2018/19 – What Happened?
Posted: Wed 6 November, 2019 Filed under: 2018/19, 2019/20, Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, Self-Doubt, Single Life, Thoughts 1 Comment »So, I had some plans for the last twelve months, and it’s time for an update. It won’t make for hugely positive reading…
The list from the post a year ago is as follows.
- Keep on working on losing weight.
This one is a long-term thing, and one I’ve written about before. For me, it’s a struggle – I’ve worked with a number of resources this year so far, and feel better-informed than I was, but there’s still a long way to go. If nothing else, this year so far has eliminated a lot of options and bullshit.
RESULT : Absolutely sod-all difference. Which is both positive (I’ve not gained any) and negative (for fuck’s sake, nor have I lost any) - Keep on improving fitness/health
Linked to losing weight, I’ve had more success with this one over the last 12 months, but there’s still stuff to do and improve.
RESULT : Fitness and strength have continued to improve, with very few visual clues/hints that it’s happened. - Continue doing the stuff I enjoy
Various bits here – but basically, do stuff I want to. Not as a “fear of missing out” (“FOMO”) thing, but just as in “I really want to see/do [x]” and doing so. (This is, of course, in direct contrast to ‘doing less’ in the list below, so it’s a bit of a balancing act!)
RESULT : This one’s been a success, actually. Although it’s not been a great year in many ways, at least I’ve kept on living my life and generally enjoying it. - Be more sociable
I’ve realised this year that I’ve been utterly crap with seeing friends – I’ve been doing a lot of stuff, but at the same time it hasn’t been overly sociable, hasn’t involved going to see friends at all. And that needs sorting.
RESULT : And this one’s been a failure. In fairness, it hasn’t got much worse, but it hasn’t got any better either.
I’m getting rid of some of the longer-running goals. They’re still things I want to work on – I’m not giving up on the plans, just on the having them as goals – but it affects me more when I see my ongoing failure to complete/do/start them year on year.
So I’ll note them here as reminders, but they’re not part of the main “What I’m aiming for” list. See if it works better for me as advisories, rather than as targets/goals. And those reminders are…
- Writing
I want to do more writing – I’ve got the ideas, but it’s finding the time, inclination and drive to get them actually going. I hope to schedule more in – I’ve also invested in some tools that should allow me to do so – but we’ll see.
RESULT : Nope, hasn’t happened. Even more ideas bouncing round in my brain, and an absolute zero on getting them addressed - Business plans
As with the writing, I’ve got the ideas, but need to allocate time and energy to getting them to work. In some cases I’m frustrated by time, in others by funding for getting them how I want them. We’ll just have to see how things go.
RESULT : Nope, nor this. Ideas are still there, but I’ve done keck-all with them - Doing Less
This is kind-of related to the above two – if I could sort my brain out so that ‘doing less’ was better, then I’d hopefully have more time to spend on the writing and business ideas.
RESULT : Nope. Still been an idiot all year and kept busy for about 95% of the time - Plan Better
And the final one, which controls all of the others – make better plans, notes, and be better organised.
RESULT : Again, Nope. Not even close.
So, all things considered, while it’s not been a bad year per se, it’s also not been a good one. Which also goes to sort of explain why I’ve been crap at getting this organised/written, and why I haven’t yet thought about whether I’m doing this for the coming year, or just sacking it off.
Not Dead
Posted: Mon 4 March, 2019 Filed under: Creativity, D4D™, Domestic Leave a comment »It’s been a month since I did an update here – not for any really good reasons, just that I didn’t really feel like writing.
Some of it has been because February was a ridiculously busy month, which left me feeling generally knackered and not in the mood. I’ve done weekends in Newcastle and Manchester, plus day-trips to Somerset, Bristol and Birmingham, as well as several to London. There’ve also been smaller trips and day events that also resulted in not getting home ’til gone one in the morning, and those were all on work-days.
So that’s all not helped my energy levels, and nor has February tending to be just February, with the grey skies and so on that don’t improve my mood or give the sunlight that helps me through. Thankfully the days are getting longer though, and that’s now noticeable.
I’m aiming to get back to some semblance of normality though – although we’ll also see how things go. I’m working on other ideas and so on, and there’s only so many hours in the day (and only so many of those that one can dedicate to writing) Also, it’ll involve trying to find a balance between D4D™ Stuff and Other Stuff.
We’ll see how it all goes. But for now well, at least I’m not dead.
Shakespeare Park
Posted: Mon 19 November, 2018 Filed under: Advertising, Creativity, Domestic, Milton Keynes, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last week, I noticed signs around Milton Keynes pointing to a new development of homes, called Shakespeare Park.
I’d really hoped that they would make a big thing of puns/content based on Shakespeare stuff, but no, it’s all very dull.
OK, they’ve named most of the house types after Shakespearean characters – but still, there’s so much more they could’ve done
“Shakespeare Park – ”
- it’s no ordinary hamlet
- Your home, as you like it
- Your midsummer night’s dream
And that’s just off the top of my head. I could probably come up with a bundle more.
I just think it’s a bit sad that Taylor Wimpey don’t seem to have tried…
New Zealand War Memorial
Posted: Wed 23 August, 2017 Filed under: Domestic, London, Photography, Sculpture, Sociable, Travel, Walking Leave a comment »Last Sunday, I was in London to meet friends and eat food. (I know, it’s a shock)
I was hugely early (also not a shock) but semi-intentionally so, as I’d originally planned to do a decent-ish walk (still no shocks) and then meet up. But other plans from the day before had changed, so I started off by knocking the planned 8-miler on the head, and instead taking the Tube in to London, have a smaller more sensible walk, and then meet up.
And then I walked, and it all changed a bit, so I ended up still doing a nearly-eight-miler. Because I’m an idiot. (Hey, where are those shocks? Nope, still not happening)
The route was a bit different to my usual ones though, and on a couple of occasions ended up with “Oh, I could go that way, but I’ve done that before. So let’s go this way instead”. On one part of that, by Hyde Park Corner, I opted to cut through by Wellington Arch instead.
And in there, it turns out that there’s a huge sculpture piece for the New Zealand War Memorial. It really is quite epic – and yet dwarfed by the buildings, arches and other stuff nearby.
I really liked it – and although this time I was on a bit of a stomp, I’ll definitely go back on an occasion where I’ve more time, and look at them properly.
Saturday – Giacometti
Posted: Mon 7 August, 2017 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, London, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »On Saturday, I went into London for a walk, and to visit a couple of exhibitions – which turned out to be three – as well as food and the like. As there’s other stuff going on this week that I can’t be naffed to go into right now, I thought I’d write a bit about some thoughts related to the exhibitions. So that’s the plan.
The first one on the list was Tate Modern’s exhibition of works by Giacometti. Up ’til now, I’ve seen a few of his works, but not loads – and I’ve honestly never seen the appeal of them. They’re certainly distinctive, strange, and of note – but I certainly didn’t love them, and didn’t really get why he’s so well regarded.
Having seen the full exhibition, I still don’t love them, but I understand more of why he’s regarded. Oddly, his statues still do very little for me – I find them kind of odd, and kind of unsettling, but nothing more than that – and I certainly couldn’t sit and just look at one block of statues, as one person was doing. (He’d even brought along his own camping stool in order to do so, God love him) However, I really liked some of the sketches, and some of his oil work that looked like it had been done in charcoal.
I think that in some ways I wasn’t convinced of Giacometti as being an actual artist – OK, he could do the sculptures, but that could’ve been just the one thing. Having seen the sketches, drawings, and paintings, I do realise that he’s a lot more of an artist than I’d thought, and a lot more talented.
That doesn’t make me like the sculptures and so on, and I still wouldn’t go from here to the bog to see another exhibition of his work, but all the same, I’m glad I did go.
#1 Dad
Posted: Wed 14 June, 2017 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Creativity, Cynicism, Design, Domestic, Geeky, Marketing, People, Thoughts, Weirdness Leave a comment »Sometimes, you see something, and your brain just goes “What?!?” (or words to that effect, but with more swearing) Currently, there seems to be a theme connecting that with both Father’s Day and Star Wars.
Last year, we had the card with Kylo Ren…
[Spoiler from two years ago – Kylo Ren kills his father]
This year, I’ve seen this in Sainsbury’s…
I’m pretty damn sure they haven’t seen the same Star Wars films I have…
Outlining
Posted: Fri 14 April, 2017 Filed under: 2016/17, Creativity, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Ideas, Thoughts, Write More, Writing Leave a comment »At the moment, I’ve got several writing plans/projects in my head, but two that are really standing out, and that I want to work on. And already that’s a fair dollop of progress.
For now though, I’m trying something a bit different – I don’t yet know if it’ll work out, but so far it appears to be doing OK.
Basically, rather than just writing and seeing how things develop, I’m taking some time first to outline it all, so I know what the plan is, where characters will go, and how everything interacts. It’s also interesting, from the perspective of figuring out more about how my brain processes these things.
The only thing that concerns me currently about this process is that I know how I am, that once I’ve written something down or otherwise got it out of my head I’ll forget all about the details, and there’ll be something else to grab my attention instead. Oooh, shiny.
So it may be that doing these outlines is as far as I go on these ideas. Or it may be that the outlines gel everything together so that I know what I’m doing, and then just want to get it done.
And only time will tell which of those options will happen. Which is kind of cool, and kind of frustrating…
A Paucity of Postings
Posted: Sun 15 January, 2017 Filed under: Creativity, D4D™, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, SAD, Thoughts, Weather, Writing Leave a comment »Despite the best of intentions, this week’s been quiet here on D4D™.
Mainly, it’s because I’ve been absolutely snowed under with work, including beating the living hell out of databases – and cursing the clowns that wrote Microsoft Access, which is what I’ve been taking data out of and putting into something decent. One of these days I’d like to meet the people who created it, and ask just what the fuck was going through their minds when they made certain decisions.
Along the way, there’s been a whole bundle of other stuff, insomnia and the like, and well, it’s just January.
I have a hard time with January, for some reason. It’s part of the reason I don’t really make New Year’s Resolutions, because I know I’m never good with the start of the year. The thing is, I don’t really know why it’s such a tough one for me.
I’ve got my suspicions – and primarily it’s about preparation.
I know I get affected by autumn and winter, as the nights draw in and so on, and I can fight it for a long time. Then there’s the standard dislike of the Festering Season, which I’m ready for and can keep on fighting. But now we’re through all that, the days are getting longer, and we’re through the whole Christmas period.
This is where (I suspect) my problems kick in – the days are still short, even if they’re lengthening. It’s just not doing so quickly enough. This week in particularly has been pretty much solidly grey and overcast, with little to no sunlight coming through. And I’m just tired, with no real energy for continuing to fight the whole Seasonal thing.
It leaves me flat, tired and uninspired. It shouldn’t, in all sense, but regardless, it does.
So yeah, this week’s been more about downtime, about being tired and grey, and not really in the mood for doing much. I’ve got a fair amount of stuff in the coming week as well, which will help. But this week’s been a flat and down one. Such is life, and all that rot.
2017 Inspirations – Photography
Posted: Sun 8 January, 2017 Filed under: 2016/17, 2017 Inspirations, Change, Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Photography, Single Life, Thoughts, Travel 3 Comments »As things change for me in 2017 – well, as I do new stuff, or restart old stuff – I’m hoping/intending/planning to write more about it here on D4D as well, along with things about what’s driving those choices. So there’s a new subject/category to cover it all. And this is where it all starts.
As long-term readers know, I was into photography for a long time, did pretty well at it, and even ended up taking a course while I was in Norfolk in order to better understand what the hell I was trying to do.
But since Norfolk and Suffolk, I’ve been doing a lot less photography. Some of that is due to my mobile phone, where the pixel count is higher than the SLR I still have. It’s also about faff – lugging an SLR around for the day (particularly when doing anything else, like one of my idiotically long walks) is a hefty job anyway, and it’s simply never ready for a quick photo. Using the SLR is a much bigger commitment in many ways, and over the last four years, I really haven’t been making that commitment.
This year, I want to change that, and do more where I actually go out with the SLR, with the intention of taking photos.
The first real inspiration for that has been this story on the BBC, of Dean Saunderson’s photos of a deserted Nottingham on Christmas morning. It’s something that works for me, having been to many places at ungodly-o’clock, and seeing them with very few people around. Oxford, for example, is beautiful at 5am on a summer Sunday morning – and the same applies for many other cities. So this is a theme/topic/idea I could get into, and will probably have a few goes at over this year.
We’ll see at the end of the year how I do on these inspirations. It’s going to be a year where I (hopefully) figure out more about the things I want to continue doing, and which ones I’ll be happier to leave by the wayside in order to do other things.
Inspiration
Posted: Tue 23 August, 2016 Filed under: Creativity, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, Thoughts, Write More, Writing Leave a comment »I’m just leaving this here as a remind to myself, on occasion…
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work.
All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.”(C) Chuck Close
This came from Zack Arias’ DexPxl blog, a piece entitled “Get the F*ck To Work” (his asterisk, not mine!) which also included the clip below of David Bowie’s advice to musicians…
A transcript of that is :
When asked if he had advice for musicians, Bowie replied: “Yes, never play at a gallery. [Laughs] I think. But you never learn that until much later on. But never work for other people at what you do. Always… always remember that the reason that you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt, that if you could manifest it in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you coexist with the rest of society. And I — I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people’s expectations; I think they produce — they generally produce their worst work when they do that. And if — the other thing I would say is that if you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in, go a little out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
Again, just a reminder for me, more than anything else – but if anyone else finds it useful, that’s grand.
Durham Lumiere 2015
Posted: Mon 16 November, 2015 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Domestic, Driving, Photography, Travel, Weather Leave a comment »Two years ago, I went with friends to see the Lumiere exhibition in Durham – which was ace.
This year, it was back, and so were we.
While it’s organised by the same people, and has some of the same artists, it was utterly different – and still brilliant. The weather this time was absolutely rotten – my coat still isn’t dry – but still it was great. The theme (if there really is one) was more about science and maths this time round, with the main ‘showpiece’ projection onto Durham Cathedral this time, “The World Machine” being more about the birth of modern cosmology from the 12th century until the present day.
One of the big draws this year was Mysticete, a projection of a whale on the river Wear, visible from the bridge above. Done by the same people as the Elephant last year, it was ace – and so clever, being projected onto a water-spray. (although with the heavy rain they could probably have just done the same onto the rain) Sadly, because of that weather it got cancelled on the Sunday, but it was well worth seeing. (we were there on the Saturday)
Image (c) Durham Chronicle
We got to see a good portion of the exhibits – although not all, by any means – and really enjoyed it. Some of the stuff was really magic and fun, other bits were ‘just’ excellent.
As per the last one, I will definitely be going again when it’s next on. I may also visit the one they’re doing in London in January 2016 – I hope that’s as clever and fun as the Durham ones are.
2015/16 – Writing
Posted: Thu 12 November, 2015 Filed under: 2015/16, Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Thoughts, Write More Leave a comment »This post has been nagging me – I’d written the title and post-dated it for publication, but been stuck on what to actually, you know, write. And then I did it again.
It’s somewhat ironic that the post about my plans for the coming year’s writing has been published blank/empty not once, but twice.
So – third time lucky.
I’m not honestly sure what will happen with my writing plans over the next twelve months. There’s a couple of options (as well as the fallback point, of “do nowt” or “fail”) which is never a good start, as it leaves me in a quandary from the beginning.
The thing is, I’ve got lots of ideas. Loads. I just haven’t yet clicked on how they could stick together. Or even if they could adhere at all. I’m missing that bigger picture, the whole that all these parts could/should/might fit into. Or maybe each one is a different tale, and I need to focus on one or two of the better concepts, and just develop those. Maybe that will allow the others to rest, or maybe to develop along in their own timelines. Maybe.
I’ve definitely got two concepts which are kind-of similar, but separate. They fit into different moulds, different methods, so I could do both at the same time. Or I could focus on one and then the other. Or. Or. Or.
And that’s what’s sticking me up at the moment. Too many ideas, not enough drive.
I’d love to be ironic (or meta) enough to be able to write about a writer that is stuck on the writing, so that it’s turtles all the way down. But that’s beyond me.
I think the plan for the coming year will be to do just one project, focus on it, see if it works. If it doesn’t there are others waiting in the wings. If it does, there are others waiting in the wings.
Between now and 2016, some of it is just going to be brain-dumping stuff onto paper/keyboard as a record – perhaps that’ll help too.
So yes, I think that’s the plan. But now, which to choose as the first one. Which to choose…
Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy
Posted: Thu 15 October, 2015 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, London, Media, People, Reviews(ish), Travel Leave a comment »Following on from yesterday’s post about my most recent day trip to London, this one focuses on the Ai Weiwei exhibition at the RA.
It’s a great exhibition, and shows a wide range of Weiwei’s works, including his massive (and understandable) loathing of China.
The first thing you see, as you enter the RA’s courtyard, are the trees, made of assorted pieces of wood
Hidden in there as well is what looks like a knackered leather armchair. Only it turns out to be made from black marble…
In the exhibition itself, there are just so many different things. Tables that have been melded with timbers from 14th century temples, and/or bent to rest with legs against walls, epic cubes (including one that is a ton of compressed tea leaves), video installations, 3000 porcelain crabs, and many others.
The cubes are fantastic, and a particular favourite of mine was the wooden epic-scale puzzle box (that needs two people to get it to work) which was just beautiful, and so tactile…
There’s also a work called ‘Straight’, which is entirely constructed from steel reinforcing rods, and is a thing of beauty. (Although you do wonder just how long it took to get it all to work!)
On the walls in that room there are also two panels, listing every single identified body from the 2008 earthquake. Just the scale, the number of names, is gob-smacking, and upsetting in a strange way.
There’s also a lot of humour in the exhibition – surprisingly so, and in contradiction to what I’d imagined and understood of Weiwei’s work. My personal favourites of the entire exhibition are the two wallpaper designs. (Yes, wallpaper) The first is this, whole patterns created from a stencil of a man’s torso and arm, ending in a fist with a raised middle finger.
I think it’s the first ever wallpaper I’ve seen and gone “Yeah, I could live with that”. Although at nearly £500 per roll, I won’t be able to do so…
The second wallpaper, “Golden Age” is even more clever. Surveillance cameras and Twitter birds predominate
And then you look closer, and realise that in every Twitter bird, there’s Ai Weiwei’s face. And that’s really clever.
There are many, many other pieces – in a variety of sizes, materials, and styles. (I also loved the chandelier built from bicycle wheels) It’s an impressive body of work, and I suspect a number of pieces will stick with me for quite a while.
All told, I loved the exhibition. It’s so much better than I’d expected/assumed, and is so worth going to see.
Even better, the RA are actively encouraging people to take photos of the exhibits, to promote it themselves, and to touch most of the items. It’s very tactile, very open – and so nice to see that kind of understanding. (Although they did still tell off the German who slammed his camera and bag onto one of the bent tables, impervious to the fact it was an exhibit – but you can’t do much about idiots, in fairness)
The only (small) downside is that for the price you’re paying to see the exhibit, and the fact it’s only ticketed admission, it was still crowded. I would rather that there were fewer people allowed in at once, and thus those people can see the exhibits better, without being being constantly blocked, wandered into, and having others drifting into one’s eyeline. But then, I’m an antisocial git.
All told though, it’s great. I’m actually considering going again before it finishes…
Creatively Becalmed
Posted: Fri 1 May, 2015 Filed under: Creativity, Day Trips, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Introspective, NCFE Course, Photography, Thoughts, Travel, Weirdness Leave a comment »This year so far – and probably for a bit longer than that, if I’m honest – I’ve not been getting all that much done on a creative front, and I don’t really know why. It’s more a feeling of being bogged down, uninspired, and just not in the mood.
Writing is going better than anything else – lots of ideas, but nothing is particularly gelling at the moment. I’ve got a couple of things started, but it’s still bogging down, and not flowing.
Photography-wise, I haven’t even taken my camera out in ages. Really it’s been since I did the NCFE course, which is a bloody long time now. I don’t know why that seemed to flick the ‘can’t be arsed’ switch, but it has. I’ve tried a few things and ideas, but it’s just all a bit “meh”, with no real desire to take the photos.
In some ways, the day-trips over the last few months have helped on that – I’ve taken photos, even if ‘only’ with the phone (although that’s a surprise, considering how good they’ve come out) but still can’t really bring myself to take the actual camera out for a day. A lot of that is also because I can’t be arsed with lugging it around and faffing about, but mainly it’s just the faff of it all at the moment.
I’m sure things will change again – I certainly hope so – and that the changes will be positive for once. The rest of this year to date has been positive, so I’m hoping that once I have some headspace and time, I’ll be more prompted.
(And I’m sure I’ve written about this a couple of times this year already, so forgive the repetition. It’s just something that’s bugging me at the moment)
Obsessional Issues
Posted: Mon 29 December, 2014 Filed under: 2014/15, Creativity, D4D™, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Time, Weigh Less, Write More, Writing 1 Comment »For the New Year, and as part of the whole “Write More” part of the resolutions etc., I’m trying hard to get back into writing – and other aspects of creativity – on a regular basis. (Which explains why D4D™ has become a bit more busy this month too!)
2014 hasn’t been a good year for my writing in general, although I have been able to get started on a couple of things in the last three months, and want to continue building those up, making progress.
The thing is, I’m not really good at the whole “writing obsessively” thing – or indeed doing anything obsessively. For whatever reason, I just don’t possess that obsessive section of brain/emotion. I’m a crap collector, because while I don’t mind building up sets of things, I don’t care/obsess enough about it all to get the rarities, the things that true collectors always dream of. It doesn’t matter whether that’s books, stamps, music, or anything else – I just don’t care enough to obsess about the rarities.
As a result, it’s work to write etc., and that’s what I’ve been attempting to build up over the last few months – generally successfully.
With D4D™ I’ve been writing more, but pre-dating some of them, so I’ve got the time. But it’s building up a writing routine.
In the same way, I’ve been forcing myself to get out and do walks round the village a couple of times a day, just to keep things moving, and to get some exercise. I do that whether the weather is good or bad – and actually enforce it more when the weather’s bad, because then I’ve no excuse when it’s good.
So I’m working more on building up routines, getting used to doing these tasks and activities, and making them part of the day. The writing is part of that, the things I have in my head to write this time round aren’t essential brain-splurges of healing ventage, they don’t *have* to be expelled from my brain for my own health and sanity.
I’m getting there, and 2015’s looking like it’ll be an interesting time…
Christmas Cheer
Posted: Sat 20 December, 2014 Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Festering Season, Media, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »
As always in the run-up to the Festering Season, the BBC is currently promoting the Eastenders Christmas Day special.
I don’t watch soaps, haven’t in years, and I really don’t get the appeal of them in general. But even in that sector, I truly don’t understand why so many people keep on watching Eastenders. It’s such an unremittingly depressing programme, one where nothing has a truly positive outcome. Even happy occasions – births, marriages etc. – have to have a downside, a negative touch. (Who’s the father? Who’s had an affair? What other explosion of emotion will happen?)
Christmas is, as always, the worst of all. There’s apparently going to be someone effectively going through the throes of a breakdown, so on Christmas Day there’ll be millions of people watching this whole thing of someone’s life collapsing around them.
Maybe it’s about making people feel better about their own lives – that no matter how bad they get, the people on Eastenders are suffering worse. I don’t know. But it’s a mindset that I simply can’t get my head around.
Forskolin
Posted: Tue 22 July, 2014 Filed under: Advertising, Creativity, Cynicism 3 Comments »At the moment, I’m getting an absolute shedload of spam for some supposed new wonder-drug product called “Forskolin”
Now surely it can’t just be me that chuckles at the name, and thinks it’s referring to something somewhat ruder? And really? They couldn’t come up with a better name for a slimming product than something that makes you think “Foreskin” every time?
Breaking Things
Posted: Sun 13 April, 2014 Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Geeky, News, Security, Stupidity, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »Last Friday there was a big(ish) story in the BBC and Media about the convicted paedophile who is requesting his laptop – complete with ‘non-obscene’ images of one of his victims. Dorset Police were quoted in the story as saying it would be ‘unlawful’ to delete/remove those images from the laptop, because they’re not technically obscene or showing nudity.
Now, aside from the fact that there’s something so blatantly wrong with this entire process (and why wasn’t the laptop just removed/destroyed as part of the evidence and ‘proceeds of crime’ bollocks?) then surely this is a perfect opportunity for a tragic IT-related ‘accident’?
Make sure it’s believable, could happen, and is feasible, and it’d be the devil’s own job to prove anything.
For example, a liquid spillage. Or leaving the machine next to – I don’t know – some kind of large magnet. Maybe the metal scanner in a doorway. Or just mis-filed in such a way that a) it can’t be found or b) it got destroyed. Lost property, IT security, avoidance of possibility for divulging person information.
There are many, many ways in which this could’ve never been an issue. The mis-filing and “sorry, can’t find it” would be easiest (and probably hardest to be disproved) but any of them would work nicely. It’s more of a problem now, because they’ve admitted that a) it exists and b) it’s currently in an OK state. Ooops.
Hermetic
Posted: Fri 28 February, 2014 Filed under: Creativity, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Project 42, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing 2 Comments »
Over the years, I’ve often thought about finding a nice remote cottage, and ending up as a hermit, more or less. Shunning human contact for the most part, and being able to spend the time doing something creative.
Of course, as most of my nature and work is also pretty techie, the idea of a remote cottage in the middle of the moors somewhere is a bit of a stretch, there not being likely to be decent broadband anywhere nearby. If I were primarily doing writing, I could probably do it – but that particular aspect is still very much a pipe dream, albeit one that I’m still working on when I get the chance.
I still like the idea of it though – it’s still something that sticks with me, and even more so when I do travel up to the North-East and North-West, or Somerset/Devon. Maybe one day – depending on how everything else works out.
In the meantime though, it occurs to me that a lot of my current existence is quite hermit-like in many ways. I don’t interact with people around me all that much – I do with colleagues, to a degree, but in general prefer not to – and I’d rather be in my little house and spending time with my own company.
I have enough broadband (although I’d prefer more, but such is life at the moment) so really it’s the best of both worlds. Or at least it is for me – I suspect it would drive most people mental.
Things may change over time – there’s some things I’d like to change, and others I’m not bothered by – but in quite a number of ways, I’m actually really quite content at the moment. It’s a strange state of affairs.
Marketing/Branding Bollocks
Posted: Fri 13 December, 2013 Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Charm School, Creativity, Cynicism, Design, Marketing, Sweary, Thoughts, Work-related Leave a comment »According to this article, Pantone (they’re ‘the colour people, don’t’cha know?) have decreed that this purple is “the colour of 2014”. (And fuck off, Americans, it’s ‘colour’, not bloody ‘color’)
Now, I like purple as much as the next person – I’d go so far as to say it’s probably my favourite colour. But
- This is not proper purple. It’s a kind of wanky lilac, at best. Hell, they’ve not even called it Purple – it’s “Radiant Orchid”, which might as well be a name made up by Dulux.
- You know, there are people who get paid for coming up with this kind of shit
- And there are people whose job it is to come up with names for paints. I truly hope they feel fulfilled and happy in their work. I’d want to be killing people.
- How the blue, blazing, fiddly fuck do you have a “colour of the year”, for shit’s sake?
All told it’s just marketing bollocks of the highest order.
Lethal Injection
Posted: Sun 17 November, 2013 Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Legal, News, Politics, Thoughts, Weirdness 2 Comments »Apparently, a lot of American states are having serious problems with their methods when it comes to the death penalty. Lethal Injection in particular (used by the majority of the states that have a sentence of death) is facing problems, because the manufacturers of the drugs that are used are trying to block their use.
As a result, several of those states are using what are known as “compounding pharmacies” – effectively, places that can make small quantities of required drugs on-demand, a sort of grey-market DIY area instead of buying the necessary drugs/items from the manufacturers. This process is being done in secret, so no-one really knows what’s being used.
It amused me (I’m in that kind of mood) to see this quote though :
“There is no way to verify that what comes from a compounding pharmacy is what it purports to be, and that it is safe and effective.”
Sorry, but these drugs are being used to kill people. While I get that ‘effective’ is important, I’m less certain that ‘safe’ should be a concern.
Mind you, what I don’t understand is why they don’t just use significant quantities of seized illegal drugs. After all, a massive overdose of heroin (for example) or crystal meth is going to be just as effective when it comes to killing people…
Why I Blog
Posted: Wed 13 November, 2013 Filed under: Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Geeky, Words, Writing Leave a comment »[Inspired by this post with the same title over at Gordon’s place]
I started writing D4D™ back on August 9th 2002. Eleven years ago – damn, that time’s flown past.
I’ve said this before (almost certainly more than once) but I started blogging primarily because I wanted a project to keep on working on. I’ve always been a lover of the written word, since I learned to read, and I wanted to see if I could write. I’d done other projects along the way, short stories, novella-length and a couple of novel-length as well.
But the main reason was that I know how bad I am at not going through with projects. I start them, and then I move on to something else. I know that about myself, and the basic reason behind D4D was to keep a project going – as well as to get into the habit of writing, and to see whether it spawned anything else.
D4D’s been part of my life ever since. It’s been there through the ups and the downs, and a lot has changed in that eleven years. I had a year or more where the writing fell off a cliff, but this year I’ve worked quite hard to get back into it, and I think that’s been quite successful. There’s still a way to go, but I’m getting back into the habit and the routine of it.
And has it spawned anything else? Well, yes and no. I got into the writing of D4D, but in some ways that supercedes the writing on anything else, and I need to rediscover – or perhaps find at all – the balance between writing here, and writing elsewhere. I’ve got more writing ideas, stories and screenplays, but I need to find the time to write them.
D4D will keep on going for the foreseeable – I’ve still got a long way to go, and I want the ability to look back on things afterwards. I’ve changed a lot in this eleven years, and so has my writing – none of which is surprising, considering that time span – and it’ll be interesting to see how things develop from here on.
And that’s why I blog. Writing, routine, a diary, a repository of ideas and thoughts. D4D is all of that, and more.
Advertising Morphosis – Friendly Money
Posted: Thu 27 June, 2013 Filed under: Advertising, Change, Creativity Leave a comment »Yesterday I wrote a bit about the changes in advertising for insurance comparison websites. The other main group that seem to be changing adverts at the moment are the Payday Lending industry.
Having worked in that industry, I’m probably a wee bit more attuned to those adverts than others. Part and parcel of being a geeky swine, I suppose.
Anyway, the two main companies whose advertising I’ve noticed changing are Amigo Loans and QuickQuid / Pounds to Pocket. Both have ended up with new agencies, I’m sure – the new advertising is worlds apart from the previous stuff. I’m not going to add links to their videos, I’m just interested in the way their portrayal has changed.
Amigo have gone from the Mexico-based advertising linked to their name to a newer one that appears to be more like Morph In Debt.
The other main one is QuickQuid / Pounds to Pocket – they’re the same company, so it’s really no surprise that they’ve gone down the same route with advertising, and the same agency. Interestingly they’ve gone away from the “realistic scenario” type of advert and are now using a theme of aliens and scientists. Why, I don’t know – I’m not an advertising wonk, so the whole concept is a bit beyond me.
All the same, it’s interesting to see how these things are changing, as these once ‘on the edge’ industries appear to be becoming more mainstream, more accepted, and (I assume) making use of larger agencies, with bigger budgets.
Advertising Morphosis – Comparing Confusion
Posted: Wed 26 June, 2013 Filed under: Advertising, Change, Creativity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few months, it’s been interesting to see the adverts on TV that have changed radically – and as it happens, there are two main industries who appear to have changed their advertising massively in that time. The first is insurance comparison websites, the second is payday lenders.
In both areas, I suspect the reasons for change are the same – of all the adverts on TV, those two sectors had the adverts that were the most annoying. Insurance Comparison sites advertising was pretty much universally loathed – I know that their ‘recognise the brand’ methods worked, but backfired in that I remembered the brands so I could be sure to never ever give them any money.
GoCompare was the biggest culprit on this, with their poxy opera-‘singer’ character.
He’s still around, but they’re fading the character out. (And not a moment too soon, in my opinion)
They’re interesting, because in a lot of ways they now seem to be acknowledging that the character is/was ridiculously fucking annoying, and they’re now working on keeping the character while hopefully reducing the annoyance factor significantly.
The next biggest one was Confused.com, who’ve got rid of their super-annoying animated and musical adverts…
And replaced it with a weird Wall-E-esque robot instead…
It’s all definitely an improvement, and on the rareish occasions I watch adverts (more often caused by forgetting I’m watching something recorded, and still watching the ads) I no longer feel the need to poke my eyes out and block my ears.
Roy Lichtenstein, Tate Modern
Posted: Mon 27 May, 2013 Filed under: Creativity, Domestic, Getting Organised, London, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I took a trip down to That There London, primarily to see the Roy Lichtenstein retrospective at the Tate Modern. It’s been on for a while, and I’d meant to see it earlier, but then checked last week to realise yesterday was the final day. And so, the plan was born to get down and see it.
I’ve loved a lot of Lichtenstein’s work for many years now, and the exhibition had the originals of a couple of my all time favourites (Particularly “Whaaam!”) so it was definitely a good reason to go and see it.
But what I hadn’t realised was that this sort of stuff was only a small part of his work – although the style remains the same, there’s a lot more that I’d never known about.
My own particular favourites (in no particular order) were the Lichtenstein versions of other classic artists (including Mondrian and Picasso) and also his versions of classical Chinese landscape portraiture, which are just excellent.
I was really pleased that I’d got down to see the exhibition – although I do find that most of the stuff in Tate Modern is unconscionable piss, every so often they throw out a gem.
Critical Reading
Posted: Fri 16 November, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Creativity, Cynicism, Education, Food, Literacy, Pedantry, Thoughts 6 Comments »As has been observed many times over the years, I can be a really picky/pedantic bastard – particularly when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and literacy in general. And it’s true, I am all of those things.
Today I’ve been proof-reading a menu for the work Christmas Do (of which more at some other point) – and with some of the errors, had to check the original menu.
So – would you still go to a place whose menu has spelling errors? I realise that the typing and publication of the menu won’t have come direct from the chef, and will have been farmed out to someone on reception (or similar) – but really, if chefs / owners are so obsessed about control, wouldn’t that also extend to the menu, and how it represents the establishment ?
In this case, some of the spelling errors are pretty basic – Mascarpone , for example, is mis-spelled. In others, it’s the actual cooking techniques themselves, such as “Ballantine” instead of “Ballotine”. And I just find that a bit worrying – for if there’s that lack of attention to details in the menu, I can’t help but think there might be the same lack of attention when it comes to the food.
Captive Audience – Part One
Posted: Fri 5 October, 2012 Filed under: Advertising, Cinema, Creativity, Domestic, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last few months, I’ve been going to the cinema more – the Cineworld Unlimited ticket has it’s uses, and what the hell, I like films. For £15 a month, I’m seeing as many films as I want, and that’s fine. More than one a month, and it’s paying for itself.
The downside of it, though, is the bloody adverts. I don’t know why or how, but cinema advertising is incredibly bad. Trailers are OK (although it all gets a bit samey after a while) but the adverts themselves are just bad.
And it’s interesting too, to see how the audience react to those adverts. I know that agencies do test viewings and so on to gauge reaction, but they really should try going to the cinema and seeing – and to some degree hearing – the reaction there.
Orange currently are one of the biggest culprits. They seem to do one ad per season – Summer’s one was based round the Expendables 2 film, and Autumn’s one is based around The Sweeney. They’re meant to be funny (I think) but they get so dull with repetition, and the Autumn one isn’t getting any reaction at all. (Understandable really, because it’s a) weird and b) shit )
Overall, I think the worst times are where ads try to be funny, and the audience stay stony-faced, not a noise from them. It’s just cringe-worthy.
I don’t know what can be done to fix it – other than lots of viewer research and surveys, and ideally a shitload more creativity – but it’s still interesting about the reactions, or lack thereof.
Celebrity Sharktank
Posted: Thu 8 March, 2012 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Creativity, Cynicism, MOTB, People, Television, Thoughts 2 Comments »Over on Twitter today, I was having a conversation with a couple of friends, and an idea came to. It would never be made – but we can dream…
The idea, as the title of this post suggests, would be Celebrity Sharktank. (Or Celebrities Swimming with Sharks – either way)
The premise – and this is the good bit – is to take ten ‘celebrities’, and let them go swimming with a whole swarm of sharks. Great Whites, Makos, Hammerheads, all the good ones. Throw in a bit of chum (bloody meat/fish, if you didn’t know) and you’ve got a TV programme to be proud of.
The ‘Winner’ of the programme would be the last one alive. Of course, if the recovery crew were really slow at getting to the ‘Winner’, would anyone care?
In my mind, the contestants for the first episode would be :
- The Kardashian sisters
- Jedward
- Simon Cowell
- the cast of TOWIE (The Only Way Is Essex) and
- the cast of Jersey Shore
The first episode would be called “Feeding Frenzy” in honour of there being rather more victims (sorry, contestants) than usual. I suspect Cowell would “Win”, but only because there’s a limit to the shit that even a shark can eat.
I suppose the only downside of this would be the potential for complaints about cruelty to animals…
Parking Tickets
Posted: Mon 13 February, 2012 Filed under: Charm School, Creativity, Domestic, Driving, Parking 1 Comment »I *so* want some of these…
You suck at parking
Mind you, I must admit I made a *right* balls of parking at Homebase over the weekend – really should’ve submitted myself to YPLAC.
Silliness
Posted: Mon 23 January, 2012 Filed under: Art, Creativity, Stupidity Leave a comment »For no good reason, I give you this…
Dancing Pantomime Zebra
World Book Day
Posted: Thu 3 March, 2011 Filed under: Creativity, Domestic, Literacy, Writing 1 Comment »
Today is World Book Day. If you’re not reading something, why not?
Clamper’s Contract
Posted: Tue 2 November, 2010 Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Creativity, Customer Services Leave a comment »James Holden has come up with an ace way of combatting car clampers…
Parking Contract
Everybody is familiar with the notices displayed in car parks. The gist of them is that by parking you are entering into a contract which obliges you to pay a sum of money if you breach the terms of the agreement. These notices are enforced by contract law and are very different to the legitimate PCN (Penalty Charge Notice) tickets that public officials can issue, which you have to appeal properly if you think you’ve been ticketed unfairly.
This got me thinking. If I can be said to have entered into a contract by simply being near one of these signs, so can they. It should cover off enough of the angles of attack, fines, clamping, towing and so on
Excellent stuff.
Writing
Posted: Fri 15 October, 2010 Filed under: 2009/10, Creativity, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), London Screenwriters Festival, The '10 Writing Project, Writing | Tags: #celtx, #lsw, #lswf 1 Comment »Life’s been a bit quiet round here of late, what with one thing and another.
One of the bits that’s reduced my writing time here has been the Short Script Competition for the London Screenwriter’s Festival , whose deadline was today. (In a couple of hours, in fact)
I’d had an idea for the project, which I wrote in CeltX (again) and wanted to get finished and submitted. And today I got it all done, dusted and submitted.
I don’t know how it’ll do – no idea at all, to be honest – but regardless, I’m happy with having completed it and got it in for the deadline. Even if nothing at all comes of it, it’s another idea completed, written, and submitted.
That makes it the second script (admittedly, short script) completed and submitted to competitions this year. My writing plan for 2010 was to get at least one – and hopefully more – bits written, and I’ve done that. I’m not going to stop there- there’s still a lot to write and a lot of ideas in my head – but at least I’m doing it now. It’s taken far too long to get to this point.
Mongrels, BBC3
Posted: Tue 20 July, 2010 Filed under: Animals, Creativity, Domestic Leave a comment »One of my favourite shows currently on BBC3 is a very strange and very rude comedy programme called Mongrels. It’s on tonight at 10:30 and is (in my opinion) well worth a watch. Of course, your views may vary.
For me, though, a bizarre puppet show with swearing foxes, offensive (and vain) poodles, randy streetcats and a psychotic pigeon is always going to be worth a punt. The sheer number of ideas – and the abusive nature of most of it – is awesome, and leaves both of us wondering how the hell the entire programme got made in the BBCs current super-correct hyper-non-offensive atmosphere.
Oh – and Christopher Biggins as God.
I’m so getting the DVD when it comes out in August…
One Word
Posted: Mon 5 July, 2010 Filed under: Creativity, Five Year Plan (now Ten), The '10 Writing Project, Writing Leave a comment »A while back, someone (I can’t now remember who) drew my attention to the “My One Word” screenwriting competition, which really appealed to me.
MY ONE WORD is inspired by the proverb “a picture is worth a thousand words” and we want to inspire you to create fresh, powerful stories using images and just one word.
MY ONE WORD focuses the power of visual storytelling by creating a series of short movies with only one word. If you love to write, this is your chance to show off your talents!
All told, I’ve submitted two pieces to this competition- I don’t know if either one will get anywhere, but it’s worth at least a try.
The first one uses just one word, but used several times. It’s a bit derivative, but the idea’s there and would (I think) work.
The second one uses just one word. That’s it. The rest of the story is visual.
In their own ways I’m pleased with both submissions. They’re very different – which I’m pleased about – and (I hope) different enough to stand out. Of course on that score I could be completely talking out of my backside. We’ll see.
More importantly, it means I’ve completed two short screenplay things. Very short, admittedly – about three mins each – but completed, submitted, and out in the Big Wide World. Should make life interesting.
Mouse Design
Posted: Wed 16 June, 2010 Filed under: Creativity, Design 1 Comment »Via Yanko Design (which in this case isn’t the best of names) comes this new design of mouse…
Yes, it does look like that. Intentionally.
Some people really need to get out more.
I’m just a posh boy
Posted: Thu 22 April, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, Creativity, Cynicism, Politics Leave a comment »Saw this today and loved it. Now if only we could get the Conservatives to use it…
The kind of thing Photoshop was meant to be used for (Click to embiggenify)
Bunnies
Posted: Wed 7 April, 2010 Filed under: Creativity, People, Script Frenzy, Weirdness, Writing 1 Comment »Sometimes it’s really quite scary seeing just how disturbing some bunnysuits are.
Bizarrely, I was doing some research on a writing idea to get me to that site. That’s quite worrying in itself…
Writing Plans
Posted: Mon 29 March, 2010 Filed under: 2009/10, Creativity, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Script Frenzy, The '10 Writing Project, Writing 4 Comments »One of my challenges for April is to take part in Script Frenzy – a challenge to churn out 100 pages of screenplay during the month.
I don’t yet know if I’ll manage to do it – there’s a lot of stuff coming up over the next month what with one thing and another – but I’m going to give it a go. I had my reservations back in November about the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) but this time round it’s something I feel a bit better about having a go at it.
I won’t make any promises or guarantees about this right now – I had intended to have some plans and idea in place before the start of April about what’s going to happen and where it’s going to start/run/go, but I haven’t. We’ll see.
Creative
Posted: Fri 29 January, 2010 Filed under: Advertising, Agency Idiocy, Creativity, Cynicism, Thoughts 2 Comments »When I went to see “Avatar”, I got in in time to see some of the adverts before things started – not just the trailers and ads, but the localised ones that show while people are coming in.
I don’t know how much they cost – they’re just basic flat ads with not much happening – but one caught my irritation all the same. It was for a company called Selesti, and was just a plain white page with blue text saying “We make websites”, and some contact details.
It was pretty much the dullest ad in the set – an achievement in itself – and really surprised me. For a company that’s supposed to be all creative and whizzy, the ad didn’t speak of any of that. It actually conveyed “We paid for this, but really couldn’t be arsed to do anything with it”. Even if they’d used “We Write Websites” it would’ve been better, and would’ve at least implied the connection to www. addresses/domains. But no, “We make websites”.
I wonder how much business Selesti have gained through this ad at the cinema? Even more, I wonder how much they’ve lost…
Scrapers
Posted: Wed 23 December, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Business, Creativity 3 Comments »On occasion, I just wonder whether my brain works slightly differently to “most peoples”. Today has contained one of those occasions.
If you were running a car-hire company, would you put an ice-scraper in each car during the winter months?
I know I would – having today had to go and buy a new one. (I’ve got one in the normal car, of course – but not in the hire one. Fuckers)
I’m sure that the excuse for not doing so would be “because of the cost” when people take the scrapers for themselves afterwards. Me, I’d put some branding/advertising on them, and job done – I don’t know how much return business you’d get, but every winter those people would be seeing the name of the hire company, and be reminded of it.
Enterprise Car Hire, that’s yet another bloody trick you’re missing.
Christmas Cheer
Posted: Wed 9 December, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Creativity, Festering Season 1 Comment »(via FailBlog) This has to be one of the best (and darkest) uses of Christmas Lights yet seen…
Bambi in Lights
The work of a fantastically sick mind.
I Love it.
Slimline Plug
Posted: Wed 11 November, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Geeky, Technology Leave a comment »via bsag, I think this slimline plug is an absolutely fantastic idea.
UK 3-pin plugs are pretty sturdy, but if you’re carrying a couple of power cords around – or phone chargers, laptop power bricks etc. – then you quickly become aware of how bulky they are too.
The design of the slimline plug is aimed at getting round that, and seems to work really well. Even better are the adapters that allow three or four slimline plugs to be used in a space similar to that of a normal three-pin plug.
No NaNoWriMo
Posted: Sun 1 November, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, The '09 Writing Project, Thoughts, Writing 2 Comments »Despite wanting to get back into writing, once again I won’t be taking part in NaNoWriMo (Or National Novel Writing Month, to give it the full title)
Both Andy and Gordon have written their thoughts about it, which pretty much resonate with my own. I think that while it can be good, I don’t actually want to write somerhing where, as the NaNoWriMo site puts it
The only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
The idea is that you just write, you don’t (in theory at least) spend loads of time thinking about story arcs, characters, events and the like. It’s the equivalent of writing a brain-dump, a stream of consciousness. And that, I think, is my problem with it. I don’t like reading that kind of book – why the blinking sun-stunned chuff would I want to write one?
As it is, with D4D™ I’ve written some 800,000+ words (which is pretty sodding gobsmacking in itself) which is the equivalent of roughly eight novels. Obviously I know it’s not eight novels, but it does work as a comparison figure.
I’d like to go back to writing something ‘proper’ – it’s been an aim for a while, and will continue to be so – whether it’s a screenplay or something more novel-like. But I want to do it properly, not just as a “Write 50,000 words in a month” project. I’ve got some ideas that need developing – and there’ll be more about that in a different post sometime soon – but I honestly don’t think NaNoWriMo is for me.
Of course, if we come back at the start of November 2010 and I still haven’t got any of those ideas out into ‘proper’ writing, I might have a bit of a rethink on that.
NHS Staffing
Posted: Thu 3 September, 2009 Filed under: Business, Charm School, Creativity, Cynicism, Health, News, Thoughts 2 Comments »Today there’s a lot of coverage about a suggestion to reduce the workforce of the NHS by 10% – and the resultant kerfuffle between Government, the NHS, and management consultants.
Currently the Government is saying that they have rejected this advice by McKinsey and Company, (Never heard of ’em? Me either.) which included closing 137,000 clinical and admin posts in order to save £20bn by 2014.
I’m pretty sure I could show how to save the NHS that much money by 2014, without losing a single clinical staff member.
Mind you, it would involve getting rid of shitloads of middle-managers, consultants, and fuckstick accountants. And of course that’s a plan that would never achieve approval – because it’s got to go through all those levels of shitbag middle-managers, consultants and fuckstick accountants before it can happen. And those self-serving fuckers are never going to do themselves out of a job. (Which is the same reason the “paperless office” will never happen)
I’m not suggesting getting rid of all the managers, as I think most people would agree that there need to be some of the buggers around, if only in order to make sure that the clinical professionals don’t drown in paperwork and procedures in the meantime. (Although of course if you get rid of enough of the middle-managers, you probably get to eliminate a whole host of the bullshit paperwork at the same time – sorry, it’s “streamlining” now isn’t it, not “getting rid of the shit”)
Still, wield a big enough axe, drop it from high enough, I’m pretty sure it’d still work…
Bye-bye BB
Posted: Wed 26 August, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Media, Thoughts Leave a comment »Happy, happy day.
Channel 4 have announced that the 2010 series (the 11th) of Big Brother is to be the last one on Channel Four. Viewing figures have been dropping in recent years, from the 2002 peak of 8million people down to the current series with an average of 2 million people watching.
Personally I don’t give a damn about Big Brother and/or its spin-off shows, but at least with luck it’ll be off mainstream TV after this time next year.
I’m quite certain that some other dumb-arse channel will scoop up Big Brother past 2010 – but hopefully it’ll be some little-watched satellite channel that thinks it’ll get the viewers.
And in the meantime, maybe – just maybe – it’ll be the start of a move away from these pox-ridden “reality” shows that seem to pollute so much TV at the moment.
Most Burgled
Posted: Fri 14 August, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Creativity, Cynicism, News Leave a comment »The story today about the “most burgled postcodes” in the UK makes for some interesting reading – but also misses out on a couple of rather relevant bits of information.
Firstly, it’s been done by MoneySupermarket.com (I’m not adding a link to them, because they’ve had enough PR out of this already) based on people trying to get home insurance. There’s no corroboration of these figures with any police reports etc.
Secondly, it’s this (from the story)…
Some 0.42% of people from Arnold who asked for quotes via the website said they had been burgled in the past five years, while that rate was above 0.24% in the rest of the top 20.
So 0.42% of people in Arnold (Nottinghamshire) have been burgled in the past five years. But that means that 99.58% of people in Arnold haven’t been burgled. Which (to me, anyway) is far more interesting, and actually helps to put all this shit in perspective a bit.
Locational Errors
Posted: Tue 11 August, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Own Business, Travel, Web Development, Work-related 4 Comments »Checking out some information about the location I’m going to be based in over the next month or so (from a week on Monday) I had a look at the dreaded Tesco website to see what stores are close to the places I’ll be working/staying. (And in this case, the answer is pretty much “fuck all”) I’ve also looked at the locations for other supermarket-type places, and will obviously wander around the area a bit too, see what’s around that isn’t easily web-findable.
Anyway, while looking at the map on the Tesco site, I noticed this…
I think they haven't checked the work on placenames
Yep, there’s notation for “Waterloo Strain Station”…
NOTE : You can find the same thing by typing “SE1” into the store locator.
PR Words to Ban
Posted: Tue 4 August, 2009 Filed under: Advertising, Charm School, Creativity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Just a quickie, but I love this TechCrunch article about “10 words I would love to see banned from press releases”
Thankfully I don’t get too many press releases, but I see enough of them online that I have to agree with pretty much all of what’s been said in this one…
Portraiture
Posted: Sat 25 July, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Photography Leave a comment »I think that the photo accompanying this article is absolutely fantastic.
It sums up everything about the article in one image – you know what the person does straight away, and in my opinion it’s just brilliant.
Portrait of a bridge painter
Image (C) Guardian Newspapers 2009 and Murdo Macleod
Back to Where It Began
Posted: Thu 23 July, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism, Thoughts 2 Comments »I see that the ITV series “The Bill” is getting a lot of publicity about how it’s going from being a shitey soap-type programme down to a one-hour/episode-per-week drama series. It’s even going out post-watershed.
But what no-one seems to be commenting on is the fact that this isn’t a new thing for The Bill – in fact, that’s right where it started.
So this rethink and reschedule is really more an acknowledgement that all the fucking about with it over the last few years didn’t work, so it’s going to go back to its roots a bit, and see where it goes from there.
Personally, I hope it works out – when it first came out, The Bill was a decent police series. Maybe it’ll go back to being one again, although only time will tell on that score.
Too Much Free Time?
Posted: Fri 3 July, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Cynicism Leave a comment »Definitely filed under “Too much time on their hands” comes this – 50 examples of ‘coffee’ art.
Although on a more cynical note, I can’t help wondering if some of those designs have been brought into being through the wonder of Photoshop…
Norfolk Safety
Posted: Thu 18 June, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Photography, Weirdness 1 Comment »I saw this a while ago, and completely forgot I’d taken a photo of it until I went through the photos on my phone today.
Yes, use a forklift as one support for a ladder
Well, it’s one way to do it, I suppose…
The Next 30 Years
Posted: Thu 14 May, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts, Writing Leave a comment »Charlie Stross is one of my favourite current sci-fi authors, and this post goes some way to explaining why.
It’s the text of his keynote speech for LOGIN 2009, a conference for online games developers, and the speech is about the changes he sees coming in gaming over the next thirty years. He’s already written a novel based around some of these ideas (“Halting State“) and is currently writing the sequel to it, so I think it’s fair to say he’s done a fair amount of research and thinking about this subject already.
All told, it’s an interesting and entertaining read – and I’m sure it would’ve been even better to see him make the speech in person.
No-Fly
Posted: Tue 12 May, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Creativity Leave a comment »How to break a jet engine in creative ways – Lesson 1
Suck a metal luggage cart into it
I can just see the conversation at “lost luggage” now.
Well, we know where it is.
Yes, it might be a little bit damaged…
GPP Group shot
Posted: Wed 15 April, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over at Zarias, Zach Arias writes about the process he went through to get the group shot for GPP (Gulf Photo Plus) this year.
I’m always interested in seeing how (and why) photographers take on certain challenges – in this case, taking individual shots of each person in the group, then merging them together into one composite image – and to look at the techniques used, just in case I can find a way to use something similar at some point.
In this case, I don’t know that I’ll ever be in the same sphere as Arias – or the other photographers in the GPP group shot – but it’s still something that’s interesting to see, read and think about.
If nothing else it’s another example of why t’Internet is grand, granting you access to far more of the details of a photographer’s life (or whoever’s life, really) than you ever would do in “normal” life.
Far Too Organised
Posted: Fri 27 March, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, WHC2010, Writing Leave a comment »This time next year, the World Horror Convention will be in Europe for the first time – and it’ll be being held in Brighton.
At the moment, the cost for a ticket (or Attending Membership, if you prefer) is a mighty £60. Yes, £60.
Needless to say, I’m going to be going. I don’t know who’ll be attending yet (for obvious reasons) although some names have already been confirmed, but regardless I think it’ll be a fun trip.
Rationalisation
Posted: Thu 5 March, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Photography, The '09 Writing Project, Writing Leave a comment »Over the last few months, I’ve decided that in some ways I’ve been spreading myself too thin – and particularly with regard to the more creative side of my life, the photography, the writing, and so on. Up ’til now I’ve had separate sites for all the bits – plus D4D™, of course.
Equally, while the photography site is currently connected (by name) to the business site, I’m not overly happy with that, or the name that came about because of the connection. To my mind it just doesn’t fit, doesn’t connect properly.
So now I’m working on bringing it all into one site, and rationalising it all a bit.
D4D™ will stay here and separate, for a number of reasons I’ve written about many times before. The company site will stay separate, because it doesn’t fit in with the “branding” of the new concept.
However, all the creative bits – primarily the writing and the photography stuff – will move to the new site.
I’m still not going to overly publicise the connection between the new site and D4D™ – I prefer to keep them as separate as possible, and don’t plan to change that separation anytime soon.
The new ‘brand’ for the creative bits also fits in with my avowed intention to get my finger out and get on with doing the stuff. I’ll no doubt write more about the plans as they come closer to happening.
Time Padding
Posted: Thu 26 February, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Introspective, Thoughts 2 Comments »Over the last two (nearly 2½) years, I’ve been banging on about my five-year plan, and the work that’s been going into it. The project is still going on, but I think I may need to add a year to it. That’s annoying to me – it means that I get it done by the time I turn 41 instead of 40 (and fuck me, does that really mean I’m going to be 40 in 2½ years? Shit) and thus lose some of the nice roundedness of the idea. It also means that I don’t live up to the ‘five-year’ part of the title.
The thing is, since the inception of the plan, there’ve been things going on that have delayed some of the work I planned on doing. The house purchase – and the ongoing work on the house – has had a significant effect on some of the plans, as we’ve been doing one hell of a lot that wasn’t really in the initial plan as such. Yes, they’re in the original set of planned tasks – but I wasn’t realistic about how long they’d take, or how much work would be involved.
So that’s one thing that’s kind of superceded other plans.
But the other one has been far sneakier, and far harder to get to grips with. It’s one I’m familiar with (and it’s mentioned in the categories up there) but that I don’t always see without some hindsight. Yes, I’m referring (of course) to Ye Olde Depression. Again.
I still don’t know if I’ve actually been fully depressed – but I do know that for the last eighteen months or so my motivation has been pretty much non-existent. The ideas have still been there, and some things have sparked some desire to work on them, but the real motivation to work just hasn’t. I’ve let things drift, or not started them at all. OK, the bits for this year are coming on, and there’s a couple that can be checked off, I still feel like I’m lagging behind.
I’m working on it – things this year have started off OK, and the motivation appears to be on its way back – but right now I’m not sure whether to add a year to the target, or leave it as it stands for now, and just see how I do.
I suspect that for now it might be the latter plan – I’d rather do the five years and see where I am at that point, to be honest – but it’s something that’s worth thinking about as time goes on. I’ll most likely review it come November, when there’s only two years left on the list.
But of course any ideas or suggestions are welcome in the meantime…
Writing Tips : On Being Late
Posted: Wed 25 February, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Thoughts, Writing 1 Comment »One of my own favourite authors, Charles Stross has a piece today about the convoluted mechanics behind writing sets of novels – talking about his own experiences and those of George R R Martin (whose book I freely admit I just can’t get into at all) who is apparently very late on the next installment of his epic work, and has written a blog post about it, and (as Stross says) “issued a comprehensive response to the vocal and annoying fans who think he can pull a quarter of a million words out of his ass on demand”
It all makes for interesting reading – I must admit, I’d never really thought about the intricacies of writing these epic novels – most likely because it’s never been likely to be the sort of thing I ever wrote – but the insight Stross gives makes it worth the effort.
Transform
Posted: Mon 23 February, 2009 Filed under: Creativity, Depression, Photography, Thoughts Leave a comment »via Chromasia, I found Zack Arias‘ piece called “Edit: Transform“.
It’s awesome.
There’s just no other word for it. Spend six minutes of your life watching the video. It’s worth it.