John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

Health vs alternative health: 29 February 2004: My partner's had a bit of health bother this week and she's been to the doc, and to an alternative practitioner. I just wanted to highlight the difference as I saw it. With the doc, good though she is, you get your ten minute appointment, blood tests, the tests come out fine, and you can't see the doc now for another ten days (but you're still ill). With the alternative practitioner, she got three hours of investigation, followed by a label or diagnosis and a set of lifestyle changes to make. Sure, the latter cost £45, but right now it sounds like it was a much better deal. Particularly since she seems to be starting to feel better, and the doc's not even reached a diagnosis yet. Still, it could be pure rest that's working. And it was good that the blood tests came back negative because that assured us it wasn't anything really bad. But conventional medicine feels like car-fault diagnosis to me .. wait until that rattle or intermittent fault turns into complete failure of whatever part it is because then it will be obvious where the problem lies.
Debenhams: 28 February 2004: We've just been into the accounts bit of Debenhams, and the characters behind the desk were worthy of a Victoria Wood and Julie Walters skit. One was really quite scary and offensive to customers, both blamed delay on their computer system (we'd just had the same excuse in the Halifax), but the coup de gras was when the assistant had to call the store card company and they put her on hold. She put the phone into speaker mode with the comment "if I've got to listen to the on-hold music, so have you". After a while, to relieve the tension, she started a little dance.
Exciting times: 28 February 2004: Well, I must be doing something right, I'm booked up. Full. There's a queue forming. The latest booking, for a web page that matches yachting crew to yachting crew needs around major yachting events, can't even be started until June.; What's even more exciting is the breadth of the applications. I'm getting more into search engine optimisation (I have two projects ongoing in that area), and I'm about to install a secure local area network for a local business. Soon I'll run J2EE (Java for big systems) on one site (if I can find a decent host), and SVG (like Flash, but to international standards) on another. I can't tell you how happy that all makes me :-D
Proverbial goose/gander: 28 February 2004: Linking George Bush to the phrase "miserable failure" by google bombing sounds like fun. Except, that's because I kinda agree. It would be enraging pollution if I didn't. But then, it's harmless .. who types 'miserable failure' into a search engine expecting to get any useful results?; I was completely wound up by the discovery of pro hunting graffiti messages all along the A64 and surrounding roads on one trip to York a year or so ago. It didn't make me support hunting, it turned me strongly against the whole Countryside Alliance thing. I found myself getting more and more upset each time I saw another message. I guess I felt that they didn't have a right to try to plant their views in my head as I drove along. I also felt that it went against the CA's ridiculous claim that they 'look after' the countryside so we can all enjoy it. I certainly didn't enjoy driving through the countryside that day. I did read, though, that the messages were put up by a more extreme pro-hunting organisation, not by the CA.
Web services: 26 February 2004: I'm taking my first steps into web services. What are they? Well, whereas the world wide web is a method for presenting information to humans, via web pages, web services are the equivalent for computers. In a sense a web services is like a web page that a computer can read. So for instance, instead of me looking up the next train times from here to there, my software could contact an equivalent web service and get the answer, maybe then using another web service to book me a taxi. I'm looking at a very simple application at the moment where my software will call someones web service to get an exchange rate.; Xmethods provides a list of web services, so you can start to see the breadth of services becoming available.; This isn't the only computer-to-computer interface coming on the web. As we all get used to having the web around, the next huge growth spurt will be in the less visible area of computers using the Internet to talk to other computers.
Free baby: 26 February 2004: My partner Ali and I went out last night. We drove through Bridlington at about 7pm. It was dark and bitterly cold. One of the roads we drove along was a fairly main road but with houses either side and some industrial units. I was the only car on that stretch at the time and I saw a toddler running along the pavement on the other side of the road.; I slowed, and we looked and we couldn't see a parent. The kid seemed to be trying to get into gates and knock on doors. I stopped the car and Ali and I got out. I hung around while Ali went to the child and asked where her mummy was. She wasn't upset, she offered Ali her sweeties. But she couldn't speak yet, and she was cold. We think she was maybe 1.5-2 years old. A van pulled up with a couple inside, they'd spotted her too and she'd asked her guy to turn around and come back. Ali and the toddler walked back in the direction the toddler was running from and Ali knocked on the door of the first house we found where the downstairs lights were on.; As Ali did that I noticed across the road a house had its door open, and a little boy was looking out. I walked over and asked if he'd lost his sister. Before he could answer, dad appeared. He'd obviously started to wonder where the girl was, and rushed over the road to grab her. And that, was pretty much that. Except to say that it became obvious the toddler had crossed the road herself that night and run maybe 50 yards down the road, and to say that it's sad that we have to protect ourselves in that situation .. Ali didn't touch the toddler (except when she tried to run across the road again), and I stayed well back.; This reminded me of two things. Firstly, a very disturbing article in the newspaper quite a while ago about situations where you rescue someone's kid and don't get thanked. Obviously that's down to the mixed emotions of the parent .. that's understandable, it's not why you do it, and it's not what stunned me from that article. It told the tale of a couple sunbathing on the edge of a cliff looking out to sea. A piece of cloth wafted past the woman who instinctively grasped it. It turned out to be clothing worn by a kid who, if she hadn't grabbed it, would have simply run over the cliff edge. Horrifying.; Possible more importantly, it reminded me of an event that happened to me maybe twenty years ago. My girlfriend and I were walking back one night from the centre of Nottingham past Broadmarsh bus station on our way to the train station. Above the bus station is a car park. As we came up the ramp from the subway, we saw a young black man crumpled on the ground, not moving, blood coming from his head. I looked up, and a group of black men were looking over the edge of a high level of the car park. Ahead of us, maybe 10 yards away, was a phone box. My immediate reaction was that I might be about to get involved in some kind of black gang war, and my first instinct was to walk on. I've been shamed by that instant reaction ever since. I had no idea that was in me. In my next heartbeat, I was going for the phone to call an ambulance, but before my next step, an athletic black guy who, it seemed, had run from the car park, slammed into the phone box and dialled. I could walk on.; That was a life changing experience for me. I'd already studied psychology and covered bystander apathy. The examples given were of a woman who died in a ditch over many days, calling for help, near where many commuters passed. After, many were questioned, and they'd heard her cries, but no-one went to help. In another, a man stabbed a woman in broad daylight, in a shopping area. Blood everywhere. No-one intervened. People stopped to watch. The point about bystander apathy is that people rationalise what they're seeing so they can handle it better, most people in this instance thought they were watching a film being shot. After studying this, I resolved always to act, never to stand by, to always be vigilant against bystander apathy. I'm a big believer in community.; Anyway, the black guy thing doubled my determination to act in these situations, and there have been a few since then where I've consciously acted. It's not easy to stand out from the croud and put yourself up for potential ridicule. It's against my nature. One time on holiday a member of a dance troup feigned a back injury and I was getting up ready to call for an ambulance when it turned out to be a trick. I can't tell you how bad I felt towards them. For me, that's crying wolf, it's re-inforcing in people's minds that they shouldn't intervene. But overall I'm proud of those times. Last night was one of them.
Bush meanie: 25 February 2004: We always knew the guy was joyless but I watched the news last night about Bush wanting to ban gay weddings and I had one of those rare moments of clarity. What possible reason could there be to stop two people who love each other marrying? Did he not see how happy those people were? What a supreme misery guts that man is. Anything, anyone that's not like him just don't seem right. Pass the pretzels dear.
Some things about taps: 25 February 2004: OK, I have some things to say about taps. I cleaned the bathroom the other day and had to use a limescale remover to get rid of about 3mm of lime around the spout of the taps. Later, I noticed that when the tap is running, water backs around the spout to a depth of about 3mm. So my question is .. what do tap designers do all day? Surely that would be one of the things you'd consider when designing a tap, how it performs in hard water areas. Surely you'd look at how the water comes out of the tap, especially considering that's its prime purpose. These were about £27 each so we didn't buy cheapies.; It makes me think of teapots that don't pour. I used to live with a friend and we had a kettle that allowed the steam to burn our fingers. He said one day "I'm gonna track down the guy who designed this and I'm gonna burn his fingers". Whoever designed my taps stole some of my time (the time I use up cleaning lime scale from them). Time is all I have, this is serious stuff. I'm genuinely upset :-)
Bouncing binmen: 25 February 2004: I just remembered this, the latest in my series of cinematic snippets, where I gather moments of magic from real life and wonder about how implementable they would be in a film. In this moment, I was walking along the street minding my own business when I noticed a dustbin lorry driving towards me quite quickly. In the cab were three very serious looking, burly binmen, but all three of them were wearing similar hats and fluorescent yellow jackets, but also they were each carrying something different, one had a newspaper, the other a flask, and the third had a beard I think. As I looked up, the lorry went over some bumps in the road and all three blokes bounced about the cab in unison, it looked like they were part of some dance video all shaking their groove thing to the latest tune. I liked the idea anyway :-) I guess what was funny was the juxtaposition of gruff binmen and the, umm, different world of dance.
Education: 25 February 2004: OK, here's a big one. I'm going to sound-off about something I know little about now, so be warned. On the university course I just completed, it became obvious that the policy of the department was to get everyone through their degree with a 2:2 or 2:1. Particularly in computer lab sessions, help was given generously to those who were struggling, and those who were able were left to their own devices.; In one sense, that's quite nice, it helps to form a community. Often in training sessions in the real world the trainer will want everyone to 'get' this step before moving on to the next, so the whole class proceeds together.; As a hard worker and self sufficient student I have to admit I found this more than a little irritating over the three years. Because I was performing well, I didn't get attention. I would have rather there were a policy of handing out help in equal measure. Surely the point of getting a grade at the end is that it's a measure of your capability. Under this scheme, some would have got their grade with huge amounts of help, and others would have done it independently. How is a future employer to know which it is?; Surely a system like this provides a disincentive to work hard. If you fall, someone will catch you.; I was talking to a friend with a dyspraxic child the other day, and I got to thinking how these two systems would work with her education. She's great at dance (contrarily to the 'clumsy child' idea), but struggles with maths.; Under the existing system, she would be ignored in any dance class, since she's doing well. In maths, she'd get extra time, extra lessons, extra tuition and lots of concentration on the area she's doing badly in. She'd end up feeling she was really bad at maths, and not actually notice she's great at dance.; Under my revolutionary new system, sure we'd still have to make sure she can count and handle her finances, but she'd get no more help in maths than any other pupil. The help she did receive would be focussed on her needs. In dance, however, she'd also receive equal help, which is more than she was receiving before. She'd realise how great she is at dance, be encouraged, take it up as a career, become famous, and achieve her life success.; This ties in with a feeling I got from talking to, and marketing some, training organisations in my past. Almost always what they wanted to do was take some managers, assess them, find their weaknesses, and bring those weaknesses up to some arbitrary level. Why? What is this obsession with creating a world of similarly performing people? Drucker once said, if I can summarise, that we should recognise our strength and concentrate on that. Others will cover what we're not good at. Do olympic champions take any time to work on their maths or language skills? Only by focussing on our strength can we ever hope to become world-class. That way you'll have the opportunity to employ or marry or otherwise partner with others who will be great at the things you're not good at. Together, you'll form an exceptional team. But you'll never be great by working on your weaknesses.
Uma Thurman's nostrils: 25 February 2004: I notice that, after the obvious key phrases people use to find this site in search engines (eg. John Allsopp), the most common phrase is "Uma Thurman's nostrils". It appears they are admired not just by me :-)
Open Office: 25 February 2004: It was nice to see friends over the weekend and to be able to solve so easily a problem one had. He uses Microsoft Works and has always had problems sharing files with clients, yet he didn't want to upgrade to Microsoft Office. I was able to introduce him to Open Office which is a free-to-use, open source Microsoft Office-like program that will read Microsoft Office files.
Brewers yeast: 19 February 2004: I'm a big fan of brewers yeast. No, it's not a popular beat combo, it's a food supplement full of vitamin B complex (for energy) and protein. Adelle Davis got me onto it, but I notice now she seems rather discredited. Anyway, my point was that the way Davis suggests taking brewers yeast is to mix it with milk and drink it. Now I've been taking this on and off for almost thirty years and it's perfectly vile to taste. So how come the packaging talks about how wonderful it tastes, and recommends sprinkling it onto salads and yoghurt? I'd have thought someone would have had them for a breach of some law or other by now.
Inkblot test: 19 February 2004: Remember me talking about the inkblot test? Well a friend (hello Suzie) found one online. Wanna know my results? OK, since you asked:; "John, your subconscious mind is driven most by curiosity.; This means you are full of questions about life, people, and the potential of your future. You spend more time than others envisioning the possibilities of your life - things that others are too afraid to consider.; Your curiosity burns with an almost physical need to know and do more. It's only through new experiences that you feel a greater understanding of yourself or the world - which ultimately is the greatest way for you to feel satisfied.; It is possible that the underlying reason for your drive towards curiosity is a deeply rooted fear of boredom. That means that you are probably more susceptible than others to feel like you're falling into a rut when life slows down into a comfortable routine.; You need to make sure you have stimulation in your life - that makes you feel like you're innovating or being exposed to the ideas and experiences that truly inspire you.; With such a strong orientation towards curiosity, you're also prone to a rebellious quality that shows up when you feel you are just going through the motions, and are unable to really influence the world around you. But interestingly enough, your drive towards novel experiences also indicates an openness others don't have, but wish they did.; Unconsciously, your curiosity presses you to learn more, experience more, and get the most out of life."; Thanks to tickle for that.
Peckish?: 19 February 2004: SPAIN: Photographs of food outside a restaurant are almost always off-putting. I suppose in a holiday resort the idea is to cater for those people who can't speak the languages offered on the menu. But you can't tell what a meal contains by looking at its picture. Particularly in a sunny resort the photographs are almost always faded to grey, how does this attract customers?; It's like the reverse of the film "Falling Down" where Michael Douglas demands that the burger he buys should look like the pictures. In the case of this pizza, that's the last thing we want.
Ireland: 18 February 2004: Sorry things have been quiet, we've been visiting friends near Dublin. For those who are interested, we had a very very nice time indeed, thanks to Mike and Wendy. Their hospitality would take some beating. Besides the general niceness of catching up with old friends and their kids, there were a few noteworthy highlights. Mike passed his private pilots licence recently so he was able to take us up in a plane for an hour, which was really fascinating. The next day, the weather being calm, sunny and perfectly beautiful, they decided to buy a rubber dingy so we could mess around in the bay .. they live on the edge of a beach and old harbour. They already had an outboard motor so we were able to relax on the water for the rest of the day. This seal was incredibly tame, and together with the frolicking porpoises it all made for a truly outstanding weekend.
Cold Mountain: 11 February 2004: I saw Cold Mountain yesterday which was quite a film. To my mind it concentrated on the implications of war to women, and focussed more on female things than male things which seems really interesting for a film based on a war. Clearly the whole story is based around the love between a man (Law) and a woman (Kidman) , and how that empowered Law to get through his various traumas. On his way back from the war as a deserter, he was healed by a gypsy woman in the woods. He was accepted into the home of a woman and her baby whose husband had been killed in the war. There were lots of references to how many men were killed, families broken. And then women were variously attacked and families smashed by what we'd now call war crimes. It was a strong woman (Zellweger) who brought Kidman back from neglect and together they made the farm work.; It's not a feminine film though. It's gory, bloodthirsty even, and opens with an unforgiving battle scene. Yet there was no heroism, no technical killing, no gadgets, no loading up of weaponry. The killing was visceral sometimes, but beautiful at others .. when the old woman healer killed one of her goats it was done with such love and care and acceptance of nature.; All in all, a feminist film .. not that I have any right to speak much about that (being male). I've spoken about the lack of a female perspective on war previously (Women and feminism) in this blog, so I'm very happy this film's out there.; "They make the weather, and then they stand in the rain and say 'S---! It's rainin'!", Zellweger.
Professional?: 10 February 2004: I had a shocked reaction from one reader about my previous post and it made me wonder what it said about my professionalism. According to Cambridge Dictionaries Online" 'professional' in this context means 'having the qualities that you connect with trained and skilled people, such as effectiveness, skill, organization and seriousness of manner'. I expected the first three and would certainly consider myself having those attributes, but I was surprised at the last one. Not that I'm a pain-in-the-backside joker, far from it.; How I thought it worked was that we get our models of professionalism from those in the public eye .. high profile business people, politicians and so on. By definition, those people serve the bulk of the public. They seek therefore to display a persona that is as inoffensive as possible so that as many people as possible find nothing to object to.; Those people sit on huge marketing budgets which present their companies or their parties to large groups of people.; I have the opposite problem. I am one person, seeking to be noticed among a web of static. I'm not here to offend (and I don't think what I wrote was offensive), but I'm not going to get anywhere by being bland.; If you employ me, it's because you want something to change. I seek to demonstrate that I'm the person for that task, that I have the strength of personality to listen hard, to be persuasive when necessary, to carry a task through with energy and determination. This blog is partly about demonstrating to you, my lovely potential new client, that I have the strength of character, skill and ability, determination and, yes, professionalism to take on your project and make it sing.; This blog is also the answer to a question I asked myself a while ago .. how do I communicate my personality to people across the Internet? It's not necessary, of course, to do that. But I think, since you would be buying me, it's worth you knowing something about me. Those who I don't want to work for ... GM producers, the meat industry and the like ... should get the message fairly quickly. Those who I do want to work for should find things in this blog that they like. And the more they like, the more we bond and the more likely our project will be successful. I don't have to appeal to everyone, I can only handle three live projects at any one time. I've no plans to expand into a huge multinational company. I've no plans to employ anyone at all, I like it just the way it is.; The other side of this is that I'm partly a marketing consultant. I spent a decade advising technology companies about marketing. I should not be bland. My 'brand' is me. It's me you buy. My service should be noticeable, and to be noticeable it should be different. If you read this blog and then later you mention something you read to a friend and they pass it to another friend who happens to want a website and they track me down .. that's the goal. A little bit of viral marketing perhaps.; So, it's a bit of an experiment and, I admit, a bit of a risk. Some people will dislike this approach. But no-one should dispute my abilities nor my effectiveness. I'd go even further and say that one of my strengths is my seriousness, how deeply I tend to consider things, leading to a much more considered and thoughtful implementation.; As long as there are enough people who notice and like what I do to keep me busy, I'm happy. And if the new clients I get happen to like me too, well that's just fantastic.
Geek test/Enterprise: 9 February 2004: A geek test's been going around, I scored 16% which was pleasingly low. Watching Star Trek stuff seems to raise your geek quotient, and the opportunity arose to watch an episode of Enterprise at the weekend.; You know what? I remember why I don't watch this stuff. It felt like 'My Little Pony', but for males. It's a fantasy world. You can collect all the characters and scenery. Need I go on?; One of the really irritating things about it was the way everything works to show the John Wayne approach to problem solving as the best way. A (male) hero works against all odds to sort things out. Frankly, I've just about had it up to here <horizontal hand action> with American heroism. I fancy some working together. Some compromise. Some win-win arrangements worked out with creativity and sensitivity. Anyway, that was nil points for Enterprise.; Since tests seem to be the order of the day, see if you can work out whether these character names are porn stars or My Little Pony characters. If you happen to actually recognise any of the characters, I'd keep quiet about it. I'm proud to say I scored 2/10, conclusively demonstrating that I know very little about porn and even less about My Little Pony. I can hold my head high in polite society.; Oh, and since I've introduced sex for the first time (I think) into my blog, I may as well mention that there's a water stain on our wall (it's been raining and we have a crap roof) that looks like the Mekon with an erection.; Now, if it looked like Jesus, I'd have queues of people coming to worship it and I'd be able to charge £5 per viewing "move along now please, keep moving give everyone a chance". Now I've let the world know about my Mekon vision, I wonder what kind of people will visit? More to the point, whoever puts "Mekon with an erection" into a search engine will find this, especially now I've mentioned it twice. How weird is that? What's more, what if they come here and decide they want a website? What kind of website are they going to want? I must admit I'm pretty scared now. This is really living on the edge. Oh well. Maybe I'll get killed by religious people before then, for taking the micky.; You want to see the stain don't you? And here I was thinking I was writing for fine upstanding citizens. OK, here it is: .; Just don't ever subject me to a Rorschach Inkblot Test.
Coronation Street: 7 February 2004: I never thought I'd say this. There must have been a change in policy by the makers of Coronation Street because it's really developed a great sense of humour over maybe the last four or five months. Steve McDonald was turning quite gangster ish for a while and now is one of the best comedy characters. Wosserface who does the taxi radio with Steve is just wonderful. But the thing that made me blog this was the wonderful Peter Kaye's appearance the other week. It was sublime, the best Coronation Street ever.
BMI: 7 February 2004: Someone asked me what my ideal weight should be for my height. According to NHS direct I should calculate my body mass index by dividing my weight in Kg by the square of my height in metres. OK, well I'm all imperial here so 6'6" = 1.9812m (from www.markhorrell.com) and 15st 4lb is 97.07kg(thanks to www.onlineconversion.com) so 97.07/(1.9812²) = a BMI of 24.73. 25 to 30 is overweight, while >30 is obese, apparently, although I'm sure these thresholds have come down in recent years. Anyway, that's groovy. I'm not fat (yet). But what happens if you've got lots of muscles? My height would be the same, my weight would be higher, and I could reach obese if I worked really hard at the gym. Sounds like nonsense to me.
Elemental: 6 February 2004: Before you start thinking I'm a heartless beast, I know it's a tad tasteless and I know the problem of domestic cats and wild birds and yes we will put a bell on her if this happens again. I also know that I'm in grave danger of anthropomorphising my cat. But. Kanba caught her first bird the other day. What must that feel like? You're a cat. You're a killing machine. Your senses are tuned for it. You're body's made for it. This is what you're born for. And one day, one special unrepeatable day, for the first time, you do what you're here to do.
Killed by the Internet?: 6 February 2004: I saw the headline "Killed by the Internet" the other day (they seem to have changed it online, but that was certainly the headline of the printed newspaper), referring to the murder of Jane Longhurst by Graham Coutts who used violent porn he found on the Internet. What isn't written so large is that the Internet provided the evidence to put him away for thirty years. It was the pattern of his online behaviour that helped convict him.
A hat theme's developing: 6 February 2004: I'm thinking, what if God appeared in the next street . Spoke to the people, then 'transportered' back to heaven? How would you feel? You'd be sitting there eating your cheese on toast or watching Roobarb and Custard on telly, and God turned up in the next street?; I think there's a cinema opportunity here. The camera's always in the thick of the action, what about all the people to whom this didn't happen? Like the hats thing, they never show what happens outside the moment, the bit before, the bit after, the bit next door.; Sorry for not giving a link to God, (s)he doesn't appear to have a website. And what pleasure .. I had no idea you could watch old Roobarb episodes online :-)
Celebrity Brother: 5 February 2004: I've noticed the websites both for Big Brother when it's on, and for I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here just aren't up to date enough. My partner just told me (at about 8:15am) that John Lydon's walked from Celebrity. So I took a look at the Celebrity website, and there's nothing there. It needs to be instant, these are living shows generating news that spreads in seconds. They can't tell us there isn't the resources to allow for an immediate update. I understand they may need time to write the story, but hey, that's what journalists do every day, it can't be impossible. The earliest report of the story according to Google news is 1 hour ago, the first listed being The Scotsman along with a few others which suggests the story came through on a newswire. If that's the case, you'd have thought the Celebrity team would have known the news ahead of anyone else. (2 hours later it's still not updated).
Good afternoon: 4 February 2004: ROFL, I just went to the Reginox site and it said "Good Afternoon, welcome to Reginox UK Ltd". Which for a split second you think is clever and nice. And then it dawns on you that, well, most visitors probably aren't in the UK, it's probably the middle of the evening or morning or night, and that's just confusing and wrong. It seems like a nice touch, but I feel it says "hey, we're British, it's afternoon here, and frankly, we don't care about you if you're a johnny foreigner". I know that sometimes you have to emphasise your nationality because perhaps you don't want to supply overseas. For instance, with Granite Worktops (UK) Ltd you really don't want to be shipping huge blocks of granite around the world. But I think it's plain enough they're British without insisting that it's afternoon.; There's more. The models page (sorry I can't link you to it, it's forbidden) is a perfect example of possibly one of the most common problems I keep finding on sites. The customer wanting a sink has to know whether they want Regi-Fit or Regi-Lux. How are we supposed to know? So, we have to try both links to see. The site should be asking customer-based questions such as luxury or budget. It's not so bad here, but I've certainly seen sites that list their whole ranges .. do you want the florette, sincey, balderdash, hyphen or eleph range? WE DON'T KNOW YET! Sorry, time for my aromatherapy session obviously. Anyway, I could go on, but it's a pretty upsetting site overall.
Throw your hats up in the air: 2 February 2004: In olden times when large groups of men used to congregate and, when they got happy, they'd throw their hats in the air. Well. You never see the mad scramble and fights that must have happened afterwards when everyone tried to get their own hat back. I'll bet half of them went back home to their wife with the wrong sized hats. She'd say "I see you were happy again today".
The extra bits on a DVD: 2 February 2004: Regular readers will know that I don't own a DVD player. Anyway, after Moulin Rouge, there was the choice to watch all the extra bits, the making of, the scenes from different angles, the interviews, and all that. And I didn't want to see them.; I think it's to do with, when I've seen or heard something great, I don't want to delve into its innards to find out how it works. It's the goose the layed the golden egg thing. Am I right about that? The story where they had a goose that layed a golden egg, and they wanted to know how so they could maybe get lots of them, so they dissected it and had a look, and they didn't find out, and now they didn't have a golden egg laying goose. I feel the same way about the extra bits on a DVD. If I find out how particular shots were made, or see the cast getting changed or swapping jokes or something suddenly the whole house of cards falls down for me. The magic is suddenly gone. I can't believe in the film anymore because "Aha, there's the bit where he stubbed his toe". So I'd rather not know. I don't even want to watch the film again, often. That way it forms a perfect moment in time, a major memory peak, not something I can have anyday I please. It stays special.; I think I feel the same way about camcorders. I'd rather live the moment right here and now rather than see reality through the viewfinder. I feel like I'll miss the event by trying to film it, and I'll act differently to it too. If it's a special moment, then live it, be there, be in it, and remember it the way it was.
Malware: 2 February 2004: I got to see a client's computer the other day with the worst infection of malware I've seen. But then, I don't get out much. Anyway, he couldn't use his browser without, not just porn, but violent and degrading porn either appearing or being suggested in various parts of his browser or desktop. Not good for business. I took an hour and a half or so and cleared most of it, but that really just treated the symptom, it wasn't a cure. So I talked through the solution and I've got the project of implementing a secure network for this client. I'm excited :-)
Moulin Rouge: 2 February 2004: Wow. I've gotta tell the world. Moulin Rouge is unspeakably fantastic. A heroin hit of human creation (not that I'd know, of course). Stunningly beautiful. Uplifting. Joyous. An eyefeast. I love that they didn't feel restricted by time, they brought in music from probably over three decades (I guess that's still limited in the scheme of things), and they sped things up and slowed things down at will. There was no prissiness about the film being set in any moment in time. They took everything that was good, distilled its essence, and crammed it into a hundred and thirty five minutes of pure aural and visual pleasure. Thanks Suzie for introducing it to us.; It's all the more curious because I've taken great care to avoid musicals. Also, sorry, but when I listen to music I tend to listen to the music, not the words. The lyrics hardly ever reach me. But here, the lyrics were crucial and their meaning given life. Wow; I guess I've got to put it third in my top film list. Second, and first for a long time, was Eraserhead. And first? I say this partly for the reaction I get, but it's the truth. Titanic.; In my group of post-punk friends around 1979 was one Clive Newton, with whom I've lost touch. He was a great chemist, so I can only assume he's in that world somewhere. Anyway, maybe he was a little older than us, I don't know, but he led the group for a while. For some reason we hung on his every word. But one thing he said has stuck with me always. Remember we had mostly come through punk together, and that was all about changing the establishment, and particularly, changing the face of music, getting rid of the old, boring music and bringing in something with a pulse. Anyway, he said "Anyone who says they don't like Abba is denying themselves something." Suddenly I felt we'd thrown the baby out with the bathwater, that yes, there was good music other than what we were listening to. I feel the same way about Titanic. Sure, it's not radical, it's not alternative, it's not hip, cool, nor trendy. But it's a perfect story implemented majestically. It appeals to people of all ages. I really loved the film as a perfect example of cinema done well. That's how it hit me, anyway. But what do I know, :-)
Mens or womens?: 2 February 2004: My mum sent me to Cotton Traders because they seemed to have extra long trousers (thanks mum) (I'm 6'6" tall). I can't tell, except by guessing, on this page which trousers are for men and which for women. Some of them are marked mens or womens, others aren't. I'm not going to work through all of the pics, sorry, there are eight pages. Surely the first thing we know when we go shopping for trousers is the sex of the person we're buying for. We should be able to select mens or womens from this list. Or their data entry screen ought to force them to say mens or womens, and then have some sort of indicator in the listing.; Not only that, it's a bit weird to have three identical pictures of the same trouser .. one for each inside leg measurement.