It Isn't Easy Being a Cop

For me, the worse job in policing is looking through the possessions of a murder victum. A lot of the time when a murders an open-and-shut case, which mostly they are, it's not necessary to do it,  but sometimes there's no choice, and it's a painful process, the reason being that it puts flesh and bones on people, gives you insigts into what made them tick, this only serves to make them more human. When you've trying to rational and objective, this is something you really could do without.

Bent cop DS Dennis Milne

in Simon Kernick's

The Business of Dying

Where To Get Bombed In London

Bomb Sight is the perfect tool for the time traveler to London during the Blitz. Bombs are given their times and locations. It is remarkable how evenly distributed are the bomb sites across London. Looking at the above map of the bombs that fell on Westminster you could imagine in retrospect that the famous bunkers that were built, Churchill War Rooms, were probably not needed. For me the scariest thing is how the government bunkers of WWII presaged the "government continuity plans" in the nuclear age.

George Orwell's Dickensian Existence

...in the new year[1947] he [Orwell] stayed in London for one of the coldest British winters on record and with such a national shortage of fuel that he burnt his furniture and his child's toys.

wiki entry for George Orwell.

Understanding The Drinking Writer

I think that anyone who writes and likes a drink creates an romantic relationship between alcohol consumption and creativity.

Pete Brown, Beer Writer.

 in BBC Timeshift: The Rules of Drinking

When a beer writer says something like that you have to take it as given.

Doctor Who / James Bond Mashup

In a thread on AH.com about how to fit all the plots of the Bond movies into one storyline, Rationalised James Bond Universe, there is a link to something else. Lavanya Six provides a link to a story, Recap, by Adrian Tullberg. It explains all of the  inexplicable details of Mr Bond.

The End of Piano-Industrial Complex

In a Ken Burns documentary, I forget which, there was a reference to how in the late 19th century more American homes had pianos then indoor plumbing. They were aspirational object that signaled one's arrival into middle class gentility. In the TV documentary The 1900 House a piano was installed in to the parlor. A Globe & Mail story a few years back profiled a family of recent Chinese immigrants. The father was an engineer, now a factory foreman. They lived in a cramped basement apartment, with a piano but no TV. Piano sales are up in China.

Today is different. The above image is from a BBC report of a London piano restorer, Will your piano end up in the dump? The piano being dissembled was made in London's former piano district.  It was judged and found wanting. Its parts well go on to other uses, other pianos. The Image below, Elergy, is from a show The Piano as Art, by Penny Putnam and Shauna Holiman.

The newer cultural artifact of our age is the TV. Soon there won't be any cathode ray tube televisions left, there will be hauled away as trash. The factories that made them are also gone.

Here is an example of a new player piano system that can also replicate a full range of volume, from piano to forte. Looking at through the site of the people who created the modern player piano industry suffers from proprietary and shifting technological standards.

Unused Propaganda and the Earlier Drafts

I had always assumed that was an example of WWII British propaganda that has its uses in that war along with aircraft recognition  posters, "loose lips sink ships" and "is this journey really necessary?'. Not forgetting thsee misogynistic anti-VD posters,"she may look clean". I didn't know that these posters were locked away only to used in event of "aquatic feline" aka Unternehmen Seelöwe. In the nature of advertising there were earlier versions of this poster, "Keep Calm and Carry On", that didn't fully meet with client approval as seen below. It makes one wonder about what Strangelovian materials were created "in the event of" for the edification of those who remained.

 First version

 Second version

The images / screen captures of the earlier versions of KCaCO are from the documentary Ian Hislop's Stiff Upper Lip - An Emotional History Of Britain.

Advertising at the BBC, Really

The BBC is famous for not being advertising supported network. Just now I went to there for a news story, Boris Johnson hails 'Olympomania' for torch at Hyde Park. It was preceded by a ad from HP. Admittedly video from the BBC is normally blocked to non-UKians.

When Not To Wear Tie

On Downton Abbey S03E04 the only proper times for not wearing a tie is:

when one is grievously  injured

on one's deathbed

Friends and Allies

Are we to be friends then?

Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham

We are allies, my dear. Which can be a good deal more effective.

Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham

The Magic Key From Doctor Who to The Secret Diary of a Callgirl

Every London's girl dream, my own front door.

Rose has the same bright, light emitting key
as in Dr Who ,
Secret Diary of a Call Girl S04E01

Home Appliances Fed On Rotting Flesh.

Carnivorous Domestic Entertainment Robots from Auger-Loizeau on Vimeo.

Years ago there was a bug zapper ad featuring Vincent Price. As the bugs were consumed he would chortle an evil laugh. Unfortunately I can't find it on Youtube. These innovative designs are part of an experiment in "predatory cyborg furniture". The only design that seems really gross is the coffee table that eats mice.

This is also got a mention on NPR, Meat-Eating Furniture, and slashdot, Designers Create Meat Eating Furniture.

Upstairs, Downstairs Economics: Junior Maid

What do they pay you?

dissolute artist

Mind your business.

Sarah

₤10 a year and a bed in the basement.

dissolute artist

No, its twice that much and and a room in the attic.

Sarah

Upstairs,Downstairs S01E02

The cost of employing a junior maid in 1904 for a year plus room and board in today's values:

£8,550.00
using the average earnings

£10,100.00
using the per capita GDP

£14,800.00
using the share of GDP

A Warning from Beyond the Grave

From a link at AH.com.

A famous actor appears in a PSA urging viewers to help donate to research the disease that killed him...while making jokes at his own gravesite*!

Fuck Xmas - Eric Idle

Undercover Cops - The Best Liars Ever?

He continued smoking while we continued questioning him carefully and as diplomatically as possible about the aspects of his testimony the previous evening, trying our best not to rile him, but I think it was too late for that. He answered the questions without pause and didn't appear to be lying, but of course you wouldn't be able to tell with a man like him anyway. His whole job was one lie after another...

DI Gallan questioning Stegs
in The Crime Trade by Simon Kernick

The "Reliable" Criminal

"...They're reliable."

Which was a refrain I'd heard plenty of times before about criminals. They're reliable. The problem was, for most part, they weren't. They tended to be paranoid, highly strung, violent, and often drugged up, which was a pretty lethal combination. In the course of my career I've had two guns pulled on me, four knives, an axe, a tyre iron, even a fake medieval ball and chain. I've been held down by a gang of crazed thugs, flying on a diet of vodka and crack, who doused me in petrol and threatened to burn me alive unless I gave them the drugs I was supposedly carrying (I didn't, and they didn't), and many's the time I've woken up wondering when my luck's going to run out.

Undercover cop Sean Egan
in Simon Kernick's
The Last 10 Seconds.

Churchill Pwns Hitler

Found in the shallower waters
of the time wasting swamp that is
The Cheezburger Netwowork

This could also be
Amateur artist beats failed art student
Battalion commander beats corporal

Dark Tormented Cops

There is a great examination of the genre of hard edged British crime drama in a recent LA Times, British TV cops are a tormented lot.

Reporting from London — Channel-surf almost any night of the week in Britain and chances are you'll come across a gruesome crime drama featuring a dark and tortured soul whose brutal, morally repellent deeds make you recoil in horror.

And that's just the detective.

To this I would also add Judge Dredd, a combination cop, judge, jury and executioner tracking down perps for such crimes as littering, jay walking, theft and murder. Dystopic policing for a distopic world.

What Harm could a Leopard Do