The thought receptacle
Stephen's mental dustbin
Wed, 12 Oct 2011
Yesterday's piece by George Monbiot got me thinking. It's worth a read, whether or not you're interested in what it got me thinking.
Much of macroeconomics is concerned with the dynamics of lending, investment and growth. Many on the left tend to lambast “speculation” as the demonic cause of financial crisis. But speculation is an inherent and necessary part of absolutely any economy, because it is part of human activity. All investment, including lending, is speculative. Our problem seems to be something to do with the valuation of speculative wealth, not its existence.
How much is it okay to speculate? How much should we lend? How much value should we attribute to speculative wealth? These are the real questions.
What seems more suspect to me are the notions of money, “base money” and fractional reserve banking. What are reserves anyway? Why do we need them? The problem seems to be that when you lend money to someone, they have “money”, i.e. what you lent them, and you have a promise of its return, which is “valued” at the same. So, by magic, we have twice as much “money”---but half of it is speculative. In fact, it might all be speculative, if the money you lent in the first place was not real, but itself came into your account on some speculative basis. So what is “real money” anyway?
It seems to me that somehow we want to restrict the structure or shape of allowed speculation, to rule out pathological cases. This could be a solution similar in spirit to how Russell's notion of type ruled out a pathology which created paradoxes in naive set theory.
Our concept of money is so slippery---given some sum of money, we have no idea how much speculation is int it---that money supply, like the valuation of anything, is regulated by a “mood” rather than any rigorous process. We are doomed to a cycle of aparent boom and bust, because lending orgies followed by lending paranoia seems to be How Banks Work. Like a logical paradox, we oscillate wildly between two extremes that are both wrong, yet both inexorable consequences of each other.
Staying on the mathematical theme: why should money be a scalar? It seems that by collapsing various different dimensions of value---its magnitude is one, but also its uncertainty or “speculative-ness” might be another---we are creating confusion that can't be helping with the problem.
A final thought, to extend the metaphor even further, is as follows. Types are based on a notion of construction: we cannot quantify over sets we cannot first construct. So it seems that with wealth, we need a similar restriction: the wealth we speculate on should somehow, by some fairly direct route, be anchored in something of real worth. Many articles, including Wikipedia's brief history of fractional reserve banking, start with assuming gold (or other precious metals) as their most primitive valuable quantity. Currency issuers used to do the same, and now don't. It's fairly clear that real worth cannot be defined in terms of gold (a substance of mostly fake worth if ever there was one). I have no idea what: goods and/or labour that contribute towards a human goal (referencing some conception of human needs) seem to be the only things of “real worth”, but I wouldn't yet claim those can be built into a theory of value.
Nevertheless, I believe there is a design space of economies. At the moment, all western economies follow the same design, just with different parameters. Many people (non-CS, non-engineers) have a hard time understanding what I mean by “design space”, so here goes. Economies are like machines with different-sized parts but the same overall form. Different economies may have different levels of government intervention, different tax--spend balances, varying interest rates and inflation levels and so on. But they are nevertheless the same design.
The design is the same because some structural properties are shared across all of them. Here are some of those properties. The only notion of value is market value. Prices are controlled by market value. By default, anything can be traded. There is no direct link between labour and price. There is no distinction in the means of valuing supply-constrained (e.g. collectables) versus resource-constrained (e.g. iPhones) goods. These are all properties I think it worth reconsidering. Few people think about these things. In after-dinner conversation on economics. ‘What other system is there?’ is a popular question. Coming up with a plausible new way for economies to work a.k.a. a design, is a hard problem... at the moment I'm only arguing that more than one design is possible. Until we can get people thinking about the possibilities, we can't hope to find a viable alternative.
Appalled by Newsnight programme: a list
This post is about the Newsnight report on computer science teaching, Monday 10th October. Here is the iPlayer link, and the report starts at 30:00ish. The programme will disappear on Monday 17th, but if you'd like a copy, I can possibly magic one up, so let me know.
Kirsty Wark could not have got the piece off to a worse start by telling a “joke” about “ten kinds of people...” NO! The whole point is that there are two, not ten. That joke only works written down. Kirsty Wark is clearly spouting her lines without understanding them, which is completely and utterly the problem. But perhaps she's old enough to be excused from even the hypothetical opportunity for a basic education in computer science, so I should move on.
The phrase “using computers” cropped up a few times as what's lacking in teaching. But that's completely the wrong phrase. That is what is being taught. I will expound on this in a moment. First, a more trivial complaint: even in its “flagship” and most “high-brow” programme, the BBC clearly can't resist spending its money on appallingly cheesy production, right down to the Crystal Maze-style captions introducing interviewees. Two Rory Cellan-Joneses is two more than I can handle.
I don't personally think a fall from third to sixth in the games industry stakes is actually a calamity. I think it was a bit of an accident of circumstance (or history) that we had such a strong games industry in the first place, and some fluctuation is natural. But if we take it as a premise that things are probably going down the tubes---and that doesn't seem implausible, regardless of the games industry numbers---then we might still care about the rest of the report.
The report cites teaching ICT as a “cause of decline”. This is clearly nonsense. Teaching how to use Word and Excel does no harm, and in fact is useful. I learnt to use Word when at secondary school, and it was pretty useful to do so. Rather, it's not teaching any of the other stuff that is the problem. And this other stuff, despite having something to do with computers, is not an alternative to ICT---it's just something else that needs teaching. “Proper computing skills”, another phrase that cropped up, is not it at all.
What we really want to encourage is an engineering mentality, applied to primarily non-physical systems---for which computers are the host substrate. "Digital Meccano" is an interesting idea which, unlike much else that was discussed in the report, captures the spirit that I think really is lacking. Seeing a computer as a host and enabler for a world of engineering possibilities---rather than a utility device for writing letters and playing games and media and social networking and reading news---is the key distinction.
Another high point of the report was how the Eric Schmidt quotation (which was spot on) was nicely framed. And the considerable talk about the “joined-up curriculum”, the games industry, the potential links between “conventional” were not badly positioned. That said, they did rather confuse the topic---since any proper engineering is a creative enterprise, whether or not it involves shiny graphics or music or other traditional “art” forms, but sadly this seemed to be too subtle for Rory Cellan-Jones to put across.
In the studio interview after the report, Ed Vasey was superbly slippery. His “many programmers are self-taught” argument was a wonderful bit of deception---people can teach themselves all manner of things, so why bother with an education system at all?---and he continued to trot out wrong-yet-appealing Big Society-esque arguments quite coherently for the rest of the interview. “We need businesses to get behind this” was the typical conservative message: the private sector can do it, silly. He claimed that “ICT is taught badly”---is it? For all I know, it might be taught very well. You don't need a degree in CS to teach ICT, for sure. So again, the point that we need computer science teaching as distinction from ICT has not really got through.
A thought about Raspberry Pi: why a physical computer? It can only mean faff plugging and unplugging cables. In general, being physical is limiting. It's good for kids in zero-computer households I suppose, and resummons a nostalgic picture of that charming conflict for the family TV. But then again, if you don't have a computer, you'll have to go out and buy a USB keyboard and mouse. Another doubt I have is that the hardware will be modern enough, and hence complicated enough, that it's probably not great for learning for low-level programming (which would otherwise be one good reason for having a physical device). Surely what we need is a cloud-hosted IDE, with a nicely-crafted HTML5 interface and the option to run code on emulated hardware targets if you want to do the low-level stuff. It is more fun to tinker with a real device, but a system-on-chip is not much less abstract than a cloud service. You certainly don't get the sense that you could build it out of ball bearings and bits of string. I once read a book chapter (but didn't subsequently actually carry out the project---how very me) about how to build a DAC, so basically a rudimentary sound card, out of a a parallel port and a resistive ladder. Now that was enlightening.
Vasey did eventually scored points by grasping the “office services” nature of ICT (nice phrase). But he slightly spoiled things on the next line by equating “computer science” with “how to program”. I might be asking too much by going into this distinction, but even how to program, although important, is not what computer science is about! It's a necessary step, but it's barely the beginning. A computer scientist is not just a skilled technician who can make a complex machine (i.e. a programming language implementation) do impressive things. Rather, he (or, sometimes, she) is a polymath: a philosopher who understands the essence of deep concepts---what are number, structure, meaning, computation, communication?---and an engineer who can apply this understanding to real-world practical tasks, through the complex physical devices. This means understanding how computers work (an understanding much deeper than just knowing how to program), but also knowing how they can work, how they might work, and consequently, having insight into what as-yet unrealised benefits computers might bring to humanity. An education system that can start enough bright young people off on this path still seems a long way off; understanding the different between ICT and programming is a small step towards it, but we can and should set our sights higher.
Thu, 18 Aug 2011
I used to think that The Independent was a reasonably good newspaper, but two recent clangers have made me despair.
On Tuesday, this masterpiece of an article by someone purporting to be “Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor”. Seldom have correlation and causation been so thoroughly confused to generate such an outpouring of sensationalist nonsense. As usual, there is no link to the original article, nor even an author name mentioned, so it took me ages to find this link, but find it I did. The article is itself extremely weaselly, in that it tries to suggest a causal link without having any grounds for doing so (and certainly no theory on a mechanism). That doesn't excuse the even more confusing write-up though.
On Wednesday, the rail fares increase attracted this stunningly enlightened comment from Sean O'Grady. It's quite all right, he says, that rail fares are increasing above inflation again, because “wealthy stockbrokers rumbling in from Guildford or Chelmsford can well afford it” whereas “some hard-pressed family in the Midlands that never uses a train” should not have to pay through their taxes. In other words, usable public transport is already only affordable by the wealthy and only available in the south-east---which, coincidentally, is where those wealthy people are disproportionately located. So let's exacerbate all three problems! Well done, Sean.
Long time no blog, by the way. I have some queued-up unfinished things (and a lot of bike rides to bore you about) but it's pretty difficult to find the time at the moment. I must do better.
Sun, 05 Jun 2011
I previously was appalled by the concept of superinjunctions. The first time I heard about then was in the Trafigura case. There, they were used to unjustly protect the reputation of a company involved in some seriously unpleasant business. The disclosure of this was clearly in the public interest.
Now, it seems superinjunctions are less effective than ever, and may be on the way out. But it also turns out that they have a more benign use: to protect the privacy of celebrities. I'm all in favour of protecting celebrities' privacy, so I have no problem with these injunctions. There is no public interest in disclosing who slept with whom.
Are there more superinjunctions out there like the Trafigura one? It's possible there are. But in the press, we only hear about the ones concerning celebrities' private lives. This is a nice illustration of how dependent we are on the media. How can I possibly form an opinion about the relative merits of superinjunctions as a legal device? The media is a hopelessly distorting lens---peculiarly so in this case, since we rely on them simply for any hint at the existence of the injunctions, and they choose to disclose a biased selection. Not only would I have to do some serious research to form a sensible opinion---I would probably be stymied by the legally-enshrined non-disclosability of their existence.
It's also a story of how dependent we are on social media, since that's how everyone is actually propagating the supposedly protected information. Just as the mass media are a distorting lens, so social media distort in their own way. It's the wisdom-or-otherwise of crowds again, and like most popularity contests, I end up feeling quite puzzled about the outcome.
Naturally, when I heard that Devon Sproule was embarking on a summer European tour, I looked for the geographically closest venue. It's the Arlington Arts Centre in Newbury, the latter being only an hour or so by train. Actually, looking more closely, the arts centre is not in Newbury---it's a few miles outside, in the middle of nowhere. That could make for a pleasant venue. So how would I get there? Well, I would probably cycle from Newbury station. But how is Joe Non-Cyclist supposed to get there?
If his middle name isn't “Car Driver”, it looks like he's not wanted. The centre's web site displays a car-centrism worthy of 1980s Thatcherite motorway-widening out-of-town-shopping Milton Keynes town-planners' wildest pedestrian subway-building concrete-loving dreams. Call me optimistic, but I was genuinely surprised (and therefore outraged)---it's not the sort of attitude I'd expect of a 21st-century arts venue in an affluent south-east locality not very far from the culturally enlightened metropoli of London and, er, Oxford. It's really quite remarkable---not even their FAQ section has any mention of public transport. Even most American cultural destinations offer more public transportation information than this.
I had a look at the centre's funding, ready to be outraged further if public funds were responsible. It seems to be a pseudo-charitable enterprise whose proceeds are given to Mary Hare, “the national charity for young deaf people”. It's also a conference centre, which I imagine accounts for most of their income. If there was any government money going in, I thought, I would be on somebody's case pronto.
But wait! They are running a visual arts event whose funders are on this web page, and West Berkshire Council is one of them. They even have a handy locations map for a month-long series of events running throughout the Newbury area. You can click on any location and get “directions”---you guessed it, for car drivers only. What's even worse in this case is that there are bus services for getting to many of the venues, but there's no information about it.
Thinking that there might be a bus service to the venue. I tried trusty Transport Direct. What a depressingly incompetent web site. It just about works, but that's the best that can be said for it. I will rant about buses in a future post.
Appropriately enough, I went to see Devon in Cambridge instead (and did I mention that she was amazing?). This was possible thanks for fortuitous timing of my visit. She even mentioned (in a miniscule bit of chat when I got her to sign a couple of CDs) that the audience for the Newbury show had been a bit sparse. Perhaps if there was better transport in the area, more people would have ventured out for the evening? Or perhaps if the area was configured for a less door-to-car-to-door lifestyle, more people would be aware that there is an arts centre hosting quality acts on their, er, doorstep three miles away....
Sat, 09 Apr 2011
Here's my route back from a hard most-of-a-Saturday's computer science. It's an elliptical, eccentric route which will have to make do with an elliptical, eccentric description. The nice bits: Islip is a lovely, charming, massively picturesque village that I should go back to. The B-road from there to Wheatley is good cycling: it has some nice views, a few tough climbs, and, sadly, slightly too much traffic. Wheatley is charming, but punishingly down-then-up the way I traversed it. The next bit is the best: down to Chiselhampton mostly via single-track roads, including an absolutely fabulous panoramic vista shortly before popping out onto the B480. From then on it's pleasant rather than spectacular, but pleasant it certainly was. The only slight flaw was that the “just slightly too much traffic” theme continued, particularly on the B-road back from Abingdon to Cumnor but also between Chiselhampton and Clifton Hampden. None of the roads were busy per se, just rarely quiet enough to get that relaxed country feel, with the exception of the Wheatley--Chiselhampton section.
One of the annoying things about Oxford from a cycling point of view that surprisingly many places are poorly connected other than by busy roads. The main reason is the Thames. In the south of Oxford, there are (I believe) no bridges over the Thames, except rail bridges, between Sandford and Abingdon. Sandford is itself unreachable from the south except by the A-road. This accounts for the bulge at the bottom of my route today. There are similar constraints out west. In general, this and my experience today suggests that the best cycling is probably in the north and east of Oxford, rather than the south and west, so I'll focus over there in future excursions.
Mon, 04 Apr 2011
The big one: Cambridge to Oxford
This is a ride I've been meaning to do for ages. When Alan suggested it, I could not refuse. I began a few miles out in Oakington, and joined Alan in Newnham (as betrayed by the map). The total distance I travelled (not counting my ride home from the station!) is 145.2 km or 90.8mi. The first leg, from Oakington to Newnham, is 5.6mi or 9.0km, making Cambridge-to-Oxford proper by this route about 85mi---slightly shorter routes are available, as I'll mention.
I don't really have time to talk through the route in detail, except that the first 35-ish miles I planned myself, as far as Steppingley, and the remainder is identical to Richard's route (taking the Kingswood diversion to avoid Ashendon hill). Richard's leaves Cambridge via the B1046, crosses the A1 on the level at Beeston near Sandy, and is slightly shorter. I've done that section of the route before, and it's fine, but I was slightly bored of it. It doesn't have a huge amount of scenery to offer, except the big after leaving the B-road towards Gamlingay. My alternative leaves Cambridge by the slightly quieter and more scenic route through Haslingfield, Barrington and out towards Ashwell, crosses the A1 on a handy bridge at Edworth, and is slightly longer and hillier.
I think that's a good trade, particularly since I decided I was still somewhat (unjustifiedly) terrified of crossing the A1 on the level a second time, but it's a bit of a personal taste thing. That's particularly in respect of the second of three would-do-differentlies. First of these is that after crossing the A1 and entering Langford, we skipped a bit of the busy-ish B-road (formerly A6001) by taking a permissive track. This wasn't worth doing---it's a short stretch and the track is too gravelly for comfort. Secondly, and most trickily, we made the inverse decision, probably the wrong one, between Gravenhurst and Silsoe: rather than taking the bridleway (which Google Maps claims is navigable by car, but appears not to be), we diverted up towards the A-road and back down. Google's aerial photographs reveal that the track continues as such for just over 1km, then becomes paved. The diversion up towards the A-road is probably 1km longer, and has other major disadvantages: it crosses the A6 on the level rather than on a bridge, has a few wearing climbs, and bizarrely, once you cross the A6 you have negotiate a couple of gates and a pile of rubbish. to get into the village proper! Much later, the final would-do-differently is that although we opted not to take the diversion via Elsfield on approach to Oxford, it's well worth it, because it avoids a giant descent-then-ascent up Headington Hill.
Finally, I'm sure you're dying to know what I ate in the 24 hours covering the trip, starting from the previous evening, so here's a list: around 9pm the day before, some of Jackie's birthday cake (thanks Jackie) to start my dinner en route back from London; later, haggis plus lots of tatties and veg (thanks Martin), around 10.45pm; cheese and biscuits to follow (thanks Martin); big bowl of porridge the next morning (thanks Martin); two slices of toast with jam (thanks Martin); one party-bag caramel crunch biscuit thing (thanks Jackie); two cheese and lettuce sandwiches on thick bread (thanks Martin); one toffee biscuit thing (thanks Jackie); one delicious chocolate and ginger flapjack (bought in Woborn village shop); one banana (ditto); another banana (ditto); just over half a pack of ready-salted crisps (thanks Alan); a chicken and mushroom pasty on arriving at Oxford station (thanks, West Cornwall); an apple when back home (thanks Martin); a big plate of spaghetti alla carbonara (thanks to my sublime culinary talents); two chocolate digestives and a small amount of ice cream (thanks, McVitie et al). That just about did it. I also drank 2x 500ml Lucozade Sport orange (others are available) and about 500ml water during the ride. If anyone wants to count up those calories, I'd actually be surprised if they totalled less than what I burned during the ride.
The ride from Cambridge (Newnham) to Oxford (city centre) took us about 8h40---from about 9.50am (estimated) to 6.30pm. There were a couple of extended breaks: one in Woburn, feeling disappointingly destroyed already at half-way, when it wasn't certain whether we'd make it all the way or bail onto the X5; the second near Kingswood where we got horribly rained on (hailed on, in fact). The weather was mostly fine otherwise, modulo a couple of brief showers, although there was quite a headwind at times. In case you're wondering, the route is in four chunks because my phone battery ran out before the end of the ride. I also forgot to start tracking my route until I was in Cambridge. Fortunately, a bit of Google Mapsing and the wonders of NASA's SRTM3 database have allowed GPS Visualizer to draw the full route including altitude data throughout. The alleged elevation gain over the route is 1300m, if this data is to be trusted. I've a feeling I saw higher elevation figures when I used just the GPS segment, but I don't suppose it matters. 1300m sounds a lot. The section after Woburn is the most punishing hills-wise, although the approach to Oxford via Brill and Woodperry is tough also. Overall: it was a great ride, and one I'd certainly do again---perhaps in the other direction!
The little one: Henley to Oxford
A couple of weekends ago, after the boat races at Henley, I cycled back to Oxford. After a hair-raisingly fast-and-straight road out towards the Chilterns, the right-turn out towards the Assendons brings a nice undulating slice of Chilterns. After a while there's a gruellingly incessant climb, followed by a very fast descent. The route is following the B480 almost the whole way. It's nice and quiet to begin with, but gets busier (and wider) nearer to Oxford. The bit around Chalgrove airfield is particularly ho-hum and basically like a quiet A road. There is a nice reprise of quietness and narrowness around Stadhampton and Chiselhampton, before the final grind into Oxford.
Stadhampton has a particularly lovely green, and Chiselhampton isn't bad either. However, Stadhampton also marks the place where I met a cavalcade of traffic coming off the M40 (presumably not post-races traffic as I had presumed at the time, unless they took a very odd route out of Henley). On getting back into Oxford, I took the opportunity to extend my knowledge of cross-town routes in the south and east to reach my fashionable lower west-side abode.
In case you wondered: the route is 44.5km or 27.8mi, and the elevation gain is 412.8m.
Sat, 26 Mar 2011
I wrote this around Christmas 2009, thinking I'd sent it to WAFTI, but somehow I never finished it to my satisfaction, and then its timeliness faded. But anyhow, I just had another look and thought I'd “put it out there”. There's a few things I'd change (it's DRAFTI) but I haven't edited it at all except for one egregious typo. Enjoy.
Digital economy “turned off” by accident
Economists have announced a breakthough in understanding the ongoing downturn, after it was discovered that the “digital economy” had been mysteriously turned off. Experts are currently unable to explain how this situation arose, although it is presumed to have been accidental. Modern economic thinking holds that the digital economy should remain “on” at all times.
As in most Western countries, the British digital economy represents a rapidly growing sector. Its production consists of a mixture of internet services, high-tech business, wrist-watches, prosthetics and beach footwear. The sector is notorious for its stop--start nature, but until recent events, most economists believed it would remain “on” for the foreseeable future.
Sean McDiddley, a researcher at the Wordsworth Littlemore Institute, told WAFTI that "this challenges our entire understanding of the economy. Until now, we were assuming the digital economy was always on. Now, we know that it can also be off." He added that the implications for conventional economic thinking were severe. "We simply don't know what patterns of human behaviour would motivate turning the economy off. We hope to find out, using a combination of rectangular trigonometry and playing lots of Monopoly on our computers."
The Conservative party was quick to blame the oversight on government borrowing. “If you go out with the freezer full, you're bound to come home to a giant defrosted puddle in your kitchen,” said the shadow chancellor, Alec Llewellyn Diaz-Smyth. "A Conservative government would stop stuffing the nation's mouth full of borrowed digits, and start chopping ice."
Shops today have been inundated with consumers hunting for Boxing Glove Day bargains, indicating that the digital economy may already be back on. Those interviewed showed little interest in the economic discovery. “Those electricians will always find a way of making flippy floppy,” said one Cardinal entering the Scunthorpe pogo park. “I'm just glad that they scrapped the 5% toenail tax.” Initial reports show a surge in sales of Cadbury's chocolate fingers in Chippenham. One eager shopper was reported to bite the hand off an inattentive shelf-stacker, although no suits were pressed. Supermarkets say they have been working hand-to-mouth to meet the sudden demand for flip-flops. Other popular mitten-fillers receiving a boost include Garibaldi biscuits, electric drills, ticker tape and the Polish flag.
Sun, 20 Mar 2011
The long road home... from Swindon
On my return from a trip way out west (meaning Wales), I decided to pass on the delights of Didcot and instead cycle home from Swindon.
I was a bit unconvinced when starting this trip. I was somewhat underslept and hungover, and it was already approaching 3pm when I got going. I was travelling without a spare tube, unusually, and although I had earlier reckoned that this was a “safe” ride because you're never more than five miles from a railway, I had been forgetting that there are (since 1964) no intermediate stations between Swindon and Didcot, making the railway of no use.
I shouldn't have feared. It took me what seemed like an age to get out of Swindon, but once I did, this became easily the best ride of the year so far. The roads were miraculously quiet, and the villages unfailingly picturesque. It helped of course that the weather was gloriously sunny, wind-free and, owing to the later start time, blessed with that warm late-afternoon light.
Quite a bit of the route is on B-roads, but these were all no busier than a quiet unclassified road (that is, not busy at all), at least on this one Sunday afternoon. The route cris-crosses the A420 in two places---on near Watchfield nearer Swindon, the other near Pusey nearer Oxford---and the difference in traffic level was remarkable. I romped straight across the first time, with almost no traffic in sight, whereas the second time I was waiting for over a minute (along with two cars) at the T-junction for a gap in a neverending stream of traffic heading towards Oxford. Clearly, the residents of Oxford like to spend their weekends, erm, somewhere in the Oxfordshire--Wiltshire borders.
Last weekend I travelled from Oxford to Cambridge by what I call “train--bike mash-up”. This means getting the train from Oxford to Bicester, cycling from Bicester to Bletchley, getting the train from Bletchley to Bedford (alighting at St Johns station, not Midland, of course) and cycling to Sandy, from where you can get the train to Cambridge (via Hitchin), as I did, or cycle the extra 21 miles to Cambridge if you're feeling keen. Feasibility depends on the combination of timetables and your cycling speed. Right now the timing, on Saturdays at least, works nicely for not-so-fast cyclists such as me. I got the 9.27 train out of Oxford, the 12.01 from Bletchley and the 13.48 from Sandy, arriving in Cambridge a little before 3pm. In each case I had a comfortable wait for the train (10--15 minutes) on arriving at the station. Here's the map of the cycling.
Predictably, this route is great when it's on roads (most of the way), and terrible when it's on NCN-endorsed tracks (the stretch between Winslow and Bletchley). The last bit before joining the road into Bletchley is particularly annoying---bumpy, rutted, and plain uncycleable in many sections. The large detour to avoid this section would be worth it if I repeat the journey. Annoyingly however, the NCN route alternates between these annoying tracks and some really excellent paved (i.e. on-road) sections.
The ride from Bedford to Sandy is short, and I've blogged about it before. Getting onto it from St Johns station involves negotiating two fairly busy roundabouts, taking Rope Walk at the first one (second exit, although the traffic was fast enough that I wimpishly chose to cross pedestrian style, before realising that pedestrians were not catered for at all) and the car park exit thingy at the second, from where it's easy enough to find the riverside path which joins the former railway path a little further east.
This route covers the two chunks of rail service remanining from the Oxford--Cambridge “Varsity Line”. (I'm always slightly dubious about that name, or at least curious about whether anybody actually called it that while it was still running.) The Bicester--Bletchley cycling route crosses the line at several places, and is directly alongside it for one long stretch. The track is still in place for almost the entire of this section, with modern level crossings and similarly modern signage. Like the Cambridge--St Ives railway, the route was kept in intermittent use until the early 1990s. We can only hope that a better fate awaits this line than being turned into a guided busway. Meanwhile, the Bedford--Cambridge track is long gone but the alignment has found benign use as a piece of the NCN as far as Sandy, with a few annoying diversions. From Sandy, there is no way to follow the line particularly closely. The train takes you away from the former railway route, going via Hitchin instead. I have cycled through both Potton and Gamlingay, the two main towns on the old line from Sandy to Cambridge, but there's no nice cycle route that takes you particularly near the railway route in that area, although nearer Cambridge, the B1046 crosses the route a couple of times.
Thu, 17 Mar 2011
At the weekend I took my bike on the train from Cambridge to Oxford. Unfortunately the tubes were down between Baker Street and Paddington, so I had to cycle that bit. When I emerged from Baker Street station, the noise, bustle and ferocious traffic of Marylebone Road made me distinctly not-enthralled by the prospect of the cycle ride. However, I knew better than to go down the main roads. A quick map check later, and I had planned a backstreets route. And lo! the moment I turned off Baker Street into Dorset Street, the bustle was gone. It was replaced by a dense grid of quiet backstreets. I think a lot of people are put off cycling in London from seeing the busy streets (and yes, the people cycling on them), since these tend to be the ones frequented by pedestrians looking for shops or other attractions. But this is groundless, since if you cycle, you can usually stay on the quiet streets that you wouldn't normally visit. As if to make my point, eventually (although not in a planned fashion) my route merged with the London Cycle Network which was signed towards Paddington. So, if I had actually known where I was going from the off, the whole ride would not be much hassle at all. Despite this delay, my station-to-station journey still took a bit less time than the X5 (although not by much).
Nevertheless, I've been forced to accept an unfortunate conclusion: that getting the train between Oxford and Cambridge avec bike is not a good deal. Taking a bike on the tube between Paddington and King's Cross is a bit of a hassle already, mainly because of the stairs. If the tube isn't running, it can get worse. In future I'd plan to cycle between Paddington and King's Cross---I imagine a decent route is available, and it's past time that I look it up. Once you know where you're going, it probably takes about the same amount of time as the tube. The real killer is the ticket price of the train, which is something like three times that of the X5. Given that the X5 does take bikes, unlike most buses, and although I hate sitting on the same bus for three and a half hours, it wins because it's both cheaper than the train and a way to avoid any sort of hassle deriving from a change in London. Crossrail is all very well, but what would be a really good idea, if you'll excuse the German, is a “London Hauptbahnhof”.
One particularly nice hassle-reducing property is that the bus begins and ends in the right places, so getting on and off, and depositing or retrieving your bike, are fairly relaxed affairs. Taking the train between Oxford and Paddington often means changing at Reading, off or onto a First Great Western train of the intercity style, for which the bike arrangements are slightly fraught: you have to sit in the coach at the end of the train, since that's where the bike compartment is. But you don't access the bike compartment from inside the coach---so at Reading you have to hop out, walk the length of the coach to the bike compartment, open that door, untie your bike and get it out before the doors are slammed shut again. There's not actually much danger of this going wrong, since there's easily time to get into the bike compartment, and once you've done this, the platform staff aren't going to slam the door without checking inside. In practice, a stop for a slam-door train like these always seems to take a few minutes, much longer than the minute or so that bike retrieval does. However, this rational angle isn't quite enough to make the process worry-free.
I neglected to mention that there's another way between Oxford and Cambridge, which I tried on my way out: train-bike mashup. This was ver successful---I'll post about it shortly.
Mon, 07 Mar 2011
Sitting in a park in Paris, France
There's no need for the provincial qualifier. You're in Europe now, Joni---you know, where the history comes from. This is the real Paris, not one of those North American knock-offs.
Reading the news and it sure looks bad
They won't give peace a chance
That was just a dream some of us had
Well done, Joni, for being one of that exclusive and enlightened club who had the brilliant idea of peace. It's a shame not everyone is so clever.
Still a lot of lands to see
But I wouldn't want to stay here
It's too old and cold and settled in its ways here
Oh, but California
California I'm coming home
I'm going to see the folks I dig
I'll even kiss a Sunset pig
California I'm coming home
Don't try to pretend you're not Canadian. Just because it's the Sixties and you want to pretend to be a hippy doesn't mean you can claim citizenship. Oh, wait---it's the Seventies, so you're a bit of a latecomer to that scene anyway.
I met a redneck on a Grecian isle
Who did the goat dance very well
He gave me back my smile
But he kept my camera to sell
Oh the rogue, the red red rogue
He cooked good omelettes and stews
And I might have stayed on with him there
Don't count on it. If you'd stayed on with him he might have robbed off with your “silver” that you're always putting on... oh wait, that's another song. Anyway, he might just have booted you out for being annoying. Going on about California all the time probably doesn't help your case.
But my heart cried out for you, California
Oh California I'm coming home
Oh make me feel good rock'n roll band
I'm your biggest fan
California, I'm coming home
CHORUS:
Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
That's what happens when you travel, Joni. I thought you liked that? Perhaps it's just the social connotations of travel that you like---the experience seems less your thing.
All the news of home you read
Just gives you the blues
Just gives you the blues
That's one good reason to stay in Europe, where people aren't so terrified of Communists.
So I bought me a ticket
I caught a plane to Spain
Went to a party down a red dirt road
There were lots of pretty people there
Reading Rolling Stone, reading Vogue
They said, “How long can you hang around?”
I said “a week, maybe two
Just until my skin turns brown
Then I'm going home to California”
You're such a jet-setter, Joni. Well done for blending in with those pretty young people. I bet only a few of them spied you for a faker. That was some deep reading material they had---clearly enough to impress a skin tourist such as you. You know, it's sunny in California. In fact, California's climate is a bit like Spain's. It's not like Canada. You have been to California, haven't you?
California I'm coming home
Oh will you take me as I am
Strung out on another man
California I'm coming home
Another man, you say? I'm not sure who the first man is. Perhaps the redneck who likes goats? Or perhaps you just slipped the “other man” in there... it would hardly match your style not to have someone to be “strung out” on.
CHORUS:
Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
More about the war
And the bloody changes
Oh will you take me as I am?
Will you take me as I am?
Will you?
Thanks, but no thanks.
Tue, 08 Feb 2011
As I walked back to the department after my lunch today, there was some sort of protest going on down by the Radcliffe Camera. I guess it was about fees and whatnot. It seemed quaint that these people were choosing to protest by walking down a street while shouting. Futility was very much in the air. In this post-Thatcher era, people power is a dragon that has ceased to exist, for lack of belief. Our downtrodden population is once again resigned to living under an aristocracy. Today, the aristocracy is the super-rich, with the politicians as both their willing puppets and, in many cases, among their number. Cynicism has worn us down. Most people cannot be reached or motivated in any way. The modern way to conduct effective protests seems to use communication technology to reach a very high percentage of the minority who can be motivated, rather than trying to rouse a general rabble on the streets. Unfortunately, so far the biggest success of this method seems to have been getting Rage Against The Machine to Christmas number one single.
Today I read the paper for the first time in weeks. I was taken aback by how depressing it all is. Julian Assange is being stitched up; Russia has started expelling foreign journalists; the “redevelopment” of a historically significant and seemingly valuable estate in Elephant & Castle is being steamrollered through despite apparent local protest; it was revealed that British ministers had bent over backwards to release a mass murderer from prison for the sake of “diplomatic relations” with Libya; I didn't even get to read George Monbiot on the recent tax relaxations made to benefit big business, but now that I do, it's even more depressing. I feel that I should be protesting about dozen different things, yet I don't protest about anything. Some of it is laziness; some of it is that I don't know where to start. And the rest is that I don't know how to do it effectively. Please send advice on a postcard.
It wasn't an auspicious start. Feeling in the mood for some live music, a few days ago I noticed the Sea of Bees gig in Oxford, and decided to go, in a nothing-ventured style. The venue was listed as a place called The Old Bookbinders, and a quick web search revealed the location of a pub of that name in Jericho. On the day of the gig I did a quick check again, but noticed something odd---two different street names were being turned up for the venue, and only one of them in Jericho. The other was Green Street, off Cowley Road. It turns out that there are two entities known as “The Old Bookbinders” (well, a space in the last word sometimes distinguishes them). The pub in Jericho is one, but there's also a community arts centre. I went with the latter, which turned out to be the right choice.
Wow! It's the best venue I've been to in ages. Comfortable tables and chairs sit in front of the stage filling (but not crowding) the near half of the floor space, while the rear half is a standing area and features a discreet bar selling very tasty beer. There's some charming decor including streamers, a lighty-uppy plastic tube vine-like thing (what are they called?) and a tasteful red backdrop to the stage. The sad part is that, despite being lovingly decked out, it's a completely temporary set-up. The host building is due to close on 31st March for redevelopment (as “luxury” flats, or so I hear).
All three acts were of the mostly-acoustic singer-songwriterly style. First up was James Walbourne and his two backers (upright bass and guitar/percussion) making a rollicking racket of folk-esque, blues and brighter acousto-near-pop numbers, and doing so superbly well. One CD purchase was already confirmed in my mind. Next up, Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou did their deft, delicate and sweet double-vocal (with occasional harmonising) over the pair of acoustic guitars. They are a married couple and share a single microphone in a cute way. I recognised one of their songs (an “older” one) as something I'd enjoyed on Gideon's programme. They finished with a great version of Charlie Parr's “Cheap Wine”. I wasn't quite convinced I needed the CD, but kept an open mind.
As usual, I apologise for the dire quality (in every way) of my camera phone photos.
Sea of Bees were the headline act. I knew I had heard some songs before, but couldn't remember them. Anyway, the descriptions sounded interesting. Before and in between the sets I had been talking to a charming and very friendly chap next to me, Giuseppe, an Oxford resident originally from Sicily, who was there with his (also charming) wife (she from Portland). They was there because she happened to know one of the two band members, Amber---who I was even privileged to meet very briefly before the set.
The “band” is really the songs of Julie Ann Baezinger, with Amber on back-up guitar and voice. Julie is a unique stage presence---while being a quiet, shy, rather awkward presence on stage, she somehow manages to be a completely charismatic performer at the same time. Her voice is like a tiny candle-flame which somehow, as if amplified through elaborate wooden horn, becomes a room-filling presence. It has both power and a contorted tension, a little like a less artful Joanna Newsom. It sounds cliche, but she sings songs of an adult life with the joy, the anguish, bewilderment and desperation of a child. Her between-songs banter is somewhat child-like too, but brave, carefully introducing each song with a brief recounting of its story, however personal, always with the same artless sincerity. She isn't always quiet either---notable was her love of returning whoops to the crowd with interest.
After the set (there was one encore) I rushed out to withdraw cash, then rushed back to the venue to buy CDs. Trevor and Hannah-Lou were manning the stand, so I couldn't not buy their record. They seemed like lovely people; I shook their hand as I departed. I hope I'll make it back to the venue before it closes. There doesn't seem to be any sort of “save our bookbinders” campaign---when it's gone, it's gone, or so it would seem.
In summary, it was a great night, and I'll be lucky to keep on discovering gems such as this as I get to know Oxford. Oh, and the kebab I had beforehand from Bodrum was awesome too (a bargain, and definitely not yer usual fried-grease-in-pitta).
Long time no blog, by the way. I'll be ranting about my new Oxford situation soon. In the meantime I have to stop, because I'm COVERED IN BEES. Sorry---I couldn't resist.
Sun, 12 Dec 2010
I recently discovered that I'm a desk-faster. (If you've been overdosing on the FT, by which I mean reading it at all, you may need to delete some cookies before you can read the article. If that doesn't work, try the “Chinese” version---it's in English.)
Lucy Kellaway can't conceive of why anyone would eat breakfast at work. In my case, the explanation is simple: I eat my second breakfast at work, because my first one forces me out of the house. Details, details... in any case, she isn't the first to observe that the boundary between work and non-work has been blurred. Twenty-five years ago, the fictional (but still wonderful) Earl Culver made the same observation far more memorably.
Hopefully, dear reader, Earl has awed you sufficiently that you no longer have any time for Ms Kellaway. But if you'll permit me, I have to drag attention back to her momentarily. (I wouldn't if I didn't have to, honest---even her name seems designed to antagonise me.) I admit I'm hardly her target audience---clearly, only those who not only own dishwashers, but couldn't conceive otherwise, are in her target demographic. But anyway, there are several reasons why the office is a better place than home for doing a great many things.
Most obviously, while I can't speak about her office, at mine (okay, so it's called “the Lab”) there is a dishwasher, although I wouldn't use it to wash up my breakfast bowl. Even when I do join the ranks of the dishwasher-equipped-at-home, I doubt I'll use it on my breakfast bowl. But disregarding the dishwasher, the Lab kitchen is well-equipped: it has teatowels, washing-up liquid and a reliable supply of cloths and sponges. You don't need to rely on housemates refraining from trashing the place, because for some reason, at-work shared facilities engender a higher standard of cleanliness. That may have something to do with having cleaners to look after them.
My luxury home environment affords me the joys of creaking plumbing which takes minutes to reach lukewarm flow from a “hot” tap. Meanwhile, our Lab kitchens have a stainless steel mixer which willingly blurts out scaldingly hot water at the smallest of twists in the red direction. Even the shower at the Lab is far superior to at home. It is built to a decent standard, and also stays hot---rather than suddenly and turning into a freezing cold dribble without warning at random intervals. (HMO regulators should be required to examine any landlord with a set of questions, including “is a single reservoirless combination boiler suitable for a house shared between six people?”.)
In our offices, there is a cleaner too. He is a friendly and efficient man named Les. He's been known occasionally to lend the discerning office-dweller items from his Steven Poliakoff VHS collection. The last time I had a cleaner at home, it was a College-contracted company who sent a friendly pair named Alan and Jo to “clean” every so often. Although cheerful, they made no bones about just how much they hated their job, and reaffirmed as much in their attention to their work. With regard to their allotted duty of keeping the house stocked with toilet roll (out of their industrial toilet roll reserves), their efforts can only be described as too little, too late.
In the office, there are facilities which can easily be justified when shared between hundreds, but which would be unaffordable or extravagant between one or a handful: an espresso machine, a pool table, table football, and, er, lots and lots of toilets. Perhaps our homes are our castles, but simple economies of scale mean that work can usually offer a better-equipped castle, if a less homely one. Communal living is not so popular in our culture (although on this subject as with many, we could do worse than listen to Bertrand), but communal working is an unstoppable institution... so why not exploit those economies?
More generally, I'd contend that tolerance of blurred distinctions between home and work is the sign of a more egalitarian society. In the old world, the class-based division between the worker and his overlords was a power structure which needed to be maintained culturally and psychologically by the overlords. What better way than to deny workers reasonable use of facilities, or any other concession to convenience---never mind understanding of the fact that they may indeed have children and other trappings of “personal life”. Today, fortunately for us, most workers are indeed treated like people. Perhaps all this sharing and lax attitudes to power structures is too much like anarcho-communism for FT types like Miss Kellaway. To me, it's an unexpected reminder of the irrepressible creeping of progress, even in these transiently yet depressingly Conservative times.
Sat, 20 Nov 2010
Here's one example as to why listening to the radio while working can be dangerous.
Many libraries written in languages which do not provide native introspection will nevertheless layer their own run-time self-description (or “type information”) into their data structures, by adopting particular conventions. One example is Belle and Sebastian.
It actually turned out to be the intro to New Order's “Procession”, which I misrecognised as B&S's “Electronic Renaissance”.
Wed, 17 Nov 2010
At 4pm yesterday I was writing an e-mail. Around then, without realising, I accidentally pressed Ctrl-W. This is a keyboard shortcut that some other apps use, so perhaps I was context-confused.
My mail refused to send, and the mailer was behaving as if there was no network connection. After checking that there definitely was a network connection, and restarting the mailer, I decided it must be a bug in the mailer.
I therefore decided to upgrade all my packages, as it'd been a while. Since the last upgrade, I had added some Debian repositories because various packages I wanted weren't available in Ubuntu.
The upgrade pulled in a lot of packages from Debian... many of which turned out to clobber Ubuntu packages, or attempt to, in various ways. After it becomes clear that the Debian packages are a bad idea and must be eliminated....
.... I tried to remove them by hand. No good, so I re-read the documentation on dreaded APT package pinning and configured my APT to “downgrade” everything back to Ubuntu.
Around this point, I really had to leave the lab for the evening. I manually re-typed my e-mail and send it using Lab machine. Since my laptop battery spontaneously failed a few days ago, I had to hibernate my machine instead of putting it to sleep.
The next day, the machine failed to boot, complaining that “it seems udevd is already running” (which, first thing at boot, is unlikely). I try booting the Kubuntu disc, so I can chroot in and fix the packages. No joy---there are tons of read errors on the CD, whose messages fill up the consoles, while the X session fails to start.
I tried an old Debian netinst disc, but it's too old to support either of my network devices. Although all the packages I desperately need are on the Kubuntu CD, and might be readable, I can't eject the CD drive when booted from it.
I tried booting Windows 7 to google the udev error message, but the machine hard-locked just after login. I remember that the temporary (broken) battery I'm using does that, so I remove it, reboot, and wait inordinately long for the recovery boot process. Googling reveals nothing useful.
At the Lab, I booted my Knoppix disc and successfully connected to the network. I successfully downgrade away the rogue Debian packages, after much manual package-twiddling. Sadly the machine doesn't boot... it just hangs there on a text-only Ubuntu bootscreen.
Back in Knoppix, I try randomly reinstalling a bunch of important-seeming packages including the kernel. The machine now boots, modulo a spurious “gave up waiting for the root filesystem” error which can be manually guided around.
A bunch of packages I actually do want were somehow removed somewhere along the line, so I spend a while reinstalling those. Around 5pm I am back to where I was at 4pm yesterday. It turns out that Ctrl-W enables “offline mode” in my mailer, which makes things look suspiciously like there is no network.
Can I add that I woke up underslept (not for want of trying), with a horrible cold, in a freezing cold house intermittently devoid of hot water. Then the Co-op was out-of-stock of nearly everything I wanted to buy this morning (hmm, that's only a slight exaggeration). I also knocked over a stack of CDs into my breakfast plate. Having now wiped off the baked bean remnants, I have no more mishaps to report, but yes, life is clearly conspiring against me.
Tue, 12 Oct 2010
Several weeks ago I went to see The Brothers Bloom at Saffron Screen. It's a wonderful film which I highly recommend, particularly now that it's out on DVD. Not only is it funny, witty, charming, visually inventive, and a rollicking story, but it explores some fascinating themes which resonate particularly with me---primarily the question of authenticity in one's own existence, but also about the nature of habits, acceptance, family ties and other things.
On the other hand, I should warn you that not everyone was as impressed by the film as I was. A leading Amazon reviewer criticises it as “genre-confused”. He or she is put off by the fact that it doesn't seem to subscribe to any well-defined genre---it's not really much like a typical detective story or an adventure movie; it's not even really best described as either a drama or a comedy, despite having elements of both. Clearly, this bothers some people---even Peter Bradshaw was “baffled” (his word).
It puzzles me why anyone would consider this a problem. To criticise a film as “genre-confused” is the tail wagging the dog---genres emerge from films, not the other way round. The most interesting works, not just films but any kind of art, are often those which challenge, combine or subvert established styles. “Genre-confused” ought to be a compliment rather than a criticism. In music, perhaps even more than film, many of the very best albums can't at all be described by a single genre-tag, unless they happened to be the work that spawned the tag itself. I'm sure you can make your own list, but to shamelessly drop some albums from my own: Astral Weeks, What's Going On, Remain In Light, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea or whatever other famously brilliant album you could care to mention don't suffer from being genre-confused---they revel in it.
Some people value genres. I've even heard of people who organise their record collection by genre. They must be dull collections. I couldn't even start to genre-ify my collection... any attempt would quickly get stymied by the genre-combining, genre-confusing and genre-defying. A while ago I spoke to a chap who was doing his PhD on French film wanting to discover “where there was a genre of French post-grief drama” in film. I couldn't help thinking what a pointless question this was. Meanwhile I notice that the Guardian's current film season is another culprit: they're running a series of supplements with articles on “the best films”, broken down, you guessed it, by genre. One of the genres is “arthouse”. What on Earth does that mean?
One of the ways in which certain music journalists often annoy me is that they try to describe music by its similarity to other artists. You could claim this to be helpful, in that it might be relating unfamiliar music to something you've heard before. In practice it never is, partly because the comparisons are frequently way-off, and partly because the journalist is really just trying to show off their own knowledge, usually by picking artists comparably obscure to the one being reviewed. In either case, it's unfair on the music being described: to say it sounds like something else is at least an implication of unoriginality. So really, this treatment is best saved for the work that truly is derivative (er, Delphic maybe? or insert some other derivative band here).
Rather than endlessly trying to relate some new piece of art to prior or peer works, why do people find it so difficult to take things as individual works, to be considered on their own merits? Instead of asking “does it do X as well as work Y?”, ask “do I like it?”. In summary: I hate genres. I hope you do too.
Mon, 04 Oct 2010
Cambridge to St Albans the hard way
Here's the cycle route I took from Cambridge to St Albans on Saturday. It took me 4h08m to cover the 75.8km (about 47mi), of which 3h35m was moving time. As usual I merrily plotted a straight-line backroads route with concern for only the most obvious of gradients; the elevation gain over the route is a fairly strenous 854m (or put more usefully, about 11m for every kilometer travelled).
Except for the wonderful Chapel Hill between Haslingfield and Barrington, it's fairly flat until Royston. The Old North Road into Royston was a bit unpleasantly busy, but navigating Royston, beginning with the A505 roundabout, turned out to be quite straightforward. After this is where things get interesting. The straight-line climb to Therfield turns into winding narrow rural roads around Kelshall, Sandon and Rushden before popping out on the A507 briefly. I then went out of my way into Cottered, climbing a giant hill which I could have avoided if I hadn't missed my turn towards Cromer (signposted only for Luffenhall). Back on the intended route, the B-road through Cromer and Walkern is surprisingly pleasant---not too busy, and being narrow, it has a country lane feeling.
The route to the east of Stevenage, hugging the hillside before crossing into Aston, is quite pleasant also. After that, things change a bit: most of the rest of the route is on narrow single-track roads which are often bumpy, pot-holed, slippery from treefall, and flooded or near-flooded in places following the wet weather preceding my trip. Following Bragbury End and Woolmer Green, there is perhaps the muddiest and roughest-surfaced stretch along Danesbury Park Road (a wooded backroad seemingly undergoing residential development), before a brief respite through the comfortable home-counties feel of Welwyn town centre. It's then more of the same winding muddy single-tracks through Ayot St Peter and Coleman Green into Sandridge. I passed a Ford sign around Ayot St Peter, but was relieved when no ford emerged. Some of the downhills in that area felt like a mountain biking experience, and on a different bike might have been exhilarating rather than bone-shaking. The ford game levelled on Coleman Green Lane when a completely flooded section appeared unannounced. I let the car behind me go ahead so I could judge the depth and bumpiness. Luckily I then made it across none the wetter.
In hindsight, the uppy-downiness and hair-raising surfaces of the single-track roads would make me rethink my route a little for next time: probably I'd take a more northerly route between Stevenage and Sandridge, through Knebworth, Codicote and Wheathampstead. Those roads are mostly wider (“generally more than four metres wide” to use the Ordnance Survey language) but I am only guessing that they would be any better in practice. I might also be tempted to avoid Royston and the hilly, twisty Therfield area by taking the B1368 to (hilly, less twisty) Barkway and then sidling over to Buntingford, backpedaling north slightly before crossing the A10 onto the unclassified road towards Cottered.
For the return journey, I took the Alban Way from St Albans to Hatfield, from where I got the train back to Cambridge. I wanted to call this the “easy way”... after all, it's six miles' cycling on a tarmac surface, and ex-railway paths will surely be devoid of hills. Sadly it's not so easy: the surface, although technically tarmac, is abominably bumpy and rutted, and of course there are several places where the path leaves the railway earthwork, in a hilly fashion, either to duck around some private property or to route around a now-disappeared bridge over some road. It really annoys me that this sort of path, while no doubt trumpeted by many a councillor or other transport spokesperson as a boon for cyclists, is actually far less usable than a road would be. I really want to knock some sense into whoever pays for such a half-hearted job to be done on these cycle routes, or fails to maintain them to a decent standard, since a bad job is worse than no job at all. Anyone who decided to use the path as a trying-out route for getting into cycling could easily be discouraged for a long time.
You may notice that the map shows a proper GPS-generated track rather than my previous approximate Google Maps efforts. It was generated by Google's My Tracks application running on my (fairly) new HTC Wildfire. The app is fairly good, if a bit slow.
Sun, 12 Sep 2010
My last post is a bit irksome. On reflection it's gapingly flawed in at least two ways. Firstly, it's needlessly comparative. All of my points would have stood without introducing flimsy anecdotal claims that women are perhaps on average more conservative than men (which may or may not be true, but is irrelevant), as opposed to being simply sufficiently conservative to make the publishers' actions rational (which is the real point). Men are conservative too, but I'm being swayed too much by the anecdotal fact that I consider myself less conservative than average (in the relevant respects) and am also a man. Secondly, there is a hypocrisy in demanding data while being happy itself to advance arguments from a distinct absence thereof. These are rhetorical failures rather than logical or factual flaws, and the written sentiments reflect my honest beliefs fairly accurately. So, although this admission contradicts a position I hold with near-religious conviction, sometimes honesty is not the best policy.
The real problem is that my mood recently has been sufficiently grouchy that any sector of humanity is liable to get it in the neck from me given half an opportunity. Last night it was the Last Night crowd's turn. I'm talking about the Proms of course. It still puzzles me how so many people can give themselves so unselfconsciously to a sentiment that is not only gigantically cliché but so clearly meaningless. What is nationalism anyway? What should I feel about my home country? I might have a slight fondness for it, in the same pseudo-nostalgic way that I'm fond of the town I grew up in, or the film that turned me on to cinema (Stand By Me), or the destination en route to which I discovered my love of cycling (yes, Bedford), or the place I first ate really good pizza (okay, no, I can't remember). But beyond that, pageantry just seems so transparently unjustified. It's not as though I can claim any kinship to any significant proportion of my fellow countrymen, when most of them are nothing but a vaguely well-meaning source of annoyance competing for our isle's scarce resources, and many of them are somewhere between annoying and loathsome. If you need confirmation of that, just check the Mail's circulation figures. Every nation has its pompous anthem, claiming its citizens to be the most decent and brave and upstanding and whatever. Clearly, they can't all be right, and it's likely that none of them is.
So, with pomp and circumstance as with so many things, somehow my brain just says no; it's not okay to go along with what these other people are doing, because it would mean feigning subscription to ideas that are disagreeable or even, in the case of nationalist pomp, just nonsensical. Honesty is the best policy, after all. Just as I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person who compulsively practises extreme honesty---paying the full fare (bus, train, cinema, you name it) even if you can get away without it, not claiming expenses for the grey-area things (never mind black-area), refusing to sing hymns (in the rare occasions when called upon) because he can't subscribe to their sentiments, disliking most kinds of ceremony just for the sheer pretence of it, and generally being an honesty obsessive---so also I feel like the only person who craves not just honesty but authenticity. There's just so much bullshit that it's so easy to take lying down, to say “yes, isn't that nice” in complete betrayal of brain. Most people are happy to wave flags, to smile blandly at Hollywood films, to nod along to whatever music is on the radio (where nodding is whatever other people seem to do), to justify their actions on the grounds that they're “what people do”. I can't “just do” these things; I have to question them, to the point where I can say I've understood and can subscribe to what I've understood. It seems I am this way predisposed to a unique extreme. I'm not sure why... how can you endorse anything before you've considered it for yourself, unless you've decided honestly to nail your very personal colours to it? Nationality in particular is just too vague a label to be worth that honour. In general I find it quite easy to feel alien from my fellow humans for one thing or another that they apparently subscribe to, whether or not they would think to remark at all on that thing it themselves.
It's quite inconvenient to be such an authenticity obsessive. Basic tasks like clothes-shopping are difficult because of the alienation I feel from the pictures of models all around... who are these sneery, implausible people staring at the camera with contempt? Can I really endorse their exhibitors by giving them my money? Even buying washing powder is an alienating experience... I don't have a family, and why does this box have a picture of a baby on it? Eateries, coffee-eries and drinking establishments are also subject to a filter... if the ambiance speaks to someone other than me, or if the clientele seem too alien, I am easily made uncomfortable.
Some people like to reflect on their non-uniqueness as human beings, to note all the ways in which they tick the boxes of some stereotype and are superficially similar to large portions of the population. But I have the opposite problem: I feel like an alien, citizen of a nation of one. I feel like Sting would if he was the only tea-drinker in the universe. Snowflake, cornflake or nutflake? You decide.
Sat, 04 Sep 2010
Lionel Shriver's comment piece in yesterday's Guardian is a very neat microcosm of a circular trap (I almost said “paradox”) that seems recurrent in social attitudes held by and concerning women. The author is, I should mention, a woman. Go on, read it.
On the one hand, there are undoubtedly certain institutionalised prejudices which make it more difficult for women to gain recognition in various ways---in Shriver's example, for their cultural or intellectual achievements as authors. On another, publishers persist in pursuing a series of patronising and stereotype-derived tactics in the hope of capturing the female market. This is particularly significant because publishers and the media generally have a curious role as a reflector, in this case reflecting patronising views about women back into society. Arguably, in so doing they amplify them; at the very least, the media are guilty of not damping them as much as Shriver and many others would like (myself included, for what that's worth), and can therefore be blamed for their part in the “ghettoisation” Shriver talks about.
There is, unsurprisingly, a third side to this triangle, and it's the thorniest one. Are the publishers wrong? Undoubtedly, some women would be put off by a cover depicting elephant carcasses, just as her publishers feared. To what extent can we blame publishers for building this ghetto, versus observing that women seem inclined towards buying into the ghetto that is built for them? Among the demographic of intelligent and successful women who are my peers, I would venture that certain conservative qualities are, for better or worse, significantly more prevalent among the female than the male half of that demographic: risk-aversion, a capacity to be wary (I nearly said “dismissive”) of cultural artifacts which they identify as “not for them”, and a preference for conciliatory bending to established social conventions and roles rather than defiance and self-definition.
Before you explode in an outrage at my sexism (and remember that I consider myself a feminist), let me emphasise I'm talking about prevalence rather than universality... and in any case these are not “bad” qualities (although I invariably find myself admiring women who don't conform to these generalisations). Risk-taking and social norm-challenging are stereotypically male inclinations, and one can see plausible genetic explanations for this. Besides which, it's well-known that the variance in many psychological characteristics is greater among the male half of the population (there are more male outliers). In other words, the uneven distribution of these qualities between the sexes may not owe simply to “outdated” artifacts of cultural antiquity as Shriver suggests, but to less transient effects. That is not to deny that human universals are always subject to a cultural adjustment, and in deciding that adjustment, attitude-shaping debate such as Shriver's article plays a worthwhile part. I should also concede that while overt defiance is less commonly the way of women, there are other and subtler methods of dissent and change that I am not accounting for. In any case, like all forms of media, publishers probably have a moral duty to damp rather than reinforce stereotypes, and to seed questioning attitudes in the best tradition of the creative arts and of progress generally... but sadly morality is often not compatible with staying afloat in business, particularly in a sector like publishing that is currently being squeezed hard.
The triangle, in fairness, has a fourth side. I'm thinking about Shriver's man on the Strassenbahn here. Surely he is also culpable in preferring not to be seen holding the stricken-woman cover image, just as much as the women who might be discouraged if the cover was otherwise? Asking myself what I might do, when faced with such a book that I wanted to read, the likely answer is that I'd grit my teeth and put up with cover-embarrassment. But this still acknowledges that there is something to be self-conscious about. While I'd like to think I'm atypically unbothered by such things (indeed, some attest that I even look like a woman from behind), there'se still something there.
The article deteriorates a little. Shriver goes too far in her unsupported claim that “women, unlike men, buy books by and about both sexes”. Who's stereotyping now? Perhaps this one is an accurate stereotype---and if we were in the business of wagering, I do find it broadly plausible (in the same way that “men love football” is plausible)---but claims like that require data. Soon afterwards she claims that if the careers of “smart female authors” depended only on appealing to women, they would “narrow their subject matter”. But hang on---wasn't the earlier point that the subject matter isn't the issue, because contrary to stereotypes, women are broad-minded and will read a wide range of material? And would these “narrowing” authors really be “smart”? I think “patronising” would be more appropriate here, since surely those authors are basing their narrowing on stereotypes. The alternative interpretation is that female authors would much rather be narrow for their own art's sake, irrespective of audience, and currently force themselves to broaden their oeuvre purely for the sake of that pesky patriarchal establishment. I don't think that's Shriver's intended interpretation, which is just as well because I don't believe it for a moment.
As usual, my grumbles can be summarised as Not Enough Logic and Not Enough Science. Data could probably undo Shriver's central effort too. Her protest that “girliness and goo isn't the way to every woman's heart” is certainly true, but nobody ever said otherwise. The publishers are only acting on the basis that this holds in enough cases to make their strategy commercially reasonable. In other words, while Shriver places the blame squarely with the establishment---and I'd agree that it has a lot to answer for---a significant chunk of the “problem” lies in a much more diffuse set of memes (and possibly a few genes) that can't really be blamed on anyone. That's no disrespect to her sentiment, because I would love it not to be so. Nothing makes a man (er, meaning me) feel alien from his sisters than observing the influence of media-driven girlification--- a far stronger force than laddification or blokification has ever been, although perhaps explicably---whose sway certainly acts against creative merit in a large proportion of cases. But getting rid of the ghetto, if it's ever to happen, means taking on more than just the establishment: taking on people as a whole.
Tue, 27 Jul 2010
Ever since the current government took office, I've been reading details of proposed spending cuts with interest. It's clear enough that the cuts are primarily ideologically motivated, and at each turn a government official has been on hand to claim that the cuts will deliver overall improvements thanks to private-sector initiative. This is clearly not true nearly as much as our Conservative friends would have it---contrary to the mantra claiming that the market is some sort of responsive, elastic, optimising miracle-worker, in fact it is a dumb machine that gets stuck in all sorts of ways, from arms-races to price-fixing to short-termism to simple unimaginativeness and the dull plasticity of human thinking.
Nevertheless, I can sometimes read details of cuts and wonder whether that one specific case or other might not be a bad idea. Having a periodic search for the dead wood and hardened inefficiencies is not a bad thing. Some of the earliest cuts announced, to ministerial expenses (like cuts in chauffeur-driven cars and suchlike), while absolutely miniscule in impact, seemed like good ideas to me and an indication that there was scope for at least some some latent inefficient habits to be shaken up. It's a bit like how our unfortunate cultural treatment of job losses means that a recession, in giving companies an “excuse” to let their ill-employed staff go, can rather unfortunately fill a useful role by improving resource allocation in the longer term, where these changes would be somehow unpalatable in “normal” circumstances. This is an unfortunate norm which needs to be changed, but one thing at a time.
Arts funding is the latest issue, following today's news that the UK Film Council is being axed. The general reaction has been very negative, but again, it's worth considering the alternative viewpoints. Two particularly iconoclastic positions have appeared recently: Mark Ravenhill provocatively argued that the arts budget should be cut because a lot of it is wasted on “development”, while Alex Cox with characteristic free-spiritedness claimed (scroll down) that the Film Council's mistaken treatment of Bond and Harry Potter films as “British” has cost independents their share of lottery funding.
The conclusion of all of this seems to be that the reality of an organisation is often quite different from its overt intentions. In turn, this means that the consequences of policy decisions are incredibly complicated. It's not necessarily true that schemes with sensible mission are necessarily worth the money, but the converse is almost certainly true too: apparently less useful schemes might have all sorts of complex indirect benefits. We should therefore be very sceptical of any but the best-qualified commentators. We should certainly be sceptical of politicians.
Fri, 23 Jul 2010
She had been on stage barely seconds before the first cry of “I love you!” rang out from the audience, followed in a split second by an even louder “I love you more!”. It's quite impressive just how much the kids love Regina. For once, they're not wrong. I've found her records patchy (at least, the two of them that I've heard) but nevertheless sprinkled with enough great moments to make them worth listening to. For me, the negatives are usually some sort of self-indulgent whimsy and, on more recent records, an offputting slickness of production, especially when laid over the occasional thuddingly ill-judged song.
Yesterday's live set had none of the negatives; only great songs and fabulous performances. Even the opener Better, a tune from Begin To Hope which for me is one of the more gripe-inducing ones, managed to get me on side, with its great drum build-up and Regina's voice free from the annoying over-processed sound on the record. In fact it had never sounded better... as usual, the sound at the Corn Exchange was top-notch, and I was quite awed by Regina's voice for the whole night---it's a remarkable instrument which she seems to have complete control over. In other words, when she weirds things up you can be sure she's doing it deliberately.
The new songs I mostly didn't know, because I still haven't got round to buying the “new” record (I think it came out about a year ago), but they were consistently great enough that I became quite convinced that I needed to make the purchase. There's a great sense of drama to her performances, and the new material seems to play to that strength particularly well---there's amazing almost operatic feel in the more epic moments. The trade-off seems to be less whimsy, but I can live with that (though losing it completely would be a shame!). Owing to personal bias, I'm also always very impressed with performers who can play nontrivial piano parts while also singing superbly, and Regina can certainly do that. (Tim Minchin is another performer whose amazing talent in this department has been witnessed in the Corn Exchange in recent memory... clang goes the name.)
It was nice to hear Summer In The City, one of my favourites from the Begin to Hope record (I kept thinking it was the closer on Soviet Kitsch, but that's Somedays), and the popular duo of Samson and then Fidelity closed things off. There was no encore and essentially zero banter the whole night, which made more sense right at the end when Regina made a quiet and arrestingly heartfelt statement about her cellist Dan Cho, notable by his absence on stage because he died tragically a couple of weeks ago earlier on the tour. Rarely has such an excellent show been concluded with such a stunned and sad crowd leaving the venue.
It was still a great evening of music, although trust me to come up with a negative: a more peculiar-to-me dampener on the evening is the unfortunate fact that my affinity for any artist is limited by their popularity. Although I make efforts to be easy-going, at heart I am quite an irritable person, at least in that the presence of strangers can easily make me uncomfortable. I'm fairly sure this property doesn't hold for all musical performances, but certainly in Regina's case I suffer from a very unsociable gut reaction, which tells me that the specialness of a moment needs to be divided by the number of others it's shared with. My uncontrollably grumpy alter ego can't help but look for excuses by which to distance myself from those around me, and there was no shortage of petty irritations that I managed to abuse for this purpose: the two annoying swaying couples in front who kept obscuring my view, or the occasional singer-along behind me, and so on. I wish I wasn't such a misery guts, but I did really enjoy the show---honestly.
Thu, 22 Jul 2010
Nick Clegg has got himself into trouble by claiming that the Iraq war was illegal. Yet again, I am appalled at the lack of rational thought to be found among our politicians, journalists and, in this case, lawyers.
Whether the Iraq war was or was not legal is not a matter over which Mr Clegg has any influence. Perhaps the war was legal, in which case there is no problem with what he said. Perhaps it wasn't, in which case he misspoke. The interesting case seems to be this: perhaps it is not yet known whether the war was illegal. This seems to be the consensus. But so what? If the legality of the war is not yet known, then it was clearly wrong for Clegg to claim its illegality as a matter of fact (which, implicitly, he did). So, the bottom line is that Clegg has made an erroneous claim when speaking in his official capacity. No doubt, ministers can be relied upon to occasionally do such things.
The Guardian claims that “in such a formal setting [Clegg's words] could increase the chances of charges against Britain in international courts”. If so, then the courts are truly bonkers. How on Earth does an erroneous statement by a minister suddenly make charges more appropriate?
The article proceeds to quote Philippe Sands, who is apparently a Professor of Law at University College London, as saying that “ public statement by a government minister in parliament as to the legal situation would be a statement that an international court would be interested in, in forming a view as to whether or not the war was lawful.” So, the legality of the war is not just undecided, but depends on what some minister, whose government was formed years after the war began and ended, and had no part in either of those events? In other words, its legality can be changed retroactively, and simply by the mistaken statements of politicians? This is clearly what Sands is saying.
If he's right, I despair for the world. Even if he's not, I still despair. It's bad enough that the legal system is so messed up, but the politicians and journalists are also culpable: why did they not highlight the central insanity behind this whole non-story? I read the Telegraph article also, and it was just as bad as the Guardian's. Both the journalists and the politicians currently seem preoccupied with the question of whether or not Clegg was “speaking in a personal capacity”, which is simply irrelevant, except perhaps for the style of ticking-off that Clegg should receive behind the scenes. Whether he was speaking personally or officially, he simply made a false statement. Beyond that, it the statement is of no logical consequence. I really hope the same same will be true of its legal consequence.
Sun, 04 Jul 2010
I've cycled to London from Cambridge twice in the last month-and-a-bit, over two mostly different routes, so here they are. In both cases, I went on-road as far as St Margarets and then mostly off-road on the Lea towpath to get inside the M25, so the interesting route differences are in the first section. Of course, I'll rant about the second section too, in just a moment.
The first route, shown in red on the map, is based on this one, as far as St Margarets. The B1368 is a nice route, and is really fairly quiet once you cross over the A505. The hills between there and Barkway (and a little beyond) are fairly hard work, but not destroying if you pace yourself. The rustic section between Puckeridge and Wareside is particularly pleasant, but getting from Wareside to Stanstead Abbots on the bridleways (as in the link above) is not for the faint-hearted. You really need an off-road bike, and since I don't, I wouldn't take that route again---it's bone-shakingly bumpy, and steep enough that I had to get off in places. The immediate alternative is to take a large detour into Ware, as shown on this map, and while it looks excursionary, it's probably quicker and more pleasant for most bikes.
Second time around, and shown in green on the map, I tried Tom Anderson's route (reversed) to get to St Margarets, with two notable modifications. Firstly, instead of taking NCN 11 between Great Shelford and Ickleton, I went through Little Shelford, Whittlesford and Duxford. This avoids the sections alongside the A1301, which as usual are a reason to distrust the NCN. Secondly, after Brent Pelham, do not attempt to reach Furneux Pelham along Violets Lane unless the weather has been extremely dry. It turns out that Violets Lane is the longest ford in Britain (perhaps in Europe?). It's essentially a track along a river-bed, intended to be passable only on horseback (the sign says “unsuitable for motor vehicles”, and that doesn't mean bikes are okay!). It certainly wasn't anywhere close to passable by bike when I went there---fine water-worn pebbly gravel gave way to mud, thick mud, then stagnant water. At that point I ventured no further, but I imagine the stream would have been flowing once my hypothetical Land Rover travelled a bit further south. Unless you're in a Land Rover or some serious off-road motorbike, or on a horse, attempting to get through it will prove somewhere between comical and dangerous. It's rather quaint that sections of our public highways retain that designation even when horseback is the envisaged mode of passage (with “motor vehicles” having been advisorily ruled out). On a wet day the ford is really quite spectacular, as this and this and this and others will attest, but This village walk suggests that with wellies you can get through the ford okay on foot on a not-too-wet day, but that doesn't mean I'd take my bike through, given how easily my mudguards got clogged. From the same village site, this is the rightful flip-side of all those Land Rover videos.
The first time I tried the Lea towpath, I got a bit lost on the way towards Waltham Abbey---having missed NCN1's left-turn away from the river, I ran out of path and ended up taking the B194 through Lower Nazeing. “Nazeing” is a strange name for a place, and I spent a while wondering what it might mean, before realising that if I had a gavel, nazeing is probably what I'd be doing (all over this land). I certainly can't recommend the B194---it's busy! The NCN is a better option, but as usual, it manages to be stressful, because the poor signage and twisty-turny nature always has you worried that you've missed a turning and lost the trail. Second time round I avoided doing so, even when I thought I had: in some parkland across the river from Cheshunt, the path takes a dizzying uphill zigzag that I was sure indicated that I'd left the NCN and entered a pedestrian pathway, but not so, since eventually the NCN signs resumed.
Grumble grumble... I've grumbled about the NCN enough on these pages, and the grumbles don't stop---NCN 1 is full of dangerous, bumpy, practically unrideable sections, particularly along the river, and the usual difficult-to-follow signage will leave you guessing in several places. If in doubt, keep as straight as you can, and don't cross the river even if a signed London cycle route does so. That's if you want to stay on the NCN---I kept on til Canary Wharf, but in general I would recommend joining the on-road London Cycle Network at your earliest convenience. I was quite impressed with the LCN: the smooth surface was welcome, the roads were consistently quiet, and the signage is good. Even better, the roads have bicycle symbols painted on them at intervals, so you can be fairly sure you're on the right track. My only grumble is that the network is poorly-connected---plenty of cycle-friendly streets are not on the network, and there are lots of gaps between the sections that are. I suppose that's a funding issue, since signage and painted bicycles don't come for free. So you need to be prepared to plan the hops between different LCN sections yourself. Invariably you can do this while staying on quiet LCN-like roads. I hopped between NCN 21, LCN 22 and LCN 25 in this way, which got me as far as two streets away from my destination.
On balance I prefer the second, more easterly route to St Margarets---the roads are generally slightly quieter (although there's not a lot in it), the hills less severe, the villages slightly prettier. Much Hadham is deservedly the many-times winner of Hertfordshire's Best Kept Village award, and there are several other contenders on the route. You could even flip between the two routes if you wanted---Furneux Pelham is a reasonable place to flip from east to west, into Braughing, and Barwick is your last chance to flip from west to east, catching the southern end of Much Hadham. Langley and Hare Street are also connected, via Meesden, or you could avoid the busier section of the B1368 by crossing from Elmdon via Great Chishill into the charming Barkway, avoiding the worst of the hills in the process. Ah, the possibilities for superb cycling are endless....
Sun, 16 May 2010
Of course there was nobody there to meet me, but then I didn't advertise my appearance. This is a pretty good route, with maybe a couple of bits excepted. The total distance (as far as Ashwell & Morden station, from where I wimpishly got the train back) is about 45 miles, and took me 3h24m with about 25 minutes stopped (and another 10 or so pursuing wrong turns).
The B1046 from Barton heading out west is a route that's served me well, but on reflection it's a bit boring. It's one of the quieter B roads around, but nothing great (although some bits I didn't see today, around Longstowe and approaching Little Gransden, are nice enough). I was glad of the early exit into Bourn. I can recommend the diversion down Caxton End---although paved, the surface is terrible, but it has a great ford that (unlike the one between Hinxton and Duxford) is reasonably passable by bike, and fun if you can put up with the bone-shakingly uneven rocky bottom to it.
Then it's on into Caxton, past a picturesque windmill. This part is quite hilly, and I was already finding the ride quite hard going because of the headwind. That's one of the disadvantages of heading west I suppose. Caxton is pleasantly thatch-heavy, and then it's on to the super-smooth Gransden Road and through Great Gransden. Then it's the scenic route into St Neots via Waresley and Eynesbury Hardwicke, most of which is on a very quiet single-track road.
Although St Neots seems a bit culture-free, it's a very well-kept market town and I always find it surprisingly pretty to look at. Perhaps I've been lucky because the sun seems always to have been shining when I've passed through. A bit of wrong-turnage delayed me here, but I soon got back out on the road towards Little Barford. This is the one bum bit of the route. For an unclassified road it's super-wide and quite fast, particularly as you approach Tempsford, where the road is not only alongside the A1, but (I'll wager) used to be the A1 before they built the dual carriageway alongside. It's still maintained to a high standard, at least in the smooth surface, although there's no cats' eyes or other trunk-road trappings. It's fairly quiet, but what cars there are go super-fast. Finally we turn off towards Everton, crossing the east coast main line on the level (all four tracks of it), where I had to wait several minutes for a train to (first arrive, and then) pass.
The hill into Everton on Tempsford Road is a killer. I stopped and panted for a few minutes at the junction at the top of the hill. The pub (the Thornton Arms) looked very tempting, so perhaps it's one to go back for. I pressed on into Potton, and out of it again (bypassing the centre, which was perhaps foolish), then past Sutton (ditto, although I definitely would like to go to the John O'Gaunt there some day soon) and down four miles of narrow single-track road into Ashwell. I was overtaken by a Mini, driven quite responsibly until we turned the corner and I saw it mount the verge and emit a short beep before stopping. I checked the persons inside were okay as I overtook again, and they claimed to be so, so I continued to Ashwell.
I had been thinking I might cycle all the way back to Cambridge, either from Ashwell or bypassing it via the Mordens. As I was feeling disappointingly spent, instead I grabbed a much-needed coke at the Three Tuns before heading down to Odsey for the train. I'm not sure why the station isn't named after Odsey, since although it's small, it is actually where the station is, whereas Ashwell is nearly two miles away and the nearest Morden (of which there are at least two) nearly three. Oh well, at least it puts Ashwell on the rail map, and quite rightly. It's a superbly picturesque place which I enjoyed passing through again. Despite being village-sized, it also has enough amenities that it'd make a highly functional place to live.
It's a shame I didn't manage the ride back from Ashwell to Cambridge, because it's a particularly picturesque one. I'm thinking I might re-jig Richard's Oxford route to take a more southerly approach passing Ashwell, then crossing the A1 at Edworth. Unfortunately this seems to get stuck in A-roads around Shefford, but there might be a path that's cyclable.
Thu, 13 May 2010
It's a lot more sausage-shaped in my mind than in reality, but never mind. This is an interesting route, although I can't wholly recommend it. As usual, the map is an approximation owing to Google's car-centric mapping data: I took Sturton Street and then the riverside cycle route towards Fen Ditton, and on the way back came up Fulbourn Old Drift and Snakey Path from Cherry Hinton. The total distance is about 47 miles. It took me 3h50m with about 20 minutes' stationary time.
The first third of the route, through the fens towards Burwell, mostly confirms my opinions both about cycling in the fens and about the NCN. The fens are mostly boring to cycle through. The villages along this stretch are more suburban than scenic, particularly Bottisham, although Swaffham Prior is an exception, and my memory is failing on Reach but it's probably nice too. As usual, the parts that were on the NCN are also a mixture of boring, annoying and excursionary---in particular, the diversion via Reach is a conspicuous hump. That said, it is a nicer part of the route---it comes off those dreaded roadside paths, and avoids the the B1102 which is a bit on the busy side for pleasant cycling.
After a short hop on the B-road from Burwell to Exning, the route is very pleasant. It's horsey country, and there are lots of pretty fields and hedges and old stables and such all the way to Chippenham. From there, The B-road down through Kennett isn't great, but from Kentford onwards things get good again. The stretch through Moulton, Chevely, Stetchworth and Dullingham is absolutely superb cycling. It's beautiful countryside, rolling enough to be interesting but not arduous, and entirely on wonderfully quiet single-track roads. There is one fairly hard climb between Moulton and Chevely, but the downhill is worth it.
Getting back to Cambridge from Dullingham requires a bit of a zigzag, down through some very quiet farmland and up again on a fairly straight road (but not level!) towards the Wilbrahams. This is slightly busier than the other unclassified roads in the route, but still quiet. There's then a final wind round towards Fulbourn, and from there the Old Drift which emerges by Tesco.
I was pleasantly surprised by Fulbourn. Usually it speaks badly of a place to have an active passenger railway passing through with no station. (From what I saw on a previous ride, Soham and Fordham are fairly grey and charmless, although that could have been the weather.) However, Fulbourn has some picturesque buildings and a pleasant village feel, in stark contrast with neighbouring Cherry Hinton. I suppose the railway journey time into Cambridge would be quite long, because of the circuitous routing via Coldham's lane, and less convenient than the local bus service, in light of the unfortunate location of Cambridge station.
A final annoyance was failing to navigate the maze-like housing estate on the Cambridge side of Tesco in Fulbourn. I know it is possible to pop out on the shared use path along Cherry Hinton Road, but there is no signage and the streets are designed to disorient, so I ended up coming out at the roundabout again. Really, who wants to live in a maze of cul-de-sacs? Give me straight streets any day. The sooner this planning idiocy goes away, the better.
Something about price structures
My last post provoked a lot of comment, to the extent that I more-or-less forgot what the problem was. It's something about price structures....
Oh yes. So, as Mike rightly observed, air travel is a competitive industry. Therefore it's not the case that the customer base on the whole is being ripped off. Total revenue and total expenses are at least comparable. Rather, my problem concerns how the industry has somehow acquired some very strange price structures. In particular, ticket prices for short-notice travel or better-than-economy hospitality involve huge premiums. In return, economy-class fares booked well in advance are offered slightly cheaper than cost. (It's only slightly, because these account for many more fares than the other kinds. Most people who travel for work reasons will still fit into this category---I know I do.)
So a naive argument would be that those pesky executives are siphoning our money into the airlines through these expensive fares. We do so through our patronage of the companies they work for, which one way or another is unavoidable. To which you might rejoinder: aha! Even if we're paying for the expensive executives' travel, we all get our money back when it's our turn to fly, because we pay less for our tickets. Hey presto, competition among airlines has ensured that we didn't get diddled, and aren't markets wonderful.
The problem with all this is that power has been taken away from the individual and placed squarely with large businesses. If I, as an individual, suddenly find an urgent need to fly somewhere tomorrow, I will pay through the nose (if I do so at all), rather than just paying what it costs. If I decide to treat myself to a little extra comfort, I will probably not be able to afford the next rung up, even though its cost is within my means. If I'm running a small business, the story is the same: I'm far less able to adapt my travel plans to fit my needs. In a large business, these sporadic costs are spread across the whole company, so the large company can afford to pay where the small cannot. The result is that, power is unnecessarily channeled towards those who hold the capital---that is, those who already hold the power. This happens at the expense both of individuals, and of smaller competitors.
My previously-recounted problem with “business pricing” generally doesn't require this argument---the naive argument will do---because few industries are as competitive as the airlines. Food and drink establishments which target business customers are a classic example. The profit really does go straight into the pockets of a few wealthy individuals. That might include shareholders, but then most of the population are not shareholders in anything, so it's still a few wealthy individuals.
I like the word “stakeholder” because it generalises from “shareholder” to remind you that there's more than one way in which people can have an interest in a business. The other two main classes are employees and customers, and I'm always interested in arrangements which explore constraining the relations between these sets. There are some interesting ideas in mutual businesses, where the customers are the shareholders, and partnerships, where employees are shareholders. Can some sort of regulation be based around either of these ideas, to prevent a few rich people holding all the power?
Not directly, I don't think. Requiring either of those patterns seems restrictive---why shouldn't it be allowed for some third-party investor, not interested in the enterprise's offering (nor in working for it) but interested in investing in its development, to contribute funds? This is the nature of venture capital, and doesn't seem like a necessarily bad thing.
The problem lies the emergent behaviour of this arrangement: those able and willing to buy shares form a very small part of the population, and major shareholders far smaller still. The effect is inequality, and it is perpetuated by precisely the sort of subtle chain of effects of which the airline price structure scenario is just one example. In general, price structures and other “market-determined” rules evolve to keep the wealth, and hence the advantage, in the hands of a powerful few.
So perhaps an idea is this: the stake (i.e. total share) which third-party investors (neither employees nor customers) may have in a business should be related to its size. For small companies, which need capital to start up and deliver an innovative product, the proportion can be quite high. But as the company grows, those investors would be obliged to sell their shares. This sounds like a small change at first, but think about it: it would radically change the face of large companies. Who would be on the board? By definition, they no longer have major shareholders. Instead, we might just find boards run by employees' representatives, and even perhaps members of the public (perhaps respected lay-folk akin to magistrates or councillors). Scale this up to a national or international , and suddenly we have no mega-rich elite, because we've disabled the mechanisms which allowed wealth to accumulate in a powerful few. Instead, companies directly serve the interests of their stakeholders. Utopia is at last realised.
Sat, 01 May 2010
As I'm someone who routinely likes to trash various things to do with business class travel, it might be surprising that I have some sympathy with Alan Yentob. Clearly he needs to travel on occasion, and making things comfortable for him ultimately saves his time, which is evidently very expensive. However, all this is missing the point. The big questions about these sorts of expenses are as follows.
- Is one person's time ever really that valuable? Does he need to be rushing around from engagement to engagement, hence the supposed justification of his luxury accommodations? I cynically suspect that it'd be a far more economical arrangement for his “work schedule” to be handled by, say, three people on a quarter or less of the salary, hence avoiding the time pressure. But the executive club needs a certain size of membership to survive---bigger and it would be insufficiently exclusive, smaller and it would expose its own superfluity.
- Could the same services be procured more cheaply by essentially zero-cost measures? I'm thinking about booking ahead here. If he was rushing to New York for filming, presumably this engagement had been in the diary for a while? I really don't know about any one case, but overall, the inclination to make these forward-planning efforts is sure to be lacking when you're not paying, and when any amount can be expensed. That's why people are asking questions about what amounts should be expensable in the first place.
- Are the price structures which underlie these huge expenses something that should be supported? This is my real beef about most of these expenses. The prices are trumped up specially for cases where only “business” customers are going to be paying, because companies know that those customers are divorced from responsibility about what they spend. Call me a purist, but prices should reflect costs. I accept that there is a small added cost imposed by last-minute air-fare bookings because they limit the airline's ability to plan resource allocation. However, that doesn't in any way justify the ridiculous gradient that fare structures actually exhibit. Similarly, the extra level of service in business or first is in no way priced to reflect the increment in cost. The result is that a few people at the top of travel-related industries get ridiculously rich, and the rest of us all pay for it by having our patronage used to support company expense accounts (and in turn, the rich club). You can't give me the line about concomitant increases in economy class fares... yes, it's likely this would happen, but if that's what it costs, that's what we should pay. It's zero-sum anyway, because we've avoided paying the cut previously taken by the travel industry through Yentob-alikes.
Mon, 26 Apr 2010
Four transport issues nobody is talking about
What with it being election time, it's interesting to see what policies are not being discussed. Here are four policies relating to issues close to my heart---transport and, particularly, cycling---which I think would be blindingly good value options. Although they're very minor issues, and my attentions are very cursory, I've never seen them mentioned in any political literature.
Buses with cycle racks
In this country we take it as a given that you can't take your bike on the bus. Why not? In the US, most buses have bike racks on the front. They're cheap and effective. I guess many current British buses might not support retrofitting of bike racks, but it'd cost practically nothing to mandate that all new buses must feature cycle racks.
Railside cycle routes
Cycling and rail are complementary in more than one way. There's the obvious way---you can take your bike on the train---and a less obvious way. An alignment that makes a good railway makes a good cycleway, and (to a lesser extent) vice-versa. It should be common practice that spare land alongside railways (of which there is very often a lot, at least in towns) is preferentially given over to cycleways. The Chisholm trail proposal is one example of such a project. Unsurprisingly, it hasn't happened. Construction-wise, paving and fencing of cycleways is very cheap. The main obstacles are, I imagine, bureaucratic. So why not place the responsibility squarely with Network Rail? If Network Rail were obliged to undertake this sort of project, they would be cheap and highly effective.
Railbanking
A complement of the railside routes idea lies at the rail-less extreme. As my cycling adventures remind me, you can't go far in this country without crossing some remnant of a railway. (Check out the New Adlestrop Railway Atlas for a quite impressive picture of that.) It's bad enough that the short-sighted Beeching-fronted politics of the 1960s undid the huge investment that was the railways' construction. Even worse is how little subsequent regard there has been for the remaining value of the investment, by which I mean the earthwork: smooth, direct paths from town to town and village to village.
In the US, “railbanking” is reasonably commonplace. It means that rail corridors are legally safeguarded for transportation use. Sadly in the US it is not applied as consistently as it could be---a consistency which would probably have been far easier to achieve in this country, owing to greater centralisation. In many cases, railbanking leads to construction of a cycle path and walking trail---and of course we have some ex-rail paths of that sort in this country, through opportunistic local initiatives. However, the legal intention of railbanking is stronger: to preserve the alignment's integrity. Our former rail alignments through cities and towns are often obliterated by supermarkets and industrial estates, and in rural or suburban areas are sold off to housing development. The wealth gained from this marginal increase in land availability is far outweighed by the lost potential uses of the alignment. However, it's not too late to stop the rot: we need a policy which safeguards alignments now, rather than waiting for local government to catch on.
A real cycle network
The previous two points might suggest I'm an advocate of dedicated cycle routes. I'm not against them, but I'm even more in favour of making cyclists first-class road users---a goal from which many campaigns detract by their emphasis on segregated routes. I've previously mentioned that the National Cycle Network is a flawed concept. A far cheaper and more effective option is to ensure that our huge network of quiet roads is made into an effective cycling network, and that maps and signage consider the needs of cyclists. In practice this means enabling cyclists to avoid dangerous junctions and busy stretches of road, by ensuring that the minor roads form a self-contained network, and filling in any gaps. For example, places in the current road network where traversing a busy junction is unavoidable, or where there is no viable alternative to merging with 70mph traffic for a short distance, are candidates for short cycleways to bypass these danger zones, and signage and mapping conventions to make these facilities and hazards clear to cyclists. The key word is “short”: providing these facilities would cost far less than the sort of dedicated network Sustrans seem to want.
Carrot and stick for cycling
I said four, but I meant five. This is a thorny issue. As I mentioned, I'd like to see cyclists as first-class road users. I'd also like to see cyclists form a majority of the population. For this to happen, cycling needs respect. It can't happen if cyclists are perceived as a nuisance to most non-cyclists. Being a good cyclist, I have no problem with a bit more regulation and stiffer penalties to see bad cycling punished and discouraged. I'm not yet sure what this “stick” should be, but very stiff fines for cycle-based law-breaking, and a more interventionist attitude by police (which would no doubt be more financially viable if the fines are stiff) seem to be sensible. To complement this big stick, there also needs to be a very big carrot to encourage uptake of cycling. We already have the “cycle to work” scheme, but I'd suggest bigger tax breaks. Could low-mileage car owners be given cheaper road tax? For all I know, that already happens (though I'd be surprised), but in general, much more carrot is needed.
I just finished watching Julian Temple's film “Requiem for Detroit?”. It's extremely interesting and I highly recommend it---you can find it on YouTube (er, in 10-minute chunks as usual). It's fascinating partly because Detroit is a microcosm---albeit an extreme one---of the sequence of changes which have shaped many Western cities, and more generally Western lifestyles, in the last hundred years. It has urbanisation, production-line industry, migration, suburbanisation, industrial decline, urban decay, rebellion, crime, drugs and just the tiniest bit of urban revival. (It also has a fantastic soundtrack.)
One of the interesting messages of the film is that the age of the car is coming to an end, maybe a hundred years after it began. That doesn't mean cars are going away completely, but that we are starting to feel a swing away from them. The “age of the train” was probably roughly another hundred-year period beginning in the mid-19th century, its decline overlapping with the rise of the car. We're entering a more integrated age, where car and rail exist side-by-side. As a cyclist, I see cycling as a third ingredient in this rather tense and uncertain arrangement. I'll ramble more about this in my next post.
It should really be called the Duxford Lasso, but as Whittlesford was a more pivotal point in my itinerary yesterday, so the lasso shall be named.
This was a very nice cycle route. The map is only an approximation in a few places -- I took the cycle routes from Trumpington Road to Long Road, and the “DNA trail” both ways between Addenbrooke's and Great Shelford. Similarly, I didn't really loop round the roundabout near Whittlesford station (there's a handy cycle crossing), and on my way back I went back to Whittlesford station through Duxford from Hinxton, rather than taking the A-road. Clearly Google Maps doesn't like going through fords, since it wouldn't let me route over Hinxton's ford on Duxford Road. I was tempted to take the ford, but 9 inches of water (according to the depth post thing) moving none too slowly seemed like a bit too much for cautious old me, so I took the narrow footbridge. Next time I should risk it (especially if I have spare clothing).
The most interesting part of the route for me was the spookily quiet countryside in the “loop” part of the lasso--several miles of farms and hamlets with not even a village to be seen until first Elmdon and then the favourite Ickleton. After returning to Whittlesford station and getting the replacement bus down to Audley End (to catch the excellent Micmacs at the excellent Saffron Screen) I rejoined my bike for some night-time riding back to Cambridge, leaving Whittlesford at 23.04 and arriving home at 23.45. I was a bit apprehensive about this, as I wasn't sure what the route would be like at night, but it turned out to be quiet and pleasant. I was sticking to the NCN route on the way back to avoid pitch-black roads -- since my lights, while decent, are urban- not rural-specification, and I lack high-vis attire. I suppose this is one point in the NCN's favour.
Tue, 20 Apr 2010
One of the research groups I participate in runs a Blogger blog that I'm trying to post to. To do so, of course I have to accept the Blogger terms of service.
Although we may attempt to notify you when major changes are made to these Blogger Terms of Service, you should periodically review the most up-to-date version (http://www.blogger.com/terms.g). Google may, at its sole discretion, modify or revise these Terms of Service and policies at any time and you agree to be bound by such modifications or revisions.
This kind of thing really annoys me. Such “agreements” are commonplace in the terms of service of many web sites. Effectively you agree to “some terms, chosen by Google [in this instance], which at the moment are as follows, but tomorrow could be anything we like”. Nobody in their right mind would ever agree to such terms. Of course, I have done so many times over. There is no doubt a legal boundary which determines how much they can shift the goal-posts without notifying anyone, but it is very ill-defined. Life is too short to protest passively about these things (by not signing up). What can be done? Send answers on a postcard please.
Fri, 12 Mar 2010
In yesterday's G2, Deborah Orr claimed that our terminology concerning social networking sites needs revising. You can't, apparently, “meet” someone on a social networking site, or by any other means than face-to-face contact. Her assumption is that face-to-face contact confers a kind of “knowledge” about the person which other channels cannot. Hasn't she seen The Matrix? Hasn't she or read (or seen) Brighton Rock? The fact is that through any medium, people need not be what they appear. Social networking sites may lack the sensory bandwidth of face-to-face meetings, but both are on the same continuum. Moreover, the distance between them is only set to get smaller. Like other established on-line communication mechanisms---IRC channels, newsgroups, web forums and instant messaging---social networks combine the only two human cognitive phenomena that you need to know a person: interaction and presence. To that list, we should also add the MUD. Facebook is a virtual world; twenty years from now it might well look more like World of Warcraft than The Colossal Cave or, more properly, Essex MUD. As they (used to) say, you haven't lived until you've died in it....
Today's Guardian features the latest in a torrent of articles about high-speed rail proposals. I've blogged my general opinions on the issue before. Right now the debate is all about the details. To cut through the Chilterns, or not? To service Heathrow directly, or not? I don't particularly care, but strangely find myself siding with those who think it might spoil the area of outstanding natural beauty. After all, what's the point of having such designations if you don't stick to them? On the other hand, it sounds like the designation has already been disrespected enough to build a dual carriageway through the area (when was the outcry about that?)---and of course there is an existing London-to-Birmingham rail line through the Chilterns too. If the plan is to follow their alignments the whole way, surely not much is spoilt? It's hard to tell whether that actually is the plan, so I should probably read the report.
In truth, the reason I'm inclined towards siding with the NIMBYs is that I'm not sure the whole thing is worthwhile. I believe the government, like Deborah Orr, is oblivious to the nature of communication technology. What is the high-speed route supposed to be for? The government line would no doubt be some blathering about “economic development” and “sustainability”. For the latter, we need commuter options, not long-distance routes. For the former, read “prestige”. There can be no other benefit. We're beyond the point where high-speed travel benefits businesses, for two reasons. Firstly, travel within the UK is already fast enough. The improvements in journey times quoted in the article are hardly revolutionary---mostly 40% or less, and paltry over longer distances (the 22% shorter 3h30 journey time to Edinburgh is barely an improvement). Secondly, technology is making journey times irrelevant. The trains already have wireless, which (once it's of sufficient quality) will allow people to stay fully connected while travelling. And as the available technology for conferencing and other “virtual worlds” gets better and better, there will be less need to travel at all. Stale beliefs hang around well beyond the point where they cease to be true. The government is stuck on the idea that wealth implies “business” implies travel. Both of these implications are questionable, but the latter is a non-starter.
Wed, 10 Mar 2010
I was recently listening to the new-ish (hmm, actually 2008) album by Emily Barker and her band. She's an amazing talent who I've been following for nearly five years now, after seeing her with The Low Country at the Cambridge Folk Festival 2005. The two albums by The Low Country, and particularly 2004's The Dark Road, still stand up as really excellent records for me. Her first solo album is also extremely good. Unfortunately, I find Miss Barker's most recent album a bit disappointing. It's very nice but, to me right now, just a bit boring. For some reason I blame this on the fact that it's largely about happy things like love and contentedness and other annoying things like that. In the words of the liner notes “they are songs written during a time of self-discovery through the discover of another”. How nice.
I suppose in other circumstances I might have more time for this sort of song. But I'm not sure that's true... since surely, for example, even a person wrapped in the deepest matrimonial contentment can appreciate a nerve-wrenching, soul-baring break-up album. Interesting music easily trumps lack of empathy---in fact, forcing empathy, or something like it, is precisely its power. No doubt, for the persons involved contentment isn't bland at all, but for the listener it all too easily is. So I suppose my claim is hardly novel or controversial: contentedness can neutralise mighty artistic talents. (I still harbour a secret half-guilt that I may have fractionally contributed to the abandonment of Lauren Laverne's music career, thanks to my immature whining on an internet message board, which she did occasionally read, about how I didn't like some of her new songs---songs written during her engagement to Malcolm Middleton. I wasn't the only one whining, and I imagine some of the output in question would still sound weak, but it was rather thoughtless... she also wrote some really good songs during that time.)
Contentedness doesn't have to neutralise greatness, of course. Some albums, I'm sure, manage to be amazing listens and yet be doe-eyedly devotional or resolutely joyous. Having said that though, I've surveyed my collection and, erm, can't think of any personal favourite records fitting that description. So I'm sticking by my claim that happiness tends to produce boring music. (In an attempt to illustrate my point further, I almost said “imagine if Astral Weeks ended after the first side!”. But, fair enough, it would still be amazing.)
Wed, 17 Feb 2010
In the Guardian some time last week, Geoffrey Wheatcroft wrote a well-written and remarkably unopinionated piece documenting the decline of socialist thinking in the West. It's all depressingly true. Right now I am feeling particularly negative about socio-economic issues. I have less hope than ever of seeing a fairer society in my lifetime. The recent “financial crisis” and its lack of follow-on has only underlined matters: our system is clearly screwed up, but there is no will to change things---neither among the politicians nor among the people.
My peers are in large part highly intelligent young people, but only a relatively small minority seem to question the capitalist orthodoxy. Economic systems have a surprisingly large design space, but it takes inquiry and imagination to see it. Traditional thinking says the space is a line: from libertarianism on one side to planned-economy socialism on the other. “Big government or small government?” seems to be the only question many people can conceive on the issue. I believe the space is infinitely bigger than this single dimension. Worst of all, most of my peers, at least to my paranoid hopeless mind, seem to think it's a single point: that markets are the only valid design, and that's that. The fact that they are a design at all is invisible to most.
Among my generation, markets have usurped morality. Once, the notion of fairness was something markets were built on. In an ideal market, trade happens between consenting parties, and parties consent only to what's fair. In these ideal markets, a fair deal is necessarily reached if any is. Of course, ideal markets don't exist. But when faced with the flagrant abuses of less-than-ideal markets---profiteering (think captive-market catering), lock-in (think Microsoft), mass buy-up (think eBay concert ticket resellers)---people of my generation don't say “that's not fair”... they say “well, fair enough; I'd do the same”. For some reason The older generation would stamp their feet, protest, refuse to pay. Mine just pay up. Rather than being an underlying, independent component in the ideal market design, my generation sees fairness as being defined by market behaviour in all its ugly reality. Ask someone why situation X is fair, and remarkably many will just describe the market dynamics which lead to it---rather than consider the merit of the outcome.
Speaking of “just paying up”, I'll confess that I do the same. I paid £4.50 for a zero-frills G&T a couple of weekends ago. The entire bottle of tonic water cost less than the nominal price of my 200ml sans-spirit serving. Over a few hours, the bar must have taken well over a thousand pounds, for beverage costing no more than a couple of hundred. The three or four staff couldn't have been earning more than fifty quid each for the night. How can this add up to a fair deal?
I believe that as humans, we do have latent sense of fairness -- certainly not a perfect one, but one which detects many of the pathological market failures we witness today. The capitalist memes of today's culture are overriding our judgement on these matters; we rationalise ourselves into submission. But if I'm right, perhaps its very innateness means that recovering our latent fairness-o-meter is not only feasible, but possibly a means for one day realising the social benefits I am despairing to find. It should be possible to wake people up from their culturally-acquired indifference to unfairness, given that the unfairness stares us in the face most days of our lives.
My hunch is that the heart of gut-perceived fairness lies in the difference between cost and price---just as how in my G&T example, I justified my distaste by a quick mental calculation. I believe that an economic system designed around constraining this difference (either directly, or indirectly by some conspiring set of rules) can yield both a morally sound system (as justified by logic) and an practically sound system (as justified by simulation and, potentially, implementation). Sometimes I think I'm researching the wrong subject, although perhaps on the evidence of this post, many would disagree.
Sun, 14 Feb 2010
It's not normal, I know. Who else would choose to spend a cold Saturday evening making an arduous journey, alone, to a city sixty miles away, on a day when the public transport is thoroughly messed up, to see a concert featuring two artistes about whom they weren't even thoroughly convinced? Not many, I'm sure, but after characteristic last-minute wavering and a mad dash to the station, I did just that, and I'm very glad I did. The city was Norwich, the venue its Arts Centre, the artists Beth Jeans Houghton and Stornoway, and the journey was well worth it.
Although Stornoway were the main attraction, I'd been massively curious about Beth Jeans Houghton. On record, she sounds like a rather chaste mid-Western mother, her many-layered voice swooping through rose-coloured landscapes and golden sunlight. It's then very strange to see a picture (on the BBC web site, handily linked from a Gideon tracklisting) of her as a nineteen-year-old Geordie lass in a loveably preposterous giant curly blonde wig. Reconciling the voice with the image was impossible in my mind... I had to see it with my eyes.
Miraculously, it somehow all works. She came on stage with her three-piece male band, wearing a short and very sparkly black dress and that wig which is truly a sight to behold... but somehow, no explanation is either needed or given. The band's appearance is readonably restrained, with only the black neckties, assorted headgear and false pencil moustaches to complement their leader's falsh black eyelashes and resolutely non-blonde eyebrows. Banter-wise there was no shortage of characteristic Geordie charm.
Oh, the music... it was extremely enjoyable. I had forgotten how many of her songs I'd heard, and how many I liked---the two numbers are the same. However, they were sounding a bit more conventional live, and the opening songs came out a bit flat, lacking dynamics. This mostly fixed itself by mid-way through the set, and Beth's voice, although quiet, is a wonderful instrument: her sonorous low notes sound spacious enough that you could almost move house in them, while the high ones are like airs wads of cotton wool that hover just below the ceiling. The songs, and banter, were delivered with a kind of modesty and slight reserve which perhaps belies a lack of confidence---strange given the sartorial flamboyance, but somehow believable anyway.
A similar underconfident vibe came from the stagecraft, or lack of it... and I'm not normally one to care in the least about stage-craft, but here the fuzzy edges were a slight distraction. The songs' beginnings were sometimes barely distinguishable from tuning-up noises, and the ends sufficiently ill-signposted that the audience, although extremely willing, just weren't sure whether to clap. Nightswimmer sounded superb (this time on dulcimer number 38 not harp number 17, or whatever the numbers were), with Beth layering her vocals in real-time into a glorious textured swirling, but it rather spoiled the effect that she stopped singing into the mic once a few layers were down, and then ended the song crouched awkwardly underneath her keyboard, having just unwrapped the mic from its stand for some reason and sent a nasty shot of feedback out of the PA. It's really no big deal, but the music is so great that she can afford to believe in it a bit more, and hopefully a more sparkly performance can result.
After a quick break (with the interval music consisting solely of the excellent Frightened Rabbit), it was time for Stornoway. The opener I Saw You Blink practically defined gusto, Brian's strong resonant vocals superbly crowning the acousto-pop confection of melody and harmony. In short, such was the story for the rest of the set, until my untimely departure. They're very impressive band with some lovely sounds, very tight and not without a sense of balladeering drama. At times I feel the songs rest a little too much on pop songwriting cliche---the “Drive On” (sorry, no titles) one left me with that reaction---but that's the merest speck of a grumble against the hulking greatness of their performance. Ah, rock 'n' (folk 'n') roll... it's such a bizarre and precarious mixture of painful wisdom and joyful pretence. I often find myself wondering “how old are these people anyway?” but usually can cast that aside fairly easily, and had no problem with that tonight.
Sadly I had to leave during the mighty Zorbing---such an cosmically masterful pop tune that I'd imagined it might be the show-closer, so it was fitting that I left the building just as it died away. In hindsight I could easily have stayed for one more song, but not wanting to risk getting lost and stranded in this strange city, I exited at 10.10pm.
However, I might be back. The Arts Centre in Norwich is a lovely intimate venue, in an old church---of which there are many in Norwich (causing Brian Stornoway to remark that “at least one is put to good use”). The city seems like quite a beautiful one too, while still feeling lived-in and down-to-earth. The usual Saturday night scenes were playing out as I walked back to the station (and I was astonished to see one man vomit a substance which looked like pure urine, presumably indicating a record-breakingly astronomical lager content in his pre-evacuation stomach).
The last train to Cambridge from Norwich is at 22.40, and since most Arts Centre sets seem to be scheduled for 22.30 close, you wouldn't have to miss much. It's a 20-minute walk back to the station, but I would have taken my bike if it weren't for today's part-bustituted services---I write from a bus which I will exchange for a train at Brandon, and hopefully will have enough space to do a bit more coding if my batteries hold up.
(I said that a few pictures of the gig may follow if I figured out how to get them off this peculiar Android thing I'm borrowing. For once I have delivered on such a promise. Now all that's left is for me to apologise for the appalling resolution and equally appalling shot-craft---these were the best ones I got.)
Tue, 05 Jan 2010
Much as I like to bash markets, I do believe they're fairly good in many cases. If competition is real, if the driving demand is for something that genuinely improves people's lives, and if the best product wins, then things can work nicely. I was just reading the current IET Magazine's article about Japanese versus Korean technology industry. It reminds me that the consumer technology industry is one which does a phenomenal job to deliver some really quite remarkable technology very affordably to huge numbers of people worldwide. As the Korean companies' successes have shown, there's a lot of smarts involved in making the right decisions, predicting demands, building the right supply lines, investing in future technology and keeping manufacturing output at the right level. To succeed in that marketplace takes some brain-power, and it's brain-power well spent, because a lot of people benefit from it.
Technology markets do have their foibles, however. The most visible issue is that of proprietarisation and interoperation. It's an area where there is a history of government interference, and for good reason. Although the market is good at driving the main line of innovation, it leaves incentives for proprietarisation which routinely harm consumers. An interesting fact mentioned in the article is that the Korean government chose to dictate a standard middleware for mobile phone platforms, to ensure interoperability. On the other hand, this has been unpopular because it has caused foreign vendors not to bother investing in the Korean domestic market. (Of course I'd see that as an argument for global compatibility regulation, rather than doing away with the idea.)
For a similar example, recently I was reading about SCART, which was introduced at the direction of the French government, and made compulsory on all French television sets sold from 1980. You can see why they did it. Even though interoperation is clearly an “added value” opportunity for society, vendors still get drawn to the “lock-in” strategy. Perhaps the strategy works because of the short-sightedness of human nature: we don't value interoperation until we know that we want it, which tends to be too late---we've already invested in the product, making us a captive market. The capitalist incentive is then to rip us off by as much as possible. For this reason, proprietary interfaces are a great device for elimination of competition. Once someone's bought your device, they depend on you alone for media or parts or future purchases. (Although sometimes “clone” products do emerge, even in those cases each interface forms a niche small enough that there's never enough competition to ensure good value.)
Another reason for inability to interoperate might be that for some reason we just “expect it not to”---we have a built-in expectation that products from different manufacturers will not to work together, as if they're from different tribes or different species or speak different languages. Perhaps we therefore unthinkingly acquiesce to inflated prices for add-ons, cables, connectors, replacement parts and the like. Clearly this isn't good for society (it's not even a “free” market). So on this topic (as with most), I'm all in favour of regulation done well. (Neither the Korean phone middleware nor SCART are necessarily examples of the “done well” part, but that's another matter.)
A related note about add-ons and extensions: I learnt recently that Apple played a decidedly capitalist and socially detrimental game with Airport cards in the first half of the 2000s, by discontinuing the Airport upgrade for older PowerBooks. Clearly there would be a lot of social value in supplying selling the cards, so that the investment in existing equipment could be exploited as much and for as long as possible. But of course Apple chose the tactic of pushing people towards buying whole new machines---which was a gain for Apple, locally, but globally a collective loss for the public. Either people caved in and bought the new laptop, rendering their old one a waste of resources, or they went without wireless and hence lost out on its added value.
What regulation might solve the problem? We could decree that using any sort of proprietary interface is inherently anticompetitive, therefore shall be made illegal. Instead, all interface details must be published in full. Unlikely as it sounds, I rather like this idea, but it doesn't quite go far enough---it still permits manufacturers to invent new interfaces (under an “innovation” pretence) too fast or too many for an adapter market to arise (in spite of public specs). Perhaps micro-industry and/or crowdsourcing can take care of that. There's also real innovation to think about---which does happen, and moreover does need rewarding somehow. I think this brings us to the chestnut of patents done right, which (although it's something I firmly believe in) is probably a good place for me to (temporarily) stop.
Tue, 08 Dec 2009
Much as I despair at the right-wing press, there's something equally incredible about this week's Guardian. Emblazoned across the front page of today's: “FREE wrapping paper designed by Nicole Kidman. Tomorrow: Desmond Tutu.” If you'd wanted to parody middle-class liberalism, you could hardly pick a more surreally apt feature. You couldn't make this stuff up (well, unless you're Chris Morris or Charlie Brooker or another of those over-the-top satirists).
