Sincere signwriting

More great stuff from my favourite UK blogger, Brian Micklethwait, albeit while wearing his Samizdata trousers and hat.

Brian says:

That is a sign which I think I would have noticed even if I had not been noticing signs generally at all.

It’s as if its creator was, while creating it, thinking and feeling something rather unusual. He actually cared about people reading his sign and about people doing what he said. He really wanted to communicate something.

He thought about it. How can I word it, he said to himself, to make sure that people pay attention, refrain from swimming in these truly dangerous waters, in which, I know for a fact, in 1995, no fewer than seven – seven – people were drowned?
How can I get that across? Lives are at stake here. Before I die, I want to make the world a slightly better place. This is my chance.

You can see the scene in his office, in 1999 or whenever it was.
“I’m stuck,” said he.

Stuck? Relax, said his less committed colleagues. It’s only a sign. Nobody reads signs. They’re only there to avoid legal liability when some idiot does whatever it is.

“But I really want people to read it! What can I put?”

I like to think that at this point, a wise and experienced sign writer said: “Put your pen down, and tell me what you are trying to say? Say it it out loud.”

“Say it out loud?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what I want to say is that during 1995 there were seven deaths in docklands waters due to people ignoring these signs! These waters are dangerous! No swimming!”

“Well, why don’t you put that?”

“Eh?”

“Put what you just said. That’ll get their attention. Your sincerity will shine through.”

Seriously, there is a real problem with all these signs, not unlike the problem of too many laws. People just switch off. They screen them out. Call it: sign inflation. So many warnings add up to … no warning at all.

The narrative simplicity invokes Douglas Adams for me. Brilliant.
But that last line does make a very good point. Do we really need to be told that there is a danger of drowning in water? Of course there is and of course we don’t – or rather, we shouldn’t. But because someone decides that we do need that reminder along with many, many others, we find ourselves overloaded with information, to the point that we stop listening and we drown.

I would love to know whether the work of our sincere signwriter had any effect on the water-based fatalities in and around the Royal Victoria Dock. Perhaps sincere signwriting is actually the only way of saving lives, but even that would only work in the short-term before we become blasé to the statistics of 1995 and since.

Photo: Brian Micklethwait/Samizdata

Death & Taxes

An oldie but a goodie.
A reply allegedly sent from the Inland Revenue (the UK tax people) to a presumably disgruntled Chris Addison and reproduced in full in his column in the Guardian.

The joy for me in this is imagining the original letter which is being replied to. It’s brilliantly written, whether it’s genuine or not.

Dear Mr Addison,

I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more than prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise. I will address them, as ever, in order.
Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a “begging letter”. It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a “tax demand”. This is how we at the Inland Revenue have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.

Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the “endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat” has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer I would cautiously suggest that their being from “pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers” might indicate that your decision to “file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies” is at best a little ill-advised. In common with my own organisation it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a “lackwit bumpkin” or, come to that, a “sodding charity”. More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.

Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay  “go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services”, a moment’s rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to “stump up for the whole damned party”  yourself.  The estimates you provide for the Chancellor’s disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful,  are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on “junkets for Bunterish lickspittles”  and  “dancing whores” whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to,  for example, “that box-ticking facade of a university system.”

A couple of technical points arising from direct queries:
1. The reason we don’t simply write  “Muggins” on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system;
2. You can rest assured that “sucking the very marrow of those with nothing else to give” has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn’t render it irrelevant,  the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.

I trust this has helped. In the meantime,  whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to “give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India” you would still owe us the money.
Please send it to us by Friday.

Yours sincerely,

H J Lee
Customer Relations
Inland Revenue

Now – I’m off to email SARS.

Coldplay in SA in October

UPDATE: Confirmed! Coldplay to play Cape Town Stadium on Wednesday 5th October 2011 and Johannesburg FNB Stadium on Saturday 8th October 2011. Ticket prices range from R270 – R635 for each venue.
Tickets available from THURSDAY 12th MAY AT 9AM
Computicket, www.computicket.com, 083 915 8000
______________________________________________________________

The rumour mill has been at full tilt for some time now regarding Coldplay coming to SA. And it seems that the official announcements will be made simultaneously and at the same time on Primedia stations on Monday that they will indeed be gracing our shores in October 2011, presumably following their trip to Rock in Rio in Brazil.
Some would argue that they are the first decent band we’ve had out here since The Killers, and I’d be inclined to agree.

Herewith, in celebration, the clever video for Fix You – one of their more atmospheric live tracks and one which provided the biggest boost for church organ sales in recent decades.

On the bright side, since the successful hosting of the World Cup last year, it seems that SA is finally becoming recognised as a worthwhile stopping point for some of the bigger names, although bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better, of course.

Anyway – I missed them at Glastonbury because I moved to South Africa by mistake, so what better opportunity to go and tick another band off the list?

Once again, you heard it hear first. Unless you heard it somewhere else before this, obviously.

Muslamic ray guns

DISCLAIMER: Publishing these videos does not amount to this site’s support for the EDL or any other political party or protest organisation.

The English Defence League are a right-wing organisation in the UK (well, specifically England, obviously) whose mission statement may make distressing reading for those without a strong stomach for radical political ideology. It’s also concerning to note that their primarily islamophobic philosophy may have some support (albeit mainly tacit support) among the greater population of the UK:

The reason why the EDL’s adoption of Islamophobia is particularly significant is that unlike the 1970s, when the National Front was embracing antisemitism, there are now sections of the media and the British establishment that are relatively sympathetic towards Islamophobia. It is not difficult to look through the media and find quite hostile views towards Islam and Muslims. That is fundamentally different to the 1970s, when very few newspapers or politicians were endorsing the NF’s antisemitic message.

Fortunately, we’re not here to debate the political views of the EDL. We’re here to laugh at this man:

Bless. He seems a little dazed and confused. Or drunk and stupid. Or, more likely, dazed, confused, drunk and stupid. I must admit that I had to wipe away an emotional tear just then. Damn, he makes me proud to be British… English… whatever.

Now, you might think that stumbling and incoherent monologue is pretty amusing in itself.
And you’d be right.

But it gets even better when put to a beat and subjected to the musical monstrosity that is autotune:

Whatever his political beliefs or IQ, when he puts it like that, I think he has a point: we should all be watchful for those Muslamic ray guns.

Bravery in the face of defeat

(post title borrowed from The Streets’ track Has It Come To This? [youtube] which is also quite apt)

After the upset of Saturday evening, it was heartening to read the first few paragraphs of this:

Instead, the team went to every corner of the ground, acknowledging the supporters who had stayed behind to sing ‘We love United’ and cheer them to the rafters.
As the team finally disappeared down the tunnel, the strains of Can’t Help Falling In Love by Elvis Presley drifted through the emptying stands like a sad mist. It was a very special moment indeed.

Which confirms what I said here and is in stark contrast to our neighbours across the city whose fans have never seen anything happen after the 85th minute, because they’ve gone home already. Pride and passion often seems limited to S2.

The rest of the article, however, makes for grim reading.

This week the board will go through the club’s budget, line by line. Nothing will be safe. The club’s highest earners — players such as Ched Evans, Darius Henderson, Richard Cresswell and Mark Yeates — will be moved on.
The owners have made positive noises about building a team around the youngsters who have got the team to the FA Youth Cup final this month, but the truth of the matter is that if a decent price can be found for the likes of Jordan Slew and Harry Maguire, they will go too. These are bleak days indeed.

So we need some continuity.

One man who may be staying put is manager Micky Adams. Adams has two years left on his contract and it would cost the club around £500,000 to sack him, as well as the ignominy of having to appoint a fifth manager in the space of a year.
If he stays, Adams will be forced to build a promotion-winning side virtually from scraps, but it was a challenge he was prepared to take on.

“I’ve had a history of taking football clubs to a higher division,” he said. “I’m determined to resurrect our fortunes. But it won’t be my decision. Those types of discussions are not for the public at the moment.”

It is hard not to sympathise with United’s plight, especially when you consider their wonderful fans, 10,000 of whom have already signed up for a 2011/12 season ticket.

“Keep the faith, keep coming,” Adams urged them. “There’ll be better times around the corner. Sometimes you have to take a step back to go forward.”

Look, while I agree with Micky’s sentiment, I cannot think of many situations in which it would be beneficial to take a step back to go forward. This seems like a bit of a… well… backward step to me. No gold medal has ever been won by the Olympic athlete who took a step back at the starting pistol before heading off down the (now) 101m track, has it?
Management speak like this is utter BS. The Blades are in a horrible situation and they don’t need to “make the best of it”, they need to accept that this is where they find themselves and start fighting to get back up right from the first whistle of the new season.