Meant to be working on novel but...

...I stumbled across this story again.

"Reasonably construed as inciting." Sounds to me like a catch all term for "whatever we decide" I have little love for the old firm, they are a sad blight on Scottish society. The only reason most Celtic fans claim an affinity with the palestinions and the like is that they like to portray themselves as winning against the odds and the establishment when in football terms there a giant in Scotland and fairly big by any other standard also. The fact that Rangers have a reputation for being right wing, unionists that love da Queen and sing Rule Britannia before they go to bed i'm sure has nothing to do with Celtic fans siding with people and causes they percieve as the polar opposite.

Anyway the sad peculiarities of Scottish culture aside it's a pretty insidious law. It basicaly bans political protest under the guise of trying to solve sectarianism in Scottish society. Banning paraphanalia is hardly getting to the root of the problem. We should looking to ideas that create a more inclusive society. The fact that we have a separate school system for the vast majority of people brought up in the catholic faith is one aspect of the education system that has always struck me as needlessly divisive. It seems to me that it's only the church itself that benefits.

Other fundamental changes need to be addressed, unless you can put a value on something today it's worthless, if it's not a public/private joint venture chances are the government isn't interested. The media is chronic these days, to many outlets under the control of to few. I was watching Brass Eye last night, it's almost 10 years old now and it's remarkable how well it's stood the test of time. The mainstream media has never been perfect, but it's focus and quality has shrunk quite some bit over my lifetime. There is a section in John Pilgers Hidden Agendas book which covers it quite well.

Dirty Fuckers

Student Loan Company just nabbed a £102 out of my bank account. Either themselves or the Royal Mail combined not to sent me the deferment forms. Having just phoned them there they said they will resend the form and I can try and claim money back once any further deferment granted. Bet they'll be fucking arsey about that considering how relucant I've been to start paying them back so far.

Just glad i had money enough in my account to cover it, could do without bank charges on top. Phoning them up having to deal with call centre monkeys not my idea of a good way to start the day.

Intending to sit and write for the better part of the day, but i think i need a short session of FM2006 to take my mind of it before i start.

Novel Update

I now have 5 completed chapters. Since i cracked the 20,000 word mark towards end of last year it's been slow going and my christmas break got extended until ooh well into march. I have managed to add a couple of thousand words now, still a bit slow going on the fresh new writing, I have however done a fair bit of tweaking and editing,

So far I have 3 story threads, one set in Dundee, one on a Moon based habitat and the other on a space station orbiting mars. I might move that to Jupitor though just for the hell of it, also i think resources wises Jupitor might make more sense. Anyway no cheeky jokes about mars or the moon having more atmosphere than Dundee. I once heard Dundee being descirbed as, "a concrete prison of the North." Not sure why but the phrase has certainly stuck in the memory.

I now need to start on chapter 5(Chapters 1-4,6 are finished) and it's gonna be a little tough to start with i think as it'll be the first new bit of writing i've started in a while. I guess i just need to think of it as continueing on from the events in the 2nd chapter but there a break and a slight jump forward. Once I'm started I'll be fine, I'll sit down later and sketch out a chain of events and work from that.

I've also decided that i'd like to write a short story or two. Something smaller in scale, i think it'll help when the novel seems a bit big and i struggling over pacing and plotting etc. About what as yet I don't know I'll see what comes into my head next time i'm sitting in near a pen and paper or more likely open office.

Twas a few days ago now...

...but i read this and thought fuck me!

They just want to rewrite the thing so as to make it easier to invade countries like Iran after a few people suggested that the whole Iraq thing legally was a bit of a sticky wicket. There isn't a legal obstable to stopping genocide, in the past in Rwanda etc it just been that no one wanted to acknowledge it. As for internal repression, if we stopped selling things likes arms etc to repressive regimes then we might not need to invade and the population suffering wouldn't be in such a state. But no we sell arms and happily train the Saddams if this world because it suits or political ends.

Quick Blog

Just really want to post a link as much as anything else. Robert Newmans History of Oil, is due for broadcast on more4 on the 12th of April.

The link is to an interview with the man himself on the Guardian Unlimited website, audio only and 41 minutes long. Just listening to it myself just now having just finishing my dinner. Sausage pasta as it happens.