Fame

Not only would I not like to be famous, but I wouldn’t want anyone who wanted me because I was famous either. And when you are famous, it becomes a major problem identifying just why the person likes you (this partly explains why celebrities tend to date only other celebrities and often find it hard to have successful relationships).

Acting

Turn on the TV, see what’s on. You will immediately be able to tell if the thing you are watching is drama or real life. That means, pure and simple, the acting isn’t good enough. It’s not the production values or the music, it’s the acting. What’s wrong with it?

Well, actors, virtually all of them, have a tendency to over-act – to try too hard. (This is even more the case for radio, when their exaggerrated delivery can be very annoying and seems to be intended as some kind of counter-balance to the fact they can’t be seen.) This is really bad acting, but I think actors are probably encouraged to do it by producers and directors.

If it was really great acting you should be able to turn on the TV and not know whether what you are watching is real or not. Incidentally, human beings are very sophisticated at detecting acting and we can detect it in normal social interaction too (which is why it’s always best to just relax and be genuine!).

Bean is Back

It was funny watching Rowan Atkinson being interviewed recently about this new Mr Bean film. He’s a very clever man and the film is silly and innane. He was essentially saying “I did it for the money” without saying it!

Transparency

If you have nothing to hide you should be as open as possible, because if you are not, then people are free to (wrongly) assume the worst.

Why do people blog anonymously?

People blog anonymously either because they are ashamed of what they say, or because but they are in a climate where they would be persucuted for saying it if they were identified. Although what they say might be true, they might lose their job, their freedom or even their life, if they were identified as saying it. They cannot speak freely even (sometimes especially) if they speak the truth.

I’m not ashamed of what I say and, since my job depends mainly on technical skill, I’m not concerned about that being affected by my right to free speech either.

The Chap Magazine

The Chap is a periodical that has been going for some years now, and in an age when so much vulgarity can be encountered simply on one’s walk to the Underground station (and when all other discipline and guidance seems to have disappeared), it’s satirical look at society is performing an ever more important function.

The Chap finds itself in a position where it has to support smoking in order to maintain its 1940s consistency, and this support should be dropped, but otherwise it is a fine piece of literature, attempting to re-introduce manners and a sense of duty into an English society which sometimes seems to be all but disintegrating!

With a quote like this on its homepage, who cannot like The Chap?

“All men are equal. All men, that is, who possess umbrellas.”

E.M. Forster

Advertising biases news

Some people are so greedy for wealth and power, it’s very sad. I have no interest at all in having power over other people, I don’t care about my title or car, and I am not very motivated by money either (because I know it does not buy happiness) – I just want to do creative work and be paid fairly for what I do.

Regarding power, specifically, take a look at this quotation from my favourite philosopher, Bertrand Russell:

Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure … It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive.

Bertrand Russell, Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1950

But, back to love of money, today I received a reminder of how much it influences, for example, news reporting, which should always be as impartial as possible.

An insider at News International explained to me how much The Times depends on the income of The Sun, and how much The Sun’s income depends on it running selected and censored news stories which will not upset its advertisers. Sometimes utlitilitarian measures have to be taken, granted, but in the case of The Sun there is no greater good to consider (unless it’s The Times), so this ends up as just pure corruption.

About those adverts, by the way – I can’t think of a single occasion when I have seen one and thought “I must go and get that product”! They either have a distinctly negative effect or are just mildly annoying and totally ignored (because I know they’re obviously biased). I prefer a ‘pull’ approach to marketing, not a ‘push’ one. I know what I want, go and research the area independently and get it.

I would prefer subscription-based news, with assured integrity, not at all supported by advertising or any other vested interests. For this reason I value the BBC above other sources (though it is certainly not perfect and often seems to have its own left-wing and politically correct agenda). In the private sector, Lonely Planet have achieved this with their guidebooks on a small scale. Why could it not be done on a wider scale?

Into the Heart of Darkness

Today I was training people at News International, based near Tower Hill in London. I knew it was Murdoch’s company, but I was so busy recently I hardly had time to look at the details of the job. And it was “one last job”, the last job before I go to Japan for a while. Let’s just say that if I had realised it would involve me having to step inside the actual headquarters of The Sun “newspaper” I would never have gone.

The reception of The Times building is not bright and airy. It’s dark, decked out in grey slate. It reminded me of the entrance to the Underworld and I half expected to travel by boat across a river, not by lift to another floor. When the lift did arrive it went upwards, but I felt like I was going downwards, descending into Dante’s Inferno. This is not the kind of place I would go voluntarily, and not the kind of place I want to pass on my skills, regardless of the money. Despite it being The Times, there were reminders of The Sun everywhere and therefore I regarded everyone I passed with suspicion. I was surrounded by leery, loud and superficial types in the pub at lunchtime and I actually felt like having a shower when I got home (which I did!).

Tabloids such as The Sun shamelessly simplify issues, exploit their readers’ weaknesses and stupidity, and ruthlessly ruin people’s lives, all in pursuit of money while pretending to me moral. Worst of all it is intelligent people who sell their souls to do this. At least I am taking their money and they’re not taking mine, but I am extremely uncomfortable with today and hope never to work for them again (even accidentally).

Normal isn’t normal

The more I experience, the more I realise that “normal” really isn’t normal at all.

I come from a united family. There’s been no upheaval, no abuse, no religious indoctrination, nothing of the kind. Just encouragement to make the best of myself and be considerate of others. My parents are decent, law-abiding, very kind, and together. There’s been no divorce, no battling for child custody, no lawsuits, not step-brothers, step-fathers or anything else. There’s been no drug abuse or alcohol abuse, but neither has there been complete abstinance. My parents have supported me at all times, and advised but never dictated.

To me, this is the meaning of “normal”: to be well balanced, and without any problems.

But it isn’t normal at all. It’s actually very unusual, and very, very fortunate. So much so, it can tend to alientate others, who can’t identify with this kind of happy upbringing and perhaps feel envious of it and even threatened (unnecessarily) by it. Comedians such as Ben Elton have written sketches about this issue, and people have even written books about it!

All I can say is, don’t be threatened, and let’s hope normal becomes really statistically normal in the future.

Foxtons ask me to sell my flat

I’ve just received an impersonal letter from Foxtons Estate Agents appealing to me to sell my flat to a buyer who may or may not be real. Maybe if they didn’t flaunt their wealth by driving around in those silly minis, I would consider it! But then again, I like my flat very much, and if I ever did sell it I would try to do so directly, completely bypassing estate agents. A friend of mine did this and it worked out very well.

Elocution and deportment

I’m not referring here to giving people electric shocks and sending them out of the country, as you might think at first glance (and as some may advocate for many individuals!) but rather to the importance of the way people carry themselves and the way they speak. I’ll be doing some work on this myself soon, because there is no doubt it counts for a lot.

Consideration

Have you ever noticed how people seem to time their coughs and sneezes for exactly the moment you walk past them?

Advertising Lie

Halifax are doing a poster currently with some boring financial news on it which is probably much the same as what the other building societies offer. Anyway, I was looking at it (because I couldn’t help it, as usual – it was 12 feet wide and opposite me) and considered the way that their particular strategy is to show lots of people and pretend that they are their staff from across the nation. The only trouble is that unless there has been a major trend towards models wanting to work in banking, these are not all Halifax staff. I can’t say for sure (they’d probably never tell) but I’ll bet there are a lot of “extras” here. That’s lie number 1, but there is another in that if you examine the poster you notice that these are not all different people, but just a smaller group of people who have been tiled (repeated) to create the impression of more. Perhaps the modelling agency budget only extended to this many? It’s hardly on the scale of Enron, I grant you, but whichever way you cut it, it’s deceit of the general public and another advertising lie…

Planet Love

Brings back memories of the great musical period at the beginning of the nineties!

Successful pledge

It’s great to see that this pledge has been successful! I am sending the book to Sally Keeble, Labour MP for Northampton North, and including this covering letter:

Dear Ms Keeble,

I am originally from Northampton and have recently been taking part in a successful pledge whereby people from around the country have agreed to send a copy of Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion to every MP in the House of Commons.

We feel this is important because these are dangerous times, in which people are prepared to kill and die for beliefs which are not supported by evidence, and this is a work of compassion and reason which invites us to consider a better future – full of wonder, but completely free from myth, superstition, dogma and irrationality.

I hope you will accept this gift and enjoy reading it.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Gavin Orland

Let’s hope some of these MPs read the book and allow its rational argument to influence their voting pattern…