Stupid really...

So, really i just read Simon P. Rickenback's blog, and on the whole it was a nice experience. I'd also like to point out at this point, because there may not be a better point to point it out...that blog is considered a spelling error on this little blog writing java script or whatever it is.

So, having read the blog, i'd like to point out how glum it was, really giving the hair dryer treatment to poor Mini and his Mindless blog. I mean the poor lad has a low meat intake, this kind of punishment probably wont stand well on his shoulders, he can barely stand at all.

What i thought i'd do is write a blog in response, which is in a way not really taking on board Simon's point that no one actually cares. Well, i tell you now i did take it on board and screw you.

What i'm going to write about is not the musings on an online sharing center where friends can comment ones thoughts, oh no it's much worse. See, yesterday i bought a notebook, not just any note book, but a MoleSkine. Moleskine's are probably made out of moles hence the name, on the packaging it said things about Jules Verne, Da Vinci and Picasso and perhaps naturally i was leaning to purchase one. Also, Steven has one and he is probably the cleverest teenager i know.

Anyway, this thing which by all accounts is lined paper,was supposed to be an outlet where i could write down important information and thoughts about what i do. Maybe i could write down blog ideas. Or thoughts about the law or politics which might in some way aid my degree.

This turned out to be something of a niave thought, since actually, i dont have anything to say, 9 out of 10 of any epiphanies i have are usually about porn or my naked classmates, and should one day my note pad be put on show in a museum, i dont want it to be full of sketches and pie charts of who is the fittest in the year....

Again that is probably a childish thought, that someone might actually want to read what's in it, of course if anything actually does get in it. Most things i do say are regurgitated from The Guardian or USA Today or some Comedian - in fact this blog may be the first thing thats come from me. Plainly, if i thought somehow i'd get down loads of profound thoughts which somehow might make a political, social and economic utopia, is obviously wrong.

So for now my Moleskine is left empty bar me writing my name in the front and that i would be willing to pay $10 for reward if found (again how much do people value their journals in their content). It's a shame really someone's self esteem is so low that not even their own thoughts are amusing enough to be written down. I suppose we've got people like Simon to thank for that, who remind us, actually no one cares.

Here's to no one caring, and Here's to Richard Mills.

Am I a Royalist? or a Roundhead?

So, i had originally planned to write a blog about my love affair with Sky and all the packages they do, but then Daniel Meier's blog Mindless covered pretty much exactly the opposite, so instead I'm going to write about my musings on the whole Royal Wedding hurrah.

Discussing it with a few people over the last couple of weeks, the Royals are getting a mixed reception, an variable schmorgasbord of opinions.

Some are, perhaps by right or birth somehow, fans of the Royals. After all they are the heads of the realm and give rise to all that blows out of Parliament. Respectfully they acknowledge the work of the Royals, openings and speeches and so on and so forth. Public image, while from time to time is tarnished by be it a distant princess or the divorce of a prince, is that of your typical role model.

Then again, perhaps maybe more so, or at least more vocal in dislike, are the haters. Your usual, unnecessary, high cost, high maintainance drivel that sometimes can be read as grounded potential truth and sometimes unfounded idiocy.

For years i've sided with the royalists if you like, the grand image that marches around with the Royal Family, for me seemed liked something to respected, there was no question. Then of course as time passes there comes the stories of corruption, Prince Charles influencing the work of Parliament, Sarah Ferguson...princes Diana blah blah blah.

So where am I now? Well, it's a strange existence really. I find myself wondering what King or Queen actually means these days. Of course head of state and what have you. But when you consider the coverage they get in the media, the influence they have on people and the work they do and what it means. You take all that and i think, King and Queen, who's work matters more? or Gets a better response? Well, David and Victoria Beckham perhaps had stolen the crown, but times have moved on.

Is it time for a new King and Queen as who the majority of british public can look up to? Wayne Rooney? Kelly Brook? God forbid Stacy Soloman? Lewis Hamilton (even though he's actually American these days)

No, if there ever was a chance to be the King and Queen in both a royal and media sense, it's with the to-be-weds: Prince William and Kate Middleton. What a chance to reassert the image of Royalty and what it is to be a Royal. What chance to become role models for millions of Children across the world next week.

I wish them both the best of luck.

(I'd like to add, in response to Dan/Mini, Step mum has since showed up and turned on Katie, new to Sky Living HD, what load of fucking shit this is...)

The Sun: "baby you can drive your car, beep beep yeah yeah"

Give me strength.

On Wednesday, George Osborne delivered the budget statement, which has been received by the right as very good and by the left with degrees of scepticism and even "there's no fooling us" type thinking.

The Sun were quick as usually to evidence itself for the Newspaper for frankly, idiots. Front paged with "Britain you can drive your car, beep beep yeah yeah yeah". As well as being a horrific play on a classic Beatles number, the observation at the 1p DELAY not cut, but DELAY in full duty rise is meant to be the reason for cheer from the Budget.

As Ed Milliband rightly pointed out, a 1p delay, following a rise of 3p because of the recent VAT increase under Osborne....

The fuel duty delay however is countered by increases in tax burdens for Oil Companies.

Aside from this, The Budget, as usual seems to benefit the working class, but the for the lucky rich there bear the brunt of various adjustments in Taxation.

Cooperation tax has also been cut, typically a Tory manoeuvre satisfying the middle England business executives.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the announcement of 21 new enterprise zones, with decreased restrictions on councils as where best to build them. A fantastic idea.

The Daily Express led with the cheery sensation that the potholes will be repaired! Damage done of course was done there by Labour, not cold weather causing the road to crack as moisture freezes.

While the right wing press will argue the budget is what is needed, as a huge boost to the economy, being a Lefty i have to agree that the budget is a safe one.

What the budget failed to recognise, as indeed what the right wing press failed to realise is that of course, the budget follows the biggest cuts ever seen in Westminster, as the Tory's attempt the impossible in removing the deficit in this Parliament.

While the budget wont leave us that much worse off, what will occur is a decrease in living standards. What we will see is 500,000 job cuts in the public sector, a sector made up of 75% women who will then have to compete in the private sector, majority of course are men.

Emergency Services will see huge cuts. There is a huge risk that advancements in the NHS, reducing waiting times from 18 Months for example to just 18 days maximum under Labour.

Rising youth unemployment, as University's increase tuition fee's. £9,000 a year may well be acceptable at the top institutions, however as we have seen, it's a game of hide and seek, as each University breaks from cover, another does announcing they will charge the maximum. The less recognised Essex and Surry will be charging the maximum, as well as most other top 15 announced so far. Kids will end up thinking twice before going to Uni, and may well end up unemployed as a result.

What we're seeing is not in fact a hero in Osborne, as the right wing press depicted him, in fact a bit of a crook. The go into the Commons and fail to mention declining growth, and to fail to mention the Cuts, and still try and claim we're on the route to a prosperous Britain, is most certainly pulling the wool over our eyes.

Be warned folks, this is going to be a horrid era.

A good Tory idea.

Newspapers and a bike ride gave me inspiration to write this blog.

Reading a lot of written press as usual, one of the proposals from George Osborne and Local Government minister Eric Pickles is to remove red tape and planning restrictions around building, notably so for public authorities, handing back power to regions, local councils in order to best provide and best distribute funding.

Reading this, naturally i was sceptical, being of Center Left. This scepticism is a bit of naivety on my i think, because having visited the regenerated areas of Hull, i can fully endorse the idea of allowing local Government, giving them the reigns, in order to allocate construction budgets.

It was a beautiful day today, and perhaps this somewhat maybe added to the serenity of it all, but i can confirm that i can picture fewer places of the Hull seafront on a day like today. And there as we looked out into the Humber, we discuss the regeneration of Hull. A local guy said that years ago Hull was branded as the worst City in the UK, and the local residents and council thought to do something about it.

And here and now, 2010, Hull is a pleasant place to be. The seafront of Hull has seen the best of the regeneration, where i had the pleasure of cycling around today, along the trans penine path which accompanies the humber river, down to sheffield and then onto Liverpool. There is a lot of good work down there, new houses, offices, marina and regenerated roads, adds to not just monetary value, but as Osborne mentioned today in the Budget, something more than just economic measures - happiness. It is a happy place to be.

This leads me to believe, that actually, local government might just know best when it comes to allocation of resources. Under Labour government did return to Westminster, perhaps part of a backlash that was Thatcher's government.

Reading today in The Guardian, we have a story about Middlesborough where there is discussion of redevloping the now derelict wastelands of Boro's steel and chemical industries of the past. The point here is local authorities do know what is needed, increasing land value, through regeneration, moving forward into a 21st century town, as noted in Hull, where because of the regeneration, all industries, but the fishing industry has pretty much gone, now we see much more office space than warehousing or industrial sites.

In Hull train station, there is a large sign, Welcome to the New Hull. I saw that today, and it really made my day. With these new provisions allowing more money to go into industry deprived areas, hopefully we'll see a wave of evolving towns and cities in the next 10 years.

New F1 Season

I'd like to write about Formula One, i know this may not be to everyone's cup of tea, but hopefully it may be an interesting read for you.

The new season is only a few days away now, and as always for me it could shape up to be an exciting season. Every year i say this, and to be honest it is mostly unfounded, unproven, high expectation. I remember in 2009 i described the championship as to be the most open yet! As hard as he makes it out to be, Jenson Button led the Championship from start to finish.

Regardless, this is looking like a prospectively good season.

Why is this? Well, there is the return of KERs, an energy retention system that stores energy from braking, allowing it to be reused as a boost of power in order to overtake. It featured originally in 2009, when i was all for the idea. However it did filter out of everyones good books gradually, the main problem being that for many teams, the power output was not justified by the extra weight of the system. Hopefully this time KERs will have been revised and updated in order to maximise the idea's potential.

Next, there is a new feature to the rear wings of the cars. Again brought in to try and give the cars more of an edge when trying to overtake, as with the KERs boost button. A button on the steering wheel, allows for part of the rear wing providing downforce to be rendered almost negligible in how much drag it produces. If used wisely, this will mean high grip in the corners and max speed on the straight.

Further more there has been a change in tyre supplier, from Bridgestone to Pirelli. Last year, with refuelling banned, teams often would have only one pitstop, going for long stints. The new tryes have been designed to be varied in how long they can last and how much grip they can provide. ranging from Hard to super soft the aim is to get teams pitting more and varying their strategy in order to maximise excitement: Endurance strategy or speed strategy for example. I find this idea to be a step in the right direction, however with all cars required to be fuelled until the end of the race, it seems daft that the FIA have rather made half a step into making F1 more strategical, i would like to see refuelling allowed again so teams have the choice of how much fuel they put in the car, i.e. how much weight they will carry.

What does this all mean? Well, it may be all a bit scientific, but to a Formula One fan it is a good step for the Championship. The last few years in my opinon we have seen a rise in the excitement of Formula One, with the exception of 2009 where it was something of a 2 horse race, both horses from the same breeder.

Melbourne on Sunday morning will be exciting, the circuit itself is part road, part race track which, with short run of areas, plenty of sweeping straights and tight corners, amidst the setting sun in Australia, will hopefully all add up to an electrifying first Grand Prix. I hope you'll give it a watch.

Who will win is a tough one. All the teams playing there cards a bit close to their chest at the moment. i would be surprised to see Mclaren start slow and pick up in the mid season. Red Bull are going to be the team to beat, and in all honesty at the moment they seem to be in the best position to win races.

The strumpets that are England Captains.

Football blog. Sorry.

In the footballing world this week we can see further developments in the England captain saga. Let's not beat around the bush, because i have very strong views about this.

1. John Terry should never have been relieved of his duties as captain. By far and away the best choice, one of the fittest players in the England squad and a good leader.

2. Why single out Terry? JT, while nothing was actually proven (if anything denied) was rumoured to have cheated with another players then ex girlfriend. While circumstances may have been a bit different [team mates ex], i'd like to pose the point that many players do it.

To then give it to Rio seemed a choice, at the time my sentiments i remember were "He has only played half this season? why him?" "He failed to attend a drugs test, and was banned from football, surely this is just as bad a message as cheating?" "He is not as good as terry, he might lose his place if King suddenly gets fit?"

Now, while some may know that i dislike the England football team. Have for a while, things just seem so wrong with that set up. This probably stems back to Steve Mclaren, dropping Beckham and then failing to qualify for the 2008 Euros.

But what happened in the last friendly match against Denmark was simply nothing beyond a joke. Lampard started as captain, gave all the pre match interviews etc, etc, which is fine, he is Vice Captain at Chelsea and not a bad leader/player.

He then played half the match, before the armband was passed to Ashley Cole and Garath Barry. Two players that have never captained club. Cole is also well publicised as having been a bit naughty when with Cheryl Tweedy!

Now we come full circle and Capello may well just give the armband back to Terry. Why, well it's a bye gones be bye gones thing, as well as Rio Ferdinand some what taking the mickey and remaining unfit. Capello doesn't want to keep handing the armband round like a hot potato.

Im not sure where i stand on the matter. Terry, has stood strong in the whole saga. I might have turned my back on England having been fired as captain, been boo'd by the fans for many games after being dropped as captain, and then having to be part of the farce that was England vs Denmark. To do this somehow means he might deserve it back.

On the other hand, for Capello to do so might indeed remove all my faith in the man. To give it back to Terry seems almost a sign of weakness, of fear, even lack of confidence of other players. I imagine the moment, if it happens, in the dressing room will be something like when Jonothan Ross returned to the BBC for the first time after his ban, just an awkward experience for everyone.

We'll see next week against Ghana.

AV Reform: The issue to about to tear this coalition to pieces.

Lets be perfectly honest here: coalition governments are not usually something we see in the UK. Matt Beech, lecturer and writer suggested in a lecture of mine that coalition governments follow a trend as to when they appear: in times of crisis. The last time we saw a coalition was between 1940 and 1950 - where Churchill led a coalition, desirable out come in War Time Britain. Prior to this, World War One saw a coalition government. Make no mistake, coalitions appear in times of serious crisis, WWI, WWII....a Global, deep, unavoidable recession.

If we are to suggest that this is a time of crisis, we need a strong, workable government with mutual respect for the joined parties policy and ideology. After 8 months now of coalition embracing Westminster and the political scene, finally it seems, cracks are really starting to show.

Today the observer reports that Ken Clarke, a liberal Conservative MP, should be removed from his positions as Lord Chancellor and Secretary for Justice by the most powerful man of the executive: David Cameron. Why? For being too Liberal in his views.

The Conservative right, backbenchers and so forth all too often can be the uprooters of the incumbent leader. Here we could see history repeating itself, are the Tory grass roots about to pull up the new Liberal-Conservatives weeds?

David Cameron has got what will be a tricky couple of months before the AV referendum in May. Keeping the back benchers in check will be of upmost importance as we see what will surely be more disagreements between the Tory-right and Lib-Dem colleagues.

However any handbags between now and May 5th will be but mere scratches to what could be an untreatable wound come polling day. If we as the electorate vote in favour of AV, an inevitable mushroom cloud will erupt in Westminster. Labour and Lib-Dems support the bill: in the last election combined off the top of my head polled around 15 million votes, far usurping the Tory's 10 million.

If you want my opinion on AV, well this is just it. 22% of overall results in the 2010 GE for the Lib Dems resulted in only 10% of seats. Although this issue does rather speak for a proportional representation reform, AV will make things slightly fairer indeed, it will get my vote.

As for the crisis, well it's not going to be made much better in Westminster. We might be about to observe a huge shake up in Cabinet, notably so if the AV reform proves comes out 'yay'. This issue could well define this Government. It could be very messy. DC has got some serious work to do in pulling in the threads of what could turn out to be some very serious straggling MPs, all torn over one key issue - Left or Right - AV or First Past the Post?

Watch this Space.