October 31st, 2009 10:53pm
billmarshall
I had a delightful surprise last night. On the way to visit a friend I passed by a park area near my home. The park isn’t lit and the trees surrounding it still have enough leaves to keep most of the streetlight out. Walking by, my eye was caught by a flicker of light and looking closer I realised that it was coming from a mobile phone held by one of two youngsters of maybe 14 years old who were lying on the ground. Slightly puzzled I was about to move on when I caught another movement nearby – a bushy tail – which as my eyes adjusted to the darkness resolved into a young fox about 10 feet from the youths. As I stood and watched I realised that they must have been keeping very still for some time and that the flicker of light was from one of them trying to film the fox on his mobile.
They were doing an excellent job of avoiding disturbing the fox and I watched it move gradually closer until it was within about 2 feet of one of the boys, probably hoping that they had some food but showing remarkably little fear of them for such a streetwise creature. It was an enchanting sight.
The fox looked to be in good condition so there must be plenty of food available here in the centre of the city. Good to see such an animal flourishing so close to us. Equally encouraging to see two young lads appreciating it too. It’s so easy to fall for the trap of the tabloid media’s demonisation of young people, and assume whenever you see youngsters at night that they must be up to no good. These two were showing quite the opposite and clearly were delighted to be so close to a wild creature and must have been displaying great patience and reserve to be tolerated and trusted by that fox. I hope they managed to get some footage on their phone and that they continue to be enthralled by the natural world.
October 14th, 2009 04:43pm
billmarshall
You know there’s something strange happening to the world when you find yourself almost agreeing with Rupert Murdoch!
What cataclycm could cause this abberation? Google’s attempt to take over the world of books and the Associated Press’s attempts to battle them in the area of news generation.
Actually given the all powerful search engine’s involvement I’m not sure whether this post belongs here or on my SEO Blog, but I think my history in the book trade means it should be here. Though my time at James Thin Booksellers now seems an age away and most of my reading seems to be online these days, I still love books and have the greatest respect for the people that write them. At one time I also had great respect for quality journalists, particularly those of The Scotsman who were trained under Alastair Dunnett, but I seldom see any these days – the newspapers I used to devour are now riddled with spelling and grammar errors, poor writing devoid of any sense of rhythm, and little recognisable research.
The news moguls are concerned about the use of their “quality content” by other people, often without attribution, and are trying to find ways of getting people to pay for it. They see Google as a major and increasing problem because more and more they are delivering not just search results but sizable extracts, which in our short attention span world can mean that people don’t even need to visit the news sites at all. If they don’t visit then they don’t see the adverts or don’t consider paying for premium content. Since hardly anyone actually buys a physical newpaper these days that’s the end of their business model.
Now it has to be said that Associated Press don’t seem to have much a of a clue about the web and what it is or how it works. They’ve spent some years trying to avoid people linking to their sites – without paying for the priviledge – and for a while they tried to avoid deep-linking completely. They don’t seem to get that the web is about links. They also seem to have little idea of collaboration or any form of trying to profit from their work other than by direct sales and direct advertising. Essentially they don’t seem to have adjusted to the modern wired world and have decided that Google are their main bogey-man.
Now so far you may not have much sympathy for them, but there’s another side to all this and that’s copyright. If you respect writers (and musicians as well) then you want to see them paid for their efforts or they might just stop producing the literature, quality news articles, or music that we appreciate so much, or at best they might be unable to spend so much time on it and lose quality. For that reason I’m in favour of copyright, although I appreciate that it may need to develop in order to cope with the digital world of the 21st century. While I would be happy to see increased availability of out-of-copyright and some out-of-print material, at the end of the day I can’t agree with breach of copyright.
Some people, particularly in the USA, seem to have a rather extended view of the idea of “fair use” – the principle that allows quoting of work for review or criticism for instance. Plagiarism seems to be all too common and lifting of content just because it happens to be on the web seems to be accepted. It’s in this vein that the increasing indexing and display of site content seems to be considered reasonable. But even if you accept that, how can you tolerate the wholesale copying of books and the assumption that because you did the work of copying you suddenly have the right to make money out of them. I was brought up to understand that the action of copying or storing in a reproducible medium was itself illegal – copyright notices generally say so explicitely – yet some major academic libraries have collaborated with Google in doing this very thing.
Frankly I’m astonished that major publishers didn’t immediately slap court orders on Google to prevent such copying. They didn’t seem to wake up to the fact of what was going on and didn’t protest loudly enough when Google suggested that they could opt out if they wanted to. The principle of copyright should give the owner the assumption that they don’t have to run around opting out of someone else’s attempt to steal their work. Maybe the publishers were hoping they’d get a cut later, maybe they just didn’t understand the internet in the same way as they seem not to understand ebooks.
Google almost got away with it by paying various large sums to writers and publishers organisations but now we’ve got governments intervening as they realise the problems of monopoly that are arising. American federal regulators stepped in to prevent the latest agreement going through following a wave of complaints, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the latest major figure to speak out against the whole idea as she opened the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair a few days ago.
I’m very aware that what I’ve written here is less than an iceberg tip of a very large and complex subject and I could easily spend months researching the various implications. There are, for instance, questions of privacy and confidentiality in accessing the planned book repository, questions about whether Google is trying to make profit from out of print books, and probably many more.
The trouble is we’ve already allowed Pandora’s Box to be opened by allowing the copying in the first place – mesmerised by Google’s self-appointed task to index all the information in the world. What gives them the right to do that? And what do we do if they succeed and establish a monopoly? So just this once I reckon I’m happy to see a media mogul go up against them if it means that this whole subject gets a thorough airing and people and governments realise the implications of allowing copyright to be ignored.
September 15th, 2009 03:31pm
billmarshall
Today saw an announcement of a further reduction in Edinburgh’s once famous publishing industry. The offices of Chambers, respected worldwide for their dictionaries and established way back in 1819 by brothers William and Robert Chambers, are to close. 27 staff will be affected and the remainder of the work will move to London.
Thus is cut another tie to the literary past – Chambers were the publishers of the Songs of Robert Burns amongst many important works. I remember when it was common to see their dictionaries in school classrooms and I think my dad still has the big thick dictionary he bought to help with my studies when I was young.
Apparently the heads of Chambers Harrap, as the company has been for some time, tried to sell it but couldn’t find a buyer. It seems we all use the internet for reference material these days and sales of dictionaries have declined markedly.
A sad day, and I fear my old boss Jimmy Thin will be spinning in his grave.
July 18th, 2009 02:03pm
billmarshall
This time last year I was commenting on how pleased I was to see Greg Norman leading the Open at the age of 53. Greg wasn’t quite able to prevail against the immaculate play of Padraig Harrington but what he achieved was superb. This year with the third round at Turnberry just underway we’re seeing an even more amazing situation – Tom Watson at the age of 59 and having had a hip replacement last year is joint leader.
Watson is of course a legend – 5 times a winner in the event and the star of possibly the finest golf battle ever when at this very Turnberry links he and Jack Nicklaus left a star-studded field for dead and played out what was effectively a match-play event for the last two days with an unbelievable finish which saw Watson win by a single stroke.
Universally loved by the Scottish golf crowd, as much for his gentle and respectful manner and his appreciation of links golf and its history as for his achievements in the game, Watson comes across as a really nice guy, and it’s hard to believe he’s now almost 60. Especially when he’s sweeping golf balls miles down the fairway with a swing that’s as pure as any seen in the game since Sam Snead.
His first round here was immaculate. In the second round he had a bad patch early on in very difficult conditions and most folk watching probably thought that was his cue to fade out and leave it to the youngsters. Not a bit of it! He may look like your favourite granddad but he still has a champion’s competitive nature, a game honed for wind and links play, and knows this course better than almost anyone. Yesterday he also putted better than he had since his halcyon days.
It would of course be nothing short of miraculous if he could win it, but with Tiger out, Harrington having hit a bad patch after a superb couple of years, and Garcia seemingly unable to putt, you have to romantically wonder if experience could maybe just count. It would be a fairytale and it would be the most popular outcome you could imagine. Whatever happens Tom, thanks for the wonderful memories and, go on – do it one last time!!
May 22nd, 2009 01:40pm
billmarshall
Transport in Britain is awful. Transport in Edinburgh is approaching catastrophic.
A few months ago I decided to buy a car, something I hadn’t had since 2002. I had resisted this for a long time as I knew the Edinburgh traffic would make for a frustrating commute, and I enjoyed the mile walk across country from the railway station to my current place of work, but after three train cancellations in 10 days including being stranded in Uphall in freezing conditions by a complete shutdown of the line and being left without any information on alternatives, I decided enough was enough and a car was duly purchased.
Now of course this was the worst possible time to switch to road transport as Edinburgh is currently in the throws of traffic chaos with much of the city streets being dug up for the purpose of moving utilities to allow tram lines to be put in.
Now initially I was quite favourably disposed to the idea of a tram system. I am generally in favour of both trains and trams as efficient, fast, and clean methods of transport, having had positive experiences of trains in Switzerland, Austria and Germany, and of trams in cities like Amsterdam and Innsbruck. It’s just that in this country we seem to be completely incapable of running them – they are habitually late, often cancelled and hideously expensive.
If we were getting a real tram network in Edinburgh it might just be worth the current upheaval and disruption; but we’re not. Now that the Roseburn to Granton spur (which should have been cheaper since it ran on a former railway line) has been cancelled due to lack of money, we’re getting a single line. A line that won’t even be useful to most people. It won’t even go all the way to the airport – it’ll stop at a park and ride carpark where travellers will have to switch to a bus – and it will have only one stop in the whole length of Princes Street. Now we hear that some genius in the council has said that since the “diversions” have been so successful they now want to keep Princes St (currently completely dug up and fenced off for the forseeable future) not only free from cars but free from buses as well!!
Ignoring for the moment the incredible idea that having a city reduced to gridlock with the massive increase in pollution and fuel consumption and the loss of working time for our commercial centres could possibly be described as successful, the idea that buses should not be allowed to use the main street in the capital city (and incidentally one of the very few east-west corridors across the city centre) is staggeringly stupid. What do we tell tourists who want to visit attractions in the city centre?
‘No the buses don’t run to there any more and the trams are only an option if you are staying along the Glasgow Road cos they don’t go anywhere else in the city, and even then they only stop in one place along Europe’s most scenic street of over a mile in length.’
They’ll think we’re mad.
And the locals? Well the journey times will all be permanently slower because all the buses will have to take a tortuous route around to Queen Street which is where all the other traffic is as well.
But hey, half the shops in the city centre have closed down because of the tram-related road works in the last two years already, so why would anyone want to go into the city centre? The shopping has been crap for years and most people go to out-of-town centres, Livingston or even Glasgow to shop. And given the planning disasters that the council have perpetrated recently we’ll probably lose our world heritage status anyway so there’ll be fewer tourists. Hmm, why were we putting in trams again?
Listen up council. I’ve lived virtually all of my life in Edinburgh and I’ve always loved it. But if I were 21 again now I’d move somewhere else because you’re making it a nightmare.
March 15th, 2009 08:43pm
billmarshall
A mild Edinburgh day – I was able to wash the windows today without freezing to death – has made me realise that Spring is finally here. And yet is seems the last three months have flown by. My last post was in December and it seems I’ve had no time whatever to do any of the routine things that I would expect. The SpiderWriting SEO blog was last updated in August, the Dunnett blog in November; people I care about I’ve hardly been in touch with. What is it about Winter that seems to soak up the available hours? In some ways I feel as if I’ve hibernated since returning from Madeira and yet in other ways I’ve never stopped dashing about solving problems.
Madeiran review
The week I spent in that delightfully mild climate was a ideal rest that was badly needed. I’d intended to do some walking in the highland areas using the astonishing range of Levadas – the irrigation channels that bring the water from the cloud-covered hills to the farming areas and villages of the coast. In the event I found the whole atmosphere of the island so relaxed that I just leant back and enjoyed the unaccustomed lack of stress. I can see why so many people from stressed out Britain love this island so much. Nearly everyone from the UK that I spoke to was on at least their 8th visit and some had made arrangements to retire there. With an average temperature of between 18 and 24 degrees all year round it’s an ideal environment for anyone who can’t take the extremes of heat that are liable to be found in Spain or the Mediterranean. If I didn’t have my eyes on retiring to Slovenia I might well consider it.
I was particularly looking forward to the food and wine, and it didn’t disappoint. The seafood in particular was excellent and the restaurants wonderfully friendly. The Madeiran and Portuguese wine went down very well indeed – quite different from my normal preferences but matching the food very well.
Sadly the friend I referred to in the last posting succumbed to the cancer she’d fought for so long in the early hours of New Years Day. It made a sombre start to the year, the only blessing being that she was no longer suffering. The only other downer of the week was the return home. The plane we were due to be on had apparently been in an accident with a ground vehicle and a new plane had to be summoned. A long delay meant that instead of arriving in Glasgow at tea-time I only just got back in time to get the last train back to Edinburgh at 11.30pm. Not the return I’d hoped for.
By the time I’d become re-accustomed to the freezing Scottish conditions I had realised how empty the flat seemed without my flatmate, particularly when it proved impossible for her to come back for our friend’s funeral. In fact it she has still not returned but is due back next week. In the meantime I’ve been knocking the flat into shape – styling it to my own preferences while keeping an eye on what she might prefer. It still needs some painting in the living room and that will have to be done now that the light is improving but
it’s a lot more like a home than it was. Though she’s only back for a short time I’m hoping it’ll meet with her approval.
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