Coastalblog

So I'm writing this in the spare bedroom at the very top of the house. At the back of the house. In the portion of the house where to the casual street level observer it would seem that there was nobody in. So it's Hallowe'en again. Before I go any further I need to clarify my position on Hallowe'en. I don't care one way or the other about it. Sure it's a vast, crass commercial enterprise. But what isn't? It's not like it's as much of a con-job as Christmas. If people want to dress up as ghouls then that's fine by me. Knock yourselves out, or poke your eye out with the end of your silly plastic trident that you paid ACTUAL MONEY for for some reason. I have nothing to do with hallowe'en because I am neither a) a small child that's jonesing for sherbert or b) a student girl who ill-advisedly think that she looks hot in red satin. Likewise I've never had anything to do with trick or treating. I grew up in the wilds of rural Cornwall wher

Argh stuff to do, college stuff to do, writing stuff to do, house-hunting stuff to do, stuff too secret to tell the internet about to do argh argh argh. I recognise that this isn't the most salient of posts, but I do beg your indulgence, I have every intention of getting something interesting up shortly.

Today. Sigh. Still my students wrote brilliantly this morning, little knowing that that was one of the better presents I could have received, so thanks to them. On an entirely unrelated note a cash machine just helpfully informed me that it is currently National Identity Fraud Week; so I'm just off out to commit some forthwith, just to keep in the spirit of things.

A NaNoWriMo thread appeared on ILE, and before I knew it I was signing up again. I'm in a bit too much of a state of shock to expand upon this but suffice it to say that November's now a complete write-off.

Yes, yes you all know about Sion Simon's somewhat heavy-handed but nevertheless entertaining spoof of Teflon Dave's Webcameron. I'll admit to being amused by it. Sleep with my wife, take my kids. We get it Sion, but thanks. Faintly amusing though it may be, it's nowhere near as amusing as Westminster getting itself into a tizz because of it. The Tories have surprisingly played a blinder, largely declaring themselves relaxed, score one to Dave, annoyingly (mind you, with their press attack dogs to do it for them they don't really need to get too riled). But Labour have, in a rather old fashioned and quaint manner sought to distance themselves from it. Which is idiotic, given that Simon has actually landed a punch on Cameron, which the rest of the party seem curiously unwilling to do (the confused wonderings as to why they aren't going after the vapid berk will have to wait. Seriously though, John Smith would have eaten this twat for breakfast, I suspect Brown mig

I've rarely felt so ashamed to be British as I did yesterday. So Uncle Jack Straw makes a bid to be seen as tough on something or other in order to be viewed as the hardest man in Westminster, fair enough. He has a problem with the wearing of veils amongst women, that, again, is fair enough. For what it's worth he probably has a valid point to make. His statement was not, in and of itself, racist (misguided, ill thought-out and breathtakingly cynical yes, racist, no). However, the shitstorm of out and out, mouth-foaming, ACTUAL racism provoked by it is one of the least edifying spectacles I've seen for a long time. Admittedly using the section of the public that contact radio phone-ins isn't the most reliable of guides, but the overwhelming public support for his remarks, and the lack of any backlash was genuinely surprising, not least because somewhere en route the comments turned from "it's an issue of being able to see people's faces" to "musli

It's Tory Party Conference time again, politics fans! HIM AGAIN: good to see David Lee Cameron taking the massive contribution of short haul flights to climate change so seriously that he's put none other than notorious eighties hardman John Selwyn Gummer, Sellafield and diseased beef boy himself, on the case (who he? readers under twenty and americans cry. Google, my children. Then giggle). His squeaking of the facts was heartening to hear, and to be entirely fair he was largely correct. But undermined somewhat by the bellowing of a bellicose Tory at the debate on the subject woefully missing the point by claiming that as his journey to the conference was by plane (amusingly he shoehorned a reference to Ryanair in there too, never a Tory party conference without some pals product placement) it was shorter and therefore less polluting. Sigh. Lets go over this one more time shall we? STOP TRAVELLING BY PLANE OR WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE. GREEN DAVE REDUX: poor Gummer was also f