Smaller government

The Daily Telegraph, I'm pretty sure, believes in smaller government, but I don't think this is the way to go about it.

Their headline yesterday reduced the word to goverment. Presumably if Michael Gove becomes the next prime minister they can reduce this to Govement, then on from there...

Is lifehacker all there is?

I didn't understand the fuss about the recent Google Reader revamp. I had never really used, or even understood, the features that they did away with. But I am disappointed to see the decline of another feature I did enjoy - "Show me my recommendations".

This used to give lots of interesting blogposts from around the world. There were always interesting articles in there, articles that you wouldn't have found any other way. At least I wouldn't. I would never have known about the amusing Amazon reviews of the Bible, or how to crack the credit card code. But no more. Now all you get are articles from Lifehacker, and some tech stuff - nothing from the random world of the blogosphere.

Maybe its demise is the result of the other changes they made to Google Reader. I don't know. Either way it's a shame.

Jean

Jean, why do you dream of those pointless petty crimes
It's your love not mine
It's your love not mine

Jean, won't you tell me, what were the drugs for?
I didn't feel a thing
Did you feel anything?

and oh, those blissful sunny afternoons
when we forgot what time was
do you know what it was

Jean, what was the point of spending money on everything
Don't you know it's all gone
Did you leave when it was gone

and oh, want you write to me soon
tell me what you want to do
tell me what it meant to you

Jean, won't you tell me, what were the drugs for?
I didn't feel a thing
Did you feel anything?

Cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon

I was walking down St Giles in Oxford with Paul Sutton and I don't remember who else. We met a poet, or at least someone selling poetry, or at least someone selling a book of words. And Paul bought a book, as you do, and I don't remember the poems, or the words, except for one last line, which was "Cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon". And we spent a long time making fun of it. But I still think of it, and it still makes me smile, so maybe it was poetry after all.

Lotherton Hall Change of Use

Less than ten years ago, you could get a year-long parking ticket at Lotherton Hall for less than £10. Under new proposals, from this October, that price (for a family) will have risen to £45.

In some respects I am not comparing like-with-like. The previous price was for parking and entry to the grounds (but not the house). The new price will include entry to the house. Still, it's a dramatic rise. If the house that we were living in at the time had increased in value at the same rate, we could have bought our new house mortgage-free; twice, which would have been nice.

Run by Leeds City Council, it was clear Lotherton Hall was underpriced, given the facilities that are available. There is a children's play area, a bird garden, deer park, extensive gardens, and a woodland walk. In winter they organised craft events where you could make your own Christmas decorations (particularly willow wreaths) for a donation. It was excellent.

Now, however, I think its use will change, and I think that's a shame. When you visited Lotherton Hall in summer it was crammed with families escaping Leeds for a little bit of countryside. Kids played football while parents sat around barbecues. There was a tacky fair where you could play hook-a-duck and buy an ice cream.

I don't want to romanticise this too much - perhaps it's the barbecue smoke getting in my eyes - but it was a great space for ordinary people to spend an afternoon.

Oh there's nothing as gay as a day in the country, under the wonderful skies.
For a city bred feller, field full of yeller, is quite a delightful surprise.

Well, perhaps not, but it seems inevitable now that this will change. The plans intend to take Lotherton Hall upmarket, "enhance the visitor experience". But really, haven't we got enough enhanced visitor experiences already? Is that what people living in the concrete-infested depths of Leeds really want?

Lotherton Hall isn't Harewood House or Bramham Park, but these new prices are taking it into that territory. Lotherton Hall is a nice bit of green space where you can run around to your heart's content without feeling that you must get the most out of the visitor experience.

If we visit again, I expect the mix will have changed to Boden families and older people in hats and coats. Which is a shame, because they have plenty of places to go already.

John Peel - Purveyor of Rock

On Amazon last night I was excited to notice a link to John Peel's Festive Fifty

It's 6 years since legendary DJ and radio presenter John Peel passed away, and to commemorate this we have a fantastic selection of albums that formed part of his Festive Fifty selection at bargain prices. No matter what your taste in music, there's bound to be something you'll enjoy.

It sounded promising.

No matter what your taste in music, there's bound to be something you'll enjoy.

And with 487 albums to choose from, they must be right. So let's take the first, festive fifty albums from this list. I've then listed the artists in order, with extra points if they have more than one album on the list.

1. Bob Dylan (8)
2. Bruce Springsteen (6)
3. Dire Straits (4)
4. Elbow (3)
5. Nick Drake (3)
6. Nirvana (3)
7. Manic Street Preachers (3)
8. The Rolling Stones (2)
9. Tears For Fears (2)
10. Cure
11. The Who
12. Van Morrison
13. Elvis Costello
14. Thin Lizzy
15. The Clash
16. The Jam
17. The Stone Roses
18. James Taylor
19. Lynyrd Skynyrd
20. Rod Stewart
21. Del Amitri
22. U2
23. Pulp
24. Jimi Hendrix
25. PJ Harvey

Hang on a minute. Is this really representative of Peel's Festive Fifty? Dylan certainly crops up in the early years, but Bruce Springsteen and Dire Straits? If you check the most complete listing I've found, then, yes, both bands appear once, in 1978 - Bruce Springsteen with Born to Run and Dire Straits with Sultans of Swing. So does that deserve six Springsteen albums in the first 50? I well remember John Peel saying that, while he respected Andy Kershaw's appreciation of Springsteen, he didn't quite share it himself.

Of course the Festive Fifty never really reflected the music the old curmudgeon liked anyway. He would rail against the fact that it consisted of "white boys playing guitars" and lamented the lack of black music. This list takes it even further in that direction, though, pushing radio friendly unit shifters. A collation of entries in the Festive Fifty gives this chart of the most popular artists (here's the top 25):

1 Fall 2131
2 Wedding Present 1393
3 Smiths 1035
4 New Order 760
5 P.J. Harvey 494
6 Cocteau Twins 469
7 Pulp 430
8 Jesus and Mary Chain 415
9 Cinerama 400
10 Half Man Half Biscuit 370
11 Joy Division 345
12 Belle and Sebastian 315
= Delgados 315
14 Pixies 303
15 Hefner 301
16 Sonic Youth 298
17 Clash 283
18 Mogwai 277
19 Siouxsie and the Banshees 273
20 Billy Bragg 271
21 Pavement 250
22 Morrissey 237
23 Stereolab 226
24 Undertones 206
25 Echo & the Bunnymen 205

There are only three names in common in the two lists (PJ Harvey, The Clash and Pulp woo hoo!). In the entire 487 albums on the Amazon list there are none from:

1. New Order
2. Jesus and Mary Chain
3. Half Man Half Biscuit
4. Joy Division
5. Belle and Sebastian
6. Delgado
7. Pixies
8. Hefner
9. Mogwai
10. Siouxsie and the Banshees
11. Billy Bragg
12. Pavement
13. Undertones
14. Echo & the Bunnymen

The Undertones! So, a poor effort, but does it matter? I think it does. It is perhaps only a pale sign, but I think it shows how far we have come. It is not that the different has been incorporated into mainstream culture, it is simply being ignored. The music that I loved is being forgotten, and with it the footprints that I left in the sand are disappearing.

That's why she's the way she is

Ugly men secrete themselves in seats too thin
Begin the paperwork that brings more sin
Upon a thankless world that asked for nothing from them
Maybe love.

She tucks a wisp of hair away
Casts a nervous look my way
Are you another one who's made me feel this way?

I had a dream last night
A fearful examination and I hadn't done the reading as required
I know too much (about nothing)
And I'm sorry (very sorry) I've been wasting my time.

Such a beautiful thing but look again and you see
The flaws you find in everyone
(Is that a good thing?)
The flaws you find in everyone.

So she made you feel alive
And she kept you alive
And now you wonder
What on earth are you living for?

The ugly men who entertain you (now and then)
What on earth are you living for?

Grow old, look back, try not to fall forever
Remember when the grass was green (again)
You stand barefoot on the bridge and feel the water call you
Smooth and glassy, flowing forever.

Should she claim you do you go on after this?
Should she claim you we'll be forever like this.

Sam is not my name

And you want to be like I do
But you know I'm not the same
And I want to know what you do
Sam is not my name

When you wake up and turn over
Just remember why I came
I cannot talk about anything
I cannot remember my name

Her skin the colour of porcelain
Her eyes are bright with flame
I can't remember anything
I can't remember my name

I'm older now than I ever was
I'll never see these streets again
When she walks away it's my memory
Kisses goodbye again

Woodgate Valley Country Park is underwater, says Google

I found this on Google maps. Sad to see that Birmingham has been sent to the bottom of the sea. I suppose it was inevitable with the expansion of the oceans. My guess is that the farm animals are actually now all fish. Good for them.

If you want to know what it feels like to be God

No, not the feeling of being all-powerful, but the feeling of being weighed down by humanity. The Church of England has a site called Say One For Me, where you can post your prayers. You can also read the prayers of other people. Some seem a bit insignificant

Please pray for the work of the media hub as we work to use the local media in Bradford as part of the outreach of the church. Thank you.

On the day I looked there were some from a classroom of children, many of whom seem to have been told to apologise for what we're doing to the planet

Thank you for the beautiful flowers we have in spring.
Thank you for the lovely planet you made .
Sorry for crulty to children and sorry for those who have less than me.
Please keep my dog happy in heven .
And please keep my fammly safe.

But the vast majority are from people having the most awful time, with illness usually. If there is a God, it must be a depressing job. You might be tempted to have second thoughts about free will. But I suppose, since you are a God, you'll be made of slightly sterner stuff.

Job opportunity

I quite like getting phishing messages, and I'm disappointed I don't get more. Sadly there seems to have been a lull in the number of wives of African dictators who have to smuggle unfeasible quantities of cash out of the country.

This latest one prompted me to think that there must be an opening for someone with good editing and proofreading skills in the international gangs that run these operations.

Dear Customer,

As part of our security measure, we regularly screen activity in the HSBC Bank system. You received this message due to an issue on your account.

Due to unusual number of invalid login attempts on your account, we have reason to believe there might be security breach on your account. Your account requires extra verification process to ensure your identity and your account security.

It's not too bad, but not writing "an unusual number" starts to give the game away. You'd think, with the amount of money they apparently make, that they could spare some for spending on editing. It seems a shame to let your scam fail because you haven't spelled things properly (although there are many legitimate UK companies that adopt the same approach, of course).

Life in the gang might not be so bad, but I don't think it would suit a total grammar pedant.

Boss: "We're gonna make a million now we got the words done right."

Pedant: "Don't you mean 'written properly'?"

A Colt revolver clicks...

Activity Agreement Strategy Committee

The other day I stood next to a man who was going to this meeting. I've been pondering it ever since and I still can't work out what they would be discussing there.

This is the only place on the internet that this phrase is currently used (at least until their minutes go up, I suppose). I am so proud.

The evolution of religion

An interesting article by Pascal Boyer in Nature, on the evolution of religion. Or, perhaps more accurately, the evolution of religious sensibility.

The author writes that many aspects of human behaviour leave us predisposed to religious belief. It is easier for us to believe in religion than not to believe. Atheists, it seems, have a harder time of it.

My favourite bit is where he says that

Religious concepts and activities hijack our cognitive resources, as do music, visual art, cuisine, politics, economic institutions and fashion.

I'm not sure "hijack" is quite the word I would have chosen, particularly if it's fundamentalist religion that's doing the hijacking. But it did occur to me that Keats would have enjoyed the sentiment.

O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!

So did this facility provide some kind of competitive advantage?

Perhaps one day we will find compelling evidence that a capacity for religious thoughts, rather than 'religion' in the modern form of socio-political institutions, contributed to fitness in ancestral times. For the time being, the data support a more modest conclusion: religious thoughts seem to be an emergent property of our standard cognitive capacities.

Mildly amusing names for presenters: An occasional series

Date: Wednesday 18th March 2009

Title: Health of UK Military Personnel

Presenter: Dr Nicola Fear, Academic Centre for Defence Mental Health, King's College, London

Excellent job opportunity

These may be straitened times, but the salary of £1 per annum still seems a little mean. Oh, but there's a "+ negotiable". My guess is that you need to be a good negotiator in this role, or it's not going to be the job for you.

New Pepsi logo

There's something about the way that design is commissioned that sets free idiocy. Up in the stratosphere of the corporate world, it's not possible for a designer to say, "I've thought about it for a bit, and I think this looks nice." You increasingly have to justify your jottings with philosophical ramblings. And, I suppose, for the corporate executive, it's also nice to believe that your career has more meaning than selling shampoo or fizzy drinks.

Which is how things like this happen. Pepsi's new logo, explained in this document. Now where's my copy of the Emperor's New Clothes?

http://bunnitude.com/misc/files/pepsi_gravitational_field.pdf

And here's what they were really thinking about

http://www.suckatlife.com/pepsiLogoBlowatlife.html

Lost in translation

Sites that pick up press releases and publish them without a second thought are common. Well, here's a site that's tried something different - rewriting the press release. Presumably the budget for the business is pretty low, so rather than employ writers, they must be using a programme that replaces words with their synonyms. I'm not sure that they care whether or not the result is readable, but rather that there's some content there that can be found on the internet. Because if somebody, somewhere clicks on your site it will make money, one day, eventually, maybe.

I think this idea deserves to succeed, because the result is bizarre. Read the thing in isolation and it's gibberish, but find the original and you can see the strange beauty of the translation. My favourite bits are

"Queen Mary University" = "Queen Jewess University"

"principal investigator" = "capital policeman"

"heart attacks and early death" = "hunch attacks and primeval death"

"new blood tests" = "newborn murder tests" and

"pilot study" = "airman think"

Rewritten - http://www.medicalnewsbase.com/medical-research-news/major-research-effort-to-improve-quality-of-care-for-heart-patients/

Original - http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2009/6125.html

One day, all press releases will be written this way...

On bullet points

In late 1942, there were signs that the Second World War was starting to turn. However, the sheer size and scale of co-ordinating the activities of the war machine was creating strain. Churchill felt many times that, at major strategy meetings, the key messages were being lost and ignored.

He mentioned this to one of his oldest friends, Arthur Murchison, as an aside in a letter in November that year. "I fear that, for the lack of adequate communication of what we must achieve, our achievements will be delayed," he wrote. Murchison, at that time an academic in the medieval history department at Cambridge University, took the matter to heart. He remembered the long lists of tallies he had studied for his doctorate. These were then summarised with further tallies. Surely this was the answer.

Over several weeks he came to develop the idea of the bullet point, an idea he presented to Churchill in early 1943. His detailed paper explains the difference between the list as rhetoric, as a numbered list (which encourages prioritisation) and the bulleted list, which presents key ideas "democratically". He famously showed this by using Churchill's "fight them on the beaches" speech. As Murchison points out, the existing speech is a fine example of rhetoric. But it could have been presented as the order in which the country should have been defended:

We shall fight

1. on the beaches
2. on the landing grounds
3. in the fields and in the streets
4. in the hills
5. never surrender

Or, as a bulleted list, which is not prioritised

We shall fight

• on the beaches
• on the landing grounds
• in the fields and in the streets
• in the hills
• never surrender

Churchill was thrilled, and the bullet point was quickly taken up by Allied commanders and strategists. He later claimed its invention had shortened the war by six months. After the war its use spread more widely. However, because of wartime secrecy, Arthur Murchison's link to the invention was lost, and was only redicovered several years ago.

Today, his only memorial is his gravestone, to be found in the picturesque churchyard of Histon, near Cambridge. The inscription reads

Here lies Arthur Murchison, medieval historian:

• Born 12 March 1900
• Died 24 April 1970
• Inventor of the bulletpoint

I'm a chocoholic, only with alcohol

I tried to look the world in the eye
Lift it up and ask it why
Do we take the strain
Of the nerveless pain
And I sighed
It might have been a dozen times
And maybe once or twice I cried
To see everything in the state it's in

And I wonder
Is there anything to save
Mystery, wonder and shame
Shelter in another name
They won't play my game
So I'm taking this song to my grave

Did I forget what I was
Trying to do something wonderful and something true
Turned out it was nothing new
Just opinions and some wittering
But I stayed
Was that the day my flight was delayed
Or maybe the day that I ran away

But I find
Something missing from my mind
Something in the way I behave
Made me settle into the state I'm in
And I'll never be the one upon the stage
The one who's all the rage
You can see the stain of the morning rain
I'm taking this song to my grave

Do you think it might be something bad?
The pains I find I always have
The spasm, the ache and the strain
The friends I thought I'd never have
Will it be sudden or will it be slow
I pray to God I never know
I don't suppose he'd tell me so
As he makes a day's news with nothing to lose

And she's there saying it will be OK
Well she's the one finding the way
The beautiful and the true
I won't let them happen to you

It seems there's nothing left to save
Just loneliness stilted by shame
I'm sorry I've forgotten your name
Or the reason I came
But I'm taking this song to my grave