Category Archives: culture

This House, or when whips served the Party

Posted by on May 5, 2013 Comments Off

I went to see “This House” earlier today. It’s the story of the Labour Whips who kept the Wilson and Callaghan government in power for 4½ years, without a majority for much of the time, from 1974 to 1979. It brought back many memories as I had joined the Labour Party in 74 and of course much of my politics was learned and established in the next 10 years.

 

It’s not actually very political, although it rehearses the Stonehouse affair, the Nationalisation of Shipbuilding and Aircraft Manufacture, when Heseltine waved the Mace and got his nickname of Tarzan. It also mentions the Rooker/Wise rebellion which led to the indexation of income tax allowances and Audry Wise’s arrest at the Grunwick picket line. Reg Prentice and the Militant get a small piece as Prentice crossed the floor to obscurity, reducing Labour’s Majority by two.

It reminded me of the importance and divisiveness of Scottish and Welsh devolution on British and Labour politics over the decade. Ultimately, it didn’t have time to deal well with Gerry Fitt & Frank MacGuire, two Nationalist and in the case of Fitt, Socialist MPs representing Northern Irish seats; while the drama around Alf Broughton’s condition, made a better story, it was the failure (over the previous 5 years) to address Northern Ireland that led to the Nationalists failing to support the Labour Government in the Vote of Confidence that ended the Government. Macguire was a rare attendee at the House of Commons, who flew over to abstain.

The scenes in Parliament around the furore caused by the passage of the Nationalisations further reminded me of the Wilson speech to Labour’s Conference in 1975 broadcast by the BBC in it’s Harold Wilson retrospective earlier this year. I only heard the first 10 minutes or so, but he cataloged the achievements of the first year and half in Government, which even today are substantial. They changed people’s lives, for the better, and weren’t reduced to resolutionary impotence. I meant to capture the speech so I could revisit it and share with people but despite being a big IT consultant, my personal IT isn’t good enough to rip iplayer streams. It’s a disgrace that as a tax payer; I paid for it to be made, I paid for it to be broadcast, but I can’t use it when I want because the BBC won’t put their owned content online for us all. They say it’s to protect foreign revenue but the real reason is that Murdoch & Sky can’t compete with free and forever.

It’s our history, we shouldn’t put up with it.

Beneath the Cobbles, an NWN adventure

Posted by on November 10, 2012 Comments Off

Last weekend, I finally finished the NWN User Authored Module, “Agrenost, Beneath the Cobbles”. I have been playing it, as I do very sporadically, for a couple of months. A very atmospheric and as far as fantasy fiction goes, believable module that had me returning week after week.

Talya and Mallet

I took a Rogue/Thief through; as pretty much recommended, but I think they come into their own with the later rule sets and NWN usually rewards the flexibility of a rogue, however in this game, unusually you have up to five companions, as you can see, and they pretty much fit into the ideal party, although I was not provided with a healer and didn’t multi-class to take any levels of cleric. The companions below seem to be a fighter, paladin, monk, mage and fighter/thief. The adventure takes you through and below the slums, merchant’s quarter and docks of Agrenost, a city at the edge of an empire and suffering from invasion by an undead horde.

The Party

I thoroughly recommend this module and it just shows there’s still life in this venerable game.

Now, shall I start NWN2, or look for a new NWN module

A pointless audience

Posted by on September 17, 2011 1 comment

PointlessI just love Pointless, the BBC Quiz show, where contestants have to show they know more than an audience by answering questions, obscurely, to obtain low scores. The final question requires that the contestants find an answer which none of the audience has mentioned. The hosts, Alexander Armstrong & Richard Osman do their best to make the contestants welcome,  it’s a really gentle atmosphere, teams get two chances to play so if they’re very unlucky with the questions they don’t feel badly treated, the prizes are typically British quiz show, and the contestants have been  polite to each other, with losing teams often congratulating their victors. In order to win you need to know a lot, understand the tactics of the game, and have a lot of luck. Part of the fasincation in watching the show is to test how much of these factors you have yourself, aided by the fact that they show you the answers to the questions, and the scores they obtained.

In the final round, a question is posed and to win, the final team has three chances and 60 seconds to find a pointless answer. These final questions can have many answers, for instance, they have asked

  • John Grisham Novels
  • Booker Prize Winners
  • Keanu Reeves films
  • Thatcher’s Cabinet Ministers (pointless…ho ho).
  • Labour female MPs elected in 1997

I suddenly realise I have never seen a final geography question.

However, they are missing a trick, while the presenters, Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, in particular, make sterling efforts to involve the home audience, the recap of the answers, is always too short, and often incomplete. It seems that 75 of the Labour female MP’s were pointless and this was too many to show. (I reckon I got two!) That’s what the internet’s for, Dudes. They must also have some questions that they don’t use.  I’d have thought a “join in” online page at the BBC site would be awesome, it might have to be published after the episode goes off line, but they do it for “Only Connect”. If they hosted it inside the bcc player site they have the social network infrastructure in place, they could even offer an online competition with other fans. The number of comments on Osman’s Blog show how big an appetite for chat about this there is.