shiny-shiny matt-matt

Alongside Apple's further shift to a services model, they've announced their next shiny-shiny and matt-matt versions of the iPhone. It illustrates that services may well be Apple's way forward because the iPhone form factor and massively copied features have just about run their course. BCF was an old commercial motto. Better, Cheaper, Faster. It plays out with the new cameraphone having an extra lens and some wild new voltage management and super-fast AI processing.

I was amused to see the video of a red one being dropped. It didn't seem to suffer the same filigree glass fractures that one of ours has.

I've been using the iPhone XS camera for most of my snapshotting over the last six months, instead of a bigger DSLR. It has proved to be pretty good so long as I don't use the digital zoom, which shows a smudged blockiness to some of the pictures.

As an equivalent of a 35mm snappy compact it's fine and ideal for routine travelling around pictures.

I use the Nomad case and pocketable Moment lenses as add-ons occasionally and thought Moment would give a pragmatic impression of the update.

Sure enough, they already support the new iPhones and have several new cases. Interesting that the Moment add-on lenses are still only for the same two lenses that they supported in the XS.

Moment are really a photographer's brand and make lenses and equipment for video as well as stills. Need anamorphic? macro? It's covered.

It makes me wonder about a device that can take slofies, yet has respectable tiny near pro-grade video cameras on the back? Who will really exploit it?

Of course the usual trolling has started.

Blahs got more mega pixels. Blah blahs got more lenses.

I wonder if it misses the point that, like Microsoft in the 80s, Apple is targeting to raise the game of casual users? Another old tag line "Computers for the rest of us".

I'll stick with my X at the moment, it is already pretty amazing.

It just works.

virtual yorkshire

Zwift's London makes for an interesting route, with pubs, bus stops, crowds of shoppers,Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and cityscapes featuring the Shard and the Gherkin. Some parts are very familiar, but then there's a dive into a tunnel near Waterloo which mysteriously emerges on the lower slopes of Box Hill.

Then a similarly sudden return from the countryside where one is thrown out on the south bank near to Tower Bridge. Of course, it is edited highlights of a real cycle route, rather than the whole thing.

Now they've added a new piece of the UK. Yorkshire, for the UCI Championships. Apparently they sent out scouts to video and photograph the route so that they could render it into the turbo trainer. It's certainly got a very different look from New York or Innsbruck.

I've seen the video and glanced at the route. I'll need to try this too. Fire up the turbo time.

lemon or cbd?

I know I'll get this wrong, but with Greta Thunberg sailing to America to make a point about carbon offset, I couldn't help notice this slice of millennial news.

It's the other side of Greta's debate, featuring a new way to ship plastic-bottled water to millennials. It's all about c-Business. Using SMS messaging, it's possible to order a supply of Dirty Lemon drinking water from a dealer, who will text a chatty reply to say it is on its way. Reminiscent of the approach used by a certain type of dealer around the skyscrapers of Manhattan?

Now this isn't any ordinary water. It's served up in a colourful 16 oz shampoo bottle (that's about a pint) and in a chilled package of 6 bottles at a time. All for the modest fee of USD65. That's £52.77.

The stylish resistor-coding rings around the bottle make it easy to identify the type of water being consumed. +Lemon? +Charcoal? +Aloe? +Turmeric? +Rose? There's a pretty wide choice. There's even +CBD, which contains an entirely legal cannabidiol extract.

So now the Millennial Influencers can sit around drinking it on their Instagram pages and Ker-Ching it's become a secret must-have fad.

Now, this where I don't get it. Conventional wisdom says that if you're out and want a chilled drink, then the Co-Op's chilled water is a great bet at 49p for 2 litres. Add a splash of lemon, from a fresh but wonky one, at 20p each and there's a delicious cooling drink, without the additives.

Or perhaps a recovery drink?

Well, chilled semi-skimmed milk comes as 2 pints for 89 pence.

See this 1958 advertisement, which isn't terribly different from the millennial selfies of today.

Drinka Pinta Milka Day, anyone?

Of course, in the olden days the woman had to be paid to pose for the publicity shot. Nowadays the influencers form an orderly line to receive their free goods in return for the selfies. I should know, with the number of intriguing offers (rejected) that even this modest blog receives.

But back to the product. It appears that another drinks supplier has shown an interest in Dirty Lemon and its marketing. It would be wrong to say that it had anything to do with the drug-dealing SMS model (even if their store in Tribeca is called The Drug Store). The makers of that once cocaine-enriched drink Coca-Cola decided last December to put $15m investment into Dirty Lemon's holding company, Iris Nova. They like the whole idea of impulse texting a purchase.

And it is so easy to smile, once you've enrolled for the Dirty Lemon subscription, it is possible to drop into the store, pick up a bottle and go, simply remembering to text the big lemon so that they can bill you.

1/Take What you Want. 2/Text what you want 3/Get on with life, as their store posters explain.

And if you can't pick them up in person, Dirty Lemon will ship the chilled shampoo bottles full of water free of charge to anywhere in the USA.

I think Greta may have her work cut out.

gated

Cycling today led me to this unexpected view. It was tagged on my map as a wood, but seems to be more of a building site. The barbed wire wrapped around the gates and the big padlocked chain seem to be a fairly strong hint to keep out.

I turned around and tried to find the 'welcome' sign to the area, but to no avail. It turned out I'd been a trifle speedy and had missed the preceding gate, which, tucked away on its left-hand side, incorporated the sign and a path.

The route back took me past the celebration orchard, with its varied collection of local apple trees. Star of Devon, Fair Maid of Devon, Killerton Sharp, Sweet Alford and the dry cider favourite Slack Ma Girdle.

Maybe a crisp apple tonight, with the dinner?

plain bananas and dogs chasing cars

I've been idly wondering about brain width and capacity. The amount of thought allocated to the European Question back in 2015, compared with now.

The average person in the street and the typical media/news outlet probably allocated less than 10% coverage to what was happening with that there Europe.

Except when one of those scurrilous stories about bananas or kettles popped up, inevitably authored by Boris Johnson and echoed by that boozy cigarette-smoking investment banker.

Since the Referendum in June 2016, betting against the GBP seemed like a good idea to some of Nige's chums and the whole scenario for what would happen was uncovered as a haphazard set of lies.

But most people nowadays are suffering from coverage exhaustion, hence the vox pop 'just get on with it,' quotes, and those that pay it more heed are confounded by everything that is happening. Even the redoubtable Emily Maitlis seemed at a loss for how to summarise the end of Newsnight yesterday.

I've looked back at some of this blog's commentary. Some repeating themes: Punch and Judy. Graphs that go down. No Plan. The dog chasing the car.

Both the lead politicians have managed to catch the car. Bozza as the PM, Jezza for a new General Election.

Like the dog, they both have that familiar question.

that boy needs therapy

I’m not sure whether 'Rebels' is the right name for the people opposed to Boris Johnson’s implementation of Dominic Cummings’ plan.

Using that language plays to the Brexiteers' vocabulary. “Give them a framing language to teach them how to think,” as the influencers’ handbook might describe it.

Boris, with Cummings’ hand on the tiller, is reshaping the Tory party to be more extreme, more right wing and stamping on the faces of those that oppose, even long servers like Ken Clarke and Nicholas Soames.

It’s a weird strategy, with his recent run of four out of four defeats.

Now that the House of Lords has agreed to pass Hilary Benn's bill to seek an extension to the Article 50 by 5pm on Friday, it means an election is on the way.

It’s still a moot point about the way that the situation is being gamed. Boris wants a breakpoint, so that he can shift blame away. Blame the EU, blame the opposition, blame Mrs May, blame the Civil Service. nulla mea culpa, 'guv

So the law forcing Article 50 extension has managed to get ahead of the bat habitation regulation bill in the wilfully jammed procedures of the House of Lords. If Parliament is hung, it stops Boris Johnson from crashing the United Kingdom out of the European Union.

But there's still game playing afoot. The new law still leaves the worst case of ’No Deal’ hanging around.

Both parties are cynically using it as a kind of bargaining chip. Like playing with the countries wellbeing for their political power. Some might say ‘betting the farm’ although they don’t actually own the farm they are betting, and are our servant custodians.

We must not forget that Boris the Clown is crazy in the coconut. Losing his first vote is probably Guinness world record material and to simultaneously crash the party majority is a wrecking blob masterpiece.

Shadowy Dom marches on. He's promoting talk of reframing the election run-up. Derestriction of the broadcast rules, no reductions on political party spending, no restrictions on outside groupminfluences. It's as if Cummings has learnt from the last set of legal transgressions and tweaked the small print for the next fight. Farage and his offshore moneybags will be rubbing their hands together.

Johnson can now spend public/government money on campaigning, and make it look very official. Something that no-one else can match without significant off-shore assistance.

reality control

I'd forgotten that Jacob Rees-Mogg hosted a champagne party to celebrate the Brexit defeat of Mrs May, back in January.

"ERG chair invited ‘relieved’ Brexiter MPs home for drinks after May’s historic defeat," ran the headlines. I don't recollect that he was booted from the Conservatives for being disloyal?

Then, if I go even further back, to November last year, I can see the paper presented to Parliament by the Prime Minister at the Command of Her Majesty. I dug around in the statistics of this at the time.

But, as Mr Gove has said, "People have had enough of experts". Redolent of "Don't confuse me with the facts"?

I decided I'd have another look at that old paper, ahead of Sajid Javid's Spending Review. The old paper still makes interesting reading, having modelled around 100 scenarios for each of several likely Brexit outcomes.

This expertly-produced paper, charts No Deal on the left. Notably worse than all of the other outcomes it shows a 7.6% reduction per capita of GDP, compared with Remain. I added the red line across the scenarios to emphasise the progressive worsening across the scenarios. Let's see. No Deal is the one that Boris has been promoting, and anticipating through his (virtualised) negotiation strategy.

I thought of my red line and curve fitting it to that picture of Rees-Smug demonstrating how not to be a leader of the house. I had to flip the Mobbster to make it fit - it's okay though, his Pop persona is practiced at being two-faced.

I subsequently discover that Andrew Adonis had come up with a better example.

I'm confused, though, now that Boris has implemented Dominic Cummings' plan for the destruction of the Tory party. It still doesn't get away from the fundamental problem that Brexit is insoluble.

Supposing we have another election and somebody 'wins' (not a foregone conclusion).

What happens next?

Will a magical unicorn solution rise on a rainbow into the sky to save us all? I don't think so.

The EU built in a fundamental principle that no one leaving should be any better off than when they were members. Her Majesty's experts have documented the same in a detailed paper.

Johnson and Gove are telling little white lies about the ongoing negotiation and the state of preparedness. Rees-Mobster is getting his right gang back together. Conservatives are being weeded from the Boris party.

I'm reminded of that £1.45 stamp issued last June. Perhaps Her Majesty was trying to tell us all something?

speeches by Boz

[Camera clicks and distant shouting]

"Friends, Romans, voice of the people, Bozza here. Look, I don’t have a plan. Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement is still the only offer on the table to negotiate and Mr Tusk has said 'mon chemin ou l'autoroute, Boris' to changing it in any way, even the blasted backstop. That’s why I've put all the welly into 'No Deal' and expect undivided loyalty from the Party. Follow my spotless example of clarity of direction.

"I’m keeping up the pretence of negotiating, but I’ve not been back to Brussels once since they gave me that flea in my ear. Instead, I've just sent a frosty envoy and a few Sherpas to wander the corridors.

"The Sword of Damocles is correctly positioned over Mr Gove’s head (under Dom’s advice - I think he has a score to settle). Govey’s the one responsible for making the No Deal process work and if it crashes we can all point a finger his way. But Dom has also said that I’ll for the chop as the Prime Minister who wrecked everything. I've noticed he is careful to stay out of the limelight, even when his nickname is Prime Monster.

"Luckily, Dom’s come up with another wheeze. He’s suggested that I could create a diversion (not just Dylan the dog, but we’ll have that anyway). By creating the circumstances where we look as if we are forced into a General Election, it gives me some new moves. I could declare the election and then move the date to after Brexit Day. That’ll scupper everyone and tip the No Deal through. I can’t wait to get my hands on all that money that Phil squirrelled away.

"Or, I could let the election run. Either election outcome works. Conservatives win and I get enough mandate to carry out the No Deal. Huzzahs all round. Conservatives lose and morose Corbyn gets in. Then, he’s holding the hot potato whilst the sky crashes down.

"What could he do? Nothing effective. His moves (so Dom tells me) are Socialist No Deal. Socialist Withdrawal Agreement. Socialist Remain. We can make sure they all sound as bad as one another and prove that Corbyn is as useless as May.

"Meanwhile, Carrie has reminded me to ensure my share portfolio is in order. Jacob is the man to ask about this. I think he and his ERG friends have moved all their money offshore and into tax havens. Instead of North Shields and Barry Island getting lovely tradeports and tax haven status, we might even have put up with new austerity.

"No, I won’t be led in chains through the streets. As the Bard and Cleopatra put it in that Roman tragedy : 'The quick comedians / Extemporally will stage us, and present / Our Alexandrian revels: Antony / Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see / Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness...'

"Oooh, Please Yourselves."

[Thunderous heckling and cries of “Stop the Coup”]

studied scruff ru(i)ns country?

Prime Minister Cummings is doing more shadowy things. Threatening the Conservatives with deselection if they don't follow Boris Johnson's lead in the next Brexit vote. Ironic really, with Johnson and Rees-Mogg as notable dissenters during May's tenure as PM.

It's more of his bully-boy tactics and the likes of my local Tory MP will cower in his wake and do what he is told. I've previously written to the MP in question; he didn't reply. Then I wrote again and I'm still waiting.

A few of us got together for some drinks at the weekend and compared notes. I can't say we were politically aligned, but everyone was dismayed about what was happening.

My other local MP is Labour and has spoken out about the challenge to democracy and the irrationality of the current No Deal position. That's altogether more spirited and does seem to be away from party affiliations in favour of 'best for the country'.

Meanwhile, there's various dogmatic Conservatives being trotted out onto the airwaves to say how the lack of discipline will destroy the negotiating position.

What negotiating position?

Boris has arm-waved a few aspirations and the EU have requested a plan or suggestions for adaptations. Boris waffles about outcome, but he has no mechanics to achieve anything. There isn't a new negotiation, although it is being cited as the next piece of Tory religion to cling to power.

The government knows it and the Civil Service preparations are chugging along. No one will be caught out by not having produced oodles of papers and forms for the anticipated outcome. Gove will see to that to protect his own perch.

Presumably there's now a slew of expensive external consultants churning the trite little Brexit missives. Take a look at this one about buying from the EU.

Writing to is an MFOR project. Money for old rope. Safe, predictable, dressed up inanities.

Notice the in-built "Pass the problem forward" clause.

"If you get stuck following this advice, you can always call the UK European Consumer Centre for help with problems buying from an EU country." or maybe "check the Terms and Conditions" or even "check with the company". Hand-washing pfeffle.

It goes on to say that No Deal means you may be charged more for using credit or debit cards to pay for things in euro and that payments may also take longer. Well, that's good to know.

Someone has got a tick in the box for this piece of self-evident advice.

Now we have an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the prospects for an early election along the lines of Blair's "no-one will vote for Jeremy." That's followed by a threatening "MP drinks reception" at number 10 to whip up support.

So let's see - we have feeble advice, a non-existent negotiating position and a non-elected dictator pushing the government to flagrantly bully its way to an outcome.

Let me just check the Referendum result again. Maybe a chart this time?

Oh, I remember. It looked like a narrow split to me? And that outcome was based upon the original overfunded misdirection and a void of actual knowledge about what the resultant deal would actually comprise. Cummings' puppetry may be hidden in his warped-minded loops at the moment, relying on clock and block tactics to remain in the shadows. Predictably, he'll probably throw in a pup with doleful eyes to distract everyone, soon and grin psychotically at the "Boris has sold the country a pup" metaphor.

His negative energy is blocking the sun.

Oh yes, #revoke, #rebuild, #remain

look what the ethical tote dragged in

I’d expected the rattle-some Michael Gove to be the first casualty in Boris’s Cabinet.

Along the lines of the Dominic Cummings inspired 'select scapegoat’.

Gove is a more obvious puppet of the regime and can be reliably dispatched to prattle on radio or television whilst holding the line.

Instead, we get the surprise of Dominic Cummings summoning one of Chancellor Sajid Javid’s special advisers (SpAds) to a meeting in Downing Street, where she was accused of leaking secrets about No Deal preparations to Philip Hammond, her former employer.

Despite denials and a formal refutation, she was fired, her security pass removed, and she was escorted out of Downing Street by an (armed) police officer. Sajid David wasn’t informed of this second member of his staff to be fired by Cummings.

Cummings is now operating bullying copycat Steve Bannon measures to attempt to secure his own authority.

Itemise the actions deployed by unelected Cummings to undermine Javid’s position: cancelling Javid's speech on the economy, pre-briefing on Treasury-led fuel duty cuts and firing two of Javid's advisors. Cumming’s paranoia is weeding out any advisors he thinks dicey as an looming precedent to more fundamental scraps.

Cummings likes loops*. He’s doing his best to remove certain players from his own twisted one.

* his considered OODA (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) loop is flailing though. He just executed PDCA(plan-do-check-adjust)

the bentley is in the post

They say the algorithms for selling things on the internet are getting smarter. All the artificial intelligence is being harnessed to provide a realistic profile of individual consumers.

Refreshing, then, to get the above purchasing suggestion delivered to my in-basket. It's an armoured Bentley Sports Utility Vehicle.

I'll confess, I was intrigued enough to go across to the website to see just how expensive it would be. That's where I noticed the more accurate description of the armour level.

BR6.

That's the bullet resistant glazing standard that can take 3 bullets within a 120cm pattern from an assault rifle - to a total force of 3270 Joule. Or two DM51 hand grenades. That's 120 grams of German Nitropenta explosive. To be honest, I was a little disappointed.

It's the diesel cleanliness story all over again. BR7 was the top level, but when they introduced VPAM, the gangster and politician-popular BR6 and BR7 dropped to being only about half way along. Someone should tell the sales office.

Even the Prime Minister's car is BR7/VPAM8.

Now it is not as if I play RPGs on the computer, so I guess it must be some other profiling that has tripped me into this strange world away from the lawnmowers and sofas of generic advertising.

In other news my novel-based lottery fund has received an unexpected few shillings, so I'm back in the gambling game again, although I had to play a low-brow dice game to fill the meter up to a usable lottery amount. By deft dicemanship, I've another £7 which will keep me going for another couple of weeks.

It would otherwise take me some time to save the $500,000 for one of those cars. And that's without the recommended siren and voice options. They are having a laugh, aren't they?

trigger warning - it is a mind meld so we need to Fail Safe.

All our minds are belong to them.

A Cumming's bunker mind meld blended with hackneyed Johnsonian arm-waving distractions.

My gestalt isn't falling for it.

Just because Boris runs around opening lots of Dom Boxes with an excited 'Squee' sound, doesn't mean it is right. The press could be all over it, but have decided that the boxes are too interesting. Boris the Pro Rogue. 'Ullo Boris, Gotta new Agenda? Boris does Brussels.

As a cartoon series supported by a comedy penguin it could be quite funny.

Instead we get the driverless train careening over the cliff edge. Ego-driven opportunism by Boris. Crafted by Dom to take back control to the elite Eton messers, whilst the weak, bearded opposition dithers and sounds ineffectual.

Apply the safety cut-out before friends of Jacob Rees-Mogg convert the UK into a tax haven and freeport, using offshore money that can pick up UK enterprises at knock-down rates.

Make no mistake, whether it is a crash-out deal or a sneakily rebadged Withdrawal Agreement, the exit will create another few years of uncertainty and delays to the domestic agenda, plus an outgoing payment of at least £65 Billion.

Or, we pay the £8.5-£13 Billion per annum (70p to £1 per day, per taxpayer) to remain in the EU and continue as we are.


Press the button. Revoke Article 50.

Fail Safe.