Occupy in the sky.....

We are onto day three of Occupy London Stock Exchange Occupy Some Space Near St. Paul's Cathedral. It's a shame because until the end of last year I worked right next to Paternoster Square and I feel like I'm missing out on all the excitement. Now, I can only read about it on news sites or Twitter, or get information from people I know who still work in the area.

While I genuinely admire the spirit of people who are prepared to sacrifice the comforts of home life to live in a tent pitched on concrete, next to a cathedral whose bells ring every fifteen minutes, it's impossible not to point out the utter silliness being spouted by some of the collective. It's very easy for me to make glib comments but then, when people are putting up stupid signs like this, they really are asking for it:

Let's be clear here: protesting about the iniquity of western capitalism is not on a par with the Arab Spring. It just isn't. To compare yourself to the people of Tahrir Square, who were standing up to a military dictatorship for basic political freedoms, is just insulting.

Or there's this one. I love this one.

Courtesy of - who else? - the Socialist Worker. "JOBS, HOMES & SERVICES NOT RACISM". Sorry, I had no idea that this was the choice we were facing. So let me make sure I understand: we are presented with a choice of, on one hand, jobs, homes & services or, on the other, racism? Well, if you put it like that I'll have to go with the former. Can't abide racism. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.

But ooh, ooh, we now have a manifesto of sorts from the Occupy London movement. Nine points in total. Shall we have a look at them? I've added a few thoughts of my own in italics.

#OccupyLSX initial statement

At today’s assembly of over 500 people on the steps of St Paul’s, #occupylsx collectively agreed the initial statement below. Please note, like all forms of direct democracy, the statement will always be a work in progress.

1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them. One of the nicest features of a democracy is the right to gather and make statements like this. Which, neatly, disproves your point about the current system being undemocratic. Funny eh? But yes, you mentioned alternatives and working towards them. OK, we're all ears. Hello? Are you still there?

2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world. OK. Get to the point.

3 We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis. Which brings us back to alternatives. The alternative was wholesale collapse of the banking system with nothing else in place. This is why the banks were bailed out - an unpopular measure was taken because the other option was even worse. So now what?

4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people. I'll give you this one. No major objections. Although not sure I buy the line about government only representing corporations. But we'll move on.

5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate. No argument from me here. That would be a good thing. But what regulators and what industries are you talking about?

6 We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing. As is your democratic right. See point 1.

7 We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich. I can't object to this per se. That would be a good thing. So - what's the plan?

8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression. Hmmm. Bit vague this one. Which actions of our government? We were quite instrumental recently in supporting the Libyan uprising, for example. The Libyan people were quite oppressed and we helped them. Is it possible that sometimes, just sometimes, we are not the bad guys?

9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us! You're right. This is what democracy looks like! You have every right to do this, it's enshrined in law. Hell, even the canon chancellor of St. Paul's has given you his blessing to be there. There is absolutely zero chance of David Cameron sending in the tanks to crush your camp and shoot your ringleaders. Which is why any attempt to claim "solidarity" with the uprisings in the Middle East is so utterly fatuous.

So overall, I'll give you two, maybe three, of your nine points. Not bad.

The occupiers say they are there for the long haul. The temperature is meant to drop considerably towards the end of the week. The people gathered are still no nearer to their stated objective of occupying the stock exchange, but are still sticking it out. This is going to get very interesting....

Call out the instigators, because there's something in the air....

Are you ready for the revolution? Because it's happening. It's happening today! Can you smell it in the air? Can you feel it in the wind?

No, me neither.

However, a group is currently gathering in Paternoster Square in the City of London with the stated intention of kicking.... something off. The organisers of Occupy London Stock Exchange (#OccupyLSX), inspired by the ongoing Occupy Wall Street campaign in New York, are planning to, well, occupy the London Stock Exchange and, erm, I think that's about the extent of their planning.

Just a couple of problems with this. Firstly, it's a Saturday so the stock exchange will be closed. Even rapacious capital markets stop for the weekend to allow bankers to gather their thoughts before continuing their pernicious campaign to hold us all in financial slavery again on Monday morning. Secondly, the London Stock Exchange doesn't really perform the function that I suspect a lot of these demonstrators think it does. It's an administrative headquarters so, while it no doubt has symbolic value and is certainly the centralised hub of all London share trading, 'occupying' it wouldn't really be very disruptive given that all trading is screen-based and takes place inside the premises of the individual banks and brokers. Perhaps the organisers are expecting to see hundreds of traders, wearing jackets, waving bits of paper and shouting at each other. And they would see this, if they were also able to invent a time machine and visit the old stock exchange prior to October 1986, when the 'Big Bang' ended open-cry equity trading in London.

There is also the problem that Paternoster Square is privately owned and entirely paved. So good luck getting settled and even better luck creating a campsite. I'm not sure how many people are turning out today but they are likely to be greeted (and possibly outnumbered) by bemused tourists visiting St. Paul's Cathedral. Still, there is a Sainsbury's next door, plus a Pret a Manger and Starbucks, etc. I'm sure they'll appreciate the extra weekend revenue.

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the sentiment behind this gathering. I can fully appreciate why people are angry with the banks, the state of the economy, the scarcity of jobs, the imminent cuts in public spending, the fragility of the entire economic system in fact. But as is so often the case in such demonstrations, beyond the intended (and childish) stunt of occupying the London Stock Exchange, there is barely any coherence in their stated aims, targets or - crucially - any viable alternative proposed. The extent of the argument seems to be: the banks were bailed out, 'bankers' still pay themselves obscene bonuses, normal people are suffering so.... we'll gather here for a bit and maybe Billy Bragg (or, even worse, Penny Red) will say a few words and then, oh, let's see what happens.

The near-collapse of the banking system and the subsequent economic fallout was largely caused by reckless lending on the back of an unsustainable property boom, predominantly in the United States and particularly in the sub-prime market. These mortgages were then repackaged into complex financial instruments and sold all around the world, ensuring that when the property bubble burst, the contagion was spread all over the globe. Attempting to occupy the London Stock Exchange in retaliation does not even make symbolic sense as none of these products would have gone anywhere near it. But hey, it's a financial centre and representative of capitalism and stuff so it'll have to do.

It's this lack of attention to detail, lack of understanding and lack of anything approaching a workable solution that makes this event so utterly futile. If you want further proof of this, have a read of the accompanying 'manifesto' of the wider global movement which conflates first world anger about the recession with the democracy struggles raging in the Middle East.

If there's going to be a revolution, these are the last people on earth that should be leading it.

Why I love Twitter

I first learned of the horrific events in Norway yesterday not through traditional media channels but, as is so often the case nowadays, Twitter. I immediately went to the BBC and then The Guardian websites for additional information but, finding only a placeholder news story with minimal information, returned to the social networking site where I was able to immediately find first hand accounts of what had occurred and immediate reaction from a variety of different people. Twitter has changed, and continues to change, the means of people being able to distribute news and opinion. Old media simply cannot compete and this is why I love Twitter.

At first I was sceptical of the medium. I didn’t understand the appeal of something that restricted you to just 140 characters (including spaces). How limiting, how frustrating, I thought. But in many ways this is actually quite liberating. You soon become adept at distilling your thoughts, Haiku-style, into concise and neat little packages. Even better, you do, over time, link up with other like-minded people and you soon find you have a nice little (virtual) community to interact with and share interesting things. Unlike, say, Facebook, where you generally connect with people that you know in real life yet it somehow manages to be excruciatingly dull. It has been said that Twitter connects you to people that you don’t really know but should, while Facebook keeps you in contact with people that you do really know but perhaps shouldn’t.

As ever, there are tedious naysayers who dismiss the entire thing. Here’s Rod Liddle being typically contemptuous of something he clearly does not understand. Or John Humphrys, another curmudgeon who simply does not get it. You’d think, as journalists, they’d be able to easily grasp the potential of such a powerful and simple tool to disseminate ideas and opinions, but no, they join in with the rest of the clueless who think it’s just a load of people saying what they had for breakfast. Well, I dare say a lot of people do use it in this way - I wouldn’t know as I only follow people who interest or intrigue me (or, occasionally, I follow people for sheer curiosity value - there are some bizarre people out there). Accusing Twitter of being a platform for banality is pointless. Banality exists wherever groups of people might assemble: the trick, as with any social gathering, is to weed out the boring, stupid and ignorant and seek out the clever, witty and interesting. It may take a while to find them at first, but they are out there.

By the way, should you be wondering, I had Eggs Royale for breakfast.

The revolting tentacles of News International

My, but how the plot thickens. Today it was Dave Cameron's turn to get a sound kicking: in this case at the Number 10 press conference where he desperately tried to put some clear blue water between himself and News International. Easier said than done, of course, given that he recruited Andy Coulson as his communications director even though he must have known that there could be some rather fishy baggage coming along for the ride. Clearly this was the risk he was prepared to take, so keen was he to have someone who could feel the pulse of the British public. Or so Cameron figured, anyway. I don't know why a former entertainment reporter for the Sun and, later, editor of the News of the World would automatically be the best man for the job. I suppose he wanted his own Alastair Campbell. Campbell had a tabloid background, too, of course, but he was at least a political reporter and editor in his day, as opposed to Coulson who was little more than a stalker of third rate celebrities and a peddler of prurient tittle-tattle.

Coulson was, as predicted, arrested today and later released on bail. Rebekah Brooks will no longer be heading the internal investigation at News International, but is still, somehow, holding onto a job. Her position is now nothing short of farcical. Even Cameron, at his press conference today, said that he "would have accepted" her resignation. It can only be a matter of time.

Brooks met with the dumped NotW journalists this afternoon and seemed to suggest that the real reasons for closing the paper would be clearer in a year's time. Christ knows what this means. "Who is she? The fucking Riddler? asked Charlie Brooker on Twitter. If she is The Riddler, then that must make The Guardian Batman because, through their constant refusal to let this story die, they have delivered News International an almighty kick in the throat.

And hooray for that. I'm not vehemently anti-News International: I subscribe to The Times and think it's an excellent newspaper; I have no beef with Sky TV, in fact it's a great product. But it is very clear that Murdoch's empire has too much concentration of media, too much power and has some revolting tentacles attached to the main body. They deserve everything they are being hit with. If this ushers in an era of politicians being less in thrall to Murdoch and his hideous tabloids then that is a long overdue development and can only be a good thing for democracy in this country.

Check before you spread News of the World

Sooner or later I had to break my blogging hiatus: it was just a matter of waiting for a suitable jolt to come along. Something that I couldn't let pass without comment. Without doubt, the extraordinary events that have taken place concerning the News of the World, its parent company News International and the implications for the prime minister, the police and the entire news industry was that subject.

By now everyone knows the story, more or less. Tawdry Sunday tabloid allegedly employs all manner of devious and underhand methods to obtain information about celebrities: namely, phone hacking. On the whole, the nation shrugs. Then it transpires they are accused of employing the same methods in the case of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Cue righteous and justifiable outrage. Then it gets worse: the family of the murdered Soham girls, 7/7 victims and their friends and families, relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were all targeted too. There seemed to be no end to the depths of the paper's depravity, no ethical barrel they would not scrape the bottom of to get a lead on a story. National outrage ensued, questions asked in Parliament, much heat on David Cameron (who famously recruited former NotW editor Andy Coulson), accusations of the paper paying the police for information, campaigns on Twitter and Facebook to boycott the newspaper and, indeed, anything else to do with parent company News International. All made the more interesting, of course, by the fact that a decision is due to be made on whether News International should be allowed to pursue its takeover of BSkyB. Soon, reacting to the public outrage, major News of the World advertisers began pulling the plug. News International, meanwhile, announced that they were performing their own internal investigation to be led by chief executive Rebekah Brooks (née Wade), who is herself at the centre of the storm given that she was editor for much of the period under scrutiny.

What a morass of moral torpor.

Then today News International took the remarkable step of shutting down the newspaper altogether. Their best selling and most profitable paper (indeed - depressingly - reported to be the most widely read English language newspaper in the world), brought crashing down in less than a week, after 168 years of publication. A remarkable series of events.

The whole thing still has a putrid stench about it of course. The people paying the ultimate price are the current staff of the newspaper who, as it stands, are not suspected of any wrongdoing (other than being tabloid journalists, of course, which, shameful as it might be, is not actually illegal) while the executives at News International remain in gainful employment. Of course their main motivation is to clear the decks to continue to lobby for BSkyB ownership. They could never do that while there remains such fuss around the actions of the paper. By ridding themselves of this toxic brand they hope to draw a line under the whole affair. Undoubtedly they will at some point soon re-enter the Sunday tabloid market - already rumours abound that the staff at The Sun have been told that the paper should prepare to be produced seven days a week instead of six. Additionally, the web domains sunonsunday.co.uk and sunonsunday.com were apparently registered a couple of days ago. (Meanwhile some wag has already nabbed the Twitter identity....) You can hardly expect News International to give up several million readers to their competitors now can you? Expect The Sun on Sunday within months, if not weeks.

Rebekah Brooks clings onto her job for now despite continuing clamour for her to step down. Somehow she still has the unambiguous support of the Murdoch clan: James Murdoch said earlier this evening that he is "happy with Rebakah Brooks' ethics". Yes, well, when prompted Satan says something very similar about his chief demon. This is not exactly a credible endorsement. I suspect the pressure will continue to build against Brooks and she will, eventually, have to stand down to "protect the brand". We can probably also expect some more incriminating information to come from disgruntled NotW hacks who, come the weekend, find themselves unceremoniously dumped from the NI payroll.

Meanwhile, according to The Guardian, Andy Coulson is going to be arrested tomorrow morning over his involvement in phone hacking and alleged payments to police officers, which could have serious repercussions for David Cameron.

The press. The police. The politicians. The whole story could have been scripted by James Ellroy. Looking forward to more revelations in the coming days.

Calling occupants of interplanetary craft

I'm still here.

(In case anyone was wondering.)

I will be back.

Suffice to say that having two children (one 17 months old, one 5 weeks old) is not exactly conducive to blogging. Or anything in fact. But I hope to make some sort of reappearance very soon......

Votes for prisoners

MPs have voted against the motion to extend voting rights to prisoners, defying the edict of the European Court of Human Rights. I was still unsure what I felt about this subject until recently. Just over five years ago I touched upon it on my old blog and had no doubts at all:

But it seems to me that while they are serving their sentence, repaying their debt to society, whatever you want to call it, they should also be excluded from the benefits of being part of that society. Voting is one of those privileges. Why should someone who has committed a crime have a say in how society functions in the meantime? When they’ve been released, yes, absolutely they can have their vote back but while they’re in prison? No. It defies sense. It’s the sort of frilly proposition you’d see raised and carried at a Liberal Democrat convention. “Oh, those poor prisoners, serving their time and they don’t have political representation.” Well, you make your own choices don’t you?

I'm not quite so convinced by this argument now. I still generally feel that if someone is in prison it's for a legitimate reason; they have been removed and excluded from the niceties of society for a specified period. Losing the right - temporarily - to political representation is one of many rights that can be suspended during this time. That said, however, I've been considering some of the other arguments and I think they make a stronger case. The best argument I have read was by David Aaronovitch in The Times (subscription only I'm afraid) who built his case around the common sense question: who gains from denying prisoners the vote? The unavoidable answer, when you really think it through: nobody.

Ultimately, regardless of what someone is in prison for, it's safe to assume that everyone would prefer they come out a better person than when they went in. That won't necessarily happen of course, but removing the right to vote certainly isn't going to help. Maintaining a link to greater society is part of the rehabilitative process along with access to the tools of education. I would not be in favour of removing libraries and access to training from prison so why the right to vote?

So yes, I changed my mind. It happens, occasionally.

Cameron, multiculturalism, etc.

I think it's very unfair to accuse David Cameron of being racist on the basis of his multiculturalism speech. Why, he celebrates the multi-ethnic tapestry of British society and mixes personally with people of different colour and background every day. There's that black chap who polishes his shoes. Then there is that Asian man who brushes the fluff off his top hats. Both staff, of course.

I jest. A little bit.

The fundamental problem with any debate about multiculturalism is that neither side is working from the same definition. To its advocates multiculturalism is a wonderful illustration of tolerant, multi-ethnic modern Britain: people of different colour, religion and national origin working and living peacefully side by side. To its detractors, it is evidence of fragmented communities: a society lacking cohesion with certain minority groups living in isolation from the mainstream with no common language or culture.

I have always tended to view it more as the former but recognise that there are clearly pockets of this country where the latter holds true. It is silly to pretend otherwise. There is also a high degree of sensitivity around discussing this issue candidly for the fear of being branded 'racist' - an accusation that Cameron faced in some (predictable) quarters. My earlier joke notwithstanding, I do not think that the Prime Minister is racist - it's too easy for some to paint him as such seeing as he's a wealthy white Tory from a privileged background, but that doesn't naturally make him a bigot - and I do not think it is racist to point out that that there are sections of communities in this country that have not fully integrated into British society and do not want to either.

The real problem: how have such elements been allowed to fester and what can be done about it? This is the crux of Cameron's criticism: the suggestion that cultural division has been purposefully engineered by do-gooding liberal lefties. If this is the case, what alternative policies are the government going to implement?

The Guardian on China

Oh, the horseshit one reads in The Guardian sometimes. I'm accustomed to disagreeing with the majority of their columnists these days and I've long found their editorial stance antithetical to my own on many issues. But I can't recall seeing such a blatant example of editorialisation in one of their news stories as this one today, concerning the arrival of Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, to the USA for a four day state visit. Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps this is an opinion piece - but it isn't marked as such. I have only read this online but it looks like it would form part of their overall news coverage of the event, perhaps even as a front page piece.

There were two standout segments for me. Firstly this little peach:

In the aftermath of the Iraq invasion and the global economic recession, the US democratic-capitalist model no longer appears to be such an inevitable global template.

Really? That's a bold and sweeping statement to make. Who thinks this exactly? The authors, clearly. And, I suspect, a fair few of the paper's staff and readers, but that's someway short of being the collective view of the entire world. I love the way they have conflated two entirely unrelated events to make their point, which seems to be: the US model is in decline - yay!

Then another beauty:

China's inferiority in "hard power", meanwhile, has turned to Beijing's advantage. It is benefiting from being the country that did not invade Iraq, and is not currently bogged down in Afghanistan. After the Bush experiment in exporting democracy militarily, China's mantra of non-interference in the affairs of other states seems benign by comparison, particularly in the developing world, where Chinese "soft power" has expanded dramatically.

There's Iraq again (and Afghanistan), chucked in for good effect. Good old China, eh? Stayed well away from those hot potatoes - for selfless reasons, no doubt, principled nation that it is. I'm sure their motives for non-involvement were pure. "Non-interference"? "Benign by comparison"? China? Amazing.

Yet again, a blatant train of thought that is anti-Western and anti-American leads The Guardian by the nose and to some absurd conclusions. Anyone with an IQ above 35 could quickly Google some of the actions of China of late (both internally and where it has projected its power beyond its borders) and deduce that it is far from being a "benign" force in the world. But, being The Guardian, it's only bad when the USA exercises its influence.

I genuinely wonder why I continue to read or buy this paper anymore. Other than habit (coming up to twenty years of dipping in now) I think it must be only to see what lazy, half-arsed, blinkered nonsense passes for thought these days on the so-called 'liberal left'.

Cringe, Hollywood, cringe

Could anything be more sickening than a Hollywood awards ceremony? An arena full of pampered, self-congratulating TV and film folk all slapping each other on the back and sniffing each other's bottoms, telling themselves how wonderful they all are and handing out little trophies. Best Film. Best Actor. Best Director. Best Lighting. Best Trousers. Best Smell. Best Use Of A Windmill. How thunderingly dull.

So I say bravo to Ricky Gervais in his role as host of the Golden Globes for shaking this self-satisfied collective up a little bit. Which is exactly what he was hired to do, of course. Having Gervais as your host then acting affronted when he tells jokes that skirt around the borders of comfortability is a bit silly; like inviting Pope Benedict round then saying "Ooh, he's a bit more Catholic than we were hoping....."

Gervais's turn seems to have split the audience, with many thinking he has "gone too far". For me, it was a welcome return of a comedian who has slipped a little too much into the comfortable world of Hollywood for my liking, become a little bit too chummy with celebrity. This is back to the sort of humour at which he excels: making us uncomfortable, blurring the line between laughing and cringing. And who were his targets? Charlie Sheen, Robert Downey Jr, Bruce Willis, "gay Scientologist actors" (can't think he who means), Mel Gibson and others. All fair game if you ask me - these people are, for the most part, ridiculous and thoroughly deserving of the wisecracks.

Well done Mr Gervais. I approve.

Hugo Chavez - champion of the people

Ah, Hugo Chavez, hero of the people. A socialist stalwart, standing up to US hegemony, a beacon of virtue in a corrupt capitalist world. Beloved by so many of the left, prepared as they are to hero worship any authoritarian figure as long as he's on their side of the ideological fence. Here he is with his good friend (and fellow champion of democracy) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:



Touching.

Here he is with another principled leftist, Alexander Lukashenko, the President of the socialist utopia that is Belarus:



Truly, you can judge a man by the company he keeps. Oh, speaking of judges, Mr Chavez - as part of his continual onslaught of the concept of the rule of law - has imprisoned one for delivering a verdict that he did not personally agree with. Judge María Lourdes Afiuni has been in jail for a year (with, it would seem, another 29 to go) for sanctioning the release of another prisoner who had been in a cell for three years without having been charged with anything. Chavez, man of the people, would appear to have personally ordered this himself. Will anyone on the left denounce him? Nah.

Hugo Chavez. He's a champion of the people! He stands up to US hegemony! He's abolished the rule of law! He's president for life! Rejoice!

(HT to Carl Packman for sending the photo links.)

Friday, Friday, Friday

Rejoice! It's Friday. Week one of January is already gone. Soon we will get a whiff of February, before you know it March will be striding towards us, bold as brass. That's progress.

Now, to sleep, perchance to wake up on Saturday, full of weekendiness.

EastEnders in implausible storyline shock

It is beyond my comprehension why anyone would subject themselves to the relentless tsunami of misery that is EastEnders. Yet millions of people do, four times a week. I don't think I have watched an episode voluntarily since the 1990s, but when I have been unfortunate enough to catch a segment of this utterly dreary and ridiculous programme I have found myself incredulous that the BBC continues to pour enormous resources into making such utter drivel. I'm a staunch defender of the BBC and the licence fee, but EastEnders tests my faith. TV Go Home, the legendary spoof TV listings page written by Charlie Brooker, perfectly summed up the show by describing it as a "Soap opera so transparently fictitious it might as well be set on the fucking Moon". And that was in 1999; there's been another 12 years of this bollocks since then.

The show has been at the centre of a significant controversy of late due to its current storyline which, as I understand it, goes something like this: two characters both gave birth to baby boys on the same day. One of the babies dies from SIDS (or Cot Death). Grieving mother of the deceased baby switches it with the other woman's baby when no one is looking.

Jesus.

So far over 6,000 people have complained to either the BBC or Ofcom, enough to prompt a rethink by the producers of the show about how long they are going to drag this story out for.

Viewers should be complaining about the contempt the makers of the show clearly have for their intelligence. Leaving aside the upsetting nature of the subject matter itself, are people expected to believe that new parents wouldn't notice that their baby had been switched? It is simply beyond the bounds of plausibility (even for a soap opera). I can tell you now, my son's facial features would have been instantly recognisable to me if I had only seen him for a few seconds after the birth. If he had been replaced with another new born baby it wouldn't have gone unnoticed. Yes, you could argue that new borns all look a bit similar, but not to their mum and dad. It's a biological thing, you see: the baby looking like its parents.

What a risible pile of old toss.

Why am I writing about this, you might ask? Why am I spending my time engaging in the debate about the credibility of a soap opera story line? That's a good question. I have no answer to that. I'm going to bed.

The latest Zionist threat

Just weeks after an Egyptian official suggested that Mossad could be behind a spate of shark attacks at a popular tourist resort comes an even greater threat from the state of Israel: Zionist vultures.

Good night everyone.

The End of Days?

An earthquake in Yorkshire, floods of 'biblical' proportions in Australia, thousands of birds dropping dead from the sky in Arkansas (plus a hundred thousand or so dead fish), Republicans back on the rampage, Piers Morgan....

Are we living in the End of Days? The evidence is mounting up.

Holidays are over, now get back to work

And then, just like that, the holiday season came to an end. As always the rich potential of ten days off work ahead of you becomes a "What? Was that it? Where did the time go?" moment in what seems like no time at all. The good times of the season are behind us, as we stare down the twin barrels of January and February ("Helluary"), the grimmest, dullest most depressing months of the year. Cheers everyone. Now get back to work and atone for the sins of December.

Actually the only thing keeping me from being engulfed in back-to-work despair is the fact that I am starting a new job tomorrow. It's at the same company, but in a different department and, for the first time in my working life, I will not be based in the City. I will be working....locally. Which is an entirely new experience for me given that I have worked in the Square Mile ever since my first temping job at Barclays Bank way back in February 1997 when I was just a fresh-faced 22 year old, still wet behind the ears. Of course I had no intention of this being a permanent thing, I was just taking some work to make some money, there was no way I would still be doing this in a couple of years.... funny how things work out. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" as John Lennon is credited with saying.

Not that I have any regrets, I count myself to have been rather fortunate in my working life. I make a comfortable enough living and I have never laboured under any delusions that what I do is important in any way, it's just a job. I shall be sad to leave the City in many ways: I have a lot of memories of some good times there and met a lot of good people. Then again, there were also some bloody awful times and having to deal with people that I would not wish to see again unless it were through the target of a sniper's rifle. It's been a mixed bag, all things considered.

So tomorrow I embark on another new road in my career, ideally one that delivers a much better work/life balance - the chief driver of my decision to change jobs. I have got more important things to do with my time than spend ridiculously long hours working in an office or travelling to and from it. Principally that means having more time to spend with Mrs Sane and Baby Sane (and soon: Baby Sane II). It will also allow me, I hope, to continue to devote regular time to writing this old blog.

So, I suppose I had better get some sleep. Big day tomorrow. Good night.

The importance of a good cup of tea

I've come full circle on my attitude to tea. Until relatively recently I was a hardened coffee fiend, addicted to the taste, smell, sensation and caffeine rush of a very strong cup of coffee. While I still love that naughty bean and the beverages that can be concocted, it has of late given way to a resurgent appreciation of the infusion of hot water with the cheeky leaf. Ultimately I grew weary of the caffeine lows brought on by hardened coffee drinking: it giveth, but it taketh away. Tea, on the other hand, is both refreshing and invigorating and is now the drink of choice at breakfast time in the Sane household (for Mrs Sane it always was), while coffee is reserved for weekday mornings to kickstart the working day.

The process of making tea, of course, is very important. It must be made correctly to be properly enjoyed. No less a figure than George Orwell wrote an authoritative article on the correct process back in 1946, which was in turn the subject of an article by The Hitch this week. This stuff matters. I wouldn't necessarily agree with every one of Orwell's points: I take one brown sugar in mine, for example, and never bother to warm the pot beforehand (what's the point, when it's about to be filled to the top with boiling water anyway? You don't pre-heat the bath tub before you fill it with hot water do you?) and I drink from a decent sized mug, not fine China cups. But on the basic principles I agree: tea should be strong, made in a pot and the milk (not too much) should be added last. These are the basic tenets of good tea-making.

Tea: it's too important to be left to amateurs.

Intentions versus reality

I was tinkering with the idea of writing a summary of the biggest stories of 2010, seeing as I wasn't blogging for much of it. In another life I would have done. In this life I'd have dearly liked to. But that sort of thing takes time, something I don't have much of, not to mention concentration - another commodity in short supply at this time of the year.

And coming up in ten minutes on Channel 4: Father Ted Night, an evening schedule dedicated to one of the best comedies ever made. Marvellous. I'm going to pour another glass of Malbec, put my feet up (slippers on) and enjoy. Not a bad start to 2011 so far.

'Happy' New Year

I have never understood people's excitement about New Year, I've always considered it something of a depressing time to be honest. Christmas is over, the holiday period is drawing to a close, work or school beckons. Yet people want to celebrate the arrival of January? Why?

Yes, yes, I know. It's the start of a new year, a new chapter in everyone's lives, etc. I understand the symbolism, I just can't get that worked up about it. Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, for what it's worth, I hope the last 365 days have been good to anyone reading this and I also, in the spirit of the times, extend my hope that the next 365 days are also, on the whole, good ones.

I'm off to have a drink (assuming my son finally goes down to sleep) and to watch Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold 3 on DVD with Mrs Sane. Expect I'll be in bed by about 10.30. Ooh, the decadence.

See you in 2011.

Let there be cake

It's been a traumatic 24 hours, with Mrs Sane spending the night at St. Thomas' Hospital after what we hoped would be a routine check of the baby. Thankfully there is nothing wrong, spending the night was just a precaution, but this is not the sort of thing you want happening when your wife is 25 weeks pregnant. Suffice to say we are both extremely tired.

We are now off to retire to the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate and a slice of Christmas cake, where we will watch Charlie Brooker's 2010 Wipe recorded the other night. Then bed. So long.