Checks & Balances

I don’t like Mondays. The weekend is over and you’ve got the whole week stretching out before you. On the up-side, this particular Monday was mild, clear and sunny and I quite enjoyed my commute. I’m starting work at 10am this week, so I miss the rush-hour packing of trains. I was listening to the soundtrack of Steven Sondheim’s Company on my new iRiver and the world was a happy place.

Work soon put paid to that. I got in late so was feeling rushed as I attacked the Monday morning mailbox. Backup problems from the weekend in Leeds and Madrid delayed me further. I didn’t get to take a look at SMS until this afternoon. It still isn’t working.

Saw a couple of interesting articles on the BBC site today. One of them reports the fuss over a page of doodles left on Tony Blair’s desk at the Davos Conference. The press had the doodles analysed by a graphologist who drew all kinds of (largely negative) conclusions about what is going on in the Prime Minister’s mind. However it turns out that the doodles actually belong to Bill Gates. I wholly share Downing Street’s glee at this confusion and hope the BBC will follow up tomorrow with any explanations which may be forthcoming – although I suppose it's possible that Bill Gates could be ‘struggling to concentrate’ and ‘not a natural leader’ as well…

The other one follows on from my blogging yesterday and reports a US legal judgement that the detainees in Guantánamo Bay have rights too. Let’s hear it for checks and balances! (Although I suspect the decision will be appealed and will end up at the Supreme Court…)