AN OUTSIDE VIEW

The case of the autistic computer hacker whom the Americans are trying to extradite is worrying. The legislation is intended to be used against terrorists, and nobody has even suggested that the man concerned has any terrorist links. If anyone should be on trial, it is the US military and their computer software consultants responsible for the lapse, and who have evidently failed to maintain the security of their systems. The British courts should have dismissed the extradition request out of hand. What is going on here?

Meet at St Mary Magdalen's Church and go round Brighton saying a decade of the Rosary at selected locations. I suggest the Abortionarium, the various witchcraft shops round the town and the dolphin fountain in the Old Steine.

What a disgraceful article David Miliband wrote in The Times yesterday. Under the title " Britain is still a big player. Europe needs us ", and speaking in support of Tony Blair's bid for Presidency of the EU, he claimed Britain is a leading contributor of people and money in tackling the great challenges of the world. Our Armed Forces are trained, equipped and flexible. And we are willing to deploy them in the toughest places. and again Second, British ideas give us influence. During the economic crisis, Britain has been at the forefront of new thinking. Who in Britain is actually doing this contributing, who exactly is being "deployed", and what is this "new thinking"? Miliband should take a walk round Brighton and see the grinding poverty in which many people are trapped, as a result of being expected to "contribute". He might also consider deploying himself for a while with the military, to find out how things are at the sharp end and w...

How about this for a counter-cultural activity in the most godless city in the UK? Meet St Mary Magdalen's Church. Process through city to St Nicholas, Christ the King (Clarendon Church), St Bartholomew's, St Joseph's (Elm Grove), St Peter's, then down the Steine and up St James's Street finishing at St John the Baptist, Bristol Road. It seems to me that it would be a good idea to resist the atheism, and strange spiritualities such as Wicca, Tarot, Crystal energy and other beliefs that are running in this part of the world. Suggested starting time around 6 pm. Please leave comment if interested.

Windows 7 cannot come too soon. Lots of perfectly serviceable computers will be thrown out and become available for next to nothing if they do not end up as landfill. Computers which run XP will also run a Linux distribution just fine. If all you do is browse the internet, write letters and edit photographs, which is all that most people use computers for and Linux does perfectly well, this is good news. In any case you can run both Windows and Linux on the same computer if you want to and you can even run Windows as a Linux application. Windows can do the fancy things like run Autocad, Linux is good for simple routine tasks or if you want to tinker. There is no need to get into arguments about which system is best. There are horses for courses, so take your pick. But I get a bit angry when I see people being sold expensive Windows systems when they did not need them and could have mangaged just as well or better with Linux running on an old box under their desk.

Spitfireperformance.com It strikes me as odd that a party with Nazi antecedents should be using Spitfires in its advertising. Spitfires were used against the Nazis, not by them. Surely the BNP should be showing Messerschmitt 109s?

Min mormor och morfar var invandrare. De flyttade till Storbritannien i början av 1900-talet. Min mormor kom från Estlands huvudstad Tallinn och min morfar från Babruisk som ligger nära Minsk i nuvarande Vitryssland. På den tiden var både Estland och Vitryssland en del av det Ryska kejsardömet, liksom Finland. Min mormor hade studerat till lärare vid Tartus universitetet och hon undervisade i musik och kanske språk. Hennes modersmål var antagligen tyska och hon kunde ryska, och judiska, hebriska, estniska. Sådan språkkunskap var inte ovanlig. På den tiden var tyska och ryska de gemensamma språken. Hon hade avslutat sina studier 1895 och förresten, på den tiden hette Tallinn Reval och Tartu Dorpat. Det verkar som om hon blev privatlärare. Hennes släkt var affärsmän som handlade med pälsar och som blev mycket rika. Med min morfar var det helt annorlunda. Han hade många syskon och familjen var fattig. De flesta syskonen flyttade till USA men av en slump hamnade min morfar i London. Kanske...