On the train to work if you are not packing a top of the line handheld or mobile device then you’re not saying anything.
It is customary on this train - or at least when I used to make that daily journey - to see an assortment of business executives, IT Consultants, Movers and Shakers getting some last minute work done, clearing their email boxes or just absorbing themselves in their personal computer devices if only to avoid talking to the person in front of them!
Ah, yes! How did we survive before the advent of such technology? Well, let’s see…
There was more awkwardness on public transport as people became wary as to where to direct their gaze. In some cases the lack of technological activity forced people to start conversations and from this quite often relationships would build!
To try such a feat on the Laptop Express, as I call it, would be to risk being the object of irritation because you would be interrupting someone’s creative, business or personal flow.
Isn’t it funny that amazing developments such as advancement of computers and technology which has done so much to quicken and widen the scope of communication, has seemingly done a similar amount to stifle it?
Posted by BlackMan at 13:22:38 on May 13th, 2008 in Technology
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Yesterday was the warmest day I’ve felt it in the UK for a long time. It was 77 degrees Fahrenheit or approximately 25 degrees Centigrade. Normally, I don’t bother with being so accurate about the weather because I generally take it for granted or simply hate discussing the weather.
It is such an English thing to do and I hate the association!
I found myself walking in the “high yellow moon”, the sun, thinking that it was good to enjoy such a nice weather for a change. Suddenly it dawned on me that although the sun was full out and bright it wasn’t what I would call hot. It was so cool I didn’t even work up a sweat.
How disappointing.
If that was the Caribbean not only would I have been sweating profusely, I probably would also need to cool off before I would have been able to continue my normal duty.
Still, it’s better to have a high bright sun than to have none. I wonder what’s in store for the rest of the week…
Posted by BlackMan at 08:00:10 on May 12th, 2008 in Society
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New London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has appointed Black former prisoner governor Ray Lewis as his deputy. With this he has thereby signalled his intention to help cut violent crime among youths while simultaneously stating the message that he is also willing to work with Black people.
This is admirable and probably a good political move. I for one did see Johnson as just another one of those public school educated, upper class, English twits, with a huge capacity for gormlessness and “jolly good show old chap” demeaner thrown in.
Lewis has wasted no time in wading into the debate over who is culpable for London’s youth crime. Citing a “monumental unwillingness to look in the mirror and admit failures”, he insisted London’s schools are too concerned with their reputation, and should instead concentrate more attention on attempting to help aggressive students.
This too is a brave, if not foolhardy, way to get the attention of schools and teachers, the very people he will be working with to make things happen. But, maybe placing all the blame for London’s youth crime problem solely with schools and teachers is surely abdicating the responsibility of parents who are, after all, the legal guardians of their offsprings.
Lewis, ex-director of the Eastside Young Leaders’ Academy has also taken an especially hard line on the teaching of boys, claiming that “schools are failing to provide education fit for males, let alone black males”.
Now that’s not only spot on but also stating the obvious. But since so few high profile personalities have shown a willingness to even publicly state such harsh realities, maybe Lewis is onto a good thing.
Let’s see how he fares over time…
Posted by BlackMan at 23:59:19 on May 11th, 2008 in Society
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From the 1970s to 2000s Peter Falk was a different kind of television detective in the form of Lt. Columbo. His character was the ostensibly the shabbiest, scruffiest, seediest looking crime-fighter on your screens.
But there was a method to his madness. The hapless guise he personified was in fact just a ruse to lure his suspect into thinking he wasn’t even capable of solving the case. Thus, they would underestimate him and at the last minute when he had compiled enough evidence, he would charge them for the crime.
The above pictures shows how Peter Falk is today, looking somewhat dishevelled on the streets of LA. Lt. Columbo might be proud but that was only acting. This real life thing is just too much.
I wish Falk a quick trip back to reality.
Posted by BlackMan at 23:59:52 on May 10th, 2008 in People
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Yippee! I’ve found the perfect answer to beating speed cameras! It’s called the PhotoBlocker!
The PhotoBlocker is basically a special can of spray paint which once applied to your car licence plates makes them invisible to speed cameras.
It works by automatically reflecting the light of the camera flash, like a mirror. The reflected light then overexposes the image, making your number plate unreadable.
Look Ma, No Points!
The makers of PhotoBlocker claim it is 100% effective and it could mean no fine or points on your licence should you be unlucky enough to be caught by a loaded speed camera.
“Regular drivers will be able to see your car number plate as normal,” the PhotoBlocker blurb says. “It’s undetectable to the naked eye. Police officers will have no idea.”
They have a legal disclaimer which reads: “PhotoBlocker is perfectly legal to purchase, however may not be legal to use. While applications of PhotoBlocker are undetectable, we do not advise using it to defraud the UK driving system.” Yeah right!
System Beater
Last year was a big disaster for me in terms of expense incurred as a motorist in London. I had x-amount of congestion charge tickets, one clamping, one parking ticket, a speed camera fine and a hit and hide accident.
Something like PhotoBlocker, which the makers expect the UK government to ban, can only help to even the score, should you choose to use it. But at £19.99 (around $39.99) plus £3 ($6) for postage and delivery, it is not cheap.
But it sure beats the alternative of risking penalty points being added to your driver’s licence, a fine minimum of around £70 ($140) or a complete ban from driving for a period.
You can take the moral high route and operate within the boundaries set by the authorities and help them make more billions from motoring charges. Or, should you choose to embrace it, there is an alternative and you can keep that money in your pocket.
Being immoral has never been more tempting!
Posted by BlackMan at 08:00:39 on May 9th, 2008 in Lifestyle
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I have never had the vibe, inclination or interest to try cocaine. The opportunity has been there but I never bought into ‘coke’ as some kind of glamour drug you use to get high or to enhance your status in your peer’s eyes.
No idiot could entrap me into using it with phrases like: “it makes you cool”, which hints that if you don’t partake of it you’re not cool. As far as I see it I am what I am and I don’t need endorsement from anyone to feel cool or any other emotion for that matter.
Maybe it’s because of my hatred for chemical and man-made things which stops me! I might be more willing to try and have tried natural growing so-called drugs like ganja (marijuanna) and all I ever felt was irie! Funnily enough though I’ve never been interested in opium which although is made from the poppy plant produces a trip that I’m not prepared to travel to!
So in general I remain very drug free. I don’t smoke cigarettes and I drink alcohol only so often, usually in a social context and I never ever get drunk, as I’m too careful about how I appear in public.
I’m no angel but I try to keep well out of dangers like being caught in a psychological trap where I spend my waking hours trying to score drugs with a willingness to do anything to get it. A (joke!) scene like the one shown in the photo above where an addict tries to sniff coca cola after hearing that it may still contain coke, would never happen to me!
Call it a boring life if you want, but at least it’s my boring life and I enjoy living it.
Artificially made drug free too!
Posted by BlackMan at 08:22:52 on May 8th, 2008 in Lifestyle
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It’s hard to sit and watch a group of work colleagues eat a plate of oysters without feeling the urge to get up and leave them to it. At the very least you wish they would just choke on the so-called food!
“You don’t know what you’re missing BlackMan,” someone goaded. Oh yes I do and no thanks, I thought. God clearly didn’t intend these molluscs to be eaten by humans because they sometimes transform themselves into pearls which some people even wear as jewellery.
Despite this man still devour them half shelled, raw, smoked, boiled, baked, fried, roasted, stewed, canned, pickled, steamed, broiled (grilled) or used in a variety of drinks. There’s even a definitive book on oysters as food called Consider the Oyster, by M. F. K. Fisher.
In fact man has elevated the eating of oysters to such a high order that it is considered good when you can say “the world is your oyster” meaning that you are getting all that you can possibly get out of life. Eeeuugh! Yuck! I’ve never been fund of that phrase anyway…
Oyster With Chips!
For his sins former London mayor, Ken Livingston, even foisted something called an wiki(Oyster card) onto us which ostensibly started off as a travel card but is emerging as an everything card from delivering credit, identity, cash as well travel solutions to consumers.
I share the bewilderment of writer/poet Jonathan Swift when he said, “He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.” But I would hastily add: “But why the hell does he have to force these foul-smelling, vermin-resembling, bottom-feeding, vomit-inducing, slimy creepy crawly onto us in such a dictatorial way?”
I’ll never understand why anyone would really want to spend good money going to an uptown fish restaurant and order oysters when they can simply find similar ‘foodstuff’ crawling under the earth in their back garden.
As for my work colleagues they are free to gobble whatever they desire, but I reserve the right to go home early today, if only to escape the rancid smell of oyster on their breath!
The world is my oyster? You’re having a laugh, right?
Posted by BlackMan at 08:37:50 on May 7th, 2008 in Lifestyle
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Last Friday as we queued at a store to buy bottles of water and some confectionery ahead of our visit to the cinema, we watched as a cashier confiscate a £10 banknote from a customer who had presented it to pay for goods. “I’m sorry, this note is no good,” the cashier told the hapless woman.
The cashier then called her supervisor who took the note, went out of sight to a backroom area, ostensibly to test the note. Shortly after she returned confirming to the customer what her staff cashier had already said. “I’m sorry, the note is no good. I’ll have to hold onto it…”
At this point I became curious because it felt that the customer had been ‘robbed’ at till point, since the supervisor was adamant she was not going to hand her back the suspected counterfeit banknote. The customer didn’t appear to have any rights and I felt that technically since the note was hers she should be allowed to keep it.
Machine Test
“Once the note is presented to us we are obliged to confiscate it,” the supervisor explained. My only concern was what if the machine used to test the authenticity of the note was faulty? What if they had ’stolen’ the poor woman’s money only to find later that it had been genuine all along?
Presently, the cashier asked the customer if she could pay for her goods with other money. She duly took out another note and presented it. That too was tested. It was also found to be suspect! That too was confiscated. I then asked myself: “What are the chances of finding two counterfeit notes together in the same spot?”
At that point we left the store and went on our merry way to the cinema, with thoughts of what I had just witnessed reverberating in my head…
Easy Counterfeit!
In 2007 the number of counterfeit Bank of England banknotes taken out of circulation was around 290,000. The vast majority of counterfeits are discovered by the banking system when they are separated from genuine banknotes during the sorting process.
They are also taken out of circulation when the public or retailers hand them into the police or banks.
According to the Bank of England compared with the scale of genuine banknotes in circulation, of around 2 billion notes, the incidence of counterfeiting is very low. This represents a decrease of around 24% from the previous year with the total ‘face value’ of counterfeits reducing by £1.8mn to £5.8mn.
Despite all this I still feel it is much too easy for a shop to declare a banknote counterfeit and then to confiscate it without compensation to a customer who may have accepted it in good faith in the first instance.
Am I alone in this thinking?
Posted by BlackMan at 08:00:58 on May 6th, 2008 in Issues
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Someone close asked me the following question the other day: “Is it easier to live with illusions?”
My quick answer is yes, it is easier to live with illusions especially if the life you’re currently living or experiencing is not what you would like it to be. This is the classic case where anyone would create another, alternative world for themselves, rather than persist in this one in their current way.
But there’s no getting away from reality and in the end the illusions you create or cling to have to be seen for what they are: something that deceives by producing a false or misleading impression of reality. If you are the kind of person who prefers to deceive yourself into accepting a false reality then illusions will obviously be your thing.
If, on the other hand, you are able to face reality, regardless how harsh it currently is, then you will scorn illusions as temporary blindness to the world in front of you.
There may be times when you choose or wish to immerse yourself in illusions if only to keep your sanity or as a form of escapism. But, when you then make that world your permanent home you start to lose sight of reality in a big way.
Mental
This could actually lead to a variety of mental problems including insanity, madness and the inability to differentiate real from illusion.
It’s’ important to mention that artists and visual art practitioners are obviously people with a highly developed sense and appreciation of visual stimuli so living with illusions - whether creating it or immersing in it for research, fun or enjoyment - to them may be an unavoidable occupational hazard! Many have been known to literally go crazy having taken a trip to that world but couldn’t find their way back to reality.
Some might say the following artists lived in an illusionary world and, to various degrees, were quite mad: Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Andy Warhol, Pierre Auguste Renoir, among others. But that’s another story…
While it is easier to live with illusions in the short term it can be detrimental in the long term especially since as long as you’re alive life will be watching you and making silent judgements on your attempt at managing reality!
——-
Due to madness Vincent Van Gogh cut off his left ear in 1888 after an argument with a fellow painter Gauguin. Van Gogh was subsequently dispatched to an asylum in St. Remy, France.
An interesting point to note: if you look at the picture above that Van Gogh painted after he came out of the aslyum: Self-Portrait with a Bandaged Ear, one notes that his right ear is bandaged. But actually he cut off the left lobe. But Van Gogh was painting a mirror-image of his face.
Posted by BlackMan at 08:00:57 on May 5th, 2008 in Lifestyle
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It is a sign of the times when a bumbling, upper class Conservative party twit like Boris Johnson can topple someone like Ken Livingstone an outside Labour party member and really likeable bloke, in the race to become mayor of London.
I along with countless others no doubt, took it for granted that after already spending eight years in the position, Ken would have been given the mandate to continue the work he had been doing. I was spectacularly wrong!
As many critics have already observed, Ken’s loss is a damning indictment of the huge unpopularity of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The voters probably voted against Labour rather than against Ken because Brown is seen as an ineffective, characterless leader with the charm of a rattlesnake and the endearing features of a town. OK, those are just my observations!
Thus, voters want a change and voted against whatever was there already which meant that both Gordon and Ken would fare really badly. If this was a general election the Conservatives would be in power and this fact must now surely have the Labour party quaking in its boots.
But to call Boris a breath of fresh would be like stretching a joke beyond a point where the audience is comfortable. He was only elected because the voters saw him as the better alternative among the London mayor hopefuls.
Don’t expect any radical or innovative new fixes to old problems from Boris. He will surely need time to settle into his new position. But, he will no doubt provide hundreds of quotable quips, in his continuing role as loveable buffoon.
Imagine it: prior to winning Boris the buffoon was invariably portrayed in the media as an educated, bumbling, uptown idiot with a knack for saying the most inappropriate things at the wrong time. That’s the kind of man (or clown!) who is now head of London with a budget of £11 billion.
Start worrying. Now!
Posted by BlackMan at 08:38:08 on May 4th, 2008 in Politics
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