Cameron in California

Now I am sure that this 30 minute long talk by David Cameron will have absolutely no relevance towards any of you. But this is the most ideologically inspired, hip hop and happening, new age speech I have ever heard him deliver. He and his speech writers are certainly on the ball with this one. They appear to have adopted the language and ideals of the most recent sociological/political/management trend of ‘bottom up’ systems and ‘mass collaboration’, the sort of junk that my book shelf (and bizarrely my ipod) are full of.

He even throws up a few ideas that I have never heard him talk about when addressing the British electorate (in this he is addressing the Zeitgeist conference run by Google – an event where the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley get together to congratulate themselves on being so brilliant). Stuff like a website where all central and local government expenditure can be viewed and a (comparatively) intelligent argument for increased corporate responsibility programs (e.g. if government scales back then you guys need to scale up).

Ok, so it is far from an intellectual tour de force or anything and he still talks with that irritating primary school teacher mannerism, but it is refreshing to hear him talk to people he believes can handle ideas beyond ‘immigrants are bad’ and ‘lower taxes are good’.

I had no idea until now just how much he talks down to us. Damn Oxford types.

Harry deconstructed

I am going to be lazy here and simply link to an article from the Telegraph's website. It is all about a French philosopher and his ideas on Harry Potters true meaning. I like this kind of stuff - although nothing will ever compare to the 'true' meaning behind the Matrix - this one is still worth a look.

so here it is: "Harry Potter lives in Thatcher's Britain"

Negotiating a truce

So it was bound to happen. I once again made someone cry during a heated discussion about religion. She wasn't even religious. She was merely defending the right for someone to be a bigot, and I snapped. She was upset and told me to stop swearing about it, so I turned on her and near enough shouted 'there are no words severe enough to condemn this utter evil' and proceeded to claim that it was a 'human duty to attack religion wherever it was found and on all levels'.

While I would of course be lying if I said that those words don't still make me chuckle I have decided that I am probably in need of some anger therapy. Nothing gets me more worked up than the sight of bright young people falling victim to an institution which is designed solely to prey on the desperate. 'I was bullied in high school for being fat and I found comfort by adopting a doctrine of evil' How selfish are they? How weak!? How blind!?!' - is something else I may have said.

It was all because I bought this new book, 'microtrends' written by the devil himself, Mark Penn (a devil because he is contracted to work for Hillary Clinton's election team). In it he quotes a study that says since 1960 the number of women in America graduating from theology schools and entering the clergy has increased dramatically. Meanwhile, over that same period, ALL churches that have allowed women clergy have rapidly declined in popularity, while those that ban them have seen a rapid increase. This fact immediately made me think about all those smart young girls in Arkansas that every sunday and wednesday pledged their allegiance to an institution that regarded them as utterly inferior and good for nothing but rearing the next generation of southern bigots. The blood started to boil, the heart started thumping and I got that warm feeling of pure rage in my stomach.

I know this is not healthy for me. I also know that it is not based on entirely correct assumptions. I can not deny that religion can have a good side. When not preaching hatred churches occasionally raise money for good causes, they can provide support for drug users and in the devastating aftermath of hurricane Katrina, many took the opposing view of their government, and decided to help out (even if it was mostly a case of white churches helping other branches of their white franchise). Better still, HOPE international which works around the world is a micro-finance group working with kiva.org - founded by a church from Pennsylvania. They are currently investing my $25 in a woman who sells bras. So churches really can be supportive.

Accordingly I can often justify the existence of organised religion on the grounds that it is often the lesser of evils. Here in the UK it is disgustingly common to see people abusing alcohol and drugs. Broken families spawn children that disrupt classes and steal your wallet, then go on to gobble up generous amounts of tax payers money by getting themselves in jail. Walking the streets of Scotland and witnessing the native heathen population tear itself apart while the Catholics from Poland, and the Muslims from Asia, get on with the job of bettering the country is often an uncomfortable sight.

If only their parents felt shame at the concept of divorce and had decided to stay together in a vicious cycle of domestic abuse, then the kid would have had double the amount of adult guidance when growing up. If only the kid was Catholic and was desperate to embark on a condom stealing 'mission' to Africa, then he would shun the life of crime and devote his energies to learning a new language. If only he was afraid of divine retribution for losing his virginity before marriage, then he would have ensured that he and his girlfriend remained firmly within the boundaries of fellatio and anal sex, so the kid he didn't want and can't afford would never have been born.

See? It can do good. So, accordingly I have decided that I need to join a church, perhaps getting to know the enemy a second time will be better for me than Arkansas was. I need a church that throws the bible right out of the window and treats women, gays and blacks (no curse of ham nonsense for me thank you very much) as fellow human beings. Fortunately my own Anglican church provides just that.

Perhaps it is worth another look. Because if the post-Christian world of Europe has taught us anything, it is that without employing dogma and fairy tales it is very hard to control people.

At the risk of sounding American I want to indulge in a little patriotic military worship. The Royal Anglian Regiment has just returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan where they are said to have experienced some of the toughest fighting in the regiment’s history.

Six hundred men and women went in, nine were killed and fifty-seven were wounded.

If I am looking for signs of hope in East Anglia then here I have it. Teenagers and young adults from Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire travelled half way around the world to fight in one of the most important wars of recent decades. It is surely no exaggeration to say that the whole future of the world depends on the success of the west in its efforts to rebuild Afghanistan and to cleanse it of an evil like no other. That people my own age from Ipswich and the local area were involved in such an endeavour makes me immensely proud and restores my faith in all that we stand for.

This is a war worth winning.

That's what I wanted to do!

I mean it. This was my new idea. I saw it first. Hands off.

But since he has done such a good job writing about it, i best let this BBC reporter speak about it in his own words. Anyone out there with $20,000,000 to invest in me?

That is after I have invested in that water desalination plant in West Africa. And the company that sells reusable energy generators to farmers (who can use their fat CAP payments to invest in their futures - cos when I lead the 'Neo-Green' party into Parliament the CAP will be the first thing to go).

Blog turns two

Kingussie (two weeks ago)

I sit in a very plush hotel bar in the tiny Scottish town of Kingussie. I am waiting for the last train to take me back to Edinburgh and this was the nearest warm place I could find. The place is empty except for a barman who is flirting with two girls at the bar. A moment ago a scotsman was here, dressed in traditional costume and playing the bag pipes to the delight of the two girls. It is one of their birthdays and in between ear shattering renditions of highland anthems he was buying them drinks and trying to get the girls to have a go on the pipes. If it had worked then I would have refused to believe that there was ever any justice in the world.

But it didn't. The scotsman left and the two girls have now turned to chat to the barman, in Polish. Or what I think is Polish. It could be anything, but it doesn't sound west European. I think the girls work here as maids and he is obviously the barman.

I'm sipping ice cold coke in a remote highland town watching a Polish barman succeeded where a pipe weilding scotsman failed. On friday I take the bus down to London for the weekend to meet Kristina. A Bulgarian I met in Arkansas who has come to study international relations at UCL. She is able to do so thanks to an 'open society' scholarship from George Soros, the american billionaire. Up the road from here my Canadian girlfriend is being briefed on a future trip to Norway with her classmates who come from all over the developed world.

In front of me sits a book called 'war of the world', a history of the twentieth century. It argues that in 1907 the world was the most globalised, integrated and wealthy it ever has been, a period matched only by our world today. A hundred years ago a happy, educated and prosperous developed world descended into fifty years of brutal bloodshed which in both size and substance has never been matched.

No one saw it coming. Many thought that European and American dominace of the world would last forever and that history was effectively over.

Throughout its long and illustrious history Europe has never been so prosperous or so united as it is now. At the same its nations have never been so ethnically diverse or subject to such large peacetime migrations.

So to finish on a hyperbolic high:
I ask you - What would it take to unpick this tapastry of progress? And is Europe mature enough to survive the 21st century?

Single to Inverkeithing

On my way back from the unfortunately named 'Big Bang' weekend at Garelochhead. A small training establishment set in some of the most beautiful Scotish countryside I have yet to see. It is also uphill from Faslane and in and amongst the vast rolling hillside and blue lakes and rivers one has a commanding view of Her Majesties nuclear arsenal.

A hippy camp sits just down the road and during the school holidays or during postal strikes their numbers swell and hordes of commies descend on the camp. Chaining themselves to fences and making human road blocks by locking hands in tubing. It seems a lot of effort just to make sure the MOD police, a spirited bunch of scotsmen, can indulge in their favourite pasttime - bashing pretty rich girls from England over the head and forecably removing their pot smoking, never had a job, swampy boyfriends while they kick and scream and shout humorous things like 'capitalist pigs' and 'warmongers'.

It is heartening to know that I have friends who have been arrested outside this naval base only very recently doing just that. Heartening even more to know that I still harbour an interest in spending a week or two in the camp, purely out of interest. Tho don't get me wrong I'm not anti-nuke. Why on earth would anyone be against the sole technology that keeps the world at peace? Nutters.

Anyway. I'm liking this RNR lark more and more. No other organisation that I can think of is so progressive. By this I mean that if regarded as a sector of civil society it outclasses every competitor. It has the social aspect of a fantastic drinking club, it does charity work equilivent to a good (non-arkansas) church and it has self-improvement credentials better than any evening class or weight watchers programme could ever provide. And it pays too.

Its brilliant. If I was to dream up an institution that provided maximum benefit to both its members and the wider community, the reserves would be it. Many remarkable people consistently doing many remarkable things.

Having said that it is worrying at times to think they may have to one day actually fight a war or respond to an emergency, because judging from my experience the team is far from working, at least on shore. Errors in admin and organisation have plagued the weekend, as it normally does. Thankfully in my limited experience these bureacratic confusions are only evident in shore operations. The ships themselves are incredible. No where else will you find 100 plus men and women working so in tune with a specialist piece of machinery. We can sell Saudi Arabia all the fighter jets and frigates she asks for, but her services will never rival those of an established military, purely because of a lower stock in human capital. Sailors drink hard, talk crudely and have little or no sense of decorum when out together in town. But they are only letting off steam stored up by weeks and months of focussed concentration and awareness. Highly professional people are what win wars and they cannot be so easily bought or sold.

I passed the fitness test except for the multi task gym test which I failed almost immediately for being 'out of time with the beebs'. The PTI doing it all had a reputation for being a bastard. And a much deserved one too. But I'm glad I passed everything else, especially because I haven't really been able to practice recently. I overcame the military swim test with some ease and defeated one of my phobias in the process, (which was being a crap swimmer and caving underpressure). So of that I'm glad.

And when the rumbling bureacracy of the MOD gets itself sorted and I finally get paid for all this, I'll be glader still.

Man, I'm tired.