EC1 Cruise Control

The intricacies of La fête nationale

2009-06-24T19:43:00.004+01:00

Today is St-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec. It's a public holiday and is known as la fête nationale, tracing its origins back as a patriotic celebration back to the early 19th century. Records from that time show how it was initially meant to promote solidarity and unity among people in what was then Lower Canada, and was celebrated by the Irish and Anglophone populations as well as the French Canadians.

In modern times, la fête nationale has been arguably hijacked by the Quebec separatist movement, despite its historically being a day for all French Canadians, both in and outside of the province. Sadly, the same inferiority complex that saw a re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham cancelled at last year's 400th anniversary celebrations in Quebec City (and some uncharitable views on Paul McCartney's concert presence at the same event) remains in evidence today.

This year, a fringe festival called L'Autre St Jean was held in Montreal to provide a showcase for Quebec's indie musicians - including those whose songs happened to be sung en anglais. A week before the concert, all Anglo bands were axed from the schedule. The official reason: fear of violence in the crowd after warnings by nationalist/separatist organisations.

I'm happy to say there was a public uproar, and the bands were soon reinstated. The festival took place yesterday and was mostly peaceful. True to form, however, a ragtag group of (mostly drunk) separatists showed up and tried to disrupt proceedings. A quick glance through the pictures in this article from the Montreal Gazette gives some idea of the sub-atomic level of intellect we're dealing with here.

Shenanigans like these are nothing new in Quebec, but it's depressing to see that, more than 30 years since the Charter of the French Language was passed, there are still people out there who genuinely believe that singing a few English songs in a public park is a serious affront to French culture and national identity in Quebec. Haven't we got the self-confidence to move beyond this?

Mee-ow...

2009-06-19T19:37:00.001+01:00

...but well-deserved.

Attacks on Roma in Belfast

2009-06-18T22:39:00.003+01:00

To Belfast, now, where recent days have seen over 100 Roma immigrants take shelter in community centres to escape racist attacks - window smashing, rock throwing, gun shots, physical assault.

Something that's struck me is the difference in what's reported by the mainstream media and local bloggers. Not that this will come as a surprise to people who live in the north of Ireland, by any means, but for me it's still shocking that newspapers are so ready to say that there are only a handful of racists skulking about and that most people are open-minded and liberal. Reading through some of the comments on Slugger O'Toole and elsewhere, it's clear that a lot of people who do condemn the violence are not exactly thrilled about having the Roma in their backyard and are openly questioning their contribution to society. Another important discrepancy I've noticed between official and local reports is best summed up thus:

BBC Northern Ireland: "Police do not believe paramilitaries were involved in the attacks."

vs.

Slugger O'Toole: "The involvement of gun indicates an acquiesce of paramilitaries in an area in which it is almost impossible to move (or even talk to the press) without their say so."

Hmm.

****************

UPDATE: Read and listen to more analysis of the situation by the Guardian's Henry McDonald. Would have been good to have more detail on why these attacks are mainly a problem in loyalist areas and not republican ones, but this is still the clearest and most accurate description of events I've come across so far.

Tribune: The great survivor

2009-06-18T16:58:00.002+01:00

You have to admire the chutzpah of the good folks at Tribune. No money? Tiny circulation? Affiliated political party on the brink of collapse? Mere trifles! Under new ownership since March, Tribune now has a snazzy new look and wider editorial remit, and is set to keep on fighting the good fight. My mole tells me that last night's relaunch party at the Westminster's Churchill Dining Room was a generally upbeat affair, but I suspect that the presence of a handful of recently ejected Labour MEPs and Red Ken himself wandering about the place must've made it difficult to forget the Party's woes. As New Labour enters what must surely be its final months in power, I wish Tribune nothing but the best, and hope it can stay true to its roots and survive what will likely be a very difficult period. That said, "difficult periods" seem to be precisely what Tribune (and its amazingly dedicated staff) thrives on.

In praise of intelligence

2009-06-17T05:21:00.004+01:00

My, but it was a joy to hear Obama take his time and choose exactly the right words on the White House lawn today when pressed for his opinion on the Tehran protests. When this president pauses, it's because he wants to get the right message across and avoid alienating potential allies. When the last one paused, it's because he had lost the right page in the Bumper Book of Big Words.

Call it shooting fish in a barrel, cheap point-scoring or what you will. I'm just happy to have an intelligent person in charge of the most powerful country on Earth.

(To say nothing of the lack of "regime change" talk. How times have changed.)

I like Mike

2009-06-16T22:20:00.003+01:00

Not Ignatieff in this instance - still making my mind up about him - but Finnerty. They say you should learn one new thing every day, and today I learned that Mike Finnerty, the host of CBC Montreal's morning radio show Daybreak, is moving to London to become the Guardian's new multimedia editor. This is possibly my dream job of all time (second only to being the Observer Food Monthly's chief pie taster), so I'm thrilled to see it go to a fellow Montrealer.

It's also been a sobering reminder of just how much experience you need to rack up before getting a gig with the Grauniad: Eight years working as a reporter for CBC radio, followed by a decade as a BBC News correspondent before becoming Daybreak host in 2007. I've a ways to go yet.

In Solidarity.

2009-06-15T15:41:00.005+01:00

A few people have asked me for my take on the recent Iranian presidential elections. Those who have followed this blog for any length of time will be aware that I very rarely make any sort of public commentary on Iranian politics. This is not through lack of interest--far from it--but more due to family reasons. The state of things is such that if any anything I write here were to be traced back to me or my family, it could make things difficult for them if they need to enter Iran for whatever reason. So, for this reason, I have always held back, and will continue to do so for awhile yet.

Despite this, I am adding my name to those who are contesting the official results. After all, if you have nothing to hide, why not let in some impartial observers?

Also, at the risk of being a hypocritical wuss, here are some links to other bloggers and groups who are covering the unfolding events more passionately than I:

The Pig Plague Has Arrived.

2009-06-12T16:54:00.001+01:00

It's official, we are in the midst of a pandemic. The first one in four decades, in fact. The WHO's decision to move up to Level 6 has prompted a fair bit of controversy and debate, not least between me and my fellow healthcare anylysts. Miss K and I were thrashing it out earlier this afternoon, and we quickly established ourselves on different sides of the divide:

Miss K: The WHO is being highly irresponsible in declaring a pandemic. People will panic for nothing, and there will be travel bans imposed in certain countries, and it will badly damage the economy.

Lady M: Perhaps, but how long is the WHO supposed to wait? If it does nothing until the A/H1N1 incidence rate is well into the double figures, it will be accused of having taken no precautionary measures and then people will really start to panic. Assuming the WHO delivers a consistent message that there is no need to panic and that the pandemic is a mild one, shouldn't we start mobilising resources to develop a vaccine as soon as possible?

Miss K: Yes, but the WHO has declared a pandemic based on the number of people infected rather than the severity of the infection. There have barely been any deaths from swine 'flu on a global level. If they do this with every new disease, the pandemic alert will lose its effectiveness and people won't care anymore.

Lady M: You can't use the number of deaths as the only way of telling how serious this is. Half the people who are getting sick are taking weeks to recover, and when you multiply the cost of their quarantining, specialised treatment, hospital costs and days off work by the number of people who will eventually get it if no preventive action is taken, the economic cost will run into the hundreds of millions globally.

It's a tough one, and there are valid points to be made on either side. What do you think?

The morning after the night before

2009-06-08T15:22:00.002+01:00

Feeling a little calmer today, so enough with the personal nonsense. Instead, let's talk about the hysteria of the past week's political scene. As at least one other blogger has pointed out, most of the cabinet ministers who resigned last week were heavily implicated in the expenses scandal, and have managed to neatly sidestep further investigation by magically shifting the blame onto Brown. They say it's lonely at the top - how right they are. Not that Brown is a stellar leader by any means, but it is disappointing how willing most of the media is to automatically take the resigning cabinet ministers' accusations against him at face value without questioning what's in it for them. End result, Labour goes into public meltdown and the baying for Brown's blood continues. Do I think he should step down? No. But an election held reasonably soon does seem unavoidable for reasons we'll get to later.

Lest we forget, the Tories have also been badly hit by the expenses inquiry, although their status as opposition has allowed them to point the finger at Labour when its resignations reached Cabinet level. Nevertheless, the timing of the expenses revelations and the subsequent resignations within both parties made all mainstream politicians look like chancers and crooks, which certainly doesn't help in the run-up to local and EU elections during times of economic strife.

I would venture to propose, therefore, that the advances made by UKIP and the BNP last night are not entirely shocking! Crushing, disappointing and disturbing, yes, but not unexpected. The fact that many of Labour's lost votes went to these fringe parties and not to the other mainstream parties is an indictment of the mainstream's shortsightedness in failing to campaign sufficiently against the far right. It is also a depressingly predictable confirmation of which way people vote when the money stops flowing, not only in Britain but around Europe as well. The rise of Geert Wilders' ultra-nationalist Freedom Party in the Netherlands is particularly worrying. It's difficult to know, however, how much of the far right's success last night was due to increasing support as opposed to general voter apathy: according to the BBC, just 43% of the European electorate bothered to turn up at the polls for this election, compared with 62% in 1979.

Back in Britain, the dismal turnout for the EU vote, Labour's mauling in the local elections, the incessant bad press, the crumbling cabinet and--most importantly-- the growing antipathy of the electorate, all point to one course of action: calling a general election. We have officially reached the point where waiting a few extra months will not help. Labour will lose, and badly, whether an election is held tomorrow or in six months' time. Norm understands. The point is, the longer it waits, the worse its loss will be, and the harder it will be to repair the damage. If an election is held soon, it will be unavoidably humiliating, but in the long run it will preserve the few threads of credibility that the party has left. In opposition, they can regroup, choose a new leader, develop new ideas from the ground up, and--eventually-- win back the confidence of the working class.

...and another thing.

2009-06-07T21:05:00.002+01:00

When living in England, it took my bank precisely seven days to process a foreign currency cheque, while in this fucking backwater the standard is apparently FORTY BUSINESS DAYS. To say nothing of the fact that there is no post delivered on Saturdays.

Harrumph!

-Disgusted of Montreal (formerly of N5 and EC1).

In Limbo.

2009-06-05T20:09:00.005+01:00

Is it possible to be homesick for a place in which you never grew up? Is it possible to be more at home in an adopted country than your own? It's been over a month now since I packed up my London life and returned to Montreal, ostensibly forever, but initially at least to pursue a master's degree at a university I can actually afford. I had high hopes and big plans for my return to Canada. I was going to put the knowledge I had gained and the confidence I had developed into living a full and exciting life here, the country to which so many people are desperate to emigrate and in which I was fortunate enough to be raised. I was going to stand in wide open spaces and breathe deeply, enjoy the buzz of life in a city that is vibrant and active but small and friendly, meet new people and forge new alliances, finish my degree and set up a life for myself that was comfortable but never boring.

And yet.

That feeling, that haunting, nagging feeling that ate away at me in the years before I ever moved to London has returned. This is not where I belong. The people I have met, the places I have seen, the stories I have heard. All of them warm, pleasant and welcoming. But as alien to me as if they had come from the moon.

The French have a word for it that has no direct English equivalent: dépaysagement. Loosely translated, it means feeling removed from your own country, placed in an environment that feels foreign in appearance and culture. When I look around me today I see houses, streets and shops that have mostly remained the same for as long as I can remember, and they comfort me. The people, however, are what make me question my ties to this place. The more of them I speak to, the less I feel that I have a typically "Canadian" outlook on life. My priorities, my interests, my tastes, are shared by few here. The easy answer, of course, is that not everybody has the same interests, and that every country is swarming with people whose preoccupations are not those of the majority. But what happens when what makes you happy is specifically found somewhere else? What are you supposed to do with your life when your family is in one corner of the world and your heart is in another?

I cannot believe that I already want to go back. I am furious and heartbroken at the same time.

It's oh so quiet

2009-03-04T13:20:00.003Z

Ever since the Guardianistas upped sticks and moved to King's Cross, there's been an eerie silence blowing across Farringdon Road. Add to that the fact that businesses on Cowcross Street (home to Farringdon station) are slowly being boarded up ahead of the Crossrail project, and there is a distinct ghost-town feeling in the air.

You may have noticed that the job market is also pretty quiet these days! Those of us who were desperately trying to escape crap jobs and move on to something better pretty much have to suck it for the foreseeable future and just be grateful for still being employed. A bit like purgatory.

We had a meeting at my office yesterday where our new director announced more job flexibility between different roles, including between analysts and editors. Could this be more evidence that the Roy Greenslade school of thought on subbing is catching on? Let's hope not.

In the time-honoured tradition of TNT magazine...

2009-01-16T18:31:00.002Z

Who's had a Kylie day:

Chesley B. Sullenberger III, the pilot that managed to crash-land US Airways flight 1548 on the Hudson river in New York City without losing a single life on board. In the words of Time magazine, "After logging some 19,000 hours of acclaimed but anonymous service in the skies, Chesley B. Sullenberger III became a hero in a New York minute."

And who's had a Dannii:

Boy George, who has 15 months of jail time to look forward to after being convicted of falsely imprisoning and assaulting a male escort. Nice one, George.

Smug protesters

2009-01-15T21:38:00.002Z

Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon? Because not that it makes even an iota of difference to people caught up in the violence in Gaza, but there seems to be a lot of it about. For every pro-Palestinian rally there has been in the UK in recent days, there have been whispers among those supporting the other side along the lines of - "Did you see who was at that meeting? Why, none other than [insert name of former dissident/paramilitary/separatist/Islamist/green-haired unicycling freak of nature here]!!! Nice bunch of people... NOT." Yes, obviously they're not nice people, but their attendance doesn't automatically invalidate the cause of the march, nor does it mean that everyone who supports it are ranting loonies. Anyway, as I said,not like it makes a blind bit of difference to the people living in the warzone.

Start as you mean to go on

2009-01-01T20:05:00.003Z

A very happy 2009 to you all, dear readers! This is shaping up to be a pretty transformative year for me, with several Big Plans in development that I will keep under wraps for a while longer. For now, I am indulging in a spot of reflection, and I hope you will join me for the ride.

Among my Christmas presents this year was a copy of the first Belle De Jour book, pulled together from blog entries written between 2003 and 2004. Ah, the heady days when starting up a blog was seemingly only a few Kevin Bacons away from snagging a publisher for your first novel or being offered a regular newspaper column. Does fate still smile so kindly on bloggers in the cruel new dawn of 2009? It would appear not.

Over here in the free world, it seems that everyone and their dog has got a weblog these days, covering every topic under the sun. And while we should of course be grateful to live in a country where freedom of speech is respected and protected, the lengths to which some will go to prove this can sometimes beggar belief. To wit, last week's Channel Four alternative Christmas message, starring one Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Somebody at the station's commissioning department clearly still has a lot to learn about how the world works.

But returning to the blogosphere for a moment, if I've learned anything from it in the past four year, it is this: With a handful of notable exceptions, most of the best blogs are powered by self-regard, or, to put it another way, a strong belief in the merit and interest of one's opinions to other people. I don't mean that in a bad way, as hard to believe as it may seem. There is a world of difference between writing a blog and keeping a diary, and in order to have any kind of success at the former, self-conscious witterings about the tedium of everyday life simply won't cut it. Pepys it ain't.

So, my main resolution for 2009 is to generally lead a more exciting, less predictable life than the one I've grown into over the past couple of years. Which will be no mean feat, seeing as giving up booze is next on the list. Don't ask me why. Like I hinted above, there are a few reasons for me to believe that I will be living in "interesting times" this year, and I may well wind up a raging alcoholic by June. Good times! Stay tuned.

What I don't understand,

2008-12-30T12:48:00.003Z

in the depressing tragedy that is the latest round of poorly-balanced clashes between Israel and Gaza, is the certainty of some international media outlets that Barack Obama's arrival as US president will somehow magically solve the situation. Granted, the media in question are mostly of a liberal bent, but these journalists must be either very naive or have extremely short memories. Dubya, while undoubtedly an ass and an idiot, is hardly the cause of all the world's problems, and those involving Israel and Palestine predate him by, well, quite a bit. Obama won't be the first Democrat president to tackle the Middle East conflict, and there have been dramatic escalations of violence under previous centre-left US administrations. Second Intifada ring any bells? Not wanting to appear too cynical, I certainly hope that Obama can play a role in convincing both sides to renounce acts of aggression, but it's irresponsible (not to mention unfair to him) to just assume that his mere presence on the scene will equate with an end to hostilities.

BBC Bollocks

2008-10-11T21:27:00.003+01:00

The trouble with sensationalist headlines is that they can create false assumptions among readers. Take this screamer, which was posted earlier today on the BBC News website:

Iran Celebrates Global Meltdown

For much of the day, this was among the most-read stories on the BBC site, and with good reason. It's eye-catching and evocative, conjuring up images of an evil dictators rubbing his hands with glee and ululating minions dancing in the street as piles of now-useless dollar bills go up in flames. It certainly doesn't do much to counterbalance the country's image as a founder member of the Axis of Evil...

And yet.

Click through to the story itself, and you'll find a rather different image. Yes, there's a cleric publicly relishing the downfall of the US economy. But the rest of the article is all about the inner workings of the Tehran Stock Exchange and Iranian economic policy.

The problem is, of course, that most people can't be bothered to trawl through a turgid 1,000-word piece on the Iranian banking system, and instead are much more likely to form their opinions based on the headline alone. And the headline, in this case, is completely misleading. To say nothing of the questions it raises about bias and subjectivity in journalism.

I had expected more of the BBC, which is supposedly a bastion of serious journalism and which is also partly behind a bill sent to me in the post this week asking for A HUNDRED AND FORTY QUID to maintain their supposedly impeccable standards. Harrumph.

And so, the end is near

2008-10-08T15:48:00.002+01:00

Tribune will close by the end of the month unless somebody steps in to buy it. Gauche has more details here. It seems that the trade unions have finally decided to pull the plug on Tribune, after several years of fractious support. Whether an independent publishers will decide to buy the title at the last minute is anyone's guess, although given the current state of the banking system, much depends on whether anyone can come up with enough credit to buy it. More in-depth ruminations this evening - for now, suffice it to say that my thoughts are with those whose jobs could very well be lost by the end of the month.

Nine Lives

2008-10-03T20:39:00.003+01:00

Guess who's back
Back again
Mandy's back!
Tell a friend...

Well well well. Eleven years, three parliaments and two sackings later, Peter Mandelson is to be welcomed back to Westminster for a third ride on the gravy train. At least that's what it must seem like for him. I can't work out whether this is a move of desperation or genius on El Gordo's part, but I'm leaning heavily toward the former. What on earth was Brown thinking? Peter Mandelson has been appointed Business Secretary, and the obvious answer is that he's had top-notch training by spending the last four years as the EU's Trade Commissioner.

And yet.

The tokenism and showmanship currently dominating US politics has obviously made its way across the pond, for what other possible justification could Brown have for bringing back someone he despises back into the heart of his own cabinet? Pa Broon isn't exactly famous for reaching out to his arch-rivals in the Blairite camp. And I can't believe that there isn't anyone else in the country better qualified for the Business Secretary role than someone who's been kicked out of cabinet over shady dealings, not once but twice.

By inviting Mandy back to Westminster, Brown will presumably be hoping to recapture some of the public enthusiasm for Labour following their '97 election victory (although picking a character viewed so controversially does seem a bit blinkered at best). The one part of the plan that does have a whiff of genius is that Mandelson will effectively be gagged. Gone are the days when he could fire off a piece for the Mirror or Times, laying into Gordon. For a start, Blair is out of office, but the real difference is that Labour are no longer operating from a position of safety. More cabinet dissent now will only serve to hasten their demise, and Mandy will need to toe the line if he wants to keep his job. Unless, of course, he's secretly planning to offer his services to the Tories once Cameron takes the top job! Nothing surprises me these days.

Tribune

2008-09-08T23:52:00.003+01:00

The financial woes of stalwart Labour mag Tribune have finally been exposed to the public via yesterday's Evening Standard article. Or have they? On several occasions, the piece portrays Tribune as a thriving small business, which had managed to claw its way back from the brink of bankruptcy after being bought out by the ASLEF union in 2005. Did the author do any research? Or was he/she bound by the same loyalty to the mag that prevents me from revealing just how bad things really are at Tribune, especially for its journalists.

Not again.

2008-09-07T20:30:00.003+01:00

Canadians will be heading to the polls on October 14th to elect a new government. Of course, it's only been two years since they last went to the polls to elect a new government, and what a joy that turned out to be. The Tories have been in power since 2006, in a minority administration, and surprise surprise, Stephen Harper hasn't been able to pass any laws because parliament is so split between the main parties that the three others (centre-left to varying degrees) keep uniting against him to block new legislation.

From what's been written, it doesn't look like the political fault lines are set to change to any great extent in October. Even Harper has resigned himself to expecting another minority government. Which begs the question, why the hell hold an election to change things when change is exactly what isn't going to happen?

Following the story on the CBC website, you can read comments that people have left. Most are nonsense. But one of them pretty much sums up the lunacy of the situation for me.

I am an Immigrant to Canada and currently I cannot vote until I got my canadian Citizenship. I live in the country since 1994 and I realy wonder if canadian parties have nothing better to do that call for elections.

Since I am in Canada there were elections in 6/97, 11/00, 6/04, and 1/06

Now if I look at the time wasted between desolving the goverment, having an election, forming a new government and have this government actually start working it is probbably 4 month or so. Multiply this by well now 5 elections, that mean that this country had no working government for almost 2 years since I live in Canada. I am also wondering at the cost of those elections. I believe I read somewhere that an election cost around $200 million that times 5 equals $1 billion just for elections. Do these governments not have
anything better to spend that money on?
-71gonzo71

Don't slouch, Darling

2008-09-03T22:04:00.002+01:00

The feeling of dread is familiar to anyone who has returned to work from a summer holiday only to be confronted by an inbox bulging with hundreds of unopened items. For Alistair Darling, however, it’s a feeling that’s probably amplified tenfold right now. The past few days have not been the greatest for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who managed to jolt us out of our silly season stupor with just a few words said off the cuff during an interview with The Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead on Saturday. The British economy, he said, is in the worst shape it has been in for 60 years. He also acknowledged that the public were “pissed off” with Labour and that the party needed to do better.

On reading the interview in full (here), Darling comes across as less of a schemer and more of a doer than many of his contemporaries in the Labour party. He answers questions straightforwardly, doesn’t hide his biases or intentions, and seems more honest than most politicians when it comes to the media. Yet none of this seems to matter now, for in the days since that interview went to press, the value of the pound and the FTSE have plummeted to new lows, and both downturns are being attributed directly to Darling’s gloomy view of the economy.

The obligatory Newsnight interview was aired last night, and it made for uncomfortable viewing. Darling was rigidly on the defensive, but looked acutely uncomfortable as Gavin Esler laid into him for not being careful enough in his choice of words when he must have known they would have wider repercussions.

For all the usual voter complaints that politicians aren’t open and honest enough, ironically it seems that the economy is one area in which the government needs to maintain a certain propaganda threshold at all times, but particularly when the country’s finances are looking a bit rough. In the economic uncertainty we are now living with, any statement that betrays a feeling of failure or a loss of control on the government's part will be interpreted by the myriad forces that govern the financial markets as a sign that the country is uninvestable. Result, as Dickens would say: misery. Stockbrokers, with their notoriously busy workloads, are hardly going to trouble themselves reading the full-length article and pondering the deeper meaning of Darling's words or appreciate his honesty. All that they--and many others besides-- will see is a swirl of media headlines screeching about Darling's latest "gaffe" and how the "bumbling Chancellor" has plunged Britain into even more uncertainty with his doom and gloom.

It's a depressing state of affairs, but not one that can be blamed uniquely on media hysterics. The stock market is a volatile creature, and never more so than when there's a recession around the corner. Darling's Guardian interview and the ensuing fracas will, I feel, fade away relatively quickly, but--following the temporary reprieve of the Beijing Olympics--it does mark the opening salvo in what will likely be a sustained media attack on the Labour government for the rest of the year. Darling should take away from this the fact that his words and actions no longer represent just him, they represent the future of the country's wealth. A tall order? You bet.

Identity Politics

2008-08-31T12:49:00.002+01:00

(On the offchance that anybody was wondering: no, I'm not dead. It was simply a case of growing a little disillusioned with the people and topics that prompted me to start writing here in the first place. That, and the evil addictiveness of the Great Satan that is Facebook. However, in the last few months I've realised that I really miss writing, writing for myself and not for work, in my own time and space. So here goes.)

Like many, I've been closely following the run-up to the presidential elections over in America, and the circus of the past week's official party nominations has made for some pretty compulsive viewing. History may have been made when Barack Obama became the first-ever black man to accept a nomination to run for US president, but for me, the biggest surprise of the week came on Friday, when John McCain revealed his choice of vice presidential candidate: Sarah Palin, the current governor of Alaska.

It didn't take long for critics to point out a host of flaws in McCain's choice. Until two years ago, Palin's experience of political administration was limited to being the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska; a town with a population of fewer than 7,000 (or fewer than 9,000, depending on which source you believe). She has ventured out of the US twice in her entire life, and has virtually no track record of any positions on foreign policy. She is a staunch advocate of the Alaska natural gas pipeline - an energy project to which both environmentalists and John McCain are opposed. She has few connections on the mainland federal political scene, and had only met McCain twice before accepting his invitation to run for VP, raising questions over the likely success of their potential partnership in administration. On the plus side, her time as mayor and as governor showed a consistent determination to unmask and root out corruption in office, although something tells me she wouldn't find this quite as straightforward a task in DC as in Anchorage.

It seems clear to me that Palin's nomination as Republican VP candidate is wrapped up in identity politics or, to put it more bluntly, tokenism. The level of tit-for-tat between the two party teams is too cute to be true: each has one older "experienced" candidate, counter-balanced by a younger and more dynamic running-mate. Each boasts a "non-traditional" candidate, representing a minority in American federal politics and making it difficult for opponents to criticise them without running the risk of appearing bigoted.

Of the two presidential candidates, McCain seems to have been the cruder in his tokenism while choosing a VP. While Obama's selection of Joe Biden was clearly made to add an experienced voice to support his campaign and the development of his policies, what will Sarah Palin bring to the table for McCain beyond being (a) young and (b) a woman? Cynics might say that these two things are more than enough, and indeed are exactly the qualities that the Republican campaign was lacking until now. But much will depend on how much of a united front McCain and Palin will display in the weeks leading up to November 5th. If McCain goes out on the campaign trail to meet voters mostly alone, and makes his speeches as a standalone figure, it will do him no favours. But while his advisors have surely told him that Palin is his most valuable asset right now, I wonder how much leeway in policy-making he would give her if the Republicans re-take the White House come election day.

Observing a shake-up

2007-10-24T23:13:00.000+01:00

Another one bites the dust.

Okay, not literally, but Roger Alton has nonetheless decided to leave the fold of The Observer after nearly a decade at its helm, and more than 30 years within the wider Guardian group. I was having a quiet pint in the Sekforde Arms with a few Farringdon journos when the message bleeped through that he'd left. And while the official Media Guardian write-up linked to above is done up all respectful tribute stylee, the whisperings behind the scene are saying that his departure was, well, somewhat on the acrimonious side. It seems the two main behind-the-scenes gripes at the Guardian Media Group is the rapidly approaching advent of 24-hour production (job losses ahoy) and the ongoing efforts to merge the Guardian and the Observer into a single paper. Without going into possibly libellous detail, itwould appear that Alton was being fairly vocal in his opposition to both moves. More detail in this piece by Roy Greenslade in today's Evening Standard, the title of which beautifully showcases the limitations of print pieces in accomdating last-minute breaking news. More details were to be found at the Coach and Horses, behind Grauniad HQ, but such revelations will only become known to me tomorrow, once my mole wakes/sobers up (Mole! Facebook me some details, will you!).

SCIENCE!

2007-10-03T23:26:00.000+01:00

One story that got far less media attention than it deserved today was the launch of Stem Cells for Safer Medicines (SC4SM), a joint venture between some of the UK's leading national medical research groups and three of Europe's biggest pharmaceutical companies (GSK, Roche and AstraZeneca). The group is going to carry out research that could lead to drugs being developed in a completely different way: one that would require a lot less animal testing, and would lower the risk of people suffering liver failure and other horrible side-effects when participating as volunteers in clinical trials.

A development backed by the pharmaceutical industry that could potentially please the animal rights extremists AND be good for broke students paying their way through uni with medical research payoffs? Whatever next?! Of course it's all theoretical at this point - the research might not work, it might all come to nothing. But the fact is that the wheels have been set in motion at long last. And to be honest, Britain is on of the few places in the world that it could happen. Over in the States, Bush vetoed a bill that would see federal funding given to stem-cell research programmes back in February, which is at least the second time his administration has refused to back similar legislation.

Of course I'm not blind to the possibility of ethical mismanagement or abuse in such research, but the whole "if we do this now, who knows what we'll be doing in 10 years' time?" argument is really pretty tired at this point, and if a proper set of guidelines is established and maintained, then surely the good that will emerge from stem-cell research could revolutionise drug development and contribute to new treatments that are safe and effective reaching the market faster? This is really a world first, and I think Britain should be proud of having the courage and the vision to make it happen.

Boris to the fore

2007-09-27T12:38:00.000+01:00

Boris Johnson is the Conservatives' official candidate for Mayor of London.

It's a sentence so ludicrous that it warrants being written twice.

Boris Johnson is the Conservatives' official candidate for Mayor of London.

Just to remind ourselves, this is the man who...

allowed The Spectator to accuse Liverpudlians of "wallowing in their victim status" straight after the execution of Ken Bigley
branded the inhabitants of Portsmouth as being a bunch of overweight junkies
referred to Papua New Guinea as a country of "orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing"
lists the scrapping of bendy buses in favour of bringing back the old Routemasters, because, well, they're rather sweet, aren't they?

Okay, so none of these are hanging offences, but they hardly fill me with confidence that he'd be capable of handling the pressures of being mayor of London. His supporters often like to say that he's a master of disguise; a sky genius who plays the fool. But is it possible for someone who is virtually never taken seriously to take on one of the most important jobs in the country? London is an economic powerhouse, and one of the largest cities in Europe - being its mayor will require more than opening a few fêtes or posing for photo ops with pensioners and babies (or, in Boris's case, hosting the odd TV quiz show). Is this really the best candidate the Tories can find?

He might be exactly that. Say what you want about Boris, but the man is popular, with Tories and non-Tories alike. He comes across as amiable, as someone who'd go down well at a dinner party. Let's see, what other prominent politician was first voted in largely because of his "laid-back" and "trusty" attitude rather than his policies? Yes, that's right, one George W Bush. And who else can we think of who hails from a career in the entertainment industry (okay, so Boris is an MP, but most of us arguably know him from the print and television media much better than through his speeches at Westminster), but was voted in to head up one of the world's top economic regions? The Conservatives are trying to take City Hall through the Schwarzenegger effect rather than by offering what's best for London.

* * *

UPDATE: Ha! What did I tell you about the Tories and the Schwarzenegger effect? No sooner did their Blackpool conference kick off than we were treated to a videolinked speech by none other than the Governator himself, trying to appear genuinely sorry for having been forced to stay in sunny California rather than spend a week in freezing miserable Blackpool, and giving his strings-free support to David Cameron. But will Our Dave's shameless use of celebrity endorsement carry any weight in the sober (sorry, "dour") Brownite Time of Change??

Uprising in Burma

2007-09-26T22:26:00.001+01:00

Protest marches held by Buddhist monks in the Burmese capital, Rangoon, in recent days have inspired me to start blogging again. It seems that at long last, the international media is waking up to the situation in Burma, and beginning to take an interest that stretches farther than pensive shots of Aung Sang Suu Kyi on her front porch.

What started as a popular protest against the decision by the military junta to increase the price of fuel soon attracted the sympathy of the monks after several of them were hurt by the military during a peaceful rally, and now, they are the central feature of the ongoing demonstrations. While Burma's main ally China is thought to have been urging the junta not to engage in a full-out show of force against the monks and other protesters,today the inevitable happened and several people have been killed and many injured.

This disgusting display of violence has amazingly not dampened the protesters' spirits, at least not to the point of making them give up and go home: more rallies are expected tomorrow. Carried out in the full glare of the media, the protests are now about much more than the price of fuel. That decision was, it seems, a tipping point for all the repressed frustration and anger with the junta to come spilling out. It's not clear yet to what extent the demonstrations are being organised, and by whom, and it remains to be seen how much bigger they will get, if at all.

The uprising has had the effect of pushing an unwilling China into the spotlight. As Burma's biggest international ally, both politically and economically, most international observers are pointing the finger at Beijing as being the only voice capable of exercising any influence over the Burmese junta. In these circumstances, China is obviously hoping to avoid the situation escalating into a Tiananmen Square-style massacre. On the flipside, the prospect of a religious opposition movement forcing the government to back down on its policies is something that must fill the leaders of Communist China with dread as well.

Watching the news tonight, it turns out that China is far from being alone in having a strategic interest in Burma. Oil, as ever, plays a major role, with French company Total owning a pipeline that runs almost the length of the country into China. India and the US also have investments in Burmese energy. Which essentially means they have been tacitly suporting the regime for business reasons. Surprised? Of course not.

A good friend of mine has been based in neighbouring Thailand for the past three years, working for an excellent organisation called Burma Issues.Their purpose is to increase public awareness of the atrocities of the regime, and to seek a peaceful solution. Much of their focus is on the Karen State, where the Karenni tribespeople are constantly in hiding from the military, who have long since moved the core of their operations outside of the capital. Whether this stance now changes remains to be seen. In any case, this friend sent me an e-mail from Bangkok last week, when the demonstrations were beginning to pick up speed and the Western media was starting to take notice. At one point she asked: "How can we, as members of the international community, support them [the monks/protesters]? How can we show them that their voices are being heard? How do we show them that what is happening to them is unfair, that it should not be occuring and that they deserve the same opportunities as we do?"

The UN Security Council is meeting now to figure out how to do exactly that, but so far all it has done is to "call for restraint". Great.

Fluffwatch: Britney Spears

2007-09-12T10:04:00.000+01:00

One of the good things about allowing my blog posting to become so infrequent is that the few regular readers I had have now all but disappeared. This might not seem like a good thing at first, but it does afford me the freedom to ignore some of the more important events that have been making the news in order to concentrate on ones that may be more trivial, but have still managed to catch my eye. If nobody's reading, nobody can sneer at your topics of choice, right? Thank Christ I don't have to put up with the trolls on CiF, who delight in being the first to comment "Does the Guardian really pay you to write this drivel? It pains me to read stuff like this when there's a war going on" and bla bla bla. Get over yourselves! Sometimes it can be therapeutic to write (and read) about fluffy topics... like Britney Spears.

After so much hoo-ha over her big comeback performance at last week's VMAs, and especially after reading Perez Hilton's vitriolic attack, I tracked down a video of the number on YouTube. My first thought was "it's not that bad". A little lacklustre, perhaps, but she still had all the moves. However (and you can tell I had free time on my hands yesterday evening), the clip is a lot more telling if you look at some of Britney's VMA dance routines from years gone by first. I was never a Britney fan per se (probably too old to form part of her target market), but looking at those early clips objectively, my god the girl can dance. We're talking uber-synchronised, ultra-choreographed, Broadway-style group dancing where every move is timed to perfection, and every facial expression is exaggerated to get the point across. She was brilliant at it.

Then I watched the VMAs performance, and it suddenly became clear. It's not that she wasn't dancing well. It's that she wasn't really into it. The moves were there, but there was no passion or energy in them. She knew the words, but she didn't seem interested in the song. Her face was pretty but her eyes were miles away. In other words, hers was the act of a 40-year-old stripper who's been working the same dive for the last 20 years and has given up trying. It's sad, actually. Like she had nothing left to give (ironic, considering the song she was performing was called "Gimme More").

Some days later it emerged (according to that bastion of hard-hitting news, thelondonpaper) that Britney's iffy performance at the MTV awards was in fact due to a handful of anti-depressants she had popped just prior to going onstage, to ease her jitters. Yikes. That must've been one hell of a handful. And if it's true, it rather adds to the rumours that Ms Spears was pushed to perform at the VMAs before she was really ready, presumably by greedy industry types hoping for a dusting of the old Britney gold.

Who'd be a pop star, eh? It takes someone like Britney, who had the world eating from the palm of her hand at 17 but is now somehow "washed up" at the ripe old age of 25, to bring home just how cynical and unforgiving an industry pop music has become. Was it always thus?

The week in review

2007-08-14T12:24:00.000+01:00

So perhaps Tuesday is an odd choice for a week-in-review type article, but these things tend to occur when I have a moment's peace to write them, which is become an increasingly elusive event these days.

Some noteworthy events over the past few days (not in any particular order)...

Tony Wilson dies. The music producer who launched the careers of legendary bands Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays and helped crystallise the "Madchester" music scene through the rise of the Hacienda nightclub ends up dying of a heart attack while waiting for cancer drugs that the local NHS trust couldn't afford to give him.
Stock markets nosedive. The world holds its breath as share values collapse under the weight of a million unpayable mortgages offered to Americans with lousy credit history. Why should one country's loan sharks be able to decimate the pension funds of the rest of the world?
Foot and Mouth strikes again. Will it be another summer filled with images of cow carcasses being forklifted onto burning pyres? Cattle farmers are bracing for the worst - i.e., another widespread cull - although the damage seems fairly limited so far. Prepare for an avalanche of conspiracy theories, though, as it looks like the virus could have escaped from a nearby government research facility.
Canada claims Arctic sovereignty. Bless! Just days after the Russians plant a flag under the North Pole, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper promises to beef up the country's defence of its northernmost territories, saying that the "increasingly attractive and critical" resources to be found under the melting ice required Canada to "protect [its] territorial integrity in the Arctic". Well quite, but how exactly are you going to do that when faced with the might of Russia and the U.S., both of which are also claiming a large slice of the pie? Now would be a good time to remind ourselves of just how many ships Canada has to patrol its vast Arctic fishing waters: Two. Oh, and one submarine.
Karl Rove resigns. High time, too. Byeeee!
Silly season begins. Hurrah! A chance for some much-needed summer levity, as displayed to brilliant effect in yesterday's underwhelming-yet-classic Evening Standard billboard screamer, "GORDON BROWN'S HOLIDAY SECRETS".

Bridging the gap

2007-08-03T14:06:00.000+01:00

Some pretty terrifying pictures coming out of Minnesota over the last couple of days, real "there but for the grace of God go I" stuff. The collapse of the I-35W bridge into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis has so far left five confirmed dead, and more fatalities are likely to be discovered as cars continue to be pulled from the water. Upon watching the news last night, one witness made a comment that went something like "A bridge in America shouldn't just... fall." Unfortunately they can, and do. I'm no civil engineer, but I do know that most of the bridges (and indeed road infrastructure) in North America is at least half a century old and is crumbling fast. They're doing so at a faster speed than much older bridges in Britain partly due to harsher climate conditions and partly due to a lack of funding in outlying areas to carry out major repair work. Last year in Montreal, where I'm from, a concrete overpass collapsed, crushing to death five people in cars underneath. A civil-engineer friend of mine tells me that the city has a kind of top-10 blacklist of other bridges and overpasses that are also in need of urgent repair, but - surprise surprise - the list is kept secret from the public in order to avoid everybody freaking out. It's actually more likely to take 30 years before all the repair work is staggered and carried out. In the meantime, when I visit home, a growing number of bridges have got wire netting strung up underneath. To catch the big bits? It doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. Still, it's just one small part of a vast continent, and there are bound to be worse examples out there.

Fuck.

2007-08-02T12:35:00.000+01:00

So much for my praising of the Bancroft family for not capitulating to Rupert Murdoch's overtures... after News Corp sweetened its takeover offer to a whopping US$5 billion -- translating into a US$60-per-share bid that was 67% higher than Dow Jones's share price -- they were hardly going to say no. Rupe will now own the Dow Jones & Co in its entirety, and the exodus of reporters from the Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones publications has already begun.

On the Channel Four news last night, reporter Sarah Smith argued the point that people concerned that News Corp's takeover of the WSJ would make its coverage more right-wing were forgetting that, due to its staunchly pro-market capitalism stance, it is already one of the most right-wing newspapers in the world. Okay, it's a valid argument, but it neglects the fact that Murdoch has well-known allegiances to certain political parties, particularly in the U.S., and that political parties in general are reliant on hefty donations from corporations - businesses that would de facto be covered regularly in the Wall Street Journal and across the range of Dow Jones media. With Murdoch almost certain to appoint his own choice of editor at the WSJ before long, will we still be able to count on the paper's unbiased portrayal of key business concerns? Somehow I doubt it.

I'm sure there are a million more things to be said on the subject but right now I'm just depressed. So much news controlled by one man? Ironically, it probably wouldn't be such a big deal if Murdoch himself wasn't such an interventionist, such a campaigner for his own political views. What news organisation couldn't do with a boost from someone with pockets as deep as his? The takeover is certainly expected to give rival paper The Financial Times a serious run for its money. But I can't help feeling that quantity will not be matched by quality. And for a paper with a reputation as grand as the WSJ, it's a sad state of affairs.

Littlejohn takes on the Jews

2007-07-10T12:18:00.000+01:00

Richard Littlejohn hosted a documentary on Channel Four last night called The War on Britain's Jews?. Superfluous question mark aside, I was actually rather pleasantly surprised. It didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know, or at least suspect, but what I appreciated about the programme was its bluntness, its candid stating of a series of uncomfortable truths to an audience reluctant to hear them. Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Britain. In at least one Jewish school, the threat of violence is so bad that children need high fences, bomb-proof windows and security escorts for the school run. It's not just neo-nazis anymore, its Islamic fundamentalists as well. And large sections of the British Left, with a tradition of solidarity with the Jews going back to Cable Street, thought nothing of marching under banners saying "We Are All Hezbollah Now" in protest at Israeli action in Lebanon.

For me, the real crux of the matter was the argument put forward by some Muslims and fewer Jews that "if Britain's Jewish leaders were to be more critical of the policies of Israel, it would significantly lessen the hostility towards Jews in the UK." Er, pardon? Racism towards the Jews has been going down in this country and just about everywhere else since before Israel was even created, so to suggest that verbally distancing themselves from it is really going to have any placating effect on anti-Semites is not only ludicrous but downright dishonest.

Alan Johnston released

2007-07-04T12:06:00.000+01:00

What a fantastic start to the day: switching on the computer at work, hitting the BBC website only to discover that - yes - Alan Johnston has at last been released after a marathon 114 days in captivity at the hands of the Army of Islam. The sense of relief and joy he must be experiencing can only be imagined by those who have been in a similar situation and survived.

Is it wrong of me to hope that he puts in for a transfer to a safer desk than Gaza? In fact, he may well have no choice, given that his future coverage of Hamas risks being tainted by the fact that they secured his release. That fact aside, the journalist in me still feels that either Johnston or someone else from the BBC should remain based in Gaza, simply because there's no one else there to report what's happening to the outside world. Reporting is one of the riskiest jobs on earth, but that doesn't mean it should be shied away from. Rather, better measures should be used by news organisations to ensure that their journalists are as well-protected as possible in conflict zones.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 2006 saw:

81 journalists and 32 media assistants killed;
871 arrested;
1,472 physically attacked or threatened; and
56 kidnapped.

A long time in politics

2007-07-03T13:31:00.000+01:00

What a week. In the space of just a few days, we've had Tony Blair stepping down to make room for El Gordo, an unexploded car bomb outside Tiger Tiger, a fiery Jeep ramming into the side of Glasgow airport, the launch of the smoking ban in England... er, er... the Concert for Diana [That's enough. Ed.]. At least it prevented Paris Hilton's (second) release from jail becoming a bigger story than it deserved.

The theory that the attacks were timed to coincide with the government handover from Blair to Brown seems pretty convincing, if unproven. With a cabinet full of ministers new to their roles and little long-term experience of coping with terrorism, what better way to send out a message that these attacks will continue no matter who's living at Number 10? Maybe the "BLIAR" crowd will now recognise that Blair's departure isn't necessarily the magical solution to solving all the world's problems...

Meanwhile, it's emerged that most of the people arrested in connection with the London and Glasgow incidents are either doctors or other medical workers. Without wishing to segue into an endless class debate, the fact that the majority of suspects for these two cases are presumably highly educated people would suggest that parameters used to describe Europe's extremist Muslim terrorists are now expanding beyond the prototypical unemployed, alienated, disaffected-youth type images that we formerly recognised. What can we do about it? Surely no one is naive enough now to think that pulling the troops out of Iraq will be enough to satisfy these people.

In search of a miracle

2007-06-19T22:23:00.000+01:00

I covered a rather depressing story for work today - thought I'd share the bare bones of it here with you. We all know about the rising levels of obesity in the US; over 127 million adults there are now classed as overweight, which is cracking on for nearly half the total population. Yes, they should be eating better and getting more exercise - we all should - but human nature dictates that many of us find it incredibly difficult to summon up the huge willpower required to lose more than a couple of pounds. Hence the continued success of so-called miracle cures, all of which, of course, turn out to be bogus.

Pharmaceutical companies - keen to market obesity as a metabolic disease rather a result of lifestyle choice - have been doing their utmost to get in on the action. The most eagerly anticipated weight-loss drug to be approved for sale anywhere in the world in recent years has been Acomplia, developed by French drug company Sanofi-Aventis. Acomplia can already be prescribed in several European and South American countries, but regulatory authorities in the United States have found reasons to delay the drug's US approval for nearly two years. The FDA recently revealed exactly why this was: Acomplia, taken at the higher of two possible doses during clinical trials, had a noticeably stronger link to incidences of suicidal thoughts or behaviour compared with a placebo.

The FDA is now widely expected to decide firmly against approving Acomplia for marketing in the US. However, there is already talk on the internet of alternative ways for obese Americans to get their hands on the drug from elsewhere. The number one destination is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Mexico. Acomplia is approved for sale in Mexico, meaning that legal versions of the drug are available for purchase there. But Acomplia - supposedly available by prescription only - is reported to be available over the counter in an increasing number of pharmacies in towns along the border with the United States, clearly destined for Americans making the trip across the border to buy them and sneak them back into the US. And it would be "sneaking": it is against the law to import medicines into the US that have not been approved by the FDA.

I'll eschew the business analysis side of things here - I write quite enough of that at work, thank you - but I will say that several things strike me as being very sad here.

Having read the findings from the clinical trials, I noticed that there are actually more incidences of attempted suicide among the placebo group of patients than among those who were given Acomplia (conversely, there were more incidences of suicidal thoughts and depression among the Acomplia group). The logical conclusion here seems to be that a fairly high number of patients that participated in the Acomplia trials are so depressed and unhappy about their size that they are more likely to consider suicide or self-harm as a means of coping, whether administered weight-loss drugs or not.

Also, the fact that cross-border drugs shopping in Mexico is even being considered as a serious option is an indication of just how high US hopes had been raised that Acomplia would be "the answer" to the American obesity epidemic. With over-the-counter purchases of drugs that are meant to be prescription-only to patients that are clearly arriving from another country, the safety standards of the Mexican border pharmacists selling Acomplia to US customers is at the very least crying out to be scrutinised. And, in cases where the pills are sold at cut-rate prices, there is a very good chance that the product is counterfeit, potentially a serious health risk to the consumer.

Finally, a small point, but one whose irony should not be lost. Acomplia is the drug's brand name in every country it has been approved in so far. In the United States, however, Sanofi-Aventis is attempting to gain marketing approval for it under an entirely different brand: Zimulti. Why is this? According to one source I've read, the FDA didn't like the idea of a weight-loss drug bearing a name that too closely resembled the word "Accomplished". This, it seems, might falsely convince patients that the drug's effect on obesity was unquestionable and that it would accomplish everything the patient hoped for. A pill-shaped miracle cure for obesity, it seems, is still a long way off.

Media in overdrive as Blair resigns

2007-05-10T13:20:00.000+01:00

The great British public, however, are more measured in their reaction to the news, ranking it modestly in a list of more pressing current events.

One hour after Tony Blair confirms he is to step down as Prime Minister on 27 June, the most widely e-mailed articles on the BBC website are, in descending order:

I don't know why, but I find this strangely comforting.

Scotland

2007-05-04T14:08:00.000+01:00

The SNP are doing better than I thought, although at this point I'd be very surprised if they actually managed to slip past Labour in the remaining few seats. What will this mean for the future of Scottish politics, though? Will the independence issue become more commonly debated in Holyrood and will the SNP be at a better vantage point from which to build popular support for a referendum? And how much of the SNP votes are actually protest votes against Labour rather than through a genuine desire for independence from the UK? Thoughts welcome on this one, as I'm fairly new to politicking in Scotland.

Speaking of protest votes, the Tories appear to have wiped the floor with both Labour and the Lib Dems in England. It's not looking good, but can anyone really say they're surprised?

News for Sale

2007-05-03T15:48:00.000+01:00

Well done the Bancroft family for turning down a US$5 billion offer from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for the acquisition of the Dow Jones news franchise. DJ includes not only the financial newswire, but also the mighty Wall Street Journal and the Barron's magazine. Murdoch is starting up his own 24-hour business news channel with the launch of a new financial channel under the FOX brand later this year, and amalgamating it with one of the most respected names in U.S. business journalism would be a major coup.

The overtures from News Corp are far from over, however. The Bancroft family, who collectively own a controlling stake in Dow Jones, now have to give way to the company's governing board, who also have a say. Also, it would be naive to blindly attribute the Bancrofts' refusal of the Murdoch offer to a burning desire to remain independent and preserve the objective (maybe?) mature of their news coverage - there's nothing stopping them, after all, from holding out until Rupe reaches deeper into his pockets to make an even better offer.

The Democrats, who now have control over both the Congress and the Senate, are said to be prepared to do whatever it takes to either stop or "slow down" the progress of the Murdoch offer being accepted... let's hope they're successful.

Feminism 2.0

2007-04-27T14:34:00.000+01:00

There have been a good few articles or TV programmes lately that highlight the stigma the the word "feminism" has among a surprisingly large number of girls and women. The tired old "I'm not a feminist, but" prefix that so many girls use without thinking pretty much sums it up. I certainly used it a good deal when I was a teenager, as did most of my female friends. It roughly translated as, "I'm not a whingeing do-gooder who wears an iron chastity belt and never has any fun, but..." Feminism was in need of a makeover for my generation, and I wonder if it has finally arrived.

Last week, Jessica Valenti of feministing.com wrote a piece for The Guardian - in manifesto format, no less - where she laid out some basic, immediate, obvious reasons why being a feminist is not only smart, but cool. She's even written a book about this, couching it in terms that teenage girls can relate to, which has got to be the most important age at which to educate about feminist values. With all the "hairy man-hater" (as Valenti puts it) stereotypes that abound about feminists, only the most mature, confident and self-possessed teenage girl is going to be able to stand up and call herself one. Once you're into your 20s and you've "found yourself" it's much easier to take a feminist stand on political and social issue just because it makes so much sense and has such a huge impact on your personal freedoms. But as a 16-year-old? Most girls at that age are too preoccupied with losing their virginity or getting their crush to notice them to question their self-respect.

Valenti says that she has "wanted to write the book I wish I'd read as a teenager" on why feminism matters to everyday life. I haven't read the book yet, but I intend to, and will post a review here when I do. I've got high hopes, but at the same time I'm ALL too aware of how difficult it is to get the average teen to take this kind of thing seriously and without labelling it as (a) boring, (b) stuffy,(c) irrelevant and, worst of all, (d) uncool. It's got to be presented so, so carefully, because even if a girl reads it and secretly agrees with what's written, if she thinks she'll get laughed at by showing it to her friends, she never ever will. And then the message will be lost. That's how fragile teen girl confidence is.

It may sound silly, but another reason that I think feminism may be getting slowly easier to sell to the younger generation is down to the likes of Beth Ditto. I have no idea how cool The Gossip are among high school kids in Britain, even less so among their North American counterparts, but the last time I glanced through a copy of NME in Borders, they were plastered all over it, so I imagine they must be somewhat popular among people under the age of 21.

During the reign of the Spice Girls and their so-called Girl Power, how likely were we to see someone like Ditto - an overweight lesbian from a poor single-parent upbringing - actually managing to make it in mainstream pop? That's right, n.e.v.e.r. Don't ask me what has changed since, but the fact that Ditto (or the Scissor Sisters' lovely matriarch Ana Matronic, for that matter) is right there in the face of every kid who watches Popworld or CD:UK sends out a huge, screaming message to girls that it's okay to be different - people will still like and respect you in a way that a well-meaning school counsellor wouldn't have a prayer of achieving*. And speaking of counselling, Ditto has just launched her own fortnightly advice column in G2. A pity it's not in CosmoGirl or Heat or any other of those poisonous beauty/celeb rags aimed at teen girls, but it's a start nonetheless.

* It might not sound like feminism in itself, but it's an important step towards girls being able to stand up for who they are and question unthinking conformity. Once you have that, it's a lot easier to be confident enough to start standing up for other girls who are also struggling with questions of personal identity and freedoms. And then, hey presto, you can call yourself a feminist. With bells on.

Oh for god's sake

2007-04-27T14:13:00.000+01:00

This is ridiculous, I haven't posted here for ages. And the sad thing is, it's not because I'm especially busy. It's because I've finally given up and joined Facebook. And let me tell you, it's more addictive than crack. I've always had a bit of a voyeur streak in me, and if there's anything more voyeuristic than reading someone's (semi) private thoughts on a blog, it's discovering people you haven't seen in nearly 20 years and seeing what they look like now, where they live, and just about everything else you could imagine. The really sad thing is that I haven't actually contacted any of them, nor do I remotely intend to. Because, hey, if I had wanted to keep in touch, I already would have, right? Even worse are the jocks from high school who never gave me the time of day 10 years ago and who now suddenly want to "add me to their friend list", presumably to make it seem like they have more friends than anyone else. Plus ça change! It's all very teen-tastic and I feel way too old for it, but.....but........ I CAN'T LOOK AWAY. People I had forgot even existed are on there, and I truly don't know why I care, but it's just fascinating.

Anyway. Will try to talk about something adult for a change. Feminism anyone? New post coming right up.

Quebec

2007-04-06T10:09:00.000+01:00

First up, Quebec's recent elections. Held on Monday March 26, the provincial elections were viewed with a fair amount of dread by Quebec's ever-shrinking Anglo population, and with good reason.

The Liberals, who have only held office in Quebec since April 2003 after nearly a decade of the sovereigntist Parti Quebecois (PQ), are at an all-time low in terms of popularity in Quebec for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is, of course, the fallout from the federal sponsorship scandal, but voters were also disenchanted with the Liberals' seemingly laissez-faire attitude toward Quebec politics - after a brief period of being vocal about local issues like One Island One City, once they had been voted in, the Quebec Liberals seemed to all but disappear behind their desks. Oh, and let's not forget the small fact that their leader, Jean Charest, is actually a Tory in disguise.

Add all this to the fact that the federal-level Liberal Party lost to the Conservatives in Canada's general elections in Janaury 2006, and things were looking pretty dire for the Libs in La Belle Province. Except, of course, that a Liberal loss in Quebec would have one serious side-effect that a federal-level loss would not: a win for the PQ.

With the tide of public opinion moving against the Liberals, and the advent of a charismatic young (and it has to be said, hot) new leader for the PQ in the shape of Andre Boisclair, things were looking better for the PQ than they had in years. This newfound confidence had allowed Boisclair to abandon his predecessor's policy of building up the economy and "listening to Quebecers' needs" before aiming for independence at a later date; the new PQ leadership said that as soon as the party was in power, they would immediately hold a new referendum on Quebec sovereignty. Given that they lost the last one by just over a percentage point, it wasn't unthinkable that they could actually win this time around.

Except they didn't. March 26 came and went, and while everbody expected the winner to only have a minority government, nobody predicted the surprise success of the ADQ. The Liberals remain in power with 48 elected National Assembly members, but the ADQ - Quebec's "third party", only in existence since the mid 90s - managed to trump the PQ by winning 41 seats in the National Assembly to become the official opposition. Meanwhile, the PQ limped home with just 36 seats. How the hell did that happen?

Simple, really. It seems that for all the media hysterics (anglo media, no doubt) saying that everything was going to come crashing down and that the sovereignty movement was going to bring about yet more economic uncertainty, most Quebecers still realise that the best deal they are going to get is through a stable, united Canada. Particularly one that now officially recognises Quebec nationhood. Do Quebecers still hate the Liberals? Of course they do, which is why they decided to give them a fright through an ADQ protest vote. The ADQ, by the way, is a sort of right-wing PQ-lite; a nationalist party that originally campaigned on a sovereignty platform but is now content to put that goal on the back-burner indefinitely while it pushes conservative economic policies.

A vote for the Quebec Libs in their present form is often done out of necessity (even my own mother, stalwart anti-pequiste that she is, says she would gladly vote for the PQ were it not for the whole sovereignty issue, as they are the closest thing to a democratic socialist party there is in Quebec). Still, enough people have voted them in to ensure another few years of relative stability stability in Quebec, or as much stability as there can be with such a weak minority government. Come the next provincial election, however, the whole sorry affair will start up again. One thing that could, I think, help to reduce such uncertainty is for the Liberals to get a new leader. Charest has been leader of the Quebec Liberals since 1998, but before that, he headed up the then Progressive Conservatives at the federal level in Ottawa. He was drafted in to lead the Liberals in Quebec simply because there was a dearth of other candidates. Nearly ten years on, it seems that this is still the case. Can there really be no one in the province who is impassioned and experienced enough to take on the job?

Catching Up

2007-04-05T12:21:00.000+01:00

Goodness but it's been a busy few weeks. It seems there's a ton to catch up on, so please be patient while I work my way through a few essential posting topics... I promise you won't regret it!

"If we gather a crowd of 20,000, the government will not use its guns"

2007-03-23T12:17:00.000Z

Some brave words from Zimbabwe's Archbishop Pius Ncube, who nobly says that he is "ready to stand in front" in what he hopes will be the country's biggest popular demonstration calling for an end to the despotic rule of President Robert Mugabe. Following the brutal bludgeoning of opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai during a prayer rally last week, a crowd half the size hoped for by Ncube would be impressive, but regardless of how many turn out, it's hard not to feel a terrible sense of foreboding about such an event. In my mind, at least, a potential Amritsar massacre-style tragedy is looming. Will that be enough to rouse South Africa and other leading nations of the continent out of their slumber and take action in Zimbabwe? Because I think it'll be awhile yet before anyone else deems the situation to be of enough geopolitical importance to give a damn.

Off tae Edinburgh

2007-03-16T12:42:00.000Z

...although my heart will be in Glasgow.

Enjoy the weekend!

An open letter to Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch

2007-03-13T09:19:00.000Z

Sirs,

As every housewife knows, sometimes the only way to communicate with men is through a simple yet irritating to-do list. Therefore, I would be extremely grateful if you could pay attention to the following, which has been constructed in terms that are clear and direct enough for even you to understand:

1. Please, please, please, for the sake of all that is good, limit your public battles to ONE media source. Fat chance, I know, but remember that there is nothing so counterproductive as overkill. Between full-page ads in the newspapers, radio slots extolling the virtues of your respective broadband package deals, rival TV and web campaigns and even leaflets pushed through our front doors, we've all long since reached saturation point.

2. Drop the "friendly letter" approach in your print ads, right now. This particularly applies to Virgin Media. You're not our friend, we're not on a first-name basis, and we certainly aren't stupid enough to equate signing up for your services with joining some trendy and exclusive club.

3. If you must fork out such exorbitant sums on advertising, at least have the balls to make your adverts focus on what's good about your services rather than what's crap (read: slightly less good) about those of your main rival. Spinning the Sky v. Virgin Media debacle as vital consumer information does precisely nothing to disguise the fact that it is merely an expensive game of billionaire Pong.

(Mmmm, Pong.)

4. When it comes right down to it, this is a battle about TV rights, as the other parts of what's on offer from Sky and Virgin Media are pretty much the same. And let's face it, "Richard", on the TV front you've already lost, as Sky has got the sports AND Lost, and you don't. So suck it up.

"Nobody's business but the Turks'"...*

2007-03-08T16:37:00.000Z

Here's a pretty little case of censorship in what purports to be a modern-day European state. A Turkish court has banned all access to the YouTube website from within Turkey. Why? According to the BBC, citing Turkish media sources, it's all down to dissing Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey:

[T]here has been a "virtual war" between Greek and Turkish
users of the site, with both sides posting insulting videos. The clip prompting the ban reportedly dubbed Ataturk and Turks homosexuals. Insulting Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey, or "Turkishness" is an offence which can result in a prison sentence.

Is it a characteristic of "Turkishness" to overreact to criticism, no matter how puerile? This Ataturk/Turk-bashing law is nothing new, and regularly makes news headlines. But choosing to impose a blanket ban on access to YouTube (and that's ALL of YouTube, not just the offending clips) rather than just taking down the clips that breach the law or prosecuting the people who put them up (which I'd also oppose, obviously) seems a draconian measure to take. Okay, so it's not the most pressing issue in Turkey, but for me, these little issues of everyday freedoms say just as much about a country as their wider political, economic and religious outlook. Is Turkey ready to join the EU? Hell no.

Mind you, it's not just Turkey that's attempting to crack down on internet freedoms. According to Wired, via AP, oh-so-liberal France has just introduced a new law that "makes it a crime for anyone who is not a professional journalist to film real-world violence and distribute the images on the Internet". The point? To discourage teenage hoodies from filming incidents of happy-slapping on their mobile and then stick it up on the net (probably on YouTube) for the entertainment of others. Good intentions, horrible implementation...

* In case you were wondering (with apologies for lack of access to any Turkey-based readers out there). I challenge you not to have this stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Tell it like it is

2007-03-07T11:57:00.000Z

James Murphy distills perfectly the feeling all North Americans get upon first arriving in Europe, in the latest LCD Soundsystem single, North American Scum. You know exactly what I mean. Americans who immediately say "I didn't vote for him" upon being introduced to you. Dealing with the constant stares and double-takes when talking louder than a whisper in public. The usually male geeks who have never left North America in their lives but try to give themselves a cachet by becoming walking encyclopedias of Britpop, and then are all heartbroken when they make their first visit to England and can't figure out why everybody isn't tripping over themselves to watch Coldplay perform at Live Aid.

I especially like the sarcastic "But don't blame the Canadians" right at the end, as in, how come everybody hates us but not them? Don't feel too bad, James. There may be some advantages to being a small country that everyone ignores, but at the same time, there's only one thing worse than being talked about...

Anyway folks, one for the iPod/turntable/stereo.

Blurrgh

2007-02-28T13:44:00.000Z

All hail Lucozade, sweet nectar of the hangover gods.

I spent last night rediscovering the simple pleasures of Medcalf on Exmouth Market, and between sips of my new favourite drink, Leffe Brune, got onto a topic which seems to be in the news a fair bit lately. To wit: Blair, when will he go, who will take his place and who will make up the new cabinet. El Gordo is still the consensus choice for next PM, but he will look extremely cowardly if he doesn't agree to a leadership contest with other interested Labour contenders. Balls, Beckett and Milliband should all get prominent cabinet roles, but as for the others... I reckon that we need to see some new faces pronto if Labour is to avoid extreme voter apathy. However, what are the chances of that happening? I don't think Labour realise just how old and tired they've become, and we can resign ourselves to a reshuffling of the usual pack of suspects.

As such, now seems as good a time as any to resurrect the BBC's Fantasy Football-style Dream Cabinet widget from last September... This would've come in handy last night down the pub, come to think of it. Anyway, enjoy! And let me know who your best picks are, Labour or otherwise.

What's in a name?

2007-02-11T19:47:00.000Z

I was ten when the first Gulf War broke out. The grainy, green-and-black nightvision news footage of missiles raining down on Baghdad is one of my strongest memories of that time, when war was still too big a concept for me to fully appreciate. Another memory of that time is imbued with childish wonder, taking the form of a question repeatedly asked, but for which adults seldom had a satisfactory answer: "Why do newsreaders always call him Saddam, but they call all the other leaders by their family name?"

This post has very little, if anything, to do with Iraq, but the curiosity over the use of names in the media shown by my ten-year-old self has been spiked again in recent weeks, albeit in a completely different context. To wit: the competing Democrat candidates for the US presidency. Okay, the two who are currently garnering the most news coverage. I speak, of course, of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Barack Obama's political star has risen at an appropriately meteoric pace over the last three years, and much has been made in the press of how atypical his background is for a potential US president: half Kenyan, half Kansan, with formative years spent in Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim nation, - and having had the gall to actually inhale (shock!) while smoking pot as a teenager... Still, among all this, the one thing that journalists refuse to let die (apart from his unfortunate penchant for immediate troop withdrawal in Iraq) is the ever-hilarious resemblance between his surname and the first name of you-know-who himself, Osama bin Laden.

Having grown up with a "weird" foreign first name myself, I can imagine that I wouldn't particularly enjoy being of schooling age in the US over the last three or four years with a surname like Obama. But for presumably adult journalists to still find the resemblance worth sniggering about, and to assume that American voters would be so stupid and reactionary as to vote against Barack Obama purely because of a passing similarity in names is insulting to everyone involved.

(But hey, while we're on the topic, why has no one picked up on the fact that Barack's first name sounds remarkably like the surname of a recent Israeli prime minister? Not as schoolyard-catchy as Osama/Obama, perhaps? The mind boggles.)

Next up, Hillary Clinton. The former First Lady turned heads and raised eyebrows in equal measure, taking a more active and visible role in public life than virtually any presidential consort before her. She also gained a massive amount of public sympathy during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and was the only person to emerge from the affair with any real dignity. Possibly to elicit empathy from American wives, but obviously also to differentiate between her and husband Bill, the first female Democrat presidential candidate is almost exclusively referred to in the press by the more intimate, friendly-sounding "Hillary".

Putting herself on an approachable first-name basis is great PR for Hillary. It makes it sound like she's your friend, that she's someone you can depend on to do the right thing. It's not formal, impersonal or intimidating. But most of all, it deflects attention from the surname Clinton, a name second only to Bush in recent US history in terms of being politically charged.

It doesn't take a genius to see that Hillary is using her first name instead of her full name in order to keep her politics and leadership campaign at arm's length from those of Bill Clinton. It also creates distance for those who hear "Clinton" and immediately think of cigars, blue dresses and innovative ways to pass time in the Oval Office. Not to mention that awful saxophone.

At the end of the day, each candidate's adopted moniker will be small potatoes compared to the real issues surrounding the next US presidential election: Iraq, defence, Medicare/Medicaid, immigration and the environment (ha!). Still, in a country where appearance is everything, it's kind of heartening to see that Senator Obama hasn't shied away from his decidely un-WASPish surname, and that he has even created a catchy slogan for it: "My name is Obama, not Yo Mama".

Grump.

2007-02-09T13:56:00.000Z

So not only do I not get an invite to the launch of What's Left?, but now Blogger is forcing me to sign up to their beta/ Google/2.0 bullshit? Not cool, not cool at all.

Hmph.

Ségolène - 2

2007-01-23T12:28:00.000Z

While "Ségo" may still be reticent about voicing the policies she has in mind for her home country, it seems that she is much more at ease in talking about those affecting people elsewhere.

There comes a time for every French president (or presidential candidate) when he or she must pronounce an opinion on the question of Quebec sovereignty, but while the last few have remained resolutely aloof, Ms Royal has now provoked the wrath of the Canadian government (!) by saying that she is personally all for it. Sovereignty, that is. Or, to use her exact quote, "I'm in favour of it. Liberty and sovereignty for Quebec reflect our shared common values."

The key word here is liberty. It makes hairs on the neck of an average pro-union Canadian stand up on end, simply because it brings back unpleasant memories of this guy, saying these things. French politicians seem to labour under the delusion that Quebec is some kind of neglected wilderness that the rest of Canada ignores, one step below Northern Ireland in terms of political injustice brough on by the British crown.

Well, err, no.

The truth is that Quebec receives more funding from the federal government than any other province, simply because it has used the very large bargaining chip of threatening sovereignty to extremely good effect over the past 30 years. Quebecers have their own National Assembly where they make their own laws, and have wielded the power of the Office québecoise de la langue française to ensure that French is Quebec's only official language. From a practical point of view, there is not a word of English on any Quebec road signs, business names or shop windows. It has its own public broadcaster, unfortunately titled Radio-Canada, but still entirely in French and watched by the majority of French Quebecers. Its economy has flourished over the past decade, and only seems to suffer when - guess what! - the sovereignty issue starts up again. But most importantly, from the point of view of Quebec separatists, Quebec has now been officially recognised by the Canadian government as a nation. To me, this says that Quebec is free to continue pursuing its policies of preservation and development of the French language and culture, and more power to them.

I used to support Quebec sovereignty for several years, and I don't despise those that still do. All I think now is that French Quebecers best chances of achieving their goals - cultural and economic - are by staying within a united Canada. As such, it doesn't need to be "liberated" from anything.

Ségolène, meanwhile, can count herself lucky that a political shitstorm in Canada tends to translate into a whimper overseas.

Sign o' the times*

2007-01-18T13:38:00.000Z

Greetings all, and a very happy New Year, if somewhat belated.

There's a fascinating if sobering article in this week's Tribune (and over at Gauche) about the future of small, lefty magazines in Britain. It's brave stuff for Tribune itself to be printing, and comes as an uneasy reminder that, barely 10 years after the advent of the Internet, the initial predictions that it would swallow the print industry whole are suddenly looking much less far-fetched.

So what of Tribune, New Statesman, Red Pepper, New Humanist, Index on Censorship, New Left Review and their ilk? If this was the corporate sector, the obvious answer would be "Merge!", but that's a bit like asking the People's Front of Judea to patch things up with the Judean People's Front (splitters!).

Paul's article gives voice to concerns that have surely been rattling around the cramped offices of the above-mentioned publications for years, as core audiences dwindle, age and die. Transferring content to a snazzy, "interactive" website is definitely one way to modernise and potentially get more readers. Thing is, will the same amount of reader be willing to pay for online content, when the trend is increasingly for free user access? Banners and other forms of internet advertising are usually enough (when properly managed) to cover web hosting fees and possibly design costs, but as for staff wages, you can pretty much forget it.

The idea of paying per article won't work either, as this form of revenue won't be regular enough to provide any kind of stability in earnings. So that brings us back to annual subscriptions. Theoretically these could be cheaper on the internet than for printed magazines, as printing and distributing costs would be factored out of the sum. But how common are annual subcription fees for online magazines outside the business and finance sectors?

The other logical solution, which would again be anathema to most independent lefty magazines, would be to sell out to a larger publishing house or news corporation, like Slate magazine in the US, which is owned by the Washington Post Company. I can't really see that happening in this country, can you? The divergence of editorial views is just too large.

So where, then, for the average independent left-wing weekly (or bi-weekly, monthly or bi-monthly)? My own prediction is for a maximum of 10 more years surviving on one-off private donations before most will be forced to either shut down, make the switch to a completely online format (and thus end up being largely reliant on volunteer contributions) or look for buyers. In an ideal world, the best of the talent from each of these magazines would then come together and create a bigger and better new forum online. A forum aimed at younger people who use the internet at their main source of information, and who still want to have access to quality, intelligent, progressive feature journalism. We're still out there!

* Prince still sucks.

TfL, get off your knees!

2006-12-19T09:37:00.000Z

Am I alone in thinking that Transport for London can sometimes be a bit too generous with its information updates? Consider the two very different approaches adopted by the London Undergound and the Montreal Metro.

This morning, while walking through King's Cross station, I heard the following message boomed out over the crackly intercom: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Metropolitan Line is currently experiencing severe delays between Baker Street and Moorgate due to a shortage of staff." A shortage of staff?! Maybe it's just me, but if I were in charge of running the Underground, I'd be pretty embarrassed to 'fess up to such a lame excuse.

In Montreal, if there's a shortage of staff, broken-down train, or some hapless bastard splattered all over the tracks, the train simply doesn't show up. There are no nice LCD display panels to indicate when the next train might arrive, no intercom messages telling you what the problem is, and no staff on the platform for you to ask. If you're naïve enough to go upstairs and ask the chain-smoking woman behind the ticket counter what's going on, she'll shrug at you hostilely from behind the plexiglass and say "Aucune idée." And that, my friends, will be that.

Now, I used to find this attitude incredibly offputting when I lived in Montreal, as it's important to be well-briefed about the public transport situation when you spent two hours a day commuting between the 'burbs and the city. But fuck me. "Shortage of staff"? "Passenger taken ill"? "Late-finishing engineering works"? "(Yet another) signal failure"? There's just something so brow-beaten and defeatist, so openly inept about the whole thing. How are these people going to cope with the crush of extra passengers when the Olympics get going in 2012?

Montreal Metro workers may be arrogant and unfeeling, but at least there's a certain pride in saying, "You know what? I don't have to tell you anything." Or, in true Montreal style, communicating that thought with a gallic shrug of insouciance.

Dancing in the disco...

2006-12-15T10:59:00.000Z

...go, go ,go!

I have been horrifically, spectacularly busy over these past few weeks, but now, with a massive report handed in and no more overtime required until well after Christmas, it's time to PAR-TAY.

The office Christmas knees-up is in approximately an hour and a quarter, followed this evening by the Sultans of Ping at the Mean Fiddler... Is there any better way to end the week, nay, the year?

Possibly... if you add this into the bag as well (see Fixtures List, 21 December).

Play safe, kids!

The usual suspects

2006-12-07T14:33:00.000Z

So said one Paul Anderson while gazing serenely at the gathered masses at last night's Tribune Christmas party, and it was a fair description. Peter Tatchell, Ed Balls, Steve Bell, Martin Rowson, John Bird, Maryam Namazie, plus several members of the blogosphere were there, including Paul Evans, the brains behind Never Trust a Hippy. And doubtless many more who I'm too private-sector/foreign/young to know. I liked the packed feel of the downstairs bar, which was much more atmospheric than the bland upstairs space where the do was held a couple of years ago. Speaking of atmosphere, I'm a non-smoker and have every intention of remaining so, but I couldn't help feeling that the plumes of cigarette smoke rising to the rafters gave the whole thing an authenticity and, well, homeliness, that will be missing once the smoking ban comes in next July.

Anyway, here's one thing I learned last night: Having an MBE doesn't stop you from bullying people a quarter of your age into buying you pints despite the fact that it's their birthday (and then downing three quarters of someone else's pint not long afterwards).

And when someone's excuse for leaving early is "I'm needed on an asylum case", it makes you wonder, "What am I doing with my life?"

What censorship?

2006-11-24T16:20:00.000Z

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised about this, but I'll admit to being pretty disheartened at the fact that only one out of Russia's leading English-language newspapers seems to have any mention of Alexander Litvinenko's death on their websites today. Ironically, it's the one described by world-newspapers.com as a "Pro-government jingoistic news site".

Shaken AND stirred.

2006-11-20T15:08:00.000Z

Good lord. Can I keep him?

Ataaaaa..

Ségolène

2006-11-17T10:17:00.000Z

Chalk one up for the ladies in France, as Ségolène Royal steps up to the plate as the new leader of the Parti Socialiste. Ms Royal, who won over 60% of the vote, will now be a contender for the presidency at next year's general elections, where she will more than likely be fighting against the terrier-like Nicolas Sarkozy.

I personally like Ségolène - her name is fun to say, and she seems less stuffy and, well, up herself, than most of the ruling Paris intelligentsia. But as David Cameron's critics here in Britain will only too happily attest, apparent likeability is no substitute for a strong policy platform, and on this it seems that Ségolène is also lacking. What does she stand for, besides the old catchwords of "solidarity" and "participative democracy" (and liberty, equality and fraternity, of course)? Does her promise of party modernisation make her the Tony Blair to the Parti Socialiste's Labour Party? To quote Paul Anderson, I ask because I want to know.

Swoon

2006-11-10T09:46:00.000Z

My schoolgirl crush on Jon Snow gets bigger by the day. The latest reason to love the wacky-tie wearer? His refusal to back down over wearing Remembrance Day poppies while on air. Snow's rationale behind refusing to wear the poppy while broadcasting is simple. In his own words:

"There is a rather unpleasant breed of poppy fascism out there - 'He damned well must wear a poppy!'. Well I do, in my private life, but I am not going to wear it or any other symbol on air."

You tell 'em, JS!

Why is it so hard for people to understand that wearing symbols tied to a particular group is not acceptable for any real journalist, especially those who appear on television? Okay, so the British press is divided along fairly obvious political lines, but for there to be any kind of controversy over the fact that a journalist wants to make a point of appearing politically neutral and objective indicates how badly the true role of the reporter is misunderstood.

It's incredibly refreshing to know that someone like Jon Snow, who is held in such high public esteem that he doesn't really need to make these points anymore, still makes the effort to do so. The Daily Mail-reading masses who are supposedly up in arms at his decision should be happy with the fact that he admits to wearing a poppy in his day-to-day life and leave it at that.

The Hat and Feathers rides again

2006-11-09T15:31:00.000Z

Do my eyes deceive me? Getting the bus home last night, I happened to look up at the old Hat and Feathers at the junction of Old Street, Goswell Road and Clerkenwell Road. The Hat and Feathers has been derelict for as long as I've lived in London, and apparently for a good long while before that as well. I remember walking past it during my City University days and thinking what a great local it would make, if only someone would take the risk. See the above link for a pic of what it's looked like for years.

Well, imagine my surprise last night when I glanced up from my copy of London Lite (the less said on that, the better) to find that the Hat and Feathers appears to be back in business! The boarding has been removed from the windows, the interior's been given a lick of paint and new lights (and a bloody good clean, I would hope, given the building's former use as a squat), and there is a trio of tables - with parasols, ugh - outside.

A quick Google search seems to suggest that it's been relaunched as a fancy restaurant, which is a shame, as that building was made to be a boozer. But still, the fact that such a beautiful EC1 landmark is now open to the public at all can only be good news.

Idiocy in Ottawa

2006-11-08T14:51:00.000Z

Okay, now this really pisses me off, and that's a pretty rare achievement for Canadian politics. How long have the Tories been in power in Ottawa? Less than a year? Didn't take long for their true feelings on immigrants to be exposed, then, no matter how hard they've been trying to come across all cuddly and caring. The CBC reports that the federal government is now "reviewing the rules governing dual citizenship and whether Canadians living abroad should qualify for social programs when they return".

It gets better, too. Apparently, the review was triggered by the evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon during the summer - people who hold joint Canadian and Lebanese citizenship but were living in Lebanon at the time of the attacks on Beirut. Granted, there is a public awareness that some of the evacuees went immediately back to Lebanon as soon as the coast was clear, despite the evacuation costing Canadian taxpayers C$63 million, but to go from this to considering blanket legislation for all dual-citizenship Canadians living abroad?

Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte Solberg is quoted as saying that "If we're in a situation where somebody's absent, isn't paying taxes but is going to be using our social programs down the road, I think Canadians would feel that that is unfair."

Er... pardon my French, but what the fuck?

Is this guy insane? Does he not realise that us dual-citizenship holders (yes, I am one of them, so you can see my bias) LOSE our access to Canada's "social programs", ranging from free Medicare to even being able to renew our driving licence, once we leave the country and start working somewhere else? Even if we go back to Canada for a holiday, we're on our own as far as health insurance is concerned, and that's certainly not the case for dual citizenship holders in many European countries. Given the cash-strapped nature of the Canadian economy, I'm prepared to let that one slide for now. But for Solberg to somehow assume that we'd just return and start living off government handouts is not only incredibly insulting, it's also factually wrong. For a start, if I were to move permanently back to Canada tomorrow, I would have access to precisely nothing until I had regained my residency status. And secondly, the vast majority of us wouldn't exactly be returning just to sit on our asses and cash welfare cheques, we'd be returning to WORK. And when you work, you pay TAXES. And last time I checked, taxes are used to fund social programmes!!

So screw you, Solberg. I know plenty about my rights and responsibilities as a Canadian.

Cry of the partisan banshee

2006-11-08T10:08:00.000Z

One of my abiding memories of the aftermath of 2000 U.S. presidential election was the smugness on the face of election official Katherine Harris as she walked up to the podium and unofficially handed victory to Dubya, by declaring him the state winner by majority. I never quite forgot or forgave (and hell, I'm not even American). Anyway, following yesterday's U.S. Midterm elections, it now seems that Ms Harris's own ambitions to become a Senator have been shot down in flames, following a campaign marked by some of the most memorable career-suicide moments of recent memory. This Reuters report sums up the whole sorry affair pretty neatly, but this part makes for especially good reading:

Harris accused the media of doctoring photos of her to add more makeup and gave conflicting explanations about her dealings with a
corrupt defense contractor who made an illegal donation to her
campaign.

She called the separation of church and state "a lie" and told Baptists, "If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin."

Staffers deserted her campaign in droves, then portrayed her in newspaper interviews as prone to shrieking fits over minutia such as botched coffee orders.

Harris was the only Republican candidate running statewide who showed up when President Bush held a rally in Pensacola on Monday
but did not get a seat on the stage with him and his brother, Gov. Jeb
Bush.

Meanwhile, shades of Janet Jackson's "nipplegate" hysteria at this next line:

Bloggers ridiculed her bosom-flaunting wardrobe and the Palm Beach Post called Harris' candidacy "one long-running freak show" that did
nothing to shake her image as "a partisan banshee."

Ouch!

There was something so calculating and ruthless about Harris that day in 2000, when it was plain to see that the Florida vote was being called due to intense pressure from the media and local government (run by Jeb, natch) rather than any willingness to actually get it right. I've never forgotten it, or her. It may be petty of me to be happy at her failure to capture the Senate seat, but her role in the hanging-chad fiasco combined with her rabidly anti-immigrant stance and zealous approach to combining church and state leave me with little alternative.

Can I just say

2006-10-26T09:37:00.000+01:00

...how much I HATE estate agents?

HATE THEM.

That is all.

Acid Burn, meet Zero Cool!

2006-10-20T10:02:00.000+01:00

Dude. I've only ever met someone off the internet once before, but it was nothing like last night. Have you ever met a large group of bloggers "in the flesh" for the first time? It's like that scene in the (now charmingly dated) movie Hackers where the two main characters meet up, then realise who they really are by discovering their screen names. "YOU'RE Zero Cool?" etc.

So yes. Quite by accident, I found myself being introduced to the minds behind Dave's Part and Stroppyblog by the man behind Gauche, who then took it upon himself to explain to them that "M**** is Lady M". The whole thing had a clandestine feel to it that was in turns nerdily enjoyable and vaguely disturbing. A bit like being in the Druids, I expect. Still, the company was good, a fun time was had by all, and I learned more about who works where, who knows whom and who's shagged whom than I ever expected - or indeed wanted - to know. Bonza! I look forward to Round Two when I have a bit more cash to spare on copious volumes of alcohol.

Lessons from Cable Street - 2

2006-10-11T15:37:00.000+01:00

That'll teach me to treat my blog as a diary rather than a proper publication. In my last post I asked why Oona King, Shami Chakrabarti and Trevor Phillips weren't at Cable Street on Sunday. Note to self: Always research an event before writing about it, even if you were there in person. It turns out that both King and Chakrabarti were among the patrons of the Cable Street celebration, and would have likely showed up at Shadwell Town Hall, not a million miles away from the famous mural where I was standing. Durrrr. I still feel the event could have been better, but I withdraw criticism where it was not merited.

Lessons from Cable Street

2006-10-09T14:32:00.000+01:00

We were in Cable Street yesterday afternoon to mark 70 years since the legendary clash between Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts and the Jewish, Irish and Communist groups of East London. There were some things that we missed, namely the procession down the street itself, but by and large it pains me to say that it was a missed opportunity.

Consider the facts...

Apart from a man who had taken part in the Battle of Cable Street all those years ago, there was a distinct shortage of strong speakers at the event. Where was Oona King, Trevor Phillips, Shami Chakrabarti? There was no one there to show the relevance of the original event to life in London today. This was also true in the way the event was promoted, but more on that later.
A strong MC would have made the proceedings waaay less cringeworthy. I wasn't living in England during the 1980s, but I tell you what yesterday reminded me of. Remember that TV movie The Deal that came out about three years ago, about Tony and Gordon's rise to the top? And remember all the flashbacks to various dire-looking Labour events from the late 70s and early 80s? Badly-dressed crusties singing the Internationale, etc? Well, yesterday was pretty much a carbon copy of that, with (slightly) better clothes. And the closest we got to an MC was a tired old codger in a red velvet jacket who entertained us with a "magic trick" designed to symbolise the exploitation of factory workers in a capitalist society!!! I ask you!
There was a strong People's Front of Judea element to the afternoon. Inevitable I suppose, and I'm not saying that representatives of the Communist University of Britain et al should be banned from such events, but it did seem that the majority of those who turned out were not so much curious bystanders or locals but members of some fringe syndicalist or anarchist movement or another. Again, there's nothing wrong with those groups in themselves, but if it's only them who are attending, what does it say about getting the message about Cable Street to the wider public?
Which brings me right to my next point... where the hell were the local community? And don't bang on about the local Bangladeshi dance troupe that performed - where were the Bangladeshis in the audience, watching the performances, buying snacks for their kids, looking through the excellent photo exhibition (much of which focused on the communities of today's East London)? I saw about three Asian families in the hour and a half I was there. Considering the makeup of the surrounding area, I'd argue that was hardly representational. Why wasn't the event better promoted, better explained, more adapted to suit families?

So that's it, really. Did you go to Cable Street yesterday? What did you see and what did you think of it?

Par-tay!

2006-10-04T09:07:00.000+01:00

The official launch of Orwell in Tribune takes place tonight at the Wheatsheaf, Rathbone Place, W1. Be there or be square, dahlings! And remember, the more books are sold, the more free beer there will be. See you by the bar.

* * *

UPDATE: Smoky, noisy, jam-packed, full of people I hadn't seen in ages. And many more who I had never seen at all. Michael Foot was a no-show, but I suppose that was to be expected. Tribunites, ex-City students, ex-girlfriends, Little Atoms co-hosts, journalists of all stripes. All packed into a tiny upstairs room where Orwell himself would have once sat. Man-of-the-evening Paul Anderson did the honourable thing by splitting all the proceeds from books sold on the night between the beer fund and the Tribune Fighting Fund, and left the pub feeling full of love. A grand evening all in all, marred only by my impeccable comic timing (read: full-on klutziness) of dropping my half-full glass of beer in shock when someone told me they had actually read my blog. Sigh. Do finishing schools still exist?

Help (those who mock) the aged

2006-09-29T16:59:00.000+01:00

My company's HR department has just sent round an e-mail outlining the new age discrimination policies and how they will affect us. It ends with:

"Of course, employees should avoid using any age-related comments that may be negatively interpreted."

Working in the new media industry, most of us are in our 20s and 30s anyway, so there's not really much scope to make age-related comments to begin with. But even so, "comments that may be negatively interpreted"??! God, that's like telling men to stop complimenting female co-workers on their nice boobs in case they take offence, or to stop photocopying their backsides during Christmas parties in case they decide to sue the company! It's Political Correctness Gone Mad^TM!!

Tesco's world domination plans hit snag

2006-09-27T14:33:00.001+01:00

Is this some kind of joke? I thought, as the headline Thailand's military leaders could restrict expansion of Tesco and other retailers flashed across the ticker on the front page of the BBC website. But no, this frankly bizarre choice of front-page news is all too true. The military say they have imposed a 30-day suspension on the expansion plans for Tesco, Boots and other multinationals operating in Thailand so that they can determine how best to protect the interests of the owners of smaller local shops.

Still, the whole thing is just too reminiscent of this clip from Armando Ianucci's excellent Time Trumpet series for me to pass up.

Charting success

2006-09-26T08:38:00.000+01:00

The Daily Mail copying the Guardian is something I never thought I'd see. Still, getting the Tube in to work this morning, there it was - as if it wasn't disturbing enough seeing three [middle-aged white men in suits] sitting in a row and all reading the Daily Mail, their papers all bore an advert for a brightly coloured poster available free with today's mail: a wall chart with drawings of British butterflies. Obviously this is a rip-off of the Grauniad's ongoing nature wall charts, which seem more aimed at "kidults" than real kids (drawings?! What, no 3D graphics or glow-in-the-dark? I smell a nostalgia fest). But even worse is the fact that the Mail has deliberately used a font that is either identical or at least very similar to the chunky Egyptian font that has come to characterise the new Berliner-format Guardian as well as its posters. Funny what things are considered worth replicating.

What's the most original place you've seen one of the Guardian's wall charts? I think my favourite so far has got to be the Freshwater Fish poster tacked up on the wall of my local chippie.

Bullshit, Mom!

2006-09-20T13:29:00.000+01:00

Not to make light of another country's political woes or anything, but some of the quotes from Hungarian PM Ferenc Gyurcsany's leaked tape recording have been pretty hilarious.

I particularly like this one:

Since they know my mother's name [Katus Gyurcsány] in Pápa [hometown], she receives better service, damn it! She did not understand what was happening. Has the healthcare system been mended, my son? I tell her: Bullshit, Mom! The truth is that now your family name rings a bell. That's scandalous.

(As an aside, I also love how Gyurcsany used to be "Sports Minister". I just find there's something very Soviet-sounding about it. Conjures up all sorts of images of ping-pong, weight-lifting and gymnasts called Yuri spinning around on dusty old parallel bars with no mats underneath. And yes, I know Britain has a similar position, but "Minister for Sport" sounds much more English than Gyurcsany's old title.)

Darfur

2006-09-19T13:28:00.000+01:00

I'm as guilty as the next person of not doing enough to raise awareness and call for UN action in Darfur. My excuse for not attending Sunday's Day for Darfur protest rally in London? I was at work, finishing up a report. There are worse excuses, but it's still pretty lame.

Coverage of the event itself is here and here. And lots of other places I'm sure. The point is, there was virtually nobody there. A friend who did go estimated attendance of around 1,000 people. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands who attended the anti-war demo in Trafalgar Square in February 2003 and it's pretty embarrassing. Plus, of course, it leads to certain uncomfortable questions. Why were there so few people at the Darfur rally? Where were the unions? According to my spy, not a single flag or banner from any recognisable trade union was present outside the Sudanese Embassy. A handful of Euston Manifesto signatories were seen. Most disappointing of all? Zero presence from the so-called Stop the War Coalition. Concentrate your efforts on Iraq all you want, guys, but an organisation with your name and stature should at the very least show some solidarity with like-minded organisations. But maybe that's hard for you to do if you think that only certain wars are worth trying to prevent, and that only some populations deserve to be saved.

Not that it makes a difference in the long run, really, because by the time anything gets done - if anything gets done - most of the Darfur refugees will be dead anyway. A pretty radical way to get rid of the problem, wouldn't you say?

9/11 Legacy

2006-09-11T10:32:00.000+01:00

On a day when much of the Western world will be thinking back to the human tragedy that was September 11, 2001, there comes an indication of just how much the world has changed since that day. It has emerged today that Denmark's exports to Muslim countries have fallen by 15.5% between February and June 2006, with the loss attributed to the fallout from the Danish cartoons fiasco in January. That might not seems like a huge percentage, but when it's measured in million or even billions of euros, it's critical. Who's responsible for trade? Not a fringe group of extremists, not the clergy, but businessmen and government. The Establishment. I despair. Is this how countries conduct business in the 21st century? When those towers came down, it seems that an era of rationality and progressive thought went with them.

My boyfriend's back, and you're gonna be in trouble

2006-09-09T17:29:00.000+01:00

Hey la, hey laaa, my boyfriend's back.

Meltdown (updated)

2006-09-06T13:35:00.000+01:00

It begins...

Tom Watson MP has resigned from government.
A memo has been leaked outlining plans for Tony Blair to step down in one last blaze of PR glory.
17 MPs have signed a letter calling for him to step down.
The Sun, Mirror, Mail et al have gone mad trying to see who can use the biggest font in spelling out "May 31st".

It's all very sad.

However, I'm enjoying reading Rob Newman's take on all of this, as a Labour Party member, and as a student Labour leader. It's a good insight into what effect the uncertainty is having on Labour's next generation.

* * *

UPDATE: Blair has finally confirmed that he will be leaving... but not before September 2007. He's still refusing to name an exact date, although to be honest I really can't see why he needs to give one. Given that the summer recess will occur before next September, for all intents and purposes he will have stopped governing before September is actually reached. For the love of god, give it a rest. I sometimes wonder if the Labour party even wants to win the next election. The way they're going about thing, it doesn't look like it.

* * *

UPDATE (2): Noooo! That's the first time I've seen Michael Howard on TV in months. Everyone wants to be in at the kill,it seems. Bloody CNN plasma screens clamped to our office walls... There is no escape!

Romania

2006-09-05T09:59:00.000+01:00

A shocking news report on ITV last night once again exposed the horrific and appalling conditions that pervade orphanages in Romania, over 15 years after the first Western TV cameras were allowed in. Truly nothing changes without money, especially the unofficial policy of concealing the truth from the outside world.

However, the gist of the report seemed to be that Romania shouldn't be permitted to join the European Union while it still has this shameful secret lurking behind closed doors. I'm not sure that I agree. Doesn't it make more sense to let the benefits of EU cash go toward improving facilities and hiring trained child-minders? Isn't there a way that a certain proportion of EU funding could be guaranteed to reach these institutions?

The EU isn't a charity, I hear you say. And the value of the euro will plummet if we keep letting in poor countries like Romania. Well... quite. But doesn't it make long-term financial sense to invest in countries with bad economies and then build them up into growth economies? The EU has done it before, to great success.

I'm not an expert on EU spending policy by any means, so send me your thoughts.

RIP Steve Irwin

2006-09-04T15:17:00.000+01:00

I have to say I'm really quite cut up about this. A lovely man.

The makings of a terrorist

2006-09-04T09:46:00.000+01:00

Last night's instalment of BBC 2 documentary Al Qaeda: Time to Talk?, hosted by Peter Taylor, made for some compelling if depressing viewing. Most of those profiled by the programme were men in their early 20s, angry for a variety of reasons, but all united by their resolve to embrace "radical Islam", go to Iraq and become martyrs "for the cause".

But that's where the similarities ended. Asked to describe what "the cause" actually was, most said retribution for Anglo-American foreign policy, namely the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which virtually all Muslims are said to consider illegal. And yet it seemed to me that a number of them had been convinced instead that going to Iraq and blowing themselves up was the only way to prevent themselves from falling into a downward spiral of mortal sin, which was the inevitable conclusion of living as a law-abiding citizen in the UK. In other words, becoming a suicide bomber wasn't a response to the individual jihadist recruit's hatred of a Western military presence in Iraq, it was complying with the instructions of radical imams and others, who basically brainwashed them.

What is even more tragic is that many of these foreign jihadi recruits often end up roped into killing other Iraqis - an example in the documentary is of Raed Elbana, a young Jordanian lawyer who spent some time living in the United States before returning home to Jordan and being "radicalised" on the idea of fighting a holy war against Americans. But is this what he did? No, Raed gained his "martyrdom" by blowing himself up outside a Shia clinic in Iraq, killing 118 Shia Iraqis in the process.

Interestingly, though, Taylor chose not to point out this opportunism by Sunni extremists, choosing instead to lump it in with the other terrorist atrocities as being driven purely by the U.S.-led occupation.

Taylor stops short of saying that the creation of British-born terrorists is reason enough to pull all troops out of Iraq. And yet, he consistently repeats that UK foreign policy towards Iraq is driving these people to become radicalised. That's fair enough, but as Norm recently pointed out, in response to this article by Inayat Bunglawala:

If terrorism motivated by anger over British foreign policy isn't - ever - justified, should the government in some way yield to this anger
nonetheless? What exactly, to put it otherwise, is Inayat Bunglawala asking for in asking that the government 'acknowledge' the causal influence of foreign policy on murderous anger, and in emphasizing that it should not be 'left unconsidered'? One has to presume that this isn't merely a demand for a thought process to occur or for some sort of acknowledging public statement. It's an argument for a change of policy.

Well quite, and I'm pretty sure that Taylor is echoing Bunglawala's argument.

Silence is golden

2006-09-03T19:12:00.000+01:00

Out of necessity, I found myself battling the crowds of Oxford Street this afternoon - the first time since the unceremonious turfing out of "Sinner Winner Man", aka Philip Howard, from his megaphone vantage point smack dab in the middle of Oxford Circus.

A week or so ago, I read with amusement of an online campaign that has been set up to banish Sinner Winner Man from his new preaching post in Piccadilly Circus. A surprising amount of people stood up for Sinner Winner Man, saying that he was "part of our culture", that it would be just that little bit duller without him, that he was good for keeping the tourists away, etc etc. "Awww," I thought, "Londoners can be a cuddly bunch when they want."

Then I went shopping for boots on Oxford Street today; a hot, sunny Sunday afternoon, with a Spanish festival over on Regent's Street ensuring even larger crowds than usual. And you know what? I was only slightly put out by the experience. Considering that I normally leave the place with a raging headache and an urge to snatch one of those Golf Sale signposts and use it as a battering ram to clear my way to the tube station, this was a significant improvement. One that I attribute to not being informed repeatedly and at high volume that I was a miserable robotic drone who had no purpose in life but to spend, spend, spend (even though I was only there because I hadn't bought new boots in such a long time that my old ones had massive holes in them).

"Christian propaganda" isn't the problem with Sinner Winner Man, it's the options he gives us. Who wants to be his version of a winner if he makes us all feel like complete and utter losers in the interim? The old PR skills could do with a bit of a brush-up, je pense.

So good riddance, says I, if it makes the grinding shuffle through London's busiest shopping street any less excruciating. Now, if only the powers that be would enforce the use of a pedestrian fast lane, the Oxford Street experience would be bordering on enjoyable.

Fame at last

2006-09-01T16:05:00.000+01:00

To my profound surprise and delight, I was recently asked to be the subject of a Friday Profile over at Normblog. Published today, my efforts are now up for all to see here, and for sheer vanity's sake I have also included a permanent link to it in the "About Me" box on the right-hand side of this page.

The Bull is dead

2006-08-31T22:40:00.000+01:00

...long live The Bull.

We'd heard for some time that our old local, The Bull, had gone downhill lately. We'd noticed it ourselves the last few times we were there before we moved away. And now it is gone forever. Its empty shell stands on the corner of St John Street and Wynatt Street, EC1, covered in scaffolding, with a new nameplate - the Queen's Head or something equally generic - glaring out from underneath.

For some it was nothing more than a run-of-the-mill student pub, with overpriced lager and stale peanuts. For me it was.... well, a run-of-the-mill student pub, but one that you could enter at any given moment and be guaranteed to run into someone you knew, a place where the staff not only recognised you but would tell you if your friends weren't there, so you could go looking for them somewhere else. The scene of many a late-night socialist slanging match. A stopping-off point on the way back home from the market, and the site of one of the most memorable private parties I've been to.

So farewell, then, The Bull.
You were the lounge of my loungeless flat.
But I've since had better pints
at Filthy MacNasty's.

London keeps you thin

2006-08-31T14:10:00.000+01:00

Huzzah! Finally, I can ditch that tiresome gym membership and splurge on a quarter-pounder instead, for it turns out that I live in an area which boasts one of the lowest obesity risk rates in the whole of England. Makes me feel a lot better about the hefty gnocchi with spinach and parmesan I had for lunch today at Carluccio's...

Gnocchi aside, it's little wonder there aren't too many morbidly obese people wandering around in Zone 1, what with all the organic tofu, crayfish and rocket, low-fat soy milk, 12-grain bread and other trendy nonsense that's flying about. I'm no expert, but judging from the map on the BBC website, it seems that obesity rates are to a large part influenced by economic prosperity. How else to explain such a strong concentration of the lowest (greater London) and highest (northern England) risk rates?

Of course, the astronomically high price of food in London might also be helping us lose our appetite a bit...

The madness of king George

2006-08-30T23:49:00.000+01:00

Have you ever had one of those moments where something you've believed for a long time is suddenly brought home to you again, with a level of understanding so clear it makes you wince?

A friend of mine sent me an e-mail a few days ago with a link to a Google Video clip, but I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to watch the whole thing through until this evening.

This is the clip.

To paraphrase a quote from Red Dwarf, "Hello, I am George Galloway MP, and I am quite, quite mad."

Looking at the whole thing objectively - if it's even possible to do that - the only vaguely valid point he makes is that the mainstream media has had a tendency to focus on the current conflict between Israel and Lebanon without putting it into much historical context. Fine. But then he goes on to essentially justify kidnappings carried out by what he calls a legitimate political organisation, so you be the judge.

Has it been definitely confirmed that "Gorgeous" won't be running for parliament at the next election? Because political opinions aside, his aggressive barrage of insults at the Sky journalist interviewing him must make him seem, well, pretty mentally unbalanced to the average viewer, and I can't imagine who on earth would want him representing them now.

Race to the bottom

2006-08-25T14:18:00.000+01:00

Yes, I'm sure there are probably more important things to write about, but this story picked up by the BBC is so bizarre that I thought it deserved a mention.

If you thought the "controversy" over the voting tactics in Big Brother 7 was bad, wait til you see what they've got coming across the pond. The creators of Survivor, the original U.S. reality TV show, are planning to divide the "tribes" for their next series... according to race.

The Beeb says:

The network [CBS] announced on Wednesday that the 20 "castaways" would be initially segregated into groups of blacks, whites, Asians and Latinos before merging later in the series.

It said the move was aimed at addressing complaints that there had not been sufficient ethnic diversity in previous series.

Now, maybe I'm being thick here, but doesn't the idea of keeping three ethnic groups separated from each other preclude the idea of "diversity" altogether? And when the three groups are finally brought together, surely it'll do nothing but highlight their differences even more? Why does race need to be the big in-joke around which the whole show is based? This is crass, lowest-common-denominator entertainment aimed at morons who are looking for nothing more than a few cheap laughs over ethnic stereotypes. And, if there's any kind of tension that occurs when the three groups are unceremoniously dumped together, it won't exactly do much to help the cause of ethnic minorities in places like North Carolina, where inter-racial dating is still virtually banned, will it.

Or maybe I'm just being overly sensitive? I don't think so, but you tell me.

Faking it

2006-08-23T13:48:00.000+01:00

Following the death of American photographer Joe Rosenthal three days ago, the BBC website today has asked the question of whether we should think any less of his famous "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" and other iconic war photos because they were staged. The other two examples highlighted in the piece are Yevgeny Khaldei's picture of a Red Army soldier raising the Soviet flag over the Reichstag in Berlin during World War Two, and the AP photos of the toppled Saddam Hussein monument surrounded by crowds in Baghdad in late 2003.

The BBC is fairly obvious in answering its own question with a resounding "No". As a journalist, and in spite of all my earnest Canadian media ethics training, I'm inclined to agree - albeit grudgingly. Yes it's important to have strong images to capture victory in armed conflict - war is such a bloody business that there will always be a need for moral justification, to ease the collective conscience. But if that's your argument, then isn't it only a short step from restaging events that have already occurred to creating events that didn't happen at all?

And of course, the nature of war itself means that capturing the exact moment when a significant event occurs can be next to impossible if the photographer wants to stay alive. But should the photographer or news agency responsible for publishing the picture be more upfront from the outset about the circumstances in which it was shot - if for no other reason than to avoid being tarnished by allegations of being faked later on?

Finally, I think it's worth pointing out that the last of the BBC's three case studies isn't really directly comparable to the first two in terms of how it was "staged". The two WW2 pics have in common that they were staged recreations of events that already happened, either hours or days earlier. The Baghdad photo was taken as the statue was being pulled down - for obvious reasons it's the kind of thing that can only be done once. While the BBC highlights the apparent addition of Ahmad Chalabi to some of the photos taken on the day, it's fair to say that the most controversial aspect of them is the fact that they crop out a lot of the surrounding area, making it look like a lot of people were there when in fact there were relatively few. Yet one of the first things photojournalists are taught is how to crop a photo to make it as newsworthy as possible. This isn't staging or faking an event, it's simply zooming in on the most interesting thing that's going on, the very core of the story. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if there were only 50 people there instead of 50,000 - what matters is that the statue was pulled down and symbolised the end of Saddam's regime, and that caused Iraqis who were there at the time to celebrate.

Swedish boob

2006-08-22T14:07:00.000+01:00

Sweden - what's not to love? Technicians at national broadcaster SVT "accidentally" left a porn flick from a cable network playing on the screen behind their news anchor during a bog standard current-affairs programme, the press had a field day.... and not one single viewer complained.

Contrast that with the 17 people who complained to Ofcom over the "racy" material featured in a late-night Graham Norton (!) show a couple of years ago and you'll find a pretty compelling case to move to Scandinavia.

I'd love to find a YouTube clip of this so I could link to it here, but it will have to wait until I get home - Googling "Swedish porn" at work is probably not the wisest career move.

Here we go, yo

2006-08-17T11:01:00.000+01:00

Wish me luck, ladies, I'm off to Stansted to see if Ryanair has got its act together since the madness of last week. Berlin beckons!

See you on Monday.

Haters!

2006-08-16T15:41:00.000+01:00

The sight of the world's media hovering around Boy George like starved vultures makes me sick! Mind you, so does the sight of my (very early) childhood idol and first-ever crush bloated and pasty-looking, picking up trash from a fenced-off parking lot in NYC. How the mighty have fallen... Think I might download "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" this evening for old time's sake - listen to it once - delete it - and never speak of it again.

Guess who's back..... back again.

2006-08-16T14:51:00.000+01:00

Bunting's back, tell a friend.

She actually makes a few good points, particularly about the government's lack of ideas on how best to "engage" with the Muslim community. She's still falling into the trap of making sweeping claims about rampant Islamophobia without really backing them up with evidence, though. Oh, and making the Muslim Brotherhood and the MCB seem a lot more cuddly than they really are. But as soon-to-be director of the thinktank Demos, maybe she knows something I don't? Or indeed, maybe not.

And what's up with writing another rant for the Guardian less than two months after having published an emotional farewell piece? Missing the limelight, are we? I'm sure it's not the vociferous critics on Comment is Free that have lured Ms Bunting back to the paper so soon.

* * *

UPDATE: Anderson takes it one step further.

Hurrah!

2006-08-11T16:59:00.000+01:00

*cue the drum beat from Rock n Roll Part 2*

Ah, the perfect way to end the week - news of an upcoming Tribune piss-up! And an anniversary one at that! Reading Paul's take on events reminds me of why I chose to move to England in the first place. :)

There's a very good chance that I will be attending this, so I'll let you all know how it goes (of course, most of the people who read this will probably be there too, so perhaps not much point).

Have a lovely weekend.

Across the great divide

2006-08-11T13:00:00.000+01:00

So it seems the Met have foiled a terrorist plot that could have led to as many as 10 planes being ripped apart by exploding Gatorade bottles halfway across the Atlantic. These are indeed interesting times, although I must admit I could do without the interest of discovering what state the check-in at Stansted will be like next week when I head off to Berlin for a few days. Still, I'd rather the police were over-cautious than under-cautious, given the circumstances.

What I find troubling is that I've noticed a difference in reaction to the "foiled plot" between, one one hand, the white people that I've spoken to, and, on the other, the Muslim and Asians I've discussed it with. In a nutshell, the former are terrified while the latter are completely sceptical that the threat even existed in the first place. Okay, so it was only a straw poll of just a few people, but still.

This is the fallout from the flop at Forest Gate, I suppose. But has that police disaster made all of us equally cynical about surveillance activities into other alleged terrorist plots? Judging from some of today's front pages, I would say no. But has the Muslim community (I hate this term, surely Muslims can be parts of other communities too) disproportionately felt unjustly targeted, to the point that they think it's all a huge conspiracy against them? If so, it's a serious issue that will serve to further divide opinion and alienate one part of Britain from the other.

Discuss.

Mark your calendars...

2006-08-08T12:19:00.000+01:00

Hurrah! Not one of my usual news sources, this, but I have it on pretty good authority that Ms. Marjane Satrapi will be making her first-ever public visit to the UK in October, as part of this year's COMICA festival. Speaking at the ICA (exact date and time still to be confirmed), her talk will be timed to coincide with the English-language release of her latest book, Chicken with Plums. I highly recommend all of Satrapi's books. Iranian or not, it's such a joy and a departure from the norm to read about contemporary Iran in a way that actually makes you smile, even laugh, that they are well worth a look. Plus, for those of us who don't speak Farsi, it's probably the easiest and most pain-free way around to gain some insight into the lives of ordinary Iranian women.

And in case you were wondering, chicken with plums (prunes, really) is an absolutely delicious dish. :)

Reporting the Middle East

2006-08-07T13:32:00.000+01:00

Greetings, my pretties.

I've been away for a couple of weeks on the sunnier side of the Atlantic, and while I've actually been back in London since the 30th, getting back into the swing of things at work has proved time-consuming.

Anyway.

It now seems that one of the most troubling bouts of violence in a while has hit the Middle East, and is not only destroying the lives of many innocent people in both Lebanon and Israel, but also has the potential to destabilise the region as a whole.

Now, there are many excellent news forums and discussion websites for you to talk about what's happening in the Middle East and whether it's the right course of action to take. But for the purposes of this blog, which is ostensibly media-focused, I'm more interested in putting the following question to you:

Where can you go to read balanced, fair coverage of the Middle East crisis that does not

focus on one side's suffering while whitewashing over the other's?
choose to ignore the root causes or historical justifications for actions?
ignore the wider political and social context in which these actions are made?

I welcome suggestions of actual websites, newspapers and television programmes. Like most people, I have been closely following coverage of the events of the past few weeks, but it seems that virtually every TV news report, "expert analysis" newspaper article or blog entry that I read is biased toward one side or the other. Should this be accepted as human nature, "just the way it is?" Do newspapers always need to take sides, or shoud they stick to reporting the facts - all the facts.

Tick tock

2006-07-13T08:56:00.000+01:00

Oh dear. It's a bad sign when even some of Labour's staunchest defenders in the blogosphere are calling for Blair and Prescott to step down. It's something I've felt for a while, and not because of Iraq, but the continuous pig-headed refusal of the government to admit that there are serious problems at home, both in the cabinet and in the police force. The net has been closing in for awhile now, but with Lord Levy being the latest and biggest fish to be caught, I'm not sure how Blair can keep blindly supporting these people and expect Labour to have a prayer of winning the next election. To be honest I feel that the damage has already been done and that Cameron, for better or for worse, will end up making it to Number 10 by 2008. But two years is a long time in politics, and surely Blair owes it to his party to at least give them a fighting chance by stepping down now, before the end of this year.

Biased? The BBC??

2006-07-12T12:45:00.000+01:00

One of the more nerdy office pastimes where I work is to spot the instances on the BBC News website where whoever's in charge of choosing and posting the photos has obviously got it in big time for the subject of the photo itself. Today's case is a classic. Unfair? Yes, probably. But funny? You bet.

Remembering

2006-07-07T09:30:00.000+01:00

I got the tube into work this morning. The Victoria Line down from Finsbury Park, changing at King's Cross, pausing briefly to see the sunshine pouring in from outside, noting with a mixture of relief and apprehension the relatively small police presence in the station compared with the previous few days, before heading down to the crowded Circle Line platform to catch the eastbound train to Farringdon. Packed in like sardines, standing room only, everyone in smart office clothes, many of us reading today's copy of Metro, the front cover of which bore the faces of some who, one year earlier, never made it to their final destination.

For them, I feel this was the most fitting way to pay tribute, and says more about the resilience of London and Londoners than any wreath, plaque or commemorative service.

Lookalikes, World Cup edition

2006-07-05T22:51:00.000+01:00

Without the specs, not so much, but the similarities were striking at tonight's France v. Portugal match...

Jim's Dad Raymond Domenech

Hans Brix, oh no!

2006-07-05T14:33:00.000+01:00

Hmm, let's see, our people are starving, our infrastructure is crumbling, our economy has collapsed, our international reputation is in tatters, and we're on a three-country watchlist for terrorism. What should we do? I know! Let's "test" launch a bunch of Scud missiles into the Sea of Japan, and then refuse to discuss it with anyone.

Nice one, Kim. That'll really make things better for you and your godforsaken country.

On Belfast

2006-07-03T14:34:00.000+01:00

She is handsome, she is pretty, she is the belle of Belfast city...

That song will forever bring a smile to my face following my weekend in Belfast, where, though there are indeed many beautiful women to be seen, they are vastly outnumbered by morbidly obese, tattooed mamas with growly tobacco-stained voices, getting stuck into a huge mountain of salty chips and fried potato bread at Blinkers. Mmmm!

Comedy aside, though, my impressions of the city were really very positive. This wasn't the first visit I'd made - boyfriend issues have made this my third trip in less than a year to the "Hibernian Rio" that is Belfast. It was, however, the first time I had been during the summer, and to my mind, that made all the difference. Without being too simplistic (well, maybe just a little), I think there's a real sense of optimism and hope for the future in Belfast at the moment, and it's being expressed in ways that you don't tend to hear about in the usual Peace Process-type news coverage, especially on the BBC.

Yes, there are abandoned old eyesore office blocks and student halls that dot the city centre, waiting to be pulled down. But there are also fancy new restaurants, cafés and shops opening at every corner. We in London like to gripe about the evils of "gentrification", but the fact that entrepreneurs are deciding that it's worth investing in real estate in a city that still boasted "Europe's most bombed hotel" just over a decade ago can surely only be a good thing.

Another sign of change is the type of restaurants that are opening. Thai, sushi, curry, tapas... In many cases there is only one example of these eateries in the entire city, and they've obviously only been there for a couple of years at most. For a city that's not exactly renowned for the adventurousness of its cuisine, it's a sign of things to come and, hopefully, an indication that Belfast's cultural isolation from the outside world is slowly dissipating.

There was a big festival being held down by Clarendon Docks over the weekend as well, with a fleet of tall ships celebrating the city's maritime history. Local music, imported beers, an international food market and, err, a rockabilly club night combined to make a fun and memorable weekend, and the good weather meant that I am now sporting a shocking sunburn. The point is, the locals that I spoke to all told me the same thing: "This would never have happened a few years ago." Especially so close to 12 July, presumably.

Now before I get a load of cynics writing in and telling me that a couple of new shops and an open-air festival don't equate to an end to the violence and troubles of Belfast, let me reassure you that I'm not suggesting they are. Gang violence and murders, cheek-by-jowl territorialism, drug trafficking, racism, bitter resentment and all sorts of atrocities that I, as an outsider, will probably never see, are all still there, and aren't going to disappear in a hurry. All I'm saying is, outside perceptions of the city are starting to change for the better, and that can only be because, no matter how halting the progress, Belfast is starting to define itself as more than just a backdrop to the Northern Ireland conflict.

Ingerlund.

2006-07-02T23:06:00.000+01:00

I am so, so glad I was in Belfast rather than London at the time of the England-Portugal match. I know there are many England fans out there who are genuinely decent people, but the vocal minority have ruined any hope of me ever wanting to support the home team. Even the most ardent fans had realised that the team wasn't playing as well as it could be over the past few weeks, but until now, the calibre of the opposing teams had been slack enough to allow for a few victories. But not on Saturday, not Portugal. Admittedly they hung on til the end, and going out on penalties has got to be the worst way to lose a match. I suppose my point is that it's not the team itself that I despise, it's the bigoted, pissed-up idiots that get dragged away by police singing "Ten German Bombers". The people who require the authorities at Stansted to offer stacks of guidebooks reminding you that Nazi salutes and goose-stepping are illegal in Germany and that there's only so much the British consulate can do for you if you make a prat out of yourself. And they're not just in Germany either. My flatmate was stuck in a tube carriage packed with the brutes a couple of hours after the match had ended, and though she's no shrinking violet, she was terrified.

So yes, I am very thankful that I was not around to be subjected to the same thing. As a foreigner it doesn't exactly make me feel welcome, and it's a shame that I have to stop supporting the team of my adopted country, but this group of "people" have made the whole experience of the World Cup so pointlessly embarrassing and violent (okay, less violent than previous years, but still) that this is exactly what's happened. And I tell you something, it ain't just me.

EC1 Cruise Control

The intricacies of La fête nationale

Mee-ow...

Attacks on Roma in Belfast

Tribune: The great survivor

In praise of intelligence

I like Mike

In Solidarity.

The Pig Plague Has Arrived.

The morning after the night before

...and another thing.

In Limbo.

It's oh so quiet

In the time-honoured tradition of TNT magazine...

Smug protesters

Start as you mean to go on

What I don't understand,

BBC Bollocks

And so, the end is near

Nine Lives

Tribune

Not again.

Don't slouch, Darling

Identity Politics

Observing a shake-up

SCIENCE!

Boris to the fore

Uprising in Burma

Fluffwatch: Britney Spears

The week in review

Bridging the gap

Fuck.

Littlejohn takes on the Jews

Alan Johnston released

A long time in politics

In search of a miracle

Media in overdrive as Blair resigns

Scotland

News for Sale

Feminism 2.0

Oh for god's sake

Quebec

Catching Up

"If we gather a crowd of 20,000, the government will not use its guns"

Off tae Edinburgh

An open letter to Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch

"Nobody's business but the Turks'"...*

Tell it like it is

Blurrgh

What's in a name?

Grump.

Ségolène - 2

Sign o' the times*

TfL, get off your knees!

Dancing in the disco...

The usual suspects

What censorship?

Shaken AND stirred.

Ségolène

*Swoon*

The Hat and Feathers rides again

Idiocy in Ottawa

Cry of the partisan banshee

Can I just say

Acid Burn, meet Zero Cool!

Lessons from Cable Street - 2

Lessons from Cable Street

Par-tay!

Help (those who mock) the aged

Tesco's world domination plans hit snag

Charting success

Bullshit, Mom!

Darfur

9/11 Legacy

My boyfriend's back, and you're gonna be in trouble

Meltdown (updated)

Romania

RIP Steve Irwin

The makings of a terrorist

Silence is golden

Swoon