Dec
11
My, isn’t it tall? It’s so tall I can see it from where I live, which is saying something. I mean, I know ‘my isn’t it tall’ is a fairly obvious statement, but then, really, the Shard, is there much else to say? Because really.. honestly… but my, it is tall, isn’t it?
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/12/11/the-shard-an-update/
Dec
08
I’m not musicals woman.
Which is ironic, considering I’m in the process of lighting one. One with a huge set, a lot of dance number, and no room to put any booms in, if anyone’s concerned. Also, I realise, thinking about it out loud, no room to fly a bar in any lower than about 8m, which does kinda put pay to fly floor skimmers… anyway, where was I… oh yes, musicals?
I’ve never really got into them, I’ve never really seen many, and I should also add that me and kids shows tend not to get along. And I tell you all this so you understand that when I say GO SEE MATILDA in the West End, I am the most surprised of anyone to discover myself giving it emphatic capital letters. It’s delightful, joyous, funny, witty, colourful, vibrant, and even has (very few) cheap tickets for under 25s.
Go see right, right now.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/12/08/matilda-the-musical/
Dec
07
Can someone explain spam to me?
No, but really?
What is the point of it? Why? I understand computer fraud, and get quite excited now whenever I receive an email inviting me to change my security details by putting in my username and password, or asking me if I’ve considered the benefits of CASH CASH CASH to be won. I enjoy the spelling mistakes, appreciate the occasionally florid language, and get a tingle of satisfaction in seeing the ways in which website names have been so cunning adapted to make you believe that HSBC genuinely does want your data, or the Nat West is looking for a way to verify your account.
I can also appreciate some of the sheer brilliance that goes into modern day computer hacking, and am fascinated by the technology of it and the skills involved. The notion that, even as I write this, a computer program might be recording my every keystroke, or using my computer as a server for someone else, engages that part of my brain which enjoys an intellectual challenge, even if it rouses to fury that part which has two novels to finish up and an anti-virus system which keeps on asking if I’m sure.
But then there’s spam. It attaches itself to my blog on a regular basis, and on a regular basis I clear it out thanks to wordpress’ filter. It ranges from the vaguely entertaining – a bombardment, for example, of comments from random addresses reading ‘I say, how wonderful!’ or ‘You certainly pinned that one down’ or ‘Couldn’t agree more, if only I could think like that’ designed to play to the ego of the reader, through to the more traditional rxtlyepp@nnzwtiiaslst.com blasting my system with gobbledegook. And here then, is my question…
… why?
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/12/07/spam/
Dec
04
We’ve all seen it.
The little swiggly green line of shame that appears whenever Microsoft Office doesn’t feel comfortable with your syntax. Turning off the ‘check my grammar’ function on my computer is one of the first things I do whenever I get a new word processing program, but I tend to leave spellcheck on, minus most of its functions. I do not, for example, want my occasionally wacky use of capitalisation corrected; if I hit the indent button several times, it is not because I’m having a difficult moment with a recalcitrant little finger, and above all else, more than anything, I refuse to believe that this many words in (British) English have ‘z’ in them.
However, even with spellcheck stripped down to its absolute minimum, I still get the regular red line of reproach on a fairly regular basis. Street slang, it seems, is not permitted by Microsoft, and writing characters such as the Tribe, who talk entirely in text messaging, creates whole pages of red that infuriate the slightly obsessive editor inside of me.
It’s a question which I suspect has been dogging the English language since the time of the Norman conquest… even though, strictly speaking, the way I’m using language when writing the Tribe is wrong, is it still permissible based on usage? I know several people, generally, it has to be said, older people, who get very worked up when they hear people talking on the street, exclaiming in their linguistic pain, “But ‘sick’ isn’t good!” Obviously as someone who’s background is obscenely book-heavy, I’ve been bred to turn my nose up at street slang, but I must admit, listen long enough and even I can appreciate a certain charm in the utterly ungrammatical, entirely incorrect language of the inner city. Often delivered at break-neck speed, and replete with all sorts of filler sounds – ‘yeah man’ and ‘like’ being common exemplars – never-the-less there’s a certain enticing, bantering rhythm about the language of ‘well sick, blood!’ that, for my part, draws the listener in. Even if this wasn’t the case, I don’t think Microsoft can deny that usage is beginning to trump strict grammatical form. If we accept that ‘street’ is going to more and more introduce into the natural flow of our daily language, it does raise another interesting question – if language is mankind’s greatest invention and gift, then will our use of it change us? What will we sound like, in fifty years time, when we’re all talking well street yo, and how will it change our society as a whole? The question is potentially troubling, in that words are often a mirror of society, and as a woman I do begin to question whether being known as a bitchin’ bitch is not, in fact, a linguistic regression to less enlightened times. Then again… ‘bitch’ in that context arguably no longer has the meaning as understood by Microsoft Word… though that could change at any moment, subject to the way the conversation goes. How long, I wonder, until the Prime Minister has to start biggin’ it up with the kidz? And if he does, considering the mastery of saying nothing at great length which politicians have at the moment, will this new use of language be such a bad thing?
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/12/04/talking-street/
Dec
01
While I try to avoid more than one political diatribe a week, it would be a bit daft not to mention the UK’s strike, which happened yesterday. It was, for anyone not aware, a protest across a large number of public-sector unions against pay cuts, redundancies, pension cuts etc. and as if anyone could have any doubt on the subject, I supported it.
I can see the argument against the strike – disruptive, potentially futile, what can really be achieved in this economic climate? Unfortunately I think they’re rather dwarfed by the bigger question, which is this – is our government’s current policy, particularly with regard to the public sector, the right way to handle the situation? And I’m afraid, I’m increasingly thinking not. The phrase ‘I’m no expert’ must in all honesty be thrown out here, but before that’s turned into ammunition for dismissing my point of view I feel I should add that I’m perfectly aware, intelligent (I hope) and as well informed as any citizen taking an interest can be. I’ve heard the various sides of the argument and can’t shake the feeling that these massive – MASSIVE redundancies being proposed in the public sector are entirely dependent on a false notion – towit that the private sector will sweep to our rescue and not only re-employ all the people who will lose their jobs, but employ them better. A notion which, frankly, I consider ridiculous. The private sector of our country is as much in the crap as anyone else, and more importantly, if a private company is asked to step into the shoes of public institutions in such a climate, surely by definition it’s going to cut corners. It will aim to save money, by cutting corners and, quite probably, hiring fewer people for less! The word of the moment, in fact, is ‘out-sourcing’ which is very often code for ‘making some other bugger’s responsibility’ which would be vaguely tolerable, were the things we’re out-sourcing not the life and blood of our country. Schools, hospitals, ambulances, emergency services, local councils – are you really going to convince me that a private sector struck down by the recession in this country are going to somehow run these better once all the people who ran them before have been made redundant? Really?
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/12/01/strikes/
Nov
27
As regular readers of this blog will know, I occasionally get angry about things our government are doing. In fact, over the years, as I’ve become generally more aware of the politics of the UK, I’ve been getting ever angrier. Angry about the BNP, for example; angry about the invasion of Iraq, about our education policy (essentially ‘if you can’t take an exam in it, does it count?’ and, worse, ‘blame the kids’) and of course, most recently, angry about what our government is trying to do to the NHS. I think the thing which has me most worked up is this controversial issue of ‘duty of care’. According to current UK law, the government has a duty of care towards all its citizens, within which few precious words is implied a responsibility to damn well look after us regardless of race, creed, colour and – of course – income. But the NHS reforms currently proposed appears to scrap this, which does raise the question of what the hell it is our government is planning in replacing this idea with? This isn’t the place for my rant on the subject of our health services… I’ve had that one and you can all find it in earlier blogs. This is a more politics-specific rant, as, on the subject of the NHS, and in a rare moment for me, I protested. Not in a very dynamic way, not in a go-out-into-them-mean-streets sorta manner, but through an organisation called 38 Degrees I signed petitions, wrote letters and generally put my name to a collective cry of ‘whoa there jimbo, we’re really not happy about this’. Tens of thousands of others joined in this activity, and we achieved…
… well, not that much.
We didn’t stop the bill, we didn’t stop the government forcing the measures through to the House of Lords for a reading, but I damn well hope we raised questions, led to debates, made our voices known and all the things which frankly, the democratic process stands for. As they say… it’s not always the winning so much as the taking part, which seems the entire democratic system of the UK summed up, however dearly I do wish we’d won.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when a few days ago I received an email entitled ‘You’ve Been Insulted’. At first I assumed it’s spam – spammers these days being highly inventive about the ways they get you to open your inbox – but looking at the email address I recognised it as originating from 38 Degrees, the campaign group I’ve been protesting through.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/11/27/you-have-been-insulted/
Nov
23
Anne McCaffrey died a few days ago, and this is therefore a very brief blog entry to say farewell to an author who, for much of my youth, was one of my favourites and who still remains a firm presence on my shelves. Her Dragonriders of Pern series was one of those that really got me into fantasy as a teenager, and to my mind, no one has done dragons better before or since. The Ship that Sang was a classic story I have rarely seen surpassed, while her Rowan books and the tales of living ships remain, even now, firm fixtures on my bookshelf. She was both that rare thing – a prolific female science fiction writer – and that rarer thing yet, a genuinely talented writer whose works lured people in and held them over the many years in which she wrote. She will be missed by many readers in the years to come.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/11/23/anne-mccaffrey/
Nov
22
“Yo yo, bitches!”
The young man who uttered this phrase is from Teddington, not necessarily your most bitchin’ hood in Middlesex, yo. He’d been in the lighting department for a week and a half, and for the first week and a half he was reasonably sedate. Then suddenly, out of no where, it seemed that he discovered that not only would the department not bite, but that we barely even growled, and he came out of his shell.
“Yo bitches, how’s it hanging?”
The first time he said this, I smiled at the joke. The second time, I rolled my eyes at his debonair wit. By the time I realised that this was going to be how he both began and ended all conversations, I was beginning to get frankly worried. When you’re working a 13-hour day, six days a week, it’s hard to maintain a jovial composure all the time, and in the face of a continual cry of, “Yeah, I’m gonna go get me a bitchin’ bitch!” my usually temperate nature was coming under strain.
Inside part of the set...
It’s the end of another epic fit-up. For two bitchin’ weeks, the lighting department has hauled, heaved and grumbled its way up and down ladders, over lighting bridges and down the sides of some truly epic bits of scenery, all in the name of…
… well, I probably shouldn’t say what it’s in the name of, but I can promise you that Shakespeare would be surprised to discover how much of his work could be interpreted as a farting joke. I was working as a lighting electrician in my favourite theatre, for my favourite lighting designer, and beginning to remember why I’d dreaded fit ups so much in the past. It’s not so much the heavy lifting, the dragging and the hauling… it’s the sheer amount of running up and down you have to do before you’re even in a position to do any of the lifting, dragging and hauling. In a big theatre, there is nothing more frustrating than dragging tools and equipment all the way to the furthest lighting gallery, only to realise that you’ve left the one vital screw you needed back down in the lighting cage, some four minutes of bleak backstage corridor away. There is no such thing as a ‘five minute job’ in this theatre… because first, there’s the ten minute walk before you get to begin the five minute job, and by day 10 of this, your feet really know it.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/11/22/in-the-cage/
Nov
18
“I’m an environmentalist.” It’s something I’ve always wanted to say, but I’ve never quite felt I have the credentials to get away with it. I care about the environment, and in my own bumbling way, try to do my bit – recycle more than I bin, turn lights off, never turn on the boiler if it can be done with the kettle – that sorta stuff – but the term ‘environmentalist’ in my mind implies a whole world of dedication and labour which, frankly, I just haven’t achieved.
I used to have this argument on a fairly regular basis with a friend. It went something like this:
“There’s no point!” quoth he. “Just because you recycle doesn’t mean that everyone else does and you’re so unimportant in the grand scheme of things, what good do you do? You’re not turning off cars, you’re not inventing cold fusion, you’re not finding alternative energy sources or campaigning for whales, how, exactly, does your neurotic ‘turn off the TV when you’re done’ and ‘make sure you don’t leave lights switched on unnecessarily’ help save the planet? It doesn’t!”
And practically speaking, he kinda has a point. But on the other hand, Planet Earth made it to seven billion people a few days ago, and while this makes me so far away from the wrong end of a decimal point, in the grand scheme of things, it’s hardly worth counting, the naive hope exists that if more people think as I do, then we can make a difference. Even if only one in ten people on the planet turn their light bulbs off, that’s still seven hundred million people saving, say, 100W a second, which, 252,000,000,000,000 Joules saved per hour, which seems to me to be quite a lot, and well, I’d feel statistically quite chuffed to think I was part of that one-in-ten statistic. The problem is… once you start thinking like that it’s fairly easy to turn round and go ‘well, others will be part of that one in ten, so I may as well carry on like I do and be part of the nine-in-ten who don’t give a damn’ at which point again, I think the question has to be flagged… you don’t give a damn? You don’t give a damn about the planet? That seems a little narrow-minded, really, not least since all we’re talking about here is turning a light off in your living room.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/11/18/environmentalism/
Nov
14
I like London in the autumn. Make no mistakes, there are certain snags… it gets dark unreasonably early, and I go through multiple pairs of gloves in an attempt to prevent my fingers turning blue (which they do remarkably easily). Getting out of bed becomes harder, and getting back into it takes longer as there’s always that initial shudder of horror as you realise just how far your feet are from your body core, and just how chilly it is down the far end of the blanket.
But there are certain perks. London is a city full of trees, which is a large part of what makes London brilliant, and as the autumn comes everything changes colour as all the leaves fall. There’s certain rituals that can be enjoyed – finding conkers (which I still collect for my Mum, as apparently moths don’t like ‘em) and shuffling through great drifts of leaves being the two obvious examples. The ivy clinging to my estate turns yellow, then brilliant red, while the tops of trees turn a bright, almost tacky yellow. The light, for all that it’s rare, goes this slanting pale creamy colour, turning orange for sunset, and feels somehow both brilliant and thin all at the same time. In short – when it’s not raining – autumn can be an oddly beautiful time of year, even in the city.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.kategriffin.net/2011/11/14/london-autumn/
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