The Single Charted

Readers of a certain age will remember the days when come Sunday evening it was almost compulsory to sit down and listen to Radio 1 and the chart show. Many of you will doubtless remember the occasions when you listened to the show with finger poised over the "Record" button  of your radio-cassette player to tape your favourite chart hits. And how many times did Simon Bates or Tony Blackburn, or whoever, talk over the intro or as the song faded out? How many songs did you record where the beginning or end was cut off to avoid the DJ's chatter, or was accompanied by a loud "clunk" as the recording began or ended?

Time was when this was the most important thing in the record industry.

Aside from the fact that cassette recorders and the cassettes themselves have pretty much gone the way of public phone boxes and taking film to be developed at the chemist, can you really imagine today's teenagers sitting patiently in front of a radio and recording songs onto tape? No, me neither. Back in the day when taping music from the radio was commonplace we still went to Woolworths, or WH Smith, or any of the numerous chain or independent record shops and bought a single or two when we had the cash. Now the 45rpm, vinyl single is no more and record shops are few and far between. People still buy "singles" but the thrill of waiting for your favourite artist to release a new song, dashing down to your local record shop and hot-footing it home with seven inches of aural pleasure have gone. I'm not sure that downloading a song from iTunes and playing it on your iPod provides the same degree of satisfaction. Yes, you can download a song and play it immediately, on a whim almost, but there is no tangible disc to relish, no anticipation.

Fifty years ago most towns had innumerable record shops; thirty years ago they were still plentiful, but a combination of factors have reduced their numbers drastically. When I was younger, Romford had several independent record shops, Downtown Records, Silcocks and Wells Music Stores to name but three who supplemented the chain stores and record departments of other shops. Today Romford has a branch of HMV and not much else, although Sainsbury's and ASDA sell CDs, but little apart from the top twenty albums.

The decline in the number of record shops on our High Streets reflects the changes in the habits of the record buying public over recent years. Although the vinyl LP still has its aficionados, it is very much a niche product having been supplanted first by the CD and more latterly by the digital download. Fans of vinyl maintain that the quality is better than other formats and there is evidence to support this view. There is also a certain amount of comfort and ritual associated with listening to a vinyl LP that a CD or an mp3 cannot replicate, but for convenience there is no contest, particularly if you like your music to be portable.

In the days when the choice, if you wanted to buy an album, was between the twelve inch vinyl disc and a cassette, most people's preference would be for the LP and it wasn't entirely about the music either. Those glorious album covers and the gatefold sleeves made records works of visual as well as audible art, to the point where coffee table books were devoted to album covers, particularly the work of Roger Dean. Then in 1982, came the Compact Disc and although it was not until three years later, when Dire Straits sold one million copies of Brothers In Arms that it could truly be said that the CD had become a viable alternative to the LP, this was a landmark in the evolution of the way we listen to music. The Walkman made music on the move possible and the CD promised a better sound experience, although this argument is moot, but undoubtedly it removed the time limit that vinyl imposed allowing the sixty or seventy minute album to become the norm rather than the exception.

Roger Dean's art work for the cover for the Yes album Relayer.

Naturally CD players and the discs themselves provided manufacturers and record companies with a new income stream to exploit. Early CD players were expensive and so were the CDs themselves and there was a certain mystique created around the production of the discs. I remember being in the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street during the early days of CDs and in the basement was a supposed CD production area. Built apparently as a "clean" room, it featured men in white coveralls appearing to be producing discs in a sterile atmosphere, subliminally creating the idea that this was a very technical process requiring the very highest standards that justified the fact that a CD could cost more than double the price of the LP equivalent. This was given the lie when newspapers began giving away free CDs at the weekend and by the fact that your average home PC now burns CDs in conditions that are rather less than  sterile without any apparent harm.

Since their early days our CD buying habits  have changed in more ways than one. If you are like me you rarely buy a CD from a shop; personally I buy the vast majority of mine online but there again I find it quite difficult to find music by the bands that I listen to in mainstream record shops. This week the postman delivered me albums by Anathema, IQ and Dream The Electric Sleep and a quick visit to my local HMV yesterday suggested that I would not have been able to buy them there. Many people now download music rather than purchase the actual disc and although I have done so, I tend to do this only when the music I want is not available in physical format, or the CD is hideously expensive. I still like being able to flick through the booklet that comes with the CD, to read the lyrics and see exactly who played what instrument on what track.

I splurged a bit on CDs this week.

Streaming services like Spotify, Deezer and Google Play make it possible to listen to music you choose without even buying it (although generally you pay a subscription for the best options with these suppliers) and this week it was announced that streaming data would be used in the compilation of the charts along with data from the sale of physical CD singles and downloads. I confess that I did not realise that CD singles were still being released; certainly I have not seen them in shops for years and when I looked at the prices of them on Amazon I wonder why people would buy them as they are hideously expensive compared with downloads; even some albums are cheaper.

Spotify and iTunes are how many people now listen and buy their music.

I accept that I no longer fit the target audience for the Top 40 (I took a glance at the chart this week and while I was surprised to find that I have actually heard of about half the acts, I have only knowingly heard one of the songs (Happy by Pharrell Williams in case you are interested), but I wonder if the Top 40 still has any relevance to the majority of the music buying public? Times change and music formats change but it appears that the charts go on forever, although with the advent of streaming contributing to the Top 40 I suppose it is now technically possible for a song to reach Number One without anyone actually buying it!

A Midland Odyssey Part Two - Shot Coin and Cash Dispensers

A few weeks ago I was in the Romford branch of HSBC with my younger daughter, Sarah. "I used to work here when it was Midland Bank," I told her. "I usually worked on the counter, right there," I went on, pointing to a spot opposite the front door that is now just part of the banking hall. The counter has now been moved to the far corner and whereas when I worked there in 1980 there were half a dozen tills there are now just two.

Today the banking hall of any branch of any bank is light and airy; a sea of plastic, steel and glass. The front door is usually glass and automatic or opens at the touch of a button. In the days when I sat at the counter of Midland Bank, Romford working as cashier number three, the decor was dark, highly polished wood. The counter was wooden as was the heavy front door. My father, who among his numerous and various jobs was for many years a French polisher, would frequently regale me (and anyone else who was in earshot) with tales of the bank counters and front doors that he had polished, including Midland Bank's head office at Poultry.

The banking hall at Midland Bank, Poultry, parts of which my father polished.

A typical banking hall today.

In the days when I sat at the counter in Romford, serving a procession of publicans and market traders (including the fishmonger Charlie Fancourt, whose takings had a particularly pungent aroma, as you may well imagine[1]) as well as regular members of the public, going into a branch to cash a cheque or pay in money was the normal way for a customer to conduct their business. Today banking halls are full of machines to withdraw money, to pay in cheques or cash and the average customer rarely needs to join a queue and transact with a live cashier. For many people a trip to the bank is a rarity as ATM's are to be found everywhere and a great deal of banking is automated or can be done on your PC, your tablet or your phone. In 1978 when I started work at Gants Hill our concession to automation was a cash dispenser; sophisticated it was not! Today we are used to ATM's that give us our balance, or a mini-statement and most importantly, variable amounts of cash; in 1978 the cash dispenser did one thing, it gave you £10 a day. Yes, the Midland Bank cash dispenser circa 1978 was a one trick pony. You inserted your card, typed in your PIN and a plastic clip was fired out of the front of the machine. Inside the clip were ten one pound notes folded in half. After putting the cash in one's wallet, the clip was returned into the machine via a small slot.

An early Midland Bank Cash Dispenser

Today we are used to our banking transactions taking place on-line, we have become used to contactless cards, Chip and PIN, internet banking and the like but the early cash dispensers, while projecting an air of automation, needed a high level of manual attention. Yes, today's machines still need bank staff to fill them with money, but in the 1970's they needed so much more. For a start the cash card was not a multi-purpose card (well not at Midland anyway). It was separate from the Cheque Guarantee Card[2] (limited to guaranteeing cheques up to a whopping £30); the cash card could only be used ten times before a replacement was needed. Each time the card was used it would be physically "punched" inside the machine. You could tell how many times a card had been used by the number of indents on it; yes, it really was as unsophisticated as that! Card jams were frequent and each day when the machine was serviced it would be common to find two or three cards in the bin behind the slot. Then there were the transactions themselves. Today you insert your card in an ATM, draw out £50 or whatever amount and your account is instantly debited; not back in the seventies. Then your £10 withdrawal required a physical voucher, a bit like a cheque, to be taken out of the machine (often as long as 24 hours after your withdrawal or longer over a weekend) and passed through the clearing, debiting your account three days later. This was quite handy for customers (and staff) who were a bit short a day or so before payday!

Filling the machine required someone (normally the first cashier) to take a pile of clips and a large bundle of one pound notes and put £10 in each clip; these were then loaded into the machine. Every day the machine would be tested by making a trial withdrawal which would debit a suspense account; the cash would then be paid back into the same suspense account. On one occasion when I did this I found that the clip contained £11; some poor customer obviously ended up with just £9 and when you consider that in 1978 one pound would buy you ten pints of milk, or five loaves of bread, or two packets of cigarettes, that was an amount you would miss. On another occasion, at a different branch where it was my job to balance the suspense account, I found that the previous day's withdrawal had not been re-deposited and that my colleague had accidentally paid the cash into his own account!

I have no doubt that today's ATM's are pretty reliable and comparatively trouble free, but in the days when I worked in branches, even after the original cash dispensers were upgraded to Autobanks, it was commonplace for an engineer to be called out to deal with some breakdown or other. On those occasions two keyholders would have to loiter at the back of the contraption while the man from IBM rooted around in the bowels of the machine and it was not unusual for a customer to try to insert their card into the front of the Autobank while he did so. These customers would be startled to hear a voice from the machine yell, "It's not working!" when they tried to poke their card into the slot.

After the Cash Dispenser, the AutoBank (with optional Griffin).

It's fairly rare for me to queue up in a branch and be served by a cashier these days and I normally only ever do this when I have accumulated a load of loose change, bagged it up and taken it to pay in. Bagging up even £20 or £30 of coins reminds me of the days when apart from serving customers I would be expected to count out and bag up several hundred pounds of shot (loose) coin every day[3].

Take one of these...

...and decant the content into twenty of these.

The last time I took my modest amount of change and paid it in I asked the cashier if they still had to do shot coin. Oh yes, she replied, we do. I was quite pleased to hear that because while so much else has changed in banking, bagging up shot coin by hand apparently has not!

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[1] Charlie Fancourt's was never given to other customers unless we were really short...or the customer was someone we didn't like!

[2] The Cheque Guarantee Card was trialled in 1965 and fully introduced in 1969, with a limit of £30, increased to £50 in 1977 and £100 in 1989. The scheme closed in 2011.

[3] For the uninitiated, bagging up shot coin consisted of taking a £20 bag of loose bronze and putting it into bags of a £1 each or £100 of silver and putting it in bags of £5. On a typical day that meant two bags of bronze and five of silver.

1966 And All That

In 1966, when England won the World Cup for the first and so far only time, I was eight years old and had no interest in football. I recall that my Dad watched the Final against West Germany and that I was in the room at the time, but I was more interested in a Batman comic than the match.

While Geoff Hurst was doing this, I was reading Batman.

By 1970 I had become fanatical about football and the Mexico World Cup was my first opportunity to watch the tournament properly. Perhaps because it was the first World Cup that I saw I still regard it as the best that I have witnessed. This was the first tournament covered by television to the point of saturation but it was also the tournament that produced the team that many regard as the finest international eleven of all time, the Brazil side that featured Pele, Rivelino, Tostao, Carlos Alberto and Jarizinho. Almost all of the games in which Brazil were involved in were classics. Stand out moments included Pele's duel with Bobby Moore in the England game and Gordon Banks' save in the same match; Pele's audacious dummy in their match with Uruguay and his long range lob against Czechoslovakia and of course the final itself and the Brazilian's 4-1 demolition of Italy in which captain Carlos Alberto scored a goal of exquisite grace and power that epitomised his team.[1]

Bobby Moore and Pele in the days when football was about the sport.

Four years later and I would dash home from school to catch the afternoon matches in the 1974 World Cup in West Germany. Despite England's failure to qualify for the finals there was much to enjoy with the emergence of the Dutch as a force in international football, the charismatic Johann Cruyff and their brand of "total football." If subsequent tournaments did not quite reach the heights of Mexico '70, I still pored over fixtures and television schedules to make sure I caught as many games as I could, with the 1990 finals in Italy being a particular high point. England so nearly repeated their win of 1966, losing to Germany in the semi-final on penalties, an outcome we seem destined to repeat with monotonous regularity. Over the years I have watched World Cup matches in pubs, on tiny portable TV's at work, rushed home from the office to see the second half of games and stayed up late to watch matches from the other side of the globe. There was a time when I would have moved heaven and earth to watch a game, especially an England game, but times change.

Forty eight years after that England triumph, forty four years after that brilliant Brazil team enchanted the football world, another World Cup kicks off today in Brazil with the hosts playing Croatia. Whereas back in 1970 and 1974, and to some extent in 1990, I was eager to watch as many games as possible, I now find it difficult to get excited about the competition. I know that England play their first match on Saturday against Italy, but other than that it is all a bit vague; I certainly have not made any special arrangements to watch any of the games. Sadly my enthusiasm has waned over the years and whereas I would once not contemplated missing the final and certainly not an England game, how many games I see will depend upon what else I might have to do by way of alternative[2] and as for the final, well I've seen too many disappointing matches since 1970 to get excited by the prospect. 

I do not think that I am alone in becoming disenchanted by the World Cup. It may be a function of age (I think we all have a tendency to look at the past through rose tinted spectacles), but there is now so much that is wrong with the competition, so little to admire and enjoy, too much controversy and alleged corruption. The World Cup has become a soulless money making machine. Perhaps I am being naive; the 1970 World Cup that I look back on with such affection was not without its controversy. The decision to give the tournament to Mexico was made against a backdrop of lobbying and political posturing while moving kick-off times for some games to mid-day for the benefit of European TV was an early example of broadcaster's unhealthy influence at such events. Furthermore the arrest of England skipper Bobby Moore in Columbia for the alleged theft of a bracelet was seen by some as an attempt to discredit him and wreck England's chances. Controversy has not been far away from the tournament in subsequent years; from allegations of match fixing to charges of bribery and corruption, the World Cup would be incomplete without some scandal or another.

Preparations for Brazil's hosting of the tournament have been marred by the deaths of eight people working on the construction of the stadia between November 2013 and May 2014 and there have been protests among the populace about the amount of money being spent on the tournament as well as concerns about safety and transport[3]. And it isn't just the 2014 World Cup that has been troubled; the decision to award the 2022 tournament to Qatar is probably the most contentious in World Cup history while the choice of Russia as hosts of the 2018 competition has not been universally popular either.

Construction of stadia in Brazil has been marred by accidents.

An artist's impression of a proposed stadium for Qatar 2022

My disenchantment with the World Cup is threefold. Firstly the bloated nature of the competition. It used to be about the sixteen top footballing nations competing to see who was best in the world; now it is about thirty two countries, many of whom are just making up the numbers, playing to make Fifa, their sponsors and various hangers on oodles of cash: the glory of winning the World Cup itself seems to have become a secondary consideration. Where once a nation could take pride in hosting the World Cup they now do so certain in the knowledge that they will be left with a legacy of debt and derelict stadiums (South Africa was a prime example[4]). Then there is the blatant exploitation of the public who national football associations, kit and souvenir manufacturers expect to pay outrageous prices for tickets and merchandise.[5]

One of the stadiums built for South Africa 2010 that now lies idle and almost derelict.

Thirdly, this year we have had the English Football Association's public relations own goal that came when Greg Dyke announced the ill conceived idea for a third division in the Football League to include Premier League B teams.[6] For once the preparations for England's World Cup campaign this time appeared to have avoided the usual jingoism and spectacularly misplaced optimism that usually typify their appearance at World Cup finals (even if this was replaced by an undertone of hoping against hope that the Three Lions might emerge triumphant). The average fan might have been inclined to look sympathetically on Roy Hodgson and his charges, until this was totally undone by Greg Dyke's pronouncements, made with the apparent belief that football supporters, particularly those of lower Football League sides and those in the Conference, would happily sacrifice the integrity of their clubs and the competitions they play in on the off-chance that the national team might be successful.

Sepp Blatter

Add to this the increasingly outrageous, extravagant and outlandish behaviour of Fifa, an organisation who are apparently accountable to no one, and sadly I find it hard to warm to the prospect of this World Cup tournament. No doubt I shall watch some of it, but certainly not as much as in days of yore.

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[1] In case you have never seen it before, Brazil's fourth goal can be viewed here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27005795

[2] I have just noticed that the date and time of England's last group match clashes with a radio show I have tickets for, so that is one game I may not see much of for a start.

[3]  How immoral is it that Fifa spent £10m on the draw alone in a country where 16 million people live in poverty and earn less than £27 per month?

[4] Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-27758767

[5] http://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/ninety-quid-youre-having-laugh.html

[6] See http://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/b-is-for.html and http://www.againstleague3.co.uk/

Museum Piece

When I was young  one of the things that I looked forward to most eagerly when the school holidays started in July were the day trips to London, at least one of which would include a visit to a museum. Over the years my parents and I visited most of London's museums; the Imperial War Museum, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert (pretty low on my list of favourites), the Natural History Museum, the London Transport Museum and my all time favourite, the Science Museum (although it must be said the London Transport Museum runs it pretty close!)

At the London Transport Museum.

In those childhood days a trip to London began with a visit to Rex Travel in Collier Row, a low slung, shed like building adjacent to what was once the Rex Cinema but was then a Victor Value supermarket (it is now a Tesco), to buy Red Rover tickets for our expedition. A long journey by bus and tube would end at South Kensington and the Science Museum. Admission was free, which made the visit both a bargain and educational, although the educational element was coincidental to the entertainment and wonder of the exhibits. Perhaps my favourites as a child were the models, some of which were interactive; I loved turning the handles and pressing the buttons and seeing things happen, but the whole of the Science Museum was filled with wonder.

One of the Science Museum's galleries.

I have to admit that science is not one of my passions, but then again the Science Museum is not simply about science, it is about the history of the world and particularly Britain, through the instruments and objects, the vehicles and devices, the gadgets and gizmos that man has created through the ages and if there is one thing that small (and not so small) boys love, it is a gadget! Last week I went back to the Science Museum for probably the first time in 25 or 30 years and although the place is much changed, its appeal remains undiminished. Admission is once again free (although some special exhibits attract a charge), but as one enters there is the "opportunity" to make a donation (£5 per adult is suggested), organised in such a way that one would feel guilty for not doing so. There was a time when some of London's museums made a formal admission charge, but these were scrapped in 2001. There is a strong case for museums imposing admission charges; there are equally strong arguments for them not to. On the whole it is preferable that they remain free but that voluntary donations are encouraged if it means that exhibits do not have to be sold off and that the quality and variety of displays can be maintained.

The Exponential Horn is one of the Science Museum's current special exhibits.

The models remain at the Science Museum (although the number devoted to agriculture in general and tractors in particular seems somewhat disproportionate) and the full scale trains, planes and automobiles are as fascinating as they ever were. The computing and mathematics section is absorbing, although several thoughts struck me as I wandered among the exhibits. Here I was standing in front of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine #2, one of the earliest computers, a machine that would fill my living room, and around me there were people with small devices in their pockets and hand-bags that were more powerful than Babbage's, from which they could summon the total sum of knowledge possessed by mankind and yet what would most of them  do with these devices but look at pictures of cats and argue with strangers?[1] Another thought that struck me, and made me feel old, was that in the display devoted to vintage adding machines and calculators there were machines that I had actually used at work! It is somewhat disconcerting to see objects that one has used fairly recently displayed in a museum.

Charles Babbage's Difference Engine #2

The adding machine in front and left looks suspiciously familiar!

The familiar domestic appliances that are on display that are so interesting. The toys and games that we remember vaguely and with affection from our childhood but which have been superseded by more modern contrivances fascinate, but some of the devices from more ancient times are equally captivating. The centuries old microscopes, globes, orreries and clocks are not only practical instruments but objects of great beauty as well.

As much as museums like the Science Museum bring history to life, there is one thing that they lack; they do convey  the weight of history. There are two places that I have visited where I truly have felt that;  one ancient and one more modern. For all that it is a tourist trap, the site of the ancient town of Pompeii is somewhere that it is possible to imagine that the residents have all just popped out for a while and will be back shortly, that the ruts in the roadways will soon have carts rumbling along them again. Pompeii has an atmosphere like no other place I have visited; time travel may be impossible but to walk around Pompeii is as close as we are likely to get.

More modern and even more deeply affecting is Pearl Harbor, which of course is as much a memorial as it is a museum. A few years ago, while on holiday in Hawaii, I took the opportunity to visit Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial and found it to be an incredibly moving experience. If you ever have the chance to go I would recommend that you do so but it has to be said that it is incredibly popular and very busy; if you go independently arrive early! There are numerous organised tours that can be taken from Honolulu but when we went we did so by public transport, which I would advocate because the tours are expensive and although admission to the memorial is free, donations are welcomed. If, like us, you have paid just a few dollars bus fare to get there rather than a much larger tour fee, you will be inclined to donate more generously to the upkeep of the memorial. For all that we might imagine commercialisation to be all prevalent in the USA, the USS Arizona Memorial and the other Pearl Harbor sites are part of the National Park Service and not a money making machine. Many of the volunteer workers and guides are Pearl Harbor veterans; it truly is a piece of living history and a place that I am grateful to have had the chance to visit.  

The USS Arizona Memorial

British museums are actually enjoying a period of great popularity; in 2013 the British Museum, National Gallery, Natural History Museum and Science Museum attracted over 21 million people and all saw more visitors than in the previous year.[2] Museums are not just a place to go as a last resort to get out of the rain; they are so much more than that and if you haven't visited one for a while, do yourself a favour and see one soon. For my part I intend going to the Natural History Museum again for the first time in the best part of thirty years!

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[1] Taken from an internet meme, the origins of which are probably lost, but an instance of which may be found here: http://www.themachinestarts.com/read/2013-01-the-promise-of-technology

[2] Source http://www.alva.org.uk/

From Techno Phone To Smart Phone

A common question in the light hearted, celebrity sort of interview is of the "What was the first record you bought/car you owned? Given  the ubiquity of the mobile phone these days (94% of adults in the UK own one), I am surprised not yet to have heard an interviewer asks a guest, "What was the first mobile phone you owned?" Certainly the answer to the question would tell you a good deal about the person; their age group (assuming you weren't otherwise aware), perhaps their social status, whether or not they are an early adopter of technology, maybe their propensity to follow fashion or be a trendsetter.

What would the first mobile phone that I owned tell you about me? It was a Techno Phone purchased from the Mobile Phone Centre in Romford for the princely sum of £1 but obviously attached to a contract that, if memory serves me correctly, cost me £15 a month. And this was in 1994; when you look at mobile phone contracts today it shows you that £15 was quite a substantial sum then, especially when you consider that all that covered was calls as the phone did not have texting capability. Mind you even if my phone had been capable there would have been no point in me sending a text message to the only other person I knew who owned a mobile phone, Val, as her phone did not even have a screen! Had I wanted to send a text, or make a call for that matter, the chances are the battery would have been dead For all the fact that it weighed about the same as a house brick, the battery life was about eleven hours and inevitably every time I took the phone out and wanted to use it the battery would either be flat or about to expire. The size and weight of the Techno Phone meant that carrying it in one's pocket was a non-starter, so I had it strapped to my belt, where its weight caused me to walk with a pronounced list to the right.

The brick like Techno Phone...

 

...Val's Sony had a flip-down microphone but no screen.

Things improved when I upgraded to the Ericsson GA 628. For starters it weighed just 160g (by comparison, the Apple iPhone 4 weighs 155g) and had an advertised battery stand-by time of 83 hours, although in my experience the advertised stand-by time and the reality are normally poles apart. Although the Ericsson had the capability to send and receive texts, it was not until I upgraded again that I actually sent one. This was when Virgin Mobile changed the face of mobile phone ownership in the UK; instead of an expensive monthly contract you could opt to pay just for your calls. OK, the phone (I bought a Siemens S25) cost £79, but instead of £15 per month I was paying £2 or less and since I kept the phone for a number of years, it ended up saving me money. This was in the days when phone manufacturers were gradually introducing more technology and the Siemens S25 had an infra-red port, an Organizer, selectable ringtones, three games and colour graphics!

The Ericcson GA628: Small and light but not much functionality.

The Siemens S25.

When the Siemens gave up the ghost I bought a Nokia 6100 that I liked a lot; it had the most easily navigable menu tree of any phone I have owned prior to the smartphone era, the battery lasted for days, it was light and it was small. Eventually it wore out and I replaced it with a BenQ-Siemens E61, the first phone that I owned that had a camera and an MP3 player. I never quite got to grips with this phone and moved on to the BlackBerry Curve. Now the BlackBerry has recently fallen away in popularity  in the private smartphone market, but remain very highly regarded in the business community and there is no doubt that their email client is peerless; it was because I had a BlackBerry for work that I bought one for my private use. It was to be the last Virgin Mobile phone that I owned as it became apparent that as smartphone technology improved, as the functionality increased, Virgin lagged behind in their range of phones. Although now they do supply the iPhone, at the time my contract came up for renewal they did not and increasingly it became apparent that the phone I really wanted was an iPhone. Although I feigned indifference, I looked at the all singing, all dancing, touch screen superstar that Apple were producing and realised that actually I would quite like one. So I jumped ship, went over to 3 and got myself an iPhone 4.

 

The Nokia 6100: A really great little phone.

The BenQ Siemens E61

Now I have to say that I was more than happy with the iPhone. I know that Apple have their detractors; I know that some people are fans of other smartphones and believe that the iPhone is over-rated, but I really cannot fault them. If I had any quibbles they would be that with the 8gb iPhone the memory soon gets clogged up (to the extent that when Apple introduced iOS7 I had insufficient memory on my phone to update the operating system) and it may be that by comparison with newer phones coming on the market the screen size is a bit on the skimpy side, but overall I am a fan. When it was upgrade time, however I decided I was due a change (for novelty's sake more than anything) and went for the Samsung Galaxy S4.  At present I am undecided as to whether that was a good move or not. The Samsung is sufficiently similar to the iPhone that there isn't a culture shock in changing and I suppose it is really just perception, but the look and feel of the Galaxy is partly superior and partly inferior to the iPhone. I also think that the S4 is a bit of an odd size; it doesn't sit as comfortably in the palm of one's hand as the iPhone does although there are bigger handsets out there, the HTC One Max for one.

But if I have one real problem with my new phone it has to be the battery. Yes, I had become used to charging my iPhone every other day, but the Galaxy seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to how long the battery will last. One evening I charged it to 100%, went to bed and in the morning it was down to 17%; another day I used it moderately and discharged only 50% of the battery power in twelve hours. Generally I now have to charge my phone daily, something I have not been used to doing since 1994 when I owned the power hungry Techno Phone and this despite the advertised 370 hours stand-by time. Where do the manufacturers get these stand-by times from? Does anyone ever get the number of hours they claim?

Over the years as phones became smaller, battery life increased but as the functionality and size have increased, battery life has reduced again (despite the maker's optimistic claims). It is almost worth investing in a cheap, basic, pay as you go phone with a seven day battery life to make and receive calls and keep the smartphone for surfing the 'net, playing games and listening to music, so if you will excuse me I think I will go and hunt out that old Alcatel phone that is in a drawer somewhere, I think it might just come in handy.

Clichés? I Avoid Them Like The Plague.

In a piece[1] that I wrote last June (http://rulesfoolsandwisemen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/a-question-of-grammar.html) I expressed some of my frustrations with regard to grammar; my foibles and bête noire's[2].  I wrote at the time that while " I hope that I have a reasonable command of English, I accept that I am by no means perfect" and this week I have been more than somewhat chastened, having read John Rentoul's book, "The Banned List: A Manifesto Against Jargon and Cliché" and learned that where my writing is concerned I am far from perfect; very far indeed.

I read John Rentoul's book because I followed a link on Twitter, which took me to a website called Buzzsaw (http://www.prbuzzsaw.com/), which has a tool which enables you to identify and then excise buzzwords from text that you paste into it[3]. There is also a link to Amazon's website, specifically to The Banned List, which I bought, read and immediately realised that no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I strive to avoid the hackneyed and the clichéd, the buzzwords and the jargon, whole rafts of it slip through. Sometimes they don't merely slip through, quite often they are there because I have consciously chosen to include them; oh, the shame!

John Rentoul

At the core of the book is a list of clichés, words, phrases, expressions and jargon which the author opines[4] we should avoid like the plague[5]. To my chagrin this list includes a great many words and phrases that are faithful companions of mine; as comfortable and cosy as a pair of well worn slippers. But, and this may be an important but, is John Rentoul right? A great many of the items in the list are, it has to be said glib and have become meaningless through overuse (or misuse) or are commonly used out of context or incorrectly, however there are many that the author objects to with which I can find little fault (or suitable alternative). Obviously John Rentoul, a journalist with The Independent and a published author, has superior writing credentials to me, but I would suggest that as with clothes and as with restaurants, so words and phrases slip in and out of fashion and that a newspaper like The Independent will have its own in house style which will influence what is deemed acceptable and what is beyond the pale. A writer for the Daily Mirror or the Daily Mail might well have come up with a very different list.

"Moving the goalposts." (Daily Telegraph).

I actually agree with the inclusion of a great many of the words or phrases on the list, but there are some for which I don't actually feel there are superior alternatives. And that is one difficulty that I have; the author himself says (in a different context) that proactive is a word " used to suggest vigour without troubling anyone with choices that might have been made" and it is easy enough to say that a particular phrase is a cliché, that a certain expression should not be used, but it is much more helpful to be proactive and suggest an alternative.

Having babbled on this far I suppose I need to justify what I have said with some examples, so here goes. I agree with (among others):

·         Draw a line under. It is not so much the expression as the circumstances under which it is frequently used. Most often it is employed by a politician or other public figure whose greed or lies or hypocrisy or infidelity or whatever has been exposed and who wishes to "move on" purely to avoid any further embarrassment, even though more debate may be in the public interest.

·         A big ask. In the same spirit as "a tough call", and probably better replaced with tough task or difficult challenge.

·         At the end of the day. Or you could say, when all is said and done, but ultimately you mean,  er ,ultimately (probably).

·         Any journey not describing travel from A to B. Much beloved by contestants on talent shows, this is sometimes synonymous with growth or improvement, but mostly it is nonsense.

·         Going forward. Presumably as opposed to going backwards, except it normally means in the future, so there is no alternative to going forward (as far as we know).

And if I may offer a personal bugbear[6] of mine, it would be That's the way I roll. In other words, that is the way I do thing. It conveys a smug superiority even when associated with the most mundane of tasks and every time I hear it I shudder.

But then there are the additions to the list with which I have issues[7].

·         Move the goalposts. Yes it is a cliché because it is so commonly used, but it is widely and easily understood. Alternatively one could say "change the rules after the game has started" except we probably aren't talking about a game anyway. If it ain't broke, don't let us bother trying to fix it.[8]

·         Not fit for purpose. It possibly depends on what industry one has worked in, but this sort of expression was very common where I worked; it may be a cliché but trying to find an alternative makes the user sound pretentious and doesn't aid understanding

·         Back office. Same goes for this one. If you work in a location like a bank branch that has a foyer, a counter and an area behind the counter then the correct name for that area is back office. To try and find an alternative is illogical, after all we wouldn't try to find an alternative to calling the cooking area of a restaurant a kitchen, now would we? Unless of course we are using "back-office" as a verb (but who does that?).

·         By virtue of the fact that. There is probably no justification for using this phrase and I include it as one I would defend the use of simply because I happen to use it (a lot).

·         Don't hold your breath. Like "well good luck with that" this phrase has a simple elegance despite its very sarcastic nature. I have no rational reason for arguing against it being on the list, I just like it.

Rentoul makes a valid point about jargon, that it is important in bureaucracies but that it can end up being used inappropriately in conversation with outsiders. That is the point about jargon, it is a sort of technical language understood by insiders, often because in a particular industry it makes perfect sense to use it, but too often it falls into disrepute when it escapes the confines of its specialty and wanders off into the world at large where it is used, abused and misused by the general public (and journalists).

On the whole I find in favour of John Rentoul's list. I suppose that many of the objections I have to some of the words on it are based on the fact that I use and have a fondness for some of them. I would recommend The Banned List to everyone who indulges in even the most modest of writing (like me), or to anyone who reads anything for that matter, because at the end of the day, this book does what it says on the tin.

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[1] "Piece" is a word from the Banned List. There are a number of other banned words and phrases in this blog. Some I have included through sheer devilment; others are there because I don't know any better.

[2] Foreign words and phrases are verboten, says Rentoul quoting George Orwell. If you can think of an everyday English alternative, use it. Of course, he didn't say verboten, or bête noire.

[3] I copied this blog into Buzzword and it received a 3% Buzz factor rating and contains 13 buzzwords, which is actually quite low considering the content.

[4] Opine is another word from the Banned List.

[5] Surprisingly, this expression does not feature in the list.

[6] Cliché alert!

[7] Or perhaps I should say problems.

[8] Rentoul suggests that we should refrain from using sporting expressions in general and American sporting metaphors in particular. Interestingly, he cites "rookie" as an example of such an Americanism, yet the first use of that word appears to come in a Kipling poem of 1892 and was in common use in the British Army in the early 20th century.