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Brian Micklethwait's Blog
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Category archive: Business
It's one thing to see a photo-drone reviewed in DPReview, and costing the best part of a thousand quid. It's quite another to see one in the flesh, in a London shop window, on sale for less than four hundred:
Photoed by me through the window of Maplin's in the Strand, late this afternoon.
Here are the details of this gizmo, at the Maplin's website.
Okay, that must be a very cheap camera, but even so, this feels to me like a breakthrough moment for this technology, if not exactly now, then Real Soon Now. Note that you can store the output in real time, on your mobile phone. Something tells me that this gadget is going to generate some contentious news stories about nightmare neighbours, privacy violations, and who knows what other fights and furores.
What might the paps do with such toys? And how soon before two of these things crash into each other?
A few days ago, my beloved Panasonic Lumix FZ150 started misbehaving. An immobile black blob, the same blob every time, started inserting itself into all the pictures. Disaster. I shook the camera to see if it might be a superficial problem like a bit of gunk which further shaking might move to a harmless spot, but the black blob never moved, not by one pixel. I am sure this could be mended, but I didn't have time for that, because last night I was about to attend that Libertarian Home cost of living debate, for free, on the clear understanding that I would take lots of photos.
Besides which, I hate not having a camera on me at all times. Who knows what unimortalisable dramas I might have to endure while being bereft of the ability to photograph them?
So, I immediately went out and bought another camera, from a shop. I chose the FZ150's smarter younger brother, the Panasonic Lumix FZ200. This camera was a bit costly, yes, but, having been around for a while, not as costly as it might have been. And, it works better than the FZ150 in low light, or so everyone who cares has been saying. At indoor meetings, for instance.
I had hoped that the FZ200, being so very similar to and merely a bit better than the FZ150, would use an identical battery, which would mean that I would then have two spare batteries for the FZ200, in addition to the one it came with, on account of me having bought a spare for the FZ150 when I bought that. Alas, not. The FZ200 has its own somewhat different battery, and that meant I needed yet another spare battery. Now that SD card space is infinite, it is batteries that are now liable to run out, what with all the snaps you can now put on your infinite SD card. One battery, for a big event or expedition, is not now enough.
So, I ordered an FZ200 battery via Amazon, and paid extra for it to arrive yesterday, instead of just whenever.
And it did arrive yesterday. Once again, just as happened with that book that reached me the day before yesterday, the fundamentally important thing got done. I wanted the book and I got it. I wanted a new back-up battery, pronto, and I got it. Good.
An email arrived first thing yesterday morning, saying that the battery would arrive between 11.54 and 12.54, and that I should be in at that time, to sign for the package when I received it. Excellent. This email was identical in format to the ones telling me about how Macmillan Distribution (MDL) would be delivering the book that they had been promising, but I recognised the email about the battery as genuine, because it had lots of Amazon verbiage at the top of a sort that always signifies genuine Amazon business. Again, good. I was all set to write an admiring blog posting about this latest delivery service, the one that delivered the battery, an enterprise called DPD.
Saying when a delivery will be made, to the nearest hour, is a huge step forward, when the receiver is householder in a household rather than an office worker in an office. An office can have someone present throughout any given day, to receive incoming items and generally communicate with the outside world on behalf of all workers based there, present or absent. But the idea that a householder should be expected to wait around all day just to sign for one incoming delivery is, frankly, contemptible. As soon as a delivery person knows approximately when he'll be arriving, and the chances are he will know this first thing in the morning, that information should be communicated to the householder. This used not to happen, but with these two delivery enterprises, it did. As I say, this is a big step in the right direction.
In both of these cases I did get this message. The book was promised between 8.30 and 9.30, and it arrived then, by which time I just about believed that the book emails were genuine. This battery was promised between 11.54 and 12.54, and it arrived then, just as I expected it to.
But all this fuss and palaver about timing becomes rather superfluous if all that the delivery person actually does when he arrives is leave the thing, unsigned for, in whatever place near to the householder he considers sufficiently near. The whole point, as insisted upon in both emails about this, of stating a specified time of arrival, is to make sure that I, the householder, was present in person, to sign for the thing. But in neither of these two cases was my presence, as it turned out, actually required. My buzzer, the one outside the front door of all the flats where my flat is, is working fine. I checked, using a visiting friend to hear it when I myself went downstairs and buzzed. Yet neither of these two delivery persons deigned to use this buzzer. They knew the number. The book deliverer even found his way right to my own personal door. But, no buzzing.
Let me spell it out. Both delivery companies told me I had to be there during the hours they each specified. Failure by me to sign would mean no delivery and further palaver while re-delivery was negotiated. These proclamations may have been offered in good faith, but they were false. I did not have to be there.
I got what I wanted. But if the original supplier wanted proof that I had received the items in the form of my signature, then DPD and MDL, in the form of the two delivery persons, would be unable to supply this proof without faking it. Were my signatures forged on little electronic devices, I wonder?
In the case of the DPD person, the person who did not even try to get my signature had, according to the DPD email, a name: "Mark". I had been anticipating something better from "Mark". Sadly, not.
The basic problem here, I think, is that the service supply chain is too long and is out of control. Suppliers of products promise in all sincerity that products will be delivered in exactly the manner they promise. But the person they are depending on to keep that promise doesn't care about that promise, or not about all of it. He knows that, so long as the punter gets his hands on his precious thing, then whether any signing happens is, as far as the punter is concerned, a secondary matter. Being commanded to be somewhere you didn't actually need to be is annoying, yes, and this is what happened to me, twice. But not getting the thing is something else again. Had one of these items (especially the battery) not arrived when stated, then you can be sure that I would have been complaining. But complaining as in trying to get my hands on the damn battery, not complaining as in just marking the whole scenario out of ten, after my basic problem (getting the battery) had been entirely solved.
By the way, when I enabled the graphic decoration of one of the Macmillan Deliveries (MDL) emails, the email then proceeded show me a picture of a DPD van. Either Macmillan are all mixed up with DPD, or else Macmillan stole the DPD email and neglected to expunge DPD from it. Or something. I really do not care.
But that's typical. Who the hell was I dealing with here? Who, in the event that either of these items had not turned up at all, would I have had to direct my seriously angry complaints? As opposed to these mere grumbles about a basically satisfactory state of affairs, underneath all the crap.
When you have a major complaint to aim at one of these complicated supply chains, then you could well be screwed. It may take you many hours or even days to find out even who to complain to, let alone how to gouge satisfaction out of them. (Although, to be fair to Amazon, they take responsibility for everything that they do or that anyone unleashed via them does, for and to you, which is all part of why I bought that battery through Amazon rather than by some other cheaper but less dependable means. (The previous sentence is a short explanation of why Amazon now rules the world.))
But (and to get back to my point before all the brackets), when it comes to lesser complaints, complaints about blemishes on a system that basically works pretty well, well, this is why blogs were invented. With a blog posting, you can slag off the entire universe. You don't have to be bothered with which exact bit of the universe it was that did you wrong. You can just tell your story. Then, instead of you begging the universe to correct things, the universe, if any of it cares, has to convince you that there was no problem and to convince you to stop saying it.
In case you are wondering why I have gone on at such length about a basically rather minor problem, the answer is that I am optimistic about problems like this actually being solved. A business often does a basically good thing, but rather crappily, while they struggle to get it totally organised and running totally smoothly. People buy whatever it is, but sneer at the crap, because it is crappy and because they can. The businesses then hears all the sneering and gets it sorted and gets even better. Compare and contrast: the government.
This is a point I have made here before. Follow that link, as you now don't need to, and you will read me deriding a plan to refer to a Big London Thing as the "Safesforce Tower". Salesforce is a perfectly decent business, which does whatever it does. But it had a silly plan to change the name of a Big London Thing from something sensible to something very stupid. And guess what, what with all the complaints about this plan from me and from multitudes of others, that ridiculous circumstance has now been corrected. Not in the way I would have liked. Salesforce has still not been shamed into civility. But nearby politicians have forced civility down Salesforce's throat. And the Heron Tower will not now be officially called the "Salesforce Tower".
Although, London being London, this tower might now actually be called the Salesforce Tower, unofficially, in perpetuity, as a joke, given that no other joke name now obviously suggests itself for this rather ungainly erection.
By the way, it turned out that one battery sufficed for last night's meeting. But, I did not know that this would be the case beforehand, and had I only had one battery I would not have felt free to take as many photographs as I did feel free to take. With public meetings, it's a numbers game. The light is bad and people are constantly moving about, so half your pictures will be rubbish right off, if only because someone was blinking at the time. The trick is for the other half of your pictures still to be a large enough collection for you to be able to pick out a few truly good ones. So, the spare battery was useful, even if I didn't make any actual physical use of it.
I realise that very few readers indeed will have read right to the end of this ridiculously long-winded and repetitious posting. But, having written it and having posted it, I feel better.
It's that time of the year when I go into one of my local supermarkets and immediately start taking photos, like that, or like this:
Yes it's Halloween. And the shops, in this case Sainsbury's, are full of Halloween crap. And I photo it. I wouldn't buy any of it. Oh no. I am far above that sort of thing. But, I photo it.
Except, how about these rather cute buckets? Just the thing for my Last Friday of the Month meetings, to put crappy food in:
Only 50p per bucket! I got two. And I just might go back for more.
Not that. I wouldn't want one of them. That's my picture of Sainsbury's, having the last laugh.
Yes, there I was, relaxing in one of the big old armchairs that Mr Gramex reckons have made him so much money over the years, and this guy shows up at the door wanting to photo the CDs.
Mr Gramex has no objection, so, he does. And I photo him. This is what this looked like:
I thought I was the only one who did things like photo CDs in CD shops. Why was he doing this? He was evasive. My guess is some kind of project photoing lots of different stuff in lots of different London shops. Or, maybe wherever he goes, in life, he photos stuff in shops, the way I photo photographers. He said he was from Turkey.
Mr Gramex was very keen that Mr Turkey should also go outside and photo the window display, which he did. Even if he actually cared nothing for this window display the marginal cost of digital photography is zero and if that was how to keep in with Mr Gramex, fine, he'd do it. Which is when I took the photo on the right. Click on that photo, and, in the event that you care at all, you can see me photoing, reflected in the shop window, bottom right.
The bike in the middle picture belongs to Mr Gramex. As you can see from the reviews here, Gramex does not suit everyone. But it suits the people it suits very well.
Yes, dezeen (Dezeen?) continues to be a favourite wwwspot for me. Here are some recent dezeen postings that got my attention, for this or that reason.
First, news that there will be a viewing platform on top of the Walkie Talkie:
The Walkie Talkie Skygarden has yet to open and will, I'm sure, come with a catchier name. But already it is in obvious competition with the Shard – pricey versus free, ascetic steel and glass versus sylvan repose, supreme height versus not being able to see the Walkie Talkie. ...
Very droll. The original was about how you couldn't see the National Theatre from the National Theatre. But me, I am warming to the Walkie Talkie, and I don't just mean I'm standing under it and being fried. I especially like how it looks from a distance. The point being: it looks like the Walkie Talkie. Not just some anonymous rectangular London lump, no, that particular Big Thing. Yes it is not properly beautiful. But neither is London. Besides which, anything that just might compete down the price of going to the top of the Shard has my vote. I'll definitely make my way up there, as soon as they'll let me
Next up, isn't fun when someone hitherto impeccably cool suddenly turns into Grumpy Old Man:
Speaking to Dezeen, the 85-year-old English designer said tech products like the iPhone and Apple Watch were turning people into zombies, adding: "I've got a certain cynicism of Apple and their motives. It's a bit of a monster."
"It's a game they're playing and it's an absolutely straightforward, commercial, ruthless game, and it's dressed up nicely because they've got some talented people in their employ," he said.
Grange, who was knighted in 2013 for services to design, believes that the tech giant has successfully turned Modernism into "good commerce", using aesthetics to dress up a self-perpetuating product cycle.
"There are probably few companies around now that absolutely answer the prospect that Modernism is good commerce," he said. ...
Modernism is good commerce? Can't have that.
… "They've been so bloody ruthless that you almost get no choice in the matter."
"Almost" there means "not". (See also: essentially, basically, fundamentally, etc. etc. etc.) Because actually, you get plenty of choice about whether to buy Apple stuff or not. Apart from one rather nice keyboard, I never have.
People always talk about the behemoths of capitalism like this, just as they are starting their long slide down into moderate size and moderate success, into business as usual. How do I know Apple is now at the top of that slide? Easy, they are building a custom-designed headquarters. It absolutely yells: from now on, all Apple-persons will talk to each other and keep everyone else out. And what they will be talking about, to an appalling degree, will be their own living arrangements inside this huge circular corporate burial chamber. They're doomed, I tell you, doomed. Someone tell Sir Grumpy (above) that he can relax.
Next: what a driverless car might look like. Not. But, it looks very pretty. The basic point, that driverless cars will in the longer run utterly transform the look of the outdoors is, I think, a very good one. Maybe that is how some of them will look.
I really do not like the way this floating bikeway along the River Thames looks, in the pictures there. At the very least, I say, find a way to avoid having those obtrusive shapes above the level of the track, which makes it look like an infinitely extended item of tasteless garden furniture. I get it, that crap is there to enable it to float up and down on the tide. Well, find another way to do that.
Next, some excellent photos of the High Line, in New York. I especially like the distant aerial view of it curving its way over the Rail Yards, with the spontaneous architectural order of Manhattan's towers in the background.
I do like this rectangular block of a house, but with one end lifted up. Usually the rectangular block houses featured at dezeen are impeccably, terminally tedious. But this one, I like. Apart from the fact that whenever the damn architect called round, you'd have to tidy up all your domestic crap all over everywhere, and turn the place back into the dreary corporate office it resembles in the photos. What is it with architects not wanting homes to look, inside, like homes, but instead like some kind of dystopian hell with nothing in it besides a wooden floor?
Here are some impeccably, terminally tedious rectangular type houses, in Japan. To me, by far, by several hundred miles, the most interesting thing about these photos of them is the amazing amount of electrical crap in the sky over the street outside. If I was photoing in Japan, I would be all over that. More Japanese sky clutter here, in photos of another impeccably, terminally tedious block house with an interior that also looked like a corporate office reception area when the photos were taken.
Google drones. Spooky.
A weird footbridge in Paddington.
Parisian blocks become wavey.
Finally what with this being Friday, some black cats with bronze bollocks. I kid you not.
Comments (1)
Indeed. Photoed by me this afternoon:
I don't know what went wrong with this one.
Googling reminds me that there were a lot of complaints, the summer before last, about Boris buses getting too hot. Has that been sorted?
In general, I am suspicious of these new buses, on two grounds. First, as its nickname makes clear, this is a very political sort of bus, being the Boris Johnson answer to Ken Livingstone's Bendy Bus. When politicians push technology, expect trouble. I'm not saying they always get things wrong, because they don't want to look like prunes, and when they push things that go wrong, they do. But, they are still tempted to push, because, in defiance of what you often hear, politicians are typically very short-termist, being unable to look beyond their next election. Businessmen, at any rate businessmen of the sort who preside over the design of buses, tend to look further ahead, and not unleash their buses until their are truly ready.
Second, it was designed by a "designer". By Thomas Heatherwick, who designed that cute roly-poly bridge in Paddington and also the bridge Joanna Lumley wants to have built across the Thames. If you want a bus not to malfunction too much, the kind of designer you want designing it is a bus designer, who is thoroughly familiar with the particular problems that buses can get engulfed by and knows all the tried-and-tested recipes for avoiding such problems. This Heatherwick bus smells to me of change for the sake of it. This is okay if you are designing something small enough to fail without too much expense, like a chair or a spoon or an iPhone case, or a rather pointless roly-poly bridge. But buses are serious. When they go wrong it can cost millions.
And when a "designer" is involved, mistakes do tend to happen, because designers are brought in precisely to design everything. And when you try to do everything anew, you make mistakes.
And if that happens to a politicised design, such as this bus, other political things cut in. Politicians and their supporters don't suffer financially when their pet projects go wrong. They can start fighting the wrongness by just chucking money at it, and just pass the bill on to the rest of us. If unlimited money doesn't sort out the mess and instead becomes part of the mess, then their next impulse is to try to cover things up. If that fails, Plan C (we've reached about C, I'm guessing) is to find someone or something else to blame. Does that also fail? Plan D: just walk away from the mess, refuse to talk about it, and insist on talking about something else, anything else, everything else. Change the subject. In politics, in the end, all there is is "the subject". If politicians keep winning, then they "succeed", no matter how much havoc in the form of things like crappy buses they leave in their wake.
I'm not saying that these Boris Buses are guaranteed to fail. New designs, of the sort driven by politicians, can be a triumph. Sometimes, they even triumph economically. Look at the Volkswagen Beetle. And nor am I saying that one bus attached to a tow-truck is evidence of complete failure. I'm just saying that this particular bus has a lot of bear traps to get past.
LATER: By pure coincidence, favorite blogger of mine 6k right now also has things to say about Boris.
He's a law unto himself, but if you believe that there's nothing behind the apparent buffoonery of his outward image, I think you're mistaken. You don't get where Boris is by being a buffoon. Acting one, perhaps – being one, no.
Spot on. The British toff classes are full of people like this. I had an uncle who behaved exactly this way.
Comments (0)
My interest in what will be happening next in London, architecturally, is intense, but erratic. It switches on and off. Occasionally I go looking to see, but neglect to do this for weeks at a time. Google sends me emails about "new architecture london", but the results are seldom as dramatic as they ought to be. Also, I have been in the rather bad habit of filing these emails in a special email file, and then neglecting to return to them, which is a habit I need to change.
So today, I went into that email file and cranked up the latest "new architecture london" email, and found my way to this place, where I learned something I did not know until now. Apparently the Helter Skelter Tower, the one that looked like (as in: the tallest pointy thing in the very middle of) this, …:
... having been stalled for ages when the money ran out, has finally been scrapped. It will be replaced with an entirely new design.
Interestingly, if you click on the first of the above links, you will, if you persevere within the somewhat unwieldy virtual place that it is (in this case by scrolling sideways), you may manage to find your way to this, concerning "The Pinnacle":
Designed as the centrepiece of the City cluster
Plans for a tower on-site have been active since 2002
Initial planning application was submitted in June 2005.
Revised application with 19m height reduction approved April 2006.
Current status: Undergoing a redesign, with possible height increase.
Possible height increase. Something quite bland looking (compared to the Helter Skelter I mean) but still very high (like the new World Trade Centre for instance) might work rather well, aesthetically, because it would put the present muddle of the City in its place, if you get my meaning. Anyway, we shall see.
Just about to go to bed following a very satisfactory Last Friday meeting, addressed by Priya Dutta, on the subject of education and libertarianism. Priya, many thanks for an excellent talk, and for attracting such a large and intelligent throng to listen to it. Although I don't want to definitely promise anything, I will try to say something more about what you said than that, Real Soon Now. But right now, I am too tired to attempt anything.
Something I often forget to do at these things is take photos, probably because the photos I take are usually not very good. Tonight, Rob Fisher took photos, and I of course photoed him doing this ...:
... and then I took other photos. But the really good news is that Rob's camera is much better than mine, especially in bad light. He has promised to send me his best, and I look forward to seeing what he got.
For something rather more substantial from me, about libertarianism if not about education, try this recent Samizdata posting.
Here comes another flying car ...:
… which I found out about at dezeen. They put this above their report:
Creators of the AeroMobil flying car propose moving road traffic to the skies
I don't see this solving any obvious existing traffic problems. And I see regulators regarding it as a whole new bunch of problems, rather than any sort of solution to anything.
My prejudice is that something which is basically fun is instead being sold as environmentally positive, a solution to traffic problems, blah blah blah. A few will want flying cars, because they do, money and economic irrationality no object. Most people, and especially most regulators, will regard flying cars, in any but trivial numbers, as accidents waiting to happen.
I get regular google emails about robot cars. A point that comes up from time to time in the stuff these emails link to is the idea that flying cars may eventually materialise, but only after robot cars are in regular use. The point being that machines like the one above will only ever be accepted in the numbers envisaged by the makers of flying cars if these flying cars are driven and flown by robots. Cars will eventually take to the air, but only when cars have become robot cars, because only robot driven flying cars will be safe enough for flying cars to be allowed to fly in significant numbers. (If regular cars were being proposed only now, they too would have to be driven by robots to be allowed.) Flying cars driven by humans will just unleash a whole new world of fear and grief, and they won't be allowed other than as ludicrously expensive curiosities.
If such curiosities as this one ever do fly, driven by mere people, they will be fun, to those to whom such things are fun, but very little else.
Chippendale most of us have heard of. But Rannie? Who is, or was, Rannie? Exactly.
Seven years ago now, I wrote a Samizdata piece about two-man teams. It still, I think, reads well, and it contained the following assertions:
Even when a single creative genius seems to stand in isolated splendour, more often than not it turns out that there was or is a backroom toiler seeing to the money, minding the shop, cleaning up the mess, lining up the required resources, publishing and/or editing what the Great Man has merely written, quietly eliminating the blunders of, or, not infrequently, actually doing the work only fantasised and announced by, the Great Man. Time and again, the famous period of apparently individual creativity coincides precisely with the time when that anonymous partner was also but less obtrusively beavering away, contributing crucially to the outcome, and often crucially saying boo to the goose when the goose laid a duff egg. If deprived, for some reason, of his back-up man, the Lone Genius falls silent, or mysteriously fails at everything else he attempts. ...
Now read this, from At Home, the Bill Bryson book I am currently reading. On pages 234-5, concerning Thomas Chippendale, the noted furniture maker, Bryson writes:
He was an outstanding furniture maker but hopeless at running a business, a deficiency that became acutely evident upon the death of his business partner, James Rannie, in 1766. Rannie was the brains of the operation and without him Chippendale lurched from crisis to crisis for the rest of his life. All this was painfully ironic, for as he struggled to pay his men and keep himself out of a debtor's cell, Chippendale was producing items of the highest quality for some of England's richest households, and working closely with the leading architects and designers - Robert Adam, James Wyatt, Sir William Chambers and others. Yet his personal trajectory was relentlessly downwards.
It was not an easy age in which to do business. Customers were routinely slow in paying. Chippendale had to threaten David Garrick, the actor and impresario, with legal action for chronic unpaid bills, and stopped work at Nostell Priory, a stately home in Yorkshire, when the debt there reached £6,838 - a whopping liability. 'I have not a single guinea to pay my men with tomorrow: he wrote in despair at one point. It is clear that Chippendale spent much of his life in a froth of anxiety, scarcely for a moment enjoying any sense of security at all. At his death in 1779, his personal worth had sunk to just £28 2s 9d - not enough to buy a modest piece of ormolu from his own showrooms. ...
Rannie did not make the actual furniture, but he was essential to Chippendale in exactly the sort of way I describe.
It feels good to be so right.
I've been reading Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life, and very entertaining and informative it is too. Strangely, one of the best things about it for me was that he explained, briefly and persuasively, both the rise to global stardom and the fall from global stardom of British agriculture. The rise was a lot to do with the idea of crop rotation. I remember vaguely being told about this in a prep school history class, but although I did remember the phrase "crop rotation", I didn't care about it or about what it made possible.
Here is Bryson's description of this key discovery:
The discovery was merely this: land didn't have to be rested regularly to retain its fertility. It was not the most scinitillatingof insights, but it changed the world.
Traditionally, most English farmland was divided into long strips called furlongs and each furlong was left fallow for one season in every three - sometimes one season in two - to recover its ability to produce healthy crops. This meant that in any year at least one-third of farmland stood idle. In consequence, there wasn't sufficient feed to keep large numbers of animals alive through the winter, so landowners had no choice but to slaughter most of their stock each autumn and face a long, lean period till spring.
Then English farmers discovered something that Dutch farmers had known for a long time: if turnips, clover or one or two other suitable crops were sown on the idle fields, they miraculously refreshed the soil and produced a bounty of winter fodder into the bargain. It was the infusion of nitrogen that did it, though no one would understand that for nearly two hundred years. What was understood, and very much appreciated, was that it transformed agricultural fortunes dramatically. Moreover, because more animals lived through the winter, they produced heaps of additional manure, and these glorious, gratis ploppings enriched the soil even further.
It is hard to exaggerate what a miracle all this seemed. Before the eighteenth century, agriculture in Britain lurched from crisis to crisis. An academic named W. G. Hoskins calculated (in 1964) that between 1480 and 1700, one harvest in four was bad, and almost one in five was catastrophically bad. Now, thanks to the simple expedient of crop rotation, agriculture was able to settle into a continuous, more or less reliable prosperity. It was this long golden age that gave so much of the countryside the air of prosperous comeliness it enjoys still today, ...
The fall of British agriculture was all mixed up with refrigeration, which enabled the wide open spaces of the late nineteenth century world to make masses of food and to transport it to hungry urban mouths everywhere before it went bad. Prices fell below what the farmers of Britain (where there were no wide open spaces by global standards) could match.
The weather in London today was particularly fine. The light was bright and washed clean by recent rain, and the atmosphere was neither too hot nor too humid. There was bright blue sky, but there were also plenty of clouds. I had a bank to visit and electrical items to obtain, all doable on Sunday if you are in Tottenham Court Road, and then I and my companion went south towards the river.
I photoed tourist stuff, hereinafter termed touristuff. I love to photo touristuff. It changes from year to year, and it is arranged in hightly photogenic clumps such as you could never enjoy if you merely bought a single touristuff item:
Those queens seem now to be very popular, but popes less so. But those decapitated lady bottle openers are a new siting, for me. It's amazing what can look sexy, even after being guillotined.
I photoed books, under Waterloo Bridge. Books in large and sunlit clumps, and particular books, with particular titles:
It seems that the Conan The Barbarian books were written not by just the one writer, but by a team of writers. I did not know this. I wonder how that was organised.
I photoed Art. I photoed a lady all in white, photoing Art under the Queen Elizabeth Hall. That's if you reckon middle of the range graffiti to be Art. Is this a possible future for brutalist architecture? Painting such concrete relics would surely make sense.
And I photoed people sitting on Art, in the form of giant green chairs, next to the Imax Cinema roundabout near Waterloo station
Apparently these big green chairs used to be down in that strange circle of pedestrian space that surrounds the bottom of the Imax Cinema, inside the roundabout.
If my walkabout this afternoon is anything to go by, Art is becoming less about Deep Significance (of the sort that has to be explained with Art Bollocks essays next to the Deeply Significant Art), and more about fun. Bring it on.
And bring on the day when they have exhibitions of Touristuff in Tate Modern. I hardly ever go inside Tate Modern, but I bet that would be more fun than what they put there now. And it might also be more Significant.
So, what is "Xxxx"?:
I already chose this picture as worth showing here, before I spotted that Xxxx was present in both the words.
Taken by me, when out and about yesterday early evening.
Richard Morrison's article about the impact of WW1 on music, for the Times, is very interesting, but it suffers from an outbreak of PID (Permanent Italics Disease). This is when you switch on the italics, but then forget or fail to switch them off again. Here is a screen capture of the offending moment and its surroundings:
This was posted on August 16th, in connection with a Prom that happened last night, but it has yet to be corrected, as I write this.
PID is particularly pernicious when it afflicts not only the rest of the text of the piece itself, but then continues throughout the entire page as you see it, as it does here. That is a site software blunder, as well as a posting blunder.
I got to this piece via Arts and Letters Daily, which perhaps explains how I got to it at all, what with the Times paywall and all. Does anyone know how that system is working out for the Times?
It seems a bit shoddy that you have to pay for such typographical ineptitude. It's not so much the original error that I am unimpressed by. It's the fact that nobody quickly corrected it. And the fact that the site software doesn't confine the problem to the one posting.
To be a bit more serious, about the content of the article, I have long regretted Schoenberg's depressing impact upon music, but I had no idea that the man himself was such a German chauvinist. "Now we will throw these mediocre kitschmongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate the German spirit and to worship the German God …" Good grief.
Before I start ruminating more convolutedly about my recent stay in France, there is just one more shot that I want to show you from that ASI boat trip.
It's a photo I took of the guy who was driving the boat, and (I presume) the man who was in command of the boat:
I can find no mention anywhere here of the actual people who command and work on the boats, just lots of stuff about how great the boats are for partying on. So I don't know the name or rank of this man. But, whoever and whatever he is, I love his look of calm but ever so slightly suspicious watchfulness, with his ever so slightly raised right eyebrow. It's the face of a man who knows that, mostly, his job is just a job, but that this is a job that just possibly might, were he seriously to neglect his duties, turn very nasty.
Besides which, you never quite know what those people back there partying might get up to, under the influence of all that drink that the other members of the crew are serving them. A boat full of tipsy revellers, even more than a normal boat, needs a sober worker to guide it and to see that all is well, no matter how friendly the waters they are travelling on.
There's something else about this picture that intrigues me. When I was a kid, wearing short trousers was the essence of being a kid, and graduating to long trousers was the essence of ceasing to be only a kid and starting to grow up. Yet now, more and more indisputably grownup men, doing their indisputably grownup work, wear shorts. Anyone care to speculate about what this means, or about why it is happening?


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I titled this image "Fiery Dragon" as the tree's silhouette looks like the head of a dragon.
Apollo Bay - Victoria - Australia.
Fiery Dragon
by Chris' Landscape Images Of Australia
Framed Art Print
Choose from a variety of frame styles, colors and sizes to compliment your favorite Society6 gallery, or fine art print - made ready to hang. Fine-crafted from solid woods, premium shatterproof acrylic protects the face of the art print, while an acid free dust cover on the back provides a custom finish. All framed art prints include wall hanging hardware.
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I just love that you allow us to see your countryside through your eyes. I've never been but oh how badly I want to go!
Thanks for such a great comment, RD! I love sharing my images, they are mostly of places I have known for years or discover along my travels. I rarely take pics of capital Cities, especially the Sydney Opera House etc as most tourists have seen them. I pride myself in my own unique countryscape images.............Cheers ..........Chris ☺
Thank you Tom! It is an awesome seaside resort and I think I was a bit lucky to get the result with the tree ☺
LOL. Thanks so much Shawn:) Yeah, nearly time to crack the cork on a champagne bottle when/if I reach a 100.
Chris, do you know Rachel got inspired in this work of yours to make her Crayon love artwork?? ♥♥ makes me so happy, she did a beatiful job :) http://society6.com/tatterbeans/CRAYON-LOVE-Sunset
I was just browsing and when I came across this, I immediately blurted out the opening song to "The Lion King" Haha. But in all sincerity, Chris, this is an absoultely stunning shot! Very worthy of all of its promotions and praise :) Cheers!
Hi Kim. Thank you so much for such a lovely comment:) The Lion King has been mentioned a couple times........LOL. Regards Chris
SOLD - 2 * Fiery Dragon T-shirt / Womens Fitted Tee White SMALL but can't seem to POST it ???
If horizontality was a word it's be perfect to describe the great effects you have going on with everything in this photo. amazing.
Hi Cris, Gee, this is your gorgeous country and what a picture ..I love it..so beautiful
Thank you..
Thank you..
that does look like a dragon! I'll have to get a snapshot of the Godzilla tree I see on my way to the doctor's office. It's amazing to see these kinds of things in nature. I can tell you enjoy your time with your camera.
Thanks so much for the great compliment, Mel! Yes, I do enjoy my photography & to think it all started because of my work as an Insurance Assessor; photographing losses like, fire damaged homes, storms etc! Love your work too, Mel. Hope to see Godzilla soon :)
This will always be one of my favorites, not only because it was your first, but because it's a cool tree. I will have to either get a new shot of the Godzilla tree, or find that other one. It's around here. Somewhere...
I'm so overwhelmed you have taken your time to browse my work & reply with such inspirational comments, thanks, Mel! Yeah, need to see "Godzilla"............LOL.
:D I love art and photography. I appreciate seeing your work, because I can tell you like doing what you do. It's cool that you saw this. I think a person can be seen through what they create and know that composing a good shot isn't always easy.
Great capture of this dramatic sky with the cool tree silhouette! Very beautiful and majestic landscape!
Gorgeous cloudy sunset with the silhouette of the trees, this IMO would make for a great wallpaper hanging in a dining room area, colors, and lighting are great, keep right on clicking and creating :)


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Serving in Humility
... it my task to "find out" what God may be planning for me for next year.
In the news of starting a Bible study, I have not yet invited people extensively or followed up with those I have asked. I have spent some quality time with two people in particular but either cowardice or laziness, I have allowed to stand between me and inviting them again. Next week I am going to invite at least 5 people for Thursday night.
School has been ...
The Returning of Dreams & Quickening Truth
... worship. The church filled with music and light, though it was entirely empty. I saw a vision of the light spilling out of the cracks and crevices of the church and when I paused, the shadows were gone and I was safe.
When I woke up, I shared the dream with my roommate who seemed panicked at the idea of being chased in a dream. I set the dream aside as we walked to school that morning. That very day, I had 12 ...
A Shift in Local Weather and Thought...
... the scripture. I have been blessed to get some time online with friends back in the states who talk and pray with me which helps but, in general right now, the landscape feels very dry to me. Jesus has been ever present with me and encourages me often through His word and I'm eager to become more intentional in my relationships here but things feel more difficult with out community support. I am determined, however, to find some ...
Found in translation
... statement not only shocked me but made me think of it's truth and double meaning. We, the whole world stands in the guilt of having murdered Jesus (with sin) which is literally represented by his spilt blood; but through the claiming of faith in Christ's resurrection that symbol of guilt becomes the symbol of His promise. So that statement by the crowd is both utterly condemning and also prophetic and worshipful. It's wonderfully strange ...
Oscar and Steph's Wedding pt 2!!
... hotel and ate some snacks, I had like 3 coffees I was FREEZING. I had on a black (?) backless very low cut halter dress that was (surprisingly) too big for my boobs. I had to Macguiver the dress in a classy manner with a hair tie so I had a big bump at the back of my neck (though the scarf covered it). It was a friend's of Emmanuel's dress. I was wearing his mom's shoes and pantyhose. and a scarf and black ...


text:
PHPUK 2009 Review
ROSE Blog: Rikki's Open Source Exchange
Looneytunes posted a detailed review of her trip to PHP UK 2009 over on the PHPWomen site. She says:
Surely such an eminent group of knowledgeable people would have little time for someone as inexperienced as me, and how was I ever going to follow any of the talks without suffering some kind of brain meltdown mid talk? Well I'm very pleased to say that I was wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, could not have been more wrong!
She also encourages anyone who has ever wanted to attend an event to just do it:
If you work on your own or in a team they are a great opportunity to meet new people, get new ideas, get help and advice and get a look into some of the exciting things that are happening out there at the moment.
Check out the Linux Pro Magazine calendar online for upcoming events: http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/resources/event_calendar
And if you're in Florida (or want to be), swing by the Florida Linux Show on Monday, March 9.comments powered by Disqus
Issue 170/2015
Buy this issue as a PDF
TOR Network Isn't So Anonymous
A new study says it is possible to unmask 81% of TOR users.
.NET Goes Open Source
Redmond joins the revolution by turning the .NET Core Runtime into a GitHub project.
Drupal Advisory Unleashes a Torrent of Attacks
Users only had 7 hours to update before the intrusions started.
HTML5 Gets Promoted to a Standard
It's official: The new web arrives
Linus Addresses Criticism for Harsh Language
Kernel king admits his tone has alienated volunteers, but says the demands of the process require directness.
New SSL Attack Lets a Malicious Listener Steal Session Cookies
New flaw in an old encryption scheme leaves the experts scrambling to disable SSL 3
Leading Open Source Coder Rants about Rants
Lennart Poettering wants to change the way Linux developers talk to each other.
HP Splits into Two Companies
Enterprise giant frees itself from ink and home PCs (and visa versa).
Mozilla Labs Shuts Down
Mozilla's product think tank sinks silently into history.
Internet Giants Launch Collaboration to Improve Open Source
TODO group will focus on open source tools in large-scale environments.


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Man drives away without paying for gas
New Haven State Police say a man filled up his tank and then took off without paying for the fuel.
Troopers say a red GMC Sierra truck stopped at the North Ferrisburgh Short Stop around 7:30 p.m..
The suspect is described as a white male wearing a black jacket and hooded sweatshirt. Troopers say he gassed up his truck, cleaned his windows and drove off.
Copyright 2014 by WPTZ All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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As the Senate works on the climate-change legislation, lawmakers may let the Environmental Protection Agency retain its power to regulate greenhouse gases in order to win over critics who are concerned over the agency's role in the measure, writes Matthew Madia in this blog post. The House version of the bill modified the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to secure the votes of moderate lawmakers and representatives of the energy sector, and senators could do the same thing in their proposal, Madia added.
View Full Article in:OMB Watch
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Nicki Minaj - I Get Crazy ft. Lil Wayne
Artist: Nicki Minaj
Featuring: Lil Wayne
Producer: Ron Browz
Album: Beam Me Up Scotty Mixtape
Avg Rating: 4.0 ( 151 votes )
If you steer your browser to Nicki Minaj's MySpace page, the first thing you'll see is a picture of the Young Money signee flying through the air in a (very revealing) Wonder Woman outfit. Why is she dressed as Wonder Woman? Well, her bio provides a convoluted, kind of bizarre explanation, but I'll put it this way: she's completely bonkers. Of course, that's far from a problem when you've got the backing of Lil Wayne (aka "Mr. Out-of-his-mind"), who joins the femcee on her first Booth feature, I Get Crazy. Interestingly, Minaj nearly manages to out-crazy her boss, spitting two agile verses brimming with scatterbrained wordplay; in the end, though, Weezy edges her out with the shouted boast that he's so fly he eats birdsh*t (Am I hearing this correctly?) Complete with a sparse beat by Ron Browz and a few of Wayne's trademark meandering guitar riffs, this cut is a unique one; if you find Minaj's weirdness intriguing (I certainly do), you can hear plenty more on her Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape, which dropped today.
Written by richard on 04/20/09
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YM/CM/Universal Motown
First DJ Booth Appearance:
"Take It Off" (2009)
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text: Send off Mass View full-size image < previous next > Is this photo a winner? "Before our teens traveled to Detroit, MI for week of service we celebrated mass at our parish. It was an incredible week of work, prayer, and fun. Each team that arrives to the work camp has their own custom t-shirt. Thank you to CustomInk for making us look good. We have used CustomInk for every t-shirt in our youth group over the past year and I wouldn't go anywhere else! Thanks Guys!" - http://home.catholicweb.com/holyangelschurch/index.cfm/NewsItem?ID=47840 - Work Camp 2014 (Jul 23, 2014) Share this photo on: Twitter Facebook Pinterest Similar Photos: youth group | religious | youth ministry | mass | parish | detroit | mi | students | church Feeling inspired? Visit the CustomInk Design Lab to start your own group order. Design Your Own


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Casa Beleza
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... the statue itself, which is the biggest art Deco statue in the world. It really is enormous. We were quite lucky that we had a clear day and not too many people up there.
Another day we went to explore the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. Neither of us is a fan of beaches, and we chose quite a cloudy day to visit. We went first to Ipanema and had a caipirinha (cocktail of cacha�a (sugarcane spirit), lime and sugar) in the bar where ...
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Rio Fan Fest - Australia v Chile
... loud football commentary on tv that went on for most of the night. So not such an enjoyable experience as my first one. Still, it was free and convenient and I made up sleep on the six
hour flight to Lima.
I flew with Avianca Airlines and was surprised to find it was a full service flight with good food, great friendly staff and brand new planes – I would certainly fly with them again.
The last days of Christ
... wool cloud.
The combination of twilight and actually being in a cloud (this thing is about 800m high) turned out to be awesome. The Christ was lit up with purple floodlights that coloured the swirling mist as if beeing on the set of a horror movie. I wasn't too fussed about the views having already experienced some amazing ones at the Pao, but when the cloud finally did break, a night time Rio lay twinkling before me. Check the ...
Another attempt at Sugar Loaf
... mountain. The churros were freshly made and filled with either hot chocolate sauce or dulce de leche. They were delicious! Definitely the best churros we have even eaten. With everything timed to perfection we took the first cable car up the mountain next to sugar loaf so we could get a better view and lots of pictures . We had noticed a cloud looming over Sugarloaf but we hoped that once we got up there ...


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Until not so long ago the royal courts of Lucknow resonated with lilting melodies of thumri. To bring back the golden era, Sahitya Kala Parishad is hosting a three-day Thumri Festival at Kamani Auditorium here beginning August 26.
To be inaugurated by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, the festival has been planned as a regular event that will promote new as well as established thumri artistes.
The festival will open with thumri performances by classical musician Suranjana Bose and Shubra Guha, an exponent of Agra gharana. The second day will see performances by Anjana Nath and Purnima Chaudhuri, a leading Doordarshan artiste. On the last day, emerging thumri star, Kakri Mukherjee, and Girija Devi, classical singer of the Banaras gharana, will perform.
Though not connected with the Parishad, eminent Hindi literary figure Ashok Vajpayi feels the festival assumes significance because thumri is an important part of the Hindustani classical repertoire.
"I think thumri needs better dissemination and exposure," says Mr. Vajpayi, who also heads the Lalit Kala Akademi.
It is said that thumri originated among the undulating hills of North-West India as a form of music associated with Lord Krishna's raas leela. While initially its compositions focused on Radha's love for the young Govinda, it soon spawned other forms in its genre namely dadra, chaiti, hori, kajari, saavan and jhoola.
Over the decades, the generic musical style of thumri gained immense popularity among a varied audience that enjoyed its odes to nature and love.
Unfortunately thumri has lost its disciples to what are deemed to be higher classical forms like khayaal, dhrupad or taraana in the present times. Musicians have started perceiving thumri as the "pop form of Hindustani classical". As a result, new talent is losing interest in it. For those who grew up listening to the mesmerising voices of Begum Akhtar, Shobha Gurtu and Noor Jehan, this break from the past is a bitter pill to swallow.
Keywords: Thumri Festival


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Statistics of the EU
Latest business news about statistics, facts and figures of the European Union.
- Eurozone inflation returns to five-year low — 28 November 2014, 15:38 CET
Inflation in the eurozone returned to a five-year low, official data showed on Friday, raising pressure on the European Central Bank to unveil even more steps to fight the threat of deflation.
- Weak growth potential threat to financial stability: ECB — 27 November 2014, 14:38 CET
Tensions within the eurozone's financial system have subsided in recent months, but weak growth could pose a potential risk to stability further down the line, the European Central Bank cautioned on Thursday.
- Eurozone growth at 16-month slow point — 20 November 2014, 23:11 CET
Growth in the eurozone has slowed to its slowest pace in 16 months as new orders dipped, survey company Markit said Thursday, raising pressure on policy-makers to crank up measures to support the economy.
- In new recovery sign, EU car sales surge — 18 November 2014, 15:53 CET
The EU car market saw a 6.5 per cent surge in new registrations in October, boosted by sales booms in Spain and Italy where the industry was hit hard by the financial crisis.
- Eurozone exports rebound in September: Eurostat — 17 November 2014, 12:23 CET
The eurozone trade surplus widened in September, official data showed Monday, with a rise in exports offering rare good news for an embattled European economy that is worrying the world.
- Improvement in eurozone as Germany, France skirt recession — 14 November 2014, 19:46 CET
The economic clouds over Europe appeared to lift slightly in the third quarter as its two biggest economies both narrowly escaped a new recession, official data showed on Friday.
- German 'wise men' say investment not unduly weak — 12 November 2014, 16:38 CET
Germany's so-called "Five Wise Men", a panel of independent economic advisors, said Wednesday that the German economy -- Europe's biggest -- is not suffering from an undue weakness in investment.
- Eurozone retail sales suffer sharp drop in September — 05 November 2014, 13:01 CET
Retail sales across the 18 countries of the eurozone sank 1.3 per cent in September, data showed Wednesday, in another sign that slumping demand is hurting the European economy.
- Greek economy to bounce back from years of recession: EU — 04 November 2014, 17:22 CET
The crisis-hit Greek economy will end six years of recession in 2014, the European Commission said on Tuesday with sky high unemployment finally falling slightly.
- EU hails Britain's 'robust' growth as eurozone stalls — 04 November 2014, 17:42 CET
The EU praised Britain on Tuesday as it predicted further "robust growth" and low unemployment for the nation, while cutting its economic forecasts for the already sluggish eurozone.
- ECB takes up eurozone banking watchdog role — 04 November 2014, 17:42 CET
The European Central Bank assumed its role Tuesday as Europe's banking watchdog under a new system aimed at shoring up the financial system to ward off another euro-threatening crisis.
- Autumn forecast 2014: Slow recovery with very low inflation — 04 November 2014, 13:28 CET
The European Commission's autumn forecast projects weak economic growth for the rest of this year in both the EU and the euro area. In the course of 2015, a gradual strengthening of economic activity is expected and growth is projected to rise further in 2016. All EU countries are set to register positive growth in 2015 and 2016. This is also when the lagged impact of already implemented reforms should be felt more strongly.
- EU 2014, 2015, 2016 economic forecasts — 04 November 2014, 13:30 CET
The European Commission issued its latest economic forecasts for the 18-nation eurozone and the wider 28-member European Union on Tuesday.
- Eurozone growth outlook slashed in new blow to recovery — 05 November 2014, 13:16 CET
The EU sharply cut its growth forecasts for the eurozone on Tuesday, warning that France and Italy remain huge problems for the sluggish European economy that is becoming a worry worldwide.
- Eurozone inflation up, unemployment steady — 01 November 2014, 11:11 CET
Eurozone inflation edged up to 0.4 per cent from multi-year lows while unemployment was little changed, official data showed Friday, providing only limited reassurance that a modest economic recovery remains on track.
- ECB dons new hat as eurozone banking supervisor — 01 November 2014, 11:07 CET
The European Central Bank takes over as Europe's banking watchdog on Tuesday in a historic shake-up of the financial system aimed at preventing a repeat of the crisis that nearly led to the collapse of the euro.
- Four in five eurozone banks pass ECB health test — 27 October 2014, 18:47 CET
A large majority of eurozone banks were given a clean bill of health Sunday by the European Central Bank, fuelling hopes that a major cause of economic uncertainty could soon be eliminated.
- 25 banks that failed the ECB financial health test — 26 October 2014, 16:50 CET
Twenty-five banks from 11 eurozone countries failed the European Central Bank (ECB) financial health check.
- One in five eurozone banks flunks ECB financial health test — 26 October 2014, 16:49 CET
Nearly one in five eurozone banks is still on shaky financial foundations, the ECB said Sunday after a crunch audit aimed at preventing a repeat of the crisis that nearly led to the euro's collapse.
- Fifth of eurozone banks fail ECB health check: report — 25 October 2014, 17:44 CET
Some 25 eurozone banks have failed a health check by the European
Central Bank, reports claimed Saturday, citing leaked documents.
- ECB to unveil results of eurozone bank health check — 24 October 2014, 17:11 CET
The European Central Bank on Sunday releases the results of an unprecedented health check of eurozone banks before assuming the role of the region's banking supervisor next month.
- Eurozone business activity picks up, worries remain — 23 October 2014, 23:29 CET
Business activity in the 18-nation eurozone strengthened slightly in October, a key survey showed Thursday, but overall the economy remained weak with new orders low and pressure on prices.
- Corporate bond-buying scheme 'an option' for ECB: analysts — 22 October 2014, 16:42 CET
Corporate bond purchases would be one option for the European Central
Bank to pump cash into the eurozone's flagging economy, analysts said on
Wednesday, even as the bank said it had no such plans at present.
- ECB hasn't seriously discussed stimulus 'Plan B': council member — 22 October 2014, 12:17 CET
The European Central Bank has not "seriously" discussed a purchase of
corporate bonds as another way of pumping cash into the stalling
eurozone economy, a member of the bank's decision-making body said on
- Juncker pledges investment package by year-end — 22 October 2014, 11:20 CET
The EU's incoming chief Jean-Claude Juncker vowed on Wednesday to unveil a huge growth investment package before Christmas but also promised to enforce budget rules as Euro-MPs prepared to vote on his new team.
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Today, I leave Parse.ly after 20 months of work that took me from writing web scrapers to diving deep into semantic web standards to designing mobile SDKs. Here is some advice and emotional primer for the incoming Parse.ly intern. I can only speak from my own experience, and while I try to generalize, all of my advice is heavily colored by what I went through when I started.
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Tipton Statement on President's Executive Orders on Immigration
Congressman Scott Tipton (R-CO) issued this statement in response to the President's announcement of executive orders on immigration.
One of the most important aspects of Congress is developing, making, and monitoring laws. New laws are created every week. As a Member of Congress, I am actively involved in sponsoring and drafting legislation about issues that are important to you.
Please contact my offices to share your thoughts on current legislation that may affect you, your family, and your community.
The committees and caucuses that I'm serving on.
Where I stand on the Issues facing Congress and our District.
Gain insight into the Legislative Process and how you can make a difference.
View legislation that I have sponsored on Capitol Hill.
Learn how to view my latest votes made in Congress.
Congressman Scott Tipton (R-CO) issued this statement in response to the President's announcement of executive orders on immigration.
Congressman Tipton voted today to advance legislation to cut red tape at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that is causing costly delays and impeding the construction of new manufacturing facilities in the United States.
Local communities in Southwest Colorado, along with Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet and U.S. Representative Scott Tipton, have struck an agreement on a bill to protect the Hermosa Creek watershed.
Welcome to the on-line office for Congressman Scott Tipton. Please
visit the Contact Me page to contact Scott electronically or click on the office location nearest you for details.
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Johnson might be worth top pick
Although history might suggest that you don't need to take a wide receiver at the top of the draft, Calvin Johnson could end up being historically good, writes Len Pasquarelli.
Prone to exaggerate the physical attributes of just about any player they are asked to evaluate publicly, scouts seem to have gone absolutely head over heels with hyperbole in assessing Georgia Tech wide receiver Calvin Johnson, the highest-rated prospect on most NFL franchises' draft boards.
Even in a business in which excessive praise is an inherent element of the pre-draft posturing process, talent scouts have resorted to terms typically reserved for priceless diamonds in assaying Johnson's unique skills.
Pristine. Brilliant. Unsullied. One in a million.
Strengths: Possesses exceptional overall physical tools. Is tall, well-built and strong. Displays rare speed and athletic ability for his size. ...
Weaknesses: Will lose focus at times. Has dropped too many passes trying to get up the field before securing the ball. ...
• Complete scouting report
• McShay on Johnson
"Watch him for just a play or two, the way Calvin carries himself in everything he does, and you can understand pretty quickly what you've got here," said Georgia Tech coach Chan Gailey, who as an NFL offensive coordinator and head coach tutored some top-shelf wide receivers. "He's the best I've seen. [He's] the real deal, all right. Calvin is the closest thing to can't-miss that I've ever had."
Said Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy: "The feeling pretty much is that he'll jump right into our league and be a star."
If that's the case, Johnson will be a rare find indeed.
Although teams generally invest a lot of choices in outside pass-catchers -- with more players chosen at wide receiver than at any other position in the past 10 years -- it is not a position that has produced high dividends. Particularly not in terms of first-round prospects. The consensus among most veteran scouts is that viable receivers, guys who can line up and play quickly, are usually available in later rounds. And the failure rate of first-round wide receivers is unusually high.
Alarmingly so, in fact.
Indeed, recent history offers a pretty good indication that wide receivers don't have to be first-rounders to be first-rate. That said, in the past 10 years, there have been 41 wide receivers picked in the first round. The first-round results, however, have been mixed at best.
We wrote about this in March, but some of the numbers bear repeating.
Of the 27 wide receivers from the first rounds of the 1997-2003 drafts, 14 are out of the league entirely and nine are with franchises other than the ones that drafted them. Only four have appeared in multiple Pro Bowl games. There were 13 wide receivers taken among the top 10 picks in the 2000-2006 drafts. Just three of them have made at least one Pro Bowl appearance. By comparison, four are out of the league right now. The rookie wide receiver who made the biggest impact in 2006, Marques Colston of New Orleans, was a seventh-round choice, the 252nd player chosen last year. Anquan Boldin of Arizona, who in 2003 set the league record for most receptions by a rookie, was only a second-round choice that season. The leading pass catcher in the NFC in '06, Detroit's Mike Furrey, was an undrafted free agent in 2000. He played in both the short-lived XFL and the Arena Football League before ever making an NFL roster, was a safety for the St. Louis Rams before moving to wide receiver full time, and had more tackles (59) than catches (21) entering the 2006 campaign.
Since 1970, only two wide receivers, Irving Fryar of New England in 1984 and Keyshawn Johnson of the New York Jets in 1996, were chosen with the first overall selection. The two combined for nearly 1,700 catches and more than 23,000 yards, but neither is likely to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Of the top 10 wide receivers in 2006 in terms of catches, Furrey was an undrafted player and T.J. Houshmandzadeh of Cincinnati and Green Bay's Donald Driver were seventh-rounders.
Johnson has physical tools similar to those of Moss. And he comes minus the character issues Moss brought with him into the league. As good a player as Johnson is, his coaches and teammates -- and now the NFL personnel people who have put him under the microscope -- say he is an even better person, if that's possible.
If the projections are on target, and if he plays with a quarterback who simply gets the football anywhere near his frame, Johnson could be a Hall of Fame-caliber performer.
"The guy is an absolute freak," said Atlanta cornerback Jimmy Williams, a second-round pick in 2006 and a guy who -- while at Virginia Tech -- lined up against Johnson. "You name it. Size. Speed. Hands. Mental toughness. He's the whole package. I hope they threw away the mold after they created him because, man, there better not be another monster like him anywhere out there."
Opposing cornerbacks can be forgiven if they suspect that Johnson might have been the creation of some latter-day Dr. Frankenstein with football as his passion. He combines the size, power and speed, certainly, of some of the game's greatest wide receivers.
Start with the physical dimensions, with Johnson having measured 6 feet 5, 239 pounds at the February combine workouts. Add the measurables, as Johnson ran a blistering 4.35-second time in the 40-yard sprint at the combine, then followed that up with a pro day performance on campus in which he posted a remarkable 42½-inch vertical jump and a standing long jump of 11 feet, 7 inches.
Then there are the on-field numbers. In 29 college games, Johnson totaled 127 receptions for 2,151 yards. His average touchdown catch was for nearly 22 yards. He scored on long bombs, and his superior size made him a tremendous red zone target. And it didn't matter that, in many games, Johnson was double- and even triple-teamed.
"Flawless," said longtime NFL personnel chief Ken Herock, who is now retired, but who prepares prospects for combine interviews and worked with Johnson this spring. "That is really the only word that fits. He's like 'The Natural,' but only in football cleats instead of baseball spikes. I know the history of wide receivers in this league, the first-round guys who haven't made it. No one has to worry about this guy joining that group."
Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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Published in The Herald on Mar. 30, 2014
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: Anita B. BranhamROCK HILL - Mrs. Anita B. Branham, 78, of Rock Hill, S.C., passed away Friday, March 28, 2014, at UniHealth of Rock Hill....
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Don Quichote's world
We left early morning for Toledo, often called: City of Three Cultures: Arab, Christian and Jewish. The history of Toledo dates back to the Roman occupation (Toletum) circa 192BC.
We found parking at the end of a steep hill near the 13th century cathedral or the Alcázar that sits on the outskirts of the old city. The origin of the building dates back to 3rd century Roman times. El Greco lived here for many years and some of his works can be seen in the Gothic ...
Allah, Allah, whatever
Up and at 'em this morning to catch our 8:30 train to Cordoba. Some back and forth lack of decision making led to us not having a scheduled guide for Cordoba today although we spoke to many ahead of time. As I believe everything happens for a reason this led mom to stand in a not so short line at the tourist information desk at the train station. The biggest site to see in Cordoba is the Mosque-Cathedral and one of the main reasons we were going. Our ...
Olives, Oranges, and Paella
... just have to be nice and hope for the best in service. But hey, relax - you're in Spain!
Fun fact: The order of a meal was also developed in high society Córdoba, with appetizers being first and the sweet desserts coming last. Before this they just ate in any order they wanted.
Food for thought: If every city grew food bearing trees and plants that belonged to the people as well as provided economic benefit to the city, how would that change our environment?
Day 11 - June 1, 2013
... this is Europe; dusk was 9:30/10:00 at night!). We took some really good pictures. We have tonight and Sunday night here (we venture into Seville for Corpus Christi mass tomorrow, then come back), then we're off to Toledo Monday, then Madrid for Monday night and a farewell mass and dinner, and then, (*sniff*), go home on Tuesday. L
But, this leg of the trip, as with each leg, has not disappointed! Thanks and praise be to God!
Mezquita and Iznajar
... Miel de Cana" = molasses. Anyway, whatever it was, it tasted amazing, and I'm sure the real honey would have done the great job here, too. :)
We were both so stuffed. Greg was worried he would become sleepy when he had to drive. So....we decided to make an another stop before we go. For coffee and cake. (Don't ask me how we could fit a cake when we were SO full!) ;)
It was still in the middle of the afternoon and we decided to check out our local ...


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Chubby Guys BBQ
6551 E Riverside Blvd, Rockford
Our BBQ is top quality meat which is dry rubbed and slow smoked over hickory wood for up to 14 hours…Read More
3907 Broadway, Rockford
Stop in and visit the NEW Page! We are serious about weekends, we are serious about having fun and …Read More
2921 City View Drive, Rockford
*Awesome Mixed drinks, Beer & Shot specials EVERYDAY! *Huge selection of Craft & Import Beers …Read More
Mexico Clasico Restaurant
3929 Broadway Suite 11,12, Rockford
We bring you a singular dining experience with a menu vast of colors and flavors from awesome appeti…Read More
The Filling Station
6259 11th Street, Rockford
Stop in and see us for Food, Fun, & Spirits. …Read More
Bamboo Asian Noodles and Tapas Bar
514 E. State St. , Rockford
Bamboo is a local, family owned restaurant specializing in authentic Southeast Asian Cuisine (Thai, …Read More
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ITV Central Travel
All the latest travel updates from across the Central region.
All the latest travel updates from across the Central region.
Trains between Crewe and Shrewsbury may be delayed by up to 15 minutes because of a problem at a level crossing near Nantwich.
Here's a full list of the roads affected by the wet and windy weather - with up to an inch of rain expected to fall today.
Dozens of roads are closed across the Midlands this morning due to flooding, including a number of main A routes.
Train and coach operators have advised passengers to check before they travel today, with limited services running for New Year's day.


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Shop Review
Quality service and product
Sunday 17 July, 2011
The Tee's are simply amazing! loving the whiskey shirt especially. Would like to see more hoodie designs tho. Support the bands and buy direct!
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