Political Penguin

Right, that’s got your attention. No we’re not talking about Walsall Council elections here, something far more important. Warning, this article contains flippant remarks that are present solely for the purpose of amusement, if you find them in any way offensive or in bad taste as they may refer to issues that I accept are wholly more serious then don’t read on.

Watched with increasing despondency last night the results of the Eurovision semi-final. We really like Eurovision in our house, I know it’s not to everyone’s liking, more outright hatred from some but we enjoy it.

Anyone who follows Eurovision will have noticed the development of a particular axis of power when it comes to voting that has come about over the past decade. That of the ‘Balkan block’. Jon has a nice little graph over at his website that represents this quite well. Put simply, last night quite a lot of crap got through (crap even by Eurovision standards that is) to the final on the back of various little countries who used to be part of one country all voting for each other.

One has to wonder whether all the conflicts these countries have had over various parts of the last 15 years wasn’t just simply a ruse to split up so they could maximise their votes and stitch up Eurovision. What possible other explanation could there be for countries who’s people up to a few years ago were trying to blow each other brains out, suddenly feeling so inclined towards each other to spread the most points to each other?

So there you go, thanks to the expansion of the Former Yugoslav Republic’s of we want our street to be a different country to your street, we have a completely stitched up voting system in Eurovision and the constant presence of crappy south eastern European acts.

However, there is a solution, a way we could bring pride back to our own fair isle, it’s simple. We break up the Union. So let’s think about it, obviously there’s Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, that gives us a combined voting power with England of 48 votes. Still a bit on the short side to really stitch things up. OK, how about Cornwall, its got its own flag and some people can still speak the language, that’s 60 votes, and, erm, the Shetland Isles and Orkney, that’s us up to 84 votes but that still a bit tight for Eurovision domination. Isle of Wight can declare independence as well to boost us up to 96 votes in total. I think we’re running a bit thin on options now. Hang on, there’s always the Falkland Islands, no doubt they’ll argue they’re not in Europe but neither is Israel and they let them into the competition.

Our only option is a complete dissolution of the Union so that we can take 108 votes into Eurovision and break up the power of the Balkan Eurovision empire, and there you go, about the most convincing and coherent argument you’ll ever hear for the breaking up the Union.

On a side note, I’m going to be interested to see how the voting goes between Estonia and Russia this year. Usually you can guarantee a good few votes passed between them but although Russia’s bound to get a fair few from Estonia, hey the Government can stitch things up to disenfranchise a large swath of its own population of Russian ethnic origin but it can’t stop them owning phones. Whether Russia will be so inclined to return them this year is going to be interesting see.

Little Penguin has developed a novel method for combating sock puppets.

This whole blogging thing is starting to get slightly out of hand in our household. Little Penguin’s at it and now Mrs Penguin’s at it as well. However thankfully I’ve convinced her to have a proper site a ditch that MySpace crap. Duly added to blogroll or I’ll get it in the neck.

Who knows, might even be able to coax her away from her crappy Windows operating system and get her on to Linux. Well, we can live in hope.

Just before I head off out on the campaign trail I thought I’d drop this distinctly non-political post.

Apparently 35% of Europeans have no concept of physical laws.

The article I’m referring to is this one about a survey carried out by Motorola regarding European online viewing habits. The bit I’m particularly bemused about comes right at the end.

“Other findings of the survey included 45% of respondents expecting to be able to make video calls via their television by 2012 while 35% wanted to be able to pause, rewind or fast forward live broadcasts.”

Now unless 35% of Europeans are convinced that by 2012 the human species will have risen to such technical heights as to be able to port future images to the present then they’re just simply daft. Pray tell, how does one fast forward a live event? It by its very definition is live, therefore circumstances that may be viewed through the use of fast forward simply haven’t happened yet, so short of circumventing physical theory it remains completely impossible. One then has to wonder what credence one gives to a survey in terms of if the option was provided by the survey taker Motorola or indeed the responses to it.

Little Penguin has finally got round to rebuilding his website. Drop by, take a gander, say hi. He’s a little smarty pants trying to upstage his father by sticking bits of AJAX (that’s a technical web thing not the cleaner) in his site.

I had my big toenail pulled out today because it was ingrowing. It is sodding painful beyond belief and I’m sure will keep me off leafleting for the rest of the election campaign.

Here’s to a week of annoying Mrs Penguin because she knows I’m awful to be around when I’m sick or can’t do things.

Anyway, happy St. George’s day to everyone.

sticking to the family related posts tonight.

I don’t know if other fathers go through this but following on from the birth of my son I have a strange urge to garden. It wasn’t there before to any large extent but now the garden is turned over to the production of wholesome food for the family.

What is more exciting is when the first shoots of the plants break through the surface of the soil and you know they’re on their way. So just to share my own amazement at the wonderment of nature here’s the radishes:

and the peas:

I think I should take a bit of a rest now. Been in the garden all day and might have picked up a little heat stroke.

Yes, iggle piggle. It’s not often that there is a situation that unites bloggers of varying political perspectives but I have to also include myself with Tom Watson, Dizzy and Mike Ion on this one.

For some strange reason my referrals have been going a bit hectic for ‘iggle piggle’ lately and I haven’t even mentioned them. I have to admit that despite having a young child like Tom and Dizzy our Little Penguin doesn’t seem too interested in childrens TV, preferring to only watch adverts, Taff on Pro Sieben and having an unhealthy interest in German soap operas.

Trying to get him into Sandmann.

As regular readers will know Mrs Penguin went away for the weekend with a friend and I had a brief experience at being a single parent.

Admittedly I wasn’t alone the whole weekend, my parents chipped in when I had to go out and do a few things but jobs like getting him off to sleep, making breakfast, changing and getting him to sleep were very much in my realm. Plus of course things like gardening, washing up, clothes washing and ironing – well sort of.

I managed to get all these jobs done but notably without any actual time to myself. I think that the whole weekend afforded me a sum total of 2 hours free which I used to simultaneously watch the Bahrain GP and make a start on my Lego star destroyer. Sorry, that should be my son’s Lego star destroyer, I am of course just building it for him.

However that was an interesting experience. Actual personal time to one’s self is next to non-existent with a small child when you are on your own. I’ve learned one thing from this experience that the last thing I would ever want is to be a single parent. I can remember the time back in the 90′s when the Tories were vilifying single-parents as being a bunch of sponging layabouts living off benefits and of course the routes of all societal evils, they don’t say much about them these days, after all they’ve found asylum seekers to fill that gap.

I suppose if you are lucky, have a good understanding employer you might be able to be a single parent and work while the child is at school but in the first few years unless you’re on a high income and can afford costly childcare then it is simply impossible to not fall into a position of dependence on the state unless grandparents can be drafted in. It’s certainly not an enviable existence when you consider it.

Anyway, I coped, Little Penguin was happy but the late nights when I normally get my free time weren’t possible because he wanted to curl up and sleep with me. I only failed to do the ironing, not out of laziness but simply that despite being rather nifty at most things electrical I haven’t got a clue how to work the iron so I gave up.

That said, a very interesting and eye opening experience, well worth it.

Just a brief post to explain that over the next 36 hours or so blogging will be slow. Mrs Penguin has gone for a weekend away with a friend and I’m enjoying the wonders of being a single parent for the next day and a half. Actually I have been since yesterday afternoon hence no response to various comments on the previous post last night.

Will get round to replying to them in the next hour or so while I have a little free time but anyone who’s after an immediate response after that will have to wait for any bit of free time I can muster between now and tomorrow evening or simply just have to wait till then. Sorry for that.