Vodafone calls

I can just imagine how frustrated Vodafone's bosses get by Britain's arcane write-down laws. Once again, the most cash-generative company in the world posts a loss in the billions.

All of which is complete crap - since it relates to a write-down of costs incurred many years ago. $112bn for Mannesman: an inflated cost, perhaps, but it was paid in equally overvalued paper, and thus the real loss to Vodafone is about zero. And yet this company - which made £8bn of real positive cashflow last year, not funny money - is legally obliged to post a £15bn loss.

Who are we fooling here? Not the markets; Vodafone's stock jumped on the news. Not Vodafone itself; it's announced plans to return further billions to shareholders. I've always been a fan of Vodafone, and not just as a longterm customer; this company's got real vision - worldwide coverage and brand - in a world that so often lacks it. Some accounting laws need rewriting, big time.

Brangelina quakes

The Brangelina baby has arrived! Must admit I was glad Brad never had a child with Jen; imagine the size of that poor kid's jaw. And oh, 3000 brown people are dead somewhere. The media are just following a basic Monkeysphere principle.

Saturday mornings

I love Saturday mornings. The possibilities enabled by the simple act of opening your eyes and taking your first conscious breath in seven hours: the weekend, pregnant with potential, gym time and shopping time and museums ranging across the calendar like a multiple orgasm, and maybe the satisfaction of actually finishing some work while the phones are on Stun and you're away from the office. It might even be the secret of a happy life: make every day feel like Saturday morning.

And best of all, this weekend's a three-dayer.

So what to do with this endless Mobian ribbon of potentiality?

I'm going out with a pal to meet American tourist girls. I'm in the perfect mood for some of the wide-eyed child-woman aspect of young female US citizens abroad.

One very expensive laptop sale

Mediafuck in progress. An eBay deadbeat sends his buyer a dead laptop... whose hard drive remains functional. With some very questionable pics on it. Can't decide whether Amir Tofangsazan (who judging from the Blogger comments works at Hollywood Chicken & Ribs on Lillie Rd) is a simple deadbeat or a wannabe terrorist, but he's certainly sexually confused.

Death by kindness

Beautiful. Blair's Education Bill gets through Parliament, but only with the support of Opposition MPs. What an amazing choice David Cameron made: there's every chance he could have finished Blair off by letting the Bill fail - Labour MPs alone wouldn't have given Blair the numbers - but by keeping the Blue side all Ayes, he's co-opted the education agenda for himself and weakened Blair further, allowing him no room to manovre. Wonderful bit of politics.

Contrast that to recent happenings in the USA, where Representatives are in uproar because the FBI raided a Congressman's office (what, like they're above the law or something?) The title of a hearing on the matter next week: "Reckless Justice: Did the Saturday Night Raid of Congress Trample the Constitution?" Now that's what I call fair and balanced.

No, I haven't read the book

I'm the one Tube commuter in London who hasn't read the book. But having now seen The Da Vinci Code film, I can't get over its two huge conceptual flaws. Of which more later.

First, an overview: the film's missing something, somehow. Despite the action moving between some terrific European cities, panoramic vistas are rare; the scenery's no more than background noise, as it would be in most American movies outside New York or LA. (That's fine for the USA, but Europe has more interesting cities.) Nor is there any sense of panic from Hanks and Tautou, despite these two normal professionals being chased across a continent by driven police and a maniacal monk. Too many McGuffins ("Not to worry, I've got a plane!") and the structure of each scene is identical: Tom and Audrey arrive at a location, Tom deciphers a clue, and then they take off with the cops in hot pursuit. Repeat about a dozen times, and you've got the movie.

But on its flaws. The opening scenes had me giggling in the dark. Imagine you've just been shot. Is your first action really to wander around the Louvre leaving cryptic clues for your friends before getting naked and arranging yourself into a Vitruvian Man pose seconds before your last breath? And where did he get the invisible ink from, anyway? OK, so it's stylish, but I had problems with this scenario. I mean, what if you didn't die - how would you explain that to the ambulance guys? "Sorry, after getting shot and everything I didn't think it'd matter if I cut a six-pointed star in my stomach." Does medical insurance cover that? I think we should be told.

Second (spoiler here): if some guy 2000 years ago really had had children, there wouldn't be a single descendant today, but tens of thousands. Something like a third of Mongolians can trace their ancestry to Ghenghis Khan, for example. Another huge conceptual flaw.

So - disappointing. But not a total waste; it's always fun seeing your own city on film. There are worse ways to spend two and a half hours.

eBay angst

Hmmm. When you enter a last-minute bid on eBay which then loses, do you feel:

a) Pleased that at least your actions have made a few extra quid for the seller; or
b) Sorry that your actions have cost the buyer more than he almost paid?

I'm calling this 'eBay angst'.

The supramolecular family

OK, I admit it. I watched the launch party of Big Brother last night.

Last year, I found myself watching the show itself more often than I wanted to. As 'train wreck television' it's compulsive: you watch it with the same horrified fascination as you'd view mental patients flinging their own shit at each other. This year's crop of housemates are the usual bunch of one-dimensional freaks: utterly fascinated by themselves, self-important and drunk on their own sliver of celebrity. (The problem affecting the UK's lesser intellects isn't 'low self-esteem'; it's high self-esteem. The reason these people rarely get beyond the sink estates is that their own view of themselves is already so high they honestly believe they can't get any better.)

That said, the mix of housemates is much better than last year. Ages range from teenage to late 30s, so less of the pizza-party atmosphere of 2005. There's the usual couple of costumed extremists - a megaboobed piece of mutton and a hatted Pete Doherty lookalike - tempered by the usual airheaded bimbos, and some really boring people (George the public schoolboy, who defined himself solely by the social status of his relatives.) There's less space for splinter cells to form, more room for individuals to assert themselves.

I'm disappointed with the girls, though. No real eye candy this year, save perhaps (in a pinch) Imogen. Look Endemol, people watch this show in the hope of seeing live housemate-on-housemate action. You need to go much better than scrawny ribcages and breasts like wizened beachballs to make that a must-see.

But with 14 'people' sharing a smaller house, it's going to be an amazing season that'll keep its proletariat audience very happy - although I can already tell, practically to a man, which order they'll be evicted in. (FYI: George and 'Bonnah' early on, Mr Brokeback shortly after, and Doherty-lookalike Pete lasting a long time.)

Also last year I had an incredibly vivid dream that's stayed with me: I woke up in the Big Brother house, one of those hard-edged stories from the shores of sleep that you recall as strongly as any natural memory. I feel I know the house, slumbered in its beds, cavorted in front of its 38 roving cameras. And that's the root of my fascination here: the building itself. One (huge) bedroom, a single kitchen and lounge, plenty of spaces specifically designed for interaction. It's not great art, but the house is valid architecture, fit for purpose. And it's given me an idea.

A prediction: the next household structure will consist of unrelated families living together. Social evolution.

Fifty years ago, every child grew up in a superstructure: a support family of grandparents, godparents, aunts and uncles and siblings. Now, that's died: the main unit twenty years ago was the nuclear family of two adults with their children, and now that's changing further. The most common household today, in London at least, is a single person.

Now we've gone as low as it can go - the one-person household - the trend will swing back upwards. Already, it's perfectly normal for groups of friends to live and buy houses together, remaining roomies a decade beyond the student cut-off age of 22.

A new household structure will now arise: friends who got together and produced children, yet enjoying the lifestyle too much to live apart.

The flatmates thing - a compromise of friendship and funding - will evolve into lifelong group companionship, two or more families living together, sharing the same kitchen and lounge, but with separate sleeping and bathing quarters. And with the funds to buy a house three times as big as normal - three families with six incomes four times mortgageable still buys substantial property even in London - there'll be enough square footage to allow personal space.

Their kids will play together. The mothers will share stories while the fathers share beers. Such households will be wonderful places. Beyond the nuclear family; perhaps the 'supramolecular' family. Countless studies have shown the 'natural' pack animality of humans is for households of extended family in communities of 150 people or less. This new structure bridges the gap between our animal past and our urban present - three families of six adults, each adult with the average 20 friends, brings the extended network very close to ideal.

The house I've been sketching in idle hours for three years - adding and subtracting odd bits until by now it's practically ready to be built - is not a single-family home; I realise now it caters for at least two, an underlying concept that's only just become evident. A double-fronted townhouse, my favourite style of building, the narrow-but deep and tall chunk of architecture that conceals its size with an efficient street frontage and a lot of vertical layers. So my 'dream home' finally becomes conceptually clear. And all because of reality TV.

Hijacker: a career option with perks

Want UK residency? Just hijack a plane! Yes, the 9 Afghan guys who hijacked a plane at Stansted a few years back have been given leave to remain in the UK, along with their families. I dunno. I mean, what would Osama get if he turned up at Heathrow brandishing an AK? A full passport or something?

Raising a glass to renewables

In all the excitement over renewable fuels like corn ethanol, why is nobody talking about another major benefit: you can drink it too?! Ethanol's the same bundle of hydrocarbons that makes up the 'alcohol' (which isn't alcohol) in wine. You could make some wicked cocktails with this stuff, and it's a lot cheaper than vodka. :-)

Uuuuuuuurrrrrrrrgreat!

Life in balance. Somehow I just feel I don't have a care in the world today. Good humoured, relaxed, comfortable in my own skin. All this despite the usual work issues and too much wine last night with the first 'balcony' dinner of summer (i.e. the first night when it's warm enough to eat outside). With what's on my desk and in my bloodstream I should be frustrated, sluggish, distracted, but somehow I'm not.

Maybe it's because I'm in the middle of fleshing out some new ideas for my life and work. I've made some decisions recently and like any iNTj I enjoy the process of creating processes and systems. The buzz this creates is loud enough to drown out any everyday frustrations; the rest of the world just gets turned down. Some lucky clients are going to get great work this week. :-)

Blair on the wane

At last! The balancing act Blair has been pulling for years is finally wobbling; with approval ratings of 26% he's now officially the least popular Labour PM since WWII, and that's including, incredibly, Callaghan during the late 70s discontent, when inflation hit double figures and rubbish was piled high in the streets. The party that brought Britain to its knees - and is now doing so again, through stealth taxes, laws that erode ancient liberties, and ever-increasing red tape for business - is in more serious trouble than even during the big Iraq protests; there's a sense that this time, something is really happening. We're still stuck with Labour for another four years - but Blair himself may be gone in less than a year. And that can only be a good thing.

Come on, media: don't fail me now. Just push, push a little harder now. We're almost there.

When bad news goes good

Some news reports are so accidentally funny the news teams must be having a laugh. Take this one:

3 High-Rise Workers Killed After Falling Into Drying Concrete — "A wooden frame collapsed at a high-rise construction site Saturday, and the workers who were standing on it fell into wet concrete, authorities said. Three were killed and another worker was missing."...

....But let's face it - he's probably in the concrete.

The men were standing on the frame, working on the building's 26th floor, when the frame gave way, fire Chief Richard Martin said. The men fell into a thick layer of concrete that was drying on the floor below them, and they became trapped, Martin said. "Search teams were using dogs to look for the missing worker."

...The dogs were advised not to maintain their customary enthusiasm.

"The building being constructed will be a combination hotel and condominium, police Capt. Jay Smith said.

...And will perhaps do a great sideline as a haunted house tourist attraction.

Bal Harbour is just north of Miami Beach.

UK local elections redraw London colours

Losing over 100 seats in yesterday's local elections would have been survivable; 200, disastrous. So with 250 Labour seats lost, Blair had no option but to reshuffle. London, particularly, has turned blue and yellow where before much was red. Terrific.

Out goes well-meaning but incompetent Charles Clarke; the Westminster village idiot John Prescott finally gets cut down to size; Margaret Beckett wins big with the Foreign Secretary role - great for the Conservatives since the voters hate her supercilious manner. Overall, a good day for Britain's Conservatives - with quite a result.

Mission Impossible 3: not quite there

Mission Impossible III opens. And the lack of buzz - a sleepy, near-empty cinema on a Thursday night - was indicative of the film itself: it falls far short of wonderful.

Mission Impossible 1 was pretty good, evoking Cold War style paranoia and subterfuge. MI2 was an utterly brilliant action film, a symphony of camerawork with all the actors meshing into natural roles, the preposterous made completely believable thanks to Tom's acting (he is a good actor) and John Woo's direction. And sadly, the second film puts the third in shadow.

There's nothing particularly wrong with MI:3; it's just a bit lazy. Basically the same plot as MI:2 with different buildings. The MI motifs, like lookalike facemasks and highwire acrobatics, aren't celebrated; they're just got out of the way in contrived plot sequences. And the idea of Ethan Hunt having a normal home life with a nice down-home girl just doesn't ring true. (In real life, he'd be bored with her in moments.)

But the biggest thing about MI:3 - it just doesn't mesh. The scenes don't connect coherently; there's a bad sense of timing; there's no poetry in the action sequences, the orchestra just isn't singing together. Nothing about this film really marks it out from any of a thousand cheapo chop-sockies out of Hongkong or Mumbai. And that's the real problem. For £200m you're supposed to do a lot better than this.

Imploding Tubes

Was today a tipping point for London's Tube network? The ancient subterreanean arteries operate far closer to the edge than most people realise - stations often kept open only because a key member of staff knows precisely where to kick a signal box to get it working - and this morning the whole network practically collapsed.

After an hour to travel 8 stations on the Jubilee Line, I abandoned it and went the long way round on the Circle. (The line shut down shortly afterwards.) With Waterloo & City closed anyway, big trouble on the Northern, and either severe or minor delays on the Met, District, Circle, and Central, that's seven lines of a possible twelve clogged up, and that's all you need to create blockages and waves across the whole system. At 90 mins, my journey to work averaged a speed of .... 5 km/h.

And yet when there's a disaster like 7/7, things are corrected efficiently and coolly; barely a day before the network's up and running, even while mangled shards of metal and human flesh are being scraped out of the tunnels. The reason the Tube is so bad for everyday users is that expectations are simply so low; as a daily commuter I think nothing of a cancelled train or a 10min stop deep within a tunnel. We've just got used to it.