I used to have a little bit of a newspaper reading habit, back in the days of office work – but I can tell you that the key interest was always in the supplements. The light relief. (There was some fairly serious crossword rivalry too, as I recall.)

So I’m now in the category of people who get their news via Facebook comments from other people. (Or occasionally a quick flick through a copy of Metro, on the bus.) For someone who considers themselves an internationalist, it doesn’t seem quite right.

It is far easier to respond to the rest of what’s happening in the world when you are not a parent. Once you are, there’s only so many demands on your emotional reserves. There’s a tension between your focus at home – and that on the outside world.

So I don’t do a lot of keeping up with the news, I confess – but it does mean I have the resources to focus on peace in our own small empire at home. (And there are days when it seems like UN peacekeeping forces should also be on standby for parents.)

But I gain perspective in a different way now. I see how others respond to world events – through Facebook, a bit, but also through reading other people’s blogs. I don’t just get my take – I get theirs. Not just the info – the emotional element.

America was pretty shaken up in the last few months with the school shooting in Newton, Connecticut. Start reading a few blogs, particularly blogs of parents in the US, and you get the true impact.

So yesterday there was another impact to deal with – the series of bombs going off at the Boston Marathon.  I had my own responses to that, partly with family not far away from there. Today, my reaction changed again – with reading the response Stateside.

Sometimes we are touched emotionally, when we have got all too used to blocking out the emotional aspects of the news. That’s a good thing.

And sometimes we are reminded of better responses – not just disbelief, or anger, or denial, but caring. There’s a great one here, from Lisa-Jo Baker.

Or another on Facebook, reminding us that when there are ‘scary events’, there are also helpers. People who are working hard to support, to care, to restore.

It reminds me that what we see on the news is limited. Our responses to events are affected by so many other factors: our proximity, our history – our memories.

I am thinking of people in Boston today. And I am grateful to be finding a different way to take in the news.

It’s not Politics with a capital P. But it is people. And news is really all about people, in the end.

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Today’s writing – a rather melancholy theme, and an attempt at a villanelle poem for the first time.

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The Economist has been the way I ‘connect’ with the real rather than the virtual world over the last ten years and I think it may have just lost the plot.

We are being encouraged to save more – or at least pay off our own debts – and buy less so that we don’t get into debt in the first place.  To find a voice that is so usually sensible suggesting that a nation of savers has got it all wrong is a bit of a shame.

Germany is Europe’s best hope of encouraging a change towards responsible citizenship, enlightened laws, local action and green industry.  I wonder if Cameron, Osborne, et al will berate Merkel for her country not buying enough tat.  Hopefully not.

Having just bought something of value – a watch – the first one I’ve bought since 1995 (or worn since 2003 if I’m honest), we should indeed be saving more and spending less.

Tut, tut Mr Economist.  Go for it Mrs Merkel… get those Euros in the bank.

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Talk about an outpouring.  I didn’t sit and count how many comments(though it was a fairly interesting indication of how many different countries now view the programme, one way or another), but there must have been nigh on a hundred responses on a BBC page.

It did make me think back to my own reaction when another leading lady, Trinity, was killed in the final part of the Matrix trilogy.  I may not have been ‘in shock’ and all the other descriptions when Marion was killed, but I do remember the shock seeing it happen the first time, as it were.  (After all, sword through the middle vs large metal pole through the middle – not a lot to choose between them as a way to go.)

Here’s one way in which the internet is interesting – if you do feel upset, cheated (or equally elated, amazed) about the outcome of something you’ve been following, you can quickly find some more people who share the same opinion, or round up a few if you’re an early commenter.

It’s worth noting that only about 10% of those who commented upheld the way “Robin Hood” was handled – the rest laid in with some pretty strong adjectives describing the distress viewers had.  Maybe it’s more so because “Robin Hood” was seen as a family show.  (I do struggle with that a bit, given the amount of death and bloodshed shown in it week by week.)

But clearly, Marion’s character had impressed on the feisty heroine front.  It seems we have a need for such roles on TV. One person commented on comparisons between Billie Piper’s character of Rose (in “Doctor Who“), and that of Marion, as an indication of how strong female roles are really popular with viewers, but get stopped after a while.

I wondered why this has such a shock factor.  Is it because we are unused to seeing female characters die in film or TV?  Is it because we don’t normally see female characters who are also fighters?  It’s worth bearing in mind that it’s only relatively recently that women in the British army have been allowed into frontline positions, and some are still unhappy with this decision, even though there are women who are prepared to serve there.

Are we upset at the death of a woman, or the death of the love interest?  Or are we just shocked at story conventions being turned upside down?  I remember a similar reaction at the downbeat ending of “Twin Peaks“, nearly two decades before.  It seems to be worse where a couple show signs of getting together in a drama, and then the opportunity is taken away from them.

This is a long post already; I’ll bring things to a close.  But I think it’s interesting to see what people demand of their entertainment, and why, in relation to ‘real life’.  Deputy article following soon.

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Sunday does seem to be a day for comfort food versions of TV though.  One of the Channel 4 repeats channels had wall to wall recent Jamie Oliver episodes – everything to do with the veg you’ve just grown (so I guess food does come into the picture again, unsurprisingly).

Equally, there’s this newish channel called Dave which shows lots of episodes of QI (hurray) but equally doesn’t stint on Top Gear (can do, but less what I’d choose to put in).

Nothing like Sunday night for a travel programme, and as that nice Mr Palin has done his stint in Eastern Europe, it’s over to Charlie Boorman and Ewen MacGregor to get down and dirty riding motorbikes from the north of Scotland to the tip of the African continent.

More swearing than on PalinTV (though there may be a certain amount off camera, one would anticipate), but also some heart – Ewen going off camera when affected by how many children face living in areas with landmines, on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border.

Our regular comfort food TV for a Sunday – West Wing repeats – have been moved over to a Saturday slot.  The things they do when they hear you’re out of the country, eh?  They even mucked about with the TV format in the Saturday Times TV section, which has until now been one of the clearest to read.

Lest it be said that we spend all our free time watching TV, I would note that a good TV guide makes it much easier to work out what you DO want to watch, rather than channel hopping via the selection onscreen.

Dan’s version of comfort food TV would probably have to include black and white Sunday matinees, as a result of spending time at his uncle and aunt’s while younger.  Not a bad investment when you grow up and discover that knowledge of black and white films offers a certain level of trendiness…or so we are still led to believe.

For those of a certain era, surely the testcard would have to be the final option in comfort food TV (though Dan has also watched Open University programmes put on at very late/very early times, another of those store cupboard staples of programming).

Whatever your meat (or poison), hopefully such stuff allows you to be suitably soothed on a Sunday night that you can face the week ahead.  So far, so good.

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Ten years…well yes, it’s about Tony Blair, but also about me and Dan.

We chalked up ten years together at the end of April.  Admittedly, we then spent a lot of the first year apart, while I was teaching in Poland, and Dan was finishing his degree, plus a few work trips on either side since then, but it’s still a decade of thee-and-me, which is quite something.

So yes, our relationship has been played out with Blair in the background, and all the New Labour developments.  We predate Tony’s election result by a few days, but thankfully we aren’t now off to do speaking tours around the world.  (Occasionally, it feels slightly like that on the odd work trip…)

Given that we’re in the generation which had never really known anything but Tory governments until New Labour came to power, it’s quite something to see the end of another long-running campaign.  In addition, with the swing towards SNP in the recent Scottish elections, the political background is set to change quite a bit more.

Here’s to another decade in power meanwhile…(sorry love.  Both of us.  Really.  Of course.)

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It’s easy to say that the polluter should pay – though does this really work? We all think that multinationals like BP, Shell, etc., should pay more if they pump nasties into the biosphere, but what about us? If you take the principle to the logical conclusion, we should pay more tax for the amount of rubbish we produce and pay more tax on the fuel that we use.

I wonder whether consumers are motivated more by ease and pleasure than by saving money. We could all save a lot of money by not going on nice holidays to somewhere warm and most of the people I know who drive could save lots by driving smaller cars – but the thing is – we don’t.

2. Reduce tax for good behaviour – 1p/£1 for each category
If we were to be encouraged to do good rather than punished for being bad, I wonder whether we’d do better. We could get tax breaks for doing good stuff. Perhaps a penny off income tax if you use public transport, another penny off if you reach recycling targets and a penny off if you switch to alternative energy use.

Companies could be encouraged by doing the same – less corporation tax if they behave well – rather than considering it as an extra cost. By giving a carrot rather than a stick, consumers and companies would have a reason to do good.

If you meet all the good criteria you have more money to spend to boost the economy (potentially inflationary) or to put into pensions / investments / savings.  You will probably have spent some money to achieve some of the criteria needed to get the reductions in tax.

It might be that the reductions in your own pollution comes off your council tax rather than your income tax, but then that’s a topic for the next post . . . how to get your tax from you.

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I’ve been thinking of putting money into some funds that give a high return, but couldn’t be described as being environmentally friendly (natural resources) or ethically sound (China), but would produce a good return where I could then decide what I do with the profits.

Up until recently it was a bit of an academic point, but with the approach of the ISA tax-free deadline I have to decide what to do. I’m probably going to wimp out and keep the money in the bank – staying liquid and giving myself the option to buy a car instead. It’s all about long-term gain vs short-term benefit and for the moment I don’t feel like being particularly high-minded.

Brown’s budget this week didn’t set a particularly good example. He’s made the tax system more complicated than ever and made it easy for his political enemies to make accusations that it’s only about winning votes. Unfortunately it was a lost opportunity to win more people around – the people who are likely to switch from Labour to the Conservatives when he’s Prime Minister.

So, what would I have done if I was Chancellor? Well, that’s a question I’ll answer over the next few days. I’m going to start off by suggesting that we have a flat rate of tax – a particularly easy one to suggest, but one that I think would kick start our economy in a massive way, so:

1. Flat rate of tax
20% for everything – all income tax, corporate tax and inheritance tax
Let the government play with the allowance levels, not the rates. That makes it easier for all of us.

More to come . . .

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Don’t worry reader, I’m not an arch-Tory, but I do think that the UK really needs some engaging public debate on policy and with people thinking that the Conservatives might drift back to Thatcherism, we’ve got another eight years of New Labour to look forward to.

Every government needs a credible opposition. I’m looking forward to a New New Labour and a Conservative Party that is re-engaging with the British people. Add a re-invigorated Liberal Democratic Party and we can see some proper movement when Gordon takes over.

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Inigo are working with a government body that shares its reports with the bodies that it writes reports about. We’ll be implementing an RSS news feed (to be confirmed) between the body and local authorities to share those reports.

Under the Freedom of Information Act and the ability for citizens to be able to see data held about them, it would be a one stop shop – benefits, tax, medical, legal, etc. Why not put all the data in the hands of those who govern us? They can then make responsible, sensible decisions. After all, the info that they have is currently not much good for joined up government if the information isn’t joined up.

The ideal scenario (if it all works) is that as soon as all of the info is together in one big database, the Inland Revenue will see what I’m earning and recommend ways to invest; for libraries to see that I’ve got a planning application lodged with my local authority and recommend books I might like to read about it and for my doctor to let me know that next time I go to Africa, I might like to have a particular set of jabs.

When I move I only need to tell one organisation and if the passport authority see that I’ve left the country, another government department doesn’t try to call me at home. It’s all very obvious. It’s all very sane. Little brothers are already watching, we might as well just have one really big brother who knows us really well than dozens who hardly know us at all.

Think of it as a citizenship clubcard. No points, just better services and an easier life. Those with nothing to hide need have nothing to fear. Those who have something to hide better get used to some smart government. The politicians aren’t that smart – but that doesn’t mean that the machinery of the state needs to be dumb.

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Chechnya and the oil fields of Central Asia feel like a million miles away, but the intrigue and murder happening on our own soil feels like we’ve been violated.  Why are we so surprised?  Why are we thrilled by the chase and death in the Bourne Supremacy, but when it turns up in a familiar environment do we throw up our hands and wonder where the world is going?

London has always been an international city.  While it has benefited from the wealth of the Russian oligarchs and become the playground of the oil-billionaires, it is now also a battle ground seeing the settling of scores and the death of enemies.

We are seeing a restructuring of the world around us – an unfortunate globalisation of assinations alongside our cola, computers and other comforts.  We shouldn’t be surprised if more of this is to happen.  As London becomes richer and a place where the world does business instead of New York, it is going to see more danger. 

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