Category: Performance

Amazing stuff on stage and me having fun

The Smart Gasman Cometh – a Smart Metering Song

It’s almost exactly fifty years since Flanders and Swann wrote their classic comic song “The Gasman Cometh”.  With the advent of smart metering it seemed an appropriate time to update it, and give all those involved in smart metering something to sing at their Christmas parties.  I’d also recommend singing it whilst reading DECC’s First Annual Progress Report on the Roll-out of Smart Meters.  It has the advantage of being considerably shorter.

Twas on a Monday morning,
The gasman came to call.
My meter wouldn’t work,
It wasn’t being smart at all.
He put another meter in,
It took him several hours.
But it couldn’t send a reading, as the comms hub wasn’t powered!

Oh, it all makes work,
For the working man to do!

 

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Usability through Dance

It’s August, so I’m doing what I do every year and spending a couple of weeks at the Edinburgh Festival, seeing as many shows as I can manage.  It’s rare to see much that says anything about technology or design, but this year I was blown away by a show that should be compulsory viewing for anyone concerned with product design.  Even more surprising is the fact that it was a dance piece.

ME (Mobile/Evolution), written and performed by Claire Cunnigham is about crutches.  Since a bicycle accident at the age of fourteen she has been using crutches.  Four years ago she took up dance and since then has rapidly gained fame as a disabled performer.  I should add that, having seen her, the adjective disabled seems utterly inappropriate, as what she manages to do far surpasses most people’s physical capabilities.

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