[geeks] [rescue] Thread drift :)

[Mike Meredith]

On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:15:56 -0400, Phil Stracchino wrote:
> They revised it in '89?  

Amongst other things to remove the public interest excuse for leaking
secrets. And the rumour is that "they" want another revision.

> I know when I was last in the UK, if you 
> happened to be walking past 10 Downing Street and see a gardener at
> work planting bulbs, and you asked what he was planting, he wasn't
> allowed to tell you.  The brand of biscuits the Prime Minister had
> with his morning tea was also an Official Secret.  It was pretty
> bloody silly.

Most of that would probably be someone not knowing whether they're
allowed to tell you or not. The rumour is that if you're asked to 'sign
the Official Secrets Act' they emphasise that if you're in any doubt,
don't say. 

And of course the older a bureaucracy gets, the more secretive it
becomes ... we're lucky that the UK government does actually admit it
exists. 

> > A town in Sussex ? Now this is getting *really* unbelievable :)
> 
> Might have been Surrey ... I don't recall for certain.

Just being silly ... Sussex does have a few small towns although it's
not the impression most people have of the county. Certainly I don't
really think of the little strip on the coast south of the downs as
being really Sussex.

On a totally unrelated note, Phun is quite fun :-

http://phun.cs.umu.se/wiki/Phun

-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
  ... indeed, there is something vaguely dishonourable in having lived
  through the sixties without having spent time in jail
  --HST