More on cycling, Billy Wilder and Red 243

Yesterday at Cycle Revolution exhibition (in my role as Design Museum volunteer tour guide) and I'm finding more each time I make a tour for visitors, yesterday some of the new stuff for me was learning about what a 16 year old Tessie Reynolds achieved in her ride Brighton to London (and back) in just eight and a half hours - in terms of female emancipation it's quite an achievement .

And another thing from Scotland.

Also interested to find that many favour a Scot as the inventor of the forward propelled pedal cycle - Kirkpatrick  Macmillan  some say this was around 1839.

Billy Wilder

More on Psychoanalysis this week and I'm finding that Melanie Klein was far more than someone who identified that there were issues in later life played out from infancy - the rivalry over child development issues between Anna Freud (Sigmund's daughter) and Melanie Klein seems a complex one and fits well into an oedipal analysis.

Like Freud Melanie was brought up in Austria's capital,   Vienna must have been quite at place at the turn of the ( to the 20th) century.

There are a few people who one admires and seem admirable in more than just one way for me along with Artist  Bruce Lacey (A man inspiring to me but who I now realised died last month) and writer David Lodge is Billy Wilder.

I found out more about Wilder who was born in Austria in 1906 via YouTube, (it's a great educative aid for me), the anecdote I enjoyed most from this likable polymath was that where he spoke of an encounter with Sigmund Freud in Vienna, Freud cut short the opportunity for Wilder to interview him because of Freud's strong dislike of journalists (of which profession Wilder  was at the time) - amazing that the two met.

What's so great about Wilder is his range as a Film director from the 'goofy screwball' comedy of Some like it Hot through to the near perfect Film Noir of Double Indemnity.

Wilder was far from formulaic in his style or choice of subject matter and tackled difficult areas of life like Alcoholism in The Lost Weekend and Adultery in The Apartment - but he was a rounded character able to enjoy long friendships and for many years had an extensive collection of  Modern Art.

Red 243

Time for another 'pack-shot' - favoured by those wanting to bulk up in muscle department

It was Jack Douglas's catchphrase

Landscapes and shifts

Plates shift

This week has seen further shifting of the tectonic plates of UK broadcasting, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that there is a battle around the core media/communications access and activity in the home, this is the battleground that Sky, BT and Virgin Media are all fighting over.

Sky has something like double the income of the BBC but it is not about broadcast content, Virgin Media has an interest in content to drive its business, the re-brand could help them sort out the perceptions of poor service but only if the service is resolved, I heard the Virgin brand being described as ‘Teflon coated" but even Teflon wears off eventually!

BT has to see revenue beyond broadband and may find it necessary to move its position from being an aggregator, the employment of Michael Barry, from MTV may be an early sign that broadcasting brilliance is an area of expertise where they have to look outside the ranks of grey techno suits.

I’m not sure how the BBC or commercial TV i.e. ITV, C4 and channel five should respond to the changing landscape, history tells me that Murdoch will win but Branson is undoubtedly a clever operator as his battles with BA proved and BT should not be underrated, a minor political storm has been created around limiting Sky’s ambitions

We need more people like Bruce Lacey (he looks a bit like 'Rigsby' here doesn't he?)

I had in my mind memories childhood of a crazy inventor figure, managed to work out that it was Bruce Lacey, as well as working with the Beatles and Bonzo Dog Doodah band (Viv Stanshall, Neil Innes and others) he’s known as an artist find out more about him here. Bruce is still alive and to me epitomised the English eccentric I hope there are others around who can inherit his mantle – Me, I’m certainly tempted to try.