The Sun Lies: Self-awareness

I've a quick post over on the Sun Lies. It's mainly a complaint about their commenting system, but is also concerned with their views on mepehdrone. Tweet

The Pirate Party candidates

Pirate Party have announced who'll be our candidates for the election:

Andrew Robinson - Worcester
Andrew Robinson (41) is the leader of the Pirate Party UK, and a professional graphic designer. Andrew has long been involved in the pirate movement, and has lead the party since its formation in July 2009. Andrew believes that "politicians need to learn that blindly doing everything they are told by 'rights holders' has consequences at the ballot box. Voting pirate is the best way to remind them that we hold some rights too."

Finlay Archibald - Glasgow Central
A maths student at Strathclyde University, Finlay Archibald (19) has been heavily involved in running the vibrant Scottish branch of the Pirate Party UK. Since joining the party, Finlay has founded the first Pirate student society in the UK. Finlay wants to engage with the people of Glasgow to give them an MP that they can be proud of, something which Labour has proven they cannot provide.

Tim Dobson - Manchester Gorton
Tim Dobson (19) is a systems engineer who helped set up Digital Freedom in Education and Youth, an organisation dedicated to supporting digital rights in education. As a founding member of the Manchester Free Software group, Tim is also heavily involved in the free and open source software movement.

Shaun Dyer - Leicester West
Working as an IT systems auditor, Shaun Dyer (26) has lived in Leicester for almost a decade. As an experienced computer security professional, he is ideally situated to bring to parliament a real understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by Digital Britain.

David Geraghty - Derby North
David Geraghty (19) is a student and avid music fan. He believes in supporting artists without penalising fans, something that the record labels have demonstrated an unwillingness to do. David believes that the music industry does not currently give adequate support to upcoming artists, and wants to prevent the abuse of fans by this industry.

Graeme Lambert - Bury North
A keen local campaigner and sportsman, Graeme Lambert (18) hopes to run a campaign based on transparency after charges were brought against Bury North's current MP regarding his expenses claims. Announcing his candidacy, Graeme said, "The people of Bury North deserve an honest MP that will represent them properly after the disgraceful actions of David Chaytor, and that person is me."

Luke Leighton - South West Surrey
Luke Leighton (40) is a free software developer with extensive experience in project management and software engineering. He understands the importance of the increasing impact that the Internet and software are making on our way of life, and is acutely aware of the problems inherent in handing control over to multi-national corporations, through the innocuous right to enforce "intellectual property".

Jack Nunn - constituency to be announced (London Region)
Jack Nunn is a semi-professional musician who has previously worked with the Pirate Parties internationally and believes that the Pirate movement "is fundamentally a civil rights movement, working to protect the human rights and basic freedoms of individuals". To this end he has recently contacted the Joint Committee on Human Rights about the impact of the Digital Economy Bill.

Mark Sims - East Ham
As an ICT teacher, Mark Sims (37) has a strong appreciation of the implications of copyright, patents, privacy and freedom of speech in the digital world. Mark feels that this understanding has been poorly demonstrated by Stephen Timms, Minister for Digital Britain, one of his opponents in East Ham.

Alexander van Terheyden - Bethnal Green and Bow
A financial expert with a long history of political campaigning, Alexander van Terheyden (29) has a strong understanding of both the social and economic impacts of copyright and patent law. Mr van Terheyden wishes to reign-in the "big brother state" and defend civil liberties and freedom of speech.

As you may be aware, I live in Bethnal Green & Bow and so will be voting for Alexander van Terheyden. Tweet

Another movie review: Kick-Ass

Dave Lizewski is a typical high-school geek character. He wears glasses, reads comics and spends his time at school doodling and staring, glassy-eyed, down his breasty teacher's top. Frustrated with being repeatedly mugged, he buys a green one-piece suit and sets out to protect the innocent and find missing pets. He's almost immediately smashed up but, after recuperating, find his damaged nerves allow him to take an ass-kicking with little pain, so sets off to do it all over again - quickly becoming an internet sensation despite being beaten to a pulp again. After biting off more than he can chew while attempting to impress a pretty classmate, he meets Hit Girl, a foul-mouthed and ultraviolent but lovable 11-year-old, and her father, Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage). These two have a long-standing vendetta against a local mobster, whose attention they soon catch when they destroy his lair. Then the trio's evil counterpart - a GTR-driving, cape-wearing, iPhone-toting kid - lures them into the mobster's trap. Much violence ensues.

Kick-Ass has been hailed as an instant classic, and it's not difficult to agree. It has the potential to join the likes of South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut and Back to the Future as a film to stick on once or twice a year on a lazy weekend afternoon. It's funny, shocking (in a gasp-inducing, not disturbing way), and consistently entertaining. It's visually stunning, particularly when providing the backstory in still cartoons, the point-of-view sweeping around beautifully inside some of the frames. The soundtrack, too, is punchy, upbeat, and at times joyous: a scene in which Sparks' 'This town ain't big enough for the both of us' plays out stands out in particular. I find it difficult to imagine how anyone could dislike Kick-Ass.

And yet this proves only my lack of imagination. Josh Tyler on Cinemablend, for example, is disturbed by the violence both wreaked and received by Hit Girl - particularly the latter - saying that Kick-Ass

presents it as light entertainment and then seems to sneer at anyone who might think otherwise. Kick-Ass revels in it. Kick-Ass fucking enjoys it. Kick-Ass seems to want you to enjoy it and call me old fashioned, but I find that kind of depraved and sick.

I can see his point, but I don't agree. For one thing, we identify with Hit Girl, not the character carrying out the beating. The effect of that scene is to remove any sympathy the audience might have had for the mobster, not to glamourise child abuse. Indeed, this is the point the BBFC make in their explanation for granting Kick-Ass a 15 certificate:

...those doing the beatings have been clearly established as evil characters and the audience is encouraged to feel sympathy for the victims rather than revel in the violence being inflicted. At the same time, the audience knows that the highly skilled good guys are likely to regain the upper hand very swiftly.

Kick-Ass features both more-or-less realistic violence - the sort that is quick, brutal and instantly renders the victim incapable of anything more than collapsing or dying - and comic-book sequences in which our heroes run up walls, take out numerous individuals at once whilst dodging a hail of bullets, and utilise frankly unlikely technology. Some might see that as an incongruous mix, but I thought it worked perfectly in the film. It's not as though the audience is unable to suspend disbelief just because it has an initially realist tone. Likewise, the critics who frown upon the film for being lightweight are missing the point. Kick-Ass is a lightweight and exhilarating comic extravaganza. Tweet

Guest post: Shutter Island movie review

Note: D-Notice asked if I wanted to post my film reviews on his blog, and I am happy to oblige. This post also appears on my new blog, which is so far dedicated solely to film reviews.

It's difficult to describe Shutter Island's story without giving too much away, and the less one knows about it before watching the better. The movie begins with Teddy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and his sidekick Chuck meeting for the first time on a boat en route to the eponymous island some time in the 1950s. They're U.S. marshals, a fact which every review I've read states as though everyone knows what that means. Even after watching Shutter Island, I wasn't entirely clear, so I looked it up. They carry out enforcement on behalf of the courts, apparently, although that doesn't make it much clearer. Anyway, these marshals are visiting the island to investigate the disappearance on one of its inhabitants, a woman who drowned her children and has thus been locked up in the island's asylum, which houses dangerous criminals with refractory mental illness. The woman appears to have evaporated through the walls, as the psychiatrist (and head of the asylum) played by Ben Kingsley puts it. Teddy and Chuck soon find themselves trapped on the island as a wild storm develops, their investigation frustrated at every turn by the island's reticent inhabitants. They uncover inconsistent morsels of information, and it's clear that something strange is happening. The truth, it transpires, is not what Teddy was expecting...

The spooky noir setting and various vivid Lynchian dream/hallucinatory sequences, along with solid acting and faultless direction by Scorcese, add up to a superb-looking and feeling film. But Shutter Island is much more than the sum of its superficial parts. It has an exciting and engaging story, but the really thrilling aspect is its exploration of profound themes - madness, violence, guilt, grief, reality, memory - which comes to a head in a three or four stunning dialogue-driven sequences between Teddy and various other characters. For Teddy is investigating what it means to be human as much as he's investigating the disappearance of the madwoman - and what he finds is fascinating.

Shutter Island is the best film I've seen this year, and certainly the only one I'd be tempted to go and see a second time. I think it's been underrated by many reviewers, and I don't quite understand why. I thought it was a masterpiece. Tweet

The Pirate Party Manifesto

Earlier today the Pirate Party UK formally launched its manifesto (also in PDF form).

As you can see there is a lot of overlap with them and my own policies and as I have stated in the past I have joined them as a member and I am proud to do so.

This is probably a good time to announce the formal end - if there was a start - to vote D-Notice.

I intend to work with PPUK in the up-coming election throughout London, but will not be standing as a candidate, nor, as was my original intention, to stand as an independent MP. Just to clarify, it's not a case of not raising the funds - the thermometer on the left hand side shows that - nor is it a case of a lack of interest, it's a case of practicalities: I'm away from London for 2 weeks in the middle of April because my sister is getting married in Cyprus. I will be over there for one week then up in/around Manchester for the following week. In the circumstances I will not be in a position to do any significant amount of campaigning, but will help out where possible. Tweet

The D-Notice Theme Tune

Yesterday, Chicken Yoghurt had a post in which he gave what he considered to be the theme tune to his blog.

I thought I'd do the same, so I asked people on Twitter and Facebook.

The best suggestion I have had so far - and because it is unlikely to be beaten has been declared the winner - is Fun Boy Three's "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)":



However, in spite of chosing a winner, I am still open to suggestions. Tweet

The Sun Lies: Recognizr

Just put up a new post over on the Sun Lies.

This is quite a long one about a new piece of mobile phone technology. Tweet

Why we should #Save6Music

I am sure that there will be a lot of posts about why BBC 6 Music shouldn't be shut down, giving substantial reasons, including the fact that the recent BBC Trust report praised it as the sort of thing the BBC is for, namely filling in a gap which, for whatever reason, is not and probably will not be filled by commercial stations.*

Instead I'm going to do one giving my own personal reasons as to why 6 Music should be kept running, drawing from my own experience of listening to the station.**

BBC 6 Music started in 2002, while I was still at university, however, I did not start listening to it until Christmas 2003, when I obtained my first digital radio.

It is safe to say that 6 Music kept me going through the next 18 months at law college; I had stopped listening to Radio 1 a good while before and due to a combination of having a lot of access to the internet and cable TV had moved to XFM. I had occasionally switched to 6 Music, mainly during XFM's ad breaks and when Steve Lamacq was on, but had not spent any significant amount of time with it.

I cannot remember why exactly I started to listen to 6 Music, even though I could pick up XFM on my digital radio, I can only think that it was due to XFM's daytime shows. Anyway, I kept listening to 6 Music during the daytime and, due to the quality of their selections of new records – including playing !!! during the daytime! - kept on listening. I then started to listen to 6 Music during the weekend, particularly Stuart Macone's Freak Zone.***

I can safely say that I was hooked by 6 Music and from then on only listened to XFM in the evenings and rarely, if ever, to other stations. They play a hell of a lot of decent acts, which would have little, if any exposure elsewhere, due to the appalling state of Radio 1 and commercial radio.

After finishing law college I moved back to my dad's house and worked in Manchester. In order to make the 1 hour + commute bearable I bought a personal digital radio. Thanks to people like Steve Lamacq the – now sadly-departed – Test-Icicles were brought to my attention and I bought their album as soon as I could. I was also exposed to Bloc Party, MIA, Editors, the Futureheads and Maximo Park, amongst others.

Without 6 Music, I clearly would not have bought anywhere near the number of CDs which I have done over the past 6 years. Of course this would also mean that the coveted D-Notice Album of the Year award would probably not have been created, or if it had, would have been based upon a lot smaller selection of albums.

In my view, this is why the licence fee is justified – it gives the BBC the opportunity to do what would not be done elsewhere.

I do not say this often, but you must respond to the public consultation in the BBC's future (and by emailing srconsultation@bbc.co.uk, demanding that both 6 Music and the Asian Network**** are not only kept going, but are publicised a lot more so more people will be able to experience their quality. It has already been reported that the BBC's Trust would take into account public outcry against their planned closure, so the more people condemn the plans the better.

It is up to you: we either do what we can to keep them open, or the BBC gets rid of what makes it special.

* No, XFM doesn't count. It isn't a national station – it has a few local licences throughout the UK and otherwise is a simulcast of the London version – and, in my own view, isn't very good during the daytime. However, I am more than happy to defend programmes such as Jon Kennedy's X-Posure and Eddy Temple-Morris's The Remix.
** This post should be read in conjunction with my tribute to Teletext's Planet Sound which was sadly shut down just before Christmas. I could probably live without one, however, to lose both and in such a short space of time, would be a disaster, not only for myself, but presumably for the music industry in the UK. After all, a lot of bands which have appeared over the past decade will have had their first break on 6 Music, because of its playing of new and, therefore, obscure bands long before anyone else does.
*** I haven't listened to it for a few years, but that's mainly due to not listening to much radio at all during the weekends over the past few years.
**** I've not mentioned them in this post because I've never listened to it. However, from what I've read elsewhere, similar reasons apply as to why it should also be kept going. Tweet

An Argument from Mad Mel

Earlier today, while I work I had the following thought, which I subsequently put on Twitter:

Serious question: You can have an argument from authority, but what is it if someone cites Melanie Phillips in support of their claim?

I'm not sure why this thought came into my head* as I've not recently seen or heard anyone say something along the lines of "I saw an article by Melanie Phillips and she's clearly correct".

I know that Unity at the Ministry of Truth has called Mel "the worst case of the Dunning-Kruger effect to be found anywhere in British journalism" and the RationalWiki article about her** gives numerous examples of the tripe she spouts.

I'd be more than happy to call it an Argument from Dunning-Kruger, but run into the problem that most people would not be aware of what this would mean.

As I also said on Twitter, given this, it clearly cannot be correct to say that an "Argument from Mel" is an Argument from Authority, because she clearly is not an authority on anything. This then leads to an apparent problem: if Mel is the opposite of an authority, logically does this mean that by quoting her, you are in fact making a perfectly valid argument?***

* To be fair, I'm not sure why most thoughts come into my head, but that's beside the point
** Which is mainly written by myself
*** Or is that itself a logical fallacy? Tweet