Thursday evening April 15th dramatically changed the position of Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg in the General Election campaign as he impressed the majority of over nine million TV viewers who watched part if not all the first ever TV debate between the leaders of the three main political parties. Afterwards three opinion polls revealed that between 51 and 61% of those watching considered Mr Clegg was the best performer on the night. I also thought he was outstanding but that the Prime Minister did exceptionally well given the reality that there are swathes of people unhappy with aspects of the Labour Administration, the Iraq War, the extent of immigration, and the banking debacle in particular. The person who failed was the Conservative Party Leader David Cameron because it was evident he was putting on an act, having been briefed by the media and public relations gurus not to be aggressive and overtly attacking the other candidates he performed differently from his angry man act at Prime Minister’s Question Time.
While it is not yet time to write his political obituary, the USA experience is that first public impressions from the TV debates have been carried forward through the others that follow. The big question was would the success on the night be carried forward to the opinion polls. In the evening politics show Andrew Neill and Michael Portillo in particular were way off beam for once showing the danger that those who inhabit the Westminster village do not have actual direct connections with the ordinary populations. Portillo showed all his latent political prejudices and inclinations suggesting the Liberal Party might gain a few percentage points which would not affect the overall outcome of the election.
It was during the Politics To Day show that the thunderbolt struck with the first results of a poll leaked via Twitter. This catapulted the Liberal Democrats into second position just a couple of points behind the Conservatives. There was a retraction within the next hour as the results and not been adjust to ensure sample polled reflected the national voting population. However by the 10pm news when this work had been completed the results were still devastating for the conservatives and if carried forward could change British Politics over the next decade. In the wake of the banking disaster and the expenses scandal the public do appear to have agreed that it is time for change and the effect of the TV debate featuring three prospective Prime Ministers with equal status has been for people to swing solidly behind the Party which has not held office alone for 100 years, although participating in the coalitions and national governments through to 1945.
The Liberal Democrats were indeed second to the Conservatives but the margins between them and Labour were not great and only 5 points separated three parties 28% 30% and 33% although because of the first past the post system this would result in Labour being the biggest single party the Conservatives second and the Liberal Democrats with a significant increase in seats from 60 to 100 and therefore likely to command what legislation was passed and what was not. This could suit Labour and the Liberals allowing the Government to remain in power but taking the flak for measures to reduce the national debt, but ensuring that important public services are protected, bringing about Parliamentary and other reforms and curbing some of the Labour decisions which I and the Liberal heart of the Labour Party have disliked over the past three years. It is early doors to forecast but the omens are good
The development is also likely to mean that other Parties like the National Front, UKIP and Green party would lose votes to the Lib Dems. It is difficult to predict the implications in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales where other factors apply.
The other news story has been the closing down of air flights over Britain and the majority of Europe because of the nature of the volcanic ash cloud from the Iceland volcano eruptions. These have been taking place for several weeks but only became a problem to air flight because the latest movement was under deep ice which becomes converted into particles of glass when cooled. The problem is that if an aircraft goes through the cloud which is necessary to reach normal flying height the heat of the engines turns the dust in the atmosphere into molten lava again which then cools and solidifies within the engines causes them to cease functioning and in effect the plane falls out of sky although in one instance the pilot was able to restart the engines once the plane had fallen from over 30000 to 10000 feet. The impact on travel over the past three days has been dramatic with trains, coaches and sea ferries gaining, as well hotels around the airports and in travel destination abroad as holiday makers returning at the end of the Easter holidays have been stranded.
I had a good Friday in other respects having decided not to go to the cricket after Thursdays freezing disappointment. It was so unpleasant that my chest was affected by the walk around the ground at lunch time. I came home at tea time as it is difficult to get engaged in the action behind glass. There was an exceptionally good crowd despite the weather with at least 500 hardy individuals staying outside while I was there. There was a general air of expectation and enthusiasm after the last season.
For some inexplicable reason Durham having won the toss asked newly promoted Essex to bat. Facing Durham’s still impressive attack, but without Graham Onions, still recovering from injury (hopes to make the game against Yorkshire), and without Steve Harmison who has injured his ankle, Essex crawled to a dozen runs in the first half hour after lost of an early wicket and then second. Although three wickets down they accelerated a little with the excellent Cooke before lunch but when he went soon after and the total was just over 100 runs, the decision to bowl still looked good but then Mickleburgh joined Foster and the two batted for the rest of the day and most of the day after with partnership of over 300 runs and individuals total of over 150 runs each and an Essex partnership record.
I stayed home, deciding to work on the outside area of garage and patio. The first task was to wash the plates before returning them to the shelf with the six wine goblets from Valouris, creating a Mediterranean section at the end nearest to where I work. I also placed the prints and cheap painted canvases bought on trips to Spain and Greece after giving these a good dust and clean. The final disposition is not settled. Some I will repair rather than meet the cost of a new frame as the image is one of sentimental value only. I will also take individual photographs and perhaps include in a photo edition of these writings which I plan for after the 1010th work has been completed 10 X 101 which had I been younger I would have aimed at 101 x 101.
I then decided to work on the plant hanging baskets and containers rather than repairs to the wall above the garage door or the side of the house. I had purchased three boxes of training lobelia from B and Q together with two boxes of Geraniums. I used these on the five hanging baskets closest to the window out of which I look when working. The balance of the geraniums when into the attractive two tone green glazed pots and a couple of other containers on the table, which I moved back undercover but with one end open to the elements having reorganised the paving stones. I was tired by the end of the afternoon, but enjoyably so, and looking forward to continuing sessions of work outside to complete the task.
The only moment of anxiety in the day occurred later when I watched the previous episode of Lost on the i player and ran into a problem, deciding to then install the Microsoft Window and Norton additions and updates which had accumulated since last using the laptop. When the machine restarted it seemed to freeze requesting that the 2nd function button was required but nothing happened and after several attempts I closed down including mains energy. Returning I left on and eventually the screen moved forward and the installation process continued successfully. I watched the third in the reprise of the original Second Wallander series of 14 programmes having missed out on the first two (The Courier).
This was an engaging tale centring on forcing a top motorcycle racing driver to bring in cocaine from Copenhagen into Sweden by threatening his life and that of his pregnant wife. He had previously worked for the mafia in his youth. The first crime involved some small time thugs involved in the important of vicious dogs involved in fighting and the hunt for one of the heavies after he set one of the dogs on a policemen who had arrived to impound the animals. This brought the police on a criminal chain which tied the local gang to the murder of the former courier, whose motorcycle had a specialist engine which in turn led them to the replacement well known international celebrity racer. The situation came to head when the young trainee policewoman‘s younger sister was threatened with rape if she testified against the thug who had set the dog on her colleague. Wallander’s team have a break through when a colleague searching for his mother who has gone missing from a home for those with severe memory loss, finds a still warm car in the grounds of a church at night which is being repaired. They find that the car belongs to a well known international criminal based in Stockholm in a situation where Wallander already knew that the church was being renovated by a former criminal associated with dog fighting and thus the links between the criminals, the drugs and the dogs were made and sorted in an excellent finale. The episode provided the opportunity for shots of amateur and professional motorcycling.
The Call to arms, is the fourth full length film is the Babylon 5 series broadcast on the TV network after the series ended and features Sheridan, Garibaldi and Lochley in a story about a major threat to Earth about five years after the new alliance was formed and Sheridan and Delenn had established its headquarters on the Minbari home world. There are continuity issues which spoil and entertaining but unremarkable film.
Sheridan joins Garibaldi on a mission to inspect two new battle cruisers which his corporation has been contracted to produce using Human, Minbar and Vorlon technology although it is not clear how they obtain Vorlon technology who it was my understanding departed taking their craft with them while it is the Shadows whose craft has been captured or found in various forms before and since the establishment of the Alliance.
Moreover given Garibaldi’s decision to use creative members of staff on his board, a crazy and doomed move by any standards given our detailed knowledge of how to use and manage Creatives in research, development and management, it is questionable that any owner managing director would have arranged a demonstration without for the client without having personally attended a run through of the demonstration of what the prototypes could do. To find that the craft have been fully equipped to operational standards before discovering they were fundamentally flawed in having superior fire power which is used drained the energy source rendering the craft immobile for a full minute is unbelievable, making what then happens ludicrous.
Unfortunately this is not the only absurd aspect of this film. Apparently we have previously encountered the Technomages beings which appear to combine virtual reality creations which powers similar to those in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and elements of the previous film and the Star Trek series, in the ability to communicate with selected individuals and motivate them into compulsive activity of the first order and in secret. Without those ability the plot falls apart even more. They have moved to a new planet after as planet destroyer ended their homeworld. One of the Technomages who appears to be part of a controlling group of the beings, called The Circle, and who is something of a young outsider, again similar to the role played by Martin Sheen in the previous film, decided to intervene in a situation where the Earth is to be obliterated by the Drakh, the Shadow friends, to escaped from Z’ha’dum after their masters left and before the planet was destroyed by Lyta to prevent their technology and other knowledge from falling into the hand of the less developed races prematurely. The Vorlon approach being evolutionary.
The Drakh blame Sheridan and other humans for what happened to the Shadows and to them and want revenge and to make a demonstration of their power to destroy the alliance and bring its planetary systems and races under their control. They are able to do this having acquired a Shadow Planet destroyer. While it is rational for the rebellious Technomages, Galen to have in effect summoned Sheridan into action, his choice of two others is at best questionable. The first is a battle cruiser commander who failed to join Sheridan in the civil war to remove Clark. Given that Ivanova, who remained a member of the Earth military was progressing through to the position as General in Chief by the time Sheridan’s life ended and they had evidently maintained contact, one has to ask why she was not the individual Galen would have contacted. The answer, I suspect, is that with the films on a fixed budget they could not afford to have used her, or other major characters, in all the films.
The third character has an individual storyline rationality but dopes not stand the test of critical evaluation. A notorious criminal called Dureena has come to Babylon where she is captured and chained by the Thieves Guild, which given the previous efforts of Garibaldi, Zak, Lochley, the Rangers and Delenn to prevent the station having a criminally controlled underworld, is inexplicable.. It is also a puzzle that when Babylon 5 starts to be run down Sheridan did not reward his first wife Lochley and Zak with major positions in the Alliance.
Dureena is only on Babylon 5 because she too has been summoned, and breaks out of the chains to demonstrate that she is after all a Special One. Dureena has been chosen by Galen because has also escaped from a destroyed planet, and blames Sheridan for failing to save it, and is told by Galen that she must be sure to pick the right target for you will get only one shot. Both she and Sheridan are told to go to a planet called Daltron 7.
Having been contacted Sheridan breaks off the trials of the new craft and persuades Garibaldi to take him immediately to Babylon where he ties up with Dureena and captain of an Earth battle cruiser which is listed has having gone missing from his official posting. Garibaldi confers with Lochley over Sheridan’s increasingly strange behaviour, and they put it down to strain over what has happened over the previous decade and a half. They are doubly concerned when they find he has disappeared and even more so when it is realised he had taken control of the two prototype new battle cruisers ordering the head of the production unit a Mr Drake not to accept communications from Garibaldi or elsewhere.
Sheridan, Earthforce captain Anderson and Dureena head for Dalton 7 where Sheridan hopes he will find a Drazi, the third other image he had seen when contacted by Galen and whose picture he has sketched in an attempt to translate his vision into a reality. The not only find that Daltron 7 has been destroyed in much thee same way as other planets in the era of the planet destroyer but recently and that the Drazi contact has also been killed. The find in a secret part of his body an information crystal which reveals what happens. They understand what has happened and that the planet has been destroyed in a test of the Shadow planet destructor but before they can warn Earth and help to save the planet they are attacked and narrowly escape, indicating that their secret mission has been compromised. Sheridan contacts Lochley and persuade her to contact earth and persuade defensive action and also Garibaldi because he suspects the leaks must have come from Drake. Drake has persuaded Garibaldi to take him with him to Daltron 7 in search of Sheridan and the prototype craft, and attempts to capture Garibaldi when Sheridan warns about Drake or one his staff being the leak. Garibaldi defeats Drake and learns that he sold out for money and what is planned next.
During the subsequent battle the role of Dureena comes to the fore as she persuades Sheridan that although it looks as if the control centre for the death star is within its most fortified areas, this is bluff and that th unit is elsewhere is an unusually externally defended position.. The one shot opportunity works and the destroyer is disabled and the Drakh leave however, they go with a parting present for earth and plague virus high in the atmosphere which will take five years to affect the humans, thus giving opportunity to find an antidote. This made the first episode of the final series even more puzzling given that 100 years after the formation of the Alliance and Sheridan’s death historians were debating whether he was nothing more than a power hungry individualist who had little or no effect on the future development and survival of earth.
While it is not yet time to write his political obituary, the USA experience is that first public impressions from the TV debates have been carried forward through the others that follow. The big question was would the success on the night be carried forward to the opinion polls. In the evening politics show Andrew Neill and Michael Portillo in particular were way off beam for once showing the danger that those who inhabit the Westminster village do not have actual direct connections with the ordinary populations. Portillo showed all his latent political prejudices and inclinations suggesting the Liberal Party might gain a few percentage points which would not affect the overall outcome of the election.
It was during the Politics To Day show that the thunderbolt struck with the first results of a poll leaked via Twitter. This catapulted the Liberal Democrats into second position just a couple of points behind the Conservatives. There was a retraction within the next hour as the results and not been adjust to ensure sample polled reflected the national voting population. However by the 10pm news when this work had been completed the results were still devastating for the conservatives and if carried forward could change British Politics over the next decade. In the wake of the banking disaster and the expenses scandal the public do appear to have agreed that it is time for change and the effect of the TV debate featuring three prospective Prime Ministers with equal status has been for people to swing solidly behind the Party which has not held office alone for 100 years, although participating in the coalitions and national governments through to 1945.
The Liberal Democrats were indeed second to the Conservatives but the margins between them and Labour were not great and only 5 points separated three parties 28% 30% and 33% although because of the first past the post system this would result in Labour being the biggest single party the Conservatives second and the Liberal Democrats with a significant increase in seats from 60 to 100 and therefore likely to command what legislation was passed and what was not. This could suit Labour and the Liberals allowing the Government to remain in power but taking the flak for measures to reduce the national debt, but ensuring that important public services are protected, bringing about Parliamentary and other reforms and curbing some of the Labour decisions which I and the Liberal heart of the Labour Party have disliked over the past three years. It is early doors to forecast but the omens are good
The development is also likely to mean that other Parties like the National Front, UKIP and Green party would lose votes to the Lib Dems. It is difficult to predict the implications in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales where other factors apply.
The other news story has been the closing down of air flights over Britain and the majority of Europe because of the nature of the volcanic ash cloud from the Iceland volcano eruptions. These have been taking place for several weeks but only became a problem to air flight because the latest movement was under deep ice which becomes converted into particles of glass when cooled. The problem is that if an aircraft goes through the cloud which is necessary to reach normal flying height the heat of the engines turns the dust in the atmosphere into molten lava again which then cools and solidifies within the engines causes them to cease functioning and in effect the plane falls out of sky although in one instance the pilot was able to restart the engines once the plane had fallen from over 30000 to 10000 feet. The impact on travel over the past three days has been dramatic with trains, coaches and sea ferries gaining, as well hotels around the airports and in travel destination abroad as holiday makers returning at the end of the Easter holidays have been stranded.
I had a good Friday in other respects having decided not to go to the cricket after Thursdays freezing disappointment. It was so unpleasant that my chest was affected by the walk around the ground at lunch time. I came home at tea time as it is difficult to get engaged in the action behind glass. There was an exceptionally good crowd despite the weather with at least 500 hardy individuals staying outside while I was there. There was a general air of expectation and enthusiasm after the last season.
For some inexplicable reason Durham having won the toss asked newly promoted Essex to bat. Facing Durham’s still impressive attack, but without Graham Onions, still recovering from injury (hopes to make the game against Yorkshire), and without Steve Harmison who has injured his ankle, Essex crawled to a dozen runs in the first half hour after lost of an early wicket and then second. Although three wickets down they accelerated a little with the excellent Cooke before lunch but when he went soon after and the total was just over 100 runs, the decision to bowl still looked good but then Mickleburgh joined Foster and the two batted for the rest of the day and most of the day after with partnership of over 300 runs and individuals total of over 150 runs each and an Essex partnership record.
I stayed home, deciding to work on the outside area of garage and patio. The first task was to wash the plates before returning them to the shelf with the six wine goblets from Valouris, creating a Mediterranean section at the end nearest to where I work. I also placed the prints and cheap painted canvases bought on trips to Spain and Greece after giving these a good dust and clean. The final disposition is not settled. Some I will repair rather than meet the cost of a new frame as the image is one of sentimental value only. I will also take individual photographs and perhaps include in a photo edition of these writings which I plan for after the 1010th work has been completed 10 X 101 which had I been younger I would have aimed at 101 x 101.
I then decided to work on the plant hanging baskets and containers rather than repairs to the wall above the garage door or the side of the house. I had purchased three boxes of training lobelia from B and Q together with two boxes of Geraniums. I used these on the five hanging baskets closest to the window out of which I look when working. The balance of the geraniums when into the attractive two tone green glazed pots and a couple of other containers on the table, which I moved back undercover but with one end open to the elements having reorganised the paving stones. I was tired by the end of the afternoon, but enjoyably so, and looking forward to continuing sessions of work outside to complete the task.
The only moment of anxiety in the day occurred later when I watched the previous episode of Lost on the i player and ran into a problem, deciding to then install the Microsoft Window and Norton additions and updates which had accumulated since last using the laptop. When the machine restarted it seemed to freeze requesting that the 2nd function button was required but nothing happened and after several attempts I closed down including mains energy. Returning I left on and eventually the screen moved forward and the installation process continued successfully. I watched the third in the reprise of the original Second Wallander series of 14 programmes having missed out on the first two (The Courier).
This was an engaging tale centring on forcing a top motorcycle racing driver to bring in cocaine from Copenhagen into Sweden by threatening his life and that of his pregnant wife. He had previously worked for the mafia in his youth. The first crime involved some small time thugs involved in the important of vicious dogs involved in fighting and the hunt for one of the heavies after he set one of the dogs on a policemen who had arrived to impound the animals. This brought the police on a criminal chain which tied the local gang to the murder of the former courier, whose motorcycle had a specialist engine which in turn led them to the replacement well known international celebrity racer. The situation came to head when the young trainee policewoman‘s younger sister was threatened with rape if she testified against the thug who had set the dog on her colleague. Wallander’s team have a break through when a colleague searching for his mother who has gone missing from a home for those with severe memory loss, finds a still warm car in the grounds of a church at night which is being repaired. They find that the car belongs to a well known international criminal based in Stockholm in a situation where Wallander already knew that the church was being renovated by a former criminal associated with dog fighting and thus the links between the criminals, the drugs and the dogs were made and sorted in an excellent finale. The episode provided the opportunity for shots of amateur and professional motorcycling.
The Call to arms, is the fourth full length film is the Babylon 5 series broadcast on the TV network after the series ended and features Sheridan, Garibaldi and Lochley in a story about a major threat to Earth about five years after the new alliance was formed and Sheridan and Delenn had established its headquarters on the Minbari home world. There are continuity issues which spoil and entertaining but unremarkable film.
Sheridan joins Garibaldi on a mission to inspect two new battle cruisers which his corporation has been contracted to produce using Human, Minbar and Vorlon technology although it is not clear how they obtain Vorlon technology who it was my understanding departed taking their craft with them while it is the Shadows whose craft has been captured or found in various forms before and since the establishment of the Alliance.
Moreover given Garibaldi’s decision to use creative members of staff on his board, a crazy and doomed move by any standards given our detailed knowledge of how to use and manage Creatives in research, development and management, it is questionable that any owner managing director would have arranged a demonstration without for the client without having personally attended a run through of the demonstration of what the prototypes could do. To find that the craft have been fully equipped to operational standards before discovering they were fundamentally flawed in having superior fire power which is used drained the energy source rendering the craft immobile for a full minute is unbelievable, making what then happens ludicrous.
Unfortunately this is not the only absurd aspect of this film. Apparently we have previously encountered the Technomages beings which appear to combine virtual reality creations which powers similar to those in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and elements of the previous film and the Star Trek series, in the ability to communicate with selected individuals and motivate them into compulsive activity of the first order and in secret. Without those ability the plot falls apart even more. They have moved to a new planet after as planet destroyer ended their homeworld. One of the Technomages who appears to be part of a controlling group of the beings, called The Circle, and who is something of a young outsider, again similar to the role played by Martin Sheen in the previous film, decided to intervene in a situation where the Earth is to be obliterated by the Drakh, the Shadow friends, to escaped from Z’ha’dum after their masters left and before the planet was destroyed by Lyta to prevent their technology and other knowledge from falling into the hand of the less developed races prematurely. The Vorlon approach being evolutionary.
The Drakh blame Sheridan and other humans for what happened to the Shadows and to them and want revenge and to make a demonstration of their power to destroy the alliance and bring its planetary systems and races under their control. They are able to do this having acquired a Shadow Planet destroyer. While it is rational for the rebellious Technomages, Galen to have in effect summoned Sheridan into action, his choice of two others is at best questionable. The first is a battle cruiser commander who failed to join Sheridan in the civil war to remove Clark. Given that Ivanova, who remained a member of the Earth military was progressing through to the position as General in Chief by the time Sheridan’s life ended and they had evidently maintained contact, one has to ask why she was not the individual Galen would have contacted. The answer, I suspect, is that with the films on a fixed budget they could not afford to have used her, or other major characters, in all the films.
The third character has an individual storyline rationality but dopes not stand the test of critical evaluation. A notorious criminal called Dureena has come to Babylon where she is captured and chained by the Thieves Guild, which given the previous efforts of Garibaldi, Zak, Lochley, the Rangers and Delenn to prevent the station having a criminally controlled underworld, is inexplicable.. It is also a puzzle that when Babylon 5 starts to be run down Sheridan did not reward his first wife Lochley and Zak with major positions in the Alliance.
Dureena is only on Babylon 5 because she too has been summoned, and breaks out of the chains to demonstrate that she is after all a Special One. Dureena has been chosen by Galen because has also escaped from a destroyed planet, and blames Sheridan for failing to save it, and is told by Galen that she must be sure to pick the right target for you will get only one shot. Both she and Sheridan are told to go to a planet called Daltron 7.
Having been contacted Sheridan breaks off the trials of the new craft and persuades Garibaldi to take him immediately to Babylon where he ties up with Dureena and captain of an Earth battle cruiser which is listed has having gone missing from his official posting. Garibaldi confers with Lochley over Sheridan’s increasingly strange behaviour, and they put it down to strain over what has happened over the previous decade and a half. They are doubly concerned when they find he has disappeared and even more so when it is realised he had taken control of the two prototype new battle cruisers ordering the head of the production unit a Mr Drake not to accept communications from Garibaldi or elsewhere.
Sheridan, Earthforce captain Anderson and Dureena head for Dalton 7 where Sheridan hopes he will find a Drazi, the third other image he had seen when contacted by Galen and whose picture he has sketched in an attempt to translate his vision into a reality. The not only find that Daltron 7 has been destroyed in much thee same way as other planets in the era of the planet destroyer but recently and that the Drazi contact has also been killed. The find in a secret part of his body an information crystal which reveals what happens. They understand what has happened and that the planet has been destroyed in a test of the Shadow planet destructor but before they can warn Earth and help to save the planet they are attacked and narrowly escape, indicating that their secret mission has been compromised. Sheridan contacts Lochley and persuade her to contact earth and persuade defensive action and also Garibaldi because he suspects the leaks must have come from Drake. Drake has persuaded Garibaldi to take him with him to Daltron 7 in search of Sheridan and the prototype craft, and attempts to capture Garibaldi when Sheridan warns about Drake or one his staff being the leak. Garibaldi defeats Drake and learns that he sold out for money and what is planned next.
During the subsequent battle the role of Dureena comes to the fore as she persuades Sheridan that although it looks as if the control centre for the death star is within its most fortified areas, this is bluff and that th unit is elsewhere is an unusually externally defended position.. The one shot opportunity works and the destroyer is disabled and the Drakh leave however, they go with a parting present for earth and plague virus high in the atmosphere which will take five years to affect the humans, thus giving opportunity to find an antidote. This made the first episode of the final series even more puzzling given that 100 years after the formation of the Alliance and Sheridan’s death historians were debating whether he was nothing more than a power hungry individualist who had little or no effect on the future development and survival of earth.
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