Be informed

I visit quite a few public dumps around the country (and in Germany). I am not alone in this. It is one of the rituals of urban living. Some of them are endearingly chaotic. What I do notice, however, is that those who work there are supremely proud of their facility.

Recently I visited a facility in East Yorkshire (Preston, near Hull, pictured). I ask, is this the tidiest public waste facility in the country?

Pall Mall’s spring advertising campaign goes into overdrive with the Pall Mall couple. (see posts 18/19 April) What is unusual about this campaign poster – in contrast to the others – is its lack of subtly. Here we have a young couple with intent. They share the source of ignition. Those cigarettes will be lit and smoked. And what’s more, there’s plenty more where they came from. Packs now have 30 sticks full of toxic chemicals. All for 7 Euros.

There is a certain double meaning – the strapline translates as ‘the taste victory’. I suspect the brand owners view this as a pact for life by the couple. There is no accounting for taste.

Marius, the 18-month old giraffe captive in Copenhagen Zoo was killed yesterday and fed to the captive lions. In the public gaze. A bizarre spectacle from a British perspective, but not necessarily elsewhere. The justification for the killing was, scientifically, logical. Captive animals tend to breed with one another and this puts pressure on the gene pool.

It also seems not helpful to Copenhagen Zoo for alternative homes to be offered. The ‘value’ of the animal had been calculated. First of all it was valuable as an attraction when it was young. Baby animals are much more remunerative than older animals. Essentially, they are cute. It also seems clear that the animal’s body – in terms of meat – had been factored into the calculation. There are some hungry lions nearby who infrequently eat giraffe. The costs associated with moving the animal far outweighed its immediate value as a food source for the lions.

And there is the problem. Animals are commodities. They have value and no value at different times in their own lives. Just like farm animals. The problem is not what the Danes did to Marius. The problem is zoos.

Picture and story: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-killing-of-marius-the-giraffe-opens-an-important-debate-about-genetics-animal-rights-and-zoo-inbreeding-9120219.html

Ryoji Ikeada is a Japanese digital artist now based in Paris. Datamatics is an ever-developing piece fusing visuals and sonics derived from ‘data progress’. The presentation has two extremes. Visually, the projection (onto a curiously creased white screen located on the stage) is black and white with a few red and/or blue ‘accents’; sonically, it is loud, very loud. In fact, the venue offered free ear defenders against the 100 db plus soundtrack. They were needed.

This is a performance that splits its audience. It is clear from the Twittersphere that it was well received by the digital community in Brighton. For those of us on the periphery, making sense of it was not easy, even if there is sense to be made of it. The accompanying leaflet, some of which I have quoted above, was not helpful. Here is another extract: “Driven by primary principles of datamatics, but objectively deconstructing its original elements – sound, visuals and even source codes – the new work creates a kind of meta-datamatics. Ikeada employs real-time programme computations and data scanning to create an extended new sequence that is a further abstraction of the original work. The technical dynamics of the piece, such as its extremely fast frame rates and variable bit depths, continue to challenge and explore the thresholds of our perceptions.”

At 55 minutes it is over-long. The first ten minutes are thrilling – like anticipating being on a roller-coaster. The extreme sonic and bright visuals shock the body. Then it merely becomes boring, though no less stressful for the body through the senses.

I might have anticipated Ikeada appearing from behind the screen at the end. No show. Read into that what you will.

Pictures:

Ryoji Ikeada: http://www.last.fm/music/Ryoji+Ikeda/+images/71046212

Datamatics ver.2.0 Brighton Dome – http://www.ryojiikeda.com/

Ok, this is my latest purchase. A wirefree doorbell. With a loud chime.

In my bid to source from as near to home as possible, I was expecting a difficult task in finding a Europe-made doorbell. This one is made by Electrium Sales, a Siemens subsidiary. I thought that I was in with a fighting chance, having not been aware previously that Siemens had made doorbells.

No country of origin on the box. I then opened the box and looked on the instructions. No guide to where it was made. Then on the device itself. No.

I then opted to phone them, they having conveniently given their number on the instructions. A model number and two minutes later we had tracked down the device to its manufacture in Withernshaw, near Manchester. Thanking the woman who engaged me in this investigation, I asked why such information was not on the box…

Worth the call.

I apologise about the parochial nature of this post. But bad customer service gets me angry. I try to shop locally – to support local traders against the onslaught of the superstores and the internet. Not 100m from where I sit now is long-established small business, Sussex Computer Centre, where one can get computer repairs, peripherals, software, etc. When I bought my Blackberry Playbook, I thought that I would augment it with a portable mini Bluetooth keyboard. I visited Sussex Computer Centre on 7 July and purchased the keyboard pictured bottom right. It cost me £29.50

On the top right is – or was – a little button that acts as a mouse. Neat idea, but seemingly not fit-for-purpose. When I extracted the keyboard from my bag, I discovered that had broken off. I retrieved the remnants of the mouse from the bag and presented them yesterday morning to the owner of Sussex Computer Centre.

I do not think that any shop owner relishes a customer trying to return items that either do not work or are damaged. But bearing in mind this business has been running for over ten years, I would have thought the owner might have developed some customer service skills in preparation. Seemingly not.

Essentially, it was my fault. Indeed, he asked me whether I had dropped it. Or put another way, I dropped it and therefore it is a ‘customer problem’. The fact that he may have sold me something that is not actually fit-for-purpose does not come into it. He will not be selling me anything in future.

I have to admit to being a football fan. It is a frightful pastime. It is usually cold. Tickets are far from cheap. The result is never the one wants.
This evening I have listened to the match between Hull and Watford (our challengers for automatic promotion). They beat us. There is now only a single point between us with six matches to go. Why does it bother me so?

I notice that I will have to wait at least another year to be awarded a gong for me to turn it down. The list of people who have turned down a gong, in history, is not very long. The Wikipedia page on this is as comprehensive as they come (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declining_a_British_honour), but my admiration goes in particular to: Alan Bennett (a persistent offender), Michael Foot, David Bowie, Stephen Hawking, L.S. Lowry (declined more honours than anyone else!), J.G. Ballard and Jon Snow (who later did a Channel 4 exposé of the honour system to make sure that he was never offered another one). I trust also there a lot of more admirable anonymous ordinary people who have turned down honours.

This year, it seems, one gets an award for having got a gold medal in the Olympics. Whilst winning an Olympic gold medal is quite an achievement, whether it warrants further recognition is questionable. In the case of Sir Bradley Wiggins who also won the Tour de France – clean of drugs – the receipt even then of yet another award seems excessive. And surely, Sir Bradley, a knighthood is secondary to the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award (can anyone tell me how such a non-award became so ‘important’ and ‘newsworthy’?)

Readers of this blog will know that I have a problem with the awards system in the first place. This year it is even more even further undermined because of Sir Jimmy Savile and now not Sir Fred Goodwin, he of Royal Bank of Scotland notoriety.

It is time to end this nonsense.

Photo of Jimmy Savile source: JMB, Wikipedia