Cardboard Spaceship

I Never Thought I Would Hear This Again...

The Scars were a an Edinburgh group at the time that Edinburgh was doing the Postcard Thang. 

I have posted the Fire Engines, and Josef K, and others on this blog, but tonight I found the origin of origins:

 

Man, that is 1980's Edinburgh on a plate.  Brilliant.

Oddity in Japanese Electric Situation

As no doubt with all the world, you have been following the unfolding horror in Japan, I country I was sitting in when I started Cardboard Spaceship.  The debacle of the Fukushima nuclear plant collapse is harrowing to watch, as it seems only to underline the fragility of civilized life in general.

I was surprised that Tokyo was having rolling blackouts as a consequence, because shouldn't the rest of Japan have more or less spare capacity?

Turns out that due to some historic decisions to purchase from different comanies at the end of the 19th centrury, Japan actually has TWO electric grids which are incompatible.  I know how expensive it wold be to replace the one or the other to standardise, so that's a real legacy issue right there. 

Busy, Busy, Chop, Chop Bang, Bang...

Not updated for a couple of weeks, as I had to go to Germany, (Bensheim) and France (Paris).  Then last week, it just seemed that it was one damned thing after another, as the historians describe it.  (Also avoid Minecraft, as though it were an open chalice of crack laced with heroin, and covered in strawberries, because it is bloody addictive.  Goodbye my leisure hours, as once again a zombie eats my brains in the depths of a blocky 8-bit mine or cave.)

So, here I am sitting in the office in London, waiting to go to some banky type people and talk blah blah about zany old enterprise software. 

The other thing that is distracting me is the sheer quantity of news.  Euroland money woes, Arab revolutions, and the latest, truly horrific, disaster in Japan has taken the whole attention of the family in the evenings, just watching the TV, and wondering at the enormity of it all.