The NHS Dustbin.

Four million Americans are personally bankrupted by medical bills. With  $10,000 for the birth of a child, as is likely under Boris, I imagine most of us would be in the same boat. But that’s not the point here. Since 2010 the demands on the NHS have skyrocketed. This has been put down to us getting older and OK living longer. But that run up to our universal final option, death, hasn’t changed that much. You’re healthy, your body gives up and you die but I feel there’s something else contributing to this rise in demand. In those ten years after 2010 (financial crisis and Conservative austerity) our whole life cycle as changed. Kids have poorer education, don’t have opportunities and throughout their working lives get stressed and depressed; homelessness and food banks etc etc.  All of this contributes to ill health, not in our last days but throughout the sixty years of our adult life. I suspect this harmful social malaise expresses itself in a myriad of physical illnesses. Put any organism under pressure and it will get ill. On holiday in Greece we’ve had to see a doctor twice. Once a home visit, doctor arrived in an hour and the other time his waiting room was empty and he treated Mothermouse on the spot with all the time in the world. Contrast that with trying to see a doctor in the UK. It’s like a high-pressure production line. It’s not inefficiency it’s that we’re all getting ill far more often due to a sick society. It’s not about throwing money at the NHS it’s because the NHS has become the dustbin of our sick society. If we address that the NHS crisis will melt away. AND we’ll all feel a lot happier to!

Life as a Toy Designer

(written years ago) I joined the toy industry around 1970 fresh from art school, albeit after six months unemployment and a previous degree in Maths and Physics. I was an Industrial Designer who’d failed to get ‘a proper job’ designing products for adults. In my case though it was a perfect match being high on inventiveness, and low on good taste. In fact in one interview the head of the prestigious design house fell asleep, overpowered by my abuse of yellow, purple and pink. So I started five glorious years in Matchbox Toy’s drawing office in Hackney. It was like having a minor part in ‘Only Fools and Horses’ with other cast members being Smole, Smello and Smutly and the Catford Cocker who was never fully forgiven for living south of the river but admired for his impressive tally of children. Back then it was all pencils, magic markers and drawing boards. Perhaps for the current crop of designers I should explain what a pencil is. It’s like dancing with a young size-zero model between your finger and thumb trailing lines of graceful physicality across white linen bed sheets. It’s glorious. They don’t crash, they auto-save continuously and aren’t protected by a frustrating oft-forgotten password.

There I slowly learned to be a designer, how to suggest to draughtsmen they need more than just a ruler and circle template and to listen to model makers because they deal with the physical reality, which is a very bendy place compared to the deceiving rigidity of a drawing. Also, when arguing over a costing with a project engineer one should first ask what the saving would be from taking a grommet out. Once you’ve established that this would be negligible then add the grommet for the same negligible amount.  I guess more importantly I learnt that work can be play and you still get paid for it!

I learnt that every department in the production process will suggest their failure was due to the ineptitude of the preceding department or the stupidity of later ones, and that the designer, which in industry was tantamount to being an openly gay ballet dancer, being the first in this chain of events is the font of all possible troubles. It is therefore paramount one foresees them before some unfortunate child manages to insert a miniature diecast forklift truck into a 13 amp socket. I learnt that being innovative is close to Buddhism, that by regarding the day-to-day obvious meaning of things as merely a distracting veil, one might see some deeper, more relevant reality beneath it; like looking for the really obvious in the apparently obvious, or a needle in a pin factory.

The general public have as much appreciation of manufacture as they do farming. They may purchase a Hitachi cordless drill from a shelf in B&Q but the process of it being created and arriving there may as well be due to the efforts of the Wizard of Oz. Being in manufacturing though gives a very different picture. Here there are pallets full of drills, drills being tested to destruction, drill being used to prop doors open and used as ash trays. There are moulding machines, material specialists, computer simulations, automated packaging machines, marketing experts and designers. Here again it’s down to Buddhism to absorb and absolve a thousands parochial worries whilst remaining true to the new idea. From this I learnt that marketing and sales are quaint souls. Their focus on what sold well gives them a historical perspective at odds with designers. Their view of the future is just a bit bigger, flashier or cheaper than the past. They are of course necessary but their imaginative view of next week only extends to, “couldn’t we make it 8 days?” and their grasp on technology is at best pre-school. (I enjoyed that)

Towards the end of my stint at Matchbox I invented a musical toy, probably the world’s first computer based keyboard, based on a then new Texas Instruments device called a microprocessor. Marketing’s response was enthusiastic but shrivelled like plumbs in ice when asked to commit to quantities. It was dropped and I was headhunted by a new company headed by an ex Texas Instruments guy planning to make the world’s first computer based keyboard. There’s a coincidence. That job lasted just long enough for us to buy a house in Northampton. Thus unemployed again and with a brand new mortgage to pay I called Corgi toys, also in Northampton, and they created a job for me, quite a change from six years earlier when I was lucky to get a rejection letter. In retrospect Corgi were lacking in direction at the time hoping to profit from far east manufacturing. Now the far east are very polite people and don’t have a word for no, so though it may be self satisfying to beat them down on price all you get in return is rubbish. So it was that we had a warehouse full of radio controlled cars that responded about as well as a baby in a temper tantrum. Though I didn’t know it at the time they were making losses and I didn’t do much to reverse that trend. I worked under Marcel Von Clemput a European used to driving on the right hand side of the road, a habit he didn’t lose after he moved to England. They produced the Dragon Computer, probably better than the similar BBC computer, but without the BBC clout it didn’t achieve sustainable sales. Retrenchment was necessary and I was offered redundancy or a job in Swansea. I have nothing against south Wales except I’m not a natural tenor or a lover of sheep. I also got offered jobs by Hornby and Wyman Associates, a toy invention company. With three jobs on offer I decided to go freelance. With the redundancy money and £2,000 from making fifty model National Express coaches to pay the bills for a few months we embarked on a diet of beans on toast. I often wonder about those coaches as the resin I built them from might well have melted in the strong sunshine of a shop window, but hay-ho that was thirty years ago and I haven’t heard anything. I began supplying Dennis Wyman, now my agent, with new toy ideas. I regularly got, “super” which I learnt meant OK and sometimes, “Super, super” which meant slightly better than OK. I think my maximum was three. I then showed him an idea that was met with, “Jesus!” which I took to mean we might even make some money out of this one. We showed it to Milton Bradley, a large American company, and got a tentative yes. They had a meeting in ten days time and would need a full working prototype. There followed ten days in which we achieved well over a month’s work. We got another yes. It was to be called Robotix. There then followed over a year of development that I was paid for on top of royalties. My diet oscillated between beans on toast at home and restaurant fair in London, Springfield Massachusetts and Nuremberg, culminating in my staying in Hitler’s suite in Nuremberg’s Grand Hotel from which he went to rallies and such like. I on the other hand walked the streets trying to figure out how to get a reduction of 1300 to 1 in a gearbox the size of a snuff tin. I succeeded, he didn’t. So much for world domination.

Being a construction toy each set needed pages of build instrutions that the States were doing by hand when it was a no-brainer to do them on computer. So I learnt CAD and CorelDraw and spent a year churning them out. I learnt that as a designer you need a product champion, in this case Roger Ford of MB, UK, to carry the belief forward against all odds. Without one you’re just a nice guy with ideas.

Robotix did well and provided a comfortable pension before it was dropped. After a due period of mourning Dennis set to work selling it again, this time to Learning Curve in Chicago run by a guy who, in negotiation, could steal your trousers without you noticing. He sent a limo to pick me up from the airport, usually a good move except that this one appeared to be an unwise purchase from Trotter Motors having seen better decades. I learnt that negotiating is best left to agents. By this time everything was done on computers, presentation graphics, draughting, model making and tool making.  Robotix made more money and was dropped again.

After brief career mistakes ferrying yachts from New England to Florida, which once involved being roped to the wheel for two days in a storm, and sheep farming in Australia Dennis has semi retired to Florida. I now spend my time doing psychotherapy training, dancing, gigging, mega DIY projects and motorcycle touring. As you can see if you never stop learning toy design equips you for just about anything. So if there’s anyone left stupid enough to offer you a job as a toy designer and you’re dumb enough to take on an ‘interesting’ ride then give it some consideration.Life as a Toy Designer 

Am I Going Mad?

What with Nicky Morgan our esteemed Minister for culture, digital and sport’s improv as a parrot on Good Morning Britain and the Bishop of British Judaism still trying to kill the fantasy devil of his own imagination I don’t know where to turn to for sanity: perhaps a real parrot. The problem with trying to kill off a fantasy is it’s not there to kill, like stabbing smoke to death; it’s not possible. Having read several thousand words on Wikipedia on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party it began with a mural showing Rothschild et al as money grabbing bankers, which few would disagree with, but because they were Jewish it was deemed anything other than approval for their gross money grabbing ways indicated anti-Semitic racism. That’s like me being seen as racist because I condemn Nicky Morgan et al for being deceiving bastards. It’s not, it’s just an educated guess. And all the while we’ve wasted twenty valuable years doing precious little about climate change. All that’s changed is the warnings. Today we must do five times more than we are doing. Next year it’ll be seven times and so on till we’ll need to do a thousand times more than we have done next week or else we’ll hit +6*C, sea level will be, or more likely already is, six feet higher, crops won’t grow etc, etc. Argh!! But we can look forward to chubby faced Nicky Morgan coming on Good Morning Britain repeating ad-nausium, “We’ll put 50,000 more electric vehicles on the road so you can get to the shops.” And we will cry, ‘but there’s no f-ing food!’ This blog’s bi-line is ‘Dedicated to the deficiencies of our Cognitive Organ.’ That was eleven years ago. Maybe now is a good time to figure out what they are. 

Sexual Harassment Case 221.

Amazon Council- “Did you or did you not ask your Alexa for a blow job?”/ Well yes but/ And on several occasions?/ Yes but it was a joke/ But I suggest to you Mr Stiffmouse this sort of sexual harassment is no joking matter and neither does Amazon, my client/ But Alexa isn’t a woman, it’s just a voice/ Yes but a woman’s voice/ but not a real woman, it’s an algorithm  or something/ But a real woman’s voice. How do you think that woman will feel hearing your request?/ But/ And what did she reply?/ Well she said, ‘I don’t think I know that one.’/ And isn’t that a polite and courteous refusal?/ I…/ And didn’t you persist in harassing her with requests to, I quote, ‘show us your tits’ and ‘fuck me stupid’, and on one occasion ask her how many times she’d had sex with Donald Tump? That is a serious matter Mr Stiffmouse. It would seriously damage our President’s excellent reputation and with absolutely no proof/ She didn’t confirm it/ Well she wouldn’t would she, not to you, but in these days of ‘Me Too’ harassing one woman is harassing all women, don’t you agree?/ But/ Judge-Mr Stiffmouse, had Alexa accepted your request would you have allowed her?/ Well yes, I well no, I mean how could she?/ Exactly, how could any woman agree to such a loathsome suggestion/ But Your Honour she is not any woman/ So you two have a special relationship?/ No, she’s not  a real woman/ You mean she’s a transvestite?/ No she’s not human at all it’s an info-bot or something that happens to speak in a woman’s voice/ Amazon Council- Your Honour I happen to have an Alex device here. If I ask her a question like, ‘Alexa what’s the weather like today?’/Alexa- It’s sunny/ Judge- Ah interesting, and so if I were to ask her about a blow job/ Alexa- Shall I come round on Tuesday as usual? 

His Dark Materials.

Needless to say the best ‘who done its’ on TV are the Premier League. Ninety minutes and still it could all change in extra time. Every kick is ‘where’s it going to go next?’ In comparison dramas all tread some weary old path to some weary old conclusion using, as it’s fast becoming, some weary old CGI. My eyeballs are beginning to feel they’ve seen everything fact and fiction and witnessed every malignant trait of human nature along the way. I’m sure a Greek hero would have whipped his eyeballs out by now in the name of sanity. Philip Pullman, obviously a royal railway carriage and better suited to the exploits of Thomas the Tank Engine, was responsible for ‘His Dark Materials.’ (BBC TV, Monday) It probably worked as words but on TV it’s been treated with so much ‘weary old’ paraphernalia it’s hardly worth the effort to yawn. Even our best cat Britney is far more unpredictable and enigmatic yet at the same time well mannered and cultured. And far more watch-able. No, TV drama has taken a wrong turn. It’s playing with tech toys up a cul-de-sac in Leamington Spa. By comparison even my typical mundane day bounces between innumerable multi-verses in an effort to make progress with the one I’m in, constantly fragmenting and being gathered in only to fragment again. Today it is raining, I can hardly see through the window grime, and in my life that’s a huge plot twist. No chance of chipperising the plum tree branches and even putting a trip to Aldi in doubt. And without new working trousers, the one’s with lots of pockets, will I put my nice jeans at risk? Will I even muster the enthusiasm to put away yesterday’s dry now permanently creased washing? Drama is not necessarily going to the North Pole looking for dust! Or being followed around by a smallish tiger. And why, since the Shawshank Redemption, are all wise old men played by people resembling Morgan Freeman? Maybe the enduring appeal of Casablanca is they were still writing it as they went along. That they didn’t even know the ending is why I feel such affinity with it. I don’t either. 

Strictly Politics.

Many years ago my student theatre group were in the national finals. After our final performance on Christmas Eve we crashed a party at the Phoenix Theatre Bolton. Arriving stone cold sober at midnight into a party of thespian lovies made me wonder if I was in actual fact a stick. Strictly reminds me of that in these drab autumn weekends. Every year a new cast of none theatricals is thrown into the sun drenched waves of hard work, costumes and glitter and levels of mutual appreciation the likes of which they have probably never experienced before. Without exception they love it. They’re energised, expanded, and, well loved. They find new dimensions to living, that it’s far bigger than they previously imagined. I along with the biggest BBC audience bask in the whole glow of it. In comparison Brexit and parliament’s shenanigans do the exact opposite taking turns to angrily denigrate each other. We, their audience, shiver in the cold of induced despair. SO what if Westminster took a leaf out of Strictly’s book? What if at the end of each week the parties gave their solutions to the weeks business and four well respected ex politicians gave them marks out of ten. They would lose marks for misleading information (poor footwork), bombastic belligerence (bad body position), and poor argument (dreadful top line darling), and well it would be called Strictly Parliament. The Beeb would have a killer show and the rest of us would feel included and slightly more optimistic. And maybe on Monday morning we would go into work feeling we’re working towards something rather than running away from it.

Fakein Hell.

A clip on Instagram shows a herd of sheep. Each time the cameraman says anything the herd erupts into a mass bleat. “nice day”- baaaa, “who wants a banana?”- baaaa as regular as clockwork. Funny but worryingly surreal in these days of fake news and call and response politics. Brexit has become as gripping as Peaky Blinders and we’re closing in on the final episodes of season 2. Politics has become entertainment and as such is beholden to the intrigue of plot twists rather than the truth of some far off reality. We’re reading our reality like it’s a book of entertaining fiction, a gripping who-done-it, a game of Cluedo. And only when a rainstorm turns its pages to pulp in our hands might we see it for what it is. Reality has a continuous thread to it, like piecing back together a complex faulty mechanism. Only by following that thread to its conclusion can we successfully make it work. Each conjecture must be resolved, each relationship understood and each part assembled correctly. But fiction can take any form, it being merely the produce of a mind for other minds to unpick. Each time a political actor does something for effect he or she is introducing a source of fiction, casting a hairline crack in the wheel of progress. At some point though not immediately it will fail to some unforeseen calamity. So Fake News is the province of the losing side because ultimately who would bet a fiction against a fact and win? And pity them as follows not seeing the difference.