Gordon Brown In Iraq, Insurance, Daily Show on The Jam and Temporary Signs on the Overground

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK

World News : Gordon Brown in Iraq
Gordon Brown was in Iraq to avoid saying that British troops might be coming back at any specific time, whilst saying how reasonable it would be for them to come home now that Iraq is having less violent incidents.

He referred to 'normalcy' (an Americanism that saves them having to pronounce the extra syllable in 'normality'). It was an interesting choice of word that on cursory inspection might have suggested that his words were written by an American or with an American audience in mind.

It seems that Gordon is listening to someone after all, but it sounds like that lucky person is probably working in an American government press office, rather than being a member of the British electorate.

Financial Review : Insurance
Being a fan of Cult TV classic show 'The Prisoner' I'm aware of a scene in which No.2 (the head of the village) says that for official purposes everyone has been given a number. Suddenly I imagined if instead he had said that for 'insurance' purposes everyone had been given a number.

Insurance is a bizarre concept that I'd suggest is almost biblical. Instead of human actions just being actions, suddenly through insurance they all have intention and responsibility attached to them. I can't simply fall downstairs. Someone has to have made it happen or I have to have prepared for the possibility.

Of course, if there's any major likelihood that something's going to happen you might not be able to get insurance against it anyway. Yet you are a grown up if you have insurance and irresponsible if you don't. Bizarre world.

TV Review : Daily Show Global Edition 19/07/08
This show is now being watched by a lot of people I meet in the UK, but what was remarkable about this particular edition was a part of the interview with guest Pierce Brosnan (former James Bond and current Mamma Mia! star).

As host Jon Stewart started to joke with Brosnan about him living a luxurious lifestyle in Hawaii, he asked him what the worst place he had ever lived was, suggesting that he had only ever lived in nice places. Brosnan replied that the worst place was a 'squat' in Brixton.

That was a pretty bizarre mental image in itself, but then Stewart asked if that was near Wormwood Scrubs. Brosnan seemed impressed in that 'wow, an American knows a name of a place outside America' kind of way. Stewart, who was being self-effacing without prompting, then went on to explain that the reason he had heard of it was because it got a mention in a song by the Jam. For the uninitiated that song would be 'Down In The Tube Station At Midnight'.

Stewart and Brosnan then proceeded to mutually enthuse about what a great band The Jam were. I sat dumbfounded. Sometimes I could really believe that life is actually some crazy dream mixing up ideas in my head.

Travel News: Temporary Signs
The Scumlink (now called the London Overground, and formerly known as Silverlink) has a large number of new signs and lashings of orange paint. The men working at the stations even have orange striped ties.

Thus when we learn that Transport For London are investing in the transport infrastructure of London, we can now understand that they have been polishing this particular turd with visual branding that will do nothing for our journey.

Bizarrely most of the new signs, some of which have radically renamed the 'East' and 'West' platforms to numbers '1' and '2', come with the subscript 'temporary sign'. In such ways we can know that along with the money wasted on pointless re-branding now, there will be another load along in a minute for the 'permanent' signs. Thanks for letting us know.

Even more bizarrely a sign inside the carriages explains that seats have been removed, and space for remaining seats increased, in preparation for longer trains which will carry more passengers. Well that's certainly an interesting way to prepare. It is also a fairly thinly veiled criticism of the previous rail company incumbent and the services that they and others continue to run.

Apparently despite there being no explicit criticism it was actually the case that they were cramming seats together inappropriately. Well I'm sure any fool could have realised that, but it's still interesting to have someone express it through the medium of trying to improve the situation. Very un-British.

Scumlink passengers previously expressed concerns over arrangements of seats by simply breaking them. It was a spectacle to see people squeeze their way down a carriage to an empty seat only to find what was actually the unusable remains of one.

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