Author Archives: Fordiebianco

Opentech

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Yesterday UKUUG and the government (in form of data.gov.uk) held Opentech 2010. It was the usual mixture of very thin hirsute and bald overweight (that would be me) men and a suprisingly respectable amount of respectable women. The nutter index was unusually low and the questions asked during the Q&A session were all exceedingly sensible.

Highlight of the day was without question a joint session with my favourite media geek, the indomitable Bill Thompson and the CEO of environmental consultancy AMEE. Unsurprisngly, the chap from AMEE wanted us to do something to preserve the future, while Uncle Bill (who, btw, does his best work for the best podcast on the web, Radio New Zealand’s ‘This way up‘) wanted us to lobby the media to preserve the the slowly decaying content of their archives. Fair enough.

OpenTech resembled your typical male geek: excellent intellectual content with a shambolic exterior. The cafe didn’t deliver, people didn’t get their food, the place looked like a bomb exploded and there were no facilities (apart from a nearby pub) to make oneself comfy and discuss php with one’s peers.

If they could that right, I am sure the guest list might look even better, and the attendance would go up as well. Nevertheless, Opentech delivered. A bit like a slightly smelly IT-chap in a dirty thinkgeek t-shirt popping around your workplace and fixing your printer, while making surprisingly intelligent conversation about data mining and role playing games.

Walking around Basildon?

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If you – like me – live in the postindustrial wastelands that is modern day South – East Essex, you will be delighted if you get out of the concrete desert from time to time and get some fresh air and get away from the NEETs.  Surprisingly, this is actually not that, hard, as the County and District Councils run a surprisingly large and diverse collection of country parks. To find the best ones, may I recommend the following little tome:

‘Secret Basildon’ by Sue Ranford is a little gem of a book with 15 medium and short range walks around some of the nicest nature reserves you would hope to find. Sue makes the walks easy to find and to navigate, adds helpful little maps and gives you even a little hint or two on what to look out for.

Today we walked around the lovely Northlands Wood Country Reserve which is literally 5 minutes by car from Basildon proper and (apart from the constant din from the A13) lets you forget that you live in one of the most unappealing places in England. Quite a feat.

Just around the corner from Basildon. Really?

The Style Council. Uncool Geniuses.

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"Yes, I know. I didn't know they would allow vegetarian chavs on this picture"

It’s quite astonishing how I was being drawn as a teenager to bands that were terribly uncool in their native Britain. Matt Bianco, after the Saturday Superstore disaster, were suddenly far too embarassing to be listened to, while Paul Weller and Mick Talbot’s Style Council were shunned for their strong opinions on vegetarianism, socialism and pretty much every -ism that was out there. Even though both bands had strong songwriters and arrangers, their respective problems (being called Wanker on air and being outspoken lefties) meant that their respective later albums tanked in the UK. The Style Council disbanded in 1989 while Matt Bianco was a little wiser and just shunned the British market and continued to publish their albums where nobody knew what a Wanker was. So the Style Council’s legacy was always a mixed one. For the majority of young, unruly guitarpop fans, the demise of ‘The Clash” was one of the biggest tragedies ever and they never forgave Weller that he would start dressing like a middle class posh boy (although as the picture on the left shows, he didn’t quite get the look at first) and have strings and percussionist on his records. Or Lenny Henry. Nevertheless, in my (then) native Germany we embraced both bands, blissfully ignorant of the bad press they were getting in the UK. A little bit of ignorance sometimes is a good thing. I of course had no clue that Weller once used to be in a band that was perceived to be the best post punk thing evah(!), but even if I’d known, I couldn’t have cared less. I liked the percussion and the brass on ‘Have you ever had it blue’, the uplifting ‘Shout to the top’ (and completely oblivious to the Socialist undertorrent) and the bleak but groovy ‘It didn’t matter’. Their biggest moment (and ultimatively downfall) nevertheless came with their last album, ‘Confessions Of A Pop Group‘. Well, not quite their last album, but their truly last album was actually not released for 10 years until Polydor decided to let the masses have it in a lovely boxset. Anyway, ‘Confessions of a Pop Group’ was a deeply unusual album that threw the music press into a bit of a tizzy. What was it? Classic? Jazz? Pretentious Tosh? Well, it was one of those concept albums, with each side (remember sides? Side A? Side B? No? Well, then you’re obviously too young to read this blog. Sod off.) featuring a completely different approach to modern music. Side A (the first five tracks on your CD) is devoid of electric instruments (and guitars, as far as I remember) but instead tickles our fancy with a mix of King Singers and Debussy, with some of the Weller’s bleakest lyrics. The other side is full of electro funk. Yup. There’s also one of their funniest songs, the cynical “Life At A Top Peoples Health Farm”, an ode to the perversions of Thatcherite Britain.

As you can tell, I’m a fan.

And if you don’t want to buy it for its brillance, it’s also excellent to read to with a glass of Chablis. Which really tells you what The Style Council was all about. A band that wanted to turn the world into a socialist, vegan paradise but in the end produced music that you would have with cheese, nibbles and a glass of Chardonnay .

I find that ironic.

North Otago has self-destructed.

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I recently had a ten days stint to visit friends and do some skiing on New Zealand’s South Island. Most of the hanging out and relaxing took place in my favorite part of this charmed country, the beautiful North Otago (also known as the Waitaki region). Last time I was here was a good 2 1/2 years ago, but to re-acquaint myself with the place I took my trusty forester and drove around all those familiar back roads around the hamlets of Enfield. Ngapara, Tokarahi, Five Forks and Weston. These used to be gently rolling hills, interrupted by native or old planted European trees, hedges and interspersed with rocky outcrops from the famous Oamaru Whitestone. While shaped by man for farming, the area nevertheless retained an oldwordly charm and invited walking, cycling and gentle excursions with my beloved Morris Minor.

When I drove through the area last week, all of this was gone. Instead I found numerous, enormous irrigation installations up to 500m long, the trees all gone, and the gentle, lush paddocks turned into garish muddy fields, trampled by tens of thousands of cows standing around this previously beautiful area. Kilometer after kilometer the same picture: cows, cows, cows, trampled brownish paddock, dirty stream, macmansion, milking shed, cows, cows, cows, and so on. The place looks like a landscape from Mars (or Moon, or just insert your favorite planet/moon here).

The toll dairying has taken on this once picturesque part of New Zealand is unbelievable, and the Waitaki District Council and the individual farmers have to ask themselves how much damage in the name of profit maximisation can be done to the environment. It’s not like this area was pristine prior to the arrival of dairying. Sheepfarming and crops all changed the look of the landscape since the arrival of the European settlers, but this pales in comparison with the damage that has been done over the last few years.

As a tourist destination, Waitaki has lost its natural attractions. There are only so many people wanting to see streams full of cow affluent and dug up paddocks devoid of trees, hedges and birds.

We are witnessing the self destruction of a whole district with its local government contributing to the damage.

Nice one, chaps.