Forthcoming election

I have to admit I have not really used my democratic right to vote over the now 10 years I've been entitled to use it. Indeed I have only used it once, and it wasn't back in 97 at the general election that year. that might come as something of a surprise, youthful enthusiasm and all that not to mention eighteen years or so of Conservative rule you would think I would have been gagging to vote. Certainly I wouldn't have imagined just how much of a disappointment New Labour would be. I consider Blair a war criminal for fuck sake, with blood of thousands on his hands.

No at the end of the day I was living in a safe Labour seat and well I always have done, it really is true you could have a monkey with a red rosette on and it would get in, in fact I think in Frank Roy they have. That has certainly always been a demotivating factor whatever I've felt about issues of the day at any given time.

However I have just become so disgusted by current government that whether or not my vote is of no consequence it is immoral not to vote against them. I would not like to see the Conservatives back in power at the next general election, but New Labour is no decent alternative. So at the last one I voted for the Lib Dems and low and behold despite finishing 3rd in my constituency you could still add up all the votes of every other party and it still wouldn't have been enough to equal what the Labou monkey got.

Scottish parliament however we do have list MP's and the like and the SNP are more in the mix so I think it's definatley worth voting in. I have never been a hardened nationalist and whilst I am planning on voting for the SNP it isn't because I feel won over by their argument I just have a deep deep desire for change. It has always rankled that during the 80's and first half ofthe 90's we were stuck with a Tory government when people of Scotland had voted consistantly Labour. If Scotland were to leave the Union it would surely be a huge blow to Lavour party down south, lets face it thats a good few guaranteed seats right out the window.

But how would it change our political landscape? Well it's hard to say but I would like to think that given majority of Scotland agrees on one thing we'd rather not have the Tories it might just free us from the sheep like mentality of voting Labour. A Labour party that went back to something like its roots might be worth voting for but ideally it would have to earn our votes rather than get them by default, there are a lot of ifs and buts and anyone who says that this and that would happen with any certainty is either a liar of deluded.

I don't go for the scare stories of how bad things would be if Scotland were independant, sure the 70's might have been a better era at the start of oil wealth but you look at Sweden and they seem to have a decent standard of living. Independance could potentialy be a great thing, get rid of the chip on the shoulder and inferiority complex that seems to haunt the Scottish psyche and take control of our own destiny. Don't get me wrong I don't think we're any better or worse than English or Welsh or whoever and despite having a lot in common I think we've got a distinct enough cultural identity that we should be governing our own affairs.

So come this next election I would encourage anyone to vote against Labour and for our own Independance, parliaments already built might as well use it properly rather than the nonsense we have now.

Nintendo Wii is great....

....editing is tedious!

That really says it all, but I'll elaborate. After much searching and frustration an available to buy at reasonable price a Nintendo Wii finally landed in a shop near me, a worry over a corner of my credit card having snapped off turned out to be no big problem as the important chip was unharmed and the Wii was secured. It's tremendous fun, Wii Sport, Wario Ware and Tiger Woods 07 providing hours of entertainment already. Had it more than a week now and it is far more fun than editing my book for submission, not that it's a great deal of rewriting or anything, it's just a bit bitty and slow process. How i wish I had double checked earlier and not used so many quotation marks for dialogue, not really sure how important it is but after more closely looking at other books I think it's important to tidy things like this up a bit.

I'd really rather be playing my Wii, or even writing something new I can't wait until i finished this editing process one way or other to move onto a new project. I really can't reccomend the Wii enough and in eternal debt to the person who strickly speaking bought it for me my girlfriend who actually likes it too, despite generally hating computer games.

pro Evo 6 hasn't been touched since I got it, barely went a day without playing pro evo of some sort in 6 years! Says a lot, though still playing Final fantasy 12, once i'm finished that might free up a little time for Pro Evo to reclaim it's place in my affections.

political compass

I'm sure you've seen the political compass website before, I think i've taken the questionnaire at least 3 or 4 times now. I've always been economicaly left and socially libertarian, but I wonder how much I change, I found my latest position on graph suggests not a lot.

If anything I've probably moved further left and more libertarian. I made a note of my answers this time, as there are always a few where I'm not that sure and an agree could easily have turned to a disagree, or strongly agree reduced to an agree. I wonder how much further right if it would place me if I merely agreed rather than strongly agreed on a lot of questions. I take the whole thing with a pinch of salt. I do like the fact that it's the Dai Lai Lama and Nelson Mandela in my little quadrant rather than the Mugabes, Bushes and Blairs in the authoritarian top half. There seems to be a distinct lack of examples in the libertarian economic right, I'm sure there must be some, surely not all right wing types have a penchant for jackboots?

If anyone cares to discuss answers to any particular question in the questionnaire, feel free to ask.

Just printed out...

...the 250 A4 sheets of my all but fnished novel. Completed the mini editing of the last three chapters. So you could say it's finished, I've written, read over and edited every chapter already. I am using this print out for a first complete read through and will make some changes, hopefully won't feel the need to change to much. I fairly sure though there will be a few bits i not entirely happy with and will do some rewriting but nothing major that will change the structure or cause massive changes. Just make a line sound less clunky here and there.