‘Freaks and Geeks’. NBC, 1999

This has to be the most underrated comedy series of all time. It is quite simply phenomenal. Entrenched in American high school culture this program is smart, funny and seductively deep. By far the most enjoyable US comedy I have seen in a long, long while – and that’s saying something considering the sheer number of triple A titles that have been released since the happy days of 99.

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'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins. 2007

I liked this book. I liked it quite a lot in fact. I know a lot people don't and in many circles just the mention of Richard Dawkins is enough to warrant sneers and pompous put downs. Obviously religious people despise him. But more worrying is that many of my close British friends, who I consider to be very educated, cultured and passionately liberal, despise the man also. They sneer at him in the special way they reserve for things that they dislike simply because they are popular. As if success was in itself a complete betrayal of all academic and moral principles. These people act like they are above success and will only watch something if it is completely and utterly obscure.

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'Moonwar' by Ben Bova. 1997

The second and final part of Ben Bova's Moon story.

Like most 'classical' sci-fi I have read the actual writing isn't going to win any awards. Yet often sci-fi is used simply to convey ideas and the actual fiction is just a clumsy delivery device. The book also excels in extremely awkward descriptions of intimate relationships – unfortunately it seems all science fiction writers, from deep within their Red Dwarf themed bedrooms, make a point of excitedly describing what they imagine ‘girls’ might be like. But anyway.

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PP27: Reductions

At Little Chef, at Tesco and now at Starbucks, everywhere I have worked has been guilty of throwing away massive amounts of out of date food products. Now to their credit they each ran pretty impressive waste control and stock management systems – because of course it is in their interests to do so. Yet it still didn’t prevent ugly scenes at the end of the day with workers bagging up perfectly good sandwiches, muffins etc and throwing them straight into the bin.

I hear that in some areas supermarkets and shops have deals with local homeless centres to provide them with the unwanted goods. Supermarkets also manage to shift a large majority of their soon to be out of date goods via the ‘reduced isle’. What makes things stranger is that I have heard from multiple sources that ‘best before’ dates really don’t mean a great deal, with most food being perfectly good days or even weeks after that date. My parents have told me that not so long ago supermarkets were able to sell out of date products at a knock down price, but are now unable to do so because of health and safety regulations.

So I suggest two policies to help minimise this waste. Allow restaurants and food retailers to once again sell out of date produce in separate, well-marked food isles with all the responsibility for this purchase taken by the customer. Secondly local governments should compile lists of local charities, hostels and homes etc that could make use of waste food products and distribute them to local businesses and ask for assistance. Nothing more than that. Simply make people aware of the waste and bring organisations together to take advantage of the opportunities this can provide.

Easy stuff.

PP26: Grow your own

World food prices are on the rise and millions have been plunged back below the $1 a day poverty line. The solution lies in scrapping the criminal Common Agricultural Policy (and America’s equivalent), dropping subsidies for bio-fuels and adopting GM technologies. However, these types of large policies are beyond the scope of these minor policy proposals, although I have previously mentioned dropping bio-fuel subsidies.

Instead what any future ‘Neo-Green’ Party could do instantly (and without causing a massive argument with Europe) is to promote British self-sufficiency when it comes to food supply. Complete self-sufficiency is of course a pipe dream; Britain will rely almost entirely on imports for as long as it tries to cram sixty million people onto an island smaller than your average American front lawn. Yet for reasons of security, carbon emissions and jobs the government should promote the best use of what little land is left for cultivation. One element of this should be to promote small scale growing.

· Seeds for all types of foods should be provided free of charge to all who request them for domestic use.
· Local box schemes should receive funding to better allow neighbours and local farmers to share their produce.
· Thousands of new spaces for allotments in urban areas should be provided.
· Subsidies should be provided for companies wishing to build hydroponics facilities close to urban centres. Large green houses could be designed in such a way as to nicely complement cityscapes and provide a very visible ‘green’ presence in town centres. Large buildings could convert their top floors, for example. Hydroponics technology allows for the maximum conservation of energy and water when growing crops and is something that deserves far more attention than it currently receives.
· A fund should be available to which community groups can apply to purchase land and establish communal farming areas. Churches, schools, prisons and universities could all take part. Businesses could use the money to complement their ‘social responsibility’ policies.

PP25: Summer Camp

Summer Camp is about as American as you can get, but I am not suggesting we adopt the notion wholesale from our cousins. Instead what I propose is something rather different. This would be a one off event run by high schools. High schools should be provided additional funding to run a weeklong outdoor expedition trip for one of its year groups, totally free of charge (else it will just be middle class kids that go). The teachers themselves wouldn’t have to go and staff at the camp would run things.

To save money the program could be targeted only at inner-city schools and I think running it during the summer months will prevent it from interfering with their studies with the added bonus of (potentially) lowering crime rates because it gets kids off the streets.

The camp would be out in the British countryside somewhere, out with nature, in and amongst the trees and clean air. The camp wouldn’t be directly educational; it would focus on activities and social events. It could throw in some team building exercises for good measure but the primary purpose of the scheme would simply be to get city kids out into the country. Environmental awareness, I believe, is almost certainly stunted by growing up in an urban environment. Contained within our concrete housing estates kids grow up consuming and consuming, whilst never once seeing the wider world that is suffering because of their actions. Inner city poverty may also make it nearly impossible for a child to ever afford to leave their immediate environment for any real length of time. The objective would be to get the kids to appreciate just how precious the global eco-system is. Why would a child want to protect something it doesn’t even know exists? We need to at least try to build a connection between children and the natural world; otherwise they will never understand their true place within it.

I am reminded of a story one city dwelling friend of mine told me about a field trip he once went on during his first year of high school. It was to a farm somewhere outside London. This was the first time he had ever worn Wellington boots. It was the first time he had ever smelt the delightful farm smells of manure and fertiliser. It was also the first time he had ever seen farm animals, and he fondly recalls how a friend of his very bravely approached a sheep, only to go ‘Mooo’ in its ear.

This is hilarious and terrifying in equal measure. How can a generation so divorced from nature ever realise just how dependent they are on its continued well-being?

They can’t. And this policy is aimed at addressing that problem. Ideally kids need to respect and love nature, but I would settle for them simply acknowledging its existence.

'Moonrise' by Ben Bova. 1996.

A science fiction novel by a prolific science fiction writer. This is about as straight as sceince fiction can get. Moon bases and rocket ships. None of this cyber punk nonsense. Proper nuts and bolts sci-fi. Love it.

I am currently reading the follow up novel 'Moonwar'.

'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins. 2007.

I've just finished listening to my audio book version. Match report to follow.

PP24: Softy Action Squads

Once again with the ‘broken glass theory of crime’ in mind this is simply a program of sustained litter picking.

I don’t know about you but I find the fact that every piece of greenery, hedge row and back street is infected with the discarded and hideous remains of our filthy species to be rather demoralising. Are we really that disgusting?

Edinburgh has a reputation for being a picturesque city and it is second only to London when it comes to attracting tourists. Yet it is really really dirty. Overflowing with bottles, paper, plastic wrapping, empty beer cans, trolleys, chewing gum and vomit. The main streets are cleaned during the wee hours by the sweepers – but the rest of the city is simply left to decay. The plastic and glass excrement of humanity has ingrained itself into the very fabric of the city and makes for a very unpleasant urban environment.

If people really are affected by their immediate surroundings (as I strongly believe they are) then this is bad news indeed. So we need to provide funding for ‘softy action squads’ of volunteers/convicts/ASBO kids. If numbers run low then the scheme should look to work with local business to provide vouchers to participants in exchange for giving up their time in the evenings or weekends. All litter collected would of course be sorted and recycled.

Aside from the cost pf the scheme (which I am confident could be kept very low) I can’t see anything but benefits from this scheme. It will increase civil pride; help the environment and boost tourism. It may even, if the theory is correct, have knock on effects and cut anti-social behaviour and crime.

PP23: Super Loo

I am fed up of hearing North Americans on a night out in our towns and cities looking on appalled as Jock and Sammy stand in the middle of the road pissing everywhere. If there is one thing I despise more than hearing Americans muttering (i.e. yelling) about "just how awwwwful" British people are, it is when they are absolutely spot on.

I think this problem gets worse the more north you go in the UK. But to put it simply - people should not be reliving themselves in the streets. I don't want to see it, tourists don't want to see it and it is, quite frankly, shocking manners.

Police need to use their (already existing) powers to fine offenders more often but not before an extensive building program takes place to provide our city centres with public toilets. I think my opinions are shaped by the case of Edinburgh, which according to the local press, is one of the worse places for the provision of public toilets. There is quite simply nowhere to go. People do what they do simply because they have no choice!

If new ones need to be built they obviously need to be very accessible, open at all times and very well lit. If they could also use 'grey water' and have a few solar panels on top then all the better - but this is not essential. Recently there was a successful pilot scheme (I forget where), which paid pubs and restaurants a small fee for opening their facilities to the public (as a side note Starbucks has always done this for free). This seems like a far more agreeable scheme than mass construction. Or failing that simply open up our streets to the private sector, I have seen self cleaning ‘20p’ a go super loos in London and they seem to be doing their job without too much fuss.

Regardless of how it is to be done, what is essential is to introduce a little bit of civility into our city streets. My Victorian morality might be shining through here but according to my favourite 'broken glass' theory we can bring about large changes by forcing through simple changes in habit. This is one well worth pursuing.

‘Hunting Evil: Inside the Ipswich serial murders’ by Paul Harrison and David Wilson. 2008.

Now this is not at all like the normal sort of book I would be interested in. Crime stories don’t do anything for me, and I am always puzzled why it gets its own section in book stores. True crime stories are a little more interesting but still don’t do it for me. Yet I felt compelled to buy this book simply because it was in the Sainsburys best sellers list – and it was all about Ipswich. This is the only book I have ever seen all about my hometown and despite its gruesome topic I felt I had little choice but to read what others were saying about it.

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"Armed Action” by James Newton. 2007.

I picked this one up on the cheap from Sainsburys. It looked like a trashy war memoir, some helicopter pilot cashing in on his Distinguished Flying Cross by writing about his experiences (as anyone would). Only it was not half as trashy as I had expected and proved to be a good introduction to the whole Iraq war, which was a topic I had been avoiding up until then.

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