Category: Personal

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The Equalizer [sic]

I have just got in from watching The Equaliser. There are probably going to be spoilers in here so if you think you might watch it and yet don’t want to know any more than the trailer tells you then feel free to pop back another time.

Overall I rated this film a 6. As with all my ratings you need to refer to this previous communication.

I enjoyed this film. It’s hard not to like a film that opens with warnings of graphic violence on the ratings certificate. I often remember a friend saying

It’s good to see a proper 18 film now and then

this may have been in reference to Ong Bak.

The Equaliser:
A good action movie. The opening was pretty good and set the mood. I liked the slow pace of it. The problem was that the initial killing sequence was over the top and from there the only place to go was to make it more “involved” and more elaborate deaths.

I kept trying to remember the TV series I watched with my dad. I’ve a feeling there were adverts so it may have been on ITV (shock, horror). Edward Woodward played a man with a mysterious past who helped people in trouble. He would do so in a menacing way and with lots of guns, did he have a secret wardrobe full of weapons? I’m pretty sure that he was rather low-key and sinister in that English way.

In this film version there wasn’t any real subtlety. The first killing was five men brutally executed after a slight altercation about nearly $10,000. Oh, and it turns out these people were key players in the Russian mob. After that the Equaliser can only go on and root out all evil that plagues modern Boston and Russia.

There wasn’t a need to make this a nasty, violent film. It would have been better if the first story in this inevitable franchise was a low key story of a man helping those in his neighbourhood. It could have been a slow-burner of a film and then about three into the series we could have had the decimation of all the mobs running the East Coast.

This film, while enjoyable, missed the point of the Equaliser and I think they also missed a trick. It could have been better.

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Newts

Went for a run earlier today. Coming up Rotary Hill I noticed some plastic fencing. It turns out that this is to catch newts and then relocate them away from an area where there is going to be a new water main. Here’s a picture in case you see some around your area, you’ll at least know what they are.

IMG_7523.JPG

Here’s a map showing where the fencing is and also the path that is Rotary Hill.

Newts Map

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Privileged

I live in one of the three villages of the Medway Gap. I have only just heard of the term Medway Gap, I was preparing the previous communication and looked up Eccles on Wikipedia and there was a link to something called the Medway Gap. I think I prefer the Three Villages moniker but Medway Gap is a pretty good name too.

The Medway Gap is a part of the Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty in Kent. My village doesn’t quite make the cut into the AONB but I do get to look up at the Downs every day and often run through the lovely countryside.

Here’s the Kent AONB:

Here’s a link to the website of that organisation.

The Medway Gap is a little part of this map just outside the AONB but nestled between the conurbations of Maidstone and Rochester. To live here it feels as though you are deep in the countryside of Kent but in reality there are two motorways within 3 miles, a mainline railway to London, a major river and the Channel Tunnel Highspeed Railway passes under the Downs within this area.

Here’s a map of the Medway Gap.


View Medway Mosaics in a larger map

Here’s my rubbish attempt to show the route of the high speed rail link:

High Speed Rail Link - Tunnel Highlighted
High Speed Rail Link – Tunnel Highlighted

The title of this communication is privileged. I feel privileged to live here and see this lovely landscape every day.

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View

I had a run recently, I try to run about three time a week. The running is for two main reasons; keeping fit, eating more. Anyway, I’ve bought an OS map and have investigated other routes I could do in the area of the Medway Gap.

A Run

The views in this area are just stunning. Here’s a picture I took while descending the North Downs.

IMG_7521.JPG
North Downs

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Progressive Tax

I consider myself a liberal. I have some views, which I obviously thing are the morally correct, which would place me firmly as a conservative. I also hold some views that are positively communist. Overall though, I think I sit as a liberal for most things. Except maybe this.

As I think about it more and more I find it harder and harder to justify the higher income tax rate.

I think it is right that we pay a certain amount of tax. I also am happy to pay that tax. It goes (mostly) towards services that I consider for the good of society. It also seems obvious to me that to tax the lowest of earners would be wrong. We already know that a higher proportion of their money is spent on the basics. If we want a society with cheap goods and services we have to accept that we should support those lower earners.

Currently the government has a “basic” tax rate of 20% of income and also a higher tax rate of 40% for people earning above a certain threshold.

It is the higher 40% rate I have issues with. For a fair society we would ask that those who earn more, give more. This already happens if we tax people as a percentage of income. I don’t see that there is a need to tax the higher earners more. This seems very unfair to me. In fact I would think that this tax rate encourages people to investigate ways of lowering their tax bill. There are some people who have their own personal service companies and they receive a dividend from this which is quite plainly “income” but is taxed at a lower rate that the 40% they would pay if they took the money as they should.

If we had a standard tax rate the same for all people and a higher threshold for paying tax to help the poorer of society, then this would give all a sense of fairness and probably encourage greater payment of income tax.

Governments like to either raise or lower the higher tax rate. This looks either good or bad depending which side of the threshold you sit. In reality it doesn’t do a lot. The exchequer gets little extra or loses little because of these rate changes. It is a rhetoric gambit. A way of looking as though they are looking after the little man but with very little real impact. In reality the government has very little control over the economy but we don’t tell people that. We like to think that “someone” is in control and that things happen for a reason. The world economy is far too complex to be manipulated easily.

Make it fair for all. A single tax rate and relief for the lower earners.

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A Slight Explanation

Earlier today or if I publish this after many revisions it’ll be early on 21 Sept 2014 I tweeted the following:

I thought I ought to give some clarification about why I said this. I think I feel slightly guilty and that the tweet may have come across as not considered and plain offensive. It probably is still offensive, if you are easily offended, but it was considered. I spent the weekend in Coventry. I saw the Ricoh stadium, a massive Tesco store and the Transport Museum [home to Thrust 2 and Thrust SSC].

I was invited to the christening of a friend’s children. These friends are people I see about once a year. I have known them for ages [since College] and I always look forward to their company and listen to what they have to say. This communication is definitely not about questioning my loyalty to them. I remember at their wedding the vicar asked the whole congregation to promise that they would be there for the couple in a time of need. I promised and would keep that promise, even now, ten years after the wedding. I didn’t really have to make that promise though. These people are the sort of people I would help out and look out for without the need to make a promise in front of the zombie cult alter.

The christening took place in a village church to the south west of Coventry. I turned up and there was singing in the church, five people playing guitar, piano, bongos and bass while singing. It set a reasonable tone. There were two projector screens on the walls giving words and information. The vicar seemed good fun and wore a Madonna style microphone so we could hear him. In terms of a service this was probably as modern as the Anglican Church gets. It was happy and friendly. People were singing out loud and dancing and raising their hands when they sang to god and putting effort into it all. I could imagine the more “cold and dreary” traditionalist hating this all. The church was a lovely very old building and was decorated well.

Here’s my point. I saw the best the modern church can offer. It left me cold. I was not moved at all. Not a tiny bit. In reality I felt slightly sorry for them. Their whole beliefs are built on lies. The historical evidence for Jesus is pretty slim, as for him being the son of god, well, let’s just say they jumped the shark with that one.

And so Jesus said . . .

Was how one of the readings began. Well, that’s all well and good and the lessons are probably perfectly good moral lessons, but why don’t you use Star Trek or Dr Who? They are all three as made up as each other. Saying that Jesus said it doesn’t make it true. And, so to my conclusion of that hour spent in a lovely church:

I just don’t get it. I don’t see how they can believe. I don’t understand why they think these things happened. I just don’t get it.

This was the best a church can offer and it was still shit.

Here’s two proper human achievements. Something we can all celebrate and take lessons from:

Thrust 2
Thrust 2

and

Thrust SSC
Thrust SSC

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Summer Time

In a room with a screen our main character speaks, a typewriter annoyingly clackers in the background not in time with his words.

IAN PARISH: I dislike the summer. I can cope with the standard two weeks of quite hot that we get. I can cope with the mugginess. I can cope with the grey overcast but sweaty days. I can cope with (mostly) men driving with one arm hanging out of the car window (normally t>22C for this). What really bothers me about summer is British Summer Time.

IAN PARISH (adopting a superior tone): I was raised to understand that when the sun is highest in the sky it is midday. Midday is also the time 12pm or 12:00 for most people.

NARRATOR: It was at this time that Ian Parish remembered moaning about midday some point in the near distant past. He opened another window on his browser and searched Fooyah.net for “midday”.

(On a screen the page entitled British Summer Time appears.)

NARRATOR: Ian Parish realises that he has written about this before. He wonders what he can add. Then he remembers. He remembers the best part of the Wikipedia page on British Summer Time.

IAN PARISH (slightly embarrassed): I can’t keep writing about the same things. My audience will think I’m crazy. Mind you, this BST-GMT thing really does annoy me. I’ll justify the communication with some NEW information.

IAN PARISH (striding around the room with purpose): There appears to be a bill to be put before the UK Parliament proposing an investigation into changing the clocks. The Bill looks to be about looking into the possible evidence for changing the clocks, then trialling clock changes to see what the benefits may be and then implementing whole-scale change.

IAN PARISH (working into a stupor): This is an excellent incident of scientific parliament and laws. The idea of trialling a particular policy to see what the REAL changes are and then following what the evidence says is almost the exact opposite of dogma driven government that we see at the moment. Thank goodness a very small minority of parliament understand how to get the best results. It’s a shame the bill will probably never pass.

AUDIENCE (following the words appearing on the screen): While we understand your point we don’t care enough. These things don’t bother us.

Fin

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Chin Strap

Chin StrapThis really is a headline on the BBC News website. There’s a picture below this of a piece of chewing gum.

Apparently two engineers have taken a pre-existing material and attached it to a chin strap. It then produced some electricity when the user used their jaw and it could feasibly be used to charge a device.

I don’t even know where to start being annoyed at this. While I am nearly impressed with their idea it seems ludicrous to me that you would wear something on your FACE that then required you to use your jaw constantly. SURELY there are other parts of a body that move further and more often. This would only work if you have to wear a chin strap for safety reasons anyway [definitely not Sikhs].

Most of my anger remains directed at the BBC. They are the premier news reporting service in the UK and yet they constantly produce shit like this. Is it really someone’s job to read science journals and then EXTRAPOLATE wildly to make some form of headline that will attract readers. I hate it. It’s lazy and not what a NEWS service is for.

Let’s see what the final line of the article is:

“This is just a proof of concept,” Dr Voix emphasised. “The power is very limited at the moment.”

If you have to include this in your story then it is NOT a story. Report on real science responsibly.

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A Most Wanted Man

I really enjoyed this film. It showed the gritty realism of being a spy and trying to make the world a better place. Of course the gritty realism just means that there weren’t lots of car chases and vodka martinis. I’ve gone off Bond a lot since Casino Royale but this showed a certain story telling class as you would expect with a film with involvement from John Le Carre.
I think this was PSH’s last film. To be slightly honest I’m not surprised as he drank and smoked his way through the entire film. I liked the way that the film never left Hamburg. It was pretty much entirely from the point of view of the PSH character. This was an intelligent film, well worth a viewing.

My IMDB tweet will appear here when I can get the embed code.

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Continuum

I intend for this to be a short communication. It is something that I often think when faced with many headlines proclaiming things to be wrong or right trying to give a sense of black and white.

A good simple lesson to remember for pretty much any issue you could face is:

It’s probably a continuum

Murder is wrong. Yes, most often, but there are grey areas, it could be argued that it is justified sometimes and the law takes account of that.
Stealing is wrong. Yes, but there are grey areas, the law takes account of that too.

As humans within a social structure we like to have rules and laws and we think we need them to maintain a cohesive structure. However, we do not apply these rules blindly. We use our sense of right and wrong (not given to us by god) and we decide on a case by case basis. It’s what our court system or individual judgement is for.

As an example:
I will set a detention if someone does not complete their homework to a good standard and on time. I would, however, be considered a bastard if that student had just lost a close family member and still punished him. I use my judgement to decide whether the punishment is morally correct to be applied.

Another example:
I might want to wear a political badge at work. Maybe it says “Save the NHS”. I don’t think that should be too much of a problem. Now suppose I was backing a slightly harsher political view “Stop All Immigration”. Should I be allowed to wear that? You can see there is a line or at least a point where the message says too much. That line might move from time to time. It’s hard to quantise where the line stands, it comes to judgement and it may be the case that one type of message is allowed and another similar isn’t.

The application of the rules is carefully considered and applied with a sense of fairness. We can not have fairness if we apply the rules rigidly.

Sometimes the rules are applied differently from time to time and each case is judged on its own merits. We like to “draw a line” we like to have hard and fast arrangements so we know where we stand but life isn’t like that and we should all appreciate that there is no “line” and even if we could say there was it would be wobbly and move around.

I think most about this argument when I hear of racism or discrimination. Let’s say there are counties where a black person isn’t allowed to sit at the front of the bus. How black do you have to be? How white do you have to be? The colour of us is a CONTINUUM. If I am white but have a black grandfather does that mean I can’t sit near the door of the bus. What an utterly ridiculous and pathetic way to classify people.

How about a place where homosexual people aren’t allowed. How homosexual do you need to be? How can they tell? Sexuality is a scale from strongly heterosexual to bisexual to strongly homosexual [it’s a CONTINUUM]. If you have had sex with someone of the same sex once does that make you gay? How many times would make you gay? This is another ridiculous way to classify people.

Nationality is another of these. If I am Scottish and live in Scotland I can vote in the upcoming referendum. How far into Scotland do I have to be born? If I was born in Longtown I would be English. If I was born in Gretna I would be Scottish. Where is the line. If my mother was giving birth and she straddled the border where would I be born. The matter of a couple of miles or even inches determines my entire identity? What a load of rubbish. Just ask the people of Alsace.

When this sort of argument is used it is called a FALSE DICHOTOMY. In mathematics answers are generally correct or not [although there ARE grey areas in mathematics]. On the whole your answer to a mathematical problem will be a dichotomy – correct or not. Whether you are blue eyed or you are not is a FALSE DICHOTOMY. How blue do your eyes need to be? What if one is not blue but the other is? What if you have specks of green in your eyes? It’s a ridiculous concept.

We seem to spend so much of our energies defining things using black and white statements and yet most of the time we ignore the grey areas. Every time we do humanity struggles.

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