Thursday, 10 January 2019
Monday, 7 January 2019
It Could Be The South of France, The Barbican
Well, I think it looks like some French building projects, from this angle.
Thursday, 3 January 2019
Monday, 31 December 2018
That Gatwick Drone Scam In 10 Points
1. £2.9bn deal for Vinci SA to buy a 50.01% share in Gatwick airport being discussed in private
2. One dumb report about maybe a drone from clueless members of the public, none of whom have been named or even described
2a. If it had been a pilot, ground controller or some other authoritative source, we would have seen them on TV every half-hour
3. If it is a drone and an aircraft strikes it, Gatwick will be hit with CAA enquiries, insurance claims, terrible publicity if there are any dead or injured people, along with attendant civil suits, for the next five to ten years
4. And the airport will be closed for at least thirty-six hours while they clear up the mess
5. At this point the decision is a no-brainer, because no-one wants to take any risks
6. Bring on Gatwick’s PR department / agency. You know they’ve got one, right? You know that PR departments’ job is to fill the press with BS that suits their company / client?
6a. “I know,” says Rebecca (25) in PR, “let’s say it’s a drone. The public hates drones, and only creepy weirdos use them.”
6b. PR Director calls the CEO and says “We’re going to say it’s a drone.”
6c. CEO asks “Is it a drone?”
6d. PR Director says “Who cares? It’s the right story. The public hates drones, and only creepy weirdos use them.”
6e. CEO says “Okay. Sounds good to me. We cannot screw up the thing we’re talking to the guys about, until the guys sign the thing.”
7. The media are briefed by Gatwick’s PR department and does what it is supposed to do: repeat what corporate PR departments say.
8. Absolutely NOBODY in the British public believes it, because...
8a. No authoritative witness, not even “Sharon Williams, 27, Schoolteacher from Penzance, said…"
8b. No video - there’s always video. Ten seconds of a dot does not count.
8c. Absolute unanimity in the media, which only happens when they are all singing from the corporate hymn-sheet
8d. Only creepy weirdos use drones, and creepy weirdos don’t do things like fly drones over airports because they might be creepy but they aren’t dumb
8e. Everyone knows drones have to be line-of-sight to the operator unless it’s a military drone, and those are very large and not subject to vague reports
9. On Monday, the deal goes through.
10. On Tuesday the story vanishes.
Things that make you go "Mmmmmmmm"
2. One dumb report about maybe a drone from clueless members of the public, none of whom have been named or even described
2a. If it had been a pilot, ground controller or some other authoritative source, we would have seen them on TV every half-hour
3. If it is a drone and an aircraft strikes it, Gatwick will be hit with CAA enquiries, insurance claims, terrible publicity if there are any dead or injured people, along with attendant civil suits, for the next five to ten years
4. And the airport will be closed for at least thirty-six hours while they clear up the mess
5. At this point the decision is a no-brainer, because no-one wants to take any risks
6. Bring on Gatwick’s PR department / agency. You know they’ve got one, right? You know that PR departments’ job is to fill the press with BS that suits their company / client?
6a. “I know,” says Rebecca (25) in PR, “let’s say it’s a drone. The public hates drones, and only creepy weirdos use them.”
6b. PR Director calls the CEO and says “We’re going to say it’s a drone.”
6c. CEO asks “Is it a drone?”
6d. PR Director says “Who cares? It’s the right story. The public hates drones, and only creepy weirdos use them.”
6e. CEO says “Okay. Sounds good to me. We cannot screw up the thing we’re talking to the guys about, until the guys sign the thing.”
7. The media are briefed by Gatwick’s PR department and does what it is supposed to do: repeat what corporate PR departments say.
8. Absolutely NOBODY in the British public believes it, because...
8a. No authoritative witness, not even “Sharon Williams, 27, Schoolteacher from Penzance, said…"
8b. No video - there’s always video. Ten seconds of a dot does not count.
8c. Absolute unanimity in the media, which only happens when they are all singing from the corporate hymn-sheet
8d. Only creepy weirdos use drones, and creepy weirdos don’t do things like fly drones over airports because they might be creepy but they aren’t dumb
8e. Everyone knows drones have to be line-of-sight to the operator unless it’s a military drone, and those are very large and not subject to vague reports
9. On Monday, the deal goes through.
10. On Tuesday the story vanishes.
Things that make you go "Mmmmmmmm"
Thursday, 27 December 2018
Monday, 24 December 2018
Thursday, 20 December 2018
November 2018 Review
Am I the only person who leaves it way too long between changes of guitar strings? I had to clean the fretboard and bits of the soundboard with a slightly damp scouring pad applied gently, which is far more than you really wanted to know. And spray furniture polish over the whole neglected instrument. So I now have nice new bronze wound light-guage strings on my guitar.
I read Julia Blackburn’s Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske, Ben Judah’s This is London: Life and Death in the World City, Hamilton Gregory’s McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War; Richard Taruskin’s Music in the Late Twentieth-Century; Anonymous’ The Secret Teacher; and Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden.
I saw Red Lights, 10,000km, The Wanderers, Season of the Witch, and The Apparition on MUBI; and I, Anna, and A Pigeon Sat on a Tree Reflecting About Existence, on Curzon Home Cinema; and Tout va Bien, Revenge, Taken, Taken 2 and Taken 3 on DVD. Those Takens are well-made ninety-minute action movies.
Sis and I had supper at Picture on Great Portland Street. We like the other Picture, but we like sitting at the bar in Great Portland Street more.
And the slump went on. How do I know I'm having a slump? I watch way, way too much You Tube. I feel tired and start to lose enthusiasm for the gym. These days I feel like I put a lot of effort into sleeping, especially into dreams with incredible levels of detail.
The trick with slumps is not to try to explain them with some pop-psychology cliche so worn out it gets used the script for a Channel Four movie. No, it’s not the weather. Nor is it the ‘andropause’, or a reaction to a friend dying. Any of those things might have triggered it, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is getting out of the slump. Slumps aren’t exited by the entrance, but by the exit. That came in December, when I used the lack of hot water at the gym for a week to give myself a decent rest.
There is also the fact that it’s one thing to wake up, drag yourself off to work and wish you didn’t have to do it; and another to wake up, drag yourself off to work, and know that you can stop doing it in about fifteen months, if you want to. The cure for that is to enjoy the days that one has to drag oneself off to. It’s also to remind yourself that only people with a long and ambitious to-do / project list get the feeling they are slipping. Everyone else goes home and watches the match.
I read Julia Blackburn’s Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske, Ben Judah’s This is London: Life and Death in the World City, Hamilton Gregory’s McNamara’s Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War; Richard Taruskin’s Music in the Late Twentieth-Century; Anonymous’ The Secret Teacher; and Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden.
I saw Red Lights, 10,000km, The Wanderers, Season of the Witch, and The Apparition on MUBI; and I, Anna, and A Pigeon Sat on a Tree Reflecting About Existence, on Curzon Home Cinema; and Tout va Bien, Revenge, Taken, Taken 2 and Taken 3 on DVD. Those Takens are well-made ninety-minute action movies.
Sis and I had supper at Picture on Great Portland Street. We like the other Picture, but we like sitting at the bar in Great Portland Street more.
And the slump went on. How do I know I'm having a slump? I watch way, way too much You Tube. I feel tired and start to lose enthusiasm for the gym. These days I feel like I put a lot of effort into sleeping, especially into dreams with incredible levels of detail.
The trick with slumps is not to try to explain them with some pop-psychology cliche so worn out it gets used the script for a Channel Four movie. No, it’s not the weather. Nor is it the ‘andropause’, or a reaction to a friend dying. Any of those things might have triggered it, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is getting out of the slump. Slumps aren’t exited by the entrance, but by the exit. That came in December, when I used the lack of hot water at the gym for a week to give myself a decent rest.
There is also the fact that it’s one thing to wake up, drag yourself off to work and wish you didn’t have to do it; and another to wake up, drag yourself off to work, and know that you can stop doing it in about fifteen months, if you want to. The cure for that is to enjoy the days that one has to drag oneself off to. It’s also to remind yourself that only people with a long and ambitious to-do / project list get the feeling they are slipping. Everyone else goes home and watches the match.
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