tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88628675854937923152024-03-13T00:59:10.885+00:00Through a glass, darklyHome thoughts from a B roadBrother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.comBlogger366125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-73854460765757019842017-06-01T16:01:00.000+00:002017-06-01T16:02:05.741+00:00<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-36K0gELTZPo/WTA59GbdPII/AAAAAAAAAhA/cfs9ihpgwmswNkx-q3rz9cNXzv8CmxxYwCLcB/s1600/DSCN3484.gif" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-36K0gELTZPo/WTA59GbdPII/AAAAAAAAAhA/cfs9ihpgwmswNkx-q3rz9cNXzv8CmxxYwCLcB/s320/DSCN3484.gif" width="320" height="180" data-original-width="640" data-original-height="360" /></a><br />
The magpies have been sitting on the fence waiting for Peahen to leave her eggs. Don't know if they can read, but hope this faintly animated chap will deter them!Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-47629083587150263412016-02-01T10:21:00.000+00:002016-02-01T10:21:43.270+00:00I'm Stick, You're Stone<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/llmN2GA5xBo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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New song from my talented daughter Kirsty. Enjoy.<br />
Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-6391723492628974692016-01-29T10:57:00.000+00:002016-01-29T10:57:20.932+00:00Old Books are Windows to the Past<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2BFIaLCJzos/VqtEPL9xwbI/AAAAAAAAAgU/4v6V1fwVXbY/s1600/Cavelarice.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2BFIaLCJzos/VqtEPL9xwbI/AAAAAAAAAgU/4v6V1fwVXbY/s320/Cavelarice.jpg" /></a><br />
My birthday present to myself gives me goosebumps when I touch it. A tatty, vellum-bound copy of 'Cavelarice' or 'The English Horseman', it was published in 1607, half a century before the Great Plague and the Fire of London. Charles I was a boy of 7 and the English Civil War still decades away. Elizabeth I had died just four years earlier; James I of Scotland was on the throne and in the year it was purchased, John Smith landed to establish the first English colony in Virginia. This book is older than America, for heaven's sake.<br />
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And yet here it is, advising on cavassons and martingales and how to manage your horses (nobody can say the English aren't consistent). On 4 August 1783, when it was still in use but already nearing 200 years old, an owner inked a reminder on the flyleaf, noting the page for treatment of swelling after blood-letting.<br />
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Handling this book conjures wood smoke from inglenook fireplaces, mulled ale and mutton after a day's hunting, the scent of hay and a hint of ammonia from some distant stable. You do not possess books such as this, they possess you, because in their time frame we are but shadows, glimpsed for an instant in the firelight as we pass.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-58807932246869546532015-10-27T08:56:00.000+00:002015-10-27T08:56:24.070+00:00Back to the FutureThere is a beach in Argyll which is the first I ever knew. I knew it as a toddler, babbling with incoherent thoughts, and I revisited it every year until I bade it a conscious farewell when was eighteen. Each of those years was, if not a flash, then a smudge of light in space and time. Revisiting it again now is as close as I may come to time travel.<br />
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Of course the beach is spinning at five hundred miles per hour relative to the Earth's core, orbiting the sun at sixty-seven thousand, orbiting the centre of the galaxy at four hundred and ninety thousand and hurtling outwards towards the Great Attractor at over two million miles per hour, so it cannot be said to be static. But to all appearances the same smooth, familiar boulders emerge from the same sands, washed by the same sea and surrounded by bladderwrack and thrift from the same DNA. They have not aged as I have aged, and relatively they have remained motionless as I have travelled in time and space, and then returned.<br />
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It is an odd feeling standing there, as those distant cones of light from the past still spread everlastingly outwards, carrying images of a growing child playing in the sand, decaying fragments of home movies, while I stand simultaneously in the present and the past like Marty McFly, haunted by the echoes of voices and laughter and the Zeitgeist of those onion-layered other times.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-57166300057037821522015-10-21T20:33:00.002+00:002015-10-21T20:33:53.292+00:00Investing for the FutureIt is traditional, when a child is born, to lay down a case or two of good claret for their wedding. I couldn't afford that, so thought I'd do better by anticipating the market. Amongst other inspired and prescient investments I reasoned that, with women's rights and increasing political correctness, the tacky sort of risque pottery one saw in seaside shops - boob-shaped jugs and mugs with wobbling breasts, you know the sort of thing - would become a thing of the past. Unfortunately they haven't. I mention this to explain, when I one day shuffle off this mortal coil, the box of pornographic pottery my heirs will find in the attic.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-32228086841168036662015-10-16T10:12:00.000+00:002015-10-16T10:12:44.151+00:00Alan Turing (and how he might have helped with my homework)I am re-reading Andrew Hodges' book 'Alan Turing: The Enigma'.<br />
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In 1974 I was working with another planning student, developing a practical trial of a computer model called the Decision Optimising Technique (DOT). We were mentored by the model's creator, a PhD post-graduate student named Stan Openshaw. According to Wikipedia, he, like Turing, was a believer in human-competitive machine intelligence (and I gather became something of a world-class authority on the subject). There had been considerable work on the modelling of systems behaviour but, beyond critical path and cost benefit analysis, decision-making had fallen behind. Our work aimed to take forward the AIDA model (Analysis of Interconnected Decision Areas), which had a number of flaws - in particular its incremental nature and reliance on over-arching value judgements.<br />
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The Newcastle computer occupied an entire basement two floors underground. It featured ranks of steel cabinets with memory provided by spinning magnetic drums. Access was via remote keyboard terminals, in our case using stacks of punched cards which were fed into the machine on batch at night.<br />
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Even though this leviathan IBM computer could be linked with its siblings at Edinburgh and Imperial College in London to increase processing capacity, we found that all but the smallest real-world problems were too complex for the runs to be completed. While my colleague wrestled with the serious maths and machine coding, I found more and more of my energy being devoted to devising ways of limiting and reformatting problems to reduce the scale of calculation the computer was being required to address. Initial attempts to use 'IF' statements or positively/negatively link decisions by use of 'bars' (as in the AIDA model) were not enough, and amongst other tricks we hit on the idea of assigning token numerical values to individual decisions, allowing us to use constraint equations as a substitute.<br />
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It is fascinating to learn that Turing was struggling with exactly the same problems when he was trying to break the Enigma code on his 'Colossus' at Bletchley Park, and after the war when he was developing his 'Automatic Computing Engine' (ACE...arguably the first electronically-stored-program computer). Like us, much of his time was spent devising ways to reduce the iterations of the machine, and he too realised by giving instructions bogus numerical values he could use equations as a substitute for 'IF' statements. I suppose similar problems spawn similar solutions, but I wish we had known about his work then.<br />
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It is odd to realise that we were working only twenty years or so later; that the computer we were using, with its punched cards and steel racks, was ACE's direct successor; and that the bog standard PC I am writing this on would probably be capable of running DOT in minutes, not hours or days.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-59881390984971708502015-07-11T19:35:00.000+00:002015-07-11T19:35:15.925+00:00Social Suicide<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PLzsUDEdLDQ/VaFt95O01yI/AAAAAAAAAeo/gEL373hQEsw/s1600/2015%2BJuly%2B11%2B010.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PLzsUDEdLDQ/VaFt95O01yI/AAAAAAAAAeo/gEL373hQEsw/s320/2015%2BJuly%2B11%2B010.JPG" /></a><br />
<br />
My Guilty Secret<br />
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There is a groundswell of public opinion against fox hunting in the UK, and public opinion should rule, unless it is punishingly irrational. That's democracy. And yet...<br />
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Don't get me wrong; I have never hunted and I don't much care for the people that hunt. I mean, I've met and liked or loved many of them off the hunting field. My mother hunted in the 30s. My uncle was a Master of Foxhounds, as was my sister-in-law, and I dated the daughter of an MFH in Cornwall and once tried to stop her 'hollering' to alert a hunt to a fox when we were following on foot (it got away). But there is an arrogance and a supercilious and latterly arriviste disport of wealth and/or superiority amongst them in the field that is not endearing. Nor do I care for making a sport out of hunting or killing any animals.<br />
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But I start from the other end. I like foxes (at least up to a point; if you keep any form of livestock that they prey on, that love affair can quickly fade). I would not want to see them wiped out – it is a thrill to spot a fox in the wild, and they are a magnificent native species. But without natural predators (we eliminated the big cats, wolves and eagles which once took them) there seems to be a need for population control – and certainly present post-ban law permits unlimited culling with knobs on (I can only remember my parents having one row, and that was when my father gave the local farmer permission to shoot foxes on our land, and my mother, the hunting one, objected. The permission was withdrawn).<br />
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Since fox hunting was banned in the UK, the main forms of control have been trapping, snaring and shooting. All are legal. There is ample evidence that poisoning and gassing still occur too, and I know of at least two friends' pet dogs that died from eating poisoned eggs and meat left on moor and woodland. All these methods are indiscriminate, and can result in terrible suffering and wounded animals. Hunting had one or two irreplaceable advantages, and they were important ones. It provided a selective cull, closest to natural selection, at no cost to the consumer or the public purse; and it almost always resulted in a clean and relatively swift kill or a clear escape, unlike trapping, snaring or shooting.<br />
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No hunt ever aimed to eradicate foxes; without a healthy fox population, there would be no hunt. Hunting was a form of control – and respected for that, in that local farmers experiencing a particular problem with foxes would call the hunt in. By its nature, hunting tended to cull the sick and the weak and the stupid, as natural selection would. The fox population remained fleet and wily and cunning. There is no conceivable or publicly affordable alternative mechanism for culling in that selective way.<br />
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So I swallowed my prejudice against the hunters, and put my respect for the fox first. That was over thirty years ago. Since then I have renounced Christianity and a host of other irrational prejudices but nothing, even public opinion, has yet managed to convince me to reject hunting.<br />
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I have read that when he left office Tony Blair regretted the hunting ban more than any other action in his time as Prime Minister – including the Iraq War – claiming that he had failed to understand the issue. My recollection is that the Burns Report commissioned by his government did not find hunting with hounds any more cruel than alternative methods of control – although possibly less effective, in that it was not particularly good at reducing fox populations. The government had promised to act by the Inquiry's advice. There is no question that, when the Inquiry came up with the 'wrong' answer, its advice was ignored and, as the Guardian said at the time, the vote for a ban was offered as a carrot to bring Labour MPs on board for the Iraq War. This was not good government (“a very nasty piece of political work indeed and what it says about the Labour party is truly horrible” - The Guardian, 14 Feb 2005). There are compelling parallels here with the current government's rejection of scientific advice on the ineffectiveness of badger culling, purely to win the votes of the farming lobby.<br />
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Mine is not a popular stance, and it is probably massively unwise to stick my head above the parapet at all. I am solely concerned by the way foxes are culled, and the implications for a valuable species. And I strive to remain moved by reason, not heart. I am open to fact and sound argument, not preconception (credit me at least for not raising the arguments about rural employment, or landscape conservation, or national heritage, and all that guff). I hope my friends will respect my motive, even if they do not agree.<br />
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I am open-minded and ready, even eager, to be converted. You would have to persuade me firstly, that fox populations do not need to be controlled – and that is do-able (although I am mindful of the time a few years back when the National Trust took on the Farne Islands and halted the annual seal cull; within a few years the seal population had exploded and they were dying unspeakably of disease until the cull was resumed) and secondly; that the, to my mind crueller and more indiscriminate methods of control, will be outlawed. In return, I ask you who oppose hunting, to search your souls and consider whether opposing hunting is enough. Because if you stop at that, you are by default supporting shooting, snaring and trapping, and the indescribable and ecologically pointless cruelties of those. And you're almost certainly doing the fox no favours either.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-1538773464255695872015-04-27T10:00:00.000+00:002015-04-27T10:00:55.064+00:00Curse of the Witching Tree<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qFa6NutgZPI/VT4IPdl5v-I/AAAAAAAAAeY/I28KL0jrt4I/s1600/Curse%2Bof%2Bthe%2BWitching%2BTree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qFa6NutgZPI/VT4IPdl5v-I/AAAAAAAAAeY/I28KL0jrt4I/s400/Curse%2Bof%2Bthe%2BWitching%2BTree.jpg" /></a></div><br />
This atmospheric British film punches well above its budget. Underlying tension is built through parallel themes of threat and impending loss, in a delicate overlay of past and present. The action benefits from the freshness of the cast, confident camera work and a well-balanced soundtrack. One senses that Director and Producer James Crow is so steeped in the genre that invoking the sinister is second nature. 'Curse of the Witching Tree' is that rare beast which has both mainstream appeal and the makings of a cult classic.<br />
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Released in the UK on 18 May and in the US on 19 May.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-73649135895768748252014-09-02T08:57:00.001+00:002014-09-02T08:57:51.473+00:00Kirsty Macleod - 'Home Eventually'<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/XR160k2m5AE" width="480"></iframe>Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-7639264861726581912014-07-10T13:44:00.000+00:002014-07-10T13:44:16.340+00:00French Polish<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TujBIBDXg8g/U76YJS9GqLI/AAAAAAAAAdc/Rwr29idm1Nk/s1600/Lac+temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TujBIBDXg8g/U76YJS9GqLI/AAAAAAAAAdc/Rwr29idm1Nk/s320/Lac+temp.jpg" /></a><br />
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I wrote a reminder note for myself last night, for something I'd just run out of, which amused me this morning. It says, 'French Polish'.<br />
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French polish is lovely, not only for the deep shine it gives to wood – a french polish finish (this phrase gives me particular joy) is second to none – but because it is so rewarding to use, providing a quick-drying lacquer which is compatible with traditional furniture polish. It has now largely been replaced by varnish made from nitrocellulose (the stuff that gun cotton is made from, which has six times the explosive power of gunpowder) which is not. Compatible with traditional polish, that is.<br />
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Shellac is exotic stuff, made from a resin secreted on branches by female lac bugs. It is harvested from trees in India and Thailand. India still produces around 18,000 metric tons of it a year, which is remarkable when one learns that up to 300,000 insects are required to produce each kilogram.<br />
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Shellac was used for dyeing, to secure the windings in electric motors, provide the blue and green colour in fireworks, and stick the rubber reservoirs to fountain pens. It is still used in the manufacture of such diverse things as top hats, hair spray, lipstick, and ballet shoes, and as a glazing agent on pills, fruit and chocolate-coated raisins. <br />
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It also has thermoplastic qualities; before the advent of vinyl thousands of tons – more than half the annual production - were used to make 78 rpm records. Many of these records involved another well known French Polish product, Frédéric Chopin, more of whom later.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-30784639811728188822014-07-01T10:01:00.000+00:002014-07-01T19:48:37.527+00:00The Defacing of the Kurt Vile Mural<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RG18tlwgmek/U7KE_LltFLI/AAAAAAAAAdM/llIa4h6nmnw/s1600/Kurt+Vile+Mural+temp.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RG18tlwgmek/U7KE_LltFLI/AAAAAAAAAdM/llIa4h6nmnw/s320/Kurt+Vile+Mural+temp.jpg" /></a><br />
I had not heard of the Kurt Vile mural until yesterday. To be honest I had not heard of Kurt Vile either. This picture was retweeted by a band I followed, with appropriate 'unchill', 'uncool' twitterings. I looked into it.<br />
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It appears that a former graffitti artist named Steve Powers aka ESPO was commissioned to paint the mural by indie musician Kurt Vile. Consisting of track titles and lyrics, it preceded the launch of Vile's 2013 album, Wakin on a Pretty Daze. A picture of the mural provided the album's cover art.<br />
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This year a local DJ named Lee Mayjahs painted over the lower part of the mural. He thought it was an eyesore, and believed that it had sparked a rash of graffiti around the city that he loved.<br />
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A photographer who captured this iconoclastic/public-spirited citizen during the clean up wrote, 'So this is the ignorant piece of shit that took it upon himself to buff the Kurt Ville (sic) mural. When I asked if he knew it was a commissioned piece by a world renown (sic) artist he said he did and he didn't give a shit. He claimed it attracted graffiti to the neighborhood.' <br />
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There is irony in the indignant condemnation of the unauthorised destruction of an artwork which draws its credentials from graffiti and pretends to be graffiti – an art form rooted in anarchy and illegality. And frankly, when one looks at images of the original, I have sympathy for the evil/admirable citizen. A Banksy or a Best this is not. In fact, it looked crap. It looks better on the album, but that is because of its context. The artwork alone would be underwhelming; it is the anarchic image of graffiti in an urban context which provides the edge. And in this, it is a masquerade; this was not a vox populi statement, it was the commissioned product of a hard-headed, commercial marketing strategy. Not quite so chill then.<br />
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As Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program decries the violation, I wonder too at the principle of institutional support for what is essentially an advertisement. I gather the mural is to be recreated in London, Los Angeles and New York. Wakin on a Pretty Daze reached forty-one in the UK charts and is now available in a de luxe edition. McDonalds should be so lucky.<br />
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DJ Lee Mayjahs appears to be mortified by what he has done. He had no idea about the significance and popularity of the mural and was simply seeking to clean up his city. He has offered to pay for the repainting of the mural, and it will indeed be repainted. Graffiti is an ephemeral art form; in believing this mural to be graffiti, Mayjahs was perhaps unconsciously paying it the highest compliment. He has also generated more world-wide publicity in defacing it than Kurt Vile could have dreamed of. A cynic might be forgiven for wondering if the defacing was a planned element of the album marketing strategy.<br />
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Maybe DJ Lee Mayjahs, anarchically chill to his own principles, deserves a break from the bile of the Twittersphere.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-83313084261218793572014-01-30T10:56:00.001+00:002014-01-30T14:12:24.469+00:00Kitchen TalkBefore Christmas a new neighbour came to dinner. She enthused about our kitchen, which she described as a bang-up-to-date retro gem. I'm not sure whether she was being kind or whether she really meant that, because I've since seen her kitchen, which is a wonderland of open-planned elegance, with round basins recessed in marble worktops, questing taps like cranes' necks, and discreet utilities concealed behind panelled doors.<br />
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Retro ours is. I suppose it was the first generation of fitted kitchen, in that the sink is built into a cupboard unit which matches a similar unit on either side. The cupboards and drawers are a mushroomy cream colour. The sink unit has 'Dairymaid' written on it in cast metal, cursive script, like something on the boot of a 1950s Cadillac. And indeed, inside one of the cupboards, recorded by the sort of office stamp that had rubber belts turned by knurled wheels, is stamped, '23 February 1959'. The sink is stainless steel and the worktops are Formica, patterned, on close inspection, with tiny, ochre leaves.<br />
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The shelves and cupboards either side of the chimney breast date from the 1930s, when the house was built. There is a cream-coloured Standard 1941 Model C Aga cooker, a second-hand 1970s electric cooker inherited from neighbours, a scrubbed deal table, upright Victorian windsor chairs, and a bookcase for cookery books made from one of the children's bunk beds.<br />
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When we visit other people's houses and admire their newly refurbished kitchens, I have pangs of conscience that the Social Secretary has never had her own new kitchen. But then, none of my family ever had new kitchens. Their kitchens were practical, and cosy, and worked. None aspired to be show-pieces. They were about function, not fashion, and Vermeer would have felt at home in them.<br />
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In 2006 The Department of Communities and Local Government published '<i>A Decent Home: Definition and Guidance for Implementation</i>'. It identified 'a reasonably modern kitchen (20 years old or less)' as one of the criteria defining a decent home. As our kitchen had its last make-over over half a century ago, I guess that officially we don't have a decent home - except that, apparently, 1950s kitchens are back in fashion, and there are people out there stripping out the so-yesterday granite and stainless steel, and putting in Formica just like ours. <br />
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I read that kitchens can be expected to last ten years. According to <i>Which</i> the average cost of a new kitchen is £8000. This means that not replacing our kitchen since the 1950s has saved around £40,000. It's also reduced quarrying, deforestation, ore extraction and consumption of petrochemicals. Granite, for example, is one of the most energy-thirsty materials available, and it is currently being mined at an unimaginable rate.<br />
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Maybe green is the new granite.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-3156142327873318362013-07-30T12:33:00.000+00:002014-07-01T10:27:47.963+00:00<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/xJTkWDyrcks" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
Here is the video for Kirsty's new single, 'Foundations' - produced by the legendary Stuart Epps, and set to photographer Mark Gee's breathtaking real-time footage of the rising full moon over Mount Victoria, New Zealand.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-75771273584106654072013-05-20T13:39:00.000+00:002013-05-20T13:39:29.048+00:00Songs are like children.<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/H-rub8YmxlE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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It must be flattering to have one's song covered. Kirsty's song 'Broken-Hearted' hasn't even been released yet, except in the video I posted a few days ago, but it's already popped up on a Youtube video from a cafe/brewery in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in the Limousin area in France. I gather the performance was unpractised and the violinist hadn't even heard the song before, but I think it's charming.<br />
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I suppose songs are like children; you go through a trying confinement, give birth, and then one lets them go and they take on a life of their own (or not!).Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-57681214536257362452013-05-18T10:07:00.000+00:002013-05-18T10:07:40.935+00:00Eurovision 2013<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lcOxhH8N3Bo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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Of course we can’t win. We won’t ever win again now, with the politics of it all. And we tell ourselves that we don’t even want to, which we do, and that it doesn’t matter, which it doesn’t, and that of course we never watch it because it just makes us angry and it’s not the kind of thing one admits to…but a lot of us will.<br />
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So here’s to Bonnie Tyler tonight, with her post-operative gravel voice, still rocking at my age. She’s earned a place in the Rock Hall of Fame several times over, but most of all for ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’. The 1983 video, appropriately filmed in Holloway Sanatorium for the Insane, still works, and the song remains one of the biggest grossing singles of all time.<br />
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Go Bonnie.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-8190397357214310252013-05-16T14:59:00.001+00:002013-05-16T18:05:19.307+00:00Foundations<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3PSfPd39b5c/UZTwVoSdFqI/AAAAAAAAAcs/GuLL2lCN4NM/s1600/Foundations+Image.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3PSfPd39b5c/UZTwVoSdFqI/AAAAAAAAAcs/GuLL2lCN4NM/s320/Foundations+Image.jpg" /></a><br />
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Daughter Kirsty's new single 'Foundations' has just been released. It was recorded and mastered in his Cookham Studio by legendary producer Stuart Epps (Elton John, Robbie Williams, George Harrison, Bill Wyman, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Paul Rodgers, Mark Owen, Barry White, Kiki Dee, Paul Weller, Oasis, Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Twisted Sister etc.). He's done a good job and so has she; I think you'll like it.<br />
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You can listen to the song on <a href="http://www.stuartepps.co.uk/newartistsolo.htm">Stuart Epp's website</a>. Turn up the volume and enjoy.<br />
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Available on Amazon <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Foundations/dp/B00CSY2AQS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368715216&sr=8-2&keywords=kirsty+macleod">here</a> for a paltry 69p, and it should be on iTunes in the next few days.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-4620017688673063832013-05-12T11:18:00.000+00:002013-05-12T11:18:23.731+00:00Julian WilliamsIn an OCD sort of way I've been cataloguing the various pictures I've bought over the years. In the attic I dug out a small roll of pencil sketches of ballet dancers I bought from an art student in Covent Garden Market in the 1980s. I fell for them at the time, but somehow never got round to doing anything with them, and they've suffered a bit in the meantime, which makes me a bit of an iconclast, I suppose.<br />
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I asked the artist for his name when I bought them. He replied that he didn't sign his sketches, so I explained that I wasn't expecting that, but wanted to remember who had drawn them. He wrote his name and address on the back of one of the sheets. <br />
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Recently the internet enabled me to track him down. His name is Julian Williams. When I met him he was studying at the Sir John Cass Art School in London. He now lives in the rather splendid Lampeter House in Pembrokeshire, where he runs a publishing company, <a href="http://www.twobadmice.com/">‘Two Bad Mice’</a> and with his wife Mami hosts operatic concerts in the grounds each year.<br />
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I was right to buy those sketches; he draws beautifully. This is one of many sketches he did this week on a short break in Venice. It is a family of French tourists he saw in a square; I hope he won’t mind me posting it.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EgXNiGKq_GA/UY95QL-maII/AAAAAAAAAcY/TSjF1OjHIpA/s1600/Juilan+Williams.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EgXNiGKq_GA/UY95QL-maII/AAAAAAAAAcY/TSjF1OjHIpA/s320/Juilan+Williams.jpg" /></a><br />
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I particularly like a series of drawings and story he did last year, called ‘The Mouse Olympics’, which you can visit <a href="http://mouseolympics2012.blogspot.co.uk/">here</a>. It deserves to be published, so if anyone reading this agrees and knows the right sort of publisher…<br />
Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-23145821715622516982013-05-09T12:08:00.002+00:002013-05-09T13:24:12.567+00:00BrokenheartedNew video of daughter Kirsty's song, 'Brokenhearted' just completed. This was filmed and produced by the talented writer, director and cinematographer James Crow, who wrote the screenplay for the 2012 film 'GBH' set in the London riots of 2011, which starred Nick Nevern, Kellie Shirley and Steven Berkoff amongst others.<br />
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This song reached the semi-final of the 2012 UK Songwriting Contest.<br />
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<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/65776262" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/65776262">Kirsty MacLeod - We'll Be Broken Hearted Again (Music Video)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user1367549">James Crow</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p><br />
Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-14000500678953347292013-05-09T11:03:00.000+00:002013-05-09T11:05:44.414+00:00Litigious doors<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ni_exzTFfxY/UYuBuelqQQI/AAAAAAAAAb4/zeWZH9URX1A/s1600/Doors+2013.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ni_exzTFfxY/UYuBuelqQQI/AAAAAAAAAb4/zeWZH9URX1A/s320/Doors+2013.png" /></a><br />
Our nice postman Andy delivered a Royal Mail flyer yesterday, advising us that our local delivery office is relocating. The small print at the bottom states, ‘Royal Mail, the Cruciform and the colour red are registered trade marks of Royal Mail Group Ltd.’<br />
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Apparently the colour red (viz. Pantone 485) has been a registered trademark of Royal Mail for some years; I’m just slow on the uptake. Bagging a colour as a trademark seems a bit unreasonable, particularly when the colour (or more precisely, Pantone 485) also features on umpteen other logos, including General Electric, Ray Ban, Vodaphone, 3M, Prudential, Toyota, Hyundai, Mobil and Transport for London, not to mention the Red Cross, the Scottish Premier League and the flags of Germany, Canada, Spain, Bolivia and England. Switzerland is another, which also happens to employ the cruciform. Presumably the Swiss postal service would be in big trouble now, if it hadn’t plumped for Veuve Clicquot yellow instead.<br />
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Registering colours has become a bit of a trend. Cadburys own purple (Pantone 2685C), BP green, the AA mustard yellow, T-Mobile magenta, UPS brown, Tiffany Cambridge blue – and so on. They belong to a family of unconventional trademarks which include sounds and smells (if the Royal Mail were to choose a smell characteristic of its service, it should probably be that of poo. I say that as one who has just had to pay it £8 to collect a £2 customs fee on an imported CD).<br />
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Where has the Delivery Office moved to? Maidstone’s Spectrum Business Estate. Presumably it was short of red. Meanwhile, I wonder if I ought to repaint some of our doors to avoid litigation with Royal Mail, John Deere, Caterpillar and Viagra?Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-52535730149244286792012-05-18T10:58:00.001+00:002012-05-18T10:58:41.491+00:00Tea-Related Injuries<a href="http://curlewsinthegoyt.blogspot.co.uk/">Curlews in the Goyt </a>has reported that he missed his footing on the stairs last night and wound up in a heap at the bottom covered in tea (he was, he said, totally sober). I feel that he is not alone.<br />
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A report from the Department of Trade and Industry some years ago found that activities like serving tea or walking down a corridor cause great problems to the British. It advised that tea cosies incorrectly lifted off the pot or dropped on the floor are responsible for around 40 emergency hospital treatments a year, and that cosy accidents have doubled in recent years. However, a spokesman for the Association of British Insurers advised that you would need to have to have a major injury in order to make a claim. Dropping a tea cosy on your foot would not usually count, unless it had a teapot in it.<br />
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A more recent report in the Telegraph warned that a survey had shown that more than half of all Britons have been injured by biscuits. Hidden dangers included flying fragments, being scalded while dunking, poking oneself in the eye or falling off a chair whilst stretching for the tin. One unfortunate ended up stuck in wet concrete after reaching to pick up a fallen biscuit. For information, custard creams are the greatest hazard, whilst jaffa cakes are the safest – although, as Mr Potter QC ruled in a 1981 court case, for VAT purposes jaffa cakes are in fact cakes, not biscuits.<br />
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Of course tea-related accidents are only the tip of the iceberg. Clogs carelessly left on stairs cause a number accidents each year, closely followed by place mats, dustpans and bread bins. I imagine that abandoned clogs are a regular northern hazard, but place mats and bread bins on the stairs? Has the recession meant that people have used their tables for fuel?<br />
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Apparently the number of people who concussed themselves by running into a tree trunk has risen to almost 2,000 a year. I need to find out where that tree is and avoid it.<br />
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The report stated that almost 6,000 people sprained, twisted or broke a limb attempting to zip up their flies. I have heard of fly-related accidents, but never one that involved limbs in the strictest interpretation of the term. What’s going on? Similarly, people are advised not to remove tights while drunk. I recall a number of occasions in my misspent youth when I attempted to remove tights when drunk, with varying degrees of success, but I must have been lucky.<br />
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Certainly there is a need to be alert, because danger lurks in unlikely objects. Glossy magazines cause more accidents than chainsaws, and beanbags more than meat cleavers. However, health and safety advice must have been getting through, because sponge and loofah accidents and armchair-related injuries were both in decline.<br />
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Time for a cuppa, I think. I’ll don my helmet and goggles.<br />Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-90207787015594659572012-05-10T10:43:00.000+00:002013-04-16T16:11:58.678+00:00Bloody MaidstoneThe bloody shops are full of bling,<br />
While bloody hoodies do their thing<br />
Outside bloody Burger King,<br />
In bloody Maidstone.<br />
<br />
Bloody rain, no bloody sun,<br />
Bloody crowds no bloody fun,<br />
I wish I had a bloody gun,<br />
In bloody Maidstone.<br />
<br />
Traffic’s seized up, can’t turn right,<br />
One way system’s bloody shite,<br />
Parking’s just a bloody fright,<br />
In bloody Maidstone.<br />
<br />
Bloody mall is full of druggies,<br />
Teenage girls with bloody buggies<br />
Pushing kids in stolen huggies,<br />
In bloody Maidstone.<br />
<br />
Bloody schoolkids by the doorfull,<br />
Their bloody manners bloody awful.<br />
It makes you wonder why they’re lawful,<br />
In bloody Maidstone.<br />
<br />
Don’t even go there bloody nights;<br />
It’s full of chavs as high as kites,<br />
Staining walls and starting fights,<br />
In bloody Maidstone.<br />
<br />
Its celebrities are ‘B’ list benders;<br />
Except for ‘Barry’ from East Enders<br />
And Mckenzie Crook, they’re all horrendous,<br />
In bloody Maidstone.<br />
<br />
So what’s the county’s fairest city?<br />
Is it Maidstone? Is it titty!<br />
Only the irony is witty,<br />
In bloody Maidstone.<br />
<br />
BT<br />
<br />
(With acknowledgements to Capt. Hamish Blair for ‘Bloody Orkney’ and John Cooper Clarke for ‘Chickentown’)Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-27652225035923706242012-05-01T11:39:00.001+00:002012-05-01T11:40:49.669+00:00Girl in the MirrorHot on the heels of daughter Kirsty's headlining at the Brussels Folk Club, someone's posted this video of her performing at Maidstone's Hazlitt Theatre last year, with a song she'd just written.<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EL8VNMnENlI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-57603091928080747442012-05-01T11:31:00.000+00:002012-05-01T11:31:49.923+00:00The Summer of the Bear - Bella PollenWhen a diplomat dies in sinister circumstances his widow instinctively escapes to her spiritual home in the Outer Hebrides, along with her confused and reluctant children. As each tries in their own way to come to terms with what has happened, the family seems to be unravelling, but an escaped bear, government development proposals and the support of a distinctive island community provide the clues which allow the family to uncover the truth.<br />
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Drawing on her clear love of the Highlands and familiarity with its communities, Bella Pollen has taken the unlikeliest of ingredients, woven them on an island hand loom, and produced a fey blend of mystery, international intrigue and Hebridean magic which is at once gripping and enchanting. That some of the strangest elements of the story are drawn from actual events only increases the sense of wonder.<br />
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Impossible to categorise, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book which leaves the reader curiously enriched.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-68672911307728959752011-09-05T09:05:00.008+00:002011-09-05T10:12:14.851+00:00FrapeIronically, last night we watched ‘The Social Network’ on DVD. Ironically because, just before signing off at midnight, I visited Facebook and discovered a thoughtless but no doubt well-meaning third party had set up a community page on Facebook, without our knowledge or consent. The page, under the title of our family name (as in ‘The Smiths’, but not that), included a detailed map showing the location of our house. There was provision for the creator or unconnected third parties to add further information, such our telephone number, but not to alter the title or amend or remove the map.
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<br />This was worrying, because links to the page appeared on posts on the family’s (and other) FB pages, which also gave details of my daughter’s gigs. Effectively they said, ‘This is where we live, and this is when we’ll be out”. In the case of a burglary, it would have been enough to invalidate our contents insurance. As she is a young, female performer, we have also made efforts to ensure that information useful to stalkers was not readily in the public domain.
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<br />With advertised gigs coming up, I wanted to get rid of it pronto. However, getting the page removed appeared almost impossible. Facebook supply no means of direct contact, address or telephone number. The only option was to click ‘Report’, which led to a series of tick boxes, none of which were appropriate. I ticked the ‘Not a public place’ option as the closest, but a disclaimer made clear that, while FB would consider the report, they was no guarantee that the page would be taken down. I guessed it would take many reports to trigger a response.
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<br />Eventually I found I could claim ownership of the page, which allowed me first to change the address to a local government office in Edinburgh and make the page only available to Facebookers in Slovenia (in case, as rumour has it, even deleted accounts remain dormant), and then to delete it. There are signs that in so doing I may have also deleted the personal FB account of the person who originally posted the page, which is embarrassing but, frankly, tough luck.
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<br />I’d like to pretend that I achieved this through 1970s computer savvy and hours of machine code hacking, but no. Invited to suggest a contact for the owner of the page I gave my own email. The auto-response email from FB provided me full access.
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<br />Apart from the invasive facility to set up FB pages in other people’s names and reveal sensitive information about them, this exposes a laxity in Facebook’s access protocols which takes one breath away. Apparently an unconnected individual can take control of a community page and alter or delete information in it, without any evaluation or consent by either the original owner or Facebook.
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<br />Caveat redemptor.Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8862867585493792315.post-35176435321972570942011-05-19T08:43:00.003+00:002011-05-19T08:54:27.479+00:00Playing for ChangeThis video is so mellow and so inspirational, it brought a lump to my throat.<br /><br /><a href="http://playingforchange.com/episodes/46/?utm_medium=Email">Playing For Change | Three Little Birds</a>Brother Tobiashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14298549883526952305noreply@blogger.com1