A British tragedy...

The news play a vital function in today's world. Through news outlets on websites, their pages on social network sites, and physical print papers if that's still your thing, people from around the globe are able to learn about events happening on the other side of the world as they unfold. The manner in which these stories are reported influences the way in which they're interpreted, and it is the role of reporters to present the facts so that people may be reliably informed about what is going on around the world. Which brings me to a real tragedy that happened today, and the audacious way it has been reported by certain news outlets.

When I woke up today, i checked my computer and learnt there had been an Earthquake in Nepal. An absolute tragedy in which thousands have perished. However, certain headlines about this infuriated me. For example, here is a headline (in fact the first headline) that I saw, from the Daily Telegraph:

"Dozens of Britons missing after Nepal earthquake and avalanche"
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/nepal/11563414/Dozens-of-Britons-missing-after-Nepal-earthquake-and-avalanche.html

What an utter fucking disgrace. A human tragedy being manipulated into a British tragedy. THOUSANDS of people lose their lives, and instead of focusing on that, one of the most insignificant details of the story is blown up to inconceivable proportions, such that any meaningful information is hidden away, barely noticeable. It does briefly mention that a few hundred people are feared dead or missing, but that is the only mention of the non-Brits in the article, which then goes on talking about a Suffolk woman (mentioned by name) for 13 lines, including inexplicably the fact that she graduated in law last summer. What value does this add?

Is it impossible to feel sympathy or compassion about a story of thousands of people dying in a natural disaster unless there's a chance you may personally know some of them? I was plenty upset at the news without considering some of them may have been British. Are British so self involved as to show no interest whatsoever in any event unless given a case study of another Brit involved, so much so that we need to know her education history, birthday, how long she'd been on holiday and what she'd been planning to do? What it be far too frivolous had such details not been known? Obviously, the family of Britons who are on holiday over there are going to be worried. But I was under the impression that that fact was so obvious, it didn't even need mentioning. I wonder who else is worried besides the families of the "dozens" of Brits who were over there. Oh, hmm, perhaps the families of the HUNDREDS/THOUSANDS OF OTHER PEOPLE IN NEPAL AT THE TIME.

Putting the dozens of Britons ahead of the thousands of others belittles the situation immeasurably, and the manner in which it was done in this particular instance is an abomination and an affront; and affront to basic compassion for our fellow man (everyman, not just countryman) that is instilled within human nature, instead favouring some absurd sense of nationalism, because the headline "Dozens of Britons missing after Nepal earthquake and avalanche" really reads "Tragedy for dozens of our poor, unfortunate (which they are), fellow Brits and then some insignificant foreigners".

Cyclists vs Cars

I've grown to love cycling. Living in Cambridge, it is by far the best way to get around, especially since car traffic is gridlocked basically all the time. But nothing comes close to the terrifying experience of almost being mown down by thoughtless drivers. As a cyclist, one has to be extra vigilant on the roads, because a collision between a cyclist and car is unlikely to leave the car coming off worse. Nothing is more infuriating than coming close to death through the carelessness of someone else's driving rather than ones own lack of respect for the road. It's some retribution to see a driver give you a signal to indicate they know they were in the wrong and wish to apologise for it, but it is more often that they'll drive past entirely indifferent to the damage they nearly inflicted. Those ignorant bastards who just drive recklessly with no thought for any other road users are amongst the worst scum I have the misfortune of coming across. It's not as if I am a careless cyclist who gets myself into these situations. So often, a driver simply doesn't bother to look in their mirrors, something that is so simple to do which would prevent so many accidents. I'm not a driver, but even I know most of the rules of the road. And these aren't just arbitrary rules, they're laws, designed to protect people. The roads are only safe when drivers stick to all of the laws that are in place, not pick and choose which to stick to and when to do so. I wish the road laws were more like those in Amsterdam, where cyclists are recognised as vulnerable road users, because that's exactly what we are when compared to the other people on the road. Drivers need to appreciate the fact that they do not own the roads, and stop acting like inconsiderate bullies, because when they're involved in accidents with cyclists, the consequences are usually highly catastrophic for the 2-wheeled commuters.

Mobile Phones

Ah the Mobile Phone, how far you've come! It's transformed from a huge, heavy, cumbersome device that you'd lug around to one that can fit in the palm of your hand (or even your wrist), but the habit of making them smaller is a trend that is slowly being reversed. After striving to make them as small as possible, we're now seeing them increase in size, or at least their screens are getting bigger. But as phones have progressed, so have their features. Nowadays, the phone feature on a phone is superfluous to it's primary use as a device to connect to the internet for social networking. People are spending more and more time checking Facebook, Twitter, Vine et all., and it won't be long until they get rid of the phone feature altogether. I remember when got a phone as they first entered into the mainstream (when I was in my early teens in the mid-noughties), I would ring my friends every day. Slowly, calling evolved into texting, and now nobody bothers to talk to each other directly, they merely post an update on their social network and allow others to respond, resulting in passive conversations: Speaking to everybody and nobody at the same time. Technology has given us the ability to talk to our friends over vast distances in real time, with practically no delay, and we use it for constant, mindless updates over impersonal, virtual, social networking.

'Tis a shame.

British "Democracy"

With 2015 marking the first time I'll be able to vote in a UK general election, like many others I am at a loss as to who to vote for. And is it any wonder, when the state of "democracy" in our nation is an utter shambles...

My whole objection to the British electoral system, is the vast inconsistency between the number of votes a party gets across the nation, and the number of seats this translates to in Parliament. It seems a fundamental betrayal of the whole idea of democracy when some votes count more than others: The whole idea of democracy is that each person gets an equal say in how their nation is governed, and in a representative democracy a vote, an equal vote, to elect a representative. So how can 10% of votes earn anything other than 10% of the representative seats in Westminster? To put things in to perspective, let me highlight some peculiarities that occurred in the 2010 General election.

The Green Party managed to earn a single seat, earning 265,000 votes nationally. The Scottish National Party earned 6 seats with 491,386. Meanwhile, the despicable British National Party earned over 560,000 votes nationally, yet (thankfully) failed to secure any seats in parliament, and likewise with almost a million votes (919,000+), UKIP too failed to gain any representation in Westminster. I have the utmost respect for both the Greens and the SNP, but the numbers just don't add up. The small parties seem disproportionately disadvantaged, especially when you see how at the other end of the ladder, the Conservatives gained 47% of seats with 36% of the votes. To put this in to perspective, here is the average number of votes each party got for each of their seats, as well as the number of votes and seats earned (sorry for the overload of numbers here!)

Conservatives: 35,313 per seat (10,806,015 votes [36.4%], 306 seats [47.1%])

Labour: 33,370 per seat (8,609,527 votes [29%], 258 seats [39.7%])

Lib Dems: 119,944 votes per seat (6,836,824 votes [23%], 57 seats [8.8%])

Scottish National Party: 81,898 votes per seat (491,386 votes [1.7%], 6 seats [0.9%])

Green Party: 265,243 votes per seat (265,243 votes [0.9%], 1 seat [0.2%])

UK Independence Party n/a (919,471 votes [3.1%], 0 seats)

British National Party n/a (564,321 votes, 0 seats)

The point I'm highlighting here, is how the nation's desires are so poorly reflected in parliament. As you can see above, the green party averaged 265,243 votes for their one seat, but that seat, Brighton, was won by the greens with only 16,238 votes in that constituency, meaning almost 250,000 votes cast on them (93.9%) were wasted! First Past The Post (the voting system used in UK general elections) is shambolic and the very reason why so many people don't bother to vote. Why would you vote when, unless you live in one of the marginal constituencies where the seat is tightly contested, you're vote makes no difference whatsoever? As a matter of fact, only 2% of the voters, those who happen to live in those marginal constituencies actually affect the outcome of the election. It's a widely known fact, Michael Gove, the Tory chief whip openly talked about it on BBC Question Time (02/04/2015). It is no less than an outrage.