Elton One

Jay was telling me today about a recent story where Emma Clarke, the voice over artist who provides (until recently) the anouncements on the London Underground was sacked because some thing she said was not liked by LG. Never mind she was mis-quoted and has the right to freedom of speech, they still sacked her. And without even telling her - she found out in the paper.

There is speculation that one of the reasons LG have fallen out with her is because she made a series of recordings in the style of the LG recordings but humurous in nature, which she put up on her website. Here is one:

My favourite is:

Why can’t a person be employed by a company and be entitled to free speech without the risk of loosing their job? And why do recordings which are generally humorous in nature but reflective of the tube have to be a bad thing?

You know, I’m betting LGs lawyers heard the recording asking americans to keep their voice down and thought “Shit. Sack her, or the whole of america is going to sue us”.

BBC News Story

Emma Clarke Spoof LG Recordings

I was looking for the http://www.37signals.com/ site and typed 37 into my google bar. I linked off that to the Wikipedia entry for the number 37, and then straight on to the page for lucky numbers (lucky prime numbers) as 37 is the fifth. It’s interesting as I was watching Lucky Number Slevin today. Think I’ll go buy a scratch card or a ticket for tonights lottery with only luck primes on. Makes sense. Or maybe like quantum mechanics, observing that thread of eventuality has caused it to cease to exist.

Still worth a try I think.

Here is a nice animation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_prime showing the lucky prime numbers. Good to see 3, 33 and 69 are up there.

I like number theory and it’s relationship with nature. Lots of interesting images like this:

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_theory

I came across Brain Haw (http://www.parliament-square.org.uk, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Haw) while reading this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7124575.stm BBC news story on the winner of this years turner prize. I hope the winner of the £25,000 prize, Mark Wallinger, gives it all to Brain Haw. It would be a crime to profit by doing otherwise. I mean sure, he probably shelled out a bit to employ the 15 people for 6 months to make it (sadly though I don’t see their names next to WINNER) but still, Brian has been sat in the centre of London for over 6 years.

Right here (it’s a Quicktime VR movie, drag the image around..):

I think what he is doing is great and under our laws he has the right to do what he is doing. Until now. The police came and took away everything in the image above; all his legal documents, his personal items - everything. This was done under anti-terrorism laws because the objects apparently posed a threat and could possibly conceal explosives. Why they chose to do this in the middle of the night, and instead of search for explosives or terrorist threats take everything it’s either easy or hard to say depending on your perspective, but what can be said is that now this brave man who is standing in the face of so much opposition while he is speaking out for what is fair and just, now has nothing. What little effect he was having has been diminished as much as possible. The law has been twisted to oppress the very people it serves, and more depressingly in a way which never fully confronts the issue justly. It speaks volumes on our country. I’ll say no more about it for the time being.It is also interesting to note that the subject of him being there is an issue in itself as the government passed a law effectively making it illegal to protest within 1km of the capital buildings. Check out http://www.markthomasinfo.com/demo/, theres a lot of other really good information on his site relating to the subject.