Author Archives: Fordiebianco

David Laws. Not your average woolly liberal

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So I have just finished David Laws’ ’22 Days in May’, his account of the coalition negotiations between the libdems, the torys and labour. Interesting to read how keen the conservatives were to get a deal done, while Ed Balls, Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband were sabotaging the negotiations on Labour’s side, leaving Peter Mandelson and Andrew Adonis to struggle manly to negotiate in earnest. It just reaffirms what the best girlfriend ever has said for a long time: a labour party that has governed for so long had to be kicked out of government to renew itself on the opposition benches. Unfortunately it looks like there’s not much renewal going on, with the same characters still in charge and the infighting still going on. Fortunately Charlie Wheelan is now gone, but as long as the old Brownite stallwarts are still around there will be no sensibsle opposition. It is quite likely that with Ed leaving (and trust me, it’s not going to take long) the next labour leader will finally get rid of Ed Balls and his band of rabblerousers.

Anyway, it’s a good read and Laws doesn’t display himself as superhuman and omnicogniscient as Peter Mandelson has done in his memoirs. For anybody interested in British politics it’s definitely recommended.

Silenced by moving

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Hi all,

another 3 weeks of silence, but this time it wasn’t my fault, honestly! The best girlfriend and I have finally moved out of the post-apocalyptic and post-industrial land of the NEET to lusher pastures, to be correct to an (almost) coastal village in Mid-Essex. While the move itself was only over a distance of 50km, the usual catastrophes had to happen (the van not being ready on time, snow, a sulking workforce, misassembled furniture). But things have now settled, both the best girlfriend ever and me are starting to get used to the extra time it takes to commute to London and we have started to enjoy the trappings of living in the English countryside: world class rural pub within staggering distance, nocturnal silence, nice neighbours, no rioting in the streets and people smiling when you greet them. This alone makes the half an hour less sleep in the morning worth it. National Express East Anglia has so far performed admirably, apart from that night when (likely caused by snow) our train was replaced by a bus replacement service with a driver who had no idea where he was going and we were all saved by an enterprising chap who showed the driver the way (and helped him manoevre when he had to reverse) through the snowy night on treacherous country roads.

Gripped by Fear

 

There is only one small problem with our rural idyll: Broadband sucks. With the next exchange 5km away, I have to survive on downloads so slow that watching a movie on Apple TV needs a day’s planning. Our TV – aerial isn’t quite working either, so BBC’s iPlayer is the medium of choice. But hey: there’s always books. And the silence to enjoy. And no direct means that the Klipsch speakers can finally be turned up a bit…

 

Dear Boris,

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I happen to work in that amazing city of yours. I don’t live there anymore because I don’t want to pay the exorbitant rents or pay 900.000 pounds for a two up – two down semi but I love the place nevertheless and enjoy working there.

But honestly Dude, you have to do something about public transport on the weekend. You can’t continue letting your TfL minions shut down the tube and expect us to sit in buses on gridlocked streets. Some cities have their engineering work done at night, you know? And whoever had the idea to shut down the tube AND have the Lord Mayor shut down the whole of the city should be named and have Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail write an article about him/her.

Disgruntled,

Fordiebianco

Bye Majo!

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Today I was informed of the death of one of the most brilliant men I was ever allowed to meet and so I am sitting here with tears in my eyes, trying to honour him.

Manfred (Majo) Heinze was what I would call a ‘Renaissance Man’. Journalist, Author, Producer, Artist, Designer, Blogger, Apple-Lover, Creator of Digital Landscapes, Entrepeneur, Porsche Lover, Motor Cyclist, Cat Owner, Douglas Adams Fan and most of all a lovely, lovely man.

I met Majo for the first time almost twenty years ago at the monthly jour fixe of the ‘Tuborg Box Cologne’, then the coolest, artiest and best BBS (Bulletin Board System) in the whole of, er, Cologne. There he sat, with his ubiquitous fag in hand, dispersing knowledge, wisdom and witticisms with a maturity far beyond my years. For some reason or other I was privileged to become a guest blogger on his inimitable and utterly brillant website ‘Industrial Technology & Witchcraft‘ that for years became my first point of call on the internet and just reinforced my belief that this chap had an intellect that I wanted but likely would never achieve. He nevertheless let me blog about my little world in North-Otago and so I met him again, 15 years later, at the dinner table of another Renaissance Man. He hadn’t changed a bit and was as brillant and cantankerous as ever. That by now he was the unofficial voice of the German Apple user community and that his Mac-essentials blog was the most successful Apple Blog in Germany didn’t much phase him. He always embraced new challenges and projects, whether it would be steampunk in cyberspace or trikes, his curiosity was unstoppable.

The world has lost one of its unique talents, and I am mourning his passing.

I imagine Mayo now in a mixture of an Ian Banksian and Douglas Adamsian paradise with embarassed drones serving him cigars while he is holding conversation with a family of pens with a PhD from Harvard while in the background a large steam punk ship crosses the horizon, playing Rudi Carrell.

And so I  will honour him by posting one of his last youtube picks.

R.I.P. Majo. Fare Well and Thanks For All The Fish.