The Cheerful Insanity of Me

So the TV Licensing people are after me again.

For those of you, who have licensed TVs and are unaware of their supreme inability to comprehend that someone may not actually have a TV, the way it works is like this.

Firstly they send you a letter along the lines of "You don't have a TV license, you are therefore clearly an evil criminal mastermind stealing the airwaves. In fact we suspect you are probably smuggling them out of the country and selling them on the black market to fund Al-Qaida. You probably even butcher babies on the side. If you continue you will be fined for all your worldly possession and locked up for a gazillion years so you stop being such a menace to society." At the end of this as an after thought they add "If you do not watch or record television programmes as they are being shown on TV, just let us know".

So, you respond and explain you're not actually a baby butchering terrorist, but you just don't own a TV, which they promptly ignore and send you the letter again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... and again... 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Eventually, they give up, and send a letter saying "Right, you still don't have a TV licence. You've therefore left us with no choice but to send around the TV Licensing Enforcement Division to shoot you, so society doesn't have to put up with your evil airwave stealing presence anymore", which is the stage I've reached in the latest saga with them.

Last time this happened to me, I was living in a block of flats with a communal front door, which I answer to find that their way to deal with this supreme evil terrorist I'd apparently become was to send around a small man with a clipboard who just accepted my word that I didn't have a TV and left. He didn't even seem too bothered about the pile of butchered babies on the doorstep.

Inspite of that, I still think TV licences are a great concept. All those overpaid people out there who spend extra subscription fees to ensure they have constant access to every single commercialised TV station shipped in from the US, also get to pay for me to listen to ad-free radio for nothing! All we need is an exemption for all those people who aren't overly rich bankers and the system would be perfect.

So just caught up on last nights Question Time. For those of you that missed it, it's available on iplayer at the moment:

(Direct link)

The slagging match at the begining was a bit pointless. Throwing quotes at him and him denying them isn't going to convince anyone that's BNP policy unless they know he's already said them, in which case they either agree with the sentiment expressed or they don't.

The BNP have some horrendous views, but if you throw quotes at anyone that the vast majority disagree with, and they couldn't possibly justify to the people, in front of the very people they are trying to convince of their policies, then of course they are going to try and wriggle out of these things.

Unless the government make hugely monumental cock up to completely alienate the people against all the main parties, the BNP are unlikely to gain a majority in the government, so the chances of any of their most extreme policies getting implemented are minimal.

However, they do have more moderate policies that are winning over voters. These are the ones to address. When these came up later in the show, Nick opened up and not only expressed these views, but also gave insight into the underlying abhorrant reasoning behind them. That is where the true agenda of the BNP is shown off to the nation, not through a personal attack on their representative.

He has every right to hold his views and every right to express them. It is the duty of opposing politicians to expose the holes within these policies not within the person. Whatever he believes he is a human being and he deserves be treated with common courtesy regardless of whether he shows this to others in return.

No matter how extreme his views, he does have some valid points to raise. People voted for him because they believe he represents their views, so he needs to be allowed to represent them. Many of these people aren't going to believe in all the policies the BNP puts forward. Who believes in all the policies of the party they vote for? It must be a very small minority of people. If the majority of the views the BNP put forward turn out not to be what the people voted for and against what these people believe they'll question why they voted for him. However, there will be some of them that do express what the people voted for.

There are issues with people feeling that immigrants are coming into the country and threatening their way of life. There are people who find homosexual activities repulsive. Homophobia exists. These are issues that need to be raised and the BNP are quite right to raise them. Many people feel threatened by these things because they threaten the values they have been brought up to believe in and so want them brought up for discussion for that very reason.

What makes the BNP abhorrent is what they want to do about these issue, shutting them out of harms way instead of bringing them forward to help people come to terms with them. It's through debating these issues that the true nature of these policies come forward and you see exactly how anti-equality the BNP really are.

We don't fear being equal. We fear being less important than those around us and things that challenge our position in society to make us that way. To show the true nature of the BNP, you need to show how they want to make huge numbers of the people in this country into lesser citizens by promoting inequality.

I must admit I was feeling quite sorry for Griffin by the end. No matter how extreme his views are they are still as valid as anyone elses and he had to sit there and put these forwards to a room full of negative feeling towards him. It can't have been easy for him no matter how used to it he is and it was interesting to see how much he seemed to be shaking towards the end.

He and the people who voted for him, have these views for a reason. You can't just dismiss them. They need to be debated so that the issues they raise can be looked at under a more rational light. You don't gain equality by putting one persons views in higher regards than another. Equality requires all these views to be discussed on equal grounds. Only then can everyone feel that their views have been represented in the resulting solution.

There are too many of us who want to see equality for the BNP to get their way, but this equality can only be truely equal if it gives the views of all individuals including those in the BNP fair consideration.

This is one of those memes that seems to have gone around a lot for years now and I've so far avoid it. Well until I somehow managed to ask ladyofastolat to pick 5 things from my interests for me to talk about.

Oh well, here goes:

Blue string pudding (English seems inappropriate for this one) whistle whistle-whistle whiiiiistle whistle-whistle-whistle whistle. Whistle whistle whistle whistle-whistle whiiistle whiiiiistle whistle-whistle whistle. Whistle-whistle whistle whistle-whistle-whistle-whistle whistle whistle. Whistle whistle whistle. Whistle-whistle whiiiiistle whistle whiiistle whistle-whistle-whistle whiiiistle. (hope you got that, because that's all the explanation your going to get)

Coathangers This is about the only explanation I can give for this one (it's not my coathanger or my wall, but it is my, rather poorly taken, photograph)


Neil Gaiman I discovered Neil Gaiman when Neverwhere came on TV when I was at school. I bought the book of it shortly after when it came out and have worked my way through most of his other books since. I like the way he manages to ground the fantastic into real life situations, particularly in Neverwhere and American Gods. Rather than creating a whole new reality to talk about, he generally seems to just twist the one we've got to his own ends. Not really looked at the comics much though, as I never really was a big one for comics in general.

Real Ale You can't go around with morris dancers and other real ale drinkers without developing a taste for the stuff, especially when a lot of the other stuff pubs serve drink-wise is fairly tasteless and uninteresting. I therefore fell down that slippery slope. I wouldn't say I've got any particular favourites though, I'll generally go for the ones I know less well, because they might be more of a surprise.

The Goons Here I was, freshly run over with my bagpipes irreparably flattened, and without a remedy. The weight of the steamroller had made a lasting impression on me. I was now two inches thick and twenty-four feet wide. This- this was very awkward. People kept opening and shutting me. Then I discovered the goons had had a very similar storyline and radio 7 was repeating them on a Monday morning. Started listening to them on listen again as I didn't have digital when I first discovered this until I moved back to London and was able to listen to them before going to work (falling in the water is a very good way to wake up on a Monday morning). The rotten swines have deaded them now though :-(

I've always found mellotrons a fascinating idea (mainly because whoever thought them up must have been clinically insane) and have just wanted one to play with (even though I wouldn't have a clue how to play it).

However, I've changed my mind, I want one of these instead...

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Not sure where I'd find space in the flat to keep a choir though.

(via bagrec)

Last Thursday (oh look, only a week behind now, wahoo!), I went to see The Maid of Buttermere at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick.

It is a dramatisation of Melvyn Bragg's book of the same name, which in turn is based on the true story of Mary Robinson, an Inn Keeper's daughter at the turn of the nineteenth century renowned for her beauty, who was courted and married by an aristocrat, who later turned out to be an imposter and a serial bigamist. Bragg writes in the programme that he wanted to pay "homeage to the great Victorian novels", when writing the book, and there was certainly feeling along similar lines to stories such as Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights.

Inspite (or maybe in reaction to?) the bad review he got in the Guardian, Jonathan Keeble did actually put a lot of feeling into the role of John Hatfield and you did get a feeling of remorse. Rebecca Pownall was really sweet as Mary and you just wanted to run onto the stage and give her a hug, especially when all the truth came out.

Howard Chadwick's Newton, really stole the show for me. He managed to make the character immensely sinister and threatening, and it put across the power he needed over Hatfield in order to carry the story inspite of the fact that Chadwick was of considerably shorter stature then Keeble.

Tim Barker looked very familiar, although I'm not entirely sure what I recognise him from. According to IMDB he was in Dark Season (was that really as long ago as 1991? Gosh!) and I can see him in it now, but I'm sure I've seen him in something older then he was then, but younger than he is now and I'm not sure what.

In short I really enjoyed it, and it had the added benefit of being set around lots of very familiar places.

It's currently showing at The Theatre by the Lake until 18 April 2009, but there were very few tickets left when I bought mine.

While looking for a new (well new to me) phone yesterday, I may have accidentally bought a few DVDs (also second hand) *whistles innocently*

I've seen Firefly mentioned on here a few times before and a few years ago I found a cheap Serenity DVD, which I enjoyed, so it didn't take much for me to go "ooooh, cheap firefly box set... mine!" (also found X files series 1 and a few films).

Watched the first episode last night. Very impressed. Having watched Serenity spoilt some of the Simon/River plotline, but there were enough other plots going on to compensate for this.

I haven't seen a huge amount of Buffy, so may be making a sweeping generalisation from what I have seen, but the characters in it in the episodes I have seen have seemed quite shallow. Whereas, in this first episode of Firefly, Whedon seems to develop much deeper characters. From the brief introduction of the first episode it's not clear what to make of them all or how the open battle scenes will fit into the over story of the captain.

I'm not a bit fan of westerns either, but it's interesting to see their influence coming through. The whole first episode screams "western set in space" at you.

*hmmm_tea suspects this was money well spent*

Saw this on the way to work:



Was going to say that it was a really cool name and if I ever needed concrete that's where I'd go, just for the name, but then the theme tune sprung into my head and I've got stuck on the line

"One letter and now you're a part of it"

Is this a cover for the mafia?

If any of you ever write to them about me, I won't be speaking to you again...

Having finally caught up with episodes 4 and 5 of Being Human, I thought I'd watch the last episode this evening.

Turns out I forgot to download it and it's no longer available (not surprising as it finished a while ago now).

Oh well, guess I don't get to find out what happened in the end then.

Bother!

So, having gained some free time after completing H808 yesterday, I decided to explore what was on offer on iplayer. In the end I downloaded the first episode of Being Human as I had recollections of seeing it recommended somewhere (possibly on here somewhere?).

( I don't normally post about films/programmes/books much, but it seems to be appropriate to cut in case anything I write turns out to be a spoiler )

Perhaps I should start a campaign for a more interesting portrayal of an Owen in the media?

Would offer to let them follow me around with a camera to see what a real Owen is like, but I'm too modest for that sort of thing.

When I was younger a remember watching a Gerry Anderson series involving robots with heads that rolled off and end credits involving a game of noughts and crosses.

I'm not sure if this was something that was only broadcast in southern regions of the UK, as I can only remember watching it before we moved north and no one seemed to know what I was on about when I was at school in Cumbria.

Anyway, I was pleased to find the following in the local charity shop a couple of days ago:

Terrahawks - Vol. 7, 8 And 9 - The Collector's Set

( clips behind cut )