Omnivorist

Limits to Growth

2012-01-09T08:54:00.002Z

The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt

2011-07-21T08:36:00.002+01:00

Listening to BBC presenters reporting on the culture secretary is a bit like watching show-jumping.

Sarah Montague, for instance, had a tricky round earlier this morning. Approaching the fence that has caused many a fine rider sleepless nights, she at first appeared supremely confident.

I have to confess my heart was in my mouth, as I sensed she was taking it too quickly.

Hooves drumming:

the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt
the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt
the culture secretary Jeremy Hunt

... she approached the jump head on.

But then - just as I feared - she seemed to lose impulse at the critical moment and almost faltered.

As it turned out, her back hooves barely cleared the top rail.

Well done Sarah !!

All the same - it was a heart-stopping moment.

Summer .. or what?

2011-07-16T11:17:00.002+01:00

For my father, the thought of going on holiday any later than mid-July was out of the question. The way he saw it was that by August they'd be pulling the boats up and stacking away the deck chairs - or if not actually doing these things, they'd be starting to think about them - and that was just as bad.

No – the perfect fortnight for our Cornish seaside holiday was the last week in June, first week in July - the time of year when summer suddenly bursts out with exhilarating vitality. Mornings, cool and bright - light sparkling on crystal clear water; the evenings, balmy - the harbourside aglow with yellow lamplight against a peaceful, turquoise sky.

.... provided it wasn't raining, of course.

A rainy holiday was enough to plunge my father into bleak despair. Even the prediction of rain was enough to put the dampers on an otherwise perfect day.

"You enjoy it while you can", he would pronounce gloomily, as the rest of the family lolled in the warm sunshine. "I know what's coming."

So, all in all, I think it best he was spared our recent summers.

For my own part, I have developed a technique for coping with the despondency brought on by the daily sight of rain falling from a featureless, leaden sky and that is to play the there's always someone worse off than I am game.

I have tried thinking about what it must be like to be a farmer, a road-mender or one of those people inviting shoppers to fill in questionnaires; that was until I hit upon the perfect subject for these gloomy meditations: namely the man selling donkey rides on the beach at Weston-Super-Mare.

Just picture the scene: a makeshift lean-to, hard against the sea wall. No floor, just bare sand, littered here and there with donkey-droppings. The donkey-man himself, slumped in a sagging picnic chair, leafs dejectedly through a dog-eared copy of Take-a-Break, long past bothering to peer out at the deserted, rain-lashed beach. And, all the while, a bunch of sodden donkeys, blunt heads buried in their feed bags, steam patiently in the gloom.

You have to be careful though; think about it too much and you can end up feeling even worse.

(First published in Horsley's Over the Wall magazine)

Badgers

2011-05-17T18:27:00.001+01:00

Having noted that badgers appear to be embarking on major subterranean engineering works in our garden, I decided to consult Google on what I might do to deter them. First thing that popped up was:

"You should consider how fortunate you are to have these animals in your garden, despite any damage they may cause. There are a lot of people who would give anything to have their own garden Badger sett."

All the same, the thought of a complex of dugouts, ditches and other military-style earthworks just a few yards from our back door is just the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night. Especially in view of the next piece of information I unearthed:

"The Badger Protection Act 1992 forbids interference with badgers or their setts until a licence is granted by the government body Natural England, with offenders risking a fine of up to £5,000 for each badger or sett affected."

But this is nothing, compared with the following seemingly innocuous advice:

"... if badgers start to excavate a sett in your garden you should seek immediate help."

It's the ambiguity that is so alarming here. What sort of help are they talking about? Counselling, perhaps? Or is it something altogether darker that is being hinted at?

I find myself recalling a passage from Flann O'Brien's The Plain People of Ireland. Rummaging through the bookcase, I find it:

"... you'll find it's a badger you have in the house. Them lads would take the hand off you. Better go aisy now with them lads. Ate the face of you when you're asleep in the bed. Hump him out of the house before he has you destroyed man. Many's a good man had the neck off him by a badger. A good strong badger can break a man's arm with one blow of his hind leg, don't make any mistake about that. Show that badger the door."

But of course badgers are peaceful and shy creatures. What can I be thinking of? And we don't have them in the house (just yet). I should try keeping things in proportion.

All the same ....

Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T13:42:00.000+01:00

Extracts from my live commentary on Twitter:

Guests arriving at the Abbey and - oh dear - I've just spotted Mr Bean ... I hope he does something really funny.

A phalanx of liveried chimpanzees leads the convoy of armoured minibuses out the palace gates, followed by the Master of the Stool, bearing the huge, solid-gold chamber pot of state ...

... and meanwhile in Whitehall, as the magnificent jewel-encrusted Femmefatalatron is slowly wheeled into position, a chorus of coal miners, their dirty little faces beaming with characteristic welsh mischief ...

Every breath hushed as The Dress emerges from the car like a magnificent butterfly bursting forth from its chrysalis.

I'm with Simon Schama in considering the trees in the Abbey a touch of genius. Spring, renewal, earth-magic. There's something primitive and pagan about it.

... nave of Westminster Abbey where the eunuchs of the royal household, in full regalia, can always be relied upon to ...

Wife just asked if ceremony is being conducted by Rowen Atkinson. Now that would be something to see ....

The motet, Ubi Caritas et Amor - sung by a choir of Harry Potters.

Of course to be part of the team selected to pull the bridal coach is a great honour. And here it is at last, towed by a team of oiled and naked labour politicians.

Have to hand it to the organisers, carrying off an open-carriage procession in this day and age ....

Right .... that's done. Time to get back to the real world

Monopoly Money

2011-04-05T09:13:00.000+01:00

(Another piece from Horsley's 'Over the Wall' magazine - this one from the Winter 2009 issue)

It has been clear to me for some time that the game of Monopoly should come with a health warning along the lines:

“May give rise to sudden and uncontrollable acts of violence”.

Certainly as a child, the closest I came to murdering anyone, was when playing Monopoly on the hearthrug with my little brother.

The following was a typical scenario. My brother would build up a massive sub-prime property portfolio based on the cheap streets on the first two edges of the board while I pursued an alternative strategy focusing on top-quality investments. Having secured both Park Lane and Mayfair and painstakingly built up to a hotel on each, I would patiently wait for my brother's token to land on one of the fateful squares. When it did, I would rub my hands together and start chuckling, in the confident knowledge his pathetic financial empire was doomed.

But then he would calmly reach beneath the edge of the hearthrug and pull out a thick bank-roll of red, £500 pound notes – which he'd been quietly squirrelling away since the beginning of the game – and coolly pay off the debt as if it was of no consequence to him whatsoever.

He had a trick or two up his sleeve when it came to real money too. For example, he would polish his pocket money. He'd work away at his pennies with Brasso until they shone like newly-minted gold sovereigns. At first, I considered this a faintly amusing, babyish aberration; but that was before he played his masterstroke. When the tinkling notes of Popeye the Sailor Man heralded the arrival of the ice-cream van, and we all rushed out with our pennies, my brother sat dejectedly on the doorstep in such a way as to catch the eye of our mother, who immediately asked him why he wasn't first in the queue for an ice-cream, whether he was feeling poorly etc.

“No.” he said – lifting sorrowful eyes in which I could swear he had managed to cause real tears to glisten. “It's just that I don't want to spend all my shiny money.” At which point – and I found this scarcely credible in our mother, who was normally so canny – she gave him some extra money for an ice cream!

I can still remember the little smile he saved just for me, as he joined the queue.

The fluoroscope

2011-03-29T19:55:00.001+01:00

In case anyone is inclined to dismiss my talk of shoe-shop x-ray machines as an extravagant fantasy, here's the beast itself (with one viewing tube for the parent, one for the shop-assistant and a slot for the child's feet)

For background check out:

http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/shoefittingfluor/shoe.htm

A dose of the hard stuff

2011-03-28T20:42:00.000+01:00

News of the nuclear accident at Fukushima has awoken memories from my childhood.

In 1957, 8-years old and living near Manchester, I recall the time our daily school milk was suddenly stopped. One morning we were all given milk tablets (white and around the size of a pound coin) and told that we had to chew them as there wouldn't be any fresh milk that day. They weren't very nice and some of us (not me, of course) used to drop them quietly behind the radiators. I can't remember clearly, but I think this went on for about two weeks.

Looking back on these events, the pieces slowly begin to fall into place.

In 1957 there was a serious nuclear accident at Windscale in Cumbria resulting from a desperate drive to produce plutonium for Britain's atomic bomb. The accident led to the accidental release of significant amounts of radioactive iodine, caesium and xenon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windscale_fire

I remember the strictness with which we were instructed we must eat the tablets and can recall, even after all these years, how it all seemed a little strange. After all, would it be all that serious if we missed our school milk for a week or two? But then recently, on recounting this story to a friend, he said: "They were probably iodine tablets."

On reflection, I think it's quite likely they were. Of course nothing was said; there were no letters home, no pronouncements from government. I doubt even our teachers knew what was going on. The decision to distribute iodine tablets would have been made by some anonymous Whitehall civil-servant at the Home office or Ministry of Defence and enacted via the civil-defence, command and control procedures in place during the Cold War

Incidentally around the same time, I recall looking out of my classroom window to see the setting sun disfigured with huge sunspots. And, as if that wasn't enough, we had atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, luminous watches and x-ray machines in shoe shops to check our feet had room to grow.

All in all, I reckon I must have got quite a dose.

The Gate of the Wood in Winter

2010-12-20T18:25:00.003Z

With midwinter just a day away, I walk to the Gate of the Wood, where the same two trees flank an old stone style - their buttress roots, black-barked and banked with snow.

I stay just briefly; then retrace my steps.
No sun, no fading brightness at my back.
Just a curving track, flanked by dark trunks.
Dry sleet blowing through the trees.
Grey fuzz of woody tops against the sky

A fire at home - but still some way to go.

A very happy Christmas to one and all.

Torture

2010-11-09T23:52:00.007Z

About 2 years ago I recall listening to an editon of Radio4's The Moral Maze on torture and whether it can ever be justified.

For me The Moral Maze has always had a distinct air of nastiness, suggesting that maybe this is one of those areas where the BBC attempts to refute any accusation of left-wing or liberal bias, and the programme on torture was no exception. All the same, when listening to the discussion I remember being particularly chilled to hear several contributors argue that in particular, very special circumstances the use of torture is morally justifiable.

These very special circumstances are best illustrated (it was argued) by a hypothetical situation known as The Ticking Bomb Scenario. It goes something like this:

There is a ticking bomb hidden somewhere in a crowded city. If it explodes it will kill hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent men, women and children. The police have detained the person responsible for planting the bomb - the only person who knows where it is hidden. There follows the obligatory disclaimer about the reluctance of a civilised society to use distasteful methods etc etc. All the same, goes the argument, can anyone seriously argue that we should not use torture to extract the information, if by so doing we will save the lives of thousands?

But of course, life isn't like this. A more realistic version of the scenario is that the police detain a number of people, one of whom might know where the bomb is hidden. Despite these trivial modifications, the same line of reasoning must surely still apply; if there is even a small chance that amongst the detainees there is one who holds the key to saving the lives of thousands of people, you can make a justifiable case for torturing all of them.

This leads us to a terrible place - a nightmare world in which we have forgotten all the things we once valued. You won't fool me into going there by careless talk of ticking bombs.

Cephalopods

2010-11-07T21:01:00.003Z

I can't stop thinking about Cephalopods.

It's ever since watching a programme on Channel 4 - Inside Nature's Giants: the Giant Squid. The whole series has been utterly fascinating - one of my very favourite things on TV.

Whoops ... I've just lost half my readers.

"We want more Wormwood", they cry.

To which I can only respond "Patience, patience - this is high-quality stuff you're getting here"

So Cephalopods - octopus, squid, and cuttlefish. They're remarkable creatures. If there was ever a candidate for an alien lifeform, you couldn't do much better than choose a squid (or maybe a nautilus)

Setting aside the fact that they use water to give a degree of rigidity to their bodies and discretely passing over the details of their bizarre sex lives, the thing I find utterly wonderful about cephalopods is their ability to manipulate their appearance using both the colour and the texture of their skin.

Watch this, for example:

The sheer versatilty with which a cephalopod can change it's appearance is a marvel in itself but what I find really intriguing is how they work out what pattern to display. Do they have a look around and have a think about it?

They do have very advanced eyes (or some of them do at least) but they also have light-sensitive cells on their skin which raises the intriguing possibility that these sensors might be wired-up more or less directly to the cells responsible for changing colour. After all, why burden the brain with the task of maintaining an internal model of the body when you have a real body that can do the job directly?

So it seems plausible that cuttlefish might have light-sensitive cells on the underside of their bodies that control the variable-colour cells on their uppersides - more or less directly. But I have no idea whether or not this is true. If you're a cephalopod specialist and you happen to be reading this, please feel free to put me right.

And then there's the other thing: when a squid or an octopus is not pretending to look like the sea-bed it can use its body to display vivid patterns conveying aggression or sexual attraction. So assuming the camouflage function is more or less involuntary it must be capable of being overridden by an impulse to display something quite different.

The natural assumption would be to imagine that these kinds of impulses originate in the brain; but the cephalopod brain - or at least the bundle of tissue that scientists label as such - is a fairly insignificant affair. Could it be that in cephalopods the distinction between brain and body is somewhat blurred and that the functions - both voluntary and involuntary - that we normally associate with the brain are distributed throughout their entire bodies?

Challenging questions indeed; questions from which most people might quite understandably flinch; but no more challenging - let me assure you - than those tackled every single day here at the Omnivorist Institute.

Education, education, education

2010-10-14T00:18:00.004+01:00

Cat litter

2010-09-23T00:25:00.001+01:00

It appears a number of people (well, about 3 to be honest) have been enjoying the pieces originally published in Horsley's Over the Wall magazine. So, at the risk of overdoing it, here's another Wormwood - an old one from November 2005

If there is a hell, I like to think there is a special section reserved for the people who run junk mail competitions – you know, the ones that say:

Congratulations, you have already been selected for our £20,000 prize.

An elderly aunt of mine fell victim to these people and used to send them nearly all her pension, often accompanied by touching little notes expressing her pleasure and excitement at the imminent windfall – which, of course, never materialised. Instead, each new day simply brought a further immense load of fancy envelopes, containing cleverly-crafted deceptions and empty promises.

I tried reasoning with my aunt; I tried to get her to see that she was being taken advantage of, but she had an instant retort - explaining how she was reliant on the high-volume of incoming mail for making cat-litter which she produced, one or two sacks-full daily, with a hand-cranked shredder. Indeed, by the time she died her cat-litter operation had attained near-industrial proportions. She would sit patiently at her table, turning the handle and feeding in all of the envelopes and the letters from the many competitions she didn’t follow - as she put it. What she really meant was that she had only enough blood in her veins for three or four competition organisers to feast on at a time and the others would just have to wait their turn.

When she died – my dear, infuriating, stubborn old aunt, who worked all her life in a washing machine factory, wrote poetry and painted watercolours - my one consolation was that, as a source of nourishment to her exploiters, she was entirely used up.

Public service

2010-08-20T19:32:00.001+01:00

(First published in the May 2008 edition of Horsley's Over the Wall magazine)

As is usual on weekdays, it's down to Nailsworth bus station first thing, to help see-off the 8:47 to Gloucester.

Despite the fact that I have recently taken to using a pair of regulation fluorescent paddles (of the sort employed at airports), the bus drivers continue to show a lamentable ignorance of elementary marshalling signals. Some of them seem to get quite worked up about it. I really must raise the matter with the bus company. Clearly some specialised training is called for.

Then it was over to the supermarket to check on the shelf-stacking - but here again standards are disappointingly lax. If I've said it once I've said it a hundred times: when it comes to choosing a pot of yoghurt customers prefer the ones with a long sell-by date, so placing these at the back of the shelf is most unhelpful.

I was explaining this to one of the young employees and was in the middle of helping him rearrange the yoghurts into the right order when the manager appeared and got quite unnecessarily upset. I tried explaining to him that it is a wholly understandable mistake, can't have eyes in the back of his head and so on. All the same , this isn't the first time I've had to correct this particular slip-up and it must be embarassing for him to find himself repeatedly reminded of the fact.

Fortunately, at that moment, the situation was saved by the arrival of two police officers - which reminded me that it was some time since I'd had the opportunity to review their performance.

After addressing them briefly, over at the station, I invited them to make any observations of their own. They made a very nice little speech along the lines that while they appreciated my public spiritedness and the lengths I continue to go to ensure that the town runs smoothly, they INSIST that I reduce my informal duties and spare myself further efforts. I can't remember their precise words - but it was something along those lines. All the same, I made it clear that for as long as chaos and inefficiency continue to plague the town they would not find me letting up – at which point they insisted again that, on the contrary, I really MUST stop. Their concern that I shouldn't overtax myself was altogether quite touching I thought.

So generally, despite the usual trivial frustrations - a wholly worthwhile day, not to mention a ride home in a police car with my own driver – an honour that seemed wholly lost on Mrs Wormwood, who called me a silly old man. But then she's always the last one to appreciate my qualities.

The Right to be Wrong

2010-08-13T12:59:00.004+01:00

" gonna make a mistake, gonna do it on purpose."
Fiona Apple

I've been thinking of that unmade bed that Tracy Emin exhibited at the Tate in 1999 and how it's often held up as the supreme example of subversive art.

Now the literal meaning of subvert is somewhere between undermine and overthrow and when it comes to overthrowing accepted artistic conventions or people's sense of decency I'd be the first to admit - you could do a lot worse than the Bed.

However, if it's the very fabric of society that you've set your sights on overthrowing, you're going to need something a little stronger, something like the Mischievous Calculator – an electronic calculator that makes mistakes.

Maybe it has happened already. Can you be really sure that the humble calculator that lies on your desk is entirely faithful in its operation? Our trust in such technologies is so complete that, even when faced with a clearly incorrect answer, we would almost certainly put it down to an error on our own part. We might repeat the calculation and this time, of course, it would be correct. It is the subtlety of the imperfection that is essential to the project.

To imbue a simple electronic calculator with an element of mischief is far from straightforward. A calculator that was merely defective would betray itself through degenerate behaviour. It might give an identical answer to every sum or refuse to display an answer at all. My mischievous calculator, on the other hand, will be entirely unpredictable in its failings. It might be a paragon of arithmetical perfection for years on end, before one day perversely declaring that 3x7=23. And when challenged to repeat its mistake, it will blithely revert to its former dependability.

The mischievous calculator will be significantly more complex than its well-behaved counterpart. To decide precisely how and in what circumstances the rules of arithmetic are to be perverted is a challenging design problem that will call for imagination and a high degree of inventiveness.

Once designed however, my calculator will be put on the market at a competitive price and, via a multitude of small, south-east Asian workshops, will find it's way to the four corners of the world, where it will do what is expected of it: in banks, bars, and brothels – faithfully executing mundane sums. Most of the time, at least.

Slowly however doubts will begin to take hold. Rumours will begin to circulate of a fundamental unreliability in arithmetic. Newspapers will report a spate of violent disputes over restaurant bills. Cases will be brought to court whose outcome will hinge on expert testimony to the effect that such things are impossible. The rumours will gradually subside - until the day, that is, when one of the rogue devices is identified and isolated, having been caught in the act, as it were. Analysed and dissected by experts, it is revealed to be perversely and deliberately flawed and, while dispelling the mystery, this revelation will simultaneously provoke a resurgence of mistrust.

Henceforth, every simple calculation will be open to dispute. Old people who can recall how to do sums the old-fashioned way will be called as expert witnesses. Little children will be taught to chant their tables once again.

But this is just the start. Beyond the mischievous calculator other, more ambitious projects beckon: a temperamental mobile maybe - or a capricious computer. Both of these will entail technical challenges of an entirely new order of magnitude. Indeed, preliminary investigations indicate that nothing less than a form of artificial intelligence will be required – almost certainly of limited aptitude and with no more than simple cognitive powers, but nonetheless exhibiting an unmistakeable, if rudimentary, capacity for real naughtiness.

In his book, The Cyberiad, Stanislaw Lem tells the story of an inventor who constructs an intelligent machine which, when asked the ritual question: how much is two plus two, gives the defiant answer – seven. Repeated adjustments and tinkering with the mechanism does nothing to improve matters. Though the inventor is disappointed, his friend is not entirely unimpressed - declaring:

"…. there is no question but that we have here a stupid machine, and not merely stupid in the usual, normal way, oh no! This is, as far as I can determine – and you know I am something of an expert – this is the stupidest thinking machine in the entire world, and that’s nothing to sneeze at! To construct deliberately, such a machine would be far from easy; in fact I would say that no one could manage it. For the thing is not only stupid, but stubborn as a mule."

The Gate of the Wood

2010-08-03T22:17:00.001+01:00

I've taken to walking in the woods recently. At the end of the path, where the trees are thickest and the leaf mould soft underfoot, is a place I've come to think of as the Gate of the Wood.

An ancient stone stile in a tumbledown wall, a wooden one beyond, and beyond that, a sunlit pasture - straight out of Claude Lorrain - with sheep and grass sloping down to a hidden stream.

Just back from the wall, two beech trees overlook the stile. They're like a man and a woman, like a pair of lovers, bound by an ancient spell.

He stands to the right of the path - firm, sombre and upright. Some of his lower boughs are no more than stumps. Wiry tendrils run in clusters up a straight broad trunk that rises to support a half-hidden crown.

She is altogether lighter and more lively - her slender body clad in spirals of smooth grey bark, undulating like the drapery in a renaissance drawing. Leaning to one side, arms lifted to a canopy of leaves, she is like a dancer caught between rootedness and flight.

This is as far as I walk. I stand and look at the way the light from the field touches the two trees, their bark, their curving roots and the path that threads its way between them. Then I turn back into the shadow of the wood and start the long walk home.

The Star Chair

2010-07-27T23:15:00.001+01:00

Some of you will have seen my Star Chair - made from corrugated cardboard. It was the very first (and probably the best) thing I ever did at architecture school.

All the same, as it has been around for the last 40 years, I am currently trying to push it out into the world to fend for itself.

An essential part of this initiative is the new Star Chair website:

www.starchair.co.uk

Check it out.

On suffering fools (gladly or otherwise)

2010-07-19T22:19:00.000+01:00

After encountering it for what I swear must be the third or fourth time in as many days I am beginning to develop a deep aversion for the phrase 'He was not one to suffer fools gladly' along with it's even more clichéd variant '... never one to suffer fools gladly.'

It's that 'gladly' that gets me; I'd be quite content with a straightforward refusal to suffer fools full-stop; I'd find that perfectly reasonable - even though personally speaking I have nothing against them (fools that is) but the 'gladly' suggests that the person in question is quite prepared to suffer fools 'through gritted teeth' or with 'smouldering resentment' or suchlike - just not with anything approaching normal human decency.

The consequence is that, while I appreciate that the phrase is customarily trotted out to enhance a person's reputation, for me it has entirely the opposite effect - suggesting, instead, a somewhat mean-minded and ultimately insecure character.

No, when it comes to choosing which categories of people we might be unwilling to suffer - gladly or in any other way - I'll opt for the self-satisfied, intolerant bigots every time.

Leave the fools alone - they're just fine.

Sardine tins - a retraction

2010-07-12T13:45:00.002+01:00

In response to my recent item on sardine tins a reader made the following observation:

While I enjoyed your piece, I have to take exception to the description of the 4-6-0 Stanier as 'humble'. After all this was the class which included 'Sherwood Forester', 'Royal Scot' and 'Old Contemptibles'. The Walschaerts piston valves alone mark them out as superior machines.

It is gratifying to know that there are those amongst my readers who consider accuracy in these matters to be of vital importance.

I stand corrected.

Everyday design No 2: The Dyson DC21 vacuum cleaner

2010-07-07T23:37:00.002+01:00

When Dyson first launched it's range of bagless vacuum cleaners I was given one in part payment for some design work and I loved it right from the start. Well maybe love is a bit too strong a word but it worked well enough and was almost a pleasure to use. It had one or two nice little qualities like an ability to perch halfway up the stairs and a tolerance for being dragged around by its hose at all sorts of angles. Otherwise it was charmingly devoid of complications.

Then, after some 12 years of hard, unsparing use, the motor - quite reasonably, in my opinion - decided to pack it in and I got it into my head to take it to the dump rather than to the local Vac Doctor, who I have since discovered could have had a replacement motor installed in no time.

As it happened, I had been eyeing up the later Dyson models and seduced by their distinctive looks - which reminded me of Giger's design for Alien - I went out and bought a brand new DC21.

The first thing that should be said about this machine is that it bites. I have been bitten on at least three occasions and always in sensitive parts of the body such as between thumb and forefinger which suggests that the instruction manual should include a warning along the lines: 'On no account should this machine be used as a sex toy'. All the same, in view of the risk of putting ideas into people's heads, a general caution relating to bite avoidance is probably the most that can be expected.

Another peculiarity of the latest Dyson machines is that you're never quite sure just what is attached to what and exactly how. Parts that look like they should be fixed on firmly give the impression that they are about to drop off, whilst other components that you'd like to be able to get at easily, like the dust bucket, are fiendishly difficult to detach. You end up feeling that a diagram might be helpful, similar to the ones used to describe magic tricks with rope and featuring hands, arrow symbols and dotted lines accompanied by words such as 'grasping the handle lightly with the second and third fingers of the right hand, press the button with the thumb while maintaining a even pressure between the two components.'

The overall impression is that the kids in the Dyson design department were given some expensive solid-modelling software and invited to see what they could do with it. And as they were undoubtedly all fresh from modelling dragons and such like, they proved they could do quite a lot.

The new Dyson doesn't perch on the stairs any more either. No doubt, after a number of dreadful accidents and subsequent claims for compensation in which it was alleged the victim had been lulled into a false sense of security by the seemingly natural way in which the cleaner sat halfway up the stairs, it was decided that the new model should be designed to encourage a healthy sense of anxiety.

Of course what Dyson should do now is launch the DC21 Alien - similar to the others but with a matt-black finish and a special retracting alien mouthparts attachment for dealing with those extra tough cleaning challenges.

Now there's a machine you wouldn't want to mess around with.

Everyday design - No 1: The sardine tin

2010-06-15T21:55:00.001+01:00

I was leafing through the January 1924 edition of Popular Mechanics the other day when I came across the following fascinating piece:

Ahh ... many's the day I fished just such a tin out of my duffel bag while sitting at the end of a chilly railway platform in autumn waiting for the Euston to Manchester Picadilly to come through (even though, more often than not, it was pulled by nothing more exciting than a humble 4-6-0 Stanier.) And of course I am only too familiar with the dilemma depicted in the above article - though I have to admit, I rarely had an ice-pick to hand and, most times, had to content myself with leaving the tin half-open and teasing out the sardines with a lolly stick.

But despite the fact that this particular style of sardine tin has long since been superseded by the modern ring-pull, the underlying design problem remains unresolved. The ring-pull may make the task of opening the tin refreshingly easy but there is a terrible sting in the tail: as the lid comes free of the container, it springs back, flicking tomato and olive oil down the front of the cool shirt you've just changed into.

So the sardine tin remains a design problem whose solution momentarily eludes us. It's one of those situations that no-one can be sufficiently arsed to worry about too much.

And there's another, equally fascinating genre: where designers have been encouraged to allow their imaginations to run unchecked - frequently with bizarre and intriguing results.

Join me over the coming weeks (and months) while I visit further examples of both scenarios - starting with the Dyson DC21 vacuum cleaner.

But don't hold your breath.

The sleeper awakes

2010-06-07T19:50:00.000+01:00

It's strange but it takes only the smallest thing to turn me from a prolific blogger to a rabbit (or deer) caught in the headlights. It's not that there is any shortage of things to write about - rather that there are too many; combined with the fact that there are plenty of other people with really interesting things to say.

All the same, with each passing day it becomes clear that the next blog I write is going to have to be pretty amazing and as the days stretch to weeks and months it gets even worse - till I'm completely paralysed. I believe people with Parkinson's disease suffer something similar? Stuck at the top of the stairs till some unconnected thought propels them down.

But, heaven be praised ... more on its way. Brace yourselves.

Tales from the Long Tail No.1

2010-03-26T22:15:00.004Z

A man after my own heart

I'm thinking of David Cheval - who proposes on PM (BBC Radio4 26/3/2010) that cigarette manufacturers should be required (by law) to wrap filters in fluorescent pink paper, in contrast to the faux cork-effect paper they currently favour; and all in the interests of shaming smokers into disposing of their dog-ends more responsibly.

On hearing his letter read out on the PM program, he dashes into his wife:

Darling, they read my letter! All those years of campaigning, the indifference, the derision. You know, at times, I've even begun to doubt myself. (starts to laugh uncontrollably).

But now, now! Oh I must make plans - I must think, think, think! (digs fingertips into temples).

First thing tomorrow, phone the Director General or - no, no - Eddie Mair, should let him share the credit - mustn't get carried away.

But it's so exciting; we're going to do this! First thing tomorrow we're going to email every MP ....

Mrs Cheval (staring blankly into her drink): And here was I thinking how he was getting better ....

Meanwhile, in the Radio4 studio:

Night Lucy.

Night Eddie.

Great one tonight, by the way, Lucy.

... what?

The nutcase with the fluorescent cigarette butts. Just perfect for the friday night journey home from the office. I don't know where you find them.

With thanks to David Cheval (whoever you are) and no offence intended - I think your idea is brilliant.

Earworms

2010-03-14T12:11:00.002Z

Since posting my piece on tunes that get stuck in your head I have been amazed to discover that it is a well-known phenomenon and, like all the best minor mental disorders, there's a German word to describe it: Ohrwurm (literally Earworm)

There's an entry in Wikipedia. People have even written academic papers and newspaper articles on the subject:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/jun/22/popandrock
http://www.business.uc.edu/earworms

The last site describes 'cutting-edge earworm research' being carried out at the University of Cincinnati and even offers a virtual clinic outlining useful strategies for getting a song unstuck (from which I derived a grain of consolation in seeing my own remedy listed)

Which all goes to show that whatever you can possibly imagine it already exists somewhere on the internet.

Cinema Paradiso

2010-03-13T01:39:00.001Z

I went last night to my local cinema to see The Road - a good film, I thought, even though, as Flann O'Brien might have put it, there wasn't a laugh in it.

But anyway it isn't the film I wanted to write about.

The Electric Picture House is a small, 100-seat cinema in Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire. It is run almost entirely by volunteers and shows mainstream films: Avatar the week before last and Alice in Wonderland this week - both in 3D.

Seats are wonderfully comfortable too - while the interior is decorated in a tasteful dark blue shade that seems perfect somehow for a cinema.

I found myself wondering why I would ever want to go anywhere else.

Attention

2010-03-13T00:56:00.003Z

Facebook borrowed the word friend and constructed an on-line social network around it, but since Twitter it is clear that the real currency is attention - and has been all along.

As a concept, Facebook friendship mimics the qualities of the real, face-to-face variety - things like trust, loyalty and support. But when a person's on-line friends come to be numbered in the thousands, it is difficult to see how those qualities can retain any real meaning.

Attention, on the other hand, is a much more malleable commodity. And it can be traded too - as I have just discovered in a New York Times article on the latest trends in on-line advertising. I say 'just discovered' despite the fact that I thought I understood how this stuff worked: for example you ask Google Translate to tell you the Greek for 'Does your hotel have a swimming pool?' and along with the answer Google obligingly provides you with ads for holiday resorts on the Peloponnese - except for the fact that since I'm already at the stage of asking the hotel about its facilities, I might have been more interested in travel insurance.

So it's kind of obvious and a bit simplistic - or so I thought.

When we go online we are giving things our attention and it is our attention that advertisers compete for, because once they have got it, there is the chance they can turn it to their advantage - or even sell it on. All the same, it came as something of a shock to learn of the degree to which my individual attention is being traded. When I search for something on Google (and it's not just Google by the way) it only takes a second or two for the results to be displayed but that is plenty of time for advertisers - or more precisely, software acting on their behalf - to bid for the right to stick an ad under my nose. The whole auction is conducted in a fraction of a second, with advertisers bidding not simply in response to what what I am searching for at that instant but on the basis of a profile that has been built of me over time. So it might go something like:

Google:lot#123456789:idomnivorist:dob27091949:session4102s:profile follows .. what am I bid?

The fact that I very rarely click on adverts (a fact that must feature quite prominently in my profile) no doubt makes me a less attractive prospect and advertisers might well decide to let me go by unmolested. However, the sight of a different type of on-line shopper heaving into view - one for example with an established tendency to make expensive impulse purchases - must liven up the proceedings no end.

The New York Times article includes a vivid illustration of the way things are going. Picture yourself walking along a city street, late at night, past advertising hoardings that are changing just for you.

No thanks ...

BBC cuts

2010-03-02T23:29:00.001Z

Watching Jeremy Paxman interview his boss Mark Thompson on BBC's Newsnight, I found myself imagining the conversation they might have had just before going on air.

Thompson: You know, if this is going to be convincing, you're going to have to work me over a little.

Paxman: Aw shucks boss - I can't do that!

Thompson: No - I'm tellin' yer - give it me straight in the kisser. And make like you mean it!

Paxman: Awww boss ....

More on homeopathy

2010-02-23T00:07:00.001Z

This homeopathy business is more complicated than it first seems and I confess I'm in two minds about it.

Firstly there's today's news that the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee is recommending the NHS should stop funding homeopathy on the grounds that there is no evidence that homeopathic remedies are more effective than a simple placebo.

But then I read that Franklin Miller of the US National Institutes of Health (in response to growing evidence of the power of the placebo effect) suggests that doctors and researchers should think in terms of contextual healing - that is healing produced, activated or enhanced by the context of the clinical encounter. Or as he puts it:

"Finding ethically appropriate ways to tap the use of placebo in clinical practice is where the field needs to be moving."

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that if you had to invent a practice designed to deliver the placebo effect you might well come up with homeopathy - or something very similar. Homeopaths believe in what they are doing, the remedies are harmless (as demonstrated by the recent mass-overdose demonstration) and there is good anecdotal evidence that people experience a benefit.

The problem however is that the scientific establishment just can't bring itself to countenance an explanatory framework that is so at odds with established standards. To give credence to such alchemical principles as the Law of Similars or the Law of Infinitesimals would be to open the door to all sorts of mumbo-jumbo: dowsing, crystals, pendulums and so on.

Every discipline needs a framework of some sort within which to operate. There are some who, by denying homeopathy any scientific credibility, hope to drive it to extinction. My own inclination is to regard homeopathy as an art and its laws as essentially poetic.

Is poetry (in this broader sense) something that nurtures and enriches our lives or is it merely recreational? Maybe it is time for a little humility and open-mindedness on both sides.

Homeopathy and the placebo effect

2010-02-20T01:30:00.001Z

I've been thinking about homeopathy. This was prompted by a piece by Michael Brooks in the Aug 20, 2008 issue of New Scientist attesting to the efficacy of the placebo effect.

Then just recently I came across a second article by the same author in the Guardian Science Blog that discusses the placebo effect in the context of homeopathy.

For a simple sugar tablet to make you better, it helps if you believe it to be a real, potent medicine. Furthermore, it seems the effectiveness of any remedy is increased if patients are given time, listened to at length and fully consulted about their symptoms, feelings and treatments.

In a typical homeopathic consultation the practitioner will start by taking a detailed personal history covering physical, mental and emotional states. After identifying a remedy appropriate both to the patient and to his or her specific condition the remedy is potentised somewhat ritualistically by means of a series of dilutions and shakings (succussions).

All of which suggests to me that if the placebo effect is real and effective then homeopathy is perfectly configured to exploit it.

So instead of getting worked up about the fact that homeopathic remedies are so dilute as to contain no trace of their active agent, we should be giving serious thought to experiments designed to provide insights into the therapeutic process.

Here's the sort of experiment I'd like to see done:

Firstly, you recruit a statistically significant number of subjects all suffering from a condition considered (by homeopathic practitioners) to be treatable.

Half the subjects are told they will not participate further in the trial and that they will constitute a control group (group A). The other half are given individual treatment by a group of homeopathic practitioners, starting with a detailed case history and culminating in the identification and preparation of a remedy. The practitioners are told that the remedies will be delivered to all subjects once they have been correctly recorded and labelled and they have no further contact with their patients (at least until the study is concluded).

Of the subjects for whom remedies have been prepared, half are told (by the researchers) that the remedy will not be supplied to them (call this group B). The remaining subjects are all supplied with a course of pills but in half the cases (call it group C) the remedy prepared is replaced by a simple sugar pill. The only people to take the remedy identified and prescribed by the homeopath are those in group D (just 1 in 8 of the full set of participants).

At a series of regular intervals, all subjects are examined with respect to changes in their condition. It helps of course if the condition is such that it manifests itself in a measurable way (at least partially)

It is worth noting that groups C and D (considered in isolation) are engaged in a typical double-blind trial. And since such trials have so far failed to demonstrate the efficacy of homeopathy we might expect the same to be the case here. Or to put it another way: of the people who believe themselves to have undergone a full course of homeopathic treatment there might well be no evidence to suggest that the homeopathic remedy is any more or less effective than a simple placebo.

A similar uniformity of outcome might be anticipated amongst the people in groups A and B. None of these people were supplied with any pills and all believe themselves to be part of a control group.

The really interesting question is whether there would be any observable difference between the people who didn't receive a remedy (groups A and B) and those who did (groups C and D). If the second group were to demonstrate a significantly better outcome than the first then we would be onto something. Nevertheless, while homeopathy might take credit for the method of delivery, it would be the placebo effect that could justifiably lay claim to the attribution.

So while I am personally somewhat sceptical about homeopathy, I find myself having to allow for the possibility that, for many people at least, recovery from certain forms of physical and mental illness can entail a degree of willing self-deception.

I don't believe in offering homeopathic treatment on the NHS. Instead I believe we should be working towards a state of affairs where all doctors are trained to recognise the degree to which listening, attentiveness and respect can have a measurable effect on clinical outcomes. Who knows; homeopaths might have something to teach them in this area.

Omnivorist is now tweeting

2010-02-19T11:42:00.000Z

And if you are on twitter too there is a tweet this button at the end of every post. If you're not, then please don't lose any sleep about it.

OCDM2

2010-02-14T11:35:00.003Z

As if it isn't enough to suffer the distressing effects of horological monodigitism, I find myself plagued by a new problem - a mild form of obsessive compulsive disorder with musical manifestations (OCDM2)

I can think of no better explanation than to describe a typical episode.

I'll be enjoying the recollection of one of my favourite pieces of music - let's say Liszt's Fifth Hungarian Rhapsody - when I suddenly become aware that I have been whistling the same 4 or 5 bars under my breath for most of the morning. By the next day it has taken a firm hold and I find myself replaying the same loop in my imagination, more or less unconsciously. It's easy to put the tune aside once I become aware that I am playing it, but it has a sneaky tendency to start up again as soon as my back is turned. It's not unusual for a single tune to get lodged for 4 or 5 days, with occasional episodes lasting anything up to a month.

'Aha', I hear you clamouring to suggest: 'Why don't you just think of a different piece of music ?'.

If only it were that simple.

Certainly using one tune to drive out another is a sensible strategy. But consider this. There are only certain tunes capable of displacing one that has outstayed its welcome. The tunes you'd like to recall - the one's you're particularly fond of - they always turn out to be useless.

Just before Christmas, for example, I had a particularly persistent fixation with Happiness (by Goldfrapp). Now, on the whole, I consider this to be an intelligent and appealing piece of music but after two weeks of uninterrupted mental playback I was beginning to find it tiresome.

I tried a couple of alternatives. The Byrds: Eight Miles High - that classic from the very zenith of Californian hippy culture - never really got much of a hold. Much more promising was Friday Night and Saturday Morning (the Nouvelle Vague version featuring Daniella D'Ambrosio). I've worked with it in the past and know from experience that, while very effective as a musical purgative, it can be a devil to get rid of once it's got it's feet under the table. But - mercifully perhaps - it didn't take on this occasion.

So I was stuck with the Goldfrapp for a few days more before I did what I knew I'd be forced to do all along.

You see there's a fiendishly subtle twist to this particular neurosis that makes one suspect it to be the work of some malevolent intelligence. It's this. While there is no particular difficulty in identifying a tune to do the business - it will invariably be one that is both more banal and persistent than the tune it displaces.

So, out of desperation, I forced out the Goldfrapp with Jesus Wants me for Sunbeam which I endured for an afternoon before resorting to Puff the Magic Dragon. Beyond this point the choice suddenly becomes quite limited as there are only a handful of tunes that are sufficiently fatuous to deal with Puff the Magic Dragon. Of course, there's always The Chicken Song - but that could be regarded as overkill. No, there's really only one candidate as far as I'm concerned and that's Lily the Pink (by The Scaffold).

Some might regard the fact that this song topped the UK singles chart for 4 whole weeks in 1968 as no more than a minor cultural footnote. For my part, I consider it as clear evidence of a significant public health risk.

Crocodile tears

2010-02-07T20:34:00.000Z

Having picked up from somewhere that Alastair Campbell had come 'close to tears', on the Andrew Marr show, over the matter of the sexed-up Iraq dossier, I eagerly tuned in to the BBC website only to find that the tears were of the crocodillic variety and in any case didn't amount to very much. All the same, he did seem a bit upset and it seems that it's all to do with the way everyone seems to want to go on and on about the lead-up to the war.

What he doesn't seem to realise is that, while he may be tired of the whole matter of Iraq, the rest of us are just warming to the task of understanding exactly how things turned out as they did.

Computer Chess

2010-02-04T19:35:00.001Z

I have just read a wonderful article by Gary Kasparov called The Chess Master and the Computer. In it he describes how the earliest efforts to construct chess-playing machines were motivated in part from a desire to understand human learning processes, but how this ambitious goal quickly gave way to what's known as the brute force approach in which millions of possible board positions are systematically evaluated for the best possible move. The result is that there are now chess programs capable of playing at grandmaster level on a powerful PC and the question of the superiority of the human player or computer has been resolved in favour of the latter.

But Kasparov does not leave the matter there and this is where the article is so interesting. Though he was defeated in a chess match by IBM's Deep Blue in 1997, there is no resentment in his critique. While bemoaning the contemporary pragmatist approach in which 'the dreams of creating an artificial intelligence that would engage in an ancient game symbolic of human thought have been abandoned', Kasparov remains true to the conviction that research into game playing machines is as much about understanding human thought processes as it is about demonstrating the calculating power of computers. And he describes a new form of chess competition - advanced chess or freestyle chess - played between teams of human players using computers. Some of the insights gained from such competitions, in which the only constraint is the time available to each team, are fascinating - but for that you should read the article for yourself.

Reading the Kasparov article brought to mind a computer chess project of my own - mobility chess.

The way chess programs work involves the computer identifying all the possible moves available to it and, for each of those moves, all the possible responses available to the other player and so on, with the resulting board positions proliferating like the leaves on a tree. The number of moves that the computer can look ahead depends on the computer power available. In practice, the search is refined by considering only sensible moves on each side. Each of the board positions examined is given a score according to an evaluation function that assesses the value of the pieces and their positions. The computer selects the move that will lead to the board position with the highest score despite all the best efforts of its opponent.

The unique feature of mobility chess is the extreme simplicity of its evaluation function. While most evaluation functions attempt to assess the inherent strength and security of individual pieces or patterns of pieces, in mobility chess the only thing that counts is how many distinct moves there are available to choose from. For a given board position, the program simply counts the number of alternative moves available to the player whose turn it is and subtracts the moves available to the other player.

I wrote the program and played it a few times. It played an interesting game considering its sole goal was to keep as many options open as possible. It's principal weakness was an annoying tendency to develop its rooks too early but then that's something I recall doing myself when I first played chess as a child. Since the evaluation function in mobility chess is so simple the program has time to examine more positions - that is, to look further ahead. Perhaps looking a little further ahead would be sufficient to demonstrate the folly of early rook development - who knows? It would be an interesting exercise to develop a common framework within which different evaluation functions could be played off against one another. Would the winner be the function that took a very sophisticated (if computationally costly) view of a position or one - as in mobility chess - that is almost trivially simple?

There's no doubt which outcome I would favour; I'm drawn to that science (or is it art?) that concerns itself with ways in which complex behaviour emerges from very simple rules. But, of course, complexity is not guaranteed. Mobility chess might equally well turn out to be extremely boring. I haven't played it enough to guess at how things might turn out.

Iraq war enquiry

2010-01-27T08:09:00.001Z

Interesting to compare and contrast a dedicated public servant like Elisabeth Wilmshurst with that slippery customer - Jack Straw.

As far as Jack Straw is concerned, I confess I couldn't be bothered listening to his evidence. There's something about his way of pleading to be understood that I find intensely irritating. For the life of me I can't understand why he's still around.

Inmos

2009-12-19T00:57:00.006Z

Inmos was a state-funded semiconductor company set up in 1978 and hurriedly sold-off by the conservative government under Margaret Thatcher in 1984. The company retained its identity until 1994, when it was fully assimilated into SGS-Thomson - a european multinational.

The years in between proved to be an exciting and special time - at least for those of us who were there - and earlier this week a number of people met up to celebrate the fact.

There was no cabaret, there were no smoke machines, no self-congratulatory whooping. As this was the first such reunion ever (in this country at least), most people were content to meet old friends, to share stories and to catch up on current news. I had a great time myself - as I am sure others did too. We have Claire Maudsley to thank for organising it all.

As Iann Barron - one of the three founders - said in a short welcoming speech, although Inmos is commonly considered to have failed as a profitable enterprise it fostered a microelectronics culture around Bristol whose influence is felt to this day. As the old company slowly collapsed in on itself it sent out spores that grew into new start-ups: some flowering spectacularly before withering away, others growing into significant companies in their own right.

See The Inmos Legacy by Dick Selwood to find out more, as well as the Wikipedia entry on the Transputer to see what it was that kept us at work late into the evening and - on more than one occasion - through to the next morning.

For me, one of the most remarkable facts about those years was that - not content simply to design the Transputer (a groundbreaking, microscopic, computing machine) - we decided we might as well design everything else we were going to need, while we were at it: a new computer language (occam), the software used to design the chip, the operating system, the computers on which that software ran, the communication network, text editors and so on - everything.

It's not like that anymore.

Ah ... but things were done differently in those days. Your modern silicon chip, for all its staggering power and complexity, is a cold and soulless thing. The devices we made were lovingly shaped out of the living crystal, their datapaths as beautiful as fine oriental carpets, microcode as rich as any tapestry. And we secretly carved our initials into our work (a practice long since outlawed) and emblazoned the corners with depictions of mythical beasts, peculiar to our secret guilds.

I was talking to an old friend at the reunion. He told me how his daughter, home from university, had suddenly confessed that she had no idea what he did at work and would he tell her. He explained that he had been engaged for a number of years in designing the devices used to construct wireless networks. His daughter looked puzzled. "But that stuff just works, doesn't it?" she said.

If you stop to think about it - it's a great compliment.

On seeing the Anish Kapoor exhibition

2009-12-18T21:15:00.000Z

So I did get to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition in the end. Three of us travelled to London from our village and made a day of it.

Strangely though, it was the TV program 2 weeks earlier that gave rise to my more philosophical musings about the exhibition. The thing itself was more along the lines of a fairground - what with the funny mirrors and the firing of the meat gun every 20 minutes.

Some of the objects were so greedy for space that people had to pick their way around them. Others, like the huge mirrored surfaces, conveyed a different message. Through reflections (and reflections of reflections) of people and of architecture, they created all the space you could possibly want.

And then there was that massive wax stool, forced slowly and steadily through the graceful arched portals separating a line of galleries.

Now what was that all about, I wonder?

Newstweet

2009-12-14T08:05:00.000Z

Is Simon Cowell the British Berlusconi?

Just one more ...

2009-12-08T10:56:00.002Z

The news that 29 senior managers in the UK Border Agency are to be paid bonuses averaging £10,000 each as a reward for, to quote the immigration minister Phil Woolas: 'delivering what the government is asking them to do', leads me to speculate on their baseline job description:

You will be expected to carry out your duties with no worse than mild to moderate incompetence. With respect to negligence or serious professional misconduct, there must be no more than one such episode in any 12 month period. Patronising behaviour, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and non-physical bullying will be tolerated, provided these are kept within reasonable limits and can be shown to be compatible with corporate goals.

And finally, at at time when many ordinary working families are facing unprecedented challenges to their security and standard of living, you will be expected to lead and motivate a team of 25,000 front-line staff by fostering an environment of mutual respect and shared values.

Reader: I thought you said you were going to cut down on this kind of thing?

Omnivorist: I know. It's just ... I get this sort of red mist.

Reader: For goodness sake! Try and get a grip on yourself.

A sad day

2009-12-04T10:02:00.005Z

I awoke this morning to the news that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to investigate claims of data manipulation and scientific fraud from within its own ranks.

Don't get me wrong: I don't believe for a moment that there is any substance to the accusations, but to say that the situation is serious - with the Copenhagen Climate Summit just days away - would be an understatement. To all intents and purposes the Copenhagen summit is now dead. Even if effective agreements can be reached in Copenhagen, back in the US Senate they will face something resembling an angry nest of hornets.

What is certain is that we are witnessing the successful culmination of a calculated, well-funded and professional public relations campaign. They will teach courses on it in future years (though they might have to get a move on, I guess). You can see how it was done here.

And with regard to my recent post - in which I tried to belittle the climate change sceptics - I now see that as somewhat naive. Dismissing climate change sceptics on the grounds that they lack scientific credentials is about as pointless as criticising a bunch of thugs, hired to break up a town-hall meeting, on the poor quality of their debating skills.

It seemed (to me at least) that the climate change issue could be argued in terms of science alone. After today it is clear it has to be fought politically.

See the DeSmogBlog for further background on the role of lobbying and PR in the climate change debate.

Admirable self-restraint

2009-12-03T17:19:00.002Z

A government minister has told bankers "to come back into the real world" after Royal Bank of Scotland directors threatened to resign over bonuses
(BBC 03/12/2009).

I'm not going to say anything about this. I'm beginning to bore myself with blogs about bankers.

Reader: Well thank goodness for that. Maybe we can move on to the interesting stuff now.

Lead balloon

2009-12-02T00:01:00.002Z

It was beginning to look like the USA had a monopoly on barmy climate change sceptics but now, with the news that BNP leader Nick Griffin is to represent the European parliament at the Copenhagen summit, it's gratifying to see us making a real contribution of our own at last.

Oddly enough, I feel a certain anticipatory pleasure at the sight of the sceptics clambering aboard their lead balloon. There's something about their style that suggests they consider the whole climate change issue to be nothing more than a matter of argument - with Reality, Nature or whatever you want to call the stuff out there, waiting patiently in the wings - ready to fall into line with whichever side comes out on top.

Bless

2009-11-27T10:32:00.000Z

In a week that, by common agreement, appears to have been another good one for the banks, I found myself digging out some notes I made of a discussion on the BBC Today program (25 September, 2009) This involved a bunch of bankers, hedge-fund managers and financial journalists discussing what had changed since the 2008 banking crisis.

By common agreement the answer appeared to be 'not very much'.

And when considering whether there is anything that can be done to lessen the chances of future banking catastrophes, there was similar unanimity in agreeing: yes there is - we could return to a system that enforces a separation between high street (commercial) banking and investment (casino) banking. The idea being that, if investment banks were aware of the fact that next time they mess up there isn't going to be anyone riding to the rescue, they might have a healthier attitude to risk.

A system of this sort was originally established in the USA by the second Glass-Steagall Act (1933) in response to the 1933 Wall St banking crisis but was repealed again in 1999 after prolonged lobbying from the banking industry. And the rest (as they say) is history.

So why aren't we putting it right?

The answer, it seems, is that the banks don't want to do that; they think it's best to leave things as they are. We doesn't come into it.

Reader: That's all perfectly clear but what's worrying me is this business of taking notes of the Today program. Isn't that just a little bit unusual ?

"For goodness sake darling - please try to be a bit more careful; you've got marmalade all over my notes again!"

Omnivorist: Hahaha. Don't worry I don't make a habit of it. It's just that on that particular morning I remember feeling deeply shocked by the realisation that nowadays we are ruled by the banks. Up till then I'd believed I was living in a democracy.

Reader: Bless

On not seeing the Anish Kapoor exhibition

2009-11-18T11:26:00.004Z

I went to London last week to stay with friends and to visit some galleries and museums.

At the Royal Academy I bought a ticket for the Wild Thing exhibition (Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Eric Gill) but stumbled accidentally into the first room of the Anish Kapoor show - which I didn't realise was on.

I found myself in the room containing the piece called Shooting into the Corner but which might equally appropriately be titled: Meat Gun. My initial reaction was something like my mother's response on seeing Antony Gormley's sculpture of a lone, abandoned foetus in an empty room, namely: 'Oh dear'.

But I didn't have a ticket and was politely directed to the Wild Thing exhibition which was good but - on reflection - pretty tame.

And then last night I watched a TV program about Anish Kapoor's Royal Academy show (Imagine, Winter 2009: The Year of Anish Kapoor, BBC1 Tuesday, 17 November) and - it's clear - I'm going to have to go back to London again and see it for real.

But I'm not beating myself up about it. After all, a lot of Modern Art is pretty hard to take seriously - and especially so when endlessly talked about, analysed etc. It was pretty much the same last night as I watched Alan Yentob appreciating some of Anish Kapoor's earlier sculptures from the comfort of my sofa. "It's quite disorienting in a rather interesting way", said Alan and I thought 'Here we go again - another disorientation opportunity. I just can't get enough of them.'

But then, about halfway through the program I did start to get interested and to recognise something of substance, something capable of stirring up the sediment and bringing the machinery back to life. And this is what I thought and what I now want to go and check out on the spot.

I found myself intrigued by all of Anish Kapoor's work (as experienced on the TV screen) but some of them, like the huge concrete wormcasts set on wooden pallets, invoked strong, somewhat disturbing feelings but no words.

The pieces that led me to a sense of discovery were the highly-finished ones - smooth, curved objects, either mirrored or painted in high-gloss. Like all sculptures they are physical objects but I sensed that they are intended to be perfect - or as close to perfection as a real physical object can be. And the point of this perfection is to enable us to see, not the sculpture itself, but something else - either the world reflected (in the case of the mirrored objects) or an abstraction - a void, hole or tunnel, an idea.

Anish Kapoor made a huge mirrored sculpture in Chicago called Cloud Gate (popularly known as the Bean). People love to touch it and are encouraged to. It is polished afresh every day.

It's good to be surprised.

OCOS

2009-11-10T18:44:00.001Z

(Reproduced, with minor modifications, from the April 2007 edition of Horsley's Over the Wall magazine)

I’ve been reading in the papers about this carbon offsetting business.

It works like this. Say you want to fly to New Zealand for your summer holiday, then on top of your air fare, you pay someone to plant about 15,000 trees. Over the next 50 years the trees will patiently soak up the carbon dioxide you are about to squander on your antipodean adventure, with the result that you can enjoy your holiday in the reassuring knowledge that you are ‘on the side of the planet’.

Apparently this is big business all of a sudden.

So not to be left behind when it comes to cutting-edge ideas, we at the Omnivorist Institute have been giving the matter serious thought and, after a number of tough meetings with business types, venture capitalists and the like, we are proud to announce: the Omnivorist Carbon Offsetting Scheme.

And the good news is this: there is no need to change your lifestyle; no need to put on the hairshirt of environmental contrition, nor the heavy woollen stockings of ecological correctness.

No. Leave it to us; we at OCOS are experts at this sort of thing.

For a small fee, we will compensate for the wasteful and embarrassing excesses of your own lifestyle with carefully matched periods of indolence or discomfort undertaken by our team of professional associates.

By way of example: a cheap return flight to Lanzarote is offset, at our end, by 4 hours dozing in a hammock; for which the fee will be £50 – enabling you to come home, not just stress-free and with an impressive tan, but confident in the assurance that you are ‘carbon neutral’.

That summer evening barbecue, which might otherwise have been marred by torments of guilt, can be enjoyed with a completely clear conscience, safe in the knowledge that, for a modest outlay of £15, we have people willing to spend an uncomfortable night in the open, in a state bordering on hibernation.

So go ahead, turn up that patio heater – we have it covered.

Science and religion

2009-11-07T11:27:00.000Z

The recent case of the man who successfully argued at an employment tribunal that his commitment to green issues has the status of a philosophical belief as opposed to being based on mere scientific fact, prompted this wonderful piece of wit from David Mitchell (The News Quiz: Radio 4 06/11/09).

"I like the idea that his sincerely held beliefs in the environment are accorded some respect. What's annoying is that the way something gets more respect is to make it more like a religion; that people's essentially delusional beliefs in omnipotent beings is something you've really got to respect and not sack them for, but that an opinion based on science you can ignore. That seems to be the wrong way round."

Carbon Trading

2009-11-06T09:05:00.000Z

It seems carbon trading is in the news again; it's a rum business to be sure.

For starters there's the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). It provides a way for rich countries to fund projects in poor countries in exchange for carbon credits, provided that the projects wouldn't have happened anyway.

This last bit is known as the additionality criterion and it's fraught with opportunities for abuse.

In China for example it appears that companies producing refrigerant gases can earn more money from selling the carbon credits associated with cleaning up their own pollution than they can from selling their main product - leading to a perverse incentive to build extra refrigerant plants whose sole purpose is the creation of a valuable cleanup opportunity.

If we're going to have additionality, it seems only reasonable to include the complementary principle - what one might term abstentionality. This would be a way of earning carbon credits by agreeing to stop doing something really bad that otherwise you might carry on with.

Since the way these mechanisms work is by first establishing a baseline defining normal behaviour, perhaps we should all go mad buying massive, inefficient cars and de-insulating our homes on the grounds that the more outrageous our behaviour now, the better the deal we will be able to reach later for agreeing to improve it.

Anyway, if this is the way things are headed, I want in. After all, I'm capable of emitting a bit of carbon dioxide and I think it's only fair that I should be allowed to choose what I do with it.

It's given me an idea. Watch this space.

Spooky digital clocks

2009-11-03T17:22:00.000Z

These days it seems that every time I look at a digital clock it's either 4:44, 22:22 or some other time where the digits are all identical.

I don't mean every single time of course - that would be seriously creepy. No, I mean like once a day. Certainly more often than you'd expect.

Let's do the sums:

In the case of a 12-hour clock the number of distinct time displays is 12 times 60 - or 720. Of these, the ones with identical digits are 1:11, 2:22, 3:33, 4:44, 5:55 and 11:11. So in a 12 hour period you expect to see one of these 6 single-digit patterns 6 times for every 720 looks at the clock (or 1 in 120). For a 24-hour clock, we can add 0:00 and 22:22 but the other numbers only come up once, so we have 8 cases out of 1440 (or 1 in 180).

In either case it means that to see one or more of these patterns every day suggests that I look at the clock more than 120 times in a 24 hour period. Not counting the time I am asleep that works out about once every 8 minutes.

Surely I can't be doing that!

Perhaps you'll understand now why I find it all a bit spooky.

In fact it has given me a really good idea for a low-budget horror movie:

Scene 1: Man rolls over in bed. Sleepily notes the time (2:22) on bedside clock.
Scene 2: Alarm clock rings (5:55) on the display. Daylight filters through the curtains. Radio announces tragic motorway accident.
Scene 3: Man driving through city, stuck in slow-moving traffic. Clock on car radio shows 3:33. Suddenly a panic-stricken man claws frantically at the car door - face pressed to the glass etc.
Scene 4: Man driving along motorway, lost in thought. Clock says 4:44. He doesn't seem to notice.
Scene 5: Motorway. Man peers through windscreen. Strange lights ahead. Clock says 6:66 !!! Cue Psycho music. Man's mouth formed into silent scream. Screeching of car brakes, rending of tortured metal.

Cut to credits against background of flashing blue lights etc etc.

If you've read this far, it's probably too late; you're going to start waking up and noticing it's 4:44. Aaagghhh !

Sorry.

Social mobility

2009-08-04T08:08:00.000+01:00

Guardian letters - 04 August 2009

For centuries this country has drawn on the ranks of the privileged when recruiting to top positions – only casting the net more widely when the demands of either empire or industry could not be met from the favoured source. Thus the increase in social mobility following the second world war was a direct consequence of post-war industrialisation, the technical demands of the cold war, the emergence of IT and so on.

Though social mobility appears to have been on the wane for 25 years or so, we seem only recently to have woken up to the fact. Could it be that there is some sort of link with the widespread loss of confidence in financial services, together with a growing awareness that, in responding to climate change, we face a scientific and engineering challenge of enormous magnitude?

I think we might see social mobility increase again, but I don't think it will owe much to Alan Milburn's report, however well-intentioned.

Natural gardening

2009-08-01T09:23:00.000+01:00

(The latest Wormwood column from Horsley's Over the Wall magazine)

As far as the garden is concerned, Mrs Wormwood and I are keen proponents of what is known as the Natural Look.

Let me stress right away however that the creation of a truly natural garden entails hours of research, planning and execution. Not everyone will have the time or interest to explore this highly-specialised activity.

Take the lawn for example. While most people content themselves with a flat, tightly-cropped surface comprising a single species such as a fine-bladed fescue, we opted instead for a more sophisticated, distressed finish in which a rich diversity of grasses and small flowering plants are interspersed with patches of bare earth. Starting with a conventional lawn, that in essence served as our blank canvas, transformation to the present mature state called for patient attention over a period of several years.

A similar degree of care has been lavished on the boundary wall of our property which is just nearing completion and in which we have explored a different set of ideas. Here the underlying theme is a crumbling stone wall over which a delicate filigree of ivy, brambles and goosegrass has been skillfully woven into a single rich mat. The effect we were striving for and which, without undue modesty, I believe we can claim some success in achieving, is reminiscent of the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites and in particular that great masterpiece of William Holman Hunt: Our English Coasts.

As far as the beds are concerned, we really let ourselves go here - playing with the idea of paired plants, in which individuals of one variety are set-off against a denser companion serving as a backdrop. Thus: foxgloves in a sea of nettles, comfrey bedded in ground elder and rose bay willow herb swaying gracefully over a cushion of chickweed.

As is the case with so many other areas of life, goals that are worth attaining don't come for free. To become a natural gardening expert calls for clarity of purpose and a willingness to let go of cherished patterns of behaviour.

'I think the idea sounds great' I hear you say, 'but I don't know how to take the first step.'

Well I've got great news for you and thousands of others like you: the Wormwood Wildgarden Workshop (www.www.com) - an intensive, hands-on tutorial that will teach you all you need to know about converting your own garden to the Natural Look.

Cost £50, Chairs provided. Bring a bottle.

Why I joined Greenpeace

2009-07-24T12:16:00.000+01:00

These days, when buying coffee, I always reach for the Fairtrade brands. On an individual level, it's a ridiculously easy gesture. My hand wanders over the various labels; the prices aren't all that different and, as far as taste goes, well frankly I'm not sure I'm able to tell one brand of coffee from the next. So I choose the Fairtrade and notch myself up a tiny bit of moral credit. Multiplied a few million times however, small gestures can add up to a powerful economic force, encouraging sustainable agriculture and fairer rewards for growers - at least that's the idea. To be honest, I know very little about Fairtrade accreditation and how it's integrity is protected. I simply take it on trust. It's a similar story with the Soil Association, the Forestry Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council and so on.

And so this morning, I found myself putting my name to a standardised, pre-written email from Greenpeace urging shoe manufacturers to stop using leather sourced from Amazonian cattle farms. One part of me considered this a bit pathetic. After all, until this morning, I hadn't given the matter much thought and anyway, who's going to pay much attention to a thousand identical emails, each sent at the mere click of a mouse ?

My misgivings arose partly from conceit, from the thought that an educated person like myself should be capable of a more significant initiative, something along the lines of a finely-crafted letter that, through a combination of dazzling argument and heart-rending descriptive prose, would result in an immediate change of heart on the part of the recipient shoe manufacturing company (tears of repentance in the boardroom etc etc).

But that's to miss the point entirely.

Viewed in isolation, the decision to put one's name to an email (standardised or otherwise) is somewhat meaningless. Meaningless, that is, unless accompanied by an equally easy, yet highly meaningful commitment to exercise judgement in deciding which products we buy.

For collective action to be effective it must be focussed with laser-like intensity. Continue to do such and such and we won't buy your products; do so and so and we will. It is in orchestrating such collective behaviour by consumers, that campaigning organisations like Greenpeace appear to be most effective.

So I have joined Greenpeace and I'm content to put conceits to one side and to act with others in putting my name to their campaigns - well most of them, I imagine. That occupation of the Brent Spar oil rig, back in 1995, was a bit of a mistake I reckon. If sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic, as Shell originally proposed, it would have made a great artificial reef and wildlife sanctuary.

But then, I don't intend to surrender my personal judgement entirely.

Faith in natural justice restored (somewhat)

2009-04-02T09:39:00.000+01:00

I promised myself I would leave off writing about Sir Fred Goodwin and his pension windfall. It tends to get boring after a time - a factor that has undoubtedly played a part in Sir Fred's own resolve to maintain an unbreakable clutch on the money.

All the same, on hearing recently that paparazzi are being offered large sums for photographs of Sir Fred enjoying his millions my interest was rekindled. What a wonderfully apt (if somewhat mild) form of retribution.

Go for it guys!

As for the public interest argument: I consider it entirely reasonable to see how our money is being spent.

Football

2009-03-02T21:49:00.000Z

(Another piece from Horsley's Over the Wall magazine)

As far as football is concerned, everything began to go wrong for me around the age of nine.

We had just started playing football at school and had to provide our own boots. While my friends all turned up in flashy black and white footwear, newly available in the shops and known as Continentals, my mum decided to buy me a good, solid pair of brown leather boots of a style resembling a miner's boot with leather studs nailed to the bottom.

It was not long at all before I became aware that my boots had a name. My boots – as my friends were quick to point out – were of a type known as Old English. Just the job for kicking over dustbins, but distinctly limited when fancy footwork was called for.

For a while I was tolerated in the team for the knack I had of crippling the opposition. One nifty kick to the shins with my Old English was sufficient to bring the first-aid box out. But there was no getting away from it; from the day my mum bought me those boots my footballing days were doomed.

And worse than that: I failed somehow to develop into a normal, healthy football supporter.

Ask the football enthusiast to explain the meaning of life and you'll get a clear, concise and direct answer. Ask me the same question and I'd be forced to admit to you that I'm not absolutely sure. Shameful, I know - but true.

Many's the time I have envied my football-supporting friends. They live on an exhilarating rollercoaster of emotional extremes. For them, every winter Saturday culminates in either ecstatic happiness or bleak despair – whereas for me, one Saturday is very much like the next.

No, there's no escaping it: the person who is indifferent to football is a figure to be pitied.

So mums (and dads), when you take your child to buy their first pair of football boots, buy them the Mizuna Morelia - hand-stitched from genuine kangaroo leather and endorsed by some of the world's top goal-scorers. They may cost as much as a weekend for two in Paris but it's a small price to pay for your child's psychological wellbeing.

Bottomless pit

2009-02-27T11:07:00.000Z

There were a lot of abandoned mineshafts around where I grew up in the north of England - chilling vertical holes, lined with millstone grit and quite often completely unprotected by the usual fences and skull and crossbones signs.

Being of a somewhat philosophical frame of mind, I found it difficult to resist peering cautiously down into the inky depths while terrifying myself with the thought of how very easy it would be to pitch myself in. Far better to lob down a sizeable rock and count the seconds before it hit the bottom with echoes either of deep water or the sharp crack of shattered stone. The depth of the shaft was then readily calculated by means of the familiar formula: depth (in feet) equals 16 times the delay (in seconds) squared.

Except that occasionally there was no sound from the bottom but only a succession of ever feinter scrapes as the plunging rock grazed the shaft walls. The inescapable conclusion was that these were bottomless pits and it was a good idea to move on and, above all, to resist any further thoughts of having a second look down.

Come to think of it, bottomless pits seemed to feature quite strongly in my boyish imagination. Of course, the real explanation was that the stone had simply thudded softly and inaudibly into the pile of dead sheep and old mattresses at the bottom of the hole.

Anyone who's tried writing a blog will immediately know what I'm talking about ...

Seeds of corruption

2009-02-26T23:54:00.000Z

It is commonly accepted that society works largely by consent. Though we have laws to regulate how we treat one another, the myriad of transactions that people engage in on a daily basis are conducted, for the most part, in a spirit of trust. It's not that dificult to imagine the state we'd be in if everyone acted with unrestrained selfishness and suspicion. Mercifully, as it turns out, most people are prepared to work conscientously in exchange for reasonable rewards and to treat other people much as they'd like to be treated themselves.

This is what is so damaging about the news of Sir Fred Goodwin's £650,000 annual pension: it is an injustice so flagrant, an insult of such obscene proportions that it has the capacity to serve as the definitive outrage for hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of ordinary people.

To argue daintily about contractual obligations and so on is - frankly - to miss the point, as the core issue is the glaring discrepancy between the simple facts as they have been revealed and any sort of rational and just basis for human society.

This has become a big story now and one that I believe the government should take very seriously. The true, long-term cost of this scandal is likely to dwarf Sir Fred's pension pot (£16,000,000) which - let's admit it anyway - is peanuts compared with the losses (£24,000,000,000) incurred by RBS under Sir Fred's stewardship.

If I were a car-worker threatened with redundancy, a postal-worker about about to be privatised on the brink of an economic depression or someone trying to steer a small business through a cash-flow crisis, I'd be tempted to view the whole Fred Goodwin debacle as giving me carte-blanche to do whatever I consider would best serve my own selfish interests - and God help us all, if that should come to be the common view.

SuperDrugs

2009-02-11T19:09:00.000Z

Clearly the Home Office is in something of a dilemma when it comes to the classification of ecstasy. Downgrade it to class B - as the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommends - and they'll be accused of sending the wrong message to the semi-moronic underclass they clearly think makes up the younger portion of the electorate. Leave it in class A, alongside heroine and crack cocaine and they'll end up looking like some sort of hysterical supernanny.

Allow me to make a suggestion: leave ecstasy in in Class A but move all the other substances currently in class A into a brand new class - class A-star or triple-A+ or whatever. (They understand this kind of thing in India incidentally, where hotel lobbies etc routinely designate certain areas as reserved for VVIPs; or in Spinal Tap with the amplifiers that turn up to 11 - for that EXTRA li'l bit - know wha' a mean?).

Keep making everything more and more evil - that's the right message; that's the sort of language people understand.

Why bankers need bonuses

2009-02-10T13:24:00.000Z

At today's meeting of the Treasury Committee former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin said (in defence of bonuses) that if bankers felt they were not paid enough, they would leave.

Yes ... ? So .... ?

Respect the Geek

2009-02-08T23:25:00.000Z

Though I don't exactly consider myself a geek, I have to confess to certain tendencies in that direction.

I don't believe I could have spent the last 25 years of my life writing computer programs AND considered it fun for more than 50% of the time AND chosen to use this sort of language to register these facts, were it not for the likelihood that, when it comes to my place on the autistic spectrum, I turn out to be somewhere near the blue end.

All the same, when it comes to geeks, I'm nothing special. It's true, I enjoy mathematical puzzles, I have a small stamp collection and read tool catalogues but I also like paintings and other forms of art and have been known, at times, to hold strong political views. Being only a minor geek; being merely ... geekish, I think of myself as a kind of channel between the two worlds: the geek world - the world of knowledge, of delight in detail, discipline (in the monkish sense) and uncomplicated friendships and the other one, the world that most people seem to want to belong to - the world of flamboyance, fluffiness, studied-incompetence and clumsily-constructed explanations.

Of course, it's common knowledge that geeks score very highly when it comes to complicated technical matters. Such things could be said to constitute their principle source of pleasure - which is fortunate for the rest of us, as it should be clear by now that it's the geeks who are keeping the whole show on the road. You only have to think for a short while about what keeps the electricity on, your mobile phone working, about having at television AT ALL, to realise that neither you, nor anyone else you know has the faintest inkling about how it all fits together.

You might expect the geek to demand a very high level of reward for carrying out these critically important functions, but you'd be mistaken. A liberal dress-code, freedom from petty distractions and a plentiful supply of pizzas are generally sufficient to keep things ticking along. And while honours and public acclaim might seem entirely reasonable expectations - to the geek sensibility, simple acknowledgment of the true state of things would be recognition enough.

Sadly, even the most modest level of respect is rarely forthcoming. It's as if awareness of the fact that our daily existence rests in the hands of train-spotters and dungeon-quest experts is too much to take on board - with the consequence that geeks are all to often the object of derision; their harmless enthusiasms riculed, their awkwardness in social situations mercilessly mocked.

This would all be terribly sad were it not for the fact that geeks have a characteristically geekish way of getting their own back. It draws on a shared, esoteric knowledge of a geek sacred text - Douglas Adams: A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Amongst other tales, the book recounts how the inhabitants of the planet Golgafrincham, on resolving to rid themselves of a third of their population they consider completely useless, concoct a story that the planet is shortly to be destroyed in a great catastrophe. They persuade all the hairdressers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, management consultants, telephone sanitisers and hedge-fund managers to board the B-Ark - one of three giant Ark spaceships - and promise them that everyone else will follow shortly in the other two.

And so it was that in the various offices and research centres where I spent a good slice of my life engaged in geekish pursuits, the unwelcome interference of opinionated, self-important people would be met by a knowing exchange of glances and by the quiet intonation of the simple mantra ..... B-Ark.

Obscene bonuses

2009-02-07T22:44:00.000Z

As far as the payment of bonuses to bankers is concerned, I am a lot less bothered by the thought of someone being able to afford themselves a private ski lodge in Aspen, Colorado than I am by the principle of rewarding failure. The thought that the money I have recently paid in taxes might contribute to paying an ill-deserved bonus to someone whose only noteworthy qualities are in the self-esteem department is a real annoyance. However, the really pernicious thing about city bonuses is that they have incentivised destructive behaviour - behaviour that under a more rational assessment would be considered perverse and ill-judged.

For the heart of the financial system to have been compromised to the extent that is has been over the past two decades almost beggars belief. To argue that to continue to reward failure is somehow justifiable on the grounds that it is necessary to retain and motivate the best people would be laughable if it weren't simultaneously reckless.

There's nothing inherently wrong with paying large rewards - but banks should be absolutely clear as to exactly what it is they are rewarding.

Luxury Trends

2009-02-02T10:47:00.000Z

I was shocked yesterday to read of the decline in sales of luxury handbags.

We might be going through a bit of a sticky patch at the moment, but when all is said and done, we're talking about handbags for goodness sake - not luxury yachts. You can't tell me that the sort of person who was prepared to pay £11,000 for a Burberry handbag last year is any poorer today - or at least not in any way that makes sense to the rest of us.

No - there's something else going on here. I suspect the reason for the decline - and it's not just handbags. Apparently the blight extends to watches, haute couture, lamborghinis and so on - is that it's no longer quite 'cool' to be seen flaunting this kind of stuff. On a more day-to-day level - who hasn't glanced at the suddenly ridiculous 4x4 in the supermarket car park - all smoked-glass and bull-bars - and quietly thought: 'Loser!'

Incidentally, while researching this piece, I came across the web page of something called The Luxury Institute - www.luxuryinstitute.com
(motto: The Knowledge of Luxury, the Luxury of Knowledge)
to read that: 'As the luxury industry enters 2009, some luxury executives look like deer caught in the headlights.' Lovely touch that - how, even in metaphor the luxury executive feels compelled to enlist the help of a superior animal. Rabbits in the headlights might be good enough for the rest of us but for the luxury executive only the finest deer will suffice.

I can't resist just one further quote from this priceless web site:

'... we now also expect many discredited Wall Street executives to turn a new leaf in an effort to save family legacies and reputations and get into the high-end philanthropy game (my emphasis). It's not much fun for kids to have the wealthiest parents in private school when everyone knows they made their money in a Ponzi scheme that brought the world economy to its knees.'

Quite. I couldn't agree more; it must be absolutely frightful for them.

So brace yourselves for photo shoots of celebrities, dressed in the latest recycled clothing, doing a stint on the soup kitchen:

'In times like these, we must all share the pain, blah blah.'

That should serve to set the overall tone. The wannabes will follow.

Pin-striped pair of heels

2008-03-28T09:40:00.000Z

I have to sympathise with BA's Director of Operations, Gareth Kirkwood. As the man responsible for the current chaos at Terminal 5, he has some serious explaining to do. At best he faces a serious dressing-down from his boss. At worst - and it hardly bears thinking about - he might see his annual bonus reduced. Though, come to think of it, this might be interpreted as an acknowledgement that he is in some way responsible for the fiasco - a course of action that might spiral completely out of control.

No - Gareth's bonus is probably safe. I imagine it was probably the check-in staff and baggage handlers who screwed up.

Binge drinking and the price of alcohol

2008-02-15T11:03:00.000Z

The thing that most persuades me of the link between binge drinking and the price of alcohol is the fact that the drinks industry is so consistent and vociferous in denying any such link exists.

To quote Paul Walsh, CEO of Diageo, speaking on the Radio4 Today programme (14 Feb 2008):

"... there's no evidence in our sector that higher prices dampen consumption."

The facts could not be further from the truth; study after study suggests a very clear and direct link. What's more, sensitivity to price increases tends to be greatest amongst young people.

For specific details of the research, take a look at New Scientist magazine, 21 August, 2004.

The reaction of the drinks industry to this growing mountain of evidence is perhaps best described as one of 'brazen denial' - and it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to grasp the chain of reasoning: increasing taxes on alcohol is very likely to result in both reduced consumption - and profits.

All the same, it's a little more difficult to understand why the government consistently chooses to sing from the same songsheet as the drinks industry. These are our children, whose lives are being destroyed and it's time we called our elected representatives to account.

More from Over the Wall

2007-08-30T20:35:00.000+01:00

In response to massive and insistent popular demand I have been persuaded to release a further piece from Horsley's popular Over The Wall magazine. This one dates from July, 2006: (names have been changed to protect identities)

Nowadays it seems that just about everyone has 'a great idea for a web site'.

It's pathetic. I mean to say - who do they think they're fooling?

Now Omnivorist - on the other hand - has a truly great idea for a web site.

Brace yourselves, fellow villagers, to be the first to hear about:

www.itsthethoughtthatcounts.com

As a client of this bold and truly unique enterprise, you simply register (for a small fee) the names, addresses and dates of birth of your dearest friends and relatives, together with a short psychological profile of each. And, having done that, you just sit back and leave everything else to us.

We will commit to sending greeting cards and gifts, on your behalf, to all registered individuals at appropriate times throughout the year.

No more worries about missing the birthdays of obscure nephews. Banished: the purgatory of the Christmas card list. Gone: the fear of waking up in a cold sweat with the realisation that you have overlooked your own 10th wedding anniversary.

We at www.itsthethoughtthatcounts.com will look after everything.

All cards will bear a personal message written in a hand indistinguishable from your own. Gifts will be selected to delight or dismay the recipient, in accordance with your confidential wishes. We'll even forward you a picture of the ghastly tie you have just 'sent' to Uncle Norman.

When it comes to Christmas cards, why not surprise your friends with that 'hand-made' ("Oh my God, how do they find the time?") look. Courtesy of our affiliates in the Philippines, we offer two separate styles at very reasonable rates:

Option 1: Infant school 'pathetic'. Glued pasta and glitter.
Option 2: 'Sensitive, enigmatic'. Frayed linen, dried leaves, etc.

A modest additional monthly charge will bring you the benefits of our five-star service, including:

Flowers seemingly personally delivered (inexpertly wrapped, left on doorstep in the rain)
Other people's wedding anniversaries (clients will be required to undergo a short counselling session prior to selecting this option)
Gifts incorporating references to shared experiences (e.g. "How well I recall the wonderful spring we spent together in Budapest!")
Valentine cards with authentic 'tell-tale' postmark.
Easter bunny service.

Of course, it might all come horribly unstuck - but hopefully, by that time, I will be well away.

Local politics

2007-08-30T12:50:00.000+01:00

It's election time here in Horsley and it seems the Green party candidate has a real chance of being elected to the local council - having come within a whisker of taking the seat from the Conservative the last time round.

There's only one small problem - a good proportion of people who might have been relied upon to vote Green are off on holiday at their second homes in Tuscany and Provence.

Maybe ultimately it doesn't matter too much. The wealthy and privileged sectors of society (within which I place myself, I should add) have never been very good at initiating massive social and technological change. And if we are to survive the imminent change in climate with anything like our present way of life, enormous adaptations will surely be necessary.

No, I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that, whatever the Guardian weekend might say on the matter - when it comes to living a green lifestyle, limited resources and a general lack of opportunity both make for a pretty good starting point.

Ian McMillan

2007-07-25T23:17:00.001+01:00

Just watched (a recording of) the South Bank Show on the Bard of Barnsley (Ian McMillan).

I'm grateful to him for reminding me of the miner's strike.

In my lunchbreak from my computer job I went down and gave money to the relief fund. Not on-line of course - but in person.

All the same, I remember thinking at the time that when all was said and done, maybe the old ways were at an end; that despite all those arguments about the competitiveness of the coal industry, it was all over and we better get used to the idea. To that extent, I was complicit in the outcome.

Now, looking back, I see things differently - or let's say, I view things more broadly. While recognising the way the 'tide of history was running', I find myself picturing the generations of miners who toiled underground to fuel the building of the empire; powering the blast furnaces and filling the coal bunkers of the dreadnoughts.

Their immense contribution to the wealth of this country is rarely acknowledged.

They've been set aside.

Of their lives and the rich communities they created only the faintest echoes remain.

Bowsers

2007-07-25T22:56:00.000+01:00

I had no idea what a bowser was until last weekend.

I've just been watching TV pictures of people queuing
for water - most of them appeared fairly disadvantaged
to me. I know this might seem cruel or patronising but
I couldn't avoid the impression.

In Stroud (my local town) there was a report of young
toffs come down from the higher ground to ride jet skis
around the flooded streets, while people were fighting
to barricade their homes against the flood water.

Surely this can't be true. Tell me it's an urban myth.

Building on flood plains

2007-07-23T09:02:00.000+01:00

If we have to build houses on flood plains - and it appears there are persuasive arguments for doing so - we should at least make them capable of 'riding-out' the sort of regular flooding expected over the coming years.

If houses were designed to stand clear of flood water, we might learn to see flooding as an inconvenience, rather than the disaster we are currently enduring.

Housing crisis

2007-05-20T22:42:00.000+01:00

There is a lot of talk about the crisis in housing but very little discussion of what must surely be a major factor - namely the price of land.

Let's just imagine that the government were to introduce a 2007 Town and Country Planning Act in which, at the stroke of a legislative pen, they made an enormous amount of land available for housing development. Wouldn't this be a relatively straightforward matter? Aren't there many areas of land that are unsuited to agricultural development that could be made available for building homes?

Of course, an increase in the availability of land such as I envisage would undoubtedly lead to a dramatic fall in land values and there are many powerful interests who would oppose this. All the same, it seems to me that to attempt to address the problem faced by so many people today - namely the impossibility of creating a home of their own - without confronting the factors that support the current astronomical price of land, is to ignore the fundamental issue.

Or am I missing something here?

The Cambridge University Underwater Exploration Group

2007-05-12T01:06:00.000+01:00

A letter landed on the mat this morning inviting me to the 50th anniversary reunion of the Cambridge University Underwater Exploration Group and I found my thoughts drifting back across the years to the days when I was briefly numbered amongst its members.

Not for us the modern buoyancy compensator, balanced-piston regulator, or semi-closed rebreather. No - a pair of waxed canvas trousers, lead boots and an inflated sheeps bladder was all we needed to explore the watery domain.

But joking aside, I vividly recall my first (and nearly last) open-water dive with the CUUEG. Dropping off the edge of an inflatable dinghy, off Mousehole in Cornwall, I sank like a stone to a depth of 30 metres. After crawling around in the kelp for a while, we came up again - which I remember enjoying on account of the feeling of floating in a bright void.

Later in the week one of our instructors had the opportunity to spend a couple of days inside a naval recompression chamber. I later discovered that his status as an instructor amounted to the fact that he had survived the previous year's trip AND that he had decided to repeat the experience.

I didn't dive again for 25 years.

Though I won't be attending the 50th anniversary celebrations, I extend my heartfelt greetings to fellow survivors.

I'm sure it's all very different nowadays.

Blogger's block

2007-05-10T20:57:00.000+01:00

OK - so let's try again.

This time - instead of attempting to write minor pieces of literature, witticisms etc. on which I might be judged in this life (or by posterity) - I'll simply record stuff that occurs to me day to day. I guess that's what a blog is meant to be about, after all.

Don't go away.

Idea #2: Slugs - a fortune at our feet

2006-07-06T06:21:00.001+01:00

Never one to pass up the prospect of fame and fortune, Omnivorist has been investigating an unlikely source of nature's bounty - slugs and snails.

I hear shouts of "Why not include puppy dogs' tails, while you're at it?"

To which I can only reply, "Don't be ridiculous. If you're not going to take this seriously I'll stop right now."

No - the first inkling of this vast untapped economic resource first occurred to me while walking in the mountains of Northern Spain. At a certain point in my route, while passing through a sheltered valley, I noticed the path was alive with enormous slugs - the colour and size of bananas.

"If one were to harvest these", I thought. "You could slice them thinly and flash fry them in olive oil. They'd make a delicious, organic alternative to crisps."

What to call them - that was the main problem. Slug Slices had the virtue of accuracy but seemed - in some indefinable way - to be not quite right. It was when a friend ventured the suggestion: Nature Bites that we knew we were onto a winner.

But fate was to snatch good fortune from my grasp; I could never find my way back to that valley. Despite wandering the mountain passes for months on end, my quest was to prove hopeless.

Back home once again, I found myself pondering the potential of our common or garden slug, but it was no use, however hard I tried to persuade myself, they were too small to make the kind of snack I had in mind.

I had been toying absentmindedly with 2 or 3 larger specimens and was washing my hands when the thought struck me:

"This stuff must be more slippery than just about anything else in the world and what's more - it takes some getting off."

What better illustration of how, in the presence of genius, the dull commonplace can be transformed - as if by magic - into shining inspiration.

Slug slime is the perfect lubricant.

Initial trials have proved extremely promising and I even have a name for the final product - Glide.

It should only be a matter of weeks before you see it in your local pharmacy.

(This piece was first published in the Horsley Village magazine - Over the Wall)

Idea #1: Get-Up Grenade

2006-06-30T17:57:00.000+01:00

This is an idea for a simple gadget designed to appeal to parents of teenage children. The get-up grenade is the size and shape of a small ball and can be charged either by connecting to a transformer or by winding-up an internal spring. Once armed in this way it is triggered by pressing a small button flush with the surface

When the time comes to get ready for school, the busy parent simply opens the teenager's bedroom door and tosses in a get-up grenade - preferably rolling it under the bed or similar, awkward location. After a short delay (5 seconds seems about right) the grenade goes off with a loud, high-pitched sound which can be stopped by a second press of the button.

For parents with several children, we envisage the product being offered as a set of five, together with an attractive, purpose-made bandolier.

This idea may be freely exploited without restriction (see earlier posting)

Intellectual Property 1

2006-06-26T21:51:00.000+01:00

Intellectual property - it's an appealing concept. You have a brilliant idea for an invention, you patent it, to protect it from being stolen and then try to persuade others - backers and investors - to lend you the money to bring it to market. After that, it's a matter of waiting for the millions to roll in.

Except, of course, it's not quite as easy as that. Even if you have the resources and persistence to patent your invention, it does not prevent it from being exploited by determined competitors. And unless you are willing to devote your entire time to seeing your invention brought to realisation and defending it against infringement, the patent itself will prove to be of little value.

For large corporations it is a different matter, of course. With the resources to hire armies of skilled patent agents and lawyers, companies - and technology companies in particular - commonly patent everything in sight. The principle of intellectual property has become a weapon in big wars fought for very high stakes.

But there's a twist. A patent cannot be granted if the idea has been disclosed prior to the application. If you - as the originator of an invention - place details in the public domain, it renders the invention unpatentable. (I am not a lawyer, and I can imagine there are those of you who will want to dispute this point). Nevertheless, this is my current belief - that, by openly disclosing your idea, you not only forgo the right to patent it yourself but also prevent others from doing so.

But why would anyone want to do such a thing when it seems unlikely to bring them any benefit? In response, I suggest you only have to look at the case of the free software phenomenon.

In this information-saturated culture the simple ability to attract attention has become a valuable asset in itself. And what better way to generate attention than to develop a reputation for freely distributing interesting and potentially valuable ideas, open to anyone to take and exploit?

Such a project holds out the more distant prospect of encouraging a truly free ideas domain - in contrast to the stultifying ambitions of large corporations.

In order to back my words with actions, I intend to publish some of my own ideas in future posts. These are things I have been sitting on for some time and which - it is suddenly clear - I will never get round to exploiting by other means.

Of course, for the Source of Ideas (tm) (only joking) to take off in a big way, it will be necessary to nurture a wide community of contributors. And in this context, I am happy to announce that the Omnivorist Institute is willing to devote it's modest resources to this end - provided, of course, that someone doesn't exploit this idea first.

Tate St Ives

2006-06-24T18:19:00.000+01:00

Despite having visited the Tate gallery in St Ives at least 5 times, it is only recently that I have come to the conclusion that it is a really poor piece of architecture.

It is a conclusion reached with some reluctance as it is clear that this is a building one is meant to like and admire. What is admirable is the vision to locate an important gallery at the furthest extremity of the British Isles, the homage paid to the freshness and vitality of the St Ives artistic tradition and the boldness in siting the building in one of the town's most sensitive and beautiful locations.

In recognition of these successes, thousands of visitors take time off from the beaches and gift-shops to spend an hour or two in wondering and reverential comtemplation of Art. One has to ask oneself however: just how well are they served by this building?

Tate St Ives is not a building that is content to step modestly aside and let the art take the limelight. Quite the opposite seems the case. After passing through the grand entrance loggia, ticket office, mall and rotunda, the Art appears, if anything, further away than ever. It is only after having ascended two storeys (passing the shop and various invitations to 'interact') that one arrives at the somewhat disappointing series of small galleries. Here the Architecture is forced -somewhat reluctantly - to concede a corner or two to the lesser arts.

On every one of my visits I have been overtaken, at this point, by a profound sense of disorientation. I never quite seem to know where the sea is anymore. Is it over in that direction - or exactly opposite?

It is as if (but surely this can't have been the architects' intention), in order to prepare the Mind for Art, it is necessary to effect a complete disassociation from the world outside. The only gallery to contradict this impression - and the clear favourite of photographers - is gallery 2, with its spectacular view of Porthmeor beach.

The cafeteria terrace is unhabitable. Dazzingly bright in the sun and unprotected from the rain, people have abandoned it and surrendered it to the seagulls - who use it as a toilet.

I suppose its only to be expected that - given the high profile of the place - it should win commendations from the Royal Fine Art Commission and English Heritage. Open-minded visitors will make up their own minds.

Here was a unique and wonderful opportunity lost. It is a great pity.

What's all this omnivorist stuff ?

2006-06-23T23:24:00.000+01:00

omni'vorist n. one who subscribes to the practice of omni'vorism.

omni'vorism n. An enthusiasm for pattern, nature and invention with only secondary regard to their practical utility, significance or potential for profit.

A delight in things for themselves.

A fascination for soap bubbles, wood-joints, the properties of slime, systems of taxonony, the geometry of clouds, number theory, pigments, styles of rigging, paper-folding, automata, Tibetan mandalas, flotsam, packaging, maps of cities, modes of failure, insect flight, hearing in birds, journeys, systems of jurisprudence, mechanical linkages, the categorisation of snowflakes, barnacles, burrs ......... or none of the above.