Thursday, April 02, 2009
Pawntergate: a postscript
An interesting appercu on our moeurs in these matters. It seems that if one wants a bit of porn there is no need to pay your cable television provider; you just tune into channel 4 where they are punting out lashings of late night sex education. All the while being beamed on by the massed ranks of Blair babes. Sex in the cause of education is one thing, sex for pleasure is quite another.
However, interest in all this has been displaced by a much more important matter, on which I have dilated and sometimes waxed lyrical at odd times in the past. For me, it all started in the Treasury in the mid nineties. The IT chaps discovered that it was possible to broadcast messages which the lucky punters received every time they turned their PC on. Shortly after that the HR folk joined in and after that the premises people. So after a while there were lots of messages flying about about the latest course on hugging or the fact the the Marquess of Oliver had blessed the potatoes being used in the (outsourced) canteen that day. But the Treasury is a fairly small community and it was possible for the punters to gang up on the providers and put a stop to it. Broadcast messages only to be used for matters of vital interest. More or less.
The next people in on the act were Southwest Trains. Their IT people thought that announcement drivel dripping out of loudspeakers throughout one's journey would be a good wheeze. And the people on Southern Trains went one better and managed to customise the message to the carriage. A bit of IT onemanupship. But in this case the punters are a very large and diffuse community who have not found it possible to exert the pressure needed to put a stop to it. Although, if one was bold, one would take a white foam spray can to the loudspeakers and take one's chance on the all-present CCTV cameras tracking one down. And if they did and one was very bold, one could take the opportunity to bang on about the matter in front of the magistrate, who might or might not be sympathetic. But it might generate a bit of helpful publicity. God fearing and respectable retired public servant sent to jail for protesting the invasion of our aural space by train operators. Frightful waste of public money. Jails far too crowded as it is.
After that came the roads people. Some enterprising company in the road sign and marking industry designed a large contraption which could display messages in lights over motorways which could be controlled from some central bunker which could be manned by some busy. Perhaps a senior principal principal road management engineer. Double time at weekends and triple time on bank holidays. Free meals on duty. Contraptions which must cost £100,000 or more a pop, time they are erected. Now occasionally these things carry useful information, but the rest of the time they add to the considerable visual clutter on our roads and leave one wondering about the huge amount of money that someone must have made by foisting so many of the things on the unsuspecting public purse.
And today, up comes Epsom & Ewell borough council. Someone has sold them a whole lot of mobile display boards, maybe eight feet square. These things can be programmed to display interesting messages in very bright, yellow flashing lights. And having bought them, they just have to use them. So today, several of these things have been posted on the way to Cheam to tell me about forthcoming gas pipe works in Ewell High Street. Yet more visual clutter, distracting me from the perilous business of staying alive on a bicycle in fast moving traffic. Bring back the olden days when they just stuck up a few posters. Quite sufficient, possibly efficient and hugely cheaper.
But there is some good news. Yesterday, the celandines at the bottom of the garden (stolen some years ago from a back lane hedgerow in Exminster, thrived since) looked absolutely great in the bright sunlight. Flowers fully open. A proper sort of flower with a proper balance between green and colour, unlike some of those gaudy tropical things you see on films.
And this was capped by one of the best cow chops I remember eating. Nicely framed in new season cabbage from Portugal and rice from somewhere. The mushrooms were probably the only item that came from England. But the lunch was none the worse for that.
Mushroom tip: cook in a smaller amount of butter and water. Pour juices into roasting tin, swill about a bit then pour back over mushrooms.
However, interest in all this has been displaced by a much more important matter, on which I have dilated and sometimes waxed lyrical at odd times in the past. For me, it all started in the Treasury in the mid nineties. The IT chaps discovered that it was possible to broadcast messages which the lucky punters received every time they turned their PC on. Shortly after that the HR folk joined in and after that the premises people. So after a while there were lots of messages flying about about the latest course on hugging or the fact the the Marquess of Oliver had blessed the potatoes being used in the (outsourced) canteen that day. But the Treasury is a fairly small community and it was possible for the punters to gang up on the providers and put a stop to it. Broadcast messages only to be used for matters of vital interest. More or less.
The next people in on the act were Southwest Trains. Their IT people thought that announcement drivel dripping out of loudspeakers throughout one's journey would be a good wheeze. And the people on Southern Trains went one better and managed to customise the message to the carriage. A bit of IT onemanupship. But in this case the punters are a very large and diffuse community who have not found it possible to exert the pressure needed to put a stop to it. Although, if one was bold, one would take a white foam spray can to the loudspeakers and take one's chance on the all-present CCTV cameras tracking one down. And if they did and one was very bold, one could take the opportunity to bang on about the matter in front of the magistrate, who might or might not be sympathetic. But it might generate a bit of helpful publicity. God fearing and respectable retired public servant sent to jail for protesting the invasion of our aural space by train operators. Frightful waste of public money. Jails far too crowded as it is.
After that came the roads people. Some enterprising company in the road sign and marking industry designed a large contraption which could display messages in lights over motorways which could be controlled from some central bunker which could be manned by some busy. Perhaps a senior principal principal road management engineer. Double time at weekends and triple time on bank holidays. Free meals on duty. Contraptions which must cost £100,000 or more a pop, time they are erected. Now occasionally these things carry useful information, but the rest of the time they add to the considerable visual clutter on our roads and leave one wondering about the huge amount of money that someone must have made by foisting so many of the things on the unsuspecting public purse.
And today, up comes Epsom & Ewell borough council. Someone has sold them a whole lot of mobile display boards, maybe eight feet square. These things can be programmed to display interesting messages in very bright, yellow flashing lights. And having bought them, they just have to use them. So today, several of these things have been posted on the way to Cheam to tell me about forthcoming gas pipe works in Ewell High Street. Yet more visual clutter, distracting me from the perilous business of staying alive on a bicycle in fast moving traffic. Bring back the olden days when they just stuck up a few posters. Quite sufficient, possibly efficient and hugely cheaper.
But there is some good news. Yesterday, the celandines at the bottom of the garden (stolen some years ago from a back lane hedgerow in Exminster, thrived since) looked absolutely great in the bright sunlight. Flowers fully open. A proper sort of flower with a proper balance between green and colour, unlike some of those gaudy tropical things you see on films.
And this was capped by one of the best cow chops I remember eating. Nicely framed in new season cabbage from Portugal and rice from somewhere. The mushrooms were probably the only item that came from England. But the lunch was none the worse for that.
Mushroom tip: cook in a smaller amount of butter and water. Pour juices into roasting tin, swill about a bit then pour back over mushrooms.
# posted by Jim @ 3:39 AM 
