[bird of prey] richard griffiths and early computers

My first computer was bought sometime around 1984 - it was a Macintosh 512KED, with 0.5Mb RAM. I only mention it because that was about the year when PCs really took off and the paranoia set in about big time hacking and embezzlement. Various films and mini-series came out around the theme of the less than scrupulous computer whiz.

One was from 1982, when the excellent BBC serial in four parts, Bird of Prey, hit the small screen, starring Richard Griffiths and Carole Nimmons.

It was made into two series, each of four episodes, each series different to the other but including the same nucleus. Basically, Griffiths plays a computer operator who files a report which leads to complications and then to threats and frame-ups. Gradually, it emerges that there is widespread collusion going on with the EEC, Britain and criminal elements, attempting to corrupt and utilize the emerging technology.

Dated in many ways, especially in the technology and sets, it was nevertheless a gripping thriller with a nice twist at the end. If you can get the DVD, it could be worth it.

The Consultant [June, 1983] starring Hywel Bennett, was another serial tapping into the fear of what could happen to the computer world when clever hackers broke into it. Bennett and partner Jonathan Morris, also very strong as the computer whiz kid who tumbles to Bennett's game and wants in, are a backroom consultancy firm who decide to tender for a major bank job which sees Bennett commuting between London and Manchester.

It shows naive bank directors [in the database field], la less naive and therefore unscrupulous payrolled computer whiz who has a little embezzlement scheme going on within the bank and a savvy bank security chief who is not at all sure about Bennett being given free rein to test the system's defences. It was said in 2000:

In the 1970s and 1980s, the hacker was either a friendless loner or a super-cynical computer expert as played by Hywel Bennett in The Consultant. Today the hacker could be anybody. In fact, as the anti-fraud section of computer group Unisys warned last October, today's computer fraudster most closely fits the profile of someone a big computer company would most like to hire.

Bennett played the former type but when he realized the size of the stakes and that he was about to be sprung, stooped to murder - first one, then another, in a rivetting piece of tele-suspense.

As the IMDb reviewer said:

"I don't know if anyone will ever have a chance to see this again, but if you find it is showing on some obscure channel, it's worth the investment of time and attention."

[obama] in october, 2006, he was unsure

Ellee Seymour has written:

I believe I was the first political blogger in the UK to write about Barack Obama back in January 2007.

Sorry, Ellee, how about this one from October 23rd, 2006, which quotes Obama:

He told NBC's Meet the Press: I am still at the point where I have not made a decision to - to pursue higher office but it is true that I have thought about it over the last several months.

[statistics can lie] though the problem remains

The news was reported that:

[N]ew research shows that 40 percent of women report sexual problems, but only 12 percent are distressed about it.

Quite apart from these figures being highly suspect due to the research being conducted by a firm which markets products for women's sexual dysfucntion, I'm convinced that the majority of problems, such as they are, are caused by:

a. the unrealistic expectations on women imposed by society, advertising, journals and other media and peer pressure through discussion of this guff;

b. the onslaught of feminism which does create a "don't-you-oppress-me", "women-can-go-it-alone" mentality;

c. the natural desire of women to have everything perfect, "just so" and the way men are failing to live up to this ideal in today's society;

d. the phenomenon whereby the more women insist on their rights, the worse becomes the attitude, particularly of young men, towards them. As men are disempowered, so the dislike of women increases, manifesting itself in cavalier attitudes and refusal to "understand".

Women need to step back and think through what they're really trying to achieve, to work in with men in a complementary rather than confrontational or snide way. Then and only then can the decades of immense damage to inter-gender relations be reversed and healed. Otherwise, the current misandry and misogyny can only produce one bitter result.

One good start would be for the new generation of girls to learn the word "no".

[small business] the key to a resurgence

On the Tory initiatives for small-business relief, reactions included:

“It’s a good report and some very good ideas,” David Frost, director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said, “My plea would be that when some firm ideas come out of this, please make them long term and make them stick.”

Indeed. Restructuring the corporate environment to support small and medium business, the granting of tax breaks and start-up loans, the reining in of monopolies which threaten to snuff out competition in any given sector - these are the things the society should be supporting.

The other, social aspects will flow from that.

[viktor tsoi] ddt and samizdata

This is a really tall order - not just to explain something outside the experience of most but to make it interesting. Even if one person is interested, that would be a good thing.

Picture the early 1980s USSR and the attitude to the rock music phenomenon. My Russian friend told me tales of how the samizdat worked [a term which has now been used for a popular blog on the net] and it has been put well by Vladimir Bukovsky as:

"I myself create it, edit it, censor it, publish it, distribute it, and [may] get imprisoned for it."

It was a fraught enterprise and somewhere along the line, the first and maybe last true Russian rock star began to play and his tapes were distributed underground across the country. This was Виктор Цой [Viktor Tsoi]. Jim Morrison, Velvet Underground and Hendrix were seen as rebels and could be arrested for obscenity, drugs and sedition but the whole process was benign by comparison to Russia.

This is why singers like Tsoi, who stayed true to his musical roots, sang about everyday life and never sold out, was so appreciated by those now in their late 40s and is being rediscovered by the younger generation today. I didn't get much of a chance to get into his music over there but I do have a few tracks, of which this is one of the softer songs:

Boomp3.com

A group from the same era, ДДТ [DDT], was influenced by Tsoi as well as striking out in a highly individual manner, perhaps their greatest strength being the lead Юрий Шевчук [Yuri Shevchuk]. DDT went through a similar fate to Tsoi, with concerts censored and always the threat of an official clampdown.

Whereas Tsoi was killed in a car accident, DDT went on to greater things and became probably the most revered band in Russia, not so much for the music but for the highly evocative and thoughtful lyrics and the sheer humanity of their material. To give you an idea, Wiki says:

In the beginning of 1995, a new album, Это все [eto vsyo] (that's all). was recorded. In January, Shevchuk went on a mission of peace to Chechnya, where he performed in 50 concerts for the Russian troops and Chechen citizens alike. In the spring and summer of 2002, 10 out of 11 concerts that the band played were benefits for various social and cultural organizations.

You can imagine the effect this would have had on the ordinary Russian and I'd like to tell you about New Year in 2001 or 2002, I can't remember. My girlfriend of the time, her family and I went down to a beach house [it was only minus 10 so not too cold]. We built a fire and got vodkaring, then the teenagers in the house beside us came over and when they learned I was foreign, presented me with a DDT album. The music apparently had no generational barriers.

Perhaps the best way to show the reverence that certain groups and artists have in Russia, largely due to their difficult past, is to post the clip below. It's not the best version I've heard of this song, especially the campy bit towards the end but you have to understand that this was a tribute to and by an aging star last year, so hopefully it can be forgiven. The words:

Это все, что остaнется после меня
Это все, что возьму я с собой

... roughly translate as "that's all that's left after me; that's all that I take with me":




It's sad that a recent commenter, I'm sure atypical of our country as a whole, recently chose to leave a comment on my blog: "You're not with those Russian twats now; you're in Britain, mate."

Perhaps a course in understanding wouldn't go amiss for him. Perhaps he could go over there for a month or two and see at first hand that people are people, wherever they are.

[hallowe'en] like to see someone say trick

Don't want you to get the idea that because I posted this, I'm being a wet blanket or anything.

Fat chance of that anyway. I'd forgotten the further north you go in this country, the more the kids are going to be out and about trick or treating. We've a bag of sweets and poisoned apples and so on ready to delve into when the rat-a-ta-tap comes.

So hope you survive Hallowe'en, people. Yo!