Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Twattering

If I'm honest, I don't get the whole interweb thing. This blog is the extent of my interweb powers and knowledge. And as the more webwise of you will have clocked from the layout, it is all about the content, rather than the presentation.

One of the many things I don't get about t'interweb is Twitter. Sure, I understand what it is and how it works, but seriously, what is the point in it? Who really wants to know what the odious Derek Draper is doing on a moment by moment basis? And Stephen Fry may be an eloquent chap, but does that really mean that he has the words or ideas to keep a Twitter feed updated 24/7? I mean, the only thing that could be more boring or irritating than being trapped in a lift for an hour is reading about some other fucker trapped in a lift for an hour.

There is no way I could ever bring myself to have a Twitter feed, for three reasons:
  1. Few people would read it.
  2. Those that did read it would probably say stuff that would just piss me off.
  3. I wouldn't really have anything to say on it.
And it is the third reason that is most important for me. I'd just have nothing to say. I mean, "The Nameless Libertarian is re-reading Misery", or "The Nameless Libertarian is hungover again" or "The Nameless Libertarian has just had a hearty poo" is hardly scintillating stuff even for me - and I'm the person it is happening to.

Most of the time, it is hard enough to haul my fat ass into coming up with posts for this blog. The added pressure of having to do a Twitter feed might drive me to distraction, as I am forced to appear more interesting than I actually am or ever want to be for the sake of a barely read Twitter feed. Regular readers will know I seldom comment about what is happening to me on this blog. That isn't because my life is shockingly dull or anything, but rather because I know me relaying it under a pseudonym to a selection of readers I don't know would be shockingly dull.

I know people use Twitter for different reasons. And it is hideously popular. Then again, the Black Death was once really popular. Maybe I'm missing something; maybe the curmudgeon in me won't get with the programme and embrace the latest Internet fad. But fuck it; I've seen nothing on Twitter (other than a faked post from a faked Dean Gaffney feed suggesting he was going to be the new Doctor Who) to convince me that it is a worthwhile medium. Enjoy your tweeting, twittering, twattering, whatever the ruddy fuck you want to call it, guys - but just remember that there may be more to life than interacting through your computer screens so much.

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Receipts for Sale! Going once... going twice...

Someone's trying to sell those pesky MPs' receipts. What a cad, what a bounder that person must be! Fortunately, Labour MP Sir Stuart Bell is on the case:
"All of the receipts of 650-odd MPs, redacted and un-redacted, are for sale at a price of 300,000, so I am told. The price is going up because of the interest in the subject."
£300k? Fuck me, I wish I had access to them! That figure would set me up for life. Let's just hope there is someone as brave and as gallant as Sir Stuart Bell to find the cockadoodie receipt thief:
"Well we have a pretty good idea of not the person, but the source, and that is a subject of a House of Commons investigation."
I wonder whether Bell has an idea whatsoever of the reason why these receipts are the subject of so much interest? Oh, wait, it is because the members of the House of Commons have been ripping the fucking piss out of this expenses system for so long. Had they been a little less outrageous with their attempts to enhance their very generous salaries, then there would be no need for someone to sell the details, no need for the investigation and no fucking need for bell to know the person or the source of this leak.
"It's probably a breach of the Official Secrets Act," Sir Stuart said. "It may be a theft, but we will get to the bottom of it. In the public interest, by the way."
"Probably", "maybe" - this amazing tool of a man hasn't even bothered to do his fucking research before opening his misshapen cake hole. But he has no idea what is in the public interest; no idea at all. The leaking of the exact details of what he and his MP chums have spunked our cash away on is in the public interest; his Nixon-esque witch hunt to find the source is completely detrimental to the public interest that Bell should be trying to enhance.

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Monday, March 30, 2009

G20: Pointless Protests

I ignored the protests about the G20. My life is too short to get worked up about them one way or another. I’m fairly sure that they will achieve precisely nothing, but that has never stopped a good protest. And, if you really want to find out how they went, it is always best to hear about these things from those actually on the streets during the protest. So, ladies and gents, let’s turn to Penny Red and her account of the protests:
My throat is raw. I'm screaming at the top of my lungs:

One, two, three, four -
Corporate bailouts no more!
Five, six, seven, eight -
Spend it on the welfare state!
Chants in protests aren’t known for being that wise; this one is one of the better ones*. However, it does beg the question of why the money has to be spent at all? Why do we need to spend billions on either corporate bailouts or the welfare state? They’ve both received billions of pounds, to very little effect. Throwing more money at them will achieve nothing, other than higher tax bills.

There's city dust in my eyes, and my legs feel like blocks of wood as we take the final mile down Picadilly towards Hyde Park. A painted banner flaps against my body, proclaiming us Anti-Capitalist Feminists. And I'm still chanting. I'm an animal, a tiny, burning ball of rage and justice, I've got all my sisters with me, it's been four hours since my last latte and I'm running on adrenaline and outrage. Me and thirty-five thousand others.
Anti-Capitalist Feminists? That must be quite a niche group. The sort of group that has about three members on your standard university campus. And each of those three members is the sort of ranting bore you would cross the street to avoid.

But for me the best line is the one about “my last latte”. Fucking hell, there is nothing more communist or feminist then quaffing lattes before going on a protest march. Lenin used to do that, you know. Just before he seized power in Russia, he was in Starbucks having a latte. Those miners in the miner’s strike of the mid-80’s, they were quaffing lattes too. It really is the drink of the working class revolutionaries. Assuming, of course, that you mean Guardian reading Nathan Barley types when you say working class revolutionaries.

And yet the Put People First march is still, somehow, suffused with an air of pessimism. The Troops Out Of Baghdad placards look especially mournful: because yes, we have been here before. The last time I marched down Picadilly in the cold March breeze with thousands upon thousands of angry fellow citizens, we wanted to stop the troops going in to Baghdad, and we were heard, and we were ignored. The samba players are overwhelmed by the thump and screech of a marching band from the end of the world, and the set-piece of the procession is a cheery twenty-foot tall rendering of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Thunderclouds are gathering.
It did thunder on Saturday in London! Wow, that’s not just hyperbole, it is also an accurate representation of the weather on Saturday! Accuracy from the left. Whatever next?

Valid point about the Baghdad thing, though. They didn’t listen back then. And aren’t listening right now. So maybe it is time to shut the fuck up about the Iraq War thing, eh? The countless deaths of hundreds of thousands, the failure to find WMDs, the realisation that this war was completely illegal have all failed to change the minds of those leading the Coalition of the Willing. So a few thousand crusty lefties and would-be hippies isn’t going to be a blind bit of fucking difference, now, is it?

A woman I'm marching with tells me that she doesn't think the G20 will change anything even if it's in their power to do so. Ahead of me, in front of the RMT banners, an old man is explaining to the just-walking little boy holding his hand about the protests in 1981. We've seen all this before. So why are we still here?
Good question. Why are you there? Why waste your time when you don’t think people are going to listen and when previous protests have been ignored?

We're here because we're fed up of being lied to. We're here because we've been royally screwed over, and now we're angry. We're here because even if we don't expect to be listened to, that doesn't mean we'll stop trying to be heard. Not ever.
Being heard is fine; but you can increase your chances of being heard by presenting your message in a palatable way. Truth is, in order to achieve real change in this country you need to get the middle classes on board. And you ain’t ever going to do that with this sort of protest. But more on that later. Take a look at the final paragraph:

On my way home through Green Park, tired beyond words, I pick a bunch of wilting daffodils that glow faintly in my grimy hands in the noonlight. Around the corner, the band are still playing, the people are still screaming, the dull rumble of thirty-five-thousand feet is still ringing down the thoroughfare. Dreamily, I give out the daffs to the rows of police officers standing in front of the Ritz. One of them even takes a lower, and pops it in his lapel.

And we danced all night on hippy moonbeams to the tunes of the Grateful Dead. Or perhaps Toploader instead. Yeah, that would work. Altogether now… one-two-three-four “It’s such a fine and natural sight/Everybody dancing in the noonlight…”

It is easy to sneer. And fun, too. Particularly when the group you are sneering at leave you with so many open fucking goals. See, I knew that this protest would achieve nothing. After all, those protesting couldn’t even agree on what they were protesting about. Capitalism? Iraq War? Feminism? The Welfare State? Any of the above? None of the above? What was the point? What the ruddy fuck did people forsake their lattes for? Unless you can agree on what you want to protest about, you aren’t going to really achieve anything. Protesting about vague, generic left-wing gripes indicates you are against everything that it is fashionable to be against. Which is my first point.

The second point is that protests just aren’t the right medium for getting things done. At best, they act as an inconvenience for the authorities and something for the middle class media to tut at. At worst, they are a forum for bellicose idiots. The only real protests that can potentially have an impact are those that turn violent. But then they tend to be called riots. And they tend to result in the participants getting their heads smashed in by the police, and being arrested for their troubles.

Protests are only worth going on if you have a romanticised vision of Paris in 1968. The truth is that was the exception, not the rule, and with this vague, leftie protests you alienate far more people that you win over. The government resents you for getting in their faces, the middle classes disapprove of you because they don’t get this protesting lark, and the media paints you as dangerous subversives with dangerous views that are going to undermine everything that the middle classes hold dear. Plus your placards generally look shit and your chants are normally wank.

I believe people have the right to protest, I really do. But owing to my position as a pragmatic stakeholder in the real world, I also know that an all-encompassing anti-war, anti-capitalist protest by a rag-bag mix of lefties and hippies is going to achieve about as much as a fart in a hurricane.

*Back in my wayward and misspent youth I attended a march against tuition fees. Yes, I was young and naïve. Even more flawed back then than I am now. And I soon realised that I did not want to be there. Because the chant the protesters came up with – and shouted across Durham – went like this: “One Two Three Cheese! We don’t want no top up fees.” Grammatically nonsensical and referencing cheese for no other reason than to create a crap rhyme. No wonder the protest was ignored by all the targets of the protest.

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Gordon Brown, World Tour, '09

Like an ageing rock star who has seen better days and hasn’t quite come to terms with the idea that no-one likes them anymore, Gordon Brown has been on a world tour. And, by God, what a tour it has been.

Dissed in the European Parliament. Exposed to casual racism in Brazil. Told he should have saved more in Chile. It is difficult to know how the World Tour could get any worse for Brown, short of someone coming up to him and calling him a cunt to his face*.

Except it will get worse for Brown. Because this tour was about persuading the G20 to back his outrageous plans to end recession by burning money. And other countries seem far less bought into his insane plans. In fact, Brown increasingly resemble a demented old fool, who other world leaders appear to humour but ultimately ignore. And whilst Brown has staked so much on the meeting of the G20, the others in attendance seem to be treating the meeting as something to be endured before they can get back to the real work of governing their respective companies. Brown’s attempts to grandstand on the international stage are about to backfire. Massively.

And the pundits seem to have turned resolutely against him as well. His likely humiliation at the G20 will be like a red rag to a bull. Brown will be torn apart further in the press. He’ll be portrayed as a broken, compromised man with a reputation in tatters. Just as so many commentators in the blogosphere have been saying for years.

They’ll all look for the moment when it went wrong for Brown. Some will say it was the G20, some will point to Hannan’s speech. The truth is that Brown’s administration was fatally compromised much earlier. In fact, it was broken as soon as it began. Brown is the problem. It was always going to end up this way; Brown is a paranoid, emotionally retarded, pig-headed, incompetent oaf of a man. It was always going to end this way, because Brown is not the right person to be PM.

Nu Labour have done a lot to popularise the phrase “not fit for purpose”. And the phrase sums up Gordon Brown perfectly.

*Form an orderly queue behind me if you are interested in doing this.

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The Happening

I watched The Happening* this weekend. Yes, yes, I know – it got slated. But I am a sucker for apocalyptic fiction, and I hoped it might confound the reviews. Sadly, it didn’t.

Imagine you’d let Al Gore write a sci-fi chiller. What would he write it about? Why, the environment, of course. And what would the crushingly dull moral be of the that chiller? That we should respect the environment more. Because it could turn against us. Oooo, scary.

Except it isn’t scary. Trees don’t actually kill people by releasing chemicals that make them want to kill themselves. And this film doesn’t make me want to save the trees for fear that they will unleash a terrible revenge on us all. In fact, if I did believe that, then I’d buy a frigging chainsaw and cut a few of them down. Just to be on the safe side.

And few films have made the threat of mass suicide seem so boring. Basically, if the trees get you, they’ll make you stop, take a few steps back, and kill yourself. And not just kill yourself, but kill yourself in ludicrous ways. So you have the man who, rather than hanging himself with his shoelaces or a belt, decides on death by combine harvester. Or the old woman who decides head butting a window until there is like glass in her face and everything is the best way to shuffle off this mortal coil. And in the background you have a chinless wonder of teacher (who teaches the most placid pupils ever) running around with this girl and his extremely dull wife in ever-decreasing circles until the whole horror just… stops.

The whole experience compares unfavourably to another apocalyptic film released last year; The Mist. In that film, the menace is tangible and real. The whole picture is claustrophobic and terrifying. There is no attempt to make a social point with the threat; it is horrific monsters causing the calamity. As opposed to The Happening, which is basically about people running through the countryside in the summer to escape the wind.

Somewhere within The Happening, there is a great story. And if the script had been rewritten, then we could have had a classic film on our hands. If I was to change anything, it would be to change the pace of the film. By showing the menace from the outset, the director is forced into more and more outrageous death scenes to try to ramp up the tension, and also has to pad out the film with a lot of running around. As a result, we end up with unintentional hilarity. Instead, the events in New York should have been told rather than shown, to a group of people who don’t really care about what is happening in the Big Apple. Then the menace should get closer and closer to them, provoking more and more fear from the members of the remote community. Then, when the calamity hits the town (say, at the 45 minute mark in the film), we’d know (and hopefully care) about the characters, and the mass suicides would be all the more devastating as they would be jarring and the result of the director creating dread in the first half of the film. There is a reason why the first half of The Birds has little to do with the mayhem of the second half of the film – it makes the second half far more effective.

M. Night Shyamalan can write decent films. Where he struggles is bringing his films to the big screen. Even his best films – like The Sixth Sense and Signs seem flatly directed, with occasional flashes of brilliance. But watching The Happening made me feel that he lost his way by being unable to write a decent story and put that story on the big screen. If I was him, I’d be more inclined to focus on writing great scripts and letting someone else direct them. That way, we may get another classic film form Shyamalan. As it stands, I think his films will end up being living proof of the law of diminishing returns.

*Terrible, terrible title by the way. Makes it sound like a 1960’s style party, or something. “Yo, dude, you heading to the happening, man? Be there or, y’know, like, be square.”

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Sunday, March 29, 2009

Mr Timney and Mrs Palm

Complete with her five lovely daughters.

This story will be covered pretty much everywhere; I have little to add. Suffice to say that I have no objection to Jacqui Smith's husband having a quick one off the wrist; what I do absolutely object to is him billing the taxpayer for the cost of his cheeky hand shandy. 

No doubt there will some obtuse, hyperactive and grossly misleading interpretation of the rules that will show that this is A-OK - in terms of the regulations involved, rather than the ethics. But it really, really isn't. And there can be few more resounding condemnations of the attitude of our ruling clique than the realisation that we have paid for the husband of the Home Secretary to have a wank. 

In fact, it could be a great slogan for the Libertarian Party - "Don't want to pay for Jacqui Smith's husband to pleasure himself? Vote LPUK."

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A Little Light Reading

I’ve been thinking a lot about the list of books that people claim to have read, but never really have. And I’ve also been thinking a lot about Charlie Brooker’s claim that James Herbert’s ’48 is a pretty spectacular book. As it stands, ’48 is an ok book, not great but perfectly readable. Which is the point, really. For me, a book should be readable. And actually one of the most under-rated talents of an author is to make a book fundamentally readable. There are two key factors in making this happen. First of all, they need to have a writing style that is accessible. And then they need to have a story that is actually worth reading.

Perhaps there is some sort of intellectual snobbery towards those who write popular books. It has taken ages for the best works of Agatha Christie to be truly acknowledged as classics – not just of the genre, but of writing in general. Likewise, there is now a widespread understanding that Edgar Allan Poe is one of the greatest writers of all time. Yet in his day his stories were often reviled and he struggled to make a living from his work. Which does make me wonder which authors, currently regarded as mainstream and far from great, will be lauded as masters of their craft in the future?

Inevitably, there will be authors I just cannot stomach whose work will live on – J K Rowling is a good example of that. It may also be that media other than prose become respectable. Consequently, you may find that some of the most important writers of this age are those writing for the TV, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Russell T Davies, Jimmy McGovern and Paul Abbott also become widely regarded as masters of their craft. Likewise, people like Stephen King and Ian Rankin may achieve the sort of critical acclaim they deserve in the decades to come, rather than the more muted critical notices of today that in no way reflect their commercial success.

I’m predicting the future here, and (of course) that can go badly wrong. Also, I’m not going to mistake commercial success for quality. After all, Jamie Oliver’s cookbooks sell well. It doesn’t stop him from being a talentless cross of obese hamster and fat-tongued cockhead. So I’m not going to list the authors who I think should be regarded as greats, and instead list ten books that I really love and think are definitely worth reading.

Carrie by Stephen King: Ignoring the fact that it is a great novel in its own right, it also has something to *say*. For all those who want to understand school shootings, well, you could do far worse than reading this novel. Replace the telekinesis with a gun and change Carrie’s gender, and you have a teenager pushed into a horrible revenge against a society that appears to hate them and they hate.

The Drowned World by J G Ballard: J G Ballard is one of those authors right on the cusp of being considered great. People treat Empire of the Sun as an important work, and also are starting to see beyond the controversy around books like Crash to the fascinating ideas lying under the surface. However, his first book is an undiscovered gem. Bleak without being fundamentally depressing, it sums up nicely the Ballard worldview and begins his trademark of characters who appear not only disassociated with the world, but also with themselves.

The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland: Graphic novels are often looked down on, because – y’know, comics are, like, for kids. Alan Moore’s work is going through the process of challenging those perceptions, as the veneration of Watchmen shows. If you want to dip back in his history and see the origins of the Joker in The Dark Knight, then read this.

Human Nature by Paul Cornell: Fan fiction has an even worse reputation than graphic novels. And deservedly so, since a lot of it is unreadable garbage written by people who really, really need to get out more. However, every now and again, you get decent fan fiction, albeit still written by people who need to get out more. Human Nature is a great example of great Doctor Who fan fiction – so good, in fact, that they made it into prime-time Saturday night TV.

Ghost Story by Peter Straub: Stories about small US towns under attack from something supernatural or something superhuman are nothing new – hell, the aforementioned Stephen King has built a career around such stories. But Straub’s novel is perhaps the best example of a genre that has slipped into cliché. I genuinely thought I would find this book long and tedious; in the event, it is a great read that really drags you in and makes you care about the characters.

Empty World by John Christopher: John Christopher should be on the same pedestal as John Wyndham, yet he remains a secret. Those who do know of him tend to just know the (admittedly fantastic) Tripods trilogy. However there are many gems in his back catalogue, and my personal favourite is this short novel. Dealing with the aftermath of a particularly virulent pandemic, the novel suggests that the real challenge for surviving in a post apocalyptic world is coping with loneliness.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson. Like Ballard, some of Jacksons’ other works – such as the wonderful The Haunting of Hill House - are getting the acclaim they deserve. Yet this odd book deserves considerable acclaim as well. With the unreliable narrator and the odd family ostracised by the village for a past crime, it builds up towards an climax that is predictable yet feels oddly right.

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson: It is fake. It is clearly fake. And you shouldn’t need Snopes to confirm that it is a fake – you just have to read the book. It is very well done – almost compelling in a trashy sort of a way. And it is a creepy little story; very much the modern ghost story. It is also palpable nonsense, and like all good nonsense should be, it is also very enjoyable.

The Thief by Ruth Rendell – one of the “quick reads” book range, which is great as it means you can read the book in about an hour and it costs relatively little. The book itself is an odd story of a pathological thief who steals the wrong thing from the wrong person. And the protagonist’s nemesis in this story is one of the most striking villains in any book I think I have ever read. His scheme for revenge is as devastating as it is simple.

The Woman In Black by Susan Hill: Hill is respected for some of her work, not least school book staple I’m the King of the Castle. But her best work – and one of the most terrifying books I’ve ever read – is this one. Turned into a great play and a great film, the book itself is well worth a read.

Of course, the above list is deeply subjective and many may snort with laughter at my choices. But the central point still stands – there are authors and books out there that are simply not respected despite being great. If you have an author or a book that you think is pretty fucking awesome but no-one really knows and/or respects it, then stick it in the comments section and I’ll read it in the highly unlikely event that I get the time…

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Say Cheesed Off

No. Fuck off.

For those of you lucky enough not to be in the know about this one, I’m talking about a Network Rail poster campaign. There’s an example up by one of the entrances in Victoria station. It depicts a young man having a mug shot taken – presumably he has just been arrested. His placard says “Say Cheesed Off”. The inference is that he was arrested for swearing at some Network Rail drone.

Which is where the problem arises. It is clearly wrong to physically attack someone because you are frustrated. People in the service industry do have a right to work without the threat of violence. Arguably, they also have the right not to be insulted as part of their work – although you would have thought that as professionals they would be able to cope with a frustrated commuter calling them a wanker. But what they don’t have a right to complain about – and what they should just learn to shut their fucking faces about – is belly-aching when people swear.

See, there is a big difference between punching someone, calling someone a fucking cunt and pointing out that a situation is fucking ridiculous and you are pissed off about it. The latter comment is true; you are threatening no-one, you are insulting no-one. Yes, you it is arguably better to phrase your words more carefully and you probably don’t *need* to swear. But anyone who commutes in London will know just how frustrating it is to have to force yourself into some rancid fuck’s armpit on a delayed train because the fucking rail system still can’t sort itself out. Sometimes – the recent collapse of the London transport system because of a couple of flakes of snow, for example – the situation is fucking ridiculous, and you are well within your rights to say that you are pissed off.

In fact, you could argue that by swearing, your words – and your feelings – are expressed far more effectively, giving the customer service representative a good idea of what the public and the customers actually think. Which is one of the problems with this growing idea that you cannot show any anger whatsoever when you are getting a shitty service. Companies just don’t understand how people feel, and therefore cannot change anything despite the rage of their customers. An inability to swear, or show your anger and frustration, doesn’t help to defuse situations. In fact it makes things a lot worse most times.

Working in a customer service position is always difficult. You are exposed to the public, and they can sometimes be frustrated, irrational, angry and insulting. But guess what? It is part of your job to deal with that. I know, I’ve been in the situation and dealt with it. I worked in retail for years. So if you are a customer service bod, and you encounter someone who tells you they are fucked off, swallow your negative response and listen to them. Once you have heard their problem, try to help them. That is your job.

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Friday, March 27, 2009

Hannan and Slating Gordo

Daniel Hannan on the reasons for the success of that speech about Gordon Brown:
I think it has to do with pent-up frustration. People feel ignored, ripped off, lied to, taken for granted. No one asked them whether they wanted to run up the biggest deficit in the world. No one asked permission before seizing their money in tax and giving it to the banks, only for the banks to lend it back to them at interest. The whole thing was done without so much as consulting Parliament. And there was I thinking that we had come through a civil war in order to establish the principle that only the House of Commons might raise revenue through taxation

Quite. I don't think I will ever tire - or should ever tire - of reminding the readers of this blog that Gordon Brown was never elected as Prime Minister. No-one outside of his inward looking cadre have ever given their approval to his insane plan of saving this nation by bankrupting it. No-one voted for him; no-one has approved his plans. His ascension to power has all the hallmarks of a third-rate coup.

Hannan's speech epitomises the zeitgeist, and the rage many people feel in this country to our unelected and incompetent Prime Minister. If the success of his speech shows anything, it is that there is a real appetite right now for those who wish to maul the Prime Minister. And the rest of the Tory party could do far worse than heed the lessons of the success of this speech, and start to demolish this excerable excuse of a Prime Minister properly.

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On Ghosts

There has been a study recently, looking for photographic evidence (or otherwise) of ghosts. The website is here. And looking at most of the photos, you can see that, well, if they're not faked then there is probably a logical explanation for them. None of them really seem to depict a ghost; most of them are far more representative of bad photography.

And that is the conclusion reached by the study:

The majority of the images showed mysterious-looking orbs, mists, figures and faces. Many of the photographs may have a normal explanation. For example, orbs can be caused by the camera flash reflecting off tiny dust particles, mists can result from condensed breath in front of the lens, long exposures can create ghostly figures, and apparent faces are often people seeing patterns in random shapes.

Even though we had the public submit their most mysterious photographs, the images we received don’t provide compelling evidence for spirits. If ghosts are out there, it seems they are somewhat camera shy. There were possible normal explanations for the majority of the pictures, and so were surprised that, on average, about 15% of those voting thought that the photographs portrayed genuine ghosts.
This is far from being conclusive proof that ghosts don't exist; yet it does seem to indicate that, on balance, their probably aren't spirits walking amongst the living.

Despite having a long-term fascination in the supernatural, and despite writing ghost stories in my spare time, I'm a sceptic about ghosts. All of the evidence is either easily debunked or is purely ancedotal. Many people have seen something that might be a ghost, or have experienced something ghostly. But there is nothing to show that it definitely was a ghost, and in most cases there is no shortage of potential other explanations.

Which is the point; the photos might be of ghosts. They might equally be dust on the camera, an odd reflection or someone unseen straying into the view of the camera. And on balance, the rational explanations seem far more likely and, well, real than the supernatural ones.

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Thursday, March 26, 2009

It never rains...

...but it pours.

This must be one of the unluckiest men ever:
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when a US plane dropped the first atomic bomb.

He suffered serious burns and spent a night there before returning to his home city of Nagasaki just before it was bombed on 9 August.
Hiroshima, then Nagasaki? Man, he had a pisser of a year...

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The Tories and Tax Cuts

They’ve started. Before they’ve even hit power, there is a real sense that the Tories are backing away from any tax cuts they may have pledged or even hinted at. In fact, they may be going the other way and be starting to think about tax increases. Ken Clarke’s comments about inheritance tax aren’t an aberration for that party, they are a pretty clear statement of intent. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Clarke was floating a test balloon for the party. If his comments were ignored, then the Tories might quite happily have dropped their Inheritance Tax plans. When the predictable outrage hit, the Tory leadership did what it was always going to do; blamed it on the loose cannon in Ken Clarke.

Of course the Tories have a way of justifying their lack of tax cuts and their potential tax increases. It is all about being responsible, see? They can’t cut taxes unless they can afford to do it. And given the current economic situation, they simply won’t be able to afford it. It isn’t their fault; they’ll just be playing the hand that fate (in the guise of Gordon Brown) has dealt them.

There is something they can do, of course. They could reduce spending. They could cut taxes after they cut some of the things money is being wasted on. After all, Brown has spent money like a drunken sailor in a whorehouse. There should be no shortage of potential targets for spending cuts.

But the Tories are scared of pledging spending cuts. In fact, they are more than scared. They are absolutely terrified of talking about cuts in spending. They see such rhetoric as one of the reasons for their crushing defeats in both 1997 and 2001; and those defeats traumatised them. They are determined to sit in the middle ground, determined to use the Blairite consensus and the rhetoric of Gordon Brown to appear non-threatening and responsible.

Yet is it really responsible to not be aggressively cutting spending at the moment? Surely a Tory government should, as a matter of priority, be slashing government budgets and returning the money saved to the taxpayer? Actually, isn’t it a moral imperative as well as the responsible thing to do? Isn’t it right to return some of the money the government has effectively stolen from the people to waste on needless and pointless projects?

Also, from an economic perspective, it might help if the people were allowed to spend a little bit more of their own money. Confidence needs to be restored before people are willing to start spending again. One way to restore that confidence is to say to the people that they aren’t going to face further tax rises, and actually the opposite is going to happen. How powerful would it be to say to the great British public that if they vote Tory in 2010, they will have x percent more of their income to spend than they do right now?

Of course, the Tories will tell you that it isn’t that simple. And one of the problems faced by the Tories isn’t so much that people are opposed to spending cuts, but rather that they don’t understand why such cuts are so vital. And one of the reasons for that is the fact that the Tories haven’t made the case for spending cuts. Again, their pathological desire to not be seen as a tax cutting and spending cutting party means that the many people won’t understand that there is another way.

Much has been made of Danial Hannan's impassioned speech criticising Gordon Brown – which is good, because he is making a valid point. But his party needs to listen not just to the jibes at old Gordo, but also the underlying policy message. In short, the Tory party needs to get a fucking grip on itself. This is not the time for consensus. It is not the time for procrastination, for moderation and for meekness. The country needs a radical change, but unless the Tories change themselves and their ideas then quite simply their coming administration will be more of the same.

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Prime Minister Howard

This article is a lot of fun, and is, in part, absolutely correct - whoever won the 2005 General Election was going to struggle as the financial sector collapsed, just as whoever won the 1992 General Election was going to suffer with the ERM debacle.

But one thing I don't doubt is that we have the worst possible scenario now. The delusional Gordon Brown is the politician least capable of dealing with the challenges we are all facing. Howard would be a better Prime Minister - hell, even Blair would be better than the incompetent fucktard currently touring the world with his stolen title of Prime Minister.

The one small mercy is that there is nothing that Brown is doing that isn't beyond repair. The problem is that mending Britain after Gordon's rampage is going to be both extremely painful and extremely costly.

Prime Minister Howard? Rather him than Gordon fucking Brown.

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Chasing up Truants

Some parents have received a letter about their daughter's truancy:
The letter, dated 16 March, said "students must have at least 92% attendance and Megan's is currently 60.4%".

And if the daughter doesn't go, then she'll miss out on the prom.

Slight problem though. As the mother explains:
"I screamed when I first saw it. If they want her to attend that much I'll take Megan's remains. It's disgusting. Megan doesn't go to that school anymore. She's been dead for two months now so it's not surprising her attendance is low. I was pulling myself together to go back to work, but receiving the letter has just floored me. Megan would have loved going to the prom. She planned to go with a group of friends, she was really looking forward to it."

In case you can't work out which is the crucial phrase, I've put it in bold for you. As excuses go, it is pretty convincing.

Of course, this is not someone being malicious. It is the result of a systems glitch. And there will be glitches in systems - oversights or system limitations, sometimes the wrong people are going to get the wrong letter. It happens; it is a fact of life - part and parcel of living in a culture dependant on the database. But fuck me, if your system glitch can send grieving parents a letter accusing their tragically dead daughter of being a truant, you need go back to the drawing board pretty fucking quickly.

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The Cupboard is Bare...

...at least according to the Bank of England. To use the words of Mervyn King:
"Given how big those deficits are, I think it would be sensible to be cautious about going further in using discretionary measures to expand the size of those deficits," he said. "I think the fiscal position in the UK is not one where we could say, 'well, why don't we just engage in another significant round of fiscal expansion'."
Of course, being the killjoy cynic that I am, I do wonder why he didn't voice these concerns before the government went away and spunked away billions on "fiscal expansion". Of course, Brown probably wouldn't have heeded any early warning - just as he probably won't let King's comments stop him from continuing to spend money to save the world. Yet King's comments leave him wide open to being accused of locking the stable door not so much after the horse has bolted, but rather after the horse has bolted, found a new place to live, died of old age and been turned into fucking glue.

Still, at least the billions that have been spent have all been spent in a good way. Oh, wait, that's not right either. They've been wasted. We have nothing to show for our "fiscal expansion" other than massive debt, part ownership of toxic banks and a bunch of unworkable and unimplemented programmes to help those who have been fucked over by the government.

Seldom before, in the field of human history, has so much money been wasted by so few on behalf of so many. This will be the legacy of the Gordon Brown administration; a country crippled by debt and the next government unable to do anything other than try to manage the mountain of debt inherited from the worst Prime Minister in living memory.

Thanks for your comments, Mr King. Too little, far too late.

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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Letter-writing and Making Things Happen.

With the inevitability of a really inevitable thing, Gordon Brown has joined the calls for an probe into MPs expenses:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has written to the chairman of the Committee on standards in Public Life calling for a full review of MPs' pay and allowances.
But of course he has. One of his ministers in a very high profile position (Employment Minister in a time of high and rising unemployment, for fuck's sake) has been caught with his grubby fat hands in the till, and Brown can't even properly hang him out to dry because *technically* the minsiter was obeying the rules. Brown needs to be seen to be doing stuff, so he's going to protest about the status quo.

Except he isn't serious about this. He doesn't really want there to be a review of expenses. He doesn't really want things to change. If he did, then he would do something a little more impressive than writing a fucking letter. This is the man who has no compunction with strong-arming legislation through the Commons. This is the man who will commit billions of pounds to failing banks without batting an eyelid. Incompetent fuck he may be, but Gordon Brown can make (generally stupid) things happen very quickly. So if he wanted to change the rules around MPs expenses, he would be doing something a little more convincing than muttering his protests like a tramp grumbling for change on a tube train.

'Cos this announcement is bandwagon jumping, pure and simple. On Sunday, he was offering his condolences to the family of Jade Goody. On Monday, he was talking about the expenses of MPs, because of the roar of indignant rage at the latest scandal. And today? He's probably bang on about deflation, pretending to be some sort of economic fucking sage when in reality any comments he makes on the economy are rightly viewed with absolute incredulity and a healthy amount of suspicion. Gordon's comments on expenses is just the latest example of him ineptly trying to grab hold of the news cycle.

Nothing will change with MPs expenses: nothing. They all have their fat faces in the trough, and it is in their own self-interest to change precisely nothing about the status quo. You can ignore Brown's comments - just as pretty much everything that out and out cunt says should be ignored. Nothing is going to change, and Brown's letter is just a waste of time and of paper.

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Monday, March 23, 2009

Tony McNulty and the Adventure Of His Parents' Home

The cry went out again yesterday - from an MP, of course. The increasingly common cry of "I've done nothing wrong!" This time, the person protesting was Tony McNulty. The kind of person who could only become a Minister in the real fag end of a once popular government.

And what was McNulty's crime? Aside from being part of Gordon Brown's cabinet (a crime that really should warrant the death penalty) McNulty was claiming expenses on a second home - like so many other MPs. However, his parents were living at the second home. He claims that he was making considerable use of it, and therefore the expenses are justified. I made considerable use of my parents' home - mainly when I was growing up there - but that's different, of course. McNulty is an MP, and therefore should be allowed to fleece as much money as possible from the taxpayer through the immensely generous expenses system.

Which is the whole problem. For what it is worth, I don't think McNulty actually broke the rules - but I'm pretty fucking sure he knew he was taking the piss. But the rules are so outrageous, and so insulting to anyone who actually has to fund these fucking MPs, that not breaking the rules really isn't the point. The rules allow you to rinse the system for your own financial benefit. But just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should do it. The rules are a fucking outrage, they need changing.

In fairness McNulty acknowledges this:
"I have said these things need to be looked at," he said. "There are anomalies."
Wild applause for the man, please. For having the fucking gall to claim the very rules he is exploiting need to be changed. The concept of leading by example is utterly alien to McNulty. He is perfectly happy to call for changes to the rules, knowing that his fellow MPs will resist them for all they are worth, but until those rules change, he is more than happy to suck the public purse dry in return for the privilege of serving his constituents and acting as a Minister of the State.

There is nothing original in noting that an MP is a hypocritical wanker; yet time after time we get new examples of the absolute contempt they feel for everyone bar themselves.

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Sunday, March 22, 2009

Mourning Jade Goody

Letters From A Tory on Jade Goody's death:
Personally, I won’t miss Jade Goody in the slightest and I see no reason why I should. What happened to her over the past year has been awful and must have been extremely traumatic for her and her family, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the fact that she ultimately became famous for being incredibly ignorant and stupid and that I always switched channels or closed the newspaper I was reading if I ever came across a story about her because I found her incredibly annoying. Please do not fall into the sycophantic trap that no doubt many journalists will today and over the coming days. If you liked her, fine, if you didn’t like her, fine - just don’t pretend that your opinions of her formed over many, many years have suddenly changed just because she passed away.
I can't really disagree with any of the above, and I think that it is important to keep her death in perspective. Her death is a tragedy - just like any premature death is a tragedy. She was brave in the same way that every other cancer sufferer is brave - they fight for their lives against a terrible illness. And her celebrity status was simply a result of her willingness to leave behind any notions of dignity in her search for fame. She wasn't, as some people claim, talentless - but her talent was simply being able to seek and achieve fame through any means necessary. Even if that meant she was as famous for negative reasons as she was for positive reasons.

Jade Goody's death will be mourned, and quite rightly so. However her passing should be mourned by her family and friends, not by the whole nation. 

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The most concise chapter I think I have ever read in my life:
"Nothing much else happened, all the rest of that night."
For anyone interested, it is Chapter 31 of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Watchmen. THE Review.

Watchmen.

So I watched it. No pun intended. In fact I watched it at the IMAX near Waterloo. I'd never been there before, despite repeated attempts to find a decent time to watch The Dark Knight there. And it was pretty spectacular - well worth a visit if you've never been there. 

And in fairness, the film was not bad at all. In fact, had I not read the novel, then I would think that it was a pretty bloody awesome. It has a real epic sway to it, and look stunning. The visual effects (and this was always going to be a FX heavy film) were grand - without ever becoming obtrusive. It was impressive, it really was.

Of course, most people will have caught the caveat in the above paragraph. "Had I not read the novel..." I have read the novel. Many times. I think it is a stunning piece of writing, and great novel in its own right. It is also a detailed, intricate piece of work that needs to be re-read and continuously digested. Simple it ain't. And like many highly complex and detailed novels, it will always be difficult to put it up on the big screen. 

The film does try. Visually, it is very close to the source material. There are no real compromises with the costumes, and many of the frames of the original comic are recreated 100% on the screen. It looks like a labour of love, and the picture exudes a real desire to be faithful - if not reverential - to the graphic novel. This also applies to the script. It sounds like comic book, with pieces of dialogue lifted directed from the panels of the original. It even recreates the more obscure elements of the novel, such as the ongoing Nixon Presidency. The film also recreates the 1980's realistically - almost to the point of being utterly anal about it. The director, and everyone else in the film, clearly wanted to be faithful to the original, and also wanted to make the legions of Watchmen

Which, for me, is at the nub of the problem. The film tries to faithfully reproduce a novel that is far to broad and deep for the confines of a commercially released film. You just can't do it justice, even within the vast run time of this picture. Reviewing the film in my mind, it becomes clear that it felt like a hurried, rushed reproduction of the graphic novel. A photocopy of the comic. And like all photocopies, it loses something in the reproduction.

One of the joys of the graphic novel is the level of detail within it. It is a non-linear story that truly fits together like a jigsaw - a jigsaw where the pieces are revealed over a long period of time. The characters are all rounded, complete and flawed people. Even the minor players have back stories. And whilst the film gamely tries to reproduce all this on the silver screen, it fails. And instead we are left with characters who don't quite add up, and a plot that manages to simultaneously seem hurried yet dragged out. The film feels like a half-remembered dream - the dream, of course, being the original graphic novel.

To do the story - and the whole concept - justice, you simply need a longer run time. And I'm talking about six to eight hours, at least. So I think that Watchmen should have been produced as a mini-series. Done by someone like HBO, with a real sense that this is an important story that should be told. With a more sedate pace throughout the film/series, and with a real chance to let everything evolve as it does in the graphic novel, the ending would become so much more compelling. And we would have cared about all the characters by the end, regardless of their flaws. I see the source material as a "slow burner" - and this is something that needed to be reflected in the screen adaptation. Of course, with a Hollywood action movie, that just couldn't happen.

The alternative is to take the basic ideas in Watchmen, mix them up, and make something recognisable but new with them. This idea would of course be complete sacrilege to legions of Watchmen fans out there, but with a simpler plot and fewer characters, you might actually end up with a far superior film. There is nothing wrong with taking the sentiments of a comic or a novel and moulding them into something more suitable for the Big Screen. It worked very well in Spiderman, The Dark Knight and Iron Man. Likewise, with novels like The Shining. Part of the problem with Watchmen was that is tried to change the medium of the story without really thinking what was the best way to represent the film within the both liberating and constricting confines of a live action film. 

Of course, you can level the charge that pretty much the whole of this review represents the rambling of a fanboy who wouldn't be happy if he had directed, written and played every single part in this film, and to some extent that is very true. And I'm not saying Watchmen is in anyway a bad film - quite the opposite in fact. It is probably the best Alan Moore adaptation I have ever seen (although this is damning with faint praise). But part of me feels that it could - and should - of been far more than it was. 

In summary, go see the film - it will be a worthwhile investment of both your time and money. But read the graphic novel first, because that is the true classic. And if you have a choice between reading the book and watching the film, I'd definitely do the former. 

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Friday, March 20, 2009

Richards and the Death Tax

Steve Richards seems to have lost the plot:
Nonetheless there is one policy (the Tories) could propose that would change everything. It would show how serious they were about repaying debt and doing so in a way that was fair. It would be dramatic, make every front page, top every news bulletin and throw Labour into turmoil. David Cameron and George Osborne could announce that they are scrapping their pledge to abolish inheritance tax.
Uh-huh, they could announce that. They could also announce that they are going to give free marshmallows to every pixie in the sky. Just because they can do it, doesn’t mean they should do it.

And yes, it would be all of the media as a top story. Just as the Opposition doing anything incredibly crass would be.

But he offers *reasoning*, if you can call it that, for his idea:

Imagine if the Tories announced that they were scrapping their pledge. Labour would either have to follow suit, looking weakly pathetic again. Or it would enter an election supporting a tax cut they do not believe in against the Tories claiming to be the progressive party of prudence and with ammunition to back up the claim. If Mr Osborne were to reverse his pledge on inheritance tax there would be the same beneficial impact for the Tories as there was when he made the proposal in the first place. I know some close to the leadership are contemplating such a move. I wonder if they will dare to make it.
There are two reason why I think Richards is talking utter, utter crap. Firstly, there is the little matter of reality. Then there is the moral argument.

First of all, what beneficial impact do the Tories need about now? When they made their pledge on inheritance tax, they were behind in the polls and were facing an almost certain defeat at a snap General Election. Now, they are so far ahead in the polls that David Cameron would have to do something really extreme to lose the next election. Like punch a granny or something. Likewise, the Tories don’t have to do anything to make Labour look weak and pathetic. Labour do that for themselves, pretty much every time they let any member of the Cabinet (and in particular the Prime Mentalist) open their gobs. The Tories don’t need gimmicks to get ahead in the polls. The reality of the situation is that they are ahead, and the next General Election is there for the taking.

And then there is the moral case. Just because Richards is happy to endorse Inheritance Tax – the taxing of the dead and the robbing of the bereaved – doesn’t mean everyone else is happy with that policy. Sure, the Tories have hardly been vigorous and robust with their attacks on that particular tax, but at least their existing pledge is the step in the right direction. Cameron’s whole time as leader has lacked any ideological backbone; to back track on the Death Tax would be absolute confirmation that Cameron really is like Tony Blair, and therefore will say/do anything to get into power.

Richards’ article is wishful thinking. He wants the Tories to drop their Death Tax. However, his wishful thinking is backed up neither morally or by reality.

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Going to see "Watchmen" Tonight

And as a result I find myself in a state of what is referred to as "anticipointment" In Russell T Davies' wonderful The Writer's Tale. See, I'm looking forward to seeing the film. I have been a fan of the original source material for the best part of a decade now. I think the director's remake of Dawn of the Dead was original and outstanding, especially coming in an era when remaking a horror film seems to be an excuse to produce dross. But whilst I'm looking forward to the film, I'm also aware that I will probably walk away disappointed. 

After all, there has never been a good adaptation of an Alan Moore film. The best ones, the likes of V For Vendetta and From Hell are lightweight, ersatz representations of the genius of Moore's original comic books. The worst ones - stand up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - sound so bad that I cannot actually bring myself to watch them. So I kind of know that no matter how good the film is, I'll still end up disappointed by it.

Hence "anticipointment." But we'll see. And for anyone who cares, I may publish a review of it over the weekend. That's assuming that it isn't so shit that I can't bring myself to think about it though...

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

Dealing With Those Who Appear To Be Drunk And Disorderly

The government sometimes (oh, ok, all the time) seems to forget that there are laws in this country to deal with the anti-social behaviour excessive consumption of alcohol can cause. Taxes, advertising restrictions and minimum prices be damned – they won’t make a blind bit of fucking difference to those who are behaving like arses because they have had too much to drink. The laws of the land are quite clear and offer protection to the public against alleged abusive drinkers.

Maybe there are some people in power who don’t understand what the laws are. So, to clarify, a person who appears to be inebriated can be refused any more alcohol. If that person reacts in a way that others find offensive and threatening, the police can be called and then the apparent drunk can be arrested and charged. Those charges can see the person brought to trial for their actions.

As happened in this case.

And if the Labour government really wants proof that the law can and is enforced they should talk to the defendant in this case. After all, she was a member of that government for eight years

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The *Future* of the Labour Party

The Guardian has a list of the *bright young things* of the Labour Party. Read it and smirk - it is a wonderful piece of spin, that almost makes you believe that these people really do want to bring debate and a fresh style of politics to the UK. Until you realise that:
  1. These people are amongst the key writers for the abysmal LabourList, and as such are effectively the slack jawed followers of the ridiculous Derek Draper.

  2. These people support the Labour Party - that ideologically redundant, politically mortally wounded party. They are the cheerleaders for a failed political movement, and are defending the very institution that has wreaked so much devastation across the UK in the decade and a bit that it has been in power. Are these people about change? Are they about a new kind of politics? Are they bollocks. They are all about the aggressive maintenance of the status quo.

I'm feeling a little less militant than when I wrote this post, but the message is still the same - to my mind, you are utterly discredited ideologically and politically if you actively support the Labour Party these days. Hell, the young jokers in the article remind me of John McCain in the last US Presidential Election - talking about change, talking about a new kind of politics, whilst acting as mouthpieces for a moribund, unpopular, divisive and utterly discredited party. It is telling in the article that no-one can quite bring themselves to endorse the record of this government - Lord knows, that would be a difficult thing to do, but they don't even try. They are all calling for some sort of change, from slightly different ideological positions within the same redundant school of political thought. They call for change, whilst undermining any such call by still operating under the banner of Labour.

If these people are the future of Labour, then Labour's future looks a lot like Labour's present. And maybe, just maybe, if this is the best they've got then we really are seeing the death of the Labour party.

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I got an e-mail from the Alliance & Leicester Bank:

For your security, we are sending this email to confirm changes made to your contact information in the Account User Profile. At your request, one or more of the following were changed: Address, Email, Day Phone, Evening Phone, If you did not make this request to change your Account User Profile,Click o the link below to update your Alliance & Leicester Internet Banking Accounts Profile.
Pretty fucking lucky they sent me this e-mail then. Although, the e-mail doesn't detail one quite fundamental change. Namely the fact that I opened an Alliance & Leicester account in the first place. I'm not a customer of the Alliance & Leicester, and never have been.

Wait... wait for one moment... you don't think... could it be possible spam, do you? Because, thinking about it, I'd have thought that the Alliance & Leicester would be able to spell. And use basic punctuation. Even the Worst Bank In The World (aka the Halifax) manages to spell correctly, even if they can't always account for where your money is.

Anyone who is a customer of the Alliance & Leicester and who read this blog, be aware of this very basic piece of would-be fraudulent spam. Although in fairness if you fall for it, you are pretty fucking dumb.

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Saying Sorry and Political Expediency.

Hazel Blears on apologising:
"You can't win as a politician," she said. "If you say you are sorry somehow you are responsible for every single thing. If you don't say you are sorry you are arrogant and out of touch. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't."

As always, Blears manages to completely miss the point: this time of apologising. The reason for saying sorry is because you are actually sorry about something. It is very telling that Blears simply sees apologising as a matter of expediency, and seems to almost conclude that it is not worth doing as it might not make things easier for the politician concerned.

I almost want to tut at her, like an peeved primary school teacher, and point out that you should only apologise if you actually mean it. But such concepts are never going to work for our esteemed leaders. All Blears is actually doing is (albeit unintentionally) again illustrating the central mindset of Nu Labour (and, I'd argue, all the other parties in Parliament) - that they work for themselves, and everything is about making their lives easier regardless of whether it is in the best interests of the people and regardless of whether it leaves them wide fucking open for a charge of insincerity and/or hypocrisy.

Another good example of this if those godawful fucking adverts showing fat chavs and warning them that if they are dole cheats, then they will be found and charged by the authorities. Grand, I say. Lock 'em up, and remove any benefits they might yet claim. They are rinsing the public purse for all it is worth. But the irony is lost on our elected leaders - they too, are effectively cheating dole scum. They are paid for from the public purse, and they are determined to get as much as possible from the people, regardless of what they actually contribute to the country. There isn't one - not one - politician in this country who actually represents value for money. So yeah, benefit cheats are leeches on the taxpayer's money. The reality is that they are indistinguishable from our MPs - except the latter take more, and dress a little better.

Of course, it is human nature to be, at least on some levels, expedient and self-centred. Most people manage a balance between that and being at least a little socially aware and a little philanthropic. Not so our politicians. They are simply out for themselves, and will only do things if they make life easier for the self-perpetuating oligarchy in this country. Politicians may despair about the levels of cynicism in this country, but in this area they truly are leading by example. There is no-one more cynical and self-serving in this country that Blears and the shower of shits who surround her.

They work for us? Really? Don't make me fucking laugh a hollow, bitter laugh.

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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Labour's Answer to William Hague

This much is becoming very clear - the Labour party aren't going to grow the balls they need to push Brown from power and to replace him as Prime Minister. This decision, of course, has a knock-on effect, meaning that Labour will lose the next General Election. And they will lose it badly. At this rate, it will be the sort of catastrophic meltdown last achieved by the Tories in 1997. And it will be at that point that the Labour party finally gets a fucking spine, and replaces the godawful creature who currently leads them.

At that point, the race will be on. To find the new Labour leader. To find the Labour equivalent of William Hague.

See, at this rate, Labour aren't going to just lose the next election, but also the one after. The next Labour leader is going to have the mixed blessing of being pretty much sure that they won't be able to become Prime Minister at any point. Ever.

The safest thing for the Labour party to do would be to give the leadership to a tried and tested pair of hands; someone with the experience and gravitas to take on Prime Minister Cameron and to tide the party over until it is next in a fit state to rule. The problem is that plain ain't gonna happen. Your Alan Johnsons of this world, the Jack Straws aren't going to win a Labour leadership contest. They are too old, too compromised and too much associated with Labour failures. Plus, after binning one grey faced old man, why would they want to put another in a position of power?

Likewise, those who have lusted for power under Gordon - like Miliband and Harman - aren't going to make it. They are tainted by the stigma of disloyalty, at the same time as having deep individual flaws. Miliband is a ridiculous, over-grown schoolboy who has managed to offend nations as Foreign Secretary at the same time as ruining any residual credibility he might have had by posing for a photo with a banana. Harman is an utterly divisive figure who is only recognisable as a self-proclaimed feminist with no respect whatsoever for the rule of law. As a gimmicky option to replace Brown, maybe they could have worked. But they aren't going to lead the party after the election wipeout. And the likes of Jacqui Smith? Well, they ain't gonna have a seat in Parliament after the next election...

Which leaves the younger lights of the Labour party - those who aren't too tainted by years of working for Blair and Brown. And once sift the sewage to find the brightest turd, you have James Purnell. So that's my prediction for the Labour leader after the Great Electoral Wipeout of 2010.

The Labour party will hope that he will capture the public imagination like Cameron has, and Blair did before him. Of course, Purnell won't. He'll be mocked as a lightweight response to Cameron, and his party will lack the funds, ambition and ability to truly build him up as a credible leader (despite a complete lack of substance) as has happened with both Blair and Cameron. He'll hang around for four years, lose the 2014 General Election to Cameron, and then the hunt will be on to find another Labour leader. Just as happened to William Hague in 2001.

Of course, making politicial predictions is a very dangerous game, and things could change overnight. But so much is certain about British politics at the moment - that Cameron is going to be PM, that Brown is a disaster, and that Clegg is a waste of space - that a bit of speculation actually makes things one hell of a lot more interesting. And it will be fascinating to see how Labour respond to the challenges of getting their arses whupped next year. They're going to be broken and unable to take power for a long time. And quite who will want the poisoned chalice of being the next Labour leader is a little beyond me - but I am sure that there will be some egocentric individual somewhere in that party who goes for the challenge.

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Monday, March 16, 2009

Gordon Brown - Apologise? NEVER!

It seems to be rapidly becoming one of the central issues in British politics at the moment – whether Gordon Brown should apologise or not for helping to cause the recession. Personally, I rather monkeys flying out of my arsehole is a little more likely than Gordon Brown having the modesty and self-awareness to apologise for anything, but there we go.

Gordon’s argument is simple – the crisis did not start in this country* and there is nothing that the government could have done to prevent the economic catastrophe we are all living with. Quite why he now thinks that the crisis can be stopped through government action when the government could not prevent the recession in the first place is beyond me, but Brown’s arguments – and those of the party that he leads – do not often stand up to close scrutiny.

So, the counter-argument goes, Gordon was Chancellor over the period that sowed the seeds of our economic calamity. Therefore, he should be a man, accept responsibility for the economic Armageddon that is currently taking jobs and homes across the nation, and apologise.

Now, I don’t think Brown should apologise. Don’t get me wrong, there is one heck of a lot that he could say sorry for. But fuck it, there is no way he should apologise. See, apologising would help him. It would make him more popular.

Sure, if he were to apologise right now, then there would be a lot of media coverage about his apology – mainly asking why it took so long. But that would fade given time, and the upshot is that some people would start to feel some sympathy towards Gordo. The rhetoric would be simple – the guy made mistakes, he’s admitted that, and now he is trying to make it right through his actions. Most people have been in that position, they’d feel some empathy for Gordon. Those in the Labour party calling for Gordon and the government to apologise aren’t stupid**- they realise the power that apology could have.

So, Gordon, don’t apologise. Really, don’t. Continue to let everyone see you as an arrogant, unsympathetic, out-of-touch dickhead. ‘Cos the electorate will remember your failure to apologise and your failure to take responsibility for the fucking horrific economic conditions you have helped to create. And they’ll punish you for it when we are finally allowed to go to the polls. And I hope when you and your party look back at the tattered remains of your annihilated administration after the next election, I really hope someone says to you “if only you’d apologised, Gordon! If only you’d had the humility to apologise...”

*It started in America, dontcha know. Unless Gordo is in America, addressing Congress. In that scenario, it started in a location yet to be disclosed. But not America. Or Britain, obviously.
**On this one issue. They are really, really dumb in so many other ways.

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Nicholas Cage

There’s a new film coming out. You can take a look at it here. And I know, just from looking at the details of the film, that it will be shit. I’ve not seen the film, I’ve not seen the trailer, I’ve not even seen a poster. Yet I know it will be a big old bag of crap. How? Well, you just have to look at who is starring in the film.

Nicolas Cage.

Cage is the Harriet Harman of the movie world – someone who has climbed to the top for no other reason than naked, garish self-belief and continual, unjustifiable self-promotion. It certainly isn’t anything to with talent, since Cage is cinematic bromide. He can make the most promising of movies instantly flat and unappealing. No, the only reason why Nicholas Cage is allowed to headline major pictures if because Cage himself thinks he should be headlining major movies.

Cage looks ridiculous, with his receding hairline, his strange mouth and odd eyes. And his desire to act like he is 20 years younger than he actually is. He doesn’t look like a leading man; yet he still manages to get himself treated by some as some sort of heartthrob. Fuck knows why; if you took a couple of inches off his height, doubled them and then planted those inches around his waste, he would look similar to Danny DeVito.

And – in what must he a fundamental problem for anyone in his profession – the fucker can’t act. Really, he can’t. All he can play is himself. He plays Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage trying (and, generally, failing) to be cool. In every role, regardless of what he is supposed to be playing, he acts in exactly the same way. Hell, even if Nicolas Cage was playing Nicholas Cage in a film about Nicholas Cage’s life, he still wouldn’t be convincing. He just can’t act.

Look at some of the OK films he’s been in - 8mm was undermined by Cage’s attempts to look haunted and dramatic. Rather than coming across as a family man facing a world he doesn’t understand and that frightens him, Cage came across as a retarded puppy dog having a sulk. Likewise, his idiosyncratically awful performance in Wild at Heart showed that the quirky, surreal world of David Lynch can be rendered irritating and silly if you have an awful central performance. Honest to God, in that film, Cage didn’t need a female lead. It really wouldn’t have made much of a difference had he been shown tossing himself off repeatedly over how gorgeous and irresistible he believes himself to be.

Now, he’s stopped even being in vaguely good films. Instead, he starts in the movie world’s answer to rancid eggs. Ghost Rider anyone? You probably didn’t see it, unless you have a great desire to watch terrible fucking superhero movies. The remake of The Wicker Man? Watch the original. Because the remake is awful in every single way. It isn’t just a slur on the original; it is a slur on everyone who has ever made a film that is worth watching. It is a bitch slap to actors and directors with any talent whatsoever. It is an awful, awful movie that makes you wish film had never been invented.

Of course, this rambling rant will have no affect on the inexplicable popularity of Mr Cage. He’ll still get millions of dollars for starring in films, and some people will – for reasons that defy understanding – go and watch those pictures. For me, Nicholas Cage joins that roster of *stars* that includes Mackenzie Crook, Adam Sandler, Lindsey Lohan and (increasingly and sadly) John Hurt – stars whose name in the cast list means the film is going to be just plain bad.

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Sunday, March 15, 2009

Interesting Quote; Discuss

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns or dollars. Take your choice - there is no other."

Ayn Rand, quoted here.

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Saturday, March 14, 2009

From The Daily Mash:
Tom Logan, scams analyst at Madeley-Finnegan, said: "Bernard Madoff was taking
money in, telling everyone that everything was okay and then, when the financial
crisis hit, he ran out of money. Sounds eerily familiar doesn't it?

"After studying his business model very carefully I have concluded that
the key difference between Madoff and the banks is the word 'bank'. "If his
company had been called Halifax Bank of Madoff or the Royal Bank of Madoff, he'd
now be enjoying his retirement and laughing at all those people who wanted him
to give up his pension."

Do go read the whole thing; as always, there is a real ring of truth to it...

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Friday, March 13, 2009

The Moronic Labour Supporters.

It staggers me - it absolutely blows me away - sometimes when I read articles, blog-posts and other bits of writing where the author defends and supports the Nu Labour government. You'd have thought that we would have gone past the point of no return with Labour a long time ago, and that everyone would be able to clearly see how compromised, ideologically bankrupt, utterly corrupt, shambolic and completely incompetent this worthless party and government now is. But no, there are some who still defend Nu Labour. Frig me rigid, there are still some supporters of this derelict government.

Let's take a look at some of the highlights of what this fucking dreadful government that has ruled us since 1997 has given us:
  • A broken economy.
  • Wars in Iraq (illegal war, that one) and Afghanistan being fought by poorly equipped troops; so poorly equipped that it is actually killing them.
  • A largely nationalised financial sector - and, best of all, it is the shit institutions that the government now owns!
  • A devastated education system, where box-ticking has over-taken the objective of actually teaching people.
  • A country rapidly drifting towards bankruptcy.
  • Seriously eroded civil liberties, as the government attempts to turn every man, woman and child in this country into a file on a database. A database that a civil servant will probably lose at some point.
  • An unelected Prime Minister who is a shambling wretch, devoid of anything other than rage and resentment. A Prime Minister who is not snubbed by the US President, but actually just dismissed as an irrelevance.
  • The highest tax burden in history.
  • A government where the MPs of all parties are arrogant enough to rob the public purse for their own gain, and to live beyond the means of the vast majority of people in this country.
  • A cabinet at war with itself, as talentles fucks fight for a position that is not yet vacant and they are not capable of filling anyway.

This government has, in short, been a total fucking disaster. It is beyond defence; it is almost beyond parody. It makes the dis-integrating Tory party of 1997 look positively charismatic and capable. This government is a pathetic excuse for an administration; to defend it is to defend a septic rump of a government.

So, let me say this: if you still support Labour, if you still try to defend them and argue that they are the way forward for this country, you are a moron. A total fucking moron. And whilst my commitment to free speech means that I support your right to defend and back the Labour party, what I am really supporting is your right to choose to be a moron. Because if there is one right that the government still allows for its citizens, it is the right to be a dickhead.

The equation is simple: supporting Labour is moronic, therefore Labour supporters are morons.

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Madoff: 150 Years

Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty. In fact, since getting rumbled, he seems to have been very honest about what he did. Which is a small mercy, really. After all, his career and life (up until he got caught) was based largely around deceit. I'd have expected him to continue lying, even after the delicate tissue of lies his business *empire* was based around came crashing down around him.

Madoff isn't a war criminal, he isn't a serial killer or a child molester. But we shouldn't underestimate the extent to which he has fucked up people's lives. A hefty prison sentence would be good here, and since Madoff is an old man, it may well be that prison sentence means he spends the rest of his life behind bars. I think, given he has lived in the lap of luxury at the expense of other people's savings and homes, that would be fair enough. But this is just plain silly:

He is facing 11 charges that carry a maximum sentence of 150 years.

Sure, he might not get the full sentence, but 150 years in prison as a concept is just stupid. It sounds really, really dumb. If Madoff lived long enough to complete his sentence, he would be circa 220 years old. But something tells me he isn't going to live quite that long. Hell, even if he was a new born babe being put straight into the slammer, he still wouldn't live out the whole of his sentence. God knows when Madoff would actually be eligible for parole if he gets this sentence; probably sometime around 2109.

If they want to put Madoff in prison for the rest of his life, fair enough. But don't talk total bollocks like giving him a century and a half in prison. It is meaningless, and it just sounds plain stupid.

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

On the surface, it seems a little surreal to state that there was "nothing aggressive" about a mass murderer. After all, murder - especially a spree killing in a school - tend to be quite an agressive act. Your Thomas Hamiltons and Michael Ryans and known for their passive behaviour. But then again, it is only their final acts that appear so aggressive and so violent.

Tim Kretschmer probably wasn't aggressive before he went on his shooting spree. He was probably a very normal looking young man. There were probably very few warning signs that he was about to perpetrate a terrible act of violence. And that is why all those who call for the authorities to recognise the warning signs are on a hiding to nothing. The warning signs won't be there - Kretschmer won't have sat around muttering "kill 'em all, kill 'em all - gonna fucking kill 'em all." Any signs of his burgeoning rage could probably have been interpreted as signs of being a teenager.

Part of the tragedy of these mass killings is that they are arbitrary and they are random. You can't predict them; you can't stop them unless you imprison everyone who ever appears to be slightly weird. It is comforting in the aftermath to talk about identifying warning signs in the future. The reality is somewhat different, and behind that reality is the unpleasant truth that you probably can't stop these things from happening.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The Criminal Police

So, some police officers have criminal convictions.

My God, what a great story for the media. It has everything. The hints of hypocrisy, fear of the police, the sudden public laundering of previously hidden dirty secrets. This story is tabloid heaven.

Except that it actually doesn't really matter. The vast majority of the convictions are for things like speeding. Sure, it is more worrying that some police officers have convictions for violent offences. Until you consider what those offences might be. Violence may be attacking someone and beating them to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat. It may also be far more minor. And given these officers were recruited into/kept their jobs in the police force and that they aren't in prison, I'd guess these offences probably were more minor.

There is also the concept of people having paid back to their debts to society, and that people can learn from their mistakes and actually move on. In fact, our justice system is based (in part) of this principle of redemption. Why should the police be treated differently?

In an ideal world, I don't think police officers should have criminal convictions. However, we don't live in an ideal world. And in this very real world, the police struggle to recruit decent police officers. And I'd rather have a police officer with the right skills, demeanour and attitudes and a conviction than have a police officer with no convictions but also lacking the right personality to actually go out and enforce the law.

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Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Feminism, Misanthropy and Alienating People

Labourlist has been "Celebrating International Women's Day...by kicking Draper out of the editor's seat." Kicking Draper out of the editor's seat for that particular site can only be a good thing, and the posts on feminism have at least been a breath of fresh air after the endless fucking attack posts banging on about the Tories. That said, the quality of the writing has been variable to say the least.

For example, this post sets my teeth on edge. And I had to think long and hard why it winds me up. See, I agree with a lot of the content. It is naive to claim that misogyny is not still rampant within society. I have seen discrimination based on gender at work many, many times. The rape stats are horrifying for a supposedly civilised society. And any attempts to restrict abortion in this country should be resisted wholeheartedly. Sex education really does need to be urgently improved. Nonetheless, there is something about the sentiments in that article that jars with me. And I think I have figured it out. Take a look at this lengthy quote:

In the playground, in the workplace and in the home, women are expected to constantly look sexually available, but never to actually be so. This intensely feminine paradox is deeply enmeshed with the big-spending New Labour paradigm, and many young women like myself, still prepubescent in 1997, have grown up knowing nothing else. We live in a world oozing with sexuality, but we are not allowed to take our share from it – instead we are taught that, in order to be adults, we have to give incessantly for the gratification of male sexuality. Combined with a woeful lack of education about sex and contraception in schools – sex education that, like our teenage pregnancy rates, is just about the worst in Europe - the damage that has been done to British women sexually since the feminist backlash of the early 1990s makes it surprising that more teenage girls don't get pregnant.

What are the messages we pick up, as young girls? Our human worth is stamped on our bodies, on our faces and between our legs. Whatever we achieve at school or at work will be meaningless if we are not also sexually appealing to men. If we get raped – and one in four of us will be raped - it's our fault. If we have sex, we're sluts; if we don't, we're frigid bitches. If we have babies, we're wasting our lives and being a drain on the state; if we have an abortion, we are walking moral abomination. If we slave all day to look like Paris Hilton then our college grades are of no importance; if we don't, we're ugly and therefore valueless. Being a prostitute or a stripper is a valuable and fulfilling career. Most of our role models are professional wearers of skimpy outfits, where our brothers' role models play international sports, work on gene theory or run the country. If we choose to work for money, we will be constantly exhausted and unfulfilled; but if we choose to raise children instead, we have failed morally, personally and financially. No wonder the kids are confused.

Here's what I'm not going to do - I'm not going to do a line by line fisking, I'm not going to assume things on behalf of the author, and I'm not (for once) resort trite name-calling and sarcastic comments. I am going to point out the problem with that article - it is the assumptions that the author makes on behalf of just about everyone.

Let's look at some examples. Women aren't expected to "constantly look sexually available" - some workplaces actually demand the opposite. And there is a difference between people (both male and female) making themselves look attractive and people making themselves look sexually available. Sure, some people will make themselves look sexually available, others might be making themselves look professional, or generally attractive, or just like taking pride in their appearance. Laurie Penny seems to make the assumption that every female is trying to make themselves look sexually available; I don't think this is the case.

Likewise, some women may feel that they can't enjoy a world oozing with sexuality. Others would disagree with that; they very much enjoy this world. Penny is proclaiming how every woman feels, yet I don't think that her thoughts actually reflect reality.

The phrase "Our human worth is stamped on our bodies, on our faces and between our legs." Really? Is that the case? Because I don't perceive the worth of anyone - male or female - is about their bodies, their faces or what is between their legs. It is far more important what they are like as people. I know some good looking males and females; what makes them good people (or not as the case maybe) is what they act like as people rather than what they see when they look in the mirror.

And I don't know anyone who genuinely believes that, if a woman is raped, it is her fault. The idea is abhorrent to me, and to those close to me. No doubt there are those who do have this monstrous view; I resent their views, just as I resent Penny's implication that everyone in the world holds those views.

That is the point - that is the very fucking nub of the problem. Whether or not she believes in what she writes, the way Penny writes comes across as she has some sort of divine telepathy, an ability to see into the thoughts and minds of everyone else in the known world. Of course, she doesn't. And the assumptions she makes on behalf of others reveals more insights into her own misanthropic mindset than it does of the mindsets of everyone else out there.

There is a danger that feminism - and other focussed attempts to attack one form of discrimination - is that it misses the point that there are other forms of discrimnation out there. Forms of discrimination that can be just as devastating as sexism. I know there is discrimnation across society based on gender. There is also discrimination based on race, on sexual orientation, on age, on class. Hell, there are even those who would discriminate based on where you went to school. All these forms of discrimination need to be combatted.

I guess the point is this; in order to succeed in their aims, the likes of Penny need fellow travellers who want to end discrimination as whole, even if they are not militant feminists themselves. The nature of Penny's post - the arrogant tone, the burning desire to damn the beliefs and mindsets of others - will end up alienating potential supporters.

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