27 Jun 10 The bond of trust between Football team and football fan
England’s team traipsed out of the world cup having offered up a series woeful performances throughout the competition. They were made to look ordinary, if not outclassed, by minnows of world football from Algeria, USA and Slovenia. Then, as soon as they came up against a real team in Germany, they were dispatched, with the ease of a sledgehammer on jelly.
The national sense of shock has been amplified because we have had months of speculation about this being the golden generation. And the golden generation’s golden boy was Wayne Rooney. 2010 was pencilled in as the year the world would see his magnificence. For all the talk of Messi and Ronaldo and other ‘world class’ players, England had Rooney. The Henry V of our times going forth to to the breach with the blast of war blowing in our ears, to imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood and so on.
But instead of Henry V, closing the wall up with our English dead, we got Horrid Henry going missing when he should have been doing football with the rest of the world. In fact the whole sorry bunch of individuals shuffled together into matching shirts and pushed out of the tunnel, conspired to insult the memories of men like Bobby Moore and Stanley Matthews. Men who were knighted for services – outstanding services – to football. The entire team looked like overpaid show ponies who probably thought other teams would wither and fade in front of the power of their celebrity. Instead they came up against teams ready to play football in the spirit of like Moore and Matthews while Rooney and co thought they were in a TV episode of ‘Celebrity Posing on Grass’.
And what of the saviour of English football? No one could really answer that. The most remarkable contribution Rooney made to the competition was his impetuous complaint that the crowd were booing him. Perhaps he expected the producers to have briefed the crowd to clap wildly – just like in the script. But a fan earns less in a two years than Rooney earns in a week. The crowd have given up their holidays to come to South Africa and watch. The crowd, spent money on their credit cards that they will still be paying off when the next world cup starts in four years time. The crowd did it because they were doing their bit. They were there to add decibels to their debt and would have come away accepting a quarter final place, happy with a semi-final place and believing that we could, given a bit of luck, made the final and even won it.
There is a bond of trust between players and fans. We send them out in our name. The best of the best of what our nation can offer. We see our own identity and character in their performances. Because in our name they give of their all, fight, bleed, suffer injury and pain. These are our hailed heroes and representatives on the pitch. We give them celebrity status, they are gods of sorts. They are rewarded with riches beyond our wildest dreams and that is acceptable because they carry the dreams of a nation.
We do our bit as well. We kick every ball, feel every injustice celebrate every goal for and feel pain at every goal conceded. We know the misery of defeat. And deep down we know we can win the world cup. We bitch, debate, complain, argue and passionately display out support in every manifestation.
What happened to the England supporters in South Africa and at home was disgusting. The most expensive collection of footballers in history, with the best manager, the best preparation the best of everything contrived to fail. It was meticulously bungled through a mix of arrogance and inertia. The crowd will turn on these players. They will hound them out of South Africa, boo them back into Heathrow and boo them at every game they show up at next season. They will do this, not because the team lost, but because they did not try, they were inept, woeful, pathetic and in doing and being so, they have abused our trust.
Rooney World Class? Don’t make me laugh.
19 Feb 10 What’s the #BUZZ about Google Buzz? Oh look, the Emperor has got no clothes on
You have come across Google Buzz or maybe you haven’t. Anyway it is Google’s answer to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, although, I wonder what the question was if Buzz is the answer.
It launched recently to a bit of a viral fanfare and all of us social media maniacs and Twitter pimps toddled on over to check it out. It seems that lots of people are going absolutely unnecessary about it. It will apparently kill off Twitter, Facebook and change the world as we know it. I say ‘apparently’ for a reason.
The problem is that I am still trying to work how Buzz accommodates any need I have. I keep coming back looking at it and thinking, ‘I must be missing something’.
I understand Blogs, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter and they have somehow seamlessly slotted into the way I do things personally and professionally. I can write once on any of them and publish everywhere. I can use things like TweetDeck to get multiple views of Twitter based on friends, interest topics or back-chat. Others use aggregators like FriendFeed or Posterous but they all do variations on a theme – they collect all this etherlution (© Dave Yates, meaning rubbish deposited all over the web) and collates in into a single, manageable distribution and collection point for all you want to cherry pick from these platforms.
So while I detest e.g. FB, I do understand why it is there and I can interact with my contacts on it without having to go on it very often. Similarly with LinkedIn. I quite like it, but I don’t feel compelled to ‘live’ on it. I use it from time to time, but can update it remotely with a range of tools, mainly my Blog and Twitter account.
But again today, I returned to Buzz, looking at it this way and that and concluding that I must be missing something, because lots of people are saying it is great and everything else will now become obsolete. I repeat, I really must be missing something because, for the life of me, I don’t get it, I don’t know what to do with it and I don’t know why everyone else is raving about it.
Oh Look – the emperor’s just gone by without any clothes on.
10 Feb 10 Dictionary of Online Abbreviations
Image shamelessly adapted from toothpastefordinner.com
I know there are pre-existing glossaries out there, but at least with this one I know where it is for reference. Also I can keep adding to it.
Please feel free to suggest any more via the comments box and I will add them to the list
- AFK – away from keyboard (I am gone for a few minutes)
- AFAIK – as far as I know
- ASL – age / sex / location?
- BFF – best friends, forever
- BFN – bye for now
- BIO – going for bio break (washroom break)
- BRB – be right back
- BTW – by the way
- CSAK – Chucking Silently At Keyboard
- CUL8R – see you later
- CYA – see ya (or it could also be: cover your a*s)
- DH – darling husband
- DD – darling daughter
- DS – darling son
- FMV – fair market value (for selling items online)
- FTW – for the win (basically a big thumbs up)
- GG – good game
- IBTL – in before the lock (for when you post a message prior to the administrator locking the heated discussion thread)
- IMHO – in my humble opinion
- IMNSHO – in my not so humble opinion
- IRL – in real life
- KK – OK (commonly used by online gamers to acknowledge that a message has been received)
- LOL – laughing out loud
- MT – mispell (commonly used by online gamers to say that they made a mistake and mistyped their last message)
- NP – no problem/you’re welcome
- NWOT – new without tags (for selling items online)
- NWT – new with tags (for selling items online)
- BNWT – brand new with tags (for selling items online)
- OOAK – one of a kind (for selling items online)
- PICNIC – problem in chair not in computer (apparently favoured by IT support techs when dealing with low ability users)
- PLZ – please
- PLIBT – please let it be true
- PMSL – P*ssing myself laughing (a common UK expression)
- POS – Parents [watching] Over Shoulder
- QFT – quoted for truth (a compliment to another person on the forum)
- RL – real life
- ROFL – rolling on floor laughing
- ROFLMAO – rolling on floor laughing my a*s off
- RTFM – read the f***ing manual (to show frustration at someone’s ignorance of basic knowledge)
- RTM – read the manual
- SCAOMM – Spat Coffee All Over My Monitor (when something is very amusing)
- TBH – to be honest
- THX – thanks
- TTFN – ta-ta for now
- TTYL – talk to you later
- TX – thanks
- TY – thank you
- VFF – very f***ing funny
- W/E – whatever
- WTF – what the f*** [is that all about]
08 Feb 10 iPhone …or perhaps I don’t any more
iPhone Apps - Want them more than need them?
I found myself not using the iPhone recently while doing a load of Mountain Biking. I put it away safe in a drawer while doing rufty tufty phone threatening activities. Instead, I dragged one of the collection of old phones out of a drawerr, I got a free Orange PAYG card, filled it up with £20 and it has lasted months. I stick it in my pocket and use it if I get lost, when I fall off and need someone to put me or my bike back together.
But it has had a sobering effect. I have started asking myself what the hell I need an iPhone for at all. It’s a shame as well. I have an App called Map My Ride which is great for Mountain Biking. But I don’t use it because it s not so good if you smash your phone while taking a tumble. To give you an idea, I fall off at least once every time I go out on my MTB and usually a lot more. I started thinking that if I were to break, lose, or get my iPhone stolen etc. then I would suffer a load of cost and the sickening feeling you get when you break something nice. If I break the old Nokia, I rip out the sim card, bin the bits and get another cheapie out of the drawer, or on Ebay
iPhone meets mountain biking - not a good combo
Mountain Biking is good for the soul in many respects. All that exercise and fresh air combine with the pain and repeated falling off and landing on your head. It knocks some sense into you. With regard to the iPhone, my MTB epiphany on the off road trail to my metaphoric Damascus led me to suspect that I want it more than need it (note to self: Design iPhone App based on lyrics, such as Glenn Campbell’s ‘Wichita Lineman’). I make myself use apps because they are there and handy, but in some respects they add extra chores to my day rather than save time. I like the idea of iXpenseIt, but it takes loads of time to use and the pics of the receipts are rubbish because the iPhone camera is poor indoors and poor at close-up – exactly the setting where you take pics of the receipts. I actually create more work for myself!
Then I have to wonder again. My old friend Ravi Damani and his cousin Chetan over at Imano are developing brilliant augmented reality apps. But do I really want to augment reality – I might find that I am superfluous rather than my phone. I could then send my iPhone to work and sooner or later it would realise that as much fun as I was, I was just expensive, stupid and unnecessary. It would dispose of me!
Meanwhile, back in the real world, I think everyone should try putting their iPhone / Blackberry away for a week and instead go back to a basic handset. You’ll be surprised at how superfluous a lot of its functions are. Funnily enough, I got used to using a phone based camera when I got an iPhone. But the iPhone camera is not particularly good. I wonder whether I should get a decent pocket camera and a basic phone instead of paying £30 / month for the pleasure of keeping a beautiful design icon in my pocket.
05 Feb 10 John Terry has been doing more than just Wayne Bridge’s ex.
Okay, at the risk of this turning into a grubby gossip column, here is a some grubby gossip. I found this on The Oatcake:
The Sun have a round up of the current John Terry rumours which will make the paper over the next few weeks:
- The Sun have lined up another EIGHT women who’ve slept with him in the last 18 months or so. Enough for a couple of weeks of front pages. Including FHMs own HSH, Tanya Robinson
- The front page today that Bridges ex, Vanessa, has slept with five members of the Chelsea squad is only the beginning. Two other Chelsea players – Gudjonsen and Drogba – were also sleeping with Bridge’s girlfriend at the same time as Terry.
- The Sun is also paying Vanessa 250k to dish everything including the fact that the mystery fifth Chelsea player is, depressingly predictably, Ashley Cole. Which should give Cheryl the excuse she needs to finally dump him (now shes no longer Racist Toilet Cleaner Puncher, but the new Nations Sweetheart)
- JT has also been sleeping with current team mate Hilario’s wife (who also has kids).
- Away from the bedroom, JT also owes Wembley a substantial amount of money for a box he owns and hasn’t paid for, even after he had mates in there racking up a 20k bill at the FA Cup final.
Question is, will he have the energy to lift the world cup in summer if we should win it?
04 Feb 10 Apple iPad – Guess the review – What can we learn from history?
Apparently Apple has launched its iPad – news has even made it to Worcestershire! Apple fans love it. Geeks hate it. Why is that so predictable? Or is it? I’m just predicting that’s what the response will be. I haven’t read a single review yet, so before I do, based entirely on twenty years of Mac use, here is what I think the conclusion will be:
If history is anything to go by, the iPad will be innovative in its own way – but not by some other people’s definition of innovative. It will probably disappoint the techno-purists because it will use whatever edge it has to satisfy some kind of mass market potential (and critically it won’t be Microsoft or Linux). And the same techno purists will be quick to point out that some gizmo or other does some or all of it’s functions better and uses some or other connectivity or processor or screen that ‘rocks’ (said in the way only geeks can pronounce it) while the iPad ‘sucks man’ (again said in John Major meets Michael Moore geek accent). It will extend the Apple ethos of the Digital Hub making it a natural add-on to the rest of the i-suite of things out there, which will again anger someone for some reason.
Basically, it will infuriate the anti Apple brigade simply because it will be made by Apple. That has always been enough to bring out IT geeks the world over to burn effigies of Steve Jobs.
Steve Wozniac, co-founder of Apple back in the day and ‘not bitter at all’ exile these days, will appear in some Tech mag and tell us how he came up with the idea in the first place, back in the 1980′s and it would be much better if it employed some unpronounceable concept that only he understands.
Over time, the release version will prove to be underpowered and comparatively slow, lacking in memory and it will be unstable until about version 1.3. This is because everything Apple make is a great idea but a bad execution in it’s launch version. It then burns out quickly or the screens break or some such disaster befalls the early adopters. The second version is more robust, but the software is flakey or the connectivity is poor. You don’t really get a polished version out until third time around – which will be good. However, for all it’s early problems, it will capture people’s imagination better than any of its rivals have and it will redefine the market place for these devices.
Several niche companies and several large companies will file patent infringement cases on its technology, interface or other aspects of it. These will variously go on for years and no one will remember what they were all about when they eventually get settled.
It will be plaigiarised – or perhaps I should say it will inspire Microsoft and others like Nokia, Dell, and a load of firms from China – who will claim they were working on their version of it all along. These will get launched about a year later and spontaneously look remarkably like Apple’s product. They will be called ‘ePads’, ‘xPads’ and ‘MyPads’. Everyone will then get sued by Always Ultra who whose own iPad product will do something completely different. All the Windows based clones will be really fiddly, stuffed full of lots of features and complicated interfaces. They will impress the editors of computer mags but inadvertently reinforce the Apple iPad (or whatever it gets called) as a people’s favourite.
A final word or warning: You will need to watch out for slightly insecure and over-paid people conspicuously taking their Apple iPad to the pub and making sure everyone can see they have one.
16 Dec 09 Rage Against The X Factor
#Xfactor I read that Simon Cowell said that the Facebook campaign to get Rage Against the Machine’s (RATM) 1992 song, Killing in the Name, to Christmas No 1 ‘stupid’ and ‘cynical’…”
Which of course it is, but to be even handed about this, the use that Cowell makes of mass media is cynical.
Cowell has his own private TV channel-to-market. He overwhelmingly uses it to manufacture pop stars for his own label, and promote other artists of his. He also times the whole thing to cash in on the most lucrative time for music sales. This is overwhelmingly to his benefit and no one else – cynical would you say?.
What makes me sad is that while The X Factor is aired, there cannot be another proper Christmas song like Merry Xmas Everybody (Slade), Happy Christmas – War is Over (John and Yoko), I Believe In Father Christmas (Greg Lake), Stop The Cavalry (Jonah Lewie) or even White Christmas (Bing Crosby). Those songs have some lasting appeal and seasonal poignancy, but the X Factor ‘product’ is generally forgettable or even disposable, as are many of the ‘stars’ manufactured by the show. YTou don’t think so? Series 1 – Steve Brookstein; Series 2 – Shayne Ward; Series 3 – Leona Lewis; Series 4 – Leon Jackson; Series 5 – Alexandra Burke; Series 6 – Joe McElderry. While Leona Lewis seems to have cracked it, it’s about time. The others are all very distant memories and one suspects that Alexandra Burke will be next years Leon Ward and this year’s winner, Joe McElderry, will ultimately be another Shayne Ward.
I have no specific problem with Joe McElderry. I am sure he is a nice guy, he does have a good voice, he looks like Donny Osmond did when he used to activate hormones in teenage girls and at least Joe has won a ‘talent competition’. Or has he? Cowell says the RATM campaign is aimed at him. I rather think it is aimed at the thing he has built. “Is this a singing competition” judge Danii Minogue asked before judging against the diatonically deaf duo of Jedward. However, in a previous week, having savaged their every performance, Cowell kept them in the show at the expense of Lucie Jones, one of the better vocalists in the competition. Cowell’s cynical support of Jedward was clearly to maintain ratings and ad revenue, because they were less talented, less entertaining and less likely to win than any other act. FFS they were booed every bloody week.
So, while I don’t really like the Rage Against The Machine single (you are not really meant to, it is acid in the eyes sort of art), but I hope it succeeds. Not for its own merits, but to open up the future possibility of some proper Christmas songs which are not so cynically mass marketed.
11 Dec 09 Dropping Pianos on Accountants
Dropping A Piano (Accountant underneath)
‘Accountancy Recruitment’ is a two word title, both words being metaphors for ‘sedative’. Have you ever seen a job ad for an accountant that read “…exciting opportunity for the right accountant”? It is somehow not believable, an oxymoron. My first thought is that the ‘right accountant’ would have to have so little electrical activity in the brain that magnolia paint would be an exciting opportunity.
But then every now and again you come across an article such as Chris Cutting’s what happens when you drop a piano on an accountant. The point he makes is that in a given set of circumstances there will be many who will follow the same set of ‘rules’. The things you always do, the sum total of experience and education. For most, the temptation is, when something goes wrong, to tighten your resolve and do more of the same things as properly as you know how. The result is that you end up doing it wrong again, only this time thoroughly.
Those who know me, will know that one of my favourite phrases is “If you keep doing what you do, you’ll keep getting what you get”. For marketeers and designers, this is a self-evident truth. People will call us in to make a difference and then systematically try to force us to spontaneously provide exactly what they had that they decided needed changing. I once worked at BP and we had a load of consultants swanning about the place. If you went to fetch a coffee, they would declare your seat a ‘Hot desk’, sit there and not leave it until the end of the contract. But one such consultant from Andersens imparted the following wisdom upon me. “If it ain’t broke …break it”. It basically means that you can keep doing something for years and watch it work. Then one day it won’t work, the world changed while you weren’t looking. But because you have always done things the same way, it leaves you bereft of alternatives.
The points he, and Chris Cutting make is a good one. His is remedial, suggesting that you need to periodically tear down systems and proceedures and rebuild them. Chris’s, on the other hand, is preventative. He says that you need to find the sort of person who will have it within them to look up from time to time, spot the problem and break the inertia to avoid the problem.
For the right accountant, that is an exciting opportunity, and I imagine that finding the right accountant is not always the easiest thing to do.
The only thing I would add, is that if anyone does manage to drop a piano on an accountant, can they film it and get it on YouTube – there are lots of good SEO, Social Media and Marketing reasons why you should.
22 Nov 09 Cumbrian flood – worse than the flood is the flood publicity
Responding to The Guardian’s recent article After the deluge, a sodden Cumbria begins to clear up
"…a tightly cut shot of the biggest puddle they could find"?
It occurred to me that the flood is not really the worst of it. After the cameras have gone, after the politicians have had their photo opportunity, after the waters (both real and metaphorical) have receded, you are left with one big mess to clear up. As always, you will have to do this yourself. All the political promises and commitments will disintegrate as soon as the publicity opportunity presented by your misfortune has passed.
As a victim of the 2007 floods (I live near Upton Upon Severn, Worcs) I am afraid to tell flood victims that their troubles are only just beginning.
For a couple of weeks, your towns will be filled with satellite dished transit vans and Ugg wearing radio and TV types hugging their North Face Jackets and sipping paper cups of tea between 30 second ‘live reports’ where they talk of ‘carnage strewn streets’ and other sound-bitten nonsense in front of tightly cut shots of the biggest puddle they can find.
For the first time in living memory you will see a recognisable politician or two: Gordon Brown and David Cameron will both turn up wearing their concerned faces and suggest everything from money to action but promise only to review things and report at some undefined point in the future. And then as soon as a cat gets run over outside Parliament, they will be gone and onto the next photo opportunity. In the next couple of months Kate Silverton (or similar) will show up and do an environment special for TV. In about six months Prince Charles will fly in and shake your hand. All of them will be doing it to fulfil their own remit and agendas. Strangely it won’t do you any good at all.
You will be left with a big mess, ruined houses, cowboy builders moving into your area and insurance companies. It took us eight months to get Zurich Insurance to even respond to our calls. They sent some loss adjusters round from time to time who started by throwing all our belongings away and variously described our situation as “a bit of DIY” through periodic derisory “final settlement offers” of £20k, then £25k and so it incrementally crept. The process slowly marches with infuriating inertia designed to make you desperate. If you snap and shout they offer you a few grand hoping you will take it so that they can kill off the file on their desks. To put it into perspective, they were trying to settle our case for £100,000 less than it cost to repair the property – and it took them over a year to get even that far. We were left entirely to own devices, we were taken for a ride by builder and engineers and all with the insurance industry nowhere to be seen. We were out of our house for two years, only moving back in in June this year. The bill ended up being £120k – all of it hard fought miles for us and achieved in spite of the insurance company, certainly not with their help.
At some point, you will be subjected to skewed research exercises asking all the wrong questions. The research will all be designed to conclude that you actually need something cheap like better flood warnings when everyone else knows that you need serious investment in flood defenses.
You will spend months and years living in holiday flats and other temporary accommodation. Your childrens’ right to attend local schools will then come under threat, you will never receive complete compensation for all you have lost and when it is all behind you, you will not be able to sell your house.
If you are a victim of this flood, this is probably not what you want to hear, but you might as well hear it from someone who has been through it rather than any number of people who don’t know what they are talking about and feel that now would be a good to time to tell you how you are feeling, what you should do, where you should live and why it’s all your fault for living on a flood plain – Even if you haven’t personally been flooded, try selling your house and moving now your area is blighted by flood publicity.
29 Oct 09 I’ve found Grandma stuck in the Motherboard
In response to The Computer Swallowed Grandma
Oh I think I’ve found a grandma
Inside my motherboard
She was frying up the chip set
And shouting at The sound card
She hijacked the internal buses
And took them for a ride
And before she could jump off
She was at it with the main drive
But Grandma didn’t know
If she should wipe or copy
So she looked inside it’s bytes and bits
Saying “Is your drive hard or floppy?”
“Illegal operand”
The computer verified
“You must be corrupted
Access is denied”
“Bloody piece of junk”
Grandma answered seething
“Please shut down” the computer said
“My CPU Overheating”
“Your CPU, YOUR CPU?”
Said Grandma with a thwack
“Don’t you mean the ‘slotty box thing’
With spaghetti round the back”
“Does not compute Does Not Compute”
Computed the computer
“UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME:
Please reboot your router”
“If I reboot you’ll know it”
Said Grandma exasperated
“What’s the router anyway?
It’s all so complicated”
“The router’s by the phone
It’s the ugly device
That will not match the wallpaper
and has lots of flashing lights”
“Well why did you not say so”
Answered Grandma going insane
“You’re supposed to make life easier
But you just hurt my brain”
“Callibrate your monitor”
The computer rudely beeped
“Do what?” said gran “Try again
In English if you please”
“In fact stop, you bloody box of wires
While I give you a lesson
Put yourself on stand-by
For an interactive session”
You will not call me ‘user’
I don’t approve of drugs
You will not accuse me of illegal operations
and make me feel like a thug.
I don’t ‘login’, I switch on
I don’t ‘key-in’ I type
It’s not a monitor, it’s a telly
It’s called ‘computer phone’ not Skype
If you have a virus,
Kindly keep it to yourself
I’ve lived three score and ten
In largely perfect health
I really don’t appreciate
Meaningless error codes
If something’s wrong, soldier on
It’s how we won the war you know
And finally would it hurt
Sometimes to just say ‘Please’
Now shut up, power down
And make me a cup of tea.”
