Sitting where I am, far away form the action, shifting though information though the web and being the newsaholic I am, I’ve sat and watched it unfold. I watched how the first night, as seeming out of no where riots happened. Then on the seconded night, I watched as the new anchors realised that it wasn’t a one night stand and there was more. And then last night I watched it spread outside of London, moving west, and north. And I have watched it with the same sense of detachment I watched the riots and movements of the Arab Spring. This after all happening in a far off foreign land, in places I have never visited or wished to visit, or have any connection to at all. So maybe that is why I have noticed the vast difference in approach the new, the politicians and even the rest of the public has had to these events.
Some people have, and will criticize my comparison of the two events. But I believe it is a valid one.
Here is a story of disenfranchised youth, no hope, no work, and no voice. They have been demonised and belittled for the sake of others, and are stuck in a country that’s in economic standstill teetering on the verge of freefall, with a government that they didn’t vote for making policy decisions that were never voted on. So why has the news taken the narrative that this is mindless pointless violent yobbery?

For the Arab spring, it suited the news, the western powers and the average public to see it as a battle of the people ageist a tyrannical unforgiving government. It suited our ideas, even if at first it through the media for a loop at first. We wanted to it to fit our idea that Muslims and Arabs lived in lands where they didn’t get a say, lands that had absolute rulers. It fitted in with our idea that they were/are some how evil and the bad guys.
So when it kicked off there, we of course through our lot in with the “people”. But was it all the ‘people’? Was it just that vocal violent minority that was as mad as hell and weren’t going to take it anymore?

We now all know how that played out, for better or worst. The Arab world is now a changed landscape, but many global problems still remain.
And these are the problems that have come home to roost in the UK.
The spark was fired, but it landed on kindling of uneasy unsettled angry will.
The anger that has built up over the past few years brought to the surface and pushed hard.
Many ‘local news agencies are not focusing on the why, but the now, showing the what has happened, and what is happening, but not asking why is it happening. Or maybe they are asking but then not reporting the answer, letting it all play out to the audience as mindless and pointless. The angel they have taken. They don’t try to explain why these actions are happening, why masses of youths have now decided to take to the streets and combat the police, but rather they’d want to leave it as unexplained event, something that boggles the mind of ‘normal’ folk. And so no explanation is given, and no one asks why. All so that the news can play the narrative ofBritain lost in mindless hopeless pointless chaos. A brokenBritain that fits the narrative they have used to explain youth over the past 10 years. And because they’ve never explained before, to do so now would not make any sense, it would leave the view confused as to why these problems had never been reported before, and questioning the validity of the News as a source.

That’s the narrative they want to present. But is it the true story? Well with all news it is and it isn’t. Would I say what is happening in Englandover the pass few nights is Mindless, yes. Yes I would. It has no drive; it has no will, political, social, economic or otherwise. It is by its nature, chaotic. Seemingly “yobs”, or as we in Scotland call them “NEDs”, part taking in acts of aggression with no over all structure or endgame. Yes I will give over that there is a lot, and I do mean a lot of criminal activity on the streets.
But is it pointless?

No action in and of it’s self is pointless. And this has a point. It has brought home and made clear the uneasiness that is the foundation of English society. How fragile this current civil peace is.
One has to remember, riots in the UK aren’t a strange unheard of thing. It use to be every year, the mayday riots would be bad, and bad in the “oh my god they’re burning it down” way. And that happened every year. Only has it been this past 10 to 15 years that is unusually quite. Lulled into a false sense of ‘everything is fine’ the public has gone about its business not even noticing the growing resentment that has festered underneath the surface. But now it’s time to face facts, theUK has been far from ‘alright’ for a long, long time.

But then, that is all I can see and tell as a foreign observer looking down south over the border, getting as much information form the net as I can.
Also I have my own social Biases.

Well the webcomic as you might of guessed is called Temporal Personality Disorder, for reasons that have not made thier way into the comic just yet, and also because it sounded cool. so if you want to check it out, just lick one of the links, or go here

http://temporalpersonalitydisorder.thecomicseries.com/

Why oh why does any lawyer/PR (wo)man think fighting the internet is a good idea, Especially if you want a story to die?
For those unaware the man in question, who can only be named by a 3 letters, which I’m not going to put here because all you’d need to do is google those 3 letters and then you know who we’re talking about, wants to sue twitter to force them to reveal someone’s identity. If that’s not the definition of IRONY I do not know what is.
Some unidentified man wants to force someone to be identified for having maybe identified him. It’s not just ironic; it’s convoluted and just plain weird.
But why was this, such a monumentally stupid idea? Well as only one who has been on the internet ever knows, once something is on the internet it is on the internet. There ain’t no way you can take it all down. And then there is The Anonymous Effect. Tell the internet they can’t do something and make a silly unworkable threat ageist something they like and bam! You get the exact opposite of what you were after.
If the idea was to stop the name being posted on line, it sort of backfired. With at one point it was going 16 times a minute, or it could have been seconds, with Twitter it’s really hard to keep track. What isn’t hard to track though is that it’s now out there. Hell even I know who it is and I didn’t care. I cared the moment I head ‘Twitter’ and ‘sue’ in the same sentence, when it became Ironic.
This doesn’t really have an end, this piece or this story, it will run and run until the man finally cracks, and he will crack, and it all comes spilling out. But before he does, the long battle between privacy and freedom of speech will be well underway. I strangely find myself on the side of freedom of speech, and would be really angry if that freedom got damaged because some ejet who gets paid far too much because he has well coordinated feet can’t keep his dick in his trousers.

Yesterday, as some would be aware, saw the elections of the
Scottish Government. A day when the democratic system allowed the Scottish people
to go out and make their voice heard, to elect the men and women whom we want
to fight for our issues and Scotland’s
corner. And though not all the results are in as of the time of
writing this, it has now become clear who has won the election. The Scottish National Party (SNP) has been returned to power. They had headed into this election as the previous ruling party of a minority
government, the largest party by only a few seats, and it being there first and
only term in any office of the land. But now, they return triumphant. They have
been returned to power with the first ever majority in the Scottish Governments
history (it has only been going since 1999), in an election that uses a system
where gaining an out and out, over all majority is pretty damn hard, if not
near impossible. So why has this happened?

Some will say it’s all because of the collapse of the
Liberal Democrats vote, with the Scottish Lib Dem’s are being punished for
mistakes made by the coalition at Westminster.
And while I agree that is could be the case, saying so would seem to let the
Lib Dem’s in Scotland
off the hook. The fact is, they choice to go into the coalition, they choice
who’s bed to lie in. So no, they can’t turn around a just blame them down south
of the border. They have to wake up and take reasonability for their own
failings.

What of Labour? The red army of Labour has long held Scotlandhas its
heart land and back yard, so why have they fallen and failed so hard? A lot of Labours misfortunes could because be said for a
loss of touch. For too long had they held power, and holding that power they
lost sight of things. This could be UK Labour leader Ed Miliband’s thoughts as
he tries a slow rebrand of his party form the ground up. In Scotland they certainly
had a sense of ‘it was never going to end’. Labour in 2007 was shocked when
they didn’t become the largest party by something of a margin on like 3 seats. And
For a while walked the corridors of power like an accident victim in shock, not
quite knowing where to look, there was even talk that they might try a ‘dirty collation’
with the Libs to secure power, but luckily for all parties involved that didn’t
happen, and the then labour leader had the dignity and respect for Scotland,
the Scottish voters, the SNP and importantly himself to let the SNP try and
form and run a government. Since then, Labour in Scotland has been on the whian. And
some of that has been down to them selfs. They’ve lacked a strong leader, a
strong voice, someone who could stand up and fight their side. And that has
only helped their decline. They’ve looked feeble and easy pray.  Then their was their election messages, the “can’t do’s” and “won’t have”
messages, the “we fail” message they think Scotland is, trying to bring down
the government rather than say why they’d be better. The sort of election campaign
Scotland and the UK on a whole
has been use to getting for over decade now.

I’d mention the Torys, but really, I don’t care all that
much for them, and what can be said really. They’ve lost 5 seats, but stayed
mostly stabile, but they were never a true force in Scotland, so they probably won’t be
cheering or leaping for joy, but they’ll probably be happy that they’re still around,
and didn’t noise dive like the Liberals.

So why did the SNP not just win but trounce all, and return
to power stronger than ever?
Well a good strong positive message to the voters of what we,
as a nation, can achieve could have been a good start. No back braking sleaze
fest or name calling, no negative campaigning. And maybe finally that might have
paid off. For a long time, many have called the SNP politically naïve, that
because they don’t stoop to negative campaigning of the opponents that they never
really stood a chance of final victory. A nicely nicely approach only got you stabbed
in the back. But now maybe Scotland
has grown sick of the sleaze and the lies, and the positive message has won
out. In all honestly I liked the approach, I’d rather MSPs and MPs telling me
what they can do rather than what their opponents can’t.
But the message was not the be all and end all.

As I had said, the SNP had been the pervious government, and a minority one at
that. This meant that it was to be a struggle for the SNP since 2007 to govern,
but not only did they do so, they made it look easy. I’m not going to be silly
and blindly say there weren’t problems. There were hiccups to be sure. Things
that the SNP wanted to do but couldn’t, but there were many successes. Health
care, education, Old people and Law and Order these are things that the SNP had
to be judged on in this election, and much to the shame of many of my friends
who I know support other parties they’ve had to say that the SNP have seemed to
do a good job. They (SNP) had to be judged on their term in office, and it was
a good term. Many of the fears propagated by other parties (mainly the negative
campaigns of Labour) where proven unfounded, and the SNP dream of showing Scotland
could be big and be better though strong and good government seemed to pay off.

Was it a case of the Alec factor? There is no doubt, whether
you love him or hate him, Alex Salomd is a force in politics. He has a way with
words, and knows how to fight an issue. I was once able to see the man debate
live back in 2005 in St Andrews and it was a
sight to see. I wasn’t in awe of the man, but I was pleased to see how he
easily he could demolish opponents. He can be loud, but he is also strong and
fair. And in a time when many fear (what some would call an unfair) unelected
Con/Dem coalition government down south, he seems a strong man to argue and
fight Scotland’s
case. Someone who can and will stand up to the Westminster
government, and whether they believe in independence or no, many if not most of
Scotland’s
voters would say that’s a good thing.

So where does Scotlandgo from here? The SNP have
called this a watershed moment in their parties history, a time when they’ve
lived up to the accolade of being “the national party of Scotland”, already
there is talk of the ‘referendum’ but the news and other parties, the SNP and
Alex have said that it could happen in the second half of this term. So that’ll
be in 2 or 3 years time. But one thing is for sure about that issue, no longer
is it a hypothetical notion, now it’s a cold hard political fact. The battle
lines for what will be the dirtiest and bloodiest political fight in Scottish politics
since the act of union it’s self are all ready being drawn up on both sides. It’s
going to be one hell of a fight.

As for everything else, we’ll have to wait and see.

I have a sordid love/hate relationship with bikes. Cycling
is by far one of my favourite modes of exercise, but that’s not saying much,
for I loath exercise. I was never one of those guys who enjoyed PE at school.
But don’t get me wrong. I was a Scout and did many an out door thing, like hill
walking and canoeing and other such scoutty activates. Just PE and exercise has
never been my stick. And in truth I’ve never really need it. I have stayed a relatively
stable weight, many down to my walking everywhere. But cycling I’ve had a soft
spot for. Maybe it’s because it’s a bit more freeing than just walking, maybe
it’s because you can go much fast and much further than walking and running. Or
maybe it’s because unlike doing a sport or a game you don’t feel like crap if there
is a lost at the end of it. After all you can’t lose at cycling (unless you’re
in a race).

So far you’re probably thinking this all sounds good, when there’s the hate
part of your relationship.

Well I’ll tell you. Back in 2004 my mother and I were some how talked into
doing the Lockerbie Loop. I say talked into, my mother was talked into it, and
I was bribed into by my mother. The Lockerbie loop was a 50 mile bike run, that
as the name implies looped around, while starting and ending in, Lockerbie.
Though truth be told it felt more like it was looping around a small village
called Doltan, of which we were seemingly only ever 5 miles away form. I did
this bike run. I did all gruelling, hard, burning 50 miles of it. It took me
all day. But I did it. And then afterwards when I got home, my bike when into
the shed and never came back out. It would be 4 years before I got on another
bike, and in 2008 I did so, but not this time for charity or health reasons, but
for shear financial reasons. It was after all my transport to get to and from
work. That summer I was working down in England, I was staying in Nantwich and
working in Crewe, and had about a 45 min bike run to get to work and then the
same back. Hey, it was cheaper than the bus. And I did this pretty much every
day for 2 and a half months. By the end of it, I had really toned legs, and had
shifted a fair few pounds of excess weight. But like wise, once that was over,
all the best of intentions forgotten, the bike when into a shed and was
probably forgotten.

That is until now. With warm spring days once again upon us, and the fact that
I do not walk half as much as I use to, as well as the growing unhappiness of
my own being that seems to be growing at a rate proportional to my belly I have
cast my mind back to that summer, and remembered the weight I’ve shifted.

I’m not fool headed enough to think it’s going to be easy,
but I’ve been out 3 times now, and each time I’ve tried a different rout,
trying to find the rout that will become mine, something I can do with out
needing to think, to pause and check and decide which way to go. So far I’ve
went along the river and up to the coast, today I even went over green grass,
passing many a love sick couple, and then ventured through town streets. I
haven’t picked a rout so far, I think I still have time. I think the trick is
to take it a bit at a time, rather than being crazy and doing 50 miles, do
something smaller and less of a monster. Not biting of more than I can chew,
and just keeping at it.

Maybe for my next jaunt, I might go off to Doltan, as if
cycling has ever taught me one thing, it’s that I’m only ever 5 miles from
Doltan.

But did you know you can book mark the site also? It’s true, you can save it in your favours and it will then never show up that you found the site by a search engine, you too can be one of the faceless nameless number of site surfers.

 But seriously, I’ll try and come up with more content for you to read,

The Publication, “The Squib” (which you can read “here”), with the tag line of satire in St Andrews, is a new one to St Andrews and I guess it tries to follow in the vain of the much missed/bemused/hated ‘The Chihuahua’. It is trying to be a satire paper, something that has been missing really from St Andrews since 2006/07, and I do say “trying”, but not just for its lofty goals it has placed for it’s self on the first page and inside cover, but also for the fact that it was just a bore to read. All its articles came off as flat, with wit and cleverness supplanted for cheap gags or writer in-jokes. That’s not to say the writers aren’t smart and cleaver, far from it, a lot of the articles try to make lite of things like the economy and the right-wing/left-wing fight that is American politics that screams “written by a 3rd year IR student”, but while the articles may be thought out, they are not one thing, and that’s funny. You look at any of the articles and you can quickly see them for what they are, mostly rants or constant drivel devoid of any real wit or charm, instead of proper satire you have countless nameless writers, for they saw fit not to say which contributor contributed which article, writing about the particular thing that they have a bee in their bonnet about or what they think people might care about.

But maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe if I hadn’t spent most of the Christmas break re-watching the excellent ‘Yes Minister’, would I of be more open to this lack lustre attempt at satire? Short answer: No. Long answer: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Having spent sometime as a writer now, and having been going to the St Andrews Comedy Society  for the past semester, I now understand a little bit more about comedy than I did before. The first thing I learnt was that it’s harder than it looks. Coming up with wit and jokes is not all that easy and yes, some people can make it look effortless yes, but doesn’t mean that they themselves haven’t slaved away working on these jokes. Even harder is coming up with a joke that says something about the world in which we live our lives. And that is what satire is. It’s insights into the world, our world in which we live, the political world in which our rulers live, or ever sometimes the celebrity world were so many are fixated on. Sometimes satire doesn’t have a point and just fixates on certain facets of the society is it looking into to mock or high light a particular thing. Others it uses it’s self as social criticism, often making light of certain characters, figures or tropes and casting the ‘lantern of funny’ into the dark of the real world. But over all, there is one thing about satire that separates it form just an angry man ranting. It’s the wit.
With out the funny, satire falls down, it’s point lost in the absurdity of the speaker.
And that is what is missing from ‘The Squib’.
On the second page in, in an article called ‘letter from the editor’ it ends with a self description of the publication: ‘“definitely … not … shit”.’ And while it is certainly correct, it’s definitely just not funny.

A proper sci-fi story with space ships and everything,
Orginaly it was just going to be the standered Humans fight alians in space war type, But recently (as in the last week) I began running scenes in my head to music, and most of them were the ‘human losing’ scenes,
So that got me thinking about writing the story fomr the few of not just the humans but maybe their enimays aswell
and not show a victory for the ever expanding human race, but see it fall, pushed back to it’s last remaining collenons and it’s fianl fight to survie,
All played out to scenes set to the beat of ‘Katy Perry’ and her currenlt album what ever it’s called.
I’ll see how first part of it goes, might even show some of the planing of it up here on this blog, that way show some people how my train of thought works,(or doesn’t if the case may be).