HTC Desire, The Greatest Phone Yet?

After my first three days with the HTC Desire I can officially announce that I am highly impressed.

The 3.7 inch touch screen is phenomenal, it has 7 home screens so you never run out of home screen space to load up your apps (An issue I had a few times with my G1) There is also a very good widget which brings all your friends status updates from Twitter, Facebook etc.. right to your home screen. The contacts sync up with your facebook profile, Outlook and G-Mail services. This caused a slight error for me the first time when I uploaded the contacts from my old phone to G-Mail and ended up getting everyone on there twice. Also it pulls your contacts photos off social media and adds them as their contact picture which is a nice touch as i can never be bothered to take pictures of everybody.

The handset itself has a good feel, it is sleek and looks modern enough to give the iPhone a run for its money but has enough weight to make it feel good and robust, Battery life has so far proved good as I charged it when it first arrived and then it went 18 hours of very heavy usage whilst I was setting everything up and I am now showing 3/4 battery after 22 hours of "Average" Usage.

The Best feature - easily the 1 Ghz Processor, when i heard it had such a large processer I was sceptical if it would make a difference, it really does, from the second you log in you notice how much faster this phone is than any other smart phone you may have used. Now obviously no phone is completely perfect so I really want to find a fault to report on, So far the only negative for me is that it does not have a full keypad, I have always had a connection to my keypads and have never liked the virtual keyboards, however even this is slightly mitigated as it has a predictive text recognition software which is very good meaning i can actually use the on screen board as fast as I can type on my G1's full keypad.

I am sure that before long I will find something that annoys me, so I will be sure to be a lot more balanced once I have found it. But for now the only thing I can think is that there is so much I am not using it, there is a chance I have finally found a mobile device where in fact it is me that doesn't have enough features.

I have the full specs here from the HTC website

Week Ending Function VBA

Just Finished working on a problem for a DB, the client wants all their reporting to be based on Week Ending dates but their files are stored by Date. How can you summarise per week?

I sorted it by creating a function I could then include in my queries -

Public Function WeekEnding(Actual as variant) As Variant
If IsDate(Actual) Then 'Check that variable is a date
WeekEnding = DateAdd("d", Actual, 7-Weekday(Actual)) 'Add on 7 days minus variable day
End If

End Function

Prince of Persia - Sands of Time

Cinema again last night to see Prince of Persia, now I have to admit when I heard that Jake Gyllenhaal was playing the lead character Prince Dastan but he really was not that bad. Although the chemistry with Gemma Arterton did not really sparkle.

Overall this film was an OK movie, if you spend your time waiting for a plot twist then you will be in for a very long wait, it is a typical by the numbers Disney adventure film and never really looks set to change. (i.e. One look and you can guess the bad guy.) And I have to admit that the main couples habit of stopping mid battle to stare at each other did become a really annoying trait.

Tamina: Quick we only have 10 seconds left to save the world.

Dastan: Yes, lets go.......But first, you have really nice eyes.

Tamina: Ok, after all we still have another 2 seconds left so lets make out.

England's 23

As I mentioned in my post after the Mexico game England must drop 7 of the current 30 man squad after sunday's game against Japan.

My opinion is that the players who should go are:
Emile Heskey (Not going to happen as for some bizarre reason Capello loves him.)
Shaun Wright-Phillips (a good player but third in line for right midfield behind Lennon and Walcott)
Adam Johnson (no experience, will be ready for a world cup, just not this one.)
Michael Carrick (unless Barry is unfit, Carrick just looks to lazy these days.)
Matthew Upson (just not as good as other options.)
Ledley King (as much as I rate the spurs captain, you can't take injury risks in your world cup squad.)

So my squad for South Africa would be
GK: Hart, James and Green (in fact Paul Robinson would be my first choice.)
DF: Carragher, Cole, Dawson, Ferdinand, Johnson, Baines, Terry, Warnock
MF: Barry (if fit, otherwise Carrick), Cole, Gerrard, Huddlestone, Lampard, Milner, Parker, Walcott
FW: Crouch, Defoe, Bent, Rooney.

With my preferred starting line up:

GK: Green
LB: Cole
CB: Terry
CB: Dawson
RB: Johnson
LM: Cole
CM: Gerrard
DCM: Huddlestone
ACM: Lampard
RM: Aaron Lennon
ST: Rooney

Now obviously it is a risk playing the five man midfield and leaving out the club captain, However Rooney is good enough to play up front alone, Cole and Lennon give plenty of attacking support and options and Ferdinand has simply not been good enough. And I don't think he has done anything to deserve the armband anyway, I would give it Terry (or rather I wouldn't have taken it away from him.) After all what has someones private (or not so private) life got to do with their ability to captain a team, give him back the armband and let him prove he deserves it on the pitch, not in the newspapers.

iPhone Suicides

Now am obviously a big fan of Apple and the iPhone, but when you hear the news that 9 workers at their main production facilities have committed suicide in 6 months, you have to wonder if it is time to start asking questions about how they treat people in their sweat shops.

Queens Speech

Despite all the excitement of England’s preparation for the world cup there are slightly more important things happening today, The Coalition (Sounds like an unseen enemy from a cheap sci-fi series.) had their first Queen’s Speech as parliament was officially re-opened. In all 22 Bills were mentioned as the Queen set out the next 500 days of legislative programme. (This is longer than the normal 12 months as the next one isn’t until autumn of next year.) Most of what was announced was not exactly a surprise.

Schools will be offered the chance to become Swedish Style Academies free from state control, this is a long term goal which gets very mixed reactions. The Teachers Union are, of cause, against it – as they seem to be of any change. Most parents I have spoken to are either in favour or don’t care. I would guess the in favour ones are the ones who see it as a real chance to try and increase the education of their children, personally I am still slightly unsure as to how this would work but I am in the very fortunate position of having over 4 years for it to bed in before I need to worry about it.
Although that will be the first bill to be raised, the speech underlined that the first priority would be to reduce the deficit and try to restore economic growth. This will obviously be no small measure as the state of the economy is still far to shocking for anyone to contemplate (How many zero’s in a trillion anyway?) obviously as I said below Child Trust Fund Vouchers have gone but that will save half a billion which is still shockingly a tiny amount of what is needed.

A large part of the legislative agenda will be taken up with passing power from the government to the people, the so called “Big Society” several measures were introduced including the ability to force by-elections to remove a corrupt MP. I have a good friend from California who has always been shocked that we have no ability to remove our politicians, recall elections being a way of life over there.

ID Cards have been scrapped, as I have spoken about previously I am not against these, but the way they were to be introduced – having to carry them and your other ID and pay through the nose for the privilege. – So I am happy for them to be gone. CCTV and the DNA databases will be reduced, again I have to admit that my feelings are not strong either way on this as I am of the “Nothing to Hide, Nothing to Worry About” school of thought. However I had lost all faith in the last government to manage these systems so perhaps it is better for the coalition to not even leave themselves open to be as atrocious as Labour were at keeping our details secure.

It also looks like we have a lot of referendums in our future as well as they have pledged to have a referendum on any further transfer of power to Brussels, I think this effectively puts the brakes on our integration with the EU as I can not imagine it ever passing a referendum. We also look set to get a referendum on Alternative Vote; I think this is a very interesting point as the coalition could easily be split on either side.

It could be that Labour took power before my 18th Birthday but I really have no idea what a referendum would look like as I have never seen one, I assume it would be just like the normal polling arrangements with a Yes or No box? But would they hold a special vote or have it at the same time as local elections? I guess time will tell.

Final Item of interest that I have seen is that the Coalition currently has over 50% of support of the public which I hope will mean that the country will get behind them, we are in an almost unique scenario but I think if the country can support the coalition we can have the type of government we need. Also my own poll (Just to the right) shows that 100% of people think the coalition will last a full term in office, now that is only 6 people and 1 of them is me but it still shows overwhelming support.

Child Trust Fund Scrapped

Very unshocking news has come in that the Child Trust Vouchers have been scrapped, I say it is not shocking as it was a stupid idea in the first place; around £2Billion has been given to people in an attempt to “buy” votes by then chancellor Brown. Now obviously when we recently had a baby we received a voucher and invested it, it may seem hypocritical to do this when I am against them but I did not feel that I had the right to reject the money on Alexandria’s behalf.

But the very idea that we should borrow money to give a little bit to our children in exchange for having to take even more back from them in the future, after all it is borrowed money so it will all need to be paid back.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury, David Laws, said people were being 'deceived'.
The scheme is funded with borrowed Government money, he insisted, which will have to be paid back by the next generation.
'We need to be honest about what we are doing,' he said.
'Since government payments into the scheme are being funded by public borrowing, it is also storing up debts which will have to be repaid by the same young people.'

England 3 - 1 Mexico

Well England have played their last home fixture before the world cup and I have to say – It really has not made anything any clearer.

It was an unusual England line up with Gerrard on the Left, which didn’t really work as he naturally drifts in field. Lampard, Terry and Cole were all absent so you can’t get a real feeling for the team without these three main members.

Ledley King played, last year King only played one game at a time (With a rest, not in the clichéd one game at a time saying way.) But with Spurs reaching for the champion’s league he was forced to play a lot more towards the end of the season and it started to show as he was looking very tired.

He did however score the first goal but was shown up and arguably at fault for the Mexico goal. The second Tottenham Scorer of the night was Crouch, As I have been only to happy to tell people I am not a fan of Crouch. Even though he has scored many vital goals for Spurs this year I have simply never liked the way we play with him on the pitch. Incredibly skill full players forget how to work the ball and switch instead to just always try to play the long ball to him. It is a shame as he is a great player in his own right; I can just assume that when people lookup he is always the one they see.

Goal of the Game went to Glen Johnson who for my 2 cents cemented his place on the plane next week. Tom (The Tank) Huddlestone came on for a short outing and looked capable, if I was Capello I would make sure he is on the plane as we need a bit of strength in an otherwise flimsy midfield.

So in summery the result was of cause good and gives us something to work on but until we get the full squad together we won’t have a clue how our summer will be.

Access Date Format Issues

I have been asked by a few people how to solve the issue that when you are sending data from Excel to Access (and vice versa) in VBA the dates get flipped into US format :- MM/DD/YYYY instead of DD/MM/YYYY now this will only happen when you the day of the date is less than 12, the issue comes from the way the Excel or Access interperate the date it recieves. annoyingly it does not give any regard to the regional settings.

Anyway the way I found to get around it is using a function to convert the date into a format that can not confuse the system.

Public Function Fixdate(ByVal str)

Dim dteDay
Dim dteMonth
Dim dteYear

If isnull(str) Then
msgbox "Error"
Exit Function
End If

dteDay = Day(str)
dteMonth = MonthName(Month(str), True)
dteYear = Year(str)

FixDate = dteDay & "-" & dteMonth & "-" & dteYear

End Function

This is then used as follows

myDate = fixdate(date)

This will return a value to mydate as 25-May-2010 which Excel or Access will be able to interperate as the correct date.

Trim Address Functions

I have been working on a new database and have found the need to separate a combined text field into various columns, obviously you can do this using the Left and Right Trim functions but how do you trim a combined text field into parts that are not fixed width?

For this example I will use an address field txt_Address which contains addresses of in determinant length. To do this you need to split it up by each address field in this field these are identified by commas

First step therefore is to identify the commas as each comma needs to be placed on a different line.

(Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1 This will tell you how many comma’s there are.

As you can see some of the addresses do not have a comma, so when we write our first expression we need to qualify if there is a comma to split by and if not to just add the whole field

Address Line 1 =

IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=0,[txt_Address], Left([txt_Address],InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")-1))

The Address Line 2 query is obviously different for each field depending on how many commas are present, start the expression again by checking how many commas present and if it is less than 1 return a blank field.

IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=0,"",>

If there is a comma however then you need to trim from the first comma

Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")

However if there is more than one comma you need to left trim the newly created field to just take the first line. You can do this by replacing the above right trim into the first left trim in place of the field names.

You get a very confusing looking Address Line 2 =

IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=0,"",IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=1,Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")),Left(Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")),InStr(1,Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")),",")-1))) It looks very confusing but it works

If you wish to have more than three address lines then you simply need to keep shortening the trimmed value by one comma at a time until you can “left” the part that you want. For this one however I will place everything else onto a third line for simplicities sake.

This simply uses the above functions in place of the actual field name

Adress Line 3 =

IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=1,"",right(trim(right(trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],","))),Len(Trim(Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],","))))-InStr(1,Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")),",")))

So the final Query is as follows:

SELECT txt_Address, txt_PostCode, IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=0,[txt_Address],Left([txt_Address],InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")-1)) AS [Address Line 1], IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=0,"",IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=1,Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")),Left(Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")),InStr(1,Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")),",")-1))) AS [Address Line 2], IIf(((Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1)=1,"",right(trim(right(trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],","))),Len(Trim(Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],","))))-InStr(1,Right(Trim([txt_Address]),Len(Trim([txt_Address]))-InStr(1,[txt_Address],",")),","))) AS [Adress Line 3], (Len([txt_Address])-Len(Replace([txt_Address],",","")))/1 AS [Comma Count] FROM tbl_MainData_agb;

Maybe next time I will just insist that they place each line in a separate field.

Bexley Council's New Sign

Out on my lunchtime walk in Bexleyheath I noticed that Bexley Coucil had installed a new road sign, however they have made one slight error, the new sign is only viewable from one point standing on the grass, otherwise it is completely blocked from view by the old sign.

I don't know for sure but I would guess if you ask the council you would probably be told that there were different departments for the two different tasks.

During a long random searching of websites I ended up on a Site called www.not-a-crime.com this is a site involved in the campaign against the police using Section 44 of the Anti Terrorism Act.

Now whilst I fully support the police in their very difficult task of keeping us all safe, we should remember that the reason the "West" came under attack in the first place is because certain people did not like the fact that we lived in an open, free and liberal society. A society where you should be allowed to take a photo of a bus leaving walthemstow station without the fear of arrest.

Now I have always believed that the cases like that of Kevin Geraghty-Sherwin who was threatened with arrest for taking a photo of his son were due to over zealous jobs Worths and people who do not understand that we have no privacy laws in this country, however if not a crime are to be believed then just about every force in the UK have geared themselves up to make photography illegal, and, if this is true, this should not go unchallenged.

Very Very Hot Day

I have just got in from doing a Car Boot sale at Pease Pottage and can definitely confirm it is a hot day!! I know this will not come as a shock to anyone who has been outside but it is all I can really think about. At 6am I was loading up the car in just a T-Shirt (Obviously and trousers before anyone gets funny.) and it just kept getting hotter. We had our daughter with us which just gave us an added worry, as we had to ensure she was always sat in the shade and topped up with plenty of water. She got sprayed down with Factor 50 sun cream so often I was worried when we put her back in the car she might slip straight out of her car seat but she was ok.

We were doing the Car Boot sale as we were just desperate for some space but even so I was shocked by how desperate people are there to feel they are getting a better deal, I had a Casino set that I have had for years, it was a really good set made of quality wooden tray/table which had Blackjack, Poker, Roulette etc.. all in good condition when I bought it the rrp was £40 as i really do not have that many casino parties it has never been used (Most parts of the set were still sealed.) Someone looked at it and after a few minutes offered us £2 for it, not the £4 (Which at 90% off is more than reasonable.) we asked for. We said how about £3.50, to which he replied £2.50. now neither my wife or I are natural hagglers so we just said no causing him to walk off and come back two minutes later to say "ok, £3.50 but I get a free carrier bag." this went on all morning as people were always trying to get the prices down but when you are selling a Filter Coffee/Tea Maker for £1 there is not that far to go.

At the end we only had a few things left and I thought about saying we could give them away but I was scared that someone would say "Pay us £2 to take them!"

World Cup Tracker and Income Tax Calculator

I have just uploaded two files to my Business website http://www.adamgbrown.com/ I have a world cup tracker file and an Income Tax Calculator. Please check them out and let me know what you think.


Here are some Screen Shots

World Cup Tracker, Just Enter the Scores and everything else will update

Work Out How Much Income Tax you should be paying

Full Council Meeting

Tonight was my first council meeting as a member of the public for over four years. I noticed 2 main things that struck me. Firstly the seats in the Public Gallery are really uncomfortable, it explains why the gallery empties quickly after the public question time is over.

Secondly the whole process seemed to be a complete exercise in futility, tonight's meeting was primarily to elect a new mayor and decide the new positions on the council committees and outside bodies. It was simply a secession of votes to decide if the Representatives should be Tory or Labour, every single vote was carried 24 to 10 in the Conservatives favour, yet still each position was voted on, perhaps a better way to have settled it would have been to each submit the answers agreed at group and then at 7:30 count how many from each side are there and that side wins. Could all be out by 7:45.

Anyway, the meeting was over quite quickly and we went to the reception afterwards which was good to catch up again with some people I had not seen for quite a while.

My final comment is that I would like to say congratulations to the new mayor and mayoress Lee & Ali Burke who I am sure will be a real asset to the roles.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Out to the Cinema again last night, this time the film to be viewed was the zanily titled “Hot Tub Time Machine” Now you get a lot of funny looks when you mention this title to people and I imagine it was probably quite a hard concept to sell to the execs, but it was a good film. As I am sure you can imagine from the title it is a telling bio-pic of the 10th Century Russian Revolutionary Leader Lourdo Trishesky… well perhaps not. In fact it is about four guys who travel back in time to 1986 in a, you guessed it, Hot Tub.

Now I accept that the premise was a little bit dodgy but the humour was reasonably well done, I am not really a fan of gross out humour but this was well enough acted to make it slightly more than a cringe fest. It is quite like an American pie for the middle ages.

The film stars John Cusack playing, yet again, A guy who can’t maintain a steady relationship moping about the break up of a relationship and cursing the way his life has turned out. Luckily I have always been a fan of High Fidelity so I don’t really mind having watched it again, anyone who watches Cusack in this film will not be surprised to know that Director Steve Pink was a Writer on High Fidelity.

For my money the best performance of the film goes to Rob Corddry who plays the group’s Loser. After all each group of teenagers has a group loser, if yours didn’t, guess who it was. He plays the part perfectly getting into scrapes and causing problems for his friends whilst all the time showing parts of his personality which could explain why he is like that in the first place.

The main thing that will get you with this film is the pure speed at which it runs from one scene to the next criss-crossing the major characters plot lines so quickly that if you stop and think about it you would get a headache trying to work out why characters act the way they do (Answer to get to the next set up.) However if you want to think about a film I suggest you give this one a miss. So whilst this is not the funnies film I have seen in the last 12 months (Zombieland) it is a good laugh for a couple of hours, I have one complaint however I can’t say what it is as I have no interest in ruining the film, but overall it didn’t really detract from the rest of the movie.

New Olympic Mascots

When I heard on the Radio this morning details of the new mascots for 2012 described I thought there was going to be another example of bad design decisions which seem to have plagued the games, after all there was wide spread ridicule at the observation tower and the 2012 Logo is in my opinion a real disgrace. Now when a new Logo is launched people do tend to dislike it as it is different and not something they are used to, over time however they get used to it and then start to like it. This is not how I feel about the 2012 logo, I have a 6 ft copy of the logo next to my desk at work (As we are a Tier 1 Partner) and even my Bank card has a 2012 logo. but still every time I see it I am reminded how much I dislike it. so hearing that Lord Coe & Co have selected two giant, one eyed Aliens filled me with dread.

Well here they are

And I like them, they are fresh and dynamic, I like their metallic look and think they are good characters with good merchandising potential, in short I think they have it right for once.

And their names, Wenlock and Mandeville are also a great touch, Greece may have started the Olympics, and it was as always the French who decided to try and create a global federation for them but it was at Much Wenlock in Shropshire that they really started and Stoke Mandeville where the Paraolympic games started. so in picking these names they are saying that unlike Football, Rugby, Cricket and others Great Britain may not be the first place you think of for the Olympics, but like so many other great institutions they too can trace their path back to these shores.

Twilight, Twihards and Twiglets

I woke up this morning feeling a little bit sorry for myself as I have not had many good nights in the last few weeks, I am not sure why exactly but I seem to keep waking up at 5am so I was not in the best of moods but luckily then I saw an advert for Stephanie Myers new book and it cheered me up no end.

After all no matter how tired and warn out I get I will always be far superior to anyone who likes the Twilight franchise, if that is not worth celebrating what is? I think it is funny that we have people talking about the dangers of Kids going “Emo” and why are they depressed. News Flash they are depressed because their music is pants (Although I do like a few My Chemical Romance songs – everyone is allowed a guilty secret.) they are forced by peer pressure to walk around looking like the survivors from a trainload of Drag Queens hitting a building full of Hobbits and as for their hair, if you looked like that wouldn’t you be depressed?

And then the big breakthrough film for these poor, embarrassment to themselves, Emo’s is Twilight. Now as an 80’s/90’s child/teenager I grew up with the Lost Boys, Near Dark, Buffy, Angel, Interview with a vampire, Dracula etc.. But this film is just the worst of all vampire pap I have ever seen. It is like they took the lamest vampire fantasy of a 12 year old girl and decided to commit it to paper and then film. Now I understand the Hollywoodisation of all stories which state that you must have young girls and boys falling in love but would a vampire really fall in love with a 16 year old girl. Surely a vampire would rather hang out with people in an old peoples homes, reminisce about the war or the 60’s, rather than go out with a 16 year old to hear her complaining about how her parents are too hard on her or her exams are too difficult. How could anyone over 16 really give two s**ts about this Dawson’s Creek winging.

And as for the whole sunlight rubbish, “Don’t see me in the sunlight, I don’t want you to see me as a monster!” oh wait you don’t turn into a monster in the sunlight you sparkle!! Did I miss some cosmic shift in the world, since when did women get turned off by something sparkling, maybe I have missed the scores of screaming women poring away from H Samuel's desperate to get away from their latest range of diamond rings?

I have to admit that I believe that Twilight could be a good movie and obviously I hold denigration to any fan of Twilight that is a girl under the age of 11, But there are fans of Twilight who are both Male and in their 20’s and what name do they chose for themselves? Twihards!!! Seriously Twihards! Now one of my wife’s family is a Twihard, it is like they want to be mocked! I promise not to mock him and then out they come “We’re Twihards” and before I can stop myself I am ripping into them. I admit I can be overly sarcastic at times, but come on stop making it so easy!!

Finally about the post title, I also hate Twiglets!!

A Possible Appology to Mr. Clegg

Today I heard my first speech from a Lib Dem that I have ever enjoyed listening too. Which was good as I heard Lembit Opik talking earlier who always annoys me. But today Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister actually started to speak like a Liberal!

His proposed reforms, which I am not all in favour of, should at least take some power from Westminster and replace some back in the control of the rest of us.

He mentioned a partially elected House of Lords - I am against a "Partially" elected house as I think it should be either elected or unelected. That said whilst I agree with the principal of an elected Lords I do think it is often important to have an unelected watch on the workings of parliament as the views of the many are not always right (Hitler was elected after all.)

Scrap the ID cards - this is another that I am torn on, I actually think that an ID card is a good idea, what I would like is one card that can work as an ID card, Passport (not just in EU), Driving License (with no paper part.), NI card and anything else I have to carry around, I suppose in short I am not against the idea if it has a provable improvement to my day to day life.

Recall Corrupt MP's - I like this idea, personally I think it should always have been there, I would like some more detail though.

Ask the public which laws should go - this is an interesting one as the Lib Dems have removed the Tory pledge to repeal the Human Rights act, I think there is a very real chance that this may be one of the laws the public want repealed.

So my feelings are that whilst they have not brought up points which all appeal to me, I think after 13 years of "Nanny State" and Big Government, I am willing to give big society and "Adult State" a try, even if it means apologising to all the Lib Dems out there. Well except Lembit.

Thai Protest Over

It looks as though their may be a respite in the troubles in Thailand after the protest leaders surrendered to the government. The government troops were said to have killed at least five people this morning when they stormed the camp where the protesters were holed up.

The protesters are protesting at having a government they see as illegitimate after they came to power in a parliamentary deal rather than as the result of an election. The Centre-Right and Liberalist coalition (Thankfully this is where the similarities end.) was formed after previous Prime Minister Thaskin Shinawatra was convicted of corruption and was removed by a military coup.

Personally I think that if there is a coalition formed from a military coup rather than an election then they should have an election at the earliest point. (Obviously This is different to our current set up where there is a democratic legitimacy to the government.) but I just hope that there will be a solution without further blood shed.

David Villa to Barcelona

News has just filtered through to me that David Villa has joined Barcelona. I read the news without much interest as although I respect Villa as one of the best strikers in Europe, the fact that it increases speculation that Henry maybe on his way out does not interest me at all - I could hardly imagine Henry in a Spurs shirt!

But then I realised that there is a chance we may have to play Barcelona next year, and so for the first time in the competitions history I care about the comings and goings at other Champions League Teams!

On an aside, As a Tottenham fan it does feel good to talk about "other champions league teams."

Come on Next Season

Unite Stalled Again

In Just under an hours time the court of appeal will hear from Unite in their quest to overturn a ruling given yesterday preventing them from striking.

As Unite are quite a large Union you would think that they could get a matter like balloting their members on strike action - especially when you think about how much they love their strike action. Yet for the second time in this dispute they have been stopped from striking by the law. The first time (Back at Christmas) I think it was more serious, I seem to remember that it was to do with Balloting people no longer employed. This time it seems that they simply did not do enough to advertise the result - Again you would assume there was a plan established for this.

Personally I think this is quite possibly the most stupid of all the strikes I have heard - Unbelievable with Bob Crow being General Secretary of the RMT. but they went on strike because they didn't want to operate from Heathrow with the same amount of staff as operated from Gatwick, they were told if they went on strike they would lose their travel perks, they went on strike, they lost their perks and now they want them back. Welcome to the real world, I have as one of my targets that I have to have a "Company Attitude" if I am publicly not supporting my company I will not receive my bonus, luckily my company are really great so not an issue, This is not victimisation it is simply my Bonus is not a part of my wages it is additional.

They are also having trouble with more than 50 staff members who have been disciplined over their roles in the strikes, Unite want them to face no discipline as you can not get disciplined for taking strike action - However from what I have heard from within BA some of these people have been alleged to have intimidated people not going on strike. Surely if the right to strike is as Tony Woodley (Unite's Joint Leader) says a Fundamental Human Right, surely so is the right to go to work free from intimidation... or are Human rights only for Fee Paying members.

Vlookup is Dead, Long Live Flexible Lookup

When I first found Vlookup I was over joyed with the simplicity and beauty of a string of IFs and Vlookups. I even claimed grandly that there was nothing that could not be done with these two friends of Excel users. However there is a very good chance that I have used my last Vlookup!

The reason I could turn away from my most loyal of Excel functions, the reasons are three fold:

Match

Offset

Indirect

I will demonstrate how I use them by using examples from a spreadsheet I have to calculate your BMI range from your weight (Weights have been changed to protect the Cake Loving.)

Match will return the position of a value in a list e.g. =MATCH(J30,A1:A24) will locate the position of J30 in this case the height in the range A1:A24 the answer is in this case 17 (Which is also the Row number)

Indirect lets you use the result of a Formula as a Cell Reference e.g. INDIRECT("A"&Match(J30,A1:A24)&":R23") As you can see from the attached function arguments this presents itself as a range from A17:R23 now if you change the value in J30 say to 70 you will now get the Dynamic Range A16:R23 and so on.

Offset will return a value a specified number of rows from a given point. e.g. =OFFSET(A1,3,2) will give you the value found in Cell C4. obviously this is not as easy as writing =C4 but if we combine all three functions

=OFFSET(INDIRECT("A"&MATCH(J30,A1:A24)),24-MATCH(J30,A1:A24),5)

Then we have an alternative to Hlookup (In this example I have just entered a 5 in the Rows criteria however for a truly dynamic range you would use another Match() )

So This Function is basically looking up the row the data in J30 is in and then returning the value which is at the bottom of the grid in the specified column. In this case "OK Weight"

Another good use for the Offset function is to create a dynamic named range to automatically update graphs =OFFSET(Daily!$AQ$2,1,1,COUNT(Daily!$K$2:$K$191),1) This function creates a range that starts in AQ2 and is 1 column wide by however many rows deep have data (In Column K) But I may write more about that at a later date.

Labour's Scortched Earth Policy, The Police and Thailand

I am off to Weston-Super-Mere today for a meeting regarding a new database and so have had plenty of time to look through the paper (Metro on this occasion) and a couple of stories leaped out at me.

First, there is a story about civil servants having their bonuses stopped, in fact it states that only the best performing 25% will get a bonus, surely this is right, as if you are under performing why would you get a Bonus? Whilst I think perhaps just the top 25% may be a bit tough after all I am sure the people in the 26th percentile are probably still doing a good job, we are in unprecedented debt levels so it will take some pain for all to get us out of it.

It was also pointed out that Labour rushed to sign off 14Billion of contracts leading up to the election including 420Million on new schools, 13Billion on a tanker aircraft programme and 600Million on a computer contract. One former advisor to the old government is quoted as saying "The atmosphere was pull up the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the tories." - is this governing in the public good? Anyone involved in this kind of destructive, malignant government should be barred for ever holding public office again.

Second story to grab my attention is about Police to civilian ratio. The Chairman of the Police Federation, Paul McKeever has said that the increase in the percentage between Police and civilian staff can lead to danger to public safety. Now I have to declare that I am not neutral in this debate as my brother is a police officer as were my father and uncle before him. I am therefore quite pro police officer, however I do feel that we use far too many police officers in far too many back office positions. My personal view is that I would like to see all non-command office positions filled with civil servants and all officers out on the street replacing PCSO's (not that I think pcso's do a bad job, I have met many as a councillor and found them all very competent.) But why should a fully trained warranted PC be stuck in an office filling out paperwork for more than half their shift?

Finally I was upset to see that the death toll in Thailand has increased to 30 with 232 injured after another day of violence, in what is a mostly ignored topic. There are around 5000 supporters of the former Thai prime minister in a camp in Bangkok who have been advised to leave as the government troops have stated they will escalate their response. With over 200 of them already shot by the armed services I can't even imagine what the week will bring for them.

World Champions

For the second time I have watched England become world champions, and just like when we won the Rugby world cup I had one thought run through my head. "Why wasn't it the football?"

Now I am a 'multi-sport' enthusiast and like to watch all kinds of competition (including the curling) but above all things what I would love to see is a Football World Cup win.

But today belongs to the willow whackers, England are the world twenty20 champions overcoming Australia in the final (a competition the Aussies have never won.) To win their first ever limited overs championship.

After Australia were placed in to bat it looked like being a relatively easy task as Australia were held to 147-6 of their 20 overs to be honest David Hussey top scoring with 59 looked like the only challenge in an Oz team who although Impressive were not fancied for this tournament.

England however gave us a customary heart attack with Lumb going for just 2 before the very English (South African) partnership of Pietersen & Kieswetter put on 111 to all but wrap up a victory, in the end though it fell to Collingwood to clinch the championship and I am sure that no one would want to take away from him, so long a faithful team member and now World Cup winning captain. (And in some style as well.)

Now there may be some who ask how England can win a tournament with 2 South Africans playing such a major role, Kieswetter was man of the match, but these are conversations for another time. For now let me just say:

Well done England (and Wales of cause), Well done Paul and Kevin fatherhood clearly agrees with you!

The Big Fight Miliband Vs Miliband

It is shaping up to be a fight for the labour leadership between Miliband and Miliband (Although it would appear that the Union Unite are still talking Balls - As in Edward)

I have to admit that I find both Miliband brothers slightly annoying, but at the end of the day it really doesn't matter, I do not expect to see a Labour government for at least ten years and so firmly believe that the two brothers are fighting over the right to be leader of the opposition until someone else (Please god - not Harriet Harman permanently) comes to lead Labour back into power. I would assume that this will have to wait however until people are able to vote who can not remember the current financial mismanagement.

Kamikaze Baby

As some of you will know I have a 7 month old baby, Alexandria. Whilst she has given me much happiness over the last 7 months her latest addition to her skills are something I could really do without.

She has recently taken up diving as hobby, which together with her habit of getting bored with sitting up and simply crashing to the ground have caused my wife and I to spend the last few days running frantically across the room and diving to prevent her latest swan dive from the sofa.

Luckily apart from a few bumps she has avoided any major injuries, but her feats of bravado have included a leap of the bed to grab at my coffee which I had just placed on the side, the baby was saved but the coffee didn't make it.

Councillor in Nazi Salute Outrage

I came across this story on the BBC News website about a City Councillor in Stoke who was pictured next to two men giving a Nazi Salute.

Steve Batkin who serves on Stoke City Council for the BNP was pictured in 2002 with three men standing on a war memorial giving the Nazi Salute.

Unfortunately I am not surprised by this picture after all I have long thought that the best way to tackle the BNP is to let them talk and give their views. This more than anything shows them for the dim witted individuals which so often fill their ranks.

Looking at this picture and as if the fact that two guys are giving a Nazi salute is not enough to shatter the thin Vail of respectability, the fact that the guy on the far right can not stop drinking long enough for the shot to be taken together with the fact that they chose a Memorial to the 326,000 men and women who gave their lives to keep the Nazi salute out of the UK must be enough to show them up.

Everyone involved in Politics would have seen an increasing trend by the BNP to present themselves as a mainstream party, several years ago I was telling at a polling station when a young member of the BNP told me that they were going to start being a more respectable party I really had no worries that it would be true, especially as there were 3 of them and two Bull Terriers completely ruining their own argument by looking like walking (Grunting) stereotypes.

MP Stabbed at Constituency Surgery

I heard on the way home the Stephen Timms has been stabbed during a surgery in his constituency.

Whilst I may not agree with his politics it is clearly a fact that events like this force a wedge between the electorate and the politicians. If you walk to Westminster these days there is a "ring of steal" around the palace and anti-bomb barriers are everywhere. Whilst I know that the people that would try and cause harm to our politicians and institutions tend to be against our democracy it is a real tragedy that we are approaching a situation where parliament will have to be completely behind closed doors and MP's will need to stay away from the public in fear of their lives. if there is one thing we do not need is for our leaders to withdraw further into Westminster Village never to be seen again. (Well until election time anyway.)

Anyway, I Send my best wishes to Mr Timms and his family at this time and wish him a speedy recovery, after all whatever your politics I still believe that most people run for public office as they want to make this country a better place, hopefully that is what unites us all.

Entering the New Nuclear Age?

Chris Huhne has today outlined the coalition's feelings over Nuclear power, If I was still a member of the council I would have to declare an interest on this one as my company EDF are the world leader in Nuclear and after purchasing British Energy last year are also the UK's biggest Nuclear Generator. It would therefore be no surprise to know I am pro nuclear and strongly believe that the time to invest in the next generation of plants is here (in fact a few years overdue) I was pleased when the Tories went into the election in favour of Nuclear but have to admit was slightly worried when Chris Huhne was made Energy Secretary as obviously the Lib Dems were opposed.


However it does look like there will be a new generation of reactors after all as Mr Huhne has said that as long as no public money is involved a private consortium would most likely be successful in obtaining permission to build a Nuclear Power Station. Now I am not nearly senior enough in the company to know if they were hoping for public money but I doubt it.

The New More Efficient, Less Waste and Air Strike Proof European Pressure Reactor (EPR)

I know that the Lib Dems would prefer all energy to come from renewables, and whilst I think this is an admirable goal and I do personally love to see Wind Turbines, Dams and Solar Fields - In fact one of my favourite memories of travel is watching the Waldpolenz Solar Park coming to life at sunrise whilst taking a trip across Germany.

A small part of the vast solar generating park in Eastern Germany

But unfortunately I believe that we are at least two decades away from a permanent solution to the problems of Consistency and dependability which we have with Wind and Solar. And with many of our current generation options at or beyond their operational lifespan Nuclear is the only thing that can bridge the gap and offer the freedom from the volatility of fossil fuels that the economy and the environment so badly need.

Comments Please

Please leave a comment on a post, any post will do. it looks so sad having my recent comment box empty. but not as sad as it would look if I have to start commenting my own posts.

Whilst I know that I do not have as many followers as Crawley's No.1 Blog Cllr Duncan Crow but it would be nice to know who has been by.

A Nightmare on Cinema Street

Last night I went to see a film I was greatly looking forward to a Nightmare on Elm Street the new version of the original, of cause they call it a re imagining - why are they never remakes any more?



Now I am going to assume that you are familiar with the originals, There is a chance that if you have not seen the originals it would give you a different opinion.



The film is directed by Samuel Bayer who I have only ever known as a Music Video Director, so you would expect that at least the music would have been good - It wasn't



The film is also produced by my least favourite Hollywood entity Michael Bay, There have not been many films released lately that were unoriginal, uninspiring or just a copy of something that has gone before where Bay has not been involved. As if trying to pass of a remake of Parts: The Clonus Horror as his original film The Island was not bad enough I thought he had finally accepted his limitations as a film maker when instead of making Transformers 2 he decided to make a biopic of Megan Fox's backside. but I should stop now as I can talk about the lameness of Bay for years (And some day I might, but its bad for my blood pressure.)

Onto the film itself, The film was Lame. Gone was the suspense, the terror. In came the glove bursting through the body, and again, and again. In came the exploding blood packs. and most annoyingly in came prepubescent EMO kids mopping around feeling sorry for themselves. The Iconic Freddy dragging his claw along the boiler room lost a lot of its menace as the special effects muppets seemed to get carried away with pyros exploding miles away from his hand.

All in all the effect was for a slow paced lifeless horror movie that was more Blood than suspense. I was sat in the cinema thinking how nice it would be to fall asleep and if I was really lucky be visited by Freddie and not have to wake up to watch the end of the movie!

I must remember my rule, If it Says Michael Bay on the box, it must be trash in the box!


In an interview, producer Brad Fuller initially explained that they were following the same line they did with their Friday the 13th remake, by abandoning the things that made the character less scary—the film's antagonist, Freddy Krueger, would not be "cracking jokes" as had become a staple of his character in later films—and focusing more on trying to craft a "horrifying movie". More like removing what made it watchable to focus on a more sleep inducing movie.
I thought for a second that Freddie might have taken over the production to try and get lots of victims at the same time.

How Children Change You

I have noticed one real change in my out look since I became a father 7 months ago. I am now a hypocrite!

Not just the usual hypocritical stuff that is the norm for all parents as at 7 Months my daughter is not old enough to have given me any concerns along the lines of getting drunk, mixing with the wrong crowds or getting picked up by the police. I am sure I will have all of that to come and when I do I, like most parents, will pretend that I have never done the same.

But I have also started to get upset at peoples actions. I have always defended people's right to smoke if they wish. It is one of my beliefs that there should be licensed smoking clubs where smoking is legal and if you do not want to work around smoke a place you probably shouldn't work. When I quit smoking 9 or so years ago I was determined to not be a preachy ex-smoker as they are the most annoying.

Since becoming a Dad however I have become really obsessive about smoking, even just around me, I get practically homicidal if someone dares to smoke near my baby and her little pink lungs! I was following someone down the street this morning puffing away and I was on the verge of giving them a lecture on the damage they were doing to their lungs.

The Bigs 2 err 2

Well it looks like my season is over for now as I am injured in Game four!

3 - 2 up against the cubs when tragedy strikes, or to be more honest My hand strikes (The Sideboard) so now when I play the Wii I will need to stretch before hand and wear a funky pair of leather gloves.

The Bigs 2

Ok, All the talk of Politics is ok but there are more important things in life.

For Example the Bigs 2 which has just come out, I decided that as I was so good at Wii Sports baseball I should invest in a decent game (To play with my new found spare time.) as my darling wife is out visiting her friend this is the first chance I have had to play it.

Now I have not yet mastered the game and as I know very little about baseball I am not sure at all what is going on but my first impression is that it is a good game. I lost the first game as I was figuring out the controls and allowed the Pirates to notch up 11 from their first innings, The second game however ended a much more respectable 16 - 4 to me.

Now I know many people will think that a game you can pick up and win easily will not keep you entertained for long but I think that The Bigs has a good mix of the simple modes where you can just pick up your baseball bat extension for your Wii and smack some balls around, on the harder levels though there are enough variations to require some real skill.

And after all as I was playing the worst team and playing as the Red Sox who are ranked 1 it game me an advantage, only problem is that I am not sure if I will be able to walk in the morning. Why do I never remember to warm up before playing the Wii?

Francis Maude - Paymaster General

Congratulations to Horsham's MP Francis Maude who I have just been told has been made paymaster general.

I have met Francis on many occasions and he has always been a commit ed MP and a great orator. I wish him every success in a very high profile position which ranks third in the Treasury.

The Coalition becomes clearer

Reading through the BBC News Website we have a lot more of an idea of the form the coalition will take.

Nick Clegg will become the Deputy Prime Minister, Vince Cable will work in the Treasury in charge of Banks and Business and Danny Alexander will take over as Scottish Minister.

From the Conservatives side Osbourne will be Chancellor, Hague Foreign Secretary and Fox as defence secretary.

The Agreed policy decisions are:

There will be Cuts this year to reduce the Deficit including £6bn of cuts this year, although out of a predicted 1.5 Trillion that we will be in the red this is unlikely to be enough.

Fixed five year parliaments so no more elections until May 2015 (So no more threat of another poll this year, would be very interesting if the coalition collapses.)

The Lib Dems drop the Mansion Tax in return for the Tories not changing the Inheritance Threshold - Personally I would be happy for both these taxes to have stayed but in reformed form.

They have agreed to scrap part of the "Job Tax" but will look to raise the income tax threshold. - This is good news for the economy but we will need to wait and see how affordable the income tax changes will be when the drains are up on the country's current account.

The lib Dem's will delay adoption of the Euro for at least one parliament, and agree to the Tory idea of a referendum on any future EU power grabs - Hopefully we will at some point be able to call ourselves a sovereign nation again at some point.

A cap on Non-EU immigration, another policy which without a proper understanding of how it will work it is hard to understand if it will be any good. But at least it is being considered.

Lib Dems will drop opposition to the Trident deterrent, this is unfortunate as this is pretty much the only Lib Dem pledge I agreed with.

A referendum on the Alternative Vote system, which is at least preferable to Proportional Representation. We will have to see how the public decide but I have a feeling it will get through.

I am sure a lot more will come out in the forth coming days and the budget which I am sure we will see soon enough.

New Prime Minister

So David Cameron is now the PM thanks to a helping hand by Mr. Clegg, I guess the real questions should start to be answered.

What role will the Lib Dems play in the government? Will Nick Clegg be Deputy Prime Minister? Will Vince Cable be taken into the treasury?

What has DC offered to form the coalition? I assume we will be having a referendum on Alternative Vote, ironically it will be promoted by a party who I would assume would then front the No campaign.

I am assuming that this will also put a stop to any chance to reduce the power of Brussels. The Lib Dems being very pro-Europe.

What else has been Horse Traded will show itself in time, but for now Prime Minister Cameron will need to take a look around and realise just how hard the task ahead is - I doubt that we have had the full skeletons out of the Labour Bank Statements just yet.

Picard visits Crawley during General Election Campaign

Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) visited Crawley during the election campaign. This is news that would have filled me with joy were it not for the fact that he was here to endorse the Labour candidate.

I guess I will need to hand back my Model of the enterprise, Patrick Stewart has always been a hero of mine, not just as JLP in Star Trek but also as Professor X, his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and as one of Britain's greatest stage performers (Let's not dwell too long on Lifeforce)

Well I guess as an acting veteran with over 100 credits to his name, he is one of the few people who could have afforded another term of Gordon and his Economic Maladies.

Capello Rewards Spurs Heroes

Just seen the new England prelim squad, good results for the Spurs, reflecting a good season.

Dawson is in, who has been great all season.
King is in, not sure if I am happy about this as he is still not fit, but it shows how good a player he is that Capello doesn't want to leave him out.
Tom (The Tank) Huddlestone is also in, a great player to break up a physical game.
Aaron Lennon is in, a bit of a no brainer this one as he is turning into a real world class prospect
Peter Crouch - I have often made my feelings known about Crouch, he is a good player but he tends to make midfielders lazy and start to just knock balls into him.
Defoe, for me Defoe should be Englands starting striker with Rooney.

Other players

Hart, James and Green for Goal (why does Robinson not get picked anymore?)
Baines, Carragher, Cole, Ferdinand, Johnson, Terry, Upson, Warnock in defence
Barry, Carrick, Cole, Gerrard, Johnson, Lampard, Milner, Parker, Walcott, Philips in MF
And
Bent, Rooney and Heskey in attack.

My prefered line up of that squad

Hart

Cole
Terry
Dawson
Carragher

Lennon
Huddlestone
Lampard
Walcott

Defoe
Rooney

I would be sending Heskey home straight away, also I am sorry to say King who should spend the summer getting ready for next year and the champions league qualifiers.

Does Zola have Hoddle Syndrome

Gianfranco Zola has been fired by West Ham, I remember all the fuss when he first came into the job, at about the same time as Iceland were only messing up our banks not our Holidays.

Since then he has had no money to spend and precious few players who had the fight to stay in the premiership, But I guess that is the lot of a football manager, you can’t sack the players so the manager is the first neck on the block. If Memory serves correctly I seem to remember that Zola had a run in with Gold and Sullivan after a loss to Wolves back in January, I felt that was unfair then as obviously it was the players who were a disgrace not the manager.

It does raise an interesting point about Hoddle Syndrome however; Hoddle Syndrome named after First Class Player and Economy Class Manager Glenn Hoddle states that the better a player is the worse he is as a manager. Hoddle himself never seemed to understand that the people he managed were not as naturally gifted as he was himself. You could see him on the sidelines of St Mary’s or White Hart Lane and he seemed to be thinking. “Just run past them and score” without realising that the players he was now working with were not Hoddles.

To Back this up look at this list of Great Managers who were less than great Players

Alex Fergusson, Arsene Wenger, Harry Redknapp and most sparkling example Jose Mourinho who never managed to play professionally

As Opposed to

Glenn Hoddle, Ossie Ardiles, Paul Ince and Coco Basile (The Rock of 60’s Argentinean Football who took Argentina from a world class side to a year without a victory.)

Although I do have to temper my own argument by saying Klinsmann

Anyway I wish Zola well and hope that he gets the chance to manage at a club where the expectations better fit the budget.

A Reasoned Comment on the Apple Iphone

The Iphone Sucks

The Joys of INDIRECT Excel Function

I have just been working on a spreadsheet and have finally solved an issue that has bugged me for a while. I know this has been quite obvious but I have been very slow where this is concerned.

If you want to select a total from each sheet in a workbook you can easily select it using the INDIRECT function.

If you have a spreadsheet containing data on each page, called January, February etc... and you want to make a summery sheet you can use this formula.

=SUM(INDIRECT(L4&"!$H$3:$J$47")) where column L contains your month name and each sheet contains the data you want summed in the grid H3:J47 then when you copy down the month names it will automatically address the range to the correct sheet.

I can't believe I have only just realised this would work.

Politics, Politics Everywhere but not a bit to Blog

I can not believe the situation we are in, Not that we have the Lib Dems flippflapping around to fine the highest offer, or that it would appear that we are about the get a government excluding the most popular party – both of these are no surprise. What I can not believe is that there are so many things I am looking to blog about I can not workout where to start or how to proceed. I think the only way to do this is to just write a few bits and then add more as it comes to me.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats are a particular bug bear of mine, Why? As I am a Liberal, I believe in the Freedom of the individual I believe in a society of individuals treated like adults and responding likewise. The Lib Dems do not. I also believe in Democracy (After all my Thesis at Uni was Democracy: Ancient Greece to Post War Europe, so I have slightly more than a passing interest.) However I do not believe that PR fully represents democratic tendencies, more on that in a Minute. So I dislike the Liberal Democrats as I find them neither Liberal nor Democratic. To me the Liberal Democrats are similar to turning up at a shop called “The Kiddies Book Shop” but finding it full of Adult Movies – The Name has no link to the reality, and what you think may be nice and sweet is really just a lot of people getting F..Screwed.

However what has got me about the Lib Dem’s this time round is that I am yet to find anyone who voted Lib Dem who can give me a reason, The worst one I had was “My Friends Told Me too” and the best so far has been “I Don’t like Labour and Conservatives” if the best thing I can get out of people is that they are a protest vote then why do they get to hold the balance of power?

Proportional Representation

Why do I not like PR? I understand that on the face of it, it would appear to be the fairest form of voting. However I do believe that it drastically reduces the links between voter and representative and currently with the low standing of politicians in our society these are links we need to strengthen not weaken. In a PR system the only thing that matters to a career politician is how high up their parties list they are, their first responsibility is to the party not to the electorate. After all how many of us know who our Euro MP is? I have to admit I do but that is because I was standing for County during the election last year. But most people struggle to name their Councillor or MP placing PR into the mix would place a buffer between the MP’s and the Electorate which will never be a good thing for democracy. Also if you want to know the dangers of PR just have a look at the current negotiations, PR would make it highly unlikely that we would have a majority government again and so we would be handing over our country to Mr. Clegg and his merry band of backroom dealers.

Unelected PM

Now as I have mentioned I am a Conservative Party Member, so it may be shocking that I am going to support Mr. Brown. Whilst I do not like his politics I must admit that he has earned a slight bit of sympathy to me, firstly on the point of him being an Unelected Prime Minister. Whilst I would say that the recent election gives David Cameron a mandate to rule the country there is still a point that if he becomes MP he would still be unelected by anyone outside of Witney. After all when I walked into the polling booth I was presented by a list of names, David Cameron was not one of them, I voted for Henry Smith, I voted for Henry Smith as I believe that he was the best MP that Crawley was offered. I believe that he knows Crawley and will put Crawley first which is why I voted not for a conservative government (Although I was obviously aware that this was the hopeful end goal.) but for My Representative in that Government.

The point of defence I would give to Gordon Brown is that I do not see that he has much of a choice in staying in Number 10 until someone else is ready to take over, He could not just have vacated the seat of power on Friday morning leaving the country with no one on the rudder. I agree with most commentators (And the price of my shares) that this has gone on far to long, however I do not blame Gordon Brown but Nick Clegg, it is Clegg who has drawn out this process and enjoyed the “King Maker” role (How different to his words during the election.)

Presidential Style Elections

I think there is a real case to be made for electoral reform. I like our current system and I am personally happy with how it operates however the issue is that we do not have an elected President despite the fact that the Public and the Media believe we do, obviously as you can see from all the Unelected PM comments spoken about above the people want to vote for their PM. Perhaps it would generally be easier instead of trying to inform the public of the difference between our system and the American system to have instead a directly elected prime minister; this would then also hopefully free MP Wannabes to be able to state their own case rather than being at the mercy of the Televised Debates.

Dodgy Electioneering

The last thing that has wound me up recently are the negative election campaign tactics used by Labour, from trying to scare the elderly to Eddie Izzard saying in a party political broadcast that the conservatives would bring back the feudal system it has been quite frankly disgusting. I was also amazed to find out that party literature is exempt from the Advertising Standards Agencies rulings that advertising must be Fair, Accurate and Truthful. How ridiculous is this when if there was one section of literature that should have to be honest it should be the leaflets asking for your vote. After all you can’t say that a Milky Way will not spoil your appetite but you can say that 300,000 people are looking to enslave people as modern day serfs (I must have missed that section on the website.) I once heard a Labour Councillor (In fact the Labour Councillor who recently won my seat of me) claim that it was pompous to follow your manifesto once elected – It is not Pompous it is the primary function of any politician to carry out the mandate they were elected on.

Anyway, This is probably enough ranting for one day, I am sure there will be some more as the day continues.