The motoring journalist, Quentin Wilson, once advised anyone wanting to chose the colour of a car to take a woman along as "men have the colour vision of vampire bats." He may well have a point as colour blindness is far more common in men than women. Certainly, I have always struggled with colours but, with me, it doesn't seem to be the standard red-green phenomenon that causes the colour deficient to become flummoxed by Ishihara tests.
The problem I have is generally concerned with telling blue and green apart. I've always been aware of this. It caused me problems when studying inorganic chemistry at school but it rather came to a head when I was at university and couldn't, for the life of me, tell the colours on electronic resistors apart. Green and blue looked the same, as did red and violet. Since then I've been bothered with colour coded charts and, from a distance, a green traffic light looks like a police or ambulance light to me (except it isn't flashing) but I've never actually been tested for this - the Ishihara tests at the opticians only test for red-green colour blindness. However, the condition does actually have a name: tritanopia; but I've always questioned whether I actually have this or whether I just have typically male "vampire bat" vision.
A few months ago, I was talking to my uncle about his time in the Royal Air Force. He served during the Malayan Emergency of the 1950's and I knew he suffered from colour blindness which does limit the roles available in the Air Force. However, when I asked him about this he said that he was fine with red-green but always confused blue and green - the same as me. This does indicate to me that there could be a hereditary role at play and, in fact, it is linked to a Chromosome 7 abnormality. Interestingly, I also have a Kell positive blood group which is also Chromosome 7 linked but I suspect this is merely coincidence.
I have asked myself whether I do see the full spectrum and whether anything is missing. This does rather invoke the question of qualia: the way things appear to us. The problem with this is that I don't go around thinking "ooh, everything looks weird" as everything looks exactly like it always has. Just occasionally, I do notice that people can see clearly things that I can't (or at least struggle with) like my university lecturer who thought I was being a bit vacant with the resistors. Recently, I have been trying some experiments on myself and some of the results are a bit odd.
The first thing I tried out was seeing if I could make out all the colours of the spectrum through a prism. I certainly can't make out all the colours of the rainbow but I do think this is a rather artificial concept. When Isaac Newton originally came up with his spectrum he chose five colours: red, yellow, green, blue and violet. He added orange and indigo to make it match the seven notes of a musical scale although there is no scientific equivalence between music and colour. Personally, I have no idea what indigo is meant to be, but there is some sense to having seven spectral colours. The eye has three colour receptors, or cones, peaking at wavelengths roughly equating to blue, green and red (although actually peaking around orange). This would make a more scientifically sensible rainbow as: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet. In fact it was this realisation that led James Clerk Maxwell (he of the Maxwell's Daemon) to develop the first colour photograph. As for me, I can see clearly red, orange, yellow and green and then I get a bit lost. I can certainly see something, faintly, after that; which I suppose must be blue or violet. But does this mean I am actually tritanopic?
The next effect I have noticed is with rainbows. If I glance at one I can see clearly red through green but if I look more closely I can definitely make out the same faint glow beyond the green as I experience with the prism. However, what I have noticed is that if I cover one eye, this glow disappears. It doesn't matter which eye either. For some reason, I appear to have marginally better colour perception with binocular vision than with either eye separately. I'm struggling to think of a rational reason for this - the only thing I can think of is that I am making use of peripheral vision.
The cones, which help us perceive colour, are concentrated in the centre of the eye whereas the rods, which are more sensitive and help us see at night and detect motion, are very much reduced in the centre of the eye but more concentrated elsewhere - this is why it helps to look out of the side of the eye when trying to locate star clusters like the Pleiades. The rods are also most sensitive to light at a spectrum somewhere between the green and blue cones. If I am actually lacking in the blue cones, I am wondering if my brain has adapted to use information from the rods to increase the perception of colour? The problem with that is the medical consensus is that rods play no role in colour vision. For a normal trichromat there is no need for rods to be used, but for the tritanopic it could be a useful coping strategy and it does seem to be noted that tritanopia causes less day to day problems than other forms of colour blindness.
Out of interest, someone has altered the Sony advert where they blow up a Glasgow tower block with paint (it was blown up with dynamite a few weeks later) The first is with normal colour, the second is meant to reproduce tritanopic vision:
The odd thing is that the second video does look somewhat different - mainly it doesn't look as bright to me - but the colours I think I can see are actually red and blue. I don't know how this actually appears to someone with normal vision. I owned a TV years ago which had faulty colour in a similar manner but I didn't notice this. A girl-friend pointed it out to me and I could tell that the replacement TV set had a better picture. Irritatingly, I had been paying for a colour TV licence.
I suppose the answer would be to get some sort of test but the high street opticians generally only administer Ishihara tests if anything at all. However, I would be interested to know if anyone else experiences better colour perception with binocular vision.
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Monday, 25 October 2010
Mellotron
I've always been fascinated by electronic music - just the sheer otherworldliness of it - but I haven't always been quite aware of the different instruments involved. However, there is one electronic instrument that I could listen to again and again; and that is the Mellotron. At first it can be mistaken for a rather stilted string section or a mysterious ethereal choir but it has, above all, a warm dreamlike quality that is quite unlike anything else.
The peak of popularity for the Mellotron was 1970s prog-rock. It's probably given it a rather tainted reputation as a result, which is a pity as some of that prog-rock was actually rather good - it's just a pity that so many of the musicians involved disappeared up their own backsides. Jean Michel Jarre described the Mellotron as the "Stradivarius of electronic music" and, just like a finely manufactured violin, in the right hands it is heavenly. These are five of my favourite Mellotron performances in purely chronological order:
The Beatles : Strawberry Fields Forever
The Beatles are often credited with popularising the Mellotron but they weren't the first to use it and Strawberry Fields wasn't their first track to feature the instrument. In fact it's more a case of how little it was used and that's why it has such a great effect. They used a woodwind sound on the Mellotron to give their guitars a slightly dreamlike quality for the first two verses. In fact the song was recorded twice and the second part features a string quartet arrangement that makes for a much harsher and aggressive sound - as if a fondly remembered childhood memory was suddenly seen in the cold light of day. It's quite unlike anything recorded before or since.
It is often imagined that this record was number one for weeks. In fact it was a double A-side with Penny Lane, a song of which I am very fond as it makes a grim bus terminus sound so cheerful and inviting; and also because in the 1960s my uncle actually was the banker in Penny Lane. The record was actually kept off the top spot by Engelbert Humperdinck's Release Me.
King Crimson : In The Court Of The Crimson King
King Crimson were a truly frightening band. This album started off with the distorted screechings of 20th Century Schizoid Man and really took the listener on a tortured journey of love and loathing from thereon. In The Court Of The Crimson King was the closing track and featured the Mellotron much more prominently than The Beatles did. It's a blessed relief at the end of the album and really shows the full range of the instrument.
Tangerine Dream : Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares
Tangerine Dream were often at the forefront of electronic music in the 1970s and Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares, in spite of its dreadful sounding title, beautifully shows how the Mellotron can be used as a lead instrument. I actually prefer this to Phaedra which was the lead track on the album of the same name.
OMD: Maid Of Orleans
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were one of the leading innovators of British electronic pop music so it seems odd that they should opt for older technology for their Architecture & Morality album. In fact, I think it was a stroke of genius. At the time digital polyphonic synthesisers were becoming all the rage and the sight of a big haired dandy prodding at a keyboard would become an all too familiar sight on Top Of The Pops. The one problems is that these early digital synths sounded ugly beyond all belief. Hence, the boys from The Wirral chose to stick to the auditory delights of the analogue world. Maid Of Orleans shows the effect well but the whole album is worth listening to for the sweeping, eerie Mellotron sounds.
Radiohead : Exit Music (For A Film)
Radiohead have played around with allsorts of odd electronica. Kid A featured an Ondes Martenot although Exit Music pre-dated that album by a number of years. This starts out, and largely continues, as one of the most depressing songs I've ever heard. In fact it helps to know that it was written as the closing title music to Romeo and Juliet - at least the lyrics make more sense that way. The song begins as a melancholy guitar ballad and the Mellotron cuts in as it moves from suicide note to something of the afterlife. It's really quite beautiful in an ending-it-all kind of way.
The peak of popularity for the Mellotron was 1970s prog-rock. It's probably given it a rather tainted reputation as a result, which is a pity as some of that prog-rock was actually rather good - it's just a pity that so many of the musicians involved disappeared up their own backsides. Jean Michel Jarre described the Mellotron as the "Stradivarius of electronic music" and, just like a finely manufactured violin, in the right hands it is heavenly. These are five of my favourite Mellotron performances in purely chronological order:
The Beatles : Strawberry Fields Forever
The Beatles are often credited with popularising the Mellotron but they weren't the first to use it and Strawberry Fields wasn't their first track to feature the instrument. In fact it's more a case of how little it was used and that's why it has such a great effect. They used a woodwind sound on the Mellotron to give their guitars a slightly dreamlike quality for the first two verses. In fact the song was recorded twice and the second part features a string quartet arrangement that makes for a much harsher and aggressive sound - as if a fondly remembered childhood memory was suddenly seen in the cold light of day. It's quite unlike anything recorded before or since.
It is often imagined that this record was number one for weeks. In fact it was a double A-side with Penny Lane, a song of which I am very fond as it makes a grim bus terminus sound so cheerful and inviting; and also because in the 1960s my uncle actually was the banker in Penny Lane. The record was actually kept off the top spot by Engelbert Humperdinck's Release Me.
King Crimson : In The Court Of The Crimson King
King Crimson were a truly frightening band. This album started off with the distorted screechings of 20th Century Schizoid Man and really took the listener on a tortured journey of love and loathing from thereon. In The Court Of The Crimson King was the closing track and featured the Mellotron much more prominently than The Beatles did. It's a blessed relief at the end of the album and really shows the full range of the instrument.
Tangerine Dream : Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares
Tangerine Dream were often at the forefront of electronic music in the 1970s and Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares, in spite of its dreadful sounding title, beautifully shows how the Mellotron can be used as a lead instrument. I actually prefer this to Phaedra which was the lead track on the album of the same name.
OMD: Maid Of Orleans
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark were one of the leading innovators of British electronic pop music so it seems odd that they should opt for older technology for their Architecture & Morality album. In fact, I think it was a stroke of genius. At the time digital polyphonic synthesisers were becoming all the rage and the sight of a big haired dandy prodding at a keyboard would become an all too familiar sight on Top Of The Pops. The one problems is that these early digital synths sounded ugly beyond all belief. Hence, the boys from The Wirral chose to stick to the auditory delights of the analogue world. Maid Of Orleans shows the effect well but the whole album is worth listening to for the sweeping, eerie Mellotron sounds.
Radiohead : Exit Music (For A Film)
Radiohead have played around with allsorts of odd electronica. Kid A featured an Ondes Martenot although Exit Music pre-dated that album by a number of years. This starts out, and largely continues, as one of the most depressing songs I've ever heard. In fact it helps to know that it was written as the closing title music to Romeo and Juliet - at least the lyrics make more sense that way. The song begins as a melancholy guitar ballad and the Mellotron cuts in as it moves from suicide note to something of the afterlife. It's really quite beautiful in an ending-it-all kind of way.
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Ricky Gervais
OK. Here's confessional time. This is probably going to put me at odds with the rest of the modern world but I'm going to stick my neck out here: I don't think Ricky Gervais is very funny. To hear some people go on about him you would think that he is a comic genius of the highest order but at best I have found him mildly amusing and at worst I think he is dying on his arse - that may make some people laugh but I merely find it excruciating.
The first thing I can remember him in was The Office. This was very funny for a couple of episodes. It worked initially because everyone will have had a smug, full-of-themselves, completely useless, total arse of a boss like David Brent. Had this been a one hour TV play I think I would have remembered it with great fondness but each episode largely followed the same format and leads the audience to sit at home feeling desperately embarrassed for the on screen characters. In the end the whole concept was just uncomfortable. It certainly wasn't belly laugh material - maybe because I've had to work in an office like that.
The next series I saw him in was Extras, which I did like. The central conceit of this series worked well: the "extras" are actually the central cast and the big name stars are really cameos and usually a grotesque parody of A-list stars rather than their real personas. It's been done before, notably by Garry Shandling, but I thought the characters in Extras were more rounded and appealing than The Office and the situations were genuinely amusing rather than embarrassing for the audience. The second series moved on to Gervais actually having some success - but not what he had anticipated. Again this worked as it prevented the series recycling the same ideas over and over again. It wasn't my favourite comedy of recent years but it was one I enjoyed.
I think it was on the basis of Extras that I ended up seeing his stand-up show, Animals. This was very disappointing. It took, to a point, the form of a lecture with his cringey, smarmy persona much to the fore but the material was really just rather crude. If he had actually done the whole thing as a full-blown comedy lecture I think it would have worked much better; and this is the point with him: I don't think he is a particularly funny man. He may be able to write amusingly - particularly when he is writing with Stephen Merchant - but he doesn't have the natural comic timing of the best stand-up comedians. In fact, if he was on the stand-up circuit I don't think he would last very long.
He has since moved on to films but his character hasn't progressed at all; he is still some sort of David Brent clone. This is possibly down to casting directors but he always seems overly self-aware whenever he is on screen. Some actors are always like this but then pull a blinder when they are cast against type - Robin Williams is a good example of this. Many great actors have had long careers playing the same sort of character but the "Ricky Gervais" character is one I've seen quite enough of.
The first thing I can remember him in was The Office. This was very funny for a couple of episodes. It worked initially because everyone will have had a smug, full-of-themselves, completely useless, total arse of a boss like David Brent. Had this been a one hour TV play I think I would have remembered it with great fondness but each episode largely followed the same format and leads the audience to sit at home feeling desperately embarrassed for the on screen characters. In the end the whole concept was just uncomfortable. It certainly wasn't belly laugh material - maybe because I've had to work in an office like that.
The next series I saw him in was Extras, which I did like. The central conceit of this series worked well: the "extras" are actually the central cast and the big name stars are really cameos and usually a grotesque parody of A-list stars rather than their real personas. It's been done before, notably by Garry Shandling, but I thought the characters in Extras were more rounded and appealing than The Office and the situations were genuinely amusing rather than embarrassing for the audience. The second series moved on to Gervais actually having some success - but not what he had anticipated. Again this worked as it prevented the series recycling the same ideas over and over again. It wasn't my favourite comedy of recent years but it was one I enjoyed.
I think it was on the basis of Extras that I ended up seeing his stand-up show, Animals. This was very disappointing. It took, to a point, the form of a lecture with his cringey, smarmy persona much to the fore but the material was really just rather crude. If he had actually done the whole thing as a full-blown comedy lecture I think it would have worked much better; and this is the point with him: I don't think he is a particularly funny man. He may be able to write amusingly - particularly when he is writing with Stephen Merchant - but he doesn't have the natural comic timing of the best stand-up comedians. In fact, if he was on the stand-up circuit I don't think he would last very long.
He has since moved on to films but his character hasn't progressed at all; he is still some sort of David Brent clone. This is possibly down to casting directors but he always seems overly self-aware whenever he is on screen. Some actors are always like this but then pull a blinder when they are cast against type - Robin Williams is a good example of this. Many great actors have had long careers playing the same sort of character but the "Ricky Gervais" character is one I've seen quite enough of.
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Unicorn Milk
Tonight for dinner we had Marmite Spaghetti! It actually tasted far nicer than you would imagine. The inspiration for this culinary delight was Nigella Lawson - or at least her latest food porn programme, Nigella Camps It Up - or something like that.
TV cookery programmes can be quite a bit of fun but mainly because the things they knock up are completely off the far side for anyone actually trying to cook it. Heston Blumenthal probably takes this to extremes with his medieval delights of refried dung beetles dipped in liquid nitrogen, cooked by flamethrowers and garnished with radioactive waste. Delia Smith goes to the other extreme of knocking up frozen gunk that would put Kerry Katona to shame. Jamie Oliver looks promising until you see him put up against a professional mass caterer in which case he is reduced to a gibbering wreck. Of course, there is always Gordon Ramsay who has managed to set up several highly successful restaurants despite suffering from chronic coprolalia.
The one thing that seems to unite TV chefs is what I call the Unicorn Milk factor. They have seemingly feasible recipes (well, apart from Heston) that are made completely unattainable by requiring some weird fruit that can only be bought in a Moroccan bazaar; or an exotic spice that is exclusively sold in a backstreet Delhi market stall. For all the use this is to Joe Public it may as well be milk from a mythical creature.
The end result is everyone lives off frozen pizza and cornflakes - with a dash of Unicorn Milk, naturally.
TV cookery programmes can be quite a bit of fun but mainly because the things they knock up are completely off the far side for anyone actually trying to cook it. Heston Blumenthal probably takes this to extremes with his medieval delights of refried dung beetles dipped in liquid nitrogen, cooked by flamethrowers and garnished with radioactive waste. Delia Smith goes to the other extreme of knocking up frozen gunk that would put Kerry Katona to shame. Jamie Oliver looks promising until you see him put up against a professional mass caterer in which case he is reduced to a gibbering wreck. Of course, there is always Gordon Ramsay who has managed to set up several highly successful restaurants despite suffering from chronic coprolalia.
The one thing that seems to unite TV chefs is what I call the Unicorn Milk factor. They have seemingly feasible recipes (well, apart from Heston) that are made completely unattainable by requiring some weird fruit that can only be bought in a Moroccan bazaar; or an exotic spice that is exclusively sold in a backstreet Delhi market stall. For all the use this is to Joe Public it may as well be milk from a mythical creature.
The end result is everyone lives off frozen pizza and cornflakes - with a dash of Unicorn Milk, naturally.
Friday, 15 October 2010
In the Red
I've been taking a great interest at events unfolding in the High Court in London and the shenanigans in Texas as the RBS have been fighting over the future of Liverpool Football Club with their American owners, Hicks & Gillett. How did it get this far and does it really matter? For the latter question, I would argue that: yes, it does.Looking dispassionately at things, it's very easy to dismiss a professional football club as a business like any other; and when looking at the team it's easy enough to view them as a bunch of foreign millionaires running an entertainment business. But there is an important difference between a football club and any other multinational business: it's a matter of civic pride. A football club may become a huge international concern with global shirt sales for the likes of Real Madrid, Manchester United or Bayern Munich; but regardless of the international stretch they are intrinsically tied with the community - after all, it's in the club's name. Unlike some sports "franchises" in the USA, these clubs will always be tied in with the communities of Madrid, Manchester or Munich. If the clubs management let the side down they also let their home towns down.
Liverpool have hit the buffers at an astonishing rate. It is only 18 months ago that they were pushing for the league title and less than 3 years ago that they were at the European Cup final. The mismanagement by it's American owners is astonishing and the long term damage has only been made worse by their greed in overvaluing the club when they had the option of still selling at a profit. Now the judge has sanctioned the sale of the club, it may provide some temporary respite from the risk of a 9 point deduction for a club already fighting relegation; but many things are still uncertain. I suppose the question remains as to whether someone should be left unchallenged to run a business into the ground? Should it be possible for stakeholders; whether it is suppliers, workers, creditors or anyone else; to force inept owners out of the door before they reach the verge of bankruptcy?
I think the judgement will, at least, send a warning to other foreign owners (Manchester United's predicament is similar to Liverpool's if not quite as precarious - yet) that clubs' owners have responsibilities as well as rights. In fact the High Court judge in London gave Hicks and Gillett such a pasting I'm surprised he didn't tell them to bend over and brace themselves. The fact that Hicks and Gillett went to a Texan court to try to stop proceeding was slippery and possibly a last ditch attempt to make some money from the whole affair. It's certainly an abuse of the legal system and, unless such practices are seen as acceptable stateside, it looks like a malicious waste of court time. In fact, the judge in Dallas surmised that they had "demonstrated record of gamesmanship in these proceedings and those in England." It looks like they may have actually committed serious contempt of court in the UK so if they show their faces in England they are likely to face sanction in the form of a prison sentence - or if they show their face in Liverpool, something in the form of a Wicker Man.
Liverpool's new owners are set to be another American consortium. Is this a case of once bitten, twice shy? New England Sports Ventures do appear to have been successful in managing the Boston Red Sox and they have brought some success. I don't think any fan should delude themselves that these are sugar daddy philanthropists. They intend to run the club as a profitable enterprise but the core of any professional sports team is its fan base and if they understand this and can keep the local community on side there is no reason why this couldn't be a happy arrangement for all concerned. However, I expect to see the cost of match tickets rising and some holy cows may have to be sacrificed to stabilise the clubs finances.
Liverpool fans need to start looking to the long term future. With proper management the club's future could look rosy but, whilst I think Liverpool will avoid relegation, I suspect that things will get worse before they get better.
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Film 2010
The "Film" show has been going for donkeys' years (as long as I can remember anyway) and it is that oddity: a radio programme on the TV. That is, the format of chat and straight journalism is a format that is usually found on the radio, particularly Radio 4; except, of course, that film clips don't always work on the radio so by transferring it to television it allows those gaps to be filled out.
There have been a few presenters over the years including Michael Parkinson and , most famously, Barry Norman. For the past few years we have had Jonathan Ross and he has always been my favourite. Whereas Barry Norman always reviewed from the point of view of a professional (his father was a director), Jonathan Ross has always been the arch film fan. His love of cinema has always shone through but he was able to approach the films in different manners depending on the nature of the picture: so we had Ross the film buff, Ross the romantic, Ross the intellectual and, usefully, Ross the father. Above all, I always found his reviews were very accurate. When he announced he was leaving the BBC this was the one show I really thought I would miss him from. Last night I found out just how much.
The BBC announced Claudia Winkleman was going to be taking over Film 2010. I've nothing against Ms Winkleman as a presenter. She's easy enough on the eye and has a friendly manner but I didn't know exactly what her technique as a film critic would be. It turns out that she doesn't have one. The BBC, in their wisdom, have chosen to have a "team" of presenters on the show and, rather than have the lead presenter give a balanced appraisal of the week's films, she now "interviews" another film buff in what is little more than multiplex foyer banter. In fact, it is the same technique they have adopted on the news where instead of a reporter giving a concise piece to camera they are now interviewed by the studio based news reader. The result is very, very irritating. Film 2010 has gone from being a well presented Radio 4 style review show to a simple Radio 1 styled "slot". What were they thinking?
The other big change is that they have now gone to a live format so that viewers can "tweet" their views into the studio. Why? I don't give a damn about what some teenage Blogger thinks. I want a serious measured review. To make matters worse, they then went to a live interview at a film premier somewhere to be treated to 5 minutes of Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield breaking down in fits of giggles. Had they been smoking something funny before hand? I hope not but aside from being a classic piece of car crash television it's something I could do without. At least with Rossy it was all pre-recorded: just as well when he had to use phrases like "Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon." I have a horrible feeling that the current presenters wouldn't know who Akira Kurosawa was.
I sincerely hope this gets better but I have a horrible feeling that the BBC producers don't understand the concept of the show and will kill it off like old favourites such as Top Of The Pops. I suppose they could always try and get Jonathan Ross back - even the Daily Mail is suggesting this.
There have been a few presenters over the years including Michael Parkinson and , most famously, Barry Norman. For the past few years we have had Jonathan Ross and he has always been my favourite. Whereas Barry Norman always reviewed from the point of view of a professional (his father was a director), Jonathan Ross has always been the arch film fan. His love of cinema has always shone through but he was able to approach the films in different manners depending on the nature of the picture: so we had Ross the film buff, Ross the romantic, Ross the intellectual and, usefully, Ross the father. Above all, I always found his reviews were very accurate. When he announced he was leaving the BBC this was the one show I really thought I would miss him from. Last night I found out just how much.
The BBC announced Claudia Winkleman was going to be taking over Film 2010. I've nothing against Ms Winkleman as a presenter. She's easy enough on the eye and has a friendly manner but I didn't know exactly what her technique as a film critic would be. It turns out that she doesn't have one. The BBC, in their wisdom, have chosen to have a "team" of presenters on the show and, rather than have the lead presenter give a balanced appraisal of the week's films, she now "interviews" another film buff in what is little more than multiplex foyer banter. In fact, it is the same technique they have adopted on the news where instead of a reporter giving a concise piece to camera they are now interviewed by the studio based news reader. The result is very, very irritating. Film 2010 has gone from being a well presented Radio 4 style review show to a simple Radio 1 styled "slot". What were they thinking?
The other big change is that they have now gone to a live format so that viewers can "tweet" their views into the studio. Why? I don't give a damn about what some teenage Blogger thinks. I want a serious measured review. To make matters worse, they then went to a live interview at a film premier somewhere to be treated to 5 minutes of Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield breaking down in fits of giggles. Had they been smoking something funny before hand? I hope not but aside from being a classic piece of car crash television it's something I could do without. At least with Rossy it was all pre-recorded: just as well when he had to use phrases like "Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon." I have a horrible feeling that the current presenters wouldn't know who Akira Kurosawa was.
I sincerely hope this gets better but I have a horrible feeling that the BBC producers don't understand the concept of the show and will kill it off like old favourites such as Top Of The Pops. I suppose they could always try and get Jonathan Ross back - even the Daily Mail is suggesting this.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
Child Benefit
The news this week has been dominated by the Tory's announcement that they will stop Child Benefit for higher rate taxpayers. Much of the fury over this policy seems to be generated by a sense of unfairness. The reasons for this unfairness vary but I do agree that the whole policy is remarkably ill thought out.
I think a great deal of this sense of unfairness is coming from Conservative supporters themselves. After all, this is their government and surely any benefit cuts should be aimed at those undeserving, asylum-seeking scroungers living in an expensive Knightsbridge townhouse with their multitude of offspring. Now, apart from the fact that this is a tiny minority of people, even if they do exist outside of the fevered imagination of Daily Mail journalists, the government has announced a benefit cap and, no doubt, a very special place in Hell put aside for anyone in that situation. I can only be thankful that I am not employed as a social worker because I really wouldn't want to pick up that mess. But I can understand the fury of the conservative voters - particularly as the politicians appear to have been very lax with the truth before the election.
The next group who have expressed a sense of unfairness are Labour supporters and politicians. On the face of it you may think that higher rate taxpayers are not the prime concern of Ed Miliband's new improved left-wing Labour; but I think there is a greater principle here and that is the concept of universal benefits. Universal benefits such as pensions, sickness benefit, child benefit and the free health service have proven hugely popular since they were introduced by the Atlee government. Originally, this was because most people could remember how awful the country was prior to their introduction but as the country has grown in prosperity they are maybe not as necessary as they once were. However, I heard an interview with Roy Hattersley a couple of months ago in which he defended universal benefits. His argument was that if everyone received a benefit regardless of income then they were much happier that everyone else should receive the same. If some people are excluded from this then there is growing resentment, usually amongst the chattering classes, that anyone receives these benefits at all. I think this is were Labour are coming from - if the middle classes don't benefit from Child Benefit then there is a good chance that no one will in the near future.
Another group who are outraged are feminists and women's rights groups. This is easy to see as it is, more often than not, women who will lose out on this - particularly stay-at-home mothers. In fact it was largely for this group that Child Benefit replaced Child Allowance as the aim was to ensure that it was the primary carer that would receive the money rather than the main wage earner who would be perceived to spend it all down the pub. This isn't exactly the first shot across the bows at the stay-at-home mother - a much maligned and undervalued individual and one that has been (and often still is) the backbone of the community. These are, after all, the ones that can volunteer for local good causes, help at school outings and parent support groups. All this extra work is unpaid - it will be paid even less now.
As for me, I will have to see how I am affected in a couple of years time. I haven't been a higher rate taxpayer for a few years. The last time I was, I switched jobs as the one I had was far more hassle than it was worth. That decision could only be made easier if I would be financially better off as a result. As I have three children I would have to be earning £4,000 per year more as a higher rate taxpayer to break even and this is really where the Tory policy loses the plot. Many people get stuck on benefits as they are in a poverty trap. The benefits are not generous but they allow families to scrape an existence. More often than not, any low paid work will result in the withdrawal of benefits to a greater extent than any extra income may bring in and, as a result, they are trapped in benefits dependent poverty. The Conservatives' Child Benefit policy will create a similar situation for middle earners. Taking a small promotion or pay rise, or even doing some overtime, will lead to families becoming worse off. That, I think, is really what is unfair about the whole idea.
There is one fundamental policy which I think all parties should adopt: work should always pay. It doesn't matter whether it is someone on a minimum wage or a millionaire - if they have done an honest days work they should be better off as a result of it. Unfortunately, when I look at our politicians I see very few who have ever done an honest days work in their life so I would never expect any of them to understand how people operate in the real world.
I think a great deal of this sense of unfairness is coming from Conservative supporters themselves. After all, this is their government and surely any benefit cuts should be aimed at those undeserving, asylum-seeking scroungers living in an expensive Knightsbridge townhouse with their multitude of offspring. Now, apart from the fact that this is a tiny minority of people, even if they do exist outside of the fevered imagination of Daily Mail journalists, the government has announced a benefit cap and, no doubt, a very special place in Hell put aside for anyone in that situation. I can only be thankful that I am not employed as a social worker because I really wouldn't want to pick up that mess. But I can understand the fury of the conservative voters - particularly as the politicians appear to have been very lax with the truth before the election.
The next group who have expressed a sense of unfairness are Labour supporters and politicians. On the face of it you may think that higher rate taxpayers are not the prime concern of Ed Miliband's new improved left-wing Labour; but I think there is a greater principle here and that is the concept of universal benefits. Universal benefits such as pensions, sickness benefit, child benefit and the free health service have proven hugely popular since they were introduced by the Atlee government. Originally, this was because most people could remember how awful the country was prior to their introduction but as the country has grown in prosperity they are maybe not as necessary as they once were. However, I heard an interview with Roy Hattersley a couple of months ago in which he defended universal benefits. His argument was that if everyone received a benefit regardless of income then they were much happier that everyone else should receive the same. If some people are excluded from this then there is growing resentment, usually amongst the chattering classes, that anyone receives these benefits at all. I think this is were Labour are coming from - if the middle classes don't benefit from Child Benefit then there is a good chance that no one will in the near future.
Another group who are outraged are feminists and women's rights groups. This is easy to see as it is, more often than not, women who will lose out on this - particularly stay-at-home mothers. In fact it was largely for this group that Child Benefit replaced Child Allowance as the aim was to ensure that it was the primary carer that would receive the money rather than the main wage earner who would be perceived to spend it all down the pub. This isn't exactly the first shot across the bows at the stay-at-home mother - a much maligned and undervalued individual and one that has been (and often still is) the backbone of the community. These are, after all, the ones that can volunteer for local good causes, help at school outings and parent support groups. All this extra work is unpaid - it will be paid even less now.
As for me, I will have to see how I am affected in a couple of years time. I haven't been a higher rate taxpayer for a few years. The last time I was, I switched jobs as the one I had was far more hassle than it was worth. That decision could only be made easier if I would be financially better off as a result. As I have three children I would have to be earning £4,000 per year more as a higher rate taxpayer to break even and this is really where the Tory policy loses the plot. Many people get stuck on benefits as they are in a poverty trap. The benefits are not generous but they allow families to scrape an existence. More often than not, any low paid work will result in the withdrawal of benefits to a greater extent than any extra income may bring in and, as a result, they are trapped in benefits dependent poverty. The Conservatives' Child Benefit policy will create a similar situation for middle earners. Taking a small promotion or pay rise, or even doing some overtime, will lead to families becoming worse off. That, I think, is really what is unfair about the whole idea.
There is one fundamental policy which I think all parties should adopt: work should always pay. It doesn't matter whether it is someone on a minimum wage or a millionaire - if they have done an honest days work they should be better off as a result of it. Unfortunately, when I look at our politicians I see very few who have ever done an honest days work in their life so I would never expect any of them to understand how people operate in the real world.
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Conkers
Last Sunday I took the my two sons along to a nearby country park; ostensibly to walk the dog but actually to get the kids out of my wife's hair for an hour or so. It's lovely at this time of year with the leaves turning golden and the breeze cool but not too chilly. Amongst the autumnal foliage I discovered a horse chestnut tree had shed it's load of conkers and there were dozens of the things lying on the ground unclaimed.
We collected a few and I asked the boys if they played conkers at school. They looked a bit blank so I suggested that it was the game where you knocked them into each other to see who would win. My older son, Raymond, then brighten up and went into a great description of a game that he had played at school that, after half a minute or so, was clearly meant to be marbles. So, I explained the grand old tradition of the game of conkers and we set off home to find some boot laces and start a game.
Now, I had always assumed that young boys would naturally play conkers as a sort of genetic predisposition but everyone has to learn somewhere. The game started with the younger boy, Jake, having first strike. He missed. So did Raymond. Jake tried again and missed but managed to get the string wrapped around his hand. Raymond then managed to hit the string which lead to a brief Tug-of-War match. Jake then took a huge swipe at Raymond's conker, missed and shattered his own on the floor - this lead to a brief bout of tears.
Jake's conker was reloaded and this time Raymond took first swing. He hit the conker but rather than Jake's chestnut being obliterated it was Raymond's conker that broke. Apparently, this was unfair as Jake had cheated in some unspecified manner. We reloaded Raymond's conker. Jake then took a swing but Raymond moved at the last minute. This was determined to be cheating in a well specified manner so Jake had another swing but this time hit Raymond on the knuckles. This prompted him to retaliate and hit Jake on the head which led to a bout of crying all around.
I put the conkers back in the box. Maybe the Wii was invented for a reason.
We collected a few and I asked the boys if they played conkers at school. They looked a bit blank so I suggested that it was the game where you knocked them into each other to see who would win. My older son, Raymond, then brighten up and went into a great description of a game that he had played at school that, after half a minute or so, was clearly meant to be marbles. So, I explained the grand old tradition of the game of conkers and we set off home to find some boot laces and start a game.
Now, I had always assumed that young boys would naturally play conkers as a sort of genetic predisposition but everyone has to learn somewhere. The game started with the younger boy, Jake, having first strike. He missed. So did Raymond. Jake tried again and missed but managed to get the string wrapped around his hand. Raymond then managed to hit the string which lead to a brief Tug-of-War match. Jake then took a huge swipe at Raymond's conker, missed and shattered his own on the floor - this lead to a brief bout of tears.
Jake's conker was reloaded and this time Raymond took first swing. He hit the conker but rather than Jake's chestnut being obliterated it was Raymond's conker that broke. Apparently, this was unfair as Jake had cheated in some unspecified manner. We reloaded Raymond's conker. Jake then took a swing but Raymond moved at the last minute. This was determined to be cheating in a well specified manner so Jake had another swing but this time hit Raymond on the knuckles. This prompted him to retaliate and hit Jake on the head which led to a bout of crying all around.
I put the conkers back in the box. Maybe the Wii was invented for a reason.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
From Heaven to Hell
I needed to buy a new deodorant stick this week. This might sound like a fairly straight forward thing to do but, as I have an allergic reaction to almost all commercially available smellies, I am reduced to buying Ammonium Alum crystals off the internet. This, of course, gave me a good excuse to fill out my Amazon order with CDs to take advantage of Supersaver Delivery (well, that was my excuse anyway). I thought I'd have a break from the Jazz so I went for a couple of disks that, at first sight, would appear to be poles apart.
The first selection I went for were some works by Gustav Holst. Holst's Planets Suite is one of the most popular orchestral works of the 20th Century and even the most modest classical music collections will tend to have a copy. My copy is conducted by Simon Rattle and it is an excellent performance from 1980 which is only let down slightly by the effects of early digital recording. However, despite a classical music collection of several hundred disks, that is the only work by Holst I have. I suspect that is the case for most people. I have heard the odd recording on Radio 3 of his other works but I suspect that most people know nothing else by him. I thought I'd put that right.I went for a Decca "British Music Collection" set containing 2 disks and 10 works. The first disk contains mainly choral pieces and are mostly performances conducted by his daughter: Imogen Holst. The first two works show an interest in Indian culture, Rig Vida is a series of songs translated from Sanskrit and set to a female choir with harp backing, whereas Sávitri is actually an entire chamber opera in one act. It's notable that Holst seems to have written much of his work for female voices and small-scale orchestras. In fact, Holst was a teacher at an all-girls school in London so this may have been more out of expediency rather than preference but the effect is very pleasing. The Seven Part Songs and Evening Watch carry on in much the same vein but the closing piece on the first disk, Fugal Concerto, is a much brighter sounding neo-classical work which is very melodic to the point of sounding twee.
The second disk contains mainly orchestral works and is probably closer in style to The Planets. However, it starts with the St Paul's Suite which is a melodic work which he wrote specifically for his students to perform. The next three pieces show more of what Holst was capable of, The Perfect Fool is a suite of works taken from a failed opera whereas Egdon Heath is a tone poem based around the life of Thomas Hardy. It is meant to portray the writer walking across the barren landscape and it works very well. The next piece is another choral work, The Hymn of Jesus, which was written just after The Planets and is based upon apocryphal gospels and the disk ends with Moorside Suite - something of an anomaly as it is a piece written for a brass band but shows another side to the composer's talents.
I suppose the question I am left asking is why is Holst really only remembered for the one work? Many of the performances on these disks are at least as good as his magnum opus but, possibly, they don't quite have the obvious astrological imagery of The Planets' seven movements. The technical innovations of The Planets made this the must see event of the day. I think, also, that had Holst lived beyond 1934 he would have benefited from the newly arrived market for film scores. Maybe it's none of these things. The world of Classical Music can be a fickle beast.
I still needed a couple of pounds worth to fill out the Amazon order and one of their recommendations caught my eye: Iron Maiden - Somewhere Back in Time. Iron Maiden was a band that I really liked in the early to mid 1980s. I saw them live at the Liverpool Empire around this time (it may have been the Powerslave tour - I seem to recall that the T-shirt cost more than the ticket and that was under £5) but I rather lost interest in them after 1990 and, as I only have their albums on vinyl, it's ages since I listened to anything by them. I had a quick look around and they didn't seem to have anything better in terms of a compilation album so I added this to the order.
Somewhere Back in Time was released a couple of years ago and was intended to promote their World Tour - rather than back in the day when a tour would promote an album. It contains their "Best of" tracks from the 1980s period I liked and it's not hard to see what I liked about them - solid rock performances and decent tunes. It's also interesting to look back on them with older eyes. I think the first thing that stands out is that, despite them seeming raw and edgy at the time, they now sound decidedly old school. It's also very noticeable how much of a debt they owe to the twin guitar sound of Thin Lizzy - although without Phil Lynott's sense of Irish mysticism. Additionally, their lyrics stand out as "of a theme"; they largely borrow from literature, poetry, films, historical events and so on but there is very little of "them" in there. Bruce Dickinson's singing is impassioned and it's all intelligent stuff but there is no emotional or political involvement in the songs with the exception of the anti-nuclear 2 Minutes to Midnight and the empathy with native American peoples in Run to the Hills.
As for the choice of songs, at first I couldn't fault this album; until, that is, that I noticed that there are no songs from the first two albums featuring original singer Paul Di'Anno. Three of these early songs are represented in live form: Iron Maiden, Wrathchild and the technically brilliant Phantom of the Opera but this means that great tracks like Prowler, Running Free, Sanctuary and Drifter are all missed out. Also, I noticed that there was only one track from the Piece of Mind album. Having said that, there is nothing that is on the album that doesn't deserve to be there. It's the mark of a great band that, when struggling to whittle down to a "best of" album, the chop has to fall somewhere - and it's also evidence that they could really do with coming up with a definitive anthology of their whole career.
It does seem, at first, a bit odd to be buying both Holst and Maiden together but, even in the 1980s, I listened to both. It's an odd thing but many Heavy Metal fans seem to appreciate a bit of classical, possibly more to the bombastic end of things, but someone who likes the Iron Maidens of this world will often be partial to a bit of Wagner, Beethoven, Bach or Berlioz. As I was looking up the old Maiden albums on Wikipedia, I noticed that they actually used Holst's Mars from the Planets Suite as their entrance music on their most recent tour - from Heaven to Hell in one swift move.
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