Er, strategising for the Tories.
July 30th, 2008 at 01:33

It never rains, it pours - quite literally in the case of Gordon Brown. He’s taking his first holiday since he became PM, and the Met Office has issued severe weather warnings for the east of England, where he’s holidaying in Southwold.

Poor Gordon, you wait ten years to get your job, and then you’re rubbish at it. Then Barack Obama, probably the most popular politician this side of North Korea (Kim Jong Il’s opinion poll rating of 100% is admittedly fairly impressive), who’s reflective glory you could bask in, comes to Britain, but he’s not really here to see you at all, is he? He wanted to get a photo with your more popular predecessor and arch-nemesis.

Oh, and you got obliterated in another by-election, where if the 22% swing was reflected nationally (fairly unlikely), even you yourself would almost literally have the seat pulled out from under you, losing your seat in Parliament.

And then you’ve got even newspaper columnist writers with centre-left sympathises, who would theoretically gravitate towards your party, slagging you off in newspapers. Those columnists really do have a nerve.

You might think Brown has the most difficult job in the world - he’s not only got to run the country, but he’s also got to figure out why everyone hates him and sort it out pretty quickly, otherwise he’ll lose this job. However, I don’t think this is the most difficult job in the world. I think that job belongs to David Cameron.

I’d hate to be David Cameron. Not just because that would mean that I’m a member of the Conservative Party (the very thought sends a cold shiver down my spine), but because doing his job is incredibly difficult. Cameron may be pretty smug when looking at the government’s woe at the moment - I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look so happy at coming third in an election after he gave a speech following the Glasgow East debacle, but he needs to be careful not to go too far.

At the moment, Cameron is essentially playing the game Buckaroo- Brown is a horse he must try his best not to irritate too much, and he is an eight year old child. He’s got to place little plastic shovels and cowboy hats on to Gordon Brown’s spring-loaded back, without making Brown jolt suddenly and run away from his job. For all Cameron may say about the PM and how rubbish he reckons he is - getting rid of Gordon would be bad for the Tories because the next Labour leader might be someone people actually like, which would present more of a challenge to them.

This is a fairly interesting irony really. Whilst it could be possible to moan that this quirk merely serves to illustrate the symbiotic relationship between the political classes and potentially erodes the ability of the opposition to hold the government fully to account over issues of national importance… I just think it’s funny that (at risk of giving advice to the Tories), the best strategy for them is to help Gordon Brown stay in office.

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“Waterboarding? Nah, its just like surfing. Dead fun.”
July 22nd, 2008 at 23:02

As you may know, the world is currently fighting a War on Terror. It’s pretty important – as the so-called war is causing us to tackle all sorts of important issues. Issues of war and peace, issues of civil liberties, and then there’s the debate over torture. Basically the War on Terror has more issues than your average moody teenager.

Torture is a complex issue – both proponents and opponents of torture make some points of varying validity. Opponents argue that the use of torture to extract information, or rather, essentially confessions is barbaric and goes against the ethical standards of our modern society, and even when used, can result in inaccurate or dodgy information rending it useless anyway – as if someone is hurting you, chances are you’ll say anything to make them stop. You’d probably even admit to being a terrorist, or a UKIP voter, or even Episode 1 being your favourite Star Wars film.

Proponents of torture (who do actually exist, though mostly live in America) don’t just support it on the grounds of “What’s the harm? It’ll never affect us as we don’t look ‘Muslim’ enough” – they would argue that torture could be a necessary evil to extract information, for example, if a suspected terrorist knew where a bomb was or other vague hypotheticals, like those acted out by Jack Bauer in the TV series 24, where the United Nations Convention Against Torture is broken in almost every episode.

One thing about torture is clear though – it’s a powerful technique. So powerful in fact, that it can make even opinion columnists change their mind about something. And as a loud-mouth opinion columnist myself, I can tell you the one thing I hate most in the world is admitting that I am wrong and changing my opinion.

The American torture technique du jour at the moment is water-boarding – a “process” in which the suspected terrorist has water poured over his (blindfolded) face and into his nose and mouth – causing the gagging reflex to kick in, and is made to feel as though he’s being drowned. Of course, the proponents of water-boarding claim that it isn’t torture, but then seem awfully sheepish when asked if they’d want to undergo it themselves.

A columnist for the American Vanity Fair magazine, Christopher Hitchens, recently underwent water-boarding, in the name of journalism, after he was challenged about a column he wrote where he argued that water-boarding isn’t torture. Do a search on YouTube to see the video, though it does fluctuate between distressing and hilarious depending on how much you like Hitchens. Needless to say, he changed his opinion pretty sharpish.

I think that this was very admirable of him and – and I must admit I’ve got to declare a hidden interest here – way beyond the call of duty for an opinion columnist… there’s not a chance in hell that I’d volunteer to be tortured to find out what it’s like, if you were to offer it.

This said – I will say that getting an iPhone for free is probably torture… if anyone from Apple wants to prove me wrong; I’ll grudgingly accept any free gifts – entirely in the name of journalism, of course.

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Thatcher: Not dead yet.
July 21st, 2008 at 16:57

There was all that fuss in the news a few days ago about Margaret Thatcher getting a state funeral when/if she dies - and whoever was planning it or whatever reckoned it’ll cost three million quid. The only thing this makes me wonder if they’ve taken into account the sheer logistics of organisation a state funeral.

Part of the state funeral ceremony is to have the dead lie in state for a few days before the funeral - like what happened with the Queen Mother in 2002. Does this not pose a pretty obvious “security” risk? Y’know, people queueing up to file past her and “pay their respects”? What are they going to do if thousands of miners/Argentinians/poor people join the end of the queue? Even if they confiscate all of the eggs, what’s to stop an en-masse mooning of the coffin?

And on the day of the funeral itself, even if they find all of the soldiers to line the route, isn’t parading the most hated person in recent British history through the streets of London just asking for trouble? I look forward to hearing London singing cheerfully in the background whilst everyone in the procession tries their best to be sombre.

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Buy My Book!
July 19th, 2008 at 20:35

I’ve reached another milestone. Now, not only can I refer to myself as a “newspaper columnist”, but I also technically qualify as a “published author”. Obviously, this is because I’ve written a book:

So you know what I’m going to ask you to do now: Buy my book! It contains my best newspaper columns from the past 18 months, as well as previously unseen material and directors commentary. Buy it now by clicking the link below:

Oh, go on. It’ll help me pay my ridiculous tuition fees for my Masters.

It’ll also be available on Amazon and the like in a few weeks time with any luck. But I think if you buy it from Lulu I get more money. At least, I hope I do.

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Graduation
July 17th, 2008 at 18:56

I had my graduation ceremony yesterday, which was rather exciting. I got to dress up like an old-timey teacher, sit in a big hall, and listen to a long list of names being read out. My only regret is that I didn’t encounter any Victorian school-kids to boss about whilst I was dressed for it.

Here’s a picture of me looking pretty chuffed at the fact that I’m demonstrably more intelligent than vast swathes of the uninformed masses:

Presumably now I can win arguments using the trump card “Hey, look at this certificate? You see those words? They mean I’m better than you!”, even if its in an area well outside my expertise. Just like how my hero, Richard Dawkins, does.

There ceremony was fun - one thing I’d completely forgotten to consider was the fact it was going to be somewhat ceremonial - so not only was I dressed up, but all of the heads of various departments went up on stage dressed as if we were about to put together a fellowship to return the Ring to Mordor, rather than dish out some degree certificates. The head of the politics department was up there dressed in robes coloured like that of West Ham.

At the start they gave an honourary degree to the bloke who wrote Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières. The university’s vice-chancellor gave a ten-minute long biography of the man, before he himself gave a speech accepting the award. Unfortunately, this set my expectations a little high.

“I can’t wait for my speech”, I thought - though in the event, all I got to do was walk across the stage, literally doff my hat at the university’s chancellor, and then shake hands with the vice-chancellor at the other side.

So it was a little anti-climatic, maybe. It was worth turning up though, as I got a degree out of it.

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More fan mail
July 16th, 2008 at 19:11

I think I must be on some sort of UKIP watch-list. I think as an unpopular, easily dislikeable, politically insignificant party, they must be going after the unpopular, easily dislikeable, politically insignificant pundits. In this case: myself.

As you probably know, considering the amount of times that I’ve mentioned it, I write a column in the Herald & Post newspaper - and last week, someone wrote in to the paper to complain about a column I wrote a few weeks back praising the European Union and the Lisbon Treaty… I think they might like me.

Well, at least it’s a bit politer than my previous piece of a fan-mail.

My first reaction is that it’s not exactly… dispelling any myths about the UKIP mindset. World War II is still ongoing, and we can’t trust the foreigns - especially the treacherous French. His authority on this matter seems to stem from the fact that he’s vaguely related to a lot of events that occured in the war. Bizarre.

My favourite bit though is the number of pull-out quotes talking about me. That’s right, even on issues as important as Europe, or, er, World War II, I’m still making myself more important:

“Mr O’Malley is an undemocratic ignoramus”

I’m also a “gaping cunt“.

“Still wet behind his ears”

“Perhaps [I] should try [being a WWII firefighter] or better still, but his brain in gear before he opens his mouth”

Because all of the best political commentators trained as World War II firefighters?

“Perhaps you should buy [me] a dictionary?”

I’m not sure what warranted this.

UKIP: Our calendars stop in 1943.

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Fashion, globalisation and why I’m bringing down civilisation!
July 16th, 2008 at 18:11

I’m afraid to report that I think that I might be a threat to the very survival of civilisation as we know it. I’m sorry – I’m trying my best not to, it’s not deliberate. I’m not trying to blow anything up, or start any wars or anything like that - I’m not going out of my way to bring an end to civilisation – in fact, I really quite like the way things are.

I think I’m a threat to civilisation though because I’m not doing my duty and participating in applying the glue that holds society together: fashion.

I’m not really into clothes shopping – though I guess this doesn’t sound terribly surprising as I’m a man – but I assure you that I’m really not into clothes shopping. I really struggle with the concept of replacing the things I own for no reason other than that they are no longer trendy (though an upgrade would be a different matter). Case in point, for the past five years I’ve really worn nothing other than black t-shirts with punk logos on – without paying much attention to what other people wear. This is presumably because my inner-teenager is totally individual and is totally sticking it to the man, man.

I should probably explain why this makes me a threat to civilisation. This isn’t some sort of ego-trip on my part (though I am brilliant), nor am I about to announce that I literally have earth-shattering superpowers (however much I wish I did), and can hold the world to ransom – I’m a threat because the whims of fashion and our constant consumption of new stuff – are what keeps the wheels of capitalism turning. And if those wheels are turning, economic activity spreads around the world to all of the factories, suppliers and everyone in between, and so on. And if we have strong economic ties to another country, it makes war and conflict with that country much more difficult – because obviously if you try to blow a bit of it up, you risk blowing up your own stuff too, costing you money. It is essentially the same principle that American writer Thomas Friedman uses to explain why no two countries that both have McDonalds restaurants ever gone to war - not because the people in the two countries are too fat and unhealthy to run about with guns, but because they risk hurting their own business interests.

So by me not spending all of my money on new clothes in the pursuit of satisfying the psychological disorder known as fashion, I’m indirectly responsible for making war between Britain and, say, China, more and more likely.

“But James, are you therefore advocating, by extension, the continuation of the systematic exploitation of millions of poor workers in the third world in the interest of stability?”, I’d very much hope you were asking.

“It, er, seems like I am”, I’d reply, as bewildered by my own logic as much as you are.

I think the conclusion this week is that I’m not only a threat to civilisation, but I’m also, apparently, an uncaring monster.

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Holy Cow! Women Bishops at last!
July 8th, 2008 at 15:56

The Anglican Church has finally joined the 20th century this week, and has allowed the ordination of female Bishops - this was one of many brave moves passed at the recent meeting in York of the General Synod - along with declaring that moving pictures on a screen are not actual caused by witchcraft, and that the “popular music” that “young people” listen to isn’t going to cause the very fabric of reality to fall apart.

That last part is a lie of course, though I do think its pretty remarkable that it’s taken this long for the church to decide that women are all right - especially as so many male church officials seem pretty keen on wearing dresses, so you’d think they’d be all for gender equality.

Depressingly though, there’s a large number of church leaders – about a third of them - who are opposed to this and have gone as far as forming a “no girls” club of likeminded churches - throughout my research into this, I’ve been unable to determine whether these churches are all led by eight year old boys.

The reason they’re so opposed to the idea of women bishops is apparently that because (and lets assume the Bible is 100% true, for the sake of argument) Jesus’s disciples were all men… so no girls are allowed. Which is a pretty rubbish criterion to hire people on - maybe Jesus’s all male crew was a coincidence, and they were all hired on merit? The job criteria may have been: must think Jesus is ace; be willing to commute to Nazareth; be a team player – and the most suitable happened to be men? Or maybe Jesus wanted a football team? (His team wouldn’t even have to walk alone on water.) Or maybe they were all men as a consequence of world history basically being one long patriarchy?

The trouble for the church is even though it appears to have finally reached adolescence; it still faces a number of battles with the relentless onslaught of modernity and the passage of time. It can’t be long until perhaps the biggest taboo has to be tackled: the ordination of bishops who have other faiths.

Though I’m not a woman, I still feel as though the church is discriminating against me - I bet if I sent them my CV, they wouldn’t let me achieve my dream of being Archbishop of Canterbury - just because I’m not religious. Just because I don’t believe the same stories as Anglicans, I’ll never get a free palace just across the river from Parliament or the right to a seat in the House of Lords.

It’s madness really – there are probably thousands of women who would be great at doing… whatever it is that Bishops do. Barring people of other religions is just cutting of potential talent. Look at the Pope, for instance – he probably knows his Bible better than anyone, and if anything is probably over-qualified for the job of Anglican bishop, yet he won’t get the job just because he’s Catholic.

This status quo is quite clearly madness.

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Tory leader (sort of) “ruins wedding”
July 6th, 2008 at 17:17

Though I’m a big advocate of replacing the convention of giving individuals names, and replacing them instead with unique alpha-numeric ID numbers, there is at least one benefit I can see in retaining the archaic database-unfriendly tradition: using out of context quotes to attack the Conservative Party.

There’s an incredible story in today’s Observer, about how David Cameron ruined a wedding. No, not that David Cameron, unfortunately:

“Church officials are investigating a couple’s complaint that a vicar threw their two-year-old son out of their wedding ceremony for being too noisy.

“The vicar, David Cameron, asked for the child to be removed when he kept repeating his father’s name. He also ejected a guest who complained, telling her not to ‘make a scene’. “

This obviously paints David Cameron as an unpopular person, who just upsets people, and hates families. Can we really expect David Cameron to act in the best interests of the children? Hmm!

And it gets even better - the little bastard of a son that caused the upset is also named Cameron. Meaning you can take the following quote out of context for massive damage:

“The bride’s uncle, Michael O’Driscoll, said: ‘Cameron wasn’t screaming and crying; he was making baby noises. I’ve never witnessed anything like it.’”

Cameron in “causing a scene and being generally unpleasant” shocker!.

I always knew David Cameron was a bad person.

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Results Day: The Movie!
July 3rd, 2008 at 00:48

I’ve had a rollercoaster of a couple of days, to say the least. I’m going to explain it in such a way that I’ll drip-feed you the information selectively, to heighten the dramatic tension and make it a better story. Though to be fair if you’ve been keeping up with the annoying Twitter feed to the left, you probably know the story already.

To give you some backstory, a few weeks ago I received a conditional offer from a Top University (I’m not going to name it because this is the internet, and the internet is full of nutters), for a Masters course - to get on the course, I needed to get not only at least a 2:1, but at least 67% to get on the course. A tough thing to do.

It didn’t help that I received the conditional offer a couple of days after my last exam, and with about six weeks to go until results day - so basically my fate was already sealed, and there was no way I could work harder to get it. I felt like Vernon Kay, in that even if I were to cure cancer or stop global warming, there was nothing I could to stop people thinking I’m a gurning twat with an irritating face.

Leading up to results day, it had been a close approximation of a hell where the eternal torture is unbearably tedious - I wasn’t working or doing anything productive, meaning I had little else to do than wait for the results and work my way through five King of the Hill box sets (this latter act in itself unfortunately culminated in me pissing off a genuine American by asking her if she stands in the alley drinking and saying “yerp” and “that boy ain’t right”). What made this more unfortunate was that because I’d finished uni, the stock-joke was that when asked when I was free to do whatever, I was able to reply that I’m free for the rest of my life.

What I needed was direction and purpose.

So yesterday was results day - my university puts all of the results online at the same time (resulting in the obligatory annual self-induced denial of service attack). Barely being able to sleep the night before, I logged on, whilst praying. I’m not a religious man, but so desperate was I to do well that I’d taken Pascal’s wager in order to cancel out the fact that I’d walked under a ladder and a black cat had crossed my path the night before whilst I was walking through a graveyard (true story).

I saw my grade. I’d got a 2:1 - excellent - but, and it was a big but… I’d only got 66%. That’s right, 1% less than what I needed. Its times like that you wish you’d not forgotten to hand in that bibliography, or, y’know, worked 1% harder.

The results went live online at 9:30am. At 9:31am I was on the phone to the admissions administrator for the Masters course. Balls, it was the answerphone. So I typed up a polite begging e-mail, and then rang up again for good measure. “I just got your messages”, said the woman on the other end of the phone, who sounded a bit annoyed that I was bombarding her with communications. She told me that she’d send my application for “review”, and would hear back “in the next couple of days”. There was still hope, but I was feeling pessimistic.

I was like, totally melancholly - I was pleased on one hand that I’m not technically a graduate (and can presumably sign letters “James O’Malley, BA (Hons)”), but then frustrated that my future membership of the liberal academic elite was shakier than Christopher Hitchen’s membership of the same club.

What amplified this was something horrible. Due to a quirk in timing, I’d been invited to an open day at the Masters university, for post-grad applicants, that took place today. As they were still reviewing my applicationtion, I had no idea whether I deserved to be there or not - I didn’t know whether to go just in case they let me in, or not go because technically I failed to meet the criteria they were looking for.

My mum is something of a pushy mum - though not the sort who lives out her dreams through her kids. Her male kids anyway. Which I guess is why I was never forced to join a choir or whatever it is my mum dreamed of doing. But anyway, she insisted that I go today on the basis that if they’re reviewing me, I need to create a good impression, and turning up is a pretty good indication that I’m enthusiastic.

I didn’t want to do this though - what if I didn’t get in, but had already had a look around at how wonderful and brilliant it is? It’d be like waving a delicious fish in front of a cat, and then taking the fish away, and then kicking the cat in the face.

So I woke up this morning with a sense of dread - a feeling that I was about to do something unpleasant. And not the sort of unpleasant thing you can get over, like standing on a dog poo, but something psychologically unpleasant, that would torture me for years to come as I lament my failure to enter into the upper-echelons of academia.

Just before leaving for the open day that I didn’t know whether I deserved to be at, I gave them a quick ring just to check what was happening with the review - if they’d already rejected me then it wasn’t worth me going at all. The woman on the other end of the phone sounded annoyed - probably because I’d rang up again - “I’ve just e-mailed you… you’re in”, she snapped.

I literally punched the air. Multiple times. I can’t really put into words how delighted I was, but basically, I was pretty fucking happy about it. And then the delightful pay-off was that I got to look around my new university only a couple of hours later.

And fucking hell, it’s a bit posh compared to my old uni. Walking through the entrance, the first thing I saw were three blue plaques on one wall - I think that’s more blue plaques than there are in this entire county.

The uni buildings, fitting in with the rest of central London, were of the old-timey variety, with all of the imperial opulence of Whitehall, making for an interesting contrast with my old uni’s flat-pack modernity. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking my old uni on its content (it was decent), but architecturally, my new uni wins hands down.

I mean, just look at the library:

Christ on a bike. Bit much, isn’t it? Not even The British Library looks that important.

The best bit was quite possibly the Student Union bar. Not only did it have a pool table and an itBox, and not only was it not a nightclub, but the view was phenomenal. In that it is positioned on the bend in the river so you can look in one direction and see Tower Bridge, and look in the other and see Parliament and the London Eye and all that. I’m wondering what would be more appropriate in there: drinking or presenting local news?

The only slightly dodgy bit was that, inexplicably, on the tour of the campus, just like every other tour in London, there was an irritating American asking tonnes of stupid questions. But this was only a minor annoyance.

I think I’m going to like it here.

(Oh, and on the way home, I stumbled upon a man giving a lecture at the station about the High Speed 1 railway line… things like this are why I love London. It was almost as good as bumping into some ska.)

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