For the greater part of my life a very large proportion of the music I have listened to has, like health care, come free at the point of delivery, so there is nothing so very radical in todays youngsters thinking they should have the same privilege.
First the radio was a major source. A radio licence, for which the head of household was liable, cost £1 a year.
Of course you had to have a radio, & pay for the electricity to run it, or, in some cases, pay for the battery to be recharged. I can remember several small boys who earned a penny or two by carrying accumulators to the radio shop to be topped up.
When the transistor radio arrived on the scene I remember disputes about whether they needed a separate licence to be played outside the home, & a particular controversy over whether students needed to have their own licence to cover them for listening while away at college during term time.
The cost of a radio licence had risen to only £1.25 a year when it was abolished in 1971. Since then you do not have to pay for the privilege of listening to music on the radio unless you also own a television, in which case your tv licence does include a contribution to the cost of BBC radio.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Thursday, October 06, 2011
Is the world in debt?
In an attempt to cheer us all up Matt Ridley remarked in a Times column last Saturday that ‘Allowing for a few mathematical wrinkles, the world cannot be in debt.’
Well, that is true, by accountants definition, in the same way that the world cannot have a balance of trade deficit: one country’s import is another country’s export which (allowing for a few exchange rate wrinkles) must add up to a net balance of zero; similarly, each country’s international borrowing is another country’s lending.
When the Large Hadron Collider was about to start its work we were bombarded with stories about how the physicists might, not altogether wittingly, create their own Black Hole which would swallow up the whole world.
Suppose the rocket scientists who run our modern faster-then-the-speed-of-thought financial casinos have succeeded in creating a world full of wormholes, vibrating strings of ETFs, through which we are all about to disappear into a black hole, the only kind of debt-free universe which is now possible.
Well, that is true, by accountants definition, in the same way that the world cannot have a balance of trade deficit: one country’s import is another country’s export which (allowing for a few exchange rate wrinkles) must add up to a net balance of zero; similarly, each country’s international borrowing is another country’s lending.
When the Large Hadron Collider was about to start its work we were bombarded with stories about how the physicists might, not altogether wittingly, create their own Black Hole which would swallow up the whole world.
Suppose the rocket scientists who run our modern faster-then-the-speed-of-thought financial casinos have succeeded in creating a world full of wormholes, vibrating strings of ETFs, through which we are all about to disappear into a black hole, the only kind of debt-free universe which is now possible.
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Inverted FM reception
In his Weather Eye column last Thursday Paul Simons mentioned that, during an Indian Summer, the atmosphere tends to settle into a temperature inversion, at least in the type of summer originally described in North America by John de Crevecoeur in 1778, which was characterised by ‘general smokiness’.
I deduce that our current Indian Summer produced a similar inversion which has been disrupting the FM signal. Planes flying overhead have been producing an especially irritating buzz, noticeable on all stations but particularly Radio 3.
I deduce that our current Indian Summer produced a similar inversion which has been disrupting the FM signal. Planes flying overhead have been producing an especially irritating buzz, noticeable on all stations but particularly Radio 3.
Link
John de Crevecoeur
Related posts
Radio reception
Tropical spring
John de Crevecoeur
Related posts
Radio reception
Tropical spring
Olympics
The authorities have just begun to talk publicly of worries about the off-putting effects of next year’s Olympics on visitors & those who live or work in London (including all those rich foreigners who have been investing in the supposedly safe haven of London). The people who will suffer from not getting their full normal access to transport (reserved for the Olympic 'family' of officials & committee-men) & may be subject to checks dsigned to prove that they are not terrorists.
The Olympics may well have contributed to the alienation which contributed to the recent riots.
All that trumpeting, during the bid process, of youth, regeneration, opportunity, participation. But all that most of these young people have seen is displacement & squillions spent on swanky stadia. Tickets for those who had a bank account & a debit card with a few spare hundreds or thousands. Most definitely not for the likes of them, not even to watch a Jamaican country boy win the big one.
The Olympics may well have contributed to the alienation which contributed to the recent riots.
All that trumpeting, during the bid process, of youth, regeneration, opportunity, participation. But all that most of these young people have seen is displacement & squillions spent on swanky stadia. Tickets for those who had a bank account & a debit card with a few spare hundreds or thousands. Most definitely not for the likes of them, not even to watch a Jamaican country boy win the big one.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Old tricks
Eric Pickles got plenty of headlines for the way he suddenly managed to find £250m that he could give to local authorities so that they can re-instate weekly collections of smelly non-recyclable rubbish destined for landfill.
This works out at under £¾m per council (in England) or less than 50p per household per fortnight – quite a bargain.
At the same time George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has found £805m not spent by Whitehall, which will be used to keep down council taxes next year.
That’s more than £1 billion which someone carelessly, it seems, lost down the back of the sofa.
David Cameron has announced a new, improved, Right To Buy scheme for tenants of social housing with discounts bigger than those offered under the existing scheme which will be forever associated with the name of Thatcher. This time however all money raised will be used, immediately, to build replacement housing in the social rented sector, thus keeping up the supply of homes for new tenants and providing lots of jobs for builders.
Magic.
I am wondering who will actually provide this money. Mortgages today seem very hard to come by in the private sector, as they were in 1981 when the Right To Buy scheme began, before Big Bang & the decision to allow Building Societies to borrow funds on the open market instead of just relying on savers. So there was a second right, which guaranteed that the tenant could get a mortgage from the same local authority which was selling them the house.
As housing finance came to seem an ever more attractive licence to print money, private lenders piled into the market for providing mortgages for Right To Buy purchasers. So the local authority got an actual capital receipt in cash when they sold to a tenant.
If the Right to a Mortgage remains part of the new scheme, & if private lenders prove reluctant to provide a more attractive alternative source of finance to tenants, then the social housing authorities will have to borrow the cash to build the replacement homes, presumably on the security of these mortgages.
Sounds horribly familiar.
This works out at under £¾m per council (in England) or less than 50p per household per fortnight – quite a bargain.
At the same time George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has found £805m not spent by Whitehall, which will be used to keep down council taxes next year.
That’s more than £1 billion which someone carelessly, it seems, lost down the back of the sofa.
David Cameron has announced a new, improved, Right To Buy scheme for tenants of social housing with discounts bigger than those offered under the existing scheme which will be forever associated with the name of Thatcher. This time however all money raised will be used, immediately, to build replacement housing in the social rented sector, thus keeping up the supply of homes for new tenants and providing lots of jobs for builders.
Magic.
I am wondering who will actually provide this money. Mortgages today seem very hard to come by in the private sector, as they were in 1981 when the Right To Buy scheme began, before Big Bang & the decision to allow Building Societies to borrow funds on the open market instead of just relying on savers. So there was a second right, which guaranteed that the tenant could get a mortgage from the same local authority which was selling them the house.
As housing finance came to seem an ever more attractive licence to print money, private lenders piled into the market for providing mortgages for Right To Buy purchasers. So the local authority got an actual capital receipt in cash when they sold to a tenant.
If the Right to a Mortgage remains part of the new scheme, & if private lenders prove reluctant to provide a more attractive alternative source of finance to tenants, then the social housing authorities will have to borrow the cash to build the replacement homes, presumably on the security of these mortgages.
Sounds horribly familiar.
Mal de mer
I don’t really like to be made to feel suddenly disoriented at ten minutes to one in the morning, as Margherita Taylor managed to do early today.
She chose to play Sailing By as a smooth classic at precisely 00.47 hours, a piece composed by Ronald Binge whose work includes Elizabethan Serenade & an arrangement of Charmaine for Mantovani's orchestra.
But Sailing By is the music which, since time immemorial, has had ‘the function of filling the airtime between the end of the late reading, at approximately 00.45am, and the shipping forecast at 00.48am, which mariners rightly expect Radio 4 to transmit precisely on schedule’.
Of course I was confused. Had I somehow managed to switch stations without realising, or remembering? Is this the first sign of Alzheimers?
Even more so because the music sounded both familiar & strange; the version of Sailing By that Radio 4 use is not available commercially, so Classic FM chose an orchestral version instead.
Do they do the same thing every night?
She chose to play Sailing By as a smooth classic at precisely 00.47 hours, a piece composed by Ronald Binge whose work includes Elizabethan Serenade & an arrangement of Charmaine for Mantovani's orchestra.
But Sailing By is the music which, since time immemorial, has had ‘the function of filling the airtime between the end of the late reading, at approximately 00.45am, and the shipping forecast at 00.48am, which mariners rightly expect Radio 4 to transmit precisely on schedule’.
Of course I was confused. Had I somehow managed to switch stations without realising, or remembering? Is this the first sign of Alzheimers?
Even more so because the music sounded both familiar & strange; the version of Sailing By that Radio 4 use is not available commercially, so Classic FM chose an orchestral version instead.
Do they do the same thing every night?
Monday, October 03, 2011
Password shock
I got a bit of a shock when firing up my notebook the other day.
I typed my password in wrong.
Nothing very unusual in that, though I wouldn’t say it happens often.
Although the password is quite long, by most people’s standards, & a little bit complicated in the range of characters used, it would not pass muster with the strictest security manager.
But I do have to think while I’m typing it because, in a sense, I am coding it as I go along, & that has the advantage of minimising the number of hurriedly careless slips of the fingers.
I was quite pleased with the system I developed for choosing passwords; I reckon that even my nearest & dearest couldn’t guess what it is; it generates passwords long enough to require quite a lot of crunching to crack; & yet I can keep ‘lists’ to remind me what they are. Certainly good enough to fend off all but the most cleverly determined would-be cracker of a computer which holds no secrets of any commercial or security value. Of course nothing can be safe against the hacker who can hoover up passwords.
But on this occasion I noticed that the computer (Windows?) had provided a helpful hint in small type underneath the log in box.
And that hint was actually the en clair expansion of the first 3 letters in my password, which are not the first three letters of a word.
Thinking about it however, it would not be too hard to write a piece of code to have a good guess at this, given the password (which this computer knows anyway) & given the amount of empirical information available about how people tend to choose their passwords & given that the language is English.
Not all my passwords would be this easy. And anyway, nobody else who was given this hint would be able to reconstruct even those first three letters, never mind the whole password.
Still, it makes you think
I typed my password in wrong.
Nothing very unusual in that, though I wouldn’t say it happens often.
Although the password is quite long, by most people’s standards, & a little bit complicated in the range of characters used, it would not pass muster with the strictest security manager.
But I do have to think while I’m typing it because, in a sense, I am coding it as I go along, & that has the advantage of minimising the number of hurriedly careless slips of the fingers.
I was quite pleased with the system I developed for choosing passwords; I reckon that even my nearest & dearest couldn’t guess what it is; it generates passwords long enough to require quite a lot of crunching to crack; & yet I can keep ‘lists’ to remind me what they are. Certainly good enough to fend off all but the most cleverly determined would-be cracker of a computer which holds no secrets of any commercial or security value. Of course nothing can be safe against the hacker who can hoover up passwords.
But on this occasion I noticed that the computer (Windows?) had provided a helpful hint in small type underneath the log in box.
And that hint was actually the en clair expansion of the first 3 letters in my password, which are not the first three letters of a word.
Thinking about it however, it would not be too hard to write a piece of code to have a good guess at this, given the password (which this computer knows anyway) & given the amount of empirical information available about how people tend to choose their passwords & given that the language is English.
Not all my passwords would be this easy. And anyway, nobody else who was given this hint would be able to reconstruct even those first three letters, never mind the whole password.
Still, it makes you think
Upsidedown sides
A collection of the Upsides & Downsides in the Times daily Dream Home featurette would be amusing ; I have a suspicion that a Downside to one home may well feature as an Up in another.
Are white walls a downside? Well yes, if they a bright white which offsets the impression of light with a clinical feel, in the opinion of one writer.
This linked very well to Philip Collins witty column about how Ed Miliband was, at least until his speech to the party conference, still struggling to find his colour – or sharpen up his public image if you prefer: “he has made lots of good arguments once but very few good arguments twice.”
Collins went on to make mock of Farrow & Ball colour names which include New White. “I’m sick of Old White, aren’t you?”
Surely the problem with the dream home could be solved with a quick application of either New White or Old White – one of them must be less bright than the shade complained of.
Are white walls a downside? Well yes, if they a bright white which offsets the impression of light with a clinical feel, in the opinion of one writer.
This linked very well to Philip Collins witty column about how Ed Miliband was, at least until his speech to the party conference, still struggling to find his colour – or sharpen up his public image if you prefer: “he has made lots of good arguments once but very few good arguments twice.”
Collins went on to make mock of Farrow & Ball colour names which include New White. “I’m sick of Old White, aren’t you?”
Surely the problem with the dream home could be solved with a quick application of either New White or Old White – one of them must be less bright than the shade complained of.
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Votes for women
A diary item from the Labour Party Conference suggested that if women did not have the vote then Labour would have won every election since 1945.
Can that be true?
Well it’s not a new idea, I find. For example a joint briefing paper from the Fawcett Society & IPSOS/Mori made the same point back in September 2006.
Everything always & everywhere is women’s fault, or else they spend all their time & effort saving men from themselves. Take your pick.
Can that be true?
Well it’s not a new idea, I find. For example a joint briefing paper from the Fawcett Society & IPSOS/Mori made the same point back in September 2006.
Everything always & everywhere is women’s fault, or else they spend all their time & effort saving men from themselves. Take your pick.
Hurrahing in Harvest
October is a bit late for harvest, but the weather being so upsided down is more than enough excuse for choosing the glorious language of Gerard Manley Hopkins again.
I especially like those silk-sack clouds & azurous hung hills.
Hurrahing in Harvest
SUMMER ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, eyes, heart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!— 10
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.
I especially like those silk-sack clouds & azurous hung hills.
Hurrahing in Harvest
SUMMER ends now; now, barbarous in beauty, the stooks arise
Around; up above, what wind-walks! what lovely behaviour
Of silk-sack clouds! has wilder, wilful-wavier
Meal-drift moulded ever and melted across skies?
I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,
Down all that glory in the heavens to glean our Saviour;
And, eyes, heart, what looks, what lips yet gave you a
Rapturous love’s greeting of realer, of rounder replies?
And the azurous hung hills are his world-wielding shoulder
Majestic—as a stallion stalwart, very-violet-sweet!— 10
These things, these things were here and but the beholder
Wanting; which two when they once meet,
The heart rears wings bold and bolder
And hurls for him, O half hurls earth for him off under his feet.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Related posts
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Clouds for today
The clouds that loured upon our house.
Related posts
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Clouds for today
The clouds that loured upon our house.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
Avarice, lust, and barbarity in the green belt
Quote of the day:
From yesterday’s Times actually, which I did not get to read until the evening.
Young Hugo is turning out to be a seriously good commentator by managing to pull off the difficult feat of appearing to be completely unserious about it.
In the green belts they fear the arrival of Tesco like monks used to fear the Vikings – Hugo Rifkind.
From yesterday’s Times actually, which I did not get to read until the evening.
Young Hugo is turning out to be a seriously good commentator by managing to pull off the difficult feat of appearing to be completely unserious about it.
Depressing spirits
The Economix blog reports that, in America, people appear to dislike politics and politicians so much that prompting them to think about them has a very large downward effect on their assessment of their own well being.
Which is depressing news for David Cameron. His name is so closely associated with the new well being surveys to be conducted by our own Office for National Statistics that we might expect people to report that they are several degrees less happy than they would otherwise feel.
Which is depressing news for David Cameron. His name is so closely associated with the new well being surveys to be conducted by our own Office for National Statistics that we might expect people to report that they are several degrees less happy than they would otherwise feel.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Overheard on the bus
A young man got on as we reached the outskirts of town, spotted a friend whom he had not seen for a while.
So they exchanged news of what they had been up to.
It is tempting to leave it at that, except I feel dutybound to report that it really was a touching but optimistic exchange of stories about their struggles to get themselves established in the world of work.
So they exchanged news of what they had been up to.
Next thing, I was dancing naked in Wythenshawe …
… But I’m doing all right now.
It is tempting to leave it at that, except I feel dutybound to report that it really was a touching but optimistic exchange of stories about their struggles to get themselves established in the world of work.
Soap wars
I recently wrote about the success of a Sainsbury’s bargain offer on soap powder. I now notice from the papers that there seems to be quite a cost- of-washing war going on between the supermarkets – even Waitrose are in on it, with eye-catching ads for branded laundry products at discounts of between 30% and 50%.
I can take a rather objective line on this since my attitude towards such products varies between bewilderment & impatience bordering on contempt. In my old fashioned opinion best results are obtained from proper sorting, by fabric as well as colour, minimum amount of a standard ‘soap’ & PROPER RINSING. If you can hang things on an outside line to dry, so much the better.
The prices also seem, even when discounted, to be verging on the extortionate, though when you work it out I suppose 25p per wash is not so bad, unless you still have a voice inside which tells you THAT’S FIVE SHILLINGS.
But is it really 25p per wash – how can you check?
In very small print at the bottom of the Waitrose ads can be found information about the (discounted) price per kilogram of each product, which ranges from £1.33 to £6.70 – oh, hang on a minute, some of these are prices per litre; does a litre of gel weigh more or less than a kilogram of powder? Are conversion tables available?
How is the rational economic woman to make a rational decision? Would game theory help?
I can take a rather objective line on this since my attitude towards such products varies between bewilderment & impatience bordering on contempt. In my old fashioned opinion best results are obtained from proper sorting, by fabric as well as colour, minimum amount of a standard ‘soap’ & PROPER RINSING. If you can hang things on an outside line to dry, so much the better.
The prices also seem, even when discounted, to be verging on the extortionate, though when you work it out I suppose 25p per wash is not so bad, unless you still have a voice inside which tells you THAT’S FIVE SHILLINGS.
But is it really 25p per wash – how can you check?
In very small print at the bottom of the Waitrose ads can be found information about the (discounted) price per kilogram of each product, which ranges from £1.33 to £6.70 – oh, hang on a minute, some of these are prices per litre; does a litre of gel weigh more or less than a kilogram of powder? Are conversion tables available?
How is the rational economic woman to make a rational decision? Would game theory help?
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Sometimes I'd like to be young again
A picture of a very pretty dress from the new Prada ready-to-wear collection (#25 on the Vogue website) caught my eye – unusually because I haven’t often found Prada pretty, or even desirable, in the past.
Off-white with pale blue hem with tadpole/teardrop or flame pattern in subtle orange round the lower skirt. Bracelet length sleeves, bodice subtly gathered to the slightly squared-off plain high neck, shirred midriff, made out of what looks like chiffon.
Deceptively demure.
Looks simple – but not at all easy to make – will it be possible to reproduce for the cheaper end of the High Street? Answer, YES of course, in some form.
The fashion writers say there is a 50s influence to this collection – but very definitely 60s too, especially in those teardrops.
Off-white with pale blue hem with tadpole/teardrop or flame pattern in subtle orange round the lower skirt. Bracelet length sleeves, bodice subtly gathered to the slightly squared-off plain high neck, shirred midriff, made out of what looks like chiffon.
Deceptively demure.
Looks simple – but not at all easy to make – will it be possible to reproduce for the cheaper end of the High Street? Answer, YES of course, in some form.
The fashion writers say there is a 50s influence to this collection – but very definitely 60s too, especially in those teardrops.
Keeping on the right side of the law
The Times was just one of many media outlets which reported the outrageous case of the teenager who sent to jail for two months only two hours after committing the heinous offence of taking a picture of his mate on his mobile.
The judge, who was presiding over the court in which this offence took place & where the mate was on trial, had obviously overreacted.
Worse, the teenager did not even get a chance to go back to his flat & make arrangements for someone to look after his new puppy.
And, as The Times photo which illustrated the article made helpfully clear, the judge was a) a woman and b) black, so it’s not just middle aged middle class white public school men who are fuddy duddy enough not to understand that using your mobile to take a picture is just what teenagers do these days - something to be applauded when they do it to defy & expose oppressive authority in countries with really tyrannical regimes.
Well, thanks to The Magistrate’s Blog giving me a steer to a piece by David Allen Green of the New Statesman, I now know that there was more to it than that. The teenager had been being disruptive throughout the proceedings.
He had even taken a photo of the victim of the crime, something the media, on another day, might have decided was the real story here.
We are used to this kind of thing from the media: the man who was given a massive fine just for disposing of his junk mail in a street litter bin? The junk mail was what allowed the authorities to trace who had been stuffing the litter bin with black plastic binbags full of miscellaneous & smelly household waste.
The Times however rather prides itself on its coverage of the law, with a respected series of Law Reports & a weekly special supplement. In this case not only did they fall for the tabloid interpretation of the case, they even, (according to David Allen Green) got their legal facts wrong.
Perhaps today’s Law supplement will put matters right.
The judge, who was presiding over the court in which this offence took place & where the mate was on trial, had obviously overreacted.
Worse, the teenager did not even get a chance to go back to his flat & make arrangements for someone to look after his new puppy.
And, as The Times photo which illustrated the article made helpfully clear, the judge was a) a woman and b) black, so it’s not just middle aged middle class white public school men who are fuddy duddy enough not to understand that using your mobile to take a picture is just what teenagers do these days - something to be applauded when they do it to defy & expose oppressive authority in countries with really tyrannical regimes.
Well, thanks to The Magistrate’s Blog giving me a steer to a piece by David Allen Green of the New Statesman, I now know that there was more to it than that. The teenager had been being disruptive throughout the proceedings.
He had even taken a photo of the victim of the crime, something the media, on another day, might have decided was the real story here.
We are used to this kind of thing from the media: the man who was given a massive fine just for disposing of his junk mail in a street litter bin? The junk mail was what allowed the authorities to trace who had been stuffing the litter bin with black plastic binbags full of miscellaneous & smelly household waste.
The Times however rather prides itself on its coverage of the law, with a respected series of Law Reports & a weekly special supplement. In this case not only did they fall for the tabloid interpretation of the case, they even, (according to David Allen Green) got their legal facts wrong.
Perhaps today’s Law supplement will put matters right.
Links
The Magistrate's Blog: Cell phone
David Allen Green: Photography and Contempt of Court
BBC: Teenager jailed for taking photo at Luton Crown Court
Guardian: Technology in the dock after man imprisoned for taking photo in court
Teen jailed for taking photo in court has to give up dog
Related post
Protest
The Magistrate's Blog: Cell phone
David Allen Green: Photography and Contempt of Court
BBC: Teenager jailed for taking photo at Luton Crown Court
Guardian: Technology in the dock after man imprisoned for taking photo in court
Teen jailed for taking photo in court has to give up dog
Related post
Protest
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Seasonal shopping
Yesterday brought weather so sunny & warm I thought it a good idea to go & buy a new winter fleece – if I wait till it starts to get cold the shops will have only spring clothes on offer.
One would have thought that the relentless fashion cycle would have gone the way of other old fashioned retail practices, but it seems not.
Quite a long number of years ago I found myself in need of a new swimsuit in January; I was bemoaning the fact that the only ones available were in the expensive Cruisewear sections of the upmarket department stores, when a colleague suggested that I try asking in Marks & Spencer: ‘They’ll probably have some from last summer in the stock room which they are waiting to bring out again.’ And so it proved.
In these days of just in time stockrooms stay on on the move. Instead of occupying chunks of high-priced space on high street or in shopping centre they cruise the high seas or the motorways, the goods coming to rest for the shortest possible time in vast hangar like distribution centres on less expensive real estate. And if they are not sold quickly enough then they are on the move again – turned into rags to go round the circle again or dispatched to the vast Third World or Eastern European jumble sale.
Let us hope that the effect of economic hard times will not be to reduce the velocity of circulation of goods without bringing back the stockroom, or the effect will be that if you choose the wrong day or time to go shopping – well tough, you’ll just have to go without.
One would have thought that the relentless fashion cycle would have gone the way of other old fashioned retail practices, but it seems not.
Quite a long number of years ago I found myself in need of a new swimsuit in January; I was bemoaning the fact that the only ones available were in the expensive Cruisewear sections of the upmarket department stores, when a colleague suggested that I try asking in Marks & Spencer: ‘They’ll probably have some from last summer in the stock room which they are waiting to bring out again.’ And so it proved.
In these days of just in time stockrooms stay on on the move. Instead of occupying chunks of high-priced space on high street or in shopping centre they cruise the high seas or the motorways, the goods coming to rest for the shortest possible time in vast hangar like distribution centres on less expensive real estate. And if they are not sold quickly enough then they are on the move again – turned into rags to go round the circle again or dispatched to the vast Third World or Eastern European jumble sale.
Let us hope that the effect of economic hard times will not be to reduce the velocity of circulation of goods without bringing back the stockroom, or the effect will be that if you choose the wrong day or time to go shopping – well tough, you’ll just have to go without.
Related post
Call of the running tide
Call of the running tide
Still Ireland & the Queen
We continue to hear comment & reminiscence about the significance of the Queen’s recent visit to Ireland.
Prince William is quoted as having said in an interview with Robert Hardman for his new book Our Queen that ‘She was so excited about it & was really looking forward to it. It was quite sweet … this was like a big door opening up to her that had been locked for so long.’
And on Desert Island Discs veteran Royal photographer for The Sun, Arthur Edwards, settled on Danny Boy as his final selection, partly for intensely personal reasons but also because, he said, he had never seen the Queen so moved as by the joint performance of the song by childrens choirs from north & south of the Border.
Her Majesty’s enduring sense of Royal protocol & propriety was illustrated by another anecdote from that same Prince William interview, which told how his grandmother had made it plain that he had no choice over which uniform he should wear at The Wedding; that was dictated by his Royal role as Colonel of the Irish Guards
Prince William is quoted as having said in an interview with Robert Hardman for his new book Our Queen that ‘She was so excited about it & was really looking forward to it. It was quite sweet … this was like a big door opening up to her that had been locked for so long.’
And on Desert Island Discs veteran Royal photographer for The Sun, Arthur Edwards, settled on Danny Boy as his final selection, partly for intensely personal reasons but also because, he said, he had never seen the Queen so moved as by the joint performance of the song by childrens choirs from north & south of the Border.
Her Majesty’s enduring sense of Royal protocol & propriety was illustrated by another anecdote from that same Prince William interview, which told how his grandmother had made it plain that he had no choice over which uniform he should wear at The Wedding; that was dictated by his Royal role as Colonel of the Irish Guards
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Teenage Palaeontology
“In palaeontology there is a period known as the ‘boring billion’ during which not a lot happened”
Now there’s a sentence for you. It comes from Tom Whipple’s review of Richard Fortey’s book Survivors which is about organisms (such as cockroaches) that have mysteriously survived the eons without either evolving or becoming extinct.
Sounds a lot more restful than our age of roller coaster billions & trillions, forms of money & credit & financial instruments that appear & disappear in units of time no human can comprehend & yet have a terrifying ability to turn into monsters which destroy whole areas of life as we knew it only a few short years ago.
Mind you, I expect that there really was an awful lot going on even during those boring billions, if only we could look at them in the right way & from the proper perspective. In that respect palaeontologists are like teenagers, so wrapped up in their own concerns that the wonderful world of their parents is simply oh so b-o-r-i-n-g.
Now there’s a sentence for you. It comes from Tom Whipple’s review of Richard Fortey’s book Survivors which is about organisms (such as cockroaches) that have mysteriously survived the eons without either evolving or becoming extinct.
Sounds a lot more restful than our age of roller coaster billions & trillions, forms of money & credit & financial instruments that appear & disappear in units of time no human can comprehend & yet have a terrifying ability to turn into monsters which destroy whole areas of life as we knew it only a few short years ago.
Mind you, I expect that there really was an awful lot going on even during those boring billions, if only we could look at them in the right way & from the proper perspective. In that respect palaeontologists are like teenagers, so wrapped up in their own concerns that the wonderful world of their parents is simply oh so b-o-r-i-n-g.
Moaning about the weather
Friday’s promise was followed by a rather cruel let down on Saturday – dark skies, stiff breeze &, from mid afternoon, constant drizzle. The one & only jumper I was wearing wasn’t enough & shopping became an unlooked for disappointment as I needed to rush past any chilled cabinets ASAP.
On the bright side it is going to be easier than it has been for some years to find attractive new winter clothes: colours are far more to my taste & everybody seems to want to be more covered up – V-neck fronts, bracelet length sleeves, tops that don’t even cover your midriff, let alone kidneys - all gone in favour of longer lengths & higher necks. Bliss.
And there is a very distinct return to acrylic in place of wool. Perhaps it is just price, perhaps fashion gurus have had second thoughts about the green credentials of wool – but we are now spoilt for choice when it comes to lightweight but warm jumpers in colours which can be mixed & matched in as many layers as you need.
The Times carried an, in parts, rather odd article about the health problems which come with autumn (your hair might fall out because it grew thicker in the summer?), but I fell on the contribution from a rheumatologist who talked about all-over joint aches which may be a particular trial for Raynaud sufferers – I had not heard that before, thought it affected just hands & feet (plus ear lobes & nose tips for a few real unfortunates), & that it was just old age that made it such a relief to get home & replace clothes which now seem heavy or stiff with a soft warm dressing gown which places no burden on shoulder & other joints – that is why light weight, anything-but stiff acrylic is such a boon, one which does not need the care demanded by cashmere, mohair or angora.
What a selfish, least pain in my little finger moan about not very much – even our weather would be welcomed by those in Pakistan or Japan right now. Tokyo suffered another big disruption from a typhoon last week, as if they have not had enough this year. But there was very little space for this in the press when the world seems so terribly upside down in so many ways.
I shall however try to get more ginger in my cooking because, according to the Times rheumatologist, that may help relieve the joints.
There is probably no proper 'evidence' for this, but then 'proper' medicine is silent on both the cause & the cure for Raynauds.
On the bright side it is going to be easier than it has been for some years to find attractive new winter clothes: colours are far more to my taste & everybody seems to want to be more covered up – V-neck fronts, bracelet length sleeves, tops that don’t even cover your midriff, let alone kidneys - all gone in favour of longer lengths & higher necks. Bliss.
And there is a very distinct return to acrylic in place of wool. Perhaps it is just price, perhaps fashion gurus have had second thoughts about the green credentials of wool – but we are now spoilt for choice when it comes to lightweight but warm jumpers in colours which can be mixed & matched in as many layers as you need.
The Times carried an, in parts, rather odd article about the health problems which come with autumn (your hair might fall out because it grew thicker in the summer?), but I fell on the contribution from a rheumatologist who talked about all-over joint aches which may be a particular trial for Raynaud sufferers – I had not heard that before, thought it affected just hands & feet (plus ear lobes & nose tips for a few real unfortunates), & that it was just old age that made it such a relief to get home & replace clothes which now seem heavy or stiff with a soft warm dressing gown which places no burden on shoulder & other joints – that is why light weight, anything-but stiff acrylic is such a boon, one which does not need the care demanded by cashmere, mohair or angora.
What a selfish, least pain in my little finger moan about not very much – even our weather would be welcomed by those in Pakistan or Japan right now. Tokyo suffered another big disruption from a typhoon last week, as if they have not had enough this year. But there was very little space for this in the press when the world seems so terribly upside down in so many ways.
I shall however try to get more ginger in my cooking because, according to the Times rheumatologist, that may help relieve the joints.
There is probably no proper 'evidence' for this, but then 'proper' medicine is silent on both the cause & the cure for Raynauds.
Link
Powerful Typhoon Roke hits Japan
Kiho wave picture
Related post
Fingers crossed
Powerful Typhoon Roke hits Japan
Kiho wave picture
Related post
Fingers crossed
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