AIRSTRIP ONE

Hi, I'm Jim...

Know me as Gemineye Jim or Jim Gemineye. Anything, as long as it's not Jim Gemineye chéri! On the other hand, Eric is a nice name..

BLAIR'S MILLENNIUM

Eric Blair wrote the book 1984 using the pen name GEORGE ORWELL. Like all good science fiction 1984 dealt not so much with fanciful illusions about the future, but about his own perceptions of his time (1948). Writers sometimes have to use outlandish contexts in order to break the barriers of preconceptions that readers put up. However, in creating this new context, he explored several ideas that we could apply to other eras and also see come to fruition in this new millennium.

• Telescreen - we thought this was his view of the new medium of TV being used to brainwash the masses. That was before digital TV came along. Digital TV will evolve - it will be on all the time, it will be two way - the TV in the bedroom will have to go.
• Newspeak - Didn't quiet get this right. The idea was destroy the ability to express unorthodox ideas by destroying the language required to communicate them. This was done by simplification. Well, if anything, language has become even more complex. But some might argue that corruption of words like cool and wicked accomplish the same thing as Newspeak. On the other hand with the creation of a ‘drug culture' do you need Newspeak? If you're on the right drugs you can drivel on for hours without saying anything meaningful - let alone radical.
• Chocolate rations - Not quite sure why chocolate rations figured so much in Orwell's vision. It was used as a kind of reward or punishment. If news was bad, chocolate rations were reduced - if news was good, chocolate rations were increased. It was as if the people were held to blame for events in Airstrip One, We don't have chocolate rations now - but we do have interest rates.

Airstrip One was the new name for England or Britain under the regime of Big Brother.

Welcome to a different kind of spin... it's less gassy and leaves no bitter after-taste.

January's Scribblings

Prescott can't wait
for 'grey belt' land?

A report in the Financial Times (October 1999) announces that a panel of inspectors appointed by John Prescott (Deputy Prime Minister) recommends over one million homes be built in the S.E. England by 2016. It would mean an end to green belt land.

Well, someone has gotta ask... Is any new development required at all, let alone on green belt land. When it comes to providing health care and pensions, we are constantly reminded that we have a large aging population. Well, to be blunt, they're not going to live forever are they - and all these old people, they're not all homeless or living with relatives are they?

So in a few years time there is going to be a lot housing stock released. We could even see a housing glut as our NHS seems to be unhappy with this demographic imbalance and is doing all it can to reduce the number of old people claiming pensions.
There are not enough young people to replace the aging population - we are told. So why do we need all this new development?

Its certainly not for the homeless - they can't afford the prices being asked for these new homes.
Perhaps the 'grey belt' housing is the wrong kind of housing. Smelling of cats and in need of fitted kitchens and stencilled walls. Or perhaps there's just more money to be made from building new houses?

All the same, it does beg the question - what happens to the 'grey belt' land?

Blair not to be
new Cardinal

In a shock statement from Rome, we learn that Tony Blair is not to succeed the late Cardinal Basil Hume. Rumours have it that the late Cardinal Hume has been late for so long that Tony Blair had thought that it was a requirement for the job and declined the offer.

The position is now likely to go to their second choice, Bishop Vincent 'Knocker' Nichols.

Are there no changes that would upset Tony Blair? We ask questions like that every now and then

1. The bossy one, he's leader of the band.
2. The one with his mind on 'higher' things.
3. He's the surly one who thinks they're more popular than Jesus.
4. He can't sing, can't drum - what'll we do with 'im.... He can stand for Mayor!

Well. did you see the New Year show at the Millennium Dome? What a do...

The finale with that rousing anthem 'All you need is love' brought a touch of nostalgia to the year's end, but it wasn't the same - more like echoes from the last episode of that cult TV series 'The Prisoner'. I just kept waiting for that bouncy weather balloon to appear. It never did. Pity!

MORE IS LESS

When Sainsbury's started offering double points on each purchase, I thought now this is much fairer than giving extra points to just those they allow to use their credit card. Should have known better. For those who didn't know, Sainsbury's had a loyalty scheme where you were given one point for every pound spent - in other words £1 off for every £100 spent at their store. I know, it's sad I get excited by such offers.

Then they came up with this wonderful offer just before Christmas, DOUBLE POINTS with every purchase. This was an offer not to be ignored - £2 off for every £100 spent at their store! But I must have missed something, along with a million others, because when I went to use these vouchers clearly marked 500 points I was only returned £2.50 for each voucher.

Mmm... Double the points, half the value. They must have spent millions advertising this and yet, somehow, I just never noticed!

LESS IS MORE

Fares on London's busses have gone up... by up to 40%, but don't panic - inflation is only 1.8%.

That's exactly a £2 a week increase for a pensioner having to make a short journey outside their time limit twice for each day Monday to Friday. How much did state pension go up by?

But just in case you hadn't noticed that fares had gone up London Transport have organised a massive advertising campaign to remind us that we now have to pay more.

The campaign tells us that there are now fewer travel zones and a simpler price structure. What this means is that there only two price bands - "oh dear" and "WHAT!", depending on whether you are travelling in outer or Inner London. That's where we started from, I seem to recall. They just kept adding zones to disguise price increases. Now they're reducing the zones to disguise price increases. You just can't win can you.

One poster shows the simpler fare structure as a cup of tea. There's a frothy bit in the middle which we are told is a pound (for central London) and the surrounding tea is 70p (the rest of London). The caption to the poster states that there are 1819 cafes. What it doesn't tell you is that it will cost you nearly two grand to visit them all by bus - I could get a nice little motor for that with a bit left over for tax and insurance!

But why would you want to buy a car. If you lived on the outer rim of that cup of tea and you fancied visiting one of those fancy city tea palaces, it would only cost you £3.40 to visit one - not including the tea itself of course. You would be wrong of course, few would be lucky to get away with making the trip on just one or two busses. Three or four would be more like it. That could bring your total cost up to £6.40 for the return journey - again excluding that all important cost of a cuppa. Not beginning to sound expensive is it?

There is another snag. If you don't use the bus often you probably think those timetables at the bus stop are a guide to wait times. Wrong, they are a complete fiction.

Say you have to wait twenty two minutes for a 10 minute journey to the next route and you miss the connecting bus because all the passengers waiting for the next stop are blocking the exit and the driver of the bus you are trying to catch fails to notice you hammering at the door as he drives off and stops at a red traffic light two yards away (this is purely hypothetical by the way) and you then find that the bus you missed was eight minutes early so you've got at least another eighteen minutes wait - only it's seven minutes late bringing the wait time up to twenty five minutes for one bus. The journey time for the second bus is thirty minutes. You're not even into the next travel zone yet and it's taken you almost an hour and a half of your morning. And remember, make that a quick cuppa because you've got to get back again before seven if you don't want to miss Emmerdale.

If you are a car dealer - I have a suggestion that could bring you untold wealth - put your showrooms next to bus stops.

What's the point?

The point is positive spin. Both the advertising campaigns for Sainsbury's and London Transport have been very effective in putting a positive spin on what is either bad news or no news at all.

I have overheard on a bus one young man remarking on what a good idea the two fare structure was - perhaps not realising the implications. I myself fell for the Sainsbury's scam.

I keep hearing that there will be a referendum on the Euro soon. The pro-Euro lobby also, of late, seem to dismiss any argument made against them with the words -

Does it matter? After all there will be a referendum in which we will ‘make-up our own minds' on whether we wish to join the Euro or not.

The wording of that referendum will almost certainly not be "Do you want to be a part of a federal superstate - Yes or No?". There will be multiple choice questions and extra bonus point if you tick the right boxes. Just don't try to claim them at Sainsbury's.

There will also be a lot of positive spin from the pro-Euro camp - a camp which for some reason or other will have a lot more to spend on promoting their cause. Marketing, advertising, spin or whatever you want to call it - is effective. That's why big business spends millions on it. It's not about selling, it's about where the focus of attention is.

So the point is, be careful - it's a jungle out there!