Week 149, A lump of brutalism

Moore Street substation

A colossal brutalist monument

In the style of the social housing of the era

Nobody lives here

Unlike brutalist housing now beloved of the hip, the chic

Kelvin, Park Hill, Hyde Park*

I knew those from them all

Buzzing, vibrant

But not from here

Nobody lives here

Beloved of the hip, the chic

You won't get in

Not a hum

Fulfilling its purpose

No snap, no crackle

No doorway unoccupied

Power transformed

More or less

In whose favour

* Park Hill Phase 2 as it is officially known

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Week 148, Clown Computing

A cardboard, dummy floppy disk, retrieved from a 'not quite' MS-DOS compatible Apricot PC XI just before I flogged it.  This XI also had a 10MB hard disk drive, which by the time I took ownership in around 1990 wasn't such a big deal.  The cardboard floppy was used to protect the drive of the 'luggable' PC during transportation.  The hard disk needed the 'park' command to park the read/write head in a safe location to prevent it damaging the drive once shutdown, a process no longer needed as modern disks auto-park their heads.

No need to consider that now, just pop your data in the cloud and assume someone else has taken responsibility.

Excuse me while I locate my stick-on red nose.

Always read the small print - have you have handed over rights of ownership; what happens if the cloud provider goes bust; what happens if your data is not as well protected as you assume - e.g. held in a single location; what happens if a legal case is made against the service provider and they suspend business; what happens if the data centre provider has similar issues; what happens if you need to end the relationship with your service provider and have to extract your data; what happens if your business critical data is the "small percentage" lost by the eleven nines uptime service provider.

No service provider will accept liability if your data is lost, not even for large customers.

I'm sure it'll be perfectly fine, it'll never happen.  Well, it rarely happens.

Otherwise you might as well have saved your data on a cardboard, dummy floppy disk, or on a 10MB MFM RLL hard disk drive.

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Week 147, Roger and Out, maximum break

June 7 1985.

In the pub, as usual, the Frog and Parrot, a regular haunt.  It was a neat and quiet pub, other than when occupied by huge numbers of people.  The pub had no jukebox, dart board, or pool table, and still had original features such as the enormous sheets of curved plate glass window on each side of the main entrance.  I understand it now has noise, slot machines, and other entertainment for those unable to make conversation or sit silently sulking, and the curved plate glass has long since been destroyed by oafish behaviour.

By 1985 there was no frog, and the parrot had been retired from public display - there had actually never been a frog.  The parrot had been removed due to becoming a little moth-eaten after developing an enforced beer habit, the habit due to some customers not respecting the dietary requirements of your Norwegian Blue.*

Roger and Out, the strongest draught beer in the world apparently, went on sale in the Frog and Parrot on Division Street in Sheffield on Friday 7 June 1985.  On first release it had an original gravity of 1125, roughly 15% alcohol.

For each one third of a pint glass of Roger and Out, up to the third glass, you were issued with a different certificate.  It was rumoured that any drinker was limited to three glasses, that was nonsense, it was actually the certificates which stopped at three.  The limit was all part of the mythology, no attempt was made to stop anyone drinking more, and in fact the likelihood was that having got your three certificates you were relieved you didn't have to drink any more as it wasn't particularly pleasant.

I have all three of the certificates - they are reproduced below - and on the 7th June 1985 I drank five thirds of the stuff.  After the thirds of R&O I moved onto one of the normal brews (Conqueror with an OG of 1066 or Reckless), and probably went to the Wapentake and then Rebels.  At that time I had the constitution of an ox and was able to drink well into double figures with absolutely no ill effects whatsoever, until the next day at least...

Many may have the certificates, but few will have collected the maximum set on the first night, with authentic advertising literature too - before leaving I also pinched this A4 poster from the window.

* I have no idea what the actual brand of the Parrot was.

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Week 146, Wittgenstein and the answer to the ultimate question

So where were you and what were you doing on Wednesday 8th December 1993, thirteen years after Lennon (John) was shot?

Let's take a look into the crystal ball and see if there is any observable empirical data to give us some cognitive meaning for one group of characters on that day.

Back when the Film Unit at Sheffield Uni was just a long room with some rows of chairs in it the band known as Caustic Soup would make the occasional visit.  Why did we do that?  Well, that must be part of the ultimate question.

The ultimate question must also contain the reasoning for there being a Martian dwarf in Jarman's film Wittgenstein where none appeared in Eagleton's original script.  Is the Martian an hypothetical external observer?  Perhaps Durkheim has something to say on this - although it will almost certainly be too verbose and not even slightly humorous, which would have appealed to Wittgenstein.*

Fast forward in the film to Wittgenstein as he is dying:

Wittgenstein tells John Maynard Keynes, "I'd quite like to have composed a philosophical work that consisted only of jokes."

"Why didn't you do it?" Keynes inquires.

"Sadly, I had no sense of humour."


About a year later, at the end of November 1994 and 7 years before Harrison (George) died, the band went to see Faust, the film directed by Švankmajer.  This was purely for the hell of it - logical, positive, and an ideal cultural night out.  Wooden heads, puppets, live action, and all voiced by Sachs (Andrew) - one of the fifth Beatles.**  But without the physical evidence of a ticket did this elevating cultural event actually take place...

A broad cultural input is invaluable to the creative process, a view which some may consider pompous and overblown, but to that I say, Pretentious, Moi?  In retrospect however can we detect any actual cultural output, is that output unambiguous and of a notable qualitative standard when presented to an unbiased audience?

All the questions.

Let's take a look at the ticket to see if we can spot the answer to the ultimate question.

Just there below the watermark of Starr (Ringo) and McCartney (Paul).  Can you see it.

I can't imagine what Hitchhikers writer, and substantial Beatles fan, Adams (Douglas) would have made of it, but perhaps there is no correlation at all.†

* There is a collective as well as an individual humor inclining peoples to sadness or cheerfulness, making them see things in bright or somber lights. In fact, only society can pass a collective opinion on the value of human life; for this the individual is incompetent. - Emile Durkheim
** Everyone will be referred to as "The fifth Beatle" for up to 15 minutes at some point.
† Another question is... [insert your own here] ?

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