ON THE FIRST DAY..

"The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day', and the darkness he called 'night'. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day."

Or so says Genesis 1:2-5.

Polko says bullshit. But lights there are. And plenty of them! Here are a few of my current favourites:

This is called Once (In The Blue) and made by Flos of Italy. It has two bulbs inside a 1m x 2m resin and aluminium asymmetric ball. One is a white halogen for traditional lighting, the other a black light that gives a fantastic effect at night. Big and beautiful.

This is Ari Grande by Axo Light. In a single line as here, or clustered together in a block or circle. Mmmmmm.

Blò IC, designed by Roberto Pamio for Oty Light, a smallish single halogen plasterboard fixed clear glass unit. With rough beaten steel backsplash panels behind work surfaces I think these are among the best kitchen designs ever.. unfortunately, we have nine halogen points in our kitchen and so the total cost would add to over 1,300 euros..

And then, my big favourite.. Campari Light by Ingo Maurer, one of the finest and quirkiest lighting designers of the moment.. Real Campari in bottles, suspended by an adjustable Campari bottle crown. Too much to buy at 240 euros but I reckon I can do something similar for a room I'm currently finishing at home!.. though I do like Campari so may have to resort to coloured water?!

A FEW POSTS AGO..

..I commented on the Thai resistance to their government, and in particular the Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat. Today they have left the airport lounges that have been their bedrooms and main political platform for the past 8 days and allowed passengers and the country to start to regain some form of normality.

The mass sit-in of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) appears to have worked for the time being, with Somchat now being banned from politics by a Court ruling and a new set of parties forming to start the new government. They have left with a warning that they will return if the new government turns out like the last.

Anyone with me on a sit-in at Heathrow to depose our leader and his failed New Labour cronies?

No, I didn't think so.

Unfortunately.

POLKO'S CHRISTMAS LIST

Slightly tongue in cheek, but since it's December I thought I'd post up my Christmas wishes.. apart from good will to all men, peace on Earth and that type of stuff..

This Christmas 2008/09 Polko would like:

1. a bluetooth headset - like this
2. a Range Rover (Vogue and in green or dark blue of course!)
3. chocolate - dark, white, milk it's all the same to me
4. Two Polish girls!
5. And, most of all, a relaxing time of it all with plenty bottles of Bordeaux

There. Now the world knows. Here's counting the days...

THE BENEFITS OF SLOWING DOWN..

Benefit #1
So, today I have woken up to snow all around and the sight of my neghbours trying to get to work on a snowbound, 1-in-3 hill with bends! This makes me very happy that Polko and Mrs Polko decided to sloooow the f*ck down a few years ago, get sensible and restructure the way we lived (moving from town to country and working from home). Once they've all slivered their way down and off to their various concrete towers of babel to chatter incessantly into telephones about things that don't really matter to them we will have a whole hillside and dozens of acres to go out and have a massive snowball fight in. Cool.

Benefit #2
The slowdown has reduced our new work flow (though not ceased it altogether happily). So, the phones are not ringing so often and emails arriving at a slightly reduced pace. Giving me the time to get on my PS3 and Call of Duty: World At War having bought it and played it intensively for a week then finding myself swapping back to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare online - hits the mark with me more than stomping around Russia or Japan as part of the WWII effort!

Benefit #3
Related to the time I currently have - there are now signs that NASN television may well be starting to feature some of the better NHL team games on their channel, having attempted to buy in cheaper games by lesser teams than the Montreal Canadiens, NY Rangers and Islanders, Toronto Mapleleafs etc. So, I have more quality ice hockey to watch... and soon they promise they will even put Hockey Night in Canada back on each week. yay-hey!

Benefit #4
This came in the BBC News home page load-up this morning: Sales growth slows down at Tesco!

What a wonderful piece of news! Apparently like for like (which means they strip out the effects of opening new stores and extending existing ones in the last year) quarterly sales have grown by only 2% against 4.8% in the same period last year. Tesco are relatively exposed to swings in demand as they sell not only staple foodstuffs but also a large range of 'other items', luxury and spur of the moment purchases such as electronics, DVDs and clothing.

Factor in the effects that Woolworths keeping hold of their vast stocks of DVDs/CDs and other media to sell off at whatever price they can get for them this year (Woolworths are the largest distributors of said products to the supermarket chains and their administrators know that this stock is going to help them maximise cash in their winding up process) and things might just test the management Board at Tesco and the like a little more than they have been doing for the past five/six years or more. My guess is that some Directors of larger companies may well be asking themselves if slowing their life a little is in order in the coming few months. My advice would be: take the bonuses and golden pay-off's and get the hell out, learn to grow your own food, keep your own animals, reduce your consumption a little and regain some basic skills of being human. Anyone with a manual can operate a Blackberry, not everyone can grow them or make a Blackberry Trifle.

Which final thought reminds me of one of my favourite lines in a Braintax rap, when talking about a future world where energy lines break down and people are forced back into a simpler and more skilled way of living..

..holed up in the woods with my trusty rifle,
the rains rusted it up,
so now I'm living on snow and berry trifle.

Which then moves my mind onto Survivors - on TV tonight at 9p.m. Yay-hey times ten!

INTERNATIONAL BUY NOTHING DAY ??

Today is International Buy Nothing Day apparently. An honourable enough cause - see www.buynothingday.co.uk - but one that many will I guess choose to ignore...

..or maybe not?

In these harder times (notice the relative 'harder' as economic conditions still cannot really be described in an absolute sense of Hard Times a la Dickens, great depression, etc?) people might just decide to spend less today than they have been doing in the past few years..

Credit crunch, mortgage woes - lower interest rates are one thing, but many people are having to stump up severe penalties by way of higher loan to value and arrangement fees on mortgages that are at or above 100% of their homes values and these translate to expensive fees when mortgaged out over the twenty or so year mortgage horizon as people add fees to mortgages instead of paying for them with shorter term loans - job losses looming in several areas of retail and manufacturing let alone the rationalisation of banking that is about to occur in the first half of 2009. All these factors are bearing down hard on most people's spending habits.

All good then, and in my opinion it's about time people generally stopped trying to live way above their incomes, buying newer and more expensive cars on bubble loan schemes - worse still consolidating the last loan with a new one and buying a new vehicle, borrowing against inflated property values to spend on depreciating assets and generally acting like the people they see on the telly. Who'd want to be a celebrity anyway? In the UK recently it would sadly seem plenty of people do.

Hold that thought while I slip back into obscurity for another day - and maybe go and spend some (non-borrowed) money in my nearest city to help Woolies out a bit!

ENGLAND 0 THAILAND 4

The BBC carries the main story of the day today as; "Flights from Thailand's international airport have been suspended after hundreds of anti-government protesters stormed the building outside Bangkok. The demonstrators are in full control of Suvarnabhumi airport, leaving at least 3,000 passengers stranded."

Apparently they are trying to prevent Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat returning to the country from an international summit in Peru.

Good luck to 'em I say. Our own government messes us all around in so many different ways these days and I cannot ever think that the English population would ever have the balls to do something so daring as this. And look at the armaments the Thai government's Forces and Police carry around with them - ours only have batons and handcuffs! The Thai's are brave indeed.

The English prefer instead to sit around in their boxes each night moaning about the price of fuel to each other, the state of football or the weather. All I know is the old spirit of England that was still around with our parents and parents' parents has now finally been extinguished by the fan of modern politics whose strapline should be something like: keep 'em dumb, keep 'em down. See my last blog on How To Win by Distraction While Introducing More Tax.

Keep watching Celebrity Big X Factor In The Jungle folks!

WHAT DID YOU SAY YOUR NAME WAS?

As if Alistair Darling isn't a silly enough name, now the man in charge of the UK's public finances is trying to be Clark Kent aka Superman too. He has made a statement that he is not prepared to let the recession in the UK take its natural course... New Labour to the rescue! Who on earth does he think he is? Does he honestly think he can beat the effects and moves of the international financial system. At best a naive thought, at worst a very damaging one indeed.

November's Pre-Budget speech was launched (officially at least) on Monday 24 Nov. It contained a lot of nothing much as far as many economists were concerned and seemed to go round in circles in many parts. The obvious targeting of a few smoking guns in a rise in income tax for those earning over £150,000 - netting little of the necessary finances that the government are going to need if their plans for boosting the economy are to be realised. Good headlines for middle England. Takes their attention off the 0.5% rise everybody will pay in National Insurance contributions! Realistically, it looks like everyone earning somewhere between £20,000 and £35-40,000 a year or more will be worse off through the package of measures announced in the speech. But the headlines of hitting high earners look good dont' they? I'm not even going to discuss the Manifesto pledge of not raising income taxes that New Labour once promised - they've decided to raise income tax, but not until after the next election, this they maintain is not really technically raising taxes in their government is it? is it? what do they take people for?

VAT down from 17.5% to 15% for 13 months - an ominous choice of term if you're superstitious! More worryingly, not even a bold or educated policy shift. Interestingly, my local landlord simply said last night that this was good as he wouldn't pass the reduction on to his customers, pocketing an extra bit of profit instead. I suspect this is pretty much what almost all businesses will do. Net result: lower tax receipts (of around £12.5bn) + no change in consumer behaviour = own goal Labour. Nice one. Again.

As others are pointing out there really is a more simple solution to help the average person in the street and therefore help everyone in the economy. People do not ponder hard over the rate of VAT and buy more items when it moves a few percentage points downwards (assuming of course that price changes are somehow related to changes in the rate of VAT, see my point about our local landlord above!). Vince Cable of the Liberal Democrats hit the nail on the head with the following statement, "What I fail to see is how the economy gets a major stimulus for, for example, a £5 cut in a £220 imported flat screen television or a 50p cut in a £25 restaurant bill," he said. Here, here.

The key indicator for the average householder's budget is the size of their largest debt payment - their mortgage - and therefore what money they have left over after its payment.

The government in my opinion should be focusing on maintaining pressure on banks to keep interest rate reductions being passed on to those with housing debt problems, thus helping the average person's net income position. Secondly, work with the banking system to ensure liquidity between them and commercial borrowers. If personal borrowing dries up people tend to spend less, a proportion of which is always on imported TVs and the like anyway. When commercial borrowing gets difficult or in this case stops altogether, businesses are more directly affected and jobs are lost much quicker across the economy than when consumer spending starts to wane.

But then, what would I know? I only have a First Class honours degree and a Masters in economics.

Leave it to the former teachers in the New Labour project. We'll be alright. Won't we?

RUTHLESS (IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE)

An abstract thought, but I hope interesting nonetheless.

I was driving in a town near me the other day and kept reaching the traffic lights next to a security van. Time after time it was me and the security guards looking into each others vehicles (my car is a 4x4 so they could see me and I them). This carried on for four or five sets of lights around the ring road and I felt like they were looking at me and becoming suspicious - not that I routinely look like a gangster or ne'er do well but I had been out the night before with a friend and was unshaven and hungover so probably looked a little rough at the edges to say the least. If only they knew I was at that very moment listening to Wham's Greatest Hits in my car! I'm guessing this is hardly your average gangsters choice of music while on the job.

I got to thinking what is statistically the most significant day of the week for security vans to get done over / blagged / held up - you choose the dialect and accent depending on where your from. There must be a specific day that more vans get done over than any other? Friday's, and this was a Friday that I am speaking of, have got to be up there as a prime candidate? End of week wages blags and all that? And, taking this further, there are probably regional variations in preferred days of operation of the scumbags, preferred vehicles and methods of operation.. Now, if you could collate all that information into a database and analyse it spatially you would have a great - and profitable - line of business. Advising the security firms of when to go out, what to look for and which vans to have tagged and followed by others/Police etc?

Or, given the millions involved in this line of business, maybe this already happens?

Anyway... onto something a little lighter... as if! This week I am finally going to dig out my copy of the Ruthless Rap Assassins 1991 release Th!nk - It Ain't Illegal Yet. One of my all time favourite UK conscious rap releases, and all done in a flat in Hulme - now sadly (in a strange way?) pulled down and 'regenerated' into an entire district of Lego houses all resplendent with an array of 'To Let' or 'For Sale' signs on them, inhabited by grey students whose only act of rebellion these days is ordering the Grandé Cappuccino at Starbucks not the Regular, or perhaps sprinkling a little more cocoa powder on there than usual? These kiddies would shudder at the thought of the student squats that used to stand where mummy and daddy have bought their little box in the city, sorry I should use the term apartment. There, does that make you feel better for paying so much for it?


The link is this. The Ruthless Rap Assassins, three black kids who grew up North Hulme, Manchester in the 80s wrote some amazing lyrics about how life was getting a little duller each day, people's minds becoming numbed by everyday celebrity tat and how the US and UK governments (along with many other of their cronies) was marauding the world in the honest name of capitalism and democracy! This was 1991. This was the age of the Gulf War. Who knows what happened to Anderson, Kermit and Carson (and if you do, please get in touch as I'd personally love to buy 'em all a drink and ask them to start writing this stuff again) but their lyrics are now more salient than ever in describing the trajectory that this country has found itself on.. from the students who now live their Wi-Fi broadband-enabled Diesel-clothes-clad lives where the Assassins flat and those of others such as A Guy Called Gerald once stood to the countless hordes of suburban families in Barratt Homes feeding off a diet of cheap Tesco food, Hello! magazine, Celebrity This And That on TV and shopping centres filled from floor to ceiling with all the latest stuff you never knew you didn't want.

I'm not a Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here..

Here's a short excerpt of those lyrics written at the emergence of the 90s housing market crisis, 1st Gulf War and post-Poll Tax/Public Utility sell-offs please do take time to think, it really ain't illegal.. yet..

excerpt: Think (Hinds/Hinds), 1991

Britains in a mess because the government stinks
Does anybody care what the poor man thinks
Interest rates rising 'til they can't rise no more
You know the shit was heavy 'cos they started a war
You know who got the blame, they called him insane
But just who was it sold him the weapons and planes
The National Health's in trouble, lack of money is why
But still they spent millions sendin' people to die
Too many people scared to stand up and rebel
You listen to the government and you buy what they sell
They made the cuts and the nation bears the scars
Sold power to the people when the power was ours
And now you're an owner but something ain't right
'Cos if you don't pay your bills they still cut your light
Companies going under and the government say
To keep inflation down that's the price we have to pay
They sold shares in gas and telecon
Most people on the street couldn't get none
Worked like a slave to buy your own house
But when you heard the shout you were gettin' thrown out
Got no bread, can't afford the water
Can't meet the bills at the end of the quarter
Poverty is hell and most are on the brink
You let it happen 'cos you didn't stop and think

CREAM CRACKERS!!!

Question: what's so creamy about Cream Crackers®

Surely, they're just dry flavourless things that jump into life when you put cheese on them?

I've got some in front of me and have had a look at the ingredients list, which consists of the following : Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil, Salt, Yeast, Raising Agent (E500).

No sign of any cream in the mix?

Just a short random thought.

A SHORT THOUGHT

A very quick thought for a Sunday morning.. My work-world (like many others) has been full of medium sized companies ripping off their clients for large fees for the past 10 years, flexing their muscles by showing off large bonuses, expensive Directors cars and packages, over-paying under-experienced junior staff and occupying swanky offices, and all the time charging out spotty young graduates with no clue about the real world at rates up to £400/day...

These companies, some of whose Director's I know well, have constantly been saying the days of the specialist / niche / small company are over...

Now that the credit crunch is really biting in the global economy and these very same companies are finding themselves saddled with high costs and - in some cases - expensive debt, ask yourself the following simple question that appeared in Property Week recently...

if you are a client, ask yourself who you would rather have selling your property: the niche firm led by the star agent or duo, or the megalith whose top brass are distracted by bigger corporate concerns?

At the same time, for whom would you rather work? A firm that is slashing costs, (has over-spent on expensive property leases or buying up over-valued smaller firms) whose share price is on the slide – or yourself and a few mates? Quitting to do this is risky but can also be a breath of fresh air.

I and many others like me already know the answer to this one!

VERBALLY CHALLENGED

This is going to be a strange one but I'm going to start this blog about english grammar with an image of an early Jay Z release on Def Jam.. All will hopefully become clear.

I'm sure there are plenty of blogs on this very same topic, but here's my two pence worth..

I am forever being bugged by people using the wrong verb. Let me slightly correct that. Not the wrong verb, simply people getting mixed up who they are when using a verb. Let me explain.. One of my friends recently told me that they were going to learn me something.. learn, learn! It took me all my wits not to shout at the top of my irate voice, "I think you mean teach. I'm the one learning not you!"

Another mis-representation that I hear, though thankfully less often, is when people get mixed up between buying and brought'ing. Using, "I brought it from the supermarket" when you really mean you bought it there. This particular problem really is simple 10 year olds English grammar, isn't it?

Then there's my main gripe - everybody under 30 constantly (mis-)using the verb "to get" when ordering in restaurants or shops. F*ck me, do these people all think they are in Califonia or something?

"Can I get a chocolate muffin and an espresso..." "Can I get the Lasagne with garlic bread." Oh to be a waiter just for a night or work in a coffee shop for an afternoon. When asked this question I'd love to respond, "No you can't... I'm the waiter and I'll GET you it, you can HAVE it you dumbo!". In short then, people can 'get together', you can 'go and get it', 'get rid of a problem', 'get better' but you simply can't get something off a menu unless you work in the place!

Now I don't have a language degree to do the analysis with but it strikes me there's a passive/aggressive issue here too. Just think about the way in which "can i get" sounds next time you hear someone using it. It is squarely centred on the "I" and is a very possessive verb, almost aggressive when compared against the alternative, softer sounding "can/may I have". To have almost implies that somebody else has given, of their own free will so to speak. A passive, humanistic gesture if ever there was one. To get implies a taking action, regardless of whether the other person is giving of free will or not. Hmm... getting deep into liguistics here, so I'll move on.

The thing that really depresses me about this creeping change in language is that a lot of the people getting messed up over such fundamental English grammar are so called intelligent people. I have only one thing to say to these types, wake up! take the pillow from your head and put a book in it (a KRS-One line not mine) & maybe just maybe stop watching so many American sit-com's that drip feed this language deep into your psyche.

So, between the confusion over get and have, the ignorance over learning and teaching and buying and bringing.. it would seem the whole world is either verbally fucked up or just going grey and not thinking before opening their mouths? And you already know my views on that one.

Let's ponder the pervasiveness of "can I get" just one more time... Perhaps most of the people that use the term are ignorant to the fact that it is also the title of a Jay Z track, Can I Get A.. Most people who have heard it will have the chorus stuck somewhere in their sub-conscious. It goes something like.. Can I Get A What What.. I prefer the original release, true to its hip hop roots (did i just say that about Jay Z, I must book into the doctors for a check up some time soon?) as the chorus describes my exact feelings about this whole sorry grammatical mess...

The original uncensored chorus was "Can I Get A.. Fuck You."

F*CK ME.. trendyBACON

My partner returned from a shopping trip with the following packet of bacon..


Even bacon has gone trendy in its branding. I instantly warmed to the subtle bold/non-bold joined up and all lower-cased spoiltpig branding, using a sans serif font of course.. where will it end?

Final Question: Are Capital LeTTerS DeAd??

INVISIBLE INFLUENCERS

or the blog that should be titled Ross, Brand and the News That Shouldn’t Have Been News At All..

So a phone call was made, somebody commented on how an ugly 23 year old lap dancer wasn’t particularly good looking and was a bit of a dog and perhaps a regretable lay.. hey! Worse things have been said about me to my face and my Dad didn’t go and get 30,000 people to complain a week later???

Jonathan Ross lays low, head firmly under the parapets and, if anything, doing his own image some damage. Weak, jelly spined and shitting it in case his mega-salary should be compromised. Maybe? But then he has a heck of a lot more to lose than Russelll Brand given he's on a £6m salary deal.. which might also be the reason why so many people have complained. Jealousy manifests in so very many ways.

As for Russell Brand, a firm favourite entertainer/celeb/artist(?) of mine, once the next week or so have passed I think you’ll find that all the media furore has served to do is increase his own brand value.. pun intended. Watch him migrate to better paid fields than the BBC (actually, his new series Ponderland is beginning on Channel 4 in an hours time as I write this). As Malcolm McLaren once famously said, any publicity is good publicity.

Someone I don’t particularly like is Noel Gallagher. But, he made a telling remark on Irish radio today about the whole Brand-Ross-Sachs saga. Gallagher said he was "outraged" that columnists in the press had "dictated the tone and are telling people how to behave". "It's so typical of the English in general - 10,000 people get outraged, but only five days after it has happened.” "You know what? There's now a massive divide. Them and us," he added.

Here, here to that Noel. First sensible thing I’ve heard you say in a long time. The world is going grey. And, again in Noel's words, then there’s us. Thankfully.

With that, I’m off to call a few has-been shite comedians and abuse ‘em.

Good night.

ANALOGUE/DIGITAL

I have been spending some time surfing around Youtube and elsewhere saving down live tracks to WAV files and then converting them into mp3's recently. Easy enough to do, even with Windows in-built Sound Recorder and a simple WAV to MP3 filter package (do a google on saving youtube audio with sound recorder and you'll get to the same starting point).

But, among all this searching.. and waiting.. (I have a relatively slow broadband connection, boo hoo..) I came across a new concept in electronic music, something of which I am particularly fond. The reacTable is a new instrument that has made it from University PhD project to stage courtesy of Bjork in 2007 and no doubt others very soon. Take a look at the initial demo below..



I also then took a look around at other developments and found the reacTogon. A nice easy to follow Youtube clip can be seen here..



All a long way away from this..



Though in my eyes they remain the undisputable Kings of Electronic Keyboards!!!

SHORT OBSERVATION...

Just a few weeks ago the markets tested 5,000 (FTSE100) and are now sat staring at 4,000.. Big (allegedly) bank after big bank is in trouble and governments around the world use the opportunity to stop people putting their money anywhere they like, make it all more political and play at being bankers (no pun intended honest)..

I have just one thing to say about it all.

Polko wants his money back.

I woke to this message today which doesn't make me a happy bunny.

POLKO'S BOWL... 2

currently contains a load of Hershey's..


..anticipating Christmas in New York

WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY..

Now that Mini-Polko has been dropped at school for the week Polko is having a week without Mrs Polko.. Jetted off to the Canary Islands for a well earned week of sun with Sister Polko she has (well if it keeps 'em happy)..

Not quite alone, and not quite while the cat's away though.. Cat Polko is at home with me too..

Polko is however, also not really working hard this week. A Three Day Week again for me. The way it should be. So, I'm catching up on a whole heap of things I like to do. Playstation 3 online gaming (NHL'09 has just been released.. yay-hey!), mp3 sifting and sorting and re-tagging (the Nerd in Polko strikes again!), fixing up the bathroom, manning the phones, taking long breakfasts in the village coffee shop, finishing three books that are half read, mailing out 300 flyers and, last but not least, cooking up some experimental recipes for Sister Polko and Mrs Polko to try on their return. Life at Polkosville goes on much the same in the correct relaxed fashion.

Now, while we're on the subject.. I'd like to provide a quick list of some mp3's that I've been playing around with / including some bands that I've under-rated for too long..

1. Simple Minds. Just playing through New Gold Dream (one of my favourite 80s albums) but then I also selected some of their greatest hits stuff... and now I realise I really really like Waterfront as a power track. I know it might not be trendy to like this band, but damn they're good. And my first band to see live too - when they weren't famous.. so that counts for something?

2. Braintax. Pure UK consciousness. Those that know Polko know of his admiration for the lyrics this particular lad from Leeds has been pumping since 1991. Pity he's now had enough of fighting the greyness around us and slotted off to Australia to live forever and ever. Amen. I'll be following (not necessarily to the land of Wallabees however!) in 8 more September's after this very one. Nice.

3. Blancmange. Neil Arthur. Pure idiocy and pure brilliance all rolled into one songwriter. I mean, their first release was called Irene and Mavis ??? Check out What's Your Problem if you get a chance for a slice of Blancmange. Only 2 downsides to this band - they're from London (someone has to have the misfortune) and they signed to London Records (the gits who took over Factory Record's catalogue) :-)

And I will also leave you with one of life's imponderables (which in itself is a great word for any Monday?).. why do I always cut one slice of sweet potato thicker than the rest and have to leave it in the pan one minute more?

hmmm.....

ROLE OF GOVERNMENT - PART 4.... and counting

I'll let the image do the talking on this one..


Those who have read or spoken to me on the "role of government" and/or other public sector bodies will know what I think of any policy that attempts to interfere unnaturally in order to provide a "more equitable distribution" of University undergraduates..

I leave you with this series of questions..

what is equity? should it be based on parental income? on what your background is? which postcode you use on your application form? or should it perhaps be based on how intelligent you are.. maybe?

I for one hope the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge's views (second clip above) will become more widespread in the academic community..

PRE-SEASON EXCITEMENT

Today is the first game for the Montreal Canadiens in their 100th year of NHL hockey playing. Not the first real game so to speak, but the first of their Pre-Season series, 9 games to warm them up starting with a Boston Bruins match up at home..

This year, all fans are hoping for their name on the Stanley Cup. It's been a while and it's a special year! Polko is aiming to attend a few games early in 2009.

The first game of the season proper is October 10th with their first test against ultra-rivals Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday October 11th.. Of one thing I am sure. You'll be hearing more about their progress from time to time during the year among my blog posts.


And onto something else...

I run two installs of Media Monkey and from time to time like to take a look at what I've been sub-consciously focusing on in my listening habits. This is my current top ten albums list from my work computer, which is always very different to my home PC given that I don't have access to my full mp3 drive at work and the fact that several other people have access to, and therefore mess with, my home PC mp3/Media Monkey playlist. It helps to juggle things up a bit and I get to listen to things I probably wouldn't otherwise.


No surprise to see a fair bit of hip hop (real hip hop that is, not shit-hop) in my daytime/work playlist. Rhythm based tracks tend to get me typing faster! Braintax is always lurking around there in the top three or four as are the Pet Shop Boys - their particular brand of gay-disco-pop works well when you are concentrating not on the music but on something else (sorry boys!).

One surprise though is the rapid ascent of Dub Pistols on my playlists of late. They are a brilliant example of how the best UK music takes a range of multi-cultural/multi-national influences and re-creates that form of music to a higher level. If you've not listened to any of their tracks take a peek at The Hype Machine or similar. Apart from 6 Million Ways To Live which is my personal favourite, they also produced some good cover tracks recently (2007?) including The Stranglers' Peaches (with Rodney P - one of the UK's finest rappers and Terry Hall of The Specials aka etc etc), Gangsters (again with help from Terry Hall) and even Blondie's groundbreaking white-rap Rapture.

They rent MySpace space at http://www.myspace.com/thedubpistols.

Soul shaking.

Oh yes.

POLKO'S BOWL...

currently contains a whole load of Crunchies!

and it's not even a Friday!

HOW DO THESE PEOPLE GET THERE?

Nick Candy interviewed recently at a Residential Propertry Developers Conference... tell us something we didn't already know Nick!

click and watch the video if you've ever wondered how some people make money despite themselves.

This man was reputedly worth £_m last year.

This is their entry in London Evening Standard's London's 1000 Most Influential People

Nick, 32, and Christian, 34, Candy
London's "brothers bling" with £9bn of developments in London including One Hyde Park, with its record-breaking £5,000 per sq ft cost, and the Middlesex Hospital site and Chelsea Barracks. Their main backer is Sheik Hamad bin Jabar al Thani, Qatar's foreign minister. Mystery shrouds their dealings and they are touchy about criticism.

AND ON A DIFFERENT NOTE

Polko is now getting bored of posting pessimistic doom and gloom related to the financial world.. to be quite honest, I don't care, can't do anything more about it, the sun is shining making it a great September morning out there on the hills and I've just noticed the heather on the moors outside is turning my favourite colour of the year - a patchy darkish red. I used to live in the city and would like to think I was always slightly connected with my surroundings, but where I live now has somehow heightened my senses and perceptions of the changing moods of nature.

Life's great when you forget what you can't affect and add up all the little things that are happening around you.

So, to kickstart a different topic and (slightly) lighten the subject matter..
a press clipping.

The people responsible for this type of reporting need to take a look out of their window and smell their morning coffee...


I didn't quite understand at first, what was the relevance of the number 5 being African-American? Then I twigged what was going on here.. Would it really offend anyone if they simply reported that the team wore a Black 5 on their arm for a few games and a Black Armband instead of a very clumsy to read "a African-American armband"?

Political Correctness gone mad.. now back to my morning coffee..

GREY TUESDAY

The day the FTSE 100 tested 5000..







closing at 5026. Effectively taking the index back three years or so.

Where we're eventually going nobody knows, but I'm sure glad I switched my pension funds to cash last month! Timing Polko, timing..

BLACK MONDAY 1987

I remember 1987 well. I left a job in the City in September, heading back home from the bright lights and pavements of gold of London to start an Economics Degree. One of my senior brokers had simply told me if I wanted to last in the future that I’d be better off with something under my belt. Wise advice indeed.

So, one month later I was back in the safety of my home town (more on where that's gone in a later post), there were storms heading in from the Atlantic, literally and financially, and the UK was hit over a weekend by severe winds and rain. This caused much of the telecommunications links in the South East of the country to break apart.. But, things were about to get much much worse for a lot of people..

Come Monday (October 19), global financial markets dived in value. Everything suffered, commodities, shares, currencies. 23% was taken off the US stock market index in one day - the worst day of trading in history. In the UK many were frustrated by the lack of telecoms links to their brokers. People were stuck longer than they should have been in a declining market.

Once the dust settled it was clear that a whole range of capital values had been over-inflated relative to what the economy was really doing across most of the Western world (and Japan). Heightening unemployment and problems with currencies trading at too high values (hence export sales suffering and more job losses) meant the reversal was imminent. Thousands of job losses followed in the City, I would have probably been one of them, and the UK plunged into a period of massive bankruptcies, property repossessions and all round malaise.

Almost none of that time period’s problems exist today - though unemployment is now rising and property prices have been running at historical (hysterical?) highs.

So key question #1 today is “What is different from 20 years ago?”

The markets reliance on automated technology,

the raised speed at which end users (investors) can react,

the increased levels of information they can get their hands on,

and probably most worrying of all, the greater integration between financial markets and parts of the globe.

Here’s the link for a recap of 1987

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55hUK2DWyps&feature=related

Things aren’t all that bad yet. It’s more a grey type of Monday that we’ve just had rather than a black one.

DISMAL? HOW DARE YOU?

On the BBC's website today a small throwaway remark at the end of a piece on global economic slowdown says, "economists.. ..have also been among the winners from the credit crunch. In demand for their expertise and forecasting skills, they have gone a long way to proving that their calling is more of an important skill than a dismal science. "

You know what I think?

Read on.. next post coming up..

ONE DAY WONDER..

Point A on chart - announcement of US government take over of 2 large mortgage underwriters to "provide stability"
Point B on chart - stock markets drift back to pre-announcement levels.
Time taken - 4 trading days.



Any 1 week stock market chart says the same - by the time of writing the FTSE100 was at 5,335 points, marginally lower than the closing price of 5,362 on Thursday 4th September (i.e. one week ago) folllowing a few days of slightly better performance. The US stock indexes have followed a very similar pattern.

The much heralded support for the market provided by the US government's actions over last weekend have amounted to not a lot in market terms. True, it's early days yet.. but the market has little or no medium term memory. It reacts, it evaluates fundamental strengths and weaknesses and moves on. Fast.

When I used the phrase 'short term' in my last post I meant a little more than a week's worth of reprise.. Yet another proof that modern government's need to re-appraise what exactly their role is in the modern world.. A quick leaf through Adam Smith's 1776 Wealth of Nations and other older economics writings might provide a useful guide.. This is highly unlikely given that said books won't also provide help on how to get voted in, or how to put spin on otherwise terrible public sector performance.. For that, the government must turn to consultancy advice.

FREDDIE AND FANNIE, THE NIGHTMARE ON WALL STREET..

Today the US government seems to have provided what might be a short term rally to the financial markets - just when the savings and loan problems were largely swallowed and discounted into the lower price of shares - by announcing a takeover of two large American mortgage lenders, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (you couldn't make it up if you tried!). My main concern is that the UK government don't see this as a rally call for themselves to do something similar in the UK!

As a consequence the UK stock exchange index has started with a 3.6% rise this Monday morning..



But, wait and see the impact over the time period it takes for the market to work out just exactly what difference a government, even the US government! can make to international capital markets??? Later chart planned for posting on Tuesday or in a week's time..

Remember the Northern Rock indecisions?

Please Gordon & Co. in the words of Grandmaster Flash 'don't do it!'

A DELIGHT TO BEHOLD!

It might not get better than this?

THE BUY TO LET MIDDLE CLASSES GET A KICK IN THE ARSE!

Today the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) published a paper titled:

Government must act on property market now
RICS Proposals for the Housing Market

Now don't get me wrong, some of the content makes a lot of sense, but I take real exception to the idea that it is down to the UK government to sort out the housing market mess that this country currently finds itself in. It's not like the government have caused this particular problem now is it?

The paper calls on the Government to adopt a ‘comprehensive set of measures which will both kick start the market now and significantly improve the consumer’s experience of buying, selling and occupying property in the future’.

What on earth role of government is being thought up here to support the view that the government should be playing a part in helping consumers of the property market - when the naked greed of many consumers (and sheer ignorance of others) and the greed of the suppliers of various products should really be the centre of attention as the housing market slows down and reverses itself. Just list what you know about poor value for money housing units - sorry apartments - higher and higher risk mortgages over longer and longer terms, highly geared buy to let loans based on over-valued new build stock, the hard sell of equity release schemes and financial planning that basically ignores the individual's ability to pay to see what I mean. These individuals and organisations and not the government are largely the ones to blame for the mess we are in right now..

So, here's Polko's take on how the consumer could have significantly improved their experience of property ownership in those very same three areas mentioned by RICS in recent years:

buying: for those buying to live in, think about what you are buying rather than getting caught up in some dream of how fast the value is going to change, and above all ignore the pitfalls of 5%/10% deposit paid by the developer deals - all that they have done is got a dodgy (and sometimes not so dodgy but certainly inexperienced) surveyor to over-value the property in the first place.

selling: stop being greedy, sell the house at its true worth rather than asking too much for too little. This also goes for investor sales at auction and sales triggered by house repossesions - just look at the % unsold at auctions in the last 2 years..

occupying: if you are buying a new build property realise that it is built to a profit (the developer's not yours!) and not a price or value, and that new housing units are essentially designed to be renewed/refurbished on a faster schedule than something built in the pre-War period - hence, if you pay too much for it you are going to have to borrow again to refurbish it later (this kettle of cod hasn't even set into the woes of the housing market yet - but for evidence look at all that grey concrete, glass and fancy cladding at an apartment block near you now - not weathering very well in the UK climate is it? Then inspect the insides of a new build property and see how generally poor quality the internal wall structures, plasterboarding and finishes are.. more expenditure coming to a town near you soon - and it's not the developer that's going to pay second time around but the owner).

If you are an occupier don't be tempted by all those juicy equity release schemes until you have truly evaluated what you are going to do if the value of your home goes down or stays the same rather than increases... and keep in mind it is never an attractive option to borrow on a 20+ year loan to go on holiday or buy a depreciating asset like a new car. Your neighbours might like the new car but you're going to pay dearly for it in the long run.

Rant over. Hope you agree (at least a little bit?).

GOT TO PICK A POCKET OR TWO?

I have been looking through the latest Crime Stats released by the Home Office today and some alarming results jump out of the myriad of tables I’ve been going through.

I’m not picking on any one particular area here but it’s immediately obvious that Humberside Police need some help. They have the lowest confidence rating among residents in addressing local issues and clearing up crimes. No wonder the local rates of ‘Violence Against The Person’ recorded in both North East Lincolnshire (essentially Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Immingham) and Hull are among the highest in the country - higher than all but one Borough of inner London - and then only just squeezing in under Tower Hamlets! Hull gained the dubious honour of top marks for Violent Crime in 2006/07.

Something else caught my attention too. If you really want to be a successful criminal a quick perusal of the Home Office report would be useful. There are two types of crime with extremely low rates of detection in England at present. First up is ‘Theft or Unauthorised Taking of a Pedal Cycle’ where detection of crimes is running at 5%. Not sure whether there’s sufficient money in cycle theft to attract the Mr. Big’s though? Second in the ‘Getting Away With It’ stakes is Theft from the Person otherwise known as good old fashioned pickpocketing. Would be Fagin’s should sleep safe tonight knowing that only 4% of the 101,660 offences reported last year were cleared up in any way - and this includes tapping the offender on the wrist and sending him home - in a taxi probably - with no tea and a stern (broad definition of the word required) Police warning. That should do the trick then?

This is a useful resource if you’re interested..
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/ia/atlas.html

A LONELY PLACE?

A windswept place.. A chilly place sometimes..
A place that is empty but filled with thought..

FIRST POST

Bringing Colour To The Grey People

Having just celebrated (?) my 40th birthday I guess this is an illogical next step.. but then, those who know me would expect nothing less..

Polko has been getting increasingly irritated about people accepting less than their fair share of life lately. Is it really the hidden meaning of life to simply accept where you are, what you do and not strive to do something different each day? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy in my place but I know there's more that I can do. I just think life is a little monochrome without targets and obstacles to hitting them. I'm not saying inner peace is a bad thing. In fact, it's only when you are really happy inside and with your station in life that you can realistically tackle those obstacles and achieve the more difficult things you want to do. It's just that I keep meeting people who just don't want to do anything more than they are doing right now? Or, much worse still, are those who can't see that they could do anything more than they are doing. The way I see it, local or global the state of the world is really only a product of the state of people's minds who live in it.

We were not put at the top of the evolutionary pyramid (allegedly. lol.) to sit on our arses all day now were we?

Don't Fade To Grey... Please...