On Kate

Is it Christmas Fever (not a real disease)? Gangnam Fever (definitely a disease, possibly even a plague)? Maybe it's just civilisation spinning around the sinkhole a final few times? No, it's worse than all of that. It's Baby Fever, and everybody has completely lost their collective shit. It all started when what could possibly be described as

THE SINGLE GREATEST EVENT IN LIVING MEMORY

happened. I speak, of course, of Kate Middleton catching a spunk in her vagina. Forgive me - I may be underselling the gravity of the situation. When aliens are pawing through humanity's remains (actual aliens not guaranteed to have paws) in what will surely be the biggest museum to idiocy the universe has to offer, they might be forgiven for thinking that William and Kate were the only people to ever figure out the secret behind replicating their own DNA. The successful rutting and ensuing media frenzy quite reasonably caused our mini-Queenling to experience extreme nauseousness, a feeling I identify with more than she could know. Suddenly, this minor event was also unavoidably everywhere almost instantly. Thanks, internet.

Everything then went right off the rails, but you know the story. Some Australian DJs made a prank call to the hospital, a nurse by the name of Jacintha Saldanha fell for it and gave out a bit of information that she shouldn't have, the media freaked out, the hospital freaked out and, tragically, the nurse decided to commit suicide. Now is the point at which everyone should take a step back and review what they're doing with their lives. In any non-public scenario this wouldn't have been an issue:

1. A pregnant woman going into hospital with morning sickness? Least surprising non-event ever.
2. Prank call wasting a hospital's time? Dick move, but probably misjudged and not malicious - rap on the knuckles, no need to lose your job.
3. Falling for a prank call? Standard behaviour.
4. Giving too much information over the phone? Business as usual. It's not as if she revealed that Kate Middleton has five bumholes.

Yet the global spotlight causes emotions to run at unsustainable levels - high enough that a woman who did nothing wrong either felt that she should pay for it with her life or simply couldn't handle the pressure of being at the centre of such a shitstorm. Now some radio DJs might go to jail, Australia might be shut down entirely and Jancintha Saldanha is being hailed as the finest medical professional since Dr House. Constant overreaction to every development is what got us here to begin with but sure, let's serve up another dollop and see what happens. It might make a good story.

This isn't a situation that should have ever been allowed to develop - it's what happens when you're not looking; when you're focused on the shiny thing instead of the moulded turd it's being served to you on. It's the natural result of unending consumption, whether it be gossip magazines, twitter analysis, 24 hour reality TV - eventually it will consume something or someone itself.

So do you think that after this shocking event we might be able to leave Mrs Middleton alone and let her gestate in peace before more innocent people get trampled in the melee? Of course not. The show just goes on. Next: we exclusively reveal how many tears our close-up camera saw Kate shed at Jacintha Saldanha's funeral. Do you think it was sufficient? Your facebook reactions coming up!

Ongoing #16

Azhar Ahmed sentenced over Facebook soldier deaths slur

Since the popularity of the internet turned off-hand pub comments into perma-linked multimedia broadcasts of idiocy, judges have been going cock-a-hoop handing down sentences to anyone with enough motor skills to register a twitter account. This particular Muppet Of The Week happened to spout his drivel about dead soldiers somewhere public enough for one of the widows of a recently deceased serviceman to see and so she called the police. No, wait. What? I can't even imagine how that call went, but I hope it included something along the lines of "Help! Come quick! There's a wanker on the internet!".

So, for the crime of being an inconsiderate arse (okay, technically "sending a grossly offensive communication"), he has been given a fine and community service. Somebody - namely District Judge Jane Goodwin - gets to decide what is, and I quote, "beyond the pale of what's tolerable in our society". I'd suggest that if society can't tolerate some hateful and by all accounts quickly-redacted comments flippantly thrown out on a social media site, society is properly fucked. Right in the eye socket. Or something offensive. The judge went on to state that:

"With freedom of speech comes responsibility. On March 8 you failed to live up to that responsibility."

No. On the 8th of March Azhar Ahmed lived up completely to the responsibility of freedom of speech by speaking freely. Then a moral crusader with not an ounce of irony-recognition told him he couldn't do that. Part of freedom of speech is having the ability to say dumb things so that vaguely intelligent people know to avoid you. It is not and should not be considered illegal to flag yourself to everyone else as the total dickwad that you are.

Ongoing #15

Barack Obama endorses gay marriage

Bold. Steadfast. Historic. A little predictable maybe - and quite a bit late. Barack Obama's announcement that he supports gay marriage after nearly four years of utter silence on the matter would carry a little more weight if it hadn't been forcibly induced by a Joe Biden gaffe the day before. I say gaffe, but what actually happened was that he told the truth about his own feelings which caused vicious questioning of whether the President himself also felt that people should be given the rights and means to attain joy. Apparently this is an issue in America, as opposed to here in the UK where it's just assumed through his words and actions that our Prime Minister doesn't want personal happiness for anyone.

More bafflingly, the PR folks decided that the best course of action was to let poor White House Press Secretary Jay Carney fend off the question for a day without giving him an answer to work with. Presumably they did this just to see if they could get away with it, eventually coming to the last ditch, Jesus-holy-hell-I-can't-believe-we're-doing-this solution of taking a stand on one side of the colourfully-decorated fence. The most tragic part of this outcome was that the facts really were the very last thing that they tried - Obama's staff considered such an admission of humanistic apathy so suicidal with important voters in the "face inside own anus" demographic that they were willing to appear like bumbling fools who were scared of their own thoughts.

That media-savvy folks would choose this outcome is itself a damning critique of where America currently sits politically (although I'm sure if the issue had not been mentioned whatsoever it would have pleased them more). I'm sorry (I'm not actually sorry), but if you're one of these people railing so vehemently against allowing someone else a harmless platitude, then you are either a mouth-breathing affront to the word 'imbecile' or you're awfully, horribly confused. Obama is finally, publicly not confused. Now all he has left to do is anything at all about it.

Ongoing #14

Tanker drivers' strike talks to begin next week as panic buying continues to spread

Congratulations have to go to the government for figuring out how to distract the public from their recent and various embarrassments and injecting some quick cash into their tax coffers without lifting a finger or actually having anything happen whatsoever. Just as the weather anomalies itself the right temperature to make everyone a little unhinged, our genius overlords decided to announce that come next weekend we might not be able to transport our horrible offspring to Ikea for a Saturday afternoon hellfest and like the pack animals we are, we got startled and knocked ourselves unconscious on a road sign.

This master-stroke doesn't come for free of course, as they have just handed a trump card to the tanker drivers by proving how thoroughly Britain will soak its metaphorical trousers in metaphorical shit at the mere concept of not having petrol for a few days. Now that all the idiots have started to panic-buy, that "few days" has started now - a full week before any expected action - meaning that regular people who would have done just fine buying petrol normally at the normal time they would have anyway are finding busy roads, long queues and a nagging temptation to make the queue one car longer just in case. Things are now so fucked, it actually makes sense to join the idiots. Argh, idiots.

But of course after the weekend we'll either find out that this was all pointless because the dispute has been resolved (and "yay government"), or we'll find out that it will happen again at the long weekend when everyone is extra stocked up on Super Crazy. Maybe they could add some extra tension by offering family tax credits for the first person to strangle another motorist to death on the forecourt.

On Kony

Like everyone else in the Western world I spent the 30 minutes required to watch the Kony 2012 video and, like most of them, I must admit to having clicked the "Like" button. Actually it was the Google +1 button, partially so that if it came to be a gigantic scam or an embarrassment to be affiliated with, nobody would have seen that I'd done it.

But then YouTube offered me the chance to share the video, just like the flashing pictures had been telling me to do, and that was a good thing because it gave me pause to think for a second. Just what was it that I really liked about the video? Apart from the whole "Africans in dire straits, only your white money can save them" thing which of course, as a melanin-challenged citizen of Mother Earth I absolutely love, don't I?

As a marketing exercise it was damned impressive but I could hear my inner cynic knocking, letting itself in, grabbing a brew and launching backwards onto my favourite chair.

"That was a little preachy", it said.
"Sure it was, but it was just the kind of viral whatchamacallit that'll get all those hip young trendsters - or 'kids', if you like - to put down their soda pops for a second and listen to something that's going on somewhere else in the world. And that Joseph Kony, he's a Bad Man."
"Oh, sure. Absolutely. We must definitely make sure to specify anywhere we criticise the Kony video that our scepticism about the content of the piece does not translate directly into a belief that there aren't enough child soldiers in Africa and that we should all just leave poor old Joe alone because he's doing stellar work. You know, just in case anyone listening happens to be a fucking idiot."
"I detect a hint of sarcasm there, inner cynic - but just think of all the awareness it's creating!"
"Yeah, mainly of this dude's charity and how amazing a person he apparently is. How much screen-time was dedicated to asking for money, showing the logos of the various organisations involved and drilling home the message that 'black people poor, you affluent and buy worthless shit anyway, so now you buy these bracelets from us'? I bet you can remember exactly what the logo for that 'TRI' charity looks like."
"Well it's like a ban the bomb symbol, but the spokes are kind of curved and there's-"
"Right. Now tell me any Ugandan's name, apart from the child they focused on."
"Umm... I don't really remember, it was all a bit of a blur. Come to think of it, I can't even remember the name of that main kid."
"Exactly, but you can very prominently recall the Jesus-like faces of White-o McSaviour and his son, Cute-so McSaviour. It's using a cheap emotional gimmick of 'My First Activism Cause' to influence impressionable people into giving money whilst enabling them to pretend they are actually stopping horrible things from happening to people far away, but done in our favourite way - without having to physically do anything about it. Click a button, Western guilt sorted, let's go to Starbucks."
"Now that's unfair, inner cynic. There was a huge call to action, with all those kids running around raising awareness in the middle of the night."
"Ah yes, the little terrorist training video at the end. Who would have thought that the path to saving the world was to waste paper by covering it in ink, hastily sticking it to the side of a building owned by somebody who has no ties to Joseph Kony, and then tossing yourself to sleep feeling real good about it while said paper catches a gust of wind and turns itself into litter?"
"A bit of litter is a small price to pay for... no, I can't defend this any more."
"All those self-proclaimed activists out on a rampage of JUSTICE - I'm sure nobody will get carried away and plaster people's houses, cars, gardens..."
"Yes, I agree with you, it's probably not a responsible instruction to be giving out."
"And besides, the video now has a millionty-twelve views so I'm not sure how much help it could possibly need!"
"All right inner cynic, I get it! You can shut up now."

And so it came to pass in the following days that questions were raised publicly about the business practises, previous successes and general misguided nature of the Kony 2012 campaign. And then the inevitable happened - religious crusader and White Man's Burden advocate Jason Russell couldn't take the pressure and his brain decided to go wank at some cars. You have to hand it to him; even in his craziest moments, the man knows how to get shared on the Internet.

Ongoing #13

Dereck Chisora - David Haye brawl transcript

Finally, some actual fighting in British boxing. Isn't that what everyone was asking for? It turns out that the solution was a very simple recipe of:

• 1 aggressive tosspot of a lunk who can't spell the name "Derek" properly even when it is supposed to be his own name.
• 1 ego massage.
• 1 application of previously defeated British boxer in the same room.

Apply ego massage until he thinks he's indestructible, give him lots of publicity when he demonstrates that he is unable to control himself before the fight even begins, then watch the fun unravel. Extra bonus points for everyone involved in promoting, managing and broadcasting the violence that they want everyone to pay for condemning the behaviour of the angry, highly-trained meat-heads when, surprisingly, they show themselves up as thinking that hitting people is the answer to their problems.

'Anti-gay' book puts Gove at centre of faith school teaching row

It can't just be me who finds it ironic that the offending material which caused a complaint that Michael Gove responded to idiotically has possibly the most euphemistic title I've ever heard - and that includes both joke and non-joke gay porn titles. "Pure Manhood: How to become the man God wants you to be" apparently rails against homosexual relationships but it's clearly either a work of brilliant satire or about as convincing as a drug addict telling you that drugs are just terrible, awful things. I think that this booklet should indeed be handed out in schools, but it should be renamed to "My First Sexual Repression" and would serve as a lesson in irony.

On Killing

In my mind, killing is quite a large topic. For others I can understand how it's as simple as "don't" and in my daily life that is most definitely the case. On the deeper issue however, I'm still undecided. To that end, what follows is my own reasoning through it with the hopes of coming to a conclusion of sorts. So let's begin with some basic boundaries on what we're talking about.

To start with I may as well declare that I am a supporter of assisted suicide. That probably complicates every further moral question straight away but I think this is a cut-and-dry solution to a serious problem. If somebody is in pain or nearing the end of their life and wants to "skip to the end", I feel that it's only right that this should be their choice. They didn't choose to come into the world so they might as well get a say on leaving the place. Plus there's nobody out there getting off on faking their own need for euthanasia; or at least if they are and they're successful, they can only really do it the one time. Should it ever exist, such an epidemic would be a demonstration of immediate self-correction.

For the most part (in fact all but excluding this very part right here) animals are excluded from the discussion (discussion with myself, indeed). I would disapprove heavily of the killing of any animal larger than a cockroach unless a veterinary expert had deemed it necessary. I'm not entirely sure why my mind draws the line there but if you're taking cockroaches to a vet then I have to discount you from this too. But generally animals are innocent and do not have the mental capability for deception, corruption and misdeeds, thereby get a free pass - again, unless it is the only choice due to it being irreparably ill or a psychopath.

And this is where the "don't kill humans" message gets fuzzy for me. If you have a dodgy toaster that on being requested to make some toast in fact tries to set fire to the kitchen then you hastily discard it. Perhaps if you got an engineer in to look at it then he'd fiddle with a few wires and it would be back making toast without the 'attempted arson' feature. But what if it worked for a while and then broke in the same way? The cost of one toaster isn't worth the risk of your entire family and house up in flames, so on repeated violations the engineer would eventually suggest that it isn't salvageable. A human being who consistently kills or otherwise tries to harm other human beings must be faulty on a fundamental level. With seven billion of us all hanging about the place we're not exactly on the protected species register; and frankly we can spare a few if they go wonky.

I would guess that this thinking means supporting the idea of a death penalty in our justice system, but I can't think that I really would other than in the most extreme cases. On a conceptual level, killing "feels" wrong (or at the very least I feel that it should feel wrong) but it's safe to say that nobody crowding round to put a boot into Muammar Gaddafi's corn-fed torso felt that wrongness as they dragged him out of his hiding place. I don't consider that snuffing out the life of a serial child murderer would bring us down to his/her level - they are damaged in the head, we would be mercifully delivering repair in the only form possible. However this should be applied in such few instances that it probably doesn't warrant being part of the legal system at all. Like the loaded weapon by the bedside cabinet it's a protection you afford yourself at a level of risk, given that you're not the only one who can use it.

Violent mobs occur the world over with riots, lynchings and mass brawls able to break out wherever there are humans with even the most incredibly small bones to pick. It could be a good old-fashioned tabloid-fuelled paedophile hunt or simply a wrong glance at a wrong person upgrading into chaos - group mentality can allow its members to be swept up in the moment such that they can gleefully witness horrors of phenomenal magnitude and escape unbroken. There's also the popular family outing that is public stoning, one of the most horrendous ways to die I can even comprehend (and that's taking into consideration that I can't even begin to comprehend it). Again there is an invisible mental line that results in an "us and them" situation, where us feels squeamish about things like throwing rocks at living flesh and dragging bloodied corpses through the street. Them could be right but I'm willing to take my chances with the choice I've made.

I've been known to hit a ten on the annoyance scale and on the road, the most dangerous place we regularly go to, I could easily wish death upon certain people in the seconds after they throw me some stupidity to avoid, but given the trigger and a point-blank range - even whilst still fuming from it - I would not manage to carry it out (almost certainly not). If they suddenly and mysteriously handed back their driving licence I'd be more than happy. I'd also like to think that even when faced with the prospect of mob justice for the most heinous individual imaginable, I would be simply appalled at what other people were doing to Piers Morgan.

So, I think I've got it. Brace yourself to disagree.

• Murder: bad
• Self-murder: okay, but no using it whenever you feel - it is for the avoidance of painful final moments only.
• Pre-calculated murder of entities demonstrably too evil to contribute a "net positive" to society: probably logical, except with our thoroughly-documented tendency for error and hyperbole let's not bother. By the same token, let's not supply them with steak and pornography either.

Ongoing #12

Hate preacher freed to live near prime terror target

I don't think I've ever seen a more passive-aggressive headline than this. Why yes Daily Mail, I'm sure that is the specific purpose for which Abu Qatada has been placed where he has - to make everyone a bit nervous. The Sun goes one further than mere suggestion about proximities by assumption-ating that he "lurks in the shadow of Wembley". I bet his flat comes with complimentary bleach, fertilizer and a little trapdoor with a tunnel too.

Regardless of where they put him, it's always going to be too close to something else for anyone nearby to be comfortable with such a dick living there. Put him in central London, in full view of everyone and their big shiny buildings and it's a kick-start to his terror regime; put him in the outskirts or further away and suddenly he'd be in hiding, furtively furting an evil plan. But isn't it a little offensive to assume that because he's an extremist, he just wants to blow things up? After years of pent-up jail-house West-hating he might have more nuanced plans than the "bomby bomby kabloom" one he's being labelled with.

He may well have no plans to bring us down at all. If I was him and I saw those photographers chasing me down as I got into my ride, I would jump on that cushy media circus train straight away. I could do all the hating I wanted, write a nice bile-fuelled book and then get "papped" with no underwear on. One robe flash and I'd be a star overnight. I would then spend my time Pyrrhically by visiting London's various malls wearing progressively larger backpacks. It would sure beat Jordanian prison torture.

Ongoing #11

Rick Santorum back in the race after sweeping wins over Mitt Romney

Normally I'd be terrified at the mere concept of enough muppets managing to coordinate their gesticulation of a pen and writing what normally constitutes their name next to "Rick Santorum" to result in even one victory for him, but on hearing this news the portion of me reserved for utterly gleeful facetiousness immediately grabbed a beer and kicked back, ready to watch the Republicans eat themselves. I don't think there's anything in the bible against self-cannibalism, so they're fine to proceed.

Rick Santorum has now won more states than previous assure-o-candidate Mitt Romney which shakes things up considerably and fragments the Republican party further, although it is worth bearing in mind that he's won exactly the kind of states whose preferred candidate would be a homophobe on steroids. Santorum himself isn't heinous and objectionable, it's just everything he says, the things he believes and the principles that he works to that make every right-thinking person want to forcefully expunge semi-digested foodstuffs out of their mouths.

Don't get me wrong here; I'm no flag-waving Obama supporter but we know what he does and while not all of it has been great, the place I live and the places that all of my friends live continue to exist and I quite like it that way. The smarmy untrustworthiness on the faces of every nearly every GOP candidate gives me no such similar assurance.

On Award Shows

You'd think that I would dislike "awards season" because of the pomp and ceremony disproportionally employed for such a vacuous event. You'd think I'd dislike it because of the ignorant, grinning maws of the wealthy all primped and preened, ready to be handed a piece of metal that symbolises exclusivity while the rest of the world starves. You'd think I might object to people crying at receiving the relatively pointless recognition they've been so desperately trying to attain through years of an unhinged personality defect. You may even consider that I would be irritated by the inability of anyone who thanks a god in their speech to realise that if their deity loves everyone then he couldn't possibly have had anything to do with giving that award to them specifically. And, predictably, you'd be right.

I understand the need to party and it's nice to get all dressed up but why do we need extreme close-up analysis of every aspect of a garment that very strategically protects little but the bleached detail of Jennifer Lopez's anal passage from our eyes? Although who knows; it could be our vision that needs protection from it. Anyway, this has resulted in people inventing a job called "fashion expert" and other people giving them money to spout monosyllabic nonsense at a camera in such a fanatical manner that you wouldn't be surprised to hear that they'd broken into a celebrity's house, made off with a wardrobe's worth of party dresses and then got into a bath with them, maniacally grinding beads and sequins into every accessible cleft. No, that doesn't sound suspiciously specific.

Strangely though, it seems to come down to mathematics; I don't think my reaction would be so visceral if everyone voted together as that would at least give some statistical gravitas to the results. But not only are they splintered into every possible sub-niche but some of them are simply decided by a bunch of old men in a room. Exciting and exclusive I'm sure you'll not agree. You can go into pretty much any retirement home (especially with the right cover story, believe me) and get hours of opinion on the state of the entertainment industry. How many individual award shows does society need? Besides none, I mean. Let me rephrase the question: what would be a sensible amount of award shows to have televised and reported on by the news media? Oh dammit, same again. I'll get back to you when I have formed a question you can't answer with a wryly-raised eyebrow.

Even if I accept (and I don't) that we have all of these shows and that they're here to stay, there's still a gaping hole in the arrangement; where are the televised awards for industries that mean something like - and these are just a few examples - nursing, fire-fighting, youth-working, general humanitarianism; that sort of deal. And I definitely don't count those "bravery" ones where a bunch of people who actually did things each get an opportunity to be patronised for two minutes by the tag-team of corporate teat-sucking known as Ant and Dec. I'm continually surprised that they manage to record those shows, given how much the human body should convulse when offered a prize for nobility by a duo whose bravest act is to continue to call themselves entertainers after proudly hosting a show that is essentially about making people fellate spiders.

Somehow, whole industries will continue to be kept afloat by this bizarre parade of affluence. I have to wonder how long it will be before human evolution causes them to be shamed out of existence, but I also must worry that shame itself has already evolved to make this behaviour acceptable.

Ongoing #10

Caution on Twitter urged as tourists barred from US

US Homeland Security really should get on board with the latest street lingo because they are being let down embarrassingly by their current grasp of it. Don't they know that "destroy" isn't a bad thing any more? "Bad" isn't even a bad thing any more. Next they'll be putting Obama supporters in Syrian prisons for saying that the President is "whack" due to their 70s concepts about words, or bloggers on to watch lists for saying that the US Department of Homeland Security are petty, humourless, reactionary chimp-masturbators who don't have a gram of common sense in their Jobsworthian bodies.

By way of this latest hissy fit they have essentially advised against all public expression, with not only the place they control but also all countries in the universe now being urged to refrain from "posting statements in a public forum which could be construed as threatening". Construed by whom, exactly? Lawyers? Idiots? Idiot-lawyers? If we extrapolate that out to "anyone we hire" then absolutely any message they feel like could magically be a threatening one. You can construe anything into the shape of any boogeyman you fancy if you try hard enough and these guys seem to love trying just hard enough to get in the news for really stupid shit like this. This is one trending topic I hope we don't see more of (I'm so sorry).

Tensions increase as Duke arrives in Falklands

Oh well go on then, we haven't had a good old bit of war for aaaages. In fact, let's definitely ignore the fact that our ancestors set up camp and started procreation in a pretty silly place miles from home, at a time when a dagger stuck to the end of your rifle was still advanced weaponry and the British Empire still had lots of money to waste. Let's not send a big ship over, collect up all the people who want to come, graciously bow and then sensibly give the land back to the country it's (and I do believe this is the proper geographical vernacular) right fucking next to. That said, what are Argentinians going to do with a chunk of the Scotland Highlands?

While we're busy flying our prince into their airspace, the Falkland Islanders may want to consider how much of a waste of time, money and effort that is, and think about maybe joining the country whose economic policy is to heavily suggest that they should be given free islands, instead of posturing with expensive warships and and wafting royals overhead while its main population kicks about in the dirt.

On Patriotism

You may or may not be aware of this, but I'm a Scot. That is, I'm from Scotland. I'm Scottish. Random occurrences atop random-er occurrences throughout time led to the birth of the specific person that I am and so that person turned out, as it just so happens, to have been born in an historically-delineated portion of a fragment of planet called Britain. All of this resulted in his gender being male, his voice sounding a certain way, his hair being a certain colour and his, yes, even that. Everything that comprised his life caused him to move to another of the delineated parts of this "Britain", a place they know as "England". As it just so happened.

As it just so happened, this genetic experiment was matched and exceeded the world over in all factors, all backgrounds and all combinations. In kindness, in cleanliness; in smartness and in selflessness. In every fashion, the same "grow your own human" kit has been used to variable effect and it is demonstrably demonstrable that there are both good and awful examples in all different kinds of locations.

It is down to this fact that I call into question the ideology of patriotism and nationalism. The world is full of interesting people, communities, villages, towns, cities and countries but to think that any single one of them is "better" simply because it is the one in which one randomly sprouted is small-mindedness at best. As I mentioned above in a more masturbatory abstract form, I live in England now after growing up in Scotland. I love Scotland, it's a beautiful place and I've been on holiday there many a time (that's what happens when you have a family cat growing up). Some of my best friends are from there and everything.

But I could never imagine saying that it's the best country because have you seen other countries? Some of them are amazing. Some of them are not so good due to the crazy people living in them but that's the cost of a world with such variety and it's why the fast-approaching knuckle-to-the-skull that is English Pride makes me so nervous. It makes a lot of European football fans nervous too. I know English people too, they're cool guys. But as always the perception of their culture has been sullied by their worst elements. Which is unfortunate given that in the case of England, the worst elements are those who espouse the greatness of the country while pissing all over it.

It's the same anywhere - the burger joint employee who first stacked over 5 ham patties in a single bun will forever owe America a course of lap-band surgeries and the chip shop employee who first battered and deep-fried something that wasn't fish or sausage will forever owe Scottish heritage a quintuple-bypass. And now Scotland, world-renowned for its excellent book-keeping, wants proper independence like what we lost in that big fight that time. Sadly nobody is going to see Alex Salmond jousting David Cameron for it but a boy can dream. One quick trip out on a horse and all that sweet whiskey money could be ours.

None of this is to say that you shouldn't be proud of where you're from. I swell non-sexually whenever I consider the valleys, vistas, culture and cheer of my home country and the same is true when I think of where I live now. I just don't think that wearing obnoxious t-shirts, smashing up Argentinian cafés and adding an extra syllable to my country's name as I chant it reflexively with my friends constitutes "support". When it comes to appreciation of where you reside, I can only ask that you pay attention to those clearest of lines between pride and bullshit.

Ongoing #9

Cannabis taxation: a win-win all round, Richard Branson tells MPs

I wouldn't want to brag, but I've been saying this for years. I could have let the MPs know this for half of Branson's hourly rate because when it comes down to it, what actual reason is there to ban a naturally-occurring plant? Although in my head I've long been a fan of the "take the warning labels off everything and let what happens happen" idea I can kind of understand why certain drugs have been given the tag illegal.

Some of them need ridiculously small quantities to get you to take the ridiculously large quantities that will eventually consume you whole, and so with a bar to entry that low it's surely not worth the risk. But it's a traded-off risk, not an avoided one - the people who still want it will still get it, and they'll get lesser quality from dodgier people who've had to support nastier events than you'd care to think about as you're tucking greedily into your crack rock.

So the argument seems to be danger but putting aside the little matter of the zero cannabis overdoses that have ever happened in the history of the world, since when were dangerous things outlawed completely? They are usually a government's biggest money-spinners - tobacco, alcohol, cars and the petrol to go in them (which I guess is only dangerous if you're a hippie who likes breathing oxygen). Not to mention the life-threatening properties of knives, matches, bleach and water which are very easily accessible by any idiot with the capacity to blunder into a way they can cause injury with them. To someone who has basic faculties those items can be useful rather than a big sticky mess, so it becomes about risk and in this regard marijuana has been proven to be the lowest of the low.

But if they won't listen to evidence, reports, professionals, reports by professionals, public displays of their illogicality by professionals, are they going to listen to the guy with a big sack of money? Oh yeah, they might just do that, it's in their bloodlines.

Ongoing #8

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On Ailments

I write to you now from the blackened mist that is recovery from a sprained ankle - sympathy cards to the usual address please. It's a terrible place to be. I can't move or even angle my left foot without a considerable amount of pain, I am fully reliant on the kind people around me for some previously basic tasks and my only mode of transportation is the hop. For the past day and at minimum a few days to come, I will be constantly aware that something is not quite right in the state of Me. On a minutely basis I will be made to face that fact from the signals my foot is constantly sending to my head. Or maybe the signals my head sends to itself, via my foot. I probably should have done a bit more research before I started typing.

How easy it is to forget about the potential discomforts that we are not currently experiencing. When cuts, spots and other bodily chinks disappear and are no longer causing a daily distraction we almost instantly discard the very thought of them, dismissing the knowledge itself that we can even be affected by them. It's understandable, we have plenty of other stimuli around and we want to move on - our brains are busy people. But we also discard the appreciation factor.

The appreciation factor is what makes it hard to give a very nice steak to a very cute dog. The dog may scoff it down and lick his lips for hours after but to him, the meal was just as satisfactory as all the other meals he has ever consumed. What's he going to do? Note it down in his foodie diary under "must try again" and then let you know when he next fancies it? If you fed him toes, ears, guts and bumholes (or as they're more commonly known, "hot dogs") then there would be just as much affection coming back at you. It's not just a waste of money or a waste of steak, it's a waste of the experience of eating that beautifully prepared quality meat-based product on a deeply cognitive level that a non-human animal simply isn't capable of receiving.

Dogs are perfect examples of living "in the now" - I'm eating steak, now I'm not eating steak, mmm I can taste steak, mmm licked all the steak taste away, aww yeah now I'm getting stroked. It's not a complex internal monologue but it does for their purposes. Not once do they think "that piece of cake I found discarded in that sealed box on the table yesterday was good, I wish I had some more of that"; they're always looking forward.

As humans we can hark back to, say, the best lasagne we ever had but rarely would we take the memory of the cold sore we had last week, compare it to this week, and feel a benefit to it being gone (I do apologise for that mention of lasagne and cold sores in the same sentence). The sore is no longer pissing you off but there's not the constant joy that, considering how much time you put it to recognising it as an impediment, should be present after having regained full function of your lips. Or your whatever-it-was.

When I extend my arm I should be feeling great that the elbow joint doesn't click like it did a few weeks ago - a few more arm exercises and that particular annoyance has gone away - but somehow I'm not capable of that, I'm just extending my arm in an uninhibited manner. Sure, I can sit here, do it and think "awesome, it's not doing that clicking any more" (yes I am the kind of person who both says and thinks the word 'awesome') but after doing it a few more times with no sound or discomfort happening I get bored. Bored of watching my functional arm functioning functionally. And I know what an awfully wasted experience that is and what a fickle beast I am.

When I mend from my sprain I will no doubt go back to racing around on that foot, oblivious to the days (days being the measurement of time I am hoping turns out to be most relevant in this case) I spent without its usefulness. The only thing that makes me feel slightly better is that I'm sure that's just how it works. So maybe it's better to just embrace it? Fine then; may your ailments be minor, your mind be unappreciative and your lasagne consumption be unimpeded by cold sores. Oh, I did it again.

Ongoing #7

Websites block content over US bill

In 2011 protesting became the new shouting-about-stuff-on-the-Internet and now, within a year, not-putting-stuff-on-the-Internet has become the new protesting. I imagine protesting will make a comeback though, it is kind of persistent like that. Some high-profile sites took their bats and balls home in objection to freedom-smashing ham-fist-athon SOPA. Sadly I own no "web properties" with enough clout to make even a dent in the protestural (not a word) landscape if they disappeared, although I do have control over a few sites that, had they done anything (or removed everything they normally do) would have constituted a statement on behalf of some companies that would have rapidly set about getting me fired. I'm against the SOPA, but clearly I'm not that committed.

China's government's grip on its citizens' web usage has been well reported - the mere mention of this fact probably means I'm on a watch list right now. At least somebody is reading these - hello Chinese government employees, I am genuinely sorry that you have no fun in your life. America now seems to be taking a lead from China (as in guidance not metal - we all take enough Chinese lead as it is) by allowing themselves free reign to block any website for pretty much any reason they can tie back, however loosely, to copyright infringement because that no-questions-asked system worked so well for detention of terrorism suspects. Except there won't be a website version Guantanamo Bay, just the cold eternal emptiness of no visitors.

The web is still forming in to what it will be known as for years to come and especially to archaic, monolithic government structure it's a completely new concept - something they have no chance of controlling. As usual the "experts" deciding the way forward have missed the mark entirely - the solution to stopping those pesky squirrels from eating your plants is not to apply napalm to the forest. Although I guess the US already know plenty about that so it'll save a bit on planning costs.

Captain says he slipped, tumbled overboard and ended up in lifeboat

How tragically unlucky for a man so lucky as to find himself accidentally in a lifeboat and accidentally rowing like buggery away from the problem, that nobody believes he is truly a hero who just tumbled to safety. It's also a shame that there's a transcript detailing his cringe-worthy attempts to avoid getting back on the ship to help people.

Just look at the guy - he's clearly a cruise-liner captain, not a real one. Expecting anyone with this face to hang around while unimaginable terror and chaos rains down is like expecting your average bus driver to operate with the professionalism and resolve of a tank commander. "Captain Schettino" even sounds like a cartoon character who bumbles around at eight frames-per-second and gets farcically self-rescued making it look like he fled his own sinking ship ahead of women and children, sort of like an Inspector Clouseau of the sea. With a name like that, it's hard to stay mad at him. "Ohhh, that Schettino!"

Ongoing #6

Final preparations underway for Republican debate

The best theory I currently have is that Americans perhaps aren't fully understanding the purpose of debate. Firstly, they are meant to help people find which candidate they like the best, not which they hate the most. Secondly, debates are intended to move the conversation forward, not reinforce tired rhetoric to the kind of crazies that would go to Republican Debate 5937 (it's somewhere around there) and don't recognise pandering when they see it. Thirdly, they are at some point meant to stop.

Even if one person involved in the entire process were to be convinced away from their views, it would keep what they are pretending these events are (a discussion of the issues) from being quite so laughable. But rather than the candidates convincing the audience of a point using reason, these debates seem to be a "who can say the worst things about Obama and get terrifying Neanderthal-like yells and whoops in response" contest where the crowd let the speakers know just which viewpoints they are supposed to have.

In the UK we use debate in what seems like a far more flexible manner - that is, that there is vaguely the chance of winning anyone over to your logic, or indeed it being pointed out how flawed yours is and everyone getting past it, to the next question and trying to solve that one together too. Sorry, did I say "UK"? I meant to say "Fairy Fucking Pixie Land". But even us British don't seem as set in our ways as the people at these Republican debates. As a result it's hard to believe anything that the debaters are going to say as they are so well-trained on the cookie-cutter anti-liberal party lines required to pass - or as it's also called, "not be shot on the way out".

This seems to mean that the main place from which you should discard what a presidential hopeful said is the place they are meant to be using responsible and reasoned argument. How bad of an omen is it if I find this behaviour untrustworthy before so much as getting to the content of what they are saying?

Golden Globes: Ricky Gervais 'subdued', say critics

Is a non-event newsworthy? Does an occurrence that never occurred become worth talking about if the mere mention of it not occurring sets back hair up on end, on both sides of the topic? It's like that time the BBC reported that the "fifth night of rioting was avoided". So, you mean the rioting stopped? You can't call it the fifth night of rioting if there were only four nights of rioting; it was simply the end of the rioting.

And look, "oops!", they let their paedophile clown out at the party again but dammit; not one rape. Maybe he wasn't that horny after last year's castration or perhaps everyone knew that they couldn't get away with pretend controversy again so decided to put in as little effort as possible because whoever was going to watch would be watching regardless. Damned if you do, slammed if you don't. Still doesn't feel "newsy".

On Aliens

If I had a penny for every time I've heard the question "are we alone?" then I'd wonder who it was with the time and resources to track my hearing and donate a single British pence to me upon my ears' receipt of that specific phrase, and to what end they were doing this. That's some evil super-genius shit right there. But it's a common thing to wonder - here we are after all, dropped into a sea of stuff with no idea why or how we came to be. Let me take that back a notch - plenty of ideas, but pretty short on things like facts and knowledge. We're microbes on a fish's scale in that ocean; barely in reach of our neighbouring scale let alone the fish; able only to theorise about what the billions of other fish might contain.

It would be arrogant in the extreme for those microbes to assume that they were destined to be placed upon that particularly hospitable oceanic vertebrate and that no other such microbes could have been so lucky. Assuming, that is, that microbes had the capacity to display arrogance or make assumptions; both of which I might well be doing by thinking that they can't. Spoiler alert: they can't though. Take that, microbe community. But fittingly, with crazy-awesome telescopes we are starting to discover many stellar destinations that could be just as flourished as ours.

For me the answer has always been "of course we're not alone" due simply to the mathematics of it. There are thousands of millions of stars in just our own galaxy and many thousands of millions more galaxies in the universe - that's trillions of opportunities for the right conditions to emerge. Our biologically refined brains still cannot help but to be engulfed by how big of a number that is. Each one of those incomprehensible numbers is potentially a nutrient-giving sun for one or more of the sextillions (real word I promise) of planets out there; each a chance to produce life. And life is more than happy to try and appear anywhere there's room for it - just look at the plausible attempts of Jupiter's moon Europa, or even the less plausible attempts of the Jersey Shore.

I'm no gambler and it shows here with this sure-fire winner, hotly tipped to be proven without a doubt. I give us 25 years before extra-terrestrial life is a certainty and that estimate feels conservative. Even if we can't contact that life, our technology will have improved enough that we can detect their existence and who knows, they may already know about us but be unable to communicate. To me, it's just always seemed likely that that's the way it is. You might be thinking that it's easy to come out after they've started to find ridiculous numbers of potentially habitable planets and say "I said it would happen" and yes, it is easy to do that. But hey, you can ask my friends if you like. If they were listening to me when I originally said it.

What I find more incredible still is how diverse the universe really is. It has planetary structures, galactic formations and black holes that defy belief and so varied that even the crazed scribblings of madman George Lucas have turned out to be true. There's now nothing original you can guess about the cosmos, because the universe probably got there before you.

I can't do much more than to leave you with a stunning image dredged from the pit of untruth that is Wikipedia. It is of the other side of the galaxy you are in right now and just from the volume of bright dots pictured there I can't imagine that are no alien lifeforms somewhere in its vastness...

Ongoing #5

Nazi comparison on forum prompts Swindon council row

If you're a member of the royal family, a politician, a councillor, a council employee, a political campaigner or even a celebrity (no matter how minor) - if you're any of these, I have one potentially life-saving piece of advice for you. It's stunning that your brethren hadn't come to this conclusion on their own but sometimes a mysterious guiding hand appears inexplicably to lead you through the minefield. Today, I am that hand - and the hand speaketh thusly: STOP DOING ANYTHING TO DO WITH NAZIS.

Don't say 'Nazi' in public; don't say 'Nazi' in private; don't tweet, Facebook or otherwise socially network yourself as having ever typed 'Nazi'; don't dress up as a Nazi; don't dress your friend or pet up as a Nazi and don't arrange a party that is Nazi-themed in any way, or has a theme that may result in any of the guests turning up dressed as Nazis. All of this is basic stuff by the way - that's why it's free. Don't make jokes about Nazis; don't compare other people to Nazis; don't even think about Nazis. What is wrong with you people?!

In summary, just stay away from all Nazi-type anything. Yes, even if you think that Nazis are evil or if you think you're making a clever or amusing point that requires you to mention them. In fact, especially if you think you are making a clever or amusing point because it's guaranteed that you're not and you will end up in the news. And it won't say that you happen to think Nazis are naughty people with flawed ideologies, it will include only the most contextually-damning bit where you said the word itself. Be smart - don't be Nazi news.

Leon Panetta says US Marines urinating video 'utterly deplorable'

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has said the behaviour of US Marines in a video which appears to show them urinating on the blood-soaked bodies of dead insurgency fighters is "utterly deplorable".

Absolutely; how disgusting. All they were asked to do was invade a country, fly drones into buildings and shoot people in the chest and face until they are dead. Making their bodies a bit wet with an inert sterile fluid is just taking it too far - don't these people have any respect?

It seems to be about symbolism and apparently it's more symbolic to urinate on someone's bleeding corpse than to have fired the bullet that produced the blood; because when it involves killing that's just business as usual. Nobody pays you to piss, Private - do it on your own time and away from the targets whose deaths we funded.

Ongoing #4

Mitt Romney 'Gaffe' - "I like being able to fire people"

While this is certainly a dumb thing to say during a presidential race it's not exactly untrue - when you get terrible service from someone you have to think that best course of action is a good old-fashioned sacking or re-deployment to a position where basic courtesy isn't a requirement. Some people are willing to get downright litigious for the smallest of things, which if successful would generally have the same result of somebody losing their job.

So if the underlying sentiment is truthful and identifiable, why this is a gaffe? Romney is super-rich which kind of makes it sound like he's a Business Dick who loves nothing more than to tell a hard-working blue collar family man to have his desk cleared by the end of the day. Only that's not what's happening; he loves nothing more than to tell slackers to do that. And with his party's base being the do-it-yourself pulled-bootstraps hard-graft type, I'm not sure there's a conflict. Similarly, he could appear anti-jobs by wanting to remove that person's job - but he wants to give it to a hard-working blue collar family man or woman (actually, maybe not woman, he just gives me that impression). He wants America to have that job.

My conclusion then has to be that it's a gaffe because he said it. Mitt Romney says plenty and it all has the same clumsy phrasing, cheesy grin and pause for laughter that never comes so I'm still not sure why this is special, but it was definitely given a kick-start into gaffe territory by coming out of his mouth in the first place

David Cameron: my vision for a fair Britain

WARNING: Jesus Christ, every article about David Cameron seems to be accompanied by a massive image of his face in some sort of ridiculous contortion, which has been photographed and then printed out for someone to wear as a mask, which has then been photographed for use in an otherwise unassuming article. My heart can't handle many more of these 'surprises'.

Here's that promise again; does it constitute part of the same promise as before or is it just an abstract moment while he defines his "vision"? Visions don't interpret straight into reality very often, so I'm figuring that this one is on artistic licence.

Mr Cameron said he would use 2012 to convince people that he had a “vision at the end of this, of a fairer, better economy... blah?"

Well this makes sense, because he has only just been made prime minister so obviously he couldn't have used any year other than 2012, where nobody who is capable of cognition should trust him, to do this. It really is a genius plan, I am glad this guy is in charge.

A personal commitment to water down the power of European human rights judges who had been at the centre of controversies with rulings that seemed at odds with public opinion.

An especially strange policy when one's own decisions have been vastly opposed by the public. When you require 40% cuts of public sector working class jobs, but are only just attempting to tackle those obvious figures scampering off into the distance with bags of cash, it's particularly hard to judge your priorities as anything other than warped.

What I find most amusing is that Cameron's definition of "people power" is shareholders. Shareholders are not your average working person. Shareholders are able to afford investment while the majority can barely muster savings. I'm not sure if this is entirely unclear to him but either way it makes rather a convenient blind spot..

On Weather

The United Kingdom is currently having what it is fair to call a 'shit-load of weather'. Scotland has it worst with extreme damage to people and property and down here in England we are taking the sloppy seconds. But I quite like sloppy seconds; in weather terms, I mean. There are some pretty fierce gusts, rain and a general dank feel around and while I will complain bitterly when coming into contact with it, I heartily enjoy it on the whole. That's with a W, sicko.

Feel free to ignore the fact that this is what 6 year-old children would write about for school essays - here's why I love crappy weather.

It makes me feel all schadenfreude-y.

There was an old Garfield comic I read in my youth that I identified so strongly with that it has stuck in my mind mostly all my life. When I say 'stuck' I don't mean to imply that I can remember the exact words, but I can paraphrase it;

(Panel 1) Look at this Monday morning rain.
(Panel 2) All those poor saps out there have to go to work.
(Panel 3) I'm so glad I'm in here with my lasagne.

I hope that approximation isn't too offensively stereotypical but it does contain the three main elements that comprise your standard Garfield comic: a) Monday reference, b) lasagne reference c) not being funny. Anyway the feel of it struck a chord in me that rings delightfully to this day. The pleasure I receive from watching people walk past on a rainy day while I'm all tucked up in my nice warm house borders on perversion; how common I hope the feeling is being the only thing that disqualifies it as a fetish.

It connects us.

While I consider a pointless waste of air most topics that are considered 'small talk', I do find a discussion about the weather to be tremendously cathartic. It's something that everyone can relate to as it's an inescapable part of living on the same ball of rock - its atmospheric systems something that we cannot hope to fully (or in most cases even partially) understand, but that we can all experience easily. Happenings in the sky so much bigger than ourselves, output a net result that we have evolved to analyse without any real conscious thought.

This does tend to come with an assumption from others that I have run out of other topics to discuss and they will frequently move away from it as to say "don't worry, I've got one" but really, I just like talking about the weather. I realise that is sad but I am not sorry, so suck it. Go on, suck my sadness.

So... yes, the weather connects us. Look! A bear!

It gives me a greater appreciation of things.

I have rarely if ever come home from a blazing beer garden, thankful to be indoors away from prime access to sun, beer and burgers. But in crap weather every return home is a welcome one. Even if it's somewhere you chose to go yourself for actual pleasure, getting some wet on you will make arriving all the sweeter.

Cups of tea and coffee are tastier; showers and baths more soothing; nude house striding is a bit less comfortable, I'll grant you. But even sounds, from the gales throwing rain against window down to the click of the heating turning on, make me appreciate things a little more - although mostly things that are keeping me warm and dry at the time.


None of this precludes my love of a sunny day of course but most people do; to say what's great about those would be like reiterating why air is definitely the best substance to breathe.  I know that I'm certainly not alone nor the most ardent supporter of so-called "bad weather" but I am in the minority. Try not to oppress me - I may be different, but I'm just the same as you. Except different.

Ongoing #3

Mitt Romney wins Iowa caucuses by eight votes

Republican voters display the well-polled but now proven lack of cohesion and incredible apathy at their candidate choices by giving Mitt Romney the narrowest of what is offensive to call 'wins'. He's clearly the best chance for those who want to oust Obama but when not even his own party wants him, how good a position can that be?

He's the "wrong religion", lacks sincerity and is too rich for the common man to fathom; belief that he is convincing regular people he's one of them qualifies as crazed behaviour at this point. But the main problem that has been exposed through the media's use of recording devices, is that nobody knows what Romney really believes about anything. Like John McCain before him, he's contradicting his past self without acknowledging the existence of cameras. I don't want to mock this too cruelly, it could be a special offshoot of Mormonism.

I would normally be wary of the prospect of an unknown US president but really - what's the worst he could do? Re-invade Iraq? Put baskets of guns outside every school and church in a pledge to the gun lobby? Purposefully kill thousands of Americans by removing the healthcare bill allowing them to get care that they were previously denied, just to pander to a bloodthirsty "grass roots" base and distance himself from what is essentially his own healthcare plan that he now has to pretend to hate because Obama also likes it? Oh shit, maybe that one.

Boy 'tortured and drowned' over witchcraft claims, court told

One might expect this to have its basis in deepest Africa or with a newly-discovered island tribe who had been deprived the luxury of societal development, but shockingly this horrific act took place in a flat in London. While you are going to get 'all kinds' in such a cultural stew, people who literally believe in witchcraft should not be one of the ingredients. I don't have an answer to how we would oust the bad parts, although I'm pretty sure checking for prior form would be a decent start.

How such ignorance could fester unchecked and unchanged by our modern world is baffling. People whose foundational truths include the existence of sorcery must not only have been educationally stunted at conception, but surely in constant terror at the boxed magic around them. Having survived in the big city long enough to be residents with such appallingly idiotic belief systems, how did they participate in our society without thinking that every teenager, road sign and bus stop was a witch / haunted / other utter fucking nonsense?

This one-by-one system of letting people do something bad is a terribly inefficient way to excise human matter from the melting pot, resulting as it does in at least one sickening act occurring per sickening person. I wouldn't propose a Minority Report future but precognition is not required to identify some people as dangerous. It might require 'paperwork' and 'keeping decent records' though. I know - who thought preventing the horrendous deaths of helpless innocents could be so boring?

Ongoing #2

Salford murder accused gives name as 'Psycho'

I'm all for not judging books by their covers, but sometimes the cover represents the contents perfectly. Just look at this face, it's made of 100% triple-distilled prick; you can just tell. And the victim, student Anuj Bidve - it is obvious at a glance how much of a better person he is. I mean that in the completely tangible and objective metric of what joy he would have brought to those around him. The total worth of a gang member who introduces himself in court on a murder charge using a fake name he would likely fail to spell? I'm not sure it's detectable with current technology.

All human life may start with equal value but there are some very fast ways to trash it. Most factors that led to what will surely be this man's most notable act were probably outside of his control - we are all genetic experiments; our ingredients are not our choice, nor are our upbringings. In this case, a switch has clearly been flipped the wrong way from the start, but environment has a hand to play as well. It's clear that it would have been more satisfactory for everyone had this person stayed a sperm, but would any of the other sperms have faired any better?

New Year detox is futile

So the extremely common practice of a month off the tipple - usually with the result of knowing the horror that is a month without alcohol and then promising to never, ever put such a limitation on oneself again - doesn't do you any good. Will this news cause, in general, a more careful drinking public who will not do it to excess quite as often? Or will it remove the one time of year that people who were drinking enough that they needed to convince themselves they could totally do a whole 31 days without it weren't drinking to excess? Hang on, 31 days is a lot, let's call it 4 weeks. Do Sundays count?

Katy Perry's father can't talk about her break up

Just kidding.

Ongoing #1

President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Into Law

Publicly having serious reservations about something you later sign, while promising that your people won't use the more overreaching powers of the law and making a blanket statement about how future administrations will operate is stretching credulity, even for a politician. It seems that after managing to kill fugitive terrorist and Level 20 Boss 'Osama Bin Laden', President Obama thinks he's a knight of the Jedi Order with +12 believability. He is not.

I'd like to hope that there'll be no "long tail" from this story; no human rights travesties that wouldn't have happened without this law's assistance, but I'm almost certain that my hopes will be dashed. Happy New Year America, and here's to 2012: year of the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens.

Cameron to tackle "excess" City pay

WARNING: article contains a large picture of David Cameron.

It's hard to believe that the financial meltdown kicked off all the way back in 2008 because since then "the news" seems to have been a constant cycle of reports that the government is going to go after these naughty, cheeky little bankers. Tut tut. What do you call a promise that keeps getting promised over the course of years and repeated as if it is a new promise each time, without anything having been done in the time since you last promised it? Is it 'a lie', by any chance?

But don't worry because this time they really, honestly are going to tackle excessive executive pay, bonuses, perks, the ability to call up the Prime Minister and ask him to turn a blind eye to your abuses of power and then give you a job because he's your buddy... oh no sorry, they never said anything about that last one, making it pure conjecture that it ever happened. It is true conjecture, though.

I just find it very unlikely that Cameron will make any kind of movement towards cropping the salaries of the people who keep him in power and bring nice bottles of wine to his dinner parties. Any other action on his part would require him to have empathy for people he doesn't personally know and therefore to act as if they are sentient beings capable of suffering. This moral failing suggests to me that he possesses either a form of autism, or a form of cuntism. You decide.

On 2011

2011 is over and done with. As I write this, it has been completed for a good few hours. There is no more left. You, nor I, nor anyone else, can ever experience another moment of it, but its moments are currently at their freshest in our minds. So what better time to reflect on it? From my perspective, 2011 was actually pretty good. It was also the year I turned 30, but I choose not to dwell on that. It encompassed several themes which I will now explore in a word-type style.

Dubstep

Eh, I know. It's a well-worn word that's used to mean a wide variety of genres and you can get in a lot of trouble using it at all. But I do think that 2011 was Year of the Dubstep. I'm sorry, I really am.

This year I added many artists to my "currently playing" list that I wouldn't have thought possible. Skrillex, Noisia, Mord Fustang, Feed Me, Porter Robinson - previously inconceivable and not all entirely "dubstep" all of the time, but there you have it. I've grown to love those hard drops, the floor shaking from the weight of the bass and a grungy riff slapping me about the face. It has got to be cleverly constructed though - you can't just throw bleeps and wobbles in there and expect me to enjoy.

I've also continued to listen to more traditional band-based music as always, so I don't feel that my sensibilities are changing; simply evolving. They're my ears to break.

Health

I had never enjoyed sports and always had the belief that a sandwich was not enjoyed correctly without some accompanying crisps. It was this maxim which had caused me to slide into the "overweight" category for the majority of my 20s; a slow digression that wasn't understood until a few years ago when some friends of mine started playing squash and invited me along. Although I was terribly unfit I loved the game instantly and started playing regularly but, still not realising that my "love handles" were in fact Recaro love seats with extra padding and suspension, I balanced out this exercise with an intense array of doughnuts and other fried goods.

This year, that all changed when I realised I was going to turn 30 and be in the same situation. Thanks to another friend who convinced me to try it, I went along to a circuit-training session and started to see results within weeks. I also knocked the sandwich/crisp combination on the head, opting instead for home-made chicken salads and snacking on them throughout the day rather than gorging myself at lunchtime.

That plus additional squash games has meant that I've lost 44lbs (or 20kg, or 3st) in the space of 10 months. I feel better for it, look better for it and I have a much better squash game to boot. I've still got a bit to go, but if I've not reached my target by the summer of 2012 then frankly I need to have a word with myself. Bring on the next twelve months as far as this is concerned.

Creativity

Ever since my music-making machine broke back in 2010 (or was it late 2009?) I'd been waiting around until I could re-assemble it. I replaced my desktop machine with a laptop which was great for most things, but wasn't so conducive to using all the musical stuff I'd accumulated and so the recording I had been doing tailed off. As if by Christmas magic, just at the end of the year I discovered a number of open source softwares that would allow me to get back recording again. In total I only managed one full track in 2011, but I'm hoping for great improvement in this area.

On the bad side, although I had never stopped writing songs I did pause my visits to pub "open mike" nights, due to the gym sessions I was trying to avoid completely obliterating the goodness from. I should plan to get back into these now that I am better in the fat-to-flesh ratio.

This year (albeit very late on) I started blogging. I've been doing some writing in private for a while and wondered what it would be like to join the early 21st century. I've not discovered that yet, so I guess that's one surprise 2012 is keeping for now.

Work

I'll keep this one short because I like having a job but basically I love what I do and I love that I get paid to do what I love. It's not always perfect but it's pretty damned good and these days when I read the news I see so many people either unemployed or forced to do something they hate to get by, that I have to feel lucky.

Our team grew this year and we did some great work; none of it for any companies too evil for my morals to handle. You can't say fairer than that and so that is all I will say.

2012

I don't believe in resolutions; if you're going to make a change then it's possible at any time. If my weight loss had been a resolution I think it would have failed, but starting when I wanted to and not having any set time frame on it has meant that it's been possible in a pressure-less environment. I will however allow myself to set some goals:

• Visit more family and friends.
• Lose another 15lbs (sub-goal: do more walks - a great one to set just as it's getting colder).
• Record more songs (one every two months sounds reasonable).

Yes, that'll do nicely. And I've got 365 and a half days in which to do it.