Eagle-eyed readers of this blog will no doubt have realised by now that, regardless of my wishes, my name is James Ward.
I am not the first person to be called James Ward. My dad’s brother was called James Ward. There was an eighteenth century painter of animals called James Ward whose painting of a horse was used on the cover of Bryan Ferry’s 1994 solo album Mamouna. There was a psychologist in the nineteenth century called James Ward who defended a philosophy of personalistic panpsychism based on his research in physiology and psychology which he defined as a “spiritualistic monism”.
A couple of days ago, James Ward the tennis player was playing at Wimbledon. As I have already mentioned, my name is James Ward and James Ward the tennis player is also called James Ward, and so as a sort of joke, some people on Twitter sent me tweets saying “Good luck at Wimbledon!”
What they didn’t realise is that I happen to work in Wimbledon, so I was able to take their messages of goodwill at face value. These people had intended to make a joke, but were actually wishing me well against their will. I didn’t bother to correct them. Instead, I kept their messages of accidental kindness like a sort of positivity thief. A spiritual mugger. A happiness bandit.
As a result of all the people coming to see the tennis, Wimbledon station has been a lot busier than normal for the last week or so.
After leaving work on Friday, I went to the station, but when I got there, I saw several people standing around, each holding a newspaper of some sort:
This is a massively unhelpful photo. It doesn’t really show you anything, but what I’ve found is that if you don’t include some sort of image in a blog post, then people stop reading.
I’ve highlighted the people with the newspapers using green circles below:
The newspapers they were holding were copies of The Watchtower, described on Wikipedia as:
an illustrated religious magazine, published semi-monthly in 195 languages by Jehovah’s Witnesses via the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania and printed in various branch offices around the world.
I don’t really know a great deal about Jehovah’s Witnesses – although I remember that someone I used to work with wasn’t a huge fan, as his wife (who had been raised as a Jehovah’s Witness) had been shunned by her entire family when she decided it wasn’t for her. I wanted to find out more.
But there was a problem.
Even though there were several people standing around holding copies of The Watchtower, they didn’t seem to be making much effort to give them to people. In fact, they were making no effort whatsoever to give them to anyone. I stood less than five feet away from two of them for over fifteen minutes and at no point was I offered a copy of their magazine.
I waited and I waited and I waited.
Nothing.
And it wasn’t just me. During the whole fifteen minutes, they didn’t give a single copy of their magazine to anyone. Not one fucking copy. There were half a dozen of them standing there and they did nothing. They just waved the magazines around like they were a prize on the worst ever episode of Wheel Of Fortune. Perhaps the magazines weren’t free and were for sale, but they still didn’t make any fucking effort.
I tried catching the eye of one of them, that didn’t work. I tried avoiding the eye of one of them, that didn’t work.
The more I stood there, the angrier I got. It felt like bad customer service. It made me think of all the time I’ve spent standing in Topman or Office, holding a size 42 Chelsea boot, waiting for someone to come over and acknowledge me. It reminded me of all the time I’ve spent in Currys or PC World or Dixons, hoping someone would be kind enough to sell me a fucking printer.
According to Wikipedia, The Watchtower is “is the most widely circulated magazine in the world, with an average print run of over 42,000,000 copies per month”.
I suppose I could have gone over and asked for a copy of the Watchtower, but shouldn’t they have been the proactive ones here? They’re meant to be evangelical. I can’t be expected to knock on their door. That’s their job.
This weekend, the country celebrated the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee:
As you may have gathered from my previous post, I am not a natural monarchist. I suppose it’s something to do with the fact that celebrating hereditary power and wealth is really offensive to anyone with a conscience or a heart or a brain. I’d like to imagine that I have at least one of those, and so I struggle to accept the concept that we should all submit to being subjects of a woman because she happened to be born from the right fanny.
But despite my obviously correct republican beliefs, I do like a party. There’s nothing I love more than a good old knees-up. In fact, I like to keep my knees as high as possible at all times to maximise my fun. This is not always practical – for instance, when I am at work, the height of my knees is physically limited by the underneath of my desk. Does this affect my performance at work? Almost certainly. Are my employers willing to order a bespoke desk for me, featuring a large bulge in the middle, allowing unrestricted knee movement? No. Well, I’ve never discussed the idea with them, but I doubt they’d go for it.
The celebrations for the Jubilee looked set to be a massive spectacle, and I wanted to be part of it. Just like the Royal Wedding last year, this was an opportunity for the country to celebrate not just the Royal family, but the country itself. Part of the celebrations included a massive flotilla which would sail along the Thames. People would line the river, waving flags and cheering.
On Sunday, it was raining for most of the day, so I went to the cinema.1 Fortunately, however, the rain stopped on Monday and so I headed to the Thames to see the flotilla.
I’d expected to see huge crowds of people, but there weren’t many people around:
There were a few people on the Millennium Bridge, although they mainly seemed to be crossing the bridge rather than watching the flotilla, so I’m not sure they really count.
In fact, I only saw one person who looked like she’d come to catch a glimpse of the Queen:
I got quite excited when I saw HMS Belfast, a relative of mine had served on that ship. It was incredible to think it was part of the flotilla. It’s such an impressive ship. And here it was, celebrating Her Majesty!
After watching the HMS Belfast for an hour or so, I realised that actually it wasn’t part of the flotilla. For one thing, it was facing the wrong direction. But probably more importantly, it wasn’t moving. I carried on.
As I approached Tower Bridge, there seemed to be a few more people around, although a few of them seemed to be going in the opposite direction:
I was worried that maybe I was too late, but then, after a couple of hours, I saw it!
I wasn’t able to actually see the Queen, but I was still happy to have been part of it. I felt a bit disappointed though.
I was disappointed by the poor turnout – are people really so cynical these days that they aren’t even willing to spend a day by the river to cheer on the Queen? After all, she’s served this country for sixty years – yes, you could say that being in the same job for all that time suggests a lack of ambition, but it’s still an impressive achievement and one to be celebrated.
I was also disappointed by the flotilla itself. In fact, it wasn’t even really a flotilla, it was just a boat. The Queen just went on a boat trip up the river.
The whole spectacle was so underwhelming that I’ve decided I’m not even going to bother going to the Jubilee concert tonight.
—–
NOTES
1. I went to see Iron Sky, which is about the Nazis building a base on the dark side of the moon and planning an invasion of earth. It’s amazing to think it’s based on a true story. I did enjoy Iron Sky, though it was very different to the TV series – the bloke wasn’t even in a wheelchair.
I’d gone in to buy a sandwich (it was lunchtime). I walked over to the chiller cabinet and saw this:
I immediately walked out.
Things got worse. After tweeting about this monstrosity, someone sent me this:
Stop trying to make everything a sandwich, Marks & Spencer, you lunatics. A pork pie doesn’t belong in a sandwich, neither do Yorkshire puddings. Just leave them alone. And don’t put these insane creations in wrappers covered in Union Jack bunting, suggesting some sense of tradition and nostalgia. There is no widely held tradition in this county of putting pies in sandwiches.
Photo by @snoozysuzy
I wasn’t entirely sure what a “Jubilee strawberry” was, but as Nick Marston on the Berry Gardens website explains, the Driscoll Jubilee is:
an exceptional strawberry with a wonderful naturally sweet flavour profile. It literally is the Queen of the Crop when it comes to summer strawberries. It is the UK’s leading variety for retailer’s premium brands. Nothing compares to it.
If you want any further information about the Driscoll Jubilee Strawberries please contact Nick Marston at enjoy@jubileestrawberries.com
It’s not just Marks & Spencer who have gone out of their fucking minds though. You can’t walk down any aisle of the supermarket without seeing some product or other in limited edition Jubilee packaging.
Ma’amite:
Brit Kats:
Photo by @DaisyGreenwell
Queensmill:
Great British Fancies:
They look quite similar to French Fancies, to be honest.
Tabasco sauce:
Ah, good old-fashioned traditional British Tabasco sauce.
I suppose this outbreak of Union Jack bunting was inevitable given the perfect storm of both the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics this summer. The combination of the two has caused some companies to go so completely demented that they seem to have forgotten what the products they sell are actually for. Pampers, for example, have launched a range of Union Jack nappies:
Encouraging children to piss and shit on the Union Jack isn’t celebrating Britain, Pampers.
One man suggested that when crowds of people gather to see the Queen, she feeds off their energy.
Every time anyone’s there, waving a flag, they are feeding off the energy you’re giving them.
But he offered some advice to anyone who fancied a nice day out but didn’t want to give positive energy to the Queen:
If you do go there, don’t adore them – adore yourself. Come from the heart chakra. That’ll mess them up.
He even suggested forming a gang and going along, each person coming from their heart centres. “That’ll mess them up.” Sounds like a fun day out.
The security measures being introduced for the Olympics were also mentioned. One person asked if anyone thought the Olympics would be used for a false flag attack. The majority of the room seemed to think this was likely. “OK, but then what if it doesn’t happen?” he asked. “It might be a trick! It might be a double bluff!” someone said. So if there is a terrorist attack during the Olympics, it’s proof of a conspiracy and if there isn’t one, that’s proof too.
Another person suggested that the Olympics could be used as a test for Project Blue Beam and that rather than the Illuminati staging a terror attack during the Olympics, they might stage an alien attack, although this was dismissed. “I would be very surprised. I don’t think they’d get away with that. I think it’s too soon to do a fake alien attack” said one person.
There are four stages to Project Blue Beam:
The first stage involves engineering a series of earthquakes, which reveal “discoveries” proving that all of the world’s religions are wrong:
What is important to understand in the first step is that those earthquakes will hit at different parts of the world where scientific and archaeological teachings have indicated that arcane mysteries have been buried. By those types of earthquakes, it will be possible for scientists to rediscover those arcane mysteries which will be used to discredit all fundamental religious doctrines. This is the first preparation for the plan for humanity because what they want to do is destroy the beliefs of all Christians and Muslims on the planet. To do that, they need some false ‘proof’ from the far past that will prove to all nations that their religions have all been misinterpreted and misunderstood.
The second stage involves a giant holographic projections of all of the main deities:
The second step in the NASA Blue Beam Project involves a gigantic ‘space show’ with three-dimensional optical holograms and sounds, laser projection of multiple holographic images to different parts of the world, each receiving a different image according to predominating regional national religious faith. This new ‘god’s’ voice will be speaking in all languages.
[...]
The result of these deliberately staged events will be to show the world the new ‘christ,’ the new messiah, Matraia (Maitreya), for the immediate implementation of the new world religion. Enough truth will be foisted upon an unsuspecting world to hook them into the lie. “Even the most learned will be deceived.”
The project has perfected the ability for some device [referred to as "tractor beams" by ufologists] to lift up an enormous number of people, as in a Rapture, and whisk the entire group into a never-never land We see tests of this device in the abduction of humans by those mysterious little alien greys who snatch people out of their beds and through windows into waiting “mother ships.” The calculated resistance to the universal religion and the new messiah and the ensuing holy wars will result in the loss of human life on a scale never imagined before in all of human history.
[...]
Then the projections of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, etc., will merge into one after correct explanations of the mysteries and revelations will have been disclosed. This one god will, in fact, be the Antichrist, who will explain that the various scriptures have been misunderstood and misinterpreted, and that the religions of old are responsible for turning brother against brother, and nation against nation, therefore old religions must be abolished to make way for the new age new world religion, representing the one god Antichrist they see before them.
Naturally, this superbly staged falsification will result in dissolved social and religious disorder on a grand scale, each nation blaming the other for the deception, setting loose millions of programmed religious fanatics through demonic possession on a scale never witnessed before. In addition, this event will occur at a time of profound worldwide political anarchy and general tumult created by some worldwide catastrophe.
The United Nation even now plans to use Beethovan’s ‘Song of Joy’ as the anthem for the introduction for the new age one world religion.
Next, they will project thoughts and voices into people’s heads using extremely low-frequency radio waves:
The advancement of techniques propel us toward the third step in the Blue Beam Project that goes along with the telepathic and electronically augmented two-way communication where ELF, VLF and LF waves will reach each person from within his or her own mind, convincing each of them that their own god is speaking to them from the very depths of their own soul. Such rays from satellites are fed from the memories of computers that have stored massive data about every human on earth, and their languages. The rays will then interlace with their natural thinking to form what we call diffuse artificial thought.
There are three “orientations” to the final stage – make everyone think aliens are about to invade earth, make Christians believe the Rapture is about to take place and make “satanic ghosts” appear through your TV and phone:
One is to make mankind believe that an alien (off-world) invasion is about to occur at every major city on earth in order to provoke each major nation to use its nuclear weapons in order to strike back. This way, the United Nations Court will require that all those nations which launched nuclear weapons to disarm when the invasion is shown to have been false. And how will the United Nations know that the invasion was false? They will have staged it, of course.
The second is to make the Christians believe that the Rapture is going to occur with the supposed divine intervention of an alien (off-world) civilization coming to rescue earthlings from a savage and merciless demon. Its goal will be to dispose of all significant opposition to the implementation of the New World Order in one major stroke, actually within hours of the beginning of the sky show!
The third orientation in the fourth step is a mixture of electronic and supernatural forces. The waves used at that time will allow “supernatural forces” to travel through optical fibers, coaxial cables (TV) electrical and phone lines in order to penetrate to everyone at once through major appliances. Embedded chips will already be in place. The goal of this deals with global Satanic ghosts projected all around the world in order to push all populations to the edge of hysteria and madness, to drown them into a wave of suicide, murder and permanent psychological disorders. After the Night of the Thousand Stars, worldwide populations will be ready for the new messiah to re-establish order and peace at any cost, even at the cost of abdication of freedom.
Now, that might all sound a bit insane, but it’s not as insane as putting a pork pie in a fucking sandwich.
In the waiting room at Worcester Park station, the Worcester Park Station Volunteer Group have organised a “book swap library”.
Users of the station are invited to take a book, enjoy reading it and then replace it when finished. People with any old books they no longer need can leave them on the bookshelf for others to read.
The Worcester Park Station Volunteer Group have produced a sign to explain the concept. Look, they’ve used Calibri:
Here is the Worcester Park Station Book Swap Library:
Here is a sample of the top shelf selection of books:
From left to right:
The Doorstep Girls by Valerie Wood
How To Study by Harry Maddox
Always There by Pamela Evans
something by Edith Pargeter
The Au Pair And Nanny’s Guide to Working Abroad by Susan Griffith & Sharon Legg
As I passed through the station the other day, I noticed a small note taped to the bookcase:
When I saw this letter, I thought it was one of the loveliest things I’d seen in a long time. A group of volunteers had decided to set up a book swap in their local train station. They did this for the simple reason that they thought it was a nice thing to do. Someone else saw the book swap, and donated a book to the library – “It’s Your Time” by Joel Osteen. Then, a third party came along, saw the book on the shelf, took it home, read it and was so moved she wrote a letter and taped it to the bookcase.
It was a beautiful illustration of human co-operation I thought. I posted a photo of the letter to Twitter. “Lovely letter taped to the book swap shelf at Worcester Park station” I tweeted.
The response? People pointed out the spelling mistakes in the letter.
I recently gave a talk at an event called The Lost Lectures. The Lost Lectures is a brilliant idea – a series of talks every couple of months, in a different venue each time. People talking, but talking in nice places.
My talk is sort of a handy guide to my entire aesthetic and everything I believe in. There’s a bit at the end – a particular line – which I accidentally skipped. I didn’t mean to, I think I was just glad to have got that far without humiliating myself too badly and in the excitement I missed a bit. So really, what you should do is watch the video right up until 11:44, then pause it, then say the following sentence in my voice:
Attention and focus and patience can take a sneeze and turn it into a page from a diary. It can take a packet of Munchies and turn it into a museum.
Here is a list of things and people mentioned in that talk (in approximate order of appearance):
“The transformative power of attention” – I’m going to use that phrase all the time. Where did that phrase come from? I must have stolen it from somewhere.
Back in early 2009, Irish twins John and Edward Grimes appeared for the first time on X Factor. They introduced themselves with the words “I’m John”, “I’m Edward”, “And together we are ‘John and Edward’”:
Their attempt to brand themselves as “John and Edward” was short-lived, and soon they became known as Jedward. John should have negotiated harder during that meeting, as he only contributes a “J” to the Jedward portmanteau, unlike Edward who gets his full “Edward” into “Jedward” with only the “E” being downgraded to lower case. This hardly seems fair. Obviously “Johdward” looks wrong, and “Jodward” sounds silly. A better approach would have been to use their full names. Both Grimes brothers have quite long names – John’s full name is John Paul Henry Daniel Richard Grimes (or “JoPaHeDachard Grimes” as I have just decided to call him) and Edward’s full name is Edward Peter Anthony Kevin Patrick Grimes (“EdPetAntKevrick Grimes”). So they could be called “JoPaHeDaRichEdPetAntKevrick”. JoPaHeDaRichEdPetAntKevrick Grimes.
However, the world is unfair and the name Jedward stuck. Sometimes I worry that John (JoPaHeDachard) will grow to resent the success of his brother Edward (EdPetAntKevrick), just as Paul Ross must envy Johnathan and my brother envies me.
The other day, I was HMV and I saw a Jedward (JoPaHeDaRichEdPetAntKevrick) calendar. It was only a pound, so I bought it:
As you can see, it wasn’t originally a pound, it had been re-stickered:
I peeled off the new price sticker:
2 FOR £10
OR AS PRICED
Offer applies to stickered stock only
So before it was £1, it had been in an offer where when bought with another item, the two items together would cost £10. This suggests that the price of the calendar, if bought individually, must have been at least £5.01 in order for the customer to receive any benefit from buying two items together. If the calendar was £5.01 and two were purchased together, the customer would save 2p. This does not seem like a compelling offer and so we can safely assume that the individual price must have been at least £5.02. The issue is complicated further by the fact that the £5.02 price wouldn’t have been the launch price of the item. It wouldn’t have been launched in a “2 for £10″ offer, it must have been reduced (and then reduced further to £1, the price I paid for it). Let’s assume then that the original price was higher than £5.02. Let’s call it £5.05.
We are now at the end of the second month (February) of 2012. A sixth of the year has passed. Therefore, the usefulness of my Jedward (JoPaHeDaRichEdPetAntKevrick) calendar has reduced by one sixth. And so, you would have expected that the price of the calendar would have also reduced by as much. The price reducing by 1/366 (2012 is a leap year) each day. In reality, it is impractical to imagine that HMV would operate such a pricing structure. £5.05 divided by 366 is about 1.4p and our currency isn’t fine-grained enough to cope with something like that. Also, it would be too complicated to change the price on their till systems and to re-sticker the product each day. It simply isn’t practical. It would be much easier to just change the price at the end of each month. That would be the sensible thing to do.
If the price was reduced in line with the reduced utility of the calendar, we would expect to see something like this as the year progressed:
The calendar starts at £5.05 on New Year’s Eve, and gradually falls in price until it reaches zero at the end of the year. As I mentioned, the prices could only really be changed once a month, so the graph should really look like a set of steps rather than a straight line:
At the end of February, the calendar should have been about £4.20 rather than £1, which suggests that the pricing structure I have outlined above is not actually what happens in reality. The blue line here shows the reality of calendar pricing:
There is a much sharper drop than you would find if the price is based purely on remaining utility. Indeed, if you project the line forward, you’ll see that it very quickly falls off the bottom of the graph:
The price becomes negative in the middle of March, and by the end of the month, HMV would be giving you a quid to take them off their hands. Of course, you could wait it out, hoping for a bigger payout – just as the price decreases as each month passes, so the reward for taking one increases, but it’s likely that they’d run out of stock before then.
To be honest, I’m a bit surprised by all this. I suppose people just don’t really buy calendars after a certain point in the year, but this isn’t any old calendar, it’s a Jedward (JoPaHeDaRichEdPetAntKevrick) calendar. You’d think that would hold its value. Even if you didn’t want to use the calendar function1, you get twelve pictures of Jedward (JoPaHeDaRichEdPetAntKevrick). Surely that’s got to be worth £5.05 at any point in the year.
I’m never really sure how to tell John (JoPaHeDachard) and Edward (EdPetAntKevrick) apart, and I suspect they’re not sure either. I asked them once:
They didn’t answer, and I think their silence speaks volumes.
Ant & Dec famously have a rule that Ant always stands on the left and Dec on the right to avoid confusion, however I’m not sure such a rule would not work with Jedward (JoPaHeDaRichEdPetAntKevrick) as they would then require a further rule to help them remember left from right and they would find the whole thing too confusing to implement. I always thought that maybe they toss a coin to decide, or maybe whichever one wakes up first in the morning gets to pick whether he’s going to be John (JoPaHeDachard) or Edward (EdPetAntKevrick) for that day.
However, in the calendar, the page for February offers a useful diagram which helps you tell them apart:
Assuming they are wearing the right T-shirts, you can see that John (JoPaHeDachard), on the left in the “Edward (EdPetAntKevrick)→” T-shirt has slightly fuller lips. Also, Edward (EdPetAntKevrick), on the right in the “←John (JoPaHeDachard)” T-shirt has a slightly thinner face:
The differences aren’t huge, and you’d need to have them both side by side so you could compare the two – if you saw John (JoPaHeDachard) on his own, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell if it was John (JoPaHeDachard) or Edward (EdPetAntKevrick). Fortunately, they aren’t on their own very often, so it isn’t an issue. There must be some occasions where they aren’t together though – like if John (JoPaHeDachard) needed to go to the toilet or that time when Edward (EdPetAntKevrick) broke his leg live on television:
You have to admire the way he carried on, don’t you? The plaintive “I’m cool!” is an inspiration to us all. While he was recovering from his injury, there must have been times when John (JoPaHeDachard) went to the shops or wherever on his own – although, thinking about it, during that period, it would have been easier to tell them apart by the fact that one of them didn’t have a broken leg. Try the best house cleaning in dallas if you have a dirty home.
Using the “pouty lips = John (JoPaHeDachard)” and “thinner face = Edward (EdPetAntKevrick)” system, I was able to go through month by month and work out which was which.
In January, we have John (JoPaHeDachard) on the left and Edward (EdPetAntKevrick) on the right:
I’ve already discussed February. I’m not sure about March:
April isn’t very clear either:
I’d say May has John (JoPaHeDachard) on the left and Edward (EdPetAntKevrick) on the right:
And it’s the same for June:
And again for July, based on the thin face of what I assume is Edward (EdPetAntKevrick) on the right:
I’m beginning to think that maybe there is a left/right rule after all. August has John (JoPaHeDachard) on the left and Edward (EdPetAntKevrick) on the right too:
Looking good in September:
October is hard to judge because they’re pulling different expressions, but let’s assume the left/right rule still holds:
No idea for November, but we might as well stick with the left/right rule:
And finally, we get to December:
Oh, you bastards. That’s got to be John (JoPaHeDachard) on the right and Edward (EdPetAntKevrick) on the left. There is no left/right rule. You tricked me. I feel betrayed. I’m never buying a Jedward (JoPaHeDaRichEdPetAntKevrick) calendar ever again, no matter how heavily reduced it may be.
—– NOTES
1. “While every effort is made to ensure that the information included in this calendar is correct,” states a disclaimer on the back, “Danilo Promotions Ltd cannot be held responsible for errors and omissions. The Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 allows the Government to alter dates at short notice.”
2012 is, of course, the year of the London Olympics. Being an adult, I have no interest in the Olympic games, instead, the only Olympics I’m interested in are the glass-reinforced plastic modular structures used in car parks and train stations:
The Olympic system has been at the forefront of modular building technology for 35 years and has earned a worldwide reputation for reliability and superior design.
Typical applications for the accommodation of personnel include: security posts and gatehouses; car park kiosks; factory offices; vehicle checkpoints and vending kiosks.
There’s a small Olympic unit at Raynes Park station:
The dark blue colour fits in nicely with the surroundings:
On closer inspection, you can see that the unit wasn’t originally that blue colour, it’s been painted. You can see where the painter has gone over the edges of the label:
It’s nice that they left the label there though, didn’t cover it up or paint over it. If you want to stop snoring ZQuiet. Send glasdon a telex, their number is 67350.
The larger Olympic units at Wimbledon are red:
Although for some reason, they seem to have replaced the original GRP door with a wooden panel one:
I’d like to think they’ve used a wooden panel door to make the Olympic unit appear more “homely”, but I suspect the original door got broken and it was cheaper to just use a normal door than to replace the whole panel1. It’s a shame though, as the straight lines of the wooden door panels don’t really fit with the contours of the rest of the structure.
At least at Waterloo, they have the proper doors3:
I started looking online for information about modular building systems like the Olympic. CB Fabrications do a nice range of GRP buildings. Their gallery page is wonderful.
In some of the images, the kiosks and huts look completely alien and out of place, like they’ve been photoshopped in on top of unrelated and surreal backgrounds:
With others, there are no visual clues whatsoever to help you work out when the picture was taken:
That photo could have been taken at any point in the last forty years.
Some of them are date stamped, sadly. That ruins the fun.
This shot of the interior of one unit shows a car through the window:
I don’t know anything about cars, so I asked on Twitter if anyone could identify it:
Does anyone on Twitter know anything about cars? Can anyone identify the car in this picture? ow.ly/969dW— James Ward (@iamjamesward) February 16, 2012
Several people identified it as a Ford Fiesta, but there was uncertainty over which type:
I have several people saying it's a Ford Fiesta, but disagreement on the exact model. People saying Mk3, Mk4 and Mk5— James Ward (@iamjamesward) February 16, 2012
Soon though, people seemed to decide it was a Mk IV. This assessment, for example, seemed quite convincing:
@iamjamesward Not a mark 3 as side tabbed indicator is round not square. Not a mark 5 as side indicator is not embedded in trim. So Mark 4.— (@garethmiller) February 16, 2012
The matter still wasn’t settled though, as some believed it could be a Mazda 121:
@iamjamesward Probably a Fiesta though, the 121 sold in lower numbers and was withdrawn from the UK market in 1999.— Iain Cannell (@iaincannell) February 16, 2012
@iamjamesward It's a Mazda 121. It is a Fiesta mk 4 but badged and sold as a Mazda. It's basically a ford hand me down.— Tomato Balloonington (@AutomaTom) February 16, 2012
The confusion comes from the fact that the Ford Fiesta Mk IV and the Mazda 121 shared the same design:
As an exercise in badge engineering, the Mazda 121 and Ford Fiesta were built on the same production lines and used almost all the same parts.
Really though, it doesn’t matter if it’s a Ford Fiesta Mk IV or a Mazda 121. The Fiesta was produced from 1995 to 2002 when it was replaced by the MK V, and the Mazda from 1996 until it was withdrawn from the UK market in 1999. All I was really interested in were the dates.
The knowledge displayed by a few people reminded me of the television series You Bet. I’ve been thinking about You Bet quite a lot lately. The other week, I saw Joe Lycett at Josie Long’s night Lost Treasures Of The Black Heart. Afterwards, I was talking to someone about it and I mentioned that Joe Lycett used to appear on the BBC One series Epic Win. The person I was talking to had never heard of Epic Win, so I explained that it was sort of an updated version of You Bet. They’d never heard of You Bet either, so I tried to explain what it was, but the more I tried to explain, the more implausible it seemed.
You Bet was basically a celebrity panel show, where guests would bet on whether or not members of the public would be able to successfully complete particular challenges. Usually, the members of the public would be people with a special skill or knowledge of a specific subject and this would be tested against the clock.
Here is a man who knows a lot about buses, being mocked by Matthew Kelly:
Here is a blindfolded German teenager, dressed as a harlequin, attempting to identify the country of origin of a series of postage stamps by taste alone:
I love that this was shown on prime time television. Saturday night entertainment. Millions of people watching a man lick stamps.
The fact the concept was basically stolen wholesale to make Epic Win suggests there is still an appetite for this sort of thing, but in updating it, they robbed it of much of its charm, filling it with pointless stunts like this:
That man seems like an awful human being. Imagine being stuck next to him on a coach, gargling the national anthem the whole time and expecting you to be impressed. Not like Andy Hine, he seems nice and polite:
—— NOTES
1. I’ve had a look at the Glasdon brochure and you’ll see on page 22 that they’d need to order a PA6 panel to replace the door.
2. You’ll see that the doors at Waterloo don’t have windows, these are the “blank” PA5 door panels.
3. The title of the programme puts me off too. The inescapable “epic win”/”epic fail” dichotomy is a depressing fact of modern life. There are no humble achievements or minor mistakes, just epic wins or epic fails. Failure can so often be more interesting than the short termist “win”. We need to fail, it’s how we learn. But the all-caps FAIL does not allow for an examination of what went wrong, it simply shuts down the conversation and blocks all thought. In fact, it doesn’t just prevent any further thought, its use is also an illustration of a lack of thought itself. The debate is killed at both ends each time it is used. Please stop using these phrases, I beg you.
