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I like kids movies. I’ve seen Ice Age 1 & 2. Kids movies can be fun. Sometimes I go during the afternoon on a weekend when I have some time to kill. I can’t complain when an afternoon kids movie is filled with screaming kids.

Tonight I went to see Alice in Wonderland. 8pm showing on a sunday night. I really enjoyed the movie (how does Helena Bonham Carter get those roles?). Except for one thing.

A crying, noisy baby.

Now I know I have a reputation for “kids should not bee seen or heard” but I did feel that 8pm was really “adult time”.

Equally I understand that parents shouldn’t bee trapped in the house for the first 16 years of parenthood. But their are (parent and baby)[http://www.odeon.co.uk/fanatic/newbies/] screenings these days.

But perhaps your baby is a quiet one that sleeps through most stuff? Sure no problem. But if after a minute of crying the baby hasn’t settled down, I really think you should get up and take the kid outside till it does. The person at the cinema eventually did, but this was after 15 mins of disrupting the movie for the whole cinema.

I understand it’s not the baby’s fault. But I do blame the parent. My basic rule is, if I was making the same amount of noise (say talking on my phone) I would be considered inconsiderate (and most likely asked to leave). So why is ok for a parent to disrupt my evening relaxing time with my girlfriend?

The cinema to their credit, comped us when we complained after the movie, but I still found it really distracting, and inconsiderate of the parent.

I have friends with kids now. I do look forward to take A&S’s little one V, to the cinema in a year or two when she is older, giving me an excuse to see more kids films. Just at 3pm not at 8pm.

I’m useless at DIY, so my friend Andrew graciously came round to help. (By help I mean he did all the hard work and I stood around a lot looking useless).

This is what happened ...

I love reading. I read a lot. I read every night before bed. I probably read 20-30 books a year.

I love books. I love the smell of a new book. I love being the first one to read the physical copy of a book. I like being the person who cracks the spine.

So I’ve mostly dismissed e-readers. The Kindle looks interesting and the linking with the Amazon book is a smart feature and I did muse about the value of buying one. But it wasn’t available in the UK and then the iPad was announced ….

So I started wondering could I read books really on an electronic device? Could I give up all those things I like about books. The quality of CDs is way higher than MP3s but I pretty much listen exclusivity to MP3s now. My CD play isn’t even connected to my amp anymore. Convenience beat out the smallish loss of quality and that was that for music requiring actual media. And it was the iPod and iTunes where that convenience came in. I remember the days of loading songs on my 512 MB iRiver for the gym. I still listened to CDs in those days.

So I know if something becomes easier to use you soon forget about the reasons for not shifting. You just shift your behaviour without realising it.

But books are different right?

Well I thought I would try an experiment. I would read a book on my iPhone and if that was ok, I would consider buying the iPad. I’ve seen several comments on the web about people reading books on the iPhone’s and that the experience wasn’t that bad.

Roughly around this time @Reynolds wrote a interesting piece on the Amazon vs MacMillan spat, where he linked to his two books, in digital format for free. So I made a deal with myself. I would download and Blood, Sweat and Tea (and the sequel) and if I liked them I would buy the books and give them away to friends. I’ve met Tom at a blog meet two years ago, and follow him on Twitter, and he’s a nice bloke, so if I liked the books, I felt I owed him at least the cover price. Although sending him a tenner would net him more cash, most authors would rather be read.

I did enjoy the books. Immensely. They are really fascinating, well written and human. I highly recommend them. I bought two copies of Blood, Sweat & Tea off Amazon and gave them to my friends Ross and Andrew. With a deal. When done they to pass them onto someone else. Hopefully by spreading the book around ,Tom will get more people recommending it, and more sales in the end.

So what was it like reading a book on my iPhone?

Surprisingly after about 5 pages I forgot about the fact I was reading it on my iPhone and was just reading. I used the excellent Stanza App which made it really easy, and even with no iBookStore or KindleStore it was all pretty simple to get set up. I actually found the "tap to page turn" mechanism much easier than reading a paper book. Also reading in the dark while other people are trying to sleep in the same room an unexpected benefit. I also tend to flip from side to side with big books as I read on my side, and one half of a book is normally heavier than the other. With an iPhone this wasn’t an issue.

So what was a problem?

Well the formatting was off. I’m not sure if this was the ePub format or something else but having glanced through the properly formatted printed edition this was definitely a loss. The other issue was the amount of text easily visible on an iPhone is a bit less than on a normal printed page. However this I expect to not be an issue on an iPad or Kindle.

The "digital" aspect vs paper was never noticed once. In face some unexpected easy ways to bookmark pages, look things up in a dictionary and cut and paste text all where great additions that easily outweighed it not being paper.

I unrelatedly played with a Sony eBook reader in Waterstones yesterday. The flash black/white when turning a page would drive me super batty (I think). Looks like the Kindle has this effect too, so I’m way more likely to get something like an iPad than an Kindle. Of course I would need to play with an iPad first to know if it’s worth getting but based on my iPhone experience there’s a higher chance of it now.

I’ll probably blog more on eBooks at some other time, but for them to take off I really think they need to learn the lessons the music and film industry seem to have failed to make. Including

• No DRM. Seriously, All it does is annoy paying customers.
• Formatting. Seriously how hard can it be to format something that has to start digitally to begin with.
• Easy easy easy easy. Make it easy to buy. Easy to load. Easy to read.
• Available everywhere. On your own store. On Amazon. On iTunes. Don’t make me need 4 apps depending on where I buy a title from.
• Make it cheaper. Don’t knock $3 off the cover price and bemoan the cannibalisation of hard covers. I also can’t resell or lend an ebook, and you also don’t have to chop a whole fucking tree down and truck it around.

Sadly so far, the book/publishing industry seems content to make the same mistakes all the other media industries have made.

The best way to beat piracy is with connivence. Well that and a decent price. Man up and be innovative for a change.

An email I got by my girlfriend on the way home for Christmas ….

…

Oh my God. You have to be here to understand how bad this airport experience is.

1. I arrived in Gatwick at 5am looking for check-in section B. Turns out it’s a side exit to the basement and there’s a single file queue to get to the lovely basement.
2. No problem. Cos my flight leaves at 6.55. I have plenty of time (for a change). I can handle this. There is a desperately loud Aer Lingus lady shouting “Faro, Faro anybody for Faro”? Of the 600 people queueing some shuffle and squash their way past into the basement to get to Faro where nothing else moves in the queue. Faro at some point gets turned into Malaga, which evetually turns into Munich. An hour later the lady’s not hoars, and I am really looking forward to make it to the basement check-in. Not long now, surely. How many destinations does Aer Lingus fly..?
3. Yay. Finally my turn. All this waiting has paid off. I can now see the 6 check-in desks. I observe how even though we’ve been treated like cattle (eager to be hearded but going nowhere) people are being told off for the extra bag, oversize bags and heavy bags. I’m told I’ve got 10kg too much. Marco’s records get transferred from the suitcase to the rucksack. Is there a point to shifting it from one bag to the other, other than avoiding paying 27 pounds? Doesn’t it all go on the same plane? Hopefully. Maybe not though… Oh hold on. My bag’s not going anywhere because the Aer Lingus conveyor belt is not moving. Oof. Could we be facing a Suitcase Disaster in the Basement? An engineer gets called by the loud Aer Lingus lady. Poor her. She has a lot of responsibilities. They try to proceed with check in by shouting asking if there are any passengers with no luggage. I watch with interest. No. Not a single one. Guess nobody wants to show up at Christmas with no gifts. Good stuff. Ahhhh…it’s moving. Good good. Because according to my boarding pass the Gate closes in 30 minutes.
4. So quick quick out of the basement and into another queue for the xray machine. Oooh, it’s all going well so am sure there may even be time for some airport shopping? Hmmm maybe not. Don’t want the plane to take off without me. How come I’m worried about missing a 6.55 flight even though I got here at 5am? Hmmm…Christmas and Aer Lingus seem inefficient. Xray guys make me take off my boots. Oh, you guys were so close to flawless. Never mind. You’re pretty damn amazing in comparison to your other airport buddies today.
5. Bummer. My flight has been delayed. By one and a half hours. Oh well time for shopping. Yay, yay, yay. Am spending money and doing shopping which I didn’t have time for in London but the experience seems hollow despite what I try to make of it. These 10kg records that I am carrying on my back have now transformed me airport cattle experience to airport mule. This thing is heavy.
6. I think I’m allowed to sit down now to bend my back back into its natural shape, cos I’ve spent quite a bit of money on I’m not sure what as I’m feeling pretty tired and disinterested now. I think I’ve paced it all well though as I now only have 40 minutes left before my new Gate opens. Ok. Shoot. Setback. I’m sitting next to a big plastic bubble. The man who just started talking into the mic in front of the bubble is trying to get people to volunteer to sing. He calls is Gatwick Factor, like X Factor at Gatwick. That’s ok. Nobody in their right mind would sing at this time of day in Gatwick airport. No…not even the flights to see the Northern Lights that you are offering Gatwick Factor man. Nobody…good. I sense solidarity in this empty airport to combat stupidity.
7. Oh. One person climbs into the plastic bubble and starts to sing. No, that’s normal. Because she’s a teen and maybe this is ‘her moment’ for her. She’s making me feel more perky anyway cos the song is a crazy teeny bop song. It doesn’t disprove my theory or break the solidarity against stupidity.
8. Oh f. Despite it taking Gatwick Factor man a good 10 minutes to find another volunteer it looks like this out of tune singing has a steady stream of equally unable singers. I hear Grease Lightning (seriously, why do you eant to sing Grease Lightning- it’s an embarassing song), I hear Umbrella. You really sound shit. And I’m getting really f@@ed off having to listen to this sh!t. I woke up at 3am and this is harassment.
9. Oh my God. Why are you telling me to go to the main information desk for refreshments. Aren’t we only slightly delayed boarding for the new time? Surprise! There’s a queue for refreshments! God it’s long. How come everybody’s so keen to queue for three pounds? Not me. Oh interesting. The white board says I’m delayed by another hour and half. I didn’t realise there was a while board at the airport. Isn’t this why we have so many monitors? Maybe not because the monitors still say that I’m supposed to take off at 8.30 and the white board says I’m supposed to take off at 9.50. But no guarantees I suspect, hey? And why are only the Aer Lingus flights this heavily delayed? Or maybe it’s chaos for everybody and you just can’t trust what the monitors are suggesting.
10. Write to Adrian. He’ll worry a little but sharing is good. Oh. His text reads “Welcome to Vienna”. Ok, here goes. Another Gatwick Factor singer sings “I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind”. Honestly?
11. Oh my God was that “Last remaining passengers to Vienna…” have I been ranting so long already? Run mule, run, run, run. You can do it. Run away from Gatwick Factor and the cramped basement and the not working conveyor belt, the not working screens, the insanity. Run! Happy Chrismas everybody. I’m getting out of this jungle!

then some time …..

then …

Who owns the blue bag the stewardess is holding up? Confess! Get off the f@@ing plane. You and your blue bag! Show yourself! I need to get out here! I need to get out of here! Why what? There’s a problem with the computer system? Oh you found the error. We haven’t missed our slot. Good. What was that thing with the blue bag? I no longer have to find the owner of the blue bag?

I am laughing hysteric nervously all by myself in seat 18C. Nothing funny really. Never mind me.

There’s been a few interesting posts recently (see bottom of post) about how one of the issues we have currently is we have companies that are considered “too big to fail”. That we have to bail out banks, because if they fail, the economy breaks down totally, and it’s not a far jump from that to rats gnawing on your cold lifeless body in the street.

I was at a Yeah Yeah Yeahs gig last week, and between the support act and my second favourite half Korean coming onto stage, the solution dawned on me, as blindingly obvious.

Every time (not this year but the last 10) a company (Oil/Banking/etc) makes ludicrous profits (Billion dollars a second yadda yadda) everyone’s up in arms, as it’s immoral and wrong and we should impose a windfall tax.

I’m against windfall taxes. They sound like a good idea, but I think they’re mostly desired out of misplaced moral outrage (under the false assumption no one should make that much money) and not any decent economic reasons. If companies are making money be being anti-competitive, then competition authorities should come down on them. If it’s just a result of running a successful business then well done to them and we should move on.

I do however have a massive issue with bailing out these companies after they spent year after year declaring ludicrous profits. Yo banks, I’m looking in your direction.

The solution of course is not a ‘windfall tax’ but a bailout tax. When companies reach a certain size such that their failure would have impacts beyond their market and into the general populace, they have a choice. They can spin off sections of themselves into independent companies and slim down such that the failure of any single part would not have severe economic consequences.

Or they have to pay a bailout tax. This tax money would go into a government reserve (some fiscally stable system) and not general taxation. And when companies fail this money is drawn on to bail them out. This saves us printing new money (cough sorry quantitative easing) or borrowing such that my friends’ children will grow up in debt having to bail the lot of us out.

Now of course if a business doesn’t fail, the money goes to bail out businesses that do. That’s how insurance companies work and well let’s be honest, we need a few more insurances. And businesses don’t have to pay the tax. They can avoid the tax, by avoiding being too big to fail; otherwise when you’re declaring £10 billion a quarter in profit, you can pay a hefty chunk of that to make sure it’s not frigging me that’s bailing you out.

I want my tax money to go to something useful. And bailouts are not useful, but needed when things have gone too far wrong. I shouldn’t be the one paying for your mistakes.