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Following hard on the heels of Chief Constable Fahy, the head of Oxfordshire area's police, Chief Superinendant Shaun Morley, demonstrates what I have come to expect from Oxfordshire's top policemen, a more generally liberal attitude whilst being mindful of the harm some people are inflicting on others and their communities with their irresponsible actions and attitudes.

He clearly talks sense, and from experience. It is utter nonsense to increase the age at which people may buy or consume alcohol. It's arbitrary and unfair to those who are able to enjoy a drink responsibly:

"I am not especially convinced that the answer is to raise the minimum age for drinking alcohol and in general I'm in favour of less regulation, and better self- management."

But the story highlights a few areas where improvements could be made:

Earlier this month, police also revealed one in ten licenced premises in Oxford sold alcohol to underage teenagers in a undercover operation.

I also read this week I think, but can't find it now, that there were a tiny number of operators losing their licenses for such things. 68 in a year in England was the figure that sticks in my mind. Perhaps if we got closer to a zero tolerance approach on sales of alcohol to under-18s people would be more circumspect about who they sell to - none of this namby-pamby fining and so on - let's go for license revocation first time out and so on.

Also, there needs to be a two-way discussion here - on-license holders need to be more responsible about not selling to people who are already too drunk. Many's a time here at halls when after closing time I have found people asleep or comatose in the middle of the road who should probably not have been sold another drink several hours previously. That said, I can't get too sanctimonious, as I for one have certainly had too much on occasion. Though I never get violent, drunk or not - I might start jibbering more than usual and then fall asleep midway through a sentence!

Also, dear to my heart, he singles out students:

"We certainly need a significant change in attitudes to alcohol, especially in the 18 to 24 age group, including students where wholly inappropriate behaviour fuelled by excess alcohol consumption is seen as acceptable by many of that peer group.

I have this pet theory that for "normal" local residents, one of the problems is the demise of the "local" in favour of an array of drinking sheds in city and town centres. Of course these came about as a way of making the throughput of alcohol sales more efficient for the brewers. But what they mean is that particularly for young people, they no longer learn to drink in the relatively safe surroundings of a local pub in a village or estate, where they have the friendly eye of a landlord who hopes and expects to see them again soon, and neighbours, friends and family who can take them to one side and point out when they are becoming a nuisance or worse. If that is true for people with their roots in a particular city it is even more of a challenge for our student residents.

Here at Brookes we are just about to initiate a discussion internally about enhancing the role of wardens in halls of residence such as myself, and I will be bringing this up as part of that. A couple of years ago many were scathing about the comments of the Vice-Chancellor at Brunel suggesting that universities had a parental type duty to teach social skills and personal responsibility to their students and, I have to say that over the past couple of years in particular when license times have been extended in Oxford and people roll into halls leery and noisy at all hours, I am beginning to agree.

I'm not a confrontational person so it would be a challenge to me to face up to some of the drunks that tear about the place after closing time, but I think we probably have to face up to doing that. We have a university disciplinary charge of "bringing the university into disrepute" which I suspect could be used here.

When I was done for driving under the influence fifteen years ago the police had to deliver me home to ensure that someone recognized me at the address I had given them. I wonder if the same applies to people who are arrested for alcohol related offenses in town? If so, perhaps wardens and college authorities should be the ones asked to vouch for such people when they are delivered back to university accommodations. If we had that heads up we could take action to show them that the university does not approve of our students bringing the university into disrepute by their actions out on the town at night.

Apparently there's likely to be a formal offer by the end of the week for Sainsbury's after months of dancing around. What would they be getting? Do they actually want a food retail business in far of Britain? It's not like Qatar is a major part of the supply chain or anything for food retail in Britain.

No, for a cost of just over £10bn (at an offer price minimum of £5.95 per share) they'll get their hands on a property company worth about £10bn plus a retail business valued practically nothing as a sideline.

Need I remind you that this is largely land value that we create as a community, with our footfall, our planning consents, and our benign property tax on the out of town sites where the supermarkets do not pay business rates on most of their property, giving them an unfair advantage over in-town sites where parking is not so cheap. It's not Messrs Sainsbury & Co. that create it, but it is they who will walk away with the proceeds.

Technorati Tags: geo-libertarian, Henry George, land value tax

Why?

Is the internet not the twentieth century's greatest example of "voluntary co-operation"? At least the late twnetieth century anyway. Why do we need "governance". It can be a beautiful thing. Like the lack of planning policy that went into Edinburgh's New Town?

Yes, there are examples, pretty egregious ones at that, of countries where human rights are not respected anyway further attacking peoples' rights for speaking out on the internet, or restricting their access, but one of the beauties (if we exclude the gazillions of spam email messages and viruses) is that it has provided an infrastructure that has been used time and again by clever people - for good and bad - to get round attempts to limit what they can do.

But if we try to tame the internet, and to extend some kind of official governance to it, aren't we officially entrenching the idea that it's there to be governed, for governments to interfere in?

My theory is that this forum is more about our governments. They are shit scared that the potential for the internet to bring about person to person interconnectivity, allowing people to organize in groups other than the geographical territories they manage, will bring about their irrelevance.

Should we also be worried about the corporate "colonization" of the internet that has gathered pace over the past five years or so? Well, yes and no. Actually, for most traditional corporations using the internet it's not about pushing the small guy out, but competing with them like they never have had to previously in a medium in which the little guy, more flexible and quicker to change, has a head start on. Pound for pound spent on it I'm sure small businesses are "better" at the internet and getting better all the time. And the internet could be the best way of levelling the playing field, democratising capitalism.

It is surely the very fact that the internet is not governed by nation states - that it is still a "land" of pioneering sprits pushing the boundaries - of trade, of communication, of knowledge transfer - that gives it its strength. And that's what scares those who would rule us.

Leave it alone! It has more power to break those regimes that abuse us than any supranational body that's incapable of preventing some of its member governments doing just what they please anyway.

I see that the energy review suggests outlawing "standby" buttons on consumer electricals. Good thing too. Because if they're there, as they are in nearly all cases in my little hovel, they are going to get used. I don't know if they really drain as much electricity as they say, but am prepared enough to believe so and feel guilty about having them, however convenient they are when watching "Science Shack" on the TV at 3am to help me sleep (I mean - there's no point really if you have to get out of bed again and wake yourself up to switch the whole thing off, not for the uberlazy like me anyway).

But my TV and Hi-Fi are only a few years old, so they're going to last long after "peak oil" by the looks of it. So I was thinking, what would make it easier for me to do my duty and turn the bloody things off properly.

With computers you can actually turn them right off and still have them turned on remotely if they are on a network using fantastic sounding little things called "magic packets". The network listens passively (yes, I believe it does take a tiny amount of charge, but from the onboard battery rather than the mains if I understand it correctly) and when a magic packet arrives addressed for that particular gizmo it knows to turn the machine on just as surely as if you were pressing the button yourself.

So, for those of us who will have TV and other gadgets with standby buttons on for a good while yet whether they are outlawed or not, could we not have some kind of power plug that works with something similar to these "magic packets". One remote control could do for the whole house with different numbered plugs. Power the thing off at the wall and still be able to roll over in the morning and turn it all back on again without getting out off bed?

Anyone any good with a soldering iron want to have a go at it? Or point me to one someone made earlier?