First, a disclaimer of sorts. I realise that I am coming to the argument discussed below a little late, and that all that is worth saying on the subject has almost certainly been said already. I'm piping up now because I have a question that I want to articulate (I'd like to get it answered too, but I doubt that will happen). I'm also a little tardy because I've been thinking hard about what I want to say here, and I think slow, sometimes.
Night Jack is no more. The anonymous blog maintained by a Lancashire police officer has been removed by its creator, the first blogger to win the Orwell Prize, after The Times 'outed' him earlier this month. His identity was revealed at the end of a court case against The Times, during which the officer was told by the judge that he could have "no reasonable expectation of privacy," because blogging is essentially a public activity instead of a private one. The whole story can be found here.
I hadn't heard of Night Jack's blog until I read about his revealing. I felt a little aggrieved when I discovered the blog had been removed, as I would have been interested to read it. I actually follow another blog about a policeman, The Johnny Law Chronicles, an anonymous account of an American military vet turned copper in a large but unnamed American city. It's pretty macho- Johnny Law is unafraid to break a few heads every now and then, but it provides an interesting perspective on policing that I'd honestly never encountered before. I'm a fairly liberal guy, and my lifestyle generally leads me to see the police as a threat rather than anything else, but it's nice to have my prejudices challenged sometimes. The style is direct but ironic, and so I occasionally find myself sympathising with Johnny as he maces some street punk. It would have been interesting to compare his stuff with a British bobby, and see what different issues come up, and what similarities.
Obviously now the chance is gone. As a blogger myself, I sympathise with the writer, but that doesn't mean I'm necessarily challenging the judges decision. Although I think it's a shame, the judge in question did raise some good points (specifically that it was not "part of the court's function to protect police officers who are, or think they may be, acting in breach of police discipline regulations from coming to the attention of superiors." Part of the reason Night Jack was blogging anonymously is because he knew he couldn't make his comments publicly without being reprimanded).
It's impossible to read all this without identifying similarities with another famous 'outing' of a blogger, again in The Times. Girlwithaonetrackmind was (and is) a sex blogger of some celebrity, whose identity was made public some time ago. Again, I don't wish to debate Girl's right to anonymity (although I would like to state that the conduct of The Times was discouragingly vulgar in this case). What I want to know is, why was her identity revealed?
It seems that there would be two sorts of people: those that had encountered girlwithaonetrackmind, and those that had not. I would posit that those who had some familiarity with Girl's blog would have an interest in her continued anonymity. It is easy to appreciate why she wanted to remain anonymous- she was posting about her sex life on the Internet. Those that enjoyed her blog were probably a bit saddened when her identity was made known, or were at least sympathetic. The other group of people are those who hadn't a clue there even was a blog called girlwithaonetrackmind. How, exactly would they be interested in her 'outing?' Someone they'd never heard of was revealed to be... (dun dun duuuunnnnnn) some else they'd never heard of. Extra! Extra! Reeeadalaboudit!
The situation with Night Jack is similar. He turned out to be a copper nobody had ever heard of. If an anonymous blogger is revealed, do they really become any less anonymous? They remain an unknown face in the crowd. Let's face it, we won't hear about them further in the print media. The 'outing' is the big deal, newspapers don't care about their further blogging.
So who actually gave a crap? How many members of Joe Public would have definitively said: "Yes, I really want to know the identity of such and such a blogger."
Why, then, is this considered newsworthy? I've got one reason, at least in Girl's case: she was (and is) blogging about SEX. In this country at least, anything remotely to do with SEX is considered news. She wasn't just a blogger, she was a SEX blogger, and that's what made it OK to put her mum's name in the article.
If that seems a little childish, don't worry, because it really is. Putting the word SEX in the title of a story shouldn't guarantee interest, but it does, even for me. Attitudes towards sexual relations in this country have made any mention of them feel faintly illicit, and anything illicit is interesting. That doesn't mean the news story actually has any merit to it.
The point I'm making (in a slightly roundabout way) is that journalism is supposed to relate to either what people want to read about, or what, in the journalist's opinion, they ought to read about. Does 'outing' an anonymous blogger really count as either? Or are the newspapers making their own 'news,' and expecting us to like it? This is no a blanket comment- I'm using the blogging thing as a specific example. Plenty of people want to know about Katie and Peters' relationship, and that's cool with me. But there seems to be a fair few news stories that pander to no-ones' interest, and moreover, have no real positive reason for existing, other than to fill up space (and in the case of girlwithoneonetrackmind, let's be honest, letting a young freelance journalist get her foot in the door).
If we allow the newspapers to print anything and class it as news, then the quality of journalism in general can only suffer. What exactly we ought to do about this I'm sure I don't know. But we could start with writing a letter or two- not to criticise a story on its moral grounds (although sure, you could do that if you feel like it), but to demonstrate when you do not believe it is worth reading about. Journalists might have to work a bit harder (or crowbar SEX into more articles), but we'd have more information that is relevant or instructive, rather than something transient- who among those whose first encounter with Night Jack was the article in the newspaper can remember what his name was now?
If any of you lovely people has an opinion on this it'd be a pleasure to read it. Also, links to any other articles that discuss the points I've made would be appreciated. Ta.
*Edit. Some people have already commented on this blog post, and have expressed some interesting opinions. I'm just letting you know as I don't get a lot of comments so I doubt many people check them.
Updated only when you aren't looking.
Tuesday 28 July 2009
Sunday 19 July 2009
Drink, drank, drunk.
There are some pretty good reasons for imbibing alcohol.(i) A few drinks can make you surprisingly eloquent, and increase your confidence in otherwise daunting social situations. It can lower your inhibitions, especially those related to low self-esteem. It can inspire a sense of closeness and camaraderie in otherwise disparate persons. It can make you feel good. It makes things funnier. It can be a lot of fun.
Drinking to excess is a different story. As well as coming with a list of side effects that far outweigh the aforementioned positives, getting completely woozled also cancels said positives entirely. A few drinks can make your more eloquent. Getting totally potted will not continue the trend. If this were true, pubs would be stuffed with angelically articulate winos, slurring their way through sonnets like a shitfaced Billy Shakespeare. This, clearly, is not the case. All the positives of drinking are removed by taking it too far. Having enough Dutch courage to finally go up to the girl you’ve been eyeing up is useless if all you can manage is to spray spit down her dress and eventually fall over. Getting completely winkled is generally accepted to be a BAD IDEA, unless you have a particular fondness for vomiting, or accidentally peeing on your shoes.
All the solid reasons for getting trampolined(ii) have a darker undercurrent. Drinking to forget, drinking to keep out the cold etc. all are effective solutions to a particular problem, but none are much fun, and it’s a shame that anyone has to deploy them.
And yet, getting kaboomed has evolved into a national pastime. This is normally the point when I would employ a series of statistics to illustrate my point, but it really isn’t necessary. Our reliance on the ol’ sauce is trumpeted from every media outlet almost every day. It recently emerged that 1 in 6 deaths (damn, there it is) in Scotland can be linked to alcohol (although let’s be clear: these are broadly defined ‘links,’ including things like some cancers that can be exacerbated by excessive alcohol consumption. It is NOT to be inferred that 1 in 6 Scots are drinking themselves to death).
So howcumzit? Everybody who has ever got truly buffaloed has experienced the negative effects. If you aren’t drinking heavily with an aim in mind, why are you doing it at all?
The first reason is obvious: alcohol can be freakin’ dee-licious. After a decade of hard work and practice I have developed a fondness for lager simply as a preferred beverage. After a tough day of loafing, nothing is more satisfying than a pint of something premium strength and Eastern European. It’s like a manly handshake and a nice big hug all in one frosty glass. I could easily spend an evening drinking lager ‘cause it’s nice, with getting babooned(iii) an unavoidable side effect.(iv)
Alcohol also has a detrimental influence on one’s rationality. If you’re a little bit drunk, getting a little bit more drunk can seem like a smashing idea. You know when you’re sober that it’s unlikely to improve things, but the logical parts of your brain use booze as an excuse to take some paid holiday, right when you could use them the most. Getting attenbouroughedv might never have been your aim, but before you know it you’re howling ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ at the back of a cab driver’s head.
These aren’t bad excuses, but they do not explain what has become known as ‘drink culture.’ Getting peterboroughed has become an end in itself; one now drinks simply to become intoxicated. It is not due to a failure in rationality (except in the most obvious sense) as we begin consuming with the express aim of getting carpeted. It can also no longer be blamed on how scrummy alcoholic beverages are, as a significant proportion of drinkers now imbibe potions simply for their alcoholic content, rather than their taste. Admit it, sambuca tastes like Satan’s sandy bumhole. Any drink you have to immolate before you swallow probably wasn’t much cop to start with.
This is not an entirely new phenomenon. How much plonk you can keep down has been a manly competition since time immemorial. The days of quaffing Vikings are over, but competitive drinking still exists. Not everybody plays, however, and yet the streets are still full every evening with the tragically (or comically) din-dinsed.(vi)
I am certainly not immune to this, in fact it’s why this sort of thing is on my mind. Suppose I had had the self-control in the past to control my excessive drinking? How many ladies have I upset, how many friendships have I imperilled? How many regrets do I carry.
I got a bit maudlin there, sorry. I do have a point to make though, or at least a request. Maybe I should ask my readers (that’s right, the pair of you), to think about what it is you want from a night out, and whether you really need to get banjoed to get it. So that when you’ve reached that truly glorious stage of intoxication where you dance like a man possessed, flirt like you took lessons and tell stories to rival the greatest Jacobean raconteur, you could say to your mates: “No thank you, I have reached an adequate stage of consumption, and have no immediate requirement of an alcoholic beverage. Fetch me instead a soft drink of equal or greater deliciousness." Except, well, you might want to paraphrase, or they’ll think you’re a peenarse.
I sound like a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. And I doubt this post will mark a curtailment in my own drinking. I don’t want to impact on anyone’s enjoyment- quite the opposite. I honestly suspect that if we thought a bit harder about how tomatoed we’d like to get, we might be a tiny bit happier. And tiny or not, any increase is worth it, because as we all know:
(vii)
(i) I’m going to do a Michael McIntyre here and see how many innocuous words I can substitute for the adjective ‘drunk.’
(ii) That one’s definitely my favourite.
(iii) I’ve got an animal theme thing going now.
(iv) This does raise the intriguing question: would I drink comparable amounts of non-alcoholic lager if they can make one that doesn’t taste like a tramp’s wee-wee?
(v) It works with proper nouns! Yes!
(vi) That one didn’t work so well, did it?
(vii) If this image doesn’t bring a smile to your face, you need to speak to your doctor about possibly upping your meds. The man responsible is artist, explorer and semi-professional pistol duellist William Elliot, who’s fantastic artwork can be found here.
Drinking to excess is a different story. As well as coming with a list of side effects that far outweigh the aforementioned positives, getting completely woozled also cancels said positives entirely. A few drinks can make your more eloquent. Getting totally potted will not continue the trend. If this were true, pubs would be stuffed with angelically articulate winos, slurring their way through sonnets like a shitfaced Billy Shakespeare. This, clearly, is not the case. All the positives of drinking are removed by taking it too far. Having enough Dutch courage to finally go up to the girl you’ve been eyeing up is useless if all you can manage is to spray spit down her dress and eventually fall over. Getting completely winkled is generally accepted to be a BAD IDEA, unless you have a particular fondness for vomiting, or accidentally peeing on your shoes.
All the solid reasons for getting trampolined(ii) have a darker undercurrent. Drinking to forget, drinking to keep out the cold etc. all are effective solutions to a particular problem, but none are much fun, and it’s a shame that anyone has to deploy them.
And yet, getting kaboomed has evolved into a national pastime. This is normally the point when I would employ a series of statistics to illustrate my point, but it really isn’t necessary. Our reliance on the ol’ sauce is trumpeted from every media outlet almost every day. It recently emerged that 1 in 6 deaths (damn, there it is) in Scotland can be linked to alcohol (although let’s be clear: these are broadly defined ‘links,’ including things like some cancers that can be exacerbated by excessive alcohol consumption. It is NOT to be inferred that 1 in 6 Scots are drinking themselves to death).
So howcumzit? Everybody who has ever got truly buffaloed has experienced the negative effects. If you aren’t drinking heavily with an aim in mind, why are you doing it at all?
The first reason is obvious: alcohol can be freakin’ dee-licious. After a decade of hard work and practice I have developed a fondness for lager simply as a preferred beverage. After a tough day of loafing, nothing is more satisfying than a pint of something premium strength and Eastern European. It’s like a manly handshake and a nice big hug all in one frosty glass. I could easily spend an evening drinking lager ‘cause it’s nice, with getting babooned(iii) an unavoidable side effect.(iv)
Alcohol also has a detrimental influence on one’s rationality. If you’re a little bit drunk, getting a little bit more drunk can seem like a smashing idea. You know when you’re sober that it’s unlikely to improve things, but the logical parts of your brain use booze as an excuse to take some paid holiday, right when you could use them the most. Getting attenbouroughedv might never have been your aim, but before you know it you’re howling ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ at the back of a cab driver’s head.
These aren’t bad excuses, but they do not explain what has become known as ‘drink culture.’ Getting peterboroughed has become an end in itself; one now drinks simply to become intoxicated. It is not due to a failure in rationality (except in the most obvious sense) as we begin consuming with the express aim of getting carpeted. It can also no longer be blamed on how scrummy alcoholic beverages are, as a significant proportion of drinkers now imbibe potions simply for their alcoholic content, rather than their taste. Admit it, sambuca tastes like Satan’s sandy bumhole. Any drink you have to immolate before you swallow probably wasn’t much cop to start with.
This is not an entirely new phenomenon. How much plonk you can keep down has been a manly competition since time immemorial. The days of quaffing Vikings are over, but competitive drinking still exists. Not everybody plays, however, and yet the streets are still full every evening with the tragically (or comically) din-dinsed.(vi)
I am certainly not immune to this, in fact it’s why this sort of thing is on my mind. Suppose I had had the self-control in the past to control my excessive drinking? How many ladies have I upset, how many friendships have I imperilled? How many regrets do I carry.
I got a bit maudlin there, sorry. I do have a point to make though, or at least a request. Maybe I should ask my readers (that’s right, the pair of you), to think about what it is you want from a night out, and whether you really need to get banjoed to get it. So that when you’ve reached that truly glorious stage of intoxication where you dance like a man possessed, flirt like you took lessons and tell stories to rival the greatest Jacobean raconteur, you could say to your mates: “No thank you, I have reached an adequate stage of consumption, and have no immediate requirement of an alcoholic beverage. Fetch me instead a soft drink of equal or greater deliciousness." Except, well, you might want to paraphrase, or they’ll think you’re a peenarse.
I sound like a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. And I doubt this post will mark a curtailment in my own drinking. I don’t want to impact on anyone’s enjoyment- quite the opposite. I honestly suspect that if we thought a bit harder about how tomatoed we’d like to get, we might be a tiny bit happier. And tiny or not, any increase is worth it, because as we all know:
(vii)(i) I’m going to do a Michael McIntyre here and see how many innocuous words I can substitute for the adjective ‘drunk.’
(ii) That one’s definitely my favourite.
(iii) I’ve got an animal theme thing going now.
(iv) This does raise the intriguing question: would I drink comparable amounts of non-alcoholic lager if they can make one that doesn’t taste like a tramp’s wee-wee?
(v) It works with proper nouns! Yes!
(vi) That one didn’t work so well, did it?
(vii) If this image doesn’t bring a smile to your face, you need to speak to your doctor about possibly upping your meds. The man responsible is artist, explorer and semi-professional pistol duellist William Elliot, who’s fantastic artwork can be found here.
Wednesday 15 July 2009
All about the Benjamins
I’m skint. Bust. Stony- broke. Without adequate funds. Rollin’ without the chedda. I can hear you reaching for your wallets, ready to donate your own cash to alleviate my plight, but you needn’t worry. I have a place to live rent free, and most of my meals supplied, and there’s a big stack of books in the bookcase. To those of you to whom this sounds a bit familiar, you’ve got it in one: I’ve gone to live with the parentals.
After a good few years living as my own man, moving back in with the folks can be a bit of a shock; I already knew it wasn’t really acceptable to drink the milk straight out of the carton while listening to thrash metal and watching porn in the living room, but darn it all if I hadn’t gotten used to it. Of course living in a house with responsible people has some wonderful, nearly forgotten advantages: it sure is easy to read with light-bulbs in all the fittings, and I can walk around barefoot without contracting any interesting infections from the carpets.
Unfortunately, hanging around reading Wilkie Collins books and eating free food is destined to have a negative effect on my trim figure. I’m going to have to venture abroad at some point and to do that, I’ll need petrol for the car. This can be a bit of a bugger because, as I’m sure you are well aware, society seems to rely on money as an exchange mechanism for goods and services. It seems unlikely that my preferred system, in which I am given anything I like in exchange for a wink and a smile, is going to work on the dour gentleman employed at the petrol station at the bottom of the street. So I’m going to have to get some money from somewhere. Let’s have a look at my options:
1.Earn it. This seems to be the accepted method, but also a challenging one. The job market is hardly crying out for literature graduates with moderate to poor computer skills, and so it looks like it’s going to be scut work for me. Alas, the summer is hardly the time to be getting temporary work, as every other returning student in the country tramps the streets looking for dishwashing and labouring opportunities. On the plus side, it gives me the chance to go into a lot of pubs with the stated reason of seeking employment, but assuming I don’t go hired, a conciliatory pint wouldn’t go amiss. Lets say I can get turned down five times by mid afternoon, and I can go home no longer worried about my lack of employment! Although I’d have to get someone to lend me the money for the beer, as pubs tend not to give it out gratis (I have already explored this). Shit.
2.Nick it. For the increasingly desperate, there is always a life of crime. I may have to wait a while before I start targeting family members, lest the link between my recent arrival and sudden poverty prove too obvious. In the meantime I’ll have to liberate funds from someone less close to home. Burglary seems like a lot of effort, and I’m too feeble to mug even the wobbliest of pensioners. That really only leaves armed robbery- now if I can just find a bank with some money left in it.
3.Borrow it. Despite the recent financial crisis, banks seem only too keen to extend the overdraft of stinking student layabouts like myself. The only problem is they eventually come calling for it back- landing me in a situation much like my current one, only with the threat of jail time.
4.Make someone give it to you. This used to be categorised under similar terms to the aforementioned armed robbery, but is now colloquially know as ‘having an accident that wasn’t your fault,’ or even more colloquially as ‘ripping some poor bastard off.’ No gap in the pavement, badly driven forklift or improperly signposted patch of wet floor shall escape my roving eye and clumsy feet. Failing that, who do I know that I can sue?
5.Find it. Obviously the best solution, but one that requires quite a lot of effort. It is unlikely that I’ll walk round a corner and trip over a mountain of platinum, so it’s sofa diving for me.
6.Marry it. I always fancied being a kept man.
If anybody has any other suggestions I would be happy to hear them. Or you can just stick the check in the post.
After a good few years living as my own man, moving back in with the folks can be a bit of a shock; I already knew it wasn’t really acceptable to drink the milk straight out of the carton while listening to thrash metal and watching porn in the living room, but darn it all if I hadn’t gotten used to it. Of course living in a house with responsible people has some wonderful, nearly forgotten advantages: it sure is easy to read with light-bulbs in all the fittings, and I can walk around barefoot without contracting any interesting infections from the carpets.
Unfortunately, hanging around reading Wilkie Collins books and eating free food is destined to have a negative effect on my trim figure. I’m going to have to venture abroad at some point and to do that, I’ll need petrol for the car. This can be a bit of a bugger because, as I’m sure you are well aware, society seems to rely on money as an exchange mechanism for goods and services. It seems unlikely that my preferred system, in which I am given anything I like in exchange for a wink and a smile, is going to work on the dour gentleman employed at the petrol station at the bottom of the street. So I’m going to have to get some money from somewhere. Let’s have a look at my options:
1.Earn it. This seems to be the accepted method, but also a challenging one. The job market is hardly crying out for literature graduates with moderate to poor computer skills, and so it looks like it’s going to be scut work for me. Alas, the summer is hardly the time to be getting temporary work, as every other returning student in the country tramps the streets looking for dishwashing and labouring opportunities. On the plus side, it gives me the chance to go into a lot of pubs with the stated reason of seeking employment, but assuming I don’t go hired, a conciliatory pint wouldn’t go amiss. Lets say I can get turned down five times by mid afternoon, and I can go home no longer worried about my lack of employment! Although I’d have to get someone to lend me the money for the beer, as pubs tend not to give it out gratis (I have already explored this). Shit.
2.Nick it. For the increasingly desperate, there is always a life of crime. I may have to wait a while before I start targeting family members, lest the link between my recent arrival and sudden poverty prove too obvious. In the meantime I’ll have to liberate funds from someone less close to home. Burglary seems like a lot of effort, and I’m too feeble to mug even the wobbliest of pensioners. That really only leaves armed robbery- now if I can just find a bank with some money left in it.
3.Borrow it. Despite the recent financial crisis, banks seem only too keen to extend the overdraft of stinking student layabouts like myself. The only problem is they eventually come calling for it back- landing me in a situation much like my current one, only with the threat of jail time.
4.Make someone give it to you. This used to be categorised under similar terms to the aforementioned armed robbery, but is now colloquially know as ‘having an accident that wasn’t your fault,’ or even more colloquially as ‘ripping some poor bastard off.’ No gap in the pavement, badly driven forklift or improperly signposted patch of wet floor shall escape my roving eye and clumsy feet. Failing that, who do I know that I can sue?
5.Find it. Obviously the best solution, but one that requires quite a lot of effort. It is unlikely that I’ll walk round a corner and trip over a mountain of platinum, so it’s sofa diving for me.
6.Marry it. I always fancied being a kept man.
If anybody has any other suggestions I would be happy to hear them. Or you can just stick the check in the post.
Verbal Slapstick: The Return
My, that was an unexpected absence! My tummy bug turned into the sort of fever-ridden, viral ass-kickin' I haven't had since I was a nipper. It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience, although on the bright side it gave me a chance to lay in bed, dingling a little silver bell to call my mother in with more soup. I haven't had a chance to do that since I learned how to hold a thermometer under my armpit to fake a temperature. Sigh, those were the days.
Being ill sucks, especially when it impacts on your holidays. I have just returned from a two week jaunt to Croatia, where I attended the Garden Festival ('attended' actually sounds a little formal, there wasn't a roll-call or anything). I hadn't really recovered by the time I left, which meant my packing was lacklustre and my organisation shabby. It also meant that my travelling companions had to put up with a nauseous, complaining misanthrope all the way there (actually a mild improvement, when I'm in good health I add 'obnoxious' to the list).
The unfortunate upshot of all this: no blog posts for absolutely ages. To counter this disgusting lapse I aim to lavish you wonderful people with posts in the weeks to come. This Friday I graduate; and in the weeks following I have no job, no exams, and nothing to get in the way of musings and minor witticisms. So let's get started.
Being ill sucks, especially when it impacts on your holidays. I have just returned from a two week jaunt to Croatia, where I attended the Garden Festival ('attended' actually sounds a little formal, there wasn't a roll-call or anything). I hadn't really recovered by the time I left, which meant my packing was lacklustre and my organisation shabby. It also meant that my travelling companions had to put up with a nauseous, complaining misanthrope all the way there (actually a mild improvement, when I'm in good health I add 'obnoxious' to the list).
The unfortunate upshot of all this: no blog posts for absolutely ages. To counter this disgusting lapse I aim to lavish you wonderful people with posts in the weeks to come. This Friday I graduate; and in the weeks following I have no job, no exams, and nothing to get in the way of musings and minor witticisms. So let's get started.
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