Politicians

It’s been a really busy couple of weeks, and I am taking this weekend to catch up on various things, relax a bit, and remind myself what Inverness looks like.  Thankfully there are few travels between now and the wedding, which will be nice.

During my work in Edinburgh, I had a reception to attend at the Scottish Parliament, a controversial building which I had already concluded was immensely ugly on the outside.  This having been my first venture inside, I sadly have to reach the same conclusion about the interior too.  It’s curious, though, and I’d have loved to have taken some photos but stupidly I forgot my camera.  Maybe I’ll get a chance to go back in, camera in hand, and suss the place out at my leisure, and perhaps even change my mind about the place.

While mingling around, spotting colleagues, the occasional famous face and a few old friends, an MSP approached me and introduced himself.  He told me where he represented, and said he was also his party’s spokesman for something or other.  I asked if he enjoyed that portfolio.

“No, I absolutely hate it,” came the refreshingly honest reply.

Later in a restaurant with colleagues, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was just a few tables away.

She didn’t recognise me, though.  Not that she let on, anyway…

How to Strip the Willow, by the Jiggers

Regular readers will recall that, just over a year ago, I was official gig photographer at a “Big Jig” charity bash by the Jiggers ceilidh band in Glasgow.

Besides my challenge to photograph something other than buildings and mountains, Greg, Jigger-in-chief, also had a video taken.  Sadly, however, the video was corrupted.  But the good news was it means this YouTube video that Greg has just put up on his blog involves a montage of my photos instead of the film (apart from the last one – no idea who took that one).  Bummer, eh?

Those photos mean quite a lot to me.  It was just after I bought my Mac and therefore are the first batch I ever uploaded to it; it was a really fun night; and among the photos I took is one that is one of my very favourites.

The video aims to introduce the Strip the Willow – a dance which is fantastically good fun, but absolutely exhausting.

I’ll get to practice my Strip the Willow very soon, in fact, as my wedding is three weeks today…

Inverness Courier article

I was interviewed the other day by an Inverness Courier journalist, who had approached me after hearing on the grapevine about my forthcoming book.

The article is in today’s edition, although not also online as far as I can see.

It’s a good article, and it was a refreshing change from past media pieces I’ve done as part of the mullet mission, because I was asked not just about the search but the search and book.

However, nothing’s perfect in life – the article mentions the area of Inverness I live in, despite me asking the reporter not to mention it, and one photo I gave the paper (the lower one in the image on the right) has been mis-captioned as Queensland, Australia, rather than New Zealand’s North Island.

But it’s nice to have a bit of publicity in the run-up to the book coming out.  More on which in due course.

ScotRail’s blind spot

It’s been a long week – two days in Edinburgh, and then Friday and Saturday working in Glasgow.  I got the last train home from Glasgow Queen Street last night, despite rather than because of ScotRail customer service.

When I got to the station, I found that the 1941 to Aberdeen was affected by floods.  This was the train I would be getting as far as Perth, before changing on to the 1935 from Edinburgh to Inverness, which left Perth at 2054, arriving in Inverness at 2314.

With me so far?  Good.  If not, you might like to refer to a map of the ScotRail network.

The floods, it seemed, were taking place north of Dundee, and the train we would be taking was announced on the screens as running late having been delayed coming south from Aberdeen.  Now of course, Perth is before Dundee so the fact that it was unclear how to get from Dundee to Aberdeen was of no immediate concern to me.

The late running, however, was – the changeover in Perth is only a few minutes.  What should Inverness passengers do?  I asked a member of staff at the barriers.

“Well, it’s delayed.  You’ll need to check that in Dundee,” she told me.

“I’m not going to Dundee,” I replied.

“Aye, but there’s floods so you’re probably going to be stopping there as there are no trains further north.”

“But I’m not going to Dundee, I’m going to Inverness.”

“What direction is that?”  she asked.

I paused briefly, taking in the fact I’d just been asked for train information by a member of platform staff.

“You take the highland line from Perth, kind of north-west.  The Dundee and Aberdeen line is north-east.”  With a finger, I drew a map of Scotland on my hand to help her understand.  “I’m getting what would be the 1935 from Edinburgh when I get to Perth, but with the delay will I catch it?”

“Oh, I’ll check,” she said.  She walked away, radio in in hand, talking to the control room.  A few minutes later, I saw her carrying bags of rubbish, making me realise I’d perhaps not targetted my enquiry to precisely the right person.  I asked the same original question to another member of staff at the barriers.  She was a little more knowledgeable.

“If you miss your connection in Perth, they’ll just have to taxi you to Inverness, so you’ll be fine.”

“Right,” I said, “but given this is meant to connect with the 2054 at Perth, surely they could hold it?”

“I’ll check with the control room,” she said.  A few minutes later, a broad Glaswegian accent crackled over her radio and I leaned in slightly to listen.

“Right,” the male voice said with a strained sigh that only Weegies can manage.  “Inverness folk need tae get tae Aberdeen and then see if there’s buses fae there.”

“What!?” I exclaimed.  “Has he ever actually looked at a ScotRail map?”

“And,” the woman added sympathetically, “how’s that possible if you can’t even get to Aberdeen?  They’re all really busy with the flood stuff.  I think he’s going a bit crazy up there to be honest.”

Unable to muster any words, my face broke into what I call a “Tim from The Office” look: disbelief, bemusement and exhausted resignation at being the only sane person for miles around.

By then, however, the Aberdeen train had arrived and the platform announced, so I just went through the barriers and boarded the train to see what happened.  We left only about ten minutes late.  When the conductor came through the train I stopped him and asked him what Inverness passengers needed to do.

“There’s probably replacement buses from Dundee to Aberdeen, so you’ll need to get a bus or something from Aberdeen.”

“FOR F*$#’S SAKE!!  DO YOU ACTUALLY F@£%ING KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT F$#&ING RAILWAYS??” I exclaimed at the top of my voice, shocked passengers across the quiet carriage turning their heads to see what was happening.

Okay, I didn’t say that at all.  But typing it represents a form of therapeutic release for me.

I calmly took a deep breath, and explained to the conductor that rather than bussing us from Aberdeen it would be much easier to bus us from Perth; and in any case we were scheduled to connect with the 1935 Edinburgh to Inverness service in Perth at 2054.  Could he simply phone ahead and hold that train for the few minutes that would be needed?

“I’ll go and find out,” he said, leaving me bewildered at the fact that none of the Glasgow Queen Street staff appeared to have a clue about the existence of the Highland Line.  Had I imagined the innumerable journeys I’d taken on it over the years?  Had the towns of Dunkeld, Pitlochry, Blair Atholl, Dalwhinnie, Newtonmore, Kingussie, Aviemore and Carrbridge been abolished overnight without me knowing about it?

And yes, I wrote those trains in order from memory – I could recite them in reverse order too.  The Inverness to Aberdeen line as well if you fancy, east to west and west to east.

Anyway, to cut an already long story as short as possible, the upshot was that the Edinburgh train was held at Perth for Inverness passengers to change, and in any case we’d made up most of the delay from Glasgow to Perth, and I arrived as scheduled in Inverness at 2314.

Quite what would have happened if I wasn’t a regular rail traveller and all too sadly possessing an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Scottish rail network, and if I hadn’t told the conductor how you actually get to Inverness from Glasgow, I have no idea.

I fear for any people who are new to Scotland or are infrequent rail travellers, who have to cope with such lacklustre customer information without the knowledge to challenge the sorts of clueless staff who really, really should know better.

Ah well.  I am sure next week will be smoother.  Thanks to ScotRail, I will be working next week in Stirling, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Wave if you see me.  I’ll be the one telling the conductor what the next station is.

The next General Election

Eden Court was shut to the public for the last few days, at least one pub still has a yellow and black banner above its door, and town was full of people wandering around with bright yellow ID badges around their neck from the middle of last week until Sunday.

Yes, the Scottish National Party Annual Conference was in Inverness, rounding off the yearly political party conference season. From what I read on the BBC News website, it seems like the SNP had a reasonably good conference, and the party is definitely riding high. It’s won two elections in a row (Holyrood/council in 2007, then the Euros this year) and there’s no reason to believe they’ll lose the next Holyroods in 2011. Indeed, they’ll probably increase their wafer-thin majority.

I’ve read a few articles in the last few days, including one or two in the London press (such as this Guardian one), that seem to suggest the SNP are gaining respectability, and that the idea of independence – at least, the idea of holding a referendum – is a valid, if not desirable, option.

Alex Salmond, therefore, was in bullish mood in his conference addresses (though, admittedly, when is he ever not?), saying that the best outcome at the next General Election, which must take place in or before June 2010, is a hung parliament. He aims for the SNP to win 20 seats, to provide, he says, a real lever on whoever forms the government, offering support in exchange for substantial economic concessions to Scotland.

On the first part, he’s quite right. A hung parliament is the best outcome, not just at the next election but in general. Westminster’s tired politics is gradually falling apart at the seams – the expenses row has widened the gulf between elector and elected, numerous MPs are standing down at the next election, knowing the knives are out for them, and we face the terrifying prospect of a choice between an exhausted and demoralised Labour Party and a Conservative Party that, in policy if not morale, is indistinguishable from the government they criticise.

To have either of these two parties awarded an overall majority – let alone a thumpingly massive one – would be an affront to democracy. The winning party will, after all, almost inevitably have much less than a majority of the votes, and that’s bad for accountability and public faith. Tony Blair, after all, took us to war in Iraq a few years ago with something like 35% of the votes cast (and therefore a much smaller proportion of the overall electorate).

It is a vital form of checks and balances, therefore, that no party can govern alone with an absolute majority. The Scottish Parliament, with either coalition or minority administrations, demonstrates that proportional representation works. Parties are forced to talk to each other, trade ideas and policies and reach compromises; either after each election (in the case of coalition government) or, even better, on each individual issue (in the case of minority government).

For a parliament like Westminster which is so staid, anachronistic, corrupted and unpopular, that sort of inter-party dialogue is desperately, urgently needed. Presidential, one-party government, where the ruling party has representation in parliament vastly inflated compared to its share of the vote, means that basically the government cannot be stopped for five years, except by very rare backbench rebellions. Come June 2010, whoever leads the biggest party will have to pick up the phone to other party leaders and begin to talk. That can only be a good thing.

The common criticism of coalition governments is that you then get policy decided in (metaphorically) smoke-filled rooms, politicians carving things up amongst themselves.

But hang on, surely politicians talking to each other across the divide, establishing common ground, is a good thing? Surely the desire to seek consensus is precisely what’s been missing from Westminster over the past few governments. Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown have never had the need to ask anyone’s opinion beyond their party, and have therefore just carried on as they wished; presidential, arrogant, even and especially when wrong. Autocracy, even with five-year lifespans, is an unhealthy democratic culture.

To that end, Alex Salmond is quite right that a hung parliament is the best outcome in 2010. He’s probably wrong, however, to predict 20 MPs. Scotland only has 56 MPs at Westminster, and it would take a seismic swing away from Labour in its most deep-rooted heartlands to achieve anything more than about 15 for the SNP. Of course, June is months away, and there’s plenty that can happen.

Even if the SNP does return that target of 20, though, they will at best be the fourth-largest party in the Commons. The Liberal Democrats, currently at about 60 MPs, are inevitably going to be the kingmakers in a hung parliament. It’ll be LibDem leader Nick Clegg’s phone that will phone the day after the election, not Salmond’s.

Clegg will become popular, wanted, important. Heck, he might even become well-known.

So Salmond is right to say a hung parliament is the best outcome, but over-optimistic (not for the first time) in aiming for 20 seats. I hope it happens, but I doubt it will. And in any case, the bigger challenge is to come – the independence referendum bill, to be presented later next year.

And that’s a whole other ramble.

Glasgow

Hello from the first city of Buckfast, where I am down for work.

I’ve spent the evening catching up with friends, so haven’t managed to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time (and never quite did when I lived there), which is do a photo tour of the city centre.

If you ignore the Neds, Glasgow is, architecturally-speaking, a phenomenal place.  The city centre is full of lovely old buildings which – if you look high up – could almost be in early twentieth-century urban USA.

Just to the west, in a grid system I remember reading somewhere in fact inspired some American cities, there is an amazing mix of grandiose old office blocks and aspirational modern architecture just asking for the night-setting treatment.

To the east, the old High Street – Glasgow’s medieval heart – has been all but destroyed, but the nearby Merchant City contains Victorian-era banks and merchants’ centres now converted into a mix of trendy restaurants, clothes shops and bars, mostly housed in highly impressive and ornate old buildings.

At the south of the Merchant City is Argyll Street, where I took this photo on my iPhone (I’d forgotten my camera) – the tower at Glasgow Cross from underneath the arches of the Tron Theatre, both themselves beautiful buildings.  I took this a wee bit ago, just after meeting a friend at the rather outstanding Blackfriar’s pub, a great place for fine beer, whisky and live music.

One of these days, I’ll do a decent trawl of the city centre and take some night-time photos.

But now, to bed.  Stirling tomorrow.

Eh?

Just seen on the BBC News website: US President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize.  I did a bit of a double-take, thinking it was a joke, but it seems not:

“The Nobel Committee said he was awarded it for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”.

The committee highlighted Mr Obama’s efforts to strengthen international bodies and promote nuclear disarmament.”

What!?  What’s Obama actually solved, other than a minor disagreement between two Americans about race?

Sure, he was elected on a reasonably optimistic, peace-centred foreign policy platform.  Sure, there have been some great speeches, packed with wonderful intentions and inspiring ambitions.  Sure, there’s been some concerted effort in the Israel-Palestine peace process and the reduction in nuclear weapons and climate change, and effort in minimising the threat that Iran and others (allegedly) pose to the world.

Efforts, though.  Not outcomes.

How can a man who is just a year or so into a four-year (okay, probably eight-year) job be declared to have been successful enough to win the Nobel Peace Prize?  After all, the quote above refers to his “extraordinary efforts” not his achievements.  The things he is rightly and admirably wrestling with have not been resolved, or even significantly advanced by his intervention.

Loads of people put “effort” into striving for peace.  Many have been higher profile, longer-fighting and more successful in their efforts than Obama.  Morgan Tsvangirai, for starters.  Heck, even John Smeaton’s been fighting for peace longer than Barack Obama.

What if Obama comes good, and actually solves the problems he’s currently working on?  It’s rare for people to win it a second time, so the successes he hopefully makes in the years to come will show this year’s award up as highly misjudged and under-ambitious.

Not that I am an expert on matters Nobel, but does this year’s peace award not rather dampen the credibility of the Nobel prizes?

Save 80p!

I’ve just noticed that on the ”Up The Creek Without A Mullet” page on amazon.co.uk, they’re currently offering a 10% discount on pre-orders.  You’ll save yourselves a whopping 80p if you order now!

Of  course, that means that (according to my understanding) at the reduced price I’ll lose out on a whole 8p per copy in royalties.  As a result, aidconvoy.net, my friend Kieran’s aid organisation to whom I am donating 10% of my royalties, will in turn lose 0.8p per copy.  If my maths is right, of course.  Which it probably isn’t.

Huge financial losses, I am sure you’ll agree.  But I trust your conscience to be restrained.

Oh and talking of the Amazon page, the eagle-eyed among you will notice that – at the time of writing, anyway – the cover is yet to be uploaded, and in the author profile I am somehow aged by seven years (I was actually born in 1978).  Apparently amendment requests on Amazon pages take several days to take effect, so I could be 38 for some time yet.

Finally, and to be serious for a brief moment, I’d just like to plug again the good work of aidconvoy.net.  Kieran and others’ work through this organisation has helped many people in a variety of countries, and I’ve had the privilege of being on two particular convoys with Kieran in 1999 and 2003.  Both trips, particularly the latter, are mentioned in the book, but aidconvoy.net’s own website will tell you a whole lot more.

District 9

I went to the cinema last night to see District 9.  It’s been out for some time, but it was still a surprise to be a whole one-third of the entire audience.

It was an astonishing, refreshing and gripping South African science fiction film, set in the near future when an alien ship arrives on Earth with a million impoverished refugees.  Told partly in documentary format and partly in live action, the film explores the lives of the aliens in a slum district of Johannesburg and follows the tragic consequences of an attempt by the South African authorities to relocate the aliens to a supposedly better site.

The film is fast-paced, gritty, violent and gory, but cannot be viewed simply as a shoot-em-up human v alien scifi flick.  There is so much more within it that makes it stand out as a truly remarkable film.

The most obvious thing is that it’s not American.  It sounds like an odd thing to emphasise, but this film is a world away from how you could imagine Hollywood treating this concept.  It is firmly and unambiguously South African in its look and feel, but most noticeably its sound.  The harsh accents and slang of Afrikaans-speakers reminds you in every line that this is somewhere very different from what you normally hear and see in a science fiction film.  Snippets of dark and unexpected humour, too, stand out as features of a well-written script.

Secondly, the film paints a far from standard picture of aliens.  The aliens arriving over Johannesburg are neither fearless warmongers nor socially-advanced bearers of peace.  They come, for whatever reason, as refugees - hungry, leaderless and terrified.  While they are in a pitiful situation – left for years to fend for themselves in a slum – their lack of organisation, civility or what one might call humanity makes the viewer struggle to muster much in the way of sympathy for them.

Thirdly, this is a pessimistic film.  There are few heroes to speak of, on either the human or alien side, and both sides appear to have done little to understand each others’ motivations, characters and needs.  The aliens struggle in their impoverished state, being exploited by both criminals and international corporations.  There are strong echoes of both South Africa’s recent wave of xenophobia towards immigrants, and its earlier Apartheid era.

That said, there is an ending which – after having you on the edge of your seat – offers some hope, not to mention the realistic prospect of a sequel.  If – and it’s always a big “if” – the sequel would be up to the standard of the first film, then it would be definitely something to look forward to.

As a bit of a postscript, the trailers last night were, appropriately enough, all science fiction films too – 2012 and Surrogates sound like great concepts that could be treated in typical Hollywood style (ie badly), while Avatar looks quite phenomenal and I will definitely try to see it.

That syncing feeling

Up until now, I’ve been suffering from “two diary syndrome”.

It’s frustrating – if I need to be somewhere, I need to check both my personal diary and my work diary to be sure that I’m free.  With my work diary being online, that’s something of a hassle.

When I got my iPhone, however, I noticed that there was an option in the calendar for both Home and Work, which syncs with my Mac’s iCal application.  It would be great, I thought, if I could somehow get my work calendar (which is on Microsoft Outlook) to appear in my iPhone calendar.  But how?

Finally getting around to finding a solution, I googled the problem and found this link.  I followed instructions 1 to 3, and then (via a link on that page) followed all the instructions here.  And it works!

Just to finish the job, I went into my Calendar app on the iPhone, set it to view all calendars rather than just Home, and hey presto!  I now am able to see where I will be personally-wise and work-wise in one screen, and without needing an internet connection.

It was really simple, and even a relative technical novice like me could do it.

Another example of why the iPhone is a truly, truly marvellous piece of kit.