Another Scoop for the Express and Star

My local paper managed to scoop all the international media organisations with its front page yesterday: HUNDREDS DIE AS EARTHQUAKE HITS NEW ZEALAND.

Very impressive for a paper which struggles to accurately report events in The Dark Place's suburbs, let alone several thousand miles away.

Still, a scoop's a scoop. With one small wrinkle. The NZ government last night confirmed 39 deaths and warned that the number will go up (this morning it's 55). Not hundreds. As even the E+S reports, 200 people are believed to be trapped, which makes it almost impossible for 'hundreds' to be killed. If they all die, then it will be 2 hundreds. Awful, but not quite the apocalypse the headline writer wanted. 


This horrible little rag is only in line with the other media: each white death is worth about 10 of other races, and each English-speaking death is worth 5 of any other white people.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

While poor Lou is lying awake in agony down in the Land of the Long White Cloud, I've been undergoing painful experiences of my own: another Negotiating Committee while we try to work out how to resist the Triumph of the Managerialists (they've upped the redundancy offer by 40%, so they're clearly getting desperate), then my mother dropped off some household goods. In the time it took her to limp up the stairs (she's 65 and broke her ankle a while back), the parking people gave her a ticket, which I'm appealing.

Mum was bringing a load of crockery I'd bought in Stoke. It's good stuff, but virtually none of it is made in the town of Doulton, Wedgwood, Spode except for Moorcroft - more victims of capitalism. Stoke City FC is nicknamed The Potters. You can get a mug with the shield and The Potters. Despite virtually every fan having a family member who worked in the potbanks, the mug's made overseas…

This book sounds quite useful for dealing with The Managers: it's called Death March and explains what happens in institutions with inhumane strategies:

The symptoms are obvious: The project schedule, budget, and staff are about half of what is necessary for completion. The planned feature set is unrealistic. People are working 14 hours a day, six or seven days a week, and stress is taking its toll. The project has a high risk of failure, yet management is either blind to the situation or has no alternative. Why do these irrational projects happen, and what, other than pure idiocy, leads people to get involved in them?

Edward Yourdon has produced a wise and highly readable book on the entire death march phenomenon and the best way to steer through one. He takes a close look at the types of projects that often become death marches and the corporate politics and culture that typically produce them; Yourdon helps you examine your own motivations and those of corporate managers who enable death marches to take shape.

Much of Death March is about the human element of highly stressful projects. The author's plain-spoken observations on the dysfunctional organization--the Machiavellian politics, naive optimism, lust for power, fear, and sheer managerial stupidity that guide so many death marches--make for a refreshing change from other project management books. You'll also find much practical advice to help you survive, everything from negotiating with upper management to breathing life into faltering projects. He'll even help you determine if you should look for another job.

If you've ever worked in a death march situation or been a client of a company addicted to death march management, this book will help you understand what happened. More importantly, it will help you prepare for future encounters with death marches.

Anyway, time to do some actual work - a quick refresher on Henry V and some Welsh literature theory.

Mind the gap

Lou has posted some stunning street art from New Zealand, which seems to be a very cool country. While Neal was there, he witnessed a Green MP turning up to parliament on a skateboard.

Actually, that's not cool. Adults on skateboards or BMXs, or permanently glued to games consoles are perpetual adolescents, addicted to toys, resistant to growing up and taking responsibility for the world outside their own gratification. It's amusing to subvert our image of politicians, but a skateboard is still a toy.

And finally

Happy birthday to my sister Catharine, who is 33 today and back in New Zealand. Hope she didn't fly Air Kiwi - it's a flightless airline (sorry).

Irish eyes aren't smiling

So Ireland go out to New Zealand, comprehensively beaten - but then very few of Ireland's team are professional cricketers (or Irish, come to think of it). It was fun mixing it with the big boys though, and getting further than Australia in a sport a long way down the national pecking order (football, hurling, rugby, soccer, horse-racing, golf - yuck) is very funny.

I'm still not convinced by Twenty20 - it's the equivalent of table football. Give me the slow, thoughtful strategy of a Test match, occasionally enlivened by a wicked spell of fast bowling or the deviousness of a good spinner.

Kiwi jam

The New Zealanders are giving Ireland a pasting - 38/0 from only 3.1 overs. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Poor Emma

That petulant idiot savant Ronaldo has gone to Real Madrid for £80m. Meanwhile, my eyes are on Ireland v. New Zealand this afternoon. It should be good. New Zealand play great strategic cricket (Vettori's my favourite bowler) but they may not be cut out for the agricultural style demanded by Twenty20.

Live coverage here.

A very Canadian coup

The Canadians had an election recently, as did the New Zealanders. In both cases, the Conservatives won despite succeeding decent liberal governments. Thankfully, the Liberals in Canada have got together to form a coalition, throw out Stephen Harper's no-good Tories in a confidence vote and save the world. (Poor Anne would hate it - she's a die-hard Tory but only because Matthew Cuthbert was). 

So what have the sneaky low-down Canuck Conservatives done, eh? Just gone running to the Queen like the Aussies in 1975, when the viceroy (sorry, Governor-General) dismissed Gough Whitlam's government even though he had a majority. Harper's asked the Queen to suspend parliament to avoid losing the vote - the coward. His whips should be bribing and threatening and dragging in the sick-bed vote like most mature democracies would.