Even Voldemort Wouldn't Approve - Student Protests.

On the student protests this week - from Tom Humberstone:

"In an attempt to follow up on my vague notions of documenting the student protests using the work of Denys Wortman as inspiration – here’s a quick drawing I did based on some reference provided by Dan Hancox. Thanks to Dan for allowing me to use it."

And whilst we are talking about the student protests.... here's Warren Ellis on the journalism of Laurie Penny - right in the middle of it all on Friday night::

"She’s actually covering these events two or three times over, and the first time is realtime, on Twitter, from right in the middle of it all. Down to broadcasting, in certain instances, individual police ID numbers. As deep in the story/stories as you can get. She’s silent right now: I’m presuming her phone ran out of charge, as predicted, and hoping she’s not still in the kettle, which, others on Twitter are reporting, is still active at 1230am. There are children in there. This is how we treat our children when they question us, now: by cowing them, in the dark and the cold."

And don't tell me that the parents are at fault for allowing their children to protest - what other course of action do these future indentured workers, owing at least £18,000 to the state before they even think about having a roof over their heads or food to eat at university have?

Education is something we used to believe was worth investing in. Education used to be something we were rightly proud of. Now we penalise our children for wanting to learn, now we punish them and send them spiralling into terrible debt for their adult lives.

And when they complain, when they protest - we coral them, "kettle" them, unlawfully imprison them and the official line appears to be one of - if they don't like it, why did they come out on the streets.

Welcome to the UK Dec 2010. Merry Fucking Christmas.

He said what?

Here's one that raises the bar on idiotic, backward thinking, out and out insulting stupidity:

Pope Benedict (from this BBC article):

"Even in our own lifetimes we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live."

"As we reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

Yes, he really is making a link between being an atheist and being a nazi. No, I couldn't believe he'd say something so incredibly, ridiculously stupid either. But I suppose I should have expected it. This of course, comes just a day after one of his main aides described the UK as marked by "a new and aggressive atheism" and said that "when you land at Heathrow you think at times you have landed in a Third World country".

The ongoing de-catholic-isation of Molly is going well. Things like this only make me think she's better without influences like that in her life. And even the main catholic in the house is tending towards agreeing with me on that.

UPDATE. Just after posting this, I saw Steve Bell's cartoon for today:

Reasoned, intelligent research - only if it supports what they want to hear.....

Wow, twice in one week - this government just can't do anything right. When big business tells them to do something and a lot of smart, informed ask some very pertinant questions - this wonderful government seems to ignore them - or worse......

1. Mandelson's Three Strikes rule of digital copyright infringement
File this under things you never thought they'd do - but then again this Labour government have made a habit of doing things I never thought they'd do.
There are so many reasons why it's a stupid, short-sighted idea. And thankfully Cory Doctorow does a great job of summarising the whole thing over at the Times Online from October 30th. From which:

"It is not the job of government to guarantee that the business model enabled by last year’s technology will go on for ever. If it were, we would have outlawed radio to save vaudeville"

2. Government drug advisor David Nutt sacked
He puts forward the well researched idea that perhaps, just perhaps, we should look at how dangerous drugs are rather than how much they bring in in taxation. Well, he doesn't quite say that, but that's the gist of the thing. More details in the Guardian piece.

Apologies from Yorkshire and the Humber.

I live in Yorkshire and I love the place dearly. But tonight it's a horrible place to live in. Tonight the populous of Yorkshire elected a fascist to the European parliament. A shameful thing.

They call themselves the British National Party but they represent nothing about the Britain that I know. And on this weekend of all weekends, where we celebrate the anniversary of the D-Day landings; that first push to reclaim Europe from the fascists of Nazi Germany.

Every person has their right to vote for whomever they please. But I have an equal right to despise those who voted BNP and here in Yorkshire it seems I have a lot to despise.

Mark Thomas weighs in on the MP expenses thing....

Over on the Guardian website, Mark Thomas has decided to weigh in on the MPs expenses thing in typically Mark Thomas style:

It is unfair, unjust and profoundly undemocratic. Which is why lawyers acting on my behalf have served legal papers on Speaker Martin this morning. As the chair for the House of Commons Commission, he should take urgent steps to commence a review of the department's actions in dealing with MPs' applications for expenses. These should include an independent audit of expenses and the forced repayment of wrongly claimed expenses; and in cases of fraudulent claims, the police should be called in. Speaker Martin has 14 days to respond. If he does not, I will instigate a judicial review of Speaker Martin's decision, on the legal grounds that public law should be consistent. MPs should not be allowed to be above the law and what is good enough for us is good enough for them.

This might be interesting.

Thatcher, Thatcher, 30 years ago the other day.....

30 years ago yesterday and that evil woman took power. Most people who know me will know I don't hold much warmth in my heart towards her. Which is fitting because there's not much warmth in her heart and I don't believe there ever has been. I'm one of Thatcher's children, coming out of education just as her bizarre plan to completely screw up the country was in full effect.

"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.
Where there is error, may we bring truth.
Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.
And where there is despair, may we bring hope."

All lies. All terrible lies. And now I have to live in Thatcher's legacy watching a Labour government who not only have politics to match some of Thatcher's worst, but see her as someone to be admired and invited round for tea.

It's been long enough. The last few years have given us some entertainment on her behalf but it's time. It's past time. Can she hurry up and give us the street party we all deserve please.

Nice to see the teachers taking a rational view of the current economic situation

Is it just me or does the NUT always seem to come across like some spolit, moany child? Forever demanding more, forever complaining about their lot, never really considering those around them.

They're now asking for demanding a 10% pay rise. Great timing. When all around you are taking pay cuts, losing their jobs, houses, pensions and all is generally a bit crap with the world, the NUT feels it has the right to ask for 10%. Genius. This is on top of a great pension and retirement at 60. It just seems so greedy, so inconsiderate and just generally unprofessional. So no change there then.

Easter: Eggs, Doctor Who and Red Dwarf....

Easter Saturday; family, food and sci-fi. Not a bad day really. Louise's sister and niece's came up to see us and to hand over Easter eggs. A lovely afternoon had by all, followed by a lovely meal and then we all settled down to the new Doctor Who.

After not really enjoying the last few specials, we didn't really expect that much, but it turned out to be one of the best specials yet. Probably something to do with the simple plot and limited cast and very likely down to a sense of lowered expectations on our part. But a really great hour of TV. Including that nice foreshadowing at the end. It's just going to get darker and darker from here we think.

Next on the sci-fi fest for Easter (and what better way to spend such a religious festival as celebrating imaginary and frankly impossible stories) was the second part of the Red Dwarf Back To Earth three parter. Lots of folks online saying they just didn't like it, but I actually thought it was an improvement on last night's poor opener. I like the metafictional bits and I'm actually rather looking forward to seeing how they're going to end it all tomorrow. Although I'm also more than prepared to be completely let down by the whole thing as well.

Now it's late on Easter Saturday and I have to play Easter bunny in a little while and put out the egg trail that Molly's hoping to find in the morning. Another one of those weirdd moments in parentall life along with the Tooth Fairy and Santa. And we're a little surprised that she's still believing this one, to the point where we think she might actually be playing along for either our sake or just to cover all the possibilities; if their is an easter bunny she gets eggs, if not she still gets eggs - win win for her I suppose. But still strange. Could be worse though; she could believe some bizarre little tale involving particularly gruesome ritual sacrifice and rebirth that folks keep going on about at this time of year.

A bunch of bankers.

Found floating around the Internet (okay, it was from Guido). Obviously not real, but a perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with the situation: £693,000 per year. From the age of 50. £13327 per week. £79 per hour. Well that doesn't stick in the craw at all.

My favourite moment of it all so far: Peter Mandelson (noted beacon of all things good and righteous) on camera saying that Fred Goodwin should "do the right thing". Much spluttering into coffee and shouting at television followed.

Despite it probably being impossible I'd love to see the government just tell Goodwin to naff off, give him a state pension from 65 and tell him to sue. But instead I fear this unrecognisable Labour government will limp along, haemorrhaging support from lifelong Labour supporters like me until the next general election. Louise already has a bet on with me that Cameron's lot will get in (normal house bet rules: takeout as prize). And right now I feel like just admitting defeat here and buying takeout tonight as her winnings.

Evolution slowly creeps into our Catholic home....

We caught the final 20 minutes of David Attenborough show Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life earlier. Obviously it was quite wonderful. I doubt there's a moment of television with David Attenborough that isn't in some way worthwhile.
Just before the end of it there's a 6 minute or so animation that should really be shown in every school. It's a stunningly concise explaination of evolution and certainly had Molly's attention.

So this could be the first chink in that Catholic armour. She's already planning where she's going to put the BBC / Open University's free Evolution poster.

It's on the BBC iPlayer right now here. But the amazing Tree Of Life video is on You Tube here.

Jeremy Clarkson and the BBC under attack

The whole Jeremy Clarkson thing is getting a little stupid really. Okay, so he called Gordon Brown a one-eyed Scottish idiot who lied, but is it really worth the absolute outrage we see from every media outlet?

At most it's just a stupid comment but it's being blown out of all proportion. "Linking disability with incompetence" was one quote I heard. Surely I'm missing something because that's absolute rubbish. If I were to say I think Jeremy Clarkson's an obnoxious, arrogant, boorish lanky fool would everyone suddenly complain that that was somehow discriminatory? Can we not say anything critical about anyone anymore? Can we not just be scathing and a little nasty about people? It's certainly not even implying that Gordon's loss of sight in one eye has anything to do with his idiocy or his lies. And to try to make the connection is just someone trying to stir up trouble.

Surely Gordon Brown has bigger problems to concern himself with. Surely he must have a thicker skin than this? Not if the sycophantic, desperate to please Scottish Labour MP I heard on Radio 5 this morning was taking an official party line. MP Gordon Banks described Clarkson's comments as "unforgiveable". He was probably going to go on to describe Clarkson as somewhere to the right of Hitler and guilty of every serious unsolved crime of the last 50 years, but he ran out of time.

At most Clarkson's comments were slightly nasty. He was right about the Scottish after all. As for the idiot and the liar comments - that's going to depend on what you think of Brown and Labour - but I'm sure there's no shortage of people in agreement. I suppose the one-eyed comment was a little harsh. But somebody really needs to take a step back and ask exactly where we're drawing the line about this sort of thing.

Are we working our way towards a country where we're only allowed to be bland and uninteresting lest we offend anyone? Or maybe it's just the BBC that they want to be like that. In the wake of Ross and Brand it seems the knives are out for Auntie. You can see a point in the not too distant future where there will be nothing but a diet of Question Of Sport, Strictly Come Dancing and re-runs of The Good Life on the BBC.

Now, I like Clarkson in Top Gear. But I imagine I'd dislike him intensely in real life. And I imagine he wouldn't think too much of me either. And that's not a problem because isn't that rather the point? Do we really want to live somewhere where no-one is allowed to speak out? Free speech has to include the right to be a pompous, arrogant git.

Hope in today's world?

Bloody hell, who'd have thought it? The Internet will probably roll over and die at some point today with the weight of the entire 8 million people in Washington DC uploading the back of someone's head and a flash of car or the sleeve of a sharp suit to You Tube.

But it's an infectious thing this feeling of hope and change isn't it? Although whenever I start really thinking this could be something special I just have to reach back into the memory and start playing the first few bars of "Things Can Only Get Better" to bring me back down to earth. Please, please, please let Obama be better than Blair, please let him live up to this hype and hope.

That would be nice.

Someone fancy pointing out to the Pope that it's the season of goodwill to ALL men?

Christmas time. Goodwill to all men. Peace and happiness abounds. And then the Pope comes along and spreads a little nastiness around. I listened to the reports on the news of his speech comparing the threat of homosexuality and trans-sexuality to the threat of environmental destruction of the rain forests with mounting anger.

It seems that this Pope is far less concerned with the very real threats of world hunger, war and the general shittyness of the planet than he is with the prospect of who you're having sex with. And this isn't one of those where the apologists can start wriggling around trying to explain away his words, telling us that Catholic doctrine tells us homosexuality is not a sin, just homosexual acts and The Pontiff himself seemed to deliberately keep his words as wooly as possible but all that means is that it's an attack on all gay and trans people around the world. And that means he's attacking some of our dear friends. All of the news reports concentrated on how angry he'd managed to make Gay Rights groups. But if you're anything like me, you'll be fuming as well. He's managed to offend millions of right thinking people around the world with his close-minded backward views.

Worse for me is the fact that both Louise and Molly are Catholic. Louise is old enough and smart enough to realise the ridiculousness and mean-spiritedness of his words and Molly really hasn't bothered to listen to it, since she's busy getting excited about the mythical old bloke coming down the chimney laden with presents.

Of course, at the moment God and Santa, together with the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are all equally real to her. And now, more than ever before, I'm determined that they're all going to become equally fictional to her in time. There's no place in Bruton mansions for the hideous close-mindedness of the Catholic Church. The Pope's statement on homosexuality doesn't directly affect us but it does mean that several of our friends, who Molly loves dearly, are now considered far more dangerous than global warming. Try explaining that to a child.

Far easier to simply explain that the Catholic Church is a backward, evil organisation that belongs in some prior, less enlightened century and has no place in the world today. Because that's what I'll be doing when she starts asking about it.

Remember Remember The Fifth Of November....

(From Moore & Lloyd's V For Vendetta)

Vote if you can.....

The reason us Brits take such an interest in your elections is because whatever flavour of politician you vote in it's going to have a massive impact upon the world as a whole. Some of those concerned may have a grasp of international politics below the level that my 9 year old has, but once you elect the idiots they're effectively in charge of a good portion of the world.

Of course, the one crumb of comfort we take from it all is that you can't vote for George Bush again. Although I'm sure there are some of you that would love to.

So get out and vote if you can. We're watching.....


EDIT: 05 Nov 2008. Well done America. Almost makes up for that morning the world woke up to find out you'd elected Bush Jr a second time.

The Atheist / Agnostic Bus

The Atheist Bus? I'm with Neil Gaiman on this one - "There's probably no God" says Agnostic to me rather than Atheist. But a fine piece of advertising nonetheless

Weekend Event part 2: Molly's First Holy Communion

A long time ago, I booked up to head off to the Birmingham Comics Show for both days and looking forward to a great weekend of catching up with old friends and making new ones whilst surrounding myself in comics.

Then the priest went and changed the date for Molly's first Holy Communion.
See here for details on my thoughts on this. I shant bore you with them here.

Basically, for Louise, it's very important. For me it's essentially meaningless and a waste of time but a nice excuse to see Molly doing something nice. For Molly it's just a day out in a pretty dress with friends and family and a party thrown in. Okay, perhaps that's a little harsh. Molly does believe in God and wants to do the Communion thing. But like I've said before she may believe in God, but she believes in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy as well. By the time she's 12 I expect all three to be exposed for the nice stories that they are. Of course, I'll actually miss the other two.

But today was all about Molly feeling special. Which is why I was sat last night in a Diamond retailers drinks event (more on which later in the week) having an orange juice and working out how long it was going to take me to get home and how many stops i'd need to just stay awake. In the end it took 3 hours. I got home around 2am.

Oh joy. Up at 9am. Tired, tired, tired, tired. Shower. Tired still. Get dressed. Still tired.
You get the idea.

Visitors start arriving at 10 and we head off to the church for 11. As cynical and nasty as I am about the whole Catholic Church thing, it was a wonderful day. Molly wore a beautiful dress, behaved wonderfully and basically made us so very happy.

Even the sun shone all day for her. But then again, when she's around it always does, whatever the weather.

I always thought a Gold medal meant more than a Bronze medal. Not in America it seems.

Caught this via a comment on Radio 5 and then the Guardian blog. It seems the American media have decided to play around with the established way of presenting the medal table at the Olympics. Compare & Contrast time:

Figure 1: The BBC Medal table:



Figure 2: The medal table from NBC Sports:



Notice the difference? (Aside from a slight difference in numbers due to screen grabs at different times that is)

The USA appear to be on top on the NBC medals table, yet they've only got 26 gold medals ads opposed to China's 45. It seems the US media have decided that a Bronze is equal to a Silver or a Gold medal and are working out the medals table by total medals won, which puts the US in front with 80, compared to China's 79.

It's just silly and childish frankly.

Bill Gates and the greatest tech hack ever

Anil Dash: Bill Gates and the greatest tech hack ever. The article starts:

Bill Gates has pulled off one of the greatest hacks in technology and business history, by turning Microsoft's success into a force for social responsibility. Imagine imposing a tax on every corporation in the developed world, collecting $100 per white-collar worker per year, and then directing one third of the proceeds to curing AIDS and malaria. That, effectively, is what Bill Gates has done.

And then goes on in similar vein. I'm no Microsoft apologist or a particular fan of the great corporation and I use windows more by laziness and by default than choice necessarily, but I just don't think you can make a good argument against what he's trying to do now with the Foundation.

(via Pete Ashton)

Tax - why 10p matters so much....

It's not because of the tax change so much that it really matters. The tax system is always going to be discriminatory. And always will be until we adopt a clear, sensible and equitable system with one rate of tax. No higher rate, no lower rate. You just pay one rate. But with that one rate it's essential to strip away all of the deception, all of the write-offs, all of the loop holes that mean higher rate tax payers can reduce their tax burden to below lower rate in some cases. Why would it be so wrong to have a simple system?

The thing that really, really gives me a sense of betrayal from this Labour government is that with the removal of the 10p tax rate Labour are effectively taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Hardly what we all voted for way back when.
Things really don't get better do they?

Of course, a staunch red like me isn't going to go as far as voting blue. And voting orange (or whatever colour the Liberals are using nowadays) isn't an answer either. So what on earth am I to do?

All I know is that Labour in general and Gordon in particular have managed, by this betrayal of whatever I thought a Labour government was meant to stand for, to make me wonder who I'm voting for now. And that's something I've never had to ask myself in all of my adult life.