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.