Fat Christ

Rather than actually run trains on time, the geniuses at Transport for London have banned this poster, for fear of its causing offence:



It's a sad point in history when such a major organisation starts to play thought police - particularly when noone's asked them to. Still though, it's given the play media coverage it would never otherwise have had, which is almost karmic. Censorship rarely brings with it a happy ending - do we really want to go down the road of Pakistan, blocking off access to YouTube entirely for fear of permitting anyone to see idolatrous images, whether or not they're offended by them?

More Maxxie

It's more of the very lovely Mitch Hewer. I don't care that he's straight - Maxxie isn't ;)



Borrowed from Mitch Hewer's official website.

President McCain or Obama

So Obama and McCain both win in Wisconsin. No shocks there, but it was a state Hillary should have had a shot of winning in. Nine successive defeats for her now, but she's not out. She just has a now almost impossible mountain to climb. To become the nominee she'll not just have to win both Ohio and Texas, but win them in a big way, keep motoring on from there, and most likely have enough super delegates in her pocket in the nominating convention in the summer, and succeed at getting Michigan and Florida delegates seated there and...get the picture? Half of those requirements would alienate people she needs from her anyway.

It's doable, but would now require a comeback far greater than New Hampshire or anything Bill has ever managed. I get the feeling Romney's withdrawal and endorsement of McCain did this to her, and even though I still believe she's the best candidate, that's a political narrative completely out of her control.

Captain Britain and MI: 13

Couldn't be better news. Just while Marvel really does seem to be on a roll, they assign Paul Cornell to 'Captain Britain and MI:13'. Not another, failed variant of Excalibur, but a variant of Cornell's successful MAX 'Wisdom' limited series, with Cap joining up with Britain's MI:13 to fend the UK off from Skrull invasion.



Cornell of course is also the screen writer of some of the best episodes of the Doctor Who relaunch - specifically Father's Day, Human Nature and Family of Blood. His strong characterisation and tightly focused plotting bode very well for this series and I'm really looking forward to it. Find out more about it here.

Eye Candy II

Who else here is watching Skins then? ;)

Comics Aren't Cheap

A freeform post this one - I really want to do a post about comics but don't really know how, without sounding like a child or overly serious about a mass entertainment medium which these days is largely out to milk the customer dry.

At Marvel it's all about Civil War still. Sure, many of the developments are already undone - Peter Parker's identity is now completely secret once more, Reed & Sue Richards' marriage is back in one piece, there are multiple signs of reconciliations between the Avengers teams and Captain Marvel...well what about Mar-Vell? We now have Millar & Hitch on the Fantastic Four, a Brand New Day for Spider-Man, and the upcoming Invincible Iron Man looks to reunite Matt Fraction & Salvador Larroca (who together did the truly sensational Sensational Spider-Man annual) on a book which isn't continuity dependent.



So what is my gripe? It's the inconsistency in the argument Millar, Quesada and others put forwards. No, you don't have to read 100 books in order to appreciate the Civil War and its aftermath. You don't have to read 100 books in order to appreciate World War Hulk and its aftermath. You won't have to read 100 books in order to appreciate Secret Invasion and its aftermath. It just helps. And once I would have leapt at the chance. Bendis is still writing both Avengers books, the Mar-Vell storyline is progressing pleasingly (who'd have thought?), Hitlar are doing their Ultimate thing in the 616 universe, Captain America's the best it's ever been...the event books themselves are even done by great, entertaining creative teams. But comics aren't cheap anymore. I used to be able to read the FF and have it stand alone entirely. Thank you John Byrne. I used to be able to read Moon Knight and have it stand entirely alone - thank you Moench & Sienkiewicz. And that was in a day when they only cost 35-50 cents! Try nearly 10 times that now!

You shouldn't have to save up for these things - the same is true of DVDs. I don't want to have to spend £60 for a Dr Who box set (and haven't), leaving the real options of avoiding these media altogether. I know quality on these media is rapidly improving, with quality creators rushing to make their next zillions on a sure thing. But until I win the lottery I just don't have the money. And as pretty as some of it is, I'm not sure whether I care about retrodden work - Millar & Hitch on FF? Claremont & Davis on Uncanny X-Men? Busiek & Pacheco on Superman? Are any of those series as interesting or as pretty as when Byrne was on them? I don't think so. At least a TV show like House is self-contained, enjoyably self aware, and ends up with cheap box sets. No wonder it's so popular. Marvel and BBC take note!

And I...Begin to Wonder

We know Obama now has momentum. He has won more states and delegates for the first time since the contest started in earnest in Iowa. The media still love him, and his character has at least been tested by Bill Clinton if noone else (they both seem haughty and to have temper problems - how apt). With her campaign sloughing off key managerial staff and with Clinton herself having to lend the campaign money in order to go on when Obama's making $1 million a day, it looks bad for Hillary. Or does it?

She's still more than able to win Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, is fighting to get her delegates from Michigan and Florida seated at the Democratic National Convention in the summer (which admittedly isn't doing her any favours), and is currently favoured by a majority of super delegates. This could yet be key for this contest, given that Obama or Clinton would have to win the remaining high-delegate states by margins of over 60% in order to have a fighting chance of crossing their 2025 threshold, leaving the super delegates the final arbiters of who will fight John McCain in November. Key party grandees like Ted Kennedy and John Kerry won't be supporting her, but she successfully humiliated them both in Massachusetts and has someone named Bill on her side. And whilst Obama has successfully made inroads into Hillary's base, remember the older vote which she sill commands is more reliable than the youth vote.

There's still all to play for, but she really needs to trounce him in the next three states in order not to walk away with her campaign terminally crippled.

Government Vs the Internet. Again.

Yet again government has been shown to completely misunderstand the internet and technology in general. The British government is suggesting it might cut internet access altogether to people who download music and films illegally. If they go ahead with such a clearly ridiculous move the question of course would be 'who benefits'? Certainly not ISPs, certainly not artists, who when it comes to music rarely get any of the proceeds back - they make it off merchandising and concerts. Oh yes it would be giant corporations, who certainly aren't in the game to be artistic. In recent years they've got away with making huge amounts of crap and then bleating when people decide it isn't actually worth buying and download it illegally instead.

Maybe, just maybe it would make more sense to a) improve the quality of films & music, b) provide a delivery system which allowed good product for a decent price and with few strings and c) stop persecuting internet users for using the internet in a truly democratic way. Given that there are always ways around it, it's a stupid way of trying to control people. But this government is soooo wedded to control and surveillance...

Bounce or no Bounce?

Today we may find out in the Washington state, Nebraska and Louisiana contests whether Obama or Hillary got a 'bounce' from Super Tuesday. They both claimed to, which is hardly surprising considering the demographics largely becoming their 'bases' did what they needed to in big numbers, but there was no crossover worth mentioning. Obama did well in states outside his comfort zone, Hillary got the major metropolises. Let's see if I can make yet another good call.

Obama and McCain (that last one's now a no-brainer) today, although it'll be very interesting to see if Huckabee takes any of the southern states again. With the Idiot Bush interfering in the contest it'll be interesting to see if his call to his base was heeded or if he's now a lame duck in every conceivable sense.

What could turn out to be the next really exciting showdown though comes on Tuesday. Virginia and Maryland, as well as DC.

Nothing So Scary as a Loopy Theist

Loopy theists are at it again.



This was put on a billboard in southwest London until the Advertising Standards Agency forced them to take it down. They have some disgusting arguments defending their position, but they're completely undermined by the most recent Social Attitudes Report, showing only 32% of people think homosexuality is mostly or always wrong. It doesn't help their case that they're morally backward too. To refute the majority of their argument would suggest that they have an argument, when they don't.

Bond is Coming...

I don't know about you but I'm getting excited about Quantum of Solace. Finally a post-relaunch Bond movie helmed by a great director. Martin Campbell's work on Casino Royale was shockingly good, considering he was also responsible for Goldeneye eleven years earlier. Marc Forster comes off The Kite Runner, Finding Neverland and Monster's Ball - all highly acclaimed. Add him to Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and no other Bond staples and you have a hit waiting to happen...

Oregon Finally Leaps Forwards

At long last Oregon has implemented its domestic partnerships law, and the reverses in gay rights of the last four years start to roll back. Speaking as an Oregonian I'm absolutely delighted. Whilst I still can't bring my British husband home with me, at least not permanently, my home state at least now has a law which respects me and my relationship. Now that anti-gay discrimination is also banned under the law, I can't help but wonder how long it'll take to reverse the constitutional change banning same-sex marriage. That, after all, is itself discriminatory.



Interesting times. Good on you Oregon, and well done Basic Rights Oregon!

Super Tuesday

So I called South Carolina right too.

I'm going to be daring and call the winners today: John McCain and Hillary Clinton. It may not end the Democratic nomination process, but unless Obama wins a majority of states or delegates, he's really not going to make it after all. I think when it comes to the crunch people will plump for Hillary instead of lofty (albeit noble) rhetoric from a one term Senator (albeit one with enormous potential).



Of course the outcome I hope for is a Democrats is an Obama/Clinton ticket. There's not a chance in hell that McCain could beat that.

Trains...Down the Drain

I. Do. Not. Get. It. This country remains bananas when it comes to public transport, moreso than any other European country I'm aware of. I'll grant you we now have High Speed 1. It took long enough - it should have been in place in 1994, but our elected 'leaders' really don't care. Take a look at the Ave S103 - Spain is aiming to get 10,000 km of high speed track by 2020. That's utterly unthinkable here. Why? I honestly couldn't say. Put in High Speed 2 from St Pancras and Heathrow to Birmingham, and you lose the need for a sixth terminal at Heathrow immediately. And that's without taking into consideration the ability to grow regional airports instead, with the economic growth spread around the country rather than illogically concentrated in the south-east.



Yet in July 2007 the Opus Dei Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly ignored High Speed 2 in her planning of Britain's transport infrastructure over the next thirty years, saying that 'green is good' on the one hand, yet opening up far wider air travel expansion than any of her European counterparts could now contemplate. Ridiculous. As usual, a very British lack of planning or coordination is to blame. How shocking. I saw an interview a week or so ago, questioning the difference between government's claim that the economy and infrastructure are strong and in place to weather the oncoming economic storm. Those of us who have to navigate the economy and put up with the infrastructure know different.

President Blair

It was a term of derision, used to describe his presidential style when he was Prime Minister. It was also richly deserved, but last year we finally got rid of him from the British political sphere. Look at this though, and read the article. Scary, no?

Inland Revenue Incomptenece

Some of us have known this for some time indeed. All of us realised last year (when HM Revenue & Customs lost the personal details of half the population in the post) just how incompetent they were, but they've now outdone themselves. The deadline for self-assessment was yesterday. Not only did the website crash the day of the deadline, but it's fallen again today.

Yet another failed government department, failing the whole time. Pathetic.

Jeremy Beadle Dies

It's not just sad that a man should die of pneumonia at the age of only 59. I admit I really didn't like Jeremy Beadle as a TV presenter, but this guy was brave, and was an unbelievable philanthropist. Raising over £100 million makes him as worthy of respect in death as he ultimately turned out to be in life.

Eye Candy

A Message From the Real President

Of course he makes some fundamental misunderstandings - as a stereotypical straight man (I mean look at Tipper) he probably can't really think outside of the sexual *ahem* box - marriage as the means of locking in fidelity, promiscuity is somehow fundamentally a 'problem' - but ultimately his point is entirely right and just. Loving your partner should be encouraged and celebrated, whoever they are. The statistics show worldwide, in countries which have embraced same sex marriage in its many models - full marriage as in Canada and Spain, through to Britain's civil partnerships - that it's something we're just as good at as straight people. In fact considering that marriage is in decline with them, we're doing it quite a bit better.

Speaking as an American citizen, who is also British, as a gay man who married his male partner in 2006, I feel proud to see the man who was voted for by the majority of Americans in 2000 to speak for them, speaking of my world, my ambitions and my love for my partner in this way. My marriage to Tom doesn't threaten anyone else's, and whilst we've made plenty of mistakes, even some disastrous ones, we remain driven by the entirely symbolic commitment. It's that symbolism which is important. I am someone whose worldview is entirely secular, yet I accept fully that all cultures and individuals have always been driven by belief in the metaphysical; it seems to be part of our nature. It may seem contradictory to some, but it's something I embrace. If only Obama and Clinton had the courage to talk in this way - this is at the heart of what real change is all about.

An Intelligent President

A very interesting watch and he makes some excellent points, particularly in saying that America's economic dependence on oil completely misses the point as it's a post-industrial economy. If Hillary wins the election, I wonder how many of these ideas might be attempted?

Democrats in South Carolina

Well I called it right and was also right in saying that the campaign tone would collapse. The Guardian is right in saying that it's important that the Democratic candidates be tested - whether Hillary can appeal to anyone other than her base and whether Obama actually has any big ideas to match up to the rhetoric. But it's also true that if they spend all their energies demolishing each other, it's entirely true that someone like McCain could creep through the middle.

I'm going to call South Carolina for Obama, which I hope is the case because these two can keep proving themselves rather than resorting to desperate measures merely to win. If Hillary wins though, this gets even nastier, the attacks on Bill Clinton will start to become even more frantic, and the nomination gets essentially sewn up. Just too soon maybe to have a just winner.

BA038 Reveals More Secrets

You remember that British Airways flight which crashed at Heathrow the other day? Well after the initial rumours about all power having cut off at 600 feet, and an initial report that the autothrottle had failed, we now know a bit more.

Terribly sorry but if there's a fundamental problem in the 777's fuel supply system, I'm not going to be flying on one any time soon. I'm also not going anywhere near BA. They've shown too many times in the past that they're willing to keep their aircraft in the air at all costs. No thanks, this was already too lucky to be true.

SpaceShipTwo

SpaceShipTwo comes one step further to a reality, with its final design released to the public today. Is anyone else as excited at the prospect of normalised space travel as I am?



What is a relief is that Branson understands technology and the way in which it and society shape one another, in contrast with the former PM who who seemed convinced merely of the 'inevitability' of it. This is the way to change military technology into normalised, civilian technology. Despite all the risk involved, if I had the chance to go into space, I'd take it. I do hope it'll happen during my lifetime.

An Incredible Hulk Spoiler

If you're like me and looking forward to most Marvel movies on the way (Iron Man most of all of course), then take a look at this spoiler about the upcoming Incredible Hulk reboot...

If it works, I'll be very pleased...

Maya Angelou for Hillary

State Package for Hillary Clinton

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may tread me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

This is not the first time you have seen Hillary Clinton seemingly at her wits' end, but she has always risen, always risen, don't forget she has always risen, much to the dismay of her adversaries and the delight of her friends.

Hillary Clinton will not give up on you and all she asks of you is that you do not give up on her.

There is a world of difference between being a woman and being an old female. If you're born a girl, grow up, and live long enough, you can become an old female. But to become a woman is a serious matter. A woman takes responsibility for the time she takes up and the space she occupies. Hillary Clinton is a woman. She has been there and done that and has still risen. She is in this race for the long haul. She intends to make a difference in our country. Hillary Clinton intends to help our country to be what it can become.

She declares she wants to see more smiles in the family, more courtesies between men and women, more honesty in the marketplace. She is the prayer of every woman and man who longs for fair play, healthy families, good schools, and a balanced economy.

She means to rise.

Don't give up on Hillary. In fact, if you help her to rise, you will rise with her and help her make this country the wonderful, wonderful place where every man and every woman can live freely without sanctimonious piety and without crippling fear.

Rise, Hillary.

Rise.

- Maya Angelou, as found in the Guardian.

Nevada and South Carolina

Difficult call this one. Evidence is leading all over the place in both nasty little contests. Hillary's ahead of Obama in the Nevada opinion polls, but New Hampshire proved poll leads meaningless, and the endorsements Obama's picked up (and the lawsuit he won) could (in this contest for sure) easily negate her advantage. In South Carolina will McCain revenge himself on what was done to him in 2000? Will Romney retain a 'bounce'? Will Huckabee have a constituency?

My call is Clinton/McCain again. If it happens, then I do expect the tone to collapse further than it already has in the last week.

X-Files 2 Nears...

And it's about bloody time too.

Keep On: Will Young

One of my particular favourites of Will's TV performances. Enjoy.

The Tears of Hillary

It remains an interesting question: did Hillary's emotional moment swing everything her way in New Hampshire? Germaine Greer thinks that even if it did, that's not a good thing.

I'm not sure. It sure got John Edwards all fired up and sexist, which itself has been revealing in a contest which is refreshingly opening up all sorts of deep rooted questions about race and gender in the US. Thatcher became Prime Minister nigh effortlessly nearly three decades ago, yet Hillary still gets heckled by people demanding she iron their shirts? As Bill Clinton said - give me a break! Does that mean though that she used a soft option to get what she wanted, or was it a rare demonstration of humanity in someone often accused of having none, who's trying to supplant a president who couldn't even spell the word? There don't seem to be any definitive answers to any of these questions in this contest, which itself I find interesting.

A lecturer of mine once described us as being in a post-modern age of claim and counter claim - there were no more unifying truths. I would be inclined to agree. That can yet come back to bite her or Obama on the ass.

Dreamkatchers Featuring Will Young

I'm no fan of rap - never have been, never will be. But for Will's 2008 return to be trailed with this song - in particular having got it onto the Dreamkatchers' Myspace page before it's being 'mysteriously' removed is seriously impressive. Where Switch It On was a great song, his desire to do something different made an otherwise excellent album seem inconsistent. In contrast not only does Teardrops generate buzz, but he can make the compromise which didn't quite work last time.

Fingers crossed we have a good album ahead...

Actors Rebel Against Arts Council England

With the impending possible closures of the Bush Theatre and the Drill Hall in London, it's a relief to see a meeting of Equity actors rebelling against the Arts Council England.

The nonsense going on here is yet another example of NuLabour's climate of marketisation, which permeates through every single public service, and now through to the arts. So qualities such as profitability, ticket sales, bums on seats are now the only qualities which are being taken into account to determine worthiness for arts funding. And that's bananas.

Sam West said, "cut funding to our smaller spaces and you eventually starve our larger ones to death," which I completely agree with. Equity's account of the story is here, and if you think that the decision making here is mad and has to be reevaluated for the benefit of us all then sign the petition. Please. Survival of the fittest must not be how the arts are funded.

One of Two

Ooh I called New Hampshire right.



And thankfully my last point seems to have gained resonance. If Obama's going to win, it can't be with this ridiculously easy ride he's been given. Hillary's emotional moment proved to her base, maybe for the first time, that she wants it more than anything. May the battle be joined, and finally produce a well tested and just winner, for the first time since, well, Bill left office really (let's ignore his infidelities, petty corruptions and media manipulations for the sake of argument for now, eh?).

Hillary's Last Stand?

The truth is Hillary could defeat Giuliani at his scare-mongriest, Huckabee at his most religious, could swat Romney like an insect and outsmart McCain.

Obama?

Are we again to have a Presidential debate where the smartest person in the room loses through lack of experience? Or does Obama really have something new, something special? You see I like the idea of a female Commander-in-Chief, of Bill Clinton back in the thick of it. She could hit the ground running, which hasn't been imperative before. It is now. For all Obama's lefty rhetoric, his threat to bomb Pakistan sounds pretty neo-Conservative to me. She voted for Iraq - they all did. It's time to move on - she and Obama both agree on that.

Neither of them has governed but she has been at the forefront of national politics for a generation & her intellect is second to none. Her judgment's also a quantum improvement on Bill's. So why vote Obama?

Go

I see Taylor's still faar beyond hot. And now Zac's joined him. When'd that happen?!

More Muslim Anti-Artist Barbarity

And we're back at the old, familiar situation of an artist (again in Holland) getting death threats from Muslim extremists. I don't really know what to say - I'm sick of it. I don't care if she's as bigoted as Pim Fortuyn, as aggressive as Theo Van Gogh or set out deliberately to offend. She's an artist - she's allowed! That's how we do things in this part of the world. The secularised West allows everything to be artistically attacked, even religion. Religion is no longer the glue by which society is held together, and it works spectacularly well for us.



It's really time that all elements of popular culture came together - TV, newspapers, internet, magazines and more - to combat this unthinkingly monstrous behaviour, not just in Holland but everywhere. It's happening here too, not on the same scale, and currently mostly by Christians, but it's no less insidious for it. Whilst a society founded on the freedom of speech does require the maturity to use that freedom with wisdom and sensitivity, it's also founded on the responsibility not to take offence on behalf of others, particularly imaginary friends.

A Cuteness Break

Unpredictable 2008

Ok so my prediction the other day was diametrically opposed to the reality. No Clinton/Romney, but Obama/Huckabee. I was way off - it looks as though the contests are realigning, and that the overall demands of the electorate are realigning. Maybe. So who to win New Hampshire?

Clinton/McCain

Romney won't leave the contest despite having been floored below the waterline, which will be music to Giuliani's ears for the end of the month. McCain though becomes stronger, the more the 'surge' in Iraq is being spun by the media as being remotely a positive thing.

Hillary did very well in the debate last night by many accounts, and may have blunted the edge of the 'agent of change' label which seems now firmly fastened to Obama. Defining 'experience' (which hasn't worked for her so far) as '35 years as a change maker' was a very good move. If it doesn't stick in New Hampshire though, the mountain she'll have to climb will be increasingly tall. I must say her Bush-esque comments about attacking foreign countries who 'harbour' terrorists (I can't imagine any doing so all that willingly anymore) was very appealing, although nor was Obama's repetition of an earlier claim he would attack 'terrorists' in Pakistan without anyone's prior approval. Does that really jibe with him being an 'agent of change'? Sounds pretty neo-Conservative to me.

Spears Loses Kids

Look. Can someone help this woman?



It's one of the most obvious and slowest moving suicides I've seen. Someone intervene to stop it happening please, because at the moment it's looking inevitable. I'm not a fan of hers by any means - that doesn't matter. She does need to be stopped from self destructing fully though.

Iowa

My guess? It'll be fun to find out the truth tomorrow, but my prediction for this round at least?

Clinton and Romney to win.

Oh you want me to make an initial guess for November? Clinton v Huckabee.

Journalistic Differences

It was really quite striking coming home both from Paris and from Geneva. Two different countries, granted, but Geneva's just metres from France. Looking at their papers, their magazines, pretty much every news, gossip and popular culture medium, all you could see was Nicolas Sarkozy and Claudia Bruni. Over here - nothing, and more than just nothing - not even a hint of them. Why would that be? I'm not sure I get that. Is it really just a linguistic thing which makes him interesting there and completely irrelevant here? Is it because he really is 'their' Tony Blair - their first political leader given over entirely to the cult of celebrity? It's possibly almost too close an analogy. Maybe it's just that they're not used to this sort of domestic grandstanding and we've thoroughly had our fill...

Happy New Year?

Partly to check who's reading this thing, partly because I want to contrast my experience of this New Year's Day with other people, I would like you to tell me what it is about this year that you're looking forward to. I'm curious - is it events like the American Presidential election? The Olympics? Is it somewhere you're planning to travel to? Is it just daily life you're looking forward to, which you're particularly enjoying right now?

You're conversely also welcome to say you're not looking forward to anything, that 2008 has a lot of negatives and potential negatives in store. You may be seeing the economic climate as a case of impending doom, you may not like your lot in life, there may be elements you can foresee about this year which you don't like the look of.

Here's where to share.

Lib Dems Message for 08

The Lib Dems' Nick Clegg sets the scene for '08 adequately on one hand, and very well on the other.

"we should campaign tirelessly to stop the expensive, invasive and unnecessary Identity Cards scheme in its tracks."

It's of course impossible to disagree. For me Clegg's point is undermined through being founded on the government's incompetent loss of data at Revenue & Customs. Whilst it obviously proves that no government, especially the current one, can be trusted with private, personal data which it doesn't need, that's ultimately a sub point.

What we must all remember is that the individual determines the state, not the other way around. It is the fundamental cornerstone upon which all liberal democracies are founded. The government's ID card plans would involve a complete inversion of that principle. You can argue till you're blue in the face that technology has made that irrelevant - the inversion has already taken place. Well maybe - our surveillance society has made true privacy from the state almost impossible in this country - but no technology is one way. To suggest an inevitability about a technology is not to understand the way in which it works. Google can monitor huge amounts of our internet habits, but even Facebook was forced to back down in its attempts to monitor and manipulate its users.

Do you really want some chav temping in the Passport & ID Agency to tell you that you aren't who you say you are? ID cards won't make any difference against terrorism, they won't make any discernible difference against ID fraud and there hasn't ever been a government on this planet which hasn't misused power of this magnitude over its population. And don't forget if this plan comes to pass, your power over the government (which at the moment is supposed to be absolute) will fall away. That must not be allowed to happen. A good start by the new Lib Dem leadership - using Iraq as a touchstone issue changed everything for the party - this too will retain a unique selling point for them.

We Disappear

At last Scott Heim's third novel is about to be published.

Fingers crossed it'll get a UK publication date soon. Mysterious Skin and In Awe remain two of the best novels I've ever read (Mysterious Skin as well having been adapted into a really impressive movie too). 

Complaining About Catherine Tate

Me? Absolutely not. I have huge reservations about her being the new companion for Doctor Who series 4, but I love her comedy show, and thought her Christmas Special the other day was one of the best show's she's ever done in her career.

Others didn't agree.

We really are in a place where people love to take offence for other people, regardless of whether they're offended or not. It's bollocks. Grow up people - the show was on at the right time, the tone was just as it's ever been, the Northern Irish sketches were a satire for fuck's sake (see, I said fuck too) and we even got the delight of Kathy Burke returning from her premature acting retirement.

Tabloid Santa

Death of Bhutto

Benazir Bhutto has been assassinated.

Oh shit.

This couldn't be worse news. World Wars have started from much less.

Switzerland

I like it, even though it's bloody cold. It's still a 'clean' cold rather than one which just pierces right through you. We're in Geneva for another day, for our Christmas break, and are slowly picking up Swiss ideosyncracies, such as every train always leaving to the minute, walking in the street being somewhat of a relaxed task - stopping randomly isn't something for some people, it seems to be for everyone. It's not as straightforward as you might think to just pop into somewhere for a bite to eat, but public transport is extensive, quick and easy to use.



There's a relaxed, almost American West Coast attitude here, which is disarming. Maybe it's down to the extremely high level of relative affluence which is easily noticeable in the street, maybe it's because the international community is so huge. Either way it's somewhere I want to visit again, and that's without even having had our long-awaited fondue yet. That comes later - this club sandwich was a Christmas Day evening snack last night!

Voyage of the Damned

Well the sole naysayer I saw reviewing the Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned Christmas Special was wrong. It wasn't the best we've had, but it far outdid last year's, and Kylie wasn't window dressing, nor did she overshadow Tennant. In fact she outacted Catherine Tate something rotten. 



This was a lovely Christmas episode, with elements of Titanic & Poseidon Adventure thrown in, not to mention the odd surprise. The only fault I'd offer would be that it was perhaps played too safe. Where Torchwood made a thoroughly unexpected and curveball-throwing introduction at the end of the first Christmas Special, this was far too self contained. Nice for the evening, but without much of an edge to it. Not surprising, considering Russell T Davies himself wrote it, but it did leave you wanting more danger and uncertainty than was actually offered.

The emotion though was real, sincerely acted, and Kylie Minogue really was nice as Astrid. Shame she couldn't take Catherine Tate's place - she'd clearly have done very well indeed. We had familiar themes here about the Doctor and his wishing he could determine who lives and who dies, but they were nicely not overdone, especially considering the seasonal episode. I do want to hear the new theme again though, and I'm intrigued about Series 4, with the edgy trailer, alongside what I've already heard rumoured. That Tennant really owns the character now - even the slightest failures in direction or script really do quite easily rub off now - he can really own the audience with looks which he now times to utter perfection.

Who Prayers Answered

So it looks like Catherine Tate jumped the gun. Can this blogger say whew?

Tennant's refuted her claim, saying he is going to be the Doctor for the three 2009 specials, and that as usual he's not yet signed to season 5 because he hasn't yet been asked. So my suspicion that Tate's claim was part of his usual bargaining strategy was probably right. The BBC will find it hard to avoid signing him to season 5 now, whoever is in charge of it (according to Peter Davison it will be Steven Moffat).

Tennant To Leave Dr Who?

Catherine Tate seems to think so.

The comedian, speaking on Radio 2's Jonathan Ross programme, said: "I think it's maybe David's last series."

The BBC needs to do everything in its power to keep him in series 5 in 2010. Hopefully, despite their cost cutting exercise they're wise to this. The show managed to keep going in 1984 after Peter Davison had only been there for two seasons, indeed Tennant's predecessor Christopher Eccleston notoriously managed only one. But the relaunch is still fresh in the public's mind, especially in an age where the media is so fragmented (alongside viewers' attention), and to me only three seasons plus a year of quarterly specials would be far too short for a man labelled frequently as the best Doctor ever. This blogger's fingers are crossed - at least one full season with Steven Moffat at the helm (as is strongly rumoured) and then give someone else a crack as the Eleventh Doctor.

Please?

Beckham to Make Your Day

Paris: Spac

I'm not sure about Paris.



There were very clearly multiple Parises, as is true with any large capital city. The level of petty street crime was appalling, the public transport was hard to navigate and even more inconsistent than London's, and the all-pervasive smoking was a bit of a shock! But the diversity of the eateries was fun, the architecture was remarkable and there was the sensation that you have to change your mindset for Paris to work for you. London and others open up to you, not Paris. There's something much different going on here - I wonder what it is?

Fitwatch

Yesterday I went on London's National Climate March in the (fittingly?) pouring rain. It went well thankfully, considering how many people were marching, and how many unnecessary Met police people there were. Once the march reached its destination of the US Embassy however, things went slightly differently. A small but significant (and definitely loud) contingent started to wind the police up, these boys among them. Fitwatch are an impressive collection of direct activists against police surveillance of legitimate protesting. FIT stands for Future Intelligence Team, which pretty much sums up the Metropolitan Police in particular - creating criminals and criminality out of thin air, to be used when it most suits them.

The Met really didn't like them at all, which pretty much means they're doing a good job. Gotta love that surveillance society - at least there is some activism against it.

The Dark Knight

This film is just going to be astounding. Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton this is not. This is the ultimate screen Batman. I can't wait!

Appeasement

A local BBC radio presenter joked that Gillian Gibbons' dog was called Mohammed. Then the BBC issued an on-air apology. Why, exactly? Were they really afraid that a sarcastic jibe at a hysterical Muslim element in a foreign country would lead to her meeting Theo Van Gough's fate?

They stand firm over Jerry Springer: The Opera, yet cave in and apologise to world Islam before a complaint is even made. Why bloody pander to people who choose to take offence, before they even do?

Dr Who : Time Crash

Rubbish Presents

These people are clearly mad. If I got a giftwrapped Will Young for Christmas my head would spin right off!

Kit Kat

Cookie Dough Kit Kat. Those Australians are very lucky.

Read Fantastic Four in February '08!

Folks for those of you who love the medium (or indeed those have yet to love the medium), read Fantastic Four 554 in February! Brought to you by Mark (creator of the upcoming Angelina Jolie film 'Wanted') Millar and Bryan (designer of the current Tardis in 'Doctor Who') Hitch, this will kick off 12 issues for anyone who loves good, innovative, high adventure storytelling!
(note to Marvel: use of the jpg is entirely for your promotional purposes and not intended for my benefit in any way)

Islam is Peace

Heathrow Expansion or no Heathrow Expansion?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants a third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow. I however just don't get it. When we're finally embracing high speed rail - a Eurostar line to Birmingham would easily allow a dramatic shift of transport overcrowding out of the southeast, whilst still moving people where they want to go as quickly as they're used to. It takes ages to get into central London by rail from Heathrow (yes I'm aware of the Heathrow Express, I'm also painfully aware of how expensive it is), Gatwick and Stansted - why not do it in a fraction of the time from East Midlands Airport?

I don't understand why political and environmental thinking has to remain so vacuous. Other countries forge ahead with infrastructure just for this reason - we however are nearly 14 years behind the French in just getting our trains into our capital cities from the Channel Tunnel.

Love Life

Well do you? I don't. Don't get me wrong, there have been many things out of life which I've enjoyed; still do. I mean the process of life. I hate life - I've never ever had this point disproven, noone's ever shown me a reason to think otherwise. I have images in my mind of the person I could be, the quality of life I could have, but I know they'll never happen. My mother would be furious knowing this, if she were alive. I keep blogging and taking photos just to keep feeling alive, even though there's no emotional engagement with the process.

There are people out there who've tried to destroy me, there are people out there currently trying their level best. What they don't know is I'm dead inside and their efforts don't matter. Fuck them, and in a very real way fuck you all.

Lashings

Cartoons
Originally uploaded by lewishamdreamer

Every once in awhile I see a story which makes me despair of humanity. This is one of those times.

A British primary school teacher arrested in Sudan faces up to 40 lashes for blasphemy after letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad.

And it happens to be a very common name in the Islamic world. Fucking backward. Remember the cartoons? And even that began with an artist and editor who did mean to cause offence. These are children and teddy bears.

Strangers

My family have become strangers to me. I've just been looking at photos of my sister on Facebook, and feel quite alarmed at our prospects for late December when we go to visit her and her family in New Zealand - I barely recognise her. I mean I grew up with her for such a long time, and even though we almost never got on, we were at least close family members. Now, living here, nowhere near any remaining immediate member of my family, I'm consciously aware of how isolated I am from any community around me. I wonder how much that's contributed to my woes this year. I look back at Brad, who retains such a closely knit unit of family and friends around him, and find nothing similar on my side.

Don't get me wrong I am fully aware of how important my friends are. This year a handful of them quite literally saved my life. But these are disparate ties, which I had to draw on individually. I'm aware that in just four weeks time we'll be visiting family members who are no longer familiar. They'll be as important as they have been in recent years, particularly my nieces, but they'll be at a distance. As much as I might have longed for that in the past, it won't be a comfortable thing.

X-Factor: Flogging a Dead Horse?

It's very much a case of overkill, as you would expect with the mass media. Britain's 21st century love affair with TV talent competitions kicked into overdrive with 2001's Pop Idol, won by the now hugely successful (& deserving) Will Young. However the format faltered with only its second outing, replaced soon thereafter by Simon Cowell's X-Factor - a blatant ripoff of the same show. The British public was unexpectedly successfully hoodwinked into sticking with a show it had essentially already dropped; the result was Steve Brookstein. 

However it recovered and created genuine stars like Shayne Ward and Leona Lewis, but now? What to do with a show which has (as with Pop Idol) fulfilled its remit and once again no longer has an obvious, undiscovered star? Is the Great British public so stupid as to just keep lapping this boredom factor up ad infinitum?

This World is in a Mess

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,1952866,00.html

It's awfully convenient that the man investigating the Putin regime for allegedly planting the tower block bombs which initiated the Hell in Chechnya just happens to be fatally poisoned. He was also investigating the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, also allegedly murdered by the Putin regime. She too was investigating the root causes of the Chechnya wars.l

Death Penalty

I write as someone who believes that the state never has the right to take life. If an individual doesn't, then the state doesn't either - the death penalty is always wrong.

YET...

Read these two stories and tell me that the world wouldn't be a better place with the culprits removed entirely from it:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/6136786.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6123014.stm?ls

Thoughts, commentary etc please.

Scotland

So it's day 1 in Scotland for the first time in nearly 5 years. I'm up here with friends, but not with Tom - my first holiday on my own since 1998 and it's much needed space. Space is something I've always understood was necessary, but having an actual break is something I've needed to put into practice for many years. My colitis recurrence and the simultaneous chest infection have made it clear that my stress management has hit an all time low. So I'm in Scotland, with Dave and Steve, with the chance to clear my head.

And I do need to clear my head. The level of change has been so rapid recently, that despite its all having been good, and all having been successful, I'm feeling resentful of it. As Tom put it, some 'me' time gives me the chance to adjust, the chance to be me independently of my responsibilities and the changes going on with them. I have a lot of hopes placed in the next three days and I hope they get met (I'm pretty certain they will).

Cough, Cold, Colitis and Cosmo!

Just Cosmo
Originally uploaded by lewishamdreamer.

It's an alliterative month it seems.

Lots of physical stresses as you can tell by the title. All of the mental stress from the last two months conspired to break me physically last week. And although the colitis flare up is now going back under control (albeit slowly), the other illnesses are a real pain. Thankfully Cosmo is about. We did so well with her in the last 24 hours, I'm so proud. Tom, she and I worked as a team to create an hilarious evening and a quiet night (the opposite of the previous 24 hours).

It's fascinating the changes in everything which Cosmo is forcing. I go through bouts of being alarmed by it, but it's all good. There are a couple of adjustments left to manage, but they're likely to self correct when we both start being well again (Tom's got the cough and cold too).

As I approach the end of 2006 I still find it almost mind boggling to realise I own my own house, have a job, share a cat, and am married to the loveliest man I've known. It's been a bastard of a year but the set up for the next decade has also gone on, and it's a good one.

Comic Art Auction

Out of reasons of poverty I'm selling four fantastic pieces of comic artwork:

- A signed & numbered lithograph of Captain America by Travis Charest
- A Spirit lithograph, signed & numbered by Dave Gibbons & Will Eisner
- A Supreme poster, painted by Alex Ross
- A signed & numbered Ghost lithograph by Adam Hughes

You can find them all here - you won't find pieces like this cared for quite as well anywhere else. In the case of the Gibbons/Eisner piece, it's a bargain too.

Gaydom

I really don't give two hoots about the 'gay community' anymore. This probably makes me some sort of traitor to some circles, but I've had it proven to me again this evening. Going to a local gay pub - old style, thrown together with the requisite cabaret drag act - didn't resonate with me at all. At all. It did once when I was younger, when the world around me was substantially different - now it's just...a throwback to a time in history long since past. Nostalgia's one thing, flogging a dead horse however is completely different.

It's a subject which came up in conversation with an ex in recent weeks - it's surprising how quickly and how utterly my views have changed in this. I used to volunteer for the Terrence Higgins Trust, Stonewall, the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, went out to places like the Village Soho, G-A-Y, I even worked at the Albert Kennedy Trust. None of this does anything for me now - my needs of the world around me, and the needs which come from my sexual orientation are being expressed completely differently. Is this maturity, greater experience or jadedness? Who can tell?

Change of Season

Maybe it's because we're in autumn, yes, maybe that's it. You may wonder, feeling the temperature right now, but businesses are gearing up for the run-up to Christmas, the university's doing it as well, kids are back at school - the false sense of security which the summer provided is well and truly gone. Yet maybe that isn't the reason I'm feeling as bad as I am.

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, a lot has been changing, some of which I've ridden along with, to my considerable enjoyment, some of which has been less obvious but no less significant. And at the moment I'm living a life of tumult - multiple demands from the day job, freelance work and unpaid work, stress because I'm the only one in our household with a job (I'm not apportioning blame here, although it does leave me in the unenviable - and inappropriate - position of being 'the one in charge of the money')...and this is not including the people on the fringes.

It's a time where I feel unappreciated by my family, unappreciated in general actually. I need a holiday, yet I'm paid by the hour - if I took a week off I'd not get paid for it until I left my current employer; great news for them, useless for me. It's awkward - the only people I can really ask for support aren't really in much of a position to provide any. So I wend my lonely way on, hoping that people understand and find invariably that they don't. Apologies for the whinge - I didn't really want this blog to have any - but it's a mostly unhappy time for me and I thought I'd practice at bringing a sense of it to the screen.

It's an odd unhappiness - the profound reasons which accounted for it last year are no longer in play (a situation I'd never thought would come to pass), yet I'm still feeling quite adrift.

Dumbfuck

First we have Tony Blair telling us that Hamas = Hezbollah = Al Qaeda. Now...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5318204.stm

Bin Laden = Hitler = Lenin.

Fucking hell.

He said the world had ignored the writings of Lenin and Hitler "and paid a terrible price" - adding the world must not to do the same with al-Qaeda.

I see. So it was their writings which caused the Second World War and the Cold War.

Politics is in free fall. You heard it here first.

Age

I'm almost half way to my 37th birthday. When I was going out with James in 2001, 35 seemed such a long way away, yet I've sailed past that and am heading out to 40. I remember when Mum was 40, how could I possibly be?

I'm developing an odd relationship with age. As much as I long to be seen as attractive to the bright young things I see around me, I don't feel a genuine need to be. It isn't so much an age threshold I've crossed as a maturity threshold - the people who simply find me attractive do, those who don't really don't need to. I'm not the man I was in 2001/2, yet in some ways I find myself longing for that mindset, wishing that I still were younger, that I could be seen the way I used to be, by the people who used to see me that way.

I'm proud of the achievements I'm making, the older I'm getting - they're achievements you can only get through advancing age. They're more substantial achievements, more grounded, more meaningful, more attuned to my deeper character than those I celebrated when I was younger. In that respect it's great to be 36. Yet I feel old, I feel ground down, more detached from the mainstream than I ever have been since I first came out. A rebellious side of me screams in resentment against that - Tom and I may have to do something quite unexpected in response to that, upon his return on Sunday. I think marriage will turn out to be the solution to this feeling - as stable (albeit unconventional) as that sounds.

Hop Hop Hoopla

It's a state of the world blog post I'm afraid.

We've just come back from my family home in Guernsey and I was really unsettled to see some of the changes. Don't get me wrong - I've known much of what's happening there now has been on the cards for years. They've prioritised their rich at the expense of their poor and thought they could get away with it for at least a generation; now their crime rate is out of control and many people think town is a no-go area on weekend evenings.

What surprised me though was another difference between this visit and the last - noise. My Dad's house is built well away from any main road. The acoustics mean he's quite sheltered from everything and everyone, and we're used to staying and hearing nothing which for me is a seriously therapeutic experience considering how much noise we have to put up with at home in London. Yet now noise is encroaching into his house at night - boy racers where there were none, loud neighbours, music from directions you can only guess at. A small increase in volume and he'll be at the level we're at - when on earth did things start to change there as well?

Is it really a rich/poor thing which is creating this universal lack of consideration? It's clearly not a London thing anymore. Some people call it drink, some say it's because the people in question don't have anything else to do. Yet I've never wantonly caused noise pollution for people. Ever since I was plagued by it when at university the first time I've never understood why people felt the need to share their noise with everyone else. Yet in 2006 is seems to have become in vogue - a national pastime.

Happiness

So many people have so many conflicting ideas about what this is. I'm musing, laying here on the couch, watching the clouds go by as I edit my photos, wondering what to make of something like happiness. What I know is that for me at least it has never been a constant state. Some people seem very "happy" people - not me. For me it's a fleeting thing, happy "bursts", although I've striven to reach a "happy" state. I've felt quite guilty about that this year - since I got married in January there's been, I think, a mutual expectation of a certain higher average level of daily happiness. Yet again that hasn't been the case and I don't think any more that it's circumstantial. 2006 has been a very hard year for me.

Instead it feels like the nature of happiness has changed. With age it feels more like something which can exist, but with strings. The older I get the more compromises enter my life, the more restrictions appear, the more harsh lessons get learned. Happiness can't be this constant, blissful state under such conditions. I know that's something I tried for a few years ago, but reality proved it to be an illusion and a false target. Now, even though I regularly don't consciously feel "happy", bombarded by the transitory and constant pressures life brings, I'm aware that happiness, an adult happiness, might be there anyway. I just have to acknowledge it.

Older

Touchy
Originally uploaded by lewishamdreamer.

Maybe it's the ever increasing number of grey eyebrows, the now profusion of grey chest hairs or the wrinkles developing now around my eyes, but I've finally started to see concrete signs that I'm getting older. I'll grant you 36 isn't old by any reasonable measure, but youthfulness has drifted from me in a significant way this year. I'm not talking about the hairs which refuse to stop growing in the ears (I love being in my late 30s), it's more a feeling of having been kicked hard enough by life to not think first of the easy, enjoyable choices anymore. The hard ones remain at the top of the agenda even though I'm often far too lazy to pursue them.

I'm not sad about this change, although my changed, less automatically happy attitude has caught some people by surprise. I think I'm taking on attributes of my father other than the appalling body hair you can see in the picture. Where I would try to suffer fools for the greater good I'm now completely dismissive, regardless of the short term cost. Life's simply too short to be upset constantly by people who ultimately don't care a bit about you. I guess I don't think about how fanciable I am that much nowadays easier, whereas for a spell in my early 30s it was a real preoccupation. Maybe that's because I'm married now...married...and the fear of being left behind is slowly becoming a thing of the past.

The average age of my friends has doubled in the last year - almost all of whom are in permanent relationships and one of whom has a child of his own. I don't think I'll be going down that route with Tom although you never know. I'm quite content to be the favourite uncle for now. It does slightly make me wonder though what my priorities will be when I'm in my forties though - and they're just around the corner. Strange thought - my mother never made it out of her forties...is time flying by so quickly?

I wonder if I should do a photographic project around the theme of age.

How Far Would You Go?

I'm curious. In the name of art, how far would you (could you, should you) go in using/displaying your body? Where are the boundaries between exhibitionism, pornography and art? Are they fluid? Are they down to subtle nuance? In my frustration at not (yet) developing any photographic relationships in which I can explore the nudity of others, I've taken the decision to use myself. It's much more awkward in a sense - how objective can I be about my OWN body - but it also opens up other questions, such as who should see it, why and in what context?

I've worried that my requests for nude work have gone to make me look like some sort of perv. That I might be anyway is moot - I'm genuinely interested in these issues right now and want to explore them. I don't mind whether it's with people I know quite well, people I barely know or just myself (although the scope there will remain pretty limited).

This Is Autumn's Doing

Speakerz Corner
Originally uploaded by lewishamdreamer.

It may or may not be actually. My mood always collapses along with the weather, which well and truly did collapse together. It's either the beginning of autumn or the first taster of it and it felt awful. It left me, I guess, feeling a need - not sexual, not desperate, more of an ache than anything else. And I really wanted to fill it through creativity. I really really want to push the boundaries of what I can do photographically with people but it's very hard. People have issues with their appearance, they have their own priorities, the list of obstacles feels truly endless sometimes. I ended up taking a self portrait which I felt pushed things a bit (and of which I am proud) but it wasn't what I'd wanted out of today. Maybe if tomorrow is sunny I won't keep feeling this - I wonder.

I want to make art that takes risks, challenges, impresses, catches 'the regulars' off guard. That's going to mean finding people on the whole who are prepared to meet me half way. Problem is all the people I know would I'd really rather steer clear from.

Photography has issue after issue built into it. I guess good photography would have to - you're asking people to give something of themselves. Why is it that the people who are managing to do this happen to have no soul? Do you have to be extremely patient or leave your soul in the cloakroom?

John Reid Becomes Michael Howard becomes John Reid

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1840482,00.html

Can someone tell me how and why we're living in a more threatening time than during the height of the IRA's campaign(s)? I don't buy the argument for a moment that post-Cold War population mobility has caused society to be in such a state. For that matter what danger IS society in full-stop? I'll buy an argument about technology having broken down barriers - the Internet more than anything else. But surely since 1990 inequalities, particularly down ethnic lines (albeit not ALL ethnic lines) have massively increased down to choices made by governments for easy votes. Surely that's in part given rise to things like people trafficking, and aided a resurgence in global terrorism (which is hardly new).

And what exactly do we need a debate about? The number of white Australians and South Africans illegally working in most of London's bars or the number of dark skinned Muslims? Surely immigration 'issues' only really affect the already 'have nots', who can easily perceive their lives being affected by new arrivals. Maybe NuLabour could think for a moment about decreasing poverty instead of dreaming up more draconian immigration crises, announcements and laws. Somehow I doubt it though.

Autumn

Karen: Baby: B/W
Originally uploaded by lewishamdreamer.

So today was the first autumnal day of 2006. We are assured that it will reverse itself tomorrow or Saturday, which is a good thing considering how much I have to photograph on both days. In fact my photographic career is booming, although I've yet to move forward from my first professional gig three weeks ago. But as you can see (particularly if you click on this picture to go through to my Flickr photostream) things are going spectacularly creatively. Karen is/was a work colleague who wanted me to photograph her pregnancy. It turned out to be the best photoshoot I've yet had. And the work with Remodel is going brilliantly - two shoots almost back to back, improving each time.

I can't say how much photography means to me and how much I need this to be a career. Hopefully this image gives you some hint of a clue. And if you want anything done - I'm always able to do it.

If Cleanliness is Next to Godliness, What is Honesty?

In a rare recent act of generosity I just handed in a £20 note I found on the floor at work to reception. They appear to have an honest policy for dealing with it and if noone claims it within three months I get it. It's not like I couldn't have done with it, but I'm sure someone else in the same situation has just lost it. Here's hoping it wasn't one of the legions of drug dealers around there parts...

A Change of Mind

I've written before about the oddness of having totally different, yet concurrent mindsets. I've just seen an article on the BBC website which has reminded me yet again how completely different my thinking is now, compared with my teenage and early twenty-something years (my pre-'out' period).

The article draws similarities between the American missile strike in Qana and their strike on Baghdad in the first Gulf War in 1991. Each time scores of innocents were knowingly killed, not by 'them', but by 'us'. I find it hard to imagine that in 1991 I was moved enough to complain about Jeremy Bowen's coverage of the story and yet now I'm joining in the near-universal condemnation of what the Israelis are doing and have done there above all. And yet I also look back into the late 80s and early 90s and find a great deal which is (bizarrely) incompatible with who I am now: my worldview, my politics, my attractions. I always thought of myself as mature for my age as I was growing up, and yet I didn't slough off my childhood and the unchallenged views you pick up from your parents, until I was in my early twenties. I find myself strange.

It seems so strange that the act of coming out to myself should have shattered and begun to shatter so many aspects of the way I was and transform them into who I am today. I suppose it's a rite of passage - for many at school it was having sex with their first girlfriend (which I knew from an early age disinterested me), or their first cigarette. I resisted my first rite of passage until I was 24 and now accept I fancy boys, wouldn't vote Tory if my life depended on it and condemn utterly what Israel is doing to Lebanon in general and most recently to Qana in particular.

Superman Returns

A change of tone if I may. As a comic collector of many decades, I thought it time to air my thoughts about the new Superman movie. As with many other people, my views have altered considerably after having time to think it over, and I feel like exploring them here.

In short it's an entertaining movie. It's clearly a tribute to what's gone before, and on closer inspection very nearly a remake; similar plotline, often the same dialogue. Even Marlon Brando's Jor-El is back, providing the continuity link to the Reeve films which this follows on from. Yet stating that Superman Returns follows on directly from Superman II is perversely the film's greatest flaw. Brandon Routh has Christopher Reeve to live up to (probably impossible for anyone), Kate Bosworth has Margot Kidder to live up to (she fails) and whilst Kevin Spacey's Lex is far and away a better Lex than Gene Hackman's, it's largely because this film realises that it has to respond to a different audience in a different age. So it's trapped from the outset between trying to emulate what's gone before but 'move it on a bit'. And with compromise after compromise, despite frequently astounding CGI, the film is spiritually dead. For a Superman movie this is unforgivable.

The film explores themes about moving on, legacy, generational change. And with an entirely new cast inhabiting the same characters it's clearly something they and Bryan Singer felt that the audience would need to go through in trying to clear the franchise of the ghost of Christopher Reeve. Clark moves on through his son, emulating his own development from Jor-El in Superman I, Lois moves on through shacking up with James Marsden, yet this worthy exploration masks a fundamental failure of both the franchise and of Singer's understanding of the character. It's been said that the novelisation retains the original beginning to the plot, where Clark travels to what he believes are the remains of Krypton - it's a deception by Luthor to get him off planet, discredited, leaving him free to escape from jail. All we learn in the movie is that Clark is gone for five years - he just up and left. With the values he was raised with, Clark would never do that - he would never leave his Ma, Lois, all the people he cares about who depend on him. Yet this is what we are led to understand he did. And when he learns that Lois has moved on, he essentially tortures himself and her for two hours' worth of footage before claiming no longer to be bovvered. Again - Clark would do this? I don't think so.

We have a continuity fudge of Lois clearly knowing (Singer has alluded to this) that she slept with Clark/Kal-El in Superman II, yet her memory was supposedly wiped of his secret identity at the close of that film. Did she fake that sequence? We don't know. It would explain Lois' fury at being abandoned, yet fury seems too strong for this film. Apart from Lex noone appears to feel anything at all. Clark broods relentlessly, seeming to have a messiah complex not previously shown in this franchise. And this opens up another flaw: if he is emotionally disconnected throughout most of the film, the closing sequence with his son should have restored his connection. It doesn't happen.

Since Superman II America has changed from being seen as a champion of social values to a defiler of them, and it's no surprise that a Superman movie in the 21st century would try incredibly hard to abandon these associations. Truth, Justice and the American Way become Truth, Justice 'and all that stuff'. Superman's closing fly through in space no longer has him holding an American flag, and it is at that point more than ever that the film falls flat. Christopher Reeve made you feel good about yourself and gave more vigour to the character before or since, just with a smile. He had effortless charm and authority in equal measure. Whilst Brandon Routh might, he isn't allowed or encouraged to, leaving a film of good intentions but weak execution, loaded with miscast characters and wasted opportunities. It was Christian Bale's job to brood, not Brandon Routh's. It was the X-Men's place to be dark, not Superman's. I was moved by the retention of the theme and opening credit sequence, but by nothing else. The film's poor box office takings in the US suggest I'm not alone, and in the film's most important market to boot.

It's Been Too Long

Cygnet
Originally uploaded by lewishamdreamer.

I apologise profusely for such a wait for new words, but again images have me uttely captivated. As my photography progresses and business tentatively begins (I shot me a wedding last weekend), I'm increasingly drawn into the power and poetry of images to tell stories about people and the world. A high falluting way of putting it I know, but there you are - it means a great deal to me.

I've been spending all my time fighting to keep my world together. 2006 has been like that - fighting brush fires that spontaneously become forest fires - and it's been beating me down and keeping me more exhausted than even this horrendously humid and hot weather. I'm not being melodramatic, but people really don't know just how low my confidence is right now. I've actually succeeded in doing the things which have needed to be done, and I'm left with precious few resources with which to tend to normal life adequately. I'm not entirely sure how to get a good feeling back to daily life to be honest, although with most of the other 2006 pressures having been removed, the task should be easier than it feels.

I've decided I hate the British summer. Noise, heat, lower tolerance of (and respect towards) one another even than normal. I don't get a decent night's sleep at all. My only outlet's becoming photography - the accompanying photograph is my own work and is a result of considerable patience. I wish I could do more, but all I can do is focus on not crashing - from morning to night.

Mindsets

It's strange, realising you can have multiple mindsets at the same time. It sort of answers the question of how the 7/7 bombers could live Western lives quite happily, yet also commit mass murder in the name of attacking just that lifestyle/system. And (hardly as a comparison) I right now am all ready for things to take off in 2006 for the first time - the dangers have gone away (just how many times can it be possible to dodge a bullet?), I'm employed (and appreciated), about to be paid (very well), and learning from a professional photographer as well. Yet I'm still not happy, the anxiety is actually quite difficult to control recently, despite the things which threatened to destroy me actually having gone away.

2006 is a very strange year. I've never been more impatient. I really have to make at least 2, and maybe three of my ideas work.

Big Break

Oh my. I have my first professional photoshoot as photographer's assistant next week. Photographing royalty. I'm sure I'm not going to be taking any photographs myself, but this is my big photographic break.

I'm taken aback to say the least.

Oh yes and I took this on my most recent shoot. I absolutely love it (and TJ's pretty lovely himself):

Homophobia

Now it's not something I've been affected by that much, before or after coming out. Neighbours have mostly been good - with some odd child exceptions around the last flat, which got strange - never a problem with a colleague or many people I've encountered in the street. Not that it's never happened - it has. There have been groups of people being abusive to a group of people I've been with, and other, isolated incidents which haven't really stuck in my mind. So last night was just strange.

My development is made up of flats which have mostly been sold by the unscrupulous developer for owners to rent. We're quite unusual here by being owner/occupiers. It leads to serious noise problems, regular anti-social behaviour, unbelievable selfishness. Even more of a shame that many, many gay people live here, drawn by the promise offered in the publicity literature of luxury living at affordable prices. We're wrong to have done this of course - the 'luxury living' is counter-balanced by so many negatives it's barely believable sometimes - and last night was no exception. Yet again someone was clearly letting off fireworks from their balcony in the middle of the night - a pretty anti-social act wherever you may be. So I opened the window for a look, and on a nearby building, on a balcony I'd never seen occupied, was a man who was directed towards me and clearly said 'hello' expecting a response. So I replied in kind - he seemed likely to have been drawn out by the noise himself and maybe we both thought the same thing about it. He immediately fake coughed and went "gay cunt" - for what immediate purpose I couldn't fathom. Was he drunk? Stoned? Unaware of the irony of being homophobic in a development replete with gays? I stared at him, trying to see some facial features but it was too dark and closed the window instead. He too went inside.

So I'm left with the pain of having been verbally abused whilst in my own home, by someone whose motives aren't clear, and by someone I'd be unlikely to recognise in the street. If that was a beginning rather than drunken Friday night antics then there's a problem brewing, a solution to which being potentially quite awkward. Part and parcel of living somewhere like London I guess, but I'm tired of living around quite so much trash. Good thing I started serious work on Canada references the same day then, but it's still a mental hit I could have done without.