Foreign Perspectives

Archive for April, 2010

By the time the shorter holidays swing round we seem to have built up a massive list of things that we should take the kids to. Summer isn’t so bad as there’s a couple of months to play with but it can get pretty bad during the shorter holidays like Easter.

In fact, Easter seems to be the worst of these. Not only do the kids and ourselves have a list of things that have accumulated since Christmas but there’s a whole host of activities going on aimed at kids all over the place. Almost all of these activities fall from the Saturday through to Easter Monday though so there’s not so many that you can actually get to and, on the whole, we always miss out on at least a couple that we’d have liked to have gotten to.

Over that Saturday to Monday period we always seem to end up with both of the little guys pretty much totally worn out and this year has been no different. Saturday ended up relatively quiet but we made up for that on Sunday and Monday with all day trips to Castleward and Portrush which left them both exhausted.

Still, at least we’d fairly grim weather on Tuesday which gave them (and us!) a bit of a chance to get some rest.

One of the most striking things about the Gordon Brown entourage this morning was just how staged it was.

Although he passed numerous people along the way, strangely his entourage of supposedly the normal public were about as diverse a mix of races as you could possibly manage to collect anywhere in the UK. Of course, they weren’t really the normal public at all: the majority of these were labour party supporters bused in especially to make sure that Gordon Brown came across as being attractive to all races represented in the UK today.

Incredibly cynical, wasn’t it?

Yes, the UK is now, as it has been for centuries, a multi-cultural country but do we really need artificially created entourages to try to show one party or another is the one to best represent the UK today? I think not.

The mechanics of UK government are a little peculiar in the period between governments.

This morning Gordon Brown finally asked the Queen to dissolve parliament so that the election period could begin. In practice, of course, the process of government continues but with the small problem that no major decisions can be taken because there’s technically nobody in charge for the next four weeks. Thus the civil service continues to run the country as it always has done but can’t head off at a tangent and needs to be mindful that a different party could (probably will) be in charge next month and thereby acquires in effect a veto power that ordinarily it wouldn’t have.

In that no-mans land period the various parties should be finding themselves kept somewhat more informed as to what’s actually happening within the government machinery. After all, if/when the new lot take charge it’s an overnight change of power unlike the more laid back timetable of the American changes of administration. In effect, the changeover of the administration or rather the preparations for a potential change of administration begins today. Let’s hope that no really big decisions need to be taken in the next four weeks!

The first fruits of that have already been noticed with the arrival of the security protection for the conservative leadership team and, behind the scenes, confidential briefings. There’ll be more, of course, in the weeks to come. After all, labour no longer form the government and so in this interim period there needs to be a balance since the former labour ministers should no longer have the advantage of having the trappings of government if those aren’t similarly on offer to the former opposition party too.

So what next? Expect the annoying arrival of party political broadcasts on our screens and politicians on our doorsteps and a massive increase in junk mail from them all.

When I was little the entire family including grandparents, aunts, uncles and all the associated children went to Portrush every Easter Monday but it’s been quite a long time since that procession set off and with the grandparents dead and most of the children having their own children what used to be three or four car loads of people was cut down to just one.

Quite surprisingly, for me anyway, the traffic wasn’t anywhere near as heavy as it had been when I was younger. In those days, whatever the weather, the end of the motorway signaled the start of the traffic buildup and there was always a tailback of several miles going into the town itself. Yesterday though there was relatively traffic the whole way and we were able to drive right into the town, parking just a few hundred yards from Barry’s, the amusement park.

For old times sake, we followed the traditional pilgrimage route from the car park, passing Barry’s before heading on down to the main street as far as The White House. The weather ruled out sandcastles on the beach but we had the usual session in Barry’s.

In these days of computer gaming everywhere, Barry’s has changed surprisingly little. The ghost train, dodgems and big dipper are still there and still in the same spot within the complex from the days when I was a child.  If I could dig out an old photo of the place I suspect that the only way you’d be able to tell the difference would be from the clothing for little else seems to have changed. It’s the same for the town too. Not only the mix of the shops remains the same but the names of them too, or at least so far as I can remember.

Of course, that’s part of the reason for the lack of traffic jams. Sure, the kids loved Barry’s but, really, there was very little of interest for the adults. For a family resort, there needs to be attractions for all the family and that’s just not the case these days. Even worse, whilst the majority of the small shops don’t take cards, both the cash machines had run out of money by 11am.

Nice for a nostalgia trip, but it needs to do something if it wants to remain as a successful resort town.

Although one episode it seemed almost like an entire series packed into a one hour episode.

To kick off there’s the now typical fairly extended regeneration issues which run through most of the episode. This is used to introduce new aspects of both the Doctor and the TARDIS. This time around we have the changed tastebuds and settling down of the bones and ligaments of the Doctor. For the TARDIS there’s the mention of a swimming pool and library plus more of an emphasis on the regeneration capabilities of the TARDIS itself (don’t forget that it’s a living being). One wonders how many regenerations the TARDIS itself has.

In amongst that there’s the introduction of Amy first as a child, then as an adult in the main segment of this episode and finally we meet her the day before her wedding (which looks none too likely to happen). Meeting Amy as a child gives us the token “childrens’ entertainment” tagging whilst the majority of the episode is more clearly aimed at an older audience. For this episode there seems to have been an attempt to have something for every potential fan past, present or future which contributed to the “all over the place” feel that the episode had.

Will we come back to Amy’s family in the same way that Martha’s family popped up now and again? That could be difficult as the Doctor picked up Amy the day before her wedding so unless that’s off there doesn’t seem much chance of returning to the village or family but who knows at this point?

The new TARDIS control room retains it’s typical mix of ancient and modern devices but overall not wildly different from the previous version at first glance. Monster-wise the clips at the end of the episode didn’t turn up anything notably new but then the new is harder to pick out. There were a lot of clips of the old though.

Worth watching but overall it had little focus.