Happy Snowman in Carnaby Street

Prior to the demonstration on Saturday I was able to enjoy some of the delights of Soho, the heart of London, and once again Carnaby Street was seasonally dressed to impress. While I very much appreciate the decorations I just wish that they were not confined to the street that has the highest concentration of tourists.

March for peace

On Saturday I went on what could be the first of several demonstrations against the violence in Gaza.

The march started at Embankment, on the Thames in Central London. It was due to start at 12:30 but I got there just after 1:00 (I had to take my eldest son to Pizza Express first).

The march had already started but there were still many people congregated there waiting to move out.

We took a fairly familiar route, heading first along Victoria Embankment towards Westminster and then back along Whitehall to Trafalgar Square.

Also familiar were the colourful banners (mass produced and home made), the chanting, the mix of people different in many ways but united in one, and the sheer comfort of being in a large crowd with a common purpose.

Trafalgar Square provided a dramatic setting for the rally at the end of the march. In happier circumstances I would have spent more time savouring the architecture and art but buildings like the National Gallery were only a backdrop, a solid silent frame to enclose the movement and noise of the crowd.

There were several speakers but, to be honest, there was not that much that needed to be said as we all knew that the immediate need was for Israel to stop the killing.

I walked around the square to absorb myself in the atmosphere of the event and caught sight of Ken Livingston and Tony Benn. The later has been a hero of mine for many years and the former has said some wise words on the current situation, especially the comparison with Northern Ireland where the UK deliberately did not respond to acts of violence during the successful peace process.

Another demonstration is planned for next weekend in Hyde Park. I hope that it proves to be unnecessary but if the violence is still happening then I will be there.

Stop Gaza Massacre demonstration

I would rather that there were not injustices in the world to demonstrate against but there are and so I am off to London today to join one of the many UK demonstrations against the current violence in Gaza.

I appreciate that the Israelis are concerned about their own safety but two wrongs do not make a right and there is no justification for their use of such force against a civilian population that they have imprisoned and blockaded.

The demonstration is also against the submissive position adopted by most western countries to this atrocity, and George Bush's recent statement putting all the blame on Hamas is neither truthful nor helpful.

I am not sure what effect, if any, our demonstration will have but I would much rather be there showing my support for peace than sitting at home watching it on TV.

Catching up with the X-Men

I am taking advantage of the Winter holiday to seriously tackle my comics backlog and may even get it down to something like manageable proportions before I have to make my regular pilgrimage to They Walk Among Us for my next fix.

Having caught up with Secret Invasion I am now addressing the various X-Men titles and have come across a couple of real gems.

Cable, a new title by Duane Swierczynski and Ken Lashley, tells the story of Cable's attempt to protect the new mutant baby from Bishop who wants to kill her to stop the future world that he comes from (where mutants are treated as slaves) from coming about. Dr Who fans will be familiar with such plots and such paradoxes!

The essence of the story is a chase through time between two very experienced soldiers who can set and detect complex traps.

Time travel is used very effectively in the story as Cable jumps forward in time to escape from Bishop and then spends years preparing for Bishop to catch up with him.

I am sure that I have not given the story justice but I hope that I have given you enough of a clue as to why I am enjoying this sage immensely.

But you do not have to rely on my words to explain the quality of the art work. This extract from King-Size Cable Spectacular #1 shows the fantastic futurescape and the dramatic use of layout to tell the story.

To be honest, I was not sure what to expect from Cable and was not initially impressed by the premise behind the story but it proved to be a compelling and very rewarding read.


The other title that has made its mark on me recently was Astonishing X-Men: Ghost Boxes by Warren Ellis, Alan Davis and Adi Granov. This is a two part story spun off at a tangent from the ongoing Astonishing X-Men series.

The tangent takes us off to parallel worlds and explores alternative scenarios on four alternative Earths in four short and very different stories.

Again, the basic premise is simple, one alternative Earth wants to annex another (travel between the dimensions is achieved using the Ghost Boxes) and the X-Men stand in defence.

The stories have different styles, give us different perspectives on the same situation and have different outcomes. And being X-Men stories they are linked by familiar characters which means that we immediately understand, and believe, how they react to each situation.

Ghost Boxes gives the impression of being a collection of stories that Warren Ellis came up with but could not fit in to the main Astonishing X-Men storyline. There must be many many stories like that but most of them never get written. I am so glad that these were.

Burning Our Money

How government works and how it spends our money to do so interests me greatly so I like to read the research published by the Taxpayers' Alliance.

The basic premise that we have too much government and that it costs us too much money is one that I agree with.

The TPA's latest report is on public sector pay, something that I have recent first-hand experience of. The local authority that I worked for had a Chief Executive, several Executive Directors and each of these had several Divisional Directors. Below these there were Assistant Directors, Senior Managers and Managers. And, finally, people who actually deliver services.

Some of their key findings are:

• Average pay in 2008 was £21,413 in the public sector against £20,715 in the private sector. Pay in the public sector was therefore 3.4 per cent higher.
• Since 2000, pay in the public sector has grown by 37.1 per cent whereas pay in the private sector has grown by 30.5 per cent.
• In the third quarter of 2008, public sector employment increased by 14,000 whereas private sector employment decreased by 128,000.
• Public sector staff take more time off work sick. The average public sector worker took nine days off, against less than six days in the private sector.
• Public sector organisations are still recruiting for a large number of jobs of dubious value, these are non-jobs.