Sunday, March 15, 2009
A citizen suggestion
I see from yesterday's DT that the IT services industry has scored another coup by persuading the Home Office that the country needs a large new computer system to track the movements of it's residents when they are out of the country. The powers that be are running scared, let's hope not for good reason.
But I think I should set up a company of retired computer folk to go one better. To promote a scheme whereby, like cows, everybody has an implant in the lobe of their ear at birth. Implantation done by a corps of specially trained vetenarians, looked after by a new body which might as well be called OffImpVet. Make a law that it is a felony for one's implant to be out of range of an official detector. Infraction will bring down fully armed helicopters to your last known position and to your last known address. Then we will be able to build a database which knows where everybody has been since birth. Optional (and chargeable) extras might include things like monitoring for prolonged proximity of, say, someone registered as a teacher to someone under 16. Phase two, when the technology has moved on a bit, enable the implants for sound. Technology moving on, including some kind of sensible filtering. We do not need to know what your car engine sounds like. The database can then include eveything that has been said since birth. Visuals might be a bit more tricky. Have to think about that one.
Earlier in the week to hear the 'Art of Fugue' at the QEH, for the first time on an organ. The organ in question being a suitably small organ made in Holland in the early fifties of the last century, or so the chap sitting next to me informed me. Organ played by someone with a long relationship with Eton, man and boy, plus a stint at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, which boasts the world's largest church organ. Perusal of http://www.fccla.org/ suggests that it is, indeed, an impressive instrument. The church itself is not new and looks more like a CofE place than a dissenting joint. I thought the organ at QEH did rather well; I liked the way it marked the transitions between notes, something that was lost in the chamber version I heard by way of pre-concert revision. The organist did rather well with his feet too: playing with two hands and two feet while not falling off your perch must take a lot of skill and a fancy physique. Looked rather like he was dancing sitting down. Extensive post-concert revision. Discover that I do own an organ version, as I thought but could not find, disguised in a boxed set as chamber music. Also that I still have my father's copy of Tovey on the subject, a book I had feared might have been lost in one of my periodic culls.
Nice to have, but don't really understand a word of it. So off to Waterstones where they have nothing on the theory of music. Off to the library where they have little on the shelf, but a fair bit in the catalogue, so two tomes on the elementary theory of music reserved. Maybe I shall get to find out what scales and fugues are. I imagine that one gets even more out of the music if one knows. In the meantime, started reading Antony Storr on the subject (ex Oxfam). Good read, if not always able to agree with him. The man knows his music and his Proust, whom he quotes liberally.
On exit from the library, take a look at their remainder section and get three books. A nearly new 'The Age of Revolution' paperback for 20p. An as-new 2007 'Annual Abstract of Statistics', published at near £50, for £1.50. A rather battered 'Norm and Form' by Gombrich (an author with whom I get on well and for whom I have much time) for £4.50. Epsom Library clearly saw me coming. The cover of the Gombrich strangely plain; light blue cloth with no title or other marking at all (other than sundry stains), but not one of those austerity editions from the 40's at all. From the 60's. The inside page, which presumably used to carry the library stick in, torn out rather crudely. One might have thought that professional book worms would have more respect for their stock, even on the way out. I have now cut the stub of the page down to something neat.
But I think I should set up a company of retired computer folk to go one better. To promote a scheme whereby, like cows, everybody has an implant in the lobe of their ear at birth. Implantation done by a corps of specially trained vetenarians, looked after by a new body which might as well be called OffImpVet. Make a law that it is a felony for one's implant to be out of range of an official detector. Infraction will bring down fully armed helicopters to your last known position and to your last known address. Then we will be able to build a database which knows where everybody has been since birth. Optional (and chargeable) extras might include things like monitoring for prolonged proximity of, say, someone registered as a teacher to someone under 16. Phase two, when the technology has moved on a bit, enable the implants for sound. Technology moving on, including some kind of sensible filtering. We do not need to know what your car engine sounds like. The database can then include eveything that has been said since birth. Visuals might be a bit more tricky. Have to think about that one.
Earlier in the week to hear the 'Art of Fugue' at the QEH, for the first time on an organ. The organ in question being a suitably small organ made in Holland in the early fifties of the last century, or so the chap sitting next to me informed me. Organ played by someone with a long relationship with Eton, man and boy, plus a stint at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, which boasts the world's largest church organ. Perusal of http://www.fccla.org/ suggests that it is, indeed, an impressive instrument. The church itself is not new and looks more like a CofE place than a dissenting joint. I thought the organ at QEH did rather well; I liked the way it marked the transitions between notes, something that was lost in the chamber version I heard by way of pre-concert revision. The organist did rather well with his feet too: playing with two hands and two feet while not falling off your perch must take a lot of skill and a fancy physique. Looked rather like he was dancing sitting down. Extensive post-concert revision. Discover that I do own an organ version, as I thought but could not find, disguised in a boxed set as chamber music. Also that I still have my father's copy of Tovey on the subject, a book I had feared might have been lost in one of my periodic culls.
Nice to have, but don't really understand a word of it. So off to Waterstones where they have nothing on the theory of music. Off to the library where they have little on the shelf, but a fair bit in the catalogue, so two tomes on the elementary theory of music reserved. Maybe I shall get to find out what scales and fugues are. I imagine that one gets even more out of the music if one knows. In the meantime, started reading Antony Storr on the subject (ex Oxfam). Good read, if not always able to agree with him. The man knows his music and his Proust, whom he quotes liberally.
On exit from the library, take a look at their remainder section and get three books. A nearly new 'The Age of Revolution' paperback for 20p. An as-new 2007 'Annual Abstract of Statistics', published at near £50, for £1.50. A rather battered 'Norm and Form' by Gombrich (an author with whom I get on well and for whom I have much time) for £4.50. Epsom Library clearly saw me coming. The cover of the Gombrich strangely plain; light blue cloth with no title or other marking at all (other than sundry stains), but not one of those austerity editions from the 40's at all. From the 60's. The inside page, which presumably used to carry the library stick in, torn out rather crudely. One might have thought that professional book worms would have more respect for their stock, even on the way out. I have now cut the stub of the page down to something neat.
# posted by Jim @ 2:05 AM 
