John's Random Stuff

The Manifesto

2011-01-27T19:25:00.000Z

One of the strangest programmes on Radio 4 is Mark Thomas' 'The Manifesto' usually broadcast in the Thursday 18:30/19:00 comedy slot..

The premise behind this show is that the presenter gets various members of the audience to propose various laws they would like to see voted in. These tend to run from the deadly serious to the arcane (abolish Wednesdays anyone?) and with some of the most likely Thomas will take the proposal to an expert to get an opinion.

Given the political apathy shown by most people at actual elections the enthusiasm of the audience is rather startling and rather uplifting - perhaps it's (cynically) because these particular proposals have no chance of actually being enacted or (less cynically) because here the people are actually putting forward their own ideas rather than selecting from a set of canned party proposals that almost inevitably suffer from the exigencies of office should the Party in question actually get into power.

Although I doubt I fully share Thomas's sense of humour the zaniness of the show raises it to a whole new level!

The King's Speech

2011-01-09T22:02:00.002Z

This is not my usual fair – a more-or-less accurate biopic telling the tale of King George VI’s attempts to overcome the speech impediment that had caused him great difficulties from his earliest years.

The film opens with the then Prince’s disastrous speech at the close of the 1926 Empire Exhibition but quickly jumps forward eight years to 1934 and a dingy consulting room in Harley Street with the Duchess of York visiting a speech therapist in order to help her husband, under the pseudonym if Mrs Johnson. When advised that her husband ought to find a new job, ‘Mrs J’ tells him that this wasn’t an option and the therapist comes back with a quip about the job being related to indentured servitude. Mrs J’s response is heart-felt agreement.

We then get to see the Duke make a start on overcoming the impediment, reluctantly at first and certainly not without many setbacks as the situation evolves; at first the Prince is going through the therapy in order to better fulfil his duties as a royal but as his older brother, the Heir, becomes increasingly infatuated with his married American, it becomes increasingly likely that Bertie will become the King, a thought that (quite rightly!) terrifies him.

We have the death of George V and the succession of Edward VIII and some very unbecoming behaviour of the not-yet crowned King and his paramour Mrs Simpson (honest, it’s not that she was American, just that she was a twice divorced American) and we have Edward VIII signing the abdication papers (1936) and the coronation of Bertie as George VI and the unmasking of his speech therapist as an apparent charlatan – we’ll give Archbishop Lang the benefit of the doubt and that he really did care that the King had been conned and after an emotional confrontation the King and the speech therapist declare peace. The newsreel of the coronation was followed by a piece on a Nazi rally – a nasty comparison between the leaders of the looming confrontation.

The final section is the King’s speech of the title – the speech that the King gave to the Nation and the Empire warning of the potential horrors to follow on the day war was declared, which while not necessarily the smoothest speech ever, managed to capture the mood of the nation with montage images of those he had been involved with including his brother in exile.

Playing a person with a stammer must be an actor’s worst nightmare but Colin Firth was up to the task and Helena Bonham-Carter appeared to manage to capture the spirit of his wife, Queen Elizabeth and there were plenty of emotionally affecting scenes, one of the more surprising when his daughters greeted him with curtsies just after he had acceded to the kingship. However, there were elements of humour as well – the King and Queen accidently meeting Mrs Logue and her husband’s reluctance to let the King meet her.

The film did not really deal with the politics of the situation, the abdication crisis being basically a few moments and the lead up to war being largely ignored too, but these were not the foci of the film. The focus of the film was on the relation between ‘Mr Johnson’ and Logue and while I guess most of this would have been made up, it certainly felt like it captured the nature of the nature of the relationship.

As a side point, the fact that the Harry Potter franchise is coming to an end has released some senior actors for a number of roles in this; Michael Gambon was George V and Timothy Spall played a passable Winston Churchill and there’s Helena Bonham-Carter herself, as Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2010-12-31T18:27:00.001Z

This is the third installment in the Narnia books and sees the two younger Pevensie children, Edmund and Lucy, return to Narnia along with their obnoxious cousin Eustace.

Unlike its immediate predecessor, 'Prince Caspian', this film follows the book surprisingly faithfully with only the inclusion of the external influence of the evil Dark Island on events a serious deviation; in the book things like Lucy's desire to be beautiful like her sister were all internally generated.

The actor playing Eustace was fantastic capturing his nature down very neatly. Alas, this is going to be the last time we see the Pevensies for quite a while (assuming we do get the rest of the films!).

An unreserved 4/5

John Fairhurst
http://www.johnsbooks.Co.Uk

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows

2010-12-14T05:15:00.001Z

Having just seen the latest Harry Potter I ain't ashamed to say that I found it quite enjoyable - not that this is to say that the subject was particularly enjoyable!

He who must not be named has made his move, Dumbledore's out of the picture and the Order of the Phoenix decide Harry needs to be hidden. Harry's aunt, uncle and cousin move out from Primrose Avenue and Hermione bespells her family so she's no longer part of the family.

Various members of the order meet up at Harry's and half are bespelled to look like him so they can attempt a shellgame. But right from the off the deatheaters are after the members of the party so we get a chase scene that wouldn't embarrass Bruce in a Die Hard film and the producers don't shy away from casualties and we don't actually see anyone actually die, we see an injured Weasly twin.

We see a meeting Ingram the dark council with a somewhat dissolute Lucius Malfoy, and a frankly petrified Draco in attendance.

A change in the minister of magic sees a change in policy towards the muggles too and half-bloods with lists being produced of the undesirable.

All in all, the film makers went to a surprising degree of effort to make the new ministry look and feel like pre war nazi Germany. However, they've also managed not to be too heavy handed with this - not to be too cynical but there's that 12A rating to protect after all :-).

As this is only half of the book the ending does leave us hanging somewhat but in a rather intriguing way...

John Fairhurst
http://www.johnsbooks.Co.Uk

UFO or not?

2010-10-28T20:51:00.002+01:00

Is the blob in the sky a UFO or not?

Well, actually not. It's just a plane coming into the nearby local airport but for the few seconds that its course had it heading almost directly towards me it gave quite a good impression of an unidentified light just hanging there. Although not particularly uncommon this was particularly impressive as it broke through the band of dark cloud...

John Fairhurst
http://www.johnsbooks.Co.Uk

New buses

2010-09-25T14:49:00.002+01:00

The last couple of weeks have seen Stagecoach Manchester, my main bus company introducing brand new dual fuel buses to something of their routes down the Oxford Road corridor (once identified as the busiest bus routes outside London).

Even over the packed masses of students new and old for the two universities and several schools served by this route, the smell of 'new vehicle' has been a particularly nice experience both going to and coming home from work. Their far quieter engines have been more of a mixed blessing as those same students talk quite loudly!

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for these buses to come into general service.

John Fairhurst
http://www.johnsbooks.Co.Uk

NPfIT ignored NHS culture, says Halligan • The Register

2010-04-28T19:09:00.000+01:00

NPfIT ignored NHS culture, says Halligan • The Register

An interesting article from Professor Halligan but I don't think that most people in the NHS would agree with this comment of his in the article:

Halligan said that the NHS had received too much money in the last decade.
"Bring on the recession, is what I say. We've had too much of it," with high
levels of funding allowing the introduction of new projects without fundamental
rethinks of how things work. "There will be more change in healthcare in the
next five years than in the last 10," he said, adding: "IT will be at the heart
of it."

Cheapest Petrol?

2009-10-11T08:52:00.004+01:00

This is a rather unlikely looking picture of a petrol station that I regularly pass. Unfortunately, the prices aren't as generous as they seem - there's a missing pound sign hidden by the angle of the shot (you may have to view the image full sized - I think my HTC Magic Android phone's seriously brilliant generally but the camera isn't by any stretch of the imagination a good one I fear, especially when taking photos from the top deck of a bus :-)).

Despite the fun thrill of seeing a petrol station offering petrol at only a penny and diesel for tuppence, this petrol station is still one of the cheapest around with both 'only' a bit over a pound (approximately ~$1.50 at current exchange rates).

Snow Days Are Here

2009-02-04T05:10:00.004Z

Well, England has had its worse day of snow for 18 years this week with more to come apparently, and as usual, the country grinds to a halt. Although, in fairness I have to say the local traffic conditions I was involved in were actually rather good. The oblivious student who dashed out right in front of our bus was the luckiest person I know of - the bus managed to brake before he was hit, and didn't skid.

Now, you're saying 'Where are the great snow scenes?'. Unfortunately, while there were some really cool (sorry!!) scenes on the way to work and when I got home, my phone's camera wasn't playing ball and while I was going to take my proper camera with me to work, the snow had, by and large, disappeared by the following morning! It's this fact that indicates why England in particular of the countries in the UK seems to get taken short whenever we get a decent snow fall; it's not a regular occurance so the local authorities can't afford to keep the specialist equipment around in the less severe decades.

With climate change an acknowledged phenomenon, though, the British Isles are slated to get cooler in the near to medium term so we might be seeing more of these colder winters...

Cyclists

2008-10-15T20:37:00.004+01:00

On the way to work, on the bus, we often see plenty of cyclists travelling the same route as the buses and innumerable cars.

Now, the cyclists are always yapping on about how the rest of the traffic don't take account of their presence but if the actions of these four this morning are the norm, it has to be said the cyclists are their own worst enemies. Not one of these four bothered stopping at the red light that clearly stopped the lane they were in.

If something had happened to them (assuming they'd been lucky enough to survive it) due to this stupidity, it wouldn't have there fault, oh no!

Where's the space gone?

2008-09-16T06:12:00.008+01:00

Over the last few weeks, I've been trying to sort out the massive number of books that have accumulated around the house (we'll politely draw a veil over the magazines - 4 sci fi magazines and 4 computer magazines...).

The vast majority were scattered over the floor of my 'spare' bedroom in roughly alphabetical order so I bought 4 billy bookcases from Ikea (light oak finish - very neat!). When these arrived flat packed I was nearly straight on the phone to Ikea asking where the ones I had ordered were - these appeared to be far too small a package. Fortunately, I opened the packing on one first and found out how they'd managed the trick - a concertinaed back panel!

Next problem - finding the room to assemble them. I have the room height (and then some), but floor space is limited even after clearing away those piles of books.

I've managed to assemble two in the front 'spare' bedroom before just running out of space there. Looks like the front living room's next. At least I'm getting quicker at assembling them...

And then I can start shelving the books though I don't think I'm going to get everything on even then but hopefully I'll get enough on so I can make sure my database agrees to the physical books :-)

Where's My Privacy?!

2008-07-30T06:19:00.006+01:00

‘If I have done nothing wrong why should I have anything to worry about?’ is the constant cry of those advocating ever increasing infringements on our privacy.

You may not think that you have done anything wrong, but who’s to say what the definition of wrong is? You, or the government? Can you guarantee that the stated uses of the ID card database will be the only uses to which it is put? Already we’ve seen how RIPA (supposedly only to be used against terrorists) has extended it’s murky tentacles into the lives of such hardened criminals as people putting the wrong item in their recycling boxes.

Then there’s the vexed question as to who’s going to have access to the data and whether they can send it through the post…

And, finally, maybe, this is a government project – underfunded and with impossibly great expectations, so I would doubt that the database would actually be able to perform to spec and this is something that you’d want to be right from day one.

Prince Caspian

2008-07-06T17:15:00.003+01:00

I've just seen the latest film in the group of Narnia films this morning and enjoyed it quite a lot.

The film is a bit different to the book, particularly in the way that the film shows a conflict between Caspian and Peter as to whom was the leader of their merry band and the attraction between Susan and Caspian.

Some reviewers have commented that the girls don't get much action in this, but they must have seen a different version of the film. If anything, they are more involved than in book, particularly Susan. The reviewer also seemed to miss that it was both Peter and Susan who were stopped from coming back to Narnia.

Now we just have to wait until The Voyage of the Dawntreader comes round...

BBC - Radio 4 - Excess Baggage

2008-07-05T11:12:00.000+01:00

BBC - Radio 4 - Excess Baggage: "JUNGLE - WAR GRAVES
Sandi Toksvig takes a trip through the Amazonian rain forest with Yossi Ghinsberg author of the 80’s US best seller Lost in the Jungle. She is also joined by The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Outer Areas Director Brad Hall and journalist and writer Nigel Jones author of The War Walk to discuss the work of the CWGC which operates in 150 countries around the world and the importance of maintaining and visiting war graves."

Not often that one hears one, let alone two, good articles on a radio programme these days but today's Excess Baggage managed the latter with the story of an Israeli born explorer who found himself having to survive several weeks with absolutely no experience or equipment. The second story covered the work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Both stories were emotionally exceptional and enhanced by Sandi Toskvig keeping silent except for the minimal necessary intervention to guide the conversion - not something she always manages!

Hi There

2008-07-05T06:46:00.000+01:00

My first post so this is just to say hi to the world out there.

Be seeing you all in the future