February 2020 – Brian Micklethwait's New Blog

Some podcasting numbers

On Thursday, I did a little posting on Samizdata, flagging up the conversation that Patrick Crozier and I recorded on the subject of the Falklands War. I’ve already mentioned this conversation a couple of times here, but I think this is the first time I’ve mentioned any of them over there, on my version of the mass media. There has so far been only one comment on this Samizdata posting (way below the Samizdata average (but a very informative one comment)), but I think I detect a very slight and non-coincidental uptick in our listener numbers. These have gone from pretty much non-existent, to infinitesimally tiny. Which is a significant improvement, I think.

All of which means that I now want to record the number of downloads there have so far been for each of these conversations that Patrick and I have done, as of now, so that I can see if these numbers continue to rise, and so that I am prevented from deceiving myself about how much they go up by, if they do. Here’s the state of play, in reverse order of recording: The Falklands War (28); The First Wold War: what happened next? (15); Christianity (13); Brexit (18); Why the West won the Cold War (12); History (11); Transport (19); The importance of being number three (11); Trump (19); Diversity (13); Television 7 (7), 6 (9), 5 (9), 4 (7), 3 (7), 2 (8), 1 (10); The First World War (26).

I know, these are ridiculously small numbers. But so what? We both like having these conversations. Think of it not as any sort of business, where the number and satisfaction of consumers is what makes it worthwhile. See it as Patrick and me enhancing our social life by having a more disciplined conversation than if we had just banged on in a pub for an hour, and what’s more a conversation where we can be sure of exactly what we earlier said, should we want to be. My feeling is, from where I sit, that we’re not just chatting, we’re learning. Learning things, with our homework and from each other, and also we are doing that particular kind of learning that consists of arranging things inside our heads, so that they make more sense than they might if we didn’t record what we said. And if a few others find that they like listening to our conversations, so much the better.

Bollocks can also be spelt Bollox

I note with pleasure and gratitude that BMNBdotcom has made it into David Thompson’s latest list of ephemera, because of an earlier little posting here concerning bollocks.

Some while after doing that posting I came across this Sun front page photo, taken the day after the last General Election:

I would have included that in the earlier posting if I’d remembered having photoed it. But today’s also a good day for it, because Friday is my day for animal kingdom related postings. Woof.

Another creature related ephemeron (?) in DT’s list concerns the eagles at the top of the Chrysler Building.

Patrick Crozier and I talk about the Falklands War

As earlier noted, Patrick Crozier and I recently recorded a conversation about the Falklands War, involving both what we each remembered about it from when we lived through it (early in 1982), and what we have learned about it since, which was not a lot in my case but a bit.

It was a strange conversation, because we basically talked only about what happened and what we remembered, and almost nothing about what the war “proved” or “demonstrated”, about life generally or about the libertarianism that we are both supporters of in other contexts. The questions we began with were: What was it? What happened? How did events unfold? And that’s what we talked about. There were a few ruminations about the difference between a country which had fought several recent wars and another country which had not, and what that meant in terms of the differences between the people fighting each other. That difference being a major reason why Britain won. But even that was strictly to try to explain events, rather than to get all grand and philosophical and what it all meant.

What Patrick felt and what I felt at the time, about the rights and wrongs of it, were rather different. He was gung-ho and very clear. The Argies stole the islands and we should get them back, and do whatever that took. I was rather baffled and wanted Britain to win more because losing would be so terrible. Not least politically. Because, as we speculated, it would have been hard for Thatcher to have survived as PM if there had been a British military and naval catastrophe down there in the South Atlantic. (The South Atlantic being where, as so many Brits of my sort were rather unsure about at the time, the Falkland Islands are to be found.) There nearly was a catastrophe. Luck played a scarily big part, far bigger than we were told at the time.

Well, if you want to hear what we said about this strange war, and are not expecting any bigger lessons beyond a small and rather meandering history lesson, here is where to go.

BT Tower reflected – as seen from outside Warren Street Tube

At the top end of Tottenham Court Road, where it hits Euston Road and then bashes its way across Euston Road and changes its name to Hampstead Road, there is some photo-fun to be had, especially on bright and sunny days, with the way that the BT Tower is reflected back from the building on the far side, at the opposite corner from Warren Street Tube. Warren Street Tube being a Tube Station I often emerge from, on my way to Curry’s PC World whenever I need something electrical that i want to look at before I buy it.

Here’s a clutch of such photos that I photoed on June 29th 2015:

I know. They’re vertical, rather than horizontal. Not my usual thing. For which there is a reason, namely: that my cameras, Windows and my graphics programme don’t see eye to eye when vertical photos are involved. So, I had some sorting out to do with these photos, but I made it work eventually. But that’s also why I’m only posting this clutch of photos now rather than in 2015. Clutches of photos (reprise) used to be very complicated, and any further complication, like this vertical nonsense, I just did not need.

Some of the above photos, the bottom middle one especially, feature another building besides the BT Tower. That’s because the windows that stuff is being reflected in are at a 45 degree angle to the ones where the BT Tower is to be seen. This is clear from photos 3, 4 and 6, and especially if you look at the top of the building. Which might be why photo 5 is definitely my favourite of these. I often, as here, like it when the photo is a bit of a puzzle. What’s happening here? But I also like to try to say what is happening, which is why I include the other five. That way it’s a puzzle, but a puzzle solved.

I also like that effect you often get with reflections, which is that the sky is blue with any clouds being clearly visible, in the reflected bits, but bright white when you look straight at the sky. The human eye sees both as sky, by altering its light setting as it scans the scene. Cameras can’t do that. Or not nearly so easily. They need graphics package help to communicate that kind of thing.

By the way, when I categorise something as “reflections”, that means literal reflections, of light. I’m not claiming that I am myself “reflecting”, any more deeply than usual. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Different argument.

How to eat spaghetti

With scissors. Thank you David Thompson.

Broadway in black and white

Yesterday afternoon, on my way to St James’s Tube, I once again passed, and photoed, the ever changing scene that is The Broadway (or something similar), as it takes shape. It’s going to be a cluster of Things of a Certain Size.

Yesterday I decided I’d photo it all in black and white:

Well, no. What really happened was that the place itself presented itself to me in black and white, with only very vestigial traces of colour. I was photoing in full colour.

When I first saw that big word there, “MULTIPLEX”, I thought; Hey, they’re building a multi-screen cinema! But it turns out that all it is is that a company called Multiplex got the contract to construct this place.

They’re about to dig up the road

Another quota photo, because: another busy day. I may have time later to do something for here, but don’t want to have to be bothering about this.

So:

Again, photoed quite recently. Well, this year. And very near to where I live. I recall having to put down two big bags of shopping, and to dig out my camera from underneath shopped items, to immortalise this scene. When you see the photo, photo it, now. Leave it until later and, first, you won’t come back later, and second, it you do, it will probably be gone. In this case, dug up. That’s the photo-rule to have been following here.

The other relevant photo-rule is: If someone sees you doing this and thinks you’re a weirdo, this does not matter. You either care about your photos looking good, or about yourself looking good at all times. Pick one.

What it is is marks on a road, prior to some digging, digging which was still not, when last I looked, completed. My guess is that the symbols refer to pipes, but what do I know?

In its small way, this photo reminds me of something a war correspondent once said about D-Day, which he was at and was reporting on. He said something like: “I didn’t know what the plan was, but I had the strong sense that events were unfolding in accordance with that plan.” I don’t know what the plan was for all the digging that subsequently happened, but there clearly was a plan, and the digging was surely done in accordance with it.

Also (ISIBAISIA), I like photoing things that look like Modern Art but which are not Modern Art. I think this is partly because if reality itself mimics Modern Art on a regular basis, that means that deliberately creating Modern Art is unnecessary, and Modern Artists are not nearly as important contributors to the ongoing march of civilisation as they like to think that they are. Without them, there would still be plenty of Modern-Art-like stuff around for people who like that sort of thing to be looking at.

There you go. Not bad for a mere quota post. And it only took about ten minutes.

Join the Police and get yourself nicer eyelashes

Earlier in the week, GodDaughter2 was out West, doing an audition (successfully as it turned out), and afterwards we met up. After dining, we visited the nearby Westfield shopping centre, and while she looked at some shoes or some such things, I took this photo, of an advertising screen, switching from one advert to another:

I only just noticed the above message-collision, while seeking a quota photo. Today was a busy day.

A London logo with lots of Things of a Certain Size

It’s not hard to see why I like a graphic contrivance of this sort:

I encountered it at a website entitled Specifier Review, which is concerned with the actual building of buildings. The explanatory blurb towards the bottom ends with the words “building product manufacturers and construction industry specialists”.

Note that, in this graphic, the Big Thing performers at the front of the stage are backed by a much more numerous but more anonymous chorus of generic no-name blocks. Things, you might say, of a Certain Size. Not necessarily that small, but definitely not Big. Maybe big enough to impinge locally, and to get right wing grumps grumbling in their opinion pieces, but not to register in the grander scheme of London Big Things, as seen from a distance. As seen, for instance, in the graphic that adorns the top of this blog.

It’s the Big Things that catch the eye of onlookers like me, but the bread and butter of being a building product manufacturer or construction industry specialist is working away on those boring, generic, Things of a Certain Size.

It’s a whole different posting, but the building scene in London has now shifted away from Big Things towards Things of a Certain Size. No more Gherkins and Shards. Not for the time being. But still plenty more Things of a Certain Size, for thousands upon thousands more folks to live in and to work in, and to work at building.