Trial by shorthand

2007-09-04T11:33:00.001+01:00

This blog has been put on the back burner while i work on a new project called 'The End of Journalism?', a discussion forum dedicated to understanding the current period of flux in the news media.

Please check it out at www.eofj.org

OR

www.end-of-journalism.org

Your contribution would be much appreciated.

2007-05-14T21:05:00.000+01:00

Trial by Media

This is hilarious and sickening at the same time.

I'm sitting in the Telegaph newsroom, listening to an unnamed news channel gradually turning a half-Portuguese translator into a child abductor.

It started with Breaking News: Villa searched in hunt for Madeleine McCann

Nice and innocent and unspecific.

Within 15 minutes we had the poor guy's name being trumpeted aloud by triumphant newsreaders.

Another 10 minutes go by and one of his school 'friends' is saying something along the lines of 'Well, who'd have thought, and he seemed like such a nice guy. He does have a glass eye though...so, who knows?'

If it turns out that this poor man had nothing to do with it, that will no longer matter. His name (which i am purposefully omitting) will be ruined.

That's the problem with this particular channel, it is always so eager to be first that it tramples willy-nilly over acceptable standards of ethics

I'm predicting that their next report will begin with a photograph and the sombre voice-over:-

"This is the sick, twisted face of the as-yet completely innocent child molester...."

2007-05-07T14:55:00.000+01:00

Will Google eat the news media (Part 2)

(Reproduced from 'The End of Journalism?')

Redundant - in more ways than one

The end result of this period of flux in the media workplace is a long way off yet, but already, nightmare scenarios are being bandied about with a heavy sense of foreboding.

The general assumption amongst the more sceptical members of the press, is that the industry is heading downhill at a rate of knots. As citizens become journalists and computers become sub-editors, they say, we are being squeezed out.

The logical conclusion of such a process is the behemoth mentioned in Part 1. According to this Doomsday scenario, each person would be served by a news aggregator. The aggregator, familiar with the interests of the user, would be able to cherry-pick features, interviews, hard news, or indeed new books, films and music, from an inexhaustible online supply.

This, cry the pessimists, is truly the end of journalism, for the user no longer needs mediation – he/she can go straight to the source.

But the logical conclusion of any process is rarely the one arrived at. Nuclear technology inspired visions of apocalyptic destruction such as that portrayed in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. In the 1960s, advances in computer technology led hundreds of thousands of people to believe that by 2007, the average person would be having their tea brewed and served by a robot.

Although it could be argued that we have been close to both at times, neither situation materialised.

Keeping the faith

The same may be true of our journalistic Apocalypse. There are certainly rough times ahead. As media groups recalibrate their operations gradually in an effort to find the right balance between all of these exciting new technologies available, employees are going to suffer; there is no question about that.

But there ought to be light at the end of the tunnel. The reason that man has not destroyed itself in a nuclear holocaust, or that very few of us have a robot in the house, is that human nature changes much more slowly than the technology we invent.

2007-04-25T20:23:00.000+01:00

Will Google eat the news media? (Part 1)

(Reproduced from 'The End of Journalism?')

Man vs Machine

Ever since the Luddites began smashing the machines they feared would render their jobs unnecessary, man and machine have enjoyed a turbulent relationship, nowhere more so than in the workplace.

In the 20th century, as computers became better able to deal with ever more complex tasks, it often seemed as if we were heading inexorably towards the day when computers would no longer need us.

The wave of modernity crashed with explosive force onto the shores of the media in the 1980s, changing the face of the industry completely as money men slashed and burned, cutting back on centuries-old institutions with the enthusiasm of a gardener trimming a privet hedge.

Now, as the 20th century begins to fade into memory, journalists are facing the old enemy again: the machines are taking over.

With newspapers struggling to make sense of it all, everyone is beginning to feel the pinch. Experienced reporters and part-time editing staff alike are being politely shown the door, as the industry finds new ways to cut costs.

But for those who are still standing at the end of this great cull, what kind of industry will be left?

The pessimist’s scenario is easy to envisage: a press where stories are no longer unearthed but generated, where news is no longer investigated but aggregated, and where good writing follows the advertising money rather than vice versa.

In this imagined Apocalypse, the only reporter Joe Public needs is a Google-enabled cyber-journalist, spewing out automatically-generated information based on programmed knowledge of Mr. Public’s interests and concerns. The RSS feed already functions as a rude precursor of such a behemoth.

Indeed, the mechanisation of news is already well under way. I am not referring to the bevy of new web-based initiatives such as podcasts, blogs or automatic syndication, but to a far more sinister process; the industrialisation of our raw material – words themselves.

Creativity? No thanks

In the shiny new offices of a daily national newspaper in London, the phrase ‘Search Engine Orientation’ has been all but tattooed onto the heads of internet sub-editors.

Now, instead of writing headlines which not only inform but catch the eye or raise a laugh, subs are being told they must include as many Google search terms as possible in headlines and standfirsts. Even the alternative text for pictures – a service meant for the blind – is being appropriated to boost hit rates.

This may not sound like a dramatic turn of events, but it is sapping the last creative juices from a large section of the media workplace.

One of the greatest headlines of the last few years, possibly of all time, was the Daily Record’s take on footballing minnows Inverness Caledonian Thistle beating giants Celtic in the Scottish Cup. An enterprising sub, taking his inspiration from the film Mary Poppins, penned the immortal headline.

“Super Cally Go Ballistic Celtic Are Atrocious”

It was such a cleverly laid pun, and so popular among journalists in the UK, that it began to be reproduced on websites and in pub conversations up and down the country. Fast forward to the brave new world of ‘Search Engine Orientation’ and what do you get?

“Inverness Caledonian Thistle beat Celtic in Scottish Cup”

Somehow it doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Just as journalists feel themselves being synergised with machines, the tools of our trade – words – are suffering the same fate.

2007-04-15T13:56:00.000+01:00

Does the blogosphere need a code of conduct?

A week on, and the fuss over the proposed Bloggers’ Code of Conduct seems to have died down. Oddly enough, Tim O’Reilly, despite admirable commitment to a cause, wasn’t able to win the massed millions of the blogosphere round to his side.

When I was about 11, I was completely suckered by an advert for a small handheld computer which you could use to send secret messages to your friends, a precursor to the SMS.

I resolved that by the time I went back to school on Monday, everyone would have one and I didn’t want be the only one to miss out. Of course, I blew all my pocket money on the things and was the only one who ever had one. I smashed it on purpose about six months later.

The Bloggers’ Code of Conduct looks to be suffering much the same fate. The idea is nice, but that’s all it is. There is something to be said for self-regulation, but not a lot. Against the benefit of cutting down on personal abuse, we must weigh the acceptability of attempting to curb the freest information exchange we have ever known.

The biggest problem is that it assumes that all newspaper columnists have, in and of themselves, a greater degree of integrity than bloggers. But lest we forget, there are newspaper columnists who produce the most bigoted vitriol each week – naming no names – albeit with a greater degree of penmanship than the average blogger.

So why should bloggers be treated any differently? The fact is, we already have a code of conduct. It is the same one that governs any form of journalism, and it is called the law.

Just wait for the first high-profile libel case against a blogger. Self-regulation will follow.

2007-04-06T00:16:00.000+01:00

Pamplona bull run? Who needs it

The first great picture story of the year burst onto the scene today, as slathering shoppers trampled over each other to get into Primark's new Oxford Street store.

Stomach-turning as the unmitigated materialism of it all is, you have to chuckle at the idea of thousands of people risking life and limb to visit a shop which already has several outlets in London.

Some of the baying hordes seemed to have gone out of their way to make trouble for themselves: why go to the Primark down the road when the Oxford Street branch offers a facial tattoo of the sole of someone's shoe with every purchase?

This picture reminds me eerily of a budget disaster movie i once saw, called The Rats. As the mutant rodents bred like, well, rats, they became so many that they began to shoot out of every manhole like little furry projectiles.

In the end, New York has no choice but to blow them to bits with high explosives.

Perhaps that's a little too heavy-handed for Primark shoppers, so here's an alternative solution:-

Shop Idol: Shoppers battle each other on live TV for possession of 6-packs of underwear, polo shirts and frilly blouses. The pushiest contestant walks away with a £10 Primark voucher and a set of riot gear.

I hear the BBC is looking to dumb down...i'm expecting their call.

2007-03-28T23:09:00.000+01:00

End of Journalism?

Trial By Shorthand has had to take a back seat recently as i've been working on a new project.

In partnership with the IJP, an organisation who sponsored my sojourn with the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, I have been working on a website intended to promote and facilitate debate on the future of journalism.

The site is called 'End of Journalism?' and the top article at the moment is a piece written by me, entitled 'Apocalypse Now? The Googlisation of News'.

Happy browsing and spread the word: The End of Journalism is upon us.

2007-03-20T21:29:00.000+01:00

I'm a millionaire

It's always sad to see purveyors of fantastic comedy selling themselves for the highest dollar.

But at least it gives us the opportunity for once to laugh at them, instead of with them.

2007-03-20T21:26:00.000+01:00

Spot the difference

Jamie Redknapp on the incident in the recent Champions League in which Valencia’s David Navarro punched Inter Milan’s Nicolas Burdisso in the nose with a well-aimed punch:

“Here it is…this is a better angle. Watch the guy in the grey jacket who comes round the outside and digs him….there! BANG! He’s caught him a beauty.”

Jamie Redknapp on last night’s scenes at White Hart Lane when a fan aimed a punch at Lampard (and missed), before having seven bells kicked out of him by the Chelsea staff:

“They have got to make an example of him or it will go on. He should do time for that.”

It would be possible to forgive Redknapp’s tendency to come across like a child who has been allowed to stay up past his bed time, if it weren’t for the absurd bias and sensationalism which always arises whenever family member Frank Lampard is involved.

2007-03-15T21:03:00.000+01:00

Local tax for local people

A fantastic piece in the Evening Standard today by Jonathan Freedland on the fairest way to reform council tax. [Can't find a link as yet.]

He responds to leaks suggesting that Sir Michael Lyons’s soon-to-be published review of local finance will add bands to the top end of the council tax scale, adding as much as £4,400 to some people’s bill.

Freedland is spot on when he talks of council tax reform as a ‘third rail’ - instant political death for any politician who champions it and as a result, long overdue.

Bravely, he champions a policy from the 2005 Liberal Democrat manifesto – local income tax – as the solution.

I remember studying this through an early-morning alcoholic fug at Cardiff Journalism School, recognising it as a good idea in principle, but flawed due to the disparity in collectable income between poor and rich councils.

But Freedland imports an idea from the US: redraw municipal boundaries so that no one area can be exclusively rich or poor. Redistribution of funds would be managed locally, without need for costly and time-consuming involvement on the part of the Treasury.

But when the Lyons report comes out - undoubtedly amid considerable middle class outrage - what politician with an ounce of nous is likely to grasp the live rail?
Not one who wants to keep his seat at the next election. QED.

2007-03-15T20:54:00.000+01:00

Original copy of Guantanamo Bay press release [censored portions included]

[After six years of daily beatings, sleep deprivation and psychological torture], Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted to being the mastermind behind 9/11, the Bali bombings and plots to attack Heathrow or Big Ben. [He also claimed responsiblity for the Kennedy assassination and the Viet Cong, before curling into the foetal position and begging to be strapped into the electric chair.]

2007-03-08T02:57:00.000+01:00

Press Censorship GCSE, Skillset 1, Question 1

You are the leader of a sizeable country located at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, desirous of joining the European Union.

A video surfaces on YouTube, poking fun at your nation's favourite historical icon.

Do you:-

a) Smile ruefully and ignore the slur, knowing there are far more important issues in the world of politics for you to concern yourself with.

b) Issue a statement condemning the video, but reaffirm your government's commitment to free speech?

c) Throw all of your toys out of the pram, blocking access to the site until the offending video is removed, thus denting your chances of aforementioned EU membership?

Answers on a postcard to: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, Istanbul

2007-03-05T15:24:00.000+01:00

Photo Freedom

Several years ago I was in New York for a couple of days, before heading on to the Stepford Wives world of Connecticut for a jazz workshop.

Feeling for the first time that I was in a city more overwhelming, more unforgiving even than London, I wondered around in a touristic gaze snapping pictures of this and that.

As I was taking my umpteenth ‘Very Big Building’ picture, a burly NYPD officer came running over to me, shouting “Hey buddy, you gotta stop that. You cannot photograph this building.”

Dumbfounded by this act of public censorship and undone by my mouth’s tendency to intervene before my brain, I quipped “What, in the Land of the Free?” and spent the next ten minutes apologising profusely and demonstratively deleting pictures from my camera.

Despite my shock at this blatantly unnecessary measure, I could see why it happened.

This was New York just two years after 9/11. Tensions were still high and every street was adorned with more flags and policemen than you could shake a stick at. The cop was just doing his job in circumstances with which none of us had yet learned how to cope.

Five years later, it appears that the US authorities’ penchant for photo censorship has reached new levels.

The Associated Press has launched a complaint against the US military, after journalists claimed that soldiers had deleted footage of the aftermath of an attack in Afghanistan, in which three people were shot dead.

Jean-Francois Julliard, a spokesman for Reporters Without Borders put it simply, saying: “Why did the soldiers do it if they don't have anything to hide?"

With our knowledge of what happened at Abu Ghraib, as well as the recent conviction of US soldier Segreant Paul Cortez for the rape and murder of a young Iraqi girl and her family, alarm bells have to start clanging.

That Big Apple bobby may have been stretching a point, but at least he had a point. He was legitimately worried for the security of his home town. Overly zealous he may have been, but his motives seemed altruistic.

What has happened in Afghanistan should worry us just as much as the recent blogging censorship in Egypt. When an organisation chooses to censor the press, it is very rarely for the same reasons as my New York cop.

Unless an explanation is offered, and soon, we can only assume these soldiers had something sinister to hide.

2007-03-05T14:42:00.000+01:00

Computer crash

TrialByShorthand has been quiet for a few days, due in part to a home internet connection which is reluctant to do what it says on the tin.

But I’ve been granted a miraculous window of usage by the temperamental technology today, so time to get back up to date.

My favourite story of the week is the cautionary tale of Oscar Hinojosa, an American who was driving while using his laptop and - somewhat predictably - lost concentration, crashing head-on into a Hum Vee.

It may be sad, but there’s something so glamorously American about this story that I can’t help but feel attracted to. If the same accident had happened in the UK, the laptop would have been replaced by a Minute Maid lolly and the Hum Vee by a Robin Reliant. Those Americans are just so darn cool, even in death.

And full marks to Tom Marshall of California Highway Patrol for his fabulously understated words of wisdom: “"When you're driving that is not a time to be practising your multitasking skills."

But the biggest giggle is the news that the Princess Diana fund is to give 10 million pounds to refugees, asylum seekers, young offenders, the Roma (gypsy) community and lesbian and gay parents with learning disabilities.

I’ve had great fun visualising Daily Express readers spluttering into their Lapsang Souchong at hearing this roll call of pet hates.

And getting their grubby foreign little hands on our hard-won British cash too? Disgraceful. After all, couldn’t they have just bought some more lilies?

Altogether now: ‘It’s political correctness gone maaaaaaad.’

2007-02-26T23:23:00.000+01:00

Abdel update

For those of you still interested in the imprisonment of Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Suleiman, look at Amnesty International, Reporters Without Borders or Human Rights Watch for condemnation of the Egyptian authorities.

I was flabbergasted to learn today that Egypt has applied to the UN to host the 2009 Internet Governance Forum. Now I know the golden sands of the Red Sea and a day-trip to Giza must be tempting for those UN types, but if Cairo’s bid is successful the UN will have made a mockery of press freedom.

Democratic nations with influence in the UN must not allow this to happen.

2007-02-22T20:36:00.000+01:00

Time for solidarity in blogging

Sad news today about Abdel Karim Suleiman, the Egyptian blogger who has been sentenced to four years in jail, 3 years for disdain for religion and 1 for insulting the president.

It is stomach-churning to watch Egypt follow in the footsteps of Iran and China by shackling freedom of expression on the net, though it’s hardly a world-shattering surprise given that country's questionable human rights record.

Just as disturbing is the news that Abdel Karim’s father is disowning him, expressing the wish that Sharia Law be applied to his son.

Given the occasional sparseness of my blogging activity, I must admit a nagging feeling of shame. The worst I risk when expressing my opinion is that I will be ridiculed by readers or cause my parents some slight embarrassment.

Meanwhile, someone who may be just like me (he is after all a male blogger in his early 20s) loses his freedom and his family for something I take for granted.

It’s just one of human rights abuses perpetrated in countries all over the world, but if the blogosphere truly is a community it is time for it to kick up a stink.

Repression of bloggers strikes at the heart of the human right to freedom of expression. The small but important price for living in a democracy should be to make as much noise as possible on behalf of those who don’t.

2007-02-17T00:43:00.000+01:00

Google get it right

Apologies to anyone who clicked on the Google link in the last post and found it looking just fine and dandy.

I promise you that in the wee small hours of the morning it was banjaxed. I suppose that's why only us nightshifters and a few uber-geeks will have seen it. Notice the distinction i make here.

2007-02-14T22:45:00.000+01:00

Google kerfuffle

The latest update is that Google plan to appeal the Belgian ruling.

However, in all the excitment they seem to have left the 'l' out of their name on the seach engine today...tsk tsk.

2007-02-14T20:58:00.000+01:00

Trialbyshorthand's second use of King Canute cliche

I’m completely gobsmacked by the decision of Belgian newspaper Copiepresse to sue Google for the heinous crime of displaying links to their news stories.

While the £2.4m fine dished out by the Belgian courts may not make a huge dent in Google’s seemingly bottomless coffers, the insistence on applying outmoded copyright laws seems like a cheap trick to make a quick buck.

All over the world, media owners are fretting over how to make money in the era of shared content. But the answer certainly does not lie in taking on an internet giant like Google.

Whether you like it or not, Google exercises hegemony over the internet, acting – in the US at least - as gateway to roughly 43% of everything viewed online. To many people (some ageing family members included), Google is practically synonymous with using the internet.

Surely it does not make sense to alienate such a key player in the new media universe, simply to score a couple of million on a technicality?

Google insists that its search services are actually boosting readership of newspapers’ websites (and presumably advertising revenue) and I know from personal experience that savvy editors are constantly looking at ways to increase the chance of a favourable Googlewhack. The way forward for any print journal is partnership, not opposition.

The question remains: does the editor of Copiepresse really think the best way to lead his newspaper through this period of flux in the media is to stand, Canute-like, bidding the waves of progress be still?

2007-02-03T22:49:00.000+01:00

Truth? We can't handle the truth.

Consider the following statement:-

Most neo-Nazis are white men.

There is nothing particularly inflammatory about it. It is a plain statement of fact, devoid of implication and relatively easy to prove.

I, as a Caucasian male, do not feel offended by this statement, as I am confident of the fact that I am not a neo-Nazi, however brutishly I might behave at the football.

Now consider the case of teacher Andrew McLuskey, who has been sacked from Bayliss Court Secondary School, Slough. During a religious education class he made the statement that ‘most suicide bombers are Muslim’.

Call me Mr. Stupid but I cannot see what is controversial or offensive about that statement. First off, it is true, from whatever angle you look at it. From my recollection, the number of Sikhs blowing themselves to bits in recent years has been relatively low.

Second, it carries no implications whatsoever. It is a statistic with no opinion attached to it. If pupils in McLuskey’s predominantly Muslim class were uncomfortable with it, surely that reflects their own interpretation of the facts and not his.

There is, just maybe, a case to be argued that it was too sensitive a statement to make in front of a class of schoolchildren. But if we, as a society, are to talk openly about any difficult issue, we must not be afraid of facts, only of their misuse.

Yes, most suicide bombers these days are Muslim. But this does not mean that Christians, Jains, Hindus or Buddhists should behave any differently towards Muslims than they do toward one another. Nor does it mean that terrorism is a problem exclusively of Islam.

As far as we know, McLuskey never implied otherwise, but has become another victim of our collective cultural insecurity about what we are allowed to say. His pupils will suffer if his replacement does not display the same degree of honesty and integrity that won him the sack.

2007-02-03T01:32:00.000+01:00

Wanted: Comfy retirement home for insane leader

Mad authoritarian rulers generally do a good line in outrageous claims.

Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire alleged that his wooden walking stick took the strength of eight ‘normal’ men to carry, while Uganda’s Idi Amin awarded himself the title King of Scotland, as has been documented in the new film (which I haven’t had the chance to see yet.)

But the president of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, has topped them all by claiming to be able to cure HIV/Aids within three days.

"I am not a witch-doctor," says Mr Jammeh, who seized power in the tiny West African country in a coup 12 years ago. "In fact, you cannot have witch-doctor. You are either a witch or a doctor."

Er, quite.

Clearly only a couple of nuts short of a fruitcake, he also purports to be able to rid the human body of asthma in five minutes.

So, given his mystical and awesome powers, quite why he felt the need to jail opposition leaders and journalists in the run-up to his election victory last year is anyone’s guess.

2007-01-22T15:32:00.000+01:00

Haw's triumph

Congratulations to Brian Haw, who has won the right to continue protesting against US/UK foreign policy in Parliament Square.

It isn't that i feel his protest is likely to achieve very much, or that i have any particular admiration for the man. I agree, in the vaguest of terms, with the motive for his protest, although i'm not sure how useful it is.

But the heavy-handed tactics used by the Met were simply unacceptable and it is refreshing to see District Judge Quentin Purdy react against the Government's alarming tendency towards the repression of dissent.

Haw's demonstration might have been a minor inconvenience to pedestrians, it may even have been a sensationalist's stab at self-publicisation. But it was a legitimate expression of the feelings of millions of people, and long may it continue.

After all, a government that uses every measure in its power to quell dissent is a government that knows it has done wrong.

2007-01-22T15:13:00.000+01:00

African birthday

It's been a merry old weekend in Kigali as i celebrated my birthday in true Rwandese style.

We headed out to Lake Muhazi, about an hour outside of Kigali: myself, my colleague and friend Marco, a new arrival to the GLCSS called Emmanuel, and our Rwandese friends Faustin, Stella and Dhativah (or D for short).

Although it was a misty day, the lake was beautiful and we sat there drinking beers and eating grilled goat until the sun went down, casting a brilliant glow over the lake's placid waters.

To top it all off, the Rwandese guys had arranged a cake and a card for me, as well as a hearty chorus of Happy Birthday. Normally i hate having that god-awful dirge sung at me, but on this occasion i took it as good, wholesome fun.

At least it made a change from the music being played by the crowd on the table next to us, who seemed to have brought only one record with them, which they played relentlessly until they left. I don't think i'll ever have another birthday, without the lyrics "Nigeria suffer suffer, gunshot inna the air" ringing in my ears.

Never mind, it's a damn sight better than "For he's a jolly good fellow."

2007-01-19T09:01:00.000+01:00

Rwanda, idleness and folly...sorry

It's all go at the GLCSS at the moment, as we work on compiling a database of Rwandan government ministers and officials for a client.

All we need are biographical details of the relevant people in each ministry. Simple enough, I thought, blissfully unaware of the full extent of African bureaucracy.

But the job of collecting a few details about just seven officials in the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI) has turned into an all-day session, involving frequent trips back and forth from the office to the ministry in the blazing heat.

The first time I went, my contact interrogated me for a good half hour, appearing not to trust anything I said and asking me at least four times "What is your purpose here?"

That question was far too philosophical for me, so I offered instead to get a letter from my boss, affirming that I was not in fact a deranged stalker but working on a legitimate project.

Once I came back with my letter, things got complicated. Not only had my contact seemingly forgotten everything we had talked about earlier, but she brought a colleague into the debate for good measure.

I watched with the patience of a saint as they spoke for at least half an hour in Kinyarwanda, gesturing towards me, at each other, at the letters and, at one point, nearly coming to blows.

Finally, having spent a good hour or two in the ministry, I was told, without a shred of irony, that I should just have e-mailed the officials in question, instead of coming down to the ministry and wasting everybody’s time.

You could have told me that in the first place, I thought, but smiled gratefully and asked them to forward my letter anyway. Back I went to the GLCSS, ready to kill seven birds with one stone by simply e-mailing them my questions.

Following the instructions I’d been given, I clicked on the part of the MINAGRI website marked 'Staff emails'...and found that only staff have access.

This one will run and run. That is, if I don't go postal first.

2007-01-17T08:37:00.000+01:00

Apologies

Sorry to all those who've found that the link to 'this fun site' in Monday's second post is broken. It did at the time, but i'm guessing their server crashed or something.

I'll leave it up just in case they get it working again and thanks to all those who pointed it out.

To make up for it, i'll once again post this YouTube video which nearly made me choke to death on a malteser.

2007-01-16T14:42:00.000+01:00

Save our FOI

I've caught onto this a little late, what with being 4,500 feet up a hill in the middle of Central Africa, but the Press Gazette has launched a campaign against the Government's plans to change the Freedom of Information Act.

The Act seemed like manna from heaven for journalists when it was passed in 2000, offering access to information held by public authorities and thereby ushering in a new era of transparency.

In practice it has not quite that easy. Requests often take a long time to be answered and are sometimes turned down for reasons of cost, or because they are designated 'vexatious'. Nonetheless, intelligent use of FOI was developing into one of the most useful arrows in the reporter's quiver.

Now the Government intends to amend the Act to allow authorities wider scope for turning down requests on grounds of cost. By the government's own estimate, this will result in roughly 17,000 extra refusals per year, out of 100,000 total requests. For the arithmetically challenged, that's a whopping 17%.

Needless to say, the real target of these proposals are journalists, who are no doubt a wearying irritant to those civil servants who are tasked with handling FOI inquiries. But is laughable to turn around seven years on and complain that journalists are using the Act too much. 'Sorry chaps, did we say transparent? We meant fuzzy.'

So if you believe you have the right to know how efficiently your council manages its waste, what the new footbridge cost, or even how much the mayor spent on toilet paper last year, please join the Press Gazette campaign, 'Don't Kill FOI'.

2007-01-15T15:36:00.000+01:00

Are you a man of the world?

For the travellers amongst you, have a look at this fun site brought to my attention by blogger buddy Juliette.

There's nothing like retracing your steps to make you realise that you've been practically nowhere.

2007-01-15T15:17:00.000+01:00

Ducks to water

One week into my Rwandan adventure and all is still rosy in the ‘Switzerland of Africa’.

I’m guessing whoever came up with that phrase had never been to at least one of the two countries and possibly to neither of them, but that’s by the by.

Training work at the GLCSS is going well, with two new trainees joining us this week. Straight away they have shown their aptitude for the editing tasks I’ve set them, even pointing out where I might have done better in my ‘perfect examples’.

Today we looked at ways to make the introduction to an article as snappy and as informative as possible. Having already studied journalism here in Rwanda, they took to it like ducks to water and I’m expecting great things from them.

Slowly but surely, the GLCSS is assembling a team of highly-skilled journalists, who will in time offer a unique resource for agencies looking for African reporting on African issues at African prices.

A great bunch of lads. Only problem is, they’re all bloody Arsenal fans.

Nobody’s perfect.

2007-01-12T11:17:00.000+01:00

Rwandalust

After a Christmas and New Year characterised mainly by staring at my watch waiting for the night shift to end, i’m finally enjoying the reward that I (debatably) deserve.

No, not the promised extra Christmas pay, but a three-week trip to Rwanda, to assist with the training of journalists at the Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies.

The GLCSS is a London based think tank with offices in Kampala and Kigali, which reports on the political, economic and security situation in Africa. At the moment it’s a relatively small organisation operating out of Kigali, Rwanda, but they produce some fine analytical work and are looking to expand in the not-too-distant future.

My job is to train the Rwandans who work here in journalism techniques, which is no easy task given that I only left Cardiff Journalism School six months ago.

The tutors who awarded me my fairly average marks at Cardiff would be spluttering into their milky tea if they knew I’d been entrusted with teaching journalistic techniques, and I can’t really blame them. But let them splutter all they like, because we’re actually making some real progress here.

At first I worried it would seem highly patronising to give classes to people who are older and more experienced than me, simply on the basis that I work for a British daily newspaper.

But three days into it and we’re rolling along at a rate of knots, discussing proper editing procedure, structuring of articles and interview techniques, amongst other things.

At the moment, the Rwandan contingent in the office numbers just four: Faustin, James, Fidel and Asimwe. All of them go about their work with enthusiasm and no shortage of raw talent and they seem more than willing to let a 23-year-old upstart like me make suggestions.

This afternoon i’ll be introducing them to blogging, so watch this space for links to their new sites.

In the meantime, check out the GLCSS newsletter to see some of their work.

2007-01-08T13:53:00.000+01:00

Festive cheer

Apologies for the period of hiatus, but it's been an energy-sapping festive period.

First, i found myself working both Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, updating a website which contained virtually no news. In these times in which journalists are treated as the least valuable commodity in the industry, there was no food, little extra pay, and barely a scrap of tinsel.

I could have coped with that, but for James Brown's death on Christmas day. For maybe the first time ever he got his timing way out of whack, ruining my day and rendering my copy of 'James Brown's Funky Christmas' forever unlistenable.

I needed cheering up by now. Cue the farcical execution of Saddam, which if you haven’t seen it already, turned up on YouTube about 3 hours after my blog entry predicting it would.

Excuse the rant, but I have just one more thing to say on that: If the Iraqi authorities had really cared whether or not proceedings were carried out in a dignified and humane (ha!) manner, would that mobile phone footage really have come out?

It’s what you might call an anticipated accident, and it is sickening to feel oneself compelled to watch the end of a man’s life, no matter what he may have done.

All of this made for a pretty depressing few weeks. So, i'm countering this by heading off to Rwanda tomorrow to work for an organisation called the Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies (more of which to follow).

I'll be working with journalists out there in the hope that my experience of sitting at a desk until 2 am trying to make a headline fit into 15 characters will somehow prove useful to them.

Check here to see how it goes.

2006-12-30T05:25:00.000+01:00

Saddam hanged

Saddam Hussein has been hanged in Baghdad. John Simpson is telling me on BBC 2 that it's a mug's game to predict what this means for Iraq and he's right.

Whether Saddam is dead or alive, Iraq is headed for civil war in the disastrous culmination of decades of dictatorship, air strikes, invasion and now, sectarian conflict too. Nothing that Ba'athists, the UK or the US has done has ever brought happiness, security or genuine freedom.

Saddam's death may provide a sickly sweet revenge to those who suffered most under him and who could begrudge them that. But it is one crazy old man's fate, a circus that has little purpose other than scoring one in response to the relentless stream of own goals.

It's made for TV, will almost certainly be available for download and changes absolutely nothing. Now all we have to look forward to is Bush's 'new strategy' for the country. Iraq Lite? Iraq 2.0? Answers in a comment.

2006-12-15T12:23:00.000+01:00

An end to kiss-and-tell?

Rejoice oh ye faithful, for Lord Justice Eady’s ruling on privacy law has been upheld.

Let me briefly explain: Canadian folk singer Loreena McKennitt sought an injunction against a book by her ‘friend’ Neima Ash, revealing private details about her emotional state, her sexual relationships and her home, amongst other things.

Lord Justice Eady, the David Beckham of media law, ruled for McKennitt, a decision which has now been upheld by the court of appeal. This effectively spells the end for the unauthorised ‘kiss-and-tll’ story, cutting off the supply lines of many a gossip column or hastily penned salacious biography.

So why would a journalist applaud the tightening of privacy law? Doesn’t this snatch the bread from our mouths and strip the pen of its power?

If anything, the reverse is true. For years, journalists have suffered from a reputation somewhere between that of Nicolai Ceaucescu and the Ebola virus. We are never trusted, rarely believed and seldom praised.

This is partly because of the festering cess-pool of celebrity-chasing and waistline-watching that goes on at one end of the industry (i.e. the one that sells).

What the McKennitt v. Ash ruling may have achieved is an end to the least attractive, least valuable part of our trade. Not only will the efforts of talented journalists be channelled into more worthy causes, but ‘real news’ will at last have an opportunity to step out from the shadow of it’s wealthier, more successful cousin, ‘celebrity news.’

Of course, this doesn’t mean the death of gossip columns or of tabloid rumour-mongering, and nor should it. Such journalism responds to an obvious demand and I cannot argue with that type of logic. Many celebrities will continue to benefit from the Faustian pact which allows them free advertising in return for having their privacy ‘invaded’. This ruling does not seek to end that tradition.

But it does offer protection to those who do not court publicity, or at least appreciate some discretion in how they choose to do so. In short, everybody wins – people in the public eye have their private lives protected, the quality of the press can only improve, and the public…well, that’s a tricky one.

Should the public get what the public wants, to quote The Jam? That’s a different debate for a different time. In the meantime, I raise my glass to Lord Justice Eady and the future of journalism.

2006-12-14T11:31:00.000+01:00

Silly season sacrifice

The maintenance staff at Turkish Airlines certainly know how to celebrate.

Delighted at having sent a batch of aircraft back to the supplier ahead of schedule, they celebrated in the time-honoured fashion of the aviation industry – by slaughtering a camel on the runway.

Like footballers with their goal celebrations, other airlines will surely seek to top each other in the festive ceremony stakes. Below is a list of events to watch out for in the lead-up to Christmas. A sort of gory advent, if you will.

Dec. 14, Tokyo Airport - Nippon Airways plans to eviscerate an adult whale in the departure lounge. Chunks of blubber will then be distributed among particularly industrious schoolchildren. Nintendo Wii is to launch ‘Whale Hacker’ to coincide with the event, a computer game in which players must hack a fully-grown humpback into bite-sized pieces within the allotted time.

Dec. 18, JFK Airport – Continental Airlines will be chucking a live turkey into a jet engine to celebrate Thanksgiving, the festival of gratitude towards American Indians for allowing themselves to be slaughtered by religious zealots from across the sea.

Dec. 20, Moscow International – Aeroflot is to celebrate Christmas (and at least six weeks without a fatal crash) by issuing Christmas tree shaped lumps of Polonium-210 to all of its stewardesses. A spokesman said: ‘This will cut down on uniform costs. You’ll now be able to see our girls coming from a distance because they’ll be glowing an irridescent green and leaving a trail of teeth and hair everywhere they go.’

Dec. 23, Beijing Airport – To mark the festive season, Chinese Airlines is offering a round-China flight. The flight path will circumnavigate the country in a clockwise direction, with all the windows on the outside boarded up. ‘This is your captain speaking. There’s nothing to see out there folks, now shut up and watch the film.’

Dec. 25, London Heathrow – British Airways Captain of the Year will be strangling a pigeon in a ceremony to mark the completion of Terminal 5. The pigeon will then be diced, fried, and rebranded as ‘Pheasant a la Strangulation’, in BA’s Club Class lounge.

Any more seasonal sacrifices? Answers on a postcard…or in a comment.

2006-12-13T15:31:00.000+01:00

Crying over spilt beans

There are few things quite as absurd as the outrage created by the enunciation of a fact that has long been well known to all, but never acknowledged

Like the existence of a homosexual in a conservative family, Israel’s nuclear capability has been more or less common knowledge for decades, and yet the authorities have remained tight-lipped, maintaining 'strategic ambiguity'. If we don’t answer the question, maybe they’ll stop asking.

Now Ehud Olmert has let slip in a German television interview that Israel too is a nuclear power, naming his country in a list of nuclear powers which included the US, France and Russia. The cat was well and truly out of the bag . Or rather, the cat had long since escaped from said bag, raised a family of kittens and made a fortune in the dairy industry before anyone actually admitted to having left the bag open.

Olmert has since made a heroic attempt to backtrack (“I said Israel? Sorry I meant Russia is-really big on nuclear weapons”), and failed miserably. The world and his wife had heard it and there was no denying it, even by reverting to the time-honoured claim that "Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the region."

Rumours abound that this was one of those accidentally-on-purpose gaffes, designed to give a covert warning to Iran, which appears bent on acquiring its own nuclear arsenal. But it is highly unlikely that Olmert would choose to make such a veiled (no pun intended) threat towards Iran, which is all too aware of the glistening, pointy-tipped firecrackers lurking just the other side of Iraq and Jordan.

It is more likely to be a symptom of the supreme arrogance with which the Israeli government has acted in recent years, riding roughshod over international law and basking in the privileged position of being the favourite protégé of the world’s only superpower.

Olmert and co have become so used to acting with impunity that they’ve forgotten to watch their mouths before filling them with foot.

But what will come of this? Well, the US is obliged to withhold funding from any country which breaches the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

So that’ll be $2bn a year redirected into the US education system/world AIDS prevention/renewable energy then, won’t it? Will it f***.

2006-12-08T15:07:00.000+01:00

Silly, silly me

For weeks i’ve been wondering why i haven’t had any comments on this blog for ages.

That’s when I discovered the ‘Publish Comments’ option, and was finally able to see how people have been responding to my shameless self-publicity.

There have been some notable contributions, amongst some very disturbing ones. One, presumably myopic, person accused me of having a ‘shapely arse’ but declined to leave their name, giving me the impression that somewhere out there is a stalker with a pair of binoculars trained on my backside. Scary.

In any case, get commenting, because the way has now been cleared of the obstacle that was my technological incompetence.

2006-12-07T16:40:00.000+01:00

Standing up to the bullies

When i was about seven, i had a nanny who offered me a piece of unconventional advice.

She said, ‘If any bigger boys try to bully you or call you names, just smack them in the gob and they won’t do it again.’ She was of course wrong, as I repeatedly found out to my cost in the playground over the next few years.

Even so, there is some pride to be had in holding your own against those who are more powerful than you. Which is why it’s good to see little old Rwanda standing up to this ludicrous attempt by the French to implicate President Paul Kagame in the events leading up to the 1994 genocide.

It seems unlikely that the truth will ever be known about who exactly was responsible for shooting down the plane carrying the then Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, the short-term cause of the violence. The French claim that only the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Kagame, had the weapons or the expertise to do so.

This is an all-too convenient hypothesis, especially given that Belgian intelligence officials reported that ethnic cleansing began in some parts of Rwanda within half an hour of the assassination. Odd, in a war-torn country with a relatively sparse communications network.

But of course, the French should know best when it comes to the supply of weapons and training to African troops. After all, it was our Gallic chums who were instrumental in arming and training the Rwandan ‘Interahamwe’, who perpetrated the mass slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Furthermore, there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that the slaughter had already been in the pipeline for months, with weapons as well as misinformation about RPF atrocities diligently dispersed amongst the Hutu population.

This latest effort to find someone new to blame for some 800,000 murders is little more than a diversionary tactic, designed to draw attention away from the somewhat dubious role played by France in the run-up to the genocide.

Somehow it is always easier to assume blame on the part of some relatively unknown African leader thousands of miles away than it is to accept the abject failure of the international community.

So hats off to Kagame for responding with appropriate anger by closing the French embassy in Kigali. My nanny would have been proud.

For further information on theories surrounding the Rwandan genocide, read Linda Melvern’s work ‘Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide’, as recommended by the Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies.

2006-11-30T15:15:00.000+01:00

Comment is frightening

Sorry to ride this pony again, but there is something rotten to the core in the camp of the anti-veil brigade.

Yes, there are some good reasons for an instinctive dislike of the veil. First and foremost among those is that it is an obvious symbol of institutionalised patriarchy. I quite agree, although I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to suggest that we ‘enlightened’ Westerners can have any impact whatsoever on gender relations within Islam.

Secondary to that objection, and rather more pragmatic, is the argument that it is a security risk at airports, in shops etc. There’s something to be said for this too, although it doesn’t take too much pondering to think of ways round the security issues (private, female-only security checks for example.)

But anyone who says these objections are at the top of the list is drawing their own veil over the bigoted and xenophobic attitudes at the root of many Britons’ objections to the veil. Below is a (fair) sample of reactions from people who left comments on the website of a major daily newspaper:-

If Muslims want to live in Britain they must expect to do things the British way. It is not the British custom to wear all encompassing clothes or veils. Muslims should adapt to the British way of life, or leave if they cannot.
Posted by Simon Evans on November 30, 2006 3:25 AM

This is just one of a whole host of similar posts which claim the existence of a ‘British way’. I don’t know where this can be found, or what it is. All I know is that I am British, and my ‘way’ could not be any more different. Should i hand in my passport at the nearest Rotary Club?

Then comes:

If Muslims want to live behind veils they should jump (sic) the first plane back to the country of their forebears.
Posted by Russell Bray on November 30, 2006 2:52 AM

Ah yes, the old ‘If you don’t like it, go home’ argument. Which singularly fails to recognise that for many Muslims, Britain is, and will always be, home. Can you really tell someone not to practise their beliefs in their home country? I hope we are more tolerant than that.

Similar, but with a bit of piety thrown in:

The thing I have difficulty in coming to terms with is why immigrants who choose to come to live in a Christian society in north west Europe insist on living as they would in their, or their parents, country of origin.
Posted by John Thomson on November 30, 2006 2:24 AM

All very well, were it not for the fact that Britain is not a Christian country, and I for one am insulted that someone as blinkered as this should claim me for their own. My favourite follows:

The Muslim veil, sharia law, a huge mosque planned near the Olympic stadium, it'll all end with us washing our faces in imaginary water, taking off our shoes when we visit people and growing ridiculous looking beards.
Posted by Paul Anderson on November 30, 2006 8:34 AM

Well quite. As long as we’re making a mockery of public debate…

2006-11-24T12:31:00.000+01:00

Swan step too far

This is the greatest story i’ve read for a long time. A middle-aged Muslim man gets hungry after just two days of fasting for Ramadan, so what does he do?

a) Nip to McDonalds in secret for a Filet o’ Fish
b) Eat a biscuit
c) Go down to the local pond, slit the throat of a swan, then savage it with his teeth.

The enduring image for me is of the perpetrator, Shamsu Miah, being caught quite literally red-handed with blood on his shirt and white feathers in his beard. ‘Who me officer? I was just looking after it for a friend.’

Brilliant.

2006-11-23T13:49:00.000+01:00

Munich life

This morning I was woken at eight by a pair of workmen who I assumed had come to fix the internet, which has been ‘am Arsch’ for three days now. No such luck. They had come, waking me from a particularly nice dream – I kid you not – to measure the distance from the bottom of my curtains to the floor.

Only in Germany could this happen. Presumably there’s some regulation that states that the building has to be evacuated if a curtain is that couple of perilous millimetres too long. I can’t explain it, so I’ve decided, as you do, to write a poem about it instead, in the style of ‘The Raven’, by Edgar Allen Poe. Don’t ask why, it’s been a long morning.

For any Poe fans out there, I know I haven’t mimicked the rhyme scheme perfectly, but then he was on opium and I’m not.

The Curtain Men

This morn as i lay snoozing, still slowed by last night’s boozing
Dreaming dreams of sultry sirens serenading me to sleep
There came a piercing ringing, slicing through the sirens’ singing
As of someone ringing, dinging, waking me from slumber deep.
‘Tis some workman type’ I thought, ‘come to break my slumber deep
‘Come to prise me from my humble Munich flat.’

I jerked awake a-mumbling, crossed the floor just slightly stumbling
As I pulled a pair of jeans on, subtle curse-words softly spoken
With my head so rudely pounding like a hammer beat resounding
Still wondering why had some token visitor my snoozing broken
‘Why on earth should I be forced to have my morning snoozing broken
By an early-rising, ringing, Munich sewer-rat.’

Two men were outside waiting, not a thought of hesitating
In they came, these workmen bold, a-pushing wide my door.
‘We’ve come to check the curtains sir, we’ve got to see for certain
If they’re hanging more than twenty centimetres from the floor.’
‘They must be joking,’ I surmised, ‘who cares how far above the floor
Are the curtains hanging in my cosy Munich flat.’

These noble curtain-checkers, early-morning slumber-wreckers
With their single tool a strip of standard measuring tape
Went over to the curtain while I watched on legs uncertain
Watched them as they ascertained the length from ground to drape
‘Don’t tell me that they studied, just to measure ground to drape,’
Thought I, ‘these goddamn Munich bureaucrats.’

And having spent just seconds, as my time-lagged brain did reckon
In an exercise that seemed to have no purpose whatsoever
They left again as quickly as they’d come, I stood there thinking sickly,
How could curtain length be grounds enough my morning snooze to sever
How dare they come to call at eight, my gentle morning snooze to sever
To break the peace that reigned once, in my humble Munich flat.

2006-11-22T13:16:00.000+01:00

Bans don't work

The latest news from Germany is that senior politicians, including Minister President Edmund Stoiber of the CDU/CSU, are calling for a ban on violent video games.

The Bundesrat initiative is in fact old news, as Germany’s ‘grand coalition’ of the SPD and CDU/CSU signed a document agreeing to pursue a ban as long ago as last year.

But now, as is ever the case, unrelated events have sparked the debate into life again. Those of you who were able to locate the foreign news in the British press (usually afforded about as much space as the horoscopes) may have heard that a teenager ran amok in a school in Emsdetten on Monday, shooting eight people before eventually turning the gun on himself.

Investigations into his online activities revealed the gunman, Sebastian Bosse, had a keen interest in the computer game Counter-Strike. Bosse had used the game’s editing facility to create a mock-up of the school in which he was able to embark on a virtual version of his planned killing spree.

With the link between the shootings and the game so evident, the move to ban such games is likely to meet with considerable popular support over here.

But is it really so easy to establish a causative link to a computer game? It reminds me of the fuss over children’s TV series Power Rangers, in the 1990s. Parents complained that the posterior-kicking antics of the PR team were causing their children to batter each other senseless on a more regular basis than they had previously done.

Nearly twenty years later, it seems ridiculous that such a tame programme could have cause so much uproar. In 2026, it’s more than likely that we will look at Counter-Strike in the same way. To those of us happily free of psychotic tendencies, it’s just a good bit of macho, testosterone-fuelled fun, much like paintball or Quasar.

Of course, for Bosse it formed a virtual arena for preparing his crimes. But who’s to say that playing out his murderous fantasies in his bedroom didn’t prevent him from acting even sooner than he did. How many other hate-filled young men are taking out their anger on their keyboards, rather than on their schoolmates?

No-one will ever be able to prove that a film, computer game, or for that matter, book, has motivated someone to commit murder. Furthermore, any ban is likely to be ineffective, given the proliferation of download programmes which offer access to such games for free.

It is nigh on impossible to regulate human behaviour, whether you’re a computer games manufacturer or a politician. And once the video nasties and violent games have been done away with, who will we blame for the next atrocity?

Parents will be the only ones left. Perhaps we should be looking for answers closer to home.

2006-11-20T15:50:00.000+01:00

Rebel rhino

Good news from Kenya (if you’re a British soldier that is), where the army is proving considerably more adept at taming local insurgents than it has in Iraq.

Four soldiers, believed to be from the Gurkha regiment, sprang into immediate action when they were targeted as the victims of a callous ambush by a white rhino (one of a dangerous and bloodthirsty contingent of about 200 in Kenya).

The disgruntled rhinoceros, presumably angered by the presence of foreign troops on rhino soil, lumbered towards the startled soldiers with murder in its eyes. Thankfully, all those years of training came flooding back and, in a heroic stand, the men were able to subdue the beast by pumping it full of bullets.

It is not yet known whether the rhino was armed, although intelligence sources say Russian-made assault rifles have fallen into the hands of rhinoceroses via Iran in recent years.

2006-11-19T13:17:00.000+01:00

Defusing explosive language

I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated with the coverage of the war on terrorism in the British media.

Not because I feel it is in any way intrinsically biased, in fact, I think the British press has operated with an uncharacteristic degree of restraint. Even the tabloids seem to have recognised that this cannot be an ‘us and them’ issue, because we are them and they are us.

What annoys me though, is something I am sure has developed on a subconscious level but is extremely damaging, namely the juxtaposition of the word ‘Islamic’ with the word ‘terrorist’. On a basic level, the mere conjunction of the two ideas is enough to associate them with each other in people’s minds.

But how else are you to describe terrorists who claim adherence to Islam? There are, after all, very few Hindus, Catholics or atheists planting bombs on the Underground. Very true, but if there were, would we be linking their faith to their actions?

I’m not so sure. Take the IRA for example: at the height of its activities, it was a terrorist organisation which used religion as a front for actions that were, primarily, political. Sounds pretty similar to al-Qaeda.

But 20 years ago, can you imagine the headline ‘Catholic extremist sentenced to life in prison’. I think not. The emphasis would have been on his affiliation to the IRA, not on his faith.

And yet, within the last 6 months I have seen countless headlines in which the idea of ‘Islam’ and the idea of ‘terrorism’ are directly associated. The only effect this can have is to create mistrust on both sides. It has to be time to change policy on this in the media.

What about using the phrase ‘pseudo-Islamic’. Or even biting the bullet and simply adding caveats like ‘…terrorist, who claims his beliefs have a basis in Islam.’ At least then we would be openly acknowledging the fact that Islam does not, per se, advocate terrorism.

It seems a minor point, but it’s easy to underestimate the power that words, when they are not used with caution, have to plant seeds in people’s minds. And no, this is not, as the Daily Express might have it, political correctness gone maaaad, but a legitimate factor in the division of our society.

It must be the responsibility of the media to recognise the impact a misjudged phrase can have without automatically assuming the responsibility of the reader to read around to attain a balanced viewpoint.

This can only start with a concerted and cooperative effort on the part of Britain’s editors. So please write to your local rag. If it achieves nothing, at least you’ll give the letters editor something to think about.

2006-11-19T13:14:00.000+01:00

Berlin whimsy

Berlin was the host for the second leg of the IJP conference, and once again we embarked on a whistlestop tour of politicians and spin doctors, pausing only for the odd sandwich. I've been to Berlin before and there are few European cities with more to offer for fans of history, art, theatre and music.

But, if high culture leaves you cold, here are my insider tips for the best things to see and do in Berlin.

1. The Hounds of the U-Bahn - These vicious beasts are best viewed from a distance. Preferably behind bullet-proof glass. They patrol the underground, dragging uniformed transport police behind them, their slavering jaws clamped shut by muzzles which, i can only imagine, are made of titanium. The muzzles came into use after a particularly persistent Schwarzfahrer jumped one queue too many.

2. The Rubbish Rifflers - A breed of smartly-dressed gentlemen who walk the streets peering into every nearby dustbin, rummaging around, then going to the next like some sort of refuse bee. At first i assumed they were tramps, but they are far too smartly dressed for that.

Germany being what it is, i assume they belong to a fearsome, many-tentacled (and made up) organisation called the Quasi-Stasi, who are checking to see if the Germans are really recycling as much as they claim to be. Should one of these fearless lawmen come across a rogue glass bottle, he dusts it down for fingerprints, then kicks down the door of the perpetrator in the middle of the night. The offending litterbug is then 'disappeared.'

3. The Gleisdreieck Triangle - Some say it's due to an ancient tribal burial ground far beneath Berlin, others say it's the result of building works...but Venture onto the semi-mythical U2 underground line at your peril. An uninitiated adventurer could find themselves going back and forth betweem Gleisdreieck and Potsdamer Platz for the rest of eternity, too committed to the journey to get off. Although they'd have to be pretty stupid not to notice. Right?

4. The Rum Trader - A dimly lit bar roughly the size of a postage stamp serving, amongst other things, some of the best rums in the world. An old-fashioned barman in a tuxedo serves you your drink with a courteous nod, although anyone with elbows may have to venture outside to drink it.

5. The lobby of the Radisson SAS Hotel - Travellers at a loose end can relax here watching the fish swim round and round the huge aquarium that dominates the middle of the room. The staff are know for their tolerance of bored bloggers with another four hours to go until their flight.

2006-11-10T14:28:00.000+01:00

What a load of bankers

I like Munich, but Munich hates me. Let me explain.

First of all, it’s taken nearly a week and about 50 telephone calls to find a place to live. This, apparently, is not unusual.

However, the place I found – which vastly exceeds my price range – demands a cash deposit of 1000 Euros and I, with my debit card, can only withdraw 300 pounds per day. Not a problem you might think, just go to the bank with your passport and hey presto. Well, you’d be wrong.

While Barclays bank claimed on the phone that I would be able to withdraw up to 1000 pounds from Deutsche Bank, the people at DB told me this was not true. Having spent most of the morning on the phone to Barclays, I was spitting with rage by this time and threw a minor wobbly in the foyer of Deutsche Bank.

Cue horrified stares from Germans, who are generally unprepared to question the rules, no matter how flagrantly stupid those rules may be.

So I turned to the exiles friend, Western Union, who allowed me to spend half an hour filling out an online money transfer form, before telling me right at the end that you cannot transfer money to yourself. All of which means my poor father has had to be mobilised to trawl London for Western Union agents so that he can make a transfer for me.

But what could I have done if I hadn’t had my parents to fall back on? Well, sweet F.A. it appears. The combined forces of two of the world’s biggest banks and a global money transfer network are unable to help me transfer cash between Europe’s largest economies.

Frankly, in the digital age, I find that ridiculous.

2006-11-07T20:52:00.000+01:00

Gerd ist geil

Last night i was at Munich's Gasteig, to see former Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder speak.

He was launching his new book, 'Entscheidungen' (Decisions) and answering questions posed by my new employer, and ready wit, Hans-Werner Kilz, editor of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The venue itself is a monstrosity, comparable with the National Theatre on London's South Bank, but without the spectacular surroundings to distract the eye from its concrete-clad functionality.

The talk, on the other hand, was enlightening. Not because Herr Schroeder said anything particularly fresh, but because i hadn't realised how charming he is.

Modest and unassuming, he had the crowd eating out of his hand as he flitted between light-hearted, self-deprecating humour and heartfelt ideological soliloquies.

I had to wonder how a man who seems so much more genuine than Tony Blair was unable to convince the German people to go along with his social reforms.

One of the reasons he gave for that was somewhat unusual. The electorate, he suggested, had been too politically ignorant to back him, too selfish to sacrifice temporary stability for gradual progress.

And there you have the difference between politics, even society, in Britain and Germany. In Britain we expect our politicians to treat us with respect, even though some may think of us privately with contempt. This stems from our culture of politeness, of saying what we feel ought to be said, rather than what we think.

In Germany by contrast, i have met very few people who dress up their opinions in niceties and caveats. What we in Britain think of as impolite, passes as directness, even honesty. That's why a politician like Schroeder is able to say exactly what he thinks without fear of becoming a popular hate figure.

Perhaps if we were able to engender a culture of straight talking in British politics, our statesmen would be seen as approachable and trustworthy. Instead, they are seen as distant, either preaching from on high or ignoring the electorate. They are almost universally mistrusted, even more so than us journalists.

In short, Blair would have done well to take a leaf out of Schroeder's book during one of their many meetings.

Perhaps then he might have been remembered as the progressive reformer he has, in part, been, rather than as the disingenous spin-merchant that many Brits believe him to be.

2006-11-07T20:51:00.000+01:00

Tottenham Hotspur 2 - Chelsea 1 (Yes, really)

I've been waiting for this moment since i began supporting Spurs, a good 16 years ago.

After the best 90 minutes i've seen all season, Tottenham repayed the loyal and vocal support of their fans with a performance that was a combination of simple gumption from grafters like Dawson and King (who surely merits a go in the England starting line-up), and some technical brilliance from the likes of Berbatov, Keane and Aaron Lennon.

Finally, the hackle-raising smugness with which commentators invariably quote statistics about Tottenham's form against Chelsea can be banished to the past where it belongs.

I'm not saying we were much the better side, and Terry's second yellow card looked harsh to me, unless he said something particularly offensive.

But the boys have been grinding out results recently and they deserved to be the side who ended this unenviable and frankly embarrassing Chelsea hoodoo. So huge congratulations to everyone at Tottenham, and here's hoping this is the beginning of a slow climb towards a Champions League place.

Yours,

RD - Head of Propaganda at White Hart Lane

p.s. And Arsenal were beaten by West Ham. Apparently these things come in threes, so i'm expecting to be visited in my slightly dingy hotel room by a bevy of nubile young Anglophile German girls.

2006-11-07T20:47:00.000+01:00

Welcome to Munich

I've just arrived in Munich, ready and raring to go for six weeks at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

On the first night, i took a look at the sights and as the evening wore on and i got bored i thought i'd go for a beer.

My attempt to find a place 'known for a regular clientele of cynical journalists' failed, so i stopped into a small pub and sat down. The first person i noticed was a man sitting at the bar, sporting a bald head, moustache and leather trousers.

But that doesn't seem unusual in Germany, and leather trousers are particularly en vogue round here. So i sat at the bar and started reading my paper.

My eyes browsed over the wall...there was a heart-shaped valentine's card that said (in German) 'To my lovely boy' or something along those lines...then there was a photo collage with a joke about arses i didn't understand. Christina Aguilera was playing on the jukebox and Cher was next up.

It struck me as odd that no-one in the photos, and indeed the bar, was female. I put it down to South German machismo and went back to my paper. But as i read Simon Hoggart, i became painfully aware of leather boy to my left looking at me. Probably just intrigued by my English paper, i guessed.

More regulars, men - some leather-clad, came in and sat around me, trapping me, like a lamb in a barrel of wolves, in a circle of big butch German men. They began making jokes that i couldn't quite understand, and eyeing me strangely. Realisation dawned.

Now i'm no homophobe, but i've seen a lot of horror movies and being leered at by enormous locals is not my cup of beer. So i finished my drink and stood up to leave.

At which point the mouth-breather on my right accused me of running off because he'd sat down next to me at the bar. I mumbled something like 'Not in the least mate. Don't be silly.' And legged it.

Why does this sort of thing always happen to me?

2006-10-29T21:08:00.000+01:00

What the flag is going on?

I've never felt a pressing need to apply match to cloth and burn the flag, whether it be the Union Flag, the Stars and Stripes or any other.

Until now that is. The police are calling for flag-burning to be outlawed and suddenly i feel the need to incinerate any flag, all flags, or indeed anything flammable i can lay my hands on.

Our brave bobbies are following a train of thought which belongs in the playground, somewhere between 'You smell. No you do!' and 'Loser says what.'

Flag-burning, they muse, is itself, not intrinsically wrong. Ah-hah, but who is doing the flag-burning? Oddly enough, the same people who don't seem to like the Government very much.

But those people (cunning devils) are notoriously loath to commit any actual crimes, even though they are quite obviously reprobates who would blow you up as soon as look at you.

Annoyingly for Pc Plod though, being suspiciously Muslim and angry isn't a crime in itself. So, lets take something we know they sometimes do and ban that instead. Genius!

So, as you would expect this is merely the first of a raft of pre-emptive policies. As of January 2007, police will be arresting anyone wearing Reebok classics and matching tracksuits (burglary), anyone caught listening to Bob Marley (possession of marijuana) and all men (rape).

Because, as this proposal quite clearly accepts, there's no smoke without fire.

2006-10-27T16:18:00.000+01:00

Also sprach David Schlesinger...

I spent this weekend at Davenport House, a lovely old Georgian country manor, nestled in the hills of Shropshire.

We (a group of German and British journalists) were there for the beginning of the George Weidenfeld Bursary programme, in which media organisations from the two nations exile some of their more restless charges to newsdesks abroad.

The two days spent in Shropshire were fairly leisurely, characterised by a free bar, roaring fire and the odd nervous-looking pheasant. There was a shoot on and we were warned to stick to the paths but unfortunately i don't think anyone warned the pheasants.

In between attempts to ignore the country folk's rabid desire for bloodsports, we managed the odd chat about the differences between the media in our two countries.

What stood out was that German papers employ a good deal more journalists. Matt Withers, our tabloid representative from Wales on Sunday, approached apoplexy at a 450-word article from Bild am Sonntag which somehow carried five bylines.

Presumably just being around when the editor is in a good mood is enough
for our friends in Central Europe.

I certainly hope so, as i've somehow landed the placement of my dreams at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, where i'll be working for six weeks, rubbing shoulders with some of German journalism's big names. Daunting stuff.

But what better preparation than the following day's whirlwind schedule in London...

We had lunch at Incognico's on Shaftesbury Avenue, where we heard the lowdown on Labour from former government aide Patrick Diamond, who gave us very much the official line, occasionally going off the record only to say something fairly innocuous. But he spoke well and it was particularly valuable information for the Germans.

Then on to the House of Lords for what turned into a Q and A on the ongoing veil debate with Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian. I won't go into our discussion too much as i've harped on about Jack Straw on these pages before.

But it was good to have a seasoned commentator in the debate, and i was particularly interested in his suggestion that the media must shoulder a great deal of the responsibility for today's hostile climate, in that they purposefully seek out fanatical Muslims for coverage, misrepresenting the true proportion of such feelings in Muslim society.

This phenomenon, he suggested, while it may appear to engender a more open, honest debate, is in face a dangerous empowerment of minority views which are in fact far less threatening than the melodrama-keen media is wont to imply.

Sadly we didn't have enough time to go into that debate any further as it was on to the Lords Dining Room (all in a day's work old boy) for tea with Lord Weidenfeld. Then, after a quick taxi ride or two through a rapidly flooding London, we headed for the German ambassador's residence.

Despite a disappointing lack of James Bond-style heavies, and absolutely no Ferrero Rocher, the ambassador's reception was, indeed, in exquisite taste.

Alumni of the programme mingled, ate and drank in a sumptuous setting, and as we ate we were serenaded by a speech from David Schlesinger, Global Managing Editor of Reuters.

He's certainly articulate, with a stentorian tenor voice and a sense of drama in his phrasing. But i felt his speech on the 'End of Journalism' added little to a debate which is already going on in newsrooms around the world.

The conclusion seemed to be that the end of journalism is not nigh. But it might be. Depending on what happens.

However, he clearly has a brain the size of a planet (and beard to match), and perhaps he is wise not to bandy predictions about when really, none of us know in what state the digital revolution will leave our trade.

If this weekend is anything to go by, we've still got some years in us yet though, and i'll be heading to Munich in good spirits. Look out for my pieces from the Sueddeutsche Zeitung on these pages.

2006-10-13T23:02:00.000+01:00

Troops on film

The verdict of the inquest into the death of ITN reporter Terry Lloyd confirms what most of us already suspected: US troops can be indiscriminate in their use of force when left to their own devices.

Friendly fire is no new phenomenon of course. In both of the Gulf conflicts, British aircraft, troops and vehicles, as well as members of the international press, have been shot at by their 'allies', probably due to the fact that their offensive equipment was more up-to-date than our defensive equipment. Which we bought from them.

But differences in technology can't be the only reason for America's startling propensity to shoot the wrong people.

Could it be that there is something of a cavalier attitude towards human life in the US ranks, in sharp contrast to the coalition's mission statement? After all, this is the country which preaches the sanctity of life whilst cheerfully executing an average of about 60 people per year.

Perhaps the most useful comparison i can make between the two nations' armed forces is in their techniques for 'letting off steam'.

This week, the RAF had its knuckles rapped after a video of a Harrier pilot 'buzzing' his friends on the ground surfaced on YouTube.

A grotesque misappropriation of taxpayers' money you might say, but in the end it was a harmless prank which has caused nobody any harm.

Previous to that, there was a video featuring squaddies acting out the video for 'Is This The Way To Amarillo?', complete with combat fatigues.

Now think of what we have seen of US troops on film. Well...there's an interesting gallery. First we have the menacing splendour of that finest of works, 'Attack Dog Let Loose On Naked Man', or the subtle masterpiece 'Hooded and Hooked Up', or my personal favourite 'Squaddie With Fag Does Her Bit For Female Emancipation'.

I'm not saying the British Army is immune to this sort of barbarism, but thankfully they seem to be prone to taking the piss rather than taking revenge.

Now that's the way to let off steam.

2006-10-12T00:34:00.000+01:00

You're still England's Number 1, Robbo

I feel absolutely gutted for poor old Paul Robinson after tonight's moment of pure misfortune.

He's a fantastic keeper, and although his preference for punching over taking the ball cleanly unnerves some people, he generally makes the right decision and makes it early.

So tonight's slip-up (or 'Horrible bobble boil and trouble' as The Times puts it, was all the more unthinkable.

But, i have to admit to a guilty feeling which i suspect the rest of the Spurs faithful might share: thank God he did it while playing for England.

Does that make me a bad person?

2006-10-06T21:48:00.000+01:00

The last Straw

It isn't often that i find myself nodding sagely at a quote from George Galloway, but he is right on the money when he says that Jack Straw is effectively telling Muslim women 'to wear less' when he requests them to remove their veils.

It is odd that Straw, who presides over a constituency heavily populated by Muslims, should be so seemingly ignorant of the significance of the veil, aside from its non-Muslim British received symbolism of patriarchal oppression.

To most Muslim women, the veil represents modesty, and whether we believe this to be a male-imposed stricture or not, Straw's suggestion bears comparison with asking Christian women to remove their tops when they visit him.

The whole debacle reminds me of the furore surrounding Irish playwright J M Synge's play 'The Playboy of the Western World.'

On its first performance at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, the audience enjoyed it heartily, until a line which referred to a row of girls 'all standing in their shifts'.

On that occasion, rioting followed. How could Synge speak with such quasi-pornographic disrespect about the maidens of Ireland?

But Synge had made a telling point: Ireland's virgins were not all they might seem. The rioters were outraged at the uncomfortable truth.

If there had been rioting in response to Straw's comment, it would have been far easier to understand. Straw has insulted not just Muslim women's conception of sexual modesty, but their intelligence, by saying that a custom they live with day in and day out prevents communication.

The fact is, the opinions of non-Muslim people will never have much bearing on how Muslims choose to dress, for the reason that no-one likes to be dictated to by someone who cannot possibly understand their situation.

If there is to be a movement against Islamic women covering their faces, it must come from reformist elements within the Islamic world.

If Straw chooses to support such elements within his constituency, then so much the better.

But to ask them to remove the veil to put him at his ease? Sorry Jack, but it sounds like nobody's problem but yours.

The final word though, must go to the author of a letter in today's Telegraph, who says: 'Sir – If I had to have a face-to-face meeting with Jack Straw, I would insist that he wore a veil.

Nice.

2006-09-20T21:50:00.000+01:00

Observe...

Links to a couple of my pieces that made it into the Observer. Riveting stuff obviously...

University catches 237 students cheats who trawl the internet

The toxic Tree of Heaven threatens England's green and pleasant land

2006-09-18T20:03:00.000+01:00

Online vigilantism?

For the last couple of weeks i've been working at The Observer, trying to make a name for myself at what my old housemate, Marcous Leroux of The Times, would call 'the coalface of journalism'.

A couple of my pieces made it into the paper, more by luck than judgement i imagine, but one that didn't was the controversial new website www.catchaperv.com

The founder of the site enters internet chatrooms posing as an underage girl, waits for the unwitting 'perv' to take the (jail)bait, before donning a policeman's helmet and surprising them by webcam.

A picture of the 'perv' and a log of the chat session is then posted on the website for all to see.

Unfortunately i haven't been able to get Gary, who owns the site, to comment, but i have been having an ongoing debate with a devotee of the site as to the various rights and wrongs of what they do.

You can see our discussion at: http://www.catchaperv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11

But the final word came from the head of the recently-created Child Online Exploitation and Protection Service, Jim Gamble. He said to me: "It is irreponsible when people play at being detective because they may be confusing an ongoing police operation and ultimately, nobody wins."

"Anyone who suspects an individual should report that to us using the mechanisms we have put in place."

One of these mechanisms is a 'Report Abuse' button, which comapanies such as Microsoft have added to their chat software. But MySpace has refused to participate in CEOPS' scheme.

Please don't hesitate to lobby them to get their act together, because the tools for reporting abuse at the moment are frankly inadequate.

2006-09-14T16:07:00.000+01:00

Is it just me or...?

This is totally random, but i was in the canteen at the Observer and the song 'When September ends' by Greenday was on.

Is it just me, or is it the same refrain repeated over and over again at slightly different volumes?

If i'm not just imagining it then this is musical hoodwinking on an unprecedented scale.

Think of all those poor young pseudo-punks who are being swindled out of their hard-earned mascara money! Scandalous.

2006-09-13T16:50:00.000+01:00

Time for a mailing campaign...

Please read this utter drivel which i discovered while researching circumstances surrounding the death of Tom Hurndall, a friend before he was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper.

If you know anything about the case, and perhaps if you don't, i'd urge you to email this guy and inform him of precisely how ignorant and partisan he is. I particularly like the part in one of his other articles where he describes the International Solidarity Movement as a 'Stalinist Arab-jihadi' organisation, neatly mixing up some handy bogeymen.

I won't publish my own letter to him, as i consider it a private matter, but i'm sure he'd welcome more comments than just mine. The website can be found at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=6196

The writer's name is Arutz Sheva.

=========================

Wahid Taysir, a Bedouin, is a better Israeli than me, a Jew. The reason I say that is Taysir served in combat zones with the IDF defending Israel; whereas, my only combat zone is on American college campuses, where my weapon is the written word.

Who is Sgt. Wahid Taysir? He is the Bedouin Israeli soldier prosecuted for the shooting of ISM activist Tom Hurndall and sentenced to eight years in prison. What I have just learned about his trial enrages me at the Israel government.

I am a writer and pundit here in the US who frequently writes about the Middle East and anti-Israel propaganda on US campuses. I started an organization here called Stop the ISM that monitors the machinations and activities of the International Solidarity Movement here on American college campuses.

Stop the ISM has volunteers who attend ISM meetings, and we have even managed to get over 200 ISM activists deported from Israel, after we showed the government the ISM is really just a logistical front for PLO terrorists. Last February, the ISM held a recruiting and strategy session at Georgetown University to get more American anarchists to go to the West Bank and incite riots that will interfere with Israeli soldiers and border police in closed military zones. This has become a running game; every Friday at the local mosques, ISM "peace activists" go in with PLO handlers and incite the local Arabs to riot against the security fence or to interfere at checkpoints. The ISM took their role so seriously in Hebron that the local Arabs asked the Israeli army to deport them, because they were creating extra long waits at checkpoints with all their nonsense. As one anarchist leader of the ISM explained at one of their seminars, Israel is the training ground for the American anarchist movement to eventually bring their tactics over to the US.

The ISM tells its volunteers that Israel is reluctant to create international incidents with foreigners, so the volunteers are instructed to serve as human shields for Arab terrorists. This includes being arrested with them, then refusing to leave jail unless the terrorist arrested with them is released also. Believe me, I could not make this up.

Tom Hurndall was an ISM volunteer from the UK in Rafah who had just arrived from Iraq, where he was a human shield for that wonderful human being, Saddam Hussein, just before US and UK troops sent Hussein scurrying for his underground hole. Hurndall was with another ISM activist who is currently touring American colleges calling for Israel's destruction named Joseph Carr. I just learned this week that Carr was a witness for the government against Taysir at his trial.

Taysir was prosecuted for allegedly shooting and wounding Hurndall, who eventually died almost a year later while in a coma at a British hospital. The army originally exonerated Taysir, but pressure bought to bear by the Hurndall family and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to reopen the case brought on marathon interrogations of Taysir, which elicited his "confession".

Taysir allegedly confessed to discharging his weapon without authorization, but no forensics were done on the bullet that hit Hurndall to determine if it came from an IDF-issued weapon. It seems a fellow Bedouin soldier lied in saying he witnessed the shooting when he hadn't. That soldier was also punished, but not as severely.

It is important to note here that the Hurndall family's foundation in Britain that put pressure on the Israeli government was run by Iran Kahn, a Pakistani political activist in the UK with whom Osama Bin-Laden seems to have contacts. Bin-Laden provided Khan with some of his earlier tapes threatening the West immediately after 9/11.

The Hurndall family originally wanted Taysir's entire IDF military unit indicted for murder (certainly an impartial and rational request, clearly with no political motivations against the state of Israel, right?). Now they are merely demanding that Taysir be extradited to England to face trial for murder there (imagine the publicity it would gain for the PLO in Britain! Those Hurndalls certainly have no axe to grind).

What raised my temperature was when I learned that Joseph Carr had been a witness at the trial against Taysir for the prosecution. Why should that upset me? Well, let me explain: Joseph Carr is not really Joseph Carr.

His real name is Joseph Smith and he was in Israel illegally under his new false ID, after being deported and banned for ten years by the Israeli government, when he testified. Stop the ISM intercepted copies of emails sent by Carr to fellow ISM activists in which he boasts that he entered Israel illegally at four different entry points at different times by fooling the border police (something that should make any Israeli feel secure about Al-Qaeda getting into the country).

He changed his name from Joseph Smith to his mother's maiden name of Carr to get a new US passport. ISM trainers tell their volunteers to do this to get back in after being caught and deported, and Carr is an expert, serving as a trainer himself in the US.

Smith/Carr's credibility as a witness in an Israeli court of law should be suspect also for other reasons. Smith has claimed he was running alongside the D-9 tractor that crushed Rachel Corrie, another anarchist from the ISM killed in Rafah and who attended college with Smith/Carr in Washington State. I've seen the video taken by the IDF the day Corrie was killed and there was nobody running alongside the tractor. But Joseph Smith/Carr did doctor some photos taken at different hours to make it look like he had photographed Rachel Corrie moments before she was killed. Reuters ran those photos, but then refuted them when it was shown they were doctored. Smith/Carr took photo credit for them on the ISM website, however. Smith/Carr also was quoted as saying he felt his friend Rachel's death was more than worth the cost of "the revolution".

That the Israeli government would allow a manipulative liar like Smith/Carr into the country to be prosecutorial witness against Taysir is unconscionable. Smith/Carr is an inveterate liar. The day that Hurndall was killed, the ISM had erected a tent to block the path of an IDF tank in a closed combat zone. In describing those events at ISM confabs in the US, Smith/Carr mentions that Hurndall wanted to be in the center of the action. The tank driver has no way to know if that tent contains explosives or a hole for a tank trap, so in my book, that made Hurndall a combatant. At the same time, Smith/Carr claimed Hurndall was shot while running to save some children. Smith/Carr has repeatedly stated at ISM events that the tank was indiscriminately shooting at children that morning. What were children doing in a closed combat zone? Is this credible, given Joseph Smith/Carr's reputation?

It is reasonable to bet the prosecution did not know Joseph Carr's true identity or his real background with the ISM, or that he was already illegally inside Israel under a false identity to work to destroy the state. But if his testimony in any way helped to convict Taysir, this boy deserves a new trial. Given the machinations of the ISM and its leadership, which is really the PLO at the top of the food chain, it is high time the Israeli government stop playing the fool for college-trained anarchists who want to destroy the state and ruin the life of a Bedouin Israeli soldier as just another pawn in their "revolution". This is not justice.

2006-09-09T16:41:00.000+01:00

Oops!

Just left a post telling everyone all about my story which should be appearing in the Observer tomorrow. Unfortunately, as my Mum pointed out about 5 minutes later on the phone, it's not a good idea to break a story your newspaper is planning to publish the next day on your own blog.

Ah, the inexperience of callow youth...

2006-09-06T16:13:00.000+01:00

Very superstitious

Today’s G2 in the Guardian features a mind-boggling collection of traditional superstitions, but what interests me is where they find their origin.

For example, it’s lucky if a black cat crosses your path but unlucky to view it from behind.

How exact is this? I mean, what if you see the cat from a 130 degree angle? Does that mean a fortuitous morning followed by kangaroos falling onto your head from the sky in the afternoon? Or did this one just arise when someone saw a black cat from the back too late to stop it from crapping on his shoes?

Then there’s the terrible peril you’re likely to incur if you walk into the house carrying a hoe. Exactly what a hoe is or why I should want to bring one into the living room is a mystery to a city boy like me.

But I’m more interested in the cure. Apparently you must walk backwards out of the house carrying the hoe to exorcise the bad luck demons. They don’t mention the bad luck incurred by stepping backwards onto a rake and impaling your foot. Perhaps that isn’t unlucky, just painful.

But my personal favourite is ‘Never give a knife as a housewarming present or the recipient will become your enemy.’

I don’t know about anyone else, but anyone who gives a knife as a housewarming present is probably a psychopath who wants emotional counselling, or failing that, locking up. What would this hypothetical person consider as an appropriate gift for a christening, an Uzi 9mm? Very odd.

NB Anyone attempting to follow the G2's advice to cut your hair in a storm for good luck, please use plastic scissors.

2006-09-06T14:37:00.000+01:00

Incensed!

I've just been insulted by the lift at The Observer.

As i stepped into it, not another soul in sight, it said "Lift overloaded!" in an irksomely smug tone.

I replied "You're no oil painting yourself mate," tightened my belt another notch and took the stairs.

2006-09-05T16:58:00.000+01:00

White papers

The defining characteristic of the press in this country must be the polarised spectrum that sees most newspapers adopt either a distinctly left or right-wing stance on nearly everything.

The current debate over multiculturalism/immigration/integration in one that highlights this more than ever. The anti-immigration rhetoric coming from the Mail, the Express, the Telegraph and the Sun is predictable enough, but there is something disingenuous about the coverage by the left-wing papers.

These are the reporters who subtly but confidently paint racism and xenophobia as primarily working-class characteristics, which they, as members of a middle-class intelligentsia, are obliged to combat.

Strangely enough though, when I go to see Tottenham Hotspur, I can look around and immediately see 10 or 15 non-white faces within a few metres of me. Yet in the newsrooms of the Telegraph and Guardian, I see not a single black face and very few that are anything other than pasty, pallid or pink.

Could it be that those who are most vocal about welcoming immigration suffer themselves from an innate, even subconscious racism? Is there, perhaps, a tiny part of the brain that thinks, “We could do with some Polish plumbers, but god help us if they start coming for my job”?

You’d never get anyone to admit it of course, but the one-tone nature of the staff at national newspapers is as much an indictment of journalism industry as it is of a wider social problem. They are aware that their readership is primarily white and middle-class, but have been slow to hire representatives of other backgrounds in order to widen that readership.

Until the conveyor belt of university graduates stops rolling into Fleet Street, this will never change, and the guilty secret of those oh-so righteous but oh-so exclusive press circles will remain under wraps.

2006-08-21T21:55:00.000+01:00

Inheritance tax - give the kids less

To me, arguments about taxation always boil down to morals, rather than economics.

Take the ongoing rumblings surrounding inheritance tax. The loudest voices in the anti-IHT lobby come from what might be identified as the upper middle class. These are the people whose children have benefited from their parents' income and who are likely to inherit not just assets, but the lasting legacy of private education, music/sports classes, holidays abroad and whatever other privileges they might have enjoyed.

Why then is it such an outrage that what they are allowed to pass on to their children should be limited?

The answer is simple: people are naturally, and understandably, averse to giving away what they believe to be theirs.

But those who see IHT as a 'stealth tax', or a means of taking a second bite of the income cherry, miss the fundamental point of this tax. It is the most effective, and fairest, means of distributing wealth.

Before IHT, we had in this country a landed gentry, self-sufficient, largely idle but hugely influential. They were able to pass on money and lands to their profligate offspring, who spent it mainly on vice. As you would.

But inheritance tax throws a spanner in the works of those who would be happy to live off the gains of their predecessors. It encourages young people to make their own way in life, to rely on their resourcefulness rather than their parent's resources.

Most importantly it directs surplus funds back into the economy to be spent on infrastructure and social welfare (one hopes). It is intrinsically bound up with the principle of social reciprocity.

This principle is apparently alien to those who would abolish it. No doubt they would much rather see wealth accumulate in the same regions and families it always used to than see funds go back into the coffers of a Government that they instinctively mistrust. Dislike of the Government is a handy smokescreen for those who would gladly cling on to every penny they can keep but selfishness is the true motivation.

Whether you support the Labour government or not, inheritance tax is born out of an instinctive belief that those who have ought to help provide for those who do not.

This is a belief on which successful societies have flourished since the dawn of time.

If you wish to argue against the wisdom of that feeling, please leave a comment below.

2006-08-20T20:23:00.000+01:00

Passenger profiling - us and them

The delay of a Manchester-bound flight due to passengers' alarm at two 'suspicious' Muslim men demonstrates that even if politicians are wary of passenger profiling, the general public is not.

It is likely that the British public, notorious for distrusting those who govern and police their society, will be responsible for many more false alarms in the coming months. And it is a racing certainty that the majority of these cases will be the result of passengers spooked by a shifty look, a raised voice in Arabic, or a long beard.

But the likelihood of any of these incidents resulting in the prevention of a terrorist act is very small indeed. The chief outcome will be to drive a wedge of distrust between Muslims and non-Muslims, each distrusting and fearful of the other.

Passenger profiling, whether it be by civilians or the security services, is bound to fuel the us-and-them mentality which is gradually tightening its grip on British society.

The common-sense brigade, as represented by our friends at, among others, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express, is incensed that anyone could find the idea of passenger profiling unpleasant. Their argument is simple: There have been no whites, Christians, Jews, Martians, or Rotary Club members involved in suicide bombings.

This is true. But the surefire way to change that fact is to introduce passenger profiling.

Is it inconceivable that the people who organise and sponsor terrorism will modify their tactics to counter ours? They have already proven themselves adept at recruiting young, middle-class British-born Muslims to their cause.

Why not Bosnians, Phillipinos, or even white British converts?

This is an eventuality which the right-wing press appears reluctant to consider, abhorrent as it will be to those who choose to believe that we are being attacked by a tangible and definitely 'other' entity.

This is not the case. We are being attacked by those who feel themselves to be defending their fellow Muslims, and who are exploited by puppeteers who revel in affluence and high-level security.

The only way to combat this sad conveyor belt of brainwashing is to remove the climate which sends moderates into the hands of extremists.

Passenger profiling will never achieve this. Doing away with the pre-emptive, aggressive, tubthumping foreign policy of the past 5 years just might.

2006-08-04T00:30:00.000+01:00

Post-9/11 climate change

Can you remember back to a time before September 11?

If you can, you'll remember that in the 'old days', shops and businesses had no reliable scapegoat in times of strife. Things just went wrong and actual people got blamed for it.

But, as a good friend pointed out to me recently, 9/11 became the perfect all-purpose excuse for all manner of wonder, idleness and folly.

Thus, your local bakery might have explained away poor sales by citing 'declining enthusiasm for baps and iced pastries in the post-9/11 climate'.

This so-called post-9/11 climate was supposedly responsible for all sorts of delays, cock-ups and gremlins, despite the fact that none of us could really identify what it was.

In London, thousands of commuters suddenly developed a new and convenient phobia of public transport, allowing them a few days off work, or at the very least, a leisurely stroll through the park, arriving a good couple of hours late. 'Sorry boss, i was checking under the privet hedge for explosive devices.'

Meanwhile, in schools, enterprising pupils had a whole new array of excuses at their disposal. 'I was holding a candlelight vigil for the victims of the World Trade Centre bombings when my geometry exercises caught fire...'

Now, as 9/11 mania dwindles daily, we need a new and handily ominous fallback. Nothing seems more appropriate than climate change.

Imagine the options for a particularly lazy shopkeeper:-

Electrical shops - 'Closed, due to concerns about excess energy usage'
Car dealerships - 'Back in 5 minutes - out offsetting carbon emissions'

Or of course, the all-purpose 'Closed due to staff shortages. Cheap and renewable employees wanted.'

Only when we have embraced climate change as an excuse to slack off will we finally have a reason to stop using our cars, give in to the post-climate change climate and stay at home doing nothing.

Join me in the new Eden of Lethargy. And bring suncream.

2006-07-24T21:23:00.000+01:00

No great sheikhs

I visited Saudi Arabia recently as a delegate of the Sports Memorandum of Understanding between Saudi Arabia and Britain.

The excursion was a jamboree of new experiences and cultural revelations but perhaps the most passion-inducing moment was a visit to Saudi Aramco, the world's fourth largest exporter of crude oil.

Now i know energy is a complex issue, and there is more to the debate than simply 'Oil bad, wind turbines good.' Indeed, i didn't expect to change our hospitable and generous host's mind about the value of renewable energy; after all, he was an oil baron.

But what really raised my hackles was the supreme arrogance with which he went about glorifying his trade. During a tour of the Saudi Aramco museum, he told us: "Some say that green energy is the future. I say let it come, it will only make our oil more expensive and our business larger."

I chose not to push him on economic issues, as i don't feel well-versed enough in matters of global trade to agree with his statement or counter it.

But at the end of the tour i expressed my feelings with two very simple questions.
First i asked what his company would do when the oil runs out (for i felt practical concerns are probably closer to his heart than moral ones.)

He replied: "Sure it will run out some day. But at the moment, every time we dig for water in this country we find oil. We're not worried."

Well, bully for them, but what of the moral question? I asked whether he felt somewhat responsible for increasing global levels of pollution and global warming.

Here his (paraphrased) response was more predictable: "Global warming? Where is the evidence? I don't believe it. It's just what politicians want you to think. To keep you scared."

What scares me is that an intelligent man can be so obtuse about what must be recognised as the biggest danger facing humanity. Suddenly, a man who had appeared so powerful, so assured, seemed like a fragile segment of a mendacious veneer displayed by a selfish and avaricious industry.

I'm only slightly ashamed to say i backed down. There's no debating with someone whose agenda is so clearly fixed.

I took the cowardly option instead and refused the Saudi Aramco baseball cap i was offered. Fight the power!

2006-07-04T21:09:00.000+01:00

Middle Eastenders

I had intended to post a daily soap opera based on my travels in Saudi Arabia, where i've been for the past two weeks.

However, my dreams of luxury hotels with internet access points on every flat surface were unfounded.

So in the next few days i'll post some pieces about the most interesting aspects of my time there, plus the odd photo of a camel.

2006-06-15T21:56:00.000+01:00

Fame...at last.

Joy of joys, the last entry on this blog made it into Ben Rooney's 'Today on the Web' in the dear old Guardian.

Watch out Toynbee, i'm coming for your job.

2006-06-14T00:50:00.000+01:00

Is sorry good enough?

Good old British bobbies. They’ve apologised for breaking into the house of two apparently innocent men and causing ‘hurt’. Whether by this they mean the mental anguish suffered by the gentlemen concerned, or the gaping bullet wound in one of their chests isn’t specified.

But behind this story must lie either incredible cunning by terrorist organisations or a serious lack of judgement by the boys in blue. I have two theories about what was going on behind the scenes.

1. The whole thing is an elaborate set-up by agitators hoping to fuel the perception that Muslims in Britain are being persecuted.
2. Some residents of Forest Gate noticed two Asian men with long beards and made an assumption which the police were all too willing to go along with.

I wish I could say the first seemed more likely but let’s face it, ineptitude is vastly more common than conspiracy.

2006-06-07T16:26:00.001+01:00

Will any government ever understand drug abuse?

Once again, the government has proved it has no idea how to deal with drugs.

No sooner has cannabis been reclassified as a class C drug than John Reid announces plans to decrease the limit for possession to 5g, along with a host of changes to the restrictions on harder drugs.

The cynical might say it’s a shameless attempt to appear tough-on-crime-tough-on-the-causes-of-crime at an opportune moment for an embattled minister.

I’d go one further and say that it’s a reckless move which will criminalise thousands of people, fill the prisons, and saddle the police force with an even greater burden than they already shoulder.

Given Mr Reid’s own admission that his department is ‘not fit for purpose’, how is it going to cope with the extra workload of cases and paperwork? And what of drug users who will be sent to prison rather than medically treated as they ought to be?

Everyone is aware of the dangers of drugs and it is understandable that a bulldog like Reid takes a hard line approach. But drug-related crime will never go away in this country until we learn that it is the crime that should be done away with, not the perpetrators.

I say bring in the controversial ‘shooting galleries’ for heroin addicts. It keeps them off the streets, HIV-free and within the reach of those who want to help them. It defies belief that no-one in the present administration is considering this.

I would also call for the decriminalisation of cannabis. The Swiss have done it and despite a few teething problems with police unsure of how to deal with the spread of cannabis outlets, it has been successful.

The coffee shops, rampaging tourists, dens of iniquity that the right-wing press says would immediately flood Britain if cannabis was decriminalised? Nowhere to be seen in the land of cheese and chocolate.

In fact, there is a case for complete legalisation of all drugs. It requires a bigger forum than this to discuss, but my argument, in brief, is this: Legalising drugs takes them out of the hands of criminals and gives the government control.

In an era when control over its citizens is something the government positively salivates over, why can’t that zealotry be used for practical, rather than intrusive measures?

Only then will the pressure on prisons be relieved and the stigma of drug use properly dealt with. Until drug users are lifted out of an artificial subculture, no government will ever truly understand them.

2006-05-24T11:35:00.000+01:00

Rob Davies is unwell...

Just a short note to apologise for my silence in the past week or two. It's been silly season for exams, so i've been frantically drilling notes on contempt of court, the European Parliament, defamation and the like.

Devotees of trialbyshorthand (come on, there must be one somewhere) should know it'll be back up and running once the sharp-beaked hawks of academia have removed their claws from my back.

Gone out, backson. Bisy, backson (answers on a postcard)

2006-04-28T12:52:00.000+01:00

Britain is full up they say. Have they never been to Scotland?

Emma Byrne writes in her blog, Colemanballs, that the message of the BNP 'reaches the ears of the public, not across the debating chambers of Westminster, but across doorways and gardens in local constituencies'.

It's a fine point and one which supports my argument in the post of February 3, 'Free speech and the shaven-headed mob'. Those who say we should deny the BNP a platform of expression are missing the point.

Their popularity is growing, not because we allow them to express their views, but precisely because most newspapers, television stations and other forums for debate do not.

All this does is drive xenophobia and racial hatred into the arena of clandestine conversations in the gardens and social clubs of middle England.

Only by letting these people expose themselves as the bigoted ignorami they are can we ensure their opinions continue to be regarded as unacceptable.

2006-04-27T14:50:00.000+01:00

Blagging and blogging

Last night's talk on blogging by Danny Finkelstein at the Adam Smith Institute was a melee of free-flowing ideas and champagne.

Daunted as i was by a room full of free market libertarians, i struggled on, desperately trying to conceal my namby-pamby Guardian-reading, student credentials.

I had blagged my way in after borrowing an invitation given to my Mum, who was abroad. And as the room began to fill, i found myself in the inner sanctum of the centre-right blogging community.

It sounds like a nightmare combination of geekiness and Toryism, but somehow it turned into an enjoyable evening, as i hobnobbed with top politicians and reporters, although I think Trevor Kavanagh may have been ever so slightly miffed when i asked who he wrote for.

Once the mingling was over and the talk began, Finkelstein had some good points to make, though nothing that i haven't heard before in one form or another. The most significant idea to my mind, was the notion that the blogosphere allows for greater scrutiny of public figures.

It is an attractive prospect that misbehaviour and malpractice can be reported on the blog of any citizen who happens to uncover it. Journalists cannot be everywhere at once (except for some of the more portly ones) and the blogosphere could be an invaluable resource for gathering localised and specific information.

Joe MP now knows that ranting at a waiter in a restaurant, or doing unspeakable things with rent boys (Mark Oaten taken note) can lead to rumour (or indeed fact), spreading across the internet in minutes.

Surely this can only serve to make politics more transparent and MPs more tightly bound to decent behaviour. The real triumph of blogging is that it allows the man on the street to subvert the clandestine mechanisms used by politicians to conceal their wrongdoings.

All of which makes last night's bloggers seem something like a cross between Batman and mother Theresa. Well not quite, but for some well-crafted comment and intellectual bric-a-brac, check out Dodgeblogium, and the blogs of Tim Worstall and Trevor Kavanagh.

And for my fellow tree-hugging pinkos, remember: hardly anyone is ever right, they are just better at arguing.

2006-04-19T16:44:00.000+01:00

Patois got your tongue?

Spawn of the Daily Mail and favoured Tube-travel rag of my youth, the Evening Standard, has a bee in its bonnet. Apparently the good old Cockney vocabulary is on its way, out, replaced by a new, multicultural (read ‘foreign’) patois known as ‘Jafaican’.

Desperately trying to hide its disapproval of outside influences having a bearing on the London lingo, the Standard dissects the way that white children in London have adopted slang based on Jamaican words. The implication is that something unique, desirable and special is on its way out.

Well, yes, it is easy enough to romanticise the East End of London as a 1940s theme park where the taps run warm beer, jellied eels are served for breakfast, lunch and dinner and everyone remembers the Blitz. Easy enough, that is, if you’re white, over fifty and have the box set of ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ on DVD. But it is barely more than an illusion.

The infiltration of Jamaican slang has been around for a good decade, maybe longer, now. I can still remember the middle-class accountants’ sons at my school swaggering along, clothed in their maroon and black private school uniform, uttering Yardie expressions they didn’t know the origin of. At the time it was laughable, so obviously put on that it couldn’t last.

North London independent schools though, are no measure of youth culture. While Jafaican was taking hold in the predominantly white, moneyed society I knew, it was already an established part of the language in the more racially and socially mixed areas of London.

This is no bad thing. Language is, after all, organic. It grows and is modified based on social factors, reflecting the atmosphere in which it is used. Perhaps this is what the Standard is scared of. If Jafaican really is replacing Cockney, does this mean the end of other British institutions? The good old British Bulldog to be overrun by hordes of Chihuahuas? Bubble and Squeak to be replaced by curry? Holidays in Barbados instead of Bognor? But wait a minute, those last two have already happened. In fact, outside influences are what has made post-colonial Britain what it is: a hotpot of mutually beneficial cultures.

So what is it about Jafaican that so worries the nice folks at the Standard? Perhaps it is simply nostalgia for a commonly remembered phenomenon. After all, who can help but miss the lovable rhyming slang the Kray brothers used as they extorted, stole and killed. Or perhaps they are motivated by a modicum of fear about their popularity in the coming years.

After all, as London grows ever more diverse, racially and culturally, is there really a place for a newspaper that takes 10 years to catch on to what the ‘yoots’ are doing?

2006-04-16T12:35:00.000+01:00

Stevie's Musical Top 5: Week 3

The top 5 tunes...about murder (excluding hip-hop)

In reverse order...

5. How I Could Just Kill A Man (RATM version)
4. Boom boom - John Lee Hooker
3. The Ballad of Eliza Day - Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue
2. Rocky Raccoon - The Beatles
1. Hey Joe - Jimi Hendrix

Just missing out: Murder She Wrote - Chakademus & Pliers, Maxwell's Silver Hammer - The Beatles, Delilah - Tom Jones

And remember, Stevie said murdering each other is not cool.

2006-03-17T15:04:00.000+01:00

Climate change and 'Canute' Lawson

The former Tory Chancellor-of-the-Exchequer writes in The Spectator on climate change. With slick and well-reasoned argument he outlines the reasons why we should not get carried away by jumping on the green bandwagon without thinking.

Clearly an intelligent man, he raises some salient points. Anyone who is serious about the climate change debate should welcome a voice that differs from the standard line offered by newspapers like The Independent, i.e. that we are all doomed to a watery grave.

But while Lawson’s argument is well-constructed, it is ultimately the dry rationalisation of an economist who views the world in terms of easily pliable opposing forces.

First, he attacks the idea that the average global temperature is rising with unprecedented intensity, pointing out that in the smoke-spouting early 20th century, the world did not suffer a large rise in climate change. The change it did undergo, says Lawson, was not necessarily caused by man-made factors. He also states that the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change’s (IPCC) forecasts are extremely pessimistic.

It is foolhardy of him to argue that we cannot prove that man is responsible for the change in climate. That may indeed be the case, but are we to wait until it can be proved before we act? Is it not generally accepted that the less carbon emissions, the better for all of us? Do the Lawsons take their family holidays at the Hammersmith flyover or somewhere with purer air quality?

We may not be able to prove it just yet, but if we operate under the assumption that it is man who is heating up the planet, we at least have a chance of stemming the tide, whether it is our fault or not.

To say that the IPCC is being pessimistic smacks of the cold rationalism of a man used to looking mainly at hard facts and figures. Of course the IPCC is pessimistic. We are dealing with worst-case scenarios here, the potential upheaval of the world as we know it. If the IPCC were to give us conservative estimates, we may find that we regret the lack of a contingency buffer one hundred years down the line.

Next, Lawson attacks the Kyoto protocol, and here he makes his most poignant remarks. He is right to say that the targets laid out by Kyoto would do little or nothing to reverse the trend. He is also right to point out that the worst carbon-producing nations of today and tomorrow have not signed up to Kyoto and are not likely to.

But the point of Kyoto was not to solve the problem of global warming in one fell swoop, but to reach a landmark consensus that climate change constitutes a clear and present danger. A fairly hollow gesture one might say, but a gesture which had not been made before and which has seen an increase in energy awareness teaching in schools. This is a message that continues to be exported globally and which looks set to take hold gradually. By the time energy efficiency is taken as a given it may be too late, but that is no reason not to start now.

As European countries slow their carbon emissions, Lawson says, there will be no real global net decrease, for carbon-producing industries will simply relocate to countries like China. That may be so, and it will certainly be unavoidable if we abandon the Kyoto agenda now. But if European nations continue to hammer home the message that green energy is preferable to carbon-based fuels, that message can and should eventually penetrate the insular stubbornness of the non-Kyoto nations.

Where Lawson really seems to be away with the fairies is in his fantastical suggestion that we should concentrate on countering the effects of global warming, rather than spending money on trying to reverse it. His first suggestion is that countries like Holland will have to improve their sea defences (Bangladesh, he suggests kindly, will need some international aid).

This is a suggestion that conjures the enduring image of a Canute-like Lawson, standing atop a 300-foot dyke on the beaches of Scheveningen, commanding the waves to return from whence they came. Does he really imagine that flood defences will be viable in the face of the rising oceans? Does he find the idea of building walls around our beaches desirable?

Then he cheerily suggests that farmers will adapt to changing climate conditions. No doubt turnip farmers in Scotland will be amused to know that their grandchildren could be harvesting olives, but the nations somewhat closer to the equator may not see the funny side.

Last, he suggests that we work harder to conserve water supplies, as we waste the stuff on a monumental scale as a species. That is undoubtedly true, but it sounds too much like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. When nations across Africa, Asia and Latin America find their crops dying and their wells drying up, no irrigation system, no matter how fiendishly brilliant it is, will do the trick. Yes, we should conserve water more than we currently do, but global warming will render the poorer nations of the world more than just thirsty.

The main tenor of Lawson’s article is that we should not blindly believe what the alarmists say. “That can be no basis for rational policy-making,” he writes. But what he fails to recognise is that the irrational policies of today could well be the necessities of tomorrow. Yes, he espouses some sensible ideas for dealing with climate change in other ways than merely reducing emissions. But to abandon the groundwork that has already been laid for a sea change in global thinking on energy is madness.

Lawson labels “climate change absolutism” a credo that is akin to faith, the new religion for Europe’s secular masses. If that is true, then so be it, for none of us can see so far into the future that we can afford to relinquish faith in our ability to prevent global warming.

We must continue to act, even without proof, or Lawson’s policies could prove to be the worst gamble he has ever thrown his no longer considerable weight behind. And that includes Poll Tax.

2006-02-23T19:25:00.000+01:00

Jazz Review: Brad Mehldau Trio - Anything Goes

Anything Goes is a continuation of the form which has seen Brad Mehldau win praise from the biggest names on the contemporary jazz scene. Backed by drummer Jorge Rossy and bassist Larry Grenadier, Mehldau moves through a selection of standards and more modern works, infusing them with his own offbeat sense of musical progression.

First and foremost an improviser, Mehldau wears his classical training very much on his sleeve. His fascination with challenging the formal architecture of music fuels everything he plays, lending his playing a sense of theatre, as if each piece were a doorway into a fairytale world where the usual restrictions of music do not apply.

The album is packed with highlights, beginning with a version of Harold Arlen’s Get Happy that flirts with the carefree bounce of the original, before accelerating into a whirling dervish of an interpretation. As ever, Mehldau flits between the serene and the frenzied with remarkable poise, his transitions so smooth that the listener is barely aware of a change in pace.

Languid Bossa Nova number Tres Palabras slinks along like a femme fatale in a cocktail dress, seductive and exotic. The bass and drums take a back seat and Mehldau shows off his unparalleled sensitivity of touch, conjuring visions of Latin romance with millipede-like fingers. It is a tune that begs to be enjoyed in front of a glowing fire, with a glass of rich red wine and a tender embrace.

The Connecticut-born pianist is also a self-confessed fan of Oxford rock innovators Radiohead. Previous versions of Exit Music (For a Film) and Paranoid Android brought new possibilities to already complex compositions. On Anything Goes, he turns his hand to Everything in its Right Place, taking an essentially simple theme and expanding it to the point where the tune is recognisable only in atmosphere.

This is Mehldau’s greatest skill. He has the ability to take a piece of music and make it into everything it can be within the space of one interpretation. Gradually, his own improvisational genius takes over until a once familiar composition is swallowed whole. Then, without the slightest warning, he brings the theme back effortlessly and the tension is resolved. The listener has been taken on a seamless journey and arrived back in the comfort zone.

The communication between the three musicians is superb. Rossy’s tranquil brushwork creates the impression of gentle rainfall, complementing the often melancholy Mehlday beautifully. Grenadier’s bass provides a deep, rich platform for the piano, occasionally pushing to the front and making its presence known. The result is a finely balanced trio which might just be the best in the world at the moment.

Anything Goes is the latest in a series of triumphs from Brad Mehldau. While the jazz scene remains marginalised, Mehldau will never be a star. But in years to come, this album will be recognised as one of the towering successes of modern jazz.

2006-02-23T19:17:00.000+01:00

Stevie's Musical Top 5 - Week 2

The top 5 tunes...with a full name in the title

In reverse order...

5. Arnold Layne - Pink Floyd
4. Kevin Carter - The Manic Street Preachers
3. Jimmy Jazz - The Clash
2.Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
1. Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles

Bubbling under: Tracy Jacks - Blur, Marcus Garvey - Burning Spear, Free Satpal Ram - Asian Dub Foundation, Mohammed Ali - Faithless and more...

Stevie will be back with more wisdom next week. Until then, stay cool kids.

2006-02-17T17:14:00.000+01:00

Cigarettes don't kill people, religious hatred does

The British government and I don’t coincide very often. But this week it appears that I’ve developed a psychic link with our friends in Westminster.

Just as Tony Blair was enduring a pasting from backbenchers over the Religious and Racial Hatred Bill, I was in a similar pickle. Cardiff County Council’s media manager was giving me a right royal ear-bashing for my "cavalier attitude towards inflaming racial tensions in Cardiff.”

My crime? Brandishing a placard reading “Foreigners Out”? Running rampant through a mosque with my shoes on? No, daring to publish an article revealing that a Belgian newspaper which came out in support of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten had received threats from an e-mail address belonging to Cardiff Council.

Never mind the fact that they shouldn’t have allowed it to happen in the first place. Nor the strikingly obvious fact that local authorities should not seek to impose restrictions on the press. No, the fault was all mine and if there was rioting on the streets of Butetown, then I would be held solely responsible.

Once that ‘furore’ had died down, Westminster and I were back in sync over smoking. No sooner had the anti-smoking Bill passed by a landslide than I was plastering my very first Nicorette patch onto my arm. As dyed-in-the-wool smokers brave the freezing cold temperatures outside the pub next year, I shall be happily absorbing my nicotine fix in comfort over a pint.

Mind you, I should be wary of hubris. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to give up. But this time, following some respected advice, I went to my GP and asked for his help. No more cold turkey for me, I decided, too much risk of bird flu.

The doc was a real help. An ex-smoker himself, he knew exactly what I was up against. He even raised a smile by saying, “Smokers are denying that they’re going to get cancer like there’s no tomorrow.” Priceless. A week later and i'm still on the wagon, though slightly bemused as to what everyone else does when they want to avoid working.

So, how to maintain this spectacular run of synchronisation with Westminster? Well, next week I shall be turning my flat into a Trust Dwelling, in which local businesses, synagogues, mosques and community action groups will be invited to run all of my day-to-day living arrangements. I will also be inviting Ruth Kelly in, who will no doubt tell me that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

I haven’t the heart to tell her that I think Opus Dei is rather silly.

2006-02-03T12:37:00.000+01:00

Free speech and the shaven-headed mob

Watching Nick Griffin chirruping smugly about free speech on the news last night, I couldn’t suppress a sickly smile.

Once again, the age-old arguments about free speech resurface. Just what does our incontrovertible right to freedom of expression entitle us to? Is it OK to suggest that Muslim paedophiles are targeting ‘British’ children? Of course not. Is it legal? According to a jury of Griffin’s peers, yes.

As hateful as the BNP are, I cannot help feeling that the right verdict was delivered. The reason that these quasi-Nazis are such a minority faction is precisely because of their right to free speech. Many Britons are sceptical about asylum seekers, but the majority balk at the suggestion that they are ‘cockroaches’, as Griffin’s sidekick Mark Collett was revealed to have said.

As long as bigots like these are allowed to express their views in a public forum, they will never succeed in this country. The average British voter is repulsed by the voracity of it all. We like our politicians to be drab utilitarians or lovable rogues. The merest suggestion of radicalism results in instant marginalisation.

Take a look at Griffin’s mob. Standing at the front are he and Collett, the acceptable faces of the BNP. Both boast a full head of hair. Neither of them sports a (visible) swastika tattoo.

Now let the eye sweep over the assortment of minders and minions gathered behind them. A more petrifying assortment of bouncers, boxers and bulldog-faced bruisers is rarely seen. This is the true face of the party and thanks to free speech, the one which anyone with half a brain recognises as the true image of the party.

Constrain the BNP’s right to say what they like and you drive the extremists underground. If the skinheads are denied their soapbox, it will surely lead to an explosion of Nick Griffins. Sharp-suited, mild-mannered, innocuous-looking men, who apparently present no political danger.

This is a worst-case scenario. The right to free speech means we can keep people like Griffin where we can see them: at the head of a group of thugs. Deny that right and you force the racists to hide their true persona.

And the only thing more dangerous than religious hatred is religious hatred with a palatable disguise.

2006-01-18T19:01:00.000+01:00

Stevie's Musical Top 5 - Week 1

The Top 5...tunes with a species of bird in the title

In suspense-inspiring reverse order...

5. Rockin' Robin - Jackson 5
4. Puffin Dance - Umod
3. Albatross - Fleetwood Mac
2. El Condor Pasa - Simon & Garfunkel
1. Bye Bye Blackbird - John Coltrane

2006-01-18T13:53:00.000+01:00

Back to Britain, blogging and bird flu

And it's back to rainy old Cardiff again.

After spending the winter getting paid to go skiing every day, i now find myself paying to be given work to do. It's a sharp contrast and one that my body has violently protested against by conracting bird flu. Or the Ebola virus. I'm not sure which but its definitely one of them, because a hardman like me doesn't moan about being ill. Oh no.

I think it must be the change of air. Over Christmas i was working for a ski club in Wengen, Switzerland. They very kindly pay me to lead groups of teenagers for the day, on the assumption that i won't lose any of them, or resort to corporal punishment to keep them in line.

To be honest, the thought crossed my mind more than once. The kids i was teaching were that special breed of mansion-dwelling, corn-fed, pony-riding boarding school brats who are supremely confident in their own opinions. Now, i don't claim to be a street urchin, but there's something about boarding school that can really damage a child's concept of manners.

It's odd, because that seems to be the reason why their parents send them there, to learn discipline. The reality is quite the reverse though. If you attend an ordinary day school, you know that any time you do something wrong, you'll have to face your parents. Any form of miscreancy is therefore met not just with punishment, but with that awful 'I'm so disappointed in you' look that parents mastered long ago.

At boarding school though, the only consequence of misbehaviour is punishment. It must be endured, but does it really inspire guilt? From the behaviour of some of my young charges, i think not. Indeed, it seems to inspire a supreme confidence in never being wrong about anything.

I don't mean to be harsh on the kids themselves. Most were nice at heart and they could sometimes be a pleasure to ski with. But it shocked me to see how sheltered they are, how little they know of life outside the walls of whatever prestigious establishments they attend. Even worse is the thought that some of them will never know an existence beyond those close-knit establishment circles.

All of this points in one direction...i do not believe that boarding schools should exist. In fact, i'm not in favour of fee-paying education at all. As a product of the private system, i feel that i've had benefits which i would not have had if my parents had been less well-off. That seems instinctively wrong. Surely, all people ought to start life with the same opportunities as far as education is concerned.

Say that to any parent who has put their child through the private system and you'll get the same answer. 'There isn't a decent state school in the area and you can't muck around when it comes to your own kids.'
Well, i understand that sentiment. But i also understand that it takes bravery and sacrifice to change society for the better. I only hope that i will be able to stick by my principles if and when i am a parent myself.

I despair of the education system changing for the better under the current administration. Faith schools and trust schools seem like disastrous ideas to me and i wish Ruth Kelly the best of luck in getting ousted from her job as soon as possible. I can only hope that future governments will look more closely at the discrepancies between the schooling experienced by children in this country. Only then will we see something akin to a completely fair education system in Britain.

I would welcome people's comments about state vs. private education, because i know it's an issue that people feel strongly about. Parents' comments are particularly welcome.

2005-12-06T18:44:00.000+01:00

Infected Mushroom @ The Lakota Club, Bristol

Try asking a Camden-born, indie-bred student like me what they think of Psychedelic Trance. You'll spend the next twenty minutes looking at your watch and yawning while they drone about it being repetitive. Pot? Kettle? Oasis?

But Mushroom bring something extra to the party that has won the hearts of more than a few sceptics. And no, it doesn't come in little round tablets.

The first time i saw them live was in December last year, at Alexandra Palace. The towering architecture of the Great Hall made something truly huge and organic out of the music. I had great friends with me and i was in a right state. It was one of the happiest evenings of my life.

Last Friday, i saw them at the Lakota Club in Bristol, and they were in fine form. As my mates and i enjoyed a beer at the bar, they walked in. The punters were largely oblivious, but we issued a timid 'Shalom' as they walked past, before jumping around like schoolgirls. I'll leave that image to sink for a second...

Infected Mushroom are Duvdev and Erez, two Israeli musicians whose background lies outside dance music. Their set at the Lakota included some of their best new material, including techno-reggae masterpiece Muse Breaks RMX, a divine weld of musical genres that i must have listened to approximately 18 times this week.

They'd left old favourite Bust A Move at home this time, but I Wish, from Classical Mushroom was a suitable replacement. It's a euphoric, pounding leviathan of a track. It also got me elbowed in the eye by some goon.

Once again, they had guitarist Eyal Yankovich with them, milking the crowd for more love as ever and showboating like a ten-year old kid. A very talented ten-year old kid. There's a flavour of the Middle East in his playing that fits Infected Mushroom's tunes like a glove. Just when you think it can't get any darker, that the threshold of aural ghoulishness has been reached, his wailing guitar scythes into the beat and reminds you of places you haven't even been. Eerie.

That's the thing about Mushroom. Everything they write has a mood in it, as if every track were meant to accompany a story. They create images of desert temples and urban rioting, of white beaches and dripping crypts, of euphoria and deep depression. The complexity of their tunes can be orchestral...sometimes it feels like there isn't room to breathe. Believe me, Mozart, Verdi Rachmaninov, they would have loved this stuff.

I love rock and roll. Always have and always will. But given choice between today's unshaven replica Clash-wannabes and a rave-up at an Israeli Psy Trance night, go for the originality. Mushroom have got bags of it.

2005-11-29T17:34:00.000+01:00

Davies shines on Bluebirds debut

I stewarded my first game at Ninian Park last Tuesday and enjoyed myself far more than I’d expected. Of course, being paid to watch football sounds cushy, but standing still in 0° for nearly two hours isn’t quite so appealing.

For my first match I was stuck behind the season ticket holders in the main grandstand. They’re an affable bunch of codgers mostly - the old-fashioned kind who bring a thermos of Bovril and applaud profoundly when the opposition put some decent passes together. Not the kind who eat stewards.

The visitors were Brighton & Hove Albion and a good-humoured club DJ welcomed them with tunes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Culture Club. The Brighton fans seemed more than used to it though and were in fine voice as they sought to do their bit in getting Brighton out of the Championship relegation zone.

Cardiff started brightly, looking to press home their superiority early on. Cameron Jerome looks to be making an extra effort after some called his commitment into question. His skill, strength and willingness to chase a lost cause gave the Brighton defence some problems and he was unlucky not to score with a long range effort that cannoned back off the post.

Far from rolling over though, Albion soaked up the pressure and looked to hurt City on the counter-attack through pint-sized striker Leon Knight. Cardiff’s back line were alert to the danger though, playing the offside trap effectively and they deservedly took the lead through Alan Lee’s close range finish.

The Bluebirds were beginning to show something of the confidence gained from recent success. Still, they can be enormously frustrating at times. They found most joy through Koumas drifting wide and playing intelligent through balls. All too often though, they played it down the middle in quick intricate passing manoeuvres that broke down time and again.

They were to rue their failure to turn possession into chances. Just 2 minutes after coming on, Colin Kazim-Richards rifled a low drive past a helpless Alexander from about 35 yards, before irritating City fans and probably anyone else who saw it with some stupid little celebratory dance right in front of the Bob Bank.

Cardiff kept on knocking on the door, but with no joy and as I joined my fellow stewards pitchside, it was obvious that the game was petering out. Thankfully, no-one decided to invade the pitch after such an uninspiring performance, so I just watched as the fans filed out of the ground. Ten minutes later I got off work and trudged home, weary, cold, but with a new football team to love.

2005-11-21T17:27:00.000+01:00

Cardiff sign Davies for £5 an hour

I turned up at the hallowed turf of Ninian Park last Sunday to be interviewed as a steward. I say 'interviewed', but it was more of a cursory check to make sure i wasn't either a terrorist or a sex offender.

Luckily i passed with flying colours and was given the guided tour of the ground. Jeff Richards, chief of security at Ninian Park, walked us around the stadium, chain-smoking Regals and spitting on the ground from time to time.

Occasionally he mumbled something reassuring like "After the first twenty times you're told to f*ck off, you won't even mind any more." Comforted by this, i asked him if there was a lot of trouble.

"Only down the Grange End," he grunted. "We call it The Zoo. I'll put you down there if you survive the 1 in 3 drop-out rate." All of a sudden, this didn't seem like the best idea i'd ever had.

Still, i'm damned if i'll give up before i've started. I've got a thick skin and after all, what reason could City fans possibly have for abusing a short, English, middle-class student?

My first game is on Monday 22nd Nov against Brighton & Hove Albion. Updates to follow if i make it out alive...

2005-11-03T21:54:00.000+01:00

5 incredible 'facts' about Wales

Curiously, given that they sound the same, Wales has nothing to do with whales, the water-based mammals used for soap and cosmetics.

Wales is ruled with an iron fist by the Prince of Wales, a bearded, threatening man who demands a fatted pig and a bushel of corn from each household every month.

Welsh rugby hero Gavin Henson is a saint in Vanuatu, where it is forbidden to look directly at him.

Not many people know that before St. Patrick rid Ireland of snakes, he chased all the vowels out of Wales.

The Welsh language has 42 words for 'Come on then, you English halfwit."

2005-11-02T00:52:00.000+01:00

Our first online lecture at Cardiff Journalism School was given by Amanda Powell, head of BBC Wales Online. In all honesty, there wasn't much about her lecture that really struck a chord with me. Of course, she has a great knowledge of online journalism and was able to give us a glimpse of the realities of internet news. For that i'm grateful, but at times it seemed like she was preaching to the converted.
We are all (I hope) aware of the changing face of journalism in the digital age. This was also not the first time we had been told that the future for journalists is uncertain. We are being advised to prepare for battle without being given any weapons or told where the battlefield is.
The warning has been sounded time and again that Fleet Street is no more. Three hour liquid lunches are a thing of the past; cigarette smokers will be punished with public flogging in the streets of Wapping. That's all very well, but has anyone stopped to consider the implications of all of this for us whippersnapper reporters? Given the competition for jobs in newspapers these days, we are under as much pressure to perform as trainee lawyers or civil servants, but with a fraction of the financial prospects. Of course, that isn't why most of us are doing it, but the point still stands: A young journalist nowadays can't help but be insecure, unless they are absurdly overconfident.
Consider the pitfalls we face: Defamation law has become so opaque that it can be interpreted in ten different ways by ten different judges; the advent of online journalism and soon, mobile phone journalism, means that a reporter must have more than one style of writing in his/her quiver; a libellous statement made against a global corporation or group can be actionable in any country in the world. An unwitting reporter may therefore find themself facing civil proceedings all over the world. These are just a few of the distinctly new and potentially disastrous problems we face.
All of this sounds like a complaint. It isn't. The insecurity makes for a more exciting ride. But it is worth bearing in mind that today's reporter must be alert to dangers that our predecessors never encountered. They claim to be acutely aware of this: don't forget to remind them of it.

2005-11-01T08:42:00.000+01:00

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome. I'm Rob Davies, a Londoner in Cardiff with a fondness for the written word but no real ability to manipulate it as yet. This is the first of many entries, but hopefully the only one with no real point. The aim, broadly speaking, is to comment on the process of becoming a journalist. It all seems rather egocentric to me and this blog is my only flirtation with internet self-publicisation. Normally i couldn't think of anything worse than advertising myself to the world. But as a trainee journalist at Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, it would be laziness not to. Feel free to comment, especially if you have a talent for comic invective or can correct me on something.