Well, EURid has put the .eu domain registration process into the LandRush phase. I made my application some weeks ago (on Valentine’s Day, in fact) for a domain for my company under the Sunrise procedures (having a prior right as being a registered limited company under UK law), but have had no acknowledgement and no news. Should I be panicking? I tried to look it up on the EU WHOIS site (which is where the EURid site suggests I should go in order to track my application), but the server that runs that is clearly melting in some office somewhere in Europe. (In this case, it’s Diegem in Belgium – did you know that there is great competition to host EU offices? The French will battle with the Germans and the Spanish and all the other nations to host EU offices – which is why I spend a lot of time in communication with an EU department that resides in a rather grand converted hotel in the French city of Angers. But do you ever hear of British towns and cities battling for these honours? No, because the British tend to be happier sniping at the EU from the sidelines rather than actively getting involved, thereby missing a great opportunity for prestige and employment. Ooops. Ranting. Sorry.)
Meanwhile, north of the border, the avian flu strain H5N1 has been found in a dead swan. The police are reminding citizens to report any dead swan, goose or duck, or any three dead birds in the same place, to DEFRA. What they forget to say is that DEFRA is woefully under-resourced (it’s not health or education, so HMG doesn’t throw money at it), so I forsee a situation very soon wherein the inspection services will be under immense strain (they are already) and will draft in support from every other department within DEFRA. So my local PHSI (Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate) guys will be sent off to some dingy hotel somewhere, given a crash course in avian flu diagnosis, and sent out to farms. Of course, as plant health guys, they have no jurisdiction and no powers and can’t actually do an awful lot – they won’t even be able to impound birds. Sound implausible to you? Well, it is exactly what happened during foot and mouth a few years ago – PHSI was denuded of staff (they already are terribly under-staffed as it is) who will have to work very long hours achieving not an awful lot.
Whilst all this is going on, Mrs Housewife will stop buying chicken and eggs, spurred by horror stories in the Daily Mail, and agriculture (which is already struggling terribly – oh, sorry, that’s not newsworthy at the moment, is it? – you know, the fact that HMG has promised to pay grants to farmers who have made their business plans on that basis, but have yet to actually deliver money that was due months ago, leaving farmers with huge debts to the banks and no income) will become even more depressed. Gah.
So, this weekend – get a British chicken, have a roast with some British veg. You’ll enjoy it and you’ll help a farmer somewhere (particularly if you go to your local farmers’ market and buy direct).
UPDATE: I managed to get on to the .eu WHOIS, although it is mind-numbingly slow, and it shows my domain name as "application pending". The application and documents have been received, although they are yet to get beyond the "Initial" stage (i.e., the documents are in a filing cabinet and nobody has looked at them). The good news is that I am the only applicant for my requested name. Yay!
