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Notes on the isofix system and how it has developed. It is a confusing and complicated market, as there is no clear standard, yet.
August 2006 Archives
I went out to see Jeffrey Bernard is unwell at the Garrick, thanks to my friend Chris. It was excellent, Tom Conti is fantastic as Jeffrey, poignant, but witty with a well crafty stage drunk manner. Lots of half trips and glances out to the audience for laughs, all well timed.
A lot of the reviews have been a bit down on the revival of this play, as it is a bit soft on alcoholics, playing up the romantic drunk image, this is true and Soho has changed a lot since it was first put in the early 90s. However, I feel that reviving this play much later would fail, it is very much of its time. When Chris and I directed and lit it in the mid nineties it was great fun, but felt a bit alien, neither of us had been to Soho, later when I visited in the later 90s the scene of the play had changed. Soho in the last ten years has changed even more. So sentimental as the play is, I enjoyed it, but I had two viewpoints on it.
A quick aside, whilst watching the play I couldn't get out of my head how much Dave Cross and Tom Conti look like one another.
Jeffrey Bernard is on at the Garrick until the 3rd September, if you are looking for a fun night out at the theatre I'd highly recommend it.
So, Walthamstow is a terrorism centre in London, I must tell you it doesn't feel like one. People are friendly in the shops and on the market. It feels pretty open and relaxed to me, there are different pockets and groups definitely, but then every place has those.
The oft mentioned village feels very quiet in the day, the market / high street is really busy and then they reverse in the evening. Everything on the high street shuts and then restaurants on Orford Road open up.
After six months here, I'm really happy, it is closer to London than we were in Forest Hill and feels more friendly, plus there is Epping 15 minutes away.
So, Walthamstow is a terrorism centre in London, I must tell you it doesn't feel like one. People are friendly in the shops and on the market. It feels pretty open and relaxed to me, there are different pockets and groups definitely, but then every place has those.
The oft mentioned village feels very quiet in the day, the market / high street is really busy and then they reverse in the evening. Everything on the high street shuts and then restaurants on Orford Road open up.
After six months here, I'm really happy, it is closer to London than we were in Forest Hill and feels more friendly, plus there is Epping 15 minutes away.
I find Caroline Quinn hard work each morning on the Today programme. I think she lacks empathy with her interviewee, when the interview goes in a different direction it seems as if she is unable to tack with them and either asks the same question again, or follows up with a non sequitur.
So, I think she fails to get the best out of the interviewees, today on transport was a good example. Government Transport Minister, Dr Stephen Ladyman was trying to point out that people with 4x4 cars already pay a large amount in fuel duty, so an additional amount in VED is unlikely to change their behaviour and she kept on asking the same question about charging "gas guzzlers" 1800 pounds, rather than the intended 210. Instead of investigating whether fuel pricing does discourage usage, she stuck to the same issue, to the detriment of the interview.
The transport committee's recommendations are very regressive, pricing poorer people off planes and out of larger cars. The former seems unfair, the latter should affect all people equally. Looking at the Government's VED car fuel data website it is all the expensive cars which have the worst emissions, see the raw data to make this obvious. The only people who really have a call on big 4x4s are farmers etc, charging them 1800 pounds alongside the Chelsea tractor set seems disingenuous.
Back to my point, maybe Caroline Quinn needs to relax and follow the story rather than her list of questions. Then again, I'm not interviewing people at 8am, but other presenters on Today seem to be able to do it well.
The title of some email spam I was sent recently, I wonder at what scale of live it would make sense. Hydrogen is after all pretty damn tiny, making nanotech seem vast. Bosons and quarks fighting it out over who really is the god particle ?
I'm now 35 and today in a survey I had to tick the new box 35-50. Do I have more in common with people at 45 or 50 than those at 25? Sometimes I think I definitely don't, but then I feel young still. So, what would I want to tick, maybe a 30-39 would suit me better. I have a lot more responsibilities than I had ten years ago, I had a house then, but now I have a family and I'm more senior in my job.
Yet I don't feel that much in common with people a bit older, but maybe that is unfounded, most of my collegues at Nature are early twenties to later forties, certainly plenty of people are off having children. So maybe that is the key issue, not my age, but commonality in life experiences. State of job, enthusiasm for the new, having a child. More than a tickbox, but harder to capture in a survey. Having a family at 20 is very different to mid-thirties. As ever context is the important thing.
