Thatcher

Thatcher

I had my teenage years through the 80's.  I watched the UK change dramatically after the conservatives won the 1979 election.  The country seemed initially to be in distress - the miners strike, rubbish piled in the streets, the poll tax riots.  Then the boom.  The opportunity to buy council houses, yuppies, banking and financial services just exploded.  The country found a new place in the world and particularly after the Falklands War - we we're proud to be British.

Do we owe this tumultuous change to Margaret Thatcher?  Mostly I think we do.  I didn't like her politics but the country needed change and she had the unfortunate task of modernising a country that likes its traditions and its heritage.  

Taking the miners as an example, what were the alternatives to close the mines that were unsustainable?  You either closed and reformed the industry or you held the country back while you paid for something long past its sell-by date.  I sympathised then and now with the miners who just wanted to work - and the communities that were decimated by the pit closures.  It just wasn't an option to keep them open under government subsidies.  That way of working had to go.

Jumping forward to the moment of Margaret Thatchers death.  Whilst some were happy to see the back of her - a more philosophical point of view would be that at a moment in time she did what what we all understand as being necessary now with hindsight.  I still don't like her, or her politics but where we are now as a country - a modern, progressive, tolerant and democratic country that other nations aspire to be like is what we have from that period in time.  

Responsible Blogging

Responsible Blogging

My personal feeling a blogs and blogging in general is mixed (the irony being that you're reading this on my blog).  I've read good ones, funny ones, poor ones and some that are just downright weird - weird to the point where I just don't get the point or the message - if there even was one.

What I did recognise it as was a form of self-expression - the digital evolution of graffiti or the modern way for social commentary to manifest itself.  Away from the actual blog there was a mystery about the blogger.  Who were they?  Why were they doing this?  Because in many instances the blogger as a person was anonymous it came to pass that bloggers thought you could say anything you liked and you could get away with it.  The law caught up with the social media revolution and prosecutions for some kinds of random, defamatory or outright spurious comments passed off as freedom of speech made the mainstream press - showing that just because something was digital and anonymous that they law still applied.

A few years along this road blogs and bloggers still have a positive and negative effect on the lives and fortunes of many people.  Celebrities still benefit and suffer at the hands of these citizen-journalists and many a new product campaign is now conceived with the "blogger strategy" a cornerstone.

More recently I've encountered the slightly darker side of this aspect of our digital era.  A recent review left on iTunes relating to the REALRIDER app (www.realrider.com) rated the app as just 1 out of 5.  That's disappointing enough but when the review is explicit and full of inaccuracies and half-baked theories then its easy to get angry about this.  To add insult to injury it then turns out that the person is a professional blogger and a trained journalist to boot.

Someone not liking we what do at REALRIDER is not the issue.  You can't please everyone.  What I had expected from a trained journalist is a call or an email to get clarification on the issues they were commenting on before the review was published.  Is that not the responsible way to tackle something that your about to heavily criticise?  Its seems very amateurish to review something - make a ton of factual mistakes and leave the scene of the accident with no responsibility for the damage a review like that might cause.

REALRIDER as a company is in its infancy and as such is just taking its first steps towards changing the way the motorcycle sees the use of technology in the context of keeping motorcyclists safe.  A review like the one we saw can lower confidence in the product and the team and cause a business that is looking to establish itself to stumble.  Where is the responsibility here?  Can a business defend itself against these kinds of instances without looking aggressive or thuggish?  What can be done to make irresponsible bloggers accountable for their actions?

There are no real answers to these questions and it's difficult to see how a set of guidelines would establish the difference between a subjective set of opinions and the factual truth in a reliable way.  The he-said / she-said way that we deal with each other when we are confronted by these kinds of situations are the reasons we reach for a lawyer.   

Measure

Measure

I was recently reading an article I found on the web blog of The You Company about a way of measuring will power through a digital device.  The full article is here: TYC

It was an interesting article for 2 reasons.  As a person who works in digital I'm always in the latest and greatest gadgets and gizmos.  The other reason being that it totally intrigued me that my will power could be some how quantified and measured.  

I'm a diabetic which means I know a little bit more about will power than the average man in the street.  Not raiding the biscuit tin, not drinking the drinks I like, being careful in what I eat - these are all daily considerations for me and it does take will power not to just indulge.

The notion of my will power being measurable then made me think about other emotions and reactions and if they can be measured the same way.   Can I get a device that could measure my lust, desire or greed?

Outside of these things being measurable somehow the next question is would I want to know what they are?  Would I really want to know that I am greedier than the national average?  I don't think I do.

Time

Time 

First post of a new year.  It has me contemplated the nature of time and the ways in which we measure it.  Time has to be one of the most abstract concepts that we persist with as humans.   It has no physical form - just the people,events and places we associate with it.  It has no real purpose of its own, just the purpose we apply to it - being on time to meet someone or the moment a train will leave a station.

If we didn't measure time the way we do would we suffer in any way?

The Inca used to tie knots in pieces of string at regular intervals (based on the sun) to measure the time between events but then disposed of the string - they felt no need to record events in time on a daily basis.  They did however excel at tracking events over thousands of years as we know with 2012 being the end of a 5500 year Inca calendar.

If we just removed time as a principle there would be short term anarchy while other ways of coordinating activities became apparent.  As to the long term impacts I suspect that most of what we use time for would just become unimportant.  Birthdays, anniversaries, recurring events - society got by without most of these things for longer than it has with them.

I'm sat looking at my calendar for the next 12 months trying to work out how to get a whole load of events and movements to work in conjunction with each other.  It would be easier if these things had less importance, I'm speculating that they would be less important if we removed the notion of a fixed timetable from the background.

Prank

Prank

I've been reflecting on the series of events surrounding two Australian DJ's making a prank call to the hospital treating Kate Middleton and the subsequent tragedy of the nurse who took the call  taking her own life.  

I've never been a fan of prank calls.  Playing on other peoples gullibility (or vulnerability depending on how you see it) has never amused me.  Along with prank calls I place aspects of TV shows like X-Factor where there is a need to show people who have little or no talent or ability in a way that's just pure ridicule.  I've long said that at some point someone would react badly to the ridicule and suicide would be the end result.  As it turns out I have the right outcome from the wrong activity, its a prank call that brings this bit of soothsaying by me to a truth.

For my mind it comes down to the issue of responsibility for ones actions.  The DJ's clearly did not intend to humiliate someone into suicide but that is the actual outcome of their prank call. Intended or not, they are responsible.  If we dispense them from that responsibility then where do we draw the line?  Its a dangerous notion that we would remove someone from the consequences of their actions.

Personally I think they should be charged.  It would send the right message to those who would engage in this kind of infantile kind of stunt.  Playing with peoples emotions, pounding their dreams, making them look ridiculous should all be on the cards if the consequences are accepted.

For the nurses family I feel dreadfully sorry, at the end of the day they are the only victims of this.

High Street Decay

High Street Decay

There is a train of thought about the decay of the traditional high street that I think is misleading.  Most local councils charged with the upkeep of the local high street launch into the "regeneration" of their environment with gusto.  They pedestrianise, they reconfigure, they strip. This can often lead to sterile environments that end up as boarded up ghost towns.  This "regeneration" is often quoted as the root cause of the decay of the high street but I'm not sure it is ... I think its Supermarkets.

When I was a kid, a supermarket (like the co-op) just sold food.  I remember going with my parents maybe once a week at most and we got a small selection of foods that were not carried in the smaller shops locally.  It was more of a special occurrence and not something that   anyone considered doing on a regular basis.

The birth of the modern supermarket, the one that sold clothes, electricals,  insurance and now health products and mortgages is a modern phenomena.  The goods and services that existed on the high street in the 70's and 80's are no longer the purview of the small retailer you would have found on the high street.  The supermarket with its insane purchasing power and its ability to scale up to any height required is what has truly killed the high street in my opinion.

Small boutique shops and the medium sized retainer that inhabited the high street no longer really exists.  The mantra for any new entrant to the retail space is to "get big quick" - and the sell out.  If we could turn back the clock knowing what we know now then curbing the growth of supermarkets would surely be high on the list of changes.

Rage Against the Cash Machine

Cash Machines

The title would suggest that I have something against cash machines.  I don't in the sense that they are a useful and necessary part of modern life.  I'm old enough to remember a time before cash machines.  I used to have to wait until Saturday to go into town, queue, take my cash out etc.   When cash machines arrived on the high street it was a revolution.  

What I'm contemplating in this blog post is the effect of the cash machine on a younger generation that hasn't know a time without them.  

I always understood where money came from and how hard it was to accumulate it.  My parents worked hard and at times money was in short supply.  I never assumed that my parents could just keep producing money for whatever I wanted.

I recently heard a child say "just get more money from the machine" to a parent who clearly wasn't in the same frame of mind.  This made me think.  The child associates money coming from a machine and that the supply is endless.  There is a disconnection between where money comes from, how you accumulate it and what the point of excess is.   

Parents should take the time to describe money in its fullest sense to children.  Their understanding of it will shape their actions and define how they approach life in lots of ways.  Without guidance and a firm understanding of how to manage money and how it effects their options then children will struggle to make sensible choices.

What I'm sure of is young people need to break the relationship between cash machines and where money comes from ... it never will be a good association.