Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 30 July 2004, 5:50 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
High summer has arrived, and the sun is glittering enticingly on the water below the office. Outside my window, a small flotilla of identikit yachts is queuing up to leave St Katharine's Dock, each steered by a forty-something balding short-cropped bloke in khaki shorts and loose T shirt while a forty-something woman in ponytail, khaki shorts and fitted top looks on, hands on hips. I have a pair of binoculars to hand, and flick desperately from boat to boat hoping to find some differentiation. There is none. I could be looking at the opening scene from some waterborne science fiction movie, Attack Of The Canvas Clones.
What anthropological force has caused this curious cookie-cutter effect, I cannot say. Normally, such an impression of casual conformity would drive me to incontinent gouts of misanthropy, but today it's hard to feel anything but wistful envy at the thought of hitting the high seas for a couple of weeks. Also resentment -- doubtless there are various senior managers from the IT industry in the fleet, which means they're not at their desks perpetrating the sort of silliness that keeps the Diary going.
Which is by way of an apology for the paucity of meaty stories this week -- and doubtless the next. When you're entirely dependent on silliness, the Silly Season means the supply is stretched just that little bit too thin.
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