life

2013 in Review

Warning: statistics ahead.

It's become apparent that people who aren't out enjoying themselves on New Year's Eve (and indeed some people who are) feel the need to post reviews of their year on Facebook. Usually this consists of the sort of drivel you'd normally get in a particularly melodramatic Oscar acceptance speech, written by those still under the illusion that some of their friends haven't yet blocked them.

What's slightly more interesting is that Facebook will actually generate you a year summary page automatically which, as anyone who's read my thesis will know, I think is really cool. OK, it doesn't have the emotion or the prose but it does have the content, and is probably more accurate than the aforementioned tearful waffle. I tried to generate one for myself using Facebook, but was informed that because I'd not actually posted anything on Facebook in the last year, it couldn't generate anything for me. A few hours later, Facebook locked my account, believing it to be fake. Ho hum.

Never one to be beaten, I remembered that I've got a PhD in lifelogging and can therefore do far better than Facebook can. Bear in mind I have no illusions of anyone other than me reading this entry, but like everyone else, I'm going to write it anyway, because mine is arguably science, damn it.

Photos

In 2013 I apparently took 5150 photos, either with a camera, a phone or my laptop's webcam. 944 of these photos were of people I know in some way. The top five subjects of my dodgy photography are as follows:

| Shell | 99 photos | | --- | --- | | Kath | 60 photos | | Ritchie | 50 photos | | Nobba | 46 photos | | Grapes | 42 photos |

563 of my photos were taken at Mafia gigs, 155 were at Minami Con and 375 were taken at Marwell Zoo. Incidently I visited the zoo seven times this year, meaning my annual pass paid for itself more than twice.

Music

I've used Last.fm since it was called Audioscrobbler, so I have a complete log of my listening habits. My top 5 bands of 2013 were:

| Helloween | 256 tracks | | --- | --- | | Katzenjammer | 232 tracks | | Nightwish | 211 tracks | | Queen | 204 tracks | | The Offspring | 184 tracks |

Interactions

I've not really gone overboard with this, because the data is so patchy. I can, however, tell you how many times I've texted someone or tweeted. I sent 2558 text messages and received 3458 in 2013, and nearly 85% of these were to or from Shell, which I actually found a bit odd considering our living arrangements. My top five correspondents were as follows:

| Shell | 5055 messages | | --- | --- | | Kath | 307 messages | | Grapes | 163 messages | | Pete | 105 messages | | My dad | 85 messages |

I tweet a lot. Sometimes people tweet back. From the three different accounts I have, I posted 1265 tweets in 2013 (not including retweets) and received 662 back. The five most common senders of tweets aimed at me are as follows:

| themafiarocks | 196 | | --- | --- | | Shelley_Smorth | 93 | | hvcco | 66 | | PixMaidwell | 44 | | riverflow101 | 34 |

I've also had one-off tweets from Robin Ince, Adam Kay and Sarah Pinborough. I'm pretty sure none of them think I'm a dick (yet).

Places

Finally, I wear a GPS logger pretty much all the time. Because of this I can reveal that my top five most visited places in 2013 are:

| My house (unsurprisingly) | | --- | | The university (where I work) | | My parents' house | | The Crown Inn, Highfield | | The Novotel, Southampton |

I spend at least an hour a week at the Crown, as it's where I have lunch every Friday, I'm not just an alcoholic. Also, the Novotel is the location of Minami Con, where I spent three entire days in March. Honourable mention goes to the Heroes, Waterlooville, where I apparently spent over 50 hours of 2013 for various reasons. I haven't kept count of how much money I've spent there, but I think that's for the best.

So of course my task for next year is to automate this process. Shell has just pointed out that in the time I've taken to write this post, she's watched an entire episode of Downton Abbey, and she feels like the more productive one.

Oh yeah - happy new year!

Ask a stupid question

Can I have a full stop please, Rachel

Well, either that or Hedge End takes its golf very seriously.

Charity Gigs

A lot of pubs, particularly chain pubs, have a habit of putting on charity events. These are generally fun days with live music, possibly guest beers, etc etc, and all in the name of some charity. It could be a local charity, a charity close to the hearts of the owners or punters of the pub, or just a charity that is supported by the pub chain. Afterwards you get the obligatory 'big cheque' photos in the local papers.

This week, some friends of mine who are in a band (who shall remain nameless so they're not associated with this overly critical blog post, but whose identities will be known to those who read this blog often) had one of their gigs cancelled by a pub at very short notice. The pub will also remain nameless, suffice to say it's part of a pub chain owned by Mitchells and Butlers, and located in the south of England. The reason for the gig not going ahead was due to an ultimatum given to the band by the pub: it was a charity do and they were expected to turn up and play for free, despite being previously booked on the understanding that they'd get paid. Of course, the band decided not to do the gig, as they have running costs and can't afford to simply gig for free whenever a pub decided to put on a charity gig, and it's more than a little cheeky of the pub to "move the goalposts" in this way anyway. Of course it's easy to assume the band are heartless bastards for not playing at a charity gig, and only in it for the money. But the whole thing made me think a bit more about the situation, and I can only conclude that charity gigs in general are a massive scam.

Charity gigs are usually run by pubs, and the pub is often open as usual. You can go in, buy drinks, listen to live music for free, and there are collection buckets around into which you can throw your loose change. The atmosphere is usually pretty good, and giving money to charity is generally a good thing. But there is one constant in the entire thing that never changes, charity or not - the pub. Think about it - on a normal gig or event night, the pub will pay a band, DJ or other entertainer to appear. The whole point of booking said events is to pull in punters and sell more beer and/or food. On a charity day the bands and entertainers don't get paid, they effectively 'donate' their time to the cause, but the pub don't actually donate anything. In fact, the pub have basically just conned a bunch of bands and entertainers to appear in their establishment, thus earning them extra bums on seats, without actually having to pay them. OK, so they've put a few charity buckets around the place and told one or two of their already-employed staff to run around hassling people for change, but the pub actually contribute nothing to the charity, financially or otherwise, yet reap the benefits of having live entertainment. The pub will usually even get free advertising in local papers in the weeks after the event, which is where the big cheque photo opportunities come in. The local paper will run a story that a nearby chain pub has raised [x] thousand pounds for charity, yet in actual fact they did bugger all, sold loads of beer and food on the back of a load of entertainers they didn't have to pay, and to cap it all off, they're now getting free advertising in the local paper.

So what am I saying? Basically, if you own a pub, run charity events. They're a fantastic way to make money while convincing gullible punters that you actually care about their poxy charity. If you're a band, please don't feel guilty about turning down charity gigs, you can't possibly be as immoral as the pub holding it. And if you're a punter and your favourite local band is playing a charity gig, please give generously. In fact, take all the money you would have spent on drinks and put it in the charity buckets instead. You'll be doing far more good than the pub are.

Facebook Home

Facebook have announced Facebook Home, a UI for the Android operating system. Normally when Facebook announce a new feature, I write a ranty blog post telling everyone why they shouldn't use it (which people usually ignore, at least until the BBC publishes an almost identical article a year later.)

So this time I'm not going to say anything technical at all. My views on the subject are irelevant - I won't be using Facebook Home, and most of my less tech-savvy friends are iPhone users so they can't even if they want to.

What is starting to bug me are Facebook's tech demos. Specifically, the sample data they're using. It's far more interesting than any of my actual friends. For example, check out www.facebook.com/home. It shows off some of the new (er - repackaged) features that you can use with Facebook Home. You can get status updates right on your home screen. Elisabeth Carr wants to tell you "Just finished my first marathon and qualified for Boston!" Nicholas Arioli asks "Finally paid off my student loan, who wants to help me celebrate?". The reality is, of course, that most people (at least most people I know) don't post status updates nearly as interesting - it's usually something along the lines of "OMG, my parcel is late, I took the day off for nothing", "My ex-husband is such a dick" or "Just saw a squirrel piss on a cat LOL."

The sample photos on the demo are fantastic too - Facebook Home allows you to see all your friends' photos on your home screen as they're shared. Look at Amanda Johnston's beautiful photo of Lake Tahoe. Look at Will Bailey's fabulously arty photo of his lone tent in a corn field. The reality is, of course, that the photos will probably be of your mate Dave passed out on the floor of a toilet cubicle. Or your old high-school friend Lauren (who you never really spoke to anyway) and her 50th photo of her kid today. Perhaps an over-saturated photo of some sushi, or, if you're really lucky, a photo of the aforementioned squirrel pissing on a cat.

The simple fact is that most people are fucking boring. It's not their fault, each to their own. But continual connection to everyone else is a bad thing, not a good thing. If my friends did continually post photos of their skydiving trips, or their camping expeditions in beautiful places, or wrote about interesting things, then I'd have much more time for Facebook and social networking in general. I can only imagine that the sample data is based on Mark Zuckerberg's naive assumption of what having any friends is actually like. Maybe there's a niche market here - I should start a service that actually fills your Facebook feed with interesting (if completely fictional) things, so you can pretend your friends' mundane life experiences are actually worth reading about.

I'm going to stop ranting now, if you'd like more information about Facebook, please consult the great Oatmeal.

For those who blinked and missed it

A screen grab from the ITV show "Penn and Teller: Fool Us" last night. Look who's sitting just right of Teller's shoulder :)

Fun on the Phone

I just had a cold call from a number I didn't recognise. The caller introduced himself as being from an organisation with an acronym that I didn't recognise (and consequently can't remember - sorry!) working on behalf of a university I'd never heard of. He then asked if I had time to participate in a short survey. I politely declined and hung up.

I then looked at the caller display and thought there was something odd about the number, 00208-433-6080, as it began with two zeros rather than the usual one. I also noticed several other previous missed calls from the same number. Intrigued, I did a bit of googling and discovered that 00 is the way to dial an overseas number from the UK, and 20 is the international dialling code for Egypt, so the number was in fact the egyptian number 84-336-080. 84 is the area code for Faiyum, if you're interested, although I'll be surprised if the origin of the call is anywhere near there.

My first thought is that the 'survey' was just a clever social engineering tactic to get people off the phone, and that this is one of those scams where someone rings you from a premium rate number hoping you'll ring back. But international numbers, though expensive, don't benefit the caller financially, so after a few checks on the net for known phone scams, I now believe it was more elaborate than this, as described on the Australian site Scamwatch. According to this site, you can get called by someone claiming to be doing a survey which is actually nothing more than a reconnaissance excercise so they can call back later with a much more convincing scam. If they ring again I may pretend to go along with it and give them a bunch of false information, just to see if I'm right or not.

In the meantime, I thought I'd put this on the net for all to see (together with the number, 002084336080, in case anyone googles it). Basically, if you see this number in your missed calls, don't ring it back (good advice for any number you don't recognise), and if you answer a cold call make sure you know exactly who you're talking to before giving out any information about yourself.

Hotels and technology

OK, I'm all in favour of technology. I'm the bloke whose house is slowly becoming a digital mecca, I have screens all over the place, the music in every room can be controlled from a phone, and I have a photo frame in my kitchen which alerts me to when the bins need taking out. I'm a geek, I love technology. So it's great when hotel rooms have little control panels for all the lights next to the bed, and the telly is less of a dumb VDU and more of an entertainment hub.

There's a proviso... if it's not obvious what something does, it should be labelled. I'm in the Trento Grand at the minute, which as the name suggests is quite posh. Sadly, like most posh hotels, it's shit. Ignoring the late night bar which seems to shut at 9, the pathetic excuse for a car park and the fact that they seem to have taken a leaf out of Ryanair's book in that you have to pay extra for everything, the rooms are technological masterpieces that are generally about as intuitive as an Apple product in that they make no logical sense whatsoever.

Firstly, it's sadly quite common for plug sockets to turn off by themselves if you leave the room, but this place goes one better... the sockets go off if the lights all go out. So no overnight charging of phone. I solved this problem by unplugging the desk lamp and plugging my phone into the socket where that was, and then leaving the desk lamp 'on' overnight. Of course in my mad stress session trying to find a socket that didn't go to sleep as soon as I did, I ended up unplugging the mini-bar and didn't realise until the evening. Hopefully they won't charge for all the gone-off food in there.

There's a switch by the front door that clearly does something, but I've no idea what. Switching it from one side to the other makes a light change from green to red, but nothing else obvious. I've left it on green purely because that's where it was when I got here, but I might leave it on red when I check out. There's also two wall panels, one in the bathroom and one in the main bedroom, which seem to contain an IR LED. Not a sodding clue why, but they do look a bit like HAL to me. Additionally, it's quite creepy how there's a light on the outside of the door that says if anyone's in the room or not, and that the cleaners seem to like drawing/undrawing the curtains for me as soon as I leave the room for 10 minutes.

| | | --- | | What the fuck does this do? |

But what pissed me off the most, I had a shower this evening. There's a vent at the top of the bath with a white cord next to it. Not wanting the room to become humidified, I pulled the cord to turn on the extractor fan. Nothing happened. Then when I got back into the main room I noticed a funny smell (a bit like a fan motor burning out) and the panel by the side of the bed was flashing "HELP". Additionally, the panel on the outside of the door was also flashing red. I tried turning the A/C on and off, lights, going out and coming in again, opening the window, nothing. I then went round the back of the panel, pulled it out and realised it's nothing more than a dumb terminal with a couple of RJ-11s plugged into the back. Unplugging it and plugging it back in again did nothing to stop the flashing. So I got dressed and trowpsed down four flights of stairs only to be told in broken english that the cord in the bathroom is the alarm and I shouldn't have pulled it. I asked how to stop it, I was told it'd stop itself. 20 minutes later it was still flashing and clearly it was a pointless alarm because nobody had come to see if I was OK, so I went back downstairs again, spoke to the same bloke, who got quite grumpy that I was back again and told me not to pull the cord again. I refused to leave until he turned the alarm off, which he eventually did. It was quite a complex process involving typing my room number into a computer and clicking a mouse three times. I can see why he was so annoyed he had to go through all that just for my benefit.

Anyway... everything now seems to work ok, and I'm leaving tomorrow, although I will be exchanging all the towels in the bathroom for the biggest turd I've ever produced. Probably in the sink.

I'm never happy

So, it seems that Hasbro has begun to release the Masterpiece line of Transformers here in the UK. I've yet to see any of the earlier figures, such as Thundercracker or Optimus, in Toys 'R' Us, and I doubt I'll ever see Megatron due to our restrictions being so much stricter than those of the Japanese, but nonetheless, they're doing good. I've now seen Starscream and Grimlock in the UK (in US-style packaging) and today I saw the latest Masterpiece figure, Rodimus Prime.

But there's an issue. OK, some figures get modified for the west. The Binaltech/Alternator series were completely different in that they were made entirely out of plastic rather than die-cast metal, virtually every re-release of Optimus Prime since the 80s has had short smoke-stacks and Masterpiece Grimlock has flatter teeth. Rodimus has a pleasant addition for the west in the form of his Targetmasters accomplice Firebolt (renamed Offshoot for some bizzare reason). But there is something rather major missing - his trailer.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not annoyed with the lack of trailer. Personally I preferred Rodimus when he was still called Hot Rod and had no trailer, he looked 10 times cooler (despite being the moron who got Optimus Prime killed in the 1986 movie). Every toy version of Rodimus I've seen I always got annoyed at the trailer - it's supposed to be integral. The only Rodimus toy I've ever liked was the Titanium edition which actually changed successfully from robot to van without having a massive chunk of kibble left over. In fact, when I first saw the Japanese masterpiece Rodimus (which does have the trailer) I got annoyed and wondered why, with the Masterpiece scale and budget, couldn't they have done it properly. I was tempted to buy it and simply throw the trailer away and call him Hot-Rod. So now they've released him in the west at a fraction of the price without the trailer I should be happy, right?

No... because they still call him "Rodimus Prime". For those who don't know, the two characters are the same entity, Hot-Rod was a robot that turned into, surprise surprise, a hot rod. He was introduced in 1986. At the end of the original animated Transformers movie, he inherits leadership of the Autobots from Optimus Prime (via Ultra Magnus) and is 'reformatted' into Rodimus Prime. During this transformation his robot mode stays the same but his alt mode changes from a hot rod to a hot rod-styled van/winnebago type thing, which is basically his old alt mode with a hulking great trailer thing on the back. So my issue isn't that they've released him without the trailer, my issue is that they're calling him "Masterpiece Rodimus Prime" when he's clearly "Masterpiece Hot-Rod".

So in conlusion, Hasbro - thanks for finally thinking of us UK trans-fans and releasing some Masterpieces in the west, but do try to get it right. I look forward to some good figures from Takara in the future, in the hope that they also make it to these shores, incomplete or otherwise.

Karma

Stood in a filling station last night, quite late, and in walked three young lads. Clearly one of them was less drunk than the other two (I assume the driver) and was getting quite stroppy with the others for being drunk and idiotic. After a few minutes of the drunk two making lots of very loud and inane comments about the products on sale and the non-drinker repeatedly telling them to shut the hell up and stop embarrassing him, they went to pay.

The guy behind the counter was, at a guess, of middle eastern origin and quite dark skinned. The three lads paid for their items and turned to leave. The driver was first out the door, the other two fumbled with change for a while before finally leaving. As the first drunk bloke reached for the door, the second decided there was time for one last drunken outburst and turned round to the sales bloke. He then made one or two loud comments that, while not really what I'd call offensive, were racially stereotypical - albeit the wrong stereotype as the guy was clearly asian, not african. He proceeded to adopt a 70's blaxploitation dialect and called the salesman "mah brotha" as he left.

He then turned to go, completely misjudged where both his mate and the door handle were, and walked face first into the door as his mate was opening it. Needless to say, I pissed myself, and his headache will be more than just a hangover in the morning.

Kleeneze

A fortnight ago, I went through the daily ritual of coming in from work, picking up everything on the doormat that had been posted through the letterbox and disposing of the 80% of it not in an envelope and addressed to either Shell or myself. One of these objects was a Kleeneze catalogue. A few days later we had a little note through the door informing us that someone called to collect the catalogue but we weren't in, so please leave it on the doorstep.

After consulting with various people I now know that Kleeneze delivery people generally expect you to do this because they re-use the catalogues. Had I been someone who actually has time to read every piece of crap that comes through my letterbox, I'd have known this. But hey, shit happens, and on the plus side they probably won't bother coming back. Or so I thought.

Every day for the past two weeks we've had a note through the door saying that someone called but nobody was in, please leave the catalogue on the mat tomorrow. On Fridays they even cross out the 'tomorrow' and hand-write 'Monday' on it. After two weeks, personally, I would have given up. I was beginning to get a bit annoyed with the continual notes through the door for me to leave out a catalogue that is probably festering in a landfill site as we speak. But then something happened that made me laugh.

Today I came home and found the familiar white slip of paper, only this time it was written in polish.

Moderators are a good thing

A hint to all aging rock bands... if you really do want to look cool in the Web 2.0 world, there are better ways than simply automatically re-posting every single tweet containing your band's name on your website...

On being the bad guy

Democracy dictates that I'm the bad guy. It's the curse of everyone who goes slightly against popular opinion, unfortunately. It happened to Darwin, it happened to Aristotle and it happens to me. I've just got back from my local supermarket. It was quite busy, as it was 3.30 on a Sunday and only half an hour to closing time (that's a rant for another day.) I only had four items in my hand, so I looked for the magical 'one basket only' till. Nothing annoys me more in a supermarket than having to wait for three people to do their weekly shop when all I want is one or two things, so I'm a big fan of the basket lane. I put my items down on the conveyor belt and stood waiting.

As I waited, a woman came up behind me with a trolley load of groceries. She began to put them onto the conveyor. I smiled and politely pointed out to her that this is the basket only lane. She apologised, clearly not realising her mistake, and went to find another queue.

At this point, the old guy in front of me said "She'd have probably got away with that!" I smiled and looked back in the other direction in the stereotypically british 'I don't really want to talk to you' kind of way. But he went on "that was a bit harsh, she'd have been alright. I wouldn't have said anything, myself..." completely ignoring the fact that the basket only lane is there for a good reason, so that people like himself don't have to wait behind people doing massive shops if all they want is a loaf of bread and some washing up liquid.

And this is, of course, the problem. Not just the fact that this bloke wouldn't have told the woman that she was doing something wrong, but that he was more keen to chastise me for saying something to her. We have actually somehow sleep-walked into a society that is not only afraid to call a spade a spade, but actually considers it unacceptable to do so. If this kind of logic is allowed to continue, I predict the next generation will grow up without being potty-trained because parents are too afraid to scold their children for shitting on the floor. Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, it's already happened; I've certainly been shit on quite a lot in my life by people who really should know better. Still, society eventually gave in and admitted that Darwin and Aristotle were right, so I'll probably get my day one day. Knowing my luck I'll be long dead by then.

On photography

So there I was, at the zoo, among a small crowd, watching some penguins. As I do. They were swimming around the enclosure and Holly (yes, I'm on first name terms with most of Marwell's penguins) was stood on a rock surveying the pool. Suddenly, the peace was shattered. I was literally barged out of the way by some old bloke with a camera. "Mind out the way, mate," he ordered, pushing some children aside in order to get as close to the safety bar as he could. After unleashing a torrent of flashes in Holly's general direction he turned around and left, presumably oblivious to the 20-odd people who now hate him.

I'd like to say he's a one-off case, but sadly he's not. The simple case is that photography has become so cheap recently that everyone's doing it, even arseholes. I don't claim to be exempt, I have a camera and frequently take photos of animals at the zoo, as well as other things, people and places. Photographers' rights are something for which I stand strongly, and always support photographers in arguments with ill-informed police officers and self-important security guards who mistakenly think they have a right to decide where the general public can and can't take photos. One of the benefits of living in the UK is that in nearly all cases you or I can take a photo of whoever or whatever we like, whenever we like, without having to worry about obtaining permission from anyone. But there are some who take it too far the other way, as if owning a camera makes you immune to basic common decency.

I see arguments all over web bulletin boards about what constitutes a 'real' photographer. Some claim that people who own point-and-shoot cameras as opposed to expensive DSLRs aren't 'real' photographers. Others claim that you're not a photographer unless you make money out of photography. Obviously, this is all just snobbery. I've seen some truly shocking photos taken by supposedly 'professional' photographers with big expensive cameras that are massively inferior to some other photos that I myself have taken with a mobile phone. And I'm sure every hobby photographer in the world will disagree with the making money argument - I know people who know everything there is to know about photography, yet have never made a penny in their lives on it. I believe that if you've ever taken a photo, you're a photographer. There are good photos and bad photos, and I'm sure every photographer has taken their fair share of each. So I have my own suggestion as to what makes a 'good' photographer: one who's not a complete dick.

I have been to friends' weddings where the 'official' photographer (running around in a suit with a motorcycle gang-style patch on his back advertising his services) was continually snapping photos all the way through the bloody ceremony making it incredibly annoying for pretty much everyone in the congregation. I've been to conventions and conferences where several people, all wielding outrageously large cameras, have considered it acceptable to run around at the front and crawl all over the stage getting in the audience's way in their quest to snap photos. I have even been to events at which a photographer has complained to the event organisers afterwards that the light was too low on stage, making it hard to take photos, completely ignoring the fact that the show was put on for the 350-odd people in the audience, not one prick with a camera.

Fact is, it seems to me that many so-called photographers have forgotten what a photo is - it's a memory. And if the memory contained within the photo is that of a pompous, inconsiderate and in some cases bloody rude photographer, then the photo wasn't actually worth taking. Fellow photographers: if you're taking photos at an event, respect the audience who have probably paid good money to be there, use a telephoto lens from the back, or sit in the front row rather than crawling all over the stage getting in everyone's way. If you're taking photos in a public place, such as a zoo or art gallery, wait until your subject isn't surrounded by other people who have just as much right to look as you have to take a photo. Much of photography is waiting for the right moment, and if you have to barge people out the way, you've picked the wrong moment. For most people, I'm sure, this is all just common sense. Sadly, for some it isn't. To those people: stop being a dick. That is all.

Open letter to landlords who book bands

This weekend the band with which I associate have had two gigs, both made less pleasant by a pub landlord or landlady who clearly doesn't realise "how it works". It seems to me that these days a small minority of pub owners and managers book bands purely because it's the done thing - the bands themselves are more a necessary inconvenience than anything else.

If this is how you think, then please don't book bands. Be a sports pub, or a food pub, or a real ale pub. Don't book bands if you don't actually want them there. Most pub bands do what they do for the love of it, they're not in it to make a profit. If they were, they probably wouldn't be playing pubs. So when a band turns up to a gig in a pub only to be ordered around and effectively told that they don't know how to do what they've been doing for years by some self righteous arse who likes to assert authority, it's more than a little bit irritating. It also doesn't help if you blame the band for not bringing hundreds of adoring fans with them, or taking up space where paying customers might want to stand; pub bands are not an investment. They just set up, play, and leave when finished. Their job is to play music, not sell drinks - that's the pub's job. The band will publicise the gig as much as possible among their friendlies, but they can't guarantee it'll be a blast. After all, if people who want to see a band have a choice of seeing them in a shit hole venue one week or a much nicer pub just up the road the week after, they're going to pick the nicer pub and you can't really blame the band for that.

The sad fact is that we live in a time when pubs and live music are both in the same boat - struggling to survive. We all have a much better chance of survival if we stick together. Most bands are quite reasonable, but they're not your employees. Treat them like human beings and they'll be more than happy to come to an agreement that benefits all parties. Asserting authority, making unrealistic demands and generally treating bands like dirt is only going to piss them off. This isn't helpful for either live music or the pub trade, so why do it? And if you really can't grasp this concept then maybe you should be asking yourself why you want a band in your pub in the first place?

Practical uses for pointless technology

I've found a good use for the technology used in 3D TVs.

Firstly, a little explanation on how 3D works. If you know this, skip to the next paragraph. 3D works by fooling both your eyes into seeing a different image. In reality both your eyes see a slightly different view of the world and your brain interpolates these two images into a 3D representation. When you put on a pair of 3D glasses, you have a different filter over each eye, and the screen in front of you sends two images simultaneously - one that can't be seen through the filter in your left eye and one that can't be seen through the filter in your right. This ensures both eyes only see the image they're supposed to see. Older 3D glasses did this using colour (one lens only lets through red light while the other only lets through green) but more modern 3D systems use polarised light so you can actually see the 3D in colour.

OK, on to my groundbreaking relationship-saving idea. How many times have you wanted to watch something different to your other half? Usually this involves one of you being relocated to the smaller TV upstairs. But using the same technology that 3D uses, you can both watch something different and still be in the same room together! It's simple... one of you wears a pair of glasses made up of two 'left' filters, and the other wears a pair of glasses with two 'right' filters. The TV then sends out two different channels each at different polarisations and hey presto, one of you can watch Coronation Street while the other watches Doctor Who! Attach a couple of pairs of headphones for the two different audio streams and everyone is happy.

I'll be on Dragons' Den next week.

Proof (if any were needed) that greetings cards aren't worth the paper on which they're printed

I've ranted about greetings cards before. I had lots of response - apparently it's still 'thoughtful' to send someone a greetings card if the occasion calls for it.

This week, those who know me will know that I got another year older. Cue lots of cards from various old friends and distant family members through the post. Most of these people I've not seen for months, even years. But likewise, most of these people clearly can't remember the 'congratulations' card they sent me three years ago, or they'd have addressed the card to Dr Ash, rather than the Mr Ash that they all chose to use instead.

Seriously, folks, if you're going to waste your money on pointless pieces of paper at least know why you sent it. Otherwise it's basically just an expensive Facebook wall post... easy to send and requiring no thought whatsoever. I'd rather have no birthday cards than token cards from people who don't even know what my name is.

Salesmen

I'm not one to despise all salespeople. I appreciate that there is a need for salespeople and marketing in general. After all, without such things products wouldn't sell, a large part of sales is to inform. There is an art in sales and marketing, from simply producing a catchy or annoying advert (ie webuyanycar.com) to ensuring your product's name becomes synonymous with its type (ie iPod).

But there is one particular type of salesperson I despise, and that's the one who's so convinced he's flogging a dead horse that he actually has to pretend he's not even a salesperson in order to make a sale. Case in point, today, my front door:

| Doorbell | [ding dong] | | --- | --- | | [Ash goes to answer door, expecting it to be a courier delivering a parcel. Opens door to a man in his early 20s wearing a 'Southern Electric' hat and jacket and carrying a clipboard.] | | | Ash | Hi there. | | Man | Hi, I'm from Southern Electric, here's my ID. | | Ash | Oh, the meter's just round there [points to the side of the house]. | | Man | No, you've actually been flagged on our system. | | [Ash, taken by surprise, goes into his 'suspicious mode' and notices something that until now passed him by] | | | Ash | Hold on - we're not with Southern Electric, we're with a different provider. | | Man | Ah yes, but we're the distributor for this area. | | [A little alarm bell labelled 'bullshit' starts ringing in Ash's head] | | | Ash | So... basically, you're a salesman trying to get me to change provider? | | Man | [avoiding the question] Look... [gets out a map of the UK] if you can see, these areas are Southern Electric... | | Ash | OK, yes, I know what the UK looks like, can we cut to the chase, I'm quite busy. | | Man | Ah ok, if you're busy we can pop some literature in the post for you? | | Ash | Thanks, you do that. |

As a little epilogue, he didn't actually get my name, so if he does put something through the door it'll be addressed 'to the occupier' and will therefore get binned without being read.

Ironically, I'm sure in the sales industry he'd be seen as a master salesman. In fact, had I been a little old lady with not all my marbles, he'd have probably tricked me into signing something that switched my energy supplier without my knowledge and consent, and he'd have been paid a hefty commission for doing so, because sales figures don't actually take into account whether the customer actually wanted the service or not. On the contrary, a good salesman, in my opinion, is one who sells the best product to a customer who actually wants it. Surely if you start to find people don't want to buy your product you'd be much better off finding people who do and selling it to them, rather than trying to con people into buying something they don't want. And if you find that you've descended to the level whereby you have to actually pretend not to be a salesperson at all in order to sell it, surely you should be wondering why? I'm sure the sales industry would be a lot less despised if they started treating people like people, rather than as sales figures.

Science

I was on a plane, travelling back to the UK. To keep me sane, I had with me my Amazon Kindle, a fine example of modern technology, which allows me to buy, store and read books and electronic documents from a single device measuring about the same as a sheet of A5 paper, and less than a centimetre thick. It's a moot point, but I was reading Charlie Brooker's "The Hell of It All", a collection of his wonderfully funny and well-observed columns previously published in the Guardian.

We began final descent. Soon after, the cabin crew did a tour of the passengers, checking everyone had their seat backs and tray tables up, and so on. One of the stewards noticed the device in my hands and asked me if I'd turn it off until after we've landed as electronic devices may interfere with the plane.

Those who have a Kindle or similar e-book reader will know of its power consumption, or lack thereof. The battery lasts weeks on a single charge. Due to its electronic paper screen, it literally only uses power when in wireless mode (which of course I'd had off for the entire flight) or when you're turning a page, it needs no power at all to keep the page unchanged. In fact, even in 'off' mode, it displays a picture of some classic author on the screen, rather than the page you were reading. Even when the battery dies completely, the screen continues to display a message saying that the battery has run out. Basically, turning the device 'off' actually makes no difference to its operation, how much power it is consuming, or how many potentially interfering signals it's emitting. (EDIT: I've since been informed that you can actually blank the Kindle's screen completely when it's off. Happy to plead ignorance on that one.) The only practical difference between off mode and on mode is that in off mode I can't read my bloody book.

Now, I could have explained all this to the steward and continued to read for the remaining 10 minutes of the flight. In a completely rational world this would have been a sensible course of action to take. Sadly we live in a world of irrational people and, knowing this, I decided to simply comply with the request of a less technologically literate person than myself in a bid to avoid unnecessary hassle.

I'm not bitter about the experience, 10 minutes of reading isn't really anything to cry about, but the experience did make me think about the state of the world in general. It made me think about Professor David Nutt, former drugs adviser to the government, who was effectively sacked for doing his job. He advised, with the benefit of scientific knowledge and research, that many illegal drugs were less dangerous than legal drugs such as alcohol. But because his comments went completely against the government of the time's anti-drug stance, his advice was ignored and he was later sacked. Thanks in part to a campaign by the National Farmers' Union, the UK government is currently very close to allowing farmers to kill badgers in order to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis even though genuine taxpayer-funded research conducted over ten years suggests that reactive culling is actually counter-productive, and more research needs to be carried out in order to determine why. According to a freedom of information request by the Telegraph last February, some 30% of NHS primary care trusts are funding homeopathy, despite there being no actual scientific evidence that it works better than placebo. Insisting that homeopathic remedies are denied NHS funding will more than likely piss off the British Homeopathic Association, whose website has a prominent "What You Can Do" section encouraging people to write to their MPs and PCTs insisting that homeopathic remedies are continued to be funded by the taxpayer. And my own personal bug bear, being as I am a computer scientist, the Digital Economy Act. This was passed during the death throes of the previous government and obliges internet service providers to spend large amounts of their own money and time policing the internet for the benefit of the movie and music production indutries, something I've blogged about several times before. The act was strongly opposed by pretty much anyone who has the slightest clue about how the internet works, but was eventually passed by MPs due to pressure from the content providers, and has since led indirectly to the ACS:Law scandal and a recent High Court decision to order a major ISP to block access to an entire website just because a coalition of multinational corporations didn't like people having access to it.

So how does all this relate to my previous anecdote about the plane steward and the Kindle? Simple: in order to secure an easy life, we're listening to those who can shout the loudest when we really should be listening to the people with the most knowledge. I don't deny, I'm all for drug reform, specifically the legalisation of marijuana, but if an expert in chemistry and toxicology were to tell me that it's a bad idea, I'll admit I'm wrong. I'm against the taxpayer funding homeopathy, but if someone were to actually show me some genuine scientific data that proves that it's as effective as other, more mainstream types of medicine then I'll happily support it. The sad fact is that the politicians who make the rules aren't in it for what's true and right, they're in it for votes. So long as people who support homeopathy can shout louder than the actual scientists, homeopathy will be available on the NHS, and as long as rich media moguls have more political influence than people like me who actually know quite a lot about technology, then destructive laws like the DEA will continue to be passed. Democracy is flawed; in any random sample of people there will always be more non-experts in a particular field than experts, but democracy is designed to support the majority, even if they have no idea what they're talking about.

I'm not calling for a shift to some kind of meritocracy - although doing so would solve the problem - I'm simply saying that for civilisation to prosper, we need to start thinking critically, forming our opinions based on real science and evidence rather than what we've been taught is right or wrong. Had Darwin and Gallileo simply gone with the beliefs of the masses we'd still believe that the earth is flat, the sun goes round the earth and dinosaurs didn't exist. We as a society must learn not to form opinions unless we know all the facts, accept the difference between what we want and what we need, and above all, only vote for politicians who do likewise.

So in conclusion, I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're an air steward, and you see some chap on the plane reading a Kindle on landing, just let him finish his book. He'll only end up writing a hypocritical rant like this one otherwise.

Setting the Record Straight

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post on the mobile app Draw Something, by OMGPOP. I criticised its permission requirements and explained my refusal to install an app with no location-based functionality which requires access to the GPS hardware for no apparent reason.

Since then, they've released a version of the game that doesn't require this permission, at least on an Android device. For this reason I've now installed it on my tablet. I enjoy playing it, and would happily recommend it to anyone.

Sexually implicit

I've recently got a new job. As part of the job application process I had to fill out an 'equal opportunities' form. For those who've not seen one, it's purely for gathering statistics on the people who work in an institution. It asks questions about nationality, gender, marital status, ethnic background and religion.

Most questions on an equal opportunities form have "prefer not to say" as the final option, and I always tick this box. It's not entirely due to my preference to keep my personal life and work life separate, it's also because I believe statistics on who's gay or straight isn't going to end homophobia any faster than statistics on race are going to end racism. It's a massive political issue that involves attitudes as well as numbers, but is far too complicated for this blog.

What did interest me was the fact that in this particular form, the optional question about being gay or straight was preceeded by a question on marital status, which had no opt out option. More alarmingly, the question specifically segregated 'in a civil partnership' from 'married'. Obviously my socially liberal politics consider this an outrage anyway, but come on... what's the point of having an optional question on sexuality when the answer is potentially given away by the previous (compulsory) question?

Basically, we need to let gay people get married. If not for liberal or human rights reasons, for reasons of data protection.

Shops

I avoid shops where possible. Most things I need are available online, even groceries these days. Sadly if you need something in a hurry, or want to look at it first, you still need to walk through the hordes of mindless sheep known as the human race and brave a shop.

It was in one of these "shop" things today where I spotted something in a display cabinet that I wanted to buy. "Can I have one of those, please?" I asked the sales assistant. He checked the item number and vanished out the back for what seemed like an age. As I was about to give up and leave, he returned with some news. "Sorry, we're out of stock of that item."

Then he said something weird. "We can order it if you like?" he asked. OK, so ignoring the fact that they're basically advertising a product they don't have, why in the name of arse do they even ask this question? The reason I fought my way through a shop in December is because I want it now, not when it's delivered. As far as I'm concerned, there are two ways of buying stuff: ordering online takes time to get to you but you have, by law, 14 days to return it under distance selling regulations if you don't like it, plus you don't actually have to leave the house or worry about opening times. Buying from a shop means you have to drive, park, fight, etc but you get the benefit of seeing the item before you part with cash, and you get it straight away. So why would I want none of the benefits of either method? And why do they display stuff that you need to order? It's no wonder people generally shop online these days.

Oh yeah, and fuck christmas. Fuck it up its stupid arse.

Someone find me a memory tube

Previously...

Now, of course, it's all happening again [wired.com]

Southampton Fucking Train Station

Some of you may be familiar with Southampton Central train station. It's a convenient place to get off the train if you're going to Southampton, unlike Southampton Airport Parkway, which is actually in Eastleigh, not Southampton. As if that's not confusing enough, the central station has two sides, neither is an obvious 'front'. I've had arguments with many people over which is the 'front entrance' and which is the 'back entrance'. I think of the front as being the side facing town, the Toys R'Us side, but others disagree.

Another good way of determining which side of the station to enter or exit is to go by platform number. Thing is, you can't figure out where the platforms are unless you're inside the station, which means paying for a ticket. Fat lot of good that does you if you're supposed to be picking someone up.

National Rail have actually been really helpful and provided a station plan for the station. It's a Javascript thing that shows all sorts of stuff, such as where the cash machine is, and where the disabled entrances and shops are. It even has little photos of everything. It has just one problem... it's upside down.

Yes, that's right - on this map, unlike every other map in the known universe, north is down and south is up. It's even more confusing because there's a small building to the north side which is the HQ of the transport police, but it's not obvious. It's incorrectly marked on the map as 'Southampton Police Station'... WHICH IS SOUTH OF THE FUCKING STATION.

Why the hell does Southampton central station try to be as difficult as possible?! There. Rant over.

Supermarket Bigotry

Supermarket (n) A large self-service store selling foods and household goods.

Bigotry (n) Bigoted attitudes; intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.

I know lots of people, myself included, who live quite near to a supermarket. Supermarkets attract traffic to an area, and there is a particular action as a driver that seems unique to the entrances of supermarkets and large shops. I refer to this as 'supermarket bigotry', and I will explain.

You are driving along a main road. There is a turning to the left, into a supermarket. You don't want to go to the supermarket, and intend to continue straight on past the entrance. Consequently, you do not indicate to turn, you're not planning on leaving the road or altering your course. There is a vehicle in the entrance to the supermarket, intending to pull out onto the road on which you're currently travelling. The driver of this vehicle, having just done his or her shopping, assumes that the only possible reason anyone could be on that particular road is to visit the supermarket, and therefore, despite the fact that you are not indicating left or making any attempt to slow down, assumes that you must be turning left and pulls out in front of you, causing you to slam on your brakes. This is supermarket bigotry. The driver has failed to explore the possibility that you might be on that road for a different purpose to their own, and in doing so, nearly caused an accident.

I live near a Sainsburys where this happens all the time. I have a friend who lives in a cul-de-sac which also contains a Tesco, and it's near impossible to turn into said cul-de-sac without some moron pulling out in front of you, completely oblivious to the fact that there are things other than the Tesco in the road that I may wish to access. My parents also live next to a large out-of-town shopping area and I'm forever having to brake on a roundabout because of people assuming I'm turning into the shops and pulling out in front of me.

People - not everyone is going shopping all the time. In fact, if you're pulling out onto a main road having done your shopping, there is actually more chance that the oncoming traffic isn't on their way in; the hint is usually in the indicators (or lack of). When exiting a supermarket, believe it or not, normal road rules apply, meaning you should give way to traffic already on the road you intend to join. It really isn't that hard.

Rant over.

Swearing

This is an extension of what I've been writing on Twitter, apologies to those who follow me, I feel that 140 characters aren't enough to explain my position so I'm writing here instead.

It seems that some right wing Sunday tabloids like to complain about swearing on radio, or anything that comes close. Predictably, most of the complaints seem to involve the BBC, which is an organisation over which most privately owned media in the UK seems to have a bee in its bonnet. It began a while back when the Mail on Sunday urged its users to complain to Ofcom about Sandi Toksvig making reference to a swear word on Radio 4's News Quiz. I say 'making reference to', she never actually said the word, she merely stated humourously that the conservative-led government are "putting the 'n' in 'cuts'". Now, the Sunday Express are reporting, on their front page no less, that the BBC broadcast the words 'bullshit' and 'bastards' on a morning radio show. I emphasise that this was the front page of a Sunday newspaper, at a time when much of Africa is experiencing one of its worst famines in living memory, and Norway is reeling from the shock of an insane christian fundamentalist mass murderer.

I like swearing. I think it's perfectly acceptable in context. Billy Connolly wouldn't be funny if he didn't swear. Die Hard wouldn't have been so memorable had Bruce Willis simply said "Yippie-kai-yay" and there are some people, such as Jim Davidson and Piers Morgan, for whom only a word as strong as 'cunt' is suitable when attempting to describe them. Don't forget, also, that the word 'fuck' is possibly the most versatile word in common use, it can be used as a noun, an adjective, an adverb, a verb, a pronoun, the list goes on. So while the tabloids are mounting their sad attempt to get a TV-style watershed applied to radio, so that certain words can't be said after a certain time of night, I think it's time we abolished the idea of a watershed on television.

Imagine - the weather would be so much funner if the presenter stood there and said "well, today it's going to piss down." X-Factor would be better if the contestants were able to call Simon Cowell a cunt to his face (I might actually apply if that were the prize) The news would be better if they were allowed to say "a man is in hospital after his jealous wife hacked off his cock" and not have to fluffy-fy it by saying that she "amputated his penis". And let's not forget that there is nothing funnier than puppets swearing.

Basically, Mary Whitehouse is long dead, and times are a-changing. It's much less taboo to talk about things like sex on TV than it was back in the bad old days, and I think the same goes for swearing. Let's finally take our thumbs out of our arses and admit that sometimes, just sometimes, swearing is funny.

Television Editing In Defence of Fool Us

I notice a lot of talk on Twitter around the time Penn and Teller: Fool Us is on ITV, pretty much every week. Quite a lot of it centres around the discussion of miking up audience members. The usual accusation is that everyone randomly selected from the audience is actually a stooge, and the fact that they're all wearing microphones proves this.

As I was at a recording a few months back, I think it's only fair to set the record straight - there is an awful lot of TV editing during the show but the actual magic is real and live. I think I remember commenting at the time that it's ironic that the magic isn't rigged but everything else is! Basically, if a magician selects a volunteer from the audience they get their applause and walk up on stage. The cameras are cut, and the volunteer is fitted with a radio microphone by one of the techies. They then sit back down and the whole selection sequence is filmed again, and this time it goes straight into the trick. The miking up process is then edited out in post production.

This isn't the only television editing that goes on - ever notice that Jonathan Ross wears the same tie in every episode? The reason is that it's not chronological. For example, the filming I went to had Graham Jolley and Damien O'Brien performing, but both were shown in different episodes when the show was broadcast, presumably so the 'winners' are spread over the series. This of course means that there's about three, maybe four episodes that have me in the audience, even though I only went to one recording. There was also quite a bit of dialogue cut out, one particularly memorable joke during Graham Jolley's act that didn't make TV was Jonathan Ross making fun of Penn's pronounciation of the word 'snooker', only for Penn to jump straight in with "the last person I need lecturing me on pronounciation is Jonathan Ross!". Additionally Penn and Teller get quite a bit longer to discuss each trick than is made apparent on TV.

Yet, I cannot stress enough that despite all these TV edits, every magic trick is shown live, uncut and as performed on the night. So please, while watching Fool Us, don't think it's rigged because it isn't. If you want a show that's rigged, watch The X-Factor : )

The Benefits of Not Conforming

I read this in the BBC last week, it's an interesting take on peoples' attitudes towards music. Speaking as someone whose music collection is a 2TB hard drive full of MP3s which is permanently on shuffle, I admit I do have sympathy for bands who produce masterpiece albums and then have people effectively picking and choosing the best bits. Despite this, I listen to what I like - yeah, there are some great AOR albums out there, but let's face it, few albums don't have at least one track that makes you wanna hit the track skip button. I could sit on the fence forever.

That said, today I bought Taking Dawn's album "Time To Burn" - as a digital download, as much of my music is these days as it's cheaper, I get it quicker and it saves me having to rip the CD. I had two options - buy the original album release for a fiver or the 'special edition' for eight quid. The special edition had three extra tracks, but get this - you can buy all the tracks seperately for 79p each. So basically I bought the standard edition and then bought the three extra tracks individually and it cost me over a quid less than buying the special edition.

I think I'll be supporting peoples' rights to buy individual tracks for some time yet : )

The Echo needs to work on its applied psychology

Ooh yes please! Sign me up! I'll turn Javascript on, I always wanted to see more adverts on the web! And ad servers are renowned for their honesty and good practices too, so I've no problem whatsoever in allowing them to run client side code on my machine!

Fucking idiots.

The Flag

There are people who are very fond of their flag. In some countries it symbolises national pride, in some it's actually an offence to destroy or deface the national flag. Yet, as a british citizen I don't feel the pride and joy many fellow brits feel when they see their flag, I just feel miserable as I think of what it's come to represent.

It all started the day I saw an advert for a local double glazing company whose name escapes me. They'd somehow managed to incorporate the union flag into their logo, presumably to show their heritage as a british company and encourage proud british citizens admire them for this. However, it had the opposite effect on me; I saw the flag in the logo and my mind immediately told me "BNP leaflet" before had the chance to actually read the text. It's sad when a far-right organisation like the BNP can hijack a country's flag to the point that a citizen of that country begins to associate their own flag with extreme right-wing politics. But as my life went on, I began to find this only too apt.

I've always hated patriotic people. For me, patriotism is basically borderline xenophobia, the belief that one nation is better or worse than another. The way I see it, being patriotic is just like being religious: it's admirable to others with similar views, but repugnant to everyone else. Face it: despite being a pretty good place to live, Britain isn't perfect. Even the whole concept of "buy british" annoys me - if you can buy the same product cheaper or quicker from another country then why don't you? I like to think of myself as an entirely logical and rational being, and patriotism for the sake of it is completely incompatible with this. Especially in a country like the UK where - apart from the Isle of Wight and certain parts of Cornwall - we've been raped and pillaged so many times by everyone from the vikings to the french that there aren't actually any indigenous people here any more, and if there were they'd be easy to spot thanks to their extra fingers.

As an aside, please don't get me wrong. I'm not ashamed to be british. OK, our history on the world stage isn't exactly rosy, but I don't believe we or anyone else should be judged on the sins of our fathers. And even though I strongly disagree with a good percentage of what our current government does or says, you can't hate the people of a country based on their government. I despise the opressive nature of the chinese government, for example, but I don't hate chinese people. In fact, the few chinese people I know are all really friendly, and outrageously polite. Their manufacturing industry is going from strength to strength, and their food is considered a delicacy. China is mostly good, it's just the politics that let it down. So no, bringing this argument back home, despite my many problems with the UK I'm not ashamed to be british. We have (for the time being anyway) an excellent national healthcare system that ensures poor people and those out of work can get the same treatment as the super-rich, a superb public broadcaster in the BBC, and I don't think any other country makes better beer than we do. OK, so our illustrious leader has made us the laughing stock of Europe, we let the US buttfuck us on a regular basis and keep crying for more, and we started a few silly wars over trivial things like oil and penguin-infested rocks in the atlantic, I can ignore those when I consider that the alternative could be living somewhere like North Korea.

But I do draw the line at the flag. I can happily say that you will never see me waving a union flag. And to understand why, you only have to look at what it stands for, and where you see it the most. BNP rallies and mindless patriotism we've already discussed. Football matches (OK, mainly the St George's flag rather than the union flag, but the same applies), and other sporting events. I imagine that with the olympics in London this year, manufacturing flags is probably a good business in which to be. Wars. Every time some huge great boat pulls up at Portsmouth docks, the flags start to fly. And anything to do with Royalty. If the queen takes a day off her usual job of sitting on her arse, her loyal subjects line the streets waving their little flags, their tiny, primitive minds so pleased to be supporting the very notion of a ruler chosen by an accident of birth rather than any kind of democratic process. These are things that the union flag represent to me. Things to which I'm extremely opposed, like racism, wars and the monarchy, and things that don't actually matter but people take far too seriously, like football and the olympics. You don't see people waving union flags while enjoying a pint of fine english ale, collecting their prescription from the chemist, watching Doctor Who or eating fish and chips. The flag represents, to me, everything that's wrong with this country, from bloody imperialism right down to Geri Halliwell.

The Innocence of Childhood and the Politics of Parenthood

In the early 1980s, I was but a young lad, walking through London in the company of my parents. Blind to the troubles being experienced by the country and indeed the world, my mind was satisfied with a healthy diet of Dangermouse and King Rollo. Of course that didn't mean I hadn't been intravenously fed other bits of information here and there from overheard conversations and news reports that I didn't fully understand.

"Hold on to my hand," my ever-protective mother said to me, "there's some bad people about." Inquisitively I looked up at her and asked "are they called 'The Miners' Strike'?"

A few passers by laughed, not necessarily in scorn or in agreement, but at my innocent childlike misunderstanding of current events. Had my present 30-year-old self been stood listening, I'd have probably chuckled too.

Fast forward in time to last Sunday. I was at the Jubilee Protest organised by anti-monarchy group Republic. The group had set up a semi-public event where republicans could congregate, share opinions, make friends and listen to several invited speakers. As it turned out, despite careful planning and colaboration with the Metropolitan Police, most of us were refused entry to the site and so we decided to set up a makeshift rally in the street. I believe some 1,200 people were in attendance opposite the Bridge Lounge in Tooley Street, and there wasn't a bit of trouble all the time I was there. The road was already closed due to the tight security for the jubilee celebrations, so we weren't even disrupting traffic. It was a very friendly gathering of like minded people who wanted to congregate, enjoy themselves and have a good time just like everyone else, but at the same time making it clear to anyone passing that they don't share the admiration for the monarchy that many other people in the capital that day had.

As I stood in the street listening to speakers giving speeches on various political subjects, and trying to ignore the occasional childish insult from a passing monarchist, a young family passed me, presumably on their way to the river to watch the royal entourage.

"Why are these people shouting, mummy?" asked the young son.
"They're shouting because they don't like the queen" replied his mother.

At first, I took umbrage at her comment. After all, I have no great dislike for the queen - she's a human being like anyone else. I'm sure she's quite a nice person in real life. I merely believe that it's wrong in the 21st century to celebrate an unelected head of state, hence my attendance at the rally, and hence my continuing desire that we in the UK one day take France's lead and abolish the monarchy (although it'd be nice if we could do it with a few less beheadings). I understand that many will disagree with me, for a variety of reasons, and they're welcome to do so - opinions are opinions. But this woman had made a glaring logical fallacy; she'd wrongly assumed that because I desire for the people of this country to be able to select their own head of state rather than have one chosen for them by an accident of birth, that I dislike a woman that I've never met.

This annoyance only lasted a moment however. At this time I was reminded of myself, in that very same city some 30-odd years ago, when I was the inquisitive child. As I grew up I began to question what I'd seen and what my parents had told me. My middle-class, conservative, christian upbringing had left me with many questions, questions for which I alone had to find the answers. And when I was old enough to think for myself, I read about things like the Miners' Strike and why it happened. I saw that there were two sides to the story. My innocent quest for knowledge has made me into the free-thinking, liberal atheist that I am today. It's led to many arguments with my parents about politics, but they are the ones who pushed me to choose my own path, and whether it was intentional or not, I thank them for that. I became facinated with the 80s, the decade in which I had lived in the protective bubble of blissful ignorance, and it's all because of conversations with my parents that I didn't really understand - I had holes in my knowledge that needed filling. As the young family walked off into the distance, waving their tacky plastic union flags, I found myself with a sense of hope for that young lad. Hope that in 30 years time he'll have questioned why all those people were stood in the street shouting, and discovered why we were really there. Hope that his inquisitive nature will last into his older developing years, so that he may make intelligent judgements on what he believes, and become a better person as a result. And hope that maybe, just maybe, the seed of a future republican had just been sown, just like the seed of a tory-hating liberal had been sown in me all those years ago.

The Madhouse Beyond Sports Day

I think far too much emphasis is placed on sporting achievement in this country.

There, I said it. Don't get me wrong, I could never run the 100m in under 10 seconds like some of the top athletes in the world can, and this amazing ability should be congratulated. But likewise, I bet Usain Bolt couldn't build and set up a PC in under an hour. I can, but I don't get a gold medal for it, it's just what I do. I used to know a guy who can solve the Rubik's cube in under 30 seconds. Everyone has something they can do better than anyone else, but most of these achievements go un-noticed unless it involves sport.

It begins at school. I was always the fat geeky kid (some say I still am.) Nothing used to piss me off more than having to trowpse out onto the field on sports day and cheer on an elite community of pupils who happened to be good at PE. What's so special about PE anyway, and why does it deserve its own day? I don't recall the entire school being marched into a hall to watch me and all the other A* maths students doing hard sums on a blackboard for an afternoon, why not a maths, or history, or art day rather than a sports day? Translate this into adulthood and I get moaned at for being a miseryguts because I refuse to cheer my national side in a game of football, or some other sporting event such as the Olympics. Some go so far as to call me unpatriotic. Well, excuse me, I'd much rather be working on something innovative to improve the quality of human life, or writing ranty letters to my MP about the fact that hospitals and schools are being sidelined in favour of millionaires' salaries. You know - things that actually matter, as opposed to a ball game. I'll happily cheer on sportspeople doing their job when hordes of adoring fans turn up at my place of work and start cheering me on.

Of course there are two knock-on effects to this collective over-celebration of sport. One of these, fittingly enough, harks back to the last paragraph - the financial issue. We could be paying doctors and schoolteachers higher salaries for the sterling work they do, but instead we as a country are blowing millions on a massive international sports day that we can't really afford. Even other non-essential things don't get the same treatment as sport. Compare the Eurovision Song Contest to the Olympics - they're both the same, massive national expenditure for something that doesn't really matter, yet viewing figures for the former will likely be dwarfed by the latter. I suspect many of the people who take the piss out of me for watching Eurovision have taken time off work to watch live international football, stayed up late to watch sport in other time zones and will no doubt be glued to their televisions come the Olympics. It seems that everything is acceptable provided it's sport, otherwise it's just sad.

The second effect of (or possibly reason for) sport being so universally adored is the celebrity effect. Maurice Wilkes has done more for this country than Bobby Charlton ever will, but I bet if you have to google either of them it won't be the latter. I have to listen to football fans droning on and on about the one time our national team was above-mediocre enough to win the world cup, completely ignoring the dozens of failures before and since, but you don't hear us nerds worshipping Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the web, for example. Nobody mentions Berners-Lee, or Wilkes, or Charles Babbage, or Alan Turing... heck, I know people who can name every player who's played for England in the last decade but couldn't tell you who designed the Colossus, and that practically won us a world war, not just a poxy game of football.

So what do I suggest? Am I calling for the eternal damnation of anything physical? No, of course not. As I said first of all, exceptional ability should be celebrated. But all exceptional ability. If you consider someone impressive because they can run fast, jump high or win trophies, then don't belittle those whose ability is less - well - televised. And let's stop getting so worked up over things that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. I can name every pokemon, that's considered sad. If pokemon were a sport, it would be considered 'passion'. So watch the Olympics, or Euro 2012, or Wimbledon, or fucking Dancing on Ice if you like, it doesn't bother me - just accept that I really don't give a shit, and stop calling me grumpy.

Top Tips

If your surname happens to be 'Harrison'...

Don't start a Ford dealership.

Unexpected Porn

Today, I saw this in a bridal shop in Portswood.

We Won't Rock You

Last night I went to see "We Will Rock You" in Southampton. I'm not really into musicals, so I'll forgive the melodramatic acting and wafer-thin plot as I'm sure theatre-goers are used to this kind of thing. However, although no fault of the show, I will not forgive the Mayflower Theatre. In a time when farming battery hens is such a big no-no, I can't understand how the size and density of the theatre's seating arrangement can be considered anything like acceptable. But I digress.

The idea of the show is that it's set in an Orwell-style dystopian future in which freedom of expression and free thought are banned, along with rock music. All music is electronically produced and owning an instrument is illegal. There are some very snide yet, in my opinion, valid swipes at Simon Cowell and TV talent shows, and in general the message of the show is one with which I think many people can agree. The opening 'timeline' video documenting everything from Elvis and the Beatles to the show's present includes such wonderful lines as "Simon Cowell sent from Hell to destroy rock". But this brings me to my first problem with the show: it doesn't rock.

The first half of the show I assumed the music was all pre-recorded. The sound was very soul-less, top-heavy and compressed to hell, and it plodded along in perfect time with a set of background videos while the cast sang karaoke-style over the top. So imagine my shock when towards the end of the second set the background was removed to reveal a live band stood at the back. The sound did improve slightly for the last two songs (We Will Rock You and Bohemian Rhapsody) and during Bo Rhap they actually let the guitarist down onto the stage to play the solo, but it still had some awful compression artifacts that make me wonder if the guitar was actually amped up at all, or simply plugged straight into the mixing desk and bombarded with effects. Whatever the reason, the sound was a disaster.

My second problem with the show is its hypocrisy. Here we have a show which is ruthlessly vicious towards TV talent shows and their part in the destruction of music, yet a large number of the main cast are all TV talent show 'stars'. We have Hear'say's Noel Sullivan - Hear'say were the product of the TV show "Pop Stars", Jenny Douglas from TV's "Over The Rainbow", and not in the Southampton cast but billed anyway we have X-Factor alumnus Rhydian Roberts. Noel Sullivan actually has a good voice, but he's clearly a pop singer and simply not suited to sing songs by Queen. The part - in fact all the parts - should have gone to rock singers. Still, in his defence, he wasn't anywhere near as bad as the female villan, played by Tiffany Graves, who was absolutely frickin' awful and seemed to think that ridiculously over-the-top acting was an acceptable substitute for singing ability.

My final, and certainly my main problem with the show is that it seemed gratuitous as if it were using the legendary status of Queen to promote what is, in effect, a below average theatre show. Queen actually do play an integral part in the plot towards the end, but it seemed like the whole show, particularly the first half, was just an attempt to shoe-horn as many Queen songs into a bad plotline as possible. Some make sense, such as the protagonists singing "I Want to Break Free" as they endure their oppressed lives, but some just seem stuck in for the sake of getting as many of Queen's songs in as possible... what the hell was "Flash" doing in there? But the most unforgivable act of the musical arrangement: if a song really didn't fit anywhere, rather than not use it, the lyrics were changed so that it did. And if the bastardisaton of the songs of a great band just to fill a musical wasn't bad enough, most of the changed lyrics couldn't actually be understood because of the piss-poor sound that I mentioned earlier. "One Vision" and "Radio Gaga" were the worst offenders.

In fairness, the show wasn't without its good points. The rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody that finished the show wasn't bad, especially as Queen never actually played it in its entirety live, and Jenny Douglas performed an excellent rendition of "No-one But You", proving herself to be by far the best singer in the cast, despite being a lowly supporting character. The show was stolen, however, by Ian Reddington who plays a stereotypical roadie and reminded me of Ralph Brown's character in Wayne's World 2. His deadpan delivery of a multitude of rock clichés and shameless sexual innuendo provided the most entertainment of the night for me.

In conclusion: I'm not going to say it was crap, this is clearly a popular musical. Maybe I just didn't get it, or maybe I expected too much. I'm sure that veteran theatre-goers with a passing knowledge of Queen's greatest hits will love this, but if you're actually a Queen fan, do yourself a favour and stay away... at best you'll leave disappointed, at worst you'll leave offended.

What's for breakfast

Increasingly, I am unable to find a hotel in the UK that actually serves what I consider to be breakfast.

Oh sure, lots of hotels claim "bed and breakfast" but when you get there it's a so-called 'continental' breakfast, which is basically a bowl of oats, some fruit and a piece of toast if you're really lucky. The last UK hotel in which I stayed, the Holiday Inn Express in Bath, claimed a 'hot' breakfast on the website but when we got there it turned out to be a continental breakfast, but with grilled sausages and scrambled egg stuck on top - it seems the age-old english tradition of a 'fry up' is dead and buried. A more racist person than me might be tempted to moan at 'EU culture' destroying our traditional english breakfasts.

I have just returned from a business trip to Vienna, which you will note is on the continent. The hotel price included breakfast, and I was delighted to discover that, unlike the shit hotels that seem to be infesting the UK, in Vienna breakfast actually does include things such as bacon, mushrooms, fried bread, fried eggs... all the things that are associated with the so-called "full english".

So the next time I stay in a hotel and they can't provide me with the breakfast I actually paid for, and claim their breakfast is 'continental', I shall be calling bullshit. "Continental" is, as far as I can see, a crap excuse to charge you full price for breakfast and then cheap out when it comes to actually delivering, while at the same time, no doubt, endearing themselves to the trendy types who think it's like so cosmopolitan, dahling, to not have a proper breakfast.

Whoops

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From: Co-operative online cooperative@co-operative.co.uk
Message-Id: 13074650001.18257@co-operative.co.uk

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Dear customer ,

We are having some difficulties in logging you on (Error Code: END01), in order to maintain access to Internet Banking.

Click here (http://www.ticbrno.cz/www.co-operativebank.co.uk/) to avoid online service suspension.

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Lloyds TSB Bank Plc*`

A friendly note to all internet scammers... try and pick just one bank to impersonate and stick to it.

Why I Won't Sponsor You

Just recently, everyone seems to be taking up long distance running. Nothing against this, obviously, it's a good way to keep fit. The London Marathon has been running (pardon the pun) for years, and people generally do it once and get sponsored to do it. But I agree entirely with David Mitchell's views on running marathons for charity. Why should I as a sponsor pay you to do something that you probably enjoy doing anyway? Hundreds of people go running weekly, even daily, and don't expect to be sponsored. I'm happy to give money to charity, and I do. I just don't see why just because you've decided to run a race, I should give my money to a charity of your choice rather than mine.

As an aside, people generally have a kind of pro-charity bias. A while back I started suggesting the Mafia do a naked calendar. I've got lots of people interested already (OK, Kath is interested already, but I'm working on others). Thing is, every time I suggest it, people say "that's a great idea, you should do it for charity!". No! I should do it because I think it'd be funny! And if there is going to be any financial benefit in doing so, why should I give it all away?!

But I digress. The point of this rant: the Race for Life. If you're running the Race for Life, I have no problem with you. In fact I support you 100%, by all means do it. You'll get fit, you'll feel good, there are no reasons not to do it. But don't expect me to sponsor you. Why? Well, firstly everyone seems to be doing the race for life. If I sponsor you, I've got to sponsor everyone else I know too. Suddenly I'm giving away a month's disposable income in one whack, assuming I don't want to default on my mortgage. Secondly, I don't support cancer research, it gets more than enough money. The reason we don't have a cure for cancer is that the research is still ongoing, not because it's underfunded. There are plenty of companies investing in cancer research because they stand to make millions once a cure is found. Throwing more money isn't going to speed anything up, and that money would be much better spent on other things which kill people or make lives miserable, such as Alzheimers, or AIDS, or human rights abuses. If you want me to sponsor you and you're giving the money to Alzheimers Research UK or Amnesty for example, I'm much more likely to sponsor you because they're causes I support, but by its very definition the Race for Life is run by Cancer Research UK, and therefore you kinda have to give your money to them. Third, see David Mitchell's video, linked above. As he rightly says, long distance running is an incredibly inefficient way of raising money. If you were to put aside all that training time and get a second job, you'd make far more money than you could do in sponsorship. I've done only one mad charity thing in my life - shaving my head. It took five minutes, no effort, and I made over £1,000 in sponsorship which I gave to a local charity that provides support for terminal cancer victims. Training for a race takes months, if you made £1,000 every five minutes you could buy most medical research centres. And one final, albeit petty reason for not supporting the Race for Life - I don't like the word 'race', it implies competition. Surely lots of people supporting a common cause doing something special together is a co-operative event, not a competitive one.

So please, if you ask me to sponsor you to do the Race for Life and I decline, don't be offended. I'm not heartless, I'd simply rather give money to charities that will benefit more from my donation. And, noble and selfless though your actions are, I'd rather give to charity for my own reasons.

2025

Warning: statistics ahead.

As various services either encourage users to write a year review, or in some cases just do it for you, here is the summary output of my lifelogging for the last 12 months.

Travel

I'm not a big fan of travel, particularly by air, so until this year I'd not actually left the UK since 2020. Somehow I ended up taking two long multi-stop trips which meant I visited four countries - one of which I'd never been to before - in the space of a year, which for me is a lot. I also left the northern hemisphere for the first time in my life when I travelled to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.

Countries visited: Portugal, Spain, Netherlands and Ecuador
Longest journey: 6309.39 miles, flight from Amsterdam to Quito
Times equator crossed: 8
Time spent in southern hemisphere: 8 days, 17:09:41
Distance driven with no MOT or insurance: 103 miles

Health

I'm not particularly fit, but I try to log when I'm doing healthy things. I've had a bit of a lull in my cycling distance since the pandemic, so to log over 500 miles this year was a pleasant surprise.

Cycling distance: 501.87 miles
Walking distance: 430.71 miles
Total steps: 2,111,988
Steps per day: 5786 (mean)
Parkruns attended: 5
Parkruns actually run: 0

Communication

Phone Calls: 63 (33 made / 30 received)
SMS messages: 642 (228 sent / 414 received)
Phones: 4

Music

Tracks played: 3922 (1554 unique tracks)
Artists played: 354 (27 artists discovered)
Albums played: 577 (31 albums discovered)
Most played artist: Battle Beast
Most played song: Вогні by Go_A
Gigs as sound engineer: 4
Gigs as keyboard player: 1

Movies

My cinema trips this year were limited mainly due to my own laziness and the fact that movies are on streaming services somewhere in the world at the same time, if not before, their UK cinema release date these days.

Movies seen: 25
Best movie seen: Train to Busan
Movies seen in a cinema: 2

Misc

Transformers bought: 2
Hedgehog House visits: 26
Rats in Hedgehog House: 6
Dead cats found on driveway: 1
Hedgehog fights: 1