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Use of the apostrophe.
The apostrophe is used in English to replace a missing letter. For example, the phrase, "John is a complete prat", can be abbreviated to, "John's a complete prat".
The apostrophe is also used to denote possession. It originates from, for example, "John, his coat". This becomes abbreviated to:
"John's coat". The coat belonging to John.
The exception to this is if something belongs to "it", when we don't use an apostrophe. For example,
"The coat had lost all its buttons." No apostrophe, when you'd think there should be. "It's" only ever means "it is", as in,
"It's raining".
The apostrophe does not denote a plural. If three guys called John work in the same office, they are called:
"The three Johns". Three people called John. No apostrophe. Same thing with,
"Two bananas, five apples, and a dozen eggs." Plural. No apostrophe.
Easy, isn't it? I think you're ready for the advanced stuff. What if it's both plural and possessive? Well, we put the apostrophe after the "s":
"The dogs' bollocks," refers to the bollocks belonging to several dogs. Of course, if you only have one dog, it would be:
"The dog's bollocks."

Simple. Now go forth and spread the word.

Oh dear! People still don't get it. This is how you block spam against a RBHL (real time black hole list). I'm talking about blocking here, rather than filtering. On the whole, this can only be done if you run your own mailserver, or some ISPs do it on their receiving mailservers before sending the email on to you.

Spam comes from various sources, but hardly ever from the person who sent the spam. Mostly, the spammers hijack badly-configured servers, or home PCs that have been compromised by a virus (most viruses are deliberately released by spammers to do just this). There is a whole load of different lists of IP addresses of these rogue machines. To get an idea of how many different lists there are, have a look at this website.

Now, these lists all serve different purposes. Some are lists of countries, because certain countries, like Korea and China, have more rogue machines, and if you're not expecting any mail from these countries you may as well prevent them from emailing you. Some are lists of "dynamic" IP addresses: this goes a long way to cut out spam from virally compromised home PCs, because legitmate mail should always come from a mailserver, and mailservers always have fixed IP addresses. Other lists cover entire blocks of IP addresses, or entire ISPs who are known to be lax in their treatment of spammers, phishers, fraudsters, and other low-lifes.

So, when you configure a mailserver to receive mail, you set it to check where the mail is coming from, and you do a lookup against a selection of these lists, to decide whether or not you want to receive the email. The choice of lists is down to whoever configured the receiving mailserver.

Got all that? Now, here's the important bit. If you send an email and it gets blocked, then it has been blocked by the intended recipient of the email, and not by the person who maintains the blacklist used. If legitimate emails are getting blocked incorrectly, then the intended recipient needs to look at how he is doing his spam blocking, and which blacklists he is using. If the intended recipient doesn't run his own mailserver and has his email queued by his ISP, then it's up to them to look at their spam blocking methodology: and if they try to pass the buck, you'll know better now, won't you? Now...it's not unknown for a blacklist to contain an incorrect entry, but in this case, it is still up to the intended recipient of the email to either stop using the list, or discuss the matter with the list maintainer.

And finally, the bottom line. There is NEVER any reason why the sender of a blocked email should bitch to a blacklist maintainer. Unless, of course, he is either a spammer or an ignorant fool.

Once again, the Sydney riots have brought out the "multiculturalism doesn't work" brigade. Let's make no mistake about this, as I think the timing is crucial and it has to be nipped in the bud, these people are simply racists and bigots trying to hide behind something that's just slightly less abhorrent. I'm frankly disgusted with the BBC for publishing this point of view.

This is, in my view, exactly analogous to the creationists, upon realising that they are being regarded as lunatics, turning to the idea of "intelligent design". It's just the same thing, but spun in a way to seem slightly less stupid.

Anybody who does not like living in a multi-cultural society is a racist and a bigot. Full stop, end of story.

If, once I have retired, or ceased full-time employment for some other reason, I continue to insist upon using the Post Office at weekday LUNCHTIMES, will somebody please SHOOT ME!!

Interesting morning. Got woken by a big "WHUMP", followed by the wife asking excitedly, "Golly, what was that?", or words to that effect anyway. I told her it was just a gust of wind, or the cat jumping off something. She said the cat was here on the bed but I told her to go back to sleep and stop worrying. Then I couldn't get back to sleep, though, as it was flat calm outside and it obviously hadn't been a gust of wind. Anyway, turns out it was a fuel storage depot in Hemel blowing up, twenty miles away. We spent the morning watching Sky News, and you probably know the rest.

It was just brilliant that nobody was killed. Could have been very different.

The CTC and other cycling organisations are in denial over the apalling behaviour of the majority - yes, the majority - of cyclists. There was some dreadlocked (white) hippy on the telly this morning calmly explaining why it was perfectly acceptable for him, as a cyclist, to go through red lights.

As long ago as Richard's Bicycle Book, cycle tracks were deemed to be too dangerous to use, largely because of the cluelessness of the type of cyclists who use them, many of whom don't even understand the concept of keeping to the left. And when did you last see a cyclist, in the dark gloom of the English winter, with adequate lights? And then they wonder why motorists don't regard them as legitimate road users. Two wrongs not making a right, as the blond on breakfast TV this morning said (must admit to being somewhat impressed by her grasp of the situation).

The last time I tackled the CTC about this they came out with a whiney response about running training courses and doing their best to encourage good behaviour, etc, etc, blah, blah. I helped-out with a school cycle training course once and retreated in confusion. I didn't like the idea of sending kids out onto the roads no matter how much training they'd had. I realised that since I was a kid the roads have come to resemble the Battle of Kursk.