As Iain Duncan Smith contemplates his future this morning, the spotlight searches desperately for his successor; a man or woman who must kick start the ailing Conservative Party and more importantly, reset the democratic balance in the House of Commons by acting as an effective and persistent member of The Opposition.
In my mind, the democratic process has never been at such an all time low in this country; the Prime Minister's leadership methodology borders on presidential (some might say dictatorial), which is not the system of government we support here; it is therefore vitally important that The Opposition be led by someone capable of generating the debate, asking the questions and ultimately seeking the answers, that Iain Duncan Smith so singularly failed to do.
It is in all honesty, unrealistic to expect the Conservatives to rally sufficiently to win the next General Election, such is their inherent malaise at this time; instead, it is time for the party that has in fairly recent history become an out of touch political laughing stock to turn it's fortunes around by behaving in a manner consistent with an organisation seeking the ultimate political authority in this country.
Personally, I feel Iain Duncan Smith was rather hard done by; a man who, granted, wasn't the most charasmatic and emotionally charged individual - until his back was against the wall, by which time it was too late - but who nevertheless believed passionately in his cause and who was inevitably brought down by his own party; a party that collectively has something of a penchant for backstabbing.
Much as I hate to admit it, the Conservatives now need another Thatcherite figure, for regardless of your feelings towards her, Margaret Thatcher was one of the most powerful and influential figures of her time; whipping both the Conservatives and indeed the country into (some sort of) shape whilst increasing the UK's world standing a thousandfold. Is this person Michael Howard? I'm not entirely convinced.
As the moment there are three contenders, if the press are to be believed; David Davis (not a chance, too inexperienced and just doesn't have the 'ooomph' factor so desperately needed), Oliver Letwin (even less of a chance, given that this man's political compass is slightly to the right of Hitler) and Michael Howard; the bookies' favourite, and a man with serious political capital.
To wrap up, I'm interested in seeing the Conservatives sort themselves out for one reason only; we need a decent, strong, visible and viable alternative to New Labour - a party which will hold onto power by something approaching default if things are allowed to continue...
Friday, 31 October 2003
Thursday, 30 October 2003
Death to the underclasses [lurks]
Now, I'm aware that by reading a cross-section of my blogs and that of the Britmeister General, third party observers may take that view that the good ship EED carries tendencies to the right wing. Perhaps just slightly left to the left of Mussolini. Yet when we've profiled ourselves in the past via a political spectrum profiler (anyone got the link for that?), that's not quite the case.
However little gets the blood boiling more than the work-shy whinging-class scum which pollute the working classes of this country and try desperately, seemingly on a daily basis, to cripple our infrastructure with their bone idle communist ideals. Or more accurately the fact that they believe that money is something which just gets handed out by the State rather than being the blood sweat and tears of those in this country which pay our taxes to make things work.
Following what must be the longest and most rambling pre-amble for a blog since... well Amnesia's last one anyway, I shall finally get to the point. Postal workers. They're on strike. All across London. Again the capital is blighted by this underclass of work-shy peons. Once again, they're going to fuck up their own interests completely with this selfish and uncalled for action, because they're too stupid to step back from their post code pigeon holes and considered the bigger picture. (Can someone help me with a non-football 'own goal' type phrase?)
The bigger picture is this. Their company, that is the renamed Royal Mail (formerly the hilariously named Consignia) is losing a lot of money. By a lot of money, we're talking about a couple of billion quid in the last couple of years. That's about as much money as if you ripped out all of the spleens of the London postal workers and transformed them in a fiction alchemical process into the same weight of Microsoft shares. It's a lot of money.
Previously this group of pestilent baldrick clones had an agreement made through arbitration and approved by their union. Further action had been voted down so those which voted to strike, went on strike anyway and now we have the situation where the post is not working in or out of London and is unlikely to resume in any meaningful way this week either.
Of course, this action is running dangerously close to the point where it's the straw that breaks the camels back and spells commercial suicide for the royal mail. A couple of months back, when I was interviewing a director of Dabs.com for work, he mentioned how they had to take on board another carrier for their deliveries purely because they had no assurance that the Royal Mail would not go on strike (again) and thus they had to take their business elsewhere.
And for what? Because these guys HAD AN AGREEMENT and then walked away wanting more and decided to blackmail the firm by going on strike whether or not their official representation in the form of their very own union, agreed! Of course the union loves it anyway. They get to play it both ways now. They get to be militant but hold up their hands and go 'not me guv'.
This is what this country is coming to. Just like the fuckers that wont do their job on the underground and just like the militant and highly skilled (cough) tube drivers - all of these underclasses of fuckwits, collectively think that money just magically oozes out of automatic teller machines and has no correlation with ensuring that you do YOUR little bit of the equation so that your employer can make money and therefore keep paying you.
It's a massive lapse of logic by these tabloid-reading fucktards. The only solution is to annex some small country in Eastern Europe and repopulate it with the communist fucktards doing their best to destroy our country and our standard of living. Then get some people in who understand the basis ideal of a decent days work for a decent days pay. Then again, if any of these peasants could apply logic and add up, they would have stayed at school and got a proper job I suppose.
Which is why people like you and I have to do the thinking for them.
However little gets the blood boiling more than the work-shy whinging-class scum which pollute the working classes of this country and try desperately, seemingly on a daily basis, to cripple our infrastructure with their bone idle communist ideals. Or more accurately the fact that they believe that money is something which just gets handed out by the State rather than being the blood sweat and tears of those in this country which pay our taxes to make things work.
Following what must be the longest and most rambling pre-amble for a blog since... well Amnesia's last one anyway, I shall finally get to the point. Postal workers. They're on strike. All across London. Again the capital is blighted by this underclass of work-shy peons. Once again, they're going to fuck up their own interests completely with this selfish and uncalled for action, because they're too stupid to step back from their post code pigeon holes and considered the bigger picture. (Can someone help me with a non-football 'own goal' type phrase?)
The bigger picture is this. Their company, that is the renamed Royal Mail (formerly the hilariously named Consignia) is losing a lot of money. By a lot of money, we're talking about a couple of billion quid in the last couple of years. That's about as much money as if you ripped out all of the spleens of the London postal workers and transformed them in a fiction alchemical process into the same weight of Microsoft shares. It's a lot of money.
Previously this group of pestilent baldrick clones had an agreement made through arbitration and approved by their union. Further action had been voted down so those which voted to strike, went on strike anyway and now we have the situation where the post is not working in or out of London and is unlikely to resume in any meaningful way this week either.
Of course, this action is running dangerously close to the point where it's the straw that breaks the camels back and spells commercial suicide for the royal mail. A couple of months back, when I was interviewing a director of Dabs.com for work, he mentioned how they had to take on board another carrier for their deliveries purely because they had no assurance that the Royal Mail would not go on strike (again) and thus they had to take their business elsewhere.
And for what? Because these guys HAD AN AGREEMENT and then walked away wanting more and decided to blackmail the firm by going on strike whether or not their official representation in the form of their very own union, agreed! Of course the union loves it anyway. They get to play it both ways now. They get to be militant but hold up their hands and go 'not me guv'.
This is what this country is coming to. Just like the fuckers that wont do their job on the underground and just like the militant and highly skilled (cough) tube drivers - all of these underclasses of fuckwits, collectively think that money just magically oozes out of automatic teller machines and has no correlation with ensuring that you do YOUR little bit of the equation so that your employer can make money and therefore keep paying you.
It's a massive lapse of logic by these tabloid-reading fucktards. The only solution is to annex some small country in Eastern Europe and repopulate it with the communist fucktards doing their best to destroy our country and our standard of living. Then get some people in who understand the basis ideal of a decent days work for a decent days pay. Then again, if any of these peasants could apply logic and add up, they would have stayed at school and got a proper job I suppose.
Which is why people like you and I have to do the thinking for them.
iTunes [drdave]
So I've been looking for a decent app to use as a library and player for my growing MP3 collection. 6000+ songs at the moment, so finding what I want to listen to is something like fresh hell. I've tried allsorts. Musicmatch, winamp 3, WMP. But to a man they're all a load of toss. I'd long hankered after a version of Apple's vaunted iTunes software - the library program that integrates with the iPod (coming soon to a Dave's Credit Card near you). Well, its finally out and available for us Windows monkeys.
After about a couple of days of fiddling with it, I have to say it is simply brilliant! It imported my tagged up collection of 6000 MP3s in about 5 minutes - compare this with an hour for MusicMatch, 3 hours for WMP. It is easy to navigate, and although it looks way too much like a mac program (so much so that it looks out of place), it is extremely fast. It reorders songs (by artist, album, genre, whatever) without skipping a beat.
It also does smart playlists... now, previously, I hadn't even considered the possibility of smart playlists. Now I'm wondering how I ever did without them. Its so simple that winamp should be kicking itself right about now (if it had legs, and/or was given to bitter self recrimination, which I don't suppose it would be). Just put in a simple pattern ('where Artist contains Marillion'), set some limits ('25, random matching tracks') and Bob's your uncle. Great! Better still, you can conjour up complex rulesets to allow you play your favourite tracks uniformly - tell it to pick all high rated tracks, not played in the last 2 weeks. There you go... you'll never find yourself stuck in a Neil Young rut ever again. Or maybe you're having Pedro Fernandez and his adorable wife around to supper, but you're worried about setting the mood just right... simply create a playlist that picks out all 'latin', 'salsa' or 'mambo' music, and excludes anything with any taste o! r quality.
Potentially best of all (and I hate myself for saying this) is the iTMS. The music store. Though not available in europe at the moment, we're still allowed to browse and listen to samples - like pushing our noses against its metaphorical frosty window and peering longingly at its plump turkey. Its so fast! And nice! Album information, artist discographies, a range of listenable artists that makes eMusic look like a sick faggot.
Simply, it adds value to the internet music shopping experience. Okay, so there's mild DRM involved, but lets be honest, we're not going to get away with the kind of rogueish freedom that eMusic once offered. The RIAA just won't allow it, more's the pity. But Apple seem to have got away with putting in a small amount, but no more - you can still copy to devices, burn to CDs, or even share your playlist over a network. Great stuff. Best of all, they've packed the shopping section with features that are innovative and intriguing, albeit good marketing moves as well.
For example, they've signed up with Pepsi to give away 100 million free songs - find a code in 1-in-3 bottles, enter it into ITMS and download a track - simple, but brilliant. That's going to sell a hell of a lot of fizzy pop, mark my words. Next, they've implemented music allowances - and this is a killer feature! It allows parents to grant their kids, say, $20 a month of music downloads. You can set this to be recurring, automatically charging your CC. Think about it. Done properly, this is the perfect bone to throw the RIAA.
I find myself looking forward to it being rolled out for us lot, and reckon I'll give it a try if they keep the prices right ($9.99 != £9.99 for example).
Give it a go! Its free! Like your first snort of charlie.
After about a couple of days of fiddling with it, I have to say it is simply brilliant! It imported my tagged up collection of 6000 MP3s in about 5 minutes - compare this with an hour for MusicMatch, 3 hours for WMP. It is easy to navigate, and although it looks way too much like a mac program (so much so that it looks out of place), it is extremely fast. It reorders songs (by artist, album, genre, whatever) without skipping a beat.
It also does smart playlists... now, previously, I hadn't even considered the possibility of smart playlists. Now I'm wondering how I ever did without them. Its so simple that winamp should be kicking itself right about now (if it had legs, and/or was given to bitter self recrimination, which I don't suppose it would be). Just put in a simple pattern ('where Artist contains Marillion'), set some limits ('25, random matching tracks') and Bob's your uncle. Great! Better still, you can conjour up complex rulesets to allow you play your favourite tracks uniformly - tell it to pick all high rated tracks, not played in the last 2 weeks. There you go... you'll never find yourself stuck in a Neil Young rut ever again. Or maybe you're having Pedro Fernandez and his adorable wife around to supper, but you're worried about setting the mood just right... simply create a playlist that picks out all 'latin', 'salsa' or 'mambo' music, and excludes anything with any taste o! r quality.
Potentially best of all (and I hate myself for saying this) is the iTMS. The music store. Though not available in europe at the moment, we're still allowed to browse and listen to samples - like pushing our noses against its metaphorical frosty window and peering longingly at its plump turkey. Its so fast! And nice! Album information, artist discographies, a range of listenable artists that makes eMusic look like a sick faggot.
Simply, it adds value to the internet music shopping experience. Okay, so there's mild DRM involved, but lets be honest, we're not going to get away with the kind of rogueish freedom that eMusic once offered. The RIAA just won't allow it, more's the pity. But Apple seem to have got away with putting in a small amount, but no more - you can still copy to devices, burn to CDs, or even share your playlist over a network. Great stuff. Best of all, they've packed the shopping section with features that are innovative and intriguing, albeit good marketing moves as well.
For example, they've signed up with Pepsi to give away 100 million free songs - find a code in 1-in-3 bottles, enter it into ITMS and download a track - simple, but brilliant. That's going to sell a hell of a lot of fizzy pop, mark my words. Next, they've implemented music allowances - and this is a killer feature! It allows parents to grant their kids, say, $20 a month of music downloads. You can set this to be recurring, automatically charging your CC. Think about it. Done properly, this is the perfect bone to throw the RIAA.
I find myself looking forward to it being rolled out for us lot, and reckon I'll give it a try if they keep the prices right ($9.99 != £9.99 for example).
Give it a go! Its free! Like your first snort of charlie.
Wednesday, 29 October 2003
Halo revisiteth [am]
Despite having all my games on my old drive which is in Guinness 2, various one's of 'em are objecting to not finding the key to the game, presumably in the registry. Sounds a bit screwed up to me. But I thought oh well what the hell and reinstalled it having decimated my den to find the box - it was in the desk draw naturally. So given my new uberness, I let Halo configure everything (basically everything on, everything on high) and played through the first few chapters again.
Now this is hardly news but what a resource hog this game is! Every single ounce of my new rig's horsepower is necessary to play it at 1024x768 with all the gubbins. It can do it, but you can tell it's taking every single last slavering ounce. I mean it looks reet purdy and that but it did make me wonder a bit at just how this thing has been coded that a 3.2 p4 and a radeon 9800pro is sweating heavily. Another thing is that interestingly it doesn't seem to want to apply anti-aliaising when set from the mobo (everything still looked jaggy from time to time and in any event the frame rate was slowing). Finally, the oddest thing about getting some decent horsepower is that the Warthog becomes a damn sight more driveable. On my old system, the Warthog was very prone to drifting around and while the oversteer / countersteer thing is still going on, it's now actually feeling like it's gripping. Gone are the days of endlessly bumping into Convenant walls at high speed. I do love the game but I wish they'd coded it for PC and not Xbox first. Death to ports!
Now this is hardly news but what a resource hog this game is! Every single ounce of my new rig's horsepower is necessary to play it at 1024x768 with all the gubbins. It can do it, but you can tell it's taking every single last slavering ounce. I mean it looks reet purdy and that but it did make me wonder a bit at just how this thing has been coded that a 3.2 p4 and a radeon 9800pro is sweating heavily. Another thing is that interestingly it doesn't seem to want to apply anti-aliaising when set from the mobo (everything still looked jaggy from time to time and in any event the frame rate was slowing). Finally, the oddest thing about getting some decent horsepower is that the Warthog becomes a damn sight more driveable. On my old system, the Warthog was very prone to drifting around and while the oversteer / countersteer thing is still going on, it's now actually feeling like it's gripping. Gone are the days of endlessly bumping into Convenant walls at high speed. I do love the game but I wish they'd coded it for PC and not Xbox first. Death to ports!
Tuesday, 28 October 2003
It's time to start the music... [spiny]
.... it's time to light the lights, It's time to get things started, and put some pictures on the members page.
Monday, 27 October 2003
Theres always one [pod]
I don't know how many of you goto comedy clubs but I went to one tonight. I really should go more often as I love live comedy. I have tickets for Izzard in december which should be a riot.
Anyway, this one I was at was called Backyard comedy and is owned by lee hurst of 'they think its all over' fame. We got lee 3 times between 3 other acts. They were all imo very very funny. The second guy was called tim vine. If any of you have ever watched 'the sketch show' then hes the blond one.
Now his set consisted of very similar stuff to the sketch show. Lots of quick and daft 1 liners and I mean very daft. Its very silly and good fun. However I suppose its not to every ones tastes.
Case in point was a woman behind me. She hated it. Now I can't care less what she likes but she was determined to tell the world. After every single joke she'd say 'Not funny' or 'Its middle class humor' etc.
After about the tenth time you start to get really pissed off. So you came he! re to laugh and now you want to slap the dumb (and ugly) bitch behind you.
It didn't stop there either. To make her point she then continued as Lee came back and during the third act with comments like 'now this is funny' and 'hes so much better'. Bitch!. Ruined an almost perfect evening. Why couldn't she just shut up.
It happened at the last comedy gig I went to too. Some girls at the front wouldn't stop heckling for no good reason at all. I think it probably put another 30 mins onto the show.
Anyway, this one I was at was called Backyard comedy and is owned by lee hurst of 'they think its all over' fame. We got lee 3 times between 3 other acts. They were all imo very very funny. The second guy was called tim vine. If any of you have ever watched 'the sketch show' then hes the blond one.
Now his set consisted of very similar stuff to the sketch show. Lots of quick and daft 1 liners and I mean very daft. Its very silly and good fun. However I suppose its not to every ones tastes.
Case in point was a woman behind me. She hated it. Now I can't care less what she likes but she was determined to tell the world. After every single joke she'd say 'Not funny' or 'Its middle class humor' etc.
After about the tenth time you start to get really pissed off. So you came he! re to laugh and now you want to slap the dumb (and ugly) bitch behind you.
It didn't stop there either. To make her point she then continued as Lee came back and during the third act with comments like 'now this is funny' and 'hes so much better'. Bitch!. Ruined an almost perfect evening. Why couldn't she just shut up.
It happened at the last comedy gig I went to too. Some girls at the front wouldn't stop heckling for no good reason at all. I think it probably put another 30 mins onto the show.
Happy Halloween(ish) - boo! scary! trick! treat! [brit]
Yes, it's nearly time to carve out a pumpkin, put an annoying child in it, and tumble dry the whole thing until Chrimbo! So, in spirit of the season, I give you a picture to get your Halloween Juices flowing!
Click here to see what happened to Grotbags
Editors note: those of you at work with an interesting take on what can and cannot be viewed through the miracle of the Electronic Device in front of you, best not click above.
Click here to see what happened to Grotbags
Editors note: those of you at work with an interesting take on what can and cannot be viewed through the miracle of the Electronic Device in front of you, best not click above.
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