Advice for undecideds in the EU Referendum

I've been thinking about the EU Referendum and can't decide how to vote. But a few things have become very clear, so here are some of my conclusions :-

1) Don't beat yourself up over it.

There's nothing wrong with being undecided. It shows that you are thinking about the issues and trying to decide rationally. That's a lot more effort than the people who blindly follow a leader, or don't even vote, will be putting in. There's no right or wrong answer... and you only have one vote... so whatever you decide as an individual wont change the result in itself.

Life will go on whatever the decision. And we'll probably be OK either way!

2) There are no facts.

Whatever one side says, the other side has "facts" to say the opposite. It is pointless looking for impartial facts because everyone is biased in some way. The promise of an honest debate based on good information lasted about 5 minutes until each side found something dodgy that looked very convincing.

All the "information" about what might happen in the future is based on assumptions about what might happen if we stay or go. And all projections are subject to errors on top of that. You are better off looking at the past, not trying to guess who has the best crystal ball.

At the end of the day you are going to have to make a judgement based mostly on gut instinct. Sorry, that's how it is.

3) The turnout may be disappointing.

I wish voting were compulsory on things like this. If the turnout is such that the winning side gets less than 50% of the people who could have voted, then I think that leaves the door open for bad feeling on the losing side that can continue to fester for years.

A result like 30% for, 30% against, 40% don't know, tells you a lot more than 50% for, 50% against with a 60% turnout. Because you never know if people don't vote because they can't decide, or because they can't be bothered, or because they want to protest against the vote for some reason.

4) It will be close.

Which is bad. Because the arguments haven't been made convincingly by either side. So after the vote about half the country will probably be really pissed off that their choice was not the winner.

TV is dead

For the pedants I should probably qualify the title as broadcast TV is dead. But when I was young that was the only TV there was, so to me they are synonymous.

In the last year I have probably watched more video content than ever before... and yet hardly any of it has been broadcast TV. So much so that I am now seriously considering getting rid of my tuner. In the UK that means I wont have to pay the TV license any more, which is currently £145.50 per year.

How things change. A year or two ago I was a big fan of the BBC and wouldn't have dreamed of not having a TV. That's mostly down to a few BBC programmes that I really used to love like Dr Who and Sherlock. I can't remember the last thing I watched on a commercial channel... because I hate in-programme adverts with such a passion. It was probably Endeavour, recorded so that I could skip the ads.

Until recently a few great programmes a year were enough to keep me going, because of all the other bits and pieces I used to watch on TV too... like news, sport and documentaries.

But I don't watch TV news any more. There's a whole blog post there in itself. But in summary, I don't watch it because it is rubbish and gives you a distorted view of the world. Rolling news? Jeez.

Sport? There's hardly any on free-to-air TV now. And what there is is on at dumb times. I switched on my TV at 3pm for the FA Cup final last Saturday because I wasn't doing anything else. And found that the kick off is now at 5.30pm. When did that happen? It has always been at 3pm. Anyway, I was going out for dinner so there was no point in watching the beginning.

I like snooker, but when it is on the BBC they show a frame or two live and then switch to the red button or online... usually in the middle of a frame. So you might as well watch the whole thing online.

Documentaries? There are so many online that the few decent ones on TV really are no loss to miss.

So you get to a point where you think "I'm not watching much TV now, so why pay £150 a year for it?"

Which should be frightening for the traditional broadcasters, because if 45 year old male telly addicts like me are abandoning them then they are going to be in trouble sooner than they think. I know young people aren't getting into TV but I bet the current BBC and ITV execs think they are set for at least their lifetimes and might be in for a shock.

How has this happened? The internet.

I can watch lots of great TV shows (without ad breaks) on Netflix. When I want, not when some scheduler thinks I should watch it. If I want to watch 3 episodes in a night then I can... I don't have to watch one a week over a month or so!

I can watch films (without ad breaks) on many platforms. I can rent blu-ray disks on Cinema Paradiso to get great quality if I want it.

I can watch documentaries on YouTube on just about any subject. There are TED talks. There are recordings of lectures and seminars from universities all over the world.

Broadcast TV is now a tiny window on a much, much bigger world. It just isn't relevant to me any more. I don't need a TV. I have an internet.

Royal Mail stuck in 20th century

Like many people in the 21st century, I shop online a lot. But I groan when I see an online retailer is going to send me my items by Royal Mail. Because of all the delivery companies they are by far the worst at actually getting a parcel into my hands.

Firstly there is delivery time. Most days I am out in the morning. Royal Mail do not care about this because they always deliver parcels to my house at about 11am. Every time. The last 5 parcels delivered by Royal Mail have all arrived at between 11am and 11:10am. I can't remember a parcel ever arriving before 11am or after 1pm.

In fact the only time I ever get a parcel first time from Royal Mail is on the odd occasion when they deliver on a Saturday.

So, redelivery maybe. Well why would I ask them to try to redeliver it when I know they are probably just going to come at 11am again when I am out? Duh.

So, collection it is then.

I live quite close to the Post Office in Guildford, so this should be easy. But this is Royal Mail not the Post Office (as I was told rather curtly by a Royal Mail employee once). And the Royal Mail collection office is right out on the other edge of town... well away from public transport.

Most people drive there, on a Saturday morning. There are about 6 customer car parking spaces. But these are usually occupied by Royal Mail staff. I know this because once I walked there (I don't have a car) and all the spaces were full despite me being the only customer there... I asked the man at the desk why the customer parking was full when I was the only customer there... and he muttered something about it not really being customer parking any more.

Usually I go in the afternoon when it is quiet. But if you do have to go on a Saturday morning then I pity you, because there is often a long queue.

So you hand over your red card and if you remembered to bring ID then they go off to find your parcel. Sometimes this takes them a while... so you have time to look around. There are big notices up that say "NO MOBILE PHONES TO BE USED IN THIS AREA PLEASE!!!!!". Yes, that is 5 exclamation marks.

What happens if someone uses a mobile phone in that area? Does the whole postal system crash? I don't understand why they are so worried about this. Not so much that they have to SHOUT IT AT YOU while you wait.

There are also signs asking you to respect the employees. Which I guess means they have a lot of people in who are cross and take it out on the employees. I'm not going to condone bad behaviour... but I can certainly understand why some people rocking up there, not being able to park, then waiting a long time for a parcel that they would rather have received at their home (as they paid for), might not be feeling at their best by the time they get served.

Once I had to wait more than 10 minutes for them to find my parcel. You would think they had a decent system for this by now...

What would help?

This is the 21st century. Many households are empty during the day. Delivering everything 9-5 is stupid. Delivering everything at the same time to a household when no-one is in is even more stupid.

Why can't I specify a preferred time? Why can't you even try delivering in the afternoon? That doesn't seem so hard.

Why do you return parcels to an out-of-town delivery office, when I live near the Post Office? Why can't I specify a preferred collection point?

At some point I am going to stop shopping with online companies that use Royal Mail and only use the ones that use other couriers. Because I have given you every chance to get into the 21st century... and you have failed!

I'm A Cyborg, But That's OK (2006)

I really wanted to like this. It's quirky and amusing, but quite a serious subject too. At the beginning. But it doesn't really develop. It gets weirder, yes. But does it actually go anywhere? It seems like it is just trying to get weirder for the sake of it.

Maybe I just missed the point. But I got bored with it about 3/4 of the way in. So I just didn't care what happened at the end.

Daredevil (series 2)

After signing up with Netflix last year to see the first series of Daredevil, I was obviously looking forward to series 2.

And I wasn't disappointed.

Like the first series, it takes its time to build up the characters and the main storyline. There are a few surprises and things move along for all the characters from the first series...

...as well as introducing Elektra and The Punisher. (and The Hand)

The few times there was a lull and I started to doubt the writing, there was a twist that made me sit right up and start taking notice again.

With a lull now until the next Marvel Netflix series I might well watch both DD series again back to back... to make sure I didn't miss anything.

(although I am into a couple of other series like Continuum now and have plenty of disks to watch from Cinema Paradiso)

Hannah Woods

There was a young lady last week in the bank who seemed strangely familiar. So much so that, as much as I tried not to, I couldn't help looking up at her to try and remember where I had seen her before.

And of course, after a minute or so, she happened to look my way as I was looking at her and like an idiot I immediately looked away as if I had something to hide. Then I couldn't look again. And I felt embarrassed. And I thought she was probably feeling uncomfortable because she'd seen an older guy looking at her. And I felt more embarrassed.

All made worse by a story I heard on the radio about unwanted sexual attention. Which was actually about men groping women (and girls) in public places. But it had made me slightly annoyed because it also implied that men shouldn't even look at women if it made them uncomfortable...

...that's the women being uncomfortable. But have you considered how men might feel walking down a street with teenage girls wearing next to nothing? Do you not think that makes me feel uncomfortable? Because it does.

Of course everyone has the right to wear what they like. But the best articulation of how I feel was expressed by someone else like this: "You have the right to leave a diamond necklace on the back seat of your car, and not expect anyone to steal it. But you don't do that."

You can't have it both ways. You either dress eye-catchingly and expect people to look at you. Or you dress more modestly.

Anyway, I don't expect anyone to listen to me. But back to the origin of this post... I was fairly sure that I hadn't seen the girl in the bank, and that she simply reminded me of someone else.

I couldn't think who though. It had to have been someone in film or TV. I couldn't place her. Then I got a memory of a distinctive voice. So it had to be an actress didn't it?

Blind alley. I spent ages wondering which film or TV show she was from. Yes, you are right, I didn't have much else to do over the long weekend.

Have you ever tried to remember something, decided it wasn't worth the bother and then tried not to bother remembering it? The more I tried to put it out of my mind, the more it came coming back. Who was she? I don't care! Yes, but who is she?

And so it went on, all weekend.

Then, suddenly, I thought "If I can't remember her from film and TV series, and I don't know her, then maybe she was just a distinctive character on a game show or something?"

Bingo. I don't watch much TV that isn't drama, but I always watch University Challenge (go figure) ... and that was it. Suddenly I could picture her as clear as day. She was one of the captains on the current series. She'd been on several shows. I'd recorded most of them on my DVR. So I just had to flick through the last few.

Hannah Woods, captain of Peterhouse, Cambridge.

She stood out because she was a very good captain, as well as being quite pretty, having a funny eyebrow that seemed permanently raised, and speaking with a quite distinctive voice.

I looked her up on the internet. But was quite shocked to see articles about how women who appear on programmes like UC often get stalked on social media.

So I stopped looking. It feels like you can't take any interest in women now without being a nuisance.

This is a sad product of the 21 century, isn't it? In the old days you could only attract the attention of the people you actually met, or who were obsessed enough to write you a letter. Now you can be inundated with electronic messages that take no thought and no effort to send.

Anyway, good luck to Hannah and all the other contestants in the semi-finals of University Challenge. I'll be watching... if that's all right with you? 

Guns and Talks (2001)

Korean action is one of my favourite genres. Which takes some saying because I hate the pigeon-holing of films (and anything else) into narrow bins with names. It is lazy, often debatable, and sometimes just wrong.

So it is with Guns and Talks. I wouldn't call this an action film. But it is Korean ;)

It has some of the elements of an action film, but no-one who had actually watched the film all the way through would call it an action film. Unless they were told to promote it as an action film...

Anyway, I digress. Despite my initial disappointment at the lack of action (I thought I was in the mood for blood) I did enjoy this film. It is sort of quirky and somewhat thought provoking.

At first the 4 anti-heroes are so matter-of-fact about being hired assassins that you wonder how they can be likeable characters. But over the film you do grow to like them in a way... because even killers are people? This is helped by the police being nasty pieces of work too. If not more so than the 4 friends.

There is some humour too. At one point one of the killers is talking about his feelings and he thinks the others have been moved to tears... when in fact they have covered their faces because they are cracking up laughing. Nicely done in the context of the story.

A decent film, not much action, but plenty of entertainment.