Red - the Ed Miliband story

Ok so maybe this weeks Movie review is not about the new puppet leader of the Labour Party, but as you know I can't resist making a dig, however this is mostly due to the fact it is very easy.

Anyway the film R.E.D which stands for Retired, Extremely Dangerous is actually about a team of former CIA agents struggling to come to terms with retirement when they are placed on the hit list of one of the CIA's wet teams (assassination operatives) needless to say for this kind of movie the old experienced agents are infinitely better trained and efficient than the new hot shots sent to take them out and therefore out class them at every point.

The cast is a veritable who was who of cinema greats, once again proving that Hollywood has struggled massively with decent action stars for the last 20 years. Bruce Willis takes the lead, but the supporting cast of Dame Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich all prove the old saying that whilst form is temporary, class is permanent. All four prove why they have what it takes to survive so long in such a fickle industry, personally my favourite performance is from Malkovich who is great as a slightly un-hinged operative, although he is often proved right about most of his theories, and has the truly great action sequence in which he has a quick draw contest against a rocket launcher (I normally try not to reveal details of what happens in a film but as this is in the trailer I guessed it would be ok.)

Representing modern Hollywood was "Bones" McCoy - Karl Urban, obviously I am talking about the remake film series not the original television show, he does an ok job as the young ambitious agent that is tasked with neutralizing Willis only to discover he may well be out of his depth.

Whilst this film may not be anymore than you would expect before you go in, it will certainly not be any less either. My only concern is that this would appear to be yet another time when Hollywood's aging megastars come to the rescue and cover up the deficit of young talent in the action genre, and whilst their movies may suggest otherwise, they won't be able to do it forever.

Where is Gordon Brown

Just been reading www.order-order.com which has a very interesting article about our former Prime Minister, according to research undertaken by Guido Fawkes since losing the election and standing down as Labour leader Mr. Brown has only attended parliament on two occasions, one to vote and the other to be sworn in - in other words to make sure he continues to get paid.

Now I would be the first to point out that the role of an MP extends far beyond parliament, to receive pay for 6 months, yet only attend twice is clearly going to cause comment, especially as the main task undertaken by the government in this time is to try and solve many of the problems caused by Gordon's government, surely as the man who filled the two top roles in this government should be lending his expertise.

To be honest it would seem to me that his decision is probably one of three scenarios:

1 Gordon Brown knows this entire mess is his fault and that by attending he will simply give too much fuel to his opponents.

2 Ed Miliband has stopped him from attending as he fears he will be overshadowed by his old boss and wants to distance himself from the old government which he is hoping people will forget he was part off.

3 This is just one more example of how Gordon Brown wants to stick his fingers up at the tax payer one last time.

Whatever the cause I would suggest that if the former prime minister is a man of principle as he claims that he should resign as soon as possible, or start to attend parliament and actually in some ways make amends for the 428% (of GDP) of External debt he has saddled us with.

What is in a name?

A couple of things have turned my attention towards names recently, obviously Shakespeare originally asked the question in my title, however I am quite sure his prose on roses was in no way intended as a simple business guide, as in business a name, or brand, is all important.

The two recent re-brandings which have made me wonder are both television channels, I do not know for sure, but I do not think they are connected, I am quite sure however that both names were thought up by highly experienced, and I would suggest highly overpaid (regardless of what the actual figure was) advertising executives. My favourite example of branding stupidity has for years been the brand of petrol stations who after many thousands of pounds given to advertising specialists were advised that the best name for the little kiosks on their fore courts was "Shop" this story however simply shows the cheek of the advertising world, the two channels on the other hand show a complete lack of understanding of the product - a cardinal sin in marketing terms.

The first channel is a history channel, I don't think it is the actual history channel (if it is then someone needs shooting as they already had brand superiority.) I think it may actually be the new name of what used to be "UK History" either way it is now called "yesterday" which actually means that the last words on their trailers is the phrase "on yesterday" immediately leading potential viewers to think they have missed it.

The other channel is Virgin 1, a good name which links to a well known brand, as well as establishing the primacy of that channel within the brand, they have however decided to rename themselves as simply "channel 1" now I am not sure if they honestly believe that everyone has effortlessly switched to digital and the epg system, but if I said next Wednesday, 8pm on channel 1, how many of you would not head straight to the BBC? I would suggest very few!

Disabled Parking Permits

Something that has bugged me for a while are disabled parking permits. Now before I get thousands of complaints - as if I have that many readers - it is not the actual permits, or even the idea of preferential parking for those less mobile, in fact it is for this reason that I always park at the very rear of a car park, as I think any able bodied young(ish) motorist should. Neither am I going to complain about the pure amount there seem to be, in my youth they seemed very rare, but in many places now it appears that they are more common than ever, so whilst I admit I believe they are being handed out far to easily this is not the nature of today's whine.

What has got me today is that they can be used on double yellow lines, now correct me if I am wrong but I believed that double yellow lines were placed where it would be dangerous to allow parking, I fail to see therefore how safety is increased simply through the drivers disability.

This leads me to two possible options therefore, either our lives are being frequently risked by those who exercise their right to disabled parking, or, as I think more likely, many councils have used double yellow lines to fill up their car parks.

To be honest, I am happy with parking in a car park anyway, as on road parking in a town centre is always stressful. All I want is to not get lied too, why not replace the yellow lines with disabled bays, and put yellow lines back to showing where it is dangerous for anyone to park.

Post Office - Name and Shame

I normally try to avoid being too specific, after all as this is just my opinion I am sure that I could get into trouble for being too specific. However I am so furious with the post office (apparently the peoples Post Office - although I often wonder) I have had their credit card for a few years now and everything was going fine until I dared to move home! Whilst you may think that simply moving home should be a simple task and that a company as large as the post Office must be used to dealing with it however this was only the start of months of incompetence.

When I made a request to change my address it appears that they froze my account from receiving mail until the change was completed, this makes sense so it was not an issue, unfortunately they then lost my request, meaning that this stop was not listed, instead of contacting me to let me know they just left the stop in place, the first I found out about it is when they sent me a letter to say I had missed a payment and now had an additional fee. I understand that I should keep a better control of my finances, but I am sure I'm not the only person who waits for a statement to pay the bill, anyway after a few hours on the phone - including two hang ups after sitting on hold - they said it was all sorted, I paid the balance filled out another form and they refunded the fee, all good!

Or so I thought, that was until earlier this month when instead of another statement, I received another penalty charge, I called them again - only hung up on once this time - again I paid the bill and asked for my statement to be sent out, I checked the address, which was correct, and thought everything was sorted again. Still wrong however as when I had still not received the two missing statements, as they claim that my October statement has already been dispatched. I called them and was not hung up on at all, so that at least is improving, only to be told that there was a stop placed on mailings to my account, however the department which deal with this are off as it is a Bank Holiday in Ireland.

Now obviously I can not tell if these are problems with the credit card company or with the mail, but as these are all the Post Office I feel happy to spread the scorn around.

Maybe this will get solved before I get my next penalty charge!

Dispicable M-ovi-e

Starting to get my movie reviews up to date now so this weeks movie was the animated "Despicable Me." the film staring Steve Carell, Jason Segel and Russell Brand.

The film is about Carell who is Gru, a former master criminal, who has fallen into a slump in terms of schemes, when a new criminal on the block, Vector, (voiced by Segel) steals the great pyramid of Giza - Although I think that the Egypt tourist board must have cleared the ideal setting of the pyramids as you could not see the crowds of Egyptians trying to part you from your money, or for that matter the ever beautiful Sphinx KFC. - Gru and his loyal friend, Mad Scientist Dr. Nefario (Voiced quite unbelievably by Brand.) set off to steal the moon.

In order to steal the moon it becomes necessary for Gru to adopt three a orphan girls, who he has no intention of caring for but simply to use in his evil scheme - I am sure you can guess the rest.

Basically this is yet another predictable movie, however as this is a kids movie it really should be so it does not detract from the film, there are the usual laughs, often from the strange little minion creatures that Gru has working for him, and there are the usual teary moments, although I admit that this could well simply be that the smallest of the three orphaned girls reminded me of my own daughter which always gives the film a greater affect (Or else I'm just getting more pathetic in my old age.)

Anyway, the film is an ok use of time and everybody learns their lesson by the end so that is all good, there is a little bit during the credits which is also quite amusing but I do think the main secret of the films success will be in the sale of stuffed minion toys which I am sure will be massive.

The Budget Cuts have Landed

Well the cuts are out there, well to be honest the actual details will be coming out over the next few weeks but we know the kind of cuts we are looking at.

Immediately the usual complaints started, The Unions asked why the Public Sector were the hardest hit, Labour asked why young families were the hardest hit, Age UK asked why pensioners were the hardest hit, Disabled groups asked why the disabled were the hardest hit - all whilst at the same time it actually turns out that the top 2% are actually the hardest hit and the top 15% stand to be 10k a year worse off. On top of all this several analysts have actually come out suggesting that Osbourne has not gone far enough. So what does this all mean?

Personally I think that this is probably proof that the cuts are, as Osbourne has been saying, spread across the board surely if everyone is complaining (Well not the middle class as after all there is no one to speak up for the silent majority.) then it means that the cuts are spread out.

Now obviously there are going to be complaints that the poorest are the hardest hit, but as I posted previously that is unfortunately unavoidable, when the country has run out of money it will be the people who are net costs to the state who will be hardest hit. It is very simple maths, if you receive more money from the state than you give then you will be at risk, for those of us who are net contributors then we will simply have to give more, there is a clear limit to what the government can withdraw from me and that is limited to Child Benefit as that is after all the thing they give me, in actual fact it goes to my wife so personally the government can not withdraw anything from me as they do not give me anything in the first place.

The only question that remains to be asked of the government is can they get all of the disparate groups who are feeling like the victims to see the suffering that is being spread around. If the coalition can not give a sense of empathy to the public then we may see that, as predicted by Socrates over 2300 years ago, Democracy is doomed to fail. Socrates stated of the Athenian Democracy Project that Democracy is always due to fail as the demos will always vote in their own interest at the expense of society, eventually resulting in a society which is unable to support itself (Sound familiar?)

World's funniest joke?

The daily mail today carried an article listing the 50 funniest jokes, I have to admit that most of them did not even draw a smile but I did chuckle at the number 1 offering.

As most were pretty poor I won't list them all but thought I would share the winner;

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says: Ugh, that's the ugliest baby I've ever seen! The woman walks to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to the man next to her: The driver just insulted me! The main replied: You go up there and tell him off. Go on, I'll hold your monkey for you.

Not sure if it is the funniest joke ever but it is a lot better than the others on the list.

It's life Jim, but not as we know it

Running a bit late with my blogging - admit it, you've noticed, well maybe not - but I am trying to catch up now, last weeks movie was life as we know it, the movie starring Katherine Heigl (the woman from every romantic comedy of the last three years - at least it is starting to feel like it!) and Josh Duhamel (Fergie's husband)

The film was once again formulaic, Hollywood seemingly going through a period of un-imagination at the moment, perhaps the writers are on strike again and they don't want to tell anyone! The jokes were either telegraphed from too far away to be funny or else given away in the trailer and so the entire film felt flat. The film followed the relationship of the two main characters as they come to terms with the death of their best friends and that they are now responsible for raising their friends daughter, but here is the twist, after an unsuccessful date years earlier they can't stand each other - bet you didn't see that coming - Heigl plays the same character as always so no fear of originality there, whilst Duhamel as a player who goes by the name of Messer, was fun enough but did not really come across believable enough as the sex symbol who could fluster a woman just by walking into the room, maybe at 37 he is getting too far away from his model of the year award (which was after all 13 years ago now.)

The supporting cast included "sexiest woman in the world" (according to Esquire) Christina Hendricks as Heigl's best friend and mother of the orphaned child, so she obviously was limited in her screen time, this is obviously a shame as I am a big fan of hers, although from her time in Firefly - as I have never seen mad men.

Over all I would say, this film is ok, as long as your expectations are low, as with a lot of Heigl's recent work, you get exactly what you would expect, and nothing more.

Success in Olympic Trial

I blogged a few weeks ago on my way to trials for the London 2012 volunteer program.

Well I am delighted to say that I have been selected to represent my company as a volunteer, there is still a while to go in the process and at the moment I have no idea what I will be doing - friends have suggested I will be toilet scrubbing but I am just really excited that I will be there at this once in a life time event.

So next steps are that my employer (EDF Energy - as the 2012 sustainability partner) will send my name on their list of approved candidates to the organising committee who will interview us to make sure we are committed, although if we weren't I doubt we would have attended the assessment centre, they will then assign us roles, so should know what I will be doing by April next year.

A slap to the face of those that protect you

I received an appeal at work today from Bexley Borough Council after some mindless vandals decided it would be a lot of fun to remove the brass plaque from the war memorial which featured the names of the borough residents who have lost their lives protecting this country.

Bexley Borough Council have asked that if anyone knows anything that they contact the council on 02083037777 and speak to the Cemeteries Office or call Crime Stoppers on 0800555111.

Leader of the Council Teresa O'Neill said "This is a callous crime. To target a memorial that pays tribute to people from [Bexley] who gave their lives fighting for this country is despicable behaviour. It shows total disrespect for those who died, for their colleagues and relatives who gather at the memorial to remember them and for today's serving armed forces."

I find this kind of crime disgusting at any time but with just a few weeks to go before Remembrance Sunday it would seem particularly repugnant, it also highlights what is for me one of the real issues with our society, a complete lack of respect for our society, after two very publicized incidents in which two university students have urinated on war memorials whilst drunk, and now this (and I doubt these are the only ones) it leaves you wondering if what these brave men and women have given, and continue to give, their lives for is worth saving.

Andrew Marr Vs The Blogosphere

Andrew Marr - BBC Political Presenter (Has the AM Show on a Sunday) has today launched a stinging attack on the many contributors on the Blogosphere, speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, Mr. Marr said that Bloggers (or Citizen Journalists) are mostly "socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting." Adding that "They are very angry people"

Now as you can imagine this has caused a bit of a backlash on the blogs as many bloggers feeling very offended have set out to attack Andrew for his views, personally it is not something I am about to do as despite Mr. Marr's assertions I am not single, living in my mother's basement or for that matter angry. There is a chance that this could be caused instead by the fact that I do not consider myself as a Citizen Journalist rather just someone who enjoys writing about stuff I care about and if someone wants to read it then that is great, but if not - oh well.

Anyway my view on this topic is that he is probably right in some of these cases, I have read a lot of blogs and many are very one sided and angry where the person has an axe to grind and they will grind it until they are left with just a stump, but on the other hand some blogs and bloggers are starting to invade the main stream Ian Dale springs to mind, this new type of journalism is responsive and exciting, blogs tend to break stories at a much greater speed than more conventional media and also operate outside many of the laws that hold our mainstream media firms back (Note I am not saying this is good, simply more exciting.) but again I agree with Mr. Marr when he states that these blogs are unlikely to replace older media companies as after all whilst blogs can be a great source, you still go to a recognised brand to get the facts.

Blogs are also often quite useful to a reporter on a deadline as I am sure most bloggers have has parts of their blogs used in print media as if they have given a quote directly to the press, it happened to me a few times whilst I was a local councillor, so I cannot help but wonder if the problem Andrew Marr has with blogs is due to a slightly embarrassing incident in which he lifted a story from a blog and finding it was less than true.

Every Little Helps - But this is a whole Lot

Keeping with Supermarkets (Or Starting with Supermarkets if you are reading the posts top to bottom) Another article on the Daily Mail Website was well worth a read, it is a facts and figures article about Tesco, They list 50 facts about Tesco which is the UK’s most dominant retailer (and responsible for 1 in every 3 pounds spent in the UK.)

I will not post all 50 as after all if you want to see the full list (if you are a stat obsessed nerd like me) you really should go to the source but my favourite facts are these:

£3.75 The cost of an entire Tesco Value school uniform for three to 16-year-olds this year. That’s 50p for a polo shirt, £1.75 for a sweater and £1.50 for trousers or skirts.

So you can get two full School Uniforms (And an extra pair of trousers and two spare shirts) for £10, better than rummaging around in lost property for second hand uniforms

13 days was all it took for a team of builders to create an emergency Tesco store in flood-hit Workington, Cumbria, last December. The collapse of Northside Bridge made it impossible for many customers to reach the regular store on the other side of the river.

This is quite phenomenal, whilst most people are shocked by the emergency Tesco are already looking at how they can look after their customers (No I am not so blind to think it wasn’t about the profit) shopping needs. But it is this kind of responsiveness that has given Tesco the dominant market share that they enjoy today.

173 UK jobs are created every week by Tesco.

More important than ever as the UK exits recession, once a young person has left University with one of New Labours phoney degrees (Art Management etc..) at least they will still have a job to go to.

150,000 Wetsuits sold a year through Tesco, one of its bestsellers in the Sports and Leisure category.

I love this fact, When I was a kid there was a song that went “Lets all go to Tesco, Where ‘Insert Name here’ buys his best clothes” well now it is not just my best clothes but motorcycle leathers (A life saver when you lose a glove at 3am in December) and now Wet Suits as well.

32,991,000 The total square-footage of all Tesco stores in the UK . . . that’s bigger than the City of London.

Again another great fact, obviously this is slightly confusing as if you say City of London they think of the Metropolitan Area and obviously this is actually the City Corporation Area but still an impressive fact (Although still gets beaten by the fact that Disney World in Florida is the size of Manchester)

£92 million — the value of the computer equipment that was donated to schools and hospitals between 1992 and 2004, thanks to Tesco’s Computers For Schools voucher scheme.

Another example of Tesco leading the way and the other supermarkets playing catch up, Now there is Computers for Schools, Sports for Schools even gardening supplies for schools but the Tesco scheme (Now I believe just equipment for schools as they offer much more.) was the original and giving equipment away a full 18 years before David Cameron revealed his plans for the Big Society, of which this is a great example.

£529 million — the amount of money returned to customers in 2009 in the form of Clubcard vouchers. If they were all used on Airmiles, that’s enough for 424,000 round-the-world trips.

To Declare a slight interest here My first job when I moved to Crawley was for Tesco Clubcard and whilst the job wasn’t particularly well paid (£4.50 an hour if memory serves me correctly) it did give me a real appreciation for the Clubcard rewards programme, particularly the Clubcard Deals offering in which the vouchers are worth 4 times their face value, now since then others (Well just Nectar to be honest) have brought out their own schemes but for my money these have never matched the great offer that the Tesco Clubcard offers.

Well, like I say these are just my favourites, there are many facts on the page, including the fact that Terry Leahy receives 300 times the salary of one of his check out staff, but when you look at the changes he has brought about to take the Market Stall company to the Number 2 spot in world retail (Wal-Mart and Asda are number 1 in case you are wondering.) it is hard to say he hasn’t earned it!

Asda: Giving you more for less, (But This is Ridiculous)

Just read an article on the Daily Mail Website about a Padded Bra for 10 Year Olds that has been on sale at ASDA, An ASDA spokeswoman has stated that the Item a push up bra size 28AA should have been removed from sale 6months ago following the uproar that swept the country after Primark (The Clothing Arm of Associated British Foods) were found to be selling “Sexualised” clothing aimed at young girls. ASDA however apparently decided that instead of removing the items they should simply move the bras and lace underwear (rated for age 9+) to the lingerie aisle instead.

The ASDA spokeswoman also said in her statement 'We take our responsibilities as the largest children’s wear retailer extremely seriously. Every single one of our children’s wear products goes through an in-house panel of mums to assess its suitability.” I would suggest therefore that they carefully consider if they have the right people on their panel. Now whilst I accept that as my daughter is only 1 there is not much chance of her pestering me to try and buy something I do not agree with but as a parent I can not understand how these products come to be made, after all if the only people buying the clothes were people like me then a lack of sales would soon end the product line, I have therefore often wondered what kind of people are bad enough parents to think that it is a good idea to sell this kind of product, but I guess I now know – it is the ASDA parents panel.

Sir Philip Green Set to Save us £20Bn

Sir Philip Green has completed a review into public spending and has announced that he can save the country £20bn a year in efficiency savings based on procurement and economies of scale, apparently the owner of Top Shop suggests that there is a possibility of saving 6-700M in telecoms alone. This is really just confirmation of what we have known about the Labour Governments attitude to our money all along, The attitude seems to have varied from “It’s not our money so why worry.” All the way to “We need to spend as much as possible otherwise we won’t get as much next year.” And it is this attitude as much as the actual waste that needs to be challenged if we are to ever get a real chance of closing the budget gap, and this is not just the civil servants but has been led from the politicians from the top and the Unions who seem to feel their members have a right to waste this money.

Now this £20Bn saving, if it is achieved will help protect many front line services, unfortunately it will not mean a lot in helping the Quangos and other bodies already facing cuts as after all the deficit last year was £159.8Bn so a further £139Bn of cuts are needed (Just to break even, this will not even start to pay off our now 1 Trillion of debt (or 71% of GDP) simply stop us building up anymore debt and interest. But it is 20Bn less to need to spend than if Labour had been allowed to carry on their policies of waste. After all despite what the last administration seem to believe and the attitude of many people currently living off the state – This is our Money, It comes from our hard work and taxes and it is about time someone started to look after it!

Google Car Set to Finish off Driving Instructors

I decided to go on line this morning to see if I had won the £115m lottery jackpot. Unfortunately it wasn't me, however I was very interested to read that Google have been testing a self-drive car, this is fascinating for a variety of reasons, not least of which that it shows just how diverse Google's business interests have developed - anyone else remember when they were just a search engine?
However as someone who loves new technology it is simply the idea that we may soon be driving around in real automobiles has got my mind racing.
Just think of what this would mean, on the down side it will completely wipe out the driving school industry - especially RED driving school's claims that it is a recession proof industry - I can also imagine it may increase the number of cars on the road, after all you could easily send a car off to get the kids whilst you are going elsewhere - now that I think about it taxis will be surplus to requirements as well, why call a cab when you can just call up your own car to pick you up from the pub.

Anyway onto the good, the main selling point is better safety, Google drove the car around San Francisco on what are some very challenging roads, each of The google test drives had a computer programmer and a human driver standing by and the police had been notified of the route in advance, however there was one reported incident however that was actually caused by a human driving into the back of the googlecar so if anything it could be said the problem there were not enough automatic cars not too many! Along side safety of course comes the potential to have much faster driving and less jams, the fact is that speed is not actually dangerous when driving, driving too fast is the dangerous thing, if you are driving at 200 on a completely flat straight road you should be ok (may be a bit frightening the first time, whilst at the same time if you are following someone in icy conditions at 20 you are probably going too fast, the google car should be able to plot you a route that ensures you can travel at the fastest and safest speed possible, if they were to move the technology on and actually create a mainframe of all traffic movements you could actually find that the car could easily programme you in the perfect route avoiding any need to stop at all (I guess this may put TomTom out of business as well.

Well I for one will be waiting with great interest to see what becomes of this trial and would gladly buy an auto drive once they are available (They look like ordinary cars with a sensor which reminds me of google's street view vehicle) Although I have to admit that since I started writing this I have realised just how many industries this could actually wipe out - but that would not be until the technology is very widely used - thinking about it, isn't there a Dr Who where the auto drives start killing people? perhaps I am not as big a fan as I was at the start of this post.

How I would like to improve politics

Just a quick post on a few things I would like to happen to improve politics.

Manifesto:
I would like to see the manifesto lifted to the status of a service level agreement, and as such would like to see an annual review of progress against election promises. Basically on the anniversary of each election each politician from PM to Councillor will stand before the electorate and state which of their promises they have completed, what they are still working on and what now cannot be delivered - and why.

Borrowing:
To prevent a repeat of The current system I would like to introduce a limit on public sector borrowing, no government or local authority should borrow for anymore than a single elected term, this is to stop the features of inherited good economies, becoming train wreck economies when they are passed back.

MP Expenses:
Although it is last years hot topic, I want to see the expenses revisited, instead of restricting to rental properties only I feel that on election an MP should select an apartment - up to a set level - and this should be 100% tax payer funded, after their term ends the property will be either sold by the state (if prices have gone up) or held until the taxpayer can be ensured of a return on investment.

Recall elections:
A recall election to be called if petitioned by 25% of eligible voters at any time, or 10% with proven wrong doing.

Prison System:
Reform the prison System into a two tier system, punishment and rehabilitation. All prisoners to spend the first half of their sentence in punishment and the second half in rehabilitation - dependant on good behaviour. Both tiers to include paid employment to cover the costs of the system.

Smoking Ban:
I would lift the ban but only for licensed premises, these premises would be banned from selling any foods and must be new establishments (so no one can end up working in one if they do not want to) I would then leverage the costs of smoking related diseases directly against the cigarette companies.

House of Lords:
I am a strong believer in the existence of a non-elected body in government, (as the majority are not always right - Nazi Germany for example) however if you are to switch to a wholly elected parliament perhaps we could split the duties of an MP between the houses with the Lords taking a more community focused role, with the commons being more Westminster and business based, perhaps even electing on a joint ticket. - to be honest, not something I believe in but would welcome the debate.

Like I say, these are just my ideas and would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

Movie Review Buried (Spoilers)

Warning as with Inception it is quite hard to talk about this film without giving away spoilers





spoilers




spoilers



This weeks film review is for the Spanish Indie film Buried, the film follows the attempts of a central character Paul Conway (Ryan Reynolds) to escape from a box which is as the title suggests Buried. Paul Conway is a Truck driver working in Iraq when he is captured by insurgents who demand 5M USD for his release. As he wakes up in the box he has a zippo, a pen and a bag left by the insurgents containing a Mobile Phone, an unreliable torch and a message they want him to record on the mobile phone.

Now when I first heard the mention of the film I wondered along with everything else if one man in a box was enough to carry an entire film and make it interesting, I don't believe it was, but it came very close. There are many stretches of imagination that are needed to make this film possible as Conway speaks to people on the phone who seem to know a great deal of information before they get told. The Hostage Locator for example seems to know what model of mobile phone he has, and at one point his Boss calls him on the phone despite the foreign office being unable to trace the number. perhaps the biggest discussion point for websites however is the available amount of oxygen due to Conway's love of lighting his zippo.

but if you can ignore these small elements, and the entire snake scene it is not a bad movie, This is just one of a long line of enclosed space movies and seems to take it to the minimal degree but where as Devil (In a lift) and Phone Booth (In public but unable to move.) have the ability to bring in players from outside the set up, Buried is limited to Conway and the voices on the phone, This is probably about an hours worth of decent movie stretched over an hour and a half, but well worth seeing if not just for the concept - a concept which I believe must be at its peak unless they bring out a film about a contortionist who gets stuck mid trick.

Bob Crow Vs. London

Yesterday saw the second of the one day strikes by the RMT and another less known union - probably as they lack the marmite style leadership of Mr Crow - now as I work out in Bexleyheath this really should have had little or no effect on me, however this strike coincided with my companies annual management conference so I was forced to make my way into London.

There was plenty of debate over if the public supported strike action or the law should be tougher to stop it happening, personally I fully believe in the right of people to withdraw their labour, but I do fear that with an apparent desire for strike for strikes sake as demonstrated by Mr Crow and others (Unite for example) the public will start to support making it harder to down tools, and possibly make it illegal altogether. As I say I think that strike action very much has a place in a unions Arsenal, but if it is not used more sensibly I can see it being removed. For example, when the general public are desperate to keep hold of their jobs they will struggle to understand why BA need more air stewards than their competition (in fact more from Heathrow than Gatwick.) And like wise as you are struggling to get to work, or a job interview, it is hard to have empathy with guys being asked to work outside their ticket office, after they have been assured that there will be no redundancy.

So I would pass on a piece of advice to all Unions - pick your battles, you are out of touch with public opinion and in danger of losing everything.