Mat Bowles

I'm awake, honest. I've had enough coffee to get me going again anyway. Doing some tidying up to my LJ, renaming tags, etc. This seems like a good enough reason to rename one of them, plus 2008 has ended so it's time to start a new 'life' tag for this year.

Appears I've posted less about what's been going on in my life this year than any other calender year that I've had the LJ. I guess being happy gives me less to write about, right? Completely skint, but there y'go, can't have everything.

I don't do new years resolutions, and, well, predictions are a bit of a mugs game, but, well, might as well.

( UK: politics will dominate, likely election, bit of history explaining why )

( Obama's honeymoon, potential pitfalls, hope he holds it together )

( Europe, Referenda, Libertas and elections )

Meh, 7pm. Time to go pick the Shrub up from her Dad's.

So, lunchtime today, we listened to Any Questions. Jennie's take is here ( ... ), but one of the topics that came up was the subject of the National Anthem. Because, seriously, this Govt has, apparently, just figured out that having the line Rebellious Scots to crush might not actually be the best idea in a song meant for all of Britain. Of course, the interesting thing in the story wasn't actually covered.

Not England, Britain nor the UK as a whole actually has a national anthem; I'll let Gareth explain at Anthem4England:

Surprisingly it is not the official UK national anthem as it has never been adopted by Royal Proclamation or Act of Parliament, and hence there is also no authorised version.

The order of the verses is disputed ( ... )and it has no legal status ( ... ).

One of the worst songs ever written

It's also one of the worst songs ever written, bloody awful to sing, completely uninspiring and dull as ditchwater. There is of course a less dull version, but even I'd not propose that to be officially adopted.

Given that England has no anthem, I'd personally favour either Land of Hope and Glory or Jerusalem, but neither is great, merely adequate. Perhaps we could commission a decent one? Or maybe the national sporting bodies could do it, but please, not Baddiel and Skinner.

As for Britain? No contest, can anyone really object to this?

( Britons never shall be slaves... thy native oak... haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame... )

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.

Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves:
Britons never shall be slaves.
( ... )

I sure as hell don't, and the anti-slavery/anti-tyranny message appeals to me on a number of levels. There is, of course, a different, valid objection. Lorna alluded to it here awhile back:

What really freaked me out was seeing St George's flag posters, since I generally associate that with an even more virulent brand of nationalism.

Personally, I view the surrendering of national symbols to the extremist bigots and xenophobes to be a problem. Many people want identity, they want to belong to something.

When I first started a politics only blog, I said in the first post:

I'm a Devonshire, Westcountry, English, British European. I can be, and am, proud to be all of these things, and it remains true today. There's a reason that site( ... ) will have symbols people identify with ( ... ) it persuades people who softly oppose your position to still listen to you. Taking an extremist view, even if it's one I would agree with ( ... )means that some people who would otherwise be sympathetic will ignore the actual point—they'll dismiss the messenger and thus ignore the message. ( ... )

Nothing wrong with symbols of identity

There's nothing wrong with symbols, of identity, of wanting to belong and feel part of something. ( ... ) I dislike categories because people like to use them in an exclusionary way—that's wrong. Being one thing doesn't prevent you from being another, and sometimes portraying it as if it does does more damage than it should.

The problem with political identity is that it sometimes gets hijacked by extremists, and then those that oppose them sometimes thing they also have to oppose the symbols they've stolen. I disagree; rejecting the symbols means that those who feel they belong sometimes go to those we object to, and thus we lose. Sometimes.

The biggest problems with British and English symbols of identity is that many of them, like the cross like flags and that awful dirge, are simply crap. I'd like to see the Welsh Dragon included on the Jack not because I have many Welsh friends, but simply because, well, Dude? Dragons are cool.

A comment at SB's public blog:

The attractiveness of a low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is generally due to it being an indicator of health and fertility, but this new research offers a possible additional factor, that low WHR also indicates high cognitive ability. So, yep, the study suggests that curvy girls are likely to be smart and produce smart children, and this increased smartness is possibly what makes the curves attractive to men. It's to do with the difference in upper bopdy fat and lower body fat supplying the particular kind of fatty acid that's essential for brain development.

I now have an excuse to letch after a nice arse--I'm checking out her likely mental capacity as well.

OK, I didn't have this excuse before, and it's never stopped me, but, y'know, skience on my side now. There are a lot of very smart women on my blog reading list, this is good. I'm marrying one of them. This is even better.

Oh, rest of the post and comments is worth a read over as well. I have another, different follow up post planned, but that one requires engaging my brain, which isn't working today, sorry...

Despite being vegetarian and broadly in favour of animal welfare attempts and being opposed to cruelty and unnecessary slaughter of animals, I've always been slightly ambivalent about badger culls and similar. When the reports earlier in the year indicated what we'd always suspected, that it didn't actually make a difference to the spread of bovine TB, I thought that might possibly be the end of it. It appears not.

My parents get The Telegraph. They used to get the Independent, but then I moved out and it went tabloid, plus Alex is in the Telegraph (or at least was). This mornings picture story is this: Cull badgers to fight TB, advises top scientist, and it's followd up by a comment peice on page two using that failure of a good argument, the appeal that Common sense demands badger cull. Fortunately, I have tyrell paying attention, and he's done a nice little demolition job on the idiocy surrounding the story and the wonderful idea that a Govt advisor (specialty: chemistry) can spend a few months and thus dismiss a report by a professor of animal health, director of the institute of animal health and a study that took him ten years to complete.

Now, obviously, I might be missing something and I haven't had time to do much research, but, um, who would you believe? Oh, wait, it's DEFRA, they'll go with not-annoying-the-farmers approach rather than the slightly harder let's-tell-the-farmers-the-truth approach. Gah!

Feeling fairly powerless about the whole Burma thing. Of course, anyone that studied at Exeter at the same time I did is already aware of the issues, I've long been of the opinion that if the point of Iraq was to do good and acheive 'regime change' then a much better target would've been the evil bastards in self-styled Myanmar. But the only effective thing we can really do is show solidarity and apply pressure on those companies that invest and/or exploit the Burmese people. Especially alleged forced labour using Total Elf Fina (what the Exeter problems were centralled around). Fortunately, the Burma Campaign has a dirty list, which while a little heavy on the rhetoric is fairly exhaustive. Included in this list:

Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet is an Australian multinational publishing company specialising in travel guides. Lonely Planet publishes a guide to Burma which encourages tourists to visit the country. Lonely Planet also vigorously defends tourism to Burma, attempting to undermine calls by Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma’s democracy movement for tourists to stay away.

Fair enough, avoid buying their products, across the board, and tell them what you think. Hmm, problem. BBC Worldwide buys Lonely Planet. Boycott the BBC? Um...

I guess an email to be sent after I finish work won't be too bad, possibly copy in Feedback--they could easily change their policies in light of current events, especially if the above quoted is Suu Kyi's stated position. Ah, the travails of ethical consumerism, there never is an easy answer.

Executive who branded wife with iron freed with a £2,000 fine:

A report recommended a community service order, but Recorder William Featherby questioned how Read would fit it in around his long working hours.

He said he was concerned that Read had denied the offences despite overwhelming evidence and he called the iron attack "appalling".

But the judge said it was the circumstances of the marriage that had provoked Read and that now those circumstances had gone, sending him to prison would "help no one".

So branding your wife with a hot iron isn't worthy of punishment in and of itself? A £2K fine (about a weeks pay for this guy) is going to sort it all out?

Prison has three functions: Punish, protect and rehabilitate. This guy seems barely able to acknowledge he's done wrong, but because he has a busy job he can just pay it off?

Judith Stephenson, of Women's Aid, said: "This case is extremely worrying. It takes an enormous amount of courage for a woman to go to court and this sentence may deter other women from doing so."

That people (predominantly but not exclusively women) become trapped in abusive relationships and feel they can't get out is something I can't relate to, can't understand. But I know it happens, and it has happened to people I like and respect. To have the court system then effectively dismiss it out of hand is horrifying.

Via Katy at The Devil's Kitchen.

El Reg reports:

Royal Navy bomb disposal experts were called to a house in Paignton, Devon, after a tip-off that 68-year-old Thelma Bonnett was rather ill-advisedly using a live First World War German shell as a doorstop

The Daily Mail informs us:

At any time during all those years, however, it could have exploded.

And local newspaper rag The Herald Express confirms:

it had been used by a pensioner as a doorstop for more than 20 years

I was born in Paignton. She seems to fit the demographics much better than I ever did...

I said:

I hope for Johnson, but think Harman has a strong chance, and she made a blatent play for Cruddas's second prefs near the end,

And after the results are called, we see that:

Electoral college results

Candidate	1st round	2nd round	3rd round	4th round	5th round
Hilary Benn	16.40%	18.22%	22.33%
Hazel Blears	11.77%
Jon Cruddas	19.39%	20.39%	23.89%	30.06%
Peter Hain	15.32%	16.42%
Harriet Harman	18.93%	21.23%	25.88%	33.58%	50.43%	ELECTED
Alan Johnson	18.16%	23.74%	27.90%	36.35%	49.56%

Her blatant grab for his support worked like a charm. Cruddas won the first round, but barely picked up any second preferences, Johnson was picking up more until close to the end, when Harman then jumped ahead with Jon's votes. Interesting times it seems. Lots of people on the Labour blogs bitching about the voting system, one even said it was "stalinist". To me it remains the best way of determining a result acceptable to all, allows for multiple candidates rather than requiring a stitch up before the actual vote and is invaluable in a close contest, as this undoubtedly was. It also shows that Harman knew to play for second and third preferences a lot more than others, apparently internal canvassing wasn't asking for preferences at wll--and the media constantly referring to it as a "complicated" system was really annoying me throughout.

But most important aspect: Blears last place on barely 11% of the vote. Labour members renew my faith in humanity a little with that one, word has it there was a massive cheer when her elimination was announced.

Loads of politics posts in a row. Time for some frivolity methinks...

Watched Question Time last night with SB for the Labour Deputy Leadership contest. Took many notes, might try to write some coherent thoughts up on the whole debate, was very interesting. Following Sue's statement of preferences:

1. Jon, 2. Peter, 3. Alan, 4. Harriet, 5. Hilary, 6. Hazel
I did it based on the following, and in this order: (1) my opinion of how little they were likely to toe Gordon's line, (2) excessive toadying under Tony (3) voting record (4) school and (5) amount of union support.

I thought I'd summarise my thoughts. I don't have a vote, but some of you might (I know at least two do).

Biggest issue is how the Dep Leader will affect Labour's prospect at the next General Election. Unless things change drastically, I currently predict a Tory landslide; that has to be stopped. My personal ideal vote would, fairly obviously as already stated, be a hung Parliament resulting in a Labour/Lib Dem coalition prepared to actually carry out the necessary fundamental constitutional reforms we were promised in '97 and that Brown is hinting might actually now happen. On top of there's a personal factor, who comes across well and would be someone I (and other left-leaning liberals) could possibly work with. So, given I don't have a huge amount of time: ( My reactions to the candidates and some thoughts )
Will possibly transfer more thoughts as to the positioning elements, but really, if you are in position of a Labour vote; think carefully, as this one will make a huge difference to electoral chances, and I really really can't stand the idea of a Cameron landslide, which I think is what someone like Blears will help lead to.

Off now, Bradford and Soylent Green beckon...

Hmm, good news for a change, Masterfoods no longer evil:

Mars said it became "very clear, very quickly" that it had made a mistake.

Merely very very stupid. Was going to post about the sheer idiocy when mooism first posted on the 8th (note, that was 6 days before the BBC caught up), but things got lost in the shuffle. They were using the excuse that "only strict vegetarians" would be affected, and in a way, they'd be right. When I eat out, I don't tend to worry whether the cheese is made using rennet, I'm not that strict. But if a company does something blitheringly stupid, and says that it shouldn't bother me at all?

Worse, for them, it would've meant that many of my non-vegetarian friends and family would have stopped buying their products; why buy Masterfoods when Cadbury do something just as good? Stupid stupid company decision. Still, while I'll try to stick to Green and Blacks when I can afford it, and Cadbury when I can't, I can still buy Masterfoods now, they're idiots, but they're not
evil like Nestlé. Ah, informed consumers making choices within an active market, and forcing companies to change. You can see why so many capitalists are anti-market at heart, right?

The only problem of course is that some of the statistics used to claim how many vegetarians there are in the country are likely very very wrong. Why? Because even smart people are stupid:

Twenty years after the IQ tests were carried out in 1970, 366 of the participants said they were vegetarian - although more than 100 reported eating either fish or chicken.

Guys? Vegetarians don't eat fish, let alone chicken. So as virtually every survey of the nature relies on self reporting, and approx 1/3rd of self-described vegetarians are pescetarians at best, the market impact might be smaller than it should be. People assuming I can eat fish despite being vegetarian is probably one of my biggest pet-hates, and it isn't helped by the ignorance of some who self-describe wrongly. It's a bit like self-described Christians who don't go to church; they may quack like a duck, but they sure as hell don't walk like a duck.

Oh, it's National Vegetarian Week as of tomorrow, so expect dodgy media coverage, false assumptions and some of my more idiotic ethical eaters to be a bit too assertive in various places, sorry about that.