Craig Sawyers

I never thought this ridiculous product would see the light of day. What an awful concept. But Dyson have had much more serious products bomb. They developed a washing machine. Normally washing machines have a big block of concrete in the back to stop the spin cycle from making the machine jump around and shake itself to bits. Which is why washing machines are stupidly heavy. Dyson came up with a contra rotating drum and active stabilization. A superb idea - much lighter weight, quiet (because Dyson understand motors) - and so punishingly expensive that very few bought it. Let's not forget that James Dyson's first product was the Ball Barrow - the usual wheel on a wheel barrow was replaced by a ball - so you could turn corners more easily. Of course lots of companies make them now because Dysons' patent on this is long expired. But typical of the man - he took the concept of a ball on an axle to boat launching and other marine activities. But the product that came to define him was the cyclone vacuum cleaner. Developed in his back room of his modest house. Then Hoover took his patent, copied it and started making them. Dyson fought back, and won with massive punitive damages. But the reviews have it right for the daft headphone/filter thing. All Dyson's current products are to do with motor technology and filtration, and excellent product form and feel. And this massive headphone construct with the mask is no exception. For all its weight and laughable appearance, it is superbly designed and built.

This made me think of

Actually two days ago. Went to see a play at Chichester, in the tiny Minerva theatre https://www.preevue.com/projects/minerva-theatre . The play was called 4000 miles, and we really went to see it because it has Eileen Atkins in it. A titan of theatre and movies. She was splendid, but looked a bit old (the character was of an old woman). It was only when we got home and checked: 88. Still treading the boards at 88! Hell she started as a professional leading actor in 1953 - three years before I was born. This is she - courtesy of Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Atkins

The Mad Max beyond Thunderdome movie was released (good grief) in 1985 - so Turner was an awesome looking 46 year old. Gibson was a whole lot younger at 29.

We expect our icons to go on forever, and are shocked when they grow old and shuffle off. RIP Tina. On another RIP, Professor Vicky Neale at Oxford and a specialist in number theory, a broadcaster with Radio 4's More or Less, has died aged 39 from a rare form of cancer (and fuck cancer royally) https://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/neale/

That is a classic collection Dusty - I'm still laughing!

Happy birthday Brent - hope you're having a great one!

Or even

Alternatively

I've been fiddling around with the image, cropping it and enhancing it. As far as I can make out the top line is "Juliette Bat(e)y" But I can find no album by anyone of that name. It could have been a demo pressing. Maybe someone else might have more luck finding it.

You have no idea what we have had to put up with in the UK on this. It has been pretty much saturation on radio and TV for a good week before the coronation. By the way, there is a war raging in Ukraine and Sudan - 10 seconds - but what about the coronation chaps! BBC1, BBC2 and ITV showed it simultaneously, and if you missed a bit it was available on +1 and on streamed catch up. My daughter and her husband watched it in Australia, but they didn't get a week of preamble, so they were less jaded by the whole thing. Turned on in the evening, and a bit like football pundits there was a post coronation analysis running.

Same thing happened to Dave Swarbrick, violin player and singer in Fairport Convention. He used to make a joke of it and announce his demise before a concert, handing out signed copies of his obituary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Swarbrick He ultimately did die aged 75. As a lifelong chain smoker, he had shot lungs, and after three tracheostomies used to perform with an oxygen cylinder and mask next to him that he had to puff on during a gig. He was a seriously determined performer. He needed a lung transplant to save his life, but our health service wanted nothing to do with him and a private operation was the only way. So the folk singing community held a series of concerts called SwarbAid to raise money for the treatment. That bought him 10 years, during which I saw him in a tiny folk venue with Martin Carthy a a year before Swarb actually did die. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Carthy

I thought - Oh fuck. Then checked, and she's still alive and kicking. Phew!

Hope it as a good trip! Open invite if you find yourself in the UK - you'll get a tour of historic Oxford for starters.

You're in Normandy? Are you coming to the UK on the way home?

Second season of Happy Valley is better, and the final season is totally awesome. Only 6 shows per season - so 18 in all. Sarah Lancashire is one of the best actors around. The writer Sally Wainwright specifically wrote the script with Lancashire in mind as the lead character.

I am so emotional at that. Not only Joni Mitchell in her best Blue period - but Dylan and Lightfoot accompanying. Oh man.

That octopus did not just do it once. Each morning there was an aquarium power outage and the 2,000W spot was blown. After a number of days, they staked out the tank at night and caught Otto blowing the lamp with a squirt of water. He also juggled with hermit crabs and rearranged his tank to suit his taste. A very strange lifeform with a distributed brain - 2/3 of which are in the arms. It has as many neurons as a dog. Hence the creature's smartness. I really don't have a problem with beef, pork, lamb or chicken. It is my view that these animals have done very well in terms of population by the fact we eat them. But I'm now unhappy about eating octopus, delicious though it may be - in raw intelligence it is similar to eating a dog. Deliciousness was the reason the dodo became extinct. The flightless and friendly bird was just too darned superb to eat. So sailors just ate all of them.

RIP Gordon Lightfoot at age 84. Much of his music defined the 70's, certainly for me.

And we cheerfully eat these clearly sentient creatures? Discuss.

Just finished watching all three series of Happy Valley on catchup. Stunning script and stunning acting. Award winning. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3428912/

Alternatively alas in Texas https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65437185

Happy birthday Kevin - have a truly spectacular one!

And this is the story of Abraham Wald and survivorship bias https://medium.com/@penguinpress/an-excerpt-from-how-not-to-be-wrong-by-jordan-ellenberg-664e708cfc3d