series link

Back in the world of office blocks this week, albeit with a few unexpected reschedules. Sometimes the changes don't matter because there's other things competing for the time, so slight over-allocation can be useful.

It can depend where any resultant dead time occurs. Close to home it's not usually a problem.

Although recently I've been stuck in a distant hotel with meetings punched at times with gaps that just couldn't be usefully filled. It could explain some of my unplanned watching of DVD box sets on Netflix.

I'm in the clear again now for the next week or so, and I predict my serial viewing may diminish.

I'm gonna need a hacksaw (Guitar Part 1)

There's an article in the weekend papers by a motoring journalist along the lines of 'most cars are roughly the same' and it references a well-known make from which many variants are derived.

It then goes on to make a similar comment about most electric guitars, based upon a conversation with a well-known guitarist.

Now I don't know about either of the statements. It could be like saying all books are the same because they have pages and words in them.

Although, when I was fixing the electronic bit on my acoustic guitar some time ago, I was struck by the craftsman-like innards of the carpentry and thought that even if it had been inexpensively mass-produced, there was considerable sophistication to the construction.

Then I looked at a couple of electric guitars and noticed their relatively simple construction. I think one of them has a nickname as 'the plank' no doubt referencing the way it is put together.

So I've thought of a side-project for February. It's supposed to be FAWM "February is Album Writing Month". I'm not sure if I'll have a bash at that this time, I already have a surfeit of songs.

Instead, in a suitably ham-fisted way, I might have a crack at building a guitar. It's not that I need another one. I have more than my rather basic playing capability.

It just feels like one of those projects that needs to be done. I'm pretty sure I can handle the electronics. I know I can't build a fretboard, so I'll have to source that part. I'll also need to set myself a scarily meagre budget. And I won't be too worried if I have to pick up some of the parts along the way. Was it Carl Sagan that said if you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you first have to invent the universe?

First things first, what shape? I'm thinking expensive-looking Les Paul?

Then I have to decide whether to make it look like other guitars? - generic sunburst colours and so on?

Instead I'm looking at car paint colours. Would a metallic orange be too extreme?

In the words of Jack Bauer, "I'm gonna need a hacksaw."

wallpapering over the dips

They're all saying we may be about to go into a triple dip recession if things don't pick up in the next three months.

It's clever to make a major financial catastrophe sound like a new kind of ice cream.

I took a quick peek at the Office of National Statistics graphs and I reckon it's really a prolonged double slump, temporarily saved by the Olympics in the latter part of last year. A moot point nonetheless.

Mr Osborne seems to be attempting to cut our way to greatness, by continuing to prune everything as part of the great austerity programme to reduce the fiscal deficit.

The thing I wonder about is that each time we cut something else, we have less people working and less people paying taxes. I know it's a bit classicist to think like this (Say's Law and all) but sitting on dead goods, empty High Streets, increased low/non-earners and stagnant money surely can't be helping too much?

Our multi-millionaire second Lord of the Treasury Gideon George must have put his Bullingdon mind to this in some way, but I can't understand the preoccupation with reducing a deficit by quietly printing wallpaper quantities of money (because that's what quantitive easing is code for).

That's a passive and slightly sly way to make the numbers look better, but it doesn't kick-start anything. More government bonds/IOUs against an uncertain future. We just increase the quantity of apparent money and theoretically make ourselves more competitive overseas (notwithstanding the EU rhetoric).

The global financial analysts won't be fooled and will end up de-rating the UK from AAA, just like the Chinese have already done.

Instead of Cameron's children's godfather dithering over decisions about hot pasties and sitting in the wrong part of trains, we need someone to drive a leadership position on what is required. I suggest Osborne's yellow card was last July. The red one ought to be in Cameron's pocket.

The trick, Mr Osborne or your successor, is surely to make the money in the system do something useful?

How about making it circulate against new projects, jobs and goods to properly drive some growth?

EU bananas

I know that we live on an island here in the UK. Having lived in mainland Europe and also worked in quite a few countries there too, I can appreciate the advantages of a quick hop across the border to another country for all kinds of reasons.

Switzerland is an interesting different proposition. I have one of those Swiss vignettes on my car from using the motorways when I’m over there (oops it’s just run out actually). But at the end of the motorway to Switzerland everything turns into a 30 minute bottleneck to cross the border.

There could probably be a whole post about motorist behavior at such points.

Instead I’m interested in the emerging debate about what happens to the UK as a European entity. Cameron has finally made his much leaked speech about a Yes/No referendum by the end of 2017.

Can the European question really be netted into an X Factor like vote?

There’s plenty at play now beyond the regulations affecting overly bendy bananas (EU directive 2257/1994) and deliberately inflexible cucumbers (EU directive 1677/88). Not forgetting Class 1 peaches must be 56mm diameter (between July and October, of course).

All the above examples could be used to run a whole layer of debate about the EU’s usefulness or otherwise.

Although the bigger questions are about fostering competitiveness, governance with relevance and, of course, the lubrication of finance to make it all work.

That’s where it gets muddled in the debate. The UK puts in around the 3rd largest amount of funding to the EU’s total budget of around €137bn. Germany and France put in more. The UK is also the second largest net contributor to the EU (after Germany).

It illustrates that even if UK hasn’t decided to adopt the Euro currency, there's still an awful lot of UK Sterling in the Euro-mix.

That was the big debate before Christmas, all about the 2013 EU budget.

The challenge seems to be that the EU machine is now so big and complicated that it has comprehensively taken over the way that it wants to run things.

There’s some commonsense arguments that could be applied:

• Keep the EU competitive; there’s new economic challenges from different parts of the world.
• Be efficient; slim down like everyone else is having to.
• Be flexible; which I suppose is a networked form of ‘think global act local’ for an organisation of this scale.
• Support sensible diversity; Don’t expect Malta to act the same as Germany.
• Don’t over centralise; don’t try to suck all rule making for everything into Brussels
• Apply accountability; find a way to keep some governance at the relevant country levels.

None of those points overtly mention Common Agricultural Policy or the Structural and Cohesion Funds (which gives money from the richer countries to help develop the poorer ones). In a developed debate those points would emerge along with their circa 2/3 allocation of EU budget.

I suppose I'm musing that this is quite complicated stuff. Maybe the 'Vote' is supposed to be a way to give it some focus? Perhaps a way to divert attention from years of under-governance of the main body?

And the reactions to this slippery speech are equally as complicated. There's already politicians from all sides taking it as symbolising whatever their own political aims are.

Perhaps the collective noun for a group of politicians needs to be 'a confusion'?

Oh well, In / Out / Shake it all about?

Learning to use Windows 8

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'd had to get a replacement laptop for some specific light duties around rashbre central. It came with Windows 8 and I'm still working out the best ways to tame it.

I use a regular and (touch wood) reliable Thinkpad with Windows 7 for much of my work, although my playtime systems are pretty much Mac.

I should confess that for the HP Windows 8 system I'm almost resorting to reading the manual (well if there had been one, kinda thing).

For my own sanity, I added a start button back onto Windows 8, but the overall W8 software has a few weird quirks. These seem to be geared to its dual use via its WinRT incarnation as a phone/tablet operating system.

One is that it keeps flashing up a full screen mode to ask me if I want to use Internet Explorer as the browser. I've answered Yes, but the next time I boot it seems to ask the same question again. I've tried selecting one of the other browsers offered as well (Google Chrome). It accepted that but then gave me...Internet Explorer.

It also goes into a full screen mode when it's looking for a wi-fi network. Like, "Don't try anything else at the moment."

Some of the software once maximised won't go back to a rescaleable size. It's all or nothing.

Get too close to the right hand edge of the screen when moving some software around and the software maximises.

There was a situation where, whilst unattended, it downloaded update software and rebooted itself but then changed the sequence of the password entry characters. It took me a while to figure that one.

And on this four core processor laptop, sometimes a scanning system will kick in and take over the whole machine, stopping everything else from running. Surely it could run in 1/4 of the machine instead of using all of it?

Individually they are minor issues, together they are something of a nuisance on what was a 2013 sealed box system onto which I've only installed a handful of regular programs.

The problem is that each of these things just interrupt the flow. They get in the way rather than adding to the experience.

I have, today, found a really good recent, comprehensive and positive article about Windows 8 on Techradar and here's the link.

The review is only a few days old, although I thought Windows 8 had been around for some months now. It does describe the ways to interact, but also draws a conclusion that the system works better with a tablet (I think it means a PC tablet rather than Amitriptyline).

By comparison, I changed my desktop Mac recently to one of those thin ones. It just asked if I'd like migrate my old stuff to the new machine. I said yes and after it had copied everything across the new system just works. No hassle, no reboots.

Just sayin'.

cliffhanger (although everyone else has probably seen it already)

There was some kind of quiz show on the telly a few days ago and it had a series of questions about spies. Worryingly, I got them all right.

So on Monday evening, after finishing work somewhat late, I decided to flop in front of the box and spotted that I'd recorded two episodes of something called 'Spies of Warsaw'.

It's based on an Alan Furst novel, adapted as straight drama by the mainly comedy writing duo of Dick Clement and Ian la Frenais.

Mysteriously the two episodes were recorded in reverse order, although when I realised and started watching Episode 1, I wondered if it was already part way through a longer series. I quite like things that plonk you into the middle of events, but there were a few extra factors to calibrate here.

Set in 1937 Poland, there's David Tennant playing a French version of a James Bond character, but with an even wider selection of outfits. There's plenty of other nationalities in the melting pot of Warsaw although only the Germans speak in subtitles.

Tennant's character Jean-Francois is a kind of action hero military attache. Never a dull moment for him in coffee houses, swish parties, bedrooms and train corridors between Warsaw and Paris.

It's the period when Germany was testing prototype Panzer IV tanks near to the Polish border. Tennant is obtaining their plans to send back to Paris.

So far he been remarkably lucky, with nearly everything thrown at him being readily resolved. He's smuggled the Russians, helped the plan-stealing mole escape, got the girl and explained his war wounds to a Countess.

Although, at the end of the first half he's been dinked on the head and bundled into a car by some men in black hats.

It's a good cliffhanger moment, and I'm quietly looking forward to Part II on Tuesday evening.

when did hi-fi become A/V?

An unexpected diversion, what with de-snowing the cars and the drive. I was surprised how much time it took, a function of it being an unusual occurrence. Little things like finding the proper snow boots, not seen since last time at Jungfraujoch.

Having abandoned the day's original plans, it was an excuse to practice Being Idle.

I flipped on some music and let the system select the tracks for me, which was perfectly fine, within the limits I had given it.

My idleness led me to doodle a quick picture of what used to be called Hi-Fi (does anyone still say that?) and nowadays is probably called 'Audio Visual' or similar.

So here we are. Probably of no interest to anyone but me, but it somehow illustrates the demise of the Gramophone.

There used to be a simple path from a record shop to a record player and then to a listening experience. I still use that route for occasional purchases.

I still like the artwork of 12 inch LP albums, which could be quite special. Not so with most CDs, which bang a cover shot of the band on the front and big words in the top third that can be read from across the store.

Of course, that's dying out too, with digital downloads. If I'm honest, I used to surprise people quite a few years ago because I didn't keep those little brittle plastic boxes that most CDs came in. I'd always thrown away the outer packaging, just keeping the CD and the booklet.

OK, except for properly created artworks, of which there are still some around. I do still keep that type of CD intact.

So I guess I've been heading to digital for quite a few years.

Cue digital downloads, which signalled the potential demise of HMV and Blockbuster. Canals and railways.

Nowadays even the amplifiers are network attached. My last amplifier came with a little cardboard box in it containing a USB stick with the latest firmware upgrade to be applied before use. Of course I downloaded the more recent one online.

To be honest, I'm not sure how many people even bother nowadays with amplifiers and receivers, instead using little speaker units into which they can drop iPhones and similar.

My scribbly diagram illustrates some of the listening routes available now.

Buy from:

• (a) an independent band or store. Still get physical product, good artwork, usually a download as well and some personal engagement.
• (b) a record shop or store. Harder to find, yet places like Fopp and Rough Trade in London are still jam-packed with people.
• (c) online, from Amazon or iTunes, or via a broker like Last.fm which will point to the cheapest source. Amazon still gives a choice of CD or online product, but increasingly it's becoming online biased on price.
• (d) Supermarkets. Xfactorish. Nope.

Then there's all the cloud services. Everyone wants to suggest that you don't need the physical product at all.

Even with my throwing away of CD boxes, I find this one step too far. T'interweb is strewn with failed companies. It would be a tragedy to see all the licences to listen go up in a puff of Chapter 11. I download everything. And back it up.

What it means, though, is that nowadays, there's both the stuff you own and also a good range of relevant listening suggestions from the likes of last.fm or spotify.

And they do work quite well, suggesting and playing music of the type I like, rather than just blanding me out with 'Top of the Pops' pap.

So I'm with the direction. Even if it does take a bit longer to wire up than an old Dansette.

burlesque pursuits

I seem to be being followed by a burlesque dancer with two red disks.

She seems to be popping up most days at the moment.

Like most, I normally have internet adversing on a low setting.

But somehow she is singularly persistent.

If I was looking for a holiday or flights at the moment, then I'd understand. I did blog about Cabaret, which is more Kabaret than Burlesque, but that was weeks ago.

I can't work out whether it's an advert that has just paid to be on every search page?

Or perhaps there's something in my profile that means I'm getting burlesque flights and cruises instead of extortionate loan scams, mobile phone services and cycling adverts?

The pay day loans and phone services clearly pay loadsamoney to be featured and the cycling ads are probably accurate based upon my recent hunt for a couple of components.

I decided to see whether the little discussed 'Ads Preferences Manager' in Google would enlighten me. It's one of those pages you sort of have to know about.

I was a little surprised when I looked at it, at just how little information it appears to hold, for someone who has used the web extensively for many years.

I was also surprised that along with around a half dozen or so predictable consumer electronics and entertainment categories, it had chosen the 'Bollywood Musicals' as a particular area of interest - Oh and Laura Ashley interiors. Parp.

Maybe the springs inside the search spy engine are in need of repair? Although I'm not complaining and will probably miss 'Kimberley' at the end of January.

And credit where it's due, the new airline advert does make me smile.

pure as the driven #uksnow

"What's it like out?" I asked the delivery driver this morning.

"Take a look," he said.

I felt a little bit silly because I could see it was snowing.

"...and the main road?" I asked.

"Just the same. It's covering up until they bring more grit along."

I'd been shopping at around 11pm yesterday evening in the local supermarket. The streets were still clear then, but I had noticed that quite a few of the shelves in the supermarket were empty.

I'd idly thought it must be the normal re-stocking night or something, although it was surprising that they'd run out of bread and croissants.

The delivery driver handed me a box containing the bit to replace the broken bit.

"How come you are out?" I asked.

"Yes, they told us to carry on as normal. Although this is only supposed to be the start of it."

Down South we don't get much snow, so many things stop quite quickly. I notice that a Big Meeting today has just been cancelled, without explanation, but I assume it's for the same reason.

We're at 3 cm of snow now. Is that what they call blizzard conditions?

unhinged and unbolted

I decided to put the bits I managed to find into a freezer bag.

I'm not sure I'll be able to do much with them, except maybe one piece where I could try some superglue.

I've checked the specification and I think I could get some replacement bolts, but I think I'd rather replace the whole unit as it is in a rather critical place.

I only just noticed that the old bolts were titanium, but I think I'd actually prefer steel in any case.

When I checked the internet, there's quite a few examples of similar situations, and most people go along the replacement route.

In any case, I can see that I've lost one of the strange shaped spacers. I didn't notice the 10 cm graze on my leg until I got home. Red yellow and purple.

Oh well, I shall stay away from off-road for a while.

tango till we're sore

First time in a bar since the new one started.

Cold crisp night and breath caught in a white sparkle.

Suddenly into the colour. No hide-in-the-back occasion, this one sprawls with us all across a quarter of the room.

Plenty of shared histories, glitter, roar and a few tears along the way.

And now, planning and guessing for the new one.

not just pressing the Paws button?

Another UK High Street bites the dust today, with the potential demise of the HMV record store, unless some kind of improbable further financial rescue is applied.

The HMV logo of the dog Nipper sitting on his master's coffin listening to his master's voice finally gets played out.

The modern looking partial reflection of the dog is also quite reminiscent of an iTunes or Media Player shiny logo. These, and other amazonian retail channels can claim the demise of record stores and now that network bandwidth has increased, the same applies to DVDs.

As an earlier indicator, the once thriving HMV store by Bond Street became a Footlocker. I suppose shoes are still something that many people want to try on first.

And few days ago it was Jessops the camera store and prior to that it was Comet, the electrical store.

The transition from shop to store to mall to out of town store to internet continues with just the rate varying by sector.

Already the USA has whole collections of web-sites depicting defunct malls showing the more pernicious decline of the retail experience. There's another site dedicated to the non retail experience here.

Some of those snapshots of UK High Streets may already be becoming historical artefacts.