photos
- A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.
The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.
Outlawing the fingerprinting of children at school without parental permission.
The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.
The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.
The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
Further regulation of CCTV.
Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
Spring springing in Clapton Square
New Year Activities
The day after New Year's Day we decided to go to the British Museum, to see the mummies. So did half of London, it seemed. I've never seen it so crowded. Still, the mummies are always interesting. I must go back another time and see some other sections.
Home was via bookshop, Pizza Express, and Little Fockers at the cinema (ignore the critics: it’s loadsa fun; unless you didn’t like the first two, of course).
Oh, but before all that, we had tried to play basketball in Millfields Park. But there was an annoying dog-owner who couldn’t control her Alsatian. The latter proceeded to bite our basketball till it burst. When we remonstrated with the owner, she ran off.
At least it was only the basketball that got bitten.
The next day brought an early start. Neither London’s young skaters nor anybody else gets up very early on New Year’s Bank Holiday Monday, it seems. I don’t think I’ve ever seen London streets so empty. The drive in to the Aldwych area for the start of skating at Somerset House felt like driving through a Jerry Cornelius novel: “Martin tooled the big Duesenberg Skoda down Roseberry Avenue…”
I don’t skate any more. I did it twice when I was a student, and I think once since I had kids. From the student times, I remember enjoying it, but getting very wet and very bruised. With kids I didn’t fall over so much, but only through caution, not because I had magically become able to skate.
Anyway, what with one thing and another, I didn’t do it through all those intervening years, and by the time my kids were old enough to be interested and able, I had broken my cruciate ligament in a freak gardening accident. I probably could do it now, but I’m too scared of re-injuring my knee.
So I sat in the warmth of “Tom’s Skate Lounge” and had a Cappuccino and a Danish, and took photographs and notes, while our party slowly, but with increasing confidence, circled the ice. I loved the fact that the staff members who were on the ice had hi-viz vests saying “Ice Marshall”. There’s something very pleasing about that term.
After that we drove on out to South Kensington, and the Natural History Museum. Ostensibly to see the dinosaurs. But of course, the other half of London had decided to do the same. After queueing for maybe twenty minutes to get inside, we found a 45-minute queue for the dinosaurs. So we elected for the blue whale, via the other mammals, instead.
Which was of course, fabulous. Wonderful place, the Natural History Museum. Actually, London’s pretty wonderful.
Veela in the Bey Blade arena
Autumn sky
Autumn in Clapton Square
Summer Reading 2010
I've got out of the habit of writing about everything I read, but I've had such a good run of books over the summer that I want to at least make some notes on them all.
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
I tweeted as follows, while I was reading this:
I don't go in for having a 'favourite' book, but if I did, right now, it would be Neal Stephenson's _Anathem_. It made my brain sparkle.
Martin McCallion
devilgate
And making my brain sparkle is exactly the effect reading this had on me. I absolutely loved every minute of it (except, perhaps, the long detour over the pole). And the unusual thing about is this: it made me think, “Come on, get the action out of the way, and get back to the talking and philosophy.”
I won’t go in to any detail. There are plenty of places you can read more about it. A wonderful, wonderful book.
The Time-Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
As is this one. There has been a lot written about this, too. I, of course, approached it with genre in mind, and was amused from the start by the review-quotes on the cover; notably The Observer’s assertion that it is “startlingly original”.
It’s about someone who randomly travels in time along their own timeline. I kept thinking, “Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.”. I kept thinking, “I know where I came from, but what about all you zombies?” (which quote I misremembered; it is actually “…but where did all you zombies come from?")
I even thought, “Spoilers,” and “Hello Sweetie.”, but a quick check of the publication date informs me that it actually pre-dates new Doctor Who, so maybe Moffat was influenced by this.
Anyway, all those touchpoints are largely irrelevant, as this is not a work of science fiction at all (it makes no attempt to explain the time-travel mechanism, though does assign it some genetic connection). It is, rather, a love story with slightly unusual constraints. And very well told, though I’m a tad unhappy with the ending.
The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod
As I am with the ending of this one. It’s a fine story, though, set in a future Edinburgh where global warming has been partially turned back by technology, and there are space elevators and fully-conscious robots and other AIs. It’s a crime story, with the main character being a cop.
Edinburgh’s SF writers seem to be trying to get a bit of Iain Rankine’s territory these days.
The Clan Corporate by Charles Stross
Charlie being the other of those I’m alluding to there. Here, though, we’re back in his “Merchant Princes series. I’ve reviewed the first and second volumes before.
I said before that it was hard to believe how successful Miriam Beckstein is, given the radical changes that have happened to her. In this one she is much more circumscribed, by her odd family.
Relatively little happens here, really, but a lot is set in place for the following volumes. The main thing is that her worlds are starting to collide.
Pandaemonium by Christopher Brookmyre
Worlds colliding here, too.
I haven’t read a Brookmyre since his first, Quite Ugly One Morning, which I remember thoroughly enjoying. Not enough, though, to read any intervening ones.
This one is very different. It has soldiers, scientists, priests, demons, and schoolkids. It’s great fun.
There is a wildly-glaring plot hole at the end. My son read the book after me, and it was the first thing he said to me about it when he’d finished. We both hope it’s deliberate, meaning that Brookmyre has a sequel planned.
Who Lays Flowers for a Murderer?
When I sent this tweet:
Floral tributes for murderer just because he camped out for a while, apparently. Very strange.
Martin McCallion
devilgate
I was thinking about the literal, physical flowers that some misguided people had laid on the river bank where Raoul Moat died. Misguided, or possibly, grieving family members. Just because someone is a murderer, it doesn’t mean that no-one grieves for their death.
But now, it seems, things have gone beyond that. Facebook tribute pages celebrating Moat’s life, and especially his last few days in hiding from the police.
Go on the run, camp out for a bit, become a kind of hero: all very well (though I can’t say I’d recommend it as a career path) if the crime were minor, or victimless.
But this guy murdered a man, and shot two other people. One of them has been left blind. The other is still in hospital.
This guy wasn’t some Robin Hood figure. He was in no way a good guy. He was a grade ‘A’ bampot, a fuckpig of the first water. And I’m disgusted that anyone could think of celebrating his acts.
Con/Dem Nation?
Betrayed?
My initial reaction to the Liberal Democrats' decision to form a coalition with the Tories was a combination of disappointment and a sense of betrayal (with a side order of impending doom, of course).
I was, perhaps, naive. I said that I was voting LibDem, and that I actively wanted Labour to lose (while stressing that I wanted the Tories to lose even more). I was, I think, hoping for a hung parliament, which of course is what we got. But I was labouring (heh!) under the delusion that the LibDems were ideologically relatively close to Labour, and far enough away from the Tories that siding with them would be unthinkable.
Clearly I was wrong.
I had convinced myself that the only reaction of the LibDems to a hung parliament would be to join with Labour; and that seemed like the best possible solution.
Wasted?
On election day my friend Tony Facebooked to the effect that he had wasted his vote (and it’s really annoying that, as far as I know, there’s no way to link to an update or a comment in Facebook). I answered:
I don't agree. The only way you can waste a vote is to not use it. For example I voted LibDem in a safe Labour seat, but that isn't "wasted". In fact, it would have been more of a waste to vote Labour.
My son made the same point when I told him about that discussion. Diane Abbott got 54% of the vote in Hackney North and Stoke Newington. (That’s a proper majority.) My vote wouldn’t have made any difference, though, would it?
But in the days immediately after the election, as Clegg took his party into talks with the hated Tories, I began to regret my decision. It really felt like I had “wasted” my vote; or maybe misused is the better word.
Things Can Maybe Get Better?
However the coalition document that they published today is remarkable. If you’ve read any of my political posts over the years, you’ll know that the biggest thing going on for me for some time has been ID cards, and all the associated post-9/11 terror-panic fallout. So to read this, from the wordprocessor of the Tories (and LibDems) is remarkable:
I mean, that's pretty much everything we could want on civil liberties, right there.
And a few other points are good. As my friend Stuart said:
Most important line of the agreement? - We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes. #ge10
Stuart F Wallace
soapyfrogs
(Gotta keep embedding those tweets, you know.)
Dismal Science?
On the other hand, I’m no economist; but as I said before, I don’t trust right-wingers to run the economy. And right now, I have a gut feeling that cutting back on public spending during a recession is exactly the wrong thing to do (cutting back on most public spending is nearly always the wrong thing to do, of course).
Keep On Keeping On
In conclusion, I agree with Charlie, pretty much. I don’t trust the Tories, but let’s see whether Clegg & co can keep this thing on track. And let’s keep a close eye on them all, and keep that list above in mind.
You never know: maybe this really is “The New Politics”.
Election Tweets 'n' Stuff
Thirteen years ago we had champagne ready for the overall majority (though we opened it when Portillo's seat went). This year might look more like what Warren Ellis says:
Shopping list for watching the election tomorrow night: beer, nuts, whisky, methadone, humane cow-killing bolt gun
Warren Ellis
warrenellis
More sensibly, my friend Stuart says:
I'm not voting for them but if Labour lose, its supporters should take heart from the fact that the UK is better than it was in 97 #ge10Stuart F Wallace
soapyfrogs
which is a good point. Britain’s not broken; it never was. Just its electoral system.
Here’s something I said about that a while ago:
Hey, the Tories: Society _isn't_ broken, and if it is, it's partly the fault of your witch-queen & her regime.Martin McCallion
devilgate
I’m having fun with this tweet-embedding thing.
Embedding Tweets
There's a new way to embed tweets in blog posts. Here's one of mine to try it out:
My nine-year-old daughter confuses 'Conservative' with 'sinister'. Out of the mouths of babes & little children...Martin McCallion
devilgate
Looks pretty cool, actually. Go to Twitter’s “Blackbird Pie”, or get a bookmarklet.
Subway Calling
I've worked in Paddington for nearly two years, and had no idea this was here until today. Edgware Road, just by Paddington Green Police Station.
Watermelon Sculpture
Eee! PC.
My new Eee PC relaxes on the bed:
A photo of one of my recent technological acquisitions, as taken by the other. It’s hard to take a photo of a new camera, unless you have another. And since this Canon Powershot G9 is the first digital camera I’ve had…
Both of them are fabulous. The Eee is finally an almost perfect replacement for the Psion 5 as mobile writing platform (much more powerful, but not as pocketable). And I’m taking the camera everywhere and filling up hard drives with the results. So expect to see more pictures appearing here.
The thief of time, or: Where the hell did those two years go?
It’s a truism that time appears to pass faster as we get older. Just how true this is was brought home to me anew when it crossed my mind that I had, a while ago, been thinking about writing a piece with a similar title to the above.
Then I realised that I had been thinking about it around last New Year. Yet it felt to me like it had been no more than a few weeks before.
Then on Radio 4′s Today program, before I left for work this morning, they were doing a piece on time-saving devices, and how some people think that they don’t save us time, but merely free us to waste it in new ways. And how we’ve lost the sense of process.
To paraphrase:
We travel only to be at our destination, not to experience the journey; we treat food as something to eat, not something to cook; we wash merely to have clean clothes or dishes, not to get them clean.
Which is all very well, but what exactly is the problem with that? Especially in the case of the last point: I’d say, “Damn right” to that one The single best household good we ever bought was the dishwasher.
As for travelling, well of course we do it to be at the other place. For example, I went to
On the other hand, I do enjoy cooking, but what with work and kids and 
band
Here’s a thought: if, on Christmas Day, you could press a button and instantly have a classic Christmas dinner ready, with no preparations and no cooking, would you? I think I probably wouldn’t. Because part of the whole Christmas experience is the preparation and cooking.
Though I would certainly use such a magic button at other times…
With the year-change bringing thoughts of time, the other time-related quote I was thinking of using as a title was, “Time takes a cigarette”, from Bowie’s
‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’. Then what do they go and use as part of the backing for the Radio 4 piece? Plagiarists!
It was an interesting piece, though, and I would have liked to listen to all of it; but I was already late leaving, and so (of course) I didn’t have time.
And last year’s piece? Inevitably I never found the time to write it.
In a nice touch of real-world LiveJournal linking, just after the year turned at Si’s, we got a phone call from