Who Are You?

Transmission starts...

So things are going pretty well. You've successfully beat off The Bear, you're economy is in pretty good shape and those that would see you dead are under you're military or commercial size tens. Then things take a turn. Some of those you trained to fight The Bear fly a plane , no sorry, 2 planes into your financial heart.

Sorry.

I'll try that again.

Some of those that you trained to fight The Bear train some further further people who then go and learn to fly in your back garden so that they can fly 4 planes into various soft spots around your infrastructure. Over night you are made to look slow, silly and more than a little bit open. So what do you do? Point the finger? Attack those that you believe to be responsible? The first problem you have is that those who attacked you represent not a country, but an ideal. How do you attack that?

So, due to those at the top of your administration being the sorts who "shoot from the hip" you find yourself invading not one but two countries in one of the most sensitive areas in the world. An area that cradled the 3 dominant religious ideals. An area that has seen no peace. An area that is a prime source of your energy needs. Nobody offers help. None of your allies are happy with this sticky state of affairs. No matter, you do it anyway and drag The Kingdom into the mix. They probably owe you a few anyway. 

So, the prisoners start pouring in. What do you do with them? Remember, you're angry. Remember those men and women at the top are black and white types. You start torturing them. Not enough of your people kick up a fuss. Apathy rules. You give those in charge of the "detention centres"  free reign to do as they will to get what they want. 

Then the those at the top are replaced. The new men and women at the top don't agree with the previous men and women's methods. Not only that but some very important people in The Kingdom have started pointing there fingers at you and your methods. You're starting to get annoyed. You might get a bit desperate...

Change has come and God may bless it but what will the CIA do?

Transmission ends...

Bad News for Lloyds

Transmission starts...

Into WH Smiths, look at the headlines, get the papers, get the papers.

Tick.

Go to Tesco's buy washing powder, feel bad for feeding the behemoth.

Tick.

Go to the bank, pay some money in... but what's this? A music channel plays apathy on the screen that once showed the BBC news. I ask the man behind the desk about the channel change.

"It's too gloomy."

Ha! Too gloomy for you maybe. Was it not too gloomy when people started dying at the hands of NATO in Iraq or Afghanistan? Was it not too gloomy when Madeleine McCann went missing? 

Men, women and children dying.

Tick.

Banks start loosing money. Quick! Turn it off! Turn it off! 

"People have a right to know". 

I walk away.

Tick. 

Transmission ends...

The Dream

Transmission starts...

A baby is born to a dead mother.

A baby is born with her genetic code programmed to avoid the shadow of breast cancer. Flat screen displays in MacDonald's, gaming with multiple people in multiple time zones, satellite navigation in your car, smart phones and Ipods as fast as you PC five years ago. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. 

Think America in the 50's, think Star Trek. A time, a place where technology is thought to solve the problems of humanity. Greed is out-shone by transporters, warp drive and a dream of nuclear power. An ideal of shiny things and common goals. 

No.

Not here.

Not here where Gaza runs red with the blood of Palestinian children. Not here where Hamas refuses to negotiate with a government it neither recognises nor wants compromise. The absolute and total destruction of Israel. The absolute and total destruction of Hamas and its supporters. You choose, You decide.

Can't?

Welcome to the modern world, welcome to how its always been. Welcome to how it will always be. Welcome to humanity...

Transmission ends...

The Duelist

....1982422005....

Transmission starts...

It took the best part of a decade to develop the Bugatti Veyron. When Ferdinand Piech turned his imperial eye on the culturally rich but financially poor French supercar maker he had a dream. He would instigate the creation of a hypercar that would categorically put everything else in the shade. It would be his legacy, Volkswagen's technical statement and quite possibly the zenith of what could be done with the internal combustion engine. Now very much in the autumn of its life. 

In the beginning three main technical foundations were laid. 

It would have 1000PS. 

It would be capable of 400kph. 

It would meet all of the same quality standards that a Volkswagen Polo has to achieve.

Whilst the first two are difficult, when coupled to the third you, as an engineer, are faced with an almost impossible task. Just think. You go and buy a brand new Polo from a dealer. It is guaranteed by Volkswagen not to go wrong for three years or 60,000 miles. That is three years of everyday drudgery. Hitting that same pothole a bit too hard everyday. Going a bit too fast on the motorway everyday, sitting in traffic for hours every week without over heating, shrugging off freezing temperatures at night and  starting first time in the morning. The modern motor car really is an everyday engineering miracle. Now imagine doing that with a Ferrari. Now double the power of said supercar and with it quadruple the complexity. When all was said and done and production model number 001 rolled off the line the project had cost Volkswagen so much that for every unit produced it is estimated that between 2 to 4 million Euros is lost. So you win the lottery /work very hard / inherit the family estate, walk into a Bugatti dealership and buy a Veyron. By doing that you've just cost Volkswagen in the region of 3 million Euros. 

Here's another thing. In the Alsace, where the Veyron is carefully constructed, it snows on average 1 day in a year. Now, the local authority, council, whatever prefers salt for its icy roads and duly peppers (salts) its roads during the cold season. In the best spirit of car making Bugatti like to take every Veyron produced for a gentle (really?) drive a round the local roads. When the roads are salted they could just do the same, bring the car back in, put it on a ramp and pressure wash the underside, getting rid of any unsightly salt that could cause future corrosion. No one would ever know. Instead 14 gentlemen from the Alsace load the car and themselves onto a transporter and support vehicles and travel to the south of France where they do the bedding in there. 

In many ways this is an amazing, glorious testimony to the sheer determination of Ferdinand Piech. After all, almost all of the great achievements in the relatively short history of humankind have been driven by single-minded men. On the other hand, and this is where I find a point of conflict, a dualism within myself, it is criminally wasteful. For every Veyron produced how many schools could have been built in Nigeria? How many courses of medicines could have been put into the hands of those 1 in 5 that suffer from AIDS in Africa? What about farming subsidies in Columbia or disaster relief in central Asia? Don't even get me started on political determination within the African Union. 

The Veyron is a wide eyed achievement. It is something that inspires, awes and upsets me all in equal measure. It is the same as the tanks that rumbled through Stroud train station the other day. As a fully grown adult I actually ran back into the station to watch those magnificent machines being marched past atop their own cars. I wanted to pilot them, to fire them, to use them in anger, but I also had to quell a desire to throw stones at them, call them names, sabotage them in some way.

This then is where A Slice Of The Now Splits. The current affairs blog will continue every Wednesday (or there abouts) but it will now be joined by a second blog that will celebrate all things machine.

I wish you and yours a happy new year. 

Transmission ends....

Public Spenders

It had been a day of political stereotypes. Labour were irritable and refused to be quoted. The Lib' Dem's were like a sage uncle, lovely, helpful but a little predisposed to waffle. The Conservatives, after a busy day at the office, phoned me back with an articulate answer on why they weren't going to do something. 

Increasingly I'm having to abandon my socialist heartland. Labour are useless with money. That much seems obvious. Having said that the 'spend our way out of trouble' approach was initially developed by the Thatcher government. 

Whatever; The Conservatives have the balls to cut spending and therefore taxes, easing the burden on the every man.

But.

It means public spending plummets. It means the NHS comes back under direct and determined fire. It means a healthy, cheap, easy railway network falls further from view. Sure, there's been talk of a shiny new high speed rail network but do you have any idea how much that would cost? Did you know that you need a bill from Parliament to do any kind of work to the railways? One thing is for certain, by the time the Conservatives inherit the economy (which they will) there will be no money left in the coffers for anything like that...  

The Railbird Collective

The Starship Diesel warps me to the metropolis of London. I've become one of Orwell's sleepwalkers. Half alive, moving when I have too. With a vague idea of generating a story for a journalism assessment I arm myself with pen and paper. Alisa Arnah, childhood friend, co-discoverer and lover of Spaced has invited me to a short film showing. 

The Railbird Collective (www.railbirdcollective.com) would seem to be a group of film makers making their way through the competitive jungle that is recognition. The director of the two shorts on show tonight has gone from nought to this, a small but well organised preview in an overly trendy part of Camden in little over a year. Impressive. I meet a comedy writer, we talk of philosophy, truth, life. I start to wake up, listen. Popcorn is bought from an attractive girl in a tight dress. Raffle tickets are part of the deal. We shuffle towards our seats and a type of charisma begins to ferment in the room. A smiley introduction by the principle actress, part producer, childhood friend and the director marks a brave but nervous start. All goes dark. The first shot is wide, long, well framed. It follows the British film maker's habit of long, large shots. I'm interested. What comes after is sharply edited and well shot. There's much to be happy with. Kevin Mcgowan convinces as the nervous first timer and Arnah presents a toying prostitute with almost too much pleasure. 

The second short asks a couple of questions about those lists that feature writers want us to do before we die, the definitive takes on a fulfilling life. Find your own path I say, I think the writer/director agrees. Again we laugh and snigger in the right places, again the photography and editing is spot on. Jack Bennett is the nervous man this time. Arnah, as before seems to enjoy her part enormously.  

So what of gripes? Can I be trusted to deliver an objective verdict on something that a very dear friend has had a major part in? I think to apply the usual cutting critique on what is essentially a man in a shed production is unfair. You don't compare the production values of a Caterham Seven to a Porsche 911 for example. What you must do, though, is get a feeling. Indeed there is much to be said about the bright eyed charisma of these pieces. The script was a little wobbly in places and  Arnah's diction sometimes comes across as a little forced, a little too RADA, but this seems to be the the promising start of something bigger. I say watch this space, take twenty minutes of your life to view the two shorts, make your own judgments. 

As I warp home I feel, alive, awake for the first time in weeks. Truth can be found in the excitement of the new, as well as the experience of the old.

The Young Man

As the sky explodes over The Kingdom a different type of celebration takes place across the continent of North America.

"Change has come"

The Young Man rings in the new era. The Old Man concedes honorably, The Hunter is a promised future menace. In amongst the flashing cameras, bullet proof glass and smiling family shots, Russia reiterates its commitment to seeing the American missile defence grid being dismantled and moved away from its borders. A cunning move by a power that knows how to play by the big players rules. Don't mistake this for some school boy manoeuvre. The Bear will continue to growl, and as America bleeds through its credit, Afghan and Iraq wounds The Young Man's job is going to be (as any half blind pundit can see) very tough indeed. 

The hope is, of course, that through the change of administration, through his richly mixed background and vaguely socialistic views he could unite in the way that his predecessor fractured. As the Euro rides the storm and every big scale crisis brings the superstate closer it's important that America does not feel isolated. For now, that future seems less likely.