The AV vote really just shows how daft we all really are.

Last weekend, there was this thing on called a Royal Wedding. There were lots of cameras, lots of police and lots of viewers. Twitter, being Twitter, was ablaze with comments about how many people fancied Kate's sister, Pippa. We all watched from the comfort of our front rooms, or the streets as it seems for some die-hard fans, as the royals turned up, we all felt a little sorry for the guy who opened the door on the Queen's car only for her to then get out the other side, and we all chuckled a little bit when the commentator announced "the Queen has decided she's had enough of the balcony". Now, not to be outdone and needing something to do while the PlayStation network was down, America decided that all good games of Hide 'n' Seek must come to an end and finally found Bin Laden. Apparently, they charged into a compound, and shot him in the face, then tipped him in the sea, followed by the awkward phone call where Obama asks Bush if he still has that big "mission accomplished" banner. The bad guy is now dead, and the Princess married her Prince. If Disney made weekends...



Anywhoo, that's all over now. Well, except for the news updates that tell us "this just in: Bin Laden is still dead". Besides that, you may have heard there's some kind of referendum thingy going on about the voting system? Now this l'il argument has been quite fascinating to watch. Not because of the merits both sides have put forward for their points, but the banal and childish insults they've both thrown at each other. They've both managed to pull out of the closet the classic "if you don't vote yes/no... the terrorists win". I'm drawn between what to do; a yes vote will apparently mean that there's no baby incubators, and a no vote will apparently mean a coffeeshop is more popular than a pub? I don't know any more, but what I do know is that I've had to actually go out of my way, majorly out of my way, to actually find any real information on the pros and cons of both sides. There was just simply oceans of stupid comparisons and populist nonsense from both sides, and this is something that troubles me slightly. Let me explain why...  

Is Big Brother watching you? Well, depending on what newspaper you read, they are already here. How many times have you heard the statement "1984 was correct, they just had the year wrong"? I hear it all the time, and it really winds me up! 1984 is NOT here! We aren't forced to use doublespeak, we don't have cameras in our houses, and the only use I've ever seen for the ones on the street is to actually catch real criminals. I've yet to see anything to suggest that the Government is so interested in my boring little life that they really care about what route I walk home. I get quite annoyed at the constant assertion of today being a sort-of police state. If you genuinely believe we're living in a police state, or that our society is anything like 1984, then consider yourself extremely lucky. You have absolutely no idea what a real police state is like, and will most probably not experience one soon. The Soviet Union was far closer to a police state, North Korea too. However, there's another book I've read that does hold similar description of today: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley!
 
Neil Postman has already noticed this comparison and has written a book about it, and there's a very good blog page about it. He noted that instead of a controlled police state where everything is restricted and/or banned, it is a society where everything is freely available, and it's oddly similar to our society today. We don't have any real ban on books today. Huxley feared that a ban would not be necessary, because nobody would want to read one. Instead of the truth and the facts being censored from the population, it would be lost in a sea of irrelevance, pointlessness and tripe. The internet holds information that is so vast as to be practically unimaginable, all at our fingertips, and what do we use it for? To look at Lolcats! Just look at the news announcement on BBC Three! The pretty broadcaster reads out the latest celebrity gossip and waxes lyrical about Jordan's new boyfriend, whereas the real stuff quickly scrolls along the bottom. People can tell you, while waving their arms and screaming "ohmygawd" about the fact that some moron with a daft name on BB has said something truly and monumentally stupid, yet have absolutely no idea about what's happening in the Middle East (except that Bin Laden was popped). I've even received a DVD, promising me an income of £1m+ if I follow the seven steps. Apparently, becoming one of the richest people in the country is as easy as following an Alcoholics Anonymous program. Now I know that this is clearly all rubbish, but how many people will actually think they've struck gold here?
 
So no. 1984 is not happening. Unfortunately, the total opposite is, and it's just as bad, with the ironic situation that the majority of the public are complicit in its survival.
 
However having said that... did you see how the guy driving the Queen's car opened the door and she got out the other side! Ohmygawd I nearly died....

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