Ian Eiloart

My Heart Op

2013-04-10T15:50:00.001+01:00

We don't know the reason for the stroke that I had in 2011. It could be high blood pressure: my blood pressure is high, but not very high. Blood pressure is responsible for a third of strokes, and may be caused by excess dietary salt. I've been trying to reduce my salt intake, and I'm also taking Ramipril daily. My blood pressure has come down somewhat, but it's hard to get consistently

Conference Calendar

2013-02-06T17:14:00.000Z

The agenda for the Liberal Democrats' spring conference has just been published. You can read the announcement on Lib Dem Voice. I maintain a Google Calendar called LDCONF in which I put our conference events, for my own purposes. But, I also make that calendar publicly available. You can see it below, or at http://s.coop/1c87r or, you can the events to your Outlook, Apple iCal, or smartphone

SIlver Skins for Mountain Lion

2012-08-02T12:40:00.000+01:00

A while back, annoyed by the appearance of the Address Book and iCal applications in OSX 10.7 (Lion), and inspired by Giles of Simple and Usable, I created a silver skin for Address Book. Mountain Lion has improved the Address Book interface, and renamed it "Contacts". It's great that you can now see groups, group members, and contact details in one window; they've done away with the awkward

Should a banker be paid more than a nurse?

2012-04-10T10:35:00.000+01:00

I'm listening to BBC Radio 4's Public Philosopher. Today's topic is "Should a banker be paid more than a nurse?" I think the answer is "no". Banking services, though, are scalable, so individuals can get rich (and throughout, here, I mean filthy rich) providing those services. The next few paragraphs explain. The BBC programme is an exploration of the moral arguments. The explanations of the

2012-03-08T19:50:00.002Z

I've made a Google calendar for the Liberal Democrats spring conference. You can subscribe to it at this address: http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/eiloart.com_ov92vs7r372538okh8ibq1uefs%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics There's little chance that I'll update anything on the diary now (unless you tweet @ianeiloart with errata), so you're probably just as well to add the events by

My Brain

2011-11-18T18:08:00.001Z

I woke up on the 17th, a month after my stroke, with new pain in my wrist and knee. Previously the evil had withdrawn from those regions. I was worried that this reversal of progress might indicate a new stroke. My wife drove me to A&E, where I had a new battery of tests. They called my consultant, who ordered another MRI scan, and asked to see me after that. I swear that scanner is getting

Stroke update

2011-11-06T09:00:00.000Z

I want to describe the symptoms that I'm feeling, and how they've changed since I had my stroke on 17th October - almost three weeks ago. I've definitely improved in some ways, having recovered much touch sensation, but I'm also feeling more pain and cold. My stroke (for which I'm still awaiting a definite diagnosis, by the way) was a pure sensory stroke. It hasn't affected my mobility or

My stroke.

2011-10-25T22:21:00.001+01:00

Last Monday 17th October, at about 8:30am, I was sitting at home when I felt dizzy, and suddenly numb on the left side of my body. The dizziness, and the numbness came in waves and I hoped it would subside. After a few minutes of this, though, I started to worry. Although the symptoms were particularly strong in my arm and chest, I didn't think I was having a heart attack, because there was no

Lewes District Tories paid to do nothing.

2011-10-19T13:47:00.000+01:00

Lewes District Tories run the only council in Sussex to pay their own members for a cabinet role without portfolio. Actually, there are three of them. Until May 2011, Lewes District Council had a cabinet with nine members, six from the majority group (Liberal Democrats) and three from the minority group (Conservatives). Apart from Hastings, Lewes was the only local authority in Sussex to have a

Blood, Drugs and Violence - at Lib Dem conference.

2011-09-12T12:04:00.000+01:00

The Lib Dem conference agenda for Autumn 2011 includes policy motions on Science Not Stigma: Ending the Blood Ban (p39), Protecting Individuals and Communities from Drug Harms (p24), and Tackling Violence against Women (p30). Full texts of these motions and others, are found in the agenda (pdf). If you're going, and you have an electronic diary, then you may find this iCalendar file useful:

Silver Address Book

2011-07-28T16:09:00.001+01:00

Like me, Giles of Simple and Usable doesn't like the fussy new faux leather appearance for Apple's iCal and Address Book. He's created a new skin for iCal, and inspired by that, I've done the same for Address Book. To use it: 1. Make a copy of Address Book, in case something goes wrong. 2. Download this file (simply a compressed folder of .png files). 3. Quit Address Book. 3. Copy the contents

That Lib Dem letter in full

2011-02-10T12:30:00.003Z

Liberal Democrat council leaders wrote a letter to the Times today. I'm pissed off that that meant I had to give a quid to the Murdoch Empire today, but I agree with the content. The letter is also behind the Times Paywall, and printed in today's Times. Only the first few signatories are listed in the print version.Italics below are mine. I've highlighted those parts because while you can read

How to rank 39 candidates

2010-10-18T20:35:00.004+01:00

If you're a voting rep to the Lib Dem conference, you should have ballot papers and manifesto booklets for six panels and committees, with a total of over 200 candidates. The task is to rank the candidate in each election, with between 20 and 45 candidates in each. That's a pretty daunting task, and promises to be quite time consuming.I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but here are some

10:10 - done!

2010-10-10T15:29:00.004+01:00

Today is 10/10/10, and naturally the 10:10 campaign made a big deal of that. I pledged to meet the 10:10 objectives, and more importantly supported Lewes District Council's pledge.I think I've met my commitment, and this is how I did it.First, some cheap and easy stuff, that'll pay for itself quite quickly.I was already buying my electricity from Ecotricity, because they invest more of their

Alternative Vote: on the road to STV

2010-07-06T22:45:00.003+01:00

Nick Clegg announced that the UK will hold a referendum which could change our general election voting procedure from "First Past the Post" (FPTP) to "Alternative Vote" (AV) in May 2011. It's a proposal that came from Labour before the 2010 election. That proposal allowed the Liberal Democrats to secure a commitment from the Tories during the coalition negotiations.Of course, the Lib Dems would

Popularity of social networks

2010-02-11T13:15:00.005Z

The University of Sussex IT Service surveyed students recently. Among the more interesting results was this. They love Facebook, but mostly don't use MySpace or Twitter. Skype and Youtube are popular. I imagine that Skype is more popular among overseas students.Click on the image to enlarge it.

Lewes refuse and recycling update

2010-01-13T17:46:00.006Z

I received the following update from Andy Bryce, head of Lewes District Council's waste and recycling department, today:Almost all staff have turned up for work, with very few exceptionswhere people have not been able to get out of their local areas.Refuse collection: Hazardous conditions with snow on top of ice haveresulted in us calling off collections today. We lost a vehicleyesterday into a

Lastest on LDC waste collections

2009-12-23T11:16:00.002Z

I've just got this news from Andy Bryce, the District Council's Head of Waste and Recycling Services. I think they're doing a tremendous job in the circumstances, and they've done well to get a full turnout of staff today. I managed to get about 100 yards this morning before twisting my knee on ice. I hope all the staff manage to complete the day safely, and have a good christmas.There's

Despite the lies of the Times, majority believe climate change is man made.

2009-11-15T11:16:00.003Z

Yesterday, the The Times online published results of a poll that demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the British public believe that climate change is man made (anthropogenic). Bizarrely, they chose to mis-represent ("spin") the results with the headline Global warming is not our fault, say most voters in Times poll.First, I'll fess up. My headline is also spin. The poll didn't ask

Brown's half full house

2009-09-28T22:49:00.004+01:00

The speaker here is Gordon Brown. Plenty of empty seats, eh?

Why I'd pay for free wi-fi

2009-09-27T14:23:00.003+01:00

I've been to a couple of conferences this year, and both times looked for cheap hotels with free wi-fi. In Birmingham, I needed to finish the presentation (on spam email), so I needed wi-fi to research aspects of that presentation. I also used it to find out about local eateries. It all worked smoothly. In Bournemouth, at the Lib-Dems conference, I used wi-fi for similar purposes, but also wanted

Elevated status

2009-07-24T18:24:00.003+01:00

The Sussex Express printed my article today. They've managed to describe me as "a Liberal Democrat county councillor for Priory ward, and a Lewes District Councillor".In fact, I'm a Liberal Democrat district councillor for Priory ward. I'm not a county councillor at all. Never mind. Interesting to see that Jason Sugarman chose to use the article to undermine trust, by repeating lies about Norman

Election algebra

2009-07-09T23:04:00.005+01:00

I wrote a piece on trust in major political parties for the Sussex Express. Here's some evidence for a few of the claims that I made about the June 2009 elections."The press, and politicians have been worried that loss of trust in politics would mean low election turnouts, or a boost to minor parties." See, for example, The Guardian"Neither happened in June"See graph - note the drop of over a

Reasons to be cheerful, part one.

2009-06-06T16:00:00.001+01:00

Part 1...We, the Lib Dems, took Bristol. That's England's seventh largest city. It's odd, by the way, that Bristol was up for election with all the county councils. That's because, legally, it's defined as a county for the purposes of the Lieutenancies Act 1997. It's our smallest county by area.Here are the largest cities (source Wikipedia) in England, and who governs them. We have a hand in

Election algebra

2009-03-13T16:24:00.007Z

I got interviewed for the BBC News web site at conference last weekend. I was quoted: "Maybe they will have to compromise on some things, but I don't think it is necessary to form a coalition. I don't see why the largest party needs to be the one that forms the government.. Actually, there's some stuff missing in that quote. What I really suggested was that if a coalition is formed, it doesn't