The problem with listening to my favourite band of all time while trying to write is that they're just too good. I'm six minutes into the last track on the album and only just starting to put this post down., better later than never I guess.

Anyway, let's crack on because, as usual at the moment, I am knackered. Bit more work related stuff first off, (what else is there?) We've been advised recently that we're not using crime numbers anymore and I believe, but cannot currently confirm, that the police themselves have requested that we no longer ask council tenants to get crime numbers.

It is my understanding that the aim of this suggested practice is to reduce recorded crime figures. I'm wondering now if, in the months to come, we are going to hear of 'great steps forward' and 'significant improvements,' in 'reducing' antisocial behaviour and petty crime in urban areas.

Shit on crime, tough on the appearance of crime.

Now if this is indeed what the police are doing then it's tempting to hurl a whole bundle of abuse at them and forget about the wider picture. I view the police the same way I view our military personnel: each one of them makes a conscious choice to be part of an enforcement machine and therefore bears some responsibility for the impact of that machine on the world.

This said however, police and soldiers do not make laws or start wars, they just enforce them and fight them and I've respect for anyone prepared to risk their lives for what they believe to be right. The notion of putting the appearance of an issue before the reality brings us neatly to the people actually steering these machines.

So we're getting some new laws, that's right, some more. Apparently our legal system is all screwed up, but it's always been this way so it's not fair to blame our present government. This is ok though because, as I say, we're getting some new laws that are going to make everything as it should be.

Our systems aren't underfunded or weighed down by insane bureaucracy, or even undermined for short term political gain, no what it is, is that 'the whole thing is tilted in favour of the criminal rather than the victim.'

Now I do find this interesting because, as I understood it, criminality only comes into it at the very end of the process. There's certainly a victim from the start, but isn't the other guy supposed to be innocent until the end of the trial?

Perhaps what is meant by that curios phrase is that the system is stacked in favour of the accused innocent rather than the victim. Or maybe it is suggesting that the imbalance is all crammed into the back end of the process. After the conviction, it may be saying, we are just too nice to those we find guilty.

If this is the idea, and I confess to still not being sure, then can someone explain to me why we have such an enormous prison population? (relatively speaking, one of the highest in Europe I think.) And when you've done that could you then talk me through how increasing that population is going to make things any better.

In the end I think, rather than trying to decipher such words, it's easier to just put them down to more of the same: putting the appearance before the reality. It's not about how things are, it's about how things look.

So what's the third example? The final slice of post, someone prioritising image over fact? Well, I think I'm going to have to say: me. I do it all day, every day. My focus is maintaining a convincing facade, of sustaining an alternate identity.

Whether it's playing the clean living and reliable employee or saying 'yeah, I'm fine' when I'm really not, most of what I actually say during a day is bullshit. Of course it's necessary, necessary for an easier life anyway.

When my boss asks me what I did with the weekend I could be honest, I could say, "I did a load of drugs and thought about how little I wanted to see this place ever again." And when my peer on the phones asks if I'm ok I could say, "miserable actually, I'm falling apart, how are you?"

I could be honest, but I can't help but think this might invoke an slight air of tension into the workplace. I guess the point here is that we all do it, we all play off people's responses and allow our behaviour to be defined, to some extent, by the appearance of a situation.

We are creatures weak and flawed. Despite this however, we achieve both great and wonderful things and we do this by the working together. Through co-operation we combine our strengths and cancel out each others weaknesses, this is what have evolved to do.

Why then, do we see flaws of personality, failings of an individual nature affecting our, supposedly, most widely inclusive body, our democratically elected parliament?

I've written before about my opinion of our 'democracy', that instead of electing representatives we employ a management elite to run our nation for us. I could bang on about that for pages more I'm sure, but now's not the time to retread old ground.

Instead I'll defer to a far greater writer than myself and recount a brief overview of Asimov's Foundation trilogy, three quite astounding must read books for anyone interested in how human society functions and develops.

The trilogy spans a vast era of time during which various forces rise and wane over both the bowed and shaking heads of humanity. There is the aristocracy, then religion, then practical idealism and eventually economics. As with all truly great writers, science fiction or otherwise, Asimov made me turn to the title page to check the publishing date.

Ahead of his time is too feeble a phrase, let's just say it's creepy to read someone's past predictions while knowing that they have since come so very, very true. Anyway, beyond economics, there was yet another force, the most powerful yet, the force of celebrity.

Now I'll ask you to draw your own parallels and conclusions from this, (because I can't be bothered to spell it out and godamnit I'm not here to hold your hand! ;) ) All I will say is that it seems obvious to me that a system based around individuals rather than groups is going to be more vulnerable to those aforementioned, individual-type flaws.

So that's it, there're your three for today. I'm off to smoke and play on the XBOX until I forget how much work I have to do at the office and how little I've got done here. I mean, my whole image on this blog is of a depressed and frustrated stoner writer. I can't very well say I'm off to be really active and happy can I, how would that look?