....does no one any bloody favours, though I like to think I maintain a look of zen-like concentration.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The BBC, from outside.
Have been meaning to respond to this post about the 'dying' beeb for a while.
Seems to me that it is incredibly easy, complacent, even, to complain about the BBC. It also seems to me to be the pre-occupation of the kind of Daily Mail reader who spends as much of their time listening idly to Radio 4 (even if all they actually hear is the Archer's theme and Sailing By) as they do sipping orange juice on the bowling green.
As someone who now has to do largely without the BBC, I cant bloody stress enough just how superior it is to....pretty much any television output in the world. And that its superiority raises those other channels that have to compete with it in the British market.
With the BBC, we are the nation that gives the world The Office, Extras, Life on Mars, Planet Earth, The Power of Nightmares, the BBC World Service, Dr Who, Monty Python, Spaced, Are You Being Served, Fawlty Towers and probably a whole bunch of others I cant remember.
Without the BBC...we turn into Canada or Australia...a nation with no real broadcasting culture of our own, punctuating an undifferentiated blur of advertisements (that swing wildly from vomit inducing sugar to mindless mysoginism)between every five minutes of imported American content (or pallid, pennyless and unimaginative domestic variations thereof).
Theres a reason that British television is shown and reproduced all over the world, and its certainly not ITV.
Seems to me that it is incredibly easy, complacent, even, to complain about the BBC. It also seems to me to be the pre-occupation of the kind of Daily Mail reader who spends as much of their time listening idly to Radio 4 (even if all they actually hear is the Archer's theme and Sailing By) as they do sipping orange juice on the bowling green.
As someone who now has to do largely without the BBC, I cant bloody stress enough just how superior it is to....pretty much any television output in the world. And that its superiority raises those other channels that have to compete with it in the British market.
With the BBC, we are the nation that gives the world The Office, Extras, Life on Mars, Planet Earth, The Power of Nightmares, the BBC World Service, Dr Who, Monty Python, Spaced, Are You Being Served, Fawlty Towers and probably a whole bunch of others I cant remember.
Without the BBC...we turn into Canada or Australia...a nation with no real broadcasting culture of our own, punctuating an undifferentiated blur of advertisements (that swing wildly from vomit inducing sugar to mindless mysoginism)between every five minutes of imported American content (or pallid, pennyless and unimaginative domestic variations thereof).
Theres a reason that British television is shown and reproduced all over the world, and its certainly not ITV.
Terrifying fireball over Edmonton
I wish I had've seen it, but kind of relieved I didnt at the same time (it looks like the end of the world)
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Transhumanism Rising
Bryan Appleyard rails against transhumanism:
"What I like about transhumanists is their naked, unapologetic radicalism. Like Mustapha Mond debating with the Savage in Brave New World, they simply ask, what's so great about human life as it now is? If, for example, human immortality makes all your art meaningless, so be it, Shakespeare was all predicated on suffering we no longer have to endure."
Transhumanism is a creed I have some sympathy for,even if their proponents seem to be more occupied by the gadgetry and style of it than the philosophical implications
But I like to think that humanity, immortal or not, will have the capacity to understand the suffering that Shakespeare predicated his work on. If mortality is to be such a rare thing in the future, then our future selves may well be affected far more by the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet than we are now in a world where death is an ever-present reality.
Ultimately the only thing that will truly, utterly make Shakespeare not just meaningless, but futile, is death. Death of the species makes all art pointless while a boundless, extended life makes Shakespeare not only more accessible (Finally, I have time!) but more urgent and stark.
"What I like about transhumanists is their naked, unapologetic radicalism. Like Mustapha Mond debating with the Savage in Brave New World, they simply ask, what's so great about human life as it now is? If, for example, human immortality makes all your art meaningless, so be it, Shakespeare was all predicated on suffering we no longer have to endure."
Transhumanism is a creed I have some sympathy for,even if their proponents seem to be more occupied by the gadgetry and style of it than the philosophical implications
But I like to think that humanity, immortal or not, will have the capacity to understand the suffering that Shakespeare predicated his work on. If mortality is to be such a rare thing in the future, then our future selves may well be affected far more by the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet than we are now in a world where death is an ever-present reality.
Ultimately the only thing that will truly, utterly make Shakespeare not just meaningless, but futile, is death. Death of the species makes all art pointless while a boundless, extended life makes Shakespeare not only more accessible (Finally, I have time!) but more urgent and stark.
Get rid of the Green Party!
Did David Suzuki, Canada's very own adorable old rascal, call for the end of the Green Party? 2 3
"There shouldn’t be a Green Party"
But wait!
"I really think we’ve got to drive the green agenda so it becomes everyone’s agenda," Suzuki said to an Agora audience of about 150.
"There shouldn’t be a Green Party"
But wait!
"I really think we’ve got to drive the green agenda so it becomes everyone’s agenda," Suzuki said to an Agora audience of about 150.
"But until they understand that, yes, this has got to be the way we all act, it’s going to continue to be a political football.""
So, David Suzuki envisions a day when the Green Party is no longer needed and this counts as a "rebuke" to the Green Party itself? Canadian politics cant be that boring can it?
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
At times like this...
I'm bloody glad we have two earnest, boring scottish economists running the country with bags under their eyes and their hair in a shambles.
As opposed to the rosy-cheeked, well-rested, sneering cherubs of the pin-striped, Vivat Bacchus, Islington set that got the world into this mess.
Jasper to Calgary!
An exhilirating, LONG drive through the mountains, foothills and plains of Alberta. Calgary by way of Jasper, the Columbia Ice-Fields, Lake Louise and Banff. Photos when I get them.
One quarter of the return journey, in one of my favourite Youtubes:
Watch the hi-def version here, always wanted to film the journey from Stoke to Chester...not sure as that was quite as exciting as the routes I drive nowadays though.
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