>Tunes for a Tuesday – 18 November 2008

Posted on 18 November, 2008 by jb

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ZZ Top – (Somebody Else Been) Shaking Your Tree from ZZ Top’s First Album
The Rolling Stones – Angie from Forty Licks
Cheap Trick – Can’t Stop Fallin’ Into Love from Greatest Hits
She and Him (ft. Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward) – Change Is Hard from KCRW Open Road, January 2008
Sam Mangwana – Galo Negro from Putumayo Presents: Afro Latino
Electric Light Orchestra Part Two – Honest Men
Blowoff – Hormone Love from Blowoff
Grace Potter And The Nocturnals – Joey from Nothing But the Water
French Kicks – Keep It Amazed
Chuck Berry – Maybellene from The Chess Story 1947-1975 (1955-1956 )
Girl Talk – Peak Out from Night Ripper
Kora – Politician [Paddy Free Mix] from Dub Conspiracy
Tom Jones  – Ring Of Fire from The Best Of…
B.B. King – See That My Grave Is Kept Clean from One Kind Favor
Ash – Shining Light from Intergalactic Sonic 7″s:The Best Of Ash
Etta James – Something’s Got A Hold On Me from The Chess Story 1947-1975 (1960-1961)
The Magnetic Fields – The Nun’s Litany from Live on Fair Game from PRI with Faith Salie
Windy City Strugglers – Waltz Of The Wind from Kingfisher
The Byrds – You Don’t Miss Your Water from Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology

The Black Seeds – You Wait from Keep On Pushing

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>And he reckons he’s overworked……

Posted on 18 November, 2008 by jb

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>Only in Nelson

Posted on 17 November, 2008 by jb

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>Now, this is more like it….

Posted on 13 November, 2008 by jb

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The BBC reports on the back-scatter x-ray technology that some  airports are currently triallin.

Pretty much makes you naked to the eye of the perving security staff beholder.

I think this is much better, though….

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>Four down……

Posted on 13 November, 2008 by jb

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……four to go.

This is John Kotter’s 8 Point plan for change management that he first published in the Harvard Business Review and then in his 1995 book “Managing Change”
 
Step One: Create Urgency


Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition


Step Three: Create a Vision for Change


Step Four: Communicate the Vision


Step Five: Remove Obstacles


Step Six: Create Short-term Wins


Step Seven: Build on the Change

Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

Step 6 is easy enough.


It’s the other 3 that are tricky.


And Step 8 is a real bugger.


In the corporate world, anyway.


I had a fairly emotional discussion with my Group CEO about the need to make EVERYONE understand that – if they’re away from their desk – phone calls get forwarded or go to voice mail.


I was banging on about how people need to UNDERSTAND the need for it – changing corporate culture, if you will.


“Don’t need that” he says “I’ll just order them to do it.”


No, it doesn’t work like that….

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>It must be me…#4

Posted on 12 November, 2008 by jb

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I really enjoy the States, especially the North East, north of Boston.

Long coastline, nice people, enough history to make it cultured.

Portsmouth’s got the Seacoast Theatre with a good show that kicks off at 7:30pm.

So I pop in to the Outback Steakhouse at lunchtime, make a reservation for 6 pm. 

“No problem” (Nothing’s ever a problem…)

Front up at 6pm and….. the wait is 30 minutes.

You can imagine how the conversation starts off – “Well actually, I’ve got a reservation for 6pm..”
 
You have no idea how it continues.

“Well actually, you only have a “call in”. That means that you “call in” and it cuts the waiting time by half”
 
On reflection, it’s best to accept the situation.

You can, of course, insist on getting your table toute de suite.

It’ll be right next to the Used Beer Department, they’ll bugger up your order and be about as friendly as an Aeroflot flight attendant.

Probably spit on your food as well…..

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>Tunes for a Tuesday – 11 November 2008

Posted on 11 November, 2008 by jb

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Chicago – 25 or 6 to 4 from Billboard Top 100 Hits Of 1970
Pattern Is Movement – Bird from All Together
Green Day – Emenius Sleepus from Dookie
Lindisfarne – Fog On The Tyne from Fog On The Tyne
Josh White – Freedom Road from Smithsonian Folkways American Roots Collection
Sjako! – Hurt (I Wish) from 2 Meter Sessies Volume 4
Bob Dylan – I Shall Be Released from The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 : Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991 (Disc 2)
David Lindley & Hani Naser – Lick The Tears from Playing Even Better
Grin – Like Rain from The Very Best Of Grin Featuring Nils Lofgren
David Bowie – Maid of bond street from Deram Anthology
M.I.A. – Mango Pickle Down River from Kala
Funkadelic – Red Hot Mama from Standing on the Verge of Getting it On
Amy Winehouse – Rehab from Back To Black
Robert Pollard – Serious Bird Woman (You Turn Me On) 
The Big Three – Some Other Guy from John Lennon’s Jukebox
Brenda Lee – Sweet Nothin’s from Billboard Top 100 of 1960
The Pogues – The Irish Rover from The Best Of The Pogues
Les Savy Fav – The Lowest Bitter from Lets Stay Friends
The Dears – Ticket To Immortality from Gang Of Losers
The Ruts – West One from John Peel’s Festive Fifty 1980 – Radio Version

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>Left hand, right hand

Posted on 11 November, 2008 by jb

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Popped in to see the orthopaedic chappie the other day to make sure that Leg 2.0 isn’t in danger of falling off.

Routine stuff.

Waggles the leg around to make sure there are no suspicious noises and then sends me off down the corridor for an x-ray.

Radiologist flossie lines me up, covers up the rude bits with a lead sheet and blasts me with neutrons.

Comes back in and says” You’ve got an artificial hip”

“Oh, that’s RIGHT” I said “I seem to vaguely recall something like that”

“Well, it’s NOT FUNNY” she bellows “It should have been on THIS bit of PAPER”

Shouldn’t have laughed.

I’m sure she turned up the volume or whatever they do to give you a lethal dose.

Not that I’ll notice, of course.

My hair’s been falling out for years….

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>Summing things up nicely

Posted on 9 November, 2008 by jb

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BA038 lost power on both engines shortly before landing at LHR in January..
The usual second guessing of the crew’s actions immediately ensued.
This is what someone wrote on Pprune, the forum for peole who fly (or are flown) professionally for a living.

While I am not the world’s slowest typist, the time it has taken to type THIS sentence is approximately the time available for the entire process on BA038, from recognition of problem to impact.


And that’s without the time for some minor corrections after the fact – an opportunity the flight crew did not have.


They took and passed with honours one of the shorter courses in test piloting in the whole history of aviation.


It seems a very satisfactory result, all considered. 

Job well done.

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>True Stories – Bush and Koizumi

Posted on 8 November, 2008 by jb

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“Well, dear boy those things did happen at various times, in different places, but mainly not to me” Basil Boothroyd
“Tell me, Junichiro” asked George W. “When do you have elections in Japan?”
“Everly morning, before bleakfast” says Koizumi
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