Nextwave

On a wave of good reviews I decided to take the plunge and buy not one but both volumes of Warren Ellis's Nextwave, and I really don't regret it.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. features some old, little used Marvel cahracters on the run from H.A.T.E., their own team after discovering it was in fact all a front for the Beyond Corpora ton to test WMDs on America. The team includes Monica Rambau (Photon) Aaron Stack (Machine Man), Tabitha smith (Boom Boom), Elsa Bloodstone and a new character called The Captain. From that synopsis it sounds serious and dark, it isn't.

Nextwave is bonkers, absolutely mental, ignore continuity, ignore common sense and enjoy the daft ride as this mismatched group of misfits fight ever more bizarre foes. What other series would have Fin Fang Foom threaten to put one of the team in his pants, and you have General Dirk Anger chasing them in more and more unhinged ways. It is glorious daftness, now go, buy it before I release the Drop Bears

Cost of Living (Tax it again)

I wrote a previous article that was critical about the governments general policy of Tax It as a solution to everything. I am still as critical but I will now prove how much better I am (Or how much easier it is to rant about this stuff at any rate) by showing how I would run the Tax it to death strategy so it annoyed fewer people.

First of all lets be clear on why my ideas are only good in theory. It is quite obvious that the current rash of taxes, supposedly to make us drink less and be more environmentally friendly, are really there to patch up budget shortfalls, created partly by financial mismanagement and partly because of the downturn in the housing market meaning that there is less stamp duty and other such taxes being paid. This is where the key problem in so many of these taxes comes in as it is obvious that this is a desperate attempt to make the books balance. Meanwhile cost of living increases due to rising fuel and food costs, the food costs being particularly suspicious since most farmers are barely scraping a living and food is getting more expensive, I wonder who is making all that money in between *CoughSupermarketscough*

Alcohol. Binge drinking is a problem, and while a level of personal responsibility must be taken it should be observed that alcoholism is most predominant in people from deprived backgrounds. However since people don't like airy-fairy sociological solutions the government is opting for tax and law. Currently the government wants to ban 2 for one offers and ramp up prices in both off licenses and pubs. This will actually have the most detrimental effects on fringe products enjoyed more sensibly such as high quality malt whiskey, wine and real ale. It seems a shame since the binge drinkers tend to err towards cheap cider and special offer low quality chemical lager. The current plan will basically leave this stuff relatively cheap. My idea is much better. We create a minimum charge for alcohol based on alcohol content. what do I mean? Take beer, at the moment in a Pub £2 a pint is pretty reasonable, lets call that £4 a Litre to keep things properly metric. In a Supermarket I can buy 3 500ml bottles of ale for £4 so that about £2.60 a litre. I can also buy a case of chemical gunk masquerading as beer which is 20 500ml cans for £5, so about 50p a litre. Guess which one is going to contribute to binge drinking the most. Now say we have a law, where after production costs are factored breweries are charged tax to top up the basic cost (Before super markets do their markups) to £2 per litre and make it an offence to sell cheaper than that cost. 20 cans of stella will now cost you at least £20 if the super market is making a loss on distribution costs, similarly 20 bottles of ale would cost £20. Now a super-market could do a buy 1 get one free offer on anything, but the basic cost would still have to be no less that £2 per litre. I wouldn't say this would stop the problem, but it would definitely price most people out of binge amounts while not affecting small vulnerable businesses like Ale producers.

Second one is driving in general. Cars are taxed to the absolute hilt, worse its all called green tax so it can be disguised as an environmental issue rather than a moneyspinner. An average driver, not counting costs of acquiring a licence, is charged VED on buying a new car, road tax and 50% of the cost of fuel is tax (Which the government jokingly refer to as a fixed figure) as the new road tax will be partly based on carbon emissions the people who will be wore affected are not rich people in 4x4s, who can afford £400 road tax, and indeed can afford more expensive hybrids that have very small road taxes and use less fuel, or LPG cars which is currently half the price of petrol, no it will hit poor people with families who can't afford a new car which will pump out less carbon let alone a hybrid. In all I do object to pricing people off the road, but at the moment people feel fleeced because the money seems to be falling int a big black hole. I have a couple of suggestions, first, with fuel I would adopt the SNPs suggestion that the wholesale cost of fuel is fixed. How would this be different. At the moment 50% of fuel cost is tax, mainly fuel tax, so the wholesale cost of fuel (these are simplified figures, I'm not an accountant) is 60p per litre of unleaded. Say the limit was set to £1 per lire, at this time tax received from petrol would be 40p, if the cost rose further, to say 70p we'd still pay £1 at the pump but tax would only be 30p, however, if prices fell, say to 30p per litre, we'd still pay £1 and the government would take 70p, yes there would be complaints when costs were low but planning how to run a car would be easier.

The second idea with motoring would be where the money goes. Most people's objections to "Green Tax" is that the money doesn't pay for alternatives. So all taxes received from cars, be it Road tax, VED or fuel tax, can only be spent on transport, be it road improvements, or public transport alternatives. Literally when the budget is set they take an estimate based on last years takings and say "This £x million plus whatever else we fancy adding to the pot is available for transport" at least then people would have a choice.

This was an unfocused rant but it has made me feel better. Next election I'm voting Saxon, yes he was a mad timelord but he had some very good policies on tax.

This Year's TV: UK

Or More specifically how good is Bernard Cribbins.

Well Cribbins aside, we have seen a resurgence in UK genre TV, but I wanted to wait until Dr Who was finished before doing a wee summary. Not as in depth as my previous ones as it will mainly be me taking a sneaky opportunity to talk about how good Dr Who was.

UK genre TV has had a bit of a renaissance since the return of Dr Who under Russel T Davies four years ago, the shows popularity has challenged the BBC to do more with the Saturday Teatime slot and even encouraged some competition from the other side. ITVs primeval is now in its third series and while I don't watch it reports have been encouragingly positive. The BBC's other main series (Although not strictly genre) is of course Robin Hood, which saw some improvement in its second series with some riveting episodes and a very good finale, although it has not yet reached the standard of Must watch TV.

Dr Who itself has become a franchise, while the K9 animated series remains hung up in development hell Who has established its 3 series, Torchwood for Grownups, Sarah Jane Adventures for kids and Dr Who for all the family.

Sarah Jane I didn't manage to catch, but what I saw was a revelation in children's entertainment, it was well written, non patronising and entertaining kids SF, like when I were a lad. Anyone who argues that all we can give kids are US imports should see this. Its got its second series as well.

Torchwood was a vastly improved series from the misfiring effort we had last year. Now it is actually becoming a more "Grown Up" companion to Dr Who, gone is the pointless "Because we can" sex'n'violence and even swearing was toned down. This is possibly because a pre-watershed cut was asked for, so monsters that shag their victims to death were a no-no. It also had Buffy's James Marsters as Captain John, a corrupt time agent and former partner of Jack, and an over-reaching story involving Jack's long lost brother. It had some better ideas this year, we saw some of Torchwood's past, had some creative use of jack's immortality, some backstory from the rest of the crew and had a heartbreaking finale that saw the death of Owen (Who had become quite likable) and Tosh. For the future Dr Who's finale hinted that the new cast may include Martha Jones and Mickey Smith, I sincerely hope so.

Dr Who, the jewel in the crown, really fired on all cylinders this year. There was much trepidation when Donna Noble, from "The Runaway Bride" was announced as companion. This proved to be unfounded as Cathrine Tate did a fantastic job, giving us a companion who was keen to travel, and refreshingly, not infatuated by the Doctor. Her and Tennant played off each other fantastically and, truth be told, she as been my favorite New Who companion. Which made her ultimate fate in the finale all the more tragic. The series itself, really didn't miss a beat, highlights were definitely the unrestrained joy that was the Agatha Christie themed "Unicorn and the Wasp", the lesson on how to do a bottle episode that was "Midnight" and again textbook what if style episode with "Turn Left". By pure accident (the death of the actor playing Donna's Father) we received a standout character this series, introduced in the Christmas Special Wilf Mott, Donna's grandfather played by Bernard Cribbins has been an absolute joy. For a finale Davis decided to go all out in his last effort, we had Rose return, Sarah-Jane, Torchwood's crew all come together to fight Davros and the Daleks, the finale was a rip-roaring roller coaster of a ride, and while it had some iffy plot points the excellent performance turned in by All concerned, particularly davros made it classic stuff that not even a false alarm regeneration can ruin. The ending was a tearjerker with Donna slowly being killed by Timelord knowledge in her head, the Doctor was forced to remove all her memories of him, and advise her family to make sure she never remembers. The episode has two of who's finest moments, the TARDIS being flown properly by Martha, Jack, Rose, Mickey, Sarah-Jane, and The Doctor, and Wilfs final speech "No, no - but every night, Doctor, when it gets dark, and the stars come out, I'll look up on her behalf. I'll look up at the sky, and think of you" still brings a tear to the eyes.

Anyway, enough of that, the future, well, I'll miss having a regular series next year, only 4 specials, on the other hand I'll have a baby to look after so probably for the best, it will be 1 by the time who starts properly and with any luck will either be quiet or be interested.

Guardian follow up

Well, who says blogging does nothing, while the look is the same the search function on the Guardian website now works and you can pull up an archive by columnist, basically now it looks less like "The Guide" and "Comment is Free" are fighting each other. Good work.

Trade fair Damnit

I like coffee, more than a man should perhaps, but i am also a wishy-washy namby-pamby loony-liberal. What this really means is that I like little ways of being slightly less cruel to the world around me and people I've never met. With my coffee, and with food as far as I can, I'll go for fairtrade. Most high street chains respect this and offer fairtrade or, more normally, have fairtrade as standard. Starbucks do fairtrade pretty much by default, that's starbucks, the evil ones. Now flavour wise fairtrade is no different to your unfairly traded coffee (Organic can change that but that's a whole other argument) but it costs more because apparently if we want to treat farmers fairly we will have to pay for it rather than big companies taking small cuts in their massive profits.

Anyway, I was in sainsburys last night and was trying to pick up some coffee (Real stuff, instant is not coffee, its coffee flavouring) and I was particularly keen on a 2 for £3 offer, however in Sainsbury's own range there are 4 fairtrade options out of about 15, A basic Colombian, and organic and a decaff equivalent of each. This is pretty much standard across all the major chains, and is in my view pretty unacceptable. Think of it this way, the only difference between the beans bought for Sainsbury's Fairtrade Colombian coffee and its unfair trade equivalent, is how much the people producing it were paid. This seems absurd when you think about it, Sainsbury's, or Tesco, or Asda, or Morrison's, go to Columbia, and buy two sacks of coffee, for one they say "We'll pay you £20 for this" and for the other, for Fair Trade, they say "We'll pay you £100 for this" this must lead to some confused coffee producers. Its almost as if Fair trade is treated like a separate product, and there are few who are not guilty, Whittards don't have a 100% fairtrade range of coffees, Taylor's of Harrogate have no Fairtrade markings except on designated fairtrade brands and as previously specified all the major supermarkets have a mix.

So, to the Fairtrade people, I say stop this, don't let people away with this anymore. I will look at buying Cafe Direct or that ilk if the supermarket won't sell me fairtrade, so stop letting them away with this, I won't hold them to 100% fiartrade yet, although the Co-Op is there with its own brand stuff, but don't allow a fairtrade range anymore, deny them the use of your mark if they won't buy all their coffee fairtrade.

42 Days

Well, it happened, I even wrote to my MP to try and stop it. See that's due process for you, I should have used my mighty hammer to stop this nonsense. Brown decided to pin his entire career on a policy that undermined magna carta, was deemed unnecessary by most of those in the know, and was only popular amongst the Sun/Daily Hate fraternity. In fact I had to switch off an ex scum editor for harping on about how if this takes suicide bombers off the streets then its worth it. Yes, we arrest everyone who looks a bit Asian, and anyone who protested against the government just to be sure, and keep them for over a month, without even telling them what they've done, brilliant, it was tried in Northern Ireland and was the IRA's most successful recruiting campaign ever. I do shudder about what sort of deal with the devil has been made with the Ulster unionists.

It is a very strange world we currently live in, where men of principle (well at least showing the most principle) are Tory's, and the best hope for freedom and democracy lies with the unelected, undemocratic house of Lords.

However, I'm not one for moaning, ok that's not true, I'm a huge fan of moaning, but at base the problems we have here is twofold.

1. The government wants more power to lock up those who disagree with them, it is paranoid ramblings but this government has done more to take more power unto itself and less to democratic process than any other
2. The MPs in the 42 days vote were more interested in what could be got for them rather than the views of their constituents

So, what can you do. Well, when a vote like this comes up, write to your MP about how you want them to vote. It won't make much difference, but when they do care about you (Come election time) you can broach this subject with them in person when they're trying to toady for your vote. My actual threat was that if my MP voted yes, I wouldn't vote labour in any election, so no support for MSPs MEPs or councillors. You can see all your representatives voting records at www.theyworkforyou.com, a useful site that keeps these people accountable.

The second thing you can do is visit www.noliberties.com, the website of the film "Taking liberties" it has details on action you can do and covers exactly what's been taken by those in power. What I plan to do next time they're grubbing for my votes, mostly in the next Westminster election, is have a copy of what has been taken, and what acts have done this, and ask every candidate if they will work to repeal these laws, regardless of party politics. I doubt I'll get a straight yes/no but seeing them squirm should be fun. And BTW coming from a long standing opponent of Scottish Independence, if you can promise me, on the blood of your expense account, that we'll have none of this nonsense in an independent Scotland, Sign me up matey.

Whiskey Mike

A quick post following up my piece on War Machine. Ok so he's not got the solo title yet but news is that the next Iron Man story is a War machine story. A nice idea, basically when Tony was taken out in Secret Invasion, it triggers an automatic call to Rhodey telling him what he has to do. Its a nice touch, firstly because the War Machine suit was originally designed by Stark to clean up his affairs before he "Died" and something which puts War Machine into taht role is a nice reference, also because that has been Rhodey's role traditionally, replacing stark when he's down.

Looking forward to this needless to say.

Still no further on his cyborgisation, my guess is that no one actually has an idea of why yet, they're still coming up with a story, for the future presumably.