A sceptic's guide to web strategy

I've recently joined the Strategic Services department in my newly merged company where, I've been told by my new line manager, "there's no place for cynicism". I think he meant scepticism, but contrary to the perception you may have of me, I wasn't being anything but positive at the time. In fact I uttered not one negative word.
But I have to challenge the perception of companies like ours that they're somehow going to challenge the leading consultancies, break into their markets and offer clients incisive advice about their business strategy. There's such a level of naïvety about how clients may -- and should -- react to some jumped up person in their 20s or 30s who has just read Michael Porter's Competitive Advantage and thinks that no one else has, despite the fact it's been taught on almost every business course in the western world in the last ten years.
So we're selling our intellectual property in Situational Analysis, Business Intelligence, Strategy, etc. as though our clients were inept gits who don't know their own business. I say we're selling this, but of course we're not. What we are selling is user research, usability, and brand development because most businesses haven't ever addressed these issues and are confused by them. If our clients really wanted Business Intelligence and felt they couldn't read all the books produced by McKinsey, they'd go out and hire one of the Big 5 or an individual who used to work for them. But to think that anyone with any experience of a consultancy would ask us to come in and tell them how to run their business is foolhardy, to put it politely. We should be finding a niche that clients have limited exposure to but know is important: content management, for example.
This is all borne out by the "strategy" project at the moment, which is probably the least strategic project I've ever worked on. One of those where I say, "I wouldn't have started from here if I were you".
Our web strategy offering should be:

• Are you expectations from your web applications realistic? This applies to both websites and intra/extranet-style applications.


• Does your brand work on-line?


• Which technologies should you be using to deliver your requirements?


• Do you understand what's easy or difficult to do on the web?


• What else can you achieve on-line that you hadn't thought of before?

That's it. Web stuff's not that complicated, but if your head's out of the web, it can be daunting. But thinking you can persuade clients to part with thousands of pounds each day without being sceptical is about as far from a strategic approach to our value proposition as you can get.

Let your hair grow long...

I'm a big fan of the Hippy Shopper blog, which is full of good ideas coming up to Christmas time. But this particular article is a cut above the rest...

Guardian of good intentions

How can a newspaper that distributes so much unsollicited extra paper now recommend to us how we should recycle their bloody wallcharts?
Similarly, having been sent a scare-mongering brochure about people stealing my identity from Morgan Stanley that will be ok if I buy another product from them, they then sent me loads of credit cheques that I'll never use that I now need to shred in order to prevent my identity being compromised.
Fucking hypocrites.

Information's not free

This story's been in the offing for some time and is likely to go on for some time longer. The Department for Constitutional Affairs reckons it's too expensive to process Freedom of Information request, so is now going to refuse any request that would take more than 2.5 hours to process.

What's a little rich however is that the DCA reckons it costs £254 an hour for someone to consider a request, which tells me that the government has very poor information handling processes and very well paid staff. Of course, when this figure was questioned by a campaign group, the government refused to reveal how it calculated this amount.

If the cost of a particular request is so significant high, why doesn't the government charge the person requesting a fee? Or better still, why doesn't it just accept that this is a cost of government which we should be - or are already - paying for in taxes?

Quite a long way from Cairo

Lots of miles from Vietnam.
Spent the last couple of days in Finland, which has been significantly warmer than London this weekend. In fact, it hasn't snowed in the south for three weeks. Even Moscow is experiencing a winter heatwave of +7 degrees. This hardly constitutes climate change, but the Scandinavian experience is a little weird without snow.
The country came across as pretty quaint, without wishing to sound too snobbish about it. Wooden houses and birch forests (keep all those children in check), very sparsely populated, with lots of homemade Christmas trinkets being sold in outdoor markets; all contributed to the sense that you had stepped back in time 50 years.
Do you know what the two most popular Finnish names are? Matt
& Gloss.

Arsenal stadium mystery

Police investigations today cleared Ashburton Grove of any danger to the public. They had suspected contamination by Graham Poll-onium 2-pen, but only eleven people from Tottenham appear to have been affected.

Sunday bloody Sunday

Let's consider some of the problems we face in the UK these days: a consumer culture that leads to high levels of debt, pollution and excessive energy consumption, <i>low-order</i> social crime... Can we name the root of these ailments? Evil, thy name is out-of-town Sunday shopping!
Let's consider the evidence.
On an environmental level, who can doubt the negative impact of these retail monstrosities? Built on playing fields or flood plains, their tarmac testifies to our conservational negligence and irresponsible, unthinking short-termism. There's no creeping nostalgia in this observation: I don't believe that retail parks have corrupted arcadia. They have, however, usurped our breathing space to supplant it with an iron lung.
For now our weekend pursuit is to shop. We shop at weekends because we're too busy to find time in the week. Because there's nothing else to do. Because it's a social event; though there's rampant social exclusion. You can't partake if you have a poor credit rating, where a hoodie, or have to work at weekends...
Let me return briefly to the credit aspect. Consumer culture, to which these retail parks stand as temples, thrives -- indeed relies -- on our weekly devotion and on the widow's mite. Supermarkets don't care if you can afford to <i>taste the diference</i>, or need the latest gadget: you're there to buy, on anyone's money. Seven-day-a-week social shopping doubtless encourages this.
For this is the opportunity for people to herd around a water hole. The retail parks like to give us the impression it's all yummy mummies in Starbuck's, but in reality, it's mostly teenagers whose playing fields have been concreted over. They don't go to Starbuck's but head instead to KFC or McDonald's: so not only do they lose out on an environment in which to exercise, they gorge to obesity on trans-fatty acids. Then, high on sugars and preservatives, they roam the mobile 'phone stores until one can summon the courage to accost an off-licence.
So what we're looking at is an invention that ruins our environment, causes social and economic strife and ruins my Sundays. Can anyone rid us of this social blight?

Testing 1... 2... 3...

This is my first attempt at posting from on the move, via a 3G connection on my new converged device.
I'm also testing Blogger's mail facility, so if you're my guinea pig now, you should benefit from more posts in future.

When a rule is not a rule

Now we're being told by a member of the cabinet, the most powerful body in our government, who has never been elected, that human rights are relative. Lord Falconer wants to enshrine the principle that one person's rights cannot be used to "trump" the public's right to safety. In other words, there's no such thing as a fundamental human right. If you (i.e. the government) can demonstrate you're protecting public safety, you can do what you like to any number of individuals.
As I pointed out in my previous entry, the U.S. has already agreed a law that allows governments to define what constitutes torture; we're now only a short step from this ourselves. Perhaps when the Lord Chancellor tells us our rights are as British as beer he means that they don't apply to Muslims?
Let's extend this a little further. Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? So, if I walk out onto a pedestrian crossing in front of a bus, should it stop? There are more people on the bus and their safety would be compromised by an emergency stop, even though I'm on a zebra crossing.
And does this apply just to safety? If the majority of a company's employees are male and the company is successful, why should it jeopardise its corporate culture by employing a woman?
The purpose of government is to benefit individuals in ways that they could not achieve as individuals: provide education, security, infrastructure that no single individual could implement. Constraining individual rights in the name of a common good is the complete antithesis of this principle.

Tortuous arguments

As the US introduces new legislation that effectively allows politicians to define what constitutes torture as it suits them, and a recent survey by the BBC shows increasing public support for abuse of suspects, I thought I'd point you in the direction of an interesting discussion on the subject.

Terrifying

This article from the Register says a lot about how I feel terrorism is being judged currently in this country.

My son on TV

I'm not grooming him for a career in television, but he's started anyway. Go to BBC London TV and Radio and follow the link to Nursing to be cut in Barnet.
Oh yes, and the missus is on there too.
It's an important story, so worth watching, if parochial.

Preoccupations

Paul Hunter gave generously to neuroendocrine tumour charities. He wasn't even 28.
I'm sick of being sick: bloody diminished neutrophils. Can't walk down the street without feeling knackered.
Like Paul Hunter, I can't do my job properly on the treatment. Unlike Paul Hunter, the interferon should be less intrusive and I should have fewer metastases. I hope to find the interferon working miracles so I can get back to my normal self.
I also hope Hunter's popularity draws some extra attention and resources a largely unknown problem.

What are our rights?

Is the irony not lost on anyone that a man taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights is being sponsored by the UK Independence Party?
The case concerns obliging car owners to identify the driver when caught on speed camera. Is this self-incrimination? If so, why has this case never been raised when the right to silence was withdrawn? And aren't those involved yet again confusing us with the U.S., where the fifth amendment would prevent this sort of thing? And what about protecting others from the law? Isn't there some degree of obligation to "shop" people who have behaved recklessly? I'd never speed myself, obviously.
It seems slightly fatuous that the payment of a speeding fine should be the trigger that defines whether we have a right to silence in criminal investigations. When are we allowed to protect ourselves and those around us from prosecution? What precedents will the impending ruling set? And at what point should we face up to the consequences of our actions?

Transferable assets

Just thought I'd point you in the direction of these two articles about transfer deadline activities and some background to them.

UGC - not the cinema chain

I realise that this entry is contradictory to the precepts of blogging, but bear with me and consider it to be an example of postmodern irony. Or something.
These days UGC is the buzz-acronym for our media, particularly television, and especially on the BBC.
Born of the internet, User Generated Content allows a return path along which an audience can respond to the information provided and contribute to it. On the web it would be through adding comments to this blog, for example, while on TV or radio it's usually via SMS and email, though MMS and video clips are bound to follow shortly.
I have some issues with this.
I don't watch the news to find out what the populace thinks about NHS postcode lotteries: if I wanted to know that I'd go down the pub. I don't care for uninformed opinions on the Middle East from people who've never been there. I'm still more sceptical about how much value there is in the amount of social commentary that you can fit into a text message. Isn't this all just a way of journalists not doing their jobs?
How much investigative research do you need to do if everyone just sends you in text messages some lackey can trawl through? How many five second links in live news programmes can editors fill with a quirky SMS from a member of their audience? And as content is sourced and aggregated from increasingly diverse sources, how long until news broadcasts are just a variant of youtube?
I was wondering if there were fundamental differences between the web as a news medium and television, such as a sense of community. But it's all content for the self-content. There's no reason why TV shouldn't encourage greater interactivity with its audience.
Except that I want substance not opinion. I want curiosity not prejudice. Journalism should be about discovering things that are hidden from the public, not telling the public what it knows already and then what we think about what we know.
Without wishing to sound like a Tonbridge colonel writing into the Telegraph or a self-righteous academic, UGC in television news sounds a death knell for informed journalism and, by extension, a significant shift in the intellectual episteme for the 21st century. In western Europe, we can point to various modes of thought: contemplative theoretical epistemeology through Aristotle, acceptance of scholastic hegemony through Roman Catholic doctrine, a protestant autonomy of thought through empiricism... and now I guess in an extension of hermeneutics it's all about how we each read what we're told and the opinions we form. It's a move away from trying to discover objective truths. UGC reflects a self-confidence about audiences today that we hold the answers to all questions already. But the media should be asking not what we know already, but what we don't know yet. And in a wider philosophy of progress and ambition, we should be asking ourselves the same questions too rather than blogging facile opinions that extend no one, least of all ourselves.

Device convergence

I've been considering a converged device for some time now; for so long that they were still referred to as converged devices then, or perhaps smart phones. Now they're just phones for business. The better of these devices are characterised by a number of features:

• email, usually through "push" technologies like Blackberry
• PIM (calendar, tasks, addresses) integration with desktop applications like Outlook
• full web browsing through Wi-Fi, or 3G where no Wi-Fi network is in range
• a range of input methods, usually including some form of QWERTY keyboard
• Microsoft Office tools
• extensibility, both through provision of extra flash memory and through an OS that allows other applications to be run on the device
• a broader aspect screen with sufficient real estate to enable email, Office and browser use

On the market now, or over the next quarter, there are at least four devices with different operating systems that meet these criteria:

• Nokia's Symbian-based E61
• the Windows Mobile 5 HTC TyTN, to be sold as the Vario II by T-Mobile, the SPV M31000 by Orange, or the Vodafone v1605
• Sony M600i, which runs on Sony's Symbian-based UIQ interface
• the Palm Treo 700

So why haven't I bought one of these already? Three answers: cost, form factor and requirement.
If you buy one of these devices under a decent 3G contract, its going to cost in the region of £35 per month, or £420 a year; you could get a PDA with all the features listed above but without the phone for half that price.
The form of these phones has, historically, not been conducive to both data entry and review as well as phone use. Some of the phones above are a bit cleverer, with sliding or tilting keyboards, but fundamentally the screen still needs to be big enough to browse on while the phone is small enough to use regularly.
But most importantly, are all the features that these phones provide really required? I do use the PIM information every day, but that's available on any mobile these days. I also use Word and Excel on the go and want to have other applications I can install. But email and web browsing? Is the always-on wherever-you-are internet really feasible or indeed desirable? Will I still be able to capture a 3G connection while I'm on the train and what advantages does it bring over plucked subscriptions to the sites I read daily? It's pretty rare that I actually need to get online to the latest news or extended link from the news I've downloaded to my PDA.
When I'm sat reading this news or making notes, is usually when I've nothing else to do but commute in an environment with poor network connectivity, so I want to be able to browse off-line. So what do I want my device to do? Would I make use of Wi-Fi and 3G if I had it?
As is often the case with anyone purchasing a new product, some features appear desirable but really won't be used that often even if you have them. So perhaps for the moment I should concentrate on a truly decent mobile computer -- a UMPC perhaps -- and a phone with a good camera and some memory for MP3 playing.

To HIV and to HIV not

Yesterday I went for an HIV test. There's a drop-in centre at the Royal Free: not that you'd know it's there unless you'd been told about it. There's no sign saying gays, sub-Saharans and the promiscuous this way. You're directed to the relevant common waiting room where you can speculate on each other's reckless shame. And of course, it's impossible to tell who's reactive just by looking. Strikingly impossible.
Here's an obviously gay couple being tested in tandem. A guy who looks west African. A young bloke who may have sniffed too much glue. Four young women of varying ages who appear distinctly un-slutty; I suspect one of them is a virgin, or maybe a one time only. Another guy in his forties who seems very straight. All of which reinforces the theme that you just can't tell and how glad I am that my wanton days are behind me.
So why was I there? I have cancer. I take interferon to treat it. Interferon lowers your sperm count, so I need to deposit some for future expenditure. The bank requires an HIV test. This rather long-winded explanation earned me the sympathy of of the nurse, who let me off the £30 fee to certify my negative result. So from the land of the incurable, I receive sympathy.
Clearly there's still a perception that people infected with HIV deserve it whereas people with cancer don't: people are victims of cancer but suffer from HIV. Yet for all he knew I could be a chain-smoking supplier of DDT. And the 25 million people who died over the last 25 years from AIDS-related illnesses weren't all reprobabtes.
Nevertheless, while I was surprised by his tea and sympathy, I want to highligh what an excellent service this is. It took about 45 minutes from walking into the clinic to getting my result and it's free (unless you need a piece of paper to prove your health). There's nothing that goes on your medical record, so it's as anonymous as you want to make it. If only it were advertised more heavily.

I'm Dennis, Fly Me

Yesterday I went to the opening match at Arsenal's new stadium; Dennis Bergkamp's testimonial. And very pleasant it was too, thank you very much. Saw a few great players (Van Basten still has the gift) and I was prety impressed by the stadium. It's not so much the curves that make it -- they look pretty enough on photos -- but there's a feeling of space, of easy access, of calm; not that the last one's so great for big match atmosphere. Anyway, I'm sure there'll be some memorable matches there. One thing I don't understand, however, is that the closest rail station, Drayton Park, is closed at weekends. The new sponsor, Emirates, must be pleased to have made the farewell presentation to the non-flying Dutchman.

Mass Debate About Zizou

This is very silly...

Buon Giorno

I don't know why he did it. To cut through the clichés, he is not the only one who knows: I'm sure Materazzi has an inside track. And now Zidane is "vicious", while Rooney remains Cristiano Ronaldo's victim.
And the Italians have won in defiance of all the problems they've had at home. It's a victory for team spirit during all the investigations where the national team is blameless. Or, more specifically, where only a few of the charges are being investigated. So Juventus and the others paid to have the right referees assigned to matches. But what about the allegations that clubs (most notably Roma) ran brothels? That Gianlucca Pessotto, the newly appointed Juve secretary, fell out of his office window and just escaped death. His wife claimed he would never attempt suicide (he had nothing to hide after all) but two days later attempted suicide is the official cause and no further investigation planned, despite Pessotto himself not having been interviewed.
Earlier, Buffon's flat had been searched for something completely different: evidence that he'd won hundreds of thousands of pounds betting illegally on Serie A matches. There wasn't enough evidence (apart from phone tap confessions) to try him before the World Cup.
Meanwhile the manager is under scrutiny, because his son's players' agency in which he has a stake appears to be executing some dodgy deals; not least that when players sign up with the son they're called up by the father to increase their value.
Anyway, these aren't what's being investigated. It's just a matter of clubs pushing to have certain referees. The Italians implicated in such corruption have heroically overcome adversity, while Zidane remains a disgrace for his premeditated actions. All in all, last night was a victory for football and morality.

Being a dad

I've recently (5 days ago) discovered the joys of fatherhood. I'm not (yet) going to post images, because I have a feeling they're slightly exploitative, so I've simply mailed them to everyone I know.
The benefits of having a son are immediate. You can fart in any room he's in and blame it on him. "Not another one, stinky, that was a loud one!" and letimotivs of that sort. Then you can claim you need to go and change him. Kudos for risking urine and faeces all over you, when really it just gets you out of having to watch Big Brother.

Sex

Woody Allen told us about the things we wanted to know but were afraid to ask, but there are many things we didn't know that we didn't think to ask about; a case of Rumsfeldian unknown unknowns.
Once you've had sex -- successfully in the procreative sense rather than in the Kinsey sense -- many people will tell you that nine months later you need to do it again, to see the result of what you put in come out again.
Why? Because your sperm (yes, I'm addressing an exclusively male audience in this post, except that women ought to recognise that we know now) contains prostaglandin , a hormone-like substance that is supposed to induce birth. So it makes sense for you to mount / be mounted by the bearer of your child (even with your cracked ribs) to end procrastination. However, the prostaglandin doesn't need to go in that way. The hormone simply needs to be added to the expectant mother's body, and she can quite easily ingest it without the need to come to blows, so to speak.

Irrepressable Nature

I've been reading an abridged version of Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West recently, or Monkey as we know it. And it's excellent. It's on ITV4 twice a week (Thursdays and Fridays at 6pm) if you're in the UK. I also recommend the Monkey Heaven site for much simian paraphenalia.

cui bono

So, Labour's in disarray according to anyone with a page or time slot to fill; and yes, I recognize the irony of commenting on that myself. Some have more to say than others: about 1/3 of the Guardian's front page is pictures of briefcases... Nevertheless, while Clarke, Hewitt and Prescott do their utmost to embarass themselves, you have to ask who benefits from these shambles? Clearly there are local elections next week, so this would appear to be a great opportunity for Labour's rivals.
The Tories are on shaky ground trying to make political capital here: they can't play the Prescott sleaze card without calling a kettle black, no swing voters could seriously trust them to improve the NHS and their election strategy seems to consist of Dave Cameron standing on a Norwegian ice floe.
The Lib Dems meanwhile couldn't organize a leadership election among MPs let alone run an effective local election campaign nationally, so what hope does their dynamic "Mingis" have?
Of course, both parties (and others) will reap the votes of the disaffected and Labour will have a poor Thursday night and Friday morning next week. The worse they do, the more pressure on the New Labour leadership and TB. Silent Gordon is clearly hoping for more skeletons to emerge over the next few days.

Shift down

At the risk of being called a hypocrite, let me point you in the direction of National Downshifting Week. This -- albeit horribly designed -- web site has advice on how to lead a more relaxed lifestyle and save money to boot. It's not all completely thought through, but it is worth the read, particularly when it comes to initiatives relating to the company you work for.

Statistical anomaly

As I attend my Birth Basics classess with my wife, I have discovered a number of interesting facts on subjects as diverse as hormones and pain relief. But here's a striking one. Apparently 50% of all twins are now delivered by Caesarian section. Does that mean one each?

Google Gaydar

Not only has Google come to dominate web searching over the last few years, it can now find out people's sexuality. Just go there and search for "ashley cole". Scroll a little further beyond the top few sponsored links and you'll see Google suggesting results for "ashley cole" gay. Could Google's automated searching suggestions be libellous?

Demi-pension

It's a bit of a hobby-horse of mine, pensions. There are a couple of things about them I'd like to reiterate:

1. They almost certainly offer the best return on savings available in the UK, as the government actually invests your a rebate into the plan; if you're a basic-rate taxpayer, for example, the Treasury pays in 22p for every 78p you contribute.


2. The earlier you start to contribute, the more you'll save. Even if you start piling in loads of cash in your thirties, you'll never make up what you would have made if you'd started contributing a tiny sum in your twenties.

This applies to private pensions, of course, be they stakeholder or otherwise. But this is what you have to rely on now as successive governments have ducked the bullet on state pension contributions. Moreover, if you look back to 1950, there were roughly five workers for every pensioner. But by the time I hope to retire, around 2030, the ratio of workers to pensioners will have halved. That means half the money to help me out in my old age; and when the full state pension is currently around £70 a week just think how far it'll go by the time you retire.
I could point you in loads of different directions for information about pensions and why you need to save more. For the moment, however, I'm going to stick to this article in the excellent Motley Fool, which sets out all the changes that are taking place to pensions from the new financial year.
You should take advantage of some these changes as you can, even though they may seem unpalatable. If not, just spend 2 minutes on this form to see how poor you might end up.

(Data)Base values

Is the government simply pandering to a populist agenda or has it completely lost the plot when it comes to databases? The latest wheeze is to get a list of anyone who has failed a Criminal Record Bureau check that debars them from working with children and (although the BBC seems to think it's designed for schools) allow any Tom, Dick or Rebekkah Wade jump to their own conclusions about which paedophile's house to attack first.
I really can't fathom this. Currently any person registering as a childminder has to pass a CRB check; they can't be listed as a childminder without going through this process, so all a parent has to do is ask for proof of registration. No school or private nursery can employee someone without having passed a CRB check. So what possible benefit does a database that anyone can access offer any of the vulnerable groups this legislation is supposedly safeguarding? It's just going to lead to abuse (by newspapers I expect) and errors.
The only consolation -- if you can call it that -- is that judging by some of the other registration schemes the government has tried to build over the last few years, they'll never get round to implementing this one. There's a high price to pay for necessary ineffectualness.

Redcurrant morning

Elation at last night's footie will last at least until the Highbury match, when Arsenal will return to their former selves. What happened? That's the best that I've seen Ljungberg play this season and Gilberto ever. Our best two players were Fabregas and Eboue (who completely logged on Robinho), but everyone played well. The first English side to win in the Bernabeu, without an Englishman in the side! Which brings me to Alan Hansen.
He claims that we have to "start buying English players again", yet somehow we managed to win without having Chris Sutton up front. According to the Scot, Wenger's "young players are too young and his old players are too old", but my feeling is age has nothing to do with it, particularly as Hansen's most famous lack of prescience was that "you can't win anything with kids" and that Milan reached last year's Champions League final with Cafu, Costacurta and Maldini at a combined age of about 473.
Hansen's article may have been a bit of a Phil Space piece, but my most eloquent response can only be 1-0 to the Arsenal...

Que sera, sera...

Morning karatekas; it's a chilly one isn't it.
So after all, the news we all expected came in today that Wembley won't host this year's Cup final. A bit of an embarrassment for the Evening Standard which just 5 days ago praised the new stadium in a blatant plug. "Wembley's grand design is well worth the wait", Michael Hart told us; can't seem to find it on the This is London website now. Just a statement on how Multiplex, responsible for building the stadium, are disappointed the the FA doesn't have 100% confidence in them. Does someone at the Standard have a stake in the deal? No more comments about the Athens Olympics now eh.

Ha ha ha

From: Human Resources
To: London Staff

Dear All,

Our company is going to be considered for inclusion on the Financial Times "UK's 50 Best Workplaces" list which is published in May this year.

The Great Place to Work Institute who are responsible for compiling the list will send you an email with a link to an employee survey regarding employee opinions.

This is an independent survey, so feel free to be honest and candid. No one from the company will see your responses.

If you have any questions about the authenticity of this survey pleace contact : [email@greatplacetowork.co.uk].

Thankyou for your participation.

Phone tracking

This article's quite interesting, albeit a little too full of conspiracy theory and fear-mongering. Describes how to track someone's whereabouts through their GSM phone. You may have read it already, but since it doesn't tell you which sites allow you to do this, I thought I'd point you in the right direction.

Bad two verse

It's Valentine's; as everyone knows
A time for poets to compose.
I'm far less romantic than any rose
So this is how my sonnet goes:

Ain't iambic pentameters curious
constructions! Scansion should not present
much difficulty but, in this event
words sound contriv'd if not plain spurious
(especially when endurious
attempts are made to rhyme). Consent
to form won't necessarily prevent
disharmony. Despite my furious
travails, it's not the metre which assails
me. Sesquipedalian form curtails
the opportunity to raise a laugh:
five feet of philology fail to fire
much comedy when witty words require
one syllable, or fewer, maybe ha-
lf?

An interesting article to tide you over

Extended browsing

Winners of the extend Firefox contest should be announced next week. Some of these extensions really do contribute considerably to the browsing experience: I particularly recommend from the shortlist the All-In-One Sidebar (which is great even on a small screen if you constantly mess about with your browser), IE Tab (though its concept as a contest entry seems to be shooting the browser slightly in the foot), Viamatic foXpose (even better than tabbed browsing!) and Web Developer (for really advanced browsing).
There are a few other extensions that you should definitely consider in addition to those shortlisted: Nuke Anything Enhanced which allows you to remove objects (such as Flash adverts) from the webpage; OpenBook which enables you to manage your bookmarks better; Print Image, Print / Print Preview and Resize Search which are simple but invaluable tools that will hopefully appear in the core product one day; StumbleUpon, which I've mentioned before and puts a bit of fun into browsing; and Tab Mix Plus, which is one of the best extensions I've seen, albeit it with a bewildering array of configuration possibilities.
Take some time to take a look and improve your browsing experience (notwithstanding this blog of course).

Do Not Abuse

O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.

Taking DNA samples from criminals is undoubtedly useful when it comes to diagnosing crimes. You simply swab the evidence, do a look-up against your criminal record database and go and pick up the culprit. There are of course ways to destroy DNA evidence on the crime scene -- chlorine in particular -- but generally it should put the fear into criminals who're on a register that they will be caught if they leave a single hair behind.
But that's about using evidence from the scene against people who have shown themselves to be a menace to society and may therefore be suspect: repeat offenders, particularly in violent crime. It is utterly different from rounding up any old person, taking a sample of their DNA and telling them that they have criminal propensities which are held against them for life. This is what's happening in the UK.
Currently the police can use any powers they choose -- mostly under prevention of terrorism -- to stop you, take a sample and hold it indefinitely. So it is that we find that those on the database represent less the targetted group of suspects from the original design, than a reflection of prejudice on the part of members of our police force. Accordingly, 37% of black men are held on the index (versus 9% of white), while there are 24,000 children have their DNA records stored indefinitely, irrespective of even charges being pressed. You simply have to be stopped and your DNA can be taken.
Why should anyone fear their presence on the list if they're not going to commit a crime, is the typical response. There are a number of issues, notwithstanding assumption of criminality being an infringement of our civil liberties. As biometric data is stored on passports and ID cards, the police will be able to track you wherever you travel -- indeed prevent you travelling should they choose, with no justification required. Moreover, this data can be shared, willfully or unwillingly. It may be stolen, or sold to insurance companies vetting your health or other profiles. If you don't believe me, you should see how wide the electoral register or your credit history are spread: political parties in the UK even used credit records to profile swing voters at the last general election.
I'm not trying to sound like there's a conspiracy theory out there where a police state is trying to monitor our every move: for a start the logistics in retaining so much data would be vast. There is nevertheless an erosion of values of liberty.
Slowly, progressively, irrevocably, the police and government request ever more pervasive rights. Each preceding erosion acts as a justificaiton of the next. We will, within 10 years, be carrying ID cards that hold this data and many people will have access to it, but it will do nothing to serve us.

Cartoon Violence

We've been enduring some more debate about "freedom of speech" recently; and as usual it stands on shaky ground, advocated unthinkingly by the blasé or in bad faith by the malevolent.
I have long been of the opinion that freedom of speech is not an inaliable right; indeed it is not enshrined by European countries in the same way as it is in the US constitution. You should earn your right to express your opinion. What gives anyone the right to spout any old bollocks? Or to libel someone? There should be a degree of self censorship, a sense of responsibility that we take to inform ourselves before we opine.
This means that if we say something malicious, we may be punished, just as the BNP tossers should be for their racist claptrap. Here they took time to gloss the Coran and foment prejudice, willfully and spitefully. But because we're so used to people reiterating nonsense on our TV screens everyday -- I'm not just looking at Fox here -- under the banner that they are allowed to express themselves, which juror who holds sympathy with some elements of BNP fallacies on multiculturalism and who sees a need for debate is going to convict these deeply spiteful and dishonest people?
But I didn't even want to talk about them; I wanted to talk about cartoons.
If ever there was one area of expression that needed to be informed, it was satire. What's the use of mocking someone's behaviour if it's so wide of the mark as to be unrecognisable? Unfortunately, the cartoons printed in Danish and French newspapers showing Mohammed as a bomber draw some resonance with their audience. They are more or less funny and more or less offensive. And so we have on the one hand police pulling aside young Asian men at Euston under an obscene prevention of terrorism act, and on the other Egyptians who fear that they can't travel to the UK because they are Muslim.
I digress, since my point is how the editors who publish these cartoons stake a claim to be allowed to do so. If we see cartoons in European papers mocking Jesus, we know people take offence, but we live in a suitably liberal society that most Christians recognise their way of life may be mocked and there is value in it. Many Muslims protesting about these cartoons do not live in such a liberal society and moreover do not wish to live in one. Their values should not be allowed to impose on our own society's values however.
If you see an inconsistency in this response to two arguments for freedom of speech, one for the BNP and one for the Danish press, look again. The former is indefensible because it impinges upon the way we should live our lives in tolerance; the latter is defensible because the reaction is based on intolerance. This is not to say that I agree with the cartoons themselves; one of the issues that Europeans have to face in this kind of religious satire is that when they mock Christianity, they mock a culture to which they themselves belong; they can argue that they're laughing with Christians. When they mock Islam, they are laughing at someone else.
Generally, my response to the cartoon is as such: the Danish paper should have been allowed to publish the cartoon but shouldn't have felt the need to; this was exacerbated in the case of France Soir which was well within its rights to publish, and there was no excuse for the owners to sack the editor; the reaction in some parts of the Muslim world has been wholly and unjustifiably racist against Danish society in general.
In summary, the whole episode simply reflects human stupidity. Can a cartoon really provoke such a violent response? When will these stubborn people from all parties recognise that they have to live with each others differences? There's ample scope for satire in that subject matter.
You can find some excellent comment and cartoons on Cagle's Web Log.

• Cartoon 1
• Cartoon 2
• Cartoon 3
• Cartoon 4
• Cartoon 5
• Cartoon 6
• Cartoon 7
• Cartoon 8
• Cartoon 9

If music be the food of gov

If you were able to endure my project management take on Elvis, I'm sure you'll enjoy this musical satire from the Capitol Steps site. It has a very U.S. focus as you'd expect from the title, but I'm sure you'll enjoy listening to On the Sunni side of Tikrit among others.

Hello, world

This is funnier if you work in a web development agency: www.icarus.net/johnjo/evolutio.htm

Welcome back

Evening all. Apologies for the absence.
I've had nothing to contribute so, unlike certain Polly Filla or Phil Space blogs, haven't said anything.
Had a good holiday? The highlight of mine was popping out for a suburban lunch with the missus and friend, when we saw Paul Young.
- I didn't know he lived around here, said our friend.
- It's wherever he lays his hat, I responded.
That was my best joke of the holiday period. A Christmas Cracker, some might say.