Blue Sky Thinking

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

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

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

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

Conspiracy Theory Loons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Review That Just Plain Doesn't Get Doctor Who

Ah, there’s nothing like an ignorant, ill-informed review of a good Doctor Who episode to wind me up. Consequently, this morning I’m going to be deconstructing this review of The Impossible Astronaut from The Sunday Mirror

SATURDAY night, BBC1... and Doctor Who storms back with the first of a two-part adventure called The Impossible Astronaut. As in impossible to understand.

Well, no, actually quite easy to understand. If you pay attention to what is happening in the episode.

Strictly sci-fi nerds only as our 960-year-old hero died and then didn’t die and then landed the Tardis in the Oval Office while President Tricky Dicky Nixon looked on in bemused amazement.If there was a cogent plot it was brilliantly disguised.

Err, there was a cogent plot, but it is one that will only be explained across two episodes. To complain that there isn’t a plot is a little like complaining that there isn’t a cogent plot to Psycho after just 45 minutes of the film.

Plus anyone who actually paid attention to the episode would understand that the Doctor did die - the Doctor we saw for the rest of the episode was an earlier version of the Doctor (who was about 200 years younger than the one who died on the beach). Seriously, pay attention.

Anyway, a picnic in the desert, babies in space suits, an alleged tale of intrigue involving the 1969 Moon landing... and smartly-dressed monsters wearing ties.

Well, it is an intriguing tale. It refuses to play all of its cards in the opening five minutes. But for a story that is going to span circa ninety minutes, that’s actually not a problem.

And is there are a problem with monsters wearing ties? I mean, do they all have to look like the Daleks?

“Have we done Jim the fish?” enquired River Song – the mysterious Time Lady played by Alex Kingston. Gee, River... I dunno. What the hell are you flowing on about?

Have you ever, ever seen the show before? It is filled with asides about what has happened, and what will happen, but what we haven't seen. The Doctor, for example, has never fought the terrible Zodin on screen. Likewise, we’ve never seen the adventure that led to Battlefield as it is (still, apparently) in the Doctor’s future. But surely to fuck that’s inevitable in a show about time travel – and part of the charm. Chances are we’ll never see the adventures River Song and the Doctor discuss in this episode on screen. But the Doctor will always have had adventures we don’t get to see.

And since when has River Song been confirmed as a Time Lady?

A twitchy whirl of studied eccentricity, Matt Smith remains a derivative Doctor who brings nothing new to the party.

Precisely who is Matt Smith derivative of? As far as I can see (and I do know a little bit about Doctor Who), Smith is one of the most original Doctors we have ever had. His mix of brilliance, arrogance and childlike glee is original and very, very watchable. In fact, he is far less derivative that his predecessor, who played The Sociable Doctor mixed with The Forlorn Doctor with a healthy dose of the Fifth Doctor thrown into the mix. You might not like Smith's Doctor - that doesn't automatically make him derivative though.

And this ball of all-round confusion was no way to start a series.

Nah, you’re right, why make the first episode of a season (the series began over 47 years ago) with a plot that is complicated and requires thinking? What sort of a crazy fool would do that?

But I’m guessing the second instalment will end with the sonic screwdriver guy saving the world with seconds to spare. Again.

It is almost certain that the Doctor and/or one of his companions will save the world with seconds to spare (assuming that the plan of the Silence is to damage the world), but then again, it would rather limit the future of the series if all the regulars were killed off and the world destroyed. Yes, the Doctor tends to win (but not always). That is one of the points of the programme. And if you don’t like that, then what the hell are you doing watching the series in the first place, let alone reviewing it.

The Bollocks People Talk About Politics Part 1*

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

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

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

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

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