Off We Go Again

In the next five months the electorate of the UK will be circling the Bermuda Triangle that is British politics while their present leaders and other potential ones attempt to navigate despite the compasses and other equipment going wild or dead.

The three sides to the triangle are climate change, issues arising from demographics and population matters and Europe.  Deep beneath the waters are the great trenches of property, inhabited by voracious beasts and the other connected one of debt, with much the same beasts and other creatures unknown or unpredictable.

Then further into the deep are many caves, tunnels, holes and the rest that are the places where all our political myths and fantasies let alone dogmas have their slimy origins.  It is a world of taxation, benefits, subsidies and channels for funds going who knows where.

Also down there is the wreckage of so many ships of state and airy policies, manifestos, promises, commitments that all disappeared without trace often in a puff of mist or a glitch in the magnetic field of events.  We shall never know really why only what ancient legends, folk tales and fairy tales might claim.

In my purely personal opinion, taking account of all the factors into consideration and after an in depth study and analysis of all the information and relevant research, I have come to firm conclusion that may be moderated according to changing circumstances and a frantic need to claim I was right after the election.

We are all doomed.

Honour Bound

This week I awarded myself another Nononour.

Over the years I have received many Nononours, all awarded by me to me for services to mankind in the shape of myself.  Often they are covered in good quality chocolate but sometimes represent a lifetime devoted to conspicuous consumption.

For my military service I awarded myself the highest possible award, The Good Soldier Schweik title for skiving beyond the call of duty, named after the fictional character, above, created by Jaroslav Hasek.

My working life was marked by a succession of notable Nononours.  Many were for finding reasons to be elsewhere when it was busy that were regarded as exceptional.

Others were for leaving just before things got difficult.  Not least were all those, some of the highest rankness, for a talent for dropping my superiors in the unmentionable.

Some have been Nononours of high standing.  There is the Order of Demerit for excuses beyond any possible credibility.

There is the Night Hood for regularly coming back late and then waking the street up.  There is the Peerage for staring when one should not stare.

So the fact that my name has never appeared in any UK Honours List and more to the point has never been suggested for any honour is of little concern.

All I will say is that it is possible that the Nononours awarded personally by me to me may be more worthy than some of those on the official list.

To all those who have been disappointed, those whose striving has gone unrewarded, those held in high respect ignored and those who really do deserve recognition but do not get it, I will say not to worry; just award yourself something.

Perhaps the UK honours system needs to be leaner, simpler and meet criteria that make more sense.

How Things Change

Below is the sale information on a new book.  It is the broad perspective of what seemed to be a simple practical change in shipping cargo has led almost to a new world.

This is a subject that has fascinated me for several reasons.  One is that in the early 1970's when going in and out of Felixstowe it was impossible not to see the effects of the new development of container shipping.

Clearly, it was going to lead to substantial changes in the way freight was moved both between and within countries and also the way docks and dockers worked.  As it proved in that period.

Given the critical role of the docker's trade unions both in the Labour Party and other socialist groups and in the economy as a whole  it was going to be a very rough ride.

What I, a relatively informed observer, and many others, notably in government and in business, did not see was the scale and nature of all the changes that would occur as a consequence.  We were all badly caught out, especially those in and seeking power.

Hat tip to Diane Coyle of "The Enlightened Economist" for the link that led to this post.  The book is by Alexander Klose and titled: "The Container Principle: How A Box Changes The Way We Think".

Quote:

We live in a world organized around the container. Standardized twenty- and forty-foot shipping containers carry material goods across oceans and over land; provide shelter, office space, and storage capacity; inspire films, novels, metaphors, and paradigms.

Today, TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit, the official measurement for shipping containers) has become something like a global currency. A container ship, sailing under the flag of one country but owned by a corporation headquartered in another, carrying auto parts from Japan, frozen fish from Vietnam, and rubber ducks from China, offers a vivid representation of the increasing, world-is-flat globalization of the international economy.

In The Container Principle, Alexander Klose investigates the principle of the container and its effect on the way we live and think. Klose explores a series of "container situations" in their historical, political, and cultural contexts.

He examines the container as a time capsule, sometimes breaking loose and washing up onshore to display an inventory of artifacts of our culture. He explains the "Matryoshka principle," explores the history of land-water transport, and charts the three phases of container history.

He examines the rise of logistics, the containerization of computing in the form of modularization and standardization, the architecture of container-like housing (citing both Le Corbusier and Malvina Reynolds's "Little Boxes"), and a range of artistic projects inspired by containers.

Containerization, spreading from physical storage to organizational metaphors, Klose argues, signals a change in the fundamental order of thinking and things. It has become a principle.

Unquote.

For a bang on the head try reading this blog that explains the Matryoshka Principle for software in relatively simple terms.  I did say relatively.

Back in the 70's and early '80's there were a few young guys kicking around with high techie stuff that was interesting but most thought probably was never going to amount to much beyond numbers grinding.

College principals and others were telling politicians that any of it was only for limited numbers of highly qualified experts.  Some politicians, notably on the Left, felt it should be controlled in detail and licensed by local authorities.

What happened next?

The Prospects For 2015

Fixing The Canvas

Among the many talents I have failed to obtain, art is one of them.  Also, it was a field foreign to me for many years, but later in life wandering around old buildings and tourist locations an interest began to form, born out of an interest in history and human progress, or lack of it.

A result is an interest in the TV programmes on the subject and some reading and visiting.  It was impossible not to wander around France and some other places without picking up a good deal of information.

When TV Sky Arts One put on the programmes "Portrait Artist of the Year", it was something to watch, easy to follow and better than the options.  One can have enough of mid week lower division soccer or crash bang drama or the endless repeat of documentaries.

Broadly, the world of British art today is extensive, complicated and with many schools of activity.  There are many and various deep divisions of thinking and belief on the all the forms and variations in this field.  Necessarily any TV programme has to cut to the chase whatever the chosen area might be.

By concentrating on a limited field, portraiture and with a clear structure it was intended for a more popular audience.  Personally, I could have managed without the knockout levels and the blather that went on with it, but it was meant to catch an audience for whom this would add interest.

There are three, not distinct, groups in this field as whole.  One is those who are at the top, exhibiting in major galleries and moving their works in the market.  Second, there are those engaged in the art world as practitioners at lower levels, teachers or such as well as working on their own account.

Thirdly, there are many with talent and interest for whom art is a major part of their lives, but who need to work to live and provide the money for their interest.  In the earlier series it was my impression that it was aimed at finding major talent in the second and third groupings.

This year, 2014, however, it emerged that the winner was already represented by a major London gallery and said to have works that could be moved and for whom there was a market able to pay the price.  In other words he had "made it" and was already in favour.

Sadly, life's experience has not only given me cynicism but a habit of thought to look behind the noise for things which do not quite seem to fit and the inexplicable.  In the various rounds  I had wondered about some of the reasoning.

In the final programme where the winner then painted a famous actor as a commission for a national gallery I had the distinct impression that the presenters and judges all had been given a script to stick to.

The result of the 2014 series, in my view and purely personal opinion, was pre-determined.

If Sky want to promote the work of selected artists and send a message out to all of us would they just do programmes that do that.

How We Are Governed

There is so much going on it is difficult to pick a topic that might be of general interest and add much to the amount of discussion.  Sometimes, however, there are items that tell you a great deal despite being well outside the usual arenas of debate.

What goes on and why in local government is one of them.  This is another area of government which is very different from the past.

This book review from the LSE is about local government today and what it means.  Indeed it urges that everyone should read it.   At 950 words the review is longish given that the prose is, let us say, challenging.  For example, you are invited to consider a comparative gauge on an imagined urban Richter Scale of Community Dissonance in local governmentality.

As we walk around our town, the refuse bins are overflowing with litter all over the place, the drains are blocked, the pavements where there are trees now have two or more years layers of leaves and indeed they are rarely repaired making walking a high risk activity.

The lights are going out and the rats are celebrating freedom. There are many potholes in the roads with their dangers and many trunk road foundations are collapsing.  Child welfare services seem to be about anything but welfare.  Education has become one of life's eternal mysteries.

On the larger scale it is claimed that there is a serious lack of social housing, the town centre regularly goes into traffic gridlock, public spaces unkempt and uncared and public services as whole being less accessible and more expensive.

In the A&E Ward at the local hospital at weekends there is often ugly mayhem arising from all the drunks and their associates.  The police feel unable to deal with them, irrespective of the risks.  It appears that the night time clubbing and drinking economy might be hindered according to the local council.

In the municipal buildings, however, there are teams of highly qualified staff rather than administrative departments, many on salaries exceeding the Prime Minister's.  There are paid groups of councillors in never ending meetings.

They are advised not only by appointed officers but by a horde of special advisers and outside consultants, the latter from major financial operators at great cost.  There was a time when the officers were supposed to know that they were doing.

These  are mostly considering the implications of the thousands of new regulations and directives "outputted" each year by central government, often at on the instructions of the EU and any one of the large number of international agencies.  It is probable that all this is essentially centrally directed with only local application.

A great deal of this is done not by committees with agenda's listing items for decision or action but in the many groups designated in one form or another who talk about policy, strategy, concept determination, structures, organisational meaning and imperatives and this is all centred on community cohesion.

This is what it is about and not the day to day business of providing, managing and upkeep of basic services.

Now it is neither local nor government.

Start All Over Again

For some little time now I have wondered about how far quantum physics and theoretical economics are apart or intermingled.  One reason was that the "uncertainty principle" certainly applied to economics and therefore financial markets.

It did seem to explain all the ups and downs, booms and busts, inexplicable successes and failures and all that if you were able to work out just how.

Now it is time to start again because it is claimed that quantum physics is a lot easier than it was thought to be.  So if wave particle duality is at the heart of one can it be at the heart of the other?  And how does it work in fields that appear to be splintered and in opposition?

This could take a long time to work out, first there is what entropic uncertainty relations are in this new set up.  So when political canvassers call ask them what their party position is on this subject in terms of policy on financial regulation.

You might just start something.