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Three facts I learned today: Q: Which town is not only the birthplace of Baroness Bakewell, but is also the home of Lottery Street and Hollywood Towers? A: Stockport! Its inclusion in Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places To Live In The UK is therefore clearly a travesty. Have you noticed that supermarkets sell virtually everything at half price, or two-for-one these days? They still make a healthy profit – last year Tesco notched up a 10% increase in profits to make a record £3.4bn. for example, so something isn’t quite right here. Does the ‘full price’ include an exorbitant 50% profit margin
… more → It is exactly forty years since we converted from pounds, shillings and pence to decimal coinage. I was a keen coin collector in those days, and had already enthusiastically bought several sets of the new coins which were available at the Post Office as early as 1969. I also purchased Britain’s last complete set of pre-decimal coins – struck in 1953 and sealed at the Royal Mint. This comprised
… more → A report published today about 400 unwanted pregnancies in women relying on a contraceptive implant reminded me of the world population clock I wrote about some time ago. It’s a frightening experience, watching it increment every ten seconds: As a species, shouldn’t we be doing something about this? And I don’t just mean making sure implantable contraceptives actually work. How can human population growth not be the Number One Priority – above the world economic crisis, above climate change, above HIV, above every other concern which occupies our thoughts as we hurtle around the sun, trapped on this very finite ball of rock? The recent discovery of two bombs hidden in computer printers sent from Yemen, and my earlier ramblings about passwords, got me thinking. How likely was it that a Chicago synagogue would be expecting to receive a printer from Yemen where half the population are illiterate and most people are Muslims employed in agriculture? I’m not suggesting that parcel companies make that kind of value judgement before accepting consignments. However, what if the sender were required to show in advance that the recipient was expecting the item? Some kind of authorisation barcode could be generated and fixed to the parcel. Not foolproof of course, but better than the current situation where effectively anyone can send an unsolicited parcel to anyone else. I recently watched the film Enigma about the British code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park. I don’t pretend to understand the detail, but I gather that it was possible to break German secret codes using ‘cribs’ – fragments of information which provided a starting point in the search for a solution to the puzzle. It occurred to me that this WWII struggle between the code makers and code breakers is relevant to the problem of password security in the 21st century – the age of the internet and identity theft. Banks and other organisations have been quick to improve security by for example rejecting simple or obvious passwords such as ‘hello’ ’1234′ ‘letmein’ or ‘password’. Many go further than this by insisting on a password containing both uppercase and lowercase letters, and at least one numeral. This of course extends the number of possibilities beyond 26 per position and greatly increases the security of the chosen password. However – and this is where I might be revealing a glaring misunderstanding of probability and of code-breaking methods – this insistence is in itself a ‘crib’ which reduces security somewhat. Let’s assume you have a machine which generates random passwords by drawing from the alphabet (uppercase and lowercase) and numerals 0-9. This might very well come up with passwords which do not comply with the bank’s rules, even though they are truly randomly generated. So the rules mean that the number of acceptable permutations is much less than the number of possible permutations, which must make the code-breaker’s task easier. I would have thought it much better to insist on machine-generated passwords and allow them all, rather than human generated ones which conform to published rules? Liverpool is holding its first official Pride festival. So anybody who feels pride is welcome to attend, I suppose. Er, not really. Pride in what? OK we all know. There’s no need to spell it out. It’s the Liverpool **** Pride Festival. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we? Not proud enough to give it a name, it seems. Which is a shame. The omission of controversial words is a modern trend. It started with the War on ******* Terrorism of course. We became used to that one almost overnight. I can see it developing still further. How about the French government’s proposals to ban the **** ****? Or the British government’s new ***** plan? Talking of government, all right minded people agree that there should be more ******* and ***** MPs in the House of Commons. Those that don’t can ***** with a ******! What’s the definition of ‘organic’? Ten years ago it meant shrivelled spotty vegetables you wouldn’t choose to buy even if they were the last ones in the shop. Not least because they were 50% more expensive. Now everything in the supermarket has its ‘organic’ alternative. Still more expensive, but within range of those people who are not on a tight budget and are keen to save the planet whilst eating healthy food. But who defines what is organic and what is not? Shoppers who assume it means food grown without pesticides or fertilizers need to do a bit of checking if they are not to be misled. Here’s an example: Morrison’s Organic Corn Flakes. On the box it says
Such weasely phraseology would make a home-flipping MP blush. Sam Taylor Wood’s first full-length feature film tells the story of John Lennon’s teenage years. The events took place only a kilometre from my home at the time, so they hold a special fascination for me. But whether or not you were alive in the 1950′s, and regardless of where in the world you may be living now, Lennon’s childhood experiences have – indirectly – affected you. The film ends as he is preparing to go to Hamburg, and The Beatles are not mentioned by name, but they were about to shake the world in ways which nobody at the time could have foreseen. The credits soundtrack is Lennon’s Mother, an anguished elegy for his mum Julia. Her virtual abandonment of him caused so much pain, undoubtedly shaped his personality and – crucially – influenced his writing and his music. Perhaps this was the grit in the oyster, helping to produce the pearls which are the songs of Lennon and McCartney. Of course it’s impossible to imagine how the world would look now if it hadn’t been for the impact of The Beatles. But whether you listen to their music or not, they were prime movers in a post-war revolution which changed Western society and the way we think about ourselves. The film contained one or two anachronisms. Too much cigarette smoking, even for the 1950′s. Modern beer glasses, the word ‘band’ instead of ‘group’, and I don’t think ‘gig’ was in common usage. Also, before the sexual revolution, girls didn’t fuck boys, boys fucked girls. Some characters are completely omitted from the story. However, Nowhere Boy does not try to be a completely faithful historical account. The actors are not made up to be look-alikes, and the locations are sympathetic rather than accurate replicas. This is an intelligent approach which works well, and avoids over-detailing which is inevitably distracting. There are so many pitfalls when making a biopic, but Nowhere Boy avoids all of them. It’s incredibly moving, with an accomplished performance by Aaron Johnson as Lennon, and Kristin Scott Thomas as his somewhat repressed aunt Mimi. Anne-Marie Duff’s portrayal of the histrionic Julia Lennon, and David Morrissey’s Bobby Dykins are note-perfect too. A little gem of a film. Did you know that your UK driving licence, which is valid until you are 70, must be renewed every ten years? Apparently it’s because the ravages of time have to be faithfully recorded on this little bit of plastic which you don’t even need to carry when you are driving. So every decade you have to spend £4 on some more photos and send one in with £20 in the supplied envelope (which isn’t even pre-paid) to avoid a Dorian Gray-type mismatch between your actual face and the one on your licence in the drawer at home. And beware of sending off the renewal application sooner than you need because the new licence expires ten years from the date of issue, not ten years from the expiry of the old one. |
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