What I Saw at The Fringe

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Dan

As I hurtle back towards the south, the power of 3G internet (or, “internet from the sky”as my lovely host in Edinburgh put it) enabling me to blog while on the train, I thought I would give a quick round up of the shows I saw during my short time at this year’s Fringe.

SOLD – Pleasance Courtyard – 11.10am - ★★★★★
Sold, my sister’s play, was both the first and the last show I saw at the Fringe. Both times I saw it, it was simply brilliant. Regular readers of this blog will hardly be surprised that I’m reviewing it positively, but I do feel that even without my rose-tinted brotherly glasses it is still an absolutely fantastic show. The acting quality was consistently excellent throughout and this was complemented by an equally excellent technical offering. The show was (unsurprisingly for a show about human trafficking) heavy, but thanks to a handful of (sometimes very) funny moments, and the relatively short length of the show (1h 20m) this didn’t detract from the enjoyment. There is basically nothing I can flaw about this production which goes towards explaining the excellent reception it has had (swathes of 4-star reviews, 5 stars from Three Weeks, Metro’s Pick of the Day and the Amnesty International Award for Freedom of Expression).

To Have and To Hold – Augustine’s – 3.05pm - ★★★
This was a show I hadn’t intended to see but upon bumping into someone I knew who was flyering for it and then bumping into a friend shortly afterwards on the Mile, we decided to give it a go. Overall it wasn’t a bad production, there were moments of genuinely funny comedy, but I’ve seen a lot better. The story was set at a wedding and the comedy was largely derived from the awkward moments encountered by the main character. It was an interesting idea and for the most part it worked. This isn’t something I would necessarily recommend but I don’t regret seeing it and there are, of course, worse ways to spend an hour of your life.

Transformer – Bedlam – 6.00pm - ★★★★
Transformer, a show by some members of The Improverts (see below) was something I was greatly looking forward to. I had seen 2 of the 3 man cast in a show last year (Charmed Forces) which was outstanding, so I was expecting good things. The show didn’t disappoint and a very large proportion of the show was laugh out loud funny. I did feel that the third member of the cast was not as funny as the person he had replaced but it was still a very good production.

Showstoppers – Gilded Balloon – 10.50pm - ★★★★★
Showstoppers – the improvised musical well known to regulars at The Fringe was exceptional as always. The show was absolutely hilarious, the singing was West End quality and I honestly cannot fault it. The best thing about good improv is that things going wrong add to the humour rather than detract from it and this is practically the definition of good improv. The show we saw was set in a German burlesque bar (which inevitably led to some rather obvious (but very funny) jokes). The compere did have to step in when the attempt at a homage to Team America (Bavaria, F*ck Yeah!) ended up as ‘F*ck You, Bavaria!’ but I’m pretty sure this was one of the actors mishearing the compere rather than something more sinister! This is something I know I will return to time and time again and was one of the highlights of my time at The Fringe.

The Improverts – Bedlam – 12.30am - ★★★★
The Improverts (Edinburgh Uni’s improv troupe) are also a regular fixture of The Fringe for me. Feeling in a thoroughly good mood from Showstoppers I headed over to Bedlam to see them. The show was fantastic as usual, although not the best I’ve seen of them, but that isn’t to say it wasn’t a very enjoyable 60 minutes and it is something I will return to for certain.

Bristol Revunions – Just the tonic @ the store – 3.40pm - ★★★
This was a show I saw largely on a whim, having seen the positive reviews on the flyer, and not having anything else to do at that time. It was a reasonably good experience, with some very funny moments but I had the odd feeling of missing in jokes a lot of the time. I don’t think this was anything to do with the quality of the performances though, but more that the group was probably very in tune with the idiosyncrasies of the Bristol Uni comedy scene which made it somewhat less funny for someone tuned into a different uni’s sense of humour. Overall, it was worth seeing, although perhaps not 100% my thing.

Jet Set Go – the spaces @ Niddry Street – 7.00pm - ★★★★
This was something I saw after chatting with some of the cast on the mile. I had missed it while it had been on at uni and so I was quite pleased to get a chance to see it. It was actually very good. The plot was simple enough not to get in the way but there was enough of it not to feel pointless. The cast was funny and the songs were all very good. The male voices (for the most part) were rather weak but this was made up for by a collection of very strong female voices. I did find one of the plot lines about a very flamboyant gay steward a bit grating and cliché (some arguably quite cheap laughs). This was however, countered quite well by a gay character lamenting stereotypes which was actually very well done. I did find myself a bit aware that the characters were just randomly bursting into song which, while admittedly the point of musicals, is something normally ignorable when the musical is really good. This was probably due to the fact that the venue was a converted conference room and the unsubtly of the electric keyboard rather than a lack of quality with the acting though. Overall, it was a good, fun show and I’m really pleased I saw it.

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Seeing as I have this Poetic Licence, I might as well use it…

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Dan

So I thought I’d try something a little different today. Firstly, because I haven’t done a blog post in ages and I feel ever so guilty about that (I know my lack of blog posts constitutes a major void in your life). Also, because I’m heading back up to Edinburgh next week and I’m understandably excited. However, I guess the biggest reason is to shamelessly plug my sister’s show (if you stop reading here you are officially a bad person). The first time I saw it (back in 2010) it was absolutely brilliant (even taking into account my natural bias) and from what I can see of the reviews so far, it looks like it’s evolved to something even better. The play is called Sold and features a cast primarily made up of newly graduated students of Central School of Speech and Drama. It focuses on human trafficking in a way that demands your attention so completely you are truly immersed in the stories being told. If you are in Edinburgh (or possess the ability to get to Edinburgh) then you simply must see this show. More details can be found on the show’s website and I seriously challenge you to see this show and regret it (astute blog readers will realise that this challenge is mostly to ensure bums-on-seats for my sister but I challenge you none the less!).

So now that shameless bit of pluggery (a non (?) word that should be a word if ever I saw one) is done and dusted I can leave you with this poem I wrote about the Fringe. It’s the first poem I’ve written in a long time and I still cling on to rhyme and meter in a way that I’m sure makes me far too conformist to ever be taken seriously as a poet, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

Fringe

As you wander that Mile,
And the world rushes past,
Letting you know that you’re back here at last.

The show that you came for,
The ones that you miss,
The 1am comedy, better watched pissed.

The god-like reviewers,
Doling out stars,
Decide who gets the hook, and who will go far.

The cries of the flyerers,
Braving the rain,
Knowing tomorrow they’ll be back again.

Your wallet gets lighter,
Your feet start to ache,
And you’ve had all the fried food your stomach can take.

But when it’s all over,
The love still remains,
And then we just wait till we’re all back again!

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Seeing As I Was Born Here…

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Dan

A few weeks ago I went to see a play my sister (an imminently graduating drama student) was in. I could quite happily wax lyrical about the phenomenal quality of the play but I’m pretty sure the previous sentence has revealed a bias that probably precludes me from giving a particularly useful review of the production. The play was all about migration, focusing, as is often the case, on illegal immigration. Immigration (the “damn immigrants” causing all manner of problems) is one of the buzz words the Daily Mail likes to use which should immediately flag it as an area that is misunderstood and sensationalised. As another Dan so eloquently put it: the previous sentence “won’t mean an awful lot if you’ve never heard of The Daily Mail, but on the plus side, you’ve never heard of The Daily Mail”. Incidentally the video I just linked to is well worth a watch!

The crux of the objections surrounding immigration is the pervasive assumption that the location of one’s birth (or even the location of one’s ancestors’ birth) somehow entitles that person to things someone else is not entitled to. The idea that being born on one side of an imaginary line drawn across the land should make someone fundamentally different to someone born 1m away is, in my opinion, absurd. Of course in the UK this argument is slightly weakened by the fact we have a stonking great stretch of water between us and our nearest neighbours (which opponents of immigration no doubt see as a good thing). The principal however is the same; why should I, by coincidence of my birth, be entitled to more than someone else born elsewhere?

There isn’t really a coherent argument against this. The only real way to argue against migration is to ask what the alternative is. Indeed, if migration laws were abandoned the situation wouldn’t exactly be pretty. There would be a mass movement of people (more so than currently) from less economically development countries into countries such as the UK and the economies of those countries would be unlikely to cope. Of course, as soon as the wealthy countries started to suffer, due to the mass immigration, the rate of immigration would slow and possibly reverse (imagine Brits being the ones needing to flee poverty…). If left long enough it is conceivable that a world without border control would be equalised economically such that people were distributed in a way that correlated with the distribution of global wealth.

Gosh. We have the solution then. Amazingly, in the ten minutes or so I’ve spent writing this blog I’ve solved the migration problem! We just need to decide as a planet (maybe some sort of big ad campaign is needed?) to remove all border controls and then we wait for everyone to shuffle around to find the point of equilibrium. Perhaps we could set up some sort of website where people can find where in the world they should head for a better life? I’m thinking Facebook style ‘liking’ would be good perhaps?

Of course, this isn’t really as feasible as it might seem I’m making out (no doubt Facebook has some pretty strict trademarking of its ‘like’ system for starters). In all seriousness though, this flippant suggestion is actually quite akin to the way the current UK government is trying to ‘marketise’ the higher education system in Britain. The idea that we should use market forces to try and equalise things such as education or, as in the case of migration, peoples entire quality of life, is deeply wrong. The underlying theory might suggest that marketisation leads to equality but as we can see from simply looking at the financial word; marketisation leads to the best off getting better off and the worst off getting even worse.

What needs to happen, in terms of disparities of equality, be it education, quality of life (one of the most prevalent causes of migration) or any form of inequity, is for the people in the most privileged positions to recognise their privilege, accept that in the vast majority of cases their privilege is due to the circumstances of their birth and nothing more, and then to take this sense of privilege and use it to help shape the world. Once the privileged start rejecting the comfort of thinking they somehow earned their privilege (although of course, if they actually did earn it then this doesn’t really apply!) then they can start to feel compelled to actually make a difference in the world and start to even out the stark divides in equality we see almost everywhere we look.

Although, of course, this would be much easier to achieve if it wasn’t for those damn immigrants!

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Seeing the Point in Trans

Posted on June 27, 2010 by Dan

I am somewhat worried that during this post I’m going to want to use the phrase “I’ve been on a journey” but with the extreme level of cliché that would entail I shall do my best to avoid it.

So recently I’ve been on a journey…

Today I was asked about the point of the ‘T’ in LGBT. It was the same question I was asking myself a few months ago. I just couldn’t see the point of it, couldn’t see the similarities with LGB and although I was never transphobic as such I certainly was very trans-ignorant! Over the last few months however, I have the pleasure of spending time with some really lovely and interesting people who’ve helped change my mind about this and I now consider myself pretty good on the issue. Admittedly ’good’ is a rather bad word to describe it but hopefully it is obvious what I mean.

I still struggle to understand trans issues. In the sense that as a cisgendered person (my gender identity matches my sex) I cannot hope to understand what it’s like to be trans. In that regard I have made absolutely no progress. I still cannot understand why someone would be trans and I struggle to see what the big deal is about it. Of course this all seems somewhat contradictory to my claim of being ‘good’ with the whole trans thing.

What has changed is that I now don’t care whether I can understand it. It doesn’t matter that I don’t really see the point. What matters is that there are people out there who are trans and our current society is massively unfair to them. It annoys me to no end that straight people don’t get what it’s like to be gay. Obviously some can empathise and thankfully progress is slowly being made in terms of gay rights across the world. The problem is this took way, way, way too long. We had the mad rush of civil rights for black and ethnic people. We finally made progress in this area and although there is still a way to go the majority of people view racism as a bad thing and we bemoan our previous generations for the mistakes they made. To a much more limited degree this is happening with homophobia. Slowly it is fading and gradually the younger generation is judging previous generations for their mistakes. However, there was no natural transition. People still struggle to see the similarities between the black rights movement and the gay rights movement. People didn’t suddenly ‘get’ what it is like to be black or gay or a woman. They saw injustice and finally started to object to it after years of failure.

Effectively what I’m trying to say is that I support human rights. Now this may mean that I focus a lot of my attention on LGBT rights but that is only because it is something close to my heart that I see needs fighting for. One of the main reasons I have for doing this is because in 40 years time (or however long) when homophobia is something that the majority of people reject I don’t want to be embarrassed about what my generation did. I want to be able to say that I did all I could to fight against it. Now this is all very well and good and I am aware that I sound a little bit holier than thou (I honestly don’t mean to be) but perhaps it isn’t instantly obvious how this relates to trans issues.

The point I’m trying to make and, characteristically the point that is taking me far longer than it should to make, is that it doesn’t matter if you cannot understand something like transgenderism; if you can see people being discriminated against you should object to that. As long as the human right being fought for doesn’t hurt anyone it is worth fighting for. We shouldn’t need time to work out whether we understand or can empathise. If someone feels discriminated against and we can prevent that we should. It shouldn’t require generations of failure to finally rectify our mistakes. It is 40 years since the fight for gay rights really kicked off and we are still only just approaching the point where equality is on the horizon. We can’t afford to make the same mistakes again.

Now I don’t mean getting overly PC about stuff. We all dread the phrase “political correctness gone mad” but trans discrimination is so easy to avoid. You can avoid using gender pronouns and use someone’s name or ‘they/their etc’ instead. You can stop asking for people’s gender when it is completely unnecessary. You can accept that not everyone is cisgendered and, if you meet someone who isn’t, not question that. All of these things and more require such little effort and certainly don’t harm anyone but make such a huge difference to trans people.

You don’t need to understand why people are trans. You don’t need to see the point of it all. All you need to do is see the really easy ways you can make a positive impact in people’s lives and help make the world a more tolerant and inclusive place.

I am so glad we ‘lump’ the T into LGBT. It may not be exactly the same but it is still the same fight. It is about allowing people to live their lives as they want to and not enforcing cisgenderism on people the same way we enforced heterosexuality on people in generations past.

Posted in I've been thinking..., LGBT, Serious Stuff | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

An Unchangeable Shade of Green

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Dan

It is interesting to consider how much of our lives we control. We are privileged (the fact that you are on the internet implies you fit within this ‘we’) to control a lot of things some people can’t. We can, for the most part, control what and when we eat or drink, where we go, what we do and to a certain degree who we are. We can, indirectly, control who runs the country, who represents us in Europe and, of course, who will win Eurovision. However, we are brilliant at ignoring all these privileged areas of control and focusing on what we cannot control.

We can’t really control what we look like, how we feel or others around us and yet that is often what we worry most about doing. There are multi-million pound industries dedicated to areas of our lives outside of our control. People will pay through the roof to tell someone their problems in a bid to control how they feel about their life. I wouldn’t have the audacity to suggest this doesn’t help people but it is interesting how desperate we are to change the unchangeable.

It is probably worth qualifying the word unchangeable with the caveat of ‘mostly’ unchangeable. You can change the way you look with serious commitment (or surgery!) and you can change the way you feel with extensive therapy. The question is; is it worth the effort?

Now obviously with the examples I’ve given above you could easily talk about people losing weight to benefit their health or indeed someone who is clinically depressed seeking treatment. However, when one considers the person who has surgery to deal with an imperfection of their appearance (as an example of an arguably non essential change) one has to ask oneself if that change is really necessary.

For the most part, the conclusion is yes. Obviously if someone can improve their quality of life then they should do so. It is just worth considering whether the improvement is due to the change made or merely the fact that the person changed something ‘unchangeable’. It is important to remember how much we do control before getting too hung up on what we can’t.

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Seeing Green Without Eyes

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Dan

I just watched Derren Brown’s new show – ‘Derren Investigates’ (available on 4oD for a month) where he, in this episode, investigates a teaching method that allegedly allows the blind to see. I shan’t go into too much detail about the method that was, unsurprisingly, rebuked as complete fallacy. It basically involves using energy gathered from the urogenitary system (i.e. one’s crotch) and using it to power a ‘computer’ inside one’s head to visualise the non-material world (where do I sign up!?). This system is taught to vulnerable and often desperate people who pay hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of Euros to the teachers of the method.

The reason it concerned me is not so much the unfairness of extorting money (whether intentionally or not) for a phoney system but the fact that they tried to suggest it was scientifically rigorous. Many people throughout the word use the word science (and derivatives thereof) completely incorrectly. People mistake ‘science’, which should refer to the scientific method, with the scientific community or current theories or simply a rejection of the supernatural. The fact is, that although these things are often associated and interlinked with the scientific method they are very much secondary to it and therefore to reject the scientific method based on those things is wrong.

The scientific method, to oversimplify it slightly, is to prove something by experiment where the experiment can be repeated under the same conditions to produce the same result. There are many people who reject ‘science’ and therefore this method outright. It is of course a great shame for those people but at the end of the day there is little that can be done to convince them otherwise. The far more worrying phenomenon is pseudoscience. That is, people who believe that they are doing things scientifically when they are clearly not.

A famous case of this is the creationism vs evolution debate where creationists tried (and indeed are still trying) to force creationism to be taught as a scientific theory. It is somewhat disconcerting to know that some people believe that the world is only a few thousand years old and that God created it in 7 days but really that is down to the individual and although whole swathes of children are being educated in this way it is nothing new. What are really worrying are the people who think that ‘intelligent design’ is a scientific theory. It cannot be proven with experiment and certainly one could not repeat an experiment based on ID. To call it ‘science’ gives it credibility that it doesn’t deserve and that is really worrying.

The reason pseudoscience is more of a problem than non-science is because people believe that what they think/believe/do is logical and/or reasonable and therefore can justify doing it. Of course, people who practise non scientific things also believe this but once you have convinced someone of the merits of the scientific method they can easily see the flaws in non-science. Pseudoscience hides behind a veil of supposed logic which makes it far easier to sell (often literally) to people who often do not know any better.

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Seeing Perfection

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Dan

I am a perfectionist. That isn’t to say everything I do is perfect, but that I often will avoid doing things unless I know I can do them well. This makes writing a blog somewhat of a challenge. I will often think of things to blog about but either I won’t be in a position to blog at that instant or I will convince myself that the subject isn’t worth an entry. I’m sure we can all agree the excess amount of pointless blog entries out there but I would like to write a bit more than I do at the moment. So I have made a pact with myself. A pact which unfortunately you are helping me succeed in.

I am doing something that newsreaders do. They will read out the headlines and at the end they will include a little snippet of interest without really explaining what it is about, just so you sit through the rest of the news (Ellen sums this up brilliantly in this video). The worst part about this is when you are watching rolling news (á la BBC News Channel etc) you have to watch the main story –  hearing everyone’s opinion on something that’s probably not that important to start with – then you get the secondary headlines (often in the style of the generic news report as explained rather well by Charlie Brooker here). Then you get the joy of the headline summary where you get to hear all that you just heard repeated back to you in slightly less detail. You are probably then treated to the sport section (my one chance to go to the toilet when the news is on) or the business or entertainment sections (not too bad in themselves but if the story’s worth listening to it’ll probably be in the main section). Finally after about 40 minutes of the same news story you get to hear the thing that you ‘just wanted to quickly see before switching the news off’ and chances are it’s a 2 minute piece you could have found out about instantly via Google. Of course by this time it is so close to the hour that you decide to keep on watching to see the headlines. Despite the fact you already know them. Of course, you then see that little teaser and so the process repeats ad infinitum until you are somehow forced to turn off the TV (powercut/hurricane/someone screaming very very loudly in your close proximity) and the cycle finishes for the day.

I think it was perhaps slightly optimistic of me to use the word ‘you’ so often in that previous paragraph but I hope that the above insanity is not just something I do although chances are that is the case. What I am doing is stalling. I mentioned the pact I made with myself earlier and I have been deliberately avoiding revealing what it was. As I said at the beginning of this entry, I am a perfectionist. I avoid writing in this blog because I fear what I write won’t be interesting enough to be worth it. So I made a pact – a pact to write a boring, mundane entry so that I could break  the cycle of not writing. Unfortunately you can’t escape the fruits of this pact. You’ve just read the boring, mundane article and for that I am truly sorry. It could be worse though – I could have told you what I had for lunch today…

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I see Trees of Blue, Flip Flopping Too

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Dan

I’m angry. Yes, the sentence I have decided to use to break my extensive bloging silence is admittedly not the most enticing one in the world to make you want to read on but as we know, what’s written is written and can’t possibly be undone. It’s the only plausible explanation for the Twilight ‘saga’.

I’m now about to make mistake number two which is inadvisable at best. I’m angry about politics. This blog introduction is much like stepping into a hot bath. You had the disappointment of knowing that this will be a rant and then you had the ongoing suffering of hearing that it’s a political one. However, I urge you to submerge yourself and hopefully it won’t be too unpleasant an experience.

Unless you have been comatose for the last few months, nay, years (and I must say I’m honoured that you chose to visit my blog of all things) you will know we are in the throws of an election. Unlike America our elections are far less glamorous and we don’t have the joy of a choice between Obama and oven chips but a decision that seems one Irishman short of a bad joke.

I think it is interesting how people handle politics. I certainly don’t see it in the same way I say religion/belief (or lack thereof) in that I don’t think it’s a fundamental right to not have your political beliefs questioned. One of the great things about democracy is that we can all support who we like and have heated discussions about why we feel how we feel. Having said that I don’t think that screaming at people in the street to vote one way or the other is good either but a healthy debate about the options is a good thing in my opinion so drop yourself deeper into this hot bath of political anger.

I am angry about one man. Well, one man and his party. You may or may not have heard about Chris Grayling’s comments the other week. For those of you who didn’t I shall briefly summarise what happened. Chris Grayling, the shadow Home Secretary (i.e. the person who will become Home Secretary if Conservatives come into power) was secretly recorded saying that he believed B&B owners who run their business out of their own homes should be free to turn away gay couples. He has also previously voted against gay adoption. Now, I could write a long piece disagreeing with that but I’m not going to here. What has got me angry is not these comments (flawed as they may be) but his ‘apology’ for them. He appeared about a week later on Channel 4 news and said (after much coaxing) that he was wrong. In fact it wasn’t clear if he admitted he was wrong or if he admitted the view he had expressed was wrong but nevertheless he now says he believes that anti discrimination laws should apply to B&Bs and that he supports gay adoption. Great. Case closed. He supports the right thing, let’s all go vote Conservative. As the slogan says; “I’ve never voted Conservative but…”!

It may be unclear about why this has got me so riled. In order to understand that one needs to consider what he has actually done. Let’s forget the gay adoption thing for the moment and concentrate on the B&B issue. We must assume that if he was being secretly recorded that what he said was what he thought. If it wasn’t then he’s a liar before we even start considering the issue and to be honest I really doubt that’s the case. That is to say, I don’t doubt he’s a liar, but I doubt that he was lying when he made the offending comments.

Now, if it is the case that he was telling the truth and now he has apologised one of three things can have occurred:

  1. He has had an epiphany and realised the error of his ways. Something so drastic and life changing happened to him that he could change his moral views in less than a week and he wanted the whole world to know.
  2. He didn’t mean for this to get out and would never had viewed his true opinions in public. He apologised to cover up a view of his that he realised, or was told to realise, is not in keeping with Conservatives new campaign of alleged support of LGBT people.
  3. He doesn’t consider this a moral issue. He doesn’t really see the significance of this and therefore when there was public uproar he thought he might as well change his mind.

Well I’m pretty sure we can rule out the first one. I think he would have mentioned if this had been an epiphany and to be frank I don’t think it’s all that likely that this was one. I think that leaves us with the conclusion that is must be a combination of the second and third. Both are equally as worrying.

This is not a debate about whether B&B owners should accept gay couples. That is an important debate but inconsequential in this instance. It is undeniable that this issue is a moral one. It is the question of who has the greatest trump card; LGBT people as a whole group or individuals who oppose them within their own homes. What Chris Grayling has done is flip flopped on a serious moral issue. This is quite frankly intolerable.

How can we trust a man, or a party who supports said man, whose moral compass is either so crooked that he can change his view based on saving his own skin or so weak that he can’t see this for the complex moral issue that it is. It is this way of thinking that reflects the current state of the Conservative party. They have mastered the art of spin at the cost of realistic promises or moral fortitude.

It doesn’t matter what your morals are as long as you have them and you stick by them. Obviously this isn’t always going to win you public favour. If you look at the BNP no one can argue they don’t stick by their views. The fact that they are hideous, bigoted views means that (hopefully!) they stand little chance of gaining power but at least they stick by their guns. Chris Grayling can’t even do that. He is able to flip flop on something as fundamental as morals. How the hell can we trust him to be Home Secretary? How the hell can we vote for a party that allows one of their most senior members to do this? How the hell can we be expected to vote Conservative?

I’ve never voted Conservative but… now I know I never will.

I see trees of Blue,
Flip flopping too,
I see the doom,
For me and you,
And I think to myself…
What a wonderful world.

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Old Blind Server

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Dan

Having just looked up ‘seeing’ in the dictionary (something we all must do at some point in our lives), I have quite firmly established that the definition of seeing is:

Having vision; not blind.

It is therefore somewhat of a natural asumption, that if something is not seeing, it does not ‘have vision’ and is therefore blind.

With this logic squarely behind me I have come to the conclusion that my old server has gone blind. It has decided to no longer See Green or, for that matter, any colour of the visable light spectrum. As much as it may be able to see ultra violet light, that doesn’t really help matters, and for the purposes of this non sencical post we can assume that the server is blind full stop.

So I had no other choice but to up roots and switch to a new server which will hopefuly be a bit more reliable and better at seeing that lovely colour we have all grown acustomed to.

This has annoyingly cost me a cosiderable ammount of time, money and effort but I hope that my loyal fans will be eternaly greatful. Or, failing that, my one vaugely loyal fan will be mildly pleased.

I’m very glad the whole relocation ordeal is over, and I’m left with only one thought…

I wish I had gone to Specsavers!

Posted in Nothing in particular, Random Waffle, Seeing Green | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Really Simple Syndication: Is it really that simple?

Posted on August 16, 2008 by Dan

I thought today I would do a post explaining RSS (Really Simple Syndication). In really simple terms, RSS is used to serve a user stuff from a website. If this is your first time here why not read some of my previous entries, hopefuly that will convince you that the site is worth ‘being served’ and you can come back here for an explanation of how. If you are a regular here then read on to find out how to get the entries hot off the virtual press!

RSS is, by nature, really, really simple. It has only two components; the feed and the reader. The feed is whatever you are accessing through RSS (i.e. this blog) and is maintained by the site. The reader is the method you use to access your feeds. In this post I’m going to focus on iGoogle as this is my favourite reader but there are hundreds out there to try so don’t just take my word for it.

To start, you will need a Google account (if you don’t already have one). If you already use iGoogle you can skip this step. Click here to get one. Once you click the create account button at the bottom after filling in just a few basic details (email and country of residence) you will be taken to a fresh iGoogle page. You can play around with the options or not, but either way, click the “See your page” button.

The default comes with some good gadgets already, but if there is something you don’t like just click the X to remove it. From here you can click the “Add stuff” link to add some more gadgets or proceed to add your first feed.

When you’re ready, you can add the Seeing Green RSS feed to your page. Click this link to access the feed already in Google (if you want to use another reader use this link). To complete the Really Simple final Step just click the “Add to Google homepage” button. The feed will then be added as a gadget to your Google page and you’re done! From now on whenever a post is added to the site it will appear on your Google page. If you stay logged into Google, your iGoogle page will appear every time you access the site.

If you run Mozillia Firefox it’s incredibly simple to add feeds to your Google page. When you see the orange RSS icon in the address bar of a site click on it and you will be taken to the feed page. Just select Google from the drop down list and click subscribe now. You will then be taken to the same page as the above link and given the option to add the feed to your Google page. What’s more, if you pick Google as your default the number of steps gets even less.

Unfortunately Internet Explorer doesn’t suport external readers so to use iGoogle you must click this link (while logged into iGoogle), then click “Add feed or gadget” on the left side of the screen. You should then paste the link to the feed you want to add. This can be obtained by clicking the RSS logo on the toolbar and copying the address of the page it takes you to. It’s much simpler in Firefox but it isn’t too hard in Internet Explorer either.

I hope this post helped anyone who didn’t know about RSS before, and I hope you now want to subscribe to my feed to see the new posts first!

Posted in Helpful Hints, Seeing Green | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment