Remakes

What if... some of the top films in recent years had actually been remakes? Artist Peter Stults has taken this thought and designed posters for movies that could have been made decades ago, but were not. Brilliant idea!

Fund managers... it's mainly guesswork

With the announcement today that economic growth in the UK has stalled badly, despite the experts forecasting and re-forcasting constantly that we were out of recession, here is a financial blog post.

The facts tell us that only a third of UK Equity fund managers will outperform the market.  That means, if you choose "active" investments (and many aren't that active), you have more chance of underperforming a low cost tracker than outperforming it. It makes you wonder why anyone would choose a fund manager and not go passive.  Anyway, that's a big topic and one for another day.

The reason for this posting is that, working in financial services, I like to look back sometimes and see what the so-called experts said in the past.  The FTSE 100 index finished 2011 at 5,572.  Have a look at the chart below of predictions printed in The Standard in December 2010.  100% of the experts were way out - the least wrong was still very wrong and UBS incredibly wrong!

So these highly paid people were poor in their predictions and have been wrong year after year after year. Amazing!

Answers on a postcard please

I was stuck in a jam on the M25 yesterday morning (in fact, every time I have been on the M25 this year). I was parked next to this truck and someone had written in the dirt on the rear doors.

Does anyone know what it means?!  It made me smile anyway.

TQ1

Well the first posting of 'The Question' was more successful than I had expected. A varied group of contributors and comments flying about. It was interesting to read that some people answered with something personal, others with the aim of helping others and some a little strange!

Thanks for playing... we'll do it again this time next month. If you have any suggestions for the next Question, please leave a comment.

Q1 - January 2012

Welcome to 'The Question'... a single question to be answered by bloggers on the same day, with the aim of sparking some conversation, debate and shared experiences on various blogs around the world. If you choose to answer The Question, please add your link to my page and therefore, I hope that responses will then be compared.

The question this month is:

What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?





Although I am more than comfortable with my sexuality, I still have those moments where I am not totally honest about it. It's just easier to avoid 'that conversation' about being gay sometimes and that's wrong for many reasons. Whether at work or in a social setting, if I had no fear and knew that the outcome would be positive, I would be far more honest and open.
  
A far less serious situation would be... busking!  I can play the guitar to a sufficient amateur level and I am pretty sure my singing is (just about) listenable. So if I knew that no-one would judge me, I would play for the passing public. 

Both situations revolve around confidence of course. Some days I am low on confidence and much of that is about worrying what other people would think or say about me. There was a time when none of us cared what other people thought. Take the time when you were learning to walk. If you worried about people laughing when you fell, time and time again, you would have given up trying! So perhaps, it's time to take a risk - just imagine that you can't fail and try it anyway...

360 from The Shard

The Shard, for those who don't know, is a stunning skyscraper that is currently emerging from the ground in London.  Not that long ago, it was a concrete tower surrounded by cranes.  It is now a glimmering construction that can be seen from 20+ miles away and is nearing completion.

Once finished, it will house offices, a hotel, homes (for very rich people), restaurants and a viewing deck. I understand that it will cost £20 to get to the top.

In a year or so, the building will look something like this...

A brilliant photographer called Will Pearson has taken a 360 image from the top of The Shard. It's an amazing photo and well worth checking out HERE.  I am not sure exactly how he did it, though it was obviously multiple images, but I am glad he did! The image below is a very small part of the photo:

Not safe for work

Clothes designer Andrew Christian has made a video to promote his underwear featuring some nice looking guys. It took me a while to track down the uncensored version, but here you go - definitely not safe for work!

Mountweazels

When I worked with Andrew, I used to write a lot of internal communications (which I am sure he loved to read). One "trick" that I used occasionally in longer emails/attachments was to put something in the text to see if people had read that far.  Sometimes I made an obvious error and waited for someone to spot it. At other times I would write something like "The first person who has read this far and emails me will win a prize!".

What I didn't realise was that there is a term for such entries; they are called Mountweazels.  The main reason that Mountweazels are added to text is to help spot plagiarism - i.e. a copyright trap.

There are lots of text Mountweazels but also some graphical ones too. Some street maps have rogue streets included to help with copyright control.

There are said to be many fictitious entries in various Encyclopaedias and books, including The New Columbia Encyclopedia from 1975 contains a fictitious entry on Lillian Virginia Mountweazel (1942-1973). Her biography claims she was a fountain designer and photographer, best known for Flags Up!, a collection of photographs of rural American mailboxes. It was all a lie!

Torres still rules

It's been a long time since I found an excuse to share some pictures of the super-sexy Fernando Torres. OK, I don't need an excuse... he cant score a goal these days, but he's still gorgeous. The second one looks like fun, but I particularly like the last one. :-)
  

Frosty morning walk

Yesterday in North Hertfordshire was a beautiful winter's day.  With deep blue skies and a frost overnight, we decided to go for a 7 mile walk across the fields and through the woods to Pete's Mum's house. We cheated and got a bus home as it got cold in the afternoon!

We stopped off in town for a coffee and to buy lunch and despite a couple of long hills, it was a fine walk. Here are a few images from the morning. If you look very carefully at the last picture, you will see a Stag in the woods.