dustbinman.com::movable tripe

England Expects

I must stop eulogising about Dan Chung, otherwise people will start to think my interest in him is unnatural. In any case, this photo today draws an (I'm sure) unintentional parallel with the Guardian's latest TV ad campaign, where all the players in a training session are being taught how to dramatically feign injury.

You know you're getting old when ...

... the leader of the Tory party - the TORY party - cites 'This Charming Man' as one of his favourite songs.

Right. I'm off to buy some slippers.

Brunswick Square

Out wandering in London yesterday evening, and I resolved to take more pictures as I found things of interest. This is Brunswick Square, which is in the centre of town and was originally the site of the first hospital for treating children, particularly the poor and orphaned. At that time, it was on the edge of the city, with only fields separating it from the villages of Highgate and Hampstead. Now of course it's slap bang in the centre of town, but still represents one of those fabulous oasis' of calm that you regularly stumble across in the middle of London.

(Is it me, or does "Brunswick Square" sound like a 1930's Double Bass player?)

Hold Your Nose

You know how some news stories smell a bit fishy? Like a crazy mysterious news story is dreamed up by a PR firm to draw attention to something, or indirectly promote something? U.S. universities seem to regularly come out with a discovery or piece of research that coincidentally backs up a far-out theory used in the sci-fi blockbuster that's in cinemas from Friday, for example.

Well, this one honks of kippers.

I just can't work out what it is that's being promoted.

Registering a complaint

I've always found The Register to be a fine source of information on all things technical. Where, for instance, would I be without the insight provided through their story about Deloitte's eerie view into the future, detailing how we'll live in 2010? I shudder to think how we'll cope with the change. No, scratch that. I shudder to think how much money Deloitte makes churning out idiocy like that. I can say that. Some of my best friends are Deloittes.

Anyway. I think editing standards may have slipped slightly - they missed the subheading on this story about BT's worthy attempts to introduce more Wi-Fi City zones around the UK.

Confused.com

Can anyone explain this to me?.

For the avoidance of doubt, the URL is i-am-asian.com and appears to mean Asian in the sense of continent of origin rather than the usually applied American Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese definition of origin. I only say that because of the reference to Diwali and a couple of the featured staff. No idea what I'm talking about? Well, I'm not sure either.

Baishaki Mela

Today was the annual Baishaki Mela, to celebrate Bangladeshi New Year. Because their day starts at Sunrise, it's impossible to say exactly when New Year's Day is, but (according to Wikipedia) it's more or less 14th April. So this celebration was about a month late. The day was grey, but coloured by the kids in the procession.

To be honest, it all felt a bit limp, especially as the usual food stalls on Brick Lane had been banned this year on "health and safety" grounds.

Nepal

I've finally got around to uploading a select few of the photos I took in Nepal and Calcutta - there aren't many, because I hardly took any. I was too busy enjoying myself.

Duck Soup

I'm not sure how long these ducks will survive in the chorine-treated waters of the west fountain of Trafalgar Square, but they were there today, and I thought I should record it.

Browser Crapness

I am aware that this site doesn't look quite right in any browser - but it's less not quite right in Internet Exploder 6. (I did try to get it to work with the first release of IE7 but gave up totally.) In Firefox, the margins are weird, and in Opera the 'sidelines' section is half-way across the page. But while it's all more or less readable, I'm going to have to give up before my brain does.

The Exonerated

This play takes the subject of death row detainees in the US, and tells the story of 6 of them, subsequently (and obviously, given the title) released. It's an interesting staging, with just the actors sitting in a line in front of the audience, reading from the script. This opens up two opportunities:

1) You hear the voices - really hear the voices - and notice the actors minor movements, their faces and gestures. Only once, to my recollection, does one of them stand up. But this lack of movement does nothing to detract from the sheer power of the words, and in fact acts like a television or film close up - emphasising the minutae for 90 minutes or more, and ultimately packing a very effective punch.

2) The actors don't need to remember their lines. So they can concentrate harder on making the characterisation believable - and they can come in at short notice. As a result, a wide variety of stellar actors have been involved. The night I went, we saw Martin Freeman, Kate Mulgrew and Mike McShane, amongst others, giving in my opinion the strongest performances of their careers.

It's not a story - it's a combination of actual statements made by those imprisoned, and the associated characters - wives, police officers, lawyers, judges. And it closely scrutinises the concept of state execution. It's breathtaking.

Surreal event of the day

HEMS (Helecopter Emergency Medical Service) landing in the playground outside my house. The black car to its right is mine, which led to a hairy moment when I thought it might land in the street. They were responding to an accident which had closed Essex Road in the Friday-before-Bank-Holiday Rush Hour and left a row of buses (at my count) 50 long.

Sometimes you're the windshield ...

... sometimes you're the bug. I don't know why this view reminded me of the Mary Chapin Carpenter song, but as the London-Glasgow express flashed through the station in front of the going-nowhere local train, the song came to mind.

I'm assuming it's wooden

I don't like spam emails any more than the next guy, but I just got one from "Plank Q. Presumtiousness", which I think is probably one of the best names ever.

Smart

I was quite taken with this new idea for an ecologically sound vehicle - admittedly, it's not really a new idea, but has a number of features that actually make it desirable to own. Not least because it looks really cool, especially when cornering. I was in Calcutta recently, and for the first time in my life rode a motorbike - admittedly pillion. Driving for the first time on a motorbike in a city with such relaxed driving standards as Calcutta would be a death wish that I don't currently enjoy. However, it did give me a taste for two wheels that I'd never previously held - maybe the three-wheeled "Clever" (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) is the interim solution.

I've decided to get rid of my car - it's almost 4 years old and is due for replacement under the terms of the lease. But instead I've chosen to take the money and run - a) because I'm living and working in London and there's a bus past my back door every 30 seconds; b) a lot of the supermarket delivery trucks are now using biodiesel, and it's allegedly more eco-friendly to order online and have it delivered than drive to the supermarket yourself - particularly when Waitrose allow you to choose a delivery time when the van is already in your area. And c) Streetcar have 2 VW Golfs parked on the next street to me, which makes picking one up at short notice very easy indeed.

I guess the ultimate carrot to make getting rid of your car an easy option is the financial one combined with your location - my tax, servicing and petrol cost savings significantly outweigh the value of having my own car, and where I live makes it easy to do. I couldn't, I don't think, if I was still living in Surrey.

N.B. I do note the irony, or rather hypocrisy, of using a mainstream supermarket given what I was talking about in my last entry. But this is the constructed society we live in - the only way to change it, in my opinion, is to change the demands of society as a whole. I also think there's a much clearer "audit trail" of what comes from where with a large supermarket - the battle is to change the "where" from over there to nearer here.