Schools kill creativity

From ted.com

social networking - it's the future...

...along with flying cars and holidays on Mars.

From the Twitter website in answer to the question 'how does Twitter make money?':

While our business model is in a research phase, we spend more money than we make.

Now THAT's a sandwich!

Coronation chicken on home made bread. It doesn't get much better than this.

Have that, Katie Melua!

Here at Pigs & Bees no one can accuse us of not being up-to-date. So here's an article from 3 years ago.

The Grauniad - Katie Melua's bad science

After reading this, I feel like some great injustice in the world has been righted. Simon Singh may quite possibly be proving himself to be the world's greatest pedant, but he's one after my own heart. Give that man a knighthood.

Ideas worth spreading

TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) is an annual gathering of some of the world's most innovative thinkers in those three fields. Each gets around 20 minutes to deliver a talk on their specialist field. BMW have stumped up the necessary to allow the organisers to distribute the talks for free. School was never so interesting:

Phil Zimbardo talks about what makes people evil.

Dan Gilbert talks about how we synthesize happiness.

Enjoy.

An open letter to the Co-op. Custodians of the English language.

As an almost daily visitor to your stores, and indeed a member of the Cooperative, I'd like to bring to your attention a matter that has concerned me over the last few days. Many's the time I have perambulated down your amply stocked aisles, exclaiming in wonder at yet another 'buy one, get one free' offer on a particular favorite confectionery of mine, or marveling at the astonishingly cold temperature to which you can refrigerate you apples. During the brief moments of indecision that inevitably hamper my soup selection I am often gratified to find that the audible frequencies that would otherwise meander aimlessly though the empty airspace around your neatly ordered foodstuffs are filled with the subtle, inoffensive entertainment that is Co-op Radio.

Occasionally as my hand is wavering between the oxtail and the scotch broth my concentration is momentarily diverted by one commercial or another, graciously informing me of an offer or promotion currently available on one or your product lines. Usually this does not cause any offence, indeed i may even raise my eyebrows and, after making a hasty plump for the oxtail, go forth and seek out this particular sundry in order to make the most of the promotion and to allow my daily allotted funds to stretch a little further.

However, on recent occasions a furrow has crossed my brow, as a particular item broadcast on your community-information service has caused me a certain amount of consternation. I was well aware that your many and varied services included the provision of fresh food and other daily consumables, financial services, medicines and other pharmaceuticals, jet-set holidays and, heaven forbid, should I have the misfortune to keel over and die, another branch of your organisation could convey me to the ground with minimum fuss and utmost efficiency.

I was not, however, aware that you had also taken upon yourselves the great responsibility of being custodians of the English language. Indeed, it is a bold and tumultuous step to move from merely utilising and preserving our mother tongue to actually taking an active part in the evolution of our lexicon. So it is with awe and not a little fear that I observe your courageous adaptations to the very cloth from which our language is so finely tailored. Not a timid change of meaning, or a subtle shift of inflection have we here, but the audacious invention of entirely new words.

Let me elaborate. A recent advertisement broadcast on your radio service has caught my attention, extolling the virtues of a popular brand of instant coffee. This undoubtedly fine tasting beverage is, apparently, on sale in your stores at a 'celebrational' price. Well let me say I very nearly sent an a array of tins spinning towards the ground in shock. We're entirely used to our American cousins bastardising our language - merrily appending words with superfluous and entirely unnecessary syllables in order, possibly, to convey some illusion of grandeur to the lesser mortals who might have the misfortune to be listening. But we, on the other hand are British. We have the a great literary heritage spanning many hundreds of years. We have educated, informed and reserved media publications, we have a Police force who will politely ask you to stop before they resort to the use of firearms for such innocuous offences as littering or speeding. We proudly play host to such bastions of correctness as Radio 4.

We know that the correct word to use in this context is 'celebratory'.

A word that has functioned well for many years without the need to be embellished or adultorated at the whim of the speaker. Please, Co-op Radio, don't try and turn American or I may have to purchase my soup elsewhere.

An open letter to Jewson

Please send a big thankyou to your delivery cretin, who, whilst driving along Manchester Road, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield at 9AM this morning, decided to use a conveniently large puddle to hose out most of the inside of my van, and give me an impromptu diesel-scented shower.

It's certainly saved me the effort of cleaning the van out, and I've always preferred the comfort afforded by wet muddy upholstery as opposed to the regular dry seating. I can now also spend most of the day drying out and smelling of derv, as presumably can the pedestrians he also generously showered. I'm sure we all hold the utmost gratitude as , due to the wideness of the road at that point, he must have gone out of his way to perform the favour. Keep up the considerate driving! Just think, if he hadn't committed this act of common courtesy in a wagon with your company name on the front of it in huge letters i'd have never been able to write and thank him.

Coming soon

We've all probably sat through a dreadful film realising we'd been sold a pup by the slick trailer that inspired us to go watch it. But how far could you go to misdirect an audience's expectations? Here are two examples of classic films with re-edited trailers.

First, family favourite Mary Poppins turns into a sinister thriller:



And here's The Shining turned into a feel good flick for all the family:

We're looking for freelance conceptual creatives

We're looking to add more conceptual art directors and writers to our pool of freelance talent. We need ideas people who aren't afraid of a business to business brief or direct mail. It's people who can get to the crux of a client's problem and create a different solution to the ordinary that we need from time to time.

If you think we could work together, send a couple of scamps of the work you're most proud of along with details of your rates to hello@pigsandbees.com.

Friday afternoon nonsense

Doom and gloom? Could be great news for your business

The end of the world is nigh. Or at least the dreaded economic R-word is, if you read the papers. Whether you’re a glass half full or glass half empty type of person, there’s no escaping the fact that many people are beginning to panic. Belts are being tightened and wallets are staying closed, ensuring the self-fulfilling prophecy of recession will probably be announced just in time for Christmas. Depressed? Don’t be. Pessimism can actually be good for you.

Psychologist Julie Norem has spent years researching why some people always seem to take the pessimistic view. What she found was that people who tend to dwell on potential problems are no less effective than people who see every event as a golden opportunity. Pessimism actually helps some people come up with strategies to avoid problems and achieve a more positive outcome. Norem calls this defensive pessimism. Another insight from her work is that when, in experiments, defensive pessimists were prevented from following their usual pessimistic strategy they were shown to be far less effective. It seems some people simply work better focusing on the problems (real or imagined) than focusing on the positive.

Research like that carried out by Norem has also shown that people of all dispositions manifest a greater attention to detail when the glass is half empty. In fact some scientists argue that without a pre-programmed state of dissatisfaction, evolution would never have happened. Our ancestors would have set up camp at the first comfy cave, confident that some food will turn up eventually and that hungry Brachiasaurus would never find them. So what does all this have to do with your business?

Use the mood of pessimism to look for opportunities. When everything is rosy it’s all too easy to overlook opportunities for change. We’re happy, why would we want to change anything? But now that everyone has one eye on the worst case scenario ask your staff for ideas. Ask them how their own spending habits have changed (if at all), what their immediate worries are, what the deciding factor is when they’re spending their own money. Your staff, family and friends are your very own free market research team. Take an interest in how the threat of recession is affecting them and you might just spot a competitive advantage.

Angry customers? Tell them to take a good look at themselves

New research in the Netherlands demonstrated that people exhibit less prejudice when they are in the presence of a mirror. Researchers manipulated participants' private awareness of themselves by having them scan a passage of text for pronouns such as 'I', 'me' or 'mine'. The presence of a mirror that the participants could see themselves in achieved the same self awareness but also raised their public self awareness, resulting in more appropriate behaviour than if the mirror where not present.

So, would having a mirrored 'complaints department' help pacify irate customers? We've no idea. But it would be interesting to find out.

Shock horror - A Level pass rate rises for 26th year in a row!

It's A Level results day and the number of yoofs passing them is predicted to reach 97%, an increase for the 26th year in a row. Naturally some cynics will say that the exams are too easy. Piffle! will come the indignant retort of pedagogs and politicians of the Government. Already the BBC are reporting the following:

Anthony McClaran, chief executive of Ucas, the body which handles undergraduate applications to UK universities, said: "As with every year, some people will inevitably claim that A-levels are getting easier but we shouldn't really take away from the hard work of those students who have done well in their results today.

"It is difficult to compare the A-levels of today with those of 40 years ago as the world is quite a different place.

Indeed the world is a very different place but unless I missed the email that announced that the laws of algebra and physics had changed then surely the students should be solving the same problems as their parents were back in the 70s. Of course 40 years ago we didn't have subjects like media studies and women's studies. As an advisor at a well known academic institution said to me a few months ago, if the course has the word studies in the title then it's really the light version of the subject. Anthony McClaran continues:

"Many world records are being broken at the Olympics but that doesn't make the feat easier or the distances shorter."

Apples and oranges, old chap. The stop watch and tape measure don't lie. Does he really believe that the subjective evaluation of an essay is a good comparison?

Of course the debate will rage on until next Thursday when the GCSE results are announced and both will be forgotten over the bank holiday weekend as we rightly redirect our ire towards the Government's failure to provide us with a decent summer yet again. So I've come up with my own A Level. Let's call it Youth Studies. When the moderator tells you to begin you have 2 hours to answer the following questions:

1. If A Level pass rates are rising, the people passing the exams must be smarter. Explain in no more than 500 words why nobody under the age of 35 who works in a shop, bar, or restaurant can add up the cost of fewer than 6 items without the assistance of an electronic cash register.

2. If youths r getting smrtr xpln in no mre thn 500 words y a lrge mjority ov thm cnt use vowels in wrds that hve had vowels since the yr dot (when A Levels were invented).

3. If young people are genuinely more intelligent than their ancestors 40 years ago, why is Big Brother in its 9th season?

4. If young people are genuinely more intelligent than their ancestors 40 years ago, why did Big Brother ever make it onto the telly?

5. If young people are genuinely more intelligent, why are they making the same mistakes that their ancestors did 40 years ago?

things that bother me no. 14

That bloody graphic (above) on web pages that are 'under construction'. It bothers me for many reasons. First, it's a crap idea. It was crap idea ten or more years ago when I first set eyes on it and it hasn't changed. Second, I can't see the link between a roadworks sign and the construction of a web page. Yes, I know it's supposed to be a play on 'construction' but there's no lateral leap or logical hindsight. If we are going to be that facile then maybe I should surround my desk with cones and don a hard hat and safety tabard as I construct this sentence. Ridiculous? Yes, it is. Third, how bloody hard is it to build a webpage? Well for me sat upon the throne of creative governance it's quite easy. I simply scribble some instructions on a scrap of paper and a team of people younger and brighter than I turn it into a web page. I don't ask how, I simply enjoy the magic. But even not being versed in XML, ASP, Flash and all that other technical stuff I know that the bright young things can go from a state of wide eyed 'I hope he isn't looking to...' to a state of exuberant 'Have a look at this!' in days rather than weeks or months. A complete award winning website with animation and lots of database driven content and data capture took less than a month. The sites that are 'under construction' are rarely that complicated. Perhaps this is the thing that really bothers me. They are always (ALWAYS) dreadful websites either put together with a software package designed for people with hooves or they are based on some free template from the same diabolical source that inflicted clip art on the world.

If you have a website and you haven't got the time or knowledge to create all those wonderful pages that are still under construction years after your website went live then please click here. Buy the 3 page off the shelf website and we'll throw in a fourth page for free. Just take down that under construction sign. Please.

Misery is not miserly

New research has found that sadness increases the amount of money people are prepared to pay for a commodity. In an experiment carried out by a team from Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Stanford and Pittsburgh universities volunteers were subjected to a short piece of video about either the death of a boy's mentor or the Great Barrier Reef. Both videos had been validated to induce either a state of sadness or no emotional response. After watching the videos the participants were then asked to buy or not buy a bottle of water at various prices.


The people who had watched the video about the death of the boy's mentor paid more for the same bottle of water than the people who had watched the Great Barrier Reef video. The researchers concluded that people's emotional state has a direct influence on how much they are willing to spend.

For years sales people have been taught to greet customers with a smile. Most people automatically smile back, and by smiling their brains assume they are happy and run their 'happy program'. The new research above suggests there may be an alternative. I'm not suggesting alienating or berating customers as they enter your premises like a retail Basil Fawlty but perhaps some low key melancholic classical music rather than Gobby Williams blaring out might put shoppers into a more self-reflective state making them more likely to pay higher prices.

Ethics aside, it's a fascinating area to be explored.

Things that bother me no. 2

Wind.

Surprisingly I'm not talking about flatus. I'm talking about Billy Wind.

A cross wind is worse than a head wind.

We are sworn enemies.

Sign by Danasoft - Myspace Layouts, Forum Signatures

things that bother me no. 8674

The word 'winningest'.

Google adwords strikes again

We seem to now have a new selection of ads on this page along the following lines:

Gut & Bowel Troubles?

Sometimes Going Can Be Difficult Ease The Pain, Visit Our Site Today

www.PassItOnNow.co.uk

and

Bloating

I Cured My Irritable Bowel Fast So Can You - Read My Story

www.ThisCureWorks.com/IBS

and even better...

Problems with your bowel?

Stop worrying about your bowel Have a virtual colonoscopy today

www.vitalimaging.co.uk

I can only assume that Google, in it's ineffable wisdom, has picked up on the fact that Satan has a face on his bottom and it makes him rather irritable.

Makes you wonder what else we could make it come up with. Hmm. I'd rather like to go Llama trekking in the Appalachia. While I'm there i might decide to make my own jam. I might get a cheap luxury watch to bring home with me. (on a low budget airline of course)

Certainly don't want to mention prescription medicines - that'd give Google a field day...

Which came first, orange or the orange?

Do you suppose an orange is so named due to its orangey hue, or was the colour orange given its name in recognition of the fruit to which it bears such a striking resemblance?

'tis a most perplexing mystery.


An orange.


Some orange.

The subject of orange foodstuffs brings me cunningly on to the humble carrot. Which shouldn't be orange. It should be, and originally was, black, yellow, red, purple and a veritable plethora of other weird and wonderful colours.

Our now sadly depleted carrot choice is thanks alone to 16th century Dutch farmers, who took it upon themselves to honour their monarchy, the house of Orange, by selectively breeding the yellow and red varieties of carrot commonly available at the time. Little did they know that by presenting their king with an appropriately coloured tuber they would sound the death-knell for worldwide carrot diversity.

It's a lucky thing the colour orange wasn't named after carrots or the whole world would be plunged into confusion.

Things that bother me no. 3

Rain.

things that bother me no. 9762

Has an actress ever really made a double entendre to a bishop?

FABULOUS FREE GIFT!

I ordered some keyrings for a client. The courier has just delivered them. I opened the package to find a small box with 'Mystery free gift' stamped in red letters on it. A slight tumescence began to surge through my happy glands. A free gift. What could it be? It's only a small box but...eagerly I reached for a scalpel. Like a battlefield surgeon I trembled with adrenaline but my cutting hand was steady as a rock. Don't want to damage my free gift. What could it be? Got to get the box open...




...and here, ladies and gentlemen, is my free gift:






A BT ADSL filter. I had hoped for an apple core. But hey! a free gift's a free gift. Thank you, keyring people. I'm touched.

They think of everything.

This...



...is a left-handed fish slice.

Apparently the difference is in the shape of the blade.

If you don't believe me, have a look here.

Things that bother me No. 5632

Do the personal culinary preferences of the sandwich maker influence the quality of sandwich you receive?

If they don't like onions am I going to get too many onions on my sandwich, no onions at all, or just the right amount?

Well fancy that.

Apparently, according to Michael Pacher (c. 1435 - 1498), the Devil had a face on his bottom.



One can only assume this made sitting down rather uncomfortable. Which I suppose, after several thousand years, would account for an irritable attitude and this in turn will have gone some way to contribute to the not inconsiderable amount of bad press The Beast has received of late.

Perhaps a faith that teaches understanding and acceptance should feel more sympathy towards one who has suffered at the hands of such a disability, rather than overtly displaying the worrying traits of Arsefaceophobia.

Still more worrying however, is the apparent fundamental lack of ... well... fundament.

Presumably a digestive tract which works from both ends towards the middle and evidently, like George W Bush's Iraq campaign, has no exit strategy, would cause a certain amount of digestive discomfort. It is evident from the picture that this is the case as old Satan appears to also be suffering from a quite a severe case of Anorexia.

I'd recommend surgery, counseling, and a pot of Activia every day.


The offending posterior.

not very cuil

Cuil (pronounced cool) is the latest search engine to announce it is going to open a can of whupass on Google. Being raised on a diet of Rocky films I just can't help but side with the underdog so I cyber trotted off to see how exactly they planned to do this. Typing in 'pigs and bees' had us there in the first 3, or top right on the top row since Cuil doesn't do a list but a magazine style page layout. Nice idea. I clicked some more and I got lots of 'oops we couldn't find that page - please check the URL' messages. Nothing wrong with this except I hadn't typed any URLs, I had clicked on a link on the Cuil website. Oh dear.

Still, one of the founders is an ex-IBM person so maybe it's just Mac users that it doesn't work for. The creative industries will, I'm sure, realise their mistake one day and switch to Microsoft Paint or Corel Draw. Until then we'll probably stick with Google. The search engine which, despite Cuil's strapline, is universally regarded as being the biggest one out there.

Update: a second visit to Cuil and once again I type in 'pigs and bees'. This time, instead of appearing on the front page I'm told 'We didn’t find any results for pigs and bees'.

I bet they'll be ordering extra toilet roll at Google HQ.

Bob's gone camping

No, not Graham Norton style. Living in a field for two weeks. Here's his tent.

a philosophy joke

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Traditional wisdom says that if you declare the glass half empty then you are a pessimist. But what if you were on your 5th glass of water in an effort to hit the magic 8 glasses a day and you don't like water? Surely the glass being half empty then would be a good thing, making you an optimist.

Aphorisms.

They ain't what they used to be.

twenty questions

http://www.20q.net/



Artificial intelligence program that 'guesses' what you're thinking about.

We're on the telly

Well not us, but an ad we created for one of our clients.

The English language is wrong. Sorry chaps.

After writing something on here earlier this morning I was accosted by the apostrophe police (who incidentally don't seem to consider themselves important enough to merit capitalisation). After re-reading my turgid drivel on the subject of milk I can only assume that my heinous grammatical crime was the placement of an apostrophe in the word "Its".

Now this is a bone of contention for me. The apostrophe police, and your English teacher will tell you that the phrase "It is" may be shortened to "It's" with an apostrophe placed to represent the ommited letter i.

For instance:

"It is raining today" and "It's raining today" are both grammatically correct.

The problem comes when the word "Its" is used in the possessive sense.

"The milk took its downward journey to the floor" is correct, while "The milk took it's downward journey to the floor" is not.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the whole plethora of uses to which the apostrophe can be applied is to denote possession. The position of the apostrophe is based upon whether the possessor is singular or multiple, for instance:

"The horse's tail" describes the tail of one horse, while "The horses' tails" refers to the appendages located above the bottoms of multiple animals.

Using this rule, if our milk in the previous example was referred to by name, it would carry an apostrophe:

"the milk's downward journey to the floor"

This is correct because the milk is singular and the downward journey belongs to the milk. No-one else.

If we were to apply another name to our milk the rule would still apply. For instance, if we were to hypothetically assume our milk is called Dave, then the following would be correct:

"Dave's downward journey to the floor"

Now I quite often refer to my milk as "it". The word "it" is a fine word that can be used to describe many other things in the world besides milk, but it does the job rather nicely in this circumstance.

Used in this context, the word "it" replaces the noun - proper or otherwise - of the object to which we are referring.

"Pour the milk in my tea",
"Pour Dave in my tea"
and
"Pour it in my tea"

are all correct, providing the recipient of the instruction knows my milk is called Dave, and that the milk is what is being referred to by the term "It".

Following this rule, then it should be perfectly acceptable to substitute the noun in "the milk's downward journey" or "Dave's downward journey" with the word "it", giving:

"It's downward journey to the floor"

The downward journey belongs to "it" and is represented as such by the use of a possessive apostrophe.

The English language, however, does not allow me to do this. And thus, with the use of this perfectly reasonable and logical argument i deduce that the English language is wrong.

Q.E.D.

Britain's got talent but the tone deaf electrician working next door certainly has not got any

Maybe they teach it at trade schools: here's your plaster, here's your trowel, now whistle like a demented bird with a wing trapped in barbed wire and intersperse it with out of tune warbling of some song that you only know one line to and no one else has ever heard.

Plasterers, electricians, plumbers (I once had the misfortune to have a plumber arrive with what at first appeared to be a huge tool chest but was, in fact, a sound system big enough to host a party in the average urban park) and of course brick layers.

Maybe he's fallen down a hole in the floor and is actually crying out in pain. It's hard to tell above my own screams of Munchian anguish.

Whatever happened to Milk-in-a-Bag?

Some milk. In a bag.
Still popular in Canada apparently.

I was having a beer-fueled discussion the other day and we decided the point of differentiation between being old and young was whether or not you remember when milk came in bags. The teenaged-studenty types who work behind the bar thought the whole concept was ridiculous, but us potential-summer-wine-cast-members remember the sopping wet mass of leaking milk bags you used to get in supermarkets and corner shops which had a tendency to completely lose their structural integrity as soon as you snipped a corner off. If you were lucky, and you strategically positioned your cup of tea and cereal bowl you could catch at least some of the milk on it's inevitable downward journey to the floor.


Spar. Guilty as charged.

I seem to remember this fantastic example of packaging technology was particularly prevalent in Spar shops in Wales and Ambleside and other such places where you'd be buying the milk for camping purposes. Which somehow made the whole thing even more inappropriate.

Along then, came the evil Tetra-Pak, and milk in a bag was no more.

RIP Milk in a Bag.

Or is it?

Because while pootling around on t'interweb the other day I stumbled upon this fascinating bit of footage on the BBC's website.

It seems Milk-in-a-bag is to have it's renaissance, and shall grow to be known and loved by a whole new generation. Unfortunately however, it seems the current manufacturers have not quite grasped the concept and have tried to create a boring plastic jug system to enable easy pouring and mess-free opening. Certainly no fun in that.

Kids, ditch the jug, wrestle with the polythene-clad-liquid and enjoy Milk-in-a-Bag for it's sheer pointlessness. This is the stuff memories are made of.

so good they posted it twice

Something to ponder

Do grass and road side leaves taste as good to a sheep as a bacon and egg sandwich does to me?

You know you're middle aged when...

...you don't lust after a Porsche or M3 BMW, your desire is for a push along German lawnmower.

Another fly in my statistical soup

While I'm on one about misleading statistics let me congratulate yell.com on a job well done. Your mailer landed on my desk today. Once I'd figured out where the copy was I saw that the average new business enquiries for businesses in our category of Yellow Pages is over 85 per month. Now we all know that over 85 means 86 but hey! 85 new biz enquiries is bloody good. So I read on. It seems the average of 85 was based on a survey of 3,000 UK adults per month (I'm starting to think we need a bigger ad in Yellow Pages)...over a ten year period. Excuse me? Why do I care how many new business enquiries people were getting in 1996? In a week that has been filled with shysters and snake oil salesmen, Yell you are a shining example of why Bill Hicks told anyone who works in marketing to go kill themselves.

It's a small world (or so some people think)

Above: A Post Office Telecoms researcher giving it large

Post Office Telecoms have found the perfect voice. This may come as a surprise if you consider yourself to have a good voice and weren't approached to be part of their rigorous study but they decided that they only needed to listen to 50 voices to find perfection. Since they were searching for the perfect male and female voices they hopefully listened to 25 of each though being the Post Office they probably told the researchers that 1 woman and 49 men or any combination between 1 of one and 49 of the other would suffice.

Given the world's population is around 6.7 billion, even allowing for mutes and babies, a sample of 50 doesn't quite seem enough to qualify your findings as the perfect voice.

Arse Cherry

Oh, the immature-schoolboy humour that can be derived from rudely shaped fruit...



I shall keep it on my desk until it goes green and furry.

April Tomfoolery

And so it comes around every year. The day when the national media emblazon some cunningly-disguised spoof article across their collective front pages and entertain us all with the wit that only men with the power of Rupert Murdoch can muster.

This year the BBC showed some imagination with footage of flying penguins migrating to South America. The Telegraph on the other hand, showed none by pinching the same story. The Express had us rolling on the floor with a picture of Big Ben as a digital clock. Oh the mirth. Still, rather surprisingly they didn't try to claim that this was in any way at all related to the death of Princess Diana. Apparently in their eyes, everything else in the world is.

BMW kept up their tradition of posting a spoof advert in all the national papers - this time extolling the virtues of a new piece of technology available on forthcoming Beemers; namely Canine Repellant Alloy Protection. A device designed to incapacitate any weak-bladdered dog who cared to pass water upon your shiny wheels by the delivery of a modest electric current.

The Daily Mail, however, seemed to think we'd all find it amusing to know that Alistair Darling buys National Lottery tickets at his local newsagents. The big joke, apparently, being that he doesn't.

I can't be the only person to think that the Mail hasn't quite grasped the concept of a spoof news article here. Given their political standpoint and usual readership, it would be far more amusing to see something along these lines:




Perhaps they were concerned that if they were to run such a headline, 80% of their readers would cancel their subscriptions. (Given that most of the other 20% are those who would prefer to read a broadsheet, but don't have long enough arms.)

Following this, I suppose they would have to rectify their position by publishing this explanatory headline the next day:



Having done that, they would have lost two-days worth of headline space that could have been devoted to maligning people who weren't born in the Home Counties, leaving their readers with the impression that they'd turned into a bunch of soft Lefties.

Given such grave circumstances it must be with considered foresight that they chose instead to insinuate that that Chancellor of the Exchequer enjoys gambling.

Don't you just hate it when politics stands in the way of comedy.

Global warming and global cooling

Eggs come out of a hen's warm body and lay in the thermal insulation of a straw nest for days until the farmer or his wife collect and eat them. Apples grow in the warmth of the summer sun, basking in its life giving rays for 12 or more hours a day. The local Co-operative stores apples and eggs in the chiller cabinet. Hang on a minute, what do they know that Mother Nature doesn't? 

Good with food? I don't think so. Just the same as the other supermarkets only they don't pretend to be the saviour of wholesome food and fair play.

Oh and the Co-op's beer is always warm. Not enough room in the chiller cabinet.

When a brain scientist suffers a stroke

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist. 12 years ago she suffered a stroke and got to experience her brain from the inside out. The New York Times has a story and a fascinating video of Dr Taylor talking about her experience. Watch it here.

Daily Mail headline watch Day 1

Have you ever uttered the words 'the world's gone mad' as you read about the latest outbreak of political correctness assaulting the sensibilities of every right-minded person? Thankfully we have the Daily Mail to restore the balance. The Mail's headline writers regularly restore our faith in human nature with their ability to get to the nub of the problem in half a dozen words. Even more impressive is their ability to include reference to any women or foreigners in their headlines whatever the story. Let's take a look at a selection from today's Daily Mail. We've put some of our own into the list just to see if we could cut it as a Daily Mail sub-editor. Try and spot the real ones from the fakes. The answer is at the bottom.

1.) Top female lawyer destroyed by City bullies could get record £13 million pay out

2.) British wildlife student dies in front of girlfriend minutes after being bitten by black mamba snake

3.) Pupils to swear oath of allegiance to the Queen or face exclusion

4.) Britain braced for more storms from across the Channel

5.) House prices fall for the first time in 10 years - many blame immigrants for difficulty selling their homes

6.) The primary school where pupils speak 41 different languages

The real headlines are 1, 2, and 6.

Interesting animation

The power of words

Nice article in the Washington Post about the power of words in politics. Read it here.

HTFU and take a chance

Every human existence is judged in reference to every other human existence, now and that has gone before it. You judge yourself in this pantheon of mankind, and the world judges you too. The drunken tramp pissing at the side of a busy road. The despot who orders the murder of men, women, and children. The drug dealer at the school gates. The mugger, the thief, the rapist, and the pedophile. The lazy bastard who hasn't done a day's work in 10 years. Stand them in a row and compare yourself. How are you doing? Feeling pretty good about yourself? Well you are also judged against the great artists, the leaders, the visionaries, and those who define courage. The student who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. The peasant farmer who took on the Gestapo. The teenager who says 'this is wrong' in the face of peer pressure. How you doing now? 

For the past 10 or so years I've been reading and hearing that ideas are the new currency. Innovate or die. I'm not sure the rest of the world was reading the same things. Mediocrity is alive and thriving. Sure it may not be making iPhone type of money but it's putting Mondeos under the backsides of grey suited nay-sayers all over the country. So what's the problem? People are the problem. Too many people have a problem separating an idea from the person who presented it. An idea may be valid or it may be flawed, that's the nature of ideas and part of the whole process of having and developing innovations (or even advertising that doesn't read like it could have been created 20 years ago). People aren't putting the ideas out there because they are scared that if the idea fails, they fail too because it was their idea. Much as it dismays me, this doesn't come as a surprise. Maybe the stakes aren't high enough. Maybe if the consequence was life or death people would behave differently. I doubt it. I've written here in the past about courage and creativity being linked. The thing that's bothering me now is how the freedom that mankind paid so high a price for in the 20th century is being cast aside. Camus said 'Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better'. If you aren't trying to be better, aren't you throwing that hard won freedom away? HTFU and take a chance.

I've just invented time travel

I posted the 'Trial of David Thewlis' this morning and it's appeared further down the page. I know some of you techno heads will say that it's posted with a 2nd Feb date because that's when I started uploading the video. Well enjoy your cynicism. The Earth isn't flat as you'll see in the future. I know, I've just come back from there.

Some Quotations

People have been sending me quotations today. Perhaps there's something in the air. Anyway, here's a selection to think about.

"The strongest guard is placed at the gateway to nothing...Maybe because the condition of emptiness is too shameful to be divulged."

F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows faith does not prove anything."

Friedrich Nietzsche

"The only easy day was yesterday."

Sign at the Naval Special Warfare Centre, Coronado, USA

"Baring your teeth is a sign of weakness amongst primates. When someone smiles at me, all I see is a chimpanzee begging for its life."

Anon

"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better."

Albert Camus

i-Tourettes

There's been an outbreak of acute i-Tourettes Syndrome around here today. Like the less common Tourette's Syndrome, sufferers of i-Tourette's can be heard shouting obscenities and graphic descriptions of the parents of the people who design computers and software packages. They can't help it. Computers have that effect on some people. 

Frosty the Snowman 2/2/08 - 3/2/08

The trial of David Thewlis

The case for the defence:

The case for the prosecution:

'Beckett on Film' available from Amazon.

'MacGowran Speaking Beckett' available here.

Copyright material used for the purpose of criticism or review.

All rights remain the property of the respective creators (see links above for details of who created what).

Any complaints or comments email: hello@pigsandbees.com

Murder most fowl

It is a matter of public record that Claudius killed the King of Denmark. Lesser known is the fact that the king’s son, Hamlet, was murdered by the actor Michael Maloney. I bore witness to this crime as I sat in the front row at West Yorkshire Playhouse, several years ago, wondering if the stage daggers would shuffle me off this mortal coil. Maloney could barely have offended the audience more (save the clown who stood up clapping at the end while the rest of us wondered whether we should clap our hands or slap the midget on the stage across his chops) had he been rubbing an emery board across his finger nails as he began Hamlet’s soliloquy, pausing in his recital to blow the dust from his murdering talons and glance up at the saps who had parted with hard earned cash to watch such a pitiful performance. Mel Gibson might be a hard drinking religious loon but he at least made an effort when he took on the part.

 

This incident was brought to mind by another murder I was unfortunate enough to witness only last week. The scene of the crime was my own home. The victim was Samuel Beckett’s ‘End Game’. Now bad actors are ten a penny. I’ve had the pleasure to make radio commercials with actors of both fame and anonymity over the years; neither guarantees a good performance. In fact the only common trait of the performances that stick in my mind are the dour nature of the people who performed them. No matter. It was worth being subjected to a scowl to hear my work brought to life with such flair. I digress. The perpetrators of the massacre of ‘End Game’ were none other than Michael Gambon and David Thewliss, two thesps who would surely feature in any programme of ‘Britain’s 100 Best Actors’ that ITV cared to make. A trial date has yet to be set. I’m too busy at the moment to capture the segments of video that will show you what I’m talking about. The director, Connor McPherson, was just a pup when he decided to aid and abet the prime suspects. Being under the age of critical responsibility prevents him standing trial. Court is adjourned.

But is it Art?

The Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, often a scene of controversy is currently displaying a work by Doris Salcedo entitled Shibboleth. This is a groundbreaking work ('scuse the pun... you'll get it shortly!) even by Tate Modern's standards.

So what has Salcedo placed in the hall to tantalise us with in the name of Art? Well... nothing. In fact, she's taken something away. The exhibit consists of a 167 metre long crack, smashed into the concrete floor of the exhibition space.



According to the Tate's website:

Salcedo has created a subterranean chasm that stretches the length of the Turbine Hall. The concrete walls of the crevice are ruptured by a steel mesh fence, creating a tension between these elements that resist yet depend on one another. By making the floor the principal focus of her project, Salcedo dramatically shifts our perception of the Turbine Hall’s architecture, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur.

And furthermore:

Shibboleth asks questions about the interaction of sculpture and space, about architecture and the values it enshrines, and about the shaky ideological foundations on which Western notions of modernity are built.

Maybe I'm old fashioned but is this really art? By my experience this would make Yorkshire Water a Warhol-esque factory of prolific artists, routinely shifting my perception of our local road system, subtly subverting its claims to monumentality and grandeur. The only difference as far as I can see is that Yorkshire Water would dig the 167 metre long trench and then sit around it drinking tea for three weeks before filling it in again, only to reopen it two days later when geysers of water begin to sluice out of the road.

By a similar note, Time Team regularly create similar artistic works in the grandest of settings and then further embellish them with a scattering of historical pottery, Cornish yokels and an overly-enthusiastic Baldrick. Now that's far more entertaining.

I'm not adverse to controversial art, but it has to have talent and creativity behind it. You can't just point some contractors with pneumatic drills at a bit of concrete and call it art afterwards.

The purpose of art is to make you wonder about the mind and the hand that created it, to push your perceptions or make you think in a different way about something. I'm afraid I don't think any differently of a hole in the floor whether it was created by an 'Artist', and Earthquake, or Yorkshire Water. It's a hole in the floor. I've seen them before. I could even make my own if I really wanted to - which brings me to the main point; Art should be unique. That's the whole point of it.

I've seen exhibitions by Henri Moore and Barbara Hepworth, both distinguished and renowned sculptors. But when you bring an exhibition together the art loses its impact because it is no longer unique. To see a whole room full of bits of stuff with holes through them (bronze or marble, respectively) just makes me think "Can't you do anything else?"

Contemporary artists seem to want to pander to eccentricity and court controversy because it is fashionable to do so - creating works to give the tabloid headlines something to take the piss out of ("Aah the plebs will never understand our art..") and the Broadsheet columnists something to wring their collective hands in despair over - just like a teenager dying their hair to annoy granddad. It's like the nutter who gets on the bus, or like Rick from the Young Ones. "I'm mad me. Look at me, I'm a bit crazy, You never know what I'm going to do, I'm a nutter!"

Proper artists don't admit to being crazy, they just are. They probably don't even realise it. That's what makes them geniuses. This point is made perfectly by the words of the great Salvador Dali:

"The Only difference between me and a madman is that I'm not mad."

Genius.

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!

The beauty of the simplest language

When asked if it was hard being a writer Oscar Wilde reportedly described the scrivener's plight as such: yesterday I spent the entire day inserting a comma; today I spent the entire day taking it out again. Crafting, chin rubbing, never being satisfied or quite sure. Call it what you will. The need to change things is as strong as the need to write something in the first place, and just as inexplicable. Don't confuse this with the need to change things for the sake of changing them. There are plenty of people who feel compelled to change words just because they can. Usually into something trite or over-grand in the hope that it will make them seem something they are not. If you really have something useful to offer, fill the blank page yourself and change away. Craft it. Rewrite it in half as many words. Then rewrite it using half as many words again.

The Quicktime movie above is an extract of the late Jack MacGowran reading from Samuel Beckett's 'Watt'. You'll either get it or you won't. Not many did when Beckett was trying to get published. I guess some things never change.

You can buy a CD of MacGowran reading Beckett here.

Why don't Amazon accept Book Tokens?

Amazon is convenient. It has a better choice than the local Waterstones. But Amazon doesn't accept Book Tokens. Why? Book Tokens  have a unique serial number. I could enter this number on my Amazon order and the token be logged as spent on a central database at National Book Tokens HQ. If I try to redeem it in Waterstones or the local independent book shop (are there any left?) it would come up as spent when they entered it into the system. Not difficult, is it? So why can't I use my Book Tokens with Amazon?