Conservatives in "broken Britain" claim. We're all going to be stabbed, shot and horribly maimed!

Or not really.

So, the Guardian have compiled a 50 greatest TV dramas ever.

Firstly, it struck me how modern a lot of it was. Normally, see someone make the "50 greatest albums/movies of all time", they start getting a bit thin after 1980 and increasingly rare the nearer to the current day. There's nothing that isn't English language, although I'd take it that's not a damning indictment of foreign TV, just that the panel don't get to see much. I also note with some joy four SF dramas got into there - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, The Prisoner and The Twilight Zone.

I suppose the other - from my point of view - rather saddening thing is the relationship between British and American drama. The American drama is particularly new, but the British seem to have had they heyday in the 1980 and 1990s. This is no surprise in a way - British TV is in my mind struggling. The internet sucks revenues out TV, but worst is probably BSkyB.

My perception of Sky is they suck vast sums of media money out of the UK, and plonk it into the hands of American TV companies and sports. Offhand, I struggle to think of anything Sky actually makes anything meaningful worth, such as US channels, especially HBO, regularly do. There could be the argument (which I'm sure Sky would make) that the BBC kills everything else. ITV has clearly given up on much in the way of drama, but frankly ITV has generally produced inferior material, done little to rectify it, and their decreased advertising revenues can no longer support making much. Channel 4 seem to have maybe tried a bit harder, but they are clearly under real pressure too. It's dubious this is the "fault" of the BBC. In my view it's more that the BBC has been isolated from the damage which the current situation has inflicted on ITV and C4, which is a different matter. However, Sky has lavish funding due to its subscription fee that in fact means it has more money than the BBC. If they wanted to make serious, quality drama, they could, but I don't hear of them commissioning any.

This is why I find myself compelled to support the BBC. Ultimately, it seems all that's representing Britain at the moment. There is an argument that maybe kill its funding, someone will take up the slack, but I'm not sure of that at all. The worst scenario is simply that terrestrial television will simply be abandoned to the equivalent of public service media, little watched and entertainment free, and the big boys of satellite and cable will continue their current trend of just buying in whatever they fancy from the USA.

So, started new job. All about sleep and stuff.

Best stores system I've ever encountered in my new department. The online requisition was simple and intuitive, and the regular stock orders (and the useful stuff they have in regular stock) is so easy and convenient it made me weep for the previous ten years or so (ten years, holy crap!) I'd been wading through at best semi-competent systems. I had a few complications with Human Resources. That's sort of nice, in the sense that there's always some comfort in maintaining traditions such as HR staff quickly eroding your faith in their competence. I'll be finding out about the actual science stuff in more detail later, but I'm genuinely very enthusiastic and hopeful, it's looking great.

Bought new mobile phone. The battery of my old phone was a bit crocked, and the phone itself was having odd little blips, like switching off when I tried to answer a call, and stuff like that. So I popped in with no research whatsoever, bought one that looked quite good (and, if I'm quite honest, rather more than I was originally planning to spend and packed with features I will never use). When I decided to actually check it out on the net after I'd bought it, I was quite relieved to find I'd lucked out on what happened to be a highly regarded mid-range model.

Apparently, it can pinpoint your location to within 800mwith some sort of satellite or triangulation whatnot. Wow! But hang on... 800m? That's useful if someone knocks you unconscious and dumps you somewhere in a random field in the middle of nowhere with no roadsigns or people to ask you where the hell you are. If you're in the city centre and want to know where you in relation to the place you're going to, 800m is possibly a little on the large side in terms of error margin.

What I perhaps like most about it is that it plays music, or even crazy old-skool tech like radio. Thus I can happily dream of when some tedious brat gets on the bus and blares out tinny R&B or hip hop to the whole top deck, I can strike back with some stonking alternative rock. Of course, I never would, knowing I can make use of the headphones, thus blocking out shite and not annoying everyone else. Mostly, I just grabbed a couple of albums on the cheap in HMV - "Our Love To Admire" (or whatever Interpol's somewhat unspectacular last album was called) and "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum" (I'm sure that title would be better with one fewer word, and with the possible exception of "Ryder" you could remove any of them, and it would both make sense and sound better) by Kasabian, largely because they excel at a certain type of song which is just simply great fun, and "Fire" is the standout on that album. Not, perhaps, the best use of a few quid when I could just get "Fire" on download for a few dozen pence, but it's not like the rest of the album is devoid of quality. At any rate, I was actually looking for The XX, but they're sold out from the big HMV in Birmingham currently, so I grabbed them to chuck them on my phone to listen to on my commute.

Ah, my commute. That's a minute or two walk to the bus stop, wait for bus. 20-30 minute bus journey. 5 minute walk, wait for train. 20-30 minute train journey, walk to bus stop. Wait for bus, 20-30 minute bus journey. Then (depending on bus) 2-10 minute walk to workplace. Total travel time around 90 minutes on a good journey, 120 minutes on a bad one, 120+ if the trains are knackered (e.g. today).

Currently much enjoying "The Quiet War" by Paul McAuley. Have also recently read "Cosmopath" by Eric Brown, "Beyond The Wall Of Time" by Russell Kirkpatrick, "The Gabble and Other Stories" by Neal Asher, all of which were at minimum entertaining, if not actually fairly good.

Remember me, when I used to add edits in LJ?

Ah, the old days.

I've been sucked back onto internet forums more the last few months, where you can have an argument that doesn't peter out after 5 replies because only two or three people are saying anything. On the average forum, you've got like 30 people saying something. Granted, 80% of them are ignorant, stupid, childish, hold grossly objectionable ideologies or any combination of those problems, but at least that's still 5-6 people you can have a meaningful chat with. I am of course thoroughly polite in debates these days, albeit occasionally rather sarcastic and not above the odd put down for the exceptionally deserving.

* * *

Just until I find the time to write something more meaningful, I shall award my wooden spoon award for books of last year.

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And so it is I think less than fondly of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". It's not often I fail to finish a book - and believe me I will often plough through some terrible stories - and so it takes something special for me to give up.

The basic premise is a good idea - that premise obvious from the title. Had the author, Seth Grahame-Smith, had a little more discipline and dedication, it could have been good fun. Unfortunately, it's a poorly worked-out mix of the crassest B-movie quality and the eminent P&P, and it doesn't quite get to the level of a "so bad it's good" B-movie. It starts okay with zombies and English noblity, albeit from the pen of a deeply mediocre author, and tires rapidly. Then it starts going on about ninjas and martial arts, and suddenly it's hopelessly, awfully broken. Simply subverting Jane Austen with zombies would be funny. Slapping a veneer of 19th-century British manners on lowest common denominator low-budget schlock-movie crap is just polishing a turd. You could get away with it in a few skits on a comedy show, or some form of brief episodic literature. For a whole book, no. The joke's done by page 20, and there's nothing else left to rescue the remainder as worthwhile.

Just if you weren't under any illusions as to how bad the book might be, it's illustrated throughout. I don't believe there is such a thing as a good illustrated science fiction or fantasy novel, unless it's for under-7s or you go all the way to a full-on graphic novel. And just in case that wasn't enough, they're bad illustrations.

The Christmas party is over. I've spent nearly three years with the Stanford & associates lab, and now I'm moving.

It's all very sad. I'm going on to a great project to do great work, but it's fantastic where I was. I made some really good friends, and although I'll still be in contact with them, not having moved city or anything, it's the end of an era and all that, and a jolly good era, so I think I deserve some melancholy along with the excitement of a new beginning.

Oops. Well, I've been largely off LJ again, so here's my brief entry for now to keep things ticking over. I know this one of the most adapted film clips ever, but it relates to my work well:

Scientific Peer Review, ca. 1945

Several trivial things annoy me about America and money. Firstly, dollar bills. I don't enjoy walking round with a huge wad of paper that has negligible value, not least because when you want to pay, sifting through a load of them and separating them from notes actually worth a damn for a simple transaction is a real pain. The sooner Americans appreciate dollar coins, the better. And probably a $5 coin as well. Secondly, all the notes are pretty much the same size and colour. This exacerbates the effort sorting through and actually getting hold of the right value stuff. I want to pay with efficiency, not stand there working through a vast pile of notes whilst everyone behind in the queue quietly fumes. This also brings into focus the coins: they seem little more than toytown money. God knows, it was one hell of a struggle to actually use half of them, not least because having sifted through the notes you don't really want to waste yet more time sifting through a load of coins too. And what was the plan with the 10c being a smaller coin than the 5c? I suppose the best thing from a charitable point of view I found with the coins is that the best thing to do with them was to offload them to homeless people in the street.

Next, sales tax. Okay, sales tax is not a problem itself, but slapping it on AFTER the listed value is just annoying. It's certainly weird to think you're going to pay a nice, neat, round figure of $6.00 and then find it's actually $6.72, and you've just earned yourself another load of those irritating little coins. Also irritating because at just upwards of 10% (as it was where I was) what appears like a decent deal compared to the UK turns into no bargain at all.

So, I went to Chicago on the 15th, and found you can get the Onion free from those funny little newspaper box things they have on the streets of America. Admittedly, you can access The Onion online for free, it's just that I normally don't. But I did come across this beautiful article in the paper copy.

Otherwise, in Chicago I generally drank deep from the well of Neuroscientific knowledge, and also drank lots of beer.

Whilst I've been wandering around the internet, I've seen, absolutely chuffing everywhere, scantily-clad women advertising a game called "Evony". Personally, I think just about any game trying to advertise itself via gratuitous softcore pornography is worth avoiding. But finally, I thought "What the hell is Evony?"

So, interesting story. Apparently, there's a company called "Wowmine". It's a company that makes it's money by getting lots of Chinese dudes to play World of Warcraft (WoW) as a job and generate stuff, which they can then sell - for real money - to lazy, idiot Western powergamers who want to be great without the effort of actually getting there themselves. Wowmine is apparently just the most notable one of a huge cloud of related companies and domain names. From one site I read, trying to end a contract with Wowmine (and associated groups) results in a letter informing you that you can either pay them, or your name, address and so on are going to be sent to a debt collection company in your home country, and that they will inform Blizzard (who own and run WoW) how you have broken the terms of agreement for the game, and face your game account being deleted. I'm pretty sure that is blackmail. The owners of Wowmine are being sued by Microsoft for running a fraud system online. They were paid by insurance companies to click the ad banners of other auto companies, thereby exhausting those other companies' advertising revenues, causing the adverts to drop, and losing them business.

So anyway, Wowmine have apparently decided to just cut out the middleman and take money from punters directly, hence Evony. Firstly, despite the cheap appeal with the sexy lingerie models (in fact, eventually they pretty much even just gave up on the model and just showed a pair of breasts in a bra for a later advert) Evony is apparently pretty much just Sid Meier's Civilisation, maybe altered just enough to avoid a lawsuit. It's graphics are apparently an equally dubious near-theft from Age of Empires. Apparently it was originally called "Civony" (=civilisation + colony). They've got another game called "Empire Craft", which is another cack-handed attempt at ripping off the names of other, famous, good games. In fact, apparently even their lingerie model picture was illegally copied from some catalogue and photoshopped.

Wowmine, and hence Evony, are spammers. Apparently, the reason their adverts are ubiquitous is that they exploit some ad software to keep inserting their adverts from multiple urls into certain sites, and they're hard to block. Furthermore, they spam forums with waffle about their game, and spam blogs with comments advertising the game (in fact, I mighit well attract some for this).

So, what else? Firstly, Evony charges you to do stuff. A lot. Apparently, sending an in-game message costs you about 15p, and lots of things can charge you possibly without you realising. Wow (in the amazement sense, not the game). There's apparently some software you can install that appears to hand all the information in your email address book to the makers of Evony - called, in their oh-so-tedious rip off fashion, iEvony. Most people know many viruses try to get hold of your email and your address book.  It takes spectacularly gullible people to voluntarily hand it over to a spam-happy company of dubious ethics. Visiting their webpage will dump a shedload of spyware onto your web browser too, it seems. Note that Evony is in beta (i.e. not entirely finished). Apparently it is severely bugged, and occasionally flips and wipes out everything you've done (and maybe paid for) - no refund, obviously.

And by that, I mean news for me, as I usually tell you all pretty much sod all about my everyday life.

First up, C. & I celebrated 7 years together yesterday. Although we didn't get much celebrating done because she had to work late and I also have had a very busy few days...

My contract here is up at the end of January, so I've been job hunting. Yesterday I attended the first interview at Warwick University. It's the first proper interview grilling I've had for about 9 years (the last two were informal, particularly as no other viable candidates had applied), and I can't say enough how much of a relief it was to have performed well, particularly as I expended about three months worth of adrenaline and stress in a period of about three days. Even worse, the interview was about 3pm, so I woke earlyish, my poor brain having about 4 millseconds of dozy wakefulness before it screamed "INTERVIEW!!!" and promptly kept me wired for the next 7-8 hours. I was relatively relaxed in the actual interview. When it was done and I travelled back to Birmingham, I had the expected crash and subsided to a near headachy languor.

At any rate, today at about 10.30am, they decided I was the best candidate and offered me the post, which I accepted. It's a really good project - good supervisor, state of the art technology, an exciting field of research, I'll learn some great new techniques which will be a godsend for my development, and should set me in great stead for independent research in three years. It's also a partial link to a US laboratory, a top guy in the field, so I'll probably be sent over to Boston a few times to mix and mingle there. I have, I think it's fair to say, hit the jackpot. Or more strictly, won gold, because I like to think I didn't fluke it. It's been a struggle to work today, as all I really want to do is run round waving my arms and shouting "Woo-hoo!" There is one downside - I'm damned if I'm moving out of Birmingham (<3 B'ham), but the public transport is far from ideal. There are two options: bus to B'ham centre, train to Coventry, bus to the university; then there's bus to B'ham centre, train to Canley, and the rest is just about walkable (1-2 miles) or bus otherwise, but either way I'm potentially looking at an hour or more with two changes for a journey of under 20 miles.

In other news, I'm off to Chicago next week, for the big Neuroscience conference. I spent a shitload of time in September not only preparing for my interview, but slogging away making a poster. I'm the second author and not presenting it, but it was my job to do it, and so it was done. Though I do say so myself, it looks fantastic, particularly because it's good science and has some great pictures thanks to the anatomical side (done by our colleagues at the Oxford end of the collaboration), but also I worked in a funky design scheme. I'm second author on another paper at Neuroscience, but that was all up to Naoki to compile, I just tweaked the diagrams and text. We're going Thursday, and heading home the next Thursday.

I've read plenty of books recently. I'm currently on "Fallen" by Tim Lebbon, but recently finished have been "Dust of Dreams" by Steven Erikson, "The Harlequin's Dance" and "The King and Queen of Swords" by Tom Arden (intriguing stuff: think fantasy with both literary styling and setting of the 18th century); and, er, other stuff by people like David Weber, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Eric Brown.

Bought "Wolfenstein" for PC. Thought the many-year prequel "Return to Castle Wolfenstein" rather superior. Joint PC/console developments do bad things to PC first-person shooters: the controls always seem slightly "off" which I suspect are the compensations made for the clumsier gamepad things consoles have. The other great beauty of the PC it seems to be able to readily manage large environments. Something about many console games seems to struggle with the great outdoors. I guess Fallout 3 probably did okay, but all too often you feel like you're in an artificial outside constructed of rooms and corridors, with inevitable "invisible walls" syndrome.

Did other stuff. Other stuff happened. Etc.

Okay, so MEP Daniel "the NHS was a mistake, let's leave the EU" Hannan has been poking his nose in the news again recently.

What's happened is that the Irish voted for the Lisbon Treaty, by a rather impressive 2:1 majority or thereabouts. Anyway, that leaves pretty much three countries who may yet kill it - the UK, Poland and Czech Republic. And what's David Cameron's bold opinion on it all? Let's wait and see. The excuse seems to be "let's not prejudice the votes of other countries". Eh? And double eh? That's the most stupid reason ever to not state an opinion on it. Well, stupid except in the sense that Cameron is a in a big bind here and desperately needs an excuse to keep quiet at home. What he appears to be doing is writing to other countries saying "Please, please, kill the Lisbon Treaty I'll be your best friend ever!"

Cameron wants to shut down the Lisbon treaty - and probably just about every other piece of EU business he can. However, he has to be sensitive to a tricky issue of international politics. The UK is not well liked in Europe. The Conservatives are almost universally despised. In order to get anything at all done, Cameron cannot let go of the last few shreds of goodwill his party hasn't yet alienated. Well, I say "goodwill" but what I really mean is the willingness of any European to manage the minimum requirements of cordial conversation or even answer his phone calls in the first place. Cameron desperately wants someone else to shoot down Lisbon to save him having to decide to do so. If it does come down to him, I will bet you my life savings he'll announce that Britain will accept it too - no referendum - because he's not so stupid and blinkered as to permit the catastrophic diplomatic disaster doing otherwise would entail. There's a good chance Tony Blair might be the first EU president. According to the BBC "shadow foreign secretary William Hague has warned that the Tories would be prepared to lobby European capitals to block Mr Blair's appointment". Haha! Who do they think they are kidding, that anyone cares what they say? That's like the smelly, ugly, stupid nerd in a classroom lobbying his classmates to not elect the football captain as Head Boy.

At any rate. Folks, don't vote Tory. Please, please, please, don't vote Tory. I mean, Gordon Brown and Blair before him have been a bit sucky in places, but they are still a far better option than swallowing the gobbet of posion and bile that is the Tory party.

Okay, one my worst faults are internet debating boards. I used to pretty ferocious, but nowadays I don't comment much and only get remotely nasty when someone really is an objectionable shit.

I've been quite interested recently because I've been mixing with a forum of mostly Americans. They tend to have an... interesting outlook on life.

Let's take the first, which was basically complaining about the tax burden on the rich. They pointed out that the top 5% of earners pay 56% of the USA's tax. And indeed they do. In fact, the poorest 50% of Americans pay just 2.5-3% of the American tax bill. Of course, herein also is the reason that taxing the poor is pointless. To get an increase of just 1% in the USA's total tax income, you'd have to make a 33-40% increase on the total tax burden endured by the poor, which is a crushing sum to increase their taxes by. I might also point out that the wealthiest 5% of Americans own 60% of the USA, and the poorest 50% own virtually nothing of America. Do you notice how close those figures are to the tax payments? Whilst we must be clear that there is a difference between the most wealthy and the highest earners, there's a certain correlation between the two, and it kind of makes the tax payments look quite fair.

* * *

But for major league bigots, you have to look at the debate about whether religious organisations should be entitled to refuse to employ gays, divorcees, and whoever else is unsuitable in the eyes of their religion.

Cue the batshit loopy US right wing. It really does give you a good idea what goes on in people's minds over there. You have to give the right wing some credit, they're great at packaging unethical conduct, prejudice, hate and greed as moral superiority. In fact, I think that is currently where 95% of the right wing's intellectual effort goes at the moment: framing their most objectionable traits in terms of positive ideology so they can be even more unethical, prejudiced, hate-filled and greedy.

Private organisations should apparently be quite free to employ whoever they like - if they feel like refusing jobs to blacks, gays, women (etc.), they should be free to. Freedom! Anti-discrimination laws are, in their mind, discrimination laws by forcing employers to employ minorities. The other argument is the anti-regulation argument. You see, government regulation impedes business. Instead of enacting anti-discrimination laws, the government should just look the other way, and companies that don't have open hiring policies will eventually do worse because they'll not hire minorities and not access those individuals with better skills. I mean, got to hand it to them, it's a beautifully constructed steaming pile of theoretical bullshit.

Then you get the amusing "gays shoving their sexuality in my face". Those people who aren't homophobes - oh no they're not, because they say they are not - who are OUTRAGED by the idea gay people talk about their sexuality in public, whilst they are in earshot. And how DARE it get mentioned in schools. And how DARE they kiss where people could see. But that's not homophobia, oh no. Apparently, it's not homophobic, in their view, to believe that it's okay if gays be gay only in the confines of their own home, whilst half-naked women fill billboards, men and women kiss heterosexually in the street, and their heterosexual mates talk to them about who they fucked last night and what it was like.

And then you get the people who hate "PC whiners". Yes, those annoying people who don't think it's okay to call black people n*****s, and so on. This always goes in two tedious lines. Firstly, there's the same old "Freedom of speech" angle, that nothing and no-one should constrain their right of expression. The second is the "it's just a word" argument. If it offends you, that's your problem for getting offended -  which is a bit like punching someone in the face, and telling them it's their own fault that it hurts for having nociception. If they just didn't think about the pain, they'd be fine. Or the bizarre idea that you can say what you like, it's every listener's job to be responsible. Well, I'm sure when your average dictator tells his secret police "Kill me 10,000 political dissidents", those dissidents don't rest happy in their beds knowing they're just words, and that the secret police can just exercise the opportunity to not take those words seriously.

And for my final little rant on bigotted shits of the day, we get to the Tories. Note that the Sun pops up and declares its love for the Tories, smack bang over Gordon Brown's party conference speech. Then, half a week later, the Tory shadow culture minister comes up and says... pretty much what the head of Sky said a few weeks back that the BBC needs to be weakened, Sky of course being a big rival of the BBC and the head of Sky of course being the son of Rupert Murdoch who - purely coincidentally we must understand - owns the Sun.

Anyway, it's good to see that Labour have finally got around to tackling the Tories on their odious little Europarty with a bizarre collection of far-right Europeans. The Tories like to claim it's a coalition of Euroskeptics. More strictly, we've actually got a situation where the pompous old Etonians of the Conservative party make loud noises about how objectionable the BNP are, whilst forging a Euro-alliance with several countries' local versions of the BNP, hoping the public won't notice they're cuddling up to antisemites and xenophobes because Europe doesn't get into the news much.

The Tories may as well hate the Europeans, mind you. It's surely true that everyone in Europe hates the Tories. Not only are they despised by the Euro left wing, but they're even hated by the Euro right wing, thanks to Cameron's little stunt to form a jolly partnership with Euroloonies. Good luck persuading anyone there to do anything - the UK under the Tories is a nation with as much influence in Europe as a rat turd in Uruguay has on the migration patterns of Siberian tigers. Of course, you only need to hear what goes on with the Tories - loose comments by several MPs, the conservative party at Oxford Uni and so on, you know what is really simmering beneath the smiling faces and soupy accents.

So, Roman Polanski has (finally) been nabbed.

And quite right too. I mean, let's face it, he screwed a 13 year old girl, then drugged her and sodomised her, just in case having sex with a minor wasn't quite enough. And you know, the trial was so unfair he copped a plea bargain that made him responsible only for the crime of sex with a minor, never mind the other stuff.

Frankly, I don't really give a damn whether he genuinely regrets what he did or not. That his victim thinks he should be forgiven is also irrelevant - the law can't sentence people depending on whether the victim is more or less upset. Nor do I care that half his family was annihliated by the Nazis, or that Charles Manson and his band of psychos killed his wife.

What amazes me are all the people lining up to say he should be let off. I can understand French politicians, and Woody Allen - I mean, one can't be entirely sure of the ethics of someone who married a woman who was effectively (if not technically) his stepdaughter. But for many others in the film world, it seems that it's fine to do that to a 13-year-old and we should just let it slide. If it were the local plumber, they'd neither notice, care, or much else. But make a few good movies (and some drivel like Bitter Moon), what's the odd spot of rape in the bigger picture? And Christ, you see the names of some of these people, we're talking not the usual bullshitters but people who really, really ought to know better.

Send him off to the US, dump him in a five-star hotel jail for his undoubtedly lenient sentence, and then when he comes out maybe he can make a prison drama film. Crime is crime and justice is justice. Art is not a mitigating factor.

So, it's been fun recently reading the news.

Firstly, let's start with the Phoenix Four. They took over MG Rover during it's last painful gasping breaths, did very little to prevent it collapsing, and yet ripped millions and millions of pounds off it during their brief tenure. Firstly, their remuneration was far too high for a company of that size, especially as it lost money throughout their entire tenure. I think one of the most teeth-grinding little tricks revealed by the BBC was that BMW left Rover with a £500million loan to keep it going. This loan was held by a shell company owned by the Phoenix Four, which then loaned the money to Rover. Consequently, as Rover paid interest to this shell company, this shell company made a profit, which the owners could then claim. Way to put the company and the thousands of jobs dependent on it first.

Secondly, the fact that despite the fact that in the last year people are losing their jobs left, right and centre, and the stock market and corporate profits tanked some 30%, executive pay in top companies has risen about 10%. Big bonuses are, of course, also already back after the brief credit crunch pause.

Finally, another little gem from the Guardian. Apparently, some top execs get great little deals, which includes stuff like the company paying for their transport costs even for non-work related travel. I kid you not. As if, somehow, their £2million a year remuneration would struggle to cover a few flights and the petrol costs from driving around a bit.

Just makes you really feel like you know your place in the world, and that place is very near the bottom.

I was thinking about what my economic worth was to the country. Roughly.

The nearest I could think of was to consider what my university was worth to the British economy. Again, roughly. I did it as follows.

The average graduate earns £220,000 more than the average non-graduate. My university has 7,000 undergraduates, with a course length of 3-4 years, so let's say 3.5 on average. This works out nicely for my quick estimation, as it means 2,000 students graduate every year. 2000 people per year who will earn £220,000 more means an increase of £440 million total worth per year. Some British and international students will go abroad to work, although most British and some international students will stay in the UK, so let's assume that the number of international students is equal to the number of students of any nationality that take their degrees out of Britain, and that's 15%. 85% of £440 million is about £375 million. Then we need to make another subtraction, which is that students learning are not doing jobs: a salary for someone fairly gifted, 18-21, without a degree would be about £15,000-£20,000 per year. Let's be harsh: £20,000 multiplied by 2000 students multiplied by 3.5 years is £140 million (assuming they could all get a job). Subtract that from £375 million, and you get £235 million.

The annual running costs of my university are apparently £97 million (2007/8). Consequently, I estimate that my university's worth to the British economy is approaching 2.5 times greater than its costs (235 divide by 97), which suggests a pretty good deal overall. In terms of government financing, the government will reclaim let's say about a quarter to a third in taxes, so of £235 million, they'd be getting about £60-80 million per year. Fees are £3,000 per British student (about 6000 of them) per year, £11,000 average for international (about 1000). That's then £18 million for the British, and about £11 million for international, for £29 million total. So I'd suggest the government would probably consider its funding about the same as what it gets out in the long run.

What I haven't calculated at all is the impact of postgraduates, which would change everything a fair bit. But it would take a lot of effort.

Q: So, all in all, am I paid what I'm worth?

A: I've no idea.

The Tory party has a big problem. That problem is that many of its grassroot supporters and its representatives are intensely odious scum. Normally they're quite good at keeping a lid on these people, but they always squeeze out of the woodwork eventually. You can't got that long without hearing some Tory has made explicitly racist or bigotted statements, shown astonishing contempt for some section or other of the populace, or spouted some form of bobbins which can only come from the mouth of an arrogant, overprivileged twit.

And so, Daniel Hannan. For the record, he's this Tory MEP who popped over the the USA to describe the NHS as a "60 year mistake" which is on the verge of total collapse, much to the glee of all the usual lamebrain rightwingers.

This is one of those things with MEPs. I mean, who the hell are half these overpaid goons we chuck over to Brussels? I think there are about 80 of them, and I'd struggle to name more than 5. They just buzz off and do whatever it is they do, and we've no idea who they are. Considering turnout and so on in EU elections, these jokers probably get their seat with barely more than 10% of their local electorate.

Consequently, I'm grabbing some help from Wikipedia for this. So, Mr. Hannan. Unsurprisingly for a Tory MP/MEP, we're talking about prestigious independent school education and Oxford University, which means he probably never has had to trobule himself with the hoi polloi like you and me. Let's look at a few of his achievements.

Hannan has opposed the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Apparently on some sort of basis that it defies national sovereignty, and thus no doubt Daniel Hannan is hugely in favour of people being able to slaughter innocent citizens of foreign nations just so long as their fellow countrymen are moderately okay with it.

Hannan is a big fan of Iceland. Apparently it's got a fair bit to do with the fact that they wouldn't join the EU, a stance he heartily believes in (as, I might point out, an MEP). He was very keen to congratulate them on their great economic miracle. Of course, that was pre- credit crunch, and now it turns out Iceland's economic miracle was very heavily dependent on the screwed up financial dealings that dropped us all in the muck. Iceland is now applying to join the EU, because their economy has collapsed.

Hannan has achieved two acts of superb arrogance. Firstly, he was so against the Lisbon Treaty, whenever he ended a speech in the European Parliament, he would say "Pactio Olisipiensis censenda est" (="The Lisbon Treaty must be voted on"). I can only imagine the horrnedous, self-aggrandising attitude of a barely-known upper class nit in the least regarded parliament in the developed world trying to ape the words of and thus identify himself with an indisputably great Senator of the mighty Roman Republic. Ah, that must have made him feel so special. And saying it in Latin too. The second was when, finally, he and few other caused so much irritation that the EU parliament decided to change their procedures to shut him and a few others up. He complained, and they turned his microphone off. Then he came out with the statement "It is only my regard for you Mr. Chairman and my personal affection for you that prevents me from likening it to the Ermachtigungsgesetz of 1933 which was also voted through by a parliamentary majority." You see, Hannan is so modest, so humble, he felt the need to compare himself to a victim of Hitler's siezure of power in Germany. And the fact he chose to say this to, of all people, a German. Yes, that's precisely how much of a prize twat Hannan is.

I think he does deserves a certain reward. It's important we all be reminded regularly that the Conservative party is chock-a-block full of smug, snotty scions of privilege, who use their cushions of inherited wealth and old school tie connections to wangle themselves influence, so that they can alter society so that they can stay sickeningly rich whilst the rest of us get buried under depressed wages and reduced public services.

I got a performance-related pay bonus this year - never expected that when I joined the public sector.

According the American right wing, in Britain the NHS leaves patients to die of brain tumours if they're a bit too old, doesn't treat heart problems for people over the age of 59; doesn't treat people if it costs more than $23,000; and makes people glue their own tooth fillings in. And that's not all just loopy, two-bit bloggers, that's high-ranking Republican politicians.

The response of the UK government to all this is apparently to correct such individuals in private.

I can entirely understand how it is that the UK government does not wish to get involved an internal political wrangle in the US. However, it's one thing to let two sides battle it out over a policy, it's another entirely to let slide vicious mistruths from one side that amount to slander: I'm sure the British government would have a case for suing some people over some comments. What impression are some Americans going to get about Britain if these are not corrected? It's far from unreasonable for the government to stand up and see the country is portrayed fairly abroad.

I really hope that by talking to indivudals, what the government is actually saying to them is "If you say any such rubbish again, we'll start publicly correcting you".  I think the US right-wing has nor respect for truth, and unless you wave a decent sized stick at them, they'll just blab any old grubby message across uncaring of who or what it damages, just so long as serves their purpose. I find it hard to tolerate people happy to let over 15% of their own population go without healthcare, doubly so when they smear other countries who do look after their most vulnerable.

In one of my little internet wanders, I came across a discussion capitalism versus socialism. I mostly ignore these things - responding to the ignorant tripe of 18-25-year-olds is something to do when you're 18-25 (and probably rather ignorant yourself). However, I read one little comment that really annoyed me. It was along the lines of "Call me a selfish jerk if you will, but why should I give up my hard-earned money to pay for people who made bad decisions or don't work hard enough?"

This is a not uncommon belief amongst people who are both right wing and well-off. It is, however, a breathtaking mix of callousness, greed, arrogance and gross ignorance. One of the major problems for people who don't like paying taxes and supporting the poor is that they are accepting the moral low ground. Now, I can at least have some respect for someone prepared to accept that. However, the point of the "it's the fault of the poor that they are poor" is not just to position themselves on at least morally neutral ground  - "nothing to do with me, mate", but to place the poor on the moral low ground. It's enthusiastically supported by right-wing media, which is forever telling us about benefit scroungers, layabouts and working-class criminals, as if that's the main reason why people are unemployed or in low salary jobs.

However, poverty has been paid an awful lot of attention over the years. The simple fact is that many people who have a disadvantaged life have not so much made bad decisions, they've had bad decisions thrust upon them. It's well established that to help children thrive, they need proper care, encouragement, education, and guidance. Unfortunately, many parents are negligent or abusive, and the general society attitude in the area is highly corrosive. In such situations, it can only really be the work of third persons to come in and try to sort the mess out, preferentially by government action, although charity may work.  I think people have no clue about these things: they're people who grew up in good quality, supportive environments, who have little imagination and no knowledge of how hard it can be. Outside upbringing, there are issues like the grim reality that sometimes people work hard and honestly, and their company just makes them redundant. Some people work hard and honestly, but maybe just don't have the talent to be hugely successful.

The changes that can make fellow countrymen poorer by wage pressure or redundancy are also things that make the wealthy wealthier - cheaper goods, profits for companies that they have shares in. So getting sticky about paying a few percent in tax is even worse, essentially not only demanding more power for their pounds but deciding they should have yet more pounds by not supporting the victims of their gain.

I think you can make a lot of arguments about how a welfare state is bad for motivation, and you can make your case for lots of things on an intellectual level about not paying taxes, or just be an unrepentant selfish jerk. But the least anyone can do is appreciate the reality that the poor are often poor because they grew up with huge disadvantages, and that if society wants to change that it needs to stump up time, money and effort.

Although torture is entirely repugnant, I'm not thrilled about building a case on the potential experiences of Binyam Mohamed.

My sense of suspicion is somewhat heightened when it turns out Muslims of non-Pakistani/Afghan descent decide that of all the places in the very wide-ranging Islamic world to go (including Arabia, the place it started and with all those holy sites) to see Islam in action, they think hmm, let's go to the place where they train up large numbers of terrorists. Doubly so when said Muslim claims to be getting over a drug habit and wishes to visit the world's greatest opium producer. My cup of sympathy drains considerably towards empty when such people are caught at Karachi airport with a false passport, an item rarely held by people doing innocent sightseeing and very frequently by people up to stuff the authorities wouldn't approve of, such as attending terrorist training camps.

It's one of the best thing in the world to prevent the use of torture, and you'd have to agree there's a certain extra power that someone who had acted so suspiciously should cause the government (or secret services, or whoever is responsible) to be nailed. On the other hand, let's also consider he may not be a reliable witness, and rather than looking to see no-one gets tortured again, he could very well have a primary interest in embarrassing the British government and stoking up outrage to encourage a few more angry young men into extremism.