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Thursday 20 November 2008
The Self-Referential Art Of The Blog (Part Some Of Many)
When I first started blogging, and indeed for some while previously, there were a handful of blogs that I read religiously. Every day I'd stop by and on days when the bloggers in question hadn't updated I was always ever so slightly disappointed. Since I started this thing, I've broadened my blog reading, often because I've discovered people who link here, or by backtracking comments. It seems to be true, for me at least, that the more you blog, the more you receive blog. A few other people I've discussed this with have had similar experiences. But along the way, some of the sites that I used to regard as essential parts of my daily routine have ceased to be so, for which I feel a little guilty. I mean, I still stop by every now and then, but generally more then than now. A couple have gone quiet, Tin Man a while ago, ChrisR more recently, but the others are still there, just not so much in my mind anymore, and inevitably others have become more prominent to me. Is this other people's experience too?
Hello Sailor!
One sailor reportedly picked up a prostitute who he believed to be female. Realising he wasn't who she appeared to be, the sailor reportedly declared: "Blimey, you're all there!" Nevertheless, he apparently became "infatuated".
This kind of incident led admirals to argue that most of the men accused were only inadvertently homosexual, rather than dangerous "perverts".
The Royal Navy apparently got its knickers into a right twist over the behaviour of some of its recruits back in the 1960s, according to documents revealed by the Public Records Office. One of the things I've never really understood is the circularity of the whole 'open to blackmail' argument. If the thing wasn't so stigmatised in the first place, there wouldn't be anything people could be blackmailed for....
A Deayton Replacement?
The BBC News site is running a poll to see who (of their five options) should take over as the presenter of Hav I Got News For You? now that Angus Deayton has been fired. They quote from the candidates' own appearances on the programme - my favourite is Stephen Fry's "I have not penetrated Prince Edward's intimate circle."
The Most Boring Capital City In The World?
Lara appears to have done the apparently impossible, and had a good time in Washington DC. I'm almost more impressed by this achievement than by the insane mega-activities than she habitually indulges in....
UPDATE - Okay, there's something weird going on with her permalinks - just check out her blog homepage and see the entry for October 28th.
I've Never Metafilter I Didn't Like....
I don't much link to MeFi threads these days - partly because I don't swing by there so much, but also because for a long time a depressingly gung-ho, jingoistic, "Let's make war on whoever the hell we like and let's start with Iraq" mentality seemed to have moved in and taken over. However, occasionally, a comment in a thread catches my eye and I find myself succumbing.
From yet another thread about the real motive behind a possible assault in Iraq:
"(Quote)IT IS NOT ABOUT OIL!
IT IS ABOUT ELIMINATING THREATS TO NATIONAL SECURITY
YOU KNOW, THE PEOPLE THAT WANT TO KILL YOU & ME(Unquote)
No, it's not. It's about the oil.
There. I have presented just as much evidence to prove my point as you have presented to prove yours.
Shouting doesn't make it "more right," it just makes you look like a spoiled child who wants desperately to believe what his Uncle Dickie is telling him, meanwhile me and lots of the other children on the playground remain bound and determined to make up our own minds and not be dictated to by the likes of you. Given the backgrounds, interests and investment portfolios of Cheney, the Bushes and the men who put them where they are today, to think that it's about anything other than the oil is just ridiculous, and completely ignorant of how business and politics work in America."
These Dreams
I don't often blog dreams, but just lately, I've had so many very odd ones that I thought I should. I've been not sleeping so much again lately, so my unconscious clearly sees a need to pack as much strangeness into every available moment as possible.
I've had a series in which I've had things stolen, from a car to some clothes off a washing line, but all of which while I was in odd circumstances (having dinner with some people I haven't seen since university, on a date with a woman I've never seen before, on holiday in a strange city where I didn't speak a single word of the language and everyone appeared to be deaf anyway....), I've also had a couple in which I've been back at university and either missing vital exams or have failed them (these are particularly real and for some reason especially upsetting), and I've had a few return engagements from the old favourite where I'm trying to organise a group of people going away together and everything that can go wrong, does go wrong.
It's quite clear that my unconscious hates me.
Re:Search
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the petty complaints that characterise the letters page of the Radio Times. While researching something I was writing elsewhere, I found myself visiting the websites of the various broadcasting regulators of the UK. These two points are connected.
Reviewing the list of things that apparently rational adults find to complain about on British television is truly eye-opening. The things that offend 'taste and decency' range from the depiction of sex aids on This Morning (insert obligatory John Leslie dildo joke here), to Chris Tarrant making an anti-Scouse joke at the Baftas, to Brookside running a storyline (that would have been planned and filmed well in advance) that on some superficial level might possibly have been perceived to have some slight similarities to the Soham murder case, and on into trivial quibble after trivial quibble. I think if I was an Independent Television Commission complaints investigator I'd probably have gone mad by now. You can find summaries of rulings here.
A Very Bad Man
Strange journey home. Delays on the tube meant lots of hanging around at the station, and a woman standing a few people away from me kept turning and giving evil looks to the man standing behind her. I couldn't work out what was the problem. Then, as we pulled out of the station she finally snapped at him, "Stop touching me!". He did this eye-rolling look that seemed designed to convey that he hadn't done anything, and that she should be so lucky.
I decided I didn't like him because of the look, but I didn't know whether he was actually touching her or not. Then at the next station, as people got off, I quite clearly saw him trail his hand across her bottom. She turned and told him to fuck off, but she couldn't move away from him because of everyone else around her, and no one seemed particularly interested in moving to let her into another space. As we moved on I could see him moving his hand towards her again, and some inexplicable urge made me reach across the couple between us and tap him on the shoulder. He looked round , and I said "She doesn't want you touching her, so don't." I don't know who was more shocked, me, him, or the woman in question. He looked at me, and said "Fuck off - it's none of your business." To which I replied, "I think it is. Leave her alone."
Lord knows what would have happened if the train hadn't pulled into my station, and the woman got off as I did. He stayed on board. She smiled and said "Thanks", then headed off to the other line as I made for the exit.
A strange interlude.
Ca Plein Pour Moi
An open invitation to put Barnaby out of his misery: Does anyone know which film soundtracks Plastic Bertrand's hit Ca Plein Pour Moi has been used on? He's sure he's heard it, but isn't sure where. We've found a few, but he hasn't seen them, and I think it's frustrating him a little....
A Monday Morning Mixed Bag
Various things:
The UK version of the soundtrack to the Buffy The Vampire Slayer musical episode Once More, With Feeling is released today. Amazon have it for £10.99 with a one to two week delivery, so I'm hoping that an actual shop can do rather better.
Speaking of Buffy, Joss Whedon discussed the likelihood of season seven being the last in an item on TV Guide Online.
Owen at Bloing points us to a site which aims to find "1000 People More Annoying Than Mick Hucknall" - which is one of those sites which looks like it's going to be funny until you start to read the reasons for the various nominations, and discover that people's definitions of 'annoying' are occasionally deeply offensive. Martina Navratilova's on there because 'she's an ugly lesbian', Elton John is described: "He is damn ugly somewhere between a pig and a ogre and his is an unashamed arse bandit." (nice grammar there), and generally, just check anyone gay or lesbian, any woman who might be seen as too small or too large, and generally anyone remotely outside a fairly narrow (largely male), demographic. And be prepared for some unpleasant views and nasty language. Ah, the democracy of the internet.
Elsewhere, Trade and Industry Secretary Patricia Hewitt has denounced the ads running for this week's Motor Show as sexist because they feature a big close-up of an attractive woman. Whether she's right or wrong, she's giving the Motor Show more attention than the ad itself, which is of course the unfortunate side-effect of drawing attention to something one thinks is bad. Still, someone in their advertising agency must be feeling rather gleeful this morning - no doubt they charged a small fortune for the 32 seconds or so it must have taken them to think "Hmmm, why don't we advertise a car event with a half-naked woman?" Because that's never been done before.
Re:Schedule
My blogging schedule for the last couple of weeks has been a bit haphazard, to say the least. I've been spending a lot of time in quiet contemplation of life in general, and haven't had a great deal to say about anything specific as a consequence. I've been trying to find a little equilibrium between work, personal, social and 'other' parts of my life, and I don't feel I'm anywhere near finding it yet.
I've been following the news though, and while I'm sure everyone has been following developments in Moscow, the storms over the UK (last night was completely wild here), the arrest of the Washington sniper(s) and the latest suicide bombing in Israel, I'd like to make sure people have a chance to pause and mourn the death of US Senator Paul Wellstone, his family and their associates. Senator Wellstone was, according to both news coverage and comments from his constituents in Minnesota, a one-of-a-kind politician; proudly liberal in a country where that label can be a political death-knell, a conviction politician who was respected by political allies and opponents alike. He was the only Democrat Senator of those facing re-election next month to vote against authorising GW Bush to use force against Iraq. I saw a comment in the Metafilter thread on the subject: "i won't miss wellstone. he's part of the obstructionist block in the senate that held up passage of the homeland security bill" which, even allowing that it's a flaming troll, indicates the impact he had far outside the state he represented. The Independent's Obituary.
Richard Harris
Richard Harris died yesterday, following his battle with Hodgkin's Diesease. One of those actors who is often better remembered for his off-screen activities than those on, it would be a pity if that was all that was remarked upon. He turned in many outstanding performances during his career. The better-known ones are those in Camelot, A Man Called Horse, The Heroes of Telemark, and of course the Harry Potter films, but I think I'll hang on to the fond memory of The Field. IMDB Filmography.
More An Ethical Way Of Life....4
Fair Trade is one of the organisations which are active in the area of promoting fair deals for producers of goods in developing countries. Far too often, when major buyers such as multinational food-processing companies are sourcing goods, they use their size and buying power to force growers to sell at drastically reduced rates. Frequently these rates are below the subsistance levels required to keep either crops or communities viable. Fair Trade, as the name suggests, is about getting a fair deal for them.
You can buy a range of products that carry the Fair Trade mark at most supermarkets these days, and more and more surveys are showing that consumers want to choose Fair Trade goods where possible, so hopefully, there will be more choice and availability in the future. Tea, coffee, chocolate, bananas, fruit juices, honey and sugar are the primary product groups available at present.
Tomorrow (Saturday), by the way, is Banana Bonanza Day, during which a number of Fair Trade banana promotional events will be held around the UK.
More An Ethical Way Of Life....3
Just a couple of quick links tonight:
Rainforest Concern are working to try and preserve some of the most important remaining rainforest, securing its biodiversity and the well-being of its indigenous peoples. Their most significant project to date is the Choco-Andean Rainforest Corridor Project in north west Ecuador, which is creating a protected corrior of land between two of the region's forests which allows safe transit for flora and fauna between the two. They need support on many levels, and are well worth checking out.
Save Or Delete is Greenpeace's site focusing on their campaign to have the import of illegally logged and non-sustainable timber banned.
Too Subtle For My Mean Intelligence
I can't be the only one, surely?
I've seen that ad for the Orange Mobile Decide-What-You-Want-type thing with the Scottish woman's voice dubbed onto the scenes clearly filmed in America, at least a dozen times, and every single time, I've read that last scene as carrying at least a hint of "I don't want Asian men sitting next to me on the park bench, please come and take him away, officers." I thought it was at least unfortunate and at most extremely offensive.
Then suddenly last night, I realised that (I think) it's because he's got a beard, and earlier on she'd had the "I want beards to be illegal" scene, and it's just a staggeringly ill-chosen bit of casting that made it look the way I'd read it the first twelve times.
Is it just me?
When Is A Police Box....
....not the Police's box?
When it belongs to the BBC, who are happy to make money out of it through licencing without actually investing in a decent revamp of the series that endabled them to do so.
More An Ethical Way Of Life.... 2
Ethical banking - not so very long ago, those two words would have seemed, if not by definition contradictory, then certainly strange bedfellows. Capitalism, which banking is certainly on closer terms with, would require that decisions be made based purely on maximising profit, and not on any external notions of acceptability or appropriateness.
Various organisations have sought to reconcile the two, but the one in the UK which has had the biggest impact is The Co-Operative Bank. The introduction of its ethical banking policy was followed by a heartening increase in the number of its account holders, and their research has shown that the ethical policy continues to be a significant factor in customers' choice to open an account. More heartening still is that the ethical policy is one which grows and changes over time, and that the customers are invited to be a part of its evolution. Other banks and financial institutions have created ethical accounts, or funds on the meantime, but for me, they always seem rather cynical attemps to jump on a bandwagon. The Co-Op Bank at least has the credibility of coming out of the Co-Op movement, which has always attempted to link social goals with business ones.
The bank also had extensive online banking facilities ahead of many more mainstream competitors, and launched its own (also ethical) internet bank, smile.co.uk in the late 90s. The two together seem to demonstrate that banking with a conscience can work, and that everyone can benefit.
Wild West, Great Western
Caught Dawn French's new thing on the BBC this evening. Wild West is set in a fishing village in Cornwall, and despite what could charitably be called 'mixed reviews' (mixed between bad and awful, that is), I found it mildly diverting, and capable of being a bit of a grower.
Afterwards, watched the second half of the Great Britons programme on Isambard Kingdom Brunel, presented in full-on Jeremy Clarkson mode by, well, by Jeremy Clarkson, actually. The man, (Brunel, not Clarkson) was without doubt a genius, an iconoclast, and a builder of astonishing vision. If I was of a mind to cast a vote, which I'm not, he'd get mine.
Families - Can't Live With 'Em....
Gert quite rightly points out that Iain Duncan Smith doesn't really seem to know the difference between 'marriage', 'family' and 'children' if his various reported comments are accurate. Likewise, her opinion that tax breaks for lifestyle choices should not be supported seems to me to be eminently reasonable (though it would be more remarkable if I didn't find one of her opinions so).
I would hardly be the first person to point out that becoming married is not in any way an automatic entry to the 'good parents' club, any more than single parents are automatically bad ones. All of this stuff, as regular readers will not be surprised to read, about the importance of families, really pisses me off, because 'family' is always defined so narrowly in such cases. IDS's reported comment: "The most fundamental institution of any free and sustainable society was the family", for instance, could on some level be supportable if he wasn't elsewhere using the term synonymously with 'marriage'.
I know who my 'family' are, and it's neither blood nor marriage that makes them part of it.
More An Ethical Way Of Life.... 1
I've decided to do some themed linking this week, in a sort-of 'MAWOL Week of the Ethical Blog' with a view to highlighting a few worthwhile subjects and sites that I think are worth people who give a damn about more than their own personal satisfaction checking out - and I know that's all of you :-)
Get Ethical is a resource for the finding and purchasing of ethical products. It's run in conjunction with The Big Issue. They're currently in the process of revamping somewhat, but the range of products they've identified is still available. I'm very much of the belief that if you need a product, and you can source an ethical version, then that's the option you should take.
Happy New Ventures, Jen
Jen, who's been running the GBlogs portal for all this time, has decided to call it a day. Bloody good of her to have kept it going as a free service for all this time, I say. I hope her next endeavours are successful for her.
Did Someone Say Redesign?
I do want to do a redesign, and I had this plan to be very organised and do it properly - try several layouts in Photoshop and work out which I like most, then start messing around with the stylesheets. Sadly, much as I love my laptop, its cruft level has reached a point where trying to run Photoshop is causing such a slowdown that I can't run anything else with it, or even have more than one active window running without having to wait over a minute to switch from one to the other. Curiously, when it's on the network at work, it's fine, but anywhere/everywhere else, it's like this. Time for a complete rebuild from the operating system up, methinks. Maybe next weekend for the redesign, then.
I've been a bit quiet this weekend, not much in the mood for socialising or anything else, really. Just feeling a bit blah.
Remember, Remember
Have you noticed how fireworks have become a 52 weeks a year thing? Instead of a one week in November treat, they're all the time, for any old occasion. It makes being a pet owner rather fraught, as instead of having to worry about the animal being driven mad at a particular time, when you can take precautions (shutting doors to external rooms, making sure you're around to make reassuring noises) you could come in to find them cowering and trembling under the bed at any old time. Like this evening - poor Dillon's absolutely frantic, for about the third time in a week.
Many Happies, And All That Stuff
As it's now past midnight, I should mention that my 'baby' brother has just turned thirty-three. Dear lord that makes me feel old - it's not natural.
Anyway, I've been out with Chris and a friend of ours, Dolly this evening. We haven't seen her for over a year, and it was just so fab to get together. Lots of wine and very nice Thai food, and good company - all ingredients of a great night. Dolly may be stopping by soon, so 'Hi Dolly'.
Climbing Canary Wharf
You may have spotted the news about Alain Robert climbing Canary Wharf Tower (yes, I know it's not actually called that, but that's how people know it) this morning, but won't have seen the cool pictures taken from inside the building as he climbed past that Alison passed on to me - they were taken by someone and circulated around the building. Sadly, the only way you will get to see them is by checking out the Telegraph, who have apparently now obtained them.
"The Name's Frank; Frank N Furter"
One last (until next time) comment on The Figure Project. I've been given a 'smoothed' version of the figure, which takes out the grid lines and separate backgrounds, so just to let people see what the clean version looks like, here it is.
Fully-Figured
It....it's alive!
The Figure Project is complete at last, and even has multiple right feet. Mystery guest blogger can rest easy in the knowledge of a job well done. Additional parts can still be added in an alternating style, so if anyone didn't get a chance to add to the composite More a way of life.... reader, it's not too late, just send in a photo.
I'll make some kind of permanent link sometime shortly.
In the meantime, thanks should go to the following organ doners:
Sam, Debs, Kevin, Mike, Charlie, Owen, Sue, Jon, Marc, Karin, Paul,
Alex, Gary, Gert, Dave, Alan and Barnaby.
Thank you all very much, and thanks to the mystery guest blogger.
Peer-Rage (See What I Did There?)
Well, as it turns out, the House of Lords has indeed voted to prevent gay and unmarried couples from adopting children. I'm feeling quite agitated about this whole debate, so I'm going to take a moment to quote from the BBC story on the subject - my comments in italics:
"Tory health spokesman, Earl Howe told peers: "Perhaps the thing I object to most, if this bill were to go through now as it is, is that for the purposes of adoption the law would place marriage, co-habitation and gay partnerships on a platform of legal equivalence. So what exactly is this debate really about? The best situation for adopted children, or the prevention of other ways of living a life than the one you like being granted the dignity of recognition?
"The fact of a couple being married would carry no weight at all in any choice between alternative sets of adopters." I don't think it should - a loving, stable, family environment provided by people who are reviewed because of their specific qualities, and not because they have a piece of paper, should be the basis for these decisions. All kinds of relationships break down, including marriages. Most people wanting to adopt aren't sensibly going to do so if their relationship isn't at least pretty damn stable, surely?
Lord Howe said marriage provided the best chance of stability for children who had already suffered turbulence in their lives. So let's see - a single person (who is able to adopt under current legistation anyway) adopts a child. The parent then enters into a relationship (or possibly already had one but registered as single for adoption purposes), and the child gets used to having two parents who share equally in its upbringing and are by any reasonable standards its family. If the 'official' parent was to die, then the child gets thrown straight back into the adoption circus, because their other parent isn't recognised by the law. Yep - that's a nice consistent set of legislation designed to protect children from 'turbulance'.
Back to me - Note, by the way, that this isn't a party-political rant, as twenty of the votes that gave the vote its 34 majority were those of Labour peers.
I'd love to know what the divorce rate is among the immediate families of the inbred mutants who comprise the bulk of the upper chamber.
Whatever Next?
Back in August, I remarked on the ridiculous 'flood of complaints' about The Gay Kiss in The Bill, so it only seems appropriate (though a few days late) to note that the complaints were dismissed by the Independent Television Commission. Good timing on their part, as next week sees the introduction of the programme's first lesbian police officer....
Whose Best Interests?
"In the event of my death I do not want my children to be adopted by homosexuals."
Presumably because that would give them some small chance of growing up to be balanced and unbigoted adults.
An attempt is being made in the House of Lords to prevent children being adopted by gay or unmarried straight couples. But everyone only has the best interests of the children at heart, of course.
What defeats me in this whole debate is sentiment like this: "Lady O'Cathain claims the proposals will undermine marriage and put children at risk by placing them in unstable relationships." As if, contrary to all the evidence, marriage is automatically a stable relationship... I for one spent the better part of my first two decades being brought up in one that was the very furthest thing from stable.
New Blog City
New to me that is. I've been checking out random sites from other people's reading lists, and came across neohomo, which I've now been checking out for a week and am happy to recommend as a worthwhile read.
One of the people who lists it is Gert, who is currently undergoing a staged transition from blogspot to her own domain with a Movable Type-driven blog. Which is starting to get me thinking about a redesign....
"Why, Oh Why, Oh Why?"
Twenty-odd years ago, the BBC's Not The Nine O'Clock News ran a sketch taking the piss out of the feedback programme Points Of View, in which the voice-over letter readers made much of the introductory phrase "Why, oh why, oh why...".
Judging by the letters page of the Radio Times, the spirit of those fake authors is alive and well. One of the writers took issue with the episode of Ground Force in which a dog was called a 'dickhead', causing him great discomfort when his eight-year-old daughter asked him what one was. "Why, I wonder, was it deemed unnecessary to edit such inappropriate language from a pre-watershed programme?"
If I were the programme-maker, I suspect my answer would be that I doubt most eight-year olds haven't heard a great deal worse in the school playground.
Concerned father fell back on lying to his daughter, by the way, telling her that a dickhead is a breed of dog....
Re: Scheduled
Steven Soderbergh's new film, Full Frontal, which I've mentioned here before, has finally been given a UK release date. It'll be out on the 13th December. The film's official site is here.
Figure Project
I'm led to believe that sufficient body part to complete the figure are now available, and will probably be added tomorrow. Mystery guest blogger has been unable to add to the figure this last several days, but hopefully the end is in sight.
Also, sorry for the quiet day today - it's been a bit manic one way and another.
Lost In Translation
Via Metafilter, I came across Lost In Translation, which illustrates some of the problems that arise through mechanical translation. Enter a phrase, and watch it translated to a different language then back to English five times. The result can be hysterically funny, interestingly insightful, or just plain weird.
The new 'Thought', above, which cracked me up on Friday night, turned out as "Its new cake is similar gave return to the later part in homosexuals. And not in the good direction."
Buildings And Books, Basically
Watching Building Of The Year on Channel 4, there's some truly lovely architecture being crafted at the moment - the new school built suspended in steel and glass is stunning.
And I've just discovered BookCrossing - what an excellent idea. I was going to pass on a load of books anyway, so I'm going to BookCroosing-mark them before giving them to the charity shop. Or maybe just leave them places for people to discover.
Searching For....
Having wasted half my morning dealing with my DSL supplier's support team trying to work out why I've had no connection since last night, I'm finally back online, with my day shot to hell, so I'll make this brief:
Dave and Gert have both mentioned search terms that brought people to them recently, which triggered one of my own occasional forays into my referrer logs. What a mixed bag we have this time:
Historical curiosity:
how was the way of life before imperialism - For which I'm the number one result. If you find out, please let me know.
Slightly misdirected:
'straight older man photo' - I couldn't recreate this search, but it apparently worked for someone.
Social curiosity:
'how to make courtesy a way of life' - Ditto
Just plain disturbing:
beating women is a way of life
abductions teenage boys
Off To War
The Metafilter thread concerning Congress's decision to grant GWB authority to use force against Iraq is a bit of a rollercoaster. The early posts are generally all at the 'this is a bad thing for the US and the world' end of the scale. Comments about 'the end of democracy' and 'the creation of an American empire' figure in them. Then quite suddenly, everything changes and what I'll call more hawkish views enter the debate and suddenly people are calling each other 'simpleton', someone's speaking for the entire British people, and generally, things become very, well, the best way to describe it I can think of is 'very Metafilter'. All the usual suspects trot out all the same arguments (on both sides), and I have one of my "Oh yes - this is why I don't stop by here so much any more" moments.
A Change Of Perspective
I moved my desk yesterday (and by 'moved', I mean turned it 90 degrees so that I'm not facing the wall), and it's given me a whole new perspective on things. I wouldn't have thought that such a small change could make such a big difference. My working space feels more open, lighter, and I feel more a part of the room.
What A Drag
For reasons that will forever remain slightly obscure to me, I found myself passing the bulk of this evening at a lesbian and gay event in East London. Performing in the slightly incongruous surroundings (trust me, they were) was 'veteran drag artist' (as billed by Channel 4) Dave Lynn. Dave was recently seen helping a former Navy bloke become a drag queen on Faking It, and is best-remembered in my mind for his turn at The Gloucester in the film of Beautiful Thing. Despite the difficulties of the venue, Mr Lynn more than rose to the occasion, demonstrating along the way that he's a very sharp and witty performer.
Not quite sure how it got to be so late, however....
More Guardian Comment
Jim Davidson tells some jokes - including one aimed at Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, seated nearby, about the IRA blowing up a hotel. The MC points out further celebrities in attendance. They include the shadow agriculture spokesman; Rick Wakeman; and Nicky Stevens, singer with 1970s Eurovision winner Brotherhood of Man. And to think all Labour could come up with was Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey.
Jonathan Freedland looks at the prospect facing the Conservative party as it drags itself back to electability, and makes a couple of points that bear emphasis:
1) That weak opposition leads to bad governance, which seems indisputably true, and should give everyone currently disillusioned by the government cause for concern about what might yet be to come, and
2) That while Labour can comfortably count on being in power for more than just the next parliamentary term (or two), they have an opportunity not to be dragged any further rightward, and even to revert to left-wing principles, as well as to tackle some of the bad stuff that seems to have become endemic in British society (probably as a result of the policies adopted by 1979-97 government).
Insomnia (Not Mine For A Change)
Alison and I have been to see Insomnia this evening - I'll Opinion it as soon as I get a chance. Trailer-wise, we were treated to The Most Unnecessary Remake Ever Red Dragon, My Little Eye, and Halloween: Resurrection, which curiously started out looking like it has almost exactly the same plot as My Little Eye.
We also saw the 'Yes to Europe, No to the Euro' ad for the first (and I sincerely hope the last) time. Watching Bob Geldof being sanctimonious about people having a right to say 'no' while sitting in a swanky restaurant was very nearly enough to make me lose my hot dog.
"Tories In Drag"
This is the moment for Labour to pull back and challenge the Tories. Choice is not the first priority. If choice comes first, then universal high standards will never be achieved. The public clamour is not for choice but for speed of treatment in the NHS and for higher quality in local schools. Only once those are achieved is choice a good second order goal.
Polly Toynbee in today's Guardian. I've long had a soft spot for her commentary - her imagery in this one reminds me why.
Ongoing
I see the Brian Paddick saga drags endlessly on. Apparently now, due to 'organisational change', he won't be returning to his old job once the current enquiry concludes, but will instead be shifted to what sounds suspiciously like a desk job, 'implementing a blueprint for cutting crime'. Why do I suspect that this recently developed 'blueprint' won't share many features with the model that Commander Paddick demonstrated quite effectively in Lambeth?
There's a BBC Talking Point on the subject in which support broadly seems to be going Paddick's way - though I wish people on either side of the debate would at least take the trouble to spell the man's name right.
Maximum Slayage
(Some spoilers for Buffy Season Six - nothing that hasn't been covered elsewhere online or in print)
I've recently managed finally to see the final few episodes of Season Six, and I thought I'd offer a few observations on the year as a whole. There was a lot of comment (mostly online) about the series having finally lost it this year, and I'm going to beg to differ. Year six was definitely different than the ones that went before, but the same is true of each year. Imagine watching the pilot episode and being told that this same series would one day do episodes as varied and impressive as Hush, Restless, and Once More, With Feeling. Would you have believed it? Because I wouldn't.
If anything, this year had more coherence than some of the previous ones - every episode added to the overall theme, even when it wasn't clearly in the foreground. Doublemeat Palace is sometimes cited as the weakest episode, but even there there was ongoing attention to the various relationships and their participants, and attention to Buffy's downward spiral and the effect of it on the people around her. After I first saw the season opener, I noted of Buffy's return from the grave that "there were distinct suggestions that there will be ongoing ramifications", and it turns out there were, for longer than people might have expected. In a sense, the pay-off for all the gloom and negativity that permeated the series was held in the fantastic scene in Grave where Buffy finally admits that she wants to be alive, and to be part of the world. I don't think there's a single thing wrong with a series actually taking the time to tell a story properly and make the character's redemption really mean something. Redmption has been a theme of Buffy for as long as it's been around, and it was absolutely present throughout this year. Willow, Dawn, Buffy, and even Jonathan all acheived it to some degree or another, while Warren showed himself to be irredeemable because he didn't want rememption. (And on a sidenote, wasn't the apparently buffoonish Warren a truly excellent illustration of 'The Banality of Evil'? I know it's not what Hannah Arendt originally meant by the phrase, but I think it fits Warren perfectly. All his big talk about world conquest basically masked a sad little man who couldn't deal with the stronger women around him.)
For yet another year, the single most astonishing thing for me about Buffy is that the writing team Joss Whedon has assembled has pulled off another year of such consistency. It actually takes real conviction, especially in the high-impact, instant gratification world of television, to avoid the splashy, easy solutions, and take a more subtle route. A classic example this year was the point at which Buffy is led to believe that she was brought back 'wrong'; that she'd been changed on some fundamental level. The easy plot devices would have taken that exact route - she'd become part-demon, or it wasn't *really* Buffy who was back - but instead, she was just slightly 'off' physically, not anything that made a real difference. And that was the most devastating outcome of all, because she so desperately wanted and needed to have come back wrong, as a way of explaining the choices she'd made. Instead she had to face the fact that she was who she was, and had made mistakes that she had to deal with. For a fantasy series not to take the fantastic option takes absolute certainty on the part of the creators.
It parallels the situation with Tara late in Year Four and early in Year Five, when the audience had been led to believe that she was a bad guy, and possibly a demon. Ultimately, it turned out that she even thought she was one herself, but it was a lie that she'd been told by (the men in) her family to keep her malleable and afraid. Again, taking the non-fantastic route by depicting an abusive family situation was far more a challenge than doing yet another "trusted supporting character turns out to have a dark secret" schtick (Angel, Jenny Calendar, Oz, anyone?).
Mentioning Tara brings me on to the biggest gripe I have about Season Six, and that's her departure from the series. I know that it was the only realistic trigger for the Willow-centric finale, but even so, I'll really miss her.
That aside - I think the griping about this year was largely misplaced. It was different from last year, just as that year was different from the one before it, but it certainly wasn't worse, and dramatically, creatively, and possibly morally, it was much better.
Suddenly Struck By a Simile
(And alliteratively, at that.)
This morning, as I lay in bed, Dillon moved from her usual position at my feet to start drawing attention to her desperate need for food (on account of how she's so waif-like that should could just fade away - I don't think). As she settled herself onto my arm (which is self-defeating, as it would effectively pin me to the bed and prevent me getting near the food cupboard), I suddenly realised the mental image that was in my head. She's like Thunderbird Two settling down on one of those pods....
Figuratively-Speaking
Not that I'm running out of Figure Project puns or anything:
My call for new body parts last night did not go unheeded, and the figure is now looking significantly more fleshed out. Limited opportunities do remain for a lucky few to take their places in this unique project, however, so send in a limb.
Partly political
Sometimes, it will come as no surprise, the party of my natural allegiance is a source of great disappointment to me.
This morning's announcement of changes to the Refugee and Asylum Rules by David Blunkett (who, I ought to point out, I'm just greatly disappointed by as a matter of course - he doesn't need to say or do anything), is a typical source of such disappointment.
To begin with, there's the timing. The changes are being added as an amendment to the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill, which receives its final reading in the House of Lords on Wednesday. Which means that debate of the measures in the Commons will be severely curtailed.
Then the key point of the measures themselves: The creation of a 'whitelist' of supposedly universally safe countries was one of the most abhorred and iniquitous planks of Conservative immigration policy in the 1980s. As The Refugee Council note in their Press Release on today's news, the United Nations Refugee Charter contains the basic principle that no country can be entirely safe for all people at all times. The Refugee Council cite the persecution of Romany peoples in Eastern European 'safe' countries as an example, but a number of countries that are supposedly safe tolerate and even institutionalise persecution of various minorities.
The Home Secretary's alleged motive for these measures is to tackle the Far Right, who like to rabble-rouse behind a cry of 'spongers coming in and taking what's rightfully ours', and maintains that strengthening the system against fraud will render such a cry impotent. Well, I suppose it's a solution of a sort. But rather than pandering to this kind of mindless rhetoric, the judicious use of facts (about real numbers of asylum-seekers and the UK's position in the league table of receiving countries, for instance) might be considered. Did you know, for example, that based on 2001 figures, the UK is ranked 10th among European countries in terms of asylum-seekers by head of population, and that's actually down a ranking from 2000. Countries with significantly smaller economies than us are receiving proportionately more asylum-seekers.
Legitimate asylum-seekers do exist, and some of them (for reasons that entirely escape me) want to come here. Our obligation as moral beings is to make their escape from persecution as easy as possible, and nurture them in an environment free of it. Pandering to those who would use their fear and confusion as a weapon against any minority should not be part of the equation.
Lacking In Lists
I really don't know why, but I've been extremely listless recently. Most mornings I barely have the energy to get out of bed, and much of my get up and go seems to have got up and gone. I had planned on going to see two or even three films at the cinema this weekend, but in the event I just couldn't be bothered.
Just thought I'd share.
A Head For Figures
(Which is by way of being a rather sad pun on The Figure Project).
Come on folks - the Figure hasn't moved at all since last Tuesday - surely some of the people who've made comments about offering up their limbs both here and on their own sites could make good on the threat promise? Mystery Guest Blogger has had Blogger All to do for nearly a week....
All Things Nomenclatural
L:e:g:a:c:y points towards "What's In Your Name?", which does one of those supposed 'analyses' of names. I wouldn't usually bother with such things, but I'm quite interested in this particular one. Darian offered his own views on his analysis, and I steal his model shamelessy:
You have a love of travel and adventure, and you enjoy sports. Two-thirds right. Though I do like some sports*men*....
You also have a very strong sense of fair play and want justice. I'd like to think so.
You have a great deal of loyalty to those you love. Ditto.
You have much inner strength. Highly debatable.
You can handle details well. Ditto.
You have a methodical mind. No. I really don't.
You have much enthusiasm with a driving attitude toward achievement in life. I'm honestly not
sure about this one.
Your privacy is important to you. Dead right.
You have a rich inner life. Oh, if only you knew.
You work hard to achieve material success through your own efforts. Well it wouldn't be right to achieve
it through others'.
You have a need to be up front. Probably true.
You must learn to give 'wise' service and not be a martyr. I'm not even entirely sure what this means - though I suspect the holiday I didn't have last week is an illustration.
As some of you know me in real life, I'd be interested in knowing what you think.
I have strong feelings on the subject of names. I make sure I always call people by the name that they want to be called - If I'm introduced by a third party who uses an abbreviated version I'll always check that that's the way they're happy with it. Names have huge significance in my worldview, for reasons relating to various bits of my personal history that I'll one day get round to discussing here.
I extend this policy to the names of blogs wherever I can, too. I try to make sure that I get things like the way people have capitalised right, and not confuse domain names with actual names, as I know how that can be mixed up. The name of this site, for instance, isn't moreawayoflife, despite the domain. For reference, though I don't stand on ceremony about these things myself, it's More a way of life...., five words, initial capital, and the ellipsis is part of the name. All the previous title graphics have made this last point clearer, and the HTML title tag always has too, but you don't get full stops in Scrabble.
Comic As In Book, Not Comic As In Ha-Ha
Thought I'd do a bit of a comics round up today:
First off, the lack of new Opinion on the subject recently is down to the fact that I haven't picked anything new up for a few weeks, due to a combination of not being around and being too busy. This has now been rectified, so I'll probably do a couple of reviews of some of the new stuff before the weekend's out.
Elsewhere, Neil Gaiman is working on a project for Marvel Comics (yes, that's *the* Neil Gaiman and *the* Marvel comics - how the times have changed). It's very mystery-shrouded at the moment - not much beyond what may only be a working title, "1602", has been revealed in the couple of months since it was announced, but interest is running very high. Not high enough for some people, however, who seem less interested in what he's working on than whether he can really lay claim to any credit for his comic work, or whether he's actually been 'saved' by the artists he's worked with. Seriously, if you've got some time to spare, check this thread out - it's a bit annoying in that it demonstrates why the image of comic fans as sad anoraks persists, but it also shows one of the most impressive cases of tunnel vision in the face of all tunnel-ending evidence to the contrary I've seen in a long time.
This week saw the publication of Uncanny X-Men issue 414, which brings occasional supporting character and one of the most well-publicised gay superheroes, Northstar, into the team on a regular basis - I picked it up earlier but haven't checked it out yet - I may take the opportunity to review the way new writer Chuck Austen is taking the series as a whole.
And as I know at least one regular reader is interested in seeing it once it's finished and collected into a trade paperback, the last two issues of Joss Whedon's Fray seem finally to have been scheduled. Issue seven goes on sale on December 4th (over eight months since issue six!), with issue eight out on December 26th. It's been good so far, but lord alive this is a long time to wait for an eight-part series to finish.
Tony Benn....
....who I may have mentioned once or twice is a bit of a hero of mine, published his latest volume of diaries this week. Free At Last! is the book he was theoretically plugging when he did the 'public meeting' I went to early this summer, and is, judging by the earlier volumes, likely to be an excellent read.
[Thanks to Terreus for the reminder that it was due out]
He (Tony Benn, that is) is the subject of today's '60 Second Interview' in Metro, which I picked up while my tube train was held in a tunnel because of today's paper-thin excuse, and this (among many other well-made points) caught my eye:
"Political change takes place through the people, not because a leader says it has to happen."
All Change
This is actually a few weeks overdue, but I've been wanting to make some suitable comments and I haven't really been able to think of what they should be, so I'm just going to report the facts and say 'so there you go'.
The Website Formerly Known As 'Mundane And Trivial' underwent a change last month and is now fully-integrated into the fembat.net brand. The reason that this is of significance is that Mundane And Trivial was the very first site (at least the first not run by someone I knew) to link to 'More a way of life....' in a 'Blogs worth taking a look at' way. To this day I have no idea how Lisa Jane found me, or what she thought worthy of note here, but I wanted to mark her occasion, and now, somewhat belatedly, I have.
So there you go.
It's Madness! Madness I Tell You!
Lara has completed her latest mega-achievement - The E-Fix. Read all about it.
Normal Service....
This morning's tube journey was affected by 'extended intervals' caused by whatever today's paper-thin excuse was, and as I'm one of those idiots good people who 'moves right down inside the car', by the time I got to my stop, I had to battle through a lot of very tightly-packed in people to get out. Consequently, my trailing arm (with bag) was trapped by the closing platform-edge door, resulting in the following exchange:
Smug LU Employee: Well that wasn't very clever, was it?
Hassled Commuter: Oh, you think that wasn't very clever, do you? Well perhaps you'd like to compare it to how clever you (gestures expansively to encompass the whole rotting network and its hidebound workforce) are to pack people onto trains like that (points emphatically back at carriage in which people can be seen crushed up against door, windows, and each other) and then not open the bloody doors long enough to let the poor bastards off?
Smug LU Employee: (Little realising how close he is to getting a thump) Not really. no.
Aaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway - back in calm world, I'm a bit behind on my reading, so apologies that this is over a week old, but Katharine Viner took time to examine the way that a mock-feminist agenda has traditionally been co-opted by imperialism to justify itself, and how it's still happening.
"And what did this forward-thinking, feminist-sounding veil-burner do when he got home to Britain? He founded and presided over the Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage, which tried, by any means possible, to stop women getting the vote."
The Bald Truth
Generally speaking, I have no problem making my claim that I've handled losing my hair with equanimity, because generally speaking, it's true. And then every now and then something happens that blows that claim right out of the water:
This evening I caught a bus home, and there was a bloke on it who I thought was quite attractive. About my age, and to the extent that I have a type, my type. I have no idea whether he was gay or not, and it's irrelevant for the purposes of this story anyway; because I was suddenly gripped by this terrible insecurity that was *entirely* focused on being bald. "Well there's no way he'd be interested in a baldy like me, even if he was gay."
Once in a blue moon I get this, and I have absolutely no idea where it comes from. Throws me every time though.
Look - I'm Actually Posting A Link
Word is out of a new documentary on comics, which seeks "to showcase comics as a medium for sophisticated stories and artwork". Sex, Lies and Superheroes is likely to be limited in distribution, but sounds like a very interesting project.
Tube Strike Day
I walked to work this morning. And although it's a little bit off the 'as the crow flies' route, I decided to do as much of it as possible along the river. I love the river - I can't any longer imagine living in London and not living within a few minutes walk of the Thames, and this morning reminded me why. It was quite a grey morning, with a bit of mist around; the first this autumn I'd really call autumnal, though on the damp, rather than the crisp, side. And the river just moved alongside me, blending into the shades of grey and marking the oldest and best of London's thoroughfares. It's easy, when talking about it, to get very factual, but the simple fact is that when you stop and take it in, the Thames has character.
The Most Offensive Women In Britain
I'm waiting for my dinner to cook, and made the mistake of putting the TV on without checking what I was going to see, and I hit the dreadful What Not To Wear just in time to see that vicious pair of (excuse me) bitches tearing into a woman whose only crime seemed to be that she was comfortable in herself and liked to wear colourful, striped clothes. I can't fathom why their victim allowed it to go on. There is, IMHO, no possible public service justification for the BBC giving this pair airtime, which I suppose means they must regard it as entertainment.
Oh look - next week they're starting a series featuring live kitten torturing.
A Word Or Two Of Apology....
.... for the general lack of interesting bloggage round here the last few days. As you may have registered, my week 'off' last week was somewhat disrupted by work-related things, and since I've been back, our whole workload having changed, I'm up to my eyes getting to grips with what I need to do to cover it, while balancing our existing commitments. So it's all been a bit too much to allow for creative thought or interesting linkage. Once I've got my head round things, normal service will be resumed. Honest.
Diversity
A Figure Project Update:
As of today, The Figure gained some racial diversity to go with the increased gender mix that hit yesterday, which is good, as my composite readership was starting to look a bit white.... Wish I had abs like that.
Thanks to everyone who's contributed so far - if you haven't, please do so - I'd love to see a whole figure (and potentially more). Special thanks to the person who (and you know who you are) thoughtfully provided right and left components, pre-sized to the relevant parts of the outline. And I gather someone also provided a usefully-layered PSD, in the interests of being helpful (you know who you are too).
I'm loving the figure project - I love that even I don't know what I'll see each time I look at it. Once it's finished, I'm going to make a version of it my desktop wallpaper.
Keep those body parts coming in....
Those Were The Gays.... (Groan)
Charles was talking about the article in Friday's Independent by Will Self, on the subject of, I guess in simple terms, gay identity, but it taps into much richer depths than that. Blogadoon mentioned it on Friday, though the item wasn't online at that point. Now it is, I've been able to read it. There's a great deal that's laudable in his arguments, and his willingness to challenge some preconceptions while taking on new perspectives himself, but like Ian at Blogadoon, I find myself disagreeing with some of his arguments without really knowing why. I'm sure after a couple of rereadings I'll be better placed to work it out. In any event - I do recommend it as worthwhile reading material whatever your orientation.