I've not seen any pictures.....

...but this sounds absolutely devastating. It doesn't suprise me either, maybe it's just the more global news coverage we get nowadays but there seems to be increasing amounts of extreme weather.

One wonders at those who chose to stay with such dire weather warnings, 20% of the population. Surely if you could leave you would?

I have no idea what the bit at the bottom about Hurricane halls of fame refers to, anyone care to enlighten me, i presume it's reserved for particularly bad storms?

Internal Strife

It appears there is going to be a leadership challenge in Israel, and one wonders that no matter how bad one person maybe it always seems there is someone more extreme, certainly according to some of the rhetoric in the linked article.

I'm sceptical about the current plans to pull out of Gaza and the building of the West Bank wall. However when the alternative is a potential administration against any sort of removal of illegal settlements what hope is there for a peaceful resolution to the trouble in Palestine?

There is some encouragement in that although it seems to be unpopular within Sharon's own party the opinion polls show more favourably for the pulling out of the settlements, if the wider Israeli population is behind a sensible approach to resolving territorial disputes then one can hope one day we might get somewhere.

Still i won't be holding my breath on that one after watching the recent news coverage of the removal of settlers, the extremism shown was astounding, a level of religious fundamentalism that is quite scary.

A bit of light fluff

A feature on spectacularly bad interviews tickled my fancy yesterday, from a journalist being sick of, i mean over Mariah Carey to just amazingly childish behaviour by Robbie William's walking out on an interview with the NME because he didn't like them.

There were two that really struck me as hilarious. First up is a Meatloaf press conference, Meatloaf is in Stockhom promoting a forthcoming tour and everything is going as planned until a German reporter stands up and asks, "Mr Loaf, is it your glands or do you simply eat to much?" Cue everyone but Meatloaf and presumably his entourage pissing themselves laughing and the conference terminating rather abruptly.

The funniest bit for me is that he actually calls him Mr Loaf!

The second one is another Marieh Carey interview, in 1999 she was rather bizarrely asked to comment on the death of Jordan's King Hussein, looking somewhat befuddled, she replied, "I'm inconsolable at the present time, I was a very good friend of Jordan, he was probably the greatest basketball player this country has ever seen. We will never see his like again."

Cue Ms Carey being led quickly away by her entourage. i feel i should point out that the writer acknowledges the latter story is often claimed to be an urban myth although he does say he knows at least three journalists who claim to have been there.

Strickly speaking...

...i know this is yesterdays news but i thought it was still worth mentioning when our Prime Minister is a lying bar-steward. He has repeatedly tried to convince the public that the bombings in London wern't connected to the war in Iraq, when leaked memos from the foriegn office have rather inconveinently pointed out that the invasion was a "key driver of recruitment to terrorist organisations".

The leaked memo, dated 18 May 2004 spells it out rather clearly, "British foreign policy and the perception of its negative effect on Muslims globally plays a significant role in creating a feeling of anger and impotence among especially the younger generation of British Muslims. This seems to be a key driver behind recruitment by extremist organisations."

The phrase "key driver" makes it seem pretty damn relavent to me. Surely Tony isn't just in denial, either way he is either a liar or a lunatic not fit to be Prime Minister of anything larger than his own imagination which seems to be spectacularly lacking as he continues to do as uncle George tells him.

Tuesday rant

I've been raring to get started on my rant this week, so much so that if it appears as a late monday post i can reassure you that it is now tuesday morning where i'm typing. It's 10 past midnight as i speak and depending how often i'm distracted will be posted anytime from quarter past to 1am when i'll be heading to bed.

The subject of my wrath this week is Frankenstein's bar/restaurent in Edinburgh, just down from the George IV bridge or possibly technically still on it near the Royal Museam/Museam of Scotland. Apparantly the Chicken and Mushroom supreme was very nice but i was tempted into eating the American breakfast. That consists of pancakes layered with bacon served with maple syrup, a couple of hash browns and a bit of tomato. A glass of orange juice and a coffee included. I'm aware this isn't everyones idea of a good breakfast but i'd eaten similar from the pancake place and been most impressed.

However i was to be sorely let down! The first signs wern't good, the top bit of bacon was a strange colour round the the edges that verged worryingly close to green, rarely a good colour for any meat. The pancakes were immediately obviously on the small side, disappointing but if they tasted nice then so be it. They didn't, they were cold, they crumbled badly and even coated in syrup bland and nothing special. They tasted like a cheap pancake bought from a supermarket which they couldn't even be arsed to heat up. So i wasn't neither satisfied by the amount nor the taste, and for almost £6 proved very poor value for money. The final insult was that the coffee was lukewarm.

I was tempted to order a dessert to satisfy my appetite a bit more, but i didn't want to give them anymore money. That'll teach me for not just ordering the huge fuck off big burger! Obviosuly i didn't complain, we just don't do that in the UK, well not much, so i just seethed about it quietly and will be petrol bombing it later in the week. Well not really, i hope no one does now petrol bomb it, well if they do i hope they get caught and i'm not a suspect. :-)

edit- typical, it did list it as a monday post, believe me it's tuesday already!

I was encouraged to notice....

...that arch bawbag President Bush had his lowest ever approval ratings announced just the other day with more and more people seeing through the shite about the war on Iraq. Still fat lot of good it is now that he's firmly ensconced in his second term. One can only hope that if he does face increasing popular discontent over the war in Iraq then it may hinder any other moves to invade anywhere else for a bit, perhaps?

Interesting experience

I went along to see Mirrormask at the fesitival as i posted earlier and it was as i titled this post an interesting experience, i thought i'd point out the few things i noticed that were different from what i've come to expect from the average multiplex experience.

First off and this wasn't a huge suprise no adverts or trailers, absolute bliss just the film you have paid to watch, even the background music before the film came on wasn't to bad. I wouldn't object to this being more like the regular movie going experience, ordinarily i don't mind the trailers to much but on top of the usual advertising onslaught i'd rather do without.

The next thing i noticed was the audience, not a single annoying popcorn chewing bampot in sight. There was however a hint of pretentiousness in the air as i had to suffer two guys talking about the recent works of Quentin Tarantino as if they were film critics, i personally think you can sum up most of Tarantino's work as films for teenage boys, enjoyable enough but hardly anything special, but then thats just my opionion and like arseholes everybody has one.

The other thing i noticed about the crowd was at the end of the film at least 90% of them stayed to watch the entirety of the credits. I found that behavour to be a mite odd, i'd only met one other person in my life up until that point that insisted on waiting to watch the credits of films. It appears they are a common breed at film festivals, again not entirely suprising in hindsight.

The other thing i noticed brought on a sense of nostalgia, as well as a sense of almost toppling over as i'll explain. Becuase the film was being shown in an independent cinema it also happened to be a rather old one. In good condition and all but still designed the way cinemas were designed back in the 30's possibly. On the whole the place seemed cosier and less obviously a place designed to part me from my money than the modern day multiplex, stll that wasn't what really caught my attention. It was at the end of the film as i stood up and staggered along the row i had been seated in like a drunken bufoon that the penny dropped, the entire floor was on a slope and it reminded me how that just wasn't the case anymore in new cinemas. It's probably an improvement but it reminded how some things change without our even noticing, it brought back a sense of a bygone age when i saw films as a child and the big cinema was the one over in the metropolis of Hamilton which had 3 screens!

As for the fim itself i thought it was very good, kind of what i had expected from the imagination from Neil Gaimen, and that is a good thing in my book. More imagination in that one film than you would find in all the Harry Potter novels, which reminds me i guess it was a film aimed at a young audience. Certainly the main star was a young probably teenage girl, and for all it had some disturbing images it certainly wasn't designed to shock you into fright nor did it contain gore to get a 15 or 18 rating. Perhaps aimed at a young audience isn't the right way to decribe it, i'd say accessable to a younger audience as it definately wasn't a kids film it was far to good to be labelled as that.

Ooooh fancy

I've grown to appreciate the edinburgh festival over the years, at first i was just happy with the extended pub opening hours that came along with the event, then i started to look at what went on during the fringe festival. Plentiful comedy acts, from the inspired to the insipid, there is an abundance of excellent comedians among the seemingly endless amount of shows on offer.

This weekend i'm looking at something new, i'm going to see an offering from the International Film Festival, i'm going to see a film called Mirrormask from the imagination of Neil Gaiman, author of the Sandman series of comics and a good few novels also.

I don't see myself checking out the Jazz or Art festivals anytime soon though. Comedy and film is more my scene.

As if i didn't think think the Bush administration was evil enough...

...i then saw this front page story. The UN is far from perfect as it is, but further attempts by the US to run roughshod over it and basicaly try and force their will upon it and the world in general doesn't do anyone any favours. Theres a bit more on the story here.

I maybe using the phrase evil a bit flippantly, the US just happens to have the power to do what it does. The phrase power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is perhaps more appropriate. The US is more like the big classroom bully who isn't all that bright but can still beat the crap out of everyone else.

Electronic Gizmo's

I do like technology, i like my PC, i love my PS2 etc. PC's and the internet are just fantastic and i love playing games on my PS2. However i think with anything there is a point to draw a line. For me it's handheld games consoles. The new Sony PSP is about to get its european release, for those eager to get one a frustrating many months since it's Japanese and US debut, and it is generating news stories and reviews about just how good it is meant to be.

I've never really saw the appeal of handheld consoles though, i once had a gameboy but i found whenever i wanted to play it i was in the my own home and had access to a better console. Because they are designed to be handheld they are never quite as powerful as your home based one, sure if you like your games and travel alot and have the oppurtunity to sit and play then fair enough, thats just never really been the case for me. Anyway at times like that i prefer to read a good book.

So i do look at it being advertised and think "ooh that'd be nice" but i'd be wasting my money, besides if i want to invest in something new and exciting gameswise it's not that long before the PS3 and X-box 360 come out.

Israel

Giveth with one hand and take away with the other. The US might offially oppose this plan, but if it was serious in wanting to do anything then i think they have the leverage to influence Israels decsions if the political will was really there.

The land of the Free

Well unless you are a journalist protecting your source that is. There is more on the broader story here, it all looks rather suspicious if you ask me. I don't think i really need to add much to what the links can tell you. Other than i hope Karl Rove gets nailed and more people see the bush administration for the weasels they are.

My apologies to weasels everywhere for that insult.

Who'd you believe?

An independent investigation or the US government? Call me sceptical but it's fairly well known that the US would like regime change in Iran and havn't been above lying in the past to get what they want. They understand the logic that if one repeats a lie often enough people will often accept it, the US is quite good at shouting louder and longer than anyone else.

Iran may or may not be lying, they have a nuclear development programme, which they say is for civil use only. It does seem almost inconceivable that they wouldn't have a weapons programme as well given how keen the US is to invade middle eastern countries on the flimsiest of excuses. See Afghanistan and Iraq in last few years.

No WMD's in Iraq and no real evidence to suggest that bombing Afghanistan into the stoneage helped find Osama bin Laden or smash his al q'aida network.

A good way to start the day...

...bowing down and worshipping the porcelain god. Slight hangover this morning, which is a bit bizarre but not entirely unexpected, but i could not believe it when i heaved whatever i had in my system this morning down the toilet bowl.

As it happens all that i really brought up was the water i'd drank this morning to try and rehydrate my system. I felt inexplicably bad, perhaps it was the slightly dodgy burgers i ate last night for dinner.

Before you raise your eyebrows and give me a sceptical look, "ah so you were out drinking last night and yet it was the burgers that caused you to be sick?" I should explain a little, yes the hangover was expected, but not because i'd had a skinful. It doesn't seem to work like that for me. I drank a moderate amount which tends to give me a hangover far in excess of what those sins deserve. It goes a little something like this:

• 1-3 pints - no problems
• 4-8 pints - a pounding head next morning(and for today a bonus of puking)
  
• 8-? pints - mild hangover and more tiredness from what has no doubt been late night carousing.

So i did expect a bit of a pounding head, but i still havn't worked out why i seem to suffer more from the inbetween amount than i do from drinking to so much more serious excess.

I also now have a serious craving for a bowl of cocoa pop's which i need to go and satisfy.

Maybe it's the...

..few beers i've had, maybe it's the fact my football team won, but sometimes life does seem better one moment than it does another for no obvious reason. Personally i reckon it's the track i'm listening to just now, music is something that can really inspire a person and for what reasoning i can't pin down. Nite drive of the album dimension intrusion has inspired this little outburst!

Richie Hawtin is a god among men!

link example 5

Now this is a pet subject of mine, censorship! If there is ever an evil in this world then it is censorship. The withholding of information, the art of keeping people ill informed and stupid. Something i'm sure our ruling classes are all to keen on.

this website is quite frankly brilliant. It covers censorship issues on a global scale, be it Russia's coverage on what is happening in Chechnya, or or US political commentators wanting to create blacklists of those who deviate from certain political viewpoints on the war in Iraq.

Censorship is something we should all be aware off and ready to fight against its insiduous effects.

cram in a tuesday rant

might already be to late but here goes.

What innocuous thing has got my goat this week. My own ability to what shite movies, I sat up to about 2am last night watching a film called Clay Pigeons, purely because it had a half decent cast, Joaquin Phoenix, Vince Vaughn and Janeane Garofalo. the 6.5 star rating is generous, the film was god damn awful. Vince Vaughn was just annoying, Phoenix was plain wooden and i'm struggling to think of redeeming features. I'm not at all suprised i'd never heard of it before.

bear with me but...

..i'm going off on a tangent! Well certainly compared to what i'll usually waffle about.

I feel like talking about, well i can only label as that what touches the soul. I use that phrase reluctanctly, i'm not religous, but that part of the human experience that sees thing as being of no intrinsic value but inately moving all the same.

I was walking home tonight after getting off a bus, it was dark and not a little bit cloudy. It felt a little breezy, although not at all like it was noticebly windy. However i looked to my left and i noticed a couple of trees swaying in the wind, like dark shadows against a dark background, t was beautiful, they had a steady rythmn. It was almost like they were moving on their own accord as you could barely feel the wind. What can i say the world just felt felt like a better place. I wanted to take a video clip of it on my mobile phone but my battery was low. Perhaps it was better that way?

How strange

It seems that if i start writing a blog and then save as draft without publishing it, that when i finish it off nad click on publish post it puts it amongst stuff i wrote on the day i first started it.

Surely it makes more sense to consider it as published on the day i actualy hit that publish post button. It's maybe something i can tweak in the settings. No big deal it's just the 2nd time i've noticed it happen.

Crime and Punishment

Something that generally comes up around about election times, although it periodicaly becomes the centre of media attention whenever some particularly horrific crime grabs the headlines, and it is usually with attempts by rival politicians trying to out do one another in their attempts to come across as tougher on crime than the other. There is very rarely any reasonable debate, if you suggest punishments that don't involve prison sentences or less draconian punitive measures you are labelled as soft on crime and you "may as well be out mugging grandmothers yourself with that kind of attitude."

The thing is that we have prison numbers that have reached 77,000, that's a 25,000 increase over the last 10 years in England and Wales to give that figure some perspective. More than half these prisons are overcrowded and in 2004 there were 95 suicides with 10 out of the 20 prisons with the highest rates of suicide also in the top 20 for population turnover.

I suppose you take the view that people are in prison as a punishment. Some are also there for the protection of the public. Where people tend to start disagreeing is over exactly who needs to be there and of those that are how much of a role rehabilitation should take. Living conditions of prisoners can also be known to cause controversy, i've saw many a headline about how outrageous it is that prisoners have access to playstations and DVD's etc. Although the day when these fuckers get plasma screens in their cells is the day i start asking questions about how many luxuries they are getting as well!

Of course a prison sentence is a punishment, it is a denial of certain freedoms and liberties, even if the prison isn't a dungeon nightmare the prisoner is still denied personal freedom. However if we have an increasing prison population then surely there is a better way to deal with it than building more prisons? For one thing the average cost of to keep a person in prison is currently £37,305 per year. Also if our prisons are overcrowded then you can give up on any idea of rehabilitation.

So surely it's time we looked at ways of keeping people out of prison, better for all concerned if the only people that we lock up are those that are genuinely dangerous to the public. For one thing prison isn't the only form of punishment. I'm not so sure about the benefits of tagging but i don't see why more community service can't be dished out. If people are harming their communities with petty crime etc then get them working in the community and putting something back.

Locking people up should surely only be for keeping away people that are dangerous to others. What is the point of locking up a petty thief, chances are it won't deal with the underlying problems of why they are a thieving git? Drug offences, i'd be tempted to decriminalise all prohibited substances, it's a personal choice as far as i'm concerned what people choose to ingest into their system. It does seem a touch hypocritical that we legally sell cigarettes which we know kills people yet we frown upon other substances.

I wouldn't encourage drug use, i'd be for educating people as to the true nature of the potential consequences and let them make their own decisions. People argue that the state needs to protect some people from themselves, certainly some people are more vulnerable than others and that needs to be taken into consideration but the vast majority of the population should be considered as able to make these decisions for themselves.

Anyway, the point i'm making and the point made by the new Chief Inspectors of prisons in article i read is that politcians need to take the subject more seriously and lay off the hardline rhetoric as it helps no one. Sensible debate and discussion might get us somewhere, politicians trying to score points gets us no where at all!

An old article but...

...still a rather good as well as pertinent one all the same. Stumbled across this while perusing the Chomsky blog.

A concise and to the point article that shows just how much of a lying bastard Tony Blair is.

Perhaps i underestimated...

...the effect football has in my life. You may consider that to be quite silly of me considering that i will on an average week play a game of 5's, 7's, and 11 aside football as well as going along to watch the Motherwell game.

So i don't why i'm suprised that now the football season is back i feel the need to post about football. It's not like i don't get to unload my football related angst in the real world. Of all the topics i like to pontificate on it is the easiest one to start a conversation with friends about.

I started this blog largely as way of putting my thoughts into words about general stuff that happens in the world outside my immediate life. As well as talking about things that interest me, sport, music, filmwise etc. I didn't intend to have a weekly Motherwell FC update but it is looking that way at the minute. I did start this blog in the close season when it was fairly easy to ignore, but now the season has started the pernicious effect this club has on my life is becoming more obvious and it isn't helped by results like THIS!

To a neutral i'm sure it was good to watch, goals galore and a match that swung one way and then the other. Watching your team take a 2 goal lead on 3 separate occasions at home only to lose the game is excruciating. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth, we went to sleep just before half time and gifted Utd a sloppy goal and instead of being 2 goals going on 4 or 5 up we had only a slender lead.

Even then goals to put us 3-1 and 4-2 up surely were going to kill the game. Nope, we went and committed football suicide to go 5-4 behind. To make matters even worse in the last 10 minutes after getting over the shellshock we witnessed their keeper make one absolutely blinding save, a defender hoof the ball off the line and had not 1 but 2 stonewall penalty claims denied.

We have big problems at the back and a start to the season that has shown much promise is looking destined to lead only to frustration until we can find a defensive solution. The irony is our manager, assistent manager and most senior coach were excellent defenders in their day. Terry Butcher was once captain of England, Maurice Malpas has plenty Scotland caps and Chris McCart was a good defender for us in his day to, yet this current backline are a complete shambles.

Corporate Responsability

An oxymoron if ever their was one. A good example of why that is can be found here. Fortunately it looks like the offending company is getting punished appropriately, although i imagine there will be appeals against the award. Just incase you happen to feel sorry for the company being fined, here is a link that shows just what sort of money they have been making.

Another good piece on the moneymaking attitude of drugs companies can also be found here. The top story however goes beyond mere excessive profiteering as it is knowingly putting lives ar risk. The last paragraph for me is revealing, "The punitive damages was equivelent to a 2001 estimate by Merck of the extra profit it would make if it could delay an FDA warning on the heart risks of the drug."

Such thinking and business practices cannot be tolerated, it is time we stopped allowing business interests to be considered as more important than peoples lives. Indeed i'd suggest that those at the top level of management at Merck should be facing manslaughter charges for being ultimately responsible for the releasing of the drug and the information they have seemingly withheld on it's side effects.

Very dissapointed in...

....Jerry Springer!

Now that must take some doing when you consider the lowest common denominator trash that was The Jerry Springer Show. A show i'd thought they'd stopped making, but that website i linked to suggests you can still audition to get on, maybe it's a dead link i didn't pause long enough to check it out.

So how could someone who peddles such trash actually disappoint me? Well the controversial Jerry Springer the Opera is the source of my dismay. This has had the christian fundamentalists going absolutely mental and baying for blood. I just read a little bit of what was on that website and quite frankly i'm fucking delighted these arseholes are up in arms.

I have to admit i havn't saw Jerry Springer the Opera, but i certainly want to do so now. If these lunatics had any sense they'd ignore it completely, their moral outrage only advertises the show all the more.

Jerry was happy to endorse the show before the controversy broke, according to one of the shows creators Stewart Lee, "Springer came to the opening night and said it was so good he wished he'd written it," says Lee. "Two faced wanker. He somewhat shifted his position after the controversy. He called me a neo-nazi apologist. Only his change of mind happened behind closed doors, so no one knew about it - until now."

I'm glad the BBC had the balls to broadcast it even just once, chances of it getting a repeat? Probably not very good.

Another post i can only...

...make safe in the knowledge my sister won't be reading this. I offered to help my mum carry down my sisters new PC, set it up for her and help her bring up my sisters old PC, which has a heavy traditional old monitor unlike her new digital flat panel one.

The offer welcomed by my mum was rebuffed by my sister, not because of any falling out or family feud we get along fine, but because my sisters flat is possibly the messiest place on the face of the earth and i would have been down in time before she had a chance to tidy it. By my calculations to get it actualy tidy would take her at least the entire weekend and a JCB for help. So i shall just have to wait a bit to get on with setting up my 2nd PC.

Possibly just as well, i could doing a bit of tidying up myself, must run in the family.

MarkThomas

After i got given a copy of his show that is available to buy on audio CD from his website i decided i really should like to go see him live. So i've just booked tickets for his next show in glasgow. However it's a double show, him and comedy pal Robert Newman are both performing on the same bill.

So i guess it'll be a slightly shorter set by both acts, if not could be in for some serious bum numbing. Would have preferred just to see Mark Thomas only on this occasion but it could be worse, could be on the same bill as Ben Elton.

Climate Change

We're probably all screwed anyway, but front page of the Independent had a story about Hilary Clinton and a senator John McCain visiting Alaska and essentialy agreeing with and saying quite loudly that yes the scientific evidence about global warming is pretty much bang on. What makes this a little bit encouraging is that this pair are both contenders for the presidential nomination for their respective parties.

It would be helpful if the USA got serious on climate change, biggest economy in the world and all that. However was a little disappointed about talk of reducing carbon emissions to year 2000 levels. I think that would amount to a fart in a jacuzzi, but still just maybe it's start.

Ah, gonna take a slight detour here, right it was the talk of the USA being the biggest economy in the world that shunted me onto another train of thought. This is again from the recent Rob Newman show. Oil and how it's traded in US dollars and how it has been so exclusively for a good whack of time now. This is tremendously advantageous to the US for reasons an economist could explain better but it obviously makes US currency more valuable and cements it's status as dominant world currency. However if there was a switch to say euros, then it could cause problems. As people suddenly wanted to ditch an awful ot of US dollars, i beleive it would seriously bankrupt the US.

As it happened some countries either did switch or stated an interest in doing so, i can't be 100% certain if thay all absolutely made the change. These countries and again i'm doing this from top of my head, the 3 i remember happen to be Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Axis of evil anyone?

Got a new PC.. sort of.

Strickly speaking my big sister has gotten a new PC as she has been unhappy with the reliability of her old one. Now i can say this safe in the knowledge that my sister isn't even aware of this page, she is a jinx when it comes to technology. Computers, TV's, videos, stereos, you name it if she has it chances are it'll break or go wrong. So while she has a shiny new pc, which is currently sitting in my room where i've been entrusted to set it up and install anti virus software etc for her, i shall be getting her old one for myself.

I already have a PC which i'm quite happy with, although wouldn't mind upgrading to a 3Ghz processor like my sisters new PC, or a better graphics card. You always want better than what you have if it's available, but my PC has done me well and still does what now must be 3 years since i got it. Has been upgraded with larger hard drive and more memory but it's still much the same PC. It's reliable and that is why i am quite keen to get my hands on another PC.

I'm not an expert on PC's, i can keep mine ticking over fine and i've never had to take it to a shop for repairs or upgrades but i don't like the fact that i rely on microsoft and windows. I'd like to be able to use something like Linux. So am i fuck going to piss about with the PC i use for everyday use. I now have a guinea pig on which to experiment. I feel i should insert an evil cackle about now, please imagine it for yourself.

I shall look at the old pc, not sure if it's working at all just now. I'll try reinstalling windows first, just to see what sort of condition it is in. Then move onto to trying to install Linux, i confidently predict to have it working by the end of the decade.

Cultural wasteland

I know Lanarkshire is a predominately working class area, nothing wrong with that. It has it's good points and bad, i'm struggling to think of the good at the minute so i'll skip over the bad also. I went for a bus today and just missed it. It was threatening rain and i was in 2 minds over whether to walk into the town or just wait for the next bus. I decided that i'd go to the local shop(for local people) and get a paper. Not a huge decision in anyones book, even if that book is about the adventures of a dog named Spot, it did however have some minor ramifications.

I knew i'd not get the Independent, my general proper newspaper of choice, and i decided "ach whatever" i'll settle for a Scotsman or a Herald. Also like the Independent no longer a broadsheet as such but serious newspapers in more conveinent tabloid size. You can guarantee they have some new term for this but i can't think what that is just now.

Now you can probably see where this is leading... did i get either of the above newspapers? Did i ding* there was not one respectable newspaper on sale. I wouldn't even suggest they stocked just a few and that they'd sold out, there wasn't any empty spaces on the shelves to suggest this was the case. The only papers i had to choose from were the Daily Record, The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Star** or the classiest of them all the Daily Sport***.

I find this worrying, not one of these papers is fit to be called a newspaper. The Star and Sport are soft porn, the Mail is a moralising rag and the Record and Sun just such tosh i don't know where to begin. Anyway the Sun was the cheapest so i made do with that. I'm now up to date with the happenings of celebrities and what's been happening with the people from Big Brother.

This may well be my only post today.

*A word used so i don't need to use far coarser language such as fuck or bollox.
** Might be called the Daily Star i forget.
*** No it's not a paper in the mould of Corriere della Sport. A paper purely focused on sport i believe.

Running late and...

...wasn't planning on posting today as i got places to be, people to see etc. I couldn't not post a link to this however. It doesn't look very good at all. If it's true there had better something done, rather than it being swept under the carpet as one would expect. At best there has been serious errors of judgement all round.

Saw this and thought i'd pinch it.

A Thought for the day.

"The army that will defeat terrorism doesn't wear uniforms, or drive Humvees or call in air-strikes. It doesn't have a high command, or high security, or a high budget. The army that can defeat terrorism does battle quietly, clearing minefields and vaccinating children. It undermines military dictatorships and military lobbyists. It subverts sweathshops and special interests. Where people feel powerless, it helps them organize for change, and where people are powerful, it reminds them of their responsability." Author unknown

I thought i'd just repeat it.

Oh Diego Maradona

Just stumbled across this story. The nothing if not interesting career of Diego Maradona continues with a new chat show. Given that the most recent headlines that he's made in the last few years have been about his deteriorating health, it's quite good to see that he is apparantly healthier than he has been for some time.

I know many of his problems have been self inflicted and it is quite easy to fixate on the seamier side of the Maradona story, for me however flawed man that he is, he is also the finest footballer the world has ever seen. This book also provides a balanced accout of the mans life, praise where it is deserved, fair criticism and some insight into why things turned out as they did for someone with the world at his(quite literaly) feet.

So good luck to him and it would be good if he really could put his demons behind him and find peace and happiness in the remainder of his life that seemed to be lacking when he was on top of the world. He certainly provided an abundance of joy and entertainment to those that watched him play football throughout his career. Well with a few exceptions, don't think that many England fans have forgiven him for the 'hand of god' moment.

gaza strip

Thought i'd post link to this article and this Chomsky blog on the subject. Having read a bit of Chomsky over the last few years i've been impressed with the way he has presented his arguments. Particularly in his books where he has the room to fully express his not inconsiderable intellect.

People can make up their own minds on this subject, but the few snippets of TV news i've watched of this has only reinforced my opinion that these people who live in these settlements are nutters. Bit of a sweeping statement i know, but they really believe God gave them this lands. I'm an athiest as i've mentioned before, so when people use the argument "God gave us..." whatever people claim god has granted them that argument doesn't hold water for me.

Get right back to the here and now and justify why Israel is entitled to occupy Gaza and the West Bank?

Link Example 4

This is probably the weakest of the links i've got on my blog. Not because the person who i've linked to isn't really good but i don't think he has a really good website about himself. This link does however give you a bit of an idea what he is all about.

I first heard of him through a friend sending me unsolicited if not unwelcome forwardings of his Independent columns. Unfortunately he isn't at present doing these and i'm not sure if they can be found online anywhere.

It was the Mark Steel lectures however that had me really won over, i stumbled across them on BBC4 and was hooked. History to me was a subject that was stuffy, boring and badly taught at school by a teacher that looked liked every morning he contemplated suicide rather than face another day of hell teaching hordes of children who were by turn belligerant and downride contemptful of him.

This has turned my opinion of history around, history is something that needs to be taught, it must be taught with the enthusiasm and verve that Mark Steel shows in these lectures. We need to lose the dusty image that is associated with history. I'd get this show shown in my History lessons if i was responsible for teaching kids about any of the people featured.

I'm still intending to buy some Beethoven on the back of that episode, i never imagined myself as a classical music listener but the show was that inspiring.

I found a link to his independent writings, unfortunately you'll have to subscribe to read them.

Oh yeah, he's written some books that i havn't read myself but i have every intention of doing so.

tuesday rant

Public transport... you knew it had to happen sooner or later. To be perfectly honest i could probably get all serious on this subject, talk about peak oil, public spending, the environment, privatisation and a whole ream of issues related to public transport.

This however is my little tuesday froth at the mouth over something rather insignificant, although not so much to me as it will be to you. What in particular gets my goat about public transport is the 11pm 240 bus that i usually get on a monday night on my way home from playing football. Now for reasons unrelated to this rant i didn't get it last night, but i was reminded of it.

This bus is meant to be at Brandon Parade at 11pm, i get off the 201 bus from East Kilbride at anywhere from just before 11pm to just after. The law of averages says i should get the 11pm 240 at least once every so often. Sods law says do i fuck! The 240 due at 11pm is usually long gone by that time, the closest i have gotten to seeing it in the last 6 months or so has been watching it drive off as i'm getting off the 201 at a relatively adjacent bus stop.

The next bus isn't due for 25 minutes, although it too often tends to come rediculously early. Just the other week it dropped me off at the stop nearest my home about 2 minutes after it was scheduled to be at the stop i got on at(It's a approx 15 minute journey). It's a double edged sword, when you catch that late bus you just want the driver to put his foot down and when you are waiting for one you curse the driver to a lifetime of damnation for being to early.

It also leaves me wide open to fast food temptation, there is not much more boring than waiting for a bus by yourself. Anything that can kill some time is welcome. After playing football i often find that i'm quite hungry. A 20 minute wait, boredom and an empty stomach are a bad combination when you are waiting across from a chip shop and a chinese takeaway that does a lovely little 4 chicken ball, rice and curry sauce snack for a very reasonable £2.95.

The fact that i know the price off the top of my head tells it's own story, although i do usually resist honest. I tend to take a 5/10 minute walk to a bus stop further along the route to kill time and keep myself away from the unhealthy food.

So public transport and drivers of the 11pm Motherwell 201 bus, today you are the focus of my wrath you inconveinent gits!

is it a concern....

...that football helps keep me sane? I didn't post as i'd normally do yesterday, but i came online today to maybe tidy up the ones i quickly posted on saturday and maybe some other stuff. So i read over what i posted about on saturday and i think anyone reading it might well have been worried about my mental state, and then not posting yesterday... well let me reassure anyone i'm quite alright and i wasn't away looking for nearest cliff.

Though the thought did occur that perhaps football isn't the best pastime to distract one from the more serious side to life? Those of us that tend to get into any sport seem to get a bit obsessional about it. It can seriously affect your mood for the rest of the day if not the weekend, do we take it so seriously as a means of shutting out other concerns? I really cannot explain why a bunch of guys i don't really know kicking a ball about can cause such emotional extremes. I've learned to live with it, you enjoy the highs when you can and try not to get the lows bother you to much. But you know in a quiet moment, especialy after a bad defeat, i know i'll find myself applying my amateur football brain to just exactly what went wrong and what, or more likely who, we need to fix it.

Is it a male thing, i'm currently reading Dave Gorman's Googlewhack adventure, which enjoying but not half as funny as Are You Dave Gorman. These are lighthearted books but they do reveal some insight into male obsessive behaviour, taken to the extreme by Mr Gorman, who can at least make a living out of his madness.

Fitba update

After pulling a goal back, we've now conceded another. Bugger, i'm just heading out the door to and i would have been happily contemplating hearing about the equaliser we were going to score and been eagerly looking forward to hearing the full time score later. Not now, 3-1 hopes buried. Remind myself, it's only a game, it's only a game...GARGH!!

Link update

The Noam Chomsky link didn't appear to have updated since i put it on my site, so i've had a wee look about and maybe this is gonna work better. I've also updated the link, so hopefully it'll work also.

Ach fitba is poor again

Looking like a wise decision not to go away to Kilmarnock today. We're 2-0 down and it's just coming up for half time, what was once a happy hunting ground is a complete graveyard these days. Had intended to go but when the the Killie IFA team couldn't get a team together and we ended up with a home match scheduled(which also fell through) then it became a big doubt. Was first away game of season but with prices charge these days you have to be a bit picky.

Anyway fingers crossed i look like a rediculous pessimist come full time after a stunning comeback?

Filled to the Brim with Hate!

Thank you again Bill Hicks for inspiration for my title there, i was watching Rob Newman as i mentioned earlier and his show was more educational than funny, not without it's laughs but it probably could have done with some fresher jokes. The opening and closing skits in particular i'd heard before, so comedywise it seemed a little tired at the beginning and the end, but don't get me wrong the show itself was still great and if you havn't saw him before then it'll all be new to you and even funnier anyway.

So 'filled to the brim with hate'? yeah just fucking world we live in it is so shite! It really is, the point made by Rob Newman about even our news reporting, it is so small in focus to the point that it's a complete waste of time. There is no room for any alternative opinions that don't fit within certain small confines. A point i've mentioned before, by the standard of the Nuremberg trials Blair and Bush are war criminals and would be excecuted. One of the best bits of the show, Rob says how you'd get dismissed as be sensationalist and sloganeering trying to put that view across on a show like Question Time, but those found guilty at the Nuremberg were found guilty of waging an aggressive war. It wasn't until many years later(1996?) that anyone was convicted of a crime in relation to the holocaust.* War criminals are meant to look like Goebbells, but what did Goebells look like to other germans? Probably like a normal family man.

Peak Oil was another main topic, whether you agree with current theories on Peak Oil or not, it is only a matter of time before we run out, it is a finite source, we understand well enough how it was formed and at the rate we use it we'll be lucky not to be more or less run dry in my lifetime. So the 4x4 car and short haul easy jet flight culture we currently live in is only hastening the demise of our industrial society. This stuff should be something we are more aware off, we are wasting time, money and resources fighting over the stuff in iraq when we should be looking further ahead, so what if the US/UK secure access to the biggest sources of the stuff, we're going to run out to.

It galls me that we are so stupid as to accept the war on iraq as a bringing democracy to the middle east, what nonsense, look at the history of our previous interference in the region. Nothing has changed, it's all about serving our own interests. As for ID cards and new terrorist legislation, fuck that we should be all be storming Downing street to that fucking war criminal bitch of Bush out of parliament because if democracy is ever to be an example to anyone the fucking reprobates that currently inhabit need deported to somewhere like Guatamala to work for 35 cents an hour and for good measure we can send the members of the G8. We'll see what they think of Capatalism when looking at it from the point of view of poor fuckers that are working in sweatshops.

Before anyway says yeah well capatalism the best example of society available, look at the failures of communism etc. So fucking what, does it make it right, does it. We are parasites living of the sweat and blood of others. What society can condone the business practices of yer Nike's and countless others that rely on sweated labour. It's so bad can anyone tell me of an ethical business? What is the point of boycotting Nike, who are you going to buy yer trainers from? How are you meant to know if they are made ethically, for one thing those companies that say don't want to use cheap labour, how are they meant to compete? They are compelled to conform with whatever others do. Indeed corporate law says they have to serve the best interests of their shareholders and fuck everyone else. So i say fuck capatalism, fuck tony blair, fuck george bush the puppet that he is(a actual puppet would have more brains and be harder to control than that retard), fuck the G8, fuck the sham of a democracy we live in vive le revolution. Only got praise for those that have gotten involved with Reclaim the streets and suchlike, direct action is the way forward.

will look into some better links for this bit later. Cannot be bothered just now, got stuff to do y'know, ust thought i'd let loose a bit. Few links now added.

*To be perfectly honest i can't back that up right just now. Was a statement made by Robert Newman in his latest show. I'd tend to give him the benefit of the doubt as his show is generally very well researched. If anyone can prove or disprove it feel free to use the comment facility.

Quiet day tomorrow

Going to see Robert Newman in the evening and i don't think i'll be on the computer much. Hope it stays dry during the day so can make most of it. I don't think i can bring myself to even look at the weather forecast, for one i'll be annoyed if it says it's going to be chucking it and secondly i hate it when people obsess over the weather.

Online poker update

Had a disasterous session recently. I'd been wanting to play for a few days and gotten distracted by this that and the other. I found a bit of time last week, about an hour or so, sat down and played. I lost about $15. I was down to $33 left, only $3 above what i started with. I was pretty gutted at how poorly i'd played. I felt i'd been stupid by playing when i knew i was rushing off elsewhere after, felt basically put pressure on myself to play quickly.

I was really pissed off as i wanting to keep the imaginary graph in my head on an more or less upwards slope, and now theres a big dent in it. I did recover some losses the other day though, back up to about $40. Still about $13 down from my high point, although i'm pleasedt o have a little comfort zone from my initial stake again.

I've written down a few scenarios where i absolutely fold and not become pot committed, so i can try and keep bit more disciplined. Top of all that is don't even play unless you have ample time on your side.

A little bit of justice...

....could we see a little more please. See link here for story.

The mere fact that the Ariel Sharon is Prime Minister when he has been found to be personally responsible for the massacres of Sabra and Shatila says a lot about the political climate in Israel. Israel is a repressive and murderous state that has done as many inhuman acts as any 'official' rogue state or member of the 'axis of evil'.

It's always a controversial subject, to criticise the state of Israel is often seen to be anti semetic. Personally as an athiest i don't give a rats ass about anyones religion, believe in whatever god you like, worship in your own way so long as you don't use it as an excuse for killing people or oppressing others. In the post war period after everyone became aware of the holocaust anyone with a shred of decency must have been sickened at what happened. I wouldn't be an enthusiast of any state being a religious enclave as it were but who would deny jewish people the right to a state after that, not to mention many years of persecution before that. But the way it has panned out not so good.

It's long past time that the extremists were reigned in and let both the jewish people and palestinions live in peace.

China/Tibet

I do tend to bang on about the current US/UK governments and their criminal foreign policy, so today i thought i'd leave them alone for the moment. I no less despise many of the actions they have taken, particularly as a citizen of the UK Tony Blair has led us to war in our name when i don't think there has ever been a majority of the population supportive of war in Iraq.

Indeed at the risk of sounding like an intellectual snob the vast majority of people that have either supported it or given Blair the benefit of the doubt have been fairly ignorant and formed their opinions from tabloid journalism. But there you go, just my opinion and it is admitadly based on experience of people i've discussed it with, i wouldn't rely on it in a dossier argueing the case against. Oops was that a small dig at the government there? moving on....

Yeah so anyway today i feel the need to highliight the Free Tibet movement and remind anyone that cares to read this just how much repression and violence is still ongoing in the region. Big business and governments are today currently falling over themselves to deal with China. With a population of a billion people and a seemingly more modernised economy everyone wants to be their pal and not upset them. The 2008 Olympic games has been awarded to Beijing, a competitions whose own ideals has long been buried under corporate sponsorship is a badge of respectability of the Chinese regime.

Why has China annexed Tibet, a small nation of around 2.6 million people, no threat to the might of China? The Tibetan plateau may not be overpopulated but it does have 1/8th of China's land mass, an area of unexploited resources and considered a strategic buffer to the west. Tacitus would understand, "if a man seeks to understand Rome's casuss reason for each foreign conquest he only needs to look into the Treasury."

Oh yeah, link to better article on it here.

Bizarre craze

Over in Rome many young night owls have forsaken their mobile phones for miniature megaphones, is this part of some neo-luddite movement looking to abandon or protest against the cold modern technological world we live in? The short answer to that is no. These Roman revellers have merely taken to using small battery powered megaphones to annoy the residents of Rome's Piazza Campo di Fiori who had become so fed up with the noise created at night that they managed to get banned the serving of alcoholic drinks in glasses or bottles after 10pm.

The drinkers got a bit upset and first escalated the feud by organising late night games of football as first light came up for the new day. Not suprisingly this somewhat tiring method was ditched when someone hit upon the idea of these little megaphones. These have now apparantly become the summers must have item.

I read about this in the independent on monday but this is only link i can find just now for the story, a small reference near the bottom talking about an increase in yobbishness in Italian youth culture.

Quick tuesday rant

Again i had two things in mind that i thought of after my short howl at the moon last week and i can only remember one of them and it was the one that i was going to hold fire on that i can remember as unfortunately it's one that it seems i could rant about on a daily basis.

So seeing as i've already ranted about forgetting these things i'll just have to make do.

What small thing has been the subject of my ire this week? I shall tell you, cat piss. It absolutely reeks, it was bad enough when it the cat peed on my astro trainers the other week when i needed them to go along for my fitba teams photo session at the citadel of heavenly football, i thought i'd washed it off but no sooner had i opened bag they were in did the smell hit me like the heat from an oven door.

Thankfully on that occassion i only needed them for but a few minutes and quickly into the washing machine they went, 3 times before i was satisfied that they passed the smell test. I may have been wrong though as they appear to have upped and walked out the door on their own accord(or i left them in pub last tuesday).

If only it ended there, no less than 3 of the cats has chosen to piss in my room this week. One in the bag i put my football stuff in, and the other 2 in different corners. This is worrying, it suggests that previous cat pee smell wasn't entirely away, that i wasn't noticeing it and that possibly i might be walking around smelling like a cats litter tray. Hmm well i could use a shower but i don't think i'm that bad.

Bought some new stuff out of pet store that is meant to discourage them from piddling, fingers crossed it works or there is going to be cat on the menu soon!

D-Day

No it's not some war rant about the war criminals Blair and Bush, but a little post on exam results. For students in Scotland today is the today they find out the results of their Highers* and it brought back a few memories of waiting for that brown envelope myself.

First time around i was waiting with a sense of doom about what my results would be and it wasn't just teenage agnst, i knew well just how poor my chances of decent results were and it was soon confirmed. I started the year taking 4 subjects, after the prelims it was down to 3 as i'd dropped Maths after a very poor prelim result** and my result in a technical subject whose name escapres me at present was so bad it wasn't even listed on the certificate. Of the 2 subjects left the best result was a C for Geography. A worsening attendence record had took it's toll and i had a bit of a long lie in bed that day.

However all was not lost, there was a 2nd bite of the cherry still on offer and i was determined to have a better go at it. Also my mum bought me a new video recorder to cheer me up, which i still have and works pretty well. So i went backto school with a renewed sense of determination, mostly because i was fucking desparate to get out of town and go away to university, and i wasn't going to do that with a single C in geography, Motherwell college beckoned, a worrying thought.

I had checked around Uni prospectuses and decided that 3 good*** highers would be enough, i had concerns about spreading myself to thin, i thought i was better off concentrating on 3 rather than trying to do 4 or even 5 in one go. So i decided to resit my english and i took two crash highers in Modern Studies and Economics. To be honest i'm not sure entirely why i picked those two, i think Modern Studies was reccomended as being a bit of a skoosh and dunno what i was thinking with economics.

Anyway i put a bit more effort in and by the time i was waiting on the envelope hitting the mat again i was fairly confident i'd get what i needed. However there was some doubt, English and Modern Studies were going well and looked straightforward for passes and hopefully solid B's. Indeed i harboured hopes of an A in Modern Studies as i was only a couple of marks away from that in the prelim. Hoping for a B in english and with Economics as the potential sticking point. I had missed that prelim through illness and the quality of my coursework had deteriorated after a bright start. Being a teenage lad i wasn't going mental with the studying and general work, i was taking it seriously but obviously there were lapse.

So economics wasn't looking so good, what possibly turned that around for me was the post prelim report card. We had a temp teacher come in about that time as original teacher was away on maternity leave and she put my predicted mark as a grade D. I was well pissed off, for one thing she was only in the door two minutes what would she know? So that probably inspired me to knuckle down on the economics and pass it to proove her wrong.

Anyway after i'd sat my exams i had the feeling that i had at least passed all of them, i was 95% i'd got passes and about 75% sure that i'd get what i needed. I was maybe more confident than that as i decided to ignore a possible place at a college in glasgow. It was for same course i was looking to get in at University but starting at HND level and only requiring to higher C's. They wanted an interview and i decided i was just to good for that and was going to get what i needed anyway.

So the day came and i retreated into the bathroom with the envelope and proceeded to open it, i took out the certificate and read what i had achieved. It said two B's and a C, i was quite chuffed at getting my place at uni and on closer inspection i was a little disappointed. As suspected the Modern Studies exam hadn't went great and instead of pushing on for an A i only got a C. This was partialy made up for the fact i got a B in economics and i felt a little smug about that.

So thats one horror story and one i can't complain about for me. I not sure why i've decided to share my mediocre exam results with the world, it possibly the most crashingly dull thing i've written but i dunno perhaps it's something easy to relate to and seeing as i've written it now may as well hit that publish post button.

*Presuming they are still even called Highers.
**9%
***In the end the course i applied for asked for BBC.

Link example 3

Cammys chinese adventure. The blog of Fifer Mr Cameron Wilson who has upped sticks from his job in small town Lincolnshire to try living in China. After much travelling throughout the region Cammy has settled down in Shanghai and is currently trying to find fulltime employment.

This post sums up Mr Wilson rather well :-) Although don't be fooled, he's also got interests beyond his pc, football, drinking and dancing as this post shows his thoughts on the world political stage.

Glad to see your enjoying yourself Cammy, i daresay if you were blogging from Lincolnshire it would still be worth reading but probably not quite so good.

Iran restarts nuclear programme

More here on this. Not a popular move with the EU and UK, though i'm not quite sure why they shouldn't be allowed to develop Nuclear fuel? Now whether they have ambitions of creating nuclear weapons i couldn't say. It wouldn't be suprising if they were in the current climate, i'll be curious to watch how this develops over the coming weeks and months.

Football again

A game that was almost the polar opposite of the season opener, a 90 minute grind made worthwhile by an injury time winner. 4 points more than we've had at this point in the last 2 seasons hopefully it'll be the start of another top 6 campaign and a real go at qualifying for europe through the league. Hearts look worryingly good though at this early stage, fingers crossed we can keep them on our mantelpiece again this season.

Anyone that digs...

..Bill Hicks must have some sense and i always happy to post a link to any blog that i take a liking to. This particular post from It's just a ride tickled my fancy. Anything than further exposes the hypocracy of George W Bush and his puppetmasters is good in my book.

Delighted to read...

....an article in the review section of fridays Independent which was happy to have a go at the Harry Potter empire. As it happens it was only today i happened to read it as it was in my bag on the bus. Was a bit pushed for time and decided not to bother stopping to get todays paper and made do with perusing the aforementioned unread review section.

I don't really have anything against the books or their author, other than the fact like many people before them they have to an extent became hideously successful on the back of questionable talent. Bands like U2 and Coldplay immediately spring to mind, not entirely devoid of talent but if not always worryingly bland then they certainly have settled into mediocrity for longer than i'd care to remember.

I read the first 3 Potter books and didn't really see what the fuss was about, although there are childrens books and probably seemed more exciting to children. However because they are now so successful they are almost beyond criticism and you get even more rediculous stuff written about it and their success than is remotely realistic.

For example a Sunday Times article suggested "that before Harry Potter, fantasy fiction was a limp affair of 'knights and ladies morris-dancing to Greensleeves'." Personally that irks me as i have enjoyed the odd bit of fantasy fiction in my time and if anything the Harry Potter books are a somewhat limp affair in my opinion and to denigrate a genre that has produced writers like Terry Pratchett and Ursula Le Guin is a bit rich.

As it happends Mr Pratchett himself read the piece and took exception and responded and offered a list of names that have written some fine fantasy fiction,"Ursula Le Guin, Diana Wynne Jones, Jane Yolen, Peter Dickinson and Alan Garner." I can't say i'm familiar with all of them but if Terry Pratchett reckons they are good then i'd give him the benefit of the doubt. Certainly the fantasy books i've enjoyed such as his own, Tolkien's, C S Lewis, Roald Dahl and a few others not so celebrated do not fit the Sunday Times description as a "limp affair".

Of course in a response to Pratchetts criticism of the piece it was suggested that he was motivated by jealously of JK Rowlings success. Ok he hasn't sold quite the amount that the Potter books have, there arn't hollywood movies of his Discworld novels but he has sold in the region of 40 million books himself. A struggling writer he is not, by any standard he is phenomenally successful in his own right and to suggest he is jealous of Harry Potter as a criticism of his own comments that wern't fulsome in praise of Potter or Rowling is an intellectualy weak argument.

Indeed Rowling was reported as saying she hadn't realised at first that she was writing fantasy fiction, Pratchett says he "would have have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds, jumping chocolate frogs, owl mail, magic food, ghosts, broomsticks and spells would have given her a clue". So as Public Enemy would say don't believe the hype, there is more to fantasy fiction than Harry Potter, indeed if anything Harry Potter is the fantasy fiction equivelent of a Dan Brown novel. Not everyones cup of tea but good luck to them for writing books that lots of people enjoy reading, lets just not kid ourselves they are literary giants.

Better late than never...

...is a good phrase and one that is probably quite apt for our species as we don't always seem to be to quick on the uptake. So while i'm a bit late posting about the news stories i was reading about over the weekend i'm not quite half as slow as those that are in power throughout the world are to realise that things like Nuclear weapons are bad! The anniversary of Hiroshima passed over the weekend and the memory of the destruction and lives lost there and in Nagasaki should be the only examples we need to know that using such weapons is just not something that we should tolerate.

Indeed it is questionable that they should ever have been used at the time, conventional wisdom is that it saved more lives in the long run as it hastened the surrender of the Japanese and saved a long drawn out ground campaign to invade Japan. There are however alternative views as to whether it was really required. I find it hard to judge, WW2 is the war i was taught as the 'good war' where we had a clearly defined right and wrong side. Germany and the genocide of the jews, Japan with unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbour and inhuman treatment of POW's.

It looks to me as though the war could have been ended without unleashing atomic bombs upon Japan nor without a ground invasion. How easy a decision that was to make at the time only those directly involved will really know. The only good thing we can take from such a horrific period in human history is that the consquences of using atomic weapons are plain for all to see and there can be no doubt as to how unacceptable there future use can be.

Sadly whether through time or through current political pressures Nuclear profileration is still ongoing. Indeed if recent history is teaching people anything is that if you have Nuclear capability then your country is safe from invasion. So while North Korea has become a Nuclear power we have seen Iraq fall to US/UK invasion. Is it a conicidence that Iran is being bullish about it's own Nuclear programme? For those countries labelled part of an axis of evil by the USA it comes as no suprise that it was the militarily weaker ones targeted by the Bush administration.

Is the world a safer place from learning from history?

As promised...

...i did buy a better paper today, but so far i've only found the time to read the sport section. I'm getting a bit worried about how much i've been reading about the cricket lately, it's a sport i consider lethal in that surely people must die after watching a 5 day test from sheer boredom. 5 days in a row surely must be dangerous? I even found myself watching a little of it yesterday. I console myself with the knowledge that i was in the gym at the time and that is also so tediously awful that almost anything seems interesting after 5 minutes on a treadmill or exercise bike.

However i found myself checking the score after i had been doing a few sit ups and resistance machine stuff away from any TV screens. Even more worryingly than that i've found myself wanting England to win this test. Now i put this down to the monstrous arrogance of the Australians about their cricket team, so chances are if England win this one and say even the next i daresay they'll be insufferable about winning at that as they are most things(well the media anyway) that normality will be restored and i'll be rooting for the Aussies to snatch a series win away from them.

A large dose of shame aside the upshot of it is that i've not really read my paper enough to write anything considered yet and i've just got a copy of Mark Thomas: The Night War Broke Out. So i plan on sticking that on just now. So while the blog might be a bit quiet today i'll possibly post something over the weekend and if not monday should be back to normal.

The Sun letters page

Full of people moaning their backsides off becuase our MP's are on holiday during this "time of terror". I'd possibly have more sympathy if the people writing in were from London and felt genuinely unsafe, but when your writing from Blantyre, Stirling and Aberdeen? These people need to get a grip of themselves, Mp's are on holiday does it make the slightest bit of difference to the security forces actually hunting terrorists? I'd wager not.

Shockerooni

Nae sh*t Sherlock! A Government minister no less has stated that the benefits of a National ID card scheme have been "over-emphasised", given how straight talking government ministers tend to be i think we can translate that to,"It's a hideously expensive enterprise that the taxpayer will pay for yet recieve no discernable benefit."

Slight change of plan affects todays blogging

I had a wee visit to the hospital for an x-ray on my gammy shoulder. I broke my clavical/collar bone about 4 months ago now and it's been slowly but surely mending. It was quite a nasty break and there is still some loose bone fragments but the two main bits are basically fixed together and i have complete freedom of movement etc.

So i had been expecting a lift but it fell through, so i had to get the bus which meant i didn't get to drop in at Asda to buy the Independent on route. Indeed i ended up making a mad dash for the bus and had to quickly buy the first paper that came to hand to break a £10 note to get change for my bus fare. The paper i had to settle on was the Sun, the best quality writing in that paper is generally Dear Deidre so i doubt there will be much in my posts today about issues outside of what the Sun considers news for it's target demographic, people with an IQ of 70 and under. And indeed on page 3 eschewing the traditional young lady with her 'baps' out there is excellent piece of journalism about "EU meddlers want to ban pub girls' low-cut tops." Not one to miss an oppurtunity there are two young ladies in revealing tops playig at being 'bar wenches'.

However i had planned on writing about the front page headline of the sun after seeing it at the end of Newsnight Scotland. Hadn't actually been watching newsnight, i was waiting on the following programme, How to Start Your Own Country which i enjoyed quite a bit. I can't remember how much he featured in the TV series Are you Dave Gorman, but he did co write the hilarious book of that particular adventure and this seems to be silliness along the same lines and most enjoyable to. If you wish to know more about that then look here and possibly become a citizen of an as yet unnamed country.

So anyway back to the Sun headline i felt like writing about, it was"Let's put GREAT back into BRITAIN you can do your bit." I see a headline like that and i cringe. Then you read the first few paragraphs and the Sun tells us what we can all do to make Britain great again, at this point i'm trying to get eyebrows off the ceiling as i imagine what the Sun has in mind, possibly making watching the Queens speech mandatory i shiver at the very thought.

Apparantly we have a lost sense of Duty and Pride to regain. Now i'm with Bill Hicks again on this one about pride in ones country, "Are you proud of being American." "Gee i dunno my parents fucked there." Why should anyone really take pride in their country, we are all born where we born and well there you go. Sure you know every country can point to it's good point and bad but i think patriotism and excessive nationalisitc feeling is rather unhealthy. Why should i distance myself from people from other countries? Britain has an interesting history i'll give you that, invented a whole bunch of stuff, is a fairly free society still and isn't the worst place in the world to live. I don't think the history of the British Empire is anything to be proud of, it's slightly embarressing that we still have a monarchy and our recent political actions on the world stage i regard as downright criminal. So no i can't say i am proud of my country and for good reason. We are to close to the Bush administration which i regard as downright evil nevermind criminal.

So basically i don't think i'm with the Sun on this one, but i'll look at the 'advice'. Piece of advice number 5 is to write to your MP to get the Human Rights Act repealed. I'm not an expert on he minutia of Law and possibly the legislation isn't perfect but this sounds alright by me. I think we should all fight any loss of liberty to suit current political expediency. Number 1 by the way was show respect to authority figures. Well i wouldn't suggest undue harrassment but what sort of police state wet dream do these people want? Number 9 is good, make conversation on public transport and give up your seat to mums to be and the elderly. Strangers can damn well leave me in peace on public transport, and well if the mum to be is a 13 year old chav she can feck off, but otherwise that's just general decency and something most people do anyway surely? Number 10 is participate or launch a neighbourhood watch scheme, that'll be grand living somewhere where people use neighbourhood watch as an excuse to be a nosy arsehole!

These for me were the highlight suggestions, there were some that wern't total lunacy, number 3 keep an eye on your kids so you know what they are upto. There are far to many wee ned/chavs about whose parents clearly don't give a monkeys or they have just plain lost control. Number 8 was about not leaving bags unattended and starting possible security alerts. Fair enough, it does also suggest you cooperate fully with police if they are stopping and searching you, well who'd dare to after what they did to that Brazilian. The police now have a shoot to kill policy without even having to shout a warning, lovely!

In summary, i'll be buying a decent paper tomorrow!

Link example 2

The official website of comedian/novelist Robert Newman. Whom i am looking forward to seeing at the Edinburgh fringe on the 12th of this month. Politicaly motivated would be one way of describing his recent stuff but that doesn't mean it's all stuffy and pompous. Oh no, this man will whip out his ukulele(thats not a euphemism) with alarming regularity and well even if one isn't a fan of this particular instrument you cannot deny that it is one of the more whimsical musical devices available.

I liked his comedy since the early Mary Whitehouse Experience years, by far the stand out member of that quartet, before they split into Newman and Baddiel and the slightly poor Punt and Dennis.

Newman and Baddiel soon split, with Baddiel finding fame alongside Frank Skinner while Rob slipped out of the limelight.

Well i rediscovered Rob Newman years later when i noticed he had been doing stand up again, while i missed him that time round i quickly got myself his Resistance is Fertile video. Watching it was like finding something you really loved after losing it for ages and finding out in the meantime it had gotten even better. Having being a fan of the Mark Thomas Product it was good to find another even better exponent of what i can only describe as comedy that shows us just how FUCKED up a world we actually live in!

Anyways the example of his more serious writing i'm highlighting today is this piece on the war in Iraq from back in april 2003. For me it's a very concise bit of thinking as to motivations behind why our governments chose to do what they did.

Stumbled across this...

...and thought worth punting up on here. The cost of war in Iraq. There are even some handy comparisons to other possibly just a smidgen more worthwhile uses of the money. Would like to see a UK equivelent if anyone knows of one, always seems to be easier to find US stuff. I'm sure it only be a fraction of the cost of what the US spend but i'd bet on it being still a hell of a lot.

Shamelessly stolen.....

....from another blog, i liked the sound of this. Talk about a way to feel righteous whilst enjoying a few Mick Jagger's! People bevying whilst raising money for charity, this is the possibly the best thing i've heard originate in the USA since Bill Hicks! Hopefully like the esteemed Mr Hicks it will also venture across the Atlantic and would probably likewise enjoy even greater success abroad than it does at home.

My tuesday rant....

...the very thin thread that attaches some sort of structure to this site. I almost forgot it again, the very thing i want to be as reliable as the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. I thought i might struggle to find something but then i just heard the wailing screech of Chris Martin's shocking singing voice and that damn well annoyed me but it wasn't what came to my mind as i was trying to think of something.

What infuriates me these days as much as anything is finding something i want to write about on here and then completely forgetting the original source, so that i can't really do anything on the topic until i find it again. Quite often it's something on a news website and it's a complete nightmare finding it again so in the end i have to find something else!

Donnie Darko

Article about it available here. It is one weird and in my opinion wonderful film. I'm still trying to decide if the original or directors cut was the better version. I think you tend to go with what you saw first. I used to have an argument with a friend over Bladerunner and Bladerunner the Directors Cut*. I thought the directors cut was excellent and the theatrical release which pandered to the studio as a disgraceful waste of a brilliant film. I had happened to see the DC before i saw the orginal release and my friend who liked the original better had happened to see that first.

So seeing as you can't really watch the both with a completely fresh eye i think if you like the film it will be the first version you see that will be remembered more fondly. I like to think it's just my sheer good taste that is the reason i prefer the the DC of Bladerunner but perhaps it could have been different.

*I put a link to amazon where the DC is available. I don't think the original is any longer available and i reckon thats a good thing, but they really should stock it for people that perhaps do like the original or are just like to have both.

The myth of al-Qu'ida

This story and an opinion piece in yesterdays independent reminded me why i hate so much of tabloid journalism, although to be fair it's not only the sensationalist tabloids that are guilty of myth making. It has suited US/UK security forces to have the image of "al-Qa'ida as a global conspiracy with tentactles in every Western capital" when the reality doesn't really match up.

Like the BBC article says the pair arrested do not appear to have had any contact with a wider terrorist network and that ties in with the opinion of James Harkin whilst writing in the independent that these recent events have been more inspired by surfing the the internet. Which seems to also fit in with earlier an blog where i was reading about possible root causes of young british muslim men being involved in terrorism.

So possibly the new terrorism laws which seek to make even looking at certain sites illegal have some basis in logic but i'd suggest that you are better of doing more than just treating the visible symptoms. Websites glorifying Jihad against the west may exist but it's not the looking at them in itself that is a problem, for one thing like watching a violent film it does not make a rational person want to kill people and secondly if the west wasn't responsible for so much that is wrong in the middle east we might have any sort of Jihadis at all. Or if we did they would be about the same sort of sad deluded individuals that make up the public image of Settler watch* in Scotland.

*I only really scanned this link, but it does seem to give the pertinent details of Settler Watch. Indeed from bit i read it suggested it wasn't even remotely as sinsiter as the press suggested it to be at the time. I'll read it more closely later.

Middle Class twats

There are a few more serious stories that have caught my eye today, but i prefer to try and put a bit of thought into those ones, where as i think i can quite happily comment on a bunch "white collar" muppets that take part in a sad attempt to live out a Fight Club style fantasy without stetching my mental capabilities. Hell i like that film as much asthe next person, Ed Norton is great in it and suprisingly so is Brad Pitt but i don't feel the need to want to go batter someone elses coupon to a pulp.

Middles class business men participating in amateur boxing bouts with each other, organised by The Real Fight Club, an organisation which allows bankers and brokers to leather each other senseless.

Sounds like a combination of a mid life crisis and a morbid fascination with something that was perhaps previously considered something only for the masses. I don't know for certain what the motivation is but they arn't taking MRA scans and given that they tend to be in their 40's and 50's are at far greater risk of a brain haemorrhage. So hell mend them, the phrase more money than sense springs to mind.

i like to bash labour ministers as much as...

....the next person but to slate them for taking their summer holidays at a time of crisis is a nonsense. Especialy given the wonders of modern technology which should mean at the very least they will be accessable and could holiday anywhere in the world and still be back inside fo 24 hours and be in near constant communication for the journey.

Also if a few cabinet ministers being away on holiday is likely to cause a problem then we are all f****d, as they are generaly clowns and if we are relying on likes of Jack Straw and Charles Clarke to keep us safe then as the scottish one fae Dads Army would say "we're doomed, we're all doomed!"

Where did i go wrong?

I was reading in the Independent on the bus home tonight about a new type of people discovered by marketing types. The 'New Geek' a generation brought up in the 80's who spent the bulk of their time playing on their Amstrad, now i don't think i'm that geeky(eh you like science fiction, computer games, have a blog...ok there maybe a case to be made) and it was a ZX Spectrum in my bedroom. I obviously didn't spend enough time on it as i'm certainly not in the ranks of the 1 in 5 'new geeks' that are earning 5ok per year or more.

Ok there might be a good explanation for that, if i spent more time playing it and less time causing it to break maybe things would be oh so different. I used to rather foolishly plug in the power pack and rather than have it connected to my Spectrum i'd take a fork and poke it in the connection to see the sparks it would make. After the second time this knackered it i don't think it was ever fixed again, my next dalliance with computer technology was a more robust Nintendo.

Frivolous purchases....

...guaranteed to make you feel daft 10 minutes after you buy vol 2.

Well maybe, i happened to be flicking through the new Argos catalogue and i saw something i was immediately tempted to buy although at the very second i thought about buying it i wondered if it would be truly worth it. Is this worth £26.99? A plug and play version of Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder! Two sensational games, legendary one could say and some other game with it i don't remember at all but who is going to care about it when you have Sensi and Cannon Fodder.

Sensible Soccer was the football game of it's time and for sheer fun is hard to beat, only the latest Pro Evolution Soccer 4 is worth comparison. I can feel myself talking myself into this purchase but it might well be worth shopping around on ebay before marching off to my local Argos.

See all that stuff i wrote about football....

....being a load of crap and how i was just fed up with it! Well that was a load of crap! After watching Motherwell draw 4-4 with Celtic after being 3-1 down i feel rejuvenated. Only slightly disappointed that we lost a injury time equaliser it was still a good performance and a cracking game.

Not that many Celtic fans will see it that way from the mood of the ones that left Fir Park on saturday afternoon. The so called greatest fans in the world excelled themselves with their usual verbal abuse, pro ira songs and general bitterness and paranoid delusions that come through after they don't get things their own way.

Anyway looking forward to next weeks home game against Dunfermline, a match switched to Fir Park in part because John Yorkston is a complete trumpet and partly because the SPL members that voted on the plastic pitch are motivated by their own self interest and couldn't be trusted to shake a charity tin without seeing what they could skim off for themselves. Hopefully 3 points in the bag and and our best start to a new season since...... oh far to long.