Tunes for a Tuesday - 25 November 2008

The Honeydrips - (Lack of) Love Will Tear Us Apart (Lack of Love Tore Us Apart - Dreams End Remix) 
SS Cardiacs - Age of Navigation from Fear the Love
Goo Goo Dolls - American Girl (Live) from The Concert for New York City
Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Ant Man Bee from Trout Mask Replica
The Raconteurs - Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)
Teenage Fanclub - Everything Flows from Four Thousand Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds
The Stranglers - Golden Brown from Greatest Hits 1977-1990
The Hobnail Boots - Holy from On with the show
Albert King - I Won't Be Hanging Around from The Chess Story 1947-1975 (1960-1961)
Anita Bryant - In My Little Corner Of The World from Billboard Top 100 of 1960
The Postmarks - Leaves remixed by Roger O'Donnell
The Call - Let The Day Begin from Let The Day Begin
Chantels - Maybe from Billboard Top 100 of 1958
Pavement - Perfect Depth
Mike & The Mechanics - Seeing is Believing from Living Years
Atlanta Rhythm Section - Shanghied from Red Tape
Northern State - Siren Song from 2004 Was A Good Year For Political Songs
Larry Davis - Texas Flood from Theme Time Radio Hour - 44 - Texas
The Muslims - Walking With Jesus from Parasites/Walking With Jesus 7"
Stiff Little Fingers - Wasted Life from John Peel's Festive Fifty 1980 - Radio Version

Is this....

...something like putting lipstick on a pig?

Tunes for a Tuesday - 18 November 2008

ZZ Top - (Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree from ZZ Top's First Album
The Rolling Stones - Angie from Forty Licks
Cheap Trick - Can't Stop Fallin' Into Love from Greatest Hits
She and Him (ft. Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward) - Change Is Hard from KCRW Open Road, January 2008
Sam Mangwana - Galo Negro from Putumayo Presents: Afro Latino
Electric Light Orchestra Part Two - Honest Men
Blowoff - Hormone Love from Blowoff
Grace Potter And The Nocturnals - Joey from Nothing But the Water
French Kicks - Keep It Amazed
Chuck Berry - Maybellene from The Chess Story 1947-1975 (1955-1956 )
Girl Talk - Peak Out from Night Ripper
Kora - Politician [Paddy Free Mix] from Dub Conspiracy
Tom Jones  - Ring Of Fire from The Best Of...
B.B. King - See That My Grave Is Kept Clean from One Kind Favor
Ash - Shining Light from Intergalactic Sonic 7"s:The Best Of Ash
Etta James - Something's Got A Hold On Me from The Chess Story 1947-1975 (1960-1961)
The Magnetic Fields - The Nun's Litany from Live on Fair Game from PRI with Faith Salie
Windy City Strugglers - Waltz Of The Wind from Kingfisher
The Byrds - You Don't Miss Your Water from Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology

The Black Seeds - You Wait from Keep On Pushing

And he reckons he's overworked......

Only in Nelson

Now, this is more like it....

The BBC reports on the back-scatter x-ray technology that some  airports are currently triallin.

Pretty much makes you naked to the eye of the perving security staff beholder.

I think this is much better, though....

Four down......

......four to go.

This is John Kotter's 8 Point plan for change management that he first published in the Harvard Business Review and then in his 1995 book "Managing Change"
 

Step One: Create Urgency

Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition

Step Three: Create a Vision for Change

Step Four: Communicate the Vision

Step Five: Remove Obstacles

Step Six: Create Short-term Wins

Step Seven: Build on the Change

Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

Step 6 is easy enough.


It's the other 3 that are tricky.


And Step 8 is a real bugger.


In the corporate world, anyway.


I had a fairly emotional discussion with my Group CEO about the need to make EVERYONE understand that - if they're away from their desk - phone calls get forwarded or go to voice mail.


I was banging on about how people need to UNDERSTAND the need for it - changing corporate culture, if you will.


"Don't need that" he says "I'll just order them to do it."


No, it doesn't work like that....

It must be me...#4

I really enjoy the States, especially the North East, north of Boston.

Long coastline, nice people, enough history to make it cultured.

Portsmouth's got the Seacoast Theatre with a good show that kicks off at 7:30pm.

So I pop in to the Outback Steakhouse at lunchtime, make a reservation for 6 pm. 

"No problem" (Nothing's ever a problem...)

Front up at 6pm and..... the wait is 30 minutes.

You can imagine how the conversation starts off - "Well actually, I've got a reservation for 6pm.."
 
You have no idea how it continues.

"Well actually, you only have a "call in". That means that you "call in" and it cuts the waiting time by half"
 
On reflection, it's best to accept the situation.

You can, of course, insist on getting your table toute de suite.

It'll be right next to the Used Beer Department, they'll bugger up your order and be about as friendly as an Aeroflot flight attendant.


Probably spit on your food as well.....

Tunes for a Tuesday - 11 November 2008

Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4 from Billboard Top 100 Hits Of 1970
Pattern Is Movement - Bird from All Together
Green Day - Emenius Sleepus from Dookie
Lindisfarne - Fog On The Tyne from Fog On The Tyne
Josh White - Freedom Road from Smithsonian Folkways American Roots Collection
Sjako! - Hurt (I Wish) from 2 Meter Sessies Volume 4
Bob Dylan - I Shall Be Released from The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 : Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991 (Disc 2)
David Lindley & Hani Naser - Lick The Tears from Playing Even Better
Grin - Like Rain from The Very Best Of Grin Featuring Nils Lofgren
David Bowie - Maid of bond street from Deram Anthology
M.I.A. - Mango Pickle Down River from Kala
Funkadelic - Red Hot Mama from Standing on the Verge of Getting it On
Amy Winehouse - Rehab from Back To Black
Robert Pollard - Serious Bird Woman (You Turn Me On) 
The Big Three - Some Other Guy from John Lennon's Jukebox
Brenda Lee - Sweet Nothin's from Billboard Top 100 of 1960
The Pogues - The Irish Rover from The Best Of The Pogues
Les Savy Fav - The Lowest Bitter from Lets Stay Friends
The Dears - Ticket To Immortality from Gang Of Losers
The Ruts - West One from John Peel's Festive Fifty 1980 - Radio Version

Left hand, right hand

Popped in to see the orthopaedic chappie the other day to make sure that Leg 2.0 isn't in danger of falling off.

Routine stuff.

Waggles the leg around to make sure there are no suspicious noises and then sends me off down the corridor for an x-ray.

Radiologist flossie lines me up, covers up the rude bits with a lead sheet and blasts me with neutrons.

Comes back in and says" You've got an artificial hip"

"Oh, that's RIGHT" I said "I seem to vaguely recall something like that"

"Well, it's NOT FUNNY" she bellows "It should have been on THIS bit of PAPER"

Shouldn't have laughed.

I'm sure she turned up the volume or whatever they do to give you a lethal dose.

Not that I'll notice, of course.

My hair's been falling out for years....

Summing things up nicely

BA038 lost power on both engines shortly before landing at LHR in January..

The usual second guessing of the crew's actions immediately ensued.

This is what someone wrote on Pprune, the forum for peole who fly (or are flown) professionally for a living.

While I am not the world's slowest typist, the time it has taken to type THIS sentence is approximately the time available for the entire process on BA038, from recognition of problem to impact.


And that's without the time for some minor corrections after the fact - an opportunity the flight crew did not have.


They took and passed with honours one of the shorter courses in test piloting in the whole history of aviation.


It seems a very satisfactory result, all considered. 

Job well done.

True Stories - Bush and Koizumi

"Well, dear boy those things did happen at various times, in different places, but mainly not to me" Basil Boothroyd

"Tell me, Junichiro" asked George W. "When do you have elections in Japan?"

"Everly morning, before bleakfast" says Koizumi

I knew it would be my fault.....

No you can't

..expect a tax cut for 95% of the population, an overhaul of the health system and a migration to clean energy any time soon.

If ever.

But I'm still pretty pleased that Barack Obama's at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and not the other mob.

Sarah Palin.

Just what WERE they thinking...?

The ties that bind

Back when I was a high-powered executive (I think that's what it was, anyway), the CIO of a major American airline invited himself and a sizeable retinue over to look at some kit that we'd promised him would revolutionise his business, cut his costs to zero, pay for itself within a week and guarantee him a HUGE bonus at the end of the year.

Actually, WE didn't tell him that.

The sales people told him that.

You get used to it.

So we're chatting over coffee before the presentation, talking about globalisation and this and that and the other and he picks up the very flash folder that we'd had done for the occasion and comments on its professionalism and smart binding.

"Well, thank you" I managed to get out before my brain went into suspended animation

Didn't stop me talking, though.

"We design them here and have them printed and bound in Bangkok. Fresh off the press, just arrived this morning"

Nina - over from New York - gives me one of of those "Oh no, not again" looks.

She knows me quite well.

"Yes" I burble on "The Thais that bind..."

Nina rolls her eyes in a "I don't believe he's doing this again" rotation

The CIO says "Hey, that's real inneresting. You guys sure seem to master Supply Chain Management. I'm sure we're gonna have a long and fruitful relationship..." .

I know.

Irony. America. Oxymoron.

Ties That Bind - Levon Helm and The RCO All Stars from Live at the Palladium in NYC, New Years '77

The WTF headline

I tend to get a bit hot under the collar when I read headlines like this, having friends who are school teachers and who are expected by parents to teach their kids how to brush their teeth.

(I kid you not)

The mothers of two Stoke boys facing serious charges before the courts say their sons have been getting into trouble because the Education Ministry has not done enough to make sure they are going to school.

So the first reaction to this is to say(bellow...?) "Well, HANG ON A MINUTE. They're YOUR kids. YOU make sure they go to school."

Then you read that one mother is bringing her kid up up on her own, has a full-time job and has been trying to get the education authorities to help her.

OBVIOUSLY gets pushed from one department to the next.

OBVIOUSLY no-one is interested in taking on a tough case.

It surprises me that they didn't suggest that she went on welfare to have more time to look after the kids....

Read the story

The boys, aged 14 and 15, were each charged this week with two counts of burglary and one of aggravated assault.
Lawyer John Sandston said he appeared as an advocate in the Youth Court at Nelson on Wednesday for the 15-year-old, who had not been at school since July.
Mr Sandston said it was not uncommon for young people appearing in the Youth Court to not be attending school.
"That's what leads to some of the crime, because they've got nothing to do."
Mr Sandston said the Education Ministry had a legal obligation to find the boy another school. Under the Education Act, anyone 15 or younger has to attend school unless they have a dispensation.
The boy said he was excluded from Nayland College for fighting, before starting Correspondence School, from which he was excluded in July for not doing his work.
"My concern is that with the idle time he has, this has led to the offending alleged to have been committed," Mr Sandston said.
The boy, who cannot be named, told the Nelson Mail he wanted to go to school but no Nelson school wanted him.
His mother, a solo parent who works fulltime, said she had repeatedly tried to get her son into school, and was frustrated by the lack of help from the ministry.
"I'm at work all day, so he's hanging around with older boys with nothing to do, and they're getting in to trouble. Every time I answer the door, the police are there."
A spokesman for Education Minister Chris Carter said the mother had contacted his office and the boy's case was referred to the South Island student support manager. He said that if schools did not take a student, it was then up to the ministry to step in.
The mother of the 14-year-old boy told the Nelson Mail the education system had "washed its hands" of her son, who had spent more time in court than at school this year.
She wanted the ministry to give her son, and others like him, dispensation not to attend school, so he could get a job instead of getting involved in crime.
Her son had been at Broadgreen Intermediate, Waimea Intermediate, Nayland College and Youth Nelson before being enrolled in the Correspondence School without her consultation, she said.
No school would take him, and she believed that his excessive free time meant he was bored and getting into trouble.
The mother said she was getting "shunted" between government departments, yet none would find a solution to her problem.
Nelson MP Nick Smith said both mothers had contacted him out of extreme frustration, as they felt their pleas for help were being ignored by government agencies, which knew that their sons were not in school.
He said the boys highlighted the link between truancy and crime. National has a policy of having everyone aged under 18 in some sort of training, work or youth programme.
"We are just asking for disaster in having youth doing nothing for months."
The ministry did not respond to questions from the Nelson Mail in time for publication Thursday morning.

The Doddery Chronicles #2

Simon Lindsay was a road worker on State Highway 3 in New Zealand.

His blog - RestArea300 - was a classic. One of the best I've read

In the blogosphere, he was Doddery Old Fart. He died suddenly in May last year.

His blog's offline now, but there are some pure gems tucked away in there.

Thanks to Chrissie, Alex and Jane for letting me share them

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Working Environments

I'm a big softy really.


I lashed out on a wheelbarrow last winter after watching the girls struggling with the firewood.


I even oil the axle now and then.


An extra piece of fish, and TWO tomato sauce sachets with the wedding anniversary fish and chips.


I've taped up the split on the handle of the axe.


I take a safe working environment seriously.


But for some obscure reason, my domestic arrangements are a little dangerous at the moment.


Very puzzling ....

Tunes for a Tuesday - 4 November 2008

 

Elvis Presley - (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear from The Complete 1950s Masters Vol 3
The Toys - A Lover's Concerto from Billboard Top 100 Hits Of 1965
Nanci Griffith - Are You Tired Of Me Darling from Other Voices, Other Rooms
The Offspring - Change The World from Ixnay On The Hombre
Jerry Irby & His Texas Rangers - Great Long Pistol from Theme Time Radio Hour - 25 - Guns
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Half Ghost from Twinkle Echo
Joe Walsh - Help Me Make It Through The Night from You Can't Argue With A Sick Mind
Art In Manila - I Thought I Was Free from Set The Woods On Fire
Louvin, Charlie - KnoXVIlle Girl (Featuring Will Oldham) from Charlie Louvin
Wolf Parade - Language from Live, 2007.08.18 @ Download Festival, Tweeter Center, Mansfield, MA
Dinosaur Jr. - Little Fury Things from You're Living All Over Me
Elton John - Love Song from Tumbleweed Connection
Chuck Berry - My Ding-A-Ling from The Chess Story 1947-1975 (1969-1975)
Kiri Te Kanawa, John Pritchard; London Philharmonic Orchestra - Puccini: Gianni Schicci - O mio babbino caro from Verdi & Puccini
Headlights - Put Us Back Together Right from Kill Them With Kindness
Shihad - Shot In The Head from Love Is The New Hate
Mudhoney - Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More from John Peel's Festive Fifty 1988 - Radio Version
Pink Floyd - The Thin Ice from The Wall (Disc 1)
The Isley Brothers - Twist and Shout from Volume 1
David Lindley Y Wally Ingram - Well Well Well from Live in Europe

"It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury"

A spin merchant working for Tony Blair's Labour UK government wrote this memo at 2.55pm on September 11 2001, when millions of people were transfixed by the terrible television images of the terrorist attack.

Something similar's going on over here.

Not quite as despicable, but very tacky nonetheless.

The State of Hessen voted in January this year,  with huge losses for the ruling Conservative party and an absolute stalemate in Parliament - Conservatives and Socialists neck and neck with 42 seats each, Liberals (tend to vote with the Conservatives) 11, Greens (ditto with the Socialists) 9 and the Linken, (pariahs that everybody - especially the Socialists' candidate, Andrea Ypsilanti - SWORE they'd have nothing to do with 11.

Andrea Ypsilanti - not being entirely thick - works out that she could form a minority government with the Greens if the Linken would agree to "tolerate" her being in power.

Forget the fact that she promised the electorate that she'd never cooperate with the Linken, forget the fact that 70% of the elecorate is against her forming a government with the Linken playing along.

Tomorrow's the day of the US presidential elections.

Andrea Ypsilanti figures that 4 November would be a good day to pull a crafty one - what with all the hoopla going on in the States, there's a fair chance that the outraged voices of the voters in Hessen would be drowned out by the hysterics from across the pond.

Didn't count on 4 members of her own party not playing along.

One - Dagmar Metzler - had said all along that she wasn't going to betray the voters.

Good for her.

The other major player is Ypsilanti's deputy.

She made the critical error of squeezing him out of the ministry that he wanted.

He figures "Sod this for a game of soldiers - if she goes along with this, we'll get thumped at the next election so I'll get a couple of other waverers onto my side, play the Valiant Moralist, squeeze Ypsilanti out of the party leadership, the pollsters will come up with massive voter support for my VM feat and I'm in like a rat up a drainpipe"

Is it any wonder that people don't trust politicians?

Thicko

Granny calls her grand-daughter's husband "Thicko"

Granny's 87, so she can do pretty much what she likes.

But she's spot-on with this.

We're all out for dinner and Thicko asks his sister-in-law if she can arrange to get him an iPod from the States.

"But then again" he thinks out loud "it's all going to be in English..."

And Thicko's German.

As is everybody around the table apart from me.

As if a generation that is bombarded with slogans like "Upgrade to Fashion", "Sexy bum guaranteed" and "Come in and find out" and ACTIVELY uses phrases like "stubby", "fast food" and "coffee to go" can't manage simple stuff like "Play", "Stop" "Pause"

I ventured that it's highly unlikely that Apple would segment their market by language, given that the Mac OS is multilingual

And they'd run the risk of having an overstock of French language iPods and an understock of German iPods.

Just as an example.

So it wouldn't make sense to mass customise.

They looked at me as if I was trying to explain quantum mechanics by farting musically....

True Stories - The House Number

"Well, dear boy those things did happen at various times, in different places, but mainly not to me" Basil Boothroyd

"So what's your house number" asked the guy selling this stuff at the Nelson market?

"2231 Wilshire Boulevard" I said

"That'll be $48, then" he said.

"No" I said "You're selling house numbers for $12. Says so right here. Not digits. House numbers. My house number is 2231..."

A discussion ensued...

Baby needs.....

So does Bloke

Shit, this is... a good picture.

The Lowry, Salford Quays, Manchetser