19.07.2004 - 4:29 p.m.

As part of our obligation to filling the world with synthesised chemicals we also have to supply Material Safety Data Sheets to go with them which detail ( amongst other things ) what it is, what it does, how it interacts with nature, how flammable it is etc etc, as part of the 'Fire Fighting Measures' it states :

Special protective equipment for firefighters : Do not inhale explosion and/ or combustion gases

Was this part of the modernisation of the fire-service they were so dead set against ? or simply a glimpse at the new breed of tougher cyborg firefighters that deal with burny situations by eating them ?

Went to an airshow sunday and it was pretty good. When much much younger and living in west london, dad used to take me to the perimeter at Heathrow to watch the planes coming and going, and because this was before terrorist fervour was invented you could get right up close to the fence, magical for a five year old. Since then it's been airshows and museums like Duxford, in this case an airshow. There wasn't anything I hadn't seen before but it's always nice having your internals shaken to jelly by the roar of 40,000 pounds of re-heated thrust issuing out the arse of a fighter, my only lament is the demise of the BAe Lightning at shows due to namby-pamby noise restrictions and it's ageing airframe, although most of the D-day stuff is twice as old and Vulcans are just as noisy, so if anyone knows the exact reason why Lightnings don't fly I'd be interested to know.

They also had the obligatory flypast of a B2, although it only flew past once accompanied by two F16's and two F15's and then buggered off, we learnt later that it flew all the way from Whiteman AFB in Missouri especially for the show. For a single flypast. From Missouri. A 16 hour round trip of the most sophisticated piece of kit in the USAF with fighter and at least one tanker support. For a single flypast.

Nice to see your tax dollars at work ain't it ?

In other news a 'straight out of the left-field' shocker - BNP members found to be racist. Another case of gold-plated investigative journalism from the BBC, I think they ought to increase the license fee if this is sort of quality televisual gems we can look forward to in the future. I can see their next undercover report to be : The North Sea - The untold story. And then go on to say it's wet and the fish stocks are diminishing.

Nice work Sherlock.