Of A 900 Year Old Dwarf, Trinkets And Baby Steps

Voda Yoda

How apt that Vodafone has settled on a film character from 1980 to advertise the ability to... [sound of trumpets]... charge your phone in a taxi in 2012, when we've been charging phones in our own cars for many years. No wonder the little fella appears a bit non-plussed. Sadly the TV version doesn't record why he fires up his lightsabre, but I'm guessing from all the inane chat that it might be to dispense with the cabbie.

Such trinkets as in-cab charging are perhaps a small sign that Vodafone recognises at least one of the day-to-day hassles associated with mobile phones usage. So let's acknowledge them for a baby step in the right direction. The fact that London's black cabs hadn't already provided a 'free' charging facility to passengers tells you how great that particular monopoly is working for the consumer. 

Yet I still can't download my mobile phone billing information from the virtually useless "My account" section of the Vodafone.co.uk website. In fact, despite numerous calls to customer service over the years - usually around tax time - the most they've been able to do is send me physical copies of my bills free-of-charge. So 1980.

Image from DigitalSpy.

Let's Play Piggy-In-The-Middle

On Saturday I got my Level 1 rugby coaching ticket, which means I can teach kids up to 12 to play rugby. I also get to wear a knee support for a few days, but that's another story. 

These days rugby is more about 'social and personal development' and getting the skills right than 'winning' or even 'participating'. That's because the International Rugby Board is not only keen to contrast the game from the many ugly aspects of football but is also listening to the harshest sports critics of all: children. So we value teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship. 'Drills' have been replaced by 'small-sided games' built on age-old playground games which are active, purposeful, enjoyable and safe (and naturally promote balance, co-ordination, agility and speed). Coaches have responsibility for developing the 'whole person', with the emphasis on competence, confidence, connection, character and creativity. Gone are the old touch-line tirades. Now we ask the players to explain what's working and what isn't - and why. 

And it works.

 

So I got to thinking: if an institution as entrenched as the good ol' Rugby Football Union can change this much from the grassroots, why can't some of our other institutions?

 

I mean, the various peer-to-peer platforms have simply re-imagined retail banking as just a giant game of piggy-in-the-middle: savers, get your cash directly to those who need it without the 'piggy' bank intercepting it. Go!

We're Up $hit Creek: Invent Paddles

While it's fun picking over the bones of old financial scams and scandals, it's not really getting us anywhere, is it? After four years of it we're still up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

I'm not saying we should cease catechizing the cretinous crews of our crappy institutions. That's simply too much fun in a disgusting place that's short of laughs.

But when we're up Sh£t Creek without a paddle, clearly we need new paddles. 

Trouble is, the ordinary old paddles aren't much good in sh*t, so there's no point waiting for them to be magically delivered by the paddle-gods. We need to invent new ones. We need to experiment with different shapes and sizes. We need to make some howling errors in paddle design. Some canoes need to capsize - lots of little things must go wrong if we are to paddle our way down Sh€t creek to wherever it is you are when you're not up there.

Invent a paddle today!

Image from Truth Addict.

More Latitude

I was at Latitude, the festival, on the weekend. Had a great time, and settled in on Sunday night to watch Ben Howard and then Paul Weller to finish the show. The main arena filled with thousands of people in their twenties for Ben Howard and then... they turned and left. Just drained away, leaving about a hundred people near the front. While predictable, I guess, it was still an incredibly chilling experience to be left standing there virtually alone ahead of what was supposed to be the headline act. Eventually the rest of the middle aged set moved in and Mr Weller put on a stellar performance. But I haven't been able to shake the feeling of all those twenty somethings not seeing anything in it for them. And it's proving way too tempting to extrapolate from that to the current economic scenario.

Where do we think economic growth is going to come from? Who are we going to be relying on to get the job done in the next decade? Who needs to be inspired to achieve something out of the current mess? Who should have been encouraged to go nuts that night ahead of turning up to work on Monday morning, hungover but happy?

Okay, we're all living and working longer and the old stuff is still good. But let's be aware there are a lot of old snouts still in the trough. Let's give the younger ones a bit more latitude.

EU Pecking Ordure

Image from email circulating this week - happy to provide attribution if anyone knows who created it.