I need a sub, and not in a rude way. I don't really want to break the paragraph, and the jumble of numbers and numberwords isn't helping.

Despite widespread pessimism about achieving equal representation, there has been substantial progress in the number of women represented in the House of Commons over the last two decades. After 40 years after the second world war during which there were between 20 and 30 women in the House of Commons, a low point of 19 was reached in 1983, largely because the Conservative landslide saw seven female Labour MPs lose their seats, but only one Conservative gain by a female candidate. Since then there has been relatively rapid progress - 41 women MPs in 1987, 60 in 1992, and 120 in 1997. This number fell only slightly in 2001 to 118, largely as a consequence of Labour being prevented from using all women shortlists to select candidates, and rose again to a new high of 128 at the 2005 election. While the 2010 election sees many women MPs at risk from a rising Conservative tide (77% of female MPs are Labour MPs, whereas only 13% are Conservatives) there are more Conservative female candidates in ‘winnable’ seats than at past elections, with estimates that a Conservative overall majority would deliver an extra 38 Conservative women MPs.

Dramatis personæ: My boss, my events admin, my office manager, myself, and, without a speaking part, my policy support dude and my deputy boss.

The venue: A dim sum restaurant, for said events admin's leaving lunch. We shall miss her, but she is going to far better things.

Boss: Goodness, it doesn't feel like three years since we interviewed you.
Eventy: I know, time flies, doesn't it!
Boss: Was it me and Kelly that interviewed you? It must have been.
Eventy: Yeah, I think so.
Office Manager: Yeah it must have been, because if it had been me you wouldn't have got it.
All: Laughter
jdc: And if it had been me, you wouldn't have accepted it!
All: Laugh more loudly, yet also rather nervously
Ghost, stage left: It's funny because it's true

I realise This is a very specific circumstances, but just in case anyone is upgrading from an HTC phone on Windows Mobile, to an HTC Android phone, don't even think about using the Sync applications to get your contacts across, at least if you are on Windows 7 - and certainly don't try and use their recommended Sim backup (as expected, it truncates everything).

Instead, clear down your 'My Contacts' in a Gmail account, export your old contacts as a Windows .csv from Outlook, upload them to your Gmail with the importer tool, then set up the new phone to synchronise with your Gmail account. Voila! Now if only I'd realised that was the quick way three hours ago, I could be in bed by now. And even that's assuming it has done what it claimed to be doing, and done it correctly...

Or, two things about augstone.

Thing the first, over the Christmas-NewYear interval Aug saw fit to post "our songs of aching romance" aka THE MOST MISERABLIST spotify playlist I have ever had the misfortune to hear. It has taken me until now to respond to it, and the further prompting of absinthecity, so here is cheerthefvckup (spotify direct link). It's a little bit silly, but only a little bit.

Far more importantly, sitcom pilot "the Oxford Dons", full and uncut (ironically unlike Aug) is available on funnyordie. Since it is very funny, and I don't want anyone to die, I'd suggest you watch it, and rate it accordingly. Here you go.

It's fair to say we are having a White Christmas in Yorkshire.


For comparison it looks like this in Summer.


Sebastian has grown his best Winter coat, just in case.

Dear Gemma,

In reference to your recent letter, the reason your attempt to extract a premium of £268.14 failed on 25 October is that my health insurance was bought for me as a quixotic but well-meant gift by my parents last year, and therefore the card and address details will not match. Had you given advance notice of your attempt to take this payment, I could have told you this.

More importantly, I have no intention of renewing the policy in question - having discovered in your representative's own words when I needed to call on it that it was "all inclusive, except for consultation, diagnosis, and treatment" which appears to me to be very nearly everything one might require from healthcare.

I would be grateful if you could note this, and look forward to not hearing from you in the future.

Best wishes,

John

( Cut because some people don't like discussion of the tooth doctor... )

Anyone with a clue what Charles Kennedy means by Would the originator of this message please remove it from my email system pronto.? Fascinating.

This morning was faff beyond faff. My leg is still painful so I'm still getting the bus. I usually get the 1 from my front door to Elephant, then change, ideally for the C10 to the door of my office, but if it doesn't turn up the 148 goes to the South side of Parliament Square. Sometimes, like this morning, when I don't get a seat on the 1, I give up at Bermondsey Square and walk up to Bermondsey Street and get the C10 directly. This is risky but variety is the spice of life and all that.

Anyway this morning there was no prospect of anyone on the 1 letting me sit down or getting off, so I wandered over to the relevant stop for the C10, where I found a despairing chap off to deliver leadership training at a Government building near my office, who had been waiting a little while. Bored, and waiting for some time longer, we chatted and had some stuff in common - both grew up in Yorkshire, both lived in London for about five years, both find the bits of London we can afford to live in a bit tedious but both have other halves who think London is the centre of the known universe and jobs where the pickings are slimmer out of town.

Eventually the bus arrived and was, of course, full. Although there was room at the back. The driver was reluctant to let us on, but Leadership Man pointed out all the empty space, got on, ordered people to move around in specific directions, and we eventually forced ourselves on. This seemed like an achievement, although when we got to Borough an almighty gridlock struck and another, much less packed, C10 overtook us. "That", I said, "is the difference between tactical leadership and strategic leadership". He took it in good spirit and said that would be the morning's lesson - leadership vs management.

Then pandemonium ensued when a lady in a wheelchair needed to get off. Well, for starters I was blocking her turning circle so I decamped, but then... I don't know if you've ever been on a C10. It's a small bus with only one door at the front, so if people won't all get off and back on again, the chances of extracting onesself from it in a wheelchair are about as good as those of taking the hint that came over the automatic speaker on a similarly packed journey in August that "Seats are available on the upper deck". It's a single-decker, if you hadn't already gathered that from e.g. the title of the post. Leadership man sprang into action and wheeled her off, leaving his presentation and briefcase on his seat - I thought for a moment the door was going to close and we would drive off, but it didn't.

So, in any case I arrived at work only about 45 minutes late. I gave leadership man a business card, we sometimes buy that kind of thing.

My father, there, marvellous.

There's nothing like a good practical joke (and this was nothing like... etc).

Sean, one of t'other DJs at Feeling Gloomy, always brings cheap alcohol to save himself money, and on Saturday he'd got 8 cans of Budweiser for the price of six. Remembering how angry he got when Sandeep and Frankie drank his cider, I knew what had to be done. So around 1am I sent Sandeep out to collect Sean's empties, moved his remaining beer save one to the fridge in the other dressing room, rinsed out the empty cans, filled them with water, and sat drinking them with Will, and waited. Eventually, he asked someone to pass him a drink. Mary, unsuspecting, takes the remaining can from the fridge, passes it through the stage door and says "here you go, last one". Sean flies backstage, sees what appears to be everyone but him drinking his beer, and goes spare.

Happy times. Meanwhile more househunting. Lovely flat in lovely Frognal location, well equipped and stunning garden, but just a bit too small a room I think - double bed, workdesk and two built in wardrobes, but no further space. You'd even have to move the bedside table to get into half of the second wardrobe. It did, though, have a catflap in the bedroom window, and is very reasonably priced. Deciding by Wednesday.

Tonight I'm seeing two cheap rooms near Manor House - recognising that my quest for one very big room may be vain, I'm thinking I could have a middling sized bedroom and a small further room as office / tv / storage / guest room. It's a thought, anyway.

What doesn't really help is seeing the sort of thing I think I want but failing to find it in a format which makes it available to me. For example I'd happily pay, say, £185 a week, maybe more, for the large room in this place. It's been on the market for ages so I reckon they'd take £700, meaning the other rooms would be £550 a month, which I think is pretty good for a double in Highbury. So, anyone know any 4somes who are searching?

That's about all. On Friday I played with the world's fastest cat, went to the countryside (well OK, Surrey, but really Surrey not Surrey-London, and I walked on a bridleway and a footpath that wasn't next to a road) and I met a black tabby which isn't something I've ever seen before. Drank wine and ate lots of cheese, which I just about survived. Then I made vegetarian toad in the hole with garlic and onion gravy. I have some left for lunch and I kind of want it now. That's not good, is it?

Here.

...there is a deeper issue here. Even assuming the Bank of England gets it right, all that happens is that we return to a fundamentally flawed model. The return of property inflation, asset bubbles, private equity deals and the whole big swinging dick culture that pervaded Britain back then does not signify real economic recovery: it is evidence of a deluded and chronically sick nation determined to learn nothing and forget everything from the crisis.

Deluded because the over-reliance on debt-driven consumption, speculation and financial engineering was what got us into this mess in the first place. Chronically sick because each of the recessions of the last 30 years has ripped a bit more out of the UK's industrial base and hence aggravated a problem ever-present since the second world war: we consume too much and produce too little.

The events of the last two years were a godsend for those who considered the UK to be a structurally dysfunctional economy. It was all there: an over-mighty financial sector that was too big to fail; a manufacturing sector in desperate need of some tender loving care; consumers borrowing against the rising value of their homes because their real incomes were growing only modestly.

The failure of the banks, not just the greed but the asinine decisions made by the supposed masters of the universe, created the perfect conditions for fundamental reform. Instead of an arm's length approach to the failed institutions brought under state control, the government should have used its position as majority shareholder to direct investment, utilising a cheap money environment to end the economy's over-reliance on the City by rebuilding the industrial base. When the banks were deemed ready for a return to the private sector, they should have been cut down to size so that they were not too big to fail.

Unfortunately, the government did not consider the economy to be structurally dysfunctional. Unlike Margaret Thatcher in the mid-1970s, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were not interested in fundamental reform, and, as a result, Labour's response to the crisis was managerial rather than ideological. There was never any question of the City being forced to accept the tough punishment meted out to the unions in the 1980s, even though the sins of the financiers were far more heinous.

...

So what does all this mean? It means that any recovery will be short-lived, because businesses have scant appetite for investment and consumers are saving, rather than spending. It means that the preconditions are in place for another global crisis, since the failure to reform the British economy has been mirrored in the US and China. Nothing has been done to tackle the imbalances in the world economy that have led to overproduction in Asia and overconsumption in the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Finally, it means curtains for Labour. The one thing that has changed since August 2007 is that the government's reputation for economic competence has been shredded. Labour's pusillanimous approach to the crisis means it will be punished by the voters even if there is a feeble recovery between now and polling day, and it will be left to the Conservatives to pick up the pieces. Needless to say, they are just as clueless.

In no particular order, taking the obvious ones 'as read' (ho ho) and reserving the right to change my mind. 15 books:

1. Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
2. Ring of Bright Water (trilogy) - Gavin Maxwell
3. Essays in Logic And Language, Volume 1 - Gilbert Ryle & Antony Flew (eds.)
4. How to Be a Minister - Gerald Kaufman
5. The Most Offending Soul Alive: Tom Harrison and his Remarkable Life - Judith Heimann
6. Knots - RD Laing
7. Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships - Eric Berne
8. Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
9. Brontë's Egg - Richard Chwedyk
10. A World Still to Win: The Reconstruction of the Post-War Working Class - Trevor Blackwell & Jeremy Seabrook
11. No Fire Burns - Avram Davidson
12. Ecclesiastes - author unclear
13. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman - Richard Feynman
14. Either/Or - Søren Kierkegaard
15. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? - Alasdair MacIntyre

But apparently my mate from school is a "Fringe Veteran".



Yes, well, anyway. I did always think Hollyoaks would be better without the straight male characters, and with more tunes. No, really, that's a compliment Dan :)

Also in Edinburgh (not me, so this is all a bit pointless) the kids. Great bunch.

http://www.monsieur-montpellier.co.uk/
http://www.notbbc.co.uk/edfringe2009/shows/15357/who_killed_dead_man_in_a_box.html

Anyone else?

I know a couple of my LJ friends are hunting for cheap properties to buy in South London.

This might be slightly too cheap, but it's not a bad block (compared to the ones next to it, that is). Transport links are OK and will be better when the East London Line reopens.

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-12913956.html

I shall, for the time being, pass :)