Fair and Balanced

We think that the Daily Mail's quota of bile is damaging to the public sphere, but it's nothing compared to what goes on in the US.

Roger Ailes is the head of Fox News, that bastion of objectivity, and the fish clearly rots from the head. He gave a very interesting interview. Amongst the revelations is this: the staff at NPR are 'Nazis'. NPR? National Public Radio, a very, very underfunded station which spends most of its time begging listeners to donate so they can continue making interesting documentaries - it's like a nervous version of BBC Radio 4.

They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don't want any other point of view. They don't even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda.

I wonder where the Tea Party gets its rather confused ideas about Obama being a Communist Nazi?

On Obama (no, I have no idea what he means by this either):

He had to be told by the French and the Germans that his socialism was too far left for them to deal with.”

Ailes had defended Fox News firebrand Glenn Beck's attacks on George Soros by saying that there are "left-wing rabbis who basically don't think that anybody can ever use the word, Holocaust, on the air." Beck said that Soros, at age 14, accompanied a Hungarian to help him “deliver papers to the Jews, and confiscate their property, and then ship them off… Here’s a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps.” Beck added that Soros had no choice but that he didn’t understand why Soros had done no “soul searching” about his past.

Ailes also made a coded attack on Barack Obama, claiming: "He just has a different belief system than most Americans" – a rubric used on Fox News, leading bloggers at New York magazine to note: "Ailes spouted exactly the same rhetoric about President Obama that you hear on his channel." Similarly, Jeff Bercovici at Forbes points out: "It's a commonplace by now at Fox that the President is a socialist."

 What a healthy atmosphere over there.

(Ire)Land For Sale

From Daft.ie

Full planning permission for 300,000 homes, 8 prisons, 5 public hospitals, one city metro system, 10,000 schools with extensions as well as hundreds of unfinished road developments ranging in size from national primary roads to larger motorway systems.

In need of some refurbishing, is quite dated but lies to the north west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of stunning islands and islets.

Neighbours are ****s but can be quite helpful. Generally a nice area. Also comes with a variety of weather, nationalities and political opinions.

Wishing I Was Skinny, Wish The Whole World Knew My Name

We've reached the Boo Radleys in the tour of my hard drive.

I'm very protective of this band. I love their early shoegazey noise-pop, of their cosmic middle period, of their slightly cynical grab for pop fame, of their inevitable decline, and even of their various solo albums.

I partly feel this way because clearly every other band of the 90s loathed them. In particular, Louise Wener's autobiography slates them for being loud Scouse gits with no interest on tour apart from finding the next 'Irish' pub, while Luke Haines (of The Auteurs and other bands) amusingly despises their stoned, footy-loving stupidity and hippy attitudes.

They're probably right - they sound like a bunch of young lads with talent, a bit of cash and adoration, and not much interest in doing anything other than living in the moment. Would any of us be any different? I hope so, but I couldn't guarantee it.

I don't really care - their music stands up to inspection, especially Giant Steps, which I think has the ambition and richness to qualify as one of the great albums of the 90s. Their first album was Ichabod and I - a thrilling bundle of loud pop fuzz in which tunes can occasionally be discerned. There were only 500 copies (vinyl only), so you'll have to hear a few tracks on the Best Of compilation or go here and e-mail the nice gentleman for a copy. That's what I did, and how I wish I could afford the real thing. I've got everything else on lovely vinyl, and some on CD too so I can never be without Every Heaven and Everything's Alright Forever and Learning to Walk - shoegaze masterpieces with a big dollop of pop thrown in.



I have a massive love for covers of New Order and Joy Division tracks: here's the Boos doing 'True Faith', renamed 'Boo Faith'. It's just excellent - and very much of its time. Weirdly, this live session makes the words and tune much clearer than that committed to vinyl.



Giant Steps is the Great Leap Forward, however. Being Liverpudlians, they'd been forced to listen to the Beatles, and you can really tell: pop tunes from the Hamburg Days, production from Revolution No. 9. Add to this an acceptable slice of reggae, some Eno, a bit of Ozric Tentacles and a lot of echo for a profound, often melancholic but always catchy examination of postmodern life. Pressing play on 'Wishing I Was Skinny' transports me - madeleine-like - back to being a first-year student by the North Wales seaside, in a grotty shared house, 1970s record player on the floor beside the bed and being blissfully happy (and very skinny too, which didn't last long). My belongings consisted of about 10 records, a lot of books (or so I thought then), black DMs, black jeans, black shirt, black biker's jacket that I probably shouldn't wear ever again, and very long black hair. I was free of my appalling school and the scum who taught and were taught there, and the world was my whelk.







After that came the Wake Up period: the band wanted fame, needed cash, and yearned to prove their pop nous. It worked, perhaps too well: the album went straight in at No. 1 and the single 'Wake Up Boo' became both a worldwide smash and an albatross round their necks (the extended version on the 12" single is far more interesting but I still like the original), and their final albums (C'Mon Kids and Kingsize) are charming attempts to retreat to their artpop comfort zone and I'll probably never listen to them again.



Amongst the solo albums, Eggman's First Fruits is a fantastic lost album of psychedelic whimsy (complete with appearances by 18 Wheeler and Ed Ball - lovely Britpop also-rans) but it's not online, while Martin Carr's Brave Captain solo career is, well, OK in its own way.

Lo-fi, country style

After the hipster folk of Bon Iver, we come to Bonny 'Prince' Billy - a bit of a counterculture pin-up, one of those singers who's a cult amongst other musicians.

Be warned - there's no end to the tale of the Bonnie Prince. He's been going since 1993 under a bewildering range of names, including Palace Brothers, Palace Music, Palace Songs, Palace, Will Oldham and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - and there are probably more I don't know about.

What can I say about the music? It's variable - sometimes sounding like the rougher end of Slint's math-rock noise, often country or what became 'alt-country', and usually pretty outspoken on matters of the heart - song titles include 'You Have Cum in Your Hair and Your Dick is Hanging Out' and 'When You Have No One, No One Can Hurt You'.



Recently, he's been sounding tender, though the lyrics aren't quite as loving as the music implies. Joya, the first 'Will Oldham' album, is one of my favourites.

However - we'll come to those in the fullness of time. For now, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's 14 (!) albums (some of which are obsessive re-recordings of his older work) are the subject at hand.  I See A Darkness is heartbreakingly beautiful. I've got them all on vinyl, but the only ones I have on CD (and computer are) Blue Lotus Feet, I See A Darkness, Beware, Joya, and The Wonder Show of the World.

Diving into them is like spending an educational evening with a tramp of dubious provenance but much experience and wisdom, most of it miserable. He'll always surprise you with a beautiful melody and inventive turn of phrase, but you have to forgive the deliberately primitive recording and the mumbled, beardy singing.

Which songs to recommend? 'Death To Everyone' is good at parties and very catchy. The whole album is like a rural goth with tongue firmly in cheek.



From Blue Lotus Feet, I'd go for 'One With The Birds' - it's fun and it namechecks Mogwai (a band I love) in the first lines.



From Joya, 'Open Your Heart' is pretty direct ('open your heart, let the snake in'):



Beware seems to strip the Prince back to bare bones - and hint at awareness that he's parodying himself - it's a lot of fun. Try 'You Can't Me Hurt Me Now':



Finally, of the Bonnie "Prince" Billy And The Cairo Gang work, I love 'Go, Folks, Go' - it's clearly a thinly disguised pop song.



Now that's how to do lo-fi. I'm off to slit my wrists, Appalachian style.

I'm so very proud

Two of my excellent students made this video for the fight against education funding cuts, and I know virtually everyone in it.



(I make a cameo appearance, complete with Penfold voice and Eric Pickles's spare chins).

Phone Phun

Wow. I'm getting a new office phone. It's got rubber buttons with numbers on them, a mouthpiece and earpiece linked by a handle, and a screen which shows the university directory.

As you know, the remaining legacy telephones will be converted to the new IP telephone network toward the end of November. To prepare you for this switch, two short (90 minutes) training sessions have been arranged on Monday November 22^nd from 10am – 12 noon and 2pm-4pm. Spaces on each course are limited to a maximum of 16. Places will be allocated on a first-come basis.

There must be a lot more to it: I spent less time than this on my teaching qualifications (as you can probably tell). I explained the complex theoretical approaches available to students of The Tempest in only a single 90 minute session. I must rush to secure my place on this essential course.

MU: the poststructuralist response

I read recently of the delightful Japanese word 'mu' and its Chinese equivalent, 'wu'. It means - simplified - that a yes or no answer is inappropriate because the context of the question is too small for the truth of the answer.

I intend to use this in seminars when asked dumb questions. Perhaps my students will use it when I ask them dumb questions.

Love your NHS

It's ramshackle and unwieldy, but it's the best and fairest healthcare system in the world - and the Tory / Lib Dem government is ripping it to shreds to feed to the corporations which have done such a marvellous job in America and elsewhere. 

The NHS is the only health system in the industrialised world where wealth does not determine access to care – providing the most widely accessible treatments at low cost among rich nations, a key study has found.

The survey, by US health thinktank the Commonwealth Fund, showed that while one-third of American adults "went without recommended care, did not see a doctor when sick, or failed to fill prescriptions because of costs", this figure was only 6% in the UK and 5% in Holland.

In all countries except Britain, wealth largely determined access to health, with patients with incomes below the national average more likely to report trouble with medical bills and problems with getting care because of cost.

The NHS was also extremely cost-effective, with spending on health per person almost the lowest in the survey. A person in the UK paid $1,500 less than a person in Switzerland, $600 less than a German and less than half the $7,538 paid by every American for healthcare.

Pass this on, and defend the NHS. 

For Ben, who's finishing a novel

Family Guy. Occasionally they hit the spot.

Three Cheers For George Osborne

So awfully kind of George to offer we Irish a few billion quid to get us out of a hole. Although it's perhaps a small way of making recompense for the hundreds of years of imperial exploitation.

After all, 'George Osborne' is really Gideon George Osborne, and when Daddy dies, he'll be the 18th Baronet of Ballentaylor (Tipperary) and of Ballylemon in Waterford (despite Ireland being independent for 90 years and a Republic for 61 years, the aristocracy hangs on to the glory days).

One city financier (via Paul Mason's very good blog) reckons that Osborne's offer is actually a bit of a cheat: it's a way of handing more British taxpayers' cash directly to the banks to get the economy going without using the magic words 'helicopter money' (i.e. quantitative easing, or throwing cash at the country to keep it circulating) and to prevent more British banks going bust:

City economist Graham Turner issued the following note to clients:

"In truth, the rumoured £6-7bn of support for Ireland is effectively QE2 by the backdoor. Despite the UK chancellor's denials, the bi-lateral aid for Ireland is absolutely an attempt to pre-empt further difficulties for UK banks. The huge increase in wholesale liabilities of UK banks due to roll over in 2011 shows that perhaps the UK had more than any other country to lose from an outright default of Irish bank and sovereign debt." 

Still, beggars can't be choosers. As this photograph demonstrates: the well-dressed gentlemen are from the International Monetary Fund, come to take Cowen and Lenihan's calculator off them. The seated gentleman - well, he's Ireland. Much respect to photographer Peter Morrison.

He's got an even better one:

A cunning plan to finance education for the public good

This is from a quality article in today's Guardian. It makes sense to me.

The current frontbenches, in all political parties, illustrate the kind of person who went to a top university when tuition fees did not exist – people from intellectual, financial and class elites. There may be many more universities, and many more students. But the introduction of tuition fees has not much changed that past demographic.

Actually, those more expensive educations at more prestigious institutions, unless the Russell group gets its way and no cap is placed on fees, are likely to be subsidised by the inflated fees of students receiving cheaper educations at less prestigious institutions. It has already been predicted that no university will stay far below the cap, because a "cheap course" will advertise the institution and its course as "less good". Not so very progressive. 

Browne and his allies will argue that his reforms will in some ways return higher education to its more stable past, but better. In all likelihood though, the elite will still go to the elite universities, which will have gone private, charging as they see fit. The bright-without-background will go to the public universities, which will come to seem more like polytechnics, except that the students will be paying for their betterment and any success that may come with it. Which group will bag the best careers? The already affluent, or the self-improvers? Like all market mechanisms, this one will ensure that the rich get richer and the poor, if they make headway at all, will do it more slowly, and more encumbered. 

How can one ensure that all who benefit from higher education contribute? The government benefits, because so many graduate jobs are in the public services. Employers of graduates benefit, because therein lie profits. Graduates benefit, and so do their proud parents, because therein lie achieved hopes and expectations. Society benefits the individuals in it to a greater or a less extent. How to neatly encapsulate all those benefits, so that all those who are enriched by them make their contribution? I can dimly imagine something that might work. It could be called "higher-rate general taxation". Or something.

Wise words from history

I just had some postcards made up of this quote from the great Aneurin Bevan. I'm toying with sending one to Paul Uppal (who's pointlessly flapping his mouth again with a question about school refurbishment: the Tory Scum government has just cancelled the school building programme…):

No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. 

Richard Quinn is a God Amongst Men

I may have mentioned that some of my students cheated… in my class on Ethics and Philosophy.

Richard Quinn is a professor in Florida. He took a very interesting line with cheats. He offered a deal - own up, take an ethics course and live to study another day, or take the chance of being identified and thrown out.

200 students owned up.

Here's his astonishing lecture.

Be afraid…

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the most over-the-top party since Nero: Howard J is an American and knows no limits. In honour of Hallowe'en, there were zombies. Interestingly carved pumpkins. Burning trash. An actual car overturned and trashed in the garden, skinned bodies climbing out of the bath, an Angel of Death, a zombie soundtrack, a DJ, suicides complete with sticky entrails, burning pallets… and a photographer.

Here's Neal. He came as Tory Economics - back from the dead and wreaking havoc. I came as The Late David Mitchell, with fine zombie makeup. Nobody noticed I was in character. Lots more pictures here.

For Ed

Ed reminded me in the comments that I've not gone on about my music collection for quite some time. So in his honour, I'll get back to it.

As far as I remember, the next band in my alphabetical trawl is Bon Iver (yes, we're only up to B, after all this time - and I've been missing out the odd tracks here and there).

You probably know Bon Iver - spectral neo-country folk-rock from somewhere in the US. Not hugely innovative, but they've got a way with production and structure. I like the muted and melancholic sound they make. Today the rain's coming down and it's dark and gloomy - Bon Iver (particularly For Emma, Forever Ago - a name which reminds me of The Field Mice) really suit my mood.

Live, they're not so wonderful. Because the music is so dependent on pinpoint harmonies, the live performance becomes a test of their craft - you wouldn't expect anything unexpected, so to speak, whereas I like a band that has some fun on stage.

Here's 'Team', which I love for the bass line, and 'Stacks' because it's so beautifully melancholy (which basically does it for me most of the time - wait until we get on to The Paradise Motel in about 3 years).

Say goodbye to net neutrality

Another genius Tory Scum wheeze: let ISPs determine the speed of access to certain sites based on whether they've been paid to do so.

This is very nerdy, but stick with me.

The idea's been kicking around corporate headquarters for a long time. BT, for instance, could be given a bug fat cheque by Sky to give download priority to visitors to its site. People wanting to visit a BBC site would have to wait a lot longer for access - despite paying for the same internet access as the Sky viewer. It makes a lot of money for the ISP, which can operate an auction, but it severely damages free and fair competition, and punishes the subscriber for not following the herd.

Net neutrality is key to the web as we know it: whatever you choose to view, your ISP doesn't discriminate against you. The smallest shop, fansite, news outlet or even blog opens on your screen as fast as the biggest. Nobody thinks 'I'll go to Sky News, their page opens faster'. Now, the big boys will hog the bandwidth and the rest will wither away.

The Tories think this is 'freeing the market' but like all things, it will lead to powerful corporate monopolies. Something else to lobby against. I'm so tired of fighting their evil plans…

Update
Here's my friend Jim's explanation of how these decisions are reached. He's chair of the Open Rights Group, which campaigns on such issues, so he knows whereof he speaks:

This is actually the same evil plan as Labour, I'm afraid. It went like this:

BIS Official: "The EU's got a plan to change Telecom's regulation and what ISPs can do. What do we think?"

BIS Official 2: "Ask Ofcom?"

Ofcom Official: "Err .... let's ask BT"

BT: "We should be able to do what we like. The market will resolve any problem."

Ofcom Official: "ISPs should be able to do what they like. The market will resolve any problem."

BIS Official: "ISPs should be able to do what they like. The market will resolve any problem."

BIS Minister: "ISPs should be able to do what they like. The market will resolve any problem."

UK MEPs: "ISPs should be able to do what they like. The market will resolve any problem."

EU law: "ISPs should be able to do what they like. The market will resolve any problem."

Going off-message

Vince Cable, with his usual charm, has let slip the real reasons why every student in the country will have to pay £9000 per year for a worse education than they currently receive:

Vince Cable has claimed that the government effectively was held to ransom on tuition fees, as a group of elite universities would have “gone private” if the cap had not been raised.

Speaking at a conference in Manchester yesterday, the business secretary added that he does not know whether the proposed cap of £9,000 a year will be enough to “head off” those considering opting out of state financial support.

“One of the reasons we are [raising the fee cap] is precisely to head off Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, University College London and a few others from going private,” he is reported to have said in a speech at the annual conference of the Girls’ Schools Association.

“If we had not opened up the system, they would have a very strong incentive to do so.”

Mr Cable is also reported to have told delegates at the conference that “a lot of universities are effectively broke” and that “if they were in the private sector they would have been filing for bankruptcy”.

“Various arrangements have been cobbled together to keep them going, and we can’t continue to do that,” he said.

And now our revels are ended

Amidst all the other teaching I've been doing, I spent the last week immersed in Shakespearian texts. I'm not a Shakespeare specialist, but I'm enjoying this course hugely, and it's wonderful to get back to the critical theory reading I often don't have time for.

This week was The Tempest - probably Shakespeare's last play, and one performed at James I's (and VI's) court at least twice. The First Folio lists it under Comedies but - as I've been trying to explain to my students - it's more like a mix of tragedy and Shakespeare's history plays for the first four acts, with a comedy resolution (marriages, restoration to power) bolted extremely unconvincingly on the end. Unconvincing because Shakespeare's made sure that every neat ending unravels: Ferdinand and Miranda cheat at chess, Prospero's blackmailing Antonio and poor old Caliban is forgotten.

I used a mix of postcolonial and New Historicist theory for the lecture, which I thought was intellectually coherent at least. Unfortunately for most of the audience, they hadn't read the play, so had to endure 90 minutes of me minutely exploring characters and events they hadn't yet heard about…

Oh well… next lecture to write is the origins of Celtic mythology. Back to the books…

Meanwhile, here's an 'interesting' production coming up: Helen Mirren, but also Russell Brand. Apart from that, I'm slightly reluctant because all the magic in the play is part of a more cerebral examination of the origins, legitimacy and application of power, particularly in a colonial context. Too much concentration on magic and special effects will detract from this. Furthermore, the original play links power and fatherhood to stunning effect and contrasts Prospero's rule over Miranda, Milan and the Island with Sycorax's mothering of Caliban: making Prospero into Prospera turns the story into something else entirely. Still, I'm sure it will be worth seeing.

Royalty-free zone

The only television programmes last night which didn't mention next year's royal wedding were those with 'Nazis' in the title. I even found myself switching off the news, which is unheard of for me.

So I make this pledge: however annoyed I get, the marriage between William and Kate will never, ever be mentioned by me again.

Update: Cameron wants a bank holiday for the bloody wedding. I intend to go to work on that day. Who's with me?

I probably shouldn't admit this…

…as I'm giving a lecture on New Media next week, but here goes.

I don't understand the internet, and how people use it. Today I've had 212 visitors so far. The numbers have been going up all week, from a previous respectable average of 60-70 hits per day. These new readers are mostly in Europe, with a hefty number from the US, Africa and Asia.

Are they all entranced by my ongoing battle with Paul Uppal, MP for Paul Uppal? Perhaps it's my love of lovelorn lo-fi, or photographs of trees and badly-lit sports halls, or lists of books I've incontinently purchased.

It isn't. Virtually every new visitor is reading a short note I scribbled about the sad and ironic death of Spencer King, inventor of the Range Rover who came to despise the uses to which his practical vehicle was put, and who was killed while out on his bike. Nobody's leaving comments, but they keep coming.

Seriously, why do you think this is?

I am, you may have gathered, a non-driver. I once crashed a Volvo 340 into the back of a rubbish truck at Keele University, but I was only going at 4 mph and somebody else was changing gear, so no damage was done. I'm not anti-vehicle though. Given the choice, I'd like a luxury train, this bike (please, send me some money, it's only £15,000) and this car and this car, though they'd either be given cold fusion engines (still entirely imaginary) or just sit in my driveway as works of art. Although I don't actually have a driveway either.

The Moulton Stainless Double Pylon would always be my first choice. I'd die under the wheels of a guffawing roadhog, but I'd die in considerable, shiny, style. I've lusted after very few things in my life, but this is the one. Oh, and an airship done out in luxury steampunk style.

This is why I love cycling. My only vehicle is a 1970s racing bike in poor condition.