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Scotland for the Scottish?

January 26th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Politics

I popped home at lunchtime today, put the news on TV and saw Salmond doing his speech live. I realised that I don’t really have an opinion on Scottish independence. I don’t know if it would be a good thing for Scotland or if it would be a good thing for the rest of the UK? WOuld there be a winner and a loser or would everyone win or everyone lose?

It is difficult or even impossible to say without knowing exactly how everything would be divvied up, and just about every aspect of it makes your head hurt to think about it.

So, without being prejudiced by either agreeing or disagreeing with him, I thought that Salmond spoke well. Not bad rhetoric and didn’t go on for hours. More impressive was the parliament itself – both the building and its inhabitants. It all seemd a lot more grown-up than Westminster where proceedings always seem to boisterous and rowdy, especially for major events. I guess that today’s speech was a pretty big deal in Scotland and yet it all looked quite civilised.

It might be because there are fewer members crammed in or because the facilities are better or a bit of both, but I do wish our own parliament was in such a place, with the chair behind a desk instead of on a throne, and where each member has their own desk where they can put papers and have a bit of elbow room.

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The name’s Bond. James Bond

January 18th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Life

I have been on a bit of a DVD binge recently, and over the last week or so have watched all the Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig Bond films. I wasn’t in the mood for anything too challenging and just wanted to be entertained. It has been a while since I watched some of those films and I found myself reflecting on a few things. [Read more →]

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Yes live at Montreux

January 16th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Music

This afternoon I watched the Yes Live at Montreux DVD, to remind myself why I like them after watching the 9012Live DVD the other day. After watching the 1985 concert I was left wondering why I had been listening to the band for nearly 35 years and still lappingup new releases. Afterf watching the 2003 concert from the Montreux Jazz Festival I knew. [Read more →]

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9012Live

January 14th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Music

This evening I decided, on a whim, to watch the DVD of 9012Live, the film of a yes concert in 1985, directed by Steven Soderbergh. I have had the DVD for quite a while but can’t remember watching it before, though I’m sure I must have done.

It is possible I only watched a bit of it before though – just the couple of older songs. I never did really like the Trevor Rabin version of Yes and have never owned or even listened much to either 90125 or Big Generator. This time I watched it all the way through, even the unfamilar songs, but didn’t enjoy it a lot. It certainly isn’t Steven Soderbergh’s best film either.

The weird thing is that I think of it as the ‘new Yes’ so it was a bit of a shock to realise this was from 27 years ago, which is more than a little scary. Its probably more of an 80s thing though, because I quite like some of the later Yes material. And it is a terribly 80s film. Not just the music, which is more straightforward and less proggy than before or since, but also the clothes and even the film style – loads of those cheap video effects and split screens: all the things that are worst about the Mike Mansfield-directed Jean-Michel Jarre concert videos.

I may have to go down later and watch one of the other concerts to clear my mind – perhaps the Live at Montreux or Keys to Ascension.

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Crawlé

January 12th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Life

Last week there was a report in the local paper about Nestlé moving their HQ from Croydon to Crawley. I was quite stunned by this for several reasons. One is that the local papers have been full of ‘jam tomorrow’ stories about businesses moving into the area lately. These stories herald everything as a done deal when they still speculative or aspirational. Some of them might still happen, but very little is guaranteed. I have lost track of the number of proposed uses for the site nest to Thales or the one behind Pets At Home, Ikea were said to be considering three different sites but have now gone very quiet, and John Lewis continue to tease.

By contrast Nestlé have made a formal announcement with a target for completion by the end of this year. I know from recent experience that it can take a year to plan such a move (actually it can easily take a lot more than that) so this is going to happen. They must already be drawing up plans, starting staff consultations and ordering 18 miles of CAT-5 cables. So what does all this mean for the local economy of Crawley, or should that now be Crawlé? [Read more →]

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In the present: live from Lyon

January 10th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Music

The year is ten days old already and I haven’t written a thing about prog rock. How did that happen? Perhaps I should mention the latest Yes CD: In the Present: Live from Lyon, which I treated myself to as a belated crimbo present to myself. [Read more →]

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Betta Bilda

January 10th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Life

The box design for Betta Bilda set No. 3

In one of those strange coincidences I had some thoughts about toy building blocks this morning, specifically Betta Bilda bricks, and then in the afternoon a colleague raised the topic of Lego in a conversation, giving me the opportunity to voice my recently-formed theory about Betta Bilda. [Read more →]

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Tokyo Gore Police

January 8th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Life

Sometimes a film comes along where just the title makes you think that at least it won’t be boring. Many of these are Japanese and one of them is Tokyo Gore Police. How’s this for a summary?

From the people who gave you The Machine Girl comes the even crazier Tokyo Gore Police! The makeup and special effects guru behind The Machine Girl, Exte, and Meatball Machine, director Nishimura Yoshihiro remakes his own award-winning 1995 indie short Anatomia Extinction into a gleeful splatter galore bound for cult classic status. Spilling buckets of blood and then some more, Tokyo Gore Police has all the gore, exploitation, action, and sickly inventive use of body parts you could possibly ask for. Eihi Shiina from Audition stands tall and beautiful in the midst of the sadistic mayhem as the vengeful monster slayer in a very short skirt. Living up to its billing with eye-popping gore, comically over-the-top perversions, and thoroughly entertaining madness, Tokyo Gore Police is a must-watch for fans of gore and extreme cinema.

“all the gore, exploitation, action, and sickly inventive use of body parts you could possibly ask for”? Tempting. I saw a similar film in HMV the other day, with an equally does-what-it-says-on-the-tin title: Robo-Geisha. It is summarised thus:

Get ready for the most unashamedly over-the-top and deliriously inventive cinematic experience of your life, as the Japanese masters of movie mayhem achieve a brand new level of jaw-dropping craziness. To help them achieve their goal of taking over the world, a megalomaniac Japanese businessman and his son recruit a vicious gang of Geisha assassins. These include two feisty sisters with an amazing range of surgically added weapons. But when one of these Robo-Geishas refuses to kill an innocent group of ex-employees, its butt-blades versus wig napalm and machine breasts against killer-cleaver socks as the assassins take on the Geisha’s in one of the most mind-bending movie battles of all time. Throw in the buildings that bleed, the Giant Castle Robot and the Breast Milk From Hell, and you have a wonderfully insane Kamikaze movie that will have you laughing out loud!

Apparently the film also features “rectal missiles of mass destruction”.

They sound like films to make Battle Royale seem like a Disney film in comparison. No idea if they are good, bad or so-bad-they-are-good, but I think I will have to find out some time this year. The whole genre is fertile ground for anybody looking for hardcore band names though.

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The Hawth: under new management

January 5th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Politics

There is something just a little bit worrying about the way the deal for outsourcing the management of the Hawth theatre has been rushed through.

I know that not everybody shares the objections in principle (the principle being that any savings will end up coming at the expense of staff and by ramping up prices) so here is a practical objection. The story from the Crawley News which reads like it has been largely cut and pasted from a council press release, says that the new management company

…has experience in running theatres, being part way through a ten-year contract to manage the Playhouse Theatre and Winter Gardens complex in Weston-Super-Mare.

Slightly weaselly words there. When it says ‘part way through a ten-year contract’ it implies a lot of experience. Reading it you focus on ten years rather than part way. How big a part is it exactly? The contract in Weston-Super-Mare started in April 2011 so it has now been running for 9 months. Presumably the negotiations and tendering process will have taken a while, so conceivably at the time they put in their bid the only experience they had of running a large theatre was in winning a contract and not in successfully managing it for any length of time.

The real concern, therefore, is that not only has the deal been made with what is effectively an unproven company but that it is locked in for ten years. That is a long time to live with it if they turn out to not be so good after all.

It is almost as if the Tories running the council want to get us locked into the deal quickly and for a long time while they still can. Are they starting to get a bit worried about keeping control of the town hall in May?

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Should I stay or should I go

January 4th, 2012 · Posted by Skuds in Technology

I really don’t know what to do about LinkedIn, which is sort of a business equivalent of Facebook. A while ago I was getting invites from people to join their networks so eventually I did set up an account. I put a little bit of information in it but just enough for people to know if I was the Andrew Skudder they knew and not one of the millions of other Andrew Skudders out there.

I’m sure there are lots of things you can do on LinkedIn but I don’t do them. I just accept invites from other people and very little else. I don’t list all my previous jobs including full descriptions using key buzzwords and I certainly don’t pay for an upgraded account. Now I’m getting a little worried.

I know that the site is sometimes used by companies to headhunt people for specific jobs and also by recruiters to check up on applications they receive. If I ever need to change jobs and anybody looks me up they will find an very incomplete set of contacts, quite a small list for 30 years of work, and sketchy descriptions of some old jobs. Would it be better for them to find nothing rather than such a half-arsed set of data?

In other words, should I make an effort to really make myself shine on LinkedIn, delete myself from it or just leave it as it is? Part of me says that the first option is for the sort of person who is a lot more driven than I am.

Anybody got any strong opinions about the benefits or perils of LinkedIn?

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