tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10093144669702805842024-02-19T16:10:50.417+00:00Human WritesMagnus Shaw's blog ...robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comBlogger232125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-11254865261674378012014-10-22T00:14:00.002+01:002014-10-22T00:14:41.143+01:00It's all a game<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I don't know about you, but I don't play video games. I'd argue that they're a bit childish, but I like plenty of childish things: Bagpuss, Thunderbirds, The Muppets - I think they're all terrific, so that's not the problem. No, I think it's a combination of my lack of enthusiasm for anything resembling sport, and the fact these things ask you to overcome a machine in the name of entertainment. Whatever the reason, I have no interest in video games (or 'gaming' as I'm told it's called these days).<br />
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<a name='more'></a>However, thanks to the intensive marketing which accompanies their release, I am aware of some of these products. Just off the top of my head: 'Halo', 'Medal Of Honour', 'Grand Theft Auto', 'Call Of Duty' and 'Resident Evil' (see, how cool am I?). Yes, video games are advertised on the telly all the time - so even a miserable old duffer like me can recall a few titles. And in many ways, TV commercialsare the perfect medium through which to promote a leisure pursuit carried out on screens. The game appears on a screen and, by happy coincidence, the advertisement is on a screen too. Fantastic! <br />Although, sadly - not so fantastic. TV advertising often has cause to deploy a bit of smoke and a few mirrors, to make its point. We all know the hamburgers we're served in McDonalds (note, other overpriced and badly organised food joints are available) don't really look like the ones in the ads. Smaller, flatter and less succulent, right? But we put up with the deception because even the real-world burgers taste quite nice. Equally, those shampoos claiming to make one's hair thicker and glossier probably have some effect, but they certainly don't make anyone look like Cheryl Cole in a light breeze. Except, perhaps, Cheryl Cole in a light breeze. However, take a look at any video game commercial and witness a complete and utter swizz. <br /><br />Understandably, the makers use their allotted time to fill our tellies with whizz-bang action sequences, rumbling sound effects and breathtaking animation. Why not? That's what they put in their games. Oh, wait! No it isn't! Because in opaque, small point lettering at the foot of the screen are the words 'Not actual game footage.' What?! The imagery in the ad isn't in the product? Why would they commission separate footage for the ad? Why would they do that? Unless, the game itself would look a bit disappointing if you could see it before you bought it. In which case, there would seem to be a good argument against buying it. <br /><br />Imagine watching an advertisement for yoghurt, wherein a string of people are seen opening and consuming great spoonfuls of creamy dessert, accompanied with a caption stating 'Not actual yoghurt.' Would that work for you? No, I thought not. <br /><br />'Argh! You great idiot!' I hear you say, 'Games aren't like that. They're completely different from yoghurt!' Well, I'm sure you're right. And indeed, I invite any 'gamer' reading this to explain why it's perfectly acceptable for video game advertising to show us something other than the game being advertised. <br /><br />Go ahead, use the 'comments' section below, I'd love to hear the explanation. You see, I wouldn't know. I don't play video games. <br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-83107711279060751492014-10-20T15:50:00.000+01:002014-10-20T15:51:37.587+01:00So sneer, so far<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
John Lydon invented punk rock and is the king of the punks. I know this because he told me. Actually he told me, my wife and about a hundred other people, as he was interviewed for his second autobiography ‘Anger Is An Energy’, at Sheffield’s Octagon on Wednesday night. And if it sounds like he talks some right old cobblers, you’d be understating the situation by some distance. <br />
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That’s not to say the erstwhile Johnny Rotten isn’t an interesting man, because he is. It couldn’t really be any other way. After all, he was the singer and focal point of one of Britain’s most important bands. The difficulty lies in getting him to speak sensibly on that most pertinent of topics. Admittedly, the evening’s host was way out of her depth – genial, but completely incapable of keeping her guest in order and on track. That said, even a heavyweight like Andrew Neil couldn’t wring much coherence from John the following night on the telly, so perhaps it’s a hopeless task whoever you happen to be.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>I have no doubt that Lydon is actually a rather shy, sensitive and uncertain man. So many of his mannerisms, characteristics and idiosyncrasies point to a person constantly masking his insecurities with unnecessary sneers and challenges, it’s always clear we never see the real personality. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for his audience, he has the perfect mask: Johnny Rotten. When his brief was to be the embodiment of cynical, enraged youth, this guise couldn’t have been more appropriate; now it comes off as infantile and frustrating. Lydon isn’t a fool, and must have realised years ago that his career’s momentum depended on people’s enthusiasm for his snarling punk persona. Which presumably, is why he so readily delivers this performance on demand. If nothing else, it might draw attention to his book. However, the sound of a man approaching his 60th year belching loudly into his clip microphone cannot be regarded as anything other than pathetic, even by an old punk like me. <br />
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And oh, the contradictions. There’s nothing wrong with passionately held opinions issued with gusto, it’s the very stuff of inspiring oratory. It is also very different from making it up as one goes along, which is much more Lydon’s style. Eager to demonstrate that he alone brought anything to the Pistols’ party, he points to Vivienne Westwood, and the late Malcolm McLaren, demanding to know what either had achieved since leaving his orbit. This is rank foolishness (and you don’t need me to point out how successful both his adversaries became post-punk), not only because his argument falls over the second it leaves his lips, but also because a personal squabble over who first coined the phrase ‘Anarchy In The UK’ is as self-indulgent as it is pointless.<br />
“I don’t worry about labels on my clothes” he tells us, moments before extolling the virtues of the Issey Miyake jerkin he’s wearing. Embellished anecdotes about his move to New York fail to withstand a basic check of the chronology, and the timeline of his boyhood illness seemed rather wobbly too. <br />
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Quite obviously, this is all about myth making; shoring-up the Lydon/Rotten legacy to perpetuate the legend, rather than lay down the facts. In a figure of less cultural significance, this wouldn’t rankle so badly – but we know the story of the Sex Pistols is a crucial chapter in British popular music, and if anyone can shed light on its murkier corners it must be the man who fronted the band. It is a genuine pity that John finds it so hard to lay aside the affected sarcasm and bolshiness for long enough to tell us that tale. <br />
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Aside from his detectable nervousness, I suspect it’s Lydon fear of being permanently defined by that brief period with his first band, that drives him to dismiss it with such casual disdain. Public Image Limited has been trading for a considerably longer period than the Pistols could muster, without making a fraction of the impact. That has to be hard to swallow. An observation later confirmed by Lydon’s insistence that both his bands changed rock music forever. <br />
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There’s a pronounced yearning about John Lydon. A desire to be recognised, not just nostalgically as a lynchpin of punk rock, but contemporaneously as a speaker of profound truth and wisdom. As he is an intelligent man, it’s regretful that he constantly undermines and self-sabotages his ambition.<br />
Towards the end of the interview, John says “I only do things that I believe in. That’s the way I am.” Let’s hope his belief in the beneficial properties of Country Life butter, is sincerely held.<br />
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robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-63024791025989905892014-10-13T09:53:00.002+01:002014-10-20T15:51:49.495+01:00The bottom half begone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Technology is now moving at such velocity that it is possible to feel nostalgic for the early years of a facility barely twenty years old. I’m referring to the World Wide Web – that sprawling anemone, whose tendrils reach hotels, cafes, bars and homes from the Sinai desert to the Arctic wastes. <br />
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Remember the way it used to be? Dialing into a screaming, wheezing modem, fingers crossed that a connection could be made and maintained for at least ten minutes. Watching the clock as minutes were added to the phone bill, and staring into CRT monitor as a graphics-heavy page loaded like a raindrop down a window?<br />
True, it wasn’t a particularly convenient way to access the internet, but it did feel quite exciting; in the way our grandfathers were excited by the delicate process of tuning through the radiogram, anticipating the moment voices or music would crackle into the room.<br /><br />
<a name='more'></a>And when one finally arrived on the information superhighway (and there's a term you don't hear any more), you found websites. And I mean simple, straightforward, websites. Like comics, books, magazines or brochures, you looked at them - and that was it. You didn't meet other users, you didn't download rich media, and other than writing on very basic forums, you didn't upload anything either.<br />
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However, somewhere around 2004, and coinciding with domestic broadband, the term 'Web 2.0' started to be bandied about, alongside phrases like 'user-generated content'. This was the genesis of the bottom half of the internet, the arrival of the comments section. Essentially the idea was sound. Unlike the print media, which required readers to send thoughts on an email or letter, from which a handful were chosen for publication, users of news sites were now granted instant access to the page. Beneath the formal content, we now had the opportunity to register a sentence or two of praise, confusion or incandescent rage. Hooray! The democratisation of journalism had arrived. Articles were no longer static pieces, but open debates. When a column went live, it was just the start of an ongoing conversation; reaction could evolve into intriguing sidebars and a deeper explorations of the topic. At least that was the theory.<br />
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There may have been a fleeting window when those posting opinions were rational, reasonable and well-balanced human beings, compelled to contribute to the accumulated wisdom of modern civilisation. If that was the case, then it was an incredibly brief interlude - because, for as long as I can remember, and with very few exceptions, the comments section of any serious online publication has been a morass of ill-informed, misconceived and ludicrous nonsense. What's more, these mental dribbles are almost always misspelt and badly constructed.<br />
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This then, is my question: why do we pretend the bottom half of the internet is adding anything to the experience? A professional site selects its writers carefully, and publishes content that has undergone an editorial process to ensure its quality. Once a piece is live, however, it is opened to a slew of brickbats from any passing doofus who fancies a bash. That's insulting to the author and the serious reader. It's rather like unveiling a new painting, by a talented artist, and inviting the public to throw mud at it.<br />
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Of course, there's always the 'moderation' option. Employees (or more usually volunteers) filtering out the more extreme submissions, do knock some of the rougher edges off the noise. But it's rare for a moderator to measure relevance, rigour or insight. As long as the obscenities are kept to a minimum, libel avoided, and threats of physical violence swerved, all manner of tripe gets through, swamping any instance of useful feedback. For what? A seemingly mandatory platform for digital dunderheads and their runaway ramblings.<br />
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As is so often the case, the mighty dollar is lurking in the background here. For editorial sites, profit is derived from advertising. And if there's one thing online advertisers love, it's traffic. You want the big bucks from the big brands? Show them the traffic. Better still, show them hordes of visitors babbling away on your pages. Show them 'engagement' - something else digital advertisers are nuts about, and a very good reason the big sites are so keen on their bottom half. Always follow the money.<br />
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A couple of years ago, for a short period, we allowed comments under pieces on The Rocking Vicar. Pleasingly, we did receive a modest amount of intelligent opinion. Although, more often, the messages were dull or came from visitors who clearly hadn't read the article in question. And, inevitably, the trolls eventually found their way to us. So we removed the facility. Interested and interesting readers had always headed to Twitter for a chat and we decided that suited us perfectly.<br />
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I'm not against interaction between writers and their audience, per se. In fact, at its best, it's rewarding and inspiring. Nevertheless, there's something too instant, too easy, about the traditional comments area. It's too tempting to pile in without due consideration, or anything enlightening. Sometimes, a few hurdles are no bad thing.<br />
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The demands of advertisers notwithstanding, I propose it is time to sharpen the shears and trim away the bottom half of the internet. I doubt we'd miss it.<br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-6842479765042241572014-10-06T00:16:00.002+01:002014-10-06T00:55:46.359+01:00The stupidity of crowds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In 1938, in the Yorkshire town of Halifax, two women complained they had been attacked by a man with bright shoe buckles, wielding a heavy mallet. Before long, further residents reported assaults by the same individual using knives and razors. Police travelled from London to investigate, but within a month, one victim admitted the wounds were self-inflicted; followed by almost all the others. The attacker, it seems, never existed.<br />
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October 1965, saw the schoolgirls of Blackburn Lancashire falling ill. It began with a handful of young women complaining of dizziness, then 85 girls were rushed to hospital having fainted. Some were convulsing, or gripped by uncontrollable chattering teeth. No cause was ever discovered; no pollution, chemical leak, disease or poisoning.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>These stories are now widely accepted as cases of mass hysteria. Essentially, this is a psychological condition which sees an over-reaction to external events spread from person to person, some of whom may not have been exposed to the initial trigger. It isn't a new phenomenon; there are records of similar instances from the 1500s. But, whereas these occurrences were once anomalies, they are commonplace in the modern era.<br />
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The wailing crowds filling London when Princess Diana died would be a particularly profound example of this state (most didn't know her, and yet displayed all the indicators of personal grief); but popular culture is riddled with mass hysteria. The bobbysoxers going nuts over Sinatra, young ladies losing control at the sight of The Beatles, a helpline flooded with calls following the first Take That break-up - all could reasonably be described as outbreaks of mass hysteria. Indeed, advertisers, promoters and celebrity managers dream of hysterical reactions like these. There's gold in them there neuroses.<br />
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Teenagers becoming spinning tops of lust, excitement and tears when faced with Harry Styles or Olly Murs may be a mystery to their parents (who possibly display similar emotions at Cliff Richard or Barry Manilow shows), but there's no real harm done. In fact, some would argue it's all a healthy part of adolescence and enormous fun while it lasts. However, in a different context, mass hysteria becomes considerably more problematic.<br />
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The phrase 'asylum seeker' is now only heard incidentally, perhaps as part of a wider debate on border control. But a couple of years ago, asylum seekers were considered the personification of everything wrong with British society. Either they were here to soak up millions of pounds in benefits payments, or were on a mission to dilute and corrupt our traditions and values. None of this was true. The lot of an asylum seeker entering Britain was pretty miserable, and their access to welfare subject to rigid restrictions. That didn't matter. Fuelled by the popular media and a political class eager to draw support, these benighted souls became the scapegoat for a spectrum of gripes and dyspeptic annoyance. The asylum system has barely changed since then, but the hysteria has subsided - or at least shifted its focus.<br />
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Child abuse has become such an inflamed subject, that I hesitate to raise it. Obviously it is a horrendously destructive activity, and its perpetrators deserve to be rooted out and punished. Nevertheless, it does provide a perfect illustration of modern mass hysteria. Following the current narrative, one would be forgiven for believing the UK has become a post-apocalyptic dystopia, wherein every child is at clear and present danger from shadowy hoards of slavering molesters. Concern for the safety of the young is admirable and essential, but in this case it has grown out of all proportion to the threat. Statistically, children have never been safer. In Britain, the possibility of abduction and exploitation is now comparatively miniscule. Remember, as recently as the 1900s, child prostitution was visible and accepted on the streets of our major cities. In 2014, a child is thousands of times more likely to be harmed by a speeding car, than a predatory stranger.<br />
Sadly, that is not a picture which suits the public's perception. Caught in a hysteria of misunderstanding, a dreadful but relatively rare crime now drives the daily anxieties of many parents. And the more fearful a family becomes, the more fearful their neighbours become.<br />
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We never learn, though. Looking back at Senator Joe McCarthy's campaign against an imagined communist plot in the American entertainment business in the 1950s, we can easily see it was driven by a widespread paranoia (mass hysteria, by another name) which wrecked lives and careers. We condemn that, but unwittingly undertake similar journeys on a regular basis.<br />
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Mass hysteria doesn't discriminate, it is just as capable of affecting police officers, ministers and news editors as it is of hypnotising the ill-informed. Whether you're a Muslim, a Jew, an immigrant, gay, disabled or just someone who questions received wisdoms, a storm of misguided public opinion can rapidly become a terrifying and harmful tempest.<br />
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If we are to be a genuinely civilised and decent society, it is vital we resist our tendency towards hysterical thinking. The serious issues we face are always complicated and nuanced. Grasping at baseless and glib solutions in order to form a misguided majority is a highly dangerous habit. Best we leave the hysteria to the Directioners and Beliebers.<br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-85320656395984108072014-10-04T00:35:00.002+01:002014-10-04T00:36:57.640+01:00Scottish zombie attack<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This is how it happened - or at least how I became involved. Scrolling through Twitter yesterday, I noticed a message which expressed alarm at real zombies being at large in real Scotland. It was followed by this link: <a href="http://www.motherwelltimes.co.uk/news/zombie-outbreak-in-lanarkshire-1-3558737">http://www.motherwelltimes.co.uk/news/zombie-outbreak-in-lanarkshire-1-3558737</a> - which I clicked.<br />
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<a name='more'></a> As you can see, The Motherwell Times is indeed carrying a report to this effect. According to them, volunteers at a local medical research centre have experienced a violent adverse reaction to a prototype encephalitis treatment. As a result, they have broken out of the building to threaten the public and disrupt the traffic. The piece refers to these people as 'zombies' and invites anyone spotting one of them to call a hotline. <br />
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Highly unlikely? Yes, that's what I thought. And I was right. A quick Google search revealed the research establishment named in the article doesn't exist, and no other media outlet was running the story. My first guess was a hack. I suspected someone had infiltrated the newspaper's site and inserted a spoof page. However, I then noticed the piece was linked from the site's homepage. That wouldn't exclude a hack, but did make it less of a possibility. So I canvassed further opinions from Twitter users, one of whom called the number (which I thought was brave, as it could easily have been a £1000-a-minute con). He told me the line belonged to a Scottish theme park - leading me to take another, more accurate guess. This was an advertisement. <br />
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It transpires the theme park is running a Hallowe'en movie festival and the article has been created to raise awareness of the event, and ultimately sell tickets. All very clever, you may suppose. Guerrilla marketing, viral advertising - that sort of thing, right? Well, possibly - but horribly flawed.<br />
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I should emphasise that I have no problem with a bit of advertising trickery. It can be tremendous fun and highly effective. I'm also very keen on horror movies, but there are genuine ethical problems here. My objections are twofold: <br />
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1. Any serious journalist would emphatically resist the idea of a fabricated story running in a publication's editorial section, as this piece does. It may appear amusing, but it undermines the entire ethos of news gathering and reporting. <br />
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2. To include research into encephalitis, a disease which kills 120,000 people annually, in a jocular hoax, strikes me as incredibly insensitive and in thoroughly bad taste. <br />
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Having spent most of my working life creating and writing advertisements, I'm never averse to strong, adventurous ideas; and this concept is certainly more innovative than a big old banner, flashing away on the masthead. But I'm also a journalist, which means I believe certain boundaries are essential in order to keep news stories credible and reliable. <br />
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Which is why I emailed the editor of the paper, asking whether he thought dressing an advertisement as a news story compromised his website, and whether he considered encephalitis to be a suitable basis for a joke. He replied that he didn't believe anyone would take the story seriously (why not?) and that any illness could be serious or fatal (not true). <br />
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I can only assume his standards are more flexible than my own. <br />
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If one imagines Alistair Stewart, cocking an eyebrow on ITV's evening bulletin, announcing that foreign forces had parked their tanks in Parliament Square, one might well be shocked and surprised. To find, a few hours later, this wasn't the case - and the whole item had been a hoax, designed to promote a new war movie, would be both astonishing and infuriating. What's more, a substantial quantity of trust would have been lost between the broadcaster and the viewer. Yet, that is exactly what the editor has done here. Essentially, he has used an advertisement to deceive his readers - while insulting the memory of those who have lost their lives to a pernicious illness. <br />
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So, I'm sorry Motherwell Times, but this just won't do. No matter how exciting it might be to break 'the rules', there must always be a demarcation between fact and fiction, or news and advertising. Otherwise the 'truth' becomes just another commodity to be bought and sold. And that makes zombies of us all. </div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-55380131395431431842014-09-24T14:58:00.000+01:002014-09-24T14:58:58.593+01:00No thanks<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I must be getting old. I'm still in my forties, but something fundamental has changed in the creative business; something I don't recognise and don't much like. I was a punk, when that was a thing, and I was certainly a truculent teenager, but for all of my adult life I've believed in common courtesy: saying (and writing) 'please' or 'thank you' when you're asking or receiving. These aren't disposable niceties reserved for fuddy-duddies, squares and maiden aunts, they're the very stuff of social interaction and mutual respect. And they're vanishing.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>At least once a week, I'm asked for help or advice from someone hoping to start or advance their career as a writer or creative professional. Almost always arriving as emails, I never ignore these messages. Indeed, I take the time to answer the correspondent's questions as constructively and honestly as possible. Because I remember a time when ambition was all I had, and was lucky enough to find some seasoned creatives prepared to give me a helping hand, I do the same. That's all any decent person would do, so I don't expect praise or reward. What I do expect, is a quick note of thanks. It used to be pretty much guaranteed, but now the opposite is true. <br />
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Last week, I received a list of unsolicited questions from a person launching a blog. These questions were quite badly written, but I ignored that and wrote a couple of paragraphs under each one before wishing this stranger luck with their project. That was the last I heard of them. <br />
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Why should I care? Well, I care because I now feel that questioner took my effort and guidance as something to which they were entitled. The time I took to reply didn't even warrant the five seconds it would have taken to thank me, which tells me this person didn't have the self-respect or social grace to acknowledge my support. And that genuinely matters to me. It should matter to everyone. <br />
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But this isn't a complaint about a single incident, it's a description of a wider malaise. I believe the rudeness in that situation is part of a depressing trend in our industry - a tendency to treat other people very badly. It's this horribly negative attitude that allows recruitment consultants to disregard applications from bright, capable candidates without so much as an acknowledgement. Or leads to agencies ignoring enquiries from potential employees or clients.<br />
Unless I'm remarkably unlucky, there is a general mood of ignorance afoot - and it grows every day. <br />
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Recently, I was absolutely astonished when a manager in the music business put back a Skype conversation twice in a day, and then told me he couldn't make the rearranged call because he was going for 'a cold beer'. This behaviour is quite shocking to me; but worse, it actually undermines confidence, making creative and commercial success less likely. <br />
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So, if you've experienced similar impoliteness, just check you're part of the solution not the problem. And if you're writing to me, or anyone else, for advice - for goodness sake take the time to thank those who reply. It really is the least you can do. <br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-1086210666063038222014-09-22T00:29:00.004+01:002014-09-22T17:01:00.858+01:00Park life<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There’s a point in ELO’s ‘Turn To Stone’ where Jeff Lynne does a proto-rap.<i> “Yes, I’m turnin’ to stone ‘cos you ain’t comin’ home / Why you ain’t comin’ home if I’m turnin’ to stone / You’ve been gone for so long and I can’t carry on / Yes, I’m turnin’, I’m turnin’, I’m turnin’ to stone”</i>, it goes. A second after performing this in Hyde Park last Sunday, Lynne looked to the crowd, mouth agape, as if to say ‘I’m amazed that went so well’. It would be fair to say, this was Jeff’s reaction to the whole occasion.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
This was Radio 2′s ‘Festival In A Day’ – a gathering of listener-friendly acts, various presenters and a sell-out crowd of 50,000. Although, in truth, it was actually the return of ELO to the live stage – everything else being aperitifs and window-dressing.<br />
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I arrived shortly after Chrissie Hynde’s opening set (thanks to the mismanagement of London Underground’s engineering works), so the first performance I caught came from Bellowhead. Although very successful in recent years, being on the undercard doesn’t really suit them – particularly when limited to half a dozen numbers. A Bellowhead set is all about a bounce-around, rough-edged, folk party. A decent party takes time to get going and that was a luxury the band were denied.<br />
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Radio 2′s determination to put their stamp on the day endured no such restrictions. <i>“Please welcome to the stage, Jo Whiley and Clare Teal!”</i> bellowed Alan Dedicoat from the ether, shortly after Bellowhead’s exit. Barely a murmur emerged from the 50,000, well into their picnics by now. And therein lay the problem. The BBC misjudged the audience’s motivations as surely as TFL misjudged the closure of the Northern Line. The production team clearly imagined most people were there to celebrate their radio station. They weren’t. Almost without exception, everyone was there to see and hear Jeff Lynne for the first time in at least 28 years. Unfortunate, because when Ken Bruce popped up somewhere between Paloma Faith and Blondie, to give us an in-situ round of his ‘Pop Master’ quiz, it was so excruciatingly poor, the park’s turf was ruined by half a million curling toes.<br />
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Anyway, on skipped Whiley and Teal to announce Gregory Porter. I’m not overly familiar with Porter’s work, but I do know he was once an professional American Football player, and is now releasing records which enjoy healthy rotation on daytime Radio 2. Good luck to him, but I won’t be expanding my exposure or familiarity any time soon. If tuneless, meandering jazz and predictable late-night soul covers are your bag, then Porter’s your man. He’s certainly not mine.<br />
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At these outdoor bashes, the resetting of the stage provides a few minutes for a leisurely stroll, drinks and a wee. My return to my blanket on the ground coincided with Whiley time. Again. For some unspecified reason, Jo W had been handed responsibility for accompanying a Radio 2 colleague as they introduced each artist. I’ve never been very sure why it’s necessary to have MCs at these affairs. Rural festivals always hire some cheese-voiced local radio jock; at bigger gigs it’ll be a TV comedian or somesuch. At least The Clash had the pleasingly maniacal Kosmo Vinyl, we had to suffer Jo and her friends ceaselessly asking <i>“How you doing Hyde Park?”</i> or suggesting we ‘make some noise’. This time round, her pal was the venerable Bob Harris, strangely plugging an upcoming broadcast featuring Sheryl Crow, before introducing Kacey Musgraves.<br />
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Heading up a commercial path cleared by Taylor Swift, Musgraves is a bona-fide country pop star. The looks, the Texan twang and the oversized acoustic guitar are all in place. Never drops a note, songs nicely crafted and delivered with panache, she’ll be a massive success. Slightly safe and antiseptic? You betcha.<br />
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It was Paloma Faith who had a problem. We could hear her perfectly (the sound engineering was superb throughout the day), but she couldn’t hear her band. In an unsubtle attempt to signal this to the monitor crew, she told us she had given her opening songs over nothing more than the drum track. Which was either daft or brave, because she sounded just grand out front.<br />
<br />
Faith’s eccentric glamour is a very satisfying proposition. But, like Bellowhead, the complete Paloma experience demands a full show. Nevertheless, she gave an entertaining account of herself over a brief appearance, failing equipment notwithstanding. I’d guess we enjoyed her set more than she did.<br />
<br />
Trevor Nelson was the warm-up man for Billy Ocean. Not generally, you understand, just for this show. And another BBC faux-pas this proved to be. Just as we’d become accustomed to Whiley’s over-excited introductions, we were forced to tolerate Trevor actually DJ-ing for 20 minutes. What the appeal of a grinning man playing CDs on a massive stage is intended to be, I can only guess. It was lost on me (and thousands of others). Happily, before Trev attracted a hail of half-chewed scotch eggs, and halfway through ‘Return Of The Mack’, he jumped in to do his big announcement. Ridiculously big. When one thinks of soul artists who are the bedrock of the genre, inspiring generation after generation, Stevie Wonder or Al Green may reasonably spring to mind. Billy Ocean? Not so much. Not even for Trevor Nelson, I suspect. Still, Billy gave us his big hits with gusto, in an expensive-looking white suit. Filler, but very slick filler.<br />
<br />
Then, in the gathering dusk, Hyde Park and its temporary citizens, began to stir. To be honest, the preceding activities had taken place in a mood on the sleepy side of relaxed. Now, the prospect of Blondie was mixing a bit of adrenalin into the overpriced beer.<br />
<br />
Blondie are a draw, no doubt about it. People who adored them at their peak, adore them still – and it’s unthinkable the band would receive an indifferent reaction anywhere in Britain. Objectively speaking, they don’t set the stage alight. Clem Burke is still one of the world’s great drummers and enormously exciting to watch, but Debbie and Chris show their age and are a little more sedate. Not that we want Harry and Stein to career around the place in an undignified frenzy – with such a songbook, what they actually <i>do</i> is somewhat academic. ‘Heart Of Glass’, ‘Call Me’, ‘Atomic’ and ‘Union City Blue’ are such addictively accomplished pop records, just hearing them played live is sufficient to bring on an irresistible reverie. Even a couple of new tunes did nothing to sabotage the enjoyment. What nobody needed was a three minute film on the jumbo screens, telling us who Blondie are. Particularly one that describes them as an ‘American punk band’. There are times when BBC producers need go to their rooms and have a long think.<br />
<br />
By the time we’ve cringed our way through a big-screened, Jo Whiley interview with Debbie Harry (sample question: <i>“How was that for you?”</i>), there’s a palpable, shuffling anticipation about the place. Darkness has transformed the arena’s atmosphere, and the approach of a bearded man from Birmingham suddenly has everyone agitated.<br />
<br />
Patience is a virtue, they say. It certainly is if you’re an ELO fan. Not only has the wait for Jeff Lynne’s return taken up the best part of three decades, his arrival on a breezily warm London evening is delayed by a few minutes by a lighting failure. Chris Evans, on introduction duty, does his best to fill: <i>“You don’t want Mister Red Sky do you?”</i>, then the PA plays a track each from The Kinks and Hot Chocolate.<br />
<br />
Suddenly, and to a hearty cheer, the screens flare into action and, oh dear, here’s a three minute video to tell us who ELO are. Yes, I know. Everybody knows.<br />
<br />
Another heavily pregnant pause, the taller trees swaying gently and a Heathrow bound plane sloping across the sky. And here he is. Jeff Lynne is too modest to do that thing where the front-man comes on 30 seconds after the rest of the group, but so welcome is his appearance very few people notice the band and the BBC Concert Orchestra taking their spots around him. It’s all eyes on Jeff, who gives a cheery wave and heads straight into ‘All Over The World’. It’s immaculate. Not that opening number specifically, but the whole package. An enormous animated planet Earth rolls away on the screen at the rear of the stage. The orchestra saw away with vigour and precision, white and orange beams swoop over the crowd and above the park; and in the middle of it all, stands a bloke in a white dress shirt and dark suit, his trademarks present and correct. The bushy auburn hair is only moderately thinner than it was (and perhaps the colour has been given a helping hand); the beard trimmed and glossy, and the aviator shades more recognisable than their owner’s face.<br />
<br />
Ask anybody who knows the music business and they’ll tell you: Jeff Lynne is one the most unassuming and clubbable rock stars you’d ever wish to meet. With three successful bands (The Move, ELO and The Travelling Wilburys) and a Beatles producer credit on his CV, he’d be forgiven a slight swagger, but there’s no sign of it. When he tells us it’s ‘amazing’ to be standing there, we believe him. When he says <i>“We’ll have to do this again!” </i>everyone crosses their fingers.<br />
<br />
I’d love to shock you and say the rest of the set was made up of obscure album tracks and ‘new stuff’. Then dissect and debate as to whether this was artistically courageous or daylight robbery – but that didn’t happen. Of course it didn’t. Jeff Lynne has worked in showbiz long enough to know what his audience expects – and has no intention of disappointing. Other than The Wilburys’ ‘Handle With Care’ and a non-single from ‘Out Of The Blue’, there are no left turns. ‘Evil Woman’, ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’, ‘Telephone Line’, ‘Rock And Roll Is King’ and ‘Mister Blue Sky’ – they’re all here, sounding as full and dramatic as they should. On the screen, the ELO spaceship glides through space, while a park load of parents and portly old rock fans urge on the man they took to their hearts many years before. As 90 minutes of genuine affection and emotional goodwill ricochet around, jiving breaks out and tears are shed, until the echoes of a rollicking ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ send us back into the city.<br />
<br />
Cynics may point out that this wasn’t ELO. Jeff and Richard Tandy (taking the part of musical director and looking like a wealthy tax accountant) were the only original members playing, and legalities insist this is ‘Jeff Lynne’s ELO’. They may also suggest the whole set was a little too much like the records, with scant room for improvisation or invention. But this wasn’t a night for cynicism.<br />
<br />
True, Jeff Lynne didn’t transform popular music. That was never his remit. He wasn’t the first person to use orchestral arrangements on rock records. He doesn’t claim to be. His songs often sound perilously close to late period Beatles, and yet he is the master of his brief. And his brief is to write, record and occasionally perform celebratory music that asks nothing more than you feel happier for a while. He does that brilliantly. Yes, we really <i>must</i> do this again.<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-54906620774716266112014-09-19T15:35:00.001+01:002014-09-19T15:38:02.672+01:00All bets are off<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Here we go again. Yet another campaign for The National Lottery (TNL), and it stinks. This has been going on for years, of course. If you can stand to, cast your mind back to any TNL marketing, branding or advertising and tell me whether you can recall anything good, or even creatively interesting. Actually, don't bother because you can't.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>The first work for TNL is actually the stuff that most readily springs to mind - which says something about the quality of the subsequent work. I'm sure you'll remember that big finger, floating around low-rent neighbourhoods before selecting some unlikely sap, pointing them out and saying 'It's You!'. Yes, well that received a right slating, largely because it gave the impression that winning the lottery was quite likely. Which it isn't. In fact, you have a better chance of picking up the phone, dialling a random number and getting through to Buckingham Palace, than you do of bagging the jackpot. So that original strapline was replaced with 'It Could Be You!'. Which, in a rather unconvincing way, is true I suppose. The pointy finger was also switched for two crossed fingers and a smiley face, which didn't really help either.<br />
<br />
And so, with almost twenty years to get it right, we're still no closer to a reasonable TNL campaign. Last year we were presented with the worst effort to date (which I wrote about for the <a href="http://creativepool.com/magazine/company_news/advertising/thanks-to-the-new-lotto-campaign-we-all-lose-.2262?from=search:The%20National%20Lottery;;:0">CP Magazine</a>). For no good reason Gilbert O Sullivan's hit 'Wakka Doo Wakka Day' was purloined and re-sung, to give us a string of 'ordinary' people warbling "I got me ticket / I hope I win it / Singing ooh wakka do whadda day." I know, brilliant isn't it? <br />
<br />
Understandably, that's all been scrapped now. Less understandably, we've been served with another heap of tripe. Here's the big line: 'Play Makes It Possible'. This allows TNL to state some glorious fact about their terrible-odds game (which now costs twice as much as it did at launch), and add that phrase as a rejoinder. For instance "Last year we raised xx millions for good causes. Play makes it possible." <br />
<br />
But what kind of cheap blackmail is that? What they're actually saying is, if you don't take part in our shabby tax on hope, there'll be nothing for all those lovely charities. When they repeat the exercise, but quote a jackpot in place of money raised, it gets even worse. 'Play this thing, or there'll be no cash prizes any more', they appear to be yelling in our faces. 'If this goes down the pan' they add 'It'll all be your fault'.<br />
<br />
As with all bad advertising, this work speaks to the target audience
as if they were children. Explaining how a lottery works, as though
everyone was completely clueless. We pay the money in, and that's the
money the winner gets, you say? Well, blow me down.<br />
Handily, they fail to run an execution describing how play makes Camelot's profits possible.<br />
Perhaps a decent ad for TNL is an impossibility; a brief too far that
can never be answered without resorting to the most banal and tacky of
solutions. Either way, I never play the lottery and, on the strength of
all those hopeless campaigns, it's a safe bet I never will. </div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-33554387004630441722014-09-19T15:31:00.000+01:002014-09-19T15:39:20.171+01:00Apple pips<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Of all the things Apple do well, creating a hullabaloo is one of the best. Despite ongoing wars and Scotland's bid for independence, the launch of a new product still performed well in the news agenda on Tuesday. Live from Cupertino, the world's hippest tech company put on a show to rival the biggest movie premiere, presidential inauguration or royal wedding. In terms of global audience, it was an unrivalled success. <br />
<br />
But strip away the fripperies and rock bands (U2 played some songs, as if you hadn't noticed), and was all the fuss and bluster worth the candle? Well, almost but not quite.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Bono and the boys weren't the headline act, because this was all about the iPhone 6. Just as owners of the iPhone 5 had adopted sneering at owners of the iPhone 4 as a rather neat lifestyle, suddenly we're all archaic twerps, thanks to our lack of the new futuristic oblong. <br />
<br />
There'll always be a hardcore of Apple addicts who will welcome the arrival of a new iPhone as if greeting golden beings from Venus. The rest of us are free to view new product a bit more objectively. From what I've seen, tremors of excitement may well be a terrible overreaction. Without the honour of actually operating an iPhone 6, my opinion must be based on appearances - and the most noticeable feature is the larger screen. This is long overdue. I believe Apple allowed Android (particularly the Samsung Galaxy) to grab a hefty slice of market-share by sticking with the relatively small 'framed' screen. So, while a more sizeable frontage on the iPhone is welcome, it now looks as though Apple is playing catch-up. Which is not really in keeping with their brand position. <br />
<br />
I don't know how much it costs to develop an iPhone with an extended screen, but if I were running the iPhone project, I'd have gone for battery life. Obviously, I'm no technology entrepreneur, but I am still convinced that any company introducing a smart phone with a five day battery capacity, will do very nicely indeed. I'm sure there's a very good scientific reason why this hasn't been done, but it's a prize for the taking. <br />
And still, U2 had to wait for their moment of glory, because next came a proper surprise. Well, I say that, there had been rumours for months, but nobody was really betting on an iWatch. However, that's what we got (actually, we're supposed to call it an Apple watch; the whole 'i' thing seems to be dead or dying). To date, Apple have excelled at rectangles. The iPad, iPod, various laptops and the iPhone have all followed those basic dimensions. This is something different. It's round and you wear it.<br />
Again, Apple aren't first to market with this. A Galaxy watch appeared earlier this year - and seeing its clunky profile left me very sceptical about such objects. The Apple watch, though, does look quite attractive. That is, it looks like a proper watch. It's going to be available in various shapes, with various straps, so I can just about see people wearing them without fear of being called an ostentatious idiot. Sadly, I'm afraid I can't comment on the functionality until Apple send me one to review. Don't hold your breath for that. <br />
<br />
Finally, the band had their shot. And Apple, being what they are, weren't content to simply have a megagroup perform. Oh, no. U2 also had new product to push, which comes in the form of a new album called 'Songs Of Innocence'. Handily, you can pick up a copy on iTunes - for free. That's right, U2's new collection has been paid for by Apple. Indeed, some subscribers have found it sitting in their libraries unrequested. I've yet to find anybody pleased about this, funnily enough. Perhaps, these days, U2 can't even give their music away. <br />
<br />
And there you have it. Two new iPhones, an Apple watch and a free U2 album. That's how you create a hullabaloo; that's how you create a market. Moreover, the real beauty lies in Apple's ability to do it all over again when the Apple watch 2.0 is launched. Just imagine how inadequate we'll feel about our mark-one models then.<br />
</div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-63637729946855042482014-09-04T16:51:00.002+01:002014-09-04T16:51:35.442+01:00Rocky relationships<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
'Love Will Keep Us Together' - that's what the Captain and Tenille told us, and who are we to argue with a naval officer and his good lady? Actually, as Tenille divorced Captain earlier this year, perhaps we could construct a decent argument against their assertion. Indeed, the evidence is everywhere: nothing destroys a friendship, partnership or romance like a career in popular music. For every Ben Watt and Tracy Thorn, there are dozens of Jones and Strummers, collapsing in acrimony, accusation, jealousy and bad blood. What is it about rock and roll? How can such a creatively free and potentially rewarding activity have such a pernicious impact on human closeness? I'm no Relate counsellor, but I'd point to ego, confusion and emotional overload. <br /><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Ego and professional musicianship are inextricably linked. Even before the recordings, gigs and fame (none of which is guaranteed) - there's something inherently self-regarding about the desire to produce music and release it to an audience, with the expectation of approval and delight. The urge to stand in front of a crowd and perform one's works, must require a level of egomania. What other motivation could there be?<br /> <br /> At the start of a group's career, the adoration and affirmation are merely mutual aspirations; and so the partnership has a common purpose and the bonds are stronger for it. But when the glory arrives, the ties are weakened and warped, and it's all too easy for one member to believe they alone are responsible for the success. This then becomes a battlefield, where simmering resentment and bitter presumption are the weapons. Under fire from swollen egos, friendship and camaraderie collapse in bloody heaps. When 'Come On' made the UK chart, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards must have thanked their lucky stars they'd found each other on that Dartford station. Less than two decades later, Keith was telling anyone who'd listen how Jagger's solo performances of 'Tumbling Dice' to Japanese audiences, we're moving him to a near-murderous reaction. <br /><br />Huge appreciation of one's creative effort is enormously gratifying of course, but it changes everything. A string of million-selling records not only delivers unimagined material wealth and a luxurious lifestyle, it also distorts perception and understanding. It confuses. Having generated some of the most important music we'll ever know, could a row over business management really have driven a jagged blade between Lennon and McCartney? Of course it could. Their status as the undisputed deities of pop distorted everything. The world wanted them to remain conjoined, forever united by their gifts, but that was the wish of the rest of humanity. For the men themselves, further works were less important than contracts and petty conflicts. From the inside, priorities were so skewed that the music was no longer relevant - being 'right' was the primary impulse. Exit The Beatles. <br /><br />And that's all before we introduce the tempests of the human heart. Almost every adult has known the soaring joys and churning woes that accompany romantic love. When those emotions become fused with the indulgences and temptations of spectacular creative achievement, the storm can be unbearable. If you were a member of Fleetwood Mac in the mid-seventies, gargantuan sales figures and universal popularity would have told you that your music career had reached such an unlikely pinnacle, that it would be most unwise to jeopardise the situation. Common sense, right? But common sense holds no sway over unrestricted lust (and, it must be said, liberal cocaine use). With two 'marriages' in the band, and a propensity for fluid allegiances and unbridled bed-hopping, no amount of planet-gobbling albums could save them. The love of a global fan base, concentrated with that of various lovers creates a tsunami of emotion, too overwhelming for the mortal soul. As it crashes in, all is swept asunder, leaving nothing but regret and shattered hearts. <br /><br />To know one's music is played and treasured by millions of people, in dozens of countries, on a daily basis, must be intoxicating and deeply satisfying. It's not hard to understand why anyone with ideas and skill would want to reach that point. Unfortunate then, that this road is not coated with the smoothest tarmac, but riddled with potholes, pitfalls, ruts and rocks. Only the most robust, or perhaps unusual, relationships ever survive the journey unscathed. Just ask Difford and Tilbrook, Hadley and the Kemps, Boy George and Jon Moss, Morrissey and Marr, Gilmour and Waters, Dollar, Sam and Dave - or even the Captain & Tenille. <br /><br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-9703695840487354222014-08-20T12:43:00.001+01:002014-08-20T12:43:56.010+01:00Reflections on the death of Robin Williams.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Since Robin Williams took his life, around 17,000 people will have done the same. Because of our tendency to filter all human experience through celebrity, and because most of us know his work, our focus has been on Robin. <br />
<br />
It was a terrible thing to happen. For the majority it was perplexing and perhaps, shocking. For Williams’ wife and children, his death will have been utterly traumatising – to the extent that the wound may never fully heal. We cannot possibly say what it meant to Robin. A British coroner would state that he ended his life ‘while the balance of his mind was disturbed’, but this is euphemistic. It is just as likely that he took the action in a moment of determination and sudden clarity. Self destruction can be a longed-for release as much as it can be the compulsion of utter despair. We can speculate endlessly; but we will never know.<br /><br />
<a name='more'></a>Such events create a brief, but intense flashpoint. They trigger myriad reactions and behaviours. Williams’ fans would have experienced a sudden and unexpected sense of loss (which we must not confuse with the piercing grief of those who loved him). Others, also in the grip of mental distress, would have felt a kinship with someone they didn’t know, but who was now revealed to be a fellow traveller on a cruel, cruel road. <br />
<br />
Then there are those for whom the news was just that: big news. Reporters in newspaper offices, television studios and radio stations, from Manchester to Missouri, seized the story and went to work. There’s no shame in a media organisation conveying the fact of Robin Williams’ suicide to an audience. The death of any prominent figure is, and always will be, newsworthy. It’s the manner in which the detail is gathered and communicated that deserves our scrutiny. Perhaps, in our weary cynicism, we should no longer be shocked that so many outlets were found wanting in this respect, but the collapse of sensitivity and common decency was significant. In the US, the ABC News homepage quoted the Williams family as ‘asking for privacy…at this very difficult time’. Above that was a scrolling banner which read ‘WATCH LIVE – AERIALS OF WILLIAMS’ HOME’. Their capitals. Their helicopters. <br />
<br />
In the UK, The Samaritans rushed a message to the editors of our national papers. It contained their guidelines on the reporting of suicide. They knew the piece would make the front pages and were all too aware of the potential influence such a story has on anyone considering taking their life. The organisation understands the media must do its job, they simply work to prevent further harm. <a href="http://www.samaritans.org/news/media-briefing-and-comment-death-robin-williams">You can read the guidelines here.</a> <br />
<br />
Whether anyone of seniority at those newspapers, or anyone at all, read the message isn’t clear. Either way, several publications breached the advice, running headlines and copy which conflicted with The Samaritans’ suggestions. This only matters if one believes the media’s substantial power comes with a moral imperative, an obligation to care about its audience and its social function. If the impetus is merely to make money from sensation, then I suppose it doesn’t matter a jot. <br />
<br />
This week’s news has at least thrust the subject of depression into the limelight. It is going too far to say there is an upside, but this hideous condition is obviously deserving of deeper awareness and understanding. Without embarrassment, I can say I have suffered from depressive illness. Statistically, I’m likely to suffer from it again. My only reticence in telling you this, is the term ‘depression’. The word’s usage has become so widespread it now fails to distinguish between a feeling of sadness or grumpiness, and being clinically ill. Which is problematic, because the gulf between the two states is enormous. <br />
<br />
Without surprise, I noticed commentators on social media questioning Robin Williams’ condition. He was fantastically successful, well-liked, wealthy, married with a loving family – what in the world did he have to be depressed about? This indicates the level of confusion around depression. Nobody would ask why a Hollywood star wasn’t immune to diabetes, and yet somehow Williams wasn’t ‘entitled’ to be mentally unwell. I don’t blame people for posing the question, they are simply ignorant of the facts: depression is a disorder as real and dangerous as cancer, thrombosis, or haemophilia. It is caused by chemical and electrical malfunctions in the brain, and cannot be relieved by ‘cheering up’ or ‘thinking positively’. Although treatable with medication and other therapies, its symptoms are hellish. For an astonishingly frank, powerfully moving and contemporary account of depression’s impact, I would urge anyone to read <a href="http://annabelgiles.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/depression-a-view-from-the-inside/">this post</a> from the blog of TV presenter Annabel Giles. <br />
<br />
On his show, the sports broadcaster Alan Brazil said he thought Williams was ‘selfish’. I’m sure this was a bid for some shock-jock notoriety. Nevertheless, in a way Brazil was right. When a cloak of bleak fear and gnawing anxiety has you in its grip, it is very hard to look outside oneself. But that is not the real person, it’s the illness.<br />
That so many of Robin’s friends and associates have described him as a generous, decent man is entirely expected. Depressives often are. Perhaps a long gaze into the abyss of despair cannot help but produce a capacity for compassion and empathy when the illness lifts. Although it has now been revealed that Williams was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, he was also a person prone to depressive episodes. Which, if either, of these difficulties drove him to take his life is unknown. However, the agonies of depression are more than capable of producing suicidal urges – indeed, a preoccupation with death is part of the syndrome. As surely as a coronary, depression can kill. Which is why we have a duty to support those overwhelmed by this illness. <br />
<br />
For its ability to steal intelligent, caring and talented people from the world; and its appalling knack of reducing happy, strong individuals to stricken, tortured souls, we owe it to ourselves to know this spectre better.<br />
<br />
********************************** <br />
<br />
The Samaritans: 08457 90 90 90 <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.samaritans.org/">www.samaritans.org</a> <br />
<br />
MIND: 0300 123 3393 <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.mind.org.uk/">www.mind.org.uk</a> <br />
<br />
**********************************<br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-76822601048718363832014-08-20T12:37:00.000+01:002014-08-20T12:40:28.761+01:00Why I still don't 'get' Facebook.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Do you remember when Tony Blair said he couldn't use a computer? I
do, because it infuriated me. At the time, he was leader of one the
world's largest economies and democracies, and there he was, smirking
gleefully about the fact that he couldn't operate the most versatile
tool ever created. Quite pathetic.<br />
That's not me. I'm not quite a geek, but I am pretty well wired. I've
designed and built websites, can code a little bit, was emailing in the
late nineties, was an early adopter of broadband and so on. So, please
believe me when I say that, unlike Mr. Blair, I'm no luddite. So why
don't I get Facebook?<br />
<br />
Sure, I understand what it is, and even have some knowledge of its
advertising model. I also have an account, because in the past, various
clients expected it. But faced with the site itself, I'd be better off
with the blueprints for a nuclear submarine.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>I was reminded of this befuddlement this morning, when I received an
email from Facebook telling me I had two messages and one poke.
Incidentally, the word 'poke' has the same schoolboy double-meaning in
America as it does here -so you can tell Facebook was built by
students. Anyway, I receive this message every morning. Because I don't
engage with Facebook in any active way, those numbers rarely change.
However, I know the messages are 'friend' requests from former school
colleagues (and if they happen to be reading this, I certainly don't
intend any rudeness, but come on fellas, it was 35 years ago). The
'poke', and it is the only one I have ever received, came from someone I
know very well, and he sent it five years ago. Yes, five years since he
clicked the button, and Facebook still emails me daily about it!<br />
<br />
Most mornings, I delete the message along with all the badly spelt
notices telling me the FBI has a million dollar cheque waiting. This
morning though, I clicked on it, just to see if there was any way I
could stop the notifications.<br />
<br />
The click took me to, what I assume to be my Facebook homepage. Laid
out in all their glory, were postings from people I only vaguely
recognise, telling me they were waiting for friends in coffee shops;
endless pictures of babies doing baby things; a few promotional messages
from months ago and some ads. Then there was a menu of buttons for
feeds, searches, gifts, music, games and other things, on the left. On
the right, a huge string of people with thumbnail photos, most of whom I
didn't recognise. So here's my question: what am I supposed to do?<br />
<br />
I tweet. In fact, I tweet rather too much (<a href="http://twitter.com/ROCKINGVICAR" target="_blank">@ROCKINGVICAR</a>
if you're interested). That social facility had me hooked in about an
hour. Its remit is beautifully simple: give the world something pithy,
emotional or engaging in 140 characters. As a writer, that's a challenge
I cannot refuse.<br />
I suppose Twitter is only second to Google in elegant simplicity. For
all its owners' faults, you have to admire the Google homepage. One
logo, one box in which to type. So minimal, it conquered the world.
Facebook feels like the exact opposite. As though the Zuckerberg gang
can't stop thinking of stuff to stick on the site. So much stuff, it's
all but impossible to decide on a worthwhile activity. It's like a
breakfast buffet - eggs, no sausages, no fruit salad, no yoghurt, no
porridge. Actually, I'm not that hungry.<br />
<br />
I never did work out how to stop the messages and poking. The
realisation that I still didn't really understand the Facebook appeal
drove me away long before I could investigate that operation. <br />
Of course, Facebook has conquered the world too. The problem clearly
lies with me, and I can't help feeling I must be missing something - but
missing it I surely am.</div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-78690857115442684982014-08-04T14:44:00.002+01:002014-08-04T14:46:24.532+01:00Three score years and ten.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
L.P. Hartley’s novel ‘The Go-Between’, opens with the words “The past is another country. They do things differently there.” To me, the memorable past is the 1970s, and at this remove, it feels more like another planet. Albeit a planet I rather miss. <br />
<br />
In the mid-seventies, on Angel Row in Nottingham, there was a kiosk. Commonplace in all city centres, kiosks were walk-up shops selling sweets, cigarettes, newspapers and the like. This one was run by a couple of Indian brothers and they sold something called ‘Bengal matches’. Essentially, these were tiny fireworks. As with the familiar red-tipped matches, they came in a stiff card box, but were half-coated in a black substance. On striking they would ignite into a blaze of red, blue or green and burn for ten seconds or so. They were quite brilliant, and I felt incomplete if I didn’t have a box in my pocket. Anybody could buy them, and only the most timid of parents objected. Eventually, some pyrotechnics legislation outlawed their sale, and like that decade, they were gone forever. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> My nostalgia for the ten years which took me from five years old to my teens, isn’t rose-tinted. Quiet apart from any other consideration, my father died in 1975, so my recollections don’t appear in a Vaseline-smeared haze of idyll and untainted quaintness – quite the opposite. The seventies appear in my memory as a battered and scuffed period. Despite that, or even because of it, they also come back to me as a ‘grown-up’ era. <br />
<br />
After the post-war consensus and economic boom of the fifties, which then gave out to the experimental and liberating sixties, we were presented with a world of hope and possibilities, of space exploration, sexual freedom, luxury goods and foreign travel. What we received was the end of The Beatles and the start of such heartaches as fuel crises, industrial turmoil, instability and devaluation. And yet we were now equipped with an insight and maturity that allowed excitingly new creative adventures: a final blast at music, movies and television, before the stench of focus-groups and accountants seeped into it all. <br />
<br />
The writer (and co-founder of this website) David Hepworth, flags 1971 as the zenith for popular music – and thereby a thousand pub debates are ignited. But allow the remaining nine years of the decade into the argument and it is almost unassailable: ‘Led Zeppelin 4′, ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, ‘After The Gold Rush’, ‘The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust’, ‘Transformer’, ‘Parallel Lines’, ‘Fun House’, ‘London Calling’, ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’, ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ ‘Exodus’. As this isn’t a list piece, I’ll pause there – but, y’know, crikey!<br />
And while there are vast, musical oceans between each of these collections (another sign of merit), they all have that ‘grown-up’ feel running through them. This was serious music, not in a pretentious Captain Beefheart way, but in a way that insisted successful records had depth, substance and invention. Even bands considered ‘throwaway’ at the time were actually putting out vivid and vital material. Go get yourself a copy of ‘Slade In Flame’ or ‘The Slider’ – you’ll see my point. <br />
<br />
As I was a British child in the 1970s, I didn’t spend any time whatsoever pounding the slushy sidewalks of New York or the sweltering alleyways of LA. So it is hard to pinpoint precisely why the imported TV programmes, which showed me these places, had such resonance. Nevertheless, to this day, the gritty, bruised American cities I first saw on our wood-finish telly, conjure a tainted, litter-strewn glamour I find irresistible. It’s there in the opening titles of ‘Starsky and Hutch’, ‘Kojak’ and ‘The Streets Of San Francisco’. Rusting fire-escapes, smoke-choked bars, brown leather jackets and aviator shades, go-go dancers, enormously flat cars and elaborate chest jewellery for men. These seedily exciting images, always underpinned by signature tunes loaded with punchy brass and wah-wah guitar pedals, all seem faintly absurd now, but strangely real; infinitely more so than ‘Hollyoaks’ or ‘The Only Way Is Essex’. <br />
<br />
British TV in the seventies wasn’t quite so mean or exotic, and there was an awful lot of rubbish (as there was in America, we just didn’t see it). However, this was also the time of Monty Python, Dad’s Army, The Sweeney, and Doctor Who. Besides, TVs and screens weren’t the kids’ staple then. Playing ‘out on bikes’ was always preferable to the box. <br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in Hollywood, astonishing things were afoot. I am unshakeable in my belief that the best motion pictures we will ever see were shot in the seventies. ‘Kloot’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘Jaws’, ‘The Godfather’, ‘Badlands’, ‘Don’t Look Now’, ‘The Exorcist’, ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’… again, I’ll halt – but this is a very long list of extraordinary brilliance. I hope you’ll also see that maturity, integrity and authenticity I associate with the decade, in all these pictures. <br />
<br />
The lynchpin of the early 21st century is technology. Not only does it preoccupy and shape our lives and work, it has almost become the fabric of western society. In the seventies, we didn’t crave this revolution, staring at our digital watches and willing them to turn into iPads. Some basic technology was there (pocket calculators, for instance) but we didn’t really give it a second thought. Computers only appeared in science fiction flicks and a gleaming, lemon-yellow Raleigh Chopper was substantially more stirring than anything that bleeped. <br />
<br />
No, this wasn’t a time of miracles and wonders, more a time of risk and edginess – that was, and is, the appeal. When the Sex Pistols suggested a philosophy of anarchy it didn’t seem particularly unlikely. Governments fell with alarming regularity in the seventies (two in 1974), domestic terrorism was a frequent occurrence, and the UK was forced to present a begging bowl to the World Bank. There was plenty to be grimly mature about, but ‘Anarchy In The UK’ was released just four years before the onset of Thatcherism. That 1979 election victory then heralded a slow, inexorable homogenisation of the culture. In the 1980s ‘The Exorcist’ became ‘Ghostbusters’, ‘Ziggy Stardust became ‘Let’s Dance’. A new hygiene began to impose itself, replacing the rough-edged creative maturity with a somewhat sickly and artificial optimism, urging wealth, purchase-power and individual victory over our own personal Argentinas. <br />
<br />
I don’t deny there’s always something wondrous about the era in which you grew up, whenever that happened to be. For my kids, it was the nineties – and I have no doubt they will find aspects of that decade evocative and pleasing, as they look back on their early years. Which is why it would be unfair of me to assert the 1970s were in any way better. Only that the seventies hold an enormous enchantment for me. Which is why I wanted to give a flavour of the era from my standpoint. After all, it’s never coming back is it?</div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-79148266472800595442014-07-31T16:23:00.001+01:002014-08-04T14:46:53.919+01:00Broadly speaking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Other than reckless and reluctant banks, what would you say is the biggest hindrance to small business, in the UK? High rents? Punitive rates? How about broadband? <br />
<br />
You would imagine the internet has been nothing but a boon to business, what with the increased efficiency of communications, more flexible marketing channels, and a whole new route to the customer. And of course, in many ways, it has. But, as with all technology, it's essential to keep pace with the competition, and there's substantial evidence to show we are failing.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>According to the City AM paper, a report from the Federation of Small Business (FSB) finds that broadband targets across the UK are not sufficient to meet the demands of businesses, and some companies are finding it hard to communicate with clients online. <br />
What's more, firms in rural areas face particular difficulties with weak or no broadband coverage at all. Although many urban companies also face major problems. Only 15% of business operators are entirely satisfied with their access to the internet and, incredibly, 45,000 firms are still using dial-up connections. <br />
<br />
So, while domestic internet use in this country is actually ahead of the European average, business users are still hobbled by a restricted service. <br />
<br />
How on earth did we find ourselves in a situation where the most vital of commercial tools is performing so badly? <br />
<br />
The UK does a few things very well. Pop music and the creative arts would be two shining examples - and certainly, the British advertising industry is the envy of most other countries. But we tend to make a real hash of infrastructure. Look at the railways: dreadfully expensive, still unreliable, overly full and dirty. We're a tiny island, and yet no mobile phone network is able to provide complete coverage. And our utility suppliers appear free to operate something we are not supposed to call a cartel, but looks a lot like one. <br />
<br />
This stems from our obsession with profitability. For over thirty years, the political climate has insisted that everything from healthcare to water must be delivered within a market. Nothing must be provided simply because it is necessary for a modern, industrial nation to function correctly and thrive, but always with an eye on margin and shareholder value. Hence the filthy trains, the patchy mobile network and the flagging broadband. This is horribly short sighted. <br />
<br />
A fair few global companies arrange for their executives to attend 'fly-in' meetings at airports; whereby a number of bodies in suits will literally fly into a central destination for a single gathering, before winging off again. Of course, while they're at the meeting they will spend on refreshments, room hire and so on. Heathrow used to be a very popular hub for these things, until word spread that the broadband wasn't free, nor was it dependable. 'Fly-in' meetings were duly shifted to places like Amsterdam or Seoul. <br />
<br />
Actually, speaking of South Korea, it's worth mentioning that their government provide an 'umbrella', wireless broadband service. Wherever you happen to be, you can rely on a fast, universal connection to the web. What the Koreans realised was that investment in such a network would repay itself many times over, simply through increased business opportunities. We're obviously not that smart. <br />
<br />
If you happen to be reading this, and you're a minister of state, may I suggest that a scheme to shave 15 minutes of a rail journey from Sheffield to London, at the cost of scores of billions of pounds, will be considerably less effective economically, than a Korean style, umbrella wireless broadband system? <br />
It has to be worth considering. Unless of course you've yet to make the connection between a speedy internet and commercial success. In which case, we haven't a hope. <br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-49572685693119137042014-07-14T10:55:00.002+01:002014-08-04T14:45:34.358+01:00The future is bright.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So many acts convince themselves they are a ‘Great British Band’; mistaking ubiquity, arrogance and general fame, for grandeur, significance and longevity. As if status is their ultimate goal, rather than breaking new creative ground. But when we examine the nature of the truly ‘Great British Band’ we see that acquiring such a title isn’t really part of the plan. Of course, The Kinks, The Clash, The Stones, and Led Zeppelin were very sure of themselves, rightly believing they had something important and different to deliver, and the determination to do so. However, in all these cases, it was a musical urge which drove them. The glory and acclaim were happenstance. <br />
<br />
And so it is with Manic Street Preachers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Despite an original blueprint to release a debut album, sell a million and break up, the band has actually done something close to the opposite. From the off, when four angry, painted Welshmen released their ‘New Art Riot’ EP in 1988, they created a stir – if only in the pages of the music weeklies (which they have assuredly outlived). Opinions were rigidly divided, the naysayers claiming the group were merely plastic punks, the converted asserting they’d discovered a new force in indie rock. What nobody considered was the possibility they were hearing an act which would be making a cultural impact in the second decade of the 21st century. Possibly because there was nothing to suggest such a trajectory. With genuinely ‘Great British Bands’ there rarely is. <br />
<br />
I have no desire to cause an unnecessary storm with Beatles comparisons – Manic Street Preachers and The Fabs are from utterly different eras, with completely different expectations and intentions. That said, there is a parallel in their careers: evolution. When The Beatles split in 1971, they were physically and musically unrecognisable from the whip-cracking scousers who won their spurs in Hamburg and shook their heads furiously in The Cavern. They had shaped their times and in turn had been shaped. Their ideas and songs had expanded and morphed as they explored the possibilities of their collective talent. Despite, or perhaps because of, the frictions, tragedies, loves, hates and uncertainties, they continued; because they instinctively knew they hadn’t finished. And, until 1971, they managed this because every time they set to work, they evolved. <br />
<br />
This same expeditionary motivation lives in Manic Street Preachers. Even though they were forced to confront the loss of a key member, they understood the journey wasn’t over. Indeed, their most successful albums lay ahead of them. It’s more than their underrated talent that makes them such a continuingly attractive proposition. It’s the intrigue of observing a group as they evolve and evolve again. Sometimes the process takes them down dead ends (‘Lifeblood’ and ‘Know Your Enemy’ are sited as low watermarks), but all ‘Great British Bands’ stumble and trip. The greatness stems from the refusal to be deterred, and the knowledge there is plenty more ammunition in the arsenal. <br />
<br />
I’m sure James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore didn’t expect their new collection, ‘Futurology’, to be swept into the national consciousness on a gale of acclaim. They simply made the album they felt ready to make. It just so happened to be the right record at the right time – and it is a stupendous work. Released this week to almost unequivocal delight, as I write it is sitting very comfortably at number two. An unexpected result, but a typically unpredictable Manics’ victory. <br />
<br />
Ironically, given its name, ‘Futurology’ is a rather retrospective album (which isn’t to say the title wasn’t chosen for that very reason). Taking its cues from Bowie’s Berlin period, as well as the icily satisfying ‘krautrock’ of Neu and Can, the feeling is one of reaching into the past to present something uniquely contemporary. The stunning single ‘Walk Me To The Bridge’ even recalls Phil Lynott’s Top of the Pops theme ‘Yellow Pearl’ – and such is the band’s skill, they make that an asset.<br />
<br />
In 28 years, there have been many occasions when Manic Street Preachers appeared to have dropped the baton. Either by releasing records which didn’t quite catch fire, or by finding themselves at the wrong end of fashion’s curve, their demise seemed regretfully imminent. Self-evidently, that was a false impression. For here they are, not only perfectly attuned to their time, audience and market, but setting a standard for lesser or younger acts. <br />
<br />
With ‘Futurology’, the Manics have proved their enormous value and significance to British music. We’re in love with them all over again and nobody deserves it more. The time has come to stop prevaricating and recognise that those angry, painted men have, against all prediction, become ‘A Great British Band’. In fact, at this moment, we may have to adjust that – they have become ‘The Great British Band.’<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-497614926321497392014-06-18T11:21:00.003+01:002014-08-04T14:47:21.652+01:00A day in The Sun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In much the same way as cinemas now use the lure of movies to sell popcorn at vast profit, so the World Cup can be seen as deploying football games as a lure to sell enormous quantities of advertising. Which is absolutely fine by me as I find advertising infinitely more interesting than sport. Actually, I find everything infinitely more interesting than sport; but I digress. My point is, to advertisers, the appeal of the captive audience is just as great as the actual event - and no more so than The Sun. <br />
<br />
Since Rupert Murdoch bought the paper in 1969, it has successfully positioned itself as a publication with the 'common' touch; very much addressing itself to the male, working class readership. It was the first newspaper to feature a topless woman every day, for instance (thereby becoming rather too 'common' for some observers). As with almost all the print media industry, The Sun's readership has tailed off somewhat since the advent of the internet, but it still holds its own and is easily the UK's most popular tabloid. Unsurprisingly, what with its blokeish connections and avowed popularism, The Sun is very keen to associate itself with the World Cup and England's progress (or lack of it) through the tournament. So much so that, last week, it produced a special copy of the paper and gave it away to every household in the country.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>That is no mean feat. Nor is it cheap. There are roughly 24 million households in Britain. For obvious reasons, this special edition wasn't sent to Liverpool, so let's call it 20 million recipients. Even if News UK, the owners of The Sun, cut a deal with Royal Mail, the campaign must have cost at least £10m in postage alone. So, was it worth it? <br />
<br />
I very much doubt this endeavour increased the paper's circulation greatly. People who buy The Sun are already very loyal, and a large percentage of those who don't, genuinely loathe the thing. A free copy isn't going to change that situation. Then again, that probably wasn't the point. This was more a PR exercise than an advertising mission. And on that level, it worked magnificently. <br />
<br />
Radio shows swooped on the subject with gusto. 'Did The Sun have the right to do this?' 'What will you do with your copy?' and so on. Then there was the matter of the politicians. In some wildly misguided and embarrassing attempt to curry favour with Mr. Murdoch, Nick Clegg, David Cameron and Ed Miliband (ED MILIBAND!) were all photographed clutching their free editions. A day later, two of them were forced to apologise for doing so. Terrible publicity for Nick and Ed, but nothing but glory for The Sun. After all, in present circumstances, who would look harshly on any publication which managed to make fools of party leaders? <br />
<br />
So, in terms of raised profile and association with the World Cup, the project came off a treat. Did £10m offer value for money? I'd say so. And that is not an enormous spend for The Sun, anyway. <br />
<br />
For the record, my copy arrived a day late. What's more, as one of those punters who has a healthy dislike of the title, I was more than happy to tape it up and mail it straight back to The Sun's freepost address. However, as I don't much care for football either, I think I can safely say the whole gambit wasn't created with me in mind. <br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-49472292107685985352014-06-10T11:50:00.001+01:002014-08-04T15:06:15.985+01:00Only one direction<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
About 25 years ago, few jobs appealed to me more than my own show on Radio 1. Despite sending Johnny Beerling my show-reel once in a while, it never happened. Not even close.<br />
These days the idea is considerably less appealing. My advanced age notwithstanding, it seems the President of Egypt has greater job security than a DJ on the national pop station. <br />
<br />
This week it was announced that Radio 1 and Radio 1 Xtra would be shedding a cross section of their jocks. Controller Ben Cooper has handed Mike Davies, Jen Long, Ally McCrae, CJ Beatz, Crissy Criss and Robbo Ranx their cards. His actions are blamed on budgetary cuts stemming from the last licence fee settlement, which is understandable. After all, it must be incredibly difficult to afford talent when you have a half million pound hotel bill to pay annually.<br /><br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
That said, I’m inclined to think Cooper hasn’t gone far enough. Actually, I think he should have wound up the whole presentation team on both stations. Oh, I can hear the raised voices now: ‘Yeah right, grandpa. Just because you don’t like the young people’s music, doesn’t mean nobody should hear it!’. And I would agree. Admittedly, Pitbull and Bastille have little to offer me, but I’m not suggesting the music should be jettisoned, just the DJs. What’s more, I’m not even bearing down on the jocks because I don’t rate them (their abilities vary widely, as with any station); I am merely suggesting they are completely unnecessary. <br />
<br />
I am in my late forties, and to my generation radio matters (I spend considerably more hours listening to the radio than I do watching TV). It’s a habit we acquired when platforms carrying the music we liked were in short supply. Beyond our own record collections, we could only hear classic soul, punk, metal, electronica or goth (delete as applicable) in night clubs or on the wireless. The image of the 70s or 80s teenager closeted away in a bedroom, glued to John Peel’s sessions and laconic musings, may be something of a cliché; it was, however, absolutely real. On weekday evenings, and the opposite sex excepted, there was very little to distract us from the radio. No surprise then, that we carried the urge into adulthood, and are still pretty well served by Radio 2, 5Live, 6Music, Radio 4 and a sweep of DAB channels. But here’s the problem for Mr. Cooper, we’re not the target audience for Radio 1 or Radio Xtra. <br />
<br />
Those stations have a very specific brief: to entertain and engage as many of the UK’s 15-24 year olds as possible. Unfortunately, this is a population with little or no tradition of radio listening, and more alternatives than we could ever have foreseen. Websites, multi-channel television, apps, gaming consoles, social media, DVDs, streaming movies, iPlayer – all these outlets fight daily for the attention of the nation’s youth, and they have the advantage of being popular, flexible and widely adopted. In such a climate, radio is at best a novelty and at worst, an irrelevance. <br />
<br />
So what do Radio 1/1Xtra offer to draw the crowd from their X-Boxes and Facebooks? In truth, very little – although I suspect Ben Cooper would make a claim for ‘music and personality’. If that’s the case, something is wrong. Almost all 15-24 year olds access their music on demand. From iTunes, Spotify, Grooveshark and increasingly YouTube, these consumers expect their choice of artist and song on demand. A radio station cannot fulfil that expectation. Which leaves ‘personality’. <br />
<br />
Nick Grimshaw is Radio 1′s shining light. When he was given the breakfast show we were assured he represented everything the station and its listeners were about. By October 2013 he was carrying one million fewer punters than his predecessor. It’s a depressing thought, but Chris Moyles was probably the last Radio 1 morning host to attract an appropriately voluminous audience. And I mean the last ever. However talented and charming Grimshaw might be, an insufficient and diminishing number of young folk is inclined to listen to him of a morning. <br />
<br />
If there is a long-term future for Radio 1/1Xtra, it is probably as a music stream. I can just about see the appeal in a non-stop, high bit-rate broadcast of the songs popular with youngsters. They could set it going on their iPhones as a soundtrack to some Candy Crush action or heavy Facebooking. No need for news bulletins or phone-ins, no need for an FM frequency (an expanded 5Live would sit nicely there), as long as it was available as an app, website and mobile service, it would be accessible.<br />
BBC3 is in the process of being wound down as a traditional TV channel but, they say, will live on as a multi-platform experience. If that is true, there is a very good argument for bundling Radio 1/1Xtra into that package, the intended audience being one and the same. <br />
<br />
Despite all the trepidation and error, radio is still in fairly rude health. The commercial sector is a bit of a mess and needs attention; DAB has been badly mismanaged too. Nevertheless, ratings for Radio 4 and 5Live are strong, and Radio 2 is the most listened to station in Europe. Good to know, but the BBC must face facts. There is no possibility of transforming the fortunes of their youth stations, because there is no way to haul those youths away from the devices around which they have built their lifestyles. Unless it can adapt quickly, Radio 1/1Xtra will become an anachronism and no more vital than the music box their parents have in the kitchen.<br />
<br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-81049172565879119702014-06-10T11:46:00.000+01:002014-06-10T11:46:05.193+01:00Well done you.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Nobody likes being patronised. Even small infants boil with fury when some dough-faced adult leers into their pushchair and makes 'woo-woo' noises at them. Probably. <br /><br />I think being patronised takes us back to school, when we were bound by the superiority of adults who insisted they knew better than us, and would occasionally spare a few shreds of praise. "Well done!" they would say, if we had pleased them. <br /><br />Of course, when we finally pass the age of consent and become grown-ups ourselves, we can leave that head-patting attitude behind. We can judge our own triumphs and failures for ourselves, in the knowledge that we now have a modicum of wisdom and self-awareness. That is, unless we're unfortunate enough to be watching an iteration of the current Halifax campaign. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
That's right, Halifax. The brand owned by HBOS - the people so skilful, adept and clever, they managed to bring their own business to its knees and went some way to crashing the entire UK financial system. <br /><br />I'm sure you're familiar with this work. Each execution focuses on an individual customer (actually, it doesn't as they're all very obviously made-up characters). The script describes all the little, super things the person does in their life. From ushering punters around a DIY store, to taking photos, the voice-over says "If anyone's giving extra, it's you!" - in just the same way as we were told "Well done!" when we were kids. The reward for all these 'trivial' achievements of course, is to be endowed with some half-arsed account from the fiscal geniuses at Halifax. "Who's smiling now, Vicky?" asks Mr. VO in one spot. Unbelievably. <br /><br />Where did this concept originate? With the client? The agency? It's so rotten, I'd dearly love to know the answer. What's more, I'd be intrigued to discover why nobody, at any stage, thought this was a dreadful way to address an audience. Particularly when the messaging comes from an institution which has failed so spectacularly, and required public money (our money) in order to stagger on. At the script meeting, the client presentation, the storyboarding phase, the shoot, the final approval, it is incredible no-one intervened and insisted on a re-think. <br /><br />Work of this kind gives advertising a bad name. It exemplifies the notion many people hold: that advertisers take us all for compliant, insecure idiots, hungry for corporate approval. Doubly so when the advertiser is a bank. Although the copywriting and direction are horribly weak, it's the tone of the campaign which is so desperate and inappropriate. 'Lucky you...' the overarching proposition tells us, '...we've decided you can bank with us, because of your clever little lifestyle.' <br /><br />It's more than rubbish, it's insulting and repugnant. <br /><br />Naturally, I'm not at all surprised to see a British bank tumbling headfirst into an expensive marketing mess. We've seen the quality of their decision-making, and it isn't pretty. What's depressing, is the picture this work paints of the state of creativity in the advertising business. I'm sure many shops would be delighted to have Halifax on their roster, despite the brand's tainted reputation. However, the honour actually belongs to Adam & Eve/DDB, and look at the result. I hope there was good money in this campaign, because it is creatively comatose and the worst work to appear on my telly in quite some time. <br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-1199567849479148522014-05-25T23:13:00.004+01:002014-05-25T23:13:48.818+01:00Paint Me Down<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For a couple of years, there’s been a Banksy backlash from the arts elite. Too obvious, too glib, too trite is the accusation – although I suspect they’d be praising his work to the ceiling if he’d remained obscure and unpopular. Perhaps they’ve just tired of working out ways to take home large pieces of wall. <br /><br />Since an art director colleague introduced me to Bristol’s foremost graffiti master years ago, I’ve enjoyed his stuff enormously. In that time he has painted throughout the world, from Sydney to Camden, LA to Palestine. Surely the accessible nature of his pieces is the point. It’s intended to be art for everyone, no degree or expertise required. His stencils are also executed with wit and precision, and he’s managed to drag graffiti away from the dumb, unwelcome ‘tagging’ baseline. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Recently, the unseen Banksy (unlike the preening- and largely useless – Damian Hirst, Banksy never appears in person), has been in the news a couple of times. Having created a piece called ‘Mobile Lovers’ on the exterior of Broad Plain Boys’ Club in his hometown, he wrote to the local council who had removed the painting, to confirm he wanted the Club to own it. That letter ensures the mural is now worth around £1m – an incredible windfall by any measure. <br /><br />The second story was a touch more controversial. Following a campaign in which advertising posters were painted over, Banksy released a statement. Here it is: <br /><br />“People are taking the piss out of you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. F**K THAT. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.<br /> Banksy”<br /><br /> <br /><br />It’s no secret that Banksy’s ideas come from the political left. He’s notoriously unenthusiastic about military adventurism, the police, government, surveillance and all things establishment. That obviously includes advertising. <br /><br />As well as writing these columns and giving my shilling’s worth on podcasts, I earn a crust from writing and advising on advertising and marketing campaigns. So you might be surprised to know that, with some caveats, I agree with the message above. Some advertising does make people feel bad about their appearance, many advertisements are flippant. As are many movies, music videos, magazines and TV shows. So do people have the right to deface advertising hoardings? Legally, they don’t. It’s criminal damage. But morally, I think they probably do. As Banksy says, the advertisers and their agencies have placed their messaging in the public space to encourage a reaction. If that reaction is more along the lines of adjusting or obliterating that message, rather than rushing to buy a product or service, then so be it. Advertising is a conversation, conversations sometimes turn into arguments. It is, of course, more powerful to amend an advertisement and counter its proposition with sarcasm or spoof, but if you just want to slosh emulsion across it, that’s your choice – albeit one that may attract your arrest. <br /><br />However, here’s where Banksy and I part company. In his open letter (which he created in the shape of a Coke bottle, incidentally) he covers the entirety of advertising with his angry spray can. ‘Advertisers’ he says, ‘are laughing at you’. In truth, most advertisers are more likely to be begging you, but I think he’s suggesting there is something inherently evil or oppressive in all advertisements.<br /> Maybe. But would he include the campaigns run by The Red Cross following dreadful disasters, or Save The Children at times of famine? Is he content for his ire to touch local display ads for a self-employed plumber, or an exhibition at a local library? How about an intriguing, low-budget, underground movie called ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop’?<br /><br />Released in 2010, ‘Exit…’ tells the story of an unknown French street artist and his troubled rise to fame and fortune. As with most films, it was promoted through a press and poster campaign, flashed with positive reviews. Advertisements, you might call them. ‘Exit Through The Gift Shop’ was created and directed by Banksy.<br /> Obviously, when your medium is the side of buildings, you tend to use broad brush strokes. And therein lies the problem with broad brush strokes – they don’t always bear close scrutiny. <br /><br />Like his forerunners, the Situationists, Banksy is a provocateur. He makes his works bold and loud, placing them in prominent public places. Interpretation and discussion is then left to the observer. Some see his pieces as vital social commentary, some as a bit of fun; others perceive nothing more than a commercial opportunity, or even a reprehensible act of vandalism. Whatever your position, this is when the artist is at his most effective, leaving room for debate, intrigue and mystique. Most of that evaporates in this Coke bottle press release, and that’s to Banksy’s disadvantage. He’s made it too easy to pick apart his argument and find its flaws. <br /><br />I like Banksy; I find his creativity and subversion very appealing, and his talent undeniable. Nevertheless, he’s a much better artist than he is an orator, and far more exciting in the realm of images than text. I want to see Banksy murals, not diatribes. I don’t need him to be a great writer. In fact, I would be very content for his actions to speak louder than his words.<br /><br /> </div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-8520687747109406822014-05-20T15:20:00.006+01:002014-05-20T15:21:26.685+01:00On The Record<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
How much would you pay for a copy of Nik Kershaw's album 'The Riddle'? Should you wish to add it to your iTunes collection via Apple's store, it would cost you about £5.50. On Amazon's marketplace, you could pick up the CD for £7.65. But in a hip store, in Sheffield's Meadowhall Centre, a second-hand vinyl version would rush you £12.50.<br />
In the age of Spotify, Google Play, file sharing and Grooveshark, something curious is happening. The oldest commercial music format is attracting impressive sales, at premium prices.<br />
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In 2013, just over 780,000 vinyl albums were bought in the UK. That's the most since 1997 when 817,000 were sold, and also represents a 101% increase on 2012's numbers. The total for 2014 is expected to be higher still. Obviously this is a tiny percentage of all music bought, but it is still a noticeable and expanding market. So who's buying vinyl LPs and why?<br />
Interestingly, the sales figures for turntables are more or less static. So, either many people still have their record players and have returned to the purchase of product to play on them, or a cross-section of the consumer base is forking out for vinyl, but isn't playing it. That latter explanation at first appears ludicrous, but I sense some truth in it.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>'Hipster' isn't a new label - it reaches back to the jazz-age, but its use as rather derisory handle for a certain breed of male urbanite is quite recent. Alongside the hipster's impossibly tight jeans, giant spectacles and an obligatory beard come various lifestyle accessories - an iPad, a waistcoat and a penchant for old records. This is particularly apparent at Spitalfields Market, on the boundaries of the City of London and the beginning of Shoreditch, the hipster's natural territory. Here, dotted amongst the designer dresses, handmade jewellery and artisan coffee, are dozens of vinyl stalls - enthusiastically attended by clutches of the aforementioned hirsute gentlemen, busily flipping through dog-eared copies of 'Parallel Lines', 'London Calling' and 'Live And Dangerous'. In their pockets are electronic devices onto which they could download almost any album with a few stabs of a forefinger, and at a fraction of the cost.<br />
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What we're witnessing here is a fetish. Twelve inches of black plastic, covered in a printed cardboard envelope have become an object of desire. Just like those spherical black and white TVs, or those tripod Philippe Starck lemon squeezers, the functionality of the vinyl LP isn't the point - it's the totemic value and the fashionable cache which is attractive.<br />
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Of course, these are not the only folk buying analogue music. Many professional DJs still favour the grooved format (although many don't), and there is still a clutch of fans who take great pleasure in tracking down obscure US soul recordings, or 'Anarchy In The UK' on A&M. Then there are those who insist that music simply sounds better when generated by a stylus dragging its way through plastic bumps and valleys. The hunters after rare discs I completely understand. There is a definite thrill in acquiring something original and scarce - it's the same satisfaction offered by ownership of a first edition of Winnie The Pooh, The Naked Lunch, or issue one of Action Comics. DJs know their trade and the best tools for the job, but the hipsters and audio fiends baffle me.<br />
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Buying and owning vinyl LPs as a fashion statement is similar to adopting veganism for style purposes. The consumer choice is easily made, but the deeper significance of the behaviour or product is ignored or unknown. Surely exploring the collected works of Steely Dan, absorbing the lyrical wit and complex composition via one's iPhone, is far cooler than snapping up a battered old copy of 'Katy Lied' and propping it up in your Hoxton lounge, hoping one's dinner guests find it nicely offsets your 'upcycled' dresser.<br />
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I'm also bemused by the claims made for vinyl's sonic superiority. I'm completely aware that an MP3 audio file is very compressed, measured against an analogue record. But there are so many variables in the playing of the two formats, that a straightforward comparison is almost impossible. Someone crowing about the depth and richness of the vinyl experience, is often talking about the brilliant reproduction of their classy turntable and amplifier. If they were to listen to their cherished Miles Davis collection on the old JVC music centre I lugged from flat to flat throughout the eighties, I suspect they'd reach for an iPod in an awful hurry.<br />
It's incredibly swish to bemoan the soullessness of the CD and the homogenized feel of the MP3, but let's be honest, unless you happen to be an acoustics expert or a particularly exacting connoisseur, has that difference every really detracted from your listening pleasure? If an MP3 comes across as a touch tinny, a better set of headphones usually solves the problem, doesn't it? In fact, the poor performance of Apple's standard-issue cans has done more to fuel scepticism than any actual format failure.<br />
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Like any music buff in his forties, I remember vinyl's glory days with affection (album artwork has certainly never been more impressive), but I also look back fondly on my Chopper bicycle without wanting it back in my life. How soon we forget the irreparable damage a determined scuff or scratch would inflict on a favourite disc. How casually we disregard the memory of onerous cleaning and polishing our record collections demanded. What's more, with every play, each LP came closer and closer to its demise.<br />
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Without hesitation, when CDs became the majority format, I switched to buying my music on those smaller, silver discs. When CDs were superseded by digital downloads, I happily embraced them. The delivery mechanism has always been considerably less significant to me than the artists and their music. And it seems to me that those fuelling the resurgence in vinyl have their priorities a bit skewed.</div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-60776892149465193362014-05-20T15:17:00.002+01:002014-05-20T15:17:51.804+01:00Vote For Me I'll Set You Free...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As you may have noticed, there's an election on the way. It's not one of those important ones, where we get to choose a bunch of be-suited clowns to spend five years making a wholesale mess of everything. It's one of those other ones, where we get to appoint some galoots to claim eye-watering levels of expenses in Brussels and Strasbourg for doing nothing noticeable. <br />
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Anyway, as is the tradition, this allows any party fielding a certain number candidates to access our telly channels for two or three minutes just before the news. These are 'Party Political Broadcasts' - advertisements for those parties, by any other name.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Many people, with better things to do, studiously ignore these spots. But I'm a bit of a politics anorak, so I've watched all the current batch. What's striking is how incredibly tame and dull they are. At a point when the political situation has rarely been more contentious and animated, the Tories, LibDems and UKIP chose formats so bland, predictable and lame, they are barely distinguishable from the thousands of tiresome corporate videos floating around the internet, explaining last quarter's sales peak and the recent opening of an office in Stevenage. <br />
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There were, however, two exceptions. The first came from the BNP. Now, you are welcome to disagree but to my mind the BNP are an odious bunch of deluded, ignorant nut jobs. Even if they're not (they are), their broadcast would do nothing to persuade anyone otherwise. The BNP, it seems, have taken great umbrage at their creepy cartoon being denied clearance for transmission. It isn't clear why they have been prevented from showing their badly made clip, but they can't. So they've used their precious minutes to bang on about it. Rather than present a reasoned argument for their unhinged points of view, they loaded up their film with paranoid ranting about 'the truth' and some imagined conspiracy against them. Good luck with that, Mr. Griffin. <br />
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Then there was the Labour Party's effort - and a curious thing that was to be sure. Shot to resemble a 1950s Pathe News bulletin, the entire film takes the form of a 'comedy' sketch. Called 'The Un-credible Shrinking Man' it seeks to portray Nick Clegg as a man visibly diminishing in power and influence, in a room filled with guffawing Tories. Very curious. First of all, it isn't remotely funny, which rather takes the sting out of it. Of course, politicians should never try to be amusing. It's usually cringingly awful, and while this is far from the worst example, it still falls very flat. Perhaps more baffling though, is the target. <br />
Anybody with a fleeting awareness of British politics knows the Liberal Democrats have a bit of a problem. They're all but finished. When they leapt into bed with Cameron's Conservatives in 2010, they bought themselves a taste of power denied to them for decades, but the price was high. As the coalition government slashed at public services and propped-up the ultra rich, Clegg's gang became seen as their lapdogs. Which is certain to obliterate the LibDem vote in both the Euro and general elections. So why Labour have focussed their guns on Nicky-boy, rather than the Tories, is quite a mystery. <br />
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That said, we should at least give Labour some credit for trying to do something different with their allotted airtime. It was a brave attempt, but misses its mark by some distance. In common with the competing parties, it was an attempt to run down the opposition without offering any firm policies by way of an alternative. That annoys people. And probably goes some way to explain why voter turnout next week will be disappointingly low. <br />
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robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-63524173773022174872014-05-12T00:55:00.002+01:002014-05-12T00:56:19.570+01:00Breaking News<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>“Good morning, here’s the news/And all of it is good/And the weather’s good.” </i><br />
(Carbon/Silicon, The News)<br />
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Earlier this year, Jeremy Paxman suggested some editions of Newsnight should simply inform the viewing audience there was nothing much to talk about, before rolling the closing credits. Knowing Paxo, he was probably just being provocative, or even presaging his recently announced departure from the late night current affairs stalwart. He may even have been nostalgically recalling the time when a very young BBC informed listeners just that; there was no news that day and everyone could retire to bed early. Whichever, he was certainly hinting at something of an existential crisis in the modern news media.<br /><br />
<a name='more'></a>Alain De Botton (a man so imbued with philosophical brain power, it has forced the very hair from his follicles) has also joined the fray, with a typically cerebral take on things. He proposes ‘The News’ should be retitled ‘Some News’. His argument being that for every missing airliner, there are thousands more which reach their destination unscathed, but also unreported. He feels this gives us a skewed view of our world. Presumably, he imagines we are entirely ignorant of those successful flights and therefore, based on news reports, see air travel as fantastically perilous. Unfortunately, it’s very tricky to imagine anyone rushing home to catch an hour-long bulletin on all the unexceptional things that have happened that day <br />
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So are Jeremy and Alain right? Is ‘The News’ in crisis? Well, it is certainly in flux. But before we go much further, perhaps we should determine exactly what ‘news’ is. Because I would say De Botton is being obtuse. His concept of the everyday occurrence having the same currency as the unexpected or highly consequential event, is more than a little harebrained. The actual content of any news bulletin will always be a subjective, editorial decision – however, we can probably all agree that news stories must at least be exceptional, interesting or significant. ‘Planes Arrive Safely’ is clearly welcome information, but as it isn’t exceptional, interesting or significant, it isn’t news. <br />
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A few years ago, some ‘important’ media bods hit on the idea of ‘hyper-local’ news. This was a plan to introduce radio programmes, newspapers and websites catering to very small territories – no more than a few streets. For a while, there was much excitement, as it was thought a whole new market for news had been uncovered. Alas, any moves to actually build such networks soon foundered. Why? Because exceptional, interesting and significant stuff doesn’t occur in sufficient volumes in that tight a space. Plenty happens, but very little of it is ‘news’. As Danny Baker so pithily puts it ‘Boy, that was dull. But it was very local.’ We’re probably seeing the death knell of this misguided proposition in the slow, painful humiliation of ‘London Live’ – a hyper-local TV channel, currently on air and occasionally, with literally nobody watching. <br />
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‘Citizen journalism’ has made more positive progress. Although the title isn’t really adequate, as most of those involved are not really journalists and, conversely, professional journalists have always been citizens. What is actually taking place under this flag is media activism. Very few news organisations ever dared imagine such sophisticated reporting tools would become available to them, let alone the general populace. Nevertheless, in scores of nations, bus drivers and butchers, chefs and chauffeurs have in their pockets recording devices which can capture, video, audio and still photography, then rapidly place that data on a global media platform. That’s not really journalism as it’s unmediated. But in a situation like the Arab Spring or the bombardment of Homs, it is very powerful news. <br />
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When Japan was struck by the terrible Kamaishi earthquake in 2012, I was communicating via Twitter, with someone I don’t know but whom I follow. He lives in Tokyo and was describing the shocks and aftershocks as the quake tore across the city. He was doing this in real-time and from the midst of the unfolding disaster. I was reading his live updates on a chilly and quiet railway platform in North Yorkshire.<br />
This was news at its most profound. Gripping, massively topical, incredibly authentic, exceptionally significant and utterly fascinating. Thankfully my Twitter friend was unharmed, as his tweets had pulled me closer to a breaking story than any bulletin I had seen in the preceding 45 years. And all without the need for a script, producer, studio or suit. <br />
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It’s this kind of immediate reportage that has put the big news organisations on the back foot. What they offer in competition (other than men in suits) is ‘analysis’. Analysis is important. Without the background delivered by geologists, emergency workers, and others appearing on the official broadcast bulletins, all I would have were those panicky Tokyo tweets. Yes, analysis is important, but it’s not news. I already had the news, more rapidly and pointedly than any professional broadcaster could manage. <br />
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I’m always rather surprised when one of those regular furores arises, accusing a paper or broadcaster of bias in their reporting, as though it had ever been any other way. Indeed, most news outlets are fanatically proud of their allegiances and angles. The right-wing agenda at Fox News, although often comically extreme, is actually the station’s USP and a magnet for a massive viewership. Although The Guardian once splashed with the strapline ‘Free Thinkers Welcome’ it is quite openly a left-leaning liberal newspaper; less crass than Fox News, maybe, but still affiliated to a particular political standpoint. This is what I mean by journalism being ‘mediated’. It is the reporting of events through a particular prism. I don’t mean that pejoratively, I just think it’s inevitable when human beings attempt to relate factual stories. <br />
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The exception, of course, would be the BBC. Or at least it ought to be. Because the Beeb is paid for by the general public through a compulsory tax, its charter insists its output is completely free from bias. That’s a noble principle, but one I fear, it is impossible to achieve in practice. That’s not to say the BBC’s news content cannot be trusted. On the contrary, it’s arguably the most robust coverage of the world, in the world. However, where its ideal would be a static pendulum, frozen at the untarnished midpoint, in truth the BBC tends to move evenly to and fro to produce relative objectivity. I say ‘relative’, as it’s hard to give the national broadcaster an entirely clean bill of health when it carries stories from Strictly Come Dancing in its flagship news programmes. <br />
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It may make us uncomfortable, but ‘news’ is actually a commodity sold in a competitive marketplace where the viewer/listener/reader is the consumer. One may choose to consume only those outlets which offer their wares for free at the point of delivery: ITV, C4, BBC, Metro. Or one may choose to pay for one’s news: The Daily Mail, Sky, The FT, The Times Online, The Sun – and so on. What’s more, we can select which flavouring we want sprinkled on our news and whether we want to read it, hear it or watch it. Every operator in this market offers a slightly different product, but they would all label it ‘news’. This is a reasonably healthy state of affairs when one considers the confection and mendacity that passes for news in Burma or North Korea. But what is worrying the news vendors, is the possibility the consuming crowd will dwindle to a point where the market is undermined, its members finally more convinced, excited and satisfied by the information they build between them – on Twitter, on YouTube and a million other forums. <br />
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We haven’t yet reached that point, but the market is very saturated with suppliers, all hungrily searching for a sustainable and profitable model. Right now it’s hard to see what that model will be, and how it will shape this surprisingly ancient and staggeringly contemporary thing we call ‘news’.<br />
Although I think we can safely say it won’t involve an announcer or banner headline declaring ‘Here is some news. There isn’t much to tell you today.’<br />
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robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-56921904579970070432014-05-12T00:43:00.004+01:002014-05-12T00:44:26.881+01:00Can You Feel The Force?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The news that the next ‘Star Wars’ film will be a sequel to episode six – ‘Return Of The Jedi’ – fills me with genuine excitement. That it will star Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Peter Mayhew is thrill upon thrill. However, if this information makes you tut and roll your eyes, you may wish to move along. This piece will do little relieve your cynicism. <br />
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I was just the right age for the first ‘Star Wars’ picture – 13 years old in 1977. As a senior teacher, my mum could rarely be persuaded to allow me time off school. So I can only assume a rush of blood to the head was responsible for her decision to grant me a Friday afternoon away from lessons to make the trip to the Odeon Cinema on Nottingham’s Angel Row, where this newly-arrived blockbuster was showing. Actually, I was already very aware of the movie. For weeks, the papers and TV news had carried shots of block-long queues in Los Angeles and New York, and then London. What’s more, I was also a massive fan of science fiction. So my veins were pumping with anticipation as we took our faux-velvet seats in the massive auditorium with the giant screen that was ‘Odeon 1′.<br />
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<a name='more'></a> I realise now that my mother’s sacrifice was twofold. Not only was she foreshortening my formal education, but she had absolutely no enthusiasm for any film in the space fantasy genre. I did though. In fact, I haven’t been quite the same since. <br />
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In the 1970s, movie directors and producers had to be on their mettle. This cinematic decade was so creatively rich and stunningly diverse, it’s startling to reflect on its canon. ‘Saturday Night Fever’, ‘The Godfather’, ‘Jaws’, ‘The Sting’, ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’, ‘The Exorcist’, ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘Dirty Harry’, ‘Taxi Driver’ and on, and on. Many of the best films you will ever see were made in the seventies and most of Hollywood’s current output might well die of shame in comparison. Nevertheless, against this superlative backdrop, George Lucas was swimming against the tide.<br />
Sci-fi was out of favour (you’ll notice none of the pictures I listed were of that genre), and Lucas struggled to pitch the ‘Star Wars’ concept. Perhaps it was because his screenplay was so off-trend that it attracted so much attention. Well, that and the thumping good tale he had to tell. The closest comparison, was Stanley Kubrick’s ’2001: A Space Odyssey’, released in 1968. Admittedly, this was a huge hit – but other than a blanket of stars, ’2001′ had nothing in common with ‘Star Wars’. The former was an existential meditation on mankind’s evolution and subsequent place in the universe. The latter, a fantastical saga, closer to the ancient legends of the Greeks, or the fairy stories of the Brothers Grimm, than Arthur C Clarke’s philosophical study. <br />
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Around this time, a tremendous, one-off magazine was published which explained Lucas’ influences and inspirations. From Laurel & Hardy (R2D2 and C3P0) and Dracula (Darth Vader), to WW2 dogfights (X-Wings vs. TIE Fighters) and medieval warriors (Jedi Knights) - it was fascinating to see how ‘Star Wars’ embodied so many of the storytelling tropes which preceded it. Good against evil; imprisoned princesses; farmboys becoming heroes; pirates and wizards, in its roots, it’s a very traditional tale, but presented in an amazingly fresh and enchanting way. Without doubt, ‘Star Wars’ was the movie of my childhood. <br />
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While this new film excites me, it also gives rise to much trepidation. Unsurprisingly, the original picture’s all-conquering success ensured sequels. Pleasingly, the first – ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980) – was a creative triumph too. A little more bleak and grown-up than the first outing, it’s regarded by many an aficionado as the best episode of the set. Even ‘Return Of The Jedi’ (1983) didn’t let the side down. Ewoks aside, it does a fair job of wrapping up the narrative strands and of course, delivering the climactic reveal. In all honesty, by 1983, I’d matured considerably and lost some of my passion for the space-opera, but I was still reasonably content by the triumvirate’s concluding chapters. <br />
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And there it would, or maybe should, have ended. Unfortunately, George Lucas was eventually persuaded there was plenty more juice left in the ‘Star Wars’ fruit. In the mid-nineties he digitally retouched the first three films and sent them out again; and in 1999 he released a prequel, ‘The Phantom Menace’. Anyone who shared the awe I felt when watching the 1977 film will understand the dismay and disappointment which accompanied this new production. The game was up in the first few seconds. When the famous, scrolling explanatory text, rambled on about ‘trade federations’ and ‘senate hearings’, we instinctively knew this was not what we’d signed up for. Worse, the casting and script were a debacle. The saga had never really been known for its deep and nuanced dialogue, but ‘The Phantom Menace’ plumbed new depths of tedious, unconvincing writing. And to call Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman wooden would be to insult timber. <br />
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As a prequel, none of the founding characters featured. Instead, the lead was the young Anakin Skywalker (eventually Darth Vader). In the second prequel (‘Episode Two: Attack Of The Clones’ – please keep up) Anakin was played by the handsome, but staggeringly under-talented Hayden Christensen. Painfully, not only is Mr. Christensen incapable of carrying a major motion picture, I’d be surprised if he can carry a mug of Horlicks to bed. By the third prequel (‘Episode Three: Revenge Of The Sith’ – maybe you should take notes), even the most stalwart ‘Star Wars’ fan was forced to admit something had gone badly wrong, and what began as a lean and gripping adventure was now a turgid, confusing mess of CGI and scenery-chewing performances. Don’t ask about Jar-Jar Binks. We don’t talk about Jar-Jar Binks. <br />
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Now, we’re on the precipice once more – and this time, the stakes are even higher. The ensemble from that initial, wondrous film – the one that means so much to those born in the mid-sixties – has been re-assembled. We’re about to see what happened after episode six (‘The Return Of The Jedi’, remember?). It’s entirely possible this will be a soaring, life-affirming event – perfectly crafted to whisk us back to that early-teen, captivating magic. JJ Abrams is directing and his track-record is pretty good. In recent years, he has successfully re-booted the ‘Star Trek’ franchise, so the signs are encouraging. But there’s many a slip between a droid and a Wookie, and after those clunking prequels there’s much to make us apprehensive. Not least of all the suggestion that episode seven will be titled ‘An Ancient Fear’, worryingly close to ‘The Phantom Menace’. <br />
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If the rumours are true, we’re to expect at least three more ‘Star Wars’ pictures, so here’s my plea to George Lucas and JJ Abrams: please tread very carefully, gentlemen – for you tread on my dreams.<br />
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robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-19642059241318087092014-04-22T22:31:00.001+01:002014-04-22T22:31:37.471+01:00Everybody's a DJ nowadays<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The BBC notwithstanding, and a peppering of community outfits aside, there aren’t really any independent radio stations left in the UK. It’s all ‘networks’ – which is a rather overexcited way of saying a large corporation bought lots of stations and imposed their brand and format on them. Money doesn’t just talk – it also broadcasts, it seems. <br /><br />One of these networks is called ‘Smooth’. It’s owned and operated by Global Radio, can be heard in most regions of the country, and vaguely promises “Your Relaxing Music Mix”. It’s all very tame and predictable stuff, a bit like Radio 2 on an off day with intrusive ad breaks. But it does provide gainful employment for some of the nation’s jobbing jocks. Or at least it did. <br />
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<a name='more'></a>Earlier this year, Smooth Radio underwent a bit of a revamp. This is something broadcasting companies find hard to resist. Convinced a bit of tinkering will unlock a veritable treasure trove, they cut loose with new logos, shows and line-ups. One only has to look at ITV’s history of rebrands (about six in fifteen years), to appreciate this reluctance to settle on an identity with which they’re happy.<br /> In the case of Smooth, the most obvious change was the sacking of Lynn Parsons, Simon Bates, Gary King, Pete Waterman and David Prever. Andrew Castle, Myleene Klass, Kate Garraway and Tina Hobley were the replacements. <br /><br />You may have spotted a notable difference between the former cast and the latter. Whatever your opinion of Parsons, Bates and their former colleagues, they are all seasoned radio professionals. Pete Waterman may be better known for talent shows, Kylie and old trains, but his DJ credentials are pretty robust too. The usurpers are a different matter. They all come from telly. Andrew Castle and Kate Garraway shared a sofa at GMTV, Klass is a former pop singer and reality person, and Tina Hobley is an actress from Coronation Street and Holby City. In a cynical mood, one might easily get to thinking this grouping was hired for their fame, rather than any proven skill behind a microphone. <br /><br />Presenting radio programmes is a lot like writing. Everybody thinks they can do it, and in a way, they can. They just can’t do it very well. I’m certain many people imagine Bob Harris, Rhod Sharp, Annie Nightingale, Johnnie Walker and Danny Baker, do nothing more than boot up the ‘on-air’ light, gab for a bit, play some songs and go home. Of course, they all approach their programmes in different ways (Baker famously writes all his notes on the train on the way to the studio), but their incredible broadcasting skills simply cannot be acquired or imitated by any chump with an agent who fancies a go. <br /><br />The key here is experience. Without exception, those five presenters have dedicated hundreds of hours to the perfection of their craft. It’s no accident their programmes make us feel we’re the only listener, holding us in stasis – unable to move from the wireless, making us laugh, gasp, dance – making us listen. It’s an art which cannot be bought or assumed, because it’s only available to those who have a natural talent which has been chiselled and polished for decades. <br /><br />No television channel worth its salt would dream of choosing a complete novice to front a show on the strength of their fame in another field. Modern radio stations do that all the time. <br /><br />I vividly recall the comic actor Peter Serafinowicz covering Richard Bacon’s 6Music show one Saturday afternoon. Now, I like Serafinowicz, he has an unhinged charm which can be enormously entertaining. In this instance, he was worse than hopeless. He’d fallen into the trap of thinking ‘It’s only radio’. Utterly unprepared and apparently unrehearsed, he filled two hours with gaps, pauses, stumbles, fumbles and desperately unfunny adlibs. What’s more, he did the same the following week. I hope he would now admit radio is much, much harder than it sounds. <br /><br />From time-to-time, I’ve done stuff on the radio. Pirate stations at first, then some local work, and more recently online. I know the basics and I can put together a reasonable programme. And yet, I’m painfully aware how short I am of the air time needed to be ‘effortlessly’ great. Because I work from home, I listen to an enormous quantity of radio. This has made me acutely aware of the subtle expertise which distinguishes an adequate broadcaster from a tremendous broadcaster. Those who fall into the ‘tremendous’ category are never folk moonlighting from their mainstream jobs. They are never TV wonks picking up a bit of freelance, nor are they actors or comedians. They are real radio people, with fader marks embossed in their fingertips, and headphone dents in their scalps. And you know what, once they retire (or can no longer get a gig), there will be no-one there to do the job properly. <br /><br />When that new Smooth Radio gang was announced in February, a very wise man tweeted “It appears people who run radio stations don’t like radio very much”. He has my wholehearted and disappointed agreement. <br /><br /><br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1009314466970280584.post-64009123328061204412014-04-22T22:21:00.003+01:002014-04-22T22:21:52.623+01:00What to watch?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On 11 December 2008, Project Canvas was announced. A joint venture between the BBC, BT and ITV, it replaced the failed Project Kangaroo, a proposed video-on-demand service which was refused a licence on competition grounds and ended up as the SeeSaw service. Project Canvas was designed to be different from Kangaroo, in as much as it was a device that would connect to the internet rather than delivering a video-on-demand outlet, acting as a single content portal, much like the music video equivalent VEVO. The there was Roku and NOWTV. Oh, and Freesat and ... <br /><br />Hang on, hang on. It doesn't take a genius to spot a problem here. <br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />When I was a nipper we had three TV channels BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. As a teenager, Channel 4 arrived. A decade later the Astra satellite began beaming the Sky networks and finally - rather unnecessarily - Channel 5 booted up. This was hardly a TV landscape to rival the hundreds of stations on US telly, but for a while it felt like a reasonably adequate selection. <br /><br />I think we all knew there'd more. There's always more in our consumer-tastic world, but we alos suspected more channels never, ever means better channels. Those who had Sky reported, almost with pride, how hopeless many of the stations proved to be (Wine TV or 24 Hour Psychic Readings, anyone?). And yet we all quite fancied that spread of shows we knew the Americans had. After all, that's the British way. To tut and frown at the USA and then gobble up everything it offers, from wars to media outlets. <br /><br />And now we have it. More. All those stations, pouring through the ether, the internet or fibre-optic cables, through the skirting board and into our eyes. So, what's wrong with getting what we wished for? Well, nothing, except it's all arrived in a dreadfully haphazard way. It feels as though dozens of broadcasting companies all had vague, but different ideas as to the best way to pump more content at us. But instead of forming any sort of cohesive market, they all rushed forward at once, all touting an alternative device or platform, all claiming to be delivering the best. <br /><br />Take Netflix. Now, I've been hearing about Netflix for quite some time. Largely thanks to the massively confusing plethora of outlets, I've paused at regular old Freeview (I can't abide most sports, so Sky holds little attraction to me). However, over the weekend, I decided I'd initiate the free Netflix 30-day trial. Hooking a laptop up to my telly with an HDMI cable, I prepared to plunge into a new galaxy of premium content. I figured if I liked it, I'd be happy to part with £6.00 to keep the service going. Then I entered the library. <br /> Okay, I admit there were some juicy 'box-sets' available - principally 'Breaking Bad' and 'House Of Cards'. Beyond them? Almost nothing. Scrolling through the movie titles was like looking through the racks of one of those video rental sections in the back of a village shop. Just acres of straight-to-DVD eyewash. Using the 'search' feature, I picked three or four titles I fancied. Not a sausage. None of them was on Netflix. <br /><br />Needless to say, I shan't be signing up for the extended deal. <br /><br />And herein lies the flaw. Where do I go now? Amazon Premium? YouView? And what's the difference? There are far too many systems, boxes and carriers to make a considered choice - and I'm just as likely to stick with my Freeview than I am to explore further. <br /><br />Competition is healthy in any sector, but if a market becomes overly diluted, the consumer is left perplexed. And in broadcast media, where viewing figures and advertisers are everything, that's no good at all. <br /><br /></div>
robot fighterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03774083929944623438noreply@blogger.com