I'm not doing too well at the 'regular posting' posting part of this blog lark, am I?

Well, I can always blame NaNoWriMo for missing November.  I didn’t manage to write 50,000 words, but I did manage 20,000, which I’m pretty damn pleased about; and I’m carrying on with it, too.  Maybe by next year’s NaNoWriMo I’ll have it finished.  It’s strange how a completely arbitrary, but externally-defined, deadline can boost creativity.  In theory I ought to be able to set myself a deadline and get the same effect, but to date I’ve never managed to do so.

If 50,000 is a Nanowrimo, though, I declare myself to have completed 40 Picowrimos.

Other news: in a shock move I am close to resolving not to vote Labour at the next election.  If they carry on with their ID cards madness they will have to be stopped.  I intend to write to my MP and to the Home Secretary (who has other things on his mind at the moment, which with any luck will distract him from his authoritarian tendencies).  The former will only have my vote if he promises to vote against the bill at every possible opportunity (and does so).

It will break my heart to put my cross in the wrong box, as well as exposing us to the danger of another Tory government;  but the ID cards scheme — and even more importantly, the database that will support it — is unconscionable . One encouraging thing I saw this morning was the letters page in Metro: all the letters about ID cards were against them. That’s a very small sample, but Metro is owned by the same group as the Daily Mail. If publishers with an authoritarian right-wing background are turning against the idea of ID cards, then maybe they can be stopped yet. You would expect liberterian right-wingers to be against them, of course. I’m reminded of one of Heinlein’s sayings (probably through Lazarus Long), which I recall as: When a society requires its members to carry ID, it’s time to leave that society. A spot of googling, however, reminds me that it really was:

When a place gets crowded enough to require IDs, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere.
Oh well.

The No2ID people still have their petition up, so you should sign that if you feel as I do.  And write to your MP.  Or fax them.

If this paternity/visagate business takes Blunkett down, will he take the ID cards bill with him?  I hope so, but expect not.