Armed and dangerous

I was reading someone complaining about a proposed law on gun ownership in California; he said he had this nightmare vision of a future in which only the police and the criminals had guns. Strangely enough, my nightmare vision would be the exact opposite. Quite apart from the practical dangers associated with having guns in the house- accidents and domestic disputes; there's also the question of suicide. One of the surprising but consistent findings of research into suicide attempts is that, rather than having made a firm decision to die the suicidee chooses a method and carries it out, they are rather in a state of not minding either way. This leaves libertarians like me in a dilemma, since we would endorse the right of those who wished to kill themselves to do so, but would nevertheless be obliged to try to prevent them in case they hadn't quite made their mind up. [Attempting suicide is still treated by many countries as a crime (because you are robbing the state of your contribution to it); according to my son, they take a very dim view of it, and they sentence repeat offenders to death]

But crime is where it matters most. Guns change things. Almost all interactions with others are bound by social norms as much as anything. This is why a small old woman can scare away a crowd of teenage yobs: although they could easily physically overpower her, their brains respond with instinctive respect for an older person who is in the right. A weaker version of the same moral force allows teachers to subdue unruly classes. It is this moral force which keeps the law. That's why riots are followed by copycat disturbances: people suddenly relaise that there is very little that the few police can do to enforce the law. Chesterton says somewhere that the countryside is full of sin, because of the absence of others to observe. But put a gun in the equation and social factors are set aside.

Everybody loathes Elton

Ben Elton is often mentioned by British comedians as the most-hated man in the business. It's a bit hard to see why, exactly, it's just that he is rich, successful and mainstream, and makes musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber (which is at least three strikes in most people's eyes, I suppose). His career has been odd, though: starting as a political firebrand and anarchist Young Ones writer, then moving to the high wit of Blackadder, before blanding out in his Man for Auntie sketch show and The Thin Blue Line anaemic police comedy, underusing Rowan Atkinson as almost a straight-main. From here it's easy to see his early radical days as a careerist stunt: that was where the buzz was at the time. I'm not sure that's right, though- his novels continue to reflect his passionate intensity, and even the Thin Blue Line was quite advanced in its philosophy considering its positioning: there were a lot of jokes about sex (that's not quite true: of the jokes there were, a lot were about sex), but the characters' sexual orientation and colour was never exploited, as it would have been in most comparable sitcoms. Given the widespread wish for Elton to fail, it's surprising how little anyone has had to say about his latest masterpiece, the couple-with-young children sitcom Blessed. Now, this may come as a revelation, but young children cry, and need feeding, and make a mess. Sometimes the parents get tetchy as a result. With hilarious consequences. Or not. Actually it's not entirely laugh-free. But what amuses is the plotting and the frustrated rants of the lead character, rather than verbal agility. One problem is the inaccuracy of the cultural references. The record producer hero has to deal with a manufactured Spice Girls grrl group, with the moral issues that raises about whether he should insist on his rights to his creative work or let them steal it in return for lots of money. The trouble with this is that he is starting from the view that groups should be talented and creative, not manufactured. It's hard to believe this when for a start, he works as a jobbing music producer churning out advertising jingles and backing tracks, and is hardly therefore at the 'art for art's sake' end of the business, but more importantly, his views are anachronistic: after all the Idols and X Factors, nobody seems to mind that stars and groups are designed by marketing consultants, publicised by publicists, and sold to the media in bite-size chunks from 'wow I won' to 'ex-singer in drug shame' to 'who?'. After Darius lost out to much laughter in the first Pop Idol, or whatever, and dismissed as a talentless poser, I thought I'd heard the last of him; I hardly expected him to crop up in 2005 as a credible and successful artist with fans and No. 1s and everything. So Elton here is being misled by what he thinks and feels, which is not believable as what his character thinks. The characterisation has another major flaw: the ageing rocker guitarist. With his wrinkled, twitching face and leathers, he models himself on Keith Richard. But Elton tries to have it both ways: sometimes, he is clearly a delusional loser whose pose is just that, masking an empty and tragically wasted life; but sometimes he really is a star, able to charm groupies and acquaintances. In general, I would think that the series owes its origins to Elton's life experiences, and would have been better if it had accepted the fact rather than mask it by, say, changing the father's job from comedian novelist living in London with his young family, to something totally different, like, record producer living...

What I don't understand, after all this, is the eerie silence. Shouldn't the airwaves be jammed with pundits queueing up to say it's terrible and Elton is finished? I can only suppose they have realised it's more cutting, in the long run, tosay nothing, just walk away.

Pranks and japes

The latest reality TV series, Space Cadets, has exposed what has lain mainly hidden in its predecessors like Game for a Laugh, Beadle's About, and Candid Camera: that its humour is derived from cruelty, or at the very least from exploitation of dramatic irony (the audience knowing something the protagonist does not). Hence it is an act of collusion by the viewers at the expense of the participants.

This is a strong but largely unexamined part of traditional humour. The attraction of the 'surprise party' is surely for the other attendees, who can smirk to themselves as they lead the dupe to believe that everyone has forgotten. And a similar pattern can be seen in the initiation of apprentices, who were sent off in search of tartan paint or for a long weight (wait): a rite of passage intended to remind the new workers that, however cocky they may be, in the workplace they are at the mercy of their bosses and colleagues. The humour is anaemic verging on albinoism: but humour is not the point.

TV programmers may not realise the danger they face. Newspapers these days very rarely present April Fool's stories; I think this is because they have realised that they rely on their readers gullibility, which offends them, or undermines the paper's credibility. If your newspaper tells you that Elvis is alive and well and living on the moon in a WW2 bomber, you are hardly likely to pay much attention when they tell you which political party to support. We do not expect, when being bombarded with information, to have to distinguish not just between hard fact and soft fact and opinion, but between fiction masquerading as fact and simple fact.

The irony is that the hapless and charmless space cadets, whose desire to be famous exceeds any talent that might justify such a desire, have proved to have some strength of character. Everyone else is smirking, but they have trusted in the
reliability and safety of Russian aeronautics, and have demonstrated that the Right Stuff can be found in all sorts of containers.

Winds of change

So Tony Blair's solution to future energy needs is the safest, cheapest and most efficient method, (nuclear energy, if you hadn't guessed). Not sure whether he's going to deal with the £4.5 billion decommissioning costs and storage of the nuclear waste from the last generation of cheap, clean energy first.

Credit where credit's due, though, he's right to take hard decisions to fulfil his Kyoto commitment to reduce CO2 emissions (and not just the hard decision of how to get out of it without anyone noticing). The tireless opposers of windfarm developments who have contributed so maturely to the energy debate over the last decade can take some comfort in their victory: for surely it is the recognition that any substantial increase in renewable exploitation would inspire protests that would make the pro-hunting lobby look like blood-stained sadists pussycats that lies behind this courageous step.

Of course, it leaves the problem of where to put the new nuclear stations- there's going to be a lot. Luckily, they don't spoil views for miles by intruding on the skyline, so presumably right next door to the NIMBYs would suit them fine. Or are they going to start whingeing about that too? Surely not!

Weasel words

The Vocabulary Reclamation Project has raised the interesting question of Word Tanking, meaning the avoidance of using thenatural or correct term because it has acquired unwanted baggage. He says:

I tend to de-emphasize the word "Christianity." Instead, I employ phrases like "following Christ" and (rather obviously) "spiritual journey." It's often awkward to speak this way, but I find myself doing it—using ambiguous terms like "friend" and "follower" and "disciple" and "journey," and then qualifying them with the word "Jesus" or "Christ." In a very real sense, "Christianity" carries with it a host of connotations that I'd just as soon not deal with. I want people to think about what I'm saying, rather than be side-tracked by negative (and unrelated) associations.

There is always a tension between pedantically insisting on the 'correct' word and being understood. Sometimes this is cultural: there is the story of the American and British students who had gone see their lecturer, and upon being told by her secretary that she would be 'with them presently', the British student went back to the library and the American waited at the office. Or as my webstats page now says "the data will be displayed momentarily", probably meaning "in a moment" rather than "for a moment" (although with BlogPatrol's reliablity you cannot be sure).

I read a comment on the news coverage of Katrina that one startling change was that people were using the word 'poor' rather than 'disadvantaged' or 'economically deprived' or whatever. And on the whole it seems a more honest word, unless (as may be the case), the rich feel that it carries with it the implication that the poor will be always with us (and so nothing need be done about them) or that they are poor because they are made that way ditto).

Other words have dropped out entire. I was shocked to hear on 'Will and Grace' someone say "So that's Dr Motley- I imagined he was an old Jew saying 'You call this dinner?'". Not because it is intrinsically shocking (the speaking character was Jewish, by the way), but because I have grown completely unaccustomed to the use of the word 'Jew' in any sort of comic sense. What is still a bit troubling is that the joke was clearly using the word to imply a stereotype. Children's joke books have problems these days- the great stock-in-trade of Irish (Polish, etc.) jokes reliant on their butts' stupidity has become almost unusable that that they have to be re-cast as "did you hear about the stupid person who did something stupid?". Small loss, perhaps. It is notable that the 19th century Punch cartoons that kicked off the Irish joke tradition was less coarse than is often said. When the Irish peasant tells the lost motorist who asks for directions "I wouldn't start from here", the joke is on the motorist. Much more objectionable are the Punch cartoons whose humour relies on the stupidity of servants in interpreting the words of their wiser, richer, lazier, and better-educated masters. Ha bloody ha.

Word fashions come and go. To UK ears, the American 'person of color' hardly seemed an improvement on Negro, although that may not have been the word it was replacing. I think it will be something of a Red Letter day, though, on the first time I actually call someone a nigger on the grounds that they would want me to.

Sometimes people resist word tanking: Bob Dylan, on 'Time out of mind' goes out of his way to use the word 'gay' in its older, non-sexual, sense: "strumming a gay guitar", "I've been to London and I've been to gay Par-ee". In general, though, we have to face the fact that communication is communication, and it is our readers' verbal associations we must consider, not our own. This is the reason I would never say "I am a poet"; "I write poetry" is not just less of an extravagant claim, it also attempts to sidestep the opinion held by many that anyone making such a statement is bound to be sentimental, alcoholic, dying, or impractical.

Human nature

This is a story from before Windows NT, and before Windows 98, and before Windows 95, and before Windows 3.1, but I think it has a timeless message. In the old days, the last word in user friendliness was to have a start screen on your computer listing numbered options which started the various programs. My computer at work had ended up with a lot of options which either didn't work or led to removed programs, so I tidied up the menu page text to create new options. For obscure reasons, I found I couldn't remove or edit one of the numbered options, only change the text label: people could press it but nothing happened. To discourage them from doing so, I re-labelled it 'Self Destruct Device'. One of my colleagues used my computer one day, and came up to me afterwards. "You know that self-destruct option on your computer?", he said, "It doesn't work!".

Blogs and usability

Jakob Nielsen is a leading proponent of usability: the principle that the design of website and user interfaces should be based on how users behave, rather than how a crazed web designer wants to impress other crazed web designers. His website is usually a fount of common sense in a world where such things are still rare. However, in his most recent column, he addresses the principles of usability as applied to blogs. He says some sensible things: that a 'journal', sequential, structure, may be easy to set up but is a real pain for latecomers trying to find popular entries, so you really need to provide links to favourite old posts (it is no coincidence that I have done this already). But he also claims that users will judge a blog partly on its domain name, and be very sniffy about those who really of free resources like Blogger. To me this smacks of the mentality of those who buy a gold fountain pen to lend their writing style, or buy an expensive sports car so that they can sit in a traffic jam in style. The whole issue of domain squatting has a nostalgic feel to it these days- as if anyone tried to find Charles Dickens' website by typing in www.charlesdickens.com. They certainly wouldn't try it twice, since this would inevitably lead to a strange Biblical prophecy site, online poker, or dating (interesting sidelight on who they think uses the Internet, isn't it?).


UPDATE
Nielsen's comments have led to many responses, predicatbly, since he has been annoying web designers for years by saying things like 'Flash is crap'. I understand he now believes Flash is great, but, no, he was right first time. There's an interesting
parody of a usability report on a portal to initiate nuclear war. The authors do not realise, however, that they actually support what Nielsen is saying- that website users do not want to have to learn to use every new website from scratch, that poor usablity will discourage less-motivated users, and users need to be able to control their visiting experience. In recommending that (commercial) websites avoid 'cutting edge' untried innovative techniques in favour of established, dull, run-of-the-mill ones that work, he is giving good advice to the world outside the design community. I sometimes wonder whether Gutenberg spent his entire life trying to persuade his unadventurous customers to explore the potential of his new technology: "oh, sure, you can read it- but I have these flashy new typefaces which give a real trendy feeling-or we could print pages alternately up and down so that the reader isn't constrained by that stale old left-to-right start-to-finish straitjacket- or we could print on light-degradable papers so the user can experience the book falling apart as a he read it"

Yes, his site looks crap- it is simple and text-based. It's almost like a blog, strangely enough.

Theology 101

The Garden of Eden story is strange, isn't it. I assume you have a copy of Genesis 3 to hand:

v3 God says to Eve "You musn't eat the fruit of the tree of life or you will die"
v4 The serpent says "You won't die if you do"

v22 God says he must send Man out of Eden "lest he eat of the tree of life and live for ever"

So God was wrong in v3 and the serpent was right- eating the fruit does NOT kill you, it makes you live for ever.

They say that lies make a poor basis for a relationship.

Absolute power corrupts? Oh, absolutely!

As the ID Bill trundles inexorably on, we are finding out the cost of freedom. About £30 each, the charge to be imposed by the government on those applying for a card they are legally obliged to have. And legally obliged to replace whenever they move house. For some people, this hardly matters, since they are rich and have stable jobs and live in one place. For poor families, moving more frequently, this is a significant additional cost. But at least it will keep us safe.

The true cost of the cards is a bit higher: initial government estimates had put it at about £80, but it's now figured to be £300. So every time someone moves house, not only will they have to pay out, the government will too, spending tax money. But at least it will keep us safe.

One scene you don't see on CSI or Without a Trace, as they search across the criminal records database or look at the interactive street map or 3D model of virtual Miami, is the one where the master-criminal evades justice because someone has input his surname as 'Terry O'Rist' rather than Terrence O. Wrist. The government has cited as one of the benefits of ID cards that it can bring together all the data already held separately by various departments and agencies. So not only can we catch terrorists, we can fine them for not having a TV licence, and reclaim some tax credits, like those from people who spent money PAID OUT IN ERROR BECAUSE THE COMPUTER SYSTEM WASN'T WORKING PROPERLY. But at least it will keep us safe.

The trouble with wide-ranging arbitrary powers is not that it criminalises everyone. States wielding absolute powers have not all been draconian. For all the idiosyncratic power of a Roman emperor, his writ only really extended to the court. His plans, however mad, for the millions of citizens could only be carried out by his subordinates, whose efficiency and keenness depended on their view of the wisdom of the policy. Even in feudal states, where serfs belonged to their lords, tyranny was limited, since serfs could run away to other masters, or to towns, if it got too bad, and although their lords might hope for support from their peers, class solidarity seldom overcame personal interest. Even East Germany, where I understand 25% of the population was employed by or informants for the secret police, people slipped through. There was plenty of information, but no way to manage it. There is a paradox within Orwell's vision of 1984; even if surveillance was focused on the Party members, the Ministry of Truth employed a lot of people, who needed to be watched by another Ministry of Truth. So I do not believe that suddenly the government will micro-manage the entire population. No. It too will focus. It will focus on the poor, the black, the immigrant, the excluded. But at least it will keep us safe.

Now there are those who say that identity theft is an established part of terrorist operations, and therefore fake ID cards will be manufactured, which may not match the real ones but will be better than nothing. And there are those who say that the July 7 bombers were UK citizens and would no doubt have had ID cards anyway. And there are those who say that criminalizing the excluded does little to make them less excluded. And there are those who say that the government's record on data collection and the creation of large computer systems is appalling. And there are even those who say that pretending that the costs have been accurately estimated and will not eat significantly into spending money on more useful things is a deliberate attempt to side-step the issue. I'm one.

Wisdom

If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because man, they're gone.

SNL Deep thoughts

Say it isn't so

As well as being a novelist-who-can't-finish-a-novel and a mainly unpublished poet, I am also a songwriter manque (or, as someone said, a manky songwriter). I have put together a demo of songs, which I would rate (as far as I can tell) as very good songs played moderately well and sang borderline bearably. (The songs include Have to remember to forget you and Cuts both ways.)

But I have been encouraged by Erin Monahan's more generous view:

Now, in his note he warns me that he can't sing, which as far as I can tell is pure English modesty, or a good ole crock'o'shit because I thoroughly enjoyed each song.

If anyone is interested enough to want a copy, just leave a message so I can get in touch.

The long and the short of it

It is not hard to make it seem as if you know that of which you write if you use long words- in the mind of some, they are signs of truth. Can all life be shrunk to words of one short sound? I'm not sure. The Word of God is, for the most part, a short one: Thou shalt not kill; Let there be light. Which is not to say that long words are just used in Hell. They turn up in board rooms, schools, blogs- in fact, all sorts of place where, as the quote says, one man speaks in the sleep of the rest.

It used to be good style to go to great lengths to find terms so that you did not use the same word twice on the same page. Such tricks are taught no more- most would choose to call a spade a spade, not a tool to dig soil with (or a tool with which to dig soil, as some would say was right). But this has a price- the clang-clang-clang of the one word can drive you mad, or at least take your mind off the sense while the sound grates and pounds.
Some who take up their pens will not mind. But those who read will!

Overheard in a supermarket, late Saturday

MAN: I'm looking for a will to live - I've lost mine
WOMAN: If you see one, get one for me too.


(All right, it was me!)

My sporting heroes

I don't like sport, as I have said before. That's not quite true- I do enjoy some sport as a participant (those which do not feature mud, rain or physical injury). But spectatorship has always baffled me. I'm not sure quite what the frighteningly large proportion of the world's population that says it supports Manchester United mean when they say it- apart from in the captitalist sense of supporting the owners of the club through their purchase of overpriced merchandise. Even if their good wishes were somehow assisting the team, it seems doubtful that the most expensive players in the world would need much assistance, any more than gravity, death or taxes need supporters clubs. 'Good team beats bad team' is hardly news, any more than 'bad team beats worse team'. Those who are triumphally lording the English cricket team as the best in the world are missing the point. The thrill of their victory derives from the knowledge that it was barely deserved. Even back in the 1970s, before things got apparently irreversibly bad, England was known for its knack of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, usually by a batting collapse. Essenetially, therefore, the national rejoicing is the result of the success of the underdog. This is always cited as a specifically British trait, certainly a non-American trait, wrongly, I think. The maverick-who-needs-to-defeat-his-personal-demons-before-he-can-defeat-his-rival is a stock of Hollywood sports and other films (Top Gun) and one which goes some ditance to the saying "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser". The maverick storyline always seems a con-trick to me, since it implies that the troubled genius is better than their carefully trained untroubled opponent. No wonder kids today... Having said that, it is of course perfectly true that the clinical perfection of Bjorn Borg or Pete Sampras, for all its record-breaking reliability, can inspire no feeling warmer than a mild admiration, while watching England try to win a Test match is like watching your child take their first steps- a mixture of pride, doubt and fear.

In some ways, the new popularity of cricket will be cursed by those who have been watching since the 1970s. They have not suffered as we have suffered. They have not been in the wilderness. They have not seen hope after hope sink under the weight of better, fitter, faster opposition. On the other hand, even the constant mention of 'sportsmanship' cannot conceal the genuinely friendly nature of the competition- what would have been called 'sporting' if that word did not, these days, mean drug-fuelled, cash-obsessed and violent. Now they are superstars, I wonder how long it will last.

Without a trace

They are now showing the third series of Without a Trace on UK TV, which some have criticised for having too much personal stuff, but is still way ahead of most programmes. Last night's episode, 'American Goddess', featured Elizabeth Berkley as the post-surgery dumb blonde. I'm not sure why her agent suggested she make a career comeback in a show called 'without a trace', but then you're talking about someone whose career went downhill after Saved by the Bell (into Showgirls and then... that's about it). The producers didn't have the courage of their convictions, employing someone else to do the pre-op stuff and covering her face in bandages for the last scene. It's hard to pin down what is so good about the programme. Partly I think it benefited from the focus on the story rather than the team: the rot set in in ER when the patients became incidental events to break up the child custody wrangles, sex changes, partner swapping, dying etc of the staff. Of course Anthony LaPaglia does a lot, by doing almost nothing- he has saint's eyes, understanding all, forgiving all, suffering, but still caring. You would not recognise him from 'Frasier', where he played Daphne's Cockney brother, any more than you'd recognise his Cockney accent (closest I can get is drunk Australian). (and how did Daphne have a Cockney brother?).

George Orwell wrote in praise of the English murder (actually real murders as reported in the sensational press of the 1930s), reflecting as they did the code of morals that said that to get divorced would incur social disgrace so murder becomes the better option. These days, of course, fictional murder has become the main form of TV programme and a major form of fiction. Death is usually necessary: attempts to write crime fiction based on other crimes lack the apepal, mainly, I think, because there's no point pondering over a mystery when the victim can turn up at the end to explin what happened.

The cleverness of Without a Trace is to take the strong narrative line of the murder story (with a death acting as an opening into a particular social milieu) and then , by using the 24-style countdown (enough on its own to start adrenaline pumping) allow itself the option of different endings, so that there is, for once, real uncertainty about where a plot is heading. Catharsis, I don't know about - heart attack, sure.