Out the other side

Ok - I've been poorly for weeks now, and appear finally to be on the mend (huzzah!). Not much personal news to report - the biggest thing that's happened was definately the loss of the entire contents of my 40gb hard drive - fortunately the contents of my 180gb drive are safe and sound. The biggest loss in the entire 35gb or so of data was obviously my movie script. I've got back almost all of it from various people I'd recently sent it to, but there's a bit of work lost. Ironically, I had literally got as far as sticking a floppy disc in the drive ready to back up the latest work on the script, but had got distracted and forgotten about it -the next day - *poof* up in smoke. Not too drastic though, I remember most of what I'd done! It is nice to have a fresh install of xp - only a matter of time before it gets all clogged up again : )

I've been entertaining myself by watching lots and lots of films whilst I've been poorly (Almost Famous directors cut and old favourite Dazed and Confused being the winners of best 70s classic rock youth movies I've seen lately ;) . My one significant trip out of the house was to see Bill Bailey (who has a little blog on his site). He was truly truly (repeat ad infinitum) wonderful. Very funny routine about Argos, very cool Portishead doing Zipadeedoodah and very very cool looking at your washing up through the vegetable drawer in your fridge to see it underwater bit. And BBC news music apocalyptic rave mix - I've been waiting for that since the day they changed to the current music.

I really want to write a long rambling post in defense of the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, having seen and really enjoyed them both in the last week, but bearing in mind I was so poorly I actually quite enjoyed an episode of the Weakest Link I think I'd better make sure my critical faculties are definately in order first. I wouldn't want to needlessly upset and/or alienate Simon Pegg.

So Blair might be going

Well now, it really does appear as if the party is politiking like crazy at the mo - Prescott might be/appear to be a bit of a buffoon when it comes to his media image, but presumably one doesn't become deputy prime minister without a bit of political nouse, and the quote from the Times article - "I think it’s true that, when plates appear to be moving, everyone positions themselves for it" - seems to be a pretty strong indication that all is not well in the court of President Teflon. And this article, if well sourced, definately seems to indicate that Blair might be on his way out.

Of course, looking at it dispassionately, and with a bit of historical overview there's a strong case to be made for the fact that he was always going to have to step aside once he had got into the double bed of foreign policy with his arms so closely wrapped around a neo-conservative, extreme-right-wing, election stealing failed oil magnate and his not-so-failed oil magnate buddies (wow, that's a stretched and unpleaseant metaphor). Blair's desperate pleas to the electorate before the Iraq war all hinged on him being able to steer the security council into a second resolution, and once that had failed, he was left holding hands with George. Bush would never have been elected in Britain. He's widely distrusted (and rightly so, he's a liar, a thief and a warmongerer, and I'm pretty sure he couldn't sue me for saying any of those thingss) and Blair's closeness with Bush, if it plays well in the UK will only play with people who aren't gonna vote Labour if their lives depend on it. So Blair has finally made himself so unattractive to the party that has changed so much to please him, because they saw pleasing him as a way to power, that he might be pushed aside for Brown, to gain a bump in momentum which will take them to victory at the next election. Most of the tory amoury will work best against Blair, as he has his head above the parapet for long enough that they've managed to take pretty good aim. The Iraq situation is not going to get any better in the near future, and the tories will be able to say "well, we may have supported the removal of Saddam, but we wouldn't have done x,y and indeed z." Blair might have made the Labour party electable again, but at the moment he seems to be working on the double - he's lied to "the people" he's been playing to all along, and he's making the tories electable again. And for that reason alone, I hope the "plates" are shifting.

No politics for a while - honest! BTW I need to counter all this by saying that, genuinely, I think most of the people involved really truly are trying to do the best they can, and have been blinded by either their education, their experience, or their own egos...