RocketBootKid and BoosterBoy's Palace of Righteous Justice

Balls.

2011-08-30T19:19:00.000+01:00

Two years ago, the Scottish Government released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, on grounds of ill health. He returned to Libya to a hero's welcome.

Following the revolt against the Gaddafi regime, al-Megrahi's family have been unable to give him the necessary cancer medication and have pleaded with the Scottish Government to provide it.

My first six responses to this request are, uncharacteristically I feel, "Fuck him".

That the family have the balls to request that the country that suffered most at his hands - after the US - prolong his life, after he ended so many, feels like a massive boot to Scotland's balls.

My seventh thought is that since we released him from prisoner on medical grounds, and continue to monitor him, we retain some duty of care. And since there were doubts around some of the evidence in his trial, it's possible he's just some terminal cancer sufferer who got fucked over, in more ways than one.

All that said, and while it grates against my usual moderate stance, I'm going with Response 1: "Fuck him and his balls".

Creating the Universe with Unix Commands

2011-08-23T09:00:00.000+01:00

# In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
> su
Password: jehovah
> mkdir heaven earth

# And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
> mkdir light

# And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
> cp light Day
> mv light Night

# And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
> mkdir waters firmament waters
mkdir: cannot create directory 'waters': File exists

# And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
> mv firmament heaven

# And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth...
> mkdir earth

# .. and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good
> mv waters seas

# And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
> cd earth
> mkdir grass seed fruit_tree

# And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years
> cd ../firmament
gsh: cd: ../firmament: No such file or directory
> cd ../heaven
> mkdir lights

# And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also
> cd lights
> mkdir sun moon stars

# And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven
> cd ../waters
> mkdir creatures
> cd ../heaven
> mkdir fowl

# And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good
> cd ../waters/creatures
> mkdir whales

# And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth
> nice whales
nice: whales: Permission denied

# And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so
> cd ../../earth
> mkdir creatures
> cd creatures
> mkdir cattle

# And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth
> mkdir man
> groupadd mankind
> useradd man -G mankind -m /earth
> cd /earth
> chown -rf man:mankind *
> chmod -r 777 man:mankind *
> cd /heaven
> chown -rf man:mankind *
> chmod -r 777 man:mankind *
> cd /waters
> chown -rf man:mankind *
> chmod -r 777 man:mankind *

# So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them
> useradd woman -G mankind -m /earth

# And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth
> nice man
What manual page do you want?
> nice woman
nice: woman: Permission denied

The Great British Earthquake

2011-08-09T08:00:00.007+01:00

The 2011 earthquake struck in the middle of a sultry English summer afternoon, its epicentre the borough of Tottenham in North London. Within hours, the resultant aftershocks had spread to many other areas of the city and, over the next few days, to other English cities.

This earthquake, however, was not geological; it was social. The trigger was the shooting by Police of Tottenham man Mark Duggan on Thursday, 4th August 2011. While the trigger was at the Police-Public Tension point of the fault, there are many asperities along the social faultline through British society.

The earthquake allowed the release of pressure that built up at all the other points of tension as well; Haves vs Have Nots, The Nanny State, the list goes on. However, while the main shock was around Police-Public Tension, the main cause of the ensuing aftershocks - rioting - appear to be centered around the fiscal gap between the Haves and the Have Nots, something that has been given media coverage in the US in light of their current financial crisis, but which has been largely ignored in the UK.

To quote / paraphrase Joe Friday in Dragnet: "There are those that have it, and those that want it. Those who have it, flaunt it, no matter how they got it. Those who want it can get it by attempting to better themselves in a supportive society cheering them on. Or they can take it the easy way..."

This is what we're seeing. The looters are taking things they feel they cannot get legally. They are effectively bootstrapping themselves financially towards the rest of society; the Haves. Leaving the facts that it's illegal and ruins lives aside for a moment, one could argue that looting is an ultimately stabilising factor in situations like this. As the looters become the Haves, they then become invested in stability and calm, so that they may benefit from their ill-gotten gains. If a non-uniform distribution of wealth is [a|the] cause, then a redistribution of wealth, legal or otherwise, is inherently stabilising.

Given a destabilising event, those with more to gain than to lose will seize the opportunity. People have to be invested in the success of society in order for that society to survive. To quote from the movies again, in this case Xander Cage from xXx, "if you're gonna ask someone to save the world, you'd better make sure they like it the way it is". The longer society fails to address the needs of everyone, then the greater the tensions and the greater the likelihood of seismic events like these.

But what are the causes of these tensions? As with most things that defy digestible media soundbites, they are legion and exceedingly complex. Let's concentrate of two areas; 1. Why did it start? and 2. Why did it expand?

Now, writing this as I do from my resolutely white, middle-class haven in the currently riot-free north of the British Isles, I do not pretend to be anything approaching an expert on the contributory factors, nor am I a psychologist. All this probably means I should keep my trap shut and my opinions to myself. But that's what this blog is: me keeping my opinions to myself, safe in the knowledge that no-one will read them but me.

So, the trigger to this situation appears to be tensions between Police and 'minority' sections of London's populace. Interviews with local people suggest that Police intrusion into their lives is constant and disrespectful, fostering a distinct 'us-and-them' attitude. In the defence of the Police, the fact that black people are 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched than a white person is bourne of the amount of concealed weapons discovered in these searches.

Leaving the Police's attitude aside for another post, what is it that causes these people to carry concealed weapons? One option is that they believe that, generally speaking, society does not look after them, so they have to look after themselves. They band into gangs to gain a sense of belonging, importance and power that society, in it's current state, does not afford them.

The other option is that it gives them a sense of power, power that society for the most part denies them, whether that's the power to elect a representative that will represent them, or the power to determine the course of their own lives through education and employment. In the absence of this sense of empowerment within society, I can understand the attraction to step outside it.

So, the underlying "why" of the current situation is the same as it has always been. At every stage of human development and society, there have been elements of the population that are unable to make best use of the current nature of society, and so find themselves marginalised.

The exacerbating factor to all this is that our society has evolved faster than human nature. Underlying our more developed notions are those baser instincts geared towards self preservation. In our modern society, where people are living in ever larger groups and so would benefit from a more collective approach, these base instincts are anathema to the common good.

This selfish nature, allied with the ability - or lack thereof - to benefit from society, is what drives the wedge between the Haves and Have Nots.

And therein lies the answer to "Why did it expand?". Any breakdown in society allows those marginalised by that society their greatest opportunity for gain.

So, what may have started due to perceived Police brutality, and was hijacked by those looking for personal profit, will naturally peter out. What happens then will
determine when the next earthquake will strike.

David Cameron has said that the looters will "feel the full force of the law". This feels like an empty threat, for the following reasons;
1. given the number of looters and rioters, there is no way for The Law to catch and prosecute them all; the impunity of numbers.
2. if they do get them to court, proving that a. it was them and b. they did it maliciously, rather than simply getting swept up in the mob, will be next to impossible. Basically, all that will happen is that the courts will be clogged for years and very few sentences will be handed out.
3. it is difficult to threaten those who have nothing. The only thing you can remove is their liberty, and the jails are already full. Giving someone with nothing a fine that they can't pay achieves nothing other than to incentivise more misdeeds.

People Ruin Ideas, or Why We Can't Have Nice Things

2011-06-29T23:27:00.002+01:00

The stated aim of The Palace is "to champion freedom and justice", blah, blah, something, something, dark side, etcetera. Where I get my personal kicks is trying to understand the Universe. It is both annoying and satisfying when you discover that someone has already encapsulated the truth of the point towards which you are struggling, in an infinitely more succinct and pithy statement than you.

To whit; Eleanor Roosevelt posited that "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."¹

I like this quote, not because it is or isn't true - who's to say? - but because it supports my world view, and there's nothing more conforting than having ones world view validated.

Taking the statement as read for a moment, it does nicely explain something that has resulted in several aborted posts over the years; people ruin ideas.

Exhibit A: Football

Now, the core nature, the idea of Association Football is delightfully simple. A competitive game, played fairly between two teams comprising individuals of enormous skill, is one of the finest spectacles humans have ever and will ever produce. It's simplicity and attraction are what make it the most played² and most watched sport on the planet.

Over the years, the idea has been corrupted by small minds. The greed of commercialism has infected almost every arena in which "the beautiful game" is played. The focus these days is on the people that inhabit football; the players, the managers, the agents, the leaders of the associations, even the fans. The core idea is lost in the melee of small minds shouting over each other.

Exhibit B: Politics

A well-flogged horse on these pages, Politics. Again, at it's core, Politics is a fantastic idea. Elect representatives, chosen from the people, to speak for the people, to work together for the greater good.

None of which sounds familiar, does it? As with football, we're obsessed with the politicians themselves, rather than that which is important; policies, the core ideas designed to improve life. Policies take a back seat to the bickering of the tiny minds who spend years to become politicians and who then spend their tenure arguing with each other.

The very word, whose root words clearly define it's meaning, has become it's own antonym. Again, small minds have so corrupted the original idea, it makes it so hard to see the gleam of the idea through the layers of small mindedness that encrust it.

Exhibit C: Celebrity

The very core of Eleanor's statement. Elevate certain people to the point where other people want to discuss them, not because of anything worthwhile - like an original idea, or even their participation in a noteworthy event - but purely because society has determined that these people are worthy of discussion.

Looking at the nature of celebrity through my Monocle of Cynicism, it is not hard to see that there is money to be made in cultivating small minds. Simon Cowell, for example, has become fabulously rich by feeding the small minds with (usually) even smaller minds to discuss; fodder for the millions of Huxley's Gammas that make up a large chunk of our population.

And finally, The Big One...

Exhibit D: Religion

At it's core, Religion has some fantastic ideas. Thou shalt not Kill. I can get behind that one 100%. Thou shalt not steal. Ditto.

Again, over the years, small minds have got the ideas out of the box and mussed them up with their grubby fingers. Religion, at a grassroots level, is probably still focussed around ideas, rather than events or people, Jesus / Mohammed / etc notwithstanding.

But over the centuries, the core ideas of Religion have been corrupted by small minds bent on furthering their own interests to the point that, to many, Religion has become a sickness, a force for evil rather than for good.

The prosecution rests.

Each of the cases cited above is a hostage situation. The original idea is held captive at the core of the towering eyesore that small minds have constructed about it over the years. The idea is rendered powerless, capable only of calling faintly through the cell bars. And only those who are not distracted by the din of smaller minds loudly discussing events and people take the time to listen.

There is nothing so rare, so valuable, and so fragile, as an idea. And Nothing so careless, so selfish, and so destructive, as people.

And that's why we can't have anything nice.

¹ It occurs that I am quoting a people here, thereby confirming my tiny mind and therefore the suspicions of my RocketBootMum and lots of baffled specialists over the years.
¹ "played by over 250 million players in over 200 countries, making it the world's most popular sport".

And don't say it's "fascinating"...

2011-06-29T22:27:00.003+01:00

Aren't brains brilliant? As well as doing all the useful stuff like adding up and taking mental notes and making Thursday afternoons hilarious, it also quietly does lots of little backgrounds tasks that aren't immediately obvious to you.

For example, you could be driving around the town where you live, like you do every day of life and, for some reason, you end up taking a different route and, just like a Japanese car issues a baleful "bong" when you leave your lights on, your brain raises a little "You've never done that before." flag.

Now, quite why it keeps track of everywhere you've been and the route you took, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's some hunter-gatherer technique to identify places where we haven't killed / eaten everything yet. Who knows.

Another weirdness you can expose is to probe the ephemeral nature of meaning. That sounds very grandiose, but really all I mean is that you make a word stop meaning anything. Observe.

If you take a word out of it's context, isolate and repeat it, it very quickly rots into its phonetic constituents, losing all meaning in the process.

I watched a video on YouTube the other day which was a compilation of Spock saying "fascinating" over and over again. It very quickly stops being Spock repeating his favourite word and becomes Spock making the same slightly odd noise over and over again.

It's not fascinating. But it is ...... interesting.

EDIT: I have since learned that this phenomena is called Semantic Satiation. So now we know.

Al Your Qaeda Are Belong To US!

2011-05-03T17:05:00.000+01:00

In 2001, war was beginning...

What happen? Someone set up us the bomb!

How are you gentlemen? All your base are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction

Take off every ZIG!

For great justice!

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Yawn.

2011-05-02T11:19:00.000+01:00

Despite the hilarious "typo" on Faux News (stay classy, Fox), it was correctly reported elsewhere (literally, everywhere else) that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a raid on a compound in Abbottabad¹, Pakistan.

But will it matter? Has it, as someone on Twitter suggested, been worth the two wars, ten years and over a trillion dollars to kill one man? The spontaneous crowds outside the Whitehouse chanting "USA, USA" and singing "We are the champions" would suggest that action was not entirely without value.

Much as I would like to believe that it was worth it, I fear I will be disappointed. Were Al-Quaeda to assassinate Obama, would the US cease attacks on terrorist organisations, or adopt a less interventionist foreign policy? I think we know the answer.

It is doubtless cathartic to an injured US that the man named as their Most Wanted, the embodiment of their Terror, is no more. That bin Laden's death may not alter in any real way the level of global terrorism, or the perceived threat to the US, is secondary, at least for the moment.

Do we suppose that Al-Quaeda consists entirely of mangalores who will cease the fight against the imperialist agressors now that their organisation has been decapitated? If we assume that terror attacks on the US are as a result of US foreign policy, then the removal of a single man by the US in no way diminishes that threat. If anything, it will strengthen resolve in the caves of Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The core texts of both Christianity and Islam have the principle of "an eye for an eye", and if the last decade has taught us anything, it's that the US and Al-Quaeda take the Word of God very seriously, especially when it can be shown to provide approval for the machinations of men. The cultures of both sides demand retribution, so this is but the latest battle in war with no end.

While this is a huge political victory - that may help propel Obama to a second term - and one that soothes old wounds, it remains to be seen if it affects Global Terror in any way.

¹ Anyone else hope there's a Costello-abad?

Alternative Vote isn't much of an alternative

2011-04-09T20:32:00.000+01:00

So, apparently part of the May 5th 2011 elections is a referendum on the process by which General Elections are decided. This news laregly passed me by in the last few weeks, although I had seen references to "AV" but was not engaged enough to find out what it was.

Currently, British politics uses the "first past the post" electoral system, whereby the election is won "by the candidate(s) with the most votes. The winning candidate does not necessarily receive a majority of all votes cast"¹.

The proposed new system is called "Alternative Vote" (or "Instant Runoff voting", which immediately makes me think of drainage), whereby "voters rank candidates in order of preference, and their votes are initially allocated to their first choice candidate. If after this initial count no candidate has a majority of votes cast, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and votes for that candidate are redistributed according to the voters' second preferences. This process continues until one candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, upon which they are declared the winner".

Wikipedia goes on to state that "Instant runoff voting is used to elect members of the Australian House of Representatives, the President of Ireland, the national parliament of Papua New Guinea, and the Fijian House of Representatives. It is also used to elect hereditary peers to the British House of Lords".

Now, with all due respect to those august bodies, that the highest praise of the system is that it is used to elect the Fijian House of Representatives, does not fill me with hope.

Now, some cursory thought leads me to the conclusion that AV sounds better than FPTP (it's shorter, for a start), but we're still deciding how best to choose weevils here. Sorry, that's a movie reference joke; watch Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. In short, how excited should I be expected to get in deciding how to decide on which steaming pile of shit gets to run the country (into the ground)?

Don't get me wrong; I think it's very nice of them to let "The people" decide on how they choose their shit in future. But, when all the votes are counted, we're still pinning the winner's rosette on a pile of coiled, steaming, brown shit.

So, if you want to get me excited, let's not have a popularity contest to decide the prettiest arrangement of outdoor seating on the largest luxury liner of the age, and instead spend a little more time plugging the fucking hole below the waterline.

¹ For the first time ever, Wikipedia confused me here. I think because it's about politics and therefore is inherently nonsense.

The Problem with the World

2011-02-03T08:30:00.002Z

I have just been on holiday for a couple of weeks, which has unfortunately necessitated my spending more time in proximity to The Great Unwashed than I usually prefer. I have no problem fighting for justice and righteousness on their behalf, I just don't want to have to be around them that much. Between choking down waves of nausea, I noticed something about people that has eluded me these last few years.

People are really not very good at being alive.

People's lives, comprising mainly the working week and the associated shenanigans of clothes buying and the purchasing of comestibles, has equipped them superbly for their Life, which entails performing the same tasks endlessly without any need to engage their brain. People are robots.

Take basic perambulation. The mechanics of walking, once mastered at an early age, pass into the realm of unconscious competence; the robots can walk without worrying about which actuator to contract next. Given this surfeit of computational bandwidth, once would logically assume that the robots would dedicate some of that blistering capacity to basic time / space calculations and collision avoidance. Alas, no.

Attempting to navigate a mall at any time other than midnight, at any speed swifter than snail, is a exercise in futility¹. The primary directive of the robots is to consume, a directive that drains all available clock cycles from their central processing units.

Now, here in the Palace, being proud swallowers of our own special Red Pill - it's more of a scarlety-crimson, really - are able to view this robotised civilisation from the outside. What concerns me is that I'm starting to see what all the "bad" guys in movies have been saying all these years.

Agent Smith was right; humans are a virus; specifically, a self-inhibiting virus, albeit not a very good one. We can take a perfectly functional system and converting it into a shambolic nonsense.

Introduce a single human into an otherwise balanced environment and within a week, there will be one-way systems, government bureaucracies and forms in triplicate, and the human will be sitting on a patch of bare earth, staring vacantly into space, completely unable to do anything, due to the lack of the correct permit.

¹ BoosterBoy and I have invented what we hope will become an Olympic demonstration sport, that of Mall Running. The name has yet to be finalised, but it amalgamates the essences of parkour, speed walking and a flagrant disregard for the young, elderly or infirm. The aim is to navigate a mall at maximum speed. We have developed special spectacles that filter out anything beige, therefore enabling the Mallrunner to utilise "spaces" that may otherwise not appear.

The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled

2010-11-25T14:54:00.013Z

I spend a lot of time on reddit (big love, yo!) and there have been a lot of links recently to stories about the Transportation Security Administration and their security screening procedures which seem to involve either a) being irradiated by a backscatter radar imager, or b) submitting to a full-body physical search that stops short of rectal probing but apparently does occasionally stray into statutory rape.

If I was Johnny Terrorist, I would be looking for a proper job because I have won. One successful major operation on September 11th, a couple of minor abortive attempts and a decade of largely patient inaction, and my target - "The West" - is doing my job for me.

I doubt the terrorists have the resources to wreak the havoc they would like. They therefore have to think laterally. And, thinking laterally, the most elegant solution is to make "The West" use it's considerable resources to wreak havoc upon itself.

Terrorists have managed to cause an auto-immune response. Auto-immune conditions trick the immune system into believing that healthy cells are infected and attacking them.

The above was written making the assumption that the terrorists are the root cause of this infringement of our liberties and, while that may be true, one could argue that the response is somewhat disproportionate to the cause.

Governments now frequently use the threat - real or imagined - of terrorism as the club with which to beat the baby seal of freedom and liberty because you can make people do anything if they're scared enough. So while terrorism is doubtless a problem, it is also a very useful tool, if you were so inclined, to manipulate and control your populace¹.

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

I disagree. A much greater trick is to convince you that the Devil is you. And the Devil may not be who you think he is.

¹ Looking at America's foreign policy through the lens of conspiracy theories about the ruling elite, it is not difficult to view America's approach to the rest of the world as merely providing a basis for making the elite even more so.

My Half of The First Conversation with Jesus

2010-05-17T19:55:00.001+01:00

Hello?
...
Jesus who?
...
As in "The Son of God"-Jesus?
...
How did you get this number?
...
Sorry, I don't believe this is THE Jesus. I mean, I don't believe that you, or your Dad for that matter, even existed, so this is kinda weirding me out.
...
Are you sure you're not a telemarketer?
...
So you're not going to go "By the way, did you know you can get seven windows at 0% APR"?
...
OK, I'll go along with this. So, Jesus, what's up with you? Keeping busy?
...
Oh, so you do listen to peoples prayers, you just don't do anything about them? Yeah, we've got politicians who don't listen to us as well, and you how much we dislike politicians?
...
Yes, he's the illiterate monkey who runs the world¹.
...
I assume you mean Mafia taken-care-of as supposed to Salvation Army taken-care-of?
...
Isn't that against the Commandment thingies?
...
So who did write them?
...
I always thought that bit sounded fishy. So what do you want me to do about it?
...
You mean, be the Right Hand of God sort of thing?
...
OK, the Right Pinkie Finger of God, then?
...
OK, even assuming you are The Son of God, and even assuming I was willing to kill him, which is another one of Moses' made-up Commandments, and one of the ones that caught on, by the way, people who kill and then say God made them do it aren't held in high esteem down here.
...
OK, but I assume the order came from the Big Fella?
...
A personal favour? Riiiight, but I would need some sort of protection afterwards. Plus, we should talk recompense.
...
I don't want to receive my reward in Heaven. I'm still not convinced you're not some nutjob trying to get me do their dirty work for them. You know what, this is a stupid conversation. I'm hanging up. If you call me again, I'm calling the Police.
...
No, not Sting. The actual Police.
...
OK, if you're Him, do something right now to make me Believe.
...
Yes, I know it's against your policy! Your brainless sheep down here are always banging on about Faith. I'm an Engineer! I need Proof! Faith gets people killed!
...
Really? How many people you think die each year because they get into arguments about who loves you most, hmmm? It's a lot. Doesn't that bother you? Do you think all those people who die would do anything different I they thought you were up there going "That's not what I meant at all"?
...
Really? For the Son of God, you haven't got any of his smarts. Forget Omnipresence and Omnipotence. The only things you two demonstrate the use of is Omnilaziness.
...
Are you in the huff now? Good. Go and have a long word with yourself, buck up your ideas, and if you want people do things properly, show them how its done and then, maybe, we can talk about your thing with Monkeyboy.
...
OK, bye bye now.
...

Who was that, dear?
Wrong number.

¹ This was originally written back when George W "Monkeyboy" Bush was President.

Run like you've got wind!

2010-05-16T17:50:00.008+01:00

Emboldened by Seb's recent post, and by way of encouragement, I hereby submit an excerpt from my whatever-the-diminutive-is-of-magnum-opus. Unlike Blackadder's giant rollercoaster of a novel, mine is more of a small roundabout-type pamphlet. Enjoy?

“Run like you've got wind!"

Now, in these situations, when a phrase or joke hits you where you live (usually when you're in a Thursday afternoon place, mentally), you can usually relax as you convulse and snort milk down your nose while your eyes fill up. However, Tarsus did not have this luxury, being hotly pursued as he was. That he managed to locomote while all of the above occurred (apart from the milk bit) was more a testament to his visceral fear and loathing than to his coordination and determination.

Indeed, the convulsions were aiding his progress to some degree, although by some unknown process. They were also having some unpleasant side effects, odoriferously, as it were. In fact, their presence was in as much danger of being revealed by Tarsus’ trumps and burps as it was by his continued attempts to stifle that inner, moronic laugh that we all have but strive to take with us to the grave without its utterance ever having even once sullied our ears.

Presently they came to the forest and plunged inward without pause. Their rapid transit appeared to have caught the trees off their guard and they made it through the first few metres with little impediment. As he ran through the trees, Tarsus became aware that his body was moving with little conscious input from his brain. Look at me go! Watch out for that treeeeeooooo that was close! Their flight had tapped into an inner sliver of primordial, animal instinct in Tarsus’ mind, whose determination to endure was doing a fine job in ensuring that Tarsus, and hence his inner animal sliver, would prevail.

Pointy, on the other hand, did not appear to have such a sliver, nor have need of one. It appeared that the trees were getting out of his way. Leaving his body to do the running, Tarsus could see that Pointy had in his mouth a small whistle that was evidently blowing in concert with his breaths. Tarsus’ could not hear it, but the trees obviously could as they clapped their bows to their trunks as he approached. A few made pained attempts to foil his passage, but none came near.

Their pursuers, obviously confounded by their inability to best the combination of animal instinct and frantic whistling, release their own animals into the fray. Three hunting dogs were released and soon began gaining on the fleeing pair. Aided by the scent trail being left by Tarsus, they homed in with relentless ease.

This is one of those occasions, thought Tarsus, where, by some method, which is never fully explained, it would be useful to be rendered invisible. Or to suddenly find a hiding place so perfect as to allow instant concealment while simultaneously erasing any sign of ones presence. It would be useful, say, ooh, about now. He waited. The rendering invisible or perfect hiding place did not manifest itself. If only this was one of those convenient chases you read in books. Evasion opportunities are always more bountiful.

As his animal sliver continued to propel him forward, he chanced a look over his shoulder. He could not see much apart from a few trees aiming evil looks in his wake and a haze of dust and leaves that marked his passing. His inner sliver sensed the lack of immediate evisceration and suddenly and without due warning, relinquished command of Tarsus’ faculties.

It goes without saying that this is not the ideal command decision to encounter while looking over your shoulder, especially when involved in a serious, high speed and prospectively fatal pursuit situation. In the time it took for Tarsus to align his head to the path ahead and refocus his eyes, a tree appeared in his direction of travel. The effects of the animal sliver had not fully worn off and Tarsus was able to twist slightly to one side in order to avoid a potentially embarrassing running-into-a-stationary-tree event.

However, he suffered the possibly even more embarrassing running-into-a-tree-saw-it-at-the-last-moment-but-still-hit-it. It was, however, but a glancing blow. He was knocked off his feet but, and don’t ask how he managed it, Tarsus executed a forward roll, sprang to his feet and continued apace.

Pointy had witnessed this event because Tarsus had managed to gain ground on him, even encumbered by the lack of a tree-repelling whistle. He was about to offer a scathing yet congratulatory remark to Tarsus when, from a little too close for comfort behind them, there came a chilling howl.

They both looked behind them. Now clearly visible between the clawing boughs were three large hounds, black as night, with eyes glowing like coals in the fire. They bounded through the trees with powerful grace, without, it seemed, the need for whistle or sliver. The trees seemed as repulsed as Pointy and Tarsus were.

“What we need,” panted Tarsus between breaths “is a convenient hiding place or method of evasion that is never fully explained!”
“What?” shouted Pointy.
“Need Hide Knackered Soon Blisters Hounds Gaining Intestines Collar,“ replied Tarsus. “Too pretty to die horribly,” he added.
“With you on that one,” agreed Pointy, and promptly vanished.

For a few seconds Tarsus did not notice his colleague’s disappearance, the threat of imminent death occupying progressively increasing amounts of his thoughts. When it dawned on him that Pointy was not to be seen, he was overcome with grief. From deep within, Doggy once more rumbled into life. Tarsus stopped as quickly as his inappropriate footwear would allow, using a tree branch as a brake. The branch promptly snapped off, accompanied by distressed creaks from the dismembered tree. Tarsus ignored the complaints and, brandishing the bough, turned to face death like a man.

The lead hound was only a few meters away and was slowing down, a look of confusion in its ember eyes. As it drew close, Tarsus fetched it an almighty blow with the branch and the hound crumpled into a sharp black heap on the ground. The other hounds skidded to a stop nearby and looked around, the same look of confusion evident. The urge to kill still bright in his mind, Tarsus ran towards them, the bloodied branch held aloft. The two hounds spotted the onrushing weapon but barely had time to react to Tarsus’ piercing war-cry before the second hound lay bleeding and insensible on the needle-strewn floor of the forest. The remaining hound took one look at each of its defeated companions and, with a look of frantic desperation and despair, took off in the direction of the pursuing soldiers.

Tarsus, now firmly in the groove, was about to give chase when he heard Pointy calling to him from nearby.
“Tarsus, over here! Quickly!”
Tarsus made his way towards the sound of Pointy’s voice but could not locate his companion.

“Stop playing silly buggers! This really isn’t the time,” shouted Tarsus. Suddenly he felt a hand touch his arm and, without fully considering his actions, brought up the branch and swung round.
“Watch out; that nearly hit me, you moron!” came Pointy’s voice, from an indeterminable source in the vicinity.
“Where are you?” asked Tarsus.
“Beside you,” said Pointy in his ear.
“This is going to sound unusual, but I’m going to say it anyway. I can’t see you.”
“I can’t see you either. Unfortunate side-effect. Come on.” Tarsus felt Pointy take his hand. He briefly considered making a big song and dance about not being able to see him and how it wasn’t fair and how bad his day was and did he know what it was like but decided that it was not the time for such remonstrations.

“I am also a little concerned by my seeming inability to see myself. I have checked my eyes and they appear to be open and functioning normally. Now may be the time for soothing words before I have a psychotic episode,” said Tarsus in a level, if brittle, monotone.
“It’ll pass. Keep moving,” said Pointy.
“That is a relief,” said Tarsus sarcastically. “I don’t think we’re in a safe enough place to get into a philosophical discussion about how you can be sure you exist if you can’t see yourself. You may sense I am not entirely comfortable with being invisible,” he added.
“Deal with it. We have more pressing issues to worry about,” replied Pointy, his voice hard. Tarsus let it go.

Tarsus was beginning to get used to the idea of being led by the hand through a forest by a small, pointy, invisible man when said man began to appear.
“Hey, I can see you. Sort of. I can see a vague outline, shadowy. You look less pointy than normal,” he added.
The shadowy outline turned to Tarsus. “Yes, we’re both becoming visible. The effects are only temporary – about fifteen or so minutes.”
“Is it worth my asking you to fully explain this?” enquired Tarsus. “No.” said Pointy. “Right.” said, Tarsus, and left it at that.

WTF: Pronunciation Help

2010-05-13T16:27:00.009+01:00

Growing up to be a Champion for Freedom and Justice is a long, hard road. Obviously, people look at me and they see the chiselled jaw, the icy stare, the muscular ease with which I dual-wield the swords of Truth and Beauty. What they don't see is the many years of training and schooling it has taken to become....well, the personification of an ideal, let's be honest.

One of the many weapons in my armoury is the concise and eloquent use of language. I'll admit, English Language was not my best subject. If I stumbled over the pronuncation of a particularly cumbersome word, I was "invited" to improve by running ten laps of the moat in full armour. But enough about my schooldays.

By "pronunciation help", I mean the text they put in dictionaries after the word so that you know how to pronounce the word properly. By way of an example, I give you "koʊpərˈnɪsiəm"¹ ².

So, to analyse. How do you pronounce "upside-down-omega"? How about "upside-down-e"? What about "small-capital-I"? To show how useless this is, here is the actual text from the Wikipedia entry for Copernicium:

Copernicium (pronounced /koʊpərˈnɪsiəm/ koe-pər-NIS-ee-əm, with the first C hard and the second soft)

So, immediately after the supposedly universally-understood pronunication runes, they've had to spell it out phonetically and follow that up with further instructions in plain language.

In order to use these runes, most normal people who aren't mystically imbued with the ability to parse runes would have to step through the word, syllable by syllable, using some glowing, arcane tome with metal hinges and pages made from thinly sliced first-born child and lex it back into a noise they can utter.

I've a good mind to write a book entirely in runes and watch it catastrophically NOT sell just to prove my point.

¹ The above is the pronunication guide for "Copernicium", the name for Element 112 (which previously regaled under the moniker "Ununbium").

² Turns out these runes are part of the International Phonic Alphabet

"A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth"

2010-04-29T20:24:00.002+01:00

I feel closer to Gordon Brown today than I ever have before. That we are still 20,000km apart is neither here nor there.

For the first time in a long time, I can actually identify with a politician. I've heard his actual opinion, what Gordon Brown: The Man really thinks, rather than what Gordon Brown: The Prime Minister is Meant To Say.

The sad thing about what has become "the turning point of the election" *yawn* is that he's right. Gillian Duffy is bigoted. And stupid. I mean, what kind of person doesn't know where Eastern Europeans come from? It's like Ronseal, love. It says so on the tin. She probably has never been wronged by one and is only outraged because the Daily Mail told her she should be.

I've complained before about how the election process is completely broken. Surely we're supposed to find out more about how our politicians are like us. So why does the election process present us with a small number of similarly grey men, all presenting what the media have decided is a prime ministerial facade?

Am I really meant to vote for one of three shades of grey, when the true colour of each man is either red, blue or yellow?

The Earth has been Walked

2010-02-17T19:01:00.008Z

From the undergrowth comes the sounds of cursing, hacking, some hammering and the furious oiling of hinges. Presently, there is a great crack following by some gargantuan and sinister creaking. There follows the sound of furious coughing that gently recedes, until a final colossal slamming brings silence back into the world.

It's been [checks; strewth!] well over a year since The Boy and I were cruelly and suddenly abducted by Scientologist Alien Terrorists and taken in stasis to their evil lair deep within Olympus Mons on Mars. There we were experimented upon for many gruelling hours; forced to watch daytime and reality TV for days on end, to eat nothing but McDonalds and Mars bars (not the same thing, btw) until we managed to escape their clutches.

We managed to lash together a pair of Mars rovers to make a space raft and, holding our breath, set course for Earth. Tragically, BoosterBoy took a meteorite to the face not two days out and was lost. No doubt he will turn up sooner or later; he was largely synthetic and oddly durable considering how little I paid for him.

The Palace had fallen into some disrepair during our incarceration, somewhat disproportionate to the period of time involved. It has taken some time to oil all the hinges and hack away the greenery and thorns that were choking the place.

More troubling was the state of the Twin Swords (of Beauty and Truth). Here, I took a leaf from the Book of Conan and after beating them off some rocks for a bit, they are now back to the lustrous and shiny best.

There has been some time for quite a lot of Unrighteousness to build up. So, let's to work.

Politics: What is it For? Why is it Broken?

2010-02-17T18:00:00.001Z

Part 1: What is Politics For?

Sounds like a straightforward question, but I don't think it is. Let's break it down.

Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions, says Wikipedia, from Gk. politikos "of citizens or the state," from polites "citizen," from polis "city", or, paraphrasing presidential candidate Andre Marrou, poly many + tics blood-sucking parasites.

OK, so we can agree it's about groups of people, citizens of a city or country, making decisions. And politicians are, by derivation, people whose job it is to make decisions. The politicians are given this power by the electorate, who choose their politicians in the magical game of musical chairs that is an election.

The reason politicians exist is because if all 60m people in the country had to decide about every little item of running the country, nothing else would happen and we would all starve. So we choose the politician who, based on his campaign, we think stands for the same things we do and charge him with making these decisions for us.

When a decision needs made, the politician for a constituency votes for the course of action the majority of his constituents would have voted for. He doesn't need to check with them, as he has already been chosen based on his campaign, so he knows that his decision reflects the desires of those who elected him. Therefore, once all the politicians vote, the outcome is the one desired by the majority of people in the country.

Doesn't sounds familiar though, does it?

Part 2: Why is it Broken?

The reason it's broken is because politicians are utter bastards. Lying, deceitful, spineless, backstabbing, two-face bastards. That's the overriding reason. The sub-reasons are:

1) Politicians will say anthing to get elected,
2) Politicans will deny anything, even if it can be proven beyond doubt,
3) Politicans will ignore the wishes of their constituents and do what they want, or what they are told, or paid, to do,
4) I could go on,
5) And on and on,
6) But you get my drift,
7) They really are utter bastards, aren't they?

Despite their parents not being married, politicians are generally of human borne, or at least the byproduct of some sordid union twixt man and beast, which means they have mothers, which means they were probably raised well and received a good education. But somewhere along the line, something must go wrong in the brain. Something gives them the notion to become a politician.

It is probably a noble notion, a desire to better society and build a better world. They go to University and read Aristotle and Plato and the pure theory of politics. They join the local party and it is probably at this point that the apples turn bad.

Somewhere in the corridors of power between local party politics and the House of Commons, idealistic do-gooders go through some heinous process that strips all goodness from their souls and replaces it with something hewn from some jet black core of purest evil that glows and pulsates and turns Little Johnny from next door into Vlad, Minister of Impaling Babies¹.

It is true that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Which means that, in order for politics, in its true form, to flourish and function, we need to get rid of the politicians and decide for ourselves: cut out the middlemen.

As usual, solutions arrived at through the medium of Rant are half-baked and flawed at best, but we're going to go with it. We will use this process in The Palace and if BoosterBoy and I get one vote each, we shall decide the matter by me impaling BoosterBoy on something sharp and I will get my way. Oh, yes, as Vlad is my witness, I will get my way...

¹ Little Johnny: "Mummy, when I grow up, I want to be Minister for Impaling Babies."
Little Johnnies Human Foster Mother: "Well, you'll have to work hard in school. We can't all be Minister for Impaling Babies."

Barack Obama Wins!

2008-11-05T09:09:00.002Z

Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America.

Good.

Town vs Country: Someone has to Kill

2008-09-19T20:08:00.002+01:00

My life has been roughly divided between town and country. I am equally confortable in either. Well, that's not entirely true. There's less chance of you being eaten in the country, which makes it a much more relaxing place to be.

Twas not always thus. It took us a while, but we managed to eradicate being eaten by dangerous animals from our "Don't Do" list. We removed the apex predators, because they were eating all our food. So we killed them. Fair enough.

This means, then, that the responsibility for the food chain falls to us. I won't explain how the food chain operates because it would be a fabric woven from assumptions and ignorance. It's simple economics; supply and demand. Animal A eats Animal B which eats Plant C. If there are too few of Animal A, there will be more of Animal B, which means less of Plant C, which means lots of Animal B die from starvation or are eaten by Animal A. Animal Bs numbers decline and it all starts over.

We kill Animal A because Animal A confuses People with Animal B; besides, Animal B is delicious. Therefore, we need to control Animal B and Plant C to ensure that there are enough Animals B to go around.

Sometimes "control" means "kill". Over time, some of these activities have aquired the title of "sport", or "bloodsport". This is where the problem lies. People think of sport as some people running very fast in a circle and whoever doesn't get dizzy and fall over wins. What goes on in the country is not "sport". It is Life and Death. Things are born, they fulfill their purpose, they die or are killed.

The vast majority of people in the First World have never been confronted with Death. It is alien to them. Death is something that happens to other people in far away places. It is not part of their Life, when in fact is an inescapable part. They do not believe that people have any active part to play in the cycle of Life and Death.

They do not think about the process of how food arrives in their mouth. At some point along the line, someone had to kill the cow, or pig, or chicken. Nothing that ends up in the supermarket died of natural causes. So everyone is complicit in Death. You create the demand, you sign the death warrant.

The people who work in the country understand their place. They understand that Death is an integral part of Life. What they do not understand is the reaction and attitude of people who live in cities who cannot understand the countryside.

City dwellers need country dwellers. They need them to give Life and to take it away. What they do not need to do is to question the methods. You can't make an omlete with breaking a few eggs.

Behind Every Important Man

2008-09-19T20:03:00.000+01:00

I've commented on the reversal of gender roles before; Women vs Men: The Worm that Turned, Men vs Women ¹. It's one of those subjects that polarises opinion, because you're generally either one or the other². And it's a subject that will never die, because no side can understand the other's point of view.

As I've said before, I think that women have always been in control, just in a different way to men. In ye olden days, men had committees and wrote bills and acts and went to war and had moustaches and let the women bring up their kids, in between doing tapestry and having dinner parties and stuff.

But I've always held great stock in the phrase "the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world"; that those who raise the next generation have the greatest influence on the future. From that point of view, then, it has traditionally been women who have held the only power truly worth having.

From my male perspective, I imagine that women - in some cases - are probably quite happy to let the men get all worked up about Clause 4b, subpara 13, and quite how they're going to get the Leicester bypass built, what with all the tree-huggers and the negative press they've been getting, and get on with doing something contructive like teaching little Jimmy his Ps and Qs and about how he should hold the door open for people. As Mr Carey says in Bruce Almighty: "Behind every important man is a woman rolling her eyes".

These days, however, we are all endlessly bombarded from all quarters with messages telling us how we should be, enforcing outdated stereotypes and sowing the seeds of new ones. The worst culprits are adverts for products that fall into the domestic field traditionally peopled by women.

Adverts for cleaning products invariably have some smart, modern - for which read sneaky and devious - women who tricks her barely cogent neanderthal husband - who she has inexplicably married - into using said product. He then proceeds to make a ham-fisted attempt at cleaning something, only to get covered in food / mud / water, at which point the woman - all pristine and twinkly - crosses her arms and rolls her eyes at the camera while neanderthal looks fat, hairy and clueless in the background.

I guess the hidden plus side for the man - and you've got to want to see it - is that he's managed to get - and stay - married to a smart, modern, pristine and twinkly woman who will, after he's made a horse's arse of the housework, pat him condescendingly on the head and do it herself, leaving him free to escape to the shed and do whatever advertising people think men do in sheds.

But I guess that there is no chance of ever reaching equilibrium. Society functions on change. If society wanted equilibrium, if it was in someones interest, we would get it. But we don't. So, oddly, society tends to oppose the ideals that individuals would cite as the necessities of a civilisation.

And, yes, I got all that from an advert for Toilet Duck.

¹ I spy a constant. Evidently, my psyche is aware that there is a war on - and if there is, it's a cold one - even if outwardly I would like the sexes to be equal.
² Excepting those that are both, or neither.

Blogger's Guilt

2008-09-18T13:40:00.006+01:00

I do not post as often as I used to, that much is painfully clear. I have commented on this sad fact before on these very virtual pages. Mainly this is because I feel that, in order for a post to have any worth, there is a critical mass that needs be reached for the results to be useful; a sort of quantitative quality.

This editorial decision, and the aging out of the habit, means that while many posts are started, few are completed.

As I stumbled upon the somewhat dusty environs of the Palace during a rare foray into the deeper levels of my extended Bookmark hierarchy, I was hit by a pang¹, the briefest stab of guilt. I felt guilty that I had not posted for so long.

But why? Why did I feel guilty? Do I owe teh internets anything? Are blogs some sort of nourishment? Am I depriving a router somewhere of the packets it requires to keep its routing tables updated? If I had a loyal readership, I would happily ascribe this guilt to the anguished pleas for mental sustenance falling upon the locked metal gates of The Palace.

I can only assume that the guilt comes from some part of me that is unfulfilled as a result, some mental spleen that has spent too long between vents.

Regardless, here I sit, typing this rambling discourse, in the hope that this imagined and undernourished organ is sated. And if it saves a router somewhere from certain death and makes it quicker for me eradicate injustice, all the better.

¹Not a Pang, you understand; Pangs where eradicated from teh pipes back in the heady days of CSS 1. Many web designers met their digital end while adding marquee and blink tags, unaware that these tags were included, along with the Pangs, to eradicate these people from the pool of potential HTML authors.

Scratching that itch

2008-09-01T13:27:00.004+01:00

One of the ways in which I help my duly protected citizenry (you) in the pursuit of awesome is the ruthless, cut-throat manner in which I manage their language skills - I correct them.

Basic communication is an important skill in surviving even the simplest first contact encounters with the local gentry, and so I do my best to equip you all as best I can and to right that which is wrong.

As such, the following are to be adhered to and absorbed post-haste:

Words that end "-ing" (the present participle action noun of a verb) have a "g" at the end of them. Use it. It's a letter, the seventh in our Roman alphabet, and deserves to be pronounced along with the other 25.

Yes, there are 25 other letters in the alphabet. Among them are "y" and "o". They go in front of "u" to form the word "you".

With reference to the first point, you are no longer permitted to say things like "I itched it" for two reasons:
1. Replacing verbs with their past-participle (or otherwise) gerund action noun isn't big or clever.
2. You didn't itch it. You scratched it.

Here is the definition of gerund. Learn it. It is both big and clever to know such things.

When someone asks "How are you?" it is no longer permitted for you to reply "Good". The question is not a query of your quality, reliability or general well-behavedness. You must replace "Good" with "I am well" or a similar derivative suited to the options open to you in your own colloquial lexicon*.

I go now to meditate further on the lexicographical misgivings of my charges (you) and will return to dispense further mandates when I find that I can no longer resist scratching that itch.

BBout

*Where "Good" is not among them

Life As We Know It

2008-06-02T13:14:00.002+01:00

Scientists have a difficult time of it. They are expected to come up with radical new methodologies and theories on a regular basis while operating within the budgetary constraints enjoyed by teenagers mowing lawns. If they fail to spend their £5 wisely, they are forced to make it up, so that the next £5 may be forthcoming.

Having been given at least £10 to come up with a fleet of interplanetary survey robots, NASA have succeeded in landing another electrical beastie on the Red Planet, with the intention of finding the pre-requisites for life.

I stand and applaud the brains of those involved in getting Phoenix all the way to Mars and getting the Global Surveyor orbiter to take a photo of it's descent. It makes you proud of what we can achieve, and twice as sad about what we continue to ignore.

What does worry me slightly is how we judge mission success. We - humans - have spent literally tens of your local currency units in developing a spacecraft to search for life "as we know it". We have then sent that spacecraft to a planet that it quite dissimilar to ours. Logically, any Life that exists on this planet will be different to Life on our planet. How then do we propose to recognise Martian Life when we see it?

Life "as we know it" is a broad church, from penthouse-dwelling carbon-based bipedal simian-derivatives at one end¹ to primordial, single-cell spheres at the other. So, let's suppose for a minute that Life as we know it does exist on Mars. It can't be at the penthouse-dwelling end of the spectrum, as the cameras on the orbiting spacecraft can spot the specific shade of blue of an outdoor pool from a long way away, and we would have heard about it by now.

Therefore, any Life that exists must be at the primordial soup level of being. Even if Phoenix can detect Life at that scale, how excited can we really be expected to get? Space tigers and Martian bear analogs are one thing, but microbes with three eyes instead of two? Sorry, but I'm watching Eastenders and I can't take my two eyes off it...

Clearly, we have no idea what Martian Life looks like, so how can this mission ever succeed? And if the scientists believe they can, how do they propose to convince the rest of us? I can understand the Carbon-centric definition of Life - humans have been assuming that they are the centre of everything for centuries. But if the scientific output of my lifetime is anything to go by, it is abundantly clear that we are but an infinitesimal speck on the universe and that any definitive statements we make about the universe is found to be wrong a few years later.

So, we have spent billions of cash creating the industry and specific technologies required to send a robot to another planet to look for Life whose signature we have no clue about. Lots of cash wasted, no chance of success? Now that is Life as we know it.

¹ I know I put us at one end, but there are no Polar Bears around here to say "Actually, mate..."

Negative News

2008-05-25T19:06:00.006+01:00

I have touched on the topic of News before - in the context of the heretofore unknown concept of "the Olds" - but the Righteous Glare was reflected from the mirror-like sheen of the News' carapace, preventing me from performing my sworn duty. I'm here to tell you: this omission will be put right.

When I asked the Internet to define "news", I was told it is: 1: a report of recent events, 2: previously unknown information, 3: something having a specified influence or effect.

Clearly, with in excess of over 6.6 billion people all generating events at a constant, if pedestrian, rate - ignoring for the moment geology, flora and fauna - not everything is going to make News at 10. At some point, someone has to decide what we get told.

Those people, the people who wield this rather terrible power over us, are called Editors. Now, I'm sure some of them are lovely people who would rather kiss a baby than eat one, but, being people and thus cursed with the same cultural yoke as the rest of us, they seem to focus on all the bad news.

It was the late, great Douglas Adams who stated that "Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which follows its own laws." Assuming for a moment that Bad News propgates in a vacuum¹, this theory explains the lack of communication with intelligences beyond our solar system. Would you want to meet a species who happily transmit their misery willy-nilly into the cosmos?

The main question here is why is bad news more newsworthy than good news? What does it say about us and the culture we have allowed to form around us? What internal fire does bad news stoke that good news extinguishes? No, I'm actually asking here. I've no idea.

It is probably the same reason why soap operas - primarily British ones - focus on the daily miseries of the occupants of some regionally stereotypical urban ghetto or lonely rural idyll. What is it about misery that we feel the need to report it, to simulate it, to elevate it above all else?

Why is good news relegated to the "And finally..." finale, where the anchorpeople let their voices rise half an octave and their heads leave the 5 degree envelope that it must inhabit for more weighty matters? Why is the good news deemed less important, less vital, of less worth, than bad news?

Why is someone dying more newsworthy than someone being born? After all, both events happen thousands of times every day in every part of the world. And why is someone dying peacefully of old age less newsworthy than someone dying violently at the hands of another?

Is tens of thousands of people dying from a natural disaster more newsworthy than tens of thousands of people dying from civil war? Why is the death of a thousand more newsworthy than the death of one?

The events that are reported as news aren't really new. They are merely fresh occurrences of well-worn themes, most of them "bad": violence, intolerance, you name it. Someone, somewhere, today, is giving life to their own unique version of it.

For those of us here at The Palace, the news is our worst nightmare; endless repeats of our failures delivered in BBC English on the hour, every hour, for the rest of Time. A highlight reel of our ineptitude, our inability to change the world.

A thought occurs. Perhaps the news is meant to act as a cultural to-do list, things that society must address in order to progress. It's a daily health check. I can imagine Peter Snow and the infamous Swingometer, swung way the hell over into the red, giving us one of his wry looks that says "We're in the shit, people, no two ways about it."

I think what the talking heads are actually saying to us is "What are you going to do about it?" The problem is that what the people watching the news hear is "Today, fourteen people were killed by suicide bomber" and what they are thinking, if indeed they think anything at all, is "That's terrible. Someone should do something about that."

CHOOSE YOUR ENDING >

A. Schmaltzy straight-to-movie ending:

I got news for you. You are someone. I am someone. We are everyone. The world can be changed. But, to paraphrase many people more learned than I, it can only be changed one step at a time.

Come on, we'll hold hands, pack a lunch, sing a song. It'll be fun.

B. Original, literate, thought-provoking ending:

I didn't actually write one of these. I spent all my time constructing the mechanism to enable multiple endings and ran out of time. Sorry.

¹ We'll postulate that Bad News is electromagnetic radiation, somewhere in the spectrum above Gamma Rays - high energy and highly destructive.

Drink Zero

2008-04-26T16:12:00.008+01:00

Here at the Palace, we rejoice in the wondrous variety of products that centuries of innovation and development have bestowed upon us. We drool over exquisite design and salivate at perfectly realised creations. To quote Morgan Freeman - in character - "Allah loves wonderous variety". And who are we to argue with Allah? Or Morgan Freeman for that matter, a man who was been God more than once.

We are also fans of minimalism; specifically, a crafted, thoughtful, designed minimalism, not I've-got-no-money-or-things accidental minimalism.

I am recently of the opinion that mixing the two is not necessarily a winner. Sure, we have iPods, but for every iPod, we have a Coke Zero.

Now, I have no problem with Coke Zero as a product. What I am struggling with is the point of it. For many years, those not wishing to rot their teeth out at quite such a ferocious rate have had the rather wonderful Diet Coke with which to slake their thirst.

Going by their current ad campaings, Diet Coke is aimed at professional women who, despite their pleas to be taken seriously, are not beyond acts of sabotage in their attempts to ogle some chiseled adonis who, while perfectly acceptable to look at, wields only the requisite IQ required to clean windows, abseil down lift shafts, or drink Diet Coke topless without falling over.

Coke Zero, on the other hand, appears aimed at Noughties metrosexual twenty-something males for whom life hasn't quite gone to plan, and who thinks that a drink based around unknown vegetable extracts will enable him to turn the the world into a Carlsberg-run, bloke-centered nirvana.

Given these two quite separate, specific demographics and mission statements, one would be forgiven for assuming that the ingredients would differ. No sugar, some spice for the ladies. Snails and tails for the fellas. But no. Both beverages appear chemically identical.

They both make use of Caramel E150d, Phosphoric Acid (H₃PO₄), Aspartame (C₁₄H₁₈N₂O₅) and Acesulfame K (C₄H₄KNO₄S), Acidity Regulator E331 (in case the Phosphoric Acid goes on one of it's legendary benders?) and a source of Phenylalanine (C₉H₁₁NO₂).

And so to the nutritional information. How much Protein? Zero? Correct. Carbohydrate? Zero again. How much of that sugars, do you think? Hah, trick maths question there. Zero again. And so with Fat, Of Which Saturates and Fibre. The boffins at the Coca Cola Company have managed to take half an hour out of their no doubt hectic Californian porn-based lives to throw a trace of Sodium in there, along with some Energy.

I have given the low-fat Cokes a little lambastation here, but they at least retain their Caffeine content which, for me, is all that gives these beverages a purpose. I don't drink hot drinks, so a can of something fizzy can be the only way to wake me up, short of slapping my old chap in a vat of liquid something-that-should-be-a-gas.

There are beverages out there that dispense even with the caffeine, the last vestige of pointfulness in the whole product.

There must be some people out in the world who have decided that all they want from a beverage is that it be liquid. In which case, I would suggest a wonderful product that falls from the sky and upon whose simple structure you rely for a large proportion of your own structure.

Evidently, the Coca Cola Company are concerned that the world no longer wants to drink two cans a day each and are slowly introducing products that become closer and closer to The Perfect Drink. So we can expect Coke Still (or Coke Flat), Coke Clear (which I think we've already had), Coke Tasteless, Coke Neutral before the give up and release Coke H₂O.

My point? Come on, if you're reading this then you know better than to expect a conclusion.

An idiot's life, part I of IV

2008-04-11T12:03:00.001+01:00

What is sacred in this life?

I profess to be agnostic, so no religion holds any degree of influence over my life choices. I've been told by more than one person that I'm morally bankrupt, and while I disagree, I feel that I should probably check my balance at the moral hole-in-wall more often.

I'll make fun of almost any situation to get a laugh, no matter how cheap - I'm a firm believer in making my life as entertaining as possible, and that includes Madeleine McCann jokes and mocking other people's failures.

I can be a brutal and nasty piece of work sometimes, and I relish in it all for the love of taking the advantage of a situation or person.

People who will pay £50 to drink cat dung I find hilarious. I will allow these people their existence to ensure that I can find humour in my day to day life. If I actually committed to my plans of cleansing the world of idiots - call it a holocaust against the mentally challenged - I might prevent myself access to said cat-shit-drinking lunatics and, in the process of disposing of their corpse, realise that I have missed an opportunity for comedy by not excoriating them while they could still hear my exquisitely constructed vituperations.

The world is full of idiots. My current rank as Lieutenant Commander Boosterboy notwithstanding, I am included in that demographic. I just like to think that there are discrete levels of idiocy - those that are above me and therefore out of reach, and those beneath me that I accept to allow myself the chance of comedy.

These people provide me with a service - entirely ignorant of their noble charge and therefore for the princely sum of gratis. People at once amuse and amaze me. (An interesting side-effect of this of course is that I can only ever win by increasing my own level of idiocy - it will provide more people beneath to amuse and delight me).

The same people who might drink feline faeces are also those people who continually surprise me and redeem the Human race in my eyes continually, every day in fact. It is these people, people who can afford to literally spend 50 notes on shit, that are sacred in this life.

Every day idiots going about their every day idiocy.

Top Ten Tips for Unsuccessful Blogging

2008-02-29T21:00:00.000Z

It seems de rigeur for bloggers these days to, at some point, post about their Top Ten Tips on how to create "the ultimate blog", thereby causing everyone on the planet to visit thrice daily, subscribe to your feed and post themselves naked to you.

Typically, these posts are penned by the authors of blogs that people read. This is where this one is different. This blog never gets read. We are the self-styled World's Least Popular Blog. With that in mind, if anyone were to do the exact opposite of everything we have done, then all of the above will come true, with the possible exception of people mailing themselves naked to you.

So, to the list.

1. Have A Good Old Rant
Get your grievances off your chest. Ignore social niceties. You're not ranting at a person, you're addressing the Universe. People like being shouted at. Being showered with phlegm is refreshing.

2. Ignore What Everyone Else Cares About
Your blog is for you to introduce yourself to the world. It's the electronic equivalent of hijacking every major TV station in the world and shouting "Everyone listen to me!" instead the Nine O'clock News. This is what you care about. You don't care what everyone else cares about.

3. Use Impenetrable Language.
The English language is a wonderful thing. The sad fact is that only a small percentage of the thousands of available words are in general circulation. Try to employ some of the wonderful but unloved words in the 90% of the dictionary that no-one ever visits. People like to be reminded of their ignorance.

4. Ignore Transient Trends
You don't care about the reams of bytes documenting the nocturnal manoeuvrings of people who are famous for no reason, or about the results of some pointless new survey. You have no time for the miscellany of existence. You care about the big words; Society, Justice, Responsibility, Truth. Write about that. Britney Spears can shave her head clean off as far as you're concerned.

5. Write the first thing that comes into your head
As with the answers to stupid quiz questions, the first thing that pops into your head is most likely correct, so go with it. With blogging, just start typing and don't stop. Sure, you can spell check it after, but don't you dare edit out all that invective you just typed. It's out now, it can stay out.

6. Ignore Comments and Feedback
If you write what you want, albeit without intending to insult, and people comment on your invectives, ignore them. You're writing for you, not for them. You didn't ask for their opinion. You're telling them what you think.

7. Whine to your friends about your lack of traffic.
If you have the good fortune to work in a tech-savvy office place, complain to your coworkers about how little traffic you get. They really, really like that. Plus, it makes them much more willing to help you with your work.

8. Trash Religion
Religion is so last millenium. If people would only wake up and realise that there is no such thing, we'd be on to a winner. You have no time for people whose eyes are fixed on paradise in the future at the expense of the reality of now.

9. Don't write about News
The internets are full of webpages all discussing the same piece of news. Try writing about something that no-one knows about, like what you had for breakfast, or how close the girl next door came to being caught with her boyfriend last night. People don't want News, they really don't.

10. Don't offer any solutions
When you've finished ranting and have sorted your thoughts, don't write them down, or write them down and tell the reader that's the rest is up to them. You've told them the facts; let them decide what they ought to do. You're not giving out free lunches here.

Remember, you need to do the opposite of the above tips, OK? Just want to make that clear. If you screw it up and end up creating a blog that's as unpopular as this one, you can link to this one, even call your blog the World's Second Least Popular blog. Just don't blame me.

Aye, Rabbie, ye'll dae fer me yet!

2008-02-22T19:59:00.011Z

I was going to offer some thoughts on how I became such a cynical old grump so early in my life, but I actually know perfectly well why. I am faced with the daily spectacle of the sculptured lines of the thoroughbred racecar that is "the Utopian ideal" being dashed to a crumpled, fiery mess on the Armco of reality.

Most people seem to deal quiet happily with this, but, as a Champion of Freedom of Justice and wielding, as I do, the Twin Swords of Truth and Beauty (yes, I do have a permit), I cannot let this stuff slide.

The disturbing thing about today's car crash is that it concerns my homeland. While it is, largely, a place of spectacular beauty, bursting at the tartan seams with tim'rous beasties and sonsie-faced chieftains, I, as something of a returning ex-pat, see bits of it with an outsiders eye. These are the bits that trouble me.

The thing that triggered this post nearly made me crash the Righteous Chariot. Not really, but it sounds better, plus it continues the car-crash plot device used so deftly above. As I piloted said Chariot along the jeweled highways of this bonnie land, I met a bus coming the other way. So far, so good. The bus, however, was not in service. OK, so? Aye, reader, here comes the rub.

Instead of simply reading "Not in Service", the high heid-yins of First Bus (Scotland) have decided that the natives would feel less aggrieved at the lack of service if the message read "Ah'm no' in service".

I'm no doubt in somewhat of a minority among my fellow countrypersons (save The 'Boy, who has already voiced his displeasure) but this use of "Scottish", instead of the more widely relevant English, jars with me. I come from what I consider to be a well-spoken home and have been well educated at my parent's expense. I therefore opt to converse in correct English, that having been what I was taught.

It is then, perhaps, no surprise that on hearing a broad Scots accent, I immediately assume that person to be educationally inferior, an assumption that has no basis in fact whatsoever. As with all accents, those that sport them range from the wealthiest tycoons and university fellows to the Burberry tracksuit-clad dropouts in the dole queue.².

I have not been able to reconcile this at least partially correct position, that's what bothers me. Being a man of words, it grates when those words are butchered. But the purpose of words is to communicate, so there is little point being all precious about the ways when the means are achieved.

And so to the opiate of the Central Belt masses: football³. The problem here really has very little to do with football, the game, and rather more to do with religion, the universal excuse. If your family indoctrinated you in the ways of the Vatican, you have to support the Green Team. If you don't, you have to support the Blue Team (or the Dark Red Team).

Either way, you now have a socially-accepted reason for singing bigoted songs at each other, marching down the street and glassing people in pubs because they're wearing the wrong colour jacket. Having been given the choice of imaginary friend, I chose a small dog called Gerald who never, in any circumstances, caused me to glass anyone in a pub and never complained when I left him on the train.

This nation has been ruled from afar for a great deal of its history, which has been a cause for complaint over the years. The fact that, when left to govern ourselves, we have traditionally fallen back to the tried and trusted political technique of glassing each other in pubs for wearing the wrong tartan is conveniently ignored.

Having been allowed a modicum of self reliance, I can understand that the nation feels the need to flex its historical muscles and shed its imperial skin in order to move forward. I would like to think that the country that invented pretty much everything⁴ could learn from its own divided history and move forward into the shortbread-tin sunset, without having to glass someone on the way.

I'm sure that all countries are the same, its just that this country is mine⁵.

^! Oh, Robert [Burns], you'll do for me yet! I'm referring to the poet's use of Scots in his work, and how its use by Modern Scots people, for me at least, somewhat soils his work.
² Wow, all the stereotypes are coming out today.
³ Other than actual opiates and drink. Oh, and claiming benefits.
⁴ Well, every good thing!
⁵ Which hopefully goes some way to explaining the tortured meanderings of this post.

Can Islamic and Christian law coexist? Should they?

2008-02-08T19:39:00.000Z

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams - who has to have been a Unix Sysadmin at some point - says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable". His comments have attracted a great deal of criticism and hostility from all faiths and political leanings.

Britain used to have the largest Empire in the world. While those days are long gone, the Commonwealth of nations that used to comprise the Empire retain strong links with Britain. Additionally, Great Britain is an EU member state. This means that, since we're one of the richest members of either of those two groupings, we get more than our share of immigrants.

To make my stance clear, I have no problem with the concept of immigration - to a point. I am all for people coming to this country, obeying our laws and paying their way. Society benefits from change. A society that deals with change in a positive way is a rare and wonderful thing.

I'm generally against people who come here to enjoy the benefits of our welfare state without making any effort to earn those benefits. This goes equally, if not more so, for British people who fall into this welfare-sponging category.

This rather unilateral stance doesn't help those people who are maimed, or irretrievably stupid, or who face death if they go back to their own country. Society generates these people, so it is the responsibility of Society to look after them.

Britain is predominantly Christian country and our rules are based, in part, in the statements made in the Bible; thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal and so on. It is also an immensely traditional country, traditions that have acquired the weight of law over the centuries.

We now have a good proportion of people who do not recognise the British Rule of Law first and foremost. In the case of Muslims, their Sharia law is derived from the Koran and the life of the prophet Mohammed. Since the system of belief seems to be synonymous with their system of law, their obeyance of Sharia law will inevitably find them in violation of the law of the land; Britain in this case.

I am kinda on the Dr Williams' side when he says that certain elements of Sharia law may need to find themselves into British law. However, this is Britain and the addition of Sharia law should not weaken British law. Where the two are in conflict, I think that British law should prevail. If someone has come to a country, they should accept that sacrifices have to be made.

Having written that, I can understand that Muslims view Sharia law as inviolable. If the situations were reversed and there were a Christian enclave in a Muslim country, I doubt that that country would alter their system of law to accommodate other beliefs.

I think this stems from the fact that Islam is a more rigorous religion. Christianity is much more relaxed in it approach. Muslims are required to pray daily, observed certain restrictions in diet and attend the Hajj at least once in their life. Christians have no such requirements.

In conclusion, I think that elements of Sharia law would doubtless strengthen British law, due to its roots in the strict Islamic faith, but this should not be to the detriment of the British system of law and the absolutes that it's citizens understand. Likewise, we should welcome those elements of immigrants' society that enrich our own, but reject those that do not.

And if you don't like it, you know where you can go.

Health and Safety

2008-01-13T11:43:00.000Z

If you were asked to come up with bywords for a Happy Life, then Safety and Health have got to be up near the top. Life isn't nearly so much fun without your health, or when living in fear.

But when you put the words together and form a government quango¹, the effect is ruined. Health and Safety. Two words that, while outwardly laudable and fluffy, are the antithesis of everything that got humans where we are today.

Let's deal with Health first. It is clear from my many posts that I do not rank or value human beings, or human life, higher than other forms of life just because we are replete with raincoats, railways and rubber wellies. Let's face it; we got lucky. The mutations were in our favour. I believe - sorry, wrong word in this context, I know - that Evolution has resulted in our present form. Survival of the Fittest, only the strong survive, all that jazz.

Put simply, if you weren't healthy, you died. So, if everyone was healthy, evolution would not have caused us to become the fine, upstanding sentient carbon-based bipedal lifeforms we are today. So Health, in the context of the species, is not helpful. Health, as I have argued it, is contrary to the progression of the species from a genetic standpoint.

So to Safety. Taking risks is one of the things that makes life worth living. They have discovered that certain people are more predisposed to taking risks than others. These days the adrenalin junkies jump out of planes and off tall buildings; the closer you are to death, the more you feel alive. It is the adrenalin junkies of old - or yore, if you will - who progressed the species.

Where would we be if Greatⁿ Uncle Tharg hadn't gone out of the cave to kill mammoths because it wasn't safe, or if people hadn't travelled the world, wanting to see what was beyond that horizon? For one thing, I wouldn't be here writing this. These people did not perform a risk assessment to consider the safety implications of setting out across an ocean of unknown size. They just went ahead and did it. A disregard for safety is one of the things that has led humans to our place in the world.

As a case in point, there was a story in yesterday's Times about a volunteer member of the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency² who felt compelled to resign because he had rescued a teenage girl from a cliff without stopping to perform a risk assessment and don the approved protective equipment and got in trouble as a result. A spokesman for the MCA stated that they were "not looking for dead heroes". But they're the best kind!!!

Society has given us many great things, things that could not be imagined without the comforts of health and personal safety. It could be argued that, for the vast majority of us, Health and Safety, enshrined in standard and law, are key to delivering the society we want. But do we really want to have to jump through quite so many hoops?

On the outskirts of society, where the ages old battle of Life against Death finds you hanging off a cliff by a tuft of grass, the rules of society are instantly rendered mute, impotent, meaningless by the overriding imperative of preservation of Life.

So, I salute Paul Waugh, 44, of Cleveland, England³, for being a Great Human Being and reminding me what being Human should be about.

¹ The Health and Safety Executive. You may as well call them the Department for the Prevention of Humanity.
² about the use of the word "Agency" next to a British organisation smacks of an attempt to get some of the cool to rub off from "The Agency". I'm embarrassed that they even tried...
³ So as not to confuse the Americans.

Of real and frightening things

2008-01-08T13:19:00.001Z

Let's just get something straight here.

"You" is a word. "U" is a letter. It is a component letter of the word "You", but does not actually take the place of the word "You". This is because, if you remember from earlier in this paragraph, that "U" is a letter and not infact a word.

These are established facts.

I accept that language evolves and changes. I just maintain that such change should be brought about by a survival imperative or need, not laziness - a point I have laboured over before.

Now that the UK education authorities are happy to accept letters in place of words, and even alphanumeric sequences that grind my brain to a halt in an attempt to parse, I fear.

I fear for the younger generations and how stunted their minds must be, or at least becoming. English is no longer mandatory. The merest glimpse of understanding from their text-speak programmed fingers is enough to gain them an education that will see some of them one day gain places of real and frightening power.

By extension then, I also fear for the generations that follow, because it is today's maleducated kids who, having installed themselves in the upper echelons, will one day steer these future progeny on their educational course to a similar level as their own.

And when I write a letter to complain, they won't understand.

New year, old tricks

2008-01-06T17:34:00.000Z

I like recycling. I think it's a great idea and I'm into it. What I like better than recycling is the reduction of my own personal carbon footprint - don't leave monitors on, switch lights off when not using them and don't leave the television on standby. One particular favourite of mine is either the reuse or non-use of stores' plastic bags.

I shop with a rucksack so that I might pack my groceries in it rather than suffer my hands slowly being sliced into by cheaply made and omnipresent plastic bags (like hanging from tree branch or blowing past your feet in the street). As a species, the imperative is to lug heavy loads on our backs as our ancestors demonstrated and not to voluntarily sign up to a supermarket-sponsored portable rack. I like having my bones and tendons lengthened by the traditional methods of calcium or iron infused from a healthy diet, not through these bastard means of torture.

I also like the idea of helping yourself. Not self-help, but being able to do things on my own without someone either having to do it for me or even just scrutinising each miniscule task as I seek for their approval so that I may move on with my jolly day.

To that end, I therefore applaud these new self service lanes in supermarkets. Scan your own items, pay your way and even bag it up yourself - or not.

I had the good fortune to use such a self-service lane this weekend and packed my items into my aforementioned rucksack. After three items had not been placed in the supermarket's own bags, I was told to wait for a "supervisor" who would grant me "permission" to continue scanning and packing my own God damn groceries in my own God damn bag. And even when I was allowed to continue my insanity, it was met with puzzlement as to why I wouldn't want to join them in their plastic revelry.

What confounds me about this system is that it's items I'd already scanned and (one could quite innocently assume now that they were 'in the system') I intend to pay for. Had I secreted away three bottles of Dom Perignon and two lobster that I did not scan into a branded plastic bag and was infact stealing them for a banquet here at the Palace later tonight, I imagine there would no fucking problem.

Three things then:

There is nothing 'self' about self-service systems.
They were actively preventing me from purchasing food until I was given permission to continue.
They don't care about the planet.

There are two outcomes my mind, in it enraged state, can form from these facts: they are either trying to rule the world (badly and at a really low level) or they want to destroy it.

Caucuses and The Non-Caucasian

2008-01-04T13:15:00.000Z

I have just watched some speeches made by the Democrat and Republican candidates after Iowa voted for their preferred Presidential runners. In time I will no doubt find that it is just me, but I think it is worth noting that the man likely to come out of the caucuses in the lead is not Caucausian. History will be my judge.

The Republicans struck me as wet fishes, even though Mike Huckabee had CHUCK NORRIS¹ behind him. No surprise that he won the Republican vote - "Vote for me, or it's The Norris for you!". Hillary had Philandering Bill standing behind her, and where did she come for the Democrats? Third. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. On a related note; Is there nothing CHUCK NORRIS cannot do?. Why isn't he running for President? He could sort out the Middle East single handed.

Listening to Barack Obama's speech, I get the impression that he's a sound bloke and I was swayed by his words and his oration. Given Dubya Bush's mass destruction of the English language, in all her beauty, Obama gets my vote purely on the grounds of being able to form a cogent sentence and deliver it with gravitas and conviction. The last eight years of mumbling, smirking and embarrassed silences will no doubt have convinced many that the ability to communicate clearly is a core skill no statesman should be without.

But it also struck me that this is a speech designed precisely to engender these feelings. How am I to know if this is what he really stands for, or is he just saying what it takes to get elected?

Like examinations for kids, elections, and the campaign trail in particular, seem a colossally flawed method for choosing a government. From a purely theoretical standpoint, it seems perfectly logical to pick your best candidates and then let the people decide which one they want.

The problem is that the vast majority of people are deciding based on what they see on TV and what they read in the papers. They have no idea what a particular politician actually holds dear or what they will do once elected to office. They are forced to choose based on information that is skewed from reality. The magnitude of the skewing is the unknown factor; really, it is this single unknown that stops the theoretical ideal from working in practice.

Unfortunately, while the problem appears to be simple, it a flaw which is in all of us. Humans are selfish and trusting animals. We generally accept that which is presented to us, even if, on inspection, it is flawed, baseless or not in our own self-interest.

That said, and to take the place of a human for the merest instant, I though Barack said all the right things and, more importantly, he said it in the right way. "Change" must be the Democratic message for this campaign, but I didn't believe it when Hillary was saying it, due, no doubt, to her smiling doofus of a husband perched over her left shoulder (see, you got to get The Norris).

At this point, I am unaware of any sleaze that has been levelled at Barack Obama. Every other candidate (OK, maybe not every candidate, but the main ones), to quote General Taylor in Good Morning, Vietnam, "lugs a trainload of shit behind him (or her) that would fertilize the Sinai." Now, maybe Barack's people bought one of those ex-Soviet stealth missile trains to haul his shit about in, because, although I haven't given it my complete attention, I can't say I've detected any spin from his camp.

And that's the point. Despite only watching four videos and no seeing Barack Obama's name colocated with the word "Liar" on reddit, digg or elsewhere, I am confident to declare him the next POTUS. It will be interesting to see how they all get on in New Hampshire in a couple of days.

Now the comedians can get on with the business of coming up with Black First Lady jokes and mildy-racist Secret Service codenames.

¹ I didn't type this in caps, but Blogger wouldn't let me correct it. Damn, Chuck Norris is all powerful...

I'd rather not Blog in Hindi

2007-12-14T13:37:00.000Z

I do not speak Hindi, or read it, nor can I pick it out of a lineup of non-Roman-character languages. So why am I forced, by default, to disable "blog in Hindi" when I write a new post, hmmm? I have nothing against Hindi, or Hindus, or any word that begins with 'hind'. Indeed, I have great warmth in my heart for the word "hindquarters".

Please, oh mighty denizens of the Googleplex, can you make this a configurable option? I'm sure this would not have been implemented like this if Larry wasn't preoccupied with place settings and seating arrangements.

Fix it. It's terribly broken. Or, as FireBug would have it, "RichEdit.frameDoc.body has no properties [Break on this error] tmpBody.innerHTML = RichEdit.frameDoc.body.innerHTML;". Wise words indeed.

And another thing

2007-10-24T23:08:00.000+01:00

There are some days in a social crusader's life where it seems like the good fight is just never going to end. No matter how much energy I put into trying to educate you all on what's wrong with the world today in my very worldly manner, there's just something or someone else who's going to come along and fuck it all up again.

But that's where the negativity ends. In light of the somewhat melancholy, lights-down-low, soft-piano-music-on-the-jukebox kind of mood I've got the Palace swaying to tonight I'm not going to bitch about it. Too easy is it to slip into cynism and despair and cry havoc at those around us who claim to lead us. Too inviting is the obvious ageist/racist/homophobic rant or anti-rant (I'll let you work that one out - I just can't be bothered with proper sentence structure this evening).

No, what I'm going to do is something a little more difficult so bear with me for a moment.

You know when you've done something that, to you, is so cool that you can't stop beaming about it and you have a big stupid grin on your face and you feel warm and content inside? Like, physically warmer on the inside? I like that.

You know when your mate is heading to the local shop (store if you're in the US I guess) and when he comes back, he's bought you a chocolate bar for no reason other than buying you a chocolate bar might please you? I like that.

You know those mornings when you wake up and you're on the way to work and, all of a sudden, things start to feel Just Right™ - your thoughts coalesce into this single stream of conciousness and nothing at all matters because right now, this very second, everything is right with the world? I like that. I like that one a lot.

You ever had a sneeze that's made your whole body tingle? I like that.

I like a well formed sentence (more than I demonstrated earlier in this post anyway), a well put together query or a good solid use of a compound term. I like the proper and structured use of language and I like it when it is used subtly, moreso than I ever can.

You ever just hung out with yourself? Like, just you and maybe you've made yourself a nice dinner or you've gone for a walk or you're just listening to some music and, without really becoming aware of becoming aware, you realise your smiling and you're having a really good time and that's just cool? I like that.

I like it when people let me skip ahead of them in the queue at the supermarket because I only have a couple of things.

I like it when complete stangers smile back at me when I'm walking in the park. I like seeing couples out holding hands, walking slowly and generally soaking up each other's existence. I like the idea that to them I don't exist. I like the fact that to others, I do.

I like it when the news has that one story about the guy who did the thing and wasn't it crazy when it all happened, because, yeah - yeah it was totally crazy and I thankyou for telling me. I like it when I get a stupid answer to a serious question and a serious answer to a stupid question. I like the colour blue and the number 7. I don't know why I like them as much as I do and I like that fact.

I like being proven wrong; I like to learn new things. You know when someone admits they're wrong? I like that. But I also like it when people who think they might be wrong but just go with the gut feeling anyway because something inside says "do it".

I like being told I'm doing a good job. I like being told I'm doing a bad job, but I like it better when I'm told I'm doing a good job.

I like the idea that right now you're maybe thinking: "What the fuck is this all about?" (I like the fact I can say "fuck"). I like the fact that, even if I knew you, I wouldn't have to explain myself, but I also like that I'm gonna anyway.

It's too easy to forget that we like liking things a lot more than we like hating things. One is harder to admit than the other, and the other all to easily becomes default and [Forgive the sentence that didn't end. It's my fault. Had to give BoosterBoy some electroshock to keep him on topic and it always screws with his short term memory. Ed.].

Not liking things is as easy as pretending it's not even there. Ignoring it is almost the same thing as not liking it and takes nearly no effort. Liking things and making sure others know you like them takes effort and can be hard work, offers no guarantee of reciprocation and can lead to exposure and embarassment.

And I like that.

What do you like?

Politicians vs Humans

2007-10-17T13:36:00.000+01:00

It's been a while since I've done a 'Vs' post (the last one was back in February of last year, the provocatively named Women Vs Men) but the arrival of BoosterBoy to the Palace's ranks - well, rank - has caused an element of competition, so here we are.

A common thread through some of my posts is about social responsibility and how the government is creating an ever more nannying state due to the hordes of people who haven't got the common sense¹ to look after themselves. I'm talking about obesity, education, that sort of thing: important social "stuff".

As I've mentioned before, it seems clear to me that the nanny state exists because the Government feels that it has to help out the barely cogent hordes out there who fuck up their lives just a little bit more every day. So, rather than let them fuck it up and deal with the social and political fallout, they get a bit proactive and remove the responsibility which they've proven incabable of shouldering.

The point is that it is the few that force the changes, which means minority rules. Now, I've got a piece of paper round here somewhere that says we live in a democracy (from the Greek demos people + kratos strength) where the people decide what goes down. What we have is more like a fuckoffracy (from the Palace of Righteous Justice fuckoff people can fuck off + racy politicians can do what they like), where the politicians bend us over.

Elections are pointless anyway, because the politicians do what they want. Elections exist to give the electorate the illusion of control, that somehow we decide how the country is run. And they wonder why electoral turn-out is so low. I haven't voted ever - not true; I voted once, for the Green Party, back when I though it mattered - because, as the years roll on and governments come and go, nothing changes. Labour got in a while back; can't say that I noticed the difference.

So, we elect a new government because they tell us lots of good stuff about lower taxes and more cops and nurses; all good, progressive stuff. However, they then spend the next four years doing the following;
a) shoring up the mess left by the last lot (or at least blaming them for it),
b) spending all the cash looking after;
1) the people who can't look after themselves,
2) the people who could look after themselves if they could be bothered.
c) try to sort some foreign dispute,
d) while failing to address pressing domestic issues.

Not forgetting the big omission which is to fail, spectacularly and conspicuously, to deliver on any of the promises they made during the election campaign. Now, we know all this. If you were to collar Joe Public in the street and ask him whether he believed that the government will lower taxes, he'll scoff and walk on. So why do we even bother going through the whole rigmarole?

It is the job of the Opposition party to keep the pressure on the ruling party, which boils down to them standing up in the Commons and saying "Does the Honourable Gentleman really expect us to believe...", to which the Rt Hon. Mr P. Minister replies, with utter conviction, "Yes, I bloody well do!", to which the Opposition laughs, makes loud scoffing noises and mutters "Well, we don't" under it's breath.

None of the above advances society a jot. It doesn't change peoples lives for the better. In fact, I'm struggling to see what governments actually do for us.

Anyone?

¹ Is there anthing less common than Common Sense?

Obesity: A growing social problem

2007-10-17T08:46:00.000+01:00

It's pretty clear that obesity is a growing issue in modern society. Studies show - meaning they threw some numbers at the wall and wrote down the ones that stuck - that over half of the UK will be obese by 2050 and that treatment of obesity cost the NHS £7bn in 2002, a number that is only going to increase. That's a lot of new schools, hospitals and policepersons.

Now, I accept that many people are obese through no fault of their own, but the sad fact is that there will be a significant proportion of obese people who could get thinner but are hiding behind the excuse that the genuinely, genetically obese people provide.

The other twist is that there will be some obese people who don't give a damn about the 'ideal' body image projected by society, who are quite happy with their weight and who, if given the chance, would eat burgers for their rest of their days in complete contentment. Are we telling these people that they're not allowed, in a free society, to do what makes them happy?

The truth is that society is not free. Society is a trade, economics at it's simplest. a democracy gives you various wonderful freedoms to enjoy but, in return, these freedoms need to be policed and you have a responsibility not to impinge on the freedoms of others. Do not threaten another man's freedoms, lest he threaten yours.

The problem I have with the linked article is that they make the blanket statement that obesity 'is not individual's fault'. In some cases, that will probably be true, but in a lot of cases it will be complete rubbish. It's yet another case of the powers that be removing responsibility from people.

I can understand that They think that evidence shows that people can't control themselves so They have to take responsibility. But what this does is remove the onus from the individual. Gradually, our dominion over our self is being removed. More and more we are told what to do, where to go, what to eat, what to think: soon there will be no part of us that does not fall under the aegis of some faceless government agency and the notion of 'individuals' will be no more.

I was going to go into some extremist rant there about how we should abandon people to their fate and provide only basic support, thereby forcing people to look after themselves. But then the little bloke in white on the other shoulder piped up with "what about the people who can't look after themselves?".

Which means that since - and while - society is beholden to those less fortunate, those who are only pretending to be less fortunate will have a free ride and consume resources better spent on those that really need it. It means that the few - the freeloaders - are ruining it for everyone. In other words, minority rules.

Once again, those who take responsbility for themselves are going to suffer because of those who do not.

The View from My Window 15/10/07

2007-10-15T11:47:00.000+01:00

I've exhorted and lampooned the exploits of the workies round the office before: either the construction site next door or the spidermen cleaning the roof and trying not to fall off. Today it's the turn of Shug¹ and Wullie².

Shug is larger, younger, clearly the boss and is wearing a bobble hat without the bobble. He looks like one of the guys from the office but with a bobble hat on. Wullie is older, balding, fluorescent and has the look of a man whose mental faculties require multi-million pound, lottery-funded refurbishment.

Shug and Wullie are cutting the grass round the office. In their defence, being Scotland - and Autumn - the grass is wet and the ground is pretty mushy. So it's no surprise the Wullie has managed to bog his tractor.

By the time I joined the pantomime, Wullie had already committed the schoolboy error and had buried it to the axles. Judging by the length of the ruts, he was in trouble for a good few meters but, with laudible application, kept his foot in it until the last minute. Plan B was then to hitch up the other lawnmower - this one not a wee tractor but the kind you walk behind, albeit on an industrial scale - and pull out the tractor.

This was a goodish plan with only a few flaws: 1) The puller weighs half as much as the pullee, 2) the puller has only two wheels on the same wet ground as the puller, 3) Shug has tied to the tow rope to the deck of the tractor. The upshot is that, when they give it beans - after failing to tie a knot worthy of the name for over five minutes - what little power the mower generates goes directly into ripping the deck off the tractor.

While evidently not gifted with mental furniture by Chippendale, Shug does stop short of actually ripping the tractor into tiny bits. Plan B is abandoned.

At this point, half the company is offering support from the first floor window. I say support - mostly it's along the lines of "that won't work, you idiot". Plan B having failed, Shug gives Plan A another go, which produces predictable results. Unbowed, Shug gives Plan A another good five minutes, while the tractor merrily spins its wheels, rapidly going nowhere.

Wullie is hiding at this point; probably crying in the back of the van, or on his council-mandated break. Shug, having spent five minutes on the grown up equivalent of a kiddies fun ride - and not swearing (audibly, anyway) - gives way to reason and lays Plan B to rest. Plan C ensues.

Having no doubt been forced to watch some nature programme by his wife, Wullie resorts to the tried-and-tested "put lots of shit under the wheels" approach. Which, annoyingly, seems to have worked. Admittedly, the grass now looks like the Somme (1918, not 1914), but he's out.

I had hoped that this would have turned into one of those "four hundred firemen take six weeks to rescue small dog from well"-type stories, but, disappointingly, Shug and Wullie, with resourcefulness belied by their apparel and noms du guerre, have managed to un-fuck themselves without having to resort to heavy lifting equipment and appeals to local businesses for bottled water.

Hey ho. A good 15 minutes entertainment nonetheless.

¹ Glasgow version of 'Charles'.
² Names have been guessed at to protect the incompetent and enforce the stereotypes.

You're toeing yer bag rite oot

2007-10-02T16:38:00.000+01:00

That title should probably also have "by the way" at the end of it, but you wouldn't appreciate it.

I don't mean to insult - I know for a fact that the full readership of this mighty tome are of a highly educated sort with bleach blonde hair and are at least 6 feet 2 inches tall. I know this because I know myself rather well.

That said, there is no way, even here with the full potential of the Palace at my fingertips, that I could ever impart over the Web to you, dear reader, how this "by the way" is meant to sound. Meant to sound such that you can precisely appreciate my point and, to get to the point, my fear.

I'm a word guy. I like words. I like learning new words so that I might expand my ability to express myself in new and ever more subtle ways. The subtlety of the spoken word is the thing that has defined our nation over generations, and allowed subsequent generations to keep alive those anecdotes, stories and memories. The English language in particular has a certain high status on Earth not just as the international language of commerce, but also from the air that surrounds those who are naturally educated in British English. That air is the air of sophistication and grace that comes from being the language that conquered and ruled the world for hundreds of years and merely uttering British English invites that response from others who have heard of it, but have never actually sampled its delights.

Imagine then my delight, my sheer joy at hearing a new form of communication. A new language even. Sure it used English words, but not in any fashion I had previously encountered. We have Queen's English and King's English for when she's not in. We have Scots English and Irish English. Over the ponds are American English, Canadian English and Australian English. All different and yet all the same. But this was something else, and an example of which I have provided for you already in the title of this here rant.

For don't be fooled by my gay manner and flippant statements. "You're toeing yer bag rite oot, bai th weye" (I'm trying my best with phonetics here) conveys no meaning. It is not a statement of intent nor of immediate want or concern. It achieves nothing other than allowing me the displeasure of becoming aware of the speaker's existence and their ability to offend mine ear!

Glasgow English is becoming a great irritant to me. As much as it sometimes scares me, I like change - things evolve. But that implies that there is some genetic prerogative for that thing to advance in some way: to take what it has learned and apply that knowledge in new and interesting and, goddamnit, useful ways.

The English I know and love is one which long ago broke free from its embryonic torpor and produced what amounts to the lexicographical equivalent of stereo vision, opposable thumbs and a sense of decency.

This English is something that has regrown its erstwhile vestigial tail, covets its appendix as a new and wonderous organ and digs ants out of the sand with twigs.

All of my keenly honed sense of snobbery aside, ultimately I'm afraid.

I fear for my next generation, my progency. I fear this is an English that, if I have them, my kids will one day speak.

BBout

The IKEA is Not a Shop

2007-09-20T00:04:00.000+01:00

We're all aware of The IKEA. Some of you won't know it's a shop. Some of you won't know why you even know the word, but you do. It's one of those things that is in the world, but which defies description.

Now, you're all now saying to yourselves: "the exertion of spring cleaning the Palace has warped the fragile little mind of The Kid! The IKEA is just a shop: they are merely purveyors of flatpacked Swedish plywood and/or chipboard joy!". I fear not. The IKEA is the First World equivalent of what native peoples call a vision quest.

The IKEA exerts its influence from a distance. You will be sitting at home on a Saturday morning and, apropos of nothing, somebody will say "What time does The IKEA open on a Saturday?". Now, this person may not necessarily be someone who can normally speak; a toddler say. Not even a person; a family pet, a treasured porcelain figurine, a wilting Ficus. It doesn't matter. The seed is sown.

The urge to go cannot be fought. But the manner in which the quest is undertaken is of vital importance. You must, I repeat, MUST, make at least one firm purchasing decision before you leave the safety of the house. Either use the internet, or browse one of the many catalogues which inexplicably infest each and every corner of the building. But make a choice. Keep that choice uppermost in your mind.

You are prepared. The journey to The IKEA is mercifully brief, despite the high average mileage from your house to the nearest The IKEA. There may have been several near fatal road traffic incidents in your wake, but these do not concern you. Your choice of product, uppermost in your mind, shields you from harm during your quest.

You reach The IKEA. You park the twisted remnants of your vehicle in the car park. No one parks between the lines at The IKEA. Your choice of product, uppermost in your mind, inevitably inhibits your ability to reverse park.

You enter The IKEA through The Revolving Portal. The vision quest begins, for the very doors themselves contain The IKEA products. You proceed to the first floor, from where your quest truly begins.

There is One True Path through The IKEA. It is well labelled and signposted, but these markers are false and are there to tempt the unwary from the Quest. Your choice of product, uppermost in your mind, keeps you on the One True Path.

Many have left The IKEA, having let their choice of product fall from the uppermost position in their mind, bearing only The Energy Saving LightBulbs and The Ten Pack Of Wooden Hangers. Many people have entire lofts, garages, full of unused, unwanted lightbulbs and coathangers. Some even have to buy new houses to store the reminders of their numerous failed quests.

If you keep your choice of product uppermost in your mind, you may divine the location of your product in the mystic Norse runes of the IKEA and find yourself in the abyss that is The Warehouse. It is here that the faithful may decode the runes, locate their choice of product and pass out of The IKEA to the carpark, where they have to locate and dispose of the wreckage of their personal transport.

This is the price The IKEA makes you pay for your weakness.

Boot up sequence inititated

2007-09-19T16:15:00.000+01:00

System coming online.
RAM check... ok.
Level 2 virus definitions loaded.

Enter the location you want to viruscan: Palace of Righteous Justice

Scanning... UNKNOWN ENTITY FOUND

It's not been long since my investiture at the Palace and the ticker tape and balloons haven't even been cleaned up. And yet I find that I am already uncomfortable in my new home due to the invasion of the very enemy we seek to destroy. And by destroy I mean comment upon with great and skillful prose and intelligent rhetoric with which to invite discussion among the Internets.

Today I'm going to speak of marketing. Marketing can be clever, and I like clever. This does not mean that I like clever marketing. Nor does it mean that I like marketing of any sort. My point is that I don't like marketing. Specifically, I don't like marketing when it's so blatantly clear that this highly polished visage I see before me is in fact a highly polished company line.

Those of you who know me best (and right now that demographic is limited to RocketBootKid) will understand when I harp on about the correctness of a given statement. This is not limited to just the apparent (or blinding absence of) truth in the message, as I've already suggested, but also in the concise, clear, grammatically and lexicographically accurate language used to convey that message.

As exhibit A, I submit "proactive". As much as I'd like to argue the case for this word infact not being a word, I cannot. The Oxford English Dictionary lists it and it is therefore in common usage. However, it is this very fact that gets my boosters boiling.

Proactive is a marketing term. A term invented by marketing managers (marketeers?) to make them sound somehow more active in a world where being active isn't enough. It isn't sufficient to just actively pursure their next mediocre management goal; they must be seen to be proactively pursuing it.

The reason it gets my boosters boiling then (I may start to use that as a standard actually) is that "pro" (yeah, I am going to get this down and dirty about it) in this context means 'before'. It's a nonsense term to describe how actively they are dealing with a situation they themselves created in the first place!

Binding pro to other words - in essence, trapping it there against its will - does not make you eloquent. It does not provide you with a concise manner of explaining yourself. It does not somehow instill your immediate audience with great confidence in your oratorical prowess.

It makes you sound like a cock.

And I'm somewhat saddened that there appears to be no other adjective I can think of that I feel accurately conveys my thoughts on the matter and on those people who employ it as part of their everday life. But being as concise and truthful as possible is what prevents me from becoming the very thing I am tasked with destroying. And by destroy I mean...

Oh, you get the point.

The Palace has a new champion!

2007-09-19T14:27:00.000+01:00

I'm finally caught up processing the backlog of unrighteousness that had built up, so while I've got some spare time waiting for some more to come in, I needed a project.

So I've been spring cleaning the Palace: getting rid of all the empty bags of mess and stuff that were lying around and I found the Boy Wonder kit I bought like months ago and never got around to putting together. I got it in a sale. I think it had been returned as it turns out some of the bits are missing. Seems to work fine though.

Anyway, I now have some company in the Palace. Someone to help handle the load, so that we can be proactive in our Righteousness, rather than reactive which, I think we can all agree, is not the situation to be in.

Some of the missing pieces were to do with guidance and cognitive functions, so his input might be a bit erratic to start with, but I'm a great believer in the powers of electroshock therapy, stroboscopic lighting and duct tape¹.

So, without any ado, and no applause please, here's BoosterBoy. Take a bow, 'Boy.

¹The plus side to the War on Terror is that people are much more forgiving towards ones approach to cultural education and information control.

Blogging Destroys Civilisation, apparently.

2007-04-23T18:24:00.000+01:00

The attached article jerked me out of my self-important, self-aggrandizing daze and jerked its columns at the patches of dead grass and rabid rabbits that lurk in the leafy nirvana that is Web 2.0. The Palace is a nice place to be. Here I am safe. From here I can rain down Righteous Justice on the dictators, the lawbreakers, the wrongdoers and the ne'erdowells. Your God is in his/her/their celestial house and all is right in the Web.

Or not. Enough metaphor.

The author cites quotes from people of whom I have never heard (but who are promoted as experts and sages) who encourage me to believe their assertion that blogging is "all about digital narcissism, shameless self-promotion", or that blogs "do not add to the available stock of commentary; they are purely parasitic on the stories and opinions that traditional media provide.

Of these two quotes, I can agree with the first in the case of the virtual bike sheds that are the social networking sites, but the second strikes me as the pot calling the kettle a negro. We are all parasitic on society. Papers, TV and the internet are merely transmission mechanisms for stories and opinions created by people. Traditional news outlets only create stories when the world fails to generate its share. This differs from net-based content only in the medium and manner in which it is delivered and that it has been around a bit longer.

Which brings me to the next bone of contention; presentation. I agree that the social networking sites are primarily the domain of the teenager; indeed, the parallels bring back such memories as to make me avoid them completely. The quote;"We are creating a world in which everybody can talk - or , more commonly, shout - about themselves to everybody else."

Put like that, it sounds like a bad thing. But while the newspapers and evening news are geared towards adults, social networking sites are not. Therefore, one cannot compare one by the standards of the other. In this connected world where every individual has the crushing fact of its insignificance thrust down its throat every day, these sites provide a beacon of hope, the chance to have your say without fear of let or hinderance.

The very word "individual" is losing its meaning. Those choices that make us individuals are no longer ours to make. This "round hole" society we have created generates row upon row of uniformly square pegs. Given that fact, are we so surprised that people feel the need to shout "I AM NOT A NUMBER!" to anyone who will listen?

The article also suggests that blogs are generally¹ "claustrophobic environment(s), appealing chiefly² to a certain kind of agressive, point-scoring male and utterly off-putting to everyone else". The author of this comment believes signing your real name to your online contributions is the only way to ensure that people are more civil to each other. I can kinda see the point, but it's no magic bullet and even if it were, you can't make someone use their real name. And those who do will wind up getting death threats from those who do not.

Abusive content cannot be blamed on blogs, nor is abusive online content a new thing. People have been flaming each other in forums and on bulletin boards even before Sir Tim added the FORM tag to HTML 2.0 back in 1995. And it's no good the newspapers getting all superior; the papers are never short of vitriol. The only difference is that the words generally have more syllables, the better to confuse the target and reduce the possibility of litigation.

It's a case of "It's my ball and I'm taking it home". The internet has given those of us who scrawl our words upon it the power to commit our thoughts to immortality, a power which, until recently, was the plaything of the MSM. Now we all have to share the ball, the MSM are throwing their toys out of the pram. We all have to learn to play nice and share.

The Web is in its infancy, its ability to inform opinion and shape policy still very much underdeveloped. Like all kids, it needs to have its boundaries set, its transgressions punished and its good deeds rewarded. I don't feel that the MSM is the body to do that, in the same way that I wouldn't want a sullen older brother, jealous of the shift of attention to its pudgy, drooling little brother, to decide what's best for it.

Do we need regulating? Sooner or later the web will grow, lose the puppy fat, grow some teeth and learn how to articulate itself properly. Until that time, if the Web 2.0 decides to poo itself and throw up on the rug once in a while, we should let it.

Blogging does not destroy civilization. If something as basic as freedom of speech can destroy civilization, then it deserves to die. Asking us to gag ourselves to save civilization is destined for failure. If you want us to save the world, you have to be sure we like it the way it is.

¹ Always a dangerous word; you will always piss off the few to placate the many.
² "generally" with fewer medals.

Don't stare, you racist!

2007-04-15T23:07:00.002+01:00

There's an article in today's 'The Sunday Times' entitled "Staring at Muslims ' is a racist act'". It goes on to state that "pupils and teachers in Scottish schools have been banned from staring at Muslims in case it causes offence" and "Staring or looking is a form of discrimination as it makes the other person feel uncomfortable or as though they are not normal".

Being a Scot, I'm dismayed that the authorities have taken this approach. It appears that the Muslim Association of Britain agrees, saying that the officials have "gone too far".

Firstly, it's evident that "the Authorities" (who obviously are only an authority on 'Sticking Red Tape up Their Own Arse') didn't bother to consult with the people whom this ban is intended to protect. And guess what? The Muslims think it's a piss idea, and here's why.

The human eye is attracted to movement. It's one of those things we have retained from our past, unlike a tail or picking our nose and eating it (well, most of us). Therefore, if your eye detects movement, you automatically look at the thing that is moving. Unfortunately for you, if that 'thing' is a Muslim person, you are now a racist. You have caused offence (so they say). You may as well have cornered them and pointed and laughed.

Now, the authorities at this point will go "Ah well, now, you see, you're missing the point. What this ban will do is...." and we'll interrupt (we racists have no time for social niceties) and go "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, YOU PC TOSSER!".

Now, there is obviously a difference between a glance and a stare. But where do you draw the line? How long do you have to be focussed on someone before it becomes a stare? Am I allowed to blink? The article doesn't state how much bird you'll do for letting your heathen eyes pass over a Muslim, but I can't imagine the police are going to be nicking people for Looking with Intent to Stare, or Possession of a Racist Eyeball, or Grevious Ocular Damage.

If the authorities have a sense of humour failure about this, logically it could mean that no-one in Scotland will ever look at a Muslim again. Not sure how preventing basic human interaction fosters better understanding between races, but I'm sure they know what they're doing.

This is another case of politically correct over-reaction making a bad situation worse. This is just another glitch on the road towards the complete integration of the races. Racial integration is a recent invention; well, the 'term' is new. Back in the Good Old Days, "racial integration" meant joining the army or navy, sailing off somewhere hot, killing all the darkies, stealing their country and getting home in time for tea and medals.

We haven't been 'cross-pollinating' for that long, geologically speaking, but it won't be long before we're all 'brown'. The lines between races are growing less distinct, which is great. The problem this stupid ban is failing to address is based on religion and our collective inability that not everyone subscribes to our person view of the universe.

There are already perfectly good laws to cover this sort of thing. I saw a very good address given by Bono at some high-faluting breakfast thingy in which he talks about there being the laws of Man and then higher laws, talking of course about God (he also said that Religion gets in the way of God, which was a good way to put it).

Basically, this is old ground for me, but it still gets my goat. Poor goat. Never gets any peace.

The Last Night of The Gods

2007-03-29T13:28:00.000+01:00

I do try, I really do try, to be neutral about religious matters, but everything I see in the world that has religion as a basis just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. In response to modern societys tack away from Religion, the Pope has fired a religious thunderbolt across the bows of the unbelievers in his assertion that the "Fires of Hell are real and eternal".

On a more sombre note, Heaven, apparently, is not a real place. It's not some ethereal nirvana in the sky, "but that fullness of communion with God which is the goal of human life". So, if Heaven doesn't exist, where does God live? In the hearts of the true believers? In which case it must be getting pretty cramped for the old fella in there. Expect to see some extremely white furniture going cheap on Ebay any time soon.

So, where is the upside for the Christians? Transgress, and it's the fiery pit for the rest of time. Think good thoughts and.....what? A lifetime of towing the party line with the promise of "receiving your reward in Heaven" down the drain.

The Pontif's attempts to inject some good old-fashioned God-fearing back into us are naiive. Pope: "Hell really exists!", Us: "We don't believe you.", Pope: "No, it really exists!", as if he expects us to go "Shit, it really exists? Oh well then...". Those are the kind of playground arguments which didn't even work back then.

This did give me this insight, which I think is a good one.

God is merely the frontman, the deification or beatification of an ideal, the logical progression of generations of mothers saying "Behave, or the bogeyman will get you!" to their errant progeny. In order for this to work, you need to believe that the bogeyman exists. Similarly, for adults, they have to believe that God exists and punishes the transgressors, for whom eternity in the fires of Hell awaits.

God is real. People believe in him. That makes him real. If people believe that a piece of paper is worth £10, then it is. Religion is merely a mechanism to keep people on the straight and narrow. Jesus was invented to show people what the straight and narrow looked like. God is there to pick you up if you stray but a little and to smite you down if you stray quite a lot.

That is why God is portrayed as Jesus' father, instead of the other way around. For centuries, "holy" men were dealing out divine retribution for transgressions, when people had no idea what the rules were. So, Jesus is invented to provide this guidance because, to be quite honest, the holy men were getting quite tired dealing out retribution. Jesus, or the concept that Jesus embodies, should have been around first. Show them the way; if you build it, they will come.

However, God is a "goody", and any good story needs a good baddy. Enter Satan. His role in this is unclear. If God is Ye Mighty Smiter, what does the Devil do? Well, he entices the people into wickedness, tempts them from the straight and narrow path onto the wide and windy road to Hell. But Lucifer really represents human nature, those leanings within us towards the animal that still lurks within us.

So, there we go. Religion reduced to its roots. The world is a stage, and even God, Lucifer and Jesus are revealed to be merely players. But The Ideal holds true, even if the play has lost its way, even if the players have lost their voices.

Religion is the bureaucracy that renders the ideal powerless. Embrace the ideal, the giant upon whose shoulders Religion stands.

What is the ideal? Honour. Live your life with honour. But do it because you want to, because it is the right thing to do, not because the Pope threatens you with the bogeyman.

Nothing Ever Happens: Why Blogs Die

2007-03-28T12:51:00.000+01:00

There is a song by Del Amitri that goes "Nothing ever happens. Nothing happens at all. The needle returns to the start of the song and we all sing along like before." And it's true. What you're doing right now is probably pretty much what you did yesterday and most likely what you'll be doing tomorrow.

The blogosphere is thinning. The bubble is bursting. Blogs are falling dormant in their thousands, HTML gravestones marking the points where people ran out of things to say.

But that isn't actually the problem. The problem is that people get bored of writing the same shit, day in, day out. It reminds them how repetitive their lives are, so they either stop blogging and a) do something about it, or b) ignore the problem.

Now, this blog has evolved over the eighteen or so months I've been doing it and the rate of new entries has plummeted. This is not because my life is repetitive (which of course it is) but because my suject matter is repetitive. My posts are generally rants about the same old things; intolerance, politics, society, evolution, communication, information. Name a -tion, there's a rant around here somewhere.

After a while, you find yourself, mid autorant, thinking that you've seen what you're typing somewhere else, and then you realise it was in the post you typed last week. At this point, your spam filter kicks in and for every five posts you start, one might get published. My list of posts is littered with entries where I've started ranting and then run out of steam.

No doubt some blogs die because the authors' spleens are fully vented. I have reached this point a number of times. I'm lucky, if you can call it that, to be a bit of a grumpy old man, so my spleen fills up faster than most. But still, there's not enough new unrighteousnesses in the world that I need to squash. The Palace is gathering dust, the Twin Swords of Truth and Beauty rusting in a corner.

And we get to what this blog is about; finding, through the medium of Rant, the answers to life's questions. In this case, why the papers and media are so full of conjecture, fabrication and meaningless drivel. The answer is that they are struggling to fill five pages with news, let alone fifty. So, just like sausages, out comes the cereal and the gristle to add a bit of bulk to the mix.

The ratio of signal to noise in the world is dropping. I will tweak my filters and try to tease some meaning from the good information that makes it through. There may be answers and there will be new questions. That's fine. What is Life without really good questions?

No Mirrors in the Corridors of Power

2007-03-16T21:38:00.000Z

It's a fact: there are no mirrors in The Whitehouse or Downing Street. You know how I know? Because if George Bush or Tony Blair looked at themselves in a mirror even once, they'd be out of Iraq and all over Zimbabwe like those cheap suits they seem to like so much.

Mugabe's actions are not those of a well man. Inflation is at 1700% and rising, life expectancy has fallen year on year to a World Record low of 37 years, emigration is at 20%, Industry is operating at 28% of capacity. AIDS infection hovers around 80%, with ~180K deaths leaving ~1.1M AIDS orphans, of whom ~160K are infected as well. (Figures from The Times)

His response to democratic reform is.....unilateral, to put if mildly. From destroying the homes of those who oppose him (Operation Murambatsvina) to beating his direct competition close to death (Morgan Tsvangirai), he has no regard for the consequences of his actions. The reasons for this are threefold; 1. He's a great big loony, 2. He cares little for the opinions of the outside world, 3. He knows that the outside world lack the gumption to do something about him.

So if there are crimes against humanity "allegedly" going on in Zimbabwe at the moment, where are the Leaders of The Free World? Where are the UN peacekeepers? When are we going to descend on Mugabe and remove him from power, like we did with Saddam in Iraq?

I'll tell you when. Never. And I'll tell you why. Because he hasn't got any Oil. And even if he did, the First World have a mental block about Africa. Africa is the land of brutal civil war, of famine, or disease, all the things that we in the First World want to avoid. The furthest we are prepared to go is to send aid and the occasional comedian to try and ease the suffering.

As Blair and Bush's premierships near and end, you might think they'd want to go out with a bang; do something worthwhile, memorable, something the people could get behind. A quick evisceration of Mugabe and his cronies and be home in time for tea and medals. The problem is that One Man and His Dog went to Iraq and got / are getting their fingers burned, so they are less likely to want to burn them somewhere hotter.

But Zimbabwe doesn't require Shock and Awe. Food and Medicine would do fine. All you need are some SAS / SEALS to blow him up, make it look like rebels and deny all knowledge. There are other ways to achieve change. I'd prefer the European "scalpel" approach to the American "M1 Abrams-up-the-ass! Woo! Get some!" approach. Hell, the CIA been pulling that shit for years. Wild Bill invented the OSS (and thus, indirectly, the CIA) to pull precisely that sort of shit. They can do it.

You could compare Mugabe to Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Go on, compare. The man even has a Hitler moustache, for Pity's sake! You remember Hitler? He was big in the Thirties and, unlike Mugabe, he had a War and everyone was invited. He has probably caused as many people pain and suffering as Saddam ever did. Just because he is starving them, not gassing them, doesn't make him a better person.

Mugabe's uppence will come. It's just a matter of time. The only questions is; how many people will be left in Zimbabwe to celebrate? Sadly, it will be typical that his time will be one of the last to run out. But all it takes is one bullet. Surely Team America can afford one measly 5.56 FMJ?

How to Stop America Invading You

2007-03-06T11:13:00.000Z

Got Oil? English not your first language? Looking to expand your countrys technology base? Then the USA wants you! Dead.

So how do you stop the Redneck Army invading, short of waving Jesus flags? Simple. The solution is clear. Contaminate your Oil. With silicon. The advanced internal combustion engines of the infidels cannot process poor-quality gasoline. It's no use to 'em, can't use it.

So, if you've no usable natural resources, the only reason they've got to invade you is if you intend to get within one hundred years of them, technologically. And, between you and me, that's not really such a big deal to them. They just want your Oil.

Make their satellites work for YOU. Construct a huge oil contamination plant. Ship in huge quantities of silicon in yellow wagons with "Silicon" written on the roof. Be really blatant about pouring it into your oil. Smile for the cameras.

You are now free to abuse your womenfolk and develop dirty bombs in peace.

Contaminated unleaded petrol blamed for causing thousands of cars to break down has been traced to a depot in Essex, a supplier has said.

Brave New World

2007-02-07T08:23:00.000Z

I found the linked video on BoingBoing. It was created by Michael Wesch, an assistant Cultural Anthropology Professor at KSU. It goes into the way that Web 2.0, the advent of social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies, will affect how we live from here on out. It's a great piece of work.

However, there are cautionary elements in there, elements which the fatalist movie lover in me picked up straightaway. Every time we tag something, or add a link, or mail something to someone, a computer somewhere is taking notes. As the video says, we are teaching the machine and the machine is learning to think.

Now, where have we heard that before, children? Armed robot gunships, memetic polyalloy assassins, self-aware machines; naked Austrians? How long before Google responds to your search request with "I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle?" Suddenly, terms like "search bot" and "web spider" have a jackboot soundtrack.

Leaving aside the possibility of a self-aware, self-replicating web of killing machines, I like the way the shiny side of the web is going. I like that I can write this drivel and ignore the fact that no-one bar me will ever read it. It gives me a sense of empowerment, that somehow my writing this will add to the pool of human knowledge. But if Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Blogger, etc are really listening to everything I commit to the Ether, then I'm actually contributing to the eventual pool of human blood.

So, could the internet morph into a sentient entity? "Sentience is a by-product of the complexity required for the ability to self-evolve.", said the internet when I asked it¹. Now, the router tables that know how to get from every server in the world to every other server in the world do precisely this. When a broken connection is detected, the router re-routes data through alternate connections. When you buy things online, the site suggests other things you might like to buy.

From the Web 2.0 sites, a computer could determine the characteristics of the human race. Yes, based on what books we buy on Amazon. From there, it's not too far a leap to the point where it starts to alter the user experience. If you wanted to buy a book on World War II, the site might say, "Many customers decided not to buy this and bought a book about existentialism instead." or "You have been added to the Nazi sympathisers list".

We have some time. We have years of shared web nirvana in our future. But we would do well to consider that our utopia, our brave new world, may be but a veneer of fantasy over the grimy, pixellated reality of a machine world that is coldly and dispassionately shaping our lives through a web page².

Thank you for reading this post. Blogger is adding your name to the list.

¹ If the internet was self-aware, it would not have told me that the possibility exists. So, we're safe, for the time being.
² If you're getting Matrix overtones, that's fine. So was I.

Will everyone with Class please stand up?

2007-01-28T22:36:00.000Z

Class. Pretty much every culture in history has had a notion of class; the standing of people in society in relation to others. Britain historically has (had?) three classes; working (or lower), middle and upper. These days, the lines, in socio-political¹ terms, are not so well defined.

So, what makes you upper class, middle class or working class? Is it your job, where you live, who you associate with, all of the above? Or, like "cool", is it a quality that anyone can have? To my mind, cool and class are merely two public faces of the same inner quality. But, where cool can have many interpretations, class is defined more clearly².

We all know class when we see it. Someone with class stands out in the crowd, head and shoulders above everyone else; their inestimable quality written in every gesture, every word.
I just watched the final of Celebrity Big Brother 4, which was won by Shilpa Shetty, who was the subject of some pretty nasty treatment during her stay in the house.

She and Germain Jackson were not the last two people in the house by accident. Out of the whole cadre, those two had more class than the rest of them put together. Indeed, it was for this reason that the rift between the - OK, I'll say it - lower class elements (reality TV mutant creation Jade Goody, ex-pop star Jo O'Meara and disgraced ex-Miss UK Danielle Lloyd) and Shilpa existed. The knew class when they saw it and they realised they had none. Germaine, legend and sage, summed it up thus; "You can't mix class and no class".

Now, Shilpa and Germaine are legends in their respective countries; Shilpa as a Bollywood superstar and Germaine as part of the Jackson Five. They are used to the finer things in life; they are therefore classifiable as upper class. Is it by accident that these two were the two classiest people in the house?

Not to boil it down to a word; well, precisely to boil it down to a word, its about filters. It's the difference between what you could do or say, and what you do do or say. From the debatable "wealth" of reality TV to which we have been subjected over the years, those of higher class have more filters in place than those of lower classes.

This is precisely why, when classes collide (as they did in Big Brother), those higher class individuals are charged with being "fake", for not saying what they think. But, where lower class people see this as a fault, a betrayal of their own values, higher class people do not understand, as it is this reserve, this non-verbalisation that makes them higher class.

The arguments that occur between people from different classes always center about the different sets of filters each employ. Lower class people will say what is on their mind, despite the net effect of the words, whereas higher class people are more mindful of the impact their words could have. The actions of lower class people tend to the unstable, the disruptive (public affray and drunkenness), where higher class people seek to stabilise, to soothe, to return to a state of order³.

I would call myself middle class and, as such, I know most about middle class. Also, I have had occasion to spend time with working class guys on a building site and I have spent time with Lords and Earls in castles. As with any demographics, within their boundaries, in their comfort zones, any human being, regardless of class, is a pleasant and reasonable thing.

When the two extremes are forced to mix, that's when it gets messy. And that is when class shows itself. People with class don't have to respond. Class says it all for them.

¹ Like I have the first clue about what that means...
² I am in no way equating Upper class with having class. Some working class people have class in the same way that some upper class people have no class. Look at Paris Hilton, for goodness sake...
³ There's something deeper here, but I haven't got time or space at this point.

Too much information?

2007-01-24T12:00:00.000Z

Is there such a thing as too much information? If knowledge is power, then surely more information is a good thing. At this juncture, I look ominously at The Media and subject them to a patented, copyright Glare of Righteous Justice©™.

The Media. The Number One Threat to Global Security. The legal Class A drug. The True Masters of The Universe.

The Media understand all too well that knowledge is power. They make their money by pedalling as much information as possible. But therein lies the rub. Like scientists facing a funding review, the media is constantly on the search for new information. And, like scientists, if they can't find any, what do they do?

Of course they do. If your currency is information, there's always the temptation to resort to counterfeiting if you're a little short. And this is how the rot starts. Slow news days are no longer. The world the media have created is a self-sustaining news generation machine.

In this world, then, how can anyone make an informed, personal decision, when their views are distorted from all sides by conflicting "truths" and their decisions are handed to them in a sealed envelope stamped "Property of HMG".

Many people accept the information presented to them at face value, feeding the beast in so doing. I also, in moments where my cynicism collapses from the strain, gravitate towards news sources that tell me what I want to hear, and then believe whatever lies they choose to propagate. It requires conscious effort to step back and think "Is that actually true?".

It's an addiction. Once you've tasted mass-media output, you crave more, you become a mirror of the system, a self-sustaining information-consuming machine, addicted to knowledge, any knowledge, no matter how close to the "truth" it may be. Your personal truths are gradually eroded until you can no longer tell the difference. Your gear of choice is now carefully processed, filtered, Grade A information.

Unlike substance abuse, there is no Priory for information junkies, nor are there lengthy jail terms for those who deal and supply. Unfortunately, we are all as guilty as we are cursed.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this post, and all previous posts, are entirely those of the author and should be rejected. Nothing written here is true. Reject my reality and replace it with your own.

Why do we Celebrate Stupidity?

2007-01-17T14:14:00.000Z

We all have our moments where we shake our heads at ourselves. But you wouldn't want to put me on TV, and I certainly wouldn't want to go.

But what is it about blatant ignorance that we find so appealing? Why do we pay money so that we can watch people displaying their ignorance of everything? Is it so we can point and laugh? Is it so that we can feel better about ourselves; so we can go "Well, at least I'm not as thick as Jade Goody¹".

When we export this drivel, do they get the joke, or do they just take it as symptomatic of the nation? Judging by the reaction to moronic sledging of Shilpa Shetty in CBB4, they think we're all mindless, bigoted cretins. And who can blame them? We're making them pay to watch programmes where we endorse their opinions.

Is the prevalence of the ignorant celebrity the result of failing education? The ignorance displayed by a lot of celebs, younger, more naiive ones primarily, can only be down to poor education, at school and/or at home. It is strange that it has taken Celebrity Big Brother to show up this racist undertone, where normal Big Brother has never had this issue. It would be a pleasing and convenient truth if celebrities were more ignorant as a rule.

Behind every celebrity is an agent who takes a percentage. I'm sure the main reason we have to put up with these dolts are agents saying "Go on, do Celebrity Big Wife Swap Dance Idol, it'll do wonders for your career!". Being bears of little brain who find big words scary, they display their ignorance in private one last time and agree, before having it broadcast to the world in a prime-time display of conspicuous stupidty.

Beyond the car-crash element, I've never really seen the point of Big Brother. But one could argue that it holds a mirror to society, allowing us to see ourselves as others see us. I bet that is what the producers keep telling themselves; you know, in between counting the cash from the millions of drivelling fools (of which I am occasionally one) who pay to press their noses against the glass of the Endemol Stationary Freak Show.

I'm with the old, dead guys when it comes to knowledge, or its lack. "The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance" - Socrates; "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." --Albert Einstein.

Even for those of us for whom knowledge is something to be persued, rather than evaded, it is an effort to avoid ignorance. As the breadth of human knowledge expands, individual grasp of that knowledge cannot keep up, or it lags behind at some percentage of the whole. Older, less applicable knowledge is "aged" out, while it is replaced by newer knowledge. Logically, the breadth of knowledge at an individual level is reasonably constant, generation on generation, but the breadth of all knowledge continues to rise.

So, sadly, we're probably all more ignorant than our parents. But please, in the name of all those who crave wisdom over celebrity, don't go on telly and prove me right.

¹Poster Child for Stupid. On the Wikipedia Page for Ignorant Cretinous Moron, she ranks above Dubya . I would make her the Queen of stupid people, only she would think it was a good thing. And she would bestow her wisdom upon them and, lo,they would lap that shit right up and ask for more. Hell, that's where we are right now...

We Need a Hero...

2007-01-17T10:05:00.000Z

This is how legends begin.

The linked article tells of how a mystery vigilante with a samurai sword turned up during an attempt by police in South Shields to disrupt a burglary, only to be met with a greater number of well armed crooks. After three criminals were apprehended and the plain clothes officers protected from serious injury, the mystery ronin¹ then vanished into the night.

I, for one, am excited. Here at The Palace we applaud those who fight injustice with a sword². We live in a world not too distant from the dystopian metropoleis³ where comic book superheroes ply their nocturnal trade. The injustices of Metropolis© and Gotham© are just those of any major city, writ large. The world is in dire need of a hero or two.

This is merely underscored by the proliferation of comic book characters who have made it to the big screen recently. Even those elder statemen - Superman, Spiderman and Batman - have all had their oevres reinvigorated. People recognise the parallels; how art imitates life. We are receptive to the idea of a hero who operates outside the law; above it, beyond it. We applaud the notion that there are people prepared to sacrifice their freedom to address the injustices of society, people over whom societys barriers have no hold.

In todays nanny states, we barely have the freedom to determine how to live our lives. It takes all our energy to scratch together an existence in a culture where all possible means of advancement have been culled to the point where our only option is to choose the padded, sanitised, government-approved Middle Road.

Our only secret door out of this reality is through the synthetic realities whose more proactive denizens take the James Kirk approach to the Kobayashi Maru⁴ test that is modern society; that is, to ignore its rules entirely and forge their own path.

The one element of this story about which I'm concerned is the reaction of "the authorities" to our nascent local superhero. There is of course the possibility that this is the act of a random, sword-wielding psycho, who may in future turn their attention to the ever-present busload of nuns / children; precisely the possibility that the Police are hoping to prevent. But I really hope that isn't the case.

I hope that this person is called Dave, lives in a flat somewhere in Newcastle, works for a bank, has a burning hatred of injustice and, due to an fantastic and coincidental accounting problem at NatWest, has several billion pounds under his mattress and some spare time on his hands.

Keep it up, Samurai Dave! Britain Needs You!

¹ One assumes there is no master. It does rather dilute a myth if the superhero is having their strings pulled.
² Hang on, let me just check....Bugger! The Sword of Truth is missing! Mum!? Have you seen my Sword of Truth? No, it's not under my bed...
³ Opinions vary on the correct plural, so I plumped for this one.
⁴ No-win situation.

Potential Energy

2007-01-10T09:00:00.001Z

Looking in the mirror this morning whilst shaving my aged face (not a common occurrence), an errant thought entered my brain. But, unlike a cosmic ray, it didn't leave and consequently didn't take a small proportion of my cognitive abilities with it, thereby leaving me capable of pressing keys in something approaching the right order.

I thought that, by my age and younger, famous people have made millions. And by famous, I mean famous for a reason; actors, sportspeople, entrepreneurs and the like, famous for making the best use of their talents.

Take Michael Schumacher, who retired from Formula 1 after fifteen years, 68 pole positions, 91 race wins and seven World Drivers titles and pretty much every conceivable F1 record, all in just 250 race starts¹.

The sad thing about Life is that most people either never find out what it is that they can do well or don't have the freedom or courage to follow their dreams. There must be millions, nay, billions of people out there who either have no idea what they are good at, or know perfectly well what it is but are unable or unwilling to go for it.

It's another sad triumph of Reality visiting another crushing defeat on Possibility; another 20-0 humping of the Sunday League pub side by the Premiership professionals. For out of those millions who do know what floats their boat, only a few thousand are probably in a situation where they can afford to take the plunge and go a new direction without starving to death and having your house, family and pets repossessed. Those who don't are just plain lazy, so I'm glad we don't get to hear about them.

All in all, it's a depressing thought, so don't have it. Maybe that's why we like soaps so much. British soaps, which I don't watch but which are pervasive to the point of being classed as an airborne contagen, cover the bleak, strife-ridden lives of the downtrodden, something which the Learning and Skills Council have been complaining about.

If TV tells us that everyone else out there is stuck in dead-end jobs, its hardly likely that anyone else will go "I could do that!", unless they're the people who really want to run a stall in Walford market.

So, soaps and post-imperial malaise can explain the Britsh lack of gumption. We need a cliff; some event or advance that will enable us to convert all this potential into kinetic, into action. Please, please don't go jump off a cliff. It was a metaphor. So please, please do jump off it metaphorically. I'll hold your hand. We'll jump together.

I watched Batman Begins last night (which is excellent) where the question "Why do we fall?" is asked, the answer being "So we can learn how to pick ourselves up." In Britain, at least, we're collectively still hugging our skinned knees and sobbing. We just need someone or something to say "Stop being a such a baby".

So, people of the world, stop crying, get up and make² Life give you what you want.

¹ I'll let you decide whether he was a legend or a cheating Kraut.
² "make" as in "work hard, get rewarded", not "complain until they pay you to STFU".

Robot Clones of the World! Fight the Educational Oppressors!

2006-11-30T20:23:00.000Z

What is one of the best things about being an adult? No longer having to prove yourself with exams. You can go your entire life, if you so choose, without having to meet anyone elses criteria of "good". As long as you're happy with you good you are, then why bother; I'm Number 1, so whay try harder? This, of course, is another of those bags of mess I keep mentioning, of which I have loads round the back of The Palace; must have a clean up before Christmas.

So, what is the goal of the education system? Are we trying to develop well-rounded young adults with a range of skills and interests, or are we simply cranking the handle on the robot machine to create more clones?

I feel it's the latter, as industry has long been bemoaning the skills of the graduates our higher education institutions are disgorging. So, what is the point of increasing A-level difficulty? All it means is that students will now have to spend more time studying to reach the levels required to gain entry to their university of choice, only for it to vomit them, unemployable, into the job market where their narrow skill set makes them of little value to businesses?

The government has been trying to get more people into University for a while now, but, from the linked reports, it sounds like Universities are struggling to sort the wheat from the chaff as it is. Another case of lack of communication between the Government and the Real World.

Learning is a life's work. School, while merely the first step on the path, is the most important, as it should provide the foundations on which a lifetime of knowledge is based. Forcing people to "specialise" in passing exams is the equivalent of building the house on the sandy shore.

Raising the "A" level pass criteria will result in less well-rounded and less-employable graduates, not the reverse.

The Movies: All Filler No Killer (Except Bond)

2006-11-29T08:10:00.000Z

Being a parent and somewhat lazy / unorganised, I frequented a moving picture establishment for the first time in several months yesterday to view Mr Campbell's presentation of Mr Flemings Bond, James Bond in a Casino. Which I thought was excellent by the way. Blond James Blond is also very good.

Much has been made of the blatant product placement in the film, but I found it considerably less of a burden to bear than the half an hour of crap I had to sit through in order to have Sony Vaios and Sony Ericsson phones waved at me for two and a bit hours.

Now, half an hour may not sound like much to those of you in the world where they transmit messages from their sponsors every two seconds because they know you can't focus on the feature presentation without going to the bathroom every five minutes, or to nip outside for a smoke and a pancake.

But as someone who paid good money to watch Mr Bond chase Msr Parkour through a building site, I didn't expect a poundsworth of that to be adverts. I'd rather stroll in after half and hour and pay a quid less. Maybe when I'm retired and reach the "I don't give a shit what you think, I'm old" stage, I will.

There was the usual "turn off your phone" message, except its now three, infommercial-grade mini-series. The Chanel No5 ad with Nicole Kidman had fucking credits! Baz Luhrmann needs to take his head out of his arse. There was even a tourism advert exhorting people to visit precisely the country in which we were viewing said ad.

In amongst all this... my vocabulary fails me at this point... shit, there was one trailer. So, evidently, people who watch James Bond may only be interested in romantic comedies featuring actors fighting for promotion to or against relegation from the A List.

So, out of nearly three hours, I had only two and a bit of the stuff I had paid for. It occurred to me that this was the Sausage Situation in movie format. Pork Sausage Panavision. Meat vs Rusk - Now In Technicolour. The BBFC should introduce an edict; any cinema showing more than 15% by length of cinematic cereal and gristle will not be able to advertise their presentations as films / movies.

They'll have to come up with some name that identifies them as not having the required percentage of actual content. So, alongside U, PG and all the ages between 1 and 100, there should be an "G" rating: G for Gristle.

You wouldn't stand for it if you went to dinner and they made you eat a plate of stuff they scooped out of the bins. Can we expect our dinner plates to bear sponsor logs? When you polish off your Virgin Curry (religious-themed entity forbid), will Richard Branson's bewhiskered mug be beaming out at you twixt poppadom and corriander¹?

I guess this is a rant peculiar to those of us who are not rabid consumers. I rarely buy anything beyond basic sustenance, therefore the wiles of advertising are lost on me. I can't even recall any of the things that were advertised. Thirty Minutes of my life sitting in the dark watching visual filler intended to alter my habits.

We're a set of eyelid retractors away from A Clockwork Orange, people!

¹ This would mean you could stab him, or smash him.

Them: We're sorry about Slavery. Us: WE DON'T CARE!!!

2006-11-27T12:15:00.000Z

I've mentioned this in the past, but I really don't think public apologies are worth the hot air.

Getting Tony Blair to apologise for slavery is Stupid Full Stop Capital Letter, even before we get to the "saying sorry to The World" part. Hell, even the woman who says that all countries involved in slavery should apologies says that "words mean nothing". Reading the big, bold, capital letters between the lines, she wants cash and plenty of it. This has, of course, been tried before. Namibia wanted Germany to cough up some Euros for some genocide during an uprising when it was a colony, which I'll bet they never did.

The Church has voted to apologise, but therein lie discrepancies;
1. Since when was religion a democracy? Maybe in the same way as the United Federation of Planets. When it's fictional, it can be anything you want...
2. If they're apologising for slavery, then can we expect apologies for Rape, Pillage, Murder, Genocide, Slavery and all the other shit they've got away with over the centuries.
But let's not get me going on religion again...

So, does anyone REALLY care that no-one apologies for things that happened so long ago? The only thing I can think of is to keep the memory of the act alive and highlight the evil nature of it, that it may never be repeated. If this is the case, then Job Done. We already know that Rape, Pillage, etc are Bad. Does saying "sorry" really make absolutes any more absolute?

So, we apparently expect people to say sorry for things that happened a few hundred years ago? So what about apologies for all the wars in those years? If Saddam was made to say sorry, would the peoples of Iraq really give two shits either way? In the future, are the United Nations of Earth going to have to apologise to the Galactic Alien Horde for Neil Armstrong walking on the moon because the US didn't know it was a graveyard for the WJKRTREK people?

This is all about people wanting to make money out of someone's suffering, it's just that the "people" are the same people as the "someone". Anyway, let us not forget that this is The Real World. If Pirates still exist, then you can be damn sure that Slavery still does. You want someone to say sorry; catch some slavers and make THEM sorry.

The slavery they want an apology for happened beyond living memory, so to whom are we apologising? Descendants; people several generations removed from the act itself. People who are now probably all living in the First World somewhere with access to education and healthcare and flushing toilets. So, we'll say sorry if you're happy to put aside the world into which you were so unfairly thrust (purely by dint of procreation) and return to the nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence of your forefathers? No? You do surprise me.

Life Isn't Fair

2006-11-02T12:53:00.000Z

We know this. We've been told this so many times, we're sick of it. Time and time again, RocketBootDad has, in response to my cries of "That's not fair!", said "Life isn't fair." But why? Is there any reason why it can't be fair?

When you think about it, what we're actually doing is telling our kids, from an early age, that Justice is flawed, that the concepts of Right and Wrong are completely pointless and that what it boils down to is what you can get away with, and what you can't; Risk vs Reward.

Before children are beaten with The "Life Isn't Fair" Stick to the point where Hope, Justice and Possibility lie Shattered beneath the Iron Jackboot of Cynicism, they ask The Right Question. Which is? Why.

There is a stage where a child will ask of its parent "Why?", to which the parent will inevitably give some hastily fabricated web of nonsense. Undeflected, the child persists and eventually the exasperated parent roars "Because it just IS!!!!!!!". Now, as I constantly find myself telling RocketBootKidKid, that's not a real reason.

"Because it is" is the universal excuse given by all The Worlds adults to their offspring for the shit they're going to inherit. Now, we rationalise this by saying that we want to protect them from the harsh realities of life. But my point is really; why do they need protected? Do there have to be any harsh realities?

To everyone whose brain has just gone "Yes", I will say "Why?", and then I'll say "My point exactly!" Is there some genetic or biological or cosmological or any-ological reason why we can't sort all the things which we rationalise by saying "Life isn't fair"? I think we should all be able look at things and ask "Why?", without our brain automatically answering "Because it just is."

Because if we can't, I fear it may be the death of us.

On the Sixth Day, he panicked...

2006-10-18T22:12:00.000+01:00

What follows is a dramatic reconstruction of the events that happened in Heaven, on Day 6 of the Great Universe Build-off. God has just finished watching Match of The Day and is just finishing off a few odds and ends...

Right, what's left to do? Oo, Korea. Right, there's Korea, bit more of a bend in it...there! Right, stick it onto China.....rrrr, come on! Right, it's hammer time! {BANG-BANG-BANG-SNAP!} Bugger. OK, North Korea and South Korea. That's OK. Need to stick them together; there's too many islands as it is, especially after I dropped Canada onto Greece. Shit, no glue left. What do we have? Oh well, landmines it is then. There...

Geologic faults. Best close my eyes for this one. {THUD-CRACK!} There! Wo, what are the chances. Those cities aren't going to last long. Mind you, that may sort out the moral fibre issues. Thursday afternoon was not great.

Next...North Africa. I've wasted enough time on this already; I just can't decide what to put there. Hmmm, all out of trees but I do have a big load of sand left. But every other land at that latitude is pretty green; it'll look shoddy. Oh well, desert it is {SAND}.

Err... Greenland. I'll just cover that in snow and ice {SNOW & ICE}; that'll keep them guessing. And I'll give it to.....this tiny flat country down with the guys with the pointy helmets. Give them somewhere to row to. Hope what's left of Canada isn't too much of a mess. I'll just make it really cold like Greenland and no-one will go there.

Right, still lots of odds and ends in the animals parts bin. We have.....duck feet and bills.....dolphin tails....pouches.....a shitload of little furry bodies.....hippo faces.....long bones.....long spiral horns. Throw them in the air, where they land...{TOSS-SPLAT!}..huh! That...sorta works. A little rabbit-thing with duck bits and pockets. I'll just put them down the bottom; maybe no-one will notice. Oops, the horns fell onto those whales.....dude, cool!

OK, a few minutes left. Let's put some brown people over here in the white country and some white people in the brown country and we'll just see who lasts longest. Just make sure that all the hotel room bedside tables have Bibles in them....Good.

Right, last but not least, the piece de resistance, Tolerance, Wisdom, Restraint, Respect; my finest creations. Without them, this world will be Hel...{BEEPETY-BEEP}..What's that beeping? Oh shit, it's Midnight! It's Sunday! Fuck! The whole week out the window. Oh, Man!, these guys are so screwed!

Don't underestimate the Commies!

2006-10-18T13:39:00.000+01:00

The Red Peril is alive and well! And I'm not talking about the threat of nuclear annihilation from the East (or West, depending on where you live and about whom you think I'm talking). Some people might pour scorn on the ability of a communist country these days to field a workable nuclear arsenal. I am in no doubt, and I'll tell you why.

Communists do processions like no one else. No one can get several thousand people to stand in big square, all wearing grey, wearing hats, waving The Little Red Book, chanting the same mantra and making sure they know the words quite like a Communist country. I bet we couldn't do that in a Democracy (if such a thing exists). We couldn't get several hundred thousand people to turn up in one place at the same time, wearing the same stuff, all with the same gear and all knowing the same words³.

Firstly, all you need is for one person to say "Make me!" and you're buggered. "Aww, we're not allowed to make you, it's a democracy! You have to want to stand outside looking and sounding like everyone else."

Next up, there is not one universal garment we all own. So, assuming we'd turn up at all, it would look shoddy, not nice and neat like a Communist parade. That's the problem; give people a choice and they'll all buy different stuff, which ruins the effect at mass rallies to praise the dear leader.

There is also the critical mass of people to consider. Put one hundred thousand Communists in a square and they'll happily wave Little Red Flags all day because they're not having to work twenty hours down t' pit, or being shot. Put one hundred thousand capitalists in a square and tell them to wave a flag and it'll kick off within thirty seconds.

It's a logistics problem. Over here there would be problems at the Little Blue Flag factory and arguments in the tabloid press about the exact wording of the Party Song and the precise breakdown of minorities in the civilian ranks and how to make everyone look uniform when they aren't. A democratic government just couldn't put on as good a procession as communist one. There just aren't words in North Korean for "health and safety" or "liability".

So, checklist for really kick-ass parade;
1. Hundreds of thousands of civilians, wearing the same clothes, waving the same flag, moving and singing the same song in unison,
2. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, goose-stepping really fast in unison,
3. Several Hundred gun-metal grey-green battle tanks¹ trundling alongside, their gun barrels elevated just so,
4. Fly past of Eighties-vintage ex-Soviet gun-metal grey-green fighter-bombers strewn with missiles².
5. Vast parade ground surrounded by monolithic state departments strewn with vast nationalistic flags.
6. Last, and most importantly, a balding, bespectacled pervert alcoholic, with the power to kill everyone who doesn't wave in unison or know the words, to wave and smile.

All in all, if there was a World Championships for processions, and Communist countries attended, they would kick Yankee imperialist ass. And if they can out-procession us, who knows what else they can do...

¹ Is there another kind of tank? "Where's the ICBM?" "Over there behind the Notting Hill Carnival Peace and Love Tank."
² Why do Communist missiles always have twice as many fins on them than Democratic missiles? They do. You see them on the news; you can barely see the missile for fins. Maybe there's a permanent shortage at the missile factory, while fin production proceeds on schedule, so they think "Fuck it, just stick them all on."
³ The closest you'd get would be the final of the World Cup, but there would always be at least two colours and two versions of the words.

Veiled Threat?

2006-10-16T20:42:00.000+01:00

I don't pretend to understand why some Muslin women wear veils and to be perfectly honest I don't want to. I find that if things have to be explained to me then I'm not going to understand the reasoning. Any reason I am given, though no doubt logical and obvious to the person giving it, will not necessarily make me go "Ahhhh, I see. Well, that's OK then."

All I need to do to is accept that, for whatever reason, some people in this country choose to wear a different style of dress to me¹. Why should Muslim women wearing a veil be any different to a youth wearing a hooded top? Why should either of these groups be any more dangerous than someone whose face is unobscured?

The only reason the discussion about veils and hooded tops is even an issue is because of the scare tactics we've borrowed from the Americans. If you can't identify someone, you can't track their movements. The quote I keep coming back to is "You can make people do anything if they're scared enough". To be honest, when it comes to obscuring identity, I'm considerably more worried about the ne'er-do-wells who don't care if you see their face.

What's the next step? Banning all loose fitting garments; overcoats, skirts, jackets, because you could be hiding a bomb? Banning clothing altogether because it is possible to incorporate explosives into the garment? Will there come a time where we are all forced to wear government-mandated unitards, colour-coded to identify our race? There's a fucking scary thought... What about facial hair? Will you be forced to shave every day because you can hide your true appearance under a beard?

Surely veils and such like can be classed as National dress? Are they going to ban all forms of national dress just because of the connotations? They banned kilts back in the day, so I wouldn't put it past them. It comes down to what we associate clothes with. Tie = office worker, Jeans / No belt = construction worker, wetsuit = Tory MP, etc. All this bollocks does is forever link the veil / burka / etc with the idea of female suicide bombers.

The veils thing is all window-dressing anyway; it's just fog obscuring The Real Issue; that which is really at stake here. Society. The notion of different peoples living togther in peace, sharing their culture and ideas. Britain The Island is historically anti this sort of thing, because in the past, cultural exchange meant dropping bombs on each other. The fear of foreign influence is so ingrained it will not go away overnight.

The solution? Accept it. Accept that we don't understand, accept that different is not necessarily bad, accept that it will take time, accept that not everyone means you harm, accept the new blood into our Society and realise that we are stronger because of it. Take action. Do nothing.

¹ Being a Scot, I am accustomed to wearing "a different style of dress", not that the kilt is a dress, you understand...

Talks: All mouth and no exploding trousers.

2006-10-05T12:32:00.000+01:00

Talks. Only politicians and diplomats can have Talks. Everyone else has conversations, chats, arguments, gossips, you name it, they do it. But they never Talk, oh no.

There are other things that politicians and diplomats do that involves talking, but they're not Talks. Conferences are where they talk to their people and their people can stand up and clap and go "Bravo, you're a stand up guy!". Summits¹ are where all the leaders get together in a locked room, drink brandy, tell knock-knock jokes and make fun of the President of Guatemala whose wig isn't on straight. Meetings are where they get together their closest people and decide who gets to go on Paxman and draw straws to see who gets fired for this weeks balls-up.

Talks are where they get everyone in a big round room and sit them round a big round table with headphones on while all their minions run about in the background carrying bits of paper from one the President of Uzbekistan to the Prime Minister of Kenya asking "Have you got a mint?".

One by one, they all get up in front of a microphone and;
1/ If they're from South-somewhere-or-other, they make loud, angry statements about the First World bastards and all their evil doings,
2/ If they're from East-somewhere-else, they make cryptic, veiled threats about the intrusion of the First World gaijin bastards into their back-yard nuclear programmes, because they didn't sign any non-proliferation treaty and, besides, you guys don't hold to your agreements anyway, so why should we? Hello, Kyoto? The UN?,
3/ If they're from Middle-somewhere, they decry the validity of the talks, their infidel First World bastard hosts and their oil-grabbing-poorly-disguised-as-nation-building foreign policy,
3/ If they're First World bastards, they roll their eyes and make placating statements about striving for peace and protecting their way of life.

All this is then relayed, via interpreters, into the headphones of all the people who don't speak Kreplakistani. Basically, the single Kreplakistani interpreter could say anything he likes because no-one can call him on it. That's why, when Talks are televised, the people with the headphones on are all smiling while the guy with the microphone is all red and shouty; the interpreter is telling them the joke he heard from the Kreplakistani ambassador about the Swedish flight attendant and the ping pong ball.

So they all come out much later on and are collared by reporters who ask how the Talks are going, to which they reply that progress is being made and that it's a difficult process. "Progress" means that each hour they sit there is an hour nearer the end of the talks and "Difficult" means that each hour they sit there is another hour they won't get back.

Then they all climb into black S-class Mercedes and are ferried back to their embassies, official residences or high-class knocking shops around the corner where the South-somewhere and East-somewhere types can get their freak on. What goes on tour, stays on tour.

At the end of it all, nothing is resolved, everyones prejudicies have been confirmed, thousands of litres of Evian have been quaffed, many knock-knock jokes told, many S-classes soiled by twice, maybe three times as many oiled-up escort girls, opinions have been voiced, grievances aired, canapes scoffed, hands shaken, toupees glued and hotels secured.

Everyone goes back to their stomping ground and, having wined, dined and soixante-neufed anthing that wasn't nailed down while away, they then proceed to pee on the media fires that their absence has generated.

Who'd be a politiplomat, eh?

¹ Why are these never held on top of mountains?

Precision Munitions vs Dirty Bombs

2006-10-02T13:42:00.000+01:00

Progress. The only positive byproduct of human existence beyond basic procreation. The Number One Catalyst? War. War has been, and probably is, the biggest driver for technological innovation ever. Most advancements have been directly or indirectly involved in ending lives as efficiently as possible, or preventing it from happening.

America spends God-knows how much on Defence each year. Their prototypes are an estimated ten to fifteen years ahead technologically of anything in service today. Think about the state of your household tech in the Eighties compared to now and imagine how gucci their kit is now.

The sad thing, leaving aside the necessity of having to have weapons in the first place, is that the effectiveness of a weapon has NOTHING to do with technology. You could invent a time machine, go forward to the point just before weapons are abolished, buy the most advanced weapon available, bring it back, and it can be rendered completely useless by the lack of the will to employ it (ignoring the possibility of it ceasing to exist, depending on your understanding of the joys of time travel).

First World society has evolved to the point where "jetting off to a foreign land to go and kill the yellow man" does just not cut it with the folks with the votes. So all this expenditure on clever bullets and so forth is kinda pointless. America knows this only too well. After Vietnam, it knows that wars are won at home, with the hearts and minds of the people who pay for it. Get the public onside and you can do anything. Hell, you can ignore the UN if you feel like it.

And all these technological advances are designed to combat any enemy that does not exist. For example, designing bullets that can penetrate ceramic armour which they only invented themselves last week and which no-one else has had a chance to buy / steal yet. Basically, they're designing weapons to fight other First World powers, of which there aren't any, at least not militarily.

The enemies of the First World are not kevlar-clad laser-guided super-soldiers with an IQ of 120 and a Masters in International Relations, toting 200 IQ points worth of processing power in their fanny packs. They are barely-educated, poorly fed tribespeople with Religion at their side and an AK on their back who are pissed that some foreign infidel has deemed their way of life to be a threat.

The mere act of attacking first-generation enemies with fifth-generation weapons inevitably means that the tech-level of your enemy is increased, because, like Star Wars, the designers never envisage the possibility that a guy with a rifle could possibly shoot one bullet down a small tube and make the whole thing go boom, and everything that didn't go boom can and will be used against you in a warzone near you soon.

Take Afghanistan; the only instance of a country bombed forward into the Stone Age. Even before George's "Global War on Terror" tour hit town, they had been fighting the Russians not that long before, using weapons supplied to them by the CIA and bits and pieces of busted Hind helicopters.

If the recent history of warfare is anything to go by, fighting fire with fuel-air explosives ends in defeat. Trying to kill a guy in a cave in Afghanistan by carpet bombing him with B-52s has been probably been as successful as it was when they carpet bombed guys in black pajamas in the South East Asian jungle. Although I haven't checked with Sun Tzu on this, there must come a time where the level of force is so disproportionate that it ceases to be effective. Laser-Guided Smart Bomb + Politics = Pointy Stick.

Think of it like trying to kill a fly with the World's Biggest Fly Swatter. Because it's the World's Biggest, the fly is small enough to fit through the gaps unscathed.
Or trying to shoot down a WW1 fighter with a F-15. Even if radar would pick him up, the guy would be on the ground enjoying an espresso before the Eagle Driver had gained enough space to turn around, lock on and fire before overshooting.

So if you want to defeat a low-tech enemy, you have to get low-tech, or try to employ your high-tech in a low-tech way, if your morals or political will can handle it. If you have to fight, you've already lost. But if you want to fight and can't, you shouldn't even play the game.

Russians Launch White Elephant

2006-07-13T11:28:00.000+01:00

Being an engineer, I'm as happy to applaud endeavour and practical success as am to grimace at the possibilites for messy public disaster.

Take the new Inflatable Space Hotel that was launched today aboard a converted Russian ICBM. While the concept of a zero-G bouncy castle can only appeal, I for one will not be among the first to sample the embarrassment of a vacuum toilet or the endless waits strapped to a wall while they eject all the disorientation-induced hurl¹ into space.

Those of you who enjoy some sort of recreational solo sport (yes, thank you!) that requires sharing the playing surface with other, slower people, will doubtless not be looking forward to being clobbered by out-of-control younger-brothers who have been flung through the void, spinning and throwing up with gay abandon.

Even if you're happy to spend some time on the company of others whose brains are trying (and failing) to deal with the concept of "There is no up", there are other considerations. "I thought her unsinkable and I based my opinion on the best expert advice." Thus spake Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice President on the "unsinkability" of RMS Titanic.

Flash forward to today, when hotel tycoon Robert Bigelow said in reference to his extraterrestrial blimp, "It's extremely durable and resistant to any puncture or penetration". Note the word "resistant". No doubt Mr Bigelow is aware of the parallels. I doubt that anything inflatible will be able to withstand a micrometeorite going 15km/s. I wonder how far and fast the escaping air at breathable pressures could propel an inflatible hotel before supplies were exhausted. I bet that's not a question that's come up. Be fun to find out though.

In launch terms, it's a more constructive use of ICBMs than MAD. Who knowsI what the Americans have done with theirs (probably kept them) but at least the Russians are using their Cold War Communist hardware to embrace Capitalism and kick Uncle Sam's ass in the process.

I wonder what the Russians think of putting a bouncy castle in orbit. They'd probably be perfectly happy with an earth-based one. I get the impression that putting things in orbit is as old-hat and commonplace to the average Russian as waiting in line, while the West bangs on about it at length. I bet they have a good old laugh at the all the requests they get. "Hey Yuri, look at this. Some American идиот wants to put a beach ball into orbit. Do we let him?"

Anyway, cool idea, go for it, hope very hard it doesn't go bang with a load of kids / nuns inside....

¹ See "vomit".

Chairman of The Bored

2006-07-11T22:07:00.000+01:00

You think you're bored? You think, just because you clicked the "Next Site" button on your StumbleUpon toolbar and it said you've visited every single link in its entire link database, that means you're bored? Think again, my friend. That just means that you get off on clicking the next "Next Site" button. It's browser masturbation.

Let me tell you about boredom. You clear a space on your desk. On it you place a fresh pad of paper and a freshly sharpened biro. You clear your mind of all save the seed of innovation: I need just one idea to make me a millionaire. The pen and paper stare at you. You stare back, your mind empty now of even the seed of innovation. The pen and paper start to whistle. Even the pen and paper are bored, for goodness sake!

The pen and paper represent Possibility, that which may yet come to pass. However, it represents Failure, your inability to create. Your oeuvre cries out for attention. Neglected, it has developed serious personality issues. The hungry child cries out for the Chocolate Biscuits of Ideas, locked safe in the Kitchen Cabinet of the Fruitless Mind.

My oeuvre deserves better. It could complain more than it does. It makes do with video games and the occasional book, but it needs to be stretched. It purpose is to be filled with wondrous creations, but the mind does not oblige.

The mind is a seamless ball and contains all the ideas. The oeuvre surrounds the mind. Typically, the mind is transparent. The oeuvre can see the ideas, but is powerless to free them. I'm amazed it's still sane.

Unlocking this vault of ides and innovation is the key to fulfillment. An oeuvre that is bursting at the seams is a happy one. A mind unfettered by unrealised potential is then free to progress.

The search for The Key continues.

England. World Cup and World Domination

2006-07-03T09:40:00.000+01:00

It is generally accepted that there are only two sure things in life; death and taxes. I think we can safely add a third; the England football team crashing out of a major tournament on penalties. It's getting to the point where there is no drama anymore. While I'm not English, my heart rate barely rose at all when watching the penalty shoot-out. How can there be any tension when the result can be foretold by even the ost myopic seer?

David Beckham said it was "one of those days, again", meaning, I assume, that he considered them unlucky to lose. But "one of those days" and "again" are mutually exclusive. If every day becomes "one of those days", then they stop being "those days". "Those Days" become the norm.

I don't believe that this phenomenon is the recourse purely of the national football team. "England Expects" seems to capture it best. Originally, that meant that they expected "every man to do his duty", along the lines of "play up, play up and play the game". These days, it means that England is expected to win, in the same way that Brazil is expected to win. Brazil, at least, have good reason for these expectations.

The English media are the worst enemies of England. They seem determined to undermine any forward-thinking attempts and lambast, vilify and undermine achievers by whatever means necessary. They hype the public face of England, in the form of the national teams, then snipe and destroy them for anything less then total victory, which smacks of the Colombian or Iraqi approach to sporting failure. "Welcome home. Don't worry about it. Here, come into this sound-proofed room for a cup of tea. Just ignore the firing squad....I mean, 21 gun salute."

I think it is partly down to England suffering from Post-Imperial malaise. Yes, I know that was a while ago, but history and all that. England is still culturally used to having its own way. It's the whole "going to the Costa del Sol and having Sausage, Egg and Chips in the english pub", "Do you speak English? Why not?" thing. Deep down, I don't think they believe these colonial johnnies can beat them at their own game (although they do, regularly and with ease).

England was the pre-eminent World Power until not that long ago; we're talking a handful of generations. Not quite living memory, but not far off. Eddie Izzard, bless him, encapsulated this, when referring to the leadership of the world as a ball; "America has the ball. Britain has a memory of a ball. Hitler had a picture of a ball."

You would have thought that some measure of realism may have crept in since England had to give back all its colonies after the war, but no. England, and hence Britain, are still feasting on the legacy of the Empire, gorging on the accumulated wealth it brought. But, like any inbred Old Money aristo fop, selling off the family estate for a swanky Mayfair pad and an easy life, this situation cannot be maintained. Daddy's pair of Holland & Holland Number Ones won't pay the bills for ever.

Microsoft UK Challenge 06 - Ayrshire & Arran

2006-06-16T20:37:00.000+01:00

My brain has just about recovered to the point where I can commit my actions to the Ether without the remembrance causing painful flashbacks.

From the 7th - 11th June 2006 (last week to you and me), I was being tortured by The Microsoft Corporation. And I wasn't alone. Myself and four colleagues were coerced into attending a inter-company competition, only to find ourselves locked in a Battle Royale, if you will, with representatives from 115 other companies.

And the authorities were in on it. I personally cycled past two Officers Of The Law, whose efforts my company support with their endeavours, and requested that they take me into custody for Crimes Against Humanity; i.e. me. Their response? Derisive laughter, if you please! I pay their salaries! Hmph, evidently a mere gratuity next to The Corporations dollar.

And did the hated Corporation furnish its gladiators with any weapons with which to do battle? Nay. Our chief weapon was cunning, our greatest ally, hope. That, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.....no, wait, that's not right. I mean, That, and a mountain bike, a device that inflicts more damage to the wielder than the wieldee¹.

Six stages spread over for days and nights. Building a waterwheel at 11pm? Mountain Biking, Kayaking and Running in the same day? Six hours of cycling and running up mountains? A whole HOUR of puzzles? Ha! These trials hold no fear for me, for I have endured them all, and overcome.

Out of 116 teams, we placed 47th, above teams who had actually TRAINED, who had multiple substitutes and support teams and all manner of what have you! You'd think you'd learn things after something like that? And you'd be right.

1. You can be the fastest runner in the world, but if you're running in the wrong direction.....
2. You can always push yourself further than you think.
3. You can always achieve more as a team.
4. You will always be better at something new than you think.

Sunday dawned. The Corporation released their captives back into the world, so that we may go forth and take news of the experience to the masses. And what pearl of wisdom did I invariably impart to those who prayed at my font of knowledge?

"It was hard, but good".

Amen.

¹I don't suppose "wieldee" is a word, is it?

The View from My Window 9/3/06

2006-03-09T09:28:00.000Z

Monthly progress report on the building site next door. For those keeping track, you can view last months report here.

The site has been cleared and BigYellowDigger has been fired and replaced with BIGYellowDigger, who spent the last two weeks making big mounds of earth. It didn't take two weeks to make mounds of earth with a digger. Oh no. It took two weeks to move the mounds of earth around the site until the got them where they wanted them, where they looked nice. And then they removed them completely.

While the mounds of earth were around, BIGYellowDigger took to sitting on top of them. As if being BIG and Yellow weren't enough, it has to build itself a cushioned pedestal on which to place its caterpillar tracks.

I've been off for a couple of days. Before I went, there were guys with theodelites going round surveying the site. Now I've come back and the guys have gone and there are lots of little crosses around the place. Evidently BIGYellowDigger went off on one and squished all the theodelite guys. In a morbid touch, the crosses are all yellow, no doubt to remind us of their little yellow coats and who perpetrated the heinous crime. And BIGYellowDigger, the murderer, is still there, merrily digging like nothing happened.

People are Boring. Celebrities doubly so.

2006-03-06T12:55:00.000Z

I think it was good old Winnie Churchill who said "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on". I don't think, I know. I just copied this off a webpage somewhere. But while the wording may be off, the truth of the statement is fully clothed.

Global communication being what it is, we info-consumers now have larger info-voids to fill than we used to. It used to be that one could fruitfully spend ones life reading the paper and then going round to friends houses to discuss this and that and whatnot over a snifter of brandy in the library.

Now there is less latency in the reporting system, there is more space for information. However, supply has yet to meet with demand, which is why the slack is taken up with talking heads and "entertainment news" and lifestyle mags for bored housewives. All of which leads to the inescapable fact.

People are boring.

And if people are boring, Celebrities are at least twice as boring. Turn on your idiot box at any hour of the day and there will be some made-up person who has some level of fame being asked questions to which we already know the answer. And that's not because we heard the answer before, it's because the questions are formulaic and those of you who "do" mathematics will know that for a formula, there are a limited number of correct¹ answers.

Take the Oscars². I haven't watched any of this years ceremony and I won't watch the "highlights". Because I don't have to. They will consist of:

Some wiseass comedian presenter, who is the most interesting and talented person there

A tearful acceptance speech by an actress you hoped would know better

A boring acceptance speech by a middle-aged actor who could only be interesting and amusing with the right script and several million bucks dangling in front of him, or his cobblers in a vice

Close ups of losing nominees trying to look happy for the winner and turning up much better performances than in the films for which they were nominated

Post-ceremony interviews with nominees saying they didn't mind not winning, especially when the person who did is so beautiful / talented / whatever!

Some sort of wardrobe malfunction

Random starlets with their tits hanging out (which I whole-heartedly endorse, by the way, if you're reading this.)

Vacuous interviewers with lower dresses, higher hems and fewer brains trying to pry backstage goss from movie-types who would only indulge if there was a pre-backstage-shenanigan agreement in place

Its all very formulaic and you can basically toss the whole lot in the air and it'd all fall back roughly into place and voila! Next years Oscars.

Showbiz appears to be the place for people with no conversational skills and some other random physical attribute to go and be made to look interesting. Bob de Niro may be a great actor, but you just know he's dull as shit to talk to. He, at least, doesn't try to be interesting. The worst people are those who are dull and try to act bright.

But there's a lot of that about, and it's not limited to famous / celebrity people either. We all know someone who hijacks parties and conversations and tries to fill it with stories of their brilliance. We, the witty, urbane, sophisticates that we are, stand there casually, nodding at their inanities and rolling our eyes at each other.

If you're not interesting, be realistic. You're not going to be, especially if you try. And if you think you are interesting, newsflash; that's a sure sign that you aren't. It's like telling a joke; if you can, do. But, and be truthful, if you can't, please don't. People like the truth. If you go to a party and say "Who wants to sleep with me? I'm the most interesting person here!", you'll be sharing the cab home with a kebab as per usual.

To paraphrase, it's better to keep quiet and be thought boring, than to speak and remove all possible doubt. At least keeping schtum means you can be the conundrum, the "mystery guest". Don't be famous. Being an unknown is way more interesting.

¹ By "correct", I mean "not career-threatening".
² Please. Far away.

This Post Has No Title. Or Content.

2006-03-01T12:21:00.000Z

I'm still here. Just struggling for material. Repeat after me; "The best material is no material". Keep repeating that until you believe it.

If pushed to come up with a feature exhibit at the Tate Modern, I would submit a piece of paper with a pencil on it, which I would call "Possibility". Either that or "The Reflected Brilliance of the World as Seen by a Blind Man wearing Red Shorts"; just to keep the Art bods happy¹.

So, what do you write when there is nothing to write? What do you say when everything has been said? I should ask a tabloid journalist. However, I'm not content to supply the words for pictures of Jordan doing something purile. I could probably come up with suitable malapropisms, just to keep people "a-breast" of her situation, but I'd feel bad about having to do it. P.S. Did you see what I did there? Aren't I clever? Gary Bushell, eat your heart out.

So, if I'm not content with commenting on the nocturnal activities of people whose name I know but not what they do, then what do I talk about? I appear, in the sixty or so posts to date, to have tackled most of the spiky bits in my particular piece of mental lawn and I don't think there's any benefit mowing it again. The spiky bits will always be there; I just develop thicker skin so I can walk barefoot through my brain without stepping on Racism and Intolerance that even the most caustic weedkiller cannot eradicate.

Speaking of gardens, an allegory has arrived. Society has swept the Scythe of Justice over the world, believing that all errant blades of sedition and wrongdoing have been neatly trimmed and is putting all its efforts into chasing dodgy politicians and coming up with very specific legislation to prevent Mrs Betty Green of Newport Pagnell from letting her little yappy-type dog make little yappy barks between lunch and afternoon tea. While Mrs Green feels the full force of Justice, the blades of scum and villainy, who merely ducked while The Scythe passed overhead, are growing happily in the rich manure left in Society's wake.

The next source of material; what other people write about. I do make the effort to read what other people write in online newspapers and blogs, but only rarely do I find anything thought-provoking. More evidence that everything has been said. There are no new ideas; merely old ideas in a new hat. I could roll out some old ideas in new hats, but the intelligent people who read this blog would say "Oy, that's an old idea in a new hat" and I'd sigh and say, "Yes, but what a hat".

That's what new things are. The Internet is just the telephone with extra pockets, the airliner is just a bus with a big hat, a train is just some buses that all arrive at once², genetic engineering just evolution with running shoes on. Romeo and Juliet is just the classic Boy Meets Girl, Boy Marries Girl, Boy and Girl Die in Tragic Love Pact, but with knobs on. Which is a downbeat way of looking at Man's achievements.

I guess, having dressed up core arguments in my own fancy dress up 'til now, I'm no longer happy doing that. I want people to be dressing up my ideas.

The Big Question: Do I have the mental furniture to come up with new ideas? Am I a philosophical fashion designer? Can I craft Fendi shoes and Gucci handbags, ideas that do not require dressing up? Can I arrive at the mental Little Black Dress?

Watch this space (but be prepared to wait).

¹ I can't understand how Arty types see what they see when they look at Art. I guess its interpretation; they see waves breaking on a beach of shimmering amethyst, I see a brick.
² So, just like buses then.

Media Memory: I thought he was dead.

2006-02-15T12:47:00.000Z

That was my first thought when I read the linked article a few days back; "I thought he was dead". Which of course he isn't, as far as I know. Unless Israeli medicine is so far advanced of modern medicine that operating on a dead man is anything other than a fantastic waste of time. It's possible; if they can surgically destroy Palestinian civilians with Cobra gunships, while only denting the intended Hamas targets, who know what they can do.

This post only came about when reading a previous post about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I realised that the only news I have heard recently about the wake of Katrina is that the US have magnanimously decided to share the blame across all levels of government. Which is big of them. What I haven't heard is what shape New Orleans is in, are its citizens still spread across the remaining Lower 47¹, did anyone get fired over it, are they bothering to do anything about it?

Who knows? Certainly people outside the US only get sporadic information, when a news station does a news special: "Katrina: One Month / Year On". I'll wager even most Americans don't know; you tell me, does the local TV station² tell you these things?

It's scary to think that even today with 24-Hour news, we only find out what they tell us. Well, duh! OK, what I mean is that someone decides what is News. Some Editor somewhere looks at all the possible stories and decides what the News is and that's what we get. Just another example of how the MSM (a blogger-specific term wot I just learned - MainStream Media) manipulates our world.

I get the feeling that the editorial decision to just cover breaking and recent stories may account for the existence, success and demise of things like Fathers4Justice. In order that someone's plight is recognised, something newsworthy needs to happen to highlight their predicament, whether its pelting Tone with flour, or climbing up the side of the Queen, or poking the London Eye. Only big, public changes to a situation make the news.

But I'm also thinking, having written the above paragraph, that what I'm asking may be outside the remit of the News. If News is meant to cover "new" stories, then asking them to recover old stories would not be up to them. Maybe what we need is an accompanyment to the News. So after the Nine O'Clock News, we get the NineThirty Olds. Sir Trevor could be persuaded to present follow-ups to stories that aren't new enough to make the news.

I think I may have stumbled upon the reason for programmes like Newsnight and....the other political discussion programmes that barely register on my TV radar. They serve as bookends for the News, highlighting the news of the future and picking over its remains once its anniversaries are due. Plus it gives Paxman somewhere to submit the ne'er-do-well du jour to his own brand of Righteous Justice.

So, remember that what you see on the News is not everything. What you saw on the News yesterday is still going on. The repercussions of the news a year ago are still being felt. Keep the Olds alive!

¹ I doubt any of the evacuees were lucky enough to get sent to Hawaii, or unlucky enough to get sent to Alaska.
² If only US TV and Radio station names were allowed in Scrabble. Imagine the points you could get with "WKXY" and a Triple Word Score!

Valentines Day, brought to you by Hallmark

2006-02-14T12:35:00.000Z

I sold out, I admit it. I went to the LargeGenericFoodShop yesterday and spent a ridiculous amount of money on a piece of red card folded in two and an envelope. Ridiculous not because the card was big, only because it's just a piece of card folded in two! And it only took five minutes to choose because 95% of the cards were stilted, stereotypical drivel and only half the remaining 5% were physically visible amid the reams of red roses and ridiculous ribbons.

We always bang on about people like Microsoft charging hundreds of your local currency units for software of debatable quality and have no qualms about paying anything up to ten of your local currency units on a card to give to your beau / significant other / spouse just because Hallmark thinks you should. OK, if the card it played "Unchained Melody" when opened, I can accept it costing 10 local currency units. However, I'd never buy one because I'd be too busy packing my bags to go live in self-inflicted solitude for even contemplating buying one.

Valentines Day has some history behind it, I'll admit, but the history has been hijacked to make money. At least it has more of a basis than Mothers and Fathers Days, which are inventions entirely fabricated by the card companies to make you spend money.

What are traditional Valentines¹ gifts meant to imply anyway? "Here's some chocolates = You're too skinny". Or "Here's a bunch of flowers which were killed by a slave in a field in the Third World, put on a plane burning fossil fuels at a ferocious rate, so that you can enjoy them for the next two hours before they melt into a wilted and possibly contagious puddle = Our love is doomed to die."
"Here's a card = I got this at the petrol station on the way home, got sneered at by the attendant for being a thoughtless, typical man and I wrote things in it five minutes ago while you were downstairs making my lunch".

And why do we need themed days anyway? It seems like every day or so its Knicker Elastic Awareness Week, or Stop Beating Your Family to Death Month, or Groundhog Day. These are all things you should think about all the time, especially when it comes to Valentines Day. If the Valentinee is a spouse or girl/boyfriend, then every day should be Valentines Day. If expressions of love and affection were only bestowed annually, I guarantee there would be no-one on which to bestow your monster card and bunch of fragrant, yet decomposing, posies.

If the Valentinee is not someone with whom you are currently making the beast with two backs, then a Valentines card is unlikely to further your cause any because;
1. If you make it anonymous, then you've spent lots of money and gained nothing,
2. If you didn't make it anonymous, then you're a creep without the guts to speak to the Valentinee to their face. You're a stalker who's using Valentines as cover.

A Valentines card is not a certificate ("This card certifies that the bearer loves the Valentinee for the period of one calendar year"), or legal tender ("I promise to love the bearer on demand for one calendar year"). At best it says "Look, I bought a card, I followed convention, I did what was expected; now I'm going to the pub / the golf course / my girlfriends house". It's worthless, merely a physical projection of a feeling, albeit strewn with cartoon rabbits, flowers and dirty limericks, for which there are no metaphysical equivalents.

So, if you love someone, tell them every day. Don't wait until Valentines Day to tell them. And don't waste money on corporate crap. Let Hallmark's pain be your joy.

PS I hope you bought one. It's really not worth the hassle.

¹ See, even I'm doing it. Using the term Valentines in the context of tradition. Sure, it dates back to the 1800s, but that's hardly tradition, unless you come from a country that only sprang into being since.

My Blog Phase 3: Answers in a Can, Please.

2006-02-11T08:30:00.000Z

I've been blogging for over 6 months now and have submitted many wrongs to the harsh light of Truth. The shine, however, is coming off. I don't mean that I don't enjoy it anymore, because I do, despite the feeling that I'm starting to pick at old wounds.

What worries me more is having gone through the thought processes and arriving at conclusions, I have now made up my mind, I've decided my position on things. So when I go into grown-up conversations, my answers are canned. I'm merely regurgitating things I have arrived at in isolation.

What this does is make me feel like how I perceive politicians to act; always dispensing well-worn lines in response to pointed, direct questions. Take Prime Ministers Questions. An opposition cabinet member is granted to the chance to lob a interrogative hand grendade at the PM, who removes the pin and throws it back with "I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago". And that's just bollocks. While the PM can reasonably say that he is merely avoiding repeating himself (and neatly removing the possibility of contradicting himself), the process is adding no value.

Just like any new skill, blogging, while incomprehensible to those who do not blog, takes time to learn. I started out merely regurgitating a few sorta funny things I'd had taking up valuable trivia space in my brain. I then moved into documenting my thought processes on the news du jour. Which is the Phase to which I feel I am coming to the end¹. Sure, there have been small diversions into adding pictures and linking into other blogs and other posts. But what I'm really after is the "killer app" for Phase 3 of my blogging career.

What I need is to go forth into the blogsphere, make friends and influence people. However, this means finding blogs that are covering the same sort of stuff as me. A couple of such people have found me (w00t to Ash and Golgotha_Tramp!) but I need to innovate and seek new advances.

If anyone wants to suggest good blogs or techniques for finding them, I'm all eyes. I'm perfectly happy to stand on the shoulders of blogiants.

¹ Not splitting infinitives(?) does make for wierd english sometimes, well, most times. As Winston Churchill famously stated "This is the sort of english up with which I will not put".

The View from My Window 9/2/06

2006-02-10T08:00:00.000Z

A bit of a departure for this blog. I have done "view from my window" posts before; see Getting The Brush Off Day 1 and Day 2.

From where I work (up a hill to the south of Glasgow), I have an unfettered view over the silvery Clyde and its environs to the snow-capped mountains of the majestic Highlands over 30 miles away..yada yada yada... No, it isn't raining. Sunny actually, although I did have to wear my Antarctic immersion suit to walk into work this morning. The "Wearing the wrong clothes? Just wait five minutes" effect in full flow.

However, the focus of my attention today is somewhat closer at hand. They are going to build a new building next door to mine. To get access they are having to denude the vegitation which has taken root on the spare ground and cut down a few trees.

Yesterday, first thing, a BigGreenTractor arrived, complete with FoliageMuncher2000¹ strapped to the back. It then proceeded to reverse into all the foliage and munched it all up. For those of you who have yet to enjoy this experience, the FoliageMuncher2000 consists of big, spinny blades. As well as munching up all the baby trees (Awww!), it also managed to inflict quite heavy damage to my boss' car. From thirty feet away. FM2000 obviously picked up a rock or piece of tree or squirrel and fired it into his bonnet. Dented it and the wing. Mucho expensivo.

Today, a BigYellowDigger has joined BigGreenTractor. It's starting to look like an episode of Bob The Builder. No evidence of pink concrete yet, but all we need is SmallAnnoyingOrangeCementMixer, TimidBlueCrane and MischeviousButHarmlessScarecrow and we'll be there. I'll keep you posted.

I'm hoping that, in the process of digging holes, they'll uncover "a series of small walls". The words "a series of small walls" are doubtless ingrained in the nation's psyche after having watched Tony Robinson's Time Team serial unearthing of said walls in every part of the Kingdom. They get in their funcky GeoPhys(ics) guy who walks around the place with a high-filutin' metal detector thingy from which they get a map with the merest suggestion of lines on it. From that, the graphical artist comes up with some fabrication of what it might have looked like in Roman Times. I'd love to get that job; Tony would come to me to see what I'd come up with and I'd present him with a full-colour rendition of Disneyland Florida.

It is both sad and impressive to witness the speed at which a "bloke in BigYellowDigger" followed by "bloke with a chainsaw" can denude a small stand of trees. At some level it is satisfying to see an ordered, uncluttered space appearing from the tangled undergrowth. As humans, we prefer order to chaos and the modern world is a result of our attempts to impose our will on the planet. However, being able to breathe aside, trees are just nice things to have around.

By some device or o'er, the BigYellowDigger has managed to get its jib hooked over a branch and is now swinging gaily like a lyrca-clad Orang Utan. Not really, but that would have been cool. In actual fact, the BlokeswithChainsaws, for there are two, cut the trees most of the way through and then BigYellowDigger comes along and pushes them over, much like elephants do. This seems unfair to me. I would rather BigYellowDigger did the deed without assistance from BlokeswithChainsaws. As well as being a non-macho colour, it can't even push over a little tree on its own. Pussy.

To continue the "Bob The Builder" theme, two new characters have been introduced; Maimy and Loppy, the Chainsaw Twins, join the gang. Much hilarity and dismemberment ensues, although everything gets sewn back on and they have a big laugh at the end.

Another sad but funny thought just occurred; I bet there are unfortunate Native American children who are named BigYellowDigger and BlokeswithChainsaws, just because when they were born, their parents looked out and saw the construction site invading their reservation. I'm reminded of the joke in which a young brave asks his father how he got his name, to which his father replies "Why do you ask, Two Dogs Screwing?".

Well, we've reached the end of the day. No-one cut anyone else's bits off with chainsaws, or pushed them over with diggers. Fingers Crossed for tomorrow!

¹ FoliageMuncher2000 is not a trademark. However, if I was in the business of foliage munchification, this is what I would call it.

Muhammed Mouse: Cartoons spark Jihad

2006-02-08T12:30:00.000Z

"Four killed in cartoon protests". If the reality wasn't so bad, it's a headline you might expect come April 1^st. You can just imagine Sir Trevor, were he still reading the news, trying to inject some gravitas into reports of Wile E Coyote blowing up The Simpsons and throwing Porky Pig off a cliff. "Cartoons spark Religious War" is the improbable but accurate headline for what is going on.

They say that there is no such thing as a new idea; merely new combinations of old ideas. That's what this post feels like; sticking together elements of previous posts. We've got a soupcon of religious intolerance, a smattering of ignorance and a big fat dollop of media fuckwittery. But that's the world we live in. We lurch from one faux pas to the next, lifting our foot from one debacle only to put it down in a new one. We'd leave it in mid-air, if only the standing foot wasn't squashing someone's human rights.

There is no safe ground anymore. Society has become self-violating. "Free" is not the absolute it was perceived to be. The only place where you can exercise your freedom of speech is in your room with your pillow over your face. It's like that Gary Larsson cartoon; "If a tree falls in a forest, and it hits a mime, does anyone care?". Similarly, if you voice a contentious opinion, and no-one hears you, have you actually exercised Free Speech, or caused offense? Neither? Both?

Whether the publishing of a craven image was intentional or simply down to ignorance matters little at this stage. Republishing it after it has caused uproar and outrage is just stupid. It goes beyond stupid, but I lack the words to express just how stupid. Billy Connolly was right; there are times when only swear words can convey the complete and total nature of the point one is making. "It's broken" leaves us in doubt as to how broken it is. "It's fucked", while crude, achieves clarity.

So, the medias choice to reprint material they knew would cause offense was fucking stupid. It's like someone saying "It hurts when I do this", to which we inevitably shout WELL STOP DOING IT, YOU IRRETRIEVABLE BERK! Jyllands-Posten can claim ignorance, or pretend it was done to provoke a response to an issue swept under the rug, but every other paper who ran the offending image have fallen into the Jodie Marsh trap. Do something that offends someone (desecrate a religous image, wear nothing but some belts in public) and watch the media fall over itself in a salivating frenzy for the right to print it, full-spread and in colour, so they can point and go "Look at this!", like a prudish, middle-class housewife watching an entire episode of "Pornography: A Secret History" just so they can "tut" for an hour.

The ill deeds perpetrated by the First World in becoming the First World appear to be coming back to haunt us. Like a Catholic priest, whose multifarious progeny appear from the woodwork once word is out, our "right" to abuse those we believe to be beneath us is rightly being punished. The First World is fast becoming a tiny "majority", with the remaining 5 billion the put-upon, vocal "minority". Everytime we rollout a stereotype on TV, or patronise a non-First-World person on the News, our imperial war-mongering and post-war carve-ups are thrust, fizzing, in our face. All we can safely do is be apologetic and print stories about cats up trees and the state of public transport.

I'm not sure what it says about the major religions, but I'm convinced that if Al Jazeera were to run a series of animated cartoons with Jesus "doing" George Dubya, the western world would laugh its collective ass off, probably accompanied by whooping and shouts of "Go, Jesus! Go, Jesus!". That doesn't follow though; the depiction of God and Jesus is allowed, as long as it is tasteful and not profane. Chapel ceilings are a Vatican favourite. However, I don't recall hearing about rioting in the American Midwest the week after I received by email a picture of a fibreglass Jesus, grinning, winking, thumbs up and pointing, which bore the legend "Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you're a c**t!".

I think this inter-racial war, real or imaginary, comes down to people behaving how they are treated. If you treat a kid like a kid, they'll behave like a kid. Treat them with respect, like a grown-up, and they'll reciprocate. Similarly, if you treat an entire racial group like they're all potential suicide bombers, then chances are some of them will be, and some more will become them because they have been treated like one. I can see the thought process; "They assume I'm a suicide bomber, so I may as well strike a blow. I've nothing to lose."

Nothing I say here, or in any other post, provides answers. I don't know how to resolve these problems. The problem seems to be that we know what to do, it's just that we don't want to do it. It's like "Don't, under any circumstances, push The Big Red Button".

Lost and Found, Soon to Be Extinct

2006-02-07T12:40:00.000Z

What's is the first thing you do when you find something valuable? Keep it a secret. What you don't do is go global, tell the world, especially if you expect to go back next year and find it still there.

Scientists are a wierd lot, full of brains, but not much common sense. They're a duplicitous bunch who evidently have no understanding of things outside the precepts of "laboratory conditions". Which is why I'm bemoaning the announcement of a new Lost World somewhere in Malaysia. They've found lots of things we thought were extinct, along with some new things we never knew existed. Like when you move house; you move the furniture and discover Auntie Agnes (who arrived to visit in 1983 and who no-one could recall seeing leave) and some mould on the fast track to cognisence.

The problem with this, although it makes us feel marginally less guilty about global warming and human expansion, is that we've now told The Naughty Men where they are. It's like a big sign pointing right at the rare and exotic treasures who are too naive to run away. And unlike "Golf Sale", this is a sign of which someone might take note. Will take note. One imagines wealthy and insane billionaires the world over putting in orders for Long-Beaked Echidna posing pouches and Golden-mantled Tree Kangaroo jumpers (sorry).

It's like saying to a child; "Here is more chocolate than you can comfortably eat. I'm going to go over there and when I come back, I expect all this expensive, imported chocolate to still be here." You know what's going to happen. You can see it their eyes. You'll come back to be confronted by a chocolate-coated, child-centred abomination, who when asked "Did you eat the chocolate?" will quite innocently reply "No", the undertone being "And I'm quite hurt that you don't trust me".

If you want something this valuable scientifically to remain safe from poachers and the like, it would seem more sensible to wait until the whole lot has been documented and written down, before you leak the location. Even then, it would be wiser to lie about the location; at least be deliberately evasive. "So, you've discovered the extremely rare Long-Necked Spotted Tree Eater, thought to be extinct. And you're sure it's not just a giraffe? In Southern Canada, you say? When it has only ever been seen up one tree in Madagascar? By a myopic lemur with a penchant for cocaine and a flair for the dramatic? OK, you sold me, get me on the next plane to Winnipeg".

I fear that the scientists will get back next year, armed with specialised Echidna detectors and Kangaroo jump leads (again, sorry), to find a three storey white stucco mansion populated with bronzed, aging millionaires sporting Golden-mantled toupees and drinking Krug from suspiciously Long-Beaked champagne flutes.

Women vs Men: The Worm that Turned

2006-02-01T11:41:00.000Z

The power struggle between men and women is, and has been, ongoing and the women are currently on top (no sniggering at the back). Many feel that Men are being marginalised in favour of women, the only reason for which seems to be as some payback for years of "opression" and male rule.

The following excerpt from the linked article quite succinctly captures the moderm dynamic between Men and Women; "While the female takes care of swimming and eating, the male fish, with its enormous (relatively speaking) testes, is charged with the task of aiding reproduction". The article also uses the term "Sexual parasite"; terminology which women probably quite readily apply to men.

The Two Ronnies' "The Worm That Turned" serial sketch depicted an England where Women were in charge, and men stayed at home. Since this was the Seventies, the women were depicted as goose-stepping dominatrixes and the men as stereotypical stay-at-homes, complete with hairnets, flower-pattern dresses, pastel overcoats and handbags. The men then form an underground movement, a resistance against female authority. Obviously decades ahead of its time, it is mirrored today by the rise of Men's Movements around the world.

Obviously, the labels "Men" and "Women", and our preconceptions associated with those terms, are a far cry from the qualities of the individual man or woman. Like Tommy Lee Jones says in Men in Black: "A person is smart. People are stupid, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it".

But why do women feel that they are devalued? Why do they want to the same jobs as men? Who says men's jobs are all brilliant? Do women want to work down sewers, or washing skyscraper windows, or scraping barnacles off the bottom of supertankers? I'm quite happy for them to do all these things, but why does it need to be at the expense of men?

The statement that women are powerless, or that they have no value in society, is utter rubbish. Who is the one person in your life who has done the most to shape you into the person you are today? Your mum, right? And everyone had one of those, right?
The last lines of William Ross Wallace's (1819-1881) poem reads "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world." No argument there. So, assuming that George Dubya had a mother (although we might assume he didn't know his father), Barbara Bush is the most powerful person in the world.

What we have here is system lag. As with Inflation and Unemployment lagging Interest Rate changes, Women's Rights overtaking those of Men is a result of a system attempting to reach parity. Unfortunately, the effects of the changes made take so long to appear, that the next change is made just as the effects of the first appear. Like a car travelling at 200mph, the system is responding to inputs received some time ago.

While Men may come from Mars and Women may be from Venus, it doesn't stop us all being humans, supposedly each with the sames rights as the next person. Maybe we should all come back down to Earth, ignore the fact that it is broken, behave like adult human beings. And here's me always banging on about idealists....still, I have become what I beheld and I am content that I have done right. So there.

Fashion: Style of The Day

2006-01-27T11:09:00.000Z

What does Fashion have in common with Scottish weather? The answer of course being that if you find yourself wearing the wrong clothes, just wait five minutes.

Fashion, eh? What possible use is it? The only thing that springs to mind is that it makes us look stylish while we're being dragged into the lathe by our couture. But that doesn't happen, because, like concept cars, catwalk fashion never makes it to the street. We never see women in see-thru tops in the street. But, unlike sleek motorshow mockups, it is probably just as well see-thru tops aren't more common, as the promise of a wonderbra-enhanced cleavage is usually a far cry from the pancaky or pendulous reality of the average unfettered bosom.

If one was of a mind, one could report catwalk fashion to OFCOM for unrepresentative advertising under "The Control of Misleading Advertisements Regulations 1988 (2000)".
The impression is that one can walk down the street on stupid shoes beneath a stupid hat wearing a see-thru plastic onesy and no knickers and the only impact would be appreciative mumurs from discerning shoppers. When in reality, one would be plagued by laughing kids, drooling teens, coarse workmen and tutting grannies, and would leave a trail of men nursing slapped faces and thunderous girlfriends while you were bundled into the police van, wearing fetching policemen's helmet accoutrement, for Public Indecency.

It appears that most quotes about fashion are derisory. Fashion, it seems, is merely this weeks interpretation of style. Style is eternal; fashion is transient, ugly and vulgar. So Fashion, then, is like taking up smoking aged twelve, or getting your ear pierced, or dying your hair black. They're fashionable at the time, but as you move on, these traits are abandoned in favour of fresher lunacy in the endless pursuit of style; your own interpretation of "cool".

Having watched Sacha Baron Cohen's fictional fashion reporter Bruno interviewing fashion types, my opinion of Fashion as a home for those arty types who didn't make it in the cut-and-thrust world of digital homeshopping channels is only enforced.
Cohen masterfully manages to ask questions that makes them visibly have to make something up, only for his next question to make them refute and debunk their previous statement in its hastily-constructed entirety. Sort of like the government establishing a task force to tackle the public bon mot du jour, only for it to implode messily a few years on when, ironically, everyone is looking.

Indeed, catwalk fashion and the stick thin women from the Ministry of Silly Walks probably play a large part in the modern "thin equals beautiful" image that forces women into ever more desparate eating disorders and financially-draining gym memberships. It appears that I have been brainwashed by Fashion into being attracted to thin women, rather than the "earth mothers" who would historically be the better choice when it came to the bearing of children. These days, it looks like someone opening a side door at the wrong moment would be all it took for an ubermodel to take flight, lifted from the 'walk by a particularly floaty hat. They have to be careful how deeply they breathe as well; one ill-advised breath and they could suddenly displace more than their weight and float off. I submit that this is the real reason Naomi Cambell fell off those shoes a while back: she breathed too deeply, someone opened a side door and down she went. A series of unfortunate events even Lemony Snicket could not have forseen.

And the hats. Take the above for example. Who could possibly buy this with the thought of wearing it where another person may see it? Presumably you would have to wear the see-thru number next to it to take the focus from the frozen explosion on your head. Maybe that's the point of fashion. Each piece is carefully crafted to take the focus of every other piece. A devious fashionista could arrange an ensemble that would induce violent headaches in anyone unlucky enough to look straight at it. Like a Medusa in training, or a WW2 battleship, or an M.C.Esher woodprint.

I think the idea is that catwalk fashion is what drives high street fashion a few months down the line. But are we likely to see anything like the "AIDS-virus-in-ice" hat on the high street? The closest we'll get is a white fleecy hat with bobbles on it to be worn by toddlers, whose attempts to remove the offending item will be foiled by matching mittens joined together with elastic.

Either way, fashion only really matters to the people in fashion. It is self-sustaining, its value only driven by the insistence that it has value. If someone were to point this out, the whole thing would unravel and we'd all have to wear leather and carry sawn-off shotguns. That's how it was in Mad Max. There was no nuclear war. The cast of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert happened to walk past a mirror, saw what they really looked like and the whole thing went South from there.

In short, it's a padded cell where people can make dresses out of cardboard and shoes out of buckets and be applauded by the rest of the loonies. Just don't give them any scissors. I dread to think what an escaped fashion designer would do with a pair of scissors when pushed to come up with a Fall line at short notice.

Public Penitence: Bringing Society to its Knees

2006-01-25T11:47:00.000Z

As Sean Connery so eloquently put it, as Prof. Henry Jones in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, "Only the penitent man shall pass.". But was he right? Are we really forgiven our sins when we repent? If our name is spread across the tabloids, does the Average Joe care or remember if we say sorry?

The most obvious sign of this societal trait is the most Poisoned of all Poisoned Chalices, the position of England Football Manager. Sven-Goran Ericsson, a man who has seen England through a few good years and good results, is being hounded out by the press, and for what? Making some comments to this "fake-sheikh" about members of the team? So what? Sven is a victim of his own stubborness. That he and his team have enjoyed a few years of good results has granted him some leeway with the press, but the pressure in the media has been growing.

Like a kettle boiling over, the pent-up fury of the press has escaped and Sven is being forced to walk. What confuses me is what the tabloid in question hoped to gain from these sheik-y shennanigans. They get this guy to lure Sven into some apparently "ill-advised" comments and then tell everyone about it. Why? Is it because they feel that a stint of over a year is too long for an England manager and it's time for a change? Is it because his results have been poor? Have the recent previous England managers been so brilliant that they feel the need to get another one in?

All the most qualified people in English football have been tried and then publically hung after their 6 month grace period. You could put a small dog in charge and it would last as long as any other manager. In fact, once the current crop of English managers have been culled, the only things left for the job will be club mascots.

It appears to take a non-Englishman to run England. How many of the top clubs in the Premiership are helmed by home-grown managers? The top five clubs are run by non-English. What does that tell you? Either, English managers suck or you need a foreigner to get the best from a team. I can't imagine why any sane person would drink from that cup. It's not like it's the World Cup anyway...

The ousting of the Swede aside, public apologies are all the rage these days. Anyone whose name is known to people outside their office and who make a mistake are forced to publically say sorry and then usually resign. These people are usually in positions of responsibility and all share the same personality fault: they are human beings. This means that people make mistakes, they make bad decisions. While we can look furtive and wipe it up, these people have to quit their job.

I can't help feeling that a lot of time and money is wasted this way. These people have been trained and worked their way to where they are. If you fire them and get someone else to do it, you have lost some value from your organisation. Plus the replacement can be rubbish for the first year and blame it on the mess left by the last guy. It's like cabinet reshuffles; every so often, they play musical chairs with the Cabinet positions, the proviso seeming to be that you can't do the same job you did last time. This means that by the time you've got your head round how to do Education, or the Home Office, whoops!, time for a re-org. You're Department of Sandwiches now. The only explanation I can think of is that they are giving everyone a taste of each area with the view to them becoming Prime Minister. But how many Prime Ministers have been any good? Have more than a handful of World Leaders ever been any good?

I don't know about the rest of you, but can you remember who, in the last few years, has been forced to leave a position of prominence, and why? Me neither. I don't think the man in the street gives the tiniest damn who is in charge of what, as long as they can have chips for dinner, watch Corrie of an evening and go to the footie on Saturday. So forcing people they've never heard of, who work inside the most complex and convulted institutions in the country, to apologise for making a simple, human error which probably wasn't their fault, is a waste of everybody's time and of their money.

So if we don't care, to whom are they apologising? It's like a parent getting an errant child to apologise to a dog for throwing a stick at it, only to find that the dog is now a hundred yards away humping a tree. The parent may feel all parenty, and the child suitably chastised, but the dog really does not care. All it does is make the child feel childish and more likely to cover up the evidence next time.

Public trial-and-execution-by-media serves no-one but the media. The media in the UK are like the US in the World. They have taken it upon themselves to force their views of right and wrong upon the rest of us and, let's not forget, make us pay for it in the process. They can print their own agenda and if they get sued, well, tomorrows run will pay for that and the next one.

So please give it a rest. We're all fallible. We're very bored of hearing about people we don't know about who work for companies we've never heard of making mistakes we don't care about. Leave justice to the courts and print some actual news. There must be something going on out there! What's behind that tree over there? Well, look, you lazy tabloid bastard!

Blogger goes Baby Bonkers!

2006-01-23T13:06:00.000Z

I'm a big fan of Blogger's "Next Blog" button, but someone has hijacked it. Pretty much every third site it takes me to today is something to do with babies. Now, either someone out there is sending a bizarre message to bloggers ("Stop typing and start having babies!") or my sub-conscious has managed to connect to Blogger on some unseen level and is presenting me with baby information.

I'm happy to receive baby information; having been one myself, it's nice to know how babies are doing these days. It's like a newsletter for former pupils, letting you know just you successful the school bully is these days. The problem is, the information is garbage. Here's an extract: "is 1276834 I into which normal I a I 2 time though is baby gift list a bankroll of Just the Lady MSBC times $30+$3 are + BABY GIFT LIST Limit smart the also never need the When (1988) will post..."

This isn't even Engrish. It's garbish, that's what it is. There are barely a string of more than three words which are allowed to live next to each other within the rules of English grammar.

Just tried again: "What it out there And we up From included others have the have what? and pay talking lie, has have for folds". Again, garbish. If they're trying to sell us something, it's not working. If its Marketing, or PR, its not working. The only thing that springs to mind is that aliens are sending us plans for interstellar spacecraft and somehow Blogger is interpreting these signals as baby information, which it is then presenting to the world as blogs. Its like the Hollywood Sci-fi Carl Sagan motion picture experience Contact. We need Jodie Foster up in here.

I want to analyse this stuff, but it defies analysis. OK, fragments. "What it out there". Could be a typo, "What is out there?" is a lucid, if broad, question. "And we up From". Has From fallen over? Are you helping him up? "pay talking lie". Politics? "has have for folds". Obesity? My brain hurts.

Now its giving me nothing but porn! I should state that at no point have I specified "babies" or "porn" when using Blogger. At my age, I have enough experience with babies and considerable experience with porn. I do not need to be presented with either in a work environment. It is also spawning lots of other windows and minimising in a corner. These are all symptoms of psychological disorders: Multiple Personality Disorder with at least two dominant personalities, one baby and one pervert; cowering in the corner sounds like child abuse or some such.

Someone somewhere is being very mean to Blogger and I want them to stop. I'm getting mixed messages here...

Cultural Knowledge: Blog Society Onwards

2006-01-18T13:18:00.000Z

Foreword:
Trying to articulate this one has been a proper bastard. Every time I think I've got an angle on it, it spins round and fires Righteous Blocks at me.

This year, I hit thirty and RocketBootDad will hit sixty. Some people don't like reaching these ages with a zero on the end. RocketBootDad and I are of a mind on this. His take on hitting these milestones is that he is the age he is; everyone else is either older, or younger. Or, least probably, the same age.

Obviously, this type of epiphanic statement can only come after decades of experience. The children may be our future, but the elderly are our past, our memory, our conscience. They have seen it all come and go; the current generation really have seen it all. In fact, those alive today have witnessed some of Man's greatest achievements, interspersed with our most heinous crimes.

The fact that old people have more time and experience means they know most about life and how to live it. They would love to pass on this knowledge but the young do not want to hear it. Elderly people are not valued in most Western Countries.

It seems to be a common factor that older civilizations and societies that exist in the Arab and African do value their elders greatly; more so than in First world countries, excepting Japan. Since practical skills are more applicable in Arab and African countries, and the adults are the most adept at these skills, the youth understand that to survive, it is imperative to respect and learn from ones elders, rather than cut a new furrow and reinvent the wheel themselves.

Essentially what I'm driving at¹ is the question: Why does the World work such that the people with the knowledge cannot pass on this knowledge? Why, in the main, are young people dismissive of their elders when it comes to imparting knowledge? Why are we resigned to taking five steps forward, four steps back?

People prefer to find things out for themselves, learning things through bitter or painful experience, for it is only through experience that knowledge is truly learned. One can read all the books in the world, but unless the world is experienced, one has no real-world hooks on which to hang the book-learned knowledge.

I can't help feeling, despite having been the same in my youth, that not learning from our elders means that their life's work, their brain, will have been for naught. They spent every waking moment learning and experiencing, and then the next gen comes along and starts all over. As I seem to be repeatedly saying at the moment, history is what made the World today what it is and we who live in it what we are. Old People are History that can talk.

The only solution that comes to mind is that people should make an effort to change society for the better, to hardwire their experiences and knowledge into the fabric of society. That way, each new generation will pick up these advances and drive them forward. This is why I think blogging is such a great idea. I'm writing my memoirs as I go, not waiting until my twilight years when events are hazy and lessons distant.

So, welcome to my part of the attempt to make a difference, to ensure that the lessons learned by this generation are not lost. I hope you're all taking notes. Come the time of reckoning, there will be a test.

¹ ...with my synaptic satnav on the fritz...

Sci Fi writers have postulated a contruct into which the memories of dying indivuduals are loaded on their death, their collective personality becoming a cultural memory which then serves as the conscience of a society.

History: Blast from The Past

2006-01-17T08:10:00.000Z

The worst thing about being a blogger is when you don't really know that much about what it is you are writing about. You have an idea for a post, but when you think about it, you find that what you think you know has no grounding in fact and cannot be borne out by your own experiences. So, do you can the post and wait for something you do know about to raise its ugly head? Or do you press on and write any old rubbish? Yes. That's what I'm about to do. Its not like anyone ever comments on this stuff anyway.

So to History. I never took History at school. Couldn't see the point. Will being able to recite the Kings of England in order get me a job at Burger King? Doubtful. It may get me a job in the press, but who these days can go home to their parents, hold their head up high and say "Mum, Dad, I work for a newspaper." without being disowned? Its society-sponsored lies. Here's fifty pence. Print what you like.

I never did History when I was a kid because I couldn't see the point of learning about things that were done and dusted. How can something that happened hundreds of years ago be of any interest to me? Looking back, knowing what I know now, this is a short-sighted view. But I was only in my early teens, and this was back when being in your early teens didn't necessarily mean you smoked Malboro Reds and had a kid with Kevin from 3B.

As I've said before, History explains why people do what they do. Society is the result of everything that has happened in the World to date. Which is why I don't think teaching children History has any benefit. Having no personal history means that you don't appreciate how history applies to you. It's not until you have some History, and appreciate how History has shaped you, that it begins to interest you.

I know nothing about how the Israel - Palestine situation came about. I know very little about the make-up of the World before Dubya Dubya's One and Two. But being a product of society might mean that the reasons for everything to date becomes hardwired into you brain. For example, being a cynic, product of a cynical society, I would guess that the Middle East is a mess because of post-war share-outs between the victors. This is what screwed up Korea. This is what screwed up Europe.

My point exactly. I have said "This is.." and been very sure all through this post, and I have no knowledge to back it up. So this is what it is like to write for a newspaper...

Wind: The Ultimate in Peer Pressure

2006-01-12T11:42:00.000Z

Where is it all going in such a goddamned hurry? Basically, rumour of a new low pressure area spreads throughout the Wind community, like the opening of a new Ikea, and all the Wind flocks to see it.

Low Pressure areas are like new malls. And like new malls, everyone goes there when it opens, only to find that, while it is twice the size of the old mall, this just means that there are twice as many crap shops in it.

So when all the Wind gets there, it goes "Is this it? Somehow I was expecting more this time around. Don't know why; seems like we've been running around this planet forever looking at new low pressure areas, and they're never any good!". And then word arrives of another one and, disappointment forgotten, they all clap their nebulous hands together and bugger off somewhere else.

All this to-ing and fro-ing does have consequences for us on the ground. If word of a particularly juicy-sounding low pressure area gets around, the effects of Wind can be severe. Entire oceans, forests, mountain ranges and herds of animals can be consumed and liberally sprinkled across the world, like an out-of-control game of British Bulldogs in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

If the low pressure area is Up North or Down South, those returning, shivering and disappointed from yet another crappy low pressure area experience, get under the feet of those still hurrying to get there, and you end up with a hurricane.

Even a gentle breeze carries with it an air of possibility unrealised. The Wind gets in sight of the low pressure area: "Is that it over there? It can't be. It is, you know. Oh, man! Again?" and slows down to a disconsolate crawl.

Wind is the ultimate in peer¹ pressure. Forget kids smoking in toilets, or sheep; wind is worse. Imagine you were shopping in Oxford Street, and word arrived that Steve Jobs was distributing free iPod Nanos from the top of Nelson's Column, wearing a naked Pamela Anderson as a rucksack. That's the kind of mad, group hysteria, run-or-die situation Wind finds itself in nearly every day. Like the running of the bulls in Pamplona; you can't decide not to go see the low pressure area this time. That isn't an option. You have to go, or risk being trampled by everyone else.

So next time you feel the need to jump on that bandwagon and "be one of the gang", think about the Wind, be original, look The Risk Of Being Trampled in the eye and say "No!".

¹ Surely the word "peer" implies someone who pees? You know, Number 1? If a skier skies and a Seer sees, why doesn't a Peer pee? Of course, everyone pees. It does, however, make the House of Lords and the Hereditary Peers look even more ridiculous. "Yes, I inherited my peerage from my father." Yeuch!

Inadvertant Undressing: The Worst Things about Winter

2006-01-11T12:20:00.000Z

Due to the fact that only Scandanavia has proper insulation in its buildings, Winter for the rest of us involves wearing fifteen layers of expensive, North-face-of-the-Eiger-type clothing. Indoors. Unless you populate the North East of England, where it seems a single cotton layer is sufficient, indoors or out. And since the operation of the HVAC systems in our buildings requires the intellect of a child, who are normally absent from most responsible organisations and whose intellect has evapourated by the time one reaches adulthood, modern office life involves much putting on and removing of clothes.

Which means that, at any one time, several bared torsos, usually hairy and post-Christmassy, can be seen across the open plan office. There are ways by which this corporate flashing may be avoided, but require either a patient and digestively robust colleague or a trip to the bathroom¹, both of which are deemed too difficult to contemplate. So we go fast, and hope that no-one notices. The human eye, attracted by movement, instantly locks onto the danger and their owners are treated to the sight of a middle aged man struggling to extricate himself from the several layers of supermarket fleece jacket wrapped round his head.

This is my Number One Worst Thing about Christmas. Are there any others? Oh, yes. So, in no particular order:

1. Having to traipse round rammed shopping centres behind people doing one lightyear per year. It's not purely a Christmas-related problem, but surely if you're going shopping, you must have some idea what you want, and which shops might have it. So why prolong the communal agony by doddering around with your head up your arse? Have a plan, people!

2. Having to put some effort into buying presents. Probably a big factor why the above is such a pain. You get to the mall really early, but still spend three hours trying to figure out what to get people. It's only at this point do you really comprehend how little you know about your family. RocketBootGrandpa has always taken the safe, if soft, option of giving everyone cash. Much less hassle, and no-one is disappointed.

3. Having to see your family. Its great for the first half and hour and it's only at this point do you really comprehend how little you like your family¹. You realise how much you've grown apart and how little everyone has really changed, which seems contradictory, but somehow isn't.

4. Having to maintain your car. Most of the year, you can get in your car and head off somewhere and not worry too much about whether it'll start or whether you can see where you're going. In Winter, you have to actually do things before you can leave; check fluids, scrape windscreens, get new tires. And you can never find all the scrapers and de-icer you bought last year, even though you only took them out of the car in August.

5. Having to put up with reams of Chrismtas advertising through your door for the entire months of October, November and December. As if it wasn't bad enough that we cut trees down at Christmas, we then have to cut more down to post through people's letter boxes. Then the Christmas tree looks all smug and twinkly; "Hey, fliers! Bet you wish you'd tried harder at Christmas Tree School now, eh?!".

6. Buying a Christmas tree. Or stealing one, if you happen to see a nice one at the side of the road. You go surreptitiously at night to get it, only to find five cars cautiously circling, all waiting for the rest to leave so they can snaffle it. So much to consider; height, branch density vs decorative level, will it fit in the car / house, attendant insurance premium increase due to risks associated with inadverant Timber! or Pound-Shop-tree-lights-induced inferno.

7. Having to queue for Santas Grotto. Or 'grotty', as they invariably are. You queue amidst thousands of bawling infants and irate parents, pay your five pounds, and your child, your pride and joy, then spends their alloted minute in the grotto either destroying the place, spreading the contents of Santas sack evenly pan-grotto, or screaming at the top of their tiny but mighty lungs.

8. January Sales. If the early payment of December's paycheck didn't leave you skint in January, the sales will. To misquote Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon, "First they sell you stuff, then they f*ck you with it!". There is a fundamental human need to get a bargain, even if it's for something you don't need. So you get home with nice, weighty boxes, aflush with the joy of participating in the Capitalist feeding frenzy, to discover that you already have half the things you bought, half the rest are some ludicrous luminous colour³ and the remaining quarter won't work without buying more things that aren't on sale.

9. Turkey Curry. Its nice on Boxing Day, but gets a bit samey by Easter.

10. Eggnog. What's wrong with beer?

Any others you can think of? Post a comment.

¹ When was the last time you had, or even saw, a bath in a bathroom? Or had a rest in a restroom, for that matter? No, me neither.
² Don't fret, RocketBootFamily. Pure journalistic licence. Surely one of the less contentious ends to which journalistic licence has been put.
³ Like Dynorod Orange, which is a trademark, by the way. Which is why I carefully said like.

Respect: Find out what it means to me

2006-01-10T08:13:00.000Z

In the wake of recent race-related riots in England and France, both countries are trying to pump a bit more R.E.S.P.E.C.T. into their respective populaces. But while America can inject enthusiasm into proceedings on command, can their European forefathers engender respect just by asking for it? Can anyone?

In my 'umble opinion, Respect is like the stock market. When you are born, you float on the market, given the respect that is due all human beings. As you age, gracefully or otherwise, your value in the Market of Life is driven by your actions. Do good deeds, and you gain respect and, maybe one day, a statue and keys to a city. Do them not, and your respect crashes like all your Black weekdays come together, down to a minimum dictated by your basic human rights.

Given my take on Respect, I find it hard to see why governments think they can wave a magic wand and say "Be excellent to each other!" and have us comply¹. Even if it was something more concrete, mandating cultural change at a government level never works. Cultural change springs from the grass roots, from the people, not from heads of state.

From the lofty heights of 30, I can understand why the stereotypical youngster of today bangs on about 'Re-spect!', even if I am projecting my thoughts onto the actions of others. If you take it that everyone, as a human being, is due a certain level of respect, then can you blame people for being proactive if they don't think they are getting that respect? If kids feel let down by the government and all points beneath, we should listen, rather than ignore their concerns because we think nothing can be done or that their opinions are worthless.

Respect is also modern society's equivalent of establishing a pecking order. We are ranked among our peers by the respect we can command. In our past, deciding who was top dog was a martial affair. However, even modern animals, humans included, prefer to rely on displaying and bravado to settle things, rather than resort to violence which could lead, directly or indirectly, to death.

While we can all expect a certain level of respect, anything more than that must be earned. It cannot be commanded, as the government is sure to discover; indeed, as the monarchy has discovered. Even in a monarchy, constitutional or otherwise, where respect for the monarch was historically demanded and enforced, modern society and its attack dog, the media, has seen to it that even a royal family is not absolutely respected.

The tabloid media is a primary mechanism for the proliferation of disrespect. Everyone who falls under their scrutiny is treated extremely harshly, their actions reduced to ridiculously alliterative malapropisms. The readers, who, like all media consumers, take it as gospel, assume this treatment to be the norm, and the "dissing" spreads. And where Jeremy Paxman gets his fingers slapped for being a bit pointed to an interviewee, the tabloids can say what they want, for the price of a lawsuit or two.

I'm not sure whether to cringe at the two-facedness, or applaud the intent, of Tony Blair in his speech about respect. This from a man who disrespected the entire country when going to war without the blessing of those who elected him or the say-so of the UN. Anyway...

As usual, the answer is to sort the kids out. It is up to parents to engender in their offspring respect for all living things, sentience aside. The dangers facing children these days are considerably more urban than before, and are the indicators of what is wrong with society. Children could argue that it is our problem and that we should deal with it, but the sad truth about Old Dogs holds, and the First World Adult is generally unwilling to shake the tree under which they shelter.

Respect needs to bred, nurtured, earned, all words that suggest some kind of effort. In the world of the TV dinner and the nanny state, I fear there just aren't enough people willing to go the extra mile. And adding a Tony Blair or a Nicholas Sarkozy to that list isn't enough.

¹ Having listened to Tony Blair's speech, he was not trying to force respect upon us. I did agree with all he had to say. He and his cabinet must know that their attempts to engender respect will be met by sneers and jibes, but, politically, to do nothing would be worse.

Righteous Block: Time for Reminiscing

2006-01-06T08:11:00.000Z

"Righteous Block" is one of those things you get in Readers Digest, where people subvert words or sayings slightly to give them a new meaning. "Righteous Block" is when, halfway through a virtiolic tirade, you can't remember what you were banging on about. And, having spent a couple of weeks away from The Palace, I have returned to find a Righteous Block on my virtual desk. And it's a big sucker...

So, time for some navel gazing. At the end of 2005 I hit 50 posts to The Palace. When I started, it was more out of morbid curiosity than a desire to put the world to rights by venting spleen. I didn't know how long I would stick at it or if anyone would care what I had to say. So, what have I learned?

I've learned that there are three blog demographics: Sales, Poetic and Other. Sales blogs are split into two main categories: Stuff no-one wants and Religion (which, in my opinion, are the same thing, hence the grouping). Poetic blogs are usually small, arty and contain a suicidal haiku or two. Other blogs are by far the smallest demographic and are of the most interest to me, especially as this is the category into which I fall. It is hard to find a good Other blog these days...

I've learned that the main bloggers appear to be Malaysians and Americans who both post in broken English about their progeny and going out, and show us pictures of the whole rigmarole.

I've learned that, while I don't care if anyone cares what I think, I do care that people at least look. You might only blog for yourself, in the altrusitic hope that someone may take strength from your words, but at some level, you really want millions of people reading it every day.

I've learned that I had rather a lot to say, not all of it sensible, and that it needed to get out. Most are the kind of thoughts that are only vocalised in the grown-up discussions that sometimes occur after dinner parties or sit-down family meals. Others are spur-of-the-moment derisive commentary on the stories of inanity that infest the news.

Having been only a sporadic diarist in my youth, I've learned that commiting one's thoughts to (semi)permanent media, with the possiblility of a voyeuristic frisson when someone reads it, is a liberating experience. It's like moving into a smaller house and having to throw out all the junk in the attic. Having a minimalistic brain (in terms of clutter, not capacity) is as freeing as having a minimalistic lifestyle.

While I've understood for some time that the concepts of Right and Wrong depend on ones point of view, I've learned that the world is full of people who do not. People vehemently decry how others live their lives, calling it "morally corrupt" or "disgusting", while those people brandish their civil rights, complain about the persecution of minorities and generally mutter about a free world. Both are right; who is to say who is wrong?

I've learned that people are broadly either Realists or Purists. Purists have a haloed vision of a verdant nirvana populated by perfect humans, which they view as their divine birthright, and are understandably miffed when the Real World fails to measure up. Realists understand that the limitations of history and human nature mean that perfection will remain the providence of the gods, keep doing their best and try to do better.

Looking at it like that, I think that the last circumnavigation of Sol by the Earth was fruitfully spent. No dictators were toppled, no monopolies overturned, no wrongs righted. But it feels like they were.

American Football: Rugby for Girls

2006-01-04T14:40:00.000Z

I don't know how or why American Football came to be. The reasons are probably incidental. There are, however, quite a few things that seem completely bonkers through the North Atlantic haze.

1. Why is it called "Football"?
Only one guy can kick the ball, and you have to stop the game to bring him on. In order that he can swing his leg above ankle-height, he is only lightly encumbered by body armour.....

2. Why do they have to wear body armour?
I know America has more gun crime than everywhere else combined, but do athletes really have to wear bulletproof vests when competing? I guess not, or the record for the hundred meters would be a fortnight, rather than sub 10 seconds. Plus, American Football predates a prevalent gun culture. Overprotective parents? Well, your ancestors moved to a new continent to start from scratch; not the actions of a risk-averse group of people. Rugby manages to do without it, although shoulder pads have started to creep in. Maybe that's how the rot starts: it starts off with shoulder pads and ends up looking like Rollerball. Or Dynasty..

3. Special Teams
I know America is chock full o' big people, but there must be more constructive ways of utilising them than having nineteen different groups of players who are wheeled out each time their speciality play comes up. For example, the Roster of the Dallas Cowboys lists over sixty guys, to make up a team of 11. There's an O-ffensive Team, a D-fensive Team, a Kicking Team, a "First and Ten" Team, a " Fourth and Inches" Team, a "Look Behind You!" Team, you name the situation: they have a team. And no player can be on more than one team. Otherwise there would be more fat people in the stadium than on the pitch, which would be stupid.

4. Time
A game lasts one hour, split up into four fifteen minute "quarters". However, elapsed time is anywhere from six to eight weeks, because every time the ball hits the ground, the clock stops. Another peculiarity in a "Football" game. This is necessary, because the linemen, each of whom weighs in excess of five hundred of Ronald McDonalds finest pounds, can only move for short periods before having to stop for a fag, at which point they bring on the next eleven guys after their fag break. Basically the two groups of linemen crash into other like elephant seals and have quick wrestle before collapsing. It looks like the final of the Robot Sumo Championships, or an earthquake in the Giant Weeble factory.

5. Statistics
In order to fill the time while they wheel off the knackered elephant seals and wheel on some fresh ones, the commentators, of which there are always three, one of whom Shall Be Named Bob, throw statistics at us. It stops short of minutiae like "Kilos of Lint found in LineMan Belly Buttons" and "Number of Revolutions by Spiked Ball in End Zones", but not by much. So here's some real ones;
Time spent by Player on field of play: 10 seconds
Time actually spent moving about: 1 second
Proportion of Gameplay to Advertising: 0
Number of Commentators with own hair: 0
IQ of Viewer Expressed as Percentage of Advertising Revenue per Minute of Gametime: Who knows, or cares, or would understand, but they'll still tell you.

6. Rushing
"rushing"? Is that the same as "running"? It is, isn't it? So what was wrong with "running"? Didn't that convey speed enough for you? "Hey Jerry Rice, how's your Uncle Ben? Can't stop now, I'm in a rush!". While we're at it, why did you change "pants" to mean "trousers"? You're just confusing everyone. What do you call your underwear, "epidermis"? That's the next layer down, isn't it? "Yeah, just got me a pair of them new Calvin Klein epidermis from K-Mart".

As I have clearly demonstrated, it's a very silly game. So, you are faced with two options. Either go back to your "rootz" and ditch the Kevlar, or go for it Yankee-style, strap on some spikes, get some internal-combustion wheels and do it properly. Then, ditch the whole stadium / teams / advertising malarkey and play wild across the whole country. You could call it.....oooh, "America".

What do you mean, you already have?

West Virginia Cave-in: No Comms is better than Bad Comms

2006-01-04T12:37:00.000Z

When I listened to the news this morning, I thought it was typical of BBC Radio 1 "News for Children" to get a story wrong when they stated that all the miners in the West Virginia Cave-in were dead, when the previous night's news had said they were all OK. Unfortunately, Radio 1 was right. All but one of the miners was dead, and that one in critical condition.

I can't imagine a worse scenario than to think that your loved ones had been miraculously rescued from a life-threatening situation, only to be told that it was a mistake and they're in fact dead.

This was Chinese Whispers writ large, with the most upsetting outcome since the instance RocketBootMum always quotes, which saw "Send reinforcements, we're going to advance" become "Send 3 and four-pence, we're going to a dance".

And this communication mix-up wouldn't have come about even twenty years ago. It is only due to modern communications, well supported by corporate bureaucracy, that allows poor quality news to travel the world so quickly.

Because that's what this was, poor quality information, for which there is no excuse, regardless of how much people in situations want to hear it. In these instances, the stances of Governments and Police forces are made clear: they do not want to propogate misleading or incorrect information, for precisely these reasons. They know perfectly well that if they give the media the wrong fuel, they'll be fighting the fire for months.

Correspondingly, people should be more worldly-wise about the information presented to them, especially from the media. However, no-one can blame the relatives of the miners for grabbing any news they could get, especially that which reinforces their fervent hopes.

It does make you think; evey time you gossip, pass on a dodgy email or lie to someone, you are propogating or starting a chain of events that could end up in the ruination or worse of someone else down the line.

There are lessons for us all in this tragedy, both at a personal and professional level. But this is not the time for lessons.

Creationism vs Evolution: Give Them A Choice

2005-12-21T08:24:00.000Z

There is much harrumphing going on in The States about the teaching of Creationism, now in its Noughties guise of "Intelligent Design", rather than Evolution. Up until recently, the teaching of Creationism, for 'twas its name, was illegal in US schools. Religious groups have recently managed to overturn this and get "ID" taught. And now the boot is on the other foot, as pro-evolution campaigners have managed to reverse this trend in Delaware.

However, in this battle of Good vs Evil, Evolution vs Creationism, no-one is paying any attention to the people this affects: the kids. I'm wary at this point of getting too Whitney Houston: I couldn't say "I believe the children are out future. Teach them well and let them lead the way." without feeling ill, new daddy or no. But the fact remains that adults with their closed minds are enforcing their opinions on people whose only real freedom is figuring things out for themselves.

I should say that both Evolution and Creationism are both theories: they are both mechanisms by which the world we have around us can have been arrived at. There is no way that anyone can say with absolute certainty that "this is the way the world came to be". No-one was there at the time. Creationism, at least, has the luxury of not requiring this: Faith obviates the need for proof or certainty.

There are probably many more possibilities as to the genesis¹ of the world, but people are so closed to any other options, and are so determined to crush other theories in favour of their champion, that they are destroying the ability of the kids to choose for themselves.

I'm sadly with Dubya on this, in that children should be presented with both approaches and let them make a decision about which works for them. Force them down any particular road, and any new advances that may lie in wait for enlightened individuals with the gift of choice and free will can never be made.

This is unfortunately the nature of the Real World. Human society is a funnel, churning out clones. Children start their lives with a plethora of opportunity, but gradually these possibilities are removed as the constraints of history impose themselves. Kids are not taught to be free thinkers, they are taught that things are done a certain way. Free thinkers are shunned and derided. At no point are they encouraged to think that there is room for improvement in the world. How many kids today have thought "I can do this better!"?. Those that do make millions.

This is probably why the youth of today is so disgruntled. Classrooms of square pegs are taught that the world is a round hole. No wonder they're pissed. The only people that make it through the system unscathed are those for whom a round hole looks like a nice place to be. But if you knew that there are no square holes out there, would you try?

The greatest gift we can give kids is choice. If we impose our choices on children, they will make the same mistakes as us. And then the Human race really is in trouble.

¹ I'm using a religious word here, but not with a capital "G"; "genesis" as in "beginning".

Avalanches: 'Tis the Season to Get Stabbed

2005-12-19T12:24:00.000Z

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, and everyone buggers off somewhere steep and slides down it with planks on their feet. The perfect excuse for not "going to your mothers". The chance to see if the hundreds of pounds of new gear, complete with in-built radio beacon and MP3 player, actually does mean you fall down less, like you promised the disbelieving wife it would.

The biggest danger associated with skiing is not falling down and breaking your leg, or mowing down a line of beginners, or being decapitated by a snowboarder ("Dude, like, sorry."), or being made to look stupid by a midget kid wearing a ridculous hat going twice as fast as you. No, it's avalanches.

The risk of avalanches is heightened every year by the expanding ubiquity of the portable media player. If you don't turn the volume down before you remove your headphones to berate a dread-locked boarder, the "uhn-tiss uhn-tiss" or irish-boy-band-ballad-power-chord will have the mountain down around your ears.

The thing that worries me is the way they go about finding people after avalanches; more specifically, the people without radio beacons in their coats. They get a big line of people with metal poles and then mooch about the hillside in big lines stabbing the ground. It's sort of like grouse shooting, if you take away the guns and give them sticks and lots of drugs instead.

Evidently they can tell the difference between stabbing snow and stabbing people, because they then dig 'em up, fill 'em with whatever they do fill 'em with and it's home in time for egg-nog and misteltoe.

I do wonder why they don't kill more people in the process. Or maybe they do. Think about it this way. You're trudging up a hillside, thrusting this metal spike into the snow, not paying much attention and then the next thrust encounters some initial resistance, but then continues as normal. The chances are that you've just stabbed some unlucky punter in the face / chest / groin. What is to stop them just carrying on, then going back down and saying "We never found anyone."? Nothing, right? People will get up in the morning, look at the mountain and say to their friends "Does that bit of snow look pink to you?"

You could develop a jacket with the equivalent to the reactive armour you get on tanks. If a tank with this armour is hit, explosive charges on the outside explode, cancelling the force of the incoming projectile. I think we'd all pay to see that; a line of sullen Frenchies stabbing the ground, praying fervently that they get to stab someone, only for three of four of them to be violently exploded into the air in a cloud of snow. The would-be-rescuee would then step smiling from the crater and point, laughing down the mountain.

So, the moral is, buy a coat with a radio thingy in it. Your chances of being stabbed in the chest by a Frenchman then drop to the levels encountered by aristos in the only war in which the French really tried¹.

¹ This has gone a bit anti-French, but as soon as I got into the French Civil War, I was overcome by Blackadder-isms.

Poor Performance Bonus: Don't Try Harder

2005-12-16T12:35:00.000Z

With the addition in recent years of Eastern European countries to the European Union, there has been pressure on The Old Boys of The Union to reduce the rebates they accept from the Union. The fact that they get back money they have paid seems stupid, but I don't pretend to understand why. It should be explained in the linked article. Chances are it's going to be one of those things that still sounds stupid even after it's explained to you.

Anyway, point being, the thing in Europe on which most of the EUs money gets spent is farming subsidies. This is basically to pay farmers to be less efficient and produce less. Farming methods have moved on to the point where most developed nations can produce more food than the populace can eat, even taking obesity into account.

The obvious solution is to sell it to nations that can't produce enough. Unfortunately, these nations are either too far away to get it, too insular to want it or too poor to pay for it. Which means that you either store "grain mountains" and "milk lakes", like in the Eighties, or you pay farmers to produce less. Bizarrely, it's deemed cheaper to pay them to sit on their arses. Whether that's cheaper economically or politically is not clear.

Farmers are encouraged to diversify and to use their land for other purposes, and there are all sorts of grants available to them to facilitate this. However, what the government giveth, they, egged on by the environ-mentalists, taketh away. For attached to each grant is a list of conditions so strict that they can only apply to a tiny fraction of the farmers in the country.

Basically, the only option viably open to farmers is to turn the country into a huge playground for those who live in the cities. The farm of the future will have offroad driving centres, bog-snorkelling courses, How to Build a Hedge / Wall / Scale Replica of Big Ben Using Toothpicks classes, corporate team-building days and the only animals on the whole place will be washed, shaved and abused relentlessly by the hordes of deranged infants in the creche's Petting Zoo.

This move is the final straw for what is the only remnant of Britain's industrial past. Rural Britain viewed from the air in a few decades will consist of several super-farms that produce the food, stitched together by a plethora of urban playgrounds for the tracksuit wearing masses. Assuming they don't have the moxie to kybosh the whole thing, e-mentalists will be forced to trudge the thousand hectare megafields in order to get any half-decent rambling done. Although, ramblers and rambling as a pass-time will only last until the first bobble-hatted militant is brutally slain by the heavily-armed robot
gunships patrolling the super-farms, blaring "Get orf moi laaaaand!" in a metallic West Country twang.

Britain will be one big theme park. It'll be "The Countryside"¹ for people who don't want to get their Nikes dirty. It'll be "Westworld" without Yul Brynner. And he was the only thing that made it any good.

¹ "The Countryside" is a Trademark of the Monsanto Company, "The Countryside" is operated in association with HM Government, and sponsored by Nestle and Bernard Matthews.

Packaging vs Contents: Big Boxes of Air

2005-12-15T12:27:00.000Z

As I wrote recently, our technology, rather than coming in one big box, now comes in two smaller ones. Except they're not actually smaller. They're bigger.

Because our technology is small and probably fragile to some extent, and because we generally buy it online, we actually get delivered to us One Big Box. Although there is an initial twinge of deja-vu and nostalgia for the old days, this goes when you open the box.

You are confronted with the modern two-smaller-boxes, which you can't get at. This is because they are surrounded by big bags of air which take up the airspace in the external box not used by the two-smaller-boxes, thereby stopping two-smaller-boxes from being able to chat while in transit, much less breathe. These bags of air are basically bubblewrap writ large, but are confusingly less fun to pop; no breakfast cereal "snap" here, just a lazy sigh, as from a recumbent canine. If terrorists wanted to kill people, they could just sneak into the Big-bags-of-air plant, fill them all with something nasty and Western society would vanish within a couple of months.

So you remove big-bags-of-air and can finally reach two-smaller-boxes, which you then open, requiring, of course, all sorts of knives, pliers and degrees from red brick universities to do so. Inside these boxes are the Nineties equivalents of big-bags-of-air; cardboard spacers and hard plastic bracing. It looks like the inside of a garden-shed nuclear device, with your gadget nestling in the centre, pretending to be a plutonium core.

The cardboard-spacers are basically they way they get rid of the spare cardboard at the packaging plant. They cut and fold it into interesting shapes and jam it into the two-smaller-boxes. The up side is that it gives the kids and the dog something to destroy while you're unpacking your toys. It's not like the have the qualifications to open Noughties packaging anyway.

The hard-plastic-bracing stuff is an utter bastard. It's the stuff they put tools in at DIY stores, the kind you need the tool itself to open. You spend hours hacking at it with a kitchen knife and are left with a mass of lethal shards on the carpet, most of which end up in the feet of you, your family and your pets and most likely a piece of overpriced tech which looks like the residents of the local pound have been chewing on it for a week or two.

So, basically, what you bought constitutes anywhere from 50% to 1% of the volume of the external packing, depending on the size of the gadget. The smaller the gadget, the more airspace is included Free! with the packaging. It would be OK if it was positioned in the centre of the box, but no. You pick the box up in the middle, only to discover that the contents are actually a twenty kilo point mass located in the far bottom corner, which means the box throws itself on the ground, right on the corner where the gadget is cowering, thereby rendering the big-bags-of-air, two-boxes, hard-plastic-bracing and cardboard-spacers thoroughly redundant.

You would have thought that these days, the amount of packaging would be reduced, for all sorts of environmental reasons. Yow would need to waste less oil on plastic, waste less trees on cardboard and expend less jet fuel on flying boxes of air around the globe. Teeny bits of tech should be (and probably are) designed to take some bumps in their life, especially if they are portable, as teeny tech tends to be.

Yet it appears that if we're spending £200 pounds on something, we want some decent packaging and we want it to be shipped in containers that would withstand a gigatonne nuclear blast at point blank range. In a few years, the traditional opening of Christmas presents will be conducted in the garden, packaging will be nuclear-bunker-analogs and come with integrated transit tubes, allowing people to crawl between presents without having to brave the elements. Present opening will take on the adventure status of potholing, as you will need some sort of axe, harness, and helmet-with-a-torch to make it out before New Year arrives or the turkey becomes infested with Salmonella.

While that sounds like fun, not everyone has a garden capable of housing even a single nuclear bunker. So, packaging types, think of the planet and people with small cars and gardens and give us some decent packaging commensurate with the size of the contents. Otherwise Boxing Day will have to be replaced by Boxing Week.

Survival of the Fattest: Evolution is Dead, Long Live Evolution

2005-12-12T15:35:00.000Z

Some people, among which comfortably rest I, bemoan Modern Western Society as wasteful and decadent and lots of other generally negative words. And it is undoubtably all these things, and more. However, among the "more" are such characteristics as "peaceful" and "supportive", etc. These days, those of us lucky enough to be born into the luxury of a First World country can live out our lives without, if the notion takes us, ever having to try.

This unfortunately means that anyone can procreate successfully (that is, have their offspring survive long enough to procreate). There are no sabre-toothed tigers out there to kill off the elderly, the ill and the slow. It is precisely these people that Society protects, thereby allowing those people exhibiting these characteristics to further their genes without any "survival of the fittest"¹.

So, evolution is stagnating. Society prevents natural selection from ocurring. But what about other means of selection? I'm talking about "adventure sports". Since the masses stay in and watch Sky TV, thereby virtually eliminating the threat of evisceration and possible death by felines with elgongated incisors, it is down to adrenaline junkies to do their bit. But all this means is that the people with the kind of characteristics that have been preserved through natural selection are now being killed off by poor-quality Taiwanese parachute silk, shoddy aluminium climbing gear, wicker climbing boots and bungee ropes that are slightly too elastic.

It may be that physical evolution is being replaced by mental evolution. The drivers for physical evolution have been removed as Humans have tamed the World. The real challenges now are mental, as we try to devise new ways to use our mastery of the physical world. What this probably means is that a greater number of the people in the world no longer posess the mental furniture capable of making it in this Brave New World of mental evolution.

Taken to a (logical?) extreme, this could mean that we could have a genetic "underclass"². Take that to its extreme, and you've got a big global war: the knuckle-dragging mentally-challenged masses against the big-skulled boffins in their flying chairs. The stuff of Hollywood dreams!

The linked article cites the existence of groups of teenagers terrorising our streets as symptomatic of a peaceful and prosperous society. Previous generations, it argued, would have been dying in wars and coal mines, rather than wearing Kappa and faux-Burberry and drinking own-brand vodka outside the local Co-op.

However, this does leave them open to Sabre-toothed Cat attacks, thereby reinjecting some natural selection back into our stagnant society. Now, all we need are some Sabre-toothed cats. Hmmm, I wonder if they're on anyone's "Reintroduce-to-Britain" list...

Human species may "split in two"
Looks like I was right...you're either a god or a goblin! "But in the nearer future, humans will evolve in 1,000 years into giants between 6ft and 7ft tall, he predicts..." Huh, some of us are pushing 7ft already. Seems my protestations about being the genetic future are no longer funny...

¹ I'm aware I'm sounding a bit Nazi here, but I'm not proposing a Solution. In fact, I think I have yet to come up with any solution to the things I have blogged about.
² This does assume that clever people would never sleep with stupid people, but "The Power of Love"™ and the effects of alcohol should never be discounted.

The New Iraq: American Bureaucracy meets African Corruption

2005-12-01T10:54:00.000Z

Where to start? The New Iraq™. They say that The Ends Justify The Means, but I can't help feeling that The Ends thus far do not bathe The Means in the cool light or righteousness. I also want to be thoroughly hopeful and positive that Iraq can rebuild itself and the people can enjoy an era of peace and prosperity. Call me an old cynic, but the real world isn't that simple.

New Iraq™ (© USA, Inc. 2003) is going through Teething, or The Terrible Twos, the first periods of prolonged pain in any new life after the trauma of the Birth itself. New Iraq's progenitors have a great opportunity to help create a stable society from scratch and avoid as many of the problems as possible.

But, like a teenage mother, lacking in Life experience, America is making mistakes. America hasn't been a country for that long, and is consequently less worldly in terms of the machinations of countries and societies. Oh, you can read as many history books as you like, but it is no substitute for centuries of experience. I'm not saying that Britain, or any other European country, would do a better job; merely that Europeans are understandably more realistic in terms of the rebuilding of countries destroyed by war and tyrannical dictators.

America may admit in media interviews that it's a "difficult job with many interesting challenges", but I don't think they really understand how difficult and challenging the job is. Culturally, they believe that with application and hard work, anything can be achieved; The American Dream. But they're not dealing with wide-eyed, forward-looking Americans. They're dealing with psychologically abused orphans with a violent past. The needs of each cannot even be compared. They can't use the same approach and expect the Iraqis to embrace it.

Which they blatantly aren't. There are many factions within Iraq who sense the power vaccum and are sucked into it. As the creators of the vacuum, America find themselves in conflict with these dissidents who are using violent means in an attempt to further their agenda.

America's attempts to install, from scratch, American methods and its attendant bureaucracy into an Arab country brainwashed to see America as The Enemy are foundering. Billions of dollars are being poured into Iraq but, as in Africa, not all the money is ending up where it should. Keeping track on all that cash is an impossible task and, after years of doing without, Iraqis are understandably grabbing what they can. Bribery and Corruption are rife. Combine American Bureaucracry with African Corruption¹ means that very little progress is made despite the level of funding.

New Iraq™ is America's baby, and all Europe can do is watch like a new grandmother, wincing at America's mistakes, trying to offer advice without making it sound like advice and hoping that Iraq doesn't hit Puberty too soon.

Given all this, America is doing the best it can. I don't think anyone else could do much better.

Survey finds Optimism in Iraq
What's the betting America try to mine that and export it. Maybe they'll be going to war with Iraq again in the future, except this time it'll be because Iraq is more optimistic than America, not because they have lots of lovely oil. Or "liberation", if you insist...

¹ Sorry, Africa. But it's true.

The Real World vs The Environmentalist

2005-11-29T15:25:00.000Z

OK, we all accept that using fossil fuels is bad for the environment, so it's just as well we're running out. Technology is being developed that is cleaner and more efficient and runs on chip fat or orange peel. Years of people strapping themselves to oil tankers are finally having an effect, even if we scoff and attack their tactics while they're at it. I know I have.

Despite their approach, the battle is at least joined, if not won. Governments realise that if they are to protect the way of life they have been elected to protect, they need to move things forward. Hats off to them, I say.

What does annoy me is the response of the environ-mentalists. Governments and Industry are extending the hand of compromise, and the e-mentalists are slapping it away. Every proposal designed to progress society towards an ethos of cleaner, renewable energy is met with a vitriolic "That's not good enough!".

Government: How about we have Wind Farms to generate lots of lovely power?
E-Mentalists: They're not pretty. They ruin the beauty and purity of the countryside for the ramblers.
G: Well, they're not goi...
E: And they kill all the birds. The turbines suck them in cut them into little bits. Thousands of rare European Plump-breasted Tits will be killed every picosecond. They'd be extinct!
G: OK, well, we could go for wave-power? It's a bit more expensive and difficult to maintain, but it's a.....
E: [SLAP] NO. WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN?! We've being telling you for one hundred and fifty million years, Wave Turbines kill fish. Trillions of rare Coke-Bottle-nosed Dolphins would be brutally clubbed every femtosecond. They'd be exstinct inside a millisecond!
G: Oooooo.K., so no wind power because of the birds, no wave power because of the fish. [tentatively]What about Nuclear Power?
E: RRRRRARRRRRRRRRRR! NO, NO, NO! THE HUMANITY! Anything Nuclear is inherently bad. You'll just use them to make bombs, which you'll then drop from bombers onto orphanages in the Congo! Don't think we don't know what you're up to!
G: That's ludicrous! And anyway, that's a different kind of nucl...
E: [SLAP] WE HAVEN'T FINISHED!! We've been saying since the creation of the universe that we want an unobtainable perfect world populated by caring, tolerant people who are self sufficient and would rather stab themselves in the testicles than stand on a blade of grass!
G: Errr, well, what do you want us to do?
E: Don't try and put the blame on us. It's not our job. You're the elected Government. It's your job.

And so on. This is a somewhat lampooned version of the tooing and froing that goes on, but in general the e-mentalists ironically seem to be the people who are preventing the very progress for which they have strapped themselves to squirrels to get.

E-mentalists populate a idealistic world where clean energy and unsullied landscape is their birth-right. Governments live in the real world with scandals, sleaze, waiting lists, league tables and elections. They need to keep most of the people happy most of the time. The two worlds cannot co-exist. Governments are making the effort to meet in the middle. It's about time the environmentalists realised this and did the same.

The Appliance of Science

2005-11-29T12:20:00.000Z

Being an engineer and a human (no, they are not mutually exclusive!), I have a healthy suspicion for science. I have blogged before on Science and Religion in the context of Faith vs Proof. However, during recent discussions with RocketBootWife, herself an ex-research-scientist, it transpires that the use of the word "Proof" as a byword for scientific endeavour is stretching it a bit. More than a bit, actually.

Scientific effort appears to be split into three fronts; high-energy physics (where they try and kill us with very small, strange things created when they bang very small things into other very small things at very high speeds), health research (Cancer, Heart disease, you know, useful stuff) and what I'll call "filler" science.

Filler Science is the kind of research that they might as well have not bothered doing. Its the stuff that populates the SciTech pages of news websites everywhere. Things like "Birds Fly South For Winter, new research shows" or "Men are Hairier than Women, scientists claim". But this sort of crap must be the bread and butter of thousands of scientists.

Science, from an outsider's perspective, seems a cutthroat world. Its a wonder more of them don't sport eye-patches or wooden legs. Their whole world is driven by funding and publications. And you only get to inhabit this world if you have stupid levels of qualifications in the first place. RocketBootBestMan has a DPhil from Oxford and he gets paid way less than me, despite being considerably more clever.

You're expected to work like a dog for peanuts (exucse the mixed metaphor) and crank out good results month after month. Reality dictates that you will go down blind alleys every so often, resulting in useless results. So what do scientists with crap results do with a poor publication level and a funding review looming? They make it up.

So they make the results look good and get them published. Their paper goes to the expert in the field who, in this case, laughs at it. The author then sends it to the next guy in the chain until it gets to some idiot who will ratify it. At this point, the chances of getting it published in Nature or The Lancet are slim, so they go with the BBC Good Food Magazine or some such.

This research is then used as the basis for some other scientists research. You would hope that these other scientists realise that any research published in the BBC Good Food Magazine is next to useless, unless it's "How To Make Chocolate Pudding To Die For", but I wouldn't bet my research grant on it. Again, you would hope that it doesn't require a PhD or millions in research cash to develop the perfect Chocolate Pudding recipe. It may be that scientific research is polarising; those who can get good results publish it and progress with their career, and those who can't publish Chocolate Pudding recipies and vanish into obscurity.

Publications are everything. You could be an ape-man from the wilds of Borneo, but as long as you've got good publications, you're set.

The whole system seems to be geared towards failure or mediocore, safe research. Or, it is geared towards weeding out the weak links; survival of the fittest. Only those who are good or sneaky enough to avoid any bad results can hope to make any money and generate useful research. It does however mean that probably only 5% of all scientific funding generates a good return.

Is it any wonder that the number of people doing hard science is dwindling? Scientific endeavour should be cooperative, not competitive. Sadly, as long as the majority of research is funded by large multinationals, Science will struggle to make significant advances. 1 step forward, 19 steps back.

PS Apologies to Zanussi for using their old tag "The Appliance of Science", but since they're now Zanussi/Electrolux, I doubt they'll care.

Proof: I faked my cell research, admits cloning pioneer.

See?! If he's doing it, imagine what lesser mortals are doing.

Antarctica: The Great White Hope

2005-11-25T12:52:00.000Z

Antarctica should be counting its lucky stars. Being inhospitable, the only people who ever bother going there are scientists and sily people who want to get to the middle so they can build a house where every wall points North. Antarctica is protected by international treaty; it cannot be claimed by any country and mining its wealth is prohibited. All this means it has escaped the ravages of humanity. No, wait, that's wrong. I forgot. Antarctica counts its lucky stars throught the hole in the ozone layer which we made. They must look especially twinkly.

It used to inhospitable for different reasons. The place is supposedly packed to the rafters with oil and minerals. So, at some point, it must have occupied more northerly climes, or else more northerly climes came to visit. Either way, it must have been warm enough for the pre-requisites of oil and coal to grow. The occassional tree stump is visible in places were the twinkly stars melt the snow.

There are differing theories about which is the reason. Obviously, continental drift means continents swim round the planet, not looking where they're going, collide, hence mountains. The other, more scary theory is that the planet underwent a rather nasty event called "pole-shift" where distribution of land masses and the attendant centrifugal forces caused the crust of the Earth to rotate over the molten core, thereby reordering the planet in one. This means that there would be an awful lot of sprained wrists and ankles and an unfortunate distribution of warm clothing, but it is possible.

Whichever mechanism is responsbile, Antarctica has had a more jungly past. Who knows what sorts of animals lived there? Today, it is home to many different species of Penguins and zero Polar Bears. Those cards and jokes about Polar bears eating penguins are false. The only way it will happen is if the scientist introduce something that causes penguin numbers to explode and they have to introduce Polar Bears to keep the numbers down. More likely, it'll be for entertainment purposes. I can't imagine there's much to do in the weeks of perpetual darkness. It's either watch polar bears chase penguins or have sex, and the researchers who go to Antarctica can only be there because they not attractive enough to work somewhere warm. Polar Bears it is!

And so to my target audience; the unattractive, unpopular, unsociable scientists of the world! It is my stated intention to get someone from Antarctica to read this blog. The two methods open to me are praise and criticism. Sadly, derision comes more naturally to my fingers.

I'm sure I am incorrect about the nature of those who choose to persue their avenues of scientific discovery in Antarctica. Maybe its like the French Foreign Legion. Scientists who have falsified research, not been published in a decent journal, failed their PhD or spent their whole research budget brewing their own hooch can escape and start their careers anew, as Scientists of Fortune! That sounds much better than "My field is snowology" or "I'm hoping to develop synthetic ozone".

I just checked, and Antarctica does have it's own domain. For a horrible minute there, I thought all this open hostility was going to waste!

In the defence of Antarctic research and researchers, there is a very cool base at the Pole called Amundsen-Scott which is a half-submerged geodesic dome. The perfect location for the underground lair of the Scientists of Fortune! Having it's own website, pictures and GPS coords somewhat reduces it's capability as a secret lair. Maybe its a smokescreen. Maybe the actual lair of the Scientists of Fortune is disguised as a flock¹ of huddling penguins.

So come on, upside-down research types. Pull off those mittens, wipe the frost of your keyboard and riposte. The hopes of a stupid blogger rest on you.

PS If there are really any attractive scientists in the Antarctic, send photos. We will judge.

¹ Does "flock" apply to flightless birds?

Mel Gibson in Saddam Hussein looky-likey shocker!

2005-11-25T12:33:00.000Z


Saddam Hussein	Mel Gibson
Images linked from BBC News and ABC Australia News

Welcome, Surfers of The World!

2005-11-25T10:35:00.000Z

When I first started blogging, I really wasn't sure why. Why, thought I, would people want to know what I think about anything? However, some people do. Well, some people stumble across my blog and can't leave before their presence is recorded. It's nice to be able to commit one's reasoned arguments and thoughts to the Ether, in the hope that like-minded people may be reassured that they are not alone.

To find out if any like-minded people do exist, I added a tracker to my blog, which diligently records info about the people who stumble through on their way to somewhere good. Most interestingly is the details of where in the World people stumble from.

People who have read my blog hail from such far away places as the United States, India, Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Norway, Hungary, Austria, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Republic of Korea, Israel, Malaysia, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Italy, Islamic Republic of Iran and the Philippines.

Which means I have covered 5 out of 7 continents. Just Africa and Antarctica to go! So my mission henceforth is to get people from Africa and Antarctica to read this blog.

I have referenced Africa briefly in a couple of posts, but only in relation to drought and poverty, probably not the sort of things the Africans with access to the net search for. Antarctica I haven't mentioned, although there are plenty of things to discuss. More soon!

So I'll keep you posted, my reader(s) of many nations, religions and creeds.