Cocoa, Rococo, and Rococo Cocoa

Well, it seems that a lot has happened in the last seven days or so... a massacre in Norway, the death of Amy Winehouse, and Morrisey saying some unwise things... again... now, I'm not going to agree with Morrisey's take on the Norway happenings, that worse things happen in slaughter houses every day, mainly because this reasoning is true only if you believe that all life is sacred and that all life is equally important... if you do, and of course the Beard respects your opinion as he respects all such things, then the slaughter of cattle is exactly the same as the slaughter of people.. but the beard believes quite happily, and with no diminishment of his character, that some lives are in fact far more important than others... for an example, I really don't care much about the life of a potato; only so much as to want it to continue until it's big enough to cook and eat... and the life of a chicken to me is less important than my own... sorry guys, but at least I'm honest...

Strangely, its been found that if a person's behaviour can be proved to conflict with that person's own self imposed moral code, then that person is actually more likely to change their moral code rather than their behaviour... which comes as no surprise to this hirsute blogger at all... which is possibly a good explanation, but fro what I'm not too sure...

Which sort of brings me to Amy Winehouse... now, it must be sad for her family to lose her, and I mean no disrespect to them, but we see her yet again the sad modern disease of people mourning her who really shouldn't be... after all, we didn't know her... all we ever saw was what the papers showed us... personally, I didn't think she was that great... I can listen to Back to Black, but nothing else she did stirred or moved me... in the Beard's eyes, a female pop artist needs to be either very talented, or rather good looking... and to me, Winehouse was neither... sorry guys...

But the Beard's main problem with Winehouse was this (and he admits that this was not altogether her fault...); that she was held up as some sort of role model... it was almost at times that young girls were being actively encouraged to be like her... just as the equally untalented Lily Allen was held up to us.. in the case of Amy, the message given out was this... get drugged up, behave badly, run yourself into the ground, and everybody will love you.. you'll get a recording contract, loads of money, and you will be a success... but she wasn't was she?? Unless success to you means being a drug addled loser with lots of money who dies at 27.... the Beard hopes truthfully that she'll be a better role model in death than she was in her short life....

Now, as I say, the Beard holds others than Amy responsible for this... ultimately, of course, she could have just said no... ultimately the responsibility was hers... but after a while, the drugs start to take over, and it becomes harder and harder to make that choice for the good... and the people who were in a position to help refused to... lets be honest here.. sending a star to rehab is just good publicity.... and it's very easy to solve anything with hindsight... but someone could quite easily have pulled the plug, withheld payment from her music, frozen her accounts, and told her "we won't give you any moey, airplay or anything but proper help until you get sorted..." They could have sent her back to her parents who could have then kept her from some of the bad influences that were affecting her, and they almost certainly would have helped her... instead she just got pushed down the same old line because it sold newspapers and records.... as I say, I was not a fan, but Amy could still be working now, singing for those who did enjoy listening, if it wasn't for greed and this awful awful respect we have for personal choice... and then to cap it all, as happened with Michael Jackson and Princess Diana, her mourning was hijacked by strangers... it must have been an awful time for those who actually did love her ( by which I don't mean the fans... you actually just found the music activated the pleasure centres i your brain, which is a different sort of thing...)

An awful time had by the people of Norway too... but the thing that truck the beard about the whole thing is the way that the blame was apportioned.. the earliest reports definitely claimed that this was an act of Islamist terrorism... despite no evidence of such a thing... and when it became clear that it was actually the work of a deranged Nazi, then it all became the fault of Islam for encouraging terrorists and immigrants for coming to live there.... because as we all know, if it weren't for that, this man wouldn't have felt that he needed to blow up and shoot people... well, get with th e programme, as our American brethren say.... that's the same argument that says it was the battered wife's fault for not boiling the eggs properly, or the woman's fault for wearing a short skirt... this man would have found someone else to blame, and would still have killed.... he may just have found different targets.... but personally I doubt it... but it all came down to freedom of personal choice yet again... whatever his beliefs and motives, he chose to do it, just as Amy Winehouse chose to take drugs... and choice is where evil lies... choosing to do harm rather than good is what evil is.. it's not down to devils or gods, it's down to us... to quote from Granny weatherwax... "There's only one sin, and that's thinking of people as things...." An associate tries to tell the witch that there are plenty of worse things, to which Granny replies, "Yes... but they all starts as thinking of people as things...." Which I think says it all... or maybe not... but whatever, a lot of it also starts with thinking that some lives are more important than others, and that some ideas are ore important than other lives... mainly when the person doing the thinking believes that none of the said lives are as important as that of the thinker him or her self....

Now, those of you who know the Beard will know of his love for open spaces, and yesterday saw him and Mrs Beard driving through the lovely Gloucestershire countryside to the amazing Painswick Rococo gardens... now, I'm sure that Paul Hervey-Brooks, the bod in charge ish won't mind me saying that the gardens are a fantastic mix of colour and dubious taste... set up many years ago by what passed then as new money, the gardens are full of strange little nooks and crannies, pools, enclosures, a maze and all sorts of malarkey... its the sort of place that the Beckhams of the 18th century would have set up just so that their old money neighbours could marvel at the expense and bad taste.... but taste is a strange thing, as tuna proves, and the Rococo gardens are that thing that, in a Beard's opinion, gardens should be... fun.... and they're getting better and better every year.... last year the Beard was privileged to watch a bunch of artists setting up their sculptures in the grounds, and this year was even more privileged to be invited to the preview evening of the sculpture season... even more sculptures than last time, varying from rusty metal birds, to giant dandelion parachutes and enormous conkers hanging from the trees... also a parade of possibly comforting, possibly disturbing designs lining the beech walk... now, the hirsute typer of this esteemed blog is a great fan of sculpture and art in locations like this... it makes the whole thing more accessible, which is, in my mind, a good thing... whether the viewer likes it or not, at least they have the opportunity to like it or not like it... too often art, like classical music, is seen as elitist... yet art is all around us... from the photo of the twins on the beach, to the grafitti on the railway arches,...not enough people go to gardens, and not enough see art... which is a shame... so, next time you're tempted to take a trip to some adrenalin soaked overpriced fun fair full of queues and idiots, don't.. just for a change, go and visit a park, or some gardens... there are plenty around... Painswick is a good place to start... and see if the kids enjoy it... if you approach it correctly, they almost certainly will... and you don't have to be a rabid horticulturalist... the Beard doesn't know the names of most of the things they grow nowadays, but anyone can decide whether a flower is pretty or not... give it a try...

But on that note the Beard notices that it has grown early yet again, and work and Scout camp beckon tomorrow... so it remains to be said, make your choices wisely, and regardless of your own importance, remember that others are just as important as you... so until all our cocoa becomes Rococo, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hacks, Hackers, Hacking, and lack of Backing...

So, the apparent scandal of the phone hacking continues... now, the beard is no fan of the red tops, being as we all know or don't, a committed reader of the i... but I'm afraid that regardless of it all, and apropos to nothing in particular, I don't actually see the importance... after all, we all know that governments are corrupt, and that papers will do everything they can to get a story, and we all know that Rebekah Brooks is one of those strange women who really really ought to be at the very least fanciable, but somehow contrives to be not so... but does any of it make any difference...??? The Beard thinks not... after all, taxes will still rise, wages will do whatever they do, and most people's lives will remain roughly the same, despite not having that cowards alternative to the porno mag, the News of the World on the shelves... for Mr Murdoch (any of them) is not as powerful and important as anyone wants him to be.. quite literally..

Which brings us to a real scandal, hidden away in a few column inches of the qualities... and this si something that does affect real people... the fact that 5.3 billion quids worth (and yes, that is a b not an m!!) of equipment has gone missing from the MoD stores over the past few years, and that the said supplier of all things military has failed its audit on more than one occasion... now, while this may not be directly related to the other story, that yet another soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, it is at the very least indirectly linked to the appalling loss of life in war zones... an ill equipped soldier is an ill prepared soldier, and even worse is a demoralised soldier... and surplus to this, someone out there is making moneyt out of stealing from brave men who are doing a difficult and thankless task... now, doesn't that put a bunch of millionaires trying to buy a tv station into perspective....???

Of course, News International has supported these men, give credit where its due... so maybe by possibly and maybe though not necessarily provably hacking the phones of these same soldiers the NotW was providing some sort of dubious public service and taking its payment for said help, who knows.. I for sure don't... but I digress....

And talking, or indeed writing, though obviously technically the Beard is typing rather than doing either off the other two, not that it matters in the long or even short run, of dubious public services... a question raised itself in what passes for the brain of your possibly favouritish hirsute blogger... what if journalists illegally hacking someone's mobile phone had, for example, overheard a government plot to cause rioting in the middle east?? Or what if, hacking the voice mail of a hypothetical missing schoolgirl, they had found threatening or incriminating messages from the girl's relatives that implicated them in her disappearance?? Or what if by stealing someone's private emails these same journalists had discovered the identity of a serial killer and stopped said killer in his or her tracks?? If this sort of information had been uncovered, and used wisely to prevent further harm, or solve awful crimes, would we now be hailing the hacks and hackers as heroes??? Who knows.... but perhaps the telling thing is that this defence has not been used... but yet again I get caught up in the whole digression thingy...

Personally the Beard has better things to think of, such as Mrs Beard, Beard junior and the two Step-Beards... and of course the soon to be here Charnwood 2011 International camp, a place of worldwide Scoutery and Guidery... and the fact that the possibly excellent Tori Amos has a new album coming out at the end of the year, on, sort of surprisingly, a major German classical label.... which promises to be good... Now the beard has, as most of you know, except of course for those of you who don't, been a fan of Tori for many years... ever since hearing the disturbing acapella "Me and a Gun" on the Annie Nightingale request show one Sunday night way back in the early 1990s.... this was followed by a close encounter with the was-b-side-later-a-side "Silent all these Years," and the purchase of "Little Earthquakes," the debut solo album... ever since, the Beard has chased Ms Amos, restraining order notwithstanding, acquiring ever more cds, and even managing to encounter the "flame-haired and tempestuous songstress" as she was once described, in Nottingham (scene of a quite well handled security breach) and in Bude... but enough of my ramblings... suffice it to say that I am looking forward to the forthcoming disc of music, and looking forward even more to boring Mrs Beard et al with repeated playings of such... and I'm sure they're all looking forward to it too... or possibly not...

Now, it would seem as though the Beard was about to make some sort of point durring the last paragraph, and, to be honest, I was, but fortunately for most of you, especially those of you who have totally failed to read this far (you know who you are... remember there will be an exam on this at the end of term...) that point was totally forgotten... or at least partially totally, which is an amazing phrase that the Beard actually heard uttered by a member of that class of people known as "management" and pitied by the rest of us...

It is of course a scientifically proven fact that managers forget passwords far more often than most people... which explains a lot... and if recent studies are correct then this problem will get worse and worse... apparently, its not the difficulty of your password that matters, but its length... a random string of stuff such as £$fd>ign is apparently as easy to crack as would be theboss1, or indeed any string of eight characters... the trick is, or so we are now told, to choose a code at least twelve digits long... it would seem that aaaaaaaaaaaa is far harder to crack than aaaaaaaa, despite what our alleged brains tell us... so managers, who often fail to string two characters together consistently, are well and truly... now The Beard, as you would expect, has taken this advice to heart, and is currently changing all his passwords from whatever they were to the entirity of james Clavell's Shogun... the idea being that even if someone does crack it, they will take so long typing it all in, that by the time they get to the bit with Fujiko and the pistol, they'll have decided that it really isn't worth it after all.... whereas normally they would break in, examine the state of my financial affairs and realise that it definitely wasn't worth it... truthfully, the Beard is hoping that someone steals his identity... it can only improve his credit rating....

The Beard is currently working on a script for a hollywood adaptation of the current NotW scandal, entitled Murdoch and the Hackers... and in true Hollywood style, the plot has been changed for dramatic effect, and now tells the story of a mad ex-Vietnam helicopter pilot and A-Team member, and his involvement with a certain British PM who once held the role of Minister for Administrative Affairs... now who should we cast as Bernard Woolley...???

Any way, the hour grows early, and a shopping trip beckons, along with a shower and a session at the other laptop... so it remains to say that until all our words pass, and all our hackers get hacked, and until the day comes, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Inspired by Inspectors.....

Now, a week or so ago (really, the preposition in question should be "then", but now seems somehow clearer or more poetic... or possibly not... but I digress...) the Beard, if his paranthesis has not got in the way of your understanding, went to see the imaginively entitled sequel to "The Hangover," "The Hangover 2".... now, I've nothing against the tagging of numbers onto the original title in order to express sequelhood; it must be admitted that it does clear up confusion... who among you would have guessed that "Die Hard" was a sequel to the much earlier film "The Detective"... which technically makes Die Hard 3 into "The Detective 4", but that's by the by... in fact, if done skilfully, it disenables confusion from even reigning in the first place, just as Prince Charles's emittance of Prince William has disenabled a certain other Navally inclined prince from doing... possibly... although, when our American cousins are involved, their ignorance of all things numerical does get them confused... "Madness of George 3," anyone...??

Regardless, as is the way of sequels, the Beard went with an open mind, despite his long held acceptance that sequels tend not to be on a par with originals... the few exceptions that spring to mind are those where the sequel has embraced an entire new genre of film,such as "Aliens"... of which more later... Now, don't get me wrong... I have nothing against sequels per se, but it does seem that quiet a few are made not because the film needs or deserves one... indeed some most definitely do not... "Grease 2" springs horribly to mind... some films stand up better on their own.. "Cube" for example loses rather than gains by the addition of its se- and pre- quels... but rather they are made due to some innate need on the part of film companies to separate people from their money and their homes... the Beard is not alone in believing that the increased length of films these days, coupled with the longer period of advertising in the cinema is actually designed to give the government more time to bug your house and feed the cat while you're away... or possibly I was the only one to believe this... but probably not any longer.... but yet again I digress...

To get back on topic, as I'm informed I must say in this allegedly digital savvy world, "The Hangover" was rather a funny film, involving a particularly bad night out ending in Mike Tyson's tiger, or so I recall... my recollection is hazy... So the Beard arrived at the cinema expecting more of the same, but at a slightly lower standard, and was not necessarily disappointed... the film was, put bluntly, nowhere near as funny as the original... and the Beard knew this before the titles had even finished rolling... "How?!!" I hear you ask... well, with true Beardy benevolence, I will illuminate...

There is one phrase (or possibly a clause, the Beard being unwilling to consult his grammar book) that, when sighted at the beginning of almost any production, be it film, tv show, book or stage play, should cause the heart to sink, and the bottom to rise from the seat in search of a new pursuit... and that is the dreaded "Based on Characters and situations created by..." This invariably means that the original writers realy didn't want to do a sequel, and have been convinced by the sweet talk of money or the legalism of a badly worded contract to allow the sequel to be penned by several people who saw the original when drunk and didn't really get it at all... It is worse by far than the far better "Inspired by characters, etc...." This lattermeans that someone has taken someones work, and changed it into something that they think will be more amusing than the original author's attempts... for example, Patrick Swayze in King Solomons Mines, inspired by Rider Haggard but moved forward in time slightly and turned into a Saturday afternoon romp... fine... any modern day relocation and reworking of Sherlock Holmes... the list continues... but Based on... that means that someone somewhere wants a sequel doing quick and doesn't really care about the result...

A favourite case in point is Inspector Morse... now, the Beard is actaully a fan of Colin Dexter's morose copper, and was pleased when John Thaw portrayed him on television, despite them youthing Lewis and making him Geordie, and changing Morse's Lancia into a Jag... such things, along with showing the episodes out of order, can be coped with... when the Beard soured on the series was when, for various reasons, the producers decided to get people to write new stories for the series... all of whom got Morse's character wrong!! They had obviously seen a few episodes, not really understood anything other than "does crosswords, drinks beer, bullies Lewis, chats up a younger woman, solves crime..." and then wrote an episode... a bit like Peter Jackson claiming to be a Lord of the Rings fan, then changing or omitting THE most important bbits of the book... Elves at Helms Deep??!! No Scouring of the Shire??!!! Very much a WTF moment, or so I'm told such things are called in the vernacular... but yet again i digress, which must be a record even for oneself...

But anyway, when the Beard sees such caption, the Beard immediately knows that the film will be a half hearted copy of the original with no real understanding of it... a bit like the US presidency, perhaps... surfice it to say, the Beard really ought to walk out on such films, and dreads the day when he sees the words, "based on blog posts created by Wisebeard.." They'll probably be attached to some dire comedy film about Vikings and half of a comedy double act, and the main character will be hairy, wise, insightful, witty and charming... as I say, it will get the main character totally wrong... but anyway, the hour gets late, and after a night of babysitting and the Dirty Dozen ( but thankfully not babysitting the Dirty Dozen) with the beautiful Mrs Beard, and with a rather horrifying concert by the rather less horrifying "Notorious," one of whose players is a definitely non horrifying (dare I say otherwise!) lawyer of the Beard's acquaintance, to look forward to, all I have left to say is that, until our lives are all inspired by rather than based on, Wisebeard Salutes You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!