Question Time and the BNP

23Oct09

Last night we witnessed Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP being taken apart by panelists and the audience of BBC’s flagship political debate program Question Time. This was unlike most episodes as it was surrounded by controvery over issues such as freedom of speech, party legitimacy and immigration with some totally against the BBC backing the right for the BNP to air it’s views on national television. Whether you agree with the move or not the show still went ahead and we witnessed the BNP leader having to face tough questions from the audience over wide ranging issues including using our armed forces as a political gambit, race, immigration, homosexuality and same sex partnerships. The audience and the panel held no punches as Mr. Griffin fumbled his way through many of the answers he gave strangely uncomfortable with giving clear answers on his party policies and denying knowledge of quotes taken directly from some of his rallies and conferences, it was funny as I expected the man to say that ‘yes I said that and I meant it’ but instead he proposed to deny pretty much everything even his own party website admits to and that we can all view and listen to on youtube, he even went as far as saying that he’s no longer a holocaust denier but can’t give us the reasons why and that his KKK buddy is alright because he’s a non-violent member and loves kittens. Yes it was quite wonderful to see the man fall apart lie by lie and the audience lay into his abohorrent remarks.

So yes, it was wonderful to see the hype around the BNP be built up and then be knocked flat on its face.  But it wasn’t all good news because what the show lacked was a real solid debate, this can be forgiven as the show was bound to bring this kind of anger and Mr. Griffin deserved the dressing down by the British public after many years of pain and hurt he and his party have caused communities in the country but we still need to move on and have a real debate on the issues raised. The audience wanted the debate and the frustration was clear when Jack Straw skirted aroud the issues of immigration when faced with similar tough questions but even he asked for there to be a debate on the myths of immigration as well as the facts and figures. Indeed you could see Mr Griffin nodding enthusiastically when the notion that people  have voted BNP as a protest vote for their voices not being heard on the issues of immigration to the UK, it was a clear message that the country want to know the score.

Personally I would like to have a debate much as Jack Straw suggested over the myths of immigration or otherwise, are immigrants really just a bunch of money grubbing queue jumpers sucking our country dry of resources? If so why would they want to destroy the country they have chosen to live in? Nobody moves to a foreign land to live in the hope of bleeding away their resources, though people are angry and believe this is the case. People want jobs and as usual it’s the immigrant who they see as the wall between them and work but sometimes I wonder, do you really want a job? Or do you just want an excuse not to work? Do you have the expertise? Will you work for the same money that immigrants supposedly get because apparently immigrant brain surgeons take home minimum wage these days. Will you put in the time and effort to make a better life for yourself and stop making excuses? After the Question Time debate, on the This Week program Alan Davies gave a remarkably insightful take on the situation facing the UK and immgration, we see people with more than we have entering our country and these people may be more intelligent than you, more skilled than you but it tears you up inside as you see these outsiders get by seemingly without a care in the world. These people worked hard to get to where they are, you need to ask if you can say the same about yourself.

Yes times are hard, we keep hearing this as we and the rest of the world struggle to pull ourselves out of a recession – we only have ourselves to blame for following blindly into the trap of the banking systems rampant borrowing and lending of money, you can’t blame a global problem soley on immigrants to this country.

But what about those living off the benefits system? Surely they must be taking the mickey? Oh wait, they don’t have jobs either so who really is taking these jobs? Could it be the administrators? And as if they are the only people living off the state. What about the thousands of single mothers, the truant children who will find it hard to get a job after school what about the unemployed as I was for over half a year having to claim benefits as they struggle to find work in a shrinking economy.

You’re expecting me to say that immigrants have been made scapegoats for a wider economic problem and watching the programs last night you may have come to that conclusion yourself, but sadly for all the reasoning and analysis you can give you may just end up running into a brick wall because people will always make up excuses for why they have a hatred of foreigners that they can’t explain no matter how hard and conclusive a debate is.

Filed under: Personal, Politics, Television   |  1 Comment

Anime Lecture at Boston Museum of Art

10Feb09

One of my favourite movies will be played at the Boston Museum of Art

John W. Dower, Pulitzer prize-winning historian and author of Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II; Roland Kelts, author of JapanAmerica: How Japanese Culture Has Invaded the US; and Frederik L. Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics

Critic Roger Ebert called the 1988 film Grave of the Fireflies “an emotional experience so powerful that it forces a rethinking of animation.” The screening of this stunning vision of two youngsters’ struggle to survive in World War II Japan is followed by a panel discussion with experts in anime.

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Tags: Anime

You’ve Got the Touch!

09Jan09

This week I had a play with LG’s prototype multitouch screen in preparation for our exhibit at the BETT show in Olympia – it’s a pretty funky piece of kit and we had a lot of fun messing about with the various features and the multipoint version of Google Earth, but not as much fun trying to install the damn drivers for the screen!

We also tried installing a few cool demos – the best being the ability to draw flames with your hands and ripples in the water.

Here’s an video example of some of the demos (and the site that you can download them from if you just happen to have the thousands needed to buy one of these beauties!)

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Wii Shop Points For Free? Sort of…

11Sep08

If you still have all your old Nintendo star catalogue registrations codes for in-house products that is. Whereas in the past the most you could expect to get out of registering your products for stars was an old copy of Age of Empires for the Game Cube or some sub-par wallpapers for your computer now you can exchange them for Wii points for downloading software at the Wii shop!  That’s a pretty sweet deal for Nintendo fans like myself who have hundreds of unregistered Game Cube, GBA, DS and Wii games.

So it’s time to get a gold coin out and scratch off those code cards!

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Tags: Nintendo, Stars Catalogue, Wii, Wii Points, Wii Shop

Singed Pinuter

10Sep08

My PC went up in flames yesterday and so I had to scrape together some cash to upgrade. Got a new mobo, CPU, PSU and chasis. It’s looking well swish – I’ll update once I get some rest!

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Electronic Arts Hat-Trick of Summer Release Blunders

08Sep08

EA are becoming increasingly frustrating for PC gamers. Mainly because they make fantastic games that are released with major bugs.

This month I have experienced three incredibly buggy titles

Spore is one, it suffers from  several bugs that cause the game to crash to the desktop or not load at all, in particular there is the DasmX86Dll.dll not found error where it appears a vital file on some installations has gone missing.

Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning failed it’s first day of Open Beta access spectacularly

Finally the new Sims 2 Expansion pack Apartment Life is jam packed full of wondeful bugs, my personal favourite being the “Bricked Pets” whereby if you wash your pet in the bathtub it becomes something resembling a stuffed animal.

Could it be because these games were being rushed out before the summer holidays were over? Is it simply incompetence? Or does EA really need to look at it’s current testing team and ask if they are doing an adequate enough job?  Coupled with secuROM which some have issues with (I for one am not so keen to get all bleeding heart over it) it seems EA is pissing a lot of it’s fans, including myself, off.

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Tags: Age of Reckoning, Bugs, Crash to desktop, DasmX86Dll.dll not found, Electronic Arts, Securom, Spore, The Sims 2: Apartment Life, Warhammer Online

TOOL perform for Guitar Hero : World Tour

08Sep08

Kotaku report that TOOL fans can finally shut the hell up…. (yeah like that will ever happen)

Some guys who have a song in a game

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Tags: guitar hero, Tool, world tour

Not One But TWO Aliens Games from SEGA

08Sep08

Most of you are aware that SEGA are going to be bringing us Aliens Colonial Marines, a strategy shooter based on the highly successful Alien franchise – but some may have forgotten the tales told of an Aliens RPG that was supposedly in the works. Well Obsidian, the makers of Neverwinter Nights 2 and Knights of the Old Republic are picking up the project and if proof is needed you can go work for them and help to make the game!

Aliens have never looked this good in a game before

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Tags: Alien, Alien Colonial Marines, Alien RPG, Obsidian

Warhammer Online Open Beta Registration Goes WAAAARG!

08Sep08

MMO RPG players around europe had been waiting for the chance to dip into their Collectors Edition open beta test ever since they preordered their copies of Warhammer Online which is expected to rival World of Warcraft as the biggest MMO ever and if all my experiences yesterday with the registration for open Beta testing has anything to go by it will be massive as the sheer influx of those trying to register their product keys at www.war-europe.com has so far left their registration servers struggling to cope. So what was set to be a stress test for their servers became a stress test for WAR fans everywhere.

My thoughts are that this is exactly what Beta testing is for, ironing out the bugs in the system. Imagine if on actual release this issue was never tested extensively – it would have been a nightmare. So in a sense this is both excellent publicity for creators Mythic and will also be providing them with some excellent data to help get things running smoothly in time for it’s general release.

Authentication servers are down so that registrations can be processed overnight

Maintenance teams are working hard to solve the registrations issues and promise to get things sorted by mid morning.  Those who have already managed to register will find that the patcing and realm servers are coping fine.

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Tags: 414, heavy traffic, Servers, Warhammer Online

SPORE

06Sep08

I am currently playing Spore by Maxis, the guys who brought us The Sims games and true to form this is a wonderfully charming simulation only this time the theme is evolution. Starting off as a single celled organism swimming around the simulated primordial soup, you have to gradually eat, fight and interect with all the different species you encounter throughout your billions of years of evolution with the ultimate goal being to be the dominant species in the galaxy.  The game, kind of like other Sims games is a toy rather than a particularly goal driven linear affair much like other electroninc pet toys from the past and it isn’t particularly challenging either, but what it lacks in depth and challenge it more than makes up for in charm, community and in some respects is quite an educational tool when it comes to explaining the theory of evolution, albeit in a simplistic but ultimately engaging way.

I thoroughly reccommend this game to any PC gamer out there.

Below are some of my creations. The range of tools and body parts to make up you creatures is staggering and no two creatures made by players ever looks alike.

You start as a microscopic organism trying to stay alive and multiply.

Eventually evolving in to sentient beings... here is my Sprogg

My victorious tribe of Sproggs

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Tags: Evolution, PC Gaming, Spore