Sick of your iPhone’s interminably slow load time? Follow US artist Michael Tompert’s lead, and tie the offending item to a train track. Do the same with enough Apple products, and the result (above) can even be quite eye-catching. This work is called Caltrain Fatalities: Left Track/Right Track. Seven 2010 iPod Nanos were harmed in the process
Listen (again)
David Cameron may have styled himself as the “heir to Blair” but he has already outperformed his predecessor in one respect. New Labour’s launch of the “Big Conversation” in 2003 was an embarrassment, derided as another consultation exercise designed for public relations rather than to improve government. Cameron’s coalition, on the other hand, launched a similar online consultation for public sector workers last summer and triumphantly announced after the website closed in July that it had attracted 63,000 responses.
This so-called “Spending Challenge,” organised by Francis Maude, minister for the cabinet office, and Chancellor George Osborne, was designed to give everyone from GPs to teachers a chance to suggest efficiencies at the highest level of government. Six months after it began, Prospect contacted the treasury to enquire exactly how many of the suggestions have been taken up. So far, 2,000 ideas have been shared with government departments; just 25 will be taken forward as policy. While these figures look paltry they do, at least, show the coalition took the process seriously. But did public sector workers? According to the “Spending Challenge” website, “around 29,000 suggestions [one third of those submitted] did not contain a specific idea or did not refer to a way to save money.”
Capital punishment
It’s not much fun being a Liberal Democrat in London these days. Not only do polls indicate that the party is less popular now than in decades but now, it seems, London members are not even able to meet. Attempts to hold their annual conference in Haverstock School in Hampstead last December were thwarted after student protesters threatened to disrupt the gathering. An alternative meeting has still not been announced: “You have to remember we have no money for security,” points out one party stalwart.
Worse, with little more than a year before the London mayoral election, the party seems unable to field a competitive candidate. So far, both the former MP and sometime stand-up Lembit Opik and the former children’s television presenter Baroness Benjamin have ruled themselves out. Now attempts are being made to persuade Baroness Kramer, who lost her Richmond Park seat to Zac Goldsmith last year, to take up the cudgels. That would be a noble, if almost certainly futile, move for Kramer—she stood for the mayoralty in 2000 and finished fourth.
Biblical sense
News reaches us from Bath that a complete, non-stop and unabridged reading of the King James Bible will take place during the city’s literature festival next month. Clearly it’s a big job—there are 800,000 words to get through—and volunteers are required. Alexander McCall Smith, Kate Mosse, and Timothy West have all signed up, ready to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the edition. Others considering taking part might be reluctant to tackle what the preface to the English Standard Version calls the “archaic language” of the King James version, but that is misleading. Two years ago DA Waite Jr published a short book comparing seven different versions of the Bible using the Flesch-Kincaid readability scale which refutes this claim. In fact, the creator of the scale, Dr Rudolf Flesch himself, wrote that: “The best example of very easy prose is the King James version of the Bible.” There is no excuse, then, not to sign up. The festival runs from 25th February to 6th March (more information about Prospect’s events on p97).
Don’t mess with Texas
Reporters covering the Texas legislature have been taking the state’s ten-hour course in owning and carrying a concealed weapon—not, as one might assume after the recent shootings in Arizona, for protection against the dangers of the job, but because it gets them into the State Capitol building more quickly.
Security checks and metal detectors for the press and public have become so time-consuming that journalists eventually spotted the express line for those visitors carrying a gun and the special permit that goes with it. In their wisdom, the Texas State Capitol authorities have judged that anyone with such a permit had been sufficiently investigated, and is therefore safe to be let loose—armed—within the building.
The gun training course, taken at Cabela’s, a celebrated hunting superstore outside the state capital of Austin, is conducted by one Mike Cos, who has two mottos. The first is: “God created man, and Samuel Colt made them equal.” The second, which explains why some Texans like to carry two guns, is: “The quickest reload is go to the second gun.” Journalists may be an endangered species—but at least now they can shoot back.
Sauna diplomacy
It is always sad to report the demise of a genuine diplomatic innovation, but it seems that attempts by Finnish Eurocrats to warm up their media relationships have already become too hot to handle.
In recent months, Finland’s EU embassy had taken to inviting favoured reporters to special meetings that began with a session in the purpose-built ambassadorial sauna. Strict Finnish protocol requires the removal of all clothing and, as a result, the guest list has been limited to men only. The first “debriefing” included the Finnish finance minister, Jyrki Katainen, who shed his undergarments and then his inhibitions on eurozone policy. Next up, Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic affairs, was due to speak.
Alas, one French reporter forwarded his email invitation to a female colleague who wrote scathingly about the gender-biased sauna sessions in the German press. Rehn withdrew and the sessions were cancelled.
One to watch
There are two numbers Washington watchers like to cite whenever Jacob Lew’s name crops up: $236bn, and $1.3 trillion. The first number is the size of the federal surplus when Lew bowed out as head of the Office of Management and Budget at the end of Bill Clinton’s administration. The second is the size of the federal deficit when he was given the job back by Barack Obama last year.
With the president on the verge of presenting the budget for 2012 to Congress (see p22), Jacob—called Jack—will be at the heart of negotiations that are set to last most of the year. Lew’s unenviable task is to draw up a plan to reduce the monumental US deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by 2015. His job will not have been made easier by the recent extension of Bush-era tax cuts, nor by the new make-up of Congress after November’s midterm elections, where a resurgent Republican party will look at whatever the president proposes and promptly demand even deeper slashes to public spending.
But, say Washington insiders, if anyone can navigate a way through the febrile atmosphere of American politics, and through all the conflicts over social security, healthcare and taxation, Lew can. A Democrat to his core, he nonetheless has a reputation as a patient negotiator and a highly competent administrator.
Lew is not the only Clinton-era official to return to government under Obama. Others include William Daley, former commerce secretary and the new White House chief of staff, and Gene Sperling, who replaces Larry Summers as the president’s top economic adviser—the same role he fulfilled for Clinton.
The panda precedent
As deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg’s role encompasses everything from multi-billion-pound trade negotiations to signing for the delivery of giant pandas: in January, he handled the receipt of a breeding pair called Tian Tian and Yangguang. They were a gift from the Chinese that was, he said, “a sign that we can co-operate closely on a broad range of environmental and cultural issues.” But could they also be a signal of something much worse?
Unfortunately for Clegg, the giant pandas may be harbingers of political doom. This isn’t a piece of oriental folklore but, worse, a matter of historical precedent—beginning with Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China, which concluded with the gift of Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing. Four months later, his henchmen broke into the Watergate building and he was eventually swept from office. Later in that year, Prime Minister Tanaka of Japan took Lan Lan and Kang Kang from the Chinese and was soon removed from power. Next, Edward Heath received Chia Chia and Ching Ching. He was gone within months.
Then, of course, there are Mei Xiang and another Tian Tian. This pair arrived in Washington, DC, following years of careful diplomacy with the Chinese, at the end of the Clinton-Gore era in December 2000. Seven days later, Gore conceded the presidential election to George W Bush. Beware of the bears.
Listen (again)
David Cameron may have styled himself as the “heir to Blair” but he has already outperformed his predecessor in one respect. New Labour’s launch of the “Big Conversation” in 2003 was an embarrassment, derided as another consultation exercise designed for public relations rather than to improve government. Cameron’s coalition, on the other hand, launched a similar online consultation for public sector workers last summer and triumphantly announced after the website closed in July that it had attracted 63,000 responses.
This so-called “Spending Challenge,” organised by Francis Maude, minister for the cabinet office, and Chancellor George Osborne, was designed to give everyone from GPs to teachers a chance to suggest efficiencies at the highest level of government. Six months after it began, Prospect contacted the treasury to enquire exactly how many of the suggestions have been taken up. So far, 2,000 ideas have been shared with government departments; just 25 will be taken forward as policy. While these figures look paltry they do, at least, show the coalition took the process seriously. But did public sector workers? According to the “Spending Challenge” website, “around 29,000 suggestions [one third of those submitted] did not contain a specific idea or did not refer to a way to save money.”
Capital punishment
It’s not much fun being a Liberal Democrat in London these days. Not only do polls indicate that the party is less popular now than in decades but now, it seems, London members are not even able to meet. Attempts to hold their annual conference in Haverstock School in Hampstead last December were thwarted after student protesters threatened to disrupt the gathering. An alternative meeting has still not been announced: “You have to remember we have no money for security,” points out one party stalwart.
Worse, with little more than a year before the London mayoral election, the party seems unable to field a competitive candidate. So far, both the former MP and sometime stand-up Lembit Opik and the former children’s television presenter Baroness Benjamin have ruled themselves out. Now attempts are being made to persuade Baroness Kramer, who lost her Richmond Park seat to Zac Goldsmith last year, to take up the cudgels. That would be a noble, if almost certainly futile, move for Kramer—she stood for the mayoralty in 2000 and finished fourth.
Biblical sense
News reaches us from Bath that a complete, non-stop and unabridged reading of the King James Bible will take place during the city’s literature festival next month. Clearly it’s a big job—there are 800,000 words to get through—and volunteers are required. Alexander McCall Smith, Kate Mosse, and Timothy West have all signed up, ready to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the edition. Others considering taking part might be reluctant to tackle what the preface to the English Standard Version calls the “archaic language” of the King James version, but that is misleading. Two years ago DA Waite Jr published a short book comparing seven different versions of the Bible using the Flesch-Kincaid readability scale which refutes this claim. In fact, the creator of the scale, Dr Rudolf Flesch himself, wrote that: “The best example of very easy prose is the King James version of the Bible.” There is no excuse, then, not to sign up. The festival runs from 25th February to 6th March (more information about Prospect’s events on p97).
Don’t mess with Texas
Reporters covering the Texas legislature have been taking the state’s ten-hour course in owning and carrying a concealed weapon—not, as one might assume after the recent shootings in Arizona, for protection against the dangers of the job, but because it gets them into the State Capitol building more quickly.
Security checks and metal detectors for the press and public have become so time-consuming that journalists eventually spotted the express line for those visitors carrying a gun and the special permit that goes with it. In their wisdom, the Texas State Capitol authorities have judged that anyone with such a permit had been sufficiently investigated, and is therefore safe to be let loose—armed—within the building.
The gun training course, taken at Cabela’s, a celebrated hunting superstore outside the state capital of Austin, is conducted by one Mike Cos, who has two mottos. The first is: “God created man, and Samuel Colt made them equal.” The second, which explains why some Texans like to carry two guns, is: “The quickest reload is go to the second gun.” Journalists may be an endangered species—but at least now they can shoot back.
Sauna diplomacy
It is always sad to report the demise of a genuine diplomatic innovation, but it seems that attempts by Finnish Eurocrats to warm up their media relationships have already become too hot to handle.
In recent months, Finland’s EU embassy had taken to inviting favoured reporters to special meetings that began with a session in the purpose-built ambassadorial sauna. Strict Finnish protocol requires the removal of all clothing and, as a result, the guest list has been limited to men only. The first “debriefing” included the Finnish finance minister, Jyrki Katainen, who shed his undergarments and then his inhibitions on eurozone policy. Next up, Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for economic affairs, was due to speak.
Alas, one French reporter forwarded his email invitation to a female colleague who wrote scathingly about the gender-biased sauna sessions in the German press. Rehn withdrew and the sessions were cancelled.
One to watch
There are two numbers Washington watchers like to cite whenever Jacob Lew’s name crops up: $236bn, and $1.3 trillion. The first number is the size of the federal surplus when Lew bowed out as head of the Office of Management and Budget at the end of Bill Clinton’s administration. The second is the size of the federal deficit when he was given the job back by Barack Obama last year.
With the president on the verge of presenting the budget for 2012 to Congress (see p22), Jacob—called Jack—will be at the heart of negotiations that are set to last most of the year. Lew’s unenviable task is to draw up a plan to reduce the monumental US deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by 2015. His job will not have been made easier by the recent extension of Bush-era tax cuts, nor by the new make-up of Congress after November’s midterm elections, where a resurgent Republican party will look at whatever the president proposes and promptly demand even deeper slashes to public spending.
But, say Washington insiders, if anyone can navigate a way through the febrile atmosphere of American politics, and through all the conflicts over social security, healthcare and taxation, Lew can. A Democrat to his core, he nonetheless has a reputation as a patient negotiator and a highly competent administrator.
Lew is not the only Clinton-era official to return to government under Obama. Others include William Daley, former commerce secretary and the new White House chief of staff, and Gene Sperling, who replaces Larry Summers as the president’s top economic adviser—the same role he fulfilled for Clinton.
The panda precedent
As deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg’s role encompasses everything from multi-billion-pound trade negotiations to signing for the delivery of giant pandas: in January, he handled the receipt of a breeding pair called Tian Tian and Yangguang. They were a gift from the Chinese that was, he said, “a sign that we can co-operate closely on a broad range of environmental and cultural issues.” But could they also be a signal of something much worse?
Unfortunately for Clegg, the giant pandas may be harbingers of political doom. This isn’t a piece of oriental folklore but, worse, a matter of historical precedent—beginning with Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China, which concluded with the gift of Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing. Four months later, his henchmen broke into the Watergate building and he was eventually swept from office. Later in that year, Prime Minister Tanaka of Japan took Lan Lan and Kang Kang from the Chinese and was soon removed from power. Next, Edward Heath received Chia Chia and Ching Ching. He was gone within months.
Then, of course, there are Mei Xiang and another Tian Tian. This pair arrived in Washington, DC, following years of careful diplomacy with the Chinese, at the end of the Clinton-Gore era in December 2000. Seven days later, Gore conceded the presidential election to George W Bush. Beware of the bears.
