Wednesday 3 December 2008

Inverted Filter

“A Government-office is like an inverted filter: you send in accounts clear and they come out muddy.”

Sir Charles Fox, as reported by Herbert Spencer, “The Sins of Legislators”, The Man versus the State (London and Oxford: Williams & Norgate, 1902), p.55.
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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does this relate in any way to the new mudlike colour scheme? Nothing wrong with mud, of course; I've spent many a happy hour ....

Deogolwulf said...

Some disapproval of the colour-scheme, Dearieme? I rather like it. To the sides, we have what looks like 1970s wallpaper, and in the middle, 1670s writing-paper. Who could ask for more? It is also easier on the eyes.

I'll not ask about those hours you have spent, though you are free to tell.

Anonymous said...

Where I grew up, the beaches were a mud-sand mixture, and the rugby pitches mud-sheep droppings.

Anonymous said...

I like to believe that it was my recent and not dissimilar change of corporate colour scheme that provoked the 'parchment revolution' here. If so, this marks an historic moment, the first time Duff has ever led a fashion instead of following several generations behind. Brown is the New Beautiful!

Anonymous said...

"Brown is beautiful", DD? I calls it The Obama Effect.

James Higham said...

I like that. The "muddification" of the data stream. Hmmm.

Sky Captain said...

Government mud?
More like the stuff that comes out of toilets. Except that is a good fertiliser, while government by-products lay waste.
I saw Boris Johnson on Top Gear last night; he made my skin crawl. A total sell-out.

Magotty Man said...

Hah - this is my scheme as well. Easy on they eye, yet not simplistic.

And I farmed for a while - mud and soil and dung are all good things. It is the spirit of modernism and its sophisticated cousin, post-modernism, that dislikes a good bit of Christian dirt...