Well, let's see. What's on the agenda this week?
Aside from removing huge amounts of detritus from our house, the main mission has been remembering to get up early in the morning. Luckily junior is helping by waking up even earlier than normal, thus removing the need for an alarm thus far.
So what nonsense has the world of science given us today? Oh, look. Showers might be bad for your health. It would seem that bacteria builds up in shower heads, and the rise in lung conditions is because fewer people are having baths.
I'm sorry, but this is madness. No one ever died from taking their toaster into the shower, did they? And if baths are so healthy, what about the fact that all the bacteria that you've just washed off gets swilled around and just ends up somewhere else?
In other news, Matt's cartoon in the Telegraph is a telling little indictment of the world that is being created around us. As is this. I'm not entirely sure at what point everyone suddenly lost the "innocent until proven guilty" tag. I know this is because of the Ian Huntly case, and it is admirable that we should want to avoid such tragedy ever happening again.
But if these kinds of people are going to carry out these kinds of acts, then they will find ways of avoiding the system, that's how they operate. Ian Huntly worked as a caretaker because he knew he was under the radar. Likewise priests, scoutmasters, music teachers. If you are now extending this to the parent who takes the kids football practice, where will it end? "No I'm sorry, Mrs Jones, little Johnny can't come to school today. It seems my friend hasn't had her checks done yet, so can't take anyone else's kids in." Ridiculous.
The other problem is that all these processes and checks are carried out by people. Humans are flawed. They forget stuff. They skim-read, miss tick-boxes, and assume that someone else is dealing with it. The blame culture that we've been saddled with means that no one wants to be to blame, yet everyone needs to blame someone.
Right. Off my Soapbox now. Enjoy the below.
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Wednesday, 2 September 2009
And Times Goes By So Slowly
The question is not "what should I do with my time?", but "why am I spending my time doing this?" At least it is today.
While my house is being redone following a small flood, my daughter is preparing for her first day of school. I, meanwhile, am sitting listening to a presentation about Learning and Development. Oh if only...
It's not been a bad week, you can't complain when you've only got four days work in a week, but everything seems to be coming to a head this week. After 6 months of being homeless, we finally get our house back this weekend. It cannot be overstated how traumatic the whole thing has been; the insurance loss adjusters let things delay so long that we had to trash the entire downstairs. A downstairs that we had recently redecorated.
After living in hotels and cottages and houses, we are just three days away, and I'm stuck at work!
In other news, I read that they are describing Chloe Madeley as a TV personality? Is this the daughter of Richard Madeley? If so, since when did being the offspring of a TV personality automatically make you one yourself?
I'm also pleased to read that the outage at Gmail was due to an engineer error. So next time I break something at work, I'll just say "Well, y'know put it into context, at least I didn't break the world's third largest web-email service."
While my house is being redone following a small flood, my daughter is preparing for her first day of school. I, meanwhile, am sitting listening to a presentation about Learning and Development. Oh if only...
It's not been a bad week, you can't complain when you've only got four days work in a week, but everything seems to be coming to a head this week. After 6 months of being homeless, we finally get our house back this weekend. It cannot be overstated how traumatic the whole thing has been; the insurance loss adjusters let things delay so long that we had to trash the entire downstairs. A downstairs that we had recently redecorated.
After living in hotels and cottages and houses, we are just three days away, and I'm stuck at work!
In other news, I read that they are describing Chloe Madeley as a TV personality? Is this the daughter of Richard Madeley? If so, since when did being the offspring of a TV personality automatically make you one yourself?
I'm also pleased to read that the outage at Gmail was due to an engineer error. So next time I break something at work, I'll just say "Well, y'know put it into context, at least I didn't break the world's third largest web-email service."
Wednesday, 5 August 2009
And The Bands Played On
I used to think I was a mornings person. Pretty good at getting up at the crack of dawn, getting into work bang on 7 O'clock. But that was when I was getting up at 0600. After 3 days of getting up at 0520, I've decided that I'm not a mornings person and please can I have my lie-ins back?
Thankfully the internet is a wonderful distraction, and the 11 hours a day I'm currently spending at work are effortlessly floated on a cloud of music.
I spend a lot of time on The Sixtyone. This is a music website, with a sort of game element to it. You login, and you are given a number of hearts. You then listen to music on the site, and if you like the track, you give it a heart. The more hearts the song gets, the higher the profile, until it hits the home page. In return, you get reputation points, which amass and get you further hearts.
Now, admittedly, like any free music webpage, there is an awful lot of dross on thesixtyone. And because you only get so many hearts each day, you are encouraged to listen to these tracks in return for more hearts.
So I'm currently listening to Atmosphere. I don't like it. But I feel compelled to listen so I can show some love to tracks that I do like.
This is in stark contrast to last.fm, where everything is far more commercial, far more marketed, and as such far duller.
The sixtyone is like walking into an independent record store and being able to listen to anything you like. And I can't turn it off.
Thankfully the internet is a wonderful distraction, and the 11 hours a day I'm currently spending at work are effortlessly floated on a cloud of music.
I spend a lot of time on The Sixtyone. This is a music website, with a sort of game element to it. You login, and you are given a number of hearts. You then listen to music on the site, and if you like the track, you give it a heart. The more hearts the song gets, the higher the profile, until it hits the home page. In return, you get reputation points, which amass and get you further hearts.
Now, admittedly, like any free music webpage, there is an awful lot of dross on thesixtyone. And because you only get so many hearts each day, you are encouraged to listen to these tracks in return for more hearts.
So I'm currently listening to Atmosphere. I don't like it. But I feel compelled to listen so I can show some love to tracks that I do like.
This is in stark contrast to last.fm, where everything is far more commercial, far more marketed, and as such far duller.
The sixtyone is like walking into an independent record store and being able to listen to anything you like. And I can't turn it off.
Friday, 31 July 2009
Corporate Chaos
So a gentle week being introduced to working in London is over, and what have I learnt? Well, for one, I catch flies when I'm asleep on the train. For another, it's significantly less stressful getting to work when you get the train.
I don't have to worry abour peak times, so I always get a seat, plus I haven't had to get up before 0730 this week, unless woken by the human alarm clock that is my daughter.
Lookin forward to a 52 hour week next week. At least that gives me 17 hours overtime, which should pay for all the Double Deckers I've been eating in the meantime.
It's been a fun week, I've walked across Hyde Park four times, met a lot of nice people and not broken anything. And yet in all the time I've been in London I haven't seen a single cashpoint. No wonder we are in a recession. As one of the also-rans in Mock The Week said last night "I have a limited understanding of economics, but it's got a lot to do with consumer spending. And maybe we've all just realised that wev'e got enough stuff already, and we don't need any more."
Makes me wonder how my client is going to get on selling its stuff to people who think they've got enough stuff already.
I don't have to worry abour peak times, so I always get a seat, plus I haven't had to get up before 0730 this week, unless woken by the human alarm clock that is my daughter.
Lookin forward to a 52 hour week next week. At least that gives me 17 hours overtime, which should pay for all the Double Deckers I've been eating in the meantime.
It's been a fun week, I've walked across Hyde Park four times, met a lot of nice people and not broken anything. And yet in all the time I've been in London I haven't seen a single cashpoint. No wonder we are in a recession. As one of the also-rans in Mock The Week said last night "I have a limited understanding of economics, but it's got a lot to do with consumer spending. And maybe we've all just realised that wev'e got enough stuff already, and we don't need any more."
Makes me wonder how my client is going to get on selling its stuff to people who think they've got enough stuff already.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Think Bike, Think Tosser
One of my favourite Clarksonian rants is how, if his kids ever buy a motorcycle, he will burn it. And if they go and buy another one, he will burn that one too.
I have a real issue with bikers. It's not their attitude towards cars, nor is it their ability to weave through the carnage of the M5 on the first week of the summer holidays. It's their prominence in all the road safety campaigns you ever see.
"Think Safe, Think Bike" is the one you see on the motorways.
"Beware of Bikers in Your Blindspot" screams sign after sign on the road out of Newton Abbott towards Torquay.
The one off the telly where the car pulls out and the biker drives straight into him.
Why the hell are we being constantly reminded to look out for bikers? Where are the signs telling bikers not to be imbeciles?
"Bikers - stop undertaking in heavy traffic"
"Bikers - you won't get hit by a car overtaking if you stay in line"
"Bikers - stop driving like tossers"
I was reminded of this by an interview with Richard Hammond by Simon Mayo at Christmas, where the one rule is "Don't drive like a cretin". Speed doesn't kill, driving like an idiot kills. And almost every single biker I've ever seen drives like an idiot.
I have a real issue with bikers. It's not their attitude towards cars, nor is it their ability to weave through the carnage of the M5 on the first week of the summer holidays. It's their prominence in all the road safety campaigns you ever see.
"Think Safe, Think Bike" is the one you see on the motorways.
"Beware of Bikers in Your Blindspot" screams sign after sign on the road out of Newton Abbott towards Torquay.
The one off the telly where the car pulls out and the biker drives straight into him.
Why the hell are we being constantly reminded to look out for bikers? Where are the signs telling bikers not to be imbeciles?
"Bikers - stop undertaking in heavy traffic"
"Bikers - you won't get hit by a car overtaking if you stay in line"
"Bikers - stop driving like tossers"
I was reminded of this by an interview with Richard Hammond by Simon Mayo at Christmas, where the one rule is "Don't drive like a cretin". Speed doesn't kill, driving like an idiot kills. And almost every single biker I've ever seen drives like an idiot.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
The Price Of Bacon
Now, I’m as much of a fan of knee jerk reactionist journalism as everyone else, but even I am foaming at the mouth at the latest round of gibberish that Fleet Street (and the BBC) have been churning out.
In amongst the stories of Michael Jackson’s love-children, Jordan’s imploding breasts and The Ashes, the biggest story has been swine flu.
GP and child with swine flu die, screamed the headline on 13th July 2009. We’re all going to hell in a pigskin handbag, and Fergus Walsh is on hand to tell us all about it.
His “measured blog” contained one update called “Time for concern, not panic” and another called “What are the chances of dying from swine flu?”
Turns out that neither the GP nor the child died directly of swine flu, but this information is strangely lacking from the subsequent blogs. The general consensus is that if you’re already poorly, contracting swine flu is pretty bad news. But that’s nothing compared to the advice if you’re pregnant.
The advice that suddenly appeared everywhere was that pregnant women should not go out in big crowds, as they might contract swine flu. They might just as well have advised them not to step out into roads, because there might be cars coming. In the end, shock horror, the advice was to use common sense.
To quote Bill Hicks “You are free to do as we tell you”.
In amongst the stories of Michael Jackson’s love-children, Jordan’s imploding breasts and The Ashes, the biggest story has been swine flu.
GP and child with swine flu die, screamed the headline on 13th July 2009. We’re all going to hell in a pigskin handbag, and Fergus Walsh is on hand to tell us all about it.
His “measured blog” contained one update called “Time for concern, not panic” and another called “What are the chances of dying from swine flu?”
Turns out that neither the GP nor the child died directly of swine flu, but this information is strangely lacking from the subsequent blogs. The general consensus is that if you’re already poorly, contracting swine flu is pretty bad news. But that’s nothing compared to the advice if you’re pregnant.
The advice that suddenly appeared everywhere was that pregnant women should not go out in big crowds, as they might contract swine flu. They might just as well have advised them not to step out into roads, because there might be cars coming. In the end, shock horror, the advice was to use common sense.
To quote Bill Hicks “You are free to do as we tell you”.
Tuesday, 21 July 2009
London Loves The Misery Of A Speeding Heart
The two days I've spent in London have been reasonably pleasant. Lots of glass and lifts, and a stone's throw from the station. All good.
An enjoyable weekend spending money and watching golf on TV. But the golf annoyed me; more specifically the BBC annoyed me. Having spent 3 and a half days blithering on about a 59 year old who was somehow better than golfers half his age, they suddenly had a realisation that he wasn't going to win. And rather than give credit where it is due, they went into mourning that Tom Watson didn't win.
Well I'm sorry but the rules are the same regardless of your age. Just because you're coming up to bus pass age, doesn't give you special privileges, and at the end of the day the best player won.
Gary Lineker stated that the whole thing had become an anti-climax. Well whose fault is that? Be impartial in your opinion and there will never be an anti-climax.
Meanwhile the cricket came to an epic climax, in that peculiar English way, on a Monday. Another example of media-hyped nonsense, where a step towards victory is billed as the Second Coming, and a step back is as though we have descended into the fires of Hades. But at least the English team won for once, leading to my wife to say "but I don't understand, they've played twice, but it's only 1-0" and "they haven't won The Ashes though have they?" which was a fair question, given the schtick George Aligayah was giving it.
Anyway, this is still a great photo.
An enjoyable weekend spending money and watching golf on TV. But the golf annoyed me; more specifically the BBC annoyed me. Having spent 3 and a half days blithering on about a 59 year old who was somehow better than golfers half his age, they suddenly had a realisation that he wasn't going to win. And rather than give credit where it is due, they went into mourning that Tom Watson didn't win.
Well I'm sorry but the rules are the same regardless of your age. Just because you're coming up to bus pass age, doesn't give you special privileges, and at the end of the day the best player won.
Gary Lineker stated that the whole thing had become an anti-climax. Well whose fault is that? Be impartial in your opinion and there will never be an anti-climax.
Meanwhile the cricket came to an epic climax, in that peculiar English way, on a Monday. Another example of media-hyped nonsense, where a step towards victory is billed as the Second Coming, and a step back is as though we have descended into the fires of Hades. But at least the English team won for once, leading to my wife to say "but I don't understand, they've played twice, but it's only 1-0" and "they haven't won The Ashes though have they?" which was a fair question, given the schtick George Aligayah was giving it.
Anyway, this is still a great photo.
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