keypad made it look much better.

The Nokia boom mic headset HDB-5 is a little masterpiece, it fits neatly on the ear and it can be plugged in by feel alone. Yes, the wire gets tangled sometimes but with no battery to go flat, it is better. For cycling, the mic end in a small piece of black foam trimmed to shape keeps the wind noise out. The stopwatch, alarm clock and calculator are useful. Certain callers I have assigned custom ring tones to, so I know when certain people call without having to look. I hold down a number button to dial certain numbers, for example, I hold button 1 for voicemail and 2 for home.

The only problem with this phone is when the keypad is unlocked, if I start dialling a number straightaway it will 'forget' the first few digits dialled and then I have to try again. There is a delay of about 2 seconds after unlocking the keypad before a number can be dialled manually. If I use the speed dial eg 2 for home then this doesn't happen.

Apart from that, it is in my opinion an almost perfect design. I like the Unix philosophy of small tools, where each does its job very well. I see no reason to ever have any other mobile phone for calls and text messages.

That has been discussed in the comments of the original article. Apparently that idea won't work.

The article says that the malware works by creating temporary .exe files in the folder specified by the %appdata% environment variable. Eg "C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data". As does numerous other malware.

FoolishIT's "Cryptoprevent" utility uses Windows' "Software Restriction Policies" to try and stop .exe files from running in the %appdata% location. It is a good idea so for what it's worth, here's the URL: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foolishit.com%2Fvb6-...

This is what I did for my customer who wanted to use only email with no attachments via dial-up.

1. I started with a Knoppix 3.3 Live CD and an old Dell Dimension PC. I installed an Intel 536EP PCI dial-up modem card.
2. In Knoppix, I ran the script to install Knoppix to the hard disk. I chose KDE as the desktop environment.
3. Running Knoppix from hard disk, I downloaded, compiled and installed the Intel536-4.68 kernel driver.
4. Set up KPPP to access the dial-up Internet Service Provider.
5. Set up KMail to access the ISP's POP3 mail server and SMTP outgoing mail server.
6. Checked that the Konqueror web browser/file manager was able to access basic websites.
7. Installed an Epson C62 printer in the CUPS printer manager, which is accessed with Konqueror, using the URL http://localhost:631/
8. In CUPS printer manager, for the Epson C62 I chose Set Printer Options and Color Model: Greyscale.

An alternative to the Intel 536EP PCI card is a standard 56k serial modem, nice to have lights to look at while it is working. This lasted for 7 years with no problems, until replaced because the customer decided to do something else.

From the article: "Chinese people can write the most vitriolic blog posts about even the top Chinese leaders without fear of censorship, but if they write in support of or opposition to an ongoing protest—or even about a rally in favor of a popular policy or leader—they will be censored."

That is interesting. I am glad someone has discovered this. So perhaps the way to organise a protest, is to use secret messages coded in the form of vitriolic comments. Eg, "Mao Tsedong is an idiot" = Meet at Tiannamen Square.

'Scuse me, I did read the article!

Perhaps Malcolm Gladwell had better update his book, "The Tipping Point". It's about how fads, crazes and fashions take off. In the book, he doesn't mention people who remain impervious to such things. They are indeed an interesting group.

Say any more?

Are one-third of Hyatt customers are men staying on their own? Could it be that after they check in, a woman arrives, on her own, in very high heeled shoes, and after an hour in his room, she then leaves again, and doesn't stay for breakfast?

I prefer the classic Microsoft Natural Keyboard in grey. How can you stand your oversized N key?? Wow, look at this: USD 208.99 on eBay!

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-in-Box-Microsoft-Natural-Keyboard-Elite-PS2-USB-Adapter-Ergonomic-Ergo-White-/330814626090?pt=PCA_Mice_Trackballs&hash=item4d0616992a

Here's one I made earlier:
http://www.pjc.me.uk/ceefax/

...readily alter one's piratey-boat profile.

In Greek mythology, a satyr is a horse/goat-like creature that f***s everything in sight.