Music for 2008

My internet's just about to be cut off, as we've "forgotten" to pay the bill, so I thought I'd get some blogging in before it dies for 4 days or so. I posted about New Year's Resolutions last year, and I've decided to try and be more active in my blogging as a resolution for this year, so I won't bother with the boring details of my new aims of keeping fit and healthy.

Instead, I thought I'd whack out some details on music for this year. First I'll get a few recommendations out of the way: Foals, We Are The Physics, Los Campesinos!, Operator Please, Bombay Bicycle Club, Duffy, Black Kids, Crystal Castles. All of these are making great, exciting new music and are for the large part stupidly young. Which is a good thing. Forget Coldplay, Hard-Fi, The Twang, Kasabian, Snow Patrol, Razorlight, MOR stuff like that, and search out some of these for a refreshing taste of new music.

2008 is likely to see yet more innovations and irrevocable changes to the music industry than last year. We saw the incorporation of downloads into official charts and sales figures, saw how the opportunity seemed to glisten for every struggling unsigned band going, saw how this new avenue could be exploited through careful campaigns - Chris Moyles made Billie Piper's Honey to the B get to number 17 in January '07 even though it had originally been released in 1998, while Koopa became the first unsigned band to have a top 40 hit through their relentless download campaign - and then saw how smoothly record companies and online music stores were able to capture the market with considerable and unquestioned ease. In light of how, just 3 or 4 years ago, the big record labels were bemoaning the rise of music downloading and file sharing, the shoe certainly seems to be on the other foot now.

But music, in my opinion, is getting ever more fragmented. When MySpace first emerged, bands that had 25,000 friends were heroes, the power of the underground, the shining examples of good, unsigned new music. But already, MySpace has lost its voice: there are probably a hundred thousand bands on MySpace now - and a lot of these will have 25,000 fans. Yet they'll still be unsigned, and unnoticed. Conversely, multi-million selling acts with big record label backing will have quickly cottoned on to the online phenomenon, and will gain double as many fans as the best unsigned band around in no time, through their backing and support from label channels. The smaller bands have had what should rightfully be 'their' medium descend into a free-for-all, with scope for capitalist-like gains and losses.

The competition for real-time music listening for free on sites like MySpace, as opposed to the non-real-time transaction of actually paying for a CD/download, and listening to it once it's purchased, is also too large. The internet has become congested with a thousand great new bands vying for the same fans, the ones that want that new music buzz, the excitement of finding a new fresh band that no one else really knows. But in the ever-quickening pace of modern technological life, staying loyal, or at least staying in one place, is too lazy and worryingly easy to appear out of touch. Bands are constantly having to produce, to innovate, without the financial resources to do so successfully and competitively, to appeal to the internet consumer, without any tangible reward. It's all very well the Guardian Art pages recommending 10 unsigned acts for 2008 - people aren't going to wait patiently for them to take their time to produce a quality debut LP. They want results straight away, and if not offered, there are 100 unsigned bands good enough, and just waiting, to be recommended elsewhere.

The other area in which the signed and established artists hold a major advantage is in the purchasing of mp3s. Admittedly an unsigned act might have a great track record so far, but why take a risk buying their latest EP when it might be a let down? Why not listen to it for free on their MySpace? Meanwhile, you know what you're likely to get with an established band, so forking out just £0.79p for their new song is bound to be great value. This leads to a situation whereby, for example, Iron and Wine's latest album is available to listen to in full, for free, on his MySpace page, while Red Hot Chili Peppers can suffice with 4 one-minute long song excerpts on theirs. The lengths that up and coming artists have to go to to make strides on the internet is now almost as tough as getting signed through someone liking your demo. The internet might well be the world's most democratic medium, but democracy still needs its leaders and rulers.

So it seems to me that music careers are short-term in the modern world. Who released a debut album last year that you could genuinely tout to being the next Radiohead, REM or even Oasis? By that, I mean a band who will have a decade or more of success, a success that contains several acclaimed albums in a number of years greater than the number of albums, and who will even be given the time to earn the chance to do so? The only example that springs to my mind for a modern band achieving this is Coldplay. Seriously. You might not like them, but the fact is they've had 3 huge albums, and a 4th is guaranteed to be in the pipeline and will only be released when they're happy with it. With new bands, record labels are so caught up in snaffling each Next Big Thing that the Current Big Thing is left in the cold to fend for itself in coming up with the notorious difficult second album. Success is fleeting, and nowadays, seems more subjective than ever. Are The Ting Tings going to be successful because they're being widely regarded now as one of the bright stars for 2008? If they get dropped from their label after one album and are unsigned by the summer of 2009, will they think of themselves as a success? I highly doubt it.

If anything, the rise of the online music industry has segmented the audience further and may in fact lead to a recession in opportunity for new bands like Los Campesinos!. Art is held by all its lovers in their hearts for personal aesthetic reasons and reaches real emotion for those who let it. And a personal sense of this can be gained online: there is something inherently romantic and self-rewarding in being part of a clandestine fan base of a certain band, an appeal which is all too easily propagated through websites and online communities, feeling that connection through the egalitarianism of the internet that our personal interaction and support makes a difference. (It doesn't, much). But this creates a group mentality, a need to compare and contrast with other artists of similar stature, a reason to find faults with other people who are on the same level as your favourite band. Online consuming of music has become a matter of taste insofar as who you like, and when you like it, is more important than what you like, and why. As I've said, it is hard to stay loyal when so much more is going on, and trend followers jumping from one thing to the next leave less behind to remember the bands who once 'were', and divide an audience who should be embracing all of this exciting equal opportunity phenomenon into micro groups of support that hold no power to speak of to offer the bands they love.

I've not even touched on the qualities in possessing a CD as opposed to iTunes telling you you now own the YouthMovie Soundtrack Strategies album, but it's 9 minutes past 2am and I have to be up in 5 hours for work. I'll leave that for another time.

Christmas Eve

My blogging continues to be as sporadic as ever this year; generally finding time to write that which is not going to earn me money or readers of music reviews is difficult these days, what with a counter-productive job 9-5. Anyway, it's Christmas, and in light of the ever increasing dumbing down of Christmas, thought I would lay down one of the very few qualms I have with a modern Christmas.

Call me traditionalist, or something, but in my view Christmas Eve, and this really only applies if you've made the effort to spend Christmas with the family anyway, is the one evening in an entire calendar year you could bother to make the time to spend in and around your family. It is still a time of coming together and surrounding yourselves with the ones you love, even if it's all about online shopping and credit card debt. Similarly, even today, for me Christmas Eve still holds a sense of magic and anticipation I enjoyed when much younger, though the thrill and excitement of the day itself has long dimmed to a low flame, more of pleasant contentment than high-octane enjoyment. I enjoy spending Eve with my immediate family and remember Christmases from my childhood and recollect those feelings, which probably explains a little of it still retaining the sense of magic.

I also think that Christmas Day is the one day a year where it's unnecessary to be hungover. There is so much to enjoy to be stuck feeling ill, tired, sick, or disinterested. What a waste of time; clearly, Christmas lunch is the best meal of the year, while opening and exchanging gifts requires polite appreciation and is of course, an integral part to a great happy Christmas. Going clubbing, for example, on Christmas Eve, therefore, presents itself to me as a ridiculous notion. I would only look around and think "What the hell have all these people got to do with my Christmas?" I will probably go to the pub tomorrow afternoon with friends, or early evening, as I also enjoy spending time with them at this time of the year, but not as though I'm going to be rolling home at 1am. (Jinxed it now, blatantly going to be smashed).

This has no religious basing, as I don't bother with any services or anything over the Christmas period. This country's Christian stronghold had been dwindling long before I was born, and has never been a way of life for me at any point - more people will be shopping online on Christmas Day than going to a church in the UK, according to an article I read today. However, I just believe in family, I guess, and spending time with them at a time for celebration is something that everyone one can afford to do just once a year. It surely isn't too much to ask.

Sweet FA to do next summer

The dour, pessimistic English attitude is rife throughout the sports world, but even deeper down, far more real than we are prepared to admit, is the ever-present conviction that England will do well. Football, cricket, tennis, athletics, Formula 1: constant expectation constantly crushed, and yet every week/year/2 years/4 years, we are eager again in anticipation fronted by feigned indifference or cynicism.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that England's footballers, schooled in the art of doing things the hard way, couldnt grasp a chance gifted to them from a most unlikely situation that could only be described as a lifeline. Throughout their qualifying group England had been inconsistent enough to leave qualification out of their hands, and yet when their fate was placed, by small miracle, back into their hands again, still the performance wasn't there. (I say 'inconsistent' rather than poor, as England had their moments, notably the vital back to back 3-0 wins over Israel and Russia.)

It's difficult to know where to lay the blame for England's failure to qualify for next year's European Championships. How far back do you go? Carson's howler in the 8th monute? Throwing away victory in Russia last month? The 0-0 at home to Macedonia? Was McClaren the wrong appointment 18 months ago? Or did he simply inherit a team managed by a coach who was tactically astute enough to take England to two quarter-finals but at the expense of the passion and heart that is supposed to embody English sportsmen, and which more than anything else inspires the English fans?

Of course, Enlgish fans return their passion and heart through alcohol-fuelled destruction of foreign cities, so tonight's result will be a welcome relief for the Austro-Swiss officials and organisers.

Returning to tonight's game, it never once, naturally, looked remotely like going to according plan. McClaren chose a must-not-lose game to throw Scott Carson his first competititve cap. Of course, less than 10 minutes in and that choice was made to look laughable. At least no one would have been surprised if it had been Robinson making the same error. McClaren then chose to play a defensively minded 4-5-1 formation, neglecting the fact that England couldn't really risk playing for a draw as one Croat goal would scupper the plans completely. Two Croat goals therefore tore the entire plan to shreds. McClaren didn't help his formation by going with Crouch's height as the lone striker, with two wide players whose main asset is speed. Leaving out David Beckham, still one of the best crossers of the ball in the world, when our main threat in a 4-5-1 formation would come from crosses and set pieces, was little short of madness.

The only surprise came when McClaren made exactly the right subsitutions at half time. A quick striker to replace Barry - who had been ineffectually rubbish and, since we had gone 2-0 down with his role supposedly protecting against conceding, was even more surplus to requirements when we need goals - and getting David Beckham on to supply the passes. Almost amazingly, Defoe's presence won the penalty, and Beckham's pristine ball created the equaliser. If it hadn't been McClaren's errors initially, those subs would have been tactical masterstrokes.

Yet just when England looked to be in a position to go on and win the game, the team did what they did under Sven - which was, admittedly, about his only problem during his tenure as manager - consolidate the position and try to hold out. Being England of course, this didn't work. A better team than Croatia could have scored six past England tonight, so when Croatia's third went in, it was time once again for the desperation and anxious panic. Unlike against Greece four years ago when Beckham's 90th minute free kick sent England through, there was no smile from lady luck, no individual piece of genius, no (second) life line for England. The simple truth was we hadn't the belief or the performers to carry out what was required.

In searching for excuses; yes we were affected pretty dreadfully from injuries. Hargeaves fully fit would surely have seen Barry dropped, while Owen and Rooney's injuries saw a striker without a Premiership goal to his name start alone up front, with underachieving Spurs' second string striker pairing as back up. And the least said about the back four - to a man an understudy to England first choice of Cole, A., Ferdinand, Terry, Neville - the better. The pitch was poor, too.

Once McClaren has been sacked, and it will happen because the pithy FA would never risk the complete backlash that will come from every single England fan if a manager who couldn't take us from the group we had to the European Championships was kept on, what's needed is a fresh start. Though the debate about the quality of English players will surface, England do have the players to compete on an international level. The U21s, so nearly finalists at the Euros this year, are all bright prospects. The likes of Walcott, Taylor, Carson, Bentley, Richards, are all waiting to step up. Terry, Ferdinand, Lampard, Gerrard, Rooney and Owen can be the back bone of a world class team for 4 more years at least. It's finding a coach who can convince them, and the rest of the players available, that we ARE a world class team that will bring England's national side out of the slump that is surely at its lowest point tonight.

Kyle slammed for shit TV show

Yes! A bit of flagrant one-upmanship here for me over Jeremy Kyle's car crash of a show, put out daily by - who else - ITV, the News of the World of television. I'll intersperse snippets of the glorious BBC story into my blog just to rub it in as much as possible.

A judge has branded The Jeremy Kyle Show "a form of human bear-baiting" at a court case in Manchester. District Judge Alan Berg said the ITV1 daytime programme was "trash" and existed to "titillate bored members of the public with nothing better to do".

Don't you love it when judges actually do what their title entails, and pass judgment on something? And this guy couldn't be clearer, or more right. Jeremy Kyle's self-indulgent and moronic 'chat show' has come in for a complete battering, but in my view fairly. The show does exist to titillate members of the public - indeed, perhaps all programmes do - but the emphasis on pitting hapless idiots whose intentions are guaranteed to be anything but honourable is only going to end in one thing. For some reason, ITV producers think we'd actually care to see it.

Judge Berg added that it was "human bear-baiting which goes under the guise of entertainment. It should not surprise anyone that these people, some of whom have limited intellects, become aggressive with each other."

That quote is particularly important; 'under the guise of entertainment'. Certainly, the only possible entertainment to be gained from tripe like Kyle's programme is derogatory laughter at other people whose lives are ridiculously fucked up. Not that there's anything wrong with laughing either; it seems that ITV has a strict policy in place to make sure that only people with low self-esteem, "limited intellects", and a lack of education get on this programme, to ensure the maximum brainless outcome possible.

"It seems to me that the purpose of this show is to effect a morbid and depressing display of dysfunctional people whose lives are in turmoil."

For the purpose of ratings and audiences. I mean literally, the above is all the Jeremy Kyle show does. Is that what we need, a damning reminder of how bad some people's lives are? A reminder, however, that is so pointedly exposing and mocking that the only reaction is simply not to care? Kyle himself doesn't help, of course, but before I get onto ripping him apart, here's some abuse for the producers:

"This type of incident is exactly what the producers want. These self-righteous individuals should be in the dock with you. They pretend there is some kind of virtue in putting out a show like this," said Judge Berg...

which is exactly true, and the same can probably be said for the show's regular watching audience, pretending there's some worthwhile element to it. The show's a pile of crap: it's not social commentary, problem-solving or educational. It's simply encouraging apathy to other humans' plight, and glamorising the failings of society for 'amusement'.

The only amusing thing is what a cunt Jeremy Kyle is. Taking his cues from the US, Kyle simply sits his contestants, sorry, victims, in their chairs and proceeds to abuse them, talk over them when they try to speak, criticise them, make wild claims about them as though fact and then ignore any response he gets, all the while swanning about looking like a plumber dressed in a cheap suit and getting his braindead audience to cheer him on.

My next guest is a story about the sponsor of Jeremy Kyle pulling the plug on their £500,000 advertising deal. Let's bring him out! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7019266.stm

The work ethic

It's been a sickeningly long time since I blogged; my digital silence crushed under the weight of its own hypocrisy. I have always advocated blogging and believed it to be a worthwhile online hobby, a 21st century communication tool and more, yet I haven't posted a blog in 7 weeks.

The main reason for this lack, at least in the last month, has been the daily grind of 9-5, the working life. In fact what made me think about blogging seriously again was a work e-mail and meeting regarding 'social networking sites' and Portman, who I currently work with. (I don't say 'work for' as I'm technically employed by a recruitment agency, who take about 15% of my wages, and because I could quit Portman with no notice at all as it is 'the nature of temping'). This e-mail said that it is important, working as we do with sensitive and highly confidential financial information, that all internet activity that in any way mentions Portman must be clearly safe and not in breach of the Data Protection Act, and secondly, and more oddly, must be accompanied by a disclaimer stating that any views expressed are those of the individual and are not held by Portman Building Society.* So:

*Any views expressed within this blog are those of the author, Tim Miller, and are not in any way opinions belonging to, or endorsed by, Portman Building Society. That Portman Building Society disappears into financial history and is literally no more from 28th August 2007 onwards, when it gets taken over by Nationwide, is not the point. My views, I guess, are not endorsed by Nationwide, either.

Anyway, the work ethic. Choosing Portman was forced upon me by my penniless situation and £290 p/m rent after 2 months of relaxing since finishing Uni, and not being able to afford living while the wait searching for and getting a job I wanted went on, as it was simply taking too long and everyone needs money. So having turned them down initially, I was humble enough to throw myself upon their £7 an hour offer a second time and was luckily not turned away. Also lucky is that I've landed in a Correspondence Team, so, as tenuous as it is, my writing and communication skills are actually in use! There's a moral in there somewhere, probably about not biting the hand that feeds.

Regardless of where it was, though, I needed a job, as my days without structure had begun to turn into weeks where the weekends bore no difference from the weekdays, and getting up before 11am was 'early'. I've spent three years in that mindset, now more than ever before, I guess, it's time to grow up. And it has been enjoyable, having a new place to go to, new people to meet, something, however menial or dull might seem, to work for. After the communal University atmosphere and the comradery forged through being students, a place where the majority of staff are under 30, bright and beautiful and on your level is not a lot different. It is, in fact, more of an extension of those relationships and links, except now I'm paid for turning up.

There's something faintly Hitler-esque about it, but earning your own wage is very comforting, knowing that you've earned money to call your own and do what you will with. You start somewhere, and this is only the beginning, but a real sense of self-satisfaction comes from working at something so that you might live a certain way, achieve a certain goal, create new possibilities. There's also a sense of independence, of freedom, and maybe Adolf was right: Arbeit Macht Frei.

Because it also makes you appreciate the free time you get, the friends you have, the hobbies you take part in, the music you listen to, and so on. For the first time since I was a 16 year old about to do my GCSEs, the weekends actually mean something to me. And of course, the great difference between working and Uni is that you leave your work at the door. No coming home straight into a 2,000 word essay anymore, or reading a hundred pages on Marxist criticism. At least until I do a Masters....!

Working is inescapably something that has to be done, for the bulk of your lifetime, and you spend more time with your colleagues than your family, friends and partners. That's why enjoying and embracing the work ethic is so important, and by association, finding a job you love is too. There is no sense in belittling a 'job', ignoring work until it's an aside between doing things in free time. It needs to be swiftly integrated and harmonised to suit the lifestyle you want. Until we find out what the human race is for, and the meaning of life, 'work' will be how your life is built and managed, and subsequently, something which has to be taken head on.

(This was certainly not presented as part of a speech at any recent Neo-Nazi conference, and again, is not in any way the views or opinions held by Portman Building Society or Nationwide. The rich fat-cat wankers).

The Blair Switch Project

A humorous title to begin my blog always helps, though I have to nod my head to Channel 5, who created a news piece on what Tony Blair might do next called Blair: Which Project?, which is a lot better than mine. The transition between Prime Ministers has not been an easy one this week, and Gordon Brown, dour-faced and rubbery, looks set to inherit a multitude of problems that in the run up to Blair's leaving do, were widely forgotten about.

After much umming and ahhing, Blair has finally left 10 Downing Street, months after originally signalling his intent to do so, and after several delays in specifying when exactly he would be moving house. I was perhaps too young to commit to memory much of the passover between John Major and Tony Blair in 1997 - a much more significant event, in that the change of Prime Minister then actually meant a change of Government too - but I do not remember such a spectacle made of the event then compared to this year. It will take months for Brown to affect any radical or even noticeable overhaul of the Labour Party's governing of this country, yet this passing over power turned into something of an all day television event.

The BBC's Huw Edwards spent hours commentating on bird's eye views of London where indistinguishable cars bearing Blair and then Brown visited Buckingham Palace to take part in what Edwards called a "great British tradition": the former PM resigning before the Queen, the new PM being appointed by her. Somehow, it seemed to go on for ever, and flicking to and fro from BBC One, I wondered at times whether they were actually re-running old footage and scenic shots of the London Marathon.

Cherie said it: "I don't think we'll miss you very much", and no doubt she was right. How the (admittedly convoluted) process of power passing from one man to another, that had been on the cards all year, deserved live coverage for hours on end is beyond me. It went on almost as long as Concert for Diana today (and THAT had Ricky Gervais, Lily Allen, Nelly Furtado, James Morrison, Elton John and Rod Stewart). The power switch didn't make for electrifying viewing: what was going to happen, Blair suddenly run out of the Palace yelling "I won't resign!!"? Brown's car go up on the kerb and into the railings outside number 10? As I said, it's significance in the moment was largely superficial, only time will tell what difference it will make. However, the country has certainly been a more...interesting place in the last few days since Brown took over.

Two foiled car bombs in central London (the police are lambasted when they shoot an innocent man, but prevent two potentially horrific nail bomb explosions and there's not a word of praise), a flaming car driven into Glasgow airport, half of Yorkshire under water; Brown's going to have his work cut out. Britain remains on the highest security alert after the two incidents in London and Glasgow seem almost certainly linked to a terrorist group, although that does lead me to ask what security alert we go to if something like 7/7 were to happen again in the next day or two. Still, the police and Scotland Yard do seem to be making strides in their investigations with several arrests and successful leads being followed. But the message, if indeed it was a message - the timing is all too punctual to be coincidence in my opinion - is clear.

Welcome to the hardest job in Britain, Mr Brown. Signed the media, the public, Osama, Iran, me, the Conservative and Lib Dem Parties, and France.

Na-na, why don't you get a job?

So this is it. The three years of University education, being a tax-dodging student, spunking money on nothing but beer and booze (...oh), are over, and it's time to move into the world, grow up, get a job and join the ranks of people counting down the days til retirement.

I'm not that cynical about this, actually; in fact I'm quite looking forward to procuring a nice job where I can settle into the initial groove of my career path and look upwards at the various rungs I wish to climb, as they - hopefully - come nearer. The trouble is, we came to Uni to get a degree...to get a good job. And since I finished my University work and stepped up the employment push, I've discovered something. Getting the degree, it seems, was the easy part.

For everybody has a degree nowadays. That's the first blow: of course, how did I not see at the beginning? Everybody who'll be applying to the jobs I want will need, and therefore have, a degree too! It must come down to grade, perhaps. But apparently, a lot of places don't place much emphasis on the difference between an upper second (2:1) or lower second (2:2). Why, then, did I bother working hard enough to aim to achieve a 2:1? (Or, why didn't I work harder to achieve a first?! Damnit Damnit Damnit.)

A desire to work in the type of industries where the cliche 'it's not what you know but who you know' is a general rule of thumb, which happens to be shared by thousands of people in exactly the same boat as me, is obviously an uphill struggle. In my view it's worth attempting and worth trying to succeed. However in just a few weeks I have learnt that your supposed aides, the recruitment agencies, are not your friend beyond the first contact. They'll happily cart you off into any role, vaguely linked to some element of your chosen profession often simply by being opposite a building where the job you actually want goes on. The way in, it appears all to clearly, is indeed to know someone, or hit that jackpot with a chance meeting, an opportunist, impulsive journey, or simply being in the right place at the right time. In other words, a degree might give you the knowledge, but that's it: it's up to you to find out how to use it.

I'm not convinced that this is what Playstation 3 meant when they said; 'This.Is.Living.'

Summer of celebrity

Probably at a similar time last year (check the archives), I embarked on my customary 'Big Brother is shit' rant. Naturally I watched this year's launch show, because to criticise something you don't know anything about is a double standard, and also because if I am to hold a conversation over the next few months, I will no doubt need some inside knowledge on it. So my brief thoughts: twins, I would, Posh Spice wannabe, I would, Emily, I would. The rest don't deserve even the little consideration I've given to those four there.

Anyway, Big Brother 8 (eight, for fuck's sake, wasn't 1, maybe 2 enough?) will no doubt be at the forefront of the tabloid newspapers until September/Madeleine is found alive/dead, and the inevitability of it just depresses me. Alright, they've filled the house with women for the first few days. And yes, in with the weird looking (possible man Tracey) and the plain weird (embalming-obsessed Laura), they've thrown in a couple of normal girls and plain, older women who probably just want a bit of fame. Where my problem lies is that they're going to get it, in shedloads, all summer, and for the rest of 2007, for doing absolutely nothing at all, and being absolute non-entities (Emily apart, she should be the next queen).

This country's saddening obsession with creating celebrities, putting people up on pedestals is just verging on the ridiculous now. Take those twins. If I want to see rather empty headed, slightly vain but attractive 18 year old blondes giggle and dress alluringly, I'd sit in Bournemouth town centre for an hour, cut eye holes in a newspaper and voyeur. That sort of girl exists in every town in every corner of Britain; I don't need a television screen and 24 hour coverage to see, understand, and have confirmed for me, their behaviour. Yet when they're evicted (or worse, WIN), they'll have lads mags shoots, television interviews, radio interviews, fashion lines I expect...for what? They're nothing but day to day girls, cherry picked (I wonder if they've had their cherries picked) from a million other girls exactly the same to appear on television, and be lauded over by a mass audience somehow TOO STUPID to realise that these people are outside on their doorsteps anyway.

The poorest part of this creating celebrity - note, the point is that we don't just worship them now, we make our own idols from anywhere and anyone - is that, in a typically British fashion, we set them up with huge, great expectations, perfect suckers for a fall when the realisation dawns that oh yes, they're normal people, and then take utter and intense delight in that fall from grace anyway. What does it say, that this country's press and Big Brother watching masses can create a self-sufficient circus of news, gossip and celebrity, that lasts for an entire year, with the only proviso that Endemol gets round to picking 14-odd people and building a house for them once every 12 months? Perhaps this famous quote, from hundreds of years ago, speaks for itself.

"The People, who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions; everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses" Juvenal, Roman satirist.
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The other story, of course, from which we have not heard the last but may well fade over the summer, is of Britain's newest celebrity couple: Kate and Gerry McCann. Having flown into Rome for a chat with the Pope, as all devout Catholics are able to do of course, no matter where they're from or their status, the McCann clan are now off to Amsterdam and Berlin, taking in some of Europe's greatest cities and enjoying an extended summer holiday, having already stayed in Portugal and Spain over the last month.

I'm not sure who's paying for their European tour; but, despite having played already to sell out crowds in Wembley, Athens and Hampden Park, their fans are still urged to donate their money to a fund (confusingly entitled findmadeleine.com) and to contribute more to the total, which stands at nearly £590,000.

In all seriousness: These people have lost a child. They are NOT Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And £590,000 donated to a fund that does nothing, and serves no one. Next Big Brother will be donating their entire text message voting revenue to the website, and the world will implode in a tidal wave of tears from false compassion.

End of days

"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times." I can't remember who it was that said that, but it seems fitting now. A torrid few days of past-midnight finished in Uni, then one final up-til-5am before getting up at 8.30am to hand it all in the same morning. Not a degree that has ever really been keen to go quietly, naturally the CD-writing didn't work first time round, and it was stress stress stress (stupidly tired, hungry and armed with a pair of scissors while shakily cutting out my final piece of work) til about 11:30am before a 12pm deadline.

That was, however, it. A week that had seen me watch ITV quizcall til the early hours, order a Domino's pizza to Weymouth House and go without a much needed food shop was over (the two rather obviously linked), and with it, three years of University, an entire degree, the end of life marshalled by education. It really was, in a way, the first day of the rest of our lives.

The relief at getting that final work in was replaced almost instantly with a feeling of not knowing how to feel, apart from tired, still. The warm realisation that there went the final piece of coursework I'm ever likely to do was balanced by the shock that the place that had been the centre of my life for three whole years was going to simply send me out into the world without so much as a tender goodbye, barely even a mention. Meanwhile, the prospect of a glorious summer of freedom ahead filled with fun times, fantastic friendships and experiences that only a cycle of time spent at University can create was tempered by the nagging reminder that, in the long term, things were certainly going to change when the sun goes down. Yes, no more Uni work; instead, the five day-a-week 9-5. The pauper's life of living off the student loan is replaced by having to pay off the student loan. Would you rather be meeting deadlines or targets? Can I risk going out tonight, or just start living for the weekend?

There is no way in words or pictures to sum up the last three years of my life sufficiently. Picutres: I'd need thousands from digital cameras that have probably been broken numerous times and photo albums that existed only on someone's old laptop. Words: I could write a dissertation-length narrative describing everything about University. Every single night out, ever. Getting tea in the break in Research Methods. The open top buses to Uni in summer. Friday afternoon lectures. When Elements used to be good. Literally, something worth talking about happens every week while you're at Uni, and the habits that you grow into don't become boring, they become lovingly kept up, looked forward to. The same old places hold new experiences. The great times are prolonged until the dark times can no longer be avoided, but are instead managed and got through by the promise of further great times on the other side. To the Uni, I'm just a name or a number, either 99109116 or bournemouth/d1163660, class of '04, but to me, the Uni and the three years I've spent here has and have been literally life-changing.

They say at the beginning of your degree that starting University is the biggest shift in your life. What they forget to add is "...until you finish". Throughout Uni, there's always been the 'next' thing; the next essay, that presentation, minor exams, second year, longer essays, the placement to sort, final year, the dissertation, more essays, revision. It's only now that the conveyor belt of University deadlines and landmarks has given way to a gaping chasm, called What Now? As one door closes, another opens, but it will be a few long weeks yet before I'm ready to step into the light.

Missing Madeline

Or 'Maddie' as the empathetic press have dubbed her.

I was moved to make some form of comment on this now international news story after watching BBC News 24 try badly to get a rise from a Portuguese spokeswoman about the competence of the Portuguese police and, because I have a lot of time for the BBC, it made me angry.

BBC's line of questioning went in the direction of asking this spokeswoman how the Portuguese were reacting to the British press' accusations of substandard police work and poor organisation and so on. The Portuguese spokeswoman started out by saying how shocked and concerned the country is with news, and then, quite rightly, said how surprised they've been that the fantastic institution that is this country's press has decided to focus on the work of the police and criticise that.

This is, of course, typical of British journalism. Not content with having a three year old Briton girl missing in a foreign country - and, according to latest police theories, kidnapped for a paedophilia ring - our national papers decide to attack the work of the Portuguese police, in a move that will surely inspire confidence in the family, and will raise up in their readers the usual British nationalism stuff. You can almost feel the tabloids, itching to say 'Well, if she'd gone missing in our country, she'd have been found by now'.

But that's not even the point. The BBC, usually able to detach itself from such a mess, instead goes and gets in even deeper, by focusing on those papers being critical of the police, as if THAT is the story!! I mean, come on BBC! It's the British tabloids! What do you expect of them? They're not going to report on the missing girl story objectively when it presents such a clear opportunity to invoke emotions in their readership that they don't really feel.

The Portuguese spokeswoman also managed a dig of her own against the British press, and had clearly been doing her research. There are, she said, 20 missing children in the UK under a certain age - I forget which - including several under 2 years old. Where are the front page stories about these children? What makes Madeline so different? Being blonde, photogenic and missing in a foreign country? What sort of criteria are they, except for making a better news story?

Cynical me again, of course. I'm just disappointed that in the 8 days this young girl has been missing, already the press have put scapegoats in place while they wait idly with nothing better to write, until the juicy finale in which she turns up dead or, miracuously is returned. Of course, everyone hopes for the latter...but we all know which outcome would run and run in the papers longest.