a game of inches

Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	B Pts	Pts	Adjust
Old Rutlishians U13	5	4	0	1	167	70	97	4	25	0
Reeds Weybridge U13s	4	4	0	0	136	36	100	4	24	0
Effingham & Leatherhead U13s	4	3	0	1	114	67	47	3	19	0
Guildfordians U13	3	2	0	1	95	32	63	2	13	0
Old Reigatian U13	4	1	0	3	63	125	-62	1	8	-1
Sutton & Epsom U13 A	5	1	0	4	59	186	-127	1	8	-2
Camberley U13	2	1	0	1	41	22	19	1	7	0
Haslemere U13	5	0	0	5	45	182	-137	1	6	0

The Bomber was too tired to play on the weekend after a twenty odd hour coach trip but the boys came through scoring eight tries to beat Old Reigatians 46-15 in a remarkable come back from being ten nil down in the first five minutes. The other try conceded came when Saadiq had been sin binned (for persistent off-side rather than skulduggery) so it was quite a comfortable win in the end.

The Ruts are now one point clear of Reeds Weybridge (who have a game in hand) the team they are due to meet on Sunday in a match that may ultimately decide the league. We are unlikely to see a nil-nil draw between two side who have both scored an average of thirty odd points per game in this season's fixtures.

(The Bomber has a home game for the school in round two of the County Cup at quarter past four today, so I am going to try and sneak off from work an hour early to catch it.)

The Legend Continues Continued

We fell down to third in the quiz last week after four wins in a row, so shoulders back to the wheel and noses once more to the grindstone tonight, and on our own dollar with no prize money to fund brain cell lubricants.

If we have to learn all 763 new jokes from the limited edition of Anchorman 2 for the film round, we may never win it again.

You sir, are a Glass Hole

I went to see the Spike Jonze movie 'her' yesterday. Scarlet Johansson's performance as Samantha, the lively operating system that so enchants Joaquin Phoenix's character, is delightful. When you consider that she doesn't appear and seduces us with her voice alone it is amazing to think that she also has a career sideline murdering Tom Waits' songs in a dreary monotone.

As the remorseless encroachment of technology into every nook and cranny of our lives continues (how far away can the Samantha singularity be?) Google have issued some guidance on how to use their upcoming Glass product with effortless panache and impeccable good manners:

If you’re worried about someone interrupting that romantic dinner at a nice restaurant with a question about Glass, just take it off and put it around the back of your neck or in your bag.

Put it around the back of your neck? Where no one will notice it! At a romantic dinner, you river boat gambler. I don't think we need to update Cary Grant on Style just yet.

Frank and Cary's Google Glasses are hidden round the back of their necks

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

“One is Evil – It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

"The other is Good – It is courage, joy, trust, love, hope, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed."

Ever since I woke up this morning I have been hearing Eddie Butler's voice inside my head telling the story above as if it explains Wales' stunning victory over France last night after the nightmare in Dublin. My subconscious is as wise as an old Cherokee.

It is difficult to argue with Gethin Jenkins' man of the match award, though in my heart I think the honour should have gone not so much to Jake Ball, though he did have a stormer, as to his magnificent beard.

I'm off to pick the Bomber up shortly as he should be arriving back from skiing in Austria. He's picked for the Reigatians' game tomorrow.

I think I might have to change before the England Ireland game at four this afternoon. I put my Kitty O'Shea half Welsh/ half Irish jersey on this morning before I realised that the best result for Wales will be a narrow England win in an ill tempered boring game in which they get a couple of injuries and perhaps a player sent off.

Kirk out.

The Mighty WWA

He is long and neat, about 6ft 2in, and is wearing a bespoke two–piece suit in brown-and– tan herringbone tweed, and his initials, WWA (the second W stands for Wales), are stitched on his shirt pocket. When he talks, he takes a few runs at each sentence, improving it in his mind. The room, the clothes, the anecdotes – the entire scene, in fact – is beautiful in such a perfectly Andersonian way that I feel I have to tell him so.

I read in a Torygraph interview yesterday, that Wes Anderson (may his tribe increase) glories in the middle name Wales.

I am taking it as a good omen for the French game tonight.

The Decay Of Lying

The diagram which accompanied Google's patent for the throat tattoo

Motorola has filed a patent for a throat tattoo which not only blocks out background noise in a bid to make telephone conversations in crowded restaurants easier, but also flashes when it thinks you are lying.

According to the patent filed in the US by Motorola, who were owned by Google at the time, the tattoo could solve the problem of strained telephone conversations in “large stadiums, busy streets, restaurants and emergency situations”.

“Communication can reasonably be improved and even enhanced with a method and system for reducing the acoustic noise in such environments and contexts”, the patent reads.

The unnamed device would serve as an “auxiliary voice input to a mobile communication device”; essentially a noise-cancelling microphone for your mobile phone which you stick on your neck.

But the tattoo’s creators also envisage it could have lie-detecting capabilities.
Equipped with a display that lights up under certain conditions, “the electronic skin tattoo can further include a galvanic skin response detector to detect skin resistance of a user.”

The patent continues: “It is contemplated that a user may be nervous or engaging in speaking falsehoods may exhibit different galvanic skin response than a more confident, truth telling individual.”

Although the device has merely been filed as a patent, meaning it may never be tested or produced, its designers imagine its use would extend beyond humans.

“Here it is contemplated that the electronic tattoo can also be applied to an animal as well”, the patent says.

“Audio circuitry can also include a microphone for emitting sound corresponding to fluctuations of muscle or tissue in the throat.”

Dr. Strabismus (Whom God Preserve) of Utrecht is carrying out research work with a view to crossing salmon with mosquitoes. He says it will mean a bite every time for fishermen.

Team News

1. Here’s the Wales team to play France on Friday at the Millennium Stadium.

Starting lineup:
Leigh Halfpenny, Alex Cuthbert, George North, Jamie Roberts, Liam Williams, Rhys Priestland, Rhys Webb,Gethin Jenkins, Richard Hibbard, Adam Jones, Luke Charteris, Alun Wyn Jones, Dan Lydiate, Sam Warburton(C), Taulupe Faletau

Replacements:
Ken Owens, Paul James, Rhodri Jones, Jake Ball, Justin Tipuric, Mike Phillips, Dan Biggar, James Hook

Rhys Webb starts with Mike Phillips on the bench, and George North moved to the centre.

2. Here’s the Old Ruts U13A squad to play Old Reigatians on Sunday at Poplar Road.

Zac Rabanal, Daniel Binks, Saadiq Theophilus, Pablo Santiago-Davies, Joseph Muldoon, Bill Eustace, Joe Bennett, Tom Dolan, Wes Poku, Billy Abbott, Charlie Julian, Daniel Young-McHugh, Sid Daniels, Jonnie Hendrie, Silas Bobb, Jonah Harrison, Ben Browne, Sam Barker

The Ruts haven't played a league game since before Christmas due to the terrible weather and, in that time, Reeds Weybridge have usurped them at the top of the table. A win on Sunday will bring the Ruts level on points with Reeds, and a win with a bonus point will put them one clear though Reeds will have a game in hand. Then, on Sunday March 2, the Ruts travel to Reeds for what could well be a season defining showdown. No pressure then #squeakybottomtime.

Yoga

X-ray Body in Motion - Yoga from hybrid medical animation on Vimeo.

Myself: You like this?
Prodnose: It's very nice. It looks like hollow wood.
Myself: This is my exact inner structure, done in a tee shirt. Exactly medically accurate. See?
Prodnose: So in other words if we were to take all your flesh and blood...
Myself: Take them off. This is what you'd see.
Prodnose: It wouldn't be green though.
Myself: It is green. You see how your blood looks blue.
Prodnose: Yeah, well that's just the vein. That's the color of the vein. The blood is actually red.

I went to yoga twice last weekend. I generally just go Saturday morning, but there aren't all that many days in February and I have to use the five sessions a month for which I am signed up. That's four and a half years I've been knocking out the asanas now. If you are still reading here you have a remarkably high tolerance for tedious drivel.

head in the clouds

I'm on record (see BuyCons passim) as thinking that Amazon Web Services was a great idea from the moment I heard of its release as a limited beta.

Shares in Amazon on 25 August 2006, when I first picked up on Web Services were trading at 28.03. Today they are 357.35.

I know you can do the maths as well as anyone else, but if I had followed my nose with a punt of a grand back then, I would have twelve thousand seven hundred and fifty quid today.

Knees Up Territory

I am back in London after a successful trip to Wales and back, so I am celebrating with John Coltrane's version of Chim Chim Cheree. It was the follow up to A Love Supreme apparently, which seems very odd, but wonderfully so.



What do we think? Is it more evocative of a Sunday evening in SW19 than the Dick Van Dyke version?

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!

I am going to head off down the M4 to Cardiff later this afternoon. The photo above is from the BBC and of the street where my sister lives.

You can see the current Severn Bridge status at http://www.severnbridge.co.uk/bridge_status.shtml. Fingers crossed it stays open.

I don't really get many chances to get to the home town in the rugby season as I am generally involved (at least in theory so far in 2014) with the Bomber playing or training on Sunday mornings and the logistics of that tend to  rule a weekend trip to Wales out. He left for skiing with the school yesterday and will be in Austria tomorrow though, so I have to strike while the iron is hot.

I wonder how his party got on on the ferry last night? Chiggers and Over You by Seasick Steve may well have been on the soundtrack.

Cupid's lament

Happy Valentine's Day

the 'nonce no more

Asbestos-hit Provenance pub in Colliers Wood closes down after less than a year in business
3:00pm Tuesday 11th February 2014 in News By Louisa Clarence-Smith

The Provenance pub in Colliers Wood is closing less than a year after it opened. 

Antic Pubs took over the High Street pub last May but said owner, Punch Taverns, is selling the property after asbestos, broken glass, fencing and detergents were found in the garden.

Damian McFadden, a fund manager who lives close to the pub, said: "The local community is just starting to gather a bit of steam so it is sad to see the pub closing."

Peter Lord, Colliers Wood resident and Conservative candidate for the ward, said: "I'm a bit shocked at what's happening. I think residents should have a say on it. I would absolutely support a campaign to keep our local pub."

Antic would not say when the pub was closing or how many staff will lose their jobs.

That is a pity. See Icons Passim for a more optimistic time .....

It isn't by chance I happen to be,

A Collierdier, a Wood for the tree-er.

For over the noise, the talk and the smoke,

I'm good for a laugh, a drink or a joke

I walk in a room, a party or ball,

"Come sit over here" somebody will call.

"A drink for M'sieur, a drink for us all!

But how many times I stop and recall.

Ah, the apple trees,

Blossoms in the breeze,

That we walked among,

Lying in the hay,

Games we used to play,

While the rounds were sung,

Only yesterday, when the world was young.

Modeste Strenue Sancte

As if to rebuke yesterday's pessimism, year 8 managed to get a game in yesterday, beating The Harrodian School 43-0, with a rampant Bomber getting three tries.

The weekend the wheels came off

Last weekend Ireland beat Wales 26-3, Swansea City beat Cardiff City 3-0, and Liverpool beat Arsenal 5-1.

The Bomber's league game was cancelled yet again, but Reeds Weybridge's wasn't and they have now gone top of the table, displacing the Ruts who had been there since the beginning of the season. The Ruts/Reeds showdown is scheduled for March 2.

Of their rearranged games one is Sunday week, which will be dubious for the Bomber as he gets back from skiing Saturday after a twenty hour coach trip, and the other is set for early April when he will be playing in Italy with the school. Rugby inconvenience, but not such a bad lifestyle when you put it like that eh?

Badass in socks and sandals

I watched Rurouni Kenshin last night. It's a live action movie based on a famous manga. Think Shane set in the Japan of the Meiji restoration.

Wielding a sakabatō (a sword that has the cutting edge on the side that curves in, rendering it incapable of inflicting a slashing wound) Kenshin wanders the countryside offering protection and aid to those in need, as atonement for the murders he once committed as an assassin.

Could anything be more up my street? I missed it if it got a theatrical release over here, but it must have set the tills ringing somewhere as they filmed two sequels (now in post-production) at the same time à la 'Back to the Future'.

The LGBTQIA+ Monologues

Sat 5 April
7.45pm
St Joseph's Hall
Ever wondered what all of those letters [and symbol] mean?? The LGBTQIA+ Monologues is a celebration and explanation of each letter and symbol] which make up the identities LGBTQIA+. Featuring monologues from 12 acclaimed writers including National Theatre of Wales's Kelly Jones (Dating George Orwell, The Drowned Girl) and Royal Shakespeare Company and Central School alumni Rohan MacCallum. The show of 5 cast members will be funny, unexpected, informative, entertaining and empowering. Entry is by donation, suggested £5, at the door.

To be honest I had never found myself wondering what all those letters and symbol mean. Umm Lettuce-GSomething-Bacon-Tomato........?

A Google internet search doesn't explain the plus but does give me:

L - lesbian
G - gay
B - bisexual
T - trans*
Q - queer and/or questioning (sometimes written as QQ)
I - intersex (people born with genitals and/or chromosomes that do not conform to societal standards of male or female)
A - asexual/ace

At St Joseph's in Colliers Wood? Pope Francis must be moving faster than anyone ever imagined.

pigging out

The World's Best Hog Roast
05 February 2014: Tim Lewis

The perfect barbeque requires sweat, sleepless nights and a lot of love. In the Deep South of the US, pit legend Rodney Scott hosts a masterclass. And the world's top chefs take note

Standing at a grill, wearing sawn-off denim shorts and wraparound shades, Albert Adrià peers intently at a row of sizzling avocados.

For his day job, Adrià is a chef and, by popular consensus, a genius: he’s the co-creator of elBulli in Spain, which is the most influential restaurant of the last two decades. But this afternoon, in a car park on Bowens Island in South Carolina, deep in the American South ......... read the whole thing.

There is very little that I wouldn't have given to have gone to Cook It Raw in 2013.

Harness the power of Swansea Bay

PRESS RELEASE 7 February 2014

TIDAL LAGOON POWER ANNOUNCES FIRST STEP TO SUPPLYING 10% OF THE UK’S DOMESTIC ELECTRICITY BY 2023

Tidal Lagoon Power Ltd (TLP) today took a major step towards realising one of the UK’s most game-changing infrastructure projects: the world’s first tidal lagoon power plant.

After three years of feasibility work and impact assessments, TLP submitted its application1– which runs to 5000 pages – for a Development Consent Order (DCO) under the Planning Act 2008.

Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon would be the largest tidal power plant in the world. As a project of national significance, the application, which has been developed through extensive consultation in Swansea Bay, will now be reviewed by the Planning Inspectorate before public examination, and then determination by the Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change.

The project would see a 9.5 km long sea wall built to capture enough renewable energy from incoming and outgoing tides to power over 120,000 homes for 120 years. It aims to source at least 65% of content in the UK, kick-starting a new manufacturing industry and future export market.

Well I never, that's ambitious. To think I spent three years just around the corner in Uni. I wonder what the local reaction is?

 ...... the kilowatts we need are everywhere all around us.......

monstre sacré

His work had been called “peculiar,” his thoughts “tiresome,” and his writing “turgid” and “ambiguous.” Nothing could have pleased him more.

This was not the last time that this bilious, foul-mouthed, poker-playing English historian and fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, would publicly give thanks for a negative review. Cowling delighted in academic brawling. He was a proponent of what he called “reactionary bloodiness” who encouraged his students to be “vile” towards their intellectual opponents and his intellectual allies to employ “irony, geniality, and malice as solvents of enthusiasm, virtue, and elevation.”

He insisted that the only people who understood his work were those who not only disagreed with but were offended by it, and he was always disappointed when criticism, whether of himself or his confederates, fell short of this bizarre standard.

And again:

Here, in his filthy rooms, amid empty whiskey bottles and yesterday’s plates, Mills & Boon erotica, and pages torn from obscure volumes of ecclesiastical history, he would meet his students for tutorials, often while wearing an ancient green dressing gown over his suit. Although it has been said that if he found an essay particularly unsatisfactory he would throw it off the roof with a shout of “BALLS!”, he appears to have been a kind, sympathetic teacher more interested in spurring on minds than cloning young-fogey Francoists. In fact, the only thing he really seems to have discouraged tutees from doing was joining the Cambridge University Conservative Association.

I'd never heard of Maurice Cowling before I read this. "Now when the Reverend Mr. Playfair, good man that he is, comes down, I want ya's all to cheer like Protestants," pretty much covers my reaction.

vandalism, drug-taking and drunkenness

Abbeyfest sheds jazz nights in Merton Abbey Mills following anti-social behaviour

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

See icons passim.

touch wood

We won the quiz at the Antelope last night for the third consecutive time, and also with half an eye on the telly watching Chelsea beat Man City to leave Arsenal top of the table.

It's not winning it five times in a row (Icons passim) but still a fine free night out; last week's winnings covering the bar bill.

Time for a new Quiz label here.

The 12th Man

Wilson didn't try to do anything special on Sunday night.
He just let it happen.

I don't, as a rule, pay a great deal of attention to the Super Bowl, but when I heard on the radio this morning that the Seattle Seahawks had won it a memory stirred.

See Icons Passim, as I always say. All the yoga, meditation and organic vegetables, I read about last September seem to have paid off.

Code of Conduct

Rutlish School policies aim to provide staff, pupils, parents and guardians with clear information with regards to the standards of behaviour. These policies enable us to work together safely and efficiently. We aim to promote a peaceful and productive environment. Consequently, certain rules are required to in order to perpetuate this environment, which can be broadly summarised under two headings: respect for others and respect for property. Anti-social, unpleasant and selfish behaviour are, naturally, unacceptable in all societies, as they are at Rutlish School. Furthermore, destructive behaviour such as bullying, stealing, or drug abuse are unacceptable and therefore never tolerated.Our policies are detailed in the Handbook for Parents, which are also sent to the parents of all new students. The most recent version can always be found here on the School's website. If you would like a replacement printed copy of the Handbook for Parents, please contact the Main Office.

This is my journal as well as a blog.

Rugby Round Up

The six nations kicks off again today with Wales playing Italy at 2:30 and the English away to France after that.

Training for the Bomber is cancelled tomorrow due to waterlogged pitches, and he hasn't played at all so far this year. The couple of games I previewed on these pages in January were called off.

In a rare game that did go ahead, Reeds Weybridge U13s edged out Effingham & Leatherhead U13s 24 to 12. That is good news for the Ruts, who got beaten by Effingham and L, as it means their fate is back in their own hands, and they can still win the league if they don't slip up again. The Effingham Letherhead Ruts show down is due the first weekend in March.

While we are on the subject of the Ruts, have a look at this Telegraph article about Stacia Long's coaching miracles. She looks after the U15s.

Sex Reverses Cognitive Decline of Aging. At Least in Rats.

1. Dear Advertisers, I am disgusted with the way old people are depicted on television. We are not all vibrant, fun loving sex maniacs. Many of us are bitter, resentful individuals who remember the good old days when entertainment was bland and inoffensive. The following is a list of words I never want to hear on television again. Number one: bra. Number two: horny. Number three: family jewels.

2. Aging is associated with compromised hippocampal function and reduced adult neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus. As new neurons have been linked to hippocampal functions, such as cognition, age-related decline in new neuron formation may contribute to impaired hippocampal function. We investigated whether a rewarding experience known to stimulate neurogenesis in young adult rats, namely sexual experience, would restore new neuron production and hippocampal function in middle-aged rats. Sexual experience enhanced the number of newly generated neurons in the dentate gyrus with both single and repeated exposures in middle-aged rats. Following continuous long-term exposure to sexual experience, cognitive function was improved. However, when a prolonged withdrawal period was introduced between the final mating experience and behavioral testing, the improvements in cognitive function were lost despite the presence of more new neurons. Taken together, these results suggest that repeated sexual experience can stimulate adult neurogenesis and restore cognitive function in the middle-aged rat as long as the experience persists throughout the testing period. The extent to which changes in adult neurogenesis underlie those in cognition remain unknown.

bounded in a nutshell

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

I'm not the only one who has been brought up short by this "infinite space" quote.

Decisions, decisions

Do I want hand bag wine boxes or a motor unicycle?

No, I want hand bag wine boxes and a motor unicycle.

Sir Nicholas Browne

Telegraph

Sir Nicholas Browne, who has died aged 66, made his mark as a diplomat in the difficult arena of Iran, where he served twice as chargé d’affaires, then as Ambassador (from 1999 to 2002); he was also the author of a highly influential internal report investigating why Britain had failed to anticipate the fall of the Shah in 1979.

A distinguished namesake to add to the author of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Trilogy (Cambridge Film Handbooks).

We're homonymous.

The Internet of Things

I'm very far from sure I would want my fridge gossiping about me to my washing machine behind my back. I know this because I would like to eavesdrop on other peoples' fridges gossiping about them with their washing machines behind their backs.

Burns Night

Haggis, tatties and 'neeps last night. Once a year is enough I feel.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.

Older than God

Gedion Zelalem turned out for Arsenal last night as they beat Coventry last night in the FA Cup. His birth-date of Jan 26, 1997, means that he is the first Arsenal player born after Wenger took over as manager on Sept 30, 1996.

I was already 35 then. Old enough to be his grandfather with a bit of initiative.

Glass Cages

When I was in University I would read anything at all when I was in the library as long as it was nothing to do with the Chemical Engineering I was ostensibly studying. That must be how I came, in those days, religiously to read Taki's column in The Spectator.

Not only is it still running apparently, all these years later, but Charles Saatchi has taken umbrage at some comment or other in it about that unpleasant business of his break up with Nigella Lawson, and written to the Spectacularlyboring as follows:

Dear Ms Taki: Although The Spectator is a lovely read, I always skip your column, I’m afraid. I am simply not interested in your social life. I know that you delight in telling readers that your friends of Prussian nobility find you hilariously entertaining company at their swanky Europoncy parties.

But it was very hapless of you to spring to Nigella’s defence last week (High life, 18 January), as she always found you toe-curlingly vile, and would have been aghast at having you as her valiant supporter.

People tell me that in your unreadable column you also like to brag that you are a Black Belt at karate. Well, me too, old boy. But apparently your ‘fights’ are genteel affairs, against other soppy geriatrics rolling around the floor in crisp white outfits, in some bit of Judo Kai nonsense. Mine take place in cages, 20 feet square, unofficial little events with no gloves, no rules, and the loser being carried out, usually battered to bits. You will understand why I laughed out loud at your schoolyard boast that I should try throttling a real hard case like you.

Charles Saatchi London SW3

Taki has replied.

I am 77 years old, 5ft 9in, and weigh 185lbs. I am willing to face him any time under cage-fighting non-rules, which will be a first for me. I need three days’ notice.

I await developments with interest.

While we are on the subject of MMA, ahead of the UFC Fight Night in London early in March, I was watching the video below in which James Haskell met up with Jimi 'The poster boy' Manuwa who will be headlining at that event. Four minutes and thirty seconds in James (of Wasps and England) and Jimi (the fighter) do some of the hot yoga that is part of Manuwa's training. That is right, hot yoga like what I do once a week. Maybe I can fight the winner of Saatchi versus Taki?

boot to desktop in Windows 8.1

From the Start Screen, click the Desktop tile to enter Desktop mode.

Right-click any open area in the taskbar, then click Properties.

Click the Navigation tab, then check the box next to Go to the desktop instead of Start when I sign in.

Click OK, then reboot.

You need to know this, trust me.

first as tragedy then as farce

The Sunday Telegraph's Merger of Palace staff is latest step on Prince of Wales's journey to kingship and the Buckingham Palace reshuffles key personnel in 'first step to bringing Prince Charles to the throne' in the Mail on the same day are about the unification of the Monarchy's press operations. I wonder where we will end up as that shakes down? Prognosis not good, I imagine.

We've also probably worked with the Police enough over the years to watch Danny Boyle's Babylon, Sunday 9th February on Channel 4 with a degree of discrimination, as the London's Metropolitan police come to terms with Liz Garvey – an American visionary from the world of new media, parachuted in to revolutionise a PR department struggling to keep up in an age of rolling news, smart phones and a news-breaking, information-hungry public.

Interesting Facts about the Sun

We are back on top of the Antelope quiz with a £50 bar tab for next week.

Victory clinched in a tie breaker by yours truly, confirming that the sun is mostly comprised of hydrogen.

Order is restored to the universe.

I can't see any pattern either

I have just finished reading Damian McBride's Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin and started Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove.

The Railway Man

I went to see a movie called The Railway Man yesterday. It is the story of Eric Lomax, a former PoW who confronts his Japanese torturer. The film starts with an encounter on a train in 1980.

One of the first jobs I ever had was a summer holiday spent in Barclays Bank in Caerphilly checking the takings from Carrefour, one of the first hyper markets in the UK. It was probably around 1980.

I remember one of the women who worked there saying that her father had been a Japanese prisoner in World War II, and would still sometimes wake up screaming and try to climb out of the bedroom window. Just like scenes in the film that I may otherwise have found far fetched.

Burning Chrome

Summary: This week's Google Chrome update added some significant new features to its Windows 8 mode, effectively turning the browser into a stripped-down version of Chrome OS, with its own taskbar and window-management tools. But who's it for, really?

Not me if this morning's experience is anything to go by.

Honey & Co

Clients took us out to lunch yesterday, which made a pleasant change. They took us to Honey & Co. Reading Grace Dent's glowing review before we went it, I noted it serves up "Israeli food sprinkled with the homespun kitchen wisdom of its Algerian, Moroccan and Iraqi Jewish cooks."

As if by magic, Eat Your Way Around the World in London, is rebooted with Israel finally ticked off the list.

Fans for the memory

Some time ago, we shut off our last physical server, having moved everything to the Amazon cloud.

Now that  I am using a Surface Pro 2 as my main machine, plugging it into a docking station when I am at work, there are now no conventional desktops running either.

So, for the first time in I don't know how many years, there isn't a single cooling fan humming in the background as I work.

I should get rid of all the junk and chill in this new Zen workspace.

According "to the legend"

If Wikipedia is to be believed, the current line up of the Puppetmastaz is:

• Mr. Maloke: band leader, mole puppet
• Tango Troublemaker: producer, rapper, blue bird puppet
• Panic, the Pig: rapper, pig puppet
• Snuggles the Bunny: rapper, rabbit puppet
• Wizard The Lizard: rapper, lizard puppet
• Ducci Prosetti: rapper/Producer, dragon puppet
• HipHopNotist: rapper, gecko puppet
• Frogga: rapper, frog puppet
• Ricardo Prosetti: rapper/Producer, frog puppet
• Flix: rapper, bat puppet
• Turbid the Toad: frog puppet
• Ryno: rapper, rhino puppet
• Croucholina: toad puppet, dancer
• Croucho: toad puppet and brother of Croucholina
• Pit: Rapper, frog puppet
• Dino Prosetti: producer, fish puppet
• E-Wizz: Rapper, humanly puppet
• Midi Mighty Moe: DJ, fly puppet
• Big Eye: alien puppet
• Rita: reggae puppet
• Keil Pittler: demagogue puppet
• Bloke: clown puppet
• Lisa
• Buddha
• Richelieux
• Hammerhead Rapper, Shark puppet
• Dogga Dacoda
• Harold
• BumbleBee
• Squidrick A.K.A. Squidone: Rapper, octopus with hat
• Yobo: rapper and entertainer, twin brother of Star Wars' Yoda
• Peppino
• Orango-Thang

Sometimes, I just get a feeling I will like something even before I have heard it.

survival of the misfits

There being no quiz in the Antelope last night - Antic group annual staff party so the 'Nonce was closed as well - I took myself up town to the Soho Theatre to see Robert Newman's New Theory of Evolution.

I found it pretty disappointing to be honest, which serves me right for going along to have my prejudices polished.

I have a visceral loathing of tabloid-stupid genetic determinism which I see as a throwback to Herbert Spencer's loathsome social Darwinism, and so does Rob Newman.

It's just not very funny.

He is fighting the good fight though.

The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists.
G.K. Chesterton: Eugenics and Other Evils, 1922

Arise, take up your mat

I've been to yoga more than 250 times now. I subscribe to a five class a month programme at Bikram Wimbledon and, barring accidents, you will pretty much always fine me at the 8 a.m. Saturday class.

Having stumbled on this video of the England Rugby League team grunting through asanas, I have decided to post it here and create a new Yoga label for the blog that I can use - retrospectively - to thread together the thoughts that I have shared from the mat over the last few years.

the b*tches that we need are everywhere around us

Once today's club game is out of the way, Rutlish School Year 8 will travel to Roehampton to take on Ibstock Place School tomorrow.

According to Wikipedia, notables Ibstock Place alumni include:

• Natalie Abrahami
• Emily Blunt
• Princess Hamidah of Brunei
• Imogen Holst
• Frieda Hughes
• Nicholas Hughes
• Elizabeth Jagger
• Georgia May Jagger
• Nigella Lawson
• Iris Murdoch
• Emma Townshend
• Suki Waterhouse
• Beatie Wolfe
• Jesse Wood
• Leah Wood
• Nadhim Zahawi

All very interesting, but it doesn't look like much of a rugby heritage, if I'm not tempting fate.

the inches that we need are everywhere around us

U13 League 2
Team P W D L F A Diff B Pts Pts Adjust Old Rutlishians U13 4 3 0 1 121 55 66 3 19 0 Effingham & Leatherhead U13s 2 2 0 0 70 38 32 2 12 0 Sutton & Epsom U13 A 4 1 0 3 54 141 -87 1 8 -1 Guildfordians U13 2 1 0 1 55 32 23 1 7 0 Camberley U13 2 1 0 1 41 22 19 1 7 0 Old Reigatian U13 2 1 0 1 48 39 9 1 7 0 Reeds Weybridge U13s 1 1 0 0 27 19 8 1 6 0 Haslemere U13 3 0 0 3 40 110 -70 1 3 -1
Last Updated: Dec 30 2013 11:34AM

As you can see, the boys are still top of the table going into Sunday’s game despite losing last time out with a depleted team.

The Ruts are playing at home against Old Reigatians, who have only played two league games this season compared to our four.

They lost 34 – 14 to Effingham and Leatherhead (the team who beat us 36 – 24) and beat Sutton and Epsom (who we demolished 45 – 7) by 35 points to 5.

It looks like it will be a close game. On the positive side we have got all the A team squad available, but we haven’t been able to train or play since before Christmas because of the rain and floods.

tragedy plus time

1. Bob Mortimer questions Oxbridge bias in comedy

2. Cambridge University backlash at Duke of Cambridge's 'free pass' to study there.

Ho ho, very satirical.

Nine

Telegraph

Summly, the news summary app sold by British teenager Nick D'Aloisio to Yahoo! for $30m last year, is to be revamped.

The 17-year-old joined Yahoo! chief executive Marissa Mayer on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday to unveil Yahoo! News Digest.

The new app will give users news summaries twice a day. Each summary is comprised of nine stories, with each article constructed from multiple sources, which will feature tweets, videos and maps.

"Our goal with the Yahoo! News Digest is to make sure you're always in the know," said D'Aloisio, who is now a product manager at the tech giant.

The app will also record how many stories you have read that day, giving you a score out of nine.

It gives you nine stories, the app records how many you read and gives you "a score out of nine".

Brilliant! I wonder what algorithm is used to calculate the score?

Deckadance

Since the Bomber introduced me to FL Studio (Icons passim) I have also discovered its sister product Deckadance DJ software, and I am now as gangsta as it is possible for someone mixing Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb's Guilty with Abba's The Winner Takes It All to be.

In a similar vein, I have also come up with an idea for rebranding Sophie's coffee shop.

Myself: Word is Bond.

Prodnose: Word is Brooke Bond.

Better the Red Devils you know

I can't help but think that Manchester United would have been better off appointing me, rather than David Moyes, as manager because there would have been no night of the long knives for Sir Alex's tried and tested back room staff.

I would have called a meeting with Mike Phelan, Rene Meulensteen and the rest, and said "I'm not entirely clear on what you do but keep on doing it."

"Any problems, the door is always open. Otherwise I'll be in the governor's old office teaching myself card tricks from YouTube and trying to find if he has left any of his legendary wine collection behind."

I bet they'd be in the top four in Premiership and still in the FA Cup.

Windows need be no more than an archaic touch

Back in 1964, Isaac Asimov imagined the world, or more accurately the World's Fair, of 2014 - fifty years into the future.

Bridges will also be of less importance, since cars will be capable of crossing water on their jets, though local ordinances will discourage the practice.

I predict that in the world of 2064 we will not be able to laugh up our sleeves at announcements like that above; the government will mandate that we appear with bare arms so that drones can read the bar codes that have been tattooed onto our biceps. For our own good.

A description of an absence

Rory Stewart is an interesting man. 2014's chastened version makes some valuably modest observations in this interview from Friday's Grauniard.

Stewart came home when he realised that even the least-educated Afghan housewife in a mountain village knew more about the country than he did. Fluent in Dari, along with nine other languages, he'd thrown himself into the coalition mission with great conviction, but had to conclude that: "In the end, the basic problem is very, very simple. Why don't these interventions work? Because we are foreigners. If things are going wrong in a country, it's not usually that we don't have enough foreigners. It's usually that we have too many." 

Ten years ago he would have listed 10 things Afghanistan needed to build a new state: rule of law, financial administration, civil administration and so on. "And, then you would say, well, how do you do that? Well, I'd say, by a mapping of internal and external stakeholders, definition of critical tasks – all this jargon talk. And I've only now just begun to realise these words are nonsense words. I mean, they have no content at all. We should be ashamed to even use them." 

They are nothing more, Stewart now acknowledges, than tautologies. "They pretend to be a plan, but they're actually just a description of an absence. Saying 'What we need is security, and what we need to do is eliminate corruption' is just another way of saying: 'It's really dangerous and corrupt.' None of that actually tells you how it's done."

In some ways it's a companion piece to yesterday's evisceration of the thumb-on-the-till merchants pushing the internet snake-oil.

I'm against it.

I find myself curiously drawn to Evgeny Morozov.

To say that Morozov has gone out of his way to irritate powerful and influential people in the tech world doesn’t quite capture it. Doing so is his primary occupation. In the Morozovian worldview, New York University professor and social-media theorist Clay Shirky is a “consultant-cum-intellectual”; Google’s mission is to “monetize all of the world’s information and make it universally inaccessible and profitable”; and Tim O’Reilly, the Silicon Valley publisher and venture capitalist who coined “Web 2.0,” is an Orwellian “meme hustler” and the main culprit behind “the enduring emptiness of our technology debates.” To millions of viewers, TED talks are inspirational speeches about “ideas worth spreading” in science and technology. To Morozov they are a “sinister” hyping of “ideas no footnotes can support.”

Or try this passage. It’s a takedown of a work of technological triumphalism called Hybrid Reality, but it doubles as a summary of his thinking about the entirety of the tech discourse: “[P]erhaps this is what the Hybrid Age is all about: marketing masquerading as theory, charlatans masquerading as philosophers, a New Age cult masquerading as a university, business masquerading as redemption, slogans masquerading as truths.”

The entire Morozov aesthetic is in this sentence: the venom, the derision, the reverse jujitsu of his opponents’ sanctimony, the bald accusation that all the talk about a new age of human flourishing is nothing but an attempt to vamp the speaker’s consulting business. Tech enthusiasts channel hope. Tech skeptics channel worry. Morozov channels anger, and this can be a very satisfying emotion to anyone unconvinced that everything is getting better.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

March 7 is the diary date for all us UK based Wes Anderson fans.

the dock of the day

I just bought a Plugable UD-3900 USB 3.0 Universal Docking Station with Dual Video Outputs for Windows 8.1, 8, 7, XP (HDMI and DVI/ VGA to 2048x1152, Gigabit Ethernet, Audio, 2 USB 3.0 Ports, 4 USB 2.0 Ports, 4A AC Power Adapter) to use in the office with the Surface Pro 2.

I looked at Microsoft's offering, but the fact it uses the Mini Display Port would have meant me buying a separate VGA adapter as well.

Fascinating eh?