So there I was, posting away merrily, when my sentence disappeared, Word disappeared and on came Windows to tell me it was reconfiguring stuff to download stuff, none of which I wanted.
“This could take several minutes,” it announced. It took twenty. Then my netbook wouldn’t start. So I chose Repair startup. It told me that some f**king clown had loaded some software inappropriate for my netbook, and this had now damaged the startup settings. It said they would now atempt to repair their own torpedo hole.
“This could take over an hour,” another panel said. But instead, it took five minutes to say it couldn’t repair the problem and I should get in touch with my hardware manufacturer.
So that’s it. Until I get back to my laptop, the Slog will be dormant. But Microsoft, maker of universlly sh*t software, can pull this kind of stunt because it is beyond the reach of the law or the will of politicians to stop them. This post comes courtesy of a chum’s laptop; and so while I’m here analysing the nature of f**kwits, we might as well talk about the EU.
Manuelo Barroso, I’m told, is gaining power in Brussels. The reason? “He rarely makes mistakes and never says anything radical”. So there you have it: how to become Holy Brussels Emperor without really trying.
In Greece meanwhile, the property tax is about to be doubled, and the can of worms Coalition at the top is doing the Troika’s bidding without courage or fairness, this being the opposite of without fear or favour. But Evangelo Venizelos says the horizontal cutting is now over, and that the economic programme of 2012 will proceed as planned, “with the highest degree of social sensibility, and special payrolls [judges, state hospital doctors, military personnel and others] won’t be affected.” But in 2013, the Fat One promises, “there will be no horizontal cuts.”
I’m thrilled about this in a baffled sort of way, but confused about the social sensibility bollocks. The addition of the emergency property tax to electricity bills in 2011 and the inability of many people to pay either the Greek Public Power Company (DEH) bills or the emergency tax. Greek citizen debt has skyrocketed to 1.1 billion euro in unpaid bills.
However, the management of DEH granted themselves a family allowance of 3,500 euro per month. That should allow their families to avoid penury while evading tax.
In Spain, full bailout is about to happen (if Berlin is still up for it) and Sicily looks as if it might up anchor and declare independence from Italy, possibly to form the People’s Congress of Cosa Nostras. The worse the ClubMed economic data gets, and the more surging export figures emerge from Merkelania, the more money flows to the safe North and makes a ClubMed collapse inevitable.
Christine Lagarde’s reaction (under orders from the White House) is to stop lending at all to the eurozone. David Cameron’s is to demand some sock pulling and sleeve up-rolling. But Mario Draghi has come out fighting, saying that the euro is “irreversible”. If he means by this that it has no reverse gear, and thus cannot be stopped from ploughing into an ocean of smelly-doo-doo big jobbies, he is correct.
More on Olympic disorganisation later if I can get access.
The Slog 