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?)