Here's a good little programme from the BBC World Service's Who Runs Your World? series, looking at various Musical Tribes around the world. Some of the content is a little obvious ('goth is associated with the colour black') but it's still good to hear a diverse bunch of voices talking about their own lives. And, because it's the World Service there's a more global perspective than most media outlets provide.
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fat man running
So Jonathan wrote this on the Love blog, and I commented with a little challenge, and a day later the above arrived in an email and now we're locked in a spiral of 10K madness which will presumably end up in two fat bloke heart attacks.
This is what I like about all this social media, internet of things, connected worldy shenanigans that's going on. It is of course theoretically possible that he and I might have done this without the nike+. We might have agreed to run 10Ks and compare times with stopwatches and postcards. But, of course, we wouldn't have done. The web/email stuff makes it quick and simple and the nike+ device lends a feeling of third-party verification. Obviously it would be possible to cheat it (I'm thinking I'll lend my gear to Paul if I have to) but cheating would be harder than not cheating.
What I need next is some device that'll allow asynchronous remote verification of competitive eating attainments. That I'll win.
Let the games commence.
in praise of idle
Sometimes I'm very proud to be British. This post-Christmas / New Year period has been one of those times. Because clearly, no-one can be arsed to go back to work. Most of the people at the coffee morning yesterday hadn't been back to work yet. The Guardian describe is as The Great British Skive with tons of businesses staying closed between Christmas and New Year and many not opening again until January 8th. (explanation of skive)
The Federation Of Small Businesses bleated that "The country will take some days to crank up again. We have stiff competition from China and India and if we are all away until the 8th there is an impact." Though if the competition is stiff enough to be impacted by our holidays then we're screwed already.
I was thinking about this myself this morning, wondering if I'd gone back to work yet. It's hard to know when you work for yourself and work from home. When do you go back to work? I've been answering emails and answering the phone the whole holidays, does that mean I've not stopped working yet? (I shall be listening to this to find out.)
I thought about it even more when I heard this extract from Tom Hodgkinson's How To Be Free. (The audio is only up for a week.) He pointed out that Merrie England was called that because it was a very merry place, he reads a list from Ronald Hutton's Rise and Fall of Merry England which makes it clear that before the reformation the whole year was chockful of feast days and holidays. Until the bloody puritans came along. And: "the tragedy of the 19th century was that Western man came to see himself, first and foremost, as a worker."
I think the Great British Skive isn't just a momentary aberration. I suspect it's part of a re-balancing going on in UK society, re-considering the relationship between work and life. This is partly because the economy is doing OK and we're, relatively, fat and happy at the moment. But I think it's a thing. Worth looking out for anyway.
coffee with badges
The Breakfast Club, nice and calm before we arrive. Coffee was really nice this morning. A bunch of new people, some old faces, and great chat.
Since The Breakfast Club always have nice badges I thought it'd be nice to make some coffee morning ones. So there they are. There were 20, I gave out 15 this morning, there are 5 left. This makes them exceeding rare. Expect to see them making record money on ebay shortly.
First to arrive was Sarah, who, for some reason I failed to photograph. And she very kindly brought be a gift from China. It's a Buddah box, but not one of the beautician/eno-oriented ones imported by canny Germans and filled with ambient tinklings. This one is an authentic, from-the-temple-type-device full of your actual chanting. It's brilliant. Thanks Sarah.
Actually, I know now why I didn't photograph Sarah, it's because she was sitting next to Dipti and I did shoot Dipti but then we both agreed that it wasn't a flattering picture so I deleted it. And then I forgot to do another. Sorry. Anyway.
So here's Andrew and Adil.
Ian, Tony and Rana. Note the jumper style that's clearly de rigueur with planner/researcher types.
Tony and Rana again, with Tim.
Rana has been mysteriously replaced with Stevie.
Last, but not least, Paul and Charles. We also had the very regulars Paul and Henry but you've seen their pictures a thousand times, though I was excited that Paul brought his yo-yo. I was delighted but flustered by all the new people so I might have missed someone, or got a name wrong, or missed a link, sorry if that's happened.
The conversation ranged too far to be reported here, from whether 2007 would be a lucky year and if it was surely it would be lucky for everyone and would that therefore count as incremental luckiness for any one individual, to how great the Science Museum is. And all sorts of stuff in between.
Really nice to see you all. Same time, same place, next week.
in praise of remote control
While I'm not a big fan of remote controls, I love the idea of remote control. Of pressing buttons and controling elaborate systems. Especially systems with a lot of autonomy. Maybe it started with The Beano. My favourite strip, by a long way, was General Jumbo. "Young Jumbo Johnson, from Dinchester, commands an army of wonderful radio controlled model soldiers, 'planes and tanks. Pressing buttons on his radio control-gadget, Jumbo put a brigade of models through manouvres in the local park". I was too young to worry about the miraculous efficacy of his systems, it just seemed like the perfect super-powery thing. No radioactive spider nonsense. Or training long and hard in a cave. You just got a radio controlled army and started doing good.
You could take your ship out and get some fish.
Or help Mancaster Rovers prepare for a crucial European tie.
It then manifest itself in an affection for Meccano and Lego but they never really lived up to what General Jumbo promised. And they didn't offer the autonomy that I wanted from my systems. I wanted stuff that you could set up and leave running. I tinkered with BASIC in my Computer Studies O' level classes (which I had to drop because I wanted to do music) but computers didn't seem very connected to the real world at the time. I couldn't see the link between what computers could do and what General Jumbo did. What an idiot.
I suspect Arthur might have inherited a similar love for remotely controlled systems. We certainly found ourselves among like-minds at the London Transport Museum Acton Depot opening.
So, as I confessed here, I've constructed my own rather exciting Garden Railway layouts, with points and bridges, radio control and an elegant trapdoor that let me store my trains in the basement. (Partly inspired by the other ultimate moment of remote control and autonomy; the Roland Emett designed breakfast contraptions on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which for some reason doesn't seem to have been YouTubed). I've always assumed that building a huge train set in the garden was quite an untypical thing for me to do. But looking back now, it does seem part of a pattern. (And, when Anne and I ever discuss our 'starting a cafe' plan, I always fantasise about delivering the food with a model train.)
Living in a small flat rather screwed up my opportunties to construct large automated, remote-controlled systems. But then, in a garden centre, I saw Gardena's automated watering systems and I couldn't resist.
Clearly this is massive overkill for a few window boxes on a tiny balcony but I'm rather pleased with it. I'm obviously tempted by some sort of Water Computer, but Anne would definitely frown on the pointless expense of that. So I'm now starting to wonder if I can arrange some kind of liason between my Lego Mindstorms NXT and my Gardena.
This stuff'll all play nice with water and mud, don't you think?
I'm not sure why I tell you all this. But now I'm done.
coffee morning
First coffee morning of 2007 will be this Friday (the 5th). 11am. The Breakfast Club.
corporate blogging stuff
Here's an interesting interview with Anil Dash of sixapart, who's a smart man.
i love the beginning of the year
Lots of new things start at the beginning of the year. I like the starting of things. And Beeker's just started a blog about classical music which I know is going to be a treat and an education. And Gareth's asking a bunch of interesting questions. Away we go.
folk button design
With all the Christmas visiting you play with a lot of strange remotes.
And you have to leave your remotes in the hands of the people visiting you, or you have to try and explain to grandparents how to change the screen to show the PlayStation. (As we've done above.)
And you realise that remotes would be much better if they could evolve to highlight the buttons you regularly use, while, actually the reverse happens, the oft used buttons get the ink rubbed off quicker than everything else. Failing that it'd be nice if remotes were easy to draw on.