I started this blog 7 years ago today, the same day US forces took Baghdad.
We’ve both neglected our respective duties since…
I was too young to vote in 1997 (I was 16) but I remember the tremendous feeling of change in the air, young people who had voted for the first time had felt they had changed the world. A new party, an exuberant leader with fresh ideas rocked into Downing Street. I was gutted I was too young to be part of this, I’d have voted Labour too.
We’re not a Conservative family, for a start my parents divorced when I was 3. I grew up on a Council estate and went to a state school (albeit a strange one). Both my brother and I managed to get to Uni (although only one of us, Stavros, finished). We never claimed benefits and our mother worked long long hours to do this. I have long detested the stereotype of single parent families who sit on their arses all day popping out children and claiming all they can from the state – The Tories push this stereotype too much for my liking. Just one of the reasons why I will NEVER vote Conservative.
In 2001, I was at University during the election. I registered to vote in Warrington and voted Labour. I felt I’d done my duty and that my vote really did count. Labour won.
A couple of years later, while I was working for a Community radio station in Wolverhampton a friend introduced me to his friend Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East. We became friends. Tom loved the idea of starting a similar radio station in his constituency and put me in touch with some people involved in the creative arts projects, namely The Public, a community arts organisation. Together with the help of some good people at The Public we created a company and submitted a community licence application which we won.
It was my feeling that no other party would have made the commitment to these sort of community arts projects other than Labour; they saw the potential in Community Radio, projects like The Public and people like me.
At this time the Iraq war was kicking off, it was something I didn’t believe in. I was adamant is was the wrong thing to do, however, in my mind Labour had made my life better. I stuck with them. .
Again, I voted Labour in 2005, they won. I didn’t want Tony Blair as Prime Minister but I was sure that he was probably best of a bad bunch of leaders and I’d always hoped that he would have been ousted as leader and Gordon Brown would take over, I had faith in Gordon Brown to do a good job. I even joined the Party at some stage
All did not go well with The Public and they soon went into administration, this meant that the great support and staff that was instrumental in our Community Radio station’s progress all but stopped. The Administrators made it clear that my project was now not financially viable, it was a great blow to our project as a whole and to me personally.
Over this period my unease with Labour’s governance was growing, from my outrage over the Iraq war and it’s atrocities to the seemingly increasing efforts to throw away our much loved (but not constitutionally bound) civil liberties. I still hoped, deep down that Labour were the party for me.
For the past 5 years I have worked for an Internet Service Provider as a network/systems engineer, it’s a relatively small company with 100-/+ employees. I still have a love and desire to do radio and I’m working on another project which will hopefully come to fruition in the next 12 months (more on that soon). Yesterday a sweepingly wide bill, The Digital Economy was rushed through Parliament before the General Election. This bill stands to have serious detrimental effects to my industry and at it’s very worst could cost jobs or even businesses.
Less and 40 MP’s debated the bill for it’s third reading yet it was whipped though the house with 189 votes to 47. 187 members voted without even being present for the debate (419 didn’t turn up), the whole bill with a few amendments was voted within a total of 7.5 hours of parliamentary time. Despite calls from major players in the industry such as Google & Microsoft, Twenty thousand emails or letters to MP’s and serious concerns of a few knowledgeable MP’s to halt the bill and debate in the new parliamentary term.
The bill covers such a sweeping list of area’s such as copyright infringement, Digital Radio, Photographic works, Ofcom powers and many more that for the Government to push this bill through the ‘wash up’ stage of Parliament is a disgrace and slaps the democratic process firmly in the face.
This was the final straw for me, and looking back I’m wondering why I didn’t say this when I was so outraged at the Iraq War, the slaying of Jean Charles de Menezes, the conduct of the police at the G20 protest or the persistence of the ID cards issue. For that I feel ashamed, that I did not protest my anger then, but now is the time.
Labour no longer have my vote. It is sad, because for years I’ve believed in Labour but it’s more than evident that they no longer believe in me. I really do hate the idea of the next 5 years being lorded over by the horribly saccharine David Cameron and his band of Bullingdon chums, I really do. It makes me feel sick.
Labour haven’t lost my vote forever, they could get it back. To do so they have to be prepared to listen, for too long they have simply pretended to.
For years I harangued any friends who said they wouldn’t bother voting; “Well, they’re all the same aren’t they Merk”. I’m starting to think they were right*.
My ballot paper will be spoiled this year, if I vote at all.
*Tom Watson’s dedication to opposing elements of this bill is to be commended, Tom is one of a few constituency MP’s who is caring, dedicated and knowledgeable. Regardless of my anger with Labour, Tom remains a friend and I wish him luck for the Election.
With the largely successful Kindle by Amazon, Sony’s Ebook Digital Reader and the usual over-hype about what may or may not be a tablet type device from Apple, I can’t help feeling that the idea of an e-book reader is absurd.
Over 500 years ago Gutenberg invented the printing press which revolutionised the world, there are now billions of books throughout the world and are reasonably cheap to buy. I’m not a person who thinks that revolutions can’t happen again, but sometimes things just don’t need revolutionising, the book is one of those.
Let’s look at some of the reasons we’re presented with in order to get us to buy an e-book reader;
Simple to use: no computer, no cables, no syncing. – Books are pretty simple to use are they not? you start at the front and work your way to the back (in the west), unless of course it’s one of those ‘Choose your own adventure’ books.
Revolutionary electronic-paper display provides a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper. – looks like real paper huh? Imagine that.
Low energy use for a long battery life – I’ve never ever had to charge up a book, ever.
Get a huge choice of eBooks – A book shop has a huge choice of books, Amazon and (my favourite) The Book Depository has a massive choice of books. Even better my local library has thousands of books, and they’ll lend them to me. For Free.
The idea of being able to store hundreds of books on a device isn’t quite the same as storing thousands of music tracks on your portable music player, music is mostly instant gratification and most of us enjoy the ability to skip through thousands of tracks finding something that reflects our ever changing tastes or moods. I don’t know why anyone would want to do the same with a book.
It just doesn’t make sense, If you’re going on holiday throw 2 books in your bag. You don’t have to worry about losing an expensive gadget or getting it wet when someone throws themselves in the pool. I can read a book anywhere, on the bus standing up, on the train without looking like a twat, on the toilet, in the bath. I can lend it to my mate. I can leave it on the bus.
This isn’t to say that electronic books aren’t useful, we have tons of technical manuals at work in PDF format, they are good for looking things up, but they are useless for studying – the simple fact is people don’t like reading from a screen for any length of time.
In a world where it seems we’re sometimes doing things with Tech simply ‘because we can’ this was always bound to happen but I really don’t see the point in reinventing the wheel. If you have an e-book reader I’d be interested to know what drove you to buy it, or if you’re using it much now. Have you burned all your books in a bonfire? Leave a comment.
p.s. local book buyers will no doubt recognise the picture above as The Market Bookshop in Wellington.
I took half day off work yesterday, I couldn’t keep my eyes open sat at my desk. I came home, pottered around the house and then eventually decided to go for a nap, I was only sleeping for an hour but I had this dream;
I was singing Christmas Carols in the round with brother Stavros, Cricketer come singer Henry Olonga (I have no idea what he looks like but he was there), Aled Jones (of ‘Walking in the Air’ fame) and that embarrassment of an MPNadine Dorries who doesn’t even know where she lives.
We used plastic cups for percussion.
Regular readers will know I’ve struggled with writers block when it comes to updating this blog, however I feel should probably share some of strange dreams with you, here is a selection from the last week or so;
The Google Head
I was working for google, although I didn’t realise it at the time. All day at work I’d had a spot on the side of my head, my temple. It was one of those really annoying spots that grows under the skin, you can’t squeeze them cause it hurts too much and it would break the skin, sometimes they just dissapear other times they break out are are MASSIVE.
Anyway I was working, and messing with this spot all day. I headed to the toilets and squeezed it, it was massive and some people where watching me saying how much blood there was, I looked around and I was covered in blood, blood everywhere.
There was now a big hole in the side of my head, and out of it popped a metal ball. I went back into the office and my boss told me I had to write to warn everyone about it on the official Google Blog.
The Running Man
Myself and good mate Lee were running, just running, for what seemed like a really long time. It turns out we were in a computer game, an old platform game, but we weren’t running at all, the world was moving under our feed, we were in the same position.
The Big House
I let myself into a big house, from the outside it was the same manor house that overlooked the Caravan site we used to stay at as kids, from the inside it was all modern. I walked around for a while and found my way following signs to a pub, when I got to the a big gallery/landing area the path to the pub had been blocked by large fallen bricks, there was a sign pointing to an alternavtive route. I walked back and was in the entrance lobby of the house and I heard voices, it was the owner and a vistor – he was telling him about the house, I raced to run out of the door but they were coming in that way, so I went to hide in the a bathroom but it was locked, I hid behind the door. They came in and headed into the main throng of the house, I tried to get out of the front door but it was locked so I headed to a side corrador. I could see another open door at the end of this corridor but I had to creep past a small sleeping dog. I did so, but got half way down this corridor when I knocked over a mop. The dog woke, gathered his thoughts and began to follow me down this long room, the room got longer, the dog got bigger by now it was a blood hound and was chasing me down. I ran as fast as I could to get out of the door and I woke up, out of breath.
Mexico
I was driving through Mexico in an old American muscle car, I pulled over and a man sent me down some side street where there was an arcade game, I played the game for a while. It was a Ninja, and I wasn’t controlling him on the screen but on the rooftoops of the street in front of me. It was all cool until some cowboys came onto the scene and started shooting at Ninja and then at me. I started shooting back (not sure when I got the gun!) and legged it to the car.
So there you have it, some of my recent dreams. I think I might be a bit mad, am I the only person who has crazy dreams like this and can remember them so vividly? I suppose it’s better than dreaming about a nuclear holoucaust.
…and no, I don’t eat cheese before I go to bed.
