We're all journalists now..?

More legal news. I'm not sure where I stand on this whole Apple v the rumour sites issue. I read a lot of the rumour sites avidly, and I'm a bit disturbed by Apple's heavy handed approach. But (a little inconsistently for me) I also think they have a point, and that the whole civil liberties and freedom of the press issue is being wrongly played here. (I'm a big advocate of Britain's unwritten constitution - it comes in very handy sometimes, as Charles's engagement to Camilla last week showed!)

Investigative journalism is undeniably essential in matters of public interest, such as crimes or corruption. But stealing a company's secrets is hardly 'in the public interest' - it may be of interest to the public but that's completely different. If a company is developing something that gives it a competitive edge over a rival, well that's interesting. But stealing that secret, or soliciting the stealing of that secret, risks an awful lot - perhaps even people's jobs and livelihoods.
And protecting a criminal is not covered, I would say, by constitutional rights, so this doesn't strike me as a 'protecting sources' thing.

So what about the issue about the status of people who operate these websites as being journalists? That's a tricky one because by that token I am a journalist for writing this blog, as is a woman who might run a site that interviews Osama Bin Laden. I'm protected, she's protected: we're all journalists now...

The Republican and Democratic party conventions last year gave press passes to blog-owners, and Apple's own keynote was covered live by blogs presumably there on press passes, so as far as those organisations are concerened, they are journalists. However in Apple's defence they stopped issuing press credentials to rumour sites a few years ago, if memory serves, so they have some sort of criteria - presumably the law should too. If it's not written in statute then it's up to the courts to rule, and that seems to be what might happen in the case announced today. If the EFF's argument succeeds then I assume I can legitimately put 'journalist' on my passport.

Mind you, considering the standards of some 'real' journalists, I think I'd be stupid to sink so low.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple attacked over sources row: "Civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined a legal fight between three US online journalists and Apple.

Apple wants the reporters to reveal 20 sources used for stories which leaked information about forthcoming products, including the Mac Mini.

The EFF, representing the reporters, has asked California's Superior court to stop Apple pursuing the sources.

It argues that the journalists are protected by the American constitution.

The EFF says the case threatens the basic freedoms of the press."

'McLibel' case finally over after 15 years

The longest legal case in British history is finally over, it seems. The McLibel pair, who were sued by McDonald's after handing out leaflets alleging all sorts of things, have won their case against the government who denied them legal aid. By law, legal aid is not given for libel actions but, as these two successfully argued, that amounts to denying them the right to defend their right to free speech - if you see what I mean.

The libel laws here are a bit bizarre. If you are libelled or slandered, it is extremely costly to sue someone, and almost impossible to win your case as you have to show that the things said about you are not true.

But, as this case shows, if you have the money you can sue to your heart's content and, as usually happens, hope your weaker opponent rolls over. And if they don't, and you can afford good counsel, you're likely to win on obscure details rather than the broader truth.

The 'nice' thing about the McLibel case was the defendants insisted on answering each and every one of McDonald's complaints against them in painful detail, in open court. Although in the end they 'lost', the final judgement was damning for the company. Makes you proud to be British!

BBC NEWS | UK | 'McLibel' pair win legal aid case: "The legal wrangle - the longest civil or criminal action in English legal history - was triggered when McDonald's decided to act against former gardener Helen Steel, 39, and former postman David Morris, 50.

Libellous leaflets

The leaflets they handed out, containing damaging allegations about McDonald's, were compiled by London Greenpeace - which is not linked to the Greenpeace International environmental group.

Neither Ms Steel nor Mr Morris had any hand in writing the leaflets, but became embroiled in a libel action launched in 1990 and which ended only in 1997 - with a total of 314 days spent in court.

High Court judge Mr Justice Bell ruled McDonald's had been libelled and awarded the company £60,000 in damages, which was later reduced to £40,000 on appeal.

But he found the leaflet was true when it accused McDonald's of paying low wages to its workers, being responsible for cruelty to some of the animals used in its food products and exploiting children in advertising campaigns.

The case is thought to have cost the fast food giant £10m and was described as 'the biggest corporate PR disaster in history'."

Read more

Avoiding jet-lag

I was thinking about jet-lag today, for some reason. I've only flown
twice (to Ireland and back) so have never suffered from it myself. But
according to some people, we are affected differently by jet-lag
depending on whether we fly east-west or west-east.
But why not when we fly north-south or south-north?

Think about it...

Bingo!

Mention ‘bingo’ to anyone and the first image that will flash into their minds is probably one of old women with blue rinses whiling away the final hours of their life as they wait in vain for their lucky numbers.
But bingo is big business in Britain and the backbone of a multi-million pound industry, a key component in the portfolio of some of the FTSE’s biggest companies. Mecca Bingo is one of three companies in the Rank Group’s ‘gaming’ division, the others being Grosvenor Casinos and the Blue Square online bookies. Boasting over three million members and 120 clubs, Mecca recently launched an advertising campaign designed to make bingo appealing to young women, selling the experience as being escapist and an opportunity to meet interesting and desirable people.
So how does the hype live up to reality?



As part of a course I'm running this year called 'Worst Course Ever - The Simpsons Family Guide to Cultural Studies' I took some of my second year art and design students to play bingo. I thought actually taking part would be far better than reading an academic treatise on it or sitting through a lecture. There was a serious point to the exercise: one of the main focuses of the course is 'everyday culture', and I try to make the point that the things we take for granted are worth studying because they form the everyday backdrop to our lives, and are the primary sites at which we construct meaning for those lives. So off we went. (You can see larger images of the photos here)



Mecca’s website is friendly enough with engaging, trendy graphics and an obvious tie-in to the advertising campaign. But no matter how hard the site tries, the rules of bingo – which you would think are quite simple – come across as overly complicated. In actual fact, the rules themselves are simple enough but the terminology proves to be the biggest problem: ‘Sessions’ (of which there are three, with the third being split into two), ‘pages’ (a number of tickets for the same game), ‘flyers’ (a single page of tickets), ‘tickets’ (a grid of fifteen numbers), ‘sets’ (books and flyers sold together), ‘books’ (a series of tickets for different games), and ‘all in’ (a set of six books and flyers sold together at one price).

Hang on, there’s more: A ‘link game’ is one where several clubs play together; a ‘diamond game’ is played every afternoon Tuesday to Friday with up to a £9,000 prize; and the ‘national game’ played every evening – except Saturday when it’s played in the afternoon as well – in which all clubs play together for £100,000 and up to £200,000 on a Sunday. According to the website, these terms are all you need to know…

Playing bingo isn’t as simple as just turning up on the night. Apparently by law you need to join a club at least 24 hours in advance, so your first game at least needs to be planned in advance. The sign-up procedure is simple enough (I signed up online and a form was posted to me a few days later) and all being well you should receive a membership card (I never did) though your details are on Mecca’s computer so you can play before you get the coveted bit of plastic.
We went on a Thursday night, mainly because it’s free on Thursdays. The Mecca bingo hall in Brighton is situated on Middle Street near the sea front and just off the Lanes district, so it’s easy to get to if you’re based in town but it’s a long way from the large housing estates that probably provide most of its clientele. The hall itself is the former Hippodrome, which started life as an ice rink in 1897 before quickly being converted into a theatre, forming the jewel in the crown of a local music hall empire that, in its heyday and before cinema and TV, was a major form of entertainment in Britain. Before it went the way of most music halls and picture houses and succumbed to the bingo craze, the Hippodrome secured a small footnote in music history when the Beatles played there in 1963, firstly supporting Roy Orbison and then on two occasions afterwards as headline acts.
The hall is an excellent example of the theatre architecture of the period. Mecca’s stained glass frontage lends it an air of the sacred and, indeed, this is very much a temple to fun – although the choice of ‘Mecca’ as the name is a little distasteful given the gambling.

Entering was something of a letdown – a plain white foyer with a faded desk and an equally faded old man who asked for our cards. I noticed, as we entered, that two young women who were looking through some leaflets looked up at the men in our group and seemed to decide they were coming in if we were typical of what was on offer (I exclude myself from that). It’s difficult to describe the feeling of anticipation and nervousness as we walked through the doors into… another hallway. It was like going to an old swimming pool where you can see in to where everyone is having fun but first you need to go through several turnstiles before you’re allowed in. We came to a woman behind another counter that looked like a cloakroom but was in fact the ticket desk. We had been prepared to pay good money to play but it turned out we could each have a ‘free book’ which we took gratefully. But requests for help as first timers were turned down because she was too busy (she wasn’t – we were the only people in the queue) and we were told to ask one of the staff inside.

So eventually we got into the hall itself. The auditorium remains, with ranks of seats reaching up to the high ceiling. Some Mecca halls still host variety nights so it’s possible the seats are used, but if you dared to look up it was quite a sad sight. All the action was taking place on the floor with tables arranged in circles around a central dais. We made straight for the bar, like people gate-crashing a party where we didn’t know anyone. In the background we could hear the caller intoning numbers; it reminded me of an episode of Doctor Who in which the inhabitants of the planet Logopolis manipulate the structure of space by muttering calculations, and although I’m sure I was alone in making that connection I suspect a similar thing was happening here, with hundreds of people literally willing the next number to be theirs. You could feel matter being tranformed as a thousand brains worked together, like some sort of psychic experiment. Or maybe not.

While half our group tried to find somewhere to sit, negotiating the complex minefield of table ownership, some of us opted to buy a drink instead. I made my first mistake by standing behind the people at the bar in the traditional way, only to be told firmly by the old woman in front of me (Phyllis, it turned out) that I had to stand in line. So I did. Lee, who stood behind me, asked the barman if anything was on offer. ‘Only Phyllis’ he said, at which the old woman perked up and eyed Lee up and down. ‘I’ll just have the lager then’ said Lee. ‘No offence’.

We found some seats together and tried to make sense of the game. The caller was firing out colours and numbers in quick succession: ‘blue number forty three red number twelve white number sixty three’ – and on and on until ‘we’ve got a call’ at which point it started again. We were a bit confused as the pages of our books (or were they flyers?) were each coloured differently. Were we supposed to leaf through the book and mark numbers depending on what colour page they were on? Or could we just decide we were going to play one colour per game? After a couple of goes at doing that and realising we were only marking a small range of numbers we realised that, for now, the game was based on a console printed into the table for which markers were available. A slot in the centre enabled us to put money in to play, and we tried a few games without much success.



Then came the ‘national game’ and we got really excited, each of us getting our books/flyers/whatever ready. Until a woman who was sitting near us, and who obviously realised we were bingo virgins, held up her paid-for purple book and told us we couldn’t play this one. So we sat that one out and watched. Someone won but it seemed that the jackpot was only £3.50, according to the massive LED display – unless we were reading it wrong. But £3.50 for a national game jackpot seems a bit low, even for a Thursday night.

The helpful woman put her losing book away calmly and turned to us, nodding. Now we can play! She even lent us some fat ‘Mecca Markers’ – these large felt tip pens are essential as using a biro proved to be a dreadful time waster. How some people can play more than one book at a time is beyond me, but there is a pattern to the way the numbers are arranged, so with practice you must get the hang of it. Each ticket has eight columns; each column is reserved for units, tens, twenties etc up to 69; on each page, all 69 numbers will appear once. So when a number is called you have to quickly scan down the correct column and dab the number before the next one is called – which is almost immediately. I have to admit, the adrenaline starts rushing and it’s not hard to see how the game can become addictive.



Each game is split into three parts. The first part ends when someone gets a horizontal line; the second when someone gets two lines, and the whole game is over when someone gets a full house. At one point we thought we had a winner when Amelia timidly asked if she should ‘call’ when she heard someone else do it, as she had a line too. So she called – but we had to retract it apologetically when we realised she only had one line, and this was for two… So many rules.

The clientele was mixed that night. We were sat a fair distance from the dais near the ‘food court’ (which was closed) but around us was a mix of old people, young women, couples, people on their own or in groups, and a few families (or at least mothers and daughters). Most, if not all, appeared to be working class.



The atmosphere was quite tense, which I found intimidating. If our neighbour hadn’t taken pity on us and explained the rules (in the short gaps between games) I don’t think we would have played at all, and there was no way we could stop a member of staff and ask as they were constantly running back and forth checking claims.
Within a few minutes it was all over – we’d played our last page and the caller declared the first half of that night’s session over. People started to leave but a few remained for another national game (the caller asked those leaving to be quiet out of respect for those staying and it reminded me of the last lesson of the school day when everyone leaves except the poor souls in detention).

So we got up and left as well, repairing to the pub on the other side of the road to recover.

All in all, an entertaining and educational evening – far more so than simply reading about bingo in an attempt to understand it. Amelia seemed most touched by the experience, mentioning how everyone there seemed to be mesmerised as they stamped their sheets with their pens in response to the caller’s voice, like a preacher proclaiming over the tannoy. It seemed to underline the Frankfurt School’s criticisms of mass culture as a pacifier – something we are given to do by those in control in order to keep us happy and undemanding. And certainly if you look at Rank’s web site (www.rank.com) it is a large company telling its shareholders how well it’s doing – that’s its primary concern, though trading as Mecca it tells its vastly different customers that it is there as some sort of service for entertainment and leisure. I don’t know – it’s easy to be cynical, and to adopt a lofty educated opinion, bemoaning the fact that people are content to gamble away what little money they have in return for the short-lived rush of adrenaline. For the young women in the advertising campaign, bingo is sold as a way of catching up on the gossip and of meeting fit young men; but in the sheer frantic nature of the half hour or so we were there, I couldn’t see much opportunity for anything other than willing my numbers to come up.

What happened to dirty weekends in Brighton?

Just found an article on the Guardian website about the tradition of dirty weekends in Brighton. And what do you know? Apparently battered cod is a known aphrodisiac as I said in my last post. So it was the fish, not me, after all. Bugger.

Read the full article (extract below) - it's quite a good take on the British view of romance. I've just seen another one in today's print version of the Guardian, an American's view of the British aversion to dating: "By dating I don't mean occasionally bumping into each other and snogging each other until you finally decide you're going out" - yep, that sounds like the British way of doing things to me! Get pissed, get off, get it on. If I can find a link to an online version I'll post it.

What happened to dirty weekends in Brighton?: "There's something uniquely English about the concept of the dirty weekend. The French and Italians don't even have a word for it, but then they've never felt the need to decamp to the seaside for a bit of extracurricular. My American friends quite sweetly think it is something to do with sports. I wonder whether the Empire wasn't sustained through the British ability to impose mannered order on the fearsome unknown - as with India, so with Brighton, which we had to invent because we're terrified of sex.

In his book Breakfast in Brighton, Nigel Richardson posits our very own Sodom-on-Sea as 'the antithesis of England', but Brighton couldn't exist anywhere else. In its heyday, Brighton may have been the genius loci of sexual, sartorial and culinary excess, but there remains something peculiarly British about its ritualisation of the forbidden. A whiff of sea air and battered cod and we are free to cast off our inhibitions along with our raincoats and frolic on the shores of delight, or so the theory goes."

Love is in the air - smug bastards

Bloody Valentine's Day again. Whose idea was that, then?
I wonder if there's scope to sue Hallmark for emotional distress? I missed the postman this morning but I passed him in town on my way in to work and he didn't seem to have my sack of mail. That's the thirty-fourth year running he's stolen my pile of valentine cards.

The woman on the radio this morning was saying that today is, after Christmas, the peak time for suicides, which cheered me up no end, particularly when she said people who were in love should remember those who are on their own and look them straight in the eyes to see if they were 'really okay'. Bloody do-gooders. I think I'm going to press my face up against a few restaurants tonight and make faces at all the couples.

Actually that's what I do most nights, which is probably why I don't get cards...

A couple of years ago, shortly after moving to Brighton, my friend came over on Valentines Day so I took her for a romantic meal out - but everywhere was booked up, so we ended up in the local fish and chip restaurant (and enjoyed it immensely if I recall. Battered cod as an aphrodisiac - who'd have thought it?). But it seems that if you want to go out for a valentine meal you need to book several weeks in advance. Yet according to this same woman on the radio, the two weeks before and after valentines day are the time when most relationships break up. So logically, there should be a fair proportion of cancellations in restaurants tonight so if you happened to pull someone in the past couple of weeks (or even on the way home tonight) you might be in with a chance. Dead man's shoes, and all that...

Ho hum.

The report below is quite interesting, though it'll be interesting to see who funded the 'research' (note to self: must save academic career by looking at calendar and picking a research topic that will be lapped up by the papers come the day). A piece of research from Wales that said the last Monday in January was mathematically the most depressing day of the year (and came with a formula to prove it) and was covered in just about every media outlet over here was, it turned out, funded by Rupert Murdoch's Sky Travel TV channel! Mmm...

Still, it's worth a try, this online dating lark, so as an experiment - purely for science, you understand, I've decided to give it a go. I shall report back as soon as anything happens.

BBC NEWS | Education | Online dating 'good for romance': "Dating websites can give people a 'surprisingly high' chance of long-term romance, suggests a study published on St Valentine's Day.

Some 94% of UK online agency customers questioned saw their 'e-partner' again after the first face-to-face meeting.

Bath University psychologist, Jeff Gavin, surveyed 229 adults, finding web dating worked 'for many people'.

But he told BBC News that 4% of those customers who took part in the study 'were already married'. (Read more)"

The pursuit of style: Man stabbed in Ikea opening chaos

A big part of my book, Visual Communications (now due in November, not June - I got a bit mixed up), focuses on the use of consumption to communicate our sense of identity which is, in a seemingly contradictory way, a desire for independence and belonging. One of the things I try to get across is the way in which our natural instincts for bricolage, typified in the hand-me-down culture of clothing and furniture that was still prevalent in the 1970s-80s when I was growing up, has been replaced by a top-down conception of what we should look like, and what our homes should look like.
Where once you could walk into a neighbour's house and it would be completely different from your own, and anybody else's, today we seem to be encouraged by makeover TV programmes and trendy chains to adopt a showroom feel. Style and identity are as interlinked as ever before but it seems to me that the identity is now one of being stylish, rather than the style refelcting the identity - if you get my meaning.

I write this sitting on my Ikea sofa surrounded by my Ikea furniture, the cat is lying on my (her!) Ikea rug, in a rented flat with trendy (but impractical) bare floorboards. I'm as much a victim as anybody else.

I'm not ashamed (slightly embarassed, but not ashamed) to say that one of my favourite TV programmes is Colin and Justin's How Not To Decorate in which two Scottish men (who are gay - which is not a comment on my part but part of the whole set-up of the programme) go into someone's house and criticise their decorating skills. The homes they pick truly are awful - I can't even begin to describe some of the things you can see on the show. They then go away and design a new look, and have about a week to do it while the owners are living in a caravan in the garden. It's funny because of the voyeristic nature of the show, the bad taste of the 'victims', and the way in which these two interior designers have absolutely no idea of project management or reality, as they leave the project for a couple of days then come back and annoy everyone because things aren't on schedule or they couldn't source the correct type of sofa.
But it's also quite sad because, although the end results generally look rather good, and have the couples in tears of joy, they are devoid of their personality. This is someone else's view of style, and someone else's identity.
Where this programme scores over others is that it always ends with Colin and Justin watching a video sent to them by their 'victims' a few weeks later to see how they're settling into their new home. Almost without fail, something that they removed has been put back - a horrible seashell coffee table, a cat litter tray in the new conservatory/dining area, fake brick wallpaper, stone cladding on the front of the house. The point is made quite clearly that style is a matter of taste, and that one person's taste is going to be different from someone else's.
The idea that we should all aspire to aesthetic perfection is what sociologists call an 'illusio', a 'truth' that is created to support the interests of the people who preach it. In reality, the 'truth' has no bearing whatsoever on anyone else. So it is in an interior designer's interests to spread the word about 'good taste' because by pointing out others' failures they create a demand for their 'expertise'. The same is true of graphic design - we create aesthetic illusios about the need for perfect kerning, leading, 'creative' layout and mould-breaking, innovative design when, at the end of the day, people only want to know where the fire exit is, how much baked beans are today, where the jumble sale is, who is selling ice cream and so on. Nobody stops to look at our work and marvels at the beautiful typography - only other designers do that, people who share the illusio.
Now that sounds like a criticism of designers, and a call to stop worrying about producing 'good' design - far from it. But it seems to me that we tend to focus, in the industry and in education, on perpetuating the illusios of our profession rather than the effectual realities. The problem we face is that, the more we attempt to wrap what we do in smoke and mirrors, to perpetuate the idea that design is some sort of magic, the more removed we become from the people we serve. This results in people believing we are 'unreal' and choosing to do design for themselves, or giving jobs to people who offer speed and low cost rather than expensive over-the-top design and a 'I'm a designer attitude'.
In part, I think design's move towards an art aesthetic and discourse is a response to the 'democratisation' of design, the fact that anyone with a computer thinks they can do it, and the plethora of magazines and books that reveal how it's done (hence the rejection by some 'elite' designers of practical theory). But I also think the growth in the DIY design press and industry is a reaction to the move towards autonomy that designers appear to be seeking. (I say 'appear' because it's a small minority, but an influential one - the 'big names', the industry bodies and education). The idea that designers produce boxes for frozen food, or signs for supermarkets, or TV guides, is anathema to some who want to be seen not as artisans, but as artists; consequently they encourage the image of design as art, as a natural-born creative gift, a sort of religion or magic.
No wonder, the moment we've done our 'thing' people start to mess around with it, like the woman putting her seashell coffee table back the moment Colin and Justin have left the building...

Anyway, I seem to have gone off on one again, and now I'm running late. All this was supposed to be a lead in to this funny, but disturbing, story about the UK's latest Ikea store which opened last night. I just heard an interview on BBC Radio 4 which reported that the motorway near the store was like a car park, with abandoned vehicles - a lot of people just left their cars and ran to the store, while others left them and just went home.

Bizarre.

Man stabbed in Ikea opening chaos: "One man was stabbed near Ikea's newest store and several people were hurt in the crush as thousands flocked to its midnight opening.

Nine ambulances went to the Edmonton store, north London, after reports that up to 20 people were suffering from heat exhaustion and minor injuries.

Bargain-hunters even abandoned their cars on the A406 north circular causing 'severe traffic' problems, police said.

Safety fears forced the store to shut 30 minutes after it opened.

A police spokeswoman said the stabbing victim, who was in his 20s, was attacked near the store at about 0130 GMT on Thursday.
He is in a stable condition.

An Ikea spokeswoman said its flagship store, the biggest in England, had to close because of an 'unforeseen volume of customers'.

Advertising announcing cut price offers over 24 hours attracted about 4,000 people to the store, according to the London Ambulance Service.

Six people, including the man who was stabbed and one patient said to have been suffering chest pains, were taken to the North Middlesex and Whipps Cross hospitals.

Ikea said it had worked closely with the emergency services in planning for the opening but said the store would remain closed until further notice.

Founded in Sweden in 1943, the company has proved a hit with British homeowners since opening its first UK store in 1987."

Pants to this...

Fines for 'droopy drawers' backed: "US politicians fed up with catching an eyeful of underwear want to fine those who won't hitch up their trousers.

The Virginia state house has voted to outlaw the trend of wearing trousers so low that underwear hangs over the top.

Delegates said the habit, popular across the US and in other Western countries, was 'coarsening' society.

But others hit back, urging legislators to remember their own 'fashion follies' and saying the law would be used mostly against black people.

The house adopted the 'droopy drawers' bill by a margin of 60-34.

"Underwear is called underwear for a reason"
Virginia Delegate John Reid

If the state senate also approves, youngsters in Virginia showing too much of their boxer shorts or G-strings could be fined $50 (£26)."

The year I started teaching I moved down south and was confronted with the then new trend of showing off your underwear - mainly among girls - though I always suspected it was more accidental than anything else. But now everyone's doing it - not that you have much choice: my favourite pair of jeans require constant hiking.

When I was a lad, underwear was extremely private, and girls in particular went to great pains to hide any sign of bras. How things change...
Ooh, how old did I sound then??

My favorourite moment in this whole trend was about five years ago when Newsround, the BBC's children's news programme, did a short feature on it. After it finished the presenter turned to camera and said 'remember, boys - you'll need to make sure your underpants are clean!'

Anyway, while I've seen a few examples of this trend which really do make my eyes water, I think it's just another taboo being broken down, like bikinis and mini skirts. And rather than it being 'coarse' it seems, on the whole, to be a sign of a liberalisation of attitudes towards the body which is quite relaxed.

But I suppose in Virginia, the term 'fashion police' is being taken far too seriously. Nice to know that crime there is so low they can afford to divert resources into such things...