William Shatner sings 'Common People', more NHS, Personal Video Recorder (PVR), and Economic Recession Analysis

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK

Web tip : William Shatner sings 'Common People' on Jay Leno (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eISBTBwWKeE)
I'm still reeling from the fact that this hysterical song came out over 3 years ago and I missed it, but even those who heard it haven't all seen this breathtaking performance on youtube.

Hearing Captain Kirk's voice deliver Jarvis Cocker's lyrics is an insane joy. I did read one comment exclaiming that a rich person shouldn't be singing about common people, but that is completely to miss the point. William 'The Shat' Shatner's delivery has always been so crazily serious and emotional, that to hear Jarvis Cocker's opus of serious and worthy lyrics delivered by him is a moment of surreal inspired genius.

It was as great as when, in the seventies, the musical bit at the end of Crackerjack included Peter Glaze singing Radio Stars' 'Nervous Wreck'. It was as wonderful as when Tony Bennett took time out from his shows on the South Bank to sing at Club Indigo. It was as surreal as Barbara Streisand singing 'Life On Mars'.

I'm gagging to hear what Mr Cocker himself makes of it, but personally I recommend he regard it as a wonderful complement.

That said, I'd be with him if he was disappointed that Joe Jackson muscles in by singing towards the end of it. It isn't enough that Mr Jackson made a career off the back of Elvis Costello and supports smoking in clubs, but now he has to tarnish the magnificence of The Shat.

Anyway, still go see this video. It rules.

Health News : NHS 2008 supplemental
Another wacky aspect of the health service is the unnecessary way that there are alternate words to obscure things. So, for instance, cancer doctors are oncologists, heart doctors are cardiologists, skin doctors are dermatologists. Doctors are called doctors, but surgeons are called Mister. Pointless and adding to our confusion.

Technology Review : Humax PVR9200TB 160GB Digital TV Recorder
On my mate Rosehip's recommendation I dared to get this for my Mum for Christmas, and I've been reaping the benefit whilst I've been staying at her house.

Basically instead of needing tapes, you just look at an on screen programme guide and tell it what programmes you like. If you can't remember when the programme's on you can search for it with just a few characters of its name. It then goes off and records it, and whenever you get time to watch things all the stuff you like is ready for you. Not only that, but it's all filed by name, date and time ready for you to select, and there's a button to skip over advert breaks, or back a few seconds, and another to move through in slow motion. It can also play back whilst it's taping, so if you miss the start of your show by five minutes you can just start watching it at the beginning whenever you get to the TV. You can stop watching at any point, and go back to it just where you left off. You can tape 2 channels and watch a third.

I did find a rather bizarre restriction in that if you want it to start or finish recording a bit either side of a show you can set this, but only if you forfeit the ability to tape a whole series of something. Couldn't see why that should be a problem. Also, you don't get any warning when you're running out of space. It just fails to record when it runs out.

Mind you it comfortably held 100 programmes including films, so you have to be pretty extravagant and never delete anything to flood it. It also looks easy enough to put it through to recordable DVD or video if you wanted to keep something.

Economics review : economic recession analysis
My economics teachers were rather scathing about the superficial analysis of economics on TV. One was horrified how the economics syllabus has been re-written to ignore everything but recent history. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

My eldest economics teacher, who has since died, was sprung out of poverty by his intelligence. He was a big fan of Alfred Marshall, an early economist, who, when asked to comment on a depression was impudent enough to suggest there wasn't one. 'A depression of prices, a depression of profits, a depression of interests (rates), there is that.'

Marshall went on to explain that no matter how excited economists were, if people could afford to eat and live healthily, then the only people getting upset were the ones trying to make money on the stock exchange. If you can stay in a job during a depression then slowing price rises saves your buying power. Likewise those of us whose happiness are ruled by their hefty mortgages are hardly going to complain if the rate goes down. So before you leap out of a high-rise City of London office, check what the actual effect of all this really is on your life!

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]