Dean's Blog

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Is that it? Can I open my eyes now without feeling too depressed? I just heard the news that the UK has officially left the recession.

This news will not cause me to go out and slash my way through what is left of the remaining High St sales with reckless abandon (I did that last month) but it does allow all to breathe a sigh of relief. After nearly 18 months of economic loss we have now recorded our highest upturn since March 2008.

But my question is why has it taken us so long? Germany and France came out of recession last summer and Japan and the USA emerged also in 2009 so why did the UK take this long?

During the eighteen months that we were in recession public borrowing increased to around £178 BILLION and exports slumped by 6%. The UK has always been a bigger exporter than importer but the gap is getting shorter. That is the key reason why it took us too long to recover.

Were not out of the woods yet, growth was only .01% but it is still a step in the right direction. With the forthcoming Election pencilled in for early May it looks like the outgoing government have put two fingers up at the likely replacements in the Conservatives.

Politics is a very unfair game, by the time the Tories do turn the country around no doubt the publics opinion would have swayed to a returning Labour. It’s been that way since the day I was born and I really would like to see this change at some stage in my life.

Why do we, the public, have to pay at the hands of those we elect?

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Just over one year ago a new era dawned in US Politics. Following eight years of leadership by what many describe as the worst president in living memory a youthful, ethnic and charismatic Barrack Obama was sworn in. All eyes of the world were on a man who promised reform, change, and a new dawn for the world. All eyes focused on this man. It was a time where the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded, all Europeans loved his calm and methodical approach, the world really was his oyster. He was not President Bush and many thought he could turn America back into the land of Dreams.

How a year can change things.

Today Republican Scott Brown won a shock victory in Massachusetts following the death of Senator Edward Kennedy. The result means that the Republicans have now lost their 60 seat stronghold in the Senate causing serious doubt over his Health Reform plans which are without a doubt the most important domestic change yet.

The Americans are seeing the defeat as humiliating for the Democrats, especially as it is so soon in the first term and the fact it had been a Democrat seat since the 1960’s. So has Obama’s halo slipped off so soon?

Europe especially took to Obama; many perceived him as the next Kennedy, a youthful, vibrant president who urged change yet with a manner that appealed to all. A man of ethnicity that could breach racial barriers. In April 2009 he offered the world a vision of a Nuclear free world stating that it was not an impossible fact, such was the power of his words that even North Korea were listening.

But let’s get back to reality.

Afghanistan is a complete and utter mess, Obama was faced with a decision that could have seen a U-Turn in his pledge up to the Presidential race and that was either scale back the number of troops or send more. The world waited with baited breathe. America stalled, sent more troops but Europe did not follow suit, the first real snub for Obama. Then there was the climb-down on his promises for the Environment, Guantanamo Bay remained open and the war on terrorism still rages on. There has been no break through in the Middle East and indeed many believe that Obama is a man of just words.

So whilst the worlds eyes are no longer solely focused on Obama we still keep an ear to the ground. Obama so far has not delivered anything major but he is still in his Presidential infantile state. Whilst those like Kennedy and Lincoln will go down in history as Presidents whose policies changed the world Obama still has time to join that illustrious list.

It is often in our lives that we face difficult times; sometimes these times seem impossible to overcome. We face times and circumstances in our lives that make us want to curl up in a corner and hide. All of us are individuals with different emotions and genetics so often advice can be harder for those to follow than others.

2006 was a difficult year in my life I faced certain problems that I thought I could not overcome that easily and even thought it was a very traumatic period in my life I never gave up believing that there would always be a brighter day ahead. It was through the help of a dear friend that really got me through and I was more than happy to repay the favour two years later.

A new year dawns and whilst most start a new year with invigorated hope and aspirations I once again stare into a deep abyss yet unlike last time I knew that it was coming. It’s worse than 2006 but at least this time I had time to prepare.

Currently in my life right now there are many positive aspects that are occurring both in my professional and private life and indeed over the next two or three years I am expecting big things to happen so the optimism will always be clinical in my fight against the forthcoming dark days.

Life will always throw problems our way and we cannot run nor hide from them because nothing moves faster than life, nothing hits us harder than life and certainly there is nothing stronger than life. Fighting back maybe futile in many scenarios but with the desire to succeed and the support of friends and family we can overcome those darkest of days.

It's 10.44pm and though my mind is saying "Sleep" there is something that I wanted to blog about today and that is what will happen to technology this decade. Recent reports say that the growth of technological advancements will rapidly decline this decade. Let's rewind ten years.

At the start of the year 2000 it was hardly what I would call the dark ages. Most houses had PC's with the good old fashioned dial up Broadband (who here can remember the times when your internet would cut out when you had an incoming phone call or you could not connect to the internet if you had BT answer phone on!). Mobile phones were ever more common with text messaging becoming more and more popular some phones even had WAP! DVD's replaced the VCR for good finally ending us saying "I'm just off to the video shop". PC's were clunky noisy devices that had around 20gig of memory, and only the posh people had laptops.

Then there was the internet. AltaVista led the way in terms of search engines, GeoCities allowed you to create websites with those magical "Under Construction" banners and for e-mail Hotmail led the way with their rather generous 5mb of space!

The home was also a place where we were enjoying a change in technology. The old base TV's were slowly being replaced with larger models with 28" being the most popular. LCD TV meant a much clearer picture and Sky TV was more in demand than ever. The digital camera became more popular too and soon the 1mp camera was breaking into the market. We were in heaven having the ability to have over 200 photos on a digital memory card!

So what changed?

• Playstation 3, the WII and Nintendo DS pushed the level of home gaming to a new level. Back in the 80's it was Trivial Pursuit parties, now it's WII nights.
• The Iphone changed the way we used phones forever.
• The Ipod killed off the mini-disc
• Blu Ray is the new DVD
• 3D/HD TV replaced LCD
• WIFI is the new broadband
• The 12mp camera and SLR are now standard
• Social Networking changed the internet forever
• Google became the most recognised logo in the world.

In summary technology got smaller and the world became more clustered and connected than ever before. Not since the invention of the telephone had we seen such technological advancements. We now even have a talking navigation device in our car that can tell us the way to Amarillo and in the comfort of the voice of one Homer Simpson.

So what does the new decade hold? Well personally I am in agreement with the sceptics, it has to slow down.
I can see Apple and Google still dominating the market. The Iphone will no doubt see more changes than a Man Utd strip (Rumour of a 4G coming in May seems accurate). Google will take the art of communicating to a higher level with their Google Wave and of course we will all be twittering about what were up to each second of the day.

Facebook, Twitter and Youtube will never be surpassed. They have become the grandparents of the internet; they found a gap and just went for it. I can see sites like Second Life becoming more and more popular as the technology advances. But as these gaps have been filled and the numbers of people hop on board the Twitter train it's unlikely they are going to be replaced. In the early days of the internet it was all about trying out what was best for you and then if you did not like that simply moving on to another. That won't happen with the likes of Facebook.

The only real advancement I can see is in the home. We can already pause and record live TV, we can watch shows we have missed on line so nothing really new will be coming there. As the sudden interest in technology slows down following the rapid rise in the Noughties we will soon realise that there is indeed a big wide world out there that we can explore from outside of that place we call home.

Sure technology means that we can mail, talk and even video each other from the comfort of our own homes yet the human instinct will still show that we are a race of people with emotions, a race of people that cannot live just with technology.

I'm off to bed now, my Blackberry, Iphone, Blu Ray disc, Flatscreen TV and PS3 are all switched off, all I can hear is the dripping sound of the rain on the street below...there is a also a cat that is running around like a banshee.

I guess I'll put that on Twitvid.

Night all :)

I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was texted all my friends cancelling all of my planned nights out for the month. On the way to London I calculated how much money I would roughly spend on those nights (minus taxis). It came to around £200.

This money is not wasted, I love going out with friends and I think that having a social life is an important asset in our daily lives as it not only breaks the monotonous routine of daily work but it also makes us feel happy and appreciate those close to us whilst we are away from our families.

My reason for cancelling is that I was horrified to read the Metro headline today that the death toll in the Haitian earthquake has risen from 52,000 to 500,000. That is the population of a Swedish City.

There are many devastations that hit the world but there are none worse than a natural disaster. Those that are created by war can possibly be salvaged through political diplomacy but when a sudden force of nature not only destroys and devastates a country it is normality, history and the future that are brutally destroyed in a swift act of destruction.

The 500,000 is just the dead, they say up to three million will be permanently affected. The World Bank has donated $100 millions. Will that be enough? I’m not so sure. That is why my little donation can possibly help somehow help. I’m not going to urge anyone else to make a donation as it’s a personal choice but after seeing the news this morning it reminded me of the Tsunami several years ago. They are still clearing up and will be doing so for many years, I fear that the same will apply to Haiti.

Natural disasters are the worst of all.

As the snow thaws and the ice slowly begins to melt I realise that this could possibly be my last winter here in the UK, well as a resident at least.

Over the past several days the weather has totally dominated the news, schools closed, transport in chaos and total anarchy at the airports. If you did not live here you would hardly believe that just a few inches of snow can bring the country to a complete halt. Yet even though people are moaning about the snow I am not one of them.

Growing up in the UK I am old enough to remember the winters of 1981/82. Harsh snow covered the country in a blanket. I was in hospital for the winter of 81 but can still vividly remember the 82 winter. Schools were closed as the heating would not work yet I cannot recall there being this level of madness nor complaints about not getting to work. Trains were cancelled as were the buses yet people still made their way in. Maybe this is due to the culture of work has totally changed over the last 30 years. Working from home was impossible then, let alone the thought of remotely accessing a computer from your own home.

Yet through all of this moaning and madness I gaze out of the train window and sigh a deep sigh. London is beautiful when it’s covered by a blanket of white, it looks serene and peaceful. People seem friendlier when it’s snowing, akin to being taken back to their childhood. Children seem to forget the electronic gadgets that shackle them to their bedrooms and venture outside for a rare moment of bonding with total strangers.

That is the magic of winter, a time where all thoughts of animosity and worries are forgotten and those huddled in a warm bar by the fire, or those in the field playing merrily, and even those who suddenly begin to talk to strangers waiting for a train there is no doubt that it is the most special of seasons.

The past few days has seen a rather dark side to the game of football. A few weeks ago a friend and I were sat in a bar talking about what players our football teams would be losing during the African Nations Cup. He was moaning that he could not understand why the competition was held at this particular time of the year and also the meaning of the cup. I tried to reply that it was the equivalent of the European Championships and that the leading African Nations were among the best teams in the world and the tournament itself was a spectacle to enjoy. I don’t think I convinced him.

For those who follow the game religiously, like my friend and I, the only concerns we really had were how we were going to cope losing some of our top stars during the tournament. Chelsea have lost Drogba, Mikel, Essien and Kalou four of our top players. For those who do not follow the game then you would only be aware of this if you read the back pages.

That was until last week.

On Friday the Togo national football team were traveling to their camp to prepare for their first game of the tournament. On the way they came under attack in Angola. The blame has been placed on the The Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda and as I type this I read that two men have been arrested. Two members of the team as well as the driver were killed. Immediately all Premiership managers were calling for the tournament to be called off and the players to return home. I personally did not agree to this decision.

The African Cup of Nations is a tournament that has had it’s moments off the pitch. The political climate in Africa is far more unstable than that in Europe and there will always be issues regarding certain teams playing against or in varying countries. An instance where an attack claimed the lives of three people before the tournament even began has hardly helped calm the fears of those supporters thinking of traveling to South Africa for the world cup in two years time.

Yet even in tragedy the real beauty of football can shine through even the darkest cloud. Last nights game between Angola and the lowly Mali began with a wonderful one minute’s silence that was observed by all. Angola soon took a 4-0 lead and were cruising. Then with just eleven minutes left on the clock the unthinkable happened Mail pulled a goal back, then another and sensationally scored two goals in the last minute to ensure a 4-4 draw.

It was quite simply one of the most amazing games of football I can recall seeing and placed the focus once more on the game. This year’s tournament will always be remembered for what happened to the Togo team. But it shows that even in times of pain, football truly is The Beautiful Game.

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As the UK grinds to yet another halt. I thought I would share some quotes on what non UK residents make of our snow. Some I think are a little harsh, others I think are spot on. Some countries do not get the ice that follows the snow and we do have a population of over 60 million that are trying to move around like snails. Here are the best of the quotes.

Residents who contacted the BBC News website expressed astonishment at the television pictures and stories of the effect the snow is having in places not used to such conditions.

Maija messaged from Mouhijarvi, in western Finland, deriding the weather in Poland, where temperatures have fallen to as low as -25C.

"Ha! It's 5pm in Mouhijarvi and the thermometer outside our kitchen window is currently reading -28C. With no cloud cover in sight I would expect the temperature to fall at least a couple of degrees during the evening. Not abnormal here at this time of year," she said.

Briton Roger Hampton said he travelled 250km from his home in Oslo, Norway, without problems on Wednesday when it was -22C.

"In the town Roros, in central Norway, it has been -40C the last two nights. I have not heard of schools closing and the roads are for the most free," he said.

In several European countries, including Norway, the use of winter tyres on vehicles is required by law. In contrast, in the UK, where no such law exists, during the wintry weather, drivers there are advised to use their vehicles for essential journeys only.

"Why do the English have this problem every year?", asks reader Dario More in Germany. "Here, in Dresden, at -13C, I drive my car normally on ice and snow," he says.

Views from BBC News

Some people have asked why my blog is titled "Now is here, here is now". It's taken from a song by an Irish band called Clannad. They often write music which sounds to me very Pagan and Celtic. Myself being Pagan I relate to this a great deal.

The lyrics to this song are

With the sun right through,
departed into darkness,
I need someone too;
The fantasy and you
Now is here,
Here is now
Na na na na
You inspire
Peace of heart
Na na na na
With the words like air
The destiny we share
Is a dream come true
The fantasy and you

To me it means that each day can bring love and joy into your life and bring peace amongst the heart and to me that can mean anything that makes you happy. Enjoy!

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