Charlie's Diary

Charlie Brooker agrees with you.

*Hides behind sofa*

Jean-Charles de Menezes would still end up dead.

Good one!

The trouble is that most people know the 21st Century Daleks, who can fly. So the running-up-stairs reflex is somewhat muted. It's only old fogeys like us who have the desired reflex.

Of course, this could have the beneficial effect of thinning out the disrespectful little juvenile bastards who are clogging the streets.

I imagine there'll be just as many Brazilian false positives, but at least there will be stylish pepper-pot-wearing tentacled aliens on hand.

Fazal @3: You are correct: but rampaging Daleks couldn't possibly be any worse than the current lunacy. And at least they'd give the politicians someonething they could safely blame when the inevitable happened, rather than going into a hypocritical fandango and trying to blame the victim for Looking Suspicious In A Built-Up Area.

I don't like Daleks. Could we use dinosaurs instead? Or trebuchets?

I don't think the tunnels are tall enough for a good treb. Same goes for the better dinosaurs. (Because if you're not bringing in a T. rex, why bother?)

"extimerate!"

Megan @ 9

How about a small pack of velociraptors instead? They'll even clean up the mess.

Yet another sad thing about America is this is such a great idea but it would never work because only geeks would understand what to do.

ANd for the life of me I cannot even think of an analog for Daleks here in the states. Darth Vader? Slimer? Roseanne Barr?

Now see, this is why I'll probably never go to the UK. I can't use stairs or escalators, I need elevators. Are the Daleks going to let me wait for the damn things to come to my level, assuming the station even has elevators?

Sorry, I just flashed on a image of Ken Livingstone as Davros. C'mon, you have to admit there's a resemblance...

Bruce @ 11: Actually, velociraptors may be a good idea. They'll have the same effect on folks who were kids when Jurassic Park came out as the Daleks will on the older folks. There's only a three- or four-year gap between levitating Daleks and cunning raptors, so that should cover much of the target non-terrorist population.

Chang @ 12: The raptors may solve this problem, but...would it really be such a loss if the American non-geeks were exterminated?

Marilee @ 13: Yes, I suspect the Daleks would wait and ride up with you.

First, Let's hope the "Snitches get Stitches" graffiti doesn't show up there, as it has here, in some neighborhoods in the larger US cities.

And, the problem with any "actual" Daleks is that they'd exterminate any human who didn't have big, clunky headgear turning them into robots.

Marilee: in London, the buses and taxis are wheelchair-accessible. The tube ... not so: about 10% of the stations are wheelchair-accessible, the rest are dire. On the other hand, there are a lot more buses than you'll be used to seeing anywhere in the US. And they all have 8-12 CCTV cameras on board.

I think a call of "Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition" would be much better. Brits of the right age would know to dive away from the 10 ton weight, leaving our hapless terrost to get squished.ri

Charlie @ 17: Are these all real CCTV cameras on buses? I ask, because here in the states, there seems to be a trend to put fake cameras on buses.

Not even very realistic ones, either - obviously fake. I think the idea is that anyone who's going to cause trouble on the bus is probably too dumb to notice.

Of course, there's also the occasional real camera on the bus, typically hidden or at least inconspicuous.

*crying with laughter*

Also, law-abiding citizens would know to start carrying 15-foot-scarves - those always seemed terribly effective.

Chang@12: Geek or die, says I!

You forgot the old maxim: Real Daleks don't fly up stairs. They level the building.

Ah but you see all we'd need to do is ensure that the BBC run older versions of Dr Who, as a public service.

As we all know - the bally terorists can't tune in jolly english TVs, and don't watch all that BBC rubbish. We'd re-educate the nippers in a flash.

Of course if we could maybe leave this off at the Kensington Garden Stop. I'd rather pick shrapnel out of my teeth that run up those stairs...

Justin @19: yes, they're genuine cameras -- and to prove it, there are screens at the front of the bus, cutting from camera to camera, just to remind the passengers. (A brace of 8 CCTV cameras and a frame-grabber board for a PC sells for about 200 quid at Maplin's, less if you buy them wholesale.)

They may be real cameras, it's just that whenever they are needed it 's quite rare for them to have real tape in the recorder...

Alex: wanna bet that within the next couple of years they won't start uploading in real time to a hard disk back at the bus company head office via HSDPA or WiMax?

I'd best most of them are recording to HD anyhow. There's no sound, and they use real lossy crappy compression - but it gets an image that can be used.

Watch "Watchdog" for a couple of weeks, you'll be suprised how many people are caught by Daleks...
I mean bus security cameras.

I firmly believe that Daleks are the answer to many of the world's problems... :)

Maybe in the US we can use old school chrome Cylons?

It is quite commonplace that CCTV footage of any given incident is too bad to use/mysteriously missing. I suspect there are a lot of unworking ones out there.

Chang@12 the closest analog us Americans have to Daleks is Klingons. Sad really.

28: I assume that is sarcasm.

After the foiling of the Glasgow Airport attack earlier this year, I was able to explain to my colleagues "You see? You probably thought the apparently drunk Glaswegians on every tube platform are just tramps. Not at all! They're just waiting for a suicide bomber to turn up, then they'll leap into action and banjo him!"

ajay@30: I'm glad to see someone else subscribes to my consipiracy theory too...

Headline from one of the local [Scottish] tabloids the day after the attack on Glasgow Airport: I KICKED BURNING TERRORIST IN THE BALLS SO HARD I BROKE MY FOOT.

This blog does not endorse kicking burning terrorists in the nuts hard enough to cause self-injury. Nevertheless, and in view of the circumstances surrounding the incident: I confess I laughed.

The Daleks have completely infiltrated the US government. They passed a law requiring all buildings to place ramps on stairways. Sure they say it is to help wheel chair users but we know it is really to enable a Dalek invasion.

I have one concern; what if someone is foolish enough to release a Yeti onto the Tube at the same time? Some kind of lame multiple villain episode or complete devastation?

Reactions to terrorists

England: Searches, CCTV, and the occasional gunned down tourist

Scotland: Repeated kicks to the testicles.

Point, Scotland. Indeed, when you count the humiliation, I'm thinking a swift kick to the nuts is a far better answer.

There are quite a few people I'd like to kick in the testicles.

Justin @19- there have been CCTV and screens on buses here in Edinburgh for so long that I have forgotten when they started putting them on. It might well be 6 or 7 or 8 years.

Alex the yorkshire ranter- I read your post and had a scan through the report on the De Menezes shooting/ murder. Either there has been a deliberate cover up, or the technology used for the surveillance society that they are forcing on us is pants, and not fit for purpose. But not just the technology, just the simple quality control and maintenance. Either way, the gvt and their pals look really stupid and incompetent *. But somehow this simple fact is not put out in the media much at all.

It is also possible to travel from Edinburgh to Nodnol, across it from Kings Cross to somewhere past Richmond, then back again, all in one day, by train.

*like the management at work. For example, in the past 2 years we have had nearly 20 prohibition and improvement notices from the HSE.

Megan@15, you think they'd see me as a piece of equipment, too? I'd have to use a wheelchair to get around, so maybe they would!

Charlie@17, yeah, I knew the tube was already out of range. I was being silly.

six@33, ramps on stairs wouldn't meet the ADA. They have to be next to stairs or somewhere at the back of the building after you go through the trash area. There won't be any curb cuts until you get around back to the front, either.

I just came back from walking the picket with Writers Guild of America (West) outside the main gate of Paramount Studios today. Harlan Ellison gave quite a hellraising speech to the crowd. What it says in Ansible about the new J. J. Abrams Star Trek movie and Harlan's characters is categorically denied by Harlan. I believe Harlan. Interesting to hear this next to the home of Star Trek.

Then back to Caltech for the annual Division of Physics. Math, and Astronomy Holiday party. I kept pointing out Kip Thorne to new students and saying: "That's one of the top writer-producers of Science Fiction movies." (executive produced by Linda Obst, in some sense stemming from their contacts since Contact and Carl Sagan)

I also complemented Ed Stone (former head of JPL) on how even the mainstream press was quoting him this week on "the solar system being lopsided" based on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 (he was Chief Scientist) hitting the helioshock at different radii.

And I met Caltech's new Director of Corporate Development, Sandya Narayanswami, who spent her most time in London, worked 25 years on the centromere, and whose thesis advisor discovered the nuclear pore. She was adamant that C.P. Snow was wrong about "The Two Cultures."

Nice to know that this is true simultaneously in Science Fiction, and in science universities!

And, of course, the alternate worlds of Mr. Stross.

guthrie@36: Sometime shortly after 2000, because I remember them being a new surprise when I came home from university one holiday. I don't think they had them when I was still commuting to school and back. LRT probably rolled them out with the new, more streamlined buses - I can't offhand remember if the older ones got backfitted with them, since I usually only use a couple of routes - so if you could find out when that happened it'd probably tell you.

Before that they had cameras - or, rather, they had one camera in a housing at the front of the top deck and no indication if it was working, broken, if the lens was obstructed, etc etc. The usual consensus amongst us small children was that they probably only had them in a fraction of the buses, to save money, but had the signs up in them all.

It still seems weird and a little sinister to me to think of a country covered in CCTV cameras the way the UK is... in public places anyway. We do have them in stores and at ATMs here.

It's also amusing to me that there's another Andrew Gray who posts here. Sometimes I find myself wondering when I wrote something before I realize it wasn't me... :)

With close to 8 000 read SF titles under my belt,
I am ripe to buy an e-reader for the simple reason
that many books are getting to heavy to hold.

I will be very fussy when I do buy one, it must have
adjustable font settings, I don't want too much
backlight as I am light sensitive, and the reader
shouldn't heat up the way laptops do.

aah yes and thanks for the many hours of good reading
I've gotten out of you, enjoyed Iron Sunrise recently !

42, I spent several seconds expecting your post to be a poem. I'm crushed!

Andrew Gray@39: And yet the cameras seem to have been completely useless in the case of that comedian who was queerbashed on the bus last year. I don't think they've even managed to charge anyone over that incident.

Andrew at 39- yes, that sounds about right. They didn't, as far as I can remember, retrofit them. But they were taking the pre- E reg buses out of service by that time, and even the E reg, which were nice and new and fancy when I was bussing to school, were not fitted with anything more than 1 camera.

Seraphin at 26- yes, the bus ones record to HD. The problem is that in the Stockwell case, the bus HD apparently jumped/ missed recording or something, in a manner similar to what happens due to vibration (allegedly) and also the HD was due replacement or reapir due to vibration effects anyway, but somehow that was not done when it should have been.

Many years ago, for the Imperial College rag day, I got to drive a Dalek (the Royal College of Science mascot) up and down Kensington High Street. Believe me, letting a Dalek out in public causes complete and utter chaos.

I also probably traumatised a small child for life: sitting quietly in the thing after my minders had gone off for a quick pint, a young boy shyly walked up to the pepperpot I was in and almost inaudibly said "bye bye Mr Dalek." I am ashamed to say I waved a sink plunger back at him. I have never seen a five year old move so fast in my life...

It's actually quite easy to avoid almost all CCTV coverage here in Scotland - leave the city.
Now that we have this interweb thing I now live in the Highlands and mostly work from home (web programming), buy food locally (or grow it) and use Amazon for my SF book addiction! :-)
Until I started reading this post I had forgotten about the cameras on LRT buses, when they first appeared it made us kids behave for at least the first two mornings on the way to school but after that it was back to normal.

I'm looking forward to Halting State in Jan - it's been ages since I had a new Charles Stross novel to read but it isn't all bad as I am currently working my way through all Ken Macleod's books!

Even small to medium highland towns like Elgin are getting it now, for problems which as far as I can see merely require proper policing and a bit of community work.

"I cannot even think of an analog for Daleks here in the states. Darth Vader? Slimer? Roseanne Barr?

Posted by: Chang | December 12, 2007 9:51 PM "

Those Daleks were around when I was a kid in Detroit, probalby because of the BBC stuff coming in from Windsor. I never did like their voices. Anyway, we might replace Daleks with any number of devices, such as the Robot from Lost n Space, or perhaps just HAL.

Jeff

Re: 38

IMDB confirms that the working title of the 2009 Kip Thorne Science Fiction movie is "Interstellar" -- produced by Lynda Obst and Steven Spielberg, original music by John Williams, cinematography by Janusz Kaminski, film editing by Michael Kahn, from the screenplay by Jonathan Nolan.

Production companies: Amblin Entertainment, Lynda Obst Productions, Paramount Pictures; Special Effects by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM).

LISA is the instrument, not a character.

How soon they forget - yeti patrol the underground; daleks hide under the thames near Hammersmith.

The Writers Guild was pleased to have the explicit solidarity as stated by SFWA, in one of President Capiobianco's best moments.

As to the purpose of the picket line, and the depths of Harlan Ellison's ire:

Striking Writers File Labor Complaint

Associated Press
Friday, December 14, 2007

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 13 -- Union officials representing striking Hollywood writers said Thursday they have filed an unfair labor practices complaint claiming studios violated federal law by breaking off negotiations.

The Writers Guild of America demanded in a statement that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers return to the bargaining table so the six-week strike can be resolved.

Negotiations broke off Dec. 7 when the alliance refused to bargain further unless the union dropped a half-dozen proposals, including the authority to unionize writers on reality shows and animation projects.

The "baseless, desperate NLRB complaint is just the latest indication that the WGA's negotiating strategy has achieved nothing for working writers," the alliance fired back in its statement.

The labor board did not immediately return a call to its Los Angeles office.

"It is a clear violation of federal law for the AMPTP to issue an ultimatum and break off negotiations if we fail to cave to their illegal demands," the guild's statement said. "We are in the midst of the holiday season, with thousands of our members and the membership of other unions out of work."

I remember when I was very young we used to pass the factory that produced the Daleks for the BBC on our way to visit my grandparents - I think it may have been in East Kilbride but I could be totally wrong.
Lines and lines of Daleks just sitting there - very spooky, especially after reading this thread :-)

JVP@38, 50, & 52, how kind of you to include somewhat stfnal things as you write your diary. However, you seem to have placed it on the wrong website.

#38 -- Jonathan Vos Post writes: "What it says in Ansible about the new J. J. Abrams Star Trek movie and Harlan's characters is categorically denied by Harlan. I believe Harlan."

I'm a little puzzled by this information, since the Ansible item consists mostly of Harlan's own widely publicized words, plus an extremely mild paraphrased comment from another website. See http://news.ansible.co.uk/a245.html#ellison ... Perhaps Harlan is categorically denying my inference that he's "hopping mad", because in truth he views the whole issue with icy tranquillity? Somehow, though, it doesn't sound that way.

Re: Britain's surveillance society.

A relative of mine is an RC priest on the Ards Peninsula in Northern Ireland (which is hard-core Ian Paisley territory btw).

Anyway, a gang of hoods/gurriers/yobs came along one night and broke all the windows in his church (just for badness, I think, rather than for a sectarian purpose). . . and leered directly into his security camera before they did.

When the police were provided with the recording, they said 'sorry, but the resolution is too poor to make it usable in court'.

Make of that what you will.

I got to drive a Dalek (the Royal College of Science mascot)

Hmph. In my day we had to make do with a six foot thermometer as a mascot (or sometimes a 1916 fire engine... the mascot situation was quite arcane).

Re: #38, 50, 52, 55: Ansible was not wrong in any way. David Langford passed on a rumor, cited the source, and made a caveat that it was a rumor. That was responsible journalism on his part, far above the level of lesser fanzine writers.

I made an error, in being unclear on what transpired. Harlan denied a fanzine rumor, in two consecutive speeches to WGA members, which rumor I heard about second-hand via Ansible. Harlan praised J. J. Abrams and his work, denied the alleged leak from Paramount about Harlan's intellectual property (which he controls due to the Separation of Elements victory by WGA), did not mention Ansible, did mention the original fanzine rumor.

Re: #54: Marilee J. Layman is partly correct. My personal life, in general, is uninteresting to this blog, and I may have chosen the wrong thread. However, I believed that first-hand reportage from the front line of the battle of Intellectual Property, as it affects film and television (including Science Fiction), as it relates to the economics of the internet, might be of interest to those with expertise in the issues (including Charles Stross).

I have no argument with Ms. Layman personally, and sympathize with her health problems as described in her livejournal. As it happens, though I did not mention it here before, I spent an hour of my time and energy pushing a disabled writer around the picket line in his wheelchair. I believe that Ms. Layman and I have spoken at cons, and I bear her no ill will. We need more cat-loving retired engineer fan activists in the community.

On the second branch of my reportage, which might well have been cut from my first posting on the WGA, who cares about Kip Thorne, one of the world's leading experts on black holes and general relativity, best-selling author, friend of Stephen Hawking, whose story has been adapted for film by the screenwriter of The Prestige, and who is co-inventor of the wormholes as used by Carl Sagan in "Contact" when Ms. Layman can learn any physics she want from the filking husband of her friend MKK?

Now, as to the first issue, let's see what happens with the National Labor Relations Board, per WGA's formal complaint of illegal activity by the producers' alliance; and with the independent negotiations between WGA and studios and production companies, such as have started with David Letterman's company.

#57 -- Thanks to Jonathan Vos Post for the clarification. Ansible isn't usually interested in random rumours about Star Trek film content, but I needed to indicate the context of Harlan Ellison's (then) wrath.

#59 -- er, for #57 read #58. Fallibility exfoliates.

JvP: Please leave this thread to us Brits discussing Daleks and security theatre.

You are not amusing me.

Submitted purely for amusement value: The Dalek Song

*notes reaction*

I'll get my coat.

Hmm ... they appear to have added extra verses to the Dalek song since last time I heard it!

In retaliation here is the moon song.

#63/Charlie:

In retaliation here is the moon song.

charlie you win must die now kthx☠☠☠ SSSSsssssssssssssssssssssss

Damnit - I thought I'd managed to exterminate that moonsong from all long term memory.

Now I shall lie awake with those freakish googly eyed...things...staring at me via my subconcious once more, coercing - nay - taunting me to hum along at night.

I like the moooon...

#56, D O'Kane- Someone I don't know but see online on a forum has similar problems. He lives in an estate in England, and they have local youths who come around, throw stones to smash windows, vandalise cars, etc. He has many hours of video of them doing all this, but the local police aren't interested. In fact, the new inspector recently suggested that it was his fault they have gotten out of hand because he was taping them misbehaving, thus infuriating them. The local councillors aren't interested either. If the police aren't shamed into action shortly, you might read about a bunch of masked men breaking a number of teenagers limbs on an estate in England.

Funny how only gvt and corporate surveillance is accepted and encouraged...

"...Joe Biden is now

[SPAM DELETED]

... And spammer banned.

IJWTS that "security panto" is a really good description of the government's commitment to actually detecting and arresting criminals, as opposed to scaring the public and telling them to be vigilant:

"Now children, I'm looking for the scary monster. If you see him, you will tell me, won't you?"
"He's behind you!"
"What?"
"Behind you!!"
"Where?"

I, in my cynicism, suggest that if all the time that had been wasted looking for terrorists had actually been spent on dealing with real criminals, the country would be a better place. They might have saved more lives and money as well.

Comment 67 was a plea for political involvement in a foreign election.

This blog is occasionally political, but it is not an American political blog. I think for the duration of the upcoming election campaign I'm going to declare American politics off-limits, except on topics specifically about the subject, which are likely to be few and far between. Attempts to start flame wars over foreign politics in inappropriate threads will be deleted without further warning, and the commenter banned.

(PS: If you were wondering which candidate I was rooting for, the answer is "none of the above". If you were wondering which non-candidate I'd like to see winning the presidential election in 2008, the answer is "Hunter S. Thompson and William Burroughs are both dead, dammit.")

I've always been partial to this song:
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/898/detail/

And we have the finest is seasonally appropriate songs here [youtube.com].

Re. #46 ....Many years ago (1966, I think) Manchester University got (legally borrowed) three or four Daleks from the Beeb ...
We hung Rag-collecting cans from the suckers, and pedalled them into the caentre of the city.
Toatal chaos, I'm glad to say, with startled Mancunians being prodded in the small of the back by the ray-gun and addressed: "Contribute to Rag, or be exterminated!"

Unfortunately, the security hazards since (Whether real or imagined) have put a sop to some of the better Rag stunts - like subverting the main feeder-cable to the local main YV transmitter, and plugging in a (very carefully wiped-down) tape/video recorder, plus timer, which came on at peak evening viewing, advertising Rag.
The cops and the Home Office were NOT amused, even then, but fortunately failed to prove anything.

A couple of years later, I believe Southampton Uni really overdid it, and broke IN TO the max-security prison on the IoW (Parkhurst?) and painted "Soton Rag" on the inside of the walls and buggered off.
Rather than the authorities thanking the students for highlighting their faulty security, they had a fit of viciousness, and bannes Soton from having a Rag for two years.

On the other hand, there was the hushed up invasion of HM shipyards (Vickers) at Barrow-in-Furness, about 1963 (?) when Manchester sub-aqua club managed to paint Rag slogans (and a couple of CND symbols) on the sides of a Nuclear Submarine, building on the slips.
The authorities simply sacked their local security director - to embarrassing, otherwise.

Re: guthrie's post @#66.

Another of my relatives in Dublin had a neighbour, an auld fella living on his own who had similar problems.

He went to the Guards (Irish police are called the Civic Guard, because executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony), who told him to get lost.

So he went instead to his local Sinn Fein office. . . whose cadres had a wee chat with the local criminal element and their parents. As far as I know, it was just a chat, but the harassment this gentleman was receiving stopped overnight. . .

G Tingey- the rags sound suitably irreverent, and quite mad. Charlies post is also rather irreverent, but I don't see the current gvt having any opinion of irreverence except that it is horrible mockery designed to bring the organs of the state and its pals into disrepute.
Hence "Security Pantomime" is a perfect name for it all.

D O'Kane- thus do political organisations gain traction amongst the populace, no matter what the gvt's opinion of them. But that is anothe thread.

Hello, everyone. I own a shop in Vermont, USA, and we had an employee caught stealing on video. While I would have liked to give him to the Daleks for experimentation/extirpation, the local authorities weirdly sentenced him to pay back a somewhat small percentage of the money he stole, and...to write me a poem of self absolution and repentance. Which he did, badly. While the terms of the agreement with the court prevent me from publishing the proffered tripe, let me say at least that I think he nicked the lyrics from the Muppet Show.
Charlie, while you are some kind of euro socialist and I am an American capitalist, I love your science fiction and your blog and I wish you the best. Happy Holidays.

The "pantomime" isn't QUITE as bad as it used to be, though a lot of it is just show, window-dressing and self-important strutting by petty jobsworths.

However, either 4 or 5 years ago, that is, BEFORE the tube-&-bus-bombs, I was warned by a friend that he had just got off the Northern Line Tube, and there had been a "Glaswegian nutter" on the train with an oil-drum (!) His comment was that it could have been full of explosives, and no-one the wiser ...
Several pints later, I wandered out of the "Royal Oak" (Tabard Street, the only Harvey's pub in London), round the corner to Borough station and caught a tube to Moorgate ...
Only to find the same Glaswegian WITH OIL-DRUM on my own train. ( About 100 litre capacity drum at my guess )
He started to make a nuisance of himself, so, at Moorgate, I pulled the handle.
NOT ONE member of LUL's staff even wanted to know - they were not in the slightest bit interested.
The only people who (eventually) realised that something was wrong were my MP, and City of London Police.
I had a nice elctroniuc converstaion with the latter.
MetPlod didn't even reply. Brit Transport police said that they understood that I was liasing with CityPlod, and they would collect the data afterwards, and thank-you.

But, as I said at the time, someone MIGHT have taken notice if he'd been wearing a kaffiyeh, and carrying a banner labelled "Islamic Jihad" - but it would have been a bit late by then, wouldn't it?
Oops.

Charlie, I hope I don't get banned for remarking that I like your choice of candidates for the American election, and I don't see any reason why death should disqualify Hunter Thompson; braindeath doesn't seem to disqualify the candidates we've got. Besides, I've always wanted to vote the straight zombie ticket.