Monthly Archives: April 2007

Church

Responsibility

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So as of the APCM yesterday, I am Churchwarden designate of St James.

It came about as a result of the Churchwardens Measure 2001 which set a limit on the time in office of a Churchwarden to six years, in 2008 both of our current Churchwarden’s – one of whom has been in post for eight years, and the other for eighteen years would be forced to stand down. The PCC discussed whether to propose that we do not adopt the measure, meaning that Churchwarden’s remain in position indefinitely, but in general thought it was a bad idea. St James is one of those parishes where people rarely stand against an incumbent Churchwarden (there has been only one election in the past twenty years) and you usually get the assumption that the existing Churchwarden’s will just stay on, leading to them feeling that they can’t stand down because nobody else seems willing to do it.

Implementing the six year rule got a slightly bumpy ride at the APCM, although since both current Churchwarden’s had said that they would stand down anyway, and it was highlighted that at some point in the future we could choose to opt out, we went with the measure.

In the PCC discussion I had expressed concern about both Churchwarden’s going together next year, so in a classic example of why you should keep your mouth shut, I ended up being asked if I would stand as a Churchwarden to replace the first of the current Churchwarden’s who is resigning this year. Hopefully we’ll implement a system of assistant Churchwarden’s too so there is a wider body of people with the knowledge of what needs doing. (It is worth noting that Deputy Churchwarden’s, whatever the ABC of the PCC may say are explicitly mentioned as having a legal basis in the official guidance.)

Perhaps the biggest difficulty is going to be educating the rest of the congregation as to what the Churchwarden’s role actually is. Both the existing Churchwarden’s do a whole load of other jobs alongside their Churchwarden responsibilities which people automatically assume are part of the Churchwarden job – so for example I’ve already had someone assume I’m going to stop singing in the choir because I won’t be able to do the Churchwarden jobs from the choir stalls.

So what does the job involve? The basic elements of the job are that a Churchwarden is a lay representative of the Bishop in the parish, and legally responsible for the property within the Church. In general they are the senior members of the laity in the parish, and are expected to co-operate with the incumbent to ensure everything runs smoothly. Of course the role becomes a lot more in situations where there is a problem with an incumbent, in which case the fact that you represent the Bishop comes into play, and of course in situations where the parish is vacant, where the Churchwarden’s again take on more responsibilities. Fingers-crossed we shouldn’t run into anything like that for a couple of years, and it’s just a question of keeping things ticking along!

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Evolution of the Daleks

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So there we have it, the hybrid Dalek is no more, ousted by the original Daleks who now regard it as impure. Those who were grumbling about why the Daleks created pig men when in previous stories they have created Robomen got their wish, with the ‘final experiment’ mentioned in the previous episode which I, like I guess most viewers assumed was the hybrid Dalek proving to be somewhat more extensive, with thousands of humans kept in stasis until a solar flare causes enough gamma radiation to merge human and Dalek DNA. Unfortunately the Doctor gets in the way, and what are produced are human/Dalek/Time Lord hybrids who won’t obey orders. Then of course at the end we have the customary escape scene with the last Dalek shifting away to give the opportunity for another Dalek encounter.

Although it was fairly predictable, it was none the less an entertaining episode – lots of chases including some funky Dalek shots as they chase the escaping Doctor through the sewers. We also get some aerial destruction as Daleks attack Hooverville. It also includes Solomon, one of the main characters from the first episode getting ruthlessly despatched. He tries to reason with the Daleks, saying that they are outcasts, just like the people in Hooverville, giving a grand stirring speech. There is a pause, just long enough for you to think that maybe they will agree, before the reply comes, and Solomon is dead. The rapidly changing hybrid Dalek, still in charge at this point steps in and saves the Doctor, but that action leads to the other Daleks questioning his position even further, before ultimately they push him aside.

So, whilst it was good to see a scheming Dalek plot-line, perhaps it is time to give the Daleks. Although the title of the episode was Evolution of the Daleks, perhaps there needs to be some evolution of the plot-lines to do something original with the creatures from Skaro before they next appear…

Incidentally, I mentioned in my posting last week that none of the actors got a trip across the pond – whilst the producer Phil Collinson joined the special effects team when they were putting together background shots. Doctor Who Confidential featured the filming of the actors for the Statue of Liberty scenes – in the car park of Penarth Leisure Centre. During a piece interviewing Phil Collinson, where the sequence is doing some self-congratulation about having found a suitable bit of wall that matches, David Tennant comes over to grumble about the fact that the producer, and even the Doctor Who Confidential crew got a trip across the pond, but he didn’t. Probably fair as even in the cash strapped days of the old series Tom Baker got a trip to Paris, and Peter Davison was taken to Lanzarote. I guess he thought that if they could afford to send the producer, they could have done a few shots of their star in front of New York sights!

Computers/Technology

Who Needs a PS3?

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Who needs a PS3… when you’ve got a Spectrum Emulator to keep you occupied?

In addition to being St George’s Day and the day we remember Shakespeare’s Birth and Death, April 23rd this week also marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the launch of the Sinclair Spectrum. Whilst Sir Clive had produced computers before – the ZX80 and ZX81, and produced computers afterwards such as the QL and the Cambridge Z88 after the Sinclair brand name was sold along with the computer to Amstrad, it was the Spectrum that effectively brought home computing to the mainstream, and is certainly the best remembered of the Sinclair Research computers.

Also, like many in the UK computer industry, I am one of the people who had my interest in computers started by messing around with a Sinclair Spectrum hooked up to the TV, typing in listings from Sinclair Programs (sister magazine to Sinclair User) and reading the pages of Your Sinclair. I also got quite used to the vagaries of loading and saving to cassette tape, although later on I used a Rotronics Wafadrive too. It’s easy to forget now, when you’re grumbling about how long some multi-megabyte application takes to load that twenty-five years ago you’d be waiting several minutes for a Spectrum to load 48k – and the cutting edge of graphics was eight colours at two levels of brightness, with a black and white image at 256×192 pixels with the colours set it blocks on an overlaid 32×24 grid. Whilst the attribute clashes caused by the graphics scheme were a source of derision from advocates of competing systems, the fact remains that the Spectrum sold in it’s millions in the UK, and was the number 1 computer of the era.

Manic Miner on a Mobile

So if all the nostalgia has left you hankering after a bit of Spectrum gaming, what do you do? Whilst you might be able to pick up an old one on eBay, and retro-computing specialists will sell you one for £15 if they have any in stock, the best way is through emulation. The World of Spectrum site has a list of emulators for all the major platforms – but you don’t even need that, their extensive software archive includes a Java based emulator to allow you to play games within your web browser. The emulators even include the multi-coloured psychedelic loading routines from tape!

Having said that, perhaps the ultimate example of quite how far things have come is that even a mobile phone now has the power to run a full Spectrum emulation. Check out this picture of Speccy 1.2 emulator running Manic Miner on my phone.

ZX Spectrum 48k originally uploaded by EdgeM.

Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Would You Pay £1950 for a Picture from an Unknown Artist?

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This is perhaps the question that both the teams should have been asking themselves on tonight’s Apprentice.

This weeks task required the teams to select two photographic artists each from a pool of six, and then mount a one day sale of their chosen artists work. The winner was the team that made the most money. If the teams picked the same artist then the artist would be asked to choose.

From the outset it was pretty apparent that there was nobody on either team that had much of an interest in art. Having said that, because of the fact that it was a one day sale, the usual techniques of selling art wouldn’t really work – the teams had to get art with a good track record that they knew would sell, and then try and sell as much as they could on the night.

However when it came to the choice of artists, realising that they didn’t know the art world, both teams just went for what they liked, and both picked the same two artists. Whilst one, Tim Flach, was well established, and able to provide a client list, the other Elisabeth Hoff had only one collection, of which she admitted she hadn’t sold any, refused to provide her client list, and was charging between £950 and £1950 per print – the highest cost of any of the artists offered.

As is so often the case, Alan Sugar had presented the candidates with a selection of choices in order to spot the shrewd among them. Whilst if a team who had selected work by Elisabeth Hoff had managed to sell any they would have probably won, as Sugar said in the boardroom it was a big gamble – one that didn’t pay off for the team which she ultimately selected. His opinion is clearly that they would have been better going for more established artists with a client base that would be easier prospective purchasers.

Once the decision had been made, and thanks to some major schmoozing from Katie, Hoff had selected Natalie and Eclipse, their fates were largely sealed. Tim Flach was more impressed with Stealth and went with them (Natalie effectively blew it when she took a phone call whilst talking to him, and then comparing the horse in one of his pictures to the highlights in her hair…). Both teams then picked replacement second artists, Vanessa Warren for Eclipse and Linda Lieberman for Stealth – but because Stealth had a much more popular first choice with established customers, they easily walked away with the task, bringing in £4,702 to £1,599.78 from Eclipse who failed at the difficult task of selling unknown work to a brand new audience.

Perhaps they could have brought it back in with a decent selling strategy for the Hoff work – but since the schmoozing from Katie went on to the extent of Hoff dictating the sales strategy, wanting very much of a soft sell, all was lost. Ironically, although both Natalie and Katie continued to cross swords with Adam, regularly telling him that his car sales experience is useless, and pouring scorn on his ideas, he is the one that manages to sell. Relegated to the back room with the cheaper pictures whilst Katie is in full schmooze up the front, he manages to shift a few saving the team from total disaster.

However I’m totally of the opinion that had Hoff gone for Stealth, it would have been them sitting in the boardroom at the end rather than Eclipse. Hoff would have dictated the soft selling technique for them instead, and the pictures wouldn’t have sold for them either. Despite Tre’s distaste at some of the Linda Lieberman work, he managed to sell some of those, and the Tim Flach sold well too, thanks in part to the much harder – “you don’t want to leave empty handed do you?” techniques that were being used.

The final boardroom encounter is interesting as well. The key problem identified by Sugar is that they didn’t make a business decision in their choice of Hoff, and that they allowed her to run the show too much – Katie being chief in his sights for this. One of the issues that Hoff had was with the quality of the labels for the pictures – produced by Lohit, but Sugar regards this as not important. Alongside this there is ongoing antagonism between Adam and Natalie. Also bear in mind that Natalie has been largely relying on Katie through much of the task, and seems to think that they get on well – however as has been apparent in previous episodes Katie tends to keep her opinions for the one-to-one interviews. This week she is cutting about Natalie, and even at one point wishes that Adam would get run over!

It is often apparent that Sugar has access to the tapes of the task, including the interviews alongside the feedback he gets from his two assistants. Occasionally in previous episodes he has been seen to comment on events that occurred outside the view of the assistants, but in front of the film crew. The impression I got this week was that Sugar was clearly gunning very much for Katie when perhaps it was much more of a group decision to go for Hoff and to capitulate to all her demands. Maybe he had seen the interview where she wishes Adam would get run over?

However, when asked to pick, Natalie brings back in Adam and Lohit – and seals her fate. Adam, although he has personality clashes with other team members, sold well on the task, and did what was asked of him. The only thing that Lohit did wrong was the labels, so he is largely safe. If she had brought in Katie, it was pretty obvious that Sugar had a good chance of removing her, but Natalie protects someone she thinks of as a friend, and effectively leaves herself as the only option, and Sugar, “with regretâ€? has to fire her. Maybe she thought that after last week Adam could be in the frame, but in the past Sugar has shown that he will tend to keep people who can sell for a long while, even if they clash with other team members. Ironically, when Natalie is interviewed on the “You’re Firedâ€? show, having seen a number of the interviews that Katie has done, she is less impressed with her and can certainly see the ruthless streak in Katie’s tactics. In fact Natalie sums it up pretty well in her interview in the taxi – she was just too soft and too nice. Whilst that might build a good team on the task, in the boardroom you need to be ruthless, and seeing that Sugar had his sights set on Katie, it should have been clear that it should have been Katie not Lohit in the third chair.

Having said that, probably the best bit of the whole episode was the brief teaser for next week. The task is about selling ‘British Specialities’ to the French, and from the clips it looks like one of the teams is attempting to sell the French, a country renowned for their love of their many home-grown cheese varieties, British cheese…

Church, Current Affairs

A New Primate for Canada

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You may have heard that the Anglican Primate of Canada is due to retire following the meeting of the Canadian General Synod in June. Unlike the Church of England, the new primate will be democratically elected by the clergy and laity in the General Synod from a short list of candidates drawn up by the bishops. It’s also a pretty rapid turnaround too – the election will take place on June 22nd, with the new primate being installed on June 25th.

So why is the choice of a new primate important to the rest of us? Precisely because it’s the Anglican Church of Canada who although they’ve been somewhat in the shadow of the Episcopal Church in the US recently, have also been pushing ahead with a more liberal position on sexuality, particularly with regards to same-sex blessings.

Alongside this, according to a review of the candidates over on Father Jake’s Blog, the favourite is Bishop Victoria Matthews, current Bishop of Edmonton. She was the first female Bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada, and also chaired the commission that examined the issue of same-sex marraige that determined that whilst it was important, it was not core doctrine and should not be seen as a church, or indeed communion dividing issue. Having said that, she is has consistently toed the line with regards to the issue in her diocese, coming out against the Diocese of New Westminster when they moved ahead with same-sex blessings. So she is certainly not the most liberal Bishop in the church, nor indeed in the field of candidates.

Of course she may not win the election, but it will be interesting to see what the reaction of the more conservative provinces will be if the liberal Anglican Church of Canada also has a female primate. Certainly the other candidates may be more personally acceptable to the anti-women provinces – but theologically her actions with regards to the sexuality issues appear to mark her out as much more the kind of person they would want.