I have been on a summer break from blogging, but the appointment of John Bercow as Speaker interests me.

I said here earlier why I don’t like Bercow.  He’s a flipper, not of houses (although maybe that too – I haven’t been following his expenses details) but of opinions.  He adopts the opinions of whatever political tendency he thinks will get him his next leg-up.  If he continues to do that, and there is no reason to think he won’t, then the Labour Party could soon find itself cursing the day it ever knew him.  Because, Cameronism is now on the up-and-up.  Having grovelled all over the Labour Party to get the job, Bercow may now turn on their government, for instance by bollocking it for making policy announcements outside the House of Commons instead of in it or for not answering questions properly when in the House.  He could, in other words, now do another flip and turn himself into something worth another dozen seats to the Conservatives.  He could be another fistful of nails in the Labour coffin.  Bercow is nothing if not ambitious.  Having done what he thought he had to do to get the job, his next project will be to go down in (on) History, by actually doing the job rather well, by which I mean doing it in a manner which impresses those of his contemporaries who, he calculates, will write the history books.

If the story unfolds as I am now guessing (all this is is a guess), then Bercow could turn into the Great Man of Parliament.  Is this what Great Men are often really like?  Yes.  I recall that movie in which Simon Ward, playing the Young Winston of the title, said, after an only mildly meritorious and grossly exhibitionist military escapade: “Will I get a medal?” From shameless, party-switching, opportunist, greasy-pole-climbing shit to Great Man.  It’s been done before.

Watch the looks on Labour faces very carefully, when they talk about Bercow during the dying months of their vile and plundering government, as he turns into yet another torment for them.  If he does.  And if he does, I’ll definitely be doing one of those I told you so postings, linking back smugly to this one.

Spotted here:

Buy them here.

Incoming:

I know I’ve been banging on about Twitter, and I’ve told some of you there will soon be a revolution or a coup d’état launched using Twitter, but it’s happening now.

“The western world’s most feared government is shaking with insurrection in the streets after a contested election and the leading name in news, CNN, is shockingly absent from the story. Twitter, meanwhile, is how Iranians are communicating with the outside world.  It’s the best place to follow events going on in that country and CNN’s failure to engage with the story is one of the hottest topics of conversation there.”

Link.

In my view, twitter is as revolutionary as email. Most of you would personally and professionally benefit from using this technology. All of you will find it useful to know a bit more.

As I’m currently looking for work, if anyone wants me to set up a Twitter account and show how to use it, I have time (and a good
computer at home) to do this.

Best wishes,

Antoine Clarke

Thanks for that, Antoine.  Well worth interrupting a blog break for.  The title of this blog posting was the title of Antoine’s email, by the way.  Don’t be surprised if you see this email quoted on other blogs Antoine may also have sent it to.  Fine by me.

I’ve said it many times before, but it will bear constant repetition.  When some new technique of communication is invented or stumbled upon, you should not judge its impact by picking ten uses of it at random, averaging them all out, and saying: Well that’s a load of trivial crap, isn’t it?!?  How will “I am just about to make another slice of toast” change the world?  The question to ask is: Of all the thousands of uses already being made of this thing, which one is the most significant?  And then: Well, is that very significant?  If yes, at all, then forget about the toast nonsense.

And the other thing to point out is that, even if you don’t care about some stranger being about to make some toast, there may well be some other strangers out there who do.  For them, such twitterings may be very significant.  What if the person about to toast suffers from suicidal depression, and his mere willingness to attempt any household task however trivial is a source of rejoicing to all his friends?

Well, England have survived.  Had I put “England has survived”, you’d know that this was about something important, like the recent elections we’ve been having, but “have” means it can only be sport, and indeed it is.

Having lost in the Twenty20 cricket to The Netherlands, England had to beat Pakistan to stay in the tournament that England itself is hosting, and ... they did.

There was, however, one very odd feature about the BBC radio commentary, which concerned the rules about who gets through, and who goes out.  If England didn’t win, they were out.  That much was made very clear.  And all the commentary was from that, English, point of view.

But what of Pakistan?  England, Pakistan and The Netherlands are in a group of three, of whom two will go through to the next round.  My understanding now is that Pakistan must beat The Netherlands by a greater margin than England beat Pakistan, or Pakistan go out on worse run rate.  But the commentators were talking as if all Pakistan had to do was beat The Netherlands.  Only much later did they mention the thing of Pakistan having to thrash The Netherlands.

This was a serious omission, because it resulted in them not describing the state of mind of the Pakistanis as the Pakistan England game drew towards its close, with the England victory that eventually happened becoming ever more likely as the required scoring rate for a Pakistan victory got higher and higher.  During those closing overs, the commentators were all asking: Why aren’t the Pakistanis even trying to hit sixes?  They were asking rhetorically, but there was a real answer.  Pakistan were no longer even trying to win.  They were trying to maximise their losing score, to minimise the margin of victory they now need to achieve against The Netherlands.  Had they had a final thrash against England and lost by sixty, that would have made it much harder to get through, because then they’d have to beat The Netherlands by sixty one.  As it is, they have to beat The Netherlands by a mere forty nine, or whatever it is.

This Cricinfo piece says I am right:

Pakistan ... maybe suffered from knowing they have a second chance against Netherlands on Wednesday, but this defeat was so heavy that even a win in that game might not be enough.

If I have this all wrong, and Pakistan merely have to beat The Netherlands, by anything, well, this too should have been spelled out by the commentators during the England game, because it would have meant that the losing margin didn’t matter, and Pakistan would have been behaving illogically to bat as they actually did.  And if I have it right, as I obviously think I have, then this too should have been explained, because it made sense of the Pakistan batting.

By the way, the basic reason I think I do have it right (besides Cricinfo agreeing with me I mean) is that even if the regular way they decide who goes through is to ask: of the two teams contending for the second place, which one beat the other in the game they played against each other? ... well, in this case, that wouldn’t settle it, because, The Netherlands having beaten England and England having beaten Pakistan, this problem will only now arise if Pakistan then beat The Netherlands.  Which will mean that all three teams will have one win each, and you get a never ending tail-chasing loop instead of an answer to the above question.  So, it has to be done on scoring rates.

Which means that there is a further twist to all this.  There is now every chance that The Netherlands will beat Pakistan.  This is because Pakistan may find themselves having to score a lot of runs not in twenty overs but in, I don’t know, sixteen overs, and will lose wickets trying to do that, will fail, and will then be beaten, not least because of having nothing to gain then from winning by an insufficient margin.  Which will put The Netherlands not just through to the next round, but through as the group winners!  How about that for a freak result?

Fun, fun, fun.

That last point is one I have still not come across in any of the commentary I have since read, anywhere.  You almost certainly read this here first, in the unlikely event that any of you are reading this at all.

All of which I have merely deduced from reading around this subject.  Had the BBC people been doing their jobs properly, the above intricacies are what they would have been talking about towards the end of the England Pakistan game.  As it was, as I say, we heard nothing of this, until long after the game was over.

It’s rare for me to have any serious complaints about BBC cricket commentaries, but this was a definite error.  And note too that it was an error based on seeing things entirely from an English-supporting point of view.  A Pakistani listening to this commentary would have felt seriously left out.  Biased BBC, but biased in favour of the English, and biased against Pakistan supporting people in England.

Later this afternoon, it’s Australia v Sri Lanka.  If the Aussies lose, they’re out.  But if the Aussies win, then the Sri Lanka West Indies game will be the same hyper-complicated handicap that the Netherlands Pakistan game will be.  The Aussies could win this afternoon, narrowly, but if the Sri Lankans then beat the Windies, the Aussies could still be out, because of the thrashing they got from the Windies. 

Sri Lanka’s first match of the tournament is the most crucial one for Australia, who must win to stay alive in an event which has barely started. Even then a victory might not be enough after their heavy seven-wicket loss to West Indies, which puts them well behind on net run-rate.

The Windies really like to beat the Aussies, and would also have a good chortle if they ejected the Aussies from the tournament by letting the Sri Lankans beat them, by a bit.  More fun.

It is only now dawning on me what a pickle the Aussie are now in, far worse than the pickle England were in after losing very narrowly to The Netherlands.  The Aussies may well be faced with the dilemma of wondering whether to go for a big win against Sri Lanka, and thereby risking losing and definitely going out, or settling for a small win, which will then mean that if Sri Lanka beat the Windies by, according to my calculations, anything, the Aussies still go out.  Or something.

What a way to run a tournament.  But, as I recall saying apropos of similar complexities concerning the first round of a soccer tournament a while back, you try to do better.

It’s a bit like trying to organise elections, you might say.  There’s no perfect way.

UPDATE evening: Ireland through.  Australia out.

Michael J told me last week that Internet Explorer and Firefox have both now become big and clunky and crash prone, just like Netscape once did, apparently, and that the new search engine on the block is now Google Chrome.  My recent experience with IE and Ff has been very bad, which is how this came up in conversation.  I managed to get Chrome going for myself, and it does indeed seem more solid and less inclined to collapse, although odd things now happen in my blog editing programme, so I will probably go back to IE for that.

I am sure there are good geek explanations for the failures of IE and Ff, and easy geek things I could do to stop them, but I am not a geek, or not enough of one for these purposes.

What’s happened to Idiot Toys?  For the last week or more, all I’ve been getting is this:

Is this just an Idiot Toys type holiday?  Or something more sinister and serious?

Well, this international Twenty20 cricket fest has sure started with an upset.  I listened to the radio version of the England innings, which began great but then sagged dreadfully.  But then I went out for a meal, and only got the news of the winning Dutch batting effort in one amazing gob when I got home.  The edited TV version will shortly record itself on my TV hard disc.  As an England fan I ought to be upset myself, but the bigger deal here is that this will hugely increase the attention paid to cricket in Holland, whose team was victorious at Lords earlier this evening, in the opening game between the Host Nation and the Minnow.

Actually I find that I am quite upset.  I can’t now force myself to watch those highlights.  Later maybe.  This result is good for cricket.  Real fans hate it when that happens, to their team.

Time was (before cricket on the www) when, had I abandoned a cricket game on the radio half way through, I would have had to wait until tomorrow morning’s newspaper for the result.

UPDATE Saturday midday: This looks like it explains it very well.  Nearly another upset this morning, in a 20/20 game turned by England’s crappy weather into a 7/7, if Scotland had only bowled a bit better against NZ.

Friday is the day for cats and kittens here, the point being to celebrate the sheer pleasure that we bloggers give to ourselves and our readers, when we do.  Why be angry about badness all the time?  (Because it gives pleasure to people who like being angry all the time.  Ignore that please.)

So anyway, sticking with the principle, but broadening it beyond mere felines, how about this?!?!?:

I found it here, in a blog about Why Evolution Is True.  I’m guessing he found it here.

If you demand only cats, the same guy has some here.  And David Thompson links today to some roadside architecture, which includes some giant animals, among which are some big cats.

London Bites is the name of a show happening tonight at Sway, which is near Holborn Tube.

Bite-sized pieces of drama that you can enjoy with a drink.  At London Bites, experience some of our best British talent from new and established actors.

So there you go.  And there I will go tonight, because a friend of mine has written and is performing a solo piece in it.  Last night, the first night, it apparently went well and she got lots of laughs.

During the last few weeks, the ratio at this blog of things I really want to say to things that I am merely saying because of the self-imposed obligation to say something, however lame or inconsequential, has taken rather a turn in the wrong direction.  So, for the next month or two, starting on June 1st, i.e. tomorrow, I am taking a break from daily blogging, as I sometimes do during the summer.  This does not mean that I will for the next few weeks be forbidding myself from posting anything here, merely that I will not, for the time being, be posting something every day.  Unless, for the consecutive days in question, I just happen to feel like doing that.

Meanwhile, as I happen to feel like adding, here is a photo I took earlier today of two other bloggers with whom I dined in a nearby pub, Alan Little and Michael Jennings, who also only blog when it suits them.  I love pork, but I was later reminded that it sometimes gives me a headache.  That, and the fact that Cricinfo (by means of which I was trying to follow Twenty20 county cricket) has been given a redesign and is in a state of total shambolicism, means that today began well, but ended less well.

Change is often unsettling. We trust the old ways because there is evidence that they work, and there is no evidence yet that the new ones will. We are already feeling wistful about the old site, so we know how some of you feel. As Nietzsche said, love is more afraid of change than destruction. But to that, let’s add this one from the Buddha: Everything changes; without change, nothing remains.

Nietzsche?  Buddha? When I read that, I realised that this relaunch was not going well.  Just to clarify, the problem with the “new site” is not that it looks funny, because it looks fine.  It is that it doesn’t, as yet, effing well work properly.  Matches oscillated wildly between three different versions of the score, back and forth and then back again, none of them up to date.  Chaos.

I enjoyed Ian Hislop’s recent TV show about the history of the Poet Laureate.  Who they were, how good they were, which poem was the best (this one apparently), and so on.  All kinds of vaguely remembered names were fleshed out, all sorts of dots joined, and pieces added to the semi-complete puzzle that is my knowledge of history.  Given that I don’t much care for poetry, it helped a lot to have the story summed up in a comfortably middle-brow manner.

But at the very end, Hislop made a definite error.  He declaimed a poem of his own, addressed to the latest Poet Laureate, Carol Anne Duffy, and he ended his poem by rhyming “sorry that” with “Laureate”.  But it should, quite obviously, have been “sorry at”.  So obviously so that I had to check my recording to be sure that he had indeed neglected this obviously superior word choice to the choice he actually made.  Sorry at the idea of having a Poet Laureate.  That would have worked just as well as: Sorry that we still have a Poet Laureate, or whatever it was.  Why did nobody tell him?  If they did, why didn’t he listen?

Otherwise, it was a very good show.

For the last two days I have been journeying across London to feed a cat.  Such are the methods by which one keeps one’s friends and makes more friends.  And me being me, and today being Friday, I thought I’d take a photo of the feline in question, for here, today.

She is, as you can see, suffering from severe green eye, on account of the corner of the kitchen where she dines being rather dark, and me thus having to use flash, which is not a thing I normally like to do.  Presumably cats have green blood in their eyes.  Something green back there anyway.  But not all cats, surely.  I seem to recall yellow in other flash photoed felines.

I was struck once again, and more than ever before, by the fact that flash photography doesn’t seem to bother cats one little bit.  If I did not know better, I would probably have guessed that a flash photoed cat would run up a tree and stay there for about a week upon experiencing this (you would think) deeply troubling process, but not a bit of it.  They just gawp at you, vaguely interested, but basically not bothered at all.  Presumably feline eyes can deal, unphased, with a much wider range of incoming light than we can.  I did try to google about this, but learned nothing.

The black smudge bottom right is my camera strap, but I don’t care.  In fact I think it makes a rather nice composition of it.

A couple of days ago, I spotted the headline, displayed on the right.  Below is a faked up picture of what the real thing will supposedly look like, and here is the report about it.  Frankly it looks pretty ugly.  But, whenever a new building gets erected beside the river in London, then if there wasn’t a riverside walkway before, there will be when the thing is finished. As Rowan Moore says here:

Will Alsop’s shiny bug of a building should improve one of the grimmer stretches of the river. This ought to be a fantastic place already, next to a majestic waterway and close to St Paul’s Cathedral, but it is dominated by cars and gloomy architecture. The Alsop scheme could create a decent pedestrian space at ground level, and presents what is in effect a big glass-fronted balcony to the water.

Its location next to retained Sixties blocks is instructive: the latter are the kind of modern buildings nobody likes, whereas the Alsop project is the kind of modern architecture some people do.

And maybe, if and when this one is finished, I will like it too.

The usual assumption is that the bad economic times tend to discourage such projects as this one, and I’m sure they do.  But might there not be a political effect working in the opposite direction?  During bad times, my bet is it’s easier to get planning permission, for just about anything, because the politicians, reflecting the desires of people generally, are desperate for any sort of economic stimulus, no matter what form it takes.  And smart property developers who are in a buyer’s market for construction work might figure that now is just the time to be building, if you can afford to think long term.

Recently I purchased, brand new, a complete set of the Haydn symphones on compact discs, for £24.  Haydn symphonies last around twenty minutes each, usually a bit more, and there are over a hundred of them, so that’s about thirty hours or more of music.  Yet I only purchased eight CDs.

The secret was that they were stored not as on regular CDs, but as high quality MP3 files, which result in it being possible to fit about a dozen symphonies on each disc.  Of course, I needed to have a CD player that could also play MP3 files, but when I last bought a CD player, I took the precaution of including exactly that feature, as do more and more CD players now.

One of the reasons I bought these discs, aside from me liking Haydn symphonies a lot, is that I possess just a few of the original CDs in this particular set, and so was able to compare the sound of one of these original type CDs with the MP3 versions, of identical symphonies.  And for the life of me I could not tell the difference.  (Nor could this reviewer.) The original CDs sounded fine.  So did the MP3 versions of the exact same recorded performances.

If this Haydn symphony set sells well, as well it might, I expect to see more of such sets.  I can’t be the only one who has some CDs from big and desirable series, which I would gladly trade in for the complete set, in a form that occupies far less space.

For what seems like for ever, the recorded music industry has been trying to sell us the same music in hugely better sound than the already perfectly adequate sound of regular CDs.  But what if the future of the CD is not debatably better sound, but uncontroversially and massively more economical use of the same space, using massively cleverer compression techniques?

Once again, my day has been busily occupied doing ... other things.  So once again, it’s quota photo time.  Quota quotes take longer to read, so I surmise quota photos to be more popular.

The first such snap is of a window detail at Liverpool Street Station, which I took today:

Click on that to get it bigger.

I confess to having done some Photoshop(clone)ping with that one.  And the same goes for the next one, which is already as big as it will get because it is a small detail of another snap I did, several weeks ago.  It is a less self-conscious version of the same kind of thing, this time done with bog standard scaffolding:

The scaffolding in question was around the big statue of whatever it is, outside Charing Cross railway station.

Are they art?  The first proclaims itself as such.  The second is more art of the as-found variety.  I enjoy both, but suspect the first sort of being very expensive.  Making structure double as the final appearance of architecture costs much more than if you stick up the structure, and then cover it with how it ends up looking.