The Plashing Vole

Tuesday, 19 July 2011

The Pink Polytechnic

Something to celebrate at last: The Hegemon has been judged by Stonewall as one of the 4 most gay-friendly HE institutions in the country.

It's quite a good result: the student body includes a large number of conservative religious people - of various faiths - who are less than fond of homosexuals. I expect an evangelical backlash forthwith.

Birthday bounty

I'm hooked on the Select Committee's interrogation of various top coppers in pursuit of the hacking story: the Murdochs up next. You can watch it on the BBC, or follow the minute-by-minute coverage on the Guardian. Fairly squirmy so far: Britain's most senior policeman (until yesterday) doesn't seem to think there's anything odd about taking £12,000 of free health-spa luxury. And 25% of the Metropolitan Police's publicity/press department are ex-News International staff. Intriguing if not downright fishy.

However, I want to say thanks to my many friends for their birthday presents and cards: Penguin postcards, Soviet architecture books, book tokens, a photography day, 'Johnners' tapes, Moomins items, camera kit, reading lights: so very much, I'm overwhelmed by your kindness. And the downfall of the Murdochs and the Tories!

I've also bought myself a few things:
Francis Spufford's Red Plenty (a novel of Soviet Utopianism).
David Seed's Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction.
Mark Radcliffe's memoir, Reelin' in the Years.
The 6th and final Moomins Comic Strip volume.
Robert Coover's The Public Burning, a sprawling (post-?)modernist take on 1950s/60s American politics.
Iain McDonald's The Dervish House, another addition to the postcolonial move in science and speculative fiction.

Oh yes, and some interesting CDs (none of them 10,000 Maniacs' MTV Unplugged today): Natalie Merchant's Ophelia (she was the lead singer in 10,000 Maniacs), Welsh Rare Beat Vol. 1, The Horrors' Skying, the remastered box set of R.E.M.'s Lifes Rich Pageant (how I mourn that missed apostrophe) and three folk box sets from the Guardian: Pete Seeger's American Industrial Ballads, Newport Folk Festival 1959 and Joan Baez's Songbird.

Sean Hoare: the archetypal Englishman

Sean Hoare is the former News of the World reporter who died yesterday, probably due to drink and drugs. Wracked by guilt, he was the first reporter to go on the record about the culture of lawbreaking and destruction in the newsrooms of the Sun and its Sunday sister.

I call him the archetypal Englishman because his rise and fall - going by this account by Nick Davies and other comments - encapsulate what has happened to English, and to a lesser extent British, society since Thatcherite free-market capitalism took hold.

Capitalism turns humanity into a commodity to be bought and sold. Sean Hoare was one such commodity, while the celebrities about whom he wrote were even more clearly commodities, goods to be flogged in ruthless pursuit of money.

He came from a working-class background of solid Arsenal supporters, always voted Labour, defined himself specifically as a "clause IV" socialist who still believed in public ownership of the means of production. But, working as a reporter, he suddenly found himself up to his elbows in drugs and delirium.

He was a born reporter. He could always find stories. And, unlike some of his nastier tabloid colleagues, he did not play the bully with his sources. He was naturally a warm, kind man, who could light up a lamp-post with his talk. From Bizarre, he moved to the Sunday People, under Neil Wallis, and then to the News of the World, where Andy Coulson had become deputy editor. And, persistently, he did as he was told and went out on the road with rock stars, befriending them, bingeing with them, pausing only to file his copy.

He made no secret of his massive ingestion of drugs. He told me how he used to start the day with "a rock star's breakfast" – a line of cocaine and a Jack Daniels – usually in the company of a journalist who now occupies a senior position at the Sun. He reckoned he was using three grammes of cocaine a day, spending about £1,000 a week. Plus endless alcohol. Looking back, he could see it had done him enormous damage. But at the time, as he recalled, most of his colleagues were doing it, too.

Enough people are saying similar things about Hoare to convince me. So why would a good socialist, rooted in decent values, end up hounding and befriending famous people for a gossip page? How have our values become so distorted that this rubbish counts as news? I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the deferential social structures of the pre-War period, but I am old-fashioned enough lefty for the phrase 'false consciousness' to be popping into my mind. Hoare isn't a perpetrator of this stuff: he's a victim. An entire society has grown up in which the private lives of vacuous stars has appropriated the name of 'news'. It's destroyed Hoare's life, but it's also distorted our society.

Like Hoare, we've all become addicted to vicious destructive tittle-tattle. The purveyors of this filth do it because it's a) cheap and b) because they despise us. They think it's what we want, and all we're capable of following. They treat us with contempt and in doing so, their predictions become true. I met a couple, one of whom wrote for the Sun and the other for the Mail. In person, they seemed delightful. Charming, thoughtful, intelligent. They spoke of their jobs with a glorious sense of irony, as though it was all jolly larks. This of course makes them cynical disgusting scum. These papers ruin lives, from celebrities to the grieving parents of Milly Dowler or - as in the Mail a couple of weeks ago - the parents of the girl killed by a falling branch 'because' her teachers were on strike.

Sean Hoare sounds like a kind, caring, considerate and intelligent man who had a lot to give society. Instead, he devoted himself to propping up a morally and politically bankrupt society and publication. That someone so good can do so much that is bad should make us all pause to reflect on how he - and we - have come to such a pass.

And if you think that I can't possibly mean you, think again. If you know the names of people famous for nothing, if you think you know who killed Maddie McCann, if you get a thrill from the tabloid front pages even while you're reaching for the Guardian or the FT, then you're a part of it. Irony is not a defence.

We killed Sean Hoare - and we've poisoned ourselves too.

Newspaper readers from history

I've previously quoted George Orwell on the News of the World (from 'The Decline of the English Murder') and Yes, Prime Minister on the mentality of various papers' readers. Here's a paragraph by Claud Cockburn on Thomas Barnes, a mid-nineteenth-century Times editor's view of the readership:

Newspaper writing, he said, is a thing sui generis; it is in literature what brandy is in beverages. John Bull, whose understanding is rather sluggish - I speak of the majority of readers - requires a strong stimulus. He consumes his beef and cannot digest it without a dram; he dozes composedly over his prejudices which his conceit calls opinions; and you must fire ten-pounders at his densely compact intellect before you can make it comprehend your meaning or care one farthing for your efforts.

Norman Rose, The Cliveden Set (London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), p. 162.

Audiovole

Yes, dear readers, my media empire expands as certain others decline. You can hear me live on WCR on July 20th, 1-2 p.m. BST. And repeated on Thursday at 5-6. 101.8FM if you're local, or listen live on your computer. I'll be joining in a discussion about the hacking affair, the media sphere and the new politics.

Plashing Vole. Coming in your ears. (OK, I stole that from Chorley FM).

Monday, 18 July 2011

You'll never guess what Zoverstocks have just sent me!

A week ago, I mentioned that Zoverstocks had sent me 4 copies of 10,000 Maniacs' MTV Unplugged live CD, and begged them to stop. They mailed me to promise that a computer error had been fixed, and asked me to post back the extra CDs 'in the original packing' (that'll be the envelopes you can't open without destroying) at my own expense.

Imagine my surprise at receiving another 2 copies today. That makes 6 in total. Surely they're not 'zoverstocked' any more.

The house that Natalie Merchant built (and there's another copy at home).

Time to Gove

Who else in government is in hock to News International? How about everybody's favourite ex-Newsnight Education ~~Moron~~ Minister Michael Gove?

Will Michael Gove also be drawn into the sleaze? In 2009, the Conservatives published a list of shadow cabinet ministers' outside interests. News International were very generous to him, paying £5,000 a month for his services as journalist for one hour a week. That’s £1,250 a week. Contrast this with the £250 he received from Scotland on Sunday.

Meanwhile, one of the most evil papers on the planet (the Daily Mail, in case you didn't realise), claims that Rebekah Brooks vetoed Cameron's plan to have an ex-BBC press spokesman, and suggested Coulson instead - to 'strengthen links' between News International and the Tory administration.

If that's true - and as it's in the Mail, that's an 'if' the size of Greenland - then the Prime Minister will have to resign. If it isn't true, he'll have to sue, given the monstrosity of such a claim.

Plus ca change…

I've been watching a lot of Yes, Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister recently: the witty, farcical and cynical 1980s comedy set in the higher reaches of politics and the Civil Service.

Every single episode is still totally relevant to modern government: how to achieve, avoid or appear to achieve cuts/action/moral behaviour, how to deal with the press, foreigners, the public, corruption, defence posturing: pronouncements from the current regime could have been cut and pasted from the show.

Here's a favourite bit on opinion polls:

And bankers:

Office humour…

I bought myself this recently. It seemed appropriate.

On another matter, I went a whole week without buying a single book. Astonishing. I shall make amend this week. Oh yes.

Adventures in hirsutism

My friend Neal recently grew a fine beard, seemingly for the amusement of his friends. As you can see, the experiment ended this week: he's giving the luxuriant Edwardian moustache a couple of days' grace, then it's all coming off before he heads to foreign climes to recover from a few months of honest toil.

To me, there's something of the outré Edwardian scandalmonger about this: D. H. Lawrence perhaps, E. M. Forster, or George Bernard Shaw.

See the rest here: click these examples to enlarge.

Eureka!

Flashman about to be cashiered from the service

'Utter one more word about this damned 'evolution', Sir, and I shall have you horsewhipped!'

This one reminds me of the great Irish-Australian pugilist, Paddy Slavin:

or even better:

Friday, 15 July 2011

Finally, the last few fencing photographs

The last few of my favourites from the 2011 European Fencing Championships. But don't worry, there are plenty more here. Click these to enlarge.

I had a great time: it was exhausting, but I learned a lot (new moves, warm-ups, techniques, how to set-up a wheelchair frame), but it wasn't perfect. I know this sounds really petty, but I don't think volunteers should be asked to pay for their food and accommodation, especially those there for over a week). I volunteer a lot and love doing it - I vocally opposed the demands of a small group of referees for pay - but it's not really on to pay quite a lot of money to work 12 hour days at a very prestigious event. Ho hum: the fencing and the cameraderie of the team (and the delightful people of Sheffield) made up for it.

Fantastic flick to shoulder from Avola on Cheremisinov

Ouch. Poor Cheremisinov. Valid hit too.

Into the other men's foil semi-final: Baldini (Italy, left) versus Cassara (Italy, right, parrying)

Baldini claims the hit on Cassara

Baldini misses: Cassara flicks to the shoulder but hits off-target

Baldini's attack off-target: Cassara's flick looks good but may be out of time

Aerial flick to Cassara's shoulder, avoiding the parry

Men's foil final: Cassara (Italy, left). Avola (Italy, right) takes to the skies

Cassara and Avola try to reach round each other.

Avola's attack to wrist would be perfect… if it was an epée match

Cassara can't quite believe what the referee's just said.

The textbooks mystifyingly omit this move from Avola.

Running attack from Cassara

Very athletic lunge from Avola (though Cassara's straight are means he has the line of attack)

It may not be elegant, but Avola's attack lands beautifully.

And the follow-up is rather dramatic.

Giorgio Avola: European Men's Foil Champion 2011

Avola seems pleased.

I'm not there any more, but more photos of the competition are here.

Oh yes, there are more fencing photographs to come

And there are even more from the 2011 European fencing championships here! Click on these ones for massive versions.

Joy for some, bitter defeat for others (not sure whether Delbergue or the Romanian won this one)

No opening ceremony is complete without contemporary dance, though it did feel slightly tasteless to have acrobatic writhing for the wheelchair championship opening ceremony: especially this move. The choir was excellent.