Pan's Labyrinth

This is a spectacular film, a narrative that holds stories within stories. No holes barred, it is uncompromising the imagery that communicates the brutal and magical messages. As the film was interpreted by my little brain its about authority and the importance of freedom, creativity and art in a world where rules and sure-thinking is crystalising around everyone (in the form of Nazis encamped in a Spanish mountain). The young Ivana Baquero and Maribel Verdu put in beautiful performances, holding the audience throughout. Guillermo del Toro has pushed the boat out here, if you are not too sqeamish then this is a must-see.

Perhaps due to me reading Richard Dawkin's new book, 'The God Delusion' what I gained most from Pan's Labyrinth is the relationship between science and art and the idea that perhaps that's what the religious texts (e.g. bible, koran) have been an attempt at capturing; and the only mistake is that the authors/ followers thought knowledge had been captured once and forever.

Art provides science with the patterns they can structure data with. Only through the metaphors artist create can we think ourselves into new realms of understanding. We have to hold complex patterns to deal with complex data.

Just a thought.

Casino Royale

Casino Royale is a raw interpretation of Ian Flemming's James Bond novels. The director Martin Cambell has tried to be more faithful to the original stories, making Bond much colder, more like you'd expect an elite-trained soldier to be. Timothy Dalton's character was an attempt at being more faithful to the original story, making Bond more fallible but the franchise had been dominated by the excessively camp Roger Moore for too long and Dalton basically came across as just a comical failure. Daniel Craig is smolders (according to just about every woman who's seen it so far), and the violence and action are more akin to Vin Diesel in XxX. The romance with Eva Green is incongruous but the concept is interesting - two hyper-talented orphans on a mission to higher stakes and bionic performance. Casino Royale is a good new James Bond. Out with the cheese and kitsch and in with a little more realistic portrayal of this State Terrorism we seem to love so much in the UK. We're still kicking arse globally which helps our diminutive British self-esteems shine for a few cinematic moments. The weather is tough you know, stiff upper lip and all that. The scene pictured here with Eva Green is powerful - I won't ruin the film by explaining why.

Friedrich Nietzsche

HOPE is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.

1. noun 1 a feeling of expectation and desire for something to happen. 2 a person or thing that gives cause for hope.
2. verb 1 expect and want something to happen. 2 intend if possible to do something.
3. PHRASES hope against hope cling to a mere possibility. hope springs eternal in the human breast proverb it is human nature to always find fresh cause for optimism. not a (or some) hope informal no chance at all.

If you have a boss or leader who made decisions based on hope, would you have confidence in them. Look at the mess Blair and Bush made in Iraq - why did they do this. Its simple, they had a tiny piece of intelligence, they jumped ahead anyway, because that's what pseudo-religious people like them have been brainwashed to do.

Faith, Hope, and all the other sick devices cults use to manipulate people, steal money, build ivory towers, and give the kings their cannon-fodder.

Religion is the most dangerous of all drugs. The pill is taken by continuously jumping in feet first, and chanting "god save me, I am coming to you dear god, I am doing your work."

Of course, some people just want to be good, and can go-meta reading scrupture and believe others are doing the same, so a community of good is forming. But why focus on one set of books, attend one church, hang out with one group of people to do this? Why exclude information, why close the doors if the aim is to be good?

People are strange

Spotted
Originally uploaded by mentalese.

The recent visit to Saltaire and in particular the Charlotte Street Social Center was a real eye opener. This is a picture of the locals that I took undercover with my camera at the start of the night. The characters in this room each had a movie in just their faces. As for The Act, a singer with gags then...

Of course I was mesmerised. A southerner Op North. On enquiry then apparently these Phoenix Nights are quite common and not the invention of Peter Kay.

Fly

oko w oko
Originally uploaded by leniwiec72.

This is where photography comes into its own for me, the so-called 'Macro' shot. We don't see this, we see an average world. Millions of pictures spliced together but here we get one perfect shot. Okay it looks a little staged...

Moving frameworks

Old Tree
Originally uploaded by abozaid.

Everything exists in dimensional space. We form ideas with expressions received through our culture. New expressions are emerging into common langauge that can gather more thought, position ideas better, hold more fruit.

Language is the tree we hang ideas from. Jesus must now be crucified on n-dimensional virtual reality for his association with good to be re-affirmed.

We cannot hang modern ideas from ancient trees.

Half awake

Half asleep. Art. Trance. A Zen moment. When we are all senses and without thought, reasoning instinct, neuro-pharmacologically sublime.

When pictures flow large and whole, unadulterated, unquestioned, uninterpreted.

When we can just stare at something and feel content.

Minds melt. Mine akin water.

Super shorts

I have just been to a super shorts screening in Oxford. It was late, I cycled their through dense fog and the usual soup of Oxford pollution. I was tired. I drifted off to a few of the films in the middle.

There was one film that stood out for me called Days of Sleep, directed by Claire Dix. I am not sure why I liked it, maybe I understood the theme or liked the music. The fruitstand, the gifts, the explosion of needing, the goofy Jananese actor. I think actually it was the music, then the fruit.

These mini-festivals can be a little painful though. What really bugs me is that so many films are being made with absolutely no point to them. I get to the end and just think - why did you spend all that effort making that. Sure I should appreciate the craft involved but you'd think in a world like the one we live in now then someone would have something to say.

It could be a pop wisdom. These people don't want to flatter currupt politicians, psychotic business people with their attention. Could be wise indeed. Maybe I am just old school in thinking they have any relevance at all.

Or maybe these people actually don't have anything to say.

Was it the Beatles that predicted we'd all be making films and music. Well we do all seem to be producing but with so much information how will we find the meaning. How will we attend to meaning when it is so dispersed. Will the machine stop?

National Climate March

I fear I am too tired to go up to London to rally against Exxon and the American Embassy so I will do a virtual march in Blog Space:

http://www.campaigncc.org/

I have blogged about Exxon before - the most short-term profitable company ever.

Of course this marching is illogical and probably pointless or even counter-productive but I wanted to see first-hand what it is about.

My banner would have been:

THIS IS THE MARCH THAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED BEFORE IRAQ - ITS ALL ABOUT OIL AND OVERCONSUMPTION.

A tad long obviously but my sentiment is that we can't just rally against war and not stop doing the things that cause war, i.e. ourselves and the way we overconsume. People are so hypocritical and shallow. Some people go I am sure just because they love to show public anger.

I still believe it could be worth going but I am simply too exhausted. Maybe I will go march through Oxford by myself.

The inner puppeteer

All thinking must be the result of movements of matter, thought is physical, energy is being channeled within our minds, by neurones at synaptic junctions (neuro-pharmacology).

All thought must be the result of some form of 'symbolic' re-representation process. Our neurones must be reconfiguring through time and space to conjure networks that allow ourselves to express meaning.

This knowledge in the head is re-presented in the world using various tools and external symbolic representation systems. This allows us to communicate and form intellectual networks.

The mind, devoid of non-mind must be blank, tabla rasa.

Q. Do we wonder through life at random, our destinies wrapped up from birth in some deterministic path, controlled by our genes, our social standing and other large strange attractors.

Q. Is there an inner puppeteer, a spark that is beyond all computation, a human spirit that allows us to select the world we experience, to control the learning we gain of symbolic representation systems. Do we seek the teaching we need?

Q. Does society crystallize around entirely predictable structures that mean we never escape the humdrum we are born with?

We spend our lives trying to look our puppeteer in the eye so that we can try work the strings with him - in unison we are free to explore the world as a whole person. The older we get the harder it is to keep this partnership because those that loose it - the zombies, want to bite us and turn us to stone with their fits of jealousy.

Art and science are the only antidote to these fatal attacks. They remind us that everything is a mystery, there can be no rest - there is not time for complacency and dogma.

Aldous Huxley

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

I read this a few months ago. It keeps popping back to my thoughts every time I see politicians talk about the latest war (Iraq). Its like tribal times with these people, they smell the hunt then we seem all programmed to align to their blood lust. Its amazing how often the parliamentary executive stifle opinions with threats of disloyalty and misinformation. Why can we not arrest these tyrants?

Here's my problem with Tony Blair. He's blinded by religious faith, a belief system that is centuries out of date. He knows he is out of his depth but carries on anyway because he has been programmed from childhood to think that the feeling of hope is a good thing.

There is only one place we live and that is in reality, there is only one set of rules, one universal truth and it does not care about the Bush - Blair religious vanity and personal insecurities.

I think it was Jeremy Paxman who said the only distinguishable feature of all politicians is that they failed in their preferred walk of life. Blair we know wanted to be a rock star - so now he inflicts these dreams on all of us. I just wish he'd smashed his guitar over the people who have their hands up the Bush-Puppet arse (ignore Bush himself, he's just there to obstruct public scrutiny - his masters know that we won't probe him hard because he triggers such deep senses of either pity or loathing that we are unable to speak our minds in his presence).

Houses

Completed on the 8 Vincent Ave. sale today. Got A&L mortgage agreed. So will redeem mortgage and go down the 'getting the exchange' path on Cricket Road.

Since I am selling and buying in such a short space of time then I will never really get into credit.

Funny how on the face of things we never seem to own anything. Other people always seem to own our money, we're always in debt, renting and being managed by people further up the supply chain.

Anyway, I will own a house so that is nice. My own space.

Lake District

Another batch of pictures have just been uploaded to my Flickr account.

I found a nice tool called JUploader which made the batch upload nice and easy.

I am also starting to get used to using the flickr hyperlinking on comments, favourites, tags and searches to find my "picture network".

Recent thoughts about sustainability

First to clarify, I lump conservation, climate change, pollution and all those types of words under one banner named sustainability. Nature is about harmony, and every time we break this harmony we are living beyond the bounds of sustainability.

I have been very positive about the situation these last few days (maybe still drunk on the Lake District) but I think it is largely because I feel I understand the issues so well now. Also there is no point at all in being down about it. We all have to do something about it, and being depressed and lethargic will never solve any problems. Sure it is very frustrating seeing how most people just don't get it and even take pride in their consumptive habits. This is just about maturity.

So why so positive. Well I actually now think that climate chaos is precisely what we humans need. It is a massive kick up the arse, a real problem at last for Generation X to take on. It will help us see past the trivial issues like the fuss the world's religions are creating. It will help us define ourselves after so many years of extreme change. We must all come together to solve this enormous problem. We can undo the mess Thatcher and Reagan created by encouraging us to be greedy so fragmenting our societies. There is no way we can afford to behave selfishly and get through the next 50 years.

The vindictive elements in me wants to change society slowly so that the sustainable people profit and the Exxon's of the worlds come crashing down like Enron did. I want to wipe those smug business people smiles right off their faces. Those people who think they are so virtuous and innovative with their tacky companies. I want these business psychopaths to realise what they've done and their true worth.

Whether this will happen and the next generation will make it into the next century I do not know. But all we can do is live our own lives with as much energy and integrity as possible. I think their is real joy in the alternatives, and we will find it much easier than we think. Its just a case of realising how vulnerable we really are and not hiding behind oil guzzling machinery.

The Lake District

First let's get that bad stuff out of the way. This English haven for walkers and the out-door types is pretty much inaccessible to those without a car. The roads are very narrow and there are rarely paths through the surrounding farm land so anyone wanting to walk between two towns has to risk their lives with the local S.U.V.s, Land rovers and city-dweller Mercedes. Even the Lake District is an unsustainable playground for the rich. I am sure there is a way to get into the wilderness without using too much oil buts its far from obvious how.

Anyway, less of the rant, the Lake District is an incredible place once you find the footpaths. We walked for hours without seeing a soul. Its like being in a postcard but without the cheesiness. Water is everywhere, streams, lakes, drizzle and waterfalls. The whole landscape is sculptured by blue gold.

And camping, I'd forgotten what a joy it is. If you live in Oxford you really appreciate waking with sweet fresh air in your lungs. Then a quick dash to the showers to freshen up starts the day and gets you ready for the camping stove fun. We did porridge with cranberries and bananas which when accompanied with a big hot cupper set you up beautifully. Hiking out with a belly full of energy is a joyous moment. I noticed we could not stop rabbiting on about all sorts of things. Like those teenage stoned moments without the herb.

I was in an incredible good mood when I got back. Of course the 800+ emails I had to sort through on returning to work had a dampening effect but the inner chi is energised. I just denoted £50 smackers to the WWF (And No! Mr Adsense guys, this is not breaking your rules, I really did just do this!)

Anyway, while I am still dizzy on nature, my message: our cities stink, get out of your cars, turn the TV off, alcohol only subdues your problems...Get out there, natural beauty pisses over anything man-made.

Cricket Road

Is has damp but is a robust house.

This Oxford campaign

Just before I run away for two weeks in Spain I want to reflect a bit on where I am in my research and thinking on dealing with pollution in Oxford.

Well Oxford is still very polluted. I am still frustrated at how hard it is to get information out of local and central government:

• Nothing from John at county council on the LTP
  
• Nothing from Evan Harris my MP
• Nothing from air watch on whether the way air quality measurements have been changed
• Nothing on why the cost of pollution on the economy from central government
  

I think it would be interesting to find out the history of decision-making in terms of roads and traffic have been made over the last 100 years, particuarly how much say the car manufacturers have had. Morris, Rover and now BMWs mini must have powerful sway over decision-making considering revenue and jobs.

I still need to find out specifics about the vulnerable people in Oxford.

I still need to plan my campaign with FOE.

I still need to do the survey to find why people come to Oxford and how they get there.

Rangoli

There seems to be a lead here, rangoli have striking similarities to fractals but were obviously conjured millenia before. I should learn more about the origins.

From looking at wikipedia it seems rangoli refers mostly to the method of art and geometric patterns are not the most common type (mostly images from nature such as peacocks, mango and flowers) but geometric rangoli there are and this seems to be my link.

It seems the swastika is a common motif.

Charles Street

Is damp.

Vincent Ave

has gone.

Future Shorts

Just been to see an eclectic set of films at Oxford's Phoenix Future Shorts banaza:

KROOLI Dir: P.V.Lehtinen Finland 2005
A poetic story of a young, competitive swimmer meeting the world's fastest female swimmer in her dreams.
When you dedicate your whole life to something and realise you've reached your limit, what do you have?
FRIDAY'S CHILD Dir: Dougal Wilson UK 2006
Will Young works his way up to become a swimming champion.
Same song again sung in water.
EATING SAUSAGE Dir: Zia Mandviwalla New Zealand 2004
Su Jung, a recent immigrant to Auckland from Korea, finds release in her weekly swimming lessons. Meanwhile her husband worries that they might be losing their cultural identity.
Its boring being an immigrant and osolated, solace in the tub.
FIVE INCH BATHERS Public Information Film UK 1970
Takes economising water to a whole new level.
Happy man in shower trying to save water.
SHELF LIFE Dir: Charles Hendley UK 2000
Can we live a life of total safety, free from all risks? Or is a death wish lurking within even the most cautious mind?
Die or Y
WRONG Dir: Tom Geens UK 2005
Trapped in his own exile, a man searches for an experience to change his numbing existence.
Man gets too lonely.
KILLING TIME AT HOME Dir: Neil Coslett UK 2003
An imaginative, animated tale of a man's online order for a disposable friend, but what fate awaits such a creature?
Disposable friends.
ACCIDENT REPORT Dir: Guttorm Petterson Norway 1993
A bricklayer gets a lesson in the laws of physics.
Schadenfreund.
TERMINALLY AMBIVALENT OVER YOU Dir: Alex Budovsky UK 2005
Sounding like someone swiped a collection of records from the 1920s, Tuesday Weld creates odd sampling collages with strong hooks and great beats. This time our hero is in prison making gramophones and longing for a loved one.
Black and white with yellow; patterns.
MOJA DOMOVINA Dir: Milos Radovic Yugoslavia 1997
If humour alone could end a war, this would do it.
Calamity at the rail road crossing.
EATING OUT Dir: Simon Teff UK 2004
An appetising comedy about a hold up in a greasy spoon that leads to new acquaintances.
Stunning re-take on pulp fiction couple taking over a restaurant.

The Oxford Local Transport Plan

Letter to Oxford County Council:

Dear John,

Thank you for your response. I am pleased to read there will be more clean buses and this is a small step in the right direction but I have a many other concerns

Please bear with me - this is not my job so I do not have as much time as I want to dedicate to these issues.

1. The LTP was up for review on a public web site, how long was this for, how many people from the public sent in comments, was this a representative sample of people from Oxford? My concern here is that generally I have found using the county, national and oxford government web sites extremely arduous (mostly due to them being PDF dumping grounds and having very poor navigation) so I doubt whether there are more than a handful of people that are even able to work out what you are doing in this area.
2. You say that the county (and I assume Oxford) councils are taking the situation of air pollution in Oxford seriously. Why then is the first mention of any actions in for Oxford on p.183. Why also on this page does it use the language: "Oxford revealed a number of locations where air pollutant levels may have exceeded national air quality objectives" and "The only air quality objective that is exceeded in Oxford is the national objective for the annual mean concentration of nitrogen dioxide..." I am sure you are as aware as I am that Oxford is probably the most polluted city in the whole of the UK. It has consistently been worse than the two other offenders namely Bath and Marylebone High Street. If you are serious about fixing this issue surely it would be more appropriate to use language like: "Oxford has a very serious air pollution problem, it has exceeded all air pollution objectives consistently over the last ten years and has a very serious problem with Nitrogen Oxides. Consequently the levels of Ozone pollution in Oxford are also very serious. Ozone and Nitrogen Oxides are a serious health problem meaning vulnerable people with asthma and heart disease are at a serious risk of being hospitalised or dying and the cost to the NHS is substantial. All cities around the world with levels of Ozone and Nitrogen Oxides on a par with Oxford see increased fatalities in the range thousands people per year. data source:

http://www.airquality.co.uk/archive/reports/cat05/0601311639_Air_Pollution_in_the_UK_2004_-_Part_2_Statistics.pdf

My point here is that it does not help if the people regulating air quality appear NOT to not be taking the issue seriously and especially if they are obscuring the facts. (While Ozone is not a regulated pollutant ("transboundary pollutant") it nevertheless is very high in Oxford and the levels of NOx cannot be ignored as a contributing factor).

3. Why is air pollution or quality only the 4th priority in the transport plan (after congestion, accessibility, and safety. It seems to me that if the local government will solve air pollution by the only way that can every have an effect - which is to drastically reduce the number cars and buses driving around the city then congestion and the other priorities will not be a solved as a consequence.

It seems to me that this is lots of not very innovative steps that are not measurable. With the seriousness of climate change then it is enourmous steps that are needed. It is time to say that bus companies are responsible for the pollution they create. That bus companies MUST share tickets. That cars cannot drive whereever they want and many more streets need closing. Car parks need to be replaced with more parks and sustainable housing. etc.

This report smacks of the same old thing, too little and too late. Oxford has been a serious air quality offender for the last ten years, there has been ample warning, and the measures that have been taken have only ensured traffic flow or tackled congestion and not done anything to make Oxford a more sustainable and healthy city to live in.

As a resident I am ashed to live in the most polluted city in the UK. I was brushed off by the Oxford City Council when I raised this last year. The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1292524,00.html
was rubished by a member of the transport department team. I now see that the governments own statisticss back these findings up so I was right to be appalled.

In short what I need reassuring is that the action plan will produce measurable results in making oxford a cleaner, healthier and more sustainable city. I want to to be reassured that Oxford will stop micro-tinkering and make some bold decisions that will actually have an effect.

My next avenue of research is into any effect the local car manufacturing plants have had on oxford's governance. I dearly hope oxford has stood up to the kinds of commercial corruption that so abhors us when we read about it in stories from America. I very much doubt it, I am sure that Oxford's problems are caused by much more than it being in a low-lying dip in a vale and that there have been priorities given to interests that are far from democratic.

I look forward to your responses,

Regards, Howard Noble

Little Miss Sunshine

First things first, this little actress was a star amongst stars. This is the funniest film I have seen in ages. I menagerie of Americans ventures out on a road trip to get little Olive (Abigail Breslin) to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty/ horror show. Packed with every Yankie cliche we still end up loving this family of misfits for standing up to everything and being themselves, no matter how rediculous they might seem. I mean check those white socks out. I want to put so many pictures in this blog because there were so many great scenes and good acting. Little Miss Sunshine is a film about daring to be original.

G8 'superpowers'

World Economic Superpowers, sounds so grand but how can anyone stand up and say the West has achieved anything with the recent realisation of just how unsustainable and fragile the social fabric we live is.

Basically we burn more oil than the poor nations so we are more powerful and able to bully and coerce, just like in a game of monopoly.

Okay, let's not get carried away on this theme, plenty of incredible things have been created and discovered. Its just so depressing when you see that graph of CO2 level rises over the last 30 years. How on earth are we going to get out of this mess. We need a technological revolution greater than both world wars combined but all in a time when people are apathetic.

The money is in the hands of the greediest not the cleverest. We need this money to innovate and implement policy and behavioural changes - let's take it back from the Exxons and currupt and deluded governments of our time. Shopping and voting, so easy even trivial but so important.

Adsense

I have just signed up for adsense, let's see where this one goes.

The idea is to endorse sustainable products, services and initiatives and tag these under one heading e.g. sustainability.

All about creating a sustainable market.

Creationism and evolution

The miracle of YouTube provides us with some interesting perspectives on this one:

• Public health video warning us against creationism
• An armchair lecture
• A sloping forehead and evangelical salesman
• Bill Hicks assassination

A moderate person is not someone who picks the middle point between two arguments, this is just a social animal - playground reasoning.

This is a good topic to teach this lesson because anything even close to creationism is not reasonable and actually horrifyingly scary. It is aso a good topic to learn about hypothesis, theory, fact and logical positivism.

If people want to believe this stuff that's fair enough, it is a free world. They should be deprived of light and heat though - they weren't in the bible either. Unfortunately in America these people have their finger on the nuclear button.

Tideland

Looking forward to this one: Tideland.

Paddington cannot be forgotten

Homage to paddington bear.

Childhood stories - pooh bear

What was it about these characters that I loved so much when I was young. I had Pooh world above my bed headboard in the form of a poster and could stare at it endlessly. Is this why I like honey so much, why I seem to adopt tigger as a nickname, and last week watched a film about a donkey. Piglet bemused me a bit but otherwise I loved reading the antics of this funny crew.

Paddington bear too had some sort of good old english charm, a security in familair innocence, a rare bit of solidarity.

Ah, happy times!

Getting your ideas across

The effort involved is infinitely more if you start out alone.

Find a real partner; the path might not change but it could well be less arduous.

(Thinking about the potential for success of what I want to do with air pollution in Oxford, projects at work and using collaborative tools such as wetpaint).

Pollution web page

So since wikipedia deleted my page on air pollution in oxford for being 'original research' and too local or specific I will have to get the research hosted somewhere else on the web. I'll try wet paint first and have created a site cleverly called NOZONE.

Pollution

Traffic
Originally uploaded by KT Lindsay.

A seemingly harmless scene, a few cars and a bus carrying people to London. Unfortunately our excessively liberal attitude towards motorised transport is making one of the most polluted cities in the UK - Oxford, a dangerous place to live.

Air pollution kills tens of thousands of people each year and causes misery to many millions. Oxides of nitrogen and ozone damage all of our lungs and hearts, cause cancer and increase miscarriage rates.

Yet, we love driving around, we love convenience, we love status.

So 80s, so tacky.

What is it about fractals?

Fractal ~ mathematical beauty
Originally uploaded by digikuva.

Fractals are the image of that feeling we get every now and then that life is actually not that complicated. If we look too closely or from too far then things always seem out of focus. If we are given the right tools or knowledge, our faculties are in tune, then a golden braid can connect all the elements that constitute the complexities that cloud our sanity each day. Mandelbrott really gave us something in fractals, something Turing made possible, and Babbage, von Neumann, Lorenz and countless others contributed to our the intelligent eye.

Fractals are an icon, a vivid reminder that we can wonder through the desert gathering seemingly amorphous information for a long time. Then a paradigm shift occurs when we have all the pieces, and a wonderful calm can be enjoyed...for a while.

Au Hasard Balthazar

Apparently Robert Bresson was making a film that affirms his Catholic faith and poor old Balthazar the donkey is a modern-day Jesus Christ. Serving the fallen post-war French villagers as they rise to the technological heights of the motorized vehicle this humble beast of burden is gradually surpassed as an essential part of the economy, and given increasingly rediculous roles.

The beautiful heroine Marie (Anne Wiazemsky) and her childhood sweetheart steal Balthazar away from his mother while suckling at the teat. A terrible tapestry of relationships emerges, and weaves its way through a rapidly changing society of hell raisers, proud father, greedy bachelors, and stoic mothers to name but a few.

I was expecting a tear-jerker but the film's quality was slightly too poor and the emotionless timing of the scene transitions made for an intellectual treatment rather than anything more sentimental.

Here we see Balthazar breathing his last breaths. He's just been shot and manages to limp to return perhaps to this symbolic flock - the innocent shepherd who hasn't gone rushing ahead in the name of 'progress'. This scene is perhaps about Balthazar laying to rest with those not driven by greed, hate, and malice. But there is the potential for a further twist of fate - his saddle bag is full of incense and gold coins.

Au Hazard Balthazar was for me about bullies, technological progress, animal welfare, responsibility, greed, pride, innocense, submission, hatred, anger, but most of all simply about a poor old tragic and comical donkey (eeee ooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr).

Spoken to DEFRA

After being pinged around the houses a bit I managed to speak to a very helpful Carol Tidmarsh who I think is at DEFRA. She explained the governance of Air Quality Management Area (AQMA) to me which basically amounts to: (1) areas with a pollution problem are nominated as AQMAs. These areas must submit a Local Transport Plan to the National Transport Department who have hired consultants who offer a service to support AQMAs in improving air quality. Areas that do not work with the national transport department can be taken under administration by the secretary of state.

In terms of reporting The EU is about to submity a new Air Quality Objective that means all EU states are accountable and will be fined for not meeting targets.

I also learnt that Ozone is not a local air pollutant objective but the reason given that Ozone can blow in from europe ("transboundary pollutant") is obviously not right - so can PM10 and that is a local objective. Also Ozone levels are effected very much by local conditions like vehicles as they are a by-product of nitrogen oxide emissions. Anyway the review and assessment helpdesk confirmed it is not a local objective but the reason given was fuzzy, it just is because it is deemed that local management cannot effect the levels of Ozone - worth following this one up!.

Some hopefully helpful advice is that I should contact Oxford's "primary care trust" for stats on respiratory and other diseases in Oxford.

I have also just spoken to one of the 3 helpdesks that support this whole convoluted process:

1. The review and assessment helpdesk who support AQMAs in the compilation of reports in a 3 year process cycle
   
2. Bureau Veritas helpdesk who work with AQMAs to create action plans that feature in the Local Transport Policy document
3. The Local Authority Air Quality Support who provide support on monitoring, modelling and emissions.

So the plot thickens!

Sustainable careers

it seemed wise to act on the advice: look at the world, see what it needs and do that as a job.

it is hard to see how, considering climate change, what needs doing is simply underdoing what the baby boomers have done. they have created a monster that needs dismantling.

i am sure if i were older i'd see a cyclicle process of centralisation-decentralisation but this beast is out of control. the stakes are high.

so what is a job with a future in 2006?

Russian dolls

Russian Dolls, Les Poupées russes (2005) is the sequel to The Spanish Apartment Auberge espagnole, L' (2002) and above is Celia Shelburn Lucy Gordon, built to Fibonacci proportions, evident on every curve and exquisite line. Poor Xavier Romain Duris is plagued by beautiful woman and he can't make up his mind what he wants. (Things are getting tough because he's about to become ancient - 30 years old...bastard!) Well he seems to settle for his English Rose Wendy Kelly Reilly mostly because each is prepared to accept the others' flaws and together battle The Cliché. There's a whiff of Four Weddings' or Love Actually but you just have to admire French panache. I like Duris too, who was excellent in The Beat that my Heart Skipped De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté (2005); like Keanu Reeves he never over-acts so becomes a template for your own imagination, not the ego of the actor. This is the main difference between theatre and cinema.

my air pollution research

so it seems that i have come to a pretty conclusive point in this research. on finding the report oxford submitted to the national transport office i have been pretty angry. first to work out why i am so incensed:

1. it seems like the authors of the report are blatantly lying about the air pollution problem, in fact worse than lying, they are conceding there is a problem but writing about it in a way that 'it is a minor thing and we've got it under control anyway...oh and we don't actually care much about your objectives defra because what we don't see we don't care about and we don't see people dying of air pollution.'
   
2. air pollution is also hyped as being an important thing in the introduction, but then reading the whole report it is clearly just lip service as air pollution is given around a third less importance than tackling congestion
3. and if you think, 'well that's okay isn't it because by tackling congestion there will be less air pollution' well that's the trick. congestion is normally solved by road building and oxford's greatest folly which has been allowing rediculous numbers of highly polluting and dangerous diesel powered buses onto the streets.
   
4. then i get angry because i imagine the types of people who make these reports, old codgers who've churned out exactly the same kind of thing for the last 30 years. they are doing the same because that's all they know and they are making a power point to the little fresh young thinkers in the environmental departments (who they are law-bound to work with) that they know transport

so with that expressed (not out yet) what are the lessons learnt:

1. this is where G Bush comes from, grass-level incapability of creating an economy that is not oil-based
2. total disregard for health issues because rich people can afford to live in big houses in the country where the precious clean air is. and what's more they can drive in to town in their SUVs to pick up their kids from private school and a couple of items from the shops
3. that committees cannot make brave decisions
4. that this country's democracy is in a sorry state
5. that politicians are the people we should all feel most sorry for, those attention-seeking kids with no saving grace who we prop up in their adult life to stop them taking drugs

what can i do?

1. go see someone responsible for the transport report
2. follow up with phone calls the people i have written to i.e. evan harris, air watch, defra, oxford city council, oxford county council
   
3. go see my mp evan harris
4. write a newspaper report
5. start a web site, especially if wikipedia won't let me keep the air quality page
   
6. start a campaign with support from some advisory group like foe
7. i could also present to the ICT for local government on how to improve their web site
   

i need to pull together the medical facts too, since this is the main thing that is mis-represented

questions that need answering:

1. how many people responded to the local transport policy document and was this a representative group
2. why are the local government web sites so bad
3. how did air pollution get pushed down the agenda and why does the report downplay the data recorded by oxford airwatch
4. find out where the report is now, contact who is reading it and point out the errors
5. map the interests of people in local government to policy development by getting their CVs
   

wikipedia page on 'air quality in oxford'

i started created a page in wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_quality_in_Oxford

All writing is catharisis

I am sure someone has said this before!

And links to external cognition and Creativity (see M. Boden)

Air quality in Oxford, England

I'll use this thread to keep a history of my activities and research into the dire pollution problem in Oxford. I am starting this slightly after the event and want to capture everything, so first an update:

1. Here are the banding targets for different airbourne pollutants.
2. Tried to use the DEFRA wiki but to no avail (email'd support email address, but no reply)
   
3. I have read up on pollution and respiratory diseases and rather satisfyingly the DEFRA web site does not avoid the issue but states that pollutants like NOx and Ozone (O3) do worsen diseases like asthma. I have found medical research articles that state that these and other pollutants may actually cause the onset of these and other diseases. But there is obviously nonesense like this flying about.
   
4. Finally I have surfed and downloaded the PDF nightmare that is government websites and found a report that provides the direction and summary of the situation in Oxford in the 'A Breathe of Fresh Air (ironic name)' report.
5. I have written to the people who maintain the Oxford airwatch website:

In response to your queries, in turn:-

1) We are aware of this, it is being dealt with, following changes to the site structures.

2) Yellow dots are passive monitors (diffusion tubes) giving an average result over a month; green dots are automated monitoring stations providing continuous hourly data.

3) We are listed on pages linked to the DEFRA website, but under Midlands, not the South East

http://www.stanger.co.uk/siteinfo/

http://www.stanger.co.uk/siteinfo/MonitoringSite.asp?ID=77

4) http://www.airquality.co.uk/archive/standards.php#band

the above link gives you explanation of the banding system

5) We think it's unrealistic to publish long documents as anything other than pdf. With respect it's nothing to do with keeping material hidden, but everything to do with keeping the web pages manageable.

I hope these brief comments are helpful, if you have any other questions please do not hesitate to come back to me,

best wishes

deleted contact details

---

---

Posted At: 18 August 2006 19:27
Posted To: feedback@oxford.gov.uk
Conversation: hello
Subject: hello

just using your web site and i have the following:

1. the last link on your general information page is broken
2. i wanted to get data for a recording station that is close to where I work but don't seem to be able to (one of the yellow dots on your map). i generally do not understand the difference between the green and yellow dots. how many recording stations are there in oxford, 3 or nearly 100?
3. i also do not understand why on the DEFRA site Oxford is not sited as a city where recording is being done and forecasts are available. according to your own 2005 report it seems oxford should be as it appears to have pollution levels well above the average (in all 5 categories) and seems to be on a par with marylebone high street in london - very bad news!
4. lastly could you point me towards a document that shows me how DEFRA arrived at the bandings and so decided what levels are save. i am particuarly concerned that targets are being set based on mean rather than peak or maximum levels since this would seem to have more medical significance (the body tends to work on chemical triggers or switches rather than mean levels).
5. your web site would be a lot easier to use if you published directly to the web i.e. using HTML or wiki markup rather than PDFs. HTML is more accessible, easier to search, easier to cite sections. PDFs generally come across as a medium people want to hide data inside of and discourage readership and analysis.

I am sorry to be so succinct here and please don't see this as discouraging because i think your service is a giant step in the right direction. i am chasing this because I think an aweful lot more needs to happen though.

6. Finally I have written to my local MP using the writetothem.com website:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

                                      Sunday 20 August 2006

Dear Evan Harris,

I am writing with many years of frustration at Oxford's seeming
inability to deal with its severe air quality problem. I like many
millions of people am an asthmatic and suffer greatly when the
pollution levels are high. Before coming to Oxford I had my condition
pretty much under control but over the last three years the summer
months have been hell with me being on the border of being admitted to
hospital and having to take steroid pills.

According to the central government's own statements NOx and Ozone are
major contributors to respiratory diseases along with the three
pollutants that are supposed to be under control as sanctioned by
DEFRA.

I have spent a considerable amount of time researching what Oxford is
doing (or supposed to have done) to improve air quality and I am
extremely disappointed. From my readings then I think there are a
number of failures that need addressing and this is where I would like
your support:

1. Targets must be adhered to and if they are exceeded the responsible
bodies must pay. It is the buses that the councillors reports say are
causing the problems. The bus companies must be set emission targets
and they should pay if they exceed them.

2. Ensure the costs to the NHS are being factored into the
calculations. It may well be cheaper to have a diesel powered bus fleet
and to allow tourist buses to not install exhaust technologies BUT the
knock on effect is greater costs to the NHS in the form of time with
GPs, hospital beds and drugs. (This is not mentioning the economic
argument that surrounds loss of productivity in the workplace caused by
illness).

3. Ensure the ethical argument is made. The government's primary role
is to protect its citizens. It is not acceptable to support an economic
framework that puts transport to shopping streets in the centre of town
above the health of what is not even a minority (MILLIONS of people
suffer from respiratory problems that are worsened by pollution AND
there is even evidence that pollution CAUSES disease).

4. Promote MUCH greater clarity in communications as to what our local
government is doing. It is not acceptable to just throw PDF documents
of minutes and reports onto an already confusing website. All the
general public like myself cares about are the statements that show the
services they can expect to receive. In this case it means the
decisions that have been made written in a form that we can measure if
they have been achieved. To my reading the only measurable targets that
have been set have been (1) to encourage shared ticketing between bus
companies (2) to encourage adoption of exhaust technologies on all
buses and taxis. Unfortunately I could not find any evidence that these
objectives set in 2004 have been met.

What I suggest is the local government adopts a Wiki and forum approach
in much the same way that central government has begun to do:

http://wiki.defra.gov.uk/Environmental%20Contract%20pages

This is well established technology, easy to install and maintain,
free, and well accepted by millions of the general public. It also
allows the public to comment more easily than they currently can.

Like many people this is an enormously important issue for me. Policies
towards environmental sustainability are ones that I measure a
political party by as they are not only the most important but also
demonstrate a political party's ability to show innovation and
leadership of the form that is admirable (rather than say Tony Blair's
war mongering).

Thank you for your time and I look forward to reading your response in
the near future.

Yours sincerely,

(deleted my details)

5d702165f6ee8624c0c2/60e7ecd654d5cdd13e14
(Signed with an electronic signature in accordance with subsection 7(3)
of the Electronic Communications Act 2000.)

So lets see where I get to...

Take 2

This is the moment when six weeks of rehearsals at the kids summer camp in Andalucia should have born fruit. Here you can see three witches (they were actually just little terrors) just after the curtain had been raised and they were s'posed to start chanting their incantations...in english. Giggles turned into hysterical laughter and we had to lower the curtain, unleash some consternation and basically try again. Ode to being a eighteen year old english teacher.

Abraham Maslow

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Plato, 427-347 BC in The Republic

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.

Socrates, 469-399BC in Plato, Dialogues, Apology

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Bertrand Russell, 1872 - 1970

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

Complete publishing is free

It is becoming incredibly easy for anyone to publish text, images (drawn or photographed) and movies for a global audience. Publishing at this stage is free but what will happen when there are people who want to be prominent but who want to do it the fast way i.e. by paying a distributor to be highlighted. Then we're back at Square One again: evil pubisher pays best authors to own their articles and make them artificially prominent...other writers are then forced to pay.

The Blogger payment model is interesting as it is a new form of curruption, prominence is gained through product placement i.e. blogs that well read need to compromise readership with mentioning products. Of course this is the age old problem of selling out but famous products will gain readers.

But seriously at the moment we are living in a golden time, anyone can put their words, images and movies online for free. Through creating links and posting comments we can build up a community network around ourselves. There are big bloggers with reputations and small bloggers adding numbers. All the elements of traditional knowledge amplification are evident.

Acerbic but...

So far the postings have been acerbic but nevertheless writing them has been therapeutic, it is weirdly pleasant ranting to theoretically, the rest of the online world. Well that brings up one sore point, no one is reading my postings! The is probably due mostly to my blog being very small, the quality of the postings is pretty poor still but mostly because I am not interacting with other bloggers. As with flickr I need to link to other blogs and comment on other postings, kind of tit for tat but this is as would be expected in a community of practice.

When I started out I thought I should be anonymous (pseudononymous?) so that I could feel free to post whatever thoughts were on my mind. Now I think this is a bad approach as thoughts posted in this manner tend to be sloppier and less well-formed. When a writer feels scrutiny then their brain will work harder. So I am happy with the identity of my blog although I wish it wasn't called diuretic (in the domain name)...but I have just changed the domain anyway.

One of the ways I can use my blog is to document the communications I have with politicians through www.writetothem.com so maintain a public record of how our wonderful democratic system operates. I will be able to post the letters I send along with replies and provide links to the research I have been doing on air quality or pollution.

The vanity of strife

There is a lot of hype sprouting from the news corporations about Muslim fundamentalism. The Muslims claim the UK is targeting their 'brothers' and the Islamic faith by defending the actions of say Israel's disproportionate attack of Hizbollah in Lebanon.

This is all just extreme vanity. We know the Muslim terrorists are driven primarly by vanity because of the types of attacks they make e.g. trying to do things on anniversaries, in airports...ok, can't be arsed to make the point here.

What is astonishing is how quickly everyone thinks this is a social problem i.e. caused by some religion or political system. All these problems are caused by excessive competition for scarce resources. Oil comes out of a small hole, the fastest and strongest and best equipped surround it, defend it and then sell it to get rediculously rich. The rest get poor. These poor are the ones screaming at now, not for more Islam just at the injustice of this monority who may well have been very skillful at getting the oil out of the hole but this skill level is not proportionate to the wealth and power they gained. Of course this rich want to sit on continued revenue streams so they go political and currupt democracy e.g. Bush Dynasty and its poodles.

The ultimate hypocracy though is that we all buy this oil from these people we hate so much. It seems easy to say stop buying oil, or at least don't buy it from unethical companies but everyone needs to do that otherwise the only ethic that will exist is price, the lowest price wins and that will be the company that cuts all the corners, the least ethical.

Water is next, and we really do need that so cannot afford for it to become scarce and controlled by tyrants. We have to tackle these people sooner rather than later, personally I'd love to see Bush and his cronies cleaning the streets outside my house instead of living in the lap of luxury. They can't get rich without our business, cut their bottom line and heads will role and the free market will shape to create the companies we need.

Clean air

Now here's a topic that makes me hot under the collar. The irony that we all shove air conditioning units on full blast when it gets slighly warm, consuming all that extra energy when we should know that this is going to contribute to global warming. Then the sheer bloody-minded short sightedness of seeing car use in isolation of every other aspect of society, especially health.

Pollution causes complete misery to millions of people every year and even fatalities. It contributes to and even causes a plethora of diseases (consider hay fever, asthma and other allergic conditions). Of course this is good news for the drug companies as they can pump us full of steroids and anti-histamines, a very lucrative trade. It is bad news for the rest of us though, especially the people who have to live in areas of bad air quality.

Why do the bodies charged with the regulation of transport fail to take control of the situation?

• The health and transport departments don't work together
• Lack of funding for the types of research that would prove that pollution needs to be cut for health reasons
• Lack of funding the proves the cost to individuals and the economy of dealing with the health issues and not the pollution issues
• Corrupt politicians making money out of the transport industries
• Stupid politicians maintaining mantras like more roads = economic growth
• Hypocritical people who drive everywhere but demand cleaner air
  
• Unfortunate people who are so asthmatic they can't walk or cycle around

So what can we do?

• We have to cut the emissions caused by vehicles, it is that simple
• The reduction needs to be proportional to air quality, no other metric is relevant. We should ignore bogus political arguments that try to skew the real debate
• We should only allow pollution that is necessary i.e. disabled access. Private access to cities is entirely replaced by clean, efficient public transport, bikes and walking.
• We should stop forcing people to travel. Many people could work from home for instance, managers should be more secure in themselves and realise they don't need to drag their employees into an office to make them feel in control
• Public organisations, especially those regulating tranport should set the lead
• Its not about just personal tranport but infact mostly about the transport of good, we need to cut our consumption to reduce the need to move around so much stuff.
  
• The public transport and haulage industries should lead in using the most efficient and clean vehicles

Last, just a reflection, this blog reminds me why I write this blog and probably why most people write blogs of this type: we feel powerless to change things and the people in charge, those with the Bush Syndrome seem to be driving us all in the wrong direction (excuse the pun).

Sustainable economies

The trouble with building a sustainable economy is that we just can't imagine what one is.

Thinking about the maintainance of a Bonsai tree seems to be a good start.

But playing with a simulation of cooperation (Netlogo) brings it home how hard it is to find the parameters that favour altruistic behaviour.

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience is one of those words that people use to pull rank over others. Its akin to situations in office life when people use "experience" as proof their argument is superior. Its in the medical profession that I think pseudoscience is at its most extreme and dangerous...

The NHS is not structured to be able to share knowledge and certainly doesn't work with patients to learn more about diseases. The only people able to conduct thorough experiments are the large drug companies and they are driven by the need to create products that make profit for shareholders i.e. pills.

So many diseases can be prevented or cured by simple changes to diet, removing pollutants from our environments, exercising etc but the GPs only see us when we're at deaths door and are habituated to just try for the quick fix, the magic bullet approach.

Yet organisations like the NHS are gatekeepers to the official cure, the 'real science'. We cannot challenge this monsterous body of often arrogant doctors who want to do some whacky experiment to get their name published and themselves onto the best golf courses as soon as possible.

It must be possible to set up some online tool that allows patients to work together to test a hypothesis, to gather their own experimental data, to make their own conclusions. Somewhere in the melee of the professionals and patients we need to create some kind of entity that actually cares. Just like priests do not own god, men in white coats are not the only people who can perform real science.

Pseudoscience is rife and killing people.

Pseudoscience:

noun beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.

References:

1. Neurocritic blog
   

Under siege

At the London Science museum last weekend I managed to gain temporary relief from something that has been burdening my and I suspect many other people's minds for too many years now - the Bush-Blair axis of evil. This impressive building in Knightbridge is one of the last remaining public refuges from the pseudo-religious insanity that is sweeping our and many other countries.

Before we didn't care about fanatics, they lived their lives quietly. But American foreign policy has ensured they've been stirred up into a frenzy. Through violence the fanatical drone of the insecure has started to infect minds that really do hold genuine wonder at 'gods' creation.

At the Science Museum it was such a joy to read that researchers had actually watched a star form from dust in space. Admittedly I felt old watching children vote with glee at the prospect of using genetic engineering to bring back animals from extinction, they didn't seem to flinch at the feat.

I am fed up with our political 'leaders' trying to drag us back into the stone age with all their spin on fundamentalism, terrorists, WMD etc. I don't understand why we cannot put Bush and his poodle in the docks for war crimes.

The science museum is a temple to sanity. With Special Relationship being hell bent on making the world implode into pseudo-religious turmoil, at least we have a place where you can go and look forward, remind yourself what is means to be in awe of 'god'.

At the science museum we can also learn how 'god' will soon be reaping revenge on us all for our small-mindedness and greed over the last 50 years. The Oceans will swell, the winds reek havoc and rain will cause great floods. Yes, that's right climate change is coming and all we can do is spend billions on killing Arabs for their oil. Presumably Bush and Blair would like us to believe the imminent change in weather conditions was caused by their gods, bearded men in the sky?

Siege:

c.1225, "a seat" (as in Siege Perilous, the vacant seat at Arthur's Round Table, to be occupied safely only by the knight destined to find the Holy Grail, c.1230), from O.Fr. sege "seat, throne," from V.L. *sedicum "seat," from L. sedere "sit" (see sedentary). The military sense is attested from c.1300; the notion is of an army "sitting down" before a fortress.

noun 1 a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling those inside to surrender. 2 a similar operation by a police team to compel an armed person to surrender.