Monthly Archive for July, 2006

Who is Ashley Highfield?

Published
by
Jon
on July 30, 2006
in Media
. 3 Comments

Here I go again, off-topic and annoying the punters, but I really have to link to this article by Tom Coates. He used to work for the BBC, now he works for Yahoo. He’s writing about Ashley Highfield who has just been promoted to be in charge of the BBCs New Media operation(s). I think it’s safe to say that Mr Coates doesn’t think much of Mr Highfield. I was pleasantly surprised when I read it because I and a few of my pals have discussed several of the issues he raises and I always imagined that it was just us who thought those things. It seems not. I think there’s going to be a big fuss about this. As Euan Semple, another former BBC technology boss, says in his blog, you should read it if you care about the BBC or about new media.

However, I was talking recently to the Editor of one of the BBC’s more high-profile programmes and he didn’t seem to know about or care much about Mr Highfield and his new job and the whole reorganisation so maybe it’s not as much of a big deal as I’m imagining.

Who’s afraid of Ashley Highfield? (plasticbag.org)

Speaking of the BBC, I was asked to make a MySpace page for Rupert Murdoch yesterday. I mean, a Rupert Murdoch MySpace page for Newsnight. You can see what they did with it if you go to their site and find the programme for Friday 28 July, which is the latest programme today but won’t be in a few days time. I can’t find any way to link directly to that particular programme, one for you Ashley?

Newsnight Home Page

BP shuts down 12 Alaska oil wells

Published
by
Jon
on July 19, 2006
in Politics
. 1 Comment

Same shit companyYeah, right on BP, you’re so environmentally friendly. Workers blow the whistle on your polluting Alaskan oil wells, you shut down the wells while you investigate, the price of oil goes up again, you get richer. Have you seen that Howies T-shirt, “New Logo, same shit company”?

BBC NEWS | Business | BP shuts down 12 Alaska oil wells

Plus, more good news. The World at One on Radio 4 commissioned a survey about whether people are happy with the criminal justice system. The headline that came out of the survey was that just over half of the people they questioned (56%) feel that they are more at risk of being a victim of crime than they were ten years ago. Apart from the fact that if you look at the detailed results you’ll see that just over a third of people (32%) felt that things were about the same, isn’t that just a result of people getting older? Doesn’t everyone worry more about crime as they get richer and more settled? Funnily enough BBC News Online have that result much further down their story. Their headline is about the fact that “most people want more prisons and are prepared to face a tax rise to pay for them.”

They didn’t report the fact that most (52%) respondents were over 45 years old and only 11% were under 24. According to the Prison Reform Trust the average age of those sentenced to custody in 2003 was 27. A quarter was aged 22 or less.

Detailed survey results

Tilley Endurables

Published
by
Jon
on July 18, 2006
in Shopping
. 1 Comment

The correct way to wear a Tilley hat with headphonesWhen I volunteered to go on a trip for work to cover the end of the war in Yugoslavia back in 1995 my employers sent me on a very comprehensive Battlefield First-Aid course. A BBC journalist, John Schofield, had just been shot and killed in Croatia and they didn’t want anything like that to happen to me. I came back from the course feeling considerably less gung-ho and confident than I had before it, which was probably a good thing.

One of the many useful things I learned on the course was the importance of wearing a hat when you’re working in the sun. As I gathered up and learned how to use the new Inmarsat satellite equipment that I was going to take with me I spent my lunch-times shopping for appropriate clothes for the trip. In the YHA shop in Covent Garden they sold Tilley hats. Extremely well-made and solid feeling, they reminded me a bit of the hat that the scout is wearing on the cover of the early editions of Scouting For Boys. They are made in Canada, they have British brass ventilation grommets and they float. I also liked the sound of their guarantee - “If your Tilley hat ever wears out… we’ll replace it for free.” It didn’t feel like it would wear out but a guarantee like that is very encouraging and the hat made me feel somehow safer, so I bought one.

In the years following that trip to Yugoslavia I took my Tilley hat all over the world, on work trips as well as on all my summer holidays. Being rather distinctive it helped prevent me from getting separated from colleagues in chaotic situations and the fact that you could clip both sides of the brim to the crown with brass poppers made it ideal for wearing while standing in the hot sun with headphones on. It was one of my most essential accessories and I started to have a superstitious faith in it.

While making a programme about the earthquake in Gujerat it got quite badly stained with a mixture of sweat and the reddish dust from the fallen buildings. I never managed to wash those stains out and after a few more hot washes and a few more years of neglect the fabric on the crown of the hat finally gave way. I mended it but that made it too small for me and it would leave a red line across my forehead, making me look lobotomised. I realised that I would have to give it up and get a new hat.

Then I remembered the guarantee. I wasn’t sure that Tilley would be prepared to replace my hat; I hadn’t looked after it very well. I posted it off with a note of explanation and a few days later a box arrived containing a brand new one and a lovely note saying “Hope your new hat is as good a companion as your old one”! They even sent back my old hat since I was so fond of it. I am delighted. It needs a bit of wearing in, of course, but I already prefer it to the old one; it is a more gentle colour and it is such a good fit.

I haven’t tried any of the other travel clothing Tilley sell but I cannot recommend their hats too strongly and their customer service is clearly great. If you need a hat for the summer, buy a Tilley. You won’t regret it.

Tilley Endurables - The Finest Hats and Travel Clothing in the World

Internet Cameras Direct: A Warning

Published
by
Jon
on July 13, 2006
in Shopping
. 3 Comments

I usually register with sites using a unique email address based on the site’s name. It seems a bit paranoid but it means that if a spammer gets hold of the mail database from that site I can easily find out who gave my email address to the spammers. Today I got a spam email that was sent to icd@ditdotdat.org, an address I gave ages ago to Internet Cameras Direct. The spammers are a company called Ski Basics, selling cheap skiing holidays. The email contains a hidden image which links to a script and tells the spammer that I have read the email and that the address they’ve got from ICD is a valid one. So, don’t give your email address to Internet Cameras Direct or they’ll sell it on to spammers. Naturally that email address is already pointing at hostmaster@forfront.net who are sending and monitoring the spam.

Golden Brown

Published
by
Jon
on July 6, 2006
in Politics
. 2 Comments

Gordon and the crying babyWhen I was a child my parents were very keen Labour Party activists so they used to have meetings and social events at our house. As I got older I started to think that the people who came to these meetings were a funny bunch. Some of them were working class shop-steward types, with a mix of reactionary and socialist views that I found hard to reconcile. Some of them were what I considered normal, teachers and solicitors and so on, and a few were, I think, lonely, odd types who were glad of the social contact. I didn’t really like the meetings because the shop-stewards were a bit scary and over-familiar, inclined to hugging in a house where there wasn’t much physical expression, and the odd types sometimes smelled a bit funny. As I got older I started to interpret the conservative views of the older members as racist and sexist and I got the impression that they regarded my punk clothes and dyed hair as weird or, much worse, amusing.

I am still a member of the Labour Party and a few weeks ago my MP, Keith Hill, invited me to a reception for the local party at Westminster at which Gordon Brown was going to be the guest of honour. I was excited about meeting the Chancellor and I have never been to a reception at Westminster before so I said yes to the invitation and received a nice letter back with details about where it was and a warning that because so many people had said “yes” I couldn’t bring anyone with me. So on Monday I walked to Westminster after work, marvelled at what a fortress the Houses of Parliament have become, had my bag scanned by an airport-style x-ray machine and was shown into the room when the reception was to take place.

It was almost exactly like being back at my parents’ house all those years ago. The people were better dressed, this is London after all not Surrey, and there were more of them but the feeling in the room was just the same. I sat and chatted with a couple of activists, one former Fleet Street shop-steward and a posh-sounding woman who told me she was a great letter-writer, and they had the same extraordinary mix of views that I remember from the old days - nationalise the water companies, go for nuclear power, clamp down on traffic wardens, get out of Iraq. They were very loyal to Tony and Gordon, they thought all the problems the government had were a result of the machinations of the media (I didn’t tell them where I worked) but the only politicians they talked about with any passion were Tony Benn and his son Hilary.

Gordon Brown’s speech had more, and better, jokes than I expected but they were either on the theme of him not being good at maths, chuckle chuckle, or rather brainy anecdotes about people whose names I couldn’t remember afterwards. He seemed to be a very honest and sincere politician. However, he didn’t electrify the room and the gathered members just clapped and cheered politely when he’d finished. To be fair I don’t know what exactly I expected and it was just a reception, but even so it felt a bit uninspiring.

I expect the party will accept him as leader out of a sense of fair play once Tony Blair stands down and if they do I am afraid that the Tories will probably win the next election. Gordon Brown is not charismatic enough to remodel the Labour party to the extent that the people want. I am not very happy with some of the authoritarian policies of this government but I have no doubt that the Tories will be much worse, so come on guys, let’s start the campaign for Hilary Benn as the next Labour Prime Minister, we really have nothing to lose.

Heaven

Published
by
Jon
on July 1, 2006
in Art
. 0 Comments

Poetry NewsI know I don’t write a blog about poetry. I don’t know anything about poetry plus I don’t know how to write about it plus if you change the subject of your blog the reader becomes frustrated like finding sugar in their omelette. So, Sorry about that. First it was fiction, now quoting poetry.

Mairéad Byrne doesn’t have an RSS feed so you have to keep going back to see if she’s done anything new yet. Her writing style is so infectious that if you do keep doing that, like I have been, you find that all your thoughts start expressing themselves in her voice. I quite enjoy this although I wonder whether it’s a bit insincere. It happened visually when I was reading a lot of Daniel Clowes comics (before he was a star) but usually only when I was on buses. Once, in Camberwell (good we’re back to London) the whole other top deck looked like they’d been drawn by him.

Anyway, check this out, I think it’s hilarious, and more.

Heaven
I was finding it a bit tedious climbing the stairs so I decided to up the ante. First: Wash the stairs. Next: Lay squares of paper towel down. Then: Move up & down the stairs landing only on the squares of paper towel. Rationale: My slippers tend to leave marks on the wet steps. Effect: Increased difficulty climbing stairs, which action now requires tri-partite effort a) almost vertical hoisting of the legs, with b) frantic whole-body follow-through, propelled by c) pumping action of right arm against banister; with d) descent involving a domino-effect toppling, always in danger of skidding off the paper towel & the step, always in danger of plunging straight down the stairwell like a bucket in a well. Going up & down the stairs is much harder than before, & also much more unusual. Going up is more like ice-climbing. Coming down is more like bungee-jumping. I have started going around the whole house like this. I have put squares of paper towel down in all the rooms & halls so that I can lurch around like Frankenstein, having close encounters with the floors & walls. The house has shrunk & I have grown huge, like a monstrous erection, mindless yet programmed to seek. Full report to follow.