So winter is finally here, as my good friend and collaborator Patrick Wray would say “Mother nature’s icy claw” has begun it’s chilling embrace. I know I’m walking straight into a cultural stereotype by talking about the weather, but like all good Englishmen I find it almost endlessly fascinating. Is it just me or do there seem to be too many leaves still on the trees? I’m not complaining, it just strikes me as a little odd. I always seem to be surprised by the onset of winter, and I have a disease that I just can’t seem to shake off. It’s nothing biological, more a behavioural malady. Whenever it begins to get cold all the clothes I buy are only suitable for the summer. Then when the temperature starts to rise again I begin to fetishize coats and scarves. I can’t tell if I’m just very slow to react, or incredibly well prepared, like those people who buy all their Christmas presents in the January sales. Either way, I’m cold.

I finally feel settled in my not-so-new home, in fact I really like Brixton. It’s a real pleasure to walk through the market and move between the walls of sound emanating from the different stalls. It’s taken a while, but I’m a bit of a homebody you see. If I was of a more mystical persuasion I’d ascribe this tendency to my star-sign being Cancer. We Cancarians are supposed to be stay-in types, and also have a tendency to horde. It’s funny the things we believe, especially when like me you don’t subscribe to any religion. I often find myself inventing little superstitions of my own, while simultaneously flouting the rules of more established ones. One such ‘rule’ is my belief that if I say out-loud “I haven’t been ill for a while”, I will become ill within the week. Do you think it counts if I write it down? Hope not. Anyway here’s an image to prove how happy our little family is in our new home, look at those smiles! By the way, I’m the one in the v-neck whose head looks far too big for his body.

I’m beginning to look forward to Christmas at last. If I’m honest I’d been kinda dreading it. I like the festive season, but I usually make the trip home to see my family for the day itself, and although it’s lovely to spend time with them, it can be a bit boring. I come from a very small village in Oxfordshire you see, and as I don’t drive it makes getting about a bit tricky. All of my friends who will likely be in the area live in other villages or towns nearby, and of course no buses run on Christmas Day, even Christmas Eve and Boxing Day are difficult. So I end up being rather stuck and just eating too much. This mild depression was lifted however when I saw some Christmas lights through the window of a flat near where I live. They were cheap and tacky, but they reminded me how great Christmas can be, and I imagined all the fun that family will have. I hope they have kids in that flat, and I hope it snows for them.

A note on the development of this site. I’m at last getting around to adding content to all those pretty menu options on the left. Currently I’m working on filling in the portfolio section, and the gallery is working ok on non-msie browsers. I’m quite pleased with the gallery actually. It’s totally over-the-top, and a massive waste of bandwidth, but it’s fun. There’s still a fair bit to do, but I’m getting there!

Well I should sign off, it’s quite late and I should be in bed. I’ve been waiting for the trailer for “Brokeback Mountain” to download but it aint happening. Oh well, I’ll have to be content with the promo images for now.

I’ve been following the story recently of the shooting of two female police officers in Bradford. Sadly one of the officers who was shot, Pc Sharon Beshenivsky, died in the incident. Of course this is horrific, Pc Beshenivsky was a mother of five and one cannot help but dwell on the fact that five children will now grow up without their mother. However, as disturbing as the incident itself is the reaction by the police force and the media. Let me explain…

The coverage of the shooting has been massive. On one hand this is a good thing, gun crime is still a shocking incident in the UK despite its increase in recent years and the interest in this story bears witness to that, on the flipside though, why does this murder deserve so much more coverage than the murder of a civilian? The reactions it has elicited from the police is quite extraordinary. Former Met Police chief Lord Stevens has gone as far as to call for the death penalty for people who murder police officers. We in the UK do not have the death penalty for any crime, correctly in my opinion, but if we were to ‘bring back hanging’ why would we introduce it to punish the murderers of police officers and not the murderers of civilians? I deplore the statement of Lord Stevens and believe it is the height of irresponsibility.

What I also find very cynical is how certain opportunistic groups inside and outside of the police force are using this tragedy in an attempt to advance their own case for the routine arming of our police. This must not be allowed to happen. It would be a betrayal of hundreds of years of tradition, and of some of our most dearly held beliefs about the nature of our nation. I believe we are living in an era of terrifying reactionism. This incident when placed alongside the ‘anti-terror’ legislation and ID card bill starts to paint a picture of a government, and a public, whose decision making process is based increasingly on the politics of fear and anger.