Olivia St Redfern has featured yours truly in her lockdown day 2, part 1 podcast, so I decided to record another response.
It brings to mind something Steve McQueen once said. ‘I’m not an actor. I’m a reactor.’ As in, he could react to a line from another actor.
Anyone who has seen McQueen in a film, certainly anything post-Blob, would dispute that—the king of cool was an excellent actor. But for now, as someone who had avoided doing a podcast for two decades, I “react” to Olivia’s episodes, and recorded a response on Anchor:
At some point I might do an entry independently but considering the first has only had one listen (out of hundreds who might read a blog post of mine), then there’s not a huge incentive! (Update: that episode has doubled its audience to two.)
History tells us that it took a while for Melrose Place to be seen as more than a 90210 spin-off, for instance. And Joey never managed it post-Friends.
This second one does make one point about working from home. As mentioned before, I’ve been doing this since 1987, so the only difference with the lockdown (and the days leading up to it) is that I don’t feel as “special”. But I also know that not everyone is enjoying their work arrangements, such as this British QC:
Day 2 of isolation. Kids coping better than me. Very happy to email anyone who wants it a copy of the essential document I needed to draft this am pic.twitter.com/QptM2ouj6r
I posted my 12 tips for working from home, but when chatting to Amanda today, there might be a bit more to it than that. Maybe there’s something about one’s personality that makes working from home easier.
While I have things to do each day, I don’t make lists. I’m more substantive than procedural. In the daytime, I try to answer emails or see to urgent stuff. I almost never do accounts at night: that’s another daytime pursuit. I know to reserve time to do those but I don’t religiously set it to 2 p.m., for instance. The beauty of working from home is flexibility, so why re-create a regimented schedule?
At night I tend to do more creative things, e.g. design and art direction. My work day is extended because I enjoy my work.
My advice to those making the shift is to do away with the lists. Know the direction and get things done as the inspiration hits you. It’s meant to be calmer than the bustle of office life.
People should find exponential growth an easy concept to grasp, at least those of us of a certain age. Heather Locklear taught all of us with Fabergé shampoo.
The new metric system: I’m following the car in front at the correct distance. Cf. the drivers in the other lanes.
Now that I live in the northern suburbs, I have to go on the motorway far more frequently. It’s become apparent that New Zealand has had a complete change of measurement system and I was unaware of it.
I thought we were on the metric system but apparently, there is a new metric system at play these days.
When the “smart” motorway speed limit signs display 60 km/h, a handful of drivers, like me, go at the old 60 km/h. But there is evidently a new 60 km/h, which we oldies called ‘80 km/h’. If the other drivers are not breaking the law, the majority of cars in this country appear to have had speedometers newly calibrated to the new metric system. When the sign says 80 km/h, they will travel at between 90 and 100 km/h. It doesn’t quite explain why, when the sign says 100 km/h, so many drive at 90 km/h, but that’s the incredible nature of the new metric system: unlike the old, it’s not proportional.
I’m not entirely sure how the system converts metres or seconds, as I seem to do double the following distance of the majority of drivers. From memory, it’s 40 m at 100 km/h, or, if you want to adopt the 1970s slogan from the UK, or the one uttered by the late Peter Brock, ‘Only a fool breaks the two-second rule.’ The new metric system at play in New Zealand means that the new 40 m is the same as what we old-timers called 20 m. Or, if they’re going by the clock, two seconds is what we used to call one second. I assume this new metric system also applies to penis length for men, so they aren’t too disappointed when their 7½ cm is now called 15 cm. Sounds so much bigger, doesn’t it, lads?
Now, I could be wrong about there being a new metric system in this country. It’s simply that many people don’t understand speed and distance, or how road signs work. If you are male and think that 20 m really is 40 m, then maybe you have a small dick and have been convincing yourself otherwise, and the problem is multiplied on the roads. Sadly, however, this lack of awareness of time and distance isn’t exclusively a male thing.
As a nation, we’ve been so busy for such a long time blaming “Asian drivers” that our standards have dropped like stones. It wasn’t that long ago when we Wellingtonians mocked Aucklanders for their ‘Merge like a zip’ signs in the mid-2000s—yet it seems an increasing number of us in the capital are now just as clueless on how traffic merges into a single lane.
All this makes you wonder if Greg Murphy was right when he suggested we should re-sit our driving test every 10 years.
First up, the Cadillac ELR TVC, with actor Neal McDonough boasting about the US’s consumer culture and past glories:
And now, Ford parodies it with a far more down-to-earth and realistic message about what we should be praising in the occident, starring environmental advocate Pashon Murray, who runs Detroit Dirt, a composting company:
The parody is quite enjoyable and I’ve a feeling this will appeal to a wider audience than the original. However, for those who haven’t seen the original, it’ll up its views. GM is unlikely to be displeased, and the Ford Grand C-Max (or just C-Max in the US) is not a direct competitor.
Even though it’s not original, the newer commercial—sans Muhammad Ali and the Apollo programme—feels more responsible and in tune with where we are in the 2010s.
To take a leaf from Adland, where this is hosted, Chrysler’s message is: buy this ugly car or Eminem will beat you up.
To be fair, the cinematographer has picked some good angles for the 200 so it doesn’t look like a rehashed Sebring. Shooting it at night minimizes the harsh realities of the centre section. And the commercial has a nice feel to it: it’s not a stereotypical pull-the-patriotic-heartstrings American one, but one which does convey what the script says: we’ve been through hard times, we’re realistic, and, therefore, we understand you more. We also see Chrysler not pulling any fake snobbery, though admittedly the DaimlerChrysler AG days ruined any chance of the company having luxury pretensions for a while.
It doesn’t make me want to rush out and get one of these cars, but I’ll say one thing: at least it’s not a Lancia commercial adapted for the US, as I don’t think the first one worked particularly well. Though this one from 2008 might not be so bad if the Delta gets there:
Since New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day are about the only two days I actually take off, I spent some time adding entries on Autocade, a site that doesn’t seem like “work” to me. It’s my hobby.
The randomizer, which my friend Peter Jobes installed for me on the site’s home page, came up with the Eunos 500 today, which led me to look for this old Dutch commercial from 1993 that I rather liked, with a Chuck and Di theme:
The VO at the end (Dutch speakers, please feel free to correct me) says, ‘Xedos 6. The quietest car in the world.’
But since I had a few days off, the site’s now up to 1,335 entries, and the latest, at the time of writing, is for the Morris 2200. It’s incredibly hard to find a decent Morris 2200 image, but I tracked one down today without going into my basement. Here’s that entry:
Morris 2200 (ADO17). 1972–5 (prod. 20,865, incl. Austin 2200). 4-door saloon. F/F, 2227 cm³ (6 cyl. OHC). Twin of Austin 2200, identical in all respects but badging. See Austin entry. Similar to Wolseley Six, on the same basis.
Of course, it means that one has to refer to the Austin 2200 entry, which looks like this:
Austin 2200 (ADO17). 1972–5 (prod. 20,865, incl. Morris 2200). 4-door saloon. F/F, 2227 cm³ (6 cyl. OHC). Development of Austin 1800, with larger E-series engine that had seen service in Austin Tasman and Kimberley in Australia. Good power from larger E-series, though cars were overshadowed by better Rovers and Triumphs. Twinned with Morris 2200 and Wolseley Six.
Spot the similarity apart from the cars being basically the same? Both are of the 2200 in motion, wheels turned to the left, in flight.
One suspects that BLMC didn’t want people getting a look at the car while it was stationary, so the promo shots were done with the 2200 in anger.
The E-series engine actually wasn’t that bad, but the car was hampered with those same-again looks from the 1800, and a bad driving position, compromising what would have otherwise been a pretty good package.
The other lot that was of huge interest to me hailed from China. Frankly, you can’t do a car database of recent vehicles without including a large amount from the mainland.
Yes, of course there will be consolidation, but at the same time we are looking at a large population, happy to buy local (as in cars from their own region), and somewhat reflecting the buying behaviour over in India. There, you see Hindustans in the north, Premiers in the south, and Marutis everywhere; China tends to have models that sell better in their home regions. Even Volkswagen fields two compact sedans in the Jetta class, in recognition of this.
That was a tough area to research. In the past, I’ve put up some of the newer models such as the Chery A3, or the easy-to-follow remnants of the British Motor Corp. (MG and Roewe), but I began tracing the history of models such as the Geely Haoqing. Geely may be Volvo’s parent company but there’s not that much about some of its earlier models which were based around an ancient 1980s’ Daihatsu Charade.
Hopefully, there’s now some decent info in the Anglophone web as a result of my work on this and half a dozen other cars which will seem mainstream to readers inside China, and totally foreign to those outside.
I also had a Twitter exchange with the webmaster behind Carfolio, whose site is far more comprehensive than Autocade. His aim is to record every detail about every variant of every model line, and I don’t envy his task.
I was saddened to note this on his home page (emphasis added):
Carfolio.com has been collecting and collating automotive technical data for many years, before actually having a website or even an internet-connected computer. Realising that there would be interest in this database, I decided to put my data up online in a very useful and functional way. It has always and will always be free for anyone to utilise. Some people, however, have decided to crawl the site and put all the data into their own database and resell and republish the information without attribution, credit or acknowledgement. Some go as far as to add 10mm to the basic dimensions so as to try and disguise their actions.
The culprits are named on the Carfolio site, so, car anoraks, steer clear of them.
After reading that warning, I added a small note to Autocade: you can take bits based around Creative Commons, but duplicating the entire site is a no-no. I know this goes against the idealism surrounding CC, but I would be horrified if millimetres were being added to my hard work, and render it useless.
A few oddball models were added to Autocade for the enjoyment and use of netizens, including the second Honda Z, the Daewoo Royale (of which there is little information, and what exists on Wikipedia is not wholly accurate) and the three Tridents (which I could not have done without reference to Keith Adams’s excellent AROnline site).
Now that I’ve done my dash for a few days off, it’s back to my real jobs. Have a wonderful New Year.
Matt Smith completes his first calendar year as the Doctor with a Christmas special, inspired by Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Michael Gambon! Best guest star since Bill Nighy. And if that’s Katherine Jenkins, that’s an extra reason to watch this. (Hope she sings, and not the Singing Detective.)
I may be later than many in writing about this, but I only saw it in my Tweetstream today.
What a welcome departure from the blood-and-gore approach of many road safety public announcements, from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership.
I can’t explain why I like the Steve McQueen Ford Puma ad and dislike this one with Audrey Hepburn, even though I think the world of both actors. In terms of tacky, I reckon this one takes the cake as a celebrity endorsement:
Come to think of it, this is worse. I believe the original was Japanese (I saw stills of this campaign many years ago), but this is in Mandarin:
