Keyboard Warriors: Is Twitter the right forum for political discussion?

I have been mulling this one for a while. The heated discussions between different twitter celebrities and thinkers and the abuse and trolling and so forth. Is it the right forum for a political discussion? Should we go back to public meetings and speakers corners?  I am a huge fan of twitter and technology and of debate. I think ideas need to be fought for, and against, in order for our society to evolve and progress. But is Twitter the best place for these debates to take place, and if not why do we insist on doing so there?

140 characters, the maximum length of a tweet, if you are old enough to remember was the amount you got on a single SMS text message in the days before 1 of 2, or MMS or whatsapp or BBM or whatever this is what we had to limit ourselves to. Too many texts risked being ranty - risked someone replying to the middle text before the last one and the conversation getting very confused and out of sync. So Twitter limited its 'microblogging' character limit to the same amount and that decision has had lasting consequences I don't think anyone could have perceived years down the line.

Now you either get long, shouty multi tweet arguments with people you disagree with (Facebook is just as bad but for different reasons) or you get, as is the case with many celebrities when they dare to utter something stupid, ill thought out, ignorant or offensive someone just tweet back "CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE" or "GO DIE TORY SCUM" or something equally unhelpful. Does anyone think that will really change that person's mind? Or advance the arguments?

You see my problem is, while I might (and do) occasionally tweet someone when I am offended by something they say I am not comfortable doing it. If it is somewhere between block/unfollow and just ignore it and walk away I am always in two minds. Because 140 characters is not nearly enough to make a nuanced critique of someone's speech in a manner that they might recognise they have made the error and apologise. SO more often than not I just let it slide. Angry with the person but frustrated that the forum is so unsuited to developed discussion.

And yet lots of other folk are unperturbed by this facet of the site. Many people are using it not only to RT things they agree with to their followers, but also to comment and correct on things that people they don't disagree with ( but still follow, clearly) write. I admit sometimes this is entertaining. Sometimes such as the #inspirationalwomen or #solidarityisforwhitewomen threads genuinely helpful and interesting. Is is just that the technology is so new that we are just evolving ways now of making a proper point on Twitter without resorting to confused strings of comments or insults? Can Twitter ever replace the editorial, the blog etc as a means of sustained discussion? I don't think so and this is evidenced by the number of people sharing news articles and stories. As I do too.

But here is the rub. If we can accept that in hashtag form that twitter might be illuminating in micro-blogging a particular aspect of a persons life or experience to inform a debate or in sharing snippets of information from a myriad of specialities but that it is not suitable for political or philosophical discussions can we just stop trying to change peoples minds directly on twitter. By all means do the sort of thing like #inspirationalwomen which changed my mind so drastically but can we stop tweeting people "check your privilege" or "tory scum" or whatever because I don't think it is helpful or productive. Or, we could just go back to tweeting pictures of our dinners and attend some public meetings, debates and hustings like we used to? I think that would be best.

Take care with you child's feelings

I was reminiscing over the weekend about childhood 'trauma'. Not the sort of trauma resulting from sexual or physical abuse, heavens no. I mean the moments in our childhood where we remember feeling hurt, vulnerable or insecure.

I remember a time when I was about four or five. It is one of my earliest memories and during a gathering of the extended family - I am guessing, Christmas - I walked into the sitting room to find everyone giggling. I didn't know why. Eventually I managed to ascertain there was something on the wall and it had my name on it, and a love-heart and someone else's name on it - presumably some long forgotten childhood play-friend, I cannot for the life of me recall. I was hurt, ashamed and embarrassed and worst of all I didn't know why. This puerile joke by an uncle, or aunt, or cousin (I never found out who the culprit was because as a grown child/adult I never wanted to bring it up to ask) confused me but I knew romantic feelings were something to be embarrassed about. I had gathered that much. And that people sometimes made fun of you behind your back. I had gathered that too. I am sure at the time it seemed innocent - maybe those complicit and uneasy thought "the kid is young, they won't remember" but I do. I do remember. And have found it terribly hard to start relationships, and harder still to keep them for fear of what others might think of my partner.

I remember another time I had bought a birthday present for my mother. I was proud of it in the way that kids are - even though as an adult I see that it was horrid, cheap and tacky (but what else can you do with saved up pennies!) but kids mean well and it was a sweet gesture. I left the room and the house but snuck around to the window of the garden to listen to my mother's reaction - but instead I heard my father mock the gift. He was cruel, and went to down because he thought I wasn't listening. But I was. I sat under the window blubbing to myself. From then on in I have hated giving gifts. I spend hours in shops, spending more than I can afford, often to not give the present at all and pretend I forgot - or it got lost in the post - or cop out with money and a card.

These minor little incidents meant, I am sure in good humour, or in the knowledge that I was out of earshot have had a profound effect on me and my confidence. I was always a sensitive child and perhaps I took them more to heart than another kid would. Perhaps I was a sensitive child because of them. All I know is I was sensitive, and I got bullied quite a bit for it.

Now I have children of my own and I worry that something I say, or do, seemingly innocuous will have such a profound effect on them. That they will in years to come repeat some offhand joke I made while tipsy at new year, or comment made after I thought they were long asleep upstairs. It worries me.

Can you avoid making these sorts of mistakes with your child? Is it possible to be the perfect parent, and if not why is our whole culture geared towards the notion that "Mum and Dad" are perfect (except when they are not, they are demons for social services to take away). Where is the middle ground? My parents were fine the rest of the time, supportive and encouraged my emotional, physical and intellectual development that made me the person I am today. But I distinctly remember the day I realised they were just human beings. Beautiful, flawed and fucked up human beings like the rest of us. Capable of making mistake and having accidents and being off handedly cruel or insensitive or stupid or insecure too. It wasn't some cheesy american cliché where the boy bests his dad at a sport or girl finds her mother has been passing off store bought cake as her own. It was actually years after I had become an adult, and they divorced and suddenly like St. Paul on the road to Damascus I had a blinding flash of realisation. They were idiots. Just like I was. Just like we all were.

Still though, I promise that as much as possible  I will watch what I say or do to avoid causing unnecessary harm and trauma to my children and, thus, ultimately save on psychiatry/counselling bills. Will you join me?

Hyperloop: Why I wish we were more Victorian

There is much to admire about the Victorian era. Stern but well dressed gentlemen, women fainting at every opportunity, 12 year old's down mines and working in munitions factories and of course rampant racism and of course, Empire! Remember the sun never set on the British Empire...well, until it did.

Seriously though I could get on board with the fashion and the abundance of unhealthy, greasy food without anyone mentioning the words 'fat', 'calories', 'cholesterol'. Those, and the massive structural engineering projects. The Victorian's realised they could connect the cities of Britain by canal or by railway and they did it. Damn the cost. Damn the villages and communities which had to be destroyed in the name of progress and damn the health risks (some people thought travelling by train would cause brain damage) and damn the niggling little structural engineering problems.

Railways were built while giants like Isambard Kingdom Brunell (another thing I can get on board with is the names...do you know how many children were named 'Khaleesi' last year despite that not even being the characters name but title? Like calling your child 'duke' or 'railway maintenance engineer' or 'traffic warden') figured out the minor technical problems like how to get across that river or under that mountain. I mean it wasn't until years after the railways were built that people thought to invent platforms for crying out loud.

What I am saying is we have lost the spirit of engineering, of adventure and any sense of inspiration. The government is ploughing ahead with High Speed 2 railways lines despite only shaving a marginal amount of time off the journey time whereas the Hyperloop could do Scotland to London in less than half an hour. 30 minutes to traverse the entire length of the country! Most Londoners I know have a commute of circa 2 hours to work and back. This would open up the entire nation to being a suburb of London and let us all enjoy in the wealth and the opportunities afforded to those who live in the City without the cramped horrible confines of tiny damp ridden apartments that cost the equivalent to your own private island in the South Pacific just because its 'close to the Northern Line'.

Are there technical problems to be resolved with Hyperloop? Of course there are. No one is saying it is good to go but the amount of scepticism has made me very sad, and nostalgic for a time when cholera rampaged through the streets of our fair capital. Problems can be resolved. After all we (not we, but you know as a species) put a man on the moon! I am sure we can sort out the minor niggles in what could be the best thing since sliced bread and help us regain the edge in transportation when most of the world has left us behind. We invented the railways and yet our antiquated rolling stock and Victorian infrastructure is a laughing stock.

The expense? Spend it. The government has a great excuse here to walk away from its failing austerity plan and behind spending massively on science and infrastructure and construction and get some money pumping through the real economy while bringing an actual economic benefit to the regions of the north and Wales which otherwise languish unloved and uninterested by a London-led coalition only concerned with the problems in the city.

I can see no down sides. None. None at all. So, what are we waiting for? Let's be the first to build the Hyperloop system and show the world what is what once more. But we won't will we? While others are pessimistic about the technology I am pessimistic about our great nation and its spirit of endeavour, and improvement. We would rather sit back and scoff and say 'It will never work' or 'it is too expensive' (how expensive is more motorways+more cars=global warming?) and just wallow. I bet you the Chinese do it first.

Labour losing the plot (even more)

Labour's recent  announcement concerning foreign workers made me sad. Not because Tesco or Next supposedly employ foreign workers over natives, not because of an immigration problem 'out of control' but because I:

a) Could not care less about immigration, and
b) Cements my refusal to not vote labour at the next election.

Throughout the course of the New Labour regime the party crept further and further right until it occupied broadly the same space as the Tory party. Law and Order, Immigration and demonising the poor where the order of the day and there was no one to occupy that vacuum. Unless your Scottish or Welsh as Plaid and the The SNP quite comfortably filled the gap and doomed the concept of Britain to a footnote in the history books. See what I did there, come the break up of the United Kingdom it is not the SNP that will be responsible, not even the Scottish people who, correct me if I am wrong, don't really care that much about independence per se just getting out of under the yoke of the right wing neo-liberal agenda. Can't say I blame them, but it is Labour's fault for giving up on its core values and condemning political discourse in this country to being akin to this Futurama clip. Ok, so the Liberal Party tried to do the same thing - opposing the war, and tuition fee increases and promising free cotton candy to all and sundry but when given a whiff (and that is all they got) of power they traded in their principles and promises for a shot at electoral reform that, frankly, no one else cared about. Except me, I was and am in favour of PR but I was more in favour of not, you know, crippling students with debt levels akin to the average home owner.

So now Labour are in opposition and of course all the Tory niceties (Greenest party ever was it? Fracking is it?) are dispensed with and we are down to business what do the labour party do? Well they complain about foreign workers coming over here and taking our jobs. I recall the brilliant South Park episode where this happened: They took our jobs. They took er jobs. Thtooerjbs!!

See, the thing is, I don't mind if people want to come over here and work. Just as I have the freedom to go elsewhere and work myself. Money can travel across borders freely why can't people? If governments change the regulations to prohibit the worst excesses of capitalism the threat is always that factories will go elsewhere - well, why shouldn't people? I welcome immigration.

I WELCOME IMMIGRATION

God, you don't hear that very often do you? I think it is a good thing to be exposed to different cultures, ways of life, food and music and I think it is also a good thing for people to seek out a better life for themselves and their family. Where it depresses wages and stops 'nationals' working then that is only because wages are too low elsewhere in the world - that is the problem to be fixed - not forcing people to stay in poverty. Not fomenting racism and perpetuating racist discourse.

Humanity is a commonality. We are all one species and national boundaries are an infantile disease, the measles of mankind, and the sooner we grow up and begin to act as one people united under our own faith in ourselves the better. Peace, equality and diversity. And we can explore space together. In the meantime, come the next general election I am left with very little choice ...the puppet on the left, or the puppet on the right? Oh, wait, it is the same guy controlling both puppets...or, at least it will be when labour finally cuts the cord tying it to the unions once and for all and becomes the Tories by any other name.

A homophobic olympics

Russia is due to play host to the Winter Olympics in 2014 but recent crackdowns on civil liberties, the tightening of the political screws moving Russia back to the dark days of totalitarian control have given the world pause for thought.

Stephen Fry recently called for the IOC to move the Olympics to another venue failing Godwin's law for comparing Putin to Hitler in the process. But, he has a point. Putin's regime is growing in confidence and growing in intolerance. The incarceration of Pussy Riot says a lot about the regimes relationship with the concept of free speech and putting a cadaver on trial sends a very clear message that even in death you cannot escape Putin's justice. Political opposition is undermined and foreign NGOs are now considered enemies of the state trying to undermine 'Russian democracy'. The concept of Russian democracy as something fundamentally different is like saying 'Taliban Women's Rights' or 'Tory Welfare State': it is an Oxymoron.

This is the twenty first century though, right? The rest of the world won't stand for this sort of nonsense?President Obama, sensing an opportunity to perhaps score a political point off the Snowden harbouring regime in Russia, said that he 'has no patience ...for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in a way that intimidate them or are harmful to them'. Well, that is nice but perhaps he might want to look slightly closer to home for examples of intolerance and intimidation towards the LGBT community. Still in 2013 it should be the case that the international community will sit down and quietly point out that its not on. Except that we need Russia on side to keep the Chinese in check and also we need their acquiescence to continue our failed war on terror so, don't expect a large international crackdown especially not when our Prime Minister is too busy playing the diplomatic hard man and taking a stand about a pointless rock.

So, what about the IOC? Surely in light of the threat to civil rights, internal peace and justice the IOC would have concerns. What about the Olympic values of respect and equality? Well the IOC is considering joining  the Russian Government and punishing athletes who use the Olympics to protest against the Russian states homophobic laws will be punished. So much for that. Lord Coe and co. have been clear that there is a long and proud tradition of keeping politics out of sport and that boycotts don't work anyway. In stark contrast to the reality when, as Mr Fry pointed out an Olympics buoyed a dictator and when a boycott contributed to the fall the entire soviet system. And why should athletes stay out of politics? When they are spokespersons for advertisers and merchandisers and the face of government campaigns for healthy living etc sport hardly takes place in a vacuum, and there is a proud tradition of sport and politics being very comfortable within one another. I can think of numerous football teams with proud traditions of political protest (while we are on the subject I think holding the World Cup in Russia is also an epic-fail) and who could forget the 1968 Olympics when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fist on the podium (pictured above) during the Star Spangled Banner while wearing human rights badges on their jackets! But no, sport in general and the Olympics in particular should be apolitical - forgetting of course that the very man, Brundage, who insisted that Smith and Carlos be punished had no problems with the Nazi salute during the '36 games. Well, I guess I fail Godwin's Law too, but I don't care because the point I am making is that supporting the status quo IS political and refusing to allow protest IS political and in threatening to punish athletes for protesting intolerance and injustice is supporting that intolerance and injustice.

I hope that the British Team pulls out, if not that individual athletes refuse to participate and if not, I hope that each athlete in some way violates Putin's laws prohibiting the 'advertising' of homosexuality and stands up for the values of tolerance and equality that our society is supposedly based upon and which we all, apparently, believe.

Belfast, The Orange Order and Islamaphobia

I note with sadness that it seems to all be "kicking off "again in Ulster. I honestly thought, like I suppose many right minded Ulster folk, that the dark days of the "Troubles" [cough] Civil War [cough] were over. I am always optimistic and always disappointed.

Two things about the conflict in Northern Ireland needs to be said (although it shouldn't after all these years) it has nothing, but nothing, to do with Religion. As Mark Steel put it a Protestant kid throwing a brick through a Catholic window is not thinking to himself "Transubstantiation? My arse!" This is about a divided community, two oppositional and antagonistic identities clashing without any hope of unity. What hope I had has disappeared recently as the optimism of the news and documentaries out of Northern Ireland had clearly masked the latent hostility which has erupted into violence again in recent years.

Who is to blame? I think this type of question is  unhelpful. Actually both sides are for fuelling and fanning the conflict. In India during the resistance to British colonialism a peaceful passive resistance was successful with a minimum of innocent casualties. This has to be the bar upon which all conflicts are judged? Given that both sides profess to being Christian I notice there isn't much 'Turning of the Cheek' going on at all. Maybe there has been in the past maybe the Protestant/Catholic [delete as appropriate] have suffered long and hard for their religion, have faced persecution and state sponsored brutality..OK, that is only likely to be the Catholic community but still I am sure both sides have their historic grievances and while I am not a part of either community and don't have a clue what they might be I can point to the fact that whining about the past, and fighting in the present are two strategies unlikely to achieve a positive outcome. Talk, compromise and inter-community and inter-faith connections can surely be the only way out of this mess? Dialogue and understanding? Please, residents of Ulster, feel free to comment and criticise and correct me! What do I know. As an outsider perhaps I am best placed, or worst placed to judge. Let me know.

I think what else needs pointed out is the historical root of this tension and why the marching of the Orange Order is an issue which is so provocative. I am sure the history of Catholic oppression at the hands of the British doesn't need to be said. We can all sympathise with that I am sure. Blowing up royal family members, Tory Party conferences and innocent civilians on the street perhaps less so but we can all agree that the Catholics had a pretty torrid time under the British. All of which brilliantly portrayed by Cillian Murphy in the Ken Loach modern classic 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley'. What isn't well understood is what the Orange Order is, and why these marches are so important.

I won't go into the history of the Order that is easily available on Wikipedia. They are celebrating the battle which defeated the Catholics/Jacobites/French is usually how it is misunderstood by people from different parts of the United Kingdom depending on your level of historical knowledge you might take issue with this fact. Catholics and Protestants fought on both sides during the Battle of the Boyne. What is the real root of this conflict today, as I see it, is in the suspicion of the 'Other'. I won't go all academic and technical on you, but instead point to a modern parallel. Some people in Britain fear the (still proportionately more peaceful) Muslim population since 9/11 and 7/7 because they suspect that a true follower of Islam owes his allegiance not the British state, and its population, but to some foreign power who considers Britain and her state the enemy. The notion that any more than a tiny minority of Muslims in this country value the opinion and interpretation of the Jihadist/Islmamist movement over their own conscience and Imam is frankly ludicrous.  Sure a lot of them might be pissed off with the western countries attitude (and at times indiscriminate bombing) towards the middle east in supporting murderous tin-pot dictators when politically convenient and warring with others or their treatment and racism at the hands of their fellow countrymen in the UK. That is not the same thing however as secretly plotting the downfall of the British state and the establishment of an Islamic state under religious law.

However, this was the exact same fears the protestant community held following the Battle of the Boyne and which was reinforced for centuries. That the Catholic community represented a fifth column who owed their allegiance to the Pope not the King/Queen/Parliament and who would kill and sabotage as necessary for the destruction of the Protestant faith and the re-establishment of a new state under Catholic rule. A real threat at the time, but now? No. In Ireland proper they have a religious state and for better or worse (abortion laws not with standing) protestants (and Muslims, Jews and Pastafarians) are respected to a greater or lesser extent.

No one is secretly plotting to suppress the Protestant faith any more and no one would tolerate not having the freedom to practice you religion freely in this day and age. Though there is the element of wanting to establish a new state with most protestants in Northern Ireland fiercely British and most Catholics expressing a degree of cross-border identity with the state to the South. How to allay those fears, and appease both communities I don't know. Should people in a country wave the flag of a foreign power? Should anyone care? I don't get particularly upset when I see my neighbour (who is French by the way) proudly displaying the Flag of his fatherland so, I am not sure it is a legitimate grounds for grievance. Actively campaigning for the integration of Ulster in the Irish republic, perhaps another story. A Palestinian-esque two state solution? Both Britain and Ireland washing their hands of it all and the creation of a new nation of Ulster? Would that please anyone, I don't know. Certainly the point here is that I don't know what the solution is, and am woefully ignorant as to the situation on the ground and the feelings of the everyday residents or Ulster, and unlike most commentators and know-it-alls/politicians etc. I am happy to say "I don't know" but the historical parallels do concern me regarding the way we treat the Islamic community in the UK.

We must build bridges, be open minded and resist the ghettoisation of the immigrant communities lest we end up with a similar situation in years to come. With entrenched hatred and no easy solutions.

And a belated Eid Mubarak to anyone who was fasting during Ramadan.

Would you buy a used bike?

I was confronted with this question recently while pondering my twin desires to lose weight and get active but also not wanting to spend a few hundred pounds on something that I might never use.

I should get a bike. I hate public transport and I don't drive. My daily commute would double up as exercise, I could feel smug about 'being part of the solution' and annoy car drivers all at the same time. However, I could hardly feel all warm and cosy and green if I knew that about 500 pounds of greenhouse gases are produced in making a bike. And given the typical US diet (which is not the typical worldwide diet but the UK is moving that way...) it would take about 400 miles of cycling to make the bike carbon neutral. They are expensive too, so surely a second hand one is a good bet right?

In the UK alone there are thousands of bikes discarded every year in towns and cities up and down the country. According to one article in the Guardian in Oxford alone almost 600 hundred in one year, and while cycling is popular in Oxford it is by no means unique. So, I thought about the cycle recycling shops as a place to try.

Fortunately some nice folk have compiled this list of places where you can buy a second hand refurbished bike. Trouble is, they are not that much cheaper than a new bike. Ok, so there is the cost of replacement parts, labour, premises and so forth to take care of but really, for a few pounds more I could have a brand new one. So the bargain hunter in me took to Gumtree, Craigslist and other private traders. Then it struck me that while a lot of bikes get abandoned every year by students going home who can't be bothered paying for a removal van (or who are international students, slightly more understandable) many, many more must be stolen. One every minute according to this  introduction from BikeOff. I won't do the annoying Bob Geldoff-esque clicking fingers but that strikes me as a lot. And since hardly any of those are ever returned (The police do their jobs? Reminds me of this clip from the Big Lebowski) how can we trust a private seller? Can we? I suspect not.

So, there we have it. Fleeced by Halfords, overpay for recycled or engage in the illicit black market trade. It seems the consumer is not going to be the winner in this case but I guess the re-cylced option is best because at least if I don't decide to keep cycling I won't be yet another individual who purchased a brand new bike, made in China from metal mined in South America, had it shipped all the way to the UK, only for it to end up as scrap by winter.

I like windfarms

I have been reading some blogs and comments about people protesting the building of wind-farms near their homes and villages in South Wales. Personally, I don't understand the fuss and the furore about wind-farms. Why don't people like them? Ok, so that is why I was reading these commentaries but I am still none the wiser, the arguments don't make much sense to me. They spoil the view, apparently. Well, maybe but no more than pylons do already surely? And no more than the view will be spoiled when climate change floods the plains and food security goes down the toilet and millions starve. Somehow I think in that nightmare scenario very few people will stop to enjoy the view.

But, climate skeptic or not, I cannot help but disagree with the aesthetic problem people have regarding wind-farms. And it seems I am not alone. An offshore wind-farm in Ulster is something of a tourist attraction in its own right. On clear days folk congregate in a coffee shop on the shore and enjoy the view, or so I am told by a local resident I know personally. They might be lying and in the pocket of the evil green energy corporations. I know Donald Trump hates them. After being a little too cosy for my liking with the SNP for years he has had a massive falling out with Alex Salmond over a proposed offshore wind-farm next to his half built golf course. I know the Scots invented the game but really, Aberdeenshire seems like the worst location for outdoor pursuits of any kind. Particularly because it is a bit windswept at times. Ideal for a wind-farm really you might think?

Let us not cover the globe in them, I think a nice mix of Tidal (I note Swansea might be building its own Tidal Lagoon soon which is very cool, click the link above to see what it will look like. Perhaps a tourist destination in its own right too? Solar power where appropriate and whatever else the brightest and best minds of the world dream up in the future. I have no problem with nuclear either by the way, but that is for a separate blog post I suspect.

I think a clean, cheap, renewable source of energy that does not leave us at the mercy of OPEC, Gazprom or whatever is fairly sensible and they have to be in someone's back yard! And, that backyard usually gets a nice amount of money in grants to improve the community too. Many of the new wind-farms are being built in the Welsh Valleys and, fair play they are beautiful, but these are depressed communities following the collapse of the coal mining industry (another blog post in itself) and a bit of inward investment seems like a good idea and fitting that these regions still produce the energy for the nation?

So, yes. If you wanted to build one in my back yard, or near my home, or in my local beauty spot you would hear no complaint from me. Like the mobile phone mast protests of the 90s I think that we will seriously regret making such a fuss in the future. Plus, they look pretty! Serene! Graceful!

Are smart watches dumb?

Samsung Smart Watch

Omega Seamaster

Taking a break from blogging about the news, which can be quite depressing at times, I turn my attention instead to the future! Smart Watches. Or, so they say. Samsung revealed details of its impending offering to the burgeoning smart phone market with the Samsung Gear, or Galaxy Gear (let us hope they come up with a better name before launch day). It looks a nifty offering. I was tempted to buy one of the smart watches on the market recently, Sony or Pebble or whatever but in the looks and function department neither really leapt off the webpage at me and screamed "YOU MUST OWN ME!". It would be cool, sure, but if I am going to buy a watch it would have to be pretty special to tempt me away from the analog world. I love my phone, and I love tech but there is something about a beautiful Omega watch that is classic and timeless. Not Rolex, Rolex is for poseurs who don't understand watches and don't understand beauty. No, if I am going to buy a smart watch it has to be a thing of classic understated beauty while retaining the full functionality of a smart phone in miniature. So, no tall order then! Still Samsung looks like they might have nailed it. The beast has a flexible screen that wraps around your wrist instead of the 'ipod in miniature cellotaped to a cheap looking strap' that Sony currently offers. And if Samsung can get in early and beat Apple to market they could perhaps set the pace in the way that the latter did with the smart phone market. So, is it time to buy up Samsung shares too?

Perhaps not. Analysts are divided about the extent of the demand for a smart watch. Google is focused on Google Glass for that reason. And this could be the reason why the much mooted Apple Watch has yet to become a concrete reality. Do people really want a smart watch?

Well, market research says 'not really'. Much of the functionality of a smart phone is lost in miniaturising it, and while you could pick up the odd message via twitter or facebook, typing on smart phones is still a problem in itself without miniaturisation. You could dictate your message sure, but Voice Recognition Software is rarely sophisticated and competent enough to deal with anyone who does not speak the Queen's English as this hilarious clip from the Scottish sketch show "Burnistoun" highlights. I can see who is calling me, and hang up on them, without fishing around in my pocket. Or leave the ipod at home and be frustrated as phone, mp3 player and watch die because blatantly the battery would not last long enough for me to get to work in the morning let alone the rest of the day! But whatever functions and features these smart phones have they are certainly one up on the original analog watch and there are still millions of them sold every year. And let us not forget that when the smart phone came out there were analysts among us who thought that they would not catch on, myself included. Same with tablets: Which I still cannot understand especially given the number I have accidentally destroyed! So, smart watches might indeed be the next big thing. You never know.  But let us not pretend they are anything other than just watches, a neat idea that might make lives a little easier...and then we can go back to figuring out how to end world hunger, war, oppression, climate change and how we are going to get off this rock and explore space!

"Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea." - Douglas Adams 'Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy'

Foot-In-Mouth

I was, like most people I am sure, aghast at the news today. In particular the story of the barrister who called the victim of child abuse a "sexual predator", who also looked older than she actually was.  I was under the impression the age limit at which a person can have sex with someone in the UK is 16. But according to Barrister Neil Wilson that is unless they look a bit older or they have already suffered abuse at the hands of someone else.

Because this is what is missing from most of the coverage thus far in the news. If she is 'sexually experienced' she has already been the victim of abuse. Or is it the case that once a young woman, a child in this instance, is broken we no longer care what becomes of them. Sexual assertiveness in a child is surely, I am not an expert, a symptom of sexual abuse or at least a child exposed to sexual concepts too early? How is the fact that a child has been abused already a mitigating factor in a sexual abuse case? This boggles my mind, it really does. In the wake of Saville and the institutionalised abuse within the BBC and the Catholic Church you would think we would be a bit more self aware and a bit more au fait with the problems caused by child abuse? No one more so than a barrister. This was an educated and experienced man, which makes it all the more shameful. The equivalent of trotting out the old "she was asking for it" excuse in rape cases...in fact it isn't the equivalent it IS the "she was asking for it defence". This is not a Nabokov novel, this is real life, this was a real child taken advantage of by an adult who should have been looking after her and he deserves to be punished. There are no mitigating factors here.

But this isn't the only case of someone suffering from Foot-In-Mouth disease in the news today. A UKIP MEP (another white middle aged male in power, hmm...I wonder...) said that too much UK foreign aid was going to, and I quote "Bongo Bongo Land". I mean, come on! Boris Johnson has a lot to answer for. He is affably bumbling and "says what he means" (ie. no filtering process stopping you from saying ridiculously inappropriate things) and seems oddly to be quite popular for it. So clearly Godrey Bloom thinks this is a winning strategy. To be racist in public.

There is, I am told by friends who work in international aid, much to be critical in how aid money is spent. There is much to be critical about the priorities and activities of well meaning white westerners and 'volun-tourism' but the level of the dialogue, the frankly racist "bongo bongo land" is like something you would expect of Prince Phillip, or your racist nan, not a politician. I mean it goes to show you what sort of party UKIP is that it only asked him "not to repeat the phrase" rather than punish him. It is so crude, so backwards, so bloody Victorian to see the rest of the world as a tribal backwater and Britain as a civilised and civilising force. Aid money should be spent helping people in need and developing the economies and countries that suffered at the hands of the British Empire in particular and most in need elsewhere in the world. It is our duty because we have the privilege of being a wealthy nation not because we feel guilty nor is it money wasted. It is a paltry amount in the grand scheme of things and, I am told, a little goes a long way in the developing countries. This attempt to "open up a debate" on international aid will, I hope, fall flat on its face as I think we have moved on in the last two hundred years but I have been proved wrong quite a lot recently. Bongo Bongo Land, if a character in the Thick of It said it we would all be complaining that the show had jumped the shark and was no longer believable.

Paging Dr Tucker to the Tardis

So the Goebbels from Gorbals is the new Doctor Who, eh? How surreal. I love Peter Capaldi, and while there were many other names touted for the role of the new Doctor I think they made a magnificent choice but it will take some getting used to - unless this is the birth of a new darker, more cynical Doctor Who? We can but hope. Personally I stopped watching it during the last few years because it was wearing thin and I am a massive fan and have been ever since I was knee high to the proverbial grasshopper.

I am slightly disappointed that the BBC didn't choose to make a statement and hire someone who is not straight white cis-gendered able-bodied male. They could have started a debate, altered the discourse and shook things up a bit by being a tad bolder. I don't want them to hire someone just because they are black or female that would be terribly unproductive but can you honestly tell me that Idris Elba is not an equally amazing actor? Not that, personally, I wanted him to be the Doctor. I want him to be Bond!

Still choosing someone slightly more well known, someone with a bit more credibility (I was never fond of Matt honestly, David only slightly piqued my interest although both are gifted performers) among non-Who fans might open up the audience a bit which is a good thing.  But can you imagine the amount of free publicity and increase in audience say, Billie Piper or someone, would have garnered? I dunno perhaps a progressive AND a PR #fail?

I am looking forward to seeing what type of Dr Capaldi will be, and if we will go down the same tired sexy-companion/love interest storyline that have frankly bored me of late. Time for a change, time to do something a bit different. Maybe I need to start watching it again.

Twitter Silence Vs Inspirational Women

It is not often I admit to being wrong but it does occasionally happen. I think, for anyone of a 'politically engaged' mindset we get used to being firm in our beliefs, we get used to arguing our point and we align ourselves most closely with individuals, parties or groups which best reflect the gestalt of our political sentiment.

In light of the recent threats issued to prominent female voices on Twitter recently  some, with whom I have to say I have often disagreed vociferously, called for a day of symbolic protest. A day of silence.

Many objected to this idea of women silencing themselves. Isn't this exactly what the trolls want? Isn't the point that we should be shouting louder? Not retreating into the shadows? Well, no. Firstly anyone with any experience of trolls knows that it isn't to silence women they want per se. What they want is a reaction. They want hysteria, panic, fear, anger or any other sort of emotional response. Don't ask me why, it is pathetic and bizarre but that there it is. Secondly, is it wrong for women to be silent in protest instead of shouty and angry? Well, yes! However, there is a long history of symbolic silences in history as part of protest (normally against the lack of civil liberties) and there is a big difference between one day of symbolic silence in protest, and permanently retreating from Twitter because 'the trolls won'. It was, in effect, a consumer boycott. Not one that will hurt Twitter's bottom line I suspect but a token gesture; and gestures are important. I partook of #twittersilence fully ready to be extra shouty on Monday to compensate.

When I returned I noticed the hashtag #inspirationalwomen and that some of those who had not partaken of #twittersilence had spent the day instead suggesting the women, contemporary or historical, that they found inspirational. Those inspirational women, and men, who did not take part in the twitter silence managed to get #inspirationalwomen trending worldwide, something I would not have thought possible but they did just that. A massive achievement and one which has, I supsect, far greater impact on the public conciousness.

 In a way #inspirationalwomen was as much a protest against #twittersilence as the trolls. It was those tweeple who refused to be cowed, who sought a more positive form of protest; where their voices might still be heard; they did that. And I take my hat off to them. Without #twittersilence #inspirationalwomen might never have happened. I now think that while both forms of protest are valid, and I have love and respect for those who tweeted and those who didn't, I wish I had been one of those who did.

History is full of inspirational women, and that is a conversation I want to have been a part of. It was a beautiful moment in twitterstory when women were celebrated rather than vilified, silenced or threatened and abused. It was a joy to read this morning, a real pleasure. Sure there were some trolls who hijacked it,and there were some who didn't partake in #twittersilence or #inspirationalwomen and simply kept the argument going about why #twittersilence was a bad thing. I have no problem with this either. We all think we are right all the time; operating under the alternative assumption being quite limiting. However instead of arguing amongst ourselves, a key feature of the history of protest and its failings ("splitters!"), those who took to twitter to highlight the often overlooked role of women in our history, the people who inspired us or made an impact on our own lives the most. That was a beautiful thing and long may it continue. Let everyday henceforth celebrate #inspirationalwomen both on twitter and in every sphere of public dialogue.

Twitter: Under the Bridge

Twitter is where the trolls live, apparently. I thought they were all on Reddit, forums and message boards but not twitter. Trolling in 140 characters or less is tough. It takes skill. Twitter it seemed was therefore the home of the seasoned troll, the professional wind[-up-merchant annoying the likes of Donald Trump and pompous blowhards the world over who could use a bit of pedestal knocking. Or, again, so I thought.

The recent waves of misogynistic shit being directed at female tweeps be they bloggers, critics or MPs (many of whom I disagree with on a daily basis, mind you) is revolting. But threats of violence, rape, murder - bomb threats!?! This goes well beyond 'trolling', this is just small boys with big egos and the sort of reactionary idiots you might expect at the average EDL rally. Thankfully there are laws against publicly threatening someone with violence and there definitely are laws against making bomb threats both of which, I hope, are pursued by the police (not often I say that). But it reminds me that once again twitter is in trouble, because twitter doesn't have a report post button.

I can't say how many times I have seen a tweet that goes too far. Not the sort of thing that pushes the boundary of comedy, I don't mind that, but threats of rape and violence against women and, indeed, children. Pictures of things that, probably, incur the wrath of the police force, or intelligence agencies, but which I have to look at, and then - when I look for a little "report me" button - I remember that Twitter, for reasons I can't begin to fathom, is completely unmoderated. Like any anonymous public forum Twitter needs to police itself, I would prefer that to the likes of MPs and the actual Police decided what we can and cannot tweet. So, I hope that this is the final straw and that Twitter starts to take itself and its responsibility as a facilitator of free speech and starts to remove the tweets which shout "Fire!" in a crowded building (and twitter is VERY crowded these days).

The Sun is setting?

So, today the Sun newspaper announced that it is no longer going to provide free content on-line but is retreating behind a pay-wall in what is becoming an increasingly popular strategy for revenue generation. The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Times and Sunday Times, and indeed now The Onion all charge for content either behind a 'hard pay-wall' which allows no content to be read for free, or providing headlines or a few articles per day/week/month for each user. And that is fine, I guess. Each provides quality journalism, while I might not appreciate the editorial bias, based on in-depth research and writing by qualified and intelligent writers.

The Sun on the other hand, you could not pay me to read. Seriously, not only would I not fork out my hard earned cash to read its atavistic, misogynistic bile in print or on-line, but I would not read it if you paid my mortgage for me. Say what you want about the tabloid press but the Sun is a particularly bad example, and after the mobile phone hacking scandal, the fact that Page 3 continues into the 21st century much to the chagrin of many, not to mention historical grumbles regarding the Miners' Strike, Hillsborough &c. I am genuinely surprised anyone still reads the Sun. Its readership has been declining in part due to a lack of quality on-line content, so it hardly seems like charging people is the way forward. Regardless, it is nice for once to talk about newspaper pay-walls without going into the old arguments of the degradation of the internet culture of free open access and so forth and instead take some joy that the Sun's on-line content will be behind a pay-wall because it means I am far less likely to be linked accidentally via twitter etc. to their 'journalism' and that hopefully (as pay-wall's have been less than successful in the past) this move, and their declining readership marks the setting of The Sun in the UK.