Not one usually for emotive ponderings, but  I’ve been in a bit of a funk this week.

Mmy birthday didn’t go all that well, but I’ve never really been a birthday person – but as you get older you tend to get a bit more sentimental about such things. I’d taken the day off to mark the occasion, but as it transpired there wasn’t an awful lot of point in doing so, and I might as well have just worked through and ignored it completely.

Then a general lack of sleep, probably due to the funk itself created a feedback loop.

I’ve got my annual holidays (or the bulk at least) coming up starting mid-week and it will be good to get recharge for a bit, although a lot depends on the weather. April was stupidly good, May in comparison has been utter pants. There is time for the month to redeem itself – hopefully, or it’s going to be a bit boring for the two weeks.

Well, the birthday is a bit rubbish but it has given me the opportunity to catch up on the excellent Five Live early-morning debates hosted by Nicky Campbell – and I’ve just finished listening to the SlutWalk discussion.

The basic tenant of a SlutWalk is women walking in support of being able to wear whatever they like and protest that this should have no bearing on how they are then perceived sexually. It was a very politically correct debate for the most part, with people dancing around the issue – which wouldn’t have been the case twenty years ago. No, twenty years ago I’d wager some significantly more forthright, and probably cutting, views would have been put into the discussion.

However, for all the various nuances, my viewpoint is fairly simple.

If we were living in a utopian society, of course there would be no question of the clothes a woman wears having a negative impact. And even in our obviously non-utopian society, the vast, vast majority of men wouldn’t take the various states of undress as an open invitation to have sex with them. Problem is we don’t live in a utopian society, and there are less than fine, upstanding citizens out there who would and by force. And there is nothing anyone can do about it re: prevention – just like we can’t do anything about murder and all the other various forms of crime. You can punish, but no-one has yet solved the thorny issue of prevention.

Just like we have burglar alarms on our property and just like you don’t easily open your front door after dark, our society demands a certain degree of common sense. That I shouldn’t need to protect my property is exactly the same basic argument as is being used by those taking part in the SlutWalks – problem is that I do. Society is, unfortunately, broken and is, for want of a better phrase, full of scum who will take rather than earn. And I’ll bet that those on these marches hit their four-digit codes as they left their house, and locked their car – making sure there were no obvious valuables visible. In other words, they were minimising the risk. And if you do so for property, which is replaceable, then why would people not extend this paranoia to themselves? For some point of principle? Laudable, but high-ideals doesn’t offer any protection.

The world is a dangerous place to be, and therefore the concept behind the SlutWalk is naivety at it’s most dangerously, and idealisticly, foolish.

So, we’ve had the Alternative Vote referendum – and it wasn’t a close one. 70:30 against.

You’d have to say – in hindsight – it was a hideous miscalculation to hold it at the same time as the local elections – the debate was drowned out by local canvassing, and the cause was probably unfairly tarred with the infamous Nick Clegg Mark of Death (TM). Maybe a year on, with more groundwork, things might have been closer – but as we stand today, electoral reform is off the agenda for many years, probably a generation.

The Liberal Democrats appear to have shot their bolt now – no AV for the next election, and they’ve been acting as a punch bag for public anger against the coalition. The Conservatives are supposed to be a bunch of hard bastards, the Liberal Democrats are not. Of the two component parts of the Government, it’s the Liberal Democrats who are so off axis from their “advertised” position that the public are naturally going to beat them with a stick.

Where this will leave things in four years (or earlier) is unknown. They may ride the gauntlet of the public spending cuts, and achieve respectability in the eyes of the public – a “proper” political party, capable in Government. That’s the only thing left to play for. Or they may completely implode – a bunch of woolly idealists, thrown into the sharp end and ultimately incapable of justifying the their political party when it matters.

It’s frankly easy to be in opposition. Being made accountable for your actions is demonstrably harder.

Having really enjoyed Becoming Human, we come to the parent series proper – Being Human.

Series 2 was two episodes too long – Series 1 was perfectly packaged in six episodes, but Series 2 was eight. And I always had the impression that this decision wasn’t in the original plan and too much padding was put into the series arc – which wasn’t all that bad but thus suffered as a consequence.

The most notable – in a bad way – episodes being George suddenly exhibiting Tourette’s syndrome when he drugged his full-moon alter-ego, and the lamentable story of him finding a new love interest in the mid-season lull whilst Nina was shuffled off the chessboard as a non-series regular. However, this was closely followed by Michell leading the vampire version of Alcoholic’s Anonymous – and the vampire community just bending over and taking it – in stark contrast to the world domination plans lead by Herric in Series 1.

Compared to the brilliance of Series 1, Series 2 was occasionally superb – unfortunately often lukewarm.

So, Series 3 – what did we find? An almost total return to form as it happened, although the ending left something to be desired – on my part at least. Nina was promoted to a main character, and thus didn’t have to disappear for half the series and enabled the relationship with George to mature. The pregnancy storyline could be a lodestone for Series 4, but for this series the actual business of physically dealing with the offspring of two werewolves was delayed.

Big news was the introduction of Robson Green as McNair – a werewolf with an all-consuming hatred of vampires, having been turned in a cage fight for the sport of vampires. His presence illuminated every scene he was in – and was an example of perfect casting for the role. Less impressive was Michael Socha, playing his adopted son – a plank of wood would have been arguably better at times. McNair deserved a better endgame – it was a shame that the gruff, but honourable warrior went down in such a futile and inglorious manner.

There were some delightful self-contained stories, such as that of Adam – who then disappeared off as the starting point for Becoming Human. That story, and the story of the nightclubbing zombie, brought back the comic touch to the show which had largely been missing from Series 2 – which just seemed to take itself too seriously. The weakest was probably episode six, which George’s father – but weak in this context wasn’t that weak at all.

Of course, the overriding arc of Series 3 was the Wolf-Shaped Bullet and Michell’s spiral into self-destruction. The opening episode was incredibly strong, with the character of Lia just exuding menace behind her smile, taunting and then leading Michell down the path of paranoia and, as it happened, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The re-introduction of Herrick was superbly done, but was ultimately a disappointment. Reborn with total memory loss after the hasty resurrection at the end of Series 2, his zenith came at the end of episode 7 and the near-fatal stabbing of Nina – after Michell had foolishly restored his memories trying to find the secret of escaping death at the claws of a werewolf. The final episode however then seemed a waste – finally consigned to the grand coffin in the sky via the stake at the hands of Michell, just as their relationship was getting the dangerous menace of Series 1.

And this, in the end, was the flaw in Series 3. The death of Mitchell. As we found out on transmission night, the intention was for John Michell to survive the series – there would have been a different ending. However, with Aidan Turner departing for the world of The Hobbit, the final episode was re-written to bring the character to an end – which again was the choice of Turner. Given the choice of being shipped overseas or turned to dust, he chose the latter – which was an actor’s choice to be sure, but it wasn’t one of the program makers.

This left the high point of the season as the end of episode 7, not episode 8. Too many things felt “off” – suddenly the tight and careful plotting went astray. Lia, whom we assumed was the series antagonist, went from scheming minx, to misguided twenty-something. So full of rage and hatred at being killed at the hands of Mitchell, this instantly dissipated with some words from Annie – and not particularly clever words at that. We also never found out what gave Lia the ability to walk the world of purgatory as a power – in the end she was just another victim.

We had the new character of Windham crudely crowbarred into the series as a link to Series 4 – which felt the same as Herric suddenly being thrown back onto screen via resurrection at the end of Series 2. Obviously introduced as a replacement for Herric, this seemed rushed – and his introduction scene of waxing lyrical at police headquarters just felt forced and badly written. Herrick should have been retained – he was around long before Mitchell, and could have continued long-after. The dynamic of Herrick versus the household without Mitchell’s protection could have been a superb storyline moving forwards – and a natural progression.

Despite these concerns, the series payoff wasn’t all that bad – it just could have been better, and probably would have been if Toby Whitehouse knew that Turner was leaving at the end of the year.

However, the final act of John Mitchell asking for his life to be ended was an unsettling note for the series.

Since it’s inception, the question was could a supernatural live a relatively normal life and again be human. The answer in the case of John Mitchell, possibly the series lead, was a definitive no. No heroic exit, Mitchell twisted throughout the series through various shades of immorality, trying to save his own existence – and was on course to do so again at any price until brought short by the disgust of his best friend. Knowing himself incapable of the strength to resist killing more innocents, to resist bringing his friends into further peril, he asks for the cowards way out – death. No further fight against his nature, taking the harder path.

He surrendered to the futility of his cause, and therefore ultimately failed.

But as a positive, this final scene between Russell Tovey and Aiden Turner were superbly acted, and the image of Mitchell – turning to dust, with a smile on his lips at his escape from life and appreciation for the merciful act of his friend – perhaps at great personal cost – was a great one.

The imperfect final episode demotes the overall rating for the series to a note below perfect. 9/10.

I’ll be posting a review of Being Human later in the month, but first comes Becoming Human – it’s online spin off.

Of course, we say online but it finished it’s eight part web-only run with a full terrestrial, high-definition finale on BBC3. Whilst the BBC announced this as a reaction to it’s unprecedented popularity, with over 1.5 million views of the individual episodes, the timing of episode eight to finish the week after the Being Human finale suggests to me that this was the plan all along, unless the online presentation tanked.

Well, let me tell you it didn’t. I was hooked from the first episode, and I wasn’t expecting to be. Spin off’s generally don’t pass mustard, and a Breakfast Club version of a gothic horror wasn’t immediately selling itself as the best type of synergy. Leaving the web episodes aside for a minute, the daily content updates were well thought out and were certainly the reason for the growth of the audience. From 20-30 comments per day, well over 2000 were being left by the end. Admittedly half of them were the new community chatting amongst themselves, but that in itself was a testament to how much people were enjoying the concept, and how much they were prepared to spend of their time.

The television presentation, of all eight episodes edited together, might have lost the additional daily content, such as hand-held videos from the protagonists, various diary entries – but it blended eight weeks together very nicely and it certainly showed just how much the shooting script was run at breakneck pace. With a week between the web episodes, there was time for pause and reflection over the additional daily online content, but shown in one 50 minute format, the story was so tight, and told so fast that there was certainly a good 20-30 minutes more flesh which could have been put on the bones. Adam’s character was already well established in Being Human, and there was nothing additional here, but Matt and particularly Christa’s stories were largely untold – but the characters were anything but two dimensional.

I’ve chosen the inset picture deliberately as Christa (Leila Mimmack) is pictured front and centre. Adam (Craig Roberts) may have been the nominal lead of the piece, with his vampire continuing from Being Human, however Mimmack stole just about every scene as the werewolf in denial, angry at the world and yet terribly afraid of what she now is. Her character was stubbornly devoid of a back story. She was cursed as werewolf, likely during the previous six months, and there were hints about her ex-and-never-seen boyfriend possibly being the culprit – but that was as much as we found out. We were treated to her transformation, and despite only minimal prosthetics unlike Being Human, I thought her portrayal – aided by the direction – of the sheer pain and violence of the act was superior to Russell Tovey and Sinead Keenan.

Completing the teen-reboot of the concept was Matt (Josh Brown), taking as the ghost of the piece. His job was actually pretty tricky, given the script painted him to be fundamentally pathetic and not the sort of person you’d classically want to hang about with. That he got whacked after peeping at Christa and his first act in the trio was to lie to the others, to manipulate them to wreck vengeance against his school bully, left the character with some integrity issues. The later episodes allowed Josh to show a more amiable side to the character, and bridge the credibility gap to why Adam and Christa were still helping him – in particular Christa risking transforming in the sight of the others, and within the school and all it’s attendant risks.

By the end reveal, the we had a very likeable trio who were bound together and reliant on each other. Matt had found the first true friends of his life – and like Annie was happier as a ghost. Christa had found those she could be honest with, and Adam had found those better than he and who would keep him on the straight and narrow.

I certainly want to see more of them, and Becoming Human, in the future. However, “how” is up for debate. Whilst the online presentation was a rich experience, the 50 minute version was a pilot by any other name and I’d prefer any continuation to be in the same vein – a “proper” series shown on BBC3, possibly during the summer season away from Being Human proper.

They’ve certainly hit gold with the cast, which is more than half the battle.

Okay, a bad pun – as it’s now March and 2011 is moving at a fair pace.

Has been very similar the last couple of months, and not all that exciting – lots of work, raiding the new content in Cataclysm and some minor free time at the weekends – when I’m usually too tired to do very much, or just run out of gas by early evening.

The raiding has been the biggest problem, as it’s never run smoothly since the turn of the expansion. Why? Well, because people are selfish and don’t appear to think twice about letting you down with minimal apologies, or indeed none at all. Running a raid team has rewards, and it’s social but it doesn’t half suck the life out of you – forget Sudoku, the mental effort is leagues ahead.

But things are on the up. Some daylight at each side of work is welcome. And soon the garden will start growing. And the car will need detailing. So, here’s to March – and hopefully more time outdoors.

December was supposed to be a time of catching up with stuff, but it didn’t work out like that.

Firstly my mother broke her ankle and then got a severe chest infection and had to be rushed to A&E, and spent all of Christmas and New Year Day in Trafford General. Things were, let’s say, quite dicey for a while.

Second, the cooling to the top floor of our datacentre failed at 18:00 on Christmas Eve – I then left the building at 04:30 on Christmas Day, missed the midnight revelries and spent the day completely shattered. New Years Eve I spent asleep due to exhaustion by the time the clock rolled round to 22:00.

So, 2011 snuck up on me, and the end of 2010 passed me by. Let’s see what it holds.

There’s not been much being posted on the site recently, which is inversely proportional to how busy my life has been over the last month.

Obviously, there’s been the usual amount of time spent running Unity Path – my raid team in WoW. During October we finally scaled the mountain and killed The Lich King 25 Heroic. It took over four months, and the catharsis was huge as it finally hit the deck. There was an awful lot of time, pain, duct-tape and hassle involved – was it ultimately worth it. Yes, I think so. Has it made me think about the next expansion and the work/life/WoW balance – to be sure.

The major drain on time over has been my fathers website re: providing driving lessons, which I’ve spent a good forty hours plus putting together from a blank canvas. I have to say that I’ve not a website designer, I can’t draw or have any artistic leaning. But I am quite proud of the end result, which I think worked out far, far better than I had any right to expect. But I think that’s my one half-decent design for the next twelve months.

Now, I’m getting some proper free time back – but I am rather drained. Sitting down and writing takes some effort, even if it’s not heavy lifting. However, I’m intending to get some discipline back and update my blog.

Wind the clock back five years, and I was a cutting-edge mobile phone junkie. Between myself and the wife, we were paying almost £80 per month for two handsets. It’s quite amusing now to look back at those handsets and how primitive they were, but at the time the sector was expanding greatly and the companies could charge a mint.

I moved into the smart-phone market quite early, with the Sony-Ericsson P800. It was nice, but fundamentally it was just a nicer interface to text messaging. Web browsing was pretty dreadful, Office integration relatively laughable and data tariffs were far too expensive. Then I moved back to Nokia with the N95, which served me very well for three years. Over this time, various deals were done via Orange Retentions to lower my tarrif down to a mere £10 per month, for a reasonably comprehensive package and moved the wife’s phone to pay-as-you-go for the relatively minimal usage. When it came round to renewing the contract, I had a choice – keep the £10 per month tariff, with internet data thrown in as standard, or pay another £2.50 per month for a new Nokia 5230 handset.

I went for the handset. Was I correct in my choice, or was it going to be an expensive paperweight?

Well, I’ll answer this one straight off. It was a worthy purchase. It’s better than what it replaced – the N95 – other than the sound. What I can’t answer is how it relates to the current breed of smart-phone, such as the Android powered alternatives, let alone the iPhone. To answer myself, I’m sure the likes of the HTC Desire are better units. But the 5230 is a significantly cheaper unit. What I can say, with confidence, that this is likely one of the best value handset available today.

First of all, it runs Symbian S60 5th Edition. I’ve always got on with Symbian – it’s uncomplicated, reasonably designed and presented. The large screen is used to good effect, and after an hour with the new unit you simply don’t want to go back to a smaller screen and a non-touch input method. The phone is surprisingly light for the size, although the case does look a little too plastic. However, this doesn’t worry me as my first purchases for a phone are always a PDair leather case, and a Martin-Fields screen protector. The cased and protected product looks nicely professional.

The killer application for the 5230 is the in-built Ovi Maps 3.0, aka satellite navigation. I had Route 66 on my N95, but the lack of support for the product was starting to show. For a device at this price point, this is a strong proposition as it negates the need for TomTom or similar external tools. I’ve had cause to use this now for 4 significant trips, and it’s been a superb product – the navigation was good, and the in-journey notifications and tools all worked well. Voice directions, safety camera positions and traffic information is all included.

However, it’s not perfect. Not all native applications are fully touch compliant. Scrolling works, but by dragging the scroll bar directly, rather than the smooth and easy flick of a thumb. Future firmware updates I’m sure will improve this, but equally the platform is now being mothballed in deference to Symbian^3 so how comprehensive these firmware upgrades will ultimately be is open to question. However, this is just another irritation, along with the Symbian obsession with application signing. You can’t install anything on the handset without the application properly signed. The only route around this is to obtain developer level certificates, which can be done via some “backdoor” sources, or to hack the phone via third-party software. Like the Android handsets, there should be an option to override this and allow the user to be king in their own environment. Via these “backdoor” sources, you can get round this, but it’s hardly user-friendly for the novice.

Lastly, e-mail and web browsing are poor points of the in-built tools. Happily however, there are alternatives. Opera Mini/Mobile are comprehensive browsers, which work excellently and are free. I prefer Opera Mini over Mobile personally. Mail for Exchange is okay, but just not robust enough for business use. However, RoadSync 5.0 – which is available via Ovi Store – does the job better than the Windows Mobile client I have for my HTC. I bought this when it was under heavy discount, so it didn’t hurt too much, but as a standard offering the Exchange support needs to be better.

There are flaws and rough edges. More than a few. It’s not an iPhone, nor is it a HTC Desire. Symbian is showing it’s age. But the device is so affordable and feature packed, with the killer application of proper satellite navigation, that you simply ignore the flaws and embrace at the total proposition. As a phone, it’s around 25% of the price of the big boys, but it certainly doesn’t pack 25% of the features.

All in all, my verdict would be a 8/10.