Goldfish Memories

Do you remember how the world was one year ago? How brilliant Britain was, before the election?

In recent weeks, I've noticed an increasing number of people suggest that things have started to get bad since the Conservatives were elected. How the NHS is threatened by cuts, which the Tories have always wanted to make. How the armed forces are under-supplied due to the Tories wanting to keep all the money to themselves. How students will have to pay for their education now that the Tories are getting their way. And so on and so forth.

It must have been a magical place, this Britain-before-the-Tories. I don't remember it myself, but it seems that there were no cutbacks to the NHS, our soldiers had all the equipment they could wish for, students left university debt-free, and everyone was happy.

In truth, I remember things rather differently.

Two years ago, the NHS outsourced a number of treatments, and I remember my GP telling me that he'd cancelled my hospital appointment because he was "under pressure from above to avoid costly referrals".

As the army undertook tours in the Middle East, didn't we hear continued questions about the lack of body armour, helicopters, and other equipment?

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it Labour who introduced fees for higher education?

But the truth is largely irrelevant. Protestors will protest, and the left-leaning media will give air-time to the beligerant amnesiacs who say it's all the Tories fault. Who assure us that Labour would sort out those greedy bankers if it was up to them. Who know that Labour would soon get the country out of debt if they were in charge.

The irony is lost on them, their recollections edited down to a series of blissful summer days "before the Tories and Lib Dems ruined it all"...

Let's hope their memories are equally effective when it's next time to find their way to the polling stations.

Breakfast on the beach

There's something hugely appealing about the Cornish coast. I've always had a horror of "seaside towns", conjuring up visions of crumbling northern outposts where stag and hen parties stumble from t'arcades to t'pubs and grim-faced pensioners sit shivering on rain-lashed promenades. But the area around St Austell bay is different. It's comparatively quiet, and is set in a landscape dominated by cliffs and rocks and rolling hills, rather than one dominated by coloured neon.

We went down for the weekend - a last-minute booking to take advantage of the promising weather forecast - and enjoyed a smooth journey through some gorgeous scenery. Cam and I had found Charlestown beach by accident on our previous West Country road-trip, but this was Anna's first visit to the place. And, aside from a slight debacle at one of the world's slowest Pizza Huts, the St Austell experience was a good one.

It was excellent to spend time together in such beautiful surroundings. We climbed the rocks, explored a deep cave in the cliffs, got wet feet when the waves caught us out, and even rescued a small crab who'd been hiding inside a small rubber tyre that we'd been playing with.

On Sunday, it got even better. The skies cleared to bright October blue, while we walked in the sunshine and climbed the rocky islands that jut out from the headland.

But for me, the best thing was breakfast with Anna and Cam. It was perfect - a cinnamon latte and chocolate twist - enjoyed on the deserted beach. If only every day could begin so well.

iPad Entertainment Summit

Apologies for a work-centric blog post, but I was fortunate enough to be a speaker at the iPad Entertainment Summit last week and I wanted to capture my thoughts on the event before they evaporated. The conference was held at BAFTA, catering for an audience largely made up of broadcasters and brand-holders. There were some serious names in the auditorium, but many of them had come to listen rather than present.

As the day unfolded, there were some good talks, interspersed by the usual bits of self-promotion and techno-babble, yet I was struck by one or two people on the podium who seemed to have little or no experience of app development, despite the buzzword-laden theories they advanced. There were several excellent speakers but, for anyone new to the iOS space, it may have been tricky to discern who was talking sense and who wasn’t.

At lunch, I had an eye-opening conversation with someone who thought Apple were “a bit rich” taking a 30% revenue share. I’m really not an Apple fan-boy, but this stunned me. Traditionally, high-street retailers take 50-60%, straight off the top. Mobile carriers took similar percentages, and none of them accepted content as easily – or paid as quickly – as Apple do. I was confused by this nostalgia for the bad old days, until it dawned on me that many of these people are new – brand new – to the market. They look at Apple’s model, a model which simply didn’t exist before iTunes, and they wonder why it’s not more favourable to them. They don’t appreciate it because they don’t understand the alternative.

This seems borne out by the eager casting-about for the “next big thing”. Some say it will be Android, others argue that Windows7 Mobile will dominate. The “anyone-but-Apple” mentality is quite in vogue just now. And there’s an element of truth in what’s being said. Certainly, it’s likely that a number of other devices will emerge to challenge Apple’s offering. Critically though, they will be competing on a hardware level – for content providers it’s revenue that matters, not handset numbers.

Perhaps the most surprising take-away from the day was the absence of serious distribution channel discussion. There seems to be an assumption that other manufacturers will simply “do their own App Store”. After all, how hard can it be?

And that’s where the problem lies. Apple already has a trusted, consistent, international, regulated store front. They have pre-existing billing relationships with every customer, pre-existing content relationships with almost every major record label, movie studio, and TV channel. They have an app for everything. And they have it all right now, today.

And to compete with all of this, other companies just need to “do their own App Store”? It might be harder than it looks. Apple certainly won’t be sitting still while the others play catch-up, but there’s yet another problem for the rival manufacturers.

iTunes and the App Store really shook up the mobile content industry, which had previously been serviced by carrier portals. When you bought something for your device, you bought it from Vodafone or T-Mobile – there was a limited amount of content available, and pricing was controlled by the carriers. Apple changed that, opening things up with an unlimited range of items, at a range of pricepoints, including “free”. Suddenly, there was a model where the carriers weren’t getting any of the revenue. To compete, the rival platforms need to get their devices into people’s hands, but their traditional route to market is via the carriers. Will the carriers allow them to “do an Apple” and build their own store fronts? The carriers know how much revenue there is to be made in the space and, crucially, they have a perfect, pre-existing billing relationship with every single one of their customers. Will they really forego their high-ground advantage and help the other platforms to climb past them?

It’s clear that Apple won’t have the field to themselves. Moving forward, a number of competitors will step up, and some of them will become established. Whether their hardware market-share can be translated into app revenue is an entirely different matter that nobody seems to be talking about.

On one level, it’s frustrating. A lot of effort is going to be expended on ill-conceived projects pitched by people who didn’t understand the business. On the other hand, I made a lot of useful new contacts at the event, so I mustn’t grumble.

And, last but not least, Stephen Fry was on the stage, right after me. His words were both witty and enlightened and I am profoundly grateful that I didn’t have to speak after him!

Legacy

When I was a lot younger, I was fortunate enough to work with a great bunch of guys on an insanely brilliant game called Carmageddon. You might remember it - "So many pedestrians, so little time", a Daily Mail hate campaign, and questions in the House... Carmageddon had it all.

The reason it was such a great game, was the people who worked on it. Patrick and Nobby had assembled a fabulous group of talented developers, and in their number was one Russ Hughes.

"Rusk" died last week. He was only in his thirties.

He was the first person on my Facebook friends list to pass away, and it's been profoundly moving to watch the vast outpouring of shock, grief, but above all appreciation of his life. I've read how the company where he worked sent their 200 staff home, heard how his old friends at Stainless were absolutely destroyed by the news, and watched the condolences pile up.

But over the past few days, I've seen people talking about him, remembering him, and celebrating him. And the strange thing is, so many people all say the same thing: that his enthusiasm brightened up the life of everyone around him.

Day after day, people saying that same thing. And it occurred to me, amid the general sadness and thoughts of mortality, that Rusk leaves a truly enviable legacy behind him. So many people smiling, so many lives brightened, just by him. Some people get buildings named after them, some people get dedications, but Rusk surpassed all of that. He made so many people happy, and he'll be fondly remembered by every single one of them. It doesn't get much better than that.

Cheers Rusk - you didn't play for long, but you racked up the achievements.

And they all lived happily ever after.

Finally. After an awfully long time, and many unwelcome pauses, the first draft of my novel is complete. It's been an interesting process - at times discouragingly hard, at times deceptively easy - but the last few chapters have come quickly and got me to the end.

Some very encouraging feedback at the Winchester Writers' Conference has boosted my confidence, and reassured me that I've not been wasting my time. I now have a month or so to relax before the Agent process begins in September.

In the meantime, I intend to follow Stephen King's advice, and leave my book alone for a few weeks before I do any more editing. This will give me time to make a dent in the tower of books, and the pile of DVDs that have been mounting up recently.

But today, I have a huge smile on my face, and I intend to celebrate in a manner that befits completion of a first novel. Cheers!

The Circumnavigation of the Modern Super Market

It is a curious thing, but this whole business reminded me of that lively evening back in Africa when I had to tiptoe across a sandbar littered with crocodiles. Big fellows they were, too. Of course, I did not have my revolver with me that time, and in any event this was only a visit to the premises of J. Sainsbury esq, albeit my first.

Naturally, you will be wondering what possessed a gentleman to patronize such an impersonal and unsuitable establishment but I can assure you that I was compelled to do so by a bizarre series of events that concluded with my entire domestic staff rendered unconscious. Before my man Hodges fainted dead away, he confessed in a faltering voice that we no longer kept an account with the village grocer and that the only hope of securing provisions lay in what he referred to as a “super market”.

Under normal circumstances, I would have never have entertained the idea of “shopping” – ghastly word – certainly not with so many perfectly edible animals roaming the estate. However, I remembered that the Wilberforce-Smythes intended to call that same evening and fancied that little Jenny might turn her nose up at Shetland pony sandwiches.

Clearly, there was nothing for it but to mount an expedition. Immediately, I was faced with my first problem – what was appropriate attire for such an excursion? I consulted “Haverstock’s Compendium of Sartorial Elegance for All Occasions” but drew a blank. The closest approximation was “Correct attire for touring unfamiliar areas of the Continent” but, as it turned out, the recommended tweeds and walking boots proved quite suitable for the job.

I elected to take the larger Jaguar, which started at the first attempt, and roared down through the village. My next challenge was to establish the whereabouts of Mr. Sainsbury’s place of business, but my luck was in as I fortuitously knocked Jones the postman off his bike while negotiating one of the blind corners on the Underminster Road. After assuring the poor fellow that he had not damaged my motor car, I quizzed him for directions to the “super market” Hodges had alluded to. Gamely struggling to his feet, Jones indicated the most direct route and, once we had staunched his bleeding, I bade him farewell and was away once more.

At first, I thought I must be mistaken. As a gentleman, one is unprepared for the immense nature of these so-called “retail parks”. Fearing that Jones’ directions were confused by his injuries, I was on the point of driving away when I noticed the fellow Sainsbury’s name, written large and rather tactlessly, across the front of a soul-less grey building. Judging by the size of the place, this chap had obviously done well for himself, but the plethora of gaudy orange signs were in extremely poor taste, the tell-tale mark of first generation money.

Driving past the tiresome ranks of modern vehicles, I swept into a large, convenient area outside the main doors and parked without incident. Noticing many people of indeterminate class milling around, I thought it wiser to remove the keys from the ignition and even took the precaution of instructing a loitering market worker to keep undesirables away from the Jaguar.

Passing within, I thought I had strayed into the warehouse and spent several minutes searching for the shopkeeper’s counter before I realized that the whole place seemed to operate on some wretched self-service basis. Finding this intolerable, I resolved not to lower myself to the level of the other miserable patrons. Quickly locating the nearest member of staff, a discourteous youth sporting an unsightly clip-on tie and third-degree acne, I asserted my authority and instructed him to appropriate the items I desired. Seemingly baffled by my orders, it took him several moments to get the gist, but a couple of swift whacks from my walking stick finally stirred him into action.

At this point I must confess that my inquisitive nature got the better of me and I followed my reluctant aide into the garish aisles.

Never have I seen so much luridly coloured cardboard in one place. Utilitarian shelves arranged without the slightest respect for the values of taste and style, piled high with gaudy packages… vulgar signs shrieking their gibberish with no thought for punctuation or grammar, and everywhere stained by the unholy glow of fluorescent tube lighting. My assistant seemed untroubled by this riot of bad taste, but I saw that he was a simple soul, clearly content to push his little wheeled basket around the labyrinth that was his workplace.

I instructed the poor devil to seek me out when his task was completed and, taking an apple from a huge pile, set out on my own to explore.

I had been walking for some time when I finally came upon something that I recognized. There before me, stood a fishmonger’s counter. I made my way to the front and cleared my throat to get the apron-clad youth’s attention. Sadly, the unfortunate fellow had some sort of hearing problem and I had to rap him on the shoulder several times with my stick before he turned to me. At this point, quite inexplicably, several nearby hoi-polloi started speaking in their charming regional accents, waving small scraps of paper that appeared to be raffle tickets. I was quite patient with them but eventually had to shoo them away with a large trout as this was, after all, a fish counter and not a tom bola.

Using my stick to instruct the deaf lad, I indicated that I wished to sample some of his smoked salmon. He went through some unnecessary rigmarole involving a bag and a label before handing it to me but, after trying a few mouthfuls I concluded that it wasn’t up to much and handed it back to him. The poor fellow was obviously quite shaken to discover that his wares were below par as he started babbling about something or other, but I sympathetically told him to buck up and we’d say no more about it.

By now, I had grown weary of the not-so-super market experience and elected to wait in my motor car where, I was sure, my youth and his basket of provisions would have the sense to seek me out. Retracing my steps, I picked up a newspaper and another apple and made my way through the doors towards my vehicle.

At this point, my story took a turn that I still do not fully understand. A youth in a dark jumper and an ill-fitting peaked cap accosted me, droning on about unpaid goods or some such nonsense – his mastery of the Queen’s English was tenuous to say the least – and invited me to accompany him “into the store”. I did not like the look of him and declined, politely but firmly, to visit his store room or any other of his haunts. The poor fellow nearly lost his front teeth when he impudently laid a hand on me but, not wishing to cause a scene in the presence of ladies, I merely gave him a harmless right to the stomach and left him quietly propped up against the base of a large fountain near the entrance.

I returned to the Jaguar, dismissed the man I had engaged to guard it, and enjoyed a pipe while I read the Times obituaries. In no time at all, the clip-on tie was at my window and I gave him permission to place my provisions in the back seat. I tipped the poor creature more generously than he deserved, especially as I had to roar “On account!” at him several times before he stopped bleating on about the bill. I later discovered that most of the dozen eggs he had given me turned out to be broken, probably due to the inexplicable bumps on all the roads leading in and out of the place. Confounded things give you quite a jolt – I very nearly had to slow down.

That evening, I recounted my adventures to the Wilberforce-Smythes and we all had a jolly good laugh at the peculiar people who inhabit such strange places as these super markets. Before retiring for the evening, I left instructions for my man Hodges that our account with the village grocer was to be reopened at his earliest convenience, as I have no intention of returning to Mr. Sainsbury’s establishment.

In summary, I would advise against even one visit to such a place. While the experience is undeniably new, it is not pleasant, and gentlemen of taste would be better served by a good safari or a trip to the Himalayas. However, if exceptional circumstances force your hand, I would counsel you to adopt the same approach as you would in any other uncivilised place: accept no backchat from the natives and carry a sidearm at all times. Good luck to you all.

Go West | day three

It didn’t take long to pack. We checked out of the hotel and I grabbed a coffee from the Costa downstairs. About 10 minutes later, I was sitting on the deserted beach, watching the waves glitter in the sun.

This was one of those moments that will endure – like watching the sun set over Grenada, or standing on top of an Alpine peak. Having an idyllic stretch of Cornish coastline to ourselves was just magical. The water was cold on our feet but the sun was warm and we spend a perfect morning mucking about and trying not to get too wet.

Eventually, after more genuine clotted-cream ice cream, we started our journey back, pausing briefly to take a look at the famous Jamaica Inn. Set miles inland, it’s an unlikely haunt for Cornish Wreckers, unless they were Cornish Wreckers with fast cars, but it was fun to visit nonetheless.

And now, I’m back. It’s sad when a road-trip ends, but it’s great to see Anna again. And with all the beach photos I took, I think we’ll be able to persuade her to join us when we head down there next.