Deutschland '83

With yesterday's passing reference to secret services, I remembered I've been watching some spy films recently. There's the James Bond style fast action ones but then a whole genre of slower paced movies, usually with the Berlin Wall included somewhere.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy which re-appeared on TV in its movie form with Gary Oldman a few day ago. A bunch of the people that moved into later spy television series were in the cast, so last year gave us other beige-world dramas with rain, double decker buses and German borders.

London Spy (shown at the end of last year) was of a similar slow pace - I had a look through the shooting script and there are only about 40 spoken words in the first four pages. Of course, the spy aspect was secondary in that particular story, although it followed the conventions.

Earlier in 2015 we had 'The Game' which was set in the 70s and featured plenty of intra episode plot points to remember. I suppose that's why its easier to get something like 'Death in Paradise' recommissioned, with every episode self-contained comprising 1)a murder 2)some false leads 3)a grand reveal - often with something that only the clever detective could spot 4)a side line jolly jape like buying a rusty boat or learning to water-ski badly.

Anyway, its a long way around to saying I've been watching Deutschland '83 over the last couple of weeks and am thoroughly enjoying it.

There may be some remarkable co-incidences that help the story along, but it seems to be a good way to produce a snappy alternative to the frequently brown-toned spy format. The filming itself is also super saturated and entertainingly framed.

We get the East German border guard who is forced to become a double agent in the West and the inevitable culture shock when he sees the supermarkets for the first time (Sweet dreams are made of this) and the humorous hardship of another double agent forced to stay in the wealthy west as well as rafts of other passing characters.

Set in the 80s at the peak of the Reagan missile deployments, we get Nena's 99 Luftballon playing on the radios both sides of the wall, with the original lyrics that the balloons triggered a nuclear alert. In the German song it was a suspected UFO and some suggestions of street riots whilst the English version had a software bug and political escalation. They both scrambled jet fighters with flying knights thinking they were Captain Kirk. Oh well.

And that's just a side line in this fast moving and sometimes deliberately awkward spy piece. I'm finding it a delight to watch and a whole other style for some of the spy genre to consider. It shares some spirit with 'Good Bye, Lenin!' which is a German movie set just after the wall came down.

So here's Nena, mainly in German but on this subversive version with a bit of French added to the chanson.

semper occultus

I've been receiving password renewal reminders for some of my secret squirrel accounts.

I've used the relevant one-shot security token for logging-in.

I know the old password and I know how to create a new rule-compliant one which is at least x characters long, has no words in it, includes numbers blah blah blah.

Yet, after I create the new one, it is only working with some of the systems that are supposed to be supported. I sense I'll be needing to call the help desk about this.

far out in the red sky

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

rise of the refrigerators

I've been looking at some of the new technology from CES this week.

Among the items that seems to have received disproportionately high coverage are the new generation refrigerators, which are now Internet of Things enabled.

The refrigerator is becoming the newest robot to need to be obeyed.

I've been an early adopter of IoT technology around the home and we have various devices like Nest, Hue, music and automated fireplace controls that work from WiFi/Zigbee signalling. Hubs R Us etc.

A key facet for me is that IoT should be quiet technology. By that I mean it does its thing without needing to be obviously present. The technology should be hidden away, yet these newest devices seem to be the opposite.
Their design point reminds me of building surfaces in Shanghai or Tokyo - or on a modest scale Leicester Square.

Brightly lit animated and flashy, like a reverse version of form over function. Limited function dictating the entire form.

I can almost imagine the meetings at Samsung, LG or Philips.

"See if you can figure out how to put a flat panel television screen onto this white surface."

And lo, they have done it. There's a fridge that now has a glass panel in the front that is dark - like those glass fronts on office meeting rooms or showers in Novotels, you know the ones that can go misty at the tap of a button. In this case the glass is dark but goes clear when you tap it.

Yes, you can see inside the fridge without opening the door! And then there's a special foot sensor which, when a foot is put in the right place on the floor will automatically open the fridge door.

The demonstrator here looks thoughtful...

"Manual doors are so 20th Century"/"Does it come in black?"/"That'll attract fingerprints"/"What about the other three doors?"/"It's not completely dark, I can see inside before I've tapped it"/"Now I'll always need Fortnum's fridge goods so nosy neighbours can only see the good stuff"/"My next kitchen will be styled on an aircraft maintenance facility"...and so on.

So are these kitchen hubs totally pointless options? Who am I to say. I suppose if I was staying away from home and had one of these in a temporary apartment then it would make a conversation piece?

But practically - will the food lose that much freshness when the fridge door is opened? And what happens to that handy part of the door where the milk gets stored? As for the foot control - they can sell the feature that it doesn't respond to cats, dogs or small children, I suppose. An example of a solution looking for a problem.

Then there's the 'flat panel TV glued to the door' type fridges. Proper computer hubs, turning one of the simplest and most reliable kitchen appliances into one of the one most likely to go wrong and need rebooting. Internet browser enabled, of course. And capable of monetisation. Add an ordering option to the front so that when the bottled capers or cranberries are getting low they can automatically be re-ordered. Guess what? They've also added a 'fridge housekeeping function' so that you can drag and drop the fridge inventory as well as its 'use by' dates. So many things to go wrong with this one, and an ugly great black mirror to live with in the kitchen too. I suppose if it does crash then it could re-order its entire content automatically.

Much more fun would be to create the (c) rashbre central fridge cam which records fridge accesses and alerts when the last yoghurt/can of beer has been taken. Maybe add an optional "Midnight munchies suppression" feature.

I understand that the marketeers want to take punt on some of this stuff, but I'm not sure how many people will want a row of LCD screens distracting their kitchens.

"Open the fridge bay door, Hal"

should I get a 45 million to 1 lotto ticket ? - oh, go on then...

I must stop my weekly UK lotto gambling.

It's only been funded by sales of my novel, the funds from which seeded my tiny lottery fund out of which I bet on a ticket every week. Despite the old odds of 14 million to 1, I managed a few wins that kept the fund topped up (reinvestment - none of the wins were that spectacular).

At some stage along the way they doubled the entry cost, with the entry stake moving from £1 to £2. Maybe it was an attempt to hide the falling size of the main prizes as less people were entering the bet.

More recently, with the size of the jackpot still falling, Camelot/Lotto decided to change/rig the odds by adding another ten balls to the system, moving the odds to 45 million to 1. Maybe they took advice from their sole shareholder/owner, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan?

Unsurprisingly, the revised odds have created more weeks without a jackpot winner at all (like we all notice?), and so eventually, after some 13 weeks, they are invoking a payout based upon a different rule.

More surprisingly, in those blank payout weeks I have managed to win couple of small prizes! Guess what? Another con. In the old days a small win might be £10 or £25 which would keep a small-time gambler like me running for plenty of weeks. This time my small win was - a free entry to the next Lotto game. I remember the old negotiating tactic (from the eminently practical Karrass probably) - It runs along the lines of "If you have to give something away give something that is cheap to you but of perceived good value to the recipient".

So they give me a free entry - which would cost me £2 but they know is essentially useless because the odd of it winning are so low.

I get it that the new odds will create a headline grabbing piece of free publicity every 10 weeks or so, when the non-wins accumulate enough to give a big payout.

So yes, I will enter this weeks lottery, but unless I win something then this may also be the perfect time to cancel my recurring random bet.

Dickensian text messaging

I've been enjoying that BBC series 'Dickensian' which is now on around episode 6 of 20. Take a bundle of Dickens characters and put them together in a closed world and see how they interact. The stories are all from a time before the main Dicken's novels but have a similar episodic feel to them.

Set in east London, with a daily cliffhanger ending, murders, a pub frequented by many of the players and even a wedding that could go a bit wrong...Why it sounds like another show on the BBC, except the cor blimey Cockney is less pronounced in this than in modern day Eastenders.

If Eastenders is like an 'X-Factor' soap, mainly brash and sensationalism, then Dickensian reminds me more of a 'Strictly' version, still with scenes of anguish and mayhem, but somehow with more of a heart. It even tickles me to see Stephen Rea playing Bucket from the Yard with a smile in his eye.

The extensive and well detailed set reminds me of something from a Punchdrunk production and is being well used, although I suppose the roaming camera will eventually run out of novel angles.

I'm enjoying the simple pleasure of the series. Some of the plots are a little contrived, but the spirit of the production has a warmth that seems just right for this time of year. It may often be snowing in the streets of this particular part of East London, and there may be a permanent mist hanging in the alleyways and by the dockyard, but I'm still interested to see how Bucket is influenced by Venus the Taxidermist, or whether Arthur Havisham's disinheritance was for *ahem* another reason fleetingly alluded to in the shared digs with Compeyson.

Really there's so many rich resources to deploy across the realm of Market Street, with its Curiosity Shop, Mantalini's, Scrooge and Marley's offices, The Cratchits, Bumble's Workhouse and Fagin's Lair. Somehow the twenty 30 minute episodes are not enough to do full justice to these 'Greatest character hits' from Dickens.

And just when I think Eastenders relies upon telephone-based drama too much, with text messages, missed calls and all, I see that Dickensian has a similar device. Except they shout "Boy", and pass their handwritten note and a penny to the nearest Short Message Service. Properly voice activated and long before Siri.

new Apple - sorry Swiss Alp watch handles scarce commodity and allows reconnection

I was always wary of square faced watches unless they bore the inscription 'Casio' or similar. Although, come to think of it, I suppose I'd not really class that Apple device as a watch.

I see that H. Moser & Cie. have produced this interesting revision to the category, with a limited edition that has a 100 hour power source and no need for text, phone calls or even sketches or heart-beats.

It is slightly more expensive than the Apple watch though, at around $25,000, although I'm wondering if I'd change the strap to something with an orange rather than apple green backing?

To be honest though, I must admit to a sneaking preference to one of their round designs, rather than the square one, even if it is a little more expensive.

restarting the numbers

There's an annual reset in many businesses, when all the numbers go back to zero, new targets are set and everyone has to start all over again. There can even be a delay whilst the targets get cascaded.

Sometimes there's some sandbagging of figures which then drift into the new year to give a good start, and this depends upon the way incentives are set and whether there's any accelerators in play.

The targets I show here are somewhat simpler. Just some of my personal (non work-related) cycling targets at the start of the year. I've set a Bronze/Silver/Gold set which gives me something to aim for and, yes, I'm back at only about 2-3% achieved so far. Even with the slow cascade of business targets it is usually better to try to get ahead early.

capital thinking

Under the sign reading 'Duck or Grouse' and into the pub to meet a few friends.

We've all known one another for ages and will talk about most anything. This time, after the first pub, then the curry house and then the next pub, we were briefly talking about finances.

It was mostly about trying to make sense of the various ways we've all been turned over by the financial establishments. Not just on small things like inertia selling of utility services, but on big things like pension planning and investments.

The new Financial Conduct Authority has backed away from any systemic investigation, saying it prefers to precision target individual organisational investigations. Pah. Nothing whatsoever to do with ensuring that the City remains the intact.

Anyway, we'd all got tales of ways we'd been ripped off, from my case of collapsed Equitable Life pension scheme, to 'financial advisor schemes' running for multiple years with apparently 'no tax liability' (not me, I add, but still suspicious). All of us had stories and all of them implied largish losses.

We noticed a few common themes. Badly informed and often polarised financial advisors. Limited access to product sets, poor and mainly reactive regulatory controls throughout the industry, the way that the financial houses and planners win whatever happens (commission, run-rate, bail-out, bonuses) and the way that the average punter always pays (fee percentages, insidious effects from quantitive easing, the hidden effects of undisclosed inflation, and so on).

As a group of individuals we are all fairly switched on, yet each of us is somehow handling systemic challenges from these economic biases. We're all fundamentally survivors, yet each of us observed how it is getting tougher for those who follow us.

Maybe I'll need to add some other types of targets to my list for 2016.

Abominable Bride vs Doctor Who

I struggled with the last series of Doctor Who. I think I started to watch the last proper pre-Xmas special episode of the series three times before I eventually got through it. And that's sitting down comfortably on the sofa, not staring at it from a bike turbo session. It really was an out-of-time number, complete with a Dalek and a defective Cyberman in what appeared to be Doctor Who's mind-palace.

Similarly with the glossy Christmas Special, which I watched a couple of days ago. I'm not quite sure what has gone wrong, but it feels as if their infinite universe is somehow struggling for the right clever ideas. It started well enough and had some proper humour included, but then veered off into decapitations as they all ran around like headless turkeys. I liked the idea to use an old stripped back version of the Tardis and wonder if that's a hint that they'll need to reset their thinking before the next series gets written.

By comparison, the parallel universe and inception-like mind-palace of Sherlock Holmes was altogether more entertaining, to the extent that I might even watch the whole 90 minutes for a second time. When they Cumberbatched Sherlock, it was set in the modern day to provide an instant relevance (probably save some set money too). Now they've zoomed it back to the 1890s and it worked just as well, with the Holmes/Watson duo doing their now familiar double act with aplomb.

Given the Moffatt/Gatiss script-writers also write for Doctor Who, to me the Sherlock show was an altogether more finessed production, with most scenes having rapid-fire get-in and get-out moments to hustle the whole plot line along.

A straightforward main story with the bride Ricoletti's ghost prowling the murky Limehouse streets seeking revenge. Meanwhile Holmes/Watson and their extended company do their thing including some self-referential banter which could well be Sherlock talking to himself.

Then, if the beginning wasn't already snappy enough, it progressively accelerates through the last few scenes, keeping surprises tucked up its sleeve to the very end.

Throw in some multi-level twists and we see that inside the mind of Sherlock would give that DiCaprio movie a run for its money in terms of levels of nesting and recursion.

Final Score:

Doctor Who : 2
Abominable Bride: 5

Happy 2016!

We saw in the New Year, after what was personally a good 2015 considering the backdrop of horrible world events. Central London's fireworks is now a ticketed event and the barriers and cordons had started to go up at least a couple of days ago.

This morning, we had the first frost of the season, although it was only a light dusting only noticeable from certain angles.

Our central heating had packed up too. It turned out to be an unexpected consequence of the outdoor Xmas lights, which had tripped a circuit breaker for the whole of downstairs. I've spent a few minutes resetting various devices after restoring the power and re-booting the house.

We now have heat although I think the outdoor lights have now served their annual purpose and may soon be back in their box in the garage.

of cucumbers, scalpels and cans of ham

I remember starting 2015 above London in the Shard. Seems that we've finished in a similar fashion, with more views across the Thames.

My picture of Tower Bridge is actually from about half way up the Shard, in the cocktail bar. There's a scale to the view below from this level that really works well and gives different scenes from each side of the building.

Its getting that even St Pauls has to compete for a view now, with all the new skyscrapers going up around the City.

Another nine are planned for the next 2-3 years, including One Blackfriars (The Bobbin), Canaletto, The Scalpel, The Cucumber, The Stage, The Can of Ham and others.

It could all get rather more crowded if this artist's impression is to be believed.