British customer service at its finest

I used to think that NTL -- generally known as NTHell by their unfortunate customers -- absolutely took the biscuit for the most appalling customer service imaginable. When they were taken over by Virgin, I did wonder whether they could cling on to their iconic position as a testament to all that is worse about British customer "service". Well, not to worry. Not only did they seize the baton, they ran with it.

When I sat down to check my e-mail last night, there was no Internet. Now, I've been getting used to my "20Mb" broadband media service periodically dropping down to a few bits per second, so at first I assume it was just Virgin's standard terrible service, but when my mail hadn't loaded after a few minutes I went to look at my broadband modem and sure enough the light was flashing, mean there's no Internet. Since I had nothing to do for a while, I thought I'd call customer "service" to see what was going on. So I got out my folder and rang the number that I used to ring for NTL. No good. "This number cannot be connected".

So I rang 118 118 and got the number for Virgin Broadband and rang it. No good. "This number is not in service". Hhhmmm, I thought. Interesting new tactic for cutting down on the number of customer complaints: NTHell never thought of that one, a trick customer service number that doesn't exist. Oh well.

Then I remembered that I'd complained to Virgin by e-mail a couple of months ago, and I found their reply. It had a customer service number in the e-mail, so I rang it. The recorded message said "We're experiencing technical difficulties, please call back later. If you need assistance, please look at our website."

Priceless. Next time I can't get the Internet, I'll be sure to check the web site. Needless to say, I'll be checking out other broadband providers over the holidays.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, technology

Geneva convention

I've been at Geneva convention for the week, where the spray-on snow was being liberally applied to all of the trees in sight. But it was nice, if a little chilly. So nice, in fact, that I even went for a walk along the shore of Lake Geneva, and very lovely it looked too.

The hotel I was staying at -- the couple of hundred quid a night hotel I was staying at -- had good quality wifi throughout, which was excellent. But it cost twenty quid a day. What a joke: twenty quid a day. I really wish hotels would advertise more clearly their absurd wifi charges, charges that have become as ridiculous as phone charges used to be before mobile phones were invented. As far as I'm concerned it's one of the most critical factors in choosing a place to stay. Wifi should be free to all guest, they should just give yo a log-in code with your key when you check in.

It's not even the price that's the most annoying thing, since most of the people who stay in these places aren't paying the bill anyway (as I wasn't). It's combination of the hassle of having to go down to the desk and buy a stupid card with a log-in on it, and the cheek at charging for something that should be included. They don't charge you extra for electricity or water when you leave. Or maybe they did, I should probably check the bill a little more thoroughly.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel

Big Sister

I'm not sure whether it's age or gender-related, and I know I shouldn't, but I still find it odd to have a Home Secretary called Jacqui. I also find it odd that we have a Department for Culture, Media and Sport: that still sounds, to me, like a Bulgarian ministry to be infiltrated in a cold war spy novel, but whatever. Anyway, I don't want to make a party political point (since politics isn't, generally speaking, the point of this blog) but Jacqui -- or Big Sister, as she will undoubtedly be known to posterity -- recently signed into law a new statutory instrument under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Under this instrument, 796 organisations now have the right to look at our telephone records. These include the police, the Department of Health (it's only a matter of time before your calls to Domino's pizza will, along with your smoking habits, become a factor in your waiting list ranking for NHS), the Immigration Service, the Food Standards Agency and 796 organisations now have the right to look at our telephone records. Not just Woking council, of course, but local authorities in general. Honestly. It gets more like North Korea round here every day, except luckily the government don't run Waitrose so the food shortages haven't cut in yet.

I'd lay a pound to a penny that the first time Woking council invoke their new Stalinist powers it will not be to defeat a cunning plot by international terrorists dedicated to our destruction but in a dispute over hedges or car parking.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, politics

Global warming is nothing compared to the stupidity tsunami on the way

Someone forwarded a story about the lottery to me. The national lottery, that is. Now, I'm rather proud of the fact that I have never, ever played the lottery. I regard it as a cynical government tax on stupidity, as did Adam Smith, and he knew a thing or two about economics. Since the cash bonus that they get is of the order of billions, it means that the government has no incentive to reduce stupidity, which seems something of a moral hazard to me, but what do I know. Anyway, if you don't believe that the people who play the lottery are stupid, read the story. The lottery launched a new winter-themed game on Monday. To qualify for a prize, users had to scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card. It being winter, some of the temperatures were below freezing. But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for products of the Great British Edukashun system and Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6. One of them was Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme who said

On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't. I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it.

That's the bulldog spirit! Pig headed ignorance and a joyous disregard for learning, jumbled in the chav culture of rights without responsibilities. Some times I do genuinely begin to despair for our great nation. Whatever government figures about exam results might say, it is indisputable to anyone who has to mix with the general public (eg, not members of the government) that British society is becoming stupider, after several hundred years of getting steadily cleverer.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning

Football dilemmas

My youngest son plays in a football team. (He had a great game in midfield today with some calm and assured passing easing his team to a 5-2 victory.) I took him to training on Saturday as usual but I noticed that a couple of regulars were missing. It turns out that some of the private schools in the area were having some sort of open day and so some of the kids had gone with their parents to view them. I thought no more about it until I overheard our centre-half talking to our left-winger, discussing whether they might go to Charterhouse (£22K per annum) or some other private school. Not the sort of conversation that the young Rio Ferdinand would have had with the young Joe Cole?

Did I forget to mention that my sons football team is based in Woking?

Putting aside my conflicted feelings about private education, I suspect there may be socio-cultural reasons why the Pyrford - West Byfleet - Horsell triangle will be unlikely to give birth to the next Wayne Rooney, but we'll see. What I was wondering though was if my son's footballing development might be disrupted when he discovers that we are the only family in the team without a swimming pool...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: kids, sport

How the other half lived

What a pleasant couple of days. I've been down at Elvetham, in deepest Hampshire. Now this is living. The grounds are vast and beautiful, the Victorian pile in the middle is massive, you can't see hoi polloi with a telescope. Once upon-a-time it belonged to the Seymour (as in Jane Seymour) family: cool. Since it's been so lovely and sunny and I've been ambling around chatting with people outside, I can confirm that this is a more pleasant place to spend the day than, say, Woking town centre, which is where I am going later on.

Here was the view during my morning stroll. I imagine the peasants are keeping discreetly out of site behind hedges and things.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

Half and half

I had a strange timeshift experience in the West Country. It was like that TV show where that guy got knocked on the head and woke up in the 1970s. I woke up in Cricklade, which is much the same thing. Anyway, I wandered up to the bar to get some drinks in and spotted two amazing things. The first was Babycham. I had no idea that this still existed -- I haven't seen it for years. Growing up on a Swindon council estate, I'd always imagined Babycham to be the height of sophistication, although thinking about it I'm not sure if I can ever remember going out with a girl who drank it. Anyway, as the momentary shock of recognition jolted me, I almost gasped out loud as I glanced to my left and saw Ansell's Mild on tap. When I worked in a British Legion club before I went to University, mild & bitter (half of draught mild mixed with half of whatever is the cheapest draught bitter) was my favourite drink. So that's what I ordered, and you know what, it was really nice. A genuinely Proustian moment. It tasted like 1976 (apparently the best ever year), when I used to drink literally a gallon (i,e eight pints) of the stuff in an evening and didn't get drunk. Last night, though, I only had two pints of it and I fell asleep in the car on the way home.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: nostalgia

Over at the O2

I forgot to mention, I saw the artist currently known as Prince at the O2 Arena. I wouldn't say I am a particular fan of the purple pop pixie, but it was a very enjoyable show, especially as we were in Row F on his side, so we were 10 metres away from him, and some of songs worked great live. You don't have to be a fan to admire the talent and watching him play Purple Rain close up was great. Seeing someone who can play, compose, sing, dance and entertain with genuine charisma made for a terrific night out. During one of the instrumental breaks from the brass section (who I thought were excellent), one of the players said something along the lines of "this isn't a computer, this is real musicians playing real music". Quite.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: pop stars

A rock in an ever-changing world

I have decided that the relentless, grinding incompetence of South West Trains is actually a comfort. Every time I go to the station and discover total chaos, it makes me feel at home and reminds me that we haven't been taken over by pod people from outer space during the night. Yesterday they outdid themselves. For unfathomable reasons, Woking Borough Council decided to waste large amounts of public money building a canopy outside the train station. The building work had become a permanent fixture -- I think it's been running something like a year late -- so I was literally astonished to turn up at the station and discover it finished. Not as astonished as South West Trains apparently, because their newly reopened ticket hall had only one open ticket window and no ticket machines at all. Presumably their scenario planning exercises had never covered the incredible contingency of customers arriving hoping to get on trains. The queue was so long I knew I would miss the train (and probably the next one as well) so I went over to the revenue collection officer (ie, the guy waiting to sell tickets to anyone caught getting off of incoming trains without a ticket). Despite the fact he was doing nothing, he wouldn't sell me one. Nor would he let me cross over to the other platform where there were working ticket machines. I had to go back out of the station and under the tunnel to the other side. Needless to say, I did miss the train.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel, woking

Culture vulture

Someone gave me a ticket to a lecture by Naomi Klein at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. I felt that I was overdue for some cultural stimulation -- and I'd caught her being toasted by Diane Coyle on the Today programme earlier in the week (which will undoubtedly feature as a sinister incident in a Klein book) -- so I went along to hear her expound on her book ""The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism". The central idea of the book -- I deduce from the lecture since I haven't read the book, probably won't bother now -- is that the CIA did some experiments on shocking people into regressing so that they could be come "blank slates" to be written anew and that radical capitalism looks for countries shocked so that they can rewrite them into supporting the free market liberalism of Milton Friedman et al. It seems a superficial thesis, and if it shows anything, it shows how little contemporary "left" opinion is connected to real politics. The evening began with a short film made by the guy who made "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (which, as an aside, I have to say is one of the few genuinely erotic films I've ever seen) with some animations about the CIA torturing people intercut with stock footage of 9/11, the miner's strike and the Chilean coup of 1973 (which is the sort of Year Zero of the book). Then Naomi spoke about the topic, then there was a discussion with a moderator and some questions from the audience (including one guy who wondered if Henry VIII's excommunication from the Catholic church might be an example for her to consider).

She's a very good speaker, naturally, so she held my attention for quite some time before I realised that I wasn't really following any narrative thread and had lost the plot of her central thesis. It took someone much cleverer than me, the moderator Madeline Bunting, to put her finger on the problem. In the discussion that followed the talk, she said (I paraphrase) that crisis and opportunity are tightly bound and that politicians always see crisis as opportunity, and that sometimes they will be politicians that you (ie, Ms. Klein) agree with, and sometimes they won't be. That's pretty much it.

The most interesting remarks came, as they always do, in the question & answer session. Naomi was talking about the Asian tsunami and said that in one country -- I didn't pick up which one -- people worked together well immediately after the disaster but that things fell apart when the government arrived to take charge of the reconstruction and the aid agencies arrived to infantilise the population. I would have thought that this would have been entirely in accordance with the predictions of Hayek and the rest of the "Chicago boys" as she called them.

One of the questioners said something like "all the people here agree with you so how do we get the message out of the room to the public" or something like that. I thought to myself: "agree with what"? That Iraq is a mess? Sure. That Mrs. Thatcher was re-elected in 1983 because of the Falklands War? Couldn't say, but it's not obvious. That Allende would have been better for Chile than Pinochet? How should I know? (Although I have to say that the only actual Chilean that I've ever asked about this told me that Chile was a good country now because of Pinochet, so I don't know what to believe.) All I know about Allende is that he thought that homosexuality was a pathology and that gay men could be cured by operating on their stomachs.

I enjoyed the evening, though. I shall make more of an effort to go along in the future, although probably not in the near future.

.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, politics

14th September 2007

I don't believe it. I literally don't believe it. Well, I do believe it now that I've taken a picture of it. Our local Co-Op has started displaying Yuletide goods, three-and-a-half months before Christmas day.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, woking

A happy ending!

BA's useless web site was driving me to distraction again. I tried to book some flights but everytime I pressed the "pay" button -- after typing in loads of family details which are not stored in a cookie until payment is confirmed -- the system hung up so I was eventually driven to phone them. I was only on hold for about 20 minutes this time, and the woman I spoke was at east efficient. But if you book on the phone they make you pay extra so I complained and -- ta da! -- I got a refund on the telephone surchage. A minor victory, but worth broadcasting.

I finally, after all of this messing around, and after spending god knows what on their 0870 number which wasn't reimbursed -- I know, I've broken my resolution to refuse to do business with companies without an 800 number -- I look back in to manage my booking, sort out the seats, type in contact number, press the button to print the boarding passes and get

I don't think BA is having much luck with IT. It's as if they've outsourced it to the people make tax credit systems for the government and that sort of thing. On a very long and dull flight to Singapore yesterday, I was heartened when I turned on the in-flight entertainment to find that it was a new video-on-demand system with loads of movies and TV programmes. Great. I went to the menu. There was a brief flash of something about welcome to Windows Media or something and then... it didn't work, naturally. In fact, it didn't work so badl that the cabin director who was dealing with with the complains from hundreds of extremely bored passengers came on the intercom to explain that (in true Windows fashion) his control console had crashed as well, so he couldn't anything. Still, I'm sure version 3 will be serviceable.

Lucky I had my iPod, and even luckier that I had the audio cable with it because in my room at the Grand Hyatt in Singapore they have a great innovation. The desk that I'm typing at has a VGA connector so you can project your laptop screen on to the big TV in the room as well as audio inputs so you can listen to your laptop, iPod or whatever through the speakers in the room, even in the shower. Brilliant.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, technology, travel

Gadgetfest

Two new gadgets that I can't help talking about. First of all, I picked up my new Nokia N95 the day before I left for the States. Those kind people at O2 gave it to me for nothing -- well, when I say nothing I mean "extending my contract for another year" -- and it arrived bang on time. I could even read the manual on the plane, which is ideal for a nerd like me, so by the time we touched down I had already configured it the way I wanted. It's an outstanding piece of kit. The good points:

• I love the 2-way slide: open it one way and it's a phone, open it the other way and it's a media player.
• Nice clear screen, bright and easy to read even for my ageing eyes.
• It's pretty convenient having satnav built in. The first time I used it -- getting lost in Austin, Texas -- it worked perfectly guiding me to my destination.
• Good web browser.
• Mail client works, and it has an Exchange client as well (not tested yet).

The bad points, which it would be remiss of me not to mention:

• The GPS takes a long time to lock, so if you're in the car and you're lost, you have to pull over and wait a few minutes for it to get a fix. Incidentally, if you want to avoid crippling data charges when using the satnav, you need to download the relevant maps to the memory card in advance. This will quickly mean using up the 1Gb on the microSD card enclosed, so I'd order a 4Gb ASAP.
• Wifi doesn't work properly. There's a bug which means that some WPA connections don't work.
• The USB cable does not charge the phone, unlike on my old K800i, which means you need to take the charger with you.
• It's not really a criticism, but be aware that if you switch on wifi, bluetooth, GPS and 3G, you will need to remember to plug it in for recharging every night!

So will the N95 replace both my old K800i, Palm and iPod. It has already replaced my K800i and Palm, but it's not going to replace the iPod. The iPod just works, beautifully, and the N95 is nowhere near as simple to use. And the Nokia iTunes integration is hopeless on my MacBook Pro. It worked once, but hasn't worked since. So 7/10, must try harder.

The second gadget is US satellite radio. The car I rented has an XM satellite radio. It's wonderful. For anyone who has ever driven down a freeway in the U.S., constantly fiddling with the radio to switch between local FM stations or desperately poor (both in audio quality and content) AM stations, this will be a revelation. You scan first by genres -- comedy, rock, news, whatever -- and then scan for channels within the genre. The reception is excellent, it has been crystal clear throughout the whole trip here: I can't recommend it highly enough.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: technology, travel

London street scenes no.97

I was wandering across Waterloo Bridge and had a horrible moment of panic when I thought that -- Dr. Who style -- metal men from outer space had invaded...

In the last few days, I've noticed more of them appearing on the tops of buildings around the South Bank. Curiosity drove me to google them, and I found a few other blog postings from other people who had noticed them, but I couldn't find any obvious explanation of what they are. This leads me to suspect that I am in some way paying for them, but if anyone knows any different I'd love to hear more.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel

Holiday season

I've started my holiday reading for 2007 using my now traditional strategy. Each time I see an interesting review of a book, I add it to my Amazon wishlist. Then, when I order something from Amazon that is less than £15 I go to the wishlist and pick something -- almost at random -- to top up the order so I get the free shipping. I think this is an excellent way to buy books, since it retain serendipity as well as surprise: when an Amazon parcel arrives (which is just about every week in our house) I can never remember exactly what it has in it. That makes it very enjoyable to open to the package. Anyway, when it gets to holiday time then I head over to the wishlist and order half-a-dozen titles from it. The package arrived a couple of days ago. I picked up the first book in the pile and I couldn't put it down: I was up until 1am last night finishing it.

"Emergency Sex (and Other Desperate Measures): True Stories from a War Zone" (Kenneth Cain, Heidi Postlewait, Andrew Thomson)

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Not only is it extremely well-writen, but it is structured in a very clever way. It intertwines three very personal stories to keep a mounting sense of, well, horror I guess. Yet the narrative is driving and the content fascinating. At the end of the book I felt slightly sick, but I also felt educated and informed, a little more knowledgeable about the world and, unfortunately, its inhabitants. I won't give anything away by saying that the book tells the story of UN personnel and a journey from a sort of idealism and hope (and parties and per-diems) at the beginning in Cambodia (trying to rebuild the country after the "killing fields"), to the UN standing by and allowing genocide in Rwanda (where the scale of the unmechanised slaughter of hundreds of thousands with clubs and machetes is simply mind-boggling) and Bosnia, to the Nigerian UN "peacekeepers" who traded food for sex with children before raping, beheading and sexually mutilating nine year-old girls in Liberia. If there is a central lesson to be learned from the book it is, as one of the writers notes (and many reviewers -- eg, in Samizdata -- picked up), "if blue-helmeted UN peacekeepers arrive and tell you that they are going to protect you, run".

Technorati Tags: books

Serviski industries

Travelling the highways and byways of England recently, I stopped a few times at motorway service stations. Every time I stopped, I was served by people who appear to be Polish, or least Eastern European of some description. I'm not saying this to complain about it, far from it, but you can't help noticing that the vigorous growth of our service industries seems to be fuelled wholly by imported labour. When I last went to Scotland, every single person who provided any kind of service -- from the hotel porter to the waitress at the Mexican restaurant -- appeared to be Polish. I'm not sure if the metropolitan elite, who are used to the cosmopolitan nature of the capital, understand the magnitude of this transformation in the rest of country.

I'm not bringing this up in order to pass judgement one way or the other, but I was moved to comment on this because the postman called yesterday morning to deliver a parcel and when I answered the door, she was Polish too. I wonder what happened to the previous Seikh gentleman?

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

Help, help, I'm being repressed

My youngest son gave his first ever music recital last week. It was only a few notes as part of an ensemble, but as every parent knows, that's not the point. Unfortunately, I don't have a photograph of this wonderful occasion nor a video clip to show Grandma and Grandad. As I stood up to capture the treasured moment for posterity, I was promptly assailed by an official and told that I was not allowed to photograph my own child at a public performance because the performance was in a school and that it was "County policy" that I was not allowed to take either still pictures or a video clip. I asked her if it was an intelligence-led decision (what do you think -- from Surrey County Council?) on the basis that a known pervert was in the audience and if so, under "Reid's Law" if we shouldn't have been informed, but my wife told me to shut up.

Clearly, my behaviour was, to Surrey County Council, beyond the pale. By contrast, some of the behaviour considered perfectly acceptable was allowing your child to spend the entire recital playing on a Gameboy, only pausing for a moment when (I presume) a sibling was centre stage, as well as talking while the children were playing and -- something that particularly annoys me -- leaving as soon as your child has finished their piece. Outright rudeness and a flamboyant lack of respect for other people: no problem. Wanting to record an important event in your child's life: totally unacceptable.

There was a guy in the row in front of me who had a video camera on his lap and was filming surreptitiously when any of his kids were playing. Should I have shopped him? Let's hope the government's plan to have CCTV cameras everywhere, all the time, will put an end to such agonising moral dilemmas.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, kids

My life in politics

I was very flattered to be asked along to a Conservative party think tank about future technology policy. I was sure they had me mixed up with something else, but I wasn't going to miss a chance to hang out with the big nobs, so to speak. Unfortunately, I couldn't go. I wrote a letter instead and I thought it might be fun to show it here...

Dear XXX,

I received an invitation last week from Mr. XXXX YYYY concerning a Conservative Party event on Xth March. Much as I would love to contribute I'm afraid it clashes with [an important event that] I will be attending. I imagine that the invitation stems from our previous conversation about XXXXX?

Incidentally, I read in the Saturday Telegraph a story concerning House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport committee chairman John Whittingdale. The story claims that he is a Tory and that he responded positively to an approach from Mr. Edward Clarke, a sometime member of the popular beat combo Motorhead, concerning the extension of copyright for song composers.

I mention this not merely because I am an infinitely bigger fan of Motorhead than Mr. Whittingdale claims to be -- as my good lady wife will testify, because I took her to see Motorhead on our first date -- and not because I have anything against Mr. Clarke personally (in fact, I am second to none in my admiration for "Fast Eddie" Clarke's lead guitar playing), but because I was wondering if this is the sort of topic that your Forum might be discussing?

If so, could you please ask them from me my why on Earth it is Conservative Party policy to extend copyright? I realise that the blandishments of producer interest groups are seductive -- and that the glamour of the pop world might temporarily blind MPs to economic first principles -- but if you are to have a policy on this topic it should be to reduce copyright significantly to the great benefit of everyone else in society apart from [pop stars].

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Dave.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, technology

Security risks

I've been in Lisbon for a few days, which has been very pleasant. It's a lovely city and the company and conversation has been excellent. On the way back, though, I started to get nervous about security, and not just because I heard on the TV about the car bombs in London (one of which was towed away for a parking violation, not for being a tool of indiscriminate mass murder -- shades of J.G. Ballard again). When I went through the security check to get on the plane, I forgot that I put my toothpaste in my carry-on bag in clear violation of the posted procedures. No-one noticed of course, and nor did they seem concerned that there were six mobile phones in it either (I'd been running a seminar that needed phones for demonstration purposes). I only remembered when I was waiting to pick up my bag the other side of X-ray and the security guards were making an old dear in front of me empty out all of her stuff until they discovered the offending item: a small bottle of orange juice. Then, on the way back, I forgot to turn my phone off. I didn't realise until I was back at terminal one at Heathrow and I went to turn it back on again. Amazingly, though, it didn't appear to interfere with the aircraft's navigational systems and we didn't crash, despite the dire warnings on the in-flight announcement. Why would terrorists drive cars full of explosive around when all they need to do is get off a plane but leave their mobile phone switched on an hidden in the seat pocket in front of them?

I decided to leave that last sentence in, despite the fact that five minutes after I got home and was making a cup of tea in the kitchen while chatting with the family, there was a newsflash on the radio concerning terrorists trying to drive a car full of petrol into Glasgow airport.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel

Sur vs. sous

People are always going on about surveillance, but they spend less time thinking about sousveillance. This is just as much of a problem and it is uncontrolled: when everyone has cameraphones, all of us are under sousveillance all the time. This isn't a major problem for nonentities like me, but it must get a bit wearing for anyone with the slightest degree of celebrity as they wouldn't get a private moment to the themselves anywhere. We have to wonder what sort of society this will create, if you ask me.

Anyway, here's noted BBC television celebrity Tony Hawks in the Apple Store in London...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: technology

Keep off the grass

It's that time of year again. Glastonbury has become an English institution. I haven't been for twenty years, and have no intention of going ever again. For a start, camping out for the weekend at a pop festival is a rite of passage, part of the process of shifting from childhood the prolonged childhood that is post-modern adulthood in an affluent society. I went a few times and it was great: sitting here typing I can recall some of the happiest times of my life. Jumping up and down singing along to the Paul Jones and The Blues Band's version of Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" (I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more) a couple of years after my working class first-time Tory vote had brought Mrs. Thatcher to power. Laughing myself into a pharmacologically-assisted vegitative state after watching John Cooper-Clarke deliver the Daily Express (This paper's boring, mindless, mean / Full of pornography, the kind that's clean). Yes, great days: look at the 1981 line-up (when it was still only 24,000 people, including me -- see below) and then tell me that today's is better.

Now the tickets are proto-ID cards, the bog rolls are recycled only and it can only be a matter of time before Glastonbury bans smoking as well as drugs because they will get the field designated a place of work. How long before they confiscate booze, too, on the basis that it’s bad for the liver - and junk food, because, as Jamie Oliver warned, that’s bad for us and the environment, too? It just doesn't sound very much fun to me, and that's without the continuous Green hectoring and Saga motorhome campers.

I don't want to sound like Victor Meldrew in every paragraph, but now that Glastonbury is the new Glyndebourne (not that the old one has gone away), I can't imagine anything more hideous that standing soaked to the skin in a field, surrounded by management consultants and their spouses, and watching Shirley Bassey while stone cold sober.

What youthful rebellion can be accompanied by tickets that cost 150 quid, policemen with spy cameras and Lily Allen? No thanks. And while I can see "the kids" wanting to go and see The Arctic Chiefs or whoever, if you wanted to see The Who, then you should have gone to see them at Charlton Athletic Football Ground in 1974 like I did.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, pop stars, nostalgia

And about time too

Well done British Airways. At last! I've been moaning for years that there's no free wifi in the Executive Club lounges. I've never understood why someone paying thousands of pounds for a business class ticket should have to screw around trying to buy wifi time with a credit card in an airline premium lounge. I typed this sitting in an Executive Club lounge (location withheld) on the free wifi network. Simply, easy solution: you get a username and password on a slip of paper, given to you when you check in at the lounge. It would have been a perfect 10 travel experience, if it hadn't been for the guy from Accenture sitting across from me and talking loudly on this mobile phone to a friend about a project they're doing for Lloyds TSB and how many air miles he was racking up.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel

My new Windows logo

I wasted hours on a stupid Windows problem that turned out to be because I was using the wrong Windows XP install disk. My PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE Windows disk wouldn't install because it wanted a serial number that I couldn't find anywhere so I borrowed one from my next door neighbour. It turned out to the be wrong version (I needed SP2, whatever that is). In the end, I went on to PirateBay and downloaded a copy using BitTorrent. What kind of world is it when it's easier to get a copy of some software from PirateBay than to install the software that you've paid for? Anyway, since I had hours to waste while all this was going on, I designed my very own new Windows logo that I'm going to use on all my Windows CDs and DVDs from now...

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, technology

I found a thing to do Denver

In fact, I found quite few. It's a very pleasant place. Yesterday I went for an amble around the Capitol (below) and wandered in to the Colorado History Museum. I ended up spending a couple of hours there and found it fascinating, since I knew very little about the subject. It was very nicely laid out. Highly recommended. I'm staying out of town at a conference centre so I used the light rail to get around: it was fantastic, and (I think) pretty unusual for North America. It was fast, clean and efficient. It reminded me of the light rail in SimCity: it looks exactly the same, a fact which clearly bothers some people in another city I like very much, Austin.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

Argy Bargy

I'm in Barcelona for a couple of days and it's very pleasant here indeed. When I was going down to the lobby earlier on there were a couple of guys in Argentinian football shirts in the lift with me, but I wasn't paying much attention. When we got out of the lift I noticed another couple of guys in Argentinian shirts. Then I noticed that one of them was Carlos Tevez. At which point I realised that there were loads of people in Argentinian shirts and dark blue polo shirts, lots of photographers and lots of kids trying to get autographs. It turns out that I'm staying in the same hotel as the Argentinian national football team. I tried to get a picture from the Mezzanine level, but they were all underneath so I couldn't. I did get a quick snap of one of them being interviewed, but I can't figure out who it is (!)

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: sport, travel

I got my Cards

I'd taken over Woking FC (Come on you Cards). I adopted a long-term strategy, cutting back on some of the deadwood in the first team squad and investing in coaches and scouts to find and work with young players, except that the board wouldn't let me hire another scout even though I had the wage budget. The idea was to avoid relegation from the Conference this year and then push for the league next year. I managed to avoid the drop by a couple of points and had a decent cup run so I had a bit of money to spend. But two days after the last match of the season, I was fired.

Yes, I've been playing Championship Manager again because the 2007 version has come out. I love this game. I've been pretty busy recently so it's nice to switch off for a couple of hours here and a couple of hours there to play.

Things are about to get even better, though. Something is brewing in the UK, something that the Internet was invented for... an idea so utterly brilliant that I did actually gasp out loud when I read about it in The Telegraph... some guy has set up a web site to get 50,000 football fans to register and pledge 35 quid (and yes, I've already done it). When there are 50,000 people signed up, they're going to spend a million quid on BUYING A REAL FOOTBALL TEAM. All the fans will have a share in it. How fantastic is that! I'm hoping against hope that they'll buy Woking, but whoever they buy it's going to be so much fun. The idea is to run the team through the web site -- transfers, tactics voted on by the fans -- with a head coach appointed to execute the fans' instructions. It's going to be like Championship Manager but for real! I absolutely can't wait. Whichever club gets bought is going to see gates go from 1,000 to 20,000 and have cash to buy new players and there will be fans going to all of their away games all over the country as well.

Like all of the very, very best ideas I am literally green with envy at not having thought of it myself.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: sport, technology

In case of sonic attack

I've been having a bit of a Hawkwind week. Because of a couple of other things I'd bought, Amazon put a bunch of Hawkwind CDs in my recommendations list. Since some of them were only 3.96 on a special offer and a couple of them were remasters with additional tracks, I bought a few...

"Space Ritual Alive In London" (Hawkwind)

"In Search of Space: Remastered" (Hawkwind)

"Doremi Fasol Latido: Remastered" (Hawkwind)

"Hall of the Mountain Grill: Remastered" (Hawkwind)

"Masters of the Universe" (Hawkwind)

A slave to big copyright, I actually already own all of these on vinyl (which I haven't played for at least 20 years) and I know for a fact that I'd bought some of them on CD. (And I'll be buying yet another version of Space Ritual next month, because a new remastered audio DVD is coming out.) The old ones may well be somewhere around the house, but I can't find them. Anyway, who cares about vinyl or CDs anymore. As soon as they arrived, I ripped them straight to my iPod and I've been listening to them on trains, planes and automobiles this week.

Wow.

I mean, Hawkwind probably are my all time favourite rock band. I've probably seen them live more times than any other band except possibly Motorhead -- and one of the best nights out in my entire life was Hawkwind with Motorhead at the Hammersmith Odeon Christmas show in 1979 -- at venues ranging from outdoor festivals in six feet of mud to provincial clubs to concert halls. I'd say that the standout was probably the Elephant Fayre down in Cornwall in (I think) 1985, where they came on at midnight and played a set that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, including a full-on version of Needle Gun that I'll never forget. I also remember a great set by Nik Turner's Inner City Unit later that night. I don't know if it was the atmosphere, the crowd or the mood-enhancers but it was truly unforgettable.

I've spent this week reminding myself over and over again what a magnificent outfit they are. When it all comes together for them, as it did for Space Ritual, they are amazing. When you're jammed into the Tube at the end of a long day, so tired you can't think straight and so hot that you can't breathe properly, listening to Orgone Accumulator or Born To Go verges on the surreal. Suddenly you really are 20,000 light years from home, surrounded by aliens... When the guy at Embankment said "Mind the gap", I was genuinely surprised he didn't say "In case of sonic attack... mind the gap".

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: pop stars

I got an e-mail from the BBC

Which should have been titled "We are useless", but was actually an invitation to take part in a trial of their ridiculous iPlayer, that won't work on any of the numerous computers in my house...

Hello, Earlier this year you took part in a survey on the BBC's website. As part of your feedback to us, you said you would be interested in taking part in future surveys or market research projects for the BBC. We would now like to invite you to help us try out a new online service. BBC iPlayer Beta offers a range of BBC television programmes to download to your PC from the last seven days. To take part, you must have access to a PC with broadband at home. It must be a PC as the technology is not currently compatible with an Apple Macintosh. It is also not currently compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista. Please bear in mind this is a beta test service so you may encounter a few technical faults, and there may be times when it is necessary for it to be temporarily suspended. BBC iPlayer Beta is open to a limited number of people in a closed environment. If you're interested, please click on the link below to register and, if you're successful, we'll contact you shortly. Many thanks, BBC iPlayer Beta Team

How ludicrous is that? Spending millions developing something that won't run on Vista or Macs. Fortunately, I imagine the "security" will be broken within a week and we'll be able to download the BBC shows we want from Bit Torrent like normal people do.

The voices may not b real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, media, technology

White out

This was different (for me). I went to the Xscape near Glasgow for odd reasons to do with work. I'd never even heard of Xscape before, but it turns out there's one down south in Milton Keynes as well. Anyway, we went sliding down the indoor ski slope on toboggans, which was pretty enjoyable. I'd never been to an indoor ski slope before, so it was an interesting afternoon. I think I could tell that it wasn't real snow, but I'm not sure if I could tell you why: if I say it was too wet, that doesn't really explain it. Anyway, even though it wasn't real, sliding down it was still real fun.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: sport, travel

Demonstrating a Latin temper

I had to take the train today. Hence my unrestrained admiration for the Argentinian commuters who undertook a more robust complaints procedure than is typical in this corner of Surrey. We just tut and fill out a useless form. They smashed windows, set fire to a ticket sales area, looted shops and ripped payphones from walls.

At Woking station this morning, both ticket windows were shut and one of the two ticket machines was out of order, so there was a queue of people stretching out into the street and -- naturally -- I missed the fast train and had to get the next one stopping at Weybridge and such places. At times like that, I wish the people of Woking would occasionally display a bit more of a Latin temper. Although, I have to say, in Woking the phrase Latin temper generally means "futue te ipsum".

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning

My new Windows logo

I wasted hours on a stupid Windows problem that turned out to be because I was using the wrong Windows XP install disk. My PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE Windows disk wouldn't install because it wanted a serial number that I couldn't find anywhere so I borrowed one from my next door neighbour. It turned out to the be wrong version (I needed SP2, whatever that is). In the end, I went on to PirateBay and downloaded a copy using BitTorrent. What kind of world is it when it's easier to get a copy of some software from PirateBay than to install the software that you've paid for? Anyway, since I had hours to waste while all this was going on, I designed a new Windows logo that I'm going to use on all my Windows CDs and DVDs from now...

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, technology

Votes for common sense

I was looking at the local election results in the paper while sorting out the recycling. In one constituency (Tony Blair's, as it happens) the Tory candidate got no votes at all. This is the first time that someone has managed to get no votes at all since 1860, which I think is pretty spectacular. She couldn't even vote for herself, since she doesn't live in the ward. Somewhere else, I can't remember where, they elected an 18 year old. Come on. What was he campaigning on? Playstations vs. Wii? It's absurd that eighteen year olds are allowed to vote, let alone stand for office. No-one should be allowed to do either until they've paid a full stamp (National Insurance / Social Security contributions, for our foreign visitors) for at least five years. And, while I'm on it, and much as I don't want to touch on either religion or politics on the blog, I will just make the point that the fuss about tens of thousands of votes get ignored (in Scotland) because of complicated ballot papers is ludicrous. Ballot papers should be complicated: if someone can't pass the simple threshold of filling out "1, 2, 3, 4" instead of "X", then it seems amazing to me that they should be allowed influence over my rubbish collection options.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning

Ministry of Defence

Uh oh. It's look as if the middle-class revolution meme that I referred to has now spread to the Ministry of Defence: "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx". I'm not quite sure what this actually means, since as far as I know, Marx was wrong about everything, starting with the Labour Theory of Value (which was at least 200 years out of date when he started writing) and going downhill from there. But anyway, if there are any revolutionary cells out there who are thinking of striking a blow against bi-weekly rubbish collection, I've a feeling they may start to snowball.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, woking

If it's Wednesday, it must be Istanbul

It's a beautiful morning here in Istanbul. I'm looking out over the Bosphorus, where the water looks wonderful. Last night we went to dinner at an excellent fish restaurant down on the Bosphorous and on the way had a fantastic view of the Bosphorous Bridge, which has been illuminated with red lights and looked fantastic. I had a quick google and couldn't seem to find a picture with the show, but I did find this nice showing the view from the top of one of the towers...

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

It doesn't get much worse than this

A bit of real time blogging, using my jolly clever K800i phone's "send to blog" function, live from inside my car while I alternately fume quietly, rage against an indifferent universe and cry. It's pouring with rain, the M25 is blocked because of an accident, I'm going to miss my flight and there are a million things to do. Why oh why didn't I take the train. (Answer: because it doesn't go from my house.)

Technorati Tags: moaning, puppy, travel

The three great universities

Next week, Hull.

My new aphorism

I got called a guru the other day. The context isn't important, but it was flattering, if not lucrative. But it did lead me to a new aphorism for these blog posts, so in truly recursive style, I am of course driven to blog about it.

Everyone is an expert about something, if you draw the boundaries tightly enough. But to make the step to being a guru you also have to have made a lucky guess about something that subsequently turns out to be true: in these particular circumstances, it was to do with some observations I had made some years ago about the role of mobile phones in the future of financial services. But you also have to have an audience to be a guru too, and that set me thinking about the various blogs that take up more and more of my time.

Andy Warhol's famous maxim that "in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes" has now been updated thanks to the web, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube: in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen megabytes. The spread of blogs mutates it further to "in the future everyone will be famous to fifteen people". A phrase that I love so it has become my new blaphorism (ie, blogging aphorism, attached to end of all my blog posts).

I can't source the "megabytes" quote, although I have found it via google being used back in 1997 so it's a least a decade old but I hadn't heard it until recently. Spookily, Uri Geller predicts it only three years after it first appeared on the web, a testament to his psychic powers. I've found the "fifteen people" version being used back in 1996 in it's Internet context and later being ascribed to a Scottish artist called Momus back in 1991, but apparently it also dates back to the the man himself. Perhaps Warhol really was some kind of savant.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: blogging, quotations

Not even artificial intelligence

I had to go to Oxford, and since I have a lot of work to do at the moment, I took the train (nearly sixty quid return). So, I went to the train times web site and searched for a train journey that would get me in to Oxford around 8.30am. Computer says yes: there's a train from Woking that wil get me to Guildford for the 7.04 to Reading. That gets in to reading around 7.50, then there's an 8.10 to Oxford. I decided to drive to Guildford and get the train from there, since there's wouldn't be much traffic. I got there early in fact, to discover that there was a 6.51 fast service direct to Oxford (only stop: Reading). The (Virgin) train was on time, half-empty and therefore comfortable and convenient and I got plenty of work done. Why can't the train time system have a modicum of artificial intelligence: it must know that direct, fast services are infinitely preferable to slow, indirect services, so even if you are going to get in a few minutes early, you'd rather the former.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel

Etiquette lesson

I don't often answer my mobile phone. There are a few rerasons for this. For one thing, I don't have millions of phone numbers stored in my phone and I won't answer the phone at all unless it displays the caller name rather than a number.

My phone is set to silent/vibrate most of the time anyway. I can see who has been calling, I can read text messages and, since I can read my e-mail on my phone as well, check mail every hour or so when I'm around and about during the day. I did have the phone set to work like a Blackberry and but it was a waste of time since I can't be bothered to look at e-mail every five minutes.

This may sound like a Vodafone Victor Meldrew in the making, but I think it's modern etiquette and I'm a trailblazer. I don't ring someone unless a I really need to talk to them: phoning people is impolite, because you are disturbing them when they are doing something else -- thinking about something or maybe talking to someone -- but most of the people I talk to work in the same field as me: there are never any truly important messages (the liver is ready for transplant, that sort of thing). If I have a tolerably urgent message for someone or need a quick yes/no response on something, then I text them. I found out how to create text templates on my phone so I can do this quickly, and I if someone whose number I don't recognise phones me, then I can quickly send back a text asking them to leave a message or e-mail or whatever.

And the most golden rule of all: never, ever, answer the phone when you are sitting on a train. No-one is impressed by mobile phones anymore so they will all think that you are a tosser. Is that how you want to be remembered? I'm going to start a YouTube album called "SWTossers" where people can send pictures (taken with their camera phones) of people talking on the phone in South West Trains carriages so that they can be universally reviled and abused on a grand scale and henceforth excluded from polite society.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning

Has the revolution started?

When I heard this terrible story on the radio, it immediately made me think of J. G. Ballard's Millennium People, which is set in Chelsea. I won't give the plot away, but an idea in the book is that the next revolution will be lead by the middle classes rather than the working classes (I suppose political theorists would argue that all the others were too). Anyway, if memory serves the book contains a line to the effect "When the revolution comes, it will be about parking".

But then I thought, is it a very English thing? Is that why Ballard went down that route? I mean, people don't shoot each other over parking spaces anywhere else, do they? Well, apparently they do: 10 seconds on google found the same in Los Angeles, New York and Oakland. It was too depressing to scroll down further.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: english, moaning

All's well with the realm

There are seven ravens are in permanent residence in the Tower of London; their wings have been clipped so that they can't fly away. A superstition dating back to the time of Charles II claims that when there are no longer ravens in the Tower, both the White Tower and the kingdom will fall. The Ravenmaster -- one of the Yeoman Warders -- tends the birds; they even have their own pens. Well, the good news is that I was at the tower on Tuesday and they were still there....

Aren't you comforted?

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

Royal visit

I was wondering what was going on as I pottered down to Woking station this morning. There was a police helicopter overhead and I saw a bunch of policemen wandering around and a policeman with a sniffer dog on the other platform. At first I just assumed that someone hadn't paid their fare and South West Trains were going to make an example of them. But then I thought that because of the sniffer dog some exciting anti-terrorist action was in progress, or that a drug lord had been cornered on Platform 1, trapped by the late running of the 09.58 to Waterloo. Turns out that Prince Charles was visiting and he came by train from Waterloo. How exciting. It turns out that some people had turned up to watch Al Gore's movie and the Prince was giving a talk about it. Anyway, I hope that he found time in his busy schedule to ask what on Earth is going on with the stupid canopy that the council is still building outside the station. Because of this, buses can't stop outside the station. Normally, I'll wait near home and take the bus, because the bus stops right outside the station. Since it can't, it takes as long to walk from the bus stop to the station as it does from the car park. The inconvenient truth is that because of this, I've been driving instead of taking the bus.

Apologies for posting this a month late, but I didn't realise that I hadn't posted it at the time.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning, travel, woking

Amsterdam in the morning

A relaxing breakfast in the splendid dining room at the Hotel Krasnapolsky on Dam square. I like Amsterdam -- I used to live in the Netherlands -- and find it very pleasant to stroll around on a mild Spring day like today.

It sets you up for the day, breakfast in grand style like this. I always regard a massive cooked breakfast as my compensation for being away from the family, not sleeping well and (in this case) missing watching the F.A. Cup quarter-final live on TV.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: travel

A random act of kindness

Not by me, obviously, but I did witness one with my very own eyes. Outside a Starbucks in London this morning. There was an old tramp -- although it's hard to tell how old he actually was, he was probably 30 or something -- who was filthy and decrepit. He was mumbling incoherently about not having had anything to eat for days while people were wandering past ignoring him. As I did. But as I walked past, a guy dressed in a smart suit (this was in the City) came out. He walked past the tramp for a few paces, then stopped and turned back. He took out of his wallet what looked like a £20 note gave it to the tramp. All day, I have been wondering if this was simple charity, part of some wider philanthropic exercise, a means of assuaging guilt over city bonuses, bizarre performance art, or what? I have a firm policy of never giving "beggars" anything...

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning

The Prague spring

A lovely day couple of days in Prague. I think I heard on the BBC that there hadn't been a government here for seven months, which may be one of the reasons why it is so energetic and prosperous. Went out to dinner at a super restaurant overlooking the river and the castle and had my first Czech food: some kind of meatball soup that was delicious and a steak in cream sauce with cranberries and dumplings -- just typing it out is making me swoon. When you have some really, really nice meal that you've never had before, it's what passes for excitement at my advanced stage of life.

Technorati Tags: travel

Traditional London street scenes no. 1

Ah, spring is almost here. It's a lovely day down at Waterloo Place...

A bearded gentleman looks on while brightly decorated policemen search his car, assisted by a friendly golden-coated bomb squad sniffer dog.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning

Identity card rant

The government here has decided against building a new national identity id card system. Instead, the Home Office and their management consultants decided to knock one up from some old databases they happen to have laying around at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the Home Office and the immigration and passport service. That would be the DWP who were responsible for the biggest computer crash ever in the U.K., the Home Office that has spent ten years building a computer system for the police that is still not working and the Identity & Passport Service where staff have already been sacked for looking through personal records. I started to think about this today because on the BBC there was a piece about the DWP sending 26,000 people's personal details (including bank details) to the wrong people.

Still, not to worry. The government says that all of the data from DWP database will be checked again before it is put into the new "National Identity Register". The architecture of the system is rock solid and completely secure because according to Peter Wilson, a spokesperson for the Home Office, "It's rather like a filing cabinet that DWP owns and maintains... We have our own shelf, which is empty, and which we will populate with our own records and which we have our own key to." What could possibly go wrong?

One or two other aspects of the new architecture are a little surprising. I found a comment from Graham Titterington from Ovum. He points out that the role of biometrics appears to have been downgraded. There is no mention of iris recognition, apart from a brief sentence, and the report talks in general terms about 'biometrics such as finger prints' and appears to have given up on creating the 'gold standard of identity' originally proposed. He notes that "Whilst, the government is still placing heavy reliance on the role of biometrics in preventing a person from making multiple registrations in the NIR, this objective seems unlikely to be achieved without the use of iris scans".

I've seen some commentators call the new Home Office strategic action plan to introduce ID cards from 2009 a step in the right direction. I disagree: it's a giant leap in the wrong direction and it will make the current situation (ie, no ID card) worse in almost every respect. This is very disappointing for people like me who think that a properly thought out identity card would be a good idea in the modern world.

How can giant projects like this rumble along without any inspiring vision of how they are going to deliver 21st century services that will transform the lives of citizens rather than half-baked, crappy, "computer says no" emulations of the 1950s?

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: technology

Suburban Saturday morning

As The Telegraph notes today, councils have decided to justify higher council tax charges by reducing rubbish collection, which is about the only useful service they provide for the money, since everything else isn't under their control. Woking is no different. As a consequence, our house is occasionally surrounded by bags of rotting garbage because the council has decided that recycling the odd bit of cardboard (which we did anyway) is more important than preventing outbreaks of bubonic plague around Knaphill.

I'm quite unable to determine what it is that we pay our enormous council tax bill for. In the old days, the council came around and took away rubbish every week, while I put newspapers and cardboard in my car and took them round the corner to the recycling centre once every couple of weeks. Now, the council takes away the cardboard and leaves me to pile stinking garbage in the back of my car and take it round to the tip myself, effectively outsourcing half of its garbage collection council taxpayers. So many people were doing this at the tip today that there was a queue to get in! It's the new suburban Saturday morning.

Perhaps the council is assuming that middle class residents, having a basic understanding of public health and a passing knowledge of history, will continue to do their own rubbish disposal whereas in other parts of the district the Black Death will return to decimate the population, thus solving the problem of unemployment for a couple of generations as it did in the 14th century -- and that's on top of the inevitable increase in our environs following the closure of one of the major accident and emergency departments in Surrey (at the Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford). I imagine a council sub-committee is working on new, politically correct, sumptuary laws even as I write. These were required because of the boom in the effective minimum wage (a natural consequence of the death of a third of the population) to stop the masses from spending too much of their money on luxuries (eg, sugar, salt, crisps, 4x4s). Surely, though, today we will simply replace the missing millions of workers with eastern Europeans, so the council's plan may not be a smart as the microchips they've put in our bins.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: moaning

Nothing says corporate slave quite like a Blackberry

As probably the only person in Britain, if not the entire world, who has stopped using their Blackberry, I've discovered an interesting new emotion, a sort of cross between smug, self-righteous superiority and sneering. You know how ex-smokers feel when they see someone smoking? No? Well, as an ex-smoker myself I can tell you. When I see someone smoking I feel really glad that I gave up and I still feel some of the resentment against cigarettes that I felt when I finally quit. But I understand why they do it, and I know that if I'm not vigilant I might one day fall off of the wagon. For all the good, intelligent and wise reasons for not smoking cannot mask the fact that there were times when having a cigarette was really, really nice.

But when I see people using their Blackberries on the tube, as I did this morning, I don't feel any of that. Using a Blackberry was never nice. Perhaps I'm just not important enough: after all, what kind of e-mails do I get... "the liver is ready for transplant"... not. Most of the e-mails I get are either "can you give X a quick ring about Y" or "can you have a look at this document". If it's the first kind I can read them on my phone perfectly adequately (my K800i has a good IMAP client on it -- for that matter, it has an RSS reader as well) and if it's the second kind then I'm not going to do it on the tube.

The woman I was sitting next to on the tube this morning was going through her messages, which were almost all (as far as I could snoop) either of the first kind ("call me when you get in") or of the corporate sort that I am generally spared ("please respond to let us know that you have recieved and read the new holiday entitlement rules addendum covering years in which the easter holiday..."). I won't say what the actual message was as that wouldn't be right. But she did respond in the affirmative and I bet she was lying.

The temptation to both read and respond to messages using the Blackberry was just too great. Instead of simply ignoring irrelevant e-mails (where I've been copied in on something that I'm no longer involved in or I've got something from some web site I used to visit four years ago) you find yourself going through them to delete them and free up inbox space. Worse still, you find yourself replying to e-mails in a frantic and ill-considered way, not giving the sender the respect of thinking things through properly.

Sometimes, only sometimes, I have a slight pang of jealousy when I see someone light a cigarette after a meal and a glass of wine. But I never, ever feel jealous of the guy on the train who thinks I'm impressed that he's e-mailed Julie to send the copy invoices to Martin instead of just telling her in the morning when she gets in.

The voices may not be real, but they do have some good ideas.
[posted with ecto]

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