Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Music - response to Emily White and David Lowery
Press coverage, interviews and radio play followed, including interest from a variety of music promoters and industry representatives.' BBC airplay, headline slots a Manchester Academy, European tour and gushing reviews. Yet this band is UNSIGNED. Not only that they have entered this competition despite having all this behind them. However this is the problem for bands with no backing - how do you compete with bands that risk and invest everything just to get signed - the label get an instant product with fans, records, tours - the lot, all the company have to do is sort out a risk free contract to distribute and promote the record and they should get some return. No label would invest in a band that haven't got these minimum elements sorted, even if their music was incredible. In fact the qualitative element of music was lost a long time ago.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Higher Education (response to Guardian Blog)
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/education/mortarboard/2012/jun/18/academia-not-stressful-for-me?fb_source=other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads
'Personally, I think we need to move away from the narrative of stress and focus instead on the opportunities for fulfillment that academia can offer.' I agree. I hereby withdraw all your funding, double your workload and expect you to teach for free.
The world should be 'preached' to about the value of our work by the Universities, the government and the media. Instead the latter continually berates students for being lazy party animals with rich parents (okay, some are) while the government look to cut funding to Universities and students (who are forced to pay for the privilege of higher education), hoping parents and private investors can fill the void (higher education should be a right for all young people who have the academic ability to be enriched by the experience, benefiting wider society).
(As they are not paid) It is not the job of students to 'preach' Students should study, teachers teach, disseminators disseminate.
Researching/studying is both stressful and joyful. Trying to think up new ideas, interpret difficult texts and write academically to tight deadlines is stressful, hard work. The knowledge that failure is possible and all the time and money invested could be wasted is the most stressful thing of all. That is what people are anxious about.
As someone who sees 'cheerfulness' as somehow opposite to stress you clearly know nothing about the latter.
UK Universities are in general chronically underfunded and shockingly managed (having worked for two, studied at another and seen how things are done in Switzerland). Since the credit crunch in 2008 Universities have purged staff to a shocking degree, generally expecting academic and administrative staff to pick up the slack resulting in higher workloads and less pay. Researchers on 2-3 year contracts have stress, as do lecturers on 2 year probation with REF. Lecturers and professors have the constant threat of redundancy from departmental cuts dependent on academic 'trends' that seem to involve an ongoing shift toward 'business studies' type courses and Mandarin at the expense of Humanities subjects that are at the core of our cultural identity. I have seen professors go blind with stress.
What is most worrying is the Conservative focus of your post. It seems to be heading towards 'Big Society' territory, implying that it is right for students to pay for the joyful experience of higher education, and perhaps that teachers should do so for free as well as it is so much fun. The government has already tried to make public librarians volunteers so this is not so far-fetched.
(I am final year distance learning PHD (who loves his subject) at a supportive University, with a 2 year old child and working a 4 day week).
'Personally, I think we need to move away from the narrative of stress and focus instead on the opportunities for fulfillment that academia can offer.' I agree. I hereby withdraw all your funding, double your workload and expect you to teach for free.
The world should be 'preached' to about the value of our work by the Universities, the government and the media. Instead the latter continually berates students for being lazy party animals with rich parents (okay, some are) while the government look to cut funding to Universities and students (who are forced to pay for the privilege of higher education), hoping parents and private investors can fill the void (higher education should be a right for all young people who have the academic ability to be enriched by the experience, benefiting wider society).
(As they are not paid) It is not the job of students to 'preach' Students should study, teachers teach, disseminators disseminate.
Researching/studying is both stressful and joyful. Trying to think up new ideas, interpret difficult texts and write academically to tight deadlines is stressful, hard work. The knowledge that failure is possible and all the time and money invested could be wasted is the most stressful thing of all. That is what people are anxious about.
As someone who sees 'cheerfulness' as somehow opposite to stress you clearly know nothing about the latter.
UK Universities are in general chronically underfunded and shockingly managed (having worked for two, studied at another and seen how things are done in Switzerland). Since the credit crunch in 2008 Universities have purged staff to a shocking degree, generally expecting academic and administrative staff to pick up the slack resulting in higher workloads and less pay. Researchers on 2-3 year contracts have stress, as do lecturers on 2 year probation with REF. Lecturers and professors have the constant threat of redundancy from departmental cuts dependent on academic 'trends' that seem to involve an ongoing shift toward 'business studies' type courses and Mandarin at the expense of Humanities subjects that are at the core of our cultural identity. I have seen professors go blind with stress.
What is most worrying is the Conservative focus of your post. It seems to be heading towards 'Big Society' territory, implying that it is right for students to pay for the joyful experience of higher education, and perhaps that teachers should do so for free as well as it is so much fun. The government has already tried to make public librarians volunteers so this is not so far-fetched.
(I am final year distance learning PHD (who loves his subject) at a supportive University, with a 2 year old child and working a 4 day week).
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Community, Education and UK news
The education system is also completely the opposite of the UK. Private education is the inferior sector here as because the state system is so good and well funded that only pupils who fail their studies or drop out are forced to pay to complete their education in the private sector, which somehow seems fairer, and makes sense. In the UK not only is private education better, but only the rich can afford it, AND the sector has charitable status so gets tax breaks. Failing pupils are bounced around the state system and are failed by it. After primary school pupils already start to specialise into ability and career path, something only begun at 13 in the UK. They are divided here between academic and vocational. There are also in most cantons, unlike the UK, several different schools depending on attainment level. Also the A-level equivalent system is much harder, with a much greater emphasis on languages, typically at least two having to be studied.
Every so often I have been checking back on the BBC news website and Guardian to 'keep up to date' as it were and I've been feeling increasingly distant from events in the UK that no longer seem relevant to people's real lives. It could just be living at a distance but the UK government seems increasingly out of touch although there seems to be no real opposition to what they are doing (despite it being apparent that Labour are saying the right things they don't seems to be getting anywhere) up to the point that Jeremy Hunt seems to have gotten away with some pretty dodgy behaviour, Boris Johnson got re-elected and David Cameron doesn't understand what LOL means. What are the Lib Dems doing anyway. And with the Queen's jubilee farce going on it all looks like Thatcher's Britain all over again. I really cannot understand the national pride in a monarchy with historical blood on its hands, no real English blood in its veins and having done nothing of value for the nation except constantly draining it of resources for idiotic events like this. I just don't get it. Coverage of the events in the news was total, and seemed to drown out events in Syria and other issues that should be seen as far more important. I don't want to sound like a leftist Glen Beck but what is happening? I thought the phone hacking would destroy the Murdock monopoly and reinvigorate proper investigative journalism. It seems it has only forced it further back into its shell so celebrities can carry on their affairs in peace...
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
COWMAN ON COWMAN
Q: What are you all about?
A: Cowman emerged as a response to the bullshit in music. My
band (birdbath) couldn’t get their shit together so I figured, “I can do
something on my own.” Taking cues from early Touch and Go drum machine bands like
Big Black and Flour I started making beats, playing distorted bass over the top
and attempting to do vocals, recording it all onto a four-track. It is all
really lo-fi and an early philosophy I wanted to stick to was not to overwork
material, just come up with a beat, play a riff over it a couple of times to get
a feel for it, record it, then jot down some words and record them. Only if I
was really dissatisfied with the results would I scrap a song or re-record.
Q: What’s with the persona/costume
A: Again to do with my disillusionment with UK bands at the
time I started. I was fed up of seeing bands that just tried to be cool, and
had clearly not thought about what their band-name meant or thought about
having some kind of stage gimmick. Steve Albini with Big Black used to set off
firecrackers before a show, Faust did all kinds of crazy things before, during
and after shows. Hanatarash destroyed a venue with a bulldozer. I wanted to
create something different rather than just another bunch of losers with guitars
playing loud music. So I got a cheap boiler suit, some welding goggles and some
hazard tape and there was Cowman. A friend found a cow’s pelvis in a field that
we made into a kind of helmet that I wore for a while, but it was so
uncomfortable I gave it up. Recently I gave up on the goggles, as I was sick of
not being able to see at shows.
The name came from a few places, first I am a vegan, and
vegan shit can stink out a place, so when a flatmate said, ‘dude, you stink
like a cow, man’ the name stuck. I also like the Simpsons connection, ‘don’t
have a cow, man’ and the reference to a little known song by U.S. Maple “When a
man says ow.” As a vegan it is a reference to the fact that people are animals,
like saying a cow is like a man – you eat beef, but would you eat man beef?
Kind of confrontational. Most people don’t get it though.
Q: What’s with the music?
A: I like loud, distorted bass sounds, and so that it what I
have tried to create. I have recorded about 7 albums worth of material, with
the first effort ‘cowman’ now unavailable. That had a mixture of material where
I was experimenting with synths and different drum sounds, and some of it is
poor quality. The first proper album, ‘The Joy Of Not Being Sold Anything’ I am
still quite happy with. It came about as I was living in London and had been
working on material for a project I was working on with a friend called
Midnight Moth. That was about recording an album in 24 straight hours. We had
already recorded two fairly successful albums, however we got stuck with
‘artistic differences’ on the third, fell out big time (I haven’t spoken to him
since) and put all my creative juices into this Cowman album. In response to my
Midnight Moth partner selling cds with my playing on them without either my
consent or my feeling that the material was good enough to sell was to put
together an album to give away free. The golden inspiration was seeing the
fresh Banksy graffiti on a London billboard giving me the title and cover of
the album. Nice. Next was the pun titled ‘gina,’ get it? Cowmangina. Ha ha.
This is probably my favourite album as I managed to get a really high pitched,
electronic sounding bass/guitar sound that reminded me of Big Black. It is also
pretty dark too. After that was “Apocalypse Cow” (not the best pun I know)
which was a lot more experimental and disjointed – there is some synth stuff,
live drums, improvised stuff and some of my favourite songs like bubblegum bum
rape and senigalia on there, my first release on ingue records. The last album
was the crushingly intense “palpating the rumen” Around 70 minutes of
relentless high impact music. I was trying to create an album as tight as Big
Black’s “Songs About Fucking” and succeeded in making an album twice the
length. In hindsight I should have cut some of the material, but at the time I
wanted an evil beast, and that is what I ended up with, similar in some ways to
‘gina.’ That was in 2009, and since then I have recorded a covers album and an
experimental concept album (one track is on soundcloud), no release date for either yet, maybe 2013.
Q:Tour?
A:I find playing live a real headache, too many gadgets to
keep track of – this is the problem with being solo, however it is hugely
rewarding so I may be tempted into playing if I get the right offer. The problem
is the state of music in the UK at the moment is so deflated that a noise-rock
act like me is no longer a draw even as a novelty. With bands like Aids Wolf breaking up and Doomsday Student only playing the Supersonic Festival in
Birmingham and London it says to me that traditional touring routes are off,
only major cities need apply. Last time I played Bristol I was seen by about 10
people which gets a bit depressing, and if the promoter is losing money then so
are the bands. Live music is a decent income stream if you are in the right
band and you are promoted properly. Unfortunately being unsigned or ‘novelty’
does not get you good support slots or get you a good booking agent. But we’ll
see after I have finished my studies.
Q:Studies?
A: I’m currently working of a thesis about the writers PaulBowles and William S. Burroughs. When that is done I may have some more time
for music…
Sunday, April 15, 2012
A Nice Little Earner
UK dentists, in 2009, earned an average of £89,062 a year. Take home. Do they earn this? the last check up I had it took around 3 minutes for the dentist to look at my teeth, a service that cost me £16. I worked out the numbers, roughly against that amount (not taking into account expenses, but also more lucrative procedures such as implants, bridges, extractions etc.), it works out at about £2000 a day, which is 10,000 a week, a staggering £400,000 a year (working only 40 weeks). No wonder it is a profession attractive to business minded parents. But this is precisely the problem. It cannot be counted a 'caring' profession when it is so lucrative, as it inevitably attracts people who are interested in making money rather than making people well. A business minded person would not be considering what is in the interest of the patient, but rather what would earn the dentist the most money, hence the large number of unnecessary treatments, misdiagnoses and the array of additional services (such as the visit to the hygienist, usually costing £30 plus, which only recently has been added as a private service, in the past, and officially still, the dentist should perform at least a scale and polish, though now a patient has to demand this as dentists can save themselves time by not doing it, though ethically this means patients teeth care is worse). I have had numerous bad dentists over the years and am so sick of the service it makes me sick. People are right to be scared of dentists - as chances are they will have worse teeth and less money as a result of visiting one. I have had root filling done badly in 1992 causing an infection leading to an unpleasant hospital operation called an apisectomy. I still have an infection 20 YEARS LATER despite numerous check-ups (£16+ a time), an unnecessary extraction that cost £200 (another dentist would have charged £400 - both nhs) and a private root filling that cost £700, all to no avail. See why I place dentists up there with Estate Agents and Bank Managers. see here: BBC NEWS 2009
General Practitioners get my goat too. They're on at least £60,000 a year take home (why it's less than dentists I don't know, they seem to do loads more work). Okay, there are some good G.P.s out there, but increasingly their job is simply Google-ing your symptoms and then prescribing the appropriate drug (the brand on which depends on which company sponsors that particular doctor see here). G.P.s are also G.P.'s because they couldn't specialise at Uni - most med students, particularly the brightest and the best specialise in order to become surgeons or specialists in a field - so yes I am implying that G.P.s are the inferior med students. Hence the high numbers of misdiagnosed patients. It is again also the case, because of the law of interests, that it is never in a doctor or drug company's interest to cure a patient, as their income stream would instantly disappear. And new 'illnesses' like depression, ADHD etc. have essentially been constructed to sell more drugs and give G.P.s more work to do. Now I have suffered depression, and have had close friends suffer it too, and I have never seen a worse attempt at a cure than Prozac. And the UK government want to put these people on £300,000 a year, with more power over surgery spending? The drug companies must be rubbing their blood covered hands with glee. For more see here.
After seeing Schneidlomat's blog post about therapists in the US, I figured I should add my thoughts about said profession here. In my not extensive experience I have found 'councelors' (there is some confusion over what defines a councelor, therapist and psychotherapist - usually it is how long they spent in college) a somewhat strange breed. The question I ask myself is what makes someone become a councelor - and my cynical modern mind leads me to think in terms of 'it seems like an easy job - I'm a people person who likes talking to people - I can't think of anything else to do.' In common with dentists it is never in a councelor's interest to 'cure' the patient as this will cut off a source of revenue, what they need is to keep you interested in seeing them, as regularly as possible. It is also their job to listen to you and talk to you but it is not their job to either care or be your friend. This can often be a problem, as depression can stem from loneliness (more common than you'd think, especially in large cities - people who have lots of friends can feel very lonely too - some friendships can be very complex and unhelpful to mental health). Now I don't have an answer I just think it is worth thinking about some of these issues before seeking 'professional' help. I can also remember Psychology undergraduates who should never be councelors telling me that that was precisely the career path they saw for themselves. Again most people see Psychology as a 'soft' subject taken by undergrads who have no clear direction in life - not the best type of person to help you sort your life out. Perhaps it is better to try speaking to close friends or relations you already trust, or writing your feelings down. And cheaper.
Unfortunately most forward thinking countries have gone via the Health Insurance, total privatisation option, and while in the UK most would not wish to lose the NHS, it seems it has already gone. Just visited a Doctor in St Gallen. Fantastic service, wonderfully clean waiting and consulting rooms, waited 30 seconds before being seen by a really nice, friendly, relaxed doctor who put me at ease and got to the bottom of my problem very quickly, and as it was a common treatment could prescribe and supply medication in house. Medication was given to me at reception, the bill would be posted to my address! I love that. The trust that exists in sending bills to people that no longer exists in the UK. Returning to the hell that is UK dentistry you now have to pay for your check up or treatment BEFORE YOU HAVE HAD IT. This is insane - they have your address on record but still there is no trust, they want your cash or debit card payment UPFRONT, so if you are dissatisfied with the service - tough. Maybe it is because many people have tried to get away without paying but society cannot work like this. If I am going to buy a car I don't go to the garage, talk to the salesman and give him a load of money before I've even seen it or given it a test drive. I don't go to the supermarket ad give a load of money to the cashier and then collect my food (unless I buy online like a lazy, agoraphobic idiot). And if the dentist's don't trust me to pay for my treatment, why should I trust them to give me a good service - this thing works both ways. I'll miss St Gallen. When the UK does lose the NHS the private care provided will be like dentistry is already, upfront, overcharged poor service, and probably not far off the massive increases in charges made by water companies with no improvement in infrastructure or the private train system where ticket prices are a lottery and there is no guarantee you'll get anywhere. While the private systems in Switzerland are expensive, the work and work well. There is pride and trust in a system that works, and the taxes seem fair, along with wage levels being sufficient to pay for health insurance etc. Unfortunately in the UK wage levels are already insufficient to pay for NHS care, so a private system would in all likelihood be disastrous.
General Practitioners get my goat too. They're on at least £60,000 a year take home (why it's less than dentists I don't know, they seem to do loads more work). Okay, there are some good G.P.s out there, but increasingly their job is simply Google-ing your symptoms and then prescribing the appropriate drug (the brand on which depends on which company sponsors that particular doctor see here). G.P.s are also G.P.'s because they couldn't specialise at Uni - most med students, particularly the brightest and the best specialise in order to become surgeons or specialists in a field - so yes I am implying that G.P.s are the inferior med students. Hence the high numbers of misdiagnosed patients. It is again also the case, because of the law of interests, that it is never in a doctor or drug company's interest to cure a patient, as their income stream would instantly disappear. And new 'illnesses' like depression, ADHD etc. have essentially been constructed to sell more drugs and give G.P.s more work to do. Now I have suffered depression, and have had close friends suffer it too, and I have never seen a worse attempt at a cure than Prozac. And the UK government want to put these people on £300,000 a year, with more power over surgery spending? The drug companies must be rubbing their blood covered hands with glee. For more see here.
After seeing Schneidlomat's blog post about therapists in the US, I figured I should add my thoughts about said profession here. In my not extensive experience I have found 'councelors' (there is some confusion over what defines a councelor, therapist and psychotherapist - usually it is how long they spent in college) a somewhat strange breed. The question I ask myself is what makes someone become a councelor - and my cynical modern mind leads me to think in terms of 'it seems like an easy job - I'm a people person who likes talking to people - I can't think of anything else to do.' In common with dentists it is never in a councelor's interest to 'cure' the patient as this will cut off a source of revenue, what they need is to keep you interested in seeing them, as regularly as possible. It is also their job to listen to you and talk to you but it is not their job to either care or be your friend. This can often be a problem, as depression can stem from loneliness (more common than you'd think, especially in large cities - people who have lots of friends can feel very lonely too - some friendships can be very complex and unhelpful to mental health). Now I don't have an answer I just think it is worth thinking about some of these issues before seeking 'professional' help. I can also remember Psychology undergraduates who should never be councelors telling me that that was precisely the career path they saw for themselves. Again most people see Psychology as a 'soft' subject taken by undergrads who have no clear direction in life - not the best type of person to help you sort your life out. Perhaps it is better to try speaking to close friends or relations you already trust, or writing your feelings down. And cheaper.
Unfortunately most forward thinking countries have gone via the Health Insurance, total privatisation option, and while in the UK most would not wish to lose the NHS, it seems it has already gone. Just visited a Doctor in St Gallen. Fantastic service, wonderfully clean waiting and consulting rooms, waited 30 seconds before being seen by a really nice, friendly, relaxed doctor who put me at ease and got to the bottom of my problem very quickly, and as it was a common treatment could prescribe and supply medication in house. Medication was given to me at reception, the bill would be posted to my address! I love that. The trust that exists in sending bills to people that no longer exists in the UK. Returning to the hell that is UK dentistry you now have to pay for your check up or treatment BEFORE YOU HAVE HAD IT. This is insane - they have your address on record but still there is no trust, they want your cash or debit card payment UPFRONT, so if you are dissatisfied with the service - tough. Maybe it is because many people have tried to get away without paying but society cannot work like this. If I am going to buy a car I don't go to the garage, talk to the salesman and give him a load of money before I've even seen it or given it a test drive. I don't go to the supermarket ad give a load of money to the cashier and then collect my food (unless I buy online like a lazy, agoraphobic idiot). And if the dentist's don't trust me to pay for my treatment, why should I trust them to give me a good service - this thing works both ways. I'll miss St Gallen. When the UK does lose the NHS the private care provided will be like dentistry is already, upfront, overcharged poor service, and probably not far off the massive increases in charges made by water companies with no improvement in infrastructure or the private train system where ticket prices are a lottery and there is no guarantee you'll get anywhere. While the private systems in Switzerland are expensive, the work and work well. There is pride and trust in a system that works, and the taxes seem fair, along with wage levels being sufficient to pay for health insurance etc. Unfortunately in the UK wage levels are already insufficient to pay for NHS care, so a private system would in all likelihood be disastrous.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Youth, Commitment, Investment and the 'pernicious idea that success is not related to effort and work'
Here is an image that sums something up for me. In the background is St Gallen Cathedral, religious centre and main tourist attraction of the canton. In the foreground is, right next to, even precariously close to the buildings is a basketball/five-a-side court. Religion and youth sports go hand in hand, not in a pernicious attempt to encourage youth into attending church but simply because activities for the youth are considered important and worthy of investment. Unemployment here is around 3%. That's right 3%. In the UK it is around 8%. Youth unemployment is around 5% here. It is around 30% in the UK. Now I don't wish to get into any economic arguments I don't fully understand but comparing where each country stands the biggest problem for the UK is a combination of cultural difference - the lack of investment in youth - and the massive public debt held by the UK, around double that of Switzerland.
Big news at the moment in the UK is the work experience/slavery recruitment initiative between large companies and the Government - see Ian Duncan Smith's irritating and poorly written article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2104022/The-delusions-X-Factor-sneering-job-snobs-betray-young.html
Here he outlines his vision of work in the 21st century - that stacking shelves in Tesco's in order to keep your benefits should be regarded as not demeaning but a positive way to be an active member of society. What this misses is that most, if not all young people on benefits are not there through choice, but are in fact actively looking for work that they have studied for, only to find that those jobs either don't exist or no longer exist due to the current government's mismanagement of the economy (allowing the banks to dictate policy, failing to invest in growth, allowing small businesses to fold, supporting big businesses as they expand and fill gaps left by failing small businesses, cutting NHS funding while looking to privatise, etc.). His idea that young people are workshy X-factor wannabe yobs is at least generalising at worst derogatory. Looking at some of the comments from right wing Daily Mail readers it seems even they balk at IDS's summary of the situation. It is amazing for him to comment, 'it’s small wonder that businesses have hired so many foreign nationals in the past decade or so. The fact is that they can’t find the employees of quality that they need from the available British workforce.' It's is not quality that is lacking (although how much quality do Tesco's need to stack shelves?), though the statement answers itself - more investment in education and training for from infants to uni would surely help this, it is that foreign nationals will generally work for less pay, and if they lack some ability to fully understand English they can often be blagged into working in poorer conditions - I am not saying foreign workers are stupid in any way, it is just large companies know what they are looking for in an employee - hence them signing up to this great deal to get their shelves stacked practically for free. The youth eventually become all to aware that success is not based on luck after buying the tenth scratch card in Tesco's Metro.
What is needed in the UK is a holistic approach to investment in youth - from parks, youth clubs, schools to opportunities for apprenticeships, FE courses, access to University and quality internships and work experience placements that do not teach young people that a life of work is the drudgery of shelf stacking or order picking - you may reduce idleness but you'll raise the suicide rate. Regarding X-Factor why is this show such a hit? Kids do nothing but watch TV because sports clubs are too expensive, parks are being bulldozed, youth club funding withdrawn, the streets are unsafe to play in, libraries are closing, and parents & schools fail to teach that books are important. Make life for the next generation more pleasant, and instill some respect and discipline now or they will never forgive you in the future.
When Youth unemployment rose in Switzerland in 2009 (to 6%) here is their approach - http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/internal_affairs/Economy_unites_to_fight_youth_unemployment.html?cid=67688
" We can't afford as a society to have a lost generation or a group falling out of the labour market. That's a social problem. "
Thomas Daum, director of Swiss Employers' Association
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Airports, Alienation, Brooker (again) and Filesharing.
They have some cool stuff here. This photo is taken from the mini-shuttle at Zurich airport. You ride in it for three minutes to get to one of the terminals and it rocks. Feels like something out of Akira crossed with Heidi. I say Heidi because contrasting with the ultra high-tech is the piped in traditional sounds of Switzerland, replete with mooing cows, yodeling and birdsong. Neat.Anyway having been here for more than three months I feel a sense of guilt for not having learned even the most basic German phrases. I know hello, bye, yes, no and some numbers and that's it. My excuse? You can get by without it. I've done okay up to now and I've really been too busy to give it the study time it deserves. That all said the guilt has started to set in, and I start hearing immigration ministers from the UK rattling on about immigrants being deported if they don't learn English - and wondering whether I'd deport myself. So here is the deal - I'll try and learn a basic phrase like 'please can I have ...' by the time I write my next post.
On top of the guilt, and despite most people here knowing a little English I am feeling a little isolated, or alienated, in that I cannot just go anywhere and necessarily make myself understood (not that I would in the UK - it's just the fact the possibility is no longer there). It's not such a bad feeling, and not having so many people to talk to seems to make the written word a bit sharper. I guess it's like Paul Bowles said, ‘I can think of no greater delight than to be a foreigner, among those who are not of my kind.'
Which leads neatly into my seemingly ongoing attack on a writer who's work I used to admire greatly, particularly his "TV GO HOME" parodies, his TV guide rants in the Guardian guide (collected in Screenburn) and their TV counterparts Screenwipe and Newswipe, his massively underrated collaboration with Chris Morris Nathan Barley and his Big Brother/Dawn of the Dead parody Dead Set. However he seems intent on becoming something of a king of the 'lazy left,' becoming embroiled in a pointless debate over whether David Cameron is a lizard. essentially writing a bunch of faintly funny, nihilistic, verbose hot air. Frankly I couldn't care less about whether Cameron is a lizard, he could be a three breasted shoggoth with mugwump offspring for all I care - the problem I have is with Brooker taking up all this column space with pointless discussion about the PM, turning Cameron into a harmless figure of comedy rather than the man who is helping to (continue to) sell the UK up the river. You see it is okay slagging off TV shows in his comedy rant style, but when you get political you have to back it up with facts and intelligent satire that makes a serious point. Not pointless caricature.
The main issue I have with the former computer game reviewer this week is with his taking a gig to 'write some travel pieces' for the Guardian. So they are moving him away from politics then. Good. Ah wait hang on, what is this about green kit-kats and robo-toilets in Japan, hasn't everyone from Clive James to Jonathan Ross done the whole 'woah aren't the Japanese like totally weird, it's like their country is like totally foreign man' thing. He starts with the usual point of entry - commercially available foodstuff, something familiar, yet in Japan strangely unfamiliar to the foreigner, like a green kit-kat (which he feels the need to inform us, despite a close up picture, that it is, 'not the wrapper – I'm not that easily impressed – I mean the chocolate itself is green.' Anyone who has been into any sweet shop in the world can find equivalent unusual treats, I used to frequent Cybercandy in London who stock far more interesting and unusual titbits. Come on Charlie is that your opening gambit? What next, the high-tech toilet angle? Surely that's too obvious? Oh...Apparently not. Brooker sees fit to stick down some more lazy journalism about the state of Japan's toilets, he writes that, 'It's disconcerting, defecating into a robot's mouth.' Ha. Hilarious. I have to say I still miss the advanced sense of hygiene and comfort you get from a Japanese toilet, and the fact that as a culture they think it is actually important to spend time and money on developing such things is admirable, and unlike the 'British' tendency to stick our noses up at such things, or say how weird or quaint it all is, the Japanese proudly and unprudishly forge ahead. I wish all toilets were heated, had a built in bidet function and performed a health check while playing traditional music. But these two initial observations of his aside, I am appalled by what he had to say next, 'every now and then when, the sheer sensory overload gets too much, I retire to the hotel room to stare at the television.' The guy is in Japan, presumably Tokyo, the most vibrant and advanced city in the world. He decides to stay in and watch TV. Could his wife not have recommended a few things for him to do (former Blue Peter presented must have been to Japan - though I can't be arsed to find out). And what does this connoisseur of visual media make of it. Well it's crap of course, but then TV is crap the world over, apart from HBO, which is just Hollywood TV anyway. Thanks Charlie for your pearls of wisdom. How much is the Guardian paying you? On top of expenses? Great. To end the piece he goes about reinforcing a stereotype about how Japanese people are incredibly polite and that if you ask someone in the street for directions they will do everything possible to help. Well firstly I doubt very much whether Mr Brooker was out in the street asking passers-by for directions in English, because if he was he would have found many would not have understood what he was saying. Asking for a Mos Burger too? Given all the culinary delights on offer is that the best you could ask for? Why not ask for Macdonalds?
In my experience Japanese people are on the whole very helpful and polite yes, but so are the Swiss, the German, the Chinese and even, on the whole, the British. This smells like lazy writing Brooker and I don't like it one bit. BROOKER GO HOME TO TV or video games where you belong. Grr. Hopefully I'll be going to Japan in a few weeks and I'll write a travel piece for free.
One last thing to mention is the apparent clampdown on filesharing by the FBI and US Justice Department. I don't have much of a problem with filesharing, particularly if the music is rare and hard to obtain, and much as I dislike musicians and artists not getting a fair-deal and their work being pirated, unless you are Lady Gaga or Spielberg this is not much of an issue, and even then while you roll around in your bath of money, eating gold leaf, driving gold cars sticking diamonds up your arse I'm not sure you'd care. Which leads us to the real issue. Money. It seems Kim Dotcom (hilariously changed his name from Schmidt) owner of Megaupload was arrested in New Zealand after electronically locking himself in his mansion, then in a panicroom with a sawn off shotgun. I love how loaded this guy had got in just five years, he had, '18 luxury vehicles, including a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe and a 1959 pink Cadillac. The vehicles are valued at NZ$6 million ($4.9 million). Police said as much as NZ$11 million in cash was restrained in various accounts.' I guess this is from people subscribing to his site and advertising revenue, and to be fair, if people are dumb enough to sign up then fair play to the guy. Regarding the issue of copyright well if the copyright holders have a problem then shouldn't it be with those people uploading their material rather than the hosting site itself? Anyway in all probability the Feds won't do this kind of think again for a while as, firstly they went for Megaupload as they had servers based in the US so the Feds could legally indict, and secondly it seems to have had the desired effect of sending a shockwave through other hosting sites, and making bloggers who post links to files think about what they are doing. Though, along with SOPA, this seems to be part of a combined effort from the US govt. Hollywood and the major labels to scrape back some revenues. And perhaps it is a sign of some desperation as all these entities are under some considerable financial pressure. Expecting a war anytime soon anybody?
Monday, January 16, 2012
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