To the outside loo...and beyond!

Who remembers the 70s?

Anal Funeral

You know a day will be unusual when it starts with a suppository.
This was not for my own kinky benefit, you understand, but I needed to have an investigation for some long term gut problems I have.

That was about 7.30

At about 8.30 a call from next door, asking if I could call in. My neighbour is elderly, infirm and stricken with cancer. Until recently she was being attended to by her Scottish friend, an equally elderly by rather fitter lady. However, this Scot had a fall a couple of weeks ago and broke her pelvis. That was on a wednesday.

The next day I went to see my neighbour, Anthea, who was naturally upset that her friend would be in hospital for several weeks as she thought at the time. This made things difficult for her since she needs a great deal of care.
Two days later I was told that this Scottish lady had died after an operation. It was a shock to me (fit on wed, dead on Fri!) and I can only imagine how much of a loss this must be to Anthea.

Today is the funeral.

Anthea is dreading it, of course, but I was unable to stay due to my appointment.

Needless to say, I missed my bus but got chatting to two old ladies at the stop who happened to be going to the same hospital. That was a good thing since I was doubtful of how to get there.

My appointment was for about 9.25 but I arrived somewhat late. Surprisingly I was seen straight away. Unfortunately the doc did little more than my own gp and I'll have to "go through the motions" (ahem) again.

Still more excitement this morning than I usually get all week.

A repentant sinner

David Mamet has always been a hero of mine. Without the greatest living playwright, his energetic and fearless writing has been a constant source of inspiration to me. Which is why I was particularly delighted to read this article by him in Village Voice:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0811,374064,374064,1.html/full

Detailling his journey from 'braindead liberal' to a calmer, more rational realism. It is a similar journey to the one that I myself have made. Frankly the only surprising thing is that it has taken him so long to realise the place he was; he had arrived there long ago. From his intelligent and eloquent writing, I always took him to be a closet conservative.

The Dragons of Expectation

Cults of personality coupled with utopian fantasies have always been troubling things; indeed looking at the course of the last century, one cannot but conclude that the combination of these two things has led to more horrors than anything else in human history. What begins so often with wide-eyed optimism usually ends with bitter regret, or to use an old phrase: now they ring the bells, soon they will wring their hands.
I've never really experienced the sense of mass delusion in my lifetime which seemed to accompany the Nuremberg rallies, with legions of delirious worshipping chanting the name of their messiah, until this very recent Obamamania. This, as is usual with such things, started innoculously enough, with a charismatic leader peddling 'hope' to a disillusioned public. A fresh-faced outsider was perhaps what the jaded system needed and, at first, his homily message of optimism was nothing but a good. Recently though, it has taken a darker turn.
I am not sugesting for a moment that Obama is some kind of Hitler figure. I have no doubt that he is a genuine man deeply concerned about the future direction of his country. But quite what this future direction is and the lack of detail about how to get there, should set alarm bells ringing among intelligent people. It has not.
What I find astonishing is how many of the intelligentsia have fallen in love with Obama, despite him having no solid foundation. Instead of holding him to account, they praise him for giving "Hope" and "inspiration" to people, but what are they meant to be hoping for? A better tomorrow? Seasoned pundits should know there is more to building a better world than fine speeches, but seeing the collective swoon of the media for Obama is rather redolent of the intelligentsia falling for Fascism and/or communism in the 1930s.

If we witnessed scenes of a quasi-religious nature, with hordes of followers robotically chanting O-BA-MA (as seen in a recent Will.I.Am video on youtube), in a thirdworld country election, we would be deeply concerned, and rightly so. What protects us -or what we thinks protects us- from the rise of a charismatic dictator is the US constitution. Let's hope it does, since the rise of Obama shows how personality cults and mass-hysteria are still alive and well in the world's most powerful nation in the 21st century.
As I stated earlier, I in no way believe that Obama is an evil person but this mania proves yet again how vulnerable we are to utopian fantasies especially centred around a strong leader. Robert Conquest has termed this effect The Dragons of Expectation, subtitled Reality and delusion in the course of history. He charts the ruinous nature of this utopianism with great aplomb. Now, more than ever, should his message be headed.

Hanging the messenger

In an angry news conference in Bridgend, the chief of police produces a newspaper which has been speculating as to whether the recent series of 17 suicides of young people, all by hanging, were in any way related. "If there is proof, I'd like to see it" he says with real venom in his voice. The grieving mother of one of the latest fatalities is equally, at least apparently, certain where the fault lies: the press. But the fact that her words seem to be so on message with the official line gives us pause that the message may in fact have been written for her.
The fact is that there was little or no press coverage of this case until the past few weeks, before which time a dozen or so young people had hanged themselves. To put this into perepective, in the previous year, there were 3 suicides in the same age bracket and 3 in the year before that. I'm not sure if these were all by hanging but even if they were that is an increase of 300%, a staggering amount.
The fact that all these youngster have chosen the same method of dispatching themselves, and that a far from painless one, adds further suspicion to this odd mystery. It is surely the duty of the press to investigate any possible links. Rather than scape-goating the media (retrospectively in the cases of the first dozen victims), perhaps the police would be better served doing its own job.

What's the point of the BBC?

The argument for public service broadcasting has always been a similar one to the mantainence of public libraries: that all should be required to fund the upkeep and preservation of the highest standards of literature and learning regardless of whether one personally uses it or not. Generally speaking, everyone agrees to this, as regards libraries and other bastions of erudition, even if they never intend to set foot in one themselves. Actually I have never heard anyone, of any background or political persuasion argue to the contrary. Everyone accepts that these places of learning, although frequently unvisited, serve as bulkwarks against barbarity.
That line of argument would be somewhat, if not totally, weakened were one to enter a library only to witness an otherwise demure librarian peddling crack cocaine or racks of pornography replacing the once dusty cabinets of ancient Greek classics. It would be shocking indeed, if upon approaching the said librarian to enquire why, one received the curt answer in a chavy voice "well, this stuff's more popular".
Such is, extraordinarily, what has happened to the BBC in recent times.
It is futile to look at the reasons why. It is enough to say that the BBC is now producing a mass of material, much of it quite shoddy and a lot frankly imitative, that can in no way be said to be "informing or educating", two of the three words in its original mission statement. The third word "entertainment" is hardly enough to justify the license even if it were achieving a high standard in this. Unfortunately, the most entertaining programmes on British tv are the product of a society that has healthier and less patronising approach to subsidy, the USA. So what exactly are we paying for?
Let's look at the BBC's output. BBC 1 has always been the Beeb's populist channel but it was once famed for showing powerful documentaries. No longer. Panoroma has been cut to half its length and now engages in pop docs rather than more substantial. Gone to are the challenging Play-for-todays and other such programmes replaces by an endless diet of soaps. Perhaps the only good progs on BBC1 are now late on Thursdays night: Question Time and This Week.
Worse still, is BBC2 which was meant to be BBC's arts channel and is now taken up largely with interior design and cookery. Perhaps when it is commercialised (soon hopefully) the beeb will have the honesty to call it BBC lifestyle. Quite how far it has moved from its classic David Attenborough controlled ear of the 60s-70s (in which he was steadfastly against what he has termed "chewing gum tv") to its presentday incarnation can be seen by its Saturday morning branded youth programme SWITCH, which has a large and annoying ident in the corner for several hours. You have to pinch yourself to be reminded the BBC is meant to be a public service broadcaster. The last vestige of quality on this channel is newsnight, also noticeably latenight, which shows the journalistic standards long abandoned by the dreadful BBC1 6 0'clock news, one of the more regrettable chapters in the BBC's recent history. Like its sister BBC1, once groundbreaking documentary series like horizon are reduced to predictable pop culture fare.
BBC3 has the singular distinction of being not only the BBC's worst channel, but also by far the worst on British tv. This would be shameful enough for any company but for a "public service" broadcaster it is nothing short of scandalous. Quite how putting out such programmes as CAN FAT MEN HUNT?, THE MOST ANNOYING POP SONGS EVER and DAWN GOES LESBIAN can be justified as being produced by license payers' money, I cannot imagine, but it is sobering to cotemplate that when the beeb was faced with cuts it chose to downsize its news department rather than this festering dungheap. This tawdry channel seems to be a long suicide note by the BBC and shows how out of touch its presentday fashion-victim creators are from its original ideals. But satisfyingly enough, although this channel is geared totally (I mean like Totally) towards teenagers, most young people I know would rather watch imports like Smallville or Reaper (or indeed, the one import on BBC3 Family Guy, the quality of which shows how lame the rest of this disgraceful channel is). Kids really do know quality when they see it, and the fact that all these imports are the products of commercialism show how ridiculous the notion of public service broadcast has become.
BBC4 might be held up as being closest to the old BBC ideals with the occasional classical and Jazz concert and foreign language film. I suppose in some ways it is a bit like the old BBC2 only with much more repitition. Increasingly though, it is resembling a "cult" tv channel (indeed, they have a whole strand of programming entitled "The cult of" which they seem to think lends it some sort of creditibility), somewhat like Bravo and some other cash-strapped broadcasters. This tendency became very noticeable at the beginning of this year, with BATMAN being shown, an evening dedicated to LOST IN SPACE creator Allen Irwin and a month-long series about Pop music. It now seems that most of the evening schedules are being filled with repeats of old popular BBC2 shows, in a manner not dissimilar to its "Commercial" wing(see below).
The BBC's News24 service has long been a dissapointment. Considering that it is the largest news gathering organisation in the world, it seems remarkably slow and cumbersome, choosing many times to show long tape recorded programmes while its fitter rival SkyNews is busily (and quite properly) reporting breaking news. Breaking news is after all, what 24 news is about, if its about anything. Who wants to watch old news on a news channel? Why not put it on BBC2 (sorry that would mean taking off Masterchef or something).
In addition to these "free channels", the BBC puts out a number of via its "Commercial" branch (surely a contradiction in terms for a public broadcaster?). Three of these you have to pay an additional fee for. They also have commercials.
There are commercials too on the other two BBC channels available for "free". The first of these, UKHistory used to be an informative channel, which in spite of its many adverts, came as close to the BBC's remit as any of its official channels. Sadly (and prophetically) serious documentaries (ie THE WORLD AT WAR and A HISTORY OF BRITAIN to name but two) have been replaced by repeats of old dramas like TENKO and SHARPE. More suitable for a channel called UKFiction than one entitled UKHistory you might think.
Had the BBC continued its former quality material, then its recent decision to slash its broadcast hours from 7am-1am to 7am-6pm would have been deeply regrettable. But perhaps we now feel another airing of TENKA (and no doubt COLDTZ soon and perhaps a rare re-run of THE CLEOPATRAS during their Roman season?) is best put to bed early. Their reason for doing this has nothing to do with the impoverished standard of this channel, but rather that they reckon they can make more money from broadcasting their other advert-rich, "free" channel DAVE, which has the distinct advantage of being one of the most entertaining channels on tv, being that is a nonstop series of repeats of some of the most popular BBC2 (mainly) programmes of recent years. Entertaining though it is (and vastly better than the new programming on the abysmal BBC3), it is hard to see how this can justify a license fee since it is all old programmes and full of ads anyway.
Looking over the BBC's output honestly, one would be hard pressed to find an argument in favour of its continuing subsidy. As stated above, it has long since abandoned its mission to "educate and inform" and now merely clings to its "entertainment" clause as justification, but is easily outclassed by non-subsidised American imports which often have a level of intelligence about them lacking from the BBC. What could an advocate of the license fee now cite as proof of its necessity? Not BBC2, which would once have been the case. No longer even BBC4, which was a weak case even in its pomp, but is now going down market.
If however one was asked why the license fee should be abolished, one could reply simply "BBC3".
Yes, pornography and crack are now being sold in our public library.

Up the Amazon without a paddle

One of the problems with our successful economy is abundence of everything. In many ways beneficial, the sheer amount of options can become burdensome when one is in the position to buy. I have recently had a hankering to purchase a camcorder (atrocioius name, I know, but one I necessarily must use). Frankly I know nothing about them and the bewildering variety of types of camcorder (ie dvd, mini-dv and for all I know thermo-nuclear quark powered dv) is baffling enough even before one considers the spec of each individual models.
In former times, such a situation would never have arisen. The few variants of a product would have been easilyassessed; but rather like science in the twentieth century, product information has almost entered a state of quantum-like abstraction, with a staggeringly long list of its attributes. In the case of camcorders, the details include sensor resolution (in kpix), effective sensor resolution, lens aperture (which is something like F/1.5-2.6), connector type (IxIEEE 1394 firewire enabled or would you prefer 2 x s-video?) etc etc. Unless you have a deeply knowledgeable friend, which I do not, it can be mind destroying.
So people like me rely on information and insights gained from the internet. Much of this info can be very good (ie from forums) and one can gain a basic understanding as to work the models actually do for the money. However, there are exceptions to this, and one such is Amazon.
Amazon has its own customer reviews listed beneath the products. The reviewers themselves give the product a rating (between 1 and 5 stars) give a little commentary and readers of this are invited to say how helpful this was. For a long time now I have been aware of how useless this system is.
Firstly, a lazy habit seems to have developed whereby the reviewer either gives a product 1 star or 5; very few give it anything in between (although these people's reviews are generally much more worth reading, they at least have given it some thought). Secondly, the readers of these seem, equally lazily, to mark the reviews on the basis of how helpful they find them but whether or not they agree with them, which is a crucial difference.
This tendency is especially marked with books of a controversial basis or things which involve a degree of personal taste such as music. You very often see a review with 5 stars with a commentary that reads nothing more than "This is the greatest album of all time!!!" which has received "46 out of 48 found this review useful" to be followed lower down with a 1 star " avoid this stinker" (no other comment) which apparently 23 out of 27 people found helpful.
Occasional a more thoughtful person will add a longer, more intelligent review, which always appears much lower down the page, if at all. The product will be given, say, 4 stars and an in-depth analysis, running to several paragraphs with many insightful comments. This will receive something like " 7 out of 22 people found this helpful". One wonders why such people bother really although we must be grateful they do.
Ordinarily thsi would be no more than a passing annoyance, except when one actually wants to buy something and needs a guide through the plethora of choices. Then the amazon game of playing favourites becomes very tiresome indeed. Looking for a camcorder, I am struck by how many are given a 5 star rating. Surely all these people do not really believe that their camcorder is the best it could possibily be? Surely they might be able to find a few ways in which it could be improved? I've rarely in my life encountered anything perfect, but apparently I am a majority among Amazon users.
Until such time as people learn to make sensible reviews of products, Amazons reviews will be virtually worthless. Its a pity intelligent reviews would actually mean that a good many people would save a lot of money and a lot of their valuable time having to search for information.