Doctor Who: Time and the Rani

Now, it may seem strange to say this - especially as I have classed this story as one of the Clunkers - but I actually really like Time and the Rani. Part of this is pure nostalgia, since I was eight when I first watched this story - surely the perfect age to be caught up in the story and not see its numerous shortcomings. And now, as I watch it again, it brings a smile to my fact to think of when this story represented four weeks worth of excitement when it was first broadcast. Of course, I can also see what it is - a big fat misfire; a childish story that represents another failed attempt to relaunch the show after the troubles it experienced in the mid-1980s. The Rani states "this is idiotic" after an unconvincing pratfall from the Doctor; unfortunately, she could be referring to the whole story.

One of the things that the clunkers so far have shown is that even the worst of Doctor Who can have a great performance from the man playing the central character. Unfortunately, this outing is not an example of this phenomena. McCoy here plays the clown and... nothing else. He falls around, he looks confused, he dresses like an arse (seriously, who tucks their question mark tank top into their trousers for God's sake?) and he appears to be very, very stupid on occasion. We shouldn't agree when the Rani refers to the Doctor as a cretin. Of course, McCoy got much better in the role and became, in my eyes, of the greatest Doctors of all time. The frustrating thing is that it isn't seen here - despite the fact that, if you watch his audition on the DVD, he had already had the potential to be a great Doctor.

But even here McCoy is streets ahead of Bonnie Langford as Mel. There have been some terrible performances from companions over the years, but Langford's Melanie Bush is the worst of the lot. She screams, she nags, and the flounces around pontificating in a breathless voice. She also dresses like, well, a massive twat. She looks like a shop assistant in a seaside candy floss booth. The moment she joined the TARDIS crew was a nadir for the show; the moment she left and was replaced by Ace was a real step forward for the programme. "Don't hold that against me" says the Doctor when someone mentions that they have met Mel. I don't hold it against you, Doctor. I hold it against the cretins who ever thought that she deserved a place in the TARDIS.

But it isn't just the Doctor and his companion that are the problem here. The enemies leave a lot to be desired. I always wonder why people expect the Rani to be returning in the new series - that River Song might have turned out to be the Rani, for example. Why? The Rani was in two (well, three if you want to be pedantic) stories - each one worst than the last. She is often made out to be the equivalent of the Master but she really isn't. The Master is genuine Who icon, having caused the death of the Doctor twice. The Rani has managed once (possibly), and is also played with one dimensional zeal by Kate O'Mara. There is nothing to the Rani other than shouting orders and looking dismissive. Why bring back the Rani? You may as well bring back Glitz. Then we have the Tetraps. Well, they scared my brother, but he was six when we first watched this. Physically, they look like ALF after a bad car accident. They sound like a sex pesty phone call, especially when fawning to the Rani. They are slow moving and apparently very stupid. And they seem to shoot some sort of glittery ejaculate from their guns that can knock people out and render them inanimate. The Doctor has faced many rubbish adversaries in his time, but only a post-regenerative Doctor could struggle as much as the Seventh Doctor to foil the schemes of the Rani and the Tetraps.

And the Lakertyans? Either boring, preachy or boring and preachy. They add nothing to the story - literally, nothing. Pull the Lakertyans from the story, and you lose nothing but padding.

The production values also leave something to be desired. The sets are, at least, occasionally well lit, but the whole thing looks like the production team wanted to get as many sci-fi cliches into their set designs as possible. Furthermore, there are embarrassing moments, such as when the Rani is bashing on the cabinet's glass in the fourth episode, that show just how constrained the budget was. Then there's the incidental music. Those who criticise the music of much of Murray Gold should be made to sit through this soundtrack on a loop for a day. It is truly atrocious - it sounds like someone who has bought their first synthesiser and (a) believes that it is the best thing in the world and (b) has found out that it can also make "crazy noises" (the breaking glass when the Doctor puts on the Fifth Doctor's costume, for example). At its best, the score for this show is unobtrusive. At its manic worst, it sets your teeth on edge and is possibly the most terrifying thing on offer here.

Anything good? Well, there is some great FX work - particularly when the rocket takes off in the final episode and whenever the bubble traps are launched. The cliffhangers are also all good - especially the first one, where the post-regenerative Doctor watches his companion apparently spiralling to her death without realising who she is. There is also something curiously satisfying in seeing McCoy wearing his predecessor's costume, although I can't quite put my finger on why. And for a kid the whole thing is tremendously exciting - and if you've never had the chance to watch this one as a child, then you'll just have to take my word for it.

But this is the clunker of the McCoy era for me quite simply because it is the worst of the McCoy stories. Even a story like Delta and the Bannermen has more going for it, despite its numerous flaws. And one of the great tragedies is that this was the first of the McCoy stories. What should have been a big relaunch of the show with a new actor in the lead role was actually a long, boring exercise in playing it safe. There were some great McCoy stories to come - some of which did very original things with the series. But his first outing was an exercise in treading water; a dull cast-off of a story clearly designed for his predecessor rather than for McCoy. The poor opinion many have of McCoy may have been down to this story; had his era started with a story like Remembrance of the Daleks, Ghost Light or even Paradise Towers people might have a better opinion of the criminally underrated McCoy.

The eight year old in me loves Time and the Rani. The thirtysomething in me laments a massive missed opportunity to relaunch the show. A theme which we will be returning to next week...

A Clip From Doctor Who: The God Complex

Of course, for a geek like me, this is one of the most exciting things to happen in weeks. Seriously. Doctor Who meets The Shining with a feral beast stalking the corridors. Can't come quickly enough as far as I am concerned...

Guido's Death Penalty Campaign*

I seriously think that Kelvin McKenzie should take some sort of legal action against Guido Fawkes (or whoever is running that site these days) for identity theft. Because with this sort of rabble rousing, he is truly gunning to the online version of perhaps The Sun's most notorious famous editor. Yes, he is/they are launching a petition to bring back the death penalty for child and cop murderers.

The logic, such as it is, seems to be that this should be done because a majority of the population back such a move. The evidence offered is scant, and "all polls" actually refers to just one poll, of 2,011 people, dating back to December 2008, in which 50% of the people (so just over 1,000, then) were for the death penalty. It is difficult to take such a result and project it with any degree of credibility across a population of over 60,000,000. And even if you could, would that then make it right for the majority to force their opinions on the minority? What the majority decided that pseudonyms should be banned from the internet? Or, more controversially and seriously, if Catholics should be declared second-rate citizens?

And while we're on the subject or spurious logic and borderline misrepresentation of the facts, what about the guff about "getting real justice" for the next Baby P? Those involved in the foul abuse of Baby P were not convicted of murder, and therefore would not have been eligible for the death penalty. This is nothing other dog-whistle politics - an attempt to gain support by mentioning the most infamous recent case of a malicious child death. Presumably Ian Huntley and Roy Whiting - two people who even to your humble author, a passionate opponent of the death penalty, can see the case for executing - are just too old hat these days.

Guido has done some good work in the past (McBride, Hain) and may yet continue to do so (Morgan), but this sort of thing does him no favours. It also does damage to the blogging world, since one of the few possible USPs that exists for political bloggers is that they are not like the MSM. Guido turning his site into not just a tabloid but one of the worst of the tabloids as well as one currently having its reputation justly dragged through the mud is a a depressing sign that, when (pseudo-)fame and (presumably) money come calling, the temptation to sell out is too much to resist.

I've no idea whether this idea/campaign has legs or will simply die a death. But I do sincerely hope for the latter, since the whole thing reeks of a cynical and desperate attempt to court public approval and precious little else.

*Yup, this post is largely a rehash of an earlier one. But since Guido has not really moved on in his opinons and logic this sort of post, by its very nature, can't move on that much either.

Torchwood: Miracle Day: Dead of Night

Another week, another episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. And while Dead of Night is better than last week's effort, it is still far from superb. In fact, the episode struggles even to be good.

Part of the problem is that there is no real sense of menace in this show. Even when Gwen has to hide from Jilly Kitzinger there is no tension - in part because Killy is simply no threat to Gwen. By this stage in Children of Earth we had the 456 - barely seen triple-headed beasts with menacing voices and a penchant for projectile vomiting. In this story, all we have is a bunch of humans behaving in a slightly suspicious way. This isn't an episode of The Bill - it needs a little bit more dramatic.

And what has happened to Gwen? She seems to have evolved into a curious cross between Amy Pond, Sarah Jane Smith and James Bond. There is precious little left of the police constable who stumbled across Torchwood a few years back. Yeah, you could argue that this is part of her overall story arc, but there is precious little reference to that arc. Instead, it seems it is enough to have her occasionally mentioning her kid to reference her back story - and she has become little more than a bland cipher, a way of progressing the plot.

Not that the plot particularly progresses. We have now seen that there is a bad corporation, that there are drugs, and that Oswald Danes is falling in with what are heavily implied to be the bad guys (not that a murdering paedophile was ever really going to be a good guy, of course). And that's pretty much it. Basically, we've had 150 minutes of TV to get... well... not very far at all. Sometimes less is more and if you don't have the plot for 10 episodes, then don't try to tell your story across 10 episodes.

And there's still a lot of padding. Having the two male protagonists getting laid is a good example of this; it adds little to the plot, just titillation on the sidelines of the story. And we seem to be seeing a recurrence of what I'm going to call the Old Law of Torchwood - if the story is flagging, throw in a bit of shagging. As well as killing time, it also allows you to make your programme look adult. Not in the sense that it is challenging drama for adults, but instead because it has to be broadcast later in the day as the sex is not appropriate for the kids.

That's the Old Law of Torchwood; unfortunately, there seems to be a New Law of Torchwood. And it runs like this - the closer characters get to the Torchwood team, the less interesting they become. Rex was a great character in the first episode; now he is a second-rate Captain Jack - doing what Jack does with more petulance and with less of an ability to deliver a quip. Likewise, the odious Oswald Danes somehow loses some of his menace - despite describing the murder of a young girl - when describing it to a frantically emoting, gun-wielding Captain Jack. Once again, I'm left with the feeling that this show would be better without the Torchwood team in it. Hopefully that will change... hopefully.

And a word about the incidental music. Who in the name of Christ decided that the often hideously out of place music would be appropriate for what is supposed to be an edgy sci-fi thriller? A teenage boy who likes to ROCK? It sounds amateurish, like someone who has actually seen the show trying to create a score from it using the solely the tag lines for each episode.

Not everything is bad, of course. The soulless strike me as a great - and really rather spooky - idea. So can we see more of them? Can we get a feel from where we have come from? Would it be possible to see how, y'know, ordinary people are responding to the miracle rather than the increasingly cartoonish regulars? Wouldn't it be a good idea to see a normal person becoming one of the soulless? I mean, the whole thing feel very padded out, so perhaps a further storyline that normal people could relate to might have been a nice addition. But, no doubt, the soulless themselves will fall foul of the New Law of Torchwood. As soon as they get sustained contact with Torchwood, they will become much less interesting.

I think the most frustrating thing about the evolving Miracle Day series is its very mediocrity. It isn't good enough to look forward to each week, and it isn't bad enough not to watch. And, while I never really thought I would write this, what this needs is more RTD. He wrote the first episode which is, by a country mile, the best of the three we have seen so far. Torchwood is his baby, and frankly the baby needs its father because at the moment, it is floundering. It should be essential viewing; instead, it is watchable at best.

Quote of the Day and Another Rant About Conspiracy Theories

From Longrider on yet another post at OoL expounding dubious and unconvincing conspiracy theories:

I have to say that conspiracy theories really undermines what we are doing here. When we point out genuine, provable malfeasance on the part of those who would steal our liberties, our opponents will point straight back to the conspiracy theories and laugh.

Couldn't agree more. While I absolutely believe that James Higham et al should have a right to publish what they want, especially on a site co-run by Higham, I have to say the conspiracy theory guff does nothing for the cause of liberty and will probably end up harming it. We don't need a conspiracy theory about 9/11 to show that the Patriot Act was wrong, and we don't need a conspiracy theory about 7/7 to show that all the attempts to increase the detention periods in this country were wrong. All those conspiracy theories create straw man arguments that our opponents can easily bat away, making themselves look right in the process. And the worst thing is, in articles like the one linked to above, we create those straw man arguments, not our opponents.

And I don't understand why we have to create these largely unprovable and, in my humble opinion, false ideas that cultural Marxism has taken over the world, or that Obama is closet Marxist, or that Christianity is being undermined by arguably the most incompetent organisations in the world (namely, local governments). We're not dealing with opponents who are generally very subtle about what they do. There's no great attempt to hide the fact that the DNA of innocent people is being kept on the DNA database in what represents a massive u-turn and a real concern to anyone interested in championing civil liberties in this country. They're doing it, right now, down in London. We don't need to fight members of the Frankfurt School who have been dead for decades when Clegg and Cameron are doing tangible things to damage freedom in the here and now, right in front of our noses.

But anyway; enough. Fighting conspiracy theorists is a waste of time and effort. I believe in freedom and that belief encompasses the freedom of conspiracy loons to spout their paranoia on any platform they see fit. But that same freedom allows me to point out that what they are doing doesn't help the cause of freedom and actually hinders it.

Blue Sky Thinking

Anyone who has ever worked in business and heard the ominous phrase "blue sky thinking" will not be surprised with the sort of unrealistic toss Steve Hilton has apparently been spouting in the hallowed halls of the Prime Minister's home. "Blue sky thinking" is a euphemism for chatting nonsense that quite simply isn't ever going to happen. I have no idea why Hilton - who seems to just say that the first that floats into his brain - is employed by the incumbent Prime Minister, who is the most risk averse and anodyne politician to climb out of the bog of mediocrity that is modern politics in this country.

Although I do like this observation in the Telegraph (emphasis mine):

Mr Hilton, who often walks around the Prime Minister's office without shoes, is an increasingly influential figure who often suggests seemingly crazy ideas in an attempt to spark creative debate.

Must be fucking mental to walk around without shoes. What a crazy fool. Definitely want to certify someone for not wearing shoes.

The BBC is asking whether the Clash's brilliant "London Calling" really a good song to promote the 2012 London Olympics? Well, it certainly sums up how I feel about the coming London based glorified international sports day...

Resisting the Temptation to Blame the Police

Of course the Norwegian police did some things wrong on Friday, and of course there are crucial lessons that could be taken from Friday's atrocity. Making sure police commando boats actually work would be one such lesson. But the desire to blame the police seems to be to miss the point of what actually happened last Friday and who is actually to blame.

Breivik may be insane (surely the most accurate description of his motivations to date, and from his own lawyer to boot) but that doesn't make him stupid. And he knew exactly what he was doing. The general feeling seems to be that this attack was planned over several years, and during those years what Breivik set up was a massive distraction designed to get the attention away from his real target - the youth camp on Utoeya. He knew - just as almost every now knows, in retrospect - that if you plant a massive bomb in the heart of a country's government district then what will tend to happen when that bomb goes off is that the police, and the other rescue services, will rush to both investigate and carry out search and rescue operations in the area affected by that bomb.

Which is precisely what this evil man wanted. The rescue services were distracted, giving him more time. That distraction allowed him to turn up in his police uniform on the island, apparently a figure representing what was at the time a very welcome form of security. Which then allowed him to start his murderous operation on Utoeya. And the very fact that the youth camp was on an island made him even more effective in his rampage - his victims had the option to hide and potentially die, swim away from the island and potentially die, or just plain die. The island location also made it immediately more difficult for the police to reach him and to save his potential victims. Yeah, a boat didn't work and a helicopter crew were on holiday. But take any relatively remote island in this country and ask yourself if something similar happened on that island how quickly the armed response units could reach that island.

I dare say the next time a bomb goes off in the Western world, the word will go out to all vulnerable areas and meetings (such as a youth camp of the party leading the government) that they should only let those with identification or who are already known gain access to those areas/meetings. And if this lesson is understood and actioned, then there can be no doubt that it was a lesson learned in possibly the most horrific circumstances possible. But the truth - the dark, malign truth that many people would do anything to avoid - is that this sort of thing cannot be stopped. Especially when the perpetrator is willing to use and abuse the uniform of a police officer to complete his murderous agenda.

Yeah, the police could have done things differently last Friday - I have no doubt that this will be the general conclusion. But the very fact that their attention was deliberately distracted by a madman from Utoeya by a bloody great bomb in Oslo should be acknowledged. After all, only one man truly knew that the carnage in Oslo was only the start, and that the eight people murdered there was only a distraction from a much wider atrocity about to start on an idyllic looking island elsewhere in Norway.

Doctor Who: Timelash

Poor Colin Baker. Poor, poor Colin Baker. When he first took on the role, he said that he wanted to be the Doctor for years. In the end, he got three years - and the show was only on the screen for two of those. And the odds were stacked against him in a massive way. It isn't just the costume - although having your lead actor dressed in a costume apparently designed by a colour-blind mentalist is always going to give him a tough job. And it isn't the fact that his Doctor was initially made to be arrogant and unlikable. In fact, the Eleventh Doctor is arguably both someone who dresses badly (although his lack of fashion is nothing compared to the visual abomination that is the Sixth Doctor's costume) and is often arrogant. So why is the current Doctor so much more successful than the Sixth incarnation?

It isn't just that Smith is more of a leading man than Baker the Second. It is, to a large extent, down to the stories the latter got. Smith has had some of the best Doctor Who stories of all time; Baker the Second got none of them. Even the very best of the Sixth Doctor does not stand with the all time greats of the show. But, by God, the story we are talking about today is not one of the best of the era of Baker the Second. It can actually make a strong claim to being the worst of the ones during his time in the world.

For a start, this story shows the Sixth Doctor at his worst. He is boorish, patronising, and dismissive of just about everyone. The contempt he shows for Peri is particularly jarring. Banter between the Doctor and his companion is often a staple of the show; here, there seems to be real dislike. And watching two people snipe at each other is not great entertainment - a particular problem given the Doctor and Peri don't enter the real story for the first 20 minutes. Even worse, the TARDIS safety belts and the moment(s) when the Doctor gets a chipmunk style voice come across as absolutely excruciating. And the bit where a character observes that "the force is too great" after the Doctor has abseiled into the Timelash - yeah, I know that part of that force pulling on that rope is the Timelash, but a viewer might only see that the rather portly Colin Baker needs numerous people to hold onto the other end of a rope that he is swinging from. There's precious little dignity for the Doctor here, and Baker the Second - who is a better actor than he is often given credit for - does his best with a script designed to make him look pompous but, unfortunately and understandably, never manages to look anything other than pompous.

Still, Baker the Second turns in the best performance here. The competition isn't fierce. Nicola Bryant is given nothing more to do than whine and scream; she does so with aplomb, but it is difficult to call a performance based on such requirements as in any way interesting or likable. But she still shines next to the bland inhabitants of planet Whatever and the Adric-like performance of Herbert. Only Paul Darrow puts effort into his performance - sadly, he thinks he is playing a pantomime villain. Quite how the other cast members didn't spend their time hissing at him is utterly beyond me.

And as for Herbert; the twist that he is H.G. Wells is not without some merit - particularly since his time with the Time Lord apparently inspired him so. Indeed, that is a trick that the new series has pulled off with other creatives, such as Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and Vicent Van Gogh. But with each of those people, the new series has explored perhaps lesser known elements to their lives. And H. G. Wells led a fascinating life. He was more than just a science fiction writer; he was engaged actively in the politics of his era, and this could have made the story more eye-opening and interesting. Imagine the Doctor meeting H. G. Wells and in doing so V. I. Lenin. Of course, to pull that off would require jettisoning the vast majority of this script and replacing it with something good else. But that really shouldn't be a problem.

What about the script, I hear you ask? It is terrible - apparently scribbled on the back of a beer mat after a hefty session on the gin. Why? I'll explain one day.

The production values make this look more like a fan made story rather a BBC production. The whole thing looks cheap; and not just cheap, but cheap and nasty. And the Third Doctor's portrait; the Doctor observes that he has forgotten what he used to look like. Actually, he may not have done because the portrait looks nothing like the Third Doctor. And then we have the monsters - the Borad works, and is perhaps the only real success of this story. The rest of the monsters are just plain crap. The Bandrils are sock puppets that should never have been allowed on screen. The Morlox are not much better, looking more like a prototype rather than the finished article. Then we have the android (an android that appears to smirk at one point) - all blond hair, blue face and stupid voice. The sets are largely bland and only really memorable because they look like, well, cheap TV sets, while the Timelash itself looks like a Blue Peter Christmas set built by idiot children. Honestly, if there's no money left for a story, then stop trying to spend money. Have one monster that works, and then fill the rest of the space where you want other monsters to reside with unseen menace and darkly-lit sets. Don't make it look like a shit episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that has no money.

The whole thing also sounds atrocious. The special FX sounds are all crass, while the music is dreadful: particularly at the start of the second episode as the Doctor fights the android with a mirror, which is amongst the worst incidental music the show has ever produced.

It is the worst of a really rather lacklustre bunch. So poor Colin Baker, he never really had a chance. And if you ever want to see precisely why, watch Timelash.

Conspiracy Theory Loons

Whenever we are faced with a mix of tragedy and terror, two things tend to happen. Firstly, the government of the nation concerned flexes its muscles and - by intention or otherwise - suppresses freedom in an attempt to make the land safer. Secondly, the conspiracy theorists flex their limited intellectual muscles, and see the atrocity as part of a wider government led conspiracy to control the citizens. To date, the former hasn't happened in Norway. But in relation to the events of Friday, the latter certainly has - as some of the comments on this Orphans of Liberty post so ably demonstrates.

See, it isn't enough that a man might have gone a bit mental and killed loads of people. No, that isn't ghastly and terrible enough. Instead, we need the spurious and completely farcical notion that the governments of the nations concerned have run lethal operations in order to inflict draconian policies on their people. So the conspiracy nuts won't see Breivik as working alone or with one of two accomplices in the manner of Timothy McVeigh. No, he's a cipher - part of a "false flag" operation run by the government and/or its associates.

Of course, this is utter horseshit with no real grasp of reality. I mean, most governments are incapable of lacing their own fucking shoes without a government leak and the accurate accusation of incompetence. Look at the Watergate scandal - a genuine attempt by a government to create a conspiracy around a pointless fucking burglary. And the conspiracy unravelled within months despite all the power of the imperial presidency leading Nixon - who had just won one of the most stupendous electoral victories in US history - to resign. If a government runs a conspiracy, it will probably be the worst conspiracy in the world.

Yet this sort of analysis is not good enough for a conspiracy theorist. And so JFK was murdered on the orders of LBJ, just as the US government destroyed the Twin Towers with help from a Jewish Cabal. The fact that no government would be capable of the sort of secrecy involved in this sort of conspiracy is irrelevant. Instead, the conspiracy loons see malign shadows that are, at best, tricks of the light for the terminally naive. They are adding 2 and 2 and getting not just 5, but 55.

But why does this matter? Why not let the loons babble their nonsense without passing comment on it? Well, the answer is twofold. When so-called friends of liberty start spouting this shite, it reflects badly on us all. We cannot credibly point out the draconian knee-jerk reactions by government to terror attacks when so many of our numbers are unconvincingly accusing the government of having commissioned that atrocity in the first place. It obliterates what little credibility we have.

And then there's the creation of paranoia in the minds of the loons. For the most part, this is harmless. But the Norway killer seems to have believed in one of the increasingly popular conspiracy theory bollocks - that of cultural Marxism. And that may well have motivated his carnage. Of course, it is more than possible that the motivator for the killing spree is irrelevant since Breivik would have found an excuse for his killing anyway. But the more people believe in this non-existent underworld of absolutely non-existent conspirators, the more they lose connection with reality and with that the ability to respond to reason. Everything feeds their paranoid theories; nothing can be disprove those theories. It makes trying to debate with them like trying to debate with a block of concrete - completely pointless.

As an advocate of free speech, of course, I don't want to suppress the loons, even if the bollocks they spout has all the connection with reality as an episode of the Teletubbies. But I will use my right to free speech to call them on the shite they vomit forth, and in the process hopefully elucidate an analysis of the threats to freedom that actually has a connection to the real world.

On Amy Winehouse

In all honesty, I never really listened to the music of Amy Winehouse. Back in the day when two addicts played out their problems across the front pages of the nation’s newspapers, I tended to be more in the Pete Doherty camp. This doesn’t mean, of course, that I can’t see the tragedy in her death. Another talented musician dies at 27. Another talented musician to join what Kurt Cobain’s mother once referred to as the “stupid club”.

Now, the response to Winehouse’s death has shown that many would concur that there was something deeply stupid about Winehouse – just as there is about any addict. And while I would agree that there is something terribly and tragically predictable about Winehouse dying young, I do think that a lot of people miss the crucial point about addiction. Yeah, people can choose to get over that addiction. However, such a view runs the risk of making that choice – and its implications – sound very easy. In fact, overcoming an addiction to drink or drugs (and Winehouse apparently had addictions to both) is a massive and incredibly difficult thing to do. Making the choice to fight an addiction is only the start of the process – and that process is something that lasts for the rest of that addict’s life. Furthermore, for anyone who has ever (over-)indulged in drink or drugs, there’s probably the faint feeling of “there but for the grace of God…”

Of course, this won’t stop the small-minded tutting to themselves and muttering that they saw this coming and that Winehouse, as a drunken junkie, got what she deserved. That such thoughts are grossly inappropriate in the wake of an untimely death won’t matter to them. But for those of us who don’t sit in gilded towers of social conservatism, looking down in disdain at the people below, we can see Amy Winehouse’s death for what it is – a tragedy for her fans and, in particular, for her family. And we can also see how messy both life and death can be, at the same time as noting just how easy it is for some to lose control of their lives.

Torchwood: Miracle Day: Rendition

What a difference a week makes.

Last week's edition of Torchwood was good. It boded well for the following nine episodes. Sadly, that quality has not been maintained into the second week.

Don't get me wrong, this episode was not a disaster. A few of the plot strands were geuninely interesting. The Danes strand is getting more and more interesting. The idea that he could gain redemption through blubbing on TV is interesting although not 100% convincing, especially given he is a murdering paedophile who said that his victim did not run fast enough. I appreciate that the world has changed with the suspension of death, but I'm not quite convinced that the public would be willing to forgive such a character so quickly. What is interesting, though, is what Danes's agenda is and precisely where this strand is going. What is behind his repetance? What are the implications of this sudden popularity? Furthermore, while the idea of the CIA turning on its own is hardly original, it was done with an element of panache particularly as Esther Drummond realised that her own organisation was setting her up. Her escape from her employers was well done - I mean, it was clear that she was always going to escape, but her initiative was good to see. It showed a quiet resourcefulness that the show as a whole could do with more of. And the full implications of the "miracle" are being admirably expanded upon - the rise of drug resistant disease and the need to change the way medicine operates being two good examples. In fact, what was happening in the US was far more interesting that what was happening to Torchwood.

Indeed, whoever said it was far more interesting to travel than to arrive clearly never saw this episode of Torchwood. The flight was about six hours long and despite the episode being circa 50 minutes long, I could swear to God that I was there for every minute of that flight. The plane sequences were boring and nothing more than padding. The whole Jack-being-poisoned-thing added nothing to the story - we already knew that he is mortal and therefore vulnerable at the same time as knowing that the CIA is against him and Torchwood - and ended up with a craptacular sequence when Gwen and Rex did an A-Team style thing to combat the Arsenic poisoning. Furthermore, the cheap shots about the male flight attendant were not funny and drifted towards casual homophobia. And what happened when they got to the USA? They immediately escaped. All the flight stuff seemed to be about was making their journey to North America more interesting. And in that, it failed.

I hope that the series picks up - and a big way in which it could do that is to get the Torchwood team to engage with the ongoing action. Because as things stand Torchwood are the weakest link, and if things continue as they are, then the sad reality is that Miracle Day will end up being a better series if it didn't have Jack and his posse in it.

The Norway Attacks

The terrifying and tragic events in Norway are still being played out. I would be surprised if the death toll does not continue to rise, and if by the end of the rescue operations more than a hundred haven't lost their lives at the hands of what now looks like being one evil man*. As such, any comments made may well be contradicted by what happens in the near future. Nonetheless, I'd like to make some observations of the events that started to unfold less than 24 hours ago.

Like most, I suppose, when this first happened I thought that it would have been an attack (and then attacks) perpetrated by Islamic Fundamentalists. Indiscriminate mass slaughter has tended to be the watchword and the calling cardss of the Muslim militants. A couple of things nagged at me, though. Because while the terror attacks of Islamic Fundamentalists tend to be abritrary on the surface, certain key things do emerge as themes when you study them. Firstly, when al Qaeda and its myriad of off-shoots and tangentially linked jihadists attack the West in the West, they tend to attack ordinary people. As such, they tend to attack mass transport systems. They also tend to time their attacks for the morning rush hour - in part to kill as many as possible and in part to get their attacks at the top of the media cycle and therefore in the faces of the public for as long as possible. This was an attack later in the day against the PM, the government, and the ruling party in a coalition. So the fact that this appears to be the work of one right-wing, Christian fundamentalist is not a total surprise. This may be Norway's Oklahoma City bombing rather than their 9/11 - although I have no doubt that this distinction will offer scant comfort to the newly bereaved.

After any terror attack, there is that burning temptation to blame certain freedoms for allowing it to happen. Any such actions - especially since it tends to end up in legislation - needs to be left until a calmer time for Norway; for a time when the initial panic, rage, fear and deeply felt loss are all a little less raw both for individuals and the mass psyche. There will be a temptation to adopt something like the Patrior Act or 42 Days Detention in the aftermath of this slaughter for some in Norway; the country as a whole would do well do resist that temptation. Good legislation happens after debate and thought, not after the jerking of a knee.

Likewise, there is the temptation to stigmatise the (more often than not minority) groups who are associated with the crimes. Witness the rise of Islamaphobia in the West after 9/11 - a rise that missed the point that it was not Islam that committed that crime, but a small bunch of Islamic fundamentalists with a clear political as well as religious agenda. So again there may be a temptation in the aftermath of these attacks to stigmatise conservatives, Christians, individualists, libertarians. Any such stigmatisation is likely to misrepresent all four positions. Furthermore, and far more importantly, any such stigmatisation is like to increase the radicalisation of affected minorities, and make further attacks more, not less, likely.

Finally, it is easy for those watching this drama from afar to get caught up in the political ramifications and the hysteria around it. However, this is not just the political - this is personal as well. Because with nearly 100 people dead, there are hundreds of people now in mourning. Family and friends, spouses and lovers, brothers and sisters have all lost someone through the brutal attacks of yesterday in shocking circumstances. So as fingers points and people pontificate, let's try to remember the appalling personal tragedies that also occurred yesterday, and the heart-breaking grief that so many must now be feeling.

*Although whether it is logistically possible for one man to carry out such slaughter is still understandably being questioned by some.

On Dogma

Let’s begin by sketching an imagined, but I would say wholly realistic, debate between a Christian and an atheist. The atheist might reject Christianity on the grounds that it has been responsible for much bloodshed over the course of its history – and just the thought of the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the years of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland support this case. The Christian might respond that secular movements have also got a lot of blood on their hands – and it would be ludicrous to deny that something like Stalinism was not responsible for immense death and suffering.

Of course, either one of the participants in our imaginary debate could deny that their particular view is responsible for the slaughter. A Christian might point out that it is only a corruption of their faith that could allow for something like the Inquisition – after all, didn’t Jesus talk about the most important commandment being that you should love your neighbour? Likewise, a secular Marxist could point out that Stalinism is a gross distortion of Marxism. Now, I’d argue that both positions require highly selective readings of their sources. Just a cursory flick through the Old Testament will show you a God happy to smite as well as offering a vertiable myriad of regulations designed to control many aspects of life, often backed up by the threat of death. Likewise, Marx may not have intended to create Stalinism, but it is difficult to really see “the dictatorship of the proletariat” ending up as anything other than, well, a dictatorship.

There might be more merit in a secular libertarian like me pointing out that the Christian has, to some extent, created a straw man to fight – after all, not all secular beliefs are like Stalinism (libertarianism being a good example). But this is to miss the point the Christian might be trying to make – that slaughter is not unique to religion, and therefore the root cause of that sort of slaughter needs to be located somewhere other than in religion.

I’d be inclined to agree. The problem isn’t the belief in a god or the teachings of a secular thinker per se, but rather the way in which that belief manifests itself. The problem comes when a belief becomes a dogma, and those who follow that belief see their view as an unassailable truth that must be protected at all costs. It is a short leap from that position to the idea that anyone who does not share your beliefs is a problem, and either needs to be converted or silenced (with all the menacing implications that the latter concept has). And it is here that an atheist can be just as dangerous as a Christian, and there is far more common ground between the two views than might at first be expected.

This is why I can’t stomach someone like Richard Dawkins. Yeah, I agree with him that God does not exist. I see no reason to believe in a benign being in the sky watching over us than I do in a benign being living at the North Pole and having an impossibly busy night once a year. But I don’t care too much about what other people believe. As long as they don’t proselytise their faith, they can believe exactly what they want. Which is precisely where Dawkins fails for me – he wants to convince the God-botherers that their views are delusional*. I don’t care what beliefs they hold just so long as they bother God rather than me.

And the dangers of dogma is one of the key challenges facing any thinker genuinely interested in liberty, in part because sometimes the beliefs you hold will be changed by others into a dogma. There are many who believe whole-heartedly in liberal democracy – but when this becomes a dogma that the most powerful nation wishes to force on other countries through violence whether they like it or not, it becomes a concern.

It is the challenge of the liberally minded to always question the extent to which a view has become dogmatic, and whether other views – regardless of whether a liberal likes them or not – are being allowed to be heard. It is not religion that is the problem; it is a dogmatic religion that refuses to allow dissent that is the problem (or religious fundamentalism, to put it another way). The problem is dogma, and the solution is a commitment to critical thinking that challenges any “truth” that is blindly and unthinkingly held, especially if that “truth” is intolerant of the views and beliefs of others.

*A curious tactic to take, I’d argue, when you are trying to win over other people – always difficult to build up rapport with someone after you have attempted to destroy someone’s belief system and then called them mental for having those beliefs in the first place.

The Amazing Spiderman and The Dark Knight Rises (Trailers)

For superhero geeks like me, the arrival of not just one but two of the trailers for next year's big superhero movies is deeply exciting (albeit in a slighlty pathetic way).

First up there is the (teaser?) trailer for The Amazing Spiderman. It comes across more as a full trailer rather than a teaser, with hints of the overall story (a reboot rather than a sequel - hardly surprising given the quality of Spiderman 3) that seem to suggest a darker tone that the Raimi movies. Of course, we don't get to see the Lizard (the nemesis for Spiderman for this movie) properly but there is nothing wrong with building up anticipation about the monster in a movie like this one. Furthermore, there does seem to be a real sense of mystery in the trailer, particularly around what happens to Ma and Pa Parker. In terms of the glimpses we get of the actors, Garfield looks the part as Parker, while Martin Sheen seems pitch perfect to be Uncle Ben. The only real downside I can see is the Spidey FX at the end of the trailer - it all has the feel of a cartoon. Of course, the whole thing is meant to be 3D and Spiderman as a character is arguably impossible to realise without extensive CGI, but it is possible to go too far and I hope the lessons of Spiderman 3 have been taken on board by the people producing this version of the Spidey legend. It looks intriguing, but it doesn't quite convince me that they have nailed it. Time will tell.

Then we have the teaser for The Dark Knight Rises - which is a genuine teaser, in that it gives remarkably little away. There is footage (or rather glimpses) of the first two films, making this very much a sequel. There is also footage of what's to come, including an exhausted and punished looking Batman being roundly cornered by Bane, but most strikingly there is Commissioner Gordon, lying on a hospital bed, apparently dying or severally injured - and begging for the return of the Dark Knight. It may just be me, but for all the world Gordon looks like someone dying of radiation sickness. But whatever the explanation for the scene, this makes me want to know more - a lot more - about what is going on. Furthermore, it feels confident. Unlike The Amazing Spiderman this is an attempt to reboot, or effectively start, a franchise. This looks and feels like the next (and final) chapter in an ongoing story. And given the number of people who watched The Dark Knight there are probably a fair few people who are bought into this ongoing story.

But for me, while I'm not 100% convinced by these trailers, 2012 looks like it could be an awesome cinematic year for me, being a massive fan of both Spiderman and Batman. In fact, both films being out on the big screen in the same year as fresh Doctor Who appearing on the small screen, this could be the ultimate year for my geekiness. Maybe after that I'll grow up. Or, more likely, lament the fact that we can't have the same every year.

Slightly surprised to find, in my spam folder this morning, an e-mail from long dead philosopher Socrates. Very surprised and slightly disappointed to see he'd written to me about Viagra.

Still, this does open up a whole range of new careers for long dead philosophers. I look forward to Aristotle offering Discount Pharmacy products, Kant offering Hot College Chicks and Hegel offering me the chance to share in the estate of a dead UN operative who left unclaimed millions in their untimely demise in a plane crash.

The Ludicrous Idea of Cameron Resigning

Cameron is now the bookmaker's favourite to be unseated as party leader first. All I can say to this is "oh please".

What has Cameron actually done wrong? Well, he displayed poor judgement when he employed one Andy Coulson. Poor judgement, mind, because of what that man has allegedly done in the past, not because of anything he did in power. I mean, there's no evidence of Coulson invovling himself in... say... a dodgy dossier now, is there? And Cameron's lapse of judgement really is small fry compared to the sort of mistakes made by his predecessors in the role - Brown nearly bankrupted us while trying to prop up failed banks and his own spurious and false claim to have ended boom and bust; Blair dragged us into an illegal and largely unwinnable war so he could continue to act as the fluffer for the most idiotic president of recent times; Major sank the economy for a bit through his desperation to be part of the ERM. A bit of perspective here would be good, people. Cameron fucked up - but employing Coulson is really rather low on the list of fuck-ups when it comes to those who have inhabited Number 10.

And the other charges - that Cameron is too close to News International, for example, are true both of the most recent Labour Prime Ministers. And it is probably worth asking when this phone hacking took place - on Cameron's watch? Err, no, it appears it took place under Nu Labour, when both Brown and Blair where desperately courting the man who is now public enemy Number One - Rupert Murdoch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing this because I support Cameron or the Tories - regular readers of this blog will know just how little I rate both the man and his party. But we really have lost the plot if we are going to demand the resignation of a PM because he employed the wrong person to talk to the press on his behalf. The whole thing reeks of hysteria and hyperbole. And the thing most likely to sink Cameron isn't the accusations - which, as things stand, are a mild squall in a very small thimble of tea - but his failure to stand up and just brush off the calls for him to go. Cameron needs to get a grip; so do those calling for him to go.

Glasman, Immigration and the BNP

Maurice Glasman, key expounder of "Blue Labour" and general ideologue for Ed Miliband, on immigration:

In an interview with this newspaper, he said: “We've got to reinterrogate our relationship with the EU on the movement of labour.

“The EU has gone from being a sort of pig farm subsidised bloc to the free movement of labour and capital.”

He added: “Britain is not an outpost of the UN. We have to put the people in this country first."

Asked if that meant stopping immigration virtually completely for a period, he said: “Yes. I would add that we should be more generous and friendly in receiving those [few] who are needed. To be more generous, we have to draw the line."

Oh, whoopie-fuck. Another poltical figure jumping on the anti-immigration bandwagon. And another figure with genuine political influence only seeing a problem with the monolithic, bureaucratic, profligate and largely unaccountable EU on account of its impact on immigration. Surely it isn't too much to hope that political thinkers in this country could have slightly more meaningful inspirations that a compendium of anti-immigration headlines from The Daily fucking Mail.

Of course, Ed Miliband has distanced himself from these largely toxic propositions. But this is the same Ed Miliband who has been waffling on about the "mistakes" that the Labour government (of which he was a part, natch) made in regard to immigration when in power at the same time as being the Ed Miliband who slavishly followed Gordon "British Jobs for British Workers" Brown. Difficult to imagine where Glasman might have got the idea that his anti-immigration views might have gone down with Miliband Minor, eh?

There is so much talk about whether Social Democracy or neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology in this country, and therefore whether Thatcher or Blair actually won the battle to dominate the consensus politics in this country. When I see yet another political figure slating immigration, I can't help but wonder whether the BNP have actually succeeded in dominating political discourse in this country, at least when it comes to immigration.

Update: Obnoxio the Clown agrees with me. Using language (and imagery) that makes my own look quite restrained.

Christanity, Conformity and Freedom

Over at the Orphans of Liberty, luikkerland seems to be proposing something really rather illiberal - conformity to Christanity. While the bulk of the article is a long and not especially interesting story of his/her encounter with the sort of unthinking moron we're all aware of but try to avoid contact with, the first paragraph is alarming in its implications. Let's take a look:

I was interested to see Mr Higham’s piece on writing a constitution as a task in a process to right the country. I don’t disagree, but having a constitution by itself is not enough. A constitution becomes unstuck if the people are too corrupt, distracted or fearful to uphold it. What is required in the first instance is the instruction of the people (and I actually feel that people have gone short of being preached to) so that they can tell the difference between what is natural and what is the constructed elaborate fake. A constitution should be a statement of the bleeding obvious, but too many Britons don’t know what the obvious is. Look at this example of confusion, for instance: some people believe that the death penalty is barbaric, and that abortion is civilised. Look at how many do not understand that Liberty comes from the prohibition of corruption and vice – the means by which society is undermined and manipulated by those encouraging and introducing it – applied equally across all parts of society.

First up, constitutions. I can see the appeal, and think they do represent a potential tool in the fight for liberty. But they are also open to interpretation at the same time as being very much snapshots of the period in which they were created (a point that further broadens the potential for biased interpretations). Furthermore constitutions can just be shams whatever the rhetoric contained in it, such as the 1936 constitution of the Soviet Union.

So, in a sense, luikkerland is right - constitutions need the backing and proactive support of the people. And that people needs to be intelligent, engaged, committed to liberty and to tolerating those who do not share their viewpoints. Which is where luikkerland falls short in his analysis. The only real tolerance (s)he allows for is a tolerance contained within their own Christian prejuidices. Which is almost by definition illiberal.

But let's unpack this a bit - let's look at why luikkerland's ideas are illiberal. First up, there seems to be the suggestions that we should be preached at. This seems extraordinary to me given we're only just getting over 13 years of Nu Labour rule where we constantly preached by the son of a priest and by a Christian Prime Minister. But, no doubt, that won't count for luikkerland - even though Blair has now converted to Catholicism. What's the reason behind this need for preaching? The fact that people need to understand the "bleeding obvious" rather than the "constructed elaborate fake". Unfortunately, the bleeding obvious seems to be predicated on the deeply divisive and not at all credible idea that we are "the ultimate creation of God". Which is, of course, a "constructed elaborate fake" for many people in this country.

It is pointless to ask Christians for proof of their beliefs - quite rightly, they point to the notion that their religion is based on faith, so if proof was forthcoming then faith would be fatally undermined. But they also need to understand that fate is not something you can turn on and off. I cannot choose to have faith in God; on balance, using my faculties of reason and critical thinking, I see no way in which God can exist. So to expect me to subscribe to the notion that liberty is about the "prohibtion of corruption and vice" is deeply troubling, especially if the concepts of corruption and vice are seen through an explicitly Christian lens - since Christianity is far from tolerant.

A Christian viewpoint might see homosexuality, sex outside of wedlock and blasphemy as examples of corruption and vice, yet for me there is nothing wrong with any of those concepts. Furthermore, even on issues where there might be a wider consensus of what constitutes vice outside of the Christian faith - such as the use of prostitutes or people having extra-marital affairs - what right does anyone have to suppress actions between consenting adults based on the long, contradictory teachings of a book written millenia ago? True tolerance, true liberalism should allow people to conduct themselves in whatever way they like as long as that behaviour dies not fall foul of the Harm Principle.

Luikkerland cites the "confusion" people have over the death penalty being a "barbaric" and abortion "civilised". This is quite a common Christian fundamentalist simplication of these two highly complex moral issues. As someone who is pro-choice, I believe that in certain early stages of the pregnancy a woman should have the right to choose whether or not they terminate that pregnancy. This does not make me pro-abortion or into a believer that abortion is civilised - rather, it subscribes me to the thoroughly liberal view that the state should be restricted as much as possible when it comes to our bodies and what happens to them. Which is why I am also opposed to the death penalty, which is perhaps the ultimate example in states physically intervening in the lives of their citizens. There is no confusion here, there is consistency - it is about limiting the state's right to interfere in the lives and choices of its citizens. You might argue that the state should interfere in these circumstances and control both whether a woman has a baby and whether a criminal is murdered by the state - that's fine, but such arguments have little to do with liberalism.

And there is a splendid irony in luikkerland decrying the perceived manipulation of others at the same time as advocating preaching to spread the word of his/her own chosen dogma. The whole concept reminds me of the notorious assertion by Rousseau that people should be forced to be free. Luikkerland is fine with you being free, but just to clarify - freedom means conforming to what (s)he believes in.

Liberty is about tolerance. It is about finding ways in which differing conceptions of the good can live in peaceful co-existence with each other. It isn't about conformity, whether that conformity be to a socialist or Christian dogma. Don't get me wrong, I think that luikkerland should be able to write what they want where they want, and I don't see any problem with such illiberal bilge being on a website at least nominally committed to liberty. But I do think that those of us genuinely committed to the cause of liberty should not be afraid to call this for what it is - social conservatism drifting toward the reactionary, with a healthy dose of Christian fundamentalism thrown into the mix. Freedom it most certainly is not.

Update: Longrider says something similar over at the Orphans of Liberty; unsurprisingly, I agree with what he says - especially this:

Liberty does not need religion to survive. Religion does tend to rely on liberty though.

Bias and the BBC

One of the most common complaints levelled at the BBC is that it is biased. Typically, people accuse it of propagating the opposite views to their own. The burden of proof is somewhat slight for many people when they talk about the bias of the BBC – little more than the BBC happens to have said something with which they did not agree. As such, the BBC is placed in an impossible position. It means that the BBC simultaneously has to represent every view in our diverse country or run the risk of being biased. Given the impossibility of the former, therefore, the BBC ends up being accused of the latter.

Furthermore, is there any real way of not being biased? I mean, even if the BBC editorial staff go into a project with an entirely open mind, if there any real way in which anyone can put their innate biases to one side and be completely neutral? I try to be neutral when I read any article or book, but I know that my prejudices and biases lurk in the background. For example, when I read something about Gordon Brown I try to keep an open mind and look at the content of what he says, but I can’t quite get over my natural antipathy towards that ghastly man. I know I am biased, despite my best efforts not to be.

Of course, it doesn’t matter if I am biased – I make no attempt to pretend otherwise. Plus, no-one has any right to really call me on the content of this blog. You don’t pay for it, so you don’t get a say in what I put on here (although you can respond in the comments section, obviously). However, the BBC – at least on some levels –is still presented (and arguably presents itself) as a public service. Part of the issue is that, whether we watch the BBC and its output or not, we still contribute to it if we own a TV through the licence fee. People feel the right to demand neutrality from the BBC because they have little choice but to fund it. The same is not true of every other media outlet that springs to mind. Don’t like the bias of Fox News? Well, you don’t have to pay for it. Likewise, don’t like the bias of The Guardian? You don’t have to buy the paper (not least because you can get the content for free online). Whereas the BBC…

I don’t think we could make the BBC absolutely neutral, and even if we could, I still think that some would deny that neutrality because it is impossible in a pluralistic culture like our own that is filled with incommensurable values to meet the expectations of one and all. So the best thing we can do is remove the demand that the BBC be neutral. So let’s remove the one thing that allows every licence fee holder in this country the feeling that they have a say in the output of the BBC. Quite simply, let’s end the licence fee.

Size Doesn't Matter, Law-Breaking Does

Before we start, let's talk pause for a moment to pause on the comments of one Ed Miliband:

"I think that we've got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20% of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News.

"I think it's unhealthy because that amount of power in one person's hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation. If you want to minimise the abuses of power then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous."

I love the latter paragraph. Miliband Minor is probably completely oblivious of the fact that it could just as easily be applied to the Nu Labour government as it could to News International. But I digress.

The general feeling coming from both the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Prime Minister seems to be that the size of News International is the problem. Of course, there's no doubting that Murdoch has controlled a lot of the press in this country for a long time. Some would say he's controlled too much of it, but I wouldn't, frankly. Because when people talk about the plurality of the press (as Clegg is currently doing) I can't help but notice that there is still a lot to choose from in this country, even before the News of the World was given a metaphorical bullet in the back of the head by its owners. I don't read The Sun and, since it disappeared behind a pay wall, The Times either. I don't have Sky, I don't watch Fox News. Despite the amount of the media that Murdoch owns, it is still perfectly possible to ignore Rupert's acquisitions if you so wish.

Of course, it could be claimed that it doesn't matter to me what News International are up to or what they think as they do not watch my every move and report on it - unlike those who rule our country. The sheer size of the Murdoch empire makes it impossible for the ruling parties to ignore it. But is this actually true? Sure, News International attempt to influence successive governments, but part of the problem is down to successive governments not just acknowledging those attempts, but proactively courting Murdoch and his media outlets. And it doesn't even need aggressive legislation to stop the influence of the Murdoch empire - politicians could just stop seeking and then suckling on the teat that is News International. Of course, it could be argued that what Miliband Minor and Clegg are now starting to do is take on NI - but what they are actually doing is nothing more than shameless bandwagon jumping. This has nothing to do with preventing a repetition of the News International crisis, and has everything to do with get good column inches and poll boosts for two party leaders who have been seriously struggling in recent times to get anywhere.

And you want to know why this is nothing more than bandwagon jumping? Well, the problem with News International isn't its size - it is down to the fact that it broke the law. Having a large organisation does not mean that you will automatically seek to blag and to phone hack. It doesn't automatically mean that you or your employees will systematically seek to break the law. Indeed, it looks as if those at the head of News International do not operate like a normal major multinational plc, but rather like a mafia family or a cult. But let me repeat myself - size doesn't matter, law-breaking does. And there are laws in place to deal with News International - but I've already mentioned this earlier in the week. What Miliband Minor and Clegg should be doing is calling for the enforcement of the existing laws, not new regulations. But they can't do that, they won't do that because they are, basically, out and out cowards who are more interested in not missing a populist bandwagon than they are in crucial political principles such as the importance of the rule of law and the need to avoid legislation and regulations designed to do nothing more than please the fitful, ever-changing and oh-so-temporary baying mob.

Doctor Who: Time-Flight

There is something immensely frustrating about the Peter Davison era. It contains some of the best stories Doctor Who has ever produced, but for every Earthshock, Enlightenment and The Caves of Androzani there's an Arc of Infinity or Time-Flight. Consistency is not the strength of the Fifth Doctor's time in the TARDIS. That said, the choice of this one as the clunker of Davison's tenure was easy, as Time-Flight fails on every level.

The idea of the abduction of Concorde is not neccessarily a bad one, although the airplane now comes across just as much of an anacrhonism as a police box. However the way in which the script is implemented is cack-handed in the extreme. The whole thing feels like an extended exercise in padding of the worst kind. The entire first episode can be summed up in just a couple of sentences. If Time-Flight was made today then it would be a single, 45 minute story that would still feel overlong. At just over 90 minutes, it feels in dire need of an editor. And any script that contains the line "I just know" when the fate of the lead character is being discussed after a supposedly exciting cliffhanger is really not trying.

The script isn't helped by the direction, which is unimaginative in the extreme. It uses the age old technique of "just point the camera at the actors and hope for the best". And such flat direction inspires really flat set design as well. The whole thing reeks of "it'll do". The problem is that it really won't do; by setting their sights so low, the production team managed to create somethng truly terrible.

Then there are the Plasmatons. I've seen this story more than once, but I'm still not sure what they are meant to be. I've no doubt that this is explained in the story somewhere because my problem is that I just don't care about them on any level. This is because they are spectacularly unsuccessful as monsters. They look like the greying turds of a very unhealthy set of bowels. On legs. By the time the Xeraphin appear to be boring for a bit I'd lost all interest in this farrago of uninteresting nonsense.

And the Master... It has been made clear in the new series that the Master is utterly bonkers, and I do wonder whether that was a bit of retrospective continuity created in part owing to his behaviour in this story, where he is madder than a box of badgers. The very fact that he stays in his terrible disguise even in front of hypnotised people who don't know who he is is either the act of someone taking the piss or who has long since descended into utter madness. The only time I can remember the Master being more mental than this is when he stands disguised as a scarecrow in a field in The Mark of the Rani for no reason whatsoever. And then there's the further problem that Anthony Ainley manages to render even the heaviest of make-up supremely irrelevant, since he plays each disguise of the Master he ever had in such a way that it is blatantly obvious who is behind that disguise.

But Ainley's is far from the worst performance in this story. Janet Fielding is as awful as ever, turning in a performance that some would call "hyper-real" but I would call borderline hysterical without ever being convincing. The crew of concorde are boring beyond belief - as if someone wanted to have the very cliche of an airplane crew on the small screen. And then there's the extra in episode one who emotes "But where have they gone?" with the sort of look on his face of a man who has just accidentally messed himself. Poor acting is nothing new in Doctor Who, but there seems to be a curious clustering of terrible performances in this dreadful instalment.

Anything good about it? Well, there is that curious scene at the start with the TARDIS crew where they all decide that it is best to forget about Adric basically because he was a weapons grade bellend. The Doctor could have used the TARDIS not to change history but to rescue Adric in the nick of time. His unwillingness to even think about this is very telling about his opinion of Adric. Despite it all, Davison still has fun with his role - I particularly like the Doctorishness of rushing out to find out the cricket scores and then invoking UNIT to get himself out of and then straight into trouble is entertaining. And had I watched this live on its original broadcast then I would have whooped as Tegan departed. Of course, that departure would be undermined in the next story by her return (just as Adric's death is undermined by his re-appearance in Episode Two as a phantasm), but I do rather like the idea of the Doctor off-loading two of his most irritating companions ever in quick succession. But that's about it. The rest of it is tiresome shit.

And let me make this very clear - we've got another six clunkers to go, but this is, in my opinion, the worst of the lot. In fact, it is a strong contender for the worst Doctor Who story of all time. The world of Doctor Who would be positively enhanced if the script for Time-Flight had been summarily rejected, and the story becoming nothing that a footnote in an article in the Doctor Who Magazine about unproduced stories.

Torchwood: Miracle Day: The New World

Looking forward to an episode of Torchwood is to take something of a gamble. It can either be very good - awesome, gripping fantasy entertainment - or half-baked sci-fi that mistakes humping for making a show truly adult. So the start of Miracle Day provoked some rather ambivalent feelings in me - especially since it is a co-production with a US company. After all, the last time a Doctor Who (and Torchwood remains part of that world) was produced in part by a company from the US it didn't go tremendously well.

So what to make of The New World? Well, it works. It is much more in the vein of the great Children of Earth than the reprehensibly poor Meat. Part of this is the pace - because we have a story spread over numerous episodes rather than just 45 minutes installments, the characters and the plot lines have time to breathe and it doesn't all feel desperately rushed. It also allows a sense of anticipation to build up as you start to wonder where different plot strands are going. In particular, the Oswald Danes (a strikingly repellent character if ever there was one) storyline seems intriguing, and I wonder where that plot strand will go and how far they will be willing to push the envelope with it. Of course, the slower pace means Gwen gets nothing to really do for the first half hour, but that's not a major problem - the American characters have the potential to be far more interesting than the UK ones.

Furthermore, the central conceit of the show - that everyone has stopped dying - initially appears to be less threatening than the coming of the 456. But the episode works hard to show why it is not as positive as it might first appear, and why the absence of death will actually create a dystopia rather than an utopia. The episode subtly suggests that things are radically changing - possibly forever. Whatever problems there may be in RTD's writing, you have to hand it to him - he certainly thinks on a grand scale.

And then we have Captain Jack. Ah, the Captain - a mixed blessing it ever there was one. He has the potential to be a great character, but prior to this episode he has always been something of a superman, and just as bland. Here, as a man who shouldn't exist anymore, he is forced to rely on his wits and cunning, rather than his reputation and that of Torchwood. I particularly like Jack pretending to be a FBI agent to investigate - not least because he uses a pseudonym that is a subtle, yet great, nod to the fans. And I can't help but love the moment when Jack turns up in Wales to rescue Gwen et al. It's more than a bit cheesy but fuck it. It's cheese that works.

But this is more than just Jack's show - the character of Rex, for example, is a great addition to the Torchwood universe. He's determined, ruthless, intelligent and questioning - at the same time as being obsessive to the point of being very funny. His departure from hospital, and his complete ignorance of the UK, is nicely handled in a way that is humourous but not too obtrusive ("you mean I've got to pay for this bridge? Goddamned Wales"/"Wales is insane!"). If this is Jack's last stand, then Rex deserves to become the new star of the show.

And the episode also has some striking images - the nightmare that is the man who was blown to a pulp but still lives (and then was decapitated at Captain Jack's request) is a great example of this. Not all of it works of course - the missile sequences are just poor CGI. But the whole thing has the feel of quite a big budget production, and Torchwood deserves a big budget.

Is it truly great? Well no - not yet. But it feels like it has thought out, properly plotted and is genuinely intriguing. I want to know why Jack is vulnerable again, why Torchwood as a concept was sent to the CIA at the same time that death stopped, and just what has caused the immortality gripping, and threatening to destroy the world. So congratulations to RTD and the Torchwood crew - you've avoided the potential curse of Torchwood, and it looks like you've got a hit on your hands.

(Really Rather Long) Quote of the Day

Matthew Norman powerfully dismissing Gordon Brown's vengeful anti-NI appearance in the Commons:

And still he cannot see his complicity. "This is an issue about the abuse of political power..." he said of Murdoch's news-gathering tactics. Well, duh!, you might say. But oddly enough it isn't, or not as he meant it. At its core, it is an issue of the abuse of political power not by Murdoch, but by Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, David Cameron and every other elected quisling who supped with the devil not with a long spoon but from the devil's own satanic hands. "I came to the conclusion," Mr Brown went on of his urge for a judicial inquiry, "that the evidence was becoming so overwhelming about the underhand tactics of News International to trawl through people's lives, particularly the lives of people who were completely defenceless." Sweet Lord Jesus, isn't the point of a Labour prime minister to defend the defenceless? "I'm genuinely shocked to find that this happened," added the Captain Renault of Kirkcaldy. "If I – with all the protection and defences that a chancellor or prime minister has – can be so vulnerable to unscrupulous and unlawful tactics, what about the ordinary citizen?"

Frankly, it's a struggle to continue parsing this statement, because it feels like bullying a simpleton for being a simpleton. So it's worth recalling that Gordon Brown was the most fearsome juggernaut of a machine politician Britain has ever known – and here he is courting sympathy as the impotent victim whose "senior officials" overruled his request for an inquiry. The senior official to whom he refers, if subconsciously, is the ringer for Davros ("My vision is impaired," as his daleks often croaked, "I cannot see") who flew in on Sunday to smile at the cameras as he squired Mrs Brooks to dinner in Mayfair.

Makes the point perfectly, as far as I am concerned. Gordon was at the heart of government for 13 years, including a stint as a Prime Minister with a healthy majority. At any point he could have taken on News International; he could have tried to stop them at any time. It would have been a brutal battle and he would not have emerged unscathed. But had he taken on that fight, perhaps he would have made a real positive difference in Britain. However, his bleating at the moment is simply the angry revenge of a jilted man who cannot come to terms with the fact that News International stitched him up at a party conference by withdrawing support for him just after his big speech. He had his chance to take on News International in his 13 years at the top of government in this country. He didn't take it. So right now he'd be best off shutting the fuck up because all this sort of speech does is highlight what an inveterate coward he is since he did not, despite being on of the most important politicians in this country, take on News International when they came to fuck around with his family. Brown remains what he has always been - a spineless little weed of a man.

A Curmudgeonly, Contradictory and Largely Pointless Post About Blogging

The launch of Dale & Co managed to provoke a hearty sigh of apathy from me. It’s not that I hold Dale or any of his writers in particular contempt; it is more about the fact that we just do not need another blog, let alone another mega-blog. The truth is that the blogging world long ago reached saturation point, and adding to it makes bugger all difference. There are already hundreds, if not thousands, of voices (my own included) chuntering away to tiny audiences who often only pay the minimal amount of attention possible to the output of their chosen blogs; bringing a load of those voices together doesn’t really increase the chances of those voices being hear – it just means that there is one site to pay fleeting attention to rather than several.

Part of the problem is a lack of perspective from those involved in the blogging world. Dale, for example, is a big man in a tiny pond. Those who blog will have heard about him; those who don’t probably won’t, unless they have a really anal memory for the anodyne talking heads who appear on the news on occasion to discuss the latest political developments. And what impact has perhaps the most famous blogger, Guido Fawkes, actually achieved? The resignation of Damian McBride and the temporary resignation of Peter Hain. Yeah, arguably good work, but it is hardly the dawn of a brave new world now, is it?

I do understand that some of the mega-blogs have been created, in part, to allow writers feeling blogging fatigue (and who wouldn’t feel that after years of churning out the same sort of warnings about the loss of freedom in this country only to be ignored by all and sundry?) to have the pressure of producing daily posts lessened through sharing that burden with others. But that doesn’t change the fact that blogs remain on the periphery of political life in this country.

Of course, this sort of slightly bitter and weary post does raise the question of why I continue to blog given I basically see it as pointless*. And I struggle to answer that question effectively, other than to say that this blog is a mix of me thinking aloud and down to the fact that I like to write. The fact that a few people choose to read my ramblings and occasionally comment on them is a source of constant surprise to me. But I am very aware that what I write here is largely missives into an abyss, and that would not really change if I chose to write again for a mega-blog.

So I’m not saying that people shouldn’t blog, or that they shouldn’t combine their efforts in the hope of making blogging easier and raising the profile of their writing. All I would say is that something like the launch of Dale & Co may seem like a big deal in the incestuous, inward looking blogging world actually means remarkably little outside in our wider society.

*The day will come, sooner or later, when I will stop, and the lights will go out here for good. We’re not quite there yet, but the Appalling Strangeness is not a project with an indefinite shelf life.

For Law, Against New Laws

As the News International scandal rumbles on in a way that increasingly resembles an endless car journey (what’s that? Rupert Murdoch is still a cunt? What a ground-breaking story!) we hear, in amidst the faux outrage from rival media outlets and the shameless vengeance of that uber-twat Gordon Brown, occasional calls for new laws and/or public inquiries. And for the life of me I can’t work out why.

It should be clear to everybody now other than the terminally stupid and Rebekah Brooks that something went badly wrong not just within News International, but in the initial police investigation into the phone hacking. And it is hardly controversial to say that hacking into the phone of a missing schoolgirl or the phones of dead soldiers is a bad thing. But does this warrant a new law to prevent it happening again? Does it require some sort of public enquiry in order to prevent a repetition? Of course it doesn’t. Why? Because phone hacking is already illegal. The same goes for blagging. So rather than calling for further regulation and for a public flaying of News International, perhaps we could all call for the existing laws to be enforced. And if the initial police investigation was ineffective in doing that, well, there are laws about perverting the course of justice that could apply to that neutered attempt to look into the misdeeds of the Murdoch empire. There are laws against what the NI journalists did; if they are enforced, then there is no need for further laws.

And this really rather obvious, yet curiously ignored, idea can be applied elsewhere. For example, rather than having ever more imaginative ways to stigmatise drinkers and smokers in the name of protecting the children, perhaps the existing laws – which have been in place for as long as I can remember – could be enforced. It is illegal for children to drink and smoke. Further legislation around this is irrelevant if the existing laws are enforced.

It would be wrong to say that every aspect of British life is regulated through the government, although it increasingly feels that way. But there are a plethora of often repetitious laws on the statute books, yet still our leaders feel the need to add to those laws. Why do this? Well, part of it is the naked desire of the ruling class to be seen to be doing something. It is easier for them to say that they are going to introduce a raft of new laws to deal with a problem than it is for them to say that the existing laws just need to be enforced and the people need to be patient. It is the mindset of “shiny new thing make it all better” – a new law will definitely stop xyz from happening in the future… despite the fact that other laws have not done so. One of the things the people need to do is to call their rulers on what could best be described as their total bullshit when it comes to new laws, but the increasingly bovine population hardly seems capable of that.

Ever since Obama was elected to the White House using slogans consisting of largely meaningless, yet positive, sounding slogans (“Hope”, “Change” etc) it has been the desire of all parties in this country to paint themselves as the party of change. So I’d like to suggest a way in which those parties could actually offer real change. Why don’t you commit to implementing no new laws where existing laws are already in place? Why not commit to making the existing legal system work rather than clogging it up with repetitious and pointless legislation? Yeah, I know that will remove a lot of the busy work that you like to have as legislators, but it would also be an example of leadership. And surely it hasn’t become too utopian to expect our leaders to actually lead?

So let’s try to engage our critical faculties, in as much as they still exist, when it comes to legislative proposals from our MPs. Let’s make sure that they only go off on their legislative adventures if it is absolutely necessary. Let’s reward those who are wise when it comes to the rule of law, and punish those who believe that legislation is about getting a good headline rather than making life better for the people of this country. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a whole host of laws that need to be repealed in order to enhance life in this country, and I would love to see that happen. But before it does, we need to stop the fuckers in Parliament adding to the sum total of legislative bollocks in this country. And as our starting point, suggesting that new restrictions on the press and public inquiries into the alleged misdeeds of News International are fucking pointless when what they did is already illegal.

Cameron, News International and Moral Authority

One of the more extraordinary claims I've heard since it was alleged that the News of the World have been hacking the phones of a missing schoolgirl and dead soldiers is that the ongoing scandal in some way robs Cameron of his moral authority. But seriously, folks, what moral authority? Cameron has always had all the moral authority of a slimline soft drink - he's not as bad for you as some of his rivals, but still not good in his own right. He was, and remains, an exercise in political triangulation - the last roll of the dice over half a decade ago by an increasingly desperate Tory party shell-shocked by three successive election defeats.

But if this scandal does destroy Cameron's moral authority, it does equal damage to the already tarnished reputations of his two immediate predecessors in Number 10. Blair and Brown courted Murdoch like the most desperate teenage boy at a teenage disco; they are key to propagating the myth that the backing of Murdoch means the difference between a win and a loss in a General Election. That hasn't, of course, stopped the perennially vengeful Brown sticking the boot in to the Murdoch empire as it continues to struggle. But that's the nature of the Brown and, since he has thankfully been relegated to where he belongs to the dustbin of history, rather tangential to the point. It is difficult to see any of the recent incumbents of No. 10 having any moral authority. And please don't tell me that Miliband Minor wouldn't have dropped his pants at the very first whiff of attention from the Murdoch empire prior to this scandal escalating.

The best way in which Cameron can be differentiated from the others who have sought or inhabited his current address is not down to moral authority but rather his judgement in employing Coulson. Both Brown and Blair employed repellent individuals to do their dirty work on the media for them, but both of those figures were only really discredited during their bosses' tenure at the top. Coulson was clearly damaged goods when Cameron hired him before Call Me Dave ever crossed the threshold at the No. 10. Why hire such a person? Why take the risk of it all blowing up in your face like it has done for young HugAHusky?

But those who believe that this is a resigning issue for Cameron are a mix of hopelessly optimistic and hopelessly naive. Cameron has been in office for just over a year and this is the first real shit that has any hope of sticking to him. This is the equivalent of the Ecclestone affair for one Anthony Blair. Cameron will take a (deserved) kicking for this but when the dust has settled I think it will make fuck all difference. Cameron will go on and this whole affair will probably end up no more than a couple of pages in his no doubt tedious and self-indulgent memoirs (which I very much look forward to not reading).

Cameron leaves this debacle with no moral authority - in other words, much the same way as he was when he went into it. He made a bad and naive judgement call when it came to Andy Coulson - something he definitely won't hang for. I mean, the last PM bankrupted the country so he could look like a jowly, greying version of Superman, and the PM before that dragged us into an unwinnable war just so he could posture next to George W Bush. And this is a classic example of the bar being set so low for Cameron that it is next to impossible for him to do something so comprehensively wrong that he has to resign for it. The sad reality is that this sort of thing is now par for the course for a modern PM, not something out of the ordinary. Even sadder, the man now in Number 10 never had moral authority to lose. This is modern Britain - and modern politics.