The Many Rambles of Adam Brown

Tottenham Hotspur, Title Contenders?

2012-01-20T21:01:00.002Z

So far so good for Tottenham this year, after the highs of last year’s Champions League were followed by the lows of failure to qualify it looked like our progress of late may have run aground, this season however has seen Tottenham seriously mentioned as a title contender for the first time since I can remember (I Started to support them in 1991) and it is definitely the first time I can remember them being level with points with Man Utd the business side of Christmas.

Unfortunately I have still been a spurs team throughout the 90’s and the 00’s so I am still slightly reluctant to believe that it isn’t all going to go wrong (Just too many false dawns.) this may all change however in the next six weeks as we enter our “Hell” period:

22nd January Man City (A)
31st January Wigan (H)
6th February Liverpool (A)
11th February Newcastle (H)
26th February Arsenal (A)
3rd March Man Utd (H)

Yes in 6 weeks will meet 5 of the top seven including trips to the City of Manchester, Anfield and the Emirates, this next 6 weeks should tell us if we are title challengers or just a footnote on a future sky sports premier league years programme. If we can arrive at the evening of the 3rd March in the top four then I will feel quite confidant of a top 4 finish (as I think we have a very easy run in) If we can actually win 3 or 4 of those encounters then I see no reason why we should not be considered title contenders. Personally I will happy with a draw against Manchester City and Arsenal. Think we should be able to beat Man Utd and Newcastle at the lane and would hope we can get a result from Anfield, but no matter how good we have been this year part of me will still be suspecting that we may lose all of them and be faced at the start of March with a tough road to re-qualify for the Europa League, either way these next few weeks will decide our season.

New Phone Review - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

2012-01-20T20:54:00.003Z

Well I finally managed to get my hands on my new handset 6 months after first looking around, The new handset is the Samsung Galaxy Nexus which at the time of writing is the only phone to be featuring Android 4.0 (AKA Ice Cream Sandwich)

Initially I did not think I would be able to have this phone as it is not on sale with T-Mobile in the UK and I did not want to lose my unlimited internet so I had started to resign myself to the release of the two new HTC Quad Core Devices due for release Q2 of this year however after being offered the Nexus on Three with unlimited internet for £41 a month I decided it may well be time to switch from
the network I had been with since I got my first mobile back in the 90’s. I called T-Mobile to ask for a PAC-Code and instead they told me I could actually get the handset from Carphone Warehouse, not just that but they would give me a £20 a month reduction (to £25 a month) and I could keep my unlimited internet. So I picked up my phone Saturday morning at 10am and it took until about 10:35 until I was hooked.

Looks wise when I first saw the handset in the shop my first thought was “Massive” but strangely enough as soon as I got it in my hand it didn’t occur to me, If I place it next to my old Desire again I am shocked by how big it is but whenever it is back in my hand it just seems to fit, perhaps this is just that I have big hands, but it feels a good size. The Shape of the phone also helps with a very thin top side 6mm with a much wider base (11mm) this has the effect of the phone feeling light but with a substantial weight where you are holding it which gives it a good feeling of quality. The most noticeable thing on first glance is that there is a complete lack of any buttons on the front (In fact there are only two buttons on the phone (On and Volume)) this is likely to become the Ice Cream Sandwich standard as the new Android features on screen standard buttons (Home, Back and Multi-tasking)

Ice Cream Sandwich features a few interesting features many of which are more fun than reliable but show the way things are going to go:

Face Lock: Alongside the standard Android unlock options (Pin or Pattern) ICS features a face unlock option, simply look at the screen and it opens, now whilst this is a fun feature it can be slightly temperamental in less than perfect light and makes people think you are using your phone as a mirror, so you may seem a little vain, you can always bypass the face lock to access a pattern or pin
unlock instead.

People: The people app has had an update since my last Android Device (Running FroYo) particularly the ability to link in more accounts so I can link in my Googlemail contacts, Twitter Contacts, G+ Contacts and Linkedin Contacts. Now I am sure you may have noticed the obvious omission from there in that I did not include Facebook; unfortunately the ongoing disputes between Google and Facebook mean that people does not feature native support of facebook contacts. Obviously as I can not be bothered to come up with pictures of all my friends this was a bit annoying, luckily there is a way around it via a third party application, there are a few available but I personally selected HaxSync as it had been highly recommended – it set me back 62p but as soon as I had that and facebook app installed I could link my contacts to my facebook friends. Another good feature of people is the ability to “Star” your favourite contacts meaning that you can split off the people you
use most often who are displayed in a simple to use grid.

Voice Type: The voice typing feature is now a standard on all areas where you can type and seems remarkably responsive, I have dictated quite long text messages with so far no issue whatsoever.

Multitasking: One of the three buttons that exists on the bottom of the screen is for multitasking and selecting it will open up all of the open apps which you can return to with just a tap, or shut down with a quick swipe. A very similar interface is used for notifications where you can swipe to dismiss or touch to select.

There are plenty of upgraded experiences as well, such as the Apps menu which just feels nicer to navigate than a long list and contains all of your widgets as well, also the Google search bar is now a permanent feature at the top of the phone, and the long awaited arrival of the folders for your apps allowing you to better organise your apps so you can really take advantage of the 14GB of internal memory. Everything combines to make the phone feel both cutting edge and simple & intuitive.

If I was pushed for a downside I would have to say that the lack of an external memory card is a little disappointing but with 14GB internal memory I doubt it will cause me too much of an issue between now and next June when I’m next up for renewal.

Social-Capitalism

2012-01-20T20:48:00.002Z

I have been thinking a lot lately about the idea of responsible capitalism personally I think from Westminster at the moment it is a lot of “Sound Biting” and an attempt to appease people with words they know but do not understand the meaning of, That said my ideal system would be what I would call the social-capitalist system where instead of kicking the free market with its size 90 boots the government could instead operate benevolent companies in the market place (For Example the BBC in Media, Northern Rock (had they not taken a massive loss to sell them) in banking, British Energy (Again had they not been sold) in the utilities) These companies which would by law have to strive to be profit making and would not be allowed to receive tax funding could then be used to provide a socialist element in a capitalist system.

This could include taking the unemployed on to provide skills and work experience (At
the same time making them work for their benefits) They could also ensure that price
fixing would be impossible as they would always look to lower end consumer prices whilst ensuring that there was still a level of profit to be made (Otherwise people would stop running businesses) and finally each company would provide a decent amount of money into the exchequer to remove a lot of the tax burden from the private sector. This way the government can manipulate the market rather than trying unsuccessfully to control it.

The important fact that seems to be lost of the protesters at St Paul’s is that unlike socialism and communism which try and control the way people behave to reach an ideological result capitalism is actually looking at things the other way as it does not try and change the way people behave but rather tries to explain the way people have behaved since society began, There is no way to abandon capitalism as it is our default setting and every attempt to move away from capitalism soon reverts to a close proximity to capitalism as people look to return to their natural behaviour, the challenge therefore is not to remove capitalism but to use it
to achieve the required aims, manipulate not devastate.

Not Been Around For A While

2012-01-20T20:44:00.001Z

If I had any regular readers I am sure you would have noticed that my blog has not been active in the last few months, My mother was taken unwell with cancer back in July and to be honest I really couldn’t be bothered with much other than trying to spend as much time with her as possible. Unfortunately despite all of her efforts my Mum lost the battle two days before Christmas and so has now gone on to whatever adventure lay ahead of us all.

I would therefore like to take a few seconds of blog silence to remember my Mum a lady who was to me without equal and in life someone who touched the hearts of everyone she met.

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Good bye Mum, you will never be forgotten.

Movie Review: The Hangover Part 2

2011-06-03T06:47:00.002+01:00

This week’s film was The Hangover Part 2, when the original Hangover film came out I was not particularly interested as it seemed to be the kind of brainless humour that I really struggle to get into so I decided not to watch it. As everyone I knew then started to watch it and constantly tell me that it was the funniest film they had ever seen I started to become curious, I tried on several occasions to rent it when it was out on DVD but it was always fully booked out which only seemed to further suggest that it really was as good as people had claimed. I was obviously very disappointed then when I finally got hold of a copy only to find out that it was exactly the film I thought it was and with the exceptions of a few scenes was the lowest form of base humour. I therefore made no plans to watch The Hangover Part 2 when I saw it was advertised however there was nothing else on this week so we went to see it.

Now before I start I should say that this film is not bad, but it is not good either, in fact The Hangover Part 2 could quite easily be a far east remake of the original, there is really nothing that would set this film apart from the original and it sticks to nearly the same structure but then as it is a widely acclaimed film it makes sense not to change it. As I left the cinema I would have said that I preferred this film to the original but on reflection I think that this was simply a difference in expectations, in the original I was expecting to laugh the entire time and didn’t – This time I was expecting not to laugh and did (a couple of times). Overall I found the expectation that I would find humour in the idiosyncrasy of two of the characters funny seemed a little too much like bullying for my liking, The main “comedy” character Alan is designed to be the but of the jokes however the fact that he clearly has a special outlook on life is not, for me, enough to laugh at.

As I say the film follows basically the same plot as the original; Alan, Phil and Stu phone Sasha to say they will not make it to the wedding, Then we see the start of the story up to the guys starting to drink before we cut to the “Next Morning” and see the three guys waking up and trying to piece their story back together. The baby from the original is now exchanged for a baby and they are also joined by Leslie Chow the oriental gangster from the original who was also out with them. The majority of the laughs are supposed to come from Zach Galifianakis (Alan) and Ken Jeong (Chow) who are extreme caricatures of their characters with Alan’s simpleness and Chow’s shock value expected to carry the film. But unfortunately for me, it doesn’t. Bradley Cooper (Phil) and Ed Helms (Stu) seem quite incidental to the scenes that are set up although as the uptight victim of a couple of the set pieces Ed Helms does force a few cringes, however the relationship between his fiance and him is beyond comprehension as I doubt there is any woman alive as forgiving. Overall this film is simply a darker more unpleasant version of the first which really didn’t add anything and made some of the characters just a little more unlikable.

Where does Personal become Racist?

2011-06-03T06:38:00.003+01:00

A Newspaper article caught my eye yesterday, it is something I really shouldn’t be worried about writing about but I find that I have to very carefully form the sentences in my mind before typing them such is the fear of offending on such a delicate matter. The Article that took my attention is about Racism and as a White Male I am time and time again told that I have no way of being able to comment on this issue – An Irony that my race would make me ineligible to speak on racism. (In my life I have been on the receiving end of racist taunts and a few racist attacks, I attended a predominantly Asian college and calls of Gora (An Indian term meaning white skinned) were common and unfortunately often accompanied by spitting and on a few occasions violence.)

I think my views on racism are probably that which are held by most rational thinking people, That racism is wrong, not just morally but intellectually, it really doesn’t take much brain power that to group together the Hundreds of Millions/Billions of each race into one group and judge them all on that basis is clearly insane. Surely logic dictates that if you take a million Caucasians and a million Afro-Caribbeans then you will get a very wide mix of experiences and life stories and similarities will come across the groups just as surely as differences must occur within them. Therefore if you are to discount a large proportion of the worlds population on the basis of Colour, just like on sex or education or wealth or any division for that matter, you will be severely limiting your scope.

Anyway back to the actual article, this article was about a dispute with Naomi Campbell and Cadbury’s chocolate, in their latest advert Cadbury’s displayed a picture of their new chocolate bar alongside the slogan “Move over Naomi, There’s a new Diva in town.” Naomi Campbell then came straight out and attacked Cadburys for racism. When I first heard that I was not sure on what grounds but as Naomi says herself “I am shocked. It’s upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me but for all black people.” So her issue is with being described as chocolate which I can kind of agree with as this is a playground racial slur and if we are to ever beat racism the battle needs to start on the playground. However the advert does not compare Naomi to a chocolate but rather it compares a chocolate to Naomi which is a very important difference.

In essence the Advert takes one element of her personality and assigns it to the chocolate bar in this case her reputation as a diva. Now you could argue if this is bordering on an attack on her by accusing her of being a diva (Even if it does then it would clearly be personal and not racially motivated.) however by her own admission their reflection on her personality must be correct, After all the advert does not say “Move over Naomi Campbell” it only says Naomi it is the usage of Naomi and diva in the same sentence that she has taken as being a clear indication that it is her, if it said “Move over Naomi – there’s a new astrophysicist in town.” It is unlikely anyone would be thinking of Naomi Campbell.

So as she is clearly being mentioned in this advert due to her personality trait and not her race then clearly the only think that is holding up her claims of racism is that chocolate is brown, following this complaint through to it’s natural conclusion therefore would basically be stating that no Afro-Caribbean people could advertise chocolate or for that matter anything that is brown – Assumingly this would be a real headache for Hagen-Daz who would have to carefully monitor that they don’t have the wrong people advertising their chocolate ice cream or heaven forbid a white woman selling vanilla. So in Naomi Campbell’s ideal world the jobs people could do would be dictated to by their colour – Thank god she is fighting against racism!

Quite unbelievably when looking up a few facts for this post (I know it is hard to believe but I do occasionally check the facts I am writing about.) I came across calls from “Black Civil Rights Groups” calling for a boycott of all Kraft goods and a quote from Lee Jasper (Controversial Former equalities aide to Ken Livingstone when he was mayor) who has said “Part of the problem is that [These companies] don’t see it as offensive.” Perhaps the problem is that this isn’t offensive unless you look for it, perhaps the fact is that Naomi’s race didn’t come into the equation at all they simply asked who was the biggest Diva they could mention and Naomi’s name was at the top, so in fact it is just possible that despite Mr. Jasper’s claims this incident is a symptom of a less racist world, but for that to happen we must all leave behind the hang ups of the past.

Movie Review: On Stranger Tides

2011-06-03T06:34:00.002+01:00

Next trip to the moving picture house was to see the latest in the Pirates of the Caribbean Movie, On Stranger Tides. The movie is a bit of a step back for the franchise returning to the more compact stand alone format rather than the connected stories of Dead Man’s Chest and At Worlds End. The original trilogy has always put me in mind of the Matrix trilogy (A good first film followed by two linked pieces of pap) so I was glad that they decided to go back to a simpler plot line. The plot is based on the book by Tim Powers simply updated to fit into the Pirates of the Caribbean universe to enable Jack Sparrow to be the hero. The Director is now Rob Marshall who has a background in dance and musical numbers (including winning an Oscar for Chicago) and this is quite evident in some of the fight scenes. So Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom are out and Penelope Cruz is in as Depp’s love interest. Ian “Lovejoy” McShane comes in as the infamous pirate Blackbeard, for those of us who grew up with 90’s BBC programming it is very difficult to think of him as anything else than the antiques dealer but for American audiences he is probably better known for his role in Deadwood which paints an altogether less PG interpretation.

The film itself has Jack Sparrow searching for the fountain of youth and being pressed into service of the supernatural Blackbeard, at the same time Geoffory Rush returns as Captain Barbosa (Hasn’t he been killed several times now?) who has crossed the legality divide to claim the fountain for the British Government whilst trying to stay ahead of the Spanish party. (Basically the story is three groups trying to get to the fountain.) Along the way there are mermaids to capture, treasures to uncover and all of the usual pirates fare. Overall the cast give a good performance and with the exception of one particularly frivolous sword fight (It is a Pirates movie after all) the plot clips along with a decent tempo. Depp is always very committed to the role he clearly enjoys and McShane and Cruz work very well alongside him to make this movie, whilst not a classic, a couple of hours of harmless fun and a welcome change from the last two films in the franchise.

New Phone Time Again

2011-05-26T20:19:00.005+01:00

It has been 12 months since my last phone upgrade and so my mind once again starts to look at the various options out there that may appeal, Since getting the HTC Advantage 6 years ago (Probably why I did not think the iPad was particularly groundbreaking) I have only had one handset from a different manufacturer (The Samsung Omnia) however each upgrade I look at all of the handsets available so I am not tied to a particular brand.

I had been expecting the choice to be made between three handsets – The HTC Desire S, An update on the HTC Desire which I still think is a great handset. – The Samsung Galaxy S, currently the fastest selling Android device. – The Motorola Atrix, Which would be my first Motorola since the graphite around the start of the millennium. This all changed around January when I had a quick turn on a friends HTC 7 this windows 7 device was a bit of a game changer as I had considered Windows to be too far behind the other OS’s and have not had a windows phone since the Advantage. The question is could I be bothered to switch OS? Obviously if I switched to a Windows phone I would need to reload and repurchase all of my apps, also the interconnectivity between my google powered life and the phone would be lost possibly bring in all of the interconnectivity limitations of the iPhone. I think I have therefore decided that changing OS is just too much of a hassle and therefore I think I will need to stick to an Android device – In fact I guess if none of the OS’s come up with an easy way to transfer your programmes then there will likely be a situation where movements between Operating Systems become less and less common.

So the HTC 7 out I am left again with the first three, of the three The HTC Desire S is obviously a good well known model and simply being an update to my current HTC Desire a phone I know I will like, question is, Is it so close to the Desire that I will lose that “New Phone” buzz? If so I may as well just keep my Desire. So I started to look at the other two Android leaders, the Samsung Galaxy S is a fast phone with great features and has the clearer screen resolution but the Atrix comes with a dual core processor and an amazing array of accessories which can turn your phone into just about anything you require – but these come at a cost equal to that of the phone itself. The camera is 5MP in the Atrix and 8MP in the Galaxy with the Galaxy also being lighter and larger.

Looking at it I am starting to think that I will need to go for the Galaxy S II however I struggle to get away from the Atrix’s finger print reader for unlocking that ensures that only you can open the phone – and despite the fact that this is not a real necessity and because as a human being I am entitled to go against even my own logic I decided I would be getting the Motorola Atrix.

Decision made it was perhaps foolish of me to look at the “Coming Soon” section of the website where I found the HTC Sensation, combining the Dual Core of the Atrix to the 8MP camera of the Galaxy with a host of new features such as HTC’s new Video on demand service and a four app locked screen to give quicker access to you favourite apps (A must for anyone who has ever whipped out a camera only to miss the moment as you mess about trying to open the application.) So it may not have a finger print scanner but it does contain enough exciting new features for me to delay getting the new phone until I get to check it out.

Another Season Comes to an End

2011-05-23T21:18:00.002+01:00

Well the Premiership is over for another year, Tottenham could not match last season by qualifying for the Champions League but their fifth place is only the 22nd time the club have finished in the top 5 in their history and the fourth since I started to support them so I am happy. It was always going to be a tough ask as although we have several players with Champions League experience they had never played at that level as a team, in the end I think we were simply suffering from a few injuries at the wrong points and in the end the team just ran out of steam. (Not to mention the Ref in the Chelsea game who cost us three points.)

Question is can Tottenham get back in the top four next season? I hope so but I think if it is to happen it will need to be at the expense of Arsenal and probably with a harder challenge from Liverpool. Obviously it would be slightly pointless to try and work out the strengths of the teams next year before we see the effect of the transfer window but I would fully expect the champions to come from one of Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea - And Chelsea are my least favoured team - This will leave Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool to fight over the final Champions League space and I think a lot of this will come down to how the teams strengthen and the effect that Arsenal and Tottenham competing in Europe will have.

Movie Review: Beastly

2011-05-11T11:27:00.002+01:00

Whilst it is true that I have a very low opinion of this film I would suggest that I am not part of the target audience (I am guessing 12 year old girls)

The film starts with I am Number 4 star Alex Pettyfer working out without a shirt on (A look he would continue throughout the film.) He plays Kyle Who is the son of a famous News Anchor, He is young, rich and good looking, in the first big scene he is running for Green Committee President with a speech which I would translate as "You're all ugly, I am rich and handsome so do as you're told and vote for me." I think this is called doing a Blair or style over substance. He then tells his pugly classmates to "Embrace the Suck" and vote for him – I admit I had to look up Embrace the Suck which I am reliably informed by the Urban Dictionary is a military term for having to do a job that you feel is pointless, I guess the US are letting too many 12 year olds into the military.

Anyway his speech angers the school "Witch" who it turns out is an actual witch so after deciding to set her up for some public humiliation he is turned into a beast (The beast make up is possibly the one thing that this film does correctly as it is quite a gruesome look including several slashes with metal pins visible inside them which left me wishing someone would stitch them up. The look however isn't really added to by the addition of several tattoos which being a life choice rather than a disfigurement don't really add to any sympathy but rather make you think – You already had your entire face tattooed so why should we care that there are cuts on top. But that aside the effect is still off putting a few skin graphs however would have been a bit better for some real disfigurement. The witch played by Mary Kate Olson (Still trying to throw off the Olson Twin persona) is more an excuse to dress up in Neo-Gothic club wear than a cogent part of the film. The actors in this film however are the one saving grace as they struggle under the weight of a ridiculously repeated story with nothing new added at all and the terrible script mostly held by Pettyfer who must have really started to regret his choices.

The beauty to Pettyfer's beast is Lindy, played by Vanessa Hudgens (Who is starting to become more famous for leaked "personal" images than for her High School Musical role) She acted well enough however the fact that her character who is working to keep her place at the exclusive academy and spends her evenings (after school and work) taking food to the homeless – assumingly all to prove that she is a lot deeper than the usual shallow high school girl – falls for the Rich kid long before he has even an ounce of humility during the two times they spoke prior to his transformation is quite out of keeping with the character they are building, after his transformation Kyle Starts to stalk Lindy in what did start to feel a little bit disturbing, how far do you go to show that you like someone? following them home? following them out in the evening? knocking them out and keeping them in a small cage? He did all of these – Ok, not the last one but it felt like he was getting close. He did however blackmail her father into sending her to his house.

Star act goes to the always good Neil Patrick Harris, Doogie Howser to those of us over 30, who plays Ryan's? blind tutor however he is not on the screen nearly enough to make his part contribute to the enjoyability of the movie.

Overall this film takes an unlikeable looks obsessed boy and shows that he has changed by making him fall for Vanessa Hudgens (Ranked the 54th most beautiful woman in the world by Maxim) guess that will really make him learn his lesson. But the holes are almost entirely related to the weak story and laughable script, the cast should really only been criticised for one thing – agreeing to be in the film in the first place.

Scottish Independence a few figures

2011-05-10T07:50:00.000+01:00

Also in the vote the SNP got a majority government in the Scottish Parliament so I am greatly looking forward to the referendum on Scottish Independence which I personally should extend to the entire UK so we can all get a chance, I will in fact be calling on my MP that in the case of a “No” result that the rest of the UK get a vote on if we still want them.

Over the next few years I am sure I will blog extensively on this topic as it would be the biggest political change in a few hundred years (I guess since 1707) however first I wanted to post a few facts and figures (Taken from the Scottish Office research) just to put it into some context.

• Scotland's public finances exhibit a structural fiscal deficit, having not been in surplus since 1980-81.
• Even adding all tax revenues from oil and gas production for all of the UK reduces but does not eliminate this deficit over time. For the period 1980-81 to 2007-08, the cumulative net deficit, after adding tax receipts from all UK offshore oil and gas production, amounts to £23.5 billion.
• Notwithstanding the success of devolution, the UK Government retains a large and direct role in the provision of public services in Scotland. Spending by the UK Government on reserved matters, either directly in Scotland (such as on pensions, tax credits or research council funding) or on behalf of Scotland at the UK level (for example defence and overseas representation) amounts to 40% of the total of all Government expenditures in or on behalf of Scotland.
• The largest single item of expenditure in Scotland each year by either the UK or Scottish Governments is on social protection -such spending by the UK Government amounted to £12,647m in 2007-08.
• The scale and importance of UK Government social protection expenditure to Scotland is emphasised by comparing it to the total expenditure by the Scottish Parliament. In the past 6 years, UK Govt social protection expenditure corresponds to between 45% and 39% of the total expenditure by the Scottish Parliament.
• Total spending by the UK and Scottish Governments in Scotland currently amounts to 145% of the total of Scottish tax receipts. Hence a fiscally autonomous Scotland would be dependant on the continuance of a fiscal transfer from the UK to maintain current levels of public spending. Equally, a fiscally autonomous Scotland could not make any contribution towards the provision of goods provided at the national level, such as defence, the regulation of markets or overseas representation whilst maintaining current levels of public expenditure.
• The deficit between Scottish tax receipts and the sum of UK Government expenditure on social protection payments plus the entire budget of the Scottish Parliament was around £6.2 billion on 2007-8, equivalent to around £2,700 per household.

So basically Scotland operates at around a £6b deficit and this does not include spending on military and other “Nation” expenditure. Now I am not actually of the opinion that England subsidises Scotland anymore than I accept that England is subsidised by Scotland, what we have is a Union where everyone works together and both sides benefit however if the SNP want independence then I fully support them, it is a Union that was entered into as Scotland was bankrupt and England feared they would enter a union with France to pay of their debts. We are no longer at war with France so there is no fear from Scotland being bankrupt again so why not let them go and see how they get on. And after all just think of all the money we would get from the 2.5 Million people of Scottish decent having to apply for working visas or losing their rights to state benefits/the NHS.

The AV Vote - The Country Says No

2011-05-10T07:48:00.001+01:00

Well another years elections have been concluded, Unfortunately my wife was not successful in her campaign to represent Langley Green on Crawley Borough Council but it was otherwise a good night for the Conservatives with their share of the vote holding up well possibly indicating that while people are unhappy at the cuts that the coalition are doing the electorate do not have as short a memory as Labour would like them to have.

The AV referendum when all said and done wasn’t much of an event with the public rejecting thoroughly the concept of electoral reform. (Backing up the No2AV camps claims that the only thing the vote did was waste money, but hopefully we can put this to bed for a while now.) Only a few hours after the result became clear a “Yes” supporter said to me that this result showed that the British Electorate were clearly stupid and wanted to hand over power to an unaccountable elite – nothing like being a bad loser! However I read a different message into the win for the No vote. Clearly there have been a great deal of problems with the entire political environment in the last few years (and longer) and a great deal of the trust that is needed for a democracy to continue has been lost. What this says however is that the electorate do not think that the problem sits with the system but rather the politicians themselves.

I was unable at any point to fully understand what AV would offer, I was told that it would

“Make MP’s work harder for your vote!” – How? In a safe seat AV makes no difference and in a marginal they take nothing for granted.
“Help the smaller parties to get more votes!” – But would not help the BNP and wouldn’t actually change the results as the likely winner would still be one of the big three.
“Give us a real democracy!” – Again, what does this mean?

In the end I think that the Yes campaign was simply too disjointed and too unsure about what they were offering and what it offered, that said the Yes people I spoke to were passionate and thoughtful and in local politics this can make a very pleasant change.

Movie Review: Thor

2011-05-10T07:44:00.003+01:00

Back to the Cinema after missing a week due to the installation of our new bathroom and we went to see Thor, This is a film based on the Marvel Comic based on the Norse (And old Saxon) God of Thunder. The film is in itself as you would expect very formulaic. Thor is a young (A few Thousand Years old) and foolish Prince, Blah Blah, Cast out, Blah Blah, Lands on Earth, Blah Blah, Learns his Lesson.

This is not to say that I found the film bad as in actuality I did enjoy it but then I am a sucker for a bit of Marvel escapism, This film is the fourth set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (A shared setting for several Marvel films where they are free to cross over – The previous ones were Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Hulk with Captain America and The Avengers in the pipeline.)
Thor is played by New Zealander Chris Hemsworth who whilst he has the look of Thor it does lead to a few questions such as why would Thor have an antipodean accent (I would have imagined a Scandinavian/German tone to be more expected) or why when expelled back to earth he was expelled into the heart of the American desert a place where belief in the old gods or Germanic/Norse cultures has never been extensively practiced. That said the only member of the cast of Scandinavian decent (Stellan Skarsgard – Born in Sweden) has claimed to have never even heard of Thor.

Natalie Portman played Thor’s human love interest Jane Foster who has been updated from her comic book Nurses job to an astrophysicist, however thankfully she didn’t do any ballet or descend into any kind of madness so the entire film was a lot more uplifting than January’s Black Swan. The other supporting cast include Anthony Hopkins as Odin a pert which seems to suit him well and Tom Hiddleston as Loki who in Marvel’s telling of the Norse mythology is Thor’s brother and the Son of Odin, Although you will get no points from guessing who is the main antagonist between the tall blond god of Thunder and the Smaller dark haired god of Mischief.

Updating our Bathroom

2011-05-10T07:37:00.002+01:00

Been quiet for the last couple of weeks as been a bit snowed under with lost of things happening at once, Firstly I took a week off to update our bathroom. I have never particularly been a keen DIYer but when received quotes for changing our Bathroom of £3000+ I decided to give it a go, firstly I took a basic plumbing course and armed with all the education that £35 will get you from West Sussex Adult Education we got started.

It would be fair to say that just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong but I think for the most part these elements can be easily broken down between “lack of Experience” and “Strange Installation of the old suite” To be honest for me the plumbing was the easy part however most of the problems came from removing and then replacing the tiles and flooring, That said although we were surprised by how hard that was it was actually accomplished in a reasonably quick time and the entire bathroom took seven days which I don’t think was too bad as we really had zero experience.

I have no intention of doing it again in a hurry but I have to admit to a large amount of pride at having actually managed it at least once.

Congratulations to Everyone at Crawley Town

2011-04-12T22:06:00.002+01:00

Despite Tottenham losing 4-0 to Real Madrid I do have something to celebrate in the football world as Crawley Town have secured the Blue Square Premier Championship and in so doing also guaranteed their place in the Football League next year for the first time in their history. Not just that but Crawley now need just 3 wins to beat the highest points total ever in the Nationwide Conference (Currently 102) Obviously next year will be a tougher test for the reborn Crawley Town but the fact that it was in the end very comfortable (Winning with 5 games remaining) should take nothing away from the fans who have been there through all the hard times (Not just got interested after the Crawley- Man Utd game – in case your wondering I don’t include myself in either group as I maintain a consistent interest in Crawley Town which is well below the level of fan regardless of how they do.) Whatever is written about Crawley it should not at any point take away from the fact that they have had an impressive turn around, in fact their history has been quite remarkable ever since I started following them after moving to Crawley, First they won the last ever Southern League to enter the conference during the start of the big shake up of non league football, the first year they did really well but fell into mid table by the end of the season, this was followed by years of repeated financial instability which brought the club to the brink of extension on many occasions – in fact as I was a councillor on Crawley Council during this time I actually got to see at very close quarters how close this came, something many commentators do not seem to realise, now within a couple of seasons the team are heading to League 2, Next season may be a struggle, may be a season of mid table performances or it may be another blinding success as Crawley continue racing up the league pyramid the fact it is unknown, what we do know is that the Crawley Town are the best Non-League team in the country and that with a great squad and finally a stable management structure the future has never looked brighter for the red devils.

Movie Review: Source Code (Spoilers)

2011-04-12T22:03:00.002+01:00

Another Science Fiction film this week, this time it was Source Code. Staring Jake Gyllenhaal as an Air Force Pilot (Captain Colter Stevens) who awakes on a train bound to Chicago eight minutes before the train explodes killing everyone on board. Cpt Stevens is confused suffering from amnesia and facing an image in the mirror that is not his own – If it sounds like quantum leap that is understandable but this is more like quantum leap on steroids, there is a very nerd pleasing cameo by Scott Bakula as Stevens’ father – After the train explodes he is transported to an Air Force facility where it is explained that he is part of a project called the “Source Code”, The project places his consciousness into the mind of one of the victims and Stevens is tasked to find the bomber and thereby prevent another more catastrophic attack later in the day. Throughout the many trips back Stevens gets close to his bodies travelling companion Christina Played by Michelle Monaghan and starts to dream of not just finding the bomber but also saving everyone on the train, This is a good film which is well written and acted, obviously the technology behind it takes a leap of imagination and the form of time travel may not be consistent with your own beliefs (See below Spoilers for more information) and as with all time travel/repetition of events films there are necessary holes in the time lines that he experiences but hopefully these wont detract from the film.

Spoilers

Although I always try and avoid giving away too much about the films I review for this film I wanted to speak about the films take on time travel which is really focused at the end of the film, basically anyone who has an interest in time travel (More the fiction and theoretical side than actually trying it) will have heard of the Grandfather Paradox as beautifully exampled by the disappearing Marty McFly in Back to the Future, it goes that if you go back in time and kill your own grandfather would you cease to exist, or for that matter would the universe implode with the impossibleness of it.

The problem comes from the fact that if you go back in time and kill your grandfather you would “poof” out of existence, you could therefore not kill your grandfather so “Bang” he’s still alive so you are born as the time line is unaltered, but if you are born you will go back and kill him and the causality loop eventually destroys the universe whilst trying to reconcile these two events. Personally this has never seemed very likely to me as surely if you have been born then you have been born and the fact that you will not be born in future does not exclude your existence now – Basically as I see it as you travel through time you become detached from the time line, you will then exist out of time, if you then kill your grandfather as this current timeline moves forward you would then cease to exist, therefore after making the adjustment you can never return to your own time but you do in fact exist as a biological entity. Ironically this multi lane time line was also shown in the Back to the Future Trilogy when Biff goes back and alters the timeline in Back to the Future 2, mixing up their time travel visions as obviously in the world run by Biff then Marty would not have gone into the future to take the Delorian there at all.

Anyway this film uses the “trousers of time” theory enabling Stevens to live another life in his new body whilst his old body and mind sit in the army base, assumingly the source code project will eventually be used in this new reality and he will be sent back in time again, conceivably he will prevent whatever disaster is presented to him, fall in love with another person and live happily ever after again, Hopefully the project will be scrapped (ironically Due to lack of use) before he takes over everyone in the world. Perhaps a good sequel could be where he has to team up with himself to prevent another disaster! Obviously this is assuming that each person he jumps into dies at least 8 minutes after a previous incarnation has prevented whatever disaster he was sent back for. Otherwise I am not sure I can even be bothered to think about what that means.

My Thoughts on Alternative Vote

2011-04-06T06:55:00.006+01:00

I have been engaging people in several discussions recently on the AV referendum and my stance on it so I thought I would write an entry on AV (Alternative vote also known as Instantly Transferable Vote) just to give a bit of background on a) What it is, b) What it isn’t and c) why I am against it.

I will start as I do with each article I write which is to declare my bias, I am not saying that I will not try and be fair in my summery but it is important when reading my post to realise that I am against AV and there is a chance that this will colour my view, although I will endeavour to make sure it doesn’t until the final section (Why I am against it.)

WHAT IS AV?

AV or Alternative Vote is a system of polling where the voter lists the candidates in order of the preference in which they want them to be elected. So assuming we have 5 candidates

Mrs C Tory Conservative Party, Mr A Socialist Labour Party Miss B Eco Green Party Mr R Racist British National Party Mr A Comrade Communist Party of Britain

Now when people vote they will list the order of anyone they want to vote for, and leave blank whoever they don’t want to. So someone may list their votes as: 1 - British National Party/2 – Communist Party/3 – Labour Party/4 – Green Party/Blank – Conservative Party

Now if after the first round of counting (Votes numbered 1) we have the following results 10,000 Conservatives; 8,000 Labour; 1,500 Green Party; 600 Communist Party; 490 British National Party

With a total amount of 20,590 voters no one would have a majority (Over 50% of the votes) therefore the lowest amount of the votes is disregarded and they get their second choice so with the BNP being out the votes are recounted (Our fictional voters vote will therefore now be for the communist party)

After the second round then the votes sit at 10,010 Conservatives; 8,300 Labour; 1,550 Green Party; 730 Communist Party

Still no one would have hit 50% of the vote so the votes of the Communist Party are now disregarded and the votes are counted again. Our Voter is now classed as a Labour Voter 10,010 Conservative Party; 9,000 Labour; 1,580 Green Party

Still no clear winner so the Green party are kicked out and their votes are now rolled down to the next level.

Our final round of voting therefore will end up 10,200 Conservative Party; 10,390 Labour Party and the Labour Party candidate would become the winner.

Obviously this is a very simplistic view but that is intentional as I want to clarify the system more than show a true representation of what could happen.

WHAT AV ISN’T

I just wanted to write a quick piece on what AV isn’t just to try and stop any misconceptions, Alternative Vote is not Proportional Representation (PR), PR is a system where everyone votes and then the results are added up and each party receives the percentage of seats in keeping with that percentage of votes, PR is the system that we currently use to decide the European Elections.

Under PR you would no longer vote for a person but rather for a party and they would decide who gets to be elected. PR is considered, by voting reformers, the fairest way of deciding an election. However what it does is drastically remove the loyalty of an elected official to the electorate. Already in our system it is actually more important that you are popular inside your party than with the voters as an MP who is in good standing in his party will be given an easy seat, and if that fails there is always the unelected Lords (Peter Mendelson for example, who was unelected by the voters and then last year was actually placed in charge of the country during Gordon Brown’s holiday.)

Switching to PR will force a system where an elected official will owe everything to the party list (The only way of getting a seat will be to prioritise your party over your constituents) If you want an example of this I suggest you see how many people around you know can name your MP, and then try with your Euro MP – I would predict that the amount of people who can your name your MP is pathetically low but will be huge compared to your Euro MP.

WHY I AM AGAINST AV

Now I wanted to say why I am going to be voting No on May 5th obviously this is just my opinion and I don’t claim that this is the view of anyone but me, simply my reasons for voting no.

1) One Person, one Vote My main reason for being against AV is that it is a core principle of our democracy that there should be 1 person 1 vote, under the example I gave above as a Conservative voter I would have 1 vote, however the BNP voter was instead allowed 3 attempts to vote. Apparently this is fair but I personally do not want my vote to be worth the same as a BNP supporter’s third choice.

2) Doesn’t achieve its goals We are told that AV will break up the dominance of the Main 2 Parties however I really do not think that this will be the case, I can not see a time where the BNP or Communist Party receive over 50% of the vote (At least I hope not) so it will simply be an aggregation result – effectively what you are saying is “We know you want to vote for a smaller party, but which of the big two do you really want to vote for.” In fact using my home county of Sussex (East and West) as an example we can see that only Crawley and Brighton would have needed recounts the rest all going to Conservative with 1 Lib Dem. Also there is a very real chance that Caroline Lucas the Green Partys only MP would have lost her seat on subsequent recounts actually strengthening the hold of the main parties.

3) Time Spent Counting On a personal note, I really enjoy election night, I love watching the votes come in and I love seeing the situation unfolding, already there are often some votes which spill over to the next day but in any constituency where there is not a 50% winner (So obviously not too much of an issue in Sussex) in the first round this will start to necessitate second rounds, combine this with recounts (Possibly even recounts of the smaller parties to see who get removed next) and it is not uncommon for AV systems to still be counting a few days later.

4) Stepping Stone to PR Above I outlined my problems with PR, even the people I have met who are out actively campaigning for AV have suggested that it is a stepping stone to a “fully representative system” what they mean is PR, This is a very dangerous road as although PR may be in their eyes fully representative as I stated above it actually removes representation as people are no longer answerable to the people. It also encourages “Inertia Voting” This is where people vote the same way they always have regardless of what they are voting for. You would be shocked if you knew how many people are voting based on what they believe parties stand for and how few of them can actually say what that is or which policies back up their beliefs.

5) Gordon Brown would still be Prime Minister The final point that should not just make you vote no but to wake you up in fear every night is that under AV it is widely predicted that Gordon Brown would still be Prime Minister, Labour left office with the country bankrupted, debts piling up and millions deliberately trapped in poverty. After having spent all of our money, then borrowing billions more the outgoing Labour government still pledged millions they didn’t have on projects that were not necessities. Losing the election was the best thing to happen to Labour (and the country for that matter) as five more years would most likely have brought the country to its knees and ensured that Labour would have endured many years out of government. For the Conservative Party allowing Labour to hang themselves would have been preferable to taking the tough decisions of repairing the country, but unfortunately it is unlikely the country could have made it.

Final Thoughts on Russia

2011-03-31T22:24:00.003+01:00

The Church or Christ The Redeemer

Back from Russia now and after a very tiring journey home including a nightmare stop off in Munich, I will no longer listen to people saying the UK is inefficient after being told at Munich that we had to hurry to our departure gate for our connecting flight to Heathrow we had our passports checked twice and then had to go through security – Even scanning the soles of my feet with a metal detector, when I was barefoot – and get our bags scanned, seemed like a lot of security as we were never actually going to be landside of security. Only to get to the gate and find there was a two hour delay on the flight. Needless to say we were not best pleased, particularly as we had no Euros eventually we got onto the flight and added Lufthansa to the list of airlines I will never fly with again (Not a massive list, just Lufthansa and Easy Jet to be honest.) Anyway, Trouble getting back to the UK aside I wanted to write a quick summery of our Russian adventure focusing more on the experience than what we actually did (On the final day our visit to the heart of Moscow was at the same time as the visit of the Chinese Foreign Minister so it was a bit of a wasted day as everything was shut down pretty tight, but we walked around and enjoyed the relatively police free areas away from the Kremlin. If I had to pick five words to sum up the holiday they would be; Cold, Rude, Intimidating, Pricey and frustrating – I understand that these may not seem like very glowing words and I would agree, Russia is not for the casual tourist, I would recommend going to Prague first and getting around without using any English as a way to break you in slowly. But to fill in a bit more detail: Cold – Speaks for itself, it was -10 everyday we were there and there was constant heavy snowfalls, This was not too much of a problem when in the centre of Moscow but the walk to/from the Metro station was often a killer after a long day – Try to visit in Summer or stay next to a metro station. Rude – When I say rude I mean more as a generalisation rather than for individuals, Pretty much all of the individual Russians I was actually able to talk to were friendly, some would simply blank you when they heard English but the others would happily struggle through a bit of conversation in half English half Russian (My only contribution to the Russian part was Spasiba (Thank You) and Niet (No)) However the problem is that I am particularly obsessed with manners even for an Englishman and so the Russian approach was a severe culture shock, If you were to queue up in Russia you would soon find yourself at the front of one of several queues as the Russians would start to queue either side and slowly push you out of the way. Intimidating – This is the police rather than anything else, We were told that the Police supplement their income by fining tourists and as a result we went out of our way to avoid them, or looking like tourists, annoyingly this means I can not confirm this piece of advise for myself as we did not speak to a policeman at any point whilst we were there. People in Uniform however were everywhere and the stress of trying to not look like tourists was quite draining, it really made me appreciate the UK Police who I am very confident would gladly help a lost tourist if needed – obviously if they weren’t busy chasing criminals. In fact at any time when I was younger and needed help I always sought out a policeman and was rarely disappointed, so it was a real struggle to get out of this way of thinking. Pricey – The Pricing issue was an incredible juxtaposition of the very cheap and the very expensive, it seemed to work mostly along class lines where if it was used by the ordinary Muscovites or a necessity (or was handmade) it was very cheap, if it was for the very well off or imported then it was very expensive. Vodka was less than a £1 a litre where as Mineral Water was up to £3, you could pick up a packet of cigarettes for £0.30 but Strawberries would set you back £30 (for about £2 worth in the UK.) Perhaps the most telling example of how people were cheaper then goods an advert for a Lap Dancing Club advertised Lap Dances for 50 Roubles or £1.10, these went up through a Private Dance (£8) up to a VIP Dance for £11 I dread to imagine what that involves. For the most part though everything cost as much if not more than in other world cities so if you are going (Unless it is on a Stag Night) take lots of cash. Frustrating – The frustration was mainly caused as I am very keen on photographing architecture and Russia has a lot of wonderful buildings combining old churches (Both original and reconstruction) with very ambitious Soviet building projects and minimalist design blocks – however not being able to be seen as tourists and the fact that many of the buildings are illegal to photograph (And unless you can speak Russian it can be very hard to know if you are outside a hotel or a government building) I missed out on hundreds of good shots that I would have happily taken if I had been back in London.

Movie Review: Limitless

2011-03-31T22:17:00.002+01:00

This week’s cine-visual treat was Limitless staring Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, The A-Team) as a failing writer; It is never really explained how he actually managed to get a book contract when he had never even managed to write a single word – I would love the name of his literary agent, or the publisher who is handing out advances based on concepts for that matter – His life is changed for ever after a chance encounter with his Ex-Brother in Law (Brother of his Ex Wife rather than his Sisters Ex Husband) who offers him a pill. The Ex-Brother in Law having given up drug dealing in order to work in selling pharmaceuticals, This pill he explains is the answer to the fact that we only use 20% of our brains and can open up the other 80% - Obviously at this point I have to point out that this is not true and in fact all of our brain is used just for reasons of controlling electrical output our minds do not all fire at once as this would over heat our receptors. – Anyway he decided he has nothing to lose so tries the pill and instantly becomes alert focused and seemingly has total memory recall. A few days later he has finished his book, started trading shares and started to learn new languages, although his first priority does seem to get as many women into bed (Or bathroom cubicle) as possible. Obviously there is a catch, would be a pretty boring film if not :- “Here’s a Pill” “Thanks, here’s a book” “Thanks” So the film starts with Bradley contemplating suicide as a gang of murder intent criminals are breaking down his door, and then tracks back to see how he gets there (Always a bit annoying to me to know where a certain point in the film will be as it then locks the possibilities into a certain point, and this film didn’t really throw up any shocks on how he got there.) The only really annoying points for me were that 1) He had an advanced intellect and thought through all possibilities and yet never once considered the possible side effects, surely as a genius this should have been a consideration. 2) The criminal “mastermind” that he was pitted against (Not Robert De Nero who was very good as his boss/adversary) did not seem a worthy opponent, if we were to believe that he did in fact have all the skills that he had received from this pill then he should instead have been a minor inconvenience. 3) too many questions were simply ignored, I don’t want to ruin anything with spoilers but I left with a great deal of unanswered questions, and it isn’t one of those “Imagine your own ending” films (Which also annoy me – I pay you to tell me a story, I can easily stay at home and tell myself one.) the questions are simply ignored entirely. The film is based on the book “The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn and rather unusually for a Science Fiction film a book I had never read, so it was quite unknown territory for me which probably led to me liking the film a little more than if I had known the story. However I do think this is a good film, and a good concept so well worth watching if you get a chance. Finally a quick bit of trivia, Bradley Cooper attended the Actors Studio New York, If you watch the series Inside the Actors Studio in which stars are interviewed in front of students Bradley Cooper was in the audience which interviewed Robert De Nero, must be quite a good feeling to think that De Nero is now supporting him in a movie.

Day two in Moscow

2011-03-28T06:21:00.002+01:00

For our second day we started off by travelling on the Metro, unlike the tube which is a means to an end i.e. to get around, the Moscow metro is a series of interconnected museums to Russian history, many show statues to Soviet heroes (farmers, soldiers etc..) others have mosaics of scenes from before the revolution. And best of all as you only pay for entrance there is no more cost for jumping around than there is making a single journey. (The best stations we saw were Belorusskaya, Kievskaya, Park Kultury and Ploshchad Revolyutsii)

One of Moscow's Metro Station

Several stations later we came out at Gorkey Park and looked around the several miles - at least it felt like it - of artists selling their paintings.

Statues at Gorkey Park

For dinner we went to Maki Cafe (Glinishchevskiy Pereulok 3) for Stroganoff which we washed down with a very reasonable bottle of "Soviet Champagne" - we thought it might be something strange but it was just a very nice sparkling wine. - only £10 a bottle which is half the cost of most wine here (they don't grow grapes so all wine is imported) The food was of a good quality and at just over 1000 roubles (£22) not a bad price. Of cause it does take some time to get used to people smoking around you whilst you eat, although it has not been that long since it was banned in the UK the practice seems particularly alien when you first walk into an establishment - and when you arrive back at the hotel and wonder how the smell followed you, usually as your hair and clothes stink of it.

First day thoughts on Russia

2011-03-26T19:16:00.002Z

Today was our first full day in Moscow, we visited Red Square, the Kremlin and because it is a tradition McDonald's.

Now I know it can seem a little common or unadventurous to visit McDonald's however we always visit in each country as it is the one constant and shows better than anything else the difference between countries - the food is (nearly) always the same and yet there are always differences. Anyway this McDonald's was very much a Russian version, in place of the queue there was a scrum! That is the way with Russia, if you queue behind someone within a few seconds you are standing at the front of one of three queues, and if you're not forceful it will be the slowest moving one too.

Red square was a good day out and after the fight for tickets and The fight to get in the Cathedral of St Basil was very interesting, the other end of the square was the museum of history which gave a strange symmetry of a church followed by an exhibit on evolution.

Overall my view of Moscow after one day is that it is functional, there is the old joke about the US spending millions on developing a space pen to use in zero gravity and the Russians took a pencil, although I know both are false - a ball point will work in zero gravity - I do now see what they mean, as we arrived in Moscow there was heavy snow fall and several of the passengers remarked that in the UK the airport would be closed, the fact it wasn't in Moscow was due to a fleet of snow clearer's in ancient tractors and men walking along with large bundles of sticks knocking the snow off the tarmac. Clearly a low cost solution but one that works, in the UK however it would be a matter of hours before the unions were in the management offices screaming about health and safety - the result we can't afford the solution so we don't get one - this practical attitude is probably most clearly felt in the Metro system which is quite remarkable, the stations are like palaces and the trains are like trains, they are not new, not comfortable and very crowded. However they are rarely out of commission - no upgrades means limited closures - they run every two minutes and they are very cheap (55p per journey no matter how far) the Russians do not seem to ask for new carriages, and they don't get any, the staff are paid an average wage (tube drivers get nearly double the national average) and as a result prices stay low. In short the Metro like Russia is functional.

Tomorrow we are going to Gorky Park, the Zoo and on a tour of the most palatial metro stations.

When will Crawley be a league team?

2011-03-18T18:11:00.002Z

Waiting for the Champions League Quarter Final Draw starring Tottenham I thought I would spend five minutes running some calculations on Crawley Town and their push for League Status. Crawley currently sit top of the Blue Square Premier with 77 pts ahead of AFC Wimbledon with 71 but having played 5 less games and facing them on Friday night at home so things are looking very good, what I have decided to look at however is when Crawley can have the title wrapped up. With Crawley, Wimbledon and Luton (Currently in 4th) having 12, 8 and 11 games remaining respectively they each have a maximum possible points score this season of:
Crawley Town 113 (Previous Highest is 101 Aldershot 07/08 Season)
Luton Town 102 (Hence why I have included them in analysis)
AFC Wimbledon 95

Obviously anything can happen in football and so far all Crawley are guaranteed is to finish above 9th but that would take not just a catastrophic loss of form but also an incredibly unlikely turn of events that would see the worst case scenario coming up for Crawley in every match. But onto more optimistic matters.
Going forward if things go Crawley’s way then the following scenario can see the title (and by extension promotion) being secured in two weeks time.
Crawley are playing 5 games in the next two weeks (Actually 2 weeks and 2 days)
Home – AFC Wimbledon
Away – Eastbourne
Away - Gateshead
Home – Mansfield
Home – Darlington
Obviously a very challenging schedule however if they win all the games they will sit on 92 Points with only AFC Wimbledon (92), Luton (102) and Wrexham (93) able to beat them and AFC only on GD.
Wrexham’s next game is away to Fleetwood Town which is not an easy fixture but all they need is one loss from their 4 games in the next two weeks and their maximum will be 91, If AFC Wimbledon drop a single point (Assuming they lose to Crawley Tomorrow Night ) they will also be mathematically prevented from beating Crawley.
The least likely turn of events however is that for Crawley to wrap up the title on the 2nd April Luton will need to lose all 4 of their matches between now and then which is more of a stretch than Wrexham and Wimbledon losing one, or for my money Crawley winning the next five.
If Luton and Crawley both continue to win however then the title could instead be clinched 10 days later on the 12th April when Crawley Host Luton, perhaps this would be a better turn of events as it would make that one hell of a match.

And the Oscar goes too...

2011-03-03T21:31:00.005Z

Well we have finished another awards season with the 83rd Academy Awards.

There are 24 awards presented in the Ceremony which was presented by Anne Hathaway (Not Shakespeares Wife) and James Franco who seemed quite nervous throughout, but who cares about that as after all what we are watching for are the winners.

The Main Awards went to:

Best Picture: The Kings Speech

Best Director: Tom Hooper - The Kings Speech

Best Actor: Colin Firth - The Kings Speech

Best Actress: Natalie Portman - Black Swan

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale - The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo - The Fighter

Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler - The Kings Speech

Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin - The Social Network

Along with four technical awards for Inception which was definitely the most original idea of the year, The social network also picked up awards for Editing and Original Score, perhaps a sympathy vote for the film that was very widely tipped to clean up before the Kings Speech came out.

Overall I think there were no particular surprises I said after watching The Kings Speech that it was my pick to win and I think it was well deserved, Similarly Natalie Portman's performance in Black Swan was one of the best solo performances I have seen in a film for years. Christian Bale is one of those actors who however you feel about him as a person, and there is a lot that happens in his personal life, he always gives 100% to any role he takes and so rightly got recognised, I doubt it will be his last.

I think the star of the awards however has to be Tom Hooper who made the rarely made transition from Eastenders to Best Director Actor, and finishes a fast transition to hollywood elite.

Movie Review: I Am Number Four

2011-03-03T20:29:00.003Z

Big Shock at the cinema this week, We went to see I am Number Four and it wasn't all that bad, I know what your thinking how can there be anything good about it when it is produced by Michael Bay, and normally I would agree that as soon as Michael Bay gets involved in any project it is normally by nature a bad film, but this was not all bad.

The story is the current photo fit young adult movie that is doing the rounds.

Alien/Werewolf/Witch/Vampire loner and has to keep to himself but falls in love as his enemies are closing in.

The Outsider this time is the eponymous Number 4 played by Alex Pettyfer (The Kid from Stormbreaker) with the Love interest played by Glee's Dianna Agron. It very much reminded me of a cheaper version of 2008's Jumper, cheaper in cast rather than budget which I believe was actually more.

I had been expecting the film to be very poor as in Empire magazine it said that the premise was a group of Nine Alien children who each had a number and had to be killed off in the correct order, obviously this made me simply wonder why they don't get number 1, lock him away somewhere and then all protect him knowing that until they get him the rest are safe, but it appears that Empire are wrong (Not for the first time) although they are being killed in order by the Magodorions - it must get hard to come up with names, at least this is better than unobtainium! The Magodorions are quite funny with gills on their cheeks and sharp teeth they have mastered interplanetary space travel but seem to lack the ability to set a decent trap, and for some reason they decided to cut the power to try and slow down someone who has in built torches in his hands.

The best supporting character is Callan McAuliffe who plays the geeky friend and UFO hunter who has some good comic lines, and gives everyone who is sitting at home on the Xbox a good excuse to play on.

Overall I have started to think that perhaps the only reason the film is not all that bad is because being a Michael Bay I was expecting so much worse!

There are apparently going to be six films in this series (although apparently the books are not written yet.) and I will happily go and see the next one although the series really could go south very quickly.

King Alfred the Great: My Great x29 Grandfather

2011-02-24T17:23:00.003Z

It’s always a good day when you discover that one of your ancestors was a King, I have only just discovered that I am descended from Alfred the Great (and as it happens Charlemagne) and in so being I am related to every member of the European dynasties all the way down to Elizabeth II, along with David Cameron and David Beckham. Now before I start brushing off my Tuxedo for April 29th (My Invite to Cousin Wills’ Wedding.) perhaps I should explain (For those of you not already in the know that is – apparently this is quite well known, and i'm just a bit behind with this one.)

Basically I have worked this out using maths which work as follows.

1) Alfred The Great existed over 1000 years ago (I have used 1000 as a simple number to ease the calculations)
2) Since Alfred the Great became the first King of England there have been at least 33 Generations (Again simplified to have 30 years generations.)
3) As I had two parents – who each had two parents if I was to fill out a 33 Generation family tree 1000 years ago I had 8.5 Billion ancestors
4) There were only 30 Million people in Europe at the time (It is unlikely that I had many ancestors from outside Europe as travel was not exactly common.)

So the chances of me not being descended from Alfred The Great in any way is very minute obviously the probability isn’t 0 but it is very close. With Charlemagne who is the most used example of this theory and lived over 40 generations ago relating to 1 Trillion ancestors there is actually a 12,000,000,000,000,000 (12 Quadrillion?) to 1 chance that everyone living today with Primarily European descent is not descended from the Holy Roman Emperor. A similar effect is witnessed for other figures from around the world i.e. Confucius.

Of cause despite the knowledge that Alfred the Great sits on my Family Tree (Actually over 33 Generations I should have an average of 281 connections) I actually think that perhaps a much more interesting fact is that I will also have an average of 281 connections to every other person who was alive and had an exponential family tree at that time. I wonder if Alfred ever thought that as he went around on his mission to free England from the Danes that everyone he met that had children would at some point interact with his own children from Kings to Peasants so that at one point in the future in the England he worked so hard to achieve (Albeit a more Normanised version than he had planned.) The data held by electricity companies would be complete and without errors – Surely that is what it was all about.

Love Never Dies - But Perhaps it Should Have

2011-02-21T20:30:00.005Z

The film review this week is a bit different in that it is not about a film.

Last week we went to the Adelphi to see “Love Never Dies” the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, although it is apparently not a sequel – just a musical featuring the same characters, set a few years afterwards and based on a novel that is listed as a sequel to the original show, Not sure how something qualifies as a sequel these days.

Anyway, I have seen the Phantom of the Opera a few times and enjoyed the original novel by Leroux, so I was really hoping that this would be good, unfortunately it put me in mind of the continuing story of the Phantoms slightly simple brother, the most interesting thing in the entire show was actually the concise history of Coney Island - and that was in the programme.

The original, despite being by Andrew Lloyd Webber (Not sure how anyone sat through Stairlight express and didn't wonder how Webber has come to dominate the west end.) was based on a very good story and had some decent songs, The sequel (I'm still going to call it that.) is based on the book the Phantom of Manhattan by Frederick Forsyth which whilst being a good novel in its self has had all of the depth and it often felt like common sense removed to be replaced by unrememborable songs and the word "hindmost" definitely the show I have seen with this word repeated the most often.

There is no mystery to me at all that the Broadway show has been indefinitely delayed, I kind of wish that the West End show had been as well. Perhaps the clue should have been when I saw that Ben Elton had become involved in the project.

For a real sense of the feelings that this production elicits try checking out the protest group Love Should Die

Updated Premier League Predictions

2011-02-21T20:17:00.002Z

I have re-evaluated the stats on my league table prediction programme (Replaced the predicted values with the real values and increased the Co-Eff of the new values by .2 to weight reality over predictions)

There have been big changes at the top since last time, Mainly for a Tottenham point of view that Chelsea will swap places with Man City but that Tottenham will still qualify for the Champions League – perhaps more remarkable however is that Arsenal will win the League overtaking Man Utd on the 30^th April after victory at the Emirates stadium and not looking back from there.

Sunderland still sit in a highly likely Europa League place just needing either Arsenal to win the League Cup Final against Birmingham or Arsenal/Man Utd to play Man City in the FA Cup final and they will feature in the Europa League for the first time.

Liverpool's recent improvement in form is not enough to lift them above Sunderland, so if things go the way I predict then Liverpool will miss out on European Football next season unless both of the above come true.

The other big changes are at the bottom where Fulham are no longer predicted in the drop zone and West Ham end up getting relegated along with Blackpool and Wigan.

So here's the latest table

I must again preface this with the acknowledgement that I know that this is all rubbish and will still quite likely bear no resemblance to the final league position – especially as I have so far managed just 46% of correct results.

Movie Review: Tangled

2011-02-18T06:41:00.002Z

Tangled is based on Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm, like with a lot of Disney stories it has been given a more modern make over, the Princess this time being more Mr Miagi than Damsel in distress, The Hair has almost been given a life of it’s own with Rapunzel using it like Indian Jones handles a whip to be both a source of transportation and a weapon – although for obvious reasons of plausibility the hair does seem to be of differing lengths throughout the film. The story is very much Disney and from the very start you work out what is going to happen but then it is a Disney so it doesn’t take away from the charm. As with most child based releases these days there is obviously a “cute” character, this time a Chameleon called Pascal – coming to a lunchbox near you soon. However this Pascal is actually quite funny so not just another JarJar Binks.

Disney have once again foregone the star packed voice lists of Dreamworks and Fox choosing instead lesser known stars (Although not to take anything away from them.) Mandy Moore – More known as a singer than an actor and Zachary Levi – The guy from Chuck. The singing therefore sounds much more natural to the stars and in keeping with the traditional Disney animations feature as set pieces throughout the film. Supporting talent is provided by Ron Pearlman and Brad Garratt (The brother from “Everybody loves Raymond”, although to me he will always be Trypticon from Transformers.)

The film is fun enough to keep children amused but funny enough to entertain adults, and when your sitting down for a half term movie is there anything else you require?

Crawley Vs Manchester United

2011-02-18T06:38:00.002Z

I tend to follow lots of teams usually due to geographical location, obviously Tottenham are my first team as I support them over any other team but I also keenly follow Crawley (My closet club), Brighton (The closest league side – until next year), Uxbridge (Home Town Team after Ruislip Manor Folded), Hayes and Yeading (From Working at Hayes), Reading (Just always liked the club), Sutton United (My Old Bosses favourite team), Brentford (Because it means a lot to my friends Dad) and Arsenal (Shocking to admit as a Spurs fan but as my Dad, Brother, Sister, Brothers in Law, Sister In Law and Nephews – Except Archie who is a Spurs fan!!! – Are all Arsenal fans it is hard to not like success that will bring happiness to so many people who matter to me, although I still love it when we beat them.)

But this year apart from Spurs it has all been about Crawley and their visit this Saturday to Old Trafford to face Manchester United, now the Manchester United message boards are full of talk of Alex Fergusson resting players and putting out a reserve side which I am sure will happen but I am sure you can expect to see the United bench full of Talent who can be brought on in case of the shock goal by Tubbs. Personally I hope that United do start with a weakened side as although I am sure for the Crawley Town players the dream is to meet Berbatov and Rooney on the field but if they are underestimated by United there is a real chance of an upset, well maybe real chance is a bit of a stretch but in the FA cup you never know. Win or lose this is Crawley’s year, the FA Cup tends to throw up one of these teams every couple of years who go on a cup run much further than their league position suggests and although Wembley is a long way off the effect that this tie has had on the club financially (This one game could easily make the club more money than it has made in some previous seasons.) and on the Town in general, suddenly everyone is proud to be from Crawley and come Saturday at 17:15 the entire town will be either in Manchester or Inside watching the game – Obviously this will not be true I know for a fact my Wife has no interest in watching it but it feels like it at the moment.

Sunday there is a very real chance that we will be waking up to just see the reality that although Crawley are favourites to end the year as a League Team even the most optimistic fan knows there is a massive gulf between the countries best League and Non-League team but that will not stop us dreaming.

Champions League Dream Continues

2011-02-18T06:33:00.001Z

This has been a great time for football in the last few weeks; well it has for me anyway. Obviously if this is not your first visit to this blog then you know that my first footballing love are Tottenham Hotspur, And The fact that this year I have seen Tottenham triumph over both Milan giants makes this the best season since I started to support Spurs back in the early 90’s. Obviously the AC Milan vs Spurs match is only half over but we must be favourites to go through and even if we crash out at this stage I think we have proved that we deserved our place in the European Elite competition, there is every chance that we will be muscled out by the Money men at Man City and Chelsea but at least we proved that a club built on sound financial management and slow improvement can operate at the highest level, and unlike when Leeds gatecrashed the party built on speculation that it would be a recurring invite Tottenham can survive not playing in next years Champions League (Although if we can keep Bale and Van Der Vaart is another question.) And unlike Everton’s brief soirée a few years later we have also proven that we can match some of the best that Europe has to offer – Although in fairness with our recent records against Arsenal and Chelsea I think we already knew that.

It is a great bit of justification for Spurs fans, when Tottenham qualified last season I was told by many fans of Champions League teams (Mostly Chelsea but this is because I was working in South London and they were everywhere.) that we would not make it through qualification, Then after the draw for the groups was announced it was exclaimed happily that We were doomed and could never beat Inter Milan, then after the last draw I was confidently told, albeit at a lesser volume than the start, that AC Milan would humiliate us at the San Siro. I am happy to report that they are wrong once more, despite this and possibly due to the immense disappointment I have had over the years I am still cautious about declaring Tottenham the victors as it is only a one goal lead and anything can happen however we are in control of our own destiny and the Lane has been an intimidating fortress over the last few years so things are looking very bright.

The match itself was notable for the Attack of Gattuso on Joe Jordan our 60 year old first team coach (And voted number 34 in the list of 100 hardest footballers) This really was a game of two halves, in the first half Tottenham dominated, had most of the good attacks and looked set to dominate the AC Milan team who simply couldn’t find any rhythm the second half however Milan came out in a different move and seemed determined that if they could not out play Tottenham they would try and out muscle them, this also proved problematic however as Milan’s five footers struggled to muscle 6ft 7In Peter Crouch, they decided instead to rely on Cheating and unsportsmanlike behaviour. The main talking points (Other than the diminutive Hair Ball (Gattuso) attacking the Bald Giant (Jordon)) were the tackle by Flamini on Corluka which will hopefully not cause any serious injuries but shockingly did not result in a Red Card and the Tottenham Goal where Spurs particularly Aaron Lennon, Luka Modric and Crouch demonstrated that along with the flair and patient build up play we demonstrated in the first half there is also a killer counter attacking element to the team, one they must be fearful off when they visit the Lane

Of cause we need NHS reform?

2011-02-03T07:13:00.001Z

There has been quite a vast amount of discussion in the last couple of days around NHS reform with the government’s critics and multiple “self-interest” groups attacking the coalition’s plans to reform the NHS. It would have been very funny were it not such a potential danger that the opposition party can not see any need to reform our health system despite the fact that the NHS is the worlds third largest employer and that the budget for the NHS actually accounts for more of the nations tax income than any other service (I seem to remember reading somewhere that the NHS actually costs more than is collected via Income Tax, but I can’t remember where so it’s just here say.) Anyway to have the Shadow Health Secretary claim that plans to reform the NHS are driven by ideology is a chilling indictment that Nu Layb’r seem to think that all of the issue caused by their incompetence are now all forgotten, There seems to be from these people a denial of the problems that they have caused which does not just extend to their usual trick of “Not our fault gov.” and start to point towards an actual policy of “Let’s prevent anyone from trying to improve it.” A policy which could well end up being Labour’s greatest legacy to the anarchic state formally known as the UK.

Anyway the reasons for the reform for the NHS are simple so I will not spend to long labouring the point.
1) It’s too Big
2) It Costs too much
3) It does too much
4) It wastes too much
Now as a resident of the United Kingdom I love the NHS, I think deep down so do most of us, however it IS unsustainable, if you as an individual were in as much debt as the Country is and you were renting a Lamborghini at £2000 a month, it would not be considered very prudent for you to cut your £10 a month newspaper bill (Although I would advise that you also cut out the non-essential items.) instead you would be suggesting that this imaginary person got rid of the Lamborghini and got something more reasonable like an Astra. The problem faced by the UK however is that we are paying for the Lamborghini and have got an Astra, albeit an Astra that is staffed by a professional driver but the hard work of the dedicated workforce still can’t make the Astra a Lamborghini.

So if the problem is not the money going in why would Labour think that the solution is to keep adding more money, if it hasn’t worked for the last 13 years I am at a complete loss to see why they think it would work now – but I guess that kind of thinking is how they got us into this mess in the first place! – The time has not just come to reform the NHS, but has come and passed several times, and if the NHS is to be reformed isn’t it infinitely better that it is driven by local medical professionals based on the needs that they see everyday rather than going the “Labour” way and bringing in another level of management to help push the decisions back into the centre where a Bureaucrat can sit with his medical insurance plan and decide that an old lady in Lancashire doesn’t need access to a drug as it will only extend her life by five years!

Another Record Transfer Window

2011-02-03T07:10:00.002Z

Well the Transfer Window slams shut for another January and for the first time I can remember Spurs failed to buy anyone on the last day, The big news was the Chelsea – Liverpool – Newcastle switch around in which Liverpool swapped one of Europe’s best strikers for an injured Geordie, not that I think that Andy Carroll is a particularly bad signing, it is simply that he is no Torres.

For me as a Spurs fan the transfer window was for the main a disappointment, we purchased Steven Pienaar and failed to buy Charlie Adam on the last day of the window, personally I am very glad that we failed to buy Adam, again I think he is a quality player and I understand why Blackpool are so keen to keep him, but again he is not what is needed. If you look at Tottenham this season one thing you would not say is that we have looked lacking in midfield, I see a fully fit Tottenham squad as consisting of Lennon – Modric – Van Der Vaart – Bale so I am not really sure the part that Pienaar can play and I definitely do not see a place for the Blackpool skipper. Apparently we also spent our time looking for a striker, this I do agree with a little bit more as Peter Crouch and Roman Pavleychenko still do not seem to have what it takes when the chips are down and I don’t think it would be unfair to say that Jermaine Defoe is not firing at his best.

If I was to name all of the players that I believed Tottenham had that were of a Champions League standard i.e. Able to play consistently at the highest level. I would have to say we have Defoe (When fully fit again) Van Der Vaart, Modric, Bale, Lennon (Again when at peak performance) and finally I would include Woodgate although with his injuries he can’t really be counted. We then have several of what I would call Europa League level players who would be at home at any second level European Club – Huddlestone, Dawson, Bassong, Corluka, Gomes, Gallas (Although he has obviously been a first tier player previously.) King, Benoit and Hutton. As you can see from this list what I am trying to get at is that it is our defence that needs the work, all of our defensive players are either highly injury prone, or struggle to keep up a “Champions League” level of performance. I was very disappointed therefore to not see a decent stabilising defender coming into the squad over this window. Still it could be worse, we could be Liverpool!

Movie Review: Black Swan

2011-02-03T07:08:00.002Z

The Second film I will be reviewing, or the first if you are reading the blog from the top down is Black Swan, Black Swan is the third film I have seen this week and it would not be a lie to suggest that that in most years this would be the film of the year, however up against the Kings Speech, for me it comes in second. With the Oscar buzz around both of these movies they are often mentioned together however they really couldn’t be more different. Where as the Kings Speech took someone who was well known, humanized them and let us into their inner struggles; the Black Swan takes an area which is less known to the majority of people and through the eyes of one dancer shows the stresses and strains that push against her and cause her to not just question her own abilities but also her own mind. Make no mistake that this film is not an easy watch, it is difficult viewing at times with the occasional flash of an image suddenly forcing you to reassess a lot of what you thought to be true.

Natalie Portman would be a deserving recipient of the Best Actress Oscar as the Israeli actor really nails the role and has you desperately searching for the truth as she responds to what is happening and what isn’t happening, The end is a cascade of emotions as you finally realise what has happened and what is imaginary only to suddenly be thrown back the other way and realise that the opposite is true.

Mila Kunis is very good as Portman’s friend/Rival and Winona Ryder is great (As usual) as the ageing prima ballerina who is replaced by Portman showing the cycle and fear that stalks the main dancers as, just when they are achieving their goals they are seemingly already looking over their shoulder to see who is coming up behind them, Perhaps this is how it felt to be a medieval king?

The film has several shocking moments; one that really got me was when a finger nail was ripped off (Something which always freaks me out.) but although there were many not looking at the screen moments they were very important to the plot and feel of the movie, refreshing in today’s torture porn cinema offerings.

I have never been to the ballet before and after watching this film feel I could never go in the future; if this is the toll it takes on the psyche of the dancers there is probably a very good case to be made for getting ballet banned.

Movie Review: Season of the Witch

2011-02-03T07:02:00.002Z

Missed a few weeks of blogging again, leaving me with a backlog of Movies to review, The first one is Season of the Witch which I have to admit I have thought about not reviewing as I would much rather get straight into the second review I will be putting up today Black Swan, But if I miss Season of the Witch I am worried I would never come back to it.

I don’t want you to get the impression from this that Season of the Witch is a bad movie (It is, but you should pick that up from the review instead.) To be honest to call it a bad movie would probably be unfair, it was not supposed to be an Oscar winner but coming sandwiched between Oscar favourite The Kings Speech and the very well made Black Swan the inadequacies of this medieval adventure are only too obvious.

The story starts with a demonstration of the persecution of some witches, obviously much to the surprise of the priest carrying out the execution one of them turns out to be a real witch, we then cut to our two heroes (Nick Cage and Ron Pearlman) they are knights in the crusades, which seem to stretch from the Arctic to the Equator as they follow the commands of a clearly insane religious leader, they wake up and realise that they may not be doing gods work and walk away from the army.

This is all essential set up for the actual story which sees the two Heroes disillusioned with the Church finding themselves once again serving them as they escort the witch to a monastery where she can be put on trial for witch craft, there is the usual assortment of escorts along with the two main stars – The Older War Haggard Guard, The Young Inexperienced yet expert Swordsman and the cowardly conman forced to help in return for release from the stocks. The script and storylines are no more original than their choice of companions.

For me this story is made by Ron Pearlman, I should admit that I am a massive Ron Pearlman fan so this was always a bit of a given, but he is great in this film playing the usual “Pearlman” role (The Hard guy who is never endingly loyal.) Cage on the other hand whose acting talent is often unfairly questioned once again plays the same role this could easily be a scene from a flash back in the Sorcerers Apprentice or Ghost Rider the characters are ostensibly the same in each.

All that said the film is not really bad until the end when everything goes very over the top, but if by the time it arrives you are surprised then you really must not have been paying attention.

Why I believe now is the time for Nuclear!

2011-01-20T06:46:00.002Z

Why I believe that Nuclear power is the only viable large scale solution to many issues we are being faced with currently in the UK.

As with any piece where I give my personal opinion I really don’t want to mislead anyone (And possibly a throw back to my days as a councillor and making declarations of interests) so I will come out up front and say that as an Employee of EDF Energy, who are a subsidiary of EDF, who create 78% of their power through Nuclear power, I would be a hypocrite if I claimed to be anti Nuclear power whilst happily pocketing my pay check each month. However with the news that inflation in the UK has hit 3.6% for the last month of 2010 I think that we need to really look at why despite the country bordering on recession the rate of inflation seems to be staying stubbornly high. The reason is that this is not Inflation in a way that we can control, this is imported inflation. And in particular Oil driven inflation. Now on the news this morning they mentioned the increases in Fuel and Utilities both of which are very closely linked to the price of Oil (The Wholesale Gas market is based on the cost of Oil) the one thing that does not seem to be mentioned in this is that we will be unable to control our own inflation (if we can ever control it again in a globalized world.) until we reduce I reliance on oil and in particular the OPEC cartel who know that there is a limited amount of time left to make money out of oil – if we Ignore increases in demand, which is something that is highly unlikely with China predicted to double their demand within 10 years, there is around 40 years of Oil left in the planet, if China and India join the US in the 20M barrels per day league (if not more) and Brazil expected to hit over 5M per day this will reduce the oil left to around 25-30 years (And imagine how much those last few barrels will cost.) And this is why we need Nuclear power now, no longer can we try and steer our economy through internal control measures when our economy is tied to the whims of a product of which we are a net importer. Only Nuclear has the benefits of stability of supply tied to being a carbon neutral production. With production of Electricity no longer tied to wholesale prices, the costs of the electricity produced by Nuclear power stations are known in advance, which combined with electric vehicles means that the costs of transport and utilities would only need to be increased in line with the costs of inflation, rather than being a key make up of inflation as they are currently.

Whilst I am a big fan of alternative power generation, One of the best sites I have seen is a field of Solar Panels turning towards the sun in Germany, and I think that wind turbines are really majestic as they swing through the sky, the problems they have is no reliability of supply, and a much higher per KW/H cost to Nuclear. Perhaps some day we will be able to successfully deploy a fleet of Tidal/Wind/Solar generators in the Atlantic to generate all of our power needs until that technology is advanced enough we would need to continue our exposure to oil. Let’s not forget that despite the advances made in Nuclear Technology a planning to generation period for a reactor of ten years has not been unheard of, all this means that if we put of making a decision of for 10 years there may be a good chance that Oil will run out before the new reactors are built, we must therefore (Again this is solely my opinion) build a new fleet of nuclear reactors now and then use the years of guaranteed supply to look for more efficient renewables after this. We could then look to build our next generation of cars and power stations to take advantage of Hydrogen power which is synthesised from water and emits water as the result of using it, but it is a long way off from being a commercial and technical reality.

Road Laying Machine

2011-01-20T06:43:00.002Z

Could do with one of these after the recent snow falls!

Tiger-Stone is a Dutch paver laying machine that can produce brick roads.
Paving bricks are dropped by front-end-loader onto the angled trough.
Men help to spread them in the trough as they drop into the forming jig.
As the electrically operated crawler moves forward along a pre laid sand base layer, all the stones are packed, gravity held together & descend the sloping ramp on to the road.

This Weeks Premier League Predictions

2011-01-20T06:42:00.000Z

22/01/11

Wolves – Liverpool = Wolves Win
Arsenal – Wigan = Arsenal Win
Blackpool – Sunderland = Draw
Everton – West Ham = Everton Win
Newcastle – Tottenham = Draw
Aston Villa – Man City = Man City Win
Fulham – Stoke = Fulham Win
Man Utd – Birmingham = Man Utd Win

23/01/11

Blackburn – West Brom = Blackburn Win

24/01/11

Bolton – Chelsea = Bolton Win

25/01/11

Blackpool – Man Utd = Man Utd Win
Wigan – Aston Villa = Wigan Win

26/01/11

Liverpool – Fulham = Liverpool Win

The King's Speech - Movie of the Year?

2011-01-15T14:13:00.003Z

There is no doubt in mind that the King's speech is the best film of the year, but then, on the 15th of January, that would not be a particularly hard achievement, However there really would need to be a good a film to take this accolade later on.

The film is based on the true story (It has a surprising amount of historical accuracy for a movie) of Price Albert, The Duke of York (Later King George VI) and his relationship with an irreverent Australian Speech therapist Lionel Logue. The story displays perfectly the internal struggle that The Duke of York goes through as he juxtapositions his annoyance at the perceived lack of respect with his desperation to solve his long term speech impediment.

The film stars Colin Firth as Prince Albert/King George in a performance that has been tipped to receive an Oscar nomination and I think there would be something wrong with the academy members if he doesn't. He successfully manages to fill a stammer with as much edge of your seat nervousness as the best psychological thriller as you are literally pleading with him to get the words out. Firth shows a great deal of different parts of the Kings personality as he is often flits from Anger to melancholy to vulnerable but makes him inherently likable. Whilst Geoffry Rush is wonderfully cast as the failed actor turned speech therapist, he sits passively as the King rants at him and has many calming mannerisms that sit well against the uptight royal, this film is at it's heart a film about overcoming adversity, but it would be a very boring watch without the great buddy chemistry produced by the main two characters.

The supporting cast do not let this film down either with Helena Bonham Carter in great form as Queen Elizabeth (The Queen Mother) sitting helplessly by as her husband struggles with his duties. Mike from Neighbours (Guy Pearce) plays the fun loving Edward VIII whose Abdication caused George the VI to take the throne, he plays a much more sympathetic figure than a lot of portrayals, and his Nazi sympathies are played down, but he manages to portray the King's struggle.

The only inaccuracy that bugged me was that it was suggested that Prince Albert chose the name George as Albert seemed too German where as in fact it was King Edward VII (Also called Albert) who decided that no other monarch should ever be called King Albert in reverence to his father Prince Albert.

Well Done Crawley Town & Premier League Predictions

2011-01-12T21:30:00.001Z

Before I publish my Predictions for the next round of Premiership Games I need to reflect briefly on Crawley Town quite sensationally getting into the fourth round of the FA Cup for the first time in the clubs 114 year history. A feat made all the more remarkable for those of us who remember the repeated High Court appearances of 2006 – 2008 a period where it very much looked like the club would be wound up. I even remember the council having to look at options for the Broadfield Stadium as it appeared that HMRC would force Crawley out of business. Now under a new owner and with the Best team in Non-League football they first knocked out League 1 Swindon and then Championship Derby to set up a fourth round tie with Torquay the lowest ranked side since the first round – Already fans are talking of Crawley in the Last 16 and surely a real glamour tie if they can pull it off. It won’t be easy but even if they don’t make it then Crawley Town can be proud of what they have achieved just as the Town is sure to be proud of them.

Anyway, onto the predictions

Chelsea – Blackburn = Chelsea Win
Man City – Wolves = Man City Win
Stoke – Bolton = Stoke Win
West Brom – Blackpool = Draw
Wigan – Fulham = Draw
Liverpool – Everton = Liverpool Win
Birmingham – Aston Villa = Birmingham Win
Sunderland – Newcastle = Sunderland Win
Tottenham – Man Utd = Tottenham Win

Few strange stats, firstly very few of them have close Co-Effecients so not really a lot different than you would probably have picked if you were just guessing. The most risky one is Tottenham V Man Utd which I have down as a Tottenham Win which the figures back up but so far my calculations have proven particularly useless at picking the correct Spurs results so either my predictions are skewed by my personal bias and I have somehow coded in the particular way to give erroneous results – or Spurs just keep losing games they should really win.

MS Access - Replacing Part of a String

2011-01-07T06:29:00.005Z

Had another issue where we needed to replace a section of a string with another input string, here is the function I came up with.

to use it you need to enter three elements, 1) the String to be changed, 2) The Part to be Removed, 3) The String to Replace it.

so for example ReplaceString("This is the Start","Start","End") Where the String is "This is the Start" and the function will replace "Start" with "End" so that the Output of the Above function is "This is the End"

Function ReplaceString(ByVal strString As String, ByVal strOld As _
String, ByVal strNew As String) As String

Dim lngCount As Long
Dim strChange As String

strChange = strString
lngCount = InStr(strChange, strOld)

Do While lngCount > 0
strChange = Left(strChange, lngCount - 1) & Replacevalue & _
Mid(strChange, lngCount + Len(strOld))
lngCount = InStr(lngCount + Len(strNew), strChange, strOld, 1)
Loop

ReplaceString = strChange

End Function

Can I predict the rest of the Premier League Season?

2011-01-04T18:57:00.004Z

Of cause I can't, however I have been messing around over the Christmas break and I have come up with a Prediction model for the premier league. As I like to put my neck on the line I am going to publish my prediction of the final league table now.

So I am showing that Manchester United will win the Premier League with Arsenal Second, Man City Third and Spurs retaining forth place at the expense of Chelsea. Other points of note are that LFC finish 9th and so do not qualify for European Football and West Ham avoid relegation at the expense of London Rivals Fulham in the last week of the season.

So how did I come up with these predictions? Basically I built three values based on Home/Away and Combined performance.

I then applied a sliding prioritising to these values based on the time between the game and the current date so that the previous games ratio was 1, the game before applied at 0.9 down to all games over ten weeks ago based at 0.1 these then combined to give a rating for the home and away teams, Then combining the Home/Away score with .25 score from the total combined score I applied these to the results of the last match between the two teams to come to the predictive final score.

So for example tonight’s game against Stoke I have Man Utd with a score of 0.95 and Stoke with an Away score of 0.39 these values are applied to the reverse fixture a 1-2 victory for Man Utd and so the model predicts a 2-0 win for Man Utd.

Now before I head down to William Hill to make my fortune I should say that the model has a predictive accuracy of 53% (On Correct results rather than direct scores) which may sound like a wide margin of error (And it is) but it is considerably better than the first instance of the model which ran at 14% accuracy.

The main limitations of the model are that it will always produce a very low amount of draws preferring to predict direct Home and Away wins (Mostly Home) and the scores predicted are usually low as it can not correctly predict when a team will collapse to a 6-0 defeat.

Finally due to the ratings that I calculate the rating will evolve and change with each week so even after one game the prediction model will adjust all future games and therefore the weekly predictions I am planning to publish (If I get the time and remember) will be highly unlikely to reflect the current predictions as this is based on if the teams play the rest of the season in their current form. For example when I built the model last week it predicted Arsenal Third, Chelsea Forth but now predicts Tottenham Fourth and Chelsea fifth based on the change in Chelsea’s rating after the Aston Villa game.

So in short all of this means basically that there is no point me listing the league table as it has come from the model but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I will however be publishing my predictions each week so that you can see how I am doing over all, just the results though as the scores are seldom actually correct.

So here goes for this weeks

Blackpool V Birmingham – Blackpool Win
Fulham V West Brom – Fulham Win
Man Utd V Stoke City – Man Utd Win
Everton V Tottenham Hotspur – Tottenham Win
Arsenal V Man City – Draw
Aston Villa V Sunderland – Aston Villa Win
Newcastle V West Ham – Newcastle Win
Wolves V Chelsea – Draw
Blackburn V Liverpool – Blackburn Win
Bolton V Wigan – Bolton Win

2011 - My Predictions for the Year Ahead

2011-01-01T16:51:00.002Z

So here goes, My predictions of the Headlines we will see over 2011.

Unions make reasonable Demands to avoid strike – Only joking of cause they won’t.

Sarah Palin seeks Republican Presidency Support
We should get a better idea of who will face Obama in 2012, Front runners at the moment seem to be the news papers favourite Sarah Palin and Mitch Daniels who is primarily an economist and will appeal to large areas of Republican Support (Daniels was the Budget Director for George W Bush which may work for or against him its hard to tell at the moment.) either way this time next year we should have a much better idea who it will be that starts the race for the Whitehouse. Although I am predicting that in the End Celebrity will beat competence.

Two Tier Euro Zone
After a very troubled couple of years it will be put up or shut up time for the Euro, in 2011 Germany and France will have three choices; first is to give the struggling Eurozone members all of the money they need to survive and therefore practically tie all of the Eurozone countries together in a truly single financial unit; second choice is to abandon the project and all go their separate ways after much cost and a great deal of embarrassment or Third (And what I consider the most likely) To create a 2 tier Euro with Germany, France and the Benelux states having the Euro with the Med Countries and Eastern Europe switching to a separately managed single currency.

Wide Spread Flight Disruption
Two sources for this one, The BA strikes will be returning next year as Unite once again seem to think that with BA leaking cash through every orifice that they should continue to be overstaffed and over paid. The main source of disruption I am talking about however is another Ash Cloud, during the last Ash cloud incident (I don’t feel it really deserves to be called a crisis) it was pointed out that the much bigger Katla Volcano was over due for eruption and I am predicting 2011 to be the year.

North and South Korea on the brink of war
I very much doubt that hostilities between the two Korean Republics will restart however with Kim Jung-Un taking over from his father as dictator of the Worlds least stable nuclear power I am predicting a fair amount of attention to be on the Korean peninsular and as China takes it’s place as the second superpower I imagine that they will want to limit the damage to their blossoming economic superiority which may well see China and America leading the world in a beneficial closer working relationship.

Widespread Protests (Of a minority)
I think we will get a great deal of noise from a very vocal minority of Union bosses and left leaning individuals still convinced that the country should not be trying to balance it’s budget, Whilst these deluded individuals talk about these great disruptions however I also predict that the rest of us will simply get up and come to work (despite their efforts to stop us.) and whilst Labour and the Unions bleat on about how unfair it is that those who are receiving state money are receiving slightly less for a while the rest of us just get on with paying for it.

My 2010 Awards of the Year

2010-12-31T11:42:00.005Z

Well with 2010 done and 2011 ahead I have decided that I may join in with everyone else and provide a list of “Awards” (In Name only don’t be expecting any money) and Predictions for the year ahead.

Working in chronological order I will start with the Awards for 2010 first and then deal with 2011 in a subsequent post.

So here are my Awards for 2010.

SPORTS

SPORTS TEAM OF THE YEAR
My sports team of the year is the England Cricket Team, whilst cricket is not my main sport I think that the team who have long been seen as underachievers (Aren’t all England Teams viewed in this way.) but this year they have quite literally taken the world by storm, Winning the third instalment of the 20:20 World Cup before days before the end of the year producing a great performance to retain the ashes – So what if most of them seem to be South African!

SPORTS HERO OF THE YEAR
My Sports Heroes of the year (Joint Heroes) are unsurprisingly from Tottenham had you asked me last year I would have hoped they would have been from England’s World Cup Winning squad (Football not Cricket.) but we all know how that turned out. So instead of an Englishman my picks are a Welshman and a Dutchman. Between Gareth Bale and Rafael Van Der Vaart Tottenham have started to not just deliver some good football – even during the last 20 cold years we have played some great football – but they have actually changed the way Tottenham feel, no longer do we have to look at the list of upcoming fixtures and dread meeting Arsenal, Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool or even Newcastle we now know that when we are on form we can beat anyone and that has come from these two figure heads for the change that has come about in the last five years.

SPORTS TRAVESTY OF THE YEAR
This has to go to FIFA for their Awarding of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar. Now I have no issue with these two countries being made hosts of the tournaments, obviously I would have loved England to get the World Cup in 2018 but if FIFA wanted it to go to Russia and they believe that Russia can put on a great World Cup then that is good enough for me. What I consider the Travesty is the process by which they were awarded the competitions. If FIFA had already decided (As seems to be the case) that they wanted to send the World Cup to areas where it had not previously been held then why make previous host countries go to the expense and trouble of preparing bids and sending delegates when they really had no chance whatsoever.

HONERABLE MENTION IN THE WORLD OF SPORT
An honourable mention in the world of sport this year goes to not an athlete but rather an administrator, Again using my personal bias I have gone for Daniel Levy the CEO of Tottenham Hotspur PLC, The reason I have selected him is that over successive years since Levy and ENIC have run Tottenham they have moved forwards time and again and have improved right up to last seasons achievement of finally competing in the Champions League, for me what makes this all the more remarkable is that it has been achieved not through a big money donor (Although I have never thought that they have limited the money Spurs managers could spend.) but by building year on year and making very astute transfer dealings. There is a very good chance that we may not qualify for next years competition and that Manchester City could spend their way into the top four but at least Daniel Levy has shown that in this big money world there is still the ability for a club to be well managed and still make an impact on the European stage.

TECHNOLOGY

PRODUCT OF THE YEAR
Again for people who know me, very little surprise here as my choice for Technology Product of the year which goes to the HTC Desire HD, I have had the HTC Desire for just under a year now and the phone is as near to perfect as I could find, and the HD version is even better, I think that the Apple IOS and Google Android battle will run throughout 2011 and beyond (With Windows Mobile 7 a really unknown quantity at this point.) however for me the freedom represented by Android as well as HTC’s integrated apps (Friend Stream, HTC Sense etc…) really make the HTC Android handhelds stand out above Apple, and while I know there have been many people pointing at lower specs handhelds such as the Wildfire to show Apples dominance this is unfair as the Wildfire should be compared instead with Apple’s entry level smart phones (Which they haven’t got) so it is the two top products the Desire and the iPhone 4 who should be compared and for me the HTC comes out on top.

INNOVATION OF THE YEAR
The innovation that has blown my mind this year was the revelation that Google had completed thousands of miles in a self driven car, my blog post on this subject took me on a variety of emotions from being awestruck that the realty was this close to completion to worries that this could be one change to many for the world and that there was a chance that the economy could not handle the amount of jobs that may well be lost from this new technology (From Taxi Drivers and Driving Instructors to Parking Attendants and Street Cleaners) however for giving me a quick glimpse as to what I have always imagined being the future then this is my Innovation of the Year.

NOT INTERESTED OF THE YEAR
This award might actually be a surprise to some who know me as I am obviously a massive cinema fan and a big technohead but the big invention (Well proliferation anyway.) that I have had no interest in this year is 3D. The enhanced dimension cinemas and televisions that we are all being told we have to get just holds no interest for me at all. Whilst I appreciate that it gives you a greater depth of vision into the movies I really do not find myself forgetting that I am watching a film in the cinema, so what’s the point? I can follow a storyline on a 2D screen just as well so if it is not to give you a greater sense of “being part of the action” it adds nothing, and if it is to make you part of the action then it is simply not good enough to make you forget that it is on a screen. I have pledged that 2011 I will be viewing all films in 2D where possible as this is one giant leap sideways I will gladly see dropped.

CINEMA

FILM OF THE YEAR
For me the film of the year was most probably Inception, Now if you have read my review of the film you will know that it was not actually my favourite film and the ending was quite frankly laughable but in a year in which Hollywood has struggled to produce even a rudimentary amount of originality the concept of this film was as refreshing as watching The Matrix for the first time. It made you realise that there may actually still be one or two people in the movie industry who were capable of independent thought, and hopefully it will not be another 10 years before they have another one.

PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR
Obviously I understand that if you want to be taken seriously as a film fan then when Hollywood makes a new version of a non-english speaking movie, you are required to always speak about how much better the original is. However the performance of Chloe Moretz in Let me In, the US remake (Sorry Re-Imagining) of the Swedish Vampire Love Story Let the Right One in, was really a first class performance from the 13 year old which deserves recognition.

WORST FILM OF THE YEAR
This has to go to the Other Guys only the second movie I have not managed to get to the end of, From the very beginning to the point where I left (As they are caught up in an explosion) I do not remember laughing or even understanding what they thought was funny, the main characters were losers whose personalities were such that in fact you wanted them to lose with the supporting characters being equally as cringe worthy that the very idea of any of them coming good would insult every ounce of fairness in the universe.

POLITICS

STORY OF THE YEAR
There was only really one story that dominated this year politically and that is the coming together of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to form a peace time coalition. Back before May there looked to be a wide spread fear that we may get a hung parliament and therefore have to hold another election before the end of the year, on the 5th May it looked as though in fact it would be a Conservative Government followed later on in the night with the realisation that it would be a Hung Government. Most people I think at the time were expecting a Conservative minority government but instead after a couple of weeks of negotiations we were presented with a solution. There rest of the year seemed to consist of the really not news revelations that 1) The Coalition members are not all of the same ideology (Obviously as if they were they would have all been in the same party in the first place) and 2) that the public are not going to enjoy the necessary cuts.

PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR
It may seem like a bit of a cop out here but my Political Personality of the Year goes to David Cameron, aside from obviously securing his position as Prime Minister, brokering an extraordinary coalition agreement and starting to steer the economy away from the financial melt down that Gordon Brown was heading for, This has been quite a year (and a bit) for the PM. Starting last year with the death of his Son Ivan, through the closest fought election battle in memory, including presidential style TV debates (A flop in my opinion.) and then into Number 10 followed closely by the birth of his second daughter and another personal tragedy with the death of his father. So whatever your views are on his politics or even his background (never quite sure why that matters.) you can’t disagree that this has been a very interesting year.

FALSE HERO OF THE YEAR
The False Hero of the Year Award is created especially for Julian Assange, the founder and spokesman of Wikileaks. The reason that I have selected this particular award to be presented to Mr. Assange is that he seems to being held up as a messiah of digital freedoms and whilst I really have no strong feelings of wikileaks one way of the other – I am mostly of the philosophy that the information released is not very interesting, the fact that the US ambassador thinks that a chancellor who has never been in power is inexperienced really isn’t a great shock – the simple fact is that Assange is accused of not one but two counts of molestation, something that makes him a very unlikely hero. He has claimed that if he returned to Sweden to face the allegations he will be quickly smuggled to the US to be incarcerated. Surely the attention that Wikileaks have received over the last year would make any silent transfer an impossibility and therefore the only thing it appears to me that Assange is trying to hide from is the full effect of Swedish law – Sweden which according to the corruption index is the second least corrupt country in the world (After New Zealand) – This leads me to think that therefore the only thing that Assange is scared of is that he will be found guilty in court and have to serve the sentences fitting the crimes he has been accused of.

EMBARRASMENT OF THE YEAR
My final Award is actually the hardest as politically there have been many who could well fit the bill, from the Students who think that attempting to injure Police is not a serious matter, the Train Drivers who think that they should receive quadruple pay for Boxing day as many Londoners were forced to walk to work for basic Sunday payment. Or even Ed Miliband who looks set to be the least electable Labour Leader since Neil Kinnock stood grinning like his Spitting Image doll on the stage at the Labour Party Conference so many years ago. But in the end my Political Zero of the year is Liam Byrne, former Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the cluless individual who left the note “Dear Chief Secretary, Sorry we’ve spent all the money, there’s nothing left.” And in one note of attempted comedy summed up not just the problems facing the coalition but was also to show the disregard that the Labour leaders had for the economy and the public which caused the problem in the first place.

Happy New Year

2010-12-30T20:21:00.004Z

Wishing all of my Readers (Both of You) a Very Happy New Year and a delightful 2011.

Band Aid not getting enough sympathy

2010-12-22T07:32:00.000Z

Driving to work this morning on very icy roads I was listening to Band Aid’s do they know it’s Christmas (The original not the travesty of self promotion that was the latest effort) However I do not think the line “There wont be snow in Africa this Christmas Time.” Had quite the sympathy creating effect it was supposed to have.

What is wrong with the Press in the UK?

2010-12-22T07:28:00.001Z

What is wrong with the press in this country? I listened to Nick Ferrari on LBC (97.3 FM) this morning on the way into work, he was interviewing John Redwood (Former Cabinet Minister, Current MP for Wokingham) and Ferrari was desperate to get Redwood to say that the coalition was in trouble, obviously Labour had been on earlier getting their political points in and trying to claim it signalled a general election around the corner but John Redwood was very level headed and simply gave his opinion this seemed to anger Ferrari who on a few occasions talked over him to try and bully (Which if you have ever seen John Redwood being interviewed you should know is nearly impossible.) to say that he felt that the coalition were in severe trouble. Now if you were to ask why he was so aggressive with him when he came on I am sure you would get the usual Press response. “It’s our job to hold them to account!” an interesting concept as surely isn’t the job of the press to actually report the truth? And as Ferrari is now a Talk Show host and not an actual reporter surely isn’t his job to facilitate a public discussion between alternate sides of a debate? Not to try and pick up some useful sound bytes?

This is not an issue unique to talk show hosts however as it would appear that an interviewer who does not attack his interviewee has failed his interview. Now I am not stating that we should return to the times where the interviewer was in awe to the politicians or even to a position where they were not allowed to go in hard when it is necessary, what I am saying is that it should not be the norm. It’s not that politicians need to be given greater respect, but that they should be given the respect everyone of us should be able to expect when being spoken too.

The other issue which the press bring up with our elected officials which has bugged me for a while (And which I may well have ranted about on occasion as well) is the way they attack politicians for changing their minds, the papers are full of stories of U-Turns and Backtracks as if the worse thing a politician can do is change their mind, now it may just be my naivety but personally I would prefer to have an elected representative who is willing to admit that they are wrong and make amendments to their policy than one who sticks blindly to their guns regardless of if the policy turns out to be wrong. This was typified for me in the debate about an Asylum cap before the last election. Cameron was pushed by Brown to give a number for the Asylum cap and when he said that he would have to work the figure out each year he was accused of weak leadership – for not giving an arbitrary figure. This was then repeated in the press so that a policy of having the right cap at the right time and for recognising that the world does not stand still (so what is right for 2010 may not be right for 2025, in fact I would say that it is highly unlikely to be.) was seen, rather than realism and a good policy, to be a lack of policy.

Can Vince Cable Bring Down the Government?

2010-12-22T07:24:00.003Z

So it would appear from the press that the coalition are in the process of collapsing, this stunning revelation comes from Vince Cable stating that being part of the coalition is like a constant war. Now there are a few questions that come up from this story.

Primarily, is Vince Cable really a nuclear weapon? Or is this just wishful thinking? Personally I am taking this as a bit of a naive boast. Cable thought that he was talking to two Lib Dem voters in his constituency and it is possible therefore that he decided to “over egg” his power in the coalition in order to justify the votes he received. Surely there is no one man that could bring down the government in one move, if Cameron decided he’d had enough and walked away from Number 10, it may trigger an election but even then I think you will find that in this time of belt tightening and financial pain the general public have little appetite for another general election.

The Second question that struck me immediately on hearing the story was, Is anyone else actually surprised? This is a Coalition government not a single party system, a fracture in a party is something you may not expect (Although personally I welcome it.) but a fracture between two parties is hardly news worthy, I do not believe that the Lib Dems and Conservatives have formed a single party but rather are two parties doing the adult thing and are looking to put their differences aside in the national interest, this can not be easy for any of them and a coalition government will by the very definition always be weaker than a single party administration.

Finally I want to ask if Vince is actually wrong in what he said, he has always been a bit of an uncertainty in the coalition and is definitely one of the less easy cabinet members so I doubt very much that it will shock the PM too much. I am sure that they will be having a word with him to try and ensure that he is more careful with regards to who he talks too but at the end of the day shouldn’t MP’s be allowed to express their own opinions? Surely we elect these people based on believing they are the best person to represent us, therefore why do we insist on trying to silence them all the time. I may not like what Mr. Cable has to say but if it is what he believes then surely he should be allowed to say it (It would then be down to the PM to see if he should be allowed to remain in the cabinet, and the people of Twickenham to decide if he should be allowed to remain in Parliament.) I don’t really see what it has to do with the rest of us, I personally fear a time when our MP’s are not allowed to have independent thoughts, as then you will find that only a few people shape the entirety of our society.

Automatically Sort Excel Range

2010-12-22T07:17:00.001Z

Had another Excel request through – You wait a month for one then two come through at once.

This time the request is how to make a sheet update automatically when a certain cell is updated, This is how I did it (Although in all honesty there are hundreds of snippets on the net if you look for them.)

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Not (Application.Intersect(Worksheets(8).Range("N:N"), Target) Is Nothing) Then ‘Change this Range to contain the cells you want it to trigger for
AutoSort ‘This calls the sub procedure below which does the actual work
End If
End Sub

Private Sub DoSort()
Worksheets(8).Range("L2:O49").Sort Key1:=Worksheets(8).Range("L2"), Order1:=xlAscending, Header:=xlNo 'This line does the sort as requested in this case sorting the table L2:O49 by the field in column L2 – All of these calculations take affect on Worksheet 8.
End Sub

Handy Sub to Unlock Protected Excel Worksheet

2010-12-17T20:30:00.006Z

Had a request a few weeks ago from someone who needed to unprotect an Excel sheet which had been protected by someone who was no longer with the company so they could not get the Password.

here is the procedure I developed,

Sub PasswordReset()

Dim ia As Integer, ib As Integer, ic As Integer
Dim id As Integer, ie As Integer, ig As Integer
Dim i1 As Integer, i2 As Integer, i3 As Integer
Dim i4 As Integer, i5 As Integer, i6 As Integer

On Error Resume Next

For ia = 65 To 66: For ib = 65 To 66: For ic = 65 To 66
For id = 65 To 66: For ie = 65 To 66: For i1 = 65 To 66
For i2 = 65 To 66: For i3 = 65 To 66: For i4 = 65 To 66
For i5 = 65 To 66: For i6 = 65 To 66: For ig = 32 To 126
ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(ia) & Chr(ib) & Chr(ic) & _
Chr(id) & Chr(ie) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & Chr(i3) & _
Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(ig)
If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then
MsgBox "Your Sheet has Been Unlocked Using " & Chr(ia) & Chr(ib) & _
Chr(ic) & Chr(id) & Chr(ie) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & _
Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(ig)
Exit Sub
End If
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
End Sub

So next time you forget your password and need to unprotect a sheet just add this to the VBA window and run the Module. Hey Presto.

Movie Review: Mosters

2010-12-17T20:23:00.003Z

Final film I am going to review today (Or the first if you are reading the posts as displayed on the blog) is for Monsters, There have been many comparisons between last years District 9 and Monsters, both stories are about a world where Aliens have arrived and are looking to be contained, there are obvious parallels looking at the subjects of racial disharmony (District 9 being a reflection of South African racial tension) and of illegal immigration (Mexico is being decimated by the Monster Attacks whilst the US has built a giant wall to keep them out) however Monsters is much more a film about the relationship of two strangers during a stressful time rather than a film about the Aliens, it is in fact this interplay that is explored along with (Apparently unintentionally) the subject of Cross border Immigration.

Gareth Edwards Directs in what is his biggest released movie to date, although still was filmed with a very small budget and staring real life couple and relatively unknown actors Scott McNairy and Whitney Able the film was mostly shot with just the two leads, a sound engineer and the Director and it is this intimacy which comes across in the filming as the giant octopi blending into the background of the story and being more the catalyst of the story rather than the story itself. The main issue with focusing so much on the story however is that the plot has holes bigger enough for the hundred foot squid aliens to walk easily through.

Firstly McNairy is told by his boss that he has to ensure that Able gets safely back to America, we are led to believe that Able’s father is a media mogul and that she is wearing an engagement ring that is worth over ten thousand pounds. There is also at no point any kind of information given that any of these aliens can fly. Both of these points lead me to question why on ensuring that she is safe and with Monster activity in the area why would he decide that the best way to ensure her safety was to head as close to the infected zone as possible to place her on a ferry, whilst an important plot point as if they are not there how would they end up having to try and cross the zone over land, surely the smart money would have been to head south to an airport and fly back to the states. There are constant Air Force flights taking place over the infected zone but even so there must be some kind of domestic flights which go around the zone? Eventually they enter into the zone and are carried across most of the zone until being left on their own after a monster attack; luckily they have a great sense of direction so are still able to find their way to the wall that marks the border in a very short amount of time. On arriving at the wall you start to think that their troubles have only just started as the wall is a few hundred feet tall and stretching as far as the eye can see, one of their guides a little earlier when talking about the wall states that in fact America is actually more like a prison trapping themselves in rather than keeping others out (Again the Director says that he did not intend it to be a commentary on immigration, which I find hard to believe.) However it is nothing like a Prison after all they can still get to Canada or the rest of the world – And as I say there must be a way to get to Mexico even if you have to fly around the zone. Anyway having made it to the wall they walk for what appears to be half an hour and find a massive gap in the wall where there is a small check point and after climbing about 12 feet (keep in mind this fence was built to keep out 100ft tall Aliens) they are able to walk into America only to discover the shocking news that this part of the US has been over run (or possibly lightly stepped over.)

The film has a few very good visuals of the Aliens right at the end although the tentacles searching the room shows that this film is not completely immune to Hollywood fashions (Skyline and War of the Worlds to name just a couple.) I would say that the main performances make this a worthy attempt at a compelling story but that I do not believe that it was not intended as a commentary on American immigration policy (Although if it was the final message appears to be that if you let immigrants in they will destroy your country and have sex in your petrol stations.) and the story that was used to add background was not thought out well enough to hold the plot in place, the small focus during a big event is very popular at the moment but unfortunately Edwards is not M. Night Shyamalan.

I would say however I disagree with the comment made by the person sat behind me in the cinema “That was the worst movie released this year.” But I guess he never saw The Other Guys!

Movie Review: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2010-12-17T20:15:00.003Z

The next film of Movie Day was the Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third in the inconsistent series which follows the highly successful The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and the less successful Prince Caspian. There has been considerable speculation as to why Prince Caspian was less successful than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe however the answer is typified for me in an interview in Empire magazine with Will Poulter who plays the ever annoying Eustace in the film in which he states that his experience with the C.S Lewis series is that he “read the first book, but hasn’t read any of the others.” This is the truth of it, The Lion, The With and The Wardrobe is a book that everyone knows and loves but the rest of Lewis’ chronicles are less known and hardly loved – How many people actually know the name of the next book in the series (The Silver Chair) a few but I would guess not a great deal.

Anyway the film follows King Caspian (Played by Ben Barnes) who is joined in Narnia by Edmund and Lucy the two youngest of the Pevensie children and their cousin Eustace when the three children are submerged in water from a painting of the Dawn Treader. Caspian brings them all on board and as is usual in Narnia takes them on a quest and into great danger; the quest is to find the seven missing lords of Narnia who before Caspian became king (As seen in Prince Caspian) left for the islands out to the east. Caspian is accompanied on his quest by Reepicheep voiced in Prince Caspian by Eddie Izzard and now voiced by Simon Pegg as the director (Michael Apted) thought that Izzard’s voice was too mature to play the animated rat, who always reminds me of Puss in Boots from the Shrek series, but perhaps Izzard was simply too busy losing an election for Labour to reprise the role!

Obviously the quest does not go smoothly when as they arrive at the lonely island where they should be they find them deserted and so in true Narnian fashion King Caspian leaves all of his well armed seamen on the beach and heads into unknown dangers with just the three human children as support – Not entirely sure why all Narnians seem to think that the presence of a 15 year old girl beats a dozen armed men but that is just the way their society seems to work so who are we to argue. So with the completely useless Eustace left to keep guard (Seriously how did this guy get to be king) it is perhaps (not) surprising that that they are ambushed and taken captive by slave traders. This is all very fortunate as they are imprisoned long enough to view a woman separated from her family being sucked into a mysterious green smoke. I won’t bore you with the details but eventually they are saved by the army they brought with them and so head off to search for the citizens who were taken by the smoke.

The rest of the story is pretty normal fare with the ship following the path set out for them and all the time relying on the ability of a few children to save the world, a high feat indeed as one of them is the ever slap worthy Eustace, luckily however he is soon turned into a Dragon and so starts to become instantly likeable – A bit of a shock change as he goes from Selfish and annoying child to selfless and brave dragon in an instant which perhaps could have used a bit of fleshing out. The finale is a bit of an anticlimax although does have quite a nostalgic moment which reminded me of the end of Ghostbusters (not that there was any stream crossing.)

After the main story has finished there is a little bit hinting at the Christian nature of the Chronicles of Narnia subtext, I was actually very surprised that my companion to the cinema was not aware of the Christian message, In Which on being told she could not return to Narnia, Lucy asked if she will ever meet Aslan again, to which the talking Lion replies “That is why I bought you here, that to know me for a short while in this world will result in you knowing me for a long time in the other world.” She was therefore trying to work out who was supposed to be the Lion in another form before I revealed the connection to Jesus. (Coming Back in the first film and then transcending to another world etc..)

The ending does bring up an interesting point of continuity however as Edmund Played by Skandar Keynes aged 19 and Lucy Played by Georgie Henley aged 15 are informed that they have become to old to re-enter Narnia in the future, despite the fact that William Mosley (Peter) and Anna Popplewell (Susan) were 21 and 20 respectively during Prince Caspian. Aslan then tells Eustace that he may well visit Narnia again in the future (As he does in The Silver Chair) However Eustace is played by William Poulter who is two years older than Georgie but I guess that is probably just me getting too wrapped up in the detail.

Movie Review: Megamind

2010-12-17T20:13:00.001Z

Have seen a great many films recently as we had an entire day to catch up with the ones we had previously missed, So again it look like the next three articles will be film related (I do have other interests honest.)
First up in Chronological order is MegaMind this cartoon features the vocal talents of Will Ferrell with Brad Pitt as the supporting star (Brad Pitt supporting Will Ferrell – Hollywood has really gone mad!) The film is yet another evil genius turned good (Universal’s Despicable Me being another example) but being from Dream Works you are pretty much guaranteed that there will be a few laughs – although once again it would appear that Dream Works have looked to invest their budget in big name voices.

Megamind is the Blue coloured super genius who strikes up an early rivalry (From 8 days old) with Pitts Superman clone Metro Man when their planets are sucked up by a black hole and both are sent to earth to fulfil their destiny, Where Metro Man falls serendipitously into the mansion of a wealthy family his ship forces Megamind to crash in a Prison for the criminally gifted and so it would seem that their roles are set, to battle the causes of Good and Evil in intricate plans some of which Metro Man wins, others Megamind almost wins until almost by chance Mega Mind wins and is actually able to defeat Metro Man and so take over Metro City as the evil overlord – however soon a new threat emerges to attack Metro City and Megamind is called upon to become a hero – Can he answer the call? – of cause he can, I am sure that this isn’t a spoiler as if you didn’t see where this was going then this cartoon may be a bit to intense for you. Anyway the story aside, which is a very predictable by the numbers movie (It is after all a cartoon) the test of a cartoon these days is “are there enough laughs to make the film interesting to the Parents as well as the kids?” The answer is probably Yes, although as is often the case with these things there were not many laugh out loud moments and it is reasonably difficult to remember them afterwards.

The main selling point of this film however is the voice talent and the visual scale with Metro City being carefully recreated by Dream Works which they clearly hope will be able to cover the inefficiencies in the plot and the lack of originality, I have read a review stating that the Film is not as funny as you would expect from a Will Farrell movie, which I disagree with however I have never been a Will Farrell fan as I find that I struggle to ever feel sympathy for the “idiot” character that he usually plays and so actually found the change of pace to the more cerebral, but luckless Megamind actually a much better fit with the comedy I enjoy.

Champions league draw, again

2010-12-17T11:56:00.002Z

Well I was told that Spurs would never make it to the champions league, then I was told that we would be lucky to qualify, next came the certain fact that we would not qualify from our "group of death."

You can imagine how happy I am then to be waiting for the draw for the knock out stage of the competition, there are not a lot of easy teams left at this stage so anyone we get will of cause be tough, our opponents will be out of the second placed teams - not including Arsenal or Inter Milan - so it will be out of: Roma, AC Milan, Lyon, Copenhagen or Marseille. Of these I guess I would like Copenhagen and dislike AC Milan - although our last visit to Milan was definitely an interesting event.

I am very glad we finished top of our group however as things look a lot worse for Arsenal who will be travelling to Germany or Spain to face one of: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich or FC Schalke. So I guess they will be hoping for Schalke but they are no no means an easy team, and I do not really understand Arsene Wenger's assertion that they don't fear Barcelona as they were beaten so badly last year, but I guess that's his job.

Anyway onto the draw:

We got AC Milan in what I am sure is the game of the round, at least no one can say we did it the easy way, the strategy should be to try and keep 11 men on the pitch there and then destroy them at home, it has worked so far.

Other games
Roma vs Shakhtar
Valencia vs Schalke
Inter vs Munich (so arsenal are going to Spain.)
Man Utd vs Marseille
Barcelona vs Arsenal - repeat of last year
Chelsea vs Copenhagen
Real Madrid vs Lyon

So not a great draw for spurs, but at least it is worse for Arsenal.

Harry Potter, The Deathly Hallows and the badly managed Plot

2010-12-10T10:09:00.002Z

This week we went to see Harry Potter and the deathly hallows part one. I have to admit that I read the book simply as I had read all of the others, it is often said that the books become ever darker as the series continues however I would probably say that it felt more bogged down as the series continued and what is often considered depth is in fact simply over populated plot strings. This, for me, all culminated in a very, the best word I can think of here is boring, 1st half of the final book. This first half in my opinion should have been left out altogether in the movie (it could have been handled better with a five minute background scene.) Instead the fear of the ending of one, if not the, highest earning, franchises made them see fit to make it a stand alone movie.

The film starts with an overly active first set piece in which they rescue Harry and are attacked by the Death Eaters - Always reminds me of a gang of 12 year old wanna be gangsters - It then descends into a seemingly endless set up of staring, moping and sulking which seems to last endlessly and use up considerable amounts of the good will towards these characters who have been the main stay of English Cinema for the best part of a decade.

There are a couple of cringe worthy scenes, not least an impromptu, in appropriate and untimely dance sequence between Harry and Hermione which was as ungainly in it's delivery as it was superfluous to the plot. The plot is overly twisted and convoluted whilst at the same time being shallow to the point of confusing what is going on, There are so many quests all happening at once with the search for the Horcruxes that contain the soul of Voldemort as well as details of the Deathly Hallows - three magical instruments that can give the owner the power over death itself - however these details seem to be thrown in at the last minute to justify the films title, finally in case the search for these 8 items was not enough to confuse they decide the flow of the narrative is best served by throwing in a search for the Sword of Griffindor!

There are of cause some very good performances, after all the main protagonists have had 7 years experience and Helena Bonam Carter always gives a great performance as the demented Bellatrix.

Still I am happy to say that I infinitely preferred the second half of the book to the first so perhaps we may find that splitting it into two halves will leave a really great movie to close out the series, this one however in set ups for a final showstopper this movie was more Matrix Reloaded than Empire Strikes Back.

Student Tuition Fees

2010-12-08T14:05:00.002Z

As the country prepares for more civil unrest from the nations students I thought I would blog my views on the subject of tuition fees. (Although I doubt anyone will care.)

Anyway, My opinion on this is that why should Students not pay for their own education? surely if someone is to pay it should be the person who benefits? that is just common sense. I have a degree in Politics and Government which I did to improve myself, why should anyone else pay for this? It is my life, my higher earning potential, my cost!

I did not go into the degree thinking the country owed me the right to study, I also worked full time whilst I was studying to keep my bills paid. For some reason though a lot of these Students seem to think that as the country needs doctors they are doing the country a favour; I wounder how many people would be going through Medschool if the wage of a Doctor was capped to Average Wage? perhaps that is what the students would prefer - all jobs to have the same pay level - I would wager that many of the popular courses today would be empty in no time.

Also it is not as if Student debt is real debt, real debt is relentless, it doesn't wait for you to be able to afford it. I have had real debt issues and managed them whilst earning below 10k a year, so I am hard pressed to feel sympathy for those who complain that they will have debt on twice that amount.

My last point on this is that, as seems to be known to everyone outside of Student populations and Government, There are too many people going to university, this is again as it is considered a right not a privilege, a privilege that should not be based on wealth, but on ability, but a privilege none the less.

A night of good results

2010-12-08T09:29:00.005Z

As if Tottenham topping the group was not good enough Last night was also the night that Crawley Town booked their place in the Third Round thanks to two goals by Smith and an Own goal seeing off ten man Swindon in the Second round replay.

Crawley went 1-0 up thanks to Smith before finding themselves pegged back to 2-1 by the League opposition who were then reduced to ten men before an unfortunate own goal forced Extra Time, it was not until 28 minutes into the extra half hour that Smith struck again sending the Blue Square premier outfit through for the first time in their history.

So now they march onwards, however Championship Derby who will be visiting the Broadfield on the 8th January will be a different prospect altogether, but now is a time for celebration.

Tottenham top group of death

2010-12-08T09:28:00.003Z

The group stage of Tottenham's first champions league campaign ended last night and, despite what I was assured by a Chelsea fan after the draw, Tottenham did not get shown just how out of their depth they are but ended up winning the group and in the process beating the German, Dutch and European champions - not a bad little run.

Whilst it is true that it was not an easy run - 4-0 down against Inter, losing 2 goal lead against Breman - in the end most pundits agree we were the best in the group.

The game last night really summed up our away campaign with letting the lead slip 3 times, the game started in comical fashion with the Twente keeper having a nightmare to watch a simple back pass bounce past his foot for Spurs' opener.

Twente were soon back in it however after the Referee gave a penalty, now I would obviously disagree with the decision whatever it was but this was a very soft decision with the spurs defender punished simply for the human instinct for protection, however as the next goal was the result of an even worse decision by the Referee there is not too much point in dwelling on it.

Tottenham re-took the lead through a quite sublime piece of link up play between Defoe and Lennon which showed a little of what we have missed in his absence before the ref struck again to level the game, this time a free kick outside the box to penalize Lennon for laying a hand on the shoulder of a man around 2 foot taller than himself.
Bad refereeing aside however the free kick was top class so no complaints there.

The Twente keeper who, apart from the first goal, had a pretty good game was unfortunate again for the third spurs goal as he produced a wonderful save from Palacios which fell into the path of the ever alert Defoe to do what he does best. However Twente struck back again with their first goal not directly from a bad refereeing decision (there was a touch in between the free kick and the goal) this was again a greatly taken goal and really showed how good a team Twente are,

Obviously I do feel slightly annoyed at the part the Referee played in the goals but he was not finished yet, after a Twente player went down in the box (which to be fair he should have been booked for as he went down for a tackle that never came.) The Referee, correctly told Tottenham to play on, only to bring play to a stop as Lennon was running in full stride towards the Twente goal. But the fact that the Ref seems to think that his role is to shape the game, should not be held against Twente who did well to capitalize on his vanity. so it ended 3-3 but with Inter losing to Bremen Spurs still top their group, so mixed feelings on the result but the achievements are still massive for a Champions League debut, as an aside spurs became the first team to score two goals in every game in the group stage, now if we can stop letting them in then the future looks very bright indeed.

3D Printing could be the next big step into Piracy

2010-11-26T06:14:00.002Z

Saw this article on the BBC today which if it comes to pass as they say could revolutionise the way we do, well everything.

the new range of 3D printers - Printers which can build a prototype of a product you see on line - have not just become much more advanced in the recent past, the used to be little more than a plastics moulding device which it would have seemed had little ability to affect the normal persons day to day life, the usefulness in the design and manufacturing industries seemed clear, being able to send a plastic prototype across to your business partners instantly would revolutionise those businesses.

However now they are claiming that they are closing in on the ability to recreate actual usable products, perhaps the most interesting change mentioned in the article however is the Price, down from north of £2,000 to around £300 which could definitely place it within the budget of most households.

I guess the only question now is that after my recent article in which I asked how many people would lose their jobs due to Google's new AutoDrive car, will the ability to have products manufactured directly into your home simply mean there are even fewer jobs available than ever before?

Christmas Craft Market

2010-11-26T05:52:00.004Z

The Crawley Conservative Association and The Crawley Conservative Club are having a Victorian Themed Christmas Craft Fair and Fun Day.

There will be over ten stalls selling a variety of Craft Items and gifts just in time for Christmas.

We hope to see as many of you there as possible.

The Event is at the Conservative Club in Jubilee Walk, Three Bridges, RH10 1LQ from 12:00 - 16:00

Skyline - Death from Above

2010-11-25T20:17:00.004Z

Latest movie was Skyline (I am hoping to have some posts that are not about movies soon) Now I have already heard from one occasional blog reader that this is one of the worst films of the year but I have to admit that I thought it was ok, although ok is probably as far as I will go.

The film was directed by special effects artists Colin and Greg Strause (The guys who sunk Titanic - In the movie, they're not really old) so it is little wonder that one of the main characters, played by Scrubs star Donald Faison, is a millionaire playboy special effects artist. The male lead, Jarrad, is played by 24's Eric Balfour with his girlfriend Elaine played by Scottie Thompson formerly of NCIS, the film focuses on an alien invasion and as you would imagine given the Brothers Strause's history is very special effects driven, there are hundreds of great scenes however the actual story itself fails to live up to the great effects.

I would have to say that the biggest disappointment to me was that all of the big surprise (Well surprise is a bit of a strong term) moments were given away in the trailers. The film may well have been a lot better if I hadn't seen the trailer but unfortunately I will never know, This actually appears to be a popular trend in Hollywood these days where any suspense or big action scenes are given away long before you enter into the cinema. Aside from my disappointment of to much information in the trailer perhaps the most telling indictment of the film is that the highlight of the film is that the penthouse apartment where much of the action happens has a telescope that is linked to the main wide screen TV, how cool is that! I would like to get one but to be honest not sure that there is much point in seeing the A23 on my TV anymore than I enjoy watching it out of the window.

The idea of the film has of cause been done before and this version really adds very little new to the genre, the Aliens are relatively different and a lot of work clearly went into the depth of different EBE (Extra Terrestrial Biological Entity - The Political Correct way to say ET.) that seemed to be roaming the streets of LA. one review of the film stated that it was a cross between Transformers and Independence Day, Now as I thought that Transformers was really poor and Independence Day was good I guess a mix of the two would be Ok.

Let the Remake In

2010-11-25T19:45:00.005Z

Last weeks movie trip was to see the movie, Let Me In.

Now it is important to say that if you want to see this movie you should really see the original Let the Right One In. after all the remake can not be better than the original - Although in truth I found that both films were very similar and as a result would actually prefer to watch the American version as after all it is always much easier to watch a movie in your native tongue.

Anyway the film follows the story of a 12 year old boy, Owen, (Kodi Smit-McPhee the boy from the Road) who is struggling with his parents divorce and a school bully. He meets a mysterious young girl called Abby (Chloe Moretz star of Kick-Ass) who teaches him that he should stand up for himself, leading to him striking the Bully and splitting his ear. As he becomes closer to Abby however he realises that something is not as it seems and that far from being a 12 year old girl she is in fact a very old (Actual age was never disclosed) Vampire.

The film features two very good performances from the main young actors (As did the original with both Lina Leansersson and Kare Hedebrant receiving many accolades for their roles.) the supporting cast were not as compelling but as this is really a story about the relationship between the boy and the vampire this does not detract that much from the over all movie. In fact this film could actually work even if there was no vampire in it as it is when you get down to it a romantic coming of age drama - but to be honest I watched it for the vampire.

So if you want to be pretentious or can speak Swedish I would recommend watching Let The Right One in, however if you are too lazy to spend the film reading then this is still a very good movie.

Burke and Hare - a capitalism story

2010-11-17T14:09:00.003Z

I have to admit that I was torn on whether I was interested in seeing this movie or not, on the one hand it featured Simon Pegg, who I have been a massive fan of since Sean of the Dead (and Spaced but I only watched that on DVD after Sean came out.) On the other hand it also starred Andy Serkis who I have never been a particular fan off. My mind was in the end up made up by the trailer which after I saw it, I knew I definitely did not want to see it. It looked like lowest common denominator comedy which is not really my idea of a good film. Unfortunately fate had other ideas and it was the only film on at the time we had, so we saw it.

Luckily this turned out to not being a complete disaster as it was actually not so bad, the gross out element was mainly contained at the start and did not consist of much more than was seen in the trailer, and even then it was not much more than a little sidebar to the story.

The story is based roughly around a true story and centers around the two title characters as they struggle to make a living in 19th Century Edinburgh. A living they, through acts of coincidence end up making through the supply of dead bodies to teaching hospitals, a living however that is difficult given the relative scarcity of the product. They therefore decide that it may be an idea to increase the supply, in part as Pegg wishes to finance the first all female production of Macbeth for his love interest played by Isla Fisher.

Eventually, as you always knew it would, the long arm of the law (well as it is played by Ronnie Corbett I guess long is a bit of a stretch) along the way however the film, whilst in no way getting close to classic comedy, has enough to make it an average night out - not a great endorsement I agree, but much better than I thought going in.

Paranormal Activity 2 - pretty normal to be honest

2010-11-17T08:31:00.002Z

Back to the cinema this week and this time the film was paranormal activity 2. I have to admit to being really disappointed with the first film, I know it received great reviews and the concept of a minimal production haunted house film is interesting, however I thought the execution lacked originality I had hoped for. However as I am a big fan of the genre I was still looking forward to the release.

The first issue with these "first person" films, is that they need to come up with the reason they are filming, this gives the unfortunate break from believability of a character who for some reason feels the need to film an intimate conversation with his wife, although essential to the plot it is not exactly the actions of a good husband. The film makes attempts to rectify this with the inclusion of a CCTV system, this however still presents an issue with the plot as it would be suspicious if all the action occurred in front of a camera however at least they have given it a try.

So on to the other limitations, having installed the CCTV system it takes an extraordinary amount of time to actually check the system once the unusual starts to happen and a large amount of the time is given over to a pool cleaner which simply added nothing for me.

All in all however I did enjoy this film more than the original and really enjoyed the way in which attempts were made to link the two films which although quite possibly creating more plot holes than they closed, including some quite astonishing leaps of guess work by one of the main characters I was at least grateful for the attempts.

Tottenham beat Inter Milan

2010-11-03T09:49:00.002Z

I have refrained from too much football talk since the world cup as the early part of the season is rarely any guide to future performance, and as a Spurs fan, I am always slow to get excited.

Last night however was simply amazing, when the draw for the Champions League was made I thought that simply to see a team of the quality of Inter playing at White Hart Lane would be a great experience, but I never imagined we would, not just win, but make it look easy.

There were hints of what may happen when the ten men spurs team, well Bale and 9 support players, fought back from 4 down to come back to 4-3. Still after that however I had heard people saying we were out of our depth and would get hammered, suspiciously the same people who are strangely quiet today!

Anyway, in case you missed it the most shocking thing was that Bale was not involved in the 1st goal, and that he didn't score any himself, he set up two though so I'll let him off, spurs won 3-1 to go top of the group and within one win of reaching the next stage.

So what of the rest of the season? I would be blinded by my love of the team if I suggested that Spurs were not having a few more struggles this year than I would have liked but clearly the potential is there, we just need to unleash it.

Bale is clearly loving his football at the moment, Van Der Vaart has settled in quickly and last night we saw flashes of Modric at his best, however if we are to see off Man City's challenge for our 4th spot we need to improve.

Lennon needs to step up, with Lennon and Bale on the wings we can run any defence ragged, but he is not quite up to his best at the moment. Also our strikers need to find their form, we have really missed Defoe and the sooner he is back the better. Finally our defence needs to start to look capable of a clean sheet, obviously this is easier said than done with Woodgate, King and Dawson all with prolonged injuries.

My best Spurs 11 (assuming full fitness)

GK Gomes
RB Corluka
CB King
CB Woodgate
LB Ekotto
DM Huddlestone
LM Bale
CM Modric
RM Lennon
AM Van Der Vaart
FW Defoe

Red - the Ed Miliband story

2010-10-29T11:22:00.004+01:00

Ok so maybe this weeks Movie review is not about the new puppet leader of the Labour Party, but as you know I can't resist making a dig, however this is mostly due to the fact it is very easy.

Anyway the film R.E.D which stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous is actually about a team of former CIA agents struggling to come to terms with retirement when they are placed on the hit list of one of the CIA's wet teams (assassination operatives) needless to say for this kind of movie the old experienced agents are infinitely better trained and efficient than the new hot shots sent to take them out and therefore out class them at every point.

The cast is a veritable who was who of cinema greats, once again proving that Hollywood has struggled massively with decent action stars for the last 20 years. Bruce Willis takes the lead, but the supporting cast of Dame Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich all prove the old saying that whilst form is temporary, class is permanent. All four prove why they have what it takes to survive so long in such a fickle industry, personally my favourite performance is from Malkovich who is great as a slightly un-hinged operative, although he is often proved right about most of his theories, and has the truly great action sequence in which he has a quick draw contest against a rocket launcher (I normally try not to reveal details of what happens in a film but as this is in the trailer I guessed it would be ok.)

Representing modern Hollywood was "Bones" McCoy - Karl Urban, obviously I am talking about the remake film series not the original television show, he does an ok job as the young ambitious agent that is tasked with neutralizing Willis only to discover he may well be out of his depth.

Whilst this film may not be anymore than you would expect before you go in, it will certainly not be any less either. My only concern is that this would appear to be yet another time when Hollywood's aging megastars come to the rescue and cover up the deficit of young talent in the action genre, and whilst their movies may suggest otherwise, they won't be able to do it forever.

Where is Gordon Brown

2010-10-29T10:53:00.002+01:00

Just been reading www.order-order.com which has a very interesting article about our former Prime Minister, according to research undertaken by Guido Fawkes since losing the election and standing down as Labour leader Mr. Brown has only attended parliament on two occasions, one to vote and the other to be sworn in - in other words to make sure he continues to get paid.

Now I would be the first to point out that the role of an MP extends far beyond parliament, to receive pay for 6 months, yet only attend twice is clearly going to cause comment, especially as the main task undertaken by the government in this time is to try and solve many of the problems caused by Gordon's government, surely as the man who filled the two top roles in this government should be lending his expertise.

To be honest it would seem to me that his decision is probably one of three scenarios:

1 Gordon Brown knows this entire mess is his fault and that by attending he will simply give too much fuel to his opponents.

2 Ed Miliband has stopped him from attending as he fears he will be overshadowed by his old boss and wants to distance himself from the old government which he is hoping people will forget he was part off.

3 This is just one more example of how Gordon Brown wants to stick his fingers up at the tax payer one last time.

Whatever the cause I would suggest that if the former prime minister is a man of principle as he claims that he should resign as soon as possible, or start to attend parliament and actually in some ways make amends for the 428% (of GDP) of External debt he has saddled us with.

What is in a name?

2010-10-25T17:21:00.001+01:00

A couple of things have turned my attention towards names recently, obviously Shakespeare originally asked the question in my title, however I am quite sure his prose on roses was in no way intended as a simple business guide, as in business a name, or brand, is all important.

The two recent re-brandings which have made me wonder are both television channels, I do not know for sure, but I do not think they are connected, I am quite sure however that both names were thought up by highly experienced, and I would suggest highly overpaid (regardless of what the actual figure was) advertising executives. My favourite example of branding stupidity has for years been the brand of petrol stations who after many thousands of pounds given to advertising specialists were advised that the best name for the little kiosks on their fore courts was "Shop" this story however simply shows the cheek of the advertising world, the two channels on the other hand show a complete lack of understanding of the product - a cardinal sin in marketing terms.

The first channel is a history channel, I don't think it is the actual history channel (if it is then someone needs shooting as they already had brand superiority.) I think it may actually be the new name of what used to be "UK History" either way it is now called "yesterday" which actually means that the last words on their trailers is the phrase "on yesterday" immediately leading potential viewers to think they have missed it.

The other channel is Virgin 1, a good name which links to a well known brand, as well as establishing the primacy of that channel within the brand, they have however decided to rename themselves as simply "channel 1" now I am not sure if they honestly believe that everyone has effortlessly switched to digital and the epg system, but if I said next Wednesday, 8pm on channel 1, how many of you would not head straight to the BBC? I would suggest very few!

Disabled Parking Permits

2010-10-25T13:13:00.002+01:00

Something that has bugged me for a while are disabled parking permits. Now before I get thousands of complaints - as if I have that many readers - it is not the actual permits, or even the idea of preferential parking for those less mobile, in fact it is for this reason that I always park at the very rear of a car park, as I think any able bodied young(ish) motorist should. Neither am I going to complain about the pure amount there seem to be, in my youth they seemed very rare, but in many places now it appears that they are more common than ever, so whilst I admit I believe they are being handed out far to easily this is not the nature of today's whine.

What has got me today is that they can be used on double yellow lines, now correct me if I am wrong but I believed that double yellow lines were placed where it would be dangerous to allow parking, I fail to see therefore how safety is increased simply through the drivers disability.

This leads me to two possible options therefore, either our lives are being frequently risked by those who exercise their right to disabled parking, or, as I think more likely, many councils have used double yellow lines to fill up their car parks.

To be honest, I am happy with parking in a car park anyway, as on road parking in a town centre is always stressful. All I want is to not get lied too, why not replace the yellow lines with disabled bays, and put yellow lines back to showing where it is dangerous for anyone to park.

Post Office - Name and Shame

2010-10-25T09:44:00.002+01:00

I normally try to avoid being too specific, after all as this is just my opinion I am sure that I could get into trouble for being too specific. However I am so furious with the post office (apparently the peoples Post Office - although I often wonder) I have had their credit card for a few years now and everything was going fine until I dared to move home! Whilst you may think that simply moving home should be a simple task and that a company as large as the post Office must be used to dealing with it however this was only the start of months of incompetence.

When I made a request to change my address it appears that they froze my account from receiving mail until the change was completed, this makes sense so it was not an issue, unfortunately they then lost my request, meaning that this stop was not listed, instead of contacting me to let me know they just left the stop in place, the first I found out about it is when they sent me a letter to say I had missed a payment and now had an additional fee. I understand that I should keep a better control of my finances, but I am sure I'm not the only person who waits for a statement to pay the bill, anyway after a few hours on the phone - including two hang ups after sitting on hold - they said it was all sorted, I paid the balance filled out another form and they refunded the fee, all good!

Or so I thought, that was until earlier this month when instead of another statement, I received another penalty charge, I called them again - only hung up on once this time - again I paid the bill and asked for my statement to be sent out, I checked the address, which was correct, and thought everything was sorted again. Still wrong however as when I had still not received the two missing statements, as they claim that my October statement has already been dispatched. I called them and was not hung up on at all, so that at least is improving, only to be told that there was a stop placed on mailings to my account, however the department which deal with this are off as it is a Bank Holiday in Ireland.

Now obviously I can not tell if these are problems with the credit card company or with the mail, but as these are all the Post Office I feel happy to spread the scorn around.

Maybe this will get solved before I get my next penalty charge!

Dispicable M-ovi-e

2010-10-21T20:43:00.003+01:00

Starting to get my movie reviews up to date now so this weeks movie was the animated "Despicable Me." the film staring Steve Carell, Jason Segel and Russell Brand.

The film is about Carell who is Gru, a former master criminal, who has fallen into a slump in terms of schemes, when a new criminal on the block, Vector, (voiced by Segel) steals the great pyramid of Giza - Although I think that the Egypt tourist board must have cleared the ideal setting of the pyramids as you could not see the crowds of Egyptians trying to part you from your money, or for that matter the ever beautiful Sphinx KFC. - Gru and his loyal friend, Mad Scientist Dr. Nefario (Voiced quite unbelievably by Brand.) set off to steal the moon.

In order to steal the moon it becomes necessary for Gru to adopt three a orphan girls, who he has no intention of caring for but simply to use in his evil scheme - I am sure you can guess the rest.

Basically this is yet another predictable movie, however as this is a kids movie it really should be so it does not detract from the film, there are the usual laughs, often from the strange little minion creatures that Gru has working for him, and there are the usual teary moments, although I admit that this could well simply be that the smallest of the three orphaned girls reminded me of my own daughter which always gives the film a greater affect (Or else I'm just getting more pathetic in my old age.)

Anyway, the film is an ok use of time and everybody learns their lesson by the end so that is all good, there is a little bit during the credits which is also quite amusing but I do think the main secret of the films success will be in the sale of stuffed minion toys which I am sure will be massive.

The Budget Cuts have Landed

2010-10-21T19:05:00.004+01:00

Well the cuts are out there, well to be honest the actual details will be coming out over the next few weeks but we know the kind of cuts we are looking at.

Immediately the usual complaints started, The Unions asked why the Public Sector were the hardest hit, Labour asked why young families were the hardest hit, Age UK asked why pensioners were the hardest hit, Disabled groups asked why the disabled were the hardest hit - all whilst at the same time it actually turns out that the top 2% are actually the hardest hit and the top 15% stand to be 10k a year worse off. On top of all this several analysts have actually come out suggesting that Osbourne has not gone far enough. So what does this all mean?

Personally I think that this is probably proof that the cuts are, as Osbourne has been saying, spread across the board surely if everyone is complaining (Well not the middle class as after all there is no one to speak up for the silent majority.) then it means that the cuts are spread out.

Now obviously there are going to be complaints that the poorest are the hardest hit, but as I posted previously that is unfortunately unavoidable, when the country has run out of money it will be the people who are net costs to the state who will be hardest hit. It is very simple maths, if you receive more money from the state than you give then you will be at risk, for those of us who are net contributors then we will simply have to give more, there is a clear limit to what the government can withdraw from me and that is limited to Child Benefit as that is after all the thing they give me, in actual fact it goes to my wife so personally the government can not withdraw anything from me as they do not give me anything in the first place.

The only question that remains to be asked of the government is can they get all of the disparate groups who are feeling like the victims to see the suffering that is being spread around. If the coalition can not give a sense of empathy to the public then we may see that, as predicted by Socrates over 2300 years ago, Democracy is doomed to fail. Socrates stated of the Athenian Democracy Project that Democracy is always due to fail as the demos will always vote in their own interest at the expense of society, eventually resulting in a society which is unable to support itself (Sound familiar?)

World's funniest joke?

2010-10-21T13:48:00.002+01:00

The daily mail today carried an article listing the 50 funniest jokes, I have to admit that most of them did not even draw a smile but I did chuckle at the number 1 offering.

As most were pretty poor I won't list them all but thought I would share the winner;

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: Ugh, that's the ugliest baby I've ever seen! The woman walks to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to the man next to her: The driver just insulted me! The main replied: You go up there and tell him off. Go on, I'll hold your monkey for you.

Not sure if it is the funniest joke ever but it is a lot better than the others on the list.

It's life Jim, but not as we know it

2010-10-20T10:53:00.002+01:00

Running a bit late with my blogging - admit it, you've noticed, well maybe not - but I am trying to catch up now, last weeks movie was life as we know it, the movie starring Katherine Heigl (the woman from every romantic comedy of the last three years - at least it is starting to feel like it!) and Josh Duhamel (Fergie's husband)

The film was once again formulaic, Hollywood seemingly going through a period of un-imagination at the moment, perhaps the writers are on strike again and they don't want to tell anyone! The jokes were either telegraphed from too far away to be funny or else given away in the trailer and so the entire film felt flat. The film followed the relationship of the two main characters as they come to terms with the death of their best friends and that they are now responsible for raising their friends daughter, but here is the twist, after an unsuccessful date years earlier they can't stand each other - bet you didn't see that coming - Heigl plays the same character as always so no fear of originality there, whilst Duhamel as a player who goes by the name of Messer, was fun enough but did not really come across believable enough as the sex symbol who could fluster a woman just by walking into the room, maybe at 37 he is getting too far away from his model of the year award (which was after all 13 years ago now.)

The supporting cast included "sexiest woman in the world" (according to Esquire) Christina Hendricks as Heigl's best friend and mother of the orphaned child, so she obviously was limited in her screen time, this is obviously a shame as I am a big fan of hers, although from her time in Firefly - as I have never seen mad men.

Over all I would say, this film is ok, as long as your expectations are low, as with a lot of Heigl's recent work, you get exactly what you would expect, and nothing more.

Success in Olympic Trial

2010-10-20T10:23:00.002+01:00

I blogged a few weeks ago on my way to trials for the London 2012 volunteer program.

Well I am delighted to say that I have been selected to represent my company as a volunteer, there is still a while to go in the process and at the moment I have no idea what I will be doing - friends have suggested I will be toilet scrubbing but I am just really excited that I will be there at this once in a life time event.

So next steps are that my employer (EDF Energy - as the 2012 sustainability partner) will send my name on their list of approved candidates to the organising committee who will interview us to make sure we are committed, although if we weren't I doubt we would have attended the assessment centre, they will then assign us roles, so should know what I will be doing by April next year.

A slap to the face of those that protect you

2010-10-20T09:11:00.003+01:00

I received an appeal at work today from Bexley Borough Council after some mindless vandals decided it would be a lot of fun to remove the brass plaque from the war memorial which featured the names of the borough residents who have lost their lives protecting this country.

Bexley Borough Council have asked that if anyone knows anything that they contact the council on 02083037777 and speak to the Cemeteries Office or call Crime Stoppers on 0800555111.

Leader of the Council Teresa O'Neill said "This is a callous crime. To target a memorial that pays tribute to people from [Bexley] who gave their lives fighting for this country is despicable behaviour. It shows total disrespect for those who died, for their colleagues and relatives who gather at the memorial to remember them and for today's serving armed forces."

I find this kind of crime disgusting at any time but with just a few weeks to go before Remembrance Sunday it would seem particularly repugnant, it also highlights what is for me one of the real issues with our society, a complete lack of respect for our society, after two very publicized incidents in which two university students have urinated on war memorials whilst drunk, and now this (and I doubt these are the only ones) it leaves you wondering if what these brave men and women have given, and continue to give, their lives for is worth saving.

Andrew Marr Vs The Blogosphere

2010-10-12T18:47:00.000+01:00

Andrew Marr - BBC Political Presenter (Has the AM Show on a Sunday) has today launched a stinging attack on the many contributors on the Blogosphere, speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, Mr. Marr said that Bloggers (or Citizen Journalists) are mostly "socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting." Adding that "They are very angry people"

Now as you can imagine this has caused a bit of a backlash on the blogs as many bloggers feeling very offended have set out to attack Andrew for his views, personally it is not something I am about to do as despite Mr. Marr's assertions I am not single, living in my mother's basement or for that matter angry. There is a chance that this could be caused instead by the fact that I do not consider myself as a Citizen Journalist rather just someone who enjoys writing about stuff I care about and if someone wants to read it then that is great, but if not - oh well.

Anyway my view on this topic is that he is probably right in some of these cases, I have read a lot of blogs and many are very one sided and angry where the person has an axe to grind and they will grind it until they are left with just a stump, but on the other hand some blogs and bloggers are starting to invade the main stream Ian Dale springs to mind, this new type of journalism is responsive and exciting, blogs tend to break stories at a much greater speed than more conventional media and also operate outside many of the laws that hold our mainstream media firms back (Note I am not saying this is good, simply more exciting.) but again I agree with Mr. Marr when he states that these blogs are unlikely to replace older media companies as after all whilst blogs can be a great source, you still go to a recognised brand to get the facts.

Blogs are also often quite useful to a reporter on a deadline as I am sure most bloggers have has parts of their blogs used in print media as if they have given a quote directly to the press, it happened to me a few times whilst I was a local councillor, so I cannot help but wonder if the problem Andrew Marr has with blogs is due to a slightly embarrassing incident in which he lifted a story from a blog and finding it was less than true.

Every Little Helps - But this is a whole Lot

2010-10-12T18:45:00.001+01:00

Keeping with Supermarkets (Or Starting with Supermarkets if you are reading the posts top to bottom) Another article on the Daily Mail Website was well worth a read, it is a facts and figures article about Tesco, They list 50 facts about Tesco which is the UK’s most dominant retailer (and responsible for 1 in every 3 pounds spent in the UK.)

I will not post all 50 as after all if you want to see the full list (if you are a stat obsessed nerd like me) you really should go to the source but my favourite facts are these:

£3.75 The cost of an entire Tesco Value school uniform for three to 16-year-olds this year. That’s 50p for a polo shirt, £1.75 for a sweater and £1.50 for trousers or skirts.

So you can get two full School Uniforms (And an extra pair of trousers and two spare shirts) for £10, better than rummaging around in lost property for second hand uniforms

13 days was all it took for a team of builders to create an emergency Tesco store in flood-hit Workington, Cumbria, last December. The collapse of Northside Bridge made it impossible for many customers to reach the regular store on the other side of the river.

This is quite phenomenal, whilst most people are shocked by the emergency Tesco are already looking at how they can look after their customers (No I am not so blind to think it wasn’t about the profit) shopping needs. But it is this kind of responsiveness that has given Tesco the dominant market share that they enjoy today.

173 UK jobs are created every week by Tesco.

More important than ever as the UK exits recession, once a young person has left University with one of New Labours phoney degrees (Art Management etc..) at least they will still have a job to go to.

150,000 Wetsuits sold a year through Tesco, one of its bestsellers in the Sports and Leisure category.

I love this fact, When I was a kid there was a song that went “Lets all go to Tesco, Where ‘Insert Name here’ buys his best clothes” well now it is not just my best clothes but motorcycle leathers (A life saver when you lose a glove at 3am in December) and now Wet Suits as well.

32,991,000 The total square-footage of all Tesco stores in the UK . . . that’s bigger than the City of London.

Again another great fact, obviously this is slightly confusing as if you say City of London they think of the Metropolitan Area and obviously this is actually the City Corporation Area but still an impressive fact (Although still gets beaten by the fact that Disney World in Florida is the size of Manchester)

£92 million — the value of the computer equipment that was donated to schools and hospitals between 1992 and 2004, thanks to Tesco’s Computers For Schools voucher scheme.

Another example of Tesco leading the way and the other supermarkets playing catch up, Now there is Computers for Schools, Sports for Schools even gardening supplies for schools but the Tesco scheme (Now I believe just equipment for schools as they offer much more.) was the original and giving equipment away a full 18 years before David Cameron revealed his plans for the Big Society, of which this is a great example.

£529 million — the amount of money returned to customers in 2009 in the form of Clubcard vouchers. If they were all used on Airmiles, that’s enough for 424,000 round-the-world trips.

To Declare a slight interest here My first job when I moved to Crawley was for Tesco Clubcard and whilst the job wasn’t particularly well paid (£4.50 an hour if memory serves me correctly) it did give me a real appreciation for the Clubcard rewards programme, particularly the Clubcard Deals offering in which the vouchers are worth 4 times their face value, now since then others (Well just Nectar to be honest) have brought out their own schemes but for my money these have never matched the great offer that the Tesco Clubcard offers.

Well, like I say these are just my favourites, there are many facts on the page, including the fact that Terry Leahy receives 300 times the salary of one of his check out staff, but when you look at the changes he has brought about to take the Market Stall company to the Number 2 spot in world retail (Wal-Mart and Asda are number 1 in case you are wondering.) it is hard to say he hasn’t earned it!

Asda: Giving you more for less, (But This is Ridiculous)

2010-10-12T10:13:00.004+01:00

Just read an article on the Daily Mail Website about a Padded Bra for 10 Year Olds that has been on sale at ASDA, An ASDA spokeswoman has stated that the Item a push up bra size 28AA should have been removed from sale 6months ago following the uproar that swept the country after Primark (The Clothing Arm of Associated British Foods) were found to be selling “Sexualised” clothing aimed at young girls. ASDA however apparently decided that instead of removing the items they should simply move the bras and lace underwear (rated for age 9+) to the lingerie aisle instead.

The ASDA spokeswoman also said in her statement 'We take our responsibilities as the largest children’s wear retailer extremely seriously. Every single one of our children’s wear products goes through an in-house panel of mums to assess its suitability.” I would suggest therefore that they carefully consider if they have the right people on their panel. Now whilst I accept that as my daughter is only 1 there is not much chance of her pestering me to try and buy something I do not agree with but as a parent I can not understand how these products come to be made, after all if the only people buying the clothes were people like me then a lack of sales would soon end the product line, I have therefore often wondered what kind of people are bad enough parents to think that it is a good idea to sell this kind of product, but I guess I now know – it is the ASDA parents panel.

Sir Philip Green Set to Save us £20Bn

2010-10-12T08:56:00.002+01:00

Sir Philip Green has completed a review into public spending and has announced that he can save the country £20bn a year in efficiency savings based on procurement and economies of scale, apparently the owner of Top Shop suggests that there is a possibility of saving 6-700M in telecoms alone. This is really just confirmation of what we have known about the Labour Governments attitude to our money all along, The attitude seems to have varied from “It’s not our money so why worry.” All the way to “We need to spend as much as possible otherwise we won’t get as much next year.” And it is this attitude as much as the actual waste that needs to be challenged if we are to ever get a real chance of closing the budget gap, and this is not just the civil servants but has been led from the politicians from the top and the Unions who seem to feel their members have a right to waste this money.

Now this £20Bn saving, if it is achieved will help protect many front line services, unfortunately it will not mean a lot in helping the Quangos and other bodies already facing cuts as after all the deficit last year was £159.8Bn so a further £139Bn of cuts are needed (Just to break even, this will not even start to pay off our now 1 Trillion of debt (or 71% of GDP) simply stop us building up anymore debt and interest. But it is 20Bn less to need to spend than if Labour had been allowed to carry on their policies of waste. After all despite what the last administration seem to believe and the attitude of many people currently living off the state – This is our Money, It comes from our hard work and taxes and it is about time someone started to look after it!

Google Car Set to Finish off Driving Instructors

2010-10-11T19:36:00.004+01:00

I decided to go on line this morning to see if I had won the £115m lottery jackpot. Unfortunately it wasn't me, however I was very interested to read that Google have been testing a self-drive car, this is fascinating for a variety of reasons, not least of which that it shows just how diverse Google's business interests have developed - anyone else remember when they were just a search engine?
However as someone who loves new technology it is simply the idea that we may soon be driving around in real automobiles has got my mind racing.
Just think of what this would mean, on the down side it will completely wipe out the driving school industry - especially RED driving school's claims that it is a recession proof industry - I can also imagine it may increase the number of cars on the road, after all you could easily send a car off to get the kids whilst you are going elsewhere - now that I think about it taxis will be surplus to requirements as well, why call a cab when you can just call up your own car to pick you up from the pub.

Anyway onto the good, the main selling point is better safety, Google drove the car around San Francisco on what are some very challenging roads, each of The google test drives had a computer programmer and a human driver standing by and the police had been notified of the route in advance, however there was one reported incident however that was actually caused by a human driving into the back of the googlecar so if anything it could be said the problem there were not enough automatic cars not too many! Along side safety of course comes the potential to have much faster driving and less jams, the fact is that speed is not actually dangerous when driving, driving too fast is the dangerous thing, if you are driving at 200 on a completely flat straight road you should be ok (may be a bit frightening the first time, whilst at the same time if you are following someone in icy conditions at 20 you are probably going too fast, the google car should be able to plot you a route that ensures you can travel at the fastest and safest speed possible, if they were to move the technology on and actually create a mainframe of all traffic movements you could actually find that the car could easily programme you in the perfect route avoiding any need to stop at all (I guess this may put TomTom out of business as well.

Well I for one will be waiting with great interest to see what becomes of this trial and would gladly buy an auto drive once they are available (They look like ordinary cars with a sensor which reminds me of google's street view vehicle) Although I have to admit that since I started writing this I have realised just how many industries this could actually wipe out - but that would not be until the technology is very widely used - thinking about it, isn't there a Dr Who where the auto drives start killing people? perhaps I am not as big a fan as I was at the start of this post.

How I would like to improve politics

2010-10-07T10:55:00.001+01:00

Just a quick post on a few things I would like to happen to improve politics.

Manifesto:
I would like to see the manifesto lifted to the status of a service level agreement, and as such would like to see an annual review of progress against election promises. Basically on the anniversary of each election each politician from PM to Councillor will stand before the electorate and state which of their promises they have completed, what they are still working on and what now cannot be delivered - and why.

Borrowing:
To prevent a repeat of The current system I would like to introduce a limit on public sector borrowing, no government or local authority should borrow for anymore than a single elected term, this is to stop the features of inherited good economies, becoming train wreck economies when they are passed back.

MP Expenses:
Although it is last years hot topic, I want to see the expenses revisited, instead of restricting to rental properties only I feel that on election an MP should select an apartment - up to a set level - and this should be 100% tax payer funded, after their term ends the property will be either sold by the state (if prices have gone up) or held until the taxpayer can be ensured of a return on investment.

Recall elections:
A recall election to be called if petitioned by 25% of eligible voters at any time, or 10% with proven wrong doing.

Prison System:
Reform the prison System into a two tier system, punishment and rehabilitation. All prisoners to spend the first half of their sentence in punishment and the second half in rehabilitation - dependant on good behaviour. Both tiers to include paid employment to cover the costs of the system.

Smoking Ban:
I would lift the ban but only for licensed premises, these premises would be banned from selling any foods and must be new establishments (so no one can end up working in one if they do not want to) I would then leverage the costs of smoking related diseases directly against the cigarette companies.

House of Lords:
I am a strong believer in the existence of a non-elected body in government, (as the majority are not always right - Nazi Germany for example) however if you are to switch to a wholly elected parliament perhaps we could split the duties of an MP between the houses with the Lords taking a more community focused role, with the commons being more Westminster and business based, perhaps even electing on a joint ticket. - to be honest, not something I believe in but would welcome the debate.

Like I say, these are just my ideas and would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Movie Review Buried (Spoilers)

2010-10-07T06:35:00.004+01:00

Warning as with Inception it is quite hard to talk about this film without giving away spoilers

spoilers

spoilers

This weeks film review is for the Spanish Indie film Buried, the film follows the attempts of a central character Paul Conway (Ryan Reynolds) to escape from a box which is as the title suggests Buried. Paul Conway is a Truck driver working in Iraq when he is captured by insurgents who demand 5M USD for his release. As he wakes up in the box he has a zippo, a pen and a bag left by the insurgents containing a Mobile Phone, an unreliable torch and a message they want him to record on the mobile phone.

Now when I first heard the mention of the film I wondered along with everything else if one man in a box was enough to carry an entire film and make it interesting, I don't believe it was, but it came very close. There are many stretches of imagination that are needed to make this film possible as Conway speaks to people on the phone who seem to know a great deal of information before they get told. The Hostage Locator for example seems to know what model of mobile phone he has, and at one point his Boss calls him on the phone despite the foreign office being unable to trace the number. perhaps the biggest discussion point for websites however is the available amount of oxygen due to Conway's love of lighting his zippo.

but if you can ignore these small elements, and the entire snake scene it is not a bad movie, This is just one of a long line of enclosed space movies and seems to take it to the minimal degree but where as Devil (In a lift) and Phone Booth (In public but unable to move.) have the ability to bring in players from outside the set up, Buried is limited to Conway and the voices on the phone, This is probably about an hours worth of decent movie stretched over an hour and a half, but well worth seeing if not just for the concept - a concept which I believe must be at its peak unless they bring out a film about a contortionist who gets stuck mid trick.

Bob Crow Vs. London

2010-10-06T13:39:00.003+01:00

Yesterday saw the second of the one day strikes by the RMT and another less known union - probably as they lack the marmite style leadership of Mr Crow - now as I work out in Bexleyheath this really should have had little or no effect on me, however this strike coincided with my companies annual management conference so I was forced to make my way into London.

There was plenty of debate over if the public supported strike action or the law should be tougher to stop it happening, personally I fully believe in the right of people to withdraw their labour, but I do fear that with an apparent desire for strike for strikes sake as demonstrated by Mr Crow and others (Unite for example) the public will start to support making it harder to down tools, and possibly make it illegal altogether. As I say I think that strike action very much has a place in a unions Arsenal, but if it is not used more sensibly I can see it being removed. For example, when the general public are desperate to keep hold of their jobs they will struggle to understand why BA need more air stewards than their competition (in fact more from Heathrow than Gatwick.) And like wise as you are struggling to get to work, or a job interview, it is hard to have empathy with guys being asked to work outside their ticket office, after they have been assured that there will be no redundancy.

So I would pass on a piece of advice to all Unions - pick your battles, you are out of touch with public opinion and in danger of losing everything.

Satan takes a lift

2010-09-30T21:19:00.005+01:00

This is obviously a review for the latest film produced by M. Night Shyamalan not the arch nemesis of the bible, for information on the devil click here

The film is the first of the Night chronicles (Currently planned to be three movies based on the supernatural in modern urban settings.) I personally was not a fan of Shyamalan when he first burst onto the scene, I think this was partially due to having Sixth Sense ruined for me long before I got to see it and partly as the first film of his I watched was Unbreakable which I still don't rate, however with each film after that (Signs, The Village and the Happening ... Less said about Girl in the Water the Better.) I have really started to like his version of story telling so I was quite excited to watch this film but had a few reservations, for example can a film in just a lift be interesting (Of cause not as worried as I am about Buried, 2 hours of a man in a box?)

As it turned out I really enjoyed this film, it struggles as it is trying to be a suspenseful "Who's Evil?" film but everyone I saw the movie with guessed instantly who it was as soon as they 1st appeared on screen - but perhaps we just watch too many movies! I recently watched a movie on Sky (The name escapes me at the moment.) this was basically three people in a lift, one of who was a murderer. there were obvious comparisons between the two and thankfully Devil wins hands down.

Briefly the story is told of when Satan comes to earth to test sinners by tormenting them before returning to hell with their souls, the story is fleshed out by a catholic security guard whilst the events are viewed by a policeman in the control centre - I wont tell you too much as I don't want to do what happened to me with The Sixth Sense.

Britain in Bloom

2010-09-30T13:28:00.003+01:00

Last night was the award ceremony for the Royal Horticultural Societies Britain in Bloom, Crawley were one of the finalists due, as I understand it, to being crowned South & South East in bloom best Large Town/small city this was a great achievement for the town. As an outsider when I first came to Crawley I was immediately impressed with the street scene work, but have found that many of Crawley's residents take it for granted.

Crawley were victorious winning the silver gilt award and being crowned category winner, a massive achievement for amenity services and for the community groups that work hard to make the area a nicer place to live.

Crawley also picked up a community award, I am not sure if this was for an actual specific group or the work in the town generally, but for a new town that has been accused of lacking community, this is obviously pleasing either way. The overall champion of champions was the small Scottish town of Falkland in Fife, winners for the second year in a row.

Roll on next year!

Bexley now with new sponsor

2010-09-30T13:20:00.001+01:00

Went out for a lunch time walk from work a few days ago and spotted this sign. It is part of a new series of signs that have gone up around the borough.

When I first saw it I have to admit I thought there was something a bit wrong with having it like this, kind of saying, "Welcome to Bexleyheath, sponsored by Bexletts" but after a little while I thought why not? If it is at all possible, why should each council service not be self funding?

Maybe we could take it to the next step and sell the naming rights to the town hall - the Crawley "Coke" Hall or maybe we shouldn't stop there, maybe it is time to change the signs to "Now entering McDonald's Town, formerly known as Crawley" well perhaps that is a bit far, and could get confusing if we were sponsored by Halifax.

What is best nickname for Nu Layb'R Leader

2010-09-29T19:39:00.004+01:00

Last Post gave me an idea for a Poll:

Which is the best nickname for the Nu Layb'R Leader, My personal favourite is Lill' Mill.

The ones I have come up with are

Miliband Junior
Ed Milibland
Red Ed
Redward
Lill’ Mill
Miliband the Younger
Reddy Eddy

Have a vote in the poll or leave your own.

The Launch of Nu Layb'R - Soft on Crime, Tough on the Victims of Crime

2010-09-29T19:37:00.000+01:00

A strange thing happened to me this morning as I watched sunrise on Sky News, I actually gained a great deal of respect for Mr. Miliband, Not Ed obviously but David, I felt on Monday that his speech was very well written and delivered, much better than the excuse for a speech given by Miliband Junior yesterday, But what increased my respect for David is the comment he made to Harriett Haman during his brothers speech, whilst Edward (or should it be Redward?) was trying to pretend that the Iraq war had nothing to do with the Labour party David turned to Labours Deputy Leader and said ‘You voted for it, why are you clapping?’ finally a member of the Labour party who actually remembers that a great deal of the issues they are so upset about are problems of their own making.

As for Miliband the Younger’s Speech I think it was a weak speech, weakly given in which Jr tried to be a soundbyte to all people and ended up being a politician to no one. I actually gave an audible laugh to the comment he made about how New Labour had realised they had to be tough on crime as well as tough on the causes of crime, and they were right to do it!! Right to do what exactly? How out of touch can the Labour party be if they honestly believe that we live in a society where the man on the street believes that there is justice and the streets are safe, I would perhaps suggest that Labours mantra really should be “Soft on Crime, Tough on the victims of crime!” He came out with another claim to be the next generation of Labour (I know that Red is a little bit of a non-personality but surely people remember that he was in the last cabinet, so not exactly a fresh start, and surely if Ms. Harman is still involved we will still get the constant stream of ridiculous ill thought out edicts.) We have had Labour then New labour so I guess Lill’ Mill must be announcing the launch of Nu Layb’R

I think the real question is that when Ed Milibland (Yes I can keep coming up with new names.) gives a speech to the TUC what will he use as his entrance music? “Puppet on a String.” Or “A little help from my Friends”?

And the winner is ...

2010-09-28T06:18:00.004+01:00

The Labour Leadership campaign is over and the Winner is Ed Miliband, despite not being able to hold the majority of support of MPs, Euro MPs and Labour activists, the stranger looking Miliband was able to overcome the odds and beat his much more experienced (and more normal looking - ok I wont keep going on about his look as it really isn't important in a politician but you have to admit he is a strange looking guy.) Brother.

Anyway, what does this mean for the country? personally I have no idea! in theory the fact that anyone is willing to vote for Labour, a party who have never had a government who have not bankrupted the country, is completely beyond me. but I am happier to be up against Ed than David as I think that the public are starting to see right through the Unions so I can't imagine anyone would happily elect the Unions boy to run the country.

Blue Boris Vs Red Ken - the rematch

2010-09-24T15:29:00.002+01:00

Well news has come through that it will be comrade livingstone who will take on Boris in the 2012 election to find out who gets VIP status at the Olympics, oh and they also get to be mayor of London.

Obviously as I now live in Crawley I am not covered by the London Assembly, but maybe it's because I'm a Londoner at heart that I really do care what happens, or maybe it is just that the UK lives and dies financially by the health of The capital.

Any way, the result is in and it will be Boris vs Ken, I doubted that Oona King ever had a chance to win the Labour nomination but having seen a few interviews with her the last few weeks I have to say I am glad she didn't get selected as I think she would have given Boris a real run for his money.

Now as long as the Lib Dems pick Lembit Opick it shouldn't be too hard a campaign for Mayor Johnson after all.

US Grandmother Execution

2010-09-24T14:13:00.002+01:00

This morning the US executed it's first female prisoner for 5 years, and the first in Virginia for 98 years. Now whilst I am not actually a supporter of the death penalty this is not due to a belief in the sacrosancticity of human life but rather that I believe that there should not be a death penalty until there can be no doubt of guilt, as long as there is a chance that the conviction could be wrong the punishment has to be reversible. I am not however joining the, apparently, thousands of people who are complaining at the execution of Teresa Lewis, this woman arranged for the execution of both her husband and her step son to claim on a $250,000 life insurance policy. It is reported that she not only offered to sleep with the two gun men in return for their assistance, but also allowed them to have sex with her 16 year old daughter, after both her husband and step son were shot she went through their pockets in order to check for money before calling the emergency services. If the Death penalty is to be used, then surely this is the kind of criminal it should be kept for. The two gunmen Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller were sentenced to life in prison where Shallenberger took his own life in 2006, Lewis' defence lawyer James Rocap III has claimed that Shallenberger was the real mastermind behind the murder (A claim they did not make before he committed suicide.) and that Lewis therefore did not deserve the death penalty, it is hard however to understand how he can claim this when you take into account that this was her second attempt to get her husband murdered. I also find his statement 'A good and decent person is about to lose her life because of a system that is broken,' a little hard to accept as well.

The final "Seriously?" moment of this story involves the international outcry, from none other than Woman's Rights activist and humanitarian: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Moral victory

2010-09-24T14:06:00.002+01:00

Just had my first happy experience in an Asda store. Walking between the aisles when an old man complained. "Look at all these lot what don't speak our language."

To which I happily replied "who don't speak our language."

I doubt he understood my sarcasm, but it made me feel good.

Can a Council Outsource all Services?

2010-09-23T20:24:00.005+01:00

Suffolk County Council has revealed plans to Out Source all of its services, they claim to be able to save approximately 30% of their 1.3bn pound budget. This will basically transform the council from a service provider to a contract manager.

When I first heard this I suspected it could simply be a headline grab and that there was even a chance that it was simply some grandstanding aiming at making a point to central government however the more I think about it the better it actually seems, after all, why do we feel that the government should be a service provider? I agree that the government have a duty for order and protection of the most vulnerable in society but have we become so convinced over the years that this can only mean direct service provision that we have stopped thinking there is any alternative?

Obviously the Union (Unison this time) have warned that this will lead to danger for the poorest members of society and there will be massive redundancy of the staff, but as I have mentioned before I would take more notice if the unions said something different just occasionally, but I doubt that is happening anytime soon.

Anyway, I do agree that this is a highly risky strategy and if Suffolk are to go ahead with this they really need to ensure that the contracts are well written and contain very clear service level agreements. I also hope that the government keep a close eye on it as although I doubt it will be a fit for all areas it will certainly be a very interesting model.

The other guys fail to impress.

2010-09-22T13:06:00.002+01:00

As the last two "comedy" films I have seen were depressingly unfunny I was dearly hoping that the new Will Ferrell - Mark Wahlberg movie would make some recompense. However to get things clear upfront, out of the few hundred movies I have seen (like a nerd I used to count but stopped three years ago at 357) this is only the second movie I have walked out of, I accept then that this film may have the greatest ending in movie history, but I was unwilling to allow anymore of my life to be wasted on it.

The film was your formulaic set up of disgraced super cop teaming up with a pen pushing loser, unfortunately this is as close as they came to a plot. What sets this film apart from the plethora of (still very bad) better movies is that this film did not feature a single likable character. The loser was a horrible person, who treated his wife with utter contempt. Whilst Marky Mark winged and whined his way through the film like a petulant six year old.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Samuel L Jackson are ok in their brief cameo at the start of the movie, but after their unexpected exit you are left wondering if they simply read the rest of the script and decided it was better to kill the characters before their careers.

In summary I would probably say that this film provides a good service as it should ideally prove that brain storming humorous ideas before throwing away the funniest two hundred does not make the rest a script. I am sure that during the planning stage for this movie a selection of comically challenged writers said to each other on many occasions "wouldn't it be funny if..." well now I can conclusively answer - No.

Gatwick Airport

2010-09-21T08:04:00.002+01:00

Writing the previous post on the bus I suddenly became concerned that I have never been to Gatwick's North Terminal before and how can I be sure that I would know where to get off, luckily the long line of very cold looking people in shorts and flip flops tipped me off that I may be getting close.

Olympic trials

2010-09-21T08:00:00.003+01:00

Today I join the list of many athletes hoping to feature at 2012, this may come as a shock to those of you who did not know how sporty I am, but I have a real shot of making 2012 in the volunteering team, now whilst I know this is not one of the most glamorous events, and working for free is not every one's cup of tea, I figure the Olympics are unlikely to be in the UK again in my lifetime so I may as well see if I can get involved.

It is actually a pretty good deal for me, my company are a main partner and so they will pay me for my time so it is basically a work placement for a couple of weeks.

First however I have to get through today, a full day assessment centre, featuring team tasks and eligibility criteria, they claim it is a lot of fun, but I will reserve judgement, the good thing is, if I mess it up, all I have lost is the chance to work for free, so pressure off a bit.

Champions League Draw Round 1

2010-09-16T06:04:00.004+01:00

With one day down in the Champions League it has been a very mixed bag for British Clubs,

Arsenal and Chelsea both won comfortably, Arsenal hammering Braga by 6 goals to 0(Which is becoming quite a common scoreline this season.) and Chelsea beating Zilina 4-1. To be honest the Chelsea result is probably the best as although the Slovakian champions are hardly Champions League contenders it is a difficult away match out of the way.

Tuesday night there were draws for Tottenham and Man Utd vs Rangers, if I had been asked before the kick off I would have happily taken an away draw for our first game but after powering to 2-0 after 20 minutes I felt a little disappointed by the final 2-2 result, it isn't a complete disaster however as Inter Milan also drew with FC Twente 2-2 so the group is still together but we have one less away game. Man Utd were probably the biggest British Losers of the round with Rangers getting a great 0-0 result against them, this 0-0 at old trafford is definitely a point won for Rangers and 2 dropped for United as the top seeds really shouldn't be dropping points at home, although I still feel that come the end of the group stage you will find United going through and Rangers will still probably struggle to join them.

Papal Visit

2010-09-15T06:33:00.003+01:00

With one day to go until the Visit of the Pope it seems that all of the buzz is about do the Catholics want him here? should the public pay for the visit? and will there be protests?

Personally I have to say that as a non-Catholic I really do not care if he comes to the UK or not but I can understand that if I was a follower of that faith I would probably be interested in seeing him. As for the subject of paying for the visit, I would have to say that as the Pope is both a head of state it is only right that whilst within our borders we offer him the same protection we would offer any head of state, regardless of his religious status. The only thing I may wonder is if we would allow Barak Obama to hold so many large scale rallies in the UK (As these are obviously much harder to police.)

Now for the question of protests, I am assuming there will be protests, however I think this is mostly due to a certain element of our population who seem to spend their lives constantly at a dangerous level of anger. The main elements of protest seem to focus around the Pope's views of Abortion, Sexual Equality and modernisation. I always find these arguments a little bit redundant when we are dealing with a Religion as I have always felt that you can either follow a religion or not, I struggle to support anyone who wants to take a pick and mix position as if you believe that the teachings of a religion are divine then they must all be followed, if they are not then why follow any of them.

Jokes don't quite Go the Distance

2010-09-15T05:48:00.002+01:00

This weeks visit to the Cinema was to see the Romantic Comedy "Going the Distance" the film stars real life couple (At the time, I believe they have broken up now.) Drew Barrymore and Justin Long however even the chemistry between them was not enough to carry a very flat movie.

The Jokes ranged across the full spectrum of bad comedy from ridiculous setups that are signposted from so far away that you feel tired by the time it arrives, to the current trend for replacing comedy with too much information and random swear words. There were a few funny moments but unfortunately as we had already seen them so many times in the trailers it took the edge of them.

Christina Applegate gave a good performance as Drew Barrymores sister and got the best laughs of the film whilst London band The Boxer Rebellion put in a few long cameo performances which seemed to drag a little, but as I have always thought they were one of the best unsigned acts so any exposure they can get is a positive, although I was not particularly impressed of their decision to release an iTunes only album, but that was due to my dislike for Apple not the band.

The Award for most unbelievable characters go to Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day who act as the usual cretinous "Friends of the Boy" but are so unbelievable in their language and interactions with each other that you sit there wondering who would talk like that, When watching the film I could only assume that the film was written by a woman as it felt more like a woman's interpretation of male relationships. as it turns out it was directed by Nanette Burstein and I would be interested in how much input she had over the dialog.

Not that this film was entirely without merit, simply that what merit it has is lost in the telegraphed gags and unrealistic performances, I would recommend this film only to a couple staying in and watching it on DVD, and even then only if they had already seen many of the plethora of very similar movies.

Whose fault is it anyway?

2010-09-13T06:16:00.004+01:00

Time and time again we hear about the greedy bankers who caused all of the problems that we are currently facing. But is it their fault, to listen to the likes of Bob Crow and other Union leaders then the fault has to be placed firmly on the shoulders of the Bankers who made the entire economy collapse with some dark magic. the important thing they tell us is that the fault does not sit at the feet of those working in the public sector or the unemployed.

However if we look at the facts we can see that no one group can be blamed entirely and like all global events there will always be several reasons we can look at for discovering what has happened.

1) The Banks took too many risks
2) People Borrowed too much money
3) the government dropped the ball

if just one of these elements had acted responsibly or even like addicts then none of the mess we are in now would have materialised, but they didn't. However from this list I would actually say that the main fault rests with the People who borrowed too much. at the end of the day as far as I was aware you had to be over 18 years old (i.e. an Adult) to borrow money, therefore you should be able to repay that money, otherwise you shouldn't borrow it, the banks possibly should have said no when you asked but if you couldn't afford it why did you take it?

Now the last government come back for blame here again, for it was the systematic nannying of the Labour government that appear to have removed the common sense of the population so that people are now completely dependant on others to do the thinking they seem to have forgotten how to do. this was perfectly encapsulated when someone called in a talk radio discussion on the Big Society (which is all about thinking for yourself) and asked how the government would bring in these projects.

Now the previous government come back in for more blame here for running a budget deficit during the good times so that the coffers were empty before the hard times even started.