A couple of weeks ago, I started a new job. As part of the training, I did a short course on Data Protection. I mention this because parts of it came back to me last night after watching a report on Watchdog regarding various data protection breaches emanating from Her Maj’s Revenue & Customs department. The largest breach, the missing discs with the 25 million child benefit claimants is still at large, but these other leeks are perhaps more worrying.
The most interesting part of the training related to working conditions which would see a rise in security breaches. These include Autocratic Line management, over emphasis on performance targets, lack of an audit trail and low morale. Bearing in mind that politicians of both colours were engaging in race to see how many jobs they could axe from the civil service (sorry, they were identifying savings) during the last Westminster election campaign, you would think that perhaps that they would take some of the blame.
Err no, it would appear that it was some managers fault. In the mean time, there is no sign of the discs, the mistakes and breaches pile up, and the missing data has fallen off the news agenda.
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Saturday, 17 November 2007
The Final Act
Today will be a big day in qualification for next years European Championship. Northern Ireland need a win tonight against Denmark to stay in the hunt (their last game is away in Spain), while all of England will be hoping for an Israeli win over Russia this evening. The main event though will be in just about 2 hours when Scotland play Italy, needing a win to qualify (Italy play the Faroes & France are away to Ukraine on Wednesday, this is Scotland’s last game). Its Scotland’s biggest game since the Netherlands playoff game 4 years ago, and the most eagerly awaited Scotland game since the England play off games 8 years ago.
The hype started when Scotland beat France 1-0 in Paris in September. Since then we have beaten Ukraine 3-1 (I saw highlights of this game in Malta, with German commentary, weird!), but lost 2-0 in Georgia. Glasgow was full yesterday of people with various pieces of
Scotland paraphernalia, Kilts and Scotland tops. Incredible. I only hope that if we lose, we don’t take it badly. We do have a good record against Italy in Scotland, we beat them 1-0 in qualifying for the 1966 world cup. We drew 0-0 at Ibrox in 1992 (USA ’94) and more recently we drew 1-1 at Hampden 2 years ago (See picture).
The hype started when Scotland beat France 1-0 in Paris in September. Since then we have beaten Ukraine 3-1 (I saw highlights of this game in Malta, with German commentary, weird!), but lost 2-0 in Georgia. Glasgow was full yesterday of people with various pieces of
Scotland paraphernalia, Kilts and Scotland tops. Incredible. I only hope that if we lose, we don’t take it badly. We do have a good record against Italy in Scotland, we beat them 1-0 in qualifying for the 1966 world cup. We drew 0-0 at Ibrox in 1992 (USA ’94) and more recently we drew 1-1 at Hampden 2 years ago (See picture). I think that we can win, I only hope that Italy aren’t in the mood to sweep us aside. I suspect that we will only get a draw, which will mean us hoping for a Ukraine win on Wednedsay.
Thursday, 15 November 2007
A Small Tase of Timeshare!
Hi there.
Yep, it has been ages since I posted, well I have been away and had stuff to do when I got back. We were away in Malta last month, and it was not the best holiday that I have ever been on. Firstly, our flight was delayed by 19 hours, a computer had malfunctioned so one had to be flown in from Switzerland. Gee thanks a bunch British Jet (is it me or is that the naffest name ever for an airline company, just with the addition of the word British? By the time we arrived at our hotel (and the time that our hotel discovered w
hat had happened to us, again thanks British Jet), our rooms had to be re-booked.
We stayed at Radisson SAS Golden Sands resort, and it was great. Except for the staff. They bungled our room allocation, giving us a twin bed monster suite, before giving us a double bed room (we had asked for a double bed). They bungled next allocation too, by not alerting staff that the room we were now occupying was occupied. I am not sure who got the bigger surprise, myself or Clayton, the staff member who thought he was entering a vacant room… at 12:35am! They also bungled the fact that Claytons 6am alarm call was not cancelled, or that Clayton had inadvertently cancelled our card keys, so that when I went upstairs to get Ange’s hat, I couldn’t get in. This held up the Malta tour that we had booked ourselves on (which the driver had no idea we were coming on).
The hotel bungled lots of things, but their attitude was good, compared to that of the Island Residence Club. They are the Timeshare arm of the hotel. We are toying with the idea of a timeshare, but this experience has put us off for the moment. We let them know about it, and they took the huff. Big style. Yvonne, the IRC manager ‘lost the plot’ completely, and Brian the ‘big cheese’ said our comments about how Anfi del Mar was miles better left him ‘depressed’. Aw diddums!
Though I wouldn’t say our experiences are the only factor. It’s a good hotel, but it’s just not a 5 star hotel/resort.
See You Later
Yep, it has been ages since I posted, well I have been away and had stuff to do when I got back. We were away in Malta last month, and it was not the best holiday that I have ever been on. Firstly, our flight was delayed by 19 hours, a computer had malfunctioned so one had to be flown in from Switzerland. Gee thanks a bunch British Jet (is it me or is that the naffest name ever for an airline company, just with the addition of the word British? By the time we arrived at our hotel (and the time that our hotel discovered w
hat had happened to us, again thanks British Jet), our rooms had to be re-booked.We stayed at Radisson SAS Golden Sands resort, and it was great. Except for the staff. They bungled our room allocation, giving us a twin bed monster suite, before giving us a double bed room (we had asked for a double bed). They bungled next allocation too, by not alerting staff that the room we were now occupying was occupied. I am not sure who got the bigger surprise, myself or Clayton, the staff member who thought he was entering a vacant room… at 12:35am! They also bungled the fact that Claytons 6am alarm call was not cancelled, or that Clayton had inadvertently cancelled our card keys, so that when I went upstairs to get Ange’s hat, I couldn’t get in. This held up the Malta tour that we had booked ourselves on (which the driver had no idea we were coming on).
The hotel bungled lots of things, but their attitude was good, compared to that of the Island Residence Club. They are the Timeshare arm of the hotel. We are toying with the idea of a timeshare, but this experience has put us off for the moment. We let them know about it, and they took the huff. Big style. Yvonne, the IRC manager ‘lost the plot’ completely, and Brian the ‘big cheese’ said our comments about how Anfi del Mar was miles better left him ‘depressed’. Aw diddums!
Though I wouldn’t say our experiences are the only factor. It’s a good hotel, but it’s just not a 5 star hotel/resort.
See You Later
Wednesday, 26 September 2007
Brit-pop! Lets go!
Hullo.
All the recent nostalgia about 1997, with the anniversary of Labour’s election win, the death of Di, and the devolution referendum, reminded me that Brit-pop kind of died off at the same time. I had written a blog last year, which I posted on my Yahoo page about Britpop, which was my thoughts on a programme celebrating 10 years since the height of Britpop (it was originally shown in August 2005, but I was commenting on the repeat in July 2006). Somehow I had forgotten to re-publish it when I set up this site…
“I was indulging in some channel surfing last Thursday, and came across a repeat of a programme called "The Story of Britpop", which was first shown on the 10th anniversary of the Blur "Country House"/Oasis "Roll With It" thing. It annoyed me.
It annoyed me, in that i disagreed with some of the opinions expressed, but it annoyed me also because it was, in some respects, a rewriting of history.
The view of the presenter, John Harris, was that these were new bands, doing what Brittish bands should be doing, writing about the urban experience in a way that harks back to the 1960's. I thought it was repeating the 60's and 70's, but with a modern twist. We had The Kinks, played by Blur, the Beatles played by Oasis, the stones played by Primal Scream. Glam was represented by both Suede & Pulp.
Pulp were my favourites, they wrote about things in a gritty, realistic kind of a way. Crucially their records also sounded interesting & inventive as well, which is where Britpop fell down for me. Not too many of the bands were that inventive with how they sounded, happy to borrow riffs from the Beatles, Stones and.. er ... Wire. This is why Britpop does not stand up alongside the youthquakes from 1963 (Beatlemania, summer of love), 1976 (Punk, new-wave and New Romanticissm)& 1988 (Acid house followed by Mad-chester), for while the other youthquake movements grew for 2- 3 years afterwards, Britpop alarmingly quickly desended into Dad-rock. For me, the best album of this period, and of the decade, was Dummy by Portishead, re-doing the past by puting a slow, hip hop spin on old school cinematic scores, and BOY can Beth Gibbons sing...
The other thing that got on my wick was the link between the rise of Britpop and New Labour. My theory here is that Britpop died on the 2nd of May 1997 rather that at the Downing Street reception quoted in the programme. I say that because for whatever reason, the main bands in this scene who released records after New Labour got in, released duff records, or records that just stiffed. Be Here Now, This is Hardcore, and the Sleeper one (Pleased to Meet You????) were all thought to be not as good as Morning Glory, Different Class and The It Girl. The first victims of the curse of Blair.
Britpop was dead, long live Bigbeat!
As for the legacy. The fact that most Brittish "indie" bands all sound the same. Nevermind, you know what they say about necessity being the mother of invention. ”
I think what I was trying to say was that Britpop was such a mixed bag, lots of bits were good, but there were some not so good bits to it. At least it killed off the New Wave of New Wave movement.
See you later
All the recent nostalgia about 1997, with the anniversary of Labour’s election win, the death of Di, and the devolution referendum, reminded me that Brit-pop kind of died off at the same time. I had written a blog last year, which I posted on my Yahoo page about Britpop, which was my thoughts on a programme celebrating 10 years since the height of Britpop (it was originally shown in August 2005, but I was commenting on the repeat in July 2006). Somehow I had forgotten to re-publish it when I set up this site…
“I was indulging in some channel surfing last Thursday, and came across a repeat of a programme called "The Story of Britpop", which was first shown on the 10th anniversary of the Blur "Country House"/Oasis "Roll With It" thing. It annoyed me.
It annoyed me, in that i disagreed with some of the opinions expressed, but it annoyed me also because it was, in some respects, a rewriting of history.
The view of the presenter, John Harris, was that these were new bands, doing what Brittish bands should be doing, writing about the urban experience in a way that harks back to the 1960's. I thought it was repeating the 60's and 70's, but with a modern twist. We had The Kinks, played by Blur, the Beatles played by Oasis, the stones played by Primal Scream. Glam was represented by both Suede & Pulp.
Pulp were my favourites, they wrote about things in a gritty, realistic kind of a way. Crucially their records also sounded interesting & inventive as well, which is where Britpop fell down for me. Not too many of the bands were that inventive with how they sounded, happy to borrow riffs from the Beatles, Stones and.. er ... Wire. This is why Britpop does not stand up alongside the youthquakes from 1963 (Beatlemania, summer of love), 1976 (Punk, new-wave and New Romanticissm)& 1988 (Acid house followed by Mad-chester), for while the other youthquake movements grew for 2- 3 years afterwards, Britpop alarmingly quickly desended into Dad-rock. For me, the best album of this period, and of the decade, was Dummy by Portishead, re-doing the past by puting a slow, hip hop spin on old school cinematic scores, and BOY can Beth Gibbons sing...
The other thing that got on my wick was the link between the rise of Britpop and New Labour. My theory here is that Britpop died on the 2nd of May 1997 rather that at the Downing Street reception quoted in the programme. I say that because for whatever reason, the main bands in this scene who released records after New Labour got in, released duff records, or records that just stiffed. Be Here Now, This is Hardcore, and the Sleeper one (Pleased to Meet You????) were all thought to be not as good as Morning Glory, Different Class and The It Girl. The first victims of the curse of Blair.
Britpop was dead, long live Bigbeat!
As for the legacy. The fact that most Brittish "indie" bands all sound the same. Nevermind, you know what they say about necessity being the mother of invention. ”
I think what I was trying to say was that Britpop was such a mixed bag, lots of bits were good, but there were some not so good bits to it. At least it killed off the New Wave of New Wave movement.
See you later
Monday, 10 September 2007
Losing it...
HI there. I haven't really had time to blog of late, and i am sorry about that. I did notice something in the Paisley Express which is one of the most ridiculous pieces of spinning i have ever seen.
One of our local MSP's (for the neighbouring constituancy of Paisley North as it happens) is Wendy Alexander, who will soon be taking over as the New Labour leader at Holyrood. You may remember as well that her party lost control of Renfrewsire Council to a SNP/Lib Dem coalition. Since then we have had to put up with the sort of backbiting that sore loosers normaly indulge in.
But to get back to the Paisley Express. Ms Alexander writes a colum for this organ, and today, while bemoaning the fact that another 2 town centre shops were to close (her column today was headlined SNP MUST DO SOMETHING TO STOP TOWN CENTRE ROT), she goes on to say -quote
"If Labour had been re-elected in May, it would have helped breath new life into the town centre by allowing it to share in a £50 million Town Centre Turnaround fund.
The Cash bonanza would have been used to aid the town centre's recovery..."
She goes on to outline various measures where this money would have been spent.
The question many of us would like to ask is, where was this money before the election, where was this money say, oh, 3 years ago when Paisley town centre started to go down the tubes. Would Paisley town centre be more worthy of re-generation than, say, some council buildings. Why was this money promised if a new Labour administration got back into Cotton Street. And how and why can Labour get a hold of £50 million now, is it our money that they forgot to tell us about? Answers on a postcard please!
One of our local MSP's (for the neighbouring constituancy of Paisley North as it happens) is Wendy Alexander, who will soon be taking over as the New Labour leader at Holyrood. You may remember as well that her party lost control of Renfrewsire Council to a SNP/Lib Dem coalition. Since then we have had to put up with the sort of backbiting that sore loosers normaly indulge in.
But to get back to the Paisley Express. Ms Alexander writes a colum for this organ, and today, while bemoaning the fact that another 2 town centre shops were to close (her column today was headlined SNP MUST DO SOMETHING TO STOP TOWN CENTRE ROT), she goes on to say -quote
"If Labour had been re-elected in May, it would have helped breath new life into the town centre by allowing it to share in a £50 million Town Centre Turnaround fund.
The Cash bonanza would have been used to aid the town centre's recovery..."
She goes on to outline various measures where this money would have been spent.
The question many of us would like to ask is, where was this money before the election, where was this money say, oh, 3 years ago when Paisley town centre started to go down the tubes. Would Paisley town centre be more worthy of re-generation than, say, some council buildings. Why was this money promised if a new Labour administration got back into Cotton Street. And how and why can Labour get a hold of £50 million now, is it our money that they forgot to tell us about? Answers on a postcard please!
Saturday, 1 September 2007
Welcoming Sellik
Hullo.
Tomorrow the mighty buds face their toughese game of the season so far when Celtic visit. The two sides had contrasting games this week. We went crashing out of the CIS cup to East Fife, while Celtic came through an epic European Cup tie with Spartak Moscow, eventually winning on penalties. It’s the first time Celtic has won a European tie in this fashion (losing to Inter Milan in 1972 and Valencia in 2001).
We are overdue a win against one of the Old Firm, our last victories against Celtic date back to the 1989/90 season (1-0 at home in September ‘89, and 3-0 at Parkhead in April ‘90), lets hope that we perform better than we did at home last season, when our failure to turn up in the first half laid the foundations for a 3-1 win.
Oh and the title is a reference to how some of the Celtic support pronounce Celtic “sellik”.
See you later.
Tomorrow the mighty buds face their toughese game of the season so far when Celtic visit. The two sides had contrasting games this week. We went crashing out of the CIS cup to East Fife, while Celtic came through an epic European Cup tie with Spartak Moscow, eventually winning on penalties. It’s the first time Celtic has won a European tie in this fashion (losing to Inter Milan in 1972 and Valencia in 2001).
We are overdue a win against one of the Old Firm, our last victories against Celtic date back to the 1989/90 season (1-0 at home in September ‘89, and 3-0 at Parkhead in April ‘90), lets hope that we perform better than we did at home last season, when our failure to turn up in the first half laid the foundations for a 3-1 win.
Oh and the title is a reference to how some of the Celtic support pronounce Celtic “sellik”.
See you later.
Monday, 13 August 2007
The Father of Indie is Dead
Hullo.
One of the television programmes that I will not be writing about in my annual pick of the year blogs will be the BBC’s latest rockumentry The Seven Ages of Rock. I saw a couple of episodes and found them an incredible mixed bag. The episodes on Prog-rock and Heavy Metal (which is not really my thing) I found interesting & informative. The episodes on Punk and “Indie” (which i am very much a fan of) were frustrating and taken from a particular viewpoint. The indie episode started from the viewpoint that “indie” was an invention of The Smiths, being a case in point.
I mention this now because at the weekend, arguably the father of “indie” music (if we must call it that) Tony Wilson passed away. As well as being a television presenter in the Granada region, he also started a record label with some money that he came into. The intention was that new bands would put out some singles on Wilson’s label before signing with a bigger operator, as had been happening with the previous independent record companies which had sprung up in the wake of Punk. All this changed with the arrival of Joy Division, and their manager Rob Gretton.
In an earlier blog, I had Tony Wilson as one of the 5 people/acts who really, really earned an outstanding contribution to music gong at the Brits. Apart from the acts that appeared on the Factory roster at one time or another (Joy Division, OMD, New Order, James, Happy Mondays to name 5), they lead the way for other independent record labels, which in turn helped their acts to thrive. Mute had Depeche Mode from the start, as well as Goldfrapp, Rough Trade was the home to The Smiths, while Creation was home to Primal Scream, the Boo Radleys, Teenage Fanclub and Oasis before it sold itself to Sony in 1995. As a result, the British music scene flourished in the late 1980’s, breaking free of the shackles of the major labels.
It was not just in guitar music that Wilson and Factory led. In 1981, New Order were touring the USA for the first time. Danceteria in New York made such a big impression on the Factory entourage that they began planning their own version in Manchester, much to the chagrin of Martin Hannett who was hoping that Factory would invest in Studio technology, particularly a Fairlight sampler (Wilson & Hannett fell out over this, Hannett returned to the Factory fold in 1988 to produce the Happy Mondays “Bummed” album). The result was FAC 51, or The Hacienda, which 6 years later was at the epicentre of the boom in Acid House.
Personally I am sad as a little individuality has gone out of the British Music scene. I’d have also preferred Wilson to find the next great thing rather than Simon Cowell.
See You Later.
One of the television programmes that I will not be writing about in my annual pick of the year blogs will be the BBC’s latest rockumentry The Seven Ages of Rock. I saw a couple of episodes and found them an incredible mixed bag. The episodes on Prog-rock and Heavy Metal (which is not really my thing) I found interesting & informative. The episodes on Punk and “Indie” (which i am very much a fan of) were frustrating and taken from a particular viewpoint. The indie episode started from the viewpoint that “indie” was an invention of The Smiths, being a case in point.
I mention this now because at the weekend, arguably the father of “indie” music (if we must call it that) Tony Wilson passed away. As well as being a television presenter in the Granada region, he also started a record label with some money that he came into. The intention was that new bands would put out some singles on Wilson’s label before signing with a bigger operator, as had been happening with the previous independent record companies which had sprung up in the wake of Punk. All this changed with the arrival of Joy Division, and their manager Rob Gretton.
In an earlier blog, I had Tony Wilson as one of the 5 people/acts who really, really earned an outstanding contribution to music gong at the Brits. Apart from the acts that appeared on the Factory roster at one time or another (Joy Division, OMD, New Order, James, Happy Mondays to name 5), they lead the way for other independent record labels, which in turn helped their acts to thrive. Mute had Depeche Mode from the start, as well as Goldfrapp, Rough Trade was the home to The Smiths, while Creation was home to Primal Scream, the Boo Radleys, Teenage Fanclub and Oasis before it sold itself to Sony in 1995. As a result, the British music scene flourished in the late 1980’s, breaking free of the shackles of the major labels.
It was not just in guitar music that Wilson and Factory led. In 1981, New Order were touring the USA for the first time. Danceteria in New York made such a big impression on the Factory entourage that they began planning their own version in Manchester, much to the chagrin of Martin Hannett who was hoping that Factory would invest in Studio technology, particularly a Fairlight sampler (Wilson & Hannett fell out over this, Hannett returned to the Factory fold in 1988 to produce the Happy Mondays “Bummed” album). The result was FAC 51, or The Hacienda, which 6 years later was at the epicentre of the boom in Acid House.
Personally I am sad as a little individuality has gone out of the British Music scene. I’d have also preferred Wilson to find the next great thing rather than Simon Cowell.
See You Later.
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Buds 1 Motherwell 0
Hmmm, as you can see, not the best start to the season.
To be fair to motherwell, the were excellent for the first half. They were first to every ball, first in the tackle. The winner was the most unexpected piece of football you will see all season, and the best goal I have seen with the naked eye for a long time. There were about 3 1-2’s before the ball found McGarry. Gee thanks for that one Mr Hendrie.
I know that it was only the first game of the season, but can our defenders please stop launching long balls forward. As we showed for (not long enough) spells in the second half, if our midfielders get the ball they are able to produce the same sort passing style that worked for Motherwell in the first half. The long ball tactic made us look one dimensional. No wonder Mark McGee changed his formation to a defensive one after 10 minutes of the second half.
Still should be a nice easy game next Saturday.
See you later.
To be fair to motherwell, the were excellent for the first half. They were first to every ball, first in the tackle. The winner was the most unexpected piece of football you will see all season, and the best goal I have seen with the naked eye for a long time. There were about 3 1-2’s before the ball found McGarry. Gee thanks for that one Mr Hendrie.
I know that it was only the first game of the season, but can our defenders please stop launching long balls forward. As we showed for (not long enough) spells in the second half, if our midfielders get the ball they are able to produce the same sort passing style that worked for Motherwell in the first half. The long ball tactic made us look one dimensional. No wonder Mark McGee changed his formation to a defensive one after 10 minutes of the second half.
Still should be a nice easy game next Saturday.
See you later.
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