Coastalblog

We are constantly told that we live in a free society. It's the outcome of those wars we're so proud of winning. It's the excuse we use when we support one side against another in internecine conflicts in other countries. Freedom, it's all about the freedom baby. Count yourself lucky you're not living in a police state like all those commies, or a crazy theocracy like all those wacky Muslims hey, guys? Am I right? Feel the freedom! So it comes as something of a surprise, given how up we all are on freedom and whatnot, that a Brazilian national, David Miranda, was detained at Heathrow for nine hours under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act, a decidedly unfree spot of legislation which denies detainees access to lawyers or family members for nine hours, after which they must either be charged or reeased. Miranda wasn't charged, he was released. He was released, however, without his laptop, various USB sticks and any device which may have had memory, those, the rozz...

Now the eagle eyesd amongst you will note that I, cold -eyed commercial jackal that I am, have got round to sticking up a link whereby you could, should you so desire, buy my most recent book. A mere four months after it came out, this strikes me as pretty rapid work by my standards.I'm like Goldman Sachs or something. Also more rapid than usual is the whacking in of a lazy placeholder piece like this when the blogs been dormant for a while, I normally wait about eight months, whereas it's only been a couple of weeks this time. Not sure what this signifies, but I'm sure it means something. Should you be wondering your humble correspondent has generally been found sweating like a bastard behind a stove, things in the deli being surprisingly busy for the time of year, and I have, joy of joys even been carving out the time to do a spot of writing, not enough, but a spot.Of which, hopefully, more soon. Or if not that, then at least another lazy placeholder piece like this one...