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