Birdcage Jazz - Harriet Butler
I saw this somewhere in the Lanes in Brighton in December 2010. I think it was probably a place called Bellis, 8-9 Kings Rd, BN1 1NE. I just downloaded the image from my phone and noticed the apparent photograph of the window in the background. I was a bit mystified but now I realise that this was a reflection and I took the photo through a shop window. I think it looks quite good, though, Ms. Butler might prefer the original.
I'm a phtographer not a terrorist
In the UK the police continue to stop ordinary citizens taking photographs in public places yet they feel free to take pictures of us any time they like. Police in Brighton have taken to parking a special CCTV van on the pavement. It’s interesting that there has been criticism of Google for their Streetview project yet we are complacent about police collecting similar information.
If I were a IT systems manager in the police force I would consider creating a system collecting all photographs taken by the police into a single database. I’d then reference police computers and online information such as Facebook, Google and Flickr and use automatic face recognition to allow police CCTV equipment to automatically identify people. Add a head up display to police car windscreens and you have little floating tags over members of the public as they go about their business.
Are the police working on such a system? – How would we know?
George Orwell must be turning in his grave
Informed debate or Last Word Syndrome
Yesterday I was discussing the cultural differences between Germans and English people. It was generally agreed that Germans were direct and that we English couch our intercourse in “buffer words”. A German might say “Give me the mustard” and an English person might say “Could you pass me the mustard”. This difference becomes more obvious when we communicate via Email. I know Germans who have learned to be less direct in their Emails but I have never heard of the English modifying their emails to be more direct. I think that Email is a problematic medium in any case. When you throw Germans / English mannerisms into the mix you are more or less bound to get misunderstanding and bad feeling.
Blogging also has issues. When commenting on News sites such as the Guardian or the BBC I have noticed the tendency toward Last Word Syndrome. One person comments, another pointedly disagrees, offence is taken, and a response written immediately off the cuff. Neither party wants to let the other have the last word and either the thread deteriorates into abuse or the argument goes around in circles as one or both of the parties merely reiterate their arguments. I have had this on my blog and with work Emails. I guess that, with Emails, it’s more common when we’re stupid enough to cc others into the exchange.
I think one problem is that Emails are written in the same style as the spoken word but may be read more like letters. It took hundreds, if not thousands, of years for us to refine the art of writing so that pedants can lecture us on spelling and grammar. As Email and the web are very new I guess we still have not worked out the ground rules. Perhaps after a couple of hundreds years things will have improved and we will receive sarcastic comments about our inability to understand the rules on the use of smilies.
This week after a couple of email exchanges I received a brief and stupid reply. My immediate reaction was to respond with “Da!!!!!”. I refrained and let the other guy have the last word. It rankles and I imagine him thinking that his boorish behaviour had outwitted me but, for this week at least, I consider I nipped the thing in the bud and refrained from petty behaviour. Perhaps I will make a habit of it…….but don’t count on it.
Star House
Send in the SAS says ex-pat wife
I just caught a bit of Channel 4 news covering the situation in Libya. An British woman with a large pearl necklace bemoaning the fact that she had not been telephoned by the British government and that her husband had not been magically plucked from the Libyan desert by the SAS.
The woman was TALKING BOLLOCKS!
It seems that someone in the UK did not perform perfectly and several aircraft due to pick up British citizens arrived in Tripoli later than would have been ideal. However, said woman was talking of the her husband and other miscellaneous British workers on remote oil and gas installations far from Tripoli scattered around the very large Libyan desert. A quick look at Libya on Google Earth confirms what I had thought. Libya is a large desert country stretching around 1500 miles east to west and about a 1000 miles north south. I doubt that the be-pearled woman herself knew where her husband was so expecting the British government to know where he was, know who she was and then give her a quick call to make sure she was alright seems a bit optimistic.
Workers in locations like this get paid over he odds specifically because the location is weird and potentially dangerous. The responsibility for their safety lies with the companies who employee these people. She and her husband were presumably happy to collect the dosh but failed to realise that they are not in Britain any more and cannot expect the same level of service as when they’re back home in Cardiff. One statement really took the biscuit. She said “Britain has one of the best armed services in the world” – Well, perhaps, but that doesn’t mean that we want to get involved militarily all over the world just because some expats have run out of milk.
Then we had the invidious Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander condemning the government for it’s handling of the situation. Mr. Alexander put forward no suggestions or policy but merely tried to profit from people’s misfortune with a knee jerk condemnation of government action. The Tories cutting? – Too fast he cries! – Brits being rescued from Libya? – Too slow he squeaks.
Of course Mr. Cameron has been on TV apologising. It’s interesting that, these days we expect the Prime Minister, of all people, to be responsible for operational activities during an evacuation such as this. The PM has no special understanding or knowledge and there is no reason why he should get involved. A senior foreign office official would be more appropriate but I guess this reflects the way politics has been forced to adjust to the media.
“I’m a very private person” said the woman – yeh, right. Not so private that you don’t go straight on telly to make ludicrous demands.
I suggest that she and her husband stay in England and get a nice local job.
The Latest Cop-Out
The following is the opening statement in an article in this week’s Economist entitled The Latest Cop-Out – Barack Obama has ducked the challenge of grappling with America’s medium-term deficit woes.
“Imagine you have developed a serious weight problem. Things have been going badly for you, and as a result you have been piling on the pounds; in the past three years your weight has ballooned by a shocking 10% a year. Your advisers all say that this will give you a heart attack: not immediately, but in the next decade or so. What do you do? Not many doctors would recommend a diet confined to items that make up only an eighth of your consumption (and were in any case often rather good for you), while slyly sticking to a plan to increase gradually the number of cream buns and cheeseburgers you eat every day. Yet that is exactly what Barack Obama has prescribed for the bloated American government.” – The Economist, February 19th 2011
More than a decade ago I lived in Nigeria and later Gabon and grew fond of Makossa music from Cameroon. One song that touched me was Dikom Lam Moto by Charlotte Mbango. On a Friday or Saturday night I’d play this as I headed out into the night. The recording that I have is slightly shaky but it still puts to shame much of the dross that is presented as talent in the West. I never have obtained a translation of the lyrics but her passion seems to break through the language barrier. Sadly it seems that Ms. Mbango breathed her last in June 2009.
RIP Charlotte Mbango.
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Art Photography
Police spy on you at petrol stations
Tags: bollocks, cameras, CCTV, democracy, neighbourhood policing, neighbourly, Orwellian, petrol stations, police, spy
Where was the informed debate on this?
I saw this at a petrol station recently. OK, I can see that it is in the interest of the petrol station owner to log the registration plates of cars in case they drive off without paying. But I can recall no informed debate about whether this data should be automatically made available to the police!
Democracy my arse! Gradually, using fear of crime and terrorism, the state increases the control that it has over the individual. “You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide” whine the naive and trusting. This is bollocks. History shows that if authorities are given powers they will abuse them.
It’s also a bit rich to advertise it as “neighbourhood policing”. You’d have to have truly Orwellian mind to consider a nationwide network of CCTV cameras to be neighbourly.
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