The Pie Man Televison Awards 2010

Ok it’s a bit late, but since the US is slowly disbanding the traditional dates of seasons it has meant that I have had to wait a bit before really trying to pull together last years TV, so technically this covers late 2009 as well, basically think of it as covering any TV that was made after last years television awards.  As always there is an SF bent to proceedings, and this year things are a bit sparse, not because of a lack of new shows, although there is a bit of that, but because with me now having a family I just can’t log the hours of TV I once managed.  So, arbitrary awards ahoy.  As always this will be littered with spoilers, spelling errors, bad grammar and generally poor quality writing, proceed if you dare.


Best TV show.

This one was tough, although truth be told the US isn’t nearly pulling its weight like it once was.  So what did we have, well there are many shows I liked, but how many would I actually judge as “best?” Ashes to Ashes was definitely good in its final season, Stargate Universe has become must watch TV even if it took me a while to get into my head that it wasn’t like the last two Stargate series, Lost had a great final season, Being Human S2 was great and of course we had the two masterful newcomers in Misfits and Sherlock which nearly qualified for best show on their first years.  Instead I’m going with…

It’s a bit of a hard one to judge, see if I have my timeframes right, and if I don’t tough, my 09/10 period catches 3 of the specials and the new series, so I’m spoiled for choice.  I know the specials weren’t as well received by everyone, although there is very little hate for Waters of Mars the Xmas and New year end of time 2 parter has taken a lot of flack.  It was a little flawed and very overindulgent in its last act, but it was a goodbye to the team that have brought our show back, and for that I can forgive anything, I cried manly tears.  Then we have the new series with Steven Moffat at the helm and Matt Smith and Karen Gillen playing the Doctor and Amy Pond, and you know what, its different, but Matt Smith has definitely taken to the role like a duck to water meanwhile the feel of the show is different but also much fresher, perhaps a little more kiddie friendly as well which is no bad thing, it is a family show.  The standout episode of the series was “Vincent and the Doctor” but credit where credit is due, the final 2 parter was great, with a mix of action, drama and comedy.  In fact that could be said of the whole series.  Downsides are the iDaleks and a slightly off 2 parter featuring sort of Silurians but in general I wait with baited breath for the Xmas special.

Best New Show.

Again, a little spoiled for choice, and again very much dominated by British TV, obviously Stargate Universe is an option, and I’d even consider Caprica, although I have to confess that I gave up half way through and came back at the end, none the less, while it took its sweet time to get going I was warming to it.  Truth be told it was very nearly Misfits, Channel 4’s ASBO superhero show, and if I can’t come up with an award for it from the usual categories then expect a spurious award near the end because it deserves some love.  However, best newcomer is non SF, it was short, but daring and once again it’s Steven Moffat.

Sherlock

 This was a surprise, the BBC were running a set of new dramas, some one offs or week long events like The Deep, but then there was Sherlock, a modern take on Sherlock Holmes.  Epically named Dominick Cumberbatch took on the role and gave a great young Holmes in his performance, managing to keep the character enjoyable even if you know in real life he’s pretty unlikeable.  Martin Freeman took the role of Watson, now a veteran of Afghanistan drawn into holms’ world.  The show had a real energy and pace, so much so you really didn’t notice its quite staggering 1hr30mins running time per episode, yes each episode was a mini movie, that in itself is bold enough and kudos to the Beeb for letting them try it.  So far we only got 3 episodes but with a further 3 planned these could be short bursts of brilliance.

Best Finale

We had quite a few series end this year, or indeed be axed.  In the end though there were two real contenders for this prize, and oddly enough both had similar finales.  Lost didn’t win it, now I’m not a hater of this finale, yes it was a bit annoying that the island’s secret was basically “It’s a magic island” and I know that many found the “Alternate” flash sideways turning out to be the afterlife a cop out, and I would have perhaps preferred it to be a parallel world and the solution not to be turning the island off and on again, but regardless Lost’s finale was emotional and offered a sense of closure for me at least.  But it’s not the winner, no that has to go to…

So, it was all a sort of limbo for coppers who died on duty and Gene Hunt was to usher them to the next world, it makes sense, fits in with the Life on Mars Finale, and in general works.  It shouldn’t, it should be a cop out (pardon the pun) but it explains so much.  And of course we had the villain of the piece, Jim Keats, the more modern DCI and very possibly an agent of Satan himself trying to lure genes cops away, he managed to really create a nemesis for Gene, initially subtle and menacing his final few scenes where he was all out evil mad were a joy.  Taken as a 5 series story Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes is going to be one of my must own on DVD (Hell I’ve already got Life on Mars) I think re-watching now I know the secret will only reveal even more.

Most Improved Show,

This is a tough one this year, possibly because most of the series are either new or the returnees were pretty damn good already.  So I reckon I may be pretty controversial when I say the winner is


 You may think I’m just making sure chuck gets an award this year, and you may be right, however stay with me.  Chuck was good already, but I really do think that it has been consistently improving over its run.  S3 gives us chuck with a new intersect, one that gives him kung fu skills.  Not just that but its one of the few series I know that can take getting a sudden series extension and not have the latter half turn out rubbish.

Most Gratuitous T&A in a series

I didn’t catch too much of Dollhouse this year, so I can’t say if it qualifies.  In fact T&A is clearly something ion this age of austerity we can’t afford, or perhaps its just I’m watching fewer shows that lend themselves to it.  I should probably watch the Hawaii Five O remake as it’s meant to be littered with it so I can have this award in next year.  I could use Misfits but what T&A it had wasn’t particularly gratuitous, so instead I’m opting for a non genre show that I’ve watched a bit of, because I like this award.


I’ve seen a few episodes of this and wow, you thought Knight Rider was bad, women seem to wonder around topless just for the hell of it.  The scene that I thought really exemplified this was during an episode where there had been a drought and at the end it rains once our titular hero has killed someone in a gladiatorial bout.  Apparently in ancient Rome rain made women in crowds fall out of their tops.  Similarly a fringe benefit to being rich was that you could have topless slaves hanging around your house and your wife wouldn’t bad an eyelid.  I get the feeling at script meetings someone did ask ‘How can we get more boobs into this series?’

Best Factual series

I’ve realised I watch a lot of documentaries, due to the unique nature of various channels I often don’t know if I’m watching something new or something ages old.  I have also decided to have two separate categories.  Shows like the excellent Wonders of the Solar system are clearly factual, however entertaining they may be while something like Top Gear is technically factual but is first and foremost entertainment.  I thought this was an important distinction.
This year I’ve been fairly spoilt for choice.  A good start was the badly advertised and barely plugged “The Digital Revolution” presented by Dr Alex Krotski, this had a lot going for it, not only was it an interesting insight into the social impacts of our information age but it was presented by the presenter I liked the most from 1990s games review programme Bitz.  Mythbusters is also a worthy candidate, straddling the boundary between factual and Entertainment factual with aplomb.  The winner this year must be.

This is one of these things that the BBC has everyone else beaten by a country mile.  Professor Brian Cox takes us through some of the wonders of the solar system.  That’s kind of it.  The content was factual but presented in such a way that it wasn’t stuffy or dry.  Brian Cox is an excellent presenter and speaks with a genuine and infectious enthusiasm for the subject matter and the visuals that are presented are truly awe inspiring.  Seriously try to watch this.

Best Entertainment Factual

And so from the less noble end, again we have Mythbusters as a possibility and the ever present Top Gear, in fact all we were short of were a few drama-documentaries which seem to have been in short supply.  However my award goes to.

I’m a big fan of James May, I think he’s a good presenter, particularly when given a subject matter he is interested in, he can usually add a touch of humour to whatever he’s presenting.  This series spun off from three one-off programmes he did, concerning toys.  In this he takes a toy, tries to convince some kids its fun and works towards a giant challenge.  This series had May building a life size Airfix model Spitfire, building a bridge over a river using only Meccano, re-creating the brooklands racing circuit full length but using Scaelextric, Living in a house made entirely of Lego and re-instating a branch line in Hornby double-0 gauge.  His success sis often varied but in the process it was nice to see kids taking an interest in toys and the way James May and a TV crew could get families and communities out together.

Best UK Network/Channel

To be fair there’s only a little competition in this, Virgin/Channel one are improving but look set to be dismantled after a Sky Buyout, Living will probably qualify for a Pirate Bay award next year, Channel 4 made a good effort with Misfits and now that Big Brother is gone I expect wonders.  Sky1 itself is on a bit of a decline, having far fewer shows that I’m interested in this year than last now that Lost is gone however their recent purchase of exclusive rights to all of HBO’s output is promising even if their proportional budget on home grown series is miniscule.  Bravo is still Bravo with nothing particularly new or interesting and with SyFy running V, Eureka and Warehouse 13 its fast becoming the channel filled with series I should watch but don’t.  No, the winner this year is,

Its not perfect, and there are criticisms, but this channel this year has given us, Dr Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Merlin, Sherlock, Ashes to Ashes, Top Gear, James May’s Toy Stories, The Digital Revolution, Survivors, Vexed, Miranda, Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe and many others.  All thoroughly entertaining, all home made.  It runs very few bought in series these days which is good as all the money from these series goes straight back into the BBC and into British pockets, surely worth supporting.

The RIAA award for harm caused to Bit-Torrent

Most networks are beginning to understand that getting stuff on screen as soon as is humanly possible after US screenings is the best way to stop people downloading stuff.  So this year the award has been flipped to recognise those who do their best to keep you off the Bit Torrents.  A credit here should go to ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC who have made their on demand service for catching repeats available to as many people as possible (Living only allow on demand on premium packages and sky only allow their Anytime service on sky) Sky have got anytime and have the best record for putting shows on usually in the same week they air.  I’m torn though.  See Sky’s protectionism is driving people like me to bit-torrents when we miss things (There were a few episodes of Lost I had to catch up on through “Alternate” means) it’s a small thing but it’s the only thing this year that pushed me to Bit Torrent.  In the end it has to be

Both are as good as each other, most of the channel’s main output is available, most are on for a week at least and they have back catalogues available for free or very little.  This could well be the future of TV.

Only the Good Die young award.

Not too many entries here.  I could say Defying Gravity but I may sound like a broken record next award.  Instead I’m going to go for,


 I know it was 2 seasons old, but it was really getting moving.  They had found a groove, were building a mythology, and now we’ll never know how it was to end.  I miss my dose of supernatural fun.

Never given a proper chance award

This one should be obvious

It was shafted by Fox, let down by the Beeb, graveyarded and left to die.  A shame because this was a series that really got under my skin.  Space exploration where exploring space is the main source of peril, it was drifting near documentary territory at times.  I just wish everyone involved had been a little more confident in the series to push it harder.  I think this could have been a classic.

Most Promising 1^st Season.

Again, a crowded year, Sherlock, Caprica, Stargate Universe, Defying Gravity. But in the end of the day the series which had a season that made me sit up and take notice was.

It shouldn’t have worked, it was badly marketed, with the creators seemingly telling as few people as possible about the show, it epitomised the joke Channel 4 Mindset of any new series being something crossed with Skins and the cast seem pretty dislikeable from the get go, but it worked.  A good combination of humour, drama and character this series drew you into its world.  A mysterious storm gives a group of youngsters on community service Super Powers, but how will they use these abilities and how will they explain why they killed their hulked-out probation worker.  See, the premise is even hokey, and it often had a “Storm powered person of the week” format that reminded me of Smallville’s early “Kryptonite powered baddy of the week” format, but it worked, and worked well.  The characters grew into full fledged personalities and the final episode in particular, which involved an evangelical Christian able to turn anyone who could hear her to her way of thinking had a real night of the living dead vibe to it.  Season 2 has shown no dip in quality either.

Most off the Boil series.

No pre-amble it has to be

So off the boil its been axed, Heroes, I would say its not you, its me, but it is you and I can’t do this anymore, I can’t sit through dross just to have the one or two great episodes, it just isn’t working for me.  Yes, I gave up through Season 4.  Can’t fault the networks decision here; however I have a concept for a sitcom starring Ando and Hiro if you’re interested?

The Reilly 2040 worst padding award

It’s a tough call, I could hit Heroes a bit more but that would be cruel, and if Padding was the only problem with “the Deep” it would be a mercy.  It could be Caprica, I don’t know because I faded out mid season and came back nearer the end.  No, it’s a tough call but I think it will be


I suppose it usually wasn’t a padding episode, but more some episodes were padded, So much of the Earth based body swap stuff is just tedious and most of the time you’re just waiting to see people in dark corridors whisper at each other to let you know that you’re seeing the interesting bit.  If you extracted the padding and re-distributed destiny sub-plots I reckon you could have shaved a couple of episodes off this series.  Overall though USTV, you are improving.

Pie Man Special Award

This is an award for something I think is good but has been sidelined by better, newer or just by accident.  This year it is


It nearly warranted the “Worst Treatment” award, see last year Team Chuck only thought they were getting 12 episodes, wrote a tight 12 episode arc and once ratings were ok were then surprised with another 10 eps.  I don’t give the award because wheat we got from this was something more akin to 2 seasons rolled in one.  It may have actually removed some padding.  Chuck is still a Joy, and a greater involvement of the extended cast meant we got more Buy More antics, a greater involvement for Morgan and best of all, an end to the will they/won’t they Chuck and Sarah question, they did and it stuck.  Plus we got at least 2 new Jeffster Numbers.  I can’t say this enough but a Jeffster Album?

Graceful Retirement Award

I think we only had one real contender, Heroes’ retirement being anything but graceful the award goes to

It was big finale time, and to be fair a cracking final season, obviously there is some disappointment from not having the Island’s secrets revealed in any way beyond “Magic” and the flash “Sideways” transpiring to be the afterlife was a slightly wasted opportunity, but it left me satisfied and gave a sense of closure which was welcome.  The story is complete; we need not worry about Lost any more.  And I for one cried like a baby at the finale, although the way Michael giacallo Scores episodes I’m sure he could make the Go-Compare adverts seem like stirring pathos laden masterpieces.

Worst Treatment of a series

Virgin/Channel One were a possibility, but chuck wasn’t as badly treated as last year.  I reckon Living are already getting much of my Ire for next year over Chuck as well, so lets have a different perpetrator this year.

The BBC has had one major problem this year.  Its Schedule or lack thereof.  It seems that either the IPlayer has spoiled them or they it is in fact incredibly difficult to put a programme on at the same time every week.  For its big hitters like Sherlock ad Dr who it’s often a matter of 30mins or so but I really shouldn’t be checking an EPG to see when Dr Who starts this week.  For others like James May’s Toy stories, it roved quite freely, so much so that I watched every episode on IPlayer.  But the worst has to be their treatment of Defying Gravity.  It was graveyarded, that I don’t mind, but there were some weeks we got two episodes, some one, some none, never at the same time, sometimes on different days.  Again IPlayer was my friend but how the hell can we be expected to support a show when it isn’t on the same time every week.  The BBC really needs to sort this out even if On Demand is the future.

Biggest Missed opportunity

I was tempted to say Caprica, but it was improving towards the end of S1, instead I think I’ll shoot at a one off Drama the BBC produced initially as a 5 day TV event, but were so worried about its poor quality that we had to endure 5 weeks of torment.  I speak, of course, of.

The Deep

James Nesbit, Minnie Driver and a crew of other “Him off of that things” take a submarine to the Antarctic undersea volcanoes to try and find out what happened to the previous mission (Containing Nesbit’s wife) and carry on their research.  What followed was a horror of dodgy premises, poor acting, poorer scriptwriting and mind boggling stupidity.  Note to writers, you should not see a twist and say “Was that meant to be a twist”

Various plot elements only made sense if you accepted that someone would pay to shove idiots underwater.  Here are two examples, presented in time honoured “Choose your own adventure Style”

You are on an evil giant Russian sub that looks suspiciously like that factory they film Dr Who in a lot.  To repair your sub and get everyone away from the soon to explode nuclear reactor you need to find the last sub and salvage a part from it.  You are using two pods to double your search chances.  One is your own, its controls labelled in English but it lacks the ability to dock with an airlock.  The other is the Russian one; it can dock but has all its controls in Russian.  You have two pilots, one, Clem speaks no Russian, does not know what part to look for and will have a long drawn out trauma about his wife who was killed on that sub, the other, Svetlana speaks Russian and knows what part to find.

If you put Svetlana in the Russian pod and Clem in your own, go to Paragraph C
If you Put Clem in the Russian pod and Svetlana in your own, go to Paragraph B

B  Congratulations, you are churning out daft decisions suitable for a writer of The Deep, situation 2 is here.

You are a sonar operator and know your boss is on the take to corrupt Russian oil barons.  You suspect your boss knows you are on to you when he comes in holding a pistol, but the slide is frozen.

If you rush your boss to try and wrestle the gun from him before he can free it up go to Paragraph C
If you stare at him with a gormless expression, akin to a cow looking at a slaughterhouse wondering what goes on in there, go to Paragraph D

Paragraph C Bad luck, your decisions are good but do not draw out enough “Drama” you will never make it as a scriptwriter of “The Deep”

Paragraph D Well done, you are probably dead, of your own stupidity, but if you have survived the terrors of using a spoon to eat breakfast you could have a future writing any sequel to “The Deep”

Think this sums up what I thought of the show, it could have been interesting, educational, tense and claustrophobic, but it failed to hit any of these.  The money should have been given to the poor.

The Problem with Labour

You may be asking why I'm having a pop at labour, surely with the cuts announced and whatnot I should be going at the Tories.  Only its been done better by better folk.  I recommend a look at Obsolete and Liberal Conspiracy for good arguments against the cuts.

Nope, I'm having a pop at Labour because, not counting the Lib-Dems (And I suspect we have many years of not counting the Lib-Dems consider the damage this coalition is doing to their reputation, ho-ho, political humour) is that like it or not (And I don't) they are the best credible opposition to the cuts, and the most likely alternative to play the "Big" party in a future coalition (Should we get a fairer voting system)

It looked promising when Ed Milliband beat his brother in the party leaders election, the Tabloid and Tory spin that he was a puppet for the unions and the "Red Ed" moniker seemed like tired old jibes and really weren't sticking. (In fact my Union backed Diane Abbott, guess more of its members who didn't tick the box to stop contributions to Labour disagreed.)

Ed made a good start, namely by saying the Iraq war was a mistake.  That made me sit up I can tell you.  I thought this was a turning point, they might now start admitting that not everything Blair did was fantastic and right.  I think Blair did some things right, minimum wage for one, but it seems like the Blairites in the Labour party don't like to hear any word against anything he did, and he made some howlers.  There was the Iraq war, draconian terror legislation, idiotic and costly Public Private Partnerships, I could go on.  In fact one of the worst policys was removing student grants and introducing tuition fees.  A bad policy in general, and hypocritical considering it was passed by those who had more of their education paid for by the state than any subsequent generation.

The problem with the introduction of fees was that it removed a taboo, Thatcher was too scared to go near free education but now the taboo has been removed the increases proposed by the coalition are merely bartering over how much.  Worse, unless they admit that the policy, which may have seemed right for the time, was a mistake, then Labour look hypocritical for opposing increases, since critics can simply stump any labour minister by asking if they think fees are a bad idea.

Sadly, I see a lot in the Post Brown Labour Party that I saw in the Post Major Conservatives.  back in 1992 many Tories were looking back at the Thatcher years with nostalgia.  In those days the Tories were looking for a new Thatcher, or at least a thatcherite to regain the heydays of that era, not realising that Thatcherism had been rejected by the electorate as much as Major's government.  The same now stands for Labour, the Blairites get snippy if anyone dares say that anything King Tony did was a bad idea.  This is unhealthy, again they blame Gordon Brown for Labour's defeat, but people were as tired of Blair before Brown came in.  Just as people didn't vote out the Tories because they weren't Thatcherite enough, they didn't vote out Labour because they weren't Blairite enough.  Quite frankly this factioning has to end and sadly a leader can't end it, instead the party itself has to choose to put these things aside.  They can't really effectively oppose Coalition policy when it so closely matches much of the Blairite policy of the past.  The party needs to cleanse itself of the bad parts of Blair and brown.

Sadly at the moment it looks like they'll go down the path of the Tories, at the moment the Political party has decided to rebel against the expulsion of ex-immigration minister Phil Woolas.  It is covered very well at Obsolete, Liberal Conspiracy and Enemies of Reason.  Some of the party have decided to defend this man, the man who sang from the Daily Mail's hymsheet during his tenure as Immigration minister and who chose to use false information against his nearest rival combined with the worst form of dog whistle racism.  He has been rightly punished by the law for his illegal conduct, but instead of doing what the party leaders have done and quite rightly rid themselves of this liability some have risen to defend him, why?  Loyalty? more likely because he is one of "theirs" and they protect their own.  If this is what the Parliamentary Labour party is rebelling over then we are surely doomed to a minimum of 10 years of tory governance.

The New Heroic Age - So Far - Part 1

Quite a few of these titles have now completed their initial arc, and others are over 4 issues in, so time for a look at how we’re getting on.

First I’ll look at the four Avengers Titles, so much for saving myself money.

Avengers
Well, good news is we have a title that is just Avengers, not new, mighty secret, dark or minty.  However, so far at any rate, this is my least favourite of the Avengers titles.  To be fair, it has a few handicaps.  First is the art.  People seem to get excited when John Romita Jnr is drawing a book, and I feel like some sort of nutter because I really fail to see why.  I have joked in the past that Romita Jnr and myself have something in common; neither of us can draw Iron Man.  This is unfair of course; at least if we were both to draw shellhead you’d be able to work out who Romita Jnr was drawing.  In general though I wouldn’t count him as one of my favourite artists.  Add to that Bendis writing, which I don’t mind, but its never worked in an all out superhero book and for my money is better used in titles like Alias, or indeed New Avengers.  The plot has some interest to it, the Avengers must travel into the future at the behest of Kang the Conqueror because, something has to be done about their kids.  It also has its faults, yes it’s nice to see Noh-Varr used again after he was re-vamped in Dark Avengers, but overall so far this really isn’t doing it for me.  Hope the plot picks p pace soon.  Also hope we’ll see why Wonder Man is acting up, he’s really out of character at the moment and I think that jars too.  As for the line-up, well at the end of Dark Reign, Steve Rogers basically said anyone who wanted to be and avenger was, but there was going to be a core team, and it’s a slightly odd hybrid between classic and Bendis, so we have Iron Man, Thor, Captain America (Bucky Barnes) and Hawkeye, with Spider-Man, Spider-Woman and Wolverine coming from the Bendis era.  It actually works quite well although I still don’t think Spider-Man and Wolverine work in Avengers.  A nice addition is Maria Hill, former Director of SHIELD as their liaison; in fact the three teams all have a liaison which is a nice touch.

New Avengers
 The plot here is a little different.  Luke cage was a little put off that cap was returning things to business as usual, so cap gave him his own Avengers team.  Aside from the main squad he has his pick of members and he gets Avengers mansion to live in.  Funny thing about New Avengers, most of the members have another super-team.  Cage leads the Thunderbolts, Hawkeye, Spider-Man and Wolverine are all Avengers (actually lets not go into how many teams Wolverine is on, he does at least joke about it being his mutant power) and Thing is still on the Fantastic Four.  In fact only Iron Fist, Ms Marvel, Mockingbird and Jewel have no other affiliation.  They also have a Liaison in the form of Victoria Hand, Osborne’s second in command when HAMMER were running things, and probably one of the most interesting characters invented for Dark Reign.  Despite my mockery, it is actually pretty enjoyable; the plot is leading on from Dr Strange loosing his role as Sorcerer supreme and has mystic foes possessing various team members and in the last issue all appears to be linked to the Ancient One.  While Bendis’ writing seems out of place on Avengers it fits well with the team dynamic in New Avengers, hell half his team are usually in as wisecracking jokers in some form.  Immomen’s art is bright  Overall this is really promising which is a great turnaround as New Avengers titles have previously been the most forgettable for me.

Secret Avengers
This one had me a little excited, but then it had the advantage over every other comic bar Iron Man, War Machine was in it.  While the world is more Heroic, Steve Rogers leads a more covert squad to deal with serious problems hopefully before they become serious.  The Team isn’t exactly A-list, featuring Steve Rogers, War Machine, Black Widow, Valerie, Beast, Moon Knight, Nova and Ant Man (Eric O’Grady), plus Steve’s Girlfriend Sharon Carter as Liaison.  Not A-List but then they are meant to be a more covert squad.  So far it’s had a nice mix of espionage, mystery, in the secret society stalking the team apparently lead by nick Fury, and action, then I shouldn’t have doubted this from Ed Brubraker, who is definitely one of Marvel’s top writers.  Mike Deodato does a star turn on art as well giving us both luxury penthouses and Martian dig sites with ease.  I have a possible theory for this team, with Steve’s “Everyone Is an avenger now” idea I wonder if the roster for Secret Avengers might fluctuate a bit, with Steve doing Mission: Impossible style selections for each specific case.  I’d quite like that although the end of the first arc doesn’t really support this.  It did remove my misgivings regarding Nova being on the team as at the end he flies off and cap notes that he won’t be a reliable team member with his cosmic responsibilities.  Still, I know the story needed Nova but does Cap carry so much weight that Nova would say “Sorry trainee corps, but your most powerful member has to go off and do something for cap, good luck with the evil universe breaking into ours and all.”  Still, interesting stuff, and if it is Nick Fury in this secret society, does that link to the “Zodiac” society we’ve had glimpses of in Secret Warriors?  Or is Nick Fury the Wolverine of secret societies.  The story itself was a good setup involving the Serpent crown, secret societies and a huge throwdown on Mars.  A very solid title indeed.

Avengers Academy
I got over my initial disappointment that this wasn’t a knockabout comedy where mismatched wise-cracking recruits try to defeat the evil machinations of an overbearing guy called Harris.  Instead this replaces The Initiative and so for me has some big shoes to fill.  Fortunately it doesn’t disappoint.  We see a new batch of recruits, all near screw ups, most suffered some sort of abuse under HAMMER rule, all have one thing in common, as they find out they were the kids thought most likely to turn to villainy so the Avengers Academy faculty, as well as teaching them mastery of their powers also have to prevent them from turning.  Christos Gauge has a very nice setup, with the character Veil being the voice for #1 and Finesse for #2, and so far seems to continue through the following isses.  Once the twist is revealed near the end of #1, you can see quite clearly how close our young students are to villains.  Nice to see familiar faces in the faculty as well, although it seems to have its share of screw ups.  Wasp (Hank Pym) leads with Justice, Tigra, Quicksilver and Speedball as trainers.  I’m sure many fans are glad to see the back of Speedball’s Penance phase, me included but it is nice to see Speedball isn’t entirely recovered and back to normal yet, so it doesn't have the stink of a retcon, just progress.  Mike McKone had not been on my radar before, but I do like his work in this.  More importantly, I liked The Initiative because it seemed like Marvel were trying to introduce some new characters and be a little creative, after all in Marvel and DC New Heroes are pretty rare.  What I like about this is that I could believe we may loose a few recruits to villainy, and that would make things very interesting.  This title is half way through its crossover with Thunderbolts called “Scared Straight” while it involves some of the T-Bolts it can be read in isolation (In fact the prison shutdown is handled in less than an issue over in Thunderbolts) but it is interesting to see the members who were directly harmed by osbourne teaming up to go after him.

Looking for cuts in all the wrong places

Surprisingly, we didn’t see the real extent of the coalition’s plans for budget reduction during the budget.  In fact it’s been an ongoing series of small announcements that has shown the full extent of the cuts that they propose.

Much has been written (And very well written) in other places regarding whether these cuts are even necessary, and at base many of them have a point.  It is ideological from the Tory side to reduce the size of the state and favour the private sector.  My problem is that this ideological crusade for “Small state” is blinkering them to better ways at promoting recovery and saving money.
I’m going to try and stay off the “Evil Tory” narrative and portray this purely as how I see it, bearing in mind that I’m an engineer not an economist.

During the election campaign Cameron talked about reducing council wastage, seemingly a war on glossy leaflets and expensive police cars.  (The police car story in question was pretty well debunked) At the time I wondered if there were really enough savings in this area to hack chunks out of the deficit.  Now, I understand every little helps, but, like the police car story I think much of this has been based on a perception of reality rather than reality, namely that councils are full of jobsworths who haemorrhage money in pointless projects.  No where is this clearer than in Eric Pickles recent idiotic crusade against “Unnecessary” road signs.  There he was, on BBC breakfast wondering around London pointing at signs asking “Why is that there” or declaring “That’s totally pointless”.  As I said previously, I’m an engineer not an economist, and so as an engineer who has studied highway engineering I can tell Mr Pickles that the road signs are there for one of two reasons, first, and by far the most prominent will be because the signs presence is stated in the Design manual for Roads and Bridges, which states, amongst many other things, what signs must be placed where and at what intervals.  As the representative of the council said on the same BBC breakfast news, if a sign warning of a speed limit or parking restriction isn’t where it is legally prescribed then enforcement of any charges there is impossible. 

The second reason is that there has been a reported need for such signage, this could be questioned but is quite often borne out of accident black spots, say a one way street which is hard to identify, may well have increased signage.  The only other signs are ones directing you to places.  Now here’s a wee contrast.  Drive through Glasgow, particularly the south side, not many road signs; now try to find the M8, The science centre or the Burrel collection.  All are badly signposted with some roundabouts being completely unsigned.  Compare this with Dundee, loads of sign posts but finding your way around is easy as signs are placed in advance of turnoffs allowing you to find lanes etc.  I did laugh when the council official challenged Eric Pickles to take a trip around his borough with a camera crew and point out what signs he thought were surplus to requirements and the council official would explain why it was there.  Sadly I fear that uninformed blowhards making opinionated judgements will be a sad hallmark of the coalition’s cuts.
The second place where “Wastage” will be cut from the public sector is in staff.  This is based around the narrative that public services are filled to the gunnels with “non Jobs” and that this was a handy way for Labour to appear to reduce unemployment figures.  This approach has two problems.
First, assuming that the staff cuts are these non-jobs, and I accept some of these do exist, although like the savings Cameron said he could get from glossy leaflets I suspect far fewer than are needed to make the numbers talked about, the government is going to be paying these people one way or another, they might as well be recouping some of the money as tax, be it income, NI, VAT or any other tax.  Cutting their jobs means you pay less, but both government and the private sector get less out of them in the long run.  Still at least this one I would concede is arguable and depends on your opinion.

When asked about cuts it is always stated to come from wasteful “Backroom” posts, to you or me this means, admin.  I’ve previously posted on how underappreciated admin staff are, and this is the same thing writ large.  The Coalition is sadly filled with managers, they’ve never done admin, and they don’t understand it or indeed see the point of it.  Whenever admin is being cut anywhere what you have to remember is it needs to be done.  An administrator will do it efficiently, sack the administrator and suddenly doctors, engineers, managers and everyone else has to cover that work.  It means either record keeping becomes sloppy, and this can have serious consequences, or that the people covering admin have less time to do their actual job.  Either work falls behind causing problems or more expensive professionals have to be hired to balance the workload of a relatively cheap administrator.

The third is the daily mail favourite, Benefit fraudsters.  Yes the damnable scroungers who take from taxpayers like you and me to buy their big tellies and tasteless trainers.  Now I’m not a fan of benefit fraudsters, ideally I would like to see them all stopped, but is it really as big a problem as something like Tax evasion.  Well, financially speaking benefit fraud costs us around 1.6bn, quite a bit (I won’t go into the 5bn odd bandied about which actually lumped in errors) tax evasion, and this is evasion rather than all the people doing perfectly legal avoidance, is worth 15bn in unpaid taxes.  So, if you were looking for some quick cash and wanted a group to pursue, which would you pick.  I don’t buy the argument that tax evaders are harder to catch; the actual hardcore fraudsters are every bit as skilled as the accountants working for tax evaders.  I would guess that going after “Scroungers” is a good headline grabber when in reality all that will happen is more difficulty and pressure on legitimate claimants, after all they provide details and so are the easy target.  In fact they recently told the FT that they should be less black and white on tax evasion, could you imagine the uproar if someone said that about benefit fraud.  It would definitely be a better use of scarce resources to go after tax evaders and closing tax avoidance loopholes.  I did like some of the suggestions on the spending challenge website.  These included anyone involved in UK politics or the running of the country must be a taxpayer, and anyone running any news media in the UK must also be a taxpayer.  Can’t see why either of these would be unpopular with the public so I expect to see these go ahead soon, unless Mr Osborne can come up with a reason why not.

The final miss-step I will look at is the seemingly ever-present thought that farming things out to the private sector will always save money.  This is one of the places where the Tory Private Sector good, public bad dogma rears its ugly head.  They won’t consider, despite the evidence to the contrary, that privatisation is not always the answer.  At a basic level it seems simple; you pay a company to undertake running a utility or service at an agreed cost.  The up side is that the company may well already have staff on its payroll and an admin department to save the trouble of running one yourself.  Also, private companies have to make a profit and so will run at maximum efficiency.  This assumes that public run organisations can not run efficiently because of the lack of a profit motive.  While I would agree that many don’t I reject this.  There is no reason why a non profit public utility can’t run as efficiently as a profit chasing company.  Particularly undertaking public services.

Second problem, regulation.  If you take anything out of public ownership it requires independent regulators (Public run organisations are regulated by govt departments) which equals expensive Quangos.  Sadly this is directly tied to the profit motive mentioned earlier.  Regulators are required to ensure private firms provide the contracted services to the agreed standard.  Without regulation the government would be faced with constantly pursuing companies for breach of contract, and anyone following the Edinburgh trams farce can see how easy that is.  Or indeed, to take the example of the East Coast train provider Stagecoach, there came a point where the fines for reneging on their contract were less than the losses they were incurring on running the service.  This was in a regulated industry and net result was government having to take back control, effectively paying for the running of East Coast trains twice.  I suspect that the same thing will happen when Connaught finally fail.

I hope this hasn’t come across as Tory bashing; my problem is that the coalition is trying to solve a huge problem by only considering the world through their narrow ideology.  It is blinding them to other solutions and that can only be a bad thing.  It’s never good whey party dogma interferes with dealing with a problem.  George Osborne has recently said that he wants to see £4 public sector cuts for every £1 tax rise and what occurred to me is that he wouldn’t even consider that the other way around.

Posting from a Blackberry

Last year I opened up a WordPress mirror site to mirror the existing Blogger version of this blog in order to circumvent my work’s internet blocking software. It didn’t work. I did keep the WordPress account open and running in tandem because frankly I wasn’t sure which one I preferred.

Recently I got my phone upgrade and opted for one of these new fangled smart phones although many would argue a BlackBerry curve is neither new or smart, could be worse I could have an Iphone. Anyway I wondered how easy posting would be for each site.

Blogger
This was a disappointment. Google have a suite of applications in the Google mobile app but blogger is not one of those which is a little odd, this would be fine if the Blogger site was optimised for mobile browsing. It isn’t, in fact its unusable so basically posting on the move isn’t going to happen on blogger hence why this post is appearing on WordPress before blogger.

WordPress
And over at wordpress it couldn’t be more different. I get a dedicated app which gives me most of the features I’d get on the web version plus the option to save drafts to the phone, handy when I’m on night shift in a dead zone. Overall a very satisfactory experience.
So, will blogger be dumped for this? No, typing a short post like this is sore on the thumbs, so web will still be my primary option, but this is nice to have. Get it sorted google.

I love it when a Film comes together.

I recently saw the new A-Team remake and I thought I'd do a post on it.

For those who don't know, the A-Team was originally a US action TV series about an on the run military unit who helped out people in need. It ran from 1982-1987 and when shown in the UK when I was about 4 or 5 it was a major part of my childhood.

Unlike some of the other integral parts of my childhood, such as Knight Rider, which is still fun as an adult, the A-Team still stands up. It's not high art, but it treads a very fine line with comedy plans, situations and solutions to problems, played largely straight by the characters. When I heard there was a remake in the mix I had misgivings. The balance of comedy and action without the characters ever slipping into playing it for comedy would be a hard nut to crack. My biggest fears for a big budget remake were basically split into 3 groups.

1. Dark and gritty, yes it worked for Galactica, but making the A-Team a dark action film about hard-bitten soldiers would have at best been a good film, but it wouldn't be the A-Team.

2. The Starskey and Hutch route, going into it with a knowing silliness and straight comedy. Again could have been good, wouldn't have been The A-team

3. A Gangsta rapper being cast as BA. They;d be lining up to play a larger than life character originally portrayed by wrestler Mr T, and the studios would love the extra draw a Rapper would give, but I bet it would become a "Vehicle" film, with every other cast member becoming a cipher for BA to riff off of.

Fortunately, none of this happened. Instead the studio brought in Stephen J Cannell, one of the original creators and as a result what we got was a film that can be listed as the best of any of the recent spate of remakes. This is the A-team of my youth, its a perfect reproduction.

Laim Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Sharlto Copeley star as Hannibal, Face, BA and Murdoch respectively, the film tells an origin story (Which If I recall we never saw on the small screen). We see the gang get together and perform the heist that had them incarcerated, although the action is obviously moved to the Iraq war rather than Vietnam. After a double cross by some Private military Contractors our team find themselves Locked up in a maximum security stockade, they promptly escape and go out for revenge. Dogged by soldiers trying to retrieve them and a corrupt CIA agent they must uncover the conspiracy that landed them in jail.

The cast make the film, they nail the characters, ok so we have a slight subplot of Face making a plan instead, and a mentor/student relationship between Face and Hannibal, and a similar plot regarding a significantly less angry BA, but it doesn't jar or seem out of place even to an old fan such as myself. The Murdoch/BA bickering is note perfect (In fact Copeley is probably the best in his depiction of Murdoch, a character which could have easily descended into pratfalls and silly voices) we have OTT action, convoluted plans and baddies getting their comeuppance.

This film is not High art, but it left me with a huge grin on my face, to be honest a picture of my huge grin would have been a better, less wordy review.

The Mantra

No posts for a bit, been busy apologies to both my readers.

Our coalition government has now been running things for a few months now, and when I get round to it there will be a post about that, but it's not what I'm going to talk about today.

There are two untruths that are being repeated by the government, one is by both parties in the coalition and one is by the Tories principally. Untruths is perhaps a harsh word but it has the feeling of repeating an interpretation of events enough to make people believe it. So far at least question time audiences aren't convinced.

First, what I call The Mantra

Every time cuts, economic uncertainty and recession are mentioned, particularly when the con-dems are coming under fire for enacting the Tory dream of small state under the auspices of austerity measures they repeat the same thing. We're in this mess because Labour spent all the money on an unweildly large state. Keep an ear out, you'll hear it next time cuts are mentioned within earshot of one of the coalition.

I might be remembering wrong, but isn't our current economic state due to a global financial collapse caused by investment banks trading in toxic debt and making very risky investments for short-term gain, resulting in the treasury having to pay billions to bail out banks? Now, I grant if Labour had properly adhered to the Keynesian plan we should have had a surplus to deal with the inevitable recession and their state was getting pretty big, but the cause, no that was bad banking practice. In fact it was bad banking practice that has largely gone unchanged. The pain has not been felt in investment, due to that fun sub-myth that all our bankers will run off to more relaxed governments if we make things too hard for them. this is rubbish too, lets face it, they're not keen to leave London unless it's for somewhere like Switzerland or the nicer tax havens. And anyone who can go there was offered during the times of plenty, these places are not short on bankers.

Labour is getting it from the coalition for two reasons, the first is simple, The Tories and lib-dems stand to be really unpopular for some of the measures that need to be taken, trying to pass some of that buck to the previous administration is just politics. The other is far more Tory. Many Tories are bankers, or heavily linked to banks. Quite frankly it suits them to cover for their mates, after all favours and tips not to mention cushy jobs post government will be harder to come by if you pointed out your benefactors as the cause of all our woes. It also fits the Tory line that "Big State" caused all the problems not private enterprise. We'll see if this little bit of misinformation takes root.

Second, The Tories have a Mandate from the people.

We hear this a lot, the Tories are still trying to claim some sort of Victory from the Election (An Election that no-one one, let's make that clear) because their guy is in No 10. The only policies the Tories can claim a mandate from are the ones they shared in election manifestos with the Lib Dems, anything else over 60% of the population actually said they didn't want. So, massive cuts, nope,. Big society, no, repeal of fox-hunting, think not, Dismantling the BBC, was that in anyone's manifesto? Youd o hear Tories occasionally trying to claim victory, seemingly in the hope that we'll believe it and assume someone voted for this pap, or indeed that they're allowed to do this because they're in charge. Its worth reminding them this si not the case, more importantly, if your MP is an apologist, sorry Lib-Dem, make a noise, remind them that you and 60% of the population voted against this.

There are other little falsehoods being planted with the hope that they become accepted fact. I'm keeping an eye out for them and will try to blog about them when I can.

Elite Revisited

Back in the mists of time, nearly 30 years ago, it was the 80s Some people regard this as a golden age of video gaming, where you couldn’t sell a game on looks alone and playability was everything. To be honest this is rose tinted glasses thinking most of the time, many games were simple, on occasion addictive but ultimately disposable, requiring far less commitment than the modern equivalent.

Elite wasn’t one of these, it was miles ahead of its time and did amazing things with the very limited resources of the BBC micro. Elite was one of the first “sandbox” games. The premise, you are someone with a spaceship; it has some weapons, a cargo hold and an engine, keep it flying and earn credits to buy add-ons and extras. How you earned money, up to you, you could mine asteroids, hunt pirates, raid other ships, trade legitimately or trade in contraband. Best of all you could switch as the mood took you, although another nice touch was that piracy and smuggling tended to get the attention of the space police which could make your life far more difficult.

After seeing a few documentaries about Elite, I decided to try and find an emulated version to play. The Easiest to find was Elite: The New kind, seemingly a port of the PC version, featuring solid 3D shapes as opposed to the wireframes. There is an old adage of never meeting your heroes, particularly when they’ve aged over 20 years. Elite, I’m proud to say is not this sort of game. Despite the lack of a premise, Goal or score beyond your credits it instantly draws you in. Controls are simple although the keymapping of this particular version isn’t particularly intuitive and you find your hand having to shift between setting speed and firing when a better layout it could have done both. Gameplay is repetitive, but no more than some modern MMOs, you jump to a system, fly to the planet, avoiding/fighting anyone who tries to rob you on the way, dock with the space station and take on fuel/cargo/upgrades as required. Once you get the fuel scoop buying fuel can be replaced with skimming the sun in the system. The look of the game, the lack of any in game music helps the atmosphere, silence as you fly towards a planet broken up by the noise of lasers if you get attacked.

I generally find I play as a trader/bounty hunter, since carrying cargo of any value attracts pirates and fighting them off can sometimes be more lucrative than the cargo run.

It is odd how you get drawn in to such a simple world, you feel genuine joy when you manage a steal on some cargo (Finding something dirt cheap somewhere and selling for huge profit) and similarly the relief when a hard fight ends and you’re left waiting for your power cells to recharge.

The funny thing is, it is truly sandbox, you can (Within the limits of what the game actually contains) do anything, where as modern sandbox games sometimes try to hold a narrative (GTA, I’m looking at you) for progress, in Elite the universe is there, you just have to spend the time exploring it.

I hear that if I like Elite I’d love EVE on line, essentially modern Elite as an MMO, and indeed I can see how well it would work as one, but I encourage any readers to give Elite a go.

I am the Faceless Blogger Woooooo

I thought, since I’ve written a bit of political stuff, I’d explain why I blog from behind the very attractive but ultimately faceless façade of the Pie Man.

What it boils down to is my job, now I’m not going to tell you what that is beyond its in civil engineering; those who know me know what I do. The problem is twofold.

First, I do worry about my employers monitoring the net. Other companies have done it, and while I can’t update my blog from work it is out there for all to see. Even if I didn’t say what I did I doubt they’d be happy if their monitoring flagged up a critical article by their employees. I like blogging, more than my job, but until people will pay me equivalent salary for this random emptying of my mind anonymous will have to do. There are links between my real identity and my blog, but you’d have to find them (It’s not actually that hard but I’ll hardly tell you). There have been existing cases of employees sacked over the content of their blogs, so I’ll at least make linking me with my blog that much harder.

Second, Lazy Journalists. So, I write a piece critical of my company, or indeed my union near an upcoming strike. When one or the other comes under scrutiny journalist have often searched for key words and phrases in the hope of finding some internal bitching. This sort of thing got some MPs in trouble after their twitter feeds were followed last election. Now this may seem like me seeming overly self important, but I don’t want to read an article stating “Worker in company X blasts management/unions” and a reveal of my name may well lead to a discovery of my employer. This one is more pernicious. While my company not liking what I’ve written I can defend by pointing out my relative anonymity and how I do not say it is the opinions of an employee, something hitting the presses on the other hand is harder, as in public my name and status as an employee would be front and centre. To this end I do self censor a lot, both in blogs and forums, a shame because a couple of times saying I work where I work, or even quoting standards could have easily won arguments. This I think is wrong. I shouldn’t have to fear reprisals from what I post online, I would ask if ranting in the pub would receive the same scrutiny, but the only difference is I’m less likely to be near someone who can report it nationally while ranting in my local while on a blog it is there, and there for a good while.

I would like to see my right to express opinions about my work, employers and related gubbins protected, so that my boss can’t sack me for expressing opinion (Hell, I even have a comments section, that’s right to reply there you know) and I’d also like my blog posts to be protected by some form of copyright, namely that if anyone wants to use them they have to ask permission. Its new legal ground and I’ll be interested to see how many sackings we get before something is done.

Iron Man 2

Well, I posted a bit showing my excitement for this film, and I have actually seen it, should I perhaps post a review. I will warn at the moment, I won’t shy away from spoilers.

First, a plot summary, picking up where Iron man left off, Tony Stark has gone public about being Iron Man, and has been using the armour for some time, both in a “Fighting Evil” role and for publicity stunts like we see in the opening. Only problem is that the Arc Reactor in his chest is slowly killing him and as he sees death coming Stark begins to act more and more recklessly. A situation not helped by senate hearings demanding Stark hand over Iron man to the military and a new threat in the form of Disgruntled Russian Vanko.

This film has taken a fair amount of criticism, mainly for being more of the same. For my money I think more of Iron Man is no bad thing, there were some nice echoes to Tony’s remarkably flaky character, and particularly the Demon in a bottle Story as Stark goes off the rails in quite a bad way. While Vanko is more grunts and gestures as a villain perhaps the real for is Justin Hammer, a rival arms manufacturer who works really well as a potential rival to carry through future films. It also sets up a bigger supporting cast, we saw Nick Fury at the end of Iron man and we’re also introduced to The Black Widow as well as more screen time for Faverau himself as Happy Hogan and Don Cheadle taking the role of Jim Rhodes/War Machine and making it his own.

On the Cheadle/Howard front. I had no objections to Cheadle, and actually think he captured the comic’s version of Jim Rhodes and particularly War Machine that may not have suited Howard’s depiction in the first film.

Criticisms, well, introducing such a big cast means some people get less screen time, Vanko isn’t particularly fleshed out as the main Villain, and we don’t see that much of Black Widow. If you’re wanting a non-stop action fest then you’ll probably be disappointed too as there is still more Tony than Iron Man.

Thing is, to me Iron Man has always been more about Tony than Iron Man. He’s often compared to Batman (Both rich orphans who dress up and fight crime) however, while with Batman there is a real ambiguity over whether Bruce Wayne dresses up as batman, or batman dresses up as Bruce Wayne, there was never such ambiguity with Iron Man. People criticise Tony’s wisecracking and the films humour, but this is part of his character. Indeed while I’m never sure about Tony/pepper pairings the chemistry between the characters and the witty rapport would be sorely missed if it was excised from the film, more so if it was excised for brooding.

I suppose you’ll like or dislike this film based on how much you like the central premise of Iron Man. I’ve heard people complain that it lacked Darkness or grit, yes it does, and to add that to Iron man would make it more generic and less unique. If you accept that this is a film about a guy who, to an extent masks his insecurities with a bombastic public persona, and a big metal suit you’ll definitely have more fun.

For Fans, the film has some really good references. Obviously we all love the Avengers stuff and the Thor cameo post credits, but there were other gems. During the race scene one car is sponsored by Roxxon, a fictional Marvel company, Cap’s Shield makes an appearance again and my personal favourite is the War Machine suit being called the Variable Threat Response suit, a nod to the comic’s designation. In fact, a nice touch is the lack of people calling themselves names. Rhodes never calls himself War Machine (Although Tony calls him this once) and similarly Vanko doesn’t turn up saying “Cower Iron Man, now you face the might of Whiplash” its good, fans and toy manufacturers know who these people are, but to add their names to dialogue would seem clunky. Not that it may not happen in the future, particularly if Titanium Man or Crimson Dynamo makes an appearance. (You could argue that Crimson Dynamo already has although he wasn’t crimson)

So, I really enjoyed this, and it has 100% more War Machine tan any other film released in 2010, in fact than any film released to date, so that must count in its favour.

Neeeeerds!

I recently had the good fortune to attend a meet of some of the Scottish members of SFX Magazine’s forum in Glasgow. It was good fun, yes it was only an afternoon and there were only 8 of us, but as a geek, being in the company of other geeks is fun. In fact, this is true in general and regardless of the focus of your geeky tendencies.

In a recent Top gear the challenge was to buy a classic car and race it in a classics time trial event. At the car auction at the start Clarkson and Hammond were being slightly disparaging of the enthusiasts, the John major voice came out along with the classic phrase “I think you’ll find” which is now pretty much used inside most fandoms to represent the joy in geeky pedantry. However by the end they were ruminating on how nice it was not to have to hide the excesses of their hobby (In this case, cars) and this is what I get when I meet up with reilly2040 and other nerds, you can use references as humour, in jokes and talk about the subject of your geekery without fear that the other parties will be bored or about to mock you. In short this is presumably what fans of football and trendy music, plus probably eastenders and “in” TV shows get every day.

You see, just about all of us have something that enthuses us; I have a good few, must be a personality trait that I take laser like interest in various things. None of them particularly useful (My wife wished I’d do the same but with Plumbing, or gas fitting, or car mechanics) If you have a hobby or an interest, you are probably a geek. Yes its usually bundled on for Sci-Fi fans, but geeks take many forms, and indeed, within their specific geek/nerddom there are subdivisions going to a fractal level, You like Cars, well are you interested in mechanics, motor sport or cars themselves, Cars? Supercars, performance, classic, vintage or Modding? With subjects like cars, most music and gaming, plus the obvious SF and Fantasy, we know we’re nerds; the difference is in the ones who have massive fan bases, making interest near universal, Football, Sports in general and fashionable music. You meet people who have a great interest in these subjects, but would never call themselves a nerd. Sir Terry Pratchett has pointed this out on many occasions. There is sometimes a sneering “I’m not like you” from the football fan, or the guy on his way to a trendy indy gig. In truth the only difference is the football fans biggest fear is being the lone supporter in a workplace, while SF fans have to feel out others like us.

It’s why all the smaller fandoms meet, be it in Metal Bars or at the end of station platforms. We all know the score in those locations and we can bring down the screens that we put up to interact with everyone else, all of whom are similarly hiding their own secret Nerd tendencies, we’ll play up our interest in football, (Or indeed talk about that as it may be as big a love as our love of Motorways) but somewhere you want to talk about something else to a like minded person.

So, attend meets, talk on forums and engage with your fellow geeks. You won’t regret it.

Strange Bedfellows

I was going to try and cut down my political blogging to make way form more SF/Comic/general nerdyness but the coalition government looks like it’s going to be churning out some interesting stuff for the next few years and so I will probably continue to comment on politics issues despite others doing it far better than myself. Don’t panic, there will also be more geeky goodness to come.

So, some interesting observations on our new government. First and foremost, as a sandal wearing muesli munching lefty it’s been quite funny to see the abject fury of many Tories that they don’t have a government all to themselves. For some reason they seem to believe that because they voted Conservative they are owed a conservative government, despite more people voting for someone else. Still, the party whose ideals clearly didn’t suit over 60% of the population are more or less in charge and surely that’s better than nothing for all the Tories out there? No? Well tough.

I’ve been drawing a parallel with 1997 regarding the Tories. In 1997 when New Labour was looking ever more distant to its socialist origins I often asked “old School” labour supporters how they could follow a party who had ditched much of what they stood for. “Ah” said the old labour supporter, adjusting his flat cap and sipping a half of mild (That bit probably isn’t true) “They’re just doing that to get in, you know, get it past the middle classes, once they’re elected Blair and his lot will be out and the old labourites will take over again” I wondered about the fairness of this, but since what you see on the manifesto is rarely what you get I let it lie. Of course, it came as no surprise to me that the party who won as New Labour indeed ruled as New labour, but the old trots must have been shocked when no one wanted to support a leadership coup on the guy who had won such a landslide. There is a difference in the Tory party, but it has similar echoes. Obviously for starters they didn’t have a landslide, or indeed a majority, although it seems many people think they still are owed their time in charge regardless of the election results, the opinions of Tory voters clearly, in their minds, outweighing everyone else. Second is the shock that the party hasn’t dumped all that compassionate stuff they mentioned while trying to be elected. What’s even more fun is that the wingnut hard right thatcherite contingent believe that Cameron lost the election (Open for discussion) and that if the party had been in full on Thatcherism mode then it would have been in the bag, where the percentage of votes and indeed seats really doesn’t reflect this. Do they believe that the many Labour and Lib-Dem voters didn’t vote Conservative because it wasn’t right wing enough? Or do they think that they could have won more votes off of UKIP and the BNP? Or perhaps are they more deluded than the old trots in ’97, not just believing that the party will do an about face but that people decided to vote the polar opposite to their way of thinking simply because it wasn’t available.

The Coalition itself is interesting as well. Both parties have risk and reward in equal measure. The Lib-Dems get a better chance than they would have in opposition to enact their policies, they can claim experience in government to quash the old argument hat they are “inexperienced” and finally, they can show a coalition works, important if you’re trying to sell PR to a public whoa re told by our dear press that coalitions are two steps away from anarchy. They risk loosing votes to Labour (Depending on how it reforms post defeat) through being seen to side with “The Enemy” I’ll be particularly interested to see how much ground Labour and the SNP take in the Scottish parliament elections. Second, this will be a bad few years with heavy cuts and a very good chance of increasing unemployment. This double whammy may kill the Lib-Dems next election, or should they have things turned round in 5 years (Assuming it lasts) will they gain ground. Meanwhile the Tories get to be in the driving seat of Government, Dave gets to be PM and they are definitely the controlling stakeholder. They also get to pass some of the blame for the coming painful years on to the Lib-Dems, effectively meaning only one big party can capitalise from these intervening years. It’s also been very useful for Cameron, he can blame the ditching of many of the more wingnut Tory policies on the necessity to get the lib-dems on board, where, from what the scuttlebutt has been saying, the negotiators were asking for the lib-dems to demand concessions. They risk a party split over this, with the “Wets” and Lib Dems on one side, and the Thatcherites on the other. This could be a very damaging split.

Cameron has played this incredibly well though, kudos to the man (Still don’t like him but I’m man enough to say when someone’s impressed me) the increased 55% for a no-confidence vote should keep the coalition stable, and in fact I’d suggest to Labour MPs to make sure it stays, you can rest easy in opposition while the coalition doles out cut after cut, and foster even more division and resentment in the Tory party. Second, the fixed term, with any luck they’ll get a couple of years of recovery, important to salve the wounds of the oncoming cuts, but they need time to blot the memory of the hard years, plus it makes both parties look like they want fixed terms.

Overall, interesting times for those of us who consider politics like sport.

A Discussion on Immirgation

This article won't be a discussion on immigration per se.

One of the arguments you hear from the right/anti-immigration side is that parties like UKIP and the BNP (Yes, I mention them in the same breath because they are the same) are merely a symptom of not being allowed to discuss immigration without being called racist, or indeed as some papers say, in between headlines and front pages about immigration, "You can't talk about immigration".

So, I'm putting in a suggestion on how a discussion on immigration where the pro immigration side, will discuss immigration without calling you racist, bigoted or any other accusation of that ilk regardless of how racist you get.

This isn't a free ride, any anti-immigration types who participate have to agree to some terms of my own devising, gleaned from many a head/brick wall interface type conversation I've had with them in the past.

First, argument must be conducted online in a discussion forum type environment, this allows both sides to cite articles, studies and websites and have plenty of time to read and counterpoint them.

Second, Argument must be based on facts, statistics and reports, not anecdote, opinion or editorial. The number of times I've been in a discussion and quoted, for example that Legal migrants are entitled to all our benefits, as they have come over here with a job at some point and therefore paid tax, Asylum seekers get £30 odd a week and illegals get nothing, being illegal. Only to be told that "I see them every day and they get more than that" Back it up, with facts and figures, otherwise I might as well respond "No they don't, I see them not get benefits every day." Similarly, the oft stated claim that "They don't integrate" prove it, both sides, have studies been done. I recall one (Can't find a citation sadly) which actually said your average muslim migrant read the sun, watched X-Factor, supported the local football team and worried about immigrants (Seriously) how is that not integrating.

Third, the anti-immigration side have to specify at each point who "They" are. Again I've been in arguments where "Immigrant" flits between someone in from the EU, someone on a student Visa, economic migrant, illegal migrant and asylum seeker. (In truth this is because most anti-immigration types don't know the difference)

Fourth, leave your tin-foil hat at the door. There is no point pretending to have a discussion with someone only to respond to a set of facts with "Oh well they would say that" If you have a fault with the figures, by all means, lest see a factual backing up of these, or a scientific deconstruction of the methods. I've seen this done in just about all of migration watch's stuff and its a perfectly valid form of argument. Claiming the figures were "Made up" because they don't fit your view is not.

Finally, both sides must be willing to give ground. Again the pro-immigration lobby (Aside from their more lunatic fringes) are better at this, accept that people have concerns, that these can be in the form of their communities changing, and that sometimes an influx of migrants makes them feel like they're being squeezed out, and their voice may not be heard (A bit like being me in a seat where everyone else is happy with Douglas Alexander) the anti-immigration side will similarly have to be open to accept that the line fed to them by the daily mail is actually based on a slanted editorial agenda and that their life views may in fact be wrong. (Sorry, that in itself is slanted, but purely because the bulk of research I've read shows it to be the case)

The tabloid calls for open discussion mean on their terms, basically say what we like without accusations of racism. The structure I suggested would produce a real discussion, but not one I suspect the anti-immigration supporters would enjoy.

What Went Wrong?

The results are in, and the good news is we have a Hung Parliament, bad news is the change didn't go as hoped. Tabloid fear mongering and the usual last ditch of the traditional parties in "Vote for anyone other than us, get them" worked once again to deliver the usual, bland old election result. We also lost a good MP in the form of Dr Evan Harris (LD) and kept some particularly poor ones in Nadine Dorres (Con) and David Tredinic. Overall very disappointing. Only good news was the Greens won a seat.

I was looking forward to a wide open election, no seat is safe, who knows who would win. A combination of the expenses and the lib dem surge should have given this, but instead voters decided that they fear the unknown, and got it anyway.

Worse, as we speak Nick Clegg may well be selling his granny for a taste of power.

That's unfair, but from experience in the Scottish parliament, the lib dems will drop any flagship policy for a go at being in charge. Basically, as I stand, if he gives up PR for forming a government, well, the Lib Dems won't be getting my vote for a very long time.

Nick has other options. My prefered one is to form the "Rainbow Coalition" Lib dem, Labour and lots of smaller parties, with a goal of electoral reform and fiscal stability. Problem is that this is about 100 times more likely to collapse than a simple 2 party coalition, and this would certainly mean that a future election campaign would be run with a "Don't want a hung parliament again do you" a shame because it is the more grown up, evolved form of democracy.

The other way I would be interested to see would be a minority Tory government, heinous as the concept of 5 years of conservatism is, the current party is already tearing itself apart over not winning, and the offer they tabled for the Lib Dems in public showed very little in the way of compromise, it could be a good excercise in growing up and not always getting your way to have to get each policy through on its merits and on bill by bill agreements, much as the SNP do in Scotland.

A mean part of me also sees how much the torys are tearing themselves apart over not winning, and so I can only see further division when they don't get their own way and can't do favours for their big donors. In that vein I also hope that should Cameron end up in Downing street and Mr Murdoch comes asking for his pound of flesh, Cameron response is "Where's my majority you feeble tuppence" closely followed by "And by the way, I'm going to legislate against you ruling so much of the news medial you useless bastard" Indeed I hope the "Sun wot won it" myth is finally gone, since tory support fell away once the sun got on board.

For a last bit of Tory bashing, I do find it funny that the torys are now doing the "Back room deals" that they said were a terrible undemocratic thing, guess that only applies in a Lib-Lab pact. Second, some top tories are calling for Cameron to be removed and replaced as leader, so, they'd have a PM who was not elected, much the same criticism that they used on Gordon Brown the past few years eh?

Bloody hypocrites.

The Obligatory Election Post

As some who live in britain may be aware, there is an election going on. Now, I've been trying to shy away from political blogging mainly due to my inability to do it particularly well, but I'll once again have a crack at it.

Many blogs will start with the phrase "Now I won't tell you who to vote for" but I'm different, I will, sort of, not really. At least I'm honest in trying to influence your vote, of course the reach of this blog particularly in a blogsphere full of blogs about the election means the effect will be about as much as my actual seat (Ultra safe labour), but, like voting for someone who isn't Douglas Alexander, I'll still write it. So, who do you vote for.

First, turn up to vote. I can't stress this enough, whatever level of hell we end up in its twice your fault if you didn't even bother getting out to vote. Spoil your ballot paper, write a protest, it doesn't get officially counted but you never know. Either way get off your sofa and Vote.

Second, if you have a good constituency MP, vote for them, regardless of party (Unless you find their politics particularly odious). Good constituency MPs are worth their weight in gold and don't let simple tribalism or anti-labour/tory sentiment do you out of a good one. How do you know? Well ask around, have they ever helped anyone you know? Do they hold regular surgeries, and finally, bt by no means foolproof, how often do they break ranks in votes. In general safe seats are held by one of two types of MP, good constituency MPs who could get voted in as an independent if de-selected, or Yes men (Douglas, I'm looking at you) who are more concerned about being de-selected by the party than serving their constituents. The former can break the whip without fear of reprisal, the latter can not.

Third, obviously considering the last post, don't vote conservative. I don't like being so blatantly partisan, but Don't. Now, you may ask why. Well I personally dislike their policies but there si something greater than my whims. Teh Tories are tied in very deeply with Rupert Murdoch and its been fun watching his papers scramble with the fear that the election may not be the forgone conclusion that Labour was in 1997, but a Tory loss this year would finally dispel the myth that the Murdoch papers decide election results rather than, say merely back winners. This would hopefully mean that never again will our leaders do shady deals with this millionaire tyrant in order to curry his favour, and the hopeless optimist in me also hopes for the new government, whatever its configuration, to perhaps consider the implications of one man holding this much power in the delivery of news and finally do something about it.

Fourth, Break safe seats, you may not unseat a candidate, but try to unseat some safe labour or tory ministers, or at least make the election night that bit less comfortable. Preferably do this voting for a smaller party, such as the Greens or indeed the lib-dems. You may not shift the yes man, but hopefully it will be a reminder of who they work for.

Fifth, ignore the scaremongering of a hung parliament. Alex Salmond of the SNP is right, despite my post about compromise politics, Minority governments and coalitions are the ultimate destination of true democracy. It means those who didn't vote for the winners can still have their views mean something, yes all too often the politicians take the huff and stop playing, but if we keep returning balanced parliaments they'll get the message.

Finally, vote for who you believe in, ignore all the parties saying candidate X will never win, they only won't win if no-one votes for them. In '97 safe seats fell, and they hopefully will this year. IF you like the greens, Vote green, if you like the lib-dems, vote lib dem, if you like UKIP or the BNP, stay at home (Ok vote, but you're wrong in just about every way) with any luck by next election we will finally be rid of this antiquated voting system and we can then see real change.

My vote, is private, but I'll tell you where I'm leaning, as I have no green candidate, its between the Lib-Dems and the SNP. The Lib-Dems, because It would be a real kicker for them to actually win the same or better seats than the other two. contrary to what the papers report the surge started before Nick Cleggs appearance on the leaders debates (Which also, contrary to what they said, he won and Cameron lost, on all fronts) because somehow people decided that they might win, and therefore weren't a wasted vote. They definitely represent the most liberal views of the big three. My other choice, the SNP. I'm still in principle opposed to Scottish independence but they do have some other attractive policies and have signed up to the Power 2010 pledge. Plus in the Scottish Leaders Debate Alex Salmond said the most sensible things about immigration (Here's a hint, it was the very opposite of the Daily Mail's stance) anyone has said all campaign. That alone is worth support.

Lets hope this all turns out, there's a feeling that we're close to real change, Not the kind Cameron is pedaling, I mean ground breaking change, it's a dream, so close you can touch it, I almost don't dare speak about it lest it melts and vanishes for all time. Its hope.

So am I a Syfy fan now?

The UK Sci-fI channel has followed its US companion and re-branded to SyFy. This is despite most people thinking the re-branding was stupid and pointless. Presumably it is in aid of something like "Brand Cohesion" or "Reflexive corporate image synergy" or some other meaningless marketing rubbish, probably dreamed up by the same person who said "Why are we just selling to geeks, if we call it the Syfy channel instead of Sci-Fi we'll remove that stigma that has stopped people watching it for ages. It even has a tagline "Imagine greater" and why when I am World dictator marketing people will have a hard time of things. I can't believe anyone looks at Syfy and thinks "hmm" then sees "Imagine greater" and says "I'm sold"

No, marketing dude, that was probably the period, which Sc-Fi is only just coming out of, where the channel seemed to be trying to show as little Sci-Fi as possible.

I remember the old days of the sci-fi channel, it was unashamedly geeky, Bionic Wednesdays, where a whole afternoon was filled with repeats of the Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman, MST3K, Quantum Leap. Sure, it lacked anything you hadn't seen before, even its films were usually old, and not the blockbusters either. But damn it I watched it, because sometimes I want to see old SF series. The channel evolved a little in the early 2000's, taking a slightly "Weird" approach it almost looked like the guy who is an enormous geek but tries to claim he's more "Alternative" Still, it hadn't lost too much of its geeky content, and even netted some of the better leftovers from Sky and BBC clearing the US Schedules. Without Sci-Fi then I wouldn't have seen Now and Again. They also introduced themed slots, like saturday morning carrying a couple of hours about Anime, with reports on japanese culture and usually a couple of Anime series (To my memory it was the excellent Neon Genesis Evangelion and the odd but fun Martian Successor Nadesco) along with themed horror nights on friday nights. These two periods represent in my opinion some of the best programming on the sci-fi channel.

It went a bit downhill from there, the channel seemed ashamed to keep showing its old repeats and similarly didn't buy anything particularly expensive, what resulted was a mass of duff "Direct to DVD" movies, usually involving Dean Cain fighting some giant reptile. It got worse, as they expanded (And I firmly believe the SyFy name change was part of this) into showing documentaries on dangerous wildlife and extreme weather. Now you may show Killer Shark vs Giant octopus IV, and I'd even allow some sort of super storm/volcano/asteroid drama as a kind of "What if Disaster movie" but the documentaries were pushing it. Similarly sometimes they'd show duff action films, no objection in principle but let bravo sho the non SF ones. I refuse to believe there is a shortage of duff SF themed action films.

Recently things have been improving. Sci-Fi got some fairly high profile series like Knight Rider, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary and Dollhouse. In fact the name changing away from Sci-Fi has preceded an increase in actual Sci-Fi on the channel, as if the marketing bod was distracted by his re-branding excercise and the geeks got to pick the programming.

My advice, Capitalise on this success, try and get some more original series, but remember, you need schedule padding, people will watch repeats of Quantum Leap and I know will definitely jump at anime series and MST3K if you can get those. New programming isn't the be all and end all. I have no objection to the crappy B Movies, I watched Warbirds (WWII female pilots and US soldiers vs dragons) and it was poor, but enjoyably so. Things like this need a home and Sci-Fi or even Syfy could be a place for them. Avoid turning into Bravo 3 and there could be a future in the old nerd yet.