Don't get mad, do something good

I had a terrible night’s sleep on Monday night. I’m not quite sure why but I ended up tossing and turning in the early hours and was eventually awoken by an unreasonable shaft of light that had found its way through our bedroom’s blackout curtains. This could have meant that it was any time between 4:30 and my usual 7:00 alarm call given the punitive nature of Scottish Summer Time. I picked up my watch to see what time it was only to discover than it was showing 12:20  (even in May, Scottish Summers aren’t that bad) and assumed a flat battery. I put on the TV to see what time the BBC News was showing only to discover the horror of the aftermath of the MEN Arena bombing in Manchester.

Horror soon turns to anger as it became clear that many of the dead and injured were children, including one that was even younger than my own daughter. Aside from the anger the initial reaction for many to such events is to do something. The question is what? Above all else with horrific events like this, it is the sense of helplessness that really rankles with people. Many would like to wring the neck of the perpetrator but given that he was sprayed around the foyer of the MEN that would have had little effect. Unfortunately, the usual suspects (Katy Hopkins, Nigel Farage et al.) were only too ready to spew out their usual tirades of hate and bile. This does nothing other than to let the bombers achieve their main goals of spreading hate and division.

I can really sympathise with anyone who is outraged at such things and can understand why they may turn their ire against minority groups who they see as being responsible. It is understandable but it is also wrong: extremist, jihadist movements only see the world in terms of framing everyone in terms of jihadists vs crusaders and the vast majority of people, regardless of faith or lack of it, do not want to be part of such a medieval concept. Most people actually care for their communities and want to help which we saw this week as Mancunians of all backgrounds, creeds and colours rallied around to help each other. In terms of what the bombers may have hoped to achieve this is almost certainly the exact opposite response that they may have wished for. Apart from anything else, doing something positive and helpful is quite possibly the most therapeutic thing to do.

The question is, though, exactly how can someone help? In such a situation the emergency services need to be given space to get on with their jobs unhindered and whilst the actions of Taxi drivers who provided free journeys to those stranded are commendable, only so many people can do that. However, there are things that can be done and after seeing an appeal on the Manchester Evening News’s website for funds to help the families affected I clicked on the link to see that they had raised just under £4,000 in that short time. I added 1% to that amount and at least felt that I had done something. The total currently raised is now over £1.6million with tens of thousands chipping in.

I did see a fake request that Manchester hospitals urgently needed blood donations. This was untrue as the blood donation service will have to screen and type blood before it can be used in an emergency and they do keep stocks of this for just such incidents. However, donating blood is a very worthwhile thing to do and the blood transfusion services are constantly looking for new and regular donors and if the Manchester Arena tragedy can spur people into action it is no bad thing regardless of whether they are in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

I suppose that many people would still like to poke the jihadist in the eye for what they have done. I think the key thing here is not to blame ordinary Muslims for such actions. They are as appalled and terrified as any other people and in the Middle East they have suffered more than most at the hands of ISIS and other such psychopaths. I was reminded of this when I went down to get some sandwiches from our local corner shop. The shopkeeper has a collecting jar for the Red Cross which I often drop loose change in. The appeal is specifically for the Syrian crisis and helps those who have had to flee their homes and also find refuge in neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Jordan. As well as the Red Cross, UNICEF and UNHCR amongst many other charity organisations are helping to tackle the humanitarian crisis created by the likes of ISIS. What better way to get back at ISIS than to show them that we will come to the aid of ordinary Muslim folk?

So, aside from the usual right-wing gobshites and their appalling newspapers, I can really understand why ordinary people can get angry and say intemperate things after outrages such as Manchester. I don’t blame them for feeling that way they but the key is not to get mad about it – do something good instead.

Invisible Suffrage

I was thinking of sticking up my thoughts about last night’s Doctor Who and, whilst I did enjoy it, coming at the end of a crap week I’m not sure I took the whole thing in. I’ll watch it again tonight so I can enjoy it properly before the second part next week.

Apart from anything else, a more pressing matter at the moment is the upcoming general election and the surprising number of people who have still to register. If anyone can read this blog , then they can easily register to vote just by clicking on this link and filling out a few details: https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

Given the centuries of hard fought battles to gain the vote for everyone it rather annoys me at the number of people that still refuse to participate. I’ve heard people say that not voting is a protest but that is not how it is viewed by politicians. If you don’t vote it is perceived as not being bothered and if you can’t be bothered to vote they will not care about you or other people in your situation. That is why we have had so many policies targeting the welfare of the old who do vote whilst ignoring the younger voters who tend not to bother.

The problem is even more exasperated by those who are not even registered to vote. In those cases the politicians will not so much “not care” about these people rather than to think that they don’t even exist. We have this problem for General Elections as my wife is an EU national and is not entitled to vote for Westminster elections. As a result we have been treated atrociously by most of the Westminster parties over the last year or so. If a significant number of people who are entitled to vote, particularly the young and poor, fail to register they too will become part of this invisible demographic. Registration for the election closes at the end of tomorrow night (22nd June 2017). If you haven’t already received your electoral card then register to vote NOW!

Deaf, Dumb and Blind

I seem to have had a very mixed sort of week. It started well enough with us receiving our new broadband package which now includes TV (some extra entertainment channels and BT Sport) that, paradoxically, is a very cheap way of replacing a duff PVR. At least I thought it was. Our 12 year old Humax PVR which sits in the bedroom appeared to be on its last legs with the signal breaking up and I “thought” I had eliminated any issue with the aerial. The plan was to get the new broadband package which included a free PVR and move the newer-old-Humax box from the living room to the bedroom. This ingenious plan appeared to have gone all to well until I plugged the newer-old-Humax PVR into the bedroom socket in place of the older-old-Humax PVR to discover that it was the aerial at fault after all. 30 minutes later I was up on the roof, absolutely craping myself with thoughts of Rod Hull and Man-U, until I had a bright idea, severed the aerial cable and stuck a small new antenna on the wall. All was now working and at least I have the satisfaction of being able to watch the Tranmere match on the telly.

Anyway, the brand new PVR from Plusnet works well enough except that the remote control is infuriating and I now had no way of turning up or down the sound on the surround sound amplifier without getting up off my fat arse and doing it manually. It’s annoying because I’ve had that amp for the best part of 10 years and the sound is way better than the TV. In fact, this has lead the rest of the household to question whether I am  going deaf or, more precisely, they keep asking, “ARE YOU GOING DEAF OR SOMETHING?” I’m not entirely sure. I do seem to have had a multitude of otic related issues recently but the last time I had my hearing tested it was OK – aside from the tinnitus. As far as the TV amplifier goes I decided it was time to buy a digitally integrated replacement which I duly bought from the Glasgow branch of Richer Sounds. I have to admit that I did find it difficult to hear the staff in there but that was mainly because there was a recreation of the Battle of the Somme going on in their not entirely sound-proofed demo room.

The new amp solves the issue of the TV ergonomics quite  nicely and the sound is a big improvement because every source is now in full Dolby digital rather than mostly being the Dolby Pro simulation. This means the centre speaker is almost entirely concerned with the speech and the other speakers handling the surround features. For most of last night this was of little use as we spent the bulk of the time watching the wonderfully daft and dumb camp-fest which is Eurovision. I thought it was one of the better ones this year – not so much the winner which I found incredibly dull but the rest of the performances which combined the weird with the wonderful mixed amongst the down-right silly. I did have a favourite, the Romanian entry, which appealed to me mainly because I would never have dreamed of mixing rap with yodelling (from the man who will happily listen to Slavic folk mixed with Death Metal).

Where the new sound system was really exceptional was on this week’s Doctor Who, Oxygen, which was creepy enough without having all the surrounding creaks, cracks and wheezes circling about the room. I was looking forward to this one mainly because it was written by Jamie Mathieson who has been one of the best Whovian writers of the last couple of years. He really didn’t disappoint with this episode which, initially, reminded me of the likes of Alien in that it showed the brutal reality of a future life in space but actually reminded me of many 1970’s Who stories in that on the one level there was a threat and monster (in fact the “base under attack” was a trope of late 60’s Who) but above that there was a strong moral story of the sort of beast that an unfettered corporation can turn into. The “zombies in suits” idea works on both a literal and metaphorical level to describe the psychopathic nature of unfettered capitalism. It is pure coincidence that this episode is airing during a General Election campaign but it could not be more timely.

I hope that when Chris Chibnall takes over the reins of Doctor Who that he has  Jamie Mathieson’s number on speed dial. To my mind, Oxygen is his strongest work to date but for the first time he has really thrown a huge hand grenade into the works. *SPOILER ALERT* if you haven’t seen Oxygen yet, stop reading now! I’m used to Doctor Who having the series arcs with bits of story slipped in amongst the current week’s episode (the vault, for example) but mostly the instalments are pretty much self-contained with all parameters being reset for the next week. That appears to be quite different now and supposedly we are about to see an interlinked three-parter, but the fact that the Doctor is now blind really changes all we know. Does this actually account for why the Doctor has been occasionally wearing shades for the last series or so – to hide that particular plot twist from the publicity photos? Next week’s episode is set in the Vatican which is a Whovian setting I’ve wanted to see for a long time: both have secrets that they want to hide from view but what are they hiding from each other?

Haunted Houses

One thing I’ve noticed with my trips around Historic Scotland’s sites is that they don’t do many that would fall into the “Haunted House” category. Possibly this is because, as my brother pointed out, they tend to the ruins whilst the National Trust tend to go more for he preserved stately residences. Anyway, the “haunted house” category was the subject of this week’s Doctor Who, Knock Knock, which saw Bill moving into a rather grand student pad with her university pals.

This is a television trope that Doctor Who has occasionally visited over the years and it is one that they usually do quite well as it is perfectly suitable material for pre-watershed scares. In fact, this one particularly reminded me of the episode Blink (the one that introduced us to the weeping angels) and having read one of the online reviews it is actually the same house in Newport that featured in that episode. When I lived in Cardiff I also lived in a large, somewhat run-down Victorian residence although that one overlooked Roath Park and the only thing that was haunted was the central heating system which seemed to send a cold shudder down my back whenever the temperature dropped to the point that it was meant to actually work.

Once again, I’ve really enjoyed this week’s episode and, again, it has more of a classic Doctor Who feel about it – taking a classic sci-fi or horror idea and shoe-horning it into the Who universe. The haunted house worked really well and some of scenes with the house “eating” its inhabitants were genuinely jump inducing but I think what made it was David Suchet (a touch of the Norman Bates about him in retrospect) who was genuinely creepy as the landlord. The makeup on his “daughter” was also quite nightmare inducing – at least until she spoke at which point the terror was gently coiled back in along with the twist and everyone living happily ever after. It is meant to be family entertainment after all.

Next week we get “Oxygen” which is written by Jamie Mathieson, one of my favourite writers from the last couple of series. And after that we also have Eurovision so it should be a night of monsters, horror, high camp, all preceded by my favourite Sci-Fi show.