Pretty Fucking Exciting...

More please, David:

"I wish the shadow chancellor would occasionally shut up and listen to the answer," said Mr Cameron.

He told a grinning Mr Balls: "I may be alone in thinking him the most annoying person in modern politics."

And I very much doubt you are alone in the opinion.

The Daily Mail Tendency: The House That Looks Like Hitler

Now, you'd have thought that The Daily Mail would be OK with a house that looks like Hitler given their history, but apparently not. Mind you, they're not exactly speaking out against it, more observing...

AHRC Funding and the Big Society

There’s some fantastic academic screeching going on at The Guardian over a proposal that AHRC funding should be used to research the Big Society. Among all the enraged carping, my favourite quote from Tristram Hunt, a Labour MP and historian (apparently):

"It is disgraceful that taxpayers' money is being spent on this bogus idea."

Well, a Labour MP is probably well placed to talk about wasting taxpayers’ money. After all, his odious party spent the best part of 13 years doing so. But seriously, “bogus”? How’s Bill, Ted?

Anyway, as far as I can see, there are three big problems with the complaints about the info in The Guardian article. Firstly, funding has always gone to topical issues. You want to research Ethnic Conflict? You can probably find some funding. You want to write about allusions to masturbation in Wuthering Heights? Guess what? Funding’s going to be more difficult to find. You might not like it, but that’s the way of the world. And guess what else? The Big Society is topical; funding always will go to topical things before more *ahem* idiosyncratic projects. Trust me, I know this personally.

Besides, surely we’re missing the point of research if we assume the outcome of that research? You can carry out research on the Big Society and conclude that it is a Big Old Bag of Bollocks. See, if the AHRC wants to give me say, ooo, I don’t know, £13,000 a year to divert my research into the political philosophy around the Big Society, I’ll do it. But I reckon I’ll end up concluding that it has all been said already – and more eloquently, coherently and convincingly than anything to spill out of the mouth of David Cameron.

But I wouldn’t get that money, even if I was seriously applying for it. Because here’s the third, and most fundamental, problem with the story. It’s bollocks.

Cut Protestors and Their Idiocy

As up to a quarter of a million people descend on London to protest against unavoidable spending cuts, I sit in Leeds shaking my head in mild despair.

These people truly are economic dullards. To bring London to a standstill on a Saturday afternoon is an immensely economically damaging plan. Businesses will face reduced custom - if not having to close - on their busiest day of the week. Which will lead to less revenue for businesses, which in turn will lead to less tax for the government. Which in turn will lead to what? More spending cuts. So in order to protest about spending cuts, the protestors could risk future spending cuts. Meaning they truly are absolute lackwits.

Fortunately, some muppet from Unite is on hand to clarify what they want to achieve:

"Our alternative is to concentrate on economic growth through tax fairness so, for example, if the government was brave enough, it would tackle the tax avoidance that robs the British taxpayer of a minimum of £25bn a year."

Where to start? Ok, let's concede that this is a marginally more sophisticated position that simply picketing businesses because they (completely legally) avoid taxes since it instead focusses on the government who, after all, allow them to avoid taxes. Of course, having the demonstration on a Saturday when most of that government have buggered off elsewhere to avoid the inconvenience seems to be a stupid position. But nevermind, eh?

I do like the conflation of bravery with agreeing with a personal opinion. There is nothing intrinsically brave about challenging banking tax avoidance, just as there is nothing intrinsically brave in people following my personal opinion that people should ignore Unite. Bravery is about a bit more than complying with the prejudices of another.

Now, it is true that I don't see a lot of bravery in David Cameron. In fact, it looks to me like he has all the backbone of wilted spinach. Which makes his refusal to truly jump on the bash-the-banker bandwagon (at least to the same extent of Labour and the anti-cut protestors, because he and his government still have their anti-banking moments) is a rare example of mild courage from our Prime Minister. It is arguably more brave, see, to stand against the current anti-banker mindset so prevalent in this country at the moment.

But even if we do agree that standing up to banking tax avoidance is brave, we should also acknowledge that bravery can also be stupidity. And we can then argue that penalising banks through the tax system may be a brave but also stupid thing to do in this day and age. Because we live in a global economy, and if banks feel they are being shat on they will upsticks and fuck off elsewhere. So the end result of tackling (perfectly legal) tax avoidance is pretty stupid. And counter-productive. And deeply naive.

Still, naive is probably the best word for those who are protesting these cuts. At least, it is the best possible non-profane word.

Bob Geldof, in self-pity mode:

I'd love people to hear it, but I don't think people will. You've got all the baggage that comes with me: The Boomtown Rats, all the tabloid stuff... You've got to get through an awful lot of stuff, then put it aside and say, "well, I'll have a listen, I'll give him a go".

But bizarrely enough, people do buy my stuff, so I get to play great theatres all over the world. Except in the UK, where they don't give a crap.

You could put up a poster with 'Tonight! Bob Geldof!' on it, and people would see it and say, "OK, fair enough…" then wander off saying, "Doing what? Is he gonna rant at us about Africa?"

Yeah, that's all true, Bob, but I do think that there is another reason why people won't want to hear your record - it's the fact that you haven't actually produced anything worth hearing since 1982. A 20 year gulf in the production of anything of real artistic merit is a big jump for any artist to overcome, Bob, even one as arrogant and self-assured as your good self.

Doctor Who: The Prequel

It would seem remiss of me not to point out this video to the readers of this blog:

Tax Reform

Now, I'm all for combining income tax and national insurance. The latter is a tax, pure and simple, so it should firstly be called a tax and secondly incorporated into that other direct tax on our income. Simplify the system; make it more transparent. And yeah, the rate of income tax would go up if NI was incorporated into it. But that is also a good thing. Not because I want to pay more tax, mind, but because the plainer we make it to everyone just how much money we end up being forced to give to the government, the more likely people are to start protesting about it.

But, of course, not everyone agrees. However I do have to say that this is a pretty dumb reservation:

Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, described the mechanics of the income tax and National Insurance merger as a "minefield".

"It is a lot easier said than done," he said.

As an aside, let's just take a moment to note that this is a tax accountant complaining about taxes being made simpler. Hmmm, wonder whether he might have a vested interest in a complicated tax system?

But let's look at the substance, if we can call it that, of what this chap is saying. Of course, changing a system is often difficult, and fraught with problems. So what do we do? Overcome those problems. Anything else is a manifesto for the worst sort of political conservatism. It is basically saying it is broke, but we can't be arsed to fix it.

Just imagine if humans throughout history had the same mindset. "This divine right of kings business seems a bit problematic to me". "Yeah, but the transition to another system is going to be tough though". "Ok, let's not bother". Apply this mindset to the American War of Independence, or to World War Two, or the Space Race. Nothing even remotely challenging has ever got done or will ever get done with this sort of defeatist mindset.

Of course, there may be many reasons why projects shouldn't be undertaken. Morality is key, as is the practicality of the overall project - the Marxist utopia might sound grand, but the transition to it involves dictatorship, and it is underpinned by certain unlikely assumptions about human nature, so let's not bother after all. But if the sole objections to a plan are that it might be problematic to make it happen, it is probably a sign that you should start trying to solve those problems rather than bleating about them. Particularly if, like incorporation of NI into income tax, short term complication will lead to long term transparency and ease of use.

Ed Miliband: Economic Dullard

Ed Miliband - a-ok with bombing Libya, but revise a growth forecast, and he's all ersatz rage.

Of course, it just plain doesn't work. Despite all of his jibes and quips, Eddie Boy just doesn't look credible. Partly it is his grating, partially constipated voice. But mainly it is down to the fact that he, and his party, have the economic credibility of a profligate drunk in a Las Vegas casino. In power, they pissed money away like someone with a fiscal urinary infection. They made the coalition - a government with all the ideological convictions of an empty plastic bag - into the government of controversial cuts. Watching Ed Miliband berate the coalition is a bit like watching a drunk clutching a can of Special Brew berating a social drinker. It just isn't convincing.

Ed Miliband blames the Coalition for slowing the pace of growth. I blame Ed Miliband, and his incompetent party, for making growth an issue and for doing their level best to bankrupt our country. Ed Miliband: the coalition may be pretty shite, but you have all the credibility of a tapeworm.

Budget Day Drinking Game

Simple. Drink a pint of any liquid BEFORE more duty goes on it.

Sent to me via e-mail by the Moai.

An Empty Voice Talking to No-one.

A summary of Laurie Penny's new book:

Modern culture is obsessed with controlling women's bodies. Our societies are saturated with images of unreal, idealised female beauty whilst real female bodies and the women who inhabit them are alienated from their own personal and political potential. Under modern capitalism, women are both consumers and consumed: Meat Market offers strategies for resisting this gory cycle of consumption, exposing how the trade in female flesh extends into every part of women's political selfhood. Touching on sexuality, prostitution, hunger, consumption, eating disorders, housework, transsexualism and the global trade in the signs and signifiers of femininity, Meat Market is a thin*, bloody sliver of feminist dialectic, dissecting women's bodies as the fleshy fulcrum of capitalist cannibalism.

I've no doubt that Penny's book is exactly the way it is described above. The problem is that pretty much everything Penny is writing about has been dealt with before. It has been dealt with by populists, by radicals, by academics and, with the best will in the world and basing my opinion on her blog rather than her book, by much better writers than her. There is nothing original or new on offer here.

So let me make a prediction - those who like Laurie Penny will laud this book as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Those who can't stand her will be vitriolic about it. The vast majority of people in this country won't give a fuck; they won't even know the book has been published, let alone engage with it enough to gain an opinion of it based solely on its cover.

No doubt Penny will make a couple of quid from her book, and good luck to her. But the chances of this book ever being influential, important or even widely read are minimal.

*At 79 pages, it is a pretty fucking slim volume. Less of a book, it sounds more a pamphlet in need of an editor.

As a tribute to William Shatner on his 80th birthday, I give you one of his most subtle, nuanced and clever performances:

The A-Team

The A-Team was frankly screaming out for a Hollywood remake. Big, bold OTT characters, stunts, explosions, a simple plot premise and unlikely yet clever gadgets, it has blockbuster written all over it. What a shame, then, that the actual Hollywood version of The A-Team was this.

On almost every level, the film fails to be what it should be. All of the characters are just slightly wrong. Take B. A. Baracus; in the original, he was a hard-as-nails strongman who could reveal a slightly more benign side in the right circumstances. In the film, he's a bit of a wuss whose character development - such as it is - mainly revolves around him getting his trademark haircut. Then you have the violence. The violence on the TV series was cartoonish to say the least, with no-one ever dying despite the outrageous stunts and massive explosions. People die in the film, and there is a level of violence (like the threatened necklacing) that you just wouldn't see in the TV series. And finally, there's the plot. Sure, the TV series had quite repetitive plots, but that was part of its charm. Unfortunately, the film launches into a plot that is both hideously complicated (for a Hollywood flick) and misses the point of the original. In the TV series, the A-Team helped others who couldn't help themselves. In this version, they are either helping Uncle Sam or helping themselves.

That's not to say this is a bad film - it isn't an insult to the original, as say the film version of The Avengers was. Indeed, in the scene when the A-Team rescue Murdoch from a mental hospital, it approaches a level that is almost genius. The point is, though, that it never manages to be The A-Team. Rather, it all feels like a Pierce Brosnan Bond movie; the whole thing is a bit like a remake of Die Another Day (albeit without the arsing about in an ice palace at the end). Which is all well and good, but does rather beg the question of why they felt the need to make this an A-Team film when they very clearly wanted to make an action-espionage movie instead.

Let Me In

There is a film version of The Woman in Black. Written by Nigel Kneale, it is an effectively creepy tale with some genuine scares in it. The production is difficult to get hold of not least in part because the novel's author hates it. One of the reasons why seems to be the minor, yet seemingly pointless and niggling, changes Kneale's screenplay makes to her book. I mean, why change the gender of the dog? Really, what was the point in doing that?

Now I've often thought that Susan Hill is over-reacting about these changes (if the rumours are correct and they are the main thing bothering her about the adaptation); they do little to damage the drama, and even the changed ending is still extremely effective. Then I saw Let Me In, a remake of the superb Swedish film Let The Right One In, and I got it. Because, while Let Me In is not an atrocious film, it is filled with pointless little changes to the original that add nothing but help to make the remake into a pale imitation of a far superior original.

I'm not going to list all the differences between the two films; instead, I'll illustrate using two crucial ones. First up, why change the title? Surely the filmmakers weren't worried that the Swedish title was too long for US audiences? But if that wasn't the case, then really, why make that change? The original title is playful, and hints at the ambiguous relationship at the heart of the film - has Oskar let the right one in, or is he being manipulated by a much older vampiric predator? Let Me In as a title lacks that ambiguity; it is a straight request, and a pointless truncation of the original title.

Then you have the elimination of the drinking buddies in the original as properly drawn, credible characters. This is the most irritating change for me; those characters were crucial to the success of the original - they made it more human, and the characterisation helped us to care when they were killed. By reducing them to walk-on parts in the background, the film loses a crucial counterpoint to the central drama, and makes the film solely about the relationship between the vampire and his/her would be carer.

Any remake has to work hard in order to show it is as good as its predecessor. Let Me In hampers itself by implementing a number of pointless changes. The end result is a passable film if you haven't seen the original, but if you have, then the US remake is simply an inferior and irritating faded photocopy of a much better predecessor.

On Libyan Intervention

So, we're bombing Libya. Cue rapturous applause from neo-conservative types and wails of disgust from our peacenik brethren. I can't manage either emotion. There's nothing to celebrate here, but equally it had become pretty difficult for the Western world to stand by idly as Gaddafi continues to cling to power using some of the most brute force.

Which is the point, really. There seems to be a tendency among many to want to see issues in international relations in black and white terms - or rather making immediate and sweeping assumptions about whether any interventions are right or wrong. The reality is a little more complicated that.

Basically, as far as I can see, we had three options. Standing by and doing nothing would ensure that the coalition kills no-one. At least not directly. At best, this option would leave us with blood on our hands indirectly. At worst we would, once again, be turning a blind eye as an evil dictator kills his way to further power.

The second option - limited intervention - is the one we've gone for. And I have no doubt whatsoever that it is only a matter of (very limited) time before we start seeing reports about collateral damage - of innocents slayed by our armed forces. Then we drift into the difficult calculations about military interventions - would more people have died had we not intervened, or are our actions creating carnage that otherwise wouldn't exist?

This is even more pronounced in the third option - a direct onslaught, including ground forces, against the Gaddafi regime. We may yet end up in this situation; for what it's worth, I really hope that we don't. But with this option you can be pretty much guaranteed that Gaddafi will fall (the US army could destroy his forces on their own without too much fuss) but again there's the question of carnage. How many will have to die - on both sides, and among the civilians - for regime change to occur in Libya?

And there's a further problem with options 2 and 3. They leave us open to the charge of hypocrisy. We are fighting to protect rebels in Libya. What about rebellions in other parts of the world? What about dealing with other abhorrent dictators? Why aren't we doing something about, say, North Korea? You could argue that there is no credible indigenous resistance in North Korea, but then again that is hardly surprising given North Korea is a brutal totalitarian state. The reality is that we cannot afford to fight every regime across the world with whom we do not agree. But then how do we prioritise them? Why is the life of a North Korean less of a priority that the life of a Libyan? Again, we can argue that change is happening in Libya; we're just giving those forces of change a push. But the charge of hypocrisy can still be leveled. After all, Iraq in 2003 was hardly in the grip of a rebellion, was it? But when there was an uprising there after the first Gulf War, it was 'turn a blind eye' time again.

International relations is a messy arena, and an ethical foreign policy is in practice impossible. But what we can do is, whatever actions we take, make sure we consider the outcomes. So we're carrying out air operations in Libya. What's our endgame here? To enforce a no-fly zone? To just protect the existing rebel strongholds? Or are we actually going for the toppling of Gaddafi? And if that's the plan, who or what is going to replace him? Such questions appear to be obvious, but if we look back on the invasion of Iraq back in 2003, they were either not asked or not credibly answered.

It is impossible to know right now whether the intervention in Libya will ultimately prove to have been the right thing to do. If you think you know already, one way or another, then you're probably being naive. We won't know whether this was the right thing to do or not until it's all over, when the blood has been shed and the history books are being written.

On Nuclear Power

This article is typical of a lot of the commentary I've read about the potential meltdown at Fukushima. Apparently, the ongoing incident is a damning indictment at best, or death knell at worst, of the nuclear power industry. My problem with this idea is that I can't quite figure out why this should be the case.

Let's do a quick recap. A massive earthquake - followed by a massive tsunami - hits Japan. It is the biggest earthquake Japan has faced in recorded history. Entire settlements - including towns - are wiped out in the sort of disaster that could be described as biblical. It is an utterly appalling calamity. And a nuclear station is hit by a series of explosions. And - crucially - said nuclear power station does not go into meltdown.

Of course, there has been a concerted effort to minimise the damage caused by the impact of the disaster on Fukushima, and there are no guarantees of a calamity occurring there tomorrow. But honest to God that nuclear power station did pretty well in the face of a devastating disaster.

Yet, somehow, this is meant to be some sort of damning indictment of the nuclear industry, and a clear indication of why more nuclear power stations would be a bad idea. Why, I might hear you ask?

I think part of the reason is that there is still a tendency to conflate nuclear power with nuclear bombs. Now, I can understand the fear of nuclear bombs - hell, I'm as afraid of weapons of massive destruction as the next person - but nuclear power is not the same as nuclear weaponry. Unless the petrol that goes in your car is the same as the petrol that goes in a molotov cocktail. The crucial point is in the intent - a petrol bomb, like a nuclear bomb, is meant to destroy. A petrol powered engine, like a nuclear reactor, is not meant to destroy. So guess what happens? Those who design such power sources create them so they are designed to minimise the destruction caused if something goes wrong. Which is why Fukushima is still there, even if the impact of the shattering natural disaster that occurred just over a week ago has been pretty devastating for much of eastern Japan.

As the human race moves forward, we need to find ways in which we can generate power without using oil. To turn our backs on nuclear power based on what is, at the time of writing and with a sense of perspective on the wider situation, a non-disaster, is counter-intuitive to say the least. There will be things that can be learned from the Fukushima incident - for example, to design power stations that can withstand massive earthquakes if they are in areas where such earthquakes occur, which Fukushima was apparently not designed to withstand.

As crude, unpleasant and harsh as it may sound at this moment, when the death tallies are collated, the incident at Fukushima will pale into insignificance next to the destruction wrought by Mother Earth and its earthquake and subsequent tsunami. So to dismiss nuclear power based on a largely unprecented earthquake seems foolish at best, and to completely miss the point of this disaster at worst.

*And I say this with friends in Japan right now.

Doctor Who - "Space" and "Time"

If, like me, you can't bear the wait until the next season of Doctor Who, then it is definitely worth checking out the Comic Relief adventure here and here*. Or Space and Time, if you will. Of course, being Comic Relief episodes, they're rather lightweight - both in terms of dialogue and plot. In fact, a lot of the story is built around the length of Amy Pond's skirt, which is both very tongue in cheek and a good indicator of what the story is like. Then when you fact in the only characters are the three regulars and the only sets the TARDIS interior and exterior, you sort of get the picture that this won't be one of the Doctor's most epic adventures.

But the whole thing works, and you end up with the feeling that this is exactly the Doctor, Amy and Rory do in-between adventures. And, mercifully, the whole thing is tongue in cheek, but it isn't mocking the show as, so often, Comic Relief things end up doing. It is a little piece of Doctor Who - a small, rather inconsequential gem between seasons. And it more than whets the appetite of this fan for The Impossible Astronaut come this Easter...

*Probably best to catch them sooner rather than later if you're interested, as I have no idea of how long they will be hanging around for.

Longrider has an excellent post up about the idea that lecturers should be effectively spying on their pupils. I have nothing to add to his common sense dismissal of this atrocious idea other than my own personal take on this.

In the long term, I want to be a university lecturer. In fact, all being well, I should be teaching at a UK university from later this year. And I have to say that the only occasion in which I would even consider highlighting a student's opinions is if they made some sort of direct threat about another person. Y'know, something like "I want to stab XYZ". Otherwise, any opinion - no matter how extreme it might be - would not warrant escalating. See, the whole point of university is to open the minds of students - to challenge them, and to make them think. By all means let students express controversial opinions in essays and tutorials (Lord knows, they express any number of stupid and poorly thought through ones already) and then let's talk about them. Not to pursue a particular agenda, nor to push Western values. But rather to expose those opinions that are, with the best will in the world, illogical, more than a little repugnant and unable to stand up to close scrutiny. And yeah, fundamentalism in all its forms would be one of those opinions.

University should be about challenging and and shaping opinions. It shouldn't be about restricting those opinions, no matter how controversial. And if the teaching staff at universities simply become a further arm of government control and restriction in this country, then I really wonder what the point of them will be.

How not to get the best from a University Education

This was all observed at York Uni last week: a female student came into one of the study areas. She found a desk, sat down, and got a bag of crisps out of her bag. She proceeded to crunch her way through them while unpacking her books. Having finished her (rather loud, for a silent area) meal she then rested her desk, and went to sleep. For a good hour. Then she woke up, packed up her books, and left the room. It was then that I saw that she was clutching one of those "No to 9K" posters.

Now, I can see why she wouldn't want to spend 9k a year on having a room to sleep in on a campus when the need takes her. That's not good value for money. But honest to God, having a kip in a study area not what a university education is actually about. Truth be told, in an institution like York, 9k is actually good value for money, given the good facilities and (generally speaking) the excellent level of teaching on offer. The point is that this girl - and any other student paying for the opportunity to go to a good university - is that you get value for money by making the most of your time at that institution. Or to put it another way, getting a degree is actually about more than eating and sleeping.

Spam Watch: Business Support Assistant

There's lots of spam out there, and an increasing amount of it focuses on job opportunities/offers. Some of it is really easy to spot; others, less so. Take a look at this one:

Good day,

Ok, not the best of starts. Few people will open an e-mail with this sort of greeting - even recruitment consultants will think twice about doing so.

Customer Services Assistant required to work within a team at an E-Commerce and retail business in United Kingdom.

This is quite credible; customer service opportunities are among the view opportunities out there at the moment in any real quantities. Although the title of the e-mail talks about it being a "Business Support Assistant" role, not a "Customer Service Assistant" role.

The International company recently opened some positions due to expansion of its business.

Which international company? Probably should read "An International company" there, but that could just be a typo.

This expansion means opening new branches, starting innovative projects and some online projects.

Again, sounds credible - although quite a wide and demanding brief for a customer service role.

We provide support and training during the trial period.

Well done you.

We have prepared a list of specialties we are interested in.

Again, top work.

Please send us your CV with detailed description of your skills and experience,and we will try to find the most suitable job for you.

But I thought the job was that of a customer service assistant?

We suggest that you start from the position of the assistant manager.

Hang on, I thought this was a customer service assistant position? That's a big promotion to assistant manager. Particularly when you consider it has happened across the space of one e-mail.

This is the first step in your career, but it allows you to learn all intricate details specific only to our work.

First step in a career... into an assistant manager position. And what international retail company honestly has intricate details specific only to their work? You sell stuff to customers, basically.

Job Location: UK and EU only (various locations, depending on our Customers' needs)

But I thought the role was there because of business growth in the UK? Blimey, though, this is a good position though - from customer service assistant in the UK to assistant manager on a pan-European level in just a few lines.

The job does not require any investments or upfront fees on your side.

Yeah, like fuck it doesn't. Just send 'em your bank details when they ask and see what no "upfront fees" actually means.

Monetary compensation for this position is based on experience and starts at GBP 2,000 per month.

Which is pretty good for an entry level position.

The requirements of an Management Associate/Sales Support Member position include, but are not limited to:

...note yet another couple of job titles thrown into the mix...

- Age 18 +
- Ambitiousness, high self motivation, responsibility and discipline.
- Communicative skills

Do we mean communication skills?

- You have a good working experience in MS Windows environment
- You have a positive attitude in fast-paced working

...what? Environment? world? Crazy parallel dream reality? What?

We will be happy to welcome you into our team of high qualified specialists.
We promise to make you a professional in your field.

Already a professional in my field, and slightly doubting you would be able to keep this promise anyway. Mainly because you don't seem to know what your own field actually is.

If you are interested, please reply to : Roy@online-colsulting.com with your CV

Think I'll pass, Roy. Just as I would with any real recruitment company that used e-mail addresses with just the first name in them. Or who couldn't spell the word "consulting"

It probably seems a little pointless to fisk a spam e-mail. But it is only really when you look hard at these types of e-mails that you actually see that they are contradictory bags of crap. If you were looking for a job and having to sift through potentially hundreds of e-mails, then you might miss the warning signs here. And end up having, at the very least, your time wasted.

And before anyone asks, no, I haven't been taken in by these sort of e-mails. My innate cynicism just won't allow it.

Ok, so my performance on this blog of late has been unusually lacklustre, even for me. That should change... soon.

Possibly.

The Daily Mash makes sense - makes more sense, anyway, than most media outlets and most politicians - on the subject of banks:

Julian Cook, from Donnelly-McPartlin, said: "I will cheerfully give a weeks' wages to the first internet Paxman complaining about our bonus system that can even vaguely explain what it is we do for a living.

"Bob Diamond earned his bonus by maximising Barclay's equity differential market by a factor of six whilst ensuring their contingent capital base stayed under 2.3% Or have I just made all of that up? You haven't the faintest idea, have you?"

And, more importantly:

But Cook stressed: "Arsing off about the capitalist system is rather like a fish complaining about the preponderance of water in its life.

"Unless,of course, you're somehow venting your dreary, uninformed fury on the internet via a computer made from twigs by a worker's collective.

"And complaining that bankers are obsessed with making money is like saying lions are obsessed with eating gazelles.

"Perhaps you'd prefer us to sit around weaving fair trade wicker baskets and then use the profits from that to lend you cheap money so you can buy all those things you simply have to have."

He added: "We could try communism but then Bob Diamond would earn millions from being in the politburo, only you'd know nothing about it because the newspaper
has just the one story and it's about how fucking great your community tractor is.

"You could try complaining, just like you are now, but then someone who works for Bob Diamond would shoot you in the face."

Well, quite.

Pancake Day

Change You Can Believe In.

*Sighs*

Labour Win Safe Labour Seat Shock!

Labour candidate on winning the Barnsley Central by-election:

Mr Jarvis said the result sent "the strongest possible message" to David Cameron and Nick Clegg.

Quite how a Labour candidate winning a seat that they have held since it was created in 1983 represents any sort of message, strong or otherwise, is a little beyond me. Particularly since only 36% of the electorate bothered to cast a vote. But you have your moment of splendid hyperbole, Mr Jarvis. Then pack your bags, head off to Parliament, and make yourself comfortable on those opposition benches. Because I rather think you'll be there for a while...

The Bollocks People Talk About Politics Part 1*

"Well, you know the Mayan Prophecies, well, they say that the world will end in 2012 - and that's when Sarah Palin could become President!"

This is, of course, bollocks. Firstly, it is based on two big assumptions. Firstly, that the Mayan Prophecies will defy the record set by prophecies through the millennia by being accurate. This seems unlikely - not least because no fucker can decide what those prophecies actually mean. Secondly, this idea assumes that Palin will (a) run for President, (b) be nominated by her own (or, indeed, any) party and then (c) beat Obama at the actual election. There is no evidence that even (a) will occur - and it is a big leap from there to seeing her inaugurated as President.

But it is the little matter of the inauguration that truly shits on the idea that Palin is in some way a realisation of the end of the world in 2012 - if she ran/got nominated/won then she would become President in... 2013. After the supposed end of the world. See, US presidents are elected in one year, then actually take the office in the following year. Hence Reagan served as President from 1981 to 1989, Bush Snr from 1989 to 1993, and so on. There's a transition period in the US - something we just don't do here in the UK unless Gordon Brown is desperate to cling to power there is a hung parliament.

Don't get me wrong, I think President Palin is a terrifying idea, and I would far rather any Palin presidency took place after the world had ended rather than before. But there is nothing at all in the idea that she will be the fulfillment of the 2012 doom-mongering - in the highly unlikely event she is elected in 2012, she will be able to do bugger all about it until 2013.

*Both on da interwebs and in real life, so hyperlinks to particular testicular talkers on the subject of politics will not always be forthcoming.

Lies and Truth in Libya

Two statements; one false, one correct. First up, from everyone's favourite counter-revolutionary Muammar Gaddafi:

Col Gaddafi said he was loved by all his people and denied there had been any protests in Tripoli.

It appears Gaddafi has been in reality's departure lounge for quite some time, and is now boarding the jet to insanity. Which leads me nicely to the second, correct comment:

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is "delusional" and "unfit to lead", the US ambassador to the UN has said.

Y'reckon? And how come you've only just fucking well noticed?