I am the Sea

Down to three degrees today, but dry and clear which helped considerably on the road. It seems that a bit of rain and wind can add half as much again to my journey time, for no readily apparent reason.

Not a brilliant night's sleep last night either. I woke up at about half past one feeling dizzy and sick and lay in bed for a while before going to the loo. The wave of nausea passed after a while and I went back to bed, sitting up for a while before nodding off again to some strange and vivid dreams combining work, cats and google street view.

Last night's movie was Iron Man 2, borrowed off of one of my cow-orkers. It was a splendidly incoherent mess of stompy robots, big explosions and Mickey Rourke as a raddled Russian nuclear physicist with botoxed lips and an electric whip. Or something. It's really just an extended teaser for the forthcoming Avengers movie (that's the Merkin superhero team, not the English kinky boots and umbrellas duo). If you are a Marvel comics geek make sure you watch the post credits extra scene on this one.

As alluded to yesterday, I was more than a little upset by George Bush making excuses for the use of torture (and if anyone doubts that water boarding is torture then they should watch the video of Christopher Hitchens undergoing it). The idea that torture is useful to get a suspect to divulge the location of a ticking time bomb is a myth, dating back to a novel about the French occupation of Algeria in the 1960s, and used as a gleeful plot device in every episode of 24, ever.

Even more nauseating is the collusion of our previous Labour government (and every time I say that, I want to repeat - a Labour government - with the same air of contempt that Neil Kinnock used in his most famous speech) in such despicable actions. Anyone - politician or pundit - that advocates the use of 'harsh techniques' should be wired up to the same electrodes, or strapped to an identical water board, for the duration of any 'interrogation' session to show just how harmless it all is.