Tuesday 18 March 2008

PHORM - UPDATE

It would seem that the chorus of disapproval about the "targeted advertising scheme" (a cute euphemism for spyware that) developed by Phorm is gathering pace somewhat. There is this from The Register - for me a clear indication of how disingenuous, if not mendacious, BT are being about the product. And, as The Register reports here, FIPR (for the uninitiated, the Foundation of Information Policy Research) has written an open letter to the Information Commissioner outlining their concerns and maintaining that the scheme is illegal.

I note too Tim Berners-Lee's comments, reported here. I can't help feeling that this intervention is especially significant, essentially because it reaches beyond the narrow confines of the Phorm issue. He makes the crucial point about his data and web history that: "It's mine - you can't have it. If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me. I have to agree, I have to understand what I'm getting in return." It will come as no surprise that I agree wholeheartedly with this. No doubt in common with Tim Berners-Lee I also believe that the principle should be applied to all data that is held about an individual wherever it is held, not just to their web-browsing history. But, as the law stands, it simply does not give effect to this. Ergo, returning to one of my more persistent themes, what is urgently required in the interests of both data privacy and data security is a radical overhaul of the current legal provision in this area to re-cast the law back in favour of the individual's data rights.

Monday 10 March 2008

DNA DATABASE DEBATE - UPDATE

This - from the Daily Telegraph - sparked my interest, not least because of my relatively recent blog about the DNA database (here).

Now I acknowledge that one has to be careful in making judgements about individual cases when one does not necessarily have all the details available. Nevertheless, even with that proviso, it is manifestly ludicrous and disproportionate that an individual should have his DNA and fingerprints entered on to the respective databases for the measly sum of £2.40 - which, according to the report he was going to pay anyway. Mr. Ahmad's explanation of his discomfiture at his treatment - "I don't want my DNA stored on the database because it implies I'm going to do something in the future. It feels like I have been tarred with the same brush as criminals." - is very much to the point. It demonstrates the uncomfortable transition from 'innocent' to 'suspect' citizen that is inherent in national/universal database schemes - and the seriousness of which, incidentally, is hugely difficult to understand or appreciate until such time as one has been subject to it. The case also underlines the way in which the Government's current policy - requiring DNA samples on the back of all recordable offences - could/would lead to an all-but universal database over time. One way or another, as more and more offences are added to the statute book and as more and more prosecutions are sought for what are essentially trivial reasons (dropping apple cores or what-have-you), it is getting increasingly difficult not to break the law!

I am reminded too that, in my previous post, I didn't make it entirely clear where I stand on this so I take this opportunity to tidy this up. Clearly I am vehemently opposed to any form of national/universal database. Rather I favour a threshold whereby prosecutions of recordable offences that result in convictions, together with arrests, whether or not resulting in conviction, for violent/sexual/serious crimes should require DNA samples to be taken and entered on the database. While this may be a tad difficult to draft accurately in law it strikes me as being the most proportionate way available to deal with the matter.

STRANGE/WARPED SENSE OF PRIORITIES

There was, for want of a better word, an 'interesting' juxtaposition of subjects in the House of Lords debates on the Criminal Justice & Immigration Bill last Wednesday.

Just short of 4.45pm the Lib Dem's Baroness Miller introduced amendment 129, the purpose of which - as recommended by the Information Commissioner and others - was to increase the current penalties for unlawfully obtaining data. Perhaps more importantly, amendments 146 (from the Lib Dems) and 148A (from the Conservatives) were coupled with this, both of which aimed at introducing the new offence - again recommended by the Information Commissioner - of "knowingly or recklessly causing the loss of personal data".

Now, as regular readers (if there are any) will now, I've blogged about this a fair few times in the past (e.g. here). I also reckon that, because it increasingly feeds into pretty much every aspect of all of our lives, this is the single most important policy area facing our legislators at the moment. With that in mind, I still hold to the view that, while undoubtedly the new offence is a stop-gap measure (until such time as our 'dear leaders' can get their heads round the imperative for a radical overhaul of the whole area of data privacy and security), it is nevertheless both urgent and essential in the short-term that the new offence appear on the statute book (if only, as it were, pour encourager les autres).

Having got that sales-pitch out of the way, what was the Government's response to these proposals? Well, reading between the lines of Lord Hunt's comments, it looks like they want to kick them into the long grass. Apparently the Government have run into serious difficulty with this particular Bill in that - I paraphrase here - they have to get it passed by mid-May at the latest in order to avert a strike by Prison Officers. As a result a bunch of shabby deals are being negotiated behind closed doors by the respective front benches to try and eliminate potential areas of conflict/controversy that might delay the Bill. One such clause touted for this process - Lord Hunt admitted it openly - are these data protection provisions. As Baroness Miller put it: "We have just debated a clause on self-defence that I heard the noble and learned Lord say is not really necessary and now the Government are considering dropping not that but a clause that the public really believe in." Bluntly this is no way to legislate.

Be that as it may, debate on this substantive and essential issue lasted for about 20-25 minutes. And in fact all the respective front-bench spokesmen (Baroness Miller, Lord Henley and Lord Hunt) opened their remarks with direct/indirect apologies for detaining the House from its next business. What subject was so important that, in their minds, it outweighed data protection and security? Why, the arcana of blasphemy of course!?! Debate on this went on for over two hours and culminated in a vote.

Now I'm sure the Lords are have considerable expertise in this field. And for sure it is a subject that attracts the interest of many of the members. Of course it's entirely up to them to decide what they think is important. So call me a cynical old goat if you will but I can't feeling that, as my title says, this demonstrates a decidedly strange, if not warped, sense of priorities amongst the Lords and Ladies. Surely in the world in which we live 'data privacy/security' versus 'blasphemy' is a no-brainer?

Wednesday 5 March 2008

PHORM "SPYWARE"

Should you be concerned about the security and privacy of the data on your computer/laptop and just in case you're a customer of British Telecom Retail, Virgin Media or Carphone Warehouse TalkTalk, you might want to take a look at this (from the ever-reliable SpyBlog), this and this (from The Register).

Even for those aren't especially techie-minded (including me), it is plain that the design of the Phorm web advertising scheme is no more than 'spy-ware', pretty sophisticated but 'spy-ware' nonetheless. At a pinch one could argue (just about) - as BT seem to be - that it is moot as to whether or not these Phorm-based schemes breach the provisions of RIPA. But, I reckon they're skating on decidedly thin legal ice here; for sure, if I were a BT lawyer, I'd be nervous about turning up in court trying to sustain such a position.

Obviously I can't speak for anyone else but it does strike me as the most abominable cheek that, just as we are justifiably fuming about the Government's utter contempt for and cavalier attitude about the security and privacy of our data, along come BT, Virgin, and Carphone Warehouse with this mendacious wheeze that demonstrates precisely the same sort of mind-set. Of course, this is in fact a major part of the problem. Because the Government is so contemptuous and cavalier about looking after our data, the private sector begins to think it can behave in the same way: a case almost of monkey is as monkey does. And that makes it all the more imperative that action be taken across the whole of Government to sort this out as a matter of urgency.

Will they do so?

Monday 25 February 2008

DNA DATABASE DEBATE

In the wake of the convictions of Stephen Wright, Mark Dixie and Levi Bellfield it was perhaps inevitable - if not predictable - that the thorny issue of a national DNA database would crop up, not just on the back of Det Supt Stuart Cundy's (personal) insistence that: "It is my opinion that a national DNA register - with all its appropriate safeguards - could have identified Sally Anne's murderer within 24 hours. Instead it took nearly nine months before Mark Dixie was identified, and almost two-and-a-half years for justice to be done." It is an assertion that is at once emotive (pandering to the earnest wish of us all that the the perpetrators of such vile crimes be brought to justice as speedily as possible), persuasive (on the face of it, 24 hours versus 9 months is an absolute no-brainer) and brave (especially for an individual who may well not be possessed of a great deal of expertise in the design and management of data systems).

Now I wouldn't want to be misunderstood here. No-one, least of all me, disputes that DNA analysis is a hugely important investigative tool for law enforcement agencies (although we should hold in our minds that it is a crime-solving rather than a crime prevention resource). But I cannot help feeling that Det Supt Cundy's assertion is at best moot and may even be both misleading and inaccurate (not least when, for example, it is measured against the 100 or so occasions on which the criminal activities of Levi Bellfield were reported to the police). Here the most important point to be aware of is that database systems are a technological resource, subject to certain innate physical properties and intractable rules. And one of the most fundamental of these, as Ross Anderson has sought to make abundantly clear for a very long time now, is that “You can have security, or functionality, or scale—you can even have any two of these. But you can’t have all three." Therefore, as sure as eggs is eggs, scaling up the DNA database to a national/universal level would have the inevitable effect of compromising either functionality or (more 'preferable' from the Government's point of view?) security.

On top of this we have to factor in not only the fact that the existing DNA database is populated with a fair degree of error already (from memory, something like half a million of the 4.5 or so million samples retained are estimated to have been mis-recorded on entry) but also that, like fingerprints, DNA analysis is not infallible. The point here is that, if the database were to be scaled up, these in-built errors would be magnified, perhaps even to the extent of undermining the value of the resource. In sum it doesn't necessarily follow that a whole-of-population database would, of itself, guarantee speedier investigative results. (Manifestly I have rather less hesitancy about this than that felt by Iain Dale in this post.)

Now, to be scrupulously fair, as Philip Johnston says in this article in the Daily Telegraph "Tony McNulty, the Home Office minister, was commendably quick to reject the calls for a universal DNA database," something which we need not necessarily have anticipated given the witlessness of some of his previous comments about ID cards and the NIR. Against that background, it is perhaps even more surprising that he has demonstrated an uncharacteristic degree of common sense in a number of his comments. He is spot on in maintaining that a national DNA database would not be a "silver bullet". He is spot on in identifying that it "would raise significant practical and ethical issues". He is spot on in saying that (as I imply above) "How to maintain the security of a database with 4.5m people on it is one thing, doing that for 60m people is another." In other words the Home Office wholly reject the idea of a national DNA database.


So far so good - and, honestly, like Philip Johnston, I commend and congratulate him for having put the Home Office's policy in this area into the public domain so concisely and so quickly. But, whilst I have no difficulty in giving him plaudits when they are due, I can't help feeling that he's managed to create a huge intellectual inconsistency for himself and the Government. You see, if we take these policy constraints on a national DNA database at face value, they in turn beg a hugely important question: what is the difference, qualitatively and quantitively between a national DNA database and the NIR or the NPfIT, &c?

The answer (a la Paul Daniels) is "Not a lot!" In fact, under the umbrella of the "Transformational Government" agenda (the proposition whereby the minutiae of every scrap of information held about an individual should be shared seamlessly across the whole of government), these databases are even more intrusive because, as a generality, they do not rely upon onward analysis for required data to be extracted from them. It would therefore be wholly legitimate to assume that, in the interests of consistency, the same policy constraints that the Government has identified in respect of a national DNA database (presumably this is what Tony McNulty's comments were intended to convey rather than a personal opinion) should be applied equally to their grandiose and misguided plans for ID cards, NPfIT, ContactPoint, &c. So, viewed logically, the Government's attitude about a national DNA database damns to hell and back their adherence to other national databases they have in the pipeline. To quote Tony McNulty's own words, the stark reality is that none of these would be a "silver bullet" to address the problems at which they are aimed, all of them "raise significant practical and ethical issues", and all of them fall foul of what could be called Anderson's Law, namely, "How to maintain the security of a database with 4.5m people on it is one thing, doing that for 60m people is another".

I know it's too much to hope for but the prospect of a little bit of joined-up government thinking here (i.e. Ministers being capable of recognising the equivalence between a national DNA database and other databases (both existing and proposed) within the Government's purview) wouldn't go amiss. Well, dreams are free. But I fear it ain't going to happen soon.

Friday 8 February 2008

MANIFESTO (UN)COMMITMENTS

I confess to having been a bit slow on the up-take about this. Nevertheless, in amongst the wholly legitimate reaction of the blogosphere (especially Trixy at Is There More to Life Than Shoes? for leading the story out but also Guido, Iain Dale, Dizzy, et al) to the Great Bottler's 'legal' prognostication that "Manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation", there sits another (potential) constitutional minefield which may well come back to haunt him.

Pretty much, the House of Lords considers itself still bound by the terms of the Salisbury Doctrine (excellent HoL library note here) - i.e. the House should not reject Government Bills brought from the House of Commons for which the Government has a mandate from the nation (aka manifesto commitments). But, if the executive (in the form of the Great Bottler) is sitting there saying that the promises it makes to the nation in the heat of the election battle are utterly meaningless, by extension the Salisbury Doctrine can no longer bite.

Interesting! I wonder how the red leather benches - particularly those of a constitutional and/or forensic temperament - are going to make sense of this, not least because, in terms, it looks as if the Great Bottler may have opened up the possibility of Government Bills being voted down in the Lords, legitimately, at 2nd Reading.

Friday 1 February 2008

HMRC ONLINE SYSTEM CRASH

OK, so this is no big surprise - especially given the Government's record for (in)competence over IT systems. And at least they have had the wit to extend the deadline for filing - no doubt thinking about the horrendous publicity they would receive on the back of the double standard revealed a few days ago.

In advance of any announcement as to what has caused the problem, current speculation (and conventional wisdom) is arguing in favour of a failure to build in to the system adequate capacity/scalability to cope with (inevitable) traffic peaks as the deadline approaches. No doubt this has been a contributory factor - it is a not uncommon problem with the Government's IT systems. But - call me an old softie or maybe I'm just being too optimistic - I'd like to believe it also has something to do with data security improvements to the site/system on the back of the HMRC fiasco. This may be just too incredible - and probably wouldn't be admitted to by Treasury spokjesmen in any event - but, if such an analysis is correct, it would imply that ad hoc attempts to retrieve an irretrievably 'broke' system are likely to cause more problems than they solve. In effect what may be necessary is a root-and-branch re-design/re-build of IT systems to guarantee that proper data security and capacity is built in from the get-go.

I don't doubt that this is an especially scary thought - in policy/financial/&c terms - for the Great Bottler and his team!!!

Tuesday 29 January 2008

BREAKDOWN OF TRUST (re DATA SECURITY)

Hot on the heels of their excellent "2007 International Privacy Rankings", those good people at Privacy International have published figures showing a huge collapse of public trust in the Government's ability to hold our personal data securely.

Of course, of itself, this isn't particularly surprising or startling news. In the wake of the HMRC fiasco and the steady and recurring drip of revelations about the failure of individual Departments to protect our data - following on from the scandalous breach of the loss/theft of an RN laptop, this from the Ministry of Justice is merely the latest cock-up that has come to light - I am surprised that anyone has any faith whatsoever in a presumption that the Government can demonstrate even a smidgeon of competence in this field. No, what makes PI's report interesting are two associated consequences/repercussions.

First, it would be naive to assume that this breakdown of trust will confine itself to our interactions with Government. As PI's text points out, it will inevitably leech into the broader context of e-commerce generally - that is to say in both the public and private sectors (something confirmed, at least in part, by the FSA's recent Financial Risk Outlook): "At this stage it is not a simple matter to predict the potential financial impact of such a trend, but it is quite possible that the economy's growth could be inhibited if trust in data security continues to erode. The cost could easily run into billions of pounds per year". With the UK/world economy looking ever-more flaky (post N.Rock, the credit crunch, et al), the timing of this could not be worse, especially in terms of the direction of the psychology of the market (as per recent stock market volatility being a function of a lack of confidence). As Simon Davies says, this makes it a matter of considerable urgency that the Government should get a grip on the means to re-establish trust as soon as possible - although, as this piece from Rosemary Jay at out-law.com makes plain, the prospect of this looks exceedingly remote. Failure to do so could have the unintended consequence of entrenching the downturn in the economy more deeply.

This leads to my second point. I would guess that, whatever their public utterances, the various Government Ministers who have some measure of responsibility in this field are in a blind panic - if not worse, much worse - as to how to retrieve the position. In fact I have it on good authority that they have even resorted to approaching various privacy advocates with whom they have been conducting something akin to open warfare vis a vis ID cards for suggestions/advice. This would be laughable if it wasn't so serious! But their blind adherence to the Government's perceived wisdom about data management/Transformational Government/&c (all that tripe) means that their minds are closed to any sensible suggestions that may come their way. In their current mindset, all that is left to them is to shift the deck-chairs on the Great Bottler's good ship Titanic.

So, dear reader, whoop-de-do, things are going to get worse before they get better, not only in terms of data security/management but also the economy. And I reckon that, in the current climate, the best thing to do is to hold on to that distrust for a while as the best way of riding out the twin storms of Government incompetence over data security and the economic downturn.

Monday 28 January 2008

ONE LAW FOR THEM ...

When one reads about this sort of thing, one really does wonder why our lords and masters find it so difficult to comprehend that we are so disengaged from the political process. It is a classic case (pace MPs' pension arrangements, salaries/expenses, &c) of them locking themselves in their ivory towers and assuming that the (idiot) general public can be subject to the full force of the law (with all its foibles, failings and flaws) while they sail blithely above it! So why should the security of the personal data of the general masses be less robust than that of anyone who lays claim to so-called 'celebrity' status? As Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers' Alliance says, it "is a completely unacceptable double standard." Bear in mind too that the same sort of procedure is built in to the ContactPoint database - as I understand it, the personal details of the chidren of parents accorded 'celebrity' status are afforded similar 'extra security measures' on the database.

In fact, in statutory terms, these sorts of arrangements could well be challengeable on the basis of hybridity. There is a general presumption that the law should treat all citizens as equal and that putative special categories of individuals should not be singled out for preferential treatment under it, as seems to be the case here. That said, I'm uncertain what the appropriate means of redress would be in these circumstances.

Sunday 27 January 2008

HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGE TO RIPA?

Outlaw.com has a mildly speculative piece about the possibility that the recently introduced provision (under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) to force the handover of encryption keys could be challenged under the Human Rights Act.

Insofar as this is accurate, it is both very welcome and potentially very far-reaching. It infers that, intriguingly, a whole raft of anti-privacy-related legislation (varying from the security regimes at airports, through ContactPoint, all the way up to ID cards) could be subject to the same sort of risk. Indeed, if any such action were ever to be tested in the Courts, it could even have ramifications for the current inadequacies of the requirement of Ministers to make Section 19 declarations under the terms of the Human Rights Act on the face of all Bills presented to Parliament.

However, as the piece makes plain, the current law has been drafted so that, in essence, the State can both 'have its cake and eat it'. As it points out the difficulty is that the 'European' equivalent to a 5th amendment right is not absolute but will rely upon the interpretation of the courts in the circumstances of the case - an elegant solution for the State but, I venture to suggest, not one that works particularly well in the interests of the citizen.

Nevertheless the article does raise two specific issues in my mind. First there is the issue as to whether the appropriate safeguards - level of authorisation, &c - are sufficiently well-defined in statute and are adequately transparent and accountable. I question that. Second, as William Malcolm observes in the article: "The whole purpose of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers framework is to place on a statutory footing, on a transparent footing, the way in which law enforcement agencies and national security agencies access these materials". In other words, its purpose is to deliver legal certainty. But, on the basis that the current policy may be challengeable in the courts and that the outcome of any such challenge would be dependent upon how the relevant court interpreted the circumstances of the case and theavailable evidence, that certainty simply does not exist.

Not for the first time, the policy-makers and legislators seem to have managed to make a pig's ear out of a silk purse!!! Still, we shall see.

ID CARDS - WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

There has been much speculation about the scrapping of the ID cards policy in recent days (here and here) - and an especially fatuous analysis of the politics of this from the BBC. Here I stand by my previous analysis about this which is a matter of record (for example here). For a variety of reasons (principally concerned with political calculation) the Great Bottler has always been lukewarm about the whole ghastly project. In the current climate, I would go further; he will be calculating that it would be in his (and New Labour's) best interests to neutralise the electoral liability that they represent (all the more so in the wake of the HMRC fiasco). Nevertheless he will only move on the issue at a time of his choosing when he reckons both that he will not be seen as a 'victim' of events and when he can maximise the potential political advantage of doing so. That said, I am prepared to concede that the looming prospect of them being kicked into the long grass has probably edged somewhat closer.

But - and it's a massive but - ID cards are merely the visible part of a huge iceberg - it's what we can't see under the surface of the water that really matters. Those excellent bods at No2ID (and many others) are only too well aware of this - in deliberately choosing to target the whole "database state" rather than ID cards in isolation. Indeed, the Great Bottler is no doubt equally well aware of this (which may in part explain his diffidence on the subject thus far) and will be factoring this in to his eventual decision about the policy. The stark reality - and sad truth - is that, however desirable the scrapping of ID cards may be, their demise will do nothing to exorcise a principal plank of policy that causes the greatest degree of concern: i.e. the availability to Government of a comprehensive digital footprint of our whole-life experience in the minutest detail. So, the passport database, eventually covering round about 80% of the UK population (after all it was always intended that this would provide the backbone to the National Identity Register), will continue to exist and operate. Legislative provision for serial data-sharing across Government continues relatively unabated. Et cetera, et cetera. And, if a little ironically, what makes all of this so much worse is that the accountability and transparency of the regime - as compared with the situation that would exist with full implementation of ID cards - is all but non-existent. Again this may explain why the Great Bottler is attracted to this approach as to all intents and purposes it is the delivery of the policy by stealth, something that he has proved himself to be especially adept at over the years!

What is is frustrating - and depressing - is that our politicos, for all their high-minded rhetoric in opposition to ID cards, appear to be either unable or unwilling to recognise this (e.g. Calamity Clegg's grandstanding on the issue a few weeks ago). I can't help feeling that all of us would be very much more comfortable about our political process if those engaged in it could at least exhibit a full grasp of the issues facing them; indeed, that might inspire us to respect them a little more!

And what is now required above all else - a persistent theme of mine - is a root-and-branch re-think of the whole sorry mess of identity/data management by, for and on behalf of government, together with new primary legislation to attend to these matters in a coherent way. Will any of the parties have either the wisdom or courage to grasp this nettle? I'm not holding my breath!

Friday 25 January 2008

UK = "ENDEMIC SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY"

I'm sure you will have noted that Privacy International published their "2007 International Privacy Ranking" a few weeks ago. Indeed there was some comment on the Report at the time (for example here from The Register and here from Spyblog) - and to this extent I concede that this is something of a 'catch-up' post. We can make of the Report's findings what we will. But the criteria that PI have deployed to make their assessments are appropriately objective. And on that basis it makes for decidedly uncomfortable reading.

Two things in particular strike me about the Report. First the trend in both the UK and the USA is undeniably towards ever greater erosion of our privacy rights. In other words the position defined by the Report is no blip on the radar. Rather, however well-intentioned some of the imperatives that underpin it may be (improvements to public services, prevention/detection of fraud, or what-have-you), it is an entrenched and relentless policy direction.

Second - and much more importantly - the right to privacy (and the attendant provision of adequate safeguards against the intrusion of the State into our daily lives) is a fundamental building block of a free society. Therefore, as sure as eggs is eggs, its emasculation makes us less free. If we stop to think about the somewhat woolly concept of 'The War on Terror', we can adopt a simplictic view that it is being 'fought' - I use the word advisedly - to protect our essential freedoms from the encroachment of the fundamentalist - perhaps even barbaric - ideology of the terrorist cause. The irony is that the assault on our privacy rights is justified in no small part on the basis of it being necessary in the interests of national security and to protect us from terrorist-inspired outrages. Accordingly I hope I'm not alone in supposing that it is perverse - some might even say asinine - to abate quintessential democratic freedoms (that of privacy in all its guises in particular) as a conscious and deliberate policy imperative when, to all intents and purposes, the declared aim is to defend them.

Now it may be that, at least superficially, privacy is less valued in societal terms than once it was. Innovations such as Facebook, MySpace, (perhaps even blogging) and others of this ilk are illustrative of how easily the (as it were) security of our privacy can be fragmented as a function and/or consequence of our interaction with the Internet and the Web. For my part I suspect that the vast majority of users of such sites are blissfully unaware of the way(s) in which their adherence to them either can or does undermine their privacy rights. In effect it is, in the main, an unintended - and, if considered properly and on the basis of full understanding, unwanted - consequence of 'buying into'/keeping pace with the latest technological advances. In other words it isn't so much that privacy is valued less; rather, in the context of how the Web works, it is less understood and/or misunderstood. What matters here is that the societal changes wrought by the Web/Internet make it more, not less, important that the right to privacy should be defended.

The upshot is that the policy direction here as espoused by our lords and masters (in both the UK and US) is completely and utterly wrong. It is absolute garbage. Methinks, time for a change (not least of direction)!

Wednesday 23 January 2008

NORMAL SERVICE WILL RESUME SHORTLY

A belated - but no less sincere for that - Happy New Year to one and all (more likely the former) who pop in to have a look at my musings.

Clearly I haven't been posting anything over the past few weeks. I apologise for that. For no particular reason I decided to extend my Christmas/New Year holiday, a) because it seemed like a good idea and b) because I have an extremely generous employer (myself!) who let me do so.

Still, I'm back in the saddle now and, as the title says, normal service in terms of posting will now resume although you may have to bear with me for a little while as I catch up with all the paper-work/correspondence that I've neglected for the past month or so. And it may well be that I feel inspired to do a few "out-of-date" posts as I trawl back over the events/news/&c of the last month or so; inevitably there will be some items that I feel worthy of some sort of comment even if they are now "history".

Once again an exceedingly Happy New Year to y'all!!!