Talking With Gurus

Attending a drinks reception last night with members of the Austin Technology Council I found myself standing next to Bruce Perens. Bruce is best known as the primary author of The Open Source Definition, one of the formative documents of the Open Source movement. He was telling our little group about how his life has changed since he wrote his now famous document while working as a Linux programmer at Pixar.

Bruce is a quietly spoken, but wonderfully witty man and described the sequence of events that have changed his career as "like living a drug dream". He recounted the tale of how he had an email from a fellow member of an online Linux discussion board asking if he could suggest a technique for getting Linux to run in a particular way. Bruce invested a couple of hours testing this approach (stealing the time out of his day at Pixar to do it) and then sent the answer back to the original enquirer. "That works great" came the thankful response "we will be using this on the next shuttle mission!" So, while most of his colleagues at Pixar were busy trying to animate Buzz Lightyear, Bruce's hobby project was orbiting the Earth.

Once he got going, Bruce was fabulously indiscrete about many of the names within the IT industry, but I couldn't possibly repeat any of it here. He also has an oddly slanted view on life - atypical of a propellerhead. Here are a few examples. On his home life: "I am in a mixed marriage - my wife is a Windows user, and I still sleep with her without undergoing ritual purification afterwards." On his current position: "I am the most famous unemployed developer in the world." On his young son: "Bruce 2.0 is now 3." On his house: "I live in a house with a forest in front of it. The forest isn't mine, but it is there."

A very funny, and brilliant man.

By the pricking of my thumbs......

Did my blog have a diabolical visitor today?


Oh my goodness, I saw this number, so it must be me!

"Out, damned spot! out, I say!"* "for thou art a naughty dog."**

*From Macbeth - 1605 - Act V. - Scene 1. - Rows: 38
** From the forthcoming "Spot the Dog and the Dirty Carpet"

Get Spammers to Spam the Spammers

Andy has had a brilliant idea! He has found a low tech, low cost way of giving the spam producing companies a sense of what it is like to be spammed. We the victims can use their tricks against them. The joy and subtlety of his approach is that it is not one of the Direct Action techniques like fraudulently completing an online sign-up on behalf of someone else - the proposed method merely gives exposure to an email address which is already in the public domain, and lets the natural process of the spammers art take its inevitable course.

Lets look at the big picture. The best way to combat spam is to hit the originators where it hurts, and that means do something that costs them money thus destroying their business model. One way of doing this is of course to take them to court, but who has the time and finance to do that? Alternatively we can exert people power by turning the process in on itself. You know how annoying it is to deal with spam in your inbox, well if the Sales and Marketing team at a large company get as much spam as we all do, then the cost of processing it will become unacceptable to them and they might just get the message

So, the plan here is simple and cunning. Most spam lists are derived from automated processes which trawl websites and look for strings which contain the commercial at sign - you know the one I mean, the letter 'a' in a circle. If we all start including blog entries which contain the full and accurate email addresses for companies from which spam is emanating - such as an otherwise respectable Anti-Virus vendor for example - then in theory those addresses will get included in the spam databases and perhaps the perpetrators will begin to get a taste of their own medicine. There is little point in using the actual email address from which the spam comes, that is probably some poor "work at home" person on $1 per hour just trying to make a living. You need to find an email address, preferably in sales or corporate communications, for the company on whose behalf these homeworkers are sending the mail.

Here is my first batch of addresses of companies on whose behalf I have been sent unsolicited mail. Please do not use or write to these email addresses, they are here for information only.

Internet Keywords - info@2000notes.com; Traffic Magnet - Sarah_Williams@trafficmagnet.com; Hosters Outlet - promo@hostersoutlet.com; Book of the Month Club - customerservice@bomc.com; Pills Medical - success@pillsmedical.net; Art Price - info@artauction.net; BizReferenceWorld - sales@biz-reference-world.com; US Home Workers - info@ushomeworkers.com; Symantec - lcross@symantec.com and glhaldeman@symantec.com; BestSalesChannel - sales@bestsaleschannel.com .

Bats About Austin

I am here in Austin, Texas for a week. One of the natural wonders of this part of the world is the bat roost at Congress Avenue bridge. Right now it is home to some 750,000 Mexican free-tailed bats, thousands of which are female, pregnant and have migrated North to give birth. As a result the bat population will increase to up to 1.5 million bats at the peak of the summer season making this the largest urban bat colony in North America.

While bats have called Austin home for many years, it was after renovations to the Congress Avenue bridge over Town Lake in 1980 that they found their favorite hang out. The architect of the bridge included narrow but deep openings in the design which, unexpectedly, turned out to be a perfect accommodation.

Last evening I set off for the bridge just a little before sunset to watch the bats emerge like a black cloud from the crevices of the bridge. Before they fly you can hear them twittering to each other. Then, just as it is getting dark, looking down towards the water of the lake the viewer becomes aware of the flutter of leathery wings under the soft glow of the sodium street lighting. The exodus lasts for 25 minutes and at times it seems as if there are hundreds of bats swooping past, all of them just a blur. They head off along the shore of the lake and into the surrounding countryside in search of food. It is estimated that the bats consume from 10,000 to 30,000 insects per night, which is just as well as there are millions of mosquitoes on the wing right now.

Word Competition Update

Only two entries so far (thanks Colin and Gerry) for the competition I announced last Thursday, but what we lack in quantity is certainly made up for with quality. There is still plenty of time to enter so read on to find out how you can get involved and win a prize.

The competition is very simple. Take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing only one letter and supply a new definition. See the original post for some examples. Put your entry as a Comment below, that way we all get to enjoy your contribution.

The best definition (in the opinion of the judge) wins. Simple as that!

Mirror Project

I have just had another couple of pictures accepted by the Mirror Project. The first was taken in the window of an Irish Pub, the second in the gardens of the Texas State Capitol. To see all the pictures I have submitted so far you will need to follow this link which will produce the results to a search.

Atonement

I finally finished Ian McKewan's Atonement on the 3 flights it took to reach Austin. A very thought provoking novel and definitely better than Enduring Love but I am not sure why it was mooted as being a possible Nobel Prize for Literature winner. As usual I will try to review without giving anything away to those who have yet to read it.

The story is very slow to get going and you get halfway through the thickness of the book before you get to the pivotal event around which everything else hangs. From then on it is a compelling read and even if I hadn't been trapped in seat 27A of the flight BA129 I would probably have finished the second of the three sections in a single sitting. The final section of the book tied everything together neatly, but I found it just a little too twee. It did, however, yield up one final twist to the plot which causes the reader to reconsider their interpretation of the whole of the second section.

There are many thoughts which arise from the book - about the futility and inhumanity of war, and about how in response to a shocking event people can be made to believe and then build evidence to support the most unlikely assumptions. The novel then explores how hard it is to reverse that process and undermine what has become an item of common (and legally reinforced) knowledge to reveal the real truth.

In summary, read the book, but expect a slow start, a gory and disturbing middle, and a fairytale ending.

Deep in the Heart of Texas

I am off to the USA in the morning, next blog will most probably be filed from Austin, Texas.

In Memoriam

The village is full of mourners this morning. Hundreds of people gathered into our tiny village church. Here to pay their respects to Terry Lloyd.

Competition Time! - New Word Order

Each year the Washington Post asks readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing only one letter and supply a new definition. Here are some of this year's winners:

Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
Giraffiti: Vandalism painted very, very high.
Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
Glibido: All talk and no action.
Dopeer Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

And, the winner was:

Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Now its your turn. I was thinking about what an erudite bunch bloggers are and so I have decided to open the Sapientum Online version of this contest. Lets have your submissions now. There is a juicy prize on offer for the winner (Actually I haven't worked out what it is yet but I will soon and it will be worth the effort).

Rules:
1) All entries to be made in the comments below, that way we all get to enjoy them as they come in.
2) The closing date for entries is a palindromic 5pm (BST) on Monday 5th May (5pm on 5th of 5th! geddit?) 2003 (bugger!)
3) The judges decision is final. No appeals, squabbling or anything like that. Moaners will be disqualified.

Get thinking and get submitting, and may the best blogger win!

A Giant Leap For Mankind

I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk by Don Cameron. Don is the owner of Cameron Balloons in Bristol and is a globally respected balloonist and aviation pioneer. His company has designed and manufactured the balloons used in most of the successful record attempts of the last decade, including the successful Round the World record attempt made by Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones in Breitling Orbiter 3. Don himself is no stranger to record attempts as he was one of the first pilots to attempt a trans-Atlantic crossing by balloon.

During his talk Don spoke about a forthcoming record attempt for which his company, again, will be providing the aircraft. It is called Le Grand Saut, or "The Super Jump", and it is the dream of 58-year-old Frenchman, Michel Fournier who will attempt to set the absolute skydiving record with a parachute jump from some 25 miles (40 kilometers) altitude.

On D-day (Dive-day), the stratospheric balloon will head skyward and slung beneath it will be Fournier seated in a pressurized capsule, essentially a tiny one man spacecraft that will protect him against Ultra Violet rays and the tremendous cold. It will contains the necessary oxygen, instruments of measurement and control, as well as flight data recording instruments including sound and image recording - all of which will be controlled from the jump HQ on earth.

Fournier himself will be wearing a special airtight and ultra-low temperature space suit, he is to free fall for a little over six minutes. During that time, he will reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.7 and break the sound barrier on his way down to terra firma. Don Cameron assured us that precautions have been taken to protect the skydiver as he slices through the upper stratosphere with a "bang" - breaking the sound barrier. Here is a picture of what a plane looks like as it goes through the sound barrier, so I will leave it to your imagination as to what Mr Fournier will look like. He will also be jumping from the edge of the earth's atmosphere and reaching speeds which are similar to those experienced by the Shuttle on re-entry, and we all know what happened to the last one of those when a minute crack appeared in the heat protective surface.

This all sounds incredibly scary to me but Fournier is a former colonel of the French army reserve and a parachute officer with 8,500 jumps in his log book, over a hundred sky of which were dives from very high altitude, so we must assume he knows what he is doing. Over 40 years ago, U.S. Air Force Colonel, Joe Kittinger jumped from 102,800 feet (31,333 meters), a high altitude record that still stands today, but is unofficial. If he successful, Fournier will top Kittinger's 1960 pioneering jump, diving from 130,000 feet (40,000 meters). Assuming he is successful this daredevil will then hold four world records.

- the altitude record for free-fall;
- the altitude record for human balloon flight;
- the time record for longest free-fall;
- and a the speed record for the fastest free-fall.

I will report again on this suicide mission brave endeavor as launch date approaches. Lets just hope he lives to jump again and doesn't become (as they say in the parachuting fraternity) a strawberry blob-job.

Doing the Right Thing at the Barbican

This spring the Barbican in London has been running a series of extraordinary live events under the title of OnlyConnect. The event I attended last night was part of this series, and also part of a week long retrospective of the films of Spike Lee. The format of the evening was a live performance of the film music Terence Blanchard has written for the films of Lee. At the back of the stage was a huge screen onto which were projected still images from nine movies. The BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Blanchard, provided the main musical content and they were fronted by the Terence Blanchard sextet with the man himself giving us a startling display of his jazz credentials on Trumpet. Vocal numbers were performed by a variety of singers including the stunningly powerful Dianne Reeves (who received two standing ovations) Floetry, and David McAlmont.

The show was introduced by Spike Lee and he began with a tribute to the late Nina Simone. Dianne Reeves then sang "Four Women" while the screen displayed a monochrome image of Simone aged about 20.

At times the mixture of image and music was perfectly in harmony. Blanchard's sweet melodic tunes and hot blues numbers were given a backdrop of scenes from Bamboozled and Mo' Better Blues. Images from Four Little Girls were accompanied by uplifting, anthemic sounds. Many of the numbers played stood well on their own and the visual content was almost redundant. Then sometimes it became all to obvious that what we were listening to was music intended to sit behind action and dialogue, this point brought home as divorced from the "fade to black" the tunes came to an abrupt and unnatural end.

We were also treated to a performance of music from the forthcoming film 25th Hour which has it's UK premiere at the Barbican on Friday. A dark, stirring theme at times reminiscent of Uranus from Holst's Planet Suite.

Dianne Reeves was undoubtedly given, and gave, the most powerful numbers of the evening. However the polished gems were provided by David McAlmont, backed by a string quartet on two numbers - most remarkable of which was "People in Search of a Life" from the film Clockers which was accompanied by images of gang warfare.

The final ten minutes of the evening were given over to Lee's powerful film Malcom X. The only motion film show of the evening was a full five minute eulogy to Malcom X and featured an address by Nelson Mandela. The atmosphere of the concert hall became emotionally charged as the predominantly black audience responded to the messages being delivered from the screen. I felt suddenly excluded, able to understand, but not viscerally appreciate the power of the moment. Finally the screen went black and David McAlmont took the lead with the orchestra, and Terence Blanchard on Trumpet, for the closing number of the evening, Sam Cooke's A Change is Gonna Come.

A truly memorable evening.

Happy Saint George's Day

Wear your rose with pride today. He may have been born in Eastern Europe, he may have served in the Roman Army and been beheaded by Diocletian for protesting against the Emperor's persecution of Christians, he may never have been within a mile of a dragon (but then again who has?), or rescued a princess in distress, or even trodden on this green and sceptr'd isle, but Saint George is England's patron saint and we should all be very proud - apparently!

What type of ACORN are you?

I have just today discovered ACORN classification. It seems that the area where I live is classified as Type 2: Villages with Wealthy Commuters. Well that sounds about right for the village, but do I fit in to this catch-all classification? Lets have a look at the data.

According to the summary, people who share my postcode:

Have LOW ITV viewing - Check!
Ownership of stocks and shares is HIGH - Check! (explains my lack of wealth these days)
Microwave ownership is LOW - Check! (I have no room for one)
2+ Car Ownership is HIGH - Erm Check!

Seems like I am right at home here. But wait, thats just the headlines - I read on and become less convinced.

"ACORN Type 2 contains many large homes with 40% having 7 or more rooms" - No, try two-up, three down.

"The majority of homes (60%) are detached" - No, end of terrace here.

"The readership of The Telegraph is 89% above average" - Not in this house it isn't.

"Ownership of greenhouses is twice the national rate, horticultural pursuits are popular." - I have a Growbag containing 2 tomato plants. Does that count?

"Wines and spirits are more popular than beer, in particular port, sherry, gin and vermouth" - Oh yes, I crack open a bottle of each everytime the Vicar calls.

On balance I guess I am untypical of the type to live here, yet I do. So it is not surprising I have been looking to move for 18 months to a more fitting Type 6: (Agricultural villages, home based workers), or Type 31 (Home owners in older properties, younger workers) area where I just know I will feel more at home.

Which reminds me, its time to harass my Estate Agent again.

End of an Era

A brief comment to note the passing of Nina Simone who died last night in Carry-le-Rouet, France.

Two Thousand More Words Saved

I have just added a couple of pictures to my 1000 Words Project collection. This now brings the total to 55 images.

One day soon I will work out a way of displaying all the images in the project in the format of an online album. Until then you can take pot-luck and see a random selection by clicking on the camera in the column on the left. Once the frame has loaded and you have finished viewing you can see another image by pressing the refresh button (normally F5 on your keyboard) it will then load a different image, or the same one again - as it is a totally random selection you never know what will display next.

Enjoy

A Trumpet Voluntary

London is a city full of character and diversity.

I was walking through the streets of Soho yesterday afternoon I heard the sound of a solo Trumpet being played. At first I couldn't make out where the sound was coming from, then, as I came to the corner of Dean Street and Old Compton Street I saw a middle-aged man, standing on top of a post box, playing to a crowd of amused tourists and passers by. The musician was taking requests and would play a tune of your choosing for a small donation.

He was there for about 20 minutes or so, before the rain showers set in and I retired to a bar for a coffee. I hope he similarly went off to spend his hard earned gains - no doubt at the local off license. The alternative is that the police moved him on, they are normally pretty hot on buskers, particularly when they are as obvious as this one. The excuse lawful reason normally used is that the busker is causing an obstruction. It seems that by standing still on the public pavement one is able to cause an obstruction - mainly because people stop and stare so other pedestrians have to move into the street, thus putting themselves in danger.

If you know this part of London you will know that it is quasi-pedestrianised anyway and people are milling all over the streets so only the brave or foolhardy motorist will venture to drive through. By standing on the post box this guy made sure it was not him that was the obstruction - but I wonder if there is an equally pernicious offence of misuse of Royal Mail property. The UK is, after all, a country which can still levy the crime of Treason for anyone interfering with the postal service.

As I write they are probably preparing the gallows in Newgate for the musical merrymaker.

Culture Vulture

I have been having a bit of a cultural day today. Having decided I really ought to do something useful with the Easter weekend, I visited two exhibitions in London.

The first exhibition was Ron Mueck's "Making Sculpture" at the National Gallery, a small but stunning exhibit of four of the artists recent sculptures. Mueck had a training in model making from an earlier career working as a special effects artist for film and television, but is now best known as sculptor of the human figure. He came to prominence as one of his works "Dead Dad" was included in the 1997 exhibition 'Sensation' which was a showcase of works in Charles Saatchi's personal collection.

Mueck's figures are initially modelled in clay and then cast in fibre-glass or silicone, with individual details such as hair or fingernails applied afterwards. The exhibit contains some early drafts and a video showing the creative process. The result is an astonishing realism which make the wax effigies at Madame Tussaud's look clumsy efforts by comparison. However, as lifelike as these sculptures are, Mueck plays around with scale and proportion. The "Pregnant Woman" figure is at least ten feet tall making her seem powerfully imposing to the viewer. Another sculpture of a naked man is probably one third of actual scale but he is seated in a full size rowing boat so you get the feeling that this little chap is lost and alone in a big ocean.

Entry to the Mueck exhibit is free and it lasts until 22 June 2003. Do go along, I can thoroughly recommend it.

The second exhibition was not so enjoyable, but only because of it's theme. The Photographer's Gallery is currently housing a collection of photo-journalistic images of the conflict between Palestine and Israel. This is not for the squeamish as the contributing photographers have spared no sensibilities in capturing the harsh realities of war.

I thought I might have become temporarily immune to pictures of war and suffering after the almost omnipresent coverage of the Iraqi conflict during the past few weeks but the images shown in this collection are disturbing, possibly because they are still. Frozen moments in time. One of the contributors, Bruno Stevens, depicts the human cost of the conflict in his images of victims carried away in body bags and his portraits of dead civilians, from both sides of the dispute.

If you are feeling you have become desensitized to the scale of human suffering and man's inhumanity to man in the name of what is "right", then go along. If you have had your fill of shock and gore, then I advise you to stay away - but don't miss the forthcoming Photo London exhibit which opens on 8th May for one week only!

It Pays to Shop Around

I bought myself a new toy today - but only because, as they used to say in the films, I got an offer I couldn't refuse.

I had become aware of the Sony Cyber-shotU cameras when I recently received some spam mail from Sony. On reading the mail it looked too good to be true. A 2 megapixel camera, complete with auto-focus and flash, with movie and playback settings and an LCD screen so you could see what you have taken and all in a package which could slip into a pocket without really being noticed. I had sort of decided to see how much they would be in Duty Free the next time I pass through on my way to Texas later this month, and certainly had no plans to buy one just yet.

Retail, this little beauty should cost 249.99 pounds sterling, and many of the shops along London's Tottenham Court Road were selling it at a considerably discounted 189 pounds. Meanwhile Amazon has it on offer for ten pounds less at 179 pounds but you have to add postage and packing onto that. So, with the Amazon price as my starting point I decided to to a bit of haggling with the store folk along TCR to see just how good a deal I could manage.

First I managed to get a shop down to match the Amazon price, and I felt quite pleased. The next shop I went to said they could match that. I told them that wasn't really the point and I might as well go back to the other shop. Suddenly they dropped the price to 175 pounds. I told them I would think about it. A few more shops along the road (going north) and I got the price down to 170 pounds. "OK" I said, "I will take one in Blue". Sadly they only had Black and so I decided to push my luck. I told the assistant I really wanted a Blue one so would think about it and come back - he then said if I was prepared to take a Black model he would throw in an extra Memory Stick. So how could I possibly refuse? I purchased the camera there and then, including the 128mb memory stick and spent the rest of the afternoon in London taking pictures of anything and everything. With a 256 picture capacity on the Memory Stick there is no real need to think twice about snapping a picture.

If you are thinking in buying a new electronic gadget, and can get to London, do take a couple of hours to walk along Tottenham Court Road and see what kind of deal you can get. The whole experience has left me feeling really rather good, but wondering what kind of mark-up there is on most electronic items that a store can afford to sell at 70 pounds below the recommended retail price AND give away some memory.

Buy and Die

I have never been a smoker, mainly because I choked and coughed for about an hour after having my first drag on a cigarette whilst on a geography field trip to the Peak District at the age of fifteen. That experience was enough to convince me that whatever else smoking was purported to be; cool, adult, sophisticated, etc, to me it was painful and tasted disgusting. As a result I have not smoked since.

Today while in a newsagent buying a copy of Word I happened to notice the health warnings which adorn packets of cigarettes these days. Prior to this I had only been aware of the small discrete labels warning about possible effects of smoking causing "health problems". It seems modern labelling is more stark and direct, taking up nearly half the space on the packet as containing such words as "Smoking seriously harms you and others around you." and the short and blunt "Smoking Kills" which leaves no-one in any doubt about the health choice they are making as they peel the cellophane wrapper of another box of coffin nails.

Disappointment x 2

You are looking at the blog of a miffed man! I am miffed on two counts.

Firstly, I drove all the way into London last night to attend a meeting of Webloggers which was to be held at the Candid Cafe in Islington. After 2 hours of sitting in traffic I arrived a little before 7pm. The place was deserted so I thought I must be first and decided to wait. I sat there for 45 minutes and not one other blogger turned up. What a complete waste of time. I am therefore unable to answer the questions I posed in yesterday's post. I don't know what bloggers talk about when the meet because clearly they never do!

Secondly, as I sat there waiting I thought I would compose a little blog full of hate and venom about how unreliable people are these days, and how no-one seems to have any respect for other people's time (time = life!). The only internet connected device I had with me was my PocketPC powered O2 XDA, but I have blogged from that before and although it is a bit fiddly it does at least allow me to capture thoughts and post from the field. However, I entered the blogger.com URI and was greeted with a message telling me that my browser is not supported. Funny, it was supported and worked quite well only a week ago. So it now seems that in order to use Blogger one needs to be sitting in front of a PC or MAC running the very latest version of the mainstream browsers available for that platform. Hardly an improvement in service. Thankfully Blogger are now offering a mechanism whereby blogs entries may be submitted by email. I must go set that up now and then at least I will be able to vent next time I am stood up by not one, but five other people!

Luckily I was able to salvage the evening. I drove down to the Covent Garden area and had a drink (strictly non-alcoholic) in a bar where I met some really nice people with whom I talked the hind legs off a donkey.

Meeting other Bloggers

I am going to the London Weblogger Meetup this evening. A curious decision to attend such a function and sit inside on what will likely be the most beautiful evening so far this year. I need to leave in about an hour to be sure of getting there on time and so I will be ploughing through the London traffic on my way to the Angel in the heat and fumes.

I think I would rather be sitting in my garden working my way down a cool bottle of Chardonnay. However I have said I will attend and I don't like to let people down. I am only hoping that with the beautiful weather we are having I won't be the only one who will turn up. I shall be well miffed if everyone else who has said they are going suddenly finds a more pressing engagement.

Come to think of it, what do bloggers talk about when they are together? Technology? Creative writing? Will we all be speaking in pithy and amusing sentences and expecting equally witty responses? I shall let you know tomorrow.

Iraquiem

So a second Gulf War has come to an apparent end without achieving either of it's originally declared objectives. This time the end-game was to have been achieved with the discovery and disposal of weapons of mass destruction, and the removal of Saddam Hussain, the dictator of the country.

As I write the situation is that the Coalition forces are in control of Basra, Baghdad and Tikrit - Saddam's birthplace and tribal power base, 175km north of the capital - but have yet to report finding either the President or his munitions.

Just like the first Gulf war the end of this conflict is very ragged. Pockets of fighting will undoubtedly continue for days if not weeks and peacekeeping troops are being trained and briefed for what I suspect will be a long tour of duty. Meanwhile the public unrest, looting and general lawlessness, which should really have been foreseen by the leader of the coalition force, has peaked and Iraqis are slowly returning to their daily lives, some of them considerably richer than they were a few days ago, some poorer for the loss of material wealth, position, and family members.

So when will we know that the war is over? It seems there is to be no official signing of a declaration of defeat, no ritual handing over of a sword and without a real symbolic conclusion there can be no announcement that the war is over and peace has been restored. We already hear on the news that troops are being withdrawn and aircraft carriers are due to sail out of the gulf. Most significantly of all though, the media is moving on, moving away, looking for other, more exciting stories to fill the screens and pages. Iraq is a done deal, save for a few "human interest" stories which will arise in the future and the squabbling over which country's economy will benefit from the extensive rebuilding and restructuring contracts which will soon be awarded.

This was a real war, with casualties and fatalities on both sides. Significantly there were more "own goals" scored by the US forces against members of the coalition than losses inflicted by the Iraqi forces, and yet it was a conflict in which people died doing the job for which they were trained, gave their lives for a purpose, made the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of a goal for the common good. But if that goal has still not been achieved, if the common good has only partially been served, and there is no identifiably significant achievement against the originally stated intentions, then what? What are the loved ones and families to make of their loss? How can we possibly say it was a just war if the global threat which was supposed to exist cannot be found? Finally, and perhaps most significantly, suppose the UN and countries such as France, Germany and Russia are proven to have been right all along?

I hope for the sake of all those involved that the political leaders, who started this war and committed troops and armaments on the behalf of the people they were elected to represent, are able to be as eloquent and persuasive at the "end" of the conflict as they were before hand. All that has occurred must have all been for a purpose. There must be merit and justice to the fighting and loss of the last few weeks. This is necessary in part to give closure to those who have suffered loss, but also to ensure that if in the future a real threat to global peace does arise, and a coalition of forces is required to quell that threat, then the leaders of the world will be able to unite and not sound like the little boy who cried "Wolf!" one to many times.

You Can't Be Too Careful

You can't be too careful what you write in your blog can you? I like to think that my blog steers well clear of questionable content, and yet it was referred to by Google in response to the following search criteria.

"pictures men tubes up hole"

The results from this search put my innocent blog as 7th result from the top on the first page! I can explain why. Honestly!

Google found all the words it needed in two separate stories. "Pictures of men" comes from the story about Martin Parr's Love Cubes and "tubes up hole" comes from a story about my Father being on a drip in Hospital.

I can imagine the person who entered the search having to plough through the prose of my blog before becoming very disappointed that Google is so thorough in their indexing of content.

London Journey Planners

Talking to a friend of mine this evening we were discussing the effect of the congestion charge on London's traffic. My perception is that it has dramatically reduced. The net upshot of which is that the Underground is busier than it ever has been. The busses however are still not becoming popular and I posited to my friend that might be for two reasons. Firstly because people still think of the bus as being part of the traffic problem, and secondly because the routes and stops are not well understood by visitors to the Capital.

The Underground map is almost iconic. It has been reproduced on all manner of articles including postcards, umberellas, table mats and even knickers! It is a map with which people feel comfortable and can navigate with ease. There are also numerous variations on the map, and this interactive version has to be the most useful website for Londoners. Until today I was not aware of an equivalent for the London Bus, the Paul told me about the Journey Planner offered by Transport for London. Enter your start point and your destination and the planner will work out your route for you including bus changes, crossing streets and which exit to take from the tube station. Brilliant!

For those who have access to the net while mobile, there are also SMS, PDA and WAP versions available too. Now no-one has any excuse for not taking the bus while in London.

19th Century Photographer of Genius

Whilst in London yesterday my father and I had a look round the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. She was a pioneer of the 'art' of photography and as such I had studied her work for my Photography O level about 25 years ago!

Cameron was a member of the Victorian artistic gentry (her great-niece was Virginia Woolf) and her photographs are either portraits of the great and the good, or recreations of mythical and biblical scenes using friends, family and local neighbours as actors. The latter works earned her the reputation of being a 'Pre-Raphaelite photographer'. Her subjects included Arthurian illustrations for Idylls of the King (1874), and of other poems by Tennyson, Browning, Kingsley, and Shakespeare.

Among the famous people she photographed are Charles Darwin, Sir John Herschel, Alfred Tennyson and George Fredrick Watts. These life portraits make up nearly a quarter of her entire collection and whilst the pictures of English Victorian intelligentsia are interesting it is the tableaux recreations which are the most striking.

It seems Mrs Cameron was in the habit of ensnaring visitors to her homes to sit for her creations. Sitting (and some standing) was a painful and boring process as, due to the lack of light sensitivity in the photographic emulsions available at the time, the exposures lengths were in hundreds (not hundredths) of seconds. As a result there is some blurring in the photos where an actor has moved slightly. It must have been easier to keep a straight facial expression still as in all the photos the actors wear glum, almost morose expressions. Where family or friends were not thought of as suitable for a particular "part" Julia Margaret Cameron would also enlist the service of photogenic locals. Depending on whether the photo was taken at her Freshwater home on the Isle of Wight, or on the Cameron coffee plantations in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) these extras are referred to in the notes books as either peasants or natives. Regardless of their lowly status, their faces are captured in noble poses for all eternity.

The exhibition curator is Colin Ford, the former head of the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford, England. "Oh," says my father "I know him". But then I am not surprised. As I get older I am beginning to learn that there are very few people of note in the world of photography that my father hasn't met or worked with at some stage. I even saw him jostle a famous Hollywood Producer/Director once at a Royal Film Premiere, but that is another story.

Elsewhere in the gallery there are some wonderful portraits on display. The definition of what constitutes a portrait seems as if it is being stretched all the time. Some are imaginative, thought provoking, clever, or just plain daft.

If you have never been, I can thoroughly recommend a visit to the National Portrait Gallery next time you are in London.

Mirror Project

I have just had another couple of images accepted by the Mirror Project. You can see them here and here.

Dark Blue, Light Blue

Living in close proximity to the University City of Oxford, it is very difficult not to take a special interest in the annual University Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge. Although a private and amateur event the Boat Race is seen in the UK by about six million people who watch the Race live on BBC TV. The live pictures are also syndicated to TV stations all over the world giving it an estimated global audience of 400 million people in around 180 countries.

The idea for a rowing race between Oxford and Cambridge came from two student friends - Charles Merival (Cambridge) and Oxford student Charles Wordsworth (nephew of the poet William Wordsworth). On 12 March 1829, Cambridge sent a Challenge to Oxford and the race took place at Henley-on-Thames on 10 June. Oxford won and a great British institution was born.

This year's race is was the 149th for which the eighteen crew members (eight rowers and one Cox in each team) have trained six hours per day, six days per week since October for this one, winner-takes-all encounter.

The race moved from its original home in Henley early on and is now rowed over a course of 4 miles 374 yards up the River Thames in London. As such it is an epic test of endurance over more than three times the Olympic rowing distance. The Start is near to Putney Bridge and the Finish is in Mortlake, just before Chiswick Bridge. The race itself lasts roughly 17 minutes but the preparations and festivities take most of the day, including the Reserves race between the Isis and Goldie teams which is run 30 minutes before the main race.

The 2003 race was stunningly tactical with the boats alongside each other for the entire distance, at times their oars touching and clashing, the Umpires battling hard to keep the boats apart. Early on the crews faced a significant headwind and Oxford, in the dark blue boat and with the weight disadvantage, struggled to maintain their position against the light blue boat of Cambridge for the first half of the race. As such Cambridge reached Chiswick steps first, but only by a quarter of a length. In the second half of the race things went increasingly Oxford's way as the pulled ahead and were leading, first by a third, then by half a length, to within 500 yards of the finishing line. With only a minute to go Cambridge suddenly found reserves of energy from somewhere and piled on the pressure all the way through to the finishing line.

The official verdict was Oxford won by one foot! Making it closest finish in the history of the race. Prior to this race the closest (apart from a dead heat in 1877) were wins by Oxford by a canvas (c four feet) in both 1952 and 1980 Overall, Cambridge has a total of 77 wins and Oxford 71.

The tradition of the original Challenge has continued to the present day with the loser of the previous year's race issuing a Challenge to the victor for a re-match. So for the 2004 Boat Race it will be Cambridge's turn to issue the Challenge to Oxford early next March when both teams will announce their crews.

It is always a good feeling when your home team wins and I am sure there will be much celebration in the pubs and student bars of Oxford tonight.