The millennial spire
A church that is over 900 years old, framed by autumnal leaves.
Quote of the Day
”When confronted with magical thinking by dictators, historians feel out of place, like a bridge player invited to judge prestidigitation, say, or a surgeon hired to care for wax figures.”
- Timothy Snyder
Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news
Peter Maxwell Davies | Lullaby for Lucy (1981)
Words by the Scottish poet George Mackay Brown for the birth of Lucy Randall, the first child born in Rackwick, Hoy, in 32years.
Long Read of the Day
Stranded Astronauts and the Biggest Disruption In (modern) Business History
An interesting and instructive essay by Andrew McAfee whose book The Geek Way on how corporations have changed and evolved over a century or more. There’s a whiff of techno-worship and whiggery in his writing, but he’s invariably interesting and knowledgeable. I found this particular essay informative, and it contains some charts that make one sit up, especially the ones that compare the West and East coasts of the US. He begins with the irony of how Boeing (an old-style industrial corporation) took an unconscionable time to build a spacecraft that could take astronauts to the International Space Station, but is unable to take them back to earth. So they will have to be rescued by — guess what? — by a SpaceX rocket built by Elon Musk’s geeks! And it turns out that they only brought underwear for a short stay.
My commonplace booklet
Barry Blitt’s front cover of the current issue of the New Yorker.
Linkblog
Stolen iPhone. I Survived.
David Birch’s iPhone was stolen. He’s written a really helpful account of how he mitigated the potential damage. He sums up the lessons thus:
If your iPhone is snatched:
First, use your laptop (or a friend’s laptop) log in to your Apple account immediately, wipe the iPhone and change your iCloud password. Do this before you call the police or anyone else.
Second, use your spare phone (or a friend’s phone) and call the phone company get the number blocked.
Third, call the police and get the crime number you will need for your insurance. The police are not going to do anything about getting your phone back (it would take every police officer in Britain to do something about this).
To which I would add — if you’re in London (and especially in Westminster — where almost a third of the thefts occur — do not walk around with your iPhone in your hand or in an accessible pocket.
The latest figures (from the Office of National Statistics) show that over the last decade mobile phones have overtaken cash and payment cards as the items most often stolen from individuals in the UK.
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