Suddenly we are told that the UK is not to meet the environmental targets, i.e. carbon dioxide emissions, as agreed by 2010.

This does not come as a big surprise although it has only been made official a couple of days ago.
The other related issue of the past couple of months is that because the North Sea Oil sources are going to finish soon, we will have to face an energy crisis.
One alternative is going back to nuclear power, the UK more or less gave up on nuclear power stations a few decades ago because well, nobody wants to live next to it. The few remaining are old and will need to be dismantled in the coming years (another big environmental issue).

I don't see many ways out at the moment.

The political issue about the environment is that no government is prepared to do anything about it mainly due to the way democracy works in a modern capitalist country:
- elections every few years, therefore governments have to think about being re-elected and are scared of any policy that might be unpopular in the short term (and parties these days are all basically the same party with different names for the above-mentioned reasons)
- the whole economy is based on growth
- people want to maintain their standard of living and whenever possible improve it, we lead fairly stressful lives therefore accumulation of possessions, foreign holidays etc are seen as necessary gratifications
- the power and lobby that multinationals and big businesses have on any government

I might be pessimistic but at the moment I don't see any solutions unless people decide to do something about it and are prepared to sacrifice their standards of living (less cars? less flying? can we do that?) and start to vote for the few parties that have a more environmental friendly agenda.

Now I am trying to listen to some Finnish music, not I am not in Helsinki I am in London but I just realised that although I am quite into music I don't know anything whatsoever about Finnish music.
As i like to be fair I have been trying to listen to different artists and to be honest I am not that impressed as it reminds me of Eurovision style of songs in Finnish. I would like to know if there is some decent Finnish music (besides Sibelius) that I should listen to.

I'm getting quite intrigued with what's happening in Italy. I have not been in the country for four years but I feel that what is happening is quite important on a world-wide scale.

I find it unacceptable that a prime minister losing the elections refuses to accept the result even if his rivals victory was a narrow one. He was in charge, his government organised the election if anything dodgy happened I would be more inclined to think that it came from his own side. Furthermore, a member of his party was watching every single polling station. In my opinion, this is not too surprising, Silvio Berlusconi has never had any respect for his electorate, his opposition and democracy in general.
It is a well known fact that he has escaped various charges for bribery, corruption and so on. mainly on technicalities and loopholes. he entered politics to save his own interests, he owns TV and papers any of these reasons would be enough to make it unfit to run any so called democracy. In these five years he managed to trivialised any political thought, to make any as shallow as a TV commercial. He is the king of dumbing down.
Not by chance the expats Italians costed him the elections, those Italians that are untouched by the continuous brain washing by his TVs, those that are able to compare how a democracy should work (because they probably live in one) and how it should not.
I am not sure how this will end, but I think an important lesson is how dangerous any personality cult in politics is, how politics might be boring but how it can become dangerous when it is sold like washing powder.

My fear is that he is now playing the dividing card, inciting more hatred from his factions (which includes very unsavoury racist and fascist types similar to those that the French centre-right refused to include in their coalition even if it had costed them the election)and worrying the left (which will certainly includes not very democratic and violent fringes). The rest in not history yet.

One of the weirdest news this week in the UK was the one of that bloke who took 40.000 ecstasy pills.

The doctors discovered that the man was suffering from severe short-term memory problems of a type usually only seen in lifetime alcoholics. But evaluating the full extent of his condition was difficult as his concentration and attention was so impaired he was unable to follow the simple tasks involved in the test.

"This was an exceptional case. His long- term memory was fine but he could not remember day to day things - the time, the day, what was in his supermarket trolley," said Dr Kouimtsidis. "More worryingly, he did not seem aware himself that he had these memory problems."

This would not surprise me at all, after all taking 40.000 of anything whether legal or illegal (Aspirin, paracetamol, Prozac etc) would have detrimental physical or mental effects on anyone.

These drugs are too new for us to know any long term side effects, you might turn yellow with purple polka dots by the time you are 45 for all we know. But the same can be said about many legal drugs.
That's why although I am not keen on anyone taking drugs I find it hard to moralise about it.

A few years back I had a few friends that for whatever reason (death in the family, job loss, feeling insecure, relationship failure) were happily given by their GP a prescription for antidepressants on a fairly long term basis.

I feel there is a net difference between clinical depression (if Prozac stops you from throwing yourself under a train or leading any form of normal life well by all means it has to be Prozac of course) and having to cope with life. Some doctors don't seem to see the difference and prefer the easy way out by keeping their patients content with bright pills.

People also seem to want a solution to their problems in the shape of a pill, manageable and easy to take, a sign of the time. Instant karma. Others (dealers and pharmaceutical companies etc)are making money so everyone is happy.

I wonder sometimes about the information we get fed. We have the French protesting about the new employment law that allows employer to dismiss employee without a reason and it is often compared to the British system.
What nobody seems to mention is the reality like I have seen it in a workplace, employers terrified to sack even the most incompetent and laziest worker because of fear or ending up in front of the employment tribunal. Every disciplinary procedure is incredibly time consuming and even in clear cuts cases of gross misconduct the procedure has to be followed to the letter as the tribunal is as likely to find faults in the procedure even when the reasons were well documented. Dismissing someone means keeping records of their misdemeanour for months, means endless meetings and search for evidence and this is the case even for casual workers.
I am not saying for a second that people should be hired and fired at will, but what I don't understand is why British employment law is always the prime international example for flexible workforce. Yes, right nobody has a job for life these days but partly is also caused by the employees always on the look out for new opportunities rather than employers dismissing people every other day.
As I know that in some of my ex workplaces people that were notoriously useless then are still happily employed now I' m starting to think that in all my 15 years career I've only worked for wimps.

I know this is not the way to start a new blog, my first blog ever actually.

Silvio Berlusconi the Italian Prime Minister who everyone in the international media like to call flamboyant which in this case I guess is a synonymous for wanker, has, as the whole universe knows by now, called everyone that does not vote for him a "coglione". This is a word that can only be loosely translated into English and I think that dickhead might do the trick, although coglione/i is not a word that people normally say in front of their parents/teachers/priests or any form of authority carrying a gun.

In my books, this behaviour would be a good enough reason not to vote for him, even without thinking about his dodgy background and political record, unfortunately it looks like a more or less vast section of the Italian public likes to have a flamboyant (wanker) PM.
As somehow I still hold an Italian passport as I was born there and I would never ever vote for anyone like him at least unless I go totally bonkers, the conclusion is that I am a dickhead too.
I am sure that most people have been called dickhead by someone at some point in their lives, not everyone has been called dickhead by a prime minister.
I have.