If I Was The City Of Manchester…
... (and please excuse me while I anthropomorphise)... I would be wandering around this afternoon behaving like a smug git.
Not explicitly because I'd just been awarded the prize of being picked as the location of this 'super casino' nonsense, though I suppose if I was Manchester and not me I'd probably think that was good in itself.
But the reason I'd be really smug is that every single TV and radio news programme this morning had (usually the same two) people from Greenwich and Blackpool on talking about the competition in distinctly two-horse-race terms, never for a second behaving as if any other competitor was even seriously worth discussing.
EDIT: And I'd be ever more smug once I read the kind of comments the people from Blackpool were making, which just ooze bitterness and envy:
"It is tragic. It is very difficult to see how they have drawn their conclusions," he added.
Previous assessments had put Manchester at the bottom of the seven bidders, while all local government bodies and regeneration agencies in the region had backed Blackpool, Mr Garrett said.
"It is a very strange decision. We need to look into the rationale. Manchester has come from nowhere. It was a real, real dark horse," he added.
Overkill
I love this, even though it's really bad:
An Aberdeen woman who asked for her bank statement was sent those of 75,000 other customers.
Miami-Bound
Inexplicably, I've been forgetting to mention that we're going to Florida at the end of February. Not an extensive trip - we'll only be away a week - but one into which we're hoping to pack as much activity as possible. Not for us a week of lounging on beaches - oh no, we want to see the Everglades, and the Kennedy Space Center, and probably a theme park or two (I want to go on this ride, but I suspect I'll be doing so alone), and we plan on driving down through the Florida Keys on that fantasic road that links them all, in the convertible automobile we're renting 
What really put it back in my mind is this outrageous situation with the Air Passenger Duty increase. If you haven't followed this particular saga, the Government increased the rate of Air Passenger Duty (a tax levied on each passenger departing the UK, ostensibly increased because airlines aren't 'meeting their environmental costs', whatever that means) back in December, with the increase becoming effective from 1st February. But: the tax applies on flights where tickets were already booked and paid for when the increase was announced. Meaning that people who thought they'd already paid for their tickets might now (depending on their airline) be required to pay more.
Now, as I've noted before here, I worry enough about the amount of flying I do, and its environmental impact, so I'm not averse to the idea of this kind of charge, but this way of going about things means that the people who are most likely to be affected by the extra charge are those who bought ahead, either to save money or to work around limited flexibility (school holidays, leave availability, etc). Broadly, people flying for leisure who don't do so very often. And the people booking at the last minute, which probably includes a fair proportion of business travellers who won't pay it themselves and who therefore won't care, will probably not even register the charge or what it's for.
Anyway, we've paid up, like dutiful citizens, and will therefore be avoiding any potential scrum to pay before being allowed on a plane next month.
I liked this line from the Virgin Atlantic website, even if I was wholly unimpressed by the shonky process itself and the fact that they're using PayPal (yes, that's right) to collect the money.
The APD is a government tax which has been paid by passengers since it was introduced 13 years ago. The government says the extra APD raised will be targeted at helping our environment and tackling climate change. Virgin Atlantic can't wait to see how the UK government will spend your money to combat global warming.
Adoption Again
You know, I can't remember the last time I got as riled about a news story as I have about this "Catholic Church wants legal right to discriminate" fiasco. I started out just being angry about the evil Ruth Kelly once again putting her dogma ahead of her responsibilities, but now I'm just angry that this is even a debate.
And I'm angriest that the Catholic church, of all organisations, thinks it's in a position to take some nonsensical stance of 'conscience' on matters relating to the welfare of children. Presumably it thinks we'll all have conveniently forgotten its institutional campaign to protect child abusing priests and compound the misery of their victims.
South East London BeerFest ‘07
The lovely Alice and the equally fragrant Michael came to us for dinner on Saturday, and as we were in the alcohol section of the supermarket on Saturday morning, David had the very bright idea of getting a load of unusual beers rather than going for the slightly safer wine option. One quick call to ensure that this would work for all concerned later, we emerged from the shop with so much and so varied a selection that we had to reassure the checkout woman that they weren't all just for us.
I think we can safely say that this was a very bright idea indeed. There were fruity beers, sweetish beers, pilsner beers and Beer To Dine For. Trappist beer was popular, and David rounded things off with a Coffee Beer from the Meantime brewery just up the road in Greenwich.
In large part this unusual tactic was driven by David's issues with wine and the the fact that it tends to set off some very extreme acid problems for him, but it made for a really interesting diversion from the norm, and I'm glad we did it.
In typical style, we also over-bought to a fairly radical degree, so there are many and varied delights remaining to be explored.
EDIT: Just spotted that Himself has written about them too, with some links thrown in.
Oscars? Already?
Nominations are announced tomorrow.
This will be for a year which represented the lowest point in my cinema-going history. In my entire adult life I haven't before seen fewer films in a year than I did in 2006. Long before I used to report on them and review them professionally I would be in the cinema at the worst every two weeks, and more likely every week. Last year I think I went about four or five times.
Very worrying. I shall be listening to the nominations tomorrow going "What?" and "Which was was s/he?"
Anyway, I gather nothing can stop the Helen Mirren Juggernaut, and why on earth should it.
The Book Group
I've talked about this on and off over the years, but I'm determined that I should finally do something about it.
I really, really need to get some non-work, purely social activity into my regular schedule, because my social skills are in the process of dying on the vine. So the much-mooted book group is back on the agenda.
I'll mail a few likely contenders, but more generally, is anyone up for forming a book group?
Over three years ago, when I first seriously raised this prospect, I outlined a set of working principles, which I repeat with minor amends:
- A reasonable-sized group (maybe up to five/six people), for obvious logistical reasons based geographically close together (ie probably in or around London in this instance, possibly just South London given that even getting across London can be a major exercise).
- Each member of the group hosts a meeting in turn.
- Meetings are held monthly to six-weekly.
- The host of each meeting chooses the book (or possibly occasionally a film for variety) for review/discussion.
- Everyone commits to reading/viewing the specified item and being prepared to discuss it.
- Generally, I think the focus should primarily be fiction, with perhaps the odd non-fiction item thrown in, but I’m flexible regarding form.
- Total cost - a book every month to six weeks and occasionally hosting a get-together.
- Everything else is negotiable.
I'll host an opening session, and the first book would be Bleak House - any takers?
Some Are More Equal
Ruth Kelly, the Communities Minister, somehow tends to get the tag '"Equality minister" attached to her role too, even though she appears to be the very epitome of one who believes in equality only as far as it doesn't affect her family or conflict with her religious indoctrination.
The Minister, possibly the nearest thing to pure evil in a Cabinet seat since David Blunkett was bounced again (though John Reid is obviously a serious contender), is once again displaying her willingness to put her minority religious views ahead of the just treatment of people in the society she's meant to represent as a whole, by attempting to create exemptions to the laws designed to ensure that lesbians and gay men cannot be refused access to services on the basis of their sexuality. Specifically: that Catholic adoption organisations can refuse to place children with lesbian and gay couples even though British law says that they can legally adopt.
Setting aside the sheer strangeness of any gay couple actually going to a Catholic agency in the first place, the job of an agency is surely to identify which would-be adopters will offer the best, most loving, supportive, understanding and stable environment for a child, none of which should be fundamentally affected by their sexuality. And what about gay kids and their need to be understood and accepted without judgement? Presumably the Catholic church would rather hang on to them and beat it out of them before passing them on to 'normal' parents, or if it's a boy hand him over to one of the priesthood for their own special brand of care and education.
As reported in today's Independent:
Ms Kelly refuses to say whether she regards homosexuality as a sin. She has defended failing to vote for civil partnerships or gay adoption on the grounds that they are "issues of conscience".
So she thinks that equality for all members of her society is an issue of conscience, rather than a matter of basic human dignity? That gives me massive confidence in this 'equality minister' and her ability to represent all our interests.
The New, New Avengers
First post on the subject of comics in a while.
A day by day reveal of the line up of the Marvel New Avengers series in the wake of the company's Civil War series has been running over on Newsarama, and now the line-up is complete. For those not following the details, there are shortly going to be two Avengers teams running around, The Mighty and The New. The Mighty look like they're going to be the heavy hitting Establishment team, and The New are the more underground set, which is definitely a new approach. One thing that's interesting is that when the current version of New Avengers launched a couple of years ago, there was a new character called Ronin who wore a full body and face costume and no one knew who was under the mask. It was subsequently revealed to be a cover for an existing character called Echo. But the new line-up includes Ronin *and* Echo, so the mystery of Ronin's identity is opened up all over again.
The full line-up for New Avengers from next month:
- Echo
- Ronin
- Spider-Woman (Yay!)
- Doctor Strange (a major curveball)
- Wolverine
- Power Man
- Iron Fist
- Spider-Man
This could be interesting.
A Little Perspective, Please!
You know the world has gone mad when Gordon Brown is being asked questions about Celebrity Big Brother while on a trade mission to India.