Three Ways of Going From Bond Street to Liverpool Street

This from Jago Hazzard...

   

Because, you know, Jago Hazzard.

The Guitar As Precision Instrument

This from Dylan Talks Tone...

   

It's as geeky as can be got. But listen carefully as he tells you he is making adjustments of 1 or 2 thousandths of an inch to get the guitar set up so it sounds right. And you didn't think a guitar was a precision instrument. But it is.

Catch-up - Scott Eilers on High-Funcitoning Depression

Well, here I am on Christmas Eve, listening to an old Miles Davis recording via Qobuz, with four blog entries to catch up on. I have been doing constructive things with the Helix and the Katana, but I've learned not to write about that too quickly, lest I start up the next day and think "WTF how is that a good tone". And I've been jotting away on various subjects, but nothing that's fit to print at the moment.

So...

This from Scott Eilers...



Hey, it's December, it's cold, it's grey, I'm 70, and we have possibly the most incompetent Government since the last one which was that bad. At least Rishi wanted out of the Lockdowns, whereas Starmer would still have us locked down now if he could.

Mid-Morning November Fog in Richmond Park

This new lens is working out really well, as is the change of film simulation. But nothing beats some fog to smooth out the light and make mundane views look magical.

Understanding Kier Starmer

Kier Starmer is not as other politicians. He is a trial lawyer - he was Director of Public Prosecutions for a while, and that's one of the more thankless jobs in the country. Now many other politicians have law degrees, but they are not trial lawyers: they are politicians with law degrees. Kier Starmer is a trial lawyer who somehow found himself in one of the top ten jobs in world politics.

Most professions, and even many vocational degrees, teach a way of thinking, and of approaching and treating the problems of the profession, as well as the specific technical knowledge and skills of the trade. Trial lawyers are trained to focus on the facts of the case: anything else is irrelevant, and will have their learned friend jumping up to object, if not the judge telling them off. Trial lawyers cannot look at "wider contexts" and "wider consequences": these things are for other people to think about. A human rights lawyer makes specious pleas to the Human Rights Act to keep their client in the UK, and if the client goes on to bomb a bus, that is nothing to the defence lawyer. Trial lawyers are not in the truth-and-consequences business, they are in the get-the-result business, or more often the go-through-the-motions-and-get-the-fees business. And their professional ethics condones this - lawyering would not work otherwise.

Politicians don't work like that. They are in the wider-contexts and wider-consequences business: it's their job (or it used to be) to think about how a decision or a policy will be received, how it will interact with other policies, whether the money can be raised or the cost foisted off on local councils or other people. The better ones are in the goals-and-visions business: what do we want the country to look like? how do we want the world to perceive us?

The ability to think about contexts, consequences, policy reception, interactions, let alone to produce a vision of what kind of country Britain could be, and a path towards that... that ability has been trained out of Kier Starmer.

But here's the real downside about trial lawyers: they live and die within the institutions of the law, and with the whims of judges. Judges, legal institutions and processes cannot be questioned, or the very fabric of the Universe will rend. Starmer is emotionally incapable of contradicting a judge's verdict, which leaves this Government wide open to lawfare, and he is incapable of ignoring the judgements of a trans-national legal institution, which means he will follow the ECHR, the ICC, and any other court the UK has signed up to.

Take a look at his career, and it's clear that he was a young man in a hurry who made the right impressions on the right people at the right time. I have no doubt that within his subject he's smart and capable.

But his subject is human rights law. Whereas it needs to be politics and direction.

And he's going to be Prime Minister until 2034.

God help us.

Highgate Road with Lens Flare

When the light is bright and the air is clear, almost anything is photogenic. 

Well, maybe not the entrance to Archway station. Some things can't be made to look pretty.

I took this in the approved style, by holding the camera at arm's length with one hand, framing in the viewer. Came out nice.

Hampstead Heath North Side

Until the other day I had never walked on the part of Hampstead Heath that is across Spaniards Lane from the main part of the Heath. Neither are really '"heaths", more like "untended forests" with paths that can turn I've-just-got-a-load-of-mud-on-my-shoes within a couple of steps. The sky was brilliant blue, the sun was brilliant yellow, and it was b****y cold.

I have joined the band of proper grown-up camera-owners, by trading in the 35mm lens I originally bought for the hard-to-obtain 27mm pancake lens that makes the X-E4 almost a pocket camera. It's 40mm-equivalent, which gives just a slightly wider field of view than the 35mm (53mm equivalent) but does not go all fish-eye.