After six years of this, I'm still not running out of stuff I'd like to write about.
My output in the last few weeks has slowed down slightly because there are too many topics which have sprung to mind and I waste time deciding which one to do and then I end up doing nothing. I scribble them down on bits of paper during the day and then accumulate the unused ones on a master list at home, which is now three pages of A4.
They cover all sorts of different themes, so today, I'll list all the ones that vaguely relate to design, organisation or evolution:
1. Why democracy only works if there is a sense of 'national identity' in the first place. Democracy still works in federal states as long as people in each sub-division have a sense of identity. So there are tensions between different cantons in Switzerland who speak different languages and there are tensions between the English, the Welsh and the Scottish but these are surmountable because they all live in their separate pristine areas; but 'democracy' in the modern sense simply does not even work properly in Northern Ireland - it's all about tribalism and favours. So these people who think that you can simply install or impose 'democracy' in Middle Eastern or African countries have completely missed the point.
2. Why only a few people have 'leadership skills'. This is an atavistic thing that was useful when we still lived in small bands or tribes, but on the level of nation-states made up of millions of people, it can be sorely counter-productive - even though, having a single national 'leader' goes some way towards creating a sense of 'national identity' and thus enabling democracy to continue.
There was a good article by Jamie Tehrani at the BBC explaining the analogous phenomenon of celebrities; this urge to follow successful people was a useful trait when we lived in small bands or tribes but is now largely counter-productive.
3. Town planning: if you allow people to pitch their tents or huts any old where, what do they always overlook/forget to create, even though it would be to everybody's advantage? Look at the pictures of the tent city at Glastonbury or the huts round a Tibetan temple.
4. Town planning: because the original settlers in the British isles all lived along the coast, most people, however urban or urbane, still attach a premium to having a view over, being able to take a stroll along or being at a pub-restaurant overlooking a river, harbour or beach. It doesn't seem to matter if the waterway is almost entirely man-made i.e. canal or dock.
5. Town planning: some people have a dog and/or like dogs, other people hate dogs, so there would be an overall benefit to everybody if the two were segregated. It's fair to assume that dog-lovers would be happy to pay a bit extra to live in an area where dogs are allowed/welcomed, and dog-haters would be happy to pay a bit extra to live in a dog-free area. I'm always wary about banning things, but there's no reason it can't be applied ab initio to new estates and could be phased in elsewhere, i.e. people in each smaller defined area can simply have a vote. From there on in, dog-lovers will graduate to dog areas and dog-haters to dog-free areas.
6. The same logic applies to 'expensive' and 'cheap' areas. If you are the council and you build two more or less identical estates and set the rent at £100 a week in one of them and £200 a week in the other, then initially this will seem bizarre, but after a while, those will be come the new 'market rents'. People who earn a bit more and can afford to pay a bit more will be happy to pay to be among their peers and sheltered from the great unwashed, and lower income people will be happy to make do living among the GU because the rent is cheaper.
7. These people who hanker after the old county boundaries. Do they seriously imagine that the land has some magical properties which makes it "Berkshire" rather than "Oxfordshire" or vice versa? Where conflicts are a little more recent, let's say five or six centuries ago, I can vaguely understand which some people classify themselves specifically as Yorkshiremen or Lancastrians, but are there really some people who object to being subjected to the cruel tyranny of the Oxen when they'd rather be ruled by Berks? When was the last war between the two tribes?
8. Drewster's idea about private compulsory purchase orders as briefly discussed on this thread at HousePriceCrash.
9. Somebody told me that the opposition to the Aberdeen bypass was spear-headed by one single NIMBY who owned an isolated house on the route of the new road who didn't want the traffic noise. I said that there was a simple solution to this: buy up a small plot of land half a mile away, build an identical copy of his existing house, only a bit newer and better, and lay out the garden exactly the same and just do a swap (forced or otherwise).
The 'value' of his land is only the scarcity value of the planning permission in a noise-free area. Superficially, that 'value' is reduced or destroyed if the road is built, but the 'value' can easily be released again by building the new house. So the only cost involved would be building the new house for a hundred thousand quid; this would save the millions of pounds which all the enquiries and delays cost.
10. A design lecturer at printing college told us this simple rule: "It's good design if nobody notices it". This is a very good rule indeed, and applies to more or less everything, whether you are looking at form or function. For example, the first thing you notice when you sit in the driver's seat of a Trabi is that the steering wheel is slightly to your right, which is really annoying. So you notice, so it's probably bad design.
But conversely, have you ever consciously noticed that the steering wheel in most cars is dead straight in front of the driver's seat? The same applies to aesthetic questions just as much, so the rule with typefaces is do not mix and match typefaces or even line-spacing in one document because this detracts from the actual message your are trying to convey; the human eye is distracted and it is more difficult to concentrate on reading it.
11. As I've said before, having a fixed daily routine appears to help you live longer. Part of this is simply because it saves you having to think too hard about what you are going to do that day, so your life is less stressful. Which segues in nicely to the finding that having a fixed bed time for your children helps their development; it takes the stress out of things, kids just have to learn to put up with it rather than having a fight every day.
12. A more specific rule for interior design is: "More storage space = more crap", see also "Why having in-trays is a recipe for disaster".
13. Optimum land use: the striking similar between the 'chalets' at Butlins and some retirement bungalows in Uxbridge (in terms of both internal and external layout) which I saw when I was out getting my nomination papers when I stood as a candidate for a party I used to belong to.
Just sayin', is all.
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