Off My Chest

How our current voting system works

2011-04-28T19:32:00.002+01:00

The Lord's Table

2011-02-24T19:10:00.001Z

The season of Lent, the traditional time of Christian fasting is approaching, and you may be considering what you will do to mark this time of year. Perhaps you plan to give up a luxury that you normally enjoy, such as chocolate or coffee. Those of us who are overweight due to overeating may be considering a more serious diet to help us tackle our health issues. I have often used Lent as a time to bring my own body weight back to a more acceptable level after the excesses of the winter feasting season. Recently I have seen this approach to fasting as being somewhat flawed; if I deny myself in order to improve my health and my looks then I am doing it for myself and not as a sacrifice to God. I have already received my reward, as Jesus says in Matthew chapter 6 . Should not true fasting require a sacrifice from which we do not derive a direct benefit? But then how can an overweight person fast and not receive the direct benefit of losing weight?

One answer to this question is provided by a course called The Lord’s Table , (which I would really recommend as a Lenten discipline). The course, run by a non-denominational Christian ministry called Setting Captives Free , calls itself a “biblically based weight-loss programme”. Setting Captives Free work with people who suffer from addictive behaviours, such as substance abuse, self harm and eating disorders. Their objective is to bring Jesus into people’s lives and allow Him to heal them and set them free. “He has sent me to tell the captives they are free” said Jesus in Luke 4:18 . So being set free from captivity to addiction or overeating is a way of drawing closer to Jesus – the very point of Lent.

The Lord’s Table course is formed of a series 60 daily online bible study sessions backed up with an eating plan. I started the course in the New Year, and by coincidence I will be taking the final lesson on Ash Wednesday, just in time for Lent. The content of the teaching is perhaps a bit predictable and I was ready to dismiss it after the first couple of days; but wishing to give it a reasonable go, I persevered and found that it did contain more depth than my first impression. The general outline of the teaching is as follows:
1.    Accept that your eating habits are sinful
2.    Accept that your sin has made you a slave and a captive
3.    Accept that you are powerless to change this without the help of Jesus Christ, but that with His help, anything is possible.
4.    Understand the true meaning of repentance in that it involves turning away from sin and turning to Christ
5.    Discover how to “feast at the Lord’s table” instead of indulging in sinful eating.
6.    Continue to study the Word of God daily and follow more healthy eating habits until this becomes part of your life.

The study plan
The study course consists of reading a few verses of scripture each day, which are accompanied by a commentary and some questions. You answer the questions by typing into a web form, and submit your answers to Setting Captives Free via the internet. They will assign a mentor who will read your responses, send you encouragement and pray for you. The questions are sometimes straightforward multiple choice, and sometimes more open, asking for your opinions or your reflections on a passage of scripture. The teaching is very much protestant evangelical, with much emphasis on salvation by grace through faith and a very literal view of scripture . They do, in spite of this, also work with biblical texts on a highly metaphorical level which I find quite fascinating, and there are occasional references to non-biblical texts, such as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim's Progress and Mathew Henry’s commentaries .

The eating plan
At first glance, the eating plan seems quite radical and extremely challenging. When I first looked at it I dismissed it and tried to follow the bible studies without modifying my eating. It only took a week to realise that I was hoping for a miracle if I wanted to lose weight without cutting back my eating. Of course miracles are possible with God, but reducing your food intake is perhaps a way to help Him perform this particular change.

{mosimage}The good news is that the plan allows you to eat anything you want. Sugar, carbohydrates, fat – nothing is forbidden. You even get two days each week on which you can eat “normally”. The challenge comes with the rest of the week: two days you are instructed to eat only half portions at all your meals and two days each week you can have only one solid meal, but are allowed to drink as much as you want of any drinks. On the final day each week you are to fast completely, drinking only water and eating nothing. The fasting sounds the hardest part, but I have found the fast days to be the best days. You cannot get through a fast day without reference to God – praying for strength to continue the fast and not to cave in. (This eating plan comes with a warning that you should check with your doctor before you commit to it; but if you have no health issues then they assert that there is no reason why you should not choose to follow the plan.)

Once I started to take the eating seriously, the whole course made a lot more sense. At the time of writing I have been following the plan for nearly 5 weeks and God has blessed me with a weight reduction which takes me half way to my target weight. I have also found that the impulse to eat when I’m bored, stressed or watching television has completely gone. I’m also starting to get back to some regular exercise and feel a little more alert and alive.

Now I can see the answer to the question I posed at the start of this article. How can we benefit directly from a sacrifice we make to God? The answer is that if the sacrifice is to give your life to God, and not just give up your food for a short period, then God will return your sacrifice to you as a blessing (see Genesis 22:15-18 for example). In this instance, if you are a captive to sinful eating habits then God will set you free from captivity and bless you with a healthier, more attractive body. The same principle can apply to any sacrifice made in Jesus’ name.

If anyone is interested in following the Lord’s Table course during Lent or at any other time, please get in touch. I’ll be only too willing to discuss it with you and to encourage you right through the course. You will find it much easier if you have someone to share your thoughts with during these 60 days.

Green Street Cottage, Cam Green, Dursley, Gloucestershire

2010-10-16T17:20:00.001+01:00

That’s the address of the house where I grew up. In fact I was born there, at home in 1963 and lived in that house until I left home to go to university. After I graduated I got a job elsewhere in the country and never went back.

My parents bought the house the year I was born and sold it in 1988 (at a 15,000% profit, but let’s not dwell on that!). This year, almost 30 years after I last lived there, I was in the area and went to see if the house is still there. It is, and the family who own it now were kind enough to invite me in and show me round. A lot has changed from how I remember it and they asked if I had any photos of how it used to be. I didn't think that I had, but when I sifted through my teenage photography projects I found two interesting albums. One is from February 1982, when there was heavy snow in Gloucestershire, and the road was completely blocked. The pictures are not that good as they were black and white developed by me and a couple of mates who didn’t have a lot of experience. I’ve only got the negatives so I got a negative scanner and copied them. The other is, I think, summer of 1983 when I was home for my first long university holidays. These were mostly shot on colour slides and scanned with the same scanner. I've also included some older b/w pictures in that album which may date back to 1981. Follow these links to my albums:

Summer 1983 (and others)

February Snow 1982

Bridgestone Surface Cracks

2010-10-08T22:07:00.002+01:00

Does this look right to you?

This is the front tyre on my Honda ST1100AY - that's the ABS version from 2000. The bike had Bridgestone Battlax BT020 tyres on it when I bought it and I've kept to those tyres. It must be on the 4th pair since I've owned the bike. They do the job - a bit twitchy on white lines in the wet, but what isn't? I got a bit of weave when I was riding too fast in the snow last winter, but I won't blame the tyres for that! Except for the first pair, I've bought the tyres from Essential Rubber as they're cheap and they seem to know what they're talking about. They get lots of recommendations on London Biker forums, and they've been recommended by several of my colleagues who ride to work too.

But when the front tyre developed these cracks, I thought there must be something wrong.

It's only on one side of the tyre, but every single grove has a crack at the bottom of it.

So I took it back to Essential Rubber, and they had a look at it and said "Oh, Bridgestone surface cracks". That's all it is. Just surface cracks. Won't get any worse they tell me. Nothing to worry about.
I've had the tyre 10 months, and it's covered about 17,000 km, so it still owes me another 4-5,000 before I need a new one. That'll be a few more weeks. So if you see a white ST1100 chucked up the M11 one morning between now and the middle of November, you'll know never to trust when they tell you in the tyre shop - or Bridgestone tyres either.

Metpost Repair Stud

2010-09-11T22:13:00.032+01:00

About 7 or 8 years ago I had a garden fence replaced. Being short on cash, I had wooden posts set in concrete straight in the wet, wet ground. Great for 7 or 8 years, but now they’ve rotted off, and one of them has broken off at ground level.

So how do you fix this? Options include digging out the rotten stump and putting a new post in the concrete socket; digging out the concrete and doing the job again (with concrete posts this time!), or using a metal repair stud. I bought one from Metpost for a few quid. You also need something to put down inside that you can hit hard, but that’s the right size to not get stuck – Metpost can sell you one of those too – the black thing with a bit of metal round the top.

I was sceptical at first, and as I couldn’t find much on the internet about these studs I thought perhaps this might help someone.

First job is to detach the fence panels. This is probably the trickiest part.

The post was completely rotted off at ground level.

Slip the repair stud in amongst the rotten wood that’s left in the ground

Give it a good smack with a big lump hammer until it won’t go in any further. I was surprised how easily it went in – the metal is actually wider than the wood, and therefore shouldn’t fit in the concrete socket; but it went home easily.

Then the post goes back in the new socket

Give it a few taps to seat it.

And re-attach the fence panels.

Job done in less than an hour. Those panels are going to need replacing too in a couple of years, but with those sheds and greenhouses on the other side there’s no risk of the neighbour’s dog getting through, so no great urgency for that one.

If you’ve got the same problem – good luck. And if you’re putting up a new fence; do yourself a favour and use concrete posts.

Grohe Dump Valve - Epilogue

2010-06-08T21:59:00.003+01:00

It's been a couple of years now and that cistern has been gradually leaking more and more. Eventually I took it apart to check for any more of those bubbles in the washers. And sure enough there were no less than three new bubbles. I pricked each one and squeezed out the water, but this time it didn't help. In fact it leaked even more than before.

What to do at times like this? Turn to Google! And it didn't take long to find that the replacement part is called a GROHE 43544 DISCHARGE PISTON and is available from Showers and Bathrooms Direct for the princely sum of £3.58. That would be cheap were it not for the exorbitant postage charge, but it still cost only about £10 delivered.So I took off the old one; put on the new; perfect seal first time. £10 every 5 years - why not just use a syphon like they used to in the olden days?

Clear Blue Sky

2010-04-17T16:07:00.003+01:00

Living in Bishop's Stortford, right next to Stansted Airport, it's rare to see a fully clear blue sky. In fact it never happens. There are always vapour trails from the jets streaked across the sky.

But today the airport has been closed for the third day due to the volcanic dust from Iceland, and there is not a cloud in the sky. It's a beautiful spring day, and for a change there is no noise from the aircraft and no evidence of their existence. Just blue sky as far as the eye can see. I took some photos, as it's probably the only time this will happen in my lifetime. So enjoy it while it lasts. Scheduled to open again at 01:00 tomorrow morning, and they'll more than likely allow night flying so we'll have no more peace after we go to bed tonight.

North West - clear blue sky.

Facing North. Clear blue sky.

This is towards the west. There would normally be a mess of vapour trails in this part of the sky.

Facing East right across the flight-path.

This view of to the South East would normally have a plane it it at any time except very early morning or after dark. Today, just one bird!

Cam Peak

2010-04-10T20:52:00.004+01:00

Where I grew up, in Gloucestershire, there was a peaked hill which was known locally as "Cam Peak". I used to go sledging there when it snowed. It's just outside the town of Dursley, and there was a great story about it, which I will now ruin by writing it down:

The people of Dursley were a good people, and the Devil could not stand them. He decided to get rid of them by dumping a wheelbarrow load of clay and sand on the town. He was not very clear where Dursley was, so he wandered around Gloucestershire looking for it. That day, there was a cobbler travelling from Dursley to his workshop in Coaley, carrying a sack full of worn out shoes he was going to repair. He happened to meet the Devil at Ashmead, just outside Dursley. The Devil asked the cobbler if he know where Dursley was as he was going there to tip this wheelbarrow load of rubbish on the town. The cobbler, sensing a threat to his livelihood, had to think of a way to stop this. "Yes" he said; "I've just come from Dursley". "How far is it?", asked the Devil. "Well", said the cobbler, "you see this sack of shoes? I have worn them all out on my way. That's how far it is." Enraged at the fact he was so far from his goal, the Devil dumped the wheelbarrow load of clay and sand where he stood. To this day, Cam Peak stands there, overlooking the town of Dursley.

Loony Measurement System

2009-07-04T22:29:00.003+01:00

I was recently reading the manifesto of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, and I started to wonder: if a spoof political party had a policy on units of measure, what would it be? Perhaps it would look something like this:

We propose to introduce into Britain a measurement system which is different from that used in any other country in the world. It would be similar to the system used in the United States of America, but not quite the same. It would be defined in terms of the metric system, but would not define its units in any convenient whole numbers of metric units, making it dependent upon, but entirely incompatible with the standard international system of weights and measures.

There would be four different units to measure length. The smallest, a “chin”, would be exactly 25.4 mm. Then there would be toof which would be 12 chins, or 304.8 mm; then a dray which would be 36 chins or 914.4 mm and finally a lime which would be 63,360 chins, or 1609.344 m.

For weight there would be six different units. Starting with the nouce, which would weigh 28.349523125 g. Then a pnoud would weigh 16 nouces or 0.45359237 kg; a snote would weigh 224 nouces or 6.35029318 kg; a ctw would be 4,480 nouces or 50.80234544 kg; and a not would weigh 53,760 nouces or 1,016.0469088 kg.

Volume would have three different units which would not be based on the length unit, but one of which would be loosely based on the density of water. The units would be the fluid nouce, equal to 28.4130625 ml, or approximately the volume of 1 nouce of water. Then a tinp would be 20 fluid nouces or 568.26125 ml, and a laglon would be 160 fluid nouces or 4.54609 litres.

If that measurement system was proposed now, no one in their right mind would accept it. It makes no sense whatsoever. And yet this raving loony’s system is exactly the same (save the unit names) as the imperial system, which some people in the UK find it so difficult to let go of. I hope that any readers who support the use of that system can see how ridiculous it is to argue

for its superiority over the international metric system. In fact the only possible argument for keeping such a system is that you simply can’t be bothered to change.

Post the Host

2009-07-01T21:53:00.006+01:00

What would you do if you wanted to receive Holy Communion, but you couldn’t get to church? At my church we are lucky to have two readers who do a great job of taking Communion out to the sick and house-bound. But what about those who don’t know of that ministry, or don’t live in our parish? What can they do? The Open Episcopal Church has come up with its own solution to this dilemma – Post the Host . This is a new ministry, launched last week, which provides mail-order consecrated wafers, “Hosts”, to anyone who asks for them (and pays the postage). Being enthusiastic about innovation, I thought I’d give it a try:

Now you might think that you need a priest to be present for you to receive the body of Christ – to say the Eucharistic Prayer for you; but they’ve thought of that. By the magic of the internet and the services of youtube , Archbishop Jonathan Blake can be present in your own living-room to say Mass, just for you. He even offers a choice of services to suite all tastes. The more traditional can select a Catholic Mass , or even a Latin one. For charismatics there is a Pentecostal Mass where he says the Eucharistic prayer in tongues. You can choose a “radical ” Mass, an “inclusive ” Mass, a Trinity Sunday Mass ; there are two outdoor versions, complete with authentic bird-song and police sirens in the background. A music lover can select a singing Mass (not exactly a sung Mass – he uses choruses and modern worship songs rather than singing the Mass itself) or the teenager might like to select the “Street Mass ”. This last version is something very different from the Anglican experience. I still can’t watch it without laughing out loud (that’s “lol” to those who will be using this version). It lasts less than three minutes, and features a confession that goes “Alright God, Sorry if we messed up. Trying 2 sort things out but cummon, give us a break” followed by the absolution “OK. Hang on in there”. (The full text can be found on the Post the Host website.) Perhaps the closest to my own tradition is what he calls the "ornate Mass"

The Hosts are supplied using the internet payment service paypal (Internet Explorer only) , (or you can send a cheque if you prefer ). The cost is £2 for any number of Hosts from one to 100. I ordered one to try it out, but due to a mix-up with the orders I was actually sent 100 consecrated wafers. Also enclosed was a card with the Image of the Devine Mercy and a mini-edition of “I Am With You” by Fr. John Woolley . They are dispatched by first class post, so they arrived 36 hours after I ordered them and I had them for the weekend. Early on Saturday morning I settled down in the comfort of the sofa in my own front room to receive the Body of Christ. My seven-year-old son, Gabriel, was very interested and wanted to join in. Gabriel is not confirmed and does not normally receive communion, but considering the highly inclusive nature of this new ministry, I didn’t feel that I should deny him. So we snuggled up together with a laptop and watched the “Singing Mass ”. After about 8 minutes ++ Jonathan tells us “please now receive the consecrated Host”. So we did – it was a lovely moment.

I am in two minds about this project. My first reaction to it was to laugh; and that’s been a fairly common reaction from people told about this. There has been a fair amount of cynicism and sarcasm about it in the press and on Christian bulletin boards I’ve read. The main objections seem to be that he is putting the body of Jesus in danger by leaving Him to the mercy of the postal service (++Jonathan denies this ); and that Holy Communion only makes sense as part of a Christian community. To do it as a private devotion, by mail-order simply doesn’t work. Against this, it can be argued that reserving the Sacred Mysteries for the benefit of faithful churchgoers only is putting Jesus in a box, when He should be out in the world. Archbishop Jonathan’s enthusiasm is hard to ignore. He is quite sure that he is providing a much needed ministry. So I’ll let him have the last word in his video addresses below.

Gabriel’s first reaction was “it tastes like Ready brek”!

Ode to Real Ale

2009-06-12T06:52:00.002+01:00

To the tune of "Early One Morning"

Early one evening just as the pubs were opening,
A traveller came walking down a cold and rainy street.
Seeing a door ajar, he walked into the public bar,
Said "Landlord I would like a jar and something nice to eat."

"I fancy some crusty bread and roast beef of old England
with butter from the dairy and some homemade pickles too.
And if you think you could, draw some bitter from the wood,
I'd be quite content to quaff a foaming pint or two"

"I'll sit by your open fire and contemplate infinity,
The warmth of your hostelry shall creep into my heart.
And should a regular, chance into the public bar,
Then maybe I'll engage him in a contest with the dart."

"Come in" said the landlord "I've got prepacked fishpaste sandwiches
And soya sausage substitute I purchase by the tonne.
So if you fancy it, I could defrost a bit
And smother it with ketchup in a supermarket bun."

"I'll pour you a plastic pot of Super-Foaming Readybrew
As advertised on telly by a famous rugby scrum.
No filthy barrels here, we serve hygienic beer,
Safely paralysed inside an aluminium drum"

"Sit down by the electric fire, I'll turn the Space Invaders on,
Or maybe you've more interest in my latest fruit machine.
Three cherries in a row, that should set your heart aglow,
Or what about my jukebox, that'll really set the scene."

The traveller sat down beside the polystyrene inglenook,
The plastic beams vibrating to the electronic sound.
Took a bite, began to chew, supped his pint of Readybrew,
Gave a ghastly gargle and fell dead, upon the ground.

"Oh dear" said the landlord as he turned the colour telly on,
"Another fatal accident, the third this week I fear.
If they can't hold their own, why don't they stay at home?
I don't half get some funny bloody customers in here!"

No God? Oh God!

2009-01-08T22:16:00.003Z

I did laugh out loud, no exaggeration. The advertising campaign by aetheists to assure us that there is "probably" no God, has drawn a complaint from a Christian group claiming that it breaches advertising regulations because it makes an unsubstantiated claim. You couldn't make this up. It's brilliant comedy. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7818980.stm

Now the serious bit (why do I do this?). Firstly, if they think there's no God, why don't they come out and say it? Perhaps they anticipated this legal challenge and wanted to hedge their bets. But believing that there is "probably" no God is surely very shaky ground. What if there is? What if you really believed that there might be a God, but there probably isn't and then you died and found there was a God. Surely that niggling doubt would make your life unbearable.

Then, why does the existence of God mean you have to worry. The majority of Christians I know rejoice in their knowledge of God. Conversely, if there is no God, why would that be a matter for enjoyment. If you really believe that this entire reality created itself out of nothing for no reason, what does that say about the purpose of your life? "Make the best of life while you're on earth, because it's the only life we know about" is the normal aetheist response. But how can you enjoy a life if you are certain in the knowledge that it has no meaning, no purpose and no future beyond your death. What is the point of bringing up children? What is the point of suffering adversity to come out the other side with a sense of achievement? It all ends when you die. Why not die now and save yourself all the suffering? Why be good, except to allow yourself to be self-righteous? Why not go out and take what you want, provided you believe you can get away with it?

Belief in God is not something negative to constrain the individual. It is something empowering and enriching. Having been an atheist for the first half of my adult life I do understand some of the sentiment behind this campaign. God bless the British Humanist Association - they've given me something to laugh at on a cold Thursday evening.

Bob The Builder wins the American Presidency

2008-11-05T15:49:00.006Z

"Can we change it?" "Yes we can?"

Here in the UK we have a children's television character called Bob the Builder. His catchphrase is "Can we fix it? - Yes we can!".

Barack Obama's acceptance speech echoed those words - "Yes we can", and he made it his own catchphrase, even getting the crowd to chant along with him. I think this positive approach is perhaps the only thing the two characters share. Here's the full speach hosted on CNN:

He certainly is a powerful public speaker. He also talks a great story about being a conviction politician. I love that story about the 106-year-old voter. In the UK, the most interesting thing we've seen in politics recently was the invention of "New Labour". That project was all about sales, image and public perception. Nothing to do with engaging with people's needs and concerns; more about keeping "us" in power and "them" out, and then justifying it with sales talk. I really hope that President Obama can deliver something very different for America. This is one politician I'll be watching without my normal cynicism. I so hope he doesn't turn out to be a disappointment.

Freecycle

2008-10-14T20:44:00.004+01:00

A few weeks ago I was given four beds by three different people - all complete strangers. They wanted to get rid of them, and I happened to need them - so they gave them to me.

I've recently been clearing out my loft and had a lot of stuff I've accumulated over the years. None of it was rubbish, so I wanted to give it away - so I did. I gave it to people I didn't know who said they wanted it. There was a cot, a couple of turntables, a slide projector, a negative ionizer, a couple of children's bicycles, some ADSL microfilters - and several other things.

My heating recently broke down. As I'm replacing the boiler I didn't want to get it fixed, so I asked some complete strangers if they had some electric heaters they could spare. Two different people came up with six dimplex heaters to tide me over till the new boiler was fitted.

A few years ago, this kind of transaction would have been the stuff of dreams. Stuff went to the tip if you didn't know someone who wanted it. You would never go round asking strangers for things you needed. But the internet has changed all that. The internet and a rather clever idea called Freecycle. You can read all about it here, and find your nearest branch.

Freecycle is billed as a way to "keep stuff out of landfill". I think it is far more than that. In fact the issue of filling up landfill is a bit over-done and Freecycle probably doesn't even scratch the surface. What Freecycle is, is a real community. We hear about "online communities", which often means a group of people who communicate on-line but never meet. Freecycle goes much further than this. It's about local people being able to contact each other, know each others' needs and support each other. That's far more valuable than any environmental ideal or any chatroom you can find anywhere else on the internet.

Political Correctness GONE MAD

2008-09-30T20:09:00.002+01:00

This made me laugh

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7643136.stm

Not only is it wrong to tell people which toilet they should use, but it wrong to say that it's political correctness "gone mad". That might offend ... mad people ... like the green-haired lady in the interview.

Smallcreep's Descriptive Writing

2008-09-01T20:43:00.003+01:00

I think my father was always impressed by highly descriptive writing. When I was a teenager he recommended Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath to me, principally for the political message of the book (which turns out to be completely spurious, but that’s another story). However, he told me that his favourite passage in the book is a description of a tortoise crossing the road. Steinbeck devotes an entire chapter (albeit a very short one) to describing in minute detail the scene as the reptile climbs the bank, crosses the road and gets hit by a truck. I remember being very impressed by this passage myself. When Dad wrote his own book it gave him an opportunity to practice this style of writing for himself, and he made a very good job of it too. Here’s a video of Peter Currell Brown reading a passage from his book Smallcreep’s Day about some pipes on a wall.

It’s interesting that The Grapes of Wrath is a book with an intensely political message, and my Father was interested in the politics, but his favourite passage was a description of a natural event which appeared to have no bearing on the story whatsoever. Steinbeck may have intended the tortoise to be a metaphor, but that was lost on me as a teenager. Similarly, Smallcreep’s Day is a book with a political message, but Dad’s favourite passage is a description of something rather mundane – some pipes running round a wall. The way the words are used to describe the subject is far more important than the subject of the description. Are the pipes intended as a metaphor too?

Glow-worms

2008-08-05T21:37:00.002+01:00

Glow-worms are one of those memories of childhood for me. I’d never actually seen one before, in spite of growing up in the English countryside, but they appear in children’s books so I grew up believing in them. They are so romantic -little insects that produce a light at night. The glow-worm in James and the Giant Peach provides light for the entire crew of the peach. But I didn’t know what they really looked like. When my mother told me that they lived near her, in a cemetery in Stroud, I was keen to go and take a look. At about 22:00 on a fine evening at the end of July we went up to the cemetery to see if we could find any. And we did! Two things surprised me about them; their colour and their intensity. Never having seen one, I had only ever imagined what they would be like. I had imagined a dull yellow glow that you would miss if you weren’t looking closely enough. But that’s not how they looked at all. The intensity was on a par with a green LED, such as you might have on the front of a T.V. And the colour was bright green – not the kind of colour I had imagined at all. We saw several of these lights in the long grass, but as we didn’t take a torch, I have no idea what the insect that made them looks like. I did try a photo, but there was not enough light for the autofocus, and without a flash all I got was a blur. But here is the blur so that you can appreciate the colour of the things.

O2 Broadband

2008-06-24T10:23:00.004+01:00

Today I went live with O2 Broadband. They are about the only broadband provider that people actually recommend and don't complain about - them and Sky, and I can't get Sky unless I subscribe to their telly services at a minimum of £16 per month. O2 only put my exchange live last week, and it's taken them 8 days to migrate my line from Twang.net. Today at 08:50 I plugged in the modem, went through the O2 set-up procedure, and without any kind of drama I was live with a download speed of over 12 mbps and an upload speed of 1.1. The cost for this service is £15 per month and you get unlimited downloads as long as you don't abuse it. It helps that I'm only just over 1000 m from the exchange - not everyone will be so lucky, but if you can't get more than 8 mbps then they'll only charge you £12.50 a month. Better still, if you have a mobile contract with O2 they'll knock £5 per month off your bill, and if you don't, then you just get a free pay as you go SIM and use at least £10 per quarter you get the same discount. After 2 hours experience I'm happy to recommend O2 as a broadband provider. Let's hope the don't get bought by Carphone Warehouse!

Vectrix scooter revisited

2008-06-14T19:52:00.002+01:00

Canary Wharf Motor Expo was on again this week, and I bumped into the people from Vectrix once again. This company makes an electric scooter called the Maxi Scooter which I rode a couple of years ago and was very impressed with (see my first blog on the subject).
A year on, the scooter hasn’t changed significantly, but the price tag certainly has. Last year they were retailing at over £7,000; now the price is £5,600 OTR. With petrol 15% higher in price and rising I needed to know if it would cope with my commute; so I asked to borrow it for the evening and ride home. They agreed; so on Thursday 2008-06-12 I was to pick up a fully charged scooter.
The economics, surprisingly, still don’t entirely add up, it has to be said. There is no doubt that now the Vectrix would save me money on my commute. If I was to sell my Pan European and go electric only then it would save a significant amount of money. However, that’s not practical – for example I’m riding the National Road Rally in a couple of weeks and that requires 870 km without stopping long enough for a recharge. Limiting the range to 110 km (at best) would not work. So the comparison has to compare the full cost of the Vectrix with the additional cost of riding the Honda to work.
First shock is the lifespan of the Vectrix battery. They are predicting it to go 10 years, or 80,000 km, or 1700 charging cycles. Given that I ride 25,000 km per year, that battery would last little more than 3 years. So the economics have to work on the bike being scrapped after 3 years (at least I don’t have to factor re-sale value into the equation). That means £146 per month in depreciation. Then the cost of borrow that extra money over three years works out at another £25 per month (that’s an optimistic number too). However, that depreciation might be overstated as the battery is supposed to be replaceable at a fraction of the cost of a new bike, so it might be possible to reduce that figure. Again, the cost of tyres is a deciding factor here – it’s by far the highest item on the running costs. I’m assuming maintenance can be mostly done by me, and allowed £50 per year, but these small wheels are going to go through around 3 rear tyres and probably one or more fronts per year. Apparently it’s quite heavy on rear brake pads too. That comes to another £40 per month, fitted. With another assumption on additional insurance costs, that brings the total monthly running to around £60. Adding up the running and financing costs, I reckon the scooter would cost £232 per month if it was used purely for commuting.
Comparing this to the cost of the Pan European, as I said, I have to remove costs that would be incurred if it sat in the garage all year. This includes tax, insurance most of the depreciation and one service per year. Pans keep their value quite well, but they also cover very high distances before they are fit for scrap. So I’ve allowed £40 per month for depreciation, and nothing for the cost of finance. The main costs are servicing, tyres and petrol, which come to around £200 per month. Two thirds of this is petrol, so it’s quite sensitive to rising petrol costs. If I assume a petrol cost of £2/litre then the number rises by £100 per month.

So the bottom line is:

Vectrix cost per month £232
Pan Euro cost per month £240
Total saving per month - £8.

Hardly a convincing case, but I suppose if I could reduce that depreciation number it might make sense.

So I turned up at the Vectrix display on Thursday with my lid and leathers expecting to be given a key. A different salesman was on duty this time, and she was a little less optimistic than the chap I saw on Wednesday. She said they’d looked up my address and thought I’d struggle with the range. In fact they were pretty sure that I wouldn’t make the 55 km home if I went on the motorway. That range 110 km is only available if you use urban roads and keep the speed down to 50 km/h or below for most of your journey. Unfortunately that would leave me with at least a 90 minute commute – something I could have lived with for one evening, but not as a daily grind. They spoke about the new generation of battery that would be out in a year or two that might extend the range; and about the concept sportsbike they’ve got in pre-production already – that does 200 km/h with the same range as the scooter. But currently they have nothing to offer that would do my 55 km commute on the motorways and fast A-roads to Canary Wharf. Luckily the Pan European is still in fine fettle and should last at least another 100,000 km (4 years commuting) before I have to replace it. Perhaps the electric will have become practical by then. Who knows where the price of petrol, or indeed electricity will be by then.

National Road Rally 2008

2008-06-13T14:56:00.001+01:00

See my other blog for full details.

Psalm 23 - The Lord is my Shepherd

2008-05-26T12:49:00.010+01:00

I was recently discussing musical settings of Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd) with my eldest daughter. She went to a Church of England primary school, and therefore learnt a version of the song at school. But we use a different version at church, so we started trying to remember all the versions we had heard. There are so many, we eventually resorted to YouTube to remind us of the different tunes. There are even more versions there, so here’s my pick of the best and most interesting:

Anyone who was at school in the 1970s, even if they didn’t attend a church school, probably learnt the “Crimond” version:

My own favourite is the version by Howard Goodall. Those who know the BBC series The Vicar of Dibley will know the first and last verses, but may not know the middle bit. Here the Choir Boys sing it:

Here’s a Greek Orthodox version ... in greek:

The version we use at church is composed by Stuart Townend. I couldn't find it sung on YouTube, but here's the tune:

[Update - I did find a version with the words:]

Even a hip hop version (well, kind of):

One by John Rutter

Here’s an odd version composed by Joel Navarro, and performed by Sole Voce of Los Angeles

...and a version composed by an Australian opera singer Jason Barry-Smith and performed by an Australian youth choir:

Here’s Bob Chilcott's setting:

... and Keith Green's song:

Psalm 23 must be the best known psalm in entire psalter, and is probably one of the best know passages of the entire bible. Here are the words from the King James Authorized translation:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he
leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou
art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table
before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my
cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of
my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

[Update: thank you to my contributor for pointing out the version known as Brother James' Air, which is in fact, the one we use at church. I didn't know it was called that, which is why I missed it. Here's a youtube example

Grohe Dump Valve

2008-05-13T21:05:00.006+01:00

A few years ago I installed a new bathroom, and replaced the WC cistern with a concealed one. Not long after it was installed it started leaking water into the pan. It definitely wasn’t the overflow, and it was not too bad, so I left it to leak. It kept getting worse.

Now I remember some years ago hearing a debate about cisterns in this country and new EU regulations to free up the market. It used to be the case that a cistern had to have a siphonic valve to be legal in the UK. These are leak-proof by design. As soon as the cistern is empty, the siphon is lost and the water is trapped until the flush is operated again. The EU wanted the UK to drop the requirement for a siphonic flush because we were the only country in the world that manufactured them. Our rules were preventing import of cisterns from other EU countries, forming a trade barrier. Our bathroom manufacturers at the time claimed that other types of valve were not leak-proof, and therefore relaxing the regulation would cause a flood of wasted water to leak down our toilet pans. The EU won – and at the time I thought they were right – this was just protectionism masquerading as environmental concern. However, I have now been proved wrong. Non-siphonic cistern valves can and will leak, and when they do they are a pain to put right.

Eventually my cistern was leaking so badly that I had to do something about it. First of all I descaled it – we have extremely hard water and there was lots of lime scale in the cistern. That helped a bit, but after a few months it was leaking more than ever, and keeping us awake with its trickling noise. I took out the guts of the valve and took it to the local plumbers’ merchant to see if he could advise. “That’s a Grohe dump valve” he said; “if I could get hold of them I’d make a fortune.” Apparently these things are notorious, particularly in hard water areas. So over to Google to find out something about the Grohe dump valve and how you service them. I came across an interesting piece at How to mend it .com where someone had noticed a water bubble forming under the skin of the silicon washer. They said if you prick it with a pin you can remove the bubble, and allow the valve to seat properly. On inspection I found exactly such a bubble in both the washers in my valve. I pricked them with a pin, a tiny amount of water squirted out, and I was back in business. The thing now seals like new. Considering I had been contemplating replacing the cistern at a cost of at least £50, I think I’ve got off lightly. I wonder how long its’ going to last.

Update - see the epilogue

Christian Aid 2008

2008-05-05T02:17:00.003+01:00

Next week is Christian Aid Week – the week when Christians from all the churches in the country will be knocking on doors and asking people to donate to this very worthy charity. I was recently speaking to some people from my church who have been collecting for this cause for many years. I was surprised to find that few of them enjoy the job of walking round the parish, knocking on doors and begging for donations to help the poorest people in the world. Most of them, it seems, do the job because it’s a job worth doing, and not because they enjoy it. One person commented that door-to-door collecting is a very old fashioned way of raising money. Christian Aid is one of very few charities who still fund themselves in this way.

So this year they've decided to use some new technology to support this very worthy cause. If you would like to make a donation to Christian Aid without someone having to come out to knock on your door and ask you to fill an envelope with cash, then use our fund raising page to make a donation with your credit- or debit card. It’s a simple transaction – just click the “Donate” button on the widget above to visit the virtual door-to-door collection page. They don't guarantee that you won’t also get a call from a collector; but if you tell them you’ve already donated on-line I'm sure they’ll be delighted to leave without the traditional envelope full of cash.

The Iron Bridge

2008-04-27T16:10:00.003+01:00

Many years ago a temporary foot bridge was built over the River Stort in Bishop’s Stortford linking a car park outside a Chinese restaurant with a car park outside the train station. It’s was never much of a bridge, but it served a purpose of allowing pedestrians, many of them hurrying to catch a train, to cross half way between the two available road crossings, thereby saving themselves a walk of about 1000 metres.

A couple of years ago the council got a lottery grant to put something more aesthetically pleasing in place. The project has the rather utilitarian title of “Bishop’s Stortford Goods Yard Bridge”. The main drawback with the old bridge was that it had quite steep steps up each side, so it was out of bounds to mothers with prams and pushchairs. The new bridge design is to have shallow ramps up each side, almost parallel with the river, with steps providing a shortcut for unencumbered, able-bodied pedestrians. Work started a few months ago, and they removed the old bridge and replaced it with an even less inspiring, even more temporary wooden affair, a few metres downstream of the original. Ground work then began to build the foundations for the new structure.

A few weeks ago I walked that way to the station in the morning, and noticed that some of the structure had started to arrive. Then last week I again walked that way for some reason, and was able to witness what may have been the first person to cross the new bridge. All they had in place were the pedestrian steps up one side and down the other, and a section of the main span linking the two. A workman was crossing over to tighten some bolts on the other side. It looked smaller than I was expecting, but it was far from complete. That evening I walked back that way, and the bridge was open – my first chance to cross it.

Since then, the rest of the bridge has continued to go up, and it’s as massive as I was expecting. Have a look at this.

Testimony

2008-04-19T07:11:00.003+01:00

I have recently been attending a lunchtime course in workplace evangelism run by Agape. I won’t go into the subject of evangelism right now, except to say that I think some people do it incredibly badly and end up making more enemies of Jesus than disciples. I wanted to find out if there’s a better way that I could learn. One of the tasks we have been set is to develop a personal testimony to use when introducing the subject of Christ. The structure of the exercise is to answer five questions about Jesus, and then use your answers to string together into a story. The five questions are below, together with my own answers (this is a work in progress of course, so I’ll be refining it over time).

1. What was my attitude before I took Jesus Christ seriously?

I believed that everything in life had been explained by science and there was no longer any need for religion.

2. Why did I say “yes” to Christ?

When my first daughter was born I began to wonder at the miracle of creation and started to understand that there is more to life than science.

3. How did I “say” yes to Christ?

I went to my local parish church. They were running a course called Alpha, so I joined. They taught me about Jesus and how to ask him to come into my life.

4. What difference does Christ make to my day-to-day life?

I now have a very different understanding of reality, with a physical, scientific dimension and a spiritual side that makes sense too.

5. What is a “Christian”?

It’s someone who believes that God came to earth in the form of Jesus Christ in order to be reconciled with the people He created.

I've been thinking this through and amended it a bit. Judy - sorry if your comments no longer make sense.

British Summer Time (and the living is easy)

2008-04-01T12:20:00.002+01:00

We’ve finally made it to the last weekend in March, when the British put their clocks forward to British Summer Time (BST), or Greenwich Mean Time(GMT) + 1 hour. The long winter nights are finally over, and it will be light for our journey home from work all the way through until November when the clocks will be set back to GMT for another five months. The only questions now is why on earth we only advance our clocks by one hour, and why do we use GMT all through the winter months. It would increase the quality of our lives enormously if we were to use GMT +1 hour during the winter and GMT + 2 hours during the summer. Why don’t the British do that?

Arguments in favour of this change:

It would put us on the same time zone as most of Europe, improving communication and increasing the ease of business transactions
It would increase the amount of daylight we are exposed to during at least 4 months of the year, thus reducing the incidence of Seasonal Affective Disorder, a form of depression associated with lack of daylight during the winter months.
It would save about 200 lives per year on our roads. Drivers are more alert during the morning, and thus keeping the daylight for the evening hours would reduce accidents including fatal ones during the dark evenings.
It would reduce the number of hours we need to light our homes and streets, saving some energy (thought there seems to be a debate about exactly how much). (In the USA the lighting issue is offset by increased use of air conditioning; but in the UK we don’t have the same consideration.)

A recent petition on the Downing Street website asked the government to switch to consider changing to Central European Time (i.e. GMT+1/GMT+2), and in response the government trotted out a list of reasons why they didn’t want to make this change. Most of these arguments were established in the 1970s when a trial of leaving the clocks on BST all year was undertaken for a couple of years. Indeed I remember as a child being dressed in reflective clothing to keep me safe during the dark mornings.

Arguments against the change:

Farmers prefer to have lighter mornings in the winter
The construction industry prefers to start work early, and this is affected by dark mornings in the winter
In Scotland the mornings are darker because they are further north. They prefer the light at the start of the day.
Milk and postal delivery people don’t like dark mornings
It is dangerous for school children to travel to school during the dark mornings. As the schools come out earlier than offices, children don’t benefit from the shift to light evenings.

However, that was the 1970s and much has changed since then which out-dates most of these arguments:

The number of people working the land has decreased, and the number of people driving cars to work has increased – in both cases the changes have been dramatic.
Scotland has far more autonomy, and could easily be allowed to set its own time zone
Milk deliveries have all but disappeared, and the postal service no longer attempts to deliver before breakfast
After-school clubs and social activities, and a general shift to all parents working have meant that children are travelling much later in the day and therefore exposed to the dark evenings in winter.
So that leaves only the construction companies affected by any such change. My only comment on that is that changing the clocks does not change the number of hours of daylight – simply the time at which it is light.

I have considered changing my own habits to allow me more daylight in the evenings. If I were to get up an hour earlier, go to work an hour earlier and leave the office an hour earlier I wouldn’t need everyone else to change. However, that’s not as easy as I first seems. I already get up at 06:00, so adjusting it any further would require a bedtime so early that I would have to drop out of society entirely. And anyone who has ever worked in an office will know that getting in early is easy; leaving early is another matter entirely. My other option is to move to France, where they use Western European Time. If I could figure out a way to maintain my income from France then that is what I would do. As it is, I find it simpler to remain in the UK and whinge for 5 months of the year.

Dem Bones

2008-03-25T17:16:00.003Z

When I got up at 04:00 on Easter Sunday, I did not do so for fame. I simply wanted to be present at the first Eucharist of Easter at my church. A few hardy souls had spent the night in vigil at the church, not sleeping till Easter dawned. But I was driving to Wales on Sunday, so I needed my sleep. I did not voluteer to read the old testament reading because I wanted to be broadcast on the internet - I simply wanted to participate in the service, and Father John asked me if I'd like to read. I was unaware until today that Dr Durrant had brought his video camera along to the service. And so it was that this morning I discovered that my voice, and a dark image of my face, are on YouTube, reading the valley of the bones passage from Ezekiel. It's a bit dark, but this was dawn - about 05:30 on 2008-03-23 (and the temparature was about -3 C). The sound isn't brilliant, but I didn't read it very well, so that's perhaps just as well.

Passion Plays

2008-03-20T09:13:00.004Z

This Holy Week I've been watching a couple of interesting new dramatisations of the passion story. First the BBC's excellent The Passion, serialised over the week, and last night I saw Redemption Song by the Riding Lights Theatre Company. Both pieces have given me plenty of new angles on this familiar story.
The Passion depicting not only the familiar characters, but attempting to capture the background of the politics of the time. It brings new light to the characters of Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, also giving some interesting insights into Jesus Barabas and even to Judas Iscariot.
Redemption Song emphasised the Roman occupation of Judea, and used this as a metaphor for the occupation of our souls by sin. It also placed great emphasis on "the tradition" (i.e. Judaism), throwing the Roman occupation into even starker contrast - two peoples living different lives in the same city. Anyone in York or Southampton this week should make an effort to see this play. I left the theatre feeling I needed to go on a retreat to think through all the new ideas.

More on the Wake

2008-03-07T21:21:00.003Z

Someone took a video camera to the CMG wake, and so our evening is now immortalised on youtube, including an interview with Barbara Ward, the former HR director of CMG.
I think this was made later in the evening, judging by the fact that the crowds have thinned a little, and someone is waving money at the bar staff. I have now found out that there were 47 donors to the kitty, giving a total of some GBP7,500.

CMG Wake

2008-03-06T10:53:00.002Z

The CMG Wake last Friday was a really good night. I arrived at The Knights Templar in Chancery Lane some time after 18:00 to find the place already packed to bursting point. The first impressions on opening the door were of a sea of people and wall of noise. In spite of the high ceiling, the sheer number of conversations taking place in this great hall reverberated round the place and hit you as great din. People were packed so tightly into the pub that it took some 10 minutes, perhaps more, to cross the room and reach the bar. Thanks to a handful of very generous people there was a tab open for anyone waving a slip of paper saying “CMG”. The smart ones had diversified out of CMG shares during the good times, and locked in the profits before the dot.com bubble burst; there were probably a good few millionaires in the room and some people were kind enough to stand us all a few drinks.

I was tempted to buy myself two drinks to save fighting my way back to the bar, but decided against it. One hand had to be free for hand-shaking. And how many hands I shook that evening! After 15 years with the company, there were so many people I’d worked with and lost touch with. And many people I knew by sight, or by reputation. There were people kitted out in CMG ties and scarves, T-shirts and baseball caps. I heard so many tales of what people were up to now. Quite a few still working for Logica; many now moved on to pastures new; some living lives of leisure; others running their own businesses; one or two looking for new challenges as the came to the end of redundancy packages.

The bar tab was finally exhausted by 20:00, but this didn’t deter many people, and the pub continued to be just as crowded for a couple more hours until I left. Photos of the event are available at http://wakeywakey.dreamhosters.com – I haven’t spotted myself in any of these yet, but there are plenty that give an impression of quite how busy the place was. I have a tape of the 25^th anniversary song “Nobody does IT better, and as soon as I can get it copied to MP3 I’ll post it there too.

I’d like to thank John Sharp for organising the evening. I wonder if that’s the last we’ll hear of CMG, or will this become a regular reunion. I somehow think that CMG was such a big part of so many people’s lives it won’t be forgotten quickly.

CMG R.I.P.

2008-02-27T13:51:00.005Z

In 1990 I got a job with a fairly small IT services company called CMG. Over the next 10 years it grew steadily into a medium sized IT services company. There was an incredible sense of community in the company. All the shares were held by the staff and there were regular after work updates on how business was going - followed by drinks on the company. When the company went public in the December 1995 it made quite a few millionaires over night, and over the following few weeks, as the share price went through the roof (sadly I was not among them). At one point during the dot.com bubble the company was worth something like 70 times the floatation price, and many employees had aquired shares at a fraction of that price . However, during those heady, frothy days at the turn of the century, CMG made a rather poor investment in merging with an overpriced and over large IT services company called Admiral. As a result of that deal, and the should-have-been predictable collapse in IT stocks a few months later, CMG became a take-over target itself; and in December 2002 was bought up (they say "merged", but we all know the truth) by Logica, forming LogicaCMG. I left LogicaCMG in 2005. Today, LogicaCMG has renamed itself to just "Logica", so CMG now officially no longer exists.

One long-serving member of CMG has organised a "wake" to mourn the loss of this great name. About 700 former employees will be meeting in a pub in the City of London on Friday evening 2008-02-29 to re-live the good times for the last time. CMG, R.I.P.

Why can’t they just apologise

2008-02-15T21:29:00.003Z

Have you ever complained about something? Have you ever had your complaint taken seriously? Or do you just get fobbed off? I’ve found an increasingly common response to any complaint is “well you’re the first complaint we’ve ever had” with this implication that it’s good enough for everyone else, so you can bloody well put up with it too.

Here’s an example: a website called Intelligent Giving. It’s a very interesting website, and I may well do a post about them. But the site includes a feature they call the “Karma Calculator”. In essence, you answer a brief questionnaire and the calculator generates some insults, hiding behind the excuse of being “light-hearted”. I found it utterly offensive, so I wrote to complain as follows:

"I like your website and find the information you give very interesting. However, I did not like your 'karma calculator' one bit. I appreciate that it is intended to be "light hearted", but to be honest, I don't find sarcastic insults very funny. I am not confused - just in search of the type of information that your site seems to contain; I do understand the difference between philanthropy and misanthropy; and I do not appreciate being compared to a character from an odious American cartoon show. I suggest you re-write this nasty piece of software before you alienate any more of your potential customers."

Their response:

“Thanks for getting in touch. I'm sorry you don't like our Karma Calculator. However, over 6,000 people have used the Calculator since our site launched and yours is the first complaint we have received. We believe it fulfils its function as a light-hearted spur to giving.

I hope you profit from using other areas of our site.”

OK, so they used the “S” word, but did they take on board what I said? But they’re doing their best to do a good job, so look them up and read what’s on their site. Just steer clear of that “Karma” thingy. http://www.intelligentgiving.com/

Pineapple Slicer Gadget

2008-02-02T06:52:00.000Z

Do you eat fresh pineapple? Or do you find that the hassle of pealing the things isn’t worth it? I’m sure someone has told you that there’s a way to cut the skin so that it comes off in a spiral, but no one has ever actually been able to demonstrate this trick. Then there’s always a hard core down the middle that you have to cut out.

I was given a gadget for Christmas that makes pineapples easy to eat. It’s a pineapple slicer, and it’s dead easy to use. All it is, is a plastic tube with a plastic cutting disk on one end. It’s hollow, with a removable handle. Watch this:

Cut off the top of the pineapple and place the slicer on top of the pineapple and twist, applying a bit of pressure.

Continue to twist until it reaches the bottom of the fruit

Pull the slicer out

Remove the handle, and the spiral of edible fruit comes off

The pineapple skin and woody core is left behind. You could even fill this with ice cream and freeze it.

Now all I need is a source of reasonably priced pineapples.

Airto Moriera

2008-01-31T18:23:00.001Z

Last week I was on my own, feeling rather depressed and tired. Having no enthusiasm for anything I resorted to channel surfing on the telly. Not being in the mood for comedy, drama or light entertainment, I found a Dizzy Gillespie concert on Mainstreet TV. I’m not a great jazz fan, but it was a case of nothing better to watch so I settled down to take in at least a few minutes. It was a concert recorded at the Royal Festival Hall, I would guess in the 1990s.

The very next number featured Flora Purim, “The Queen” as she was introduced. Things were looking up! Half way through this piece there was a drum solo. Watching the drummer, I started thinking that I wished I could play drums. The mood I was in, I just wanted to lose myself in something; and to lose yourself in creating rhythm by smacking the hell out a drum kit must be a really therapeutic experience. After a couple of minutes, the drummer handed over the solo to the percussionist, and this bit blew my mind. Thinking about losing myself in a rhythm, I was faced with a man who was doing exactly that. He got more and more wild and passionate until I thought he would explode.

At the end of the concert when the credits came up I found that this man was non other than Airto Moriera. I don’t know much about Airto, but back in the 1980s a girlfriend gave me a tape of Flora Purim and Airto which had greatly impressed me. I played it all the time for a while, but for some reason I never looked up the two performers any further. (This was before the internet I suppose.) I did once stumble into Ronnie Scott’s, absolutely plastered one evening in the 1990s to find Flora Purim on stage. Unfortunately I was so drunk that it was all I could do to recognise the voice – I remember nothing else about the concert. I have also managed to buy a CD by each of them at some time, but I’ve never got round to listening to either of them much. I’m putting that straight right now - as I write this I’m listening to “Seeds on the Ground” by Airto.

I tried to record the concert (mainstreet always show things several times), but my VHS recorder is a bit temperamental, and I didn’t get a copy. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be repeating this concert; but of course interesting musical pieces always pop up on youtube, and this one is no exception. So here is that drum solo – feast your eyes and ears (and toes) on this – Airto takes over just about 2 minutes into the video.

Needle Phobic Gives Blood

2008-01-17T20:53:00.000Z

This week I gave blood. A fairly mundane activity for most people, but for me it’s always a great joy to do. Up until a few years ago I suffered from needle-phobia and could rarely get through a donation session. I successfully gave blood the first time I tried, at the age of 18, but after that occasion it became an ordeal which was rarely fruitful.
The first time I had a problem was when I was in my first term at university. I was standing in a queue to sign my name, and all of a sudden I started to feel light-headed and then experienced tunnel vision. I had to sit down and put my head between my knees. After that, whenever I went along to a donor session, I would suffer from all manner of problems:

Light-headedness
Nausea
Palpitations
Cod sweats
Shortness of breath
Tunnel vision
Shaking (so much I couldn’t sign my name)
Inability to remember my address (I once gave one I hadn’t lived at for 20 years)

That all made the process of blood donation a bit of an ordeal, and since this mainly happened before I’d even had the finger prick, there was little point me attending. (One time I did give successfully was on the day I my (former) wife crashed the car with our two children in. They didn’t need any blood as it happened, but it made me so thankful for the health service that I just went along to my nearest donor session and had no problems at all.)
The turning point was a few years ago when I did a training course in NLP. The trainer described how some people react to the ordeal of standing up and speaking in public; and it sounded to me very similar to my needle-phobia. The technique they proposed was called the Circle of Excellence, and over lunch I asked if they could take me through it in detail. So we set up my circle that I could step into to keep myself calm and relaxed and off I went to a donor session a the local church hall the very next day to see if it would work. And it did work. I was able to wait 20 minutes for my name to be called, sign my consent, give my correct address, have a prick test, and then lie down and make a full donation with no adverse effects. Since then I’ve given twice a year, and only once had to lie down afterwards. The ordeal is all in the past now.
The fascinating thing is that my symptoms seemed so physical, it was difficult to believe that this was all caused by my thinking. Clearly it was, since there had rarely been any needles involved, except in my head. But the result of some unconscious interaction between my mind and my body was completely debilitating.
So here’s the moral at the end – don’t ever believe that you “could never do that”, whatever that may be. It’s all in the mind, no matter how much it feels like a medical condition. It’s your mind and your body. You just have to learn the techniques to get them to work for you and not against you.

Recycle it?

2008-01-08T21:31:00.000Z

I got a leaflet through my door today from Boots. I didn't ask for it and I didn't want it, but it came all the same, using my address and lying on my doormat. On the bottom of the leaflet it says "Recycle. When you have finished with this leaflet, please recycle it."
What's that all about then? Why is it my responsibility to recycle this leaflet? If they have a concern about the state of our landfills then they should bloody well make sure that they only send leaflets to people who want them, and not force them down our throats. Conversely, if they care more about their marketing campaigns than about the state of our landfills, they should leave it to me to decide how to deal with the problem they've created for me.
(It's a side issue, but recycling is the most inefficient way of dealing with most waste known to man. If anyone is really concerned about landfill space then they should be campaigning to have incinerators built to deal with it.)

Ignorance and Want

2008-01-05T07:43:00.000Z

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw!”
“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. “Look here.”
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.
“They are Man's,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!”
“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.
“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”
The bell struck twelve.

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Smoking Ban, 6 months on.

2008-01-01T15:11:00.000Z

This week marks 6 months since the ban on smoking in public places in England. And who would want to go back? I’m instinctively a libertarian and dislike rules and regulations (at least that’s how I like to think of myself), but in the case of smoking, something went seriously wrong with human communication and consideration. Smokers used to ask “do you mind if I smoke?” with no intention of taking “yes I bloody well do” for an answer. Why did anyone ever expect it would be OK to fill the air of a room with foul smelling smoke just because they were addicted to a drug? Why have we put up with this for so long?
I don’t work in a bar, so I can’t speak for those who do, but I don’t think this was ever a health issue for anyone. It’s always been the case that non-smokers would return from an evening out with their clothes and hair stinking of stale smoke. It was disgusting. I’m glad it’s over, not because of the threat to my health or anyone else’s. Simply because inhabiting an indoor public space is now so much more relaxing. I was lucky over the last 10 years to travel from Liverpool Street Station, where smoking has been banned on “safety” grounds. Whenever I had to travel out of other mainline stations in the rush hour, I used to find it foul. Standing in a tightly packed crowd of people waiting for the train’s platform to be announced, and having to breathe other people’s smoke.
The only shame is that the current ban doesn’t cover the street. Walking down the road behind a smoker is just as unpleasant as it ever was. Outside a pub is now the least pleasant place to be on a summer afternoon, as it doubles for a smoking room. So next time someone comes and stands next to you and fills the air with acrid smoke, the correct and polite response is to say to them:
“Excuse me, do you mind, but I was breathing that air!”

I have no wish to see a ban on the consumption of tobacco for those who wish to continue to use it. But I don't think it unreasonable to ask people to keep it to their own private residence, and not inflict it on the rest of us.

Christmas Rituals

2007-12-26T21:12:00.001Z

If you still believe in Father Christmas and you don't want to know the score; look away now.

I returned from midnight mass on Christmas morning at 01:00, and was faced with what has now become an anual ritual - the impersonation of Father Christmas. We follow the tradition of leaving out a drink and a snack for the big man and his reindeer, and it is my duty on returning from church to consume the said items before proceeding to the filling of the stockings. The particular delicacies that Father Christmas enjoys at our house are a glass of port and a mince pie. In the morning the believers in the household (there are 2 true believers and one who knows the truth but perfers the fantasy) will have a little more evidence to support their belief in the magical man who brings them presents each year.

This year it occured to me that I take part in two rituals in the small hours of Christmas day - each involving the consumption of a round piece of food and a drink made from grape juice. First of all I take communion - a circular wafer of what passes for "bread" in the Church of England and a sip of what passes for "wine". I then come home and consume a mince pie and a glass of port. Each of these actions is a ritual which has no real purpose apart from it's meaning. And though the rituals may look very similar, the meanings are quite different.

Communion is the taking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ himself into my own body, so that the one God who created the universe, the world and all that exists is not just a spiritual idea or thought, but is actually, physically experienced.

The second ritual is a game we play for the children. It entertains them and we are delighted by their delight. Some cynics often call it a lie or a deception, but I think that it is no more than a game. They will know the truth about Father Christmas one day, and I doubt they will be sorry that we played this game with them.

Bah! Humbug!

2007-12-22T19:49:00.000Z

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!'' cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
"Bah!'' said Scrooge, "Humbug!''
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
"Christmas a humbug, uncle!'' said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure.''
"I do,'' said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.''
"Come, then,'' returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.''
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "Bah!'' again; and followed it up with Humbug.''
"Don't be cross, uncle,'' said the nephew.
"What else can I be,'' returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,'' said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with "Merry Christmas'' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!''
"Uncle!'' pleaded the nephew.
"Nephew!'' returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.''
"Keep it!'' repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it.''
"Let me leave it alone, then,'' said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!''
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,'' returned the nephew: "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!''

From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Efergy Smart Meter

2007-12-20T12:26:00.000Z

In a bid to do everything to reduce expenditure, I have focussed on Electricity consumption. When I last checked the cheapest supplier for my energy, I found that our household uses the “average” amount of gas for a UK household, but 1.5 times the “average” amount of electricity. I recently heard of a device called Electrisave, which is designed to get your electricity meter out of the cupboard and put it in front of your face. The objective is to allow you to monitor continually the total consumption of power by the house, and take action when it seems too high. In researching the Electrisave, I came across a superior product called the Efergy Smart Meter. This device does the same as the Electrisave, but also has a memory so that you can review historical consumption without needing to note down meter readings. The Efergy Smart Meter is also about GBP 25.00 cheaper than Electrisave. The only down-side is that the designers have not taken so much care over looks, and I would say that the Electrisave is a more elegant gadget compared with the Efergy’s functional feel – something that may be important if you want to keep it on a coffee table in a pristine living room; but something which matters not one jot to me.
The Smart Meter works by monitoring the current flowing through the wires leaving your electricity meter (which it does by induction, so there’s no wiring to do, just a clip that fits round the meter wire), and transmitting a radio signal from the meter cupboard to the hand-held metering unit. This means that the device is completely wireless and can be taken from room to room to keep an eye on what happens when electrical equipment is turned on. It runs on AAA batteries, 2 in the transmitter, and 2 in the receiver. The transmitter batteries last only about a month, so rechargables might be a good option.
So what have I learned about my energy consumption? If you’re going to make savings you need to learn what’s going on and put some changes into practice. The unit costs GBP 45.00, and as electricity costs GBP 0.07/kWh, you have to save about 650 kWh before the unit has paid for itself. That might not seem much – savings of 10% are quoted by salesmen – but it does require very disciplined application. It’s no good turning off stuff today and then ignoring it for the rest of the year. Smart Meter is a way of life. You have to watch it all the time. However, it does teach you some basics about electricity consumption. For example, I found that the house consumes a base load of about 200 W. That is, when I turn off everything, I still see (by torchlight) a reading of 200 W, which must be accounted for by standby, digital clocks, wireless access point etc. That might not seem a lot – a mere GBP0.336 per day – but this is a constant load which adds up to over GBP120 on my annual bill. (Or course the central heating pump and the fridge are intermittent loads, and it’s hard to know if they are included in this figure or not.) Another lesson is that lighting actually uses up a lot more energy than you’d expect. The humble 40 W light bulb seems fairly cheap to run (less than 1 kWh per day). But we have these in triple light fittings, so that’s 120 W for each fitting. Then consider that we have four of these on the ground floor and five on the first floor – that adds up to more than 1 kW just in lighting if you put on all of these on together.
To sum up: the Smart Meter is an educational tool which will open your eyes to the way you use energy. However, you need to be obsessive if you really want to make it into an investment and expect to save any money by purchasing it.

Vectrix Electric Scooter

2007-12-04T11:17:00.000Z

This summer I took a Vectrix electric scooter for a test ride; and I have to say that I was very impressed. With a top speed of 100 km/h and a range of 110 km, this could easily be the first truly usable electric vehicle since the milk float. The acceleration was extremely good; the feel and handling were excellent. With all the weight low down, but with much less weight than the older generation of electric vehicles, it makes for a really useful little machine. I was very impressed with the sales team too. They were both bikers, so they new what they were talking about and understood their customer. They were quite happy to bring a machine with a fully charged battery to my home, follow me on a test ride to work and recover me if the range of the vehicle wasn’t up to it. That may seem rather odd, since my journey to work is only 55 km – half the maximum range of the Vectrix - but apparently the maximum range is not available at the maximum speed. My journey to work looks like this: 5 km town driving (max speed 50); 35 km motorway (max speed 120); 15 km dual carriageway (max speed 80). That middle section of 35 km at what would mostly be flat out for the bike could prove a big drain on the battery and would need to be assessed. In the end I decided not to buy one. Below is my assessment of the pros and cons of this particular vehicle, but my main concern was that the top speed just isn’t high enough. It’s not the time – it would add about 3.6 minutes (or 9%) to my minimum journey time – but the actual usability on a motorway. I watched how I ride on motorways, and came to the conclusion that I do use that top 20 km/h most of the time. Given that more than 60% of my journey is motorway, I just wasn’t happy with having no acceleration above 100 km/h.

Advantages of the Vectrix (over my Honda ST1100):

Cheap to run – would cost about £1 a week.
Cheap to service – apparently has only 7 moving parts (brakes and bearings)
Zero cost to tax

Disadvantages

Unknown battery life. Ten years is claimed, but warranty only covers two or three
Unknown resale value – Have to assume that it depreciates fully over the warranty period.
Lack of top speed for motorway work
Unknown insurance costs – Vectrix recommended a broker who quoted a crazy price
Unknown range when the battery gets old. I’d be a bit stuck if the range drops off after a year of use and I can’t get to work.

It’s very difficult to get an accurate picture of the true cost of ownership of the Vectrix. With fuel costs at £50 per year instead of £1500 you’d think it would make sense. One model I built, the whole thing hinged on the tyre life, believe it or not. But any realistic model of cost for any vehicle is based on the depreciation. Buying a brand new scooter for £7000 with an unpredictable resale value, compared with a middle-aged big bike with a strong second-hand market just leaves too many unknowns. So it was with some reluctance that I gave up my hope of going electric for my commuting. But give up I have until there’s a bit more top end, and a bit more history on which to base depreciation estimates.

Fitbug

2007-11-29T14:32:00.000Z

My employers recently decided to try for a fitter, healthier workforce and gave us all a gadget called a Fitbug. This is a digital pedometer that counts your steps. But it’s not just a dumb step counter that counts your daily steps, oh no, this is a smart step counter. It keeps a record of when the steps were taken, and stores that all in a memory. It can store up to 2 weeks worth of data, but the idea is that you upload the results to a website where it leaves a permanent record of your activity. Through the website you have access to a graphical interface where you can compare across days, or look at the detail of which hours you were active on any given day. Furthermore, if you walk for 10 minutes or more without a break, the Fitbug deems that to be aerobic exercise, and counts the steps as Aerobic steps. They then give you a target for how many steps you should be doing each day, and how many should be aerobic. Then they set you a target for how many of each kind of steps you need to do. Based on your performance against target, they colour-code each day’s activity: grey – not enough steps; green – enough steps, but not enough aerobic; blue – enough aerobic steps, but not enough total steps; pink – target achieved. So you get a graph that looks like this:

Now of course the most obvious question is: what do you do with this information? Well, it beats me! The best use I can think of is that if you’re in the habit of exercising regularly and you notice that you’ve had a very active day, you can skip today’s exercise session and save time. That seems kind of contrary to the spirit of the thing. To be honest, I have actually walked instead of driving a few short journeys recently so that I get the steps. But not enough to make a real difference.

My conclusion – if you’re motivated to get fit, it might help you. If you’ve got a lazy, unfit and out of shape workforce, you need more than a gadget to get them motivated.

Bike or Train

2007-11-28T21:48:00.000Z

When I first moved to Bishop’s Stortford in 1996 I was working in the City (of London). The only sane means of transport for getting to work was to use the train. So I bought a house a short walk from the station and bought a season ticket each month. Nothing much changed for about seven years. Then my employer announced an office move to Canary Wharf in the London Docklands. For those who don’t know the anatomy of London, Canary Wharf is an office village about 5 km east of the City, and is attempting to take over the City’s position as the financial centre of the UK – an aspiration which it has so far been quite successful in realising.

The problem for those of us living out to the North of London is that public transport links to the London Docklands are poor, to put it mildly. The only obvious route is to go into the City as normal, and use public transport from there. This adds a further 30 minutes to a journey of about 1 hour, giving a total daily commuting time of 3 hours, not to mention an additional GBP50 per month.

The only real alternative is to use the road system. This is another situation altogether. Bishop’s Stortford is right next to the M11 motorway which takes you down to the north east corner of London and connects with the A12 Eastern Avenue and A406 North Circular roads. These are fast dual carriageways taking you further into London, and, crucially, into Canary Wharf without touching any urban roads. Of course using a car is an option, but has two draw-backs: namely that the roads get very busy during the morning and evening peaks, and the size of a car makes it expensive to park during the day.

So the only viable solution is a motorcycle. On a bike I can jump all the queues and park for free in the office car-park. The journey time is as little as 40 minutes on clear roads and seldom more than 50minutes even in the heaviest traffic. A bike is a completely different experience from a train, but I settled into the different routine well enough for the first year. Then, in the spring of this year, I was told that due to overcrowding of the office, we were being moved back to the City for an unspecified period. I still visit the Canary Wharf office a few times each week, but when I have to go to the City, I use the train. This has got me thinking about the relative merits of the two means of transport which are so different in nature. There are definitely some positive points about using the train – I’m writing this on a train, something I can’t do on a bike – for example. But if I had used the bike today, I would have been home by now and I could type this in the comfort thereof. I’v compiled a list of plus and minus points for each of the two forms of transport.

Train:
Plus points:

Gives me 1.5 hours of time when I can read or use a laptop
Requires about 30 minutes of brisk walking per day to keep me fit
Allows me to relax and even sleep when I’m sleep deprived
Low risk on the cost front – Cost is fixed (unless I forget to buy a ticket)
Low risk on the safety front.
Relatively comfortable, most of the time.

Minus Points:

Takes twice as long as the bike
Costs about twice as much as the bike
Timetable is quite inflexible, so if I’m 1 minute late for the train I can be 30 minutes late for work.
When things go wrong they go badly wrong, and you’re helpless.

Bike:
Plus points:

Much quicker than the train
About half the price of the train (though costs are harder to quantify)
I’m not tied to a timetable
Even when roads are blocked there’s a way through the traffic.

Minus Points :

Takes all concentration, so I can’t read or work in transit
Can be quite uncomfortable in the rain or in cold weather
Relatively high risk of death or serious injury
Relatively high risk of financial loss due to accidents or speeding fines

On balance, an impartial reader might think that train has the upper hand. If you gave all the points equal weight you’d probably come to that conclusion. But the one point that clinches the deal for the bike is that it gives me an excuse to ride the bike every day. For those not familiar with riding, you probably won’t understand that; if you compare it to driving a car you won’t see the connection. There is a saying that if I have to explain it, you won’t understand, and that applies very well to riding a bike. Those who don’t ride, don’t know. It might be chucking down with rain; it might be freezing cold, but I’d rather be on my bike than in a comfy train. Riding into the City I don’t enjoy it so much – the urban traffic is an acquired taste – but whenever I can find an excuse to go into our Canary Wharf office, I’ll be there on my bike.

Smallcreep's Day

2007-11-23T16:37:00.001Z

Following yesterday's posting regarding Smallcreep’s Day, I did a bit of searching with Google, and came across this little gem:

It’s someone reading an extract from one of my favourite parts of the book. It’s not exactly as it was written; the words are in fact a montage of two conversations into a single (almost) monologue, performed in a menacing, distorted voice.

At this point in the plot, Smallcreep has found the factory offices, where he clumsily stumbles in on first a salesman and then the Managing Director. Both characters give him their view on life which is, I believe, the central message of the book. You may be tempted to view this critique of life as highly cynical, but I would suggest that it is quite the opposite. The acknowledgement that, if you have a dustbin, you condemn a man to empty it for you, is irrefutable. Here he faces up to the reality of capitalism, not in a sentimental hand-wringing way, but with a totally genuine and bluntly honest way. Well enough of my views – listen to it for yourself

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And if you now want to read the book, pre-order it now on Amazon – it’ll probably be cheaper than a second-hand copy on ebay.

Smallcreep and the internet

2007-11-22T09:48:00.000Z

When I was very young – just a baby – my father wrote a novel and was successful in getting it published. The book is not really the subject of this post, but here’s a brief summary of it: The book is called Smallcreep’s Day, and follows the exploits of a factory worker, Pinquean Smallcreep during a very unusual day in his life. Mr Smallcreep, having become obsessed by an idea, leaves his machine and goes exploring through the strange world of his factory. On a quest to find meaning in his monotonous existence, Smallcreep experiences many surreal and disturbing situations. Each scene explores some of the author’s ideas about human relationships, freedom and the value of human life. Some of the scenes are hilarious, some depressing and some macabre. The final two pages are taken up with a powerful vision of the futility of factory work and a passionate cry for the lost dignity of the craftsman. (It is not hard to guess, reading this conclusion that the author very soon left his life as a factory worker and became a craftsman potter.)

The book was originally published by Gollancz, and later issued in paperback by Picador and Panther. Many years ago it was discontinued and can now only be found occasionally on ebay, paperback copies often fetching a tenner or more. Needless to say, this book has become the stuff of family legend. I cannot remember a time when there was no Smallcreep, and my three siblings and I have always been enormously proud of our father’s work. You sometimes meet people who have read it, and they always turn out to be interesting people who were very impressed by the book. Mike Rutherford, the guitarist, used the story as the inspiration for a concept album in the 1980s (though he sold out the true meaning of the book and gave it a happy ending). Having been out of print for so many years, it’s becoming less and less frequent that I meet anyone who’s heard of Smallcreep.

One morning this year I received a phone call at work from a number I didn’t recognise. The caller ran a small publishing house in London, specialising in out-of-print works by authors with interesting views on life, and wanted to know if I was related of the author of Smallcreep’s day. He was interested in contacting him with a view to re-issuing the work. I was delighted to put him in touch with my father. I was also delighted to learn today that the book will be re-published by Pinter and Martin in May 2008. Order your copy now

You might expect that this would be the end of the story, but it gets stranger yet. A couple of months later I got a message through Friends Reunited, from someone interested in … contacting my father with a view to writing a screen play for Smallcreep’s Day. Luckily Friends Reunited had not managed to remove her email address from the message, so I was able to make contact without having to shell out to join their service (which I wouldn’t have done).

So the interesting thing is that there is enough information on the internet to track down the children of the author of a work which was published over 40 years ago. (My father does have his own web-site, but it would have been impossible to find him, as he now goes by a stage-name.) I asked the 2nd caller how she had reached me, and how she knew it was me, from the thousands of David Browns on the Friends Reunited site. She had apparently heard of the connection through an old school friend of mine who writes a blog – Random Burblings. He mentions me and the town where we grew up, so it was then easy to find the right Brown family from that information.

I’m very pleased that I can be traced via stuff that people put on the internet. Arguably the first caller did a better job, as he found the switchboard of my company and asked for me by name. Despite there being about 20 David Browns in our Global Address List, he still managed to get through to the right one. However, if you have any reason not to want to be contacted by strangers - skeletons in the cupboard perhaps, or worse – be very wary about posting information on Friends Reunited or other sites. It might pay to Google your own name and town of birth from time to time, just to see what’s out there. Don’t think of it as vanity; it’s identity protection.

Honey from Africa

2007-11-16T09:13:00.000Z

I recently came across a charity called Hives Save Lives Africa (HSLA)which seeks to help people in developing countries to develop independence by providing them with beekeeping equipment and training. Traditional African honey production techniques are several hundred years behind western methods, which results in a honey with a smoky flavour (caused, they argue, but the excessive use of smoke in the harvesting process) that is difficult to sell on the world market and fetches a low price. HSLA argue that if they can provide African apiculturalists with the hardware and knowledge to produce top quality honey, they can increase income from bees and provide more independence.

I bought those arguments and donated some cash to HSLA. I then wondered what African honey would taste like, so I set out to find some in Waitrose. There I found a jar of Tropical Forest Honey, a fair-trade label with a different take on the African honey situation. Tropical Forest buy the honey from the traditional honey harvesters, smoky flavour and all. I tried it, and sure enough it does taste of smoke! The Tropical Forest view is that the smoky flavour is natural; not caused by harvesting – they put it down to the presence of pollens which the western pallet is not used to. They use this flavour as a unique selling point, claiming that it is enjoyed by true honey connoisseur. They argue that the traditional methods are better suited to the African situation, with lack of infrastructure and lack of capital making western-style honey production impractical and inappropriate.

So here are two opposing views of African development through honey production: the HSLA approach of giving hardware and knowledge to allow honey farmers to produce western style honey to compete on the open world market; and the Tropical Forest approach of buying the low quality product produced by traditional apiculture and trying to find a market for it in the west. The HSLA approach could be accused of forcing western style development on situations where it is not appropriate. The Tropical Forest approach could be accused of creating a dependency on a small market which will limit future development. Ultimately the judgement has to be which is the most effective at providing poor communities with an independent and reliable source of income.

Meanwhile the Tropical Forest honey jar languishes in my cupboard, half-finished, while I’ve gone through several kg of English and French honey and a several jars of - my favourite addition to yoghurt – acacia blossom honey from various countries. I can‘t see myself buying any more of the Tropical Forest honey in a hurry; but I’d love to know what the honey from the HSLA projects tastes like.

No such word as “blog”.

2007-11-15T23:36:00.000Z

I did a Google search for “no such word as blog”. I was expecting to find many people writing treatises on the decline of the English language and where on earth have all these new words come from. I was disappointed! One poet complained it was such an ugly word, and couldn’t we use a word with more syllables (though he didn’t propose one), but mainly it was people speaking in the past tense about how “when I started this blog there was no such word as blog” etc. So how exactly did the word get into the language – and in the language it jolly well is, whether or not it’s in any particular dictionary or spell checker.

When new things are invented, we need to give them names so that we can talk about them without having to describe them each time. In the “good-old-days” inventions were made by inventors, or at least by companies, who then had the privilege of inventing a new name for their new article. This could be new word – like “television”, a combination of existing words (e.g. “Compact Disk”), or a new use for an existing word (“record”, to stick with the recording media example). But since the web era, things (like blogs) have been happening without being invented as such. And people start using words to name these things, and those words are then part of the language. But for a word to mean something, the speaker and the listener both have to know what it means. So how does a new word get into common usage? Well the answer has to be the media. Unless we’re really on the cutting edge of technology, we hear these new terms used in the news. Then we go and look them up and find out what they’re all about. And when we tell people about them, we use the term we heard in the media.

So why are so many of the new internet age words so dreadful; for example “phishing” to describe trying to get someone to reveal their password. Who thought of that and why on earth would anyone journalist give it the dignity of actually passing it on. Well I suppose the answer is that journalists are not very creative people. They just read a press-release, or someone else’s news story, and they repeat it parrot fashion to their readers/listeners/viewers, and so the words get passed on and used, whether they deserve it or not. But it doesn’t always happen that way. The decade between 2001 and 2010 still needs a name, and we’re already more than half way through. Several different names have been proposed for this decade, including the unbelievably crass “noughties”. Why on earth would anyone think of that, let alone use it? We don’t say “two thousand nought seven” do we? For two digit dates it’s more likely “oh seven”. And there’s nothing particularly naughty (which I assume is the allusion they were looking for) about this decade compared with any other. So I’m pleased to say that while I’ve heard a few people in the media attempt to create this term, I’ve yet to hear anyone use it seriously.

So where does that leave my blog. Actually I hate the word. It’s a rubbish word with a rubbish etymology and only one letter away from “bog”, the English slang for a lavatory. But it’s undeniably the word that we use to describe this kind of internet journal. (I checked the meaning of “journal” in the Oxford Dictionary, and apparently you have to update it every day to qualify as a journal.) So “blog” it is – it could have been worse!