www.wagweb.co.uk

Online photo managers

2011-12-29T15:01:00.003Z

The internet is a great place for sharing photos. At first, it was pretty terrible - the only way you could share photos with your friends online was to publish them for all to see. These days, though, there are more and more ways of selecting which photos you share with which groups of people. And of course those groups of people are spread all over the place - some on Twitter, some on Facebook, the sensible ones on Google+, and some elsewhere.

And then there are the photo managers; the best of breed pretty much has always been Google's Picasa, and now the advent of Google+ means some tidy Picasa integration. But as well as Picasa there's Flickr, probably the biggest photo sharing site around; but of course Flickr is pretty much just about photo sharing whereas social networks are about sharing much more - so photo sharing on Facebook is pretty big too.

So what's this post all about? The point is, we end up with different albums shared with different people on different platforms, and we want something tidier. As users we want a service that lets us see all our photos in one place, and to share them with the people we want to. A bonus would be to retain the information we've added to the photos - where and when the photos were taken, people we've tagged in them, captions and comments etc. Not surprisingly there's no service (yet) that can do all that for us - partly due to the limitations of the various APIs and partly because nobody's made them yet - but there are a few that are trying to come close. Below I'm going to explain what I've found, but first here's a list of what the ideal online photo manager should be able to do:

MUST: list photos and albums across various services in one place
MUST: allow copying of photos/albums from one service to another "web-side" (ie. without using any of the users' bandwidth to download photos from one service and re-upload them to another)
MUST: be completely free of charge
SHOULD: copy time and location information
IDEALLY WOULD: copy captions and lists of people tagged
IDEALLY WOULD: manage which circles/lists/users/friends/followers can see which photos/albums
SHOULD: allow easy merging of albums
IDEALLY WOULD: allow automatic synchronisation of albums across platforms

Showzey

Showzey is a relatively new kid on the block and promises much. It searches all of your Google, Facebook and Flickr photos and lists them nicely. It lists albums and, yes, lets you copy an entire album from Picasa to Facebook or vice versa. Another key plus point is you don't need any new username or password - simply authenticate via your existing Google, Facebook or Yahoo account.

On the downside, it's excruciatingly slow. I have over 15 pages of albums and navigating between pages on Showzey is an ordeal. Shifting photos around between services requires oodles of bandwidth, memory and processing power and it's apparent that Showzey's infrastructure isn't quite up to the task.

Pictarine

This site has a slightly nicer look and feel than Showzey but does require a separate user account to be created, along with yet another user name and password to remember. Considering the whole point is to link other services together, and the first thing you do when you've created an account is to authenticate with those other services, it's a tad surprising that Pictarine hasn't gone the way of Showzey and used that authentication instead of requiring users to input separate credentials just for Pictarine.

Pictarine covers a much wider range of services than Showzey - but seems to suffer from the same performance issues: loading a list of albums takes ages. In fact, performance is so bad that I haven't yet managed to load my Pictarine homepage after signing up and authenticating with Facebook and Picasa. Sbo I can't really report on how good or bad its features are beyond that point; suffice to say if it takes over an hour to load a list of albums it's not really a usable service. Which is a shame, because there are some favourable reviews of Pictarine out there.

Mobypicture

This site sounds promising - "share your photos, videos and audio with your friends on your favourite social sites" - but since the very well established Picasa is not supported - and, therefore, neither is the fastest growing social network in the world, Google+ - this isn't really worth a look. I only discovered Mobypicture though through Pictarine. If Pictarine can't share directly with Facebook, but Mobypicture can and Pictarine can share directly with Mobypicture - then perhaps there's some mileage. But as I write I'm still waiting for Pictarine to load my list of albums, and I won't be going anywhere near Mobypicture until I'm satisfied that it has a robust link with Picasa - either directly or through a reliable third party.

Facebook & Google+

Of course there's no real reason why we should have to rely on third party applications, as it's within the means of both companies to make their own photo handling better. But since these are rivals it's very unlikely that either would see fit to put the wishes of their users first; Facebook are unlikely to put a "share album to Picasa/Flickr/whatever" button on their photo pages of their own accord, and neither are Google+ likely to add a native "Share to Facebook" button in their Google+ or Picasa album views. Which is shooting themselves in the foot slightly, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, whichever service were to offer that function first would most likely become my primary online photo management service. If Facebook want me to spend more time on their site, they need to allow me to manage my content on other sites through their site. The same goes for Google and, indeed, anyone else.

Secondly, both companies claim that they value the notion of putting users in control of their own data, and make it easier to share whatever we want with whomever we want. If they're serious about that, they should acknowledge that some of those "whomevers" don't use their services, and that their users will still want to share with them - which means being able to throw stuff at other services from within their own.

But it's not just sharing that's problematic. There are some pretty basic requirements that neither site meets; the ability to merge two or more albums together at album level, not at photo level, is something that's frustrated me on both sites in recent days. The ability to automatically identify and remove duplicate photos in an album (preferably merging comments/tags if appropriate) is technically more difficult but far from impossible, and would be a very useful feature for users.

Conclusion

Well, I signed up for Pictarine just before starting writing this blog entry and it's been trying to load my list of albums since then and still hasn't succeeded. So the best of the services that are available at the moment definitely seems to be Showzey. But the reality is that there's a substantial gap in the market for a decent online photo manager. It's a gap that could be filled by one of the big players themselves (Google, Facebook or Yahoo [Flickr]) quite easily, or a nice niche for a startup to come along and fill. It's clearly not the easiest nut to crack - lots of issues with APIs and and setting up servers that are able to cope with large volumes of images being punted backwards and forwards - but nobody said these things were easy. They are, though, sorely needed.

Update
Not surprisingly, as soon as I published this blog post I came across another one which lists the services mentioned above plus several others:
http://www.mysensetechnology.com/2011/11/group-albums-and-photos-from-facebook.html

I've started using Fotolink (the last one mentioned in that post) and am very impressed so far!

Privacy is about security, not shame

2011-10-06T13:26:00.000+01:00

A very silly article was posted on the BBC website yesterday. Cindy Gallop is identified by the Beeb as "an advertising consultant and commentator on cultural issues" (well, that makes all of us, surely). In her article she suggests that instead of trying to compartmentalise our lives and only share certain information with certain people, we should just not worry and make everything public, and instead concentrate on our image. Worries about privacy on social networks are unfounded, she implies.

By managing our image, she means that we should be consistent in our behaviour and not be one thing to one person and something else to someone else. If you don't want your boss to see photos of you as an idiot drunkard puking your guts out in the city centre, then don't be an idiot drunkard puking your guts out in the city centre. Just don't do stuff you'll be ashamed for other people to see.

Well, that's a sound argument; it's not one I disagree with. But it completely misses the point.

I'm not ashamed of what I do or of who I am. If I take my family on holiday for a couple of weeks, that's not something I hide from the world because I'm ashamed of it. But if I plaster the fact that my house is going to be empty for a fortnight all over the internet, that's a massive security risk.

My date of birth and mother's maiden name are nothing to be ashamed of. Sharing them could turn out to be pretty useful - more birthday greetings perhaps, and maybe a friendly genealogist might trace my family tree for me. But publicising information banks use to reset online accounts is never a wise move.

I agree with Cindy that it's silly to pretend you're something you're not, that telling lies is a bad thing, and being open, honest and transparent is good. But to pretend that privacy of information doesn't matter, that it's ok to share everything about you, that worries about what Facebook might do with your information are unfounded - well, that's just daft. It's embarrassing.

It's something to be ashamed of.

How to update Twitter from Google+ (without browser extensions)

2011-07-15T20:13:00.002+01:00

Update: The plusfeed.appspot.com feed no longer works, so this method no longer works either! Still, this article may be useful for future reference...

You may have come across this article from Justin Bee, which explains how to update Facebook directly from Google+ without the need for any browser extensions. Justin's approach uses email to send a message from Google+ to Facebook. Justin's article mentions that there may be similar ways to update Twitter, but they would rely on third party services that the author wasn't too sure about. Justin also mentions a significant downside to his method -it relies on the message being in the subject of the email, which Google+ truncates after 50 characters.

So I've taken a slightly different approach - although mine does rely on third party services, and actually doesn't result in a real-time update, but at least has a longer character limit. It also has the advantage of not needing to do anything extra in Google+ - all of your public posts are turned into tweets automagically.

It works in two steps. First, grab an Atom feed of your Google+ public posts; and second, publish that feed to Twitter. Here's the method, step-by-step:

In Google+, go to your profile.
The URL will be https://plus.google.com/[your Google+ ID number]/posts. Copy your Google+ ID number to your clipboard.
There are several RSS/Atom feed-to-Twitter applications available; I use one of the most popular and easiest to use, Twitterfeed. You can log into it via OpenID, i.e. using your Google or Twitter account, so you don't have to remember a new password. So, log into Twitterfeed (or an alternative of your choice)
Create a new feed, selecting the options of your choice, but using the following as your feed URL: http://plusfeed.appspot.com/[your Google+ ID number]
Select the minimum refresh period (currently 30 minutes) and post up to the maximum number of posts at a time (currently 5).

Job done! Now Twitterfeed will check your Google+ public feed for new posts every half an hour and post those to Twitter.

Google+ and Facebook compared

2011-07-12T21:44:00.004+01:00

Google+ is Google's latest attempt at breaking into social networking. They've had several ill-fated attempts before, (Orkut and Google Buzz are the ones you'll hear people talking about) but it seems that they've really achieved something with Google+. But of course most social networkers are already on Facebook, and it will take something special to lure many of them away. So how do the two compare?

Facebook is well established, and has lots of nifty features as well as many annoying ones. Google+ is the new kid on the block - it's features are fewer, but what they do is a bit better. I'm sure there will be many people offering their own comparisons of the two, but you're here now so here's mine.

Organising friends

The Circles feature of Google+ has been a big talking point among those who talk about such things. It's a great, intuitive way of categorising the people you're connected to through Google+. One of the big selling points that Google+ are keen to trumpet is how easy it is to share things with some circles and not others, so you can limit family stuff to your family, work related stuff to your work colleagues, and so on. And it's true, Google+'s circles are great - to a certain extent.

On the other hand, you can already do this with Facebook. It's not as easy and intuitive as circles in Google+, but it's there and it does work. And, actually, the Facebook user interface for managing your friend lists (as they're called in Facebookland) isn't too bad. Google+ Circles is certainly nicer, with it's drag-and-drop interface compared to Facebook's dropdown menus - but once I've categorised someone I'm unlikely to keep moving them around different categories. There is one aspect to this where Facebook actually has the advantage - because Google+'s circles are big and bulky on the screen you can only see 5 at a time, and have to scroll to see more, whereas Facebook goes with a much simpler list, allowing me to see all my friend lists at once.

Verdict: it's a draw. One point each. Facebook 1-1 Google+.

Organising feeds

This is where Google+ makes some serious headway. In Facebook, no matter what friend lists your friends are in, their updates appear in one single news feed. You can choose to hide certain friends' updates from your news feed, but you can't view a news feed of all your old mates from school separately from your current mates from work. With Google+ circles, you can do exactly that; each circle has it's own feed (called a stream in Google+), so as well as your overarching everyone-you-know stream you can filter it according to the circles you've created.

Facebook, quite simply, doesn't do this. So that's two points to Google+. Facebook 1-3 Google+.

Groups and hangouts

What Facebook does offer, though, is it's groups feature. Facebook has old-style groups and new-style groups; the old-style ones are gradually being transitioned to the new-style ones, or archived (amid much controversy). You can't see the status and other stuff that's shared by other people in a Facebook group, but you can see things member share specifically with that group. It also allows you to chat as a group using Facebooks inbuilt chat feature. It also gives you a group email address, so that emails sent to that address appear on the group in Facebook (a bit like Google Groups, which is currently completely separate from Google+).

Google+'s hangouts, however, threaten to eclipse Facebook's groups completely, because they're about sharing in a group chat involving actual chat, using voices and webcams so you can see one another an interact. It lets you view stuff together - a frequently used example is the ability to watch a video from YouTube together, at the same time, and comment on it. Of course this could equally be extended to use in business; video conferencing and web conferencing just became that much easier (and freer). As soon as Google+ was launched Facebook cobbled together a deal with Skype to try and offer something similar - but it's clear they're playing catch-up on this one, and the Facebook/Skype offering only offers one-on-one video chatting, not the Hangout-style group video chat.

But remember this is my comparison of the two and therefore there's an important consideration to bring into play here: I don't have a webcam. I do have speakers attached to my PC and a microphone that I could plug into it (but never have done) - and I could feasibly use my digital camera as a webcam - but I've never found reason to before now. I'm quite happy with the instant messaging kind of chat; if I want to talk to someone I can phone them in the traditional way; if I want to see them then I get off of my backside and pay them a visit. Granted, not quite as easy if they're on the other side of the world, and Google+ will enable that for me if ever I want it, but I can't see it happening any time soon. I'm certain Hangouts is a great feature but right now it doesn't score any points from me.

But Facebook's groups aren't going to get the full two points either - because they're limited to people who are on Facebook. I play in a band, in which all but two of the members have accounts on Facebook. We set up a private Facebook group to interact but can't use it to it's full potential because those two people would be excluded. With Google+ that's no longer a problem, and there's not really any reason why Facebook should make it one either - but it does. So Facebook's groups kind of win, but I'm only giving them one point.

The score is now Facebook 2-3 Google+.

Sparks

Google+ has a feature called Sparks, which lets you search for blogs, news etc. on a particular subject and, if you want to, share it with one or more of your circles. You can save your favourite search terms in your Google+ account.

Frankly I don't see the point. I can search the internet outside of a social network environment, and share interesting links I find via Google+, Twitter or Facebook (or Yammer, or any other network I choose) quite happily without the need for something like this built in. I may be missing the point of Sparks, but I'm not really convinced there is one.

Facebook doesn't offer anything similar - but it doesn't need to. The score stays put, Facebook 2-3 Google+.

Instant messaging

Google+ makes use of the native Google Talk system for this. Google Talk requires that you send a separate invitation to anyone you might want to IM with - even if you've added them to one or more of your Google+ circles and vice versa. Which is really annoying. Google's justification for this makes perfect sense - you don't want to chat with everyone, and you don't always want everyone to see that you're online, so you can pick and choose who can chat with you. Certainly it can be frustrating when you're minding your own business on Facebook and suddenly someone starts chatting away to you in a popup window (you can make yourself appear offline on Facebook if you want to, but who remembers to do that?!).

Facebook's chat is much more instinctive - if one of your friends in online at the same time as you, you can chat with them. Or you can use the Groups feature and IM with a group of people. Google Talk also lets you add several people to an IM conversation. There are some key differences though; to group-chat in Facebook you have to create a group containing the people you want to chat with; with Google(+) you do it on the fly. So Google is a bit clunky because you have to invite someone to chat before you can IM them, and Facebook is a bit clunky because you have to create a group before you can group-chat.

So far, then there's not much between them on this topic - until we think about selective chatting. On Facebook you're either online or offline, and the same applies to everyone. With Google+ you can choose which of your circles you're open to chat to. So you can spend a while on Google+, available to chat to your mates, but with your work colleagues blissfully unaware that you're online - conversely you can safely use Google+ at work for a work related IM conversation without the risk of one of your mates interrupting with pub talk. And if someone really winds you up, you can block them altogether from chatting with you on Google+ / Google Talk. No such functionality on Facebook. Another win for Google+, making it Facebook 2-5 Google+.

Applications (gaming)

Facebook has a rich set of applications built onto its platform, covering a wide variety of purposes - but probably the most popular are the games. Now I love a good game, and I can be competitive at times, so I enjoy comparing high scores and I enjoy playing the online equivalents of Scrabble and the like. But, frankly, these things are not part of Facebook. They're wider internet applications that you can access through Facebook. And there are some games I'm really not interested in - especially those that spam my news feed. I don't care how many sheep you've sheared today on your virtual farm if I'm not competing with my own virtual farm. I don't want to know. What started as one of Facebook's plus points is now one of its biggest pitfalls. Yes I can block Farmville and its ilk from my news feed, but then the friends who play Farmville go and discover something different but remarkably similar, and then I have to block that too. It becomes a constant battle to keep my news feed clean, and that is just not fun. So actually the lack of such things on Google+ is no bad thing.

That said, as I mentioned at the outset, Google+ is in its infancy and I'm sure there are plenty of new features and applications to be added to it in due course. But whereas Facebook is bloated and polluted by its apps, Google+ is cleaner, slicker, and has the opportunity to learn from Facebook's mistakes and keep it that way.

Social networks are about being social. Spamming me with your Farmville activity is not social. The occasional online game of Scrabble is, but that doesn't need to spew anything into a social network's stream/feed and so can be done outside of the social network environment. Having said all that, these applications are a feature Facebook offers that Google+ doesn't, albeit an annoying feature - so it seems a bit mean to award Google+ points for it. We're still at Facebook 2-5 Google+.

Interactivity

I can use Twitter to update my Facebook status, and if I really wanted to, I could do the reverse too. I can also update Facebook (and Twitter) by SMS message, or by email - so it's great for when I'm on the move with my very old and outdated but nonetheless operational smart phone. Google+ will no doubt offer much if not all of this in the future - in fact the SMS option is already available to Google+ users in India, but not to the rest of the world yet - but I have to judge the service on what's available to me now rather than what may come in the future. This is an easy win for Facebook. Two points. Facebook 4-5 Google+.

Photos

One of the things I love about Facebook is the ability to tag people in photos, and share albums. Well, Google+ lets you do that too, and as with the IM thing they've brought in an existing Google technology to help out - the brilliant Picasa photo sharing and organising system. As I use Picasa anyway this makes my life much easier. With Facebook I have to export the photos I want from Picasa, then upload them to Facebook, in my case using a third party uploader because Facebook's native one is utterly pants for Ubuntu users like me. With Google+ and Picasa, it's much simpler - just a couple of clicks and I'm done.

The photo albums themselves display much more nicely on Google+ too; the pictures are bigger in album view, they grow slightly when you hover over them, and the tagging is more flexible that Facebook's version. Best of all, deciding exactly who can and can't see your albums is much easier and more intuitive in Google+ than it is in Facebook. When I first heard about Google+ I was hoping its photo sharing would be somewhere close to Facebook's, because I thought Facebook's was great. I was wrong; Facebook's photo functionality is actually poor compared with Google+'s excellent offering.

The score is now Facebook 4-7 Google+.

Ownership and sharing

This is the crunch point. This is the thing these two companies have been very publicly fighting about. And in that fight I have sided completely with Google, because they've got it right. What am I talking about? The issue is a simple one: Facebook's terms and conditions.

Facebooks Ts and Cs have improved a lot over the years. They were once worded to imply that everything you submitted to the site - every status update, every photograph - belongs to Facebook. Once you put it up there, they own it, they can share it with whoever they like, and your privacy is at risk. Fortunately they've now changed that clause and your information is your own again.

But your information alone is yours alone. The fact that your friends have shared information with you is irrelevant; you're not allowed to take that information away with you. Facebook forbids you downloading a list of all your Facebook friends, complete with email addresses and phone numbers, even though those friends of yours have taken the decision to make that information available to you. Facebook dress this up as protecting privacy - but if your friends wanted that information kept private, they wouldn't have shared it with you in the first place. The real reason Facebook do this is obvious - they don't want you to take your friends' contact information and put it anywhere else.

Google have vehemently argued against Facebook's attitude to this. Google take privacy seriously, but they also take freedom of information seriously. I want my friends to have my phone number and email address. I want them to be able to download them into their address book or whatever. I trust them with that information - if I didn't, I wouldn't share it with them in the first place. (To clarify, not all of my Facebook friends can see my full profile. There are some who can't see my contact details or pictures of my children, for example.)

Unlike Facebook, Google's terms and conditions haven't ever claimed that information I enter into their system belongs to anyone other than me. And neither do Google intend to prevent me from sharing my information with the people I want to share it with, and allowing those people to take that information and do whatever they want with it. I trust that that won't be anything nasty because those people are my friends.

It's for this reason that I've been looking forward to Google+. Up until this point in this post Google+ has had the edge over Facebook, and justifiably so - its features are better, its user interface is cleaner, and this is only the start - but I wouldn't have been too worried if Google+ was a bit of a poor cousin to Facebook as long as the basics are right. And one of those fundamentals is that my information is my information, and when I share that information with someone I share it wholeheartedly.

Facebook absolutely fails to give me control over my information. Its privacy settings are notoriously difficult to manage (although better than they used to be) and the people I've shared information with can't do anything with it because Facebook won't let them. This is a biggie, this is worth much more than two points; more like two hundred.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. The contest finishes with Facebook having 4 points, and Google+ having 207. Google+ was winning anyway, but Facebook's refusal to let me control my own information - including setting it free if I want to - makes it a big time loser.

Bye bye Facebook, hello Google+.

Do the proposed NHS reforms amount to privitisation?

2011-05-23T13:07:00.000+01:00

Privitisation is difficult to define. Our railway system is privitised, yet receives a certain amount of public funding. Our roads are public, but almost all the work done on them is delivered by private contractors. So it's not who delivers the services that makes it public or private, but who commissions the services and whether the service user has to pay up front or not.

With prescription, opticians' and dental charges the NHS can no longer be said to be free at the point of delivery. With private businesses (GP practices) instead of publicly owned primary care trusts doing the commissioning, the fundng can no longer be said to be under public control. Which makes the NHS under reforms more akin to the rail system, where service users pay some up-front fees and the state provides a subsidy to the private operators, than to the road system, where although the providers are mainly private, the commissioning is done by national and local government organisations and the service user pays through taxation, not up-front fees.

Those in favour of the reforms will cry foul at this point, pointing out that the GP commissioning consortia won't have complete free reign but will be accountable to the central NHS Commissioning Board, and providers of NHS services will be accountable to the regulator, Monitor. However, that's no different to the train operating companies being accountable to the Office of the Rail Regulator. The only real difference between the two systems is that the trains are privately owned whereas some, but not all by any means, of the hospitals and other clinical buildings are publicly owned. The owner of the title deeds doesn't really matter to the service user; what makes the difference is how the service runs operationally, and who calls the shots. Under the proposed reforms, the organisations choosing what services are available and being given the cash to spend on them will be private businesses. It is privitisation in everything but name.

Superinjunctions - not a question of privacy

2011-05-22T23:36:00.000+01:00

"If you can't do the time, don't do the crime" - it's a common mantra and an argument that's been frequently used in the current debates about superinjunctions, and it sums up my own opinion of the matter pretty well. The case of the footballer, whose name is already widely known and will be on the front page of a Scottish newspaper tomorrow, is a good one to pick on. The footballer, who is married with children, allegedly had an affair with a reality TV contestant, and subsequently took out a superinjunction, barring any mention of the said affair in the press. The affair allegedly lasted for 7 months, and the footballer has allegedly sued his mistress for leaking the story.

That's enough "allegedly"s.

The big debate around superinjunctions is being described as a battle between an individual's right to privacy versus the right to freedom of expression, and the freedom of the press. However in my view these are not opposite ends of the same spectrum that are incompatible with one another. Individual privacy and freedom of expression can coexist hand-in-hand, even in this footballer's situation; the real question is this: who owns the information?

When two people have an affair in private, that is a private act that only the two of them are privy to. Nobody else knows about it. The information that the affair happened is known only to those two individuals. But, more importantly, the information is shared equally between those two individuals. Unless a prenuptial agreement was signed, neither one has more claim to knowing the act happened than the other, and neither one has the right to stop the other from talking about it. Granted, "kiss and tell" is a pretty sloppy way of behaving, but so is cheating on your wife and family. There's no moral high ground to be had there.

Your private life is not exclusively your private life if you share it with someone else. If you have a relationship with someone, that's their private life as well as yours, and they have the right to talk about their own private life - including that relationship with you. That's not to say you should never have any relationship with anyone, but that you ensure you trust the people you share things with, and (unlike Chris Huhne) treat them well enough to not have a reason to betray that trust. The footballer's clumsy attempts to keep the story secret - most of which have only served to draw more publicity to it - simply make no sense. Essentially he is trying to impose a prenuptial agreement that is neither prenuptial nor has the other person's agreement; whatever the law says, that cannot be right.

Something the defenders of superinjunctions draw attention to is the issue of families, especially children: that front page headlines of the footballer's affair would cause undue distress to his family, and his children could get bullied at school because of it. As a father I know the importance of protecting my children, but I'm afraid this argument doesn't wash with me for a number of reasons...

Firstly, superinjunctions are horrendously expensive, they are a plaything of the rich and famous that is unavailable to the rest of us. In any environment there is gossip, and rumours travel fast - whether or not they have any truth in them. Ordinary families who cannot afford superinjunctions have to grin and bear this kind of speculation. Their problems may not be national front page news, but the local gossiping and playground bullying is no different, and neither is the damage it causes. Superinjunctions do nothing to stop that, and even if they did, it is wrong that such a tool should only be available to those who could afford it.

Secondly, it is not the news of an extramarital affair that is damaging to a marriage - it is the extramarital affair itself. The footballer and his wife clearly have a few problems to sort out between them, and really what the rest of the world knows or thinks about them is nowhere near as important as addressing those issues as a couple. Being unfaithful is shameful, but the footballer would get far more respect from the public at large by being honest and accepting a tarnished reputation than by trying in vain to protect the false impression of him that he would prefer us all to have.

A final reason why the use of superinjunctions is just silly relates to a corollary of my main point about the owner of the information, and that's about the control of information. We're all aware of the power of spin, and therefore if you know a story is likely to leak to the press eventually it is far better to release it yourself, using your own words, and telling your side of the story, rather than allow a mass of rumour and speculation to twist it into something horrendous. Getting your own account of the news out quickly prevents the story from becoming protracted and drawn out in the way that this one has; it also reduces the value of that news to the press, thus diminishing the risk of other people from profiting at your expense by selling their version story.

Given all that, the footballer's superinjunction and subsequent attempts to protect it, when the story is already in the public domain, look very silly indeed. Instead of dousing the flames, his actions are fuelling the fire; it's a good thing he isn't a goalkeeper because he's getting his fingers well and truly burnt.

Some AV myths, busted

2011-04-27T18:24:00.002+01:00

Next week's referendum on the UK's voting system is really important; it's vital that we get rid of the ridiculous First Past The Post (FPTP) system and replace it with something fairer, like the Alternative Vote (AV). Sadly though both sets of campaign teams are letting us all down. The "no" camp are slinging naked lies and misinformation around the place, which a lot of people are apparently being taken in by, while the "yes" camp keep harping on about how AV would "make MPs work harder" - which is a pretty poor thing to latch onto given there are much better reasons for voting AV.

So here I hope to dispel some of the myths that the "no" camp are spreading around, as well as give some better reasons to vote AV.

Myth #1: Hung parliaments and coalition governments are more likely with AV than FPTP
Australia has been using AV for over 80 years. During that time we have had more hung parliaments in the UK, using FPTP, than in Australia have had with AV.

Myth #2: Switching to AV would require hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment in vote-counting machines
There are no plans to introduce vote counting machines if the country says yes to AV. In Australia, votes are counted by hand and the system works.

Myth #3: AV goes against the principle of one person, one vote
On the contrary, AV upholds this principle better than FPTP does. With AV every voter's vote counts exactly once towards the result of the election; there are no wasted votes. With FPTP, any vote that isn't for the biggest two or three parties doesn't affect the outcome and is wasted.

In an AV election, if your first-choice candidate is eliminated your vote is transferred to your second-choice candidate, while my vote stays with my first choice candidate. Neither of us gets any more votes than the other.

Myth #4: AV is complicated, most people can't understand it
AV is very similar to the voting on most reality TV shows - the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and the people who voted for that candidate can transfer their support to someone else. Millions of people in Britain are familiar with this kind of system because they've watched it at work on Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing on Ice, The X-Factor, Big Brother, etc.

Of course if you applied FPTP to those shows, not only would the losing candidate at each round be eliminated but the people who voted for them wouldn't be allowed to vote in any future rounds.

Myth #5: AV can't be explained in one sentence
I pretty much did that above: the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes transfer to those voters' next preferences, until a candidate has more than 50% of the votes.

Myth #6: You need more knowledge of politics to use AV effectively
The vast majority of people have enough knowledge to rank the candidates on offer with a simple 1, 2, 3. There's no need to think about tactics with AV in order to make your vote count, whereas with FPTP you need a good understanding of how people voted last time and how they're likely to vote this time to decide which of two fairly close candidates you should choose to vote for. FPTP encourages gameplay and dishonesty, and requires a great deal of political tactical knowledge and a lot of guesswork to make your vote count; AV simply doesn't.

Myth #7: AV costs more than FPTP
In the UK most vote-counting is done by volunteers. It's true that an AV election may take longer to count and process than an FPTP one, but if this time is being given for free there's no real cost implication. Even if AV does cost slightly more, it is surely a price worth paying for a fairer system. All elections cost money and if cost was more important than democracy surely we wouldn't have elections at all.

Myth #8: FPTP has served us well for this long, it's therefore fit for purpose now
The political landscape has changed significantly over the last 20 years or so. Gone are the days where we had a two-party system and everyone was either Labour or Tory with a few floating voters in marginal seats having all the power to make or break governments. With the advent and increasing popularity of other parties (not all of which are still active) such as the Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the Green Party, Socialist Labour, Veritas, the BNP, the Referendum Party, and others, FPTP no longer cuts the mustard. Most voters, instead of lining up solidly with one party, find that their views are partially represented by many parties, some more so than others. AV allows voters to express this range of preferences, whereas FPTP comes nowhere near reflecting, or even recording, what voters' views really are.

Myth #9: The voting system is a matter of personal preference - there's nothing objective
On the contrary, there have been many independent studies looking at voting systems, their relative merits and pitfalls, and what would fit best for the UK.

When New Labour were elected in 1997 they established an independent commission to examine the options for voting MPs into the UK Parliament. The Independent Commission on the Voting System published their findings in 1998, having looked at FPTP, AV and proportional representation. Their findings were conclusive, and they recommended AV for electing constituency MPs. (They also recommended that there should be some additional "top-up" MPs that span several constituencies).

A New Scientist article last yearFPTP]".

Some would argue that these next two are not as independent as those above; I'll let you be the judge of that.

The UK's leading progressive think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, published a paper earlier this year whose title says it all: Worst of Both Worlds: Why First Past the Post no longer works.

The Electoral Reform Society favours a fully proportional system, which would do away with the notion of having a single MP covering a single constituency; instead teams of MPs would be elected covering much bigger constituencies, using the method we currently use for electing MEPs. But when looking at AV against FPTP, which is what next week's referendum is a choice between, they are clear: "The Electoral Reform Society regards AV as the best voting system when a single position is being elected."

The "no to AV" campaigners have completely failed to find any similarly independent papers or evidence that supports FPTP over AV. With such strong evidence showing that AV is the better system, there's little wonder that the "no" campaigners have resorted to smear tactics and the peddling of myths in order to help their campaign. But if the public believe those myths and vote "no" next week, it will be a very sad day indeed for Britain and a very sad day for democracy.

We're unlikely to get another chance to change the voting system, and it sorely needs changing. Please vote Yes to the Alternative Vote.

Cameron "incorrect and highly misleading", says Oxford University

2011-04-11T22:05:00.001+01:00

Tony Blair. Remember him? He was a pretty good prime minister on the whole, did wonders for the NHS and education, but made a few blunders on the international front. He'll always be remembered for the Iraq War - probably his biggest blunder by quite a long way. Perhaps the reason Iraq stands out so much in our minds when we think of Blair's tenure is that a mistake of that magnitude was in stark contrast to what Blair's government were doing in other areas. It wasn't all good, but it was infinitely better than what the Tories had offered in the previous government under John Major. And when you hear Blair talking about Iraq, he still thinks it was the right thing to do; perhaps that's naive of him, perhaps it's incompetent, but the important thing is that it's genuine. Blair was trying to do what was right, he believed his advisors when they told him that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and he acted on that advice. He did not set out to deliberately mislead people.

Sadly that cannot be said for David Cameron. He hasn't been in office long, and he has already made some pretty stupid mistakes; today, for example, Oxford University responded to his daft assertion that they had only admitted one black student in 2009, saying he had been "incorrect and highly misleading". Apparently the actual number is 26, which is still appallingly low, so Cameron's argument should still hold some weight - but because he got his facts wrong, Oxford University have pretty much dismissed his argument. It's a bit like the light bulb thing all over again.

In that case, though, perhaps Cameron made an honest mistake. It makes him look stupid for a few moments, but it's forgiveable; it doesn't really undermine any trust we happen to have in him. Were he, though, to attempt to deliberately mislead people, that would be a different matter - and sadly, today, he's been doing exactly that.

"It's a system," he said of the Alternative Vote, "so undemocratic that you can vote for a mainstream party just once, whereas someone can vote for a fringe party like the BNP and it's counted three times..."

Wrong.

The circumstances he's alluding to are where a party, in this case the BNP, receive the smallest share of the vote. Under AV in those circumstances, the BNP are wiped out of the competition and those votes are transferred to the second choice candidates. The key word there being transferred. Votes for the BNP would not be counted three times - in fact they would stop counting at all. David Cameron knows this, and in making statements like the one above he is deliberately trying to mislead voters, attempting to scaremonger them into submission.

A true democrat would lay the facts on the table in an honest way, argue his corner without fabricating rubbish like that, and let the electorate decide. A worthy Prime Minister would not deliberately attempt to mislead the electorate in such a despicable way. Today David Cameron showed his true colours: he's anti democracy, and he's not sufficiently trustworthy to be our Prime Minister.

The cost of democracy

2011-04-04T19:50:00.000+01:00

Elections cost money. The more votes that are counted, the more the election costs. But true democrats believe that these costs are a price worth paying for the people to have their say. The 2005 general election cost more than £80 million to organise,¹ and last year's election will have cost even more.

The no-to-AV campaign have been rightly ridiculed for their adverts implying that May's referendum is a straight choice between reforming the voting system and a new cardiac facility at your local hospital (as it happens, the Government's current preference is to close Southampton's cardiac facility despite it being second best for quality and survival rates in the country, regardless of the outcome in May - but that's another issue), or a straight choice between reforming the voting system and bulletproof vests for our soldiers. As the New Statesman pointed out back in February, and Charlie Brooker reiterated on last week's 10 o'clock Live, the conclusion of this "you can't have both" approach is also that there's a straight choice between the cardiac facility and the bulletproof vests - or the subjects of the other idiotic no-to-AV adverts.

The point these utterly stupid adverts are trying to make is that the alternative vote system costs more to administer than the first-past-the-post system. Well, yes it does (possibly the only correct assertion that the no-to-AV campaign has made) - in much the same way that elections suddenly cost a bit more about a century ago, when women were allowed vote. The fact that it cost more did not mean it was the wrong thing to do then, and the same applies now. Under AV, every vote counts towards the final result; under FPTP, that does not happen. In a true democracy, every voter's opinion should matter, and it's worth an election costing slightly more to ensure that it does.

¹BBC News Election 2010: FAQ

One person, one vote - which system delivers?

2011-04-01T20:11:00.002+01:00

The principle of one person, one vote is a simple one, and one that nobody really disagrees with; nobody's vote should carry more weight than anybody else's - in other words, every vote should count. I'm somewhat surprised that those campaigning for first-past-the-post as opposed to the alternative vote are using this principle to back their views - because FPTP does not deliver it whereas AV does.

In FPTP, the only votes that count are those for the winning candidate, which is very often a minority. It means that the majority of people's votes don't count at all in the final result. Whereas with AV, every vote counts. If your first choice candidate is ruled out, your vote still counts, because it's transferred to your second-choice candidate. Thus the result of an AV election takes account of every person's vote, whereas many FPTP elections result in most of the votes not counting at all.

The FPTP (no to AV) campaigners say that those supporting minority parties get a greater say in AV, that their votes get counted several times over, that AV is unfair. This is tosh; under AV every person's vote counts once, no more and no less. No one person gets more choice than anyone else, nobody's vote counts for more than anyone else's. Under AV, votes for losing candidates get transferred; but a transferable vote is still one, single vote, and doesn't count for any more than anybody else's vote. Failing to transfer that vote would mean it would no longer count - that voter's choice would be ignored completely - and that is undemocratic.

So let's make every vote count, precisely once, no more and no less: vote yes to AV in May.

Will the foster carers' charter deliver?

2011-03-31T19:57:00.000+01:00

Britain is in dire need of more foster parents. Fostering has been in the news a lot lately, and much of it has been discouraging, but the Government's announcement a couple of weeks ago that there will be a new charter for fostering provided a glimmer of light among all the darkness. Tim Loughton, the minister for children, said: "This charter makes it clear that these foster parents should be able to play the role of any parent looking after his or her own children, and they should have the back up of the local authority to be able to do that."

Loughton mentioned things like haircuts and sleepovers - things that some local authorities make foster parents seek permission for - as "things that we would take for granted with our own children", that foster parents should also be able to do freely. The Department for Education also weighed in according to the BBC report on the matter, saying "the charter was designed to make it clear that a foster child should be treated as part of the family, and their views taken seriously".

Great stuff, especially when you consider that one of the things any parent has to do is to talk frankly with their kids, to answer their questions honestly. It's the role of the parent to let their children find their own way, but not without guidance and advice. Inevitably, children won't always do what the parents want them to do, and the parents don't love them any the less for that. Yet it would be completely wrong for those parents to say "I think what you're doing is fine" if they thought it was morally wrong.

Therefore if the fostering charter is to work, it should reverse the stupid decisions made around Eunice and Owen Johns. The Johns are an ordinary couple with ordinary mainstream views. They applied to be foster parents, willing to take on any children and love them as their own, accepting them as they are, nurturing them, protecting them... in a word, parenting them. The Johns are Christians but that doesn't mean they would be pushing their beliefs onto the foster children - it just means that if someone asked them about their beliefs, they would explain their views.

The mainstream Christian belief that sex belongs only inside a marital relationship does not stop those that hold that belief from loving those that have sex outside of marriage - from accepting them, protecting them, nurturing them, loving them. But the Johns were not allowed to be foster parents simply because they hold that belief. It's not something they would have ever raised with their foster children, unless the foster children asked them for advice or their opinions on sexuality. Whatever the children's beliefs and actions, the Johns would have treated them the same way. No discrimination, no lack of acceptance, no inequality, no undervaluing of diversity. Yet just because they held that view - even without the intention of ever expressing it unless explicitly asked - the Johns' application was rejected and a court disgracefully upheld that decision.

Somewhat bizarrely, the judges said "No one is asserting that Christians - or, for that matter, Jews or Muslims - are not fit and proper persons to foster or adopt. No-one is contending for a blanket ban." Yet Christianity, Judaism and Islam all teach that sex outside of marriage is morally incorrect. If that wasn't the reason for refusing the Johns' application, then what was?

There are lots of Christian parents in this country. Not all of us are good parents, but the vast majority are - and certainly being a Christian does not make you a bad parent. Yet, apparently, it does make you a bad foster parent. If the Government are genuine about making sure foster parents can treat their foster children the way they would treat their own children, they must be allowed to have, and to express, views on sexuality - including that they believe some practices to be morally wrong. Is that really so much to ask?

How many tories does it take to recognise a light bulb?

2011-03-04T12:59:00.001Z

This morning it was widely reported that the Army was wasting huge amounts of money by buying ordinary 65p light bulbs for £22. This was all based on a story in the rarely accurate tabloid "news"-paper, The Sun, which cited an invoice leaked to them by a soldier working in the stores of an Army base. It was met by a reaction from the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, who described it as an inexcusable waste, saying "This is classic evidence of how Labour wasted taxpayers' money and shows a complete lack of common sense."

The invoice reads as follows:

INTERNAL ISSUE VOUCHER

Basic price is 22.51 per DofQ as at 18-JUN-10

Item: 51WR 6240-99-9965601 LAMPFILAMENT

Well I'm no expert but that doesn't sound like your everyday run-of-the-mill light bulb to me, and indeed the Ministry of Defence confirmed that later this morning: "It was a precision-made lamp filament for the Watchman radar. The MoD purchases about five per year."

The Sun article says "The Sun launched a War On Waste campaign last year, calling on readers to report bunglers who throw around public money." Well, in my view it's high time the media launched an internal campaign of their own to stop the "bunglers" posing as journalists spewing out wildly innaccurate stories whose only purpose is attack those who strive to deliver excellent public services and defend our country.

Similarly, we need to stop the "bunglers" who somehow managed to find jobs as government ministers from taking more heed of tabloid newspaper stories than of the experts in their own departments. If Liam Fox had bothered to enquire within the MoD before blurting out his attack on his predecessors, he could have saved himself from demonstrating the idiotic incompetence we witnessed from him today.

Update:
The MoD have since responded again, this time saying (according to the BBC) that the "the thrust of the Sun's story was correct." In other words, there are some dodgy procurement practices in the armed forces that mean sometimes more money is spent on items than it should - but there's no mention of the specifics around the light filament invoice, which is central to the Sun's story and to Liam Fox's comments.

What has almost certainly happened here is that the ministers have realised how silly they looked and ordered the civil servants in the MoD to release a statement admitting to some unspecific, vague guilt around overspending - hence the assertion about "the thrust" - but that fails to address the fact that the example that was held aloft above all others - that of the £22 light filament -relates to a specialist piece of equipment and not a generic light bulb. If this government is to reduce the UK's deficit without doing undue harm to our services, they need to have much better attention to detail than that.

What Ed Miliband's victory means

2010-10-01T10:34:00.002+01:00

Firstly, an apology; when I've been tweeting about the Labour leadership contest, and that pair of political brothers in particular, I've been spelling their surname with two "l"s. That I should waste one of those precious 140 characters allotted by Twitter on a spelling mistake is shameful. But hey ho...

I haven't been tweeting about the contest that much, really - because it hasn't exactly been interesting. Labour aren't likely to be back in power for a few years at least, and there wasn't that much difference in policy between the leading contenders that I could fathom, so the short term impact of the contest seemed pretty negligible. Until, that is, the result was announced.

The lead in all the news stories was the same - "Ed Miliband beat his brother David by a margin of just over 1 per cent" - but that didn't tell the whole story. The Labour Party leadership is decided using the alternative vote (AV) system, whereby voters list their preferences. The least popular candidate is eliminated from the competition, and the second choice votes of those who voted for that candidate are then used in place of their first choice votes, and the loop continues thus until only one candidate remains, who is then declared the winner.

David Miliband was ahead throughout the whole process. If it was a first-past-the-post (FPTP) contest, like the election of MPs, he would have won because he had the most votes in the first count. As each candidate was eliminated, David remained ahead, until the very final redistribution of votes. So what does all this mean?

Let's get one thing straight: Ed won, fair and square, and nobody is denying that. But under the FPTP system, David would have won. The point being of course that next year, there will be a referendum on whether to change the MP election system from FPTP to AV. The Labour leadership contest showed how this can change a result quite dramatically; David Miliband received the primary backing of more MPs and party members, yet Ed won.

I'm a strong advocate of proportional representation (PR), and it's important not to confuse the AV system with fully fledged PR. There are many who will look at this result when they come to think about the referendum and vote against AV on the basis that it isn't fair. However, they would miss the point; if David Miliband had received more second/third/choice votes, he might have won. The AV result basically says that while David had more people saying "if I have to choose one person, I'll chose him", more people said "out of all the candidates, I prefer Ed to David", and it is this latter statement that matters more in AV.

The choice we have to make next year is which of those "majorities" should hold more weight; should the winner be the person with the most "first choices" or the person who the majority prefer over their nearest rivals? My view is that AV is a much fairer, more democratic system than FPTP and I think the Labour party leadership election can be used to demonstrate that. Crucially, if Labour campaign for FPTP next year, they'll be committing an act of gross hypocrisy and essentially stating that Ed Miliband shouldn't be their leader. Let's hope they see sense and do the right thing: back AV in the referendum.

Why the Pope should be treated as a head of state

2010-09-16T09:25:00.002+01:00

The Pope visits the UK today, apparently amid some controversy. The Catholic Church's views on contraception and its dire record of harbouring and covering up child abusers are notorious, and not things I condone in any way shape or form. To that end, a number of people are stating the opinion that the Pope should not be treated as a state dignitary - no red carpet, no meeting the Queen, etc - during his visit to our country, or perhaps not be allowed to visit at all.

The accusations against the Catholic Church are usually summed up in a single word: intolerant. Which is astounding when you consider that that's exactly what those who oppose the Pope's visit at all are being. Tolerance means putting up with, accepting and even welcoming and showing hospitality to those with whom we disagree. To say someone is not welcome because they are intolerant is hypocrisy in its most blatant form.

But the majority of those I've heard are not saying the Pope is unwelcome here, just that he should not be treated as a head of state. Putting aside his beliefs and views for a moment, this comes down to a simple question of fact: is he a head of state or isn't he? Well, I think you'll find that the Vatican City State is, shock horror, a city state. It is a sovereign entity in its own right. I think you'll also find that the Pope is the head of that sovereign state. So, whatever you think of him, whatever his beliefs and however they match up to your own, the Pope is a head of state.

Let's get something else right; despite the Catholic Church's horrific record when it comes to child protection, the Pope is not child abuser and nor does he condone such things. He has apologised for those horrible things that happened in the Irish Catholic Church and, while acknowledging that words alone are seldom enough to heal these things, he's doing what he can to put things right. As for his views on sexual conduct - well, he wouldn't be the first Catholic head of state to visit Britain and he won't be the last. I don't see the same outcry when Muslim heads of state visit Britain, despite their views and record of how women should be treated among other things. So campaigning against the Pope being treated as a head of state is at least one of three things: (a) ignorant of the straightforward fact that he is a head of state; (b) hypocritical, from those who whinge about intolerance; (c) discriminatory, singling him out while not complaining at all about state visits from others with similar beliefs and principles.

A final note is to state the obvious; the Pope has a global following and during his visit to the UK the international spotlight will be on our country. The Pope's views are well known but there are many who don't really know much about modern Britain. If, while we're in that spotlight, all we manage to do is demonstrate an inability to welcome and tolerate those with different views to our own, if we sell Britain as a stuck-up country that refuses to engage in open discussion with those we disagree with, then we are doing our country a great disservice.

Response to Stephen Fry's blog

Stephen Fry, one of the signatures in a letter opposing the Pope's visit being treated as a state visit, has been heavily criticised for doing so. The Daily Mail, the "news" paper we all love to hate, has called the letter a campaign of hate, which it clearly isn't. But the ridiculousness of their front page today has prompted our beloved national treasure (sorry, Stephen, if you're reading this - which I sincerely doubt) to blog on the subject.

In his blog Stephen outlines the reason for his objection. His argument goes like this:

My only objection is that this be a State Visit. It hasn’t happened before and the Vatican is in no real sense a nation state. Visit the place: it takes fifty minutes to walk round. You don’t need a passport or visa to enter. It is a curlicue of history that makes this “absolute monarchy” (to quote the Holy See’s own website) a “country”. Under no reasonable or worthwhile definition does the Vatican match up to the old-established and widely accepted Montevideo protocols on statehood.

So, the Vatican can't be a state because it takes fifty minutes to walk round; it's too small to be a state. Well I'm sorry, but size is not a factor in statehood, under the Montevideo Convention or any other definition that I've seen. You don't need a passport or visa to enter from neighbouring Italy - big deal. You can travel across most of the European Union without a passport these days, and certainly can visit a few sovereign entities a bit closer to home without one: Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man. The same applied to Ireland prior to 1997. Are they suddenly not sovereign because they've relaxed their border controls? Of course not, and again the Montevideo Convention says nothing about border control or the need for passports and visas.

So what does the Montevideo Convention say?

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

The Vatican has all of those. That is the bedrock of the "the old-established and widely accepted Montevideo protocols" that Stephen Fry blogs about, and clearly the Vatican matches up. So unless he's now going to assert that the very protocol he pointed to as being the one we should uphold is now in his "no reasonable or worthwhile definition" category, it would appear the great man has snookered himself.

Government to ditch child protection database

2010-08-06T09:05:00.000+01:00

The government has elected to shut down the contraversial ContactPoint database, which holds records of all the children in England. The database was established at great cost to enable different agencies (the NHS, social services, police, etc) to share information in the wake of the Victoria Climbié murder.

As a parent I'm wary of my children's details being stored on large databases, especially given the UK's record of poor public sector information governance. (Actually, to be precise, most of the breaches have actually been the fault of private sector contractors working for the public sector; the public sector itself is actually very good at looking after peoples' information). But equally I'm very aware that ContactPoint was set up for a very good reason.

Scrapping ContactPoint now is like a football club sacking its manager without having a clue who to replace him with. Usually in that situation, the team's performance suffers, sometimes with disasterous consequences. ContactPoint was by no means the ideal solution and the government are correct to look for an alternative, but they should make sure that alternative is set up and ready to replace ContactPoint before removing the existing solution. As things stand they're reverting back to a dangerous vacuum of information.

Bovine bother in food chain

2010-08-05T08:40:00.001+01:00

There have been a couple of news stories this week about milk and beef
derived from cloned cattle entering the human food chain. The media
seem to be focusing on two particular viewpoints related to this:
those that are outraged about the very idea of cloning and those who
say the products are safe so there's nothing to worry about.

Both of those perspectives are missing the bigger picture. The issue
here is not about the morality or ethics of cloning, and neither is it
about whether or not these particular products are safe. The issue for
me is that something that was expressly prohibited from entering the
food chain was allowed to do so. We may have got off lightly in this
case as yes, perhaps those products are safe - but if the controls
that were supposed to keep these goods out of our food failed then
they will also fail for much more dangerous prohibited goods and
practices. Instead of focusing on the issue of whether or not
products from cloned cattle are safe, the media should be asking
questions about how something that's meant to be forbidden from
entering our food managed to find its way onto the shop floor.

It's particularly interesting that the news has come from the Foods
Standard Agency. If the FSA is aware of these problems now, in
retrospect, why were they not aware at the time? To use a well worn
cliche, they're being reactive not proactive, and clearly that needs
to change.

Is repeating a joke a crime? Keith Chegwin rocks Twitter!

2010-07-19T22:09:00.003+01:00

Some very strange things happen on Twitter. Right now, the biggest trending topic on Twitter is Keith Chegwin. Keith is an active Twitter user; he's made it his policy not to use Twitter to endlessly promote books, tours, concerts etc. as many celebrities do; instead he uses Twitter to tell jokes. Sometimes they are jokes he's made up, sometimes they're jokes he remembers from some time ago and chooses to repeat. Either way, it's just a bit of harmless fun and raises a laugh. Or at least, a bit of a chuckle. Ok then, a grin. Occasionally.

Back to the point. He's trending today because Simon Evans, who is apparently a comedian himself, remembered that one of the jokes that Cheggers tweeted was actually one told by the brilliant Milton Jones a telly some time ago. Evans took issue with the fact that Cheggers didn't credit Jones with the joke, and launched a campaign to that effect. Evans' take is that it takes time and effort to write jokes, comedians earn their living by doing this, and by repeating their material Cheggers is effectively stealing. Perhaps Evans thinks Cheggers should pay a royalty.

Technically, there's something in Evans' argument. But it is a technicality, no more. It's quite well known for example that the song "Happy Birthday to you" is still under copyright and therefore any profitable performance of it should result in royalties being paid to Warner Music Group, who own the copyright. Equally, you might be right to insist that every time you have a tune in your head that you've heard on the radio recently, you resit singing, whistling or humming it until you know whose it is so that you can credit them - but that's a ludicrous idea. Equally silly would be to stop children in the playground repeating catchphrases from sketch shows like Little Britain a few years ago.

Comedy is an art form, and art is not primarily about the artist. If someone admires a piece of art, they admire it for what it is, not for who created it - and most artists would be pleased and proud that people like their work. So Cheggars repeating Milton Jones' joke is a complement to Jones, and something to be proud of - even if Cheggers didn't remember where the joke came from at the time. By repeating the joke Cheggers is showing respect; Evans' assertion that the opposite is true is petty and needless.

Keep tweeting, Cheggers!

Why "thees and thous" are bad

2010-06-26T08:27:00.012+01:00

Making the decision to follow Jesus, to love him almost as well as he loves us, is the most important decision anyone can make in this life, and I'm passionate about expressing that love for him; I'm passionate about worship. Worship is what every human being was created to do, so it's not surprising that in fact lots of people are passionate about worship. And therefore it's not surprising that aspects of worship are some of the most contentious areas of disagreement among Christians. Arguments about worship can be divisive, and they can be distracting from the real purpose we have, so on one level they're best avoided; but equally it's important not to stifle open and honest debate or to prevent people from expressing and exploring different viewpoints.

It's very much in that spirit that this piece is intended. This is my opinion; there are other opinions out there, and they are all to be respected. I welcome challenge to my thinking and am open to change; equally I would hope that by putting my case forward it would also challenge some of the ideas and opinions that others have formed.

So back to that opening sentence; the two most important things in life are choosing to live for God, and actually living for God. I don't believe that worship and evangelism are separate - quite the opposite in fact. The particular aspect of worship that fires me up the most is its ability to enable people to access God, to banish foolish stereotypes about God and Christianity being old fashioned or irrelevant, and to help people to realise that God is alive and relevant today, in the here and now. So I have a few principles that I believe apply to worship:

Our worship should not encourage the mistaken view that Christianity is about a fuddy duddy, old fashioned ritual based set of traditions as opposed to a living, vibrant, current relationship with a real person who is alive today and engaged in our culture
We should address God in a way that is respectful, but also allows for intimacy; a way which demonstrates our patriotism to his kingdom but that doesn't patronise the king
Our worship should not put up barriers that impede people's understanding of what's going on or prevent them from being actively involved themselves
Our worship should help to demonstrate that God is alive and relevant today to everyone
Principles should be applied consistently, without picking and choosing when and where they

All this leads me to the point of this particular post: to explain my opposition to the unnecessary use of old fashioned language in worship - why we should sing "how great you are" instead of "how great thou art" and why we should say "our father in heaven" instead of "our father who art in heaven" - I'm sure you get the idea.

1. Not encouraging the "old fashioned" stereotype

In Britain the media love to spread the notion that Christianity is old fashioned and based on little more than a set of historic, traditional rituals. They like to propagate the idea that only traditional pipe organ music with archaic lyrics should be sung in church, and that any congregation embracing anything more up to date are a bunch of happy clappy weirdos. This perception of Christianity is of course completely and utterly false, but like a lot of urban myths it has become deeply ingrained in our society's psyche.

When the church meets it shouldn't be like a period drama or one of those groups that re-enact battle scenes at ancient monuments, but an experience that reflects the style of and is engaging to the society and culture in which we live today. Christianity is not about keeping old traditions alive but about a real, current relationship.

It can be a very difficult task for a Christian to demonstrate to his non Christian friends that actually God, and the church, are very much in the world today and very much relevant to it, and to them on a personal level. To reach the stage where that friend accepts an invitation to a church gathering can take monumental effort. If just one small part of that gathering only serves to encourage the idea that Christianity is out of date and out of touch, then it can be the undoing of months and years of effort, and only further propagates the myth that we are working hard to destroy.

2. We don't need a special language to address God

There are some parts of God's family where there exists a belief that addressing God in archaic terms is somehow a sign of respect and reverence. Of course we should respect and revere God, but we can express that in everyday language. He knows our innermost thoughts, he sees us naked; we don't need to put on special clothes or use special words to in order enter God's presence, personally or corporately.

When someone meets royalty, there is a certain etiquette involved. You address the Queen in a certain way (first "your majesty" and thereafter "ma'am" - pronounced "mam" not "marm") but you don't have to suddenly change the modern form of words to some ancient way of speaking. You don't suddenly suffix every verb with "-eth", change "you" to "thee" or "thou", "your" to "thy" and so on. I suspect if you addressed the Queen that way she would look at you with a somewhat bemused look on her face. The thoughts "what an idiot" might pass through her mind - such things impede communication, aren't particularly respectful and just make the speaker look a tad silly. It also sends a message that her majesty wouldn't understand you if you just spoke normally to her, or that you believe doing so would not be fitting for her ears to hear. That of course is simply not the case, and it's even less the case with God.

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

Jesus (John 4:23-24)

Jesus says we should worship "in spirit and in truth". "In truth" means honestly; not putting on special airs and graces, but instead being humble, open and honest before God. Putting on a show of reverence by using silly old words that fell out of contemporary use decades if not centuries ago does not tick that box. True reverence, true respect, is an attitude of the heart, not a an act of tongue-tying linguistic trickery.

3. We shouldn't make it harder for the "unchurched" to access church

We want people to come to church. So why would we make conscious choices that put them off, or make it harder for those who aren't used to attending church to understand what's going on and take part in it, for no particular reason other than to uphold ancient traditions?

Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction? Even in the case of lifeless things that make sounds, such as the flute or harp, how will anyone know what tune is being played unless there is a distinction in the notes? Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle? So it is with you. Unless you speak intelligible words with your tongue, how will anyone know what you are saying? You will just be speaking into the air. Undoubtedly there are all sorts of languages in the world, yet none of them is without meaning. If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me. So it is with you. Since you are eager to have spiritual gifts, try to excel in gifts that build up the church.

Paul (1 Corinthians 14:6-12)

Paul is talking about speaking in tongues here but he is actually imparting a universal principle, not something specific to speaking in tongues: that we should strive to make our worship accessible to those from outside of our usual congregation. "If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me." - it couldn't be much clearer. Except for scholars of Shakespeare and those brought up in traditional church settings, Old English is a foreign language that has very little relevance to modern British culture. If we want modern Britons to attend, understand, and participate in our activities, we must embrace today's language and dispense with the "thees and thous".

4. Our worship should be culturally relevant

An accusation often levelled at modern Christians is that we pick and choose which parts of the Bible we embrace and heed. This usually stems from a misunderstanding of two important things - firstly that when Jesus came he fulfilled the law, and set his people free from many of the rituals and practices that were the norm up to that point; and secondly that the perception interpretation of some passages, particularly some of Paul's writings, has changed from a black-and-white literal view to an examination of what he was communicating while acknowledging he was doing so in a different cultural and societal setting. So there's much in Paul's letters about who should and shouldn't wear hats when worshipping God, and when (and whether) women should speak during church gatherings, that are not approached in a literal way in most modern churches. But we still believe that the Bible is God's word, and that Paul's letters are a part of that. Which means that we need to not ignore what Paul wrote, but to understand what the message is that we need to heed today.

The chapter I quoted from above, 1 Corinthians 14, contains some of the more contentious instructions:

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

Paul (1 Corinthians 14:34-35)

This of course was at a time when women received no education at all; they were ignorant of what was going on because of the culture they lived in, and were therefore full of questions which interrupted the flow of proceedings, so Paul's instructions do make some sense in that context but we don't apply that particular instruction literally today. But does that mean we can just ignore the things that Paul says in this chapter, which are all about how the church should conduct worship in the context of its culture? Well, no:

If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command. If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored.

Paul (1 Corinthians 14:37-38)

Strong stuff indeed. So we cannot ignore what Paul is getting at in this chapter; and what Paul is fundamentally doing throughout 1 Corinthians 14 is explaining the etiquette, customs and style of the culture of the time, and stating again and again that the church should embrace those things. There are caveats of course; the city of Corinth was famous for its sexual immorality and earlier in this letter Paul warns the church strongly against engaging in those practices - so cultural relevance in worship does not mean surrendering our morality or "giving in" to the pressures in our modern world to do things we know are contrary to God's will. But it does mean that if a certain style of music, dance, fashion or visual art is popular in our culture and doesn't impede others from getting close to God, then let's have it in church. So... when was the last time a book full of "thees and thous" won the Booker prize (or whatever it's called these days!), or a song with lyrics full of "thees and thous" topped the singles charts? Can't remember one? My point exactly.

5. If we can change musical style, why not linguistic style too?

Now don't misunderstand me; I love old hymns and songs. There's a lot of value in them, some brilliant tunes and lyrics, and many of them are quite adaptable and can be altered ever so slightly to bring them up to date as far as style and cultural relevance are concerned. It frequently happens; many old hymns can be played in a much more modern style than the historical pipe organ dirge of yesteryear permitted, and in some cases music for some classic hymns has been rewritten completely from scratch. This is all good stuff, but there are a surprising number of people who are more than comfortable with experimenting and altering the music, whether that's just in terms of style or as a wholesale makeover, but fiercely protective of the original lyrics - even if those lyrics can be translated really easily into modern English without any loss of meaning or impact.

That irks me; if the principle of bringing a song up to date is sound, then it applies as much to the linguistic style as it does to the musical style. What's wrong with singing "how great you are" instead of "how great thou art" other than the fact that a selection of people - those who have been in the church a while - are more used to singing the latter? Worship isn't about being comfortable, and doing what we've always done. If we truly want to progress to another level of worship, one that is genuinely accessible to today's British culture, one which doesn't reinforce incorrect stereotypes, and one which doesn't put up man-made barriers between ourselves and God, then such a tiny step outside of one's comfort zone is surely something we can deal with.

I mentioned above the frequent criticism of Christians that we apparently pick and choose which bits of the Bible we apply, and which bits of our lives we apply them to. It's vital that we answer such criticism not by arguing against it but by demonstrating its untruth with our actions and decisions. If, then, we apply the principle of modernising worship for the reasons I've outlined but apply it just to music and not to lyrics, or indeed other areas of worship, then we simply play into the hands of those levelling that criticism at us. After all, for many of the songs in question, it's not as if the lyrics we sing today are exactly what was originally written (see the Wikipedia article on How Great Thou Art, for example) so what's the problem with performing a further minor tweak?

Conclusion

I began this piece with the qualification that this is my opinion, that other opinions exist, and I'm happy to engage in discussion on this very important (to me, at least) subject. But I hope that I've demonstrated that this is about more than simple personal preference; it's not a case of "I like this style, you like that style, let's agree to disagree" but there's something more fundamental in this: it's about enabling people to access worship, it's about challenging false stereotypes, it's about being honest with God, it's about being relevant to the society we live in, and it's about being consistent in our application of principles and values.

That said, I do need to qualify this some more, because I haven't addressed the subject of the target audience. The target audience for my worship is God; therefore for me to address him as "thee" or "thou" in my worship would be incongruous, because that's not how I speak. But there are people out there who have lived long lives and been brought up in ultra-traditional churches, who would really struggle to engage in any style of worship that wasn't the pipe-organ-hymns-with-archaic-lyrics style. So when I facilitate worship in retirement homes and the like I don't consider for a moment that we should update the lyrics of their favourite old hymns, because they can worship God more effectively with those old words. But the same songs, the same style, in a different context, could be a complete disaster of language barriers and alien musical styles. So while God is the ultimate audience of all worship, there is something to be said for ensuring worship is not just relevant to our culture at last, but occasionally specifically tailored to a particular subculture that we may be serving at a particular time.

So if a church decides that it's purpose and strategy is to serve the elderly that are already steeped in (very) traditional Christianity, then clearly "thees and thous" are in order. But if a church decides that it wants to be relevant to today's culture at large, or to any other particular demographic, then I think what I've said above stands; "thee" and "thou" are foreign words to the majority, so we serve the majority best by not using them where perfectly clear and equivalent modern alternatives would do the same job.

10 things I would do if I were Prime Minister

2010-05-06T12:57:00.004+01:00

There seem to be quite a few people drawing up these kind of lists, so I figured I'd join them...

Ban cats (outside of zoos and wildlife parks)
Create a parliament/assembly for England, with equivalent powers to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish counterparts
Introduce a quota system to limit how many private motorised vehicles can enter city centres (they have to book in advance)
Buses. More of them, and cheaper fares. Probably a national franchise system similar to the rail network.
Er... this is harder than I thought it would be. Ok, proportional representation: it's the right thing to do
Create more retail jobs by changing the VAT rate by a random amount each week
Cap the amount of airtime given to soaps on terrestrial TV to 2 hours per channel per week
Make the first Monday in November a bank holiday in celebration of All Saints' Day and Guy Fawkes Night, and also introduce new bank holidays in any other months that currently don't have any.
Close down Arsenal Football Club, or at least relegate them to make up for the 1919 fiasco
Make "causing death by dangerous driving" punishable by the same sentences as murder would be, and clamp down on speeding. Speed cameras on every lamp-post if need be. Hold on, is that two things?

What's on your list? Comment below!

What a week!

2010-05-04T10:47:00.005+01:00

This is going to be a very interesting week, on so many levels. In fact the next three days each have something profound to offer in one way or another.

Tomorrow's probably the least important one in terms of the impact it will have, but in its own way it's a massive event: Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City face one another in the Premier League, in their penultimate game of the season. At present Spurs are one point ahead of City and both teams are fighting it out for the all-important fourth place. For the uninitiated, finishing fourth puts a team in the lucrative Champions' League competition next season; the fifth placed team will still have a place in Europe, but in the less prestigious Europa League.

Tottenham have been hanging on to the fourth spot for most of the season, albeit with Man City having a game in hand for much of that time. If Spurs win tomorrow evening, they will have sealed Fourth spot; any other result and things will go down to the final matches of the season on Sunday, when Spurs visit Burnley and Man City go to West Ham. But tomorrow's match takes place in the City of Manchester Stadium, so it won't be an easy match for Spurs. If things do go down to the final game, then in theory it should be easier for Spurs to beat Burnley than for Man City to beat West Ham - but as the cliché goes, nothing's certain in football.

Uncertainty is rife this week! On Thursday we of course have the general election, and it's probably the closest and most exciting one we've had for many years. I've already voted (I have a postal vote) but as I live in a marginal constituency I'll be keeping a close eye on local developments as well as the national picture.

Then there's Friday. It's not confirmed yet, but that could be the day when I get interviewed for... well, for the job I'm doing now, but potentially on the salary of the job I used to have. Things are far from certain and obviously there's a lot I'm not going to say in a public blog (at least, not yet) - but hopefully over the next few weeks things will become clearer. One thing that is certain is that there's no such thing as a secure job in the 21st century!

The Tories' cunning plan: public sector turnover lottery

2010-04-09T10:22:00.000+01:00

The conservatives have finally given into pressure and outlined their "plans" for public sector spending cuts - and sure enough, those plans are pretty much non existent. Basically they intend to execute a massive recruitment freeze on the public sector, meaning that anyone who leaves their job isn't replaced, regardless of what that job is.

This means that their colleagues will have to attempt to fill in the gaps; it means that council services will be spread very thinly, resulting in a decrease in the quality of service; and public sector workers would be overworked and end up going off sick, meaning a further cut in quality and more work for the NHS in treating them.

Perhaps most worryingly, there's absolutely no strategy involved. The plan will inevitably result in public services being cut, but instead of taking the hard decisions around which services to cut, the Tories are leaving it all to chance. Essentially those areas with the highest turnover will be those which are cut, and that basically means cuts to the hardest services to deliver. The kind of services that are there to stop things like this from happening.

Blog ressurrected

2010-04-09T09:18:00.000+01:00

Yes it's time to resurrect this blog again and shove it into the new look www.wagweb.co.uk! I've kept all the old posts, but as you can see from the first example, some of them are a tad out of date :)

All over for Schumi

2009-08-11T08:59:00.000+01:00

Michael Schumacher's highly anticipated return to F1 won't be happening after all. The neck injury that he suffered in a motorbike accident in February has proven too severe to overcome and following extensive tests it's been decided that his neck won't be able to put up with the stresses that racing in Formula One would put on it.

It's a shame as F1 fans worldwide were looking forward to seeing him in the cockpit again, and particularly seeing how he fares against the current crop of championship leaders, not to mention Kimi in the sister Ferrari. It must be disappointing in particular for Lewis Hamilton, who thought his long-held ambition of racing against the German was to be fulfilled.

So will it be Mark Gene or Luca Badoer sitting in for the the injured Massa in the next race - or will Ferrari continue to shun their official test and reserve drivers?

River access

2009-08-07T21:31:00.000+01:00

I've been really enjoying "Rivers with Griff Rhys Jones" on BBC1 lately, despite the series' somewhat unimaginative title. In the first programme and in some of the publicity leading up to the series, good old Griff highlights the issue that while in Scotland anyone is allowed to row along any stretch of waterway as long as it is navigable, the same is not true in England: the landowners of land alongside a publicly owned river are allowed to place restrictions on how the river itself is used. This is of course both shocking and wrong - public should mean just that.

I've just read a letter in the Radio Times from a certain Derrick Hale of Derby , who likens rowing along a river next to his land to parking your car on his drive. What a stupid analogy; the equivalent of parking a car on his drive would perhaps be mooring a boat on his river bank. The motoring equivalent to rowing along a river is closer to cycling along the road past his house - something that nobody should have the right to stop.

A bad sign

2009-08-04T13:23:00.000+01:00

A furniture shop in Eastbourne has banned all foreign students from entering. The manager of the Perfect Homes store, Chris Moffet, claims that this is because the students were taking fast food into the shop, sitting on the sofas and using the coffee tables, and in doing so had damaged some of the shop's stock.

In which case, anyone with half a brain would have put up a sign saying "no food or drink" - something that's totally acceptable and can be seen in shops up and down the country. Instead, the apparently brainless Moffet barred all foreign students from entry - something that is quite rightly illegal.

There's no excuse for a "no foreigners" sign in this country in this century. Let's hope Moffet is prosecuted; if he is, there's no limit to the fine a court can impose on him.

Schumi to take Massa's place

2009-07-30T10:45:00.000+01:00

Well, following the comment I added to my last blog post, Ferrari have announced that Michael Schumacher is indeed going to stand in for Massa at the European Grand Prix, and for as long as Massa is out. Schumacher hasn't raced for a couple of years but has kept training. It'll be interesting to see how competitive he is, and also whether Kimi Raikkonen ups his game with his former rival as a team-mate.

At 40 years old, Michael doesn't have youth on his side any more, but there are plenty of drivers that have raced in F1 beyond that age - although not many in the modern era. Incidentally, Damon Hill stopped at 39.

Why are Renault appealing?

2009-07-28T08:44:00.000+01:00

In the very same race weekend that saw Felipe Massa's nasty accident and the same week that saw the tragic death of Henry Surtees from a wayward wheel, the Renault team made a very big mistake by sending their star driver out from the pits without all four wheels firmly attached to his car. They then didn't call him in or tell him to stop, even though it was blatantly obvious the wheel was going to come off the car.

When someone gets hit by a flying racing car wheel, they die. We saw it last week with Surtees in F2, and we saw it in F1 not so long ago when fire marshal Paolo Ghislimberti was killed when a wheel from Jarno Trulli's Jordan hit him at the 2000 Italian Grand Prix.

We all know that motorsport is dangerous - it says so on every Formula One ticket - but Renault's cavalier attitude to safety in this case is unacceptable. Any decent team would accept that the steward's decision to ban the team from the next race is completely justified, and if anything somewhat lenient. But instead Renault have announced they are going to appeal the ban.

My question is, what do they expect to gain from this action? The evidence is clear, so their appeal stands little or no chance of success. Moreover, to attempt to worm their way out of this in the wake of Henry Surtees' death and while Massa was lying unconcious in hospital was hardly sensitive, and is not going to win them any brownie points with F1 fans - quite the opposite. Renault shot themselves in the foot by not stopping Alonso when they could, and have now shot themselves in the other foot by appealing the ban. So now, and here's a lovely mix of metaphors for you, they don't have a leg to stand on.

Photo credit: Vïctor J. Tornet

Clip on ties

2009-07-24T15:18:00.000+01:00

More and more schools are introducing clip-on ties as part of their uniform in place of the more traditional variety. Apparently this is "because of fears of ties getting caught in equipment or strangling pupils", according to a BBC report. It does lead me to wonder how many such incidents took place over the last year to warrant such a change - or is this another example of non evidence based decision making?

There is much more to be learned at school than just what's in the curriculum. Pupils learn how to interact with one another, they learn the importance of authority, obedience, and teamwork, and they learn how to dress smartly. They also learn how decisions are made, and can see the difference between good and bad decision making.

If it wasn't for the requirement to wear a tie at school, I very much doubt I would have learnt how to tie a tie knot competently. If I then started to go to job interviews and carry out office work without the ability to tie a tie, it could have blown quite a dent in my career. But perhaps more importantly, the decision seems to have been made based on completely groundless fears, with no firm evidence to back them up. Children learn more from the example that their parents and teachers set than from what those grown-ups say. So if school authorities don't back up their decisions with clear evidence, and don't consult those whom are affected by the decisions, they are setting a bad example and neglecting their educational duties.

Clip-on ties have their place - I used to be a member of the British Red Cross Society who have insisted on the use of clip-on ties for decades, but that's because when you're treating patients with certain conditions it's not uncommon for them to grab at your tie. But for everyday use in schools, there's simply no justification to insist on the clip-on variety.

Image credit: Plasmafire; more details here.

Bedingfield to make come-back this year?

2009-04-22T16:05:00.000+01:00

Musical comebacks seem to be the big thing this year, and it's not just 80's bands that are on the comeback trail - there are some artists from this very decade who are trying to reignite their careers true. We're all expecting to see something of Robbie Williams this year (in addition to his brief part in the Little Britain Comic Relief sketch in March) and rumour has it that Daniel Bedingfield will also be releasing a new album.

Both Williams and Bedingfield have suffered illnesses of various kinds over the last few years - Robbie's addictions and mental state have been widely reported. Daniel of course suffered a major car accident in New Zealand a few years ago, which resulted in some serious injuries. As a result, his voice has apparently changed from the famous falsetto we all remember to something more "gritty" and "less controlled" - sounds to me like a wholesale change there then. He is also famous for his hyperactivity, but the accident has led to him taking things a lot more easily recently according to reports. So his third album could be interesting indeed...

Have your say: BBC got it wrong

2009-04-21T15:54:00.000+01:00

Occasionally I'll post something on the BBC News website's Have your say section. If you haven't seen it before, it's not a discussion board in the traditional sense, but asks you to comment on a specific news story. It then publishes your comments, and everyone can then vote on one another's comments by choosing whether or not to click the "recommend" button that appears below each one. It's quite a neat system.

Naturally, the beeb have put some controls in place to filter out abuse, and posts that don't obey the house rules. The subjects are all time-limited too, so if they don't get around to checking your comment in time, it doesn't get published. When you're reviewing your previous posts, you can see whether your post was published (and how many recommendations it received if it was), unpublished (it wasn't processed in time before the subject was closed) or rejected (it broke the house rules).

Knowing that most of my posts were made several hours before a subject closed, it was disappointing how many of my posts were unpublished, but what was more interesting was the one post that was rejected. The subject in question combined two of the BBC's favourites for the Have your say forum: "Is the Church of England obsessed with sex?"

My answer was pretty simple, and to the point: no, the CoE isn't obsessed with sex but the media are; in addition, the media (and particularly the BBC) are quite keen to undermine Christianity, so there's little surprise that these two obsessions keep combining to produce headlines that involve both.

You might not agree with the view I expressed, but if you have any clue which of the BBC's house rules I'm supposed to have broken by expressing it I look forward to reading your comments below!

Regarding my viewpoint itself, I think both of the media's obsessions are self-evident. Sex sells, and the tabloid press know that better than anyone. And you only have to watch or listen to the Beeb's programmes aimed at Christians (such as Radio 2's Good Morning Sunday or the infamous Songs of Praise) and compare it with the vibrant, buzzing CCM scene (as evidenced by the brilliant Cross Rythms radio stations springing up over the country) to ascertain that the BBC's view of Christianity is outdated to say the least.

Thatchergate: BBC got it right

2009-02-05T14:26:00.000Z

There's been widespread criticism of the BBC for sacking Carol Thatcher from The One Show for her comments likening a tennis player to the "golliwog" character from old Robertson's jam jars (in fact the character and word predates that depiction, as the Wikipedia article explains). The Beeb's critics say that the remarks were made in private - by which I think they mean "off air", which is something entirely different - and that it was meant as an innocent joke.

A joke. Well, that's ok then, isn't it? Of course not - you just cannot use language that you know is offensive, especially while at work. Just because Thatcher wasn't broadcasting at the time is no excuse - she was there as a representative of the BBC, in their employment, and should have acted accordingly. As BBC1 controller Jay Hunt said,

What Carol decides to say in the privacy of her own home or in a private conversation with friends is one thing. What she says in a green room space, when there are 12 people, in her capacity as a roving reporter for The One Show is a rather different thing.

Clearly the remarks were not made in private - they were in a corporate workspace, akin to an office environment, and when in such a place a certain decorum is sorely needed. As for the "innocent joke" thing, well that's fine if it's true. But if you're making a genuinely innocent joke and you accidentally make a faux pas and actually offend someone, then you jolly well apologise for it. The BBC1 controller said that the main reason why Thatcher was sacked was not so much for the remark itself, but for her lack of remorse:

What I find sad about the entire situation is that we have given Carol ample opportunity to apologise for offence that was caused to key named individuals.
"She felt unable to do that and, for that reason, it is not appropriate for her to work on that particular show, but she will continue to work for the BBC and indeed is.

Sounds more than fair to me.

Rail rage

2009-01-24T20:33:00.000Z

Happy New Year and all that - seems a bit late for that now but as they say, better late than never. Which brings me nicely to the subject of this post, actually.

Last week I was travelling up to Winchester for work, as you do (well, as I do). I was going by train, and would have been bang on time for my 9am meeting if it wasn't for the fact that the train I was aiming to catch was cancelled. The departures board said it was due to a failed power supply and the audio announcement claimed it was due to slippery rail conditions, which does make me wonder about the truth of any of the reasons they give. But any reason at all is better than "an operational incident" or whatever twaddle it was that Network Rail came up with for the disastrous period that the West Coast Main Line has just been through - but that's another matter.

Anyway, because the direct train to Winchester had been cancelled I had to change trains at Eastleigh. No problem there. Also because of the cancellation things were pretty busy - standing room only, etc. - all to be expected and nothing to get worked up about. But, more to my amusement than annoyance I must say, as we were queueing to disembark at Eastleigh the woman in the queue behind me started pushing. There was nowhere to go, so I stood firm so as not to push the person in front. The woman tutted, and continued pushing and tutting until we reached the train door. By this time I was pretty startled by her rudeness and rather mischievously enjoying her impatience, so I took great pleasure in allowing a few other people out of the train in front of us.

The interchange at Eastleigh is pretty short - usually just a couple of minutes - but I could see the platform for the Winchester train (which also goes to London) and it was clear that the train had only just arrived and the platform was busy, so there was no hurry. The woman clearly didn't share that view and eventually exploded with something along the lines of "Are you intending to get the London connection, because I am!"

I replied, quite calmly and reasonably I thought, with "Well, pushing and tutting doesn't really help anyone, does it?"

She paused to consider this.

"Yes it does!" she thundered back, "it helps me!" - which it clearly didn't, because if she'd been polite about it I would probably have let her past me and certainly wouldn't have taken such pleasure in delaying her further. She proceeded to mutter something about people being so slow, which I also found amusing, since my walking speed was that much faster than hers that I was already some distance away when her mutterings were carried to me on the breeze. My amusement was doubled when, having found a seat on the Winchester train, the same woman shuffled past about 5 minutes later still looking for somewhere to park her rear.

What intrigues me about the whole encounter is that this woman had clearly achieved some sort of success judging by her appearance, demeanour and well-spokenness, yet she had worse manners and less decorum than our two-year old, even when he's in the middle of a tantrum, and that's no exaggeration. So how on earth does such a repugnant person get on in the world? Or does she put on an amazing act of niceties and politeness when she reaches her workplace in the capital? I'll never know, but I've been feeling smug (quite wrongly, I know) about the whole thing ever since it happened.

Strictly Come Voting

2008-12-23T21:55:00.000Z

Oh dear, I'm blogging about a reality TV show again. This must stop. But not now.

Well, I'm feeling slightly smug that my "what will happen" prediction was absolutely spot-on, but I must admit that Tom's showdance was a gnat's whisker ahead of Rachael's. Ultimately though the point is that Tom shouldn't have even been in the final - the judge's scores in the semifinal meant that he should have been in a dance-off with one of the other couples, after which he would almost certainly have left the competition.

I was very much in favour of the BBC's decision at the time to allow all three couples through, since viewers' votes could not stop Tom being in the dance-off. But that alone was not why I supported the decision - the reason for my support was because the presenters had urged the public to "vote if you want to save your faviourite from the dance-off" - yet no amount of viewers' votes for Tom could have done that, so the BBC had to change something or they would have misled viewers.

The key point is, where was the mistake? It was not in the voting system, it was in the fact that viewers were urged to do something that, in effect, was impossible. Lesson learned, won't happen again.

Until the Christmas episode was filmed, that is, when this happened.

But here the BBC made completely the wrong decision. They changed the system to fiddle the results, so that those who didn't stand a chance of winning (because the judges marked them so low that the audience vote wouldn't be sufficient) suddenly did again. Well, so what? As long as the audience were informed that voting for the bottom two couples would be a wasted vote, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the system as it stood.

Any student of basic game theory will tell you that there is no perfect voting system. Any system of scoring and counting votes can be manipulated, result in ties, etc. In my book it's wholly correct that the judges and audience share half the vote each, and the scoring system they use is fine by me. But that does mean that sometimes the audience will be powerless to save their favourite, or for their favourite to win. That's no bad thing; often the judges know better and what's the point of having them if their opinion is to be undermined by the producers rigging the voting system every time they don't like the result?

My Strictly Come Dancing prediction...

2008-12-20T10:02:00.000Z

What should happen:

Rachael & Vincent
Lisa & Brendon
Tom & Camilla

What will happen:

Tom & Camilla
Rachael & Vincent
Lisa & Brendon

Waglet 2

2008-12-20T08:43:00.000Z

Well, this time I do have an excuse - well, to some degree anyway. If you didn't know already, we're delighted that we have a brand new addition to our family (well, actually he's 3 weeks old now) - our second Waglet arrived safely in late November. Everyone is safe and healthy, albeit pretty tired!

Happy Christmas

Delirious reach end of road

2008-07-08T09:31:00.000+01:00

If we're honest with ourselves, and we add a pinch of hindsight, we could all see it coming. Delirious?, the band that have provided the soundtrack to our lives for quite a while now, have decided to call it a day. They'll honour their existing concert commitments of course, and will move on to pastures new at the end of next year.

They've achieved much, probably more than they'll ever really know, and I'm sure d:fans worldwide will be ever grateful for being part of such a thrilling ride. Thanks guys, and all the best for the future.

(More info at their website)

Still here

2008-06-27T15:49:00.000+01:00

I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Now that we're using Google's Blogger software to update WagWeb, it really couldn't be easier, so I have no excuse for not writing much here since March.

Having said that, I shall now contradict myself by providing some excuses. We've been pretty busy over the last few months - we had a great holiday on Guernsey with the in-laws, have had our garage converted into a study (which has taken quite a bit of effort, and isn't totally finished yet) and just generally, loads of stuff has been happening. Did I mention that Waglet 2 is well and truly on the way? Well, there's that as well.

So what are we doing now? We're enjoying Wimbledon (Mrs Waggers went the other day) and Euro 2008, still trying to sort the new study out, and spending lots of time chasing after Waglet 1. More later - but hopefully not much later.

New era for Delirious?

2008-03-31T10:30:00.000+01:00

For 12 years they've been the UK's leading CCM band, and I'm sure that will continue - but times are changing for the Littlehampton 5-piece. Drummer Stew Smith has decided to move on to form a design company, spend more time at home with his family, and go deeper with his church. Anyone who's seen him play live knows how talented and passionate the guy is, and he'll certainly be missed by the other band members as well as us d:fans. Stew played his last UK gig with the band a couple of days ago in Greenwich.

Meanwhile, life goes on and the band's new album, Kingdom of Comfort, is to be released in the UK in a couple of weeks' time. Delirious? have also announced that their new drummer will be one Paul Evans, who also comes from Arun Community Church and currently works for Soul Survivor. Paul has been a session musician for many years and has previously filled in for Stew Smith on tour, so is no stranger to Delirious?.

There's obviously a tinge of sadness around Stew's leaving, but this is of course a new opportunity for him, Paul and the rest of the band. We pray that God would bless the lot of them in this new chapter of their lives.

Related links:

So it begins...

2008-03-14T09:05:00.000Z

The 2008 Formula One season is under way as of today, with Raikkonen and Hamilton going fastest in the Friday practice ahead of this weekend's Australian Grand Prix. Last season was excellent entertainment (although Alonso's antics were infuriating, they certainly added interest) and this season looks set to be another stunner. I'm really looking forward to seeing how Kovalainen gets on alongside Hamilton at McLaren - he's a very highly rated driver (an I certainly concur with that consensus) but he also comes across - like Hamilton and Raikkonen - as being laid back and friendly. So hopefully we're in for a good friendly rivalry this year.

Who will win? Right now I doubt any team will be able to match Ferrari and McLaren on a regular basis, although Renault should improve with Alonso back in the fold, and Honda's season surely can't be any worse than last year, especially with Ross Brawn on board. Williams are always a bit of an unknown quantity but I'm not expecting any surprises from them this year - I reckon they'll be firmly stuck in the midfield.

Speaking of Williams, Patrick Head has made some interesting comments recently, suggesting the idea of the starting grid for a race being set by championship standings (with the leaders at the back) in order to spice things up. Personally I think this is a great idea, but can't see the authorities agreeing to such a radical change, especially as the top teams (with all the political clout that goes with them) would almost certainly oppose it. But even without big changes like that, this year looks set to be a good 'un.

Students and citizenship

2008-03-11T14:35:00.000Z

Lord Goldsmith's much-reported recent idea that pupils should take an oath of allegiance to Queen and country seems all very well on the surface, but as will most of these news stories, there's a sinister undertone if you read between the lines. If this is all about encouraging teenagers to be good citizens then there's a serious failure in this quote from Lord Goldsmith:

The citizenship ceremonies, which are just one of the many things I have suggested, are a way of marking that passage of being a student of citizenship to a citizen in practice.

What this is saying is that students are not teenagers aren't citizens at all while they're in full-time education, and therefore don't count and aren't expected to display adult behaviour until after they leave school. Calling someone a second-class citizen, or, worse, no citizen at all, is a sure way of arousing rebelliousness and stirring up trouble. Such a careless choice of words can only serve to further alienate Britain's teenagers and consequently result in more anti-social behaviour, not less.

We seem to have gone from one extreme, where every word that any politician said was spin-doctored to death, to another, where politicians don't think at all before they open their mouths.

Related link:

BBC News: Pupils 'to take allegiance oath'

League cup glory

2008-02-27T11:07:00.000Z

Even following the brilliant victory against that South-East London club in the semi final (that's Arsenal, in case you were wondering; Arsenal being from Woolwich, which is in East London and south of the River Thames...) I wasn't expecting Spurs to win the cup. When I saw that they were only one goal down against Chelsea in the final on Sunday, I was actually quite happy - so when Tottenham went on to win I was of course delighted.

I was disappointed to see Martin Jol leave the managerial position at Spurs as he was a decent bloke and had guided the club to European qualification - yet there can be no doubt that replacing him with Juande Ramos was a brilliant move. Ramos is an expert in collecting silverware, and with Spurs more or less out of contention for a place in Europe via the league, this cup win guarantees a place in the UEFA Cup next season - a result that was looking like a distant pipe-dream just a few months ago.

Under Ramos, Spurs are looking leaner and fitter and full of the self-belief that was previously lacking. The talent has always been there, but Ramos seems to have found the key to unlock it, and to beat the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea. One reporter referred to Spurs' victory over Chelsea as a victory of good over evil. Let's hope for more of the same.

Miracles

2008-02-16T21:07:00.000Z

I'm really looking forward to doing church tomorrow. Over the last few years we've been really blessed with some quite extraordinary healings, and last week we saw the deaf being healed and gold dust appearing on people's hands. Tomorrow we welcome Billy Kennedy, who will be taking over the reigns of the Pioneer Network form Gerald Coates, so it will be great to hear what he has to say.

I'm never sure exactly how to react to the miracles thing. On the one hand, what's going on is truly amazing, and well worth making a big fuss over. After all , this is God at work, and something to be proclaimed from the rooftops. But on the other hand, this is small fry compared to what God is doing elsewhere and what he's capable of doing with us, so we should be striving for bigger and better things in him rather than being overly proud of what we have. And of course, if God wasn't working these miracles, he'd be no less worthy of our praise and worship.

I think my natural reaction is probably the right one; my attitude tends to be "That's great! Now what's next?!" We must acknowledge what God has done, but equally we mustn't get stuck in that one moment and lose sight of where the Holy Spirit is moving on to. As with so many of these things, it's a question of balance.

Guns and babies

2008-02-15T09:07:00.000Z

There have been four shootings at educational establishments in the USA in the last week, with 11 people shot, 9 dead and one critically injured (to date). As long as the crazy gun laws that prevail in the States remain as they are, these incidents will continue to happen. But the right to carry arms is a fundamental part of America's constitution; the country has a history of putting choice before life. Campaigns are underway for this to be changed, and we can only hope that they are successful.

But it's easy for us to sneer from across the pond; we're not doing so well ourselves when it comes to valuing life over choice. 200,000 abortions take place every year in the UK (that's nearly 600 a day) . It is legal for babies to be aborted in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy - yet there is more and more clear evidence that children born this prematurely do stand a good chance of survival, and there are more and more frequent cases of this happening.

This means that these aren't balls of meaningless cells that are being removed and disposed of, they are human beings with a decent chance of survival. They should be treated as such, and that means it's wrong to kill them just because their existence is inconvenient to someone.

Saddam Hussein will always be associated with the horrendous gas attacks on the Iraqi Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war. There he was, leader of a nation, and there existed a community growing in his country that he found inconvenient. So he ordered that it be removed. As the appointed leader of Iraq, that choice was his to make. If it was wrong for him to make a choice that put convenience before life, then surely it's wrong for anybody else to do the same.

If life matters more than choice when it comes to Americans carrying guns, or the decisions that rulers and leaders make, then life also matters more than choice when it comes to unwanted pregnancies. Yet a bill is currently going through the UK parliament that some politicians are expected to use to try and make abortion even easier in the UK, and possibly extend rather than contract the time period in which it's legal to remove and kill unborn children. Unless and until our government starts valuing life more, it would be deeply hypocritical of them to condemn the stupid gun laws in the USA and the ever rising death toll that goes with them.

Related links:

The archbishop and all that

2008-02-13T20:30:00.000Z

A lot has been said about the Archbishop of Canterbury's recent comments. It seems that everybody was astounded by his comments, and in turn he was astounded by the reaction. And for me, it is the reaction that by and large is more interesting - and more disturbing - than anything that Rowan Williams said.

I found the reaction of Gordon Brown particularly interesting. Since he came to power, the Prime Minister has been trying to draw the country together and avoid division. We saw this with all the talk of "Britishness" before he came to power; we also saw it when he tried to form his first cabinet as "a cabinet of all the talents" - including invitations to members of other political parties. So it came as no surprise that the first headline about the PM's own reaction to Rowan Williams' comments was to describe the Archbishop as "a man of great integrity". All well and good.

But it was in the detail of Gordon Brown's comments that came something fairly worrying: "British laws must be based on British values and that religious law, while respecting other cultures, should be subservient to British criminal and civil law" This, like much of the reaction to Rowan Williams' comments, makes a couple of fundamental mistakes. The first is an assumption that "religious law" is a different kettle of fish to "British" law, when in fact they are on the whole compatible. In fact, it was this very compatibility that Williams was trying to get at in his speech: that by handling relatively trivial issues in Sharia courts, Muslims can take a lot of the burden off of the mainstream legal system, and save us taxpayers a fair whack of money to boot. Moreover, British law is of course largely based on the Christian faith - so the idea that it is somehow in conflict with "religious law" is nonsense.

The second, and perhaps more important, mistake is to leave God out of the equation. God is big. He is the creator and ruler of the universe. His rules outrank any and every man-made legal system there could possibly be. The notion that the law of God "should be subservient to British law" is a notion that belittles God; for the Prime Minister, our chief law maker, to say that is essentially for him to say "I am more important than God". If unity is what Gordon Brown seeks, that is not the way to achieve it. Instead, he risks alienating everyone in Britain who believes in a deity - and that's a huge slice of our population.

So, what about Rowan Williams' comments themselves? Is his the Christian point of view? Well, whilst there's been a lot of negative reaction even within his own denomination, I think that there's certainly something good to take from what he said (or at least, if not what he said then what he meant!). As I understand it, Islam is a very legalistic religion. A Muslim has to pray at certain times each day, facing a certain direction, whereas a Christian can pray whenever he or she wants, facing any direction he or she chooses. The BBC News website explains Sharia law thus:

Sharia rulings have been developed to help Muslims understand how they should lead every aspect of their lives according to God's wishes... For example, many young Muslims ask themselves what they should do if colleagues invite them to the pub after work or college.
Many people would of course make up their own mind about the appropriate course of action. But others may turn to a Sharia scholar for advice.

So Sharia covers a lot of very mundane and banal daily issues where observant Muslims want to ensure they act within the legal framework of their faith.

Imagine if every decision we made, even ones as trivial as that in the example above, had to go through a court of law! Yet that is the Muslim culture. It is in stark contrast to the Christian culture, which is very much more based on freedom and making choices for ourselves. In fact, the Bible encourages us to avoid courts of law if at all possible, and resolve any disputes personally, with the oversight of mutually respected leaders or elders if necessary.

So in a way, the archbishop is attempting to spread a Christian message into Islamic culture: resolve disputes among yourselves rather than taking them to court. In a highly legalistic culture such as Islam, it is fairly inevitable that the dispute resolution process would also be highly legalistic - hence making Sharia law "almost inevitable in the UK" - the words that Rowan Williams was shot down for saying. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, out-of-court settlements and dispute resolution processes are becoming more and more common. Essentially all Rowan Williams was doing was acknowledging that established fact.

So, like the Archbishop, I can't see what the fuss is about - in a nutshell, Rowan Williams said nothing new or in any way controversial. But in trying to calm this storm in a teacup, Gordon Brown made a claim that has much bigger and more profound implications. Sharia law in the UK is one thing, but the UK Parliament outranking God is something else entirely.

Simplified

2008-02-11T14:00:00.000Z

We've tried a good few things with WagWeb, and here's the latest incarnation of the site. It's a blog, pure and simple, generated using Google's Blogger software. The advantage is that it's free (unlike the last iteration of the site) and, hopefully, just as easy for us to use (unlike the iterations before that) so hopefully all is good. But, this being my first post, I don't even know if it works yet! If you're reading this, clearly it does.

I'll make no promises about keeping things up to date, but I will try and get our previous content visible again at some point as well. Enjoy...

P.S. Sorry about the pink, I'll get rid of that soon :)

Jellybass hits iTunes

2007-06-20T08:16:00.000+01:00

I suppose you could call Jellybass a musical duo, but if that conjures up the likes of The Proclaimers or Robson and Jerome then think again.

Jellybass, comprised of friends of ours Chix and Joe, was formed last summer and has been receiving great reviews from the likes of Computer Music magazine, The Fly, Tesselate and Under Your Nose.

Ok, I've never heard of any of those titles either, and nor do I know the difference between Bigbeat, Tearout, Bassline Breaks and drum & bass (although at least the latter is somewhat self explanatory, thankfully). What I do know is that their music is good. It has a great laid-back vibe which makes it ideal to chill out to or to complement a hot and dreary traffic jam in the car.

But don't take my word for it - you can hear samples and download a 30 minute (yes minute, not second!) mp3 sample from their website; you can also grab their album from a number of places, including iTunes.

For more info, head for the horse's mouth: www.jellybass.co.uk.

Teeth

2006-12-07T13:43:00.000Z

Waglet is eight months old today and things have changed a fair bit since I last updated this section of the website. Yes, sorry about that - I'm sure you appreciate that there are other things that take priority!

We're getting much more sleep now, although the last couple of nights were disturbed - probably tooth related. Waglet has two teeth (both at the bottom, at the front of his mouth). The first appeared on Saturday and the second on Tuesday - although both have been on their way for several months now.

They say that no news is good news, and that's probably true here - essentially there's not much to report about Waglet's progress because it's all been good. He's not crawling yet but can roll over. He often gets into a crawling position, then rolls over onto his back! He does like standing up though, and can stand (leaning against the coffee table) on his own. He can even take a few steps around it, so it looks like he may go straight to walking and bypass crawling altogether.

He has a lovely personality, usually full of smiles and laughs. He has said "Mum mum mum" and "Dad dad dad" and a number of other words, including "hello" - but we're not sure that he meant to say them when he did.

We're looking forward to Christmas now as we know Waglet has some great presents waiting for him!

Securing your PC

2006-11-13T22:51:00.000Z

The version of the anti-virus software we use has recently prompted us to upgrade to the latest version, which has in turn prompted me to write this article, which I've been intending to do for a while. This, I hope, will provide you with some handy advice about how to keep your computer safe, at no expense.

Many people adopt the attitude of "you get what you pay for" when it comes to computer software, but you couldn't be more wrong. Often you can get free software that does exactly the job you need. Often, in fact, it's better than the stuff you get charged for.

What software do I need?

Let's start, though, with the various bits of software you need to keep your computer safe. In this article, I'm going to assume that you're running Microsoft Windows on a personal/family computer. There are many different types of "securityware", with different purposes. Sometimes all the terminology can be confusing to a novice, but all usually becomes clear when you think about the various ways someone might try to attack your computer.

Terms that just about everyone has heard of are "hacking" and "virus". A hacker is someone who tries to access something they shouldn't have access to. They might try to access your computer in order to spy on you, to read your files, to add malicious software, or even to try and take control of your computer. The way of preventing a hacker is to have a firewall installed. Essentially a firewall acts as the gateway between your computer and the internet; everything that pases from your computer to the internet, or (more importantly) the other way, must go through the firewall. This way, the firewall stops any unauthorised people from accessing your computer, and it stops any unauthorised software on your computer from accessing the internet.

A virus is a piece of software designed to spread itself to other computers, often causing some damage along the way. A virus isn't necessarily stand-alone software - it could be encoded inside an email or a web page, or even a word processing document or other file. Because of that, a firewall alone won't necessarily spot a virus and stop it. Instead, you need to have specialist anti-virus software installed.

Usually, anti-virus software can do all of the following:

monitor your computer constantly, checking every file that opens for viruses
scan your computer for viruses
obtain information on the latest viruses from the internet to keep you safe from the most recent threats.

The combination of a firewall and an anti-virus programme is the absolute minimum you need to keep your computer safe. But there are other bits of useful software too - because there are other forms of malicious software ("malware") than viruses. Because these other threats don't necessarily try to spread themselves or harm your computer, they don't classify as viruses. They come mainly in two forms: adware (which displays adverts or opens websites without your consent) and spyware (which tries to track your activities and possibly obtain personal information about you, or your passwords and other security data). There are a number of specialist anti-spyware and anti-adware utilities available for free. These aren't traditionally seen as being as essential as anti-virus software and a firewall, but these days the need for the wider range of securityware is increasing rapidly.

So what do I need to do?

One thing you don't need to do is fork out a load of money. You can get everything you need to secure your computer for free, without parting with any personal information or viewing hordes of adverts. There are a number of freebies available out there. Here are a selection. Remember, you need a firewall and an anti-virus utility as a bare minimum.

Free anti-virus software

AVG Anti-Virus - free for personal use. Very easy to download and install, works well with most other securityware. Easy to update and interact with, too.

Avast! Home Edition - we haven't tried this one, but it's there if you want an alternative to AVG.

Free firewalls

ZoneAlarm - very easy to install and use, and works well with other security software. The updating process used to be a bit clunky but is now beautifully smooth. One friend of mine doesn't like ZoneAlarm because he says it's hard to uninstall. I haven't heard of anyone else having problems though (and I know several who use it) and besides, why would you ever want to uninstall your firewall?!?

There are a number of other free firewalls around but often they require your email address - so that they can send you spam... er, no thanks!

Other free securityware

AVG Anti-Spyware Free is a new kid on the anti-spyware block from the same people as AVG Anti-Virus. It's thoroughly excellent, I highly recommend it.

Adaware SE Personal is from a company called Lavasoft, and is one of the most established and most efficient anti-malware applications. It focuses on removing adverts from your computer, but also scans for some viruses and spyware at the same time. This free application doesn't have a continuous live system scan like the AVG products, though. One other point of interest is that despite its name, last time I read the terms and conditions there was no "personal/non-commercial use only" clause.

Spybot Search and Destroy is a very well-known and well-established name. Personally I've never used it (just because I've been using the alternatives instead) but the people I know that have highly recommend it.

Delirious rock Southampton

2006-10-12T21:33:00.000+01:00

Last night, we had the pleasure of attending the first gig in the Delirious Mission Bell tour. The gig took place in the Southampton Guildhall. It's one of those venues that manages to be very big and yet intimate at the same time, and so is one of our favourites.
The d:boys are supported on this tour by Tim Hughes, who is an awesome songwriter and musician in his own right. He certainly didn't disappoint, leading an awesome worship session that often left the crowd in revered silence at the end of a song. There were of course some of his classic, really well known songs in his set, but (bravely, we thought) there was also a lot of new material in there. (Either that, or we're not keeping up very well, as it was new to us!).

We were beginning to think that Tim was going to be a hard act for Delirious to follow, but that thought was instantly banished. Waggers reckons that their latest album, The Mission Bell, is quite possibly their best yet. It's not as catchy as some of the earlier offerings perhaps, but lyricly and musically it's tremendous, and it's full of the passion that was beginning to disappear from Delirious records. Every song on the album is immensely powerful, but when the boys played them live... well, God was there, let's just say that.

Perhaps the most remarkable bit of the gig for us was the amazing graphics that were displayed on the big screen during each song. The words were shown for most of the set, but in really clever ways, each appropriate to the song being performed. It's a huge leap forward from the last Delirious gig at Southampton Guildhall, when the words being displayed to "Louder than the Radio" somehow ended up hopelessly out of synch with the band.

Martin reminded us that the band have been going now for 14 years. There was also a bit on Hope HIV during the interval, in which they mentioned that Tim Jupp had recently turned 40. (Instead of having a party here, he asked all his friends for money; he went to South Africa and invited a load of street kids to his birthday party there. Great idea and commendable sacrifice). But what I'm getting at is this: they're not getting any younger. Nevertheless, we said to each other as we left the Guildhall, they've still got it. In fact, I reckon Delirious are currently as good as, if not better than, ever.

Related link:

Delirious (official site)

Gordon Brown's NHS Plan

2006-09-24T11:34:00.000+01:00

Now that Tony Blair has announced that he'll be standing down within the year, his probable successor, Gordon Brown, has started making noises about what he intends to do when (and if) he becomes Prime Minister. Recently he declared his plans for the management of the NHS, namely taking control away from the politicians and setting up an independent body to oversee the health service. Here's what I think of that idea, and the British Medical Association (BMA)'s reaction to it.

As a workforce planner in the NHS, I know that one of the biggest barriers to creating accurate plans is the fact that it takes around a decade to train a doctor, yet the standard parliamentary term is five years. Therefore we've been constrained, wanting to plan decades in advance but knowing that the policies on which we're basing those plans might change at a moment's notice. A politics-free governing body for the NHS would enable the genuine long term planning that the health service so desperately needs.

Another problem with the current arrangement is that policies are often drawn up based on perceptions of the NHS rather than the real situation. You often hear people talking about doctors and nurses as if they are the only people that are required to run a hospital. But that ignores the thousands of therapists, scientists, cleaners, porters, caterers, information technology staff, human resources advisers, planners, secretaries, receptionists, accountants and so on that are all equally essential. The BMA have criticised Gordon Brown's plans, which is not surprising. With new technologies, better training and imrpoved ways of working, the role of doctors carries less emphasis than it did a few years ago. Jobs that only doctors could once do can now be carried out by other staff, with much smaller salaries, therefore providing much greater value for money. An independent governing body for the NHS would recognise the value in this reassessment of skill mix, and would be able to make tough decisions (like cutting the numbers of highly paid doctors and replacing them with cheaper staff who can do the same job just as well) without fear of the publicity backlash that politicians are so scared of. This is the reason the BMA are critical of Brown's plan.

General practitioners in the UK are now the highest paid in Europe, yet work fewer hours than their European counterparts. This is due to organisations like the BMA holding the government to ransom when negotiating contracts and making key decisions about the NHS. Without the politicians involved, the BMA would have less influence over the direction of travel of the NHS, and the interests of patients would trully come first. Unfortunately the reaction of the BMA to Brown's announcement indicates that they are more interested in looking after number one than looking after their patients.

Cold-caller cornered

2006-09-13T13:12:00.000+01:00

Despite being ex-directory and registered with the Telephone Preference Sercice (TPS), we've been receiving a host of silent phone calls lately from a cold calling company. Fortunately we've managed to track down where the calls were coming from, and have today taken action.

The calls were coming from a company called 2Touch , based in Sunderland. The company's website talks lavishly about how they respect privacy: "2Touch supports the protection of consumers' privacy rights as a fundamental element of our business." We've been receiving one or two calls each day from their call centre, always silent.

In March of this year, OFCOM announced a new set of rules about how call centres handle what the telecommunications industry terms "abandoned calls". The rules changes include a cap on how many "abandoned calls" a company is allowed to make, and the necessity to play a recorded message within two seconds of a call being answered:

Abandoned call rates must be below three per cent of all calls made in any 24 hour period for each campaign. An Ofcom investigation into silent calls last year found that some call centres' abandoned call rates can be significantly higher than the five per cent maximum required by existing voluntary industry codes. Ofcom believes that setting an enforceable three per cent limit will significantly reduce the volume of abandoned calls, while allowing the legitimate and responsible use of automated calling systems;
All abandoned calls must carry a short recorded information message identifying the source of the call;
Calling line identification (CLI) must be included on all outbound calls generated by automated calling systems. CLI allows people to dial 1471 and access the telephone number of the person or organisation calling them.

At the same time, the government raised the maximum fine for companies failing to abide by these rules from £5,000 to £50,000 per breach. Although 2Touch are clearly breaching rule (2), fortunately they abide by rule (3) so we were able to track them down.

Today I telephoned 2Touch directly, and they promised to ensure that they wouldn't call us again. I also complained to OFCOM, as it is clear that 2Touch are failing to abide by the rules that have been in place for over 6 months. We'll let you know what happens.

Meanwhile, if you're also receiving similar problems, here's what to do...

Make sure you're registered with the TPS. If you're a BT customer, subscribing to BT Privacy will do this for you. It's free of charge.
Complain to OFCOM. There's a very easy form to fill in on their website. Even if you're not registered with the TPS, you shouldn't be receiving silent calls. OFCOM will only know the extent of the problem by the number of complaints they receive, so don't suffer in silence.
Dial 1471 after each nuisance call to see if you can trace which number the call came from. You may want to try calling back to see if there's a recorded message telling you who they are - that's how we traced our calls to 2Touch.
If you can track down the nuisance call company, see if they have a website with contact details. Get in touch and give them an earful.

Is the BBC going tabloid?

2006-09-08T12:42:00.000+01:00

As I write, the lead story on the BBC Sport website is: Rooney and Gray row in restaurant. But reading the story, it seems the Beeb are reporting on a storm in a teacup, if that. You could even argue that the BBC are making up news stories to attract visitors.

What does the actual news story tell us? Wayne Rooney was out for a meal with his fiance and some other friends. Michael Gray was at the same restaurant and approached Rooney's table, uninvited. Rooney asked Gray to leave them alone. Rooney's spokesman said "It was a brief incident" and "As far as Wayne is concerned, he bears no ill-feeling towards Michael." So, presumably, Gray did as he was asked. We're told that "Wayne asked him to go several times" but does that equate to a row?

The headline implies a full-scale bust-up, raised voices, shouting... yet none of that is reported to have taken place. Just what is the BBC's definition of a row? This is the kind of sensationalist journalism that we really don't want to see. It's about as far from public service broadcasting as you can get, because the headline does not match the facts given in the report. That's hardly public service, is it?

In the BBC's defence, other news sources are giving slightly different versions; Sky report "Wayne Rooney is alleged to have punched Blackburn defender Michael Gray in the face". But this still doesn't make the BBC's headline correct - that's a fight, not a row!

There are a couple of other moans to be groaned about this story. Yes there are footballers involved but is it really a football / sport story? It's nothing to do with sport, and it's not a major incident, so why is it the lead story on the country's leading sport website? My final moan is the whole "alleged" thing. I know the journalists don't want to be sued but do we really have to hear and read the word "alleged" in every sentence? If their sources are that unreliable that they have to put such a disclaimer in every statement they make, why bother publishing the story at all?

"Alleged" isn't news, "alleged" is speculation. Will somebody please bring back real journalism?!

In brief

2006-09-06T21:55:00.000+01:00

A few short comments on the random subjects of Steve Irwin's death, William Shatner's refusal to travel in space, the Arctic Monkeys and WagWeb topping a somewhat unexpected Google search.

Steve Irwin

We were saddened to hear the news on Monday of the death of Steve Irwin, better known perhaps as the Crocodile Hunter. He was killed by a stingray whilst filming one of his infamous documentaries. While it's a sad loss, there is consolation to be drawn - he died doing what he loved best.

I was surprised that this was the BBC's lead story for most of the day - usually celebrity deaths come much further down the pecking order. Perhaps it was yet another slow news day - although I'm sure there's no shortage of newsworthy events that pass most journalists by.

Shatner in space? Perhaps not

William Shatner has turned down a free ticket, worth £114,000, to fly into space. It seems that Catpain Kirk doesn't really want to "boldly go" after all, having rejected Richard Branson's offer. Shatner cited anxieties over vomiting in space and crashing as his reasons. Radio 2 DJ Johnnie Walker summed it up rather eloquantly, with words along the lines of: "I'd be more worried about the other end if I were him - he may live up to his name!"

Perhaps not our most family-friendly story, that one...

Mercury Monkeys

The Arctic Monkeys are the latest band of the moment, having won the Mercury Prize. You can tell I'm not a real journalist, because I managed not to use the word "coveted" before "Mercury Prize". I was asked recently what I think of the band, so I thought I'd share that opinion here too: they're just another Indie band. Yes, they're music's good, but there are tonnes of other bands that sound just like them. Besides, wasn't BritPop meant to have disappeared about a decade ago? (Personally I'm glad it hasn't!)

WagWeb tops a Google search

The new WagWeb allows me to keep tabs on a range of statistics, including which search engines are directing people here and with which search terms. That led me to discover that WagWeb is the very first site returned when you search for "Michella Strachan".

There are two things to explain here. The first is that the name is actually spelt Michaela Strachan, and the second is that the mis-spelt version did appear in the "You know you were an 80's child if..." bit of the WagWeb humour section. We will eventually resurrect the humour section of the site - and when I do, I'll be sure to spell-check it!

High chair

2006-09-03T23:01:00.000+01:00

We bought a high chair for Waglet yesterday, and today it saw action for the first time. Waglet has been eating the likes of baby rice, liquidised carrot and banana (the banana usually goes with the rice, not the carrot!) for a couple of weeks now.

He's still having regular breast milk, but also now has two "meals" a day. At lunchtime he usually has some mushy carrot, and at dinner-time he has some baby rice with a bit of mashed banana stirred in. He absolutely loves his food at lunchtime, and always asks for more. We've upped the dose a number of times but his appetite seems insatiable!

At dinnertime he also tucks in well, but does usually grind to a halt before the plate is empty. We're planning to introduce him to potato within the next few days, and we're considering whether to add some food to breakfast time too.

We were fortunate to have been given some money for the high chair and therefore had pretty much a free reign as to which one to choose. We subscribed to Mother & Baby magazine a while ago and they have a regular product test feature. Having looked at various makes and models ourselves, we decided that the Mother & Baby best buy looked like the best one to us as well, so that's what we've plumped for. As an added bonus, it matches our kitchen!

Food

2006-08-22T21:44:00.000+01:00

Waglet is fast approaching five months, and he's doing really well. He's been showing an interest in our food for some time, and is great at chewing our fingers, so last Tuesday he was allowed to have some baby rice for the first time. He loved it, and gobbled down every last bit.

Since then we've also given him some liquidized carrot, which he also enjoyed. From today, he's having the carrot at lunch time and the baby rice in the evening. It's strange to think that after all this time that he's just been surviving off of Mrs Waggers' milk is coming to an end. It's a definite sign that he's growing up.

Most babies' first teeth are bottom teeth, and Waglet is no exception. Mrs Waggers has spotted the first tooth, although I have yet to lay my eyes on it! It isn't through the gum yet but Mrs Waggers informs me that it can be clearly seen under the surface.

Another gerbil escape

2006-08-21T11:54:00.000+01:00

John the gerbil managed to escape from his cage on Sunday night. But after twenty minutes or so of chasing him around the living room on Monday morning, he was eventually put back in his place.

Fortunately gerbil escapes are becoming a far less common occurrence. This one was caused because we (ok, I) didn't secure his home properly after changing his food yesterday.

Paul, George and Ringo remained safely inside because they live in a separate cage from John. That's because John decided to attack Ringo and Paul last year, and so we had to remove him from the cage for a few minutes for all the rodents to calm down (during which time he also attacked us!).

Upon trying to reintroduce John, Paul and Ringo decided to seek revenge and refused to allow him back in. So since then, John has lived separately from his brothers.

Bye Rob, Hello Emily

2006-06-30T21:46:00.000+01:00

We've just spent the weekend in Colchester so that we could say goodbye to Wendy's brother, Robert. He's finishing his Ph.D. soon and then moving to New Zealand to work for three years. But as we said goodbye to one family member, we were delighted to hear about the latest addition to the family.

Rob's off

Rob has been working in an interesting area of science, a kind of cross-over between IT and biology called Evolutionary Robotics. Essentially it involves writing computer programs and creating robots that simulate the behaviour of various creatures (usually insects). Rob is an expert in the movement of ants.

He will be working in Christchurch in New Zealand, studying spider vision. Wendy's convinced he's going to turn into Spiderman!

We had a great weekend with the family, which gave Nathan the chance to get to know his uncle a bit more before Rob flies off for pastures new. Hopefully we'll be able to pop over and see him at some point.

New addition

We were delighted to hear that Emily Morgan was born on Monday in Gateshead. Emily is the daughter of John and Jennie. Jennie is Wendy's second cousin (we think) - Wendy's Mum's Dad's sister's daughter's daughter - so Emily and Nathan are third cousins. (Thanks for confirming that, Elizabeth!)

Jennie and John got married a week before we did. Apparently John didn't sleep much that first night because he was too excited. Trust me, John, sleepless nights are here to stay...

Sleep and smiles!

2006-06-03T01:00:00.000+01:00

Waglet has been breaking records. Most of this week, he's been sleeping through from somewhere around 9-10 in the evening to about 5-6 in the morning. He's managed at least three consecutive nights like that, and in fact sleeping through seems to be becoming the norm. At only 8 weeks old, we're told that this is very good progress. I'm especially told that by my fellow new fathers at work, who have older babies who are still keeping them awake.

With a good night's sleep comes a great deal of happiness - for all of us. This means that Waglet is smiling a lot more, too. Mrs Waggers even managed to catch a smile on camera this week, which is much harder than it sounds. We have several photos of weird and wonderful post-smile expressions from when we pressed the button half a second too late - but now, at last, we have the first Waglet smile on camera!

Perhaps it's the weather that's helping, because June is here and so is summer. The garden is thriving, including the weeds, although we're doing reasonably well at keeping them down. After moving into the house in Spring of 2005, we reshaped the lawn and created two new beds. We decided to make life easier for ourselves in the long term by covering them in a plastic membrane, with a bark mulch on top. Certainly it's stopped the weeds coming through, but planting through the membrane is hard work! So when we planted our herb garden earlier this year, we decided not to bother with the membrane and mulch. Result: weeds. Lots of them. So my advice is, if you want an easy gardening life and you're creating a new bed - go for the membrane and mulch!

The "firsts" the baby books don't record

2006-05-11T01:00:00.000+01:00

The baby books all have space for the obvious things like baby's first smile, baby's first tooth, and so on, but there are some "firsts" they tend not to publicise so much. Over the last few days we've experienced some of the less pleasant ones.

Our son is doing really really well. Yesterday Mrs Waggers and I took him to visit two of my three workplaces, and one of her two workplaces. He slept through pretty much the whole experience, and we took receipt of some lovely cards and wonderful presents.

All was sweetness and light. But a few days beforehand, things were a bit different. With early summer upon us, Mrs Waggers and I both contracted our usual mild colds that we tend to get at this time of year. Probably a bit of hayfever or something. Anyway, the lack of sleep seemed to escalate things a bit, but we were still not at all worried - it wasn't anything we couldn't handle.

That was until the Waglet managed to get in on the act. That's right, the "first" I'm referring to here is Baby's First Cold. The poor little mite had no idea what had hit him. Only a few weeks ago he'd learnt how to breathe for the first time, and how here he was with a blocked nose. He'd been doing so well with breast feeding, and now faced the task of feeding with (possibly) a sore throat.

And to make matters worse, it all hit at the weekend. So when Waglet opened his mouth, and we were wondering - will this be his first big smile, or a new sound? - the answer came in a sticky flow of mucous. His nose, pristine until recently, now plays host to innumerable bogeys.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not moaning. It was inevitable that he was going to catch a cold at some point. But if you've never had a cold before - in fact, never been ill for as long as you can possibly remember - it's quite a traumatic experience. And no parent likes to see their child suffer.

But it did get me thinking that there's a gap in the market. There are so many baby books out there (we should know, we were given several before he was born) yet very few seem to leave gaps to record the not-so-pleasant milestones.

Today gave another example: Waglet's first thunderstorm. But there's also the others - the first time he poos on someones shoe (in our case, he pooed on the nursery nurse's shoe while she gave him his first bath at the hospital), the first time he poos up the wall (I think that was his second nappy change at home), etc. I'm sure you can think of others...