Lords of the Blog

I was honoured to be invited last night to a reception celebrating the third anniversary of the 'Lords of the Blog' blog. It is a single blog that is regularly contributed to by 12 Peers of all political persuasions, along with guest posts from others. No other legislature in the world benefits from such a cross-party blog.

I have been reading the blog for two and a half years, although admittedly I have only commented on a couple of occasions. Media coverage of politics is poor at best, and the House of Lords only receives mainstream coverage when something spectacular is going on, such as the recent shenanigans concerning the AV vote. This is a shame, as the work of the house is absolutely vital to our democracy. Lords of the Blog provides a valuable resource on what is happening in the Lords, from the mouths of the people who work there.

I may not agree with everything that is said on the blog, but I have little doubt that the views expressed are genuinely held. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for many blogs run by MPs. Perhaps the presence of cross-benchers in the Lords makes this blog appear much less partisan (and therefore more useful) than those written by individual MPs.

The reception was held in the River Room in the Lords. I found it hard to draw my gaze away from the spectacular views along from the Thames, despite the typically dreary London weather. I have a certain fondness for architecture, and the Houses of Parliament (and especially the Norman Westminster Hall) always make my spirits soar. It may not be to everyone's taste, but there can be no doubt that the buildings provide a suitably impressive setting for any meeting.

The intricate nature of the architecture means that my eyes are always searching out the details: an ornate cornice here, an inlaid plaster ceiling there. There was plenty of such detail visible in and from the River Room. I had a glass of wine and a couple of snacks from the buffet as I waited for the speeches to start.

The speakers made many interesting points about the way they think that their blog represents a link between the house and the public, and the way they would like to see it head in the future. Lord Soley made the point that political hustings were common before the seventies, with church halls and clubs filled to the rafters with politically active people. This phenomenon has died off over the years, killed in part by television. In many ways the Internet is starting to fill that gap, enabling conversations between speakers and the population.

In my opinion the best points of the evening were made by PoliticsHome's Paul Waugh, who talked about the way that fewer MPs are blogging now, and on the rise of twitter in political debate. This was particularly interesting as I take a diametrically opposed view, that being that twitter is worse then useless for political debate. It is superb for soundbites and terrible for real, solid information.

Some questions were taken from the floor after the speeches. Unfortunately I did not get the opportunity to ask my questions, but there was plenty of time to chat afterwards to various people as I stuffed my face with the rather delicious cake. In particular I had a fascinating chat with the immaculately-dressed David Leakey, the recently-appointed Black Rod.

All in all it the evening was informative as well as interesting. It is good to see so many Peers using the Internet to get their message across, and to use such events to reach out to their readers. It also gave me a good excuse to dust off my suit!

I would like to thank the Hansard Society, the Lord Speaker and the other honourable lords and ladies for a fascinating (and filling) evening.

Charity fraud?

Back in November I wrote a blog post about Matthew Brown, an ex-military helicopter pilot who was walking around the coast of Britain for charity. The claim was that he had already raised £500,000 for Help for Heroes, and was aiming for a 9,500 mile walk.

It sounded like an incredible objective and the sum raised seemed rather large, especially so early on in his trip. However I know of at least one other coastal walker who has raised similar sums, and the charity is particularly popular at the moment, so it was certainly within the bounds of possibility. Tonight I found this article on the BBC website, which makes it look as though the whole thing was one gigantic fraud. Even his claim of having served as a pilot in Afghanistan and Iraq appears to have been a particularly unsophisticated lie.

Later in November he was sentenced to 32 weeks in jail for pretending to be a doctor in Scarborough in order to gain free hotel accommodation. It was not the first time that he had been jailed for such a deception. Perversely, it was he publicity for his coastal walk that proved his downfall - a member of the hotel staff saw his picture in the paper and alerted the police.

There is much to be said about this: firstly, if it is a fraud, then using the Help for Heroes name makes it doubly sickening. Secondly, it makes it all the harder for others who are attempting to do a similar thing to raise money for charity; I had some doubt cast on my own walk whilst I was doing it, and I am glad that I documented it so comprehensively (on average I took three photos a mile, which would be hard to fake). Thirdly, it casts all charity fundraising in a bad light.

But more importantly, are his actions a sign of madness or nastiness? Should I feel hatred for someone who is so out of kilter with the norms of society, or sorry for him? What has happened to make him perform such desperate acts?

I have always taken the entries on my website in good faith, despite a few doubts about another recent entrant into the list of coastal walkers. Perhaps I should try to be slightly more sceptical and try to verify first in future. Then again, that is not really the purpose of the list.

Japan

My heart goes out to everyone effected by the events in Japan this morning. The pictures all look horrific; I can only hope and pray that the deaths and injuries are kept to a minimum.

An excellent website.

My relationship with geology is fraught. I love maps, and few maps are as beautiful as geological maps, with their coloured bands and marks giving a faux-view of the surface and underground. Even the terms - Ordovician, Cambrian, Cenozoic - fill me with wonder. One of my uncles was a geology lecturer who appeared (often wearing the obligatory flares) in Open University programs during the 1970s and 1980s, meaning that such a fascination is possibly firmly engrained in my blood

Yet the subject conjures memories that still causes me to shiver. During my first year at university, my engineering course had five hours of geology on a Friday afternoon. We would study rock sample after rock sample, staring through eyeglasses at them to characterise and classify. One of the lecturers - an emeritus professor - was a genius, as witty and engaging as he was intelligent, and he would avail us of tales of his time in a Japanese PoW camp. The other lecturer, however, was quite the opposite. He turned those long hours into a drag, often choosing not to give us a break in the middle of the afternoon. Given that geology was just a small part of my course (I was much more interested in structural and material engineering), I came to hate the subject. It was a classic case of a bad teacher turning students off a subject.

Therefore I have found Ian West's excellent website, 'Geology of the Wessex Coast of Southern England', to be fascinating reading. The site contains a massive amount of information on the geology of the coastline between Southampton and Devon, a stretch of coast that I know well. The detail is amazing, but also surprisingly accessible. From the Burning Cliffs (oil shale that spontaneously combusts) to the history of storm surges, everything I could possibly want to know about the geology of this stretch of coast is here.

The world is full of experts on esoteric subjects, from lace-making to Roman concrete. Most of the time this information remains firmly embedded within inaccessible specialist literature. It is rare - and good - to have these experts putting their knowledge down for everyone to read.

Forget Facebook and Twitter: sites like Ian West's are exactly what the Internet was invented for.

Unbelievable...

Some people, it seems, never learn. Take the following article about Gary Hart, ten years after he crashed a Land Rover off the M62 and onto a railway line, the direct cause of the Great Heck train crash that killed ten people.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-12591249

I had some sympathy for Mr Hart at the time - as often with driving accidents, it is a case of there but for the grace of God go I. Anyone who has driven for years must have had moments when tiredness, illness or anger has nearly caused an accident. Mr Hart could probably have made that journey a hundred times without the ill-fortune of crashing off the road and onto a railway line. Fate paid a heavy price not just in that, but in the fact that two trains were heading in opposite directions towards the place he landed beside the tracks.

This sympathy rapidly dissipated during the trial, where he tried to admit that he could drive perfectly well with only a few hour' sleep. The evidence against him (including test that showed hat he must have been speeding for most of his journey) was firm, and I could not believe that he protested his innocence throughout the case. There are times when it is best to accept your guilt, however hard that may be.

Unfortunately it appears that, ten years after the accident in which ten people died - and he caused - he still has not accepted responsibility.


Take the following quote:

"No deaths occurred at the point of impact with my Land Rover.
"They all occurred 700 yards down the track which I feel other people should have been held accountable for, so in my own head I've dealt with it in that fashion."

This is unbelievable, and is like a gunman saying 'no-one died when I pulled the trigger; they died fifty yards away when the bullets hit them. I feel they should be accountable for being there, so in my own head I'm innocent.'

As I said, unbelievable.

Right, the doorbell has just rung and the movers are here. The mania is about to begin...

The Libyan rescue

The Government has had some bad press over the last week over the so-called 'fiasco' of the Libya crisis, whereby some people thought that we were too slow in getting people out. Radio 5 was reporting that a Turkish ship had got some of their citizens out of a port city, and then went to talk to the wife of a Scotsman trapped at an oil complex in the middle of the desert,

This is where I started to smell a rat. The oilmen were in a far worse predicament than the Turkish workers; many were trapped in the middle of nowhere with no transport (the locals having stolen their vehicles), whilst the Turkish workers mentioned were concentrated in the cities.  Libya is hardly a friendly country, and I can see why the government might be concerned that they would take the flying in of a plane without permission to be an unfriendly act. Comparing the two in such a forthright manner was disingenuous at best.

Then came Cameron's apology. Firstly I could not see what he was apologising for: the government were doing things, albeit in a fluid, complex situation that was hard to manage. But I must say it is a relief to have a country that does manage to apologise, unlike out previous PM for whom 'sorry', like 'cuts', was truly a hard word to say.

Now the oil workers have been rescued, allegedly by the SAS and/or the SBS. An SAS/SBS operation is hardly a quick thing to set up (just getting the teams into position is time-consuming, yet alone the information gathering and planning).It looks as though the SAS team flew in on commercial flights on Tuesday - whilst these idiots were crying out 'fiasco!', and their weapons were being dispatched in diplomatic bags. So the Government was doing something, and apparently doing it well; they just could not speak about it.

It is well known that the first aircraft to be sent had some 'technical issues' that delayed its takeoff by half a day - these failures have not been explained, but one theory doing the rounds was that it was delayed so extra personnel and equipment could be put on board. Although there is no proof, it does make some sense.

Incidentally, the Germans flew in similar missions on the same day, and the media are failing to mention that a US catamaran has been stuck in Tripoli harbour for 48 hours with technical difficulties.

The supposed failure to rescue our citizens was headline news on the BBC News website, as was Cameron's apology. This morning, as what appears to be a fairly daring rescue has occurred, and may still be ongoing, it does not even appear on their front page, and a reporter on the News Channel has cast scorn on the idea it was a 'daring' rescue.

And they are not mentioning Labour's strong links with Gaddaffi...

The media ought to be hanging their heads in shame about this. The fiasco was in their reporting, not in the operations.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...?

Şencan's in Turkey for a week whilst I get on with the house move (yes, she planned that well). It is her first visit to her parents for three years, and hence long overdue. But it has meant that I have been left home (or more accurately, homes) alone during a fairly hectic and stressful time.

I like to think of myself as being a fairly independent individual. I cast scorn on fashion, and can easily engross myself in a book for a day, or a walk for a fortnight. I do not feel the need to go out every night with my mates, nor to be constantly on the phone to people I hardly know.

Yes, I am independent, and yet I felt lonely within a day of Şencan leaving. Part of me is missing, cast asunder to a foreign land. I have no-one to smile with, to joke, laugh, kiss and hug. She - the core of my existence - is apart.

A few minutes ago she phoned me up from a friend's house in Turkey. She is enjoying herself, but the mere sound of her voice raised my spirits and made me feel whole. The slough of despond into which I had sunk was evaporated by the mere sound of her voice.

This is surely love.