From an article on BBC News regarding the demonstration demanding proportional representation today in London

"Among them, campaigner and musician Billy Bragg said the hung Parliament was an opportunity to bring about "genuine electoral reform".

He said: "We don't like these negotiations going on behind closed doors. The votes that people cast on Thursday should have given us a coalition government.

"We need a consensus government to deal with the difficult choices we have ahead. That's what the British people voted for."

The Tories won most votes in the UK election but were short of a majority - Gordon Brown remains PM while Tories see if they can form a government.

Mr Clegg also spoke to the PM by phone on Friday. He has offered talks if Lib Dems cannot agree with the Tories."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8670060.stm

What sort of fool is Billy Bragg ... does it come naturally or does he have to work at it? You are going to get a coalition government Billy ... it just might not involve the people that you hoped for. All coalition negotiations have to take place behind closed doors what would you like Billy? That they take place in the open somewhere? Trafalgar Square perhaps.

Unless this guy has been misquoted he is a moron ... plain and simple.

Tags: billy bragg
Current Mood: annoyed

Michael Jacksons death at the age of 50 has come as a bit of a shock to everyone. This is the guy who was going to play 50 concerts at the O2 in front of 800,000 people starting in a months time, now he lies in the LA County coronors office.

I don't think its our place to personally mourn the loss of Jackson. That is for his family and friends. People who knew him and stood by him through all his trials and tribulations.

In many ways this is similar to the unexpected death of Elvis Presley back in 1977. Elvis was an overweight pill-popping burger munching machine, yet, after his death, all sins were forgiven and his place in music folklore was assured. Like Elvis, all Micheal Jacksons foibles, the boys, the chimpanzee, the nose jobs, the debt, the irresponsible raising of his children will now be forgotten in the rush to erect his pedestal and propel his memory to the same sainthood occupied by Elvis and Lennon.

In many ways it is sad that less than 24 hours after his death, money is already being discussed. AEG who promoted the concerts might be $300m in the hole. Sony meanwhile will be rushing re-prints of the albums off the presses as quick as they can to take advantage. Then there is the poisoned chalace of the estate, in huge debt and there might not be much left for the kids when everyone else has been paid off.

Tags: michael jackson

Coming home from the slave pit today, my thoughts were'nt about tons of stuff to do at work, finding a new place to live, other stuff to do at home or anything like that. Instead I was thinking at what ratio does the old Sir Amstrad himself fire the Project Manager who loses a task in each episode of the apprentice.

So this being very important excercise in statistics I got to work with Wikipedia and these are the results. Each Series there are 10 episodes which have a Project Manager running each team.

Series 1 from 10 episodes 3 losing project managers were fired, a ratio of 30%
Series 2 from 10 episodes 5 losing project managers were fired, a ratio of 50%
Series 3 from 10 episodes 6 losing project managers were fired, a ratio of 60%
Series 4 from 10 episodes 6 losing project managers were fired, again a ratio of 60%
Series 5 (ongoing) from 5 episodes 3 losing project managers have been fired, a projected ratio of 60%.

So for the last two seasons and leading into this one, whoever has lead their defeated troops back into the boardroom after losing the task has got a 60% chance of making the fabled walk to the taxi instead of back to the house.

There is an exercise in pointless statistics which I shall bore my friends and collegues with over the next few days ... starting with my long-suffering wife ... now.

Tags: apprentice uk

Liverpool have won a great victory against Man United. Listened to it on Five Live and it was a fantastic game.

When the chips are down, Liverpool can produce the goods needed to get the immediate task done. But obtaining the Premier League title is a season long job with 38 different tasks on the list of things to do. What Benitez can't seem to manage is to get his players motivated when it does'nt seem so urgent that the task in front of them gets done.

If Liverpool cannot overhaul Man United, then they can reflect upon losing the title at Middlesborough, Spurs, Wigan and Stoke and regret all the points lost at home to Hull, West Ham and Fulham. Games that should have been won, but the May deadline was not looming so there was no pressure.

The lesson to learn here is that when we are dealing with a huge task that might take months to complete that its just as important that the groundwork is laid with the early sub-tasks, just as much as those final big jobs which get the job complete.

Tags: liverpool things to do

Sometimes its really easy to think of things to write about in a blog especially listening to the radio in the car and some contentious new item comes up about something ridiculous that has happened which is prime material for a rant. For example the baby born to a pair of chavingtons aged 15 and 13.

But by the time you get to where you are going and actually needing to write something it becomes a lot harder. A lot of the raw thoughts are hard to translate into words or it just turns out to be too much effort.

This is why this page just does’nt get updated very often sometimes. I do think of things to write about its just the writing which its so very hard to get going.

Tags: writing

After a really really long day at work today slogging with cable and tester I fancied wee drinkie, so decided to check out the state of the drinks cupboard.

At our last place there was all kind of stuff in the drinks cupboard ranging from single malt to drambuie. Here in Wiltshire, our drinks cupboard is in a box and contains the following.

The dregs of a bottle of Sainsburys Dark Rum
A fifth of a bottle of Grand Marnier
Half a bottle of Archers
Half a bottle of Glenmorangie
Half a bottle of Glenfiddich

And

A third of a bottle of Blue Curacao.

Now, everyone knows that the party is really over when there is only Blue Curacao left to drink. We are not quite at that point but we are still in dire straits and the drinks cupboard nee box is in urgent need of refresh methinks ...

Tags: drinks
Current Mood: tired

This is a great article at Zen Habits. What the writer proposes is that we deal with problems like the credit crunch and environmental problems by doing LESS ... the less we do, like driving, buying useless tatt the more we save in resources and money.

This method of thinking would drive economists and capitalists nuts but its a great article, check it out.

Want To Save The World I'll Tell You How at zenhabits.net

This blog entry by a great friend of mine is extremely insightful. Russell points out that so many of our views and thought patterns come not from within us but from external sources, things we hear, read and talk about. He also suggests some ways of getting out of it and letting your own personality shape your thoughts. Great read.

Link to Russells blog entry De-tangling The Path To Freedom

So Daniel has been booted from X-Factor and this was probably the right result. As soon as he ended up in the bottom two the look on his face seemed to indicate that he knew the game was up. He was saved by Louie the first time by turning on the sob story, this was'nt going to work a second time despite a quick attempt when announcing he was going to sing Bridge Over Troubled Water.

So, this leaves us with Alexandra, Diana, Eoghan, Ruth, Rachel and JLS. Ruth and Rachel have both diced with the bottom two twice apiece and survived. None of the other contestants have so much as sniffed the bottom two. This would indicate the likley eviction of at least one, probably both of them in the next couple of weeks. Ruth is not going to survive going head to head with a favourite act of the judges like JLS.

Looking around the net, a lot of critisism aimed at Rachel is not the fact that she is a bad singer its her background. A single mother of five, three children in care and a spell in prison caused by drugs. In the eyes of many, this makes her unworthy of being on the show, probably an inferior human being as well.

Lets look at it this way, Rachel has been to the very bottom of the barrel and has come right the way through the other side to be watched by 10m viewers every Saturday night. Many people would have ended up a victim of these demons, self-inflicted or not. However, failure is the greatest of all teachers, if you are prepared to learn from it. The fact she is out the other side says heaps about Rachels strength of character. We have seen this strength of character when she is prepared to tell Dannii where to get off and choose her own song and look.

Rachel is unlikely to win this competition, like Ruth, she would not survive a head-to-head with one of the favourites but I would urge people not to judge what is in her past, only how well she can sing.

Tags: x-factor rachel hylton daniel

On Saturday, one of the X-Factor favourites Laura White was ejected from the program having been voted off by the judges. Judging from some of the furore surrounding this event, this was not an expected event. The widely held assumption, including that of myself was that a weaker prospect like Daniel or Rachel would be packing their bags. Its interesting to note that no-one seems to give a second thought to why Ruth has ended up in the bottom two again.

So, forums and comment boards across the internet and the press have started with the cries of "fix" and "technical faults" with all kinds of me-toos claiming to have tried to vote for Laura and not getting through. Cheryl Cole is having a go at Louis for voting her artist off and so it goes on.

Lets look at why this could not have been a fix. For a start Simon Cowell's comments indicated that he was shocked out of his boots by the vote on Saturday, and lets establish one thing right off the bat, nothing and I mean nothing happens on that show without Cowell approving it. This guy holds all the creative strings. Second, why would the producers rig the vote to eject one of the "favourites"? Whoever wins this show is going to sell a stack of records, a pretty girl even moreso. Third and most importantly .. after the TV vote rigging scandals of the past year only a complete idiot is going to tamper with a TV vote, and whatever he is, Cowell is not an idiot and neither are the people around him.

Looked at constructively, the rigging theory holds no water, and some people are getting far too over-emotional about what is, after all, a light entertainment show.

However, there are still some things that have gone seriously wrong with this years show. Most of them centre around the judges. Whenever Simon or Louis give even the slightest criticism to one of the performers the trained seals in the audience immediately starts booing even after some truely appalling performances (*cough* Daniel and Rachel *hack*). I know its only a show, but booing a judge because he/she is critiqing a performance?

Notice that I don't count Cheryl or Dannii among the criticizers. Because these two have got nothing negative to say about any of the performers. "You sang that beautifully", "You look great", the same cliched lines are trotted out time after time. You could happily swap either of these two barbie dolls around and no-one would be able to tell the difference.

Finally, judges mentoring acts has gone too far when it comes to voting for who goes off. There is no point even asking them who they will vote for, they will always go with their own act. The only choice came for Louis when he had to choose between Girl Band and Bad Lashes on Week 1. One of the bottom two could sing like me in the car, while the other sang like the ghost of Sinatra but there is no hope of partiality from a judge with a vested interest. Something must change in this area for next year.

Ultimately lets hope Ruth wins it all, but surviving by the skin of her teeth twice in the bottom two does not boad well.

Tags: x-factor laura white ruth lorenzo