1,690 days

On Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn romped to a stunning victory in one of the most incredible, and potentially game-changing, moments in the history of UK politics. No party leader in this country's history has ever had as unequivocal a mandate to lead their party as was given to Corbyn by a party selectorate that had swelled to thrice it's size since Labour's electoral devastation in May. There aren't enough Trotskyists, entryists, and ill-behaved tories in the UK to try and sweep away the scale of the victory. Make no mistake: New Labour is dead.

Corbyn's victory, the stuff of dreams or nightmares depending on who you ask, was just that: a dream, back when he first announced his candidacy. Originally a 100/1 outsider, Corbyn was only meant to widen the debate and ensure the Labour left had a voice. He was never supposed to actually win. But even before the result was announced, the result was in no doubt. Corbyn's authentic, grassroots campaign was latched onto by followers in their masses, blending a perfect storm of idealism, frustration with the Westminster establishment, and a deep desire for something new and something better. A tidal wave of unbridled optimism to which his opponents had no answer.

So, what happens now?

It would be fair to say that Corbyn's first few days as the new leader of the opposition have been mixed. The Conservatives wasted no time laying in to the new leader, with even some who despise Corbyn questioning the almost absurd hysteria of the ensuing anti-Corbyn, anti-Labour rhetoric, both for it's fear-mongering sentiments, and for it's likely futility as a tactic, given the ridiculousness of it's claims (no one is going to believe that a 66 year old vegetarian who rides a bicycle is a genuine "threat to your family's future" except people who were never going to vote Labour anyway. It's what's called "preaching to the choir").

However, Corbyn has had some stumbles, most of them self-inflicted. He has actually assembled a very talented shadow cabinet, and women making up more than half of it is a historic moment in UK politics, and should be applauded. In addition, his creation of new shadow cabinet posts, especially in the case of mental health, has been universally praised by even his most ardent critics. Ultimately though, these noteworthy and positive moves have been totally lost in the shuffle by two intertwined misjudgments on Corbyn's part: the lack of women in so-called senior roles in the shadow cabinet, and the appointment of John McDonnell as shadow chancellor.

The first has been somewhat blown out of proportion, The Guardian going so far as to call it "abysmal". It's not an unjustifiable reaction, but it has been somewhat hyperbolised by various media outlets and commentators, with indeed many self-avowed feminists in the press and on twitter coming to Corbyn's defence on the matter. Corbyn can rightly point to some very high-profile female shadow ministers, such as Heidi Alexander (Health), Lucy Powell (Education), Angela Eagle (Business and First Secretary of State) and her sister Maria Eagle (Defence). However, ultimately it is true that all three of the so-called "great offices of state" went to men, and the situation is particularly exacerbated by the selection of John McDonnell as Corbyn's shadow Chancellor.

It is worth pointing out that Labour knows better than any other party the negative impact of a leader and chancellor not seeing eye to eye. Tony Blair's tempestuous relationship with Gordon Brown often undermined a lot of the good work that Blair's government did, and Ed Miliband's oft-reported disagreements with Ed Balls stood in the starkest of contrasts against the united front of Cameron and Osborne that has formed the bedrock of Cameron's government to date. It is vitally important that the leader of the party and the chancellor/shadow chancellor be singing from the same hymn sheet. That said...

Selling Corbyn to the public alone would not have been impossible. Difficult, certainly, but not impossible. But McDonnell has a reputation for being hard to work with and is even further to the left than Corbyn is. A strong, moderate, likable shadow chancellor (Angela Eagle would have been the perfect candidate) would have made Labour much more welcoming to the increasingly neglected center ground of British politics, and with McDonnell in the role, the job becomes ten times more difficult. Unlike Corbyn however, McDonnell has put his best foot forward, issuing what even the most hard hearted cynic would have to call a sincere sounding apology for his previous statements on the IRA (a much called for apology too) and pledging to tackle the deficit that George Osborne has spent the past 5 years fetishising (economics be damned). We will see.

In any event, with the exception of PMQs, it has been a week to forget for the new leader of the opposition. He was let off the hook somewhat by the bungled Conservative response that has seen the party slip 2 points in the polls, but Cameron is unlikely to make that mistake again. Corbyn will need to improve, particularly in his public image and his handling of the media. I think he has it in him. But an uphill battle has only been made more difficult after this past week.

Still: things can only get better, but that's hardly an inspiring campaign slogan. He has 1,690 days to come up with a better one.

2015 UK General Election Leaders' Debate: My thoughts

My thoughts on the leaders debate‬: Cameron looked more confidant than he did in the Paxman interview and did pretty well, better than Miliband in my view who as ever has some good policy ideas but lacks the rhetorical flair and force of personality to get them across effectively, although he had a few moments of genuine passion where he came across well.

Though public opinion of him has turned dramatically, Clegg showed he hasn't lost a step when it comes to debating. Farage too had a strong showing, although pushed the anti-EU message a little too long. A criticism of him tonight was that he thought every problem could be fixed by withdrawal from the EU, and he didn't do much to tackle that criticism, although he did occasionally weigh in on non-EU issues.

Nicola Sturgeon is a good debater and put her points across with eloquence and force, denting both Ed Miliband and the prime minister, but didn't in my view make a particularly compelling case for her anti-austerity views, didn't do enough to outline why austerity is bad and what the alternative was.

Finally, and I'm sorry to anyone who lives in Wales, or loves trees, but Leanne Wood and Natalie Bennet just weren't worth including, you could have taken them both out and honestly I can't see how the debate would have proceeded any differently, except the others would have had more time to speak. They honestly just wasted time. At least if the DUP had been there it would have been good for a laugh hearing Peter Robinson pipe up in the midst of serious discussions about the economy to pontificate on how icky gay people are.

Performances, from best to worst (all in my humble opinion, of course):
1. Clegg
2. Cameron
3. Farage
4. Sturgeon
5. Miliband
6. Bennet
7. Wood

Moto 360 review

Wearable tech has been growing in notoriety over the past few years, with the creation of the Pebble smartwatch in 2013 and the announcement of the Apple watch last year propelling the concept into popular discourse. There's clearly a market for the concept, with 2 million smartwatches sold last year, and those sales aren't likely to slow down any time soon with Google's latest Android 5.0 update now running on their Android Wear smartwatches, Samsung's full-throated support of the concept (having released 6 already) and of course the imminent arrival of the Apple Watch.

An initial problem with the smartwatch concept that put-off many everyday consumers was the fact that smartwatches, for all their additional functionality, were not pretty to look at. The original Pebble was a good first step (I still have fond memories of my recently replaced one) but watches are, first and foremost, an item of fashion, and the Pebble was simply not pretty to look at to put it as politely as I can. Pebble's next entry, the Pebble Steel, took steps to remedy this problem, boasting a much sleeker, much prettier design while retaining the Pebble OS from the original which had faced little criticism by comparison, but it still wasn't going to win many beauty contests

Original Pebble on the right, Steel on the left

Then last year, Google announced "Android Wear", a variant of their Android OS optimized for wearable devices, giving rise to a new generation of smartwatches such as the Samsung Gear series and the LG G Watch. While boasting full colour touchscreens and greater functionality at the expense of Pebble's simplicity and much greater battery life, the new Android Wear watches were still hampered, albeit to a lesser extent, by their looks.

An LG "G Watch"

That all changed though, and in September of 2014, the world was finally given a device with the pretty face to match her great personality: Motorola's "Moto 360".

Moto 360s, with metal (left) and leather (right) bands

The Moto 360 was the first smartwatch to feature a round watch face (hence "360") and in comparison to it's rivals it looks simply beautiful. Sleek and minimalist, it wouldn't look at all out of place at a business meeting or a formal occasion and it just carries an air of class and premium feel that it's subsequently released round-faced rival the LG G Watch R simply doesn't (although the G Watch R has it beat hands down when it comes to raw power and durability)

My own Moto 360 runs Android Wear 5.0.1, (or Android "Lollipop" as it's known as) features a 1.56 inch, 320 x 290 LCD display with gorilla glass 3 (some vertical pixels are lost due to the presence of a small bezel that cuts off the bottom of the display which personally didn't bother me in the least), 512 MB of RAM and 4GB of on-board storage, an inbuilt pedometer and a heart-rate monitor, (neither of which I ever use because I'm a lazy git) one solitary hard button on the side of the device for turning it on, and a 320 mAh battery. Battery life is one very obvious area in which the Moto 360 and smartwatches in general fall and fall hard in comparison to traditional watches, with most smartwatches needing to be charged nightly or every other night if you're lucky (the Pebble being a notable exception, it's monochrome display meaning the battery routinely lasted me 4 or 5 days). The Moto 360 is no exception, but if you don't mind the nightly charging cycle (which is aided by the Moto 360's impressive wireless charging feature that turns the watch into a bedside clock while it charges, something which I'd like to see more smartwatches do in future), the Moto 360 will easily make it to the end of the day and still often leave me with around 30% charge left, even with "ambiant mode" (a feature that makes the display stay on, albeit dimmed and colourless where otherwise it would go to sleep) left on all day. It's also worth noting that if you are ever caught short, the small battery means that the Moto 360 can go from empty to almost full in about 90 minutes and if you are caught short and need to give to give it a quick charge, even just a few minutes on the charger before you go out can make all the difference, with my Moto 360 charging from 21% to 52% in just 20 minutes.

A Moto 360 on it's wireless charger

What about Android Wear it's self though? As mentioned earlier, the Moto 360 is now running Android 5.0.1 "lollipop" and while I can't speak for how it compares with older versions of Android Wear, I can say that in and of itself, the software creates a truly beautiful experience that make using the watch a joy to use simply for it's bright, vibrant colours. The Moto 360 uses an LCD display as opposed to the P-OLED technology used by the LG G Watch R, meaning that the Moto's blacks just aren't as deep nor are it's colours as well contrasted but this doesn't lower the experience it all and from a design and software perspective, the Moto 360 is a gorgeous piece of tech. 

Android Wear however isn't quite there yet and while it has greater functionality than the Pebble (telling notifications to open on the phone, able to read entire emails rather than just snippets, music controls with tighter integration with music apps like Spotify etc.) the Pebble is more consistent and reliable in the tasks it does do. The Moto 360 does occasionally fail to tell me when notifications arrive, something the Pebble never did and considering the fact that from the standpoint of functionality the primary function of a smartwatch is delivering notifications to your wrist for quickness and convenience, this isn't something that can be totally overlooked until it's ironed out completely. 90% isn't good enough when Quasimodo is pulling 100%. In addition, while the touch screen is an obvious improvement over the Pebble's 3-button setup, it can be quite easy to accidentally mute your watch, turn on sunlight mode or cinema mode (which crank the brightness up to max or mute the watch and put the display to sleep respectively) and start playing a song with an errant tap or swipe. These moments weren't frequent though, and being able to skim through my notifications with a lazy, casual swipe of my finger, change what song I was listening to and navigate my way somewhere with my watch is the kind of experience that, as a tech fan, just puts a smile on your face. It is however a few software updates away from being perfect... for now it'll have to settle with being very good.

In addition to it's touchscreen, there is another way to interact with your watch: voice controls. One huge advantage of it being an Android device is it's integration with Google Now and being able to tell your watch to do everything from setting a timer or starting a stopwatch to telling it to navigate somewhere via google maps, asking it for information, or even replying to texts with what is admittedly fairly simplistic voice dictation, with texts sent in this manner lacking any kind of grammer, punctuation, or even capital letters, although I'd expect this feature to improve over time. Voice recognition was accurate and responsive, maybe even a little too much so. Google Now isn't very patient and I found that it had a habit of not recognizing something I said simply because it stopped listening too soon and cut off the end of my sentence. When it isn't being quite so impatient though, the speech recognition was accurate and it reliably picked up what I was saying. However, when it comes to voice controls, there is a very, very fine line being walked. When it works first time, yeah it's cool without a doubt. But if it doesn't work first time, if you have to repeat your instruction then it can often feel like having a bucket of ice thrown over you, especially if you're in public. This is a hurdle voice controls still need to jump before they become more mainstream (as they increasingly have been, to their credit).

Ultimately, smartwatches are still quite a niche market. The Pebble is too geeky and straight up not pretty enough for many people and Android Wear devices are getting better but the software isn't quite there yet. But if I'm confident of anything, it's that it will be eventually. Android Wear has some niggly issues but there are genuine flashes of brilliance to be seen as well and I can't wait to see how the platform will evolve from here. If you're happy enough with your traditional watch or your phone for timekeeping, or if you just don't think smartwatches add enough functionality to warrant dropping a few hundred pounds on them, honestly, you can probably live without one for now. However, if you're like me and convenience is the very air you breathe, if you like how they look, if you want to screw as much functionality as you possibly can out of your phone, or if you just want a watch but find the idea of dopping in some cases hundreds of pounds on a device that only tells the time totally abhorrent, then the Moto 360 is certainly the most stylish device you can buy that fits the bill. 

The 3rd Annual BWAP Awards

So, I have decided to start blogging again. For those of you who remember me: hi. For those who don't (the 99.99999999999999% of the internet that is) then hi, my name is Lee, and I like to talk about things. That's it. Moving right along

In addition to talking about things, I also like to talk about stuff. Movies, music, science, technology, gaming, philosophy... many fingers in many pies, you get the idea. So, now I'm back with a brand new blog, and what better way to christen it than with the 3rd annual instalment of the BWAP awards. Let's not waste any time, here are the nominees:

Best Film

• Birdman
• Gone Girl
• The Imitation Game
• Whiplash
• The Wolf of Wolf Street

Best Director

• Damian Chazelle - Whiplash
• David Fincher - Gone Girl
• Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu - Birdman
• James Marsh - The Theory of Everything
• Morten Tyldum - The Imitation Game

Best Actor

• Benedict Cumberbatch - Alan Turing in The Imitation Game
• Leonardo DiCaprio - Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street
• Chris Evans - Captain America in Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Michael Keaton - Riggan Thomson in Birdman
• Eddie Redmayne - Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything

Best Actress

• Anne Hathaway - Amelia Brand in Interstellar 
• Felicity Jones - Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything
• Jennifer Lawrence - Katniss Evergreen in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
• Rosamund Pike - Amy Elliot-Dunne in Gone Girl
• Emma Stone - Gwen Stacey in The Amazing Spider-Man

Best Supporting Actor

• Bradley Cooper - Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy
• Jonah Hill - Donnie Azoff in The Wolf of Wall Street
• Edward Norton - Mike Shiner in Birdman
• Tyler Perry - Tanner Bolt in Gone Girl
• J.K. Simmons - Terrence Fletcher in Whiplash

Best Supporting Actress

• Carrie Coon - Margo Dunne in Gone Girl
• Scarlett Johannson - Natasha Romanoff in Captain America: The Winter Soldier
• Kiera Knightly - Joan Clarke in The Imitation Game
• Margot Robbie - Naomi Lampaglia in The Wolf of Wall Street
• Emma Stone - Sam Thomson in Birdman

Best Original Screenplay 

• Birdman - Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo
• The Lego Movie - Phil Lord and Christopher Miller 
• Whiplash - Damian Chazelle 

Best Adapted Screenplay

• The Imitation Game - Graham Moore (Adapted from "Alan Turing: The Enigma" by Andrew Hodges) 
• Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn (Adapted from "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn)
• Guardians of the Galaxy - James Gunn and Nicole Perlman (Adapted from "Guardians of the Galaxy" by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning)

Best Visuals

• Birdman
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• Interstellar
• The Lego Movie
• X-Men: Days of Future Past

Best Audio

• Gone Girl
• Interstellar
• Whiplash

Best Ensemble

• Birdman
• Gone Girl
• Guardians of the Galaxy
• The Lego Movie
• The Wolf of Wall Street

Most nominations:

Birdman: 8

Gone Girl: 8

The Imitation Game: 5

Whiplash: 5

The Wolf of Wall Street: 5

Guardians of the Galaxy: 4

The Theory of Everything: 3

Interstellar: 3

The Lego Movie: 3

Captain America: The Winter Soldier: 2

The winners will be announced sometime. Until then, I will be gone and so will you. So do take care.