one last rambling holiday blog post

This is bound to be my last rambling holiday blog posting.

Tomorrow we jump in the car to head back home, albeit, breaking the journey half way. Back at work on Monday, which is quite a thought.

Not particularly on the holiday theme, I have increasingly been getting into the Dark Horse Comics, now that they have an App for the iPad, I have been downloading comics for reading on my daily commute. To date mainly Hellboy, and the spin offs, but also a few other things, like Frank Miller's Sin City etc.

Although the website (accessed via browser) seems to be relatively stable, albeit slow at times, the access via the iPad or iPhone app is problematic. At launch their servers fell over pretty comprehensively and took days to recover. The Apps will crash if they cannot access the servers, and you are attempting to access them. Recently they offered a load of Mass Effect comics free for 24 hours, and that too seems to have pretty comprehensively crashed their servers.

I suppose that there are probably some lessons to be learnt about coding Apps and having adequate server capacity here, but there are more interesting thoughts to be thought. I don't really have any data, beyond my personal experience, and what I have just outlined, but I would guess that introducing an App for the iPad has increased the online demand for Dark Horse comics by a tremendous amount, not just doubled or tripled, but maybe even a ten fold increase.

No longer do people have to go into a comic book store, there are only a handful in the country, buy a twenty something page comic, to see whether you like it or not, if you do, then buy another single issue or two next time you come back. Now anyone, anywhere, can access free editions of a wide variety of comics, what you like, you can now catch up on in bulk, for people like me there are five years plus of back-issues to catch up on. If I do get to the stage of being upto date on all the comics that I want to follow, then it will be easy to dip into any new titles, or keep up with existing runs that I am following. Obviously demand might in theory drop off as I go through the back issues, but in practice there is a finite limit to how many comics I will read each week, so it is not likely to be a sudden drop off any time soon. This is not the sort of transition that the record industry went through when everyone rushed to buy the same titles in a different format. Most of these digital purchases will be by people who have never bought the comics in any other format before.

There is just such an inherent rightness, and ease of use, about reading comics on an iPad, it is like seeing a formerly hidden art form, suddenly appear, fully formed, vital and alive.

Of course Japan which has an extensive commuter culture has been into Manga for years, in the format of cheap bulky comic books. In the UK the format is single issue comics running a variety of titles, such as 2000AD, which is pretty much the 'mainstream' British comics industry these days. The American format is smaller comics, with a single title. Not actually that appealling a format to the casual reader, but a format that does lend itself perfectly to the digital format, it is pretty much the size and shape of an iPad screen.

Who would ever have guessed that the advent of the iPad would lead to a real commercial resurgence in the comic book industry. Perhaps the lesson is to just keep producing the best content that you can, and with luck, things will come right eventually.

Probably about time that some journalist wrote about this somewhere that someone actually reads about it. Interesting anyway, whether anyone else has noticed or not.

One thing about going on holiday, is that you sort of notice all these things that you like or prefer and rather wish that your everyday home life was more like that. This is our third trip down to Wales, and our second to this particularly cottage, so the trip is not a completely new experience, but there is a lot here that comes into that category. In no particular order;

it is nice, not having to get up for the daily commute into work,

it is nice, not having to go to work everyday,

it is nice that there are so many trees about

it is nice that there are so many fruit trees about, anywhere that is well stocked with fruit trees is somewhere I can feel happy

it is nice that the land goes up and down, hilly is the most attractive landscape

it is nice that there are some rather bleak bits here and there,

it is nice that there are not too many people, even the towns feel rather quiet

it is nice that there are proper shops, and not just chain stores the same as you get everywhere else,

it is nice that cars are made to struggle through, rather than being allowed to take over everywhere driving out the pedestrians,

it is nice that there are so many people doing crafts, arts, making stuff, making food, growing food,

it is nice that by and large everyone is friendly, even if some are rather eccentric

it is nice that there is so much interest in things green/eco/permaculture

it is nice that the gardens are all so well kept, as are the verges, village greens, pretty much everywhere

it is nice that the houses are well kept, the sort of well kept that suggests that people love their houses, not just that people have spent a lot of money on them

it is nice that so much of what you see looks traditional, waney edged wooden huts, ivy covered barns with a broken back, stone and old brick, rusted corrugated metal roofs.

it is nice that everything does not seem to have come out of the local builders merchants

it is nice that there is not litter everywhere

it is nice that everywhere seems comfortable, neither too cheap nor too expensive

it is nice to be away from the hustle of modern life,

it is nice that there are so many really old buildings that are still being used and enjoyed, not all wrapped up for some sterile preservation

it is nice that the council, or whoever, seems to actually care about the place

it is nice that everything, schools, hospitals etc, seems to be on a human scale, as if you or I actually mattered, and were not just widgets to get processed.

I suppose that if my holidays teach me anything, it is that I am at heart a country soul. The big city is nice to visit, but the country is where I want to stay, or at least as far into the country as the needs of making my daily crust will allow me. It is nice to discuss making jam and harvesting fruit with people, it is nice to live with wildlife all around you.

I have been reading a fair bit about urbanism and cities, where the story is not really about people but about places. This is one of those perception shifts that is quite difficult to make and can make you feel slightly unwell. But perhaps we would all be happier if we were to think more in terms of what we can do for our local places, and our impact on them, over the years, rather than focussing so entirely on our selves and our own private wants and needs. After a certain stage, you do end up having pretty much everything that you legitimately needs, most of what you legitimately want, and even some of what you would aspire to. Rather than spending more and more time and effort in advancing slightly up this slope, to make yourself an infinitessimally amount happier, is it not better to flip over how you perceive things, and seek to do what is right by your local community, by the place where you live, by the places you visit or are fond of.

Over the past year, I have focussed a lot of my gardening time and effort on my front garden. There is a length of border, that slopes up. Too steep to hoe, and full of bluebells, it has long been one of the least attractive parts of the garden, albeit one of the most visible. The sheer labour involved in weeding it, including taking out the bluebells, which although attractive for a short while, are invasive and choking the rest of the years, has deterred me from making more than sporadic attempts. This year however, it has been my focus, and I have been diligently turning over the soil, pulling out the bluebell bulbs, planting things that I think will be suitable, weeding anything that appears before my intended ground cover takes. This has involved countless hours toiling away, probably to very little obvious effect to the neighbours, but by and by the front garden is starting to look more like something. It may just be a coincidence, but a few other front gardens, formerly fairly unloved and abandonned, are now starting to get some attention. Hopefully by our actions we can nudge the world just slightly in the direction in which we think it ought to go.

Maybe with Broadband rolling out across the country, and Amazon delivering to all and sundry, we won't all be forced into working in cities like some unhappy battery hens. We might all spread out again across the countryside, planting fruit trees where we go, making jam and looking after our gardens. I don't suppose that everyone wants to live in the country, but it seems a more sustainable way of living to have your own front door, and enough garden to grow a few things.

Probably the sort of thing to annoy the urbanists, who predict that every man-jack of us will live in a city before long. If they do want us to live in cities, then they have to give us cities that we want to live in, or we will all just escape to the country as soon as we have the option to do so. To date, a city we would want to live in has just been an urbanised country, in the form of the suburbs. Perhaps urbanism is a contradiction of human nature. Unless you are very well off then living in the city can be a fairly grim affair.

For me, it would be nice, to have the means to live in the country all the time. Perhaps that is the point of a holiday, a chance to remember some of the other people that you might be, and the other places that you might be them.

Another rambling holiday blog post

It is rather like we have all dropped off the face of the earth here. Although I am wandering about with my mobile phone strapped to my hip, the signal is sporadic to say the best, I've found some spots next to the roads where you can get a signal, but as soon as you are speaking to someone, a series of juggernauts drive past. Alternatively find a quiet spot, and the signal, always feeble at best, just vanishes.

The local call box, sits there unloved, and unworking.

Accordingly attempting to sort out anything that requires speaking to people that are not face to face, suddenly all becomes very complicated. A rather frustrating morning trying and failing to sort some stuff out, and finding that the local butcher is only open a couple of days at the end of the week. That has pretty much been the pattern for the trip so far, generally arriving anywhere the day it is closed.

I suppose that this is all part of the same package, a quiet tranquil unhurried place, won't run the same way that a busy 24/7 metropolis does. Maybe that is why people down here seem to contentedly look after their gardens and the like, there is probably rather limited scope for doing an awful lot of other things.

Pet peeve out of the way, some other random jottings.

The recent SuperBrands series was very good. Particularly struck by the episode on fashion. It was talking about how fashion seeks to create an image of genuine-ness, for example jeans were authentic workers clothing, so people wear jeans to look like authentic down to earth people. Not only that, people now get pre-worn jeans so that they can look like people who are so authentic that they actually wear through their jeans and wear them out.

I recently got a couple of pairs of Levis at the local discount outlet. All the jeans seemed to be suitably authentic, so if I wanted to look like a lesbian automobile mechanic there was a rich variety of suitable attire. Everything seemed to be pre-worn to some extent, so I ended up with jeans that look like I've owned them for years. I'm really finding it a bit odd having pre-worn jeans. To my way of thinking, this means that extra effort, and no doubt expense, has been expended in rendering my new jeans, half way to being ready to throw out. Jeans do tend to look a bit better a bit worn, so there is a bit of a point to the whole exercise, I don't want to look like Jeremy Clarkson in brand new jeans, but equally I don't want to be paying for something that won't last forever.

Still therefore a bit torn on the whole issue, browsing the Levis website does little to explain exactly what all these different pre-worn options are, similarly a lack of explanations on the internet. I think that there should be some useful guide so that people can understand that

finish A - means that you bum is hanging out, and charity shops would refuse to take it,

finish B - means that your jeans are covered in oil, you oily bum is hanging out, and vagrants would avoid you

finish C - means that formerly perfectly good jeans are now one kick in the pants or a wash away from falling apart,

finish D - means that your jeans are in need of some serious attention from a seamstress, but with a little expense they will probably be fine

finish E - means that your jeans are just a little bit lived in, and only half their useful life has been wasted in getting tumbled around with rocks in an industrial washing machine

finish F - means that your jeans are so factory fresh that no person under forty would actually realise that they are made of denim, they feel like cardboard and generate a crease that could draw blood.

Clearly this sort of clear labelling would avoid unfortunate misunderstandings, no one wants to see people over forty with their bum hanging out of their jeans, nor would factory fresh jeans be a suitable gift for anyone of those gentle teenage years.

Similarly on SuperBrands was the story of SuperDry, every other sweatshirt worn by anyone under thirty now seems to have some variation on the SuperDry logos. They even have shops, I've seen them. Never been in one, but seen them. So you can go in and buy all the sweatshirts you ever wanted with logos that look like something off a 1950's American gasoline pump.

Would any sensible person open such a shop, probably not, but someone is making shed loads of money off it just now.

And from where does SuperDry, of the gasoline pump inspired logo hail, is it Japanese, is it American, no it comes from an industrial estate in Slough or somewhere like that. I am just out of wifi range, while I type this, so I am throwing scholarly accuracy to the wind.

Presumably SuperDry is hooking into the same deep well of desire for authenticity from which the desire for pre-worn jeans sprung. So you too can wear tatty old jeans, and a sweatshirt inspired by a fifties gasoline pump, as you go into your Fine Art lecture in St Andrews University, while your deeply unauthentic parents work as stockbrokers or grief counsellors.

Most of the folk wearing all this stuff would run a mile if someone genuinely authentic were to sit next to them on the bus.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with 'authentic' but it has to be authentic in some way. Looking like an authentic 50's garage hand is hardly authentic when you are walking into your Fine Art lecture, it is just like a child dressing up as a cowboy or a spaceman.

There probably is scope for a new form of authentic. Some way of creating functional clothing that reflects the real world that we live in. To be honest we are not horny handed sons of toil, nor are we climbing up Everest with a slab of Kendall Mint cake stuck in our back pocket. But we do lead busy functional lives, and devising clothing that better reflected this would make a lot of sense.

Functionality is not just a case of sticking extra pockets on, nor of having Goretex fabric wicking the moisture way from your underarm. It should be about clothing that has an appropriate weight and heft, and appropriate life and adaptability. For me, I need clothing that is easy to wear, and maintain. I've already moved to one standard sock, so all my socks automatically match. I need waste no time on matching socks, they are all the same. In a lifetime I will probably have saved half an hour! I am also onto my third pair of identical shoes, reluctantly moving to commando soles as the leather ones just led to neverending maintenance.

I suppose this is a form of functionalism that leads towards uniforms or Mao like standardisation of clothing.

An alternative form of functionalism would be clothing that actually has a functionality beyond the obvious. I'm sure it must be possible to create a combined tie/Swiss Army Penknife, or something similar. Perhaps a tie that folds out to be an emergency blanket for reluctant air travellers, or shirt collars that inflate into makeshift cushions.

There is also the whole world of arduino chips and wearable computing. Rigging up your clothing with capacitative thread. It is quite appealing to imagine clothing rigged with sensors, that broadcast measurements that are recorded by whatever wireless device you happen to be carrying. Already there is the Nike pedometer shoe, what about shirts that warn you about excess sun, or calculate how much fluid you should be taking on.

What about clothing that doubles up as a display device, teeshirts that run a screensaver, or glasses that also incorporate a heads up display of key statistics.

Rambling Holiday Blog

I am writing this on my laptop, sitting in the garden of our self catering cottage. I am on holiday. [Well actually, I will post this when I get back from being on holiday, it seems a bit pointless announcing to the world that you are not at home.]

Behind me is an apple tree, a venerable old thing with hundreds of apples, there is another tree to my right, it looks like another apple tree, but I've not yet spotted any apples on it, so I cannot be too sure.

The church bells are ringing, rather mechanically calling the faithfull to worship. The sun is out, there is a cock crowing, alternating with a dog barking, perhaps they are in conversation. I am sitting in a rather nice garden, all the nicer for not requiring my attentions, now or at any time in the future.

We are staying in Wales, Newbridge on Wye, not far from my uncle, also taking the opportunity to catch up with other relatives while we are here. We actually had a stay-cation last year, and were down at the same cottage the year before. We were down by Talgarth a couple of years before, so this is our third holiday hereabouts. Accordingly we have done most of the big ticket things to do down here. This year we are rather purposely not doing much.

My everyday life is very much part of the rat-race. Schlepping into work, trains, buses and grumpy folk, then ninja style trying to get through work that I don't have time to do properly.

I have just come back from buying the Observor, do they still print that, I remember that it was the paper with Peanuts and Charlie Brown when I was young, and the Independent on Sunday. Normally I would get the Sunday Times, but it seems pointless to boycott the News of the World, which I don't normally get, it is only really a boycott if it hurts, so I will boycott News International in total and buy something/anything other than the Sunday Times.

We got down here yesterday. Set off on Friday, drove as far as Warrington, stayed at a Premier Inn there overnight on the Friday, then drove the remainder to Llanndridnod Wells on Saturday morning. Like a fine wine, I do not travel well. After a few hours in a car, I start to go green, well probably not much a fine wine then. Hence a rather leisurely trip down.

Driving down there was the usual battle over the music, I am constantly trying to expand the musical consciousness of other family members, they are constantly complaining that my music is dreadful, or a new complaint, that it sounds like there is something wrong with the car whenever I play something.

We ended up compromising with REM which currently seems to be the sole common ground that we can all accept.

I suppose I like something that is a bit out there, unfamiliar and a bit difficult, whereas most other people want something that is familiar and not challenging. Maybe something that can be expanded beyond just musical tastes. Most people do like the safe and familiar, but if everyone did, nothing would ever change.

Daughter number two laughing at our conversations on the drive down. We were talking about how sometimes a boy racer will crash into someone's house while they are asleep. Generally without anyone coming to any harm. I was explaining how the conversation would go if this ever happened to me,

Me - are you okay?

Boy Racer - I think so, nothing broken,

Me - thank goodness for that,

Boy Racer - uhh

Me - let me help you out of the car, thank goodness that you are not hurt, that means that it will hurt all the more, when I kick the living daylights out of you you little scumbag, think you can trash my house, .....

Habitat revisited

So, it would appear that Habitat is not done and gone, it has got a reprieve. I would be sorry to see Habitat go, but this does all feel like the very British sort of sentimental compromise. We can never just bring ourselves to kill off something and move on, because we like the familiar and we are scared of the new.

So we limp on with all these old things, for sentimental value, but just really are not that good or useful any more.

If Habitat is to continue it should be bold, new, unafraid, this should be a radical new beginning.