iPod Video on Ubuntu - gTkpod

I've just finished a long round of encoding up a lot of my video files and DVDs so that I can play them on both my PS3 (via mediatomb or a USB brick) and my iPod video.

The two devices place some restrictions on which audio/video codecs they can handle and also on the range of bitrates that are accessible. I'll post my ffmpeg script next time. The main points to mention are that the video size must be 640x480 or 340x240 for the iPod (5.5g) and the audio rate must be 160k or less for both devices. I went for the xvid codec (I would prefer to have used h.264 but I had many many problems getting this to work on both devices consistently).

Anyway the coding is now done and the videos look fine on my large TV but the files aren't so big that they fill up my iPod. To transfer files onto the iPod using the Ubuntu Linux operating system I use gTkpod . I found this to be superb. Multiple iPods are not a problem.

The best feature is the repository option. One can create separate repositories to separate content for different iPods. My wife and I have a lot of overlap in our musical tastes but there is a lot of music of hers I don't want on my iPod and vice-versa. gTkpod makes this simple. We each set up our own repository and populate this with our music choices from our shared collection giving us each our own personal library.

Another good new feature of gTkpod is the ability to tag video files. This way one can divide video into Movies, TV and Music video and label season and episode Nos. Be careful here. The tags aren't embedded into the video files as metadata and so if you move the file to a different folder then your tags will be lost. That's my only criticism - I wish that tag information could be associated with a file even if it isn't embedded.

Anyway I now have The Big Bang Theory Season 1 and The Sopranos Season 3 to keep me occupied when I'm on the move.

Ubuntu One Music Store

Ubuntu have launched a DRM free music store as part of their Ubuntu One cloud. I would love this to work. Alas...

Tracks cost 99p and as a quick example the new Gorillaz album is £7.99 (the same price as HMV) . Compare to good old amazon mp3 where the same tracks are 89p each or £5.49 for the lot.

It's not an option really especially since amazon mp3 works so exceptionally well with Linux. Can anyone tell me of any other benefits (apart from cloud synchronisation)?

How a railway franchise should be run

Railway franchisee Grand Central is different. It is not backed by the promise of a taxpayer bailout. If the owners do not make enough money or even if they lose money they cannot pull out of the franchise. This is exactly how a franchise should work.

The big riddle here is how with all this extra risk on board do GC manage to offer lower fares than their rivals? Is this a ploy to establish market share? Or are they genuinely fair fares (sic)? They also offer no advanced booking scheme - one does not have to book a journey months ahead to get a lower fare. It is even possible to buy a ticket on the train without being made to feel like a fare dodger who is causing the aisle to be blocked by a conductor.

It all sounds too good to be true. My last post on DHL was also positive about a privatised business. 2 in one week. All we need now is the rest of the free market to work; the banks, the supermarkets, energy and water franchisees, employers etc.

God bless DHL

I sold something on eBay. It was very large and I was petrified about going down to the Post Office.

Then I decided to go for a private courier. I booked it. They came to the door on the day and efficiently took the parcel away leaving me with proof of postage.

I tracked the item on their website. I knew when it had arrived and departed every distribution centre along the way. I know the exact time, to the second, that it reached my customer.

23 hours door-to-door. And it cost me just £8. Fantastic. I will never, ever use Royal Mail again for any parcel over 2kg.

This is what a privatised market should offer. I had a service I required and based on the details of this I could choose which service provider I wanted by going to https://www.parcel2go.com/

Zilla's BLW update

We've been baby led weaning (BLW) with baby Zak for around 5 weeks now and I wanted to post an update and thank BLW Dad for his encouragement and BLW tips. Zak has really taken to eating solids and time has proven that we were right to take the BLW route. Although he will take the odd bit of weetabix or yoghurt from a spoon he insists on feeding himself and will try to grab the spoon for himself when we do spoon feed him. He loves all kinds of food and is happy to try anything we put in front of him, the only foods he has rejected we think had odd textures and that's why he wouldn't entertain them. He doesn't like babybel and some kinds of meat.

Last weekend we went out for our first family meal at a restaurant, with granny and grandad. Zak sat in a highchair and scoffed whatever we gave him from our plates - pieces of chicken, pizza crust, linguine, courgettes. We thoroughly enjoyed all eating together, at the same time, as a family and I was so proud to see my little guy enjoying his meal just like us. The staff at Ask were excellent and didn't bat an eyelid when Zak chucked pasta all over the floor.

Although it's turned out messier than I imagined and I seem to always be washing up or putting the dishwasher on, I'm more convinced than ever that BLW is the way to go.

Zilla's TV election

The 2010 election seems to have been billed as the TV election, with leaders debates taking place for the first time in British politics and unprecedented coverage across the terrestrial and satellite 24 hour news channels. But who did the best job of covering the election for a TV audience, and who should accompany the outgoing PM into the sunset?

The good:

• Gary o'Donohue - Able to explain the most complex of issues concisely and in an easy to understand manner, o'Donohue deserves a much higher profile. Relegated to breakfast time reporting only, allegedly as a result of Nick Robinson's ego, o'Donohue has nevertheless been a voice of clarity and calm for the BBC.

• Michael Portillo - Once universally derided, Portillo has reinvented himself in the last couple of years into a thoughtful and intelligent political commentator. Unafraid to disagree in the politest possible way, Portillo has been excellent on This Week, as well as the other programmes on various TV networks that he has popped up on.

• The Sky News election team - The Sky News team were fairly effective throughout the election month, managing to get the big stories and seemingly always in the right place at the right time, particularly during 'Bigotgate'.

• David Dimbleby - pretty ubiquitous throughout the election coverage, Dimbleby brought the right tone to proceedings, serious but without taking things too seriously and unafraid to take politicians to task.

The bad:

• Nick Robinson - little better than a state-funded gossip and irritating at the best of times, Robinson has spent the last month jumping up and down like a hyperactive toddler, using 50 words when 10 would have done and has been all over every BBC news bulletin like an unwelcome rash. Despite his high profile Robinson seems unable to provide viewers with any real insight into British politics.
  

• Alistair Stewart - the host of the first leaders debate SHOUTED his way through ITV's election coverage.

• ITV's 'embedded correspondents' - ITV sent a correspondent to follow each party leader around the country to little effect. They reported little of substance or importance throughout the month.

A bizarre result for our Democracy

So we have a hung parliament. A large shift to the Conservatives but not large enough for them to form a government.

Conservative			36.0% ie	+3.9%
Labour			29.3% ie	-6.3%
Liberal Democrat			22.9 ie	+1.0%

The first thing that leaps out is how poor the Liberal Democrats performed. They ran a good campaign. They did very well in the leaders debates and they gained lots of extra exposure. Unfortunately, with extra exposure comes extra scrutiny. Policies such as joining the Euro and an amnesty on illegal immigrants have clearly not gone down well. It is reassuring that people have looked at policy rather than TV persona.

Another reassuring matter is the high turnout. I hope that if a hung parliament cannot be configured and we need a second ballot then the turnout will remain high. If people lose their voice because of boredom then we are all in trouble.

What is truly bizarre about the result is that a Lab/Lib coalition cannot form a government. They will need the support of Plaid Cymru and the SNP for this. In return Plaid have already asked for £0.3 billion extra to their budget. The SNP will also doubtless ask for scottish public sector workers to be partially insulated from the coming cuts. So such a coalition will be a bad result for people in England.

The regional variations are fascinating. In England as things currently stand the Conservatives have 56% of the seats (but only 40% of the vote - that's why we need PR). This means that the people of England have chosen a Conservative government. In NI, Wales and Scotland the Conservatives have only 8 seats out of 119, just 7%. The devolved regions have rejected the Tories as an English party.

This is the true cost of devolution. The people of England have had their choice rejected by regions of Britain that have their own parliament. Budget cuts will now affect the people of England much more severely. Look at the constituency map here. Look how small the devolved regions are. Look how the map is dominated by red and blue. And remember that none of this matters. That orange and green and yellow are deciding the outcome of who loses their jobs and services.

I did not want the Conservatives to win (see earlier posts). I didn't want any of the big three to win. But I didn't want this. For the good of England I'm going to swallow my ideological preferences and say that the Conservatives should be the party to form a government. They got the most votes and the most seats. It won't be so bad - the opposition will be strong enough to keep the Tories in check.

One thing is for certain. Either way Gordon Brown is finished. Only an English Prime Minister will do now for a Lib/Lab pact.

Deficit Reduction Plan for Britain

• Scrap IT programmes (and take the public sector over to Linux - much cheaper than Microshaft).
• Scrap Trident and other hugely expensive MoD procurement programmes.
• Do not sign any more private finance initiative contracts.
• Stop spending money on consultants and use the civil service more.
• Reduce the number of NHS managers significantly and stop NHS privatisation.
• Raise taxes in every area by a small amount.
• Levy the banks to provide a fund to protect us against another collapse.
• Tax all migrant workers heavily to pay for the drain on our infrastructure (legal and otherwise).
• Raise the minimum wage - more tax revenue, companies less likely to hire migrant workers, fewer british citizens on the dole.
• Encourage a baby boom so we have a young workforce to support the ageing population.

Should save/earn us about £200 billion which pays off the deficit without a single public sector job loss.

Floola is full of bugs

Cross platform Ipod manager Floola is full of bugs. It's a real shame because when I open Floola it looks like it will be perfect for me and I will finally be able to toss the old WXP box out. The options and functionality promise so much. And yet I can't delete songs. I can't delete duplicates either. It just hangs. I've tried fixing orphans and lost files.

This software came recommended in Linux Format. Boo!

Funny thing, our democracy

To form a government a political party in the UK needs a large majority of seats in Parliament. Once it has this majority then the government cannot be forced into calling another general election and its MPs cannot be recalled. We are stuck with the government and their large majority means that they can do whatever they want (like go to war in Iraq). This has gone on for decades with Labour and the Conservatives taking it in turns to have a decade or more in power. Power only changes hands when the public are so sick of a party that they will do anything to see a change of government.

In this election we have a real chance to change the status quo. If there is no outright winner then the Liberal party will become very important in any coalition government. This will almost certainly mean electoral reform so that proportional representation is introduced meaning that the number of votes cast for a party will count and not the number of seats that they gain. The awful spectre of a party finishing third in the popular vote but still gaining enough seats to win the election will be removed. It will mean the end of Conservative majority government. For ever.

Just think about that. Never again will the Tories get into absolute power. The party that represents the rich and the priviliged. The party that decimated northern England in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The party that ruined our place in Europe and will further isolate us to the margins if elected this time. The Tory party that will not give precise figures in its manifesto and will not explain exactly how its 'big society' policies will work.

Party politics as a whole doesn't work. All three big parties support a free market, privatised, PFI backed, business led Britain in which the gap between rich and poor widens every year and society crumbles.

So I'll be voting tactically to stop my MP from being a Tory. I want a hung parliament. I want consensus & issue based politics (like that in Germany and many other places in the world) to take over. The end of the party whips. The end of MPs doing as they please in seats for life. The end of MPs working for lobbyists and the end of former Prime Ministers making £20 million from oil companies for taking us to war against an oil rich country.

If only....

Wishlist

• Scrap Trident and cancel the aircraft carrier and Eurofighter contracts
• Break up the banks
• Ban short selling
• Tax foreign exchange transactions
• Raise capital gains tax
• Raise income tax for the rich while reducing it for the poor.
• Set a maximum wage and give workers seats on corporate boards.
• Re-nationalise the railways
• Curb the power of the supermarkets and gas/electric companies.
• A living pension for everyone over 80
• Raise benefits in line with average earnings
• Scrap tuition fees.
• Abandon ID cards
• Stop detaining asylum seekers
• Shift sentencing away from prison and towards restorative justice

Think this is impossible? The people of Wales get this choice with Plaid.

The Leaders Debates

The first ever UK television debate between the three people who hope to be prime minister was held the other night. We expected a dry, safe stage managed affair with little participation from the public. In fact it was surprisingly engaging and opened up genuine differences between the parties.

Nick Clegg was the clear winner. He spoke to the camera and to people who asked him the questions. He tried to answer the audience questions fully and he remembered the names of the people who asked the questions. Brown and Cameron seemed to be bickering amongst themselves. Out of the three parties I would choose the Lib Dems. Unfortunately I live in a Labour seat where the majority shrunk to 8000 at the last election from 20000 the time before. I need to make sure that Caroline Flint doesn't lose her seat to the Tories.

I absolutely do not want a Conservative government. The last time our economy was in this state the Conservatives made things ten times worse by making premature cuts and putting millions into unemployment. Their policies on small government and handing back power to the people are just back door privatisation and deregulation. Deregulation and free markets don't work because human beings are selfish and greedy and will always play the system. And who is going to have time to run a school and do a full time job and look after kids?

Labour have some very interesting policies this time around but I just don't believe that any of them will be enacted. Gordon Brown appeared statesmanlike during the debate and he certainly didn't finish last. My perception was that he hammered Cameron. The problem is that Brown is a political animal. His party seems tired and decaying and corrupt.

My ideal scenario would be a Lib Dem victory and if I get the faintest whiff that they can take our constituency then I'll vote for them. The more realistic scenario is to keep the Tories out and hope for a coalition government (with Vince Cable as chancellor). To get this I'll have to vote Labour for the first time in my life. Yuck.

Party politics is still a poor system. If one party holds a large majority then all sorts of horrific laws and backstage deals get under the radar (see any issue of private eye). The three parties still offer a narrow variation on a theme. Our degree of EU membership has never been put to the public. And the system of deregulated, privatised, PFI, free market capitalism that we are forced to live under is not going to be questioned or altered in any way.

It's a real shame that voters are not being offered any great variety of choice and that people like me cannot vote for the things I want and instead have to tactically vote for the lesser of many evils.

The Wire Season 5

And so we have reached the final season and we are 4/10 episodes in. The entertainment levels are higher than ever but the standards and credibility of the storyline have slipped. Just a little. It feels like they have just eased off on the throttle. We are currently in soap opera territory where every character is in jeopardy. Who will survive? The newspaper storyline feels like it was crowbarred in and there seems to be very little connect with the rest of the show so far (apart from a few scenes where McNulty meets a Sun reporter). The Burrell stuff (trying to keep spoilers out of this) and the serial killer stuff doesn't feel like a strong enough bond so far. 6 more episodes to go so we'll see how it develops. But just maybe given the journalism background of the writers this season is a little self indulgent and the cop/drugs stuff has been stretched out to provide a scaffold for their rants about newspaper cuts.

Baby led weaning

I (Zilla) wanted to type up some thoughts on baby led weaning (BLW) in the hope that anyone coming across this might be encouraged to give it a go.

I came across baby led weaning on the internet a while ago and though that the approach would suit baby Zak to a tee, as he is a very independent minded baby. Basically, you forget all your purees and ice cube trays - provided you've waited until bubs is 6 months old and can pick things up, you cook a bit of whatever you're having for tea without sugar or salt, cut it into fist sized pieces, put it on baby's high chair tray and let them have at it.


I was undecided on whether to just take the traditional route until I saw this brilliant video of parents trying BLW for the first time (note for the easily offended: Dad has a bit of a potty mouth). Seeing that baby scoffing chunks of broccoli persuaded me that BLW was the way to go. And so far, it has been. Zak is three days in and already he's been chomping carrot, banana, digestives (naughty Granny), cucumber and broccoli. Today we're having a go at parsnip. We weren't expecting him to eat much at first and although alot of food has ended up on the floor he's been going at his food pieces with great gusto.

Unfortunately there's not alot of info out there on BLW - when I asked the local health visiting team they'd heard of it, but not much else. There is a book available, which I didn't buy, although at the start I felt like I needed some hand holding and wished that I had the book to refer to. There's a good website: http://babyledweaning.com/ and the Youtube videos of course, and that's about it.

Despite the Dept of Health guidelines there's still alot of pressure on parents to wean babies at four months and it can be tough to wait til six months when everyone around you is shovelling purees into their bubs mouths while your baby has to make do with plain old milk. But after just three days Zak has already caught up with his peers in terms of what he can eat and I'm so glad we waited. It's only a matter of weeks before he's going to be nomming entire roast dinners.

Why I'm thinking about not voting at the next UK general election

In the UK a general election will be held soon (6th of May). We are told that this is our chance to have our say on how we are governed and that it is our civic duty to vote. In the UK there are many political parties but historically it has only ever been the Conservative Party or the Labour Party that have been elected to form a government and there are no signs that this is about to change. But what are we to do if we do not like either of these two options? This article is a discussion of why the two main political parties have become unpalatable for voters and offers some suggestions for what might be done to rescue the public trust in government and politicians which has never been at a lower ebb.

There are four main reasons why the public believe that neither Labour or the Conservatives should be elected.

1) Dissatisfaction with the behaviour of MPs/HM government.

In 2002/2003 millions of people marched on the streets of the UK to protest at government plans to invade a country that had never attacked the UK or any of its citizens, a crime of agression under international law that was opposed by the United Nations. This was in support of a country (the USA) who had been attacked by people from another country (Saudi Arabia) on whom they depend for oil. Quite what this had to do with Iraq or with the people of Britain was another matter. Lies were told and the war happened anyway. Many 100'000's of people died and the reasons we were given for going to war were shown to be a willing lie (WMDs were shown to never have existed and the evidence that they existed was shown to be very dodgy). The will of the people of Britain was ignored.

Before they were elected the Labour government published a manifesto of things that they 'promised' to do if elected. One of these was a promise to ask us if we wanted them to sign the EU treaty on our behalf. The referendum was never held and they signed the treaty anyway. Other countries such as Ireland, France and the Netherlands have held referenda and the vote has been a no in cases. In each case the referenda were re-staged again and again until the voters got so bored with voting that a yes was given. There are times when the public cannot be allowed to dictate the law and government policy - e.g. the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the 1960s. But the law should represent the will of those who have to be subject to it. The people of Britain have a right to choose how deep our involvement in the European Union should be. Should it be a simple cooperative effort on trading and foreign policy (to help our mutual economies and to improve our negotiating position on the world stage) or should it be a federal superstate wit a president and a constitution. The latter represents a significant change in our democratic rights and we have a right to veto it. The real reason a referendum was not held is that (a) the EU means politicians (MEPs) become much more powerful and more beuarcay means more for the political class to do and (b) big business controls the government and it wants an EU superstate with a single currency and cheap migrant labour. The democratic will of the people that they represent does not figure in the equation. Manifesto pledges should be binding and it should be clearly set out in the manifesto those circumstances under which the pledges could be broken e.g. spending on the armed forces would have to increase if there was a war. Otherwise a manifesto is just false advertising.

But there is another issue that has damaged the standing of politicians far more than the two examples given above. The expenses scandal consistently shocked the British public for most of 2009. MPs made the situation much worse by insisting that they did not break the rules. They just didn't get it. They didn't see that the things they were putting on expenses were quite clearly taking the piss. Most of the public now see all MPs as being in it only for their own gain. (An interesting question that was never raised was how far back this has been going on. We only know about the last parliament. Are there greater scandals in the mists of time. What dodgy expenses claims were made in the sleazy days of the 1990s?).

2) MPs are powerless.

They cannot represent us properly because they have no power. The deregulation and privatisation that has continued since the 1980s has left MPs with little control over the system. There are two main areas where this has reduced the power of our government and diluted our democracy;

The Credit Crunch and the banking crisis were directly caused by the deregulation introduced in the 1980s. This has cost the state billions of pounds and has cost millions of job as we enter recession. I rest my case on this issue.

National assets were sold in the 1980s. We were promised an free market and open choice as to who we paid to provide our services. A great idea. No more late letters and late trains. The Post office was opened up to competition and private companies soon moved in and cheery picked the most profitable parts (business mail). The Royal Mail was left with the loss making parts of the business (ordinary letters and the Post office). The profitable areas once subsidised the loss making areas that provide a community service. The result has been a shocking decline in a service on which we all depend with post office branches closing en masse and it being impossible to get a parcel delivered to the door (we pay to have it delivered to the door but the postman is too pushed for time to bring it on his rounds and attempt delivery so he leaves it at the sorting office where we have to go and collect it).

The railways are another good example. Tracks were ripped up by successive governments and the service declined due to lack of investment. Privatisation brought companies willing to run the profitable parts of the business (carrying passengers) but not the unprofitable parts (maintaining the tracks and the stations) which eventually fell back into state ownership. The service has not improved with all of this choice. Operating companies pull out of unprofitable contracts. Ticket prices continue to rise. And the trains are simply unpleasant to travel on. Crowding is the major problem. The train companies know which services are busy but they refuse to put on extra carriages because this costs more and reduces their profit margins. This is where the government should step in. How about a law that says that a ticket cannot be sold for a train if there is not a seat available? The number of fares that could be collected by a train operator would then be proportional to the number of carriages they provide. Simple economics. Why does no such common sense rule apply? The government are toothless and powerless.

Train tickets are offered in a bewildering variety of prices and types. There is no choice on offer except when to travel and whether to sit in first class. We cannot choose whether to travel with company A or company B based on price because no such choice exists. We often see this where there is no choice offered by the free market or where the choice is blurred. Consider mobile phone tariffs or gas/electricity tariffs. Instead of simple side by side comparison of prices we have a large range of complex tariffs. How about laws that force companies to produce directly comparable tariffs for low, medium and heavy users in each area?

Some of the practices of the gas and electricity companies have been a disgrace. Estimated bills have been a good trick. Gas and electricity meters are deliberately left unread for a long time and the reading is deliberately underestimated. When the meter is eventually read the customer needs to pay for the shortfall in units. The provider can charge at current rates for gas and/or electricity instead of asking the customer to pay the cost of the gas/electricity at the time it was used. How about legislation to define a minimum interval for reading a meter. Or compulsary investment in smart meters? Another trick is where prices do not track wholesale prices and the gas companies recklessly profiteer. How about a rule where the domestic gas price cannot be more than 5% above the wholesale price at any given time? This would have prevented the scenario that happened this winter (a particularly cold one for Britain) where the wholesale price dropped sharply just before the winter started but the providers did not drop domestic tariffs to reflect this until after the winter had ended. It is estimated that each UK household overpaid by £105 over this winter.

Operators are given the contract to run the service for a set number of years. They often lie to get the contract and then do/charge what they want when the have the contract. Investment simply does not occur. How about a rolling investment pot that all contract holders must contribute to? The other problem with privatisation and free markets is that monopolies can emerge if the government does not prevent this. The First company has a near monopoly on bus travel in the UK and the ticket prices that they offer and the cuts in routes they have made are simply unfair.

The other area where British political power has weakened is with the EU. As an example I pick jobs. At the start of 2009 four thousand oil refinery workers went on strike in fear for their jobs as the French oil company Total decided to subcontract an Italian firm which employs Italian and Portuguese workers to carry out maintenance at a refinery in Grimsby.

The state pays Grimsby folk unemployment benefit whilst a company employs people from the other side of europe at a slightly cheaper rate to carry out work in Grimsby. This is effectively the state increasing the profit margins of large foreign companies by paying the local workforce to do nothing. Gordon Brown came out with the empty line 'British jobs for British workers' but he didn't actually do anything because he is powerless to act under EU law.

I suggest the following rules to make a truly fair and open labour market across Europe.

A company cannot draft in migrant workers from within the EU unless the jobs in question have been made equally available to local workers. A worker cannot be paid less than the local minimum wage.

3) Bad government.

One can always find examples of mistakes made by government. For example the Home Office lost the personal details of all child benefit claimants in the UK. It also lost the files of thousands of criminals. Gordon Brown sold off part of the UK gold reserves when gold prices were at rock bottom. If he had waited we would have made £5billion extra.

The biggest scandal of all is in how the government is hiding the true amount of national debt. Large scale long term construction projects like schools & hospitals cost money. Lots of money. One way for MPs to get around this is to go to the private sector for finance - a PFI company builds the thing and leases it back to the government. If the cost of the building project rises then the PFI company takes all the risk. Seems sensible. Only this never happens. When costs rise the PFI they are added to the bill. The costs are also extortionate and PFI has been compared to buying a house using a credit card. Monbiot has written about this at length and it regularly features in Private Eye. The PFI scheme to run and widen the M25 for 30 years will cost £6.5 billion. To run it as is and just use the hard shoulder at busy times would cost just £478 million. MPs like PFI because they can invest massively now and they won't be around to pick up the debt which is tens (if not hundreds) of billions of £s.

4) Party Politics does not work.

What if I agree with the Tory policy on how they would reduce the unemployment figures but I agree with the labour policy on inheritance tax? Who should I vote for? Should I rank issues in order of importance to me and weigh up which party I agree with most on balance? What if both parties have the same policy on most areas and what if I disagree with this? What if my MP ignores the will of the many on an issue (how do MPs truly know what public opinion is on any particular issue anyway?) and just votes along party lines? What can I do? The truth is that the two main political parties are so similar as to render the choice meaningless. The Labour government of the last 13 years has essentially continued the free market /deregulation /privatisation policies of the Tory government that was incumbent before it for 17 years (with some extra public spending thrown in). We are told that there is a real difference between the parties now in how they would deal with the budget deficit (Labour would wait until we started to come out of recession before making public spending cuts). This is essentially a recipe for how they would clear up the mess that they have created between themselves and not a clear choice of which package of rules they would put into place to make society a place fair for all.

Party policies are now defined not by what they think is best for us all but by the demands of business. How can it be democratic for private donations to be made to political parties? How can a government make objective decisions about what is best for the country when they rely on the donations of those with vested interests to run for office in the first place? I suggest that donations to individual parties should be banned and that donations should only be allowed into a general pool which would be shared out equally amongst all parties that won more than a certain number of seats at the last election. Small parties and new parties would then share a general pool of second tier donation money in the ratio of the number of seats that they are competing for. This system is not perfect and I am certain that political donations would dry up completely if there was nothing to gain by making a donation to British politics in general.

Non-stop by Brian Aldiss

Wow. The first novel of Brian Aldiss, one of the grand old men of British science fiction and it is superb. An accident on board a generation starship cripples the infrastructure and resets the society inside so that they forget where they are and their morals and religion are altered. The book is all about the quest of a few of the inhabitants to find out what the nature of their universe is.

There are two really impressive things about this piece. The first is how Aldiss unfolds the story. We know all along that we are inside a starship but Aldiss keeps the plot exciting and provides a good drip-drip of suspense and revelations. The ending also provides a nice surprise and a good resolution. The second impressive thing is that this is a page turner. Some SF provides enjoyment by allowing us to bathe in the details. Not here. We want to find out what happens.

The atmosphere and the characters instantly print upon the mind and the feel of the ship as the characters make their winding trek through the decks filled ponics (overgrown hydroponic plants) is perfect. One fault means I can't give a perfect score. One of the main groups of enemies are rats. This is perfectly acceptable as a plot device (it drives the tribe of Gregg into teaming up with forwards and allows the laser and the diary to be passed on) but did the rats really have to be telepathic?! Did they really have to be able to wield objects and subjugate other animals like rabbits and moths?! Rats on earth have not evolved such abilities. Another fault is that Complain never gets to meet up with his old tribe. We never get a moment where they see how he was right to question the nature of things.

All in all I think this work will stay in my mind for a good long time.

8/10

Review of Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

I reviewed my attempt to read this some time ago and how I just gave up. Well, something kept nagging away at me and I tried again. Again I got bored by three separate character threads, long winded exposition and disparate timelines.

And then about 100 pages in it all came together. It turned into a thriller. There are some beautiful set pieces and I like the characters because he doesn't bother trying to color them in. We have people, we know what they look like and we know their motives. End of.

This is a fantastic hard SF novel with some very memorable passages and many many interesting ideas. So apologies to Mr. Reynolds for my earlier lazy review. This cold tale has made me want to continue the series and check out some of his other work.