Little prompts me to write on here nowadays. Something has to stir sufficient emotion (normally "anger" is the one of choice) and I have to have sufficient time (I have a breathing space before Christmas, and everything is wrapped...)
But "FOR FIVE MINUTES....!" (as a colleague of mine says to avoid swearing loudly when it wouldn't be appropriate...) "Hasn't John Lewis dropped off...??" (That's me saying that. Not her.)
It seems to be the only place one can buy a "traditional" advent calendar de nos jours. You know, one without the bit of moulded Kake-Brand-style cooking chocolate behind each door; one where you get a Christmassy picture, not one of something hideous and Disney; one where the small robin/star/(God Forbid) Baby Jesus isn't obscured utterly by some foil and 4cm2 transparent shaped plastic tray.
Anyway, I thought I was onto a winner this year, as I'd seen quite a classy 3-D example, having forgiven John Lewis for their advent calendar of a few year back when all the pictures were the bloody same. But the once respected and admired partnership has entered a terminal decline, it seems, and sold me one with two 18s.
I'm not an expert on these matters, but if making advent calendars were a task on The Apprentice, even Stuart Baggs would have worked out that 24 numbers, one of each, was crucial. (Do Amstrad make advent calendars? Just planning ahead for next year...)
Anyway, at this time of year, when peace and harmony become important for several minutes somewhere along the line, I curbed my Aggressive Personality Disorder and instead of marching back to John Lewis and haranguing them, I solved it myself, Blue Peter style. Let's say, in homage to Matt Baker, who should've won Strictly. But didn't.
NB If I'd solved it Blue Peter style in homage to Anthea Turner instead, I could have made the whole bloody thing from scratch. With Flakes. In a layby off the M40.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Disloyal...
Call Centre: "Hello. As a loyal BT customer, I would like to offer you..."*
Me: "Can I stop you there? I am not a loyal BT customer. I left BT five years ago and took my landline and broadband from Talk Talk because it was half the price. I have been extremely satisfied with Talk Talk and loyalty to BT was not my reason for coming back. I wanted my broadband from o2 and the levels of anti-competitive bureaucracy which still exist in the UK telecoms market mean you have to have a BT line for o2 broadband and you have to have it for 12 months, even though I really want o2 to have my landline too. I could, of course, leave BT early, paying a penalty of around £100, so I am waiting until later this month when the Ofcom ruling which forces you to reduce early termination charges comes into effect and then I will be off again..."
Call Centre: (silence.....) "Erm... oh..." (silence, click, tone....)
(This is an adapted highlight of a call from earlier today. It may not be word for word, but these calls are recorded for training purposes, so I suppose I could always ask for the transcript. If I'm loyal enough.)
(*Also, if BT is reading this, possibly for training purposes "As you are a loyal BT customer, I would like to offer you..." would be better...)
Me: "Can I stop you there? I am not a loyal BT customer. I left BT five years ago and took my landline and broadband from Talk Talk because it was half the price. I have been extremely satisfied with Talk Talk and loyalty to BT was not my reason for coming back. I wanted my broadband from o2 and the levels of anti-competitive bureaucracy which still exist in the UK telecoms market mean you have to have a BT line for o2 broadband and you have to have it for 12 months, even though I really want o2 to have my landline too. I could, of course, leave BT early, paying a penalty of around £100, so I am waiting until later this month when the Ofcom ruling which forces you to reduce early termination charges comes into effect and then I will be off again..."
Call Centre: (silence.....) "Erm... oh..." (silence, click, tone....)
(This is an adapted highlight of a call from earlier today. It may not be word for word, but these calls are recorded for training purposes, so I suppose I could always ask for the transcript. If I'm loyal enough.)
(*Also, if BT is reading this, possibly for training purposes "As you are a loyal BT customer, I would like to offer you..." would be better...)
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Contains spoilers...
OK. So we all know the feeling when something we've really been looking forward to turns out to be less good than expected, or just a bit crap. It's easy to be disappointed and cross and irritated.
But it's equally easy to be irritated when something turns out to be better than you thought it was going to be. If that makes any sense...
I know this to be true because Inearly* went to see Edge of Darkness (The Film) and was mildly annoyed that it was OK. It wasn't brilliant, but I really wanted it to be awful. And it wasn't.
Now, going to see it was probably a risk all along because Edge of Darkness (The Not-Film 80s TV Series) won several BAFTAs and was genuinely dark and shocking. I remember watching it unfold over several weeks and it was a story that could only be told in that way, slowly and deliberately. It was Classic Drama - it says so on the DVD box.
So I knew the film was going to make a hash of it. There would be no comparison.
Well, actually, there would be a whole range of comparisons.
On the way there, we couldn't actually remember the last thing we'd seen Mel Gibson in. Let alone the last thing he'd been any good in. Whereas Bob Peck's performance is still grim and haunting even now. He can easily act most people off the screen, despite having been dead for eleven years.
Ray Winstone as Jedburgh? Maybe not. Presumably, as the whole thing has been imported into Boston, Jedburgh, American in the original, had to be English. But Ray Winstone can only play Ray Winstone. He played Ray Winstone in Robin of Sherwood and in everything since. And Jedburgh should really have watched Strictly Come Dancing... But he didn't.
So, not looking good so far. How would they capture that sense of foreboding which those lingering shots of the nuclear fuel trains and Eric Clapton created? Who would play Clementine? Would we get Time of the Preacher...?
At least we wouldn't have to put up with Joanne Whalley... Arguably the best thing about her appearance in the original was that she was viciously gunned down in the opening episode. (A punishment that really should have come after Willow, rather than before...) But Emma in the film was less convincing than Yorkshire Emma - less of a terrorist, less in control. And less of a guiding vision for her bereaved father.
The civil servants weren't quite right. You have to be British, with Queen's English and possibly a bowler hat, to do the tortuous bureaucracy required to cover up something politically incovenient. And possibly radioactive. You also have to be called Pendleton and Harcourt. Which the American attachés in the film may have been called, but not noticeably.
Plainly, there was so much that wasn't quite right. The cheesy, uplifting end for a start (or for an end...) I won't spoil what it was. But he dies and is happily reunited with Emma in spectral form. (OK, so I have spoiled it, but no more so than the film does...)
None of the uncertainty and ambiguity of the original, in which both Craven and Grogan face a slow, irradiated death. No particularly prescient environmental message. No Zoe Wannamaker. No black flowers...
But it was OK. No more than that. If you've not seen either, I'll lend you the DVD...
* "Nearly" because my sister nearly wasn't able to get the tickets at the cinema because she signed her debit card over the magnetic strip not the signature strip, rendering it useless in the "Collect your own tickets" machine. Or the "Can't collect your own tickets machine", as it's now called...
But it's equally easy to be irritated when something turns out to be better than you thought it was going to be. If that makes any sense...
I know this to be true because I
Now, going to see it was probably a risk all along because Edge of Darkness (The Not-Film 80s TV Series) won several BAFTAs and was genuinely dark and shocking. I remember watching it unfold over several weeks and it was a story that could only be told in that way, slowly and deliberately. It was Classic Drama - it says so on the DVD box.
So I knew the film was going to make a hash of it. There would be no comparison.
Well, actually, there would be a whole range of comparisons.
On the way there, we couldn't actually remember the last thing we'd seen Mel Gibson in. Let alone the last thing he'd been any good in. Whereas Bob Peck's performance is still grim and haunting even now. He can easily act most people off the screen, despite having been dead for eleven years.
Ray Winstone as Jedburgh? Maybe not. Presumably, as the whole thing has been imported into Boston, Jedburgh, American in the original, had to be English. But Ray Winstone can only play Ray Winstone. He played Ray Winstone in Robin of Sherwood and in everything since. And Jedburgh should really have watched Strictly Come Dancing... But he didn't.
So, not looking good so far. How would they capture that sense of foreboding which those lingering shots of the nuclear fuel trains and Eric Clapton created? Who would play Clementine? Would we get Time of the Preacher...?
At least we wouldn't have to put up with Joanne Whalley... Arguably the best thing about her appearance in the original was that she was viciously gunned down in the opening episode. (A punishment that really should have come after Willow, rather than before...) But Emma in the film was less convincing than Yorkshire Emma - less of a terrorist, less in control. And less of a guiding vision for her bereaved father.
The civil servants weren't quite right. You have to be British, with Queen's English and possibly a bowler hat, to do the tortuous bureaucracy required to cover up something politically incovenient. And possibly radioactive. You also have to be called Pendleton and Harcourt. Which the American attachés in the film may have been called, but not noticeably.
Plainly, there was so much that wasn't quite right. The cheesy, uplifting end for a start (or for an end...) I won't spoil what it was. But he dies and is happily reunited with Emma in spectral form. (OK, so I have spoiled it, but no more so than the film does...)
None of the uncertainty and ambiguity of the original, in which both Craven and Grogan face a slow, irradiated death. No particularly prescient environmental message. No Zoe Wannamaker. No black flowers...
But it was OK. No more than that. If you've not seen either, I'll lend you the DVD...
* "Nearly" because my sister nearly wasn't able to get the tickets at the cinema because she signed her debit card over the magnetic strip not the signature strip, rendering it useless in the "Collect your own tickets" machine. Or the "Can't collect your own tickets machine", as it's now called...
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
A Mrs Thatcher moment...
I suppose that I have this in common with a lot of people... I try not to fill my thoughts with Margaret Thatcher. But, earlier today, I thought about something she said 23 years ago.
I'm currently in mainland Europe, where it has snowed a lot...
(This is Mozart, in Salzburg, coping well with the "big freeze". Coping less well with the fact that he appears to be composing with a pencil, something which wasn't invented until 20 years after he died....)
...and here, they deal with the snow really well. It's 6-8 inches deep and the roads and the railways are all fine. Ahem, even the schools were open...
The fast, fairly luxurious, double-decker train from Munich got to Salzburg bang on time...
(...and that's in a different country. Through some Alps. Albeit small ones...)
And, of course, they get it all the time, so they are used to it. But there must be other underlying reasons why we're so rubbish at snow in the UK...
I wondered how, here, the trains were clean and reliable, how there were still conductors and ticket inspectors (plural) on the stations and on the trains, how the snow didn't bring it all to a grinding halt...
(Here at Ostbahnhof in Munich, this man spent the best part of 30 minutes clearing the snow from a platform and looked like he was enjoying it... He had a very substantial looking machine to help, but the two people doing it on our platform just had shovels, so no major investment needed...)
I'd decided that it was probably something to do with it not needing to make a profit; being a nationalised concern for the good of the people! Damn you, Mrs Thatcher, and your privatisation of all the train companies and the break up of the system!!
But it turns out that Deutsche Bahn is a private comany after all, so does need to make a profit. So that can't be it...
Anyway, I aksed Jon, who now lives here in Munich, why he thinks the public transport system is so good, how it manages to employ so many people, make a profit and not let a bit of (the wrong type - any type - of) snow bring it skidding to a halt. He gave a most complete and accurate answer in just three words...
"People use it..." he said.
And of course that makes sense.
When, in 1986, Mrs Thatcher said "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure," she helped to make sure that, if you have to use public transport in the UK, that's in some way shameful - you're just cattle; too crap to have your own car. She also engineered the system which means that it costs £8 to get to Southampton and back from my house, whereas here, you can travel between Munich and Salzburg (and back) - 180 miles, between countries! - for £5.
Bless her.
(On the down side, the snow here is just something you have to get rid of to make the trains run. It's commonplace, so no-one plays with it - no snowmen, no snowball fights. I don't think that's Thatcher's fault. Probably just miserable Europeans...)
I'm currently in mainland Europe, where it has snowed a lot...
(This is Mozart, in Salzburg, coping well with the "big freeze". Coping less well with the fact that he appears to be composing with a pencil, something which wasn't invented until 20 years after he died....)
...and here, they deal with the snow really well. It's 6-8 inches deep and the roads and the railways are all fine. Ahem, even the schools were open...
The fast, fairly luxurious, double-decker train from Munich got to Salzburg bang on time...
(...and that's in a different country. Through some Alps. Albeit small ones...)
And, of course, they get it all the time, so they are used to it. But there must be other underlying reasons why we're so rubbish at snow in the UK...
I wondered how, here, the trains were clean and reliable, how there were still conductors and ticket inspectors (plural) on the stations and on the trains, how the snow didn't bring it all to a grinding halt...
(Here at Ostbahnhof in Munich, this man spent the best part of 30 minutes clearing the snow from a platform and looked like he was enjoying it... He had a very substantial looking machine to help, but the two people doing it on our platform just had shovels, so no major investment needed...)
I'd decided that it was probably something to do with it not needing to make a profit; being a nationalised concern for the good of the people! Damn you, Mrs Thatcher, and your privatisation of all the train companies and the break up of the system!!
But it turns out that Deutsche Bahn is a private comany after all, so does need to make a profit. So that can't be it...
Anyway, I aksed Jon, who now lives here in Munich, why he thinks the public transport system is so good, how it manages to employ so many people, make a profit and not let a bit of (the wrong type - any type - of) snow bring it skidding to a halt. He gave a most complete and accurate answer in just three words...
"People use it..." he said.
And of course that makes sense.
When, in 1986, Mrs Thatcher said "A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure," she helped to make sure that, if you have to use public transport in the UK, that's in some way shameful - you're just cattle; too crap to have your own car. She also engineered the system which means that it costs £8 to get to Southampton and back from my house, whereas here, you can travel between Munich and Salzburg (and back) - 180 miles, between countries! - for £5.
Bless her.
(On the down side, the snow here is just something you have to get rid of to make the trains run. It's commonplace, so no-one plays with it - no snowmen, no snowball fights. I don't think that's Thatcher's fault. Probably just miserable Europeans...)
Friday, January 02, 2009
Thursday, January 01, 2009
I was just thinking about you...
Richard Dawkins explained in a book, several back and possibly Unweaving the Rainbow, but possibly not, how Uri Geller (could be David Blaine or the other one...) makes people believe he can mend their old watches with the power of his mind.
It's all to do with mass media and maths.
The fact that most people are taken in by mass media, believing everything and anything ("Eoghan" is pronounced "Owen"), helps him achieve the (effect of the) supernatural. But mainly it's that people are generally thick when it comes to maths which nails it.
The argument goes something like this... (I've probably got the figures wrong; it's a while since I read it...)
Imagine five million people watch Uri and he instructs them all to go and find an old watch from a cupboard somewhere in their house. Imagine only two percent of the people watching that programme go and find their old watch. That's still 100,000 people digging around in their "paper bag, cling film and fuses" drawer. *
Watches work by winding them up, or with a battery. Eventually, the winder winds down or the battery fails. Some end up in the drawer. When these 100,000 people find their watches and Uri says "hold it in your hand, rub it, think deep thoughts" etc, the heat from their hands changes the temperature of the winding mechanism or the battery and, momentarily, and because of physics, not because of Uri, the watch works for a few seconds.
Imagine this only happens to one percent of the people who actually find a watch. That's still 1000 people whose watch suddenly works because "Uri says it will"- It's a Kind of Magic!
Uri then says "if your watch worked, phone us!" A mere one percent of the people whose watches ticked for a bit phone up.
Uri still gets to talk to ten people. Plenty to fill the show and, more importantly, all seen by the five million people watching in the first place.
It all rests on these tiny percentages, where coincidences happen, and their effect on the large percentages of people who are open to any suggestion, however stupid, because of their previous experience, ignorance, personality flaws, special needs, religion etc. (Including the very unlikely scenario in which Uri Geller mends your old watch through the TV by pulling a concentrating face and talking with an accent. **)
"Engineered" coincidences for the purposes of entertainment, coercion, gain etc. are one thing, but I guess coincidences don't arise spontaneously all that often. We only think they do because we're more likely to single them out from the background chaff of our lives and remember them.
I only mention this because I seem to have been the on the receiving end of an unexpectedly high number of them recently. Picking just three, some of them were to my disadvantage...
Perhaps that was just 2008.
But I'm going to be monitoring in 2009... Happy New Year.
(* "Man Drawer" / ** "I'm sorry, I can't do the accent" - Both © Michael McIntyre - unaccountably missed last year and caught only on DVD...)
It's all to do with mass media and maths.
The fact that most people are taken in by mass media, believing everything and anything ("Eoghan" is pronounced "Owen"), helps him achieve the (effect of the) supernatural. But mainly it's that people are generally thick when it comes to maths which nails it.
The argument goes something like this... (I've probably got the figures wrong; it's a while since I read it...)
Imagine five million people watch Uri and he instructs them all to go and find an old watch from a cupboard somewhere in their house. Imagine only two percent of the people watching that programme go and find their old watch. That's still 100,000 people digging around in their "paper bag, cling film and fuses" drawer. *
Watches work by winding them up, or with a battery. Eventually, the winder winds down or the battery fails. Some end up in the drawer. When these 100,000 people find their watches and Uri says "hold it in your hand, rub it, think deep thoughts" etc, the heat from their hands changes the temperature of the winding mechanism or the battery and, momentarily, and because of physics, not because of Uri, the watch works for a few seconds.
Imagine this only happens to one percent of the people who actually find a watch. That's still 1000 people whose watch suddenly works because "Uri says it will"- It's a Kind of Magic!
Uri then says "if your watch worked, phone us!" A mere one percent of the people whose watches ticked for a bit phone up.
Uri still gets to talk to ten people. Plenty to fill the show and, more importantly, all seen by the five million people watching in the first place.
It all rests on these tiny percentages, where coincidences happen, and their effect on the large percentages of people who are open to any suggestion, however stupid, because of their previous experience, ignorance, personality flaws, special needs, religion etc. (Including the very unlikely scenario in which Uri Geller mends your old watch through the TV by pulling a concentrating face and talking with an accent. **)
"Engineered" coincidences for the purposes of entertainment, coercion, gain etc. are one thing, but I guess coincidences don't arise spontaneously all that often. We only think they do because we're more likely to single them out from the background chaff of our lives and remember them.
I only mention this because I seem to have been the on the receiving end of an unexpectedly high number of them recently. Picking just three, some of them were to my disadvantage...
- the woman in the Post Office to whom I complained and whose cloud of "customer un-service" still surrounded her when I saw her again in a restaurant in the evening. So much so that the waiting staff ended up throwing a glass (nearly) at me...
- Someone I sold a raffle ticket to won the very prize he took the piss out of. (If it needs mending, Chris, see above...)
- My nephew was born, unexpectedly, two days ago, in the brief window of time I was around in the North to see him...
Perhaps that was just 2008.
But I'm going to be monitoring in 2009... Happy New Year.
(* "Man Drawer" / ** "I'm sorry, I can't do the accent" - Both © Michael McIntyre - unaccountably missed last year and caught only on DVD...)
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Currency...
After a summer spent computing exchange rates in my head and getting to grips with foreign notes and coins......
(Hong Kong notes: some these appear to have been printed by my bank, which I wouldn't trust to produce anything secure or technical...)
(Australian notes: all of which have a see-thru bit and have gone "polymer" meaning they can be recycled into bins and other stuff at the end of their life...)(not my fingers, by the way...)
(Australian coins: which have kangaroos and koalas and echidnas on the one side, but are reassuringly royal on the other...)
(She looks really grumpy, doesn't she...?)
(Hong Kong notes: some these appear to have been printed by my bank, which I wouldn't trust to produce anything secure or technical...)
(Australian notes: all of which have a see-thru bit and have gone "polymer" meaning they can be recycled into bins and other stuff at the end of their life...)(not my fingers, by the way...)
(Australian coins: which have kangaroos and koalas and echidnas on the one side, but are reassuringly royal on the other...)
(She looks really grumpy, doesn't she...?)
It seems bizarre to come home and find the money is just as foreign...
2ps and pennies seem to be very prevalent already, but haven't seen the rest yet...
...only in the picture.
If you get asked what's on the front on a ten pence piece, you might hesitate then say "Britannia" or "portcullis" or "lion" or something else really random because we're a bit ignorant about something so common which we handle everyday, yet hardly look at.
Of course, what's really on the front of the ten pence piece is the Queen's head, because that's what's on the front of all the coins (something else most of us forget - the front is really the back and the back is really the front...)
That hasn't changed with the new designs, but the answer to what's on the back of the coins will now always be "a bit of shield...", which might make pub quizzes easier, but surely lacks a bit of variety...
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Currently...
Currently have this view...
...as I type, from 25 floors up.
(Ab)Normal service will be resumed here in September. For goings-on in August, see the other side of the world.
...as I type, from 25 floors up.
(Ab)Normal service will be resumed here in September. For goings-on in August, see the other side of the world.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
OZ -6 (HK -3): Wired up...
I am in the process of not-quite-packing.
This is a procedure which involves gathering together things which might be necessary for my holiday without actually packing them into anything. The suitcase is still in the loft.
It's a very useful phase of the proceedings as I am also getting a number of other jobs done as a by-product. For instance, sorting out my "home file" (a product I swore I would never possess) while trying to find my passport in it. This involved a trip into town to purchase A4 filing wallets (or "slippy dippies" © Chris Kilby 1990s). These were cheap, which is good, because I could have just lifted some "used" ones from work... This led to several hours sorting out contents of aforementioned boxfile and categorising and shredding and wondering why, in the light of the advice I give my Dad, I still have the receipt for a printer I bought in 2001 and threw away in 2002.
Anyway, here is the collection of electronicage I have to take abroad...
USB cable, another USB cable with slightly different end (in white), camera batteries (why it can't take ordinary batteries, that you buy in a shop, I don't know...), charger for camera batteries, earphones for iPod, memory card for camera, USB stick to back up photos to avoid what happened to Tina's Australia photos, socket adapters to turn safe, earthed three-pin plugs into wonkily angled, two-pin, flimsy death-trap plugs, phone charger...
That's the luggage allowance gone then.
This is a procedure which involves gathering together things which might be necessary for my holiday without actually packing them into anything. The suitcase is still in the loft.
It's a very useful phase of the proceedings as I am also getting a number of other jobs done as a by-product. For instance, sorting out my "home file" (a product I swore I would never possess) while trying to find my passport in it. This involved a trip into town to purchase A4 filing wallets (or "slippy dippies" © Chris Kilby 1990s). These were cheap, which is good, because I could have just lifted some "used" ones from work... This led to several hours sorting out contents of aforementioned boxfile and categorising and shredding and wondering why, in the light of the advice I give my Dad, I still have the receipt for a printer I bought in 2001 and threw away in 2002.
Anyway, here is the collection of electronicage I have to take abroad...
USB cable, another USB cable with slightly different end (in white), camera batteries (why it can't take ordinary batteries, that you buy in a shop, I don't know...), charger for camera batteries, earphones for iPod, memory card for camera, USB stick to back up photos to avoid what happened to Tina's Australia photos, socket adapters to turn safe, earthed three-pin plugs into wonkily angled, two-pin, flimsy death-trap plugs, phone charger...
That's the luggage allowance gone then.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Trainspotting...
I'm not sure if this is classed as one of the Great Railway Journeys of the World, but me and my Dad went on the Settle -Carlisle Line on Friday. Didn't get much time in Carlisle (probably enough...), but that wasn't the point.
The line is now more widely used than it was when it was under the threat of closure in the 80s. This is mainly to do with the fact that it's been well marketed as a tourist attraction. It's a great way to see the western Yorkshire Dales...
This map shows the stations all the way from Leeds as captured by GPS along the route... (Just got geeky new phone which does that...)
The journey takes about three hours, heading up the Ribble Valley to Ribblehead where the famous viaduct is...
..and where we stopped for a look round. There's a great restored station with a very knowledgable live-in railway enthusiast station master. You can buy a postcard and other paraphernalia...
The viaduct is really huge. You only get how huge it is if you're standing underneath it, or when you see a train going over the top...
The line then goes to through Blea Moor Tunnel, into Cumbria and to Dent Station, which is at the head of Dentdale and the highest mainland station in England, and then past Ais Gill, which is the highest point on the line.
As you might expect, the views are spectacular all the way... the three peaks of Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside, many more viaducts other than (but none as big as) Ribblehead, beautiful dales and villages, plunging waterfalls and raging rivers, and the forests in the Eden Valley.
And then you get to see the other side on the way home!
I might become a trainspotter yet.
The line is now more widely used than it was when it was under the threat of closure in the 80s. This is mainly to do with the fact that it's been well marketed as a tourist attraction. It's a great way to see the western Yorkshire Dales...
This map shows the stations all the way from Leeds as captured by GPS along the route... (Just got geeky new phone which does that...)
The journey takes about three hours, heading up the Ribble Valley to Ribblehead where the famous viaduct is...
..and where we stopped for a look round. There's a great restored station with a very knowledgable live-in railway enthusiast station master. You can buy a postcard and other paraphernalia...
The viaduct is really huge. You only get how huge it is if you're standing underneath it, or when you see a train going over the top...
The line then goes to through Blea Moor Tunnel, into Cumbria and to Dent Station, which is at the head of Dentdale and the highest mainland station in England, and then past Ais Gill, which is the highest point on the line.
As you might expect, the views are spectacular all the way... the three peaks of Pen-y-Ghent, Ingleborough and Whernside, many more viaducts other than (but none as big as) Ribblehead, beautiful dales and villages, plunging waterfalls and raging rivers, and the forests in the Eden Valley.
And then you get to see the other side on the way home!
I might become a trainspotter yet.
Monday, July 28, 2008
OZ -15 (HK -12): Too hot...
I am very excited that it's going to be winter in Australia. I like it being cold. (Actually it won't be cold, but it won't be boiling. It'll be comfortable.)
I've been so busy looking forward to the winter evenings, dark early etc that I totally failed to appreciate how hot it's going to be Hong Kong...
I realise there are ways of coping, but I really don't want to have to wear linen and sandals...
I've been so busy looking forward to the winter evenings, dark early etc that I totally failed to appreciate how hot it's going to be Hong Kong...
I realise there are ways of coping, but I really don't want to have to wear linen and sandals...
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Branded...
I finally went to the Minnellium Dome last night...
Yes, I know, only eight years late, but nearly everything they planned for the minnellium was late. And still doesn't work. It's a British thing.
In those eight years, I've flown over it, driven under it, sailed past it, tubed through it, but never actually been in it.
It's bloody clever actually. On a very narrow peninsula they've managed to thread the Jubilee Line under the Blackwall Tunnels - that's four tunnels under the Thames in total - and construct this very iconic building on top. (Although I suppose it's not really a building - just a big tent - and the buildings underneath it are fairly ordinary.)
And, of course, for about the last seven years of the eight, no-one in their right mind wanted to go there because it was an ill-conceived, publicly-funded white elephant full of crap. It was all cultural - Mind Zone, Body Zone, Spiritual Zone - and no-one wanted to spend their "lee-zhure" time doing all that nonsense, even if it was inside a triumph of civil engineering...
So what happened?
Well, firstly, someone decided it would be better if it were full of things people actually wanted to do - shop, eat, go to cinema, see Bryan Adams in November (OK, not the last one...)
Secondly, someone else decided it would be good if people could actually get there, so they built the aforementioned tube line...
But most important, branding happened.
Someone, probably in what Eddie Izzard calls one of those "4 o'clock in the morning, stroky-beard meetings", came up with the ludicrous suggestion of calling it after a phone company.
O2 is one of the most successful marketing exercises of all time. The phone company used to be BT Cellnet - deeply untrendy and lagging massively behind the likes of Orange and Vodafone. No clear identity and losing money and subscribers.
But now, the strength of the brand is overwhelming. It can be identified by the subtle blue fade of the corporate colour, the little subscript 2, the bubbles, Sean Bean being all northern and reassuring on the ads, etc.
And now, not only has it made the Dome very cool and trendy, every person who goes there (23 000 watching Kylie last night, not to mention all the people eating and drinking and watching films) gets the brand lasered right through their eyeballs into their brains at every available opportunity.
The branding is so successful that The O2 is the only fully commercial organisation to have what is effectively a free advert on that other icon, the tube map...
Now that is bloody clever...
Yes, I know, only eight years late, but nearly everything they planned for the minnellium was late. And still doesn't work. It's a British thing.
In those eight years, I've flown over it, driven under it, sailed past it, tubed through it, but never actually been in it.
It's bloody clever actually. On a very narrow peninsula they've managed to thread the Jubilee Line under the Blackwall Tunnels - that's four tunnels under the Thames in total - and construct this very iconic building on top. (Although I suppose it's not really a building - just a big tent - and the buildings underneath it are fairly ordinary.)
And, of course, for about the last seven years of the eight, no-one in their right mind wanted to go there because it was an ill-conceived, publicly-funded white elephant full of crap. It was all cultural - Mind Zone, Body Zone, Spiritual Zone - and no-one wanted to spend their "lee-zhure" time doing all that nonsense, even if it was inside a triumph of civil engineering...
So what happened?
Well, firstly, someone decided it would be better if it were full of things people actually wanted to do - shop, eat, go to cinema, see Bryan Adams in November (OK, not the last one...)
Secondly, someone else decided it would be good if people could actually get there, so they built the aforementioned tube line...
But most important, branding happened.
Someone, probably in what Eddie Izzard calls one of those "4 o'clock in the morning, stroky-beard meetings", came up with the ludicrous suggestion of calling it after a phone company.
O2 is one of the most successful marketing exercises of all time. The phone company used to be BT Cellnet - deeply untrendy and lagging massively behind the likes of Orange and Vodafone. No clear identity and losing money and subscribers.
But now, the strength of the brand is overwhelming. It can be identified by the subtle blue fade of the corporate colour, the little subscript 2, the bubbles, Sean Bean being all northern and reassuring on the ads, etc.
And now, not only has it made the Dome very cool and trendy, every person who goes there (23 000 watching Kylie last night, not to mention all the people eating and drinking and watching films) gets the brand lasered right through their eyeballs into their brains at every available opportunity.
The branding is so successful that The O2 is the only fully commercial organisation to have what is effectively a free advert on that other icon, the tube map...
Now that is bloody clever...
Friday, July 25, 2008
Mammoth...
I think it's the warm weather and the long summer evenings (both of which I really can't be doing with) which have resulted in my house becoming a haven for wildlife. (Again.)
This doesn't bother me much - I am not mottephobic - but there is a big difference between moth being at rest and still, and moth being flappy and confused and fast and in your face, trilling away like some tiny, winged pneumatic drill.
This one had an appreciation of art and sat (? stood??) long enough on The Great Bear for it to be captured using the time-honoured glass/piece of card technique often used on spiders. And then it got let out of the window.
It will probably twitter back in again if I put any bright lights on.
And then I might get fed up and swat it.
This doesn't bother me much - I am not mottephobic - but there is a big difference between moth being at rest and still, and moth being flappy and confused and fast and in your face, trilling away like some tiny, winged pneumatic drill.
This one had an appreciation of art and sat (? stood??) long enough on The Great Bear for it to be captured using the time-honoured glass/piece of card technique often used on spiders. And then it got let out of the window.
It will probably twitter back in again if I put any bright lights on.
And then I might get fed up and swat it.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
We fill your homes with lots of groovy things...! *
It looks a bit like they are building IKEA in Southampton like most people build IKEA furniture.
In other words, they're ignoring the instructions completely, not checking they've got all the bits and going with a bit of gut instinct and hoping for the best.
This can be the only reason they've put the name up on one side before they've finished building the other side.
Or perhaps they are taking the obvious marketing opportunity of getting the sign up early to suck people in with anticipation. As if the several million square metres of blue wall didn't give you the clue as to what it was.
The Swedes are coming...
* Mitch Benn...
In other words, they're ignoring the instructions completely, not checking they've got all the bits and going with a bit of gut instinct and hoping for the best.
This can be the only reason they've put the name up on one side before they've finished building the other side.
Or perhaps they are taking the obvious marketing opportunity of getting the sign up early to suck people in with anticipation. As if the several million square metres of blue wall didn't give you the clue as to what it was.
The Swedes are coming...
* Mitch Benn...
OZ -21: Apparently...
...people do person does read this blog, which is all very encouraging and spurs one on into making a bit of an effort.
With this in mind, I have invested time and coffee in producing the very nascent map below.
It shows the basic route and main destinations and its creation, in that it was bloody hard to do, gives the lie to Google's corporate "do no evil" philosophy (see number 6) and drives a cart and horses through most of its design principles (especially number 3).
(You can zoom in pan about and look at an aerial photo of Heathrow, if you wish...)
I intend to add those groovy little place markers in various colours and styles to bring some actual tourism to what is currently only flights, and they may (or may not) appear on this map (see number 5).
With this in mind, I have invested time and coffee in producing the very nascent map below.
It shows the basic route and main destinations and its creation, in that it was bloody hard to do, gives the lie to Google's corporate "do no evil" philosophy (see number 6) and drives a cart and horses through most of its design principles (especially number 3).
(You can zoom in pan about and look at an aerial photo of Heathrow, if you wish...)
I intend to add those groovy little place markers in various colours and styles to bring some actual tourism to what is currently only flights, and they may (or may not) appear on this map (see number 5).
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