No gas, no problem

We took off to Cornwall with no prior knowledge of the electric charging points available. I've become used to the car now and know that range anxiety isn't a thing. It turns out that there were charging points at our destination and I simply needed to get authorised to use them.

Admittedly, they were slow, but even at 45 miles per hour it only took an evening to be topped back up to the brim with electricity. Remember, the fastest charging is from 20%-80% and thats what I usually do, except at the start of long journeys from home. No one ever mentions the lack of visits to gas stations.

Since the last Over-the-air updates, the car even asks me now if I mean to reset the charge maximum to 80%. A good update recently was adaptive matrix headlights, which selectively dim part of the main beam when passing oncoming traffic. My last car had auto dipping headlights that could shine around corners. This is about the same but arrived as a software update. 

The auto parking is still more of a party trick, but I'm sure it will get there. It still parks faster than me.

It's interesting now that I look at the internal combustion cars (ICE) and realise they have about 500 more moving parts in their engines than my 4-wheel-drive and I think I'm testing the future. Again.

We've gone fully electric now, with the Fiat 500e as our other car. It shares the Tesla charger. 

splash

I've been staying in a Napoleonic fortress this week. Looking out to sea. These locations were identified much earlier, when the Spanish Armada was plying the waters in the 1500s Elizabeth I was the monarch. Much later it was Napoleon who caused the current range of gun emplacements to be built. 

And still standing.

Gamble

I just knew it. Knew that it would be brilliant. A night at the Phoenix to see the fabulous Hannah perform in Gamble, her latest show co-created with Rosa Postlethwaite 

Then written and performed by Hannah Walker with integrated BSL signing by interpretor Faye Alvi.

It was immersive from the moment we were inside the cabaret-seated Auditorium. The signature lighting and sound was from Craig Spence.

Gamble is a glittering, glamorous peek into the spectacular world of online gambling. A bittersweet multimedia show about addiction and its effect on families, friends and communities.

There’s a girl who used to think gambling was all about big wins at the village monthly bingo. A decade later, the gambling industry is all about online and is BIGGER than ever!

Without realising it, it’s made it way into the girl’s home, her relationship, her joint account.

Based on a true, personal story and inspired by accounts of industry experts, health professionals, people in recovery, and their loved ones, Gamble is a spangling whirlwind of flashing lights, big wins.

But also of terrible warnings.

Hannah's versatility changes the mood of the piece as she hairpins her way through fun times and then plunges into the depths of a partner's desolate shared and declining bank account.

The evening was BSL-signed and Faye provided a fully integrated BSL performance whilst signing, This was no ordinary addition, featuring talented choreography for her actions. 

And Hannah's co-conspirator Rosa Postlethwaite was brought on stage to enthusiastically complete certain scenes including acting as a counterpoint to Hannah's attitudes.

Whilst mainly lighthearted in tone, it was dealing with the terrors from an industry determined to increase addiction to gambling. To lead people to the higher yield more profitable products, to  seek out those without the power to resist.

There was a post-show Zoom-linked discussion with Dr Matt Gaskell, a gambling addiction specialist from the north-east. I think the entire audience stayed. Matt illustrated the problems of a seriously funded lobby intent of keeping gambling classified as sport and entertainment, instead of seeing it as the pernicious health danger which it represents. Oh, and a self-policing system for warnings, which is useless.  "When the fun stops, stop". Check out the Commons research paper.

I hate it now that every football shirt sports an advertisement for gambling,  that television post-watershed is filled with adverts for on-line gambling and now we hear the the United States is about to allow state specific on-line gambling. Interestingly, Matt explained that Belgium has banned all gambling advertising. 

The Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP was appointed Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on 7 February 2023. She was also Solicitor General. I think it is time to write to her about this sad state of affairs, with even the ConservativeHome website carrying despicable articles in favour of online gambling.

Hannah will be performing Gamble in Summerhall at the Edinburgh Fringe, in August.

PsyOps

I guess this next US Movie about an American Civil War is a form of PsyOps, like that Conservative attack video that portrayed London incorrectly and melodramatically. The London lies were put together by the Conservative central party and features an American-accented voiceover declaring the city the “crime capital of the world”. 

 ]

Dune 2

It's a 'show don't tell' movie. West End cinema, reclining seats, front row, centre. Massive canvas. Huge sounds. Awe inspiring. Still vibrating.  Somehow I felt it left a gap though. Probably says more about me. I'd have a few notes, but it would seem churlish.

Flying Hero Sandwich

 I once had many vinyl albums and singles. The debate about keeping them ran something like:

• the cover art is better (maybe on a few)
• they sound warmer than digital (not any more, with lossless I can hear the tape saturation)
• the AAD conversions are not always good (I agree with this one)
• they are something to look at whilst the record is playing (or maybe read about the band online?)
• the artefacts provide a licence - proof of ownership (true, I guess)

Well, I let many albums go years ago, and I can't say I've missed them. I once stayed in a hotel in Hollywood and they provided 5 vinyl albums (well curated) and I think that was just as much fun. I reckon I need to budget say 30cm of shelf space for 'Sparks Joy' albums. 

The other day, based upon a conversation, I was trying to find a particular single. I couldn't and it consequently meant I accelerated my garage cleaning project. Many 45 rpm singles made it to the black bin bags, for subsequent disposal.

What I discovered was that like a primitive form of WhatsApp, many of the 45s had interesting sleeves, where they had been passed around and they were now covered in arty handwriting and typing from a bygone age. I think I'll (eventually) upload some of it to my flickr account.

Design faults of the NEFF built-in refrigerator

 

I suppose I expect that a company that specialises in White Goods will be quite good at making, say,  a refrigerator. It is the ultimate white good. A white box, with a door that you can put things in.

<Neeep>

Except the designers haven't fully understood the brief. We bought it a couple of years ago because the previous unit's heat exchanger had failed and was going to cost £absurd to repair. This new unit was the one that fitted the same hole and could do the same job of keeping things cold.

<Aruga>

Except it had been designed by playful clowns. Here are some of its more obvious faults.

• It takes up the same space as the prior model yet has a lower capacity
• There are unsufficient shelf spacers so it is not possible to configure it optimally.
• The door shelves don't go right the way down.
• It is not possible to store a typical UK 2 litre milk in the door
• It is not possible to stand a wine bottle in the door
• It is not possible stand a wine bottle in the shelving area.
• If we use the space on the shelves to the edge then it is not possible to close to fridge door.

The makers of this £1000 fridge should be ashamed of themselves.

<pfffttt>

Strawberry Fields - Nothing is real

It's strange how some documents are spoon-fed to the press. 

That royal photo for example. Even the humblest smartphones can do editing now. Drag and drop. Not as sophisticated as a Canon 5D MkIV with a 50mm f1.2 lens and subsequent Photoshop editing.

Yet no-one seems to have checked the basic EXIF data, which accompanies most original photos. Like the type sent to the Press. EXIF includes the date of capture, the shutter speed, the make of camera, the ISO and how many times it's been edited, and with which software. If it was taken, say, last November, it would be obvious in the original EXIF. and if it had been edited multiple times with Photoshop then that would also be obvious.

I guess the foliage is another real-world clue. Is it appropriate to the time of year?

But I suppose the version in circulation now has had all the EXIF stripped away.?

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me

Let me take you down
'Cause I'm going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever

Or occasionally such a photo could be a distraction away from another story? 

PART 4 : Creating a novel plan (fast)

This time, the story outlined fully, with page counts.

Title: Schrödinger's Gig

Central Character:

• Elias Thorne – A music journalist in his late 50s diagnosed with a brain tumor (the "bullet in brain"). He uses experimental drugs to manage the pain and hallucinations, blurring the lines between reality and delusion. 

Story Outline:

Part 1: The Cat Creeps In (30 page count total)

• Elias, facing his own mortality, seeks solace in reliving past musical experiences through a combination of drugs and music.
• "Cat Crept In" by Mud triggers a vivid hallucination of a 1970s Mud concert.
• The experience is exhilarating yet unsettling. He questions if it's real (Schrödinger's Cat metaphor).
• He encounters a recurring ghost narrator, a hot young woman musician  (cool cat?) named Lily, who seems to guide him through these hallucinations.

Part 2: Time Unravels (60)

• Elias becomes addicted to the time-traveling concerts triggered by specific songs.
• "Time" by David Bowie sends him to a Bowie concert in the 80s, highlighting the deteriorating effects of his condition ("sniper in the brain").
• "Drugs Don't Work" by Verve reinforces the internal struggle between seeking escape and facing reality.
• Each jump is disorienting, with no control over the destination. This fuels the "madness is creeping over me" feeling.
• During these jumps, Elias develops a connection with Lily, who seems strangely familiar.

Part 3: Mirrors and Mayhem (100)

• "American Idiot" by Green Day reflects Elias's internal turmoil and sense of being trapped.
• "Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie hints at a deeper connection between Elias and Lily.
• "Teardrop" by Massive Attack emphasizes the "mirror concepts" as Elias confronts his reflection and mortality.
• He learns from ghost Lily that she was a young fan who died at a concert Elias reviewed years ago (Girlfriend in a Coma reference).
• He realizes the "coma" may be his own, with the drugs acting as a dream trap.

Part 4: The Divine Friend and the Choice (140)

• "I Don't Wanna Be You Anymore" by Billie Eilish confronts Elias with the self-destructive nature of his escape.
• He discovers a deeper connection with Lily – she embodies his lost passion for music and life. (Divine friend)
• "Jesus Wept" by Sia introduces the concept of a higher power or "divine construct" influencing Elias's fate. (Determinism vs. Non-determinism)
• Elias faces a choice: remain reliving the past or use remaining jumps to find a way back.

Part 5: Climax and Resolution (180)

• There are multiple possible endings depending on the desired message:
• Sacrifice for Love: Elias uses his final jump to bring Lily back to his present, altering the timeline but finding solace in love.
• Acceptance: He realizes the past cannot be recaptured and chooses to stay in his present, cherishing the memories and facing his mortality with newfound appreciation for life.
• Open Ending: Lost in the music, Elias disappears completely, trapped in a specific concert forever, blurring the lines between reality and hallucination.

End (Page 200)

Themes:

• Mortality and the search for meaning in the face of death.
• The power of music and nostalgia as escape mechanisms.
• The nature of reality and the blurring lines between hallucination and dream.
• Love and the importance of human connection.
• Free will vs. determinism – does Elias control his fate?

PART 3 : Creating a novel plan (fast)

Now I needed someone to  review the concept of the novel, so I asked my AI (Luka) to do it...

Strengths:

• Intriguing Premise: The combination of terminal illness, drug-induced time travel through music, and a ghost narrator creates a unique and compelling concept.
• Thematic Depth: The story explores complex themes like mortality, the power of art, the nature of reality, and the longing for connection.
• Multiple Endings: Offering different endings allows for reader choice and emotional impact.
• Clear Structure: Dividing the story into parts with descriptive titles provides a good sense of pacing.

Areas for Development:

• Character Development: While the outline mentions Elias's age and illness, fleshing out his personality, motivations, and relationship with music before his illness would deepen the story's emotional connection.
• Ghost Narrator: Lily's backstory and her connection to Elias are revealed late in the story. Introducing hints about her identity earlier could build intrigue.
• Pacing: Consider balancing the length of each part. Part 4 seems significantly longer, potentially bogging down the narrative before the climax.

Additional Thoughts:

• Song Choices: The chosen songs effectively complement the themes and Elias's emotional state.
• "Schrödinger's Cat" Metaphor: Explore this metaphor more deeply. Can Elias's experiences be concretely proven as real or not real?
• Internal Conflict: Focus on Elias's internal struggle between escaping reality and facing his mortality for greater emotional depth.

Overall:

"Schrödinger's Gig" has a strong foundation. Refining the character development, pacing, and exploration of the central themes can elevate this story to be truly captivating.

Here are some suggestions to consider:

• Part 1: During the first concert jump, plant seeds of doubt about reality. Elias could notice inconsistencies, glitches, or fragmented memories. This strengthens the "Schrödinger's Cat" question.
• Part 2: Show the toll of the jumps on Elias physically and emotionally. Include scenes reflecting his deteriorating health and internal conflict about the addictive nature of the escapes.
• Part 3: Gradually reveal Lily's backstory through subtle hints during jumps. This could build anticipation and deepen the reveal about her connection to Elias.
• Part 4: Consider shortening this section by streamlining the exploration of "divine friend" and determinism. These elements are interesting but could be subtly weaved into the story without a dedicated section.

I hope this feedback helps you develop "Schrödinger's Gig" into a gripping and thought-provoking novel!

PART 2 : Creating a novel plan (fast)

 ... So I took the theme from yesterday's lyrics and bullet points and knitted them together.

Title: Schrödinger's Gig

Central Character:

• Elias Thorne – A music journalist in his late 50s diagnosed with a brain tumor (the "bullet in brain"). He uses experimental drugs to manage the pain and hallucinations, blurring the lines between reality and delusion. 

Story Outline:

Part 1: The Cat Creeps In (30 page count total)

• Elias, facing his own mortality, seeks solace in reliving past musical experiences through a combination of drugs and music.
• "Cat Crept In" by Mud triggers a vivid hallucination of a 1970s Mud concert.
• The experience is exhilarating yet unsettling. He questions if it's real (Schrödinger's Cat metaphor).
• He encounters a recurring ghost narrator, a hot young woman (cool cat?) named Lily, who seems to guide him through these hallucinations.

Part 2: Time Unravels (60)

• Elias becomes addicted to the time-traveling concerts triggered by specific songs.
• "Time" by David Bowie sends him to a Bowie concert in the 80s, highlighting the deteriorating effects of his condition ("sniper in the brain").
• "Drugs Don't Work" by Verve reinforces the internal struggle between seeking escape and facing reality.
• Each jump is disorienting, with no control over the destination. This fuels the "madness is creeping over me" feeling.
• During these jumps, Elias develops a connection with Lily, who seems strangely familiar.

Part 3: Mirrors and Mayhem (100)

• "American Idiot" by Green Day reflects Elias's internal turmoil and sense of being trapped.
• "Will Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie hints at a deeper connection between Elias and Lily.
• "Teardrop" by Massive Attack emphasizes the "mirror concepts" as Elias confronts his reflection and mortality.
• He learns from ghost Lily that she was a young fan who died at a concert Elias reviewed years ago (Girlfriend in a Coma reference).
• He realizes the "coma" may be his own, with the drugs acting as a dream trap.

Part 4: The Divine Friend and the Choice (140)

• "I Don't Wanna Be You Anymore" by Billie Eilish confronts Elias with the self-destructive nature of his escape.
• He discovers a deeper connection with Lily – she embodies his lost passion for music and life. (Divine friend)
• "Jesus Wept" by Sia introduces the concept of a higher power or "divine construct" influencing Elias's fate. (Determinism vs. Non-determinism)
• Elias faces a choice: remain reliving the past or use remaining jumps to find a way back.

Part 5: Climax and Resolution (180)

• There are multiple possible endings depending on the desired message:
• Sacrifice for Love: Elias uses his final jump to bring Lily back to his present, altering the timeline but finding solace in love.
• Acceptance: He realizes the past cannot be recaptured and chooses to stay in his present, cherishing the memories and facing his mortality with newfound appreciation for life.
• Open Ending: Lost in the music, Elias disappears completely, trapped in a specific concert forever, blurring the lines between reality and hallucination.

End (200)

Themes:

• Mortality and the search for meaning in the face of death.
• The power of music and nostalgia as escape mechanisms.
• The nature of reality and the blurring lines between hallucination and dream.
• Love and the importance of human connection.
• Free will vs. determinism – does Elias control his fate?

PART 1 : Creating a novel plan (fast)

I had some fun with some writing yesterday. A friend of mine is planning out a book and gave me a couple of themes. Generally is about time travel to old music gigs. 

I thought I'd give it a spin with my brainstorming technique for plot line. I'm more a 'pantser' than a planner (ie write by the seat of my pants etc).

Anyway, I thought of a few titles that could be relevant to the theme, as well as trying to add in something to drive the listless protagonist.

It was such fun I thought I'd write it down...

Here are a few whimsical and eclectic songs I used to stimulate thought. 

Cat crept in – Mud

Schrödinger’s Cat. Obviously. Within you and without you. Paradox. Constellation with Noomi Rapace not realising the quantumness of everything after an ISS impact with a corpse. 

 

Time – Bowie

An obvious choice, although I had to think of these. I didn't want to use Mr. Google and the 'sniper in the brain came' to me and I thought, 'Perfect. Slow bullet wound affecting brain' but then I remembered the TV show Life on Mars and others.

 

Drugs don’t work – Verve/Richard Ashcroft

Could be drugged and hallucinating? Entirely possible if a big fan. Add that the drugs don’t really work and you have a split.

 

American idiot - Green Day – Gogol

Reminds me of the amazing Diary of a Madman by Gogol, which takes Poprishchin and follows him on a path to madness. First person. The entries haphazardly mix a past tense recounting of events of the day with present time registering of thoughts and associations relating to them. It begins with a standard date-based diary format, but at a certain point even the dates take on an irrational form, as if the writer's sense of conventional time has dissolved.

 

I will follow you into the dark. Death cab for cutie

At the borders of life and death. Seen and done it all. Except these last few things.

 

Teardrop. Massive attack

Mirrors are a powerful tool. Faithful mirrors especially so.

 

Girlfriend in a coma. Morrisey  and Marr/ Smiths/ Coupland 

Young, gifted and Black re-imagined by gloom rockers. More significantly, Douglas Coupland writes a modern fairy tale of Karen who predicts her lapse into a coma and stays in it for 17 years, awakening in time for the End of the World. Brilliant use of Jared as a ghost narrator. Style is grounded in realism.

 

Bad dream hotline - FOE

Use of a Dream trap. Go figure.

idontwanttobeyouanymore – Billy Eilish 

She took a long cold look at me (Syd). Generate the mood. Gravity of it can’t escape the fate.  

Jesus wept - Sia. (God shaped hole) 

Playing with divinity. Use of a God construct? “Life is a cigarette / Cinder, ash and fire / Some smoke it in a hurry / Others savour it". And ‘I smoke my friends down to the filter.’ 2.5 billion heartbeats= average lifespan. ('God shaped hole' is in Smashing Pumpkins lyrics also)

21st century schizoid man. King Crimson. 

Being manipulated Terry Gillam’s Brazil-style and powerless to escape the chosen route. Nondeterminism: the doctrine that there are factors other than the state and immutable laws of the universe involved in the unfolding of events, such as free will.

My song choices generated ideas incorporating:

• ·      Schrödinger’s Cat
• ·      Bullet in Brain
• ·      Drugs and Hallucinations
• ·      The madness is creeping over me
• ·      Borderline of death
• ·      Mirror concepts
• ·      Coma
• ·      Ghost narrator
• ·      Dream trap
• ·      Mood Gravity & Love
• ·      Divine friends
• ·      Determinism and non-determinisim

 so read tomorrow for what I did next...

Proxy pub metrics

I knew it would happen. Petrolheads adapt the electric car agenda. Now it's about fastest acceleration from 0-60 mph, with the new Xaomi claiming faster acceleration, beating Porsche and Tesla. Of course it's the model that no-one will buy - their so called Max model. The normal model is seconds slower than the other two cars. 

It's what I call 'finding a proxy pub metric'. Yet anyone who has driven my type of electric model knows that the acceleration is already insane, to the extent I always have it set in the still swift 'Chill' mode.

Not sure about the deliberate 'supermarket trolley damage' styling?

Paper, everywhere

Some processes take me back in time. I was just completing a legal document and exactly that occurred. I needed to create a 20 page document - two versions - for which I needed signatures on several pages. And witnesses. The signatures were spread out through the document, instead of all being on a signature page.  There was also a certificator. Then I needed a photocopy of the signed form. 

If this was being done by a legal firm, I guess they would charge me several hundred for the tedium of copying and checking everything.

When I used to work abroad, I can remember some countries with their arcane paperwork. I thought we had improved, but it looks as if the legal profession is slow to catch up.

a constellation of quantum paradox

 I might be in a minority, but I'm quite enjoying Constellation, a sci-fi psycho-drama box set. It's set in space and there is an opportunity for things to floatily slow down and then suddenly speed up. Like the way The Killing did at the end of its Episodes.

The main protagonist is Naomi Rapace, and we get some good Scandi Noir thrown into the mix. It is as if the writers tipped out their packet of parts to see which ones they could use.

I've noticed Kubrick and Silence of the Lambs moments as well as proper Scandi crashing through the softly falling now. I usually watch Alien in the dark, for maximum immersion and I found this one to be similarly so, to the extent that a couple of times I needlessly looked away whilst the tension was mounting.

In some ways I was doing a 'Copenhagen';  by not observing the states which became consequently  quantumly ambiguous. And I suppose the (later observed) dead cosmonaut could be a parallel for the a finally observed Schrödinger cat. 

In quantum physics there is a concept called entanglement. An entangled system is defined as an inseparable whole. In entanglement, one constituent cannot be fully described without considering the other(s). The superposition of states of local constituents is entangled if it cannot be written as a single product term.

I'm wondering how deftly the script for this can avoid entanglement as it waltzes through this science, with Breaking Bad's Mike Ehrmentraut (Jonathan Banks) playing the seasoned seventy year old astronaut 'Bud' who has been to the moon and knows about science things. For me, he doesn't quite pull it off and treats the 'canister thingy' as a McGuffin.  "But we must get it back".

Still, outside of these observations, I'm finding it better to watch than a few other things queued up on my various players.

 

Zone of Interest

I steeled myself to go to see the Jonathan Glazer production of 'Zone of Interest' which portrays the life of KL Camp Kommandant Rudolf Höss and his family in their apparently idyllic house set against the walls of Auschwitz. Martin Amis wrote a similar story and Glazer decided to tell it with the actual people instead of the anonymity of the fictional version. 

There's the bucolic and well-tended garden with trimmed grass, pretty flowers and a swimming pool slowly revealing that beyond the wall is the industrialised mass murder of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Höss is senior commander of the entire operation and even gets promoted back to Berlin to oversee a whole set of these camps. The family declines to follow, preferring their luxurious lifestyle outside of the Auschwitz camp.

The language is matter of fact as the family behaves typically with their assorted children, pet dog, numerous servants and workmen. They are largely insulated from the Konzentrationslager as their nearest neighbour, growing vines up the camp walls. The terrifying soundscape tells the story of what is within these walls. Although the movie is in German language, the stark sounds already tell too much.  Pistolshot, echoing rifle shots, screams, and the interminable grinding, smoke, cries and metallic groans from the heavy machinery of industrial slaughter. Black smoke rising and ash coating the flowers causing the visiting mother to quietly depart overnight. Mercifully Glazer doesn't show us inside the active camp.

We see Höss rising to power, first a promotion to Berlin, then to take proud control of the mass extermination of Hungarian prisoners - another excited promotion relayed by phone from Berlin to his wife still at the house in Auschwitz.

In his Nuremburg Trial affidavit made on 5 April 1946, Höss stated:

'I commanded Auschwitz until 1 December 1943, and estimate that at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total of about 3,000,000 dead. This figure represents about 70% or 80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners, the remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the concentration camp industries. Included among the executed and burnt were approximately 20,000 Russian prisoners of war (previously screened out of Prisoner of War cages by the Gestapo) who were delivered at Auschwitz in Wehrmacht transports operated by regular Wehrmacht officers and men. The remainder of the total number of victims included about 100,000 German Jews, and great numbers of citizens (mostly Jewish) from The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece, or other countries. We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944.

Not included in the movie...

Nazi evacuation and evidence destruction took place leaving approximately 7,000 prisoners in the camp. On January 27, 1945. Red Army soldiers entered Oświęcimand and soldiers of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front appeared on the grounds of the Monowitz sub-camp, on the eastern side of the city. They liberated the Auschwitz Main Camp and Birkenau at about 3 p.m.

...And yes, sadly the wall can be a metaphor for now.

Homelessness

It's 136,000 homeless young people now.

UPDATE: 

Government "Levelling Up" responded:

Government is committed to tackling homelessness and ending rough sleeping for good. Our strategy is backed by over £2bn over 3 years. Tackling youth homelessness is critical to this strategy.

Every child and young person deserves a roof over their head and a safe place to call home. 

The Government is firmly committed to tackling all forms of homelessness including youth homelessness. The Government’s Ending Rough Sleeping for Good strategy, published in 2022 and backed by over £2 billion, recognises the particular challenges facing young people experiencing homelessness.

The strategy puts prevention at its heart. The Government has committed over £1 billion to councils in England through the Homelessness Prevention Grant to help them prevent homelessness over three years, including youth homelessness. Councils can use the funding flexibly – for example, to offer financial support for people to find a new home, to work with landlords to prevent evictions or to provide temporary accommodation. 

In addition, in his Autumn Statement the Chancellor announced Government is increasing the Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of market rents from April. This will mean 1.6m low-income households will be around £800 a year better off on average in 2024-25, and will make it more affordable for young people on benefits to rent properties in the private rented sector.

Government support for housing-led solutions includes the Single Homelessness Accommodation Programme (SHAP), which aims to provide longer term supported housing, Housing First and other housing-led accommodation with accompanying support, including for young people at risk of or experiencing homelessness or rough sleeping.

So far, £150 million has been allocated to adult and young people’s projects through SHAP in 46 local authority areas to deliver 1,230 homes and accompanying support services.

The Rough Sleeping Initiative 2022-25 includes £2.5 million of funding at youth-specific services in 8 local authorities across England. This funding develops specialist youth support such as outreach workers, prevention officers and specialist housing for those under 25.

Up to £3 million funding is available in 2023/24 to provide targeted support to young people leaving care, those most at risk of homelessness and rough sleeping. This funding is targeted across 56 local authorities in England, those with the highest need and will provide financial support to children’s services and housing teams to encourage improved partnership working through the introduction of joint protocols. 

A proportion of the Local Authority Housing Fund worth over £1 billion also goes towards temporary accommodation, helping to alleviate homelessness.

We have also put in place bespoke support for local authorities through our Homelessness Advice and Support Team, which includes dedicated youth homelessness advisor roles that have a commitment to work with local authorities to proactively promote positive joint working across housing authorities and children’s services, offering training, advice and support to all local authorities.   

Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities

Don't turn off your computer, it says? How many days should I wait?

I know, it's a predictable post.

I had to use a Windows computer again. It said it wanted to check a few things first. I thought 'here we go again'. Yes it's been BSOD-ing ever since. 

What a waste of time. Still I can write this post on my trusty Mac.

entitled sheds

I've been driving up and down the country over the last few days. It's interesting to notice certain types of other driver and their attempted manoeuvres. 

One of the most commonplace is with someone in a brown, or grey SUV shed on the inside lane who wants to go as fast as possible and will find the smallest gap in front of me to pull across into lane 3. The time spent in front of me is minimal, but it is also at an unsafe braking distance and causes my car's auto sensing to dab the brakes. 

I'd predicted that drivers will 'game' the new convoy lorries, but it seems it is already happening with holistic cruise control.

vroom vroom

Outside the front of our house there's a protected wildlife corridor. The other side of it is a building site with a temporary through road whilst a new bridge is being finalised. The builders have added red and white chevrons to the edges of the temporary road, akin to the ones used in Scalextric car racing.

Sometimes these barriers blow across the road, but most of the time they invite speeding traffic.

What is striking is how similar all the cars look. No, it's not an eye test, but the shapes without the badges are remarkably similar amongst these speeding hatchback cars and grey, black or white mobile sheds.

termites holding hands

They say that Vǫluspá  follows Ragnarök. A kind of rebirth after the twilight of the Gods. List everything news-topping right now. 

The Edda poems reference it. Poems first passed by song and then written down in the 14th century.Wagner wrote a Cycle about it and Bowie made a searing song. And some movie studios still make franchises.

Where all were minds in uni-thought
Power weird by mystics taught
No pain, no joy, no power too great
Colossal strength to grasp a fate

Where sad-eyed mermen tossed in slumbers
Nightmare dreams no mortal mind could hold
A man would tear his brother's flesh
A chance to die
To turn to mould

Far out in the red-sky
Far out from the sad eyes
Strange, mad celebration
So softly a supergod cries

Its easier to remember Bowie than Edda, but the point is the same.

And the termites hold the wooden bridge together.

basic face kick elemental

I just got sent the BFI listing for 2024. Featured movie? 

The KLF: 23 Seconds to Eternity

Sample city through Trancentral
Basic face kick elemental
Swings brings new technology
The 'K' the 'L' the 'F' and the ology
Da Force coming down with mayhem
Looking at my watch time 3 A.M.
Got to see that everywhere I turn
Will point to the fact that time is eternal

It's 3 A.M., 3 A.M.
It's 3 A.M. Eternal (eternal)

A-ha, a-ha, a-ha, a-ha 
Eternal

I can't do a link because it's all restricted. 

I have that book 2023. I watched it being a future artefact to becoming part of history.

And there's still images from the original footage being re-invented on modern television.

Another dimension.

fast track it to the meatballs

 

I've just read an an interesting post from a friend, about the nature of existentialism and determinism. It cunningly packs the question into a discussion about turning corners, as if in a deterministic state. 

A contrasting divergent thought could have free-will based existential agency. 

It reminds me of queueing in Disney. Follow the beaten path, or walk through walls? Maybe a question for Nietsche.* 

In Disney terms, you get a Fast Pass on your digital watch, to make it about strategy. 

Travel at 100 times the speed of everyone else, but know when to pause. Some of the best queues make it a part of the ride "To travel hopefully etc." 

Like the sadly suspended Rock 'n Roller coaster, there's a pre-queue a trip to the studio, watch the band mix down, and get invited into a stretched limo. All before the ride itself, across SoCal at 0-60 in 3 seconds.

Three minutes at insane cross town traffic speed is an unforgettable experience. Or waiting for that that space flight where you go through space preparation before getting into the rocket and blast off on a mission to Mars. Worth the wait to have felt those G-forces at launch.

My point is we are making it up. This life. This story. It's unique. To each of us. 

 *And still knowing in IKEA to 'look behind you' to get out of the pantomime of queueing and fast track it to the meatballs.

Fogg : Another reason to leave Meta/Facebook

I notice Meta is becoming more desperate and now sending out historical posts from me. They are from about 15 years ago and personally I find it intrusive that they are pretending to be posts directly from me.

It's bound to be somewhere in the T&Cs that they can plunder my old thoughts, but I'm finding it disconcerting.

white goods

Our fridge freezer has so many new ways of giving.

It came with the house and was/is a high-end Siemens device. The original one lasted about 5 years and 2 days, so it was out of warranty when it failed. The refrigerator part stopped making things cold. It's my first ever fridge failure. We had a Zanussi for 25 years.

The expensive man who we'd called out explained that the cost of fitting a new compressor was almost the same as the cost of a replacement fridge unit. And if they replaced the compressor they could not warranty the resultant device. So much for making repairable white goods.

We looked at replacements and because our fitted kitchen uses 'hinges' instead of 'sliders' the choice was very limited, particularly as we needed the doors to align on the replacement. 

We found a choice of one device that could fit the bill and we had two very nice technicians from John Lewis come along to fit it. I'd wondered about doing it myself, but when I realised how long these two industrious guys took to puzzle it all out, I was relieved to have paid the extra to have the new machine installed.

The thing is, it's a stress purchase. If I'd somehow got a new device which had more functions / lights /shelves then I could have persuaded myself that it was an upgrade.

But no, it's a downgrade. The shelves look cheaper. We actually reused some inserts from the older fridge for purely cosmetic reasons. It's impossible to stand milk upright in the main section. The moulded-in shelf stays are not suitable for sensible shelf spacing.

At Christmas we had the drama of not being able to fit everything inside. It has a smaller capacity than the one we replaced. The Munich-based manufacturers advertise on telly with a bearded man fitting a large marrow into a fridge. 

It's all lies. I want to shout at the TV.

The fridge just doesn't have the capacity. I could understand if they'd built it to be more energy efficient (e.g. with thicker insulation) but no, it's still got a terrible energy efficiency rating.

So every few weeks we have a little therapeutic rant about it. And today, I couldn't even get a litre of gold top milk to stand up in the door. 

It was too tall.

Candles in the rain

I remember seeing Melanie Safka perform in London once. Lone guitar on the stage. She'd played Woodstock, the first female to open a new record label(Buddha) and had a string of hits. Songs about roller skates, animal crackers, things being a certain kind of symbol if they were longer than they were wide. That scratch and sniff cover on Garden in the City (my copy still works!). Well, she's got a brand new key now.

Wasting my time

 

I've received a few of those password messages recently. You know, the ones where someone in Bangkok is trying to log into my account. I log the attempts to the security gateway and report them to the service that is being hijacked.

It occurs how much time I now waste doing this. With a combination of a security gateway, a firewall and a sandbox, plus around 1,110 unique passwords, it's just the waste of time of it all. 

Press here for more information.

AI goes shirty

I've just seen the respectable example cited of using AI to analyse the shirt a man is wearing,  when the man comes on and tells me how white my shirts can be but, he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke the same cigarettes as me. But if he did my AI could recognise the shirt and order one just like it online.

Crazier than the Bonzos. Ask Mr Stanshall. 

Spoken intro by on-the-street reporter:

Hello, well that was the sound of Roger's Wah Wah Rabbits. You heard them eating endive there. That's very cheap at this time of the year. But now here in Willesden Green...yes, brrr...it's a bit chilly, but no matter, because we're going to talk about shirts!

I'm going to take you right away straight over to the Earls Court Olympia to watch the shirt event. I'll repeat that…the shirt event. I'll repeat that…the shirt event. I'll repeat that…the shirt event. I'll repeat that…the shirt even

Good morning. Could I have this shirt cleaned "express," please ?

Yes, that'll be three weeks, dearie

Shirt! Shirt! Shirt! Shakin' the shirt Shirt! Shirt! Shirt! Shakin' the shirt Well they're shakin' my shirt all over the place  But it's been thrown right back in my face Shirt! Shirt! Shirt! Shakin' the shirt

New horizons in sound now as Roger plays a solo on the electric shirt collar Shirt! Shirt! Shirt! Shakin' the shirt Shirt! Shirt! Shirt! Shakin' the shirt?

teenage engineering and the rabbit

I must admit to a slightly bemused expression when I first heard about the pocket-sized Rabbit R1 being promoted by Teenage Engineering.

It's not what you think. It's a compact bright orange AI device that's like a smartphone but which only has AI functionality. Scroll wheel, microphone button, camera. Tamagotchi on steroids maybe? Or the AI part of my car's speech recognition? 

It's an interesting take from the folk who made those build it yourself synths.

you and whose army?

It's getting heated. Now it looks as if Trump is resurrecting his old plans to have a private army similar to Putin's Wagner group. The stars help the person in command. I suppose it will help Trump take over dissident towns and corral non-supporters.

Among Trump critics who’ve had run-ins with his security, complaints include unnecessary force, discriminatory profiling and removing people from events based on little more than their appearance. 

Crass landing

'Oops I did it again' could be the donald's walk-on music. America sleeps its way into another presidency run by the king outlaw. Laundering, Sleaze, Payola, Defamation, Tax Evasion, Rigging. He's denied them all and just got bigger suits. 

The press must love it, for the number of stories it can generate.

As Britney might say:

"Oops, I did it again
I played with your heart, got lost in the game
Oh baby, baby
Oops, you think I'm in love
That I'm sent from above
I'm not that innocent"