Thursday, 27 December 2007

Dr Who Christmas cash-in

Doctor Who - Voyage of The Damned
Every year I watch the Dr Who Christmas special and every year I am left gob smacked at the fiendish misuse of the word 'special'. Terms such as 'cash-in' or 'rip-off' would have been more appropriate. The trouble is I know that Dr Who, despite occasional moments of brilliance, isn't really that good. I might have been tempted to blame David Tennant consistently gurning at the camera; but Christopher Eccleston did exactly the same thing in his turn as The Doctor and he's a brilliant actor. The problem lies in sloppy direction and some really inconsistent writing. The good stuff is good enough that you forgive the dross that is all too frequently meted out. However Christmas episodes of Dr Who are rather like the entire first series of Torchwood (I'm a software developer so I had to watch it all); they take the worst bits of Dr Who and put them into an extended episode cunningly timed for just after the evening meal.

Think about it; it's Christmas day and those people with a social life will by that time have consumed enough alcohol to view the whole thing through rose-tinted spectacles. Those with their critical faculties intact, and therefore without a social life, are going to watch it regardless. I suppose it's quite clever but just once I'd like a Christmas special that lives up to the name; an episode with original characters, without the usual clichéd dialog. This episode, just to rub it in, indulged in visual clichés that even Jerry Bruckheimer would have been ashamed of. At least next Christmas I know what to ask for from Santa.

Thursday, 13 December 2007

Magic numbers

Broken promises
I try so hard, I really do, but then those magicians we fondly refer to as the Government attempt one sleight of hand too many. The latest Gordon Brown inspired wheeze is to reduce the value of morally binding pay settlements by delaying paying up. Don't try telling me this was all the Home Secretary's idea. Work out how much you want to pay and then delay implementing the agreed pay increase for a calculated number of months; so that by the time the increase is implemented it's only worth the amount you wanted to pay in the first place. The Government, true to form, have thrown a large number of red herrings our way.

Principal among these are pointing out the need to keep public spending low and the relatively good pay increases of police officers over the last ten years. These are good points, however they are completely irrelevant. Whether we believe the police do a good or bad job, or perhaps have some personal grievance against the police, is also completely irrelevant.

The only relevant detail in this case is that an employer and the employees used arbitration, and have done for the last 27 years, to decide on the pay rise. An amount of 2.5% was agreed upon. If the employer couldn't afford this they should have said so at the time. What they shouldn't have done is agree the rise and then subsequently renege on their agreement by delaying implementation. In this case the Government have delayed the pay rise so that the actual value is only 1.9%. Those in the Government that still claim this is a 2.5% pay rise need to take remedial lessons in mathematics... or they could learn to stop lying.

This is important regardless of whether you think the police are doing a good job or are paid enough. If the Government are free to treat employees in such a manner it’s a green light for all employers to use equally duplicitous methods to cheat their own workforce.

Thursday, 6 December 2007

Learning their lesson?

Learner plate
I was never a great fan of the Blair administration, though at the start he did at least represent something new and for a while I was taken in, seduced if you like, by the new style. The alarm bells should have started when he trebled the number of staff at No. 10, but the real pointer was the Alastair Campbell influence. The former Director of Communications had little regard for the niceties of democratic debate, and more than once those people brave enough to question the Prime Minister in public were on the receiving end of a hatchet job a few days later in the press. I never quite understood why Tony Blair allowed this to happen. Perhaps he thought this was a robust defence of his policies or maybe he didn't know it was going on. Either way it soured my opinion of him permanently.

Gordon Brown should have been a refreshing change, being less enamoured with the sound of his own voice and giving the appearance of someone who might actually give you his opinion before consulting a focus group. However he'd been waiting so long for his predecessor to hand over the reigns that during his time as chancellor he developed a reputation for an autocratic style of leadership. This can make for great newspaper copy but such powers come at a cost; huge levels of bureaucracy and inefficiency in all levels of government. Delegation is not one of Gordon's strengths.

It was inevitable that someone would screw-up; the only question was how bad would it be? HM revenue and Customs answered this challenge spectacularly by managing to lose discs containing the personal details of 25 million people. They didn't lose them within the building, though the fact that copies of the data could be made so easily is disturbing, the details were lost when they were posted to another department. It would appear the government's idea of keeping the data of its citizens secure is to put it in a brown paper bag and hope nobody looks.

If you believe the government, though by now I'm finding it hard to think why we should, this happened because people weren't following the correct procedure. Lessons must be learnt, we were told, only they weren't. The trouble is that this kind of incident has happened several times before, though not on such a scale, and each time we were given the same promise. The biggest pointer however to the government's culpability is their mistaken belief that this happened because people weren't following procedure. Not true; this happened because the system allowed people to not follow procedure. If you create an IT system on the cheap, one that requires more manual processes than is necessary, and then run it in an overworked department that has faced savage cutbacks in staff, this kind of calamity isn't just possible, it's inevitable.

Wednesday, 21 November 2007

Ode to Air Conditioner

Air conditioner on the wall
So tall
Imperious up high
Though outside the sky
Is Grey
Freeze you say
And we do!

Sunday, 18 November 2007

Smothered

A brief bright light
Smothered by cloud
And with it the fight
Left me

My attempts to do right
Were easily bowed

A disjointed excuse

That's all I ever was
Or could be

Saturday, 17 November 2007

Objective or subjective?

The appreciation of any film is always going to be highly subjective, or perhaps it will become so if it's any good. I sometimes think a truly great film should have the kind of emotional impact that leaves you unable to view it objectively, and paradoxically leave you wondering if it's as good as you think. Does that make any sense?

Fearless film
Nevertheless, on browsing the IMDB website I am surprised when I discover that a film such as K-PAX is rated more highly than Fearless. K-PAX is a fair film but on a second viewing it's hardly a classic. Fearless on the other hand is one of the best films I have ever seen. With the exception of Tom Hulce, whose role of a money grabbing lawyer is a gross caricature (who'd have thought that was possible?), it's better by any measure, including narrative. The story of how a survivor of a plane crash comes to terms with, and whose personality is changed by the event is more challenging (and rewarding) than yet another tale whose backdrop is set around the wacky inhabitants of a mental institution.

K-Pax film
So why is K-PAX rated more highly? It's not the Kevin Spacey affect. There's no doubt he's a fine and popular actor but The Shipping News, also featuring Spacey, is a better film that again achieves a lower score. I believe it's the setting that swings the vote. I think audiences are comforted by portrayals of slightly odd or even strange people, who are at the same time often endearing and never threatening. It's not grounded in reality, in some ways it's insulting, but this is a film whose primary purpose is to entertain. Since this isn't in itself a bad thing I'm not going to be too harsh. K-PAX isn't a bad film; in fact it's quite good. It redeems itself with an ambiguity that is preserved right to the very end, which is always a good sign. Fearless on the other hand is much more.

Friday, 9 November 2007

How to lose votes and influence no-one

When I was in the sixth form my school was visited by each of the major political parties and the Liberal party. I can't remember much of what was said but I do remember that they didn't exactly cover themselves in glory.

As befits a Liberal party spokesperson I can barely recollect what they said. I do vaguely remember a comment about proportional representation but that's rather par for the course. Given that I like our parliamentary representatives to be true representatives of, and directly accountable to their constituencies, the Liberal party was always going to have a hard time winning me over.
The Conservative party spokeswoman rather embarrassingly replied to a question on unemployment by saying that it was "the price of freedom". Oh dear! I seem to have air-brushed the rest of her presentation from my memory, which is probably just as well.

The Labour party spokesman was young, good looking and very cool. Brad, as I shall call him, could relate to the kids. We knew this because he wore jeans. He started out quite well but inevitably tripped himself up over the question of Mrs Thatcher (even now I have a hard time calling her Margaret). Maggie was such a bête noire for the political left that it was impossible to debate any subject without socialists of the time (and even today) bearing their fangs. Brad's mistake, when asked why his party hadn't produced any female leaders, was to make a number of originally light hearted sexist comments doubting the femininity of the prime minister; even questioning whether she was a woman at all. Unfortunately he didn't stop there, though I confess I did ratherCall to action - Vote! enjoy the uncomfortable look on the face of each teacher present. Even the teachers wearing corduroy jeans (a dead giveaway) looked shocked. It's just as well I don't resort to such stereotypes…

I was reminded of this visit recently whilst listening to a political commentator on the radio. The basic gist was that the makeup of the electorate was roughly the following; 30% would always vote Labour, 30% Conservative, 10% Liberal and the remainder would be undecided. As a result, he argued, political parties had become savvier in targeting those precious floating voters.

So I wondered; had there been an outstanding spokesperson all those years ago would it have made a difference? I'd like to think so. Though the representations were uniformly bad, they were from people who at least gave you a flavour of what their party represented. Back then there was a little less nous which made it a lot more honest. Nowadays there is more shrewdness, voters are more cleverly targeted but with the unfortunate consequence of a homogenised offering from parties that have all turned a lighter shade of beige.