Politics Idol

The best example of the trivialisation of politics has become the extent to which it has been another reality TV show. Candidates' answers on what their favourite food is or similar mundane irrelevancies are more likely to make viewers' minds up than the average policy.

Living on the outskirts of London and commuting further towards the official outskirts every day, I've naturally received a lot of coverage of the London mayoral elections recently.

I've been really impressed throughout this of the excellent coverage - ironically - of the freebie papers, the Metro and LondonPaper. Both have been strictly unbiased, not promoting a favoured winner, and featuring equal coverage of all four main candidates (unlike most major TV debates, newspaper updates and so forth who have frozen Green Party candidate Sian Berry out). This is a standard of media coverage that the rest of our press could follow.

This race is though, once more going to be a fight over personalities and perceptions. It's again refreshing that both Livingstone and Paddick have been effectively refusing to talk at all about their personal lives, maintaining that it's nothing to do with the elections. And of course they're right.

The problem is Boris.

Boris comes into it with the perception as a loveable buffoon. It is indicative of how important experience and knowledge rank that his BAFTA award for his inept performances on Have I Got News For You take higher credence in his qualifications for the post than his experience as editing The Spectator or being Shadow Arts Minister - neither demanding tasks.

Compare this to Livingstone, with eight years of experience as mayor, and has been closely involved in London politics since the days of the GLC in the 1970s. Or Paddick, a successful head of the Metropolitan Police.

In real terms, this experience is far more crucial for running a thriving city like London than anything on Johnson's CV. But this is where I fear the Politics Idol factor. Reality TV will triumph, people will vote for the person who made them laugh on TV for bumbling his lines, and the politicians will lose.

And London will be the poorer for it.

Flashback Four: Terminal Decline

So, believe it or not, last month when I was on holiday I had the misfortune for my flight back to land at terminal five. Sorry, I mean Terminal Five, as it has now become known; the sort of phrase which should be uttered in a similar tone to that which you'd use to announce a B-movie horror film. Much mayhem would surely ensue.

It started badly. My flight was delayed by three hours on departure, due to a previous delay on the incoming flight. This allowed me another three hours with my girlfriend and a chance for a nice meal as opposed to being force-fed airplane food. So far, it's proving a clear disaster.

But wait! Surely the sting is in the tail?

We come into landing, and as we're about 100m altitude and just about at the end of our descent, we shoot back up again because the preceding plane is lost and has stopped in the middle of the runway to ask for directions. So thirteen minutes later, we're on the ground once more.

Surely this is the start of my worries. I get through the state-of-the-art gate, immigration, passport control and similar. I must also say that the terminal itself is a beautiful building.

But now I approached the baggage hall, where surely disaster would befall me.

Yet within five minutes, my bag arrived. I went through customs, and out into the arrivals hall - a mere fourty minutes after landing.

Quite frankly, were it not for the newspaper bombardment I'd have thought that Terminal 5 was a great, efficient system that was a drastic improvement over normal airport waits.

Flashback Three: Live Comedy

Although it now seems like a long time ago, one of my first days in America with Chrissi - I arrived on the Friday, and I'm fairly sure it was the following evening - we went to see a live comedian. Well, several.

And this is the secret that they don't tell you when you see a stand-up comedian on TV or DVD; there are warm up acts. And they're damn funny too. So you're always already laughing before you even get to the main act.

I truly recommend a stand-up comedy night to anyone. The main act in this case was Gabriel Inglesias, who has apparantly come somewhere near the top of Comic Idol or whatever the show is. Anyway, he was very funny. But for me some of the warm up acts were great as well. I can't remember many or really any of the jokes - but they were damn funny.

Learn from this.

Flashback Two: Easter Weather

Who can remember three-four weeks back to the Easter weekend? That weekend when the weather went crazy. Well, it was a bank holiday, so what can you expect but snow, sleet, hail, rain, winds, the occasional spot of sunshine - it's all part of the event.

Well, I for one don't remember a bit of it. I was sitting in California, revelling in the sunshine. It was 30 degrees celcius at least. While others were bemoaning the rain, I was on a boat in the Pacific Ocean dolphin-watching and whale-watching in glorious sunshine.

Not to rub it in!

Flashback One: Environment Doomed

As I didn't provide any updates while I was in America, I'm now going to do it belatedly in the form of flashbacks. This is an awesome new gimmick of mine.

A lot of us here have been seeing the green agenda pushed more and more. I think it's a good point - recycling what you can, walking short journeys, using public transport, turning off electrical appliances to save energy and what have you. I've been quite an advocate myself, in a quiet non-preaching way.

However, after my recent trip to the States, I have come to a realisation - what is the point? You travel down the freeway in Orange County - that most challenging of terrain, after all - and every other vehicle, no exaggeration, is either a truck or an SUV. A 'small' car is the average four-door saloon. I hate to think what they'd think of a mini, smart car or equivalent, it'd be a shock.

The end result of this is that I'm wondering what the point is. No matter what effort we make, people wasting their time in SUVs and trucks when they have no reason to be will dwarf the impact of those few people making the effort.

It's tragic, but true.

I Doff My Cap ...

... to one specific letter-writer to thelondonpaper, one of the train freebies. The comment was superb, and went along the lines of the following:

"After reading the articles on the same page on TFL getting fares from ghost oyster journeys and Tescos paying pittance for chickens, I was wondering. Money for nothing and chicks for free? Mark Knopfler would be proud."

Superb.

Shocking

Believe it or not, today marks six months to the day since I started work.

I have no idea if this seems a lot longer than it actually is, or a lot shorter. I think a bit of both, as usual - it feels like only yesterday I started work, but equally feels like I've been there for a long time and it's become so routine. So don't believe what they tell you kids, working isn't as hard as it's made out to be. And if it is, you get paid anyway so it balances out.

I finish this short post with two fingers at all those who doubted my ability to get up at 6am for six whole months.

Marching Onwards

I'm fairly sure this is not the first time I have started a March-commencing blog with a similar pun. Apologies if it's old. It is.

I somewhat promised a bit of an update on things today, so I'll try and oblige and let you know how I was getting on with my Feb resolutions. If you remember, these were small and simple things I could change to just set myself some goals.

So, how have I done?

1. Walking each weekend. Miserable failure. I've just not had the motivation. Need to work on this one a bit I think! I am walking to the station tomorrow to go into work. So perhaps that'll be a start.

2. Not snacking, eating properly. This has been a success. I've made myself a lunch every day, and it's far better than the inevitable snacking. So I'm happy there. I've also cut down on the extra 'unnecessary' snacking as best as possible.

3. Attempt at learning to drive is still on the grid awaiting the starter's orders. My dead phone has hindered my here as all the relevant numbers were stored on it.

4. Making more of weekends. Getting there a bit, although to be honest I've been trying to clear the decks every weekend to make sure that I have more time to do stuff during the week if I want to. The effects are gradually starting to show - paperwork, ironing, tidying the room, throwing out old stuff are hardly something to show for the weekend, but at least they're helping me get things straight.

5. Trying to do more socially. A bit of this, has been okay. Have done some things but not that much to be frank. Again, the aforementioned phone problem has been a hinderance here. I'm going to try and work on that this month.

Overall, one goal achieved, one worked on, and one failed. Two that were non-starters. Relatively decent progress. I'm going to continue these aims through March and we'll see how the next progress report ends up!