Archive - April 2012

1
Bitcoin
2
Wenlock and Mandeville
3
Harrods Department Store
4
Easter Eggs
5
Tipping in America

Bitcoin

Apr 27 2012
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By Guest Blogger – Adam Riley

It’s a story I tell a lot.  In 2006 I was looking for a way to prolong my life of sybaritic ennui when I stumbled across an article on gold.  At the time it was trading at $400/oz.  Having some cash in the bank from various deaths I thought about buying some.  Why not?  And while I’m at it, get my trotters on some silver as well, at $7/oz.  There is a shop near The Savoy Hotel where you can walk out with a bar of bullion as easily as buying a Twix from WHSmith.  Even I, with a C in GCSE Economics, could do that.

Instead, I proceeded to invest in an Xbox 360 and spent the next six years playing FIFA, GTA and CoD, frittering away my inheritance on Ask pizzas and low quality cocaine.  Not a bad way to live through the credit crunch, you might think, until you reflect that gold is now $1650/oz and silver $30/oz.

Last year I sold the Xbox to pay an electricity bill.

What I’m trying to say is: my instincts were right.  It’s just that I’ve stultified my responses to the level of an inert gelatinous blob with ME.  I guess I’m also saying: do as I say, not as I do.  Because I think I’ve found a new opportunity to squander.  Bitcoins.

The brainchild of a mysterious internet figure with a Japanese name, Bitcoins are an online peer to peer currency that has been running for three years. There’s no central bank.  All transactions are processed through a network of people who have decided to become miners.  These miners are continuously running a program on their computers that is attempting to solve a complex mathematical problem every ten minutes.  The one that solves it will receive fifty Bitcoins, giving everyone an incentive to keep their computers running so that the transactions can be processed.

But that takes electricity and a fast computer.  You don’t have to be a miner.  Bitcoin markets have evolved where you can buy, trade and squander them in your own time.  One enterprising Chinese schoolboy has developed a complicated Bitcoin exchange where you can leverage yourself several times over and thus recreate the global financial crisis from the comfort of your own desktop.

“They’re not real!” I hear you vomit in my face.  It’s true, and the online retailers accepting Bitcoins as payment are a little obscure.  But on Mt. Gox, the most respected Bitcoin exchange, 1 Bitcoin is trading at around $5.  When Bitcoins started they traded at 30 cents.  Last year, someone tried to corner the market, jerking up the price to a stiff $30.  That spike’s viagra has now worn off, and the market flops along at $4 to $5, manifestly the new baseline.

Bitcoins also have built in scarcity.  Only 21 million Bitcoins will ever exist, 7 million are in circulation at the moment.  They are divisible to eight decimal places so there will always be enough currency around.  And even though that means Bitcoin miners will no longer have a reason to maintain the network, the theory is that they’ll start to charge a small reasonable fee.  Well, that’s the theory.

There are some dodgy aspects.  Despite numerous safeguards a high profile Bitcoin robbery was carried out last year, and given the anonymous nature of everything in the network, they are impossible to trace.  The Silk Road, the online black market where you can buy microdots and Tec 9s, will only accept Bitcoins.  That probably can’t last.

On the other hand, what’s the worst that can happen?  Invest in Bitcoins and you’ll have a little online money to buy something particularly useless.  Or maybe, just maybe, you’ll be in on the first viable economic revolution since Communism, that might free the entire world from the tyranny of central banking and represent a step towards our ultimate destiny as immaterial beings of pure intelligence, unencumbered by the mortality of physical existence, a nodal mist floating blissfully through space, dishing out Bitcoins to the aliens as we go.

Wenlock and Mandeville

Apr 21 2012
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What represents Great Britain’s cultural heritage, are the embodiment of Great Britain’s Olympic team, the pride of the British public and are made in China?  The answer is of course London 2012’s two mascots; Wenlock and Mandeville (Wenlock on left & Mandeville on right).  To some they are they are the very essence of this festival of sport.  To others they are merely ludicrous and infantile phallic eyesores.  London 2012 chairman Lord Coe has skilfully deflected any potential criticism by stating that the mascots are aimed at children and have the ability to inspire them to participate in sport.

Wenlock is named after the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock, home of the Wenlock games and the birthplace of the modern Olympics.  Mandeville is named after the famed Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire, where Sir Ludwig Guttman, the German neurologist and father of the Paralympics founded a spinal unit in the 1940’s.  The story of Wenlock and Mandeville’s creation could have come from the annals of Greek mythology.  It is said that they were formed from the very last drops of steel from the final support girder used to build the London 2012 stadium.

Not only do Wenlock and Mandeville have their own website, they also have Twitter and Facebook pages, in addition to their own story written by Michael Morpurgo and an animated film.  Over the forthcoming months we will all become very familiar with Wenlock and Melville, as they will be making regular  appearances in a wide range of attire, emblazoned with the much maligned London 2012 logo.

Will Wenlock and Mandeville’s legacy be synonymous with the success of London 2012 or will they be remembered only as objects of ridicule?  If in two or three Olympics time the next Chris Hoy or Jessica Ennis cite Wenlock and Mandeville as being their childhood inspiration for abandoning their sedentary lifestyle to pursue sporting excellence then their legacy will have been secured.

What is your opinion of Wenlock and Mandeville?

Harrods Department Store

Apr 13 2012
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Founded in 1834, Harrods  has been popular with London’s wealthy residents and foreign visitors for generations.  As I enter the shop and make my way towards the escalators, a thought occurs to me.  What if you found out that you had won a free gift from Harrods worth between two point five and six times the national average annual pre-tax salary of about £26k?  I expect that you would punch the air with delight and jump up and down in the excited manner of a child.  But there’s a catch you are told.  Your celebrations stop and you listen intently.  The gift that you will be receiving is to be the most overpriced, useless and tasteless item in the store as voted by your peers.  Your expression of glee is replaced by one of confusion but you remain hopeful.  For how bad can a prize costing a small fortune be?

I make the decision to try and locate some potential prize material and decide to make the Fine Arts department my first port of call.  I am met by the sight of a Maquette Jelly Baby Family (see picture 1), created by Mauro Perucchetti.  These are all the rage and there are currently examples at Marble Arch, the tallest of which is 3.2m.  They are an acquired taste and personally I do not find them overly offensive but the price tag of £65k is oppressive, due in part to the fact that these jelly babies are made out of pigmented urethane resin, which I am aware from previous research retails for as little as £28.05 per kilo.  Art is of course a highly contentious and personal matter.  I decide to move on.

Next stop is a department that one would describe as dining orientated.  There are various dining fowl including this large silver swan (see picture 2).  It has no stated purpose other than to sit in the middle of one’s dining table, the light from the chandelier above flickering invitingly on its silver contours.  That is all good and well but with a price tag of £150k I would be expecting far more.

I am perusing the items in the Luxury Gifts department when I stumble into this (picture 3).  A nearly two metre long ostentatious heron-headed boat with mannequins striking ludicrous and vulgar poses on its deck.  A glance at the £124,400 price tag confirms that my search is over.  For not only does this eye-sore have no purpose but it will also take up a great deal of space in your sitting room leaving you little room for a sofa let alone a widescreen television, in addition to leaving your guests feeling nauseous and violated.

So there’s your prize.  Did I mention it’s non-refundable?

Comments welcome.

Easter Eggs

Apr 06 2012
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Easter eggs are an opportunity to indulge oneself after the privations of Lent; or at least that is what I thought prior to making the acquaintance of a dairy free, wheat free, gluten free, egg free, vegan Easter egg, (see picture 1).  I have renamed this Easter egg The Lent Continued Easter Egg.  It is ideal for pious Catholics and those with food allergies.  My condolences go out to any unfortunate children who will be receiving Lent Continued Easter Eggs this Easter.

(Easter egg pictures 1 & 2)                                                                                   

My local supermarket contains the expected deluge of Easter eggs (see picture 2), each struggling for attention amongst the crowded shelves.  Perusing these commercial offerings I am unsurprised to see that there is no mention of the traditions of Easter, neither the story of Jesus nor the traditions of Lent.  But the Church of England has not surrendered in the face of this apparent overwhelming apathy and is fighting back with The Real Easter Egg.  These can be found in stores across the UK (see picture 3).  Not only is the story of Jesus depicted on the sides and back of the box but the chocolate is of the fair trade variety and a percentage of sales go to charity.

(Easter egg picture 3)

For those of us emaciated from our Lenten fasts might I suggest a gargantuan Easter egg (see picture 4); an Easter egg that if camouflaged with foliage could masquerade as part of the scenery in any Easter egg hunt.                                                             

                                                                                (Easter egg picture 4)


And for those unwilling to dine on the chocolate of the proletariat there is the Charbonnel et Walker milk chocolate egg with pink mare de champagne truffle (see picture 5).  Or even the rather pompous Ladurée petal egg (see picture 6); an egg not content with being oval it has instead embraced a postmodern deconstructed look.  The Ladurée petal egg is decorated with crystallised rose, jasmine and violet petals, garnished with dark, milk and praline chocolate figurines and bells.  This limited addition offering has a reassuringly expensive price tag of £72.50.

(Easter egg picture 5)                          (Easter egg picture 6)

If anyone has any Easter egg related observations that they would like to share, please feel free to leave  comments below.   Happy Easter.

Tipping in America

Apr 02 2012
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A Downtown bar in Miami – I find the cool darkened interior and the myriad of different sports playing on the numerous television screens appealing.  It is an environment where one does not appear out of place without friends in attendance.

Aware that Happy Hour is soon to end, I order two pints of Bud Light, a bargain at five dollars.  I hand over the money to the barman and return my attentions to the television.  The barman does not move.  I glance in his direction.  He departs muttering something under his breath.

The Following Evening – I walk into the same bar and order a pint of Bud Light.  I am in the process of sitting down when the barman (the same one from yesterday) informs me that he will not serve me and I am to leave.  Aware from several previous visits to this establishment that he is quite a jovial character, I assume this is some form of American humour that I am unfamiliar with.  Sitting down I say, ‘very funny’ and then repeat the order.

‘Out,’ shouts another man sitting at the far end of the bar.  Now conscious of the fact that this is not a jape, I am about to protest when I notice that the bearded and heavily tattooed man looking savagely at me is remarkably similar to one of those biker gang members’ with right wing tendencies I had seen on the television.  I leave the bar.  The barman shouts ‘butt head’ as the door closes behind me.  Utterly confused I am half way down the street before I remember that I had omitted to give a tip the previous evening and it must be this that resulted in their consternation.  This had been an oversight on my part and I scold myself for committing what is a cardinal sin in the USA.

A Miami Heat game is about to start and keen to watch it I decide to go to the only other bar I know in the immediate vicinity.  I approach the premises with trepidation, as the previous week prior to the visit to Mexico I had been involved in a minor altercation here.  I had been sitting contentedly at my table watching basketball when a young woman had approached my table and unannounced dragged away the chair adjacent to mine, resulting in several of my personal effects that were resting on it falling to the ground.  With no apology forthcoming, I had unwisely in hindsight made a comment about her expansive waistline.

The comment had been poorly received and I was berated by both her and her companions sitting at a neighbouring table, in a disorderly tirade of English and Spanish.  One of the males, who turned out to be the woman’s brother, appeared to be particularly angry.  He sounded exactly like a character out of the film Scarface though fortunately he was waving around a pastelito, (a snack popular with Cubans) as opposed to an automatic weapon, like in the film.  The argument had resulted in me, rather unfairly in my opinion being ejected by the bar staff.

Back in the present I approach the bar intrepidly and ask for a pint of Bud Light.  I am alarmed on recognising the barman as the same one from that evening.  He informs me that I am not welcome.  I consider arguing but decide against it and depart sombrely.

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