(no subject)

I'm sure anyone who cares about this has already noticed, but please allow me to be quietly boggled by the fact that:

The Chancellor's latest tax wheezes on income tax and NI are regressive. Quite seriously regressive, in fact.

Based on my figures (which could of course be completely wrong), keeping a level playing-field apart from the 2% basic rate cut, the scrapping of the 10% rate, and the increase in NI upper limit:

The person best off would be someone earning £33,500 a year, who would be £300 a year better off.

The person worst off would be someone earning £7,500, who would be £210 a year worse off.

I know there is a lot more to it than that, but that's the heart of it.

And if I can work that out on a spreadsheet that took 15 minutes to write, don't you think the papers and the Opposition can do it? Toilers on Minimum Wage Hit Hardest to Fund Middle Classes... What a political gift to the Chancellor's opponents at this sensitive time...

Seriously, what a reversal in British politics that this can be done in the name of the Labour Party...

(no subject)

I have spent much of the evening since I got in watching Casino Royale, which I managed to miss when it was at the cinema. I've watched about the first half, but have given up for the evening, mainly because I'm cold enough that I fear icicles will soon start to dangle from my extremities.

I must admit that I am struggoing with the film slightly, however. Not because there's anything wrong with it - on the contrary, it's an exceptionally well-made thriller - but because it's not what I watch Bond for. This is entirely my fault - from what little I know by repute of the books, I suspect that Daniel Craig's borderline psychopathic portrayal probably has more in common with the character as originally envisgaed than the last two or three incarnations.

The thing is, Bond was always a half-parody, and it is that tongue-in-cheek quality that I like. I don't really watch thrillers and action movies - I like Bond not because they are good action movies, but because they're ... well ... Bond. I like the offhand humour (Craig gives the impression he wouldn't crack a smile at the Fish-Slapping Dance), the sheer ridiculous improbability, and the whole slightly musty old-leather feel of the series. What I'm currently watching is a extremely good, extremely modern film, but not, to me, excatly what was looking for.

There is, of course, also the fact that with Bond just receiving his 00 status in an age of palmtops and i-pods, from an M who has already instructed his weatherbeaten former incarnation, there is now that unsettling feeling of the storyline running on several different tracks ismaltaneously, like the muddle in the DC Universe when they realised they had three different and mutually contradictory versions of Hell open for business at the same time. Eveidently the stage is set for a "Five Doctors"-style Bond Special...

Incidentally, since talking about Bond, my mini-list on Bond would be:

Favourite classic Bond - Goldfinger
Favourite modern Bond - Goldeneye
Guilty pleasure Bond - The Man With the Golden Gun (hell - is there a pattern developing here?)
favourite incarnation - Sean Connery
Worst Bond - Moonraker
Bond I've never seen - On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Favourite Bond girl - hmmm... now you're asking. Just wait while I watch them all again, with liberal use of the Pause button...