Affiliate Professor Jeremy Baker Requires A Moment Of Your Time

Let's start way back at the beginning. My academic career started well and tailed off quite badly. By 'well', I mean that I began school at 5 and had burned through the school's entire stock of books by the age of 7. Come secondary school I bounced from institution to institution, memorably scoring a fine 4% in a maths exam and being on the receiving end of violence and scorn from the Sisters of Mercy, the Christian Brothers and the Benedictines. Achieving largely undistinguished A-levels, the Clearing system came to my rescue and I took a degree in English with large chunks of Philosophy and various other subjects mixed in. I'd picked up a couple of languages and acquired a few more, mostly in the pub and through sharing houses. Next came an MA in Welsh Writing in English, and finally a PhD in Masculinity and Politics in 1930s Welsh Literature. Since then I've published occasionally on Welsh literature, Welsh literature in English, Foucault, jazz in contemporary fiction, Star Trek and Doctor Who, and I'm working on politicians' creative writing and Welsh Appalachia. 

The trend, as you can see, is specialisation. It's taken 11 GCSE's, three A-levels, three degrees and a teaching certificate to qualify me to mark the pile of first-year English essays currently on my desk, and I was 34 before I had a regular income and a full-time job. I'm just like any other academic, except less productive and more sarcastic. 

Amongst the academics I admire most are the AHRC/BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers, an incubator scheme that nurtures some of the best new academics  and gets their work in the public domain. It's a brilliant scheme that doesn't take into account institutional prestige, and believes strongly in the value of communicating good research to the people who ultimately pay for it. 

Which brings me to the point of today's post: Affiliate Professor Jeremy Baker, the Today programme and News Values. 

Affiliate Professor Baker was interviewed on Today this morning about workers' rights, which he described as 'rewards' due to the 'middle-class' and awarded to everyone as a right only by those who are, or want to be, 'French'. In a world largely without workers' rights, he said, Britain can only stay competitive by withdrawing them. He notably declined to deny that he was advocating 'exploitation'. 

So far, so terrible. Awful views, but it's a free country. However, it got me thinking about the process of inviting this man onto the nation's most prestigious news broadcast. A few years back, Mitchell and Webb teased the media for its sudden and rather desperate attempt to catch up with social media.



Very funny, I thought. And I'm regularly to be found tweeting on the #bbcqt and #bbcr4today hashtags: howling into the void without any hope of a response from those in charge. Little did I think, however, that being a Man In Possession of a Reckon now qualifies you not simply to Send In Your Views but to be interviewed as an expert on the nation's most prestigious, agenda-setting news magazine. 

Appalled by the Affiliate Professor's views, I wondered where the BBC had found him. Being an researcher of sorts I decided to look him up. This wasn't easy, but eventually I found his institution: the private ESCP Europe Business School, which has campuses in London, Berlin, Paris and several other places. It has not, to my knowledge, troubled the league tables nor the Nobel Prize committees. Given the British Establishment's obsession with Oxford and Cambridge, I'm at the least surprised that they went so far off the beaten path for this guy. 

So ESCP Europe Business School isn't much cop. It's so removed from UK academic standards that it isn't even allowed the 'ac.uk' URL or email addresses (that's a tip, kids). But what of the distinguished Affiliate Professor? Well, I looked him up on ESCP Europe Business School's website. You can't do the same because within minutes of the interview, the relevant pages were removed as if by magic! Thankfully, I took a screenshot and also resorted to the Wayback Machine. 

Here are Affiliate Professor Jeremy Baker's publications and current research profile:

So the Today programme's expert in the field is a man with no publications and no current research. But he does have an MBA and a teaching qualification! To be fair to Affiliate Professor (not a standard title by the way) he does have one publication: a self-help book about the pre-fame careers of various well-known people. It's called Tolstoy's Bicycle and it came out in 1983. Here's what it covers:

Copies are available from 1p to £1751. But let's delve a little deeper into the good Affiliate Professor's career. Has he, like the BBC New Generation Thinkers, or even me, devoted his life to deepening his understanding of his chosen field, employment law and the philosophy and economy of human rights? 

Um, no. According to the Wayback Machine's archived page, this is his life.

He has Credentials and membership such as:

• AA Dip: Architectural Association Diploma, RIBA part 2

• MBA: Stanford Business School, California

• MA: Anthropology, Stanford University, California

• DipM: Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma

• CAM Dip: Communications Advertising Marketing Diploma

• Cert Ed: Greenwich University PG Certificate in teaching Higher Education

• CIPR: Member, Chartered Institute of Public Relations

• CIPR: On Awards judging panel, 2006, 2007, 2009  

• F.CAM: appointed Fellow of the CAM Foundation – Comms Advertising Marketing

• Society of Authors: Member

• Press Club of London: Member

• University of Tennessee: Award   for help with their PR programme

• Journal of Comm Mngmt: Member, editorial board

• Southampton Solent Uni: External Examiner: BA New Media

He is, in fact, qualified in architecture, teaches Marketing and is very, very available for media work. Has he though had a distinguished career in academia, drawing on his wide range of experience? Again, no:

In the course of his career, he was a visiting lecturer in Marketing and international business analysis at London Metropolitan University and at Cambridge Marketing College. Jeremy Baker is also a commentator for TV and radio on marketing and consumer issues. He worked as a freelance PR on communication for Avon Cosmetics, New West End Co, Rain, Communications, Selfridges, and Oxford Street retailers NWEC.

Now London has many fine courses, but Cambridge Marketing College is not, as far as I'm aware, another bastion of critical enquiry, and being a visiting lecturer there (read: hourly-paid) is probably not the career profile of a nationally-important commentator. 

The major question isn't why Affiliate Professor Jeremy Baker thinks he's an expert in workers' rights: the question is why the BBC deems him sufficiently qualified to speak on the subject to the nation. The New Generation thinkers have struggled intellectually, economically and personally to become experts and their reward is to reach the tiny (but lovely) Radio 3 audience. Jeremy hasn't struggled in any way and yet gets to go on the Today problem. This is (finally) about news values. Rather than get someone from industry or academia to present their experience and research, the editors decided that their priority was controversy and extreme views: entertainment rather than information. In the process, an obscure and frankly less-than-credible source is given national credibility for himself and his Reckons without having to substantiate any of his claims via peer-reviewed research. 

How did they choose him? What are the criteria? Why should hard-working academics put effort into testing and refining ideas if snake-oil salesmen are considered more radio-friendly simply because their views are more pungent? We'll never know, because they don't respond to queries or complaints. It cheapens the Today programme and it cheapens the value of academia. Worse than that: it creates amongst the listeners an impression that these unsourced and unjustified views are somehow prevalent, backed-up by research (why else would you find even an 'Affiliate' Professor?) and institutional credibility, thus shifting the parameters of the debate well away from the mainstream without in any indicating this. This is highly misleading, not to say irresponsible. 

What time do you call this?

I almost never take time off, but this morning I really, really needed to do nothing, after two weeks of constant stress. I had Radio 4 on from 7.30, which was blissful.

News, The Reunion - discussing the Miss World protest organised by the Women's Liberation movement in 1970 (I'm proud to know one of the ringleaders): Michael Aspel the compere and the organiser are still in total denial about their behaviour, happily referring to women as 'girls' and chortling about slapping them 'on the bum'; Woman's Hour (a special with Deborah Mitford, the only boring one of the whole weird family, but even she had interesting things to say) the terrible comedy Old Harry's Game (set in hell, where the scriptwriters belong) and even You and Yours, the dullest show ever to reach the airwaves. So luxurious.

The point about Radio 4 is that even when it's utterly soul-sappingly tedious, there are things to learn, and the gentle burbling of voices in the background calms and soothes. When it's on, all's right with the world - which is why nuclear submarine captains are told that the absence of its Today program from the airwaves is to be taken as a sign that the UK has been destroyed: at this point they open the Prime Minister's written directions telling them to (people guess) launch all bombs/sail to New Zealand/take the cyanide or whatever. True story.

For the rest of the day, I'm writing my Welfare report for the UK School Games, writing up a union casework meeting I did, and trying to do some research. In reality, I'm browsing the amazing John Johnson Archive of Printed Ephemera, and learning about the celebrated quack doctor, Baron Spolasco, a scoundrel of the highest order.

Do look at the mantelpiece while you're stoking the fire, OR, how to be a top quality scamster

I overslept very badly indeed today, which meant I didn't go swimming.

However, it meant I could listen to Woman's Hour on Radio 4, which alternately encapsulates the best of British culture, and the worst.

After this morning's show, I'm not sure whether to be depressed or elated. It featured a long and involved discussion of mantelpiece culture . Yes, your eyes do not deceive you (even the show's producers must be ashamed: they don't mention this piece in the synopsis). A woman named Clare Jenkins explained that her eyes were drawn to her mantelpiece during the adverts on TV, and she began to wonder about the various ways in which mantelpieces are used. Then she discovered a whole academic groups of mantelpiece researchers.

From this programme (and I'm sorry to sound like a Daily Mail columnist here) I discovered absolutely nothing that two minutes' thought would have unearthed. Mantelpieces developed as fireplaces grew from holes in the wall to something neater. Some people use their mantelpieces to show off expensive things, other people display sentimental items, and some people just put any old stuff on there (a vet's appointment card was cited as evidence).

Jesus. Put Jenkins down for a Nobel.

So I'm in two minds. Do I welcome the Tory education cuts because there's clearly fat there, or should I celebrate. After all, if there's room (and interest from Radio 4) for Mantelpiece Studies, then my own research interest (1930s Welsh Writing in English) is safe and healthy.

Now, the little bit of liberal in me that I haven't managed to kill off is saying 'everything humans do is intrinsically interesting and important, and you shouldn't attack fellow toilers in the paper mines', but most of my brain is shouting 'she gets paid for this? And gets national media interest? This is the worst kind of mimsy upper-middle-class bourgeois, pointless, inconsequential, reactionary nonsense', and a tiny voice is saying 'nice work Clare. Good scam. No heavy lifting, regular pay cheque. Sweet'.

Your thoughts, ladies and gentlemen. Shall we all enrol in Mantelpiece Studies 101?

Sous les livres, l'appartement

It's been worth moving in already: I've discovered that it's entirely feasible to wake up at 8.46 a.m. (that's 1 hour and forty six minutes after my usual time) and be opening a lecture at 9 a.m. Admittedly, I wasn't at my most fragrant or collected, but it's an important discovery.

I had a go at an IKEA chest yesterday, but stopped at the hammering stage as it was midnight. Construction was conducted to the sounds of Radio 3's weird jazz stuff, which really didn't work - it was so manic and frankly unpleasant that concentration was hard, but Radio 4 was doing something boring and I've not bothered setting up the TV. Oh for my beloved Late Junction.

The Donnie Darko condiment set

Still Life With Violin and Soviet Spaceman

Some of the books and records

Records A-D

Eventually, the kitchen.

Forties, Cromarty, rising.

Radio 4, despite sometimes being self-absorbed and bourgeois, is one of the glories of Britain: informed, intelligent and varied. A particular jewel in the crown is the Shipping Forecast, in which a beautifully calm voice (Charlotte Green, Peter Jefferson) reads the special weather for boats, just before the (ugh) national anthem at 12.59 a.m. Fishermen don't listen to it and change course - they've got satellite feeds for that kind of thing. It's for insomniacs and night-owls.

Now one Jefferson is being sacked, allegedly not because he said 'fuck' under his breath after fluffing a link a few weeks ago, but because the BBC wants 'new' people to fill this five minute late-night slot. I'll miss him and don't think he should go. If they come for Charlotte, I'll be firebombing Broadcasting House.

They think it's all over…

I didn't watch the football match last night because I was talking to interesting people and didn't want to watch a charmless bunch of thugs treat an amateur team like idiots.

Radio 4's sports commentator this morning posed the question 'what's the secret of England's success'? Could it possibly be that scoring 6 against a team with no professional players from a country comprising 'rugged mountains dissected by narrow valleys', only 2.13% of which is flat enough to grow crops, and a population of 83,000 - about that of Stratford-on-Avon or slightly more than the capacity of Old Trafford, isn't that great really?

The clocks struck thirteen

Won't be blogging much today - I'm stuck in MC331 waiting for you all to collect your essays.

I'm still feeling utterly miserable about the elections, amongst other things. Yesterday, I should have phoned my local MP or branch and joined in with the process of recovery, indefatigably knocking on doors, putting forward the case for a hard-left turn, persuading people to see the light.

Instead, I bought a massive sack of Marmite-infused cashew nuts (thus proving that industrial food can be a good thing), a box set of all the decent-ish Star Trek films (1-6) and went to bed at 7 p.m., to catch up on the weekend's newspapers and some sleep. I didn't even listed to any news later than Channel 4's at 7, which is unprecedented for me: usually I take in The World Tonight on Radio 4 from 10-10.30, then turn over to Newsnight from 10.30-11.20, then the midnight news on Radio 4. Sometimes I'll even listen to the World Service news at 1 a.m too. That's how I know stuff.

By the way: if you eat at Café Rouge or Bella Italia, make sure you give the staff a tip in cash, but be careful. These restaurants, and many others, keep the tips to make the staff pay up to the minimum wage if you pay by card, and they're sacking staff who mention what's going on. From October, staff will legally be paid the minimum wage (currently £5.72 for over-21s) without counting tips. Of course, in a civilised society, everybody would be paid enough without tips, but being a waiter is a horrible job (as I know from experience), and they deserve something extra.

(title of the post is from 1984)

Poor Mark Steel

I like him, and his politics. But now he's on Radio 4 mispronouncing Merthyr Tydfil and making his opening monologue one about how funny Welsh words are and anti-Englishness. That'll do a lot for national relations - are the Welsh the last people it's OK to mock for their language and accents?

Ah - his liberal instincts have kicked back and he's reminding people of the radical past of the Welsh language and talking to a Welsh-speaker while gently mocking her.

And after his initial (compulsory for metropolitan types?) mockery - he's produced a funny and informative account of radical Merthyr, site of the first raising of the Red Flag: ending with the credits yn cymraeg.

Ships that sink in the night

In an earlier post, I joked about meeting a Radio 4-loving single girl at the airport. Well, when the plane came in to land at Stansted, the Polish young woman next to me noticed my abject terror (is this an attractive feature?) and we chatted until we'd collected our bags 20-odd minutes later (I didn't even pun). We exchanged names and talked about what we do, shook hands and said goodbye. Did I give her my number? Of course not. The very idea makes me sweat.

Decompressing from my trip was very strange. For four days, I lived in a bubble. I'd never met virtually all of the children on the trip, and we were placed in a strange relationship in an alien city. Over those days, I learned all their names, picked up on their personalities (who needs coaching, who doesn't, who's loud, who's quiet, how they respond to winning and losing), and spoke to very few other people. We explored this new city together (within limits) until parts of it became familiar, coped with victory and defeat - then dispersed again over a period of ten minutes, back to our ordinary lives. It was as though the trip hadn't happened: only my England shell suit says it did.

After four days of listening, talking, warning, entertaining, encouraging, advising, I was alone again, looking forward to a couple of days of my own company. The coach from Stansted (5 horrible hours) gave me time to listen mostly to downbeat music (Mazzy Star, Tindersticks, John Adams) and relax - until I hammered on the door for half an hour trying to wake my housemates after discovering I'd lost my keys.

Sunday was the day for buying birthday presents in Birmingham. I have to confess to purchasing a few little presents for me too. Largely, you'll be hugely unsurprised to learn, books. Then, finding myself outside St. Philip's Cathedral at 3.30, I went to Evensong. I know, I know, atheist Catholics shouldn't indulge, but the music's good, though I didn't realize I was letting myself in for more than an hour and a sermon (interrupted by the regulation drunk nutter). The sermon was kind of interesting: beautifully delivered and thought-provoking until he decided to reference Jade Goody and Murphy's Law in the course of his disquisition on Britain's pseudo-Christian culture. Let's be clear: fiction is written to make a specific point. It's constructed. It doesn't, therefore, prove general cultural truths for extrapolation.

After that - off to Wagamama for a solitary meal and read of the Guardian while being elbowed by beautiful couples. And so (as Pepys said, though not at 5), to bed.

So sleepy

I'm utterly exhausted. It was boys' epee today, and they all did brilliantly in a very high standard competition, so congratulations to you all. I've put more photos (of fencers, and of Stalinist tower blocks in moody black clouds) here.

I am rather missing the Guardian and Radio 4 now. Oh, and sleep.

Work and play and work and play and work and play

Well, it's been a busy few days - and it's going to be busier this week because I'm off to Poland with the England Youth Fencing Team for Challenge Wratislavia 2009 - a coach at midnight tomorrow, check-in at 4.00 for the flight, then four days of happy children's voices ringing in my ears. Don't worry - free wi-fi at the hotel means I'll try to find time for blogging.

Last week:

Books bought: 18. 12 of those (which annoyingly aren't showing up on the Librarything feed to the left) are Neal's fault for arranging to meet me in a bookshop. Most were more Left Book Club editions (I collect them), and one was signed by William Rust, one of the most Stalinist of the British Communist Party's upper echelons. The Morning Star is still published in William Rust House.

Films acted in: 2

Parties attended: 3

Fencing sessions attended: 2

Dark corners hung around in at parties: 3

Games of table football lost to Deep Space Nine-quoting female student: 1

Lectures and seminars delivered with panache: some

Self-inflicted nose-bleeds at parties: 1

Octopus eaten: 1 (not on my own).

Shirts etc. ironed: 14

Stoke City and Ireland victories: 2

Sophisticated Radio 4-loving single women impressed by any of the above: 0

Grumble

God, what a gruelling weekend. Kept up all night by the teenage party next door, only to be out by 6 for a day-long meeting in London, then coming back sans voice and feeling rough.

My meeting was at British Fencing's headquarters. I've been around fencing for a long time now, spending plenty of weekends laying pistes, patrolling hotel corridors, refereeing and occasionally losing fights. However, I'd never been down to the sanctum. I expected it to look like this, especially as it's Baron's Gate, Rothschild Road:

Actually, it's a small office suite in a residential road somewhere in North London. No suits of armour, no slash-damage to the walls, no gentlemen's club ambience. Ho hum.

Sunday, I spent in bed, marking, and bemoaning the loss of my beautiful light tenor voice. Thankfully, Richard Madeley didn't pick anything worth humming along to on Desert Island Discs anyway. A lightweight man with execrably middle-of-the-road tastes. Why somebody thought he was worth inviting, I don't know. DID used to invite interesting people, not just celebrities - perhaps the distinction is too subtle even for Radio 4 now.

Brave satirical warriors

Like most people, I'm overjoyed to see the back of GWB (roll on the experience of being disappointed by someone meant to be on our side - like 1997 all over again), but I'm getting bored with spiteful digs at little Bush by institutions who've only just discovered their spines. I can understand the Guardian publishing its special insert on the Bush years because most of its writers were antiwar, but Radio 4's satirical condensed history of the presidency is a) not very funny and b) not especially brave, being broadcast on Radio Middle Class less than 48 hours before he leaves (I wonder how it fits into the BBC's 'balance' doctrine). It's an even more cowardly version of Israel's Bush going-away party, the one with all the fireworks and Palestinians sleeping it off in the streets. 

An argument isn't bold unless there's a possibility of disagreement. That's why American (and British) political speeches are so vacuous. 'I believe Insert Country Here is the greatest nation on earth' Wow. Radical stance.