A bit of culture in Boston, and not the stuff that you find in cheese. And another Nor'Easter comes to town.

Escheria Bostoni

Yes, it is true. There is culture in Boston, and not just the stuff you find in that 5 day old cup-a-soup you found behind the sofa.

Perhaps the most famous cultural thing in Boston is the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and their Boston Pops concerts. Probably not quite as good as the BBC Proms, but then I could hardly admit to that now could I? This year the BSO have invited John Williams back as a guest conductor. You know, he of Jaws and Star Wars fame, although why he gave the Empire the better tune I'll never know. And while we’re on the subject, have you noticed that if you start humming (or even worse, singing) the Star Wars theme, if you’re not really careful you end up humming the Superman theme instead?

Another group who are becoming more and more famous is the Blue Man Group. Apparently Intel is showing some adverts in the UK featuring 3 guys who are painted blue (hence the name) playing around with the Intel PIII and P4 logos. And you probably thought this was some California spaced-out hippy idea of high technology. Well, you may be right on that assumption, but they also have their own show here in Boston (and New York and Vegas). Blue Man (there are no blue women) is a bunch of mime artists with a difference. First of all, they are painted blue, they do not wear strings of onions around their necks and the album contains the soundtrack to the show, rather than 74 minutes of silence.

The show is constantly evolving, so I won’t be giving anything away here. They started by playing the drums, which is nothing spectacular. Apart from they had lights inside them, which made it more interesting, and then they poured paint on top. It was at this point we really appreciated having the plastic ponchos they had kindly provided for the front five rows. Some might argue that a true mime wouldn't use sound effects, not that I care. I have never thought of crunchy breakfast cereal as a musical instrument either. All it takes is a microphone and some imagination. Probably the best parts are when they're playing the pipes. Not your tin whistles, or that Scottish contraption so beloved of octopi, but 8-inch PVC plumbing pipes. If you've seen the advert for the Intel Pentium 4, you'll know exactly what I mean, otherwise try to imagine 3 men playing a 5-way trombone. (Click to listen: Tubulum  )

If you come to Boston this is a must see. Although you'll need to book tickets a few weeks in advance unless you want to take a chance on the last-minute waiting list.

One of Boston’s less famous, or possibly more infamous cultural attractions is a bloke by the name of Mike Barrett. Somewhat at the other end of the cultural scale and unlikely to ever get airtime on Radio 1 (rumour has it he has been banned from several stations already), Mike can be found at Mr Dooley’s on most Sunday nights, among other places. When somebody puts "Mike Barrett would like to apologise for his behaviour on the night of ________" on their business card, that should give you some idea what to expect. After a rendition of "Shaggin Pamela Anderson" or "The Lesbian Song" you should be left in doubt what so ever. If you have ever taken a Cab in Boston, then you'll really appreciate "Boston Cab" which has to be his best, with "Cat's in the Kettle" very close behind. (You'll never quite trust Wong-Kei again!) If you like this, then go buy the CDs (there ya go Mike, you're now ever more famous. If you listen very carefully to his next CD, which was recorded live at the Littlest, you might just here a familiar voice in the background. But then the place was packed (nearly 80 people!), and everyone was singing with that particular close harmony style that can only be achieved with many years of practice, or several pints of Guinness.

eGovernment

I must make a confession. I have actually been (positively) impressed by Her Majesties Government for once. I was accidentally left off the Electoral Register in London, despite being technically resident on registration day, which meant I lost the right to vote for the year. But, as they are now bringing in rolling registration that shouldn't be a problem. Except that Harrow Council didn't have the regulations for Overseas Electors so I was still disenfranchised (NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION! Except I don't have to pay UK taxes and I can't vote here as I'm not a US citizen... hmmm). Anyway, after a couple of months, I thought I'd email the Home Office to find out when the regulations are going to be published so I could help Harrow out a bit. And against all expectations I had a reply the following day!

If you're a US citizen living overseas, you can vote in person at your nearest Embassy or by post. They don't actually count your vote unless it's really close, like in Florida last time around, but it's a relatively simple process. But for UK citizens living overseas, it's not that simple. Firstly you must have been registered to vote in the UK in the last 20 years, but in the interests of promoting democracy they're cutting it to 15 years after the next election. You must also fill in an Overseas Elector declaration, and have it signed by another British Citizen who is not resident in the UK. Now, wouldn't it be simpler to do this before you leave the country? And then, when it's all filled in and you've persuaded your ex-local council to accept it, you have to either appoint a proxy to vote on your behalf, or come back to vote in person. Apparently they can't get the ballot papers posted and returned in under 17 days, which is the maximum time between the Royal Proclamation (which formally starts the election process) and the election. As I have found, it is quite possible to get a postal reply from the UK in 5 days.

ShatWest.

Yes the saga has finally come to a close. Despite several attempts to correct their records for them, (which they wanted to charge me to do!) I finally flipped out and closed the account. The final straw? They resurrected a direct debit that had lapsed two years earlier, which put me overdrawn, as the account was at zero at the time. So I wrote them a letter. Rewrote it twice just to leave no doubt about my opinion, but not leave any room for legal action (it's the difference between writing "you bastards" and "I cast doubt on your parentage"). Five days later, they replied, almost apologising for taking the money out the account, but not for the rest of the problems.

The following day I received a cheque for the grand total of 16 pence, which was the final interest due. And you know what, I think I will cash that because their processing costs will be several time that, even if it does cost me 80c postage. And all I really wanted to do was to use their Internet banking service, which I never did get going. Business at the speed of thought? No, I won’t say it. I don’t have to…

Pin Drop? More like Pin Head!

Sorry, a bit of an Americanism there, but another pet hate of mine right now is Sprint. OK, I’ve never been much for running anywhere, let alone sprinting, but in this case Sprint is an American telecom company. Their adverts feature a pin dropping because they claim their cellular service is so good you can hear a pin drop. Shame their own communications are not as clear.

A while ago I had a Cellnet phone, which if you ever tried to reach me on, you'll remember had all the reliability of an Amstrad stereo and similar sound quality. I thought that it would be much better here as on the whole Americans are much more customer service oriented. I guess that's something else their phone industry has it's own standards for. It now seems that I cannot pay the bill by credit card, despite that being a basic feature of the service. And that for mobile phones they recognise Canada as a foreign country, despite the rest of the US phone system treating it as part of the US long distance network. And the WAP browser feature has an extra charge, despite the fact I signed up for their so-called "Total Digital" package with more minutes of talk time than even Buzby could get through.

If it were down to me, I'd insert the phone somewhere where their salesman would not consider surgically possible. But as it's a business phone, I'm stuck with it. I just hope I can pass it on to another more deserving member of the department. Actually, they must have something in common with Amex, because I tried to pay a bill of early (so I can load it up with another batch of frequent flyer points) and they could not cope with the concept. When was the last time you heard somebody turning down payment of a bill because it was too early?

New Canadian President

Talking of Canada, they have just had a new ruler installed. The (now former) Governor of Massachusetts, Paul Celucci, has just been confirmed as the new US Ambassador to Canada. OK, I know I have just upset every Canadian on the web, but in my defence can I just say I am only quoting a former Canadian minister who was showing a friend of mine around Ottawa. When they arrived outside the Parliament building, he explained this was where Canada was governed from and promptly turned around and pointed at the US Embassy.

If you get the chance, you really should have a listen to Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie, which you can easily do thanks to our friends at MP3.com. Unless you’ve seen the Molson adverts, “I Am Canadian!” probably won’t make much sense, but I’m sure you can relate to the “The White House Burned (The War of 1812)”. For those of you that don’t know your history, this was where the British (as pre-Canadians) marched on Washington and burned down the White House.

Final flurry?

Just as I thought spring had finally sprung, it snowed once more. Not much more that a quarter inch, but just enough to remind us that winter hasn't quite retreated yet. We also had a Nor’easter at last, which dumped a couple of feet of snow on us during a two-day blizzard. As my first Nor’easter (the last two predicted ones missed us) it was entertaining to see the preparations going ahead for real.

When a big storm is due a "Snow Emergency" is declared that bans parking on one or both sides of most streets so the ploughs can do their job without punting cars through shop windows, schools and government offices close, shelters are prepared as sometimes coastal areas get flooded and anyone going to Logan Airport knows to take a couple of good books and a pillow as they could be in for a long wait as the airlines run away at the first hint of trouble.

The weirdest thing was hearing a funny rattle every so often during the night. Eventually I had a look out the window, but I couldn't see anything. So I opened it and stuck my head out to see if I could see better, just in time for an icicle to drop within an inch of my ear. In the morning I found it sticking upright out of a snowdrift.

Alas the snow has all departed. Just to make up for the long winter season it was 91F in downtown Boston a couple of days ago.

California power problems

If this means the start of a long hot summer then it’s going to be really unpleasant in California, as they’re still having problems with the ‘leccy supply. A few years ago somebody had the bright idea of privatising the power industry in the state for all the usual reasons i.e. improved efficiency, commercial freedom, better service, lower costs etc. Sound familiar? But to make sure that customers really benefited, the tariffs were fixed. So the power distribution companies were operating with variable costs and a fixed income. About 10 years ago, a federal report warned California they needed to build 4 new power stations to cope with the forecast demand for 2000 and beyond, and since then another 2 stations were forced to close. And the price of fuel has increased dramatically in the last few years as well.

So the distribution companies found themselves with rising costs and a reduced income. The official response was something along the lines of “you have plenty of money and a good credit score. It’s only a short-term thing, deal with it”. Well, the short-term problem turned into a long-term problem and the result was the distribution companies suddenly found themselves up to their eyeballs in debt and technically bankrupt. So for now they have rolling blackouts in many areas, the politicians are blaming everyone else and the State is now buying power and giving it to the distributors. It got to the point that companies like Intel, Apple and Oracle apparently let it be known they would move out of California if they suffered too much. As when the power goes off, so do the computers.

And if it is a hot summer, everyone is going to be reaching for the air-conditioning. I guess it is some consolation that all the computers owned by the dead dot-bomb companies, and their associated power-hungry air conditioning systems, are now turned off. But just to remind the world how enlightened the Californians really are, they are now blaming the Bush administration for failing to bail them out, blaming the surrounding states for refusing to build power plants while tying to stop any new ones being build in their own back yard. And don’t even think about the nuclear option.

Tax time

Everyone and their dog has probably seen the episode of The Simpsons where Homer is forced to spy for The Government as a result of leaving his tax return to the last minute. And since you have to prepare your own tax return here, every year, you’d think that working with a bunch of intelligent, creative, IT people they’d all get their taxes done on time, wouldn’t you? Or they could even set their Visors (Palm is just so passé) to go ping a few weeks beforehand.

The only time so far I have an entire office go into a blind panic was after an innocent comment along the lines of “I got my tax refund yesterday”. Actually, I’m surprised at just how excited people get about tax refunds. It’s almost a competitive sport to see who can get the biggest refund. Do they not realise that all they are getting is the money they over-paid during the previous year? It’s not as if the IRS is doing them a massive favour, and you certainly don’t get interest with it.

I got H&R Block (whose biggest claim to fame was setting up CompuServe so people could do their returns online in the years before the web became popular.) to do mine for me, as it was more complicated due to being a part-year resident and also being employed and paying tax in the UK for part of the tax year. Unfortunately I now have to do a UK Tax Return because I am no longer resident there either. But you would have thought that having a US address they would have realised that I might need the additional non-resident forms as well wouldn’t you? At least they have them available for download from their web site. And next year it might even be possible to do it all online.

Film ‘01

And finally a film review, since this is a cultural edition. I was hoping to include several reviews, but all the good stuff is opening in the UK only a couple of weeks behind the US, so by the time you read this you’ll have seen the film. So I’ll limit this to just a couple, starting with One Night at McCool's.

This film had the whole audience in stitches all the way through. Try to imagine if Terry Gilliam had written Pulp Fiction. With a bingo playing assassin, a heroine with an original idea about home improvement and who will go to any lengths to get the house of her dreams, a lawyer who is bound to tell the truth, the whole truth, and anything but the truth, a fat cop (this is America after all) and the guy from Falling Down. After the final scene, I was expecting to hear the familiar strains of the Monty Pyton theme .

The Sci-Fi channel has now released their mini-series of Dune on DVD at last. This is well worth getting hold of. Unlike the film by David Lynch, they have stayed very true to the book. As it is an American production, the Baron Harkonnen had to be played by an Englishman, and the Duke was last seen getting Lost in Space. And the nice thing with the DVD is there are no adverts in it at all. So you get to watch the movie without being reminded about your bathroom/ cat litter / scratched furniture or the latest compilation CD from Time Life every five minutes.

One of the best film reviews I’ve come across recently has been the Thugs on Film cartoons on BBC America. They are also available on the web and are easily worth a Double Rolex rating.

You must have see Ali G – if not on his DVD then on Channel 4. If not, you should. For some reason, 8 out of 10 Americans just don’t get it. Even after six months of Englishification. But they did appreciate his “interviews” with the head of the FBI.

Ali also gave me a reason to hack the region code out of my DVD drive as the Americans just don’t get how stupid this whole region coding thing is as they don’t watch foreign films. Thankfully there are now a number of web sites than can supply anything from patches to player software and modified firmware updates for your computer to step-by-step instructions on how to rewire your home entertainment system.

Also on the movie technology front it is possible that the movie industry might just be waking up to the benefits of modern technology, rather than trying to ban it. Just as MP3 make music much more portable and allowed you to listen to your favourite tracks without having to lug a box of CDs around, there is a similar concept for video called Divx that will compress a film down to a manageable size. You can already down load episodes of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, and Stargate SG-1 from websites using Gnutella.

In a rare moment of clarity, it seems that the studios have realised they could use this technology to sell films online and do it quickly enough they won’t get “Napsterized”. The key is to make enough content available online and to keep the cost low enough that people cannot be bothered to search for illegal copies. Of course, it does help if you have DSL or cable modem access but that is coming. This could mean that DVD becomes a premium medium for those that want it. Of course, the biggest advantage Hollywood has is that no matter how much you spend on TVs, DVD players and speakers, it still doesn’t come close to a big screen presentation at the local Odeon, especially if you don’t always have the living room to yourself.