Communicate This!

Funny how? Do I amuse you?

2012-01-29T01:23:00.003Z

Wow. I haven't updated this since May last year. That's a pretty spectacular loss of interest right there.

In any case, after having a fairly shitty 2011, I've been trying to be pro-active in turning things around in 2012. So far this has manifested itself in trying to say yes to more things, but I did have a few more specific changes in mind, one of which is related directly to this blog. When I started writing it I don't really know what I had in mind. An outlet for the rantier ends of my thought process perhaps in order to make sense of my own opinions, and also to save my friends the worst of the accompanying ear ache. Maybe to sort of chronicle my PhD adventure. There's been a bit of the former, not much of the latter, and generally I don't think there's been any real direction to it.

But I was thinking the other day that the blog could potentially be far more useful to me. I think it could be used much more creatively. I have a few things I want to do from now on, not resolutions as such, just avenues I want to explore.

Last year I took some tentative steps into the world of performing stand-up comedy. This is something I've had a desire to do for a long time, but only recently found the mental state and opportunity to have a go. I think the results were better than I might have expected, and I want to do more of it. This means I have to write and preview material. You can see where I'm going here.

So rather than set myself some kind of theme, or a rigid structure, I am instead going to devote the blog to sporadically updating with a few different themes.

Firstly, I'm going to try and write up bits of observation or stories that I think will eventually form routines in a stand up set. Writing essay comedy is very different to performance, but it sets me a nice little challenge to try and be precise enough with my humour that people will find it funny regardless of the telling, and doesn't require any self-explanation. Anyone who finds them self reading such posts, I would encourage to comment on what you found funny, what you didn't, and if you don't mind me stealing them, suggesting notes and improvements. At some point I will perform those bits live, record them, and hopefully you'll enjoy them.

I also want to do more music reviews. I listen to a lot of music, and I'm going to go to more gigs this year, so I want to practice my critical writing with, well, criticism.

And of course, very occasionally, the news will enrage me enough to write political polemic. Perhaps I've been mellowing with age, much like stale piss, but for a while I have lacked the visceral energy to work myself up about our government. They're too ridiculous to ridicule. But I'll have a go.

Anyways, I'll be writing up some comedy tomorrow. Look forward to that.

AV-in' it large

2011-05-04T20:59:00.002+01:00

My thoughts on AV

1) It is not complicated. You can describe First Past The Post in a way that makes it sound complicated. You can explain toast in a way that makes it sound complicated. You are not too stupid to figure out how to vote. Well, apart from you. You know who you are.

2) Because of the nature of safe seats, marginals and the constituency boundaries, on average under FPTP around 100,000 people decide who governs a nation of 60 million. That is fucking retarded, and it's not fair. AV is fairer.

3) The idea that AV will make people vote more tactically is half-baked and nonsensical. It allows you to vote for your favorite, and then who you'd find palatable if you can't have that. FTFP makes you vote for whoever stops the one you hate from getting in. That is not the same thing as choice.

4) The coalition government will not break up regardless of which way the vote goes. It was in the deal that formed it, along with all sorts of things that both conservatives and lib dems don't like and don't agree on, but they've formed an amalgam in order to function as a government. Just because we haven't had a coalition government in a while doesn't mean we should all forget how politics works. A 'no' vote does not get rid of the conservative government. There are reasons to vote no, but that is not one.

5) It really isn't going to cost that much more, and seeing as how it's deciding who's running the country, I don't mind paying a bit extra to make it fairer.

6) I do, however, have sympathy for the counters, because their job will be more time consuming. Also David Dimbleby as he'll have to stay up even later on election night, but it's only once every four years.

So I'm voting yes.

Gig report - Beardyman, JFB and Ed Solo

2011-04-06T15:04:00.002+01:00

There are a few more of these to come, and I will get round to them, but I've actually been pretty busy of late. Hard to believe I know, but my computer isn't going to sit in front of itself being depressed at the general state of climate change policy, is it?

So, on we go with the gig reviews. This time, we have two-time UK Beatbox champion and youtube sensation Beardyman, at the Millennium Music Hall in Cardiff. First off, the Millennium Music Hall is an absolute hole. The floors are stickier than should be humanly possible, it was stuffy and too hot, we had to wait in the cold for half an hour for absolutely no reason before being let in, and it was full of arseholes. You may think that the last item on that list isn't necessarily the venue's fault, but I've seen Beardy several times before and not experienced anything like the level of cockitude on show that particular evening.

However, even with the shitty venue, I had an absolutely fantastic time. First up was DMC UK DJ champion JFB, who frankly took the roof off the place. His scratching skills are pretty legendary already, but he has been incorporating new technology, particularly video scratching, in a really creative and interesting way. He combined playing fantastic party music with a few set routines from his DMC winning programme, some of which are jaw-droppingly intricate, complicated and amazing. Even whilst showing off his skills, however, he never lost sight of the fact that he was there to entertain a crowd. The music was always dance friendly, and presented with a sense of humour and fun that added plenty to the experience. Frankly, if you're in any way interested in turntablism or the art of the scratch DJ, make sure you get to see him do his stuff. He's amongst the very best in the business.

Following on was the bearded noise maker himself. The set up was even more complicated than the last time I saw him. In front of him were at least two Kaos pads, a couple of samplers, a keyboard and plenty of other gizmos besides to record, manipulate and bring together the various sounds of his mouth. To embellish this was a visual show of artwork being selected off stage by video maestro Mr Hopkinson, a long time collaborator who has found interesting ways to transfer his mastery of video editing to a live performance setting.

The first part of Beardy's set was strangely subdued. He seemed to be going through the motions of creating a series of dance and dubstep tracks. It was entertaining enough and certainly provided something to dance to, but over all there seemed to be an air of melancholy running through the set.

Things began to pick up when JFB returned to bring some of the magic of Brighton's unique BattleJam night, as the pair 'battled' each other to create the weirdest and most wonderful scratch sounds. The pair work almost symbiotically, and the collaboration is excellent. The final part, however, was best of all. At this stage suggestions were taken from Twitter for both subject and style of a tune to make up on the hoof. This is where Beardy is truly at his best, allowing his sense of humour and knowledge of different musical genres to create some truly memorable tracks. In particular his "Charlie Sheen Ate My Rugby Ball" tune brought the house down.

Already suffering from a night of DJing till 4 in the morning the previous night meant I didn't stay very long into Ed Solo's set. He seemed a competent DJ but was heading in a very techno direction that clashed a bit with everything that had gone before. Presumably that was the point given he had to close out the show for three hours till near dawn, but it wasn't what I was particularly looking for.

Over all, it was a great evening and a lot of fun. However, I would've liked to have seen something more akin to the "Complete and Utter Shambles" show Beardyman, JFB, Mr Hopkinson and rapper Clumzytung put together last year, i.e. more spontaneous audience fueled madness. Either that or Beardy's solo comedy music show he took to the Edinburgh fringe a couple of years ago. Still, he's bound to crop up at the festivals this summer, and I'd gladly see him again.

Gig Report - Million Way

2011-03-22T14:47:00.002Z

Hmm. Been a while since I've been bothered with the blog. I've been meaning to get back into it, but to be honest the world has been too depressing to even get particularly angry about. That and any semblance of original satire I have during a week gets blown away by David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker on Channel 4's 10 O'Clock Live show every Thursday.

So instead, I thought I'd review a few recent gigs I've been to in order to get back in the swing of things, kicking off with one from last night! Ooooh recent.

Up front, I'll confess a slightly vested interest in that my mate Jim plays drums for Million Way. But I think most people know me well enough that I don't mince my words when it comes to criticism, regardless of who it's aimed at. With that out of the way then, here's what I thought.

Million Way are a band who play electro/electronica type stuff. As in they are an actual band, with instruments. Not just laptops. They consist of Jasper, frantically twiddling away at a bank of knobs and switches that would not be out of place in the space shuttle, making lots of exciting bleeps, wobbles and noises; Jim on bass, and occasional tambourine and what I think might have been a Korg Kaoscillator; another Jim on drums. I've been listening to a couple of their tracks on soundcloud, which sound polished and tight. There's a good balance of enough complexity to be interesting and exciting without going overboard into the sort of self-referential noodling that the electronica genre is all too prone. The tunes bounce along with plenty of energy and show plenty of potential whilst being strong pieces of work in themselves.

The live experience, however, is frankly something else.

Warming up was the rather uninspiring 'Mike'. 'Mike' stood intensely behind a laptop, occasionally twiddling a few knobs, and then wailing something unintelligible into an awkwardly positioned microphone. Nobody seemed to be able to tell when one song stopped and the next began, as it seemed his style of outro bore remarkable similarity to his breakdowns. Resulting in a confused crowd and no applause, even when the odd song almost verged on OK. It was part Moby, part Rick Wakeman, and all something I couldn't give a shit about.

Closing the show were some art school ponces making a god-awful racket. I didn't stay beyond two songs.

But in between, Million Way eclipsed everything else that happened all evening. Whilst all the elements were the same as they were on those few mp3s, the live sound scape was much richer. The drums thumped and crashed harder and less crisply. The bass rumbled and fidgeted. Everything was louder and more intense. It was engrossing. So often when you go to see electronica acts perform live all you see is a couple of guys bobbing about behind a bank of switches and a couple of laptops, and it's hard to feel any connection with what you're seeing on stage. But here, Jim's grin as he jumped around with the tambourine, other Jim's flailing arms as cymbals crashed back and forth in every direction were exciting. Even behind his sci-fi control panel, you could see that Jasper was really doing things. Constantly. And you could hear it in what came out of the sound system.

That's what really made Million Way stand out for me against a backdrop of other electronica bands and artists. There's really instrumentation and spontaneity to what they do. They haven't just sat in a studio for a month sampling everything and then stuck it through a computer. It's a far more organic thing than that. And it's a great time to see it all unfold in front of you.

So what do they sound like. Like Mani from the Stone Roses kicking Mylo up the arse with a Chelsea boot made of glowsticks. That's what.

Harder Better Faster Stronger

2011-01-17T11:41:00.002Z

In the last couple of weeks I have come to a chilling realisation. The music library I use for DJing is in desperate need of overhaul.

As a veteran user of CDJ units, I have long been in possession of an unwieldy yet manageable 400-disc wallet which has the original set of CDs made for me by my first boss, Josh, at the front. There are 8 mix CDs at the back in case of emergencies, or doing clubs where I can get away with sticking one on for the first hour. And in between are the many CDs I burned myself to update and expand the collection in order to keep up with new music and expand into areas that might get me more work. After the latest update, made for my first ever paid New Years Eve gig, the wallet is full. It's in an order not even I myself fully understand. For the last year or so my song selection strategy has usually involved flipping through the wallet in either direction simply looking for something that mixes with what's playing on whatever discs share a page with the one that's playing.

So, with no more room to expand, the time has come for the first full-on revamp of the library I have ever done. I've done a partial revamp before, but I believe it's now time to jettison those old, scratched, battered CDs from my glory days at Fat Poppadaddys in favour of a completely new set. It's a gargantuan task, involving re-evaluating every song in that book (about 3,500 songs by my estimate) for relevance, utility and indeed whether I can bloody well stand to hear some of them ever again.

In the process, I will be faced with the dilemma of songs I really like but never play, songs I hate but are inexplicably popular with my audiences, and generally preserving a body of work that can get me comfortably through a possible 6 hour set, through multiple genres, and retain enough variety to avoid playing entirely the same set every week. It begins with a torturous slog through my iTunes library in alphabetical order, followed by a second sweep for songs that I play regularly but forget the name of, and then a third and final run through spotify and the iTunes store for new releases and zeitgeist defining music that I've yet to get my hands on.

After all that, I will then be faced with splitting the results by genre, making sure that iTunes put them in alphabetical order properly. Then each genre gets split up into 80 minute playlists to fit onto CDs. And then I can burn two copies of each, type up and print the track listings onto CD sized bits of paper, label everything up and put them into a new wallet. The whole process, which I began yesterday afternoon, will probably take me the best part of a month around my other commitments. By the end of it I will hate all music that's ever been made and be ready to quit my job. Good times.

Anyhoo, I'm open to suggestions of possible inclusions in the new set. Rules are relatively simple. Keep things reasonably dancefloor friendly (i.e. nothing to depressing, down-tempo or shouty). And pick from things you could reasonably fit into any of the following genres:

Indie (Arctic Monkeys to Vampire Weekend type stuff)
Britpop (Blur, Oasis, Pulp etc)
Guitar-driven stuff (anything from Rolling Stones to The Clash etc)
Funk & Soul (James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye etc)
Neo Funk & Soul (Quantic Soul Orchestra, Amy Winehouse, Belleruche)
Hip-hop (Nothing too Gangsta, i'm thinking golden age stuff like Tribe Called Quest, J5, De La Soul)
Commercial Dance/Breakbeat (Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Prodigy, Daft Punk etc)
Reggae, Ska and Dub (Bob Marley, Chaka Diemus and Pliers, Mr Vegas, The Specials, Desmond Dekker, NOT Shaggy)
Commercial Drum & Bass (Roni Size, Pendulum, Shy FX & T-Power, nothing too filthy)
Mashups (i.e. two songs spliced together)

Nothing too obscure please. Doesn't have to be a massive hit, but helpful if it's a single, or been on an advert or soundtrack.

Finally, I'd really like some suggestions for good mix CDs. At the moment I have Andy Smith's Document III for hip-hop/funk soul crossover, an NME compilation for nu-rave, indie-dance stuff, and DJ Yoda's How To Cut And Paste Volume I. That leaves at least 5 empty spots. Lay them on me.

Listomania: Music Top 5 of 2010

2010-12-16T14:28:00.005Z

It's fair to say that there have been plenty of blogworthy bits of news happening of late. The trouble is that the news at present is so utterly throw-yourself-in-front-of-a-train, kick-yourself-in-the-crotch insane/depressing that I actually can't summon the gumption to face a lot of it.

So until I re-grow my angry balls (no I don't know what I mean either) I'll do my traditional end of year self indulgent list making exercise. Starting with musics! As last year, I'm using my last.fm playing statistics as an indicator of how much I like things. Let's see if I agree with myself!

TOP ALBUMS RELEASED IN 2010

1) Kissy Sell Out - Youth

This essentially equates to a month in the middle of summer when the sun was shining, the new government hadn't made any god-awful decisions yet, and I was stuck either in my office or in bed with my laptop writing yet another draft of my literature review. And, without being particularly good within itself, DJ and producer Kissy Sell Out's debut album of arch electro-pop nonsense really cheered me up. In the cold, dark winter months, one or two songs have even continued to bring a smile to my face and form a part of the electro tangent in my DJ sets, so I guess it wasn't entirely context dependent. The album itself is 14-odd songs that all sound pretty much the same as one another, mainly about being shit at either getting or having a girlfriend. And I certainly know how that is. Anyway, this is apparently what I played more than anything else that was released this year. I think it may not have been a particularly vintage year.

2) Mumford and Sons - Sigh No More

The more I've had time to reflect on this slice of folk-infused whimsical pop fluff, the more I've realised how I should really be listening to Fleet Foxes instead. That's not to say that I don't like this album. Foot stomping anthems like The Cave and Little Lion Man will likely remain on reasonably heavy rotation at Angry Inc. HQ well into the next few years. But I guess it's the wave of people wearing waistcoats and dispensing with basic hygiene and doing that "I'm stamping slightly out of time and singing loud so the DJ can't really hear what's going on well enough to mix the next song in" that I have the real problem with. And the prevalence of a bajillion copycat bands who think that having as many instruments on the stage as possible with no regard for sonic textures or how they fit together doing supporting sets at gigs I've been to this year has stuck in my craw. But anyway, this was quite good, give it a listen if you haven't yet. And they were OK at Bestival.

3) Imelda May - Mayhem

Coming in at number 3, Dublin soul-jazz type stuff from Ms. May, and also the first entry on this list I have only positive things to say about. Essentially driven by excellent double-bass work, coupled with snappy lyrics and top-notch vocal performances make this a great fun romp of the kind the X Factor could really use but would inevitably fuck up. Not particularly deep, but then not all music has to have a meaning beyond making you want to bounce up and down like a loon or think that you've magically learned to swing dance between that last tequila shot and now. Excellent.

4) Chase & Status - More Than Alot

Hmm. So I had no idea I listened to this quite so much. As good fun as it was chewing my own face off and wildly flinging my arms around at Bestival to this, as an album it falls into the familiar commercial drum & bass album trap of having maybe 3 good songs on it (if you're lucky) accompanied by endless repetitive filler. The high points, however, far outweigh the low however (exceeding the mythical Roni Size ratio, whereby Brown Paper Bag was exactly awesome enough to balance out how boring the rest of Reprazent is on reflection). The filthy beginners guide to dubstep of Eastern Jam (best last.fm comment - It's not really Eastern though is it? Thumbs down), the cheeky deconstruction of the DnB genre of Music Club, but mostly the barnstorming vocal performance of Plan B on Pieces offer up proper, jaw-on-the-floor club classic moments. Will most likely disappear from our collective consciousness by February though, if not already.

5) Eliza Doolittle - Eliza Doolittle

Sometimes you just feel like some unashamed bubblegum pop from a slightly dumpy teenage girl. Even if she does ruin the best song on the album by doing a bird impression in the middle, which is every bit as infuriating as it sounds. The album is actually of a generally decent standard, with singles Pack Up and Moneybox ably supported by a decent supporting cast. And I guess I really didn't listen to very much contemporary music this year.

As it turns out, my actual favourite of the year, XX by The XX was actually released in 2009, which shows how on the pulse of music these days. Also, I spent most of the year listening to Florence + The Machine anyway. And 'discovering' old music on spotify. It appears I am approaching the cusp of not being allowed to like young people music, and this upsets me.

More lists to follow!

Panelled Into Submission

2010-11-12T11:30:00.002Z

Last night's BBC Question Time was a bit of an ordeal for me. At one stage I thought I was going to vomit myself inside-out.

Of a particularly poor panel, only Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles (a vastly experienced diplomat and current Foreign Office special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan) managed to escape saying anything that provoked much ire from me. If I'm being generous, Caroline Flint was more of an empty shirt than an active annoyance, hamstrung for the most part by how shit Labour's last term was and their current state of disarray.

The other three were a perfect storm of a little reading, a lot of hatred and a complete disregard for anyone who isn't exactly the same as they are.

Starting with the wicked witch of Westminster, Theresa May. I imagine she positively danced out of the studio having escaped questioning on the fact that, as Minister for Equality, she's a massive homophobe. And generally has contempt for anyone who isn't white and middle class. It's probably only the amount of additional head swelling she'll have garnered by becoming Home Secretary that's stopping her being crushed under the titanic weight of irony involved.

It was interesting to hear that she doesn't believe she should intervene in matters of policing protests, which is something I'd agree with. Considering she's not a police officer, has no experience of crowd control, or indeed protest of any kind. But I don't think that's why she's backed away from such suggestions. If my understanding of "The Big Society" is correct, I think she's probably expecting a vigilante group to form out of the ether to police such events in the name of "community spirit" whatever the fuck that's meant to mean. Either that or the private sector will magic it all better.

Clive James is the very worst, most vile and dangerous type of pub bore. He's a very well read man, but I get the feeling he has done all of that reading from a prejudiced starting point. I remember him on an edition of Radio 4's A Point Of View programme delivering an essay on scepticism which started out quite soundly and reasonably, but veered wildly off course at the end by essentially calling people who believe that climate change is a real thing a bunch of slack jawed idiots. At one stage last night I heard him call Ed Milliband "a fantasist" for positing an 80% CO2 reduction target for 2050. This was the only reason he gave for Milliband not being a real leader for the Labour party. The only one.

That particular comment is one of the ones that really troubles me. Calling some a fantasist for aiming for a target widely reported by the IPCC and the likes of Lord Stern as being necessary to safely avert possible catastrophic consequences of global warming, a target based on best available evidence with some of the finest minds in the world working on it by the way, smacks of the kind of belligerent, business-as-usual, we're fucked anyway kind of thinking from dinosaurs like James that prevent anyone from actually doing anything worthwhile in government.

Finally though, the real inexplicable bit of carrot in this particular bucket of vomit was "journalist" and all-round cock-knocking thundercunt, Britain's only Neoconservative, Mr Douglas Murray. I'll go into a little depth about why Neoconservatism is so utterly retarded in a second, but first up let's run through a few of Dougie's best bits from last night.

Apparently 25 people kicking windows in at a largely peaceful and legally organised protest is completely abhorrent, but torturing people is fine as long as it's in a legal grey area.
The Conservatives don't "love" making cuts, it's all Labour's fault for the state of public finances. All of it is Labour's fault. Because it's not standard Tory policy to reduce public spending anyway. They didn't just need any old excuse to get the red marker out. Oh, and the global capitalism system that inherently has boom and bust built into it, the previous bust of which happened during a 15 period of Conservative government, had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Waterboarding is not torture because a few people have volunteered to have it done to them to see if it's torture or not. It's not the same as having your fingernails pulled out. Oh and by the way, as long as it's in a legal grey area it's fine. Morality doesn't come into it because of the nasty men we're fighting.
Torturing people is probably necessary to keep the wolves from the door. The ends justify the means and blah blah blah.

All of this, the irony and contradiction, the blame game, the squirming, the hiding behind legality, the ends justifying means, all of it is classic Neoconservatism. And to be frank it's utter codshit.

Noeconservatism is based on one thing. Not freedom. Not liberty. Not equality. No. The big idea here is fear. Fear to maintain order. Fear to make people consume. Fear to oppress opposition. Fear to increase profit margins. Fear of communism. Fear of drugs. Fear of crime. Fear of terrorism. Fear of Islam. Fear fear fear fear. And the vast majority of it is a fabrication.

Neoconservatism requires an enemy in order to function. In times gone by it was easy. The Soviet Union was big and mysterious and threatening. The fact that it was a country on it's knees that couldn't feed it's own people and was on the brink of collapse for decades wasn't an obstacle. Once the USSR had been "defeated" neoconservatives found themselves in the wilderness with no-one to fight. And so they stayed until the last decade, whereby Islamic extremism became their new bugbear.

I'd strongly advise you to watch Adam Curtis' magnificent documentary, "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear" which will explain a lot of what has happened over the last decade, and why we should be resisting the kind of nonsense Murray and the Tea Party movement might have you believe. If you follow the link you should be able to get all the parts on youtube. It's 3 hours you won't regret investing in finding out some pretty shocking things about how our current situation has evolved.

Snip-sliding away

2010-10-18T14:05:00.002+01:00

I became vaguely aware of Project Prevention and their 'cash-for vasectomy' scheme last year without properly attempting to process exactly what such an idea implied. The non-profit organisation, primarily active in the U.S.A. but also working in the UK has just begun rolling out the scheme in several cities around the UK, and you can read about it here and here, amongst other places. For the initiated, the basic idea is offering a cash incentive to drug addicts to have themselves sterilized, made medically incapable of having children.

It's one of those ideas that cannot fail to inspire an instant gut reaction, be it positive or negative. But underlying the initial bit of knee-jerking and conclusion-jumping is a pretty dense philosophical, moral and social head scratcher. The direct question, "Is this a good thing?" is not a simple yes-no affair.

Firstly, the positive. The list of health problems you can rattle off associated with drug use during pregnancy is frankly shocking. The rate of birth defects and serious pre- and post-natal illness is well documented. Furthermore, I can't think of many more depressing or horrifying jobs than being a health professional weening a new-born baby off the heroin it has become dependent on whilst sharing their mother's blood for 9 months. Not the sort of snap you want in the family album.

Beyond the physical, there is also the mental and social turmoil associated with being raised by someone who can barely look after themself. The nature of addiction, of its destructive effect on everything that surrounds it, dose not bode well for the life of a child. Even if the child is placed in care from a young age, then comes the roller-coaster and potential pitfalls of the care system. I don't have figures to back this up, but it's not hard to imagine that the majority of children born to at least one addict parent grow up to have serious problems as adolescents and adults.

If you class addiction as a form of self-harm, then surely it's better that addicts not be tied into a destructive relationship with any more people than absolutely necessary. From a utilitarian point of view, given the social, economic and environmental problems associated with an increasing population, reducing the numbers of those more vulnerable in our society. So surely a good thing, right?

Nope. For me, this scheme is as much preying on the vulnerable for society's sake in the name of protecting the individual. Whilst the benefits to any children involved are indeed obvious, the harm being caused to the individual is unsettling at least and heinous in the extreme.

Firstly, offering money to do this is essentially a bribe for a person to make an important decision at a point where they are really very likely to make bad decisions. Think of all the stupid things you've done whilst drunk, and then consider being like that all the time. Except with one clear goal, that being to get high again as soon as possible. Doesn't sound like a recipe for doing things rationally does it?

Secondly, offering money also has the rather unpalatable consequence of placing a monetary value on a person's reproductive system. It's almost akin to offering someone some money cut off one of their limbs. I am troubled by the prospect of a meeting that happened somewhere in which the figure of £200 was settled upon as being a reasonable amount to exchange for the ability to have children. IVF costs upwards of 100 times that. Make of that what you will.

Next, it smacks of treating the symptom rather than the problem. Sterilizing an addict does not help that person to kick their addiction. To use a rather absurd analogy, it's a bit like cutting off the arms of a guy who murdered a bunch of people with an axe, and sending him back out into society. Sure, he's not going to be doing any more axe murdering, but there's plenty still wrong with him. It might take a little while, but he'll figure out another way of murdering people. You haven't solved anything really.

Finally, what kind of message is this saying to the addict. To my mind it's a thinly veiled subtext of "Your life is essentially over, you can't be trusted to care for anyone, yourself included, and you pretty much have nothing left for which to live." The consequence I'm seeing is a descent into ever more self destructive behaviour. Oh, and that's just self destructive if we're lucky, as there's every chance that plenty of people would be caught in the wake of that particular doomed speedboat of debauchery. You're essentially sentencing people to prolonged suicide, which doesn't sound all that moral or humanitarian to me.

So I guess what I'm building up to is that this is not a good idea. This is money that is not being spent in the right way, or in the right place. If you don't want addicts having children, then how about giving out free contraceptives and educating people on their use. Inspire a little self worth in people, that they're worth protecting from STIs and unwanted pregnancy. Or how about, and this is a bit maverick I know, but how about we work on getting addicts clean. On cracking the drugs trade (which has consequences far beyond our sceptered isle).

Perhaps I am being naive. But the noises I'm hearing from other UK drugs charities are not convincing me that Project Prevention is much else apart from sinister, even if the original aims may have been good-natured.

Hot 'N' Cold

2010-08-26T19:06:00.002+01:00

As I suspected it might, as the dust settled from Climate Gate and COP15 and a new government took over with new priorities, the issue of Climate Change has dropped quietly off the news radar.

But as matters of fiscal cuts and their consequences for people on the street rumble on under the coalition, environmental matters haven't just stopped while we sort out our finances. A heat wave and forest fire in Russia, and unprecedented monsoon rains causing widespread and disastrous flooding in Pakistan. Seemingly unconnected. But extreme weather events like these are likely to become more frequent as the world gets warmer.

And yet, even as a massive international aid effort slowly gathers momentum in Pakistan and the smog clears from Moscow, the world seems to be collectively shrugging it's shoulders and digging in it's pockets for small change.

The Stern Review is coming true, essentially. If these things are going to be more frequent, then we're going to be spending a lot on aid over the next few years. While we're supposedly too poor to rebuild our own schools or pay out unemployment benefit.

The thing about extreme weather is just that. It's extreme. It fucks shit up. There's an argument that the catalyst for the development of human society was a period of stable climate with few extreme weather events that made agriculture possible. Most crops are really quite sensitive to the conditions whilst in seed, germinating, cultivating and then ripening/fruiting. I mean sure, in the western world we have the capacity to simply change which crops, fruits and animals we raise, but that's going to happen at a cost. And that kind of adaptive capacity doesn't exist in the developing world. Subsistence farmers who've been growing the same staples for centuries are not going to be able to suddenly change. Their crops will simply fail and they will either starve or rely on western aid.

I don't have a point with this, especially. I'm just saying, if you're moved to donate some money to the Pakistan appeal, why not pay for it by driving 5 miles fewer a week, video-conferencing that meeting rather than flying, or turning the heating down a degree this winter. Cos that way you're tackling the cause as well as the effect.

If it doesn't make sense ideologically, then it certainly makes sense economically. And that seems to be the most important thing these days.

Hypocritical Mass

2010-07-16T14:28:00.002+01:00

Higher education in the UK is about to hit crisis point. Presumably along with everything else.

The new government's latest wild funding idea has left me scratching my head slightly in disbelief. Whilst the Conservatives go on a mission to demolish the public sector and privatise everything from schools to hospitals, the big idea to solve an oncoming funding crisis in Britain's universities is to socialise them.

That's right kids, having bleated on endlessly about "the jobs tax" during their election campaign, the magnificent lack of self awareness to then peddle a new "Graduate Tax" is frankly astonishing. Now, if you work hard, show academic talent and rack up massive amounts of debt in the process, you'll get the privilege, should you somehow manage to force yourself into the collapsing job market, to then pay for that education several times over. Thanks for that guys.

Considering the Conservative party expects everyone else to work hard to better themselves and then keep more of what they earn, it appears that that view only counts if you're over the age of 30 and middle class. It's difficult to see any other attitude from the government towards the young and the poor than contempt.

I'm starting to wonder why the Tories bothered having a manifesto if it was going to be full of lies and misdirection. The whole "saving 1 pound in every 100" thing is turning out to be bollocks, as the latest victims, the Police, are facing 25% budget cuts but told to miraculously maintain front-line services. They want middle class people to set up their own new schools with no regulation, but existing ones in impoverished areas can go fuck themselves till they fall down.

What this is coming down to is not even a matter of Left vs Right, Conservative vs Socialist. The Tories are simply going to run the country into the ground, and make as many people as they can miserable along the way.

I can scarcely bear to read the news any more. If it's not grizzly murders or yet more death and destruction in Afghanistan, then it's the latest wave of ill-thought-out, knee jerk cuts from an irresponsible government.

Sigh.

Eco-NO-mics

2010-06-07T15:34:00.002+01:00

Even though it all seemed pretty much inevitable at the time, it's only just starting to sink in for me that we really do have a Conservative government (albeit one homeopathically tainted by the Liberal Democrats). I get the feeling that, one by one, many of the people who voted Conservative in a fit of anti-Labour, anti-Brown pique are waking up with a cold feeling and a shudder on realising just what they've done.

But it's too late now. Barring a spectacular revolt by the Liberal Democrats (something that I seriously doubt they have the cojones for by the way), Captain Dave will be sailing the good ship Britannia into the tempest for the next four to five years. I'm attempting to apply a veneer of poetry to this situation simply to stop myself from crying into my keyboard and breaking a second computer in the space of three days.

Cameron has identified the economy as his number one priority. As priorities go, I think most people would agree with that one. Obviously we've had a recession from which we're only just tentatively stumbling out of, so it's obviously one of those things about which something must be done. It's when you listen to him talk about just what he intends to do with it, however, that it all gets a bit troubling.

Essentially, his main idea seems to be jettison the poor, the unemployed, the poor, children, the poor, the civil service, oh and the poor. A big wedge of shit is being prepared for driving between higher and middle to lower income households. And Dave says it's because we are all in this together. We;ll all have to make sacrifices. Well some of us anyway.

Somewhere, buried in vast oceans of putrid shit, there are one or two good ideas in Tory economic policy. It is true that money has been wasted in the public sector, and there are plenty of common sense and efficiency savings to be made, not least by ending the outrageous dependence of various branches of local and national government on consultants where expertise could often have been sourced from within. However, these issues are merely window dressing for George Osbourne to wildly slash about in the treasury with a big scary knife whilst touching himself inappropriately and wearing that god-awful shit-eating grin of his.

All of this is because of Cameron's peculiar fascination with the budget deficit. It's true that it is rather large. Larger than the deficit that's brought Greece to it's knees recently. Greece has a much smaller GDP of course, so can't afford to service such a debt, but why let the actual workings of economic systems get in the way of a good scare story, eh? It would be a good idea to reduce the deficit over the next few years. Whilst Labour's ludicrous "law" about government debt reduction was bizarre and troubling, the Conservatives' plans are much more frightening.

Cameron wants to make £6 billion of savings by the end of the year. Savings which have still yet to be properly detailed a month after the election. Apparently Dave needs to help all us plebs that the cuts are going to be painful but unavoidable.

Unavoidable you say Dave? Unavoidable? That seems like quite a categorical statement to make. I made fun of you a bit just then for not detailing what the cuts are, but in fairness I don't quite understand why they're unavoidable yet. I mean, if our GDP continues to grow (which it did in the last two quarters) then we should be able to service the debt for a while whilst the economy gets strong enough to sustain itself. So it's not actually all that vital that we make massive cuts right now. In fact there are many voices who think excessive fiscal tightening may do more harm than good in the long run.

Dave isn't worried about that though. No. He instead wants to make tens of thousands of public service workers redundant when unemployment is already at 8%, oh and while he's at it cut benefits to exactly those people. Oh, and this will be done in a way that "would not cut the deficit "in a way that hurts those we most need to help" or "that divides the country"". Of course not. Erm, how?

I am about to take a ridiculous, reactionary flight of fancy. I make no apologies for it. I realise the irony in it, as I have often railed against such things from the ill-informed and the right wing and so on before. But if everyone else gets a go, why shouldn't I?

It's not beyond my imagination to foresee a Britain where freshly unemployed public sector workers suddenly find themselves unable to keep up their mortgage payments due to a crippled job market, a drastically reduced benefit system and no hope of respite. Defaultings and repossessions start to mount up, and with a flood of extra property, the housing market collapses again. Left with a bunch of seemingly worthless assets and no quick way to release necessary capital, the banking sector takes yet another tumble. With so much tax-payers money already tied up in them, the government simply cannot allow UK banks to go under. Before you know it, they've borrowed twice as much as they "saved" to issue another bail-out. Well done Dave and George.

OK, that's all the reactionary bile I'll spout for now, but I think you can see what I'm getting at.

So in conclusion, if you voted Conservative, I hope you're fucking proud of yourself. And can I borrow a tenner?

Greasing the Poll

2010-05-06T09:47:00.002+01:00

After a month of histrionics, name calling and point scoring, with historic debates, hysterical newspapers and an ever more confused electorate, the big day has finally come. This general election has been a very different experience to the last 4 that I am old enough to remember.

As I write this I have yet to physically go to the polling station and cast my vote. It has been a very difficult decision for me, but having weighed up the things that are most important to me and what each party claims to be able to offer, I have come to the conclusion that I will be voting Liberal Democrat.

Before accusations of being woolly minded and being swayed purely by TV debates and internet campaigns, I should point out that I voted Lib Dem at the last general election also, partly as a tactic to keep the conservatives from winning, and partly because of a desire for electoral reform. This time round, however, I have discarded the notion of voting tactically.

I am tired of basing my democratic options on what I would like to see the least, rather than what I actually want the most. As long as the bizarre first past the post system is in place I would be forced to continue to do so. Cardiff central (where I am) is a pretty safe Lib Dem seat anyway, and so my single vote is actually far less influential on the result of the election than it could be elsewhere. I've heard an estimate that as few as 100,000 people actually decide who is prime minister tomorrow morning, which to me seems a bit topsy-turvy. Reforming the voting system is, therefore, probably the single biggest issue for me at this election, and in order to fix it I am prepared to put some other issues on the back burner.

In essence, what I hope to see is a Lib-Lab coalition government with a roughly equal vote share between the two. Through this, I hope that a fairer electoral system will be introduced so that I can go back to concentrating on more idealistic notions next time around. Four years of unstable government might sound scary, but I think it is a small price to pay to put the whole electorate back in charge, rather than being held to ransom by a small portion of the more fickle.

In any case, regardless of your personal politics and views, don't let apathy win, get out and vote, and here's hoping that a large enough turn out will show Whitehall that we mean business, and that we're not going to put up with their shit any more.

Hopefully.

Happy polling day everybody. Here's to the wonders of democracy in action.

An arm and a Clegg

2010-04-23T15:27:00.002+01:00

You can argue that it cheapens the process, that things have been boiled down to a bizarre twist on X-Factor, that it's equivalent of a political Punch & Judy show, but the televised leaders debates are nothing if not interesting.

It remains to be seen how big a sway the results of the debate have on the way people vote (I'm not entirely sure how you'd tell, to be honest, but I'll leave up to those clever political science bods, wherever they are). It is interesting to see how the latest opinion polls turn out after each debate.

I think a lot of people have been taken by surprise by the energy, competency and passionate performances by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. There's probably an element of him having nothing to 'lose' especially from the exercise, but even still he appears to be significantly more comfortable whilst debating. Of the three leaders, I think Gordon Brown is the best orator. He may bumble around being awkward when forced up against the public, but put him at a lectern and let him speak he looks and sounds like a statesman, like a guy who could actually run a country. However, once they hit free debate he turns rather more into a pub bore, quoting the same numbers over and over again and then simply asking the other two why they don't agree with him.

David Cameron looks more like an estate agent or a used car salesman. There's something slimy, condescending and creepy about him that puts my teeth on edge. It doesn't help that I fundamentally disagree with him about everything, but I could say the same about most of the decisions Gordon Brown has made since becoming Prime Minister. It's just Cameron seems to be a really awful person that I would trust to sell me a flat, let alone run the country.

Clegg, though, seems to have found a happy medium of being able to speak freely but authoritatively, engaging his questioner, and audiences both studio and TV, and being able to hold his own in free debate. I've been very impressed by a lot of what he says. In last night's debate, however, I feel he may have made a bit of a tactical error by nailing his colours so firmly to the mast of the European Union.

Don't get me wrong, I think he's absolutely right about our role in the EU and how short-sighted those who wish to burn the bridges with our neighbours are. I just don't think that makes him particularly electable. I'd wager a large proportion, if not most of the population of this country are sceptical about Europe to say the least. By all means answer the question about the EU, but he continued to hammer home the point in free debate later on.

Still, a quick shuffle through the latest polling data suggests I am entirely wrong at that Clegg still was deemed to have won the debate by most pollsters.

With one debate, and just less than two weeks to go till polling day, I find it difficult any outcome other than a hung parliament. Cameron can beat up the hapless Brown all he likes, but it'll take something pretty special to defeat both Brown and Clegg at the same time.

A hung parliament, though, might be the best thing to happen to British democracy in years. With whips effectively neutered, every piece of tabled legislation will have to be properly debated. It's only a shame that the dark lord Mandelson manage to bumfuck his horrendous Digital Economy Bill through the commons so soon. In the end, however, I think we'll end up with much better laws being made as a result.

Electile Disfunction

2010-04-07T10:59:00.002+01:00

One month to rule them all. One month to find them. One month to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

So it's general election time again. That magical time every four years or so where politicians compete to treat people most like idiots, and the electorate respond b proving they haven't quite found the lowest common denominator even still.

People get fucking crazy in election years. Everything becomes a far bigger issue than it actually is. Unless it's something actually important, in which case it's conveniently trivialised by petty squabbling and name calling. They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but I'd contend it's actually politics.

It's also a common theme of the pub bore that "it makes no difference which side you vote for, they're all the same in the end." And while that guy is wrong about pretty much everything else, he's dangerously close to the truth.

Don't get me wrong, there are major ideological differences between the three major parties as well as the smaller, minority, usually single-issue driven parties and independents. If you bother to delve into manifestos and what have you there is usually enough difference there for you to tell which party wrote it in a blind taste test. Instead the homogenising process is one that occurs after the election when the winners try and get some governing done.

They never see it coming, but it's actually pretty inevitable. It happened to John Major in the early 90s, it happened to Tony Blair in the late 90s, and it's happened to Gordon Brown over the last few years. It all stems from the way in which modern politicians come up with their broad election promises, via a method that most would regard as a dirty word (or more accurately, phrase), a symbol of consumer society running rampant and ruining all the old values which used to be ingrained in citizenship - the focus group.

The thing about focus grouping is that people will tell you what they want. This sounds great if you're a politician looking to get yourself elected. If you know what people want, you can promise to give it to them, and in turn they will vote for you. The problem starts when you attempt to follow through on the promises, because they are almost always completely impractical. There are a few examples that illustrate this fairly well.

1) People want to pay less tax, but also want better public services
This one is fairly obvious. We like clean, efficient hospitals. We like trains and buses that run regularly and on time that aren't overcrowded. We like schools with nice buildings, good facilities and skilled teachers. We like smooth roads, our bins collected regularly and lots of policemen on our streets. But do we want to pay for them? Err, no. No we really don't. We want to pay less tax and the shortfall to come from some kind of magical goblin cave in the treasury or something. You can make as many efficiency savings as you like, you can cut back on everything non-essential (which is a pretty debatable subject in itself) but in the end to get the glorious public service utopia some tax is going to have get paid by someone. Sorry.

2) People want to feel secure via the application of strict rules to anyone who isn't them
I can't remember who said it (maybe Benjamin Franklin, he said all sorts of clever stuff) but there's a famous quote that goes "Those who value security over liberty deserve neither." Luckily enough, people in Britain are amongst the most stubborn and selfish in the world, so I don't think there is much danger of people relaxing their grip on personal freedom too far in the name of fighting crime and terrorism. But it remains a widespread belief that by inconveniencing everyone else except oneself then terrorism will magically be defeated. Thus, if a government implements draconian measures to bolster national security such as completely outrageous periods of detention without charge, ludicrous ID card schemes and putting cameras everywhere there will quite rightly be plenty of vocal opposition. When some fucking nutjobs eventually commit a terrible act of mass violence though, there is immediate uproar that more wasn't done to prevent it. You're damned if you do...

Time was when a government was elected on ideological grounds, or because the man in charge was seen to be more competent or capable of running a nation, and this would provide a mandate for policy decisions felt to represent the best interests of the country as a whole. Nowadays it's based on placating those people who are most upset and shouting loudest in the focus group. The problem with that is that the masses actually have little idea of how to run a country. Hell I wouldn't know where to start.

I wish I could say that I'll go to the polls on May 6th and vote for a party that I can trust to run the country with such a mandate, but until they drop the focus group it doesn't seem like that will be an option. Instead I'm going to have to make my decision based on whatever issue I think I feel strongest about it. You can probably guess what that is.

Queueing, obviously.

I am the law

2010-03-25T16:58:00.002Z

In amongst the many, many new tasks I was set by my supervisors in a frankly brutal project meeting earlier this week I was instructed to 'familiarise myself' with Environmental Law. In itself, that is a fairly hefty task. When you factor in that the best book the science library has on the subject is only available for day loan, even with my extra special postgrad privileges.

So I got the book out this morning, and after a day of studying it I've picked up a few things.

1) There is shitloads to learn about Environmental Law
It's fair to say I'm not particularly familiar with literature on law, academic or otherwise, but to me it's a bit of a shock when the preface, contents, list of figures, tables and cases take up the first 35 pages of any book. I mean, seriously, 35 pages before you even hit the introduction? That's a serious list of figures, tables and cases! They are not fucking about with their reference list here!

2) We, as a species, are completely insane
There is an international treaty to prevent 'harmful contamination' of the Moon (yes, that Moon), yet the best we've come up with so far on greenhouse emissions is the creaking, outdated and dubiously effective Kyoto protocol. And the USA at least signed the Moon one. That smacks to me of a treaty for the sake of having a three week conference in the Bahamas on government money, but then again, maybe there was a serious problem of astronauts leaving fag buts and dumping industrial by-products up there.

3) For the most part, Environmental law isn't all that Environmental
Until pretty recently, most legislation around the protection of 'the environment' was actually more about protecting public health and private property. And it wasn't exactly great at that either, seeing as how a lot of it relied upon people suing each other. Problem with that is, when everyone is polluting to some extent, nobody wants to be the proverbial pot proverbially calling the proverbial kettle black. Proverbially. Also it was prohibitively expensive unless you were absolutely sure you were going to win. And you never were.

There's a problem with treating the environment as property too. I mean, who owns 'the environment'? Do all of us own it? Maybe none of us? It appears to depend on who is going to have to pay to clean something up.

4) There are however, signs of hope
For a long time, environmental law focused on single issues (and usually just the most dangerous or visible ones at that), but of late there has been a move towards the concept of sustainable development. There are more definitions of sustainable development than I've had hot dinners (a major factor in why it's making painfully slow progress in a legal world where the slightest ambiguity is seized upon and ripped apart like a goat in the raptor pen), but eventually we should be living our lives so as to "meet the needs of society without damaging the capacity for future generations to meet their needs". And I don't think that's entire unreasonable as a place to start.

****************************************************************

I've had a hankering to start blogging about sports, mostly football. However, I'm aware that a lot of my friends couldn't give two flying monkey cocks about the need for Rafa Benitez to commit to linking the defensive and attacking portions of Liverpool's midfield in the manner that first Aquilani and then Lucas did successfully against Portsmouth and Lille. So I'm going to start a separate blog for that, details will follow.

Public Service Announcement

2010-03-03T15:29:00.003Z

So the rumours turned out to be true, and the BBC, as part of a raft of cost cutting measures, plan to mothball its 6Music radio station. This disappoints me both personally and as a rational human being.

I am lucky enough to have a DAB radio, and when I last checked I can pick up 63 different stations from my bedroom in Cardiff. Of all of those, though, I only really listen to 4 of them on anything like a regular basis.

BBC Radio 4 - For current affairs analysis, arts and comedy
BBC Radio 5 Live (and it's sister service 5 Live Extra) - News and Sport, Kermode's film reviews (and occasionally getting angry at phone-ins)
BBC 6Music - For absolutely everything else I could want from a radio station

So killing off a station that accounts for maybe half of my time spent listening to the radio is bound to personally upset me. However, as a man of logic and science, let's put personal issues aside and prove why this decision is fundamentally wrong.

What reasons could the BBC management have for shutting the station?

Low audience figures - Perhaps, but they're rising all the time, and would probably get another bump as the digital switchover spreads further around the country. And if listener figures were in any way important Radio 3 would have been shut down years ago. My dad loves classical music and can't stand Radio 3. And besides, the BBC don't raise funds from advertising revenue, so why do they need higher listener figures? Just a thought.

Cost cutting - Given the BBC is supposed to be a public service, I would have thought that if cost cutting was required it would happen in ways that would not effect programming. It's not exactly serving the public to remove the service is it?

Unfair competition and monopolisation against commercial radio stations - Nope. Name me another radio station which provides the same kind of variety and depth of music anywhere in the world. It's unique. Commercial radio does not even attempt to occupy the same space. I spent one particular summer working in the admin office at a GP surgery where they had Heart FM on the background, and during one shift I counted just 12 different songs in 4 hours. Twelve. Even the kidney meltingly irritating adverts were repeated up to three times an hour. Commercial radio stations work on the principle of paying for as little music as possible, the polar opposite to what 6Music do.

If the BBC insist on attempting to run everything by demographics and focus groups, then it makes absolutely no sense to shut down 6Music, or the Asian Network. Both these stations serve an audience that aren't catered for anywhere else. Commercial radio covers the ground that Radios 1 & 2 occupy, so why not shut them down?

The tone thus far might give you the impression that I'm hating on the BBC. That couldn't actually be further from the truth. I love it. I am proud that we have it. There is no equivalent of it in any other country in the world. Yes, there are bad decisions being made right now, but I don't think they are the fault of the BBC as an organisation.

No, instead the blame must lie with the public for not understanding what the BBC is, and politicians for jumping on that particularly ignorant bandwagon to try and score political capital.

Here's the thing about the license fee: it's a tax, not a subscription.

The funds collected from the license fee are used to make programmes for everyone. Not everyone at once though, that would be impossible. Individual programmes are made to appeal to different subsets of audience members with different tastes. You will not like everything that is on. So DON'T WATCH IT ALL.

All of this, in a way, is the continuing aftershocks of Ross-Brand. If you think you'd be offended by something, why watch? Why listen? It's not as if you're lacking in choice for something else to entertain you.

I have never written in to complain about Songs Of Praise because it's boring. Or about Cash In The Attic because I don't find antiques or collectibles particularly interesting. Or about My Family because it isn't funny. Or about Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow because it's immature. IT'S NOT MEANT FOR ME. So what if part of my licence fee paid for it. Presumably these shows make someone else happy, so that's fine with me.

I'm lucky enough not to have cancer, but that doesn't mean I want to see the oncology ward at the local hospital to close because I'm not using it. Even when I eventually start paying income tax and national insurance again. Do you see what I'm getting at?

It's pressure from my favourite group of people, Ignorant ass-tards who shout louder than everyone else, that is responsible for the BBC making cutbacks in these areas, and they should be ashamed of themselves. It will be a dark day when people like myself, and indeed listeners to the Asian Network, are forced to listen in the middle of the night to catch their favourite shows and presenters. God forbid, we might even be forced to put up with the emotional and mental torture of hearing the likes of Chris Evans, Fearne Cotton, Chris Moyles, Zane Low and Jo Wiley on the off chance that maybe 1 song in every 10 is one we like. Fuck that shit.

I'm happy to carry on paying for all the shit they choose to listen. But they'll have to prise 6Music from my cold, dead hands.

Here are some links if you agree with me and would like to do something about this.

Petition on Avaaz.org
Save 6Music Facebook Group (Includes lots of links and email adresses to lobby our case)
Comment on the BBC Strategic Review

Listomania Part 3: Top 5 (Living) Comedians That I Think Are Good

2010-02-17T14:53:00.004Z

I'm having a real struggle concentrating and getting my work done in a way that I'm pleased with, so I thought I'd take a break and think about something else for a minute. And what better way than to fire up the old list making part of the brain.

I love stand up comedy. There is something incredibly impressive about being sharp, quick-witted, intelligent and perceptive enough to be really good at making a room full of people laugh. It seems there has been a real resurgence in the genre over the last few years. It might be related to societal attitudes. Maybe it's the falling price of DVD players. Maybe it's because of populist no-brow nonsense like Michael McIntyre (I'm not the biggest fan). But anyway, here is a list of some of my favourites, in no particular order. It reads like a list of influences I like to think have inspired me as a character (although obviously not as good as any of them). I limited it to living ones since otherwise you end up with the same Bill Hicks, Richard Prior circle jerk that any old numpty can come up with. Not to say this list is particularly ground-breaking. Just shut up and read it, jesus.

1) Stewart Lee

I am just about old enough to remember Stewart Lee and Richard Herring's "This Morning With Richard Not Judy". It was a Sunday morning comedy show, and given that airing time, incredibly rude and surreal. I fell in love with it almost instantly. The combination of Herring's child-like, whimsical, but ultimately filthy persona with Lee's sour, more muted and pessimistic demeanor was a delight to behold.

But as much as I loved the double act, and indeed Richard Herring, Lee on his own is frankly a class apart. He's the antithesis of most popular comics. His delivery is laboured, repetitive, deliberate and slow, but the punchline arrives it invariably floors you. He's cerebral, culturally and politically sensitive, but still capable of moments of the jarringly surreal. I urge you all to look him up.

His BBC2 series "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle" has recently has a second series commissioned, so you should all look forward to that.

2) Ed Byrne

Ed Byrne is magnificently under-rated. Having been on the circuit for years now, he's only just starting to get major award nominations and the like, and there are probably plenty of people who know him best as the voice of 'Mowbli' from the Carphone Warehouse adverts. If I remember rightly I first happened across him in an absolutely terrible ITV sitcom "Sam's Game" (a vehicle for Davina McCall riding a remarkable wave of popularity at the time). Even in such a stinking TV turd as that, Byrne's razor sharp wit and penchant for barbed pedantism was on show for all to see.

Byrne spins a wonderful yarn, an observational comic who never cops out with the cliched "what's all that about?" line, instead drawing parallels between the obvious and the fantastical and highlighting the absurdity he encounters in his life. There's something about Ed Byrne that makes me think he'd be fantastically annoying to actually hang around, because he is just too good at what he does.

He's also my hero for taking on and utterly destroying Piers Morgan live on BBC Radio 5 Live

3) Dylan Moran

Dylan Moran is simply not of this age. To me he seems like he'd be more at home in Victorian society, drunkenly offering witticisms from a comfortable chair in the corner of a ballroom, chain smoking and angrily calling for a serving wench to bring more wine. Like Byrne, he's an observational comic who refuses to bow down to cliche or formula. He has simply created this absurd, chain-smoking, drunken, misanthropic caricature of himself and wallows in the absurdity of a world in which he feels he doesn't belong. His humour comes from a very dark place, and it's all the more invigorating for it.

4) Ross Noble

From three cerebral comics who extrapolate the absurd from the real, we move on to one who seems to permanently live in a fantastical realm of the surreal and the whimsical. Watching Ross Noble work is actually amazing to me. Even though he tours relentlessly in Europe and Australasia, every one of his shows is unique. In 2 hours, there will be maybe 3 stories he tells every time, and everything else comes about purely from tangent after tangent after tangent inspired by anything from an audience member to a chance happening earlier in the day. It's almost like spinning plates, he keeps five or six anecdotes alive concurrently, extracting as much humour as possible from each, and can keep track of them all well enough to bring everything back round to a conclusion. He's simply wonderful.

5) Doug Stanhope

For this last one I thought I'd try and go a bit further left field and maybe uncover something only very few of you even knew existed. American Doug Stanhope is, perhaps unsurprisingly given some of the other's I've picked, an angry misanthrope. He spits bile about just about anything you could think of, from a rocking chair on his porch, swigging hard liquor from a brown paper bag. He's a regular contributor to Charlie Brooker's excellent Screenwipe and Newswipe programmes for BBC4, which I'd recommend you to check out as well.

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So there you have it. Some notable absentees perhaps. Eddie Izzard is an obvious one with a case. Bill Bailey. Frankie Boyle perhaps? Or indeed any of the legion of American funny men and women that dominate popular culture and movies. If you've got nothing better to do, then by all means make a case for your absent favourite. But for now, go away.

Why Climatology Sucks in 2010

2010-02-11T13:06:00.003Z

So yesterday I was listening to a Radio 4 programme about people's belief in Climate Scientists and Science being knocked by recent 'scandals' involving hacked emails and exaggerated claims of glacier melt and the like.

The word 'belief' was used interchangeably with 'trust' throughout the discussion, projecting an image that Climate Scientists are like fairies at the bottom of the garden or something.

Three points really that I feel the need to put forward:

1) It is absolutely typical of the modern media landscape that a station world renowned for investigative journalism, high caliber debate and expert commentary on current affairs issues such as BBC Radio 4 could have two intelligent, erudite and well-spoken guests in a studio, and then spend an hour broadcasting the frighteningly under-informed, vitriolic word farts of members of the mother fucking general public rather than letting the experts debate the issue at hand. Butter my arse I am sick of it.

2) It's no real surprise that this country has an obesity problem when it becomes abundantly clear that people get most of their exercise jumping to conclusion and jerking their knees.

3) A lot of the perceived controversy about climate science appears to be a result of people not really knowing what the IPCC is and how it works. And this is somehow the IPCC's fault.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is not:
a) A research institute in Switzerland
b) A legislative body
c) Responsible for you being a fucking moron

The IPCC is actually a panel of experts chosen from a list of candidates nominated by UN member states. This panel then conduct a review of all climate change related literature from peer-reviewed sources, and ever 5-7 years produce a report on the state of the science. The report goes through many drafts, each of which are debated at length by representatives of each of the member nations so that a reasonable consensus is reached about the wording and presentation.

It does not carry out original research itself, rather relying on what is published in peer-reviewed journals. So if you could level a criticism at them, I would choose that they are not always using the most up-to-date science.

So, in the context of that, let's have a quick peek at the Himalayan Glacier claim that has seen so much press. The article from which this claim was taken was published in Nature, which is a peer-reviewed journal. Which to my mind would entitle the IPCC to take it reasonably seriously, I would have thought. I mean, doesn't it say more about Nature's editorial standards than it does about the integrity of IPCC? I don't see people burning copies of Nature outside their offices on the news. If people are going to jump to conclusions, there's a pretty logical one of which to jump.

Putting that aside for a moment, why, in light of new evidence refuting this specific claim about Himalayan glaciers, did Rajendra Pachauri, not simply issue a correction? First up, because he's an idiot. One of those really special idiots who are incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable about their chosen field, but given an issue like this fall to pieces faster than a jigsaw in a box. In an earthquake. Secondly, given that these days anyone in a position of public authority is in constant fear for their job, safe in the knowledge that any mistake they make, or are associated with, will result in their untimely dismissal. This is why cover-ups so often occur. Thirdly, given this was all going on during the Copenhagen summit, and given the knee-jerky world we now live in, delaying the announcement of the mistake probably did more good than harm. Because it doesn't take the biggest leap of imagination to see all the newspaper headlines being covered in "Climate Change Is A Lie" (much as they are now) rather than concentrating on the issue at hand at the COP15 conference.

Lastly, there's the most delicious irony of all.

Climate "sceptics" (at some stage I'll blog about the difference between sceptic and "sceptic") have often said that there is not enough evidence to conclude climate change is man-made. They do, however, feel that one paragraph on one page of a 1,000 page long report is enough to colour all climate science as lies.

I've also heard claims that those other 999 pages should be scrutinised with a fine tooth comb because "you never know what else you might find to be false!". If that's so, maybe we should suspend emitting green house gases because "you never know what harmful effects it might have". Ladies and gentlemen, our old friend the precautionary principle rears it's head again.

And that's why it sucks to be a climatologist in 2010.

Enlight My Fire

2010-02-04T13:59:00.002Z

How much of a bell-end is Prince Charles, out of 10? At least 14 I'd say.

The guy has a habit of guffing brain fart style opinions to anyone who'll listen about things he doesn't really know jack shit about, all because he's lucky enough to have been born into circumstances where he never has to work, and owns enough land to grow all the holistic organic carrots with Prince of Wales official seals on the packet to sell for four bazillion times what they're actually worth he could possibly desire.

His latest bumcast somewhat takes the cake, however, as he attempts to debunk the bedrock of our entire modern civilization and contradict the ideas of some of the cleverest people who've ever lived. Ol' jug ears has now decided that all modern ills are caused by Enlightenment. Specifically 'The Enlightenment', the philosophical doctrine that any problem can be solved via the application of reason, proponents of which include the likes of Descartes, Voltaire, Locke and Leibniz. Some of the biggest of cheeses that ever did cheese.

The Enlightenment is the just the foundation of things like the American Declaration of Independence and the modern scientific method. But Charlie organic potatoes recons he knows best. Of course he fucking does. This is a guy who after probably saved the world from being turned into homogeneous grey sludge by rogue nanobots after all. This is a guy who thinks architecture as a field should have been frozen in time about a hundred years ago so that everything would look like his house.

His Royal High-Horse thinks that the principles of The Enlightenment no longer apply because social conditions are different now. He wants a more 'holistic', localised approach that works in harmony with nature.

Whenever I hear the word 'holistic' it makes me physically sick, because it's usually being said by a monumental prick. For those who don't know, Holism is the concept of a system as a whole and the interdependence of its parts. Often though it's used as a euphemism for an approach based on 'feelings' rather than reasons.

I struggle to see what Charles' reasons are for jettisoning applied rational thought in such a brazen manner. I don't really see what precludes Enlightenment from being truly holistic. When you look at something like climate science, that's some pretty hardcore holism right there.

Instead I think Charles has gotten mixed up between rational thought and his favourite pariah, technology. Charles is probably the world's most famous, most technophobic Luddite. If you asked him, I think he would really struggle to think of any form of technology he approves of, even things he might use every day. I think I might have to stop thinking about him before I spontaneously combust.

Yes, Charles is the enemy of enlightenment. I guess at least he's been good enough to come out and admit it.

Practice Safe Politics

2010-01-13T15:19:00.003Z

Seeing as how my actual work isn't going particularly well today, I figured I'd take a break and blog about it instead. Added advantages of this include more accommodation for my dirty, dirty, profanity stained mouth, and the fact that you, dear readers, while silently judging my pansy-arsed liberal lefty clap-trap, don't have nay influence over my supervisors.

Anyways, today's topic is pretty central to the green movement, but also stretches far beyond that into global politics. Exciting eh? Oi! Wake up at the back there! Don't make me bust out the PowerPoint slides!

Anyways, there are a couple of things that make lobbying for action on climate change especially difficult. Firstly, nothing like it has ever happened before. I mean sure, the Earth's climate has changed wildly before from ice ball to sweltering tropical heatwave, based on factors like the variations in the Earth's orbit, the sun's activity, biological and geological processes and the like. But there's never been a species doing things to poke the precarious 'stable state' that we find ourselves in at the moment.

Also, even though we have plenty of evidence pointing towards global warming, climate change and the like, since these things happen over decades and centuries it's difficult for people, with their relatively short time frame, to actually witness the changes we're talking about. And by the time they do see those changes, it'll be far too late to stop them.

So essentially, by proposing action on climate change, we're asking people to take a bit of a leap of faith. We're asking people to take action against something that has yet to happen, because the consequences of it actually happening are too terrible to contemplate. Following this so far? Good. I knew I could count on you guys.

It's called the 'Precautionary Principle'. It's a cornerstone of the green movement, and has been since the 1980's. It's what brought about legislation on CFC's, proper disposal of fridges, and action on Acid Rain. As a result we still have an Ozone layer and Acid Rain has reduced considerably since the early 90's. When it comes to Global Warming, and Climate Change as a whole, it seems people are much less inclined to give a fuck.

An interesting comparison to make here is with another phenomenon that, if you believe everything you see on the news, sits amongst the pantheon of 'Things That Will Bring About The End Of The World'. Guessed what it is yet? That's right, International Terrorism. That old chestnut.

I don't know for sure, but I'd be fairly confident guessing that almost every piece of anti-terrorism legislation has the precautionary principle at it's centre. What the government ask us to do is give up our civil liberties, our justice system, our personal freedoms, our time, our money, our identities and so on, in order to prevent another atrocity like 9-11. And rather disturbingly, as a society, we seem quite happy for them to do this. The reason that the government is able to do this is simple. It's a four-letter word. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it's the basis for an awful lot of international politics.

Fear.

By telling us about this all-pervasive threat, these silent assassins that could strike any where at any time, the government can keep us compliant, do the things they want to do, and even keep themselves in power. It's the old switcheroo on the tyrants iron fist. Instead of fearing power, we fear each other, and rely on those in power to keep us safe.

So we wait for hours at airport check-in, look suspiciously at people with rucksacks on trains, and let the government keep watch, silently collecting data and observing everything. Yet switching the light off when we leave the room, sorting out the recycling and driving 5 miles less a week is a massive hassle. Seems a bit unbalanced to me. How bout you?

So what's the difference? Well, eventually, you'll catch a terrorist. Or at least some the government think might be a terrorist. And if he's in prison, he can't go terrorising. You don't really 'catch' climate change. Everything goes on regardless. So is that it? Is climate change not scary enough? Do we need a climate Bin Laden that we can use to scare people into sorting their plastic and cans or taking the bus to work?

If you've been affected by any of the issues in this blog post, I first suggest you watch Adam Curtis's excellent documentary "The Power of Nightmares", which fortunately enough is on YouTube. Below is the first part, and you can get the rest from there.

Don't have nightmares.

Conflict Resolution

2010-01-06T23:26:00.002Z

I've never really been all that big on the whole new year's resolution thing. For a long time it felt kind of hollow. After all, if something is worth doing, just do it right? Why set yourself an arbitrary (and in a lot of cases disproportionate) deadline of December 31st to get thing done?

Even with my trusty misanthropy and cold hard logic still relatively intact after the beating my brain took on new year's eve (I'm still waiting to see if I've lost at least some motor function or cognitive skill), since this also happens to be the start of my second quarter-century on our fair Earth, I've been quite a reflective mood. Which is a good mood to be in if you're going to make arbitrarily time framed statements of intent for no other reason than to satisfy tradition.

On reflection then, I actually did a very good job on the actually achieving things front last year. I got myself a funded PhD, moved out of my parents' house (again), learned to drive and passed my test. These things pretty much made up my resolution list as I recall it. There was probably something about getting a job too, but that turned out to be pretty irrelevant in the end.

This year represents a slightly different prospect though. There's nothing particularly practical in my life that needs addressing that I can realistically 'fix' through effort purely on my own behalf. Instead I've gone slightly more creative for this year's list. And here, ladies and gents, it is.

In every month this year, cook something I've never cooked before.
Use my spare time more creatively
Polish up my French
Write at least one article for a newspaper

There it is. There are 2 there that are totally measurable. Either I cook things I've never cooked before and write newspaper articles or I haven't. There's more than enough wiggle room to keep it fun though, which is good. The other two are a bit more abstract and open to interpretation, but in reality it's just a personal memo, really.

A lot of it is born out of stifled creativity. I've always wanted to make films, but never seemed to find the time (even in 3 years of being in the film-making society at uni). The one film I was actually involved in making was magnificent fun and is something I'm genuinely proud of, so it's a bit silly that I don't do it more. The only problem then is to come up with some good ideas. And write the scripts. And get the equipment and crew together to film them. And edit them. Hmm. More to it than I thought perhaps? Worth a go though.

I've been working on an extra special secret project with my mate Chris for ages too, and that could really use far more attention than I've given it thus far.

There's music as well of course. I'm not even going to begin to claim I could write music, or even raise my pitiful guitar playing ability high enough even to play shitty White Stripes covers at open mic nights. But I am a rather good DJ and I should do that more often, even if it's just making mix CDs for my mates. It's a talent I spent a significant amount of time developing and it'd be a shame to let it slip.

Speaking of open mic, I've been toying with idea of trying stand-up comedy for nearly 10 years now, so it's probably about time I gave that a whirl for better or worse.

Then there's French sitting there a little incongruously. By the end of school I could speak pretty good conversational french and German. And those are two skills I absolutely did let die through lack of practice. It's all still there somewhere, I know, it just needs re-awakening. And 2010 might be the year to do it.

So there it is. I think it's an uncharacteristically ambitious and optimistic list, and one that has almost certainly condemned me to an end of year failure. But it's tradition, so fuck it.

Anyways, perhaps you'd like to send me recipe ideas. Or talk me out of that stupid stand-up comedy idea. Maybe you'd like me to make you a mix CD. Or maybe you'd like to call me Dr Fagballs for coming up with any of the shit. Comment your heart out below.

Listomania Part 2: Top 5 Albums of 2009

2009-12-28T11:03:00.004Z

Now we're getting to the tricky part. Most of you may be aware of my DJing background and frankly ridiculous collection of music (~20,000 songs and rising). Trouble is, when it comes down to it I don't really know that much about music. Certainly not enough to hold down a reasonable conversation with a 'cool' person about it. But what I do know is what I like. And against my better judgement, here it is. In an effort to keep up with the vaguely pseudo-scientific way I dealt with films, I've based this as much as possible on my last.fm statistics.

5) The Dead Weather - Horehound

Yes yes it's another 'supergroup' with cool people like that moody looking one from The Kills, and him from the White Stripes and what have you, but it's a really filthy modern take on blues-rock and I really liked it. I never really think of Jack White as being one of my favourite people, but he's now been in 3 bands that I love (White Stripes, Raconteurs and now this lot). So well done him anyway. When it comes down to it I really like fuzzy, distorting guitar licks and moody ladies with impractical fringes, and since this band have both, can't really go wrong.

4) A Camp - Colonia

One of a list of gems I can attribute BBC 6 Music for bringing them to my life, this is a side project from The Cardigans (you remember them, that Lovefool song, the one about losing my favourite game, etc), or more specifically their oddly alluring Swedish lesbian pixie singer Nina Persson. It's a beautifully constructed piece, with no dud tracks, all with lyrics that veer wildly from prophetic and deep to caustic and rude to fantasy and whimsy. It's put together over some very pleasant guitar-and-strings style backing, kind of like little guitar concertos, and I think it's very good.

3) Florence + The Machine - Lungs

If the year had been about a month longer I think this would've caught up the two above it, but being strict to the number of plays, Florence Welch sits in a very respectable 3rd. I absolutely love this album. Even the couple of tracks that feel a little bit like filler. But to be honest, when you've got such visceral emotion and powerful backing as you do on tracks like Kiss With A Fist, Hurricane Drunk and Dog Days Are Over, I think you can forgive her the odd duff one. When you think back to bands like, plucking one out of the air, The Police, who would have 2 or 3 magnificent singles on each album and the rest would be horrendous, then I think chalking up 8 corkers out of 13 is good going.

Perhaps the centrepiece of the album (even though it's at the end) is a haunting and magnificent take on Candi Staton's soul anthem You Got The Love, which is amongst my favourite songs of the decade and nearly made me wee myself at Bestival.

2) Gomez - A New Tide

Gomez have long been in the upper echelons of my pantheon of favourite bands. They make simple, no-nonsense indie pop featuring beautiful harmonies, jangly guitars and wistful melancholy. And I'm betting most of you (if you ever knew of their existence) thought they'd split up years ago. But this latest offering from the 1998 Mercury prize winners is another slice of fried gold in a canon of albums which have only rarely dipped below excellent. I saw them live for the first time in around 10 years this year and they were incredible. The fact that 5 ordinary looking, balding, middle-aged men with beer guts and glasses could create things so beautiful, and not lost any enthusiasm for what they do, is a wonderful thing to behold.

1) Little Boots - Hands

As much as I do love this album, I appreciate two facts: 1) It's been out longer than the rest of them, which is a bit unfair under this system, and 2) it absolutely is not going to be everyone's cup of tea.

I actually met Boots (Victoria Hesketh) several years ago after going to see her old band, Dead Disco, on a whim one evening in the sweaty hell-hole west midlands residence may know as Bar Academy in Digbeth. On that fateful occasion, I was chilling with a beer in the back when she walked past clutching two bottles of dry white wine and looking quite confused. After a couple of seconds she turned and asked me where the stage door was. I told her it was right behind her. She turned to look at the door, looked back at me, back at the door, and finally said in that delicious Blackpool accent of hers, "Ahhhh riiiiight. Cheers darling!", blew me a kiss and turned to leave. After another couple of seconds while she tried to open the door with both hands full I went over and opened it for her. She giggled a little in embarrassment, I winked and said "Keep up the good work" before she disappeared off to get ready.

Just 3 short years later, Hands was released and made the top 10, which I'm prepared to take some credit for. I also believe it's probably about me, and specifically that rather tame anecdote.

But seriously, this album is a charming, fun, well crafted slice of electro-pop. It's full of catchy hooks, interesting noises, and even the occasional bit of depth. My personal stand-out track is Mathematics, which has the added bonus of not just being a cracking pop song but also use as GCSE revision guide.

So there are my top 5. Notable absentees from this list are Mumford & Sons (because I haven't got round to buying their album yet), Monsters of Folk Music (ditto), and indeed Animal Collective. Somewhat controversially I don't think Merriweather Post Pavilion is anywhere near as good as everyone seems to think. True it's got two of their best ever songs on it, but they're like really posh bread around a corned beef sandwich. It just averages out to, well, average I guess.

This would probably be a good point to trot out some unnecessarily committed hatred for my 2009 crime against music or something, but to be honest my choice of stuff I like might be upsetting enough for some of you even before I go lambasting your favourites. Ah but what the heck, it's Christmas right?

So what's it going to be? I think I've made my views on Lady Gaga perfectly clear. X-Factor? The ridiculous irony of 'rebelling' against the X-Factor to make Sony BMG loads of money? Donk? Nope. All cast into the shadows by...

Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You

To start with, I will freely admit that I own a copy of Alright, Still..., that like that album, and that while she isn't exactly my idea of a 'good' person, I don't fundamentally disagree with her as a human being. But this... this... thing... I don't even want to legitimise it by calling it an album. This horrible, putrid, thoughtless, badly written, badly performed abomination of a... thing, stands proudly willycoptering in the face of music in the modern era. It's almost as if she took Alright, Still..., designed and built a magical hoover and then sucked out all of the charm, humour, grace and delivery to leave this twitching, lifeless, cold, electronic corpse of a... THING! I would rather do a DIY vasectomy on myself with safety scissors than listen to this again. If it comes on in any place I'm unlucky enough to find myself, I will find the nearest hammer and smash my ears in till it stops.

Commence comment based ridicule of my taste and opinions.

Listomania Part 1: Top 5 Movies of 2009

2009-12-27T12:04:00.002Z

I think it's fair to say I'm not the biggest reader. Not of fiction anyway. Part of it may be a result of being at university and constantly worrying about the next exam that I never really get round to it. It might just be laziness or a fundamental lack of culture. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that the only fiction book I've ever read cover to cover in less than a week is 'High Fidelity' by Nick Hornby, and as such I love making Top 5... lists.

It's also fair to say that I'm not much of a film buff. I've seen a lot of movies, sure, but my taste is somewhat erratic. You can experience it for yourself at my criticker.com profile, which is sight that I'd recommend to anyone who has a few months of spare life they don't mind wasting.

But anyway, rather unusually, I've seen quite a few films that actually came out this year, and criticker is helpful enough to tell me which ones they were, and which I liked best. So here we go (with criticker scores out of 100).

5. AVATAR (85)

Sneaking into the top five within that last week is James Cameron's multi-squillion dollar 3D CGI festival of lights. The story may not be the most original in the world, but that isn't something that prohibits a film from being good. In truth, the story arc only has to be strong enough to hang all the pretty graphics off and keep everything moving. And good lord, those graphics. To be impressive with CGI these days you have to go a very long way, and pay a lot of attention to detail, and that's exactly what's been done here. I would be very surprised if it doesn't win an Oscar for technical achievement in some guise. My only major criticism is that it's a bit too long. It's also a film that is actually worth seeing in 3D.

4. CORALINE (90)

Next up, a fantastical grim fairy tale, with a tip of the hat to Alice in Wonderland and all that, another 3D graphical visual feast. I remember describing it as Pan's Labyrinth for kids, which is high praise indeed in my book. I guess what I meant by that is that there isn't as much horrible violence in it. Something that's been missing from kid's films of late is a sense of genuine fear or dread. Kids love being scared by weird things that threaten harm but never actually get to carry it out. I also like the way that the line between good and evil is blurred initially, so that any children watching would see that evil can be dressed as good and vice-versa. A ripping good yarn all round. Oh and again, the 3D was very well done.

2=. UP (91)

I am unashamed to admit that I am utterly in love with Pixar. I have yet to be disappointed by anything they've done. Finding Nemo and Wall-E are amongst my favourite films of all time. And yet again, they came up with the goods on this. It's beautiful, heartbreaking, and almost symphonic in construction, with moments to make you cry tears of laughter and sorrow alike. As many have said, the opening 20 minutes are absolutely masterful, and while (like Wall-E) it falls back into more traditional madcap action style kids fayre through the second half, it's wonderful to see what is ostensibly a kids film evoking such strong emotions of loss and pain. Magnificent.

2=. STAR TREK (91)

This may well have a bit of an unfair advantage in this list, because I watched it on Blu-Ray last night so it's a bit fresher in my mind. Even still, I think I'm happy to put this on a par with Up, but for very different reasons. I've never really been all that into Star Trek in it's various guises. Some of the older Trek movies are actually awful (kidnapping a whale to speak to God for Christ's sake). I'm not even that big of a Sci-Fi fan if I'm perfectly honest. But I am a firm believer that, so long as you have a good story, the setting in which you place it shouldn't really matter. I think that's true of Star Trek. The central themes of loss, revenge, burgeoning friendship and camaraderie are all familiar ones, but they're dealt with in an interesting way. It's a well cast, very well executed piece of theatre. The excellent special effects are an added bonus on top of that, and that is what I believe makes this so good. It's the Casino Royale of the franchise, so they've just got to hope for a better follow up than Quantum of Solace (which I didn't think was that bad by the way, but that's a whole other story).

1. DISTRICT 9 (95)

On paper, a mockumentary style buddy movie set in a slum doesn't exactly sound electrifying. But somehow this movie is far, far greater than the sum of it's parts. There are moments of hideous gore, ridiculous sci-fi action, farce, hope, despair, familial and marital love, and lord know what else, but it all comes together into a coherent whole which has a start, a middle, an end and connects them all up with minimal fuss or ungainly track changes. It's just astonishingly well done. You can even throw in a layer of social-political context about apartheid and race relations. Most of all I think I loved this because of what I hope will have been a massive kick up the arse it's given Hollywood. You don't have to have Nicholas Cage or Vin Diesel hamming around kicking people in the face, you don't have to spend millions on pointless special effects, but you do have to write a proper story and get competent people to act in it. A brief moment of respite in quality in a putrid sea of Michael Bay bullshit.

And finally, here's my pick for worst film I saw this year...

UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS (35)

By the time you've seen the 400th nameless dude get his goolies bitten off you've long since stopped giving a shit about any of the cavalcade of uninteresting characters that do have names. And this has one of the worst sex scenes I've ever had the misfortune to witness in a movie theatre. With my dad. Considering just how good actors Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen are, I do wonder how on Earth they were convinced to sully themselves in such a tepid piece of shit.

You may now commence calling me names and disputing everything about this list in the comments section below.

Communication Breakdown

2009-12-17T19:17:00.002Z

The problem with what i do now is that it's not especially funny. I mean, maybe there's an element of fun to be had by others in my fruitless, aimless struggle against the ridiculosity of the status quo, but there aren't an awful lot of giggles to be had in the field of science communication. Apart from maybe ironic ones.

It's depressing to know that, no matter how effective a communicator you yourself might be, the impact that your message eventually has is almost entirely out of your hands. I'll try and explain why.

Firstly, unless you are incredibly manipulative, you have no control over your audience. You can speak to them in any way you please, be it distant, aloof and holier-than-thou, insultingly low-brow or pitched exactly on their level, but ultimately it depends as much on the attitude of who you're talking to as much as what you say whether your message gets across.

This is incredibly apparent when it comes to climate change. There are essentially 3 kinds of people in this field. There are people who believe the evidence that climate change is real and man made, there are people who believe various parts of that first statement to be false, and then there is the third group of people who don't give a fuck. When you talk about climate change, the first group will listen to you and agree with you, the second will either ignore you or attempt to discredit you, and the third, as their demographic implies, do not give a fuck. You're not really changing any one's mind any more. The very best you can hope for is maybe one or two people who don't give a fuck are open minded enough to maybe start having an opinion.

It's pretty remarkable that something that essentially is a problem of science, defined by science, and with proposed solutions from science has such a similar psychology to perhaps the antithesis of science, Superstition.

Take for instance, someone who believes that a black cat crossing your path. They often have an anecdote, and it usually is just one, an example of where a bad event has happened to someone shortly after a black cat has passed in front of them. And to a lot of people, this would be a perfectly reasonable basis for running your life. And it's often unshakable. Even when you put it into the context of however many hundreds of thousands of black cats must walk across the paths of millions of people every day, and how few cat-related deaths result, their belief remains firm.

It's a kind of selective process of memory or evidence. It doesn't bare any scrutiny whatsoever in mathematics, statistics, or even in experience in most cases. It's an internal logic pattern whereby the person forms a belief based on no evidence other than perhaps a gut feeling or an old wives' tale, and essentially selects evidence to fit with that belief, rather than the other way round. It's the total opposite of how you might expect a rational person to make a decision, but it's regarded as a perfectly normal and justifiable human instinct.

Climate change denialists (I use the word denialist rather than sceptic because I am clever enough to know what scepticism is) exhibit very similar logic. It all comes about from being selective of what data you use to form your opinion.

There's a parable of the three blind men who come across a large object. One feels a long, thin, wriggling bit and conclude it is a snake. The second feels a large, cylindrical thing like a tree trunk and concludes it's a tree, the third feels a rough, leathery thing overhead and declares it to be a tent. Only the person who looks at the whole picture realises it's actually an elephant.

So if I'm able to deconstruct the denialist argument so simply (and trust me, it is simple when you've seen the whole picture), how come this point of view perpetuates, thrives even? An answer might come from an unsurprising source: the media.

The sad thing is, while it is the fault of journalists, it's actually because they're probably doing their job a little too well. It boils down to a fundamental pillar of journalistic ethics - balance.

When dealing with most stories, in order to be as informative as possible a journalist will look to give a reasonable amount of time to both sides of the story (even if they don't always actually do it, that's what they're supposed to be doing). In the case of Climate Change, there is an overwhelming consensus view in the scientific community that it is happening and it's man-made. But just printing that as a story isn't balanced. So the dutiful journalist will go out and find the one or two crackpots with vested interests that disagree and throw them a few column inches.

In that simple act of providing a little balance, the media do a couple of things. Fringe opinion is legitimised, promoted even. And it introduces an impression of inconsistency where there is none. It's that air of inconsistency that the denialists feed on. Because if the scientists can't agree what's going on, why should we rush into making policies about curtailing carbon emissions, eh? That would be foolish wouldn't it?

In the wake of ClimateGate and Copenhagen, I think an important question has been raised. Is there room for advocacy in science? Has it got to the point where it is necessary to advocate in order to emphasise the consensus?

It's a difficult line to walk between an over-bearing, unaccountable scientific behemoth overthrowing society in some kind of horrendous technocratic coup d'etats and important scientific evidence being ignored, also to the detriment of society.

It's called the Problem of Legitimacy vs Extension, and it's what I'm going to spend the Christmas break reading all about until I go mental like Isaac Newton but without the religious bit.

Primate change

2009-12-14T22:49:00.003Z

I've been having difficulty trying to frame up my thoughts coherently over the last couple of weeks into a proper blog post about the Copenhagen summit, and perhaps even the climate change debate in general. And judging by the fact the talks were thrown into disarray by a walk-out of developing nations, I'm probably not the only one.

I sit squarely in the middle in my expectations of the COP15 summit. On the one hand, I don't believe it will, in the next week, save the world from impending climate apocalypse. Neither do I believe it to be a colossal waste of time, however.

The reality of the situation is that there was never going to be the kind of deal called for by the IPCC, Lord Stern, and legions of placard waving have-a-go hippies intent on undermining their own arguments by generating a ridiculous carbon footprint and disrupting the very meetings in which people are attempting to negotiate giving them what they want.

Have a think right now. See if you can recall any point in history where everybody, and I mean everybody, in the world agreed about something. I would be really impressed if you can think of one. To be perfectly honest, even if it's just a seemingly pathetic little scrap of paper saying that all the countries agree that climate change is at least in part anthropogenic (man-made) and that somebody should probably sort that shit out at some stage, then that is a pretty momentous occasion in history. A fundamental, animal quality in us all to not get on and fight and argue all the time will have to be overcome.

And it's a start. People have given the USA, Canada, Australia and the like a whole load of shit for not signing up to the Kyoto protocol. Whether Carbon Trading actually does what it's supposed to is a question for another time perhaps. But at least these guys are coming to the party now. Even if they're sick in the corner of the living room and touch your mum a little inappropriately while they're their, at least they're playing with the rest of the class.

Like so many parties, the build will be much better than the release. At least one country will storm off in a huff, there will be a drunk girl crying into a gin and tonic at the end, and there will be an unholy mess to clear up. But at the end of it all they'll agree to have another go in a few months and see if they can't do it properly.

And frankly, that's better than the USA and China putting firecrackers through Bangladesh's letter box and giggling while their house burns down.

Might have stretched that metaphor a bit further than it needed.

Some actual stuff about science communication later in the week, in a shocking development where I've done some work.

Moronic Irrigation

2009-12-03T14:48:00.000Z

It might come as a bit of a shock to you, but the majority of people appear to be morons.

I can't exactly claim to be particularly clever myself. After all, in the past I have done the following:

Accidentally put PVA glue into a cup of tea instead of milk. And taken more than one sip to realise the error
Walked away from a cashpoint without taking the money with me
Watched an ITV drama unironically

There is one area, however, where I presume to elevate myself above the chatter masses. This is because I know the difference between 'Climate' and 'Weather'. Going further, I know what the terms 'Global Warming' and 'Climate Change' actually mean. And with Copenhagen, email-gate and all that jazz currently taking centre stage, I figured I should probably address it somehow.

Exhibit A: At the barbers a couple of years ago, when I revealed during the traditionally awkward chat with the hairdresser that I was a climate scientist, she proceeded to take umbrance with me. This was because, having heard about "That climate change and that" she went out and bought some tropical plants to put in the garden. And do you know what happened? They died! Who would've thought that tropical plants would die in a garden. In Birmingham. In February.

"Global warming my arse!" she cried, indignantly.

You also get the cavalcade of knuckle-dragging idiots who say things like "the weather here is shit anyway, I'll be glad of it being 2 degrees warmer!"

To those people, I've got a bit of a shocking fact for you. Britain is not really supposed to be even as warm as it is now. If you take a look at a map, Britain is at the same kind of latitude as Canada, parts of Alaska, southern Russian, and in the southern hemisphere, Cape Horn. Around half of Britain is within 10 degree's of the Arctic circle. It should be fucking freezing.

Handily for us, however, the warm sea and air currents from the North Atlantic, called the jet stream, mean that our climate is far warmer than you'd expect for such a latitude.

As global average temperatures increase, and the ice caps continue to melt, however, those currents will almost certainly change. There is already evidence of fluctuation in the jet stream causing 'weird' weather. And it wouldn't take a lot of deviation to suddenly plunge us into similar weather to Norway.

Global Warming is a bit of a misnomer in that sense. While, on average, the planet is getting warmer, the Earth is a very diverse, heterogeneous sort of place. Not everywhere will respond in the same way. Climate Change is a far more accurate term for what's happening.

That does rely somewhat on knowing the difference between climate and weather, though.

PS I am fully aware that I actually mean precipitation in the title. I couldn't think of any better puns. So fuck you. (Not quite Charlie Brooker yet, am I)

Puke-lear Fallout

2009-10-23T13:17:00.002+01:00

For me, several things emerged from Nick Griffin's Question Time roasting last night.

Firstly, I was glad to see variously Baroness Warsi, Jack Straw and Bonnie Greer highlight points I made in this very blog yesterday. It's refreshing to see that at least somebody had a go at thinking things through rationally when it came to dealing with Griffin.

The thing I feared most about the show was not the spectre of it turning into a platform or pulpit from which Griffin could preach hatred. Frankly, anyone who ever thought that was plausible needs their head seeing to, and probably owe David Dimbleby an apology for doubting that he couldn't keep Griffin firmly in his place. No, the biggest fear I had was that it would go too far the other way, that the whole thing would be reduced to a pathetic, childish pantomime of hate and counter-hate, leaving the exercise pointless.

As I said yesterday, by far the most effective way to deal with the BNP is to tackle them head on. If you make someone explain a prejudice they will undoubtedly fall into circular internal logic which makes sense only to them. I coudl write essay after essay rebuke the foundations of white British racism, but that is a subject for another, much angrier time.

Mr Griffin has come out complaining that he was put up against a hostile "lynch mob" audience for the show. The problem with that, however, is that on several occasions you could hear one or two isolated claps of approval for some of the things Griffin said about immigration, suggesting he wasn't entirely without sympathetic ears. Extrapolating further, 2-3 people in an audience of around 150 (at a guess) isn't far from being fairly representative of how much support the BNP actually have in this country. Perhaps if he doesn't want to get "lynched" he should consider staying at home more often.

Charlie Brooker, yet again, summed it up superbly via twitter: "Question Time seems to have given birth to a new phenomenon: 'the cyanide of publicity'".

The show, which I would describe as a palpable success for the BBC, for freedom of speech, and for rational politics, was set against a slightly more depressing backdrop, however.

Firstly, there is still plenty of vocal opposition to the BBC's decision to invite Griffin on at all. The no-platform strategy continues to blunder along. The concept of 'legitimising' the BNP's far-right and racist foundations continues to be throw as a criticism at the BBC, in spite of the fact that the BNP are a registered political party that has stood in and won elections at European and Local level for several years now. It is too late to worry about whether or not they are legitimate or not. That horse has bolted. And as was demonstrated last night, it's not the most taxing of tasks to de-legitimise them again with calm, rational argument.

There is still the tendency for childish, counterproductive, belittling behaviour towards the BNP and Griffin in particular. This only plays into the hands of the BNP and their supporters. By demonising Griffin in one circle, you make him a hero or martyr in another. We have to elevate ourselves above that much, because there will be plenty of time for joking when Griffin and co are consigned to a footnote in history.

Most depressing though was the 'protest' outside television centre, which was nothing short of moronic. Since when is it a good idea to respond to hatred and prejudice with more hatred, more prejudice, oh and some casual violence thrown in to boot. What the fuck were those people thinking? Did they think the BBC would tear up its charter mid afternoon and cancel the show? Did they think that if they made enough noise, came up with enough childish chants and broke a few plot plants that Nick Griffin would suddenly realise he shouldn't be a racist? Did they think that every white supremacist in the UK would suddenly have a change of heart?

Nazis fucking LOVE that kind of shit. Wake the fuck up Britain, and get serious. It's the ONLY way to defeat fascism.

There's no 'Twat' in the Union Jack.

2009-10-22T11:05:00.004+01:00

"La la la la I'm not listening la la la la la la"

That's the sound of British politics 'dealing' with fascism and the BNP. The strategy of non-platform, non-engagement of the mainstream with the more extreme parties and groups has been a popular one for many years now, with the rationale being something along the lines of 'out of sight, out of mind'.

It just might have worked as well, had they not also applied the same strategy to people living in the poorest, most deprived areas of the country.

Whilst it saddened me greatly, it did not even remotely surprise me that the BNP managed to get two representatives elected into the European Parliament. And let's not forget that they were elected by proportional representation, fairly and above board. There are two reasons for this:

1) In an EU election, Europe is pretty much the only issue on the table. A party which campaigns solely on grounds of xenophobia and racism would find themselves in the mix where pretty much every other issue is completely ignored. Those who really gave that much of a shit about not being part of Europe would vote for them, or indeed UKIP, whilst everyone else simply didn't bother to vote because of the expenses scandal, or because they just don't see the point of the EU parliament (a point which is surprisingly hard to argue against) resulting in a massive percentage gain for the BNP, even if their actual raw count of votes fell just like every other parties.

2) The three major parties completely and utterly dropped the ball. Like not even dropping it, actively throwing it to the ground. Rather than listen to people who are struggling to get by on or below the breadline, working minimum wage if they're lucky, who may see what they think is preferential treatment shown towards immigrant communities, and addressing those issues, instead they based their campaigns on "I know we fucked up the expenses thing, but don't vote for the smelly racists!"

Frankly, we are now beyond the point where the BNP are a laughable minority group that can simply be ignored or ridiculed. It's a problem that will grow and grow apace until someone faces up to it.

I am already sick of hearing people complaining about Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time this evening. Being offended by something is absolutely no reason to sweep it under the carpet. Being offended will not prevent you from functioning as a human being. I have never heard anyone call in sick for work because they were offended by something. Grow. The fuck. Up.

It is about time that everyone climbed out of that layer of cotton wool, took their fingers out of their ears and came out from hiding behind the sofa. The BNP are a joke of a party, but stooping to childish ridicule is the worst possible way to deal with them.

I can only hope that there will be a reasonably sensible audience for Question Time. Obviously I'm not going to hold my breath, but wouldn't it be brilliant if nobody brought up the issue of race, or immigration? What if all the questions were about schools, the economy, health care and so on. What exactly would Nick Griffin do then? They don't have policies about these things?

I only wish I lived in London so I could have gone along to the show. My first question would've been "Mr Griffin, what sort of economic stimulus package do you have planned, and how do you plan on tackling the budget deficit?", then watch him squirm.

When it comes down to it, racism is based on a false axiom, and backed up with flawed internal logic. It's hypocritical and it's moronic. You're not going to change Nick Griffin, or any hard core racist for that matter, because they simply aren't willing to see your point of view. Everyone else, on the other hand, can easily be shown how baseless their arguments are.

And the only way to do it is to calmly, rationally, take them on. Put them on the platform, then chip away the foundations until it all comes crashing down.

If that offends you, then you're a fucking idiot. (You're allowed to be offended by that part).

Moir of the same...

2009-10-16T18:33:00.002+01:00

Wow. I'm not sure I've ever ridden a bandwagon quite like this one, but the Jan Moir thing just keeps getting better.

While it shows up my staggering lack of talent as a writer, it is always nice to have Charlie Brooker on your side in an argument. Also, it doesn't take much more than a cursory leaf through today's Twitter activity to see just how many people are just how upset by this.

The magnificently satisfying cherry on top, however, is that not only has Moir been forced into a rushed 'clarification statement', but that it's only digging her in still deeper. I've linked to it, but I feel it's worth re-publishing in full right here:

"Some people, particularly in the gay community, have been upset by my article about the sad death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately. This was never my intention. Stephen, as I pointed out in the article was a charming and sweet man who entertained millions. However, the point of my column -which, I wonder how many of the people complaining have fully read - was to suggest that, in my honest opinion, his death raises many unanswered questions. That was all.

"Yes, anyone can die at anytime of anything. However, it seems unlikely to me that what took place in the hours immediately preceding Gately’s death - out all evening at a nightclub, taking illegal substances, bringing a stranger back to the flat, getting intimate with that stranger - did not have a bearing on his death. At the very least, it could have exacerbated an underlying medical condition.

"The entire matter of his sudden death seemed to have been handled with undue haste when lessons could have been learned.

"On this subject, one very important point. When I wrote that ‘he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine’, I was referring to the drugs and the casual invitation extended to a stranger. Not to the fact of his homosexuality. In writing that ‘it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships’ I was suggesting that civil partnerships - the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting - have proved just to be as problematic as marriages.

"In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones."

Now then. Just a couple of issues with this. Just a couple of tiny, teeny weeny little quibbles I have with this as a statement.

Firstly, Jan, people did read your whole article. That is where most of your problems seem to be originating from. If people had stopped after the first paragraph, then you could almost disguise it as a eulogy. You might even get away with the first paragraph being read out at his funeral.

No the problem I had was that I read all of it and now I can't un-read it. Those words are now locked away somewhere in my subconscious mind ready to rear up and remind me what an awful human being you are Jan, just when I'd almost forgotten about it.

Next, you certainly seem to know an awful lot about what Mr Gately was doing in the hours before his death. Were you there? Did you murder him? You seem pretty sure that illegal drugs, going to nightclubs and making new friends can kill someone. Did you spike whatever drugs you seem absolutely sure he'd taken with rat poison, or arsenic? Maybe some brick dust too? Why let the facts of the post mortem get in the way of a good unsubstantiated gay-bashing eh?

Dealing with the matter with undue haste is something you'd probably wish we were doing about you right now too Jan. Maybe we should all stop reading your article and making legitimate complaints to your regulatory body and just give you the benefit of the doubt.

Next, the way you wrote your article definitely suggested that Civil Partnerships all end in failure, despair and ultimately death. Either that is what you meant and now you're desperately backtracking, or you're a terrible writer. Either way you look at it, you probably deserve one of those knee-jerk sacking of which your employers are so fond when dealing with such 'scandal'.

Finally, the "orchestrated internet campaign" consisted of some people reading your article, being utterly horrified by it, making other people aware of this, who then had similar feelings and so on. If it was orchestrated, who was orchestrating it? Who orchestrated all those PCC complaints? My personal complaint was orchestrated by me. My blog has a readership of, I would guess, maybe 10. If I didn't orchestrate it Jan, who did?

It is not "mischievous" to suggest your article had "homophobic and bigoted undertones". Mainly because it did. But also because, even if it wasn't your intention, giving you that benefit of the doubt, it would be a mite hypocritical for you to take me on about making wild unsubstantiated assumptions about the circumstances in which a controversial event occurred, wouldn't it?

You sow the thunder, now you reap the whirlwind, Jan. Fuck you very much.

Chain Mail

2009-10-16T12:09:00.004+01:00

It's taken a while for me to get properly wound up about anything. Wound up enough to blog to a reasonable standard anyway. It might be a reflection on the fact that I'm content doing something I find interesting in a place that I quite like living softening off whatever edge I used to have. It might be a sign that I'm starting to mellow with age. Either way, it didn't bode well for my new blog.

That was until this morning, where by the magic of idly parousing Twitter I came across mention after mention of an article about Stephen Gately from the Daily Mail website. I resisted for as long as I could, but in the end I couldn't help but bite.

And bite I did. Through my tongue, then the edge of my laptop, through the desk and into my knees.

I'm all for a bit of casual and misplaced anger and indignation for a giggle, but usually about something that doesn't really matter. You know the kind of thing. The Job Centre, queueing, young people, Lady Gaga etc. But to go on such a tirade about someone who has just fucking died, in the crudest and most pathetic manner possible? For fuck's sake, I even refrained from properly going after Jade Goody, even though that one was an open goal.

No, Jan Moir has properly gone for it, shot for the moon and ended up exploding in a supernova of ill-informed, reactionary, idiotic bullshit. She's taken 2, added 2 and come up with bluetack, an answer she's willing to really get behind.

The crux of her article appears to be that, rather than a pulmonary oedema, Stephen Gately actually died of 'THE GAY'. Because middle class, heterosexual white folks have never ever done anything sleazy, underhand, depraved or awful. That is exclusively the preserve of 'the gays' apparently.

It's just staggering that someone could be so coniving and vicious about someone's untimely death on the same page as airing their views about Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's dress sense. There is less than no perspective or thought in there. Negative thought has happened. My mission for the rest of the day is to come up with a new word for this. My initial go is the verb 'to mind haemorage'.

I'm starting to wonder how far the Mail will have to sink in order for their readership to finally turn around and say "Woah, steady on there"

This comes in the same week as a story breaking that various tabloids will literally print anything without even making cursory fact checks.

Sigh.

Hypocritic Oath

2009-09-29T16:15:00.002+01:00

Yeah, so the Roman Polanski thing is all a bit confusing isn't it?

Initially, you're all like "Boooo, bloody yankee doodles pissing all over extradition agreements and justice in general. What a bunch of bastards."

But then you read past the headline, and that's where I find the problems usually start.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but regardless of his film making acheivements Polanski is a convicted sex offender. Convicted might not be the right word, as I think by pleading guilty there wasn't a trial, and I'm not sure if that still makes you convicted. Any road, charges were brought, he pleaded guilty and was awaiting sentencing, at which point he skipped bailed and left the country.

What I'm getting from this is that the Great and the Good of Hollywood and elsewhere appear to believe that this was an OK thing to do. I wonder if public opinion in the states is getting behind this point of view too? It seems a bizarre juxtaposition of the Fox News "Downfall of Society", 'To Catch A Predator' style media led public paedophile hunt with the Michael Jackson style, "Fuck it, it's Michael Jackson, just give him some kids to touch, he's Michael Jackson for christ's sake!" attitude that appears to be rallying behind Polanski too.

When you then compare that with the attitude shown in this country towards the likes of Gary Glitter, Chris Langham and Matthew Kelly (who wasn't even guilty of any sex offences I might add, no charges were even brought in that case) then my mind starts to fold itself into a mobius strip and go on a loop of "What? - Hang on - But - What? - Hang on - But..."

What is Hollywood saying? It's OK to be a sex offender? It's not OK to be a sex offender, but if you did it ages ago just forgive and forget? It's not OK to be a sex offender, but skipping the country rather than serving your punishment is fine? France is kind of like jail anyway?

In conclusion, I'd like to quote the great philosopher Gwen Stefani:

"This shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S."

Cheeses Christ

2009-09-27T22:21:00.002+01:00

It seems I picked a pretty good time to pitch up in Cardiff. I mean what could be better than an international cheese festival happening within a week of your arrival? Not much, my friends. Not much.

Aside from the stalls proffering forth free samples of delicious chutneys, ciders, ice creams and top notch local produce, aside from Sheelanagig playing frantic monster folk stompers while you queue for the marketplace tent, aside from the wonderfully yet subtle and dry perry sliding effortlessly down your throat, there was the cheese.

I mean, cheese is pretty amazing as it is, but some of these cheeses... I wanted to sexually gratify the people that made some of them, such was the bounteous wonder of their flavours.

I have, however, had major league acid reflux for the rest of the day as a result.

Totally worth it.

Stopping facism via the medium of lists

2009-09-24T02:08:00.002+01:00

Young people full on make me want to puke up my kidneys these days. Really. What the fuck is their deal?

Obviously the freshers fair in Cardiff has brought this on. Amongst the legion of single issue assholes with no connection to the real world were some guys with a petititon to "Stop the facist BNP". Several units of my soul were deleted during the following conversation:

Stop the BNP guy: SIGN OUR PETITION OR YOU ARE A FACIST!
Me: That statement alone has tipped me over the edge from old and cynical to actually angry at you
STBNPG: You gonna sign it then?
Me: No. No I am not. For three reasons. Firstly, did you vote in the recent EU parliament elections>
STBNPG: Errrrrrr.................................... No.
Me: OK, that right there is why you need to shut the fuck up. Vote in the fuckin election and this is not an issue right?
STBNPG: No...... Hang on.....
Me: Why are you so worried about the BNP when the number of votes they received in the latest batch of elections actually went down, even in the regions they gained seats at the Euro Parliament?
STBNPG: No... hang on, that's not...... what?
Me: Serious. BNP support is falling too. It's just assholes like you not voting that is causing this problem. I don't care what you think of the major parties, simply voting for someone who wasn't the BNP would've most likely helped prevent their election. Simple as.
STBNPG: No... but.... what?
Me: Finally, what happens to the petition once you've collected the signatures? Who do you give it too?
STBNPG: The govenrment?
Me: Then what do they do? Do they give it to Nick Griffin and say "There are some students in Cardiff who think you should stop being a racist", and then he goes "Oh right, I see their point of view and now I am not a racist"?
STBNPG: ......
Me: Buy a fucking clue or get the fuck out of politics kid.
STBNPG: When you put it like that, I don't really get it.
Me: Sigh.

It's not going to take much more to make me give up on human kind altogether.

It begins...

2009-09-22T15:45:00.002+01:00

Having spent the last year blogging about being unemployed on facebook, I thought I might make a wee bit of an effort and make it official now that I'm starting my PhD.

Ah yes, the PhD. I should probably introduce that subject properly, since it's going to be most of what I write about for the next three years.

As of yesterday, I am based at Cardiff University in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Geoenvironmental Group, with the rather cryptic and unspecific project title "Science and Decision Making". At this stage (two days in) this is every bit as vague as it sounds. Nothing has been decided about any of it.

The broad strokes, however, are relatively simple. Governments spend large sums of money on research in a number of fields, one of which is Environmental and Climate Change issues. They then seem to systematically ignore most of what gets found out. Similarly, many climate scientists make discoveries and conclusions directly relavent to policy and management of our environment, but simply don't bother to let government on any scale know of this. It's my job to find out:

a) Why?
b) Can it be "fixed"?
c) How?

Seems simple enough doesn't it? If it was I'm guessing someone smarter than me would've sorted it all out by now.

My favourite example of this sort of thing in action is the 2007 summer floods. In the wake of several people on Oxford ruining a perfectly good pair of shoes (oh, and Hull nearly disappearing underwater, but that doesn't matter because fewer middle class people were involved), in response to public outcry about the government not building a 10 foot high wall the entire length of the Severn, Trent, Thames and Humber rivers overnight, Lord Pitt was commissioned to review the state of flood risk and management issues.

The Pitt review was well carried out, with clear findings and recommendations. I imagine that this was in no small part due to the fact the several of the leading contributors had plenty of practice preparing the Forsight Flooding Report just 4 years previously. A cursory look at the two reports shows that they not only contain most of the same conclusions, but that they are presented in the same order, using the same language. I don't have the figure for how much the Pitt review cost the tax payer, but I'd guess it was probably quite a lot when you factor in the same thing had been done within the tenure of the current administration. Top job guys.

Anyway, that's what I'm going to spend the next three years doing. Beats working for a living.

Just.