Escalators! They're great. They help you quickly get up what would have been a lot of stairs. Or they would do if people didn't always stop walking when they got on them.
What is this about? Do their legs stop working? Is there some kind of regality bestowed upon a person as they rise (or descend) majestically that now makes moving seem undignified, the normal act of walking now somehow beneath them?
Next time, as you deign to meet your waiting subjects on the next floor, how about just standing to the left?
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Thursday, March 5, 2015
No Room for Doubt
The day of execution for the two Australian drug smugglers seems to be drawing irreversibly nearer.
I have much ambivalence about the situation. While, I have no sympathy for the drug smugglers who, likewise, didn't spare a thought over the untold harm they would be spreading by peddling their wares, I am no fan of the death penalty. There's no room for error with the death penalty; the options to remedy an error are none. And while it can be argued that no errors have been made in this instance, it does appear that the decision is less about dispensing justice and more about projecting a strong image. People's lives shouldn't simply be being disposed of as part of an image campaign.
But my real sense of disquiet comes from our own Federal police's role. Rather than arresting the culprits on arrival in Australia, they gave them up in Indonesia, knowing full well that they could be facing the death penalty. Now, Australia does not extradite people to countries where there is a risk of the death sentence being applied, so why on earth would they give these people up to the same fate. There has been remarkably little scrutiny of this aspect of the case given the scale of the media coverage but apparently the person(s) concerned have no regrets and would do it again. People with that kind of certainty in their own convictions always leave me feeling uneasy.
I have much ambivalence about the situation. While, I have no sympathy for the drug smugglers who, likewise, didn't spare a thought over the untold harm they would be spreading by peddling their wares, I am no fan of the death penalty. There's no room for error with the death penalty; the options to remedy an error are none. And while it can be argued that no errors have been made in this instance, it does appear that the decision is less about dispensing justice and more about projecting a strong image. People's lives shouldn't simply be being disposed of as part of an image campaign.
But my real sense of disquiet comes from our own Federal police's role. Rather than arresting the culprits on arrival in Australia, they gave them up in Indonesia, knowing full well that they could be facing the death penalty. Now, Australia does not extradite people to countries where there is a risk of the death sentence being applied, so why on earth would they give these people up to the same fate. There has been remarkably little scrutiny of this aspect of the case given the scale of the media coverage but apparently the person(s) concerned have no regrets and would do it again. People with that kind of certainty in their own convictions always leave me feeling uneasy.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Valentines Pay
If ever a day has been hijacked, it has to be Valentine's Day. Sure, Christmas and Easter have become commercialised but they are still have their original purpose. Valentine's Day on the other hand has long since lost its meaning.
I can remember when it was a day that you sent a card to the object of your dreams who didn't even know you existed. And it was done anonymously, so they still didn't actually know that you existed but they became aware of the possibility of your existence. And one lived on such cherished hopes. Now that was romance!
These days, it's predominantly a couple's, and even worse, married couple's, day. Don't these people have anniversaries on which to celebrate their love for one another?
Somewhat ironically, it's subsequently entirely devoid of any romance. For starters, there's no suprise here is there? There's no "I wonder who this card is from" speculation. Far from that, there is actually a horrid sense of obligation about the whole thing. I know more than a few people for whom the whole day is more about staying out of trouble than about making any kind of statement.
Of course, the obligation thing is where the money is made. Hallmark, restaurants and flower-shops aren't going to survive on the revenue generated by anonymous romantics. So, instead, everybody has to send a Valentine's Day card or buy a gift, otherwise they're just not being romantic (i.e. supporting the economy) and we won't even get started on how all the prices miraculously rise on that day.
So I'm going to do my bit. I'm going to buy some Valentine's Day cards and I'm going to send them off. To married people. Just to spice it up a little.
I can remember when it was a day that you sent a card to the object of your dreams who didn't even know you existed. And it was done anonymously, so they still didn't actually know that you existed but they became aware of the possibility of your existence. And one lived on such cherished hopes. Now that was romance!
These days, it's predominantly a couple's, and even worse, married couple's, day. Don't these people have anniversaries on which to celebrate their love for one another?
Somewhat ironically, it's subsequently entirely devoid of any romance. For starters, there's no suprise here is there? There's no "I wonder who this card is from" speculation. Far from that, there is actually a horrid sense of obligation about the whole thing. I know more than a few people for whom the whole day is more about staying out of trouble than about making any kind of statement.
Of course, the obligation thing is where the money is made. Hallmark, restaurants and flower-shops aren't going to survive on the revenue generated by anonymous romantics. So, instead, everybody has to send a Valentine's Day card or buy a gift, otherwise they're just not being romantic (i.e. supporting the economy) and we won't even get started on how all the prices miraculously rise on that day.
So I'm going to do my bit. I'm going to buy some Valentine's Day cards and I'm going to send them off. To married people. Just to spice it up a little.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
The Decline of the Mixed Nut
On a far more minor note, and one that falls firmly into the "First World Problem" category, has anyone bought Nobby's mixed nuts lately?
I hadn't had them for years, as I normally just buy a nut mix from the market but the other day, in a classic impulse buy, I bought a packet. And wow! Hasn't the word "mixed" been loosely used! There's nothing in these packets now but peanuts and maybe 3 or 4 other nuts - and I mean 3 or 4 other nuts in total - just the odd almond or a Brazil nut. You may as well just buy a packet of salted peanuts.
First world problem though it is, it's kind of depressing!
I hadn't had them for years, as I normally just buy a nut mix from the market but the other day, in a classic impulse buy, I bought a packet. And wow! Hasn't the word "mixed" been loosely used! There's nothing in these packets now but peanuts and maybe 3 or 4 other nuts - and I mean 3 or 4 other nuts in total - just the odd almond or a Brazil nut. You may as well just buy a packet of salted peanuts.
First world problem though it is, it's kind of depressing!
24 Hour Fiction Cycle
The 24-hour news cycle and how politicians feel the need to pander to it is a much discussed topic.
What is not so often discussed is how the news networks manage to fill this void. Funnily enough, it often becomes more difficult when there's a single big story dominating the landscape because, usually, the story is unfolding relatively slowly. And so it was with the siege in Sydney this week. Having heard about it in the morning, I checked back after lunch to see what was happening. The last four updates on the "minute-by-minute" coverage started with the words "It is denied that..." In other words, the way these networks provide the content is to simply broadcast unverified information or even worse, simply make it up. If no more is known, that's all I need to know. I don't need to have a ream of fiction followed by a retraction. I can read a novel if I need entertainment.
We also had the unedifying spectacle of the news networks broadcasting details of other networks covering the same story. While the international interest in the story was undoubted, the glee with which this was being done was tantamount to a teenager crying out "Ooh! Look! We're on TV".
Lastly, we have the excessive, self-referential over-analysis of the event. The Guardian ran an article on how well news outlets had covered the story - i.e. a smug "How good were we!" story. Then the Telegraph runs a 23-page - 23 pages - of "Sydney's Day of Terror" coverage and that's before you get to the special "lift-out section", covering the same thing, in the centre of the paper.
Meanwhile over 130 people die in Pakistan in a terrorism attack. I can't wait for the souvenir edition covering that story.
What is not so often discussed is how the news networks manage to fill this void. Funnily enough, it often becomes more difficult when there's a single big story dominating the landscape because, usually, the story is unfolding relatively slowly. And so it was with the siege in Sydney this week. Having heard about it in the morning, I checked back after lunch to see what was happening. The last four updates on the "minute-by-minute" coverage started with the words "It is denied that..." In other words, the way these networks provide the content is to simply broadcast unverified information or even worse, simply make it up. If no more is known, that's all I need to know. I don't need to have a ream of fiction followed by a retraction. I can read a novel if I need entertainment.
We also had the unedifying spectacle of the news networks broadcasting details of other networks covering the same story. While the international interest in the story was undoubted, the glee with which this was being done was tantamount to a teenager crying out "Ooh! Look! We're on TV".
Lastly, we have the excessive, self-referential over-analysis of the event. The Guardian ran an article on how well news outlets had covered the story - i.e. a smug "How good were we!" story. Then the Telegraph runs a 23-page - 23 pages - of "Sydney's Day of Terror" coverage and that's before you get to the special "lift-out section", covering the same thing, in the centre of the paper.
Meanwhile over 130 people die in Pakistan in a terrorism attack. I can't wait for the souvenir edition covering that story.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Out of Office
I can't really use it as an excuse for the very long period of inactivity but I am on holiday at the moment in Central and South America. And I'll be attempting (although I'm already well behind schedule) to keep track of things on this blog.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Random Belgians
One of the most interesting, not to mention distracting (or should that be "time-wasting"), aspects of the internet is the way you can just keep wandering down random paths. Just clicking on the links in a Wikipedia article can take you to the most unusual places. As the old Yellow Pages ad said "Let your fingers do the walking". And so it was with only a couple of clicks the other day, there I was looking at a list of "The Greatest Belgians". Now, that's not a list you'll see every day!
As for the list itself, apart from discovering that quite a few French people were in fact Belgians, and that the Dutch-speaking Belgians voted for a largely different top 10, it lost all credibility for me when I saw that there was no Plastic Bertrand or Hercule Poirot in the list. I mean, sacre bleu!
As for the list itself, apart from discovering that quite a few French people were in fact Belgians, and that the Dutch-speaking Belgians voted for a largely different top 10, it lost all credibility for me when I saw that there was no Plastic Bertrand or Hercule Poirot in the list. I mean, sacre bleu!
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