The Wire

I don't like bandwagons. I refused to vote for New Labour (and I was right). I refused to get into Oasis when all around me were losing their heads (and I was right). Everyone started going on about the Sopranos. I just couldn't be bothered. I don't like gangster films and as far as I was concerned this was just a cheap rip off for TV. Incidentally I saw Goodfellas for the first time a few weeks ago and I loved it even though it felt like a feature length special of the Sopranos set in the 1960s. Anyway I was wrong about the Sopranos. My wife and I spent nearly a year picking through it (there must be over a hundred episodes) and avoiding spoilers that would just spring up without warning in newspapers and magazines.

With spoiler avoidance in mind we decided to try out season one of the Wire. The weight of good reviews, starting off with Charlie Brooker on Screenwipe, broke the dam. From all of this positive press we knew to expect a realistic show that treats the viewers like adults with a brain and that there would be no good guys and bad guys. It was all this and more. More than any other TV show it moved me to another world. I just forgot who I was each time I watched it because I was totally immersed. I was standing next to the guys on the roof taking pictures. I was laughing as McNulty got his kids to do surveillance of drug dealers and egging Omar on as he robbed drug dealers (the best character in season 1 for me). I was nervously looking around and hoping no-one was going to get Wallace so he had a chance to go back to school and get his life together. Wallace deserved this because he looked after all the drug orphan kids in the neighbourhood and seeing that guy with the hole in his eye broke his brain. That was his only crime. Being too sensitive. And they still... Now I'm doing it. Spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen it. I used the past the tense about Wallace there.

Spoilers are now my enemy and yours too if you're also catching up. Before I saw the end of The Wire series one I was looking at some box sets in Sainsburys and right there on the cover of season 4 was a picture that told me the outcome of season 1. I said 'bastard' out loud and a middle aged lady with a suit scowled at me but nuts to her because the season finale was ruined. What idiot put that image on the front of the box? The DVDs are silly too. To play an episode you have to go via a menu that tells you what happens in that episode. Duh. The synopsis is written in the same font as the 'play episode' text. Silly.

Why didn't I just start watching The Sopranos and The Wire and Battlestar Galactica when they first came out? Good telly, give it a go. First answer - Lost. Gave it a try and very quickly realised they were just making it up as they went along. Second answer - 24. Third answer - Heroes. I'm lying on that last one. I watched one episode and spotted the upcoming bullshit straight off. Some shows are worth the effort for at least a season or two. Like My Name is Earl which didn't jump the shark until season 3. The Big Bang Theory is still awesome and might even make it to my DVD collection. South Park is weird in that it gets better with age like wine unlike The Simpsons whose ass has turned to vinegar. Honestly that show is dead to me now. My latest experiment is East Bound and Down. Seen episode 1 and it was very funny. So I'll take the gamble and be ready to abandon ship if I see it starts to sink. I might be investing my time in a flop but this is a gamble worth taking because by being up to date I'll avoid those dreaded spoilers.

My baby son

Hello blog. I've been neglecting you for a long time. The reason is that Nicola and I have been having a baby. Now he's born I have even less time to give to you. I'm a bit frazzled. There are jobs to do everywhere I look. Everything needs attention. Every time I remember a fire and put it out I spot two new ones; wash the dishes and notice that the basil plant on the window sill needs watering. Move the herb plant and notice that the kitchen window needs to be cleaned. Clean the kitchen windows and notice that the garden needs work. And on and on.

Of course none of this is getting done. I'm just enjoying spending time with my new little buddy. I should probably make a record of what I remember before it fades. You were born on tuesday at 4.08pm. On monday night we went into the hospital because mum was bleeding and we had you on the baby monitor just to be on the safe side. Mum had some practice contractions that we saw on the paper trace out. We got home after midnight (I'd been up at 7am for work in York and done two 1 hour commutes that day). We got home and had toast and hot chocolate and watched the Simpsons then fell asleep at around 1am. At 5am mums contractions started for real. By 8am they were uncomfortable. We contacted the hospital and they told us to put mum in a hot bath to see if the contractions went away. They didn't. They got worse. We got to the hospital at about 930am on a sunny day (very warm for September). Mum was still only 2cm dilated and it was early labour but we had to stay in because mum wasn't dealing well with the pain. She had a morphine injection and tried to relax. We were down on the ward and could hear other mums in early labour and families coming to visit their newborn babies. At lunchtime granny barbara called over (she works as a secretary at the hospital) and bought dad a sandwich and a coffee. We went up to see mum and granny B held her hand for a few contractions anc calmed her down. Granny B left at 1pm and we thought that the action wouldn't start until about 6pm. At 2pm mums waters broke. I took her into a bathroom and we cleaned her up and took off her wet clothes. She was now wearing some rather fetching paper undies. Mum then wanted to start pushing and we waited for a delivery room to become free.

We went upstairs in the lift. Mums morphine had worn off but she wasn't allowed any more because the was in the final stages of labour - she had to do the whole thing with only gas and air. Our delivery nurse was called Jo Brown and she was a nice lady with dreadlocks. It took 1hr40mins for you to be born. Mum went from being almost asleep with me wiping her with a cool towel and stroking her hair to being bolt upright and screaming and pushing. It was like someone flicked a switch every ten minutes. My job was to support her head and encourage her to push. After struggling with the pain earlier on she was now like a lioness. When they wanted three pushes per round of contractions she gave them four. When they said keep pushing she kept pushing and pushed harder. She was amazing and I was so proud of her.

When you were nearly out you started to get tired and so they assisted your delivery. A big fat lady doctor came in and they sucked you out. You were born with your eyes open and you went straight onto mums tummy. While they stitched up mum and passed the placenta I held you. I took off my t-shirt and we went skin to skin. I sat next to the window with you for about an hour. Then I made mum some tea and toast. Mum went in the bath and you went in your cot with your new clothes on and a little muslin bobble hat to cover up your head that was swollen from suction. Daddy told everyone the good news on his mobile phone. We all went down to the ward just in time for visitors and saw Granny B, Grandad John and Uncle Stewart. We had to leave you and mummy in overnight as a precaution and I went to your grandparents house for pork chops and chips. I got home about 10pm and fed poppy the cat and had a pint of bitter to celebrate.

That was 9 days ago. The day after we took you home when you'd had your health checks. We had visits from everyone who couldn't make it the night before. Granny Janny and Mick, Grandad Jimmy, your uncles james, george and charlie and aunty becky. So far you've been to baby club and the supermarket Granny B and Ganda Js and Grandad Jimmys. It's been a very tiring week. Difficult to get you feeding and changed and settled. But we are really enjoying it and we have both already fallen for your cheeky little face. We registered your birth on monday (it's thursday today, my 29th birthday).

Reasons for US/UK friction

1. The new administration wanting to distance itself from the Iraq War
2. The NHS being smeared as part of the US medical finance reform debate
   
3. The release of the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds
   

Amazon.co.uk mp3 site

The mp3 shop on amazon.co.uk is superb and it beats the pants of most of it's competitors (although I still dearly love bleep). Here's why;

1. It is cheap
2. There is no digital rights management
3. It is quick
4. There is a good selection
5. They have linux versions of their download assistant

Today I have been downloading some great records;


Oxygene and Equinoxe by Jean-Michel Jarre and Koyaanisqatsi by Philip Glass


I've also been searching for treasure. Two sites I really love are cosmobells and 36 15 moog. Both are blogs written by collectors who find rare treasure on vinal and make mp3 files available. If you like electronica and old moog and synth music it is a hoarde of precious things the likes of which cannot be found or bought anywhere. My 'free' find of the day is High Tech by CLaude Larson

Review of 'The Man In The High Castle' by Philip K. Dick

Not the first alternative history novel but the one that defines the genre. President Truman was assassinated and the Allies lost WWII. We are in the Western half of the USA which is controlled by Japan. The Nazis, who have exterminated the whole of Africa, are exploring the solar system (but are decades behind in the develpoment of TV) and plotting to nuke the Japanese. They control the Western USA. There are many plot threads. One is about moderate groups in Germany trying to get a warning to the Japanese. The main thread has an author (living in a fortified hideout called the high castle) who has written a mirror image novel of the one we are reading; 'what if the allies had won' from the perspective of his reality. This is very different to our reality.

What I liked about the book was how Dick was not afraid to deal with the issues of racism. I like how he has the Japanese as quite moderate people (much nicer than the nazis). I like how he deals with colonialism by having some US people adopting Japanese mannerisms and speech and thought patterns and how the Japanese will buy any old forged historical relics that they think are authentic pieces of US history.

What I don't like is how he doesn't seem to address the question as to whether it is the German leaders who are evil or whether he considers there to be any redeeming qualities in the German people. The nazis just seem like cartoon nasties. The other problem with the story is that is doesn't go anywhere. Society is not changed by the man in the high castle. The ending has a big revelation which is interesting and deals with parallel universes (and alternate histories) but this is derived from the I-Ching. And this is the BIG problem with the story; PKD worked out the plot by consulting the I-Ching (the book of changes). This must have been very trendy at the time (it reminds me of the use of tarot cards in Slaughterhouse 5) but it doesn't make for a good plot. I also found it a bit boring during the story when the characters consulted the I-Ching to decide their next course of action. The bit where Julia realises that the man in the high castle used the I-Ching to write his book was also a bit self indulgent.

Overall a good book, well written but apart from some interesting ideas it doesn't go anywhere. I enjoyed some passages and found others to be a chore. It's a good sci-fi book but not in my top five.

6/10.

Millions for defense, but not one cent for survival

Government investment in nuclear missiles : £20 billion


Government investment in hybrid/green/electric cars : £20 million

Kiss of death for the New Tintin film

Daniel Craig has been cast as the 'villain Red Rackham' in the new Tintin movie that Spielberg is doing. Every film that Craig has been in has been a terrible flop. Oh and there is no Red Rackham in the book. He's a historical character and he and Tintin never meet. Another kiss of death for the project is that Peter Jackson will direct a sequel. Oh no. Not Peter 'self indulgently make King Kong over three hours long when the Simpsons did the movie in ten minutes' Jackson.

On the plus side Stephen Moffat is the writer. He's currently the main guy on Dr. Who but I always remember him on Coupling, one of the cleverest and funniest shows ever. Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock will be either genius or just plain wrong. Tintin himself is perversely not an important casting job. The character is an everyman, quite bland and personality free. A blank canvas for the other characters to be painted onto.

They better not screw with something as good as Tintin. I personally think it won't work. The hook was always the quality of the line drawings in the artwork and the way they moved the story and depicted the action and drama in those tiny cells. So good it inspired Andy Warhol.

Review of 'Revelation Space' by Alistair Reynold

I tried, I really did. This novel came recommended to me. I was warned it was a bit slow. But I give up. It is advertised as a gonzo, cyberpunk space opera and it won some awards (but not the Hugo or the Nebula). I have a doctorate in physics so big concepts don't scare me but I just can't get into it. The plot is glacial and it jumps around in time. The characters are one dimensional and I have no empathy with them. The editors didn't do their job here. It's just indulgent crap. I just don't care what happens at the end so I'll be selling this book on amazon. If I want to read a novel like this I'll go for Iain M. Banks or even try Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss. In the meantime I'll be getting on with reading The Man In The High Castle by Philip K Dick. And I'll post a review of The Complete Short Stories Vol. 1 by J. G. Ballard.

Revision of Review of Slaghterhouse 5 and wardsback time

Like a lazy journalist I didn't check my sources. Initial reports of the death toll at Dresden and Hiroshima, reported by Vonnegut were 135'000 and 71'000. In later years the estimates have been corrected to 30'000 and 135'000 respectively.

I also forgot to mention my favourite passage in the book where Billy sees a bombing raid in a movie whilst his time is running backwards;

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the rack and shipped back to the United States, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous content into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anyone ever again.

Red Dwarf did a whole episode where the crew visit a place and time where time is running backwards. A famous contemporary novel would be Time's Arrow, a 1991 Martin Amis novel . Reference [3] on this page from martinamis.com also tells us that

Other antecedents include Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carrol; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, where the White Queen claims that she lives backwards in time; An Age by Brian Aldiss; Counter-Clock World by Philip K. Dick; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, in which a man is born at the age of 70 and proceeds backward to a state of infancy; and "Mr. F is Mr. F" by J.G. Ballard. In his Afterword to Time's Arrow, Amis refers obliquely to the Dresden fire-bombing description in Slaughterhouse Five while discussing influences on his own novel.

Review of 'Slaughterhouse 5' by Kurt Vonnegut

LISTEN: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

This book centres around the firebombing of Dresden in WWII as witnessed by the author, a US POW at the time who survived by being locked in the Slaughterhouse 5 of the title. The attack on Dresden killed 135'000 people, almost all of which were innocent civilians; by contrast the attack on Hiroshima killed 71'000. However, Vonnegut takes a different path than just explaining what he witnessed. The really innovative thing about this novel is that woven into the facts is a science fiction story told from the perspective of the lead character Billy Pilgrim. Billy does not experience time in a linear fashion. His life jumps forward and back, from future to the past. The cynic would say that Vonnegut did this to pad out the story (he almost admits as much in the intro, although this is most probably his modest attempt at admitting he couldn't remember too many details from Dresden) but it makes for an excellent way to fit the war experiences into the context of the mans life and the juxtapositions of various events in the life of Billy Pilgrim are very funny. We also learn why Vonnegut got into science fiction; 'Billy had seen the biggest massacre in European history, which was the fire bombing of Dresden... they we trying to reinvent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help. ...everything there was to know about life was in the Brother Karamazov, by Dostoevsky. But that isn't enough any more.'

It also enables Vonnegut to bring in some of his worldviews. Billy Pilgrim is abducted by aliens who take him to live in a zoo on their home planet where he has to have sex with a fellow abductee, a famous movie star. The aliens experience time all at once with no past or future and their perspective helps Billy overcome his own being unstuck in time. 'when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it's very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed always will exist' ... 'the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that same person is just fine in plenty of other moments.' We also get 'it is a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor' .. 'their [the American poor] most destructive untruth is that it is easy for an American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.' Vonnegut was a good friend of socialist historian Howard Zinn.

His second main philosophy is that there is no free will. People aren't evil or bad, just tied to events. This makes for a very even handed, non judgmental anti war story; he isn't blaming anyone he just reports the absurd surreal situations he finds himself in (using soap made from human fat [see Fight Club] and emerging from his bombing refuge to find the streets still hot and what seem like little logs lying around that turn out to be the people caught in the firestorm)
. This book is bitter, moving, warm, easy to read and very, very funny. Kurt Vonnegut died very recently and it then became apparent how influential he had been upon many (notably filmaker Michael Moore). So it goes.

'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom always to tell the difference.'

9/10

Review of 'Dune' by Frank Herbert

Just finished reading Dune by Frank Hebert and I must say it has been very enjoyable. I was always put off reading it by the bad reviews the film always gets and it just didn't seem like my cup of tea. But I was sucked in by the good quality of the prose and the way the story is elegantly unfolded. Frank Herbert has a way of using the lightest of touches to describe an awful lot of content.

All the way through the book I was expecting a huge battle between the Fremen army and the Imperial forces as a grand finale. In fact the ending does involve a battle and even a final duel between Paul and Feud Rautha and all the loose ends are tied up but this occupies very few pages.

Now I have finished it I have realised what the story is really about; how a people must coexist with an environment of they are to tame it. The other big aspect of the story is personal development and awareness of and sensitivity to the motives of others. It has made me think more and more about being subtle in my dealings with people and holding things back until I'm certain it's to my advantage to reveal them openly.

The main character is very likeable. He's a scrawny kid who gradually accumulates powerful but subtle abilities over a number of years of personal growth as he becomes the Kwisatch Haderach. Not a super hero who one day acquires magical powers. Paul is aware of himself and able to identify his strengths and his limitations, a skill that all of us need to become balanced adults.

Council response to my noisy neighbours complaint

Response from Doncaster council about my noise complaint. Needless to say, they went to the wrong address. They seem to know where my address is when it's time to send the council tax bill. Also notice the poor grammar.

"I am contacting you with regard to your recent email relating to our response to your complaint.

The night time noise patrol service operates between 21.00 hours and 03.00 hours every Friday and Saturday evening with the exception of the Christmas period. The service is staffed my means of and Environmental Health Practitioner and an Enforcement Officer working together. As the night progresses complaints steadily build up and the calls are dealt with in the order that they came in. This unfortunately builds a delay into our response time. In order that we can be more effective we do ask the complainant to contact us back if the noise nuisance has stopped.

With regard to your specific complaint, I can advise you that I have spoken to the officers on duty that night and read the report logs for that night.

It would appear that the first discrepancy was with the address they had been given by the Police. The address given was ****. Quite some time was lost looking for this particular location. It was eventually assumed to be !!!!. The Duty Officer did attend at 01.35 hours and reported the situation as all quiet at that time.

I feel there is some confusion over the your comment that the Council would be contacting you the following day to update you with the events of the night. Where a client request further contact this can be arranged but it would usually be the following week not the day after as this would be a none working day.

In order to deal with a problem it usually necessary for the Duty Officer to visit the complainant's property to assess the noise nuisance. The officer did attempt to contact you but they assumed on the night that you had gone to bed as the music had stopped.

In conclusion I apologise for any inconvenience this situation has caused you and hope that we can be of service to you in the future."

Noisy neighbours

On the Saturday night of the bank holiday weekend we had a serious noise problem. Our neighbours across the way erected an immense gazebo in their garden, hired a DJ and started blasting dance music out from 6.30 pm on two speakers which I'm certain were illegal to use in a residential area. With my doors and windows shut and the TV on I couldn't escape the noise. After an hour I went round to ask them to turn down the volume just a little. About 20 houses look onto the noisy neighbours garden and several of our other neighbours had the same idea to complain. Unfortunately, the problem household couldn't hear their own doorbell.

Next step was to call the police. The dispatcher was very helpful and sympathetic. She explained that dealing with noise issues no longer fell under the police remit even if this constituted a breach of the peace (that's right, even if a crime had been committed). I was told that the council environmental health department would deal with it. I was told that someone would be sent out tonight and that I would be interviewed the next day, at the very least by telephone. I was very grateful when the police dispatcher offered to call this through on my behalf.

At 11.30 pm I got a call from a surly lady at the council. I explained to her that my neighbours were having a rave party in the garden and that everyone around was fed up. When she discovered that it was a one off incident and not a recurrent problem her interest in helping me vanished. She was mocking as she said someone would be out eventually and that they'd call me tomorrow and explain what action they had taken. In the meantime I was asked to call back if they switched the noise off because they were very busy.

At 1.30 am, with a pounding headache after seven hours of constant noise and with nowhere else to go to escape, I abandoned ship and went to see the Tinsley cooling towers demolition. When I returned at 4.30 am the music was still at full volume. The council had not been out. I fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. The next day I was not interviewed or contacted in any way by the council.

My question is; what does a person have to do to get help from the authorities when such a blatant breach of the peace is occuring? And why did the council (who are funded to discharge this responsibility) do nothing at all to help myself and the people nearby who pay thousands and thousands of pounds in council tax each year?

Poppy

Meet our new favourite girl!



I'll post more about Poppy and her story in the next couple of days.
Nic xx

Live long and prosper

I'm having a bit of a clear out. Eating 5 a day, drinking lots of water. Choosing the better food option when things are available. I eat fresh home cooked food anyway and I've virtually given up on alcohol all together. Small changes.

I even thought about taking more exercise. Until I read this. I'm supposed to do five hours of exercise a week. I'd be happy to take a 30 minute stroll a few times a week, do a bit of gardening and play on my nintendo wii. But this means I need to go mad. It's the single most offputting piece of health advice ever put across. It says if you want to maintain weight you're in for it and forget it if you want to permanently lose weight.

Say I live for another 40 years. This means I need to spend 87 days solid doing exercise. That's a quarter of a year or 0.6 % of my remaining life. I know what you'll say; the benefits far outweigh the effort. I'll live far extra than 87 days, I'll have healthier later years (apart from the hip replacement I'll need from running) and I might even enjoy exercise and feel happier and more energetic. But the thought of pulling on my running shoes on those dark cold winter evenings or coming out of the swimming baths when it's blowing an ice cold gale or jumping out of the car on a sweltering hot day to go back out running makes me depressed.

Harriet Harman

The equality minister Harriet Harman is planning to make it legal to discriminate against people in a job interview. If you are a white male and you are up against a woman or a person from an ethnic minority of equal ability then it will be perfectly legal for them to turn you down because of your gender or the colour of your skin. This is grossly unfair on the person being denied a job. In all situations the best person for the job should be chosen. It is never the case that there are two candidates of identical ability that can't be distinguished after a second interview.

Harriet Harman declared that she was the best person to be deputy PM because she was a woman. It certainly wasn't because she was the best person for the job. She has been a disaster in parliament and has long been considered as an over promoted New Labour appparatchik who agrees with whatever the party line is. Harman became "the politician we all love to hate" during her tenure as social security minister when she carried through widely unpopular lone parent cuts affecting mostly women. She sent her kids to a selective school far away from her constituency. Her voting record is; voted no to a transparent Parliament, voted for introducing ID cards, voted for introducing foundation hospitals, voted for introducing student top-up fees, voted for Labour's anti-terrorism laws and 42 days, VOTED FOR THE IRAQ WAR, voted against investigating the Iraq war, voted for replacing Trident (cost £20bn). In 1990 Harman co-authored a report entitled "The Family Way". It criticised the family unit and mothers who stay at home. In particular it questioned whether men were an asset to families at all and whether "the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social harmony and cohesion". Critics such as Erin Pizzey described such statements as a "staggering attack on men and their role in modern life". She wore a stab vest to walk around the streets of her constituency. She accepted illegal donations to her campaign to become deputy pm. In 2003 Harman was fined £400 and banned from driving for seven days after being convicted of driving at 99 mph (159 km/h) on a motorway, 29 mph (47 km/h) above the speed limit.

Energy Costs

The cost of cleaning up after the last generation of nuclear power plants could rise as high as £73bn. This has to be paid by the taxpayer. The next generation of nuclear power plants has already been approved. The government has decided our future is nuclear.

The cost of completing the national grid so it runs all the way from Scotland to Southern England and then onto France is about £4bn, which includes wind farms in Scotland. The idea is we could be a net exporter of energy within a generation. Britain is blessed with amazing wind and wave energy resources. We also have a commitment to cut our greenhouse gases and increase the proportion of our energy from renewable sources. That process has started but most serious proposals are stuck in the planning process and very few make it through.

Here is my plan;

1) Approve a mix of big and small projects
2) Streamline the planning process and be biased toward green energy schemes
3) Add incentives for communities that host wind farms
4) Allow any user to sell energy back to the grid at a fair price; feed in tariffs

Above all just do SOMETHING and do it NOW. The Germans are far in front of us

Margaret Thatcher

As a person who grew up in a Yorkshire mining region in the 1980s my natural inclination is to hate Thatcherism because of the misery it caused for me personally and for many many others. However, the recent spate of programmes on TV has made me rethink. Here are one two interesting articles that offer opposing views.

The balance seems to be that although she made some calamitous mistakes and our entry into the Falklands war looks like downright evil political opportunism with hindsight, her economic and social reforms were a bitter pill that did transform the country into a lean mean modern machine. This is why New Labour didn't drop any of her major policies. It is also why in the space of one generation I went from being destined to work in a coal mine to taking a place at University and earning a PhD.

Motoring gripes

Manchester is thinking about congestion charging and the government is smiling on it. Businesses are up in arms and there is much debate. The M60 motorway is to be included in the plans. I vehemently disagree with this idea. Why should I be charged to drive past Manchester on my way to somewhere else? How else am I supposed to get to Liverpool or Warrington (which I have to do occasionally)? OK, tax those going into Manc but not those who are using one of the key motorway routes in the north of England. The idea seems to be half baked. With a looming recession and motoring costs hitting the roof the last thing we need is more tax on motorists. Trying to price us off the road is not fair for two reasons; 1) those who are poor should not be prevented from travelling on certain routes 2) People have to use the road. When I drive to Warrington to do my experiments the boot is full of scientific kit. I can't take that on a train! Also, with the housing market being batsh*t crazy people can't afford to live near where they work and even if they can the jobs market is so short term people don't stay living near their workplace for long.

Motoring gripe number two; speeding. The number one killer in the world is traffic - car crashes, people being run over and particularly pollution. Cars that are speeding produce more pollution and are more likely to collide with something or someone and the effects of that collision are more serious. So why aren't all vehicles fitted with speed limiters? These would prevent a vehicle from reaching more than a certain top speed. Some vehicles already have them fitted by law and with some small investment in infrastructure all vehicles could be fitted with a speed limiter that could sense the local speed limit and restrain the speed of the car. I can't think of a single good argument against the idea except for the initial costs. The benefits would be immense. Even for motorists. Fewer traffic jams caused by vehicles doing gas/brake cycles and causing phantom jams. And just think about pulling out at a junction. To leave my housing estate I have to pull onto a road with a 30 mph speed limit. Except the vehicles are just dropping down from 40 mph (ie doing 50 mph) and I can't get out. Of course, the real reason we don't have speed limiters for all vehicles is the motoring lobby. A £60'000 car would be no different to a fiat punto except for a few more creature comforts and a bit more acceleration (but with a flat top speed to aim for who cares?). There is no way the oil lobby and the motoring lobby would take it. And their voice is far more powerful than that of the millions who die each year on the roads.

Grand Theft Auto IV

Much has been written about the 'seminal masterpiece' computer game grand theft auto iv which has just been released. In this game a person plays the role of a criminal in a virtual city. One of the key attractions of the game is its 'sandbox' gameplay; if you choose you can ignore the missions and just hang out in the city. You can watch TV, eat chicken ignore stop signs and red lights. You can also go on a murderous rampage with a baseball bat or fill innocent bystanders with lead. Defenders of this say that it is just tongue in cheek fun and a bit of stress relief. Any sane person can distinguish the game from reality. Why should we all be denied access to something fun just because there are a few vulnerable and suggestive people out there?

Which is exactly the same argument the pro-gun lobby make in the USA.

New Orleans vs Sichuan

The chinese government, with its appaling human rights record, has done more to help the victims of the Sichuan earthquake than the US government did to help the victims of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. It might be that the Olympics and the world spotlight have forced China to act but the fact that China has acted so swiftly and that New Orleans is still in pieces should surely put Bush to shame. But it doesn't seem to have.

Microsoft and children in the developing world

The makers of the $100 laptop designed to give thousands of kids from the developing world access to a vital learning tool have announced that the Microsoft Windows XP operating system will now be supplied with the laptop alongside the free (and in my experience, far superior) Linux operating system. Users will be able to choose which operating system they want to use just after they switch on the laptop. The cost of the laptop has risen to $188 because the company involved can't demand that a country order a minimum number of laptops. With Windows XP the cost of the laptop has risen by a further $10 to $198, double the initial cost which means half as many kids will get their laptop. The project has also suffered delays because it has taken 1 year to adapt Windows XP to go on the machine. Even so the user interface doesn't work on Windows XP and the networking software that lets users talk to one another and share data also doesn't work. Scandal and shame.

Why are they letting big business in to profit from such a beautiful and altruistic NOT-FOR-PROFIT scheme? Because the users want it. The number of orders placed since Windows XP was made available has increased. I wonder how much pressure was placed on the governments of the countries placing orders. Of course, we all know that MS aren't in this because of education. They want to make sure their operating system and their software becomes dominant in the new markets in the developing world. This situation is akin to the companies who distribute free powdered milk to mothers in the developing world and then stop the free samples when the mothers natural milk dries up, forcing them to pay for the milk. Microsoft will raise a generation of children on Windows and then when they are adults they will be forced to use it and pay for it (out of familiarity, the same reason Windows is till dominant everywhere else), instead of taking advantages of all the goodness of FREE open source software.

Sainsburys beware

The UK supermarket Sainsburys has reported a 28% increase in its profits this year. Now, I know they are one of the big nasty supermarket chains but I'm quite pleased about this. I was, for many years a Tesco customer partly out of laziness and partly because of the clubcard. But I got fed up of sub-standard fruit and veg and awful meat (see my post from almost a year ago). So I switched to Sainsburys. I travelled the extra few miles to their store and paid a few pence extra and got less of a reward for my loyalty (nectar points aren't as valuable as clubcard points). It was worth it for the better food. And I'm delighted and surprised that lots of other people have made the switch in a time when food prices have been rising fast. Sainsburys concentrate mainly on food but they have decided to reinvest the profits in the non-food side of the business. Boo. Concentrate on maintaining the quality of your food and you will maintain your profit margins (and your customers). Tesco took their eye off the ball and started selling crap food a year and a half ago so they could concentrate on their USA operations and their non-food lines and look what happened. I said it a year ago for Tesco and I'll repeat it again today; Sainsburys beware.

Apropos of not much really...

The Popular project (over on Freaky Trigger), which is reviewing all UK number 1 singles in order, is on great form at the moment. It's just hit September 1976, with the number 1 in question being Dancing Queen which has earned a big fat 10 out of 10.

I like Dancing Queen, but I like Chiquitita better. It's a song that stops and then starts again, which are always ace, and it features Bjorn playing the piano with great gusto. I have no idea what it's about but it sounds sad, in a kind of European melodramatic way (see also Fernando). So here's a lovely snowy video for it.



Niczilla xx

Carbon footprint of football matches

It's music festival season and there has been much comment about the carbon footprint of such events. Many tens of thousands of people travelling many miles to attend surely do create a lot of CO2 (and pollution, which seems to have been pushed down the pecking order of things to worry about by greenhouse gases). Events like glastonbury have made a certain number of tickets available only to those who travel there by bus. Bands like Radiohead are only playing at venues with good public transport links.

All very good. But... The last round of premier league football matches was attended by about 365'000 people. There are 38 such rounds in a season which adds up to just under 14 million people per year attending matches. The Championship (the second most highly attended football league in the world) gets about 5 million attendees a year if last weekend is anything to go by (bear in mind it is end of season which attracts more fans but weigh this against declining attendance figures across football). A lot of football fans don't travel far to the match but some fans travel a long way (Man Utd fans). Even so, we are talking a good proportion of 20 million people are travelling to football matches each year. This must dwarf the music festivals in terms of CO2 generated.

Favourite poll result of the week; 15% of Americans think Barak Obama is a muslim.

Medicine balance of the sexes

There are more women than men graduating medical school. Is this a problem? Radio 4 debated this question this morning.

A male doctor made the point that there should be equal numbers of male and female doctors available to fit with patient choice and general equality. To satisfy this need one has to train 3 female doctors for every 2 male doctors. This is because female doctors retire earlier, work fewer hours and require maternity leave. Surely this logic requires more female doctors to be trained in a ratio 3:2?

A female doctor said 'it isn't true you get three times more work out of male doctors' which shows she didn't understand the point made by her colleague. Her final sentence is my quote for the day;

11% of female clinical academics are women

Could Have Been Worse

EMI are to release a Best of Radiohead on June 2 as revenge for the band ditching the record company. The tracklisting and artwork have just landed;

Single album;|||||||||||||||||||Double album; single album plus extra CD

Just||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Airbag
Paranoid Android|||||||||||||||I Might Be Wrong
Karma Police|||||||||||||||||||Go To Sleep
Creep|||||||||||||||||||||||||||Let Down
No Surprises|||||||||||||||||||Planet Telex
High and Dry||||||||||||||||||Exit Music (For A Film)
My Iron Lung||||||||||||||||||The National Anthem
There There|||||||||||||||||||Knives Out
Lucky|||||||||||||||||||||||||||Talk Show Host
Fake Plastic Trees|||||||||||||You
Idioteque||||||||||||||||||||||Anyone Can Play Guitar
2+2=5||||||||||||||||||||||||||How To Disappear Completely
The Bends|||||||||||||||||||||True Love Waits
Pyramid Song
Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Everything In Its Right Place

I can't really argue with the track list but the running order produces some very odd transitions. Also, 'How To Dissappear' should be on CD 1 because it is one of the top 5 Radiohead songs. Other than that this makes a reasonable introduction to RH. The problem is they are an album band and you can't really cut and shut the albums to get the 'best bits'.

Anyway, as a long time fan I won't buy this album because it is just EMI being greedy. I can make my own RH greatest hits playlist on my ipod and change this every couple months. What the fans really want is a b-sides collection or a boxed set. Now that would be something exciting. Almost exciting as seing them live (again) at the end of June this year (3 months to go!).

Say No to 42 days

The latest great idea from the Government to stop terrorism is to make it legal to hold people and question them repeatedly for 42 days without charge - without even telling them why they are being held. The Equality and Human Rights Commission says it goes against human rights law and may breach the Race Relations Act, while Geoffrey Dear, former chief constable of West Midlands Police and HM inspector of constabulary says passing the law will be a PR coup for Al Qaeda

The Rachel from North London blog explains all this better than I can, so please have a read of her thoughts on this and then go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/notadaylonger/ and sign the petition against 42 Days which a)threatens our civil rights and b) won't do the slightest bit of good in 'the war against terror'anyway. Please take a minute to sign, not because I asked and not because a load of bloggers are going on about it, but because it's the right thing to do.
Niczilla xx

Doncaster Quality Bus Corridor

Doncaster is currently having a quality bus corridor fitted on two approaches into the town centre. On one of these approaches a dual carriageway is being reduced to one lane and this Sunday (normally a quiet day) I encountered very bad traffic. Of course this will all be worth it if traffic levels are reduced and everyone uses the bus. I asked the mayors office what the traffic reduction and bus passenger increases they were hoping for and how much the scheme would cost. They said

I would advise that the major scheme business case that secured funding of £15.3 million from the Department of Transport, is based upon achieving a 5% increase in bus patronage in the opening year, and an annual increase of 1.5% thereafter.

That's it. £15 million to increase bus passenger levels by just 5% and no targets for traffic reduction. 5% more people using the bus will cut congestion a bit but the bus lanes themselves will create much more congestion than they ease.

I would also like to know if taxi cabs are to be allowed to use the bus lanes. A taxi is a private commercial vehicle and they should not be allowed to use the priority traffic lights to the delay of everyone else. This is where the main congestion comes from; the priority lights. Each time a vehicle passes down the bus lane toward the lights the main body of traffic is halted. In the town centre we have priority lights which cause chaos. We also have priority bus lanes into the bus station which the buses do not use because people prefer to be dropped off in the town centre. However, we haven't been able to gauge the effects of the priority lights in the new bus corridor yet because the buses are not running in any numbers. Why? Because they haven't built the park and ride yet.

You heard me correct. We have bus lanes built and empty because they haven't built the park and ride yet. Why didn't they build it first?

In the peaceful eye of the storm (for now)

Democracy 0 MPs 1 (2)?

Today is a crucial day for Democracy in the UK. Parliament is to debate the EU treaty. The people of Britain want a referendum. The government know that the outcome of the referendum would be that the people would reject the treaty (as part of a wider rejection of EU authority over British citizens and the subsequent dilution of our democratic rights). So the government has rejected the idea of a referendum even though they were elected on the promise (in their manifesto) that the people would be granted a referendum. They claim that the treay now isn't the same treaty on which the referendum promise was made which is complete hogwash. Those who redrafted the treaty themselves admit this. It all boils down to the simple fact that the pro-Europe stance of parliament is completely out of touch with the feelings of the people. We are being denied our say because the government believe we lack enough knowledge of the situation to be involved in the decision making.

The simple fact is that we don't want to be ruled over by mainland Europe. We fought in two wars to prevent European integration. Europe as a trade zone is a great idea. Europe sticking together in its dealings with the superpowers makes sense. But a federal Europe with a single currency and a central law making and governmental institution is too far. The politicians want to go all the way. Why? An increase in government and bureaucracy (and in power and budgets) is what they want. Government bureaucrats measure their success by the size of their workforce and budgets. Anyway. Please parliament let us decide. You ignored millions of us over the pre-Iraq war protests and we were right. We couldn't vote the government out of power to protest this because the alternatives were the Tories (no way) or the Lib Dems (not a serious proposition). Another failure of party politics (see earlier post). Don't let this be the second time in recent years that the overwhelming will of the people has been brushed aside. I could be wrong. A referendum could reveal public opinion to be in favour of Europe. Either way. Give us our say.