31 May

Been having a gentle, uneventful bank holiday weekend so far. I've finished reading Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram, a 930-page doorstop relating the author's own story at the third attempt, the first two MSS having been destroyed by his prison guards. Armed robber (to feed heroin habit), man of violence, drug dealer, money launderer, passport forger and Bombay mafioso. And yet a likeable character with boundless goodness in him... Read it yourself. Having finished it yesterday morning, I'm now half-way through a newish Sandy McCall Smith, Corduroy Mansions.

The garden is starting to mature. Last year's helianthemum seedlings are slowly coming into flower, and the roses are budding well. The Bramley apple tree has set quite a lot of fruit, most of which will fall, of course, during the June drop. But we might get more than the three apples we got in its first year in the garden. The spuds are growing like mad: those in plastic containers are well beyond the top of the pots, so have been earthed up. The beans seem to be settling in, and there are a few flowers on the blueberry that Corina gave us last year. We still have a lot to plant out/sell/give away - about 70 aquilegia seedlings, and a dozen or so lavateras, with seed trays of thunbergia, zinnia and helichrysum still to be dealt with.

The birds are feeding like mad things - we have the occasional football crowd of starlings down at the bird table, with quite a few juveniles in the mob. The squirrels have succeeded in breaking the chains on both peanut feeders, so I've bodged them up with hanging basket chains and wire coathangers, which may get us through the season. Someone was flogging squirrel-proof nut and seed feeders on ebay the other day, but I haven't succeeded in getting through all the layers of deterrents to payment...

I tore out some miles of brambles on Saturday, and bear the scars. Rain later that day filled the smaller water butt (which is hooked up to the big south-facing roof, and even the conservatory roof gathered a foot or so of water in the new large butt. Modifies one's attitude to rain somewhat!

Jack of Kent comments on the Gary McK1nn0n case, linking to the various indictments and judgments so far. I hadn't studied it any depth before, but was conscious of a few references to it in the media: he had hacked into a large number of US military computers, leaving messages that US foreign policy amounted to little more than state-sponsored terrorism [discuss.], and also causing 24-hour shut-down of one base's systems and making hundreds of computers malfunction. Taking the prosecution's case at its highest, he has very serious allegations to answer, and has largely admitted them. His intent was clear, and considering the appalling resources to which he might have had access, the potential for harm was infinite. So it remains to be seen what the US judicial system will make of him, and his subsequent diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome. But Schadenfreude is probably my strongest feeling in the case: a grim satisfaction at seeing the might of the US war machine lessened by a lonely nerd with a battered laptop.