Dengl 48 Keep Television Out Of Courts

After decades of respite from the notion that courts should be televised, it is reported (iin March 2012) that the UK government intends now to take this step. Some of the reasons for and against such a step are similar now to what they were in the 1980s when broadcasters were trusted to spread knowledge and avoid
sensationalism. Now, increasing pressure from a wider market makes it much more difficult for broadcasters to deliver a public service; and to this difficulty, some other reasons for caution about televising courts should be added.


Bearing the tarnished colours of News International, Sky TV now proposes to take on the good work of hoping to make the public understand and appreciate better the work of the court; they propose to do this not just by reporting what has been going on in courts but by deploying cameras in courts. NI and the Government may hope that this will improve relations between them, but televising the courts is not the best way to do this, not least at a time when NI staff past or present, themselves come before the courts .


A more subtle psychological consideration is that the acts of looking and hearing (broadcasts) are likely to encourage people to think that they have truly understood what they see, and that some court proceedings represent most others. Such interpretations are less likely when one reads, in the press, of events in court, as the role of the reporter there is more evident.


When TV was brought into Parliament it was hoped that the public would know more about and better appreciate the work done for us by MPs, moreover that MPs’ behaviour would be positively influenced and that they would themselves welcome the broadcasting. Though the broadcasting authorities at the time carried out short term research to evaluate these goals, there is little sign of any long term research that reassures society that the broadcasting of Parliament has done better than the print reporting it has largely supplanted. When the Law Lords’ function was removed into a new Supreme Court, there was no plan to assess the move in order to make any improvements in provision, and there appears to be no intention to link an incursion into the criminal or civil courts with any formative research.

The reported proposals seem not to have been well conceived and should be opposed.

Dengl 47 The Psychology of Football

One of my career spells had been in Nigeria in 1964-6 and I emerged with a notion I called "sensotypes" - perhaps a genetically imbued characteristic of intelligence or mental structure that took different forms, depending on the communication methods which the culture had focused on for the past many generations. Thus print literacy eventually (in Europe etc) created an inner-directed 'inlook' (intellectual if you like) while cultures depending on oral (and kinaesthetic) signs would develop otherwise.
I "predicted" a flowering of athletic and physical-artistic achievements from Africa plus where formally academic, those that focused a bit more on human relations (medicine, law).
I could see where this stereotype was heading, and I retreated from saying any more about it (it had already been said by Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong SJ, and several others).
Now, after another career in television audience research, I merely watch soccer on the screen.

About this I have a suggestion (for David Horrocks, who had an article "Brains in their feet?" in the Psychologist, January 2012) on which I would be interested to hear any reflections on a few points I made to him:

After scoring a goal, players (much encouraged by tv depictions I imagine) indulge in what may be energetic displays of euphoria and celebration of achievement - which I wonder may not be dysfunctional. One goal has not won the match. Nor has it notched up the player's wages another 10K. Is it possible that, in a simile with a pent up dam, what we see is something like the discharge of all the water it has collected, so that subsequent action has to emerge from a slow (?) re-establishment of pent up force? Might it be better for the manager to discuss with his lads - wait until the 90 mins are over; save the energy (both physical and mental) you are currently 'blowing' in celebrations, to apply to subsequent play. Get back to your positions,
channel that energy into immediately following play. If and when we win - do somersaults etc in front of our fans.

You report a couple of particularly articulate and insightful players - I wonder how far this goes with the others. What I noticed in Nigeria (1965) where European players mixed in with the locals was a clear degree of generalship - amongst the older more experienced Euros (UK, Greek...) - which helped their side. You are quite right in emphasising the merits of generaliship. The picture they gave your article showing Scholes is perhaps telling - a much older player is being celebrated by Ferguson as still very effective. Other examples of people in their 30s, doing very well for their sides include Brad Friedel, and John Terry.
Interacting with the matter of at what age players are replaced is the heavy expectation placed upon the culture - not least by television commentary and discussion - which
says nothing about things you have mentioned such as club history - even player position history
emphasises a 'throw away culture' - sack the manager, sack this or that player ...
emphasises attack over defence - "buy another "striker" ..." (seldom identify 'buy a new midfielder' ..)

Apropos the "meaning" of "what IS a club?" I devised a 'thought experiment' which I put to one or two people:
consider that Arsenal puts ALL its players on the transfer list and at the same time Spurs put ALL their players on their transfer list - and then Arsenal buy all the Spurs players and vice versa. Is the club one used to call Arsenal still Arsenal? And Spurs still Spurs? My relatives (all Arsenal supporters) seem to refuse to enter into this question, but uneasily say the new Arsenal is still Arsenal.
To me, two considerations about 'branding' are pertinent. One is the change of name - even place - where surely Wimbledon is no longer the same as MK Dons? the "emirates" stadium and "club" are perceptibly a bought-over plaything of foreign potentates who may change their support at any time. In other words, the new 'brands' are probably very fragile and ephemeral; not only do they give ambiguous meaning to their supporters - but (this is where it connects with your argument) they do not have such a potential to convey a clear grop identity to the (new) players. Harry Redknapp who says that all that matters is cash - maybe right (only occasionally does a Sol Cambell transfer to opponents evoke deep feelings among supporters - and possibly players.

Dengl 46 Woeisme 1 - on Education

well - this is not a dengl "for fun" as this website is headed - it is for woe; maybe I should set up a separate site. Later.

this one began when I read a "light hearted" press article:

A story in the i Newspaper is headed:
A staycation? Forget it, most of us would only go and get lost
the author is:
Josephine Forster

The internet refuses to supply the article in the (small) i newspaper - but a very similar version, in the full Independent, by the same author consists of::
Trending: If you're staying at home this year, you'll clearly need a map
Josephine Forster Independent 12 March 2012


The recession-fuelled fashion for staycations is all very well, but it seems Britons are in danger of getting lost in their own backyard. One in five British adults couldn't tell you how many countries there are in the UK, a poll of 2,000 UK citizens found.

The royal family often holiday in the UK, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, but more than half of those surveyed (53 per cent) couldn't say where that was.

One in five could not find the seaside resort of Blackpool on a map while the location of Stonehenge was a mystery to one in 20 people. When asked to name England's biggest mountain, 58 per cent answered either Mount Everest, Ben Nevis or Snowdon. A startling 25 per cent thought the Australian sandstone formation Uluru (Ayers Rock) was in the UK. Big cities fared no better, with over a third of people (33.8 per cent) suggesting that the Home Counties circled Manchester, Birmingham or Glasgow.

Karen Gee, of the travel operators Journeys of Distinction, which carried out the survey, said: "We were astounded that while Britons clearly have an enviable knowledge of famous cities abroad, they seem to display a lack of geographical awareness in their own nation."

Whether you blame our reliance on Google maps or SatNav – or the British weather – it's unavoidable. We couldn't locate the top sights of the British Isles if our holiday depended on it.

______________

Both forms of the article GENERALISE that "most of us" are sufficiently ignorant to get lost. Some questions did in fact deliver a MAJORITY who got them wrong (Mt Everest, Balmoral) though other questions produced well under 50% who misplaced the Home Counties or Ayers Rock (Uluru). Overall, while the story makes a stir about widespread ignorance, the journalist (who the web tells us has an MA in Journalism from the City University) seems herself to be shaky on the story that can or should be retrieved from the numbers in a study.

One of the problems about this is that once a story is seeded in one place, it gets repeated with the danger - or certainty - of distortion in subsequent tellings. Thus does myth wend its merry way into the folk zeitgeist.

I agree that these results from (presumably) a representative sample of 2000 reveal widespread geographical ignorance.

This may be (I tend to think that this is) because any geography lessons that occur in schools these days and in recent years do not bother to build up a cohesive "map in the mind" of the world, of the UK's place in it, and of the places within the UK; I have no idea what does go on in schools but I suspect their geography time is spent on what may be partisan programmes of tales about wells (or no wells) in Ethiopia, or on melting of the ice cap - without being all that sure where either of these places are. Perhaps the Ethiopians could get their water from the melted icecap? Does the east wind blow from Latvia therefrom bringing hot, or cold? Will Joseph Kony be found in Uganda or the Congo and where are these places, anyway? Will US Presidential candidates differentiate between Slovakia and Slovenia, (correctly) and does it matter if they can not or will not? Who knows - or cares whether others know?

I imagine that even more distressing ignorance could be demonstrated for example by asking - which British county has more (or more dense provision of) windfarms - Northumbria or Northamptonshire - replies would simply be guesses; and if asked to point to either county on a map - this would reveal even wider ignorance; similarly many people would not be able to (or care less about) identifying the whereabouts of Somerset and Sussex, or of Herefordshire and Hertfordshire. If they want to find out, it is said these days - people can go to the internet for the answers; find out perhaps from Twitter; but would they know what questions to put?

These are the people asked to vote in elections and referenda, who are trusted by the arch democrats as each one of them having a right to influence national policies from a base of what knowledge they have and the opinions and judgments based thereon.

Dengl 45 Shelves, Clouds and Caves

Shelves, Caves and Clouda

Something Erica Wagner (their book critic) wrote in Saturday's Times Review stuck in my mind as an important, even a potential milestone observation.
She was lamenting the smothering of "the book" inundated by the tsunami of tsweet (my word, I think – not hers).

A penny dropped in my mind prompted also by my experience of two different systems of handling my email. I had a system called Eudora - which is now somehow disabled on my computer - though it may conceivably be
reinstalled and I very much hope it will. Currently I mostly used gmail.
(Since then I have also used iMail – which resolves several of the difficulties described below).

Old E-mails as Book Ingredients
Amongst the advantages (though some claim other disadvantages) of Eudora is that it allowed one to slide a message from its own window, to the desktop. From here, it could be transferred to folders for storage. It seems (through its absence, and what Wagner said) that those messages were not like the modern (dispensable) tweet, but like documents which ultimately could be compiled into articles or books. It was good for one's own storage and control. One readily had a plan to organise and benefit from what went where. (Eudora's statistic facility tells me that before this year with my wind-down, I handled some 5,500 messages last year; most, it seemed to me, were satisfactorily dumped or stored where they 'belonged').
iMail now lets me slide into a folder - though imposing awkward demands and byways of its own – it conserves the “shelf” in digitaland; good.

New E-mails as Dross
I have not found a way of simply moving a gmail message from its arrival window (like a platform in a railway station) into an appropriate folder. The only plan I have (had, then) is/was to copy the text within a gmail, and paste it into a word or other document one sets up, to act as the folder once did, within the Eudora regime. The advantage of the Eudora-sourced folder was that it was like the shelf in the library - one could open the folder and see an array of messages - each with its title - to facilitate choice and study). The disadvantage with the word document store of gmails is that not only does it need time to set it up by copying and pasting, but having done that, the new document is not like a shelf but like a volume - it is less easy to scan within itself.
It does seem that google mail is not constructed to serve its users as Eudora did, to help one compile (quasi) books.
Instead, googlemail is constructed to leave one with a morass of messages whose labels within the inbox or the outbox ("sent mail") make it harder to discern sense and plan within what seems a cacophony of chattering birds. The temptation is, then, to disregard the pile-up and maybe, from time to time, to sweep away the contents into some 'bin' - maybe as the council rubbish-people may have swept the floor of Trafalgar Sq of pigeon droppings in the pre-Livingstonian era.

I recently visited the "sent mail" (= "bin") location in my gmail. I found 800 messages piled up - waiting for ... what?
I have been through them from top down and bottom up and discarded around 600, leaving the rest requiring further sorting into meaningful (for me) locations. These 200 will take more work to "shelve" than it took to dump the 600.
(Gmail had introduced – it took me a while to discover it – a list of ‘mini-bins’ where one can put material into sub-categories for easier retrieval).
Incidentally, Google offer some distinction between the instruction in one place to "delete" and elsewhere to "discard". I have no idea what they are getting at. My inbox has around 80 messages - which I try to keep down to far less than this number, 50 ideally, so I can actually see in one window what has been going on.
Amongst all the discourses in which I indulge it has been helpful in previous years to set up folders (and further folders within each) to store and take stock of correspondence. This seems to have been made harder or more time-consuming to do, with Mr Brin's system.
A few more notes on Google:
I have a massive list of “contacts” – over 700 – and believe I could effectively trim this down to half. I looked everywhere for a tab or pointer as to how to delete. It turns out that one summons up the ‘dead or departed’ name and presses a tab called “MORE” (when what I really seek is LESS) and find a place where I can then delete. The effect of this is to pile up more names – and this is not for MY convenience but for someone else’s ….that is Google’s. They want to advertise a ‘client list’ of so many billions - but an amount of this is spurious or double counting. One eventually gets on top of it.
This whole phenomenon is misleadingly called a CLOUD (not cuckoo-land) giving the impression that the data are stored in a satellite or perhaps in the upper atmosphere rotating the earth. Enquiry suggests this is not so. The data are in hard “servers” with massive capacity. We are assured that there is considerable duplication and back up and that no mishap could punch effective holes in the system. Is this perhaps an impression put about by the security services to allay doubt or suspicion among users/clients? Maybe it is really true. It does seem that bombing a large ‘server warehouse/cave” has either not occurred to the miscreants in our society, or they have not managed to “take out” a CAVE; yet.
There have been ‘outages’ due to power cuts said to have isolated some of the smaller servers.
A different kind of ‘outage’ or outrage? Has been suffered by several people I know. Their account is “hacked” by a miscreant; the innocent person has to send out scores or hundreds of messages of apology to contacts – and suspends their password (or whole account membership). If this is done in not the right way (with the victim under some time pressure and anxiety) their whole “store” of messages, some considered personally very valuable – is lost. It is of no reassurance to be told that the data are “somewhere there in the cloud” or amongst cave-bound servers, as there is no visible way of getting at one’s erstwhile intellectual “property”.


Eudora and Gmail - a couple of conparisons
It may not be a coincidence that Eudora is/was developed and offered by a University (of Illinois) - hitherto the domain of the book, while gmail descends via internet from big daddy arpanet, a military operation. I understand that all of gmail's clients' (it tells me I am using 238 MB out of "my" 7426 MB - what made it "MY" 7426MB? - what is the total MB capacity across all Google Clients? - and how many are we happy band?) messages are stored, physically, in something called a server (am I right?). This server array either actually or metaphorically is in a Cave in Colorado where the machines can be kept cool (or, they are looking to move to Alaska for cheaper storage). I also am given to believe that all my (and everyone else's messages including those which I appear to have deleted or discarded) are stored there.
Clearly, the Colorado Cave is not like or in any sense equivalent to a Library (of Congress), or analogous publicly accessible source. Google is good at making searches and no doubt can and does search within its Colorado Cave. It does this, to help us clients when we search for knowledge - and to serve us with what it seems to believe are relevant advertisements (alongside what I write, now, are nurseryman ads (baby? anyone?) offering me apple trees to buy); thus we individual clients are served to advertisers. It is, largely, a mutually beneficial deal.
The Colorado Cave is a resource that is potentially (or routinely?) very valuable to our security/intelligence organisations. Somebody will be wanting to defend these servers from any potential physical attack. That somebody is the military. We may not easily see what is likely to be in place, but how can it be other than that special defence systems are indeed organised around the Caves (yahoo and maybe some other outfits also have their own caves). Organisations striving to destabilise our society will have it in mind to try to damage or even destroy these over-centralised resources.
Movie plot, anyone?

quote from a recent newsletter:
SERVERS SEEKING COOLER CLIMES
Google is said to operate a global network of about three dozen data centres with over one million servers. Microsoft is adding up to 20,000 servers a month. As servers become more numerous, powerful and densely packed, more energy is needed to keep the data centres at room temperature than is used for computing. Electricity consumption at the largest data centres rivals the needs of an aluminium smelter. Microsoft's new $500m facility near Chicago will need three electrical substations all to itself to keep it running. Finding a site for a large data centre is now more about securing a cheap and reliable source of power than anything else. It's the reason that so many in America are close to the Columbia River, where there is plenty of water for cooling, and massive dams produce cheap hydroelectricity. Such sites are in short supply in the US, however, and the boom in data centre construction is spreading to some unexpected places. Microsoft is looking for a site in Siberia where its data can chill. Iceland has begun to market itself as a prime location, firstly for its cool climate, but also because of abundant geothermal energy.
http://short.zen.co.uk/?id=a7a

(most of the above was written in Feb 2010 – but it has been updated now, Feb 2012; the essential categories explored remain, I think, intact)

Dengl 44 What Iranian Missiles? The heated edges of Rings of Fire*

Last night I saw the third instalment of BBC2's fine series on Russia and America - depicting some very knotty matters at the cutting edges of the encounter between two massive systems of tradition embodied in statehood.
Unavailable at present to US viewers, via iPlayer, surely this will soon be available to US viewers widespread?

I was (as previously) impressed by the US front line negotiators (Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell) and also maintained my improving view of Bush. Rice & Powell appear to have done everything they could (to draw freedom's ring tighter round a diminishing 'Greater' Russia) though the impression emerged that Bush's hands were weighed down by 'backroom boy policy makers' who bid for more than they perhaps could get, given the toughness of Putin and the needs and sensibilities of NATO members such as Germany, France.

I dont know if the programme makers had discussed whether to give any space to one or two symbolic elements
which, perhaps Umberto Eco might have woven into the narrative - one: there we saw the sculpted head of American son Winston Churchill in the picture just behind Bush at the White House - an 'ideology reminder' to the President ...another was the presence of George Brown (how are the mighty fallen!) on Bush's right hand at a summit declaration ...
a third was the event of a women's beach volleyball match at Beijing which in the words of a website:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/13/content_9267520.htm

".... was of symbolic significance due to the conflict between the two neighbors. Georgia began military action against South Ossetia's forces last week in an attempt to re-establish control over the region. In response, Russian troops moved into the region to fight the Georgian forces."

Do I remember rightly that Georgia's team was hugely helped by the presence of two players of Brazilian birth very recently given Georgian citizenship ...?
Might political considerations have played an unseen part in the drama enacted on the sands of Beijing playing fields?

Putin went to talk with Bush, in Maine, in (I think ) 2007 - not long after the 2006 Tear Drop monument** had been unveiled (in Bayonne, NJ). Might it have been opportune for the powers to have drawn on that earlier symbolic gesture?

Questions for Programe 4 (next week) include: Putin said in (2007?) Iranian missiles were a joke; has Russia been helping Iran to get on with its missile development? And right now standing by Iran's ally Assad of Syria? Why? With what risks? Is Obama as firm an exponent of liberty for free countries, as evidently was Bush? Will any symbolically important contests emerge at the London Olympics?

*title of an article by me, in the US journal Conflict, 1986.
** http://www.snopes.com/rumors/tributes/teardrop.asp

Dengl 43 Two Thoughts for 2012

Eligibility for Voting in a Referendum on Scottish Independence

Should Scottish expatriates – and others with Scottish roots, family and or jobs be eligible to vote in a referendum on Scottish independence? What about the other inhabitants of the United Kingdom who live outside Scotland, whose Union will be affected? Should they all be entitled to vote?
The refurbished National Museum in Edinburgh has an installation which tells visitors that there are five million people in Scotland, but also 25 million of Scottish descent in other countries. One such person is David Cameron, whose father is from Aberdeen and who would prefer the Union to stay. Another is Sir Sean Connery, who says he will remain outside Scotland until it achieves independence.
There is much to be said for both parties having a say – in this case, Scottish and non-Scottish members of the United Kingdom. As a Londoner with two Scottish grandchildren and family in Glasgow, I wonder if I might claim entitlement to vote.



Scope for an “International Yad VaShem” to honour those who opposed genocide


An elderly woman had written to the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/opinion/honoring-all-who-saved-jews.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
that a heroic Tunisian man had saved her and many of her family from Nazi threats (elsewhere leading to extinction). Her plea to Yad VaShem the Israeli institution which decides on a definitive honured status of “Righteous Gentile” for those who saved Jews from the Nazis, had her request for recognition for Khaled Abdul Wahab.
This led me to think of a need for an inistitution of wider application, rejected:

Is there an internationalised (or even, heaven help us on a smaller scale a Euro) version of Yad VaShem which would honour those who acted in this way anywhere else? No shortage of heroes and heroines of such episodes since WWII – including those who saved gypsies, gays, who knows what others from systematic attempts to erase their group...?
the Nobel outfit with money attached seems the wrong base ...
There must be many unsung hero(in)es to be recognised – in Tibet, Burma, the Balkans, Cambodia ...?? even shias rescuing sunnis and vice versa ...(in the face of lethal inter-communal aggression ...) and there are certainly many instances in "the Indian subcontinent" (including Sri Lanka).

Dengl 42 Lord Melvyn Bragg Speaks About the King James Bible

I was lucky to have been sent a ticket to attend a talk by Lord (Melvyn) Bragg - novelist and well known broadcaster on cultural matters, over several decades; the event took place in the Nave of Westminster Abbey and one could reflect on (or absorb) one's surroundings if all else failed. Behind Bragg was a reredos (Victorian?) with a memorial to Isaac Newton amongst others.


Unfortunately, for a famous and highly feted talker, Bragg left me behind on much of what he had to say. He was near a mike, and I was even nearer a small loudspeaker AND wore my hearing aids. Volume was not the difficulty; diction was.
Bragg was so enthusiastic about his topic that he talked fast; and not just fast at an even speed - interspersing fast and slow as his whim required - but not the whim of the listener. On three occasions he took a swig of water - bending down (out of mike range) talking into a large tumbler - before resuming refreshed. Important observations missed - and attention transferred to irrelevancies.
I have asked speakers at courses I run (including student questioners) many times to try and help - all to no avail.
That is perhaps because most people I ask are still lucky enough to hear well.
but wait -
thanks to the blessings of walkmen and ipods, a wide age band will arrive sooner at the situation I am now describing. I wont be there to savour their feelings - but I can imagine them.

Now - what did Bragg SAY - since I did hear about 40% of what he said?

He spent a good time on the antecedents of KJB - particularly the great figure of William Tyndale. Tyndale produced the right words - many or most of which are monosyllables - which Bragg said contributed to the rhythm,, comprehensibility and impact of Tyndale's English. Presently, England was blessed with Shakespeare - who thrived in the rhetorical culture so enriched by Tyndale. Soon after, when Elizabeth died the Scottish King James VIth became King in London and set up the great project of creating a definitive translation of the Bible into English.
Bragg is a man of the book (perhaps more so than of the microphone) and spoke of the literary qualities of the KJB. There were statistics - so many phrases introduced into the language - but though he is a fellow of the Royal Society (a scientific institution) - he did not approach the text and its influences in a scientific manner. By this I suggest that he could ask certain questions and look for evidence with which to answer them; some such questions are 'positive' ones - does KJB DO X,Y,Z; others are negative ones - does KJB NOT achieve a,b,c, or some other translation achieve it better?
For example - were there translations into other European vernaculars and if so, did they weave together with their countries' histories in ways which were more, equally or less potent than did the KJB in English (for the Anglophone world)?
When the KJB was followed by a Revised version in 1880 did that renew the mission of those who worked with the KJB - or did that mission miss the strength of the now challenged edition? Lord Bragg spoke a good deal about the long campaigns to eradicate slavery and argued (I think, persuasively) that the KJB gave particular strength to the campaigners (and, to the slaves some of whom came across the text)? But would this impact have been greater with a different translation from King James's committee? Or with one of those to come, subsequently?
There is no way to answer that directly - but there may have been certain passages which impeded the great thrust of moral rectitude that came to the fore in Anglophone society - how may KJB have influenced attitudes towards minorities - such as witches, homosexuals, Jews? Lord Bragg did not (I think) have much if anything to say about any 'downside' to the KJB.
This was, after all, an occasion to celebrate its strengths - but one final assertion of Bragg's remains to be worked out: he pointed out that James' son Charles, like his father, believed in what was called the Divine Right of Kings - a doctrine that authority passed directly into the earthly sovereign (at coronation) from the Divinity; Lord Bragg seemed to indicate that this view was reinforced by a reading of texts in KJB. A powerful text, however, is found in First Chronicles Chapter 29 v 11 onwards in which the young King David explicitly disavows a human refraction of Divine authority - the spectacular difference from the behaviour of Pharaohs and Ceasars (and in a small version, of early Stuart Kings) is surely not supported, but repudiated in a KJB text (which is, incidentally, more resonant and moving than are later translations). Not that it can be diluted either, in later texts - but KJB was probably not a thoroughgoing support for quasi-divine regal behaviour.

One can remember these things when walking down Whitehall, past where Charles I had his head cut off, and past Westminster Hall, fronted with the statue of the regicide Cromwell (who also used the KJB).

Dengl 41 Decarboning Scotland?

I went (26 Sept 2011) to a meeting at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, addressed by a very clear and skilful speaker - Lord Adair Turner - whose report has just been published, on how to achieve a carbon minimised Scotland.

The study shows a very impressive chart consisting of three graphs, one labelled CO2 going zig zag - over 500,000 YEARS, next one, shows Methane zig zags - exactly parallel over the same time span; and the third one shows temperatures (as best estimated - thereby hangs a tale, surely, in this day of hyperactive neutrons - but I was a good boy and didnt ask a question about that) with zig zags exactly parallel. With due deference to the correlation-is-not-causation (BUT...) proviso, the rest of the talk went on about how to cut CO2 emissions.
In question time I asked - what about methane - might a campaign against that prove equally effective, and if so, how? Might it take the pressures off trying to reduce various accustomed carbon uses that produce CO2? He replied that the methane problem is still, currently, smaller; However, landflll has been reduced by half over the last few years (without explaining what happens to the displaced substances, elsewhere - our London "compostable waste" goes to council silos where no doubt it rots to methane - unanswered questions there ...) and he suggested we (the globe - that's you, and us) are not in disaster mode on that score, yet. But it was the beasties and their digestions that are a particular problem. USA, Argentina, even Scotland, all far away. He didn't think that experiments dosing cattle diets with something, yet, promised much. Best not to raise too much dairy.

In answering someone else's question "what about China" he suggested that on his visits there he had been impressed by their conscientious awareness of the problem and intention to do something about it. However, on his visits to the US he was horrified at the substantial 'denialist' camp (threatening to swamp the AlGoreniks). He said the commercial lobbies had made this headway, and it was harmful.
HOWEVER
He said that the US is still the world's great powerhouse of ideas and invention, emerging from the nexus of business/universities, and he hoped that something miraculous would emerge therefrom.

I think a further question, nobody had time to ask - is: are not the Chinese officials just more successful dissemblers? - the US more open and candid?

The Noble Lord closed with the famous "Layard graph" showing how when a certain GNP level has been reached, per country, there is not much if any gain in well-being. Therefore, as we (UK) have reached that point, it wont hurt us to cut back on (carbon costly) growth mania.
The flipside of that, which I put to him in chat at the reception afterwards, was to focus on those clusters of countries as yet UNDER the magical layard cusp - might they not prefer to pump themselves up any which way, likely to be quite carbon-careless.. .?.. he admitted - yes.

Finally, I also asked him why the cinderella in the evening's story had been nuclear - virtually unmentioned - and what about Thorium? He was good enough to say straight away that he didnt know about thorium.
Well now ...
Fore someone chairing a project of this sort, and saying he had 'read all the papers' (about some other technical question) - is this slightly worrying?
A tall man at his right elbow began to explain ....but too late to affect the published report ...

... woven through all this are questions of "how do you persuade the public" and "with WHAT story do you set out to persuade the public?"
also, interesting questions emerged, of how one gets the 'administrative machine' to think and act with its focus on the future rather than the past; sadly no time to discuss those matters.

time for me to go home and I left on my carbon clean bicycle....

Dengl 34 FairTube - GO!

By the way - what IS a dengl - this is; and to see a bit more, see Dengl No 1 - which I repeated at Dengl No 12 ...)

so - here is Dengl 34 ....

Here's how someone becomes a zillionaire
Remember – you heard it here, first (written from Hong Kong, to a friend, 27 July 2011)

It's to do with replacing YouTube - that works on some hairshirt freeby model that the internet is g-ds gift to society and all the world’s best minds will freely contribute unlimited content and ... (basically,
providence will pay for pie in the sky …)

But then, Wikipaedia started advertising and begging for money donations and ...

why not "get real" - take a leaf out of the banana (and coffee etc) world - and go fairtrade?

Thus FAIRTUBE

FAIRTUBE (copyright JMW etc all that codswallop) works like iTunes etc and collects a negligible payment for each click-in.
It pays a rewarding proportion to the uploader of original material (nothing to pirated videos of commercial concerts etc).
This way genuine uploaders get some pocket money (in extreme cases, a good deal more) - all the elephants painting pictures, crazy kids and animals, domestic performances of music etc . In fact, look at example 3 in the linked website ….

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_youtube_videos_of_all_time.php

… downloaders have to pay - but given the mega-mass scale of the overall operation, relatively very little indeed - eg I would pay 10p to see a Korean kid genius playing Recuerdos de El Alhambra on the guitar - you give the kid 6 p and keep 4 p ...(to run and develop the operation)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKB694kYtI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKB694kYtI

no adverts pop ups etc - just plain product; fortunately Murdoch - and others - have been slowly persuading the public that one should indeed pay for product - albeit not the amounts copied from a past technomeny - we knew why we had to pay $1 for a paper when it was paper - but that's no reason why one should be screwed for $1 when it is digital and much more cheaply distributed ...
still, people are learning that it is honest - FAIR - to pay creators for content.
So – why not harvest all round – with the organiser and distributor of FAIRTUBE making a perfectly reasonable reward for their trouble

Dengl 33 Thoughts on The Sins or Dangers of Information Greed

Dengl 33 Thoughts on The Sins or Dangers of Information Greed

Travelling in Hong Kong I read a piece from the Guardian, on the Murdochs' performance at the Commons, which appeared in the South China Morning Post. The Public Relations advisors did a skilful job of positioning the Murdochs between the Scylla of incompetence and the Charybdis of sentient guilt; and even Prime Minister David Cameron hopes to have slithered off the former hook with a quasi-apology in the Commons. Since the misdemeanours for which News International is responsible and which are now being redressed go back several years, it becomes a time for a wider and deeper refurbishment of practices in print (in the UK, at least, there are supposed to be institutions that discourage malpractice in broadcasting – and nobody knows clearly who might be able to keep noses clean on the internet; some do not want to try, others, do). We want to be clearer about how and what information may be properly obtained, and then published.

Whatever mechanisms arise to take stock and re-set the compass, in the UK – or even elsewhere, they may well look further than merely at News International. Time magazine reports: “As part of the public inquiry into the News of the World scandal, Lord Justice Levenson has the authority to call media editors, proprietors and politicians to give evidence under oath. The terms of reference call on him to examine the "culture, practices and ethics of the press," including their relationship with police and the contacts between national newspapers and politicians”.
There is said to be one other ex-tabloid editor, who escaped a charge of profitable insider dealing by claiming a similarly narrow middle ground of ignorance, whose behaviour should also be judged. (I gather, since writing this, that an article on this has appeared in the UK press).

The safety of landlines compared with the internet: just a technical question?
At least two further questions arise that insightful reporting should now explore: first, what proportion of hacked calls were on landlines, and thus are these more secure than mobiles? and: should we usefully find a new label by which to refer to what was done to the inbox of the murdered Millie Dowler; we need to recognise and label such "active eavesdropping" an 'active hacking', or 're-stacking' perhaps, to distinguish a more intense from a lesser crime (as murder exceeds manslaughter).

On the first point, above, are mobiles particularly hackable? This seems to be implied in at least one report - and that also gives links to several previous ones. It has evidently been acknowledged over two or three years, that mobiles are particularly hackable. Look at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13013577

It is clear that "hacking" (eavesdropping) has been widespread in the UK, and only the most negligent business and/or public person or body worldwide would assume that such misdemeanour was merely a British failing. It is possible though, that in certain circumstances (such as where the security services would be helped in crime detection or prevention) the public would accept, even welcome hacking. What are such circumstances and where are the lines to be drawn?

A longer-shot conjecture - if it is the case that hordes of people have been sold mobiles which are highly hackable (but were not told that this MAY happen by crooks, or journalists (not the same thing?) and certainly, systematically by the ISPs on behalf of advertisers – are there grounds for a truly massive class action, brought by hackees - and indeed anyone who has a non-secure mobile - against the manufacturers or the vendors?

Scope and (in)acceptability of Hacking and some consequences
A teenager hacks the computer systems of the Pentagon. This is a threat to security (and a disgrace, for those who set up the internal data systems) and the teenager is punished. A newspaper approves the actions of a few people who leak the internal affairs of political institutions, defence organizations and the like; other newspapers do not challenge the one that has given a platform to such leaks – they all enjoy discussing the ‘secrets’. The same newspaper runs a moral crusade against its larger rival, which hacks the instruments of celebrities – right up to the members of the Royal Family in the UK. Where are lines to be drawn, how and why, over what sort of hacking is a good or a bad thing in society?

If celebrities try to suppress press intrusion, by legal injunctions, once they have thus called upon the legal system to act not only on their behalf, but as an example of desirable restraint, should they then be required to go through with their move to have the law act on their behalf, with whatever its mechanisms are, and somehow be discouraged from being bought out by the alleged miscreant, who thus short circuits the Law, with the power of money (and greed on the part of allegedly injured parties) in a way that is not available to poorer people?

Finally, where a celebrity who has tried to avoid publicity through injunctions (to prevent information acquired by hacking, being published) is then by-passed by an avalanche of disclosure, how can third parties (usually children of the celebrity) be protected from the distress and even damage produced by the publicity? Might it be necessary to enforce injunctions – with considerable penalties for infraction – allowing celebrities to “get away with it” if they do have vulnerable children (or other such “third parties”) first in the firing line, to protect them?

Hong Kong 21 July 2011

DENGL 32 BEWARE TRASHICACY

Trashicacy Ahoy!

I have come across the exquisite pleonasm ‘competency’; I can’t say where, I can’t say when, I hadn’t the presence of mind to note it down. It joins pomposities such as ‘residency’ (something that geniuses take up) and ‘presidency’ (something from which incompetents are torn down). Such are the verbal treasures we are enjoined to tolerate, even enjoy, by those who celebrate the evolution of language along with the erosion of quality in the accessible English educational system. Luckily, we are told (and see, those of us who live in North West London

http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/7027768/england-their-england.thtml) that rich Russians are riding to the rescue, buying into the model of Wodehousian culture which will need but a small cadre of professionals to sustain. Thus far (I presume) the preparatory school teachers who still know their whos from their whoms, remain mostly English; one can imagine the day, though, when they will no longer be available but have to be replaced by experts trained in elite Chinese colleges. This picture of (upper) middle class England maintained as a theme park has been drawn by the author Julian Barnes (England,England).

Not only are Russians (and other oil drenched Midases) drawn to enjoy the island they see as safe, and intriguingly quixotic, but in one tiny instance Americans come to experience “study abroad” in a context that is historically distinguished, sufficiently different from what they know (?) at home, without being too threatening, and possibly worth storing on the mantelshelf of memory. One such course is “Media in UK” during which some effort is made to disentangle what may be meant by various deployments of the word “media” – which proves to be an extraordinarily plastic term. This course has been told that the European Union (or experts who serve it, who have survived numerous planning meetings in agreeable locations – carbonoxious plane flights, lavish dinners after the deadly business sessions – I know, I used to attend such things) has decided that all member nations should deliver, by December 2011, an audit of the degree in their country of something they call “media literacy”. This has been labelled in various ways,

( the most widely adopted definition of media literacy is “… the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms (Livingstone, 2004, p.5).
Already in 1992 US media educators and activists established a definition for the media literate person as one who should be able to access, analyze, evaluate and produce print and electronic media ( Kubey, 2005) and the UK’s OFCOM uses the same definition )

though it may be challenged that the term “media” has not itself been defined, and ‘literacy’ has been deployed in way that can be called metaphorically illiterate. All this might be discounted as a mere piece of academic entertainment – except that the jamboree is to be paid for by “EU funds” (that is, taxes drawn from those EU countries who can afford them).
Moreover, the audit is to be repeated in 2014 and every three years thereafter.

I have offered suggestions on sensible ways in which to deploy the terms media and literacy);

(I confess I can not see how to insert a link to my paper which is available from me on request - mallory.wober@gmail.com)

but here I alert my friends to a danger I can foresee – which is that a new category of “competency” will presently be devised which may be called “trashicacy”. I realised this last night as I strove to put the remains of a large cardboard box into an outdoor container intended to accommodate paper and card, only to find there plastic bags full of plastic bottles and drinks cans. In the borough where I live this is not (yet) a punishable offence – but one reads that elsewhere it is, so the sanctions may soon ‘come home’. The competent citizen will in future have to analyse and dispose of rubbish of a variety of forms, in prescribed ways. Rubbish is too English a word to live as a metaphor in a bureologism, so trash will have to do the job. The -acy ending is parallel in a thoughtless kind of way with its appearance in (media liter)acy and I have proposed an intermediate –ic- not because it scans better, but for the overtones of tragedy it introduces.

So – I give to the world, a new word – and to the Eurocrats, a new ticket to conferential holidays justified under the banner of promoting the environment and better citizenship in a glorious future – trashicacy. You have been warned.

Dengl 31 Olympics Logo 2011

I have been alerted to a rumpus in Logistan - and it takes a form I had not suspected would arise ....

Zionism, or Nazism in symbols and the new Olympic Logo
A site offering anti-zionist sentiments suggests that the olympic logo evokes the word ZION;
the argument is ad hominem and if one prefers, racist, suggesting that the company which made this glaring error, Wolff Olins, is operated by Jews, who have hijacked the occasion.
I say that the logo offered (and which should have been turned down by the non-Jewish Lord Coe) more resembles the jagged SS emblem - in effect it is NAZI rather than zionist.
Whatever was in (what passes for) the minds of Wolff and Olins, they have certainly pulled a nasty, fast and costly one on the organisers;
but that is not because they are Jews - I suggest that had they been more centrally guided by Jewish principles they would NOT have offered this design - they have offered it because they are not sufficiently Jewish - ie prudent and conscientious. However, look at:

http://engforum.pravda.ru/index.php?/topic/178188-london-olympics-2012-or-zion-logo-controversy-explained/

and from a website based, I believe, in New Delhi ...

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/8331041-london-2012-olympics-logo-controversy

Psychological Conjectures on the Connotations of the 2012 Olympics Logo
When this logo was first aired, I thought this it was ripe for trouble.
I focused on the plenitude of CORNERS throughout the diagram and the corresponding banishment of CURVES =
and, I bore in mind notions I had had published long ago, suggesting that curves connect better with or even lead to a (musical) rhythmic structure of 3 x time - even engaging different parts of the brain than are engaged when the visual designation is jagged and conjures a musical rhythmic structure of 2 or of 4 time - and these are experienceable without engaging any "higher centres", with reference to the two-time body motions of breathing (in-out), walking (left right) and marching ....

in effect, a curvaceous logo aspires (neurologically, even) "higher" while a jagged logo operates below this level;

I am not in a position to generate survey data on the current Olympics logo (and or though it is noteworthy that a google search does not readily point to
data-based assessments of its "meaning").

It may not be too late, even close as we are to the event itself, to inform ourselves better as to how (and if possible, why) people perceive the logo in the way they do, and if and whether their perceptions of the Olympics themselves are coloured at all by the "flavour" of the logo. One might even hope that the designers themselves had even a modicum of empirical data to show that their logo was "creatively" perceived by those who see it.

(my experience in the story of the iTC logo (see the attachment) - also sold by Wolff Olins in the early 1990s - suggests that they can or do do without empirical underpinning of their design(s). I therefore guess that they may not have any such evidence on the Olympic design).

A new study might show that the logo is benign - even positive. One would then withdraw one's concerns, above.
I would be willing to bet on something less simply positive, however.

Dengl 30 Sports Hysteria

I would like tv reports to play down the hysteria that follows intermittent successes - wicket taken, goal scored - otherwise, next thing would be batsmen hugging and kissing every time someone scores a boundary; and what about the goalie? why does he not get a snogfest (sometimes with acrobatics) for a noble save?
- it is just remotely possible that the BBC might agree (if under strong and sustained pressure) to return to a more restrained style of sports depiction - but cricket is all on sky now - and there is no control on them ...
- I suspect that it might be better for players to contain their energy after a success; go back to the play and direct the energy into subsequent performance; a cricket captain might usefully advise an incoming batsman to look at it this way - that the bowler and fielders who have just taken a wicket need a little while to regain their aggression - it is not necessary to comport oneself as a rabbit and think oneself into failure ....likewise, a soccer side encouraged to think this way might more likely strike back very soon after letting in a goal - realising that their opponents may be deluded for a short time by bliss ...of course, a poor manager may not realise this and allow his side to tailspin after an initial setback.
Whatever the psyche of the sport players, I suspect it is corrosive for viewers - and players - to have short term rejoicings reinforced.
By the way, have sports writers (in their excessive and vapid legions) given choreographical labels to the various antics performed - high fives we know - but the knee slide? the Voluntary Abu Ghraib (where players lie upon each other in a starfish configuration) - the Man Mountain (where they jump upon each other, standing - and do we know whether this brings on back injuries?)

Dengl 29 MYTE-ology

My wife Bea has bought a book called Green Cleaning - by Margaret Briggs and VIvian Head.

This is very keen on soda bicarb and lemon and one or two other things... I agree - good.

I cant resist quoting from a paragraph:

"Over the years soda and potash were defined as both natural and artificial products and as vegetable and mineral. Imagine playing the old favourite '20 Questions' with the ancestors - it was hard enough trying to define substances as animal,vegetable or mineral as a science game with primary school children, but at least they have a better understanding of materials through the National Curriculum. Another nugget of information that might corner your imagination for a split second: it wasn't until the beginning of the 19th century that Sir Humphrey Davy decomposed both alkalis and called them sodium and potassium, which are really Latinized versions of soda and potash".

No doubt curriculum is a latinised version of something or other in newly nuggetised English - defined to "corner your imagination" (a latinised version of image - and - ation?) - well - only for a split second ...(a latinised version of secondary - as in education - which is itself a latinised version of - eh! an expression of amazement - dook - an expression of social stratification and -tion - (pronounce shun) an expression of dont spend too long with this boring stuff when you can be texting your friends with the whortleberry under the desk ...

... and soon those who have ascended this ladder of knowledge, skill and competence (the National Curriculum of England & Wales?) are going to throw purse power at the university teaching - if and when they arrive to experience it ...

maybe our grandchildren should aim at enrolling in a Scottish or a Chinese University

the book (partly) redeems itself with a proposal for a:

Dry Shampoo
Sprinkle one teaspoon of oatmeal and one of bicarbonate of soda on your head. Massage in for a few minutes*, then comb or brush out. Again, warm air will help to get rid of residue.
(this presumably means wave the electric hair dryer about - one of society's most wasteful devices, I would have thought) ...
(I can see this being marketed as a Fringe Hair experience during the Festival ...)
*the patience required to continue for 5 minutes of this is much more expected than the split seconds available for nuggets inside the skull ...

MYTE is of course Etym backwards, and the ology tacks on for the ride ....

Dengle No 28 Broadcasting Research in a Surbiton Kitchen

Discovery and Significance of Weekly Reach

“Weekly Reach” means the percentage of the population who are served, at some point during a week, by a broadcast channel or station.

In 1975, audience measurement was mostly a matter of a ‘snapshot count’. The BBC ran a Daily Survey – this asked a nationwide sample “what did you see yesterday” and identified the proportion of a population who had seen each programme listed. ITV ran a “TV Ratings” system replete with falsehood; it measured the proportion of “homes” in which “the set”, being switched on supposedly denoted “homes viewing”. Later, at least partly in response to repeated criticism from the IBA (and its research department – ie, me) the “homes rating” was multiplied by a figure supposed to represent the number of people in a room for that time of day, to give the number supposed to have watched a programme.

In the 1980s commercial television measurement introduced keypads on which each individual (supposedly) pressed a button to show when they entered or left the room; this, with the data from the set meter, gave a better estimate of those who might have seen a programme.

In both cases, of the BBC’s audience research method and that of the commercial system, the focus was on the programme or the time slot – and the size of its audience. The focus was not on the individual viewer, what he or she thought, or felt, or did cumulatively over a day or over a week. During the 1980s the Commercial system of audience measurement was accepted by the BBC (with the – deeply unscientific – quid pro quo that the results of Appreciation measurement – still carried out – would be suppressed). This Broadcasters’ Audience Measurement system was adapted to be able to state how many of a sample will have been present for at least a ‘quorum segment’ of a broadcaster’s provision, during a week; but the system was still (and in the 2010s remains) not focused on individuals.

In 1975 the IBA had been running a weekly diary system whereby those who said they had seen a programme gave it a mark for how much they had Appreciated it. In so doing, they indicated they had seen the programme. As the diary ran for a week it was relatively easy to find who had seen at least one programme on a given channel during that week. This figure, of “weekly reach” – first calculated by hand after data entry on spread sheet on a kitchen table in Surbiton with the whole of a week’s diaries (some 500 in the sample – I well remember doing it) – was gradually recognised within the industry as being of some interest.

In subsequent decades – even over 30 years later – Weekly Reach has become a litmus test of the value of a broadcaster’s contribution. Weekly Reach can be calculated across the population represented at large, or amongst a segment of it (by sex, age, class or whatever social criterion). I argued (in pieces published occasionally since the 1990s) that the test of effective Public Service Broadcasting is a Reach as near universal as possible (probably across more than one channel) combined with a high level of average appreciation, for services delivering the widest possible range of programme genres and approaches – over a broadcasting schedule cycle – ie: a week.

Dengl 28 Obama as Shylock?

Obama As Shylock?
The USA - in the form of the President or Congress or some other institution - is seeking to exact a substantial payment out of BP as compensation for damage inflicted on US animals/beaches/people. This arises from a mishap (we shouldnt misuse the word 'accident') in non territorial waters over which I dont see that the US has any more jurisdiction than does Cuba ...) from an installation which, one is given to believe, was accepted in place by a US regulatory authority (Minerals and Mining something or other...). One can see how cross they are, and one can accept that they do want compensation. BP has ceded that it WILL pay some huge amount.

In doing this, it is said that there will be substantial effects on UK - and indeed on US share values and prosperity. It might be useful, then, to consider how to mitigate the HARM which will be passed along or spread, while alleviating the damage and suffering imposed on US individuals and society.

It also raises the matter of whether reparations in this case will be the catalyst for reparations in other similar cases which may have passed by without any such recognition or restitution, thus far. To my non-professional mind there are the cases of:

a US ship spilling oil on Breton and Norman beaches some years ago
EXXON's Valdez spilling oil on Canadian shores as well as Alaskan ones
Union Carbide's killing of Indian citizens in Bhopal, and of subsequent attributable physiological birth defects
The US military's detritus of explosives and chemicals which, over the years and after the cessation of wars which we may agree were politically justified, have maimed very many people in Asia

Somewhat more subtly, the President's advocacy may be shown to have accomplished two goals - one of earning restitution for victims of the Caribbean oil spill - and that is good; but the other (and perhaps NOT unavoidable) consequence is to depress BP share values with loss to those whose pensions are paid partly out of the dividends therefrom. In this latter function might there be a CLASS ACTION against the President for his ill judged advocacy - in bundling the two consequences together? (Hence the allusion to Shylock, above ...who wanted his pound of flesh, imagining it could be delivered without loss of blood and injury to its human source...) ...
Britain might also consider an action against the President for repeatedly referring to the company by a false name ("British" Petroleum) ((I agree, it was a surprise to me, too, before I learned about "Beyond"* ...but Obama should have known better ...)) thus engendering commercial and trading difficulties for other British concerns..
Of course, we might prefer NOT to explore or take such actions, but this might best occur in a less heated context.

How does one SAY such things - to any useful effect?

* I would have advised BP to employ Beyonce in some publicity, to help sidestep perception of the "British" referent, towards the "Beyond" concept ...
above all, I would have advised BP to anticipate and minimise its risks to a much more convincing extent ...
I would have advised BP, very soon after the explosion, to employ visibly American contractors to try and remedy the situation

Dengl 28 Reflections on the UK ELection 2010

To The Times 7 May
In the uncertain situation facing the nation towards the resolution of this Election, Her Majesty can play a constructive role.
She is not expected to tell party leaders what they might best do, but she can ask pertinent questions.
If Gordon Brown exercises his right to suggest to HM that he can form an administration, she might ask him these questions:
do you intend, as a principled measure, to work first towards the stabilisation and boosting of the economy?
Will you need the help of the Liberal Democrats to succeed in this task?
Will you then introduce some form of Proportional Representation?
Given that you did not introduce that, before the Election, when you had a large majority which would have helped to achieve
such a measure, are you sure that the British public would then see this as a move of high principle?
If Her Majesty does pose some such questions, it might be appropriate for them (and the replies) to be published.

Yours sincerely,

To The Times 9 May
It seems to have received little attention that in England, where there were local elections alongside the national one, there was a swing to Labour. Where I live, Labour have recaptured the council. The implication to my mind is that there may not have been a "real swing back to Labour" but that, had voters turned out in the last local election in the same proportion in which they did now, at the general election (and coincidentally, voting for local councillors), there would have been a larger proportion voting for labour last time.
Prompting a greater turnout for local elections would be a good thing, and thought needs to be given now as to how to achieve this - as we can not rely every time on a parallel polling exercise with the general election.

To The Times 11 May
Gordon Brown: One further Courageous Step Required
Ed Balls is quoted by the BBC as saying (about Labour's procedures towards finding a new party leader) : "It's an important day. But we will take the time we need to take to make sure we get this right."

This is outrageous and unacceptable. It is not for the Labour party to "take the time we need" when it is the nation that needs - and indeed our allies need - that we have a valid government as soon as possible. The first priority is to tackle the national debt; voting reform comes later. Brown blocks progress through the convention that he runs the government until he has the courage to go to Her Majesty and say he can not do it any longer. He has told us, the people, he can not do so; he should now go and formally tell Her Majesty and it is for her to call upon someone else to try and form an administration.

To The Times 13 May
Merits of the Conservative Liberal Democrat Coalition
At least one experienced analyst of the press and politics, Roy Greenslade, has forecast (yesterday) that several influential newspapers will now give Mr Clegg and his team a very hard time, reinforcing the notion of division rather than of working together.
It may be useful though to look at some potentially very useful elements of this coalition, ones which will appeal to the same section of the press which Greenslade says will be alienated and hostile.
One possible development is that, when in Government at Westminster, Mr Clegg and his supporters will come to value this central British institution and understand and even support why so many others want to repatriate powers from Brussels.
The other is that a significant number of MPs from Scotland are now in Westminster Government, rather than what would have been the case had a "blue" England been attempting to rule the United Kingdom manifestly alienating the "red" Scots. To a considerable extent now, the Scots are joined with the Welsh, English and Northern Irish in a project to make the best of this great United Kingdom. I hope the press will realise and celebrate this.

DENGL 27 xpropriation of the boat race?

I thought the 2010 boat race was poorly photographed for television

modern "technology" (the term should be subdivided - into technomena - the cameras/hardware etc themselves - and the technology - the knowledge of how to deploy these thingies) was not harnessed to give us a result any better than I recall in 1953, or whenever, with tiny screens but better reporting; the chap in the helicopter (or was it a balloon? seemed to forget his zoom lens much of the time; too much was shown close up of Oxford in the first 5 minutes - leaving out an account of the competitor; not enough integration with the commentator to explain where apparent leads of one boat were illusions of camera angle ...)

at the end there was far too much indulgence in heroising the contestants and then the winners and the neglect of the losers was perhaps not a matter just of decency and tact, as of not finding the time, aside from the wallowing in hugging and kissing and spraying each other with a noble French made bubbly wine - what will we have next - smashing guitars? ...; in boat races of yore I seem to recall a three cheers given by the winning boat - did I miss it this time because of my poor attention, or was it not shown - or did it not happen? (contrast international rugby, where the hosts applaud in the visitors to the dressing room ...)

I know I am hard of hearing and it may have been my fault not to have noticed, but I do not recall being told that this was an exceptionally fast or slow or just an average speeded race - and whatever that may have entailed for having crews made of 28 stone foreigners, and how their performance compared with others in the past, in similar weather or tidal conditions and contested by mere homegrown undergraduates;

also, there was too much xplicit display of what must be the xposor of the occasion - and what happened to my assumption that the BBC anyway was not keen to admit product placement as a form of advertising - ??!!

So, maybe I was one of the few people who, this morning, took to googlestan to xplore who or what may be Xchanging (a group of excaped convicts? a Chinese state about to seceded?) - and incredibly, the first few links I pressed gave me a blank page with some incomprehensible statement along the lines that some Directory (??!!??) had withdrawn access - so WHAT is the point of sponsoring such an international broadcasting event ...) and then, there was the giant vulgar bit of tin the winner was expected to brandish (was that a product of Britain's "vibrant" design culture? - or do we have to have in all sporting events some 'lifting of silverware' - perhaps sponsored by RentaJug?

thank heavens any royal figure kept away from tarnishing themselves with this shoddy scene

What is going to happen with televising the Olympic "Games"?

Eventually, I went to a website which gave me a message I produce below. (I point, in that document, to...):

Procurement services - what is this? buying weapons for dodgy emirates or somali pirates? finding "escorts" for overpaid footballers or eastern potentates?

Immigration services - what is this? finding business courses for punjabi villagers to attend in East Preston or constituencies where a few extra Labour voters might be appreciated by that party, in an other wise close cut race?

Various verticals - what is this? Are some verticals less vertical than others? my imagination fails me ...

We are usefully reminded that London is in the UK ...

and this is what the BBC has found itself internationally advertising, on the back of the Boat Race (I quote) .............

Xchanging plc (Xchanging) is a UK based industry specific processing services provider. The company is principally engaged in offering procurement services, integrated HR and payroll services, and immigration services to its clients present across various nations. In addition, it offers resourcing services, and managed recruitment services to its customers. Further, the company is engaged in offering procure to pay (P2P) accounting services and hosting services to a variety of customers across various verticals. Xchanging has its operations across 9 nations and customers in around 47 countries. Some of the company’s key clients include Citibank, Deutsche bank, Tech Mahindra, Wal-Mart, Cintas, American Express, Southwest.com, Lloyds, illium insurance, etc. The company has its headquarters located at London in the UK.

The company reported revenues of (British Pounds) GBP 557.76 million during the fiscal year ended December 2008, an increase of 19.14% over 2007. The operating profit of the company was GBP 46.46 million during the fiscal year 2008, an increase of 50.10% over 2007. The net profit of the company was GBP 29.16 million during the fiscal year 2008, an increase of 90.11% over 2007.

well, they made money evidently, until 2008 - but this site at least (for all the accounting wizardry they profess) doesn't indicate how they may have weathered the storms of 2009? - or did they perhaps contribute to creating them?)

Dengl 26 A Use for So-Called Space Travel: The Geostationary Parasol

Mary Wakefield has written a "boys toys" encomium about space traffic.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/5186153/the-space-age-isnt-over-it-hasnt-yet-begun.thtml

It is, for the most part, unconvincing. I am sure the views for Richard Branson's 3, 000 millionaire travellers will be amazing and their after dinner conversations on return much enhanced; but they will in no manner be "new astronauts" (astro means a star and they will not have gone significantly nearer any stars than I will have done; we should have a further contempt for the term 'cosmonaut', as nobody, even if they venture to Mars, will have been anywhere near the cosmos which begins at the nearest star - is that Alpha Centauri - four light years away ...). Many of the recently developed applications of spacecraft have been useful, though we could have managed without and quite probably spent the money better on earth.

There are at least two potentially earth-saving applications for which we do have to reach out into the solar system. One, which Wakefield does mention, though without discussing it enough, is the need for a giant device which will not just detect a possible cometary collision with earth, but actually somehow ward it off.

A second device which Wakefield also mentions, but without identifying how it might best be used, consists of panels to collect solar energy and in her version beam it back to earth. She does not say where the beam will fall, whether it may do significant damage on the way, or whether the track of the beam will be precisely controllable, and how the energy will be collected, but no doubt these difficulties can be overcome.

Surely, though, what would be useful, if we are not yet wholly convinced by the non-global-warming lobby, is a means by which to cast large shadows, in a controlled manner, upon earth; a Geostationary Parasol. The object would be to lessen the warming which we have stumbled into by reducing earth's reflective heat loss. I have no knowledge of astrophysics but my question is, whether a huge solar panel much further away from the moon (and thus closer to the sun? – but thereby casting a wider shadow), and between sun and earth like an eclipse, could be constructed to collect enough solar energy to transform into stabilising propulsion for itself, while casting a substantial cooling shadow on earth.

Who would finance and build such a device? Who would control its shade? These challenges in socio political "engineering" are perhaps as intractable as the engineering ones involved in setting forth and physically controlling such a device. I do not believe we should hope that such truly useful applications will arise serendipitously on the back of funfairs in the sky.

Dengl 25 New Circenses

I was very pleased to have had the opportunity to attend a seminar yesterday, on the Internet. (It was at the House of Commons Grand Committee Room!).
I fear I ended among a minority who, by show of hands at the end, indicated we did not see it as a democratic panacea. I thanked the organiser, saying:

I am (not hugely) hard of hearing and sport an aid in one ear; however, I sat just next to an air conditioner vent (most welcome on that boiling day, especially after I had cycled 5 miles warmly to be present) and the wretched aid magnified the whirr of the air vent's motor making it very difficult to hear some panel speakers. Quite clearly, Grant Shaps, MP (one of the speakers) needs no microphone and I heard him well. Would that all speakers (I am not commenting about content) spoke as clearly as he did. It was next to impossible to hear most of the questions from the floor. I realise that many people have acute hearing but this is not so common among the older generation and fairly soon we will be joined by a mass of recruits who will have damaged their hearing by immersion in what is now termed "music" in clubs or via ipods etc. When that blessed day comes, it will be more usual for panel events to emphasise to speakers that they MUST talk into their microphones (and that, not too closely) and not, however intimate it makes the event seem, talk aside to their neighbours (Paul Staines, famous as a "blogger" Guido Fawkes, http://order-order.com/ did this); also, it would help if the chairman or person who is asked a question repeated (also to verify that s/he had taken it on board validly) what the question was. As things are, people like me have to try and work out what the question was, by inference from the heard-part of the answers given.

It was very instructive - negatively for me, I fear - to have the screen at the front carrying the "twitters" (is this london's substitute, now that all the sparrows have gone, for a beguiling, let alone an instructive discourse - I might well prefer to have the sparrows back instead) . This could be held to be distracting from the discussion among the "speakers" . It would be instructive to see a content analysis of the twits (is that the right word?) including such categories as: memorable poetic/haiku ..sharply pointed information, sharply pointed question, sharply pointed opinion ... all the way down to ... dispensable rubbish (sometimes insulting). I fear that a substantial proportion I saw on the screen were of the last category - they constitute not just clutter but damaging distraction from the development of some meaningful and informed public discourse.

In all, I am very graeful for the chance to have been there, and not a little concerned that even among what must have been quite an elite group of informed people there is a strong tendency to conflate the ideas of demotic with democratic. I was reminded of my idea of what some gladiators must have felt, in the colosseum, on seeing a forest of downward thumbs, that these people probably do not know what they are doing ...