The Weekly Round-Up: 25.04.08

It's a rare old week when the Round-Up gets a chance to consider how the aphorisms of the father of modern lexicography come to bear on the life of the modern city worker - but this week is a welcome exception.

Samuel Johnson, the man who sat down one day quill in hand and battled gamely through aardvarks and aardwolves before stumbling onto nobler, loftier subjects such as 'love' and 'wine', famously told another man of letters that "when a man is tired of London, then he is tired of life".

It's a well known aphorism. Too well known, thanks to marketers advertising the joys of the capital and to people living in London who see fit to inflict it on friends visiting them from outside the M25.

Give your ears a treat…

Ever wondered where you can get some good docky?

Or maybe have a good blart?

Don't know what the bloomin' heck we're jangling about?

Well, take a listen to this week's brammer of a Podcast and get in the loop!

This week, the Round-Up was distressed to hear that the collective ennui among London's workers is resulting in a fog of despair over the city more tangible than the pollution from traffic (wearing this may be one way to avoid the fumes ). Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Samuel.

A report claims that more than 70 per cent of the capital's miserable workers are already thinking about getting a new job from day one.

It's a wonder they manage to haul themselves out of bed everyday and into crowded, smelly Tube carriages, let alone trudge past unsmiling security guards and into the lift which, probably sensing the collective mood of 10 million people, promptly plummets to the basement rather than up to the fifth floor.

Again, it rankles somewhat with Dr Johnson's assertion, made without irony the Round-Up believes, that "the happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it".

Right. Meanwhile, Londoners' sense of futile despair compares starkly with the blissed-out workers in the South West, of whom only 11 per cent are unhappy in their jobs.

So what is it about London? According to recruitment expert Lisette Howlett, it could be that job insecurity and the high cost of living contributes to a feeling of dissatisfaction among the capital's workers.

Meanwhile, the relaxed lifestyle of Bristol, Devon and the South West makes for a more positive workforce thanks to the vast quantities of reasonably priced, quality cider and the trip-hop music scene.

What do you have to say about that, Samuel Johnson? Nothing, he's been dead for more than 200 years, but he never tired of espousing the merits of London to anyone. There are many more quotes from Johnson available from the very useful and aptly named Samual Johnson.com.

Back to the task in hand. Unfortunately, only 10 per cent of all survey respondents, not just those within the spirit-stifling noose of the M25, believe their manager would try to keep them if they were to resign, another 21 per cent think their managers would simply set about organising their leaving do.

All this despair despite high UK earnings and plentiful jobs: labour market figures show employment at its highest level since records began in 1971, average earnings have increased and vacancies are at a record high. Maybe it's because they're all Londoners, that they loathe London town?

So, London: full of miserable, depressed workers. And Samuel Johnson: a clever, deceased man of letters who knew a lot about words but naff all about living in London.

Still, on an entirely unrelated note the Round-Up particularly enjoyed his views on second marriages: "The triumph of hope over experience."

Absolutely no relevance here whatsoever but a fine aphorism nonetheless...

It's a well known fact that Samuel Johnson started to write the first dictionary on a ZX Spectrum.

One ham-handed segue later and we're on to the next bit of the Round-Up celebrating all things olde and computery, so break out the mead.

silicon.com asked you to vote for your most beloved computer of halcyon yesteryear and what was the winner?

The intro rather gave it away: it's the ZX Spectrum, that diminutive, rubber-keyed pixie of computational delight.

The tiny computer beat off a decent but ultimately crap challenge from other retro computing delights such as the Amiga and the BBC Micro.

The Round-Up remembers the BBC Micro well. It remembers the Break key - reboot system and do not save document - was right next to one of the function keys the Round-Up used regularly.

One keystroke awry and university essays were sent to digital oblivion. On one occasion it managed to do this twice with the same essay on the same pre-deadline night. Still, there was always Elite (THE classic BBC game in Round-Up's opinion).

Almost a third (31 per cent) of the more than 900 respondents in the silicon.com poll said the Spectrum - an eight-bit computer launched in the UK in 1982 - was the computer they cut their teeth on at home.

In comparison, the Spectrum's big rivals of the day, the BBC Micro and Commodore 64, could only muster 15 per cent and 14 per cent of the vote respectively. If Speccy fans knew then what they know now, the Commodore 64 advocates would have been pwned in the playground. Boo-ya!

Where did your first computer come in the poll? but advocates of the Dragon 32 or the Acorn Electron might want to brace themselves for some bad news. Sit down, too. Might be for the best.

Those happy formative computing years with the Speccy were for many of us in late childhood or early teens and its popularity was no doubt influenced by a number of factors.

First, it was as cheap as chips. More than that, it was user-friendly and soon began to support a thriving ecosystem of inventive games developers.

But most of all it had lovely, little rubber keys providing a revolutionary tactile delight the iPhone would have died for...

Talk of technology and kids leads us neatly to another story this week about young folk and their technology mores. While they don't know have much truck with the essential, underlying quality of modern technology they know what they like. And more importantly, they know what everyone else likes and they want that, too.

Pah! Says who? Says Gartner, that's who, which, like any good analyst firm, has much to say about everything.

According to Gartner, social trends and the zeitgeist are more important than how good a new technology actually is when it comes to what consumers buy.

At Gartner's achingly trendy and co-located mobile and wireless and enterprise and networking conferences in London, the analyst house pointed to Apple as an example of a business whose success can be attributed to how firmly it keeps its finger on the pulse of cutting-edge cool.

Gartner VP and analyst Nick Jones said: "Technology and society aren't separate things. They evolve together. They're co-dependent."

Indeed, for starters, technology companies need the people who make up society to buy their products. But the Round-Up's being trite, it knows what Nick is getting at and it's an interesting point.

Jones added: "Understanding society is vital to success of products and services."

He added that it's not necessarily about having the best technology either because people buy things for emotional - rather than rational - reasons. And as technology choice proliferates, social factors are becoming increasingly important.

Again, Jones cited Apple as a company with its finger on the populist pulse, explaining that whenever you see someone walking around wearing white earphones you know they're using an iPod. The white earphones simultaneously turn the person into a walking advert for Apple and a walking target for muggers and other ne'er-do-wells.

He said: "People do not spend $25,000 on a limited-edition Nokia Vertu phone because of its voice quality."

No, he's right. People do not spend $25,000 on a limited-edition Nokia Vertu phone because of its voice quality. People spend $25,000 on a limited-edition Nokia Vertu phone because they're idiots.

The wisdom of crowds? Pfft! We should celebrate good technology for its inner quality rather than for the ephemeral merits assigned to it by societal whims.

Class is permanent, form is temporary. As our old friend Samuel Johnson - remember him from the first bit, way, way up there? - spoke of the collective wisdom of crowds: "The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue, and confirmed by every look, till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel, consent to yield to the general delusion, and, when the voluntary dream is at an end, lament that bliss is of so short a duration."

Bravo, Dr Johnson. Are you listening Mr Jobs?

Just time for a final swish through the other news of the week:

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is playing it sooo cool over Yahoo!. If it's not interested in becoming part of the Microsoft massive then, whatever, he's not bothered, he'll just walk away and come up with another deeply flawed plan to take on Google.

Yeah, right, he's not fooling the wily analysts of Wall Street.

The Round-Up loves satellite imagery. Check out the best of Nasa's imagery including volcanic eruptions and the dreamy aurora borealis.

Not to be outdone, Google Earth offers up its best shots of bewildered dolphins in suburban swimming pools, Area 51 and some full frontal nudity. Let's be honest, you're clicking to see the dolphins aren't you?

Apple posts more record results thanks to huge, great loads of Macs sold and some decent results for iPhones and iPods. Is Wall Street happy? Is it ever? It's still insulted and intellectually aggrieved at Steve Ballmer's cheeky Yahoo! jibe.

Think you know what the world's largest software company is? Think again. The truth may amaze you. Or it may just leave the cloying taste of dissatisfaction in your mouth. Either way, the truth is a mere mouse-click away.

Until next week, take a moment test your wit against fellow readers in the caption competition.

And enjoy the latest silicon.com podcast - this week talking about those pesky foul-mouthed office workers and where one can grab a docky.