I have no interest in spiritual mediums. Does it help people? Yeah, I suppose some people benefit from this possibly cathartic experience, but I also suspect that just as many people become even more distressed by it. For my part, I can’t see how rousing my beloved dead relatives and force them to chat to this dowdy, Coronation Street reject is anything but malicious. But that’s just me.

Since Morgan knows full well that she is a fraud, that (we hope) isn’t her beef. She seems to take issue more with the anecdotal evidence in the article that she was being relayed information via microphone from an unseen stage-hand who had mingled amongst Morgan’s audience before the show and gathered pertinent information. This may or may not be true, it’s a Daily Mail article so obviously there’s little to no supporting evidence. This is not what intrigues me about Morgan, however. The validity of the Daily Mail’s earpiece claim is not relevant, as she’s demonstrated an affinity with threatening legal action against any and all legitimate criticism.

Though she’s claimed that Zenon’s article has damaged her reputation, there’s been no indication that people have stopped buying show tickets (according to her website, several of the venues have sold out) or that there’s been some sudden disenfranchisement amongst her fans. Because the people who like Sally Morgan do not waste money on seeing her because they see evidence of her abilities, it’s because they want solace. It’s easy to come off as patronising when presenting her victims as the vulnerable, recently bereaved. But if you were ever seeking such comfort and someone comes along to give you some semblance of emotional abatement, anyone would shoulder a strong confirmation bias for that person. Her victims don’t care a whit if she’s indisputably shown to be a fraud, they want to believe.

This is what fascinates me about Sally Morgan. She’s something new: a proactive charlatan. Not content merely to preach to the choir of her loyal audience and eke out a few million per year, she demands that anyone who calls her out on her abject falsehood be frivolously pestered and censored. Maybe she wants to stop any uncharacteristically discerning follower of hers stumbling onto any blasphemous articles that may shake their faith. Perhaps she honestly believes that she is able to talk to the dead, despite having to actively engage in fraud to try and appear genuine.

Regardless of her motivation, she’s now thrown the harsh spotlight of scrutiny on herself. The media coverage of the case (what little there is) will only do harm to her as the details of the Mail’s claims are re-iterated (which she’s seeking an injunction against) and her methods closely analysed and called out. Defending yourself against defamation is fair enough, but since she lost no grace with her fans then what can she gain?

I’m not talking about Dawkins’ embarrassing “Brights” movement (though that is part of it) in which the noted evolutionary biologist became a PR consultant and tried to re-brand non-belief to make it more palatable. As surveys have demonstrated, the word atheist does carry a certain stigma (at least in the US) but attempting to play word-games in order to avoid possible connotations is the sort of thing done only by the deceitful. Atheism, in particular, is about accepting the wrinkled front of reality. So attempting to smooth it with a new title is dishonest, self-defeating and stinks of the sort of underhanded sleight of tongue that theistic philosophers use. Worst still, skeptics referring to themselves en mas as “bright” is dripping with the sort of arrogance that will surely put people off and actively fortify the perception of atheists as ‘elitist’ that a 2006 survey by the University of Minnesota identified.

Since the term “bright” fails at it’s purpose, its existence is ultimately redundant since atheism already has a ensemble of names, monikers and epithets that (save some minor nuances) mean effectively the same thing. People may bicker over the effectiveness of it’s use but nobody disputes it’s core meaning. Where this is valid contention, however, is in the differences between atheism and agnosticism. Valid though I call it, worthwhile it most certainly is not.

Religious agnostics are, according to the dictionary definition, people who believe that the mysteries of the universe (specifically pertaining to God and the origin of the universe) to be unknown and indeed unknowable; far more subtle than simply “not sure”. I don’t feel it’s to big a leap to word it thus: that agnostics are people who do not believe in God. Read what I said carefully, I did not say that agnostics say that there is no God, but that since they are not theists then they do not have a belief in a God.

Now let’s look at atheists, people who “disbelieve in the existence” of God. Most intellectually honest atheists will openly grant that they cannot prove that a supreme being of some sort does not exist, and thus do not claim certainty in it’s absence. To say it one “knows” there is no God is an untenable position, since the non-existence of any particular thing is an unfalsifiable hypothesis (even in the face of no evidence to begin with). We can conclude then that atheists are people who do not believe in God.

The confusion comes inevitably from the perception by some as atheists people who claim certitude as to the non-existence of a God, and for a cocksure few this may be the case, but as we’ve discussed most atheists agree this is a flawed position to hold. In practical terms, therefore, atheism and agnosticism are as good as identical. The discussion is a valid one, but it quickly devolves into arguing over definitions and since we’re not a group or collective this makes very little difference. The debate is a semantics game which, as we’ve seen, seldom reflects reality.

Ironically, this is basically the atheist AND agnostic position.

Most atheists of this ilk will tell you that strictly speaking they are agnostic atheists. If ‘atheist’ is taken in literal terms to mean someone who believes that there is no God, then the ingenuous majority who see the baseless rigidity in such a claim agree that the position they have requires this qualifier of ‘agnostic’. The reason why most agnostic-atheists don’t refer to themselves as such normally is partially down to the verbosity of such an title. But mostly because (like atheism) agnosticism also carries a connotation, one of being unsure, and while it’s true that atheists are not certain that there’s no God, they recognise that the same could be said about an infinite number of potential deities. There might be a God, there might not be, there could be the great Elbow-Horned Grumblesnitch but one doesn’t have to refer to themselves as being agnostic to that. So the term atheist is, in it’s most commonly used form, a perfectly apt name.

People argue over this triviality far more than they should (and inevitably someone will take issue with how I’ve represented them here), my point is that this is ultimately an irrelevant detail. You can call yourself an agnostic, you can call yourself an atheist, you can call yourself a Elbow-Horned Grumblesnitch for all I care. The point is we have far bigger problems at the moment. Regardless of your specific opinions or what label you give to them, we all share a common goal. We all work for the promotion of free thought, scientific inquiry and rationality. We all agree that dogmatic devotion to religious practices is dangerous and above all believe that we should all be united by our shared humanity rather than segregated along sectarian lines. Why must we divide ourselves this way?

When politicians stop trying to instigate religious morality and dogma as law, when gay couples can be openly so without fear of religious persecution, when pseudoscience is not trying to infiltrate schools, when religion has been emaciated to a quirky relic of a bygone age. Only then can we have this conversation, not before.

In a speech to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible (itself a reprint to reaffirm an episcopal structure and with it the divine right of Kings: manipulated in translation for political purposes) in Oxford, Prime Minister David Cameron boldly claimed that, “We are a Christian country and we should not be afraid to say so.” On a strictly semantic basis, Cameron is right. The majority of the population are Christians, and Anglicanism is tantamount to a state religion in the United Kingdom. Thankfully we’ve had politicians that aren’t as dogmatic as in the US that have until now held a position of not “doing God”. For the most part we’ve upheld an implicit policy of keeping church and state separate, whereas in the US they’re doing a piss-poor job of upholding their explicit policy to this effect. Case in point, future ‘Political dipshits say the dumbest things‘ star and potential Presidential nominee Rick Perry…

Now, in his defence he was quick to clarify that he wasn’t trying to exclude or “do down” other faiths (or none), but really there’s very little way that boldly declaring one of the most diverse nations on the planet to be expressly Christian can be taken otherwise. It is distinctly divisive phraseology which a politician, were that not his meaning, would’ve known better to use. But I am now simply trying to second-guess Cameron’s meaning and ultimately irrelevant in the face of his other comments.

He continued to wax idiotic about how Britain should adopt ‘Christian morality’. I’m not going to be a baseless sensationalist and assert that this means Cameron wants to put those who work on the Sabbath to death (Exodus 35:2-15), nor that he wants women who are not virgins on their wedding night to be stoned by all the men of the city (Deuteronomy 22:13-22). However, for modern issues, putting Christian morality above all others is a dangerous tactic that retards social progress in favour of holding to dogma and tradition.

Surely if Cameron espouses Christian morality as our guide, then when the issue of gay rights is discussed, the Christian right that wants to deprive homosexuals the right to get married, evidently have the support of the Prime Minister and of scripture. What’s more, the source of this Christian morality that Cameron speaks so highly of says in no plainer terms that gay people should be put to death. The fact that we know that this is not a rule that Cameron wants to push just confuses the point further. Why is he promoting “Christian morality” if he will neglect to follow it’s most rudimentary tenants? At it’s core, “Christian morality” is merely human morality (evolved from thousands of years of living in tribes and groups upon whom your individual survival depends) with a few bizarre and grizzly additions that even the most devout Christian fails to observe; be it for social convenience, personal well-being or abhorrence to such acts. Cameron is ignoring all the things that make this morality uniquely Christian but still keeping the title.

What’s more, I for one balk at the idea of a legal system or social system or morality that is based on dogma. As social attitudes, as technology, as times change, our moral standards and our ideals will change. Within my father’s lifetime being homosexual was not only socially reprehensible but also illegal. Today it is, arguably, neither; social attitudes have mostly changed, no longer are gay couples vilified as promiscuous and immoral. It would be a very sorry state of affairs if in spite of this progress we were bound to an immovable, dogmatic legal system that lead to the arrest and execution of gay people. Cameron’s “Christian morality” is based on scripture, it is unchanging and dogmatic: it is, after all, the word of a perfect and infallible God. In my opinion, morality and the law should be based on rational discourse, open discussion, the cases made and a logical conclusion reached; can anyone seriously say they disagree?

Ultimately, Cameron’s point is perfectly benign. He wishes to promote a sense of shared humanity, kinship and co-operation. He wants us to do away with selfishness and consumerism of modern culture and adopt a sense of generosity, caring and all that lovely stuff. But he is foolish to think that this lies in one particular sect or tribe or cult. These qualities are part of human decency, and can be obtained through secular means without any need for dogma or scripture or some supernatural Father Christmas rewarding us for being good. But I rather fear that Cameron attributing the “best” morality to one cult will have a counterproductive effect, rather than promoting a sense of shared humanity he’s done little more than amplify the “us and them” mentality that the devoutly religious carry.

Happy Christmas, from an atheist.

P.S. To preempt the obvious question, yes I still call it Christmas. I don’t believe in Odin either but that won’t stop me from having a Wednesday; it’s cultural and convenient to call it Christmas. If we’re being particularly pedantic we should all refer to it as the Pagan Winter Solstice but that’s too much effort to explain.

5. Amazon Kindle

We’re cheating a bit here since the Kindle was on the list last year, but a reworked user interface, a keyboard-ectomy and a modest price drop has made taking the first tentative steps into the eReader market even easier. The lowest price Kindle we could find was £89 by most high street shops or direct from Amazon, and the slightly pricier models come with contract-less 3G connection to download eBooks. But bear in mind that the gleeful recipient of the Kindle will still have to sink some cold, hard moolah into eBooks to deck it out with.

4. Windows Phone 7

Another slight cheat, but now that Microsoft have had time to iron out the kinks of the Windows Phone 7 operating system, and cram it into a few handsets, it’s a much more appealing prospect. Big manufacturers like Nokia and Samsung have already released the first WP7 handsets and reviews seem to be more enthused by the OS than the hardware itself. It’s become quite clear that 2012 will see phones judged on the merits of their OS rather than the wedge of plastic and glass they’ve been stuffed into. WP7 is definitely one to consider if you’re torn between the walled-garden of Apple or the lawless abandon of Android, though a somewhat lacking app store may put some people off.

3. Nintendo 3DS

Though the 3D can be a polarising feature (nerdy pun intended), there’s no denying that as the only major games platforms released these last twelve months, it stands as arguably the most up-to-date console around. The main gimmick of this particular handheld is the ability to play games in 3D without having to use glasses (though if you’re buying this for a geek that wouldn’t be an issue), but there have been numerous complains of it hurting the eyeballs after prolonged use. Regardless, it’s relatively low price, good screen and wide selection of games make it an ideal present for your local gamer that won’t break the bank or your back trying to carry it.

2. iPhone 4S

It wouldn’t be a gadget list without the JobsCo making an appearance. Apple’s long-awaited iPhone 4S shattered all rumours of new casings and new cameras and gave us…a slightly better iPhone 4. It’s most notable feature, of course, being the silver-tongued/golden-eared ‘Siri personal assistant’ application that finally shattered the prejudice associated with having conversations with inanimate objects. It’s about time. However, with rapidly upcoming competition, no Steve Jobs to fill it’s charisma-quota and a buzz that Apple have run out of ideas, it may be that come next Christmas the iPhone 4S will be incredibly out of style, and you may be stuck in a 24-month contract.

1. Angry Birds Cookbook

No, seriously. Anyone unfortunate enough to be sat in a long, boring lecture but lucky enough to have a smartphone knows the addictive draw of Angry Birds; it’s not just for geeks anymore. If your token nerd happens to be a fan, and validates the stereotype for clueless cooking skills, then this cookbook based on Angry Birds, containing mostly egg recipes (ironically provided by chef Aldo Zilli, the guy from the Optivita adverts who’s really concerned about your cholesterol) will keep your resident geek alive at least long enough to fix your computer.

The ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ (SOPA) is ostensibly a measure being brought in to stamp out piracy, copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property. The problem is, as I will come to explain, the measures they want to implement in order to do so seem, to my computer scientist nouse, like overkill. In a nutshell, the bill extends the definition of illegal file-sharing to include sites that provide links to third-party sites that host copyrighted video, images and the like. Previously, these sites were protected on the basis that they themselves didn’t deliver the material and simply acted as a middleman between the users and the files, usually hosted on open file-sharing sites like Megaupload and Rapidshare; though this rule did not prevent the conviction of the founders of The Pirate Bay in 2009. For any of these sites in the US, a court order can be brought against them that would obligate them to cease all illegal activities. However, so-called ‘rogue sites’ that operate in other countries are, by definition, outside of US jurisdiction and thus requesting a court order would be an ineffectual (and poorly thought-out) action. Though the US is powerless to stop these sites, the new legislation will make it possible for copyright holders to request, and give the government the power to ensure, that all access to the site within the US be blocked through removing it from DNS servers.

DNS (Domain Name System) servers contain what is essentially a list of every registered domain on the Internet, there are many DNS servers across the world that contain identical lists. It is the first port of call for your web browser when you type in a website address as it matches the domain name you’ve entered to the IP address where the webpage itself is held. Under this new bill, websites found to be in violation of this can be removed from all American DNS listings or blocked from resolving, just as the so-called ‘Great Firewall of China’. Technically speaking, a DNS block is not a difficult thing to circumvent, but doing so requires a small degree of technical know-how (or an impressive memory for IP addresses) and would constitute a criminal offence.

Unsurprisingly, this bill has the full support of a myriad of film and television groups, for whom money made from selling pieces of plastic or downloads for extortionate prices is their living. I’m certainly not trying to say that these people don’t deserve to be paid for their good work, but that’s the point: their good work. Through piracy, I discovered the early episodes of The Big Bang Theory and become an instant fan; I pirate episodes because I don’t want to wait for their episodes to be shipped over here and clunkily strapped into 4oD, but I own every available season on DVD. Similarly, through piracy I caught the first few episodes of True Blood, found it to be incredibly trite and haven’t bothered with it at all since. I, as the consumer, shouldn’t be expected to sink cold, hard cash into shows that are utter tosh just for the sake of finding that out.

Opposed to the bill is practically every Internet company you could name. As the legislation also requires US companies to cease any advertising networks with that site (such as via Google’s Adsense program), strike them from search engines and exact what basically amounts to a cyber-blockade upon them. This represents a lot of cost, legal concerns and work for these companies solely to protect the interests of another industry. In a letter to the US Senate and House of Representatives, companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and others wrote that the bill is “a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation’s cybersecurity.”

Bloggers, owners of independent websites and other Web users are understandably also opposing the bill. Video-sharing site YouTube has something of a trigger-happy attitude when it comes to claims of copyright infringement, wherein the offending video is automatically taken down until the uploader (the accused, not the accuser) has proven either legal right to the footage or show that copyrighted material has been used in conjunction with the ‘Fair Use’ clause of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. In most cases, use of copyrighted material can be justified if clips are used for the purposes of comment or criticism. Independent sites that reviews films, for example, may use clips from the source material spliced in. Though this would fall under ‘Fair Use’, if a similar “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude is adopted whenever a film studio cries wolf, it could lead to exhaustive legal battles, massive financial impact and loss of livelihood. Yet, the film studio will lose nothing from making a claim, the defendant stands to lose a great deal even if innocent. If YouTube, in order to keep the film industry lawyers at bay, will enforce a policy of ‘guilty until proven innocent’, then how can independents hope to grow or compete if this is the attitude of the governance in the Internet at large?

The film and television industries persist in their failure to understand that one pirated movie does not equate to one lost sale. The Internet has introduced a system of try-before-you-buy, in which the consumer can see if the show or movie is actually worth investing in. In the Information Age, their business model is antiquated and should be subject to the adapt-or-die rule, but due to the amount of money this industry has, the powers that be are bending over backwards to appease it. They must realise that piracy actively helps their industry, it encourages people to watch new shows that they may’ve missed on television, potentially become a fan and buy more episodes, DVDs and whatever cheap merchandising has been squeezed out of the show. What’s more, it creates competition and sets the bar higher for quality, as the show now has to sell itself to an audience with far more choice

If you want to extrapolate the idea of a Government having the power to block websites further, you inevitably face the prospect that this bill may be the first nail in the coffin of free speech on the Internet. This bill will set a precedence that says it’s fine for governments to block websites for any contrived reason when the one with the most money says it should. We cannot allow this, the line must be drawn.

As with a lot of technology markets, there is a neglected middle-ground in headphones that so far only Skullcandy has any real brand identity in; the problem is that Skullcandy’s memorable but garish designs are most definitely an acquired taste. Can the ‘duo’ headphones from Radiopaq, available for around £20, bring an air of understated style and quality to the melodic mid-range?

Radiopaq espouses the comfort of wearing the ‘duo’ headphones, and indeed they withstood prolonged use without making me look or feel like Gary Lineker. Rather than entombing the ears in the earpieces as most headphones do, the ‘duo’ instead presses lightly on the edges of one’s lugs with its enormous padding. Indeed, the whole headset is encased in so much padding that, had this not been a review model that I am obliged to return in full working order, I would’ve dropped it just to see if it bounced. However, the sad outcome of all this padding is a product that I am almost physically repulsed to touch, let alone wear on my head. Both the rims of the earpieces and the upper-headband are covered in padding wrapped in a slippery plastic coating that almost made my drop-test an inadvertent reality. Overall, I found the overuse of padding to be very off-putting. Sure, I’d much rather have that than a brushed metal finish that would cut into my cranium like a carving knife, but it still feels like overkill. Within the earpieces themselves, the speakers are covered in an oddly ill-fitting material that is extremely loose, feeling more like the underside of an elderly iguana (trust me). Where the wires meet the earpieces, the grips are also very loose, so unless you remain eerily still in listening to music, you’ll get the grating crackle of static if you knock the wire. The headphones are available in a wide-variety of colours, from low-key black to a green that I avoided for fear of it being radioactive. All things considered, the ‘duo’ headphones look and feel poorly built, though relatively cheap you would still expect better for the price.

But enough of my vain fixation on form, what about function? Well, the sound quality in these headphones is…fine. Just fine. I can’t fault them on sound quality, they certainly do better than cheap earbuds that make it sound like you’re listening to your tunes from the inside of jam jar, but at the same time they lack anything to make them particularly memorable. Radiopaq describes the bass as “defined [and] mellow”, which sounds like a terrific way of saying ‘imperceptible’. I don’t claim to have the ‘golden ear’ but I do have at least two semi-functional lugs that can’t detect any notable management of bass. Sound comes through crisp and clear, which I suppose is all you can really expect.

Portability is usually the deal-breaker when it comes to deciding between headphones and earbuds. If you’re studious enough to have a bag crammed with books but too much of a Luddite to have replaced them all with an eBook reader yet, then you won’t want to shoehorn a cumbersome set of headphones in there too. Luckily, the ‘duo’ headphones can fold in and out like a Transformer and tuck away rather nicely. The earpieces are lean enough that they could be fairly portable without this feature, but it’s useful all the same.

So if you’re looking for a set of functional and portable, if otherwise unremarkable, headphones, and you don’t mind feeling like you’re routinely handling a dead eel, then by all means look into Radiopaq’s ‘DJ-style’ duo headphones. If you’re willing to shell out a little more you can get more solidly build built, higher quality or even wireless headphones that will serve you far better. Incidentely, wireless headphones, with an average price tag of around £30, can double-up as a cheap Cyberman costume for Halloween when combined with tin-foil and a voice synthesiser.

Did it work? Well, Windows 7 was at least half decent, but between the beta versions and the final release nobody could really see that much difference. Microsoft had made a few token changes to it, but seemingly ignored most of the suggestions. So what’s their new approach to public testing of Windows 8? Do exactly the same thing, but for longer! Again, much like a Presidential campaign, we’re probably more than a year from the actual release of Windows 8, but the public dick-swinging has already begun.

If Apple have only shown us one thing from the massive success of the iPhone, it’s that independent developers are content generating goldmines. Apple can get content for their devices and make a nut-ton of money, without having to go through all rigmarole of coming up with ideas or employing and managing developers, only giving the original developers a share of the profit made. Palm then showed us that a device with an app-store, but without a decent amount of antecedent apps will fail miserably. Microsoft have opened up the first preview of Windows 8 with the hope that developers will begin developing apps for the platform early, ready for immediate edification by the disenfranchised masses come release day.

Not only that, Microsoft have finally realised that their attempt in Windows 7 to pre-empt the slowly rearing head of the tablet beast, which consisted solely of making the icons and taskbar a bit larger, wasn’t good enough. They were easier to see, but they were still stuck in awkward corners and edges of the screen that any tablet with the lightest of screen bezels would render unusable. Enter ‘Windows Metro’, a name that makes me think less of dynamic, on-the-go business and more of free newspapers and cramped cars. To their credit, the User Interface for Windows Metro is actually quite well designed, distinct icons arranged in the centre of the screen, trumping iOS’ arguably now rather dated UI by having these icons include feeds, such as news or weather and being far more colourful: great for an infantile mind like mine. A spacious onscreen keyboard and applications that appear to have had a lot of thought to the touch-screen put into them show very clearly where the bulk of Microsoft’s money in developing Windows 8 went.
Metro’s look has been polarising, some people adore it whereas others see it as a garish explosion at the Crayola factory. I can certainly see the Early Learning Centre colour scheme becoming a strain on the eyes after a while, and it would certainly look out of place being whipped out during a business meeting. But, at least for my part, I rather like the overstated eccentricities of the Windows Metro UI, but we’ll see how I feel after a few weeks of using it regularly, or when I grow beyond the mental age of six.

The Metro UI is not designed to be used on desktop machines, so Windows 8 contains a desktop mode for us knuckle (and mouse) dragging Luddites, which sadly is where we meet the same disillusionment we had with Windows 7. Microsoft is making such a big deal of the Metro interface because Windows 8, in its desktop mode, looks almost exactly the same as its predecessor. The average user will most likely see the identical design and see no reason to upgrade; for the slightly nerdier user, however, there’s enough going on under the hood to make it a must-have.

Windows 8 will be able to run on ARM processors, used in almost every tablet currently on the market, with the exception of the iPad, so we can see it feasibly challenge the Android stronghold. Unlike previous versions of Windows, the latest incarnation is designed to be a ‘one size fits all’ operating system; with the Metro UI built-in alongside the desktop blend, as well as support for low power netbooks. This also means that the minimum system requirements are slightly lower than Windows 7, because getting it to run on ARM chips meant a pretty big code overhaul. This also makes writing efficient applications easier and more engaging for developers, baiting the line to catch more cod(ers).

Microsoft have finally updated the Task Manager to show more useless information that will only matter to you if you’re testing software. A new addition is the display of disk status, showing when an I/O is active, the read/write speed of the current task and so on. If you have a fetish for number porn then this is the OS for you. Windows 8 finally sorts out that fiddly multi-desktop thing, and allows you to cram Metro-style feeds and link bars into the edges of the desktop-view window. You can now link your OS login with your Windows Live account, if you happen to have one, or you can replace the classic password on tablets with a ‘picture password’ where you press certain parts of the screen to unlock it using one of your photos as a guide to remember where to touch. In the event that you mess up your computer so badly you need to start over, Windows 8 now has a ‘refresh’ feature that will restore your computer to a clean OS install, but without deleting all your files and applications; which is nice of them.

Early testing of Windows 8 by TechRadar shows memory usage is down slightly from the already fairly frugal Windows 7, and the requirement of the software to run on lower powered ARM chips has given Microsoft the incentive to write more efficient code. But since we’re only looking at an early developer version, Microsoft still has plenty of time to stick in unnecessary bloatware before final release; and if history is anything to go by, they certainly will.

Though the Metro interface is cleverly designed, highly functional and finally gives Microsoft a strong contender in the tablet arena, if like me you have absolutely no intention of ever buying a tablet computer then you won’t use most of the new features in Windows 8. Of course, you can use the Metro UI on a normal desktop but since it wasn’t designed to be traversed by a mouse I can see that getting tiresome very quickly. There’s a fair bit going on under the bonnet, a few minor UI tweaks here and there but for the average user that won’t matter, and once they know that it’s desktop view is essentially the same as Windows 7, then what’s their incentive to upgrade? Again, we’re only looking at a version specifically meant to catch the attention of app developers, a crowd to whom substance is more important than style (looking at them, it’d have to be). But with a shiny new tablet interface to show off and a legion of low-maintenance programmers ready to build Microsoft a plethora of new features, the story will probably be much different in twelve months time.

First, let’s talk about Hitler. His fleeting cameo appearance was a mixed blessing. On one hand, it was good that they didn’t try and make an entire story out of it, having him in a 45-minute episode simply as puppy-stomping evil would’ve been boring, and if you try and show any character development you risk appearing to redeem Hitler. On the other hand, what an idea for a story! Though, as much as I would’ve liked to see a full story made out of this, and kudos to Moffat for taking the risk, it would’ve managed to piss somebody off, so better leave it alone.

On the Eleventh Doctor’s sudden attainment of the greatcoat, it’ll probably grow on me in the end but I don’t like it at the moment. Long, sweeping coats are a heroic staple as we’ve seen with Neo (of ‘The Matrix’), the latest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes (a character at present owned and operated by Moffat), Captain Jack Harkness and the Tenth Doctor; but the point is that they’ve been done to death by Doctor Who. When we saw that Matt Smith’s costume consisted simply of a tweed suit jacket, I thought that’d be a great chance to redefine some of the hero stereotypes. After all, how many superheroes do you know wear tweed jackets and bow-ties? Rather than going along with the trends, Doctor Who should be showing us why it’s been so influential and set the trends. Sherlock Holmes suits the coat, as does The Doctor, but since Moffat’s other show, Sherlock, uses it you would think that he’d noticed the recurring heroic themes. But that’s my only real qualm with the coat, I’ll probably get used to it and eventually want my own soon enough. Nerds, like Facebook users, quickly grow accustomed to change (sometimes).

The ongoing saga of River Song is, I have to admit, shattering my expectations. I certainly never expected they would show the regeneration of Melody Pond into the ‘River Song’ incarnation. But the idea that an earlier incarnation of Melody Pond knocked around with Amy for her entire life, going to school and hearing stories about The Doctor, seemed odd to me. Why would a child who was trained and raised to kill The Doctor, be content to spend 20 or so years with her mother at a young age rather than actively seeking out The Doctor. I suppose you could argue that regenerating into a young kid (evidently human/time-lord hybrids age normally) meant she was at a disadvantage, but that’s not just being a sleeper agent, that’s downright lazy.

Though I like seeing the story of River Song unfold, at the same time the limitations of telling an story onscreen will always be poignant. It’s the same reason why Doctor Who should never show the events of the Time War, because for all it’s glory and scale and tragedy, it could never live up to the expectations we have with the limitations of a special effects budget. If it’s going to be chronicled anywhere, it should be in spin-off novels where the imagination of the writer and the reader are unbound. So too should it be with the story of River Song, at least as far as origins.

I do, however, hope that we see earlier versions of Melody, possibly as the little girl seen in earlier episodes, as some sort of sinister antagonist who is shown to repeatedly try and kill The Doctor, whereas the older Melody is the River Song we know, I thought this would be a good way to seperate out the two personas. However, given that “Mels” met The Doctor for the first time here, it wouldn’t be possible within continuity, but there are ways around that.

Oh yeah! I mentioned in my series break review that The Silence turning out to be a species was disappointing, and that the only way it could be threatening would be if we were shown an identifiable villain. Now we learn that The Silence is actually a religious order out to take out The Doctor, and with that the mystery is restored. I love it!

Other than that, the story was a beautifully paced, competently acted and massively enjoyable story. Showing the Amy/Rory thing where she thought he was gay before they got together was a cute moment, and showed how influential Melody had actually been in their lives. But I do hope that Amy doesn’t take the whole “maternal like relationship with a schoolfriend who it turns out to be your daughter” thing as a good enough replacement for actually raising her daughter. I suppose the timelines now effectively forbid it, but still. Maybe when Karen Gillan finally elects to leave Doctor Who, there’ll be some massive deus ex machina that will rewrite history and allow Amy to be reunited with her infant daughter to live a normal life, maybe serving as a good exit for River Song also.

Describe yourself in three words.

I’d always thought this question to be simply a stereotype of job interviews, and nobody would seriously ask you so obscure a question as this. But no, apparently it’s a thing. A thing that happens.

I maintain that the very question is a trap. How can anyone answer that correctly?

On one hand, you can respond with three of the most undulatingly self-gratifying, generic business-speak answers, and sound like the most insufferably arrogant douchebag this side of Alan Sugar. The problem is that this is totally transparent, nobody would honestly believe that you consider yourself to be dynamic or driven or…. dastardly; anyone who does believe it will then think that you’re pretty arrogant to think so damn highly of yourself. Plus, it’s pretty likely that everyone before and everyone after you in the interview schedule has taken this same tact. Not only do you fail to give an answer that is in any way distinguishable, you’ve directly put a stain on your character that, though it may be overlooked in an objective job interview, certainly doesn’t earn you any respect with the interviewer. But maybe not, maybe they know that this is the inevitable consequence and they don’t take it seriously, in which case why bother to ask at all, unless (as I suspect) for malevolent glee.

The alternative is trying to appear unique or different. The problem with that is that any word that reflects you in a good light has already been usurped by Power-Suited fuckwits, and anything else risks alienating the interviewer or making it appear that you’re not taking this seriously. Even something fairly inocuous, like ‘considerate’, has the immediate implication of being submissive and being averse to taking charge of a situation: basically, it’s interview suicide. It’s not arrogant, and is a positive attribute to have, but the implications are too damaging to make it useful in an interview.

But surely someone of my voluminous vocabulary can procure a trio of words suitably generic in meaning but remarkable in execution. Words that ring with the strength of work ethic and character, but retain utmost humility.

Well, it turns out that I can’t. Try as I might I simply can’t bullshit to such an absurd degree, despite years of practice in the art. Therefore, in my own arrogance (which I assure you is genuine and not an unfortunate outcome of a loaded question), I assume the rest of you are similarly at a loss. So what’s the solution? I’d say that is obvious…we have to make it up. So we need three words that sound like genuine (but obscure) words which imply favourable attributes but also don’t sound too arrogantly assertive or carry any implicit connotations.

Dominamin Consideranistic Co-oporativen

Yes I know they’re terrible. If you can do better comment that shit.

So there you have it. The only way, insofar as I can see, to come off well in a job interview where this question is asked is to resort not to the analytical part of your brain, but the imagination. To get a job, in the 21st century, you have to make shit up; and it is for this reason that I maintain that this question is a trap.

Why, then, am I suddenly writing about the bespectacled ballbag? Well, partially for the page-hits, since journalists seem to be going to near Murdochian lengths to get any information on him whatsoever, short of phone hacking of course. But partially to speculate as to whether this speaks to the larger issue of the Murdoch press: the idea that they’ve become infallable. The phone-hacking scandal has been in the news for months now, but only when the most indefensibly dispicable crimes of NewsCorp came to light did the issue gain more pace and ultimately result in the demise of the News of the World newspaper. When it became apparent that politicians, like noted sausage-enthusiast John Prescott, had been victims of phone hacking, the world simply chortled at the government ending up with egg on their face (all but Prescott who, of course, ate it) and utterly overlooked the violation of privacy that lead to it. Yes, politicians have power that some will abuse, they’re human; but that’s exactly the point, they’re human! Regardless of corruption, they have a right to privacy just as any of us do, corruption should be uncovered through the meticulous investigation that the field of journalism was reknowned for, but not through violations as blatant as this. Not only is that illegal and immoral, it’s also straight-up lazy. It’s the same for celebrities, they have a personal life that gossip magazines love to report on, but any details should be obtained through legal means, not through a total disregard for their basic privacy.

Really, the downward spiral of the News of the World should’ve been months ago when the allegations, and then vindication, of phone hacking became apparent. The discovery that they had also hacked the mobile phone of Milly Dowler after her disappearance should’ve dealt the death blow to the Murdoch press, the final nail in the coffin; and undoubtedly the discovery would’ve been made much faster had the scrutiny that’s only now being applied to NewsCorp begun at the start of the scandal. Instead, NewsCorp was, through the inaction of the public, allowed to partially recover from the scandal before it was reignited by the discovery of Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked.

You can make the argument that a public figure or politician should be totally transparent to the general public, whereas a private citizen has no such obligation and so should be permitted normal privacy. I agree that politicians should indeed have no skeletons, but only in their capacity as politicians, outside of their office they should be permitted exactly the same rights as the rest of us. The defence of uncovering corruption does not change that. If they’re corrupt, then the journalists should go to all legal lengths to uncover it, there’s bound to be evidence of wrongdoing, otherwise the politician in question must be bloody good at it. I would rather have corrupt politicians than journalists who can violate people’s basic rights so flippantly with no recourse; for every instance of corruption amongst politicians, there was a thousand personal issues paraded in broad daylight that anyone with an ounce of sympathy would say they should’ve been allowed to keep quiet. It’s not proportionate, and we can’t make one rule for some and another for the rest.

As far as Murdoch’s suitability for a broadcasting license goes, that’s really a legal matter and thus not something I could comment on with any degree of expertise. I have, however, discovered that as the head honcho at NewsCorp, the decision of various regulators to grant licenses does take into account Murdoch’s character. If he knew nothing about the phone hacking, which is likely the story he’ll stick to, then he appears incompetent. If he was fully aware of the actions being taken, then he is malevolent. Neither case reflects well on Murdoch. I doubt this is enough to bring down the rest of NewsCorp, but with ongoing investigations it’s entirely possible that new twists and turns are to come.