If you didn’t watch last night’s final presidential debate, here’s what you missed:

At least that’s how it looked when I was watching it…

After all the whinging and complaining over the last week about my problems getting my new iPhone 3G from O2, I thought I would share some of my initial impressions of it.

Yes, that’s right…I’ve got my brand new, shiny, lickable, 16gb black iPhone 3G. I exclusively revealed this exciting bit of news on FaceBook last Thursday when it was delivered to my north London lair.

And again, yes, you read that right, I posted it on my FaceBook profile, as a status update.

Status updates on FaceBook are a lot like Twitter posts. It’s another reason why you should be my FaceBook friend!

Even though it was 6 days later than expected, I was still very pleased to be receiving iPhone 3G and couldn’t wait to unbox it and fire it up.

I didn’t buy the original iPhone, as it was only released officially here in the UK around 8 months ago. My reasoning was sound, or so I thought. As I expected a 2nd generation of iPhone to come out around now, I didn’t want to be in a position of wanting to buy it so soon after getting the 1st gen.

How was I to know that O2 were going to be handing out cheap (or free) upgrades to existing customers? Doh!

I was bit disappointed that Apple left out a couple of goodies that shipped with the original iPhone - the dock and the microfibre cloth to wipe the screen. The lack of the microfibre cloth is a real silly miss, they can’t cost that much when you’re buying a million of them.

The touchscreen does pick up a lot of fingerprints, though they are only really noticeable when the the screen is off. When the screen is illuminated, its very bright and you really don’t see any.

The screen is actually gloriously bright, extremely crisp and pin sharp. I could easily watch a full length film or television programme on it and probably will. The multi-touch control of the device is nothing short of astounding. It’s extremely intuitive and very accurate.

The iPod functions are also impressive and it blows away my old 60gb 5th gen iPod with video.

I’ve also set up several email accounts on my iPhone. If you want to reach me when I am on the go, you can contact northlondonhippy@gmail.com or northlondonhippy@yahoo.co.uk and I’ll receive them pretty goddamn quickly! You might even get a mobile reply…

I’ve also got the FaceBook mobile application, AIM for instant messaging and I’ve been playing around on Twitter with that cool app called Twinkle. I’m northlondonhippy on all of those services too, though Twitter registered my username as n_londonhippy because they don’t give you enough characters for my full online name.

Surfing the web on the iPhone is something else I’ve spent a good deal of time doing and its the first hand-held device that gives you any sort of useful internet experience. I’ve accessed the net from various mobile phones and an old Palm Pilot of mine and I’ve always found it sorely lacking. Spend ten minutes doing the same on the iPhone 3G and you will wonder how you lived without it. I’ve used both wi-fi and the 3G network and pages load very quickly too.

I read that the new iPhone 3G has about as much computing power as a laptop made in 2003; similar processing power and storage is what I took that to mean. Think about it - I’m now carrying something as powerful as a five-year-old laptop in my pocket now. It blows my mind!

There really are only 2 major differences between the new iPhone 3G and the original iPhone (and yes, I know there are plenty of minor changes, just humour me, please). The inclusion of 3G network access and GPS.

The GPS is nothing short of amazing. Even sitting here , deep inside my north London lair, not near any windows and it still knows where I am with frightening accuracy. The map software lets you know how certain it is of your location, by using variously sized circles to indicate your approximate location, until it is certain and then places a push-pin like marker where you are. Outside with no obstructions, when the iPhone can see the sky, you get a remarkably accurate reading of your location, so much so that if you walk a bit, the blue dot adjusts to your new position.

The location data isn’t only utilised by the map application, but any app can grab it. This includes geo-tagging of your photos and with some Twitter apps, can include your location so you can track people nearby. Spooky!

Can someone please release some turn-by-turn, good enough to work in my car, navigation software? I’ve read that TomTom have already written the app, so why can’t I buy it already? My old TomTom is massive, compared to my tiny, slim little iPhone, if I didn’t have to carry the TomTom with me, it would be a real bonus and my pockets would thank you.

And while I’m at it with a wishlist, could someone please design, manufacture and sell the following:

A powered dock for use in my car, that has a suction-cup windscreen mount, so I can position the iPhone like a SatNav, plus a built-in, sophisticated FM transmitter that scans to find the best frequency and then beams audio to my in-car stereo, in high quality.

My super-dooper in-car dock/transmitter/mount is not actually such a big ask and it would sell like proverbial hotcakes. Bundle it with a code to get a navigation app and you would probably sell 500,000 of them in the first year alone. I’m giving you a multimillion pound idea here, for free, so if one of you do this, at least cut me in for a slice of the pie. Or just send me one of these cool in-car suction-cup, FM-transmitter thingies for free. It’s the least you could do!

There is a third thing that separates the new iPhone 3G from its predecessor, though you can upgrade the original to the new 2.0 software and enjoy it as well. I’m talking about third party applications which you can access via iTunes or on the iPhone itself. Some apps are free, others cost. So far, I’ve only installed the freebies.

I’m not being cheap, its just none of the pay apps have really appealed to me and the best ones seem to be games and I’m not that bothered. When I see one I like the look of (navigation software!!!!!), I’ll happily part with my readies.

There are so many applications available already that I’m not going to actually talk about any of the specific ones now, but I’d rather come back at another time to give them proper attention.

What can’t be denied is that this is the real game changer with the iPhone 3G, the ability to do so many cool things with it. And that’s just today, who knows what tomorrow’s killer application for the iPhone might be…perhaps one of you out there in internetland is already working on the next HUGE thing! Just whisper it in my ear, before your start-up has its IPO, so I can get in on the ground floor and make a little dirty lucre too…!

The one thing no-one seems to ever mention when they write about the iPhone is the phone itself. I think that shows you how far we come with personal technology and gadgets, that the voice-communication function of something with the word “phone” in its name, is taken for granted and doesn’t matter that much.

It does to me and one of my concerns about the iPhone was how it performed as a basic mobile telephone.

It turns out I had nothing to fear, the iPhone is a very robust cellphone. Calls over my network on 3G are clear and the connection seems strong. The speakerphone function really works too, dialling a contact or a phone number is also very simple and works very well.

What’s interesting about the iPhone is the many standard mobile phone functions it DOESN’T do. There’s no MMS messaging, so no sending photos as text messages. There’s no way to forward a text message either. The iPhone has BlueTooth, but the only thing it uses it for is to connect a wireless headset. You can’t send a photo to your computer, or to another phone, you can’t exchange contacts with another phone, you can’t even Bluejack strangers!

I don’t really understand why Apple has locked these functions out. At the very least, let us send photos over bluetooth. And synching notes from my Mac would be useful too!

Something else I don’t understand is the lack of cut & paste. It couldn’t be that hard to get a clipboard like functionality running on it. It’s supposed to be the same software that runs on Macs, so what’s the problem? I know some Apple big-wig mentioned that it was on their list of things to do and they just didn’t have time to get to it, but that comes off sounding lame. There’s got to be some marketing reason for withholding this function, I just haven’t a clue what it could be!

All of these cool things do come at a cost and I don’t mean your monthly bill, though they might sting a bit too. I mean battery life, or the lack of it. Surfing the net, checking emails, playing with apps, all drain the battery far faster than you would like and its very easy to see it drop 50% in a couple of hours.

I could see carrying a spare dock cable and attaching it to the nearest PC at every opportunity. It’s another reason why I want a powered dock for the car. I don’t see how I would get through a full day of serious usage without topping up the battery a couple of times.

So am I happy with my new iPhone?

What do you think? It’s easily the coolest, most powerful device I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning. I’m looking forward to 18 months of delirious joy as I find new and fun things to do with it.

And at the end of 18 months, I can only imagine what sort of iPhone I will be upgrading to then! It will probably transport me to a virtual new reality where I’m the king of the universe and everyone worships me as a living god. Now, that’s a app I’d buy!

Hey ho hippyfans and internet surfers everywhere!

Welcome to my humble online home, though today I wanted to tell you all a bit about my summer residence on Facebook.

I’m not on Facebook with my real name, but I am on there as the northlondonhippy - or as I am technically registered on there: North Londonhippy.

I’ve been a member of Facebook for a few months now, but only recently have I decided to take a proper interest. I’ve joined a handful of pro-cannabis groups and added the LastFM application, so you can keep an eye my current musical tastes.

LastFM is connected to iTunes on my Mac Mini, which is how I play my music through my amplifier and it keeps an eye on every track I play. You can see my top ten lists on my Facebook profile.

On LastFM, my login is n_londonhippy, if you want track me down there.

But if you’re a keen Facebooker and like making friends with (pseudo) internet-celebrities, I’m ready and waiting to accept all requests.

I don’t have many friends on there, but that’s because I haven’t been pursuing them, but I am now.

This is a an open call to all of you to befriend me on Facebook! I’ll be popping over there for the occasional status update and amusing comment on my wall. It’s also a place you can message me, if you prefer to contact me that way rather than via email.

So go, impress your friends, dazzle your family when you proclaim to the world that you are internet-friends with the world’s number-one, north London based hippy of questionable moral fibre! The pride that will fill your heart will be overwhelming!

Back in September, I wrote a little piece on why my phone was not an iPhone, yet.

But soon, my phone will be an iPhone.

iHope.

iPray.

iDream.

iPre-registered…

…for the brand new, shiny lickable iPhone 3G just as soon as O2 let me. Yesterday, I received an email advising me that I could pre-order one of these little babies online and it would be delivered to my north London lair on Friday, which is the official launch day for this latest version of the world’s favourite touchscreen mobile.

Sorted!

Or so I thought.

I placed the order before 8:30am yesterday, put in all my details and saw the conformation screen with my order number. They said I would receive an email with all of these details as well.

I’m still waiting for that email to arrive.

In O2’s FAQs, they say you can email them your PAC code, from your previous network and they can add it to your account, so I did.

The reply I received was a bit surprising.

I need to mention that this reply to my email wasn’t spotted by me until many hours later, because I slept all day, because I was between shifts.

I still am, so there will be another snooze very soon.

While I was sleeping, O2’s entire online ordering system was melting down into a steaming puddle of poo.

They were overwhelmed by the number orders being placed, or “victims of their own success” as I am sure some O2 spokesperson will be stating in front of a TV camera very soon. That’s what all companies say when they can’t keep up with demand; its an oldie but a goodie.

So anyway, I wake up and waiting for me is an actual reply from an actual human O2 employee, who apologised for the lack of a facility to input my PAC code when I placed my order and then explained what I needed to do with it (all after I receive the iPhone 3G) AND then went on to share an extremely important fact…

“Your order (on-xxxxxxxxx) for the 16Gb (Gigabytes) iPhone 3G is currently out of stock. You’ll receive your order on or after 11 July 2008.”

The key words in that sentence are:
- out of stock
- on or after

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

FUCK!

You have no idea how deeply my little heart sank at this most distressing and unpleasant turn of events.

I ordered my iPhone 3G less than 30 mins after they went on sale and it sounds like there’s a better than average chance I will be sitting here all day on Friday, staring out my window for a courier that will never come.

Oh the horror!

I’ve been waiting a seriously long time for my iPhone 3G, forgoing the original version which I could have had last autumn…and if I did get that one, I would be getting a free upgrade to the new model, just for signing a new 18 month contract.

These ain’t tears of joy staining my keyboard, trust me.

So I wait and I wonder. Is there an iPhone 3G sitting in a warehouse somewhere with “the northlondonhippy” on printed on the label!

I hope not, because there’s no way they’d know where to deliver it, but my real world name and proper address might be better.

You get the idea anyway, either I ordered early enough to have them allocate me one, or they have so few that they ran out in like 10-15 minutes of online trading and I’m screwed.

No one knows for certain how many iPhone 3G’s are even available, O2 and Apple have remained silent on this issue, at least according to the various newspaper reports I read this morning. The closest I got to any sort of detail was that one newspaper thought half the iPhone 3Gs were being pre-sold online and the other half were heading to O2 shops around the UK. How do you play the odds on that one?

So here’s my next quandary, do I cancel my online order and gamble that I will have better luck at 8am on Friday at my local O2 shop? Will there be a queue? Will there be enough to go around? Will I get mugged on my way back home, because criminals read the news too?

I don’t have the answer to any of those questions, except that last one…I would die or kill to protect my brand new, shiny, lickable iPhone 3G, so you best think twice before you attempt to pilfer it from me!

I’ve got mixed feelings about O2 already and I’ve only been a (non active) customer of theirs for only 24 hours.

On the one hand, I’ve had a personal reply to my emailed question, but on the other hand, they have not confirmed my order by email, as they said they would, nor given me any sort of update on my order’s progress.

In light of the massive media attention this launch has seen and will likely see over the next week, you would think O2 would be prepared for a situation like this. Holding emails and press statements would be out there already to counteract all the negative information I’ve seen about shortages and poor customer service.

Maybe they should hire me to do their PR.

Then again, they don’t have to do anything. It seems we’re all slavering like rabid dogs at the prospect of owning the latest iPhone and no matter how badly we’re treated, we still want one.

It’s not like we can get one elsewhere, thanks to O2’s exclusive deal with Apple, we have no real choice.

I’m no different, I’m willing to jump through multiple hoops of fire and swear an oath to satan if I have to, as long as I’m clutching mine this Friday.

Ok, I know I’ve already sworn several oaths to satan, one more’s not going to make a blind bit of difference.

As long as I get my goddamn iPhone 3G on Friday, I don’t care about anything else!

Please oh great gods of high technology, may you be smiling upon me, your most worthy and devoted disciple!

Just gimme my goddamn iPhone, goddammit!

I’m going to be paying more attention to the US presidential race now that we are fairly certain who the two main candidates will be. It’s not that I haven’t been paying attention all along, I just haven’t written much about it so far.

I’m not actually going to write that much today, but rather I am going to let one of the candidates speak for himself.

This video was put together by Robert Greenwald of “OutFoxed” fame; that’s the film that ripped the shit out of Fox News. It’s worth seeing, if you haven’t already. Here’s his latest on presumptive Republican presidential candidate, John McCain.

Seems to me this guy is not qualified to be the next president, if his contradictory statements are anything to go on. Of course, the current incumbent wasn’t qualified to be dog catcher, never mind president and he got two terms. Though to put it in perspective, Bush the lesser now has the LOWEST APPROVAL RATING OF ANY PRESIDENT EVER.

If that many people really hate Bush now, how can McCain stand a chance? A McCain presidency would just be four more years of the same and I can’t see anyone voting for that, can you?

I haven’t really weighed in on the upcoming US presidential elections yet and I thought it was about time I did.

I think I was waiting for the field to narrow to the final two candidates and like most of the world and media (of which I play a small role), thought it would have been resolved by now. It just goes to show you what the media knows…sweet FA.

Except me, of course with my crystal balls and amazing predictive powers of foresight.

I’ve always joked that newsrooms should replace their forward planning desks with psychics anyway. Just imagine if someone could tell you where to put a TV camera for the next big plane crash or political assassination. Talk about a world exclusive!

And speaking of political assassinations, why are people so obsessed with someone bumping off Barak Obama. You know, some wacko doesn’t have to kill the black candidate. It’s not a rule, or even a suggested guideline. It’s actually reprehensible to suggest it, but the suggestion is out there, far more than you might expect.

My friends over at ANORAK NEWS, have been charting the OBAMA DEATH CULT, thanks to public comments by former Republican candidate Mike Huckabee and now HILLARY CLINTON.

These are just the two most recent and high profile examples, but there are more.

Why is everyone so afraid of an Obama presidency?

I think the answer to that is quite complex and anyone who says its just down to racism, is missing the point. I’m not going to deny there is a racist element to it, because it is certainly a component and for some, the only reason, but there’s more to it than that.

Obama represents change and a break from the past. He is, if nothing else, creating an illusion, that he will take America in a different and more progressive and dare I say, liberal direction. Whether or not that is true, remains to be seen, but he is certainly marketing himself that way.

So many people wouldn’t be talking about some nut killing Obama, if they weren’t afraid of him.

I have a silly theory that he might be the anti-christ, but of course I don’t believe in that nonsense any more than I believe in the real one. It always gets a laugh though, except from committed Christians (and shouldn’t they all be?), who give me knowing glances and a couple of leaflets from their church.

Whenever I listen to Obama speak, I actually like what I hear. I realise that’s a politician’s job, but he does do it well. When he says he would talk directly with his enemies, I applaud him, when he says he’ll pull all the troops out of Iraq as quickly and safely as possible, I commend him and when he says he’ll allow the use of medical marijuana, I’d kiss him.

But would I vote for him? If he ends up being the democratic candidate, of course I would, but it doesn’t matter, because I am not a voter. Anything is better than another four years of McBush.

But back to the “kill Obama” sideshow…I found this clip from Fox News especially disturbing. Actually it really fucked me off. See what you think…

There’s about one week left to enter my rocking Bubbler contest. You can really win a brand new Bushmaster Bubbler, plus other cool prizes. You want some cool shit from the hippy, don’t you? Click here, click now!

I took delivery of a Playstation 3 this week, along with a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 (GTA 4). I’ve abandoned north London and am now a resident of Liberty City. Just call me the libertycityhippy from now on.

I’ve never been much of a gamer, the last console I owned was a Nintendo NES, back in the early 80s. I haven’t really played any computer games since then.

I debated buying a PS3 for a while as I think having one is the equivalent of giving up on reality, though technically I gave up on it a couple of decades ago. I’ve got friends who have been telling me how cool they are for a while and with the release of GTA 4, I thought it was time to take the plunge.

I very nearly bought a PS2 and GTA San Andreas, but convinced myself my free time would be better spent pursuing random acts of creativity. I’m feeling far less creative at the moment and rather than trying to extract blood from a stone, I’ve elected to spend my leisure time in a virtual world where I can steal cars, shag whores and kill people. That’s better than exploring the same activities in reality around north London, I guess.

Video games are time bandits and they will eat up your free time quite effectively and if you’re as crap at playing them as I am, they will take up even more of your time.

I thought long and hard about this purchase, seeing it as a mini-surrender to having a life. In some ways, this is me giving up, just a little. Not forever, not even until I finish GTA 4 (which at the rate I am going will take years), but just enough to clear some of the cobwebs out of my skull. It was either this or some LSD and finding quality acid these days seems like too much of a struggle, so I am now a gamer.

Setting up the PS3 was a breeze, I’ve connected it directly to my Bravia’s only HDMI input and I have the output set to 1080i, which is the best resolution my tv can deliver. The audio also goes via the TV and is then fed back to my amplifier via a stereo cable – not ideal, but serviceable. I only have 2.1 audio, so its not like I am missing out on the 5.1 surround sound – I don’t have enough speakers to benefit from it.

I was also able to get the PS3 straight onto my home wi-fi network, which means online game play and updates are already within my grasp. I’ve actually run some updates already and my operating system is bang up to date.

I bought 2 games with the console, the afformentioned GTA 4 and Gran Tursimo 5 – The Prologue, on the recommendation of a mate.

Gran Turismo is positively stunning, especially the backgrounds. I’ve been doing laps around a track in London and it is pin sharp and photo-realistic. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know what I mean, it is positively jaw-droppingly good! I’m still crap at controlling the car, though and I definitely need lots of practise.

GT5 is a taster of the full version of the game, which is due to be released next year and only cost me 17 quid, which I thought was a real bargain.

GTA 4 is unbelievably involved and has a scope and scale which is mind boggling. The gameplay takes place in an expansive and extremely realistic realm, which is massive and has a level of detail which would thrill most feature film makers. I can’t get over how good it all looks.

The main reason I really bought all this is I’ve felt for a while that I was missing out on a significant part of home entertainment by not having a games console. Video games are big business, making as much or more annually than most feature films. I think I read GTA 4 took over 50 million dollars in its first week of release, making it the best selling game of all time.

GTA 4 cost nearly 40 quid, which may sound expensive, but if you factor in the number of hours I’ll be playing it and the shear size of the playing field, you can see why they are that expensive. The amount of time and man-hours that go into developing such a game is immense and they have to make it back somehow.

I also think there’s probably work to be had in the world of gaming, for a middle-aged, make-believe hippy from north London. Someone has to write the storylines and create the characters – I could do that! I would love to do that! Games probably reach more people than films, so it’s a big audience to satisfy and satisfy them, I would!

So who out there has any contacts with the major gaming developers? Wanna hook me up with a highly paid, emotionally satisfying position coming up with concepts and stories for future games? I promise you that given the chance, I could come up with the most compelling games imaginable!

Like how about this…a northlondonhippy videogame! You would get to be me, in an RPG sort of way. You could hang out in my virtual lair, roll and smoke virtual spliffs, watch TV and play PS3 games, as me. And then their would be missions, like scoring weed on a Friday night, but still having time to get home and order a nice Japanese take-away, before the restaurant closes.

You’d pay 40 quid for that, wouldn’t you?

(you can still win my bubbler, along with many other prizes, click here to find out more!)

Hey kids, I’ve got something cool to share with you!

A friend of my has produced, directed and edited a music video for her husband’s band and it is fucking amazing! This really deserves a wide audience and I’m aiming to do my part by posting it here. If you’ve got a spare three minutes, I implore you to watch the following video.

So without further ado, here’s the video for “Ah Woohoo!” from the band, Sushalini!

I’m blown away by it! I think she did an excellent job on a very low budget with a shoestring crew. I hope you all liked it too…Tell your mates to check it out!

Check this out:

It’s over 6 minutes long, but I promise, it’s worth it.

Don’t have 6 minutes? Ok, you can read THIS VERSION in 2 mins, from the NY Times.

Personally, I think this is the first rational explanation I’ve ever heard on the nature of existence and it deserves a much wider audience. Please spread the word!

Now that you’ve read the NY Times article, or watched the video, read the title of this entry again.

Ok, who’s with me?

Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan, or “Richard and Judy” as they are known to their legions of fans in the UK are very popular and influential celebrities in this country. When they recommend a book or a wine, it becomes a big seller overnight. What they say to the nation, can change the course of the nation. They hold a lot of sway.

For those of you not residing here in Blighty, I should explain a bit. The couple I’m talking about have been fixtures on our daytime TV screens for many, many years. They are married and after starting out in regional telly, moved on to hosting a national daytime chat show in the mornings on ITV. After many years on ITV and in a well publicised and expensive network coup, made a high profile jump to Channel 4. That’s where theyremain, hosting a programme that goes out weekdays 5pm-6pm.

Normally, I find their views on the conservativeside and in some instances extremely so, which meant I was quite surprised when someone I know drew my attention to a recent Richard Madeley’s column in the Daily Express newspaper.

Yes, the Daily Express of all places!

Rather than tease you with this, I’ll just cut to the chase with the salient quotes:

“RICHARD: How awkward it is to have to begin the new year defending the apparently indefensible… in the form of eccentric police chief Richard Brunstrom’s latest headline-grabbing “gaffe”. I refer, of course, to his call this week on Radio 4’s Today programme for the legalising of drugs.



Brunstrom reckons all currently banned substances – everything from Ecstasy to heroin – will have been decriminalised inside 10 years. He added that Ecstasy is “safer than aspirin”, for good measure.


“Idiotic”, “Mad”, and “Captain Calamity” were just some descriptions of the head of the North Wales force the following morning. Parents of young people who died after taking Ecstasy queued up to castigate him – quite understandably. If my child had perished because of drug abuse, I would be first in line calling for Brunstrom’s head.



Which doesn’t mean I would be right. It is pointless here to get into a statistical debate about the dangers of aspirin versus Ecstasy.  Both preparations can kill: Ecstasy by fits following dehydration and other factors, aspirin usually from internal bleeding.



Ecstasy kills around 50 people every year – although many more have a close encounter with the Grim Reaper in their local intensive care unit.



But considering the colossal number of (mostly) young people who swallow Ecstasy tablets in nightclubs up and down Britain every night of the year, the toll is comparatively small when set against those killed or maimed in drink-driving crashes.



Don’t get me wrong, I think taking Ecstasy is stupid. 



Prolonged use may well cause memory loss. But being against the law hasn’t stopped it from becoming endemic – which means the criminal supply of Ecstasy and other drugs is endemic too.

This is at the root of the gang culture that grips virtually every city in Britain and is largely responsible for the proliferation of guns on our streets. The analogy with Thirties prohibition era Chicago is inescapable.

Personally, I’d feel safer taking a palmful of aspirin than even one Ecstasy. But as a social policy, the criminalisation of drugs must surely be recognised for what it is:  an abject failure. Cocaine, heroin, speed and, yes, Ecstasy, have never been more widely available or cheaper to buy. Their illegal sale on an industrial scale nourishes a huge, sprawling and hydra-headed criminal underclass.

All Richard Brunstrom – with,  by the way, the broad support of his police authority – is really asking is for a sensible debate on how we move on from the failed drug policies of the past.



He may be a ridiculous honorary druid with an irritating penchant for speed cameras and absurdly sensitive to weak jokes about the Welsh, but he’s doing something rarely seen in our chief constables.

He is thinking out of the box. That is brave and bold and deserves thoughtful consideration, not calumny.”

Please do click this link to the original article, it starts about 1/2 way down the page.

I was stunned.

I was flabbergasted!

I’m never flabbergasted.

I’m not certain what flabbergasted even means!

Sometimes, common sense comes from very unlikely sources and I must say there was no more unlikely source of these sagely words than Richard Madeley.

I’d like to applaud Mr. Madeley’s bravery and genuine courage for coming out in support of Richard Brunstom and the Police Authority in the pursuit of truth and honesty about drugs.

The next time you’re discussing legalising drugs with someone, quote Richard. Seriously, even to your parents. People really dig Richard and Judy, if you quote him, they will think twice about their beliefs and perhaps even start to question them. Try it and you’ll see what I mean, attaching his name to the cause will give it a new level of respect.

If Richard Madeley supports a complete re-think on drug policy, perhaps there IS something to it!

If more people were willing to stand up and speak out, perhaps things would be better for responsible adults like myself and those of you out there who choose to indulge in the use of unsanctioned substances. There are so so SO many of us out there, who lead productive, normal lives, yet enjoy things other than alcohol and tobacco.

We have too much to lose. That’s the problem, our normalcy and responsible lives don’t meet society’s stereotypes of what a drug user is. If we did step out of the closet and proclaim proudly that we smoke weed, or snort a bit of charlie, or neck a few pills every weekend and it wasn’t destroying our lives, people who disapproved would find a way of destroying our lives for us.

Next week is the public consultation on reclassifying weed. I’m sure people braver than me will attend and speak out eloquently on the subject, before they’re ignored completely and the government just reclassifies it anyway. But that’s not why I’m not going.

I’m not going, because I have too much to lose. As open as I am about my drug use to friends, family, work colleagues, strangers I sit next to on the bus, I don’t know how I’d feel about my name and address being on record with this government in relation to the status of weed and specifically my constant intake of it.

And with this government, how long would it take them before they lost the list and it ended up in the hands of, oh I don’t know, the police maybe! Making cannabis class B means the penalties are worse for the end user; what if they decide to ‘round us all up? They’re building an awful lot of new prisons!

Oh and by the way, the penalties for production and distribution of cannabis, ie growing and dealing, are exactly the same under class B as class C, so it’s really only those of us who might get caught with a small amount who are seeing the penalties change. Thanks, Gordon. Thanks, Jacqui.

What’s worse is that it will only drive those of us who wish to speak out, further underground, while allowing the criminal element to continue ruling the trade, with no additional risks. Who really benefits from this change in status?

That’s an easy question to answer. Who benefits from the reclassification of cannabis?

No one at all.