The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro, and another England

13 January 2023

Reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1988 novel, The Remains of the Day, twenty-years ago, changed the way British freelance writer Max Liu saw England. When Liu re-read the novel last year, he changed the way he saw the central protagonist James Stevens, the stoic butler of Darlington Hall, where much of the story is set.

It was one of the most profound reading experiences of my life. Partly, this was down to geography and timing. I grew up in Cornwall and, living hundreds of miles from home for the first time, I was ready to think about England and its meanings. This quietly subversive novel showed how the English obsession with class colours our emotions, speech and interactions. It changed the way I saw the country I thought I knew.

If you haven’t had the chance yet, check out the brilliant 1993 Merchant Ivory produced screen adaptation of the novel, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.

Seriously though, what of Ishiguro’s work isn’t thought provoking, or somehow transformative?

The exorbitant cost of luxury goods is why people queue up to buy

12 January 2023

Despite their cost, the goods sold by some luxury retailers are not always quality buys, though such matters seldom deter customers. It’s the price tag they’re interested in. And the higher the price, the better, writes American author and entrepreneur, Seth Godin:

Luxury goods are items that are worth more (to some) because they cost more. The cost itself is the benefit that is being sold.

But the exorbitant cost isn’t the only… benefit. The roped-off queuing areas outside the store, where customers must wait for a sales agent to become available, are another. There’s a luxury in lining up to enter a luxury retailer, it’s the hope of being seen waiting for admission. The picture windows adorning many of these stores, and their relatively confined floor space, are another benefit. They combine to create an additional opportunity to be seen shopping.

A large shopping centre I visit has a dedicated “luxury precinct”, an area set aside solely for luxury stores. I’m not sure all the people I see queuing up outside these stores are exactly in the luxury store demographic, but maybe that’s another benefit of the luxury shopping experience.

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economics, trends

Tesla reduces prices of electric vehicles in Australia

12 January 2023

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla has modestly reduced the prices of cars across its range in Australia.

The Tesla Model 3 now starts at $63,900 (was $65,500), whereas the Model Y now starts at $68,900 (was $72,300).

Price reductions vary from 1.9 to 3.9 percent. Still on the pricier side, but perhaps a little more affordable for some buyers now.

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electric vehicles, travel

The wave of tech company layoffs and social contagion

12 January 2023

I’ve worked in a number of organisations in the past that have been subject to rounds of staff layoffs or redundancies. In most cases the prime motivation was cost cutting, and the decision to proceed was usually made by a senior executive who would not have to deal directly with the subsequent fallout. For anyone not familiar with the process, it was not pleasant. Stress, anxiety, baseless rumours, and misinformation, were all in abundance.

Despite noises made to the contrary by management, the negative impact on workers — both those departing, and those staying behind — was seldom given thought. In one situation, a former colleague made what is probably a common observation: there’ll still be the same amount of work to do. New work processes and technologies might reduce some of the load, but likely not markedly.

Like many people, the recent wave of layoffs in the tech sector has puzzled me. One company announced a round of redundancies, and the next thing other tech companies are following suit. But why? Surely all these companies, Meta (the Facebook owner), Linkedin, Twitter, Tesla, Netflix, and Salesforce — who are but a handful of organisations to send employees home in recent months — cannot all be struggling financially.

This make the staff cuts all the more baffling. But as Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business explains, the layoffs are a case of social contagion. In other words, because one or two tech companies have been shedding staff, everyone else feels they must do the same. Long story short, there is no real reason for the redundancies, and the turmoil they create for workers, and the organisations themselves:

The tech industry layoffs are basically an instance of social contagion, in which companies imitate what others are doing. If you look for reasons for why companies do layoffs, the reason is that everybody else is doing it. Layoffs are the result of imitative behavior and are not particularly evidence-based.

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technology, trends

Golden Globe 2023 winner highlights

11 January 2023

The 2023 Golden Globes awards were presented today. Best actor winners include Cate Blanchett and Austin Butler, while The Banshees of Inisherin, and Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans — which edged out Top Gun: Maverick, and Avatar: The Way of Water — took out the best picture awards in their respective categories. A full list of this year’s winner is here.

Trailer for The Lying Life of Adults TV series

10 January 2023

The Netflix produced adaptation of Italian author’s Elena Ferrante’s 2019 coming-of-age novel The Lying Life of Adults, about a teenage girl named Giovanna, living in Naples, is now streaming.

Giovanna’s pretty face is changing, turning ugly, at least so her father thinks. Giovanna, he says, looks more like her Aunt Vittoria every day. But can it be true? Is she really changing? Is she turning into her Aunt Vittoria, a woman she hardly knows but whom her mother and father clearly despise? Surely there is a mirror somewhere in which she can see herself as she truly is.

Giovanna is searching for her reflection in two kindred cities that fear and detest one another: Naples of the heights, which assumes a mask of refinement, and Naples of the depths, a place of excess and vulgarity. She moves from one to the other in search of the truth, but neither city seems to offer answers or escape.

Somehow the adaptation, based on the trailer at least, is different to how I saw the story when I read it, while a teaser, released in March 2022, only briefly outlined the TV series to follow.

But yeah, so what.

Funding uncertainty may see online database Trove close down

10 January 2023

Trove, an online library database containing digital copies of significant historical and cultural Australian documents, maintained by the National Library of Australia, may be forced to cease operating at the end of June 2023, unless it is allocated more funding, according to its recently published strategy document:

The Library has sufficient resources to maintain Trove until June 2023. The future of Trove beyond July 2023 will be dependent upon available funds. To achieve the full strategic vision will require substantial investment. More modest investment sustained over a longer term would enable achievement of the strategy at a measured pace. In a limited funding environment, Trove may reduce to a service focused on the National Library of Australia’s collections. Without any additional funds, the Library will need to cease offering the Trove service entirely.

While funding for Trove, and other collecting institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia, and the National Museum of Australia, was not part of the recently unveiled National Cultural Policy, Australian federal arts minister Tony Burke suggested the matter would be looked at as part of this year’s federal budget, which is traditionally handed down in May.

Emily, a biopic film about Emily Bronte, by Frances O’Connor

10 January 2023

Although regarded as one of the greatest English language books, Wuthering Heights, the haunting 1847 novel of British writer Emily Brontë, was met with a mixed reception when published under Brontë’s non de plume, Ellis Bell. Critics hailed Brontë’s story of star crossed lovers Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw — her only published novel — as original, imaginative, and intriguing, but were shocked by the book’s depictions of violence, domestic abuse, sexual passion, and its host of narcissistic characters.

Brontë’s novel later went on to spawn numerous film, stage, and television adaptations, along with British musician Kate Bush’s 1978 single of the same name, which it could be argued is perhaps the most memorable interpretation of the Gothic fiction classic.

Despite Brontë’s literary prominence, little is known about her personal life. She was said to be reserved and shy, possibly explaining the lack of detailed writing about her. This dearth of knowledge was one of the challenges facing British born Australian actor and writer, turned filmmaker Frances O’Connor, during the production of her debut feature, Emily, trailer, leaving O’Connor to speculate about the finer details of Brontë’s life.

While Emily explores Brontë’s relationship with her famous sisters Charlotte, and Anne, and the writing of Wuthering Heights, it also portrays an apparent, doomed, love affair between Brontë and William Weightman, a local member of the clergy. While there is no evidence of any romance between Brontë and Weightman in reality, O’Connor makes the tantalising suggestion the supposed affair inspired the characters of Heathcliff and Catherine, and possibly Wuthering Heights itself.

Emily opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 12 January 2023, though if you are in Sydney, and move quickly, you may be able to score tickets to a preview screening at the Westpac OpenAir cinema, on the shore of Sydney harbour tomorrow evening, Wednesday 11 January 2023.

Filippo Bernardini pleads guilty to manuscript theft

9 January 2023

Italian manuscript thief Filippo Bernardini, who was alleged to have stolen more than one thousand book drafts, has pleaded guilty, a year after his arrest.

Filippo Bernardini impersonated figures from the publishing industry to trick people into handing over their works. He used his inside industry knowledge, having been employed by the publishing giant Simon & Schuster in London. Bernardini, 30, pleaded guilty in New York to wire fraud, but his motive has never been clear.

Bernardini’s targets included Irish novelist Sally Rooney, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, and British author and screenwriter Ian McEwan.

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books, manuscripts, novels

Not moving to Canada or Mastodon, I’ve been on Twitter too long

9 January 2023

Josh Nicholas, writing for The Guardian, about a recent decline in active members on social network Mastodon:

The number of active users on the Mastodon social network has dropped more than 30% since the peak and is continuing a slow decline, according to the latest data posted on its website. There were about 1.8 million active users in the first week of January, down from over 2.5 million in early December.

Aside from grumbles about Mastodon being difficult to use, I think a lot of people are wary of having to start over again somewhere else. If Twitter had ceased to exist, gone off-line, members who wished to remain active on a micro-blogging service would have no choice but to find a new platform, but that hasn’t (yet) been the case.

I joined Twitter in 2007, as did many of the people who follow me. Today some of those people have tens of thousands of followers, something that would’ve entailed considerable time and effort to achieve. The prospect of leaving that behind, and rebuilding their following on another service, would be daunting.

Despite Mastodon experiencing a growth surge in recent months, and making headlines in the process, membership peaked at about two and a half million accounts in December 2022. This compared to Twitter’s 368 million monthly active users at the same time. Some people moved on, but plenty stayed back.

Anyone then looking to start again would have found barely any of their Twitter followers on Mastodon, rendering a move questionable. So much for the Twitter members who threatened to depart, to “move to Canada” so to speak, after Elon Musk assumed ownership. In the same way some Americans, unhappy with the prospect of Donald Trump becoming U.S. President, declared they would migrate to Canada, in the event he won office. Ultimately few, if any, made the move.

While some Twitter users might have gone to Mastodon, or another micro-blogging service, or left social media behind all together, their numbers were limited by the looks of it. Staying on, rather than starting from scratch, turned out to be more appealing. Twitter had a way of retaining members, sitting — out of sight — up its sleeve, all along.

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