30 Day Song Challenge - Day 15

Here we are at the half way point, and today's theme is "songs that describe you". This should be weird, so let's dive on in....

Track 1 - "Driving In my Car" by Madness



I only got my driving license in 2009, mainly because Prague has an incredible public transport system and so having a car was completely pointless. However, moving to the States made it a priority to learn to drive, and so at the age of 33 I finally took the plunge and did so. The exam itself was a bit of a joke really, a ten minute spin round the block and hey presto! Admittedly I failed the written exam first time round, mainly due to getting confused between metres and feet - the sooner the world goes metric, the better.

Track 2 - "Fields of Anfield Road" by The Kop



I love the original song, The Fields of Athenry, but being a Liverpool fan, I prefer this version.

Track 3 - "Wild Rover" by The Corries



Since I left home at 19, I have lived in England, the Czech Republic, Belarus and the US. As a kid I lived in England, Scotland, Wales and Germany. Even now, I am sure there will be other places to live and experience before I finally find a place to stop and put down some roots.

Of the three, it is Wild Rover that I think best describes me and my life.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 14

I have fairly strong opinions about most things, well you need to be opinionated to write a blog, let alone three. Our theme today is songs that no-one would expect me to like. In the interests of objectivity (if it exists of course), I asked Mrs Velkyal for some songs that she never expected me to like.

Track 1 - "Young Hearts Run Free" by Kym Mazelle



I think Baz Luhrman's interpretation of Romeo and Juliet was excellent, and snooty pillocks who complain that "it just isn't Shakespeare" clearly have no idea about reader response theory. A curse on their houses!

Track 2 - "Holding out for a hero" by Bonny Tyler



Mrs V is sitting aghast as I play this track whilst writing the post. Honestly, you have never see such a look of incredulity.

Track 3 - "Deeper River" by Dusted



Again a track from one of my favourite movies, A Life Less Ordinary.

Well that was fun, unless you are Mrs Velkyal! If I were to choose just one, it would be Deeper River, especially this remix.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 13

Day 13 is a Friday! Is it unlucky? Is it bollocks! Anyway, the theme today is songs that are a guilty pleasure, which is a slightly weird concept because one thing you learn in permissive Prague is that not to feel guilt for your pleasures. To the songs though....

Track 1 - "Can't Get You Out of my Head" by Kylie Minogue



Always reminds me of the old joke "what is the difference between driving a Skoda and putting your hand in Kylie's top? You feel a bigger tit in a Skoda!". This song though is fantastic!

Track 2 - "The Final Countdown" by Europe



Hair band, 1980s, what's not to hate? The fact that Europe were playing when I first kissed my wife? I guess it helps to know what a Friday night in Lucerna means!!

Track 3 - "Oh Diane" by Fleetwood Mac



Stevie Nicks is apparently something of a distant cousin, but driving the country roads around Charlottesville listening to Fleetwood Mac at full volume is such a great way to feel happy, and this song just tops the drive off to a tee.

If I can only pick 1 of the three, the Europe have to take the biscuit. So much wrong with it, but I love that song.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 12

Doing an about face from yesterday, the theme for day 12 is a "song by a band you hate". As you can imagine for an opinionated git like me, there is an extensive list of musical crap out there. Here are three, each from a band I hate. No words are necessary, the horror of the music speaks for itself.

Track 1 - "Blue Monday" by New Order



Track 2 - "Fields of Gold" by Sting



Track 3 - "eSeMeS" by Lucie Bílá



Goodness me, I feel physically sick right now.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 11

Day 11 sees the theme "a song from your favourite band", finally a reasonably simple theme. I have many bands that I like, but when push comes to shove, there is one band that simply stands head and shoulders above all the others. The Smiths. The three tracks I present here are in order of preference, from 3rd to 1st.

Track 1 - "Hand in Glove"



Track 2 - "Girlfriend in a Coma"



Track 3 - "This Charming Man - New York Vocal"



There we go, that was easy.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 10

A third of the way in and time for a rest, or at least some songs that make me fall asleep. When I was a kid I had a German made wall radio which I kept next to my head when I went to bed, and so I would fall asleep listening to something or other. It was a habit that continued pretty much up to the time Mrs Velkyal moved in with me. A lot of my favourite music comes from Ireland and Scotland, I love folk music, Celtic music, whatever you want to call it, so naturally these dominate this category.

Track 1 - "Beyond These Shores" by Iona



Iona have long been one of my favourite bands, ever since I picked up a copy of Book of Kells on cassette and would listen to it on my walkman whilst going to sleep, despite the opinions of some people I knew then who regarded it as New Age music as thus intrinsically evil - one of the best things I ever did in life was reject that way of thinking. This track comes from the album of the same name and is inspired both by a Psalm and the Journey of Saint Brendan, one of the most fascinating stories from medieval literature.

Track 2 - "Winter, Fire and Snow" by Anuna



I really like listening to choirs, the human voice is so majestic and awe inspiring. Anuna are an Irish choir that I think make some of the most achingly beautiful music possible, this song is simply heart wrenching.

Track 3 - "Maria Solina" by Carlos Nunez



When you think of Celtic music you think of Spain don't you? Well, if the answer to that question was "no", then I seriously recommend you start looking into the music of Galicia, and in particular Carlos Nunez. I can't remember the name of the woman singing this song, but I think she has a beautiful voice and has sung me to sleep on many a night.

Of the three tracks above, "Beyond These Shores" holds a special place in my world. Whenever I hear this song I am reminded of the Atlantic ocean, which was just a mile or so from the house I grew up in on the Isle of Benbecula. Home, a place of peace, a place of rest.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 9

As I surveyed the list of topics for the 30 Day Song Challenge, I immediately knew that day 9 would be one of the most difficult. Not for reasons of too many choices, but rather because I really do not like dancing. When I do out to a club or a disco it is usually a case of going out with mates and enjoying the music and being the keeper of the table/space at the bar and drinking whilst watching everyone else dance. I can count on three fingers the number of times I have danced in the near 6 years I have been in a relationship with Mrs Velkyal; the night we met, a friend's birthday a few weeks later; the wedding. It is then with trepidation and wishing foot shuffling was regarded as dancing, that I offer these tracks.

Track 1 - "Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin



It may come as something of a surprise to some that I like the occasional bit of Big Band and Swing. I first heard this song when I was at college, when I went to see the film "A Life Less Ordinary" - still one of my favourites! I have actually been known to "dance" (if you can call my uncoordinated attempts at movement thus) to this track with as much abandon as can be mustered. In the privacy of my own room of course.

Track 2 - "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega (DNA 12" Remix)



Mrs Velkyal reliably informed me that this is one of the songs we danced to at my friend's birthday party in 2005 - if I remember rightly it was her 25th. Naturally I defer to the wife's greater knowledge of my dancing inability.

Track 3 - "Baggy Trousers" by Madness



Back in the days of my uninhibited childhood, before I discovered the immense power that the opposite sex can have on your self-esteem and confidence, I liked to bounce around the living room while watching Top of the Pops, and this is one of the songs I most remember dancing round to, while pretending to play the saxophone.

For pure nostalgia reasons, Baggy Trousers has to be my track for today.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 8

I sing in the car quite often, usually when Mrs Velkyal isn't there and I can put the volume up to an indecent level and just kind of let loose. Today's theme is songs that I know all the words to, given my singing habit, I know the words to an awful lot of songs, so I will give you just three favourites and leave it at that for today.

Track 1 - "Embarrassment" by Madness



Track 2 - "Black Velvet Band" by The Dubliners



Track 3 - "You'll Never Walk Alone" best sung by the Kop



If I had to choose one song of the three it would be You'll Never Walk Alone, for obvious reasons to those that know me.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 7

We've had songs that remind me of someone, songs for somewhere and today's theme is songs that remind you of somewhen, although the actual term is "a certain event". I want to avoid going for obvious events, weddings and the like, so let's go.

Track 1 - "I of the Mourning" by Smashing Pumpkins



OK not exactly a specific event but rather a ten day marathon of losing myself in someone else's mind, missing many a stop on the metro in Prague and hoping my students would cancel late so I would get paid anyway and not have to stop reading. I was bored one Friday afternoon. Waiting for a friend to finish teaching his lessons before we went to the pub, I picked up an old battered copy of The Lord of the Rings and started to read. I had intended just to fill some time, and ended up absorbed by the story. I would read on the metro, on trams, on buses, in cafes between lessons, and while reading I would listen to my walkman, and for the entire time it took to read the book, I was listening to Machina/The Machines of God by Smashing Pumpkins. This track always reminds me of the charge of the Riders of Rohan.

Track 2 - "Ruby over Diamonds" by Kashmir



If you are of a certain vintage, the term "walkman" is more than just a brand of MP3 player from Sony, it is the beginning of your journey with portable music. The original Walkman was a portable cassette player, which morphed into the Discman portable CD player and then back to Walkman for MP3. I got my first walkman as a kid, living in Germany, and had one well into the 21st century. I also had a discman, but I had a bigger collection of cassettes than CDs until about 2005. Overtime I have traded up from cassettes to CDs - I am not the kind of person to go crazy for the latest whizz bang gizmo and spend buckets of cash on getting my favourite music in the right format. Yes, I have a good laugh at all the people that went nuts over minidisc when it was locked in a battle for the future of music with MP3. Anyway, in 2007 I finally laid my Walkman cassette player to rest, and bought a Walkman MP3 player and the first album to go said player was Zitilites by Danish band Kashmir (thanks to my friend in Astrid for introducing me to them, and Mew). Ruby over Diamonds is my favourite song from that album.

Track 3 - "Uprising" by Muse



In July 2009 Mrs Velkyal and I left Prague and moved to the US, spending a month in South Carolina before coming up the road to Charlottesville, Virginia. A couple of months after we arrived, we got tickets to see U2 in concert at the University of Virginia's Scott Stadium, which I wrote about on one of my other blogs. Supporting U2 that night were Muse, who were a new band to Mrs V and I, and we thought their set was the highlight of the night, as excellent as U2 were as well. I think that concert was our first taste of culture shock. Going to a gig, I assumed there would be a bar in the venue and that it would be an adult event. How naive of me, no bar, kids wandering around and an all round family friendly atmosphere, I gringed more than once that night, it was as if rock music had got all comfortable with Walt Disney.

Of the three track there, I think my favourite is the Smashing Pumpkins, I still see Theoden leading the charge of Rohirrim against the walls of Minas Tirith every time I listen to that track.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 6

I have lived in many places, both as a kid wherever the British Army decided to post my father, and then as an adult, as I discovered the joys of being abroad in the world. The theme for day 6 of the 30 Day Song Challenge is being reminded of somewhere, this may is tricky with so many places and so much music.

Track 1 - "I Like It" by Gerry and the Pacemakers



One of the places we were sent with the Army, several times in fact, was a town called Celle, in the north of Germany. When my elder brothers would come home from boarding school for the summer, we would go to amusement parks and zoos. One such amusement park was Heide-Park near Soltau. During one such trip there was a thunderstorm and rained lashed down while we sat in the car dejected. Being the driver, my dad was king of the cassette player, and this song came on, and my elder brother Scott muttered "well, I don't" at the end of the one chorus of "I like it".

Track 2 - "Going Home" by Runrig



Home is a troubling concept for Army brats. Is it the place you were born in, spent a few months in and then moved on to the next posting? Is it where your parents come from, and then what if they come from opposite ends of the country? Is it where you spent your childhood before secondary school, and what if you went to 4 primary schools in 4 countries? For me, home is where I spent more time than anywhere else before becoming an adult. That place is the Outer Hebrides, in particular the island of Benbecula. Sure, my brothers are scattered around the UK, and soon to be the world, my parents are in a tiny French hamlet, but home is still a windswept island on the very edge of Europe.

Track 3 - "Come Back to Camden" by Morrissey



As I said about the previous track, my parents come from opposite ends of Great Britain, mum is from Fraserburgh in Scotland, dad is a Londoner. Inevitably we spent time in London as kids, dad's mum was the only grandparent I ever actually knew. There is line in this song about drinking "tea with the taste of the Thames" which makes me think of sitting in her old council flat drinking tea that had the classic hard water scum floating on the top. We would go and try to feed the ducks in Gunnersbury Park, and instead watch the carp rise to take the bread. Nan would make cheese and onion sandwiches, sometimes I think she survived on cheese and onion sandwiches and a nice cup of tea. I love going to London whenever I have the opportunity.

This one is actually quite simple because for all my liking for London and being a Germanophile, it is always Uist that I think of most, and if I do ever tire of travelling around, hopefully it will at least be the West of Scotland that I go home to.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 5

Songs that remind you of someone. Hmmm, how easy would it be to get all maudlin and look back to painful break ups and shitty situations? But, you know, I love my life as it is now - I wouldn't change my wife for any other woman on the planet. So I think I will take the route of songs that remind me of people that mean a lot to me.

Track 1 - "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia



When I was a student in Birmingham, my best mate Cristi and I were responsible for clearing up after the live in students had breakfast. While cleaning various pots and pans, we would listen to Chris Evans on Radio 1. Chris Evans made a point of playing Natalie Imbruglia's cover version of "Torn" until it got to number 1 in the charts, and he played it every morning while we were working in the kitchen and we both loved the song. Even though I haven't seen Cristi in well over a decade now, I still regard him as one of my best friends and one of the most genuinely wonderful human beings I know.

Track 2 - "Shoals O'Herring" by The Corries



Yes another song by The Corries, but this song always makes me think of someone I have never met, and never will, my grandfather. My mother's family come from Fraserburgh in the north east of Scotland, a town more famous these days for the BrewDog brewery. Mum's family were fishermen, working up and down the east coast of Great Britain, following the herring. In my grandfather's eventful and thoroughly unorthodox life, one of his jobs was as the Managing Director for a fish canning company in Lowestoft, before emigrating out to Adelaide in Australia.

Track 3 - "Start!" by The Jam



I have three brothers, two older and one younger. When my little brother and I were kids, my eldest brother Mark came to live at home for a while. Every Saturday we would get the newspaper, decide what we thought the football scores would be that day, pick a horse from the day's races and he would put a £1 bet on for us, a fiver on the Grand National. Mark was a fan of The Jam (actually a fair bit of my musical taste is entirely his fault), and he had this song as a 7" single. We listened to this song a lot.

I am not going to decide on a single track from these three. They are all excellent tracks and the people they bring to mind are, or were, all excellent people as well.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 4

Today's little jaunt through my musical tastes is around the theme of songs that make me sad. Usually songs that make me sad are songs that actually make me feel either melancholy or nostalgic rather that actually upset. So, to today's videos...

Track 1 - "Loch Tay Song" by The Corries



This traditional Scottish song is so full of pathos and pain that there are times when I physicaly cry when I listen to it. I can't help but think of home whenever I listen to The Corries, even though the concept of "home" is a tricky one for an Army brat.

Track 2 - "The Green Fields of France" by The Fureys



Originally written by Eric Bogle, this song captures the futility of war so perfectly, and especially the waste of a generation that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Although it has been recorded by many acts, The Fureys do it best for me.

Track 3 - "Miserere Mei Deus" by Allegri, performed by Kings College Chapel Choir



Well, nobody said it had to be modern. Quite often I listen to this when I am feeling down and I find comfort in the beauty of human genius. That perfect harmony of voices is simply beautiful.

Three quite different tracks there, but the song that makes me feel the saddest is "The Green Fields of France" because it seems we never learn that war solves nothing, and simply shares the pain of humanity to the widest audience available.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 3

Day 3's theme is songs that make you happy. Bit of a strange topic for me in some ways, do they means songs I listen to when I am feeling down so that I feel better, or songs I listen to when I am happy? I am going to assume that both are acceptable, and that may make my 3 selections somewhat weird.....

Track 1 - "Today" - Smashing Pumpkins



The first time I listened to Billy Corgan and co was back in Uist when a friend lent me "Siamese Dream", and it simply blew me away. "Today" was the highlight of the album, quickly followed by "Disarm". That riff, the juxtaposition of the distorted guitars and soaring chorus never fail to make me smile.

Track 2 - "Come on Eileen" - Dexys Midnight Runners



If you can listen to this song and not tap your foot and smile, then you must be dead.

Track 3 - "Live It Up" - Mental As Anything



Just a great feel good tune, catchy chorus (which make the wife roll her eyes as I sing it in the car!).

Of the three track there, I think the one that makes me happiest when I listen to it has to be the one from Down Under - Live It Up it is!

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 2

So the theme for today's song is "your least favourite song", which I assume is just a nice way of saying, the song you hate most.

Here are the contenders:

Track 1 - "How Soon is Now" - T.a.T.u.



First a couple of qualifying statements, I love The Smiths, I love this song, I quite T.a.T.u. but this must be the most perfect storm of shit in the history of humanity. They simply do not have the charisma, vocal range or anything else involving talent to pull this song off. Shite, utter shite. So bad, I can't even listen to the end of it.

Track 2 - "The One and Only" - Chesney Hawkes



Utter crap. End. Of. Story.

Track 3 - "Especially For You" - Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue



See above. Their acting in Neighbours was piss poor, and this was no improvement. Gut wretchingly awful.

How quite one chooses from this collection of dross is beyond me, but for pure crime against a great song, by a great band, T.a.T.u. must take the award for my least favourite song, and no amount of faux lesbian action on stage can redeem them.

30 Day Song Challenge - Day 1

I have noticed lately that several of my friends on Facebook have been taking part in something called the 30 Day Song Challenge. Intrigued, I did a quick search on Google and found the website that seems to have started the whole thing. To cut a short story even shorter, I decided to take on the challenge, but to do it through this blog rather than Facebook, and to add a bit of a twist, to post three tracks for each day and choose the winner from those.

Day one of the project is dedicated to "Your Favourite Song". Favourite song is such a broad topic, so I narrowed it down by defining "favourite" as a song that I have no problem whatsoever clicking repeat to, and listening to it more than twice in a row. So, here goes.......

Track 1 - "Sen" by Lucie



It is rather inevitable I guess that after 10 years in Prague, there would be a Czech song or two floating around as my favourites. I went to see Lucie in concert at the old Slavia Prague football stadium, in 2001 I think. The title of the song in English is "Dream".

Track 2 - "Stay Together" by Suede



I have been a fan of Suede for years, I loved the Dog, Man, Star album, and several of its tracks could have made it into this list. I first heard "Stay Together" on the radio and it was love at first listen.

Track 3 - "While You Sleep" by The Mutton Birds



Walking into the centre of Birmingham one Saturday morning, when I was a student, I saw the album cover for "Envy of Angels" by The Mutton Birds. I loved the picture on the cover and so splashed the cash to buy the CD - a bad habit of mine is buying albums because of the cover art, which may explain somewhat why I buy albums rather than downloading them, I love reading the booklets. Anyway, when I got back to my dorm I chucked the disc in and found that I liked the music, and this song was the highlight. I love the sheer happiness that the songs gives me every time I listen to it. When The Mutton Birds came to Brum on tour in 1998, my mate Cristi and I went along to the gig and had a great night out.

Choosing a favourite song from those three is, naturally, very difficult. However, purely the fact that I love to put this song on in the car and sing loudly while driving, my favourite song has to be "While You Sleep" by The Mutton Birds.

Westminster Must Learn from Holyrood

It is clear that the "first past the post" electoral system used in the UK is unrepresentative in an age of party politics. No-one in their right mind can claim that it is a fair result when the Liberal Democrats win a 23% share of the vote and get about 50 parliamentary seats, whereas the Labour Party get a mere 6% more of the popular vote but 200 more seats than the Lib Dems.

Some would claim then that the answer to this gross disparity between popular vote and seats in Parliament is to introduce Proportional Representation, something I have posted about before. I am simply not convinced that simple PR is the way to go, for example, what threshold do set you set for parties to gain seats in Parliament? In the Czech Republic, if I remember rightly, a party needs 5% of the popular vote to get seats, if such a system were implemented in a British context then we would have only three parties in the House of Commons, representing 89% of the electorate based on the results of Thursday's election, and the nationalists of Wales and Scotland, as well as the Northern Irish would simply have no voice in Parliament.

Perhaps I greatest concern when it comes to PR is who chooses the MPs? Do we go to a system of party lists, where the same old faces keep cropping up no matter how unpopular a politician is? Such an approach surely centralises political influence within the national party and takes power away from local parties. Simple PR also changes the nature of the British MP, no longer is he the chosen representative of his constituency, but rather he is the lackey of the central party, taking democracy away from the local level and alienating the people yet further from the system.

What then is needed, in my thoroughly un-humble opinion, is a hybrid system where the House of Commons consists of MPs elected by constituency based, simple majority voting, and 100 MPs elected on the basis of a proportion of the electoral vote, without including those seats where a given party won. So, for example, in a given constituency the winner of the simple vote becomes the MP for that area, the number of votes for each of the other parties contesting that election are tallied with the number of other non-winning votes for each party around the country, and the extra 100 seats are divided according to the percentage of the non-winning share. This is of course similar to the Additional Member System as used in the Scottish Parliament, but without the option for each voter to choose a person and a party separately. Obviously the 100 MPs taking their seats as a result of this system would have to be chosen from a party list, which isn't ideal in my world, but I can't for the life of me think of a democratic alternative to party lists.

As I said to begin with, it is clear that the British electoral system is no longer representative of the British people and as such must be changed. What is not clear, is the fairest, most democratic way to ensure that the voice of every voter is heard, and that the electorate are engaged in the political process.

The Need for Continued Reform

It was 1517 when Martin Luther caused a rumpus that would lead to the end of the Holy Roman Empire, that saw the end of the Inquisition in northern Europe, that gave birth in many ways to the modern nation state, with the consciousness that shared language and traditions bring to a people, especially a people who can express their religious beliefs in their own language rather than in a long dead tongue. The Reformation can been seen as both a religious struggle but also a political one, one where the forces of progress prevailed over the forces of reactionary conservatism. One of the mottos, or slogans if you like, of the Reformation was that the church should always be reforming itself, or to use the Latin, ecclesia semper reformanda. Now, don't worry, this post isn't about religion, it is about politics and the failure of the right, across the globe, to continue the process of reformation, prefering instead to lament a mythical golden age and misunderstand that conservatism is not about keeping things as they have always been, but rather about holding on to what works in a society and reforming what does not.

In a way, the political world should take to heart the idea of ecclesia semper reformanda, simply because human beings are flawed and society needs to be in a constant process of improvement and development in order to create a world where, to Anglicise the French, equality, liberty and fraternity flourish. The problem for many on the reactionary right is that they are adverse to paying the costs of equality, liberty and fraternity, whether financial or otherwise, and of course they often seek to deny equality, liberty and fraternity to those whose opinions they disagree with. It is a continual shame to modern society that hypocrisy is the modus operandi of many in the political sphere. Too many ignore Voltaire, allegedly, when he said that "I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it".

One thing I would reform in every nation state across the globe is to bring an end to political careerism and a return to the idea that representing your peers in parliament is an act of service rather than an act of enrichment. At present, Members of Parliament in the United Kingdom earn a basic salary of £64,766 (approx. $93,000) per annum, rising to £197,689 (approx $300,000) for the Prime Minister, while the average salary of the Britons they represent is £22,202 (approx $33,000). In the US context, a Senator earns $174,000 per annum, and the President earns $193,400, and the people they represent earn a median of $27590 a year. It certainly makes you wonder who these politicians are representing when their incomes to so astronomically beyond the imagination of the average person. Of course, there used to be politicians who refused to take more than the average workers salary, but sadly they are in a minority these days, and thus we end up with a political class living in ivory towers, far removed from the concerns of the people they represent.

This brings me to my second reform for the political world, an end to having a "lifetime of service" by limiting the number of terms a person can serve in a given political office, one way of achieving this could be done by enforcing political retirement at 65, which would also have the added benefit of the political system becoming less dominated by old men, which is never a bad thing really.

Hmmm, this post has kind of wandered off track, so I will stop and smell the roses for a while.....

I Guess I Just Ain't Good Enough

Reading around this week, I came across a thing called the 9/12 Project, the brainchild of Fox News' Glenn Beck. Not being the kind of person to see something by a person whose politics I find abhorrent in the extreme and not want to interact at some level, I decided to look a little deeper at the 9 Principles and 12 Values that give the organisation its name. According to the project web site, if you agree with 7 of the principles then you have something in common with Beck and his ilk. Let's address these one by one.

• America is Good

Being something of a nit picker, my first thought is "good for who?", is America good for the Palestinians living in camps being radicalised by an American backed Israel? Is America good for the poor of its own nation who can't afford health insurance, while health insurance companies lobby openly to have its own customer base dwindled to only those with enough money to pay ridiculous premiums? Is America good for the manufacturing jobs that have been shipped overseas in order to maximise shareholder dividends? Countries are of course value neutral, there is no such thing as a bad country or a good country - unless of course racism is your thing and anyone brown and wearing a turban is bad by default. America is just a country, no more special and no more chosen than any other country. I guess then I fail to have something in common with Glenn Beck, because America is just America and not a moral proposition.

• I believe in God and He is the center of my life

Admittedly this is, already, starting to feel like an AA meeting, but we'll continue. Again I have to ask a question of this statement, whose God is Beck talking about? Is he talking about the Christian God, or the Mormon God? And let's face it, only the theologically illiterate would consider Mormonism's deity to be anything like the traditional monotheistic faiths, the differences have been shown quite clearly elsewhere. Until someone can tell me which God, unless of course this is a nebulous concept like in Freemasonary, then I guess I can't approve of this statement - not looking good is it?

• I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday

Sure, not a problem, striving to be a better person is something I agree with whole-heartedly.

• The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not government

Not sure quiet how this one works, given that God is the center of life for people who can sign up to this project. How can human beings be the ultimate authority when God is the center of life? That simply doesn't work.

• If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

Absolutely agree, without justice society falls apart. But who enforces that justice? If it is the populace then mob rule becomes the norm, I guess when it comes to law and order, the government is the ultimate authority rather than myself and Mrs Velky Al?

• I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

Yes of course, with the caveat that the right to life brings with it the responsibility to live well, to liberty the responsibility to champion freedom for others, to happiness the responsibility of gratitude for all that you have.

• I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
  

Yes in theory, but I have no problems paying tax to help create a society where everyone has the same opportunity to better their lives. Taxation is not charity, it is social responsibility.

• It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
  

I agree entirely, but the converse must also be true. It is un-American to force your opinion on other people, and to use your authority to ensure conformity with your opinion.

• The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.
  

Yes OK that sounds very nice, but if they work for me and I begrudge them pay, then the public is a very crappy employer.

The 12 values are listed as follows:

Honesty
Reverence
Hope
Thrift
Humility
Charity
Sincerity
Moderation
Hard Work
Courage
Personal Responsibility
Gratitude

I agree with every single one of them, because they are human values, sought in every culture around the world. There is nothing uniquely American, European, Christian, Muslim, atheist, socialist or conservative about such values, they are simply human values.

So I guess I am not eligible to join Beck's project, not that I am surprised.

It Takes Two To More than Tango

I am not a fan of tabloid newspapers, having read The Guardian and The Independent for much of the last decade. Whenever I would head back to the UK for my little visits I looked forward to getting the Saturday edition of the Guardian, and the Observer on Sunday, to then spend a week reading through them in preparation for the following Saturday and Sunday. Neither am I am fan of tabloid level news programmes on the television, the kind of thing which digs and delves into the private lives of the famous because it is apparently in the "public interest".

The cause of my ire this morning was watching Good Morning America, during which they started talking about Tiger Woods' press conference tomorrow and its implications for his career. If the rumours are true and Tiger has been in "sex therapy" then I am very, very confused. Is sex now something which is not a normal part of life? Is it something that you need therapy for when you see an opportunity for a little bit extra and you go for it? Is being unfaithful to your wife something that you need to see a counsellor about? Is there a self-help group called Adulterers Anonymous?

The media here seem to love banging on, pun not necessarily intended, about the affect Tiger's indiscretions have no doubt on his wife, and how could a married man be so bad, blah, blah, blah. This got me thinking about the women that Tiger is alleged to have bedded, and how the media is a scrum of hypocritical parasites. Did these women not know that Tiger Woods had a Mrs Tiger Woods and little cubs at home? Why is the media not going after these women and asking why they knowingly slept with a married man? Why are these women not being reviled as home wreckers?

Oh, I get it, these women are not rich, famous and influential, so I guess you can't expect anything better from them. So adultery is bad for the monied peoples of this world, the "role models" if you will, but not for the regular people who jump into the sack with the wealthy? A bit of balance is required, a little less moralising about Tiger Woods doing what many men would given the chance, and a little more about the women who had an affair with him whilst knowing he had a wife and kids at home.

There are two sides to every story, here it is simply a man who wanted some fun on the side and women who lacked the integrity to say no. A sad reflection on the state of society indeed.

Chrimble Songs

Christmas is one of the those times of the year when one's thoughts naturally head backwards. Back over the year just gone, and it has been a rather a good one to be honest. Back to the friends left behind as Mrs Velkyal and I moved to the US but also back to this time last year. Christmas 2008 will always be special because it was the first time that the entire clan had managed to get together for Christmas Day in something ridiculous like 20 years. This Christmas will be my first with Mrs Velkyal's family, and I will actually get to meet the last of the uncle's that I am yet to meet.

Christmas though always brings to mind the classic Christmas songs that I have always loved, and so here are a couple of them for you...





(Yes, I know that it is awfully cliched and cheesy - just my cup of tea!)