One of my pet obsessions is the cost of getting shaved. This is something I'd say most men have to do at least 3 or 4 times a week. It's not the greatest of things to do but better than the alternative.
For years I've bought expensive razors with replaceable cartridge heads on the assumption that the give the best shave. My skin is pretty sensitive and razor burns, nicks and cuts are all something I can live without. There is no pleasure to be had with a sore face.
From memory the first cartridge razor I ever had was the Gillette Sensor Excel which had two blades and a moveable head; prior to this I'd really only used the original Bic Disposable razor which had a single blade and no moving parts. With quite a sensntive face, we never got on terribly well. I'm fairly sure I bought the Sensor Excel in 1990 and back then it was was really quite dear but the step-up in the shave was well worth the money.
Fast forward 23 years and having gone though just about every incarnation from the likes of Gillette and Wilkinson Sword I finally admitted defeat. With the blades costing anything up to £2.37 each and a pack of 8 nearing 20 quid I decided something had to change. I was tacitly admitting something that really everyone knows: that the "Razor and blades business model" is for me a really poor deal.
Changing the shavers I prefer meant some degree of compromise but it was still important to get the most comfortable shave I can at the best price. For me this meant buying disposable shavers and an interesting thing happens when you do this. It seems likely to me that brand loyalty counts for less than cartridge shavers; you might only be a good as your last shave. You haven't invested in an expensive system so you're more inclined to go elsewhere if the razor lets you down.
What I found pretty quickly is that although there are many different kinds of disposable shavers, many retailers only seem to stock a fairly small range giving over the Lion's share of the space to the cartridge types. I eventually narrowed my choice down to the Bic Comfort 4 which is a great shave - it must about 35% of the cost of cartridge razors, shaves pretty much as well and I feel a bit better not contributing to a business model that I really don't think works in the interests of consumers.
There are some obvious pitfalls and tips I picked up: the first is any shavers sold in a bag are generally not good. At least for me. Big packs of shavers in cellophane bags are generally pretty much the budget end of the scale and certainly don't do my face any favours. Also to try and offset the environmental impact of disposable shavers I've given up any canned shaving cream and switched told fashioned shaving cream and a brush. I find this actually treats my face more kindly giving a richer and thicker lather. Another thing to watch are the premium cartridge blades being put into a disposable format which really aren't good value.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Monday, January 28, 2013
Immigration: Romanian or Bulgarian? You won't like it here | UK news | The Guardian
Immigration: Romanian or Bulgarian? You won't like it here | UK news | The Guardian:
Possibly the most muddle-headed government policy of all time. How do you do this without inferring the country you're trying to enter is a load of shit?
Possibly the most muddle-headed government policy of all time. How do you do this without inferring the country you're trying to enter is a load of shit?
Steel: A Century of Steelmaking on Film from BFI
Steel was one of the backbone industries of the UK with enormous works all over the country. At one point the UK produced some 40% of the world's steel before complacency, lack of investment, political and industrial strife set in.
The story of steel is a key story in the history of industrialised Britain - it was one of the prime motivators of the industrial revolution and its slow decline is also the story of British imperial, political and economic decline. Steel also marked, in my eyes, the final destruction of industrial Britain whether through the closing and demolition of the Consett Steel Works or the Battle of Ongreave.
This DVD set is due to be released 18/1/2013.
Links:
A slideshow of Consett Steelworks under demolition, 1981 (YouTube).
Thursday, March 22, 2012
COI Collection Vol 7: The Queen on Tour
I suppose in the Diamond Jubilee year "COI Collection Vol 7: The Queen on Tour" was inevitable if a little disappointing. Even on a documentary level a COI collection about the Queen doesn't seem particularly interesting (there can be no shortage of this material) and the shame to me is that BFI releases of COI films seem to have slowed down to a trickle of about one a year.
The six releases so far have, on the whole been very good with Vol 6 being about the best so far. Here's hoping to a more interesting release with Vol. 8 when it comes around.
The six releases so far have, on the whole been very good with Vol 6 being about the best so far. Here's hoping to a more interesting release with Vol. 8 when it comes around.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Workfare makes no sense
In a surprising but welcome move Sainsbury's and Waterstones have pulled out of the government's workfare programme. They must know this makes business and well as ethical and moral sense. Businesses are not saints but they must obviously recognise the harm workfare does to their reputation as employers and as a business. The gamey smell already around workfare puts all businesses who use it into the same pot; they're just seen as exploitative employers that ethical consumers will run a mile from.
There is something fundamentally wrong for a grocer to stock their shelves with fairtrade chocolate or organic fruit whilst paying the stacker of said items no wages. It has to be the simplest way for a consumer to shop more ethically by not shopping at places who exploit the poor. There is no premium for this kind of fair-trade - you just take your business elsewhere.
Workfare is a toxic brand that consumers can deliberately avoid if they want to. It is completely wrong for businesses to exploit unemployed people whilst banking millions of pounds in profits. It has become an utter distortion of any back to work initiative where creeping incentives to get people to sign-up for (or be coerced into) workfare to accept conditions piecemeal they'd never accept in one go. Decades' worth of nudges in the direction of welfare has eventually softened people up the point where they'll accept what are no better than coerced labour schemes.
"Workfare" had been a dirty word for years; Under the early years of the last Labour government it struggled to gain traction but as the eligibility for benefits became much harder it became easier to legitimise it. Now the gloves are off: the poor and the unemployed have been sold down the river in a mutual labour scheme between government and private business.
These schemes in the final analysis make no sense for employers either. Make-work schemes are precisely that: they're nothing but a drain on the business. Businesses that require no skills to operate (does anyone really need to be shown to stack shelves?) are simply exploiting cheap labour and therefore should not benefit from the public purse as this distorts the market. Public money being used to reduce the wage bill of private businesses is a complete obscenity by any measure.
There is nothing wrong with getting training or work experience to make yourself more employable. They do have very mixed results so there can never be an absolute rule. However workfare has become naked exploitation. Bottom-feeding employers signing up for workfare to feed their own needs for unskilled labour is a particularly foul and toxic way to do business and as an ethical consumer I will make a point to avoid.
There is something fundamentally wrong for a grocer to stock their shelves with fairtrade chocolate or organic fruit whilst paying the stacker of said items no wages. It has to be the simplest way for a consumer to shop more ethically by not shopping at places who exploit the poor. There is no premium for this kind of fair-trade - you just take your business elsewhere.
Workfare is a toxic brand that consumers can deliberately avoid if they want to. It is completely wrong for businesses to exploit unemployed people whilst banking millions of pounds in profits. It has become an utter distortion of any back to work initiative where creeping incentives to get people to sign-up for (or be coerced into) workfare to accept conditions piecemeal they'd never accept in one go. Decades' worth of nudges in the direction of welfare has eventually softened people up the point where they'll accept what are no better than coerced labour schemes.
"Workfare" had been a dirty word for years; Under the early years of the last Labour government it struggled to gain traction but as the eligibility for benefits became much harder it became easier to legitimise it. Now the gloves are off: the poor and the unemployed have been sold down the river in a mutual labour scheme between government and private business.
These schemes in the final analysis make no sense for employers either. Make-work schemes are precisely that: they're nothing but a drain on the business. Businesses that require no skills to operate (does anyone really need to be shown to stack shelves?) are simply exploiting cheap labour and therefore should not benefit from the public purse as this distorts the market. Public money being used to reduce the wage bill of private businesses is a complete obscenity by any measure.
There is nothing wrong with getting training or work experience to make yourself more employable. They do have very mixed results so there can never be an absolute rule. However workfare has become naked exploitation. Bottom-feeding employers signing up for workfare to feed their own needs for unskilled labour is a particularly foul and toxic way to do business and as an ethical consumer I will make a point to avoid.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Review: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace - 3D
Years ago I remember reading that George Lucas was going to convert the Star Wars saga to 3D and at the time I though "meh..." just another rumour.
So I was surprised when it was announced and last night I went to see Episode I of the prequel saga. As a glasses wearer I have no idea how much this effects the presentation of 3D but rarely have I ever seen the effects of it. I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D and I never really felt I saw much of a 3D effect.
I have to report that the same seemed to be true of The Phantom Menace. Certain things like the pod race or the space battles did feel like they had more volume and depth to them but how much of this was real and how much this was of the placebo effect I don't know. The immense cityscapes of Coruscant still didn't look any deeper than they had before which was something of a disappointment given how lofty and vertigo enducing they should have been.
In some ways the 13 years since it was released have been kind in some respects and less so in others. The film didn't feel quite as plodding as it did in 1999; I have no idea if Lucas has made any further changes in terms of tightening the film but it did feel a bit better. Originally I thought the pod race was indeterminably long but on this viewing it didn't seem so bad; some of the characters are still made out of pure cardboard but surprisingly Jar Jar Binks, probably the most hated aspect of The Phantom Menace, wasn't quite as awful as I remember.
It still retained all the weaknesses of the original viewing though, all of the villains with the exception of Darth Maul and Lord Sidious were still quite dismal. They were still men in masks with leaden dialogue and totally unconvincing motivations. It all seemed a bit crude considering what it still had to live up to. Anakin Skywalker was still terrible, couldn't deliver dialogue for toffee and had no emotional depth. Unsurprisingly Liam Neeson's performance was still dignified but I couldn't help but feel Lucas didn't give him much to work with.
Most of the visual effects still stood the test of time but they weren't terribly inspired. The undersea adventure at the start was still too long and laboured, the battledroids still look ridiculous and the final victory over the Trade Federation recalled everything you hated about the Ewoks defeating the Empire in Return of the Jedi. At least Yoda was fixed in creating him as CGI instead the awful puppet which was still far worse than that seen in The Empire Strikes Back, nearly 30 years earlier.
Overall I'd have to say 3D added nothing to the film other than making the colours washed out. The Phantom Menace failed on so many visual levels, other the climatic duel between the Jedi and Darth Maul, that 3D was never going to add much. Perhaps 3D might have more to contribute to A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, but the jury is out on this one.
So I was surprised when it was announced and last night I went to see Episode I of the prequel saga. As a glasses wearer I have no idea how much this effects the presentation of 3D but rarely have I ever seen the effects of it. I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D and I never really felt I saw much of a 3D effect.
I have to report that the same seemed to be true of The Phantom Menace. Certain things like the pod race or the space battles did feel like they had more volume and depth to them but how much of this was real and how much this was of the placebo effect I don't know. The immense cityscapes of Coruscant still didn't look any deeper than they had before which was something of a disappointment given how lofty and vertigo enducing they should have been.
In some ways the 13 years since it was released have been kind in some respects and less so in others. The film didn't feel quite as plodding as it did in 1999; I have no idea if Lucas has made any further changes in terms of tightening the film but it did feel a bit better. Originally I thought the pod race was indeterminably long but on this viewing it didn't seem so bad; some of the characters are still made out of pure cardboard but surprisingly Jar Jar Binks, probably the most hated aspect of The Phantom Menace, wasn't quite as awful as I remember.
It still retained all the weaknesses of the original viewing though, all of the villains with the exception of Darth Maul and Lord Sidious were still quite dismal. They were still men in masks with leaden dialogue and totally unconvincing motivations. It all seemed a bit crude considering what it still had to live up to. Anakin Skywalker was still terrible, couldn't deliver dialogue for toffee and had no emotional depth. Unsurprisingly Liam Neeson's performance was still dignified but I couldn't help but feel Lucas didn't give him much to work with.
Most of the visual effects still stood the test of time but they weren't terribly inspired. The undersea adventure at the start was still too long and laboured, the battledroids still look ridiculous and the final victory over the Trade Federation recalled everything you hated about the Ewoks defeating the Empire in Return of the Jedi. At least Yoda was fixed in creating him as CGI instead the awful puppet which was still far worse than that seen in The Empire Strikes Back, nearly 30 years earlier.
Overall I'd have to say 3D added nothing to the film other than making the colours washed out. The Phantom Menace failed on so many visual levels, other the climatic duel between the Jedi and Darth Maul, that 3D was never going to add much. Perhaps 3D might have more to contribute to A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, but the jury is out on this one.
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