Inmos

Inmos was a state-funded semiconductor company set up in 1978 and hurriedly sold-off by the conservative government under Margaret Thatcher in 1984. The company retained its identity until 1994, when it was fully assimilated into SGS-Thomson - a european multinational.

The years in between proved to be an exciting and special time - at least for those of us who were there - and earlier this week a number of people met up to celebrate the fact.

There was no cabaret, there were no smoke machines, no self-congratulatory whooping. As this was the first such reunion ever (in this country at least), most people were content to meet old friends, to share stories and to catch up on current news. I had a great time myself - as I am sure others did too. We have Claire Maudsley to thank for organising it all.

As Iann Barron - one of the three founders - said in a short welcoming speech, although Inmos is commonly considered to have failed as a profitable enterprise it fostered a microelectronics culture around Bristol whose influence is felt to this day. As the old company slowly collapsed in on itself it sent out spores that grew into new start-ups: some flowering spectacularly before withering away, others growing into significant companies in their own right.

See The Inmos Legacy by Dick Selwood to find out more, as well as the Wikipedia entry on the Transputer to see what it was that kept us at work late into the evening and - on more than one occasion - through to the next morning.

For me, one of the most remarkable facts about those years was that - not content simply to design the Transputer (a groundbreaking, microscopic, computing machine) - we decided we might as well design everything else we were going to need, while we were at it: a new computer language (occam), the software used to design the chip, the operating system, the computers on which that software ran, the communication network, text editors and so on - everything.

It's not like that anymore.

Ah ... but things were done differently in those days. Your modern silicon chip, for all its staggering power and complexity, is a cold and soulless thing. The devices we made were lovingly shaped out of the living crystal, their datapaths as beautiful as fine oriental carpets, microcode as rich as any tapestry. And we secretly carved our initials into our work (a practice long since outlawed) and emblazoned the corners with depictions of mythical beasts, peculiar to our secret guilds.

I was talking to an old friend at the reunion. He told me how his daughter, home from university, had suddenly confessed that she had no idea what he did at work and would he tell her. He explained that he had been engaged for a number of years in designing the devices used to construct wireless networks. His daughter looked puzzled. "But that stuff just works, doesn't it?" she said.

If you stop to think about it - it's a great compliment.

On seeing the Anish Kapoor exhibition

So I did get to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition in the end. Three of us travelled to London from our village and made a day of it.

Strangely though, it was the TV program 2 weeks earlier that gave rise to my more philosophical musings about the exhibition. The thing itself was more along the lines of a fairground - what with the funny mirrors and the firing of the meat gun every 20 minutes.

Some of the objects were so greedy for space that people had to pick their way around them. Others, like the huge mirrored surfaces, conveyed a different message. Through reflections (and reflections of reflections) of people and of architecture, they created all the space you could possibly want.

And then there was that massive wax stool, forced slowly and steadily through the graceful arched portals separating a line of galleries.

Now what was that all about, I wonder?

Newstweet

Is Simon Cowell the British Berlusconi?

Just one more ...

The news that 29 senior managers in the UK Border Agency are to be paid bonuses averaging £10,000 each as a reward for, to quote the immigration minister Phil Woolas: 'delivering what the government is asking them to do', leads me to speculate on their baseline job description:

You will be expected to carry out your duties with no worse than mild to moderate incompetence. With respect to negligence or serious professional misconduct, there must be no more than one such episode in any 12 month period. Patronising behaviour, verbal abuse, sexual harassment and non-physical bullying will be tolerated, provided these are kept within reasonable limits and can be shown to be compatible with corporate goals.

And finally, at at time when many ordinary working families are facing unprecedented challenges to their security and standard of living, you will be expected to lead and motivate a team of 25,000 front-line staff by fostering an environment of mutual respect and shared values.

Reader: I thought you said you were going to cut down on this kind of thing?

Omnivorist: I know. It's just ... I get this sort of red mist.

Reader: For goodness sake! Try and get a grip on yourself.

A sad day

I awoke this morning to the news that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to investigate claims of data manipulation and scientific fraud from within its own ranks.

Don't get me wrong: I don't believe for a moment that there is any substance to the accusations, but to say that the situation is serious - with the Copenhagen Climate Summit just days away - would be an understatement. To all intents and purposes the Copenhagen summit is now dead. Even if effective agreements can be reached in Copenhagen, back in the US Senate they will face something resembling an angry nest of hornets.

What is certain is that we are witnessing the successful culmination of a calculated, well-funded and professional public relations campaign. They will teach courses on it in future years (though they might have to get a move on, I guess). You can see how it was done here.

And with regard to my recent post - in which I tried to belittle the climate change sceptics - I now see that as somewhat naive. Dismissing climate change sceptics on the grounds that they lack scientific credentials is about as pointless as criticising a bunch of thugs, hired to break up a town-hall meeting, on the poor quality of their debating skills.

It seemed (to me at least) that the climate change issue could be argued in terms of science alone. After today it is clear it has to be fought politically.

See the DeSmogBlog for further background on the role of lobbying and PR in the climate change debate.

Admirable self-restraint

A government minister has told bankers "to come back into the real world" after Royal Bank of Scotland directors threatened to resign over bonuses
(BBC 03/12/2009).

I'm not going to say anything about this. I'm beginning to bore myself with blogs about bankers.

Reader: Well thank goodness for that. Maybe we can move on to the interesting stuff now.

Lead balloon

It was beginning to look like the USA had a monopoly on barmy climate change sceptics but now, with the news that BNP leader Nick Griffin is to represent the European parliament at the Copenhagen summit, it's gratifying to see us making a real contribution of our own at last.

Oddly enough, I feel a certain anticipatory pleasure at the sight of the sceptics clambering aboard their lead balloon. There's something about their style that suggests they consider the whole climate change issue to be nothing more than a matter of argument - with Reality, Nature or whatever you want to call the stuff out there, waiting patiently in the wings - ready to fall into line with whichever side comes out on top.

Bless

In a week that, by common agreement, appears to have been another good one for the banks, I found myself digging out some notes I made of a discussion on the BBC Today program (25 September, 2009) This involved a bunch of bankers, hedge-fund managers and financial journalists discussing what had changed since the 2008 banking crisis.

By common agreement the answer appeared to be 'not very much'.

And when considering whether there is anything that can be done to lessen the chances of future banking catastrophes, there was similar unanimity in agreeing: yes there is - we could return to a system that enforces a separation between high street (commercial) banking and investment (casino) banking. The idea being that, if investment banks were aware of the fact that next time they mess up there isn't going to be anyone riding to the rescue, they might have a healthier attitude to risk.

A system of this sort was originally established in the USA by the second Glass-Steagall Act (1933) in response to the 1933 Wall St banking crisis but was repealed again in 1999 after prolonged lobbying from the banking industry. And the rest (as they say) is history.

So why aren't we putting it right?

The answer, it seems, is that the banks don't want to do that; they think it's best to leave things as they are. We doesn't come into it.

Reader: That's all perfectly clear but what's worrying me is this business of taking notes of the Today program. Isn't that just a little bit unusual ?

"For goodness sake darling - please try to be a bit more careful; you've got marmalade all over my notes again!"

Omnivorist: Hahaha. Don't worry I don't make a habit of it. It's just that on that particular morning I remember feeling deeply shocked by the realisation that nowadays we are ruled by the banks. Up till then I'd believed I was living in a democracy.

Reader: Bless

On not seeing the Anish Kapoor exhibition

I went to London last week to stay with friends and to visit some galleries and museums.

At the Royal Academy I bought a ticket for the Wild Thing exhibition (Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Eric Gill) but stumbled accidentally into the first room of the Anish Kapoor show - which I didn't realise was on.

I found myself in the room containing the piece called Shooting into the Corner but which might equally appropriately be titled: Meat Gun. My initial reaction was something like my mother's response on seeing Antony Gormley's sculpture of a lone, abandoned foetus in an empty room, namely: 'Oh dear'.

But I didn't have a ticket and was politely directed to the Wild Thing exhibition which was good but - on reflection - pretty tame.

And then last night I watched a TV program about Anish Kapoor's Royal Academy show (Imagine, Winter 2009: The Year of Anish Kapoor, BBC1 Tuesday, 17 November) and - it's clear - I'm going to have to go back to London again and see it for real.

But I'm not beating myself up about it. After all, a lot of Modern Art is pretty hard to take seriously - and especially so when endlessly talked about, analysed etc. It was pretty much the same last night as I watched Alan Yentob appreciating some of Anish Kapoor's earlier sculptures from the comfort of my sofa. "It's quite disorienting in a rather interesting way", said Alan and I thought 'Here we go again - another disorientation opportunity. I just can't get enough of them.'

But then, about halfway through the program I did start to get interested and to recognise something of substance, something capable of stirring up the sediment and bringing the machinery back to life. And this is what I thought and what I now want to go and check out on the spot.

I found myself intrigued by all of Anish Kapoor's work (as experienced on the TV screen) but some of them, like the huge concrete wormcasts set on wooden pallets, invoked strong, somewhat disturbing feelings but no words.

The pieces that led me to a sense of discovery were the highly-finished ones - smooth, curved objects, either mirrored or painted in high-gloss. Like all sculptures they are physical objects but I sensed that they are intended to be perfect - or as close to perfection as a real physical object can be. And the point of this perfection is to enable us to see, not the sculpture itself, but something else - either the world reflected (in the case of the mirrored objects) or an abstraction - a void, hole or tunnel, an idea.

Anish Kapoor made a huge mirrored sculpture in Chicago called Cloud Gate (popularly known as the Bean). People love to touch it and are encouraged to. It is polished afresh every day.

It's good to be surprised.

OCOS

(Reproduced, with minor modifications, from the April 2007 edition of Horsley's Over the Wall magazine)

I’ve been reading in the papers about this carbon offsetting business.

It works like this. Say you want to fly to New Zealand for your summer holiday, then on top of your air fare, you pay someone to plant about 15,000 trees. Over the next 50 years the trees will patiently soak up the carbon dioxide you are about to squander on your antipodean adventure, with the result that you can enjoy your holiday in the reassuring knowledge that you are ‘on the side of the planet’.

Apparently this is big business all of a sudden.

So not to be left behind when it comes to cutting-edge ideas, we at the Omnivorist Institute have been giving the matter serious thought and, after a number of tough meetings with business types, venture capitalists and the like, we are proud to announce: the Omnivorist Carbon Offsetting Scheme.

And the good news is this: there is no need to change your lifestyle; no need to put on the hairshirt of environmental contrition, nor the heavy woollen stockings of ecological correctness.

No. Leave it to us; we at OCOS are experts at this sort of thing.

For a small fee, we will compensate for the wasteful and embarrassing excesses of your own lifestyle with carefully matched periods of indolence or discomfort undertaken by our team of professional associates.

By way of example: a cheap return flight to Lanzarote is offset, at our end, by 4 hours dozing in a hammock; for which the fee will be £50 – enabling you to come home, not just stress-free and with an impressive tan, but confident in the assurance that you are ‘carbon neutral’.

That summer evening barbecue, which might otherwise have been marred by torments of guilt, can be enjoyed with a completely clear conscience, safe in the knowledge that, for a modest outlay of £15, we have people willing to spend an uncomfortable night in the open, in a state bordering on hibernation.

So go ahead, turn up that patio heater – we have it covered.