How would the Twitter generation have coped with 9/11? (PC Pro blogger)

This is another interesting article by the PC pro blogger Barry Collins.

Barry is thinking of Sept 11, 2001 and how technology today would change how we would have heard about such an event now. There were few camera phones around in 2001 and social networking at least on the scales of twitter and face book has not yet taken off. There were still bulletin boards and other internet forums you could log on to which did much the same things but these were perhaps not as mainstream as twitter and facebook. Barry missess this point slightly and suggests there was no comparable internet media source.

What Barry imagines is that the minute the plane hit the first tower the internet would be awash with photos, tweets and status updates about the attack. The rumours would fly around the internet until the truth was lost. As Barry points out the established news media struggled to keep up with the unfolding crisis and was full of rumours that day.

Barry goes onto point out there would be no censoring of the material went out. Everything would go out onto the internet. Could you imagine if someone had been streaming live onto the internet from inside the twin towers. Now imagine if 100's of people were doing it. I recently saw a documentary which included lots of personal video footage from outside the twin towers, from streets or apartments. These were very raw and emotional even 8 years on. I am not sure I can imagine the horror of watching footage of someone trying to get down the stairs in the twin towers hearing a rumble from above and then a few seconds of film before the signal breaks. There is footage from camera crews that were close in to the towers that are already quite shocking to watch. Do we need such emotional scars on our public psyche? Are we immune to events reports in this fashion? Would uncensored material actually cause emotional distress on a grander scale, in the future could people who were not even there suffer post traumatic stress could a similar attack paralyse the entire population. As the gap between reality and virtual reality decreases could it feel like we were actually in the middle of the crisis ourselves rather than just a spectator.

I remember the tube attacks in London in 2005. It started off with a news article about delays on the underground due to an electricity supply problem and went on from there. I followed the story on the urban 75 forums where people who had been caught up in it started posting. It was faster, personal and more raw than the mainstream news.

One of the problems with citizen media is that often people will take footage on their mobile phone and not help. I remember a few years back hearing about a horrific crash where a family was killed and the police not only had to deal with the accident but deal with motorists going the other way slowing down and using their mobile phones to get footage of the accident. Is there a legitimate reason to take such footage or have we turned into ghouls looking to get the most raw uncensored footage on the internet to get the highest views on you tube ever? Have we forgotten about the human lives destroyed?

The Poundshop sketch

Man walks into a pound shop, grabs a shop assistant and points to a bowl?

Man: How much is that?
Shop assistant: One pound.
Man: Oh that's too expensive. How much for that one?
SA: That is one pound.
Man: What, is everything one pound in here?
SA: Yes
Man: How about I give you 50 p for that bowl.
SA: No, perhaps you should try the 50p shop down the road.
Man: Why how much would a bowl cost in there?

(Probably needs a bit of work but you get the idea.)

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton

The book is one of those quirky books that I pick up from time to time. Michael Crichton is one of those great thriller writers that I enjoy, the majority of the time he hits the spot with a good solid thriller. This is a good old fashioned bank job set in the Victorian age robbing the Crimean gold off the Dover steam train. (wikipedia factual record)

Michael Crichton writes a gripping story loosely based on the facts woven into a good solid page turner.

Victorian workplace rules.

As I was going through the book there were some interesting snippits that I thought would be worth clipping.

Rules for Office Staff (early 1854)

1. Godliness, cleanliness and punctuality are the necessities of a good business.
2. The firm has rreduced the working day to the hours from 8.30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
3. Daily prayers will be held each morning in the main office. The clerical staff will be present.
4. Clothing will be of a sober nature. The clerical staff will not disport themselves in raiment of bright color.
5. A stove is provided for the benefit of the clerical staff. It is recommended that each member of the clerical staff brings 4 lbs of coal each day during cold weather.
6. No member of the clerical staff may leave the room without permission from Mr Roberts. The calls of nature are permitted and clerical staff may use the garden beyond the second gate. This area must be kept clean and in good order.
7. No talking is allowed during business hours.
8. The cravings of tobacco, wines or spirits is a human weakness, and as such is forbidden to the clerical staff.
9. Members of the clerical staff will provide their own pens.
10. The managers of the firm will expect a great rise in the output of work to compensate for these near Utopian Conditions.

It should be noted that this quote is from a work of fiction, there is no record whether Michael Crichton copied an original sheet of rules from a Victorian workplace or created a new fictional rule book.

I wonder if the government has thought or reinstating these "near Utopian conditions" for the current crop of bankers. A hundred years later nearly all of those rules have long been swept away, although to be fair if you want good stationary at work you still have to buy your own.

Everything can be found somewhere on the internet where everything means 99%

The all mighty google search these days means that anything no matter how obscure can be typed into its search box and before you know it you are surfing through thousands of pages about some obscure tiny subject.

However, every so often I run a search on google which reminds me that even given the infinite large number of pages of the internet I still cannot find the one page I want.

When I was young probably around 15 years ago I went to the Scilly Islands and at the time I found a print which I just had to buy. Cant remember how much it cost. My parents bought it for me and it has been one of my most prize possessions ever since especially as my parents had it framed for me.

So one evening I am looking at this modern print which is a picture of Bishop's rock lighthouse in the moonlight in oils by J Wilson Hepburn. I think to myself I could use the *awesome* power of the search engine to find out more about this artist and see if there are other prints I would like.

So I pop along to google and type in the words "J Wilson Hepburn".

Google Search for J Wilson Hepburn

All you get is a few hints that there are indeed originals that have been sold at auction for not very large amounts but no sign of any prints.

Lot 33 - J. Wilson Hepburn - oil on board A view of St Mawes.

Lot 40 - J. WILSON-HEPBURN (XX): An oil on artist's board of the Fish Market and harbour of Mevagissey.

Bonham's - J. Wilson Hepburn, Moonlit river scene, oil on canvas, signed, 60 x 90cm. £94.

Just hints of things and the links don't really give you any further information.

Of course in searching it doesn't help that the surname is similar to "Audrey Hepburn"

Here is what I know I think he is a Cornish artist that painted in oils, I suspect in the late 1800's. Other than that I know very little.

If anyone could give me more information I would be very interested. If anyone knows of any prints or originals for sale I would at the very least be interested in hearing more. If anyone has the original of my print which I would guess is somewhere in the Scilly Isles I would be extremely interested.

Until I get this information and can post it on my blog I am afraid we must conclude that as of now the world is still larger and contains more information than the internet.

Did Stephen Fry and Twitter really score a victory for free speech? (PCPro)

This was a very interesting blog article from the PCpro writer Barry Collins. Nearly everyone will have heard about the parliamentary question that was subject to a gagging order. Depending on who you listen to Twitter and Stepehn Fry in a blow for democracy and free speech spread it all over the internet, proving that you cant gag free speech or perhaps proving the "twittering classes" are willing to break the law.

The article basically points out while everyone is giving each other high five's in getting information which should have been in the public domain out, what happens when information that shouldn't be released is broadcast on twitter.

Twitter is a public lynching waiting to happen. Technology has allowed us to move on from throwing stones to throwing tweets, we can all act now on rumours and gossip and devolve ourselves of responsibility to join the mob mentality. How long before a name is given out on twitter in a horrific criminal case which leads to an assault or worse a public lynching. How about national security information which jeopardises security or criminal cases. Twitter is not above the law and people that tweet should be aware that they may be breaking the law by releasing confidential information. The consequences of a major breach in security or information released which lead to damage or injury would be dealt with seriously by the law courts.

Mob mentality has always been a problem but with lightening fast technology where rumours are trusted more than official news organisations mobs can easily be mislead or mis-guided and dire consequences may arise. We have yet to see the potential of twitter to cause mayhem, lets hope we are prepared when the time comes.

With Freedom of speech comes responsibility, the responsibility of knowing when to talk and when to shut up.

18 monkeys sitting at a keyboard

I have written a perl script that simulates eighteen monkeys each hitting one key either a letter of the alphabet or space key. They are trying to write the line " To be or not to be".

"Why?" I hear half the world scream, "For goodness sake, why? Think of the children!". Sorry slipped into a Simpson moment there.

Anyway I have written this totally geeky pointless script just because I can. It was a personal challenge to myself, can a mild mannered recruitment officer who knows a bit about perl write a script that will achieve this.

To explain the mechanics, I create a sequence of 18 random numbers between 1 and 27. Convert that all into letters or a space, then compare it to the text I want, calculate the percentage match and repeat until I get a decent match. For the maths bods out there the actual odds of hitting a perfect sequence are 18 to the power 27. In other words a really really really large number.

So anyway tonight I have been running batches of 2000000 iterations and outputting to a file every combination with a match over 7 letters.

Here are the results so far:

The highest ever match is 9 letters off a run of 200000000 iterations which just goes to show hitting the full eighteen letters could be a bit of a miracle. That run took 3 hours to do.

The interesting thing is that 8/9 letter is starting to make almost recognisable word patterns:

6533243 TULBEHXRBGMK EO BE 9
7596871 DO SJOR FOOUHU BO 8
15070898 AOSBH RQMNLT GO AA 8
41948431 TOPKGJCE ROTSTOJSE 8
83387651 TOEBOYXY UKT HP FE 8
131295542 NO BGVIR TPTGTX MB 8
123724196 TOIBXRY BENT TOWTE 8

I should explain the first number is the iteration, then we have the code sequence and finally the number of matching letters.

Ok so most of them still sound like the Russian or Japanese version of "to be or not to be" but bits are beginning to make sense.

Next experiment reduce the number of letters in the phrase to see if we can hit the high matches quicker. Maybe I will try "Out damned spot" but really I need something even shorter.

Andrew Marr and Journalism

I have been reading Andrew Marr's Book entitled "My trade" off and on for the last year. For those of you who are unaware he is a British political journalist.

His book is all about journalism and although I haven't read much of it one of the quotes in his history of journalism resonated through the years with some of the points I have expanded on in the relationship between the press and government.

W. T. Stead was a Victorian editor described by Andrew as a bearded, blazing eyed and riotously sexual editor of among others the Northern Echo and The Pall Mall Gazette. In 1886 he had this to say about what he called government by journalism:

I am but a comparatively young journalist, but I have seen Cabinets upset, ministers driven into retirement, laws repealed, great social reform initiated, Bills transformed, estimates remodelled, programmes modified, Acts passed, general nominated, governors appointed, armies sent hither and thither, ware proclaimed and war averted, by the agency of newspapers.

-W. T. Stead 1886

That was in 1886 when the general populace still respected government and politicians. One can only surmise that since then the press have become more powerful, where today entire elections can be won or lost on the front page of the Sun newspaper(1992 general election - election day headline "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights.").

Next year there will be a general election, which way will the press vote?

Which brings me onto Andrew Marr himself and how he asked Prime Minister Gordon Brown whether he used prescription painkillers in a recent interview. I thought I would analyse this question and the journalism behind it.

Before we get to the question itself we have to decide whether it is correct to ask a question about the prime ministers health. In the 'for'corner we should be entitled to ask any question if it impacts on his ability to do the job, as in the extreme he could take this country to war. Although you could argue that he could not take this country to war by himself and therefore his individual health is immaterial.

In the 'against' corner, his personal life is his own business, just because he is prime minister doesn't mean that every single detail of his life should be public knowledge. After all would we want to know that the prime minister is constipated and might not be fully concentrating in a cabinet meeting? There is also the argument that why should we expect our politicians to be supermen without any fault. What do we want a human being or a robot?

There is an implied contract of trust between the electorate and the government that the prime minister is fit to govern at any time. Even if this contract is weakened should the press act as final arbiter?

I think it can be safely assumed that asking the simple question are you fit, well and capable to carry out your role as prime minister is a valid question. However this is not what Andrew Marr asked, he asked:

"something everybody has been talking about in the Westminster village... A lot of people in this country use prescription painkillers and pills to help them get through. Are you one of them?"

Some technical points first. The "Westminster village" is what most of us would describe as the rumour mill. The use of the word "use" which is close to drug user which had many socio - negative connotations. You use heroin but you take medication.

"Help them get through" - again suggesting that people aren't coping and giving the question an overall negative tone.

So did Andrew ask about the prime ministers health or did he imply that the prime minister was not competent to do the job?

In my opinion he chose to ask this question on his own authority because he wanted to imply that Gordon Brown was taking pain killers which meant that he was not fully capable of carrying out his duties.

It could also be described as a leading question. In answering "Yes" the prime minister would confirm much more than just that he took prescription drugs. Even if he went on to explain , it would be the initial yes that was shown on the Six O'clock news probably with an image of Gordon looking really tired from 2002 to emphasise how pain killers had effected him. Again the picture would imply a negative view of Gordon Brown. All of the negativity would be implied and may distort the reality of the situation.

After Gordon had politely told Andrew it was none of his business Andrew asked the question again. Perhaps not your finest hour Andrew.

In a guardian article interestingly a BBC spokesman is quoted as saying:

"Andrew was asking a legitimate question about the health of the leader of the country."

Was he? Or was he implying that Gordon Brown was unfit to hold office because he took pain killers? Surely if he was in pain we should be more worried if he didn't take painkillers?

References:

Andrew Marr: I have no intention of apologising over Brown question (guardian)
'I do not roll over,' says Brown(BBC)
1992 General election (wikipedia)

Asteroid attack: How would we cope? (New Scientist)

When an email like that hits your in-box you cant help but race across the desktop with your mouse pointer and click it.

The answer apparently if you want the short answer is "Not very well".

Then the article is full of more questions such as

"Should we panic?"

A. Not really, a killer impact strike would only happen once every 2000 years and the odds of hitting a populated area are even smaller.

"Can we nuke it?"

A. No, not unless we had several years warning. At the moment our early warning systems just aren't good enough. One asteroid last year was only detected 20 hours before impact. 2008 TC3 detonated over Sudan and was too small to do any damage anyway but millions of asteroids that could do some damage are out there and we are not yet tracking all of them.

The exciting questions over with, I can tell you about what the article is actually about. The US Air Force ran an exercise in 2008 where they played out a scenario where a killer asteroid was heading straight for earth. Straight out of Hollywood there were two parts of the asteroid, one heading for a splash down in the Atlantic ocean on the west coast of America and the other heading for Washington DC. Cut to people screaming and running past notable Washington monuments and running past electrical shop windows with President Obama on screen urging people to remain calm all the way via satellite from Air Force One currently flying over New Zealand.

Back to the studio where CNN have bought in whoever answered the phone first, to pretend to be an expert on asteroids / politics. "Its all the governments fault they should have seen it coming years ago. They cut funding into asteroid destruction technologies and invested in free health care for all. What were they thinking?"

Sorry, digressed suddenly there, too much thinking about life according to a Hollywood movie script.

Commenting on the scenario outcome which demonstrated that the US was woefully unprepared for such a disaster Peter Garreston (organiser) had this to say:

"As a taxpayer, I would appreciate my air force taking a look at something that would be certainly as bad as nuclear terrorism in a city, and potentially a civilisation-ending event."

He wasn't just talking about the X-factor rejects from the first round who with their off key singing destroyed several world heritage sites yesterday.

Simon Cowell responded with these comments directly to the planet killer asteroid:

"I am just not convinced by your planet killing performance, I just didn't feel it. Your just too small this year, you need to come back next year... Danni Yes or no?"

Normal service is being resumed ... please hold while we connect you to sanity.

US Air force 0 - Asteroid 1. Final Score.

Anyway, moving on. Having pretty much determined that being able to avert disaster was pretty much impossible the assembled team turned to disaster management. Somebody had forgotten to get coffee from the supermarket and everybody knows you cant deal with a disaster without some serious black coffee.

The primary concern in the disaster management scenario was to stop the public who were in the path of the asteroid from panicking. In my opinion the only way you could stop the public panicking is to shut the media up. You only have to look back to the credit crunch to see how good the media are at proclaiming the end is nigh. Their doom scenarios would cause the public to panic within about three seconds although you might have 30 seconds of grace while they come up with a suitable two word caption for the screen.

Cue movie voice. "It was a time of darkness, the media had the biggest story ever, the story to end all stories, the story to end it all..."

A bland boardroom is shown on screen with a number of men and women in power suits.

Random media type 1: Yes, but what's the caption.
RMT2: How about "earth crunch"
RMT4: Sounds too much like "credit crunch", crunch doesn't spread fear as much as it used to.
RMT3: How about "Armageddon"
RMT2: No, that is only understandable by the AB1 demographic and its only one word.
RMT1: How about "Fatal Friday"
RMT3: No sounds like another stock market crash.
RMT2: How about"End of the World, as we know it"
RMT1: Too long it will appear over the station logo.
RMT4: How about "We're screwed"
RMT1: Well its direct, two words, but it just doesn't have any zing.
RMT3: How about "Rocky: The final return".
RMT2: No, that's already been copyrighted for the movie of the disaster.
RMT1: I know, how about: "Mankind's Annihilation"
RMT2: Works for me.
RMT4: Excellent.
RMT1: OK that's agreed, now lets talk sponsorship, are we thinking Coke or Nike...

Back in the reality created by the US Air Force which one can only assume didn't include a simulation of the media machine.

Timothy Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts who has also probably been watching two many Hollywood blockbusters suggested this scenario.

"I'm picturing people panicking and driving the wrong way on the freeway, screaming 'Oh my god, it's going to kill us!'"

We are not just talking republican policies on health care here either (little current affairs reference for my American audience). In true Hollywood fashion he forgot to mention the two teenage virgins by the side of the road getting busy as they certainly don't want to die a virgin. I am thinking American Pie meets Armageddon, now that would be worth going to see.

The outcome of the exercise was a realisation that there is no asteroid emergency plan beta 6 and Bruce Willis is not on 24/7 asteroid destruction call out. However the earlier the warning the better the response would be.

Which brings us nicely on to early warning systems. The good news is that two out of the three early warning systems are in Arizona where during the months of July and September you cant see a thing because of the cloud cover. Excellent, I can see that makes everyone feel better. Lets hope no asteroids turn up at that time of the year, perhaps they will just leave a calling card and come back later.

Even better news, the US Air Force have imagined a scenario where an asteroid could start world war 3: The final showdown. If an asteroid detonated over a politically sensitive area like the middle east then it might be interpreted as a nuclear attack and governments may retaliate.

Of course NASA has put a lot of money into funding projects to track potential planet killers but in a selfish approach they only focus on the Northern Hemisphere which is perhaps a bit short sighted as a planet killer in the Southern Hemisphere could still destroy all life on the planet as we know it.

NASA and the European space agencies are working on it though, so hopefully things will improve in the future.

NASA are also working on an Asteroid ship which will help defend the planet. Exclusively, here now I can reveal the working prototype:

Intertwined colour lines: a fascination part 2

The spiders web that is Oxfords road network.

Intertwined colour lines: a fascination

I find myself strangely fascinated by coloured lines intertwined together, especially if it is a pattern based on something man made or familiar to me.

This is a hand drawn colour line copy of a 1914 clearing house railway junction diagram of the area around clapham junction (the big confusing area over on the left). If you want to you can compare it to the original over here on wikipedia.

Maybe I have discovered a whole new art form with which you can experiment with on any map or satelitte photgraphy, just drawing designs. Today the web tommorrow Tate Britain.

Misconstruing BBC news article part 2

Wireless power system shown off

Well surely someone should have turned it on for the demonstration as

Wireless power system shown on

would have more effectively demonstrated its capabilities.

I am probably the only one in the universe that finds that even slightly funny... I shall get my coat.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

I re-read this book recently, it is a work of fiction which introduces the premise / theory that the environmental lobby is just another method by the establishment to keep us in a perpetual state of fear, following on from the cold war came global warming. This state of fear creates spending and political power but the book using scientific references to support the fictional plot suggests that global warming is at best inconclusive and suggests that we are yet to learn so much about are environment that any theory about global warming is little more than a guess.

However as the character in the book suggests just because you don't agree with global warming doesn't mean that you don't want pollution controls and CO2 reduction. I have to say Michael Crichton creates a compelling argument. One of the best simple comparisons is that despite all the investment and technology we cannot accurately predict the weather beyond 5-10 days so how can we consider a prediction for a 100 years hence to be accurate.

There are loads of other rational arguments in the book but with the alternative view I find it difficult to believe that global warming is a global conspiracy. I suppose one of the problems is that until it happens we wont know whether everyone is right or wrong.

The precautionary principle also mentioned in the book means that if there is the slightest change of the catastrophic scenario occurring then we should not take the action that would cause it. Therefore the precautionary principle would suggest that because scientists have found a potential risk we should do everything to eliminate it. However you could use the precautionary principle to say we should live 50 ft underground all the time because every time you go outside there is a risk of a plane falling on your head.

Then I reach the thought in my head that says "Do I believe in global warming?". Then my second thoughts kicks in and realises the framing of the question suggests there is a belief factor rather than relying on cold, hard, undeniable facts and truths.

"Do I believe in doing something to protect the environment?". No facts required this time but how do you protect an environment, again it raises in the book that you can only manage an environment and we still don't know how to manage land to protect something. The ecosystems around us are ever changing we cant protect and preserve but we can manage it in a direction. In the books it talks about nature not having a balance but oscillating between different factors as species rise and fall.

Finally the book finishes with the premise that they should set up a new environmental group which basically looks for problems and fixes it, so take land management, you accept you do not know how to do it, so you take 8 similar parcels of land, have a different management policy in each one. Try things out get them evaluated by outside consultants and by trial and error find out what land management policies work and don't work.

One character talks about scientific journal authors talking about simulations as if they were real world data and suggest that such articles should be labelled "Warning: Computer Simulation - May be erroneous and unverifiable" and then suggests a label for newspaper articles as well "Warning speculation - may be fact free".

I have long argued about labels for news articles, some kind of evaluation of the source:

How about this the Zephryist- Morton coding
(the highest number would be taken in each code)

8 - Video evidence
7 - Sound evidence
6 - Multiple eye witness accounts
5 - conflicting eye witness accounts with some commonality
4 - Single eye witness account
3 - written evidence
2 - Multiple eye witness conflicting accounts
1 - 2nd hand source no eye witness accounts
0 - opinion only no verifiable witness 1 or second hand

4 - Known as giving previously reliable evidence
3 - No previous record of evidence
2 - Questionable record of giving reliable evidence
1 - interpretation of known facts with own opinion on conclusions or extrapolation
0 - own opinion - few known facts with open interpretation.

3 - Expert / professional in field
2 - Media expert in field
1 - Amateur in field
0 - Unknown knowledge status in field.

So with this you could evaluate any news source such as the BBC news website which would be a 8 by 4 by 2 site, one of the highest rating with video evidence, known to give reliable evidence in the past, and with media experts.

You could also rate a blog, my highest rating would be a 4 by 4 by 1 unless you felt I was merely giving opinion where my blog would be rated 4 by 1 by 1. Of course with a fully functioning system the ratings would be given by peers.

The beauty of the system is that the lower the number the more questionable the source, it would help any reader instantly be able to separate fact from fiction without having to read pages of previous articles and compare them with other sources to determine the reliability, with a peer reviewed system other people have already done the leg work.

You could go further and break down the rating system more by breaking each section into a series of questions almost an acid test of reliability.

I may return to this some day or like many other posts on my blog it may just be a random thought that sits on the shelf collecting dust.

The misconstruing BBC news article game

I may have invented a new game. All you need is to look on the news pages of the BBC, I use the top 10 article lists. Pick an article title and come up with an alternative story behind the headline.

So for example from today:

WHO warns swine flu 'unstoppable'

I did not realise the rock band "the Who" were experts in pandemic viruses.

I may post some more as I see them.

Firefox 3.5

Well firefox 3.5 is finally here and to be fair about time too. i was beginning to loose patience with 3.0 as java never seemed to work well.

Having used firefox for the last couple of days it seems slightly faster. There is a nice feature similar to IE where you can add a tab from the tabs which is nice.

So first impressions are definitely good.

Sorry for ... adverts in london on tubes, trains and railway stations

You may like me have been puzzled by a couple of adverts appearing all over London with white text on a back background, with a symbol of Eros in the corner or more precisely the London Evening Standard logo.

The adverts are white text on a black background and are in various different text versions:

Sorry for losing touch
Sorry for being negative
Sorry for taking you for granted
Sorry for being complacent
Sorry for being predictable

The text is so generic that it could relate to a lot of different organisations, I guess the advertising agency are banking on the fact that Londoners will recognise the Evening Standard symbol. They have missed a trick though as I thought it was one of those adverts where you had to look up the text on line. However you do that and you find nothing. It was only when I remembered the symbol was for the Evening Standard that I got the hint, but then even when I went to the Evening Standard website I found nothing about it. Some missed opportunities there, some people will see the adverts and not even connect them to the Evening Standard.

Then there is another set of white text on a red background with a rose in the corner:

Sorry for putting Gordon Brown in Charge
Sorry for the MPs second home allowance
Sorry for the Iraq War
Sorry for Youtube announcements
Sorry for Hazel Blears

Then there is a third set of whit text on a blue / green background with a black horse in the corner:

Sorry for the credit crunch
Sorry for the housing crisis
Sorry for unfair overdraft charges
Sorry for investment banking bonuses
Sorry for a precipitous fall in our share price
Sorry for everything really

OK I might have made the second and third group of adverts up but it might be a good idea, anyone from the labour party or the banking sector (Lloyds was the bank if you didn't catch the colour / logo references) if your reading this or perhaps someone from McCann Erickson who came up with the campaign, feel free to borrow my ideas.

Back to the original Evening Standard adverts, this is unprecedented media territory with a media outlet effectively apologising for the style of reporting that I have long railed against. A newspaper is now suggesting that they might be positive about the news, be less sensationalist and maybe just maybe, more socially responsible. It has been a brave new world for the print media ever since blogging came on the scene. Is this change of heart driven by pure economic necessity or is it a drive to raise editorial or reporting standards and the start of an evolution in the print media?

UK Star Wars Day - May the fourth be with you

Yes soon you can amuse colleagues and friends by greeting them with the traditional greeting on the UK Star Wars day (May 4th)

May the fourth be with you.

Earth Day - 22 April

Today April 22 is Earth Day and in the usual way I find out about these things it was because Google has redesigned their logo for the day.

According to wikipedia earth day is a day to inspire awareness and appreciation for the earth's environment. First observed in 1970 now it hardly breaks the news (at least round here, except google of course).

So lets take a second and think of something beautiful in our environment that we might want to protect for future generations.

For me the humble cherry tree and the humble bumble bee, two things that are natures marvels and without protection, life would be a little bit less bearable. I for one would not want to be old telling my grandchildren that in my youth we had cherry trees with blossom just like confetti and we had bees that went buzz and made honey. If that future comes to pass, as an old man I could not bear to speak of what precious things we took for granted and lost on the tarmac path to progress. In my old age I want to sit under the cherry tree letting the blossom fall against my wrinkled skin as the bees buzz round the granchildren and me. I would want to reflect on the sea change in the first few years of the 21st century that lead to sustainable growth policies which worked in harmony with nature.

Think Tank - New ideas for the 21st Century - Your call up the civil action squad (The Sunday Times)

Charlie Edwards writing for the times suggests it is time for a civil protection volunteer force (CVPF). I have to say the name is quite important and the acronym even more so, I may have to think of something more suitable by the end of the article.

Not a month goes by where there is not an emergency in the UK. In almost every case emergencies threaten to overwhelm local and national resources, whether it be the emergency services or local councils. Most emergencies are dealt with by bringing in all available staff and working long hours. In the worst case with a prolonged disaster or emergency operation this would not work. Most organisation can only deal with an incident over the short term until national or more resources can be brought in. Alternatively due to the stretched resources emergency services sometimes only deal with life threatening emergencies.

According to Charlie this is why politicians from across the political spectrum are calling for a new civil protection force. A network or organisation of volunteers that are prepared for the threats and risks to the population.

I think Charlie has hit the nail right on the head. I work for a government organisation, part of which deals with emergency situations such as the snowstorms in Jan / Feb. I work in HR, while the snow storms were raging and one part of the organisation was struggling to cope with the unfolding crisis I was just struggling to get to work and all I did when I got there was to do the same as I ever do. In fact if there was an even worse crisis, as far as I know there is no official plan to redeploy me to the operational side of the organisation. There is a staff helpline to call in case of emergency but I have no idea what I might be told apart from to report to my nearest local office where I would, I guess, be given a job to do but as I am untrained in any useful task how much use would I actually be?

So my first point is that any public sector organisation which has any kind of an involvement in an emergency situation should have plans to redeploy all their staff to where the operational demand is greatest. In a sense all staff should have a secondary post which they would deploy to in a given emergency. Admittedly you might have a different post for each type of emergency but when the call goes out either in advance or as it happens, on national tv and radio you would know exactly what you would have to do and where to report to. Even if this was done on a voluntary basis it would double the capacity of these organisations to deal with incidents.

What Charlie suggests could double the capacity again with the a team of volunteers specifically trained to deal with emergency situations. The real fourth emergency service. I have been thinking about this and in a sense it is a civilian army. You might have the following platoons or units.

Command and Control: High level command and control officers to direct the volunteer response and liaise with other agencies.

General grunts: Units of extra people who would be an extra pair of hands, they could help out with anything.

Engineering corp: Builders, plumbers, electricians and anyone with any building or labouring experience.

Medical corp: all of the usual doctors, nurses, first aiders etc.

IT corp: Special IT units to repair IT infrastructure

Transportation corp: A vast fleet of lorries and drivers that could be co-opted in an emergency. Also cars, boats, helicopters and planes.

All of the corps could be trained to a basic level such as first aid and basic disaster management perhaps with specific courses for each type of incident. The Command and control and team leaders would receive specialist training courses to prepare them for emergency management. In terms of training compare the corps with the TA, every member would given up say 15 days a year to complete training.

The role of the corps would be simple, protect life and limb, support the emergency services and restore critical infrastructure and supply lines quickly. Some of this would include supervising other volunteer organisations with the command and control units representing and co-coordinating all volunteer help. On this, having just one contact for all volunteer help will make it easier for the emergency services and easier to co-ordinate a volunteer response to incidents.

This would strengthen our response to any incident and increase the safety and security of our communities. Ultimately it would save lives and perhaps make us appreciate the emergency services for the hard jobs they do and perhaps even help us to take responsibility for our own actions in an emergency so that the emergency services can deal with those really in need.

And finally, all we need to do is come up with a name and an acronym, how about the Civil response Emergency Volunteers (CREV). OK may need to work on that one some more.

One last thing, count me in, I will be happy to be part of the command and control unit to help supervise the deployment of CREV in an emergency.

Petrol, major rail projects and poor government policy

Gordon Brown is busy at the G20 summit trying to push a spending agenda to bring the world out of recession.

On the same day Gordon is saying that, there are two minor stories to suggest that he might need to get his own house in order before telling the world what to do. This is not to suggest I don't agree with Gordon's plan to use government spending to boost the economy but that doesn't stop me pointing out what are really some quick wins that have been missed.

After all the role of the voter is to hold the government to account.

Fuel Duty

Today there was a 2p rise in fuel duty which had been planned all the way back in November at the beginning of our darkest months / downturn / credit crunch whatever those media people want to call it today. I fundamentally agree that the price of fuel should reflect the true cost of car use in terms of the environment and emissions.

What I would argue is that the duty rise should have been postponed by six months. This is coming at a time when consumers and businesses are already suffering from a squeeze on their finances. This is just a kick in the teeth.

It is also money that will go straight into the treasury rather than be used on the high street. Think of it as a Vat rate cut in reverse, if you reverse the argument that the government used for the Vat cut then surely putting on the fuel duty raise will take money out of people's pockets and therefore stifle economic growth.

Taxation is often about smoke and mirrors but this is perhaps a step too far.

Major rail projects

A big aspect of the agenda is to invest in capital projects, several of which could be major transportation and railway projects. The good news is that the government nationalised the infrastructure of UK railways some time ago. So all it would have to do is loan money at very favourable rates which could be spent on major projects. There are lots of projects to spend the money on as well, several projects are in the planning stages and the government could bring several forward or just create new projects. The railways will happily make use of any money that the government cares to give it.

So are they doing it? The article would suggest probably not. Jarvis one of the main railway contractors who work on infrastructure projects has just cut 450 jobs citing network rail spending reductions as a trigger. Network rail have delayed projects and reduced spending causing a downturn in business for Jarvis and therefore Jarvis are having to trim there business to suit the new economic climate.

So if the government are not putting money into planned existing capital projects where exactly are they going spending this money they keep on talking about?

Great British Disaster movies

Yesterday I may have perhaps suggested there was no such thing as a genre of British disaster movies, so here are a few suggestions that might make up the Genre.

Great British End of the world / Disaster movies - A list in no specific order of anything in particular

Flood (2007) - Its coming straight for us.

A Freak North Sea super storm threatens London leaving Robert Carlyle to save the day.

28 days later (2002)

Virus sweeps the UK wiping out most of the UK population, this is the story of survivors

The Day of the triffids (1962)

99% of the population go blind and rabid aliens (experimental plants in the book) take advantage and start attacking people.

28 weeks later (2007) - It all begins again.

Robert Carlyle in another disaster movie has survived the original version of the virus from 28 days later (he wasn't in the original film) gets rescued only for the virus to escape yet again.

Shaun of the dead (2004) - It's just one of those days when you're feeling a little...dead.

A now undisputed cult horror comedy, British and best, Hollywood could not write and certainly would not produce a movie like this. No list would be complete without Shaun of the dead.

Population of London catch a virus, die and then return from the dead to eat the living. Shaun and friends must survive and escape.

Conclusion

After that I cant really think of any more British disaster movies and five films hardly makes a genre, however if anyone can think of any more I shall add them to the list, over to you Bobbicus.