Yesterday I received a letter through the post. It was from my energy provider, congratulating me on choosing to manage my account online and ditch all of that paper nonsense.
I am currently reassessing my online activities. I am not currently updating this blog, but you can still view the archive.
Archive: 2011 March
It has just about the simplest and least imaginative channel name possible. But over the years the people behind Channel 5 have still managed to regularly get themselves ito a bit of a tizzy over what their channel is actually called.
So for years, the powers that be insisted that you should just call it Five. Or better still, five, without a capital letter. It was never ‘Channel Five’, and it was definitely not ‘Channel 5′.
You see, ‘Channel 5′ was associated with trashy TV movies and the notorious “three Fs” (films, football and fucking). This image worked in the pre-digital era of the first few years of the channel’s life.
But with 101 trashier other sides available to anyone with a posh new digital telly, Channel 5 had to go upmarket. Which meant spelling out the number 5 in full. But without a capital letter. Or the word ‘channel’ in front of it.
This was despite the fact that it was impossible to seriously talk about it this way. Saying to someone that you “saw a really good programme on five” would leave them staring at you in confusion — and not just because Channel 5 has no good programmes.
Still, I guess everyone just about got used to it after about nine years. That must be why new owner Richard Desmond has decided that it is better just to call it ‘Channel 5′ after all.
The branding brouhaha extends also to Channel 5′s digital channels. Even the relatively simple ‘Five US’ has been changed in the past to become ‘Five USA’. Now it is, of course, ‘5USA’.
Another week, another rebranding
I noticed today that its other digital channels has changed its name yet again. It was originally launched in 2006 as Five Life. I guess that would be an all right name, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was extremely similar to the name of a certain high-profile BBC radio station. Whoops.
(Incidentally, BBC Radio 5 live is another station that would like you not to use a capital letter. The ‘l’ in the word ‘live’ is supposed to be lowercase. No matter that this looks really awkward wherever it is written.)
After a couple of years, Five Life became Fiver. It’s not clear why. It’s like a £1 note, but for the noughties! Perhaps £5 was the channel’s original programming budget.
Now it is called 5*, which is a bit awkward. The logo styles it as a nice five-pointed star, but in text materials an asterisk is used instead. Presumably you’re supposed to pronounce it “five star”, but it could as easily be “five pow” — I don’t know, and I am not prepared to watch for long enough to find out.
What does the asterisk signify? That this is just a temporary name and it might change again? Or is 5* a five letter swear word that you are provoked into uttering if you have to actually watch that garbage?
I was asked a question in the comments to the previous post by an “anonymous fan“. (A fan? Wowser.)
What do you make of the Lib Dems being in government and to what extent do you still support them?
I thought the question would be of wider interest, so I have decided to respond in a full blog post.
My previous three posts about the Liberal Democrats on this blog may give some clues as to how I feel. If you haven’t read them before I recommend you take a look:
- Why a Conservative—Lib Dem coalition may not be a bad thing
- Tentative thumbs-up for the Conservative—Lib Dem coalition
- Letting my Lib Dem membership lapse
Actually, just looking at those headlines tells a worse story than is actually the case.
I have supported the Liberal Democrats for a very long time — long before I could even vote. But I was only a member for a very short period of time — less than a year.
I joined the party mostly because of my involvement with the Dunfermline Liberal Democrats, which I did to keep myself out of trouble before I found myself a job. But I didn’t use my membership very much. I voted in the Mid Scotland and Fife list selection. But beyond that, the annual subscription would just have represented money down the drain in exchange for a flimsy membership card. My decision not to renew was driven by apathy and laziness, not anger.
Why I am at ease
I am not angry with the Liberal Democrats. In fact, I am sure I am much more at ease with the situation than many Lib Dem activists are — for several reasons.
Firstly, I voted for the Lib Dems in May fully expecting them to go into coalition with the Conservatives. Going by the opinion polls, the parties’ positions, what the leaders were saying, it seemed to be clearly the most likely option. I was quite surprised that most others seemed to think it was impossible to comprehend. So I didn’t have the same sense of shock that many others seemed to.
I didn’t believe that the Lib Dems were “Labour plus fluffy kittens, minus Iraq War“, as a lot of people seemed to think. I support the Lib Dems because they are a liberal party. This is the complete opposite of Labour’s core ideology, which is of big government and authoritarian encroachments on civil liberties.
In case you can’t tell, I despise Labour. The idea of them being in power right now chills me. They don’t even know what to say in opposition, never mind what to do in government.
So I am happy that the Lib Dems made the best choice in choosing to go into coalition with the Conservatives (not that Labour were ever interested in joining forces with the Lib Dems anyway). The Conservatives at least have a more liberal wing, which is lacking in Labour.
Of course, coalition government is not easy — but it’s not supposed to be. By its very nature it involves compromise, and not all of them are comfortable compromises to make. But this is the nature of the situation.
Damaged reputation is a blow to liberalism
The most painful aspect is the damage that has been done to the Lib Dems’ reputation, which makes it seem less likely that the party will do well in future. This is a big blow to liberalism.
Promises have been broken. But they always are, even in good economic times, even with a thumping majority. Just look at Labour. The SNP Scottish Government has managed it too, although they have the excuse of being a minority administration. The Lib Dems’ excuse is that they are in coalition.
Sadly, it seems like the political culture here is not yet mature enough to tolerate the idea of making compromises. That is a shame, as it is also a blow to the campaign for proportional representation, which faces a big moment in a couple of months.
In general, I feel quite sorry for Nick Clegg. I think he has done a reasonably good job in a no-win situation, and I haven’t found much to be angry about yet.
But I wouldn’t describe myself as a supporter of the Liberal Democrats. As I have said before, governments are to be opposed, not supported. It is quite right that the Lib Dems are scrutinised in government. Not all of the scrutiny has been fair in my view, but I am not about to push against the scrutiny.
Hi everyone, and welcome back to my blog! This is it — it’s official. This is a proper relaunch. And to prove it I have about a dozen posts already prepared, ready to be whipped out whenever I hit a dry patch.
I was actually hoping to launch it a few weeks earlier. But the process of redesigning the blog took much longer than I had anticipated. I must have had the original ideas for this design way back in September, and I have been working on it on and off ever since. Obviously it went on the back burner when I moved into my new flat, which took up a huge amount of my time between December and February.
Nonetheless, I expected that I would be able to put together the design quite quickly. One of my original intentions was to do it properly, with good accessibility, a mobile stylesheet, and some HTML5 and CSS3. I saw it as a good learning experience, and an opportunity to learn about the sort of code I will have to start using at work.
In the end, I have ended up having to basically re-learn how to develop a WordPress theme, due to major changes in versions 2.7 and 3.0. That was much harder than I anticipated, and it was only after borrowing a book from my colleague Gareth Saunders that I finally cracked it (sort of)!
It got to the stage where I have just had to work as quickly as possible to get the theme finished and ready for public display. As such, most of the fancy stuff I wanted to implement has not been started on, never mind finished. And the theme lacks the final polish. You will probably notice a few inconsistencies in the way some elements of the design work. I will be hoping to iron this all out in the coming weeks.
Content-wise, I anticipate that the blog will be quite different to what has been here before. But I knew that all along. That was part of the reason for my hiatus over the winter. But you will see what’s in store later on.
In the next few weeks there will be a few posts that would normally have appeared in either November or December. The normal sort of end-of-year stuff. For instance, I never got round to writing about the end of last year’s Formula 1 season (!), nor did I write a music roundup, which I have done every year since I started blogging way back in 2002.
Please let me know what you think of the design. As I say, I’m still working on it and am open to any suggestions.
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