This week I have been mainly

This week I was mostly listening to
Celldweller - Soundtrack for the Voices in My Head Vol. 1
Celldweller have a new album out very soon and this is their most recent output, only one track has lyrics (Switchback) but the music is quality. It's the kind of stuff that superhero/action filmmakers have wet dreams over.
Mark Radcliffe and Liza Tarbuck on Radio 2
On lates I always listen to Radcliffe and Maconie on the drive home but as I've been on earlies this week I had the honour of hearing Mark Radcliffe's Mancunian wit alongside the ever bubbly Liza Tarbuck. He was sitting in for Steve Wright, what a blessing!

This week I was mainly watching
The Rise and Fall of Reginal Perrin
I'm actually quite surprised by how much I enjoyed the first episode of the 21st Century remake of the 70s classic. Martin Clunes and the team behind this, I can forgive you for now.
Lady Randy: Churchill's Mother
The wife of Randolph Churchill and the mother of Winston was one dirty selfish mare! A very interesting portrait on a very driven woman who served herself first and her first husband and then her son second, with a burning desire to see them succeed at the highest level of politics.
In the Loop
You can read some of my views on this excellent film in a recent post.

This week I was mainly reading
Mike Rimmer's ever relevant challenge to Christians who want to make good music and get out a contemporary and thought-provoking message at the same time. Christian musicians currently either seem to be talented and playing in the mainstream but as a result losing any lyrical edge they may have previously had or stay within the cotton wool lined Christian circuit and lack the necessary competition to keep them artistically challenged and as a result tend to sound rather bland and average.

Other things of note from this week
I played subbuteo for first time in a month with my newly acquired figures. I'm going to use the excuse of a lack of sleep as to why I lost two matches I could have won. I'm still on an upwards curve ... and I'm still a massive nerd. You'll also notice from yesterday's post that I've spent far too much time thinking about the old Woolworths in Hanley.

Harry Hill and the Gurkhas

Rightly so Harry Hill has been once again been named the UK's best entertainment performer at the Baftas. For some bizarre reason some news organisations have decided to focus more on the fact that Jonathan Ross lost:

SKY News

The Herald


The best man won, FACT. That's the story isn't it?

Another recent story to take my interest is the government's decision to limit the number of Gurkha veterans allowed to settle in the UK. These are guys who were on the frontline of numerous battles and wars for the UK and yet we seem to have refused them entry. Thankfully public opinion seems to be on the side of rewarding them for their bravery. Joanna Lumley has been battling over this issue for years and now the Lib Dems have taken the debate within parliament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8019745.stm

Clegg et al seem to be doing a better job of getting the political headlines at the moment, despite it being the Conservatives' spring conference. The Lib Dem leader has urged his fellow party leaders to back his plans for reforming MPs' second-homes allowances.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8019853.stm

Both Clegg and David Cameron have thankfully rejected the PM's plan for a flat-rate fee based on attendance at Westminster.

On Monday the cam belt snapped and the wheels came off on Wednesday

The New Labour project is dead. That's not to say that the Labour Party are definitely lame ducks a full year before the next general election* but that a number of the key values of the Anthony Giddens-inspired Third Way were broken, neigh shattered, yesterday in the face of the grim reality of our current economic conditions. To quote the BBC's Nick Robinson, “Britain is in the sharpest recession, has the highest borrowing and is about to experience the biggest public spending squeeze since the war.”

To increase the tax rate for the highest earners is to go against one of the key tenants of New Labour, not penalising high achievers. To break Gordon Brown's golden rules and announce yet another target completely missed goes against their 'end of boom and bust' boast. The net debt forecast is double what Gordon Brown deemed acceptable for a western economy, it's hit a whopping 79 per cent of GDP. You don't need to understand the figures to realise that an overhaul is needed on what it is to be a power-seeking social democratic party.

Granted, Alistair Darling did not have an envious job to do, whatever he was gonna say was not gonna be music to our ears but the sheer magnitude is simply staggering. David Cameron's reaction to the budget was clearly that of a prime minister in waiting and Nick Clegg's reaction made me chuckle too. Considering the magnitude Darling was remarkably daring to suggest that we'd be on an upturn by this time next year, certainly Labour will be banking on this being the case if they have any chance of once again holding off the Conservatives.

There were a couple of other eye-catching moments, one being supposedly we'd get two grand if we scrapped our ten-year old motors in favour of a new one. The fact is that the government would only meet half of that figure and the dealers will do everything in their power to not let that eat into their own overheads too much. For one thing, you're not gonna see so many people being able to barter down new cars from their initial ticket price.

Perhaps the most New Labour element to their budget was their claim to either find a job or train up an under-25 who has spent more than one year out of work. It's commendable but is surely one of those things that's easier said than done and would soon be full of loopholes. Gordon Brown would suggest that New Labour is all about aspirations, making sure people make the most of their potential and increasing opportunities for people to go out and achieve but now he's taxing more those who have achieved.

For the record, the cam belt refers to my car. On Tuesday I had to say goodbye to Oscar the Octavia.

* Under the assumption that the next general election is spring 2010.

The cheats way out

Today I've been inspired to write two seperate blog entries, neither of which I'll publish right now.

One was on a truly historic UK Budget, as delivered by Alistair Darling, however I've not fully digested all the detail so I'll save that for another day. The other was on how some Christians view science, I've not quite finished writing that but I promise to publish it very soon.

So instead I'm going to cop out and draw your attention to an article my friend recently wrote,

http://www.localmotoring.com/pages/local-motoring-news.php?b=2&a=1161

My old school friend Paul Forrester wrote a lovely message to me last week saying how he'd enjoyed reading parts of my blog so to return the favour a few of our mutual friends (if no-one else) may find the above link worth a view. I certainly enjoyed reading it.

Tomorrow I promise to actually write something of merit myself though...

Adsense

You may have noticed that I’m not a socialist by the simple fact I have allowed google to advertise on my blog. One day I might go more into my politics and why they’re coloured the way they are but for now I’d like to ask a simple favour.

For some reason they suspended my adsense account (that’s what the advert monitoring service is called). They feel that the service is being abused, which most likely means that someone was doing me a favour by over-clicking on the links to generate some money for me. Thank you for helping me out but google seem to think that’s not a great idea as it creates a false impression as to how many people clicked on the links with good intent.

The adsense set up only pays a few cents (it’s in US currency you see) a day so it’s really not a money making scheme but just a nice little way that every few months I get a little reward for keeping myself creative and writing. Please do click on the adverts if they appeal to you but for google’s and my own sake it’s not a good idea to abuse them. The reason behind my blog being here is explained in my first every post. Thanks for reading and feel free to suggest future topics or to comment on what’s been written so far.

I've just come back from a couple of lovely days in York. I've felt inspired in various ways and want to work on a few ideas, in the fullness of time some of these ideas may spill over onto here.

I think you've missed the point mate

I came across a rather worrying article produced by the BNP the other day. In the story there's a ridiculously (and clearly) doctored photo of their supposed new poster campaign ahead of the European elections. More on the story can be found here amongst other places.
The advert features a picture of Jesus Christ and quotes a part of a verse from John 15:20, which Jesus says: "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you". The verse comes in the context of Jesus' teaching about love. He of course also asks us to love our enemies...
What slightly confuses me is why on earth would a middle eastern Jew who stretched his hand out to the neighbouring races and communities want an 'all-white' Britain? There seems to be no logic in this ... not that there is in any form of racism mind you.
Whilst the Church of England has decided that under the maxim of 'all publicity is good publicity' it's best not to comment on the story, there other Christians that have.
God Bless Jonathan Bartley and his mates at Ekklesia and God Bless the bassist from one of my favourite bands who posted this message on a forum in response to the story,

"And who where some of the most vehement amongst Jesus' persecutors? The nationalistic Pharisee party. They where upset by His whole deal about loving those of other nationalities whom they considered where causing political, economic and spiritual ruin in the country. To say that they 'ran the church' is misleading - the church as we know it was non existent at this time... I am a Christian and I am totally offended by this poster and find that it borders on the blasphemous. If anything it pushes me even further away from your beliefs and makes me want to convince others to do the same. If you care about Christians at all you will get shot of it."

Admittedly Christians would love to see everyone in the UK be Christians too but we'd never want to do it by force or by restricting anyone else's ability to have their own beliefs. Who exactly is it that feels unable to worship God in a church? Who exactly is it that feels we're being forced to go to a Mosque instead? Who exactly is it that has such a fragile identity that they can't stand other people being different in any way, shape or form?

Are you a Cartographer for Social Equality?

My dad is one of the best archetypes you can find for Middle England. He's middle class, middle aged, lives in the suburbs in the Midlands, wears socks and sandals in the summer, has a beard and glasses, is a member of the National Trust and English Heritage AND seems to possess pretty much every Ordinance Survey map going.

What is it with men and maps?* Worryingly I seem to have caught the bug myself but it's gonna be a while before I inherit his pink Landranger series or start a serious collection of my own ... I would imagine. But I certainly did use to study them very seriously and (according my mum) I used to know pretty much every capital city going.

A couple of years my dad got a free map with his subscription of National Geographic (yet another Middle England marker) which showed each country in correct proportion according to it's landmass compared to that of others. I was recently reminded of the Peters Projection in an episode of the West Wing, where a special interest group was trying to show the administration how regular world maps show a huge advantage to the northern hemisphere over the south. Places like Europe and the US appear much bigger than they should whilst Africa and South America look smaller than they are. It always annoyed me how massive Greenland (or Antarctica for that matter) appeared on maps when in an atlas or on a globe it clearly looked a lot smaller, so to find a map that actually catered to my anal pedantry was a dream come true.

So after watching said episode of the West Wing I googled away, however my lower lip quivered at the knowledge that there isn't a real organisation called Cartographers for Social Equality. I was almost tempted to start my own ... for now though I think I'll just join the Facebook group...

* Don't answer that, I do know the answer.

Yapolitical

Despite me now being a blogger I'm still not particularly immersed in the blogosphere but I have in the past gazed over the odd political blog. The Lib Dems were the early leading lights in this field and I still gaze at a few centrist sites from time to time, but now the Conservatives seem to have taken the lead. One of the better known British examples of this is Guido Fawkes' supposed anti-politics blog, although 'anti-Labour' (who just so happen to be in power at the moment) is a better label. Recently the main man behind the site went head to head with Derek Draper, who recently started Labour List as an almost direct reaction to the amount of Conservative-friendly blogs in comparison to those of the centre-left. The Daily Politics provided the neutral ground for them to meet on and through the below link you can find the archive of their spat. But the clip I want to show you is what of a very eloquent speech given by a little-known MEP which took the blogosphere by storm but got next to no TV coverage ... of course all MEPs are little-known but you take my point:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/7965909.stm

Talking of the EU, I'll be casting my views on Libertas sometime soon. (Something to look forward to eh?)

The big politics story of the last few days has of course been Jacqui Smith's husband wrongly deciding to claim a couple of blueys on her parliamentary expenses. Would you once again like to see his rather awkward and embarrassing apology? You're not really going to find many people that would back his decision to claim for expenses but there is a more even debate on the idea of a man in the privacy of his own home scratching an itch whilst his missus is elsewhere. I wont state my own views but, after listening to part of the debate on Jeremy Vine's show on the way to work yesterday, it does seem fairly clear that if the man doesn't see a problem with it but the lady does it's a recipe for disaster. Relationships seem to have a much better chance of working if both people have a similar view. Not rocket science I know but it's a certainly a much overlooked point in the debate.

On a side note I will one day have to explain what Yapolitical refers to and wax lyrical on my podcasting past