On Friday Fives - Political Demontrations

1) Have you ever written a letter to the editor of your local newspaper?

I don't think I've ever written a letter to the editor of my local newspaper. I've written a few to national newspapers and with my chair of the board of trustees of UD I've approved a few letters to the press.

2) Have you ever called one of your elected officials to tell them your views on an issue important to you?

I have, mostly as part of the Yes to AV campaign.

3) Have you ever testified during the citizen speak-out portion of a local government meeting?

No I have not. I'm not sure exactly what these are but I haven't done it.

4) Have you ever participated in a protest or demonstration?

I have. I think my first one was the march in London against the Iraq war. I bought a blue and white horn which I then used at the rugby until it broke during the Six Nations in 2015.

Since then I've been on a few and even helped organise a couple. A small march through Edinburgh during the AV referendum and some effort with a huge Yes to AV banner.

I think my favourite was the anti-poverty march in Edinburgh during the G8 meeting.

5) If so, were you arrested for doing so?

No, and I suspect that most people who go on a protest or demonstration in the UK have not been arrested or inconvenienced as a result of going on a protest march.

That said, I was denied entry to All Bar One on Festival Square after the G8 march.

I remember watching about a hundred more vigorous marchers being contained on Princess Street and how obvious it was, once you knew how few people were actually there, that the television news were picking their shots to imply that there were thousands and thousand of rowdy protesters.

On a Sort of Friday Five for the 7th of April

This will be some form of five things make a Friday and weekend round up. It may run to some, all or none of five items.

1) I attended a General Data Protection Regulation information seminar at Microsoft's offices. They have nice offices. GDPR looks like it is going to be a) a bit of a pain for my company as we are a bit too small to have dedicated systems for handling it but it poses a bit of reputational risk to us if we breach the regulations.

What will be fun is the right, for free, to make a Subject Access Request. I wonder how long it will take Momentum to figure out that if they can persuade 50,000 of their member to make a SAR to each Conservative Party branch they could bankrupt the Tory party.

2) The highlight of the gym last week as a new personal best at the deadlift of 120 kgs. That felt heavy. Other than that some thinking about preparations for touch rugby over the next few months.

3) My daughter headed south for the second half of her Easter holidays on Wednesday. It's been lovely seeing her.

4) The drains underneath our block of flats seem to be blocked again. They are just not quite big enough to cope with 21st Century usage and I suspect have been overloaded by the recent wet weather. There is the lingering aroma of drains in back of our flat. The last time this happened MLW attacked the problem with some drain unblocker and ended up melting the kitchen sink. The Captain continues to be sceptical of the use of candles in the house. I may end up having at the problem with some sort of long bendy stick.

5) The Captain is tired and has done enough Vikings, thank you very much.

6) We have been to Yorkshire for a long weekend. We stayed with MLW's friends. We went to a park and I had a ride on an electric scooter, a pedal powered go-kart and an electric boat and climbed many things. Other people did similar. The next day we went to the Railway Museum in York. I enjoyed that also. Nerf guns were deployed with extreme prejudice. Then we came home on the train.

7) Someone liked the cottage so much that they asked if they could extend their stay.

8) MLW is preparing for her TED talk in St Andrews.