train musings

when you're travelling at over 100mph through a station is it me or is it impossible to read the station signs?
If the signs were slightly angled then it would be much easier

Now where was I?

I am thinking about work or more specifically about what a job consists of. Maybe I've misunderstood the common interpretation of Marxist economic determinism, but I find the broad class definitions are limited in use. In this period of turbulence, there is a good amount of splitting and fracturing. Someone's relationship to the economic process is only part of the question. More important is the type of contract they have. This will come in many different forms. For example, 2 people could ostensibly be doing the same job but one will be a contractor on 50% more than the full time permanent. Some of the cost differential will be fundamental benefits such as occupational pension, sick pay, holiday pay. But I think the differences are greater than at first. This is where my 'pentagon of professionalism' comes in! Apologies for the alliteration
Imagine a regular pentagon (like a panel on a football). At its apex is presence. This is the filling of the post and is measured by a person's existence. It rests on one side with two corners. At one is performance and the other is personification. The former is self explanatory and is what you do. The latter is slightly more opaque and describes how you represent the organisation, physically, intellectually, morally, spiritually. At the wider apexes naturally are the broader components of a post. Potential and persuasion. In short, what you could do for the organisation and what you get others to do. Now, if we use the full pentagon, we can see how a full time staffer has the capacity to address each of the corners whereas a contractor is unlikely to be interested in potential and personfication and only marginally affected by persuasion

Alternative version of economic history

In the beginning or near enough there was only sticks and stones and spears and swords. Then they managed to introduce carrots but of course people kept trading in carrots and some people got way more carrots than others. This introduced the concept of duty and ever since duty has gone a long way. It may that people got fed up with carrots and trading in duty and achievement became more interesting. Finally, duty became so tarnished that tambourines were brought out. The tambourine was probably the item of choice for the Blair government and may still be in Barack Obama's toolbox, but I think its capacity has diminished. So what are we left with? Fear, bullying? Love hopefully?

More scenarios

here I go again with stories that will not see the light of day

a) the 3 days waiting for a wired cheque in San Diego in the Summer of 78. Start with sex with Jan Knowles, then on the street in downtown. Staying at the YMCA, going to religious group, being picked up by a black guy wanting to taste a white man, smoking dope on the street corner with an Australian college lecturer. Finally taking the greyhound to NYC

b) 24 hours in the Educational weekend school where the ideas for a GCSE in sex are being tested on mainly teachers. Effectively a farce with lots of overlapping stories

c) Girl goes to university and falls for the son of her father's former girlfriend. The overlapping emotions as the older characters relive their romance alongside their children's emerging emotions.

inspiring film

I went to see 500 days of summer last night and maybe because I saw it with Louisa, I really enjoyed it. I identified with the male lead. There were some interesting parallels with me
It got me thinking of episodes in my life and commitments.. and whether they stand up as decent stories. One which shows the most promise is my trip to the States when I was 21. I’d just finished my second year at Nottingham. My friendship with Michele was a distant –ish memory. I’d met Jan and knew it had the makings of a very enjoyable friendship, but I was a travellin’ man. I went to Italy after making some money. There I met Dan Jacobs and we explored Naples, visited Roman ruins and generally had a great time. He invited me to Harvard where he was studying. So later that summer I grabbed a cheap flight to New York, caught a Mink Deville concert at the Bottom Line, got a parking ticket and tipped up in Boston. It was a holiday of great characters and better experiences. Jed Corman was one of Dan’s room mates, Jed’s sister, Polly was a couple of years older than me and livelier. I watched ‘soccer’, saw Polly act, attended a tutorial about Yeats, generally intrigued and irritated people in equal measure. Got a lift back to NYC with an actor who was pals with Imelda Staunton ( by strange coincidence she ended up in Nottingham later that year)

When I got back to Nottingham, I met up with Jan and the rest is history. So what changed? What made a difference to my attitude?

It's not obvious in the name

I realise that it's 2 months since I last blogged, well I've been on holiday for some of that time. And one place we visited was Orange in Provence or if we try it in French Auraunje in Provonsse
Which brings me onto something which I find more than a little amusing, well I have an odd sense of humour
The name Orange as in the City has given its name to innumerable institutions because the Duchy of Orange was a title which was taken by some of the more active medieval protagonists. So William of Orange who became William III of England etc. The Netherlands have their House of Orange. In fact so important is the name that the Ulster Orangemen and the Dutch football team use the colour orange extensively. Which is why the origin of the City's name is important... it has nothing to do with the colour or the fruit!
Orange (the City) or in its provencal/languedocien version is Aurenjo takes its name from the roman which in turn takes its name from the celtic auresio which actually is the name of the celtic River god. So forget the colour or the fruit which is sanskrit (narenja) in origin it's a celtic deity. Even funnier given its Ulster connection

Deaths of famous people

I realise that it's always been one of the principal roles of newspapers and news media to report deaths of famous people but the preoccupation with them does take me by surprise sometimes. Today two of the older ones, in fact the oldest currently, are reported. Henry Allingham who became the world's oldest man at 113 last month has died. The astonishing facts of living in three centuries and serving in the first world war are newsworthy in themselves but it's the manner of his last couple of decades which caught my attention. He still thrived on life.

The other one is one of the US's most well known names and faces. It's a name which defies the habit of being made into an adjective when fame is achieved, Walter Cronkite. So such examples of Brownite, Blairite are avoided. Maybe -esque could be used, Cronkitesque... no don't think so

The wonders of language

I had to read the following phrase twice because the first scan gave me a different meaning from the second longer read

Growth markets in infrastructure, construction and the extractive industries are increasingly in the developing countries

It was the 'ly' at the end of increasing. It changes the sense of the sentence markedly. While neither sense contradicts the other ie both could happen (indeed are likely to), the point the writer wishes to make is different with the actual much more perceptive than the misread one.

I suppose the question is: How much more literate a society are we than a generation ago?