In Love And Death

Crikey

2006-06-09T08:21:00.000+01:00

Some of you may have noticed that there's been a lack of posts recently. This is because my blog has moved. See the post below to find a link to the new one that I actually DO post on! You may want to change your bookmarks or if you subscribe to my feed, change that too.

See you there folks!

It's finally here!

2006-03-22T00:22:00.000Z

For those of you who've been praying for the day to come when this blog would continue the brave crusade, for those looking for their saviour to return and lead the righteous battle against the pretenders, for those of you who've been desperately awaiting the new incarnation of the greatest blog in the blogosphere, for the children and disciples of the Jesus of Suburbia, like lost sheep without their shepherd...

Oh sod it, if you're interested, this blog has now moved to HERE

It's been a while

2006-02-25T21:19:00.000Z

...since I last posted.

And basically this is for several reasons, I won't bore you with all of them, but mainly it came down to the fact that the poll question over blogging platforms was not heavily voted upon. Whether this is because it was boring or whether it's because I made a request to only vote if you'd used either platform, that I don't know, however what is crucial is that without the outcome of that poll I was really at a loss as to the next step for me and this blog.

It's been over a month since I initially decided to transform this blog, and in fact it'll be two months in exactly a week, but by then I fully expect to have begun posting in my new blog (I'll post a link on here when ready to go). I think it was well worth a two month hiatus to finally get everything back on track, my life's been a bit of a nightmare recently as well so it's probably worked out for the best.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet."

2006-01-29T12:42:00.000Z

And so we come, ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, to the moment you've all been waiting for. In a fiercely contested poll I asked you, the wise and gracious readers of my blog (or, and let's be honest here, more specifically, those random Blog Explosion members who stopped long enough whilst surfing for credits to actually vote) to vote on the new name for my brand spanking new blog. And you did, in your droves, and whilst some options were roundly rebuffed, receiving little or no support, and whilst "Strawberry Fields" was leading the chasing pack by a large margin initially, in the final countdown it turned out to be a close race.

One by one they fell, the margins between each option getting narrower and narrower, and slowly the lead that the Beatles-inspired choice had accumulated was eroded. In the main event it was a fatal four-way between "The Bitter End", "Electric Boogaloo", "The Pontificating Id" and the legendary "Strawberry fields". For days they were inseperable, until finally both "Electric Boogaloo" and shockingly the erstwhile leader, "Strawberry Fields", began to lag behind and were eliminated.

To put you all out of your misery, the winning name, and the name of my new blog, is "The Pontificating Id". It finally beat out "The Bitter End", which was ironically enough the working title for this blog, by 14 votes to 11, a convincing margin. Thanks to all who voted.

My next dilemma is the choice of blogging platform. As I said previously, the whole point behind the move is to look for a category-organised blogging platform, it's essential given the mercurial and multi-faceted nature of this blog. For evolution to take the next step will require categories. Moveable Type, whilst highly recommended, is not an option. It's both too complex and also will require me to pay for hosting and at present that is not only not an option I want to explore, but also one I can't afford to explore. I like Wordpress-based platforms as I can use categories, in a relatively user-friendly environment, perhaps a little more complex than Blogger but I've already outgrown Blogger so I need the next step up.

I've so far located two free, self-hosted Wordpress-based services online (if you know of any others, let me know). These are Wordpress.com and Blogsome. Neither requires hosting, and both will provide categorisation. However Wordpress.com currently doesn't allow template modification, whereas Blogsome does. Whilst Blogsome is using an older version of Wordpress software to function, this actually allows Blogsome to offer template modification with no added security risk to their hosting servers, whereas Wordpress.com are struggling with rolling out template flexibility without risking the security of their servers.

If you can recommend any other category-based platforms, feel free to leave a comment. Otherwise I'd really appreciate a vote on the poll on the left, but only if you've used, or know someone who's used, either platform. Please don't vote if it's not based on actual experience, or based on love for your own platform without having tried out either Wordpress.com or Blogsome.

Thank you.

It's kinda like Survivor...only...not

2006-01-17T23:13:00.000Z

The competition is hotting up in the poll to decide the name of my new blog. Helm's Deep suffered the ignominy of being the last potential name left with no votes at all, and has been eliminated from the contest. I will continue to eliminate "the weakest link" until only one name is left. And that name will be the winner. Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

However, as before, there is no absolute guarantee that the winning name will be the one used. Lots of factors will decide on it, such as the new blog's colour scheme and design, however I will promise that the winning title will at least be the working title, and so long as there are no compelling reasons to over-ride the wishes of the Blogosphere, I will stick with the winner.

So if you haven't voted already, do so!

Name that blog

2006-01-08T19:44:00.000Z

A key thing to consider when starting any new blog is the name. This is something you'll probably be lumbered with for the lifetime of the blog, because although it is possible to change the blog's name, if you want the blog to gain any sort of reputation, some consistency in the blog's name is essential. At least I think so. A kickarse blog name is likely to inspire people to actually read the blog, rather than just skim it when they visit, it's a crucial piece of the Blog promotion jigsaw. Like a corner piece with clouds on it. Or maybe the bit with the dinosaur's face on it. I don't know!

With that in mind I've come up with some names I quite like, but I'm struggling to decide between them. As part of Operation: New Blog Order I made the executive decision to rename the blog; however the New Blog Order operates as a quasi-democracy and I shall give you a say on what the new blog's name will be. There is a poll to the left, and whilst I won't guarantee that the the winning name will be the name for the new incarnation of In Love and Death (which will, after the move, be laid to Rest In Peace), it will certainly play a part in the name-change.

Basically, if you're dropping by, drop a vote, and let me know what you reckon. The feedback's helpful, and all jokes aside, I probably will go with the winning choice anyway. I won't tell you what my preference is, but I do have one. So vote damn you! How often does a father allow you to name his baby? Take me up on a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of something bigger than yourself, something so immense it might alter the course of humanity forever.

Or maybe not.

It's blogging, but not as we know it.

2006-01-05T11:34:00.000Z

Operation: New Blog Order is well underway and as the first post in this oh so special series today I'm going to write briefly about the New Years resolutions I made about my blogging. These will form the New Blog Order Manifesto, a blueprint of the New Blog Order that will rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes of this now burnt-out hub of a blog.

Now previously I had, with all the best will in the world, endeavoured to post daily, or if not daily, every other day, but regular readers (hah, what readers?!) will know I sometimes got snowed under with a backlog of blog posts to edit. So my first resolution and the first clause in the New Blog Order manifesto is that whilst I will still hold back drafts for editing, I won't allow editing to hold up a post. All posts will go up within 24 hours of being first drafted, without fail, even if the quality suffers marginally (let's face it, they're never that good to begin with!). Not only will this ensure a regular stream of content, but in a way, less editing makes the content fresher and more raw.

Clause Two is closely related. When I began blogging I spent a fair old amount of time surfing other blogs, reading a lot of content and being inspired and entertained. Recently this has lapsed and did create a situation whereby I was lacking inspiration, and looking back over recent posts, I think this has become apparent. I think some of the posts, whilst decent, lacked that spark that others had, those that were actually inspired. So I will ensure that I dedicate an allotted amount of time every day to reading other blogs, and ensuring I keep "current" with some of my favourite blogs that I've not actually checked recently (oh woe is me!).

However this time will not be merely "reading" time. I will be timetabling my evenings a little more, plotting out my commitments and working out exactly how much time I have after taking out time for my girlfriend, dinner and other essentials. I will then allocate a set amount of time, half of which will be spent reading other blogs, half of which blogging. So within the New Blog Order manifesto, Clause Two will have a sub-paragraph two, requiring me to dedicate time every day to trying to produce some content. And not just any content, noooo, interesting content. Ok, semi-interesting content. Ok, fine, boring, but regular, content.

Content is a curious thing (it makes one man weep, makes another man sing). Trying to ensure a regular stream is important, but at the same time, the quality has to follow too. I think I've gotten too wrapped up, and perhaps to an extent this is born out of being "typecast" by early posts, in trying to develop long posts, and so the content has tended to be a topic that I can actually write a lot about.

The problem is, the more you write, the longer it takes to read it, the easier it is for someone to be put off. Worse yet, if you write all your thoughts, you leave yourself little to explore another time. So as part of my commitment to trying to product content every day, I will also endeavour for this content to be "fresh". I won't always look to write a lot, but always will look to write something inspired, be it long or short. A short but sparky blog post is far more fascinating than a long windy but dull post.

So to summarise, this is the New Blog Order Manifesto as it currently stands:

CL 1: Blog drafts to go up within 24 hours. If possible, avoiding editing at all.
CL 2(1): Dedicated blog reading time (use for pleasure and inspiration)
CL 2(2): Dedicated blogging time (aim for a post a day if possible)
CL 3: Quality of content over quantity. Keep content fresh, don't get bogged down with size or quantity, focus on being inspired.

If anyone, upon reading this, has any other suggestions that I should add to my New Years Blog Resolutions, and ultimately to the New Blog Order Manifesto, please share them!

Wow it's been a long time

2006-01-04T00:38:00.000Z

It's been over a month since my last update but there is a really good reason for this, well, several actually. And apart from the Alien abduction one they're all really good excuses I promise!

The truth is right around the time of the last post I began contemplating the future of this blog. When I began it, it was a very personal blog, and some people liked this, probably my nearest and dearest who liked the opportunity to spy into the recesses of my mind and hear my true thoughts. I did find the odd stranger, though, who actually found my mundane existence interesting.

This was actually a reflection of what got me into blogging in the first place; my suicide attempt. A friend advised me to seek blogging as a form of release to get out my emotions before they overwhelmed me. He knew I liked computers and would probably be more likely to keep a diary if it was online, plus it meant I might find people who'd been through similar experiences and be able to share.

I began a blog called The Ego Speaks, some of you may have read it, but it's doubtful. Sadly due to incessant invasion by apparent friends whose actions caused me more stress, I realised it ceased to serve the initial function it was intended for. I then began a secret blog (secret from my friends, I mean) called The Napoleon Complex. In the end laziness was what caused that blog to bite the dust, I never really kept up with updates (and how ironic, then, that this little blurb should be so overdue). And then after the depression began to get the better of me again, I started this little baby.

This is actually my longest running blog to date, over 6 months, and that's something I took a great deal of pride in. I dedicated a lot of time to it, and actually showed good persistence to keep it up. And when the depression began to subside and I ran out of personal topics to discuss, I managed to broaden my horizons and turn what was, in essence, a personal diary, into a true web log.

However looking back over the most recent archives I can see that the blog went through a personal stage, and then a political one, then a sports one and has actually ended up turning into a big mishmash of topics. So I decided it was time for a change, no, I'm not giving up blogging, in fact, I plan to be even more dedicated to it (that's one of my New Year's resolutions). What I'm planning to do, and have been since mid-December, is to move the blog to different platform, one which will allow me to categorise and perhaps make sense of the chaos.

What's happening is evolution. I think it's time for this blog to take the next step up. The new blog isn't ready, and this is basically because Christmas and New Years came in between (and with New Years Eve being my sister's 18th birthday, it was extra big this year). The sheer stress and busy-ness of this time ensured I lacked enough real quality time to get everything ready. I have chosen the platform, and ensured the domain, and I'm currently in the process of designing the template.

I'm going to blog on here about the development of the new blog, and about this new change in my blogging outlook too, a project I shall now call Operation: New Blog Order. And then when my precious is ready for its unveiling, I shall release her upon the world.

I love my Video iPod

2005-12-10T22:43:00.000Z

Apple's newest addition to the iPod range is awesome. I just bought one for a bargain price and I'm pleased to announce it's well worth every last penny of it. I'm over the moon with my newest gadget, although I must confess, had I not got it for just over half the retail price I probably wouldn't currently own one, given that I was perfectly happy with my iPod mini before. Given that 6gb was more than satisfactory, 60gb is going to OWN.

I wasn't quite sure how the iPod video would fare when I first heard about it, I predicted that the video quality would be awful, that the small screen would make viewing it a real pain in the arse (or rather the eyes) and I'd heard terrible things about the battery life. Now whilst it's true, several battery tests suggest that the PSP will clock out 7 and a half hours on video playback, compared to 2 and a half on the iPod, the biggest memory stick I've seen for the PSP is 2 gig compared to the massive 60 gig storage of the iPod. This makes a massive difference in terms of what you can store, and the quality of the iPod's screen is actually superior, even though it's smaller. I'd say my earlier fears about the quality of the viewing experience were incorrect.

If you use Quicktime Pro to convert your videos then yes, it can take up to 12 hours to convert, so I've read, but Videora make software that can convert any PC format of video into suitable video for many different portable media players, including both the PSP and iPod. The iPod version takes a lot less time than QT Pro and whilst I've not done a conversion with the PSP version yet (as I don't own a PSP) I'd be surprised if the PSP version fares much better. The compression rate seems perfectly fine, a 620mb mpeg converts down to 400mb in mp4 format, which, given the massive 60gb at your disposal, there's plenty of room for. I think when it comes to raw storage the PSP will always struggle against the iPod, but then again, this massive storage comes at a price; the reduced battery life.

It's really a trade-up in that regard, you lose a little bit of battery life but gain a lot more storage. Personally, since I use my iPod on the tube journey to work and then back again, I find the battery life is just about fine, but for longer journeys I could see the benefit of the PSP. I plan to actually buy myself a PSP too, and get the best of both worlds, but if you're choosing one or the other, it really is a toss-up as to which one is the one for you.

The battery life of the iPod can of course be improved by using a battery pack, and is probably a situation that will be improved quicker than the PSP's storage issue. The reason for this is that the PSP isn't being marketed as a storage device, and the planned pre-recorded UMD market will rely heavily on the fact that the PSP can't store a lot of video. Neither Apple nor Sony is oblivious to the fact that their systems will be used to play pirated material, and if Sony intends the pre-recorded UMD market to succeed, it needs to kill off potential piracy, and trying to keep storage potential low is the way to secure that. Apple, however, will want their device to fare better in terms of battery life, and currently it's beaten silly by the PSP and Creative's Zen Vision media player.

That said, is any more than 2GB really that necessary? You can fit a decent film onto that no problems, and if you have several memory sticks, there's no reason why you couldn't juggle several of them around. However one of the main reasons behind the success of MP3 players has been that they don't require external storage media; the player and the storage media are as one unit. This is why MP3 players have overtaken portable CD players despite the fact that the latter will probably deliver better battery performance and almost certainly better audio quality.

Personally I think if you want a media player, the iPod Video beats the PSP, but if you want a gaming device, that can offer media playback, the PSP is a nice bit of kit. However, if the Zen Vision was more reasonably priced it would be my choice, especially if you're more into the video than the music aspect. Creative's offering doesn't quite have the same battery life as the iPod when it comes to music, but when it comes to video the Zen Vision craps all over the iPod Video.

Truth be told, they're all nice, and if I had enough money, I'd have one of each. I just love my Video iPod and wanted to share that with the world. Or rather the two of you that ever actually bother reading this blog on any sort of regular basis. Hi you two!

skype v Google Talk

2005-12-08T22:42:00.000Z

In yesterday's Metro there was a big focus on skype. I've seen a lot of hype surrounding skype now filtering its way through the mass media, everywhere and anywhere, and in my field of work I'm seeing things like internet phones being marketed based on their compatibility with skype. And yet for those in the know skype is old hat, hell I knew about skype ages ago and I'm hardly very tech-savvy (this site's design is proof of that!). I'm sure even Google Talk, my personal fave right now, has been relegated into the same category by the real whizzkids who probably have some new, relatively unknown, piece of software, that is to both skype and Google Talk, what pissing in a flushing toilet is to relieving yourself in the woods.

Where to start? Well I might as well begin with the product that's getting all the rave reviews in the mainstream media. Skype is rather pants. No, scratch that, skype just is pants. The quality might be better than predecessors like Teamspeak (which is still the daddy when it comes to hosting a conversation between massive groups) but compared to Google Talk, which is still in beta, it's nothing.

I'd been using skype for ages when I first tried Google Talk and I was amazed by the difference, the clarity on both is excellent, but skype suffered a lot more from being "blurred" by background noise. There was a certain sharpness missing from it that the Google product has in spades. Whilst the sound quality on skype is comparable to a standard telephone, the gmail-based software is actually an improvement on standard telephony. Skype makes you feel like you're in the same street as the person you're speaking to; Google Talk puts you right next to them.

And then there's the design. Skype isn't intuitively designed, it's cumbersome, and whilst not difficult to use, and easily customised to make it more user-friendly, it just lacks the sheer accessibility of Google Talk. The latter is far more "tuned in" to what most users want. When you click on a contact in Google Talk it automatically opens an IM window, whereas Skype goes for the call. This can be modified in the options but in truth, if the Google product comes like that "out of the box" why use the inferior one? And that's just one example of many interface design flaws in skype. It's like this; if you can get one free night with either a cheap, STD-riddled street corner prostitute or a high class, absolutely stunning, model-esque escort, which would you pick? It's not like it costs you any extra...

There are other design issues too. Skype looks like it's been put together by a 5 year-old (maybe it has!), and as we'd expect from the boys at Google, G-Talk (as some now call it) looks a far more polished piece of software. I'm not ashamed to have it on my desktop as I was with skype, which looked like a toy. And whilst this might sound silly, the ringing on Skype is annoying and shrill, sounding more like a telephone receiver from the 70s (you know the ones, before touchtone phones?) than a sophisticated piece of Internet telephony. The ringing on Google Talk is by far more preferable, much more in keeping with a cutting-edge piece of software.

Now some might see the fact that Google's product is based on users with gmail addresses as a problem, but I think it's quite the opposite. When you IM someone there's an option to call and an option to directly email them, which just adds to the whole "convenience" argument I put forward earlier. Integrating the software with gmail was a genius idea, not a flaw. Let's face it, whilst gmail (or Google Mail as it's now called in the UK) is still technically in beta, and invite-only, who doesn't have a gmail account? True, at the moment Google Talk is only PC to PC, whereas skype allows calls to telephones too, but I think it's only a matter of time before Google Talk is extended out into the full reaches of internet telephony.

All in all, whilst Google Talk can obviously be improved (proper smileys in the IM system and PC-to-telephone calls being the main two I can think of) it's still in the much earlier stages of its development. The signal indicators (like you get on your mobile) are a great help and allow you to quickly troubleshoot anything that's causing problems. Everything else listed above puts Google Talk on a level above Skype, and that's with a product that's still virtually embryonic.

As always Google comes out on top. Whatever the Google boys put their minds to tends to be a winner. Google came into the search engine market and blew away Yahoo! They entered the webmail market and blew away Hotmail. Now they've entered the Internet telephone market and skype have been warned...

Simply the Best; or was he?

2005-12-06T22:41:00.000Z

George Best (left, collecting the 2002 BBC Sports Personality of the Year's Lifetime Achievement award), footballing legend, a pure genius on the pitch and a man even Pele claimed was the best footballer he'd ever seen play, died on the 28th of November. This is hardly news but I'm not really writing about Best, or how great he was, many people have written that.

When Maradonna claims you're his favourite player, when Cruyff respects you, when you play in a team containing World Cup winners like Charlton and Stiles and outshine them, when you're so influential to your club's European Cup success at the tender age of 22 that you're named European Player of the year, you don't really need your praises sung. No, what I'm discussing today is whether the commotion over Best's death is really deserved.

There really is no doubting Best's footballing talent. Even as an Arsenal fan I can recognise the greatness of the man, even if he was a legend for a club that I abhor. Great players transcend clubs and even national allegiances. Pele is an example (how many non-Brazilians revere him?) and whilst we English hate Maradona for the Hand of God, few of us would take away from the genius of his goal later in the same game. It might've been the goal that knocked us out of that particular World Cup but it was easily the greatest goal ever scored. And in the modern game we have players like Ronaldinho and Arsenal's own Thierry Henry. Chelsea and United fans may hate the Frenchman but every last one of them would recognise his quality.

However George Best was by no means the saint he is being painted out to be. Tragic as his death is, it's unsurprising given the abuse he put his own body through. He's wasted two healthy livers, livers that could have gone to more deserving causes. Everyone knew he wouldn't take the lifeline his first liver transplant gave him, everyone knew he'd drink it to destruction again, but because it was George Best noone cared. Tell that to some poor child who was born with a liver defect around that time and missed out on an organ that could have radically improved the quality of their life. I personally, as a former drink-abuser myself, believe alcoholics (and drug addicts too for that matter) shouldn't be allowed liver transplants until essential and more deserving cases (such as natural or genetic defects) are treated first.

However it's not just that. What he does to his own body is, to an extent, his choice, even if it does have consequences for the NHS. Let's face it, most people needing liver transplants are alcoholics or drug addicts; there are few instances of natural or genetic defects, although they do exist and I still feel pity for anyone who needed or currently needs a liver and didn't actually do it to themselves. In an age when footballers are being held up as role-models, even former greats need to stand up for morality to an extent, and this is where my gripe with Best lies.

In fact, perhaps the pressure to be an upstanding citizen is even more pressing on an icon. I bet more people grew up looking up to Best than Beckham, because even today kids are growing up being raised on the Best folklore. Best's up there with Pele and Maradona, and it's quite shocking that two of those three have done some appalling things to their own bodies, but what seperates Best's conduct from Maradona's is what he's done to those around him.

I disagree that footballers that footballers are role-models, generally speaking, but I do agree that they should be held in higher disregard when they break the law because that's when their conduct does push them into the "role model" cateogory. And when Best beat his own wife, he broke the law, and what's worse, he did one of the most appalling things any man can do. No man should ever strike a woman, and the fact he was a great footballer, and a lovely chap in interviews, a charmer and an icon, none of those things eradicate what he did to Alex.

The truth is whilst Best's passing is tragic, whilst it's a shame, whilst we will remember a legendary player who changed football, whilst, given his career ended at 25, he could have been even better, it's ridiculous how much his death is being covered. Much like when Princess Diana died there's a cult of Celebrity surrounding Best's death. Diana was a serial adulteress, for starters, and yet people conveniently forget this when her name is mentioned; she's been sanctified post-mortem. This happens with celebrities a lot, people forget the bad and remember the good, and the same is happening with Best. Why else would there be such a fuss over the death of a washed-up, ex-con, bankrupt, wife-beater?

The irony of it all is that a man like Kurt Cobain, who, albeit a drug taker, was an actual decent man, who did nothing to harm those around him and stopped taking heroin out of pure love and devotion for his daughter, a man who was savagely murdered and then later degraded by being labelled a suicide, a crime that's still yet to be properly, fully and thoroughly investigated, is remembered for the bad and yet not the good.

Sometimes life's just not fair.

I'm Bewitched

2005-12-04T17:43:00.000Z

So apparently I share musical taste with Nicole Kidman. How disturbing. Now where did I put that 12-gauge? Goodbye cruel cruel world.

Your Musical Tastes Match: Nicole Kidman

What Celebrity Matches Your Taste in Music?

Arise Sir Del Boy

2005-12-02T22:43:00.000Z

David Jason (left), the British comedic actor most famous for playing Del Boy Trotter in the BBC classic Only Fools and Horses, was yesterday honoured with a knighthood. As quite possibly the nation's favourite ever TV actor, it's an honour that was well deserved.

Jason, real name David John White, has been entertaining the British public for 38 years, starring alongside the late Ronnie Barker in Open All Hours, playing the then unknown Catherine Zeta Jones' father in The Darling Buds of May and my personal favourite, Jack Frost in the detective show A Touch of Frost. Many people don't know this but he was also the voice of Dangermouse and Count Duckula, two of my favourite cartoon characters of all time.

The actor also announced that he had married his long-term partner Gill Hinchcliffe at a ceremony in the Dorchester Hotel this past Wednesday. Congratulations to David, on what is no doubt a week to remember. Humble as always he said it had been an honour to meet the Queen. "She said she hoped I wasn't always going to play the same character and I said I hoped I hadn't ever offended her". No David, you could never have offended her; you've done her, and the country, proud.

Also at the palace was Michelle Stead, wife of Flight Lieutenant David Stead who was awarded the Air Force Cross for evacuating sick people from Afghanistan during poor weather. Sadly he was killed earlier this year when his Hercules helicopter crashed in Iraq. Heroes like him are a lesson to those who paint our brave fighting men and women as savages, and look for any excuse to criticise them. I understand people oppose the wars that our current governments have wage, but the mockery of our armed forces is disgraceful and the people who engage in it ought to be ashamed of themselves.

And on the same topic, a message to all those who claim that the west is waging a war on Islam; Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, was also knighted yesterday, for services to the Muslim community and building stronger relations between Muslim communities and their neighbours. We don't oppose Muslims at all, I have many Muslim friends, and I know every one of them agrees with me in opposing radical Islamic fundamentalism, as it paints Islam in an unfair light.

£6 million for 12 years

2005-11-30T21:40:00.000Z

I read in astonishment today that a 12 year old New Yorker had a £6million lavish soiree for her bat mitvah. Entertainment included 50 Cent(pictured), Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Tom Petty and The Eagles, and the venue was the plush Rainbow Room. The legendary club situated on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center is one of the very best venues for a night out in Manhattan and I remember last time I was in New York how jealous I was of my friends who were going out for the night to the Rainbow Room.

The girl in question is the daughter of David H Brooks, the multi-millionaire founder of DHB, a company that makes body armour for the military. He flew his private jet down to Pittsburgh to pick up Tyler and Perry, paying each of them more than £1 million to perform for his daughter Elizabeth.

The tradition of a Bat Mitzvah, which celebrates a young girl's transformation into womanhood, is a big day in any Jewish family, and many would consider spending tens of thousands on a celebration, but the £290,000 Mr Brooks paid for 50 Cent to perform just 5 songs would eclipse what most families would spend on the entire celebration! And on top of that every guest was given a Goody Bag worth a paltry £600, containing such trivial little gifts as iPods and digital cameras. And here was me getting excited at having purchased a video iPod today!

I don't begrudge him or his daughter the joy that the day brought them, however, and the point of me mentioning this isn't jealousy. I think the wealthy have every right to enjoy their wealth, and it's so great to see them lavish it on their children, who tend to lose out on many of the things most of us take for granted.

See whilst many would call her a lucky girl, I'd say she probably missed out on much of the day-to-day affection and attention you and I received, because often wealthy and successful people pay the price in terms of the amount of time they have to spend working. I'm sure she'd consider herself hard done by, she may even have issues with her father and feel somewhat abandoned. Who knows?

This is why I often get annoyed at people who launch offensives on the wealthy for spending their wealth; things often look very different from the outside. We don't know the details on their lives, and even if they are very happy, and none of these traumas are present, why not just live and let live? Why not concentrate on our own happiness, why is it we can only be happy through someone else's misery?

The reason I brought it up is I'm just imagining being her friend! Despite what I've just said, I might be willing to put up with all the trappings of wealth to meet Steve Tyler! Put it this way, if I was invited to that birthday bash I wouldn't have said no!

For an alternative view.

And the truth shall set you free

2005-11-28T00:29:00.000Z

Irony is a marvellous thing. I've rather gone on and on about the friend I lied to, and the irony of it all is for all her words about honesty and being open, she was neither. My dishonesty was not what destroyed the friendship; hers was.

If you've read my earlier posts you'll recall I wondered if perhaps she'd forgotten how much I cared? Well it appears perhaps it's not that I don't care enough, but that I care too much. I have been told I can "be too much" sometimes by many people, and now I've been told by a reliable source that she suggested I was smothering her.

This makes it all the more ironic that she should thank me so much for being so caring only to then throw that back at me. If you read my last post you know that she's consistently and constantly thanked me for being there, and yet, it appears I'm there too much now. Oh well, guess what? Now I won't be there at all. Which is a shame for her, because she's apparently going through a stage in her life where everything feels awful and she wants to die. Perfect time to lose a supportive friend then, eh?

Now you might say "Thanking you for being supportive wasn't an invite to smother her" and you'd be right. You might also think it's not dishonest. However telling me my conduct was inappropriate moments before breaking off the friendship seems a little unfair. It's a bit hard to modify your behaviour if someone doesn't tell you it bothers them. Oh no, but it gets worse. It seems she would tell me things were fine to my face and then go behind my back and complain about these same things to other people! I asked her if she minded certain aspects of my behaviour and she assured me she didn't and she'd let me know if that changed. I told her if she told me something I did was bothering her, I'd stop doing it.

She didn't. And now she's lost me. It's weird how knowing that has made me feel so much better, but it has. Knowing that it wasn't entirely my fault, knowing that she has to take the lion's share of the blame, it's refreshing, and it also makes me wonder when she's going to finally miss the attention.

Promise me you will not ever leave

2005-11-27T18:31:00.000Z

People always leave. Sadly, it's true, people come and go and sometimes the ones that touch our lives the most are the ones that leave the quickest. The stronger the bond, the greater the pain of betrayal, and given that the friend I lied to earlier this week has trust issues, especially with men, it was no doubt a really hurtful thing. I'm sure she thought I'd never lie to her, and when I did, I was suddenly a new person to her. But I think much worse was the guilt I myself felt, and how this manifested itself. I grew paranoid and afraid and now it seems the thing I was afraid of most has come true; I've lost my best friend.

I might have confessed to another friend that it was hard to be friends with this girl, but I also confessed that I couldn't see a way not to be. Being her friend was hard, given my feelings for her, but a life devoid of her is far worse, especially knowing it was down to my own betrayal. I don't believe I've changed dramatically, I'm weaker now, perhaps, than when we first met, but I'm going through a traumatic time remembering what was going on in my life this time last year. She may feel betrayed but what I went through last year was a true betrayal, and given that last October I tried to take my own life, I can be forgiven a little bit of weakness at this time.

However I was clearing my phone of the text messages I sent her and she sent me, the memory needed clearing anyway, and I looked back and saw the countless times she texted to thank me for my support and my caring. The amount of times she texted me just to say thank you for calling, or to chat, and even up until the last few days, we were close. I made one mistake and since then it seems all those times are forgotten. I stayed up listening to her cry so many nights, and in fact, many of those were crying because she was rejected by another man, and yet, despite pushing my feelings aside to sympathise with her, this is how I'm repaid?

I understand she feels she always has to protect herself, she's been hurt and disappointed so many times before, especially by men, but I don't understand how suddenly we went from being fine to being worse. Looking back over our last conversation, it seemed that all of a sudden she went from being my friend to not. And then, in a state of shock, I got very very drunk and did something very stupid; drunken phonecalls are never a good idea and in the end I said some stuff I really shouldn't have. In fact, I shouldn't have been calling her at all, so there you go.

In keeping with recent posts, here's another poem that I found that seems to fit nicely.

Betrayal
by Dan McDonald

An echo fades into the night,
an eerie mournful sound.
A shooting star disappears from sight,
and I crumble to the ground.
There is no life within this garden;
my sobs are the only sound.
I have poisoned the honeyed fountain
where your love could be found.

Dazed, I stare at the stars above,
my grieving howls fill the night!
Unintended betrayal of love
has hidden you from my sight.
I remember how it used to be
when we shared our fears and delights.
You are a treasured friend to me.
How can I make things right?

Feeling afraid, cold and lonely,
I long to tell you how I feel,
but you don’t want to hear me.
The pain for you is much too real.
Should I back away and build a wall
and block away how I feel?
Or, should I give you a call?
We both need some time to heal.

An echo fades into the night
as our friendship disappears.
How do I know what is right?
How can I ease my fears?
If I do call you again,
would the old wounds reappear?
I can’t stand to cause you pain.
Hurting you again is my worst fear!

All good things come to an end and this was a pretty damn good thing. So I won't cry because it's over, I'll smile because it happened. Just like Dr Seuss said.

Rape Me

2005-11-25T23:16:00.000Z

I was talking about this topic just the other day with some friends, and suggested that with the advent of DNA, the "I didn't have sex with her" defence to rape no longer has any real chance of success if it's untrue. This has lead to the creation of the "consent" defence, whereby a defendant admits to having sex with the alleged victim and then claims that she consented. This defence is almost impossible to overcome, bruising isn't conclusive, and unless there are witnesses to violence preceding the rape, I really can't see any way to overcome this defence.

It's her word against his, and in many ways, all this does in practice is allow an easy circumvention of the rape shield statutes because it puts character in issue. What's worse is that now, in the case of drunken women, it may not even any longer be his word against hers. The question remains then; if you can't prove rape, is the crime just a thing of the past?

We've had judges claim not that long ago that women who dress provocatively are asking to be raped. Apparently if a woman goes out and dresses to attract a man, this gives free license to any man, even one she's not interested in, to force his way into her pants. I realise that rape is a crime where consent is crucial, and unlike murder, where a victim cannot consent to be killed, consensual sex is not illegal. However my understanding was that consent had to be verbally given, not just implied from the way someone dresses. Does this mean if I'm showing off my iPod, and it's stolen, that they won't prosecute the thief if he's apprehended?

Now we have Justice Roderick Evans claiming thaty "drunken consent is still consent". This is absolutely ridiculous, and if that's the case, is there such a thing as date rape? Surely drugged consent is still consent by the same logic? I've just said that as a point of illustration, but scarily enough I worry that the overwhelmingly male judiciary is shifting towards a stance whereby rape may well be a thing of the past. There seems to be a worrying trend towards neo-fascism in the judiciaries of both the US and the UK and I'm sure even the most conservative of us would agree that a policy whereby drunken women do not have the same protections as sober ones when it comes to rape is a policy we don't want to be associated with. It belongs in the middle ages.

It's not even as if the facts suggest that the victim might have consented. The girl is a 21-year-old student at Aberystwyth University and the accused is a security guard at the university, a complete stranger to the victim. They had sex in the corridor outside her hall-of-residence flat, just yards from her bedroom, while she lay there unconscious. On direct examination she told the jury that had she wanted to have sex with him, she surely would have taken the steps to her bedroom, and this seems logical enough. The fact that on cross-examination she was honest enough to admit that she was so drunk that she couldn't remember the events clearly, from which the inference was that she might have consented, should not have led to the judge directing the jury to return a verdict of not guilty.

Had the jury drawn that inference themselves, that would be up to them, they are the tryers of fact and the judge is the tryer of law, and there is no doubt that the decision as to whether she gave consent or not is a matter of fact. Here consent has no real legal requirements, she wasn't required to deed them or whatever, so the judge was not being called upon to decide if certain legal formalities were met to make the consent valid or not. Consent in rape cases is a question for the jury, which is another reason why this decision was wrong.

The defence barrister's words were chilling, claiming that the victim merely regretted having "steamy, exciting, spontaneous sex". That sort of attitude is the one that prevails in the judiciary, and it's something to be worried about. It makes the whole thing sound a lot more sordid, like something she should be ashamed of. So I wouldn't be surprised to find that in a few years rape is no longer a crime of any real significance.

Apparently rape is really just people regretting having "steamy, exciting, spontaneous sex". Tell that to the victims...

Knowing Nothing is Better Than Knowing It All

2005-11-24T02:02:00.000Z

Friendship is nourishment every human being craves and needs, more so than love, because where lovers come and go, friends are forever. This is why lying to a friend is a step not to be taken lightly, because a breach of trust can often be seen as the ultimate betrayal. Today I was on both ends of this situation, both lied to and lied, and in the end, both cost me dearly. Now I will confess, both friendships exist on the internet, but when I found the following poem it seemed to sum up why this was so important to me.

What Would Life Be
by Scott Wheeler, Sr

What would life be with out friends like thee
I'll tell you, like no longer being free.
Imagine what life would be so sad and blue
To go through life without that special you.
And I know we live so far away
Through the internet we are like castaways
Never get to touch or hug you for this I only pray
For some day I hope we can meet
To hug and laugh and dance to the beat
I know this would be a treat
For now this is all I see
Is my good friend here with me
Just think what life would be
Without friends like thee

This is exactly how I feel about the friend I lied to. I know some would say "If that's how you felt, why lie?" but the truth is my motives were entirely pure. I was worried about the impact the truth might have on my friend, she's somewhat fragile and susceptible to feeling needlessly guilty. My concern was that, were she to know I was somewhat upset, and that to an extent that she was a cause, she might feel bad.

With hindsight perhaps I could have confessed to my emotional state, but then refused to discuss why. However when I've previously told her that I've talked over what concerns me with other friends, she got upset and felt inadequate for being unable to help me. Apparently I'm damned if I do and damned if I do. Hence the title of this post, perhaps knowing nothing really is better than knowing it all.

Like then knowing that my other friend was responsible for telling her I was crying. Now had my other friend actually told me that she knew, I would never have lied to her, because any benefit in sparing her feelings would have been lost. Apparently the ease with which I lied to this friend was of concern to her, but considering that my motivation was to protect her, surely it should occur to her how quickly my natural instinct was to protect her and put her interests first.

My interests would have been better served by being honest, and yet she can't seem to see that in not being, it shows that my heart was genuinely in the right place. Yes, I accept that once trust is lost, it's almost impossible to regain, but to hold someone accountable for a well-intentioned lie is somewhat harsh.

However it appears that my friend feels the same way about me, and whilst the trust in our friendship has been harmed, it appears our bond is too strong to be broken by something so small.

Mighty musical Marvin

2005-11-22T23:08:00.000Z

I was on the tube today, on my daily commute into work, which is hardly the highlight of my day, so as usual, I brightened it up by listening to my iPod, Marvin. Yes, I named my iPod, it's a blue mini, and so I named it after the depressed robot from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (depressed...blue...get it?). To be fair I had the volume turned up to full and it was rather loud, just how I like it. My eardrums weren't quite bleeding, which was disappointing, but alas, can't have it all.

Now on a packed train, it was loud enough that people could hear it quite clearly, and had people broken out into song, singing along to the catchy songs...they'd have seriously worried me (and probably been listening to someone else's iPod as I doubt they'd know the words to Funeral for a Friend). I got a lot of funny looks, in fact there was a bit of gossip about it travelling through the train but not one person said something. Until someone did. Obviously. Oh you know what I mean!

A rather well-dressed gentleman gently tapped me on the shoulder, and I removed my headphones and said "Yes?". He asked very nicely if I would mind putting the volume down a little bit. I said no, of course not, and promptly did so. This generated an odd reaction, the assembled onlookers looked from me to him and then back again, and I think I know why it was that they did this rather odd thing. People were probably thinking "Why didn't we think of that?" Which makes perfect sense, why didn't they? Are we so afraid to break out of our comfort zone enough to ask a very simple request from a stranger? It's almost as if people were afraid to talk to me because they didn't know me, much like the phenomenon where noone talks to anyone else on the tubes. People are even afraid to make eye contact on the tubes, it's a big taboo!

Or were they suggesting it was because he was Indian? As you'll note, I hadn't actually mentioned that fact previously, as it wasn't relevant, but being an Indian (in ethnic origin only) myself, perhaps they felt that it was a bit of "He's one of ours" going on? Which couldn't be further from the truth as I don't even think of myself as Indian, I'm just an ultra-tanned Englishman. Honest! Ok, I'm an Englishman whose parents happen to be of Indian descent, but that's all. The truth is, had anyone, of any race, colour, creed or religion, asked me to turn it down, I would have. I'd say gender but I know that if a pretty girl flashed a smile at me and asked me to turn it down I'd have switched it off and chatted her up instead! Well, ok, maybe not, probably just turned it down. And stared at her forlornly, realising she was out of my league. Whilst drooling, of course, because she's just so hot.

Anyway, the odd thing is, those people muttering about me and giving me dirty looks could easily have just asked, like he did. I responded to his request because he was polite in making it, and it was a request, not a demand or an insult. Had someone asked in a similar manner, I'd have done the same thing. Now, of course, if someone was rude to me, or demanded that I turn it down, or made snide remarks or anything along those lines, I'd have promptly told them to fuck off, shown them the finger and gotten back to listening to my music, ignoring them. I respond to politeness and mutual respect, I do not respond to being patronised or told what to do. I pay my fare to travel like everyone else, and if they don't like the music I'm listening to, they can get off and take the next train.

What I don't understand is, why is it fine when the offending loud music is RnB or dance music, but not when it's rock? I can often hear the vocals to RnB music from other people's iPods when I'm travelling and they rarely, if ever, get the same sort of reaction. Is it because it's more "pleasant" to the ear? Says who? I find it painful to listen to, but I usually just drown it out with my own, much more pleasant, music. Is it because rock music is so offensive? In what way? I find most RnB or Garage music to be an assault on my ears. Is it the swearing? What, and Eminem doesn't swear? Don't get me wrong, I actually like Hip Hop, and I like Eminem, but to suggest that rock music is offensive or in any way "lesser" to any other genre is degrading.

But that's fine, rock music has always been about being outcasts and misfits, and it'll never change. If I can change just one attitude or perhaps even educate the Great Unwashed in what good music is, then it's all worth it.

Loving you hating me

2005-11-21T23:34:00.000Z

Thanks to Soft Cell for the title. My topic today is hate on the internet, and it's largely based upon a bad review I got at Blog Explosion. I don't actually mind getting bad reviews, it's constructive criticism, and the fact that someone gave me 1/5 on all aspects of my site was fine, people are entitled to their views. What struck me as being a little odd, however, was that I was rated as a "Good Mommy/Daddy blog" when I'm neither, until the CSA inform me otherwise! Seriously, if you're the mother of one of my illegitimate love children, I'm afraid you signed a waiver, don't come crying to me! All jokes aside, clearly this was the result of someone having some issue with me online, "hating" me if you will and seeking vengeance. Just seemed a bit petty and silly and it got me thinking...

Why do so many people take things so personally on the internet? So someone says something you disagree with, they're just a faceless person in front of a computer somewhere out there in the world, you don't know them, so why take things so personally? What, is your skin thinner than Kate Moss and Posh Spice's lovechild?

I get sworn at and berated by people on the telephone all day as part of my job, if I took every single one personally I'd never get anywhere. I did used to get frustrated, I think it's only natural when someone hangs up on you mid-sentence, but then I realised; I don't know them, if they hang up, their loss.

What I don't get is how when someone loses on Battle of the Blogs at Blog Explosion they get the hump with people who beat them and then go around voting against the blog that won every time it's up. Why bother? Why take it so personally? It's like people who have vendettas on online forums.

If you've ever joined one, you'll always notice "cliques" and people within different groups not talking to each other, and in fact, actively seeking to insult and put down other people because they're "enemies". It might seem strong I should use such a word, and it is, but it's really quite often an apt word. It's almost like people haven't grown up from the playground days back at school.

I get that people cause frustration online, and sometimes it boils over, but it's the sheer depth of the feeling that puzzles me. Perhaps we as a society are so bent on conformity that we don't allow people to actually express and release their pent up tensions out there in the real world, and in the end, people find that the only place they have the power to release those is online.

I think to an extent people feel so lacking in control over their lives that the control the internet allows you to have over anything you like is like an aphrodisiac. Or maybe it's just that these people are cowards, people who wouldn't say boo to a goose in the real world but when hiding behind a level of anonymity usually reserved for those in witness protection, they finally have some courage.

Perhaps the internet should come with an offer label "Join now and get a free set of balls!"

Harry Potter and the Craze of the Cursed Cretins

2005-11-19T23:31:00.000Z

When I heard the craze around JK Rowling and her "magnificent" masterpieces, despite my better judgement suggesting that the only fantasy author to not come off as a JRR Tolkien quasi-plagiarist is Terry Pratchett (who took an entirely different direction, and has admitted he did so because he felt Tolkien was so good that the only way to go was to write comic fantasy), I read the first two books in the series. I was severely disappointed, and after that, I refused to give in to the Harry Potter phenomenon because it's the sort of thing only a cretin could enjoy.

Imagine my chagrin, then, when people whose opinions I normally respect are ranting and raving about Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, having just seen it at the cinema. It would be one thing if it was pre-pubescents, children, or chavs who were expressing these sorts of opinions, but it's not! It's well-educated people, often people who often show a level of discernment for the high brow in life. Those who would probably have read Tolkien when they were children as opposed to the cretins who're reading it for the first time as adults because of the blasted films (which weren't that great).

It's almost been enough to get me to break my boycott. Temptation is a powerful mistress, just ask any adulterer, alcoholic or gambling addict, and sometimes the will is weak. Thankfully someone whose opinion I truly do respect gave it the thumbs down and that's restored my sanity. Which I'm grateful for as if I'd actually gone to see the bloody thing I'd have felt unclean for the rest of my miserable wretched life. Thankfully I didn't part with my hard-earned money to see JK Rowling's awful books brought to life. Those who did...haha...OWNED!

Seriously though, how can people enjoy reading books that are so clearly written for a child, that show no verve or talent whatsoever? Perhaps it's the simplicity that works though, simple things for simple minds. It's a shame that those who're intellectually challenged choose to remain within their own boundaries, never daring to step outside of those and actually try and challenge themselves. Reading is supposed to be about learning, broadening your horizons and language, not stifling it. Then again, the chavs were the ones who never enjoyed learning at school, preferring instead to be vacuous but popular. It’s a shame that in today's society we value fame (and its lesser cousin, popularity) as more important than intelligence. It will bring the downfall of our generation, I tell you.

And surely if Harry really was blessed with magical powers he could make himself look less like a knobby, spotty, twatty geek and actually get into Hermione's pants more often? Such a waste...then again, maybe he's after Ron?

(Thanks to Sven Central for the picture!)

Shutterjunkie review

2005-11-17T22:11:00.000Z

I normally hate photoblogs. This is simply because not enough of them feature pornography. Preferably naked women engaging in sexual acts with other naked women. But I make an exception for Shutterjunkie

Of course some of you may have noticed I've mentioned that blog before. And then rented my blog out to the same blog. Now of course this is all part of an elaborate plan to get into Jem's bed but since her other half is the host of that site, I probably have more chance of having my kneecaps shattered by the aforementioned boyfriend than getting the gorgeous and extremely talented photographer into bed.

All jokes aside, the blog really just is that damn good. It's well designed, presumably because Jem's other half does all the technical stuff, leaving her to get on with what she does best, which is take some bloody brilliant photographs. I'm not kidding when I say she's talented, go check out her pictures for yourself. This girl will be a major photojournalist one day, so get on the bandwagon now and be able to say you've watched her career blossom from its humble beginnings. Be there from day one!

I suppose the fact it's custom-designed also helps, the look is truly unique because it's entirely customised for her, as opposed to hiring a designer (who will often use a specific "style" that you will see replicated) or using a standard template. Plus, unlike my paltry and pathetic effort at a customised template, it actually looks good!

The photographs are not only well taken, they're well edited, it's regularly updated (daily) and there's a little brief explanation behind every photograph. Plus it's a real photographer's blog, everything a photoblog should be, because it describes the equipment and techniques used, as well as various stats (which mean nothing to me) about the way the photograph was taken. Or something.

I'm not sure how many times I can say this, but it's a really amazing blog, and the only reason I can think of that people didn't click on it while the poor girl was renting my blog is that her blog is far more popular than mine. I'm sure that more people who read hers have stumbled onto mine than vice-versa.

CHECK THIS BLOG OUT. Or I'll send the boys round. Ok, it'll just be little Jimbo. On his tricycle. Juggling some oranges. Now tell me that isn't scary!

The Greatest Show On Earth

2005-11-15T22:08:00.000Z

Ok, maybe not, but Taste of Chaos was still an amazing night. For those who aren't aware what that is, click the link! It's basically a one-night "festival" which is currently on a worldwide tour and hit London on Sunday, playing an added date last night, which is what I went to see.

The night featured several acts, most of whom, I must confess, were pretty godawful. Reggie And The Full Effect opened, and whilst I hadn't heard of them before I went to the gig, they were surprisingly not bad. Better than your average opening act, anyway, quite heavy, but thankfully, despite having been around for donkey's years, they didn't seem to take themselves too seriously. I was pleased to see that they appreciated their standing compared to the other bands on the tour, which sadly some opening acts fail to really do, despite words to the contrary. However their set was nothing to write home about, a decent mood-builder but really nothing more.

The show really kicked off when Story of the Year got on stage. The set was tight, they pretty much chose the very best songs they could have done, the harder more gig-worthy material, and frontman Dan Marsala was really giving it every last drop of energy he had. The crowd really got into it, presumably a lot of the fans were there to see Story, since they were being talked up even in the queue outside, and they're quite a relatively unknown Emo band (which, after all, is what all true Emo kids crave.) Bands like My Chemical Romance get slated (though not by me as I love them) for being too "mainstream" but with the level of anonymity Story have in the UK music scene they can't be accused of the same. It was pretty much an awesome set; great performance, great crowd, perfect.

Rise Against were pretty good, as I expected them to be, but it seemed as though the crowd took a long time to get warmed to them. I'm not sure why this is, they seem to have been slated a lot out there on the internet, and it could be that being a more typical punk band they didn't fit the emo crowd as much as the other acts, but the odd thing is once they got going, the crowd really enjoyed it, and the circle pits were mad. I think it's a real shame they didn't get the reception that I felt their performance deserved. Definitely a band I want to see again, preferably on their own so that the crowd are fans.

The biggest "disappointment" of the night were Killswitch Engage. I say that with a level of sarcasm because I never had great expectations of them, having heard their material I thought it'd be an awful set, because they're no talent wannabes. They have nothing unique about their sound whatsoever, and it didn't help that the lead singer lacked any energy at all. Their set was lifeless and dull, the music should more appropriately have been called "noise" and if it wasn't for Bert McCracken (lead singer of The Used for the uninitiated) coming out to get the crowd going, their set really would've been entirely lacking in memorable moments. However Bert, as always, stole the show, and the crowd's adulation of the crazy frontman only served to whip them into the sort of frenzy that I thought Killswitch might get them in by themselves. That was the disappointing aspect, I knew the music would be awful, but I expected that the moshing would be good, and truth be told, without Bert's intervention it really wouldn't have been.

Bleed the Dream were scarily awful, given the billing they'd been given. They were so bad I won't even mention them anymore, except to say that The Used should've been given Bleed The Dream's slot to play a longer set. And moving onto The Used, having seen them back in February I had high hopes for a special show. Sadly, they were a tad below their best. I'm sure some of this had to do with the length of set they played, and the fact that they probably had the best back catalogue of material to play out of all the bands on the tour. On that basis I'd have had them headline the show, had I not seen how great Funeral were live, but I'll leave that for a moment.

However I put some of the blame at the door of Killswitch, because poor Bert wasn't even a shadow of his usual self. He was really energetic during the Killswitch set but he seemed relatively sedate during The Used's set. He still cracked his usual jokes and still exhuded everything a great frontman should, but his usual jumping around the stage like a madman antics were sorely missed. Perhaps the length of the tour, and Warped before it, and then their own band's tour before that is finally catching up with him? Whatever the reason, Bert wasn't himself.

However the music was spectacular. It was a bit of a shame that the setlist basically matched the one in February, just truncated, but then I suppose if it ain't broke, why fix it? Even better were the crowd, who lapped up every offering by Bert and spat it back with even more energy, more than making up for the frontman's slight lethargy. The mosh pit got absolutely crazy, and in fact people started doing running jumps off the barricades to crowd surf, which was a bit too crazy as a lot of people were injuring their necks as people just landed hard onto the crowd. It was bloody stupid, not funny and definitely not cool. Other than that little period of time, and the several times I almost lost my glasses under the crowd, it was a great set.

The best set of the night, however, was Funeral for a Friend. Now my sister and I disagree on this, but I swear Dan Marsala came out with Funeral. Now if anyone was at Taste of Chaos yesterday at Brixton, please confirm if he was singing with Funeral for a Friend or not. Anyway, the set was killer, really tight choice of songs, Escape Artists Never Die and of course She Drove Me To Daytime TV featured, and were particular crowd favourites, but the choice of songs from Hours was the real surprise. There was no Monsters and no All The Rage, which I expected to be in their set, and from Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation there was no Novella, which I would have predicted would have been a real gig crowd-pleaser.

However Roses for the Dead, Red is the New Black and History all got amazing receptions and all in all, the set was awesome. The crowd were a bit dead by this point, and there was a lot less moshing, but the singing didn't die down one bit, quite the opposite in fact. And the way that Streetcar was introduced was especially creative, getting people to hold their mobile phones in the air, given the introduction to that song is a telephone call. It was all in all a pretty awesome set, and I definitely felt that they stole the show and fully deserved their position as headliners.

And we scored some great merchandise too, so what more can you ask for?

Who's afraid of the big bad gay?

2005-11-13T16:06:00.000Z

Well clearly the Republican party are, with their big push to enforce a constitutional ban on gay marriage. It's bad enough that the consitutional protections of marriage don't even extend to gay people, as they should, because "marriage" is simply a contract between two people who love each other and wish to commit, it has no religious significance whatsoever. Those who believe it does are getting "marriage" and "wedding" mixed up. A wedding can be religious as it's ceremonial, but a "marriage" merely means the bringing together of two elements. Freedom of contract means gay people have the same right to marry as anyone else, and this freedom of contract is constitutionally protected.

What's worse is that now, the same people who argue that abortion is a matter for states, not the federal government, to regulate, are taking the power away from the states when it comes to marriage. So I see, the Republicans believe that States retain powers not expressly delegated to Federal government, except where this interpretation means that the states are doing things that go against "the will of God". You can't have it both ways, either abortion and marriage are both state matters, or they're both federal matters, I see no reason why they're any different to one another.

The truth is that the Republican party is becoming infected by a rising Christian Theocracy, ironic given the war against a nation like Afghanistan which was ruled on similar grounds. Ironic, given that they preach the merits of democracy to the Middle East. It's a neo-Nazi political philosophy, based on a lesson of hate and religious oppression, not disimilar to that preached by Saddam Hussein or the Taliban.

It wants to strip away all rights that don't fit in with recognised Christian orthodoxy, despite the fact that legally, it's impossible to justify a Federal ban on gay marriage to be written into the constitution, whilst opposing Roe v Wade. The Christian Right are growing worryingly in power by the day and it's actually quite disturbing. I'm by no means a Liberal, I'd even say I lean towards the Republican side of the partisan divide, but the Christian Right within the party do worry me a great deal.

Whatever happened to the seperation of church and state?

Why oh why?

2005-11-11T21:18:00.000Z

I've never understood this phenomenon. It drives me up the wall, and has now twice meant that instead of being able to sit comfortably on my commute into work, I've had to either stand, or worse yet, be crushed up against the door. Travelling on the tube in this fashion is no fun, let me tell you, and I was lucky on that occasion to even get back on the train. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

The phenomenon I refer to is people who are travelling just one stop on the tube and yet insist on moving right down inside the carriage, as instructed. Do these people not realise that those instructions to move right down inside expect the application of common sense? As in, if you're going one stop, allow other people, who are going further, to move beyond you and move "right down inside" whilst you stand by the bloody door!

At least that way a person going nine stops, almost to the line's terminus, doesn't have to get off the train to let your sorry arse off. Nor do they have to back into other people, and draw the ire of those people for squashing back into them. Nor do they have to back so far off as to miss out on the chance of a seat, only for some person who joined at that very station at which your sorry arse is getting off, to slip in between and steal the seat. I've half a mind to tell people to fuck off if they're that deep into the train and want to get off. Walk through me if you can, but I'm not moving.

A similar thing happens on the bus that annoys me too. Why even take a bus if you're only going one or two stops? These are usually within 10 minutes walking distance, 15 at most, are you really that lazy? Or unfit? At this rate we may end up being as obese as our American cousins. Let's learn to walk when we can, it's really not that hard and means someone who has a 10 minute bus journey (instead of a forty minute walk) sees that journey clock out at 10 instead of 15. It also irks me when people argue or talk with the driver when getting on. If you want to quibble about fare, or chat with your bus driver friend, do it on your own time, don't make everyone else late too!

It's all part of the lack of common sense and decency that commuters in London suffer from. I've never been someone who agrees with the comments that Londoners are rude but in this one area, when it comes to the commute, Londoners are selfish, vile human beings in the main, and most without the common sense that they would show outside of the rush hour. My manager the other day referred to being on the tube "with the great unwashed" when going on a customer visit and I now fully agree with him.

Dizzy Scorpio review

2005-11-10T21:37:00.000Z

Some of you might have spotted that little "Recommended Reading" thing on the left. It's part of Blogexplosion's Rent my Blog feature and I really do try hard and ensure that those who pay credits to get advertising on my blog get their money's worth. I give it prominence and I promote my blog extra hard in the hopes that people will click through. I'll also use this opportunity to urge my readers to always explore the blogs on there, because I only ever accept blogs that I would genuinely recommend. However since the last renter failed to receive anywhere near enough clicks, I've decided I give her blog a review on here, and also a link in the links menu. The blog in question is Dizzy Scorpio.

The current Halloween-themed skin is a superb bit of design, but the other two are just average, and it's unfortunate because the Halloween skin shows a certain flourish for design. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I really do feel the other two skins are average, whereas the Halloween one is exceptional. Perhaps a less seasonally focussed (after all, Halloween's gone now) skin with the same level of design could be the next step for this blog?

The regularity of the updates is a positive thing, there are some large gaps, but generally you'll see a post every other day at least. What's best about the posts, however, is that although it's a very personal blog it doesn't feel mundane reading it. Few people have a knack for writing about their everyday lives and making it interesting, I know I don't, which is why I stopped writing so much about my personal life, but Melissa definitely has that knack. Perhaps it's because she waits until she has something interesting to say, rather than writing a daily diary, and perhaps it's also because she keeps her posts succinct. God knows you can't accuse me of being succinct! Whereas my posts ramble, hers get to the point.

The other thing is it's not buried under a lot of flashy add-ons, and the page loads really quickly. It looks a lot sharper and neater than mine, for example, and loads much quicker. I like my add-ons but perhaps I should take a leaf out of Melissa's book? I could certainly learn a bit from the streamlined and well-designed nature of the layout, although I'm sure Melissa would be the first to give props to Web-Divas for the design. I cannot stress this enough, if you want to get your blog professionally designed, they'd be my first port of call. I have yet to see a blog designed by them that I wasn't impressed with, from a design-perspective anyway. After all, can't expect them to save a blog from its own abysmal content!

Thankfully here design meets content in a great mix. It looks good, it reads even better, and all in all, it's a very fine blog. I'd definitely recommend giving it a read. You won't be disappointed.

Guy Fawkes celebrations end with a bang

2005-11-08T20:05:00.000Z

Leading on from my last post, there was a horrific accident, I read in yesterday's newspaper, at a firework display at Wicksteed Park in Kettering on Saturday. Eleven people were injured when a banger was fired into a crowd of 15,000 plus by accident. It's a small miracle that more weren't hurt, and we can only be thankful for that.

Seven of the eleven hurt were children, but thankfully most of the injuries were minor. One boy of ten, however, was seriously burnt, and had to have specialist burns treatment before being transferred to ICU. His condition is "serious but stable" when last I read. My thoughts go out to the parents of that little boy in particular, but also to all of those who had loved ones injured by this.

In a seperate incident an eight-year old boy was hurt in West Sussex after a firework accidentally went off inside his home. Two other people were treated for serious burns following seperate accidents in Essex, and another six were injured in a bar in Leeds when a firework was tossed into the building. Again, my thoughts go out to those hurt and I think something has to be done about this.

These are dangerous objects, and perhaps we need to look at firework safety more closely. Firstly, I think it's far too easy for teenagers to get access to them, but I wouldn't put the blame entirely on them. For all I know, the incident in Leeds could well have been the result of a grown adult being too drunk to realise what they were doing. And I think that's the problem, it's a celebratory night, and perhaps the idea of fireworks only being sold to licensed buyers buying on behalf of commercial displays is one worth delving more deeply into. It would also take care of the noise pollution issues I highlighted in my earlier post.

Looking back the origins of the celebration, it would be a shame to lose fireworks entirely from the spectrum of the Guy Fawkes celebrations but perhaps we do need to accept that they're a rather primitive form of technology (hence the throwback to the Gunpowder plot) that is susceptible to accidents like that in Kettering, which took place at an organised event. If even professional display organisers can get it wrong, what hope is there for anyone? It's virtually impossible to ensure that fireworks don't malfunction without setting them off, and once they're set off, that particular firework is useless. The next one in the manufactured bunch may well be the faulty one!

I'm not sure what the answer is, it's just clear something isn't quite right. I'm sure the families of those injured feel the same way...

Things that go bang in the night

2005-11-06T14:08:00.000Z

I appreciate that last night was bonfire night. What I don't appreciate is how some people are entirely inconsiderate and refuse to consider that the time at which they choose to enjoy their fireworks affects their neighbours. It's bloody annoying to have your entire night ruined by fireworks, worse yet when I know that tonight won't be the last night for it either.

It's entirely understandable, people buy large boxes of fireworks and they invariably have some left over for the next night. But when you have enough fireworks to last a week, and I have no doubt that I'll still be seeing fireworks still being let off on Tuesday or Wednesday next week, then you know you've been bloody greedy and bought too many.

You'd think they were giving them away for free, instead of the truth, which is that these days fireworks cost a packet. I have no idea why, it's not even just the good ones that are expensive, it's all of them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a spoilsport, I enjoy fireworks and Guy Fawkes night is great, but I just hate the lack of consideration shown by some people, made worse by the fact that most of those people probably don't even know the historical origins of the night at all.

For our non-British readers (what readers?) on the 5th of November every year we celebrate the foiling of the Gunpowder plot, which was a plot by religious separatists, led by Guy Fawkes, against King James. The plot consisted of attempting to blow up the Houses of Parliament, and the successful apprehension of the plotters and Fawkes' subsequent execution are celebrated by embracing their weapon of choice, Gunpowder, through fireworks. In addition effigies of Guy are burnt on bonfires and generally a lot of fun is had.

The irony of this is that so many in this country oppose the War on Terror and yet are happy to celebrate what was its medieval predecessor. Fawkes was no different from a modern day Islamic fundamentalist, and if his execution is to be celebrated, how can we then oppose a war against his ilk?

Tubes, Trains and Terrorists

2005-11-04T21:02:00.000Z

Airport-style security on the railways will begin trials on the Heathrow Express from Paddington in the New Year. This is not entirely surprising in the wake of the July 7th bombings and the fact that that particular train route extends straight into the busiest airport in the world. What is surprising, however, is the strength of the criticism that plans to extend high-level security checks to the rest of the rail and tube networks are receiving.

After those horrific attacks on London and the train bombs in Madrid, one would think that these sorts of plans would be welcome. Instead it appears that cost has become a far more crucial issue than human life. It's a shame when a value is put on a human life. The irony of this is the sheer expense that the Metropolitan Police must be going to to keep police officers in tube stations. I still see them on a daily basis, and I wonder if it isn't time that we came up with a more efficient solution and let those officers get on with more important tasks.

I can't believe the criticism by commuters that they might face delays. Better to have to get up earlier every day to get into work than to not wake up one morning at all because bits of you are scattered on a railway track, surely? 52 people died on July 7th and I for one would not like that number to be increased by future attacks. People go on about the early check-in times for flights but there are different reasons for that, and security is not the only one. The logistics of baggage-handling, getting the baggage onto the planes, is also crucial.

Whilst it is true that Heathrow only caters for roughly 65 million passengers a year, compared to roughly a billion a year on the tubes, noone is talking about quite the same level of security. How hard would it be to place metal detectors within the vicinity of existing ticket barriers? Whilst X-raying might be impractical, surely metal detecting isn't? The fact is, instead of finding reasons why these plans are impractical, people should be coming up with bloody alternatives. It's easy to criticise, finding a solution is the real challenge.

And the idea that it has to be at every station, why? Why not focus on the major stations to begin with, at least that'd be a step in the right direction! Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, clearly understands the problem. He said "We cannot operate a closed system like we do at airports. But it is important that we reduce the risk to those passengers while recognising that people need to get about on the Tube and railway."

The sad thing is that even with all these measures in place, the types of attacks London suffered on July 7th and 21st are extremely hard to prevent, and might well occur even with the best will in the world...

The figures don't quite add up

2005-11-02T23:33:00.000Z

Those who oppose the war on Iraq seem to find solace in the figures of the innocent deathtoll caused by the war. It's odd that they should find such relief in finding out more people, rather than less, died in this war, one would think they'd wish less had died, however bad that might look for their cause. But of course their cause has never really been the welfare of the innocent Iraqis at all, that's just a masquerade for an anti-Bush agenda.

You'll be hard pressed to find someone who opposes this war who disagrees with the first Gulf War. If they do, it's easy to throw some of their own objections against this war back at them. Weapons of Mass destruction were very much a reality at that time, and the UN thought so too, providing sanction to a war to defend an innocent nation (Kuwait) from unlawful invasion. And yet the irony of this position is that whilst they "agree" with that war, and bemoan the deathtoll of this one, many many more died in 1991.

The official figures for non-US casualties released by the Pentagon put the deathtoll at 26,000. It appears that that is the total number of Iraqis killed, it includes the dead insurgent fighters as well, although even if it doesn't, it's dwarfed by the total deathtoll in 1991. It's estimated that 158,000 Iraqis died in the first Gulf War, only 40,000 of which are believed to have been soldiers. A further 40,000 were women, and 32,000 were children. And yet this was a war sanctioned by the UN, so obviously it was right, no?

Afghanistan claimed at least 3,767 civilians and that's considered a conservative estimate. And yet people also agree with that war, after all, Al Queda were there and they were behind the 9/11 attacks. Justified retaliation doesn't make the deathtoll less significant. Kosovo claimed between 5,000 and 10,000 lives. Let's not forget the time-frames of these various conflicts, and the cause of some of the deaths in Iraq being insurgent fighting, which was far less prevalent in those other conflicts.

Crucially, and I think this is the telling figure, the estimated deathtoll caused by International Terrorism is well in excess of 20,000. And that's just what's considered "international" terrorism and what's actually been accounted for. The truth is, if we included many of the attacks that take place more "domestically" such as those that take place in Israel on a near-daily basis, we'd find the deathtoll caused by terrorists to be quite disturbing.

The truth of the matter is, had Clinton declared this war instead of Bush, there wouldn't be the same uproar about it. The innocent death toll has nothing to do with the equation, it's simply who declared the war. At least be honest in your argument...but then again, expecting honesty from a liberal (it was, after all, Clinton who got caught with his pants down...quite literally, and lied through his teeth) is probably expecting too much...

It gives a whole new meaning to "phone sex"

2005-10-31T21:55:00.000Z

Phone sex just got better. In fact, the world of vibrators just got better. Hell, the world in general, just got better. A British company has invented the greatest vibrator known to man, makes even the Rampant Rabbit seem like a geriatric's fingers, and it's all triggered off by something as simple as a text message.

Swindon (no, that's not in London for you yanks. It's near Oxford) manufacturer the Cool & Groovy Toy Company have developed a vibrator known simply as The Toy. Ever wished that text sex was more than just dirty text messages? Well now, thanks to this new gadget, it can be. Oh thank you Lord, praise be to Swindon and all of her inhabitants...

Now we all know many mobile phones vibrate anyway. But let's face it, they're not really designed to be used for sexual purposes, and whilst they can probably do the job, they lack the subtle variations that a proper vibrator is capable of. The Toy, however, is different.

Effectively every letter that’s sent to it via a text message or Bluetooth selects a different speed and time, and whilst the details were a bit hazy (although my mind might actually have just been distracted by the mental image!), I gather that each letter has potentially 45 different effects. On average a single text message could contain as many as 7,200 variations. Boy that gives a whole new meaning to losing your signal in a tunnel...

Don't worry though, it has in-built features to ensure it only gets to work when the lovely lady wants it to, so no “When Harry Met Sally” moments on the rush hour tube in the morning. Which is a good thing as I’d rather not have bodily fluids dripping onto the floor of my train carriage, thanks. Although any mention of tubes during a post about sex is probably incredibly unwise on my part...

Sex has traditionally always been a problem-area in long-distance relationships. There is nothing new, original or insightful in that revelation, I know, but I think it’s a relevant point to note, because the introduction of the Toy suggests that this need no longer be a problem.

With long-distance lovers especially, I fully expect The Toy to hit the spot...

Gates of Hell for DVDs and CDs

2005-10-29T20:14:00.000+01:00

Bill Gates yesterday spelt out how new technology would mean that DVDs and CDs would soon go the way of VHS and Minidisc (do you remember that?) and become obsolete. In a speech to the Internet Advertising Bureau's annual conference (Engage 2005) he spelt out how he believes that streaming will become more and more common, and not just streaming in the conventional sense we currently use it to mean either.

Gates believes TV shows will become increasingly broadcast online (some already are streamed live online) and that things like Football First whereby extended highlights of the football (that's soccer to you yanks) can be seen for virtually any Premiership game will no longer be seen as that innovative. He suggests that in future football fans will not only be able to select what match they wish to watch highlights of, but also exactly how many minutes worth of highlights you wish to watch. That way if you just want to watch the highlights whilst having your breakfast and morning coffee, you can select it to just last 10 minutes, if you want to settle down for the evening and watch an hour's worth of football, you can, and everything in between.

If he's right the future seems bright. In the portrait Mr Gates paints not only will CDs and DVDs be banished to the Gates of Hell but the home computer may well be seen as just one cog in a home entertainment machine, fading away seamlessly into the background whilst entertainment in its purest sense forms the main subject of the painting. Mobile phones may be even more essential than they currently are, with users able to search for information at any time on the web by simply talking into the headset, according to the Microsoft founder.

The essence of the Seattle billionaire's speech was simple; in the future your "digitial lifestyle" will consist of a situation whereby all forms of media will be accessible at any time, any place and any format of your choosing. What a dream, eh?

Ban goes up in smoke

2005-10-27T21:23:00.000+01:00

In good news a complete ban on smoking in pubs has been avoided. I've already stated why this was a bad idea. And no, I was not biased because I'm a smoker, I was biased because I hate bans. Of any kind. How unfortunate for me, then, that we still have a ban anyway.

Apparently pubs and bars which serve food will now be banned from allowing smoking in their establishments. What is unclear, however, is what "food" is. Noone understands yet if this includes cold food and snacks such as crisps and nuts, or purely cooked food. Also, what on Earth has food got to do with a smoking ban? If the rationale of a smoking ban is to protect people against the effects of passive smoking, surely these are just as bad regardless of whether one eats or not?

Of course the truth is, the anti-smoking ban is a style thing entirely. It's for pretentious snobs who wish to have their over-priced, barely-decorated bistros smoke-free because smoking is no longer fashionable. I hate feeling like a dinosaur because I choose to smoke, whereas people who choose to drink like fish see no problem with what they do. Alcohol is a far more destructive drug, I should know, I've suffered the effects of serious binge drinking. And I don't mean merely double the daily unit limit either...

One in four people in Britain is a binge drinker. I'm not sure what these figures are like outside of our isle, but that's pretty damn bad. Many people are in denial, unaware that binge drinking is just 6 units for women and 8 for men. And most claim they feel no ill-effects, but their workplaces do, with hangover days being taken off, and even on those days that hungover staff do go in, let's face it, their productivity is severely reduced.

As someone who's seem the dangers of drink up close, drinking Vodka like it was water, even drinking it from empty water bottles so as not to get caught, unable to cope with a second of a day whilst being sober, I know that alcohol did far more to damage my health, both mental and physical, than smoking has. And then there were other people who suffered due to my alcohol abuse, because invariably I'd get into a rage and say things that would end up devastating people.

Those were just words, what about people far more predisposed to violence than I? I'm not adverse to violence, I just tend to express my anger with words, but one need only look at the number of drunken fights to understand what alcohol can do. Not to mention spousal abuse, rape (how many women are raped/sexually abused when drunk?), theft (to feed the habit, like with most addictions), drink-driving (a 15 year old girl was killed this week by her own best friend drink-driving) and numerous other problems all caused by alcohol.

Yet despite that I'm in favour of 24 hour drinking laws. The logic of this seems to escape people, they feel as if it'd create more drunks (like people need any encouragement to drink more?) or lead to more late-night brawls and vandalism in residential areas. Instead these new laws will help tackle the problem of people drinking a lot really quickly (just to get it all drunk before the pub closes) and would lessen the amount of crime caused by unleashing all the drunkards out on the street at the same time under the current laws.

It's not like 24-hour licensing doesn't work in New York and other places, and in fact, most of those places report a lower drink-related crime-rate than the UK. Having an out-dated system whereby all the drunks are out and about on the street at the same time is almost as stupid as banning smoking...

Oh.

I'm sick to death...

2005-10-25T21:39:00.000+01:00

I'm sick to death of so many things today. I'm sick to death of the way it's become fashionable to blame the Americans for everything, I'm sick to death of the way the British public (actually, this applies equally well to other countries) is becoming more and more zombified in taking in the spoon-fed morsels they're fed by the mainstream media, in fact I'm sick to death of the mainstream media generally, I'm sick to death I'm sick to death of people worrying that things like CCTV and ID cards are threats to their privacy, instead of acknowledging they're safeguards against rising crime and the threat of terrorism that we live with every day, I'm sick to death with liberals banging on about supporters of the war not having signed up to fight, oblivious to the fact that some of us actually support National Service, and I'm sick to death of the same old tired arguments trotted out by opponents of the war. Try being original! Oh, and having a valid argument.

The Anti-American fever that's gripping the rest of the world is disturbing. In fact, it's far worse than that, even Americans are beginning to find it fashionable to hate America. I once respected the patriotism that Americans showed, and whilst it's all good and well to criticise your government whilst still being fiercely patriotic, responses like "I'm ashamed to be American" are not patriotic. One can be ashamed to be in a country run by George W Bush (although I wouldn't be) but one cannot surely be ashamed to be American and yet claim to be patriotic? I'd love to be American, if there are so many Americans desperate to be European, let's swap! I admire, respect, and adore America. Yet despite all that, despite not always agreeing with Tony Blair's politics, I'm fiercely proud of being English. Yes, English, not British, it's about time we reclaimed our own identity.

The "America is the only country which has used Weapons of Mass Destruction" argument also irritates me, not least because it's false. If you don't believe an plane filled with passengers and fully fuelled up can be a Weapon of Mass Destruction then tell that to the families of the thousands who died on 9/11. Was that not "Mass Destruction"? Not enough carnage for you? I get frustrated when I hear about the barbarism of the coalition, the treatment of prisoners and carpet-bombing as cruel, and yet people seem happy to ignore the beheadings that pass for entertainment on the insurgent side. Beheading an innocent civilian whilst taping it for international viewing is apparently not cruel enough.

I further hate to hear about how if America is so against WMDs they should get rid of their own stash of Nuclear Weapons first. There is a reason why the US holds the biggest stockpile of nukes. It's called M.A.D, mutually assured destruction, and it's the sole thing that's stopped a nuclear war breaking out yet. Machiavelli once said that the only way to secure peace was through war, and he's not the only man to have said so. The fact is, they're all right, the sole way to create a lasting peace is for one nation to wear down every other through war, through attrition, and then when all others are without arms and defenceless, lay down his own arms. In short, once the US has rendered every other Nuclear power impotent, then, and only then, can it disarm itself.

As if that wasn't bad enough, we hear how the deaths of innocent Iraqis killed by Insurgents are somehow the responsibility of the invading forces. How exactly? If they hadn't invaded, Saddam would still be in power, but the religious tensions would still be bubbling away. Instead of there being publicised accounts of these deaths, they'd be happening quietly, and Saddam would be ordering bloodbaths to impose his will on the Shiites as he always had done. People act surprised just because all this is coming to their attention now, but ask any Iraqi and they'll tell you that the entire death toll caused by this invasion was actually a daily occurrence under Saddam.

Machiavelli once said war was just if it's necessary. Who decides what's necessary? Surely it's up to every leader, every commander in chief, to decide if a war is necessary for his country, and if so, to launch that war? As such, the war in Iraq was just; deal with it.

It's almost as tiring listening to people bang on about Big Brother, and the nanny state, about computer printers spying on us (which they've always done, it's just people are actually finally figuring it all out now), about ID cards and CCTV, and worst of all, Oyster cards! For non-Londoners, Oyster is a smartcard, similar to the Metrocard in New York, used to charge up with credit or tickets to use on the London Transport public transport network. You provide a few general details about yourself when registering for one, so your card is tied in to your name, that way, if you lose it, you can actually stop someone else benefiting from your hard-earned money, and I believe get a refund on any money that's been charged onto the card. Anyway, I know people who used fake names, afraid that the information would be used to track their whereabouts! It's never occurred to these people that there are far more sophisticated ways to check your whereabouts, and that things like credit cards also leave a trail (and you can't fake-name those). And after all, if you've nothing to hide, what's the concern?

"It's the principle" I hear them bleat. "The government shouldn't have control of me, the government shouldn't know stuff about me, what about privacy?" What about it? It's not an enshrined right in the UK, and in other countries, where it is, there are always limits. Should a Paedophile be allowed to molest children in his own home under the defence of "privacy"? Should a terrorist be allowed to keep bomb-making equipment in his home on account of "privacy"? CCTV, face-recognition software, ID cards, tagging, these are all legitimate things that I have no concern with. Governments are all about control, people need to bloody accept that or go live in a heathen anarchistic commune. See how long that lasts...

The government has every right to know what you do, where you go, and so forth, if that information is used to protect civilians. And if it's not being collected for that purpose, then what? Why on Earth do you think a Cabinet minister cares where you socialise? Why does anyone think these people care about tracking your whereabouts, unless they already suspect you of something? I guarantee you that ID cards, CCTV, tracking, and so forth, will all only be used with people who they suspect anyway due to old-fashioned police work. I think civil liberties nuts need to realise ID cards, CCTV and the works, will help bring down rising crime rates, deal with terrorism and stop identity theft, amongst many other benefits. The loss of a little privacy is a small price to pay. If you get into such a frenzy over these things you need to get a life, have fun, go out for a drink, and get laid. Unless, of course, the reason you're so afraid is that you like sodomising monkeys...

And onto the whole "If you support the war, sign up" brigade. For the record, I'm in favour of national service. One of the Tory leadership contenders (the Tories are the equivalent of the Republicans for our American cousins) came out yesterday in favour of a national school leavers programme, similar to National Service. Whenever I hear old folk talk about serving together as part of National Service I think it'd be great for us to have the same thing. It's a truly shared experience, and something that breeds patriotism and maturity, things we can't say today's youth has enough of. It breaks down class barriers, educational barriers, and everything else, and instead we all become one. I think it's a brilliant idea, and I think it's a great way to bridge the gap between school and University, or for those who opt not to go to University, school and work. I think it'd take care of that little issue too, whereby people who go straight into work without a University degree tend to have issues with Graduates and vice-versa. Plus it'd reduce the strain on our military, and prove once and for all that those who support the war aren't playing a game of poker with other people's lives so much as supporting something they truly believe in.

Wow. This therapy thing really does work...

Innovation is dead, long live boring efficiency

2005-10-23T22:58:00.000+01:00

Have we as a society become so blinded by ruthless efficiency and attention to detail that we've become blinded to the beauty of innovation? Have we become so consumed by a desire to succeed, sometimes at all costs, that we lose sight of creative ingenuity? After all, such inventiveness always comes at a risk, and it seems we are unprepared to risk stable efficiency even if it's for a greater good.

I'm referring of course to the now-infamous penalty incident involving Arsenal's Robert Pires and Thierry Henry in the Barclay's Premiership match between Arsenal and Manchester City today (that's soccer to you yanks). In the 1982-83 season Johan Cruyff and Jesper Olsen exchanged passes from the penalty spot to score a truly sensation penalty. It was not the first time it was used but perhaps the most innovative and most recently successful one. It was a moment of sheer brilliance that underlined not only Cruyff's creative genius but the quality of the Ajax team of that time.

Few can argue that Arsenal have been the most creatively virtuoso side in the country for a few years now. There's no debating that Chelsea have been far more efficient, and can play some good football, but for sheer genius, noone rivals The Unbeatables. During that period of time the level of football from the Highbury legends was on a level never seen before, nor will it be seen again. Just for one example I give you Thierry Henry's audacious backheel against Charlton. And yet when the same French maestro devises a similarly creative idea to turn a penalty into something special, he's castigated.

Many say it's because he and Pires no longer care, that their hearts are no longer in it. I say it's the exact opposite. Arsene Wenger celebrated his birthday yesterday (although I have seen some sources report his birthday as September 22nd my understanding is it's October 22nd) and so the match was a perfect time to give him a fitting tribute. Not only that but Pires had earlier scored the 500th goal at Highbury during the Premiership years. Add to that the spectacular achievement of Thierry Henry in mid-week to beat Ian Wright's all-time goalscoring record for Arsenal, an achievement he himself said he'd rather have done at Highbury in front of his adoring fans, and you have an obvious explanation. Henry, the club captain, decided that the manager, the fans and Highbury itself all deserved something special, and in a game where space was at a premium, this penalty routine was a perfect opportunity to provide it.

There was little other chance of a spectacular goal. The objective was to reward Highbury for providing a home, and Arsene Wenger for providing the platform, for the most entertaining football this country has ever seen, by creating a moment of genius. It was also a chance for Thierry to celebrate (hence the fact he was the designated goalscorer in the routine), no doubt planning to reveal a T-shirt with a tribute to the 186, specially for the fans. And yet these same fans are the ones who've been calling for his head.

It's nothing short of disgraceful. Whatever the reasons, it was an attempt to be audaciously creative, something Arsenal have become famed for over the last few years. Chelsea would never have scored a penalty like that as they're the Premiership's equivalent of the efficiently ruthless German national sides. Arsenal, however, have been the Premiership's equivalent of Brazil, mercurially brilliant and enigmatically disastrous in equal amounts. Which would we rather see, a player attempt the magical or stick with the mundane?

In short, have we lost our desire to be creative in favour of the drone-like pursuit of success?

Sin City steals one

2005-10-21T19:34:00.000+01:00

The results of the last poll are in and the winner, it seems, in the category of "The best comic book movie" is...Sin City. Such an uninspired choice ladies and gentlemen and as such I'm vetoing the result and stating forthwith that whilst Sin City was good, it is by no means the best comic book movie ever made.

That accolade belongs to the film in second place, Spiderman 2. Allow me to explain why. Sin City was visually stunning, a superb masterpiece of editing and cleverly shot to boot, but it was a movie that was more style than substance, typically Rodriguez (In Once Upon a Time in Mexico he even spoofs this fact). Which was disappointing as the graphic novels were quite the opposite. Whereas the material in the Spiderman comics was good, the material in Frank Miller's masterpieces is absolutely great, the stuff of comic book legend. The disappointing thing is Sam Raimi did a far better job of adapting the comic book he had to the big screen than Rodriguez did.

The soul of Sin City was lost, in my opinion. The only character that was truly captured in all his glory was Marv, but a spectacular performance from Mickey Rourke cannot alone render this film a great one. Bruce Willis was ok as Hartigan, but it's clear Rodriguez either missed, or avoided, the undercurrent of paedophilia which pervaded through Hartigan's relationship with Nancy in the graphic novels. Instead of a stench that should have caused the audience to vomit, we were left with the faintest whiff that the relationship might not be altogether healthy. Bruce Willis was capable of so much more with this role.

The female characters were noticeably poor, not so much because of the misogyny that some claim is present (in that the only strong women are prostitutes), but just because of absolutely dire acting (with the exception of Alexis Bledel who was not only stunningly beautiful but acted her socks off). Add to this the fact that Oscar-nominated Clive Owen was abysmal, and entirely ruined the character of Dwight, turning him instead into a carbon-copy of Owen's King Arthur (which was actually rather good). I have a feeling that ever since Closer Mr Owen has let his ego overtake his craft, and this is a shame as he's a great actor when he can be bothered. Benicio Del Toro was wasted, and I absolutely love him as an actor. It was a good film, but it could, and should, have been even better. It wasn't even the best movie in the year it was released (that honour belongs to Crash) nor was it even the best comic book movie this year (that honour belongs to Constantine).

Spiderman 2 however entirely captured the essence of the comic book, and unlike the first was a far more complete work. The first installment felt rushed, like Raimi was trying too hard, but he settled in a lot better in the second film and captured the soul of the characters more completely. Whereas the first felt like an action movie trying to be deep, the second seemed like an enthralling drama, with a little action thrown in, just like a comic book movie, especially Spiderman, ought to be. I felt Kirsten Dunst was superb as Mary Jane, Alfred Molina was solid and Tobey Maguire was utterly assured in the lead, he was every bit what Peter Parker should be. Perhaps the difference is that Raimi is a true Spidey fan, but somehow he succeeded where Rodriguez failed and for a fan of comic books, this has to be the true number one comic-book movie. Plus, unlike Sin City, the very fact it stood out in its year of release as the best film that year speaks volumes. Sin City was humbled by Crash but I reckon had Spiderman 2 been released this year it would have given Crash a decent run.

In third place was The Fantastic Four. Now I haven't seen this, but I've seen trailers, and it looks spectacular. It looks like a comic book movie should, and the action looks great, but it just looks like it misses a certain something. I'm not convinced by the casting, Julian McMahon barely impresses me on Nip/Tuck and there's a certain level of malevolence that Dr Doom requires that I don't think he can bring to the party. I'm not quite sure who could, but I just don't see it in him. Whereas Molina was every bit Doc Ock I can't see McMahon as Doom. Which is a shame as Doom is an amazing character in comic book folklore.

Several movies tied for fourth. X2 was a marginal improvement on the first but I still think it was pretty rubbish. The costumes looked wrong, and it just seemed to not feel like a comic book movie ought to. Perhaps this was the point, perhaps it was meant to be "just another action movie" but if so, how can it possibly be a good comic book movie? Comic book movies require more than being just another 2-dimensional action movie.

Batman Begins was brilliant, easily the best Batman to date, better than Returns (which was my personal favourite) and even the original which has been so lauded. Bale is the only actor in my estimation who could outdo Keaton as Batman and although I think Burton had a certain knack for turning the gothic character into something more comical (hence making it feel more like a comic book movie), Batman has never been a very funny comic book. Nolan seems to capture the soul of the comics, and the performances here are amazing, Caine, Neeson and Oldman show just why British acting is so superb but a special mention must go out to Cillian Murphy. I am a huge admirer of his, and have been since 28 Days Later. I think the guy shows immense promise. Katie Holmes wasn't too bad either...

Constantine was amazingly good. I was surprised by how good it'd be as I thought it would end up being another Matrix film but it really wasn't. Whilst the three of those sucked, trying to come off as creatively philosophical (whilst ripping off Plato), but instead coming off as pretentious wank, Constantine was amazing. Visually it was superb but actually the shocking thing was the quality of the acting, even Keanu Reaves. Weisz was excellent, as always, and the cameo by Gavin Rossdale (of Bush fame) was awesome. I think he could have a real future in acting. All in all it was a really awesome movie, and I left the theatre, unlike any comic book movie since Spiderman 2, feeling like I'd just been through a true experience. I love it when you leave a movie feeling changed for it, I'd like to say "like your life's been changed" but it wasn't quite that dramatic. However it was one of those movies where you feel you could go back in and see it again. The same cannot be said for any of the others on the list apart from Spiderman 2.

Hellboy was alright, Perlman was an inspired choice (he was amazing in Alien: Resurrection), as was Selma Blair, who I think is an amazing actress (see Cruel Intentions for proof). It was a good film, better than a lot of comic book movies, but by no means excellent. I don't think it had much to stand out but then I don't think X2 did either. Daredevil was palpably awful, the worst of the list, even worse than X2. I can't believe anyone voted for that. Hang your head in shame.

Surprisingly both The Hulk and Punisher received no votes. I thought The Punisher was ok, I thought it was better than Hellboy, and certainly better than X2 or Daredevil. It had an amazing soundtrack and like the comic books, it was very different most other comic book movies. Yes, it was just another pure action movie, but in truth, The Punisher was very much a pure action comic book. It was a take-no-prisoners comic and that was perfectly translated into the movie. That much earns it credit even if it wasn't stellar. Hulk wasn't too bad either, Bana was superb as Banner (superb casting with the namesake thing alone!), but The Hulk did look a little too green and at moments it looked more like a video game than a movie. Still, better than X2 or Daredevil and yet those both got votes.

In short, you all suck. You mostly have lousy taste and you should all be shot in the face. Repeatedly. Forthwith.

Have Chelski bought FIFA too?

2005-10-19T21:49:00.000+01:00

It seems that not only have the Russian Blues bought the Premiership and the media but they now have FIFA in their back pockets too. World Football's governing body seems to be making special rules up just for them. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if, whilst Wenger's pleas for the record-breaking Henry (186 and counting, congratulations) not to be included for France against his mother's home nation, Martinique, will no doubt be ignored, if Mourinho were to demand some of his players not play meaningless friendlies FIFA would grant them immunity. It makes me sick.

I'm referring of course to the treatment of Michael Essien after his horror tackle on Tal Hen Haim on the weekend. He was wrongly not shown the red card during the match for what was an absolute shocker of a tackle, not to mention the fact he then feigned injury after it to avoid punishment (which should earn him an extra punishment for "simulation"), and even the Referee, Rob Styles, agreed after seeing the video footage. He insisted that had he been in a different position and seen the incident from a different angle he would certainly have red-carded the Ghanaian.

And yet FIFA, in their infinite wisdom, have told the FA not to punish players retrospectively for actions that occured during the match and were missed by the referee. Wait, let me get this straight...the video review process has been unchanged in 12 months, Arsenal and other clubs have suffered as a consequence and had players suspended, and yet when it's Chelsea, all of a sudden retrospective punishments are wrong? Why has this happened just now? Coincidence? And why are these same punishments still legitimate for other teams?

To further back this up, why is it Ricardo Gardner's rather innocuous red card against Chelsea was not rescinded and yet Khizanishvili, the Blackburn defender, had his rescinded for what was perhaps a more clear-cut red card? And in both cases, surely that's retroactive, so why is it ok to rescind a punishment (and thereby punish the opponents who might've benefitted from the player's absence) retroactively and yet not punish a tackle that deserved a red and a lengthy ban for violent conduct? It was no ordinary red card, that's the thing, it was horrendous, and a 4 or 5 match ban is the only fair punishment.

I bet if he wore red he wouldn't have been so lucky...

The shame

2005-10-17T06:42:00.000+01:00

The ICC must finally concede that the Super Series was a waste of time as the Test side collapsed to 144 all out in 50 overs. It was always going to be a tough ask on a spinning pitch but that sort of collapse just shows that the series was a ridiculous idea. What we need is something like this. I always knew the World XI side would struggle but I never expected it to be quite this bad.

Congratulations to the Australians, you managed to beat a mediocre side hardly worthy of playing local cricket, let alone international Test cricket.

Bloody lazy sods!

2005-10-17T01:06:00.000+01:00

I left the last feedback post open for an extra week because people weren't really forthcoming with a lot of feedback. I'd like to think my blog's perfect but I definitely know it's not. The title of this post is purely a joke, and I know it probably had nothing to do with being lazy, but because of it being open for longer, there has been a real decline in the regularity of updates.

Don't worry though, I was blogging throughout the time that the feedback post was open and all the "proper" posts will find their way below. Sorry for the delay!

I can only apologise and point out that it won't be occuring again. Next time I ask for feedback I'll give you people a couple of days and then start tacking up new posts! If you can't scroll down to find the feedback post in future, that's your problem! Actually, the new layout means I could continue blogging whilst I leave the feedback post open next time.

Super six test match

2005-10-15T19:48:00.000+01:00

The Super Series has so far gone the way I predicted, albeit the ODI side were even crapper than I thought they would be. I'd have never imagined they could be whitewashed...I hope they're ashamed. However the test match just got interesting, as Australia collapsed from 152-1 to 199 all out, losing 9 wickets for just 47 runs.

It was Australia's worse batting collapse on home soil for 117 years. Whether it will be enough for the World XI remains to be seen, as they're chasing an imposing 355 run scoreline on a turning pitch facing a legendary spinner and an average one (I've never been a big MacGill fan). It's the fourth highest total to win at the SCG but with 3 full days of play to go there's plenty of time left for them to do so. What's for certain is there will be no draw in this one.

It was England duo Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff who sparked the collapse, Harmison removing Mathew Hayden and Flintoff dismissing Ricky Ponting. The Australian pair had put on a 133-run partnership. Muralitharan then got into the groove getting real rip out of the pitch, showing the sort of turn that Warne and MacGill will be looking to exploit.

Just turning to people remarking that Australia losing in England was a freak occurrence and doesn't render England the world's best Test side as they've not done it home and away for long enough. For the record, England have been doing this against every other team in the world (apart from the Aussies) for the last two years. West Indies away? South Africa away? A win in the subcontinent tests for me would confirm England's status as the world's best team. To wait until they go to Australia in 2 years and beat an aging Australian side (which they will) is ludicrous given the fact that England has been a second home to the Australian test side throughout recent history.

By the same token, even if the Australians were to take the entire Super Series 4-0, that would not render them the best side in the world in either form of the game. It's a home series against a makeshift team. I maintain the Aussies are still the best ODI side around, but the very worst thing that the Australian Cricket Board can do is allow this series win to paper over the cracks. Australian Cricket is in decline and does need some work if they're going to once again climb up to the "unbeatable" status that they've had for over a decade.

Blatter blasts rich playboys

2005-10-13T22:06:00.000+01:00

Finally. Someone takes a look at the mad amounts of money in football and stands up for the values integral to the game. I just never thought it'd be the money-grabbers at Fifa.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter criticised the new breed of hugely wealthy club owners "with little or no history of interest in the game". He went on to criticise the "pornographic" amounts of money being thrown about in the pursuit of success. I wonder who he could have been referring to?

It is indeed ironic that it's Fifa who've said this, an organisation whose marketting department keeps creating more and more meaningless tournaments (such as the Confederations Cup and the rather stupid "World Club Championships") to suck the game dry of as much money as they can. However it's refreshing to see someone in a public position actually criticise the blue ruskies, instead of kissing their bloody arse at every turn like 99% of the media.

That's what drives me mad about Chelski's "success". They've suddenly become media darlings, not by playing amazing football, but just throwing large sums of money at the game and hoping some of it sticks. The irony is that their fans can go on about the "amazing" success they had last season but for the outlay they've spent, two trophies just isn't enough. They should have won the lot last year, and gone on to win the lot unbeaten all season in all competitions this, considering the money they've spent. Anything less is a failure in my books.

The frustrating thing about this is the way that even when we went unbeaten we were never media darlings. They criticised and panned us at every corner, we were accused of cheating our way to this feat, all down to one incident with Pires against Portsmouth. What happened to the similar incidents involving Chelsea?

Oh well, something needs to be done about the money that's threatening to the ruin the game. And fast.

The case begins...

2005-10-11T23:33:00.000+01:00

England need a proper holding midfielder. The mediocrity of the performance against Austria merely confirms this. Yes, we won, but against the likes of Austria it shouldn't have needed a solitary penalty. Not if we count ourselves as World Cup hopefuls.

Sol Campbell played well and England will be hoping he can stay fit, as Rio Ferdinand is bloody awful. However what was sorely lacking was the presence of a figure like Makelele for France (he was clearly missed, and his return has coincided with a return to form), or Dunga, Emerson or Gilberto Silva for Brazil. Dunga was crucial to Brazil winning the World Cup in 94, and his absence, and France's abundance of holding midfielders (Petit, Vieira and Makelele) showed in 98. Gilberto's presence was clearly of great importance for Brazil in 2002, or else he wouldn't have been the sole outfield player to play every minute of every game of that campaign. He isn't called the "Invisible wall" for nothing.

Emerson is crucial to Brazil's chances in the next world cup. Makelele will probably be there for France. And who will be there for England? The truth is, Gerrard and Lampard don't work as a pairing, I don't think they ever will do. The only reason Essien and Lampard work at Chelsea is Makelele. For me there's a case for the inclusion of Scott Parker in the game against Poland, he's a natural holding midfielder, and had we had a chance in hell of persuading Chelsea to sell to us, I'd have liked to have seen Arsenal go in for him in the summer to supplement Gilberto as a proper holding midfielder (Flamini isn't one, he's a midfield driver). If not him, then Carrick, if fit, should go to the World Cup. There's always the option of Ledley King in the middle, where he's played for Spurs. Hell, if we're talking about Spurs scum, Jenas would be a better option than the Gerrard-Lampard pairing.

The truth is, those two will never gel. In my opinion that's England's sole issue, the lack of a holding midfielder who allows them to control the flow of a game. Beckham is a better crosser than Shaun Wright Phillips, and the latter is also prone to being unwilling to ever pass or release the ball, preferring instead to try and take on entire teams on his own. Whilst this ambition is an admirable trait, and works when at a team like Man City, it doesn't work at International Level and it is why he'll fail at Chelsea, in my view. Beckham will go to Germany, on the right, and rightly captain the side.

Whilst John Terry is a leader of men, he still lacks the respect on the international stage that an international captain needs. There's nothing stopping Terry inspiring the troops without the armband, but I can tell you now, handing him the armband would hand a psychological advantage to the likes of Brazil and France. They don't respect him, not yet, he'll have to earn that respect over years. He's not considered, and rightly so, World Class just yet. There's no doubt he will be, and I'd love to have seen him in an Arsenal shirt, but right now he's a very good defender with some years ahead of him to prove himself consistently as "World Class".

The left wing issue for me isn't really a big deal, it'd be great if Downing could get himself fit, but Joe Cole will be more than adequate. Get ourselves a proper holding midfielder and we're in with a shout...without it...we're out...it's as simple as that.

Don't shove on...shove off!

2005-10-09T21:44:00.000+01:00

As another working week looms I'm going to bitch about a real pet hate of mine. People who cram onto already packed buses and trains, ensuring that the people already on them are not only uncomfortable, but end up running late. The frustrating part is actually the latter, you accept the former as part of using public transport during rush hour. The latter, however, is just bloody rude.

Invariably people packing onto already packed vehicles makes them run slower. This is because it takes time to pile on, time that is then equally spent trying to squeeze your way through a crowd of people to get off. And that's not just when you're getting off, but every other person getting off at the stations in between.

It's bad enough that there even are stations in between. I know it sounds silly but I really wish there weren't sometimes, that there was a shuttle service from major stations outside of central London into the heart of the City, the square mile, where so many people work. If there were a few shuttle services from various parts suburban London into Liverpool Street or Moorgate it'd make life so much easier!

Another pet hate about public transport are the people who get on at one bus stop and get off at the next when the two are such a short walking distance from one another. How bloody lazy are you?! It's bad enough that there are so many stops, I don't get it, I don't like it, and when I rule the world the bus stops will be properly spaced out, but then don't be too bloody lazy to walk! That's the problem really, more stops just breeds more laziness, and makes people more inclined to use buses when they should walk. This, contrary to the point of public transport, is not environmentally friendly as the lazy cunts could fucking walk!

God I hate commuting.

And so it begins...

2005-10-07T22:38:00.000+01:00

Was I right or was I right? I know it's only early days in the series but the capitulation of the World XI at the hands of the Australians in only the first match doesn't bode well.

Simon Katich put the victory down to the sense of disappointment felt by the Aussies after losing the Ashes, but whilst I don't doubt the truth of his words, I do question whether the Aussies won this, or the World XI lost it.

As I predicted Vettori was a danger, taking 4 for 33, and the Aussies were skittled out for 255-8. I wouldn't call that a huge ODI score by any stretch, it's relatively average, and any decent ODI team, let alone one composed of the world's best batsmen, should have been able to make more of a match of it than was the case. Losing by 93 when chasing such a mediocre target can really only come down to either exceptional bowling or terrible batting. There's no doubt that McGrath bowled exceptionally but I don't consider any of the other bowlers to have had an AMAZING game at all.

For me it was all down to exactly what I said it would come down to. The roles were all wrong. Afridi has never been particularly dangerous as part of the tail, you either let him open or don't play him. Sangakkara batted well but would have been far more dangerous in the middle in tandem with someone like Flintoff, who also batted well. Pietersen struggled to adapt to a position so low down the order, and this didn't surprise me. He's 23 and you expect him to bat at 6? He plays 5 for England and imho he should actually bat at 4 for England. Kallis at number 3? Sorry, but he should be steadying the ship in the middle. The proper lineup should have been, with the players selected:

Afridi
Sehwag
Lara
Dravid
Pietersen
Flintoff
Kallis
Sangakkara
Pollock
Vettori
Akhtar

I have no doubt that this would've posed more problems, as instead of handing the likes of Sangakkara and Kallis to the Aussies with the new ball in hand, and having the loose cannon Afridi there to "rescue" the day, the Aussies would have had to rip all the way down to 8 to even get into the "tail" and feel confident of victory. When all your other match winners are gone in the first 5 you're putting a lot of pressure on Flintoff to save the day. The lineup I just suggested would probably be a bit more solid.

That said, even putting players in the right positions might not have prevented defeat (just perhaps lessened the severity of it) as the whole concept of expecting a team to gel so quickly is flawed. I sincerely expect, and hope, to see better in the rest of the series...

The One Ronnie

2005-10-05T23:34:00.000+01:00

The world of comedy paid tribute yesterday to Ronnie Barker, one half of the infamous Two Ronnies, after his death from heart disease. He was aged 76. Although most famous for his work with Ronnie Corbett, other notable work included Open All Hours and Porridge. In fact there's no doubt that Ronnie Barker was a legendary comedian who will be sorely missed.

I was always a huge fan of Open All Hours myself and I remember him and David Jason forming one of the funniest sit-com double acts around. In fact Ronnie was an expert at double-acts, as shown by his other great work. It's not just me that thinks he was a great comedian either, amongst those to pay tribute to him were Michael Palin (of Monty Python fame) who said "I can't think of anyone who knew how to play comedy better than Ronnie Barker".

John Cleese, star of quite possibly the greatest British sit-com of all time, Fawlty Towers, said he was "a great comic actor", whilst David Jason said "The world of entertainment has lost a huge talent." Just thinking about it brings a tear to my eye but I'm sure Ronnie wouldn't want that, as his life's craft was to make people laugh. He'd want us to remember the laughs.

I myself can only think of all the hugely memorable gags he'll leave behind and say this; thanks for every last one Ronnie. Rest in peace.

World XI will lose

2005-10-03T21:14:00.000+01:00

You heard it here first. The ICC's World XI ODI side will lose to the Australians in the one-day portion of the super series. My prediction for the series is 2-1 to the Australians, and I personally suspect that even the one the World side do win will be the last one in a consolation effort to avoid a whitewash.

The reason for the this brave prediction? Simple. One day cricket, more so than even the test arena, is all about roles and responsibilities. People who don't understand cricket believe that Test cricket is all about partnerships but one day cricket is all about individual brilliance. In fact, it's almost the opposite. In the one day arena, the run rate means that at every stage of the game the batsmen must keep an eye on the run rate and do "what is required" for that stage of the game. Any deviation from this and the game is lost.

Thus your openers must take a stand; one must go out blazing and the other has to sit back and construct an innings, albeit not at a snail's pace either. Your numbers three and four must come in and anchor the sheet, with the intention that at least one of them will see it through to at least the 40th over. The middle order must come in and look to score quickly, without playing rash shots, and then the tail come in for the slog. Any variation on this gameplan and you're pretty much screwed, unless the variation is caused by your openers getting off to a flyer.

My prediction is that the batting will let the ODI side down. The bowling looks ok, although a bit spinner heavy, and I'm unsure that Shoaib Akhtar, Shaun Pollock, Flintoff and Kallis is dangerous enough as a seam attack. Shoaib has been found out a lot by the Aussies over the years, Gilchrist especially seems to be able to hit him with ease, and Pollock isn't the force of old. Kallis has never been that dangerous a bowler imho and I think that there may be a little too much expectation on Flintoff. I expect Vettori could well be the sole bowler to really make an impact on the ODI series.

I base all this on the fact that the side were bloody lucky to win their warmup match. If they can't beat a local side convincingly they'll struggle against the best One Day side in the world (and the Aussies are still that, despite losing to Bangladesh in the Summer).

However it's not all doom and gloom. I predict that the Australians will narrowly lose the Test match. The ICC's Test World XI teamsheet looks better, with more players playing their natural roles in the batting department, and I think Steve Harmison's inclusion is a smart move. He, together with Jones and Flintoff, destroyed the Aussie top order all summer and I have no doubt he can do it again, along with his pal Freddie. I think the test arena suits Freddie better as a bowler, and this could well be what helps him shine. I think the test arena also suits Dravid and Lara better than the one day one, and I expect those two to do really well, especially the latter, with Border's all time test run record on Australian soil in his sights.

I also think the Australians have very much lost their mantle as the world's best team and they know it. Gilchrist is no longer a force with the bat in that form of the game, and in truth, the test batting looks lightweight for the Aussies. Hayden will no doubt do well, as he always does on Aussie soil (and yet looked appalling on English soil this Summer), and so will Ponting, but I still expect the World XI to scrape a hard-fought win.

Pill-popping frenzy

2005-10-01T22:04:00.000+01:00

It is estimated that up to 40,000 kids and teenagers are on anti-depressants in Britain today. As someone who lived with depression, this is a disturbing piece of news. Anti-depressants are potential dangerous and are not the quick fix to psychological problems that people build them up to be. And I should know as I've taken three different types.

There is no dispute that these things do help. They provide a useful "breathing space" to allow someone to be reflective without becoming so pensive as to be drawn back into the dark web of depression. The worst thing a depressive can do is get deep in thought but the sick irony is the only way to get better is to delve deep within yourself and think, analyse, and work out what's wrong. This is where anti-depressants are helpful.

For those not in the know, there are many different forms of anti-depressant. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the anti-depressants such as Prozac, which began to be handed out like candy to patients because their side-effects and potential ramifications were not as lethal as the Tricyclic antidepressants which preceded them. These are the ones that have received a lot of criticism because they're so heavily dished out. Tricyclics were normally left to serious patients, because of the dangers, and it was the SSRIs that began the craze of anti-depressants being prescribed to people with even mild depression.

However I was lucky enough to never be put on one of these (my sister was and she hated it. Prozac, funnily enough). I've had a Tetracyclic antidepressant, which made things worse, and is more modern drug than either of the other two, but still not as modern as a SNRI (serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) which is the one that finally worked for me. In between I was on a Tricyclic. Which was probably a really stupid decision by my GP with hindsight.

Whereas a Ticyclic like amitriptyline can kill you if you overdose on it (and let's face it, a depressive is always liable to attempt an OD), even on pretty low dosages, SSRIs take a FAR higher dosage to kill. I know this as soon after my suicide attempt, since Mirtazapine (my original tetracyclic) was causing unwanted side-effects in me (I became zombified and felt withdrawn from my surroundings, emotionally numb), causing me to just stop taking them, I was put onto amitriptyline by my GP.

Apparently the hospital must not have informed him of what happened but my psychiatrist was mortified when he heard I was on a Tricylic after a suicide attempt and immediately instructed me to stop taking them. The same drugs also led to short-term memory loss in my mother who took them in higher dosages when hospitalised for depression.

However the idea that SSRIs or even SNRIs are any less dangerous is silly. They can in fact increase the susceptibility to being suicidal in the first place. Apparently the SNRI I took increases the likelihood of self-harm, ironic given that I'd previously suffered from self-harm. It did help, I can't deny that, but the thing that really helped was therapy. It wasn't until I actually underwent and finished a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) that I was better.

This is not to say that anti-depressants are a bad thing. Therapy can be pretty hard, and like I said earlier, thinking too much and too deeply can actually make you depressed. This is why the two work best in tandem, the drugs to act as a safety net if the therapy makes you depressed, and allow you to actually explore painful things without being sucked into a black hole, and the therapy acting as a buffer for when the drugs actually make you more depressed (which they can and often do).

I should know...I'm a success story of that school of thought.

Feed(back) me!

2005-09-29T22:09:00.000+01:00

After the success of the last attempt I thought I'd attempt another open feedback post considering the huge changes that I've made to this blog. I basically want to see what people like, dislike, what I can improve if I was looking to do that and so on. I won't guarantee all suggestions will be taken on board, as I do blog primarily for myself and do whatever reflects me best, but I will consider all suggestions carefully and I'm sure most of them will be adopted.

If you could please take a moment to let me know what you think, I would gratefully appreciate that. Please use the following as a rough guideline of the sorts of things I'm interesed in:

Favourite thing about the blog: Movie trailer
Least favourite thing about blog: Add-ons
Things I'd like to see added to the content: More pictures please! Discuss more sports!
Things I like about the current content: Variety of content (although could be improved by adding more sport coverage)
Writing style: Good/~~Bad~~
Regularity of updates: ~~Good~~/Bad
Suggestions for improvement: The colour scheme and background could be improved. No content above the fold, your header's too big. And I hate the add-ons. Also it's quite "dead" a lot of the time as you don't update it daily.

Be as brutal as you need to be. I want proper feedback, can take criticism, I assure you. Remember, the above is only a guideline, feel free to give me any and all information you think could improve this site.

Thanks guys!

Playing fields or oil fields?

2005-09-27T23:24:00.000+01:00

Roman Abramovich's takeover at Chelsea has thrown into the spotlight an issue that, in all fairness, needed addressing much sooner anyway. For once I won't leave the blame at the door of the Blue Billionaire, but instead at football clubs in general. For far too long now football clubs have been hiking prices up on their loyal fan base in order to pay over-inflated wages and nowhere is this more apparent than at Chelsea.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a Chelsea first team squad member who earns under £90,000 a week. That's well in excess of £4million a year. This doesn't include incentives and bonuses, nor does it reflect the weekly salary of the star names they have, just the squad players. And in order to fund this, despite having a billionaire playboy as a chairman, there have been the inevitable price hikes. The irony is that the Champions of England couldn't fill their stadium for their opening home game. And I believe they've struggled to sell out games since, barring the Arsenal one which I'm sure was a sell-out.

I could take a dig at Chelsea's tactics, which I'm sure don't help their gates, or the fact they're buying success and basically guaranteeing 3 points every week making the game dull and predictable, but I won't. Instead I'll point out the wages and the consequent price hikes. The thing is, I've got no problem paying to see the great talent of Thierry Henry, for example, when he actually produces but why is my ticket price the same when he sulks (which he does quite a bit!)?

What we need is a salary cap based on the year's profits. This would actually mean Chelsea would have to be run like a proper football club and wouldn't be allowed to rack up huge losses as if they did run on a loss, they'd have no budget for wages at all. The top clubs could top this up with performance-based bonuses which would ensure that the best still get paid what they're worth when they produce and ensure the best result for the club and the fans, and if the player does what he's supposed to, the player too. It would require players to give 110% every week. No more than the fans deserve really.

Sure, it would mean Chelsea's players would probably still earn more than anyone else in the country as they'd have an amazing bonus scheme, as Roman can afford it, but there's no way they'd be able to keep the bench they currently have happy. Players like Cudicini swallow it as they're making £90,000 a week but if he was being paid £25,000 a week and the remaining £65,000 was dependent on him actually playing, he might consider a move to a club offering him £30,000 a week and another £30,000 dependent on him playing. Sure, it's a theoretical £30,000 a week drop but only if he was first choice at Chelsea, which he's not.

It would level the playing field, and I don't just mean with Arsenal and Chelsea, but across the board. It would also help keep the costs down for the fans, since, after all, it's supposed to be our game. Don't get me wrong, Arsenal are as guilty of overpaying players as anyone...Ashley Cole getting a pay rise after what he pulled this summer? A performance-related bonus would be better for someone in that situation, and his performances so far this season have been so good he'd have gotten the raise he was after anyway!

Time for common-sense financing in football.

The Porn Squad

2005-09-25T23:25:00.000+01:00

The Christian Right's crusade to impose "Traditional American Values" took a step closer to sheer insanity with the creation of a new Anti-Obscenity Unit to deal with...wait for it...adult pornography starring consenting adults and marketed to adults.

This is conservatism gone mad. Yes, I know, it will involve disgusting and degrading pornography, but I come back to my initial point; everyone involved has consented. No form of pornography starring adults, no matter how sick or twisted, should lead to prosecution. I'd in fact go so far as to say that the mere possession of child pornography shouldn't be a crime, only the creation of it, but that's another point for another time.

People should be allowed to view whatever pornography gets their rocks off. If it's people being shat upon, so be it (I've seen porn of this kind and it's not particularly arousing...it is, however, funny that some people enjoy that), if it involves being penetrated by a horse, so be it (although I do hear the woman in one infamous scene did die afterwards).

Adults have the right to consent to whatever sexual practices take place, and the viewer is also a consenting adult. S & M is in fact a perfectly legal form of sexual practice now, and yet S & M pornography can be considered "obscene". Not too long ago Gay pornography was considered "obscene".

Social views on what is acceptable sexual practice and what is deviant sexual practice change so regularly that today's obscenity could well be tomorrow's mainstream. Do we really need to be enshrining "traditional" values which really only translate to narrow-minded heterosexual bigotry? These are viewpoints from the Dark Ages, not of enlightened adults in the 21st Century.

Can this really be a good use of taxpayers money? Surely the FBI ought to be focussing attentions on Terrorism and drugs, two far more damaging influences on American society?

The race was a dead heat

2005-09-23T23:36:00.000+01:00

A Fun Run, to raise money for charity, ended in tragedy as in the sweltering heat four men died. The heat during the Great Northern Run last weekend was higher than usual for September in the North of England, 18 degrees Celsius, in what has been an unseasonably warm end to the Summer and beginning of Autumn.

The weather has been noticeably changeable for the last two months, alternating between rather unusually warm periods and more characteristically British rain. However the rainfall has been more tropical in nature, absolutely lashing down, and in fact one of my managers, returning back to work from Lunch, got absolutely soaked within literally 2 minutes, just yesterday. However the heat has been the surprising thing, and some have actually suggested that the entire climate system for our country is changing due to global warming. Whether the world's climate really is changing, only time will tell.

Back to the story. The youngest man to die was a healthy man, with no history of heart problems who apparently had trained very hard for the event. Reuben Wilson was just 28 when he collapsed just an hour and fifteen minutes into the run. Paramedics allegedly took 45 minutes to reach the ailing Mr Wilson but he was lucky to have had a doctor and a nurse who happened to be on hand to help him. Unfortunately their efforts were not enough and he passed away, with his 34 year old sister watching on. My condolences go out to Naomi Wilson, Judah Wilson and all other unnamed friends and family of Reuben.

The three other men who died were Kieran Patching (34), David Mahaffey (43) and Phil Lewis (52) but obviously when a man who was under 30 and in apparent good health dies in what was supposed to be a leisurely fun run, it clearly grabs the attention more forcefully. My focus on Mr Wilson wasn't to take away from the losses suffered by the friends and family of the others, but instead of a reflection of my own shock that a man just 4 years older than me died in such an event.

My condolences to the families of Mr Patching, Mr Mahaffey and Mr Lewis as well.

Oooh, get me, I'm so Hollywood

2005-09-21T22:58:00.000+01:00

Today I hung out with an Oscar nominated actor on set of his latest movie. It was really good fun being on set, I've never before experienced the other side of the screen, so to speak, so it was quite amazing to see what goes into making a film, especially a sci-fi blockbuster like this.

Actually I told a little bit of a lie. Well, alright, a big lie. Here's the true story. Clive Owen (who was indeed nominated for an Oscar for Closer) was filming his newest project, The Children of Men, which also stars Julianne Moore and Charlie Hunnam (Of Cold Mountain and soon-to-be Green Street fame) in the pub that is literally right next door to my workplace. The second we walked out of our office front door we were on set as the road had been closed off.

Speaking of Green Street, since I mentioned it, why on Earth did they feel the need to re-name it Green Street Hooligans for the US audience? I appreciate that few people outside of London would know that Green Street is the name of the street leading down to Upton Park (home ground of West Ham United FC), and thus gave its name to one of the "firms" of hooligans in the area, but if people in the rest of the UK are considered intelligent enough nonetheless to know what the film is about, why not US audiences? The original name of "Hooligans" was pretty bad (hence the name change) but to go from that, through Green Street (which is much better) and now to Green Street Hooligans (which sounds like a bloody kids cartoon) is laughable.

Anyway, onto my brush with Hollywood. I could see that they were setting up a set to do some filming when I came into work in the morning but I presumed it was TV, it never occurred to me that it might be a film until I came out for a cigarette break and it looked to be a much bigger operation than it had seemed in the morning.

My friend and I spoke to one of the extras, the man who plays the landlord in the pub scene (so when we see that scene we'll be able to say we spoke to him and that we work right next door to the pub itself!), and he told us the name of the film, and that he'd just seen Clive Owen come out of his car earlier so he knew he was in it, but knew nothing of the rest of the cast list. We spoke a little about how he became an extra and whatnot and left it at that.

All day whenever we had cigarette breaks we took them out the front so we could be on set, and we actually got asked rather nicely by one of the security men to keep the noise from our conversation down ever so slightly so as not to disturb the set. I appreciated the fact he came over nicely and said "Hi guys, chat, by all means, but just keep it down just a little please." as opposed to "Oi, keep it down!" to which I'd have responded by just speaking louder than before.

They might have bloody planning permission for the road but they don't own me! Can't exclude me from my place of work either. Anyway, he was nice, as was everyone we spoke to about the movie, which made the experience quite exciting!

However we didn't speak to the man himself, Clive (as I've now begun calling him. Yeah, we're on a first name basis here!). We did see him, he was outside when we left work and for the record ladies, he looks hideously scruffy and grumpy in real life, rather ugly in fact. I put his good looks on screen all down to makeup I'm afraid! Anyway, we didn't approach, as he seemed unapproachable, couldn't get a decent picture either, as there were too many people around and he seemed to be slinking away so as not to be noticed. Pretentious prick.

I did, however, get to walk past him, less than 2 or 3 feet away, as I made my way home, which was pretty cool. Considering he's the next Bond and all. The funny thing about me calling him "Clive" earlier in this piece is that when we walked past, my friend and I discussed whether they'd finished filming for the day and I said "I think so, after all, Clive was stood around outside".

So Clive Owen and I are now officially best friends. Despite the fact he doesn't know who I am. That's nothing more than a minor hiccup though, nothing to worry about...

Annointing the saints

2005-09-19T23:19:00.000+01:00

Having spoken up for lawyers in the last post today I'm going to turn my attentions to another noble profession; nursing. Personally I think doctors are overpaid arrogant pricks with God complexes, but as a law student I was programmed to think this way. It's the age-old rivalry, and anyway, everyone knows lawyers are more intelligent. Ever been to the law library and compared it to the medics? Or the sections in the book stores? I rest my case.

However nurses are bloody brilliant. I'm sick of people berating student nurses for legitimately complaining about the debt they accrue in training. The fact is we need more good nurses and we're underfunding their education. We should be providing proper funding for student nurses, real support, recognising that without them, we don't have an NHS. Sod the bloody doctors, most of them are quacks who like to think they're smarter than they are, and the rest are serial killers (Harold Shipman anyone?), it's the blooming nurses who make things tick.

To be a good nurse one has to make the sorts of emotional sacrifices few of us I think can even fathom. How much must it take out of you to genuinely care so much about strangers, to genuinely empathise with another human being who you don't know? To do that every day, week in week out, all year round, year in year out, for every single patient, it must be draining. I know I couldn't do it, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for those who can.

It's without a doubt a noble sacrifice to enter nursing, and yet we don't support those choosing to make this tough career path their own. Instead we get crappy people who fall into the profession but probably never wanted to be nurses, wannabe doctors who couldn't even manage that! If we're getting doctor rejects as nurses we're really in trouble!

When I was in hospital after my overdose I was incredibly lucky to have some absolutely amazing nurses. Nurses who work in the A&E and see horrific things every day, real tragedies, only to have to deal with some overly melodramatic middle-class kid thinking he's got it tough and trying (poorly) to top himself.

If I'd been in their shoes I wouldn't have cared about making me comfortable, just done the bare minimum to make sure I got better and vacated their ward, but no, my nurses not only made me extra-comfortable at a time of torturous discomfort, not only cared for my needs, but actually counselled my parents and sister at a time of significant trauma for them.

As I said, they're bloody saints. So Mr Blair, how about we start repaying these angels in uniform?

Defending the defenders of justice

2005-09-17T13:24:00.000+01:00

This week it's been reported this week that Harold Shipman's family QC raked in over £1 million in one year from legal aid, the first barrister to do so since the scheme began 56 years ago. Since that report, Legal Aid has been battered and criticised from every corner, and few are standing up to defend it, or the barristers who earn their fees through it. However I am, and will, because it's about time that the noble defenders of justice be defended themselves.

Every industry has fat cats. Fat cats never ever represent the entire sector, they are always the wealthy minority that managed to exploit things to make vast sums of money. However to use these people to suggest that legal aid fees ought to be cut down is ridiculous. The average debt for someone beginning a pupillage is roughly £30,000. Many don't even manage to get this far along the route and still are subject to that sort of debt. It's a real sacrifice to choose to join the bar (and one reason I chose not to) because it's a really hard road, and few make it, and all end up with huge debt. True, if you really make it, you can make a million a year, but entry to this select club is becoming more and more exclusive every year.

Many junior barristers will leave the profession if legal aid fees are cut. They'll have worked their bollocks off to get where they are, and that will all be thrown away because of public hysteria formed by an ill-informed working class. It's easy to be jealous of the Bentleys and the million pound salaries, hell, I am, but look beyond that and see how bloody hard it is to get there and you might realise that those "fat cats" still earned their success, because of the struggles they've endured. True, a few only get that far because of nepotism, and I despise them as much as anyone, but I'm sick of people slating lawyers as greedy without knowing just how hard it is to enter the legal profession.

Want some stats? Forget money for a second, I got an upper second from a top London university, I went on to get a masters, and pass the New York Bar Exam, first time (which is notoriously difficult...Elliot Spitzer took 3 or 4 attempts and he's the Attorney General for New York State) and even I can't find a job. And that's not even factoring in the vast sums of money it's taken to even get me this far. Or the fact that far more able people than me are also struggling.

The irony is that those criticising Barristers probably make a better hourly wage than the lawyers. The hours are hard, often working 15 or 16 hour days, and your average plumber or electrician probably earns more per hour. Hell if you want to rake in money, I'd recommend that you become a plumber, it's a hell of a lot easier than becoming a lawyer and you'll be filthy rich!

The other thing is that cases can take years of preparation, all those millions of hours, and this is never factored in when looking at Barristers fees. Sure, one year they may rake in a million, the next they may barely pay the rent because the fees aren't coming in. If the fees are put down, all that will happen is the preparation will suffer, and more and more innocent people will go to prison, and more and more guilty people will walk free.

If we're sick of seeing this, let's stop stiffing the barristers and actually start supporting the bar. I keep hearing everyone bitch about the state of criminal justice and it infuriates me because Lord Woolf's reforms have seriously hampered the bar, almost killing off the profession, and it's no wonder that standards suffer as a consequence! You get what you pay for, reinvigorate the bar, stop empowering the solicitors at the expense of specialist litigators, and you'll end up with a better criminal justice system.

Legal Aid is a great construct. In few other countries is the extent of legal aid as good as it is in the UK, more people have access to it here than in most other countries. Yes, it does need to be constantly reviewed, to make sure that we're not stopping people who need access to justice from having that, as social justice is a cornerstone of the Rule Of Law, but nonetheless, to destroy the entire system on the basis of a few cracks, to deny barristers their due, this is lunacy.

The reforms need to come at the top, with perhaps a cap on the amount any barrister can earn through legal aid, rather than cutting the fees themselves. That way the fat cats wouldn't be able to rake off huge sums and drag out trials unnecessarily, as there'd be no incentive to do so once they hit the cap, and we could do that without time limits on trials which is a ludicrous idea. Some trials require longer than others, to set a specific time constraint is fucking stupid, it will just result in poorer justice being delivered.

I think it's about time that the press backed off, stopped reporting the excesses out of context, and let the legal profession take care of it without the environment of mass public outrage by the ill-informed working class oiks.

The Oval goes Diamond

2005-09-15T23:14:00.000+01:00

Surrey cricket club are negotiating to bring baseball to The Oval. I make no apologies for another cricket-based post. Recently politics has dominated, and that is fine, in its place, but this isn't a political blog. Far too many blogs out there cater for that, this is more of a general interest blog, with a little bit of personal soap opera thrown into the mix for good measure. Like a well blended whiskey.

The Ashes series has re-stoked the passion for cricket and I hope to use this blog to further spread that. The game is amazing and yet there are still people who insist it's boring. Clearly those who've never watched a game as I've said earlier.

Anyway, apparently spurred by this summer's Ashes success, secured, funnily enough, at The Oval, Surrey have been in discussions with Major League Baseball to play two exhibition games in London in 2007. The suggestion is that the Red Sox and Atlanta Braves are both keen on the idea, and hopefully other baseball teams will also join the party and we'll have a bidding war for the games.

I'd love the two games to be between the Red Sox and the Yankees and the Dodgers and the White Sox. That'd make for two interesting games between four major teams from four major cities in the US. Can't really say any fairer than that. Plus I'd give anything to watch the Yankees thrash the Red Sox live and in person and finally bury the memory of watching on TV as they choked against the Sox in the World Series.

The good news is, however, that cricket is not being ignored. The diamond can be installed without damaging the pitches, and don't worry, cricket will remain the focus of Surrey. A Spokesman for Surrey, Johnny Grave said "We wouldn't want to be involved with anything which would detract from our core business of staging...cricket...matches."

Well that's a relief then! I look forward to seeing MLB in London soon then...

In other news the silver lining to my friend being fired is I inherited his accounts at work. There's enough accounts now for me to be getting great profitability. They seem very very happy with me, my appraisal went really well, there's room for improvement (isn't there always?) but the guy who did it admitted that he was extra critical because it was hard work to find things to knock about how I was doing things. Both he and my manager are incredibly confident I can be a real success at the job. Which is all great.

Unfortunately more bad news struck with the likelihood being that my last remaining team-mate may also face the boot, my one last friend, although I am actually being assimilated more into the broader sales team, suggesting that I've truly "arrived". If he does go, I might ask to switch teams as I worked with another team yesterday and it went really well, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and began sowing the seeds of some friendships.

Then again, it seems like it's a curse to be my friend at work!

Middle Class Mafia

2005-09-13T22:47:00.000+01:00

Apparently Tony Blair has admitted that the wealthy have more choice and power in the education system than the less well-off. What a shocking statement, really Tony? Surely you're kidding Mr Blair, do the wealthy really get a better quality of education?

Mr Blair said he wasn't naive enough to believe that it was ever possible to eradicate the impact wealth would have on schooling. I sincerely hope he's not the only one who's not that naive. The wealthy get better opportunities in life, this is a fact in a Capitalist economy. We can, and do, put in place ways to balance this, such as state-assisted places in fee-paying schools and other schemes designed to allow the less well off to prosper nonetheless.

A rather interesting proposal put forward by Mr Blair is that of an Academy, a private-sector funded school that is free to parents. This is hardly a novel approach and in fact I've been proposing private-public partnerships for almost as long as Tony's been Prime Minister. Mr Blair is no more than the bastard son of Thatcher, and it's taking him long enough to see the greatest legacy Thatcher gave us; privatisation.

Before people argue that it was a failure, let me give you BT and British Gas as examples of success stories. And the failures, and I shan't deny that there were some, only serve to highlight ways that we can improve. The pitfalls of privatisation can be avoided, whilst retaining the benefits, through PPP (Private-public partnership).

Next stop for the PPP bus is the NHS. I hope.

In other news, Cricket finally returned home with the England team securing the Ashes yesterday. The trains were conspicuously empty this morning, suggesting to me that many sickies were pulled as people attended the celebrations in the capital. Quite possibly a lot of hangovers too after a night of revelry celebrating beating those damned convicts after so many years of hurt. Credit to Pietersen for a series-winning innings and "Freddie" Flintoff for his heroics throughout the series that kept us on top. Hell, well done to all the lads, they all contributed to a memorable summer.

And what a day at work. After only two days of having our full team back we're depleted again. After my close friend from work got fired a few weeks back, I became good mates with one of the other guys and he was the one who got sacked today. Perhaps it's the curse of being my mate?! Anyway, it's got me a little worried now when a team of five has been reduced to a team of two. Am I next for the chopping block?

208 weeks

2005-09-11T23:21:00.000+01:00

Four years ago today the world stood still. I suppose we all look back and wonder what we were doing when it all happened, where we were. I was sat at home watching daytime TV, about to grab a late shower, as I didn't have university that day. Suddenly there's a newsflash that a low-flying plane seems to have crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York. A tragic accident, but still, worse things happen every day.

I watched on as, whilst they covered this apparent accident, a second plane slammed into the other tower. I can't describe the shock that went through my system upon seeing that, it was so sudden, so unexpected. Not once previously had it crossed my mind that this was a terrorist attack, I sincerely believed it was an accident.

Throughout the rest of the day the news filtered through of the other planes, and I sat in front of my TV, transfixed and in shock. I honestly thought, "What the hell is going on? Is this the end of the world?" Sounds silly to say that now but it seemed that way at the time. When my parents came home and I told them they didn't believe me, they thought I'd made it up.

And in a way it was all like a dream. This couldn't really be happening, I kept telling myself. But it was. My thoughts went first to my American friends and whether they'd heard from their loved ones, and then to the victims of this tragedy, complete strangers, but in that one moment, people who I felt genuine concern for. My friend's birthday was on the 11th, his 21st, and he often quips about how there's no longer any excuse for anyone to forget it, but nonetheless, I wonder how much of a dampener that put on that day. And every other birthday since I'd imagine.

I was in New York in August 2003 and I visited Ground Zero. It was a tremendously moving experience, I actually wept, and I felt altered by the experience. However speaking to New Yorkers, and just seeing the resolve of the city to battle this adversity, it was remarkable. I remember writing a tribute by a little "shrine" to the fire fighters, on a bit of boarding that had been scrawled on by people from around the world. It's ironic as I said that the strength and courage of New York was a lesson to us all. The irony is that on the 7th of July this year I, and my fellow Londoners, needed that lesson. It was the memory of how the citizens of New York dealt with their loss that gave us the courage to deal with our adversity too.

It disturbs me that people use today as a symbol to beat Bush with. Yes, it's 4 years, and yes, he swore he'd catch the person responsible, and yes, he hasn't, but can't we leave the politics until tomorrow? Let us weep and mourn for those who died on this day four years ago, or don't they deserve that much?

Fucking hell

2005-09-10T23:00:00.000+01:00

I really couldn't think of a more appropriate title since today has, quite frankly, been the day from hell. Disaster after disaster. In fact it's all just a wonderful way to wrap up a bloody hideous week. I truly am just sick and bloody tired of it all.

Had a lousy start to the week, sat alone on my sales team whilst one of my colleagues was off interviewing for (and successfully I'll bet) another job, whilst another of my colleagues was off sick, and whilst my manager buggered off to the hospital for a scan for his sinuses.

Now that was fucking mind-numbing I tell you! Cold-calling is boring as hell at the best of times, it's hard work, a real slog, but you keep going, keep plugging away. A distinct lack of orders was pissing me off anyway and the tedium just got worse by being by myself.

On top of that I began my own hunt for new employment and found that I had my time wasted. A recruitment consultant got in touch with me last week, called me in for a meeting with his colleague whereupon his colleague decided I was not suitable and he couldn't recommend me.

Then why the fuck call me down?! Why waste my fucking time only to tell me you couldn't help me? True, he gave me some tips, but nothing particularly helpful that I didn't know already! The current job market is pissing me off royally, and it looks like I'm stuck where I am for now.

This doesn't bother me overly except that my team-mates keep leaving and I don't want to have to bond with a new set. Plus the pay's going down at the end of the 6 month probation which is bloody ridiculous. I'll have to have words or leave at that point because I can't afford to stay for that much. However I didn't want to leave it until the last minute so I began looking now. Waste of fucking time that was!

And then there's the sports. The Ashes still remain in the balance and whilst rain does improve England's chances, since a draw will do, I'd still like to be able to watch some cricket! It's boring to have to keep coming back for a few overs, then leave it, then come back.

On top of that the bloody convicts might just pick up the scoring rate and cause us some trouble yet! Add to that the absolutely disastrous abysmal performance of Arsenal at Middlesborough and you have a terrible sporting weekend.

Then there's the bloody annoyance of popups that seem to have infected my blog that I can't seem to get rid of and the annoying people who post advertising links on their comments (do it and your comment'll be removed, and eventually I'll just remove anonymous commenting, so watch it). It's all just so bloody frustrating and I just don't need it at the moment because everything's pissing me off.

Finally this neverending "will-she-won't-she" thing with Amy is driving me nuts. I don't care if a girl's not keen, I can handle that, I can handle rejection, I'm pretty used to it, and truth be told, I never really got my hopes up. What I absolutely hate is being messed around. I hate indecisiveness, it just drives me insane.

If you're not interested, say you're not interested, if you're interested, say so, if you say "Let's go out this weekend, call me on Thursday and see how I'm fixed" then tell me how you're fixed on Thursday when I call and if you then say you're still not sure but you'll call me to let me know, then fucking well call! Instead I've been waiting all day for a phonecall that I knew wouldn't come. I fucking give up.

And yes, I know you find the diary entries boring but I really had to have this little rant after the week I've had. Maybe tomorrow I'll post something a little more worldly. What with it being the 11th of September and all...

Why cricket isn't boring

2005-09-08T22:09:00.000+01:00

I told someone today that I was going to be using part of my day off tomorrow to enjoy the cricket. I was promptly informed that this was boring. Now I had hoped that this summer's Ashes series, quite possibly the best series in the history of Test cricket (and lauded by many as such, from both camps) had finally spread the message that cricket is not boring, but alas it seems not.

The only people who believe cricket is boring are those who've never sat through a nail-biting final over like that experienced at Edgbaston. The last wicket for the Australians fell with just 2 runs left for victory, it was ball-by-ball tension.

And then came the draw at Old Trafford, one wicket was all it would have taken for England to get the win they deserved but a gutsy performance by Brett Lee saw them home to a draw that they celebrated as if it was a win.

The first test match aside, every other one has been dramatic until the very end, even the fourth test, which England should have won comfortably, went down to the wire thanks to some gutsy bowling by Australia.

Seeing the great Shane Warne (cunt) back to his best has been a sight to behold, almost as much fun as seeing one of the world's premiere batsmen, Matthew Hayden, look palpably awful. Having said that he'll go on to score a century now in each innings and guide them to the win they need, won't he? Fucking convicts!

And that's been the beauty of the series. It's not just been the cricket, which has been competitive, tense, nail-biting, dramatic and euphoric, but the spirit in which the series has been played. Competitive and yet sportsmanlike. There's been that added bite and banter that was missing in previous series as the Aussies could always just retort that we were shit and we'd be put in our place.

It's been a real joy to watch and I really don't understand how anyone can label it boring. Yes, the game takes a long time to finish, and yes, there may not be a "result" at the end of it, but if you're telling me the draw at Old Trafford wasn't more thrilling than watching Chelsea scrape a 1-0 win over Wigan then you've clearly gone mad!

Draws happen in many sports, and yes, there is a certain frenetic excitement in games like football which you can't say Cricket delivers, but that said, for sheer drama Cricket can't be beaten. Over those 5 days you experience all the emotions you experience from an entire season of football. You just can't beat it!

For the record, I love football a lot more than cricket, because I have a club who I support, whereas I don't support my county side, so on a day-to-day basis I love football more, because I love my club. However I'll be far prouder to see the England cricket team win the Ashes than see the England football team win the World Cup (hah, chance'd be a fine thing!).

Probably because they've worked their fucking socks off, haven't turned up and just expected to be handed a victory and don't act like overpaid prima donnas. And the fact they've delivered entertainment.

I tell you now, cricket's about as boring as I am...

Oh.

It's not a fashion statement it's a fucking deathwish (Part II)

2005-09-06T23:25:00.000+01:00

I read an article in the Metro which suggested that self-harm was "so 1990s". To reduce such a serious matter to a fashion statement is disgusting. I appreciate that in this time when Emo music has become incredibly popular, self-harm has become a bit of a badge of acceptance in this crowd, effectively meaning people do it just to fit in, to be "cool". I even accept that some people do it solely for the attention it garners them.

However even that should not be confused with being attention-seeking in the pejorative sense of that phrase. The need for attention in those people is more often than not a cry for help, which is what most suicide attempts are, and yet I've not heard the same sort of claims about those. In fact suicide attempts are more likely to be the route of choice for an attention seeker. Self-harm is actually a much more internalised thing than suicide.

Having been a former sufferer, albeit not to a great extent or for very long, and knowing people close to me who did it to a much more severe extent, including my own sister, I know that to me, and those close to me, it wasn't about attention so much as a means to cope with overwhelming anguish and pain. Physical pain replaces emotional, and this is something we as humans in modern society are still equipped to deal with, whereas emotional pain is considered weakness in today's dog-eat-dog world. One need only note the "pussy" claims that have been thrown my way on this blog for proof of that.

I think self-harm is something that needs to be better understood, as unlike suicide it's something that tends to evoke negative emotions. Suicide tends to evoke sympathy, if you tell someone you've been suicidal, they put it down to depression and emotional problems. You tell them you self harmed and they think you're a weirdo, or worse, a punk kid trying to be "cool".

New look

2005-09-04T23:04:00.000+01:00

As you can see I undertook a bit of an overhaul today. I felt the old look, whilst it looked unique and was my first major step away from the conventional blogspot designs, still looked dull and poor, sort of like a 3 year old's effort, complete with crayons and everything!

I feel the current look is that little bit sharper, a little less simplistic and just looks a whole lot better. Although I'm happy to hear what you lot think of the changes, so please, leave me a comment and let me know. There's still a whole lot of room for improvement, I know, but I like that each effort is showing an improvement on the one that preceded it. It shows me that it's worth continuing and eventually I'll end up with a really professional look that I created all by myself, which would give me a lot more satisfaction than having it designed for me.

Oh, and while I'm here, shameless plug time:

VOTE ON MY POLL!!!

The campaign for compulsory voting begins here!

2005-09-03T23:07:00.000+01:00

Actually, whilst I agree with the principle of compulsory voting employed in some countries (a noteable example being Australia), since it seems far too many of our generation take the right to vote for granted, that's not what this post is about. I'm not going to rant on about the millions of lives lost over many wars to preserve our freedoms, I turn instead to my poll.

So far it's received 11 votes, one of which was mine! Come on people, VOTE! I'd like something somewhat representative, and at present it just isn't cutting it. I don't care if you hate my lousy blog, just vote on the bloody poll you cretinous ingrates! Your country needs you!

As much as I would like more of you to vote, I'm actually just messing about. Today I don't give a rat's arse about political matters (although the issue with Walmart allegedly not accepting Salvation Army aid vouchers was intriguing). I don't want to discuss topics of general interest. This will be personal, and from the gut, and if you don't like it, fuck off.

Today's blog post will be a shambolic mess, but then that will simply make it representative of the day I've had. It's been one fuck-up after another, as, in typical style, I've gone on a rampage of sheer social ineptitude on such a scale that I should get a bloody award for it. Today began brightly when I got a lovely thank you card from a very dear friend and got progressively worse as I angered this friend, potentially losing the friendship, which remains in the balance at time of writing this, and then went on to anger and upset my ex. Fucking marvellous!

One thing I've noticed about my personality is I have the amazing knack of always ballsing stuff up, and yet always managing to fix them afterwards. I've often wondered if on some subconscious level I'm intentional cocking stuff up so I have something to fix, gives me something to do, some opportunity to "prove myself" but I now think I'm just a social retard. Especially with women. But then I think I'm also incredibly charming, without realising it, and this coupled with my intense persistence and the fact I never know when I'm beaten, never give up, and keep hammering away until someone forgives me, I think, saves my arse.

Actually, I've decided to go back on my earlier comments about not posting on a topic of general interest. I was intrigued to read about Rapex. It's about time someone came up with a way to deal with rape in a country where it's a daily occurance on a massive scale but nonetheless I won't deny that there must be some concerns. Firstly the issue of forgetting to remove the product could be problematic. I wouldn't want to be the poor girl's boyfriend and end up with that thing hooked onto my cock. Sure, once she explained it to the hospital there wouldn't be any charges but it'd still fucking hurt! Then there's the flipside, if a woman forgets it then she's just as helpless as if she didn't own one.

Secondly there's the old adage of "a woman scorned" to be concerned about. It's not unheard of for women to entice men into sex with them, then cry rape, as a form of revenge. It's despicable, and a total slap in the face for women who truly have suffered rape, and this device would make it so much easier to frame a man for rape for doing nothing wrong. Unfortunately the issue of men claiming that a woman consented when in fact she didn't (consent has become the new defence to rape in the advent of DNA evidence making it impossible to just deny sex took place) has made this situation a head-on battle, and sadly the casualties on either side will be innocent people.

I'm still unsure where I stand on this device, it may well end up being more hinderance than good. Arguments have been put forward that it might prompt rapists to kill their victims, but this is just conjecture. Even if it were true there could be a long debate as to whether it's better to die or lay there through the torture of being raped. I wouldn't know, not having suffered that fate, but I'm sure some rape victims would rather have died than suffer what they did.

Further breaking from my earlier statements about Katrina, I felt this was worthy of posting. Fucking sick twisted cunts trying to con generous and charitable people, whilst simultaneously fucking over the victims of Katrina. Disgusting.

There's a lot of irony in the reports that there were explosions and fires in New Orleans after the flooding. I bet they wish it had been the other way round! Seriously though, all jokes aside, it's like a mini-armageddon there, the end of the world is really fucking nigh, apparently...

What I find truly ironic is the complaints in the US over the price of "gasoline". Petrol prices in the UK make the US prices look like it's a fucking winter sale and yet the yanks bitch and moan. Maybe it's because they insist on driving shit cars which guzzle petrol but deliver poor performance. Apart from Ford no other US car company has ever managed to make a car that doesn't guzzle petrol down. Perhaps if they looked to how we in the UK cope with prices that are far FAR higher, they'd realise that the problem lies in what they put the "gasoline" into, not the prices of it.

It's also quite disturbing to read that Americans appear more concerned by the rising price of petrol than the rising deathtoll in New Orleans. Such a terribly sad state of affairs.

Twin Tragedies

2005-09-01T23:40:00.000+01:00

I dedicate today's post to the approximately 1,000 people killed in the stampede at the Kadhimia mosque in Baghdad and the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Rather than rant and rave on a topic of choice I'd just like to express my deep sadness at these two large-scale tragedies that have caused major loss of life. I read a letter in the Metro arguing that the Americans had two weeks warning whereas the victims of the Asian Tsunami didn't and thus to compare the two is ridiculous. For the record, the Asian Tsunami was known about two weeks in advance, the information was just kept under wraps by government officials so as not to alarm tourists. I read furthermore "Hurricanes are a yearly occurrence in that region of the US." Apparently this makes the loss of life less tragic?

All this is fine, it's a viewpoint, however incorrectly formulated, but to then criticise the US government for the fact it might spend more money to restore part of its own country, as compared to a foreign nation, and to do so during the midst of such a crisis smacks of idiocy and a complete lack of consideration. Not to mention the fact that the initial sum put forward by the US government was never intended to be its final payment, just an initial down payment, and the US government eventually actually contributed more than any other government (even though civilian donations were greater elsewhere).

Equally those who lack consideration for the victims of the Baghdad stampede, claiming that it was their own fault for panicking at the idea that there might be a suicide bomber in their midst (in Baghdad? How stupid of them to believe that! Before you comment, sense the sarcasm), disturb and sicken me. You should all be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves

My heart goes out to those affected by these two huge tragedies.

You beauty!

2005-08-30T19:09:00.000+01:00

I was walking past Wembley Stadium on my way home, as I do every evening, and I was just struck by its beauty, and just how lucky I was to be taking this route home every single day, as well as passing it by in the morning. What an awe-inspiring sight, an example of what modern day engineering can achieve.

My sister thinks I'm bonkers for seeing beauty in something metallic but there's a grace and beauty that's unique to buildings. Metal can be very sexy, just look at a Supercar for an example of this. For all those doubters who said that Wembley was too expensive, for all the arguments, back biting and the controversy, we've now nearly got a national stadium that truly rivals any other in the world.

As a resident of Wembley, I was vociferous in my support for keeping the ground. I was as gutted as anyone to see the infamous twin towers go, they were a beautiful sight on my way home then, but I accepted that had to for the national stadium to stay at Wembley. There were calls to move it to some backwater like Birmingham so that the crummy Northerners could get to the ground for England games easier, but I'm glad they were ignored.

Firstly, what sort of pussy supporters can't travel around to see their national team play? Lazy cunts, that's who. Secondly, London is the nation's capital, and the rest of the country should fucking well learn to accept that. Taxpayers in London actually support the rest of the country, and economic studies show that London could survive independently of the rest of the nation whereas no other city in the country could. It's only right that the national stadium is in the nation's capital. Thirdly there are businesses in the area that rely on the stadium for income. Finally, and most importantly, Wembley has a heritage.

Of course the fact it makes my little backwater in London seem like a great place to live is a bonus and our house prices should rocket in the area, which isn't bad!

Hang Em High

2005-08-28T19:50:00.000+01:00

Today I'm going to approach the subject of the Death Penalty. Just to prove to a few doubters out there who might have thought from the last post that I was a raging lunatic republican right winger, an uncaring, unfeeling, unsympathetic and utterly selfish beast, that in fact I'm a caring neo-liberal with a heart of gold. Who just happens to think that people should earn according to their job description, nothing more, nothing less.

Enough on that topic though. I believe I proved my point on that already. Funnily enough I oppose the Death Penalty. On several grounds. Firstly I believe it can never be applied fairly. Fairness in the penal system requires two things; a lack of arbitrary punishment, so that two crimes that are identical receive the same punishment, and an element of mercy requiring that we consider all mitigating circumstances. In essence the punishment must always fit the crime, to use a cliché, but the crime must always be considered in its broader social context. A man who comes home and finds his wife in bed with another man and kills them both is less culpable than a burglar who kills a couple in their bed to allow him to loot their house, despite the fact the crimes are seemingly identical.

This is an impossible balance to achieve. In order to remove arbitrariness, so that juries don't just decide that someone deserves death (rather than life in prison) because they don't like their haircut, we need statutes that delineate circumstances to be considered. However if this list is non-exhaustive it does little to remove arbitrariness. If it's exhaustive it doesn't allow the jury to consider exceptional circumstances that might exist in this case, and this case only. This has been experimented with the US and it hasn't worked. If the balance cannot be drawn, the punishment should not exist. On such a crucial decision, life or death, it’s important that we draw the balance.

Race is also a crucial issue. There is an entire library's worth of research that shows that juries are psychologically predisposed to deal differently with people of their own race being murdered by people of a different one, than if those roles were reversed. This is surely a rational reason for not allowing this sort of bigotry to have an impact. It's bad enough when it has an impact on depriving a person of their liberty through a prison sentence, but to have racism impact on a life or death decision is ludicrous!

And then there's the idea that the legal system, being a human creation, is always prone to human error. We have had numerous travesties of justice, ranging from clearly guilty men like OJ Simpson going free (So sue me OJ!) to innocent people being convicted. Whilst I agree that the police acted entirely correctly, the situation with Jean Charles de Menezes shows that mistakes will happen. And much as in that case it cost an innocent man his life, if the Death Penalty were re-introduced in the UK (or if it is not banned in the US, as it should be), we would see a lot more incidents where innocent souls are lost to this world. That's far more sickening to my mind than knowing that some sick twisted fuckers are alive to roam the streets after murdering people because they've not been executed.

There are also some moral reasons why the Death Penalty is a bad thing. The strongest argument in favour of the death penalty is the need for vengeance on the part of the victims' families. I sympathise and totally appreciate this desire. Those are not just hollow words. When my mother told me she was raped, I wanted nothing more than to ram a sharp implement into the rapist fucker's eyeball. When other people close to me have told me of similarly horrific experiences in their lives, from being molested as children to being raped as adults, I always feel the anger boil and the desire for retribution. It's a human sentiment. However it's a base animalistic desire, and the point of the legal system is to insulate us from these base desires. Theft is illegal to insulate us from greed, murder from hatred, sexual assault from lust (I would say Rape but we all know that that’s far more about control and power than lust) and so on. The point of the law is that it makes us aspire to be better than animals, and for the legal system to then satiate animalistic urges would make it a hypocrisy.

Then there's the cold hard fact that no humane way to take a human life has been found. All methods involve intense suffering, not to mention the years in Death Row waiting to die. What an awful existence, better to be dead! In many ways this is torture, far worse than a murderer who slits his victim's throat and they're dead in seconds. To put people through suffering because they might have inflicted suffering on others is crude. We should, as stated earlier, aspire to rise above this, to be far more merciful on the monsters in this world than they've been to their victims. That's what makes their crimes all the more horrible by contrast, but the second we sink to their level; we risk glorifying or even justifying their behaviour. We drag society down into the gutter along with the dregs who already reside there, and this can't be good.

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do...

Death to commie hippies

2005-08-26T21:39:00.000+01:00

I have just about come to the end of my tether about people insisting that the wealthy ought to be penalised for being so. I was reading the Metro's letters page the other day and came across a letter from a representative from the charity War Child, whose work is no doubt commendable, which angered me no end.

She said she was "disgusted" to read about a wealthy businessman who bought £26,000 worth of champagne and sprayed it around a nightclub in celebration. Now she no doubt had a point that this £26,000 could have been very well utilised by her charity to achieve much more worthwhile goals, but so what? To berate this man as greedy is ridiculous unless she knows him personally. For all she knows he might have donated £50,000 to charity only the day before his champagne-spraying night out.

This is why I oppose high taxation solely on the basis of being more wealthy. Why not allow the wealthy to choose where the money they've earnt goes? Why not allow them to choose to donate to charities and help those less well off than themselves? We might be pleasantly surprised. Or we might not, but either way, surely that's more "just"? I thought we lived in democracies where freedom was valued. What about freedom over one's own hard earned money? I didn't realise we were living in a commune.

I'm sick to the back teeth of "economic justice" arguments that have gone mad. Yes, there are poor people around the world, and yes, we ought to help them as much as we can, but to state that a businessman who probably works very hard to achieve his wealth cannot relax and enjoy his hard-earned money is bloody ridiculous. To berate the wealthy for their excesses is downright stupid. The wealthy "wasting" their money does not cause poverty around the world, corrupt governments do, and no amount of money can fix that problem.

The irony is that many of these "economic justice" activists opposed the war in Iraq, on the basis that regime change is morally wrong. The only way to lessen the suffering of the world's poorest nations is to get rid of the root cause, which is their corrupt governments. Yes, I know, the original root cause was Imperialism but we can't go back and eradicate that history, which, lest we forget, also had some positive effects. Former colonies were introduced to western education and civilisation which are the only two things that will provide these poor nations with the tools they need to climb out of their rut.

There is even further irony in these arguments. China and India were both pillaged of their natural resources by Japan and Britain respectively, and yet both have gone on to become the two major marketplaces in the world today. Economists insist that the next century could well belong to China, and to a lesser extent, India, due to the economic growth in these two countries. Neither of these nations relied on charity to get anywhere, they did so by western investment. Investment by the very same "greedy" corporations that "economic justice" activists routinely protest against. Ironic, no?

The truth is, "economic justice" is a joke. There will always be rich, there will always be poor. This is the problem with the cause of "equality" when it's not tempered by a little common sense. Much like sexism gone mad, which I've berated earlier. The reason there will always be rich and poor is because of greed; it's a basic human emotion and it will never be driven out from us. At our very core, human beings are selfish creatures, and when it comes down to it, we don't care for our fellow man. We'd like to believe we do, but deep down, we'd all rather take care of our own friends and family than some stranger in a developing nation.

Sad, but true.

People can die from a broken heart

2005-08-25T19:02:00.000+01:00

We've all known for a long time that love hurts but now, for the first time, scientists have said it can kill. Yes, it's true, unrequited love can be a killer.

Medical experts are now saying lovesickness is an illness of its own and should be taken seriously. Apparently it's a form of mental illness, and symptoms can range through the full arc of mania, depression and OCD. Apparently people are "destabilised by falling in love or suffer on account of their love being unrequited". Well duh! What an insightful way to state the bleeding obvious! I could've told them that! I'm sure every single one of us could, but I use my own example as many are amazed by how destabilised I've become by unrequited love over the years. Many have commented on the obsession with my love life on here, and just generally in my depressive ramblings, and now I finally have scientific proof that it's not just me being weird!

Now that's not to say I'm not weird (because I am), and that my lovesickness isn't excessive (because it is) but nonetheless, it's no surprise that nearly every guy I've known who's been suicidal or depressed was sent into this state by a woman. In fact this ties in with my earlier point that all women are evil, but ignoring that for a moment, it does add weight to the argument about love being a destablising thing. I've known perfectly balanced young men (and to be fair, I was never one of those, love life aside, due to my childhood issues with my parents) who've become entirely unhinged on account of a crushing sensation of being hopelessly in love with someone who didn't reciprocrate It's referred to as limerance in psychological circles, although the exact dividing line between love and limerance can be imprecise, as the latter can become the former in certain cases.

Having been driven to drink (alcohol abuse, not alcoholism, for the record. There is a difference) and suicide by two different girls, I can indeed state that lovesickness is a mental illness with potentially disastrous consequences. The studies show I am by no means in a minority, and many people do take, or attempt to take, their lives due to lovesickness. Unrequited love can feel like you're floating in a sea of hopelessness and one can feel utterly adrift and helpless. The worst sensation can be to be given a glimmer of false hope in this situation, as that faint flicker of hope is often quickly extinguished, leaving in its place even more feelings of helplessness, often more crushing than the original ones. Many think my obsession with my love life is unhealthy and the way I let it affect me is unusual, but the fact is, this all proves that neither is true. A preoccupation with love is entirely natural.

If unrequited love is a killer then in my life it's Jeffrey Dahmer!

Men: An endangered species?

2005-08-23T19:59:00.000+01:00

I just saw an interesting documentary on the role of man and masculinity in today's society. Are masculine values being eroded by modern feminism? Has the search for equality actually destroyed man's role in society?

The answer, according to this documentary, and me, is yes. Beginning firstly with the workplace, the traditional male domain. More and more workplaces are becoming "feminised". I'm entirely in favour of having women in managerial roles but not if it means that male views and opinions are disregarded as outdated. Marketing firms are now solely focussing on the female outlook on life as women are making more and more of the consumer decisions. Man's former role as the breadwinner, and the one who would make the major purchasing decisions (cars, homes etc) has gone, and in its place is a world where women make all the major decisions. What role does this leave for men?

Moving on swiftly to the family. Single parent families have always existed but they're slowly but surely becoming a lifestyle choice and this is where the problem begins. When women have taken away a man's role as provider, via the workplace, one might think this would leave a male refuge in their role as fathers. However modern women are becoming "supermums", dominating both work and home, leaving men marginalized and nothing more than sperm donors, transportable wallets (and not even that anymore) and useless lugs, tolerated, but not particularly necessary. I wonder if the "father's rights" movement would have been necessary a decade ago. I think not.

And this is a dangerous trend. Some might say "What's the big deal?" but with men becoming more and more redundant (in even the truest sense of the word, with women dominating the workplace) they're seeking more and more radical outlets to unleash their masculinity upon the world. This is largely through heavy drinking and loutish laddy behaviour. Women say they don't want this, and largely, they don't, noone does, but by marginalizing men through the rise of extremist feminism, they have unleashed the beast. Men do need some role, we can't live as drones in the beehive of life, used for one thing and then discarded, and if we're not given a role many of us will force one of our own, and not one that benefits society.

Speaking of lads, this is the other area in which women have usurped the role of man. Men were traditionally the louts, but the rise of ladettes has shown that women are now determined to behave as badly, if not worse (and having seen both, ladettes are far worse than lads, in my humble view), than their male counterparts. This only serves to further isolate and destroy man.

The response, if not ladism, has been a veering towards androgeny. The irony is that women are becoming more and more "male", purchasing cars, whilst men are becoming more and more female, buying hair care and facial products. Women say they want a man who's feminine and in touch with his femininity and yet, in the cruellest trick of all, they then respond by saying that they don't find such men attractive. They lure us into the trap of becoming more in touch with our feelings, exposing them, wearing our hearts on our sleeves instead of bottling up our emotions, and yet this is not what they seek.

Women say they want an effeminate man but they don't, they just don't want an old-fashioned masculine man, a man who doesn't allow them a role. The perfect example of this sort of "reckless" masculinity would be Colin Farrell. He lacks the traditional "male" qualities of responsibility, the urge to be a provider and protector, and yet has a very masculine air about him nonetheless. This is the "modern man" women are truly seeking.

More and more women are shifting to accepting the role of masculinity in society, and this is lucky, because on this path there is a real danger of losing vital traits. Men are inherently more competitive and aggressive than women, and whilst many might argue that these are negative qualities (and sometimes they are), they can often have positive consequences too. Without competition social evolution would not occur, technological advancement is born through competitive spirit. Aggression is also crucial, and although many might not like this, war has, and always will be, a barometer for social advancement.

Aggression and competition, working in tandem, are driving forces, catalysts that move progression forwards. In addition men are more inclined, naturally, to keep their feelings to themselves, to let things be and move on, whereas women tend to get bogged down in the minutiae sometimes. Whilst it's good to take time, be reflective and whatnot, it's also positive to sometimes not reflect, and just ignore, to be brash and bold. These are masculine traits that will be lost if men are taught to no longer be masculine.

I'm left with just one question. Where have all the men gone?

Crash into the hype machine

2005-08-20T23:17:00.000+01:00

Today I went to see Crash, arguably the most hyped film this Summer. It's received rave reviews, regular 5/5 ratings and many have been lauding it as a truly "great" cinematic piece.

It's not. Don't get me wrong, it's enjoyable, and there are some very poignant moments, mixed with some very very blackly (pun intended) comic moments, it has a great message and truly plays the viewer, but it was by no means perfect. It was overly long, and whilst many will say this is purely a technical criticism, it's not. I feel that the artistic elements of the last half an hour were wasted by a director who dragged out the conclusion, and thus made me spend as much time wondering when he was going to tie it all together as actually listening and watching what he'd put up on the screen.

In addition I think that whilst it was tied together reasonably competently, and it was cut together decently, it was by no means a "polished" product. It felt like an amateur film-maker's film, a film student piece that hadn't had studio backing to polish it up to scratch. Perhaps this comes from the fact that in my view Paul Haggis is an amazing writer but a merely "good" director. A truly great director might well have elevated this film that little bit extra necessary to have turned a 7 out of 10 into the 10 out of 10 that certain aspects of this film deserved.

And it truly did deserve such a rating, but for the above gripes. The acting was superb, not a single member of the cast can feel like they delivered a sub-par performance, although noone was quite excellent, with Don Cheadle definitely being the best of a good bunch. The film is about more than racism, it's about our prejudices generally, our distrust of our fellow man, and how we use race as a cloak for nothing more than paranoia. This is borne out by the way Sandra Bullock's character's racism is exposed as nothing more than a way to cope with her growing depression. In my opinion the concept of the film is not race at all, but mankind, and our growing isolation from each other, a point that I think crashes home with Don Cheadle's opening line. I won't spoil it for people who have yet to see the film, but it sets the tone.

The film plays on the audience's own prejudices, which I think is the cleverest thing it does, we assume that certain characters are "good" or "bad" and I believe the truly clever thing Haggis does is that early on he introduces such thick bigotry and racism that the audience almost feel obliged to become the "anti-racist" and assume that the whites are "bad" and that non-whites are "good". Look out for every single character in the film to absolutely shatter your preconceptions. The truly magnificent thing Haggis manages is to convey the idea that racism isn't something we're born with, these people aren't naturally evil, but are products of their environment. The beauty is that unlike many films that explore their themes through multiple characters, this film doesn't feel like it's being showy.

And whilst I said it was overly long it did begin swiftly enough and it hurtled along like an express train until the last half hour. It's a thundering rollercoaster of emotion for the first two thirds of the film, and for this it is still a film well worthy of being seen. There is drama, humour and emotional poignancy, all wrapped up in one reasonably neat package. What more could you ask for?

Open letter to the smoking ban lobby

2005-08-18T23:06:00.000+01:00

Dear retards,

Banning smoking in public places is just stupid. By that logic Prohibition was a huge success in the US. Banning drugs has clearly caused their usage to decrease, hasn't it? Oh. If we're losing the "War on drugs" what makes you think you'll win the "War on smoking"?

The fact remains that drinking establishments will merely break the ban if there is a demand to do so. You insist that there is a consensus against smoking in public places. If this is the case, why don't pubs and restaurants currently enforce their own optional smoking bans? Starbucks coffee houses ban smoking, and I believe that their business hasn't suffered. I'm a smoker and I still buy coffee there. However the simple reason why the vast majority of pubs and restaurants don't enforce their own bans on smoking on their premises is because of the potential loss of business. This proves there isn't any consensus.

In addition banning things has never been particularly successful, has it fuckwits?. Once again I point out the example of Prohibition, which is an ironic example, given that alcohol-related deaths account for more deaths than all illegal substances (which are banned) put together, and far more than smoking, passive or otherwise. Binge-drinking is a far more important problem to address but as usual you cretins would rather do something drastic to "deal" with a problem that isn't as severe and needs to be solved in a more sensible way.

A friend and I came up with a suggestion which utilised regulation and taxation benefits, basically creating a two-tier system for public venues such as pubs and restaurants, whereby whole establishments (as opposed to having sections) were either "smoking" or "non-smoking", and employees would be made aware of which was which before taking employment there (and thus would be able to make an informed decision to work there or not). Patrons would also be aware of which was which before entering the premises and thus would be free to choose. Taxation benefits for non-smoking venues and a requirement to fit expensive high-quality ventilation in smoking ones would help deal with the potential for economic inequality. I'm not suggesting this is foolproof, but it's an improvement!

AND IT WOULDN'T REQUIRE BANNING ANYTHING! I'm opposed to banning anything unless it's truly completely necessary. I even disagree with banning possession of child pornography (no I don't have any!) and prefer that we go after the makers of it not those who "merely" possess it. It's disgusting to think of people possessing those sorts of things but I believe liberty requires that we recognise that prohibition must always be a very last resort. I do not believe that protection of children necessitates banning possession of child pornography so long as we're effective in catching and punishing the makers (who already contravene existing laws against child abuse).

Before you ask, I'm in favour of legalising all drugs. Regulation not prohibition, that's the answer. We're afraid to use economics to deal with societal problems when in fact economics provides the best methods to tackle them. Money does indeed make the world go round and correct use of this truism would allow us to deal far more effectively with society's ills. However that sort of intelligent politics would never win votes, would it? So instead you go down the idiotic path of bans on smoking and fox hunting and anything else that's a popular vote-winning policy. You make me sick! Less politicians, more intelligent politics!

However I repeat, the main reason why banning smoking is ridiculous is that it is in no way the biggest killer of all the vices out there. Drinking is, and yet it’s a national pastime in Britain. We pride ourselves on our ability to drink copious amounts of alcohol, entirely oblivious to the fact that this social practice is nothing more than socially acceptable binge-drinking. It’s like approving of it. And that’s disturbing. Deal with that before you look to ban smoking, you fucking idiots! Once again...intelligent politics!

Chew on that,

Jesus of Suburbia

God bless the education system

2005-08-16T21:40:00.000+01:00

Apparently the Christian Right want Creationism taught in schools side by side with Evolution. What an utterly ridiculous suggestion.

No, I won't be suggesting that Evolution is something that science has proven conclusively (as some suggest) or that Creationism cannot be proven by science, because contrary to popular belief amongst the left, that's not true at all. Evolution is a theory, it's no more proven than any other scientific theory.

Once a scientific theory is proven it becomes a law, and until proven, it's not conclusive. Creationism might simply be an oversimplification; science has yet to rule out the possibility of a God playing scientist by starting the evolutionary process off.

I will simply state that Creationism is not a scientific theory so much as a religious one, and as such its place is in the RE classroom. Since it's already taught there as part of Biblical Studies (at least it was when I was at school) I see no reason why it should be taught again.

I'm not saying it's not a scientific theory, as I refuse to see things as that black and white, it is, however, more closely associated with religion (I'm sure noone can disagree with that) and the most appropriate place for it to be taught is religious education.

Now of course I accept that Religious Education has all but disappeared in the US thanks to the seperation of church and state but there's no reason why the correct compromise can't be drawn whereby, so long as equal time is dedicated to each religion, RE could once again take its rightful place on the curriculum at US schools.

It certainly makes a lot more sense than Creationism being taught as a scientific rather than a religious theory. That, to my mind, is far closer to "establishing" a religion (since it utilises Christian theories of creation) than teaching Religious Education in schools.

Religious Education should also be brought back to breed religious tolerance in the US. The lack of knowledge about Islam is somewhat disconcerting, as is the increasing shift towards Far Right Christianity.

I also believe RE should receive a greater amount of focus in UK schools to prevent the sorts of racist attrocities we've seen committed since the bombings in London. Religious Education would allow the bigots and cretins to learn about the tenets of a faith before they go about attacking them due to the views held by a minority.

Don't get me wrong, I abhor Islamists, but the sooner that people realise that Islamists and Islamics are not the same, the better for everyone.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked

2005-08-14T23:55:00.000+01:00

After recent events I became a little reflective, and actually somewhat Zen. I considered my views on happiness, on the carrot and the stick, and the idea that what could make me whole was just out of reach. I came to some realisations that have put my mind at ease.

The path towards one’s goals is often arduous, full of ups and downs, twisty, winding and meandering. There are potholes in the road, and sometimes you might even have to take a detour. Occasionally you’re deep inside a long dark tunnel, and the light at the end of it cannot be seen, but if you keep travelling along it, eventually you find yourself bathed in golden sunlight.

Life is a journey. The fact that it doesn’t go the way you want it to doesn’t make the journey worthless, if anything it makes it all the more worth taking. Happiness comes in many forms, and just because you believe one thing will make you happy, it doesn’t mean that in actuality that thing will indeed make you happy. You might grasp the branch of happiness only to realise it’s nothing more than another stick to beat you with. Unwanted detours may only serve to draw you to your true happiness.

The difficulty of the journey only makes the arrival at your destination that much more satisfying. To know sustenance we must know hunger, to appreciate beauty we must see that which is ugly, and to experience true joy we must experience true sorrow. As Khalil Gibran said, “He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.”

It is important to appreciate what you do have. Family, friends, people who love you, in whatever way, and whose life you brighten in some small way. Sometimes in the pursuit of greater goals we lose sight of the sources of joy that lie right beneath our noses.

However it is also important to be willing to risk any of these. At times in the search for true happiness we fear losing that which we have, and worry that if we plunge too deeply into pursuing the ultimate goal, we might lose all the sources of joy we have now.

The reason that such a risk is worth it is that the fundamental objective will ultimately make you happier than anything else. We fear risking the loss of friendships, and yet if these friendships are true, they can never be lost, no matter what may come to pass.

Life is a long and tough journey, and whilst it is important to pay attention to the scenery as you travel along, never lose sight of the final destination, and never, ever, be too afraid to risk it all for that one grab at the branch of true happiness for it may never come round again.

Nip/Tuck

2005-08-13T23:55:00.000+01:00

I have recently come across several advertisements for cosmetic surgery clinics. Nothing unusual in that of course. All businesses need to advertise and cosmetic surgery clinics are no different. As a salesman I appreciate the importance of branding and imprinting your company's name indelibly onto someone's mind.

However what did strike me as odd were the models. No, they didn't have two heads or six arms, and in fact had they done so, that would have made more sense. Indeed what struck me as odd was the sheer perfection of the models in question. Why would a cosmetic surgery clinic wish to use an attractive model?

You might respond to this by saying "Why not?" Well, my friend, in the main, and I accept that this is a gross generalisation, but that notwithstanding, attractive people rarely go in for elective cosmetic surgery. It is in fact the ugly who go in for cosmetic surgery, so surely the use of an ugly model would make the potential patient feel more like this was the service for them? I could understand if the attractive people were used as "after" shots to make the service appear to be successful, but they're usually portrayed as potential patients.

Branding is all about associating yourself with the product in question, so to sell to the ugly, they should use the ugly. I suppose that the executives at these advertising companies probably have a penchant for sleeping with their models, and so would prefer them to be attractive. Yes, I know that that's possibly defamatory, but I'd quite welcome being sued. It’s been months since I’ve been to court.

The only rational reason I can think of is that perhaps the intention is for someone who is ugly to look at the people who're portrayed as desiring plastic surgery to think "Fuck me, if he/she needs cosmetic surgery, then some ugly person like me definitely needs it!" It sure as hell made me feel that way!

My appointment's next Tuesday.

You got us into this so get us out of this

2005-08-11T06:38:00.000+01:00

Last night was eventful to say the least. Hence a post at 6:40am before work.

I made the most idiotic mistake a man can make. I've said it before, and yet I failed to follow my own advice. I exposed vulnerability to a woman. I told the object of my affections just how I was feeling, that I can't eat or sleep, think or do anything of note because she haunts my psyche. Ever since Monday when we had phonesex I actually need her, I feel a crushing sense of need in fact, and that scared me because I was worried about how I'd take it when the truth hit me, because I know she doesn't need me back, or even want me particularly that much.

That's what probably hurts the most. I just keep replaying Monday night when she kept saying how much she wanted me. Hah! She didn't want me, I was conveniently on hand to assist her when she was horny, and now I feel used because there was no truth behind anything she said that night, it wasn't me she wanted, it wasn't me who she was thinking about sleeping with. I feel cheap, hurt, used, abused and just utterly violated. It's like she's emotionally raped me, which is ironic really. It was probably her ex she was thinking about, who I sound like, apparently.

The reason I come to this conclusion is because she told me last night that she's been thinking about him a hell of a lot recently, and she'd already told me ages ago that she was in love with him. I predict that either she'll stay with the current boyfriend, who she also told me she was falling in love with, or go back to the ex. Either way I feel like an idiot, and I feel hurt, betrayed and used. I sat there and listened to her pour her heart out about these two other guys, and it was tearing me apart, I was crying on the phone, and yet I continued listening, I don't know why. Perhaps because I actually love her and I knew she had to talk about it to get it off her chest, no matter what that did to me. I was happy to make that sacrifice for her because I just love her that much. I'd die for her in a heartbeat.

The truth is she probably doesn't even reciprocate slightly, she missed me a little and misinterpretted that and I foolishly let myself believe for one second that my luck had changed. But my luck never changes, life is always dangling the carrot of happiness in front of my eyes and then raping me anally with the stick to remind me that I don't deserve to be happy.

I understand that she told me she only reciprocated slightly, and that she made it consistently clear that she was staying with her boyfriend and was unlikely to leave him, and there was little or no chance that it would be for me, so I don't blame her for that. I do however feel that Monday night was unfair to me. She's sorry about it, which I suppose is something, but that doesn't eradicate this memory I have of her telling me she wanted me over and over and whenever it loops through my mind it kills me. I wish the things she said that night were true but they were marijuana-induced ramblings that mean nothing. Hell, I doubt she feels anything for me, like I've said already. It makes me want to die because I know it's not true.

Speaking of death, after that telephone conversation last night I was actually rather suicidal. However I won't be doing anything, because I know that the best thing I can do is put this girl behind me, forget her, put her along with the half a dozen other girls who've mistreated me in the last couple of years and move on. Get back out there and find someone who actually appreciates me and wants me for me, not just as a stop-gap when her boyfriend isn't fulfilling her.

The thing is, as much as I probably deserve better treatment than to be some girl's stand-in "boyfriend", and as much as there are other girls out there who'll give it to me, the problem is the only one I want is her. Unrequited love's a bitch, ain't it?

Results of the last poll

2005-08-09T22:21:00.000+01:00

The results of the last poll are in!!!

Rather surprisingly Bloc Party were in last place. This I suppose can be rationalised by the fact that they're very much a "domestic" band with little international exposure at this stage. That said I was still surprised to see them so thoroughly outplayed by the others, receiving absolutely no votes. For those of you out there who haven't heard of them, you really should make a point of finding Silent Alarm anywhere you can and listening to it. You won't be sorry.

A massive three votes ahead of them were two bands in equal third spot. Quite possibly the two most universally loved exports from the United States in the last year. They're the bands that it's very cool to like, and very uncool to not like, or worse still, not have heard of. Much like it was very cool to be a Muse fan or a Coldplay fan 12 months ago. Sadly it's apparently become cool to hate those bands, despite the fact they're both brilliant.

I'm talking of course about The Killers and Death Cab For Cutie. Both have received heavy coverage in as populist and mainstream a television show as The OC, demonstrating their broad mass appeal. I would say that The Killers are a more widely known band, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who dislikes Hot Fuss. Jenny was a Friend of Mine is my personal favourite, and it to me shows what The Killers are all about; a fusion of guitar pop with 80s synth pop done to perfection. However Mr Brightside shows a lyrical genius and a maturity that will stand them in good stead.

As for Death Cab has any band had a bigger underground following in the last year? Where The Killers were the trailblazing mainstream band of the last 12 months, Death Cab were far and away the biggest indie band to emerge from the US during that same time. They shot beyond Interpol as the bright young hope of American music. If they can live up to that billing they will go a long way. I myself am a huge admirer, and I think everyone should hunt down their entire (and I mean entire) back catalogue. You will be amazed how many gems there are in it. To me they show so much promise, great variety, and a virtuoso verve that is very rare to see in any band.

In second were last time's winners, U2. For me they're a band that's past its zenith, and I don't understand how they won last time either. They haven't shown much in the way of movement forwards, if anything their recent work shows a distinct backwards step. I would assume that their success on these polls is down to their fame, coupled with Bono's notoriety. For the record I think Bono is a prize twat, and despite his talents, and his contribution to The Joshua Tree, one of the best albums of all time, he's always been a bit of a knob. Some have said it's all the recent charity appeals that have made him appear as such but in truth it's not a new development at all. The sad thing is his absolutely mediocrity in the personality stakes is now infecting the band, it's a contagion that threatens to engulf, consume, and denigrate the legacy of one of the greatest bands of the last 30 years.

And so onto our winners. With a whopping 12 votes, three times as many as U2 and 4 times as many as The Killers and Death Cab, with more votes, in fact, than all the others combined, are the Supergroup known as Green Day. This musical juggernaut simply cannot be stopped, and unlike U2, I predict Green Day will never manage to tarnish their reputation, as they just seem to go from strength to strength. Where American Idiot could well have been an appalling example of an older band trying to pretend they're kids again, instead the band have embraced their growing age, and the album oozes a maturity hitherto unseen in their music. American Idiot is quite possibly their finest album to date.

From the anthemic voice of a disenfranchised youth that is personified in Saint Jimmy, to the powerfully moving Wake Me Up When September Ends (which I personally love), from the rock-opera that is Boulevard of Broken Dreams, to the epic Jesus of Suburbia, it's what all great albums should be. This is as close to perfection as you get. It's a concept album, which makes its superlative quality all the more surprising. Concept albums usually end up being absolutely crap, but this breaks the mould, and shows how a concept album should be, a tightly knit group of songs, linked by the concept but not tied down by it, and instead free to take on lives of their own. In essence that's what all great song writing is; the true definition of a "great" album is one that is tied together and works wonderfully as a single piece, start to finish, and equally works just as well as standalone songs. American Idiot achieves this. It truly is an album for the ages.

Well done Green Day!

Chasing Amy

2005-08-08T20:18:00.000+01:00

As some of you might have noted I was supposed to have a date on Saturday. What do you mean you hadn't noticed? So that's all the gratitude I get for providing an entertaining blog? Oh wait, I must be thinking of someone else, carry on.

Anyway, the date. It didn't occur. No she didn't turn up, take one look at me, realise I was ugly and leave thanks very much! *shakes his head* I don't know, some people! As it happened she had a hangover (oooh, but I bet it wasn't as killer as mine on Friday!) and was feeling far too poorly to travel into London (she lives just outside).

Oh well, c'est la vie. She still seems keen, and in fact when she apologised and postponed she said she'd still like to, and asked when I'd want to. I said she should give me a call whenever she felt like it, I'd be flexible and try and fit her in. I decided that it was time for me to stop chasing Amy (for that's her name) and time for her to do some chasing for a change! It's all part of the fun, I felt like perhaps I was depriving her. Plus I believe modern women, whilst they like being chased, also like to do just a little of the chasing. If a man's too eager I think it can be insanely annoying and off-putting.

Hard to get is a real turn on. So I hear. But I never turn on women so what would I know?!

In other news yesterday's test match conclusion was positively gripping. The Aussies might feel hard done by as it appeared as if Kattich shouldn't have been given out, but then neither should Bell or Pietersen in England's second innings as Bell didn't touch the ball and it only hit Pietersen on the ribs, the thigh and then the elbow. At no point did either of them touch it with glove or bat. Them's the breaks, Langer was unlucky to be given out in the Aussie first innings too. That's cricket, and it was a great advertisement for the sport.

Who said cricket was boring?

Boring, however, is the perfect way to describe Chelsea's tactics in the Community Shield. Long ball and time wasting was the brunt of it. They were like an overpriced Bolton rather than Premiership Champions and I, as an Arsenal fan, was very pleased with my team's performance. We were the better side, and Fabregas and Gilberto look more than capable of making the absence of Vieira a moot point. The former especially showed just how much he's coming of age, he didn't put a foot wrong and for me was the boss of that midfield, outfought Makelele and made last year's Football Writer's player of the year (Lampard) a quiet shadow of his usual self. Poor Frank spent the match trying to cover the mobile Fabregas.

The two goals were both largely down to slight mistakes by Senderos, but we can forgive the young 20 year old a few mistakes. He showed flashes of his usual standard with some excellent tackling and I'd rather he make the odd mistake in pre-season than during the league campaign. The funny thing is that not one of the television commentators mentioned the fact that winning the shield has been a bit of a curse. We won it last year and we didn't win the league. We lost the year before, despite playing United off the park, and won the league. If that's an omen of things to come, and I think it is, Highbury will be bid farewell in true style.

And speaking of farewell...that's all from me for tonight.

A blog is born

2005-08-06T16:59:00.000+01:00

Apparently a new blog is created every second according to new research.

Technorati conducted the research, estimating that 30million blogs will be in existence around the world by the end of 2005, making blogs the internet phenomenon of 2005.

According to a story in Wednesday's Metro a blog cost one man his job when he bitched about his company and his boss on it. So bloggers beware!

In other news the reason that the updates I said would take place by Thursday were delayed until today is because I got far too drunk than I should have on Thursday, barely made it home in one piece, and spent yesterday with the hangover from hell. I mustered enough energy to cope with a day at work but I had none left for the blog.

Law and justice

2005-08-03T19:16:00.000+01:00

People often confuse these two terms, which is easy enough to do if you haven't had a grounding in law. I would say lay people shouldn't express an opinion on legal matters but that would be wrong, as freedom of expression is very important to me. Everyone should have the right to say what they like. Unless they're wrong.

I'm referring specifically to the case involving Paul Dalton. For our international readers (hah!) he's a headteacher who broke his wife's (Tae Hui Kang) jaw in two places with one punch and left her to drown in her own blood for a few days, before returning to the scene and cutting her body up with an electric saw to dispose of it. In his freezer.

A horrific crime to be sure. For this he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to just 2 years, meaning he will be eligible for parole in just 21 months. Many have said this is justice gone mad. These people are morons. There are several reasons why the right decision was reached.

The issue of intent was crucial. The punch was not intended to kill, it was during a heated argument, one in which she was actually taunting him about having had an affair with another man. Apparently the evidence is she'd been bullying him for years and in the midst of a heated argument, after much provocation, he cracked. I'm not justifying hitting a woman, under any circumstances, but he wasn't an abusive husband, and in fact the evidence is that she was mentally abusive towards him. It's about time that this form of domestic abuse was seen as such; women are just as guilty of it as men and it's sickened me for years that the justice system has been blind to this.

So on a moral level I think the right decision was reached. Of course it was wrong that he lashed out, it is never ever justified for a man to hit a woman, but he was severely provoked, and much like abused women were using battered wife syndrome to get murders cut down to manslaughter, it was only fair that the same standard be applied to men too. I'm sick and tired of people viewing domestic violence purely as something a man does to a woman. I'm sick and tired of it even being CALLED "battered wife syndrome" and I'm glad it's slowly being altered to "battered spouse syndrome". Mental abuse is no different to physical abuse, and in fact the medical theory behind "battered wife" has nothing to do with the physical side, but the mental one.

Thus JUSTICE was served. However even if you disagree with this, law was served too. Many people have said "In my book it's murder when you fail to act to help someone in distress". The problem is, my friends, it's not your book that matters. It's the statute books and the many law reports that form the law. The Common Law of England states that in the absence of statutory provisions placing a duty on someone to assist another, the actus reus of a crime cannot be formed by an omission. For those of you without a legal background, let me explain.

A crime is formed by two parts, an act, and a mental element. So for example a murder consists of an act (such as stabbing someone) which is accompanied by an intention to kill. In this case Mr Dalton's only acts (the punch and the chopping up of the body) were not accompanied by an intention that she die. The only "act" that was so accompanied was his omission to assist her, which is not relevant as he had no duty to do so, and thus his omission does not qualify as an "act".

I'm glad that in this country crimes of omission are, generally speaking, not crimes. We should not be placing duties on people to help each other. This is a slippery slope to a situation where the law dictates our every act. The system of law and rights that we have in this country is founded upon the idea that law restricts you from certain conduct but does not compel any conduct. This protects individual liberty best, and certainly far better than any Bill of Rights (just look over the pond for an example of why those fail).

Mr Dalton deserves as much sympathy as any other victim of domestic abuse who kills their abuser, and just because his crime was graphic in nature does not change its legal status. His punch did not have the necessary intent. His omission does not qualify as an "act". It's ironic that some opponents of this decision say "He should take responsibility for his actions". They fail to note that an "ACTion" requires an actual ACT. An omission does not qualify.

I hope he serves his full two year sentence and is allowed, like any other victim of domestic abuse, to carry on living his life. If you disagree, well, you're just wrong.

RIP Jean Charles de Menezes you stupid cunt

2005-08-02T19:44:00.000+01:00

Of course this poor innocent man did not deserve to die, no one would ever suggest that, and my sympathies go out to his family.

However to equate him with those who died in the bomb blasts, as many have done, is not only ridiculous, it's sickening. The worst thing those people did was board their tube in the morning, or their bus, going to work, university or just on a day trip. Hardly an act worthy of any culpability. If so then do we all deserve to be blown up every time we board a bus or tube? Of course not, I myself used the tube this morning to get into work, I don't think I invited someone to blow me up, although I will concede that I use the tube with apprehension that it could be my last journey.

Jean Charles was guilty of gross stupidity. True, some eyewitnesses claim that the police didn't announce themselves as officers, and they were armed, this would of course provoke fear in any of us, but knowing full well that we're in a time of heightened terror alert and that many plain-clothes police are on the tubes, some armed, he should have known or at least suspected they might be officers.

Even if he didn't, to run around a tube station at such a time was ridiculously stupid. Not only did he mark himself out as someone to keep an eye on, he has now probably planted a seed of doubt in the mind of those police officers who are on the tube network, in stations, some armed, some not, there to protect OUR lives. I shudder to think how many hundreds of lives might be lost now, needlessly, due to Jean Charles' recklessness.

The next time a true suicide bomber behaves in the same way, do you think the police will shoot to kill? I hope they do but I fear they won't, and that could lead to very tragic events occurring once again.

This is as much down to the stupidity of the people who berate the police for this as Jean Charles himself. At least in his defence, he did die, and it's wrong to speak ill of the dead. With that in mind I place most of the blame for any future apprehension on the part of the police at the door of the idiots who barrack the police for their actions. They don't shoot random people for the fun of it, and unless you're suggesting that there is a foolproof method to distinguish suicide bombers from the rest of us (they don't wear "I'm a Terrorist" T-shirts you know!), they're just as capable of making a genuine mistake as the rest of us. That's all this was, a tragic mistake.

It's not as if they had no reason to believe what they believed. I hate to keep repeating the point, and in doing so speaking ill of a man who's dead, but Jean Charles was behaving in the exact manner in which a suspected terrorist would. People say they shouldn't shoot to kill. What should they do? Shoot to injure? If he had been a bomber, with a bomb in his bag, what's to say he wouldn't have managed to detonate it even in an injured state. These people are ready to die for their cause, there is no way to stop them other than to kill them BEFORE they can commit their evil crimes.

Hindsight is 20-20, it's easy to say "He wasn't a terrorist though!" but the police had no way to know that. They behaved entirely appropriately and I hope they behave the exact same way again. Had he been a suicide bomber, those officers would be the heroes who saved dozens of lives, and if next week they shoot a terrorist in the same circumstances, they'll be lauded, but at the time they were faced with a choice to save many lives by ending one. They made the right choice and they should do so again; the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one.

Beer saves lives

2005-08-01T21:23:00.000+01:00

It's true. A pint of beer saved two lives. There was a story in last week's Metro about the bomb in Egypt which proved it!

Apparently a couple staying at the Ghazala Gardens hotel in Sharm El Sheikh, which was blown up in the attacks, were at a local bar. They were enjoying a few drinks and when the time came to leave he begged her for one last beer. She acquiesced and they settled down to one last drink. Had they not settled on the extra beer they would have been walking through the foyer of their hotel just as the car bomb exploded.

However many many people were not so lucky. Removing my tongue from my cheek for a moment, may I say that my thoughts go out to the families of the 88 victims of this atrocity.

You wait ages for one and then three come at once

2005-07-31T02:58:00.000+01:00

No, I don't mean buses. I mean the allegedly fairer sex. Hah! "Fairer sex" indeed. They're about as fair as bringing a gun to a knife fight.

Let me give you a little background. As regular readers (hi you two!) of this blog will be aware, I recently broke up with my girlfriend. Now for the record, I never stopped loving her, and I still do, but there's a point where you have to say enough is enough and realise someone is bad for you. That said I won't deny that the temptation to be foolish and take her back is pretty strong. You're also aware, I believe, that I had feelings for a girl who responded by telling me she loved me "as a friend"? Well she's since been away on holiday and apparently decided she now has some feelings for me that go beyond mere friendship.

This is good news, don't get me wrong, but why is it that women can't make up their minds about a guy until they're somehow seperated from him and begin to miss him, only to realise when they get back in touch with him that another woman's got her claws into him and becoming jealous? I'm beginning to theorise that women never truly love men at all, they just hate other women so much that they wish to deprive them. If not then why is it that a guy's attraction rating goes through the ceiling when he has a girlfriend?

It's not just this girl either, the former girlfriend and I got together in similar circumstances. We took some time apart, I hooked up, and when we got back in touch she'd heard all about this "mystery girl" on my old blog and was desperate to know who she was. I discovered that this was because she'd decided whilst we were seperated that she did fancy me. As for this new development, the girl in question went on holiday to Geneva and I can only assume that it was this time away that gave her the time to look at me differently. Perhaps it's the "Don't know what you've got til it's gone" mentality? Apparently this was also what motivated her in being so vociferous (oooh, get me!) in her opposition to me getting back with the ex last time out.

Which turned out to be great advice, for the record. I wonder though if I was to give her similar advice to ditch her boyfriend whether I would be doing so for me or her. I believe it's for her, since she's already suggested things aren't going so well, although he is coming to see her next weekend so that could change things I suppose, but I daren't give her that sort of advice as it may be misconstrued. I'll trust her to make her own judgement, she's a smart girl.

The interesting thing is that while all this drama was going on I managed to arrange a blind date, of sorts, for next Saturday. An absolutely stunningly gorgeous girl, who lives closer to me than either of the others and most importantly of all actually wants me for me, not out of jealousy or a desperation to cling onto a sinking ship. However I have no doubt that she doesn't actually want me and she'll end up standing me up, but oh well, we shall see.

So there you have it. I go from no women to three in the space of a month and this is not exactly the first time it has happened either. You couldn't script this sort of thing.

Open feedback post

2005-07-28T00:07:00.000+01:00

As some of my more regular readers might know I did do some polls for feedback, as well as asking for comments and suggestions on my shoutbox.

However I think that both those mediums only allow for limited feedback, and whilst in certain circumstances those serve the purpose, I think after the more radical changes that have taken place, not only in terms of the look and feel, but also browser compatibility and content, a more fitting way to gather the necessary feedback would be through an open post encouraging any readers, regular or just random surfers on Blog Explosion, to post any and all feedback through commenting on this post.

If you could please take a moment to let me know what you think, I would gratefully appreciate that. Please use the following as a rough guideline of the sorts of things I'm interesed in:

Favourite thing about the blog: Music clip
Least favourite thing about blog: Adverts
Things I'd like to see added to the content: More pictures please! Discuss more sports!
Things I like about the current content: Variety of content (although could be improved by adding more sport coverage)
Writing style: Good/~~Bad~~
Regularity of updates: ~~Good~~/Bad
Suggestions for improvement: The colour scheme and background could be improved. Make the background fixed and the text scroll over it. Not sure I like the grey. Could I suggest a lime green? Also it's quite "dead" a lot of the time as you don't update it very often

Be as brutal as you need to be. I want proper feedback, can take criticism, I assure you. Remember, the above is only a guideline, feel free to give me any and all information you think could improve this site.

Thanky spanky

Why I hate photo blogs

2005-07-26T23:31:00.000+01:00

So I hate photo blogs. Whenever I make this controversial statement of my preference when it comes to the blogosphere, I get harangued and badgered at every corner. "Why?" People ask, "don't you like beautiful pictures?"

Well of course I do. I'm a very visual person and visual stimulation is my favourite kind. Hence my rather extensive stash of porn. Well, that and my raging horniness and current lack of an outlet for the aforementioned horniness.

My objection to photoblogs is very simple. Whilst some provide rather funny photos, some rather breathtaking beautiful shots, a lot just provide much of a muchness with little or no unique original stamp. I cite Shutterjunkie as a noticeable exception. The photographs there are not only very beautiful but they're all very unique, and carefully edited to perfection. They're showcased on a well-designed website and all in all, it's a rather perfect blog.

And even that blog suffers from the thing that I dislike about photoblogs the most. I make an exception for Shutterjunkie, as I like both the blog and the blogger behind it, but generally speaking I've always held blogs to be a written medium. Call me old-fashioned but I don't consider podcasts blogs either. To me blogging is a form of journalism, and I suppose being a writer, to me "journalism" evokes text, the beauty of a well-crafted turn of phrase. My ramblings on Arseblog might not show it, but I'm rather an adept wordsmith and I suppose it's easier for me to enjoy the writings of others as such. To tell you the truth, I must confess it's bias on my part, and prejudice, and a photographer would probably laud photoblogs above written ones.

I just enjoy reading someone else's views. That's why I enjoy reading blogs, to take myself on a journey into someone else's mind, to the core of their being and their psyche, not just to read their outlook on life but to actually see the world through their own eyes. I confess that it's bias, I confess that's prejudice, and most likely hypocrisy, but I also confess that quite frankly I don't give a damn.

Give me a well crafted written blog, even one written by a loony hippie left winger, over a photoblog any day of the week.

Except Shutterjunkie of course.

Moist Vagina

2005-07-22T19:46:00.000+01:00

I just saw KURT COBAIN!!! No, not really, just a guy who looks a lot like him. He was aboard the bus that I take home in the evening. I'm sure Kurt, if he were still alive, wouldn't be in Greenford aboard a 92 bus, however as an idol of mine, if not my one true hero, it was amazing to see a guy who was his spitting image. And I mean spitting image. His eyes even looked the same when he smiled at one stage he pulled a wide eyed look and I was in shock. *ahem* I was never confused. I'm not gay but I swear the guy must have thought I was the way I was staring!

That is what inspired the title to this post. As any true Nirvana fan knows, Moist Vagina, believe it or not, is the title to a little-known Nirvana song. However "Kurt" was not the first famous face I've seen on this bus, oh no. On the way in to work this morning I saw a girl who was the spitting image of Scarlett Johansson. The other day I saw a Helen Hunt lookalike. I've seen an Amanda Peet lookalike too! There was this one girl who looked like a cross between Kirsten Dunst and Elisha Cuthbert. Needless to say she was stunningly gorgeous.

Is this a bus from the Twilight Zone? Or are all these insanely famous people really travelling on a local bus route in the suburbs of London?

Promise me, You will not ever leave

2005-07-20T23:54:00.000+01:00

Can you see these blood shot eyes?
And can you see...

That my strength is failing
And I can't go on this way
And this heart's not beating
It just doesn't seem the same
And my strength is failing
And I can't go on this way
Can't go on this way

Promise me, Promise me
Promise me, You will not ever leave
Promise me, You will not ever leave
Promise me, You will not ever leave
Promise me, You will not ever leave
You will not ever leave

It's been a couple of days since I last posted, I've noticed. This is most distressing indeed. I apologise to my regular readers who I hope were not overly distraught with my lack of material. I trust that the rumours of people tearing their hair out in the streets and crying excessively were exaggerated?

The truth is it wasn't so much a lack of what to write about but more a lack of time in which to write it. Work has kept me very busy, as has the redesign of this site (like the changes?). This will yet again be another diary post because what prompted me to write again today was a personal occurrence. If you don't like diary entries, you know what to do. The title, for the record, is inspired by the Funeral for a Friend song Recovery.

And it's rather apt, because I foolishly recently made the same promise to my erstwhile girlfriend. The more observant of you will have noticed I used the word erstwhile. As in former. This is because I did in fact leave her. The truth is, I have never stopped loving her, and I might never do so, but love is sometimes not enough, is it? There are other things just as important, like honesty and trust, and these two things were sadly lacking. She lied and I ceased to trust her. It's a shame really.

The whole sordid story is as follows. I met a rather lovely girl on the bus on the way home. We exchanged numbers. I informed my girlfriend because I wanted to be honest and upfront with her about it. I told her the truth because, as I told her, there was no flirting involved and in fact both of us, myself and this girl on the bus, spoke about our other halves. I told her all about my former girlfriend in glowing terms. My girlfriend (now ex) had sent me pictures earlier in the day which had plastered a silly grin on my face all day and I'm sure I was gushing to this poor girl.

Upon hearing this news, instead of being flattered and feeling very loved, my erstwhile lover decided to get jealous and throw her toys out of the pram. I refused to her bait me and I'm sure my refusal to let her get me angry contributed to her fires. If there's one thing that riles her up more than any other it's when someone won't get angry at her when fighting. I didn't do it to get her riled up, I did it to keep my cool, but it had that undesireable side-effect.

About a week or so ago she informed me that this friend of hers "Dave" had called her a "slirt". A slutty flirt. I commented that it was funny, and very apt as a way to describe her. She told me today after the bus girl "argument" that she'd lied about "Dave" and in fact the "gentleman" (I'm not bitter. He's just a jerk.) who she formerly had a crush on and kissed when we were on a break had called her a "slirt". Now I didn't object to him doing so, and had she been honest with me initially it would have been a non-issue. I did toy with the idea she might have been baiting me again but she's since maintained its truth so I believe this.

The truth is I accepted her at face value when she told me she didn't fancy him anymore. I begin to doubt that when she lies about his identity. She says she did so to stop me getting angry or jealous. Well, unfortunately for her, I warned her that another lie, given her history of perpetual deceit, would be the deathknell of our union. And so it proved. She's a pathalogical liar, she does so with total ease and comfort, and it's rare, if ever, that she's actually caught in a lie. It's usually her own guilt, when it finally catches up to her (panting and sweating heavily) that causes her to confess. Or, in this case, a desire to get my back up.

She lied, and there was no reason to. Not least of all because I suspected it was him at the time, and her lies merely caused me to overrule my gut instinct in favour of trusting her. By lying she ensured I would never against fail to trust my gut, and my gut told me it was time to end it. The trust had finally gone, every last breath of it. There'd been little left when she began weaving her web of lies and by now it was all gone. Still, she has noone to blame but herself. I told her that one day she'd tell one lie too many and that would be it.

I think I made the right decision. To stay with her in the face of her continued abuse of me, her lies and her sheer lack of remorse for them, would make me no better than people who remain with abusive spouses. Whilst I have sympathy for those poor souls, I do think it shows a weakness of character. Sometimes even if you love someone you have to let them go because they're bad for you. In being so, they inevitably end up causing the relationship to be bad for both parties.

If you love someone and you're in such a situation the only result that shows your love for them is to let the relationship go. I'm sure in due course she'll thank me. In the meanwhile I'm sure somewhere she's cursing me right this second. Understandable really, after all, it's the end of an era. I doubt I'll ever love anyone as much as her, and it's a shame she had to ruin it with the trail of lies, but alas, what's done is done.

The truth is, you can't regain trust. Trust can be gained only once and lost only once. Once lost, it's lost eternally. If you succumb to temptation and become untrustworthy, your old friend trust will never come home again.

Not another diary post

2005-07-17T11:58:00.000+01:00

Ok, I lied, it definitely is. I've not filled anyone in with the status of the Son of God in many moons and today was an especially disastrous day. If you don't like diary posts, you can skip it. Your loss.

It started well enough, I really couldn't complain. I woke up after a nice long sleep, refreshed and energised, entirely ready for the new day. I had a great morning, didn't particularly do a lot but nonetheless it was was enjoyable enough. Everything went as it should have, I even managed to get some training contract applications in. So where's the fire, I hear you asking? In your eyes officer *ahem* I mean I'm getting on to that *ahem*.

So here it is. To those of you who are unaware, I am a budding trainee solicitor. About two months ago, when looking at sites of firms I was interested in, I noticed that the one I wanted to join most had a glitch with their careers website which was causing the actual application form not to load up. I thought that perhaps this was simply because the file was removed to be updated before this year's round of applications. Firms are slowly narrowing the application window, so it didn't surprise me that it might be down in May, due to open in June. Another firm that I was interested in only began its application procedure in June so why not the other one?

I proceeded on this basis and today I tried the first firm again. The site with the form was down still, but somehow I ended up at the website of the company that provides their online application procedure for them. Through there I managed to get onto the firm's application, only to find out the process has been open for several months. Which means I wasted a month and am probably going to fail in securing a training contract.

This might seem melodramatic but on the basis of those two websites I assumed all other firms were also operating on a narrow window. This was a false assumption and I will be lucky, in my opinion, to secure an interview, let alone a contract. I believe if I was to secure the interview, I could prove my capabilities, as I believe I have exactly what it takes to be a successful commercial solicitor, but to get that window of opportunity is the crux of the problem. Many capable souls slip through the cracks, so maybe my destiny is the same?

It's just that as I reflect on my results, I can see that in the subjects I worked hard at I did superbly well, but I was far too lazy in others, and consequently, although I didn't fail, I didn't do as well as my intellect demands. I could blame my short attention span and my depression for low motivation, but the fact is, maybe I just have to admit I was lazy? And this laziness is costing me over and over and over again. It seems as though my demons are determined to continue to haunt me eternally.

"There's always next year", I hear people say. "Keep trying, so what if it takes longer than you envisioned?" Well it makes me feel like a failure. Not because others are not going through the same experience but because, as arrogant as this sounds, I'm not like everyone else. I was blessed with enigmatic intellect comparable to a genius. My teachers consistently said that had I applied myself I could have accelerated my learning and been one of those precocious kids who ends up at University at a tender age. My IQ is above 160, which I know isn't particularly high, but this is a recent test. Not only are IQ tests age-skewed but I was also far sharper and brighter when I was younger. Since then I've probably killed a fair few brain cells through alcohol. And nonetheless I'm still more intelligent than most people I meet on the street.

This is why this failure is so hard to take. I should be the most successful person I know. With all due respect to my friends, they all know that when it comes to raw intelligence, I have them beat. Where they've beaten me, and perhaps the lesson in this whole experience is just this, is in effort. The hurtful thing is I accepted my lack of effort, and was making the right moves now. Only for this annoying technical glitch to sabotage me yet again. Proving that perhaps I'm just not fated to make a go of this.

On a more general note, who else thinks that if a strict timetable applies to applications for jobs in the same profession, such as those that apply in legal, banking and accounting recruitment amongt many others, should all be uniform across the profession? It seems wrong that every single firm operates different timetables as you then effectively have to make applying a full-time job. Which, for those of us in full time work, is difficult. The irony is I wasn't supposed to be in full time education when doing these applications but I got "lucky". Economic necessity in the short term is killing my long-term prospects but maybe I just need to think even longer term and accept the legal career may just take a few more years?

Or maybe, just maybe, I'll get lucky with applying for work in New York. Or maybe I'm not even destined for any of this, and my true path will appear to me in due course. Who knows?

That's the fun thing about life; it's a journey which none of us have a map for.

Osama Bin Laden made a killing in more ways than one

2005-07-15T23:30:00.000+01:00

This was intended to be a comment to my last post but funnily enough it became so long and I felt it was such a well-written piece it quite probably deserved a post of its own.

To begin with, I refute the claims that this war is illegal. Why? Simple. There is no rule of international law. This is the myth that opponents of the war seem to constantly come back to. What's an illegal war? I can tell you as a lawyer that International Public Law is a mess with no hard and fast rules on when a war is legal and when it isn't. UN sanction is not determinative. The truth is the UN has no sovereignty except over itself. None of the members have handed to it any sovereignty so they retain it themselves. This is the crucial issue international lawyers who argue that this is an unjust war miss; if the countries all retain sovereignty it's up to them to declare war if and when they feel like it. It's a "legal" war if the country waging it thinks it is.

The other thing that I must confess is a pet gripe of the liberal argument (or I should say, the anti-war argument as some conservatives might oppose it too) is that people pick and choose at the "reasons" for war. People say "WMD, what WMD?" neglecting the fact that this was one of MANY reasons. The weakest argument put forward by liberals is that this is about oil. I read an article, and sadly I lack a link as it was so long ago, in an oriental left wing economic paper. It was written in Hong Kong, if memory serves me well, which we all know has a long history of being fiercely liberal. This discussed the war and stated that oil was the motivation.

However, right at the bottom, in the smallest print imaginable, the author had to confess that it would take 5 years of huge American investment to even see a penny in returns, and a lot longer to make a profit, considering the costs of the war and then of the investment. There is no economic incentive to the war; it's not cost-effective. There are other less palatable reasons, such as George W's desire to do what his father couldn't, to leave a legacy etc. However economics plays no part, I assure you.

There are some very poor reasons for this war in amongst all the good ones, and I'm sure that the poor ones were what actually motivated the policy-makers, but I'm one of those people who believes that if a good result is achieved by those whose motivation is bad, it's a good thing. The result matters more to me than the reasons. If a man saves a child's life thinking it will bring him riches, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Sure, it's an indictment of human nature, but it's still a good result, no?

A real source of frustration that I had with the comments on my last post was that everyone insisted on misquoting me on my Gandhi and MLK analogy! I wasn't saying they'd support the war, I know they wouldn't, and they, too, would be wrong. I wonder if it was my own fault for not being communicative enough in my language, and if it was, I apologise. The point I was making is that they show that defeatism is an attitude that harms the cause of humanity. Humanity is best served when we work hard towards a goal, I'm SURE we ALL agree on that. We just disagree on the "solution" to work towards.

The difference is that I see the liberal "solution" as a cop-out. No war but no solution either. This is where you differ Dolphin, you offer a solution. It, however, is flawed, I'm afraid to tell you. Al Quaeda have a man at the helm in Bin Laden who is a multi-billionaire. And not just on oil. He made a killing (pun intended) short selling before 9/11, and probably again before Madrid, and probably again before London. We know about 9/11 for sure as one trading account has been traced back to him (by the BANK, not the government or intelligence agencies), and I doubt it's his only one.

Shutting down Al Quaeda is impossible. It's a splinter group, firstly, and secondly, it has amassed many very wealthy supporters. Not all of them Arabs either. Some are Western billionaires who made their money in computers or construction or whatever else. Unless you ban any Muslim from high-ranking positions this is an impossible issue to resolve, and I would NEVER advocate such blatant racism. In lieu of such a fascist move the next best solution IS the violent one.

As I stated, their desire is a war of attrition, both sides slaughtering until noone from one side is left alive. This is why Bush's plan is to throw bodies at it; that's the only way to fight these terrorists. It's a war of attrition! General Curtis LeMay was once asked a question about war. To paraphrase his words, he said "Let me tell you what war is about. War is about killing people. When you kill enough the other side stops fighting"

The "plan" as you put it is that we believe we can kill more of "them" than they can kill of "us". There may be more of them than of us, but we have better weaponry. It may sound crude but this war is a throwback, as I stated elsewhere, to the Crusades. As such it's a barbaric, medieval war. Not because Bush and Blair made it so, but because the Islamists made it so. I wonder how many people know that the Albanians in Kosovo used medieval ways to torture Serbians, such as sawing them in half whilst still alive? Or boiling human beings alive? Sure, Milosovic was committing genocide but they were committing brutal acts back too. Something not very widely reported.

Much like this

What's wrong with the far left

2005-07-13T01:18:00.000+01:00

The most common argument I hear from extreme liberals (I won't tar you all with the same brush as some of you I actually respect. Being a moderate myself I have respect for moderates on both flanks) is "If you're pro-war, why don't you enlist? It's easy to say all this when you don't have to fight the war yourself!"

True, I can't argue with that point. It is indeed easy to be pro-war when one is not fighting in the war themselves. It certainly is harder to be in favour of the war when your life is at risk from it. I could counter this by saying our lives are at risk from it, if you're to believe the same liberals who also argue that attacks like those suffered by London on the 7th of this month are our own fault and merely repercussions of fighting this war. But I will not.

The best counter-argument would probably be that the military men and women are actually the most vociferous supporters of the war themselves, but again, I shan't raise this and I'll accept that the argument is valid. The point that my military, the British Army, doesn't need me, is irrelevant to the gist of the argument. The point that I would serve my country if she needed me is also irrelevant. The fact that should I volunteer tomorrow I would be a liability, and thus I should only serve if needed, is also neither here nor there.

However there's one point these wet-behind-the-ears liberals miss. True, it's easy to spout rhetoric without having to back it up, but there's one thing that's even easier; criticising the policies of a political opponent without providing an alternative policy. That's all liberals do when it comes to Terrorism. Oh, I'm sure I'll have people say "We don't need more war. Killing these Islamists only creates more of them!". That's not a solution, that's a cop-out. It's a defeatist attitude too.

Imagine if Martin Luther King had said "Oh, we can't possibly fight the white man. Blacks have been oppressed in this nation for nearly a century, fighting the white man only makes it worse!" Imagine if Gandhi had merely accepted the might of Imperialist Britain? So the solution, I assume, that these people would go on to say, is that instead of fighting we take the diplomatic route which is more likely to be successful.

Really? The diplomatic route has worked wonders with the IRA, hasn't it? In case people are unaware, sectarian violence is still rife in Ireland, it just doesn't impact us on the mainland that much anymore. And this is with an enemy that has a political objective, one we can negotiate over. The objective of the perpetrators of attacks like 9/11 and 7/7 has been clearly stated time and time again; mass bloodshed. That is the SOLE objective. The political objective of Islamic terrorists is to rid the world of all non-Muslims and thus they don't need to negotiate with non-Muslims over issues like Israel ("Israel? What Israel? We killed all the Jews!"). It's a sound policy, and one Machiavelli would be proud of, but it's one you can't negotiate with.

Liberals say to me I can't be pro the war unless I'm willing to enlist. My retort would be if that were true, you can't be against the war unless you're willing to be at the head of the queue to be beheaded, blown apart, or otherwise brutally murdered simply for being a Westerner. Any negotiation would consist purely of us volunteering to let them have a few "Zionists" a year to slaughter to save mass massacre. I'd say "bending over and taking it up the arse" but that's derogatory to gays and also a rather crude way to put it.

Will the first liberal willing to volunteer to be killed please stand up? I thought so.

News just in: 52 confirmed dead in London attacks.

2005-07-12T15:40:00.000+01:00

It has just come to my attention that the confirmed death toll of Thursday's events stands at 52.

The first names have begun to be released. My thoughts are with those families receiving tragic news today and I'm sorry for all their losses.

Those 52 lives must not be allowed to have been lost in vain.

We must stand united and this must strengthen our resolve to be strong in the face of terror.

The War on Terror rages on and we must be ever-vigilant.

It's also been confirmed that these WERE in fact Britain's first experience of suicide bombers. For more on the story go here.

Sikhs are not muslims

2005-07-12T00:49:00.000+01:00

As a starting point I'd like to point out that I do not condone hate crimes against Muslims purely because muslims perpetrate terrorist activities against us, just as I didn't condone hate crimes against Catholics when the IRA were bombing us.

However I can understand the anger and the desire for vengeance. Whether it's morally bankrupt or not, it's human nature to seek revenge after such brutal attacks. After reading that sources suggest that the suicide bomber on board the bus in Tavistock Square was one of the 5 Britons released from Guantanamo my honest opinion, and I make no apologies for it, is let all the innocent people in Camp X-Ray rot. The reason? We negotiated for these men to be released and yet one of them then goes on to do the very thing we maintained their innocence for. More fool us.

I think now they're there, it's easy for them to be brainwashed if they're released. "Oh, look what the evil Americans did to you and the British government took so long to help you, an innocent young man. Simply because you are a Muslim." Voila, home-made terrorist. If some poor innocent sod's locked up, I hope his God has mercy on his soul because I hope to God our governments don't.

What's far more of a tragedy are the hate crimes against Sikhs due to mistaken identity. I say this not because I used to be a practising Sikh (as I was never that committed and I chose to become agnostic, which says something), but because the Sikhs, as history documents, have undergone enough persecution. One of the reasons that there are so few Sikhs in the world is that the Pakistanis force-converted many, with threats of execution, and the Indians on the other side lynched Sikhs from trees.

Further to this it's actually an appalling indictment of our education system that people can't tell the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim. If people can't, then our education system is failing the people it's supposed to be teaching. It shocks me that in the 21st Century people are still so illiterate they assume everyone who wears a turban is an Arab. The irony is that Muslim dress does NOT require a man to wear a turban, they do so because of culture and climate, whereas Sikhism dictates the wearing of a turban.

When travelling on the New York subway my father, a Sikh with a Turban on, got funny looks. I, minus a turban, since I cut my hair, was also subjected to this sort of treatment just because of association. I don't mind racial profiling at airports, I just expect a little intelligence to be exercised in utilising it. It is very easy to tell the difference between a Sikh turban and an Arab one if one chooses to educate themselves.

A sikh temple in London was firebombed. What sense does it make to hurt more innocent people? It would be bad enough against Muslims, because these are not Muslims committing these acts but radical Islamists. There must be a distinction between Muslims and Islamists drawn. However, a little known fact is Sikhs have no love for Muslims either. In fact, the hatred between Sikhs and Muslims goes back almost as far as that between the Christians and the Muslims, and actually further than that between the Jews and Muslims.

It was the Sikhs who waged war on the invading Moghul emperors, a war that was entirely religious in objective. To this day there are tensions in this country between young Sikhs and Muslims. There is hatred over the treatment of Sikhs in Pakistan after the partition, and other assorted issues. If there's a racial group the Muslims haven't waged war with at some point I've yet to find them!

The worry is that there are Sikh extremist groups too. These have previously been entirely focussed on liberating Punjab from India, but if these reprisals continue the worry is there might end up being an uneasy alliance between the extremist Sikhs and extremist Muslims. This would only make things worse and make yet another enemy in the War Against Terror that we do not need.

For the record, these reprisals, against Sikhs or Muslims, against anyone, they're merely giving in to the terrorists. They want to create chaos, and by committing such heinous acts, you create the chaos for them. Well done bucko!

London links

2005-07-10T17:58:00.000+01:00

I've found a couple of links revolving around Thursday's events that I wish to share with my readers. I will be adding to this as I discover more but if you have any to share, feel free using a comment.

Defy fear

Travel In Terror

Finding lost souls

Our American Cousins stand by us

Some useful links in this article

A historic day

America stands with us

Some useful links in this article

An open letter to the city of London

This blog provides a lot of great articles on the attacks

Mass Transit Terror

Short, strong, dark and bitter.

2005-07-10T14:31:00.000+01:00

I must confess that I'm not at all surprised with the findings below. I thought it'd a nice light-hearted post to put up considering how morbid the last post was (albeit with good reason).

You Are an Espresso

At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic

At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung

You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping

Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

I've always said I'm like an Espresso; short, strong, dark and bitter. I'd say that that describes this blog except that you all know that this blog is FAR from short. I don't hear any of you complaining though!

Fine, I have a big mouth, I accept it.

Bombs over Baghdad? Not quite. Jesus reflects on 7/7

2005-07-08T01:03:00.000+01:00

So today was the day that will forever be remembered in London folklore as 7/7. The darkest day in the history of a city that has had many dark days. The Plague, the Great Fire, the Blitz, the constant IRA bombings...to name but a few. I could talk about the facts of the news story but why bother? There are a million other blogs out there that will cover it, as well as other news sources that must, of course, cover such a huge event.

I could have included a picture from the story itself, but why? You can see that anywhere else. I chose a bus that I saw on my route home. It was taken, ironically enough, from another bus. I did this to highlight the fact that this was the sort of attack that shakes the foundations of all Londoners. My two best friends work in the city, and I was terrified for them, and we nearly all use public transport of some kind. This wasn't just an attack on a mode of transport, or on a city, but on the very core of our way of life.

The timing couldn't have been "better", with the Olympic bid success being announced yesterday and the G8 summit taking part. Although the suggestion that Scotland is near London that I've seen on some American blogs and American sources is somewhat off the mark. G8 is going on far away from London, it's just part of the same political block we like to call the UK.

It's been quite the 24 hours. From jubilation over the Olympics, beating the blasted Parisians, who we loathe so much, an event that will no doubt put London back on the pedestal as the best city in the world, to panic, fear and devastation over an event that will also mark a significant point in London's history. It's been a historic 24 hours, that's for sure.

We must not, I repeat, must not, give in and let them change how we do things. I urge all Londoners to continue using public transport. If they wish to break our spirit, they'll have to try harder. They may destroy our city but they'll never destroy our way of life. They must not be allowed to impose a life of fear on us, we've stood up to terrorists before, and we will again. No, not with the American response of swearing vengeance, but in the English tradition of quietly going about our business, the cliched "stiff upper lip", using the adversity as a galvanising influence.

It's a case of either copying the Spanish and letting this break us, or following the shining example of the people of New York. I choose the latter, and I've seen their resolve up close and personal. It's something to behold.Adding a bit more personal touch to this, I must confess, I felt a little dirty carrying on working, trying to sell people stuff, when all this was going on. Especially telesales, knowing that my telephone calls were just clogging the network further. I struggled to get through to people and with hindsight it slightly disgusts me that this frustrated me, considering the reason.

However the show must go on. Life goes on, we must all carry on our jobs as if nothing happened, at least that's what I say to comfort myself. I'm not really sure what else to add, I suppose to an extent I'm still in utter shock. This event hasn't had much of an impact on me, I've been curious, and I was slightly emotional at seeing people who'd been severely injured on the news, and yet I don't feel like this is happening to my city. It's almost as if I've detached myself from it all, removed myself and labelled this "someone else's problem".

This will not break us. This is London calling and we're here to stay. Deal with it.

Love is a many-splintered thing

2005-07-07T00:39:00.000+01:00

I wrote the following whilst thinking over some stuff about my current relationship. Whilst I'm not particularly sure how informative it will be, I believe it will nonetheless be a good read and worthy of my readers. I should warn you that it was written on a stream of consciousness, free-flow, with no constraints, and as such might not be my best work.

He reached up to stroke her porcelain face with his thick, stubby fingers. His hands were not his nicest feature; they were rough and uncared for, man’s hands. However to be fair he didn't have many nice features at all, from a face that even a mother could not learn to love in a million lifetimes, to his stature, which was no more than your average character from a JRR Tolkien novel.

Nonetheless he couldn't sit back and do nothing, and his hands moved to touch her instinctively, unthinkingly, a simple reaction to the rivulet of tears that were trickling down her soft, smooth cheeks. He longed to kiss away her tears, to erase the pain that was eating her from inside but he could not.

Love is a many-splintered thing, as the great bard once said, and how true those words rung now, like the bells of Notre Dame. They’d spoken of all the things they’d wanted to do together, all the places he wanted to take her, and obviously of the life they wanted to build together.

If to be parted from her was torture, then sometimes to be with her was an agony even more unbearable. He knew that she loved him, and he knew that deep down she knew he felt the same for her, but the fates that had once conspired to make their paths cross had now aligned to force them asunder. The winds of change were afoot, and no matter how much they wanted to be together, perhaps too much time had passed. She’d grown attached to another, and she was no longer entirely committed to him. He could sit and blame her emotional infidelity all he wanted, yet the truth gnawed away at him.

The choice had faced him two months prior. They could have worked through the issues, battled on together against the oncoming storm but he chose to run, to take his little fishing boat back to the port and never go out to sea again. And yet without her he had felt like a compass without a needle, like the moon without the sun or the rose without the rain. She completed him and he felt but half a man without her. Yet she was destroying his soul day by day with her slights.

He was convinced she didn’t mean to hurt him, for she loved him more than life itself. However he was but a pawn in her game of self-destruction. Her hideous home life had hammered any semblance of self-esteem out of her until she began to loathe herself, and he provided the perfect vehicle for this. By hurting him, she hurt herself, and thus got what she sought, albeit by using a means she would prefer not to. It was a mixture of this and her sheer social ineptness, her inability to see the big picture and understand, to empathise or just sympathise that meant that this was the crossroads for them as a couple.

It was a crossroads at which they would part company and trudge through life along separate paths. Their paths, once as intertwined as a Rose bush, were being slowly unravelled. And yet he would not let her go. For all the reason telling him to go his separate ways, the advice, the sound experience that suggested he should cut her loose, for the pain, the heartache and the agony, she brought him a joy he would never get anywhere else. To expect him to give her up was like expecting him to give up air. He didn’t just love her, he breathed her, and without her he would asphyxiate. She might break his heart a little more every day, but without her his heart would just implode for good.

Such a stark choice, proving the old adage was true; women, you can’t live with them; you can’t kill them and bury them under the patio. Apparently it was illegal.

Live8: Why it was a waste of everyone's time.

2005-07-05T23:21:00.000+01:00

The long walk to pretention more like. Don't believe me? see for yourself.

After all the blogs praising this "wonderful" event I felt obligated to post my views as to why it's a load of twaddle. On the night itself I was involved in a heated discussion on Blog Explosion's shoutbox. Myself and a few others were disputing the validity of Live8 as regards the objective of a poverty-free Africa. I've seen some blogs denegrating the music that was performed, insulting the performers. I shan't be doing that, because actually what I see Live 8 as is an excuse to hold one hell of a concert. Or rather 8 hells of concerts. Or to be even more precise, 8 heavenly concerts. Ironic how that sentence turned out I feel.

Anyway, moving on. Why was Live8 a waste of everyone's time? Well, as a musical event, it wasn't. However as a historically significant one? As a means to rid Africa of poverty? On both fronts it certainly was.

Firstly, Live Aid was a huge event, there's no disputing its memory in history. Live8 will always be seen as the rip off of the great Live Aid. And yet for Live Aid's place in history as a memorable event, it wasn't a significant one. Africa is actually in a far worse position now than it was then. One might blame AIDS or overpopulation, but the real cause is that we all get excited around a new charity drive until we get bored of it and we look elsewhere for some poor unfortunates to feel sympathy for. And that's just those who don't feel apathy, and I think there are an increasing number of those (myself included). Events like Live8 in fact encourage more apathy in me.

Secondly, there will always be rich and poor. This is the nature of Capitalism. The US wasn't always the wealthiest country in the world, neither was Britain, in fact at one point the economy of Britain paled in comparison with even its European cousins. The largest economic market right now for growth is China. A third world country (or a "developing" one as we're now being encouraged to call them). One that a decade ago would have been considered a poor nation that was really just the international community's cheap sweatshop. There's no disputing that this is part of Chinese culture still, but it's ironically what's helped them out of poverty. It's through embracing what they can provide their Capitalistic cousins in the United States and Europe that China has grown to an extent that it's now seen as a viable market for US and European companies to invest large sums of money into the country.

The other country worthy of note is India. If anything India's poverty a decade ago was worse than China, and in many ways resembled African nations. India has been split by religious tensions ever since the second World War. Yet through this quasi-civil-war and unrest, comparable to that in nations in Africa, it has risen. Not through charity but through grit. Economists say the next century will belong to India and China much as the last one belonged to the US. Who's to say the one after that won't belong to Africa? These things are cyclical and throwing money around won't change things one iota. Investment in these countries? Perhaps, but whenever that's tried, it's labelled as Imperialism and it's never allowed to grow its roots and actually help the community.

Africa's problems are much deeper than money can ever solve. The nation was raped of its natural resources by Colonialism. We can't undo this. Throwing money at a nation doesn't replenish it's NATURAL resources, only nature can do that. Unless Bono is planning on singing to Mother Nature to get her to give Africa back its vast wealth in diamonds and gold, then his lofty ideals are destined to fail. In fact Africa's issues aren't even economic. They're political. There's civil unrest and mercilessly corrupt governments that operate in many ways similarly to Saddam Hussein's. They oppress their own people, watch them get poorer whilst government officials live in huge mansions with gold taps.

The sole way to help Africa out of poverty is regime change in strategic nations. We need to end the civil unrest, and it can't be done by negotiation as the hatred between some tribes is far more vitriolic than that between even Israelis and Palestinians. The sole solution is to force an even-handed, all-embracing democracy on them, much as we've done in Iraq. That will end the civil unrest and the corruption. However this won't ever be done because there's a) too much money to be made from selling arms and b) not enough money to be had as Africa isn't worth raping as Iraq is. It'd be like raping a cheap punchbag ho who's been raped by every drug dealer on the block.

Now I'm sure people will say that even if Live8 fails to alleviate poverty in Africa, as it undoubtably will, there's no harm in trying. And I suppose there isn't. So long as we don't start taxing our own to throw good money after bad in huge Aide budgets, why not throw a few big gigs and show Africa we care? That's all it is, however, a symbolic gesture.

People will say it will raise issues to people's attention as Rock the Vote did. This is rubbish too. Rock the Vote did little to impact the voter turnout at the last Presidential Election, the turnout was still abysmal in the target demographic. Better, yes, but fractionally so, and that can be attributed to the extremist policies being put forward by both sides. Moderate politics, as was displayed in the Bush v Gore battle in the year 2000, tends to be less interesting to young people, but extremist politics, such as Kerry's "Please come rape America" view towards Iraq and Bush's "Civil Rights? What are those?" approach to the constitution, tends to inflame.

The thing people neglect is we have enough poor in our own countries. We don't do enough to make the gap between rich and poor smaller domestically, how the hell can we do it internationally? Surely we should work out the policies on a smaller scale, and then try and spread them to other governments by saying "Hey, look, see, this works!". Let's get our own house in order before we start trying to fix other people's problems. And yes, poverty in Africa, compared to unemployment in the UK or the US, is someone else's problem. We have enough of our own that get shoddy healthcare.

Everyone is thinking that the only way to tap into young minds is through music, but they've neglected the fact that most will fail to see beyond the music and see the message. Leaving aside the issue that it will be forgotten within a year (if you don't believe me, just look at how quickly the Tsunami appeals have been forgotten now that we're in July, only 6 months later), I doubt many will see Live8 as anything more than an opportunity to see some great bands perform at some great venues. Truth be told? That's all it was, and all it will ever be.

Why I should give up blogging forever!

2005-07-03T17:16:00.000+01:00

It has come to my attention that I spend far too much doing things I shouldn't on this thing:

1) Swearing. In my defence, I don't think I do it overly, sometimes it comes in quote fashion, and rather than take away from the original artist's expression, I leave it in place. Other times it's an expression of intense anger at a particular topic. Some might say anger is a bad thing, I however disagree. It's just one sliver of the spectrum of emotions we human beings experience, and without it the spectrum wouldn't quite be the same.

For me swearing can be the truest articulation of emotion. It's not pretty, it's not particularly clever, but so long as it's not an expressed at a time of cold hard rationality (in which case it shows that someone has a rather paltry vocabulary), it can be the most vivid insight into how someone's feeling.

2) Talking about my every day life too much. Now in my defence, I've had a lot of rather stressful events occur since I began this, and in fact I was having a resurgence of my depression when I began, so much so I was feeling suicidal not too long before I began this blog. Sometimes my best writing comes out of the darkness, I know that sounds depressing and horrible, but I think often the best art is expressed from darkness. A perfect example would be the tortured psyche of Van Gogh and his brilliance as a painter. It's perverse, and I have no idea why it is, but I believe it to be true.

As such, I let myself run free on emotion, and whenever I've looked back on such rantings, I find that they've provided some poetic turns of phrase that are entirely natural, not "spun". However I think I've also tried to relate my point more generally to a discussion on a particular topic of broader interest. Sometimes I will concede it's tongue-in-cheek (such as my suggestion Hitler was a woman because women are evil), but I don't think this takes away from it.

The good news is my psyche is returning to normalcy, and with that in mind, I'm almost entirely certain the "diary entries" will be a lot less frequent. I shan't stop them altogether, and I doubt people would wish me to, but I'll try and keep it to the interesting stuff.

3) Audio that plays without permission. Now this is a pet peeve of some, and a love of others. I've received mix reviews, and the current poll is evenly split. So vote, have your say! I think it's a marmite-like issue; you either love it or hate it. I blog for you guys, and I put the audio on to give you an opportunity to hear what sort of stuff I listen to.

If you don't like it you can propose changes, either different material (I'm open to suggestions, although be warned, if they're poor music taste I will post a blog post "outing" you as having terrible taste...just kidding), more regular changes of it, the removal of clips entirely or merely to make it playable on request (although I seem to be struggling to switch the autoplay function off...I tried changing the code from "true" to "false" but it seems to not be working...so if anyone has any suggestions on that score too...HELP!).

4) Poor blog design. I'll concede the truth, I'm incredibly new to website design, and when I first began, I kept it incredibly simple, but as I've learnt more I've given into that terrible temptation of trying too hard. I believe I've cut back a little on the unnecessary "side-show bling bling" as I like to call it, and I believe both the tagbox and the poll provide useful interactive features.

However if anyone has ANY suggestions on improvements, criticism, anything, I welcome feedback. I won't be rude or abusive, I want to make the blog better, and I'm new to blogging so the experienced guiding of a blog Yoda out there would be of much assistance, it would.

5) Posting news stories. However I believe on this matter I'm entirely fair in how I handle it. I've never openly quoted huge chunks of text from a source, I've quoted a couple of lines from The Metro with attribution. True, I didn't get permission, but I still believe I acted reasonably responsibly. When it comes to other people's blogs I usually ask permission even to link them, sometimes I forget, or if someone makes it clear on their blog (as the very helpful Mr David W Boles has done. You really should check out his blog here.) that they welcome traffic exchange, I'll link them without asking.

As for the one news story I posted without attribution, I stole that directly from another person's blog who didn't attribute. I have a rule about plagiarising, and it's as follows; if you plagiarise another I'll plagiarise you until the cows come home. So long as people are at least respectful enough to attribute their sources, I think we'll all get on fine. There's a new sheriff in town.

For the above 5 deadly sins against blogdom, I hereby tender my resignation from the nation of Blog, and will trudge forever more through the shadow of the valley of Livejournal, wistfully looking back with a tear in my eye.

Sorry, just kidding, you're stuck with me for a while yet!

God Hates Us All

2005-07-03T00:33:00.000+01:00

I've recently come across some very hardcore far-right blogs that I like to term "Quasi-fascist". As a conservative myself, but a moderate, I shudder when I look at the Republican Party shifting ever closer towards Fascism. The United States, it seems to me, is one moustachioed dictator away from the Fourth Reich.

A perfect example of this is the way Sandra Day O’Connor is being pilloried by Republican blogs. Lest we forget, it was Reagan who appointed her, and she was a staunch conservative by the standards of the time. She was actually a worry to Democrats of the time as a hardliner. It speaks volumes of how far the shift to the right has gone that she’s now seen as a moderate, or even, heaven forbid, a liberal.

Justice O’Connor made some rather good decisions in her time on the bench but the one that she’s being pilloried for now was a poor one, I will confess. It was, of course, the infamous Roe v Wade decision. Now I for one am a pro-choicer, I believe in the right to an abortion at any stage during pregnancy, simply on a matter of technicality.

As a man, a human being, it offends my emotions to think of a foetus as anything but a life, but the truth is, lawmakers are not supposed to allow emotion or ethics enter the arena. All that matters in the making of law is legality, and it’s been a long-established tradition of the English Common Law (upon whose pillars the US system rests) that a foetus is not a life. Life begins when the first breath enters the child’s lungs as taken by itself.

The reason for this is that it is, as callous as this sounds, nothing more than a parasite in the womb. It is like a person living on life support, and just as when the family of a person in a vegetative state have the right to switch the life support off, so does the mother of an unborn foetus.

I can see no logical distinction between the person in the vegetative state and the foetus. Both have brain activity, both breathe; both have their hearts beating. The only difference is an emotional gut instinct, based on the fact that the foetus has a potential life ahead of it. But the law doesn’t rest on potentials.

In fact, I will have the courage to state that the pro-life argument rests solely on religion. And this is the problem of this shift to the right in the United States; it rests on religious fanaticism.

The “Silver Ring Thing” is funded by the US Government, thus meaning the US Government is, de facto, establishing a rule of no sex before marriage, which owes its roots to the bible. Is this not establishment of religion? Indeed, but the Supreme Court is too busy worrying about displays of Christmas Trees to deal with the real issues.

The constant “protections” against marriage are just an underhanded way of discriminating against homosexuals. For the record marriage is a contract. Nothing more. All religious right-wingers miss this point. Weddings are religious, marriage is not, and it existed before religion, and will do long after it’s gone.

Thus, since it’s a contract, and nothing more, this makes a ban on homosexuals marrying unconstitutional (since freedom of contract is also protected by Substantive Due Process). If the US Congress tried to prevent homosexuals from entering sales contracts, the Supreme Court would immediately strike this down. This is no different, despite what jumped up Christian extremists will tell you. As such once again, US politics is enshrining Christian extremism.

Now this is entirely understandable. After 9/11, where Islamic fundamentalism attacked the United States purely on the basis of faith (calling it a Christian-Zionist conspiracy), I can understand why certain groups feel that they need to staunchly defend their values again. In essence, it’s no more than the Crusades again. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that the tensions between Islamic fundamentalists and Christian extremists owe their roots to that ancient conflict. Sounds far-fetched but I believe the evidence is there before your eyes.

The problem, however, is that this is a perpetual cycle. I will shout it out loud and proud here; you extremist conservative Christians are no better than the suicide bombers of 9/11, except, perversely, that they had the courage to admit that what they were doing was fundamentalist religious persecution and die for their “cause”.

Don’t get me wrong; I deplore the acts of 9/11. I’ve visited Ground Zero and it was a harrowing experience. However I merely point out that the answer to fundamentalism is not more fundamentalism. This is what began the entire mess. The Crusades were begun by Christian fundamentalism, and ever since then, since neither side has been willing to back down, the war has raged on. Caught in the middle? The Jews. Persecuted by both sides.

This, my friends, is why I chose the path of agnosticism. Religion is the cause of too much strife, too much hate. I don’t believe God, should he exist (I’ve yet to be convinced either of his existence or the lack thereof), is the problem, rather it is man’s abuse of organised religion to brainwash.

Marx was on the ball when he said religion was the Opium of the masses. I disagree that the capitalists abuse it; I believe religious leaders abuse it for their own purposes, but nonetheless, it’s used as a tool to manipulate the sheep that form most of our beloved citizenship.

I am no sheep, I am a man, and I follow my own conscious. I believe when the Day Of Reckoning comes, I’ll be able to stand taller and prouder than any religious zealot and be judged by my maker much more kindly. Because above all else religious zealots forget God, assuming his existence, created mankind, and as such every last one of us is his child. When you wage war on a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew for their beliefs, you wage a war on mankind.

Truly, for our hatred towards our fellow man, I’m sure that up there in Heaven, God hates us all.

And the award for the most retarded blog goes to...

2005-07-01T20:38:00.000+01:00

Read this. Actually, I don't know why I put you through that because it has to be the most appallingly arrogant, pompous and bigotted blog I've read.

My comment that it is just that might well get me banned from BlogExplosion but I don't care. I rarely comment on blogs I disagree with, I let it slide, each to their own and all, but the sheer arrogant attitude of that blog, it needed to be smacked down. Even if that comes at the price of some traffic. I'm not that desperate for it thanks.

I've no more blood to bleed

2005-07-01T19:13:00.000+01:00

This place rings with echoes of
Lives once lived but now are lost
Time spent wondering about tomorrow
I don't care if we lose it all tonight
Up in flames, burning bright
Warming the air of the world

"I don't love you anymore" is all I remember you telling me
Never have I felt so cold
But I've no more blood to bleed
'Cause my heart has been draining into the sea

Since I've taken your footsteps
Getting me closer to what is left
Of the dreams of what I once claimed to know
Within my bones this resonates
Boiling blood will circulate
Could you tell me again what you did this for?

Still I wait
With a hope inside of me (inside of me)
So still (so still) I wait (I wait)
Until again we meet
Until again we meet

I was listening to Rise Against, Blood to Bleed and it made me think about a few things. For the record I absolutely love Rise Against and I wanted to give them a plug anyway, but this particular song resonated with me. For me it's about loving someone and them betraying you, sure, this is a very specific instance of it, by saying "I don't love you anymore" but I think the sentiment perfectly applies to someone betraying you with their conduct.

Of course I refer to the hideous lies that nearly destroyed my relationship. That was a betrayal of the utmost kind. Don't get me wrong, I've forgiven her, and I'm glad we've moved beyond that, but forgiving and forgetting are two different things. I know she'd like me to forget, but I think in a way that would be a disservice to our bond. I like looking back at the meteor craters we've climbed over; it fills me with hope for our future, and the fact we can overcome anything. Also I look forward to the day when we can both look back on it and smile, seeing it as what it was; a signpost in the journey, not the end of it.

The reason I bring this song up is that it's not just about someone saying they don't love you (as I felt for the longest time she had done by lying, through conduct). I felt she didn't love me or she wouldn't have lied. In the end, this was as far from the truth as possible, it was herself she didn't love. Anyway, back to the song. Its significance is also that it's about hope too, about meeting again and overcoming the devastation. There are two things you can do when the bottom falls out of your world; pick yourself up or fall down into the abyss. I'm so incredibly glad I chose the former. I've been to the edge and back.

Through adversity good things come. Me and my Tiger were discussing the break up, and how, despite being horrible and painful, the time apart, even with the bickering and the anger, was needed. I needed to vent my anger, I began by being depressed and apathetic, almost in denial, and then I went through the cycle of emotions until I ended up at anger. The truth is it was only once I could vent this that we could move on.

In addition she needed to feel beautiful again, she needed someone else to provide this, to not feel like it was me saying it because I knew her personally. She needed a stranger to look at her face, and just her face, and say "You're beautiful". In truth that's what her lies came back to, she hated herself, and she needed someone else to make her love herself.

I wish I could have been that person for her, but I could not, because at that point I was so consumed with anger, and feeling so betrayed by her. You see I was feeling very unloved and unloveable after that incident, and I needed someone to make me love myself again too. It's impossible to make someone love themselves if you don't love yourself, and as such we were of no use to each other. I hate the word "use" when talking about people, but alas, that's the most appropriate way to describe it.

Luckily for us we both found what we needed from other sources and ended up back together. For me it was not the girl I fell for, if anything that was yet another bump in the road. It was the numerous girls that fell for me who I didn't fall for. It may sound cruel but I didn't need to love someone else, I needed them to love me. Selfish and cruel, I know, but human nature. We all crave being loved. For her it was the bloke she kissed. In a way them kissing was of use too, because she thought of me whilst doing so and I think it made her feel, strangely enough, closer to me, despite it being another guy she was kissing.

I feel sorry for those who got hurt by their role in this. The other guy, the girls who fell for me, it's unfair on them that they were "used" like that, but it was never a conscious thing. I think deep down, all people are like that, and sadly people do get hurt, but that's life. I'm sympathetic but I don't regret it, because after all that we're better than ever. So I don't lament the time apart, we both needed it, and I'm filled with hope for the future. A bright, glorious future where the sun shines once more.

She's my sunshine.

Yet I'm nothing more than a line in your book

2005-07-01T01:53:00.000+01:00

For those of you who are music cretins and require education, the title is from Juneau by Funeral for a Friend.

It seems odd because for a while I did think this was quite apt. After all, I'd been wondering just how much I meant to my Tiger compared to what she means to me, and feeling very undervalued and underappreciated. However today has so far been a great day, and has proven to me just how INappropriate that lyric is. This, however, makes it even more appropriate as a title, just because it has a delicious irony to it.

However good news never comes that easily into my life, I have to work at it. I woke up after a hideous night's sleep after the fight last night to a great phonecall. The place I interviewed at on Monday offered me the job. Now I don't want to count my chickens and say "I got the job" because for all I know, a lot of crap could happen before Monday, when I'm due to begin. However on Monday, if I end up working there, I will be coming on here to post a lavish celebratory post.

So where's the bad news, I hear you ask? Well, after I took the call, I checked my email. Not too long ago, after the day's drama died down, my Tiger said I must dread email from her because it's never good, and the truth is, she's right! I opened my inbox, saw her name, and thought "uh-oh". I knew the contents before I opened it but they still hurt. She was dumping me. See last night when she told me she was tired and couldn't talk to me, despite telling me she was going to sleep, she spent five hours talking to the other guy. Which hurt in and of itself, let alone being dumped.

Well, I wasn't going to go down without a fight. I wasn't going to let it all disappear, but I wasn't going to fight a losing battle either. So I called her, told her she was being stupid. She said he made her feel special all the time. True, I've not recently, but we were going through a break up and it was a particularly nasty one. We both did and said things we shouldn't have. However since we got back, I've tried to make it up to her, and as I pointed out, no wonder he spends more time making her feel good; logically if you spend more time with one person than another, you're giving them more opportunity to do that.

I pointed out she wasn't giving us a chance, and cutting it off before it started. Finally I suggested that all new crushes feel great in the here and now, and will probably eclipse a relationship that's at the mid-year point, where I think all relationships hit a bit of a lull. I suggested it was "first flush" and the fact is, I maintain that whatever she feels for him is a passing crush, what we have is more. I know being at a distance is a killer for her, because it is for me too, it's the worst thing ever, but I'm willing to put up with it because it'll be worth it when it all works out.

In the end she caved. She never wanted to break up with me, I don't think, she was just confused and messed up. That sounds incredibly arrogant, I know, but I maintain it's nonetheless true. She's got a history of this, getting confused and breaking things off when they get hard. Things with the new guy were "easy" but with me, harder. Did that make them less worthwhile? Not at all! I told her for the sake of both myself and the other guy she had to make a decision and stick to it this time, whichever it was. I was prepared for the worst. It didn't materialise. Woo! Colour me lucky! Two for two in the "good day" stakes so far.

Maybe got a new job and salvaged a relationship that I think is destined for big things. We've known each other for close to a year now, been dating for 7 months of that time, you can't just throw that away. We've been through a lot together, and I know her better than anyone, which is surprising really, given all the lies. I suppose the soul isn't as easily fooled as the brain, and my soul and hers were always destined to be together, our brains just clashed at times. Damn you brain!

So then I had a lovely day with her, just...the best day ever. We recaptured a lot of the old spirit, and I think she knows now what I'm willing to do for her. It's proven to her that I'm not expecting her to do all the work. The irony is I felt like she wanted me to do all the work and that's not it either. I think we both need to just give it time to settle down. I initially suggested that if she wanted this she shouldn't have anything to do with the other guy until me and her settled down. Just to avoid confusion and messy situations. Plus she feels really guilty about hurting him which I think is clouding her judgement.

I changed my mind on this, and I trust her, so if she assures me she's not going to yank my chain and change her mind again, I believe her. Plus he seems like a nice guy, not the manipulative cunt I had him pegged for. We actually spoke for a while this afternoon. He told me he's not angry at her as much as at himself, and not at all at me, because he came into it knowing how she felt about me, and still fell hard.

I feel sorry for him, because the truth is, he shouldn't be so hard on himself. It's hard not to fall for her. She's got this intangible. No, maybe she's not the msot conventionally "attractive" woman in the world but in my eyes she's the most beautiful. No, maybe she's not the "perfect" girlfriend but in my eyes she's just that...perfect. I don't know why, she's certainly got a lot of flaws, but quite frankly, I wouldn't have her any other way. She's...her. And that's all I want.

Actually while I have you all here I suppose I owe him an apology for the things I said about him last night. I was angry, and misjudged him, I know that now, he's not a bad bloke at all. He's a decent, nice guy, funny, caring...a lot like me, except, well, a lightweight version. I'm "intense", he's "lite". Knowing my Tiger as well as I do, she wants "intense". She even confessed that whilst she kissed him she thought of me and wished it was me, so the truth is, the guy was never going to measure up. Sure, they might have had a relationship, it might've been good, don't get me wrong. However she'd always have wondered about me, I know it, and deep down, she does too. We're soulmates. Soulmates never die.

God I'm so pathetic; I just got off the phone with her and I'm missing her already. The sound of her voice makes my heart feel like its come home. I feel safe and secure, invincible almost, when I hear her voice. I long to hold her. When I do, I won't let go. I'm not letting her slip from my grasp ever again. You can't sit idly by and watch the love of your life be taken away from you. That, in the end, is what my friends don't see; she's the love of my life, I know it, and I can't lose that.

Well, I think I shall retire to bed to dream of my darling. Hopefully tonight's a better night's sleep (I think it shall be as I'll be dreaming happy dreams) and I can wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Today was a VERY good day...