Who Runs The Internet? In Defence of Trolls.

According to experts who can nearly speak English, some internet users can apparently not distinguish between "legitimate authority" and "illegitimate authority". They are simply "anti-authority". And therefore fail to realise that co-relation between "authority and likeability" does not imply that people necessarily assume "authority" because of "likeability".
Whatever that means.
Let's take a stab at interpreting it.
What is 'legitimate authority' on messageboards? Surely, the company or person who owns the website and sets the guidelines for use? Then what is 'illegitimate authority'? And why is there a problem recognising it when the only form of authority which counts is the legitimate kind?
As for likeability, while this may be important to those who have no real friends, or are confined by their careers to strictly regimented forms of social interaction, it is as illusory online as it is in any other form of expression.
'Likeability' also only has any relevance in a social context. And the concept of the online 'community' is equally flawed. It is true that the internet is the ideal medium for co-ordinating lobby groups and other caucuses for action or support, but the attempts to create pals' groups on messageboards invariably create inward looking, exclusive, self-congratulating cliques. The general pattern is for these kinds of groups to cluster around self-selected 'monitors' who take it upon themselves to assess the behaviour and deportment of every poster on their patch, on the look-out for 'trolls' and 'ments' and the other assorted mythological creatures invented to keep the children frightened and huddled round the camp fire for safety.

The new vocabulary of abuse is fascinating in this respect. The 'troll', once labelled, is always labelled. And with no comeback because the accusation is impossible to defend - unless the accusers are prepared to quote and address the offending text, which they never, ever are. This definitely undercuts their grandiose pretensions to professionalism somewhat, calling to mind a bunch of frustrated hacks, browbeaten by their bosses and destined to tell lies for a living until they draw their pensions.
The troll of fairytales lived under bridges and prevented travel by frightening the unwary. In reality, there are no bridges in the internet. No rivers blocking the path to dialogue. In the messageboard fairytale, the trolls are perched on stepladders in Milton Keynes central carpark, probably carrying a placard warning against the lascivious effects of meat and protein on the endocrine system and nerves. Anyone wasting their time with them does it because they want to, and therefore live a life which has no other form of stimulation, which is sadder than bingo.
In truth, the word 'troll' is totally meaningless, and its use is a sign of a poster in flight from thought. Of someone trying to become less conscious. Of someone unable to deal with the difficulties of difference other than by compartmentalisation and sectarianism. Of someone seeking to limit the amont of communication created by the internet - most powerful communication tool of all. In fact, as with other forms of sectarianism and paranoia, there are no trolls, only children afraid of bridges.
Now I know what "cannot distinguish between legitimate authority and illegitimate authority" means! Do as you're told and be like us or get out! A representative messageboard thug might be overheard grunting to another messageboard thug:

Stueyx
" Fuck 'em. They don't like it they can fuck off - or be like us. After all, it's not as if we can get our hands on them and give them the kicking they deserve for not being like us."

Who'd have thought it outside the Taliban and the Mafia? And from people pretending to be hotshot information 'professionals' who do nothing but post insults on websites all day. Even writers, who really should know better than to pervert both truth and their minds in this way. But then, the self-proclaimed british intelligentsia were always their own worst enemy, and as authoritarian as any commune or anarchist sect. Here's another one from a paranoid pile of puke on the Guardian entitled: "How Do You Deal With Trolls and Idiots Online?" Note the heavy emphasis on restriction of the freedom of speech. I have to translate again, because the Guardian refuses to allow me to quote GUT here, which is strange - or maybe not:

Lawlsie - 06:40pm Mar 11, 2008 GMT (#587 of 608)

'He is a saboteur. His words have the power to cause other posters to stop writing, and their brains to stop working.
I'd ban whoever I didn't approve of and who I couldn't better in argument or couldn't understand. When messageboards were run by mob rule, we could control exactly who was let in and who wasn't. We never had these problems then. People knew their place.
Sadly, the internet is not like that anymore. Anyone can join . The only answer is to make it too expensive for any but a like-minded minority, and then we could talk amongst ourselves to our hearts' content, and never hear another opinion but ours."

However, I have to risk a lawsuit and post this priceless piece of pomposity:
"We are all of us much better than this and much better than any troll."
You can just smell the self-pity and fear.

And still the carnival of idiocy goes on.
"Nothing is any good unless it makes money for someone else."
That is, the current theory that only paid writing matters. That money infallibly directs langauge towards truth and integrity of purpose. That nothing written by amateurs can be anything more than 'vanity publishing'. A theory which ignores completely the fact that the history of the media is almost exclusively one of highly sponsored lies - until very recently.
The pamphlets of the Chartists', trades unions and Suffragettes didn't attract any serious money, and certainly didn't make any. They cost money to produce. Market forces and the profit motive were objective opponents of these exampls of freedom literature as they always are. It is interesting that the liberal pretend-intelligentsia of today are less tolerant than Mao-Tse Tung, when he declared 'Let a thousand flowers bloom'. Their attitude, as expressed on GUT, is to smother all expression at birth by demanding it makes a profit in order to be taken seriously. The market fundamentalists are put in the same dilemma by the new universal freedom from capital restrictions on expression as the religious fundamentalists were when their dogma and certainties were painted into a corner by secularism. The question is, will they go as far to defend their paranoia? Apparently, total censorship is on the cards, as is making internet access too expensive for anyone except the chosen few. So how far will short of actual violence will their paranoia take them? As we've seen from the so-called 'Stueyx', some of the lesser breeds without the law relish the prospect, and deeply resent the new global freedom of speech given to everyone with a broadband connection. The only conceivable reason for this jealousy is that has exposed the poverty of their ideology and imagination. And as they are unable to play the game, no-one else should.
The old and trusted phrase to describe such churls is still the best. Dogs In The Manger, who are only capable of yapping responses such as:

SidewaysCork - 03:05pm Jul 14, 2008 GMT (#985 of 1017)
Fuck off and start your own board you tedious cunt.

Which is the messageboard equivalent of the McCarthyite sneer: 'Go back to Russia.'

Since the initial posting, the threads which are linked to have been deleted by The Guardian, which is a shame. No doubt the perpetrators of the Taliban sentiments can be persuded to repeat themselves. If so, they will be quoted verbatim, and damn the GUT and its proprietorial claims on the madness of its posters. Likewise with lies published on GUT messageboards. Or 'Malicious Falsehoods' as the Guardian has recently come to know them.

The BBC White and Black Minstrel Show

'The white working class feels alienated, threatened and voiceless,' And when were they anything else - especially if you leave out the word 'white'?
Except under the dreadful tyranny of those ghastly trade unions, of course.
But that source of empowerment and self-defence was finally crushed. And everyone from BBC bosses to rabid radio shock jocks and newspaper editors and company directors were very pleased. How much wider a cross section of society do you need to please?
The despicable image of the white face being systematically defaced to a black minstrel mask of alien language and culture is one of the worst cases of graphic hypocrisy seen on TV. The BBC should be ashamed. It totally ignores the reality of class identity and status, which is that the 'working class' now being courted has hardly ever been acknowledged or examined in British literature, art or journalism. And when it has been, the establishement has either attacked or ignored the result.
This theory that the White Working Class is being systematically abused and stripped of its identity by the mere existence of non-native working class cultures - and not by the demands of the marketplace - is yet another distraction from the political realities of the class system, and will only have the effect of further alienating people from those with whom they share a common cause. Which is the only reason for it.
The thing which really grates is the assumption that this 'alienation' is something new, and therefore can be blamed on immigration. This is clearly the unavoidable message of the trailer.
The face is not smothered in the logos of MacDonalds and Coke and Nike and all the other corporate vultures who are actually stripping the corpse of British identity and alienating British people from their culture. Instead the face is smothered in script - Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Cyrillic - all written by the human hand.
In other words, the human beings who come here to improve their lives are to blame for this assault on the working class. Not the economic system they obey, and even less the corporate giants who are making the real money. So to solve the problem, the solution is obviously to get rid of the people and their alien, defacing cultures. Which is the ultimate act of alienation by the BBC, and of appeasement to the BNP and their fellow-travellers at The Daily Tits and other rags who try to keep working class aspirations as low and animal as possible.
There were lots of choices to be made when planning this preview. The choice of handwritten script in black sends a clear message that white British culture is being de-faced by alien cultures of different races. Not by impersonal, mercenary decisions in boardrooms, not by the great cycles of economic growth and decline or inevitable advances in technology or transport, but by the mere proximity in the same country of different kinds of human beings.
This is despicable, and I hope is not representative of the remit of the series.
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March 7th.
Last night's Newsnight, with Margaret Hodge, Bob Crowe, Jon Grunt and a befuddled teenage apprentice tory MP showed exactly why this series will be a complete waste of time - unless the intention is to divide the working class even further and distract them from their common problems.
Amid all the futile mudslinging there was not a single word about the economic system which demands the homogenisation of ethnic cultures, wage-cutting immigration, and general insecurity among the people. Bob Crowe was just able to squueze in the point that Thatcherite de-unionisation was a factor in undercutting British wages. But was not able to make the point that the likes of Jon Gaunt, who smirked the loudest over the destruction of the main representative body for working class interests are now the ones whingeing loudest over the effects.
But apart from that, nobody had anything to say. The exploitative, divisive, dog-eat-dog, warmongering, planet-destroying capitalist system got off scot-free. Again. No surprises there, then.

10/3/08
And so it drags on.
BBC2 controller Roly Keating offers perhaps the feeblest, off-the-peg excuse for an excuse in the history of television. According to him, the infamous trailer is Only Doing It's Job:

"I absolutely refute that it is racist. It's clearly arresting, It denotes to audiences that they will find certain elements of this season challenging. Part of the point odf the series is to stimulate public debate."

Is that so? In that case why broadcast a trailer designed to stimulate fear and irrational hostility? And while we're being picky, what Roly Poly actually did to the accusation of racism was 'reject' it. As one of his commissions, the admirable Q.I. tells us, 'refutation' involves a lot more work that merely proclaiming: 'Je Refute', like some be-ruffed aristocrat. Perhaps he should watch his own programmes from time to time. He might learn something.
In the meantime, sensible people across the country have been outraged by this piece of racist trash. In the same edition of G2 as Keaton's double page spread was this from a little letter in English.

"This trailer is offensive, misleading and extremely divisive and is more typical of the attention-grabbing headlines we see in the tabloids...
it should be removed from our screens because it does nothing to promote understanding of or empathy for the white working class (as it pretends to do) or understanding of those whom this group considers, unjustifiably, a threat to their heritage."

Also:
BBC’s White Season is founded on racist lies
'Wise Words'
Crooked Timber
Challenging the Whitewash

Death Penalty Hysteria.

Why is it that countries which have the death penalty still have to use it? If it were any sort of deterrent, once a decade would be plenty. But in fact, those regimes which are most resolutely in favour of strangling, poisoning and burning human beings, are the ones which seem to have to do it the most. The USA, Iran and China spring to mind. Far from being a deterrent, the prospect of death seems to be an encouragement to the scrambled mind of the average murderer. Which does tend to lead to the conclusion that murder is not a rational act susceptible to deterrence by the threat of civic revenge. Again, the institutionalisation of revenge can only create more murderers, if anything.

Meanwhile in Britain, a lot of newspapers and TV advertising time has been sold recently after two brutal murderer cases, and the resulting, predicatble baying for the noose to be brought back into play. The Wapping Daily Tits can hardly wait. Along with the other rags which feed of the bloodlust of the mob, it is incapable of any curiousity into the causes of things. It sees the symptom, in this case the murderer, and if he can be disappeared, the problem will disappear.
It's a quaint old attitude, and predates science of course, just as astrology and witchcraft do.
But sadly, the notion that you can cure a boil by cutting it off is not one which can run a modern society. Nowadays, since the middle of the C17th or so, we eradicate the cause of a problem, then the symptom tends to disappear.

Countries like Canada seem to have mastered the knack of applying Cause & Effect to their societies, and have reduced murder rates since they stopped strangling people to death. Why are we not able to do the same? Could it be because there is far too much money to be made from keeping the prospect within reach of those who need to fantasise on the suffering of others? Is it just another branch of the horror industry?

Rowan Williams and Sharia Law

Strange to be defending an archbishop, but this was another example of rabid hatemongering by the right wing press.
Rowan Williams simply never proposed anything they accused him of.
He did not propose that Sharia law should take precedence over British Law. Or that Islam be incorporated into British Law. The closest he seems to have got is

"Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court."

The hysteria has had naturally the effect of demonising Islam even further. Which may be good for selling papers, but is a very bad idea for Britain. Much worse than anything which Williams was proposing, in fact.

A system of settling disputes out of court within a year - and without paying exorbitant lawyers fees? What next? Interest free loans? Now that would cause mass apoplexy in the editing suites of Docklands.

The Art Of Spain - BBC4

I know it's a visual arts thing and all, but the treatment of flamenco could have been a little less daft, just for me. The influence of the Gitano on Picasso is fairly common knowledge, after all.
Nevertheless, the apparent fact that there isn't much in the way of visual art by nomads and exiles did make an interesting point by default.
The overwhelming profusion of Moorish and Catholic decorative religious art and the 'fear' of empty spaces he talked about are just Life (profusion) and Death (blankness) surely? Proof that the work of God was indeed everywhere possible.
And the quote from the Quoran was interesting. If there is only one god and everything is god, then surely territorial claims, such as the claim that Andalucia should be 'returned' to Islamic rule, are blasphemy. Its occupation by the Infidel is merely God's will. As in fact are apparent heresies like Evolution and Modern Astrophysics.
Maybe, maybe not.

The Unique Human Dilemma.

We've never been as certain that things are going to change so radically.
Millenarianism of some kind is a natural state in human nature and affairs. The sense of an ending is innate. But the difference between previous Armageddon hysterias and us is that now the concern is truly global, and based on a generally (if not universally) agreed system of thought and deduction - science.
For a long time, there has been too much competition and not enough co-operation in the recipe for human progress. In fact, co-operation is our defining human characteristic, far more so than competition. Civilisation has always needed a specific balance of competition and co-operation. But old habits die hard, and industrial capitalism definitely forced more primitive competition into the mix at exactly the same time when the added productivity it delivered provided the opportunity for more co-operation. This 'decision' of history to take the wrong fork in the road lead to the planet-threatening excesses of Consumerism. And now we know, with the benefit of hindsight - another difference between us and almost every other generation of human history - that we are stuffed if we don't do something fast.
I think that amounts to a unique dilemma in human history.

BoJo Bid Botched By Backstairs Ballyhoo?

Estimated £12k worth of free office space for Boris Johnson's mayoral campaign team from a developer who'd been given the bum's rush by Livingstone for wanting to build a Godzilla Theme Park opposite parliament, or some such. Shirayama Shokusan, they're called.
Still, it was only ever a matter of time.
And what does all this make David Cameron? And what does it say about his intentions for the insitution of London government, and Londoners themselves, that he should back such a predictably hapless buffoon?
Now I don't know who was who's bitch at Eton, but.. How could he not know that the allegations would soon start flying?
Maybe Kelvin McKenzie was right after all.

Livingstone and Northern Rock on the World Stage

One of the main charges made this week against Ken Livingstone is that he sought to create a 'mini-state'. A State within a state.. independent of the national government in some way.
The fact is that cities like London are now more than the administrative and commercial centres for the nation which they were in the age of the railways. Since the globalisation of capital, they do have their own economic identity. Globalisation has led to the fragmentation of the old national unit, as Scottish devolution also shows.
The role of the nation state is now to obey the rules of the global market, and pick up the pieces when it fails, as with Northern Rock. Its role as an expression of the political will of the masses is over, if it ever existed.
What still remains though, is the desperate need for something to oppose the demands of property and ownership over everything. An entity to support the quaint notion that it is not a crime to steal a bucket of water to put out a fire in a neighbours' house which might otherwise burn down the entire street.

Chaos Architecture On Sea

Timber from the Ice Prince cargo ship, which sank off the Dorset coast, is washed up on Worthing beach in West Sussex.

Great sculptures. They'll be even better in 5 years.
These constructions were made by the sea. The structural integrity they have was determined by the forces which created them. And so the more force (wave and tide) is exerted on them, the more they will be constructed by them, not destroyed. So shouldn't these structures be the most natural at absorbing those forces? And the more they are battered into shape, the greater will be their ability to absorb the same forces. In other words, these could be the perfect, chaos designed, tidal barriers. Any structural engineers or chaos architects out there?
Either way, some of this stuff is worth leaving, if only as a social experiment of how people react when a surplus of a commodity is left unsecured. After all, there is quite enough for everyone, and no top hat is going to turn up with a dozen artics for a load of soggy timber.

Children Vs Intel

Glimpsing Nigeria's Digital Lifeline by Jonathan Fildes
Intel says bye to One Laptop by Rory Cellan-Jones

Under the hood of the $100 laptop by Andrew Webb

John Naughton's take in this week's Observer was also interesting. As usual.
He says of OLPC's 'partner':

"It was a strange marriage. The first big contract signed by OLPC was with the government of Peru, which bought 300,000 XOs. Its vice-minister for education was then visited by an Intel salesperson, who is said to have comprehensively disparaged the little green machine. The politician apparently took notes of the exchange, which he then shared with Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the OLPC project, who shared them with Fortune magazine. 'It was unbelievable,' according to Negroponte. '"The XO doesn't work, and you have no idea the mistake you've made. You'll get into big trouble", that kind of stuff. We kept the sale, but when one of your partners does that, what do you do?'"

Here was a clear attempt to sabotage the project by a mega-corporation furious that a huge market was being denied it, but too blinded to see that the future markets resulting from a succesful OLPC would benefit them much more in the long term.
It is also surely no co-incedence that the windows machine is favoured by the most authoritarian educational systems.

Messageboard Posting Practice

Big Media To Squeeze Anonymity 

Forum Moderation Reform

A growing number of commentators are complaining about the levels of vulgar abuse in online messageboards and blog comments. And all hidden behind the carefully selected Username, chosen for whatever idiotic reason.
Replace these identtifiable, masthead usernames with randomly generated thread-specific ID numbers, and most of the moderation issues would disappear like mist.
In spite of the big media consensus, too much online anonymity isn't the problem, vendettas and prejudice and tribalism are the real problems. And removing them, and changing the way people interact isn't as easy as asking them to be nice, or urging them to get training. But it is as easy as removing the identity they fight to protect. Which means an end to the Egotistical Username. Without it, diehard enemies might even find themselves in agreement.
So more anonymity equals a more productive, less sectarian, less defensive forum.

________________________________________________________________

Guardian Site Update

Guardian Fogeys Go Ape

'From buses to blogs, a pathological individualism is poisoning public life.' - Madeleine Bunting

Anonymity.

'Cyber-Disinhibition'

danielgoleman

Fascinating stuff. We are only beginning to see the effects of the medium on the online persona, and the individual.
Nevertheless, a word about buses.
I was on a bendy bus travelling through Peckham on Monday at 4.20. It was packed. Children, families, old and young.
This will sound like fantasy, but the majority of faces were smiling, and there was even a quiet sense of partnership in managing to share such a small space so well.
No-one was pushing and shoving. Prams and packages were regularly helped off and on. In fact there were twin daughters of one family ‘surfing’ the pivot of the bus to general hilarity. When I got off, I felt like saying “Goodbye and thank you for a lovely trip”. Perhaps I should have.
The more I I travel on buses, the more convinced I become that far from being bearpits, they generally show the human being at its mundane best.
In fact, buses represent one of the few remaining unpoliced social spaces where kids can develop voluntary social skills.
Also, as I remember, the rush to pack on the school bus was, if anything, worse when I went to school than Madeleine Bunting describes.
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EXTRACTS FROM ONLINE DIALOGUE. [to be edited someday]

posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 4 Days Ago
You have to look at what messageboards are.
And the nature of being a poster.
And the nature and dynamics of dialogue.
The forum for dialogue alters the nature of that dialogue.
When a dialogue takes place at Hastings between two armies, we call it a battle. When it happens between two people at their deepest level we call it love.
Messageboards are somewhere in between, and no-one knows quite where yet. But some posters still seem to think that their contributions have the same kind of reality and relevance as a newspaper column, or a letter or a telephone conversation. And therefore adopt the same stylistic conventions, and persona, and respond in the only ways they know.
It is possible however, to see a post as a much more disembodied statement, which people respond to or not on its own merits, and which does not have to suffer the inhibitions of time or place. Which takes to an extreme the same law of dialogue adopted by the house of commons when distancing the two front benches at least two swords lengths apart to enable frank opinions by defusing any possibility of intimidation.

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Message posted by dandygreyrusset
I am disappointed at the way serious issues degenerate into point scoring and personal abuse on this board. I thought it would be a place to exchange views with mature individuals who want to hear what others think.
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Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 3 Days Ago
And never, ever give any clues as to your age, sex, qualifactions, marital status, race or any otheer personal information.
Someone will use it as a stick to beat you with on the strength of their extra six months experience, or extra child, or higher grade GCSE or whatever it might be.
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hermajtomomi (U2692623) , 3 Days Ago
"And never, ever give any clues as to your age, sex, qualifactions, marital status, race or any otheer personal information.
"Someone will use it as a stick to beat you with on the strength of their extra six months experience, or extra child, or higher grade GCSE or whatever it might be."

We haven't always agreed, LRJ, but this time you are spot on.
I would also add, as I have recently found to my cost, never express an honest opinion or recount your personal experience of a controversial or emotive issue for fear of being branded bad or mad by one of the self-righteous trolls lurking out there.
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Message 67 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 3 Days Ago
And, converseley, hearing personal testimony and details develops an unhealthy sympathy which can be a barrier to objectivity. It helps create cliques.
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Message 68 - posted by Petr x(*_*)x tPMdeB (U8215269) **, 3 Days Ago
Little Richardjohn,
You seem to approach the MBs as some serious tool to some serious goal.
They are mostly not anything like that. People mostly visit them to have some fun. Some people may see fun in insulting others and showing them how much more intelligent or moral they are, or just winding them up. Others may see fun in friendly talk and developing a virtual friendship, a clique if you will. Others come to share their troubles and look for a solution.
There's nothing bad or unhealthy in sympathy with others and their fates.
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Message 69 - posted by petal jam (U1466691) , 3 Days Ago
Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:30 GMT, in reply to Petr x(*_*)x tPMdeB in message 68
Petr I think you're right. What's more I think the key is that most posters will use all the different modes of discourse from formal argument [of the letter writing kind] to the familiar and conversational. So long as we recognise the switches in tone according to topic or general mood we're okay.
LRJ what you say about bringing the personal into the conversation - or even throwing it in to make your argument for you - is interesting, and I suspect there are many facets to this. As susie pointed out somewhere, maybe another thread, the shared or illuminated experience is firmly part of women's history [lots of reasons relevant to this board.] Yet far from curdling the discussion into cliques on an MB it can sometimes put distance between posters who otherwise find common ground. IME the use of biographical detail as rationalisation by people who are otherwise anonymous can overwhelm the sketchy picture you have of them.
The essential element surely is *respect* as the thread starter says. I may know for instance that a poster contributing to a discussion on the current wave of house building is an architect or a civil engineer. Their knowledge of the properties of concrete is thousands of times more valuable than mine.. or is it? The reader also knows that not all architects agree, that a town planner or the parents of a young family weighing up the size of the mortgage against space and soundproof walls will equally have valid views.
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message 70 - posted by hermeline (U4006263) , 3 Days Ago
When a topic comes up for discussion, some of us may be well read on the chosen subject but most of us probably aren't.
Therefore we only have our immediate opinions on subjects which are often backed up by personal experience, things we might have read or seen on the telly and the experiences of friends and aquaintances.
What else have we got to go on?
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75 Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 3 Days Ago
The problem with getting chummy is then of reacting objectively to any surprisingly obnoxious post by your new buddy. Or anything in between. And when it happens en masse, the effect can be deadly to a thread. Inbred Dibley deadly. Inbred Dibley THREADLY deadly. So better safe than sorry.
Writing posts on a messageboard is one way of finding out what you think. But in my opinion, this isn't helped by certain factors and practices, as outlined above. Neither do they seem to encourage conventional 'dialogue'. Whether you influence others is both irrelevant and indecedental.
The fact is that as a medium of expression, the messageboard post is relatively young. We know that every other prose form has developed its own specialised conventions and experiments, and that the structure of any medium has an effect on the nature of the content. The messageboard post is a definite species of expression, defined not only by the technology delivering it but also by a range of other factors.
So the way it is different from, say, a letter or conversation or newspaper column deserves some consideration, as does the most apporpriate conventions to adopt. As many people seem to spend a lot of time discovering their opinions on forums, I'd assume there would be a wide range of experienced testimony to draw on.
Tease whatever 'goal' you like from that lot.
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posted by Petr x(*_*)x tPMdeB
Little Richardjohn,
You seem to approach the MBs as some serious tool to some serious goal.
They are mostly not anything like that. People mostly visit them to have some fun. Some people may see fun in insulting others and showing them how much more intelligent or moral they are, or just winding them up. Others may see fun in friendly talk and developing a virtual friendship, a clique if you will. Others come to share their troubles and look for a solution.
There's nothing bad or unhealthy in sympathy with others and their fates.
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Message 76 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 3 Days Ago
There is a thread running at present by someone who says they don't want to live.
I'm not sure I hadn't been dreading something like this for a while, but it has happened, and therefore part of the growing fabric of the internet. The poster seems to be getting some serious support, and will at least have that. All well and good.
But if I now go to another forum and see the same poster spinning some extreme racist line - substitute your personal anathema - what am I supposed to do?
This is the extreme case, but illustrates the principle.
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Message posted by hermajtomomi
"And, converseley, hearing personal testimony and details develops an unhealthy sypathy which can be a barrier to objectivity. It helps create cliques."
As Hermeline says, what else have we got to go on?
Does it mean that, in order to maintain objectivity, we can only really debate issues we have merely read or been told about about rather than experienced first-hand? I hope not.
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Message 77 - posted by Polly (U2130296) , 3 Days Ago
Dear RJ,
'Chumminess' is happy and joyful. There is really no harm in it. We can all be chums. If a so called 'chum' then lets one down(by way of a disagreement here), no matter. It does happen here, just as it sometimes does in the real world! Love is far sweeter than anger (although there is one pl....r on these boards who has made a few dreadful, and cruel, comments, and real boo-boos, and really annoyed mewhistle).
So lets pull up the couch nearer the warming fire, make a pot of tea for all of us here(the cups are below), and just be nice. Some of us actually need to be 'chummy' for reasons best known to ourselves.
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Message 78 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 3 Days Ago
You've put your finger on it. This isn't the real world. I thought that was the point.
People who want to be sociable have chatrooms and the like. Surely this is a different animal entirely.
I'd say it was important to have a place where you can have enemies. I didn't say there was any harm in it, only that it would end up creating inhibitions where there shouldn't be any.
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Message 80 - posted by hermajtomomi (U2692623) , 3 Days Ago
"- what am I supposed to do?"
Maybe keep out altogether or at least stand back and see how both threads develop.
Who knows, the racist rant may merely be a symptom of deep despair. On the other hand, the desperation might arise from the feeling of alienation when others have (rightly) pulled the poster up on his/her bigotry.
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Message 81 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 3 Days Ago
Not easy, is it?
I'll try and think up a more credible example - even though that one was based on fact.
And the effect would be cumulative. The thin end of a slippery wedge.
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message 82 - posted by Polly (U2130296) , 2 Days Ago
No, no, no, RJ! Real worlds, and cyber-worlds, do collide. Chat-rooms? Perish the thought. Here we can sample cynicism, anger, love, disappointment, fear....but not have to meet-up at some time! erm
Do come along and get your tea. I promise that if you ever really annoy me anywhere here, I shall 'say my bit', poke you in the eye, and then put the kettle on again.
Hob-nobs anyone?
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Message 90 - posted by Petr x(*_*)x tPMdeB (U8215269) **, 2 Days Ago
The point is that knowing previous posts of a poster makes me anticipate what can be awaited from him/her, but doesn't change my agreement/ disagreement with the point he/she is currently making.
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Message 91/4 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 2 Days Ago
Sez you.
I think there's a strong case for different identities on different threads. in principle it would cause less prejudgement if posts were allowed to stand for themselves, without any baggage or previous.
People have scores to settle, and that way vendettas can start. And look what happened to Sicily.
Likewise 'buddies' can be too sympathetic.
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Message 95 - posted by Petr x(*_*)x tPMdeB (U8215269) **, 2 Days Ago
Little Richardjohn,
Though we may agree on some minor points, I see that we can't agree in general.
Message boards are not the real world, but they are still a part of it. Would you prefer that your work colleges came to work under a new identity everyday to eliminate prejudgement?
And yet, work environment is surely more important than message boards.
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Message 96 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 2 Days Ago

"Would you prefer that your work colleges came to work under a new identity everyday to eliminate prejudgement?"

No, obviously not, because the work environemnt is the real world, with all its drawbacks and benefits, few of which apply here, where 'relationships' are meaningless, or, at best, not understood yet..
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Message 99 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday
What if it does make more damage? We're talking about here, where only 'ideas and the approach to life' as crystallised in the form of a post should count - not previous experience of the poster, or any status they proclaim.
If examining the nature of prejudgement here changes the way we deal with it in the real world, so much the better.
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Message posted by Petr x(*_*)x tPMdeB
But than prejudgement (as you see it) can make more damage in the real world than here, cannot it?

Relationships are built based on sympathy, both here and in the real world.
In a way, you have less to come out from here, but - on the other hand - it's ideas and the approach to life that counts more here, as one is not diverted by the external appearance.
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Message 100 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday
But you must agree that relationships are altered by the medium they are conducted in.
In which case, what is the difference between a relationship conducted on the telephone, and one established onto a messageboard?
Is anything which happens here real? I don't think so. I think that for the purposes of impartiality it is preferable to deal with posts as completely dismebodied fragments of thought, rather than try to assign them to a person of your own imagination, which might be prone to all kinds of over-compensation.
And when you say that people relate true experiences, aren't you perilously close to saying that 'It Must Be True, I read It On The Web'?
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Message posted by susie
LRJ, every message on a MB comes from an embodied person, with a history, and an outlook on life that is informed by experiences of various kinds. The messages that are posted are from real people, about real life. Relationships are the way in which people interract, whether it is on a forum like this, in person, on the phone, whatever....
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Message 101 - posted by Petr x(*_*)x tPMdeB (U8215269) **, Yesterday
OK, prejudgement can possibly do more damage in the real world, but you don't mind. You wouldn't exchange it for contacts with phantoms with no history.
But those are also real people posting here.
They have their history (both here and outside) and their experience from which they draw.
Whether you believe the things that people claim or not is totally up to you, and it's their posting history that can finally show whether their claims were false or true.
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Reply to this message
Message 102 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday
I judge everyone on a post-by-post basis - what they wrote in the past should not have any relevance. No more than an accused person in court should be judged on their previous convictions.
Or I try to. And would make a much better job of it without interferecne from intimate personal detail, alleged qualifications, or any other form of pigeonhole.
It is quite possible to distill your experience into a post and make the same point without an enclosed CV.
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Message 104 - posted by Petr x(*_*)x tPMdeB (U8215269) **, Yesterday

"I judge everyone on a post-by-post basis
... Or I try to. And would make a much better job of it without interferecne from intimate personal detail, alleged qualifications, or any other form of pigeonhole."

Perhaps you do, but I wonder why you think everybody SHOULD be like you and why people shouldn't be allowed to interfere with you method by any personal detail, etc.
After all, we are each different, and you have no judge's gown to decide for others.
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Message 105 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday
I don't. What makes you think that? I'm saying that certain problems would be eased if certain basic rules were observed. And as this is still a new medium, we are writing the rules with every post.
I'm saying that certain factors interfere with objectivity. Which is a truism.
The whole point is to be able to judge a post as objecyively as possible on the basis of the words, and not end up judging the poster on the basis of their persona or history or baggage.
The reverse of what you are accusing me of.
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Message 106 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday

"posted by petal jam
Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:15 GMT, in reply to Little Richardjohn in message 102
But would anyone read it?"

Would anyone read it? Yes, trust me.
How much abstraction is digestible?
A fair amount. And the peck of grit that's required still doesn't have to be personalised.
It is the accumulation of stark personal detail, building up a picture of the poster's life, which I find a barrier to economic, clear honest exchange of ideas.
It's only human nature.
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Message 108 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **
We all judge, but when personalities become involved, clear judgement of issues becomes clouded. My understanding of the messageboard medium is a judgement of it. You can do what you like with that shred perception, it doesn't alter the fact that you are merely a collection of pixels dancing on a screen, and so am I, with few of the significant restrictions imposed by real life interactions.
So I am trying to establisha position which reduces the amount of unconcsous judgements (pre-judgements) I make. You don't seem to think you are prone to them. You are mistaken.
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Message 113 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday
That doesn't mean that your interpretation of a post is improved by abandoning any attempt at objectivity.
You have to deal with the content, not the personality of the poster, surely. That means either making a significant effort to 'forget' anything you knew about the poster before reading their post, or not knowing anything much in the first place. I prefer the easyier route. The great democratic advantage that the messageboard has over other forms of exchange is that opinions can't be swayed by appearance or bearing or anything but prose style, thought and whatever the poster chooses to confess.
Why make it easier for others to judge you? That is the question. And confessional detail does do that, however 'subjctive' you think everything is.
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Message 116 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday
There is no difference between a conversation in a pub and an exchange on a messageboard?
Come outside and say that. If you understand my meaning. Or rather, if you don't - but then ..
See what I mean. The same laws simply don't apply.
The same laws of interaction don't even apply between different pubs, let alone between different media entirely, let alone between an alcohol fuelled flesh and blood one, and a fisticuffs-free zone of the internet.
You may try to adopt everyday modes of address and intercourse, but they are always modified by surroundings in real life, so why should the same rules not apply here?
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Message 118 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday
And judging a post by its poster, as you appear to have no probelms with, is the ultimate form of disrespect to the post and the poster.
Which brings us back again to trying to understanding why making it easier to be objective is important, and how to do go about. Simply pretending that messageboards create the same kind of interaction as real life gets us nowhere. They obviously don't.
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Message 135 - posted by JeanHartrick (U2756124) **, Yesterday
I think the mistale LRJ makes is to assume there can be such a thing as pure objectivity. Opinions are of many different sorts, and the validity of many of them depends on a poster's prior experience, qualifications, any amount of baggage.
It's true of course that there is no means of checking whether the extra information a poster gives is true or not.
I also find odd LRJ's posting on MBs in order to discover what s/he thinks about something. Certainly formulating your thoughts in writing focuses and clarifies them, but if that's all tyou wand to achieve, why post them anywhere?
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Message 140 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday
I don't. I just value it enough to recognise that it can be easily compromised and that can cause conflict and the unpicking of threads.
Where do I say that there is anything like 'absolute objectivity'?
You are misrepresenting my argument entirely.
Let's agree that objectivity is important first. The rest will follow, including all the diversity of opinion you could ever want.
There is not much diversity of opinion on display when a dozen structural engineers spend all day waving their CVs at each other in an argument over the collapse of the WTC. Which is the kind of thing which can happen when people start dragging their (unconfirmable) private lives onto threads.
If you don't subject your thoughts to scrutiny, how are they to be challenged and what inspiration can you get for furher thought?
Of course publishing your thoughts helps to clarify them.
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Message 142 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday

"Message posted by Roxy

It's nonsense to confuse MB's with reality
Quoted from this message
I don't agree ET - it's A reality, a version if you like, but it's real. I agree it can take a long time to work out an individuals personality."

A reality of its own, with structural rules and conventions beyond the Mod Laws. We just haven't pinned them all down yet. That is all I am really saying.
But if you think you can ever deduce a poster's real life personality from their onboard persona, you are ignoring the medium and its effects.
By its nature, any medium is capable of releasing a different side of any individual. Or creating a new one. That partly what any means of expression is for.
And why would you want to attach a dubious personality to a post arguing the case for or against reducing the time-limit on abortions anyway?
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Message 144 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday

"posted by Polly
What was this particular thread called? 'Respect on the MB's'? yikes
There is a particular person on these MB's who I have always got along wonderfully with. But, some months ago, he/she posted a disgraceful message. I pulled the plug on it. And I also told this person that I had, and the reason for doing so.
We are still good friends on the MB's. He/she might feel the need to do the same to me one day. But we shall still be 'MB mates'.
So one can be honest, angry, shocked....., but remain friendly and kind at the end of the day."

So maybe you have reached the ultimate state of MB enlightenment, when all antipathies become resolved and we all live happily ever after.
The fascist shall lie down with the human being - and all that sort of stuff. Maybe this is a new definition of 'friendship' Who knows?
As you don't say just how disgraceful, It's hard to know whether you have reached that state of grace yet.
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message 150 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday

AquaticNickster
However, it requires a great deal of discipline, it seems to me, and I can't imagine how you could get tight enough House Rules to make it work. Probably only a few people would sign up, and for the first few months every thread would probably end up being about the Rules.

I don't think it would need any extra rules - in fact, it might make a few of them redundant - but it does deserve a workshop of some kind which would be available for reference.
I also think that it is much harder to seperate personalities from issues than to do the Other Thing. Trained journalists and politicians and other professionals can manage it, as they had to when opinions required some capital to be disseminated. But I would guess that hardly any posters here are trained in that skill.
But then, the ex-specialists of the media are not trained in messageboard skills - whatever they are.
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Message 155 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday

"by susie
Methods of communication vary and there is no 'right' way.
Journalists and media whatsits are acting in a professional capacity when they write 'objectively' (that is debateable anyway), whereas people on a MB are writing as themselves, from their own POV usually."

The fact that trained professional have problems with this only proves my point.
Now where do I talk about 'right' and 'wrong' ways of expression? Again, you are trying to depict an investigation as a proscription. This is a gross misreading of the case.
And how do you know whether the persona you divine from the post is anything like the real person in real life? You don't, because the freedomns the format offers and are unique to it, and not found in real life. So the way people express themselves will be altered. They certainly say things which they would not say in real life, and only express those opinions here or discover them here first.
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Message 160 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday

posted by susie
I agree that some posters choose to adopt different persona's - one can only take their persona at face value and respond to that. Some of the men who come on here to goad women with derogatory comments for example may say that is not who they are really, they do it for a laugh, but to me that tells me something about them.

A sonnet is not a novel or a play. It's not a question of choice. That's the point. I don't mean the conscious choice to play a specific role. Which can be fun or a pain in the neck.
It's a question of your 'cyber' personality, to put it crudely, expanding to fill the space available. The way the medium effects the message. Every medium has limitations which define its content to some extent.
There must be general differences between other modes of expression, confined as they are by a range of factors, and this one, which offers the potential for ideas to associate in a flash - instantly stimulating new directions of thought, and further expanding your personal understanding of an issue. No other written medium has that feature as standard. But there must be an optimum strategy for exploiting it. A way of making it more fun, and more respectful, even.
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Message 161 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday

Message posted by aquaticNickster
LRJ, I'm all for having both kinds of forum, crudely characterised as the-message-is-the-message, and the-medium-is-for-conversation. What this thread is demonstrating, and some others have, is that you can't really mix them.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. But I'm for having a million types of forum, and a million types of post on each.
This really isn't about creating rules, but about understanding how the damn thing works. About getting under the bonnet of the format and seeing what does what.
I know one thing as a fact. When a group of posters get pally online, a set of unwritten rules and injokes CAN develop. A club, which others are then admitted to or not, and which can be mobilised as a claque in any argument.
You may say this is online democracy in action. But to me it looks like the natural self totalitariansim of any self-selecting anarchy. This kind of parochialism does not help diversity or honest exchange on MBs.
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Message 166 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, Yesterday

osted by susie
Well, for some that 'expansion' can be negative, but positive for others. Your cyber personality is an extension of your RL one IMO.
Am optimum strategy for expanding one's personal understanding of an issue will differ between people I think. But if as you say, the point is to 'expand one's personal understanding of an issue' why discount hearing personal experiences as part of that?

An extension is not the real thing though.
The physical world is an extension of your personality in one sense, so that gets you nowhere except into the black hole of philosophy. I'll wait for the TV series in that case.
I didn't say personal experience was irrelevant, I said that personal details were a distraction. And that personal testimony doesn't have to be personalised on the post anyway - especially as there is no real verification process. People can say what they like, it's the creative use of whatever evidence they have to offer which is interesting. Haven't we already done this one?
This is not about a colourless characterless rarified zone where only the highest level of interaction is allowed to exist, but finding out what are the possible stylistic pitfalls and blind alleys in a medium which is still very new and terribly powerful. Thise pitfalls (and opportunities) are not a matter 'for the individual', they are something all users of the medium are vulnerable to by definition.
Just as all film directors are subject to the pitfall of two dimesions but presented with the opportunity of depicting motion and sound.
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Message 188 - posted by Little Richardjohn (U1244517) **, 22 Hours Ago

"No-one can stop posters from adopting artificial personae of course, but neither can anyone stop them from posting as themselves - nor can other posters ever be prevented from making their own deductions about which is which."

So what? Who said or implied they couldn't? The point is that ascribing a personality to a post is futile and does obstruct any clear assessment of their point of view. If they happen to be particularly incoherent, I suppose it may help in ascribing some kind of meaning to the post. But apart from that rare case, to pigeonhole a poster by ascribing them a personality will inevitably end up in sterotyping at some point.
And nobody likes to be stereotyped, and it is the enemy of rational appreciation of an argument.

"But if what you say in the bit I quote first is true, how do you know this?"

Because all media alter the content in some way. Like it or not.
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The Fragrant Matthew Parris

The unpaid Lyrical Terrorist urges the decapitation of the infidel - justifiable outrage and a court conviction..
Overpaid, toffee nosed moron in Kensington High st calls for the decapitation of cyclists - it's just a joke!
But not any more, according to the IPPC, who forced Parris into a grovelling 'apology'. With that precedent set, the rest of the tabloid motormouths can look forward to the same treatment. The Clarksons and Gaunts and Littlejohns in the gutters of publishing will have to smarten up their act.
And about time too.

But let's look at that 'apology' again.
In fact, Parris merely tried to blame the outraged for not seeing the joke.

"I offended many with my Christmas attack on cyclists. It was meant humorously but so many cyclists have taken it seriously that I plainly misjudged. I am sorry..."

Which simply doesn't make sense. The reaction can't have caused him to 'misjudge' as it didn't happen until after he had judged. He is not apologising, just despicably trying to get off the hook.
And this confusion of basic Cause and Effect from a man so ostentatiously full of the joys of rigorous, analytical, classical education and such a valiant defender of all forms of elitism. Here is a Mighty Mind Oe'rthrown indeed.

In the meantime the likes of Parris and the other tabloid brats can go on promoting speeding and jumping lights and using mobile phones as positive signs of virility and status on megaphones of Lad Culture such as Top Gear.
But it seems the game is up. Any columnist seeking an easy target will now have this ruling hanging over him, and a large number of people watching their every move.
Expect a class action of some kind if editors don't come to their senses and make their columnists grow up, or at least wean them off their dependency on casual incitement to murder, because whatever the comic pretensions of hacks like Parris, Clarkson and Littlejohn, someone will do as they are told, and there will be no way of proving it. All it takes is a little delay on the brake pedal and another cyclist is dead. And that delay can be caused by the hatred spread by the media. In effect, it is the most efficient form of incitement there is. At least with other forms, the means of execution are explicitly criminal and rarely able to be disguised as an accident. This is not the case when the murder weapon is a car. And is much too easy when the target is suitably demonised by the media - when people on bikes have been dehumanised to a problem on wheels.
In the critical second or two before a collision with a cyclist, anyone agreeing wholeheartedly with Parris, which he presumably hopes is as many readers as possible, would not first see a human being in danger but just another obnoxious bloody cyclist - and only finally, when it is too late, see the human being. It is not a conscious decision, just an unnecessary, synthetic emotion getting in the way of the normal human response.
This is something which happens all the time - especially to drivers, subject as their personalities are to the distortions of being in control of superhuman power. We call it Road Rage, and it is entirely understandable in a culture which worships power for its own sake, and especially in one in which every individual is seen as competition, as getting in the way, and effectively shortening the commuter's life by delaying the time he can spend away from his work, doing wht he 'likes'. The politics of the cult of the superman are not that different from the politics of Lad culture after all, it seems.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/mat...s/article3097464.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/mat...s/article3123486.ece

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/matt_seaton/2008/01/parris_je_ne_taime_pas.html

The Uses of Visual Literacy

50 years on, after the masses have become producers of imagery rather than mere consumers, it is surely time to re-examine Hoggart's fears of a consumerist conquest of individuality and culture.
With more people creating and using images, surely they will begin to learn to see through the lies being told them. They are now increasingly members of the Magic Circle, rather than members of the gullible audience. The printing press has been invented again only this time, everyone has one.
As even the most impoverished people in the world begin to access global communications, so their global presence will grow. And as they learn to tell their own stories in their own way, we will be less able to see them as mere flotsam, the collateral damage of capitalism, and more as real people like us.

photo collect

Fascists in the Oxford Union. So New?

No one is preventing either piece of political detritus from organising their own cult rallies, or from using Freedom of Speech to demand the end of it. But to have allowed the Oxford Union to conduct this political laboratory experiment unopposed would have been a great abstention from the Freedom of Speech. Which is the freedom to express your feelings in public. Hatemongers must learn to take the consequences if they are careless about their venues. In this case, the public felt that the creatures Irvine & Griffin should pay for their own propaganda.

We should all be proud of the right we allow fascists to organise and publish their poison. But also proud of the right we allow The People to express their disapproval that a bunch of effete attention seekers pay for racist poison to be aired, which is also their right. Those who are merely satisfied that the poison is being heard are merely thugs.

When Fascists have previously tried to spit directly in the faces of the British people, they have rightly been sent packing. Now they are faced with the same prospect in flannelled Oxford that they faced in Cable Street, New Cross, Brick Lane and the rest. Very heartening.

The lesson is quite clear, pay for your own propaganda on your own territory. Even Abu Hamza had the good sense and taste to confine his poison to his own patch and community. Let the fascists do the same, if they can find somewhere. Self-defence is no denial of the Freedom of Speech.

All reactionaries and their apologists always believe the worst about everything. It's their tragedy, but the kind of society they desire is not practicable. It died over 500 years ago and can never return. But because of their spiritual depression and resulting stupidity, the extreme right and their fellow travellers can never understand that, and are therefore doomed to chase their tails forever. Oh dear, how sad, never mind..

Clearchannel Babes

As disgusting a piece of urban pollution as you could ever hope to avoid.
As if doing it twice helped.

2012 Olympic Stadium Unveiled.

BBC report

In a decidedly understated, budget-conscious presentation this morning, London Olympic architects HOK Sport revealed the secrets of the convertible Straftord stadium, on its very own island, chock full of fun, and with the trick that dared not speak its name in the shape of an Exit Strategy. Specifically, the ability to be half-demolished to make it a sustainable venue for athletics, which not many people go to see.

Within minutes, it was being condemned as a glorified gasholder. I thought it looked like a glorious gasholder. And none the worse for that, the Victorian gasholder being a thing of natural, functional beauty, and part of the heritage of the site.

The plans for the area outside the castle walls were commonsensical too. Food and revelry being focused at 'pods' sited around the 'Stadium Island'. The design of these units would use 'creative low tech solutions - using laser-cutting.'... That I didn't understand.

Africans Are Stupid Say BNP

BNP Support Mad Geneticist and Blow Their Expensive PR Front.
By hailing disgraced boffin Jim Watson, who believes all Africans to be stupid, as the 'New Galileo' the BNP clearly believes that anyone black is of an inferior race. Their recent attempt to wear suits and stand upright like human beings has therefore failed. Like chimps in tuxedos, their crotches are hanging far too low, and their hairy toes just won't take to shoes.
At least Watson had the excuse of age and boffinitis for his folly. But the BNP just blew their entire PR budget for the last five years on him. Like putting your house on a horse because you like his name.
A month ago they were the responsible voice of overburdened local government. With black supporters, no less. And now this dive back into the breeders club. How long before they dig out the black shorts?
It seems the blatant racism was merely in mothballs too, and so wouldn't take much effort or expense to disinterr. Even smellier than when put away, but still wearable and not offensive to the wearer at all. It is quaint to see such a perfectly pickled specimen of Pre-Industrial Man. It's like seeing Bishop Berkeley or John Knox after centuries of immersion in a peat bog.
Black and squashed and dead and deformed, but still recognisably medieval.
3/12/07
The now shreds of the IQ argument so beloved by the racists and eugenicists of the BNP and other scumpolitik are finally on the floor revealing the true horror beneath.
Kyoto Research.
Tests can prove that apes are smarter than people. So those good at IQ tests are no more intelligent than other human beings than an ape is.

The Election Bubble.

This is one of the biggest media bubbles of recent times.
An election scare based on the polls, which went away with the polls. Which the media needed to fuel and believe in, which the people were then convinced by the media was imminent, which made the decision of whether to hold one a media decision, not a political one.
So when the desired election failed to materialise quick enough, the media were disappointed and told the people they had been swindled out of voting for Brown - on the strength of his chancellorship, not his leadership, and on his willingness to jump at the behest of the media. And the media would much prefer a tight election than another walkover.
David Cameron summed it up.
"I'll tell you why he's not called an election - because he might lose."
Well, I never. Is the political world really that cynical that your opponents refuse to call an election when it suits you? Blimey.
In six months this will be largely forgotten by those who decide elections, as will whatever electrifying policies the Tories announced in Blackpool. Taking a few quid from the obscenely-rich with stupid accountants to give to the bereaved very rich with crafty accountants - that was about the strength of it. That'll build a lot of schools.
The country will now have a chance to judge Brown on his premiership, not on his chancellorship.
That will be an informed choice, and all the more certain because of it. And better for the country.
The fact that the media felt cheated of a huge news event in their slowest time of year, and that the tories were quick enough to spin that frustration to their advantage only made any likely election less representative of the real views of the nation. Which would not have helped the tories at all. They are not as ready for an election as they claim. In a year, they will have more ammunition, and the country will know what it thinks of the government of its prime minister, not its ex-chancellor.

DON'T PANIC! Northern Rock solid as - well, a rock.

I hope the people urging calm found enough time to make a killing on cut-price Northern Rock shares. If they believed what they said, surely it would have been like finding money in the street.
£12 shares for a quid, with a takeover possible. If one'll buy you 12, 12 will buy you 144. Surely these people want a secure future for their loved ones?
A home in the country. Happy children playing on the manicured lawn. Beer flowing through the arboreal dell over your grandmother's paisley shawl...
And if people saw such an expression of faith in the future of Northern Rock, surely they wouldn't panic in the first place.

My First Manicure - Angela Kelly

Overdrawn on Monday. £35M in credit on Wednesday.

The life of anyone in that position is bound to be changed. But was it necessary for the media to fish quite so shamelessly for another juicy divorce case as they did through their questions about the absent Mr Kelly and his possible claims to this windfall? Questions which Angela fielded with amazing grace.

Was it necessary for them to test her identity quite so deviously with their questions about her charitable intentions and spending plans? Would she be sending her son to public school? Would she be buying a house in Italy? Which sounded a bit like the cry of 'Join Us, Join Us!' from the Undead - or the advertising departments of the newspapers which depend on the property industry for their existence, as they are sometimes known.

Did they have to try quite so hard to tease out some evidence of basic selfishness in order to feed the myth of universal selfishness and self-indulgence? Would she be paying pop stars to give private performances? Wouldn't it be great if everyone was that innately selfish?

Sadly, Angela Kelly looks set to disappoint the Lottery vultures. Good for her.

Bikeless Bungling Boris Blasts Brick Lane Barrowboys

Amid his tears, Boris Johnson, future mayor of London Town, naturally concluded that his stolen machine would end up being sold in Brick Lane.
So Brick Lane is crawling with fences and hook-nosed chancers peddling hookier gear, eh Boris?
Surely that betokens some kind of Operation Bumbleboris from a putative mayor. A vicous crackdown and cleanup all in one go. At the very least, the Voters of London should be made fully aware of the dangers of this den of cutthroats and pickpockets. And not just offered a tantalising hint in a petulant paddy about a lost bike, which was probably not chained up properly
in the first place.
What next? Boris offers a bacon sandwich to a Jewish reporter? You heard it here first.
Boris In Tears