MR PRATCHETT

In his writer's layer in Somerset a bearded fellow was leaning over his keyboard.

"What next?" he thought as he imagined the characters of his creation in his head. "Maybe a little more of Death." He thought.

YOU CALLED?

"No dear, it wasn't me," he said still staring at the screen not looking round.

TERRY PRATCHETT.

"Oh," he said, this time turning his head to look behind him. As he did so there was a thud as his body's head fell unto to the letter "a" and filled the screen with the letter. "Is it that time already?"

I'M AFRAID SO, said Death.

And as the two of the them walked off into the endless light out in space the giant space turtle Great A'Tuin reached her final destination to the time of mating and the massive elephants on her back Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon and Jerakeen stood still for the first time in history. The Disc that lay upon their shoulders stopped turning.

Only in the history books will life on the Discworld now be remembered and in the imaginations of millions of readers will the characters live on.

Terry Pratchett 28 April 1948 - 12 March 2015

The only man who for the last 25 years has continually made me laugh out loud in too many public spaces, walk into too many lamp posts and had me still reading when the sun came up the day after release date. All while largely not physically present.

Happy Eleventy-tenth or Twelvetieth Birthday?

On the 3rd January 1892 John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa where his father was managing a branch of the Bank of Africa (a British owned colonial banking concern).

When he was three his mother Mabel decided that the climate in England would be better for John and his younger brother Hilary Arthur Reuel so they returned while his father carried on in South Africa, but he died the following year of a severe haemorrhage as a result of rheumatic fever. His mother was to die in 1904 as a result of complications from diabetes. Therefore before he was 13 J.R.R. Tolkien found himself orphaned. This may well be why Frodo Baggins lost both his parents in a boating accident when he was twelve and like his creator was orphaned at the same young age.

The boys guardian upon their mother's death was Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory. She had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1900 to the disgust of many of her Baptist family. Possibly a basis for the separation of Bilbo Baggins from the Sacksville-Bagginses. However, one of the places he visited on holiday growing up as an oprhan was his Aunt Jane at her farm Bag End.

Of course he may well have just be another Oxford Don who was only known to academics of Anglo-Saxon, had he not in the early 1930s started to write a story about imaginary lands and races. Starting with the line "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." The book that was published on 21st September 1937, with the birthday of its hero being the 22nd it was always getting mentioned near my own birthday. This year of course Peter Jackson, who has already brought the sequel The Lord of the Rings to the screen, will be finalising The  Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to present to expectant audiences in December. The second part The Hobbit: There and Back Again is due the following year.

I shall probably not be alone this year is revisiting my first Tolkien book, and the others probably, in preparation for the film that I have been waiting for since the campaign to ensure that Jackson was selected to direct it.

But of course the best reason for celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien's Eleventy-tenth of Twelvetieth birthday is that I can of course show Gandalf's fireworks.



Of course as well as looking back we should also look forward, so here is that trailer which some of us can never tire of.

And another thing...PCC says the Chancellor lied for #No2AV

The Press Complaint committee has upheld two complaints from Electoral Reform Services Ltd that the Chancellor George Osborne, as reported in the Daily Fail and the paper that shall not be named, LIED (OK the language used is that he was wrong) about the use of machines and that Electoral Reform Services Ltd would benefit from a Yes vote on 5th May.

Of course the whole issue of cost was a central tenet of the No2AV teams campaign. It was their opening batsmen, their leading goal scorer, their Oscar winning script, all rolled into one. Of course referendum communication we learnt during the campaign are not held by the Advertising Standards Agency code of conduct. But the PCC has found that the Chancellor has told untruths to fight this campaign, he may argue that he was merely echoing the statement from the No campaign. But if that was based on such a falsehood surely the Chancellor should have been more careful about what he said.

As I've pointed out before, such a breach by the Chancellor of the Treasury's own advice may actually be in breach of the ministerial code. While the PM take action against so senior a member who has broken the code. He restricted the role of the Business Secretary over the BSkyB takeover, about to take place tomorrow apparently, because he said publicly that he wasn't about to bow the knee to the mighty Murdoch. Yet his Chancellor has bowed the knee to the head of the Tax Payer's Alliance and their usual tactics to spread falsehood for political self preservation.

The only part of Westminster voting reform that was up to the public was the voting system, the Conservatives had already secured a reduction in the number of members which favoured them unfairly under the current system and required a change in voting system to provide a check and balance.

Well done George mission accomplished on that one, though it's hardly cricket. More Eton Wall Game. Oops did I spot that.

Not all sports are first past the post

By Bob Moran in The Guardian 19 April 2011

The above cartoon in this mornings Guardian was to some up the two cross party events yesterday by the Yes and No campaigns in the AV referendum. However, it also draws to mind the No2AV literature which starting arriving on people doormats yesterday morning as well. There were three sportsmen from three different sports featured inside.


The first was Amir Khan the boxer, the timing of his appearance in this literature couldn't have been worse timed. At the weekend Khan retained his title when a doctor stepped in to controversially say that a cut above Khan's opponent eye was too bad for the fight to continue. The thing is in boxing there such event do occur, on Saturday Khan was ahead on points at the time the doctor intervened, but there have been occasions when the boxer leading on the judges score cards has been deemed unable to continue because of a cut. Sometimes such cuts are also the result of illegal actions earlier in the fight like a boxer using the thumb of his glove, or rubbing heads together. Even if the referee has giving warnings or point deductions for such activity if this results in the other boxer eventually bleeding, the fight could be stopped and given to the opponent who may have cheated and may have been trailing to get that far.


The second was Olympic rower Sir Steve Redgrave. Redgrave took part in one of the events that has a strange route to getting to the finals of an event the repechage. This is a way that the rowers who didn't quite qualify for the final as of right in their heats have a second race in which to do this. Redgrave himself is not superhuman and has had off days that have necessitated going through a repechage to get to a final. He's even come through a repechage and gone on to win gold at World Championships. If he'd been trying to qualify for a USA or Kenyan position in a Olympic team athletics event there would have been no repechage no second change, the top three only get to go to the Olympics there is no discretion for the selectors. Yet Redgrave and other rowers do benefit from having that second change within their sport at the highest levels.


The final choice is Sir Bobby Moore the captain of the 1966 England World Cup football sq. Yet in football we now have the misnomer of a Champions League, when in some cases the team that has come 4th in their national championship can go on to lift the title, unlike in the old European Cup where the national champions and the holders fought it out over knockouts from the start. Even as a Liverpool fan I have to admit that our 5th title in 2005 was achieved from just such a position, champions of Europe despite not being champions of England since 1990. Or teams can lose out on aggregate to a team in the various group stages and then go on to win the trophy. There has even been cases of teams being unbeaten on the way through losing out to a team that had lost in the group stages going out on away goals after two draws in the knock out stages.


Football like boxing or rowing is a game where the team that is leading at the first stage isn't always the winner at the end. As Kris Akabushi said when he appeared at a Yes2AV event even in the 100m at the Olympics there are the first and second round and semi-finals. It is rare that the eventual champion will have won every round of that race. What is important is that they win on the final round. Just like Alternative Vote it is getting over the final line, the one that is set at 50%, the one that doesn't move that is important. That will lead to more competitive elections where you are the IPPR report said yesterday.

Vita, Veritas, Victoria to the Oak Wood of Calgaich or Colmcille

Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

from Seamus Heaney's Death of a Naturalist

Well last night the city of my father, my father's father, my father's father's father and at least his father as well* was awarded with the privilege of being the UK's first City of Culture in 2013. Doire, Lunnonderrie, Daire Calgaich, Doire Cholmchille, the Maiden City, Stroke City call it what you will, Derry/Londonderry is about to make history.

As well as Nobel Laureate Mr Heaney above, Restoration Dramatist George Farquhar, authors Joyce Cary, Seamus Deane, Jennifer Johnston and Neil McCafferty all add to the rich history of culture in Northern Ireland's second city. Which is being build on all the time by new contributions to culture of a variety of forms.

Then there are the City Walls the only remaining intact example in Ireland and one of the finest in Europe dating from 1613-1619. The history dates back to the 546 when St. Colmcille,like a lot of my family crossed just over the county boundary from Donegal to set up his monastery.

In the 1600s it was the livery companies from London who came over as part of the plantation to built the City on the West side of the Foyle across from the earlier monastic settlement. It was the first planned city in Ireland with roads off the the central diamond within the walls leading to the four gates of the strong defensive pattern that was followed by many of the North American British colonial settlements.

So from the architecture, through the literature, to music and even the mural of both communities and other aspects there is a thriving culture in the City. Like myself there are Donegal influences in there as well as rural Londonderry and Tyrone. It is a river community and a last stopping off place for many emigrants embarking on the trip to America. But now it is embarking on a new trip to prepare for the future as the City of Culture to showcase the best that the place has to offer to draw people in rather than bid them goodbye.

The City motto is 'Vita, Veritas, Victoria' - 'Life, Truth, Victory'. In 2013 they will embrace life to the fullest, the city probably won't ignore the truth of its past but move forward to a shared future and make the most of this victory with the eyes of the country upon it.

* Beyond that needs some more genealogical digging.

Robert Tannahill

On this day 200 years ago the body of Robert Tannahill was found in a culvert in Paisley, he had taken his own life. Like another famous Robert he was a poet and indeed was in the eyes of some comparable to Scotland's bard.

Here is one of his poems.

Eild

The rough hail rattles thro' the trees.
The sullen lift low'rs gloomy gray,
The trav'ller sees the swelling storm,
And seeks the alehouse by the way.

But, waes me! for yon widowed wretch,
Borne doun wi years an heavy care;
Her sapless fingers scarce can nip
The wither'd twigs tae beet her fire.

Thus youth and vigour fends itsel;
Its help, reciprocal, is sure,
While dowless Eild, in poortith cauld,
Is lanely left tae stan the stoure.

Muggles are Following JK Fast

I got news not from the Daily Prophet but Muggle.Net that a certain someone was starting to Tweet. Less than 10 minutes ago I became JK Rowling's 4458th follower on Twitter, however we noticed that her followers were growing fast. I guessed she would pass through the 5000 mark within 10 minutes by 19:48. I was wrong she made it at 19:43 and I managed to capture the moment for posterity*.



With the time now 19:52 she has 5,547, she's getting approximately 100 followers a minute at the moment.

* I'm quite good at guessing these things, but at the rate she was gaining followers even I was impressed by catching her at the moment of her 5,000. We were on constant refresh for a while and getting 3-6 every time we did that.

Irfan is Right and Wrong on Email

Irfan Ahmed seems to have developed either a paper or newsprint allergy I'm not quite sure which. But he's advocating a whole hearted shift from literature to email and he is right and wrong.

He's right of course in that we should be living up to our environmental credentials and moving away from the amount of paper we want to use. He is also right in that the electronic age is upon us and we should be using more use of website and email shots etc.

He's wrong in that there is no directory of everyone's email, whereas we do have a list of every elector in the constituency. Even the emails that some of us give when we return our form are only for internal use and not for the full register publications. In fact I can't remember all of my own email addresses, or on occasion a couple of their passwords (yeah some required changes and now I'm lost thankfully not the major ones). Indeed many people have more than one. I have one for work, one for home, one for campaigning, one for my MSN etc as well as several others of the original ones that I still check for various reasons.

We still need to garner people's email addresses and having worked in a call centre where part of the business people are often asked for that as part of their details people still often refuse to give that. Indeed people are far more willing to give their address than their email. Just look at the recent crash of the mobile phone directory server when it was overwhelmed by the number of people wanting to unsubscribe to show how unwilling people are to give away that sort of information on a wide scale.

Also not everyone, even in this day and age, has and uses their email account regularly. However, everyone does use their front door on an almost daily basis and will check their mail.

Yeah people are likely to not read some of our literature put through their letterbox, put isn't the same also true of unsolicited emails, if not more so with spam filters. At least with deliveries we do know the message has reached the desired voter. Email addresses don't tell us when someone moves even sometimes their work one only alerts us they have left long after the IT crew decide to clean up the addresses.

Yeah we should be moving towards email as much as possible, it is more time efficient way of delivering the message. But we need to gather the email addresses that we need to move wholly over to that. Even in our key target seats with email lists in the thousands we still have less than 10% coverage of the whole constituency, obviously in some of our held seats this figure can be higher, though often is lower. If we are looking to win new seats we need more than 10% penetration which needs we still need to be out there. Delivering leaflets of course isn't just about putting bits of paper through letter boxes and many experiences leafleters will tell you of conversations they have had with people as a result of doing so. Heck, I even first encountered our current local party chair that way.

So Irfan yeah you are pointing in the right direction but the party and indeed the world still has a long way to go with that one. We don't have access to everyone electronic inbox but we do have access to every voter's letterbox.

Poetic Injustice

I've been told by others that I write some pretty decent poems. Some examples of which have on occasion made it unto this blog. The problem is trying to get any earnings from the best of them. Now it appears I realy should write far worse prose as it looks like being more profitable.

A set of 35 of William "the worst post in the world" McGonagall's poems are heading to auction and are expected to sell for £6,500. Now that's £185 pounds a poem which is better than most literary publications give for publishing one poem. Only down side is McGonagall has been dead for 106 years so I'll not be making that money until at least 2114.

Cameron Flip Flops on Jonathan Ross Show

Watch out for Friday Night with Jonathan Ross tonight. You will hear David William Donald Cameron say that Blair was right to go to war in Iraq and said that those who had supported military action should 'see it through'.

Is this the same David Cameron who was quoted on an election leaflet earlier this year in Dunfermline saying?:

"Issues that once divided Conservatives from Liberal Democrats are now issues where we both agree. Our attitude to devolution and the localisation of power. Iraq."

I happen to remmeber the appearance of that quote on election literature because when I returned from deliveries to see the offending comments. Must people's reaction went something like this:

Iraq? Iraq! IRAQ!!! When have we ever agreed with the Tories on Iraq?

In fact I remember poor Michael Veitch my Conservative opponent in last May's General Election being the only one of the candidates to support the war in Iraq from the platform during hustings.

So is this another Chameleon moment for Dave? Saying one thing to try and not be totally wiped out in Dunfermline but having to maintain the party line on a national platform? Or is this a flip-flop in the extreme within such a sort period? Does Dave really know his mind and what words are coming out of his mouth?