Posted by jerry on August 10th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Travel, Writing
I have just finished reading William Gibson’s book Pattern Recognition – this has to be one of his best books (yes Neuromancer was and remains stunning) – once again demonstrating how great writer Gibson is. i love his use of language, and the description of jet lag as having to wait for the soul to catch the body is an enduring image. His opening line:
“Five hours’ New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town to the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythm.”
This is a must-read book!
must go
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on August 8th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Writing
Hybridity
I’ve been wrestling with an old novel idea that has come back to haunt me from my 1996 electronic archives. Discussing the concept (parallel worlds story) with an author acquaintance who seems hell bent on getting me to write this thing and publish it, I have come to reflect on my own sense of hybridity. The academic Jonathon Lamb once noted in a lecture a couple of years back that Horace (?) had said that travel makes us monstrous to our own kind. Whether it was Horace or someone else of the Classical era, they were right!
Not only are we irrevocably changed by our contact with another culture, but our return is rendered problematic. And not just our return to the country of origin, but the return a year later to the adoptive country is equally difficult, because the return ‘home’ means we also see the adoptive country once more as an outsider. In the novel idea I’ve been sketching out the heroine is precipitated into another world, where there are differences in culture, technology, approach to communication – many differences, and the difficulties she encounters in ‘reading’ the nuances of the new culture. But there will also be questions about her return – will she be welcomed back, having been ‘written off’ as a permanent departure, and what of her return when she gets to see her own culture as a stranger? Will her return be taken as a threat to the old world order?
What is clear is that the heroine will remain a hybrid in her own culture. As we all are in various ways, whether we move between classes, or just move to another state, or just learn to think differently – whatever the form the travel takes, the outcome seems inevitable – we are changed by our experience, and those around us notice our change and are unsure of their own reaction to that change.
So much for my musings on a Sunday evening!
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on August 6th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Music
What a top night! An excellent crowd, a super audience and dinner thrown in as well 🙂 Such was the ANU PARSA (Postgraduate and Research Student’s Association) bush dance tonight held at St John’s Hall in Reid (in Canberra Australia).
It’s a great venue and well suited to the crowd size of about 250-300: an ideal dance size (although we have played played dances at more than ten times that size). We took a camera along so I thought I’d share some of the images from tonight
Dancer’s view
stage view
a dance in full swing
The view from behind my head
Butch the guitar player, tuning
Yeah, that’s me
A dance in longways sets
Anyhow it was a great night with a wonderful crowd – really getting into the dances as you can see
But now it’s time for me to get some sleep!
cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on August 5th, 2004 — Posted in Journal, Travel
Winter in Canberra
The hills behind Parliament house were coated in a beautiful light sprinkling of snow, so I had to take a quick photo this morning as I pulled in to work – and I thought I’d share it with you
Canberra – Parliament House with now on the Brindabella hills
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by jerry on August 2nd, 2004 — Posted in Journal
Standards standards
Fed up with complaining? Now there’s something else to complain about – perhaps whoever you want to complain about doesn’t have their complaints handling up to standard! Yes folks, there’s now an international standard for complaints handling: ISO-10002-04.
Sound a bit ‘Monty Pythonesque’? or a bit ‘Yes Minister’? Try this on for size:
“When the ISO 10002 complaints-handling process is implemented, the customer will benefit from responsive treatment of his or her complaint, while the organization will benefit from the focus on problem areas pointing to opportunities for improvements and savings.”
and:
“ISO 10002, Quality management – Customer Satisfaction – Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations, synergizes the best thinking of international experts from two domains: quality management and consumer issues.”
So for truly synergized complaints-handling in which the customer will benefit from responsive treatment you may now take comfort from the fact that you are contributing to quality management, enabling the organisation to benefit from the focus on problem areas. Feeling better yet?
You should be, because the new standard operates by — “enhancing customer satisfaction by creating a customer-focused environment that is open to feedback”.
So this week my Sir Humphrey Appleby Prize for Bureaucratic Process goes to [drum roll]… [dramatic pause]… ISO 10002-04: Quality management – Customer Satisfaction – Guidelines for complaints handling in organizations
Cheers
Jerry
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