End of the Ideal Home (show)

Show Entrance

On Friday we went to Earls Court to the Daily Mail Ideal Home exhibition   take a look around particular interest in everyday cutlery and Herb gardening.

It's getting near the end of the run but when we left mid afternoon the exhibition hall was far busier than I had anticipated, an odd mix of people with loads of mobility scooters quite a number of pushchairs and a number of very disgruntled looking men.

An Ideal home

What's amazing about the show is the number of dodgy products that get shifted, I'm not sure if the so-called promotions (generally half price) are genuine are the hideously over-priced items normally double ??

One of the key features of this sort of event is the lack of seating and the requirement to queue for pretty much anything that is not a buying opportunity and Earl's court had this in spades. Oh yes and we didn't see any Herbs or Cutlery.

Tommy gets Plastered.

We did though see TV's slightly threatening   Tommy Walsh    (he used to be on Ground-force) showing people how to plaster and an Italian TV Chef, by the end of the visit my feet ached but I did have my spectacles very well cleaned (for free) and had drunk a cup of  coffee and eaten a bacon sandwich.

A TV Chef

At Westfield

On Wednesday I was in Westfields (West London version) -after a somewhat disappointing turnout  to a totally free Energy Best Deal  presentation.
I had my camera with me so I took a few photos on a rainy afternoon - noticed that there were more children in the Centre than usual as a result of the action by teachers.

Ai Weiwei and not all Londoners will benefit from higher house prices

Great film I saw on BBC Iplayer recently   was all about   Ai Weiwei, it was under the Storyville strand and was really interesting both in terms of the creative work of Ai  and the Chinese states persecution of him.
Ai was thew creative consultant responsible for the creation of the concept of the 'Birds Nest stadium' at the Olympics in 2008 but is no longer in favour with the powers that be in China.

A brave artist in China

During the time the film was made Ai Weiwei was working on work that examined his recent imprisonment on what appears to be trumped up charges - these were a series of 3-dimensional works representing his treatment while he was held by the state authorities.

Several very interesting things came out of the film one was that a modern consumer state that micro-manages and puts its artists under surveillance is ultimately doomed Ai when the  question was posed to him when it would fall apart was unable to put a date on it but was clear that it will change.

Problems for people

The news that the average  price for a house in London is now over £400,000 brings renewed focus onto the plight of many who will not be able to own their own home in the nation's capital.
What is striking about these times where the successful thrive is the hard times that many suffer often as a result of loneliness as much as by their relative poverty.
On discussing with people who suffer as result of low fixed incomes it is apparent that human contact is often missing or malfunctioning.

Red are the London prices Blue the rest of the UK
(from http://monevator.com/historical-uk-house-prices/)

Husserl, Heidegger and the Email hijack -Please Don't get caught

The Philosophy course is sadly for me coming to  to an end and this week we took a short journey down Existentialism Avenue.
One of the many delights I have experienced on the course is the weekly removal of what I thought I had learnt  from the reading/viewing that have been the basis of the course - that is The Bryan Magee Great Philosophers dialogues  

The acknowledged expert that Bryan was chatting with on the subject of Heidegger for this week's session  was Professor Dreyfus although previous weeks our course leader has generally looked past the 'expert' this week he felt unable to ignore the issues he had around Dreyfus (I think he said he was recently dewad but from Google I'm beginning to think this was wishful thinking on his part).

Martin a Nazi?

Scott identified Dreyfus as someone who had a career around his work on Heidegger and attempts to reconcile the existentialist view with that of the more Pragmatic U.S. perspective.

What I got from the discussion and reading  was that Husserl who established a 'new'/'fresh' analysis known as phenomenology. What Husserl created  was a critique of the  Descartes  mind and body dualism. Husserl had what he though was an able and gifted  student in the shape of Martin Heidegger's who he felt would be better equipped to carry forward this project but in time he was badly let down by him.

I had looked briefly at Phenomenology briefly before and come to the conclusion on the revisit that it did not tell me much but I now reckon it is of value and that the question from the existentialist Heidegger 'What are we doing?' is one we need to address. 

But Heidegger developed the thoughts in a somewhat different way and is now better known than Husserl who is often overlooked.
Heidegger brought to life the idea of living life in his seminal work the 1927 published book  Being and Time (let's face it that's a great title for a book), The idea is that “being-in-the-world,” and that which goes with it  is about the phenomenological principle that philosophy is not empirical but offers the  (perhaps) self-evident insight into the structure of experience. There's a 'nice' post on 'Being and Time' here.

I am someone who finds it difficult nbot to look at the nature of the people in the analysis of thier works (be it written work, music or 'Art') and I am under the impression that Martin Heidegger was not a great guy who chose to be a Nazi either because of his beliefs or to further his career, I think neither viewpoint would reflect well on Heidegger-   Husserl who was of Jewish birth (but chose to become a Christian) suffered under Hitler because of his Jewish family.

 Email hijack - Don't get caught

I think/thought I was quite savvy as far as computers and IT goes but I got caught - please do be careful and think long and hard  before doing anything that's suggested in an e-mail message if it involves 'passwords' (and then don't do it).
Well I got badly burned  following a  Message headed

Your BT Yahoo! account information has changed

I followed a link and changed some settings that resulted in my contacts being sent a 'begging' e-mail  (about being stranded in Manila).
In my defence I would say that generally these messages get caught by my spam filter and that they do not usually have  the secure  https://  type address which this did.
Please do be cautious, and thanks to those who contacted me and let me know they were concerned and also to BT's e-mail staff who helped me out.