Nov 26, 2010 | Uncategorized
Lindsay
I was in London earlier this week for a conference. I won’t bore you with details, it was a work thing, but it was quite a nice trip (apart from the conference bit). The venue was just by Tower Bridge and I stayed in a hotel right by the bridge with St Katherine’s Dock behind and it was a nice spot.
I had a little time to wander about during the lunch break of the conference. It was a chilly, clear day and it was nice to stroll round the dock and take the air.
It made a change from the presentiments in the weather in Northumberland on the train down. The journey down was fast and without hitch but there was a grim foreboding about the weather which had something of the tone of a horror B-Movie. I half expected to see a werewolf loping over the moorland or catch a glimpse of a troupe of marauding zombies lurking in the fields.
Northumberland looking grim
I usually like to write on the train but this time I wasn’t at a seat with a table and didn’t really have space to do much more than scribble some notes, many, if not all, of which were about work matters.
I’ve been taking a lot of photos recently on my phone. I’ve been trying to revive my “photo a day” project and have been taking snaps and uploading the best to Facebook (I’ll put some up in my gallery here soon). I’ve been taking them using Vignette and have been doing no post-processing at all. I like the idea of taking the picture, publishing it and moving on. Of course I’d quite like them to be aesthetically pleasing photos as well and I like the inherent challenge which the immediacy presents.
I am also benefiting from the camera in this phone being better than the old one – at least in the sense of having a higher pixel count.
By Tower Bridge
I’ve been limping a wee bit since Monday morning too – I was walking down to work and my foot landed on something slippy on the wet pavement and down I went – banging my knee on the ground as I did so. At the time I was more winded than anything but the knee is taking a long time to settle down.
Meanwhile we are getting an early manifestation of the BBC “it’s snowing in winter” shock and awe. It is Winter. It gets colder. Sometimes that manifests itself as snow. It has been this way for some considerable time now and probably will be for some considerable time to come. One day the British media will cotton onto this.
And that’s about it for today. Sorry not to be cheerier. There is some cheerful stuff in the offing but I’ll post about that once it all falls into place.
Nov 14, 2010 | Uncategorized
Outhouse, New Hampshire
A grandiloquent title for the post which I’m not sure will be matched by the text which is more of a desultory sulk, barely worthy of being called a rant, rather than a considered essay. The title is suggested by the Bruce Springsteen album currently in my headphones.
Joad was, of course, Steinbeck’s protagonist in The Grapes of Wrath and was both a victim of the Great Depression and a symbol of resistance by the ordinary man. He comes to mind because of the continuing economic circumstances in which we find ourselves.
I am not an economist although I have in the past espoused positions (in the original version of this blog) which conform to some economic/political positions. (16 Nov 2007, 20 July 2008, 2 Oct. 2008). The tenor of those posts can be judged by the introduction to one of them which read
It is this sort of trip through the Midlands which continues to make by blood boil for the insanity of the Thatcherite eighties when the industrial heart of Britain was ripped out still beating by snake-eyed priestly fanatics looking for fresh virgins to sacrifice to the gods of the market.
I don’t plan to go down that rhetorical route this evening but I have to say that nothing that has happened in the last three years has engendered any optimism in me that things are about to get any better anytime soon. Ireland looks to be on the brink, the US economy remains uncertain and so does ours. Meanwhile our leaders and the economists in the press are all arguing that China, with its trade surplus and planned economy should do the decent thing and take action to lessen their dominance, an argument based on the very economic positions which have got us to where we are today.
When the current crisis suddenly became acute in October 2008 or thereby there was much beating of breasts and wailings of “never again”. As things have turned out there has been no significant change in law or policy to suggest anything other than that it absolutely is going to happen again.
Tom Joad is on the road again.
Nov 13, 2010 | Uncategorized
Save Caprica!
So Autumn is here and a young man’s thoughts turn naturally to – mobile phone contract renewal and phone upgrade. In a boys with toys special I now have in my possession a shiny new HTC Desire HD with which I am very pleased. It’s an Android phone, naturally, and a worthy successor to my Android G1 with which, of course, there is nothing wrong.
walking to work
The Desire has a decent camera mind you – 8MP and I lost no time in downloading Vignette to give me some more options. Having said that, I am itching to upgrade my real camera. I’ve been muttering about it for a while but am still swithering about what to save my pennies for. A couple of people have pushed the charms of digital SLRs but I am turning more towards a compact. In particular I fancy the new Leica D-Lux 5. There is a cheaper Panasonic Lumix version but…..
To other matters. One of the best TV shows in recent years was the remake of Battlestar Gallactica. From unpromising source material it turned out to be intelligent and well made drama. They made a sequel, Caprica, which was equally intelligent and well made. However after some frackin’ about by the ScyFy network in the US the series has been cancelled. The decision is a disgrace and the banner headline to this post is a very mild expression of my thoughts on the matter. Save Caprica : So Say We All!
Meanwhile there may be some substantial changes about to occur here (for the better), says he mysteriously. More when we get it…
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