The Frumplingtons

We will be expecting visitors later this morning: it’s Shana’s birthday later this week, so my folks (the senior Frumplingtons) are coming round to pay homage and bring good cheer, in their usual manner.

All of this means I shall have to tidy the floor on my side of the sofa, where half a dozen books and several balls of string have recently accumulated. Not that I intend to go on a mad tidying frenzy, oh no; my alphabet bricks can stay where they are — and if anyone trips over them, well they should look where they’re going, shouldn’t they?

Anyhow, among the stuff that will need putting in some sort of order, are two books I have read over the last week or two: Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure, a brilliantly funny tale of what happened when madcap Dave Gorman accepted the challenge to try and meet ten googlewhacks in a row. There are some serious moments in it: Dave has some strong views on the evolution versus creationism argument, which leads to some awkward moments with some of the people he meets. And Dave also ends up over-indulging himself on a night out in Texas, which is how he comes to have some rather embarrassing artwork indelibly etched on his arm.

The other recommended fun read of the month is The Groundwater Diaries, by Tim Bradford. Tim is originally from our part of the world (Lincolnshire) but has lived in London for several years. The Groundwater Diaries (which I feel would make an excellent television series) is Tim’s account of his quest to discover London’s lost rivers; the once-mighty Fleet, which is now hidden beneath London’s sewers; and the Tyburn, which divides into three branches underneath Buckingham Palace. Tim’s journey is not totally serious however: he finds time to explore the mystical properties of strong lager, completely reinvents (some would say ‘disses’) the traditional poetic form of the haiku, and examines the dubious accuracy of online dream analysts.

Aw, stuff tidying that lot up. I know it’s not exactly the Dewey system, but maybe I’ll just shove ‘em underneath the sofa. Nobody’ll look under there, will they?

Chris

Over the past day or three I have been reading Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller, The Tipping Point. I would review it in minute detail, except for the fact that Shana has yet to read it and I don’t want to spoil her enjoyment by giving too much away. So if you’ve already read it, you’ll know what it’s all about. And if you haven’t…

Well, if you haven’t read the book, all I can tell you is that it is about the triggers that cause ideas, products or even habits (like smoking, for example) to go from being minority interests to being embraced by the mainstream. The Tipping Point is a really absorbing read, with lots of fascinating insights into human nature.

Judged by Malcolm Gladwell’s criteria, The Frumplingtons still has a way to go before we reach our own tipping point. This bit may puzzle Shana, but if you’ve read the book you will understand perfectly when I say We need a maven and we need one now!

Chris

Most of this evening I have been entertaining Shana with my efforts on the Yamaha Portasound PSS-470 electric keyboard. Over the past year I have made good progress with learning proper chords, but mostly what I do is either try to play a well-known tune from the hit parade of yesteryear (one of tonight’s offerings was the Black Lace classic, Agadoo), or attempt to come up with something original. My own stuff veers from a sort of primitive mock blues to a more ambient and relaxed feel as I explore the various instrument sounds that are available to me.

Having recently read Inside Out (drummer Nick Mason’s autobiography and personal history of Pink Floyd) I am reminded that musicians have a name for the kind of aimless tinkering and wanton jamming that I indulge in: they call it ‘noodling around’.

So tonight was noodle night.

By the way, Inside Out is quite a good read. It’s all there, from the early Floyd days, through the supposedly acrimonious split between Roger Waters and the rest of the band. There’s some stuff about Nick Mason’s car racing exploits, including David Gilmore’s horrific accident (off a cliff edge at eighty miles an hour) during filming for Carrera Panamericana. There are plenty of amusing anecdotes, especially about the revolving stage they had to use at one of their gigs, and all the mishaps they have had with inflatable animals. Well worth getting hold of a copy. (It’s a Frumplingtons five-star recommended read.)

And now, back to noodle night…

I tend to be fine with keyboards when I’m playing one-handed. It’s when I try to use both hands, and especially when I try to use both hands with some kind of coordination, that things go awry. There are more bum notes than a tramps’ orchestra. And if you have ever seen footage of comic Norman Wisdom floundering about on stage, calling for Mr Grimsdale, whilst seemingly getting all tangled up in his own jacket and eventually falling over in a heap, you will have a good idea of what things are like.

My solution to the problem is to take the pop star route: just play simple riffs with one finger (two at the most) and spend the rest of the time looking cool and enigmatic, like Russ Mael (or was it Ron? The one with the Hitler tache anyway) out of Sparks; or whatsisname from the Pet Shop Boys; or (if desperate) Richard Clayderman. (No, I’m just joking about him.)

To be perfectly honest, I’m more into percussion really. We have a djembe and a pair of bongos that I will pound vigorously on a fairly regular basis. Failing that, it’s a spoon and the plastic lid of a big coffee can; or a knife and fork on any available wooden surface.

Shana is quite good at percussion too. Especially if I am in the kitchen and am being a trifle too noisy with the cutlery. Bet you never knew the back of your head could sound like a snare drum, did you? Take it from me, it can…

Chris

Here’s a frightening statistic. It’s not what you’d call a life or death issue; as a famous football manager once said, it’s more important than that.

58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.

I wouldn’t mind knowing what the figures are for the UK. There should be some way of finding out, maybe from public library user records or something.

Thanks to Seth Godin for that (via a snippet on Andy Rutledge’s Design View). The original source is parapublishing.com, which seems to be where the trail goes cold.

Trying to look on the bright side here; does a fast-food outlet’s menu count as a book?

Chris

David Bellamy was on television a lot during my childhood years and one thing I remember clearly was his distinctive voice. Most impressionists used to mimic him, and Bellamy himself recalls coming home one day, hearing his own voice from the TV set and finding it was none other than — of all people — Lenny Henry. Funniest of all though, was when David entered (under an assumed name, of course) a David Bellamy impersonation contest on a radio phone-in show. Unbelievably, he reveals in his autobiography, Jolly Green Giant, he only managed to come third.

David Bellamy always seemed to have an infectious enthusiasm not only for plants and conservation in general, but also for life. In Jolly Green Giant, he tells how he and wife Rosemary (also a biologist) suffered a number of personal tragedies; several miscarriages, and two babies who each lived for no longer than one day. One thing that may have helped them through these times is his faith: Bellamy himself has a strong religious background. He is from a Baptist family, but became disillusioned with the Baptists and moved over to the Church of England. It was through the Church that he and Rosemary also adopted and raised several children.

In his professional life, Bellamy has come in for criticism many times. People often misunderstand how he can choose to work with multinational companies who campaigners believe harm the environment. David Bellamy was asked to help on an environmental impact study of oil drilling in the Niger Delta. His opponents were disgusted with him. But Bellamy was able to produce a letter from oil protestor Ken Saro-Wiwa to another member of the Niger Delta Survey, in which Saro-Wiwa had explicitly stated that he was ‘very pleased’ that David Bellamy was taking part, because his and others’ presence might help to “nudge Shell in the right direction”.

While the rest of us despair about the continuing destruction of the planet, whether it is the loss of large parts of the Amazon rainforest, or the extraction of huge amounts of peat that threatens the sensitive ecology of Irish and Canadian peat bogs, David Bellamy can at least console himself with the knowledge that he has been an untiring hands-on campaigner. On the day of his fiftieth birthday (the same day his widowed father had chosen to get remarried) David was languishing in a New Zealand prison cell; he had refused bail after being arrested while protesting at the damming of New Zealand’s last untamed river. People even then asked why he had decided to interfere in other people’s business by joining the demonstrations. He replied simply, “Because I was asked.”

Growing up during the Second World War, David Bellamy recalls all his childhood exploits: how he and his friends would help to collect explosives from crashed doodlebugs to make their own fireworks (he is careful not to disclose the exact formula); until one day when they blew up the bedroom. David remembers how there was still a real sense of community back in those days. That is something that is missing from much of society nowadays (my words, not David’s), as is a sense of integrity. There are too many ulterior motives, and far too many cynics around in the world these days; thank goodness David Bellamy isn’t one of them.

Chris

Before I start, this isn’t the book I was reading that Chris referred to in the previous post!

As a child I always wanted to know how thinks worked, I wouldn’t accept things at face value. I dismantled several alarm clocks under cover of darkness, hoping to piece them back together before morning.

And so it is with violent crimes. It’s not the details of the crime I want to know about, it’s the events leading up to the crime, the life of the criminal that intrigues me. What was it in their life that tipped them over the edge.

‘Guilty By Reason of Insanity, Inside the Minds of Killers’ by Dorothy Otnow Lewis, MD, is one of those books that answered some of my questions.

Dorothy Otnow Lewis is a psychiatrist and together with her colleague Jonathan Pincus a neurologist, studies the minds of killers. The book details many cases, not just high profile ones. It is written with a sprinkling of humour, which lightens the otherwise dark subject it deals with.

This book is not only an intriguing insight into the criminal mind, but also the American justice system, or rather lack of. If you’re in favour of capital punishment, the details of ‘Old Sparky’ might just change your mind.

This quote is also interesting:

…Maybe the prospect of a life sentence would make Connecticut’s delinquents pause and think twice before pulling the trigger or reaching for a knife. Of couse, this change in the law had no such effect. The Donnas and Lee Annes and disadvantaged kids in tough sections of Connecticut’s inner cities did not read the newspapers, much less keep up with the finer points of the law as it applied to juveniles…

So deterrents don’t work, what is the alternative option? You’ll just have to read the book and reach your own conclusion.

Shana

In 1787 Jeremy Bentham designed something he called a Panopticon. It was intended as a radical new type of prison. Inmates would live in their cells in a multi-story circular building, where they could be observed twenty-four hours a day throughout their entire sentence, from a central watchtower.

With the advent of the technological era and especially during the last twenty years, the increase in the number of ways we can be monitored and tracked every day, whether by CCTV, or by GPS devices in our cars and cellphones, or via Internet purchases and communications, has led to a perfectly understandable, though suprisingly low, level of paranoia.

We are now living in what has been called the ‘Virtual Panopticon’.
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