the pace of economic change

I've tried to sell this marvelous marketing image to a well-known purveyor of edible sandwiches but they seem curiously uninterested.

Webcam of the day: Cheddarvision.tv

Rarely in the course of human endeavour has anyone come up with a more worthwhile and fascinating use of internet technology -- many a happy hour can now be whiled away at work watching a 44lb truckle of cheddar maturing in a Somerset dairy.



www.cheddarvision.tv

Philip Crawford, chairman of West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers said:

"Some might say this is the most boring website of 2007, but our cheese is worth waiting for so it's better than watching paint dry - just"

The Sick Society

I'm sick. No, really I'm sick, I've got a throat so swollen I can eat only porridge with some well cooked apple and I can only talk in whispers. It is probably laryngitis, glandular fever, foot and mouth, or all four. And it's certainly not a mere, common cold as of course, in this country we are expected to take lemsip superstrenghth and put in an 18 hour day if all we have is a cold.

So when I call my manager this morning, to do the phoning-in-sick bit, self-consciously dropping the tone of my voice to a low croak, I have to make sure not to use the "C"-word. Which is crazy really because since I'm now working through an agency, they are not paying me to spend the day at home in my jim-jams. And in fact it would be much more of a case of my short-changing them, if I crawled into work, infected all the permanent staff and only to give them 60-per cent performance. Readers would be directed to the wrong books, whole classes of children would be uninspired as I lack-lusterly showed them round on their first visit to a library, teenage hooligans would snigger as I sniffled my usually blood-curdling threats, admonishing them to desist from shouting, fighting and swearing.

And yet why do I feel guilty? This seems to be a psychological rather than ethical question. I can't help but feel a kind of shame that I'm writing this rather than lying in bed with a hot water bottle, ice-pack and thermometer between my blue-tinged lips. A berating voice in my head pronounces, "if you're well enough to be on your computer, your well enough to go to work." And I guess it's OK to read a novel, but if I start studying a difficult book for my philosophy degree course, is that tantamount to fraud. Would the same apply to watching a DVD of an early Bergman film as opposed to a daytime soap I wonder.

I guess the guilt has a social and economic purpose much like the ritual humiliation imposed on anyone who has the audacity to claim unemployment benefits. It makes sure that you can't enjoy your (however brief) period of leisure so much that you begin to think you might just get used to it. On the other hand, just as this treatment of the unemployed ensures that their self-esteem drops to a level when it's hard for them to find work, the prohibition on accepting the need for blameless rest and recuperation ensures that we take far longer to recover from illness.

The Singing Librarian

If like me, you've woken up feeling like death this morning, this clip of the mighty Andrew might cheer you up somewhat. Well, it did me.

It takes two to know one

Well, half way through the tango workshop at Thomas More Hall this afternoon, I was thinking about sneaking out and going home. As we reached that stage, yes that stage where they actually expect you to string a series of movements together and remember them next time, I realized that I had gone way past the boundaries of my natural competence. I just couldn't make any sense of it and exhortations to imagine a box, or a figure of eight fell on deaf ears and reticent feet. However, by the final dance, I felt like I'd made some progress and claire even congratulated me a bit. It really does make a difference who you're partner is though. One of the women was so nervous I could feel her shaking while others (everyone was a first-timer) were completely natural, gave me helpful hints and didn't appear to mind as I steered them into other couples, tables, plate glass windows, etc.

I write this from the Albert Hall where fiddler Joshua Bell plays Ravel's Tzigane. The word, "haunting" comes to mind. I immediately cast it out. What does it mean? That it could be good background music for a horror flick? If I was watching it on telly, I would be able to tell you that his face is beaded with sweat, his entire frame tensed against the anguish of the music. But I can't, and as Bělohlávek brings in the orchestra I realize, that one of the red-coated stewards is giving me a dirty look and it's time to hide away my laptop before I get thrown out. Still, as Kaarina would say... bloody marvelous.

pelican postscript

Just to say...they finally did get the signaled pedestrian crossing up and running by last Saturday. By Monday it was down again and today they seem to have fixed the fault. I have been sent detailed missives by council officers explaining the difficulty of implementing such a scheme. And, I'm sure they're right.

But one can't help but think: every time we read in the tabloids about "health and safety" gone mad, there are manifold cases of situations where children are put at risk because the bureaucratic problems of coordinating disparate agencies can not be resolved by a species that put on its members on it's closest orbiting satellite.

Much Ado About Nothing

Great News. Nothing has been discovered. Lots of it.

An astronomer at Minnesota University has discovered a region of emptiness that dwarfs all others. Inside the nothing is, well nothing: no stars, no planets, no moons, not even a black hole. Nothing. Zilch. A complete and utter void.

One way of getting your head around the size is to imagine a scale model of the Universe with the Earth modeled the size of a grain of sand. This empty region would then be the size of our solar system. And what's perhaps more alarming is that these regions of nothing might be increasing. Due to the accelerating rate by which the universe is expanding, the structure of space is now beginning to resemble a huge Emmental.

Kaarina cleverly quipped that it was rather like the global economy, expanding and expanding while leaving huge gaps (for the poor to live in) until the whole thing implodes under its own weight.

Life, an apology

A very nice man from Southwark Council leaves a message on my voicemail asking me to call me back. When I do I find that he is just as concerned as I am, it seems, to get the crossing back up and running but, of course, things are not so simple. The work has been slowed down by the rain and yes, it's Transport for London who have to turn the traffic signals on. So the poor man is stuck with one of those problems familiar to anyone who has ever done any work that involves the carpet-layers coming after the plasters coming in after the electricians...

Which leaves me feeling still very angry with, with, with...who do I get angry with? It seems that perhaps I expect too much of the world and that life is never going to meet up to my exacting standards. Should I lower them, or just find something else to moan about?

Road Safety for Dummies

So it's the middle of the summer holidays and hundreds of children are roaming the streets with or without their parents. Not the best time you might think to take up a zebra crossing from outside the Forest Hill Road entrance to Peckham Rye Park. And then leave it for a few days before putting in the pelican crossing that is going to replace it.

Well it might force those obese kids we keep hearing about to get fit by sprinting across one of the busiest roads in the borough. I don't know, maybe this is a radical attempt to deal with the shortage of school places (sorry that's a really bad joke I know but isn't the sickest thing of all, the complete contempt for the safety of pedestrians?)



I phoned up the council to ask them what they are playing at but of course you can only now speak to a privately-run call centre where after holding for 15 minutes they tell you that they can't put you through but are going to "put it on the system". When I asked if anyone would get back to me, she told me, "I don't think they do that". After pleading with her, and asking to speak to her supervisor (there was none present) she did put me through to the contractor's voicemail. Not at all surprisingly, no one called back.

Footnote: in fairness to LB Southwark, this road could be the responsibility of Transport for London. But then, how frustrating is it that when I call the council, I am not permitted to speak to anyone who could give me this helpful information?

Going for a song

It's one of the few perks of working in a public library that you can borrow CDs for free which gives you a chance to listen to stuff you wouldn't normally. Or, even that you've never hear of. Right now, I am enjoying a compilation of that wonderful singer, Mr Sam Cooke but the biggest discovery of the week is a certain lady of Jazz, Lorez Alexandria.



There's not much info about her on the web. The Album I've borrowed was recorded in 1964 and she has a beautifully, controlled voice, mellow and meaningful, taking on standards such as Satin Doll and Over the Rainbow . Amazingly enough there is no Wikipedia article for her but from the Verve Label site is that she had her roots in Gospel Music, disappeared between 1965 and 1974 but then returned to singing up until the mid 1990's. She died of a stroke in 2001. The quality of her voice is up there with Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald, I'm amazed she's not better known.

Now far be it from me to encourage any pilfering of intellectual property but it may not have escaped my readers that, with the advent of digital music, it is quite simple to transfer tracks from borrowed CD's onto your computer or MP3 player. And if you haven't ventured into your public library lately, you might be pleasantly surprised by the selection on offer. Libraries in Southwark and Lewisham are both doing two for one offers at the moment. In Lewisham this means you can have four albums worth of tracks for a pound -- compare that to $0.99 a track via iTunes.

And they also have Books!