Below Belief

Simon told me recently about a couple of sites I wasn’t aware of which are doing something rather impressive and quite timely. They are trying to open up our democratic processes using the power of the internet – forcing, in some cases, MPs to recognise that in our connected society its possible to have a more open, transparent democracy.
Fax Your MP is a service which takes democracy to the MPs. Set up because some MPs wouldn’t accept emails and, this being patently ridiculous, a bunch of volounteers have created a service which will send faxes to them instead from an email you type on the site.
TheyWorkForYou is a tool which allows searching, viewing and commenting on the archives produced from the House Of Commons. It also provides performance data on every MP in the country – for example how many votes they attend and how often they toe the party line in direct votes. What a great idea.
Perhaps these will enable us to be slightly less apathetic about politics?

I went to university at Girton College, Cambridge University. Girton is therefore seared into my memory and those of my friends as a wonderful place where we grew up and had a lot of laughs. Since we all left and moved to London (mainly), James Casey produced a regular monthly spoof-newsletter called “The Girtonian”, editions of which were sent by royal mail to each Girtonian and were excitedly waited-for and pored over all over London. As time went on the jokes got a bit too close to the bone and some of the more fragile members of the group began to become a little frustrated at Mr Casey.
One rainy Sunday afternoon I decided to put a shot across his bows and created a spoof of the spoof to suggest that The Girtonian had been taken over by new Management and Mr Casey had been shut down… here’s the evidence.

• December 2001, The Girtonian (as zip)
• December 2001, The Girtonian (as Word doc)

Whilst it was commended amongst the readership, I’m not sure I’m that proud of this as it had the unintended effect of stopping Mr Casey from continuing his editorship – I guess I had knocked his position. I was genuinely disappointed because I loved the Girtonian.
We received a new episode just before Christmas 2004 so perhaps there is still hope.

Let me explain, because this is a long post. But it makes me laugh.
A couple of years ago I set up a website, beautifulmood.com. I did it for fun, mostly, an escape from a job which I felt trapped in. I was living away from home in Glasgow (which I love) but I had evenings to waste and needed a project. Despite the obvious purpose of the site (to sell photos – which is nigh on impossible on the net), the hidden purpose was actually to sell the website I’d built (and my development skills) to other photographers who needed a decent-looking, transactional photo gallery. Broadly, it worked, I’ve sold a few projects off the back of it and been in touch with some interesting people. It’s never moved into the mainstream of my work but always been a quiet comfort and showcase of my work – “I did that”.
When I launched the website, I began to get very strange email enquiries from mysterious people. I lay them out here in all their glory for it caused me much hilarity in the end when I discovered the perpetrator was none other than Mr James Casey, a friend and comedy writer and musician of merit.

The Famous Fisherman

Oh, hello, I was browsing idly along on the World Wide Web in the European style, and imagine my surprise when lo and behold I find a photograph of my old home on your website, titled ‘The Fairytale Castle’ with the legend ‘The famous fisherman’s bastion on the hill in Budapest summons up stories of old and maidens in distress.’
As you will have guessed by now, I am the famous fisherman – ‘fame’ to my friends, or ‘fishy’ to a select few (of which there are many) – and it did my old heart a power of good to see the stones of that blessed bastion once more. It certainly summoned up a fair few stories of old and maidens in distress, I can tell you.
One such maiden was my betrothed, Magda Patrek, and Lord was she in distress. So much distress, that woman wound herself up into, distressing about this, distressing about that, always laying it on thick with the distress. I really can’t begin to communicate to you the amount of distress we’re talking about here. I said to her, “Magda,” I said – I thought it appropriate given it was her name – “Magda,” – I repeated – “We’ve got to do something about that distress of yours. It’s driving me up the bleeding bastion.”
Unfortunately it later transpired that Magda didn’t like the way I stank of fish all the time – bastions of old being generally ill-fitted with washing facilities – and that was the primary source of her much-publicised distress. She left me for a Jehovah’s Witness called Istvan and I later heard they had joined a hippy commune and lived a life of debauchery.
The Famous Fisherman

Dr. Yoda Van Battenburg

Hello
I notice you have on your Beautiful Minds web site a photograph of a
lioness.
Please could you tell me where and when the photograph was taken. You see, I
lost a lioness about five years ago and she looked very much like the one in
your photograph.
I would appreciate it if you would reply to this e-mail, or telephone me (I
will pay for the call). I can be reached at the following numbers:
Main office: +255 4716 111
Secondary office if main office is flooded: +255 4716 232
Tertiary office if secondary office generator doesn’t work: +255 4716 331
Cellular phone: +255 7741 3212
Satellite telephone: +255 8413 922
Home: +255 4726 912
Tanzania Safari Centre Reception: +255 4944 632
Tanzania Safari Centre Lion Enclosure: +255 4944 655
Tanzania Safari Centre Staff Quarters: +255 4944 636
Tanzania Ministry for Wildlife: +255 4814 762
My girlfriend’s home: +255 4727 491
My girlfriend’s parents’ home: +255 4727 566
My friend Younussi’s home: +255 4726 944
My next-door neighbor’s home: +255 4726 922
Home of a woman I met during a drunken rampage in downtown Dar es Salaam
three months ago: +255 2814 785
‘The Saucy Pigmy’: +255 4716 724 (ask for Captain Battie)
With many thanks for your assistance,
Dr. Yoda Van Battenburg

Don Duong

Dear Beautiful Moods.com,
Regarding your photograph, “Man on a bicycle Vietnam”, that is me in the
photograph. I am the famous Vietnamese actor, Don Duong, and I own all image
rights and likenesses within Vietnam and, by your publication of this
picture, you are breaching international copyright rules.
Please send me your legal details so I can sue you.
Don Duong

Bert Filth

Dear Sir/Madam,
Re. the offer to exhibit works by other photographers.
I have a comprehensive portfolio of photographs featuring women in the buff. The pictures are in varying degrees of taste and have been in high demand on a variety of websites but unfortunately these have been forced to close down.
I like the theme and approach of your organisation and suggest you could link to my prints from the main page via a link named ‘Beautiful Hardcore Explicit Nekkid Chicks’.
I can send you samples for your approval.
Bert Filth

Rev. Zachary Flamethrower

Dear Beautiful Mood Webmaster,
Mercy!
I was stunned to discover the ‘Footprints’ photograph on your website at the
following reference:

http://www.beautifulmood.com/index.php?cPath=108&products_id=902&pageID=product_info.php

As a man of the Lord I was trembling at my keyboard for three hours as I
realised the implications of this image captured for all time by your
photographer.
Hallelujah! Please could you send me details of how to get a huge, I mean
gargantuan, copy of this picture. I intend to ascertain what size shoes God
wears, and if possible, what brand He favors.
Testify! I note from the shape of the imprint that this picture will well
and truly scotch the feminist claim that God is a woman! Unless She is a
woman who wears Men’s Shoes. Which leads us into all sorts of scary
territory.
I am indebted to you for your charity.
Rev. Zachary Flamethrower

Trac Nguyen

But sir!
We see from National Papers that you are to be sued by beloved actor Don Duong, so we look at picture on your site, and others of Vietnam, and look what we see!
You put image on website of venerated Hoi An temple, and add sarcastic comment that “you can almost hear the monks sweeping the floors”.
I am one of monks belong to Hoi An temple and you can NEVER hear us sweep the floors! We use unique Vietnamese broom design which is BEST IN WORLD and NOT MAKE single sound! It is revolutionary and I believe the Dyson Company are interested.
We win Pan-Vietnam Silent Sweeping Contest for PAST SEVENTEEN YEARS! I specially am quiet sweeper and pad my shoes with COTTON WOOL so you cannot even hear my feet as I sweep the holy floor.
I appreciate you are stupid westerner, and as your western saying has it, ‘to err is human, to umm is also human’, but I must tell you we monks are most offended by your insinuation that it is even remotely possible that any sound of sweeping can be heard.
We are peaceful monks but if we see your mangey hide back in Hoi An we will fuck you up righteously.
Trac Nguyen

Then the bombshell that finished it off…

I suspected James by the end of all this and sent him the mail below, his response was telling…
Message date : Aug 22 2003, 03:12 PM
From : Tim
To : James Casey
Copy to :
Subject : Fw: The Lord will GLORIFY Beautiful Mood.com
James
I may be being overly presumptuous here but do you happen to know anything about the email below or others like it…? Just barking up blind alleys…
Hope you’re well
T

You’ve just *totally* spoiled my fun. I had about three more days’ worth.

…and the high knowledge of removing problems from people.

Innocently walking around Shepherd’s Bush, London (that’s where I live) last weekend, a small, quiet man handed me this white card.
What a fabulous discovery – that such a complete personal service is offered IN JUST 7 DAYS by a man gifted at solving problems. And to have such a talented man living so close by is a relief. Next time I need someone to be breaking Black Magic and Evil Spirits in just 48 hours, I’m going to give Mr Khalid a call.
Fearful of giving Mr Khalid too much publicity, lest his powers should leave him if he becomes popular, I had to obscure the contact details. Let me know if you need me to put you in touch.

Google amazes me everyday. Below Belief is nothing more than a tiny backwater on our planet-wide internet of tens of billions of pages and yet, Google came by yesterday, reliable as ever, cached my pages again and indexed my latest updates. It’ll probably come back in a few days and check again.
I build web technology for a living and I am still astounded every time I witness Google’s efficiency, scale and scope. How is there enough time in the day for even the most well organised of crawlers to reach just my pages regularly – once it’s done all the other more important sites on the internet. That it got this far down it’s list of sites to check is awe-inspiring. Do most people understand how this all works? How many people actually recognise the brilliance in what it has achieved?
Knowing the problems that IT can generate and suffer from sometimes, it is great to be inspired by people at Google who have designed a system so resilient to failure, so reliable, so efficient that all us consumers have to remember is that it just works.
“It just works” characterises a very special elite group of services and products which feel like they are shaping this new internet economy. They present such low “barriers to entry” that their take up by the mass market is virtually assured. They are generally free or very cheap to use, they are uncomplicated, quick to get started, easy to use, instinctive and have obvious and compelling benefits.
Google is long in the tooth now, but other products which give me the same feeling right now are:
MovableType – which makes this blog so easy to manage and just does everything I want of it, immediately and without hassle. It can be made to do other stuff it was never designed to do, quickly and simply too.
Flickr – a well thought out and well executed photo depository and management tool
ProfiMail – a recent recommendation from Simon, it’s just this very day revolutionised my mobile emailing
Apple and their beautiful iPod – which has changed for good the way I listen to music and revived a tired music collection and my weariness of it
“It just works” is the philosophy and the rarest of attributes which we should strive to achieve in every service we build.

From Paul Ford at Ftrain.com, I felt just like this yesterday.

I carried much of [my] junk with me to New York, finally coming to rest in Brooklyn. For the last 5 years I’ve struggled with my apartment, as I described. It amazes me, when I walk into the place after a client meeting, wearing an ironed shirt and tie, having presented myself successfully in a PowerPoint presentation, to find my trash can overflowing, crusted dishes resident in the sink, and everywhere books and clothes, with nothing hung on the walls, and a slowly deepening surface of books on all exposed surfaces. The paradox of my exterior self and interior space made me feel that I was presenting a total lie to the rest of the world. The young, capable fellow who was describing the merits of good branding and smart data sharing to corporate souls was a complete fraud who could not keep his bed made.

Paul Ford at Ftrain.com writes on that peculiarly invigorating of activities: cleaning. I am cleaning my apartment this afternoon and it struck a chord…

I find it hard to clean. Certainly the basics are simple. If I can kneel, mix warm water with chemicals, and hold a broom or mop while moving my arms, I should be able to bring a blessed sense of order to my tiny apartment. Yet it’s taken me 5 years in this space to have even the desire to see it organized.
What I need is fundamental order, not nice carpets and fine furniture. I want to let a friend into the bathroom to pee without insisting she wait while I fix a few things first. I want my bed to be sleeved in clean sheets, not cluttered with books and papers, my closet to be a sorted index of good clothing options, not a chaotic pile of shirts and pants, clean and unclean, which must be sniff-tested moments before I run out the door. But keeping any real order has been stunningly hard.
Something always gets me down when I have the broom in my hand. I ask myself, how could I let it get this bad? How can I be such a fuckup? Going through boxes, I uncover photos of old girlfriends; one woman’s face, in particular, crops up every time I clean, and I always put it away somewhere with the idea that I’ll find a place for it in some album at a later date, only to find her again a few months later, her 19-year-old face, framed by blond hair, smiling at me across the table of a coffee-shop in Alfred, New York. I say “hello” to her, now, even though she stopped speaking with me years ago. “How you doing?” I ask. “I hope it turned out okay. Sorry I was such an asshole.”
Usually, after an hour or so of such discoveries, I put down the broom, telling myself I’ve got a good start, and step over the stacks of undershirts and printouts to the bed, where I curl up on the mattress with a random collection of sheets, clothes, pillows, and printed matter. I sleep very peacefully, then, having just escaped the weird emotional territory into which cleaning sends me while feeling I’ve accomplished at least something. Within three days things are just as messy; entropy trumps progress, and I’m back where I started, humbled by my own – laziness? denial? I don’t know.