Random thoughts that hit you from time to time…..

I was watching the classic 1968 British, Lindsay Anderson, film “If….” and I remembered the debate, in the years after the film’s release, about the use of Colour and black & White screens in the film. There was much talk of why particular scenes where shot using which type of film. This went on until Lindsay Anderson explained that it was due to running short of cash and having to shoot the remaining scenes in Black & White. Films not being shot in chronological order, the Colour and Black & White scenes appears in an almost random order in the finished film.

It’s an example of a consequence of an alteration to a modern world process that gives a new outcome. Admittedly, in this case, that endless committees of Film Fans could debate the finer points of the artistic meaning behind Colour vs. Black & White scenes but it gave them something to do. 

Then there’s the 28,00 plastics Ducks. With the vast majoring of international freight packed into forty foot containers stacked as high as possible on massive cargo ships, from time to time the odd container can fall off out at sea. Falling from an hight, the container can let it’s contents out. Now if it’s contents floats and are non-biodegradable they can go off on a long sea journey. This happened to a container of plastic bath Ducks which set off on something like a ten year voyage up to the North Atlantic and round to the East Coast of the United States. Giving rise to some very confused Americans who watched plastic Ducks make landfall on the the beaches of the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

Once again, a consequence of an alteration to another modern world process. This time, causing some confused Americans but also giving a means for a research team to use a set of tracking devices (the Ducks) to study Ocean currents in the North Atlantic.

The point is, the alterations to these modern world processes cause unexpected but not necessarily bad effects on their systems. Giving rise to new opportunities. So this is about problems giving rise to opportunities, the storm cloud with the silver lining. When something goes wrong there may well be some good to come out of it.