This Sporting Life?

So, Andy Gray and Richard Keys are private sexists, (now ex) public pundits and the world fractures in some typical tribal schism where one minority camp is uttering ‘get a life’ to the other, while their opponents in the real world reply: ‘smell the coffee’. You hear the usual chants from the usual quarters and for one set of supporters it seems as though it’s a question of who can shout the loudest or exhibit the most passion who will win. (Any allusion to how rival football crowds behave is entirely intended – perhaps we should settle the argument with a penalty shoot-out using a replica of Bernard Manning’s head.) It’s like some philosophical game we continually have to indulge in as we stagger towards the goal of equality, forever having to bat away at those who won’t concede the point and refuse to play by the rules. (Please insert other sporting metaphors as you see fit.) Private or public – sexist behaviour is just that. Now, blow the whistle and move on.

Of course, the pertinent point about this issue is that I just don’t give a fuck about football ...

Kill a banker?

There’s an insult cliché which begins: please rearrange these words into a well-known sentence. Well, with regard to bankers and Barclays’ Bob Diamond’s assertion that ‘the time for remorse is over’ (it’s not remorse, Bob, it’s anger, and no, it isn’t time), please arrange these items into a possible strategy for satisfaction: banker, lamppost, rope. Now Sir John Vickers – due to report on the findings of The Independent Commission on Banking (set up by George Osboy (sic) last June) in September of this year – has hinted at suggestions of major reform. Well, bugger me – it takes a year to come to that conclusion and it’s only going to be advisory? Why isn’t the government doing something now to defend us from these money-addicted risk takers, instead of instituting immediate major cuts to reduce the deficit? Isn’t one of the things they’re supposed to do is protect our society from threats to it?

Meanwhile, the cuts start to bite. My local library (in a building which has been used for such for over one hundred years) is now scheduled for closure in the scramble to save money. We’re allowing lobotomies to be performed on ourselves and our children, sacrificing the beauty and benefit of knowledge that comes from books – and free books at that – in an over-eager bid to help offset a problem caused by bastards swaggering around in the complacent belief they are ‘too big to fail’. Well, when the councils begin switching off every other streetlight to reduce spending, I’d like to propose a use for the redundant ones. First you find a banker …

New Year, new ideas

There has been a hiatus in my blog due to the fact that just before Christmas my PC became an ex-PC. So, now that things appear to be up and running again, it will interesting to see if I can fulfil a New Year resolution of regular updates and observations. (I can now also be contacted by email via my blog profile. I switched off the comments on the site as some sad morons who posted replies were just that: sad morons who didn’t have the courage to leave a name. At least this way they’ll have to put in more effort to vent their spleen … and leave a contact email in the process.)

The New Year has also ushered in a solidifying of an SF idea I had last year concerning simulated universes. I know there have been plenty of other books (and films) exploring the concept, but I feel as though I have a fresh, radical take on it that will make for an interesting (and action-based) narrative. Expect something like Blade Runner meets Kafka ...