The Appalling Strangeness

A New Year's Resolution and The End

2011-12-31T10:00:00.000Z

I've tried, you know. I've really tried to get the enthusiasm back for this blogging malarkey, but it just isn't happening. So I think I'll set myself up with a New Year's Resolution that I can almost certainly stick to - no more blogging here. As such, this is the last post that will be published here.

Thanks to all who stopped by and offered their opinions, or those who just read in silence. There have been testy debates and moments of enlightenment for blogger and commenters. Which is exactly what I wanted. So again, thanks.

Is this the last time the Nameless Libertarian will write? Probably not. I'd be amazed if I can make it through the whole of a US Presidential election without passing some sort of comment on it. But those comments won't be here - if they happen, then I'll be following the example of another fallen blogger Mr Eugenides and putting them up over at DK's place. And I'd be amazed if there are no further reviews of the adventures of a certain Time Lord - but they will happen somewhere else, probably under a different name.

So that's it, really. Nothing more to say. Just to put that final full stop and end this blog once and for all. Nothing more; the end.

Of course, they say you should always end on a song. Well, I've never been sure who "they" are, but this strikes me as sound advice. So, ladies and gents, here to play out The Appalling Strangeness is one Steven Patrick Morrissey:

On Relativism, Pluralism and Reality

2011-12-30T10:00:00.000Z

One of the most tedious charges that has been levelled at me by people who don't really know what they are talking about is that I am some sort of relativist. This is clearly nonsense. Yeah, I believe that morality and ethics are to some extent dependent on contingent factors such as time and place - as an extreme example, the morality of the Stone Age is always going to be different from what can be described as moral in this day and age. But I don't believe everything is relative, and I find the relativist position deeply troubling as it allows for little meaningful differentiation between concepts such as right and wrong.

Rather, I would describe myself as someone who is very aware of the fact of value pluralism*. Even with just a casual look at our country - and other countries across the globe - we see not a truth, or a universally valid understanding of what is good, but rather numerous and often conflicting subjective truths and individual understandings of the good life. That is the fact of value pluralism; there is a complete plurality when it comes to modern understandings of how we should live our lives.

Before we take a look at what this means, let's be clear on what it doesn't mean: firstly, value pluralism does not mean that all conceptions of what makes up a good life are all of equal worth. It is pretty easy to show, for example, that someone who believes that the consumption of crack is the purpose of their life and is therefore prostituting themselves is leading a tangibly less worthwhile life than someone who has a stable job that allows them to pay for their interests, hobbies, and chosen way of living.

Furthermore, I am not claiming that there is no objective truth; there may very well be. What I am pointing to is that the subjective truths all live in potentially unending conflict with that objective truth, should it actually exist and be attainable by human minds.

And that's where reality comes in here; the fact of value pluralism is, well, a fact. You might believe that your subjective truth is the same as the objective truth; you've then got to persuade the rest of the world that what appears to them to be just your subjective truth is actually *the* truth. And good luck with that. Because even totalitarian states have failed, despite all of their brainwashing and the perpetual threats of lethal violence, to make all humans inhabiting that society agree on one understanding of the truth. Just look at the conflict that would (and has) occurred when Christians debated their beliefs with Marxists. The end result is precisely that - not consensus, but conflict. And then you have to take into account the plethora of reasonable people who are not convinced by either the communists or the god-botherers. The fact of value pluralism is that people are going to disagree with you - often vehemently - no matter how much you know you are in the right.

So the question then arises - what does this mean for politics? Well, politics itself can continue to be an often bitter debate over how we should live our lives. What the state needs to be, however, is as small as it possibly can be, and as unobtrusive in judging the plurality of lives led by its citizens as possible - if for no other reason than to allow for what John Stuart Mill once called "experiments in living".

But there will, of course, be some moments where the state will have to make a value judgement about what is acceptable in its society. Female genital mutilation would be one example - even though some faiths and cultures believe this to be acceptable does not mean that it should be allowed. But cases like this involve the use of naked power, and the use of power (and force) to make others conform to what you want is a very blunt tool whose usage can go badly wrong. It is a tool that must be used sparingly if there is to be a truly free society.

And finally, let me anticipate a problem that certain people will have with this idea - yes, the fact of value pluralism may hurt your faith in whatever creed floats you boat. But take a look at the world around you; value pluralism is a fact. The pressing question is how we deal with that fact.

*And I'm happy to acknowledge a considerable intellectual debt here to both Isaiah Berlin and John Gray.

The Year in Doctor Who

2011-12-29T10:00:00.000Z

I was thinking of doing a countdown/reassessment of the Doctor Who episodes of the year, but my opinons haven't really changed and a simple countdown is pretty boring*. So instead I'm offering an overview of the Year in Who.

In terms of the main show, it was quite a year. In fact, I struggle to think of a season of Doctor Who that has ever been as consistently good as this one. There was only one real clunker, and even some of the filler episodes were minor classics in their own right. I mean, a few years ago the slots held by The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex were represented by the likes of Love and Monsters and Fear Her. And it is one of the filler episodes - one of the few not dominated in some way by the overall story arc - that wins my award for the best episode of the year - The Doctor's Wife was an incredible, moving and inventive episode of Doctor Who. I would love to see Neil Gaiman writing another episode on the future.

And there were some brilliant performances in this season. Karen Gillan deserves a lot of praise for The Girl Who Waited, which is a startling rejoinder to those critics who have commented that she is more there for her looks rather than her acting ability. Likewise, Let's Kill Hitler finally gave some great lines to Arthur Darvil, who has perfected his bemused everyman routine. It also allowed Alex Kingston to play a very different version of River Song. But the best performer of the season was the star. Matt Smith has shown his versatility across 2011, and his performance in A Good Man Goes To War showed his incredible range across just forty-five minutes. Watch the Colonel Runaway conversation for a restrained yet compelling anger from the Doctor. Or watch the scene when he realises that Madame Kovarian has actually stolen Melody from under his nose. This year has shown one of the most talented actors the show has ever had as its star at the very height of his powers.

We also got some great monsters this season. The dolls in Night Terrors might have been derivative. but they were very creepy. The Minotaur of The God Complex was also derivative but striking; the nightmare maze it inhabited has probably entered the psyche and the nightmares of many a child. But the Silence were the monsters of the year; it would be good to see more of them and fully explore what they are about.

But while almost everything was well in the parent show, the same can not be said for Doctor Who's various spin-offs. The Sarah Jane Adventures ended as it really had to, given the circumstances, but at least it ended on a high. The Curse of Clyde Langer was a great instalment of that show, and a story that puts to shame many of the stories in the parent show.

Torchwood may have ended, or it may be back. But if it does end, then it effectively committed suicide. Miracle Day was a bloated mess of a series - about 50% longer than it should have been, it was turgid, bloated nonsense that took an interesting premise and then did nothing with it across the course of circa ten hours. The sole truly interesting moment was when a character met a fiery end in the camps; aside from that, it was a colossal waste of time and a massive step back from the really rather good Children of Earth. As I say, I don't know whether this was the last series of Torchwood, but the truth is that they don't deserve another series even if they happen to get one.

And last but by no means least, any review of the year in the Doctor Who universe has to note that said universe lost two of its most important figures last year - Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen. Short of the eleven actors who have played the lead role, it is difficult to think of any other actors who have been quite so important to the series. They deserved the accolades that made up their obituaries, and their deaths are deeply saddening. And their is a real poignancy in watching a story like Planet of the Spiders, and noting that the three protagonists are no longer with us. Rest in peace, Lis and Nick.

And what about next year? Well, we've got quite the wait until the good Doctor returns to our screens. When he does, we've been promised the tragic end to the story of the Ponds and a new friend for the Doctor. How will it end for the Ponds? I suspect that Moffat will stop short of killing them off, but I do think that there will be something very final about their departure. And the whole series is gearing up to the 50th anniversary and the fall of the eleventh - I suspect that either 2012 or 2013 will see the end of the Eleventh Doctor. So much to look forward to... even if it isn't coming for a while.

*Oh, alright, if you insists - here's the countdown:

14: The Curse of The Black Spot
13: The Rebel Flesh
12: Closing Time
11: Night Terrors
10: The Almost People
9: A Good Man Goes To War
8: Day of the Moon
7: The Impossible Astronaut
6: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe
5: The God Complex
4: The Girl Who Waited
3: Let's Kill Hitler
2: The Wedding of River Song
1: The Doctor's Wife

2011-12-28T13:32:00.002Z

Ah, a festive tradition - a Christian belly-aching about Christmas losing its essential meaning. Cue a whole host of comments, some backing the author, some trotting out the old cliches about how Christmas is actually a pagan festival and so on, until Christmas is consigned to the dustbin as the festive season ends.

So has Christmas lost its meaning? No, no I don't think it has. But that is because I don't think that it has just the one meaning. It was once a pagan thing. And yeah, there is Christian content - hence Christ-mass. But it has come to be about other things as well for some - presents, family, food, drink. For some it is just about having a holiday. And for others still it is an annual chance to be a grouch. To a large extent, the meaning of Christmas is what you choose to make it.

Therefore, if you want to have a Christian Christmas, feel free to do so. Go to church. Sing carols. Celebrate the birth of Christ. But don't expect those who have a different interpretation of the meaning of Christmas to conform to your expectations of that holiday. I don't believe in God, and will not be spending this or any other Christmas feigning deference to your favoured myth.

Doctor Who: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe

2011-12-27T16:00:00.000Z

Well, quite simply that was the best Doctor Who Christmas special ever. It managed to take the different elements of a good Christmas story, and bind them together to create the sort of Christmas day television that grabs the imagination and consistently entertains without ever being too taxing for post-Christmas dinner viewing.
Sure, the story was loosely (and I mean very loosely) on the old C. S. Lewis story, taking some of its trappings from The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. But it was far less slavish in the following of its inspiration that last year's A Christmas Carol, and was all the better for it. This was a Doctor Who story - albeit one fuelled by a sense of fun than menace (but what else to expect for an episode being watched on Christmas Day?) through and through.

A key part of that sense of fun was down to Matt Smith - one of the most talented actors to ever take on the role of the Doctor. Yes, he can do angry; yes, he can provide an irascible Doctor as well as one steeped in the desire for destructive revenge. However, those readings of the Doctor were not present on Christmas Day - and quite right too. Madge's story was tragic enough without having an overbearing, angry Doctor to contend with. Yes, he was silly; but he needed to be silly to help Madge at her moment of heartbreak.

And Madge was a great "companion" for this story. She, rather than the Doctor, was the motive force that made it all work. Claire Skinner made you believe that she was a Stoic widow admirably trying to save Christmas for her two kids, and the moment when she began to tell her children that their father was dead was truly heartbreaking.

But her husband was actually still alive, I hear some of you cry. Wasn't that just a massive cop-out? Well, the story explained exactly what happened - it will be one of those twists that really works for some and doesn't for others. For me, it felt like it was properly plotted in to the whole story, rather than an RTD style "reset switch" solution to the story. Besides, did anyone really think that the crazy, silly, impossible Doctor would come into Madge's world at Christmas and not (help to) bring her husband back? I mean, maybe in a mid-season filler episode, but not in a special broadcast on Christmas Day. Yeah, it was a bit cheesy that she managed to save her husband but so what? That's Christmas for you.

So in short, we got another festive romp. And great, that's absolutely the way it should be. Yes, Doctor Who needs darkness, and menace. But not all the time. Every now and again, the Doctor should take time off to be a barmy caretaker making an impossibly brilliant house for two kids. And Christmas is the perfect time for doing it.

The Near Impossibility of President Ron Paul

2011-12-27T09:30:00.000Z

Now the rest of the GOP field has peaked too early, people are adopting that predictable position - through nothing more meaningful than a crude process of elimination - that maybe the Republican nomination is Ron Paul's for the taking. This I doubt; what I find even more doubtful is that Paul would be a credible contender in a straight contest with Obama.

Before I explain why, let me explain my own thoughts on Paul. Yeah, he's dead right on some things - and I've been very impressed with his reasoned and non-bellicose approach to foreign policy, which is a great thing coming from a (nominal) Republican. I have little time, though, for his anti-abortion stance or for his apparent god-bothering. But hey ho. No candidate is perfect, and he's the best of a truly atrocious bunch. So while I wouldn't go so far as to say I want him to win - such passion over a deeply predictable contest that I will not be able to vote in strikes me as utterly pointless - but I suppose I would prefer him to. So why am I so dismissive of his chances?

Well, quite simply (and really rather obviously) what I want does not impact on reality in any meaningful way. Reality does not conform to my wishes. And the reality is that the deck is stacked against Paul to a massive extent. He is unlikely to win the nomination for his party, since even if he does win some early upset victories then the Republican establishment will intervene in favour of a much more mainstream and middle of the road candidate. I reckon there will be a replay of the 2004 Democrat primary campaign, where the genuinely interesting (although possibly a little barmy) Howard Dean was swiftly marginalised by the much more pedestrian yet mainstream John Kerry. The nomination will probably be Romney's; he's a safe pair of hands who will not damage the party too much even as he hands victory to Obama.

But suppose Paul did get the nomination - what then? Well, Obama would crush him. The Democrat electioneering machine would spend all of its time telling the American people that Paul is some sort of dangerous radical who would leave innocent people to get ill and die without health insurance. Hell, they could even outflank on the issue of security. Yeah, those charges might be false, but so what? Since when have presidential elections been about taking the high road? The Obama campaign would do everything they possible could to make Paul into a Goldwater for the new millennium, while simultaneously painting their guy to be solid, dependable and statesmanlike for the cameras.

Perhaps a truly great communicator could make libertarian ideals appeal to the American masses; the problem is that great communicator is not Ron Paul. Sure, he manages to avoid sticking his foot in his mouth most of the time, but that is not enough to win enough Americans over to what is potentially a radical realignment of the nature of government and state in their country. Plus, he's up against Obama, whose pompous speaking style manages to add gravitas to even the most anodyne and meaningless of pronouncements. Again, yeah, you can argue that this is unfair, but it is also reality. A Ron Paul presidential campaign might be enough to provoke a misled American people into handing a reluctant landslide to Obama.

Paul's best hope for next year is that his stance and policies in some way influence the Republican programme; in other words, that the long process of explaining his version of libertarianism begins. Then the next time a libertarian runs for the Republican nomination, these ideas are more mainstream and people are more likely to understand them and get behind them. It could be enough to get a Republican libertarian nominee in 2016 or 2020. It will certainly help to wrest control of that party away from the Christian fundamentalist path that Bush Junior put it on. But President Paul remains deeply unlikely to the point where it is basically an impossibility. It might comfort some libertarians on both sides of the Atlantic to pretend otherwise, but unfortunately it remains a pipe dream that helps them to escape from a political reality that remains stubbornly immune to the penetration of libertarian ideals into the political mainstream.

2011-12-25T10:00:00.000Z

Merry Christmas y'all! Hope you have a good one celebrating in whatever way you see fit and whatever way works for you.

Oh, and don't forget to watch this. I'll be publishing a review of it in the not too distant future.

Unlikely Festive Films

2011-12-23T19:23:00.004Z

'Tis the season to watch festive films. And what a choice you have! You can watch the curious tale (on paper at least) of a retarded angel saving a put-upon banker from jumping in the river after a particularly bad day in the office*. Or you could watch the once popular Tim Allen turn into Santa in an at times similar manner to the central character in Cronenberg's version of The Fly (albeit it without the body parts falling off or the sheer viscera and pain). Then there's the surprisingly watchable Muppet Christmas Carol, in which Jim Henson's creations sing their way through Dickens' most famous tale. Or there's the genuinely funny Elf, in which Will Ferrell brings a certain level of charm to the one character he can play well - that of the earnest simpleton. But it is more than possible that by the end of the festive season you'll be sick of the traditional festive films, yet at the same time you might not want to watch something as unseasonal as Eraserhead or Black Swan. So I give you five films that are seasonal if only because they are set during the festive season:

Trading Places

A festive favourite that involves two men fucking up the life of an employee over a one dollar bet. It's a great film, though; pretty much perfectly cast and blessed with Eddie Murphy at his peak. The story is entertaining, fast moving and often very funny. So yeah, the central plot may not be that festive, but if you ever want something light yet absorbing for a post-Christmas dinner film, then you could do far worse than this one.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Once upon a time it used to be a quasi-tradition that there would be a Bond film broadcast on TV on Christmas day. Actually, it might still be for all I know - there is very little I watch on TV these days, and films I have on DVD are, fairly, obviously, not included in what I do watch. But if I had to choose one Bond film to watch on Christmas Day, it would be this one. Firstly because it is partly set at Christmas - even to the extent where it contains a Christmas song (albeit one that is so sweet and sickly that it could send even the healthiest of us into a diabetic coma). Secondly, it is quite possibly the best Bond film ever - well directed, with a proper story and central romance combined with some great performances. Of course, there is the massive drag factor of George Lazenby - an actor who seems permanently bewildered not only by the fact that he is James Bond, but also by the fact that there is a film crew following him and like shooting stuff and shit. So whenever you watch this one, picture Connery, Dalton, Brosnan, Craig or even Moore as the star. It may be tough to pull off at times (especially when the late George Baker's voice is crudely dubbed onto Lazenby's flapping mouth), but trust me, this makes the whole film much better.

The Poseidon Adventure

A simple premise for this one: a voyage across the ocean during the festive season goes wrong. In fact, it is safe to say it goes really badly wrong. Capsized by a freak tidal wave, a group of plucky survivors fight their way through the upturned ship. Of course, disaster, destruction and death are not necessarily that festive, but there is something curiously Christmassy about a disaster movie. And there are very few disaster movies quite as good as this one. But if you can't get hold of it, then check out Voyage of the Damned - it's more or less that same story, but set in space and with additional Time Lord goodness.

Batman Returns

Ahhh, Christmas in Gotham. And what does director Tim Burton give us as a present? The darkest cinematic interpretation of the dark knight prior to Christopher Nolan deciding that a broken hero with post-traumatic stress disorder was the way forward for the franchise**. A city under siege; traumatised parents killing their deformed, cat-eating baby; said cat-eating baby turning into a bestial version of the Penguin with a penchant for nose biting and attempted mass murder. Plus there's Catwoman; a PVC clad vengeance machine who ultimately turns her back on Bruce Wayne - favouring, instead, death by electrocution with her murderous boss. So yeah... set at Christmas. Not a great Christmas for Bruce Wayne/Batman. Or Gotham. Or Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Or Oswald Cobblepot. Or pretty much any character who appears in the film.

Gremlins

Perhaps the most Christmassy of all the films listed here as this not only takes place at Christmas but contains numerous references to Christmas and is set against the backdrop of snow. It is even, at times, trying to be a twisted version of It's a Wonderful Life. Of course, it also contains vicious little monsters who create havoc and hurt, maim and kill arbitrarily. Indeed, they'd be some characters in this film who might prefer to have spent the festive period in Gotham circa 1992. But there is glee in this film - even if it is often a malicious, sadistic glee. It is a fun and fast-moving motion picture, even if occasionally scary, and as such is perfect for Christmas.

So that's my list of non-festive festive film treats. If you have any suggestions in a similar vein, well, you know where the comments section is...

*Actually, I really love It's a Wonderful Life, despite what I've written here. But it has to be seen to be believed, because any summary of it does make it sound cheesy and annoying.
**And was actually right in this decision.

On Kim Jong-Il and Idiots

2011-12-19T12:17:00.000Z

A brief missive from the blogging wilderness:

Today is a special sort of a day. Today you may get incontrovertible proof that some people you know are total idiots. Because today some people, in the wake of his death, may feel lead to defend Kim Jong-Il. They may well feel that he represented some sort of realistic alternative to the capitalist liberal democratic model of statehood dominant in much of the rest of the world. If they believe this, then they have fallen foul of the empty politics of symbolism. They see problems in capitalism, yet are unthinkingly embracing an alternative that is far, far worse. If they defend him, then they have shown their commitment to evidence free idealism over actual engagement with reality. In short, they have shown themselves to be absolute idiots.

Because Kim Jong-Il really was a vile human being. He exploited his father's personality cult to propagate a regime that is virtually at war with its own people. He led the world's sole remaining Stalinist regime committed to an experiment with a whole nation that not only failed, but failed decades ago - leaving many starving and a whole people brutalised and brainwashed. If this is the socialist future, then we'd be as well to consign it to the past as soon as we possibly can.

In short: Kim Jong-Il is dead. While it is impossible to say what happens next, at this point the only appropriate response is good riddance to bad rubbish.

2011-11-23T17:05:00.001Z

Soooo..... regular readers of this blog will have noted a certain inactivity of late. When posting has happened, it has been sporadic at best. And there's going to be no apology for that, merely an excuse - that when you are working two jobs as well as two a full-time PhD, something has to give. And that something is blogging.

Part of me wants to call time on this blogging enterprise, because there is a lack of inspiration combined with a bloated workload. But I do have ideas for posts, even if there is no time to do them justice. And the last time I "gave up" blogging, it lasted for just a few weeks (during which I spent a lot of time writing at DK's place). So an involuntary sabbatical is in place. Said sabbatical may end in early December, maybe not.

But ttfn.

To Protect and to Serve

2011-11-20T16:33:00.000Z

Now, as regular readers will know, I'm not the world's biggest fan of the occupy movement. I think there is much wrong in this world and much to protest about; trying to stigmatise the banking industry through spurious and clearly false claims to be representing the 99% strikes me as a pretty crass basis for a global protest movement, though. That said, those carrying out these protests should be allowed to do so. They certainly shouldn't be pepper sprayed in the face by a bovine, corpulent cop who either is too stupid to know or too ignorant to care that he is clearly going to be filmed by someone.

There's international outcry over this; and legtimately so in my not at all humble opinon. But there are a couple of points to make here. Firstly, let's tone down the hyperbole - this isn't, as I saw someone on Facebook stating, the moment when the revolution starts. Kent State - a far more terrifying example of police brutality - went past without provoking a revolution, as have similar actions by police on both sides of the Atlantic, so the actions of this pot-bellied pig are unlikely to provoke anything more than a very vocal but equally very fleeting furore. The second point is that the police across the world need to remember that their actions need to be proportional; thus, sitting back and letting rioting mobs tear up shitty parts of London is not an appropriate police response; nor is pepper spraying seated protestors in the face. And this sort of brutal, disportionate response does nothing other than increase the sympathies for the protestors among people like myself who are circumspect at best about these protestors.

Doctor Who: The First Christmas Trailer...

2011-11-20T12:23:00.001Z

It would seem remiss of me not to post this. In fact, it is probably remiss of me not to have done so already...

On Beauty. And Goths.

2011-11-19T08:46:00.000Z

Over at Orphans of ~~Conservatism~~ Liberty, James Higham has been considering art and aesthetics. And he offers some thoughts on females and alternative fashion:

The sight of ugly goth girls with nosebones and tatts trying to do steampunk is an utter travesty. and yet intrinisically, in terms of the outer form G-d gave them, those lasses could be so beautiful. Why are they trying to be ugly? How are they so under the spell of the dark side that they could wallow in this pit of ordure? How are they so pig-ignorant, so harsh of cackle, so witch-like? What a mockery of the supposed beauty of youth.

Now, neither James nor anyone other than the actual girls concerned can truly say why they choose to adopt the goth subculture. It is perfectly possible that they choose these apparently controversial "nosebones and tatts" for numerous reasons - to fit in with the goth subculture, to provoke reactions, to assert an identity different from the ones they were raised with. Y'know, alternative culture as a form of protest (and thus an important part of growing up for some people). Nothing to do with the dark side or being pig-ignorant, or witchlike.

Likewise with art. It is simply not a case of representing beautiful things in a beautiful way. It can be about being provocative, about challenging people, about getting a debate going. Two of the most striking art exhibitions I have seen at the Chapman brothers' "What if Hitler was a Hippy?" and one of Francis Bacon's work (including the notorious Screaming Popes) - and neither of those could really be described as beautiful despite being highly effective art.

But there is another possibilty: it is more than possible that the "ugly goth girls" aren't "trying to be ugly". In fact, it could be that these girls (and the men in the goth subculture) see these piercings and tattoos as ways of enhancing their beauty. It is just that their view of what is beautiful is different to that of the Christian conservative James Higham. That's fine; that's a question of opinion. What I cannot justify is why one conception of beauty should trump another, which is precisely what Higham seems to be suggesting with the his vision of beauty good/their vision of beauty bad. Why should James' opinion trump alternative views? Answers on a postcard please, because in a pluralistic free society I can't think of any meaningful reason.

Doctor Who: The Movie

2011-11-18T18:43:00.000Z

So, in the world of the nation's favourite Time Lord, we've had some big news this week - namely, that some chap who has done some stuff with the Harry Potter franchise (a film series that leaves me utterly cold) is going to spend the next three years or so creating a Doctor Who film with a former producer of the show. Great news, right?

My response would be a very circumspect "hmmmmm". Now, it is true that Doctor Who has had two feature films that stand outside of what some people call the Whoniverse (terrible word, obviously) and they work rather well. They are fast-moving, they are exciting and they have a certain charm. But they aren't demanding, and they are simply rehashes of TV stories. It seems that the movie proposed this week will be a rather different proposition.

Which is my big problem with it. It seems to be trying to reboot the whole of the Doctor Who universe. Now, reboots can and do work. But they tend to work best when the original show/franchise has run out of steam. When it has ceased to be popular. When a fresh burst of creative energy is needed to make the whole thing a viable proposition again. And Doctor Who does not need that. Quite fundamentally, it has been firing on all cylinders since it returned in 2005. Arguably, it has never been as consistently involving and striking as the last season. So there is absolutely no need to reboot it and, let's be honest, it doesn't seem likely that there will be a need within the next three years. So a movie completely detached from the ongoing and growing continuity of the show is completely unnecessary. In fact, it is arguably going to damage the TV show as people might see the movie as more important than that lil ol' show on Saturday evenings. If it happens, it could come to dominate and overpower a TV show in its prime. Which would be a crushing shame.

But that's the other point to make here - if the movie happens. There have been numerous talks about Doctor Who films over the years, especially during the wilderness years between 1989 and the TV movie of 1996. And they all came to nothing. So you'll have to forgive me if I question whether this movie will even take place. But if it does, then I really worry about the impact it will have on a TV show that is going from strength to strength. When I see the director talking about how the show needs a radical change, I can't help but this that he is completely and totally wrong. And probably needs to bugger off and actually watch the show he's doing to start mauling for no reason.

But we'll see. As a wise man once said, time will tell. It always does.

Paranormal Activity 3

2011-11-18T12:42:00.000Z

Let's be honest about it, Paranormal Activity 2 - or Paranormal Inactivity as I prefer to call it - was poor. As any horror movie that focuses on spooky goings on involving a pool cleaner for much of the first third of its run time would inevitably be. It felt like a tired, overlong re-run of the far more effective first outing for what is now a film franchise. Therefore, the idea of Paranormal Activity 3 did not sound desperately appealing to me. Fortunately, the makers of that film - who also made the impressive mockumentary Catfish - worked out what they needed to do to get the franchise back on track. And they do it in two ways.

Firstly, they don't slavishly follow the original, but instead play with the audience's expectations. So rather than this all happening concurrently with the original film (as the first sequel sort of tried to do), PA3 is a genuine prequel. And that helps to create some fun with the format. Aside from the (at times OTT) eighties references, the film has to cope with the fact that technology was not as advanced in the eighties, so documenting a demonic haunting would not have been as easy as it is in that day and age. This leads to a lot of improvisation - including using a fan-mounted video camera, which in turn leads to some of the movie's most effective moments.

It also introduces ideas such as the demonic force not being the sole evil force with this movie - something perhaps forced on it by the "revelation" in the previous film about the cause of the demonic haunting, but also a hand it plays well. And it also bucks the trend of having the leading male character being a dick by having a genuinely likable protagonist in Dennis. It becomes far easier to watch a film - and care about the character's eventual brutal fate - if he is basically likable rather than a bit of a dick.

But above all it remembers to be scary. It does this simultaneously by offering cheap scares based on the characters' awareness of the cameras (the babysitter disappearing and then jumping out at the camera) but also by offering some genuine chills and some truly stressful scenes - in particular, the "bloody Mary" sequences followed by the child's chair been kicked across the bedroom or the moment when the ghost/demon cleans the kitchen, only to bring it all crashing down again. The film knows it needs to up the ante in terms of the scares and the same time as confound expectations; it manages to do both.

As with everything, it isn't flawless. Indeed, there are a couple of moments when I positively winced - such as when the camera recorded the dust falling on the demon in the aftermath of an earthquake. And the ever-present problems of the found footage genre were there (why are you still filming this? Why the hell do you have the foresight to record this stuff but not to turn on the fucking lights when something goes bang in the night?) However, overall, this was exactly what it should be - a clever, occasionally scary and witty horror film that can make you jump. If you want more than that, then look elsewhere. But if you want more than that, seeking out the third installment of a horror franchise is the wrong place to start.

Rick Perry: Intellectual Giant

2011-11-10T22:31:00.001Z

Random Observations #3

2011-11-10T21:12:00.001Z

The 2012 Olympics are already deeply tedious, and we haven't even reached 2012 yet. Any chance we could all just pretend that they had already happened, and therefore skip further Olympics related tedium?

Random Observations #2

2011-11-08T10:38:00.002Z

Number of random nutters at the bus station this morning: 3.

Number of random nutters who want to have a conversation with me: 3.

You can reach your own conclusion based on those stats.

Random Observations #1

2011-11-06T18:05:00.002Z

To the makers of Felix "As good as it looks" cat food: it doesn't look that good. In fact, it looks like shredded chunks of dead animal in fatty jelly. The cats love it because, I suspect, it is the feline equivalent of KFC. But given how it looks to this human, you might want to work on your marketing just a wee bit.

How the Tories Could Win the Next Election. Oh, and Labour*.

2011-11-03T09:33:00.000Z

As things stand, we’re probably heading towards another hung parliament. Cameron is not repelling people as much as many thought he would, despite his apparent lack of anything approaching a spine. Ed Miliband is a total disaster for his party, and is largely responsible for that party failing to make headway even as the coalition becomes less popular than dysentery. But both of those leaders could win the next election – but only if they are willing to take a gamble and do something bold. But both could do it.

How? Cameron could offer an referendum on the EU. Or, even more radically, he could redress our membership of the EU perhaps even to the point of pulling us out of that whole fucking mess. In doing so, he would become the hero of his party (including those on the right who remain very suspicious of young Hug A Husky). People across the country would also love this; it would be met with rapt applause from The Sun and The Daily Hate. Sure, many wouldn’t like this, but they would be the sort of people who wouldn’t vote for Cameron anyway. The ex-marketing man would be the hero to millions of people across the country, and he’d be able to spin himself as the courageous and visionary leader who dragged his country out of an expensive, bureaucratic mess.

What about Miliband Minor? Well, he could try being the socialist he sometimes hints at wanting to be. He could ramp up the rhetoric against the banks, and present himself as a genuine man of the people fighting on their behalf against reckless and dangerous financial institutions. He could get himself photographed with those members of Middle England struggling to make ends meet, and talk about how he is going to help them. Hell, he could even stand with those at the Occupy protests and claim that he, too, represents the 99%. Of course, it would be a blatant attempt at naked populism. But talking at the anti-war demos never hurt Charles Kennedy, for example. In fact, the opposite is probably true. And yeah, some people would find this sort of approach utterly repellent – myself, for example. But guess what? Those people, including me, would never vote for Miliband Minor anyway.

Which is part of the problem our party leaders have; they are so determined to try to please everyone all the time they lose sight of the fact that to do so is impossible and in trying they run the risk of really pissing off their core supporters. They fight so hard for the centre ground that they become myopic about the whole, broad range of the political spectrum. And then they wonder why fewer people vote, and they get approval ratings that, at best, are flat-lining, and at worst in free-fall. There is a real need for bold leadership in this day and age; unfortunately our leaders do not seem willing or able to provide it. So instead, we end up with cowardly, centrist jellyfish who actually please no-one; not even the core supporters of their own parties.

*And the Lib Dems? How could they win the next election? Well, they can’t. Hell, I don’t even know how they can maintain the disappointing result they got in 2010. Unless something pretty bloody spectacular happens, then the next election is not going to be very pleasant for the Liberal Democrats.

The Church ♥ Occupy

2011-11-02T11:22:00.001Z

When I heard yesterday afternoon about the Church's u-turn on the Occupy protests I couldn't help but think that it is pretty much perfect. It is effectively one bunch of increasingly irrelevant fantasists backing another bunch of increasingly irrelevant fantasists. And I can't help but think that real life is happening while these cretins engage in their useless and incoherent posturing.

Democracy Coma*

2011-11-01T09:03:00.000Z

Now, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of democracy. I’mcertainly not one of these people who fetishize it and argue that it should bean aggressive international export; sent by the West across the globe (by force if need be). But I am even less of a fan of our version of democracy. Because, forme, our democracy has ceased to be about politics. In fact, I’d argue thatour democracy has become the absence of politics.

Don’t believe me? Well, when was the last time you hadcontact with your elected representative? For most people, the last engagement with those people and therefore with what we laughablycall politics was at the polls either in the general or local elections.Putting your “x” in the preferred box (or, most likely, voting for your leasthated option). And that’s it. That’s you done, politically speaking. If humans are,to paraphrase Aristotle, social and political animals, then we’re only about50% human.

Of course, there is more that we could do politically if wewanted, but it is all largely pointless. Write to your MP – why? It isn’t goingto change how they vote in the House – that tends to be based on what the Whipswant – and unless you are one of the very few that they can proactively helpthen the chances are you will end up with a very polite fuck off letter. Writeto a more senior politician and you’ll be lucky to get the brush off – most likelyyour epistle will be consigned to the file marked “b1n”.

Then again, we could be involved with a political party. Butagain that little question springs up – why? What does that achieve? Join oneof the main political parties will involve substantial compromise for most, andwill see you joining a party that, in vast swathes of policy and ideology,broadly agrees with its main opponents. And as for joining a smaller party –well, you may as well take your membership subscription and flush it down thetoilet. Overall, you’d be better off joining some sort of pressure group. At least theytend to believe in something, and often have the tunnel vision to effectively pursue that belief.

So there we have it; democracy, or voting whenever you aregiven the chance, is the extent to which we get to engage with politics in thiscountry. For the rest of the time, the vast majority of us are in a democracycoma, or a political stupor induced by being able to vote for people you don’tknow and even if you did, you probably wouldn’t rate. In the meantime, thatempty ritual of voting allows the self-perpetuating oligarchy in charge of thiscountry to do pretty much what they want, to the occasional but utterlyimpotent howls of the people.

What’s the alternative? Well, we often hear that directdemocracy is the way forward. Let’s have more referenda. Let’s get the peoplemaking legislation whenever they can. Which is all well and good, until youconsider the cost of such exercises. And that nature of a referendum – the government decides aquestion, and you get to say yes or no to it. And then there’s that sinkingfeeling I get when I think about the sort of results we might get fromreferenda. I’d be pretty happy to have one on the EU right about now, because I’mreasonably sure I would agree with the outcome. But one of the death penalty?Thanks, but no thanks. Part of it is a lack of faith the in intelligence of theelectorate (look at how many millions still voted for Gordon Brown in 2010, forexample), but if I’m totally honest a lot of it boils down in my lack of faiththat the electorate will always back what I believe in.

Besides politics could – and should – be about a lot morethan assenting or otherwise to a closed question designed to rubber stamp(almost certainly uncontroversial) government policy. Therefore, to have a genuine return to politics in thiscountry, politicians need to do less and the people more. There needs to be afundamental redistribution of powers from the former to the latter. We needmore localism, and less central government. And we need it urgently. We needdisparate and different communities that reflect our diverse and fundamentallypluralist culture – not an attempt by central government to come up with policydesigned to impress all 60 million people in this country that ends upimpressing none. And we need the right of exit within those communities, so thesuccessful ones are able to flourish and the less successful ones fade awaywithout government intervention to favour or suppress any particular preferencein terms of community.

Of course, the chances of this happening are next to none.Our political class won’t let it. They are like black holes when it comes topower – power is dragged towards them, almost like a law of physics, and powermoving in the other direction looks like an impossibility. But we’reresponsible for it too, you know. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be fobbed offwith the chance to vote every few years for anonymous candidates representinglargely indistinguishable parties. We should demand more. Because we certainlyaren’t going to get to be active participants in the political process unlesswe do so.

*Also a song title by Manic Street Preachers.

What to read and watch on 31/10

2011-10-31T08:41:00.001Z

Halloween is all about watching horror movies and/or reading ghost stories. For me, the ultimate televised ghost story is Ghostwatch. If you've never seen it, then you should go do so. And if you have, then I offer you a ghost story about what happened next...

James Garry: Failing Yet Again to Defend the Death Penalty

2011-10-30T13:18:00.000Z

In a post that manages to be simultaneously a bit petulant and utterly insipid, James Garry has responded to my deconstruction of his argument on the death penalty. I've only just come across it and I've no desire to go through Garry's response* to my post in any real detail - life is too short to start the world's most boring flame war - but I did just want to respond to some of the more blatant misrepresentations of my arguments. First up:

I had meant to respond earlier to “The Nameless Libertarian’s” latest submission in our exchange on the death penalty but this is the first opportunity I have had since its publication. He’s one of the less better-mannered opponents as he can’t keep up an exchange without resorting to abuse (often a sign that my interlocutor is running out of rope, if that’s not too appropriate an analogy). And where there isn’t abuse there is poorly constructed argument.

I have to say that I am mildly amused to be accused here of being "less better-mannered" and of "abuse". While regular readers will know that I do use fruity language on occasion and will give abuse to deserving targets, I've actually been quite polite to Garry in my exchanges with him. And while it is tempting to give him both barrels now in terms of abuse, I really can't be bothered. So instead I'll say that the delicate flower probably needs to develop a thicker skin.

Take the title of his latest instalment, for instance. “Garry: Still failing to defend the death penalty”. I do not “fail” to defend the death penalty, I just don’t convert “The Nameless Libertarian” to my way of thinking. Which was never my intention. Even if I presented a treatise that “The Nameless Libertarian” found successful, it wouldn’t change his opinion. What he really means is that I fail to defend the death penalty because I do not agree with him.

Nope. What I mean when I say Garry has failed to defend the death penalty is, well, that he's failed to defend the death penalty. His case is so weak as to be largely useless. Sorry, Garry, but you do fail. But that's window-dressing. The biggest way in which Garry, wilfully or otherwise, misrepresents me and my argument is here:

I’ll repeat what he wrote: “[C]riminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions because they do not expect to be caught”. Note the two verbs in this sentence – to think and to expect. In this context, they mean pretty much the same thing. The verb “to expect” implies some sort of thought process. In other words, “Criminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions because they do not think they will be caught.” I would like to be able to ascribe this paradoxical construction to the author’s craft, though I suspect this grammatical fallacy was an accident. If criminals think (i.e., “expect”) that they will not be caught for committing a crime then they must know that there is punishment associated with being caught. In which case, criminals must be thinking about the consequences of their actions.

There is only one other way that “The Nameless Libertarian’s” sentence can be rendered: “Criminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions because they cannot expect to be caught.” (That is, they lack the faculty that causes them to expect punishment). This is an even more precarious piece of reasoning. If this is the argument that “The Nameless Libertarian” intends to submit, then it is an example of petitio principii, also known as ”begging the question”.

We can dismiss the second argument as it is weak and simply incorrect. As for the first one, the words "think" and "expect" clearly have different meanings, even in this context. Don't believe me? Well, an expectation is different to a thought; if in doubt, consult a dictionary. But let's look at the context here and what I am actually saying. I am saying that criminals do not expect to be caught, and consequently they are not thinking about it when they commit their crimes. That does not mean they have never thought about the potential consequences of their actions; just that their expectations of not being caught mean they do not need to think about those consequences when perpetrating their actions. To use an analogy; I do not expect to be hit by a car when I dart across the road before the green man come on at the pedestrian crossing. That does not mean that I have never thought at all about one possible consequence of my action; rather, that I am not thinking about it when I carry out that action - perhaps because other thoughts are more pressing in my mind.

Garry asserts that I am begging the question; I'd argue that he is creating a straw man argument.

“The Nameless Libertarian” proceeds to cite Ian Brady as a reason for abolishing the death penalty because Ian Brady did not “take into account the potential consequences of [his] actions.” Really? Is he on record as saying he didn’t know the consequences of his actions? Have any credible experts said that Ian Brady did not know the consequences of his actions?

Why not assume equally that Brady did know the consequences of his actions and decided that the risk of prison was worth less than the pleasure of satisfying his murderous lusts?

Here, Garry seems to be missing the point of the work Brady is doing in my argument. The point is not that Brady may have thought that prison was worth the risk of child rape and murder; it is that he committed child rape and murder when the threat was not just of prison, but of prison and the noose. This is what is fatal to Garry's argument that the death penalty is a deterrent; Brady committed those crimes when he was running the risk of the death penalty. It would be good if Garry was actually engaging with the argument rather than another straw man representation of it. Again.

And let me respond to Garry's turgid attempts at pedantry with a turgid example of my own. Garry asserts that I cite Brady as "a reason for abolishing the death penalty". Now, there are two ways to interpret this - either that Garry thinks that I believe Brady to be a reason why the death penalty was abolished, which is just blatantly untrue, or that he forms part of my case for abolishing the death penalty. Of course, I don't need to make a case for the death penalty to be abolished as, well, it has been abolished. Rather, I am using Brady as an example to refute the essential predicate of Garry's case; that the fear of the noose will stop the likes of Brady. Put simply, it didn't.

But let's pretend for the moment that we are dealing with an eloquent, reasonable and persuasive person, and that Garry's post is 100% spot on. Yeah, I know, we're heading into the realms for fantasy here, but bear with me. Even if this had happened, it misses a salient point. Early on in his "argument", Garry writes that the extent to which murderers think about the potential consequences of their crime is central to my argument. This is not true. It may be important for the point I was trying to make about Garry's deterrence argument, but it is not my central point against the death penalty. And that point is the moral argument against state-sanctioned murder - a point which Garry, for all of his semantic pedantry, has spectacularly failed to address. No doubt Garry's response, should he make one, would centre on how the moral argument was not necessarily the point he wished to pursue. And that's fine. But it is also why, alongside his faulty logic and his straw man arguments, he is still failing to make the case for the death penalty.

*I'm linking to his post despite the fact, in breach of much blogging etiquette, he did not link to mind. What an ill-mannered young man!

Image of the Day

2011-10-28T08:00:00.000+01:00

On Lyotard, Postmodernism and Meta-narratives

2011-10-27T18:43:00.000+01:00

Over at The Guardian, Giles Fraser – some sort of (now former, which happened as I was editing this article) god-botherer from St Paul’s who also happens to be an expert on Nietzsche* - is writing a series of articles on liberalism. In particular, he is looking at liberalism as it is presented through the work of Isaiah Berlin. To say the series of articles has not been brilliant thus far is a massive understatement. Fraser’s articles read like the work of someone who has just figured out that there is this thing called liberalism and is making his first, tentative steps towards understanding it. Also, he doesn’t seem to understand Berlin or negative liberty. But we won’t dwell on that today; there are enough sensible comments on each article (no, really) to critique the flaws of his approach to both Berlin and liberalism. Instead, I want to take a moment and look at his muted attack on Lyotard. He invokes Lyotard’s oft quoted comment about meta-narratives – or truth, if you will.

It is safe to say that Lyotard was not a big fan of meta-narratives or truth claims. But, as always, it is worth looking at exactly what he said and why. Because the reality is far more interesting than the clichéd view that Lyotard rejected the idea of the truth.

First up, Lyotard defined postmodernism – the school of thought that he is most often associated with – as a “incredulity towards meta-narratives.” The operative word for me in that phrase is incredulity. Not rejection. He is not rejecting meta-narratives**, but expressing a suspicion of them. There may well be a valid truth claim out there somewhere, but Lyotard warns us to be suspicious of those claims and, in particular, those who make them. And the reasons for that suspicion are very interesting and, in my humble opinion, pretty convincing.

Here it is worth placing Lyotard’s writing in context. He was writing after the Second World War, when Nazi Germany – using a spurious but surprisingly persuasive claim to having found the truth – decimated Europe and murdered 6 million people who did not fit in with that truth. Furthermore, Lyotard spent many years in occupied Algeria – witnessing first-hand the devastating impact of nationalism. And Lyotard himself was a former Marxist who turned against that creed when he saw what dogmatic Marxism could do, both in Algeria and elsewhere.

Therefore, Lyotard’s suspicion of truth claims and those who make them is based on where they lead to. And throughout his work, there is the problem of the other – of what to do with that person or those persons who are not part of the dominant belief system of any society. In one work he potently refers to them as “the jews”*** – reminding us all of what can happen to that other in a society dominated by the truth claim. So let’s make it explicit; Lyotard’s suspicion of meta-narratives comes from the fact those meta-narratives have, in his day and in our own, the spectre of the gulag and the death camp hanging over them.

Don’t get me wrong, postmodernism is far from flawless as a school of thought. At its worst – such as Baudrillard’s ludicrous claim that the Gulf War did not take place**** – it is indulgent nonsense. And Lyotard himself is often a difficult author to read, sometimes being obtuse to the point of rendering his work unreadable*****. But this should not detract from the fact that his suspicion of meta-narrative is on sound intellectual ground, and that the reasons for that suspicion are, time and time again, made clear.

So it is all very well for the likes of Fraser to tut (however implicitly) at Lyotard, but it has to be remembered that Fraser is peddling his own meta-narrative. And that’s fine; he has his belief system, and it clearly offers him some sort of comfort and some sort of compass to allow him to navigate his way through life. But he should also understand why many of us remain suspicious of that meta-narrative. After all, the history of Christianity is chequered to say the least, and amply demonstrates what a dominant belief system can do to those who do not share that dominant belief.

*Quite how anyone could read the work of Nietzsche – as demented as it often is – and remain a Christian is largely beyond me.
**Indeed to do so would be completely contradictory of his overall project. You can’t be reject truth claims because, in doing so, you are making a big fat truth claim.
***The lower case is quite intentional; he is using the term to refer to all those who are excluded from any society, including the Jews in Nazi Germany.
****An example of crude verbal flashing and ivory tower intellectual thinking if ever there was one.
*****The first page of Libidinal Economy reads like body horror, for example.

Image of the Day

2011-10-27T08:00:00.000+01:00

2011-10-25T13:59:00.000+01:00

I do sometimes wonder why the ongoing (and increasingly tedious) occupy protests garner such anger from those not involved. It isn't so much the inconvenience (after all, unless you live or work next to one of the sites, it can't really be impacting too much on the way you live) or the fact that these demos are fundamentally incoherent - scratch the surface of any supposedly reputable political party and you will find disparate people with very different motivations, views and objectives. No, I think there are other more fundamental reasons why people object so much to these protests.

The first is the naivete of them. As soon as we hear someone like Laurie Penny banging on about the soundtrack for a revolution, it becomes very difficult to take this sort of thing seriously. This isn't a revolution. Do you know how I can tell? Because no-one is seriously trying to take power or control away from the government here. Camping in the City of London could just be classed as civil disobedience if you really push it; revolutionary, it ain't.

Of course, it is a bit harsh to kick the young for being naive; it is pretty common when you're young to think that you're going to change the world. Then you grow up.

However, there is a second reason why I think these protests may be deriving such scorn from many people. It is the arrogance of those involved to claim that they speak on behalf of the 99%. Put simply, you don't. You don't speak on behalf of me, and I am neither a banker nor a politician - ergo, I am one of the supposed 99% you claim to represent. And I would guess that you don't speak for at least 85% of those including in your spurious figure of 99%. From what I can gather, the vast majority of people don't want radical change; they want to be allowed to get on with their lives - preferably with the bills (tax 'n' all) being considerably lower. They don't want to take to the streets to occupy financial districts, and even if they did then they couldn't as they have jobs to go to and families to provide for. They just want life to a be a bit easier. And to have urban campers claiming their voice to back up a shambolic act of civil disobedience is bound to stick in their throats a bit.

Now I fully realise that I can't claim to speak on the behalf of those 99% any more than Stinky and Son: Urban Protesters can. That may be true; the important difference is, though, that I'm not wallowing in media attention through making the claim about representing that 99%. I don't speak for anyone other than me; but I'm not camping in a financial district somewhere claiming otherwise.

Don't get me wrong; people have the right to protest and any claim that everything is not OK here in Britain today has some basic relevance to reality. But to believe that this is the start of a revolution is naive, and to claim to represent the vast majority of people in this country and elsewhere is simultaneously arrogant and utterly unconvincing

2011-10-24T19:02:00.000+01:00

Life = hectic.

∴

Blogging = Light.

No doubt you will be honoured with some thoughts from my eclectic and highly disorganised mind in the not too distant future, though.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Man Who Never Was

2011-10-22T10:51:00.001+01:00

It would take a particularly sour person not to acknowledge that The Man Who Never Was as anything other than fantastically entertaining. It certainly brought a smile to my face as I watched a story that spoofed tablet computers, had James Dreyfus playing a human version of the Master (replete with middle-aged spread), created the portmanteau word Clani and has a surprisingly adult joke in response to the command (delivered by dog whistle, natch) "Grab Harrison's pen". The Skullions - a classic example of an alien species designed to look monstrous but who actually represent the good guys against the real humanoid monsters - also managed to be quite sweet in a strange way and added a certain poignancy to the story. Although, despite the overall humourous and energetic feel to the story, this one could not help but be poignant.

Because that's it for The Sarah Jane Adventures. There's no more. The show is gone. And not because it was struggling to be good, or struggling with the ratings. It wasn't cancelled. It is over because of the death of its star. And if the fact that Elisabeth Sladen may well have been dying as the recorded not just these two episodes but all the ones in this shortened season makes the whole even more poignant; not that you could tell from Sladen's performance, though. Sarah Jane Smith remains the same character she has throughout the whole series, and not just this season. Looking at her performance here - and the energy of her fellow actors and indeed the whole show - this doesn't feel like an ending. It feels like a series that can and should go on an on. It is tragic, really, that it can't.

Perhaps understandably, the show doesn't really stress the fact that is is the end. There is no The End of Time attempts at tear-jerking attempts here. Indeed it doesn't really feel like an ending; the final caption was "And the story goes on... forever". Of course, it can't. At least not on our screens. But it can in books, in fan fiction, and in the imagination of what I would imagine are thousands of children this show has inspired. And that's why, the ending, voiceover, caption and all, is pretty much perfect. It reminds me of the ending to Survival all those years ago; it references the fact that the show is over as a TV programme, but leaves the story open for those who might want to think about what happens next to Sarah Jane, Luke, Sky and the unrequited love (or at the very least affection combined with a healthy dose of attraction) between Clani. Good. Fine. That's the way it should be. The show is over; the story goes on.

Had you told me prior to seeing the first episode over half a decade ago that I would have noticed, let alone cared to the point of writing a slightly maudlin post about, the demise of this show I would have rolled my eyes at you. The very fact that I do care is tribute to the efforts not just Elisabeth Sladen, but to everyone involved in the show. They managed to turn a spin-off show into a classic in its own right. Good on all of you, and as it ends as a TV programme, here's to The Sarah Jane Adventures.

2011-10-20T13:20:00.000+01:00

I am incredulous that the School of Politics, International Relation and Philosophy has a link to this blog on their British Government and Politics website - presumably for their students to find and use. I have to say if I was marking an essay and someone quoted this blog they would be very lucky if they didn't fail straight away. And I write this sodding blog...

That Little Question Of Faith

2011-10-18T08:30:00.000+01:00

Over at Orphans of Liberty, James Higham has another post up writing from his Christian conservative position. In it, he writes:

Tut tut, LR – that Judaeo-Christian tradition again we’re supposed to mock and vilify. Such a pity it underpinned our whole society for centuries which, of course, we’re hellbent on denying.

Now, I'm with Longrider not in denying the existence of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, but rather questioning the extent to which that tradition actually underpins or has underpinned our society for centuries - something I've seen precious little evidence for. Furthermore, I've seen next to no evidence that people are "hellbent on denying" it. But that's not a strand I want to get into with this post. Rather, I want to point out that I have a far bigger and more deep-seated problem with that tradition.

Put simply, I don't believe in God. Therefore, the fundamental ontology of that moral philosophy is, for me, frankly nonsense. And it isn't a case that I've been in some way indoctrinated against God or the tradition that flows from the teaching of his followers. Quite the opposite; as a child, I was arguably more indoctrinated by Christianity than against it. However, since then, I have simply found that I do not have faith in God. And since God - an idea for which there is no meaningful evidence for - is an idea largely predicated on the idea of faith, a loss of it is pretty detrimental to the whole Christianity thing. But faith is something that you either have or you don't. I know people like Higham do have faith, and they are more than welcome to their beliefs. However, I really do not share their faith. And it isn't something that can be feigned - Pascal's Wager is, and always has been, utter nonsense that does not understand the real nature of faith. I do not believe in God; even if I pretended that I did it would make bugger all difference to what I actually think.

Now, an inability to believe in God does not, of course, mean that I automatically reject everything associated with that faith. I know that the Bible - a vast document written by multiple authors over the course of centuries over two millenia ago - is big enough to contain some really sage and relevant advice. It would take a truly cold-hearted, sociopathic monster to reject at least some of the Bible. Yet there is also a lot of misanthropic bilge in that book as well (in the Old Testament, in particular). Like most religious books, it has passages that its more moderate followers probably wish did not exist, and certainly do not represent their views. To find a meaningful morality in the Bible takes, at the very least, some essential cherry-picking of its contents.

Furthermore, as Higham acknowledges in his piece, other sources (including other religions) have reached similar moral codes to the Bible, but without following the same path. And this, for me, is crucial. I don't think our morality is a piece of divine work. Rather, the pragmatist in me would argue that it is people with genuine empathy skills arrive at the general morality within our society through using those empathy skills. Thus, I work out what I should and should not do to others based on what I feel I would want and deserve (two very different, but equally crucial, ideas) if I was in their position. No rocket science here; just people wanting to treat people in a reasonable manner. And therefore, no need for religion, or faith, or God in order for us to work out a moral code and to act morally.

Of course, I can understand why Christians would want to make the case for what is right within our moral code to be the result (at least in part) of their faith. Many of them do feel under threat, and while the reality is that only a very small minority of people truly want to destroy Christianity, the fact is that faith has gone from being the dominant one in our society to one of many in a multi-faith society in which probably the majority of us have, at the very least, secular inclinations. But I'd argue that the fact that some reach a reasonable morality based on the teachings of Christ is by no means an argument for Christianity being central for our morality. Others reach a similar moral code through other religions or simply through the use of empathy and reason.

In short, if you don't have faith in something, it is highly unlikely you will ever have faith in it. However, that doesn't prevent you from reaching similar (although probably not identical) conclusions to those of that faith, albeit through different channels and reasoning. We don't need Christianity; we need to treat each other with the respect they deserve and we would want if we were in their shoes.

The Age of Austerity?

2011-10-17T09:00:00.000+01:00

Of course, the economy is struggling at the moment and people are angry about it. Those financial institutions which are at the centre of the media narrative about the economic crisis are probably bearing the brunt of the vocal criticisms from protesters the world over. But when things calm down and the protesters go home, and the finance ministers of the world step back from the void and find some other plaster to slap over the utter mess that is the global economy, we should remember that the media narrative about the big bad banks only tells part of the story. The banks were aided and abetted by complicit government regimes who often backed, if not demanded, some of the more extravagant lending decisions that have now created such headaches. Furthermore, those governments were the ones who rushed to the aid of said banks when they began to flounder with fistfuls of the taxpayer's cash. But the banks and the government were only responding to the demands of millions of people who wished to live beyond their means. You want to know why banks offered 110% mortgages? Because people were willing to take them on. And yeah, you can argue for government regulation to stop people from doing so and yeah, you can argue that banks should not have offered anything so ludicrous from a business point of view. But it was just the government and the banks that brought us here; it is we the people as well. Substantial numbers of the 99% that the occupy protests (falsely) claim to represent.

The reality is that people, government and banks were all irresponsible, and now it has reached a point where they are going to be forced to take responsibility for the implications of that lack of responsibility. And yeah, it is unfair that we all have to pay for it, and that our children (well, your children if you already have them/are planning to have them) will also have to pay for their/our mistakes. Yeah, to some extent the falsely created, inflated and maintained boom of the past two decades or so has changed things for the worse not just for us, but for the next generation as well. But there is something positive that can be passed on to the next generation well as being heeded by this one. And it all boils down to that one word: responsibility.

We need to make governments responsible for their actions. If they create unreasonable expectations with the services they claim to be able to provide, then they should be punished at the ballot box. If they spend billions part nationalising failed banks, then they should be punished at the ballot box. And if they studiously refuse to accept responsibility or learn from their mistakes then - you guessed it - they should be punished at the ballot box.

Then we have business - financial institutions or otherwise. Again, they need to be responsible for the outcomes of their own choices and decisions. To some extent all business is a gamble - sometimes taking a risk will really pay off, other times it will be a disaster. And businesses of all shapes and sizes need to realise this. But crucially, they need to understand that if they take a gamble and it doesn't pay off (and they don't have the funds to cover that gamble) they need to understand that the government - or, more properly, the taxpayer - will not be there to bail them out. If your business fails, then it fails; there is no recourse to the public purse.

And finally we the people - we have to understand that, collectively, we cannot always get what we want. That money, those homes, those mortgages are not rights - rather, they have to be earned. And when all this is understood, we need to get out heads around the idea that the state does not exist to make up for any shortfalls between what is in our wallets and what makes up our expectations. Yeah, the government is going to have spend less on public services. A whole host of things that people had started to take for granted will no longer be there unless they have the cash to go out and get them for themselves. Which will be deeply disappointing for some, but a true return to reality for all.

It will be interesting to see how the history books end up describing the era we are now entering. So often, I hear it referred to as another age of austerity. Yet I can't help but wonder whether it will one day be seen as the return to reality; that, far from being an aberration, it was actually the return to normality after a rather ludicrous era when all sorts of outrageous claims, such as the supposed yet largely impossible end to boom and bust, were not only made, but also widely believed. That the myths of a comprehensive and ever more extensive welfare state were exposed, and the idea of people, businesses and governments being responsible became acknowledged as common sense once again.

Whether or not this happens is largely dependent on the people; on you and me. It is about whether we allow ourselves to be deceived by business and government on an ongoing basis, and whether we allow self-aggrandising politicians to again sell us the most improbable myths in return for votes they blatantly do not deserve. But above all it is about whether we are going to invest so much time and energy again in allowing ourselves to be deceived by ourselves, or whether we face up to a reality where the future isn't always better, and where we can't always have more and more. It's about, in short, whether we are going to face up to reality.

The coming age - of austerity, or reality, or whatever you want to call it - is going to hurt, and its going to hurt some more than others. But we can avoid a repetition of that pain in the future by keeping our feet on the ground and by making ourselves and those people and institutions around actually responsible for what they say, promise and actually do.

We can make the age of austerity into a return to reality - and in doing so, witness the ressurrection of the idea of responsibility in all of our lives.

Why the Labour Party Hates Tony Blair

2011-10-16T09:12:00.000+01:00

Or large swathes of that party at the very least. I dare say, if you asked them, a lot of Labour party types would point towards the Iraq War and the shameless toadying to the repellent George W. Bush as the reason for their hatred of the man in question. And while I do think that there is a lot of validity for hating Blair because of that carnage he helped to unleash in the Middle East, I can't help but feel that a lot of the rage against Blair within his party was muted in, say, 2005, when the party was looking for him to take them to an unprecedented third victory at the polls despite being a crucial part of the drive toward Baghdad. Yeah, people in his party might be concerned by Iraq, but I think there is another, deeper reason why just the mention of his name at the party conference by the incumbent leader leads so many of their number to boo. And it's this - they hate the fact that Blair was so successful.

Of course, no party truly dislikes a leader just because they can win elections for them - after all, that's what they're in the political game for. I doubt Thatcher would have been tolerated by her party for as long as she was without that proven track record of getting voters to put their "x" in the right box on election day. John Major certainly wouldn't have survived for any length of time whatsoever had he not been able to deliver that spectacular surprise election victory in 1992. The problem with Blair isn't that he won; its what he had to do in order to win.

Don't get me wrong, Blair was a statist. But he certainly wasn't a socialist, and I'd struggle to really class him as a social democrat. He was probably marginally to the right of Ted Heath - a former Tory PM. Yet I think there was a reason why he was like that. It is because that is precisely what he had to do to win. And he was right; a left wing Labour party struggles at the polls. The only time they triumphed as truly socialist was in 1945; in the elections immediately after that, they struggled to stay ahead as the true nature of their radical statist agenda was clear for all to see. The post-war consensus is a double-edged sword - people may not have been willing for the radical grab of economic power by the government to be rolled back, but likewise they did not want to see it expanded.

Which is why, in the period between 1951 and 1997 which saw any number if Labour leaders, only one triumphed at the national polls - Harold Wilson. As a power-hungry self-publicist willing to compromise pretty much anything to get himself into No. 10, Wilson was very much the prototype Blair. Wilson may have started as a socialist, but he governed as a lacklustre social democrat who was willing to manipulate the whole devaluation crisis so it worked, as much as possible, in his favour rather than for the people he was elected to govern. And to this day, you can still come across people in the party he used to lead who hate him for his willingness to compromise. But like Blair, he got it, and he understood that Labour does not win elections as, well, Labour. The next Labour leader to properly understand that was Blair - hence, as a matter of symbolism rather meaningful policy, his war against Clause IV.

There can be no doubt that Blair was an election winner (even if he did have that awkward tendency, owing to our strange electoral system, to win well on a minority of those who voted), but he could only do so by, at the very least, making Labour into something other than Labour - hence New Labour. Because, fundamentally, the people don't vote in sufficient quantities for traditional/old Labour. And Blair was the person who brought this into sharp relief. He was the person who showed that if you want to win big in this country, you cannot be (or at least sound like) a social democrat - and that it is a sin to be a socialist, at least in electoral terms.

And that's why so many members of his own party hate him. He is living, breathing proof that there is no progressive majority in this country, and that for Labour to win it requires what is, for them, ugly compromise. He is a bit like how an Archbishop of Canterbury would be for the Church of England who drastically increases church attendance but only by saying "y'know that belief in God thing? It's optional".

So those who believe they have got their party back with the Miliband Minor leadership will soon learn the same lesson that those who believe that Brown's ascendancy to the leadership restored their party to them - yeah, your guy's in charge, but he brings with him the power - or perhaps even the responsibility - to lose elections. Of course, at some point there will be a leader who gets it and - without any rehabilitation of their spiritual forebears Wilson or Blair - the Labour party will beat the Conservative party at a General Election by being, well, a more fashionable (for reasons that defy understanding) version of that Conservative party.

In short, Labour hates their most successful leader because he demonstrated to them across a whole decade that they can only win at the ballot box if they are not Labour.

Occupy! Why?

2011-10-15T16:28:00.001+01:00

I'd just like to point out that I'm doing my own little bit for the Occupy protests that are sweeping the world. I'm occupying my kitchen table, writing on my laptop, with a film on in the background. Yeah, it's not a lot, but I'm pretty sure that by the end of the day I will have acheived just as much as those protesting today.

It's not that I'm utterly hostile to the case being made by some of these protestors. I do think that there is something very wrong with some of the relationships between governments and certain financial institutions/companies. I certainly think it is a terrible idea for any government to spend billions bailing out failed banks. But I have a simple solution to this - a minimal government that is neither empowered or able to afford such actions. Whereas those in these protests don't seem to have any other plan other than tax the banks more to fund the state.

Which, of course, is nonsense because, as should be clear to everyone other than the terminally retarded, the state is a big part of the problem here. It shouldn't be given more money, just as in the same way a crack addict shouldn't be given more crack. Any solution to the problems that have befallen us should not include funding a big part of those problems.

Plus, what precisely are these protests going to achieve? In fact, there is something faintly pathetic about those occupying financial districts, not least because it is a Saturday and these districts will be largely unoccupied by those that work there. It seems to me to be a splendid symbol of absolute impotence that these people are stood on the streets, making the sort of demands that those targetted will simply shrug off if they ever get around to noticing them in the first place. It is a bit like that angry toddler demanding candy from the disinterested parent. Only one side is going to win, and its the side with the power.

Of course, people should be allowed to protest if they so wish, and I hope that these people enjoy their time trying to make a difference. But take any claims that this is some sort of worldwide revolution with a pinch of salt. Come Monday, these people will be back at the work so they can pay the(ever-increasing) bills, or signing on so someone else can pay them. If change is going to come, then it will be more radical than the sort of ersatz change demanded by many of these protestors. Because not only we will have to deal with the bloated, corporatist organisations who suckle at the teat of big government, but also tackle the big government that so willing offers itself to its preferred clients. So when Westminster is being occupied at the same time as the City, people might finally be getting it...

The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Curse of Clyde Langer

2011-10-15T12:26:00.000+01:00

The Curse of Clyde Langer is one of those odd sort of stories that sometimes crop up in the Doctor Who universe. Odd in the sense that the menace driving the story is very much incidental and in the background - something not helped by the fact that Hetocumtek was a largely inanimate totem pole that did little other than some lightening FX and the occasional gurn. No, this was a character driven piece - much like, say, Turn Left from the parent programme. And as a result, it was an excellent addition to the series.

The notion of someone slowly being written out of their own life is hardly new, but the idea that Clyde loses his friends every time they say his name created a decent amount of tension as the characters suddenly flipped after saying those two words. Furthermore, the slow disintegration in his life - until he was living on the streets - was a surprisingly dark plot line for a programme from CBBC. It was also good that the reality of living on the street was alluded to without the story ever becoming too didactic (even if the strikingly clean and styled hair of Clyde's street friend, Ellie, was stretching the bounds of credibility perhaps a bit too far). Finally, it was good to see that those who turned against Clyde were not simply turned into hating monsters, but actually experienced an almost heart-breaking sort of grief that they felt but could not articulate the reasons for. So the script, here, not only works, but really works and offers the sort of emotional depth that comes as a pleasant surprise for what is marketed as a kids' show.

Of course, having a piece centred on one character is a bit of a risk - I mean, it is predicated on the person playing that character being able to effectively carry the show. Here, it is worth noting that The Sarah Jane Adventures is immensely lucky to have Daniel Anthony as Clyde (and Anjli Mohindra as Rani, for that matter). Clyde could so easily be a deeply irritating character, being cocksure, full of himself and, often, set up as the comedic element to the show. However, Anthony seems to have that ability to project a certain charisma without coming across as arrogant and/or deeply irritating. And here, he manages to balance his performance between desperation at losing everything and the sort of optimistic determination that make Clyde likable in the first place. The series made the right choice in ditching the one-dimensional Kelsey Hooper after the first story, and they are very lucky to have found Anthony. Let's hope he goes on to do other, interesting things as this show comes to an end.

In short, this was an exceptional piece of TV and makes the fact that we only have two more episodes of what has been a strikingly good series left even more tragic. And the quality of these scripts demonstrates that it has been too long since Phil Ford - co-author of the brilliant special The Waters of Mars - has written something for the parent programme. So if the Moff could make a space for Ford next year, that would be very welcome. As would an appearance by Clyde Langer - who has, after all, met the Doctor twice. Talent such as this deserves a wider audience than the one afforded to the (admittedly excellent) Sarah Jane Adventures...

2011-10-14T18:57:00.001+01:00

Liam Fox resigns.

Philip Hammond becomes Defence Secretary.

Justine Greening becomes Transport Secretary.

I wonder precisely why we are expected to care.

On a different but related note, take a look at this article by Matthew Parris. It's very good. As any article that begins with the sentence "politicians are not normal people" is bound to be.

Oh, you poor dears!

2011-10-12T13:28:00.001+01:00

MPs whining, through the mouthpiece of their doctor:

The new, tougher expenses regime is damaging MPs' "mental wellbeing", the doctor who looks after them has said.

Dr Ira Madan told a committee looking into the system that its "frustrations and difficulties" had increased workloads but decreased rewards.

She also said MPs were tired of being the butt of jokes about their expenses.

Hmmm. It is difficult to feel too much sympathy for MPs on this one - particularly since the current system, as frustrating and difficult as it might be, is down to the gross abuse of the previous system by many of them. And as for them being the butt of jokes? Oh, please. The poor fucking dears. Aren't they sensitive flowers? Seriously, if you are that thin-skinned that quasi-topical jibes about expenses, you are in the wrong profession.

And she said they were coming under greater pressure because of the "increased ability for constituents to readily contact members by email".

God for-fucking-bid that MPs should be readily contactable by MPs - the very people they are elected and paid to represent! What sort of a crazy system is that?

I was once taught that if you do something in your job and get caught, you should keep your head down, work bloody hard and prove yourself so your sin is ultimately forgiven. What do our MPs do now a system has been put in place after a scandal that dragged the Commons through the gutter and back again? Groan and grumble about how their lives have been made just a little bit more difficult. It is utterly pathetic, and further tarnishes their already devastated reputations.

Quote of the Day

2011-10-11T18:25:00.002+01:00

From Nick Cohen on the departure of Dan Hodges from The New Statesman for not following the pro-Miliband Minor line:

I know that editors censor the world over because they are frightened of the secret police, authoritarian government, megalomaniac proprietors, corporate paymasters, terrorist militias and the like. But what can one say about a magazine that censors because it is frightened of Ed Miliband?

The Unrelenting Tedium of Modern British Politics

2011-10-10T08:56:00.001+01:00

Ok, so regular readers will have clocked that there has been limited writing about politics on this blog of late. Indeed, there have only really been sporadic updates that, when they do come, tend to be on much more geeky subjects that what passes for the political mainstream in this country. The reason for this is simple; modern British politics is beyond boring. And anyone who disagrees should take a look at the recent party conference season.

The party conferences have long been lacklustre commercials for whichever party happens to be fawning in front of the media in a given week. I don't doubt that a lot of effort is put into those conferences - the problem is that they all end up being largely indistinguishable from one another. But you don't even have to look at the content - vapid and largely non-existence as it may be - of those conferences to see just how massively shite modern British politics has become, since the leaders of each of the three main parties seemed happy to condense the mediocrity of the incumbent incarnations of their party into one short (yet always still too long) speech.

Clegg seemed to be reminding his party that there is a point to being in political power after they had spent a few days bashing their coalition partners and confirming every cliche that the Lib Dems have never really wanted to be in power when it came down to it. The odious little turd Miliband Minor made a speech that sounded like a chipped checklist of things it might be nice to have a party leader say if that party leader didn't actually want to say anything after all. The only two noteworthy bits of his speech came when he bashed Blair (yeah, he's a cunt, but he won three elections for your party, Ed m'boy, whereas you're on course to win zero) and when he seemed to set himself up as the final arbiter of what constitutes ethical business. I don't think there is anything wrong with people deciding which business match their idea of what is good - I think we all do this, all the time - but I do have a problem with Ed Miliband (a man who, lest we forget, has never done anything other than work as a politician really) in power deciding which businesses it would be good to punish on a whim. Finally, we had Cameron delivering the sort of speech he was born to deliver - an ad man's speech full of blandishments and empty cant. His speech seemed to be designed to offer vague yet meaningless hope in dark economic times, at the same time as avoiding saying anything that might, well, be worth hearing. The fact that it failed to convince even the party faithful that he is on the right course should come as no surprise - the only course he has actually sketched out is that he's really like to stay in power for the foreseeable, if that's not too much hassle. And given the performance of his two main rivals, he'll probably get his wish.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disenchanted with politics as a concept - I'd just argue that, whatever these terrible, tedious men thing they are indulging in, it isn't politics. Rather we are seeing the dragging on of a tedious, real life soap opera of watching three contradictory, self-serving parties vying for a power that they have no real intention of using in any meaningful way even if they are elected. So you'll have to forgive me if I can't get too excited about modern politics, and you'll have to forgive me if posting remains irregular moving forward and instead focuses on things I actually find interesting. Modern British politics has become about the perpetual performance of meaningless political posturing; the world's worst political drama, played out in real life. It is House of Cards without the plot; The West Wing without the interesting characters. As such, it is only worth paying the most scant and fleeting attention to in this day and age.

The Doctor Who Confidential Controversy

2011-10-09T19:03:00.000+01:00

So, Doctor Who’s making of show has been cancelled. Regular readers will know that I am a big fan of Doctor Who. That said, I am struggling to really care about the demise of Confidential.

The first reason is because, try as I might, I could never quite buy into that series. Yes, it would occasionally throw an interesting light on elements of the episode I’d just watched, but more often than not the whole thing felt like an over-long come-down after the main event. Having just watched an episode of Doctor Who I can make up my own mind as to how good I think it is. I don’t need RTD or Moffat telling me, in often an embarrassingly gushing manner, why they think it is a classic. As a result of this, I stopped watching Doctor Who Confidential relatively early in its run. But, as chance would have it, I saw the recent episode of the show relating to the episode Closing Time.

Unfortunately, it merely reinforced my thoughts about the show; overlong and self-indulgent. Yes, it was interesting to see how the Doctor jumping through the window stunt was done. But frankly I could not care less about some Radio 1 DJ I’d never heard of being in the background to a scene. Nor do I have any real interest in Matt Smith and James Corden arsing around on set. I have no doubt that their little videos seemed amazingly funny to them during the long, arduous night shoots necessary for the episode. Unfortunately, in the cold light of day, they would probably work far better as half-remembered moments in the lives of those two actors rather than videos destined for viewing by the wider public.

The second reason why I can’t get excited about the demise of Doctor Who Confidential is that, quite frankly, it is a fucking miracle that it existed in the first place, let alone ran for over half a decade. I cannot think of any other show in TV history that has had a 45 minute making of show broadcast straight after the new episode from the parent show. It represents a fantastic investment of time and resources not in Doctor Who itself, but rather people talking about Doctor Who. It is no wonder that the format became (at least for me) rapidly very staid, if not outright boring. There are only so many conversations you can have about the mighty Who, particularly if you are not allowed to have conversations like “Partners in Crime - that was a bit shit, wasn’t it?”

Of course, it is perhaps unfortunate that Confidential has gone in the same year that the death of its star has ended The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood has almost certainly committed suicide across ten long, thankless weeks. And I would feel happier about the show being axed if its budget was being put towards the increasingly cash-strapped parent programme, although I expect the money can’t be reinvested because it just isn’t there anymore. But ultimately for those truly lamenting the loss of Doctor Who Confidential it might be helpful to think about it this way – it is best not to mourn it, but to celebrate the fact that it existed, and ran for so long, in the first place.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: Sky

2011-10-06T09:20:00.000+01:00

As the good Doctor heads off into the stars for his pre-Christmas break (well, he has had a busy year, what with not really dying and everything), one of his previous companions jumps back onto the screens – albeit for just three short weeks. Yup, it is time for the return of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Any returning show runs the risk of not being quite as good as its last series – witness the nosedive in quality between Torchwood dealing with the Children of Earth and the unintentionally ironically named Miracle Day (the only miracle is that they were allowed to spread that boring farrago of nonsense across 10 weeks). Mercifully, Sky does not show any dip in quality. In fact, this is very much business as usual for The Sarah Jane Adventures.And that should be celebrated, because this series proves to be constantly entertaining.

The story zips along at a fast pace and is blessed, in Rani and Clyde, with two supporting characters (and the actors playing them, of course) that just work within the series. They are not so serious that they become boring. Nor are they so self-aware that they damage the drama. Rather, they fit in perfectly within the story and each play a convincing, and logically consistent, role within that story. Frankly, the tedious Gwen Cooper could learn a lot from Rani and Clyde.

There is also humour here, but it is not obtrusive. The banter between Rani’s parents, for example, or Sarah Jane’s attempts to explain away the fact that she has a new baby (and that baby goes from tiny to teenager across the course of one day) all help to keep the episodes light without undermining the story. Again, the performances help. This sort of story could very easily be over-acted and/or turned into a parody of itself. Instead, the actors seem to pitch it perfectly.

But what of the story? Well, it is safe to say that it is not exactly ground-breaking. In fact, after the River Song/Melody Pond saga in the most recent series of Doctor Who, a child with extraordinary power feels very familiar (and that’s without noting the similarities between Sky and elements of Delta and the Bannermen). But the story never becomes a shameless photocopy of previous entries into the Who universe. Yes, it may not be iconoclastic, but it does exactly what it needs to do – it entertains at the same time as introducing a new character into the series.

Ultimately, Sky is yet further evidence that this series has a firm place within the Doctor Who universe. It is never quite as good as the parent show, but it is streets ahead of the more often than not lamentable Torchwood. As such, it is always worth watching. So if you haven’t already discovered the The Sarah Jane Adventures, you should do so. Before it is too late.

Sarah Palin: Not Running For President

2011-10-05T23:53:00.000+01:00

The phrase "thank fuck" prings to mind. Now she can get back to doing what she does best - pontificating about politics, rather than actually engaging with it. Or whatever it is the slack-jawed lackwit.

Now, just for Perry. And Bachmann. And... so on.

The (False?) Phoenix of LPUK

2011-10-03T09:51:00.000+01:00

Over at their website, whoever is running LPUK these days is arguing that the party is rising from the ashes of the scandal and infighting that befell (and damn near destroyed) it earlier this year. They do so in a poorly written, misspelled and completely unsubstantiated post. It does make me wonder who is still supporting that party and precisely why they are doing so, given everything that has happened this year. Still, each to their own, I suppose. But I can't help but think that Libertarian Home represents a far better destination for former LPUK members than whatever hollowed out shell of that party still exists.

Doctor Who: The Wedding of River Song

2011-10-01T21:20:00.003+01:00

Now, there are certain very dramatic things that a writer can do in their show. Killing off the lead character is certainly one. Especially if that happens in the opening episode of the series, swiftly followed by a slow countdown to that actually happening within the overall narrative. And the drama is only intensified if it is a lead character of a show that has been running for 48 years with that same lead character at the heart of it (albeit played by different actors of varying levels of talent). As openings go, the murder of the Doctor on the side of Lake Silencio is a pretty impressive way to open up a season of Doctor Who. It does also make the season finale very difficult to write, and to pull off in a way that will convince even just some of the viewers, let alone all of them. So, how did Moffat get on with it all, then?

First up, you have to admire the ambition of this episode. To create a universe of static time, where Area 52 is installed by the USA in a pyramid, where Churchill has become and remains Caesar (and spends at least some time dancing with Cleopatra), and where an unexpectedly alive Doctor is a bearded soothsayer imprisoned in the Tower of London requires a pretty hyperactive imagination. Of course, sometimes ambition doesn't quite pay off in Doctor Who - if only in terms of the realisation, as evidenced here by the hot-air balloon Minis flying across London at the start of this episode. They looked very cartoon-like; so much so that it was slightly distracting. Yeah, we know they are not real, but do they really have to look that unreal? But overall the attempt to create an alternate universe worked well forever existing in the same second was nice, and a brilliant concept to boot. It was nice to see Charles Dickens talking about his next Christmas Special, and if we are going to have a massive info-dump throughout about half of the episode, then why not have it as a conversation between the Doctor and Winston Churchill?

This was also a relatively complicated narrative. While I believe even the most casual of viewers will have picked up on what was going on and followed the story if they were so inclined, the dual narratives - of the Doctor trying to save himself at the same time as River ruining his plans by trying to save him as well - was much more complicated than your standard RTD season finale. It was also nice how the stories dovetailed at the end, and we were given the Doctor back - after he asked a favour from the Teselecta rather than just walking moodily away. Furthermore, it is also good that the Doctor, as far as his enemies are concerned, died - therefore there can be no more getting his enemies to flee by reading books or by getting them to trawl their visual memory banks. This story leaves the Doctor as an unknown (except to his friends) mad man with a box - just the way the whole thing began.

It was also good to see Rory threatened with death but then being saved by his wife before he got wiped out (again). It was also nice that the script acknowledged that he keeps on dying. It would be even nicer if this drew a line under the whole Rory dies all the time thing. Let's not have episodes ending with the apparent death of Mr Pond. Unless, y'know, he actually does die.

And the moment when the Doctor decided he should go to face his destiny was brilliant, even if it did bring a tear to my eye. I thought that Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart would just vanish from the series, never to be heard of again. But after the death of the man who played him for decades, the show made the decision to let the Doctor know that one of his oldest and most loyal friends had also passed away. But the Brigadier never forgot the Doctor. He was always there, waiting for his mad old alien friend, with a glass of brandy. A wonderful little moment, played brilliantly by Smith, and a fitting tribute to Nicholas Courtney. I hope they find a way to do something as nice for the late Elisabeth Sladen.

But I'm skirting the issue here. There was much to enjoy, but was it the way in which the Doctor died but didn't ultimately satisfying? Well, no. Then again, it never could be. You cannot kill off your lead character and then not have killed him off without some sort of cop-out clause in your script. But here the episode did not, at least, do too badly. At least it wasn't obvious idea of the Flesh Doctor being killed on the beach; the use of the Teselecta was, at least for me, slightly more surprising. And since the Resurrection of the Doctor was always going to be a bit of a cop out, it is better that it was a slightly unexpected cop-out rather than the obvious one.

And there were other problems too. Not least the fact that Madame Kovarian and (in particular)the Silence were underused. Look, the Silence are a great enemy, Mr Moffat. Give them time to shine. Please, please, please can we have an episode next year where they are placed centre stage? Not just afterthoughts and the partial motive power to your overall narrative?

And while we're on the subject of the next season, let's try to tone down the scope of the threat a little bit. Last season, the whole of the universe was at stake in the finale. This season, the whole of time was decaying. What next? Is there any way to raise the stakes for the next season finale (which may well be the last stand of the Eleventh Doctor?) Well, yes, but it involves more of a threat to the Doctor and company rather than everything else there has ever been ever. The Caves of Androzani is consistently voted one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time, yet its scope is really rather small. Some soldiers, a corrupt politician, a disfigured madman in fetish wear and the Doctor and Peri (not forgetting the very unconvincing monster). No threat to the universe, just a little local trouble that could have lethal consequences for both of the then leads of the show. I'd like to see Moffat doing something like that. And I'd also like to see him doing something spooky again. Because while The Wedding of River Song was a breathless roller-coaster of an episode, it was only the awesome physical presence (as opposed to anything they said or did) of the Silence and the pit of flesh-eating skulls that could send a shiver up the spine. We hear a lot about the darkness of Moffat-era Who. Fine, it is darker than the RTD era, and most of those that preceded it. But let's make sure it is scary as well.

But overall, I feel immensely satisfied by the way this season ended. Not the best episode that the series has, or will, ever produce(d), to be sure. But a good finale that tied up enough of the loose ends to leave me, at the very least, feeling positive about the whole thing, but with enough up in the air to make me desperately excited to see what happens next.

And the question was, of course, "Doctor Who?" It has been the one asked for damn near half a century now, and again I'm excited to see where all this is going as we head towards that fiftieth anniversary and the Fall of the Eleventh...

The Wedding of River Song: Some Predictions

2011-09-30T09:52:00.002+01:00

Some people love a bit of speculation when it comes to the next adventures of the nation’s favourite Time Lord. Others hate it. Some see it as ruining the surprise. Others see it as pointless geek speculation. Now, if you fall into the latter two camps, this post is not for you. Away you go until tomorrow, when (all being well) the review of The Wedding of River Song will arrive. But for all of those in the former camp, welcome to a bit of speculation about how one of the best seasons in the show’s history will be wrapped up.

First up, let’s do the easy bit. Rory and Amy will be back. Hell, they were even in the episode after the one that was meant to mark their departure from the TARDIS. And we’re going to see other familiar faces returning for the finale. River Song (obviously), Kovarian, the Silence and Winston Churchill. Oh, and at least one Dalek. That much can be gathered from the trailer. Charles Dickens will also be back.

What we have also seen a lot of is that footage of River Song wearing an eye patch, in the style of Madame Kovarian. Does this mean that River disguises herself as Kovarian? Or that she, in some way, becomes Kovarian? And in the prequel, soldiers are wearing the eye patches. Again, is there a reason for this? Does it perhaps help with the Silence in some way?

And we keep on hearing that “silence will fall when the question is asked”. Now, the idea that silence will fall can be interpreted in two ways. Firstly, it could mean that the world/universe fall silent, or fall to the silence. That’s probably the obvious way to take those words. But, there is another way – that the Silence will fall in the same way that the Roman Empire fell; in other words, this marks their last stand. Which then leads us to ask “what is the question?” Personally, I’ve spent a lot of the past few weeks thinking someone is going to ask the Doctor “who are you?” That’s a question that is as old as time (or the show, anyway). Now I suspect that the question could be, again addressed to the Doctor, “will you marry me?” After all, River is meant to be killing the Doctor – if she actually turns it on its head and proposes to him, that will end the schemes of the Silence pretty effectively.

On that note – it now seems almost certain that the impossible astronaut is River. Yet… I wouldn’t put it past Moffat to actually put someone else in that space suit. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the Doctor in there. The Doctor killing the Doctor… to make his enemies, who have pursued him across time and space and done irreparable damage to so many people in the process, believe him to be dead. Can there be two different Doctors? Well, yeah – and ever since the ending to The Almost People I’ve been expecting the return of the Flesh Doctor (actually, the Almost Doctor sounds better than the Flesh Doctor…)

Of course, if it is the Almost Doctor being killed/replacing the Real Doctor, then I’ll probably be a bit disappointed. Then again, that is the biggest problem facing this episode – by killing off the lead character in the opening episode of this season, Moffat has made a rod for his own back. He’ll have to pull off something pretty astounding to avoid making at least some of the viewers feel cheated. Yet he is the king (at least in the world of Doctor Who) of involved plotting. I’d be surprised if he had entered into the idea of killing the Doctor without working out how to bring him back. If anyone can pull off something pretty bloody spectacular, it will be Moffat. And I’m very much looking forward to seeing what he has got to offer us.

And one final prediction? Lots of people will end up disappointed. Even if Moffat has written the single best episode of Doctor Who of all time, people will still find something to carp on about. Fine, that’s the nature of the beast. I just hope that people go into the episode with an open mind, and see what Moffat has in store for us. The general feeling should be one of excitement; not an expectation of disappointment.

Labour's Lack of Stars

2011-09-29T21:48:00.000+01:00

Over at the perpetually shitty LabourList, some lackwit is arguing against the likes of Prescott appearing on TV to give the new regime a chance to hog the limelight:

Leaving Prescott's point aside for the moment, his Today programme appearance was almost entirely unhelpful. Throughout the interview he came across as a patronising parent ruefully dismissing the efforts of his offspring. What he may have thought was refreshing candour from an old hand, sounded more like a ghost of Labour past haunting its fledgling future. Or it might simply be that he finds the amorous approaches of the media too tempting to resist.

But resist the media he should, as part of the problem of the perceived silence of the Labour opposition is that old Westminster denizens continue to hog the limelight. Peter Mandleson, Jacquie Smith, Alistair Darling, John Reid and Prescott, to name but a few, have made regular media appearances, whereas the likes of Maria Eagle, Meg Hillier, Mary Creagh and Ivan Lewis have featured only sporadically. It's too easy to blame the media for continually seeking the opinions of well known former, or no longer front line, politicians. The media keep returning to Prescott et al because they know he is widely publically recognisable and will readily appear for them and provide comment. If Prescott really wants to give the new shadow cabinet the room to breathe he needs to make himself permanently unavailable for comment. And that goes for the rest of the old guard too.

In case anyone was wondering, Prescott's point was that the Shadow Cabinet should be speaking up and taking the fight to the Tories. Which in fairness to that fat, stupid lump of arrogant lard, is a valid point that should be made to the largely silent people making up her majesty's opposition.

Furthermore, Prescott et al are more then entitled to speak, not least to defend their record. Don't get me wrong, I think their record is completely indefensible. But at a time when this lot has either departed to the backbenches, to mediocrity outside Parliament or to the Lords, what else do they have to do other than try to defend their horrific records before the verdict of history is finally returned (no doubt against them).

Besides, from a pragmatic point of view, isn't there something that could be taken by the incumbent Labour party leadership from those who led the party over the past two decades? Like how to win three General Elections on the trot? Again, I'd like the Labour party to go on failing as badly as it did in 2010, but if I was leading it, then I would be looking to understand Blair's successes at the ballot box rather than dismissing the most successful Labour leader there has ever been.

And the very fact that Prezza et al can get into the media so often is not only a testament to their high visibility, but also to the complete lack of visibility of the Shadow Cabinet. Despite following politics closely, I've never really heard of Meg Hillier or Mary Creagh. I know of Maria Eagle because she is one half of Parliament's twins, while Ivan Lewis has only really crossed my radar for his outrageous opinions on journalists. And while I know it is difficult for members of the Shadow Cabinet to get the attention they might want or need, a crucial step in the rehabiliation of the Labour party in the eyes of the wider electorate is that they become visible as members of the opposition. Only then will people begin the process of seeing them as a credible alternative government.

So it is all very well for LabourList to snipe at the fading stars of Labour's yesteryear as they pontificate on the national stage. But until the supposed stars in Labour's current firmament actually start to make an impression, Labour's vacuous followers shoudn't expect anything more than the likes of Prezza clogging up the airwaves.

Quote of the Day

2011-09-29T09:04:00.000+01:00

"I have no respect for the passion for equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy."

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, 1841-1935

Manic Street Preachers - This Is The Day

2011-09-28T23:16:00.001+01:00

Miliband Minor; Not a "Socialist Intellectual"

2011-09-28T05:05:00.003+01:00

To most people, Ed Miliband is a pompous, indignant potato wearing a bad wig. Not for Labour "thinker" Maurice "Halt Immigration" Glasman. According to that weapons grade bellend, the failing leader of the opposition is best described as follows:

He described the Labour leader, whose Marxist father was a university lecturer, as "socialist and an intellectual" with an "angry insurgent side".

The final description is perhaps the most laughable. Ed Miliband, a vacuous political lightweight, is not a "angry insurgent" in any way, shape of form. He is not the political equivalent of an IED. He is the political equivalent of a jobsworth promoted well beyond his actualy level of ability.

As for socialist - if he is a socialist, then he shouldn't be in the Labour party. That party became a caricature of itself a long time ago, and while it remains statist to its core, it lost its socialism when Michael Foot demonstrated that socialism was about as popular as mass dysentry in the 1983 election. A true socialist would join the Greens. Or maybe waste their time in the SWP. The Labour party is for naked political careerists who want to be seen as slightly more touchy- feely than the Tories. The Labour party remains a dangerous, statist organisation that should not be in power. But that does not make it socialist. Whether it was truly a socialist organisation is a debate for another day; here it is worth noting that a socialist in the Labour party is someone in entirely the wrong organisation.

And intellectual? Please. Modern politics is no place for a true intellectual. Just as it is no place for someone who genuinely has principles or a moral compass. In order to be a modern politician you need to switch off your brain and compromise both your principles and whatever morals you might have. That is why we end up with bland, empty political ciphers as our party leaders. Y'know, people like Clegg, Cameron and, well, Miliband Minor.

Since the moment he declared his candidacy for the Labour leadership, people have been trying to make out that Miliband Minor is some sort of return by the Labour party to its roots - that he is a new radical who is destined to bring about a brave, new socialist dawn for his party and then for his country. This plan is, of course, fatally flawed in one crucial way - it has Ed Miliband at its centre. A loathsome little individual who is so lacking in charisma and conviction that his own brother - a total dweeb in his own right - thought that the best thing for the party was to continue to fight against him. The likes of Glasman can make up whatever shit they want to about Miliband Minor; the fact of the matter is that the sooner they wake up and realise that Miliband Minor is a fucking disaster, the sooner they can actually get around to electing a credible leader. Not a socialist intellectual (nor should they want one, given how that socialist intellectual Foot did as leader), but a credible leader.

Labour: Still Not Getting It On Spending

2011-09-26T12:45:00.004+01:00

A new Labour sound bite (apparently):

Indeed, the Labour leadership have come up with a sound bite of their own on spending - "Building schools and hospitals did not create the deficit."

If it is a soundbite, then it is quite simply a terrible one. Firstly, from a tactical point of view, it doesn't work as it is entirely defensive. It is highlighting one of the areas in which Labour is most vulnerable, and then defensively claiming that parts of their operation while in government where not responsible for it.

Secondly, it wilfully ignores that fact that it wasn't just spending on the NHS and the education system that fucked the British economy. What about bailing out failed banks? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? They weren't exactly cheap, you know. And the Millennium Dome - that notorious, enormous breast built on the south bank of the Thames that once symbolised New Labour profilgacy - was actually the tip of an iceberg when it came to a government determined to spend as much as possible without it having any meaningful result.

Which is the third problem. Yeah, Labour spent a lot of money on education and health. Well fuck-a-doodle-doo. Such boasts would be far more impressive if that spending hadn't large been a waste of fucking money. The NHS remains largely fucked - a vast bureaucracy floundering under unthinking mangerialism that is capable of swallowing pretty much any amount of money thrown at it. The education system turns out school leavers unable to write a coherent sentence and utterly unprepared for adult life. Spending should only be championed if it has done something good; Labour should not be boasting about their spending in these areas since it was, with very few exceptions, utterly ineffective. Ok, so they are technically talking about building schools and hospitals. But what about those existing hospitals filled with overworked and underpaid medical professionals struggling to keep their heads above water? What about the fact that so many hospitals were so dirty that they actually became lethal for some patients? And what about the education system, which was focussed so much on hitting meaningless targets that it ceased to be effective at, well, educating? Yeah, you built new hospitals and new schools to throw into two failing systems. Well fucking done.

So this soundbite doesn't work on any number of levels, but there's a final problem that it is worth considering. The very fact that Labour remains unashamedly proud of its spending ways shows that it remains, as a party, utterly unfit for office. Labour needs to show that it understands the damage it did to this country while in power, and that it understands that the citizens of this country - and the majority of them never voted for Labour - are still paying for their idiotic spending in a number of different ways.

Elizabeth Warren and The Non-Existent Social Contract

2011-09-25T15:03:00.000+01:00

There's a video that has been doing the rounds recently to much adulation from my statist friends. It is of Elizabeth Warren, a would-be Senator campaigning for that bloated old fool Ted Kennedy's seat, talking about "the underlying social contract". Take a look, and then we'll start to dissect what Warren has to say:

I'm not particularly interested in her analysis of the economic woes of the US - yes, Bush Junior was a profligate wastrel when he was in power, but his replacement has done little to reduce the size of the deficit facing the US. In fact, he's made things worse. Rather, I want to look at this sort of underlying social contract argument that Warren uses.

First things first, on an initial listen/read, it is actually quite persuasive. On a surface level, she appears to be talking some sense. Yes, we are fundamentally and crucially individuals. But I know my life would be unpleasant and really rather short were I not part of a community. I'm not fantastically wealthy, and I never will be, but I do know the fact that I can live in relative comfort is not solely down to my own abilities. I need the interactions with others and the infrastructure of wider society in order to be able to attain and maintain my lifestyle. The super-rich are no different. But this acknowledgement of the essential inter-connectivity of modern life does not do the heavy lifting that Warren seems to think it does within her argument. Because it is all largely smoke and mirrors; drill down, and you start to see a lot of holes. So let's drill down.

Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

Perhaps nobody did get rich on their own. But a lot of rich people have done so because of talents and skills that, while not unique, are very much the exception rather than the rule. There are three main ways in which people get rich: having a great, marketable idea; being willing to take risks; and/or being willing to work really hard. Yes, they need other people, but it is also something within them that allows them to differentiate themselves from other people and create something that makes them very wealthy. As such, their relationship with those who assisted them in making them very wealthy is symbiotic. This is a crucial point: no-one got rich on their own, but equally no-one got rich purely because of the benefits of the wider society around them.

It is telling that Warren never actually demonstrates that we're not dealing with class warfare here. Sure, she goes on to argue for a social contract, but since she does not convincingly demonstrate the existence of that social contract, her case that it isn't class warfare is not even implicitly made.

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for;

And, of course, the factory-owner himself almost certainly paid for, and owing to the fact that they earn more money, probably paid more for than the average worker in the US and maybe even a greater percentage of his/her income.

Furthermore, there is something a little naive (at best) in this idea that goods get out to market through a publicly funded infrastructure. This may well be true, but what choice does the entrepreneur have? They are expected, under threat of imprisonment, to pay tax to the state, which then goes out and builds roads etc. Now, it could well be that an entrepreneur may want to fund his/her own infrastructure, private to his business, that could work more efficiently for him/her. But they have no choice but to hand over the funds that could be used for such a project to the government. Thus, they have no choice but to use the publicly funded infrastructure. As such, Warren's argument becomes essentially circular - you give money to the state, therefore you can only afford to use the public infrastructure, therefore you should pay for that infrastructure. And that argument is predicated on the far too seldom challenged notion that there should be no opt-outs from the tax system for those who do not wish to avail themselves of certain public services. Even if our entrepreneur could still afford to fund his/her own transport network, they would still expected to pay for the public one. Their hand is almost forced; they may as well use the publicly funded roads as otherwise they're going to end up paying twice for the roads they use.

you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate;

A spurious assertion that assumes our rich person doesn't hire privately educated people and that public education is of a high enough standard to truly benefit our entrepreneur friend. And, once again, our entrepreneur is also paying for that system to educate his/her workforce through taxation.

you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Hmmm. Because, since the advent of publicly funded police and fire services, there has never been a burglary or a building burning to the ground, right? Of course not; that's yet more nonsense. But Warren here seems to be falling into the naive trap of thinking that if the state funds and runs something, it is going to make us safe. That is, of course, nonsense on stilts. As factories investing in security guards and fire prevention systems shows. And, again, that entrepreneur ends up paying twice - once for a public system that is often bloated, inefficient and unable to do what it is supposed to be doing. The second time for a private back-up system designed to compensate for the inefficiencies of the public system they are forced to contribute to.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

I love the "God bless". Wonderfully patronising. Wouldn't worry too much about approaching those wealthy, big-money donors any more, Elizabeth. On the flipside, hate the phrase "pay forward". Just doesn't work at all..

But at the heart of all this is a sweeping, intellectual and ideological power grab. Warren is arguing that there is a social contract that underpins all we do, and that we need to adhere to it because we are part of society. But she is trying to do something even more bold - she is trying to claim that not only is there an underlying social contract, but she is the one who understands it. Therefore, we all need to fall in line with her statist policies about the redistribution of wealth through tax. So we've gone from an apparently innocuous argument about fairness in society to a much broader, and more dangerous, argument that is predicated on the idea that Elizabeth Warren has found the real truth about our society.

The big problem is that social contracts - underlying or otherwise - actually don't exist in any practical way. They are theoretical constructs of political philosophers designed to either offer an alternative to the status quo or to explain the transition from some sort of state of nature to the status quo. They are illustrations rather than actually part of the reality of modern politics. Therefore, to claim one exists and should actually be the guide for how much the state intervenes financially in the lives of its citizens is problematic to say the least. In part because we never signed up to any such social contract. Nor did our parents, or their parents, and so on. In fact, the person who signs us up - whether we like it or not - is someone like Warren. And she decides how we should interact with each other within society through nothing other than her own spurious and contestable argument and her own arrogance.

Which is the big problem I have with Warren, or at least the way in which she depicts herself in this video. Once you get beyond the folksy presentation of the case for redistributive taxation to the actual meat of what she is saying, you get a level of arrogance that I find very troubling. She's found the underlying contract. She knows best; about what is good for society, her supporters and for you. It is only a small step from finding that social contract to what Rousseau termed being forced to be free. On the basis of a contract you never signed up to because it has just been created as a rhetorical device for a campaigning politician, the state can demand more from you. And I know I can't be alone in finding that deeply concerning.

Doctor Who: Closing Time

2011-09-24T23:47:00.001+01:00

Well, I can confidently predict that some people really won't like this episode of Doctor Who. After the intensity and iconoclasm of the past few weeks, a sequel to The Lodger feels like a real change. And I'm all for it, quite frankly. Doctor Who has one of the most versatile story telling formats in the world. Why not have an episode about the trials of parenthood, working in a shop, the awkwardness of an alien in suburbia and the ways in which you can deal with a Cybermat with razor sharp, high-voltage teeth? Why not have the occasional episode that tries to be funny?

Especially since it succeeds in being funny. The baby called Stormageddon, the Doctor as toy shop owner, the confusion about his relationship with Craig, his ability to shush people - I could go on, but this was an episode based around banter and that banter worked. In the past, a lot of the comedy in Doctor Who has been based around, say, Tom Baker's inability to take the story seriously. The new series has instead employed genuinely funny writers - such as tonight's author, Gareth Roberts.

Yet it wasn't just about laughs. This was, in the few scenes they were in, quite an effective use of the Cybermen. Finally, perhaps for the first time since the series returned, someone clocked that the true horror of the Cybermen is in their conversion process. They will make you into monsters. Also, the damaged, worn out Cybermen somehow looked more effective than their perfect counterparts.

But for some, the relative lack of menace and the increased comedy quotient won't work. They'll complain and bellyache that it was all a bit silly, and that these episodes aren't a patch on The Doctor's Wife or Let's Kill Hitler. And in doing so they will miss the point that not every episode can be an iconoclastic classic, and sometimes you just have to let the good Doctor breathe, and have some fun in the process.

And if anything didn't work in this episode, it was the tacked on stuff about River Song. Yes, there was a need to remind people of the overall story arc, and there arguably was a need to create a cliffhanger for the no doubt epic season resolution next week. But do we really need a kid's nursery rhyme being sung in the background to point out what is, has, and will be going on? Why can't we just have the Doctor visiting his old mate and telling him that he is off to his death after this? Isn't that enough?

Still, this episode worked. I don't what every Doctor Who episode to be like this, but every now and again, it is a real delight to see my favourite show doing comedy so well.

Consistently Opposing the Death Penalty

2011-09-24T17:00:00.005+01:00

Over at the Telegraph there's a rather silly article accusing those who oppose the death penalty of being inconsistent. The gist of it can be summed up in the following paragraph:

The airbrushing of Brewer from yesterday’s heated discussions on the death penalty speaks volumes about the Troy Davis campaign. It seems pretty clear that it was motivated, not by a principled, across-the-board opposition to the state killing of citizens, but rather by campaigners’ desire to indulge in some very public moral preening. Unlike the Brewer execution, which was ugly and complicated, the Davis execution could be squeezed into a cosy moral narrative in which the state of Georgia was depicted as backward and racist and those who opposed the execution of Davis presented themselves as purer than pure, good and decent, and more than willing to prove it by writing tweets of concern every four or five minutes. What message should we take from this disparity in campaigning? That Troy Davis did not deserve to die but Lawrence Brewer did? Such moral flightiness, such brutal arbitrariness, reveals much about today’s very changeable campaigners against the death penalty.

Of course, I can only speak for myself, and I do concede that there may well be some people who oppose the death penalty who do fall into the description given above. But, even as I speak only for myself, I would like to say that the author is talking utter shit. Let me explain why.

I became aware of the execution of Brewer on the Thursday morning, when it was mentioned at the very bottom of an article on a news website on the Davis case (can't remember which one - think it may well have been the BBC site). I guess there wasn't quite the same publicity given to the Brewer case as there was to the Davis case. Gee, I wonder why that might be? Perhaps because Davis was almost certainly innocent while Brewer wasn't? Could that be part of the reason?

But that doesn't change the fact that I can categorically state that as repugnant and vile as I find Brewer and his crime, I don't believe that he should have been executed as the state should not have the right to kill its citizens, even if they have committed heinous crimes. Both Brewer and Davis should be alive today; one should be incarcerated for life, the other probably shoud have been released on appeal by now.

Does that mean that the anti-death penalty campaigners made a mistake in highlighting the Davis case rather than the Brewer one? No. There was an opporunity to save an almost certainly innocent man from the needle. It had to be prioritised over the other morally unacceptable death than happened on the same day. In part because there was a real chance that at least one execution could have been prevented, whereas I think nothing could have saved Brewer. But there is also a pragmatic side to publicising the Davis case over the Brewer one. People might sit up and listen to the ant-death penalty case when the hear the Davis story; the Brewer one will do little to change the minds of people if they think that certain people deserve to die. Just as in this country, the miscarriages of justice that were the Bentley case and the Evans case, not the executions of a Christie or a Haigh, that moved Britain away from hanging.

So there is no inconsistency in my personal opposition to the death penalty; but the pragmatist in me does understand that the way in which the US is most likely to leave the appalling and barbaric practice of executing criminals is through highlighting likely miscarriages of justice rather than the cases of thorougly unpleasant criminals.

The Killing of Troy Davis

2011-09-23T12:02:00.001+01:00

Now, my thoughts on the death penalty are on record, and there is nothing in the events surrounding the state-sanctioned murder of Troy Davis that has changed my mind in any way. In fact, the opposite is true. It isn't just the moral case against the death penalty that is brought into sharp relief by this execution, but also the extent to which the decision to execute, the run-up to any execution and the implementation of that execution all highlight how the death penalty is not about the emotionless and dispassionate administration of justice, but rather as tangled a mess as any system created and run by fallible humans inevitably ends up being.

Let's look at the evidence that led Davis - or more properly meant that Davis was led - into the execution chamber. The lack of a gun and of any DNA evidence meant the case against him at his original trial was far from conclusive. The fact that the vast majority of those witnesses who led to his conviction have recanted their testimony makes that evidence even less conclusive. And the fact that one of those two remaining witnesses who have not recanted is also a suspect in the murder that earned Davis the death penality is yet another indicator that all is not right in the conviction that led to the execution of Davis. Had I been on the jury at Davis' initial trial, I probably wouldn't have convicted. I certainly wouldn't based on the evidence (of lack thereof) floating around just before he got the needle. It appears a man who was most likely innocent was put to death in the state of Georgia. Of course, I can't know for certain that he was innocent - indeed, that level of knowledge is arguably impossible except for the murderer and the murdered. But we've not talking here about a sentence that can be reversed. Davis died. He was killed by the state. There is no going back on this. Now, I understand that it is perfectly possible that we will never come up with a justice system that can guarantee that it is not convicting the innocent. But that is precisely why we shouldn't have the death penalty - an innocent in prison can be released. An innocent in the ground can't.

Yet there are other reasons some argue should make us ok with the death penalty. After all, with the introduction of the lethal injection, it surely became just a case of putting people to sleep. Of course, the idea that humans should just be put to sleep, like sick dogs, is inhumane to some - even if they are (apparently) guilty of the most heinous crimes. But even the supposedly painless lethal injection can end up being anything but. Take the execution that had to be abandoned as the executioners couldn't get the IV line into their victim's veins. Or the prisoner whose execution lasted for 90 minutes. Or the condemned man who had to be given a double dose of the lethal chemical cocktail. Or even the poor sod whose execution went on for so long that he had to be given a toilet break*. I think all of these could be seen to be cruel and unusual punishments, but they also highlight that the notion of the clean, sterile, painless execution is a myth. And that's before we get onto whether the lethal injection is actually painless. Or the fact that its creator argues that it is flawed because he never realised when he helped to set up the execution method that "complete idiots" would be "administering the drugs." As for the deterrence argument, the research is far from conclusive. The experts can't agree. And when it comes to taking the lives of potentially innocent people, is a little consensus on the wider implications on society too much to ask?

So to summarise, we have a system that executes people who are almost certainly innocent. It isn't, at least in its existing forms, painless or humane - not least because it is implemented by people incapable of doing so properly. And is it a deterrent? Fuck knows. Yet it is something that doesn't make sense that can also carry an appalling cost, as the Troy Davis case shows. And as a result I can't help but think that we shouldn't be debating the potential reintroduction of the death penalty on this side of the Atlantic - rather, they should be debating it's abolition on the other side of that ocean.

*And isn't that a good indicator of the total insanity of executions? They pump the victim full of lethal drugs, but he get's a bathroom break so he doesn't piss himself.

REM - Off to "The Great Beyond"

2011-09-21T21:16:00.000+01:00

2011-09-21T09:27:00.001+01:00

Get involved, while you still can. Because with this one, it could end up being too late far too soon.

Torchwood: Miracle Day: The Blood Line

2011-09-21T08:38:00.004+01:00

Man alive, that final episode of what has been a tedious and largely pointless series was shit. A magical blood transfusion saved the day. Thank fuck that I’ve wasted circa ten hours of my life waiting for that utterly convincing and in no way bullshit resolution. Thanks, people, for putting on the small screen perhaps the perfect example of how not to close off ten weeks worth of TV. In years to come, those teaching script-writing at universities and colleges throughout the world should point to this episode as a perfect example of how not to do it. And by it, I mean pretty much everything this sorry farrago set out to achieve.

It seems almost pointless to sit here and pick through all the ways in which the final episode failed to work. Yes, it was shit, but that should be evident to all but the terminally stupid and RTD. Let’s instead try to take a helicopter view and figure out just why what at first appeared to be quite a promising series ended up being such a steaming turd pile of absolute bilge.

The first reason is that if you’re going to write a Torchwood story, you should probably place the Torchwood team at the very heart of it. Not on the outskirts of the story, and not so they end up appearing as a tacked on afterthought. For example, Captain Jack is meant to be the hero of the series – not some second rate action man who has to be removed from said action because he’s suddenly become all vulnerable. Likewise, Gwen started off as an interesting character trying to cope with the strange world in which she found herself. To turn her into a chippy Welsh bird who just wants to chin everything that moves is to remove any residual interest in her or her character.

The second reason is that if you’re going to have a high concept story arc, then work out all the logical ramifications of it and also think about how to dramatically present it. So, if you are going to have a story that is in part about politicians deciding to introduce death camps, then it is probably worth devoting some of your ample run time to depicting those politicians reaching such an egregious conclusion. Likewise, don’t reach episode six and then suddenly forget (to a massive extent) about said death camps. Your regular viewers – the poor sods who made this whole thing possible in the first fucking place – will notice.

And thirdly, think about the pacing of your piece. If your most nightmarish image is the cooking of the terminally ill, then don’t reveal all halfway through your series. Build up to it across all ten episodes – don’t spunk it away by episode five. Because once Vera was incinerated, the whole piece became a question of “ok, that’s where this is going – and can we get there already please?”

The fourth, and for this post final, reason is that if you are going to write damn near 10 hours of TV then you shouldn’t be fucking well making it up as you go along. Nothing wrong with plotting it all out and working out where you want to get to and how you are going to get there.

But the fact that this series of Torchwood turned out to be a ripe example of an arse biscuit shouldn’t really be a surprise given what has gone before. The excellent (but still far from flawless) Children of Earth now appears to be the exception rather than the rule. The simple truth is – if they haven’t already had the option taken from them by this sorry farrago of absolute shite – the producers shouldn’t make any more Torchwood. Their heart isn’t in it and/or they are not capable of it.

2011-09-21T05:16:00.002+01:00

Yes, because the problem is, and always has been, a lack of spending, rather than - say - an ongoing refusal to reduce taxes so people can actually spend their own sodding money.

Fucking, fucking idiots.

Doctor Who: The God Complex

2011-09-18T20:22:00.001+01:00

Let's be very clear on this - in order to be good, Doctor Who does not have to be original. Much of the early output of the Tom Baker era clearly shows this - they merrily plundered the back catalogue of much of Hammer and Universal's horror films to great effect. Taking a familiar scenario and dragging it into the Doctor's world often works very well. And that's what The God Complex is - good without being original. Because anyone who has seen Kubrick's version of The Shining or, to a lesser extent, the film 1408 will feel that last night's episode is somewhat familiar. But by no means in a bad way. I've said it before about the adventures of the good Doctor and no doubt I'll get to say it again, but if you're going to plunder from the archives, plunder from the best. And given the fantastic success of Stephen King's books and (some of) the movies based on those works, Doctor Who would have been missing a trick if it never dipped into his canon of work.

The decor of the ersatz hotel, the different rooms containing different nightmares, the composition of the shots - this was clearly the Doctor staying in the Overlook. And, generally speaking, it worked. Partly because it was more than just rehashing The Shining. The story understood that nightmares take on different forms. Yes, clowns (the fear of one Sarah Jane Smith, oddly enough) and Weeping Angels were obvious choices. But the disappointed father and the mocking girls were very different, and summed up that it isn't just monsters that people fear. There was a certain poignancy as well in the idea that Amy's nightmare was having to be Amelia Pond again, and await the return of her Raggedy Doctor. Then the twist that it was about faith rather than nightmares helped to give what could have been a very simple story an extra layer of depth.

And there were some other good points as well. Rita worked well as a companion who never was - and the Eleventh Doctor's reaction to her death was far more effective than the likely response of his immediate predecessor (who probably would have stood around looking forlorn rather than raging). And Smith's Doctor continues to excel over all - witness his goading of Gibbis around the slyness of the coward (which was, of course, borne out by that character's actions).

That said, this was good rather than great. In part because it was so derivative. You want to be great? You need to be more original than this. Part of that originality is not stealing the resolution of another (genuinely great) Who story - in this case The Curse of Fenric (something possibly referenced in that fact that the Doctor forced Amy to lose faith in him in room 7). Likewise, I don't doubt that the Ponds will be back, despite their apparent departure at the end of this episode. There's no real problem with giving them a false leaving, but here it just felt anti-climactic - not least since Amy has been in near constant danger ever since she met the Doctor (as have all of his companions). Overall, perhaps the biggest problem is that this was essentially a mood piece, but it lacked the time to really build up that mood. One of the reasons why The Shining works is its run time. You can't create the same claustrophobic environment in just 45 minutes - especially when you've got to have a long departure scene at the end between two old friends.

But, before we go away to await the arrival of Closing Time, it is perhaps worth pausing for a moment to think about what the Doctor saw in his room - or, to be clearer, what the Elventh Doctor saw in Room 11. There was the sound of the Cloister Bell and the Doctor almost seemed to have anticipated what was in there. So what did he see? Himself? After all, he was pretty negative about himself in Amy's Choice. But the Cloister Bell signifies danger. Danger for what? Given the Doctor is rushing towards his death, it could well be a portent of that...

Defending Sarah Palin

2011-09-16T17:05:00.000+01:00

I'm guessing that if I looked out the window I'd see pigs looping the loop in the air, because I'm about to do something that I never thought I'd do and makes me faintly nauseous. I'm going to defend the crass Sarah Palin.

Defend her in a limited way, of course. Defend her against the recent allegations that are perhaps best summed up in this paragraph:

As for these disclosures, McGinniss claims that Palin snorted cocaine off an overturned 55-gallon drum during a snowmobile excursion, slept with college (and later NBA) basketball star Glenn Rice when she was an unmarried 23-year-old sports reporter (McGinniss talked to Rice for the book and he confirmed the relationship) and had an affair with Brad Hanson, Todd Palin's business partner, apparently as payback for her husband's infidelities. (Both Palin and Hanson, he notes, have denied the affair.)

Now I have no problems with these sort of allegations. The fact that Palin has snorted coke and slept around a bit is her own business, frankly. I don't even care if she has been having affairs behind her husband's back - that is between him and her. None of these reflects on her ability to be president. What does - and the reason why I think she is horrifically unqualified for high office - is her almost all-encompassing ignorance combined with the fact that she perfectly represents the empty and dangerous politics of style rather than substance. The problem is what she does in public, not what she has done in private. The problem, to put it in a much more profane way, is not who she has apparently been fucking, but the fact that she is a fucking idiot.

So there it is - a defence of Palin from someone who cannot stand her. But it is utterly depressing that what will probably finish the Palin show once and for all is not the fact that she has time and time again paraded her stupidity in public, but the utter irrelevancies of what she may have done in her private life.

2011-09-16T13:49:00.002+01:00

This article, which spoofs religion, intelligent design and Richard Dawkins while coming up with new comical euphemisms about breasts and bums, is an testament to the ongoing genius of The Daily Mash.

2011-09-14T17:42:00.003+01:00

A couple of house-keeping rules -

1. If you want a link here on the Strangeness, e-mail me your website/blog address and I will take a look. Bear in mind, though, that it will take more than just wanting a link to make me give you one. Being an interesting site that is generally relevant to the content of this blog would be a good way to start.

2. If you do insist on dumping a link in the comments section, please make sure that it relates to what the post is about. If it doesn't, chances are I will delete your comment without warning. I'm not here to promote your blog/site.

That is all. As you were.

Car Insurance and Statism

2011-09-14T08:30:00.001+01:00

The problem with a multi-author blog devoted to liberty is that people, almost by definition, have to be free to write what they want. And that includes, as this post at the Orphans of Liberty shows, giving them the right to write illiberal bilge.

At the end of a slightly rambling and definitely racist post, the Quiet_Man writes:

It strikes me that the system used if we must legally hold car insurance needs to be overhauled to a state where it would be difficult to own a car and not have insurance. Or more draconian would simply be the crushing of any vehicle found being driven without insurance or a license and jail time for the uninsured.
Yes I know that isn’t very liberal of me, but I do believe that if I abide by the rules (unfair as they sometimes are) then others should abide by them too, particularly when the cost of not abiding by the rules hits me in the pocket.

It strikes me that if the system needs to be overhauled the best way in which to do so is not to increase the ability of the government to seize private property and imprison its citizens - especially if that system of rules is unfair. Anything else is fundamentally statist, and fundamentally illiberal. Yeah, car insurance is far too expensive and yeah, the price is forced up by those who drive, and then cause accidents, while uninsured. But the answer is not greater state control, but rather a real attempt to reduce state intervention in the cost of getting cars and drivers on the road. Reduce road tax. Reduce the staggeringly high tax on petrol. And yeah, review the nature of car insurance in this country, which does play into the hands of insurance companies. But more car crushing and more people going to prison is nothing more than the solution of the draconian, illiberal statist.

George Osborne and the Hooker

2011-09-13T17:50:00.000+01:00

Guido, with his customary desire to pursue and publicise any political story that offers any sort of titillation whatsoever, has been pursuing the George Osborne allegations with his customary salacious zeal. If you want all the details then head over to his site and have a look around some of his more recent posts - I've no great desire to rehash it all here.

The questions is, though, whether Osborne will survive these allegations. Realistically, I think he will. If John Prescott can cling to office despite boffing his secretary at the taxpayer's expense then Osborne can survive allegations made about his conduct prior to attaining high office.

But it isn't just that. We're dealing with George Osborne here. There's something about George that makes him come across as deeply unpleasant. I think it is the fact that he has the appearance and demeanour of a bloated puff adder. Therefore, any scandal involving him doesn't really come as a surprise. Seriously, if I heard that he spent his spare time punching old women in the face, I wouldn't be surprised. And that will work in Osborne's favour. The expectations about his behaviour are so low that he could probably get away with just about anything. The Daily Mash have their tongue planted firmly in their cheek with this one, but there is more than an element of truth in the idea that this sort of scandal actually and perversely (no pun intended) humanise him a bit.

Make no mistake about it, this will be embarrassing for him - almost regardless of whether it is true or not. But career ending? I doubt it somehow.

Torchwood: Miracle Day: The Gathering

2011-09-12T09:20:00.001+01:00

So, stuff happened. The plot moved forward. We saw the Blessing, found out that Julie Kitzinger is right (about what we do not know), saw Oswald Danes (now a leering pantomime villain) get to Wales despite being the world’s most wanted man, and also witnessed the sluggish cliff-hanger to the previous week’s episode being utterly dodged. The incapable Esther managed to get Jack to Scotland. Yeah, and monkeys are flying out of my anus.

It would have to be something pretty bloody spectacular to impress me at this point given the general standard of this series – this episode was not that. It was largely scene setting for a finale I no longer care about. And it seems pointless to rant away further at what has been a grossly disappointing series of Torchwood. Yeah, it has been shit. But realistically, we’ve known that for weeks. Now it is, at long last, limping towards a final episode that, for a much less self-indulgent series, should have happened circa six episodes ago. Dare I hope for something interesting to round off the series? Well, yeah, I can hope – but that’s about it. Because we all know that, even if the finale is perhaps the best bit of TV all year, it is still going to come across as an anti-climax. This hasn’t been Children of Earth. It hasn’t even been Cyberwoman. And even if we have a finale that convincingly wraps everything up and perhaps even kills off a few regulars (Esther would be great) it won’t change the fact that the vast majority of this series has been tedious padding.

Because of “the Miracle” people live forever. Well, it feels like this series has been going on forever. The fact that it is about to end is a real blessing. Just shame that it comes with such a sense of tedium and anti-climax. Go on, Miracle Day, knock my socks off. But even if you do, chances are it will be too little, too late.

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited

2011-09-11T08:10:00.002+01:00

Doctor Who never used to do this. Seriously, there would be all sorts of stories presenting all sorts of menace with varying degrees of effectiveness. But to genuinely have a story that messes with the idea of time travel and does interesting things as a result was more than a rarity – it barely happened. Now, in the era of Steven Moffat, it is fast becoming the norm rather than the exception.

Which is the biggest flaw The Girl Who Waited has. In just about any other era, this would have been a little gem of an episode. A lovely little rarity. A quiet classic. In this era, it is almost a case of plus ca change. A story where the companion effectively dies? Yep, Rory has comprehensively covered that off. A story where a companion waits for ages for the one they love? Yep, Amy is once again chasing her husband on this one. Put this story in Tennant’s first season and you have a classic. Put this in Smith’s second season and you have something that feels a bit too familiar.

Am I being curmudgeonly? Of course. There was so much to like here. The handbots were a great idea; they want to help, but in doing so are just as lethal as Daleks. The one converted into an ersatz Rory (the “disarmed” one) was a nice touch. The older Amy was perfectly realised, both in terms of the make-up and Gillan’s bitter performance. And that final scene for Older Amy – where she was effectively put to sleep by the robots – brought a lump to my throat. We now know the extent to which Amy loves Rory, (and it is Rory she loves, not the Doctor).

Furthermore, this was a Doctor-lite episode that did not let it show. The Doctor was constantly present, guiding Rory and being at the heart of the show despite the fact that the lead actor was mostly elsewhere (performing in Episode 12, in case anyone is interested). And he should wear his new(ish) coat more. It works for him. Hell, I’d like a coat like that. Much more so than a tweed jacket… But not only was this a Doctor-lite episode, but it was also one where clearly the cash was strapped and only really the leading trio were available – yet it still worked. And that is no mean feat. Don’t believe me? Well, just picture a 45 minute story that just contains the Sixth Doctor and Peri. If you’re anything like me, you’ve just been a little bit sick in your mouth.

So should I be griping at this episode? Possibly not. It was a stab at originality that worked on so many levels. In fact, its biggest problem was that it is in what I would strongly argue is a golden era for the show. Put this episode just about anywhere else in the show’s history and we would all be praising it for its story-telling ability and its desire to confound expectations. Put it in an era like this one and it becomes a little bit less special. But that’s fine. It is praising with faint damnation to say that this episode is not quite as original or as good as some of those that have preceded it. It may well be true that it isn’t as good as, say, The Doctor’s Wife or Let’s Kill Hitler. But so what? Very few Doctor Who stories are that good.

The Girl Who Waited...

2011-09-10T22:09:00.002+01:00

...will have to wait a little bit longer. Review to follow, though, rest assured. And it will appear long before the review of the most recent - and utterly terrible - episode of Torchwood.

Quote of the Day

2011-09-09T09:50:00.000+01:00

In general, it can probably be said that the conservative does not object to coercion or arbitrary power so long as it is used for what he regards as the right purposes. He believes that if government is in the hands of decent men, it ought not to be too much restricted by rigid rules. Since he is essentially opportunist and lacks principles, his main hope must be that the wise and the good will rule — not merely by example, as we all must wish, but by authority given to them and enforced by them. Like the socialist, he is less concerned with the problem of how the powers of government should be limited than with that of who wields them; and, like the socialist, he regards himself as entitled to force the value he holds on other people.

F.A Hayek, writing on why he was not a conservative (and explaining why I am not one either)

A gentle reminder...

2011-09-08T09:54:00.000+01:00

...to charities everywhere - if you employ aggressive, pushy chuggers to hassle me as I walk down the street minding my own business, you will never, ever get a penny from me. Ever.

No shit, Sherlock.

2011-09-07T13:32:00.002+01:00

From the BBC:

Twenty high-profile economists have urged the government to drop the top 50p tax rate, which they say is doing "lasting damage" to the UK economy. In a letter to the Financial Times, they say it should be axed "at the earliest opportunity" to boost growth.

Of course, I'm always slightly suspicious when I hear any group of economists advocating any particular course of action. After all, economics is not as scientific as some of its practitioners would have us believe, and sometimes it seems if you find the right combination of economists you could get them to back just about anything. Right now, there's probably a cabal of left of centre economists plotting an intervention that states something along the lines of an elimination of the 50p top tax rate would lead to economic devastation.

But what is being cited in this instance is intuitively plausible. After all, it doesn't make sense to demand people spend more money to stimulate growth at the same time as taking more money from them. And any basic analogy can demonstrate how this is intuitively plausible. If you give your kid £1 rather than 50p, they can spend twice as much, no? Then we hear speculation that those around the Chancellor want to eliminate the top rate but haven't quite worked out how to do so.

Here's a hint: just fucking well do it. You're in government, for God's sake, and you have a good few years until the next General Election (in all likelihood). Take the plunge, and actually do something worthwhile. Because what will sink this government's economic strategy is not that tax cuts are bad (they're not - they are necessary and need to be wider and deeper) but the fact that spending cuts are not being matched by tax cuts. Which means that we, the poor bastard taxpayers, are being expected to pay the same or more for less. Cut taxes, cut spending and give us more of a chance to spend. Then the government will start to see the sort of growth that is currently eluding them.

Torchwood - Miracle Day - End of the Road

2011-09-06T14:53:00.000+01:00

So, two good things happened in this episode of Torchwood. Firstly, someone died, and thus the overall story was advanced. As such, this episode created for the first time in weeks the feeling that there actually is going to be some sort of resolution to this story, and that the whole thing won't just stop suddenly when the series runs out of episodes. Of course, prior to that death we had a long scene of poorly written, directed and performed exposition, and afterwards we had a lot of pure padding that reached its nadir when three of the lead characters had to touch the magic floor in order not to be heard by the nasty CIA agents. But whatever. I'll happily cling on to the minor move forward in the overall story arc as a positive sign that things might get better.

The second good thing that happened in this episode is the arrival of Allen Shapiro, a sweary, intolerant type who rightly had little patience of Gwen and therefore came across as the most effective character in this otherwise rather sorry farrago. No doubt he'll vanish from the face of Miracle Day moving forward because he is just too interesting.

Two good things. In an episode that lasted for about 50 minutes, but felt far longer. Two good things - and then that's it. For the rest of the episode we had to watch Rex do very little other than remain close-minded and generally quite ignorant, Gwen doing little else that raging like an irate teenager (and just as effectively) and Esther deciding that the best thing to do with a mortally wounded Captain Jack was to drive him round the arse end of nowhere while sobbing. These people are meant to be the people saving the world yet they act like inept children. Christ.

Okay, let me break cover and say what has been on my mind for weeks but has reached bursting point after the eighth episode of this tedious series - this isn't working. It isn't working at all. It is at best lacklustre, and at worst seriously shit. It has been a massive disappointment. It has become an effort to watch it each and every week, let alone review it. The only thing keeping me going is the fact that I've already invested so much time in it that I may as well watch the final couple of episodes to find out where it is all going (if anywhere). I still hope (against hope) to be proven wrong in my assumption that this is just going to all be a massive disappointment by the final two episodes. But with each episode that goes by with no signs of real improvement that hope dies a little bit more. Prove me wrong, RTD. Prove me wrong, Torchwood. Although I suspect that this is beyond all of your abilities now.

2011-09-05T09:16:00.000+01:00

Blogging will be intermittent at best over the next couple of weeks. Posts may appear, they may not. I'm pretty sure that, either way, the world will keep on training.

Doctor Who - Night Terrors

2011-09-03T21:39:00.000+01:00

First up, let me say this - there is nothing wrong with Night Terrors. Had I seen this as a kid, I would have loved it. I'd have wanted to watch it over and over again because it does have some striking images and, crucially, it is also very creepy in places. But the adult in me - the jaded critic who has somehow wound up writing Doctor Who for free each week (if anyone wants to pay me to do this, please feel free) can't help but think that Night Terrors was an entertaining way to spend 45 minutes but nothing more.

Part of the problem was it is incredibly derivative. It combines elements of Ghostwatch with Sapphire and Steel. It also robs the rich heritage of Doctor Who a lot as well. The whole thing - especially the human/doll transformation and the parent needs to love child resolution - is pretty much The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances rewritten once again. The dolls house thing has been done before as part of the Hornet's Nest series, and the music was very reminiscent of the creepy girl theme from Remembrance of the Daleks. Yeah, it is becoming increasingly difficult to write original Who, and if you are going to rob, rob from the best. But if you want to create something genuinely iconic, you need to come up with something more than a greatest hits package.

Then there's Daniel Mays. I don't know why so many people rate him as an actor. To me, he's not very convincing. And here that is brought into sharp relief by the fact that he is acting opposite Matt Smith, who is in his element once again as the Time Lord. The problem is that Smith - playing a young/old wise yet silly alien - comes across as far more convincing than Mays - who is playing a human father. Plus Mays is surely the very a much more deserving recipient of Amy's frequent jibe to Rory - he really does have a stupid face.

Speaking of Amy and Rory, way to write them out of the episode. They spent pretty much the whole time exploring a house. In the dark. Yeah, it is all very atmospheric and threatening, but they did nothing to drive the story forward and nothing to resolve it. They were basically given busy work to do. Plus, as soon as Amy was converted into a doll, the threat of such a conversion was neutralised. We instantly knew that the conversion would be reversed.

Which leads me to another gripe - why is it becoming increasingly the norm to have Doctor Who stories where no-one dies? The reason why it was so effective at the end of The Doctor Dances is because it was the exception, not the rule. The problem with a lack of death, though, is that it makes everything less threatening. The doll conversion is a classic example - why not have the greasy, odious landlord permenantly converted into a little wooden doll? That is both a fitting fate and a memorable one. And please don't tell me that it is because this is a family show - just go watch Earthshock or Revelation of the Daleks and look at the body count there.

I know, I know, it sounds like I am just whining and sniping at something that, while not perfect, is still the best thing on TV. And I'd like to stress again that there is Night Terrors isn't a clunker, and is a perfectly acceptable outing for the nation's favourite Time Lord. But it could have been a story for any Doctor at any point in the show's history. It is Doctor Who by the numbers. And coming after the iconoclastic and utterly mad Let's Kill Hitler, it can't help but end up being a little bit nondescript. It's fine, but as a hyper-critical adult, it's nothing more than that.

Garry: Still failing to defend the death penalty

2011-09-03T10:45:00.001+01:00

Over at the curiously named Politics on Toast, James Garry takes exception to one of my posts on the death penalty. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is this post that provokes his article; the one that takes him to task. There is a lot in his article, and the vast majority of it I do not care about. However, there are some points that demand rebuttal and clarification. This first is Garry’s attempt to overcome my objection that some criminals commit their crimes without really considering the potential consequences on the grounds that they do not expect to be caught. He writes in response to this assertion:

Nonsense. TNL seems to suggest that criminals can only know the consequences of their actions after they are caught.

Nope. I suggest that criminals are not thinking about the consequences of their actions because they do not expect to be caught – a position that is intuitively plausible given how many people commit crimes that carry hefty sentences.

I think very few criminals are so boundlessly optimistic or boundlessly stupid not to impute the legal consequences of their illegal actions. We are all potential criminals. I am a potential criminal.

Yes, Garry, you are a potential criminal. We all are. But there are degrees of potential criminality, aren’t there? And there are degrees of the potentiality of all of us to actually commit crimes. Just as there are differences in the extent to which any one of us believe we will be caught for any crime that we might commit, and there are varying degrees to which we all understand the consequences of any potential crime. To argue otherwise is to deny the nature of the individual. Which, surely, Garry does not wish to do. Oh, wait:

I know the possible consequences of any given criminal action. I don’t see how actual criminals are any different.

Yeah, Garry. You are representative of all actual criminals. They all think in the same way you do. They all know the consequences of their actions. Except there is no-one quite like James Garry, and different individuals will have different motivations and perceptions.

For TNL’s argument to have a kernel of credibility then every single murderer would have to be completely blank about the consequences of his actions. If that were the case then we could agree that capital punishment is worthless because the criminal is impervious to its threat. Plainly this isn’t so. Some murderers may be so far removed from reality that they are oblivious to the promise of the noose, but most murderers are rational and aware of the law and of the consequences of their actions.

Nope, this is toss, I'm afraid. For my argument to “have a kernel of credibility” there has to be just one killer who does not take into account the potential consequences of their actions. Which, as the example of Ian Brady in my original post, demonstrates is possible. But Garry sort of acknowledges in his article, before going on to write:

There are no doubt others still who would not be deterred by the death penalty from murdering. I am not a Utopian. I do not believe in a perfect world of perfect solutions. If we did not use human systems because they were imperfect, we’d never use any of them. TNL, and people like him, do not understand this point:
We do not use deterrents against people who cannot be deterred. We use deterrents against those who can be deterred. To abandon the use of capital punishment because it does not deter the Ian Bradys of this world is as bit like not fitting your car with airbags because airbags are not 100% effective. I wonder, with the use of this easy-to-understand analogy, TNL might grasp this very simple point.

Oh, how I do love to be condescended and patronised by someone who thinks that they know better than me with no real evidence as to why they might actually do so bar their own stridently expressed opinions. I do understand that we have to use imperfect systems – not being a total fucking idiot makes understanding this point really rather easy. But it is one thing not to use an imperfect system and quite another to endow an imperfect political system with the right to take the lives of innocent citizens after going through the imperfect system of a jury trial. I’ll try to resist the cheap jibe that this sort of simple argument seems to be beyond Garry and his ilk.

Unfortunately, the analogy does not work as there is no real connection between airbags and an innocent person being hanged. It is a classic straw man argument, and deserves to be treated largely with contempt.

I don’t see how it is nonsense. It does make me angry when people say that capital punishment is wrong because it involves the State murdering its own citizens. It makes me angry because TNL – probably without much thought – gives parity to the murderer and the murderer’s victim.

No I don’t. This completely misrepresents my opinion and what I have repeatedly said. I give parity to the innocent killed by a murderer and an innocent killed by the state on the grounds that both are, well, innocent. The central point is the innocence, and until someone can provide a system whereby innocent people won’t face the noose, then this remains an essential point and a highly convincing rebuttal to those who favour the return of the death penalty.
And, for the record, I have given a lot of fucking thought to all aspects of the death penalty while researching and debating it across decades. This sort of cheap gibe from Garry really pisses me off. It is exactly the same as when he says that people have not read what he has written or not understood it. It is the fascinating arrogance of a man who assumes that he is right and that others cannot have an equally valid position. It runs the risk of making debating with him compellingly pointless.

The Nameless Libertarian’s ultimate objection to State execution is a libertarian one – that the State should not be vested with the power to murder.

No, my ultimate objection to state murder is a moral one – as explained here. But as an add-on, yeah, I don’t think we should give the state the right to murder their citizens.

I do not understand libertarians. They automatically think the powers of the State must be limited.

Nope. We argue that the state should be limited based on the fact that it has been historically shown that the state is more often than not inept, bureaucratic and inhuman.

Well, I believe that the State should be limited but I also accept that the State must have some power to do certain things some of the time. As much as I hated nannying New Labour, I think the only good thing they did was to implement the smoking ban. Of course, this is a State intrusion and many, including Claire Porthouse, think it is a horrendous act of State intrusion. Maybe it is. But I wonder if the ban extends into the future, that we might realise the goodness of this act of State intrusion in a hundred year’s time or so.

Of course, it is completely inappropriate to compare the potential state murder of an innocent person with the smoking ban. As for that ban itself, it is possible that in the future people do look back on the smoking ban as a great step forward, especially if biased history books present it as such. That won’t change the reality of the situation – that people are told that they cannot choose, despite being responsible adults, to smoke in certain places. It won’t change the fact that this policy seems to be almost intentionally trying to make the people of this country more bovine than ever. And there is a terrible irony in someone advocating the potential prolonging of the lives of some through the smoking ban at the same time as embracing the concept of the noose for some innocent people is good.

Giving the State the power to execute criminals who ruin the lives of innocent people is good.

But that is not the point, as surely Garry knows. The point is that innocent people as well as criminals will be executed. Is that OK? Of course it isn’t. But it is a fundamental point that Garry's sweeping statement ignores.

Why assume that all State power is bad?

State power is, for most libertarians, a necessary evil. Therefore, as an evil, it needs to be restricted as much as possible. And it certainly does not need to be extended to give the state the right to potentially kill innocent people if the right legal loopholes have been jumped through.

If that is so, why bother voting?

Err, to support the party offering the least state intervention in our lives?

Why bother supporting the political parties who become and organise the State.

I don’t support any party, but I’d imagine it is for the reason mentioned immediately above.

Why even bother pretending to be a “libertarian”? Just become an anarchist instead.

Because being a libertarian is different to being an anarchist. In fact, I’ve written about this in detail here. But put simply a libertarian sees minimal state intervention as a necessary evil. An anarchist sees the state as an unnecessary evil. This really is basic political theory. And to conflate a refusal to support the right of the state to execute innocent people with anarchism is a crude and ultimately unconvincing rhetorical position.

But that’s enough on Garry and the death penalty. It should be clear where Garry and I stand with regard to this issue, and I personally have better things to do moving forward than rehashing the arguments in my posts on the death penalty thus far. The death penalty is wrong and any attempts to bring it back should be rigorously fought.

Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood

2011-09-02T13:34:00.001+01:00

Ah, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood - I had such high hopes for you prior to broadcast. And you took those hopes and quite simply pissed them away. Because this two part story is, for me, the worst Eleventh Doctor story and the worst Silurian story. Yep, this one is, for me, worse than Warriors of the Deep.

There are two key reasons for this bold statement. The first is that this one is simply too long. The first episode, while aspiring to be atmospheric, is actually just elongated padding. There’s no point in basing your episode around a slow build up to the monster when we already know who the monsters are going to be. It’s a bit like one of those episodes of the old series that would be called something “…of the Daleks”, and then the cliff-hanger to the episode would be the supposed surprise of the Daleks being in it. The second episode is largely boring until the end when Rory is killed for the first time – but even that flash of genius seems bolted on for no real reason. Yeah, the Eleventh Doctor has other ropey stories. But at least Victory of the Daleks (Behold the menace of the fat Daleks!) and The Curse of the Black Spot have the decency to be half the length.

Then there’s the Silurians. Anyone who hasn’t been enthralled by the superb Doctor Who and the Silurians probably sat through this edition of the show wondering what all the fuss is about. Here, they are nothing more than the monster of the week determined to plough through as many monster related clichés as possible. Oh look, there’s the misguided scientist. The angry warrior. The kindly, wise old leader. Is this really Doctor Who or have I stumbled into an unusually half-arsed episode of Star Trek?

Yeah, there are other problems – including the script, which seems to turn plot holes and lapses of logic into an art form. I mean, who would honestly have the slightly chippy kissogram Amy Pond negotiating a peace deal between humanity and the Silurians? And this is probably Smith’s worst performance – although he’s not aided by a script that expects him to use the phrase “squeaky bum time” with a straight face. But what I really resent here is the wasted opportunity to do something interesting with the Silurians – who are genuinely one of the most striking of the Doctor’s adversaries. Every other returning monster to the new series has been reinvented in some way. The Silurians are just made blander than bland in this instalment.

If you want to see a decent modern interpretation of the Silurians, I’d recommend A Good Man Goes To War. Seriously, the limited screen time afforded to just one of that species in that episode does far more for that race than the whole of this two part misfire.

And that’s it for the clunkers. For the next five weeks they’ll be reviews of new Doctor Who stories – and here’s hoping that none of those episodes end up in the Clunkers categories. And after that? Well, I have an idea for another series of Who related posts to bridge the gap between The Wedding of River Song and the Christmas Special… But we’ll have to wait and see.

Idiot of the Day

2011-09-01T08:31:00.004+01:00

Apparently, atheists are so dangerous that they need to be on a register

Internet pastor Mike Stahl has come up with an interesting idea to assist Christians in day-to-day life. According to Stahl, the nation should set up an “Atheist Registry” in order to provide an updated list of anyone who is a “self-proclaimed atheist,” just as you would do for people convicted of sex crimes or associated with terrorist groups.

...

Although Stahl’s registry would only have a name and perhaps picture of the avowed, publicly declared atheist, and no physical address, he also believes that knowing who are the atheists in your neighborhood could lead to a wonderful opportunity to try and convert, too!

Yeah, put me on a registry for not believing in a mythical sky fairy and then come and try to convert me. See how well that goes!

Nadine Dorries and Self Pity

2011-08-31T20:45:00.000+01:00

Witness Nadine Dorries blathering on in The Daily Hate about how hard life is as an ~~anti-abortion~~ pro-life campaigner:

Pro-abortion activists deluge me with hate mail, or call on the police and public authorities to investigate me over some time-wasting, invented grievances — like whether I have a permit to hold a press conference on the green outside Parliament, or whether a certain salary payment to my staff is justified.

We only have Dorries' word (for what it is worth) that she is deluged with hate mail by pro-choice (not pro-abortion) activists. As for the grievances - Dorries is an elected politician proposing policies that will have a national impact. Therefore, she is and should be subject to rigourous scrutiny. Especially in the aftermath of the Expenses Scandal - a scandal in which Dorries herself was involved at the very least in a peripheral way.

Indeed, one member of my office recently left my employment because she was so fed up with this endless oppression from campaigners.

Oppression? Please, get a grip. Pressure is the very best you can argue your people are under - and they work for an elected representative, so they should expect to have to deal with public pressure.

Because I am an MP, the police and other bodies have no choice but to investigate, no matter how frivolous the complaint: then the campaigners run off to their supportive friends in the Left-wing press to say that ‘Nadine Dorries is under investigation’, always declining to report a few days later that I have been cleared.

The police and other bodies should investigate all complaints regardless of whether Dorries (hardly the most impartial of sources) finds them to be frivolous. And there is something rather amusing in someone criticising others for using the left-wing press using the medium of the right-wing press. Pot and kettle, Nadine. And I doubt whether you or The Daily Hate will be retracting the unsubtle and inaccurate dig at one of your most eloquent and persistent critics when it is pointed out to you and the terrible rag voicing your self-pitying and unconvincing opinions.

Even my own family is in the firing line. One of my daughters works in my Parliamentary office, so she sees all the cruel messages, while my other daughter, during her last year at school, had to put up with snide comments from teachers whose dogmatic feminism had been offended by my stand.

Well, I don't doubt that you can complain about those snide teachers if you so wish, Nadine. Assuming, of course, there is something meaningful for you to complain about other than your seemingly self-perpetuating persecution complex operating in overdrive. As for the daughter who works in your parliamentary office - it is her choice to take a nepotistic job with her mother, and if she doesn't want to be exposed to the "cruel" messages (which could just be those messages that do not agree with Dorries' positions) she should get a real job in the real world.

Yet what are all these campaigners so scared of? Why should they be anxious about women being offered independent advice?

I think people who are pro-choice would favour independent, neutral advice. Dorries wants to reduce the number of abortions; I think there is nothing wrong with those of us who are genuinely pro-choice questioning the extent to which Dorries' independent advisors would be neutral.

If they are really as pro-choice as they pretend, they would support my proposal. That is what women in this country deserve.

Except the reason why people who are pro-choice do not support Dorries is because, by attempting to reduce the periods in which women can have abortions, Dorries is reducing choice. She is attempting to reduce the control women have over their own bodies. And I can only speak for myself, but I really doubt that is what the women in this country deserve.

A Palin Candidacy?

2011-08-31T08:29:00.003+01:00

I’m pretty sure that I haven’t missed an announcement, so I guess that Sarah Palin has yet to declare her candidacy for the Republican nomination for President. This makes me wonder whether she is actually going to do so.

In a sense, it might be wiser for her not to declare and sit this one out. The field for the nomination is crowded, and there are already two slightly loopy candidates in that field – one of who looks and sounds a lot like Palin but with the added advantage that she didn’t fuck off half way through a term as an elected representative. To some extent Palin has been out-manoeuvred by Bachmann. Furthermore, if Palin runs and fails to even get the nomination, then her brand of simplistic redneck nonsense will be damaged. She won’t such a hot ticket if her record reads “National Elections Fought: 2. Won: 0”.

Then there’s the fact that Obama, while weakened, still looks like the most likely victor from next year’s general election. He has the massive advantage of incumbency and the fact that, while he’s been a disappointment to many, he hasn’t been an absolute catastrophe and his policies are only truly execrable to those who wouldn’t vote for him under any circumstances anyway. Palin is unlikely to win the nomination; she’s also unlikely to win the White House even if nominated.

There’s a sense in which it would be better for Palin to wait for 2016, when there’ll be much more of a level playing field. But then she risks the fate of Hillary Clinton in 2008 – of being a presumptive nominee for so long that the idea of her candidacy becomes boring, and the space is therefore created for a more charismatic stalking horse to come along and steal the nomination and, maybe, even the White House.

So in a sense Palin is damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. So I reckon she should go with the latter option. Continue the Sarah Palin show across America. Then again, I’m biased as I think that the idea of President Palin is utterly terrifying and should be avoided at all costs…

Riots, Individuals, Communities and Bullshit

2011-08-30T20:39:00.000+01:00

Over at The New Statesman, we have some robust analysis dismissing the claims of the right that the recent riots were anything to do with family. Oh, actually, we don't. Instead we have lacklustre and predictable analysis just as tedious and meaningless as those people who drone on endlessly and without mercy about "broken Britain". Let's take a look and some choice cuts of prime grade bullshit from the article introducing the leading left thinkers (who, laughably, include Diane Abbott):

In his great book After Virtue, published in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that the most striking feature of "contemporary moral utterance is that so much of it is used to express disagreements . . . There seems to be no rational way of securing moral agreement in our culture." Moral statements amounted to little more than statements of personal preference.

Now MacIntyre - a Catholic Thomist - strikes me as an odd choice for a left-wing magazine to be citing. After all, it is difficult to imagine the modern MacIntyre being classed as left-wing. Of course, the author of the article could argue that the Thomist turn in MacIntyre's work came after the book quoted above - and they'd be accurate. But let me pluck a copy of After Virtue from the bookshelf and turn to the pessimistic conclusion. MacIntyre writes "This time the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers: they have already been governing us for quite some time". So MacIntyre believes the barbarians have been in charge for quite some time and MacIntyre was writing in 1981... meaning that, in this country, the Tory administration was circa two years old (and you don't write a book like After Virtue in a hurry) whereas the Labour party - as well as a post-war consensus worshipping Labour-lite Tory party - had been in power for, well, quite some time. It would appear that MacIntyre was attacking the very sort of politicians that The New Statesman loves to praise.

Thirty years later, little has changed, as the aftermath of the English riots and responses to them show. Appalled and embarrassed by the marauding gangs and looters, David Cameron speaks of the "sickness" in our society, showing himself to be a classical conservative pessimist, a believer in original sin and in the futility of all utopian schemes to remake society.

I have to say that it is a bit of a stretch to call Cameron a believer in "original sin" (although, as a Catholic, the approvingly quoted Alasdair MacIntyre actually is) but there is nothing wrong with being a political pessimist and there is nothing wrong with believing the futility of "utopian schemes to remake society". You only have to look at France in the reign of terror or Stalinist Russia or the nightmare of the Cambodian Year Zero to see just how badly wrong such utopias and go - and how devastating they can be when they do go wrong. Whatever crass schemes Cameron embarks on and whatever damage he does to this country, it is pretty hard to imagine him doing anything as devastating as those utopians who have managed to gain control of certain societies in history.

He says nothing about the socio-economic forces that shape behaviour, or the corrosive effects of entrenched inequality (for the true conservative, there are always natural inequalities). Nothing about how three decades of neoliberalism have coarsened our society, debased our discourse and corrupted our public morality.

Y'know, I'm sick of left-wing people using the term "neoliberalism" in such a way. It is a bit like those tedious right-wingers who rail against political correctness or multiculturalism without ever really engaging with what those terms mean. Yeah, there's a critique of neoliberalism to be made, but it requires consistent, intelligent engagement with neoliberal thinkers in order to make it credible. And part of that will be acknowledging that we have never seen the free market in action - at least not in the period since 1981. What we have seen is varying degrees of the Mixed Economy.

Nothing about how the venality of those at the top of society affects those at the bottom.

Ah, venality. Let's ask those venal bastards like Tony Blair about the impact they have had on our society. We should probably acknowledge at some point that they are Labour politicians, though. Or is that a bit too inconvenient? Yeah, yeah, you might well argue that bankers are also examples of the venal. And they tend to be Tories... except for their willing less to enter into pacts with the Labour party during the latter's thirteen years in power.

As for the left in general, there has long been a reluctance to address what it means to live a good and fulfilled life in an age when religion, for most of us in the secular west, can no longer offer guidance and when family life has become dysfunctional for many. The solution to all problems, it is said, is more state intervention and greater redistributive taxation.

And that is precisely the solution we have heard trotted out time and time again in the aftermath of the riots. The biggest problem is that pretty much any situation, according to the left, requires more state intervention. If you comprehensively made the case that state intervention was the problem then I don't doubt that some people would respond - completely in earnest - with the idea that more state intervention is the solution. The fucking morons.

Long before the rise of Red Tories and Blue Labourites, Houellebecq articulated how globalisation had disenfranchised the urban poor and how lifestyle libertarianism had broken society. It is an insight understood by Phillip Blond, who, in 2009, in his essay "Rise of the Red Tories", wrote: "The current political consensus is left-liberal in culture and right-liberal in economics. And this is precisely the wrong place to be." One need not endorse Blond's religiously inspired social conservatism to acknowledge that many of the ties that used to bind us together - ties of familial, communal and civic obligation - have frayed.

MacIntyre probably would embrace Blond's conclusions, at least to some extent. But to say that the ties that bind us together have been "frayed" is to make a massive assumption across a broad, diverse and pluralistic society. But even if we accept that, then what is the alternative to the reality we now face? Forced state intervention to rebuild those ties? 'Cos that seems to be completely counter-productive and utterly naive.

Pleasure without happiness, freedom without responsibility: we are living through a profound cultural crisis. Does the left in Britain have anything original to say about family breakdown and our moral confusion? Can agreement be reached about what has gone wrong and what should be done about it?

Agreement seems unlikely - a tenuous consensus is probably the best we can hope for. But that would involve interested parties not adopting the casual and thoughtless positions that left and right demand. Just a cursory glance at the very titles of the articles in The New Statesman suggest that there is precious little original thinking going on there.

Overleaf, leading thinkers attempt to answer these questions and others as they, like the rest of us, move uncertainly through the burnt-out and blackened landscape of our cities, looking for a way forward.

Oh, please. I live in Leeds, and nothing happened. Across this country, millions of people live in cities and parts of cities where nothing happened. And that is just the people who live in cities; people who live in unaffected towns or the countryside are also probably rolling their eyes at the needless hyperbole that rounds off this article. An article that adds little to the debate on the riots.

But given my criticisms of the views of both left and right in the aftermath of these riots, it would probably be remiss of me not to offer my own opinions on those riots. I think some peope rioted because of poverty. And I think some people rioted because of the lack a father figure in their lives. And I think that some people rioted because (once again) the police gunned down someone. And I think people rioted because of peer pressure, because of uncontrolled rage, because of a desire to have new trainers for literally no cost whatsoever. The point is that disparate people with all kinds of different motives took part in those riots - when we attempt to ascribe a common cause, we are bound to get into trouble.

Which is part of the problem facing both those who claim that the riots were down to poverty etc and those who claim that it was down to a breakdown in some families. It seems to assume identikit people inhabit this country - people with the same motivations, across the board. Now I'm not trying to deny the existence of community - or, on a more micro-level family or on a more macro level society - but I am pointing out that we are a collection of communities of individuals. We respond to different things in different ways - hell, we even respond to the same things in different ways. To deny this is to deny our true nature as individuals, and to suppose that we can truly build a better future through such a denial is to embrace the sort of utopian politics that should be rejected based of, if nothing else, than the lessons of history.

2011-08-29T15:25:00.002+01:00

Nearly missed this one from Guido Fawkes on the early release of one of Baby P's killers:

Two years after being convicted Jason Owen is back on the streets free. You can sign the e-petition to restore the death penalty here.

By all means sign the petition, but bear in mind it wouldn't have made a blind bit of fucking difference here as Owen was not convicted of murder and therefore wouldn't have been eligible for the noose. But let's not get too hung up on the facts - especially if they get in the way of a bit of rabble rousing...

Torchwood - Miracle Day - Immortal Sins

2011-08-28T18:49:00.000+01:00

Ok, so this was very typical Torchwood: Miracle Day in a number of ways. It progressed the overall story arc in a slight way (Jack's ex is behind the miracle, apparently, or at the very least knows how it started) but at the same time felt like an exercise in padding. But in other respects this was atypical for Miracle Day. Set largely in the past (other than the present day row between Gwen and Jack), this felt a lot like old school, pre-Children of Earth Torchwood.

Let's look at the evidence. The story involves a minor alien* conspiracy - minor, at least, in the sense that it is very easily dealt with by Jack. The rest of the story focuses on Jack's immortality and Jack's insatiable appetite when it comes to humping. So far, so much normal, old-school Torchwood.

And this is very much old Torchwood, but in fairness, it is old Torchwood done well. The relationship between Jack and Angelo is not simply casual titillation; the exploration of Catholic guilt and how people might actually respond to an immortal man is surprisingly intelligent. Indeed, the scenes where the mob turns on Jack are horrific and genuinely compelling. And I do wonder whether the trio of men who bargain over Jack and the vial of his blood taken in those scenes will figure later. That could be truly intelligent story telling (and therefore something this series needs a lot more of).

Plus it is nice to have the universe in which this series resides acknowledged. It was good to hear a mention of the Doctor (although any such mention does serve to highlight the extent to which Jack is a lacklustre substitute for the last of the Time Lords). The nod to the Trickster was also brought a smile to my face. This sort of references are nice for the fans but not too much for the casual viewer.

But, again, I'm left with the feeling that we lose something when we try to deal with the Torchwood team interacting with the Miracle. The scenes between Gwen and Jack, although played with gusto by the regulars, just feel a bit tedious and strangely out of character. Gwen has been built up to be almost a superhero so far in this series, but at the first hint of a threat (backed up with remarkably little proof) Gwen's attacking Jack and handing him over to his death. Furthermore, both Rex and Esther somehow managed to be irritating in this episode - no mean feat given just how little screen time they actually had. And the whole thing - the whole sodding episode - pretty much ignored the Miracle. It would be great, it would be fan-fucking-tastic, if we could focus a bit more on the world-changing event than Gwen tearfully emoting in the front seat of a car.

So a welcome distraction of an episode, but nothing more. Any chance we can start getting some sort of progress in the overall story arc sometime soon? Preferably before the final episode?

*Is this the first alien we've seen in this series so far? I think it might be.

Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler

2011-08-27T22:32:00.001+01:00

So, the Good Man returns to our screens after a summer break. And he's back with a bang. And with a break-neck story that never really pauses for breath. But also a story that, when you look back on it, is a delightful piece of story telling; a deceptively simple plot that manages to advance the overall story arc at the same time as offering some genuine surprises that, on closer analysis, appear to be logical developments given what we have seen thus far and what we can guess is to come. And it is also a very funny script; one very clearly written by the author of Coupling. It is a great way for the show to return after its summer holidays. Let's take a look at why in a bit more detail.

Oh, and perhaps appropriately, there are spoilers ahead.

First up, it has a pre-title sequence that is clever and exciting. It has a novel way of contacting the Doctor and, just as you think you've figured it all out, it throws in a twist and an apparently throwaway character in Amy's best friend, Mels.

Ah, Mels. You have a gun, an attitude, and have been brought up (unintentionally) by Amelia Pond (and other, less friendly forces as it turns out) to have an obsession with the Doctor. But it all is for nothing, because Hitler shoots her in a blind panic. Amy's best friend is going to die. Except... except... Well, we never did stop to ask what 'Mels' is short for. Turns out it is Melody. Melody Pond. So one regeneration later, we have the Doctor dying and a couple of parents searching for their ever so wayward superhuman daughter while Hitler remains locked in a cupboard. And that's before we even come to the Terminator style robot spaceship with the minaturised people inside it.

In this episode, we get the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Melody Pond all firing on all cylinders. But it is also worth pausing for a moment and remarking on how Rory has grown as a character. Here, he gets many of the best moments. Witness his treatment of Hitler and his lines after he and Amy have been miniaturised. Furthermore, Arthur Darvil's performance as he watches his future wife realise that he has loved her for years is sublime.

And those scenes with Amelia Pond, young Rory and young Mels - that at first appeared to be nothing more than a bit of padding - actually turn out to be crucial to the ongoing story. Here we see that Amy and Rory did raise their daughter, even though they were children too at the time. It is a neat way of getting around the narrative problem of how the Ponds as parents would get to see their daughter growing up.

Furthermore, the later appearance of Amelia Pond - this time as projection in the TARDIS - is wonderful. Not least because it is preceded by a lighthearted reveal of something really rather dark - that the Doctor doesn't like himself, and feels guilt (understandably) over the impact he had on the lives of Rose Tyler, Martha Jones and Donna Noble. This is basically an aside in a very busy story, but it hints at an emotional complexity that you might not expect from such a bold, brassy (half) season opener.

It is also worth commenting briefly on the direction here. There were so many nice little moments that indicated a talented director at work - such as the seamless merge between the model TARDIS and the real thing flying out of control through the sky. Combined with a great script and fine performances (especially from the regulars) this is bold, confident Doctor Who - the show at its best.

And it really does hint at what might be to come. We learn a little more about the Silence, as well as learning that silence will fall when a very old question is asked. What could that question be? Well, I have a proven track record of being really rather crap when it comes to Doctor Who related predictions, but I'll make a guess anyway - could that question possibly be one posed to the Doctor that simply says "who are you?"

Any problems? Well, the Hitler element to the story is a little bit of a red herring, but the full nightmare that was Hitler's life isn't the sort of thing that can be done in a family show broadcast at 7:10pm on a Saturday evening. And the incinerating things in the Teselcta ship looked a little... well... cheap, but to bemoan cheap special effects in Doctor Who is to open up a can of worms that would take months to fully discuss. But I can't help but feel that to criticise this episode too much is almost to be a bit too pedantic and churlish. This was fun, clever and vastly enjoyable.

And it is the sort of episode that shows why Doctor Who should be celebrated as a largely unique television experience. It is damn near half a century old, but still has the ability to be hugely exciting and surprising. And it still has the ability to leave you desperately wanting to know what will happen next week.

Welcome back, Doctor. You were only away for a few weeks, but even that was far too long.

Doctor Who: The Clunkers

2011-08-27T14:37:00.002+01:00

Ok, ok, I'm running a little bit behind with this week's clunker. The explanation of why I find The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood to be the weakest of the Eleventh Doctor's adventures will be explained... later. Most probably next week. Because, for the moment, my focus is on what will be broadcast at 7:10pm this evening: Let's Kill Hitler...

Libya and the Reality of Foreign Policy

2011-08-24T20:35:00.002+01:00

So there’s change ahoy in Libya (added, without doubt, by a hefty payload of bombs from certain Western powers). No doubt for some we are seeing the dawn of a brave new era for Libya as a murderous dictator slowly falls from power. Now, for all those celebrating this turn of events, I’m probably going to sound cynical, but I’m going to wait to see what happens next before I get too excited by Libya’s Brave New Dawn.

After all, we’ve seen similar events play out before. For example, there was a Middle Eastern country where an unpopular dictator who had enjoyed considerable support from foreign sources was usurped by a populist movement in his own country. But post revolution Iran is hardly renowned the world over as a beacon of freedom now, is it? Of course, there are no guarantees that Libya will go the same way, but you’ll have to excuse me if I wait to see whether it does or not before I start popping the metaphorical champagne corks.

And it is worth pausing for a moment to consider the chequered relationship this country has had with the Gaddafi regime. Sure, we’ve hated him when he’s been involved in the murder of a police officer or the bombing of innocents on an aircraft. But when it looked like he could be an ally in the spurious War on Terror, we were happy to jump into bed with him. We’re helping to depose him now in an apparently noble crusade of freedom for the people, but dig into our relationship with Libya even just below the surface of the current headlines and you’ll get a much less edifying picture.

Which is the reality of foreign policy. It involves ugly compromises with temporary partners who, under normal circumstances, we probably wouldn’t deal with. Witness, for example, America funding bin Laden in the Cold War against the Soviet Union before he went to war with them. Or the allies joining the totalitarian regime that was the Soviet Union in World War Two in order to defeat the mutual enemy of Nazi Germany. Foreign policy is messy and involves difficult choices. Which is why anyone telling you about an ethical foreign policy is either terminally naïve or lying to your face. The grim reality of foreign policy is the realisation that Morton’s Fork and that the law of unintended consequences are your constant companion. And there are no guarantees that both concepts won't be rearing their ugly heads as Gaddafi apparently falls from power in Libya.

Why The Tories Will Almost Certainly Win A Second Term

2011-08-24T09:37:00.001+01:00

Guido has recently had a post up questioning whether we are witnessing a one-term Tory government. While the points raised are relevant, I can’t help but feel that Guido is hedging his bets to some extent. If the Tories win outright, he has a whole host of posts highlighting the failure of Labour to get anywhere. If the Tories lose, he can point to this post and again be “proved” right. But that could just be my natural cynicism (which is generally rewarded where Mr Fawkes is concerned, though). The point of my post is that, as things stand, I think the Tories will go on to win a second term.

There are three reasons for this. Firstly, while things may get worse in terms of the economy, there is also the possibility that things will get distinctly better – especially if George Osborne clocks that economic recovery is aided by tax cuts as well as spending cuts. A recovering economy tends to reward the incumbent government; if Cameron & Co can pull it off, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t reap the rewards in the ballot box. And, after a year and a bit in office, there is still a lot of time to do it before the country has to go back to the polls in 2015.

The second reason is that the Tories aren’t really campaigning at the moment. They’ve got other stuff to do. Like govern. And, of course, muzzle their coalition partners as much as possible. However, come the next election (and they will effectively decide when that is – don’t rule out the possibility of a snap poll if a Tory victory looks likely in one), they will be coming out all guns blazing, using the healthy war chest to try to dominate the core messages of that campaign. And I think they will be emphasising the compromises they have made for the supposed good of the nation (for example, going into the coalition), the difficult choices they believe they have made (cuts etc) at the same time as hammering Labour for leaving them such a fucking mess to deal with in the first place. In the meantime, Labour have little else to do but campaign. And how well are they doing at that? Well, they are attracting back some of the supporters they lost during the long, messy years they spent in power, but those people are coming back for no real reason other than they don’t like the Tories and the reality of that party being ineffective control of the country narks them a bit. Labour, despite having all the time that no longer governing affords a party, are struggling to effectively vocalise any sort of popular message or image.

Which leads me to the third reason why a Tory victory still looks likely – Ed Miliband is just plain shit at the job of being Leader of the Opposition. And if you are shit at that job you have precisely no credibility when it comes to pitching for the promotion to the top job. Especially when the guy you are fighting for that job is already in it. Cameron may be compromised by, say, his association with Rebekah Brooks, but he still looks a lot more credible and Prime Ministerial than his Labour counterpart. Of course, Miliband Minor might be binned before the next election. But who would they replace him with? The reason he won the last Labour leadership election was because he appeared to be the least shit of those running in it. That situation hasn’t changed; there appears to be no-one in the upper echelons of the Labour party who could look credible against even that lightweight David Cameron.

Of course, lots could change, politics is constantly changing blah blah fucking blah. And yeah, something could happen that radically changes the political landscape. But as things stand, I think that enough of the British people will decide, in balance and when faced with the reality of voting in the ballot box on Election Day, that they prefer the devil they know rather to the one they don’t. The Tories will, most likely, benefit from a grudging refusal on the part of the British people to embrace change unless they absolutely have to or have grown utterly repelled by the incumbent government.

After all, that’s what allowed the odious Tony Blair to be re-elected. Twice.

My Preference for the 2012 US election

2011-08-24T05:23:00.002+01:00

Over the past couple of weeks, both in the comments section here and in my inbox, I've had people either expressing incredulity that I am not supporting one candidate or the other in the upcoming presidential election or asking me who I do actually support. So let me go on record and say this: I support no-one.

Two reasons - firstly, the choice before America is particularly unedifying this time around. Obama will almost certainly represent the Democrats despite being an increasingly compromised and uninspiring president. On the Republican side it is either charisma bypasses like Mitt Romney or total loons like Bachmann and Perry. The best they've got is Ron Paul, but he just seems to be a desperate choice that some libertarian's latch on to and as far as I am concerned, he offers little in the way of charisma or ability to actually win the nomination or the presidency. As far as I am concerned he's the least worst of a bad bunch; therefore, if he gets anywhere, he will therefore represent the least worst option - but I'd be very surprised if that actually happened.

The second reason is implicit in what I've written above - this is the choice before America. I'm not American; I'm not eligible to vote either in the primaries or in the general election. Therefore, unlike when this country goes to the polls, I don't feel duty bound to compromise myself and go with a candidate I'm not entirely convinced by. I'm happy to offer commentary on what will be a looonnng campaign for the control of the White House, but that's about it. Those looking for support from someone with precious little influence and no vote in the upcoming elections would do best to look elsewhere.

2011-08-23T12:40:00.001+01:00

Lots to say, precious little time to say it in. Will try to rectify that before too long...

2011-08-22T11:12:00.003+01:00

Rest assured, it isn't just Rick Perry with illiberal ideas vying for the Republican nomination, as this video shows:

Try to ignore the irritating presenter and marvel at yet another contender utterly unsuited to the office they are trying to attain.

Torchwood: Miracle Day: The Middle Men

2011-08-21T18:13:00.001+01:00

Woo-hoo! Winston Zeddemore is in it! I don't quite know why that makes me so happy. I guess it is because it is a distraction from this slow-moving, lumbering beast of a story.

But let's look at the content of the episode rather than just the casting. Colin Maloney is a wonderfully ghastly creation - a unpleasant man in complete meltdown who has ceased to be fully in control of his own actions. There is the implication that, deep down, he knows that what he signed up to do is wrong, and when that combines with a sudden collapse in his life and things start to fall apart, he becomes terrifying and lethal. A maniac, out of control, in a vanity golf cart. The only downside to his character is that we never really saw it properly develop. We never saw him move from a minor public official into murderous, monstrous concentration camp director. Had he been introduced into the story earlier (and, as we know, those early episodes could have done with a lot more story and a lot less padding) we might have seen a compelling story arc and how humans can fall into evil. Instead, we end up simply with a rather transparent weak yet evil man. Which is good, but could have been so much better.

There is also the surprisingly intelligent conversation between Gwen and Dr Patel about moral choice in a concentration camp. It is even more striking given this has hardly been the most intellectually challenging of stories so far. It is a bit like coming across a discussion of the categorical imperative in a Colin Baker Doctor Who story. Of course, and rather sadly, it doesn't last for long, and with in minutes Jack is slapping the bum of a waiter. Back to business as usual, then.

The 45 club is another unsettling, but completely logical, extension of the Miracle. What a shame it wasn't introduced earlier, since the way it is treated here is just as a means to kill off a minor character in a world without suicide. Why can't we spend less time with the Torchwood team and more exploring this strange, new world? Are we going to hear about the 45 club again or have they just disappeared from the series, rather like the Soulless? There seems to be an assumption that we should find the antics of the Torchwood team so exciting that we only need brief hints of the world around that team. Unfortunately, the exact opposite is true.

And that's all I've got to say about this episode, really. Once again, I'm left with the frustration that this still isn't really going anywhere. This week, we learned that the camps are really bad. Which we also already knew. We learned that there is a conspiracy behind the Miracle and behind PhiCorp, which we also already knew. We didn't get to see Oswald Danes, or understand the implications of his speech. Oh, but we have found out that there is something called the blessing. But we know fuck all about it really. In short, we still know bugger all about what is going on here. Still. When you strip it down to basics, this episode was yet another exercise in padding.

Doctor Who: Partners In Crime

2011-08-20T18:59:00.001+01:00

Prior to Steven Moffat opening the most recent (half) season of Doctor Who with the Doctor being gunned down and then Amy Pond shooting her own daughter, season openers for the new look Who tended to be quite lightweight. Fun frolics designed to ease the casual viewer into the new season. I can see why RTD felt this was necessary, although I always felt that the season openers were disappointing and lacklustre compared to the episodes that followed. And Partners in Crime is the worst of a bad bunch. It is, quite simply, dreadfully bland and utterly disappointing.

It has Tennant doing his Doctor-by-numbers routine, and Donna is still the shouty chav she was in The Runaway Bride (although this would change as the season went along, demonstrating in the process what a good actress Tate actually is). The direction is flat, and manages to even turn the supposed set pieces (the Doctor and Donna seeing each other across Foster's office, the larking around in the window cleaner's life) into something really flat - and it is further undermined by the jaunty incidental music that plays over many of the (supposedly) more dramatic moments. But it is the script that really lets this down. It is, quite simply, the worst thing RTD has ever written (from what I've seen of his work).

I once read that RTD thought that Partners in Crime should be used to teach script-writing. I can't help but think that this should only be the case if the lesson is how not to write an episode of Doctor Who. The first segment of the story is frightfully unfunny "comedy" as the Doctor and Donna fail to meet, pretty much doing exactly the same thing as each other (so we get to see everything happening twice, effectively) but just missing each other at the same time. It is the sort of thing that you would expect from an earthbound, unimaginative sitcom - not from the opening instalment of a series that has the whole of time and space at its disposal. It's crap, really - a trick I've seen countless times before being done in a lacklustre way.

Then we have the villains - Foster, who is played with some relish but never really amounts to anything more than generic female baddie with two meatheads at her side with very big guns. But nothing than compare us for the Adipose - lumps of fat designed to look cute. They're babies, basically, making their communicative ability even less than your standard Who monster. And they don't do anything other than toddle around, burble for a bit and then disappear. The Doctor even points out that their lethal potential - which we hardly see - is not their fault. The upshot? This is a Doctor Who story with no real sense of threat, either to the planet or to the protagonists. It is only later, in Turn Left, that we get a feel for the awful implications of Foster's scheme. Here, it is all a bit of a nothingness. Of course, not every Doctor Who story can, or even should, have a sense of constant threat and menace. But a complete lack of those things makes this into an edition of 2point4 children without the (albeit very limited) laughs.

There are a couple of nice moments - such as the conversation between Wilf and Donna on the hill closely followed by the Doctor talking to an empty TARDIS. And the return of Rose at the end of the episode was, at the time, a brilliant little twist that raised my dampened spirits. Yet, it wasn't enough then, and it isn't enough now. This isn't even a slight episode, it is downright disappointing. In fact, it is the worst episode since the show came back, and definitely in the top 10 of the show's worst stories.

NB: next week's Clunker review will be materialising on Friday because, at around about this time next week, they'll be something else to review...

(Failing to) Defend the Death Penalty

2011-08-19T11:02:00.000+01:00

Over at Anna Raccoon's place, a chap called James Garry has come up with a well-written piece defending the death penalty. However, I don't find it convincing and in order to show why, it is probably most effective to look at the final four paragraphs:

The converse is also true: If you do not use the death penalty to deter crime, then you run the very real risk that innocent people will die in the future because their murderer has no real fear of the consequences of his crime. It cuts both ways.

There are a couple of problems with this. Firstly, it is possible for a potential murderer to fear the consequences of his (or her - women kill too, you know) action without the threat of the noose. I know there is this myth that prison is some sort of holiday camp and while some prisoners have privileges that might seem undeserved, prison is still that - prison. It is being denied your freedom and being incarcerated in close proximity to other prisoners, the vast majority of who will be unpleasant individuals at the very least. Death is not the only deterrent - a lengthy prison sentence would probably deter many.

But then again (and this is the second problem) there is the very real question of whether those who commit crimes are truly thinking of the consequences - in part because those consequences only become applicable if that person is caught. This then leads to the question of just how many criminals - murderers or otherwise - actually believe they will be caught before they commit their crimes. And it is no good pointing to those criminals who have been caught who now talk about consequences - those consequences will, no doubt, have become very real to them since their capture. No doubt the response to this is the idea that if just one murderer is deterred by the threat of the death penalty that it is worth it. More on this later.

As much as the anti-capital punishment brigade might not like it, supporters of the death penalty are wholly capable of dispassionate, rational thinking about the death penalty. I expect most supporters of the death penalty, similarly to me, want the death penalty reinstituted because of its success as a deterrent. We do not salivate at the prospect of the noose. Instead, I think we look a little further into the future than our opponents do.

I don't doubt that there are some supporters of the death penalty who are simply interested in its capacities as a deterrent - although whether they constitute "most" of them is disputable. But there are definitely some who salivate at "the prospect of the noose". Still, all this is conjecture; I don't know about the psychological make-up and reasoning of all those who support the death penalty, and nor does Garry. I would suggest, though, that "dispassionate, rational thinking" is of essential yet limited use when it comes to considering the death penalty. The use of empathy is also important when it comes to understanding what it would be like to feel the ultimate sanction of the state for a crime you are wholly innocent of. Far too often I see the case for the death penalty presented presented in utlitarian terms - that it is ok to execute a few innocent people if a greater number of people are saved. I find such ideas - which effectively amount to the sacrifice by the state of some citizens for the greater good - deeply troubling at best, and morally repugnant at worst.

Looking into the future we see the face of an innocent girl who has not yet been murdered. We conclude that if the threat of the death penalty could prevent her killer from killing her, then it is essential that we have a death penalty.

We could also look into the future and see the innocent misfit in the condemned cell, facing their last night on this planet before the heavy hand of the state snaps their neck for a crime they didn't commit. But let's not get too emotional here; let's actually look at an example of a child killer and ask whether the death penalty would have deterred them.

Ian Brady is often mentioned when people advocate the death penalty, and rightly so. Brady is a repellent human being - an immoral, sadistic child killer. If you want to make the case for hanging child killers, then Brady is a good place to start. And if the death penalty would have deterred Brady from killing, then it would be worth it, surely? If the threat of execution was enough to stop Brady from killing five young people, it has to be worth it, right?

Except that Brady was arrested on 7th October, 1965 - just over a month before the death penalty was abolished. In other words, all of Brady's crimes were committed when the death penalty was in place. Indeed, his most notorious crime (the horrific murder of five year old Lesley Ann Downey) was committed on 26th December, 1964 - nearly a year before the death penalty was abolished and also nearly a year before the last death sentence was handed down. I know the 1957 Homicide Act reduced the applications of the death penalty, but Brady would still have been eligible for the rope from the moment he killed his second victim. Did the death penalty deter Brady? Doesn't look like it. So if we look to the past, and that poor little girl walking into the clutches of the Moors Murderers on Boxing Day 1964 we see an example of the death penalty being, well, not really a deterrent. And that's before you consider the fact that Brady wants to die.

If you are concerned with protecting the innocent and the gentle and the law-abiding, you ought to support the death penalty.

Oh, please. To support the innocent, gentle and lawabiding we need to back the state murdering its own citizens? Self-defeating nonsense.

And I want to repeat myself - there is something deeply wrong with the idea that we should empower the state to take the lives of its citizens. The fact that the state already has this power (through such things as denying cancer sufferers the drugs that could save them, for example) doesn't then make it ok - in fact it simply further makes the case that we should be restricting the power of the state rather than increasing it. And owing to the general incompetence of the state and the fallibility of the humans who constitute it, we need to be very careful before we return to that state the power to take the lives of its citizens in a ritualistic manner for the greater good.

"Big Brother" and Big Brother

2011-08-18T08:58:00.000+01:00

A new series of Big Brother starts today. I don’t think many of my regular readers will be surprised to hear that I won’t be tuning in. Frankly, when it (apparently) ended I saw that as a cause for celebration. The fact that it is back after such a short space of time is thoroughly depressing.

But the more I think about it, the more depressing I find the whole Big Brother experience. Like its dreadful counterparts (The X Factor and so on), Big Brother brings an ersatz political experience to its many viewers. You get to do, with Big Brother, much of what constitutes politics. You get to observe how people are performing, make decisions about them and their behaviour, and then vote on who should (and who shouldn’t be successful). Of course, it is more than possible to simultaneously be politically engaged and watch trite reality TV, but I can’t help but feel that as politicians become blander than bland and reality TV becomes more and more a freakshow - ghastly yet compelling (for many) to watch - people will opt for the latter even though the former is so much more important.

And this, for those of us with an open enough mind to consider such philosophers, is the sort of thing that the likes of Theodor Adorno warned us about decades ago. People become content to accept the status quo and to cease questioning it because they get their daily fix of televisual nonsense. Why worry about what the government is up to when it’s a bit boring and there are dickheads to laugh at on the TV? Why bother to walk all the way to the polling station when you can vote on which social misfit should be denied the limelight on the idiot box in your living room?

As people watch Big Brother, Big Brother is increasingly watching them without them realising it. A fact that is simultaneously striking and utterly depressing.

Why Is Rick Perry So Terrifying?

2011-08-17T21:16:00.005+01:00

The news that Rick Perry has joined the race for the Republican nomination for President sends a shiver down my spine. He is exactly the sort of politician that the US does not need – a bellicose God-botherer who is perfectly happy to send the mentally retarded to the execution chamber despite commandments in his religion like “thou shalt not kill”. He’s for freedom, just so long as it is economic – if you’re gay and you want to marry someone of the same gender, your freedom should be curtailed in the strange worldview of this Christian fundamentalist. And while I’m pretty liberal when it comes to gun laws, I can’t help but feel doing something like this makes you look like a total dickhead:

But Perry is not alone in many of these opinions; increasingly, these represent the sort of stances that a Republican candidate must take if they want to have any chance of being successful. So why is Perry particularly terrifying?

I think it is the fact that he is George W. Bush but Bush Junior turned up to 11. From what I’ve seen and heard of Perry, he makes Bush Junior – the worst President of the United States in living memory – look like a subtle and nuanced thinker in whom you could have complete confidence. And that is what makes Perry such a dangerous option for the Republicans and, if nominated, the US as a whole. After all, we know how it ended for George W. Bush. Why on earth would anyone want to replicate the sorry farrago that was Bush Junior’s presidency? Or, even worse, risk an even more extreme version of it?

And it is this sort of candidate who makes Obama look like the best option. Obama is a weak, compromised president but he does at least come across as far saner than many of his Republican rivals. And this may well be the factor that gets him a second term – not that he’s any good, but just that he’s less mental than those he fights elections against.

So to any Republicans reading this and preparing to vote in next year’s primaries – Rick Perry: just say no.

Rioting and Austerity

2011-08-17T07:30:00.002+01:00

Over at The Guardian, we learn that austerity causes riots. Actually, we don’t – despite what the headline says, this is not a “fact”. The “fact” is that there is a correlation between the implementation of some austerity measures and some social unrest. But let’s not dwell on that – we know that this nation’s media are not big on facts. Let’s instead pretend that it is fact and therefore ask the question “so what?”

Seriously, so what if austerity measures cause riots? Does that mean we should never ever cut spending, just in case? Even if spending is at a horrific, unsustainable level? No, of course not. That would be a bit like saying we shouldn’t allow immigration because it causes rioting from EDL louts. A far more sensible policy (if this was “fact”) would be to make sure that, when austerity measures are introduced, thought should be given to the potential impact they might have on social stability. Or to put it another way, the police should expect some rioting, and prepare accordingly (i.e. by doing a bit more than standing by looking blankly when it all kicks off). Furthermore, if the government changed its economic policies owing to these riots, it would be implicitly condoning rioting or, at the very least, saying “rioting works - if you don’t like our policies, burn down a Gregg’s and raid a Foot Locker, and we’ll change them”.

There have been numerous attempts to explain these riots and, to some extent, to excuse those rioting. Such attempts are, as far as I can see, simultaneously unsuccessful and utter bullshit. The riots were caused by (a) the fact that some people like fighting and (b) the fact that some people like free stuff – something that can be facilitated by stealing stuff. Any analysis more complicated than that is frankly adding a gravitas that the situation simply does not call for.

A Request...

2011-08-16T09:15:00.003+01:00

...to Ron Paul supporters - please, please, please stop sending me shit about Ron Paul's money bombs. I don't have the cash to spare and even if I did I would spend it on candidates based in this country, not the US. And even if I did have the cash to spare and you'd got the right nation, I'd still be unlikely to give money to a candidate with practically no chance of winning.

Thanks.

Torchwood: Miracle Day: The Categories of Life

2011-08-14T14:20:00.001+01:00

My last three reviews of Torchwood have been necessarily harsh, but harsh nonetheless. So let's redress the balance a bit. This episode was not bad; in fact, not bad at all. In fact, it was probably the best one since RTD kicked off the show five weeks ago. The main reason for this is that the Torchwood team now seem to be actively participating in their own adventure. Rather than just larking around on the sides of the Miracle, now they are fully exploring its implications. They are going into the camps and finding out what is going on - even if, in the case of Rex, it takes a demonstration for him to work out what the modules are for.

But it isn't just the active participation that works here. For the first time, we get a real sense of menace created through the fact that the Torchwood team are now genuinely in danger. Of course, it takes an extreme event - the gunning down and then incineration of Vera by a desperate man who has lost all control of himself - to really hammer this point home, but at long last we get a feeling (added to by the preview for next week's episode) that the team aren't playing around anymore - and nor are their enemies.

Elsewhere, the positively reptilian Oswald Danes (seriously, they should get Bill Pullman to play a Silurian in Doctor Who - he wouldn't need any make-up) appears to be hedging his bets; advocating PhiCorp in his speech, but also hinting (as Jack suggested) that they knew about the Miracle before it happened. And... that's about it, really, in terms of developing the overall story arc. Because while the Torchwood team have been finding out about stuff at San Pedro and Cowbridge, the rest of the story hasn't really gone anywhere. At the end of the last episode we knew there were camps and at the end of this episode we know there are camps where bad things are happening. It is hardly a dramatic leap forward in the underlying story, and other than the whispers about morphic fields we know next to nothing about the causes of the Miracle. Yeah, yeah there are still five episodes to go, I know. But it is telling that the pace of this story is so slow that the Torchwood team were able to have an evening to themselves and chow down on some Chinese takeaway at the beginning of the episode.

And while elements of the plotting of the episode - for example, that Danes was able to win over the crowd with his mix of contrition, flattery and hope - other elements of the story have me shaking my head in disbelief. If you're a government building large areas designed effectively to burn people alive, what is the one word you would want to avoid? "Camp". Brings up all sorts of association with, I don't know, mass slaughter. But what are the death centres referred to as here? "Overflow Camps". Fucking hell, you may as well call them "charnel houses" or "killing fields". And had they been named something else, then the Torchwood team would literally be none the wiser. They'd have continued larking around at the edges of the story. And frankly, it stretches a credibility that is already at breaking point to suppose that governments all over the world were able to build these camps without anyone anywhere ever saying "err, shouldn't we have a slightly less loaded word to describe them?"

But there are always going to be problems with a show as lazily scripted as Miracle Day. Let's leave that to one side, and instead keep our fingers crossed that the upturn in quality here is replicated and built upon in later instalments. The Categories of Life remains far from perfect, but does at least give me a certain level of hope that was sadly lacking after watching Escape to L.A.

Doctor Who: Aliens of London/World War Three

2011-08-13T18:59:00.000+01:00

As Clunkers go, this is a slightly odd one. It is here because, as far as I'm concerned, it is the worst of the Eccleston era. But it is far from terrible. Elements of it are very strong. Other elements are not great. And as this was the longest Doctor Who story since 1989, it is worth pausing to consider why.

The plot: the Doctor returns Rose to earth, apparently 12 hours after she left. However, it is actually 12 months. This causes some ructions in the Tyler household and earns the Doctor a slap from Jackie Tyler. In the meantime, an alien spaceship crashes and aliens launch a coup in Downing Street. The aliens are the Slitheen, a criminal family determined to reduce the Earth to radioactive sludge that can then be sold. The Doctor, using his connections and his newfound extended family in the form of the Tylers, defeats them. Hardly the most original of plots, but entertaining nonetheless.

So what works well? Eccleston is superb. Witness him chasitising the soldier for gunning down the space pig or threatening the Slitheen. This is an outstanding actor bringing real gravitas to the role of the Doctor. And he is ably backed up by Billie Piper as Rose - and pretty much anyone involved in the Tyler side to the story is really strong here. As is Penelope Wilton as Harriet Jones - a character who could have been deeply irritating (the repetition of her name and constituency, for example) is made compellingly human through Wilton's performance. By the end of the show, you want her to become Prime Minister. So we have a number of strong performances here, and we are introduced to someone who would become an important part of Torchwood - Toshiko Sato. Sadly, we also get some pretty OTT and consequently uncovincing performances - see almost anyone playing a Slitheen in these episodes.

The Tyler side to the story is also entertaining and, in its own quiet way, ground-breaking for Doctor Who. "Don't you dare make this place domestic" warns Rose after Jackie and Mickey enter the TARDIS. Well, here the show is made more domestic, and amazingly it enhances the experience. Looking at how life with the Doctor affects not just his companions but also those around the companion is a fascinating idea, and leads to these episodes best moments - the Doctor getting slapped and "maybe because everyone thinks I murdered you" being two examples. This is the first time we really see one of RTD's strengths - bringing the domestic and realistic emotions to the show.

Unfortunately, we also see the biggest weakness of RTD - sci-fi plotting. There is precious little that is original here, and the sci-fi elements of the story add next to nothing to it. Blowing the aliens up with a redirected missile is hardly a satisfying resolution after circa ninety minutes of drama. Nor is the cliffhanger any good - it is padded out for ages, and resolved in seconds with the plotting equivalent of a get out jail free card. I'd waited from 1989 to 2005 to see another Doctor Who cliffhanger - and it was not worth the wait. And much of World War Three involves the Doctor, Rose and Harriet talking about stuff in a room. Likewise, the Slitheen are undermined to a large extent by being vulnerable to vinegar - it is a childish plot device that makes them somehow unconvincing and very silly. Not as silly as their constant farting makes them, mind.

Indeed, the Slitheen were never going to become one of the iconic Doctor Who monsters - they are just a bit too silly for that. But I really don't think they are done any favours by the director here. They could be made menacing, even with all the farting. But the times when they are meant to appear menacing (i.e. before they kill) the direction is really rather flat, and they come across (again) as childish rather than a genuine threat. Which is a shame because, done just slightly differently, they could have been very sinister with their baby alien faces and their plump yet lethal hunter bodies. But the way they are presented meant they were always going to be consigned to The Sarah Jane Adventures and children's TV.

Essentially (and much like the current run of Torchwood) we have two stories here - one very domestic and really rather convincing and one outlandish and just plain silly. And this would be the curse of RTD - he was always great at doing the emotional or domestic, but when it came to plot twists or decent sci-fi, the quality went out the window. It is also why his best story - Midnight - relies on ordinary people facing an undefined and unexplained monster with only the most basic of sci-fi trappings.

So Aliens of London and World War Three are disappointing in some ways, but they are by no means a disaster. In fact, a strong case could be made that these two episodes are the best of what I'm calling the Clunkers. But in many ways they define the highs and the lows of an era - an undoubtedly successful age of the show where the lead writer was exceptional in some regards and sadly very lacklustre in others.

2011-08-12T19:53:00.000+01:00

Guido is once again spouting self-serving bullshit and revealing his socially conservative side in the process:

What happened to the Ed Miliband who got hitched to Justine after pressure from those of us who pointed out that it was unusual and a little bit weird for a party leader not to be married to the mother of his children?

Now, I have no idea why Ed Miliband chose to get married this year; it could be because of Guido’s pressure (although I rather think Guido is once again over-estimating his own influence); it could be because Miliband Minor wanted to silence the snidey bullshit emerging about his private relationship with the mother of his children and life partner coming from prurient muck-rakers like Gudio. It could also be because he loves Justine and wanted to make that relationship formal. I don’t know why he chose to do what he did; nor does Guido, I rather suspect.

And while it true that party leaders are traditionally married to the mother (or father, in the case of Thatcher) of their children, it is not a “little bit weird” if they are not. There are countless couples across the country who are not married despite having children. I know two couples myself who are about to have children but who are not married. We live in a time when marriage is no longer considered an essential stepping stone before a couple can have children. Thankfully, we live in a more modern age. People might not get married before having kids because they just don’t get round to it (and trust me, organising a wedding takes a lot of time), it might be because they don’t see any value in marriage or believe that their love for each other needs to be rubber stamped by the church or the state. Such views are not “weird”; they are perfectly valid alternative views for those who are not obsessed by the social norms of the past and are happy to live in a way that is slightly different from the socially conservative expectations of the likes of Guido Fawkes.

Be a Politician? No Thanks.

2011-08-12T17:41:00.003+01:00

A question (well questions really) posed by Simon Gibbs over at the Libertarian Home website:

My question to Pavel, which I will repeat, is what other challenges prevent you, dear reader, from standing on your own behalf to fight a campaign? Is it the absence of a positive Party brand? The official paperwork? Publicity? Is it solely a lack of resources such as time and money?

Obviously I can only speak for myself, but the problem isn’t so much the lack of an effective party structure or the lack of relevant resources. It is that I have no inclination to run any sort of campaign, let alone a campaign for office. It isn’t so much that I wouldn’t win – but obviously embarking on a thankless quest almost certainly destined to end in failure won’t appeal to most. Rather, I’d be afraid of winning. Put simply, I have no interest in holding office within the political structure of Great Britain. I do not want to immerse myself within the massive bureaucratic nightmare that is the British state, and I do not want to expose myself or my loved ones to the public spotlight and our intrusive media that has no respect whatsoever for the privacy of any public figure. Above all, I don’t want to be a politician. I lack the arrogance to believe that I know best and that my opinions should be forced onto others.

Furthermore, I think we have adopted a very narrow sense of what constitutes politics in this country. We see politics as increasingly synonymous with government; local, regional or (mainly) central. We see those who stand for Parliament as the real politicians, backed up by lesser politicians in those who make up the party structures. However, I would argue that there is very little that is genuinely political about MPs who become lobby fodder in the House of Commons or those party functionaries and unthinking supporters who spout a party line about issues rather than engaging with those issues and reaching their own conclusions about them. There is more politics happening in a debate between open-minded, politically aware people in the pub than there is in a “debate” in the Commons. The tragedy is that the debate in the pub evaporates into the ether just as soon as the final beers are supped whereas the drones making laws in the legislature can affect each and every one of use.

Of course, this leaves us in a perfect Catch 22 situation; the only way we can change the system is by engaging with it – but, by engaging with the system, we run the risk of becoming apolitical as we conform to the restrictions of that system. I don’t know the way out of that conundrum, but I do know where I stand in relation to the political system in this country; resolutely and happily on the outside.

So why don’t I run a campaign on my own? Because I don’t want to be a politician. And I suspect I am not alone in that.