It's been a while since I've blogged, and it is down to a lot of Uni work: just for example, this week I had to write a 2,000 word dissertation chapter and create a 2' 30" long radio package from scratch. Did both in 4 days, I actually smashed it this week.
But anyway, despite to being smothered with Uni work and not keeping up with the news much, I haven't failed to notice how much criticism Steve McLaren has come in for this week. Ok, 0-0 against Israel is not the result of a team supposedly 6th in the world. But then, when 'England expects' as the saying goes, sometimes 'England forgets' the reality of the situation. Did the England fans watching the game (not least the ones actually there) somehow miss that for about 75 minutes, we were in total control and Israel just threw every single player behind the ball? How can you expect to win a football match like that when you're the only team trying to play football? Gareth Southgate has a point when he says that England shouldn't even have to play certain teams.
Returning to the England coach, Rome wasn't built in a day, and McLaren has been in this job about 8 months, playing only 6 competitive games. Sven Goran Eriksson, who spent most of his tenure as England manager under constant fire from the "anti-foreign managers of England" brigade, was given 5 years, and I suspect it's those same fans calling for McLaren's head. The pictures on Sky Sports showing those fans in Andorra berating McLaren with abuse and gestures just make me think: 'I'm English, I support England and want them to do well and would consider myself a fan, yet these so called 'real fans' that apparently represent my feelings just look like a bunch of wankers to me'.
What is also ironic, and saddening, is that only in England would a 0-3 away win in a competitive European qualifying match be classed as a failure. Like Israel 4 days earlier, Andorra just turned up to try not to lose by too many goals. For 45 minutes it worked, then England proved themselves. But the fans and the media were not happy. McLaren must feel hard done by: you manage a team that wins 3-0 and all the press want to ask you about is why we played so badly? No wonder he walked out of the press conference.
With that conference cut short, Sky Sports News turned to talk about themselves and the press, turning a news piece about England and football, incredulously, into a self-pitying parade of bollocks, acting as if it's not their fault - of course it is: we beat a team 3-0, and you're not satisfied with the good, so you talk about speculation and rifts and poor performances, while ignoring the basic facts. Is this representative of the way sports news, and indeed all news, is going? That 'good news is bad news', or perhaps that bad news is the only news. It just seems to me that the media needs to perpetuate something negative for the public to engage in, which is a really sorry, sorry state of affairs.
And the worst thing is that those witless fans that appeared in their droves in Andorra will lap up every word.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Upon meeting your heroes
It's that once in a lifetime chance. Make something of it, or let the opportunity slip. On Tuesday the 6th of March, 2007, (the day a key figure in my dissertation, Jean Baudrillard, died), I met one of my heroes, and the ACTUAL central figure to my dissertation. Christopher Morris.
I hadn't realised, until I was standing in a circle of likewise starstruck students listening to Chris Morris offer his sandwiches to a girl before the open interview he gave, how high a regard I hold the man in.
The thing is, he isn't your 'celebrity you'd love to meet', he isn't handsome, he isn't fashionable, he isn't even famous. His work is infamous. He himself is infamous, notorious but mysterious, a genius to some, a cunt to others.
He certainly is a genius to me. Taking it upon myself to pore over his most well known television material - The Day Today, Brass Eye, Jam - for my dissertation, instead of becoming sick and tired of going over the same ground constantly, as was the danger with writing a dissertation on a book, I was warned, I have instead become embroiled in the world of Chris Morris. The multitude of disguises, the phenomenal attention to detail, the brutally scathing but oh-so accurate parody and pastiche, the finest satirical material in contemporary television work, the man is regarded - in the right circles - to be perhaps the best comic satirist of our time. He was number 11 in Channel 4's 50 greatest comedians ever - a show voted for by other comedians and writers. That's some feat (if you ask me) when you consider his work isn't funny because it is comic, it's funny because it's true.
But to last Tuesday. Basically, if you don't know much about Morris: his last proper interview in a newspaper was in the Guardian in 2003. He thrives on not appearing in public to defend, explain or occasionally take credit for his work. He used to refuse to appear in public unless he was under the guise of a character from his television shows. All this I knew.
So for THE Chris Morris, the man who I am writing my dissertation on, the man who never appears in public, the man who has built his reputation on refusing to confirm or deny anything about himself, to be appearing, in public, at my University, IN MY MEDIA SCHOOL, FOR FREE, was about the biggest and most exciting coincidence of my life so far. In fact, so amazing to me was this coincidence, that until he appeared in Weymouth House at 6:05pm or so, bushy haired and with a spangly scarf, I was quietly prepared for him not to turn up at all.
When he appeared, he chatted leisurely with a few students about stuff, ate some sandwiches put on by the Media School and posed for one photo. I managed at this point to stand somewhat near to him, but my nerve failed me to step forward and ask him to sign my copy of Jam, as I was, actually, shaking. We all then trooped to the Barnes Lecture theatre for the main event. The interview itself, which we were specifically asked not to record audio or visual, was a fairly informal affair, conducted by Paul Lashmar, a freelancer who seemed to me to be fairly unsure what to make of Chris Morris. Things got a lot better when he opened up 'the floor' to the audience a chance to ask questions, which went on for about 45 minutes.
It is hard to describe how surreal, how "once-in-a-lifetime" that moment truly was. Chris Morris, a man who cloaks his every move and covers his every track, sitting, stripped of any mask or disguise, in a grubby lecture theatre in front of perhaps 200 or so students (mainly) , the very people who want to surround the him with the attention and hype he so deliberately avoids, though of course we all knew that and tried not to act so breathless and in awe. When the opportunity arose to ask a question, engage in conversation their media hero, everyone tried to outdo each other with interesting questions. I thought of three myself, but by the time I had the guts to put my hand in the air, I was overlooked for what turned out to be the last question and for the second time that night, I missed my opportunity.
After that, there was a generous 15 minutes before he had to be escorted to a train, in which some IDIOT animation students took up almost all his time trying to sell Chris Morris their ideas and productions. At this point, I could see the flicker of annoyance begin to appear in his face, a face which seemed to gently say 'Ah yes, this is why I don't do public appearances'. With that 15 minutes up, and still no one on one conversation held with him, I had no option but to join a couple of others in apologetically thrusting something into his hand to sign.
On taking my Jam DVD cover, which is purple, and my blue Biro, he said "this will just be some sort of colourless indentation", and looked at me slightly quizically, before writing "colourless indentation" above his signature. He briefly considered the futility of it, it seemed to me, and probably considered what sort of person I am not to care that you can only read what he's written in a good light. Maybe, just maybe, it appealed to him, this satisfying a fan with a colourless indentation.
It was over in 2 hours. I had two chances, but I DIDN'T MENTION THAT I AM WRITING MY DISSERTATION ON HIS WORK. Fuck fuck fuck fuck, why why why? I can at least count myself very, very lucky that this once in a lifetime opportunity occurred, and I think I almost managed to make the most of it. It isn't every day you get a chance to meet your heroes, and with Chris Morris, it's unlikely I will have such a clear opportunity to do so again. But I did, I met one of my heroes, and that, as I still seem to be unable to quite comprehend that it happened, was enough for me.
I hadn't realised, until I was standing in a circle of likewise starstruck students listening to Chris Morris offer his sandwiches to a girl before the open interview he gave, how high a regard I hold the man in.
The thing is, he isn't your 'celebrity you'd love to meet', he isn't handsome, he isn't fashionable, he isn't even famous. His work is infamous. He himself is infamous, notorious but mysterious, a genius to some, a cunt to others.
He certainly is a genius to me. Taking it upon myself to pore over his most well known television material - The Day Today, Brass Eye, Jam - for my dissertation, instead of becoming sick and tired of going over the same ground constantly, as was the danger with writing a dissertation on a book, I was warned, I have instead become embroiled in the world of Chris Morris. The multitude of disguises, the phenomenal attention to detail, the brutally scathing but oh-so accurate parody and pastiche, the finest satirical material in contemporary television work, the man is regarded - in the right circles - to be perhaps the best comic satirist of our time. He was number 11 in Channel 4's 50 greatest comedians ever - a show voted for by other comedians and writers. That's some feat (if you ask me) when you consider his work isn't funny because it is comic, it's funny because it's true.
But to last Tuesday. Basically, if you don't know much about Morris: his last proper interview in a newspaper was in the Guardian in 2003. He thrives on not appearing in public to defend, explain or occasionally take credit for his work. He used to refuse to appear in public unless he was under the guise of a character from his television shows. All this I knew.
So for THE Chris Morris, the man who I am writing my dissertation on, the man who never appears in public, the man who has built his reputation on refusing to confirm or deny anything about himself, to be appearing, in public, at my University, IN MY MEDIA SCHOOL, FOR FREE, was about the biggest and most exciting coincidence of my life so far. In fact, so amazing to me was this coincidence, that until he appeared in Weymouth House at 6:05pm or so, bushy haired and with a spangly scarf, I was quietly prepared for him not to turn up at all.
When he appeared, he chatted leisurely with a few students about stuff, ate some sandwiches put on by the Media School and posed for one photo. I managed at this point to stand somewhat near to him, but my nerve failed me to step forward and ask him to sign my copy of Jam, as I was, actually, shaking. We all then trooped to the Barnes Lecture theatre for the main event. The interview itself, which we were specifically asked not to record audio or visual, was a fairly informal affair, conducted by Paul Lashmar, a freelancer who seemed to me to be fairly unsure what to make of Chris Morris. Things got a lot better when he opened up 'the floor' to the audience a chance to ask questions, which went on for about 45 minutes.
It is hard to describe how surreal, how "once-in-a-lifetime" that moment truly was. Chris Morris, a man who cloaks his every move and covers his every track, sitting, stripped of any mask or disguise, in a grubby lecture theatre in front of perhaps 200 or so students (mainly) , the very people who want to surround the him with the attention and hype he so deliberately avoids, though of course we all knew that and tried not to act so breathless and in awe. When the opportunity arose to ask a question, engage in conversation their media hero, everyone tried to outdo each other with interesting questions. I thought of three myself, but by the time I had the guts to put my hand in the air, I was overlooked for what turned out to be the last question and for the second time that night, I missed my opportunity.
After that, there was a generous 15 minutes before he had to be escorted to a train, in which some IDIOT animation students took up almost all his time trying to sell Chris Morris their ideas and productions. At this point, I could see the flicker of annoyance begin to appear in his face, a face which seemed to gently say 'Ah yes, this is why I don't do public appearances'. With that 15 minutes up, and still no one on one conversation held with him, I had no option but to join a couple of others in apologetically thrusting something into his hand to sign.
On taking my Jam DVD cover, which is purple, and my blue Biro, he said "this will just be some sort of colourless indentation", and looked at me slightly quizically, before writing "colourless indentation" above his signature. He briefly considered the futility of it, it seemed to me, and probably considered what sort of person I am not to care that you can only read what he's written in a good light. Maybe, just maybe, it appealed to him, this satisfying a fan with a colourless indentation.
It was over in 2 hours. I had two chances, but I DIDN'T MENTION THAT I AM WRITING MY DISSERTATION ON HIS WORK. Fuck fuck fuck fuck, why why why? I can at least count myself very, very lucky that this once in a lifetime opportunity occurred, and I think I almost managed to make the most of it. It isn't every day you get a chance to meet your heroes, and with Chris Morris, it's unlikely I will have such a clear opportunity to do so again. But I did, I met one of my heroes, and that, as I still seem to be unable to quite comprehend that it happened, was enough for me.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Postmodernismist
Something I still remember from either a Bournemouth Open Day, a very first lecture or perhaps something another student said when I started at Bournemouth, was that 'you will find that postmodernism is everywhere'. Back then, postmodernism was just another one of those words to put aside til the time came, like SPSS, Feminism, decontexualised and chlamydia. But now, whoever it was, I see, was right.
This year, postmodernism has been looking over my shoulder in almost everything I do: it's fuelling my dissertation argument, it's been at the heart of some of my essays, and generally, whether I've realised at the time or not, it's underpinning just about every text book I read on all my University projects at the moment.
The problem is, whoever warned me about postmodernism nearly three years ago got one thing wrong. They hadn't bargained on me actually liking it.
Perhaps Universities, if they do nothing else, really open your eyes to your place in society, and finally show you glimpses of the real world before you enter into it. They act as the central site for generations of young people to take on board and evaluate the great thinkers and ideas that have shaped our society up til now - right before we go on to try and shape it ourselves. And since postmodernism is defining the aesthetic of the society we find ourselves in (it IS everywhere), it seems not the worst thing to actually spend some time thinking about.
For I quite fancy myself as a bit of an intellectual in the making - again, going to University at all has probably brought this egotism on - in that I want to entertain and try to understand the ideas of the great 20th century names, Saussere, Foucault, Baudrillard, Derrida and so on; those names that, on the first day of Uni, simply washed over you into the part of your brain marked 'probably won't need this name again', so that I can better understand, exist in and, who knows, affect my lifetime. University has perhaps dampened my belief in politics, despite it being the breeding ground for various movements and causes and petitions and campaigns and so on, all of us young people despairing at the inability for anyone but ourselves to see the way things really are. That sense of involvement, a genuine conviction in being able to make a difference, has lost some of its charm for me now.
Instead, I can see great enjoyment in the pretentious life of sitting about, writing about social and cultural issues in a detached, superior manner, casually obliterating entire periods of history, social movements and cultural trends of the past and the misguided present, telling people what was definitely wrong about 'Then' and what 'Now' definitely is and is not. Yes, that's the life for me.
And the reason postmodernism appeals so much in my modest quest for reputation and intellect is because, as University has shown, it is in everything I'm interested in, it is the period of my life, it is inescapable, for now. As someone once said, very wisely as it turns out, "You'll find that postmodernism is everywhere."
P.S
Update, 8/3/2007. I had no idea at all at the time I posted this blog, that on the same day, the 6th of March 2007, Jean Baudrillard died. He was 77.
Was Baudrillard, as I wrote about aspiring to critique and emulate the great philosophers of the last century like himself, uttering his very last words? Could his death have coincided with my declaration, setting in digital stone, as it were, that I would love to be considered a writer or even a philosopher of MY time? As Baudrillard died...have I begun? We shall soon see.
Jean Baudrillard, 1929 - 2007. In death we find out that he did live in reality, after all.
This year, postmodernism has been looking over my shoulder in almost everything I do: it's fuelling my dissertation argument, it's been at the heart of some of my essays, and generally, whether I've realised at the time or not, it's underpinning just about every text book I read on all my University projects at the moment.
The problem is, whoever warned me about postmodernism nearly three years ago got one thing wrong. They hadn't bargained on me actually liking it.
Perhaps Universities, if they do nothing else, really open your eyes to your place in society, and finally show you glimpses of the real world before you enter into it. They act as the central site for generations of young people to take on board and evaluate the great thinkers and ideas that have shaped our society up til now - right before we go on to try and shape it ourselves. And since postmodernism is defining the aesthetic of the society we find ourselves in (it IS everywhere), it seems not the worst thing to actually spend some time thinking about.
For I quite fancy myself as a bit of an intellectual in the making - again, going to University at all has probably brought this egotism on - in that I want to entertain and try to understand the ideas of the great 20th century names, Saussere, Foucault, Baudrillard, Derrida and so on; those names that, on the first day of Uni, simply washed over you into the part of your brain marked 'probably won't need this name again', so that I can better understand, exist in and, who knows, affect my lifetime. University has perhaps dampened my belief in politics, despite it being the breeding ground for various movements and causes and petitions and campaigns and so on, all of us young people despairing at the inability for anyone but ourselves to see the way things really are. That sense of involvement, a genuine conviction in being able to make a difference, has lost some of its charm for me now.
Instead, I can see great enjoyment in the pretentious life of sitting about, writing about social and cultural issues in a detached, superior manner, casually obliterating entire periods of history, social movements and cultural trends of the past and the misguided present, telling people what was definitely wrong about 'Then' and what 'Now' definitely is and is not. Yes, that's the life for me.
And the reason postmodernism appeals so much in my modest quest for reputation and intellect is because, as University has shown, it is in everything I'm interested in, it is the period of my life, it is inescapable, for now. As someone once said, very wisely as it turns out, "You'll find that postmodernism is everywhere."
P.S
Update, 8/3/2007. I had no idea at all at the time I posted this blog, that on the same day, the 6th of March 2007, Jean Baudrillard died. He was 77.
Was Baudrillard, as I wrote about aspiring to critique and emulate the great philosophers of the last century like himself, uttering his very last words? Could his death have coincided with my declaration, setting in digital stone, as it were, that I would love to be considered a writer or even a philosopher of MY time? As Baudrillard died...have I begun? We shall soon see.
Jean Baudrillard, 1929 - 2007. In death we find out that he did live in reality, after all.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Our beautiful game...
Not so pretty anymore. Tonight's main football headlines on Sky Sports News at 8pm were: a mass brawl between QPR and the Chinese Olympic team in a 'friendly', tied to QPR's charges on a brawl involving them and Luton last month, Luis Aragones (Spain Manager) having his appeal against making BLATANT racist comments upheld, Sheffield United player Keith Gillespie getting an extra match ban for punching an opposition player, and more on the story in Italy where a policeman was killed, maybe murdered, by rioting football fans.
Great. There's no news in football to do with football anymore, the only thing papers and media want to talk about is bad relations, bad behaviour, problems off the pitch, and so on. Whereas these sort of stories rumble on for days, the brilliant goals and sublime football gets rounded up in a highlights package shown once or twice.
Has football become, like all its detractors claim, simply two teams of 11 to running around an agreed space at an agreed time and trying to incite kicking the shit out of each other while thousands/millions of people look on? Is that all that men want to do on a Saturday afternoon nowadays? Last Saturday I went along with the first team (the first team - the team that is meant to be our club's best) and watched as three of our players got sent off for nothing to do with the football, but for either swearing or punching someone. After our centre-mid floored a lippy 16 year old kiddie with one blow (to be fair, how did the kid think he was going to react to being stamped on? Twat) an out and out brawl ensued. There wasn't a football kicked in earnest for around 10 minutes while just about everyone on the pitch piled into one corner and started fighting. Where have we seen that before? Oh, right, a top flight match between two Premiership sides in supposedly the 'best league in the world'.
My main anxiety is that football, after all is said and done, allows whoever plays to release some pent up energy and gives exercise and all that, but that this spills over into neanderthal savagery anyway. Why bother with Football Factory style hooliganism and risk getting arrested when you can join a team and have a legitimate circumstance to do it? It isn't enough to take part in competitive sport. It isn't enough to win at it. You have to fight for it, and win that war.
In the words of Henry Newbolt's World War One poem likening that great war to sport, "play up! Play up and play the game!" ("for fuck's sake", he might have added).
Great. There's no news in football to do with football anymore, the only thing papers and media want to talk about is bad relations, bad behaviour, problems off the pitch, and so on. Whereas these sort of stories rumble on for days, the brilliant goals and sublime football gets rounded up in a highlights package shown once or twice.
Has football become, like all its detractors claim, simply two teams of 11 to running around an agreed space at an agreed time and trying to incite kicking the shit out of each other while thousands/millions of people look on? Is that all that men want to do on a Saturday afternoon nowadays? Last Saturday I went along with the first team (the first team - the team that is meant to be our club's best) and watched as three of our players got sent off for nothing to do with the football, but for either swearing or punching someone. After our centre-mid floored a lippy 16 year old kiddie with one blow (to be fair, how did the kid think he was going to react to being stamped on? Twat) an out and out brawl ensued. There wasn't a football kicked in earnest for around 10 minutes while just about everyone on the pitch piled into one corner and started fighting. Where have we seen that before? Oh, right, a top flight match between two Premiership sides in supposedly the 'best league in the world'.
My main anxiety is that football, after all is said and done, allows whoever plays to release some pent up energy and gives exercise and all that, but that this spills over into neanderthal savagery anyway. Why bother with Football Factory style hooliganism and risk getting arrested when you can join a team and have a legitimate circumstance to do it? It isn't enough to take part in competitive sport. It isn't enough to win at it. You have to fight for it, and win that war.
In the words of Henry Newbolt's World War One poem likening that great war to sport, "play up! Play up and play the game!" ("for fuck's sake", he might have added).
Friday, February 02, 2007
BB will bite the hand that feeds...its own
After another classic series of the defining television programme of our time, the fallout rages on, the 'burning' issue in the pages of the tabloid rags. What have we learnt? Jade Goody IS a twat, after all, and even the most ardent of BB followers managed to jump on the bandwagon damning those racist remarks that were broadcast to an audience of...well, twats and racists in denial probably.
We were reminded in a timely manner just what drew our attention to Ms Goody in the first place - her extreme levels of genuine stupidity and general defamation of the term human being - when she appeared on her original Big Brother run; the show where real people do real things apparently. She should, at the time, have been mocked, ridiculed, made a spectacle of and made to feel ashamed. She was certainly a spectacle all right: and people with an ounce of intelligence looked on in disbelief as this society's celebrity obsessed culture made an idol out of this woman who could not set a poorer example to young girls if she tried.
And so it became the pattern; give someone an inch of limelight and they'll take a yard. Suddenly, all you had to do was appear on TV, and let the masses and their mass media (tabloids, Channel 4) begin the cycle. The "stars" of Big Brother became the stars of the tabloid masses, so the tabloids gave more and more info to those masses, who in return made greater "stars" out of those contestants, creating the need for even more tabloid coverage, and so on. As long as the show's running, the bewildering excitement and entertainment gained by some from Big Brother will grow uninhibited. Channel 4 knows this. Start a new series, sit back and let the BB circus run its course.
I've said this before on this blog, but I'll say it again. Are people's lives (or is it reality?) so dull that they find expression and enjoyment through a slim and fake involvement other people's lives? And what's most pathetic is that involvement is so non-existent: coverage of Big Brother contestent's lives is edited from 24 hours into one: what 'happens' in Big Brother is the choice of the programme producer. Viewers watch what they are told to watch, and think they're making individual choices and conclusions by doing so. Meanwhile, viewers cannot exert any influence over the lives they have a sudden interest in. There's always that human nature of curiosity, to be the unseen fly on the wall, an omniscient narrator if you will, but with Big Brother that's all there is. What point is there in 'knowing' everything that's going on and being unable to do anything about it? What use is that knowledge? Idle chit chat over an 11am cup of coffee, that's all.
The CBB just past has at last raised genuine doubts about Big Brother's hitherto untouchable status. It's uncomfortable suddenly seeing "one of our own" (I would usually detach myself completely from BB fans but for the sake of this argument I'll play along) make such a tit out of themselves and then remember that all the media interest, the condemnation, the embarrasment, the shame it brings on our nation, is down to the fact that, yes, it was us, we put her there in the first place. The people who put Goody on a pedastal suddenly don't want to know. The proud English are very quick to denounce the fallen, and even quicker to forget that we set them up for a fall at all (see football/cricket, our 'boys in Iraq', Tony Blair, Pete Doherty, etc etc). Even Big Brother's most die-hard fans joined in with the concern about the events in this Celebrity version, and it might mark, at long long last, the point where those fans realise that the 'reality' they hunger to observe is simply selected elements of our own culture, and it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Suddenly, the realisation: if they want to feel better about their own lives and our society, making a spectacle (on television for crying out loud) out of the worst parts of it for all the world to see might not be a good idea after all.
It's only taken 8 years. But I hope with all my heart that the implosion of Big Brother has begun.
We were reminded in a timely manner just what drew our attention to Ms Goody in the first place - her extreme levels of genuine stupidity and general defamation of the term human being - when she appeared on her original Big Brother run; the show where real people do real things apparently. She should, at the time, have been mocked, ridiculed, made a spectacle of and made to feel ashamed. She was certainly a spectacle all right: and people with an ounce of intelligence looked on in disbelief as this society's celebrity obsessed culture made an idol out of this woman who could not set a poorer example to young girls if she tried.
And so it became the pattern; give someone an inch of limelight and they'll take a yard. Suddenly, all you had to do was appear on TV, and let the masses and their mass media (tabloids, Channel 4) begin the cycle. The "stars" of Big Brother became the stars of the tabloid masses, so the tabloids gave more and more info to those masses, who in return made greater "stars" out of those contestants, creating the need for even more tabloid coverage, and so on. As long as the show's running, the bewildering excitement and entertainment gained by some from Big Brother will grow uninhibited. Channel 4 knows this. Start a new series, sit back and let the BB circus run its course.
I've said this before on this blog, but I'll say it again. Are people's lives (or is it reality?) so dull that they find expression and enjoyment through a slim and fake involvement other people's lives? And what's most pathetic is that involvement is so non-existent: coverage of Big Brother contestent's lives is edited from 24 hours into one: what 'happens' in Big Brother is the choice of the programme producer. Viewers watch what they are told to watch, and think they're making individual choices and conclusions by doing so. Meanwhile, viewers cannot exert any influence over the lives they have a sudden interest in. There's always that human nature of curiosity, to be the unseen fly on the wall, an omniscient narrator if you will, but with Big Brother that's all there is. What point is there in 'knowing' everything that's going on and being unable to do anything about it? What use is that knowledge? Idle chit chat over an 11am cup of coffee, that's all.
The CBB just past has at last raised genuine doubts about Big Brother's hitherto untouchable status. It's uncomfortable suddenly seeing "one of our own" (I would usually detach myself completely from BB fans but for the sake of this argument I'll play along) make such a tit out of themselves and then remember that all the media interest, the condemnation, the embarrasment, the shame it brings on our nation, is down to the fact that, yes, it was us, we put her there in the first place. The people who put Goody on a pedastal suddenly don't want to know. The proud English are very quick to denounce the fallen, and even quicker to forget that we set them up for a fall at all (see football/cricket, our 'boys in Iraq', Tony Blair, Pete Doherty, etc etc). Even Big Brother's most die-hard fans joined in with the concern about the events in this Celebrity version, and it might mark, at long long last, the point where those fans realise that the 'reality' they hunger to observe is simply selected elements of our own culture, and it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Suddenly, the realisation: if they want to feel better about their own lives and our society, making a spectacle (on television for crying out loud) out of the worst parts of it for all the world to see might not be a good idea after all.
It's only taken 8 years. But I hope with all my heart that the implosion of Big Brother has begun.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
New Year's Resolutions
It's difficult to know what to do with NYRs (what you make after NYE ). Nowadays it's barely worth even thinking about doing something positive in your life which will most likely have negative side-effects at first. Society is so very unbothered about making resolutions for itself.
However! (there had to be an 'however' didn't there). I always say to myself that I will make a new year's resolution or two, and I always take the step of writing them down. Nothing life-changing, like "discover cure for AIDS", although I really should be getting on with that. Just personal, minor things; more realistic you might say, more achievable.
The reason that I continue to make them is down to a conviction that it is actually good for myself. It shows a strength in character, to deliberately set yourself targets or goals to achieve. That they are minor or realistic isn't the case in point: simply the act of setting things I want to and believe I can achieve shows a nature who desires challenges, which I think is important for self-confidence and self-belief. Sticking to difficult NYRs is difficult, so why set difficult ones?! I'm not going to set resolutions that I think I ought to be targeting, like cutting out foods or taking up jogging for example. I've set things that matter to me: resolutions that Iwant to meet and that I feel I can look back upon and have completed. Things like: get a part-time job to ease the money problems, and make sure I work hard enough to get a 2:1 this year. Those are well within my abilities - any fool can get a part-time job, in fact - but it would mean something to me if I could start balancing my money a bit more, so it's well worth me doing personally.
So I guess that's it: people should be setting resolutions, not because it is a thing everybody else does, or pretends to ("I meant to........, this year"), but because there are things we all want to achieve which, looked at seriously, are far less daunting than they actually are. New Year's Resolutions shouldn't be mocked for making people do things they don't want to do, they should be embraced for offering the perfect excuse to start doing something which really could begin any other time of the year anyway.
The one time people take a sober look at their lives, and it gets ridiculed. I say: NYRs ftw!
However! (there had to be an 'however' didn't there). I always say to myself that I will make a new year's resolution or two, and I always take the step of writing them down. Nothing life-changing, like "discover cure for AIDS", although I really should be getting on with that. Just personal, minor things; more realistic you might say, more achievable.
The reason that I continue to make them is down to a conviction that it is actually good for myself. It shows a strength in character, to deliberately set yourself targets or goals to achieve. That they are minor or realistic isn't the case in point: simply the act of setting things I want to and believe I can achieve shows a nature who desires challenges, which I think is important for self-confidence and self-belief. Sticking to difficult NYRs is difficult, so why set difficult ones?! I'm not going to set resolutions that I think I ought to be targeting, like cutting out foods or taking up jogging for example. I've set things that matter to me: resolutions that Iwant to meet and that I feel I can look back upon and have completed. Things like: get a part-time job to ease the money problems, and make sure I work hard enough to get a 2:1 this year. Those are well within my abilities - any fool can get a part-time job, in fact - but it would mean something to me if I could start balancing my money a bit more, so it's well worth me doing personally.
So I guess that's it: people should be setting resolutions, not because it is a thing everybody else does, or pretends to ("I meant to........, this year"), but because there are things we all want to achieve which, looked at seriously, are far less daunting than they actually are. New Year's Resolutions shouldn't be mocked for making people do things they don't want to do, they should be embraced for offering the perfect excuse to start doing something which really could begin any other time of the year anyway.
The one time people take a sober look at their lives, and it gets ridiculed. I say: NYRs ftw!
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Music vs the music industry
With X-Factor winner Leona bound to be Christmas number one this year (not that she's not good enough. She's supremely, incredibly talented. She will be an international star), it just highlighted the fact that you can take someone and plonk them to the top of the music tree. It points so obviously to that falseness of the music industry nowadays, and was just about enough for me regarding music for 2006.
This year has seen record companies, record stores, markets and customers embrace music downloading, rather than oppose it, to the point where it now makes up most of the sales in deciding the music charts. How quickly those record companies stopped moaning about illegal downloading once they bothered to venture into the almost limitless audience. Online music has now moved away from the self-promotion, underground fan based, word of mouth phenomenon that gave rise to the likes of Arctic Monkeys and sites such as myspace, and has become big business. Hugely big business, in no time at all. So that side to the music industry, a DIY ethic only getting to its feet in 2005, has already gone the way of the mainstream and commercial.
Is it all about money? Were illegal downloading sites really cutting physical sales so much so that they had to get the money available from downloading? It's clearly been worth it, as CD prices have barely moved. It still costs £10-12 to buy an album in the record stores. It doesn't cost much less to order CDs online. It does to download albums. But then, I still can't see the fascination of paying £7 to only 'virtually' own the songs of an album by a band. You don't own their album, you have digital copies of songs.
For me, why I refuse point blank to download unofficial leaks and will continue to buy new CDs of my favoured artists, paying to hold a CD in your hands, even though it probably costs less than 50p to make that CD, is a hell of a lot more valuable than paying simply to legally download music. 79p on iTunes, to do no more than connect to their server and get a certain song. If it costs almost nothing to make a CD, it costs nothing at all to let people download some data.
The posterity, too, of owning an album is valuable to me too, though I grew up with tapes, then CDs and mini-discs, and this generation will grow up needing nothing but an mp3 player to hear every song they can ever want. That sort of listening, though, devalues the music. Like re-reading your favourite book, putting on your favourite CD and listening to it is an experience. You're not going to think "I'll sit down and have a read of Catch-22" (for example) and go and read it at your computer.
So, the big businesses have done very well out of online this year. And the trouble is, all the sources who try desperately to provide a genuine alternative to commercialism in music now have to constantly come up with something new. These days, regardless of where you stand as an artist, you get chewed up and spat out. MySpace profiles a new band every day on its homepage. NME's "2006 cool list" feature 3 people in the top 10 (including no's 1 and 2) whose bands haven't even released albums yet. It reads simply like a "what's hot this month". New acts get a week's worth of fame and are gone again. And this is in the places where they're supposed to be supported.
The thing is, I don't have a problem with commercial music. Girls Aloud, yes, are vastly image conscious, but they release perfect pop songs, as do Sugababes. Getting into the charts should not be snubbed by underground bands, or bands of certain genres. If you want to be successful, the charts, especially albums, are the only thing that matters. Artists like the above are successful because they do well in them. For some reason, being popular as a band is a bad thing now? But if you want you music to be heard, and you want to be loved for your music, then the popular music album charts (the clue is in the name) are the place to be. Do you think the Fratellis, Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen or The Kooks care that their CDs sit alongside Take That, George Michael and Scissor Sisters? Of course they fucking don't. And it doesn't make these bands instantly void from being credible. Well, it shouldn't but the "real" bands who play to 57 people in their home town once a month and sell albums through MySpace to friends in other "real" bands while having a day job to fund being in a "real" band think so. I sure hope that superiority complex keeps you warm at night.
So like I say, music isn't suddenly bad because it becomes commercial. (Everyone loved the Arctic Monkeys before their album found its way into 93% of the homes in Britain - now it's trendy to hate them. Turner is a prat though, but still). It's the perception and actuality of the commercial music industry, which uses artists to make money, devalues the one thing that matters - the music - as a commodity, that turns people against it. It makes bands who really need to and deserve to be a part of that industry, think 'I don't want to get into that'. There are hundreds of great bands who should be part of it. But the music industry is cutting itself from the music, relying on the unit shifting, image based acts instead of taking risks and breaking down the barriers between the audience who buys it because it's in the charts, and the audience who buys it because they like it.
By definition, the popular music chart should reflect popular music. But the industry keeps shooting itself in the foot. It caught on to the online bandwagon in the nick of time - and now downloading no longer favours the underground/new music scene. It's alienated the very people it should be trying to reign in by promoting the mainstream above the underground. It's made the charts a (musically) unfashionable place to be - yet if you want to be a truly successful music artist, it's the only place you can be. In today's society, The Beatles really would be ridiculed by one half of the music press, because they'd sell millions of records and be as mainstream as possible. Yet they're the best band in history.
Who took the music out of music industry?
This year has seen record companies, record stores, markets and customers embrace music downloading, rather than oppose it, to the point where it now makes up most of the sales in deciding the music charts. How quickly those record companies stopped moaning about illegal downloading once they bothered to venture into the almost limitless audience. Online music has now moved away from the self-promotion, underground fan based, word of mouth phenomenon that gave rise to the likes of Arctic Monkeys and sites such as myspace, and has become big business. Hugely big business, in no time at all. So that side to the music industry, a DIY ethic only getting to its feet in 2005, has already gone the way of the mainstream and commercial.
Is it all about money? Were illegal downloading sites really cutting physical sales so much so that they had to get the money available from downloading? It's clearly been worth it, as CD prices have barely moved. It still costs £10-12 to buy an album in the record stores. It doesn't cost much less to order CDs online. It does to download albums. But then, I still can't see the fascination of paying £7 to only 'virtually' own the songs of an album by a band. You don't own their album, you have digital copies of songs.
For me, why I refuse point blank to download unofficial leaks and will continue to buy new CDs of my favoured artists, paying to hold a CD in your hands, even though it probably costs less than 50p to make that CD, is a hell of a lot more valuable than paying simply to legally download music. 79p on iTunes, to do no more than connect to their server and get a certain song. If it costs almost nothing to make a CD, it costs nothing at all to let people download some data.
The posterity, too, of owning an album is valuable to me too, though I grew up with tapes, then CDs and mini-discs, and this generation will grow up needing nothing but an mp3 player to hear every song they can ever want. That sort of listening, though, devalues the music. Like re-reading your favourite book, putting on your favourite CD and listening to it is an experience. You're not going to think "I'll sit down and have a read of Catch-22" (for example) and go and read it at your computer.
So, the big businesses have done very well out of online this year. And the trouble is, all the sources who try desperately to provide a genuine alternative to commercialism in music now have to constantly come up with something new. These days, regardless of where you stand as an artist, you get chewed up and spat out. MySpace profiles a new band every day on its homepage. NME's "2006 cool list" feature 3 people in the top 10 (including no's 1 and 2) whose bands haven't even released albums yet. It reads simply like a "what's hot this month". New acts get a week's worth of fame and are gone again. And this is in the places where they're supposed to be supported.
The thing is, I don't have a problem with commercial music. Girls Aloud, yes, are vastly image conscious, but they release perfect pop songs, as do Sugababes. Getting into the charts should not be snubbed by underground bands, or bands of certain genres. If you want to be successful, the charts, especially albums, are the only thing that matters. Artists like the above are successful because they do well in them. For some reason, being popular as a band is a bad thing now? But if you want you music to be heard, and you want to be loved for your music, then the popular music album charts (the clue is in the name) are the place to be. Do you think the Fratellis, Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen or The Kooks care that their CDs sit alongside Take That, George Michael and Scissor Sisters? Of course they fucking don't. And it doesn't make these bands instantly void from being credible. Well, it shouldn't but the "real" bands who play to 57 people in their home town once a month and sell albums through MySpace to friends in other "real" bands while having a day job to fund being in a "real" band think so. I sure hope that superiority complex keeps you warm at night.
So like I say, music isn't suddenly bad because it becomes commercial. (Everyone loved the Arctic Monkeys before their album found its way into 93% of the homes in Britain - now it's trendy to hate them. Turner is a prat though, but still). It's the perception and actuality of the commercial music industry, which uses artists to make money, devalues the one thing that matters - the music - as a commodity, that turns people against it. It makes bands who really need to and deserve to be a part of that industry, think 'I don't want to get into that'. There are hundreds of great bands who should be part of it. But the music industry is cutting itself from the music, relying on the unit shifting, image based acts instead of taking risks and breaking down the barriers between the audience who buys it because it's in the charts, and the audience who buys it because they like it.
By definition, the popular music chart should reflect popular music. But the industry keeps shooting itself in the foot. It caught on to the online bandwagon in the nick of time - and now downloading no longer favours the underground/new music scene. It's alienated the very people it should be trying to reign in by promoting the mainstream above the underground. It's made the charts a (musically) unfashionable place to be - yet if you want to be a truly successful music artist, it's the only place you can be. In today's society, The Beatles really would be ridiculed by one half of the music press, because they'd sell millions of records and be as mainstream as possible. Yet they're the best band in history.
Who took the music out of music industry?
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Suffering from P.T.D
Or Public Transport Depression.
Is it just me - (an aside; I hate people starting articles and comment with 'Is it just me', because it's either A) blatantly not and an easy way to persuade people to side with you, or B) blatantly IS becuase you're trying to say something oh so individual and outrageous and pretending to be funny: I fear I'm doing the latter) - but does public transport depress people?
It's more when you travel on your own: the whole being surrounded by people you don't know, and never will, people you don't care about and vice versa. In fact, public transport encourages this sort of thing, that sort of introspective space to go into your own little world. You think things about people you're trapped with for a journey, and probably judge them. I know I do: one of the reasons I don't like using buses is because of the people you're likely to find on them. Idiot kids, who can't drive, in huge groups, called Dave B and Dave H, Darren, Chezza, Nikkeh, Danielle, Luce, etc. Who shout and scream and act like twats. I swear I was never like that, ever. Then you get women with massive prams and Argos bags on the back of them that roll into your shin while you're standing and give you looks as if you KICKED the pram. Then there's the old dears,...And there's always one really weird, deranged looking guy that spots you as you get on and won't stop looking at you til you get off - often, conveniently, at the same stop as deranged guy.
The worst thing about buses is how they look, too. Messy inside, steamed up windows with hearts and text speak written on them, and they just seem like boxes of artificial light. It's a strange qualm, but that sight just depresses me: at night, a box of people bathed in artificial light. It makes me think that there is no meaning to life.
Trains - slightly different. Still that sense of your own little world (yet it's 'public' transport - ). Bit more classy (richer people?), nicer setting and easier journeys and so on, but their main problem is alcohol. Alcohol on trains is, in my opinion, stupidly dangerous, and it's advertised and encouraged! It's almost as bad as Air Rage where people drunk on planes get violent and aggressive. Like being on a plane, when you're on a train and there's some idiot who's drunk and starting to eye you up for an argument, where the hell can you go except another part of the train? Trains basically trap you in an awkward space for a suitable enough length of time for anything to happen. A guy got stabbed on the underground recently, and they stop somewhere every minute.
And taxis, what the hell are they about. You can't even throw up in one nowadays!
I realise this is a weird thing to opine (again, is it just me?), and as I am wont to do I've taken it to some extremes to make my point clear. But basically, public transport's paradox of being a lonely experience, often a sorry excuse for a method of 'transport', usually late, never clean or pleasant, and in a country supposedly the most advanced in the world (of course, the actual infrastructure is usually at meltdown), I'm suffering from a case of PTD.
"When you're sad and feeling blue, with nothing better to do, don't just sit there feeling stressed, take a trip on the National Express!"
The Divine Comedy
Is it just me - (an aside; I hate people starting articles and comment with 'Is it just me', because it's either A) blatantly not and an easy way to persuade people to side with you, or B) blatantly IS becuase you're trying to say something oh so individual and outrageous and pretending to be funny: I fear I'm doing the latter) - but does public transport depress people?
It's more when you travel on your own: the whole being surrounded by people you don't know, and never will, people you don't care about and vice versa. In fact, public transport encourages this sort of thing, that sort of introspective space to go into your own little world. You think things about people you're trapped with for a journey, and probably judge them. I know I do: one of the reasons I don't like using buses is because of the people you're likely to find on them. Idiot kids, who can't drive, in huge groups, called Dave B and Dave H, Darren, Chezza, Nikkeh, Danielle, Luce, etc. Who shout and scream and act like twats. I swear I was never like that, ever. Then you get women with massive prams and Argos bags on the back of them that roll into your shin while you're standing and give you looks as if you KICKED the pram. Then there's the old dears,...And there's always one really weird, deranged looking guy that spots you as you get on and won't stop looking at you til you get off - often, conveniently, at the same stop as deranged guy.
The worst thing about buses is how they look, too. Messy inside, steamed up windows with hearts and text speak written on them, and they just seem like boxes of artificial light. It's a strange qualm, but that sight just depresses me: at night, a box of people bathed in artificial light. It makes me think that there is no meaning to life.
Trains - slightly different. Still that sense of your own little world (yet it's 'public' transport - ). Bit more classy (richer people?), nicer setting and easier journeys and so on, but their main problem is alcohol. Alcohol on trains is, in my opinion, stupidly dangerous, and it's advertised and encouraged! It's almost as bad as Air Rage where people drunk on planes get violent and aggressive. Like being on a plane, when you're on a train and there's some idiot who's drunk and starting to eye you up for an argument, where the hell can you go except another part of the train? Trains basically trap you in an awkward space for a suitable enough length of time for anything to happen. A guy got stabbed on the underground recently, and they stop somewhere every minute.
And taxis, what the hell are they about. You can't even throw up in one nowadays!
I realise this is a weird thing to opine (again, is it just me?), and as I am wont to do I've taken it to some extremes to make my point clear. But basically, public transport's paradox of being a lonely experience, often a sorry excuse for a method of 'transport', usually late, never clean or pleasant, and in a country supposedly the most advanced in the world (of course, the actual infrastructure is usually at meltdown), I'm suffering from a case of PTD.
"When you're sad and feeling blue, with nothing better to do, don't just sit there feeling stressed, take a trip on the National Express!"
The Divine Comedy
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Too much time.
This week I will spend 9 hours in University, as required by my timetable. Next week I will spend 7. How, then, can I not find the time to comfortably do all my work? Somehow, I think that having so much free time during the week (Monday and Wednesdays off, for example) lulls me into the sense that I will always have time to do everything, because I really do. I have enough time to do it all. The trouble is I'm not distinguishing my time beforehand to do things, and the last minute. Still. And I've been doing this Uni lark for almost three years. Fuck.
Similarly, how can so much free time go so fast? (When you're spending too much money, I suspect). What have I filled it with? It's now the eighth week of term, I can barely remember two weeks worth of it that actually stand out. Weekends blur into the week, nights out seem like one ungodly 24 hour mess, I've lost count of the amount of games I've had on Pro Evo. By the end of the year it will match my dissertation's 10,000. Do people ever learn? I'm worried I haven't, still. I've learnt a lot at Uni, and I've changed for the better because of it. But now I'm concerned that I've got a final lesson to learn, one last big hurdle to jump, which I've not seen coming and really should have.
Nevermind. I know that I have the aptitude to do this, and do it well eventually. I think I need something to stun me into action now, rather than thinking this time next year "Shit, I wish I hadn't slacked my way to a 2:2 after all." This week I've had some really disappointing feedback on some of my work, and I know I'm better than that. I think I needed it, though. Not everything is going to fall into place for me at this stage. These last two and a half weeks of term one, year three, I'm really going to throw myself into it all and get back on my highway to success.
That said, I'm still going out friday and having a house party saturday. Ole!
Similarly, how can so much free time go so fast? (When you're spending too much money, I suspect). What have I filled it with? It's now the eighth week of term, I can barely remember two weeks worth of it that actually stand out. Weekends blur into the week, nights out seem like one ungodly 24 hour mess, I've lost count of the amount of games I've had on Pro Evo. By the end of the year it will match my dissertation's 10,000. Do people ever learn? I'm worried I haven't, still. I've learnt a lot at Uni, and I've changed for the better because of it. But now I'm concerned that I've got a final lesson to learn, one last big hurdle to jump, which I've not seen coming and really should have.
Nevermind. I know that I have the aptitude to do this, and do it well eventually. I think I need something to stun me into action now, rather than thinking this time next year "Shit, I wish I hadn't slacked my way to a 2:2 after all." This week I've had some really disappointing feedback on some of my work, and I know I'm better than that. I think I needed it, though. Not everything is going to fall into place for me at this stage. These last two and a half weeks of term one, year three, I'm really going to throw myself into it all and get back on my highway to success.
That said, I'm still going out friday and having a house party saturday. Ole!
Monday, October 16, 2006
So shoot me.
I saw this and laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
Comic has been removed because it is Breast Cancer Awareness day today (27/10/2006)!
Because as they once said in Blackadder; "if you can't laugh, what can you do?"
And the answer was; "Take up politics perhaps."
And I'm not about to embark on that career just to cut short my tendency to see the funny side of just about anything. I realise that this joke is distasteful, in fact tasteless, but the BEP reference in the 3rd picture literally had me in stitches. I guess I'll remove it if I get enough "My aunt this" type responses, but for now, since you can't shoot the messenger, it stays. I had planned to put it on my MySpace, now THAT'S risque. But I haven't, I'm too scared.
To be honest, jokes with realistic endings are the in thing for Uni students. When you're this intelligent, when you're the cultural hub of society, when the future is ours and we are the future, what we say goes and at the moment, not funny is funny. Check out, also, www.somethingawful.com for more brilliant observational jokes.
Comic has been removed because it is Breast Cancer Awareness day today (27/10/2006)!
Because as they once said in Blackadder; "if you can't laugh, what can you do?"
And the answer was; "Take up politics perhaps."
And I'm not about to embark on that career just to cut short my tendency to see the funny side of just about anything. I realise that this joke is distasteful, in fact tasteless, but the BEP reference in the 3rd picture literally had me in stitches. I guess I'll remove it if I get enough "My aunt this" type responses, but for now, since you can't shoot the messenger, it stays. I had planned to put it on my MySpace, now THAT'S risque. But I haven't, I'm too scared.
To be honest, jokes with realistic endings are the in thing for Uni students. When you're this intelligent, when you're the cultural hub of society, when the future is ours and we are the future, what we say goes and at the moment, not funny is funny. Check out, also, www.somethingawful.com for more brilliant observational jokes.
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