David Porter » Archive
Is the Clock Ticking for Greenwich Mean Time?
Should time be called on British ownership of time, along with other old British measurements? Most Brits say ‘hands off our clocks!’ Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), also known as Greenwich Meridian Time, is symbolically marked by a line by the old Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London. Visitors walk along and around it, straddling it for fun. But it’s a serious, acknowledged base for measurement. When clocks change in spring and autumn, GMT remains constant, so time is either + or – GMT. It’s Longitude Zero degrees, and is deemed the mean (average) time the earth takes to revolve from noon to noon. It sets official time, and although there’s now atomic time (UTC), it‘s understood as a global reference point. It is used on the International Space Station, but there are 25 integer World … Read entire article »
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Grumpy Old Shopper 6 – ‘Management’
An article by Graham Ruddick about the state of the Tesco empire in the Sunday Telegraph business pages of 30 September 2012 began with the paragraph: ‘Philip Clarke, the chief executive of Tesco, is walking around one of the supermarket group’s stores in Essex with his UK management team.’ And that sums up what is wrong with Tesco these days and why they are unlikely to return to the high-power success they enjoyed for so long. CEO walking round the store: brilliant. With his management team: pointless. I Offered to Walk Him Round A few weeks ago I wrote to Philip Clarke and offered to walk round my local store with him, unannounced. I did this more in sorrow than anger, as I have had a soft spot for the retailing giant for a long … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blogs: My Own
First Official Irish Spontaneous Human Combustion Case
A Galway coroner has ruled that a man died from no adequate explanation, except that he just caught fire and burned to death. 76 year old Michael Flaherty from Ballybane, Galway was found dead in December 2010, his body burned, but nothing around him damaged. Neither police nor fire officers found obvious cause of ignition. The West Galway coroner, Dr Kieran McLoughlin, said he was left with no option but to declare it (September 2011) the first case of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) in Irish history. Explanations? Fortean Times, magazine of paranormal occurrences, thought it the first time a coroner anywhere had officially declared a SHC event, as they usually liked to call it something else to avoid conceding that the phenomena exists. BBC News explained that such deaths occur when a living human … Read entire article »
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The Lover
Foolhardy Actors Company at Seagull Theatre, Lowestoft Review published in the Eastern Daily Press, 25 September 2012 Harold Pinter’s little-performed early play seeps realistic-unreality, comic irony and nervy menace from ordinary life. Will Isgrove directed Sharn McDonald and Thom Bailey masterfully playing the outwardly sophisticated couple relishing erotic games to enliven their marriage. Their daily fantasy is that she entertains an afternoon lover while he goes to work and meets a whore. Then the husband tires of inventing roleplays and wants to stop, but she doesn’t. He then switches back to pretending the adultery, as the relationship becomes more intense, repressive and strangely intimate. The piece is a measured roller-coaster of tangled emotion, with early hints of pause and ear for natural, circular dialogue that later made Pinter famous. … Read entire article »
Filed under: Reviews
Creativity, Technology, Food: Nothing Sacred in the Arts Anymore
A round-up of some recent happy marriages of hot technologies, old arts and imaginations, creating new art forms beyond known boundaries. As the old certainties melt away that visual and performance arts are clearly in their own defined categories, and technology is something that needn’t trouble pure artists, it’s timely to have a look at some recent developments that confirm how far modern arts not only feed off each other, but feed off themselves. These are exciting times in the arts world with technology so rapid, so inventive and challenging. Just as good art should be, in whatever format it is dreamed up. The Media as Performance Art Writing in The Daily Telegraph, September 2011, Dominic Cavendish described how he, a journalist/theatre critic, was asked to write one of six plays based on voicemails … Read entire article »
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English Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment
England’s history, heritage, culture and natural environment contribute to the economy and national pride, but would an English assembly make more of it? English people often talk about England and the United Kingdom as if they are the same entity. Of course, they’re not, as most people in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would affirm. England’s historic past is not only another country, but also a rich and unique vein of wealth to explore and exploit. Shakespeare had it in the ‘once more unto the breach, dear friends’ speech in Henry V: ‘Cry, God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’ Linked closely, are England’s natural landscape and cultural heritage. All together they contribute to the tourist industry (and transport, hospitality, food/drink industries). While Wales and Northern Ireland have Assemblies and Scotland has … Read entire article »
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Northern Ireland’s Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment
Ulster’s history, heritage, culture, natural environment contribute to its economy and national pride as part of both the UK and the island of Ireland. While sharing the same geographical island, Ulster’s and Eire’s history, culture and heritage have developed individual and separate yet frequently connected environments and characteristics. In the past, the island has shared common heritage in every way. The exploitation/development versus the preservation/access debate is as vital and urgent here as elsewhere. If the management balance is right, precious assets earn much needed revenue. If it’s not, assets are wasted if not damaged. The Landscape The University of Ulster maintains a website devoted to cultural heritage and museum sites. These include under ‘Cultural Heritage’: Archives of Heritage (forum for academic and industry researchers); Association for Heritage Interpretation (heritage interpretation of sites and … Read entire article »
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Irish Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment
Balancing history, heritage, culture, natural environment contributes to the Irish economy and national pride, but also informs today’s economic policies. In September 2011, The School of Histories and Humanities at Trinity College Dublin began a new Masters programme: Public History and Cultural Heritage. It should give a ‘thorough grounding in public history, providing students with unique preparation for the management of cultural heritage’. This reflects the increasing importance of history, heritage and culture to the Irish economy as a whole. The course considers cultural memory (its construction, reception and loss), public status of history in modern society and examines political issues surrounding public commemoration and ‘sites of memory’ (museums, archives, galleries and the media) as public perceptions of the past are shaped. It’ll also study conservation, presentation and communication of physical past heritage, … Read entire article »
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Scottish Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment
History, heritage, culture and natural environment contribute hugely to the Scottish economy and national pride. Do they need so much bureaucracy to thrive? A view about the over-governance of Scotland was expressed by Andrew Gilmour on The Courier (Sept 2010): Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) do not have enough Parliamentary business. He claimed that Scotland was ‘one of the most expensively over-governed countries in the world’. He asked why it took two MSPs and one MP in Scotland to deal with the same workload as one MP south of the border. He demanded a hard look at the ‘massive bureaucratic set-up in Edinburgh’, without advocating abolition of the actual Scottish Parliament. The mechanism was unnecessarily heavy. Considering just one aspect of what the bureaucratic machine deals with, how the vast Scottish natural, … Read entire article »
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Welsh Historic, Cultural and Heritage Environment
History, heritage and culture add value to the Welsh economy and pride to the Welsh nation. Can they do more without making Wales a heritage theme park? In 2009, the Welsh Assembly published a report, The Welsh Historic Environment: A Celebration. It pointed out that the whole of the Welsh environment contained historic elements, whether in towns and cities, land or offshore. However fast modern change moves, the marks of past generations remained in the present. They’re in buildings great and small, churches, landscapes and commons, fields and ways of doing and seeing things. There is a national perspective and outlook. Literature, music, crafts, arts, beliefs and language are ‘expressions of what it means to be in Wales’, but are also great social assets linking people and giving Wales a … Read entire article »
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