Media – Page 10 – John Vincent

Smart

One of the most irritating peak-time adverts on British TV, now, is the one where a fake Albert Einstein wibbles on to a fake dog in a hideously fake humorous manner. It’s condescending and preachy. What on earth the Albert Einstein has to do with household energy meters I can’t imagine. His famous equation is more useful for making nuclear bombs than measuring domestic power consumption. You might think the great man was an annoying Italian computer gaming character.

The smart meter is pushed on the basis that “you can better manage your energy”. I expect that’s true in most cases when they work well. I’ve had one for some time. We recently changed energy supplier. Guess what? In the transition I had to throw away an indicator and replace it with another.

In the news are reports of defunct smart meters causing people concerning problems. Smart meter mode means a meter can automatically send readings to an energy supplier. When they don’t work, lack of meter readings opens the door to energy companies making up bill estimates often to their advantage.

When I informed our power company, I got an education that put me right. Can’t possibly call the whole system a smart meter. No, that would be wrong. So, says the company:

“The smart meter you are enquiring about is actually an In Home Display, the smart meter is the meter on the wall.”

That informative reply reminded me of the Not The Nine O’clock sketch set in a gramophone shop. Foolish householder not knowing that it’s called an In Home Display (IHD). The smart meter is installed on the wall.

I’m in support of energy saving and the role an intelligent meter can play in monitoring the use of domestic energy. What are they trying to do – put me off?

Long gone are the days when meter readers knocked on the door and with a cheery smile jotted down the gas or electricity numbers in the understairs cupboard.

Now, I see the claim is that the “vast majority” of smart meters are operating as intended. That’s good. Those words mean about 88% according to a BBC report[1]. That sounds fine but what about the 12% who are in limbo? That’s not an inconsiderable number of people.

The roll out of smart metering technology started in 2011. There’s a first-generation and second-generation set-up out there in homes. A lot of work has been done to sort out communication problems. However, network coverage is not universal. Those connection issue are familiar to anyone with even the best mobile phone.

The BBC report is right to highlight problems. There ought to be a bigger focus on a plan for maintenance of the system as much as pushing new smart meter installations.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9zqn77ezno

Unfair

That’s one way to start a note. “As a member of the post-active population”, I now feel that all the activity I now do is conveniently wrapped up as being somewhat like cosmic dark matter. It’s there in theory but no one knows what it is in fact. It’s activity that’s hidden activity.

There’s a great deal of talk about the large number of those people in their 50s, and above who have left the conventional workforce post-COVID. Unfortunately, much of it is tainted. The general implication being that the protestant work ethic runs deep and those who are not on the traditional 9-5 treadmill are letting society down. As if the only work worth counting is that which statisticians count into that magic number, namely Gross domestic product (GDP). The tyranny of an abbreviation. A great deal of useful productive and valuable activity is excluded from GDP.

Trogging off to Sunshine Deserts[1] every day, electronically or physically, and making or processing stuff and pushing rocks up hill is counted as the gold standard. This way of looking at the society is foolish. It comes from commentators being way behind the curve and politicians living life as if they were stuck in an idyllic childhood.

This way of thinking is especially true in the UK. More so than other European countries, we are dependent up charities and voluntary workers. German visitors are often struck by the number of charity shops in the UK. If you ask how palliative care, emergency services, children’s support, food banks, homeless shelters and crisis support are funded in German the response is simple – taxes.

The amount of unpaid work, like that performed in the home or by volunteers, in a massive range of organisations, is huge in the UK. That’s not wholly a bad thing. Sadly, this reality not recognised in government policy circles, other than being a way of off-loading responsibilities as funding cuts kick in. Of course, there’s politicians who turn-up for photo shoots at election time when there’s smidgen of recognition. If a charity is not in vogue or well known even those opportunities to raise funds and profile are few and far between.

All the above said, I do support the call for some education organisations that are deemed charities to lose the privileges rightly afforded to much more worthy charities. I know that’s a matter of judgement but not all fish in the sea are the same.

Often, it’s has struck me as strange that tertiary colleges (public funded education)[2] must pay Value Added Tax (VAT), but private colleges deemed to be “charities” do not. An uneven distribution of privileges is another characteristic of a way of doing things in this country.

As I understand, it what’s going on looks like this. Staff at Any Town College, where most local young people get their post-16 educational experience, order reams of paper for a printer. They pay 20% VAT. Staff at an expensive Public School, like the Prime Minister’s ex-college, order reams of paper for a printer. They don’t pay 20% VAT. That’s crazy.

No wonder growth is slow. No wonder social mobility is stifled. No wonder people are desperate for political change.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_and_Rise_of_Reginald_Perrin

[2] https://feweek.co.uk/no-plans-to-exempt-colleges-from-vat-says-treasury-secretary/

Dependency

It’s not unique. Charle Dickens wrote about it. We don’t like to admit it. We have a dependency on bureaucracy. Our complex society runs on it.

Whatever we do when it comes to the meeting of an individual with an organisation, it’s inevitable. Irrational people deny this fact or say it’s only true of public bodies, like government departments. It’s as if the generally high performance of modern computer systems renders them completely invisible.

One apt illustration of a dependency on systematic bureaucracy and digitisation combined can be read in a carefully constructed e-mail from the CEO of Sainsbury’s this weekend.

“I’m writing to update you on the technical issue that has affected our Groceries Online deliveries and some services in our stores this weekend.”

This could have come from any large complex organisation that exists in today’s digital world. When outages happen, we all sit patiently for affected systems to come back online with the full services that we normally take for granted. A sudden reversion to traditional cash transactions was a shock to the average post-COVID consumer.

This weekend my experience of one major hotel chain was that they would not accept cash at all in their restaurant. My “paper” money was useless. It sat in my pocket.

What we have is the power of utility. Systems become so good that we build ever more dependency into them doing the right thing, every time. The problem is that systems are often programmed to do certain tasks exceptionally well but as soon as there’s an unexpected deviation outside normal parameters the situation does not go well.

An illustration of that experience can be read in the public version of the interim report on UK NATS[1]. After the event, and similar unfortunate events, there’s a cavalcade of calls for more contingency, more resilience, more planning, more training, more checking and so on.

That list is perfectly sensible. But wouldn’t it have been better if those actions had been taken up-front? I often saw this discovery in my time doing systems certification audits. Companies who spend a lot of money upfront to build software that was well characterised and tested were not guaranteed success, but their chances were greatly improved. Those who hit the road with over-confidence, marketing hype and rigorous cost cutting had a high probability of negative outcomes. It’s not a simple cause and effect but good system architecture, robust software and a management that understood the need to spend time and money judiciously do well.

Just think. If a runner ran a marathon without a strategy, training, basic fitness, planning and sound motivation no one would expect them to be winning anything unless they were exceptionally lucky or unbelievably talented. Not many in the latter category.

There’s a lesson here. It’s been copied over and over. Saddy the almost completely invisibly of complex system that work well in everyday life means we soon take them for granted. And the result is?

[1] https://www.caa.co.uk/publication/download/21478

Flying a kite

Political discussion is much as it often is. One side is an abomination the other is the only way. Reverse that theme and you can sing the song of either Conservative or Labour party. Test yourself and see if you can think of a positive, constructive, cross-party initiative that is making Britian a better place to live. And that it isn’t jam tomorrow.

We are in a particularly febrile season. Holding the front page is mostly for atrocities, resignations, scandals and promises broken. Future quizzes about early 2024 may feature the question – who was Prime Minister or why was the inevitable General Election delayed?

I stripped off the daily one-page calendar for the 15^th and the saying presented was – Imagination is the highest kite you can fly. There is a sentence to end the week. In the face of grinding pragmatic reality and the predictability of the worn out adversarial political order what if there was some imagination?

Much daily News concerns conflict, war, crime, funding cuts, inflated claims, and disagreeable personalities. No wonder people are turning off serious News media. A diet of current events remains important in a healthy democracy. Sadly, lots of people are driven to News avoidance[1].

My recommendation is let’s have some daily News that stimulates the imagination. There’s a little tickle through on occasions. Sadly, again this is seen as a minority interest. The need for hope built on a positive vision for the future is great. The more people disengage with dependable, independent, and objective News, the more the spinners of misinformation and lies get a grip.

What is missing is imagination. It’s not so alien. To think we once had a prime-time show called – Tomorrows World[2]. It wasn’t a humours chat on a comfy sofa at teatime. Meandering about the lives of minor celebrities and entertainment plugs for coming shows.

For decades, the likes of Raymond Baxter, James Burke and Judith Hann took us on a weekly adventure. On reflection there’s an immense range in their presentations. From what now seems comical to what has turned out to be profoundly significant.

I propose a next generation version of Tomorrow’s World. It’s the Spirt of Imagination. Each week there would be an accessible, peak time, magazine style show that looks at what’s lighting up the world of science, technology, and engineering.

I’m not asking for a worthy educational STEM[3] fest. No. A show must be engaging. Not a bore fest. It must be led by talented communicators who have a passion and instinct for what people are talking about. It must look a generation ahead. Simultaneously ask grandparents to rediscover wonder.

[1] https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/five-things-news-media-can-do-respond-consistent-news-avoidance

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_World

[3] https://www.stem.org.uk/about-us

DUNE Part Two

It’s long. It’s engrossing and it’s a saga well told. That was my Monday afternoon. Sat in a comfortable seat curtsey of the Everyman in Reigate. The movie of DUNE is spread over 2-parts[1]. The second part is just out. It’s release was much delayed by the strikes in Hollywood. I’d say from my viewing this movie was well worth waiting for.

The whole world of DUNE centres around the most valuable commodity in the galaxy. A flash of an explanation can easily be missed. The desert planet Arrakis is the one source of that commodity. Science Fiction has a wonderful way of taking us to fantastical worlds filled with issues that are not so far from current day dilemmas. The commodity of Spice reminds me of several sought-after substances. The exploiting of valuable commodities at the expense of indigenous life has been a hallmark industrial progress.

In the imagination of Frank Herbert civilisations exist and compete within one almighty empire. The story in part 1 and 2 movies hinges on the dreams of a young man named Paul Atreides. I don’t want to give away key plot points but he’s special in so many ways.

Themes extend over the role of brutality and war in either imprisoning people or liberating them. I guess Frank Herbert didn’t see the passage of 800 centuries as a pathway to saving us from the 4-horsemen of the apocalypse. With that in mind, he’s stollen from religious texts as much as a Shakespearean landscape of ideas and the hero’s journey from Greek myths.

The enduring nature of grand sagas that show “good” overcoming “evil” have an immense appeal. All the twist and turns along the way and the troublesome megalomania that accompanies the coming of a liberator are as fresh ever.

DUNE long precedes Star Wars. The latter is cruder in pulling the emotional hearts strings and much more simplistic. The leadership of the Fremen people and mastering of “desert power” to defeat a devious Emperor doesn’t bring universal peace. In the span of the film, the planet Arrakis is freed form the cruel Harkonnen family. That is by no means the end of the story.

The intriguing role played by the Bene Gesserit women is a play over generations where influence is maintained regardless of who’s Emperor. This poses the question of the source of religion. Does it guide the Bene Gesserit (high priests), or do they guide it?

Back to the movie. I like the way it veers from the intimate relationships between individuals to the incredible sweep of vistas and strange technological imaginations. It deals with the environment and the nitty gritty drives and motivations of tyrants and powerful leaders. Is it inevitable that concentrated power produces a dark future. If the answer is “yes” we are in deep trouble with the digital world of now. We will not need to wait for thousands of years.

My recommendation is – see it. Choose the most comfortable seat in the cinema. Go on a rainy overcast day. Don’t go if your mind is cluttered up with trivia. By the way, the list of movies coming soon is dreadful. We are going into a nostalgic remake agony fest.

[1] https://www.dunemovie.net/

Transform

Watching the BBC’s Sort Your Life Out[1] is cathartic. Stacey Solomon and her team are bubbling with enthusiasm. They get in there, and in one big swoop change the lives of a family that has become trapped in their own clutter. Everyday surrounded by way too much stuff.

This is so relatable. I’m in denial. I am not a hoarder. The truth is that there’s no place on a TV programme for me but that doesn’t mean I don’t have one or two “challenges”. Even in that double negative there’s the shifting sand of denial. Just don’t look in the garage.

To transform our lives, we have just moved house. Now, over a month in the new place. That has left the job of clearing out our former house and tidying it up. One thing with clearing out the accumulation of ages is the need for a deadline. Solomon’s show has that built in. Our deadline is a floating one that can’t float for long.

This week, I got temporarily mesmerised by a pile of old newspapers. Yes, it’s down to me. For the strangest of reasons or no reason at all, I’d kept a pile of curious newspapers that went back to 2010. Events like General Elections, Budget days, disasters, the local MP’s misdemeans and the rise and fall of people in public life. A real mix of general interest.

Like Sort Your Life Out, politics in the UK is full of stories of notable names that have come and gone. One or two have been upcycled (Nick Clegg), others were recycled (Lord Cameron[2]), and some previously prominent names disappeared altogether. Acknowledging the obituaries too.

What struck me was not only the names that come and go but the rollercoaster that has been the last 14-years. Underlying that is a cycle that goes bust, boom, bust as that rollercoaster thunders along on rails that disappear into the mists.

Regarding government budgets, we have regularly been promised transformations. Chancellors who don’t promise more for less are rare. Those who deliver it are even rarer. For the most part, in aggregate, our wealth per capita is going in an unhealthy direction. I’d say government budgets are an expression of political priorities, but they are far less important than events.

What do we learn from the whirlpool of public life? One thing is that history is constantly being rewritten. In the longer term what’s said about Johnson, Farage, May, Brown, Blair, Major, Clegg, and Cameron is going to be rewritten time and time again.

Back to my comparison of Sort Your Life Out and General Elections. To quote a quote[3] that is not by Mark Twain but is commonly attributed to him: Politicians are like nappies (diapers), they should be changed regularly.

If we genuinely want transformation, we need to vote for it. In my mind, voting either Conservative or Labour amounts to more of the same.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00116n4

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron

[3] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/10/17/diaper/

Protest

Experience of protest can range from the exhilarating and heartwarming to the frightening and intimidating. There’s a huge range of different experiences. Here’s a few:

During our Brexit phase of rocky turbulence, I stood in High Streets and marched through the city. Everything on the part of the remain protestors I met was peaceful and good natured. That can’t be said of those who took a different view. I distinctly remember a couple of in-your-face moments when approached by emotional and irrational individuals who seemed only to want to shout aggressive slogans in as intimidating manner as possible.

Overall, I’ve been fortunate. Every time I stood as a parliamentary candidate, more than 6-times, I was part of public events where people freely assembled. One of the mainstays of a British election campaign is an open event at a school or college where people can see and talk with candidates in-person and up close. These public events are essential for a functioning democracy. Voters can ask questions and draw their own conclusions from the performance of candidates answering in a local setting about key issues.

My work gave me the privilege of traveling to different countries. In my time off, I’d often look around and get a sense of what was driving political debate in that part of the world.

I remember a couple of occasions when the pure innocence of being a tourist brought be in contact with situations that if I’d known at the time I would have surely avoided. There’s one moment when walking through a huge square in Rome when I suddenly became aware that there were an unusual number of paramilitary police around. I was walking through crowds in the Piazza del Popolo. I looked back from where I’d been and noticed big green water cannon pointing towards the people around me. Inadvertently, I’d strode into a gathering of far-right political protestors. Once I’d clocked what was happening, I was out of there like a shot.

Today’s, discussion about the nature of protest is one that should be handled in a careful and considered manner. There are threats and dangers that lurk in free and open public settings, but the answer is not to shut them down. Maintaining a balance is vital.

I do not agree with the Just Stop Oil protestors that their cause justifies the exceptional measure of parking themselves outside the homes of elected or would be politicians. Now, that maybe different when considering their places of work but it’s a basic human right – the right to a family life without intimidation. The families of those who work in politics must not be fair game.

In our media saturated world there are more ways of making a strong point about an issue now than there ever has been. There are more opportunities for creative and imaginative peaceful protests, more outlets, and more coverage. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Saturation.

Assemblies of people have and always will be, since classical times, a manner by which collective views will be openly expressed. They can become disruptive. That requires a degree of restraint and management. However, tightening restriction to the point of elimination of uncomfortable and troublesome protest will only make the overall situation much worse.

Protest can be the release of a pressure cooker. They signal where we all need to pay attention. They may not solve problems, but they are part of the equation.

One moment

I feel uneasy to quote Stalin but will do. In fact, there’s some disagreement as to whether he can be attributed. This short sentence may tell us something about the human condition. It’s not something that’s pleasant to acknowledge[1].

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

This is a ghastly historic saying. It’s enduring because there’s resonance in the words. One quick look at a national newspaper, tabloid or not, and the contrast between the detail afforded to stories of individuals and the aggregate impact of terrible events is significant. A journalist might say that’s because stories about people are relatable. Stories about complex and catastrophic situations involving masses of people are harder to witness, interpret and tell.

Alexei Navalny’s death is a tragedy. If he had lived, would he have been the Nelson Mandela of Russia? I wonder. Maybe not but he could have been the catalyst for change. Even if that change was to be slowing in coming.

A tyrannical regime that eliminates an opposition leader. History is littered with such dreadful events. Power corrupts. However, it’s notable that such events do not always end well for a tyrant. The name and the event become a strong echo that lasts for a very long time.

Images show police in Russia dragging mourners off. In the snow and ice. These images are not ones of a confident nation. In gathering to mark the death of an opposition leader Russian people are taking great risks.

Will there be consequences because of Alexei Navalny’s death in prison? There ought to be. Time will tell. Let’s look forward with hope. Let’s hope that Russia takes a different path in future. It’s a great country with enormous potential. Sadly, it’s going in a direction that will just deliver more catastrophes and tragedy.

[1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/

14-years

All political parties have factions. If the aim is to corral all liberals, social democrats, conservatives, or socialists and keep them under one roof it’s always going to be a hard job. Even as we speculate about the shelf-life of the traditional political ideologies, they remain powerful.

Liberals can be particularly difficult in this respect. It has been said that getting liberals to go in one direction is like trying to herd cats. However, that picture is a dubious one in times when great injustices must be addressed, or a good cause strongly fires campaigning spirits.

What’s fascinating is the decline and fall of “normal” conservatism. That mild mannered compromise between self-interest, traditional values and deference has slowly fallen apart. It could be because of its poor fit with modern society but it’s more likely to be because it has ripped itself apart from within. Factions have strengthened and the core beliefs that formerly bonded people together have fractured. Brexit may have been both symptom and cause.

There’s the case that populism has been radically amplified by modern media. A crescendo of views and all we hear and see is the peaks and troughs. Anything in the middle is drowned out.

So, the current Prime Minister’s (PM), let’s remember we’ve had a few, calls for unity. It’s a trumpet sounding in an anechoic chamber. Not likely to be heard, except by himself and those standing next to him. Their smiles are professional smiles. Their hopes are forlorn.

Analogies are fun. Another one came up this week as the Parliamentary byelection results appeared. The British electorate could be compared to a sea going super tanker. That is, being big and having so much momentum, changing direction takes a long time. Once that direction has set there’s not much that can be done in the short-term. That national super tanker maybe going slightly left of centre whatever happens. Of course, a crude analogy isn’t necessarily true. It’s more of a prediction of what might happen if pivotal events do not intervene. That’s easy to say. It’s less easy to anticipate such dramatic earthshaking events.

One thing I can feel confident about is that this is not a re-run of 2019. No way. Nor is it a re-run of 1997. A vital ingredient is missing. We have no charismatic political leaders. Vision is in short supply.

Facebook has a habit of throwing up pictures from the past. One it threw my way this week was of me standing in Crawley town looking every bit a parliamentary candidate. That was 2010. I looked at the image and thought – if only I’d had some inclining of what was to come in the next 14-years.

If only I’d anticipated how badly the coalition would turn out for liberalism. If only I’d anticipated what foolish gamblers Cameron and Clegg were in thinking a national referendum would silence the Europhobic hordes. If only the Labour Party hadn’t gone on a doomed left-wing romp. If only the reality of Johnson’s unfitness for office had sunk in earlier.

Looking back provides lessons. It doesn’t predict what will happen next. We all to often get hooked on linear projections based on where we stand now. Forecasting is as much a mystery as ever it has been. That said, I think doing the maths is better than looking at the tea leaves or seaweed. A narrative for the future could read – don’t think “that’ll never happen,” think change is natures way of keeping us on our toes.

Here’s a prophecy. This one has good and bad. Long talked about and feared by those who milk the status quo, Proportional Representation (PR) will be implemented for national elections in the UK in the next 14-years. The dated model of big tent political parties will crumble. Ballot papers in years to come will have something for everyone. So, what’s bad about that transformation? Populism will not die. It will just eke out an existence in many new forms.

QT

Over the years the BBCs Question Time (QT) debate programme[1] has played an important part in political discussions. It was a must watch for political activists and students at all levels. In fact, anyone interested in understanding the political views that permeate the country.

Unfortunately, the programme has declined to become a dull backwater for viewing if there’s nothing else on. The format is locked in to an awkward seeking of balance at the expense of an inquiry into the reasons and justifications for widely different views. There’s little in the way of vigorous cross-examination or investigation into the core values of the speakers.

I don’t want to blame the person who chairs the debate or the BBC for hanging on to the QT heritage. The programme has played an important part in the life of the country, in the past.

I don’t want to be one of those social media complainers for whom any deviation from the age of Robin Day is a blasphemy. Those black and white days are a wonderful snapshot of a long-lost era. The relationship between the public and their politicians has changes beyond recognition.

There’s no doubt that we have all become somewhat more superficial than may have been the case in the past. Politics has become something that is marketed to us as a commodity. It shouldn’t be that paper thin.

At its best such a debate programme gets to the fundamentals. If it merely tracks yesterday’s headlines the results are predicably shallow. Audience and panel members simply echo what we already know. What we’ve already heard elsewhere throughout the day.

What I want to know is more of the why and less of the what.

Say, a social liberal politician objects strongly to a dilution of human rights and a hard right leaning conservative welcomes such a dilution. We may already know that’s the positions they have adopted and campaigned on but are those positions of convenience or core beliefs?

Exploring what panel members really think and what they might really do is surly more interesting than allowing them to play to the audience, at home or in the room. I want an objective chair to put the panel members under pressure to uncover any deceptions. Deference born of an obsession with balance is as bad that born of class or impoverishment.

One of the parts of the format that seems unquestionable is the requirement to answer questions posed by members of the public. The audience is supposed to represent the members of the public not in the room. They rarely do. I’d much rather see a town square type format. That’s where the members of the public engaged are not so pre-selected or self-selecting. Walk out into a typical high street and randomly ask what question do you want answered? Do it live.

QT needs a major shakeup. It’s not quite dead. Its revitalisation is possible, but it needs to get off its current path.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t1q9