Friday, November 25, 2005
Wales in the winter

Taken outside my house this morning:

Posted by Owen Jones 2005-11-25 07:54:12

Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Misinterpreting

Due to extended work hours I've not been doing a lot of reading, writing or watching so it may just be me or has the world gone into catastrophy overload. I watched the start of a new series (at least here in the UK) called Threshold that deals with worse case scenarios. I turn on the news - more suicide bombs, fighting, viral epidemics, you name it and it's bound to be happening somewhere. I open the next book in my reading pile and the world has been nailed by an asteroid and a few human survivors are faced with a world without sunlight.

Now there will invariably begood and bad times, both on the microcosmic scale that is our lives andon the larger stage of our planet, but at the moment we don't seem to be able to move beyond the bleakness of the present .... if indeed it is bleak. This is the crux I guess of my wonderings, the media has increasingly become a tool to inform us of everything. Of course the negative aspects of life garner far more attention and thus ratings than the positive, upbeat stories do, so is this influence all pervasive? To me it very much seems that way. There is a disturbing enthusiasm about being the 'first' to break a horrifying news story, about dealing in the absolute minituae of the event and it's repercussions. Both London and New Orleans have been but recent evidence that tragedy sells and there are hundreds of channels, newspapers and magazines ready to swamp us with how terrible the state of the world is.

What is important I think is perspective, admittedly very hard to achieve and a little cold when confronted by the personalisation of tragedy, yet it is necessary if we are to live in a world not governed bythe spectre of fear and disillusionment. We need to understand that there will be bad times but these times are more than survivable. We should look past them and be thankful for all the things that are important to us and realise that our actions, not the misinterpretations of what we see, hear and are told, can alter our whole perspective.

Posted by Owen Jones 2005-11-23 20:27:41

Friday, November 11, 2005
Inspiration

After a barren few months of the old grey cells packing up and going on extended leave, they returned today and posed a difficult problem. How do you capture inspiration? I haven't written much of anything in an age but I have been reading a lot and one of the books in my pile was a similar story to the one I had been mulling over since the grey cells left. This story sparked a chain reaction that had me typing away faster than your average experienced secretary. However after several paragraphs of decent material and horrible tyops, the pace began to flag noticeably. Surely I couldn't have used up my quota of inspiration already? It had been months without stringing a single tidy sentence together. Could 600 or so words really be my limit? Hence the question, how was I to imprison and thus maintain inspiration?

Writers all over the world must do it, else how can they continue to write for such long periods? Is there some method I missed, some obvious contrivance to enslave and master inspiration until I've at least finished one story (one story ! is that such a big ask?) Anyway however you do it is beyond me because, despite a few stubborn remnants that the grey cells clung to like ship-wrecked folk adrift at sea, my inspiration floated up and away to whichever writerpays the most. In the meantime I must prepare for it's next orbit around my thick skull.

Posted by Owen Jones 2005-11-11 17:32:20

Sunday, October 30, 2005
Money for Halloween?

So there used to be a time when I was a kid, to look at me now you'd never believe it - opting instead for the notion that I popped fully formed from a demon's womb (not far from the truth funnily enough) but when that unshaven, happy-go-lucky version of me roamed the streets on October 31st all he expected was some sweets (and maybe occasionally a look down the plunging neck top ofthe girl-next-door's costume ;;)) My friends and I didn't do the Halloween hassle for very long, it was to be fair pretty lame when many of the area's denizens were far more scary than any costume we could create. Plus the old man always made us share our sweets with him, his idea of sharing being a totally unfair 'two for him, one for us ratio'. In the US of course the day is taken a good deal more seriously, my one experience of it being quite mind-blowing and distinctly surreal. Now though kids don't want sweets.

Perhaps one of the most telling indictments on the current capitalist system (stretching I know but the sentence sounds clever :)) is that kids are very brazen about asking/expecting money. I have no problem with the concept of a few sweets in a bag, we don't get many kids knock on our door (thanks to the demon :)) so it's not a big deal. However a parent looking expectantly at me while her child and friends all but demand that I had over the money, feels like robbery. Were the situations reversed, would the parent be prepared to cough up a pound or two so some local terror can buy a flagon, drugs or hand grenades? Can't see it myself. Maybe it is further evidence of the Grinch in me but 'it ain't like the olden days' :) Just wait until I get asked to cough up a tenner for the guy ....

Posted by Owen Jones 2005-10-30 20:17:50

Thursday, October 27, 2005
Customer Service

Apologies in advance to those who've read about my on going love-hate relationship with the Postal services, this rantmay seem familiar.

The words 'customer service' should, theoretically, suggest aservice offered to the customer by any legitimate enterprise that sells a product. This service is an aid in answering questions, solving problems, dealing with complaints and generally helping the enterprise to establish a strong reputation for customer support excellence, which will invariably attract more customers. In the sales life cycle there is a stage where the customer purchases the product, exchanging a value of currency for goods of some description. Retail sales involve material goods being exchanged for currency. Now, assume I have purchased a firm's product and that upon receipt (ten days late) I am unhappy with it's state. On the invoice is a number to phone, it is a customer service number that will deal with my problem. Except firstly it's almost entirely automated and secondly costs 50p a minute. How is that a service? I have to pay even more currency to explain to the firm that they have sent me damaged goods. At which point they inform me, at my own expense, I must return the item and once they have received it, they will dispatch me a replacement item.

I don't have much luck with postal services, it's damn true. What's worse though is that I know other countries have a far higher level of service and perhaps take it for granted. When I lived in Chicago almost anything I ordered off the internet came within a few days at standard mail prices. I even sent a letter home to Wales that made it from Chicago to Bridgend in three days. So how come we in the UK have to put up with diabolical service where the customer always comes second and firms no longer have helpdesks because they receive too many complaints? It's easy, there is no competition. They lose a £100+ parcel and then when contacted on their expensive helpline, tell me that the company I bought the item from must make a claim before anything can be done. No apologies, no effort to try and 'help', just the same old tired, beaten down voices throwing their heads in the sand and declaring it wasn't the companies' fault. Of course not, your not providing a service after all, are you.

Posted by Owen Jones 2005-10-27 10:26:09