Probably the best idea... in the world...

Recently I was asked by a lobby group to tell the government's committee on the House of Lords how it should be reformed.

At first I just started typing a basic response, but then over an hour of two I actually came up with something with which I'm rather pleased. It may not be the best idea in the world as the title misleadingly suggests, but it may be one of my best.

If the goverment implemented this, I think we'd all be living in a slightly better country.

Before discussing the House of Lords, first by way of background, the House of Commons must be discussed.

The current problem with the elected house (Commons) is that they are not independent.

First each MP is subject to his or her party. This means, if one has a safe seat, then all they need to do is always go with the party line and they will always have a job. After all, the party is never going to remove a candidate that always votes the way they want them to. This is great for the party, terrible for everyone else, because it bypasses the wishes of the electorate.

Second, each MP is subject to being lobbied. Powerful self interest groups that don’t necessarily represent the views of the country as a whole can hold huge sway over the Commons. The reason for this is that if they do something against the self interest group, they will be slammed by that group to their subscribers. This means that instead of looking to the long term benefit of the country, every MP is only thinking what will make them look good to the lobbying groups in the next five minutes. This isn’t in anyone’s interest either.

To make the Lords like the commons would just serve to compound these problems, rather than balance them, so, to solve both these problems the following measure ought to be instituted in the reformed House of Lords:

1) 1) The House of Lords must have a limited number of members, each of which is replaced on a cycle;

2) 2) Each member of the House CANNOT be a member of the political parties. The Lords are to represent the people, and thus it is them to whom they must listen. Any strong associate of a Lord to the House of Commons parties, or too much interacting with their chief whips etc would be seen in the same was as a Judge finishing a case and then going for coffee with the Defendant, totally inappropriate professionally, professional code of conduct would be drawn up to this effect, with potential dismissal if breached a few times;

3) 3) This may be contentious but the House must not be elected. This may sound strange but it is totally necessary. Instead the members of the House should be chosen by a group of people, like a jury, drawn at random from the electoral register, this means they will be chosen by people representative of ‘the people’ (statistically proportionate of all races, genders, social classes etc) and they will be chosen independently of the parties, it will also mean that candidates can be personally interviewed if necessary, it will also mean that there will be no point ‘lobbying’ the group, as after they have made their decision they will be disbanded;

4) 4) It is essential that the House of Lords is elected in a staggered fashion. For example, if they are replaced every 10 years, it is essential that they are not all done at the same time, but rather in sets of 2 each month for example. This is important because in the House of Commons there is the tendency to screw the public through the term and then grant favourable tax breaks of benefits when the elections are coming. This doesn’t help anyone, therefore if they are elected continually then there will be an element of consistency (ironically). This would also get rid of the current pattern where the government swaps each time there is a recession, because the people are just generally less satisfied during that period. There would be gradual change not instant shifts depending on how the FTSE is doing.
(It should now be clear why 3 is essential, while one couldn’t possibly have an election every month, it is possible to have a jury selection two new Lords each month)

5) 5) Selection of the short list:
The short list for the ‘jury’ to decide must be picked thus third from the people on the electoral roll, two thirds from specialists.
The first group must be taken again from random from the electoral roll. They have the option to opt out if they so desire but otherwise are free to represent the people.
The second group should be made up of specialists; this will be a mix, partly of people who have helped society and partly those who have useful training. An example list would be:
Self made business man;
small but successful charity worker;
economist;
Doctor (physician);
First generation lawyer;
Mathematics teacher.

It is of utmost importance that no one in this second group have a history in politics, the Lords must not be a place where useless politicians go to die. Also they should not be workers for campaign groups. This should not count as a charity. The emphasis should always been on the first two categories, on the logic being that self made businessmen clearly have good business acumen and if they took a company to success themselves they are unlikely to be a product of nepotism. Then people who have worked for charities helping the poor or orphans etc here or abroad genuinely care about people. People fighting for ‘X’s rights does not count as this would open up the system to obvious bias. Economists and other specialist (assuming the jury chooses to elect them) will come in handy in the House of Lords when arguments stray into specialist areas.
The ratio may be tweaked, depending on what works most effectively.

If these points were taken into account we would not have a House that just mimics the problems of the House of Commons, but we would have a house that BALANCES the problems of the House of Commons. Not only that but it would be almost totally protected from the interference of the political parties and therefore they would be able to do what genuinely is in the long term interests of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Further the House would not be filled with career politicians, but rather it will be filled with salt of the earth men and women who have actually made the country a better place through their own hard work and competence, either through private enterprise or through compassion and dedication, or most likely; both.

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That said I came up with the idea in one morning, so it may take a day or two for any flaws to show themselves. All in all though, it looks like a winner!

Is the media's fairness fair?

Some of you may have noticed that New York was not destroyed by hurricane Irene.

Some of you may not even know about what has been happening on the East Coast of the USA, so here is a brief catch up. There was a hurricane, its name was Irene. It went up the East coast of the USA. It reached New York and did very little damage, even though they were prepared for something a lot worse. Locals said it was 'just like any other tropical storm'.

Since then the New York city government has been ridiculed somewhat for over preparing.

Yeah I know! Over-preparing!?! What? Is that like being too rich, or too knowledgeable, ie things that aren't really bad at all because they are easily rectified and more often than not useful, not detrimental?

Sure if the mayor of New York had made everyone get into nuclear bomb shelters and didn't let them out for two days, I can imagine it would be time to kick off. But what happened was that high risk areas were evacuated, and then when the storm passed they left. How is this bad?

It bothers me that people in positions of responsibility these days can't win. Prepare too little, everything that happens is your fault, prepare too much, you get ridiculed for making too much of something, get it just right, well thats your job anyway, what congratulations do you need?

Occasionally, someone may actually say 'well done', but generally the life of a politician I think is one of a gratitude vacuum. Is this a good thing? I'm thinking not.

I guess the reason why newspapers rarely say good things about politicians is because they don't want to be seen as bias. But isn't it more bias never to report good stories than reporting them?

Maybe I just don't pick up on the stories that are positive but it just seems there is a growing attitude of dissatisfaction. This isn't helped by the further two points that the media seems to love.

1) Always give a blanced view point.

OK, OK, I know what you're thinking, surely you're in favour of a blanced view point? Well sure, in theory it sounds fine, but in reality it is impossible. Sure, when one thinks of creationism and evolution you can understand why both view points need to be represented.. But if you apply the idea to everything you end up having extreme view points broadcast or printed that don't really make sense. No matter what any political party does, no matter what any leader or citizen does, there is always going to be some sort of association somewhere that disagrees. Which means when Jeremy Clarkson makes a joke about truck drivers killing prostitutes, the media go to a hualiage company for comments. And when the hauliage company respond in a perfectly reasonable way (which was basically 'it was a joke, we're not offended, it isn't meant to be taken seriously') the media strain themselves further to find some organisation that will give them the pointless fury they desire (the English Collective of Prostitutes,) whoever they may be.

This means that there is always some negative view point and that in some cases they are clearly opinions that are off the wall. But the point is one man's off the wall, crazy view point, it anothers fair point, so no one can really decide for everyone else what a reasonable or wacky opinion is. And so every idots view gets heard. This then leads on to the next point; which is,

2) Nothing goes far enough

More money for pensioners? Not enough. More money for fighting knife crime? Not enough. More police on the street? No enough. Less regulation/more regulation for banks? Not enough/too much. Whatever someone does there is almost always a group willing to say that it doesn't go far enough.

Well, that might be their opinion, and I'm sure it is. But think of the world we're making for ourselves. We're making a world where nothing is ever good enough (which to an extent is true) but also where no improvement or victory or success is really apprciated. That isn't good.

So I'm going to do the reverse. I'm going to take a few minutes to scan the web and congratuate those in office on some of the things that they've done in the past few weeks.

1) Congratulations to the New York Major for helping keep people were safe through hurricane Irene.
2)Well done to the coalition government for getting the 'free schools' work done, so that this Autumn 24 free schools will open their doors
3) Congratulations to all the fighters who have managed to take Tripoli in Libya, and to all the NATO forces who have helped with the fighting (I hope and pray that the transition council make wise decisions that lead to a prosperous and free country)
4) Big welcome too, to the government initiative to force Universities to publish data on their courses regarding the employment rates of people on that course and their post degree salaries.
(so now you'll be able to see whether there is any point in doing a degree of a certain kind in a certain university).

London's burning

As we all know London has spent the last few days being on fire while gangs roam the streets looting shops and burning cars.

I haven't seen anything like it in my lifetime, but then I'm unable to recall the Brixton riots. Now apart from the fact our reletively civilised country has had images captured of it looking more like a third world pit, something else really troubles me; the reaction of the public.

Now most of it has been appaul at the behaviour of the looters and rioters. So far so good. People should be appaulled and I'd be more worried if they were not. But my concern rests largely with the reaction after that.

Rather inevitably as events are going on people are asking why this has happened. The disturbing thing is that people start looking for 'big' explanations rather than the small. Socio-economic factors being the obvious and easy choice. Essentially many of the looters (although not all) are from poorer economic backgrounds. In addition we're going through econonmic hard times, so I can see it is going to be exceedingly popular with some people to say that the reason for the riots is due to the economic climate. This is wrong, and dangerous.

To begin economic times are hard, but they aren't really THAT hard. When one can't get food for yourself and your family, I appreciate that a natural tension develops. This is because when a hard working man can't obtain sufficient food for himself and his family, it is highly likely (unless there is a famine going on) something wrong with the way society is structured. Riots usually result in unheaval and so it is almost a logical reaction. This isn't what is going on at the moment.

For all our economic hardship everyone still have food and clothes and the government is still doleling out the benefits are usual, no crisis there. This is further supported by what is being looted; bread? Oats? Clean water? No. What is being looted is DVDs, CDs, wiskey, wine, in other words luxuries, things that people don't need, but want.

People don't need rose wine any more than I need fresh pressed orange juice each morning. It is nice, but not essential. In other words, it is something one has to work for. If the work isn't around that is unfortunate, but that is how economics works. Give it a couple of years and there will be money around again... unless all your businesses have been burnt to the ground by looters, that is.

This is not the only thing that shows that the riots are not about economic needs. Swansesa, South Wales, is a bit of a dive. Not completely, but it certainly isn't Cambridge. There are few highly skilled jobs to work towards and the average income is quite low. So too in the Rhondda Valleys, so too in Glasgow, and yet no one in these areas are rioting. A quick glance at the BBC news website for Scotland reveals that it's main story is about roads being flooded. The only arrests in both Wales and Scotland have been to do with people encouraging rioting on facebook and other social media sites.

Now, when one considers that the Welsh and Scottish have just as many deprived areas as the English, clearly it can be seen that this is nothing to do with poverty.

There is one explanation and one alone, there are people, who want things that they haven't worked for and they have no concern for those who have. They are selfish and believe they have a right to things that other people have, even if those people don't really have them at all. After all does a shop keeper really 'own' the widescreen TV on the shop floor? Legally it is his, but it doens't mean he watches a good TV at home, it is his, but his to sell to someone else, it is his livelyhood. Further the retail industry has been sufferring of late, which actually suggests no one really has the money for these things at the moment.

So what is the cause of the riots? Greed. Pure and simple. I want, I don't want to wait, I want it now, and I don't care who suffers as a result. A similar but slightly different kind of greed that makes the banks try to stop the UK from regulating them properly, while giving themselves huge bonuses. I want, I want now, I don't care who suffers. Although at least with the banks the sufferring is slightly less direct than with the rioters.

This then is the first thing that needs to be acknowledged by society. Greed is what has caused this, greed and a desire to put 'me' first and screw anyone else, "stuff your neighbour" if you will. Any talk of lack of opportunity or feeling 'let down' by the government it looking in the wrong place. It also undermines the behaviour of those who are also poor, but aren't burning down their neighbour's shop.

The second issue society needs to, and no doubt will consider, is what to do to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again. That is a good reaction. Self-reflection is an important requirement for improvement in almost any aspect of one's life. But the issue is that we have stopped 'self-reflecting' and started 'government blaming'.

Now don't get me wrong. Anyone can read the rest of my blog and see that I do my fair share of slating the government. There is no doubt there. However, there is a time and a place. This is neither the time nor the place.

The government after all have no interest in either ruining the economy or having riots in the street. Both look very bad on the government and so we can rule out intentionally damaging either. After all even if David Cameron is a millionaire, he has his money in shares just like everyone else and so he wants the economy to improve even if it is for no other reason than for his own bank balance to increase.

But the main issue is, and this really needs to sink into our consciousness as a society:
THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT CONTROL EVERYTHING.

If they could, then the thing that we really need to worry about is not a few rioters in the street but the fact we have a totalitarian government so powerful it can control everything and everyone. That would be far more dangerous and probably result in far more suffering event than what we have now.

Further just logically people forget that the resources of the government are finite. We seem to thing that government is an everlasting stack of cash. But really the governments resources is only what you and I earn. Which means their resources are only our resources. Are you feeling the pinch? So in the government then. Can you only just make ends meet? Well that means the government can't tax you any more and if they do that will decrease the amount you can spend and that will hurt the economy. So basically since the police resources depend on the government and the government on us... and we're all broke. We need to start thinking of the government as the people who keep the basics of life ticking over, not the people who solve all of lifes problems.

Further, money, contrary to popular belief, can't solve all problems. Sending someone to university doesn't make them more intelligent. Giving someone £20 doesn't make them more moral and paying someone to do A-levels doesn't make them more hard working. So throwing money at the the problem won't make it go away. Giving the police more money would just mean more people in prison. Which means we'd need more money for prisons. Then they are always going to come out of prison and some point and the cycles starts again. It is incredibly expensive. The Budget for national offenders is around £4Bn. The home office has a budget of around £11bn together that is more than all the devolved spending in Wales.

The people who caused this were individuals. As a society we need to choose whether we accept this sort of behaviour and make excuses for it or whether we realise that it is we who dictate social norms and it is we who decided what is acceptable. We do it as parents and/or friends and/or work collegues and/or partners.

Listen to the clip on this website, then ask youself one question. Have WE (the people) go this balance right?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/​uk-14458424

The (BBC) Empire fights back

Ironically, the one thing that has dominated the media recently... is the media.

Thanks to News of the World hacking peoples phones News International now has a giant "kick me" sign on its back and the BBC and other media outlets are determined to make the absolute most of the opportunity to do so.

I don't think the BBC could make a more wanton display of delight as it give 24 hour news coverage to the phone-hacking scandal.

But at least there was one commentator on BBC news who had the strength to say that it was looking like a media "cat fight" and that if they didn't start covering some of the other issues properly they would lose credibility.

He's not joking. I'm no friend of Murdoch, but the fact that the European Monetary Union has almost fallen out of the sky and there is a famine in Somalia (apparently?) would surely suggest that it is time to have other news stories on the front page (metaphorically and literally).

But while this whole episode is kicking off I have a completely different concern with the media. One of the few stories that did manage to filter through the "kick him when he's down marathon" was the story of a nurse who might have killed some of her patients.

What concerned me was how this was reported. When the media wasn't trying to stir up a lynch mob to take one Murdock or another to the gallows, they were explaining what they knew about this nurse who was being questioned by the police.

In summary what they knew about her was this:

nothing.


In a display of rather mind numbingly shoddy journalism someone had accessed her facebook page and taken down a few quotes.

That's right; facebook. The thing to which we could all gain access if we wanted. The system where by if you want, you can say your married to your best friend for laughs and where people can read about your favourite TV programmes.

Chances are if people thought this sort of thing was relevant they could have tapped the suspects name in and found the page themselves. I assume that the privacy settings were not very high since the journalists could view it and unless they hacked her account... which in this environment even the most delinquent, walnut brained mammal would know it avoid.

But on to the real issue; what did they find? Well two things, first she describes herself as 'happy-go-lucky' and second that 'she had complained about work in her status updates'.

This is where things get really ridiculous. The tone of voice and the intonation of the reporters when describing these facts made them sound like they were both relevant and sinister.

What shocking use of the media to demonise someone. Sure, they might be guilty, but equally they could be innocent. I have no idea, the media, they have no idea either, who knows at this point. The police may not even know. What annoys me is that instead of someone being innocent until proven guilty in the media, they are innocent until proven able to sell papers... or making 'interesting' news reports.

Is that really fair? That person has to continue living in society long after those news reports are yesterday's bin fodder. Those of their acquaintances who don't know them properly, even if acquitted, are they not going to remember what the news said about them? Of course, if they waited until the person was proven innocent or guilty it wouldn't be half as bad. I'm still not sure it would be ideal, but at least they were not risking a potentially innocent persons life in society.

But taking the issue of liability aside for a moment, what does the information provided actually tell us about the suspect? They describe themselves as happy-go-lucky. The inference of course is 'a nurse that is happy-go-lucky? How reckless! How terrifying, how can they sleep at night'. But of course, this is her facebook page, not he resume. She isn't describing herself as a nurse, any more than when someone states that they are 'single' on facebook it means they are seeking to date workmates or patients.

That sort of logic would suggest that somehow if you knew someone who was an undertaker, and on their facebook page they said they loved practical jokes, people would automatically assume that they put whoopee cushions under the seat of the deceased's wife when they are carrying out funerals. It is just the deliberate misuse of context.

The second statement, she has complained about work in her status updates. How dare she? That absolute soulless piece of... oh, no wait, everyone who has every used facebook status updates has put something like that as their status up-date.

I've just taken a look at the list of updates uploaded by my friends on my facebook page, no less than four can be easily interpreted as complaining about work, including the post at the very top.
Another two could be 'interpreted' to suggest that one of my friends has a serious drinking problem and another that they self harm... of course, that is all a load of rubbish, because they are joking, but if you're a press reporter who is willing to note someone has 'complained about work' then who knows what you will do.

I myself would rant about work on a regular basis, except for the fact that at least two of my work colleagues are on my facebook page. Does that mean I am going to commit violent crime? Not a chance. But I'm sure if read in a suitably malicious and sinister way the press could interpret anyone's updates are indicting. Why? Because that isn't the context in which they are intended.

I'm hoping that the public can see through such ridiculous and dangerous behaviour. But I'm not putting my money on it.

Recently we've found out that the media is willing to break the rules to get the story. This shows that they are willing not just to infringe the privacy of the grieving, but further to demonise those who may be innocent. I don't know which in the long term is worse, even though I know which one is getting the coverage.

I guess it comes down to the old adage of who watches the watchers. The government check the police, the media check the government and ............. no one is watching the media. The government can't do it as they are too busy trying to cosy up to the media. This much can be seen with the ex-editor of the News of the World becoming the communications chief for Downing Street... and thus we're left with a situation where the media scrutinises the behaviour of everyone... except themselves.

Maybe then it is a good thing that the BBC is giving such coverage to the mistakes of the Murdoch media empire. Maybe the various media outlets are ideal for holding each other to account. Maybe plurality of the press is working to keep each other in balance.

In that case, I wish they'd do it with a little more objectivity and with the professionalism of the massive corporation they are, rather than coming across as a five year old with a bitter vendetta, and a complete lack of perspective.

A crash course in the British economy

Made in Britain is a new show on presented by Evan Davies (of Dragon's Den fame). Unsurprisingly it is about the British economy the deficit and basically, whether Britain has gone down the pan.

It is without doubt an excellent programme. It explained relatively complex issues in such a way that anyone can understand them. It breaks some of the myths surrounding our economy such as 'manufacturing industry good, service industry not good' and ' low tech manufacturing is essential to our economy and its decline is the end of us'.

If I could, I would make it so that everyone gets shown this programme from an early age. Hopefully they would get the implied message, if you don't have a specific skill that someone in China doesn't have, then soon enough someone in China is going to be doing your job. Lets face it, that is what people in school need to be aware of. In the last few decades people could do unskilled work and get paid enough to live in the UK, but soon enough if you do an unskilled job, you will only be able to afford to live in China. Sure there will be exceptions, but that is the general rule.

One of the things that surprises me however is that when you look at manufacturing, which I accept needs to grow in the UK, some of the factories here are the most efficient in the world. In fact, Nissan's car factory in Sunderland is the most efficient in the whole of Europe*. Now that amazes me. The Germans are known for their efficiency, and the French have three big car firms. We don't have one, and yet we have the most efficient factory. How does that work?

Well, I think I have the answer. If you look at the all cars that are designed in the UK, Land Rover, Jaguar, Aston Martin, they are all owned by foreign companies. Generally they do not work well then they are owned by a UK firm, then they are sold and they do well. Japanese firms come over here and set up hugely successful factories, but British manufacturers fail. Why?

It could be that the management are retarded, and so when foreign management come along they run the factory well and everything works and the world becomes a better place. But I highly doubt it. For a start most of the management will be British too. Sure the very top might be Japanese, or the owners might be Indian, but most of the management are realistically going to be British. So it is unlikely to be that.

It could be that the principles by which companies are run are superior outside of the UK. I'm sure that is part of it. But generally such principles, once they have proven their worth, are adopted throughout the world.

No, I'm willing to bet there is an entirely different reason why British companies fail and foreign firms succeed in the UK: Unions.

When you think of the last time we had a car industry, back in the 1970s what characterised that period? Strikes. If you think of British Airways, the flag carrier of the country, which is making a loss, why has it been in the news? Best service? Huge profit? Award winning? Nope, strikes. What about transport for London? Is it known for its efficiency? No, it is known for its 1970s style 'fire a single person and we will bring London to a standstill' negotiation tactics.

So lets look at companies based here, Nissan, Honda, no strikes there. Easy Jet? Don't think so. Hmmm, a pattern here?

The thing is, no one is going to strike against these companies because they are foreign. There is no reason they have to be here tomorrow, and no reason why they can't up sticks and head to France, Germany or the Czech republic. Which means if a factory started striking, it would quickly be closed. As a result, the workers don't strike and the factories are a paradigm of efficiency.

In contrast to this when it comes to a British company the Unions assume that they can strike as much as they want and it doesn't matter because:

a) a British companies will no close its operation and move abroad;
b) the British gov will bail out the company when it is losing money hand over fist... because it is British.

The problem with this, mainly, is that it is a load of rubbish. Premise 'a' might be reasonable, but 'b' is undoubtedly completely false.

For a start the rules of the EU forbid state aid, second the country is bankrupt and three the government learned in the 1980s that it is cheaper to let inefficient companies die than to eternally prop them up with subsidies.

Union leaders however, appear rather thick, and haven't quite grasped this fact. So instead of getting what they want with BA for example, they are just going kill off another big company and when they do, it will take quite some time for them to work out what happened... or they will just blame it on everyone else for not capitulating to their demands.

I don't know if other countries have this problem, but judging but the fact that the most efficient European manufacturer's factory is owned by a French company.... and based in Spain I'd say this might be the case.

Then you look at MG, this company failed in the UK. It is now being made in China, I imagine it will do quite well too. While it was UK owned they could not cut costs of staff, although this was partly due to the lack of capital, now that it is Chinese owned they can design it in the UK and build it in China and no one can complain. Can you imagine what would have happened if they had tried this before Chinese ownership? Exactly, chaos, whereas no now one bats an eyelid. No doubt the price will be more competitive too.

Going back finally to the programme "Made in Britain", there were a couple of companies that were held up a British success stories. One of those was GSK, or GlaxoSmithKline. One of the things that the representative of GSK said really resounded with me. He noted, 'there is no reason why there should be a British company based here or called GSK. Therefore if we don't innovate the next generation of products successfully then we won't exist in future. That is what drives us'.

I guess that explains why GSK is still here. They don't think the gov will always back them up because they are British, or because they are a big employer or because they have a right to do what they do. And I'm happy to suggest, that they day they think that there will/should always be a GSK... there won't. But at least then a foreign firm can buy them and make them efficient again.

*although this was on output, units per worker which seems unfair when comparing bigger cars with smaller, less complex ones.

May I order some decent music, please?

Before we start I think I should point out I don't think I'm autistic, neither do I have aspergers. But for some reason I take song lyrics slightly too literally, with the result that they really annoy me.

Don't take this too seriously, but I'm not going to reel off a load of lyrics to get them out of my system.

"I can do it like a brother, do it like a dude" Jessie J

Most catchy song every, also the most annoying. No you can't do it like a brother, neither like a dude. Someone please give her an anatomy lesson.

"Russian roulette is not the same without a gun" Lady Gaga

Profound. For those who don't know Russian roulette is where one has a revolver with a bullet in one of its six chambers. The chamber of the gun is then spun randomly so that the user of the weapon does not know whether or not the weapon is loaded or empty. So Russian roulette isn't the same without the gun... it isn't possible without the gun. Who writes this stuff?

"The boys they wanna sex me" Black eyed peas.

This is wrong for two reasons. One, grammatically, it sounds like someone with an IQ of 25.5 has been writing songs (hardly the ideal example). I know they were just desperate to fit something into the line to make it rhyme but could they really not think of anything better? Lets face it Black eyed peas songs sell in their millions, could they not afford just to spend an extra minute trying to think of an ACTUAL sentence.

Two, the tacit agreement between song writers and the public at large is that when writing popular songs they are only ever to use innuendo. This is a fundamental rule that ought never be broken. It is a courner stone of radio broadcasting. Why? Because when people follow the rule the the only people who hear the intent of the writer are those who are already aware of the concepts being sung. Those who are innocent of such concepts remain so, and thus songs can be played at 9 o'clock in the morning without causing too much harm. This song totally and utterly bins this rule and forsakes the tacit agreement and for what? A really quite terrible line in a 'not particularly good song'. Come on writers, you're paid a wage, do your job and start writing lyrics that at least meet the lofty standard of someone who can just about string a whole sentence together.

Rihanna... where to start, first, shouldn't your name be spelt Rhianna. Otherwise it would be pronounced "Ree-hanna" which just seems wrong.
Second, when Rihanna first started she had a song with a line that I actually liked:

"cause in the dark, you can't see shiny cars " Rihanna

Now, least inportantly it makes literal sense. Yes, in the absence of light it is not possible to perceive a shiny car using the visible light spectrum. Check.

Next I like the metaphorical meaning too. When things are going badly material wealth doesn't really make much difference and therefore becomes rather unimportant. Wow, was that actually something deep in a pop song? I nearly fell off my chair.

Since then though, Rihanna has apparently given over her song writing duties to someone who it appears confuses his work for that of a lyical pimp.

I would quote a few lyrics but frankly I don't have the time and I wouldn't want to repeat them in case I offend someone with taste. Out of 5 of her songs that have been played on the radio, two of them refer to sex explictly and two others refer to riding (maybe she's an equestrian fan), but in fairness there is nothing in the song with Eminem about sex. I guess the focus there was more on beating your partner, so presumably Eminem thought that the mood shouldn't be ruined with sexual references.

I started this rant talking about stupid songs, but I have to admit sometimes I actually am greatful for them.

"Cause I'd get a thousand hugs, From ten thousand lightning bugs" Owl City

Now this is a pretty absurd line of a song. Getting hugs from insects? Right, someone has a vivd imagination, but when this comes on, I think so myself, great, a song that doesn't involve show jumping or domestic violence. What a refreshing change!

And maybe that brings me full circle in this argument. Yeah, there are some seriously retarded lyrics out there, but frankly I'm grateful for them if them give me a break from the monotony of sex, violence and cocaine. I even heard one DJ complaining that for a time Eminem was producing songs that didn't include the 3 topics mentioned above. Instead he was rapping about how he felt about his family. Yeah, because there are just so many songs like that out that Eminem was just flooding the market?

I guess I'm just asking for a bit more. Sure a song with a catchy tune is great, but is it that hard to think of something a little bit deeper, about which to sing, than basically a Friday night in a dive end of town?

Who knows, maybe if they can get their head around that then the lyrics might even start to make sense and we won't have to listen to what someone scribbled down in their lunch break.

In the mean time maybe I'll just have to spent more time hangin' with my hommes Mozart and Beethoven, or maybe Tim Hughes...

I can finally fire my Butler

Yesterday, I was astounded. This was because I was given a tea maker.

Why was I astounded by a tea maker, you may ask. Well this particular tea maker is to be set by your bedside so that in the morning when it is time for you to wake up you wake automatically to a fresh cup of tea. You don't even have to turn it on, it is on a timer so when you wake up, it does too.

So why is this amazing? I just can't believe how good the standard of living is at this point. The idea of having hot tea when you wake up is something that, years ago, would have been reserved for the landed gentry, those who could afford a gentleman's gentleman: a butler.

Now in today's Western modern world a veritable nobody of reasonable economic standing can be presented with such a gift.

This raises a couple of questions in my head. The main one being, do we all realise how blessed we are to have such a life style? Am I the only one who wakes up in the morning and thinks to myself I can't believe that I have such an astoundingly high standard of life, I cannot count my blessings if I had all day.

It also raises another question however.

Why isn't every Westerner really happy?
I guess there are a few reasons, one being that there are other big issues such as health (even if we have the best health care too). But I guess the fundamental point is what we knew already: having 'stuff' doesn't make you happy.

I guess it goes back to a fridge magnet I've seen, it said "the best things in life aren't things".

It is sort of strange that if you took a poll in the UK to see who was happy it would probably yeild the same results as in Africa or Asia or anywhere where the 'standard of living' would generally be considered lower.

The other thought is that is life so good because we work hard or because we're in so much debt we've just taken all the money the next generation is going to make and spent it on ourselves?

Strangely at this point I don't think I have an answer to that question. Still, if we are going to spend the next 70 years paying high tax with low public services at least there is this consolation; with less money and more time to focus on the things of life that really are important (God, family etc) we'll probably be a lot happier.