So That's Why We Went to War in Afghanistan

Well, folks, it appears that my blogposts have taken on the persona of the archetypal London bus - you wait ages for one to appear, then two come along in quick succession!
So why one so soon after the previous?

Well, I felt compelled to post this after listening to Defence Secretary Michael Fallon on BBC Breakfast yesterday morning as he justified Britain's 13 year operation in Afghanistan. When asked whether the deaths of 453 servicemen and women was justified, he started his response by stating that nowadays more than half the population of Afghanistan have mobile phones.
What?
Is that really how we are going to measure the success of a multi-billion pound military operation?
Granted, he did go on to mention more important outcomes, like the numbers of children (especially young girls) who now have access to education, but to start his justification with a statement about mobile phones seems to me more than a little disturbing.
Was the aim, all along, to simply open up a whole new market for Apple and Samsung and Angry Birds? Did the powers that be in the West believe it was fundamentally wrong that the 30 million people of Afghanistan were being denied the opportunity to 'like' a Taliban member on Facebook, to tweet about how much opium they were growing, or to take AK-47-toting selfies in front of bombed-out houses with their new iPhone 6 or Samsung Galaxy Alpha?
And does this widespread access to mobile communication not mean that we've provided the Taliban and its supporters with a whole new means of keeping in touch, of sharing information and planning new atrocities? (Or maybe this is actually a cunning plan by the West to digitise the Taliban's communication networks so that they can be monitored and studied by the intelligence services so we're always one step ahead…like they were before 9/11 and 7/7).

Whatever the potential security benefits of a full-coverage mobile network may (or may not) be, the fact remains that the Right Honorable Mister Fallon would, I believe, have been better served to start his justification for the 13 years of danger and death that our troops endured in Helmand Province by telling us how much safer it has made us here at home, how less of a threat there now is from terrorists who had once been able to regard Afghanistan as a safe haven, and how the sacrifice of 453 brave men and women had been worthwhile in ensuring the security of millions of ordinary people back here in Blighty.

Oh, by the way, the Ministry of Defence will be announcing how many young Afghan children have X-boxes and Playstations some time next week. After all, access to and ownership of mobiles, games consoles and flatscreen TVs is the new measure of how 'civilised' a society has become.

It's time we all got tough on drivers with mobiles

It was refreshing to see the headline of the Daily Mail on Saturday, stating that police will automatically  seize mobile phones at the scene of accidents in order to determine whether texting or talking on the phone was a contributory factor.
Daily Mail headline

It comes on top of a recent announcement by Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin that those caught texting whilst driving should be given six points on their license rather than three.

But I believe that this doesn't go far enough, and that until using a phone whilst driving is regarded in the same vein as driving whilst under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and those who choose to flaunt the law are dealt with severely (and I'm talking long jail terms and life-time driving bans), then people will continue to do it.
It's about changing attitudes through education and, where that doesn't work, changing them through punishment.

So why am I getting hot under the collar about this particular issue?
Well, I think it's because every time I got out on the roads, and particularly when I'm driving up and down the M6 (which I tend to do most weeks), I see people texting and I see people talking animatedly on the phone.
You can tell them from a distance.
There are those who think that texting or talking is fine so long as you pull into the 'slow lane' and drive along at 45 mph…of course, these people are blissfully unaware of how much frustration they cause to the line of HGV drivers who, doing 56 mph, have to pull out to overtake them.
Then there are those who think it's best to plop themselves in the middle lane and maintain a distance of about ten feet behind the vehicle in front of them, irrespective of how fast they are actually travelling.
Of course, there are those who think it's safest (and this is especially the case for drivers of Audis, VWs, BMWs and Mercedes) to power along at 100+ mph in the fast lane whilst gesticulating wildly or pointing a finger aggressively at the invisible person on the other end of the phone.
And finally, there's the guys in the vans, texting their mates - you can spot them by the tell-tale shifts in direction that they make every time they glance up from their phone - these over-corrections are always a little exaggerated, as if the van is bouncing off invisible barriers on each side of the lane they're in.

All of these people are fucking idiots!
They're also all potential killers!

I've only ever once answered the phone whilst driving (a few years ago now), and that was via handsfree - fortunately, the friend who was calling me immediately asked if I was driving (they could hear the background noise) and, when I said I was, they told me I was a muppet (or words to that effect) and then told me to ring them back when I'd pulled into a service station.
That was a proper friend!
It's something we all should get into the habit of doing - if your phoning someone and you hear the distant roar, ask whether they're driving and, if they are, tell them they're being bloody stupid answering the phone, and hang up!
If you're in a text conversation with someone and you suspect they may be on the road…stop texting!!

And if you still need any convincing that these are the right things to do, watch this video!