Three Years to the Olympics
It is now three years to the Olympics. My spies tell me that the project is really on budget and on time. Why my spies? Because, I wrote one of the original project management systems and some of those guys we trained and worked with are still in contact.
I think though we underestimate how much the Olympics will be worth to East Anglia, the area where I live. The night we won the Games, I was at a dinner at Anglia Ruskin University. Someone had calculated a figure of a large number of hundreds of millions of pounds.
So don’t knock the Olympics.
Captain Pugwash Sails Away
John Ryan, the creator of Captain Pugwash, died last week. He gave generations of kids, myself included, lots of fun.
Thank you, John!
One anecdote on the radio was that when first aired in the 1950s, the animation was done live using three easels. That’s shows a certain confidence.
How to Complain – Part 2
The Times yesterday had a long article yesterday on the story I detailed under How to Complain. Read the Time article, as there is some interesting on-line comment from other disgruntled passengers.
One thing that the article says, is complain with humour.
Years ago, I had a couple of bad experiences on PanAm, so I vowed never to fly them again. At the time, my company had a US Head Office in Houston and I used to go a couple of times a year. But at the time, the alternatives were fly either to fly British Calendonian direct or Braniff via Dallas. Now, I know my flying and after various incidents, I didn’t like DC10s, so I often went by a roundabout route, changing perhaps in Chicago or Boston.
But then PanAm decided to fly TriStars direct from Houston to Gatwick.
So I thought I’d give it a try and was actually pleasantly surprised. Especially, as the planes were often half-empty and you could usually find four seats in steerage to lie across for the flight back to Blighty.
So as the article in The Times says, I used humour not to complain, but to thank them for the service. I remember, I started the letter with something like.
What’s gone wrong with your airline? I vowed some years ago never to fly with PanAm again, after some bad experiences, but after flying between Gatwick and Houston, I certainly will again, after the great service.
I got a very nice letter in the same vein in return and continued to fly PanAm to Houston until the company was sold. Unfortunately, I don’t have the letters now.
But it does show, that humour is the best policy.
The problem now, is that a lot of complaints are handled in countries, where the British, American or French, sense of humour is not understood, so the jokes may fall on deaf ears.
It’s funny, but all airlines mentioned no longer exist.
National Panic Flu Service
I joked about this yesterday. But!
I also heard two stories on the radio.
In the first, a pathologist said that of the samples he’d tested for swine flu, only one in ten were actually the flu and that a lot were all of the various viruses that hang around at this time of year.
In the second, Peter Allen on Radio 5 asked Professor Hugh Pennington, the respected health expert, what he would do if he caught the dreaded swine flu. The Professor said he’d go to bed with paracetamol and a hot toddy. Peter Allen laughed at the good advice.
So are we panicing too much?
Yes! But what do I know.
I have my paracetamol and whisky ready. And the freezer is getting stocked up with home-made reday meals.
By the way, I’ve just noticed that http://www.panicflu.com and http://www.panicflu.co.uk are available.
One story that automatically linked to this post, was this one from the Washington Post. It is entitled, A Fierce Outbreak of Swine Flu Coverage.
Update – Jul 24, 2009 16:03 – If you type the title into Google this post is fourth! That’s not bad for five and a half hours.
Update – JUl 24, 2009 22:50 – Waitrose have run out of paracetamol. This post is now under the News in the Google search.
Celebrities
The case of Steven Gerrard is in all the newspapers at the moment. It raises a lot of issues, including the case of celebrities behaving properly.
After all, we’ve had a lot lately, who have got into trouble. Read something like Popbitch and you’ll get all the dirt on many who have overstepped the mark.
I go racing a lot, mainly at Newmarket. You see quite a few people there, who are in the news and they are rarely bothered and I’ve never seen anyone behaving less than impeccably. So perhaps, what happens occasionally and gets in the papers is just an aberration.
One tale I remember, is when we were flying to Greece I think and Susan Hampshire was on the plane. It must have been some time in the 1980s and the plane only had one class. She just said hello to everyone, signed a few autographs and just was extremely pleasant. We all left that plane, saying that she such a nice lady. I’ve had a soft spot for her ever since.
It must have been about 1973 or so, when I travelled to Middlesborough on a train. I had breakfast on the train and sat in a set of four seats in the dining car, with two gentlemen from Evans, who ran the shops for larger ladies, and their guest, Janet Webb. If you remember her from her closing the Morecambe and Wise Show, you will remember that she wasn’t a small lady. She entertained the whole carriage. What a trouper!
I also shared a similar four going to Liverpool on a train with two railway engineers and Virginia Wadeat about the same time. I think she was tired as she slept most of the way. Or was it that we talked about trains all the way up! If I remember, she got off at Crewe to take the train to the tournament at Hoylake. How lives have changed for tennis players since.
These are just three instances, where celebrities have enlightened the everyday lives of others. I could add more.
Libel
I have been rather amused when yet another high-profile figure loses a libel case over something in a book, that I would consider trivial and ignore. I would hope I have better things to do than go to court over something like that.
What is interesting about this case, is that I have not heard or seen it being reported on the BBC. Are they frightened that they might get sued for repeating a libel? At least the case is fully reported in the Guardian and there is some wonderful reporting, which may be quite fanciful, scurrilous and made up, in the blogosphere.
Increasingly, as I read my papers and watch the television, I get the impression, that libel is used more and more, by the rich, famous and the powerful to stop adverse or unwelcome views being distributed. Now, I don’t mind if the law is used to protect privacy and keep the secrets that we all would prefer to keep secret, but when it comes to suing those who say Company X is an environmental disgrace, then I’m of the opinion that you turn the other cheek. In my opinion you look an idiot by suing, as you certainly make many more people aware of what was said, whether it is true or not.
My late wife did her first pupilage in libel chambers in Inner Temple. The tales she heard about what people were thinking of suing on were quite hilarious. Unfortunately, most never came to court, as the libel was in fact just an opinion and no-one would care anyway. But it was obviously a very nice earner for the barristers. Interestingly, she told me that regularly members of chambers would go down the road to Fleet Street to read the next day’s papers before printing.
One story, I’ve heard a couple of times, is of the abrasive city tycoon, who was frequently misrepresented in the press. He kept all his cuttings for the visitors to his office to see and actually liked the more outrageous ones. But he never sued. His attitude was right! I don’t think he suffered the Curse of Gnome either. This is a misfortune that occurs if you issue a writ against Private Eye.
So my late wife’s advice to anybody who is thinking about suing for libel was don’t. You’ll make it worse and you’ll only end up with a large bill from lawyers. Even if you win! I agree entirely.
Sometimes in this blog, I might offend someone. I intend not to, but then I might unintentionally. At a first instance, I’d remove the offending post, but then if I knew I was right, I’d fight. But then, I’d go to court as a litigant in person. That would really upset everybody and get maximum publicity.
Incidentally, I shall be buying Private Eye today, to see what they say about yesterday’s case. I probably wouldn’t if the case hadn’t occurred. It will be interesting to see if their sales are up!
How to Complain
Take a look at this video on YouTube.
Dave Carroll is a musician whose guitar was damaged/broken by United Airlines on a flight to Nebraska. He didn’t get any joy with the airline, so he wrote the song and put it on YouTube.
When I played it, it had over three and a half million hits and it was funny too!
United Airlines have decided to use the video for internal training.
But it does show, how if a company doesn’t act quickly to genuine complaints, then they can be on the end of a very big stick. They should remember too, that most cameras these days have a very professional video mode.
But be careful. My late wife was a barrister, who knew a lot about libel law. It’s why the BBC says allegedly so often!
Swine Flu Finds an Appropriate Victim
I did think of calling this post, “God Doesn’t Vote Labour”, but then that would be against my principles as I don’t do god.
But it appears that the Labour candidate in the Norwich North by-election has got swine-flu. Is it some sort of poetic justice or an insult to pigs?
Forty Years On
It was enlightening to get The Times out for Monday, the 21st July,1969.
The edition is historic because of the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon and now that I have yesterday’s reprint of the 5 a.m. edition of parts of the paper, I now have three different copies with different headlines.
- Man lands on the moon with perfect touchdown
- Man walks on the moon after Eagle’s perfect landing
- Man takes first steps on the moon
But what of the other less well-known stories in the paper.
Before I start, I should say that The Times in 1969 cost just six old pence or 2.5 pence in today’s coinage. Well, not really today’s coinage as the halfpence was abolished in 1984. Today paper costs 90 pence, whereas adjusting for inflation the 1969 edition would cost just 32 pence.
So it now costs almost three times as much.
But perhaps it is bigger. Yesterday’s paper was 104 tabloid pages and the one forty years ago was 26 broadsheet pages, which equates to 52 tabloid. So the modern paper is twice the size, but not three times. I should say that I have ignored the extra supplement in the older paper, as this by chance happened to turn up on the 21st July, 1969.
I’ll start with that supplement. It is a very interesting document as it is a special report on Decimal Currency and Metrication. Some points from the document.
- Britain thought about going to decimal currency in the nineteenth century.
- The Board of Trade recommended going decimal in 1951.
- Patrick O’Leary made the prediction that the half penny will be unpopular. He was right there.
But it is in the field of metrication that the document is most interesting, with this paragraph.
The change to the metric system is more profound and complex than decimalizing the coinage. There is no simple way of saying that such-and-such will happen: it certainly cannot be done by diktat. The impact of the change will be spread widely through the economy and widely through time. Nevertheless, the Government has set a target date – the end of 1975.
So we’re still waiting for the abolition of Imperial units, thirty nine years later. I used to work for ICI and they went metric in 1955. It may be a hobby horse of mine, but in a few days I will return to this scandal.
Note too in the quote the ‘z’ in decimalizing and the colon. English has changed.
So what else can I find in the old newspaper.
The only other story on the front page concerns Senator Edward Kennedy and his involvement in the death of Mary-Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick. He is still in the Senate.
There was the usual crop of stories about NHS problems, strikes, celebrities and politicians. John “Reggie Perrin” Stonehouse was the Postmaster General was arguing against more hours for ITV, as this might harm the BBC, Myra Hindley had just got an O level and the usual crop of dictators were featured. So little has changed.
But I did like the story about the “Tyres slashed on 40 cars”. There wasn’t any vandalism in the 1960s was there? In this case it was in Fowey in Cornwall.
And the one on the sports pages entitled “Racecourse managers need a new image”. Some still haven’t got the message. There was also an encouraging report on how, Britain’s Davis Cup team should get to the final! So we’ve got worse at tennis! What’s new? The great Ron Hill was running marathons, like I think he still runs regularly.
If you ever get a chance to read papers like these do. It’s the nuggets that amuse and educate.
The Anonymous Widower 