...ruffles...

I haven't mentioned Big Brother this year, I am watching it, kind of, in passing, when there's nothing better on. Its just its not really been interesting enough to comment on, I suppose.

I'm also watching the Tour De France; the parallels between the two are remarkable - especially when you can think of nothing better to write about. Firstly, it's a competition of backbreaking longevity and it doesn't pay to go out too hard - an excessively exuberant Big Brother contestant is likely to be voted out early whereas a Prologue specialist is unlikely to complete the first week.

Both competitions have their specialists - the Tour has sprinters, climbers, and domestiques whilst Big Brother has Charley, the specialist hate figure, the good old-boy, Liam, the future Nuts model; Chanelle and the odd-ball - Tracey (who uses the phrase 'Ave It' when she can't think of anything else to say - like a blank tile in Scrabble).

These people spend most of their time anonymously cruising through the competition. Overall victory is never likely but they will have their day; either in a public vote, or a moment of comedy, or a barnstorming argument. This is what the tour would view as a stage win.

They're both compelling viewing because they weave a intriguing story that you don't really want to miss, yet the overall winner becomes obvious from fairly early on. The winners tend to be good at everything without being spectacular at anything. Brian, for example, is not particularly witty, clever or entertaining, he's just a decent bloke. Victory can be secured from some way out - this year's Tour winner is pretty much decided with a week and a half still to go; the Tour winner cruises into Paris, whereas Big Brother winner cruises into a Davina interview and China White's. In many ways, the competitions are very similar.

Plus, of course, they're all constantly cheating and probably on drugs.

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Labels: Sport, TV and radio

I've recently registered on Facebook. I've accumulated fourteen friends; which I thought was quite good until I found out that my 23 year old assistant has 188 because apparently everyone at Uni was on it.

As part of the original Internet generation, my comprehension of it was basically as a big unwieldy largely inaccurate book. Social networking was limited to a bit of email and the odd message board. I'm probably missing the whole point of Web 2.0, but apart from accumulating friends, I just seem to spend most of my time finding out that my friends are making friends with people I've never heard of and that this person has dropped a sheep on the other person's head. It's like a giant Vic and Bob convention.

I also recently had a tootle around Second Life. I went to a club and stood like a dork in the middle of dancefloor trying to work out how to activate my 'dancing' mode. At one point a naked man with glow stick bangles on skimmed across my screen, so I went and stood in a corner so I could try and work out the basic controls. One of the quick keys is to take all your clothes off, which explains much of Second Life's purpose, I suppose. Whilst standing in the corner, I managed to 'overhear' a conversation which went something along the lines of:

"U have gr8 boobs"
"Thnx lol"

They didn't seem at all embarrassed 'talking' like this in front of a man walking in circles and occasionally flying into walls (me, trying to work out the controls still) but I was embarrassed listening to it. I logged off and am probably still standing lifelessly listening to endless trance music whilst the, *shudder*, cyber-flirting goes on around me.

My fundamental issue with all this is that its unnatural. I do not make complete strangers ('randoms' according to my 23 year old assistant) my friends just because they ask in real life and can't get my head around doing it on the Internet. Nor can I quite get into the idea of telling someone they have "gr8 boobs" when that person is probably a fat trucker from Albuquerque called Derek. Above all, Second Life, as one person put it, is men pretending to be women having sex with women pretending to be unicorns.

Quite frankly, if I wanted to have sex with a unicorn, I'd just go out and do it.

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Labels: Technology

I vividly remember the first video my dad bought. It was not a VHS, it was not even Betamax format; it was a Grundig with big clunky keys and tapes as big as house bricks.

He brought it home one evening, Nationwide was on the TV and he tested that everything was working by recording it; a car driving over a bridge. Like all major technological breakthroughs the sheer mundane nature of the subject made it more special.

Emma’s parents’ first video came much later; Emma assured me that it was state of the art and the most expensive one in the shop. It probably was, a purchase born out of fear of the technology. Despite this, it didn’t have a timer function – I was told. So you couldn’t preset the video to record; you basically had to put a tape in at least four hours before the end of the show you wanted to record. So they had tapes and tapes of rubbish in order to catch the Eastenders Omnibus. It wasn’t until, some five years after they bought it, I found it did have a timer; they just didn’t look at the manual, probably for fear of being seen to doubt the machine’s omnipotent power – if angered it might have had their souls exhumed.

My Grandpa also couldn’t get to grips with his video; he was convinced that you had to have the TV on and tuned into the channel you wanted to record. His basic understanding was that somehow the video was recording directly off the TV screen and if the TV was off, then it would record a blank screen. He was worried that if he left the TV on when he was out it would blow a fuse and burn the house would to the ground.

SKY+ came this week; a technology from another planet. The temptation is to use all the functionality all the time, but I figured it should be introduced naturally, y’know, when something significant comes along. So what have we christened this new wizard with? The release of a political prisoner after 30 years? Capture of a long chased Saudi dissident? The winning of a major world sporting trophy after many years of hurt?

Nope, the first thing we’re recording is Neighbours on series link.

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Labels: Technology

I'm in two minds about Live Earth. On one hand it seems churlish to ignore the issue, but on the other; there's no denying the hypocrisy and flaws in its concept.

Live Aid, upon which all these things are based, was unique, had a simple principle - the biggest bands in the world play music and you give us your fucking money, a charismatic iconic leader who did the politics so the dumbo popstars could focus on the bass solos and it had a few moments of legend: the career reviving Queen set, that video with the music from The Cars, and a career defining set from U2.

All this has been lost in the slew of political concerts staged in the intervening years. I didn't see much of yesterday, but it seemed to be a hotchpotch of bands which pandered to American audiences as the day progressed (Pussycat Dolls on third from last?), it was a series of short record company driven showcases; for example, who the hell is Terra Naomi and how come she's billed higher than the Red Hot Chilli Peppers? Above all, it wasn't entertaining enough for long enough to hold the attention.

Secondly, the simplicity of the Band Aid concept has been replaced by the more nebulous 'awareness building'. Success, therefore, can't be measured in money terms, so it compels the artists to go on about 'The Issue'. With no charismatic leader (sorry, Al Gore) it's left to Madonna to tell us to 'jump up and down if you want to save the world' and Kasabian to 'save the polar bears for our children's children, or at least give it a try, yaknowhatimsayin?'. Snow Patrol justified the criticisms of hypocrisy by saying they weren't there to preach, they were there to learn... about how to put gigs on of this size in an ecologically friendly way. Then there was bloody Hollywood-addled Joss Stone rambling on about 'Saving the world being really important and global warming being really bad, like'.

I'm certainly older, and probably more cynical than I was in the days of Live Aid, so its not really a fair comparison. It did strike me that I didn't hear a single piece of practical advice about the issue. Which, when you think about it, could have transformed the thing - what about a call for governments to pass a law that says in 5 years time only energy efficient light bulbs can be sold, or that no new appliance can have a stand-by light, or even that every car built is hybrid fuelled?

It seems odd that the government can't achieve this when it has managed to successfully ban smoking, insist that every TV goes Digital and has, in the past, banned lead from petrol. None of the three suggestions above would be a perceived attack on the UK way of life, it wouldn't even effect big businesses particularly. Instead, we have a concert whose effects are unlikely to last beyond Tuesday.

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Labels: Music

Millie is just starting to become aware of the television as a source of entertainment. Previously she just saw it as a source of flashing colours and spent many hours with her nose against the screen taking it all in.

This morning, The Hoobs were on, which she seemed to be enjoying. It had someone signing for the deaf in the corner. Goodness knows how they sign ‘Tiddlepeeps’ and ‘Hoobledoobledoo’.

For non-connoisseurs ‘Hoobledoo’ is how the Hoobs say hello to each other. They say it all the time. Eventually, on about the sixtieth ‘Hoobledoo’ Emma pipes up; ‘So, is this the Hoobs then?’

It would have been a bit weird if it was said by a Fimble.

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Labels: TV and radio

So, to update; I buy a new Orange phone; it breaks through no fault of my own, there follows a brief border skirmish with Orange, in which they won't fix it without a receipt and I retreat to lick my wounds. Then I find the receipt to the phone and arm myself ready for battle. At this point I lose my SIM card somewhere between here and Poland rendering the whole phone fixing onslaught largely redundant.

Then Millie hides the controller to our Freeview box upstairs leaving us with just four fuzzy analogue channels. Then our Sky box downstairs packs up leaving us analogue downstairs too. This must have been what it was like for medieval peasants.

I decide to draw a line under the debacle; I order SKY+ and choose to simply cut my loses and buy a new phone. I head for the Orange shop, I get as far as checking out a new phone. I don't like it; the buttons are too small and it has rather unpleasant orange lights, I decide to think about it.

We walk home via Sara's; they switched to SKY+ a few months ago and it turns out they've got a spare box that we can borrow to tide us over. Emma then goes to Tesco and buys a new digibox for upstairs.

Then, and here's the miracle, I do what I always do when preparing to sit down in front of the TV. I take my shoes and belt off and empty my pockets - leaving small piles of change all over the house. Out comes my wallet and for no apparent reason I decide to have another route around for the Sim card. My finger finds a particularly ragged bit of my particularly ragged wallet... and... I feel the SIM card. I FOUND THE SIM CARD. I can't explain why I decided to have another look or why my finger found the nook for the first time. I have only one explanation - the baby Jesus put it there.

I am now fully subscribed to digital TV once more, I have my SIM card and my broken phone with it's receipt. I am making progress in my battle with technology; I feel like Mace Windu fighting the Clone Wars.

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Labels: Technology

It didn't seem particularly fair that the core hypothesis being offered in the endless documentaries on the 'real' Tony Blair this week was 'Tony Blair, how utterly rubbish was he?'

Channel 4 ran a documentary about Blair's Children focussing on a child that'd been shot in a council estate. Honestly, is this representative of 'Blair's Children' (aside from the fact that Blair's Children are Euan, Nicky, Kathryn and Leo).

In the main, Britain under Tony Blair has been a good place; economically stable and reasonably prosperous. We're a nation that gets education, healthcare, a decent prospect of having a job, low inflation, cheap overseas holidays, pretty safe streets and in 2012 we will have the Olympic Games.

OK, some people have more than others, but that's always going to be the case and true equality is a a worthy, but unlikely prospect - which doesn't mean we should stop trying to achieve it, of course. If people living on the streets of Rio or in Baghdad, Dehli, or Kabul had the choice of living there or somewhere as stable and prosperous as Britain, I think they'd choose the latter ... we don't know we're born.

It's not been a perfect premiership; but I'd like to meet the person who hasn't made a mistake at work for ten years. After 10 years in any job there is a point where the world has moved on and you're left floundering. Which is probably what's happened to him in the last couple of years.

Sadly, one of his legacies will be Iraq; but he isn't responsible for the growth of radical Islamic thinking, that's been on the march for 30 years nor was he responsible for the election of George Bush. Our alignment on a global stage with the US goes back generations, and he knows he'd have been slaughtered for aligning with Europe on the issue. Yes, he could have had more conviction and listened to the people; but in reality he was pretty stymied in what he could do about it.

He's been on every TV channel every day for ten years, so over-exposure is an inevitability. He can't be anyone but who he is - have you tried talking or smiling differently, it's very hard, so when he smiles, it's not smarmy, it's him smiling. I think he's done OK, and think he should be respected for what he's done.

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Labels: News

I bought an Orange phone, then it got a crack in the screen and I had to go to war with the evil corporate machine to get it fixed. I fought valiantly and heroically to try and get them accept the blame, but without a receipt they wouldn't touch it.

Then I threatened them with Trading Standards and they relented, promising to have a look at it if I sent it back to their evil lair, victory was in my grasp.

And, then, well, I kind of forgot to send it to them. You see, I'm a bit lazy and really not the kind of person who holds a grudge for very long. For all the fire in my belly during a fight, it only takes a cup of tea and a biscuit to remove my steel.

Days, weeks and months slipped by and my position became untenable. I was given a repair number in February, but you can't send the handset in June with any credibility. I kind of gave up on the idea.

THEN, on Tuesday Emma was clearing out some paperwork and came across the receipt for the phone which was the crucible of the struggle between me and the beast. The one single reason that Orange shops wouldn't touch it.

The battle was back on. I could approach them again, exploit the weakness which was once my biggest foe - the fact that Orange shops and Orange online aren't linked. I could go to the shop, get it fixed and Orange online, with their February repair number, would never know. I resisted the temptation of preening myself whilst strutting topless up the High Street in celebration.

Then, on Wednesday, less than twenty-four hours later I remembered that my work phone was carrying my work Sim Card. I replaced my Orange Sim with it when I was in Poland so that work could pay for my calls home. I went to switch it back and went to my wallet where... the Orange Sim card was gone. And they're very small. And it could be anywhere between here and Cracow. And, well, bollocks.

So, the handset is broken through no fault of my own, and is probably worth about 10% of the total value of the phone and the Sim card, 90% of the value of the phone, is lost through totally my own fault. Except, of course, if my phone wasn't broken I wouldn't be switching Sim cards back and forth in the same handset. It appears that I am being buggered by the corporate beast and it is my own fault whilst not being my own fault at the same time, it's like being buggered twice through my own choice... which I realise for some would represent a party.

Bad week for technology in the house of Ruffles.

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Labels: Technology

Have you ever got on a roll with an argument, only to realise halfway through, you're in the wrong? This happened to me this weekend.

Our SKY box broke on Thursday, it's about 4 years old and way out of guarantee. Incidentally, the controller for our Freeview box upstairs has been hidden by Millie never to be found again. Televisually we're going back in time. Tomorrow I'm likely to turn on and observe the liquid sexual chemistry between Anne Diamond and Nick Owen on TV AM.

Something needed to be done, it was the perfect opportunity to reassess our televisual needs. Everyone raves about SKY+, so that seemed worth exploring, and we could probably live without SKY Movies. Well, I'm the customer, BT Vision and Virgin Media mean I'm in a position of considerable power. I decided I was going to get onto SKY and get myself a rollicking good deal. I looked on the website...

Option A was to upgrade to SKY+ at a cost of £159 with the whole package.

Option B was to remove the films and save about £5 a month.

I phoned them; with a head of steam, my negotiating skills and a competitive market they were sure to pull something out of the bag. I said, in my sternest voice, that I wasn't happy with the price being offered. What were they going to do about it? Not a lot, they said.

They could offer me Option C: SKY Motion, which allows you to watch SKY on more than one TV. This would knock the installation down to £99 but put £10 on the monthly subscription.

Option D: They could get my monthly subscription down to £20, but that was without any of the premium channels.

I walked away from the negotiations, because AH HA! I could always get our broken box fixed. The power was with me, for sure; they wouldn't want to lose my custom would they?

Once off the phone I worked it out; Option D wasn't much of an improvement on what I have now with a broken box, and Option C would cost me £120 a year more in subscriptions despite it being £60 less in installation. I could live without the benefit of Premiership football upstairs as well as down and we could get a new Freeview box for about £20.

Option B, dropping SKY Movies, would save about a fiver; but we probably watch a film or two a month, which still beats a Blockbuster rental DVD. So there was no point in dropping SKY Movies either.

Which left me with two options; fix the old box or upgrade to SKY+ for the extravagant price of £159. And then it dawned on me... to get the existing box fixed would be a minimum of £100. Which would be £100 to stand still. Which basically means Option A, is really only £59, the price of a cheap video, for a heap of new features. Really, the hideously priced SKY+ installation was not a bad deal after all.

Sheepishly I went back to SKY and ordered the new box.

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Labels: Technology

I really should get out of the habit of say that I'm not going to Glastonbury this year as my festival going days are some way behind me. One day I'd like to go back with Millie and experience a different Glastonbury, although I suspect its already very different to what I remember. When the hippies and crusties left with the traveller riot in 1990, the indie kids were its lifeblood, this was my time. That seems to have been taken over by 30-something professionals. James Blunt, James Morrison and Jamie Cullum would never have even made the site during my era.

Still, there are ways of enjoying its vibe when you're a lazy 30-something (as opposed to a deluded 30 something). Today I bought the Orbital Live at Glastonbury compilation and from the second I put it on I swear I could feel the dampness in the air and smell the poppers. Seriously.

Of course, Glastonbury is also now a TV event, and, when Jo Wiley isn't trying to be John Peel (Lauren Laverne is cooler and better), and they're not playing Just Jack as the intro music, it's pretty good. Arctic Monkeys were great on Friday, but until then I hadn't quite worked out why like them. I usually know why I like the music I like. I like Radiohead because they're the band I want to be... edgy, popular, from Oxford. I like hip hop because I like to imagine that I'm at the party Kid N Play throw in House Party. With the Arctic Monkeys I have little claim on them, Happy Mondays, Oasis, the Stone Roses all defined my generation whereas the Monkeys are defining the generation I tut at on the train when they put their feet on the seats and drop litter.

They sing about going down the pub and kicking around town and play groovy funky riffs. they play them hard and fast, but there's not much innovative or clever in what they do. It then came to me why I like them; they're basically the best school band ever.

Btw - this photo album thing is good isn't it?... I love the BBC.

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Labels: Music

The conference dinner and awards in Poland was a masterclass in the surreal. It was held in a castle some fifty minutes from the city centre. I was hoping for ramparts, but it was actually a mansion house built by a randy old bugger to house one of his mistresses – one of fifty shag pads he built throughout Poland, each one installed with an ensuite mistress.

For reasons unclear, the host chose a didactic style and rather than explain what was going on in the entertainment, chose to tell us what we were feeling. Therefore we were subject to a mechanistic dance of men shaving women’s legs, and of women dancing with a human head in a bucket, all without a word of introduction or explanation. However, when it came to the prize giving we were told that ‘this is an emotional moment for all of us’. A useful cue.

Two special awards were presented, again without real explanation. Firstly to the Polish (the main conference sponsor took a special version of the special award) and then to the Chinese. Nope, I didn’t get it either.

The main award took about an hour to present with each of the nine judging levels, eight judges and seven finalists being explained or called onto the stage in minute detail. Each finalist had a promotional video which was often a more generic TV advert than anything to do with the actual award contestant. Then there was a little vignette played out where the main judge searched his pockets pretending to have lost his envelope which he also did when presenting the Polish and Chinese awards earlier. Oh the hilarity.

With the envelope eventually found, the thirty-five people on stage and everyone checking their watches in gasping anticipation of the announcement, the host and main judge decided, in a pique of autism, to cut the proceedings to get everyone on stage more neatly arranged. Judges on the left, finalists on the right. In groups. Much confused shuffling and bowing ensued. A jazz band, which obscured most of the screen, played a groove in the background.

Eventually the announcement was made, and it was a major shock to hear the prize was shared between the growing economic superpower that it would be good to sidle up to: China and the host nation who had many influential dignitaries in attendance: Poland. Perhaps it was no irony that one of the graphics contained the typo ‘Price winners’; one speculates, what price the winners might have paid.

The evening closed with the serving of plates of what looked like entrées and a laser show with the loudest soundsystem I’ve ever heard. Nobody quite explained what the diplodocus or birthday cake had to do with the presentation, but at the time it seemed somehow wholly appropriate.

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Labels: Work

Dateline: Cracow

I’m here in Poland with work, which makes me an international business person. The purpose of my visit is an international conference. Cracow is beautiful, and not at all like I’d envisaged, but I’d rather be at home. Or here on holiday. Why people enjoy this I don’t know.

For all the platitudes about reaching beyond borders and nations meeting nations, in truth the nations stick together, the English keep it particularly tribal even though everyone else speaks English as the common language. When they’re feeling gregarious they will pass the time with the odd American or Australian but in truth, everyone stays with their own and scoffs at each other. It’s largely indistinguishable from International It’s a Knockout. I keep expecting to hear Stuart Hall screaming “LOOK AT THE FRENCH, LOOK AT THE FRENCH!”

Either that or a teenage party; for the uninitiated, like me, I shake hands with Olaf and Vladimir and they seem OK. Then you find that there’s some almighty fall out and that Dave didn’t like the way Olaf said something to Vladimir and that as a result Beatrice is crying in the toilet. For those who live in this world, it all seems terribly important; but it just appears to be a self perpetuating round of inconsequential bickering.

The conference had an opening ceremony; the only opening ceremony I’ve ever seen is at the Olympics, and that usually involves elfin imps dancing incomprehensibly to signify the development of youth or something. It wasn’t quite like that, but we had the local mayor, the main sponsor and Lech Walesa, plus a classical music recital which culminated in the playing of the wedding march. Everyone sat stoney-faced; did nobody see the absurdity of it all?

I’m only here for a couple of nights, giving me one whole day at the conference and the delight of the main conference dinner. Some of the English contingent, who flew out earlier, appear to be treating their trip like a stag weekend. So it should be interesting to see what happens at the dinner, apparently, it’s not unusual for the nations to sing their national songs… I think ours is going to be ‘You’re going to get your fucking heads kicked in’.

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Labels: Work

The Wireless festival, of which I now count myself a regular having attended Depeche Mode last year, New Order the year before and Faithless this year, delights and disgusts me in equal measure. Whilst the principle spirit of any festival is achieving some kind of 'connection' at Glastonbury its with your own inner spirit or something, at Wireless it's with your mobile phone brand.

Apart from the opportunity to bond with your O2 phone provider by texting for a "VIP" pass to their tent thing. You can walk along neat concreted pathways between various heavily sponsored areas, rather than through a bog of your own swill. Even the burgers are nice, the beer queue short and Spanx had a convenient and safe locker to store his rucksack. It is all very wrong.

But, it's convenient, it's within 30 minutes of all main stations out of town and it finishes at a reasonable time. Its like a lady choosing to discard her foxy lingerie for a pair of three pack big knickers because they're comfortable. You can't argue with the logic.

If Faithless were a football team, you'd say that in Maxi Jazz you've got a man up front who will guarantee you goals. They came on and snatched an early goal with 'Can't Get No Sleep', just before half time 'God Is A DJ' ensured victory. For most of the second half they defended deep and in numbers without really pressing their advantage home. In the final minute they broke away to slot home 'We Come 1'; flattering the score line a little.

I'd never seen Faithless before, but they look amazing on TV and when they're good, they're really good. But it wasn't quite the stellar experience I hoped it might be and it turns out that I don't know as many of their tunes as I thought.

Still, they've enough in their locker for you to go home happy and there's little better than pounding live music and a big crowd to get your spirits up. Even if it is Mark Ronson name dropping Amy Whinehouse and playing a series of anodyne covers.

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Labels: Music

Yesterday, because we were in the area, we went to designer retail outlet discount centre Bicester Village. We're in the area about once every eighteen months and will drop in with increasingly low expectations of what we might find.

Last time we were there I bought a pair of Camper shoes which turned out to be from a range called 'Twins'. Sadly these weren't identical twins, they were subtly, though noticeably different. At first, probably because I'd just spent fifty quid on odd shoes, I justified this as an appropriately quirky manifestation of my character. Eventually they simply became a pair of odd shoes; odd shoes are worn by Big Brother contestants and sixth form students trying to amplify their brittle teenage characters onto a thankless peer group. My odd shoes just slipped to the back of the cupboard, to become crushed by pairs of shoes which looked the same. A sort of shoe based Darwinism.

Not that Bicester Village is totally without value. If you are morbidly obese to the point that a barrage balloon is considered to pinch a little under the arms, or skeletal to the point that risks full multiple collapse of your internal organs as a result of your bowing pipecleaner bones, then you will indeed find some of the latest fashions at discounted rates. We saw a pair of wedge healed open toed sandals at LK Bennet which are the very height of fashion, but sadly much as we tried to jam them on, they were just too small for Millie's thirteen month old feet.

If you're within a normal size range - and for this I mean that you don't have feet so big that skis are unnecessary when wintering in Whistler, or that they appear to be mere stumps. If you are within this range the shopping is rather more hit or miss. Occasionally you will find a pair of well tailored trousers, but on pulling them off the rack you'll realise that there has been a scale embroidered picture of a cat having a vasectomy stitched onto the left thigh as a design flourish. In the Camper store, Emma found a pair of men's slip-on shoes which looked like they'd been made from a neon pink cauliflower. Someone, somewhere, drew a picture of that and someone somewhere said; 'we're going to sell millions of those'.

Apart from Japanese tourists, of which there are loads, the other noticeable tribe trawling the village are fashionistas who obviously subscribe to the concept of enhancing their persona by wearing designer gear. However, they don't appear to be able to actually afford any of it at regular price and buy exclusively from the Village's hideous discounted ranges. So next time you see someone in a baseball cap made from a Lion's mane, a coat with a silver picture of hippo eating a Wagon Wheel, a skirt which spins round and changes colour with variations in temperature and shoes with horns sticking out of them. Ask them if they found anything nice at Bicester Village that weekend.

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Labels: General me

As someone who has been on the receiving end of those ‘a child could have done it’ accusations regarding design work, I have some sympathy with the people who came up with the London 2012 logo.

Of course, theoretically, anyone with fingers can create an image. Rulers are useful for straight lines, compasses good for circles and curvy bits, and your itty bitty fingers are good for when you want to get all freestyle on yo’ hairy black ass.

But in the end someone has to make a decision about what it is they’re going to put on that bit of paper that encapsulates everything there is to say about London, Britain, Olympic-ses, and a whole heap more.

A true waste of money would have been something hideously conservative and corporate. Pretty much anyone with a copy of Quark or PhotoShop can produce a logo, and most will do it for some way under say, £250,000; so to spend £400,000 on something nondescript and vanilla would have been worse than being brave and taking a risk.

Where a good designer is worth his salt is in the thinking behind the logo – and how it might be applied and I trust whoever it was who came up with the thing has thought this through. In time we will, if not love it (how many logos do you truly love?); recognise it; which is ultimately what it should do.

Aside from the aesthetics, there’s been some criticism of the video that accompanies it. GMTV were screaming about the millions of epileptics who have been slain by the flashing lights and colouring. I don’t know, I’m not sure it’s quite been quite the cull they’re claiming, I mean, it appears to have taken its inspiration from the opening credits of Going Live and I don’t remember that being a problem.

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Labels: Sport

Periodically, Emma's sister brings around a bag full of old magazines for us to read. Mostly, it's Heat with the odd Now. We've had to odd Hello and OK but it would be misleading to say that this was the norm. They tend to travel around the house and find homes by the side of the bed, toilet and bath before, eventually, being thrown away.

Why? I don't know why, I have an MBA, am head of a marketing department; I'm in the higher tax bracket and I'm considering the benefits of buying a second property, I have a cleaner, I read books about Islamic militancy and spend £6000 a year on nursery fees. But I also need to read Heat to find out whether Lyndey Lohan has a fat arse this week.

In the latest batch we had a couple of copies of Cosmopolitan (there's always a rogue Glamour in there too). They were on the bed, so I picked one up to flick through it.

I came across a page which gave a minute by minute account of how to prepare for the hottest sex you've ever had. Apparently it only takes 12 minutes.

Each minute was detailed, so for your benefit, if you want to have mind blowing sex, and have less that quarter of an hour to get ready for it, make sure you... put naughty messages in his wallet, rummage your hand in his trouser pocket, put on a pair of satin knickers, do a salsa dance, have mutual oral sex (1 minute each, ladies should be wearing sheer knickers), watch a female friendly erotic film (or read a passage from an erotic novel... come on, come one, you don't have time to decide which), have a massage, snog like teenagers, play with your sex toy, eat something (can't remember what), do a strip tease and a sexy dance.

That was it, all that in 12 minutes - at least three dances and two pairs of knickers. Does anyone follow this advice? It must be like a game of It's A Sex Knockout, great preparation for sex? Great preparation for a cup of tea and copy of Heat more like.

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Labels: General me

I don't wish to rain on anyone's parade; particularly if that anyone happens to be old. After all, raining on an old person's parade is simply mean - they're old, and its unlikely there'll be many more parades for them to enjoy.

Nor do I disagree with the sentiment of the (wholly overrated) documentary that lead to the 'Internet phenomenon' The Zimmers. It doesn't appear right to shove old people in ropey care homes once their economic worth has been expended. But the choice of My Generation to raise the issue of their plight is a touch ironic, no?

OK, the general sentiment of the song appears to fit nicely, but like all great art you have to understand it in context in which it was written. My Generation was written by a 21-year old Pete Townshend as a call to arms for a nation of youthful Mods. Look at the lyrics and my explanation of what they probably meant when they were written...

People try to put us down

We are disaffected and ignored section of society, and our views are belittled by the powers that be.

Just because we get around

We are being actively ignored by society because we are an increasingly powerful underground force.

...good so far...

Things they do look awful cold

They are the establishment, who by definition are the older generation. What this is saying is; old people are boring.

I hope I die before I get old

I'd rather die than be old and one of them.

Why don't you all fade away

I wish old people would die a quiet death.

And don't try to dig what we all say

Don't even try talking to me, I'm not interested.

I'm not trying to cause a big sensation

I don't want you to listen to me.

I'm just talkin' 'bout my generation

It's just people like me won't listen to you.

I could be reading this wrong , but isn't this song really about everything the Zimmers are protesting about?

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Labels: Music

We're recruiting at the moment. I haven't done much interviewing, and do feel like I'm making it up as I go along. When sifting through CVs I did find that I was able to convince myself that, in the main, people with older names like Diedre were less able than people younger fresher names like Gemma.

Last week we had one person whose interview performance was no more than moderate, but I found myself constructing an argument that suggested she had hidden depths. An argument predicated on little more than she had terribly smart shoes on (by the way, if you're a bloke with terribly smart shoes on, you don't have hidden talents, you are arrogant - fact).

Such is my amateurism at this, I am paranoid of being caught up in some discrimination case. In the end you can't help but discriminate; you're making a judgement on a 2 page CV. 50 years old, 25 years working for IKEA, Wembley which followed a 10 year career managing a major oil company in Nigeria? No thanks.

It is quite reassuring reading CVs. In moments of darker paranoia, I doubt my own abilities and assume somebody is plotting my downfall (which they probably are). There's a deep seated fear that I will be fired, leaving me to find another job and that I will finally be found out meaning the only job I will be able to get is collecting trolleys in Tesco car park. But, having read a pile of CVs, you realise that if you are slung back into the job market, that despite your own weaknesses there's an enormous number people out there more desperate than you.

I'm of the view (because I'm lazy, perhaps) that what you're really looking for in someone to work with is somebody you can get on with. And for this, I look to the 'other interests' bit of the CV. Some will list every interest they've ever had - Playing with cars in my back garden, Under-8 tennis champion. Others will try to impress significance and relevance of their extra curricular activity on the job - I like to go to the gym, which I find fascinating, looking at the way the gym manages its profit margins through the use of a small number of trained staff and flexible contractors who take my Body Pump class. Some, are downright scary - World heavywieght Ultimate Fighting Champion and some, you think, are lying I like needlecraft and weaving when you know they are binge drinking and flashing their thongs at men with pattern shirts and eyebrow rings. Above all, however, most people with a richness of opportunity out there, and little I can do to verify their claims will sell themselves as a person with spark and drive as spending their spare time Socialising with friends, watching TV and reading'.

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Labels: Work

The Cup Final was a turgid affair from the opening minute. It's not the first time the spectacle has failed to live up to expectations, but I can't remember an opening 10 minutes as tepid as this one, or the concluding 110 for that matter. John Terry afterwards claimed that both teams were 'scared to give the ball away', which seems a pretty lame excuse to me. After all, it's like a musician coming on stage and playing CDs because they're scared they'd play a bum note. With the game itself turning over £8 million and TV revenues and so forth dwarfing that amount, it would be polite, if at least the players could put away their 'fear' and try and have a game.

Plenty of things were blamed; the occasion, the pitch, the long season; but nobody touched on the real problem. Top flight football is just not competitive anymore, look at the stats; In the last 10 years 9 teams have made the final and only 4 have won it - the supposed Big Four of Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. Compare that to ten years before that: 1988-1997, where there were 12 different finalists and 7 different winners, 1978-87 12 teams and 8 winners, 1968-1977 14 teams and 10 winners. The game has become increasingly concentrated around a small number of teams.

The Big Four all claim some kind of dominance based on a spurious set of self referencing criteria - Liverpool's 5 European Cup wins, Manchester United's global brand, Chelsea's money, Arsenal's purist qualities. Maybe Oxford could claim to be the best team in the country that play in a ground where you can see people going into a multiplex cinema during the game (although, knowing Oxford, they probably aren't). These four teams, with their big claims are increasingly fearful of actually testing who's best on the field itself; especially when facing each other. When they meet in the League Cup they compete to see who can field the weakest team; which gives them the perfect excuse when defeat comes. Arsenal even fielded a weakened side for this year's League Cup Final - their only hope of a trophy. It's getting to a point where the big players will be rested permanently only to be brought out in a big glass box on special occasions. When they do meet, like yesterday, the teams don't so much want to win the game as avoid losing it. Losing equals failure, so don't give the ball away Mr £100,000-a-week.

But English football is the best in the world - we're told this interminably. This year three (of the Big Four) English teams made it to the Champions League semi-final, which was considered a glorious success and widely lauded to be a credit to English football. Which part of English football should take credit? The managers? - well the big four are managed by a Scot, Portugese, Spaniard and Frenchman. The players? - less than half the players yesterday were English and the other two teams have a handful of homegrown players between them. Nope, the real credit must go to the English marketing men and footballing administrators who have turned the game into a closed shop and a money machine where everyone is ingrained with a fear of failure. Even further down the Premiership, teams are incapable of bridging the gap into the super big time, so they simply work to consolidate their position. It's one massive cycle of negativity.

Of course, it's also very successful. The reason could be seen just after half time on Saturday; there was a great wedge of vacant seats just on the half-way line. Slowly the section began to fill and you could vaguely make out men in suits easing their way back to their seats. The half time corporate buffet was clearly delicious. The equation is perfect; Football the brand is sexy, the first Cup Final at new Wembley is 'history', companies pay thousands to buy a lump of history (a seat) and pass it onto their clients as a sweetener for future corporate deals. Let's face it; when you've bought your lump of history, what's the point of actually experiencing it; especially when it's rubbish. Where does this end? Perhaps they should do away with 'historic events' completely - after all they can be quite tiresome and in the really good ones people tend to die - maybe you could simply sell shares in historic events over the Internet, I Was There certificates with a small supporting anecdote. Then you could just get them out at dinner parties - "Battle of Agincourt? Yes, I was there, I have the certificate of authentication".

When it comes down to it, uninteresting football is being sold to disinterested people with heaps of money. The football men aren't going to admit it, they're making too much money, the corporations aren't going to let on that they're paying fortunes for shite. This sorry state of affairs it's not the players' or managers fault, they are out to win, it's not even the evil spectres of Abramovich or the Glazers who are just taking a piece of the enormous pie. It's the marketing men who have structured the game in such a way that it makes huge amounts of money, and rewards those who succeed with even more huge amounts of money. No other sport does this, actively reduces the competitiveness of the game. SKY may market football heavily like some sort of gladiatorial encounter, a thrill a minute orgy of endeavour. But whereas showbusiness is flamboyant, risk taking and outgoing, football is prudent and measured to the point of suffocation. It's a corporate mindset dressed in a spangly boob tube. Give us our bloody game back for Christ's sake.

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Labels: Football

Emma’s birthday was on Saturday and in celebration we headed to the Mole and Chicken for a rack of ribs/warm duck salad/half a sheep. The Moley holds particular significance amongst my friends. It is a gastro-pub, and has been since before the term was invented. It serves quality, plentiful, hearty pub food. It’s the place we headed when we were old enough to eat in restaurants. We’ve never really graduated any further.

It’s also the scene of plenty of great nights out; as Spankee once described it; 10 people having 14 conversations all at the same time. Loud, boozy, delicious, funny; that’s the Moley.

Getting a table is hard; it’s very popular in the area and has a reputation that attracts people from far and wide. Emma booked six weeks in advance which was the first time in over a year that we’d actually succeeded in getting in.

In the morning we got a call from the pub checking we were still coming. It wasn’t unreasonable, the booking was for 12 people and if we hadn’t turned up it might have left a significant hole in the evening’s takings.

“Can you turn up earlier?” said the waitress of our 8pm booking. This was impossible – the chances of getting 12 people to turn up earlier than planned was about as possible as getting them to turn up on time. There were added complications of children and babysitters to organise and people coming from various corners of the shire.

“Well, you have order by 8.15 or you’ll get your food late” she said “we’re very busy”. What she didn’t seem to understand was in a pub which has about 10 tables, we would be taking up a significant proportion of her busy-ness.

As its always full it should be easy to predict the number of staff needed. What’s more, it’s one of those places that because it ain’t broke has had the same menu for a decade. Everyone orders the same thing every time. As these places go, it’s the most predictable business you can hope for.

Anyway, we all turned up at 8pm as arranged and the place was packed. We were seated and ordered by 25 minutes past – which was good going. The food turned up in good order and it was delicious. Fun was has by all. As always.

At 9.30 it became apparent that something was up… the place was empty apart from us. The staff were wiping table tops and staring at their hands in that way people with nothing to do do.

It appears that the reason tables are hard to come by is that they only have one sitting which is a strategy designed to get through the busy period as possible. Being full and busy all night in a restaurant is a bad thing, it seems. So they make hay for an hour and a half and then remain open for another 3 hours waiting to lock up. Gordon Ramsay would have a field day.

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Labels: General me