I don’t normally eat meat on school nights preferring to save it for the weekend. But I had a couple of chicken breasts that needed using and there was a tin of chickpeas on the side so I decided to experiment. Also I had bought some fresh tumeric root from the funky “world veg” aisle in the newly refurbished Morrisons supermarket I was dying to use. Never actually had it before so this was a bit of a shot in the dark TBH.

I have to say I was pretty pleased with my ad libbed attempt. Obviously the more you cook currys the better feel you have for it. And whilst this is ostensibly a Lunchtime Legend original it is of course heavily influenced by other peoples recipes.

It looked a lot more orange IRL

Ingredients

1 ½ Onions
400g Tin chickpeas
400g Light coconut milk*
Half a pint of chicken stock
2 Chicken breasts diced
Handful sultanas
4 Large cloves garlic
5 Dried bird eye chillis
1 ½ Inch grated fresh ginger
About a thumb head of chopped tumeric root
1 tsp Brown mustard seed
1 tsp Coriander seed
1 tsp Cumin seed
Seeds from 3 cardomon pods crushed
¼ tsp Tamarind concentrate
Large handful fresh coriander
Salt
Pepper

*TBH it would obviously be loads nicer with full fat coconut milk so if you are not a diet obsessive like I am use that.

Method

Slice onions into long but thing strips, lightly fry for a couple of minutes until soft but not coloured. Set aside.

In pan heat some oil (I used groundnut) and add the garlic, tumeric root, chopped bird eye chillis and ginger and lightly fry for about a minute or two. Slightly crush the mustard seeds in a pestle and mortar and add to the pan turning up the heat. Mix in and leave for a minute or so until seeds start to pop. Meanwhile crush the coriander, cumin and cardomon seeds. Add to mix and cook for a further minute or so having turned the heat down slightly. Re-add the onions and the chicken and mix up until the chicken pieces are nicely covered in spicey mix then add the chicken stock, coconut milk and all the other ingredients holding back half the fresh coriander to serve. Bring to boil then turn down heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Serve with your choice of rice or breads and some lager. Et Viola!

Been increasingly getting into Japanese tucka of late. I had, from Marks and Sparks a Teriyaki Beef wrap thingy when at Conference in Bournemouth last week and it inspired me to have a go at making a Teriyaki dish myself.

Teriyaki Beef

Sauce

1 ½ Inch grated ginger.
2 big cloves of garlic crushed or chopped.
3 dried bird eye chillies finely chopped (i’ll use 4 next time)
4 Tbsp Dark Soy
2 Tbsp Light Soy
2 Tbsp Mirin
2 Tbsp Honey
1 Tbps Sesame Oil
Zest and Juice of one lime
Handful of fresh coriander finely chopped.

1 Lean Steak cut into small thin strips
1 Pak Choi
1 Red Pepper
4 Spring onions sliced diagonally
200g dried rice noodles
Coriander to serve

Put it all the sauce ingredients in a non stick pan and cook on a low-medium heat until reduced to a nice thick goey substance. Keep on a low heat.

Cut the red peppers into short thin strips and briefly stir fry and put aside. Similarly half the pak choi leaves (thirds for the larger leavers) straight down the middle and also quickly fry till the green bit is just starting to wilt and put aside.

Cook the noodles (rice noodles cook pretty quickly) and plate up the noodles, red peppers, pak choi and spring onion.

Now heat up the Teriyaki sauce until it is hot, add the beef strips and stir quickly until all covered. I like beef pretty rare so for me this is a 20 second jobbie then the beef is put on top of the noodles and veg. If you are a god forsaken philistine who like to ruin beef by over cooking then knock yourself out and cook it for longer. However it won’t taste as nice that is a stone cold fact! Garnish with a little chopped coriander and viola!

Hope you enjoy as much as I did. Personally next time I will put another Bird Eye chilli in as i’d have like the dish to be a little bit more fierce.

Because SPOILERS AHOY!

Still here? Righty ho then, it has clearly aroused an incredible amount of debate and controversy. And as there are a fair few gaming fans I know I thought I’d write a blog about it.

Mass Effect 3

Well first things first I don’t think the end is anywhere near as bad as some people seem to be made out to be, I mean we have been being prepared for the fact that Mass Effect aint blooming Disney ever since Ashley/Kaiden died on Vimrie back in Mass Effect 1. That it wasn’t going to all be sweetness, light and happily ever after has surely been signposted for ages.

So assuming Bioware *were* shooting straight with the ending/s we got (and I am far from convinced but more on that later) then it was a very interesting ending (if in some ways unsatisfactory).

It has been a theme of Mass Effect (and most of Bioware’s oeuvre) that actually Whitehats are not always right, and that the Blackhats are not always unrelentingly evil. Shades of gray has pretty much always been a big part of their story telling. Saren in ME1 *thought* he was the good guy, The Duke bloke antagonist in Dragon Age thought what he was doing was necessary (and you probably ended up saving him) and it was basically the entire plot of the KOTOR games.

I was wondering about the some of the motivation for the Reapers from about the middle of ME2. There was some subtle clues in your conversations with Harbinger that maybe all was not exactly as it seemed. And a couple of moments in ME3 really got me thinking about “where all this was going”. Specifically the repeated signposting that if the Reapers really wanted they could exterminate all biological life really easily but didn’t. Initially we were given to thinking this was because the evil blighters were just hoping to have new tech and folks to nosh every 50 thousand years but the conversation you have with the reaper you have just wasted on Rannoch rather suggests a different motivation.

So these clues (along with it being highlighted to me by the controversy that people were pretty unhappy with the ending) had me approaching the final bit in the Citadel thinking that things might be a little different and they sure were.

So the things I like about the end (assuming Bioware were playing it straight) are that it was genuinely thoughtful and challenging. That Shepherd has been able to see the conflict as basically black and white, good versus evil (even if his methods are variable) and then he finds out right at the end that things are much more complicated is an incredible headf*ck.

Having had the massive mission for so long “defeat the reapers” to find out that actually defeating the Reapers may well result in a pyrrhic victory that rather than saving civilisation would actually result in the extermination of the entirety of biological life forever? And Sheherd is the guy who has to either chose to either complete his mission knowing it might end up with the extermination of all life (as well as the unintended consequences of destroying interstellar travel, killing the Geth and ED-E) or to do some other pretty unpalatable choice (which all involve destroying interstellar travel) is a pretty crazy and interesting, and most of all challenging end to 90-odd hours of fantastic story telling.

Personally I like challenging endings in books, films and games. I love films like Solaris, Silent Running where you have to think some pretty deep philosophical thoughts. Similarly I love films where the end is challenging, I love the fact that even now we are talking about what really went on in The Usual Suspects or at the end of Inception. Challenge and ambiguity are good in stories.

Having said that there are still some problems with this analysis. The first and most obvious is that if they have chosen to go down this route they are probably not really appealing to their target audience. Mass Effect is great story telling, about as highbrow and accomplished as the art of video gaming has ever got to date. But it is still a video game, and it’s target audience is still gamers. Further the story telling up to this point hadn’t actually been thoughtful auteur sci-fi from the 70s, it had been Space Opera very much in the Star Wars mould (thanks to Andrew Nattan of Unmemorable Title for this great comparison you can see it in context here!). Fans can pretty realistically have had an expectation that it was at least possible they might get a Return of the Jedi like ending. To suddenly and profoundly genre hop would always be a little jarring.

Secondly as and act of story telling it didn’t really work because the ground work really hadn’t been put in for such a jarring change of pace. I mean in all honesty the Crucible appears for the very first time announces that he is the leader and controller of the Reapers and that the cycle was all his idea. WITH NO FRICKING ANSWERS OR BACK STORY! He tells us this is done to save organic life because synthetics will inevitably wipe out organics but doesn’t in any way back it up. Doesn’t explain why this is true or why we should believe him.

At the same time a major plot point of the last two games is that the examples put before us actually run completely contrary to this. Despite appearances we find out that the Geth are not that bad after all, and in fact we are strongly encouraged to save them when it turns out they were not the baddies after all and in doing so they prove themselves to be thoroughly decent. Ditto the whole of Ed-E’s story arc. For it to be even remotely credible that Shepherd would even consider taking the crucible at it’s word there would surely have needed to be some backstory that would allow him to start doubting his course? Where was the challenging conversation with Harbinger earlier in the proceedings that makes Shepherd start to wonder just a little bit about what was going on?

Lastly given we have been told time and time to keep our saves, and think about the choices we made because they would ultimately effect the outcome of the story. So I guess the biggest failure of the end is that none of the choices you make have the slightest bit of difference to the outcome (which is broadly the same) or even how the final show down pans out. You have the 3-4 possible ending depending on how well you had prepared for the war principally in ME3 and it’s spin offs (your prepared score and galactic readiness determining which choices available to you at the end). That it turns out none of what you did really mattered is kinda cool in the “thoughtful challenging story” stakes but in a game that has sold itself on decisions, choices and consequences is a bit of a kick in the teeth for fans many of whom have put in 90+ hours into their characters.

So there we go, if Bioware were shooting straight then in my opinion the ending isn’t as bad as everyone is saying but it is still problematic and deeply flawed. But I don’t think for a second they were, I am sure there is more going on there were loads of problems with the end of ME3, loads of stuff that didn’t make sense, didn’t feel or smell right.

Now it could be that after 3 games and 90 odd hours of storytelling Bioware just lost the plot in the last 10 minutes and wrote a load of stuff that contradicted everything that went before and had massive, gaping plot holes. But I have to say I personally find that a little unlikely. I was already thinking in a certain direction when I started googling about the ending and found that lots of people had been thinking along the same lines as me. Not going to rehash it all as plenty of other have done this better than I can be bothered to do here but have a read of this great (if a little lengthy) summation of the “Indoctrination Theory”:-

http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-ending-analyzing-the-indoctrination-theory/

For those who can’t be bothered to read through all that And/Or watch the excellent video they link to (though really you should and heck you have made it this far down my post!) a couple of the salient points.

• Indoctrination, and being indoctrinated without knowing it are major, major themes throughout the series.
• Shepherd has spent more time in, around and talking to reapers and reaper tech than pretty much anyone not indoctrinated and the Reapers would surely try
• There a loads of things that don’t make sense on the Citadel
• How did Anderson get there? Why is he uninjured? How did he know Shepherd was aboard?
• How did Hackett know it was Shepherd aboard the Citadel?
• Why when Shepherd shoots Anderson in the side does the wound appear on Shepherd?
• How come the Crucible knows the appearance and voice of the Kid Shepherd saw at the start and was dreaming about?
• Also what were those dreams all about?
• A fair few hints that Shepherd is questioning himself (wondering if he is a VI when on the Cerebus station)
• The red/blue colours of the final choices are counter intuitive the action Anderson would have taken presented as the “Renegade” option and the action the Elusive Man would have taken been presented as the “Paragon” action. Though suggested that subtly the paragon style music plays when you choose destroy
• That the “third was” suggested by the Crucible is exactly what Saren was talking about in ME1 (and he was definitely Indoctrinated).
• That if you get the 4^th (and presumably best) ending choosing destroy and see the secret cut scene of Shepherd taking a breath his N7 armour doesn’t appear to be melted like in the final scene and he doesn’t actually appear to be on the wreckage of the Citadel.

And quite a bit more if you trawl, the long and short of it is people are suggesting that the reason it seems to jar is it is supposed to. What you are seeing in that scene isn’t really happening but it is the final attempts of the reapers to indoctrinate Shepherd and what is happening is that Shepherd is making his choice, does he succumb to the reapers and fall down either the Elusive Man’s or Saren’s respective paths or does he reject and fight? Seriously in light of reading this stuff go and play the end bit again and see what you think.

Now this indoctrination theory whilst not perfect does “fit” rather with the available facts, so it could be true. Sure “then I woke up and it was all a dream” is a pretty hackneyed storytelling device (though in these circumstances one that could seem appropriate). And it would raise some questions of its own. At exactly what point did the indoctrination hallucination start just after the laser when Shepherd advancing on the beam to the Citadel? Was Shepherd captured on Thessia? When Earth was attacked? When he died?

The only one that could be remotely satisfying (I mean if it turned out most or all of ME2 and 3 hadn’t really happened people would be even more pissed) would the after laser scenario. But in that one why would would the Reapers need to indoctrinate him if the attack had already failed? I suppose logically maybe he has made it to the station but everything that happens is a dream as Crucible tries to dominate him to stop him actually destroying the Reapers.

I can see how this could work, and it would have been in many way more satisfying that the real ending. Imagine if you had got one of the vaguely unsatisfactory ones and when you took to “teh interwebs” to complain you heard actually if you took particular choices not only was there a better ending but actually potentially some extra gameplay! You’d be annoyed but hey they warned you your decisions matter and I bet most would be cracking out a new game to get to the desired ending.

Trouble is whilst this could have been bloody awesome, if this is what happens now but only via DLC (especially if **paid** DLC) then it is just a colossal, massive misstep from Bioware. I read on the internet that it would be like the Sixth Sense or Fight Club finishing 10 minutes from the end and you would only get the proper twist endings a month later if you paid again.

So it seems like even if Bioware are being clever then they have made a massive blunder. All the same either way the end just isn’t as bad as people say even if it is flawed and doesn’t live up to what came before. And let’s be honest who on earth who has come all this way won’t now download the rumoured DLC “The Truth” shortly to be released? I know I sure as hell will be!

UPDATE

Posted this on social media but this is an excellent, excellent take on the Indoctrination theory in video format. I seriously challenge anyone to watch this and not at least think they might have a point.

And if you want to have a theory as to why they might have done this try this bad boy

Del Boy Chisora

It would be probably dishonest to pretend that “shenanigens” and the sense of danger wasn’t a part of the appeal of the sport of boxing, bad dangerous lad getting into a ring and beating seven bells out of one another is an intoxicating mix. And whilst we accept that there will be bad words, and bad blood before hand it is often we think all about selling tickets. One of the great things about boxing is that after all the words, all the deeds and after spending half an hour beating the crap out of one another boxers tend to have a big embrace at the end. The sight of two sportsmen sat next to one another giving a joint interview with the media is not uncommon. So what happened at the end of the fight, and then afterwards last night was all the more unsavoury.

Chisora had gone out of his way to wind up the Klitschkos, claiming (with some justification) he had been treated badly by them. And clearly Wlad  was way out of order going into Del Boy’s room and having a hoo ha over his gloves and strapping. All the same Chisora’s “spit” in Wlad’s face was too much, far too much. Spitting is a line that really we just don’t expect sportsmen to cross. So the ugly confrontation between Chisora and the Klutschkos at the end of the fight had a real edge, it was unpleasant.

I went to bed at this point (that’s the kind of all action winner I am, in bed by half eleven on a Saturday night. I know what you are thinking = “Winner”!) so was unaware of what was farce degenerating into something worse. On getting up I decided to “check teh interwebs” and saw the headline about the brawl and assumed it was just a load of stage managed ticket selling. But unfortunately it was worse… much worse. If Del Boy had come close to the line with his slap, if he had crossed it with his water spit then he went charging over it with the press conference.

This was an embarrassment to the sport, lord only knows what was going through Chisora’s head, but we know he is a nutter. Haye, for all his conflabs and stunts, is obviously a reasonably smart cookie and I don’t know why he allowed himself to get into this position. Of course once Chisora marched down there aint a boxer in the world who would high-tail it out of there all the same a calm head was needed and they were sadly lacking.

Let’s not forget there was an actual world heavyweight title fight happening and whilst Chisora might have disgraced himself in every way out of the ring, inside the ring he did anything but. He was brave, tough and he really had a go. Vitali might not admit it but he was in the toughest fight he has had since he fought Lennox. Vitali was blowing several times, and he took a fair few whacks. If Chisora had been a bit quicker, a bit stronger and had a little more sugar he would have had a damn good chance of bringing a belt home. But he wasn’t and he lost by a wide margin in what was a fair result from the judges. At the final bell though Chisora was on the verge of a redemption story given the performance he had put in which makes the subsequent actions all the more of a shame.

It is interesting to speculate what will happen next. Vitali is declining, I blogged in November 2010 that I thought Haye would be better off fighting Vitali and that seems all the more true to me now. I honestly believe that David Haye would have beaten Vitali last night, he is stronger, quicker and better than Chisora (by some distance frankly) and Vitali is in decline. I suspected last night that Del Boy would have pretty much retired Vitali. Boente (The Klitschkos manager) would, I thought, be mad to let Vitali get in the ring with Haye. And it seemed that Boente’s comments post fight (“No, No, No you had your chance and it is gone”) backed this up. Interestingly the Observer Journalist Kevin Mitchell seems to be suggesting that privately they accept they will have to fight because that is the only money fight left for Vitali. This makes sense I suppose, and I would still like to see it. But I shan’t hold my breath.

All in all, once again the sport of boxing is shamed. As a fan it is so disappointing to keep saying this. But the fights not getting made, ridiculous alphabet belts, conflabs like this are ruining the sport. With Fury ducking Price, Mayweather and Pacqiaou no getting it on I am a very depressed fight fan. Let’s hope Kell Brook and the Khan vs Petersen rematch can give us a little redemption, British boxing needs it….

Mackerel and Potato Curry

Ingredients

1 Packet Smoked Mackerel

2 Onions roughly diced

2 Medium Sized Potatos

1 400ml Tin of Coconut Milk

150ml Passata

1 Golf Ball Grated Gineger

5-6 Cloves Garlic

1 tsp Concentrated Tamarind

2 tsp Coriander Seeds

1 tsp Cumin Seeds

1/2 tsp Tumeric

1/2 tsp Garam Masala

Handful Chopped Coriander

5 Dried Bird Eye Chillies

Rice and Naan to serve

Method

First peel the potatos and cut into squares about 2 1/2 cm cubed. Boil them for about 8 minutes or so then drain and put aside. Put the teaspoon of tamarind in about half a cup of boiling water to make some tamarind paste.

Simmering away

Heat some oil in a large heavy bottomed pan, and add the grated ginger, chopped bird eye chillies and crushed/chopped garlic. Cook on a low heat for a couple of minutes making sure the garlic doesn’t go brown. Then in a pestle and mortar crush the cumin seeds and add to the pan and turn up the heat a bit, and cook for about a minute. Crush the coriander seeds and add and cook for a further minute or so at which point add the onions (you might need to add a little more oil at this point I did). Cook at a medium heat stirring a lot for a couple of minutes making sure the onions/garlic don’t caramelise and nothing sticks. At which point add the Garam Masala and the Turmeric cook for a further few minutes until onions starting to soften.

Next add the potatos and and the tamarind paste and allow to cook for just a couple of minutes so the potatoes absorb some of the spicy flavour then add the tin of coconut and the passata and leave to simmer on a low heat for about 20-30 minutes.

When you are about to put the rice on chop the mackerel into mouthfuls and add to the sauce with about 3/4 of the chopped coriander. Turn the heat up just a little so it all gets nice and hot. Serve with rice, naan and add the remaining fresh coriander to each portion as garnish.

Outcome

Well it was pretty good I thought, I was worried that smoked mackerel would be too strong for a curry but actually it went pretty well. Probably I would use half the tamarind in the recipe next time and add another chilli and maybe add some mustard seeds. Still pretty much a success and I lapped it up!

Fat holiday snap.

Ealier this year I visit the Doctor about (amongst other things, I am a massive hypochondriac) a vague feeling that I was starting to get a little fleshy. I had just seen some holiday snaps form when me and my brother went to see the olds in Portugal and frankly it was hard to pretend that I wasn’t well, frankly, a bloater. I am a vain, vain man who really likes few things more than gazing lovingly into my own eyes in the mirror so in truth I had rather been aware of this for a while, clearly retaining some cognitive dissonance that allowed me to recognise it was truth, but act as if it wasn’t, the pictures though somewhat snapped me out of it.

The Doc decided that I had not had any blood work done for about 10 years so sent me of for amongst other things a cholesterol test. I got the results a little over 6 months ago. When I went in for the results the Doc made what I had initially assumed to be small talk, he knows I am a Trade Union rep and often talks to me about political issues and struck up a conversation about the looming pensions dispute for public sector workers. He casually asked me if I paid into the Royal Mail pension scheme. I replied that I did, and the Doc looked at his screen and tapped away for a second….

He then looked at me and said (with to be fair a mischievous grin on his face, the Doc knows me well) “Really Ralph, unless you do something about this weight situation there really isn’t much point. You’d be better off enjoying your money now”. Or words to that effect.

“Oh!”

Yup, Oh! was about the some total of my reaction. As it turns out it wasn’t all that bad news the Doc realising that for an attention seeking melodramatic fellah like myself the best avenue was to go for a big showy entry. Turns out my Cholesterol was 5.9, when they advise you to be under 5. So nothing dangerous in my numbers; but combined with a bit of a history of bum tickers in my male genealogy, and the fact that despite being pretty short my weight had crept up to 14st 4 I was looking at a cocktail that probably wouldn’t be all that conducive to a long and healthy life. Also I was finding it increasingly hard to find trousers that would fit someone with my combination of fat belly and short legs.

So for once I couldn’t ignore all of this and set to trying to deal with the situation. And instead of just going on a stupid rash diet like I had done in the past I decided to actually, you know, change my living habits to a bit more of a healthy way of doing things. Being a pretty nifty cook I quickly found that rather than being a massive chore, trying to eat more healthily was fun. Experimenting with food, and trying out different things meant I was actually eating loads nicer food that I had been, well, at any time since I left home TBH.

And I decided I would be good, but not puritanical. My Saturday morning Bacon buttie was sacrosanct (Though I did accept the need to trim the fat and grill rather than fry). And I decided that if I ever got a massive, massive craving for something I was just going to have it and be good afterwards. So I have had a couple of takeaway pizzas and that. But mostly I have been sensible and disciplined in a way I wasn’t really sure I could.

Slim me with clearly defined Jaw bone and everyfink!

Today I went back to the Docs to get my after 6 month follow up results. And the good news is my Cholesterol is now down to 4.2, and as of today I weigh only 11st 7! (That is 161lbs to any American readers, 73 Kilos to those from the civilised world and Middleweight to fight fans!). I am wearing a medium T-Shirt and got some 32″  waist jeans. To say I am highly delighted is an understatement. And, I am now officially “not fat”. This works out to a BMI of 24.5, so I am just, just, within “normal” tolerances. Woo-hoo! And, if that wasn’t good news enough the Doc also mentioned my Liver and Kidney function was exceptionally good! This, as I understand it means I have a green light to drink as much as I bloody well like over Christmas! Hell yeah!

The Doc says he would still like me to get the Cholesterol down a little further, saying I should aim to be about 4 or just under, and that I should aim to lose another half stone or so (I wouldn’t mind being a Welterweight, watch out Floyd Mayweather Jnr here I come !) but I am nearly there. I don’t know of how much interest this blog will really be to anyone else but for me it felt good to get this down in writing. Additionally I am hoping that having so publicly crowed about this it will help motivate me to get back on the wagon if I slip up and go on a Partridge-esque Toblerone binge.

Right I’m off to raid the cupboard for some Riveta and Celery!

I had some fresh Tarragon left over from cooking (extremely nice) Haddock Provençal the other day and thus was seeking an appropriate nice use for it that fitted in with my low cholesterol diet.

The following is basically an amalgamation of about three or four different recipes and some suggestions off twitter. Should serve two.

This was awesome!

Ingredients

3 Chicken Breasts

3 Large cloves Garlic

Lemon Juice

Tarragon

1 Onion

Dijon Mustard

Reduced fat Crème Fraiche

Black Pepper

Cherry Tomatoes

Olive Oil

Tagliatelle

In a roasting dish liberally pour some olive oil and some lemon juice. Place in the dish the chicken breasts and crush the garlic over them and add some chopped tarragon and black pepper so the chicken breasts are liberally covered on both sides. Half 10-15 Cherry Tomatoes and place around the chicken breast. Grill the chicken for about 7-8 minutes on each side until slightly golden and cooked all the way through.

For the sauce finely slice an onion (If like me you don’t know how to do this check out this awesome guide on the BBC) and lightly fry in a non stick pan. When cooked add a couple of heaped teaspoons of Dijon mustard, a dessert spoon of Crème Fraiche and a tablespoon of chopped Tarragon. Once heated mix with the cooked Tagliatelle.

Serve with the chicken and tomatoes on top of the Tagliatelle mixture, and pour the juice from the roasting dish over each portion.

What all the fuss is about!

So this Google Plus is the new black right? I may not be a devoted follower of fashion, but as a full on Neophile I cannae resist a new technology-ey thing! And seeing as all the cool kids are on Google Plus (all right none of the cool kids, but all the geeks, nerds and internet weirdos are!) I was desperate to give it a go.

Thanks to an internet pal Mr603 of Unmemorable Title, an SEO guru (Yay!) and a big Leeds United fan (boo!) who is ahead of the curve on such things I was able to finagle an early invite.

I really like the idea of Social Networking. I use Facebook a lot (despite the fact I despise it to the very photons it displays) and I really love Twitter. Both are massively successful and pervasive. So whilst I was massively keen to try Plus I had some healthy scepticism about whether or not there was some space for a brand new social network to thrive in.

I have to say I was on sign up instantly impressed. Before I even got to know about how to use Plus I just liked the look and feel of the place. It was quick and clean. In fact it looked a lot like Facebook minus all the tons and tons of irritating rubbish that FB has been piling on over the years.

As I started to use it, it became increasingly clear to me that Plus has some real advantages over both Twitter and Facebook and that whether or not there is space for it, this effort from Google has a real chance of muscling into the market.

Google Plus has a feature called “circles” this is where you organise your contacts into various different groups. You can have circles for Friends, Family, Work, Hobbies etc. This becomes really useful in terms of sharing because it allows you to be much more selective about who you share stuff with compared to the all or nothing approach on Facebook/Twitter.

There are lots of stories about people getting into trouble with work because of stuff posted on Facebook/Twitter etc, but because in the main everyone who are friends with/following you see’s everything you post it can be quite limiting. Most people’s have grandparents on Facebook now and let’s be honest most of us have stuff we wouldn’t want to share there. I know a lot of people who have two or more FB/Twitter accounts to separate work, pleasure and family. The Google Plus circles mean that actually you can do all of that within one social network and one account. This is a darned good thing if you ask me.

Also the circles mean you are able to follow people who are not contacts of yours but from whom you want information. Twitter style following in a Facebook style social network is another nifty feature. Clearly the Plus engineers and writers spent a lot of time looking at what was good about FB and Twitter and tried to amalgamate the two.

The “Sparks” feature is a way of finding content that might interest you. This is a pretty vanilla feature at the moment. It gives you a pretty anodyne, unisex, list of topics you might be interested in. You can customise this to your tastes (though annoyingly it thinks “Football” is called “Soccer”, and “American Football” is called “Football”. What sort of godless heathens programmed this thing? ). I suspect that as Plus grows, and Google get information about the things you “plus one” that the recommendations will become more forensic. If it turns out to be a Last.FM of internet content that this might one day end up being the killer app of Plus.

Some pretty cool technology stuff. Had a quick go on the “hang out” facility for the group video chat and I have to say it is very, *very* impressive. I shall look forward to seeing if it becomes a useful tool. Also the Android phone app is very impressive. Given that this is still in beta testing and the app is in its first iteration I am blown away. It is already much better than the official apps of both Facebook and Twitter if you ask me.

So then will Plus be a success. An interesting take on that here, obviously Facebook and Twitter are established in the sphere. I think Plus will be a success but I am not sure to what degree. I suspect that it will have really deep, really easy to use, integration into Chrome Browser, Android 4.0 (Ice cream sandwich) and all other Google products. If this is the case then I expect by a process of sort of internet use osmosis it will do pretty well because it will be easy to use in lots of different ways/places.

We shall see. For me, right now, it is a network I like and I am enjoying using.

Like pretty much everyone else I have been utterly astonished, horrified and disgusted by the recent “News of the world” hacking allegations. It beggars belief that something so crass and awful could have happened. In pursuit of a gutter press story giving false hope to the parents of a missing girl.

Being a politico, a blogger, a follower of the media and a subscriber to Private Eye I have been following this story with interest for quite some time, and been pretty disappointed that the story didn’t capture the popular imagination a little more.

Charles Foster Kane

I think though, that in targeting a murdered girl and doing what the NOTW did in this instance (plus the speculation that the worst is sill to come) I think that has passed. The story has now for me passed the “water cooler” test in work with people not interested in politics discussing the story at length.

However disgusting (and probably criminal) though the treatment of the Dowler family, and all the celebs/politicians hacked, has been this isn’t really the real story for me. The story, is of collusion, political and most worryingly from the police.

The MP Tom Watson has done a fantastic job of bravely campaigning to keep this issue alive (he was himself the victim of some scandalous treatment from the Murdoch press), and making sure that we know what is going on here is much deeper than our Tabloids getting some salacious stories about celebrities from their answer phones.

The point is that top level collusion in politics between the leadership of our main parties and the Murdoch press has become so engrained, so normal, that it barely warrants a mention. People kind of just assume that all politicians will do nothing but prostrate themselves before Murdoch and fight for his affection and support.

It is shameful, embarrassing and as we are seeing with the “Hulture” secretary Jeremy Hunt giving Murdoch what he wants over the BSkyB takeover, dangerously close to political corruption. I don’t think anyone expected Hunt to do anything other than wave the takeover through. After all the Tories “owed” Murdoch and News International after the election…. Basically Murdoch is able to bypass democracy, politics and buy what he wants with money and with influence because of his media empire. This is scandalous, but frankly “old news”.

Much more worrying is the suggestion, that seeming is increasingly likely to be true, that the Police have been involved in active collusion with News International in terms of trying to cover up the investigation into the phone hacking scandal. That journalists have been paying police sources for an age (as Rebekah Brooks admitted to parliament recently) is a well known phenomenon. Though I for one find it unsettling, worrying and just plain wrong, that the police would be prepared to give access to the criminal justice process in exchange for bungs.

But that the Metropolitan Police might have been trying to actively cover up the investigation into News International and the phone hacking is really, really worrying and new. This has shades of OmniCorp running the Police in Robocop and introducing a 4^th directive that the execs are above the law! The Met must have known about the Milly Dowler stuff because they had Glen Mulcaire’s records yet they didn’t act and tried time and time again to put the story to bed. The worry has to be that this is at the behest of corporate paymasters.

I think this is the “iceberg” below the surface of the story. And it is maybe looking like the truth is out. I hope so because this kind of development is worrying. And Police corruption, if true, is cancerous and very dangerous.

The whole situation is really worrying. I genuinely believe in the sort of Corinthian ideal of a free press being the “Fourth Estate” of a democratic society. Journalism is so important to us that it cannot be allowed to continue in the way the gutter press in the UK has. Distasteful stories are one thing, but active collusions with the police and politicians, and the distortion of our political and criminal justice systems cannot be tolerated.

I doubt the political will exists to take on the Murdoch press, but I do think the Press Complaints Commission is likely to go, as a sacrificial lamb to show “something” is being done. I have blogged in the past that I have concerns about the idea of state regulation of the media (though to be fair it works pretty well in Broadcasting) but clearly the voluntary code we operate on has been woefully inadequate in terms of dealing the excesses of the British tabloid media.

And as well as the PCC heads will roll, Rebekah Brooks is surely a dead man walking. And in any sane world there would likely to be people within the Metropolitan police in real hot water (though I wouldn’t bet on it). I wonder how far this will go? Perhaps I am a cynic but I don’t think for a second that David Cameron is going to allow a Public Enquiry (which obviously should happen) because big Rupert has him by the short and curlies! One thing is for sure there is a lot of mileage in this story yet.

Update 1

Well it seems I was wrong on the Public Enquiry. Cameron accepted one at PMQs. Since we are on a roll how about a proper, robust, media plurality law that has “Public interest” at it’s core? One can always dream.

Update 2

Robert Peston is reporting that the BSkyB takeover is in trouble and might have to get put off. I can’t see it mind I’ll be astonished if by the end of the year the Tories have not given their mate Rupert the gift they promised before the election. The whole thing stinks.