The Breivik trial has brought into focus just how easily we can park and overlook those thoughts and feelings that are inconvenient for us and do not fit with our particular ideologies. As Breivik's drama plays out, it's comfortable to be swept along in the revulsion at the horror of his acts, the inhumanity of his actions and his chilling lack of remorse. These are the proper responses to such an overwhelming human tragedy.
And there it would end, with Breivik facing the cool analyis of Norwegian law and being judged and punished for his actions. After that judgement, he will fade from the public view, or be overwritten by a new panic.
However, Breivik seems to be claiming legitimacy for his actions by calling them political acts. In this he joins the ranks of Oklahoma bomber Tim McVeigh, the Omagh car bombers, the 9/11 terrorists and legions of suicide bombers, buddhist monks, paramilitaries of all stripes - all of whom have used violence acts against others - or themselves - to effect make a political statement.
Depending on where you are standing (and this is my point), these are easy to file away as 'bad' political acts.
But what about the 'good' acts of violence? The armed forces of the so-called 'free' world roam a number of foreign territories, armed with explosives and weaponry. Their remit is pretty much the same as Breivik's - to prevent an 'unacceptable' change to our society by using violence or the threat of violence.
Yet our troops are heroes.
Our troops don't kill indiscriminately, do they? The most shallow of research will uncover a three-figure number of investigations by British military police into the murder of Afghan civilians, incuding the stabbing of a ten year old boy and the beheading of an Afghan civilian's corpse. Add to this allegations of Koran burning and the massacre of Iraqi civilians by US forces ...
'Our forces work to a government mandate', we cry. 'Like the SS did', we whisper.
Breivik will get comfortable incarceration. His victims' families will not get justice. We feel for them because they're like us. I don't condone political violence in any context. Our forces do a job that few of us would contemplate doing, to keep us safe not from violence but from change. Take away the legitimacy that their uniforms and badges give them and you have, however, men and women doing what Breivik did. In his mental landscape, he's defending an ideal. Just like us.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Teenage poetry
Ah, we've all done it. Those wasted, wistful days when our only friend was despair and a tatty notebook.
I have decided to share the only adolescent poetry I recall from my youth. It's an odd mix of unrequited love and practical advice:
Kate Bush
Kate Bush said "come and wallow
In the soft musk of my hollows"
And though I said "fair enough",
I was wary of the fluff.
I have decided to share the only adolescent poetry I recall from my youth. It's an odd mix of unrequited love and practical advice:
Kate Bush
Kate Bush said "come and wallow
In the soft musk of my hollows"
And though I said "fair enough",
I was wary of the fluff.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
My three-point diet plan
By popular demand, here is my three-point diet plan. I have lost over stone on it so far, so in my unscientific sample, 100% of those asked said they lost over a stone following this simple method:
- Only eat what you need. Don't be a greedy fucker.
- Treat yourself from time to time. A treat is OK because it's not the norm.
- Don't get in the car every time you need to go anywhere. Walking or cycling is good.
That's it. Off you go.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Out with the new and in with the old
Time and all other human constructs are really arbitrary, so why we should stop and take stock of our lives, make resolutions and generally review and sort things on this day every year is one of those mysteries. In a season of garish artificiality, it's just another self-delusion to think that somehow, magically, things will change. I know pretty much for certain that I won't change very much, despite any good intentions I have. Intentions they will remain - unstated and personal to me.Some things will change, of course. I'm to become a father again. I know precisely what this will entail, my partner does not. That'll be fun. My three existing daughters will get a half-sibling and my complicated, modern family will acquire a slightly different dynamic again. In this regard, stuff whirls around me while I'm at the centre. For a professional communicator, I'm really very bad at talking about things and if I have regrets over the way things have gone in the last decade, they would largely be around how I have handled (or haven't handled) things. I don't think I would change anything, but I would have established a comms plan first and stuck to it.
I turn 50 this incoming year. Many of my closest friends are a decade behind me. Actually, the gap is closing in that the life experience you gain between 40 and 50 only really cements who you already are. When I'm out with my chums, we're already the oldest people out so my particular position in the age hierarchy isn't important. There's to be a party. I don't know if I'm to arrange this myself but on behalf of the organising committee - YOU'RE invited. Terms and conditions apply, of course - it will be somewhere on the North Coast of Northern Ireland sometime near the end of June and my guest room is already booked. Oh, and no gifts, strippers or shenanigans. Thank you.
As a younger man I made a fair bit of money writing screenplays for other people which were never filmed. I have inverted this trend in recent times by publishing my own scribblings and having no-one buy them. I'm hoping that with a proper push the new subKultur imprint will become properly established as a channel for some new writing and music - my own but chiefly others' - in 2012. I don't really care about not selling any stories but I do care about doing something I enjoy and failing. Better that than to sit and regret the things I should have done. It might be simply that I'm not good enough at writing or brazen enough at self-promotion. One of those things, at least, can be fixed.
One of the revelations of the year has been Twitter (find me = @carlpeter). Read recently something along the lines of Facebook being about people you knew but you wished you didn't and Twitter being about people you largely didn't know but you wished you did. I intend to remedy this next year and meet a few of you (you're all invited to my party, remember?!). Would be invidious to name the good folks I have 'met' electronically this way in recent times but the chat and support and just general banter has been a genuine pleasure and a bonus. There's an industrial amount of dross, boasting, snobby whining, polemic and general unpleasantness there too (some of it from me, naturally), but it's worth wading through it for the gems. To all of you contributing twittery goodness to my life, a sincere 'thank you'.
There has been a fair bit of pain and distress in the wider family this outgoing year too. I hope the 2012 brings some respite/relief or at least better strategies for dealing with that which can't be changed. Change itself is the only constant, however. I know I'm going to abandon at least one long-held principle next year but if there is a theme to 2012, it's to be that I will be more selfish or, less perjoratively, more self-reliant.
To conclude, next year I'm going back to some of the things I have already tried: fatherhood, writing, maybe another year of playing the bass in a rock n roll band. No new fresh horizons, no alarms and no surprises. It could be a good year :-)
Have a good one.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
It's a big building with patients, but that's not important right now ...
So Wednesday found me sitting glumly in A&E with my dear old mother. You might think that a Wednesday lunchtime would not be the busiest time for such a department but, on this occasion at least, you would be mistaken. It took well over an hour to get to see the triage nurse. We were there six hours in all, the last couple of them parked in the plaster room next to an elderly lady waiting to be taken back to her nursing home by ambulance. Mother was finally admitted to a surgical ward and I got to go home to sort things out.
You may not have had the misfortune to have to attend A&E. It's nothing like Casualty on the TV. There are no dashing doctors and nurses squeezing in hectic love-lives and intrigue between charging the paddles, intubating patients and setting up the machine that goes 'ping'. The A&E staff move in a determinedly measured way. I realise now that this is a tactic. Nobody wants to see medical staff rushing towards them.
But A&E is a kind of Hell. Every patient is, by definition, in extreme distress. All want the magical touch of the doctor or relief by drugs. To the individual patient, everybody else is a nuisance, an obstacle for the medics to negotiate before they get to them. The soundtrack is a symphony of despair - this Wednesday it was the hacking cough, the whimpering girl, the vomiting, the moaning man and the soft bleeping of the machines. But you zone all of this out. In your cubicle you are waiting for the approaching footsteps, the swish of the curtain to signify that the doctor has come at last. All you can do is wait and wait and wait.
As we waited and waited, and I got crosser and crosser about the staff's elastic interpretation of 'soon' and 'in a minute', I thought about the recent strikes and the vitriol poured on public sector workers and their so-called golden pensions. As the A&E staff managed a seemingly endless torrent of frightened and hurting humanity, it put the dispute into perspective for me. Next time you think you're having a shitty day because your boss spoke harshly to you, or your computer was a bit slow and crabby, imagine you're the one who has to tell mum that her daughter's appendix is probably bursting, or the one to mop up the blood and shit from the cubicle floor. Chances are you'll solve that problem that's giving you a headache. Chances are there will be people in A&E that can't be fixed. On a Friday or Saturday night A&E staff may well be attacked by drunk people with busted noses, the same people who will read their tabloid newspapers and have large and forcibly expressed opinions about public sector pensions. 'Those people', the ones they despise, will be the ones giving them pain relief at 3.40am on a Saturday morning. And then come back again the next day to do it all again.
You may not have had the misfortune to have to attend A&E. It's nothing like Casualty on the TV. There are no dashing doctors and nurses squeezing in hectic love-lives and intrigue between charging the paddles, intubating patients and setting up the machine that goes 'ping'. The A&E staff move in a determinedly measured way. I realise now that this is a tactic. Nobody wants to see medical staff rushing towards them.
But A&E is a kind of Hell. Every patient is, by definition, in extreme distress. All want the magical touch of the doctor or relief by drugs. To the individual patient, everybody else is a nuisance, an obstacle for the medics to negotiate before they get to them. The soundtrack is a symphony of despair - this Wednesday it was the hacking cough, the whimpering girl, the vomiting, the moaning man and the soft bleeping of the machines. But you zone all of this out. In your cubicle you are waiting for the approaching footsteps, the swish of the curtain to signify that the doctor has come at last. All you can do is wait and wait and wait.
As we waited and waited, and I got crosser and crosser about the staff's elastic interpretation of 'soon' and 'in a minute', I thought about the recent strikes and the vitriol poured on public sector workers and their so-called golden pensions. As the A&E staff managed a seemingly endless torrent of frightened and hurting humanity, it put the dispute into perspective for me. Next time you think you're having a shitty day because your boss spoke harshly to you, or your computer was a bit slow and crabby, imagine you're the one who has to tell mum that her daughter's appendix is probably bursting, or the one to mop up the blood and shit from the cubicle floor. Chances are you'll solve that problem that's giving you a headache. Chances are there will be people in A&E that can't be fixed. On a Friday or Saturday night A&E staff may well be attacked by drunk people with busted noses, the same people who will read their tabloid newspapers and have large and forcibly expressed opinions about public sector pensions. 'Those people', the ones they despise, will be the ones giving them pain relief at 3.40am on a Saturday morning. And then come back again the next day to do it all again.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
The sun shines on the riotous
At the foot of this blog, I promise you I have the answer to social unrest.
Like a lot of comfortably-off middle class people I have had something to say about the recent riots in some English cities. I think there are many contributing factors to the unrest and none more important than another. There hasn't been much debate except between those on the right who want looters sent to prison camps (and beaten up when they get there) and those on the left who want to wish away social inequality by waving large wads of taxpayers' money towards a better life for everyone.
That's a trivialisation, I know. What else can you expect when most of us have forgotten how to question anything? This medium offers instant everything and the price for that seems to have been the ability to just stop and think for a moment. We're chatterati, tweet-stuffed stealers of opinion and so-called 'facts' with a diminishing ability to accept anything that jars with our own world view. We default to the wikipedia version of everything and retweet the 140 characters that align most closely with what we think we know. You can know a lot about everything without experiencing anything these days, and spread your opinion - as I am doing now - on the great and currently unregulated superhighway we have already come to take for granted.
So here is my summary of 'facts' that I have picked up about recent events. Do I believe any of them? It doesn't matter:
And the answer to rioting? Heavy and sustained rain. The strongest-held political belief or the desire to go grab a free TV is no match for the British weather.
Bah.
Like a lot of comfortably-off middle class people I have had something to say about the recent riots in some English cities. I think there are many contributing factors to the unrest and none more important than another. There hasn't been much debate except between those on the right who want looters sent to prison camps (and beaten up when they get there) and those on the left who want to wish away social inequality by waving large wads of taxpayers' money towards a better life for everyone.
That's a trivialisation, I know. What else can you expect when most of us have forgotten how to question anything? This medium offers instant everything and the price for that seems to have been the ability to just stop and think for a moment. We're chatterati, tweet-stuffed stealers of opinion and so-called 'facts' with a diminishing ability to accept anything that jars with our own world view. We default to the wikipedia version of everything and retweet the 140 characters that align most closely with what we think we know. You can know a lot about everything without experiencing anything these days, and spread your opinion - as I am doing now - on the great and currently unregulated superhighway we have already come to take for granted.
So here is my summary of 'facts' that I have picked up about recent events. Do I believe any of them? It doesn't matter:
- The Metropolitan Police, for years, have been harsher on some sections of society than others.
- There is no society anyway, unless it's the Big Society that appears to be decent people taking it upon themselves to do the jobs of paid public servants.
- The 'media' speak at the people, not for them. The so-called social media is a dangerous and subversive channel that must be regulated.
- Tories are untrustworthy and dim toffs and socialists are profligate and blinkered do-gooders. Social democrats are well-meaning but straws in the political wind.
- Severe responses by the police generally prevent public disorder. Except in Northern Ireland.
- MPs looted huge sums of money from the taxpayer and the courts didn't work overtime to jail them.
- Bankers gambled billions away, caused a global economic crisis and still get bonuses.
- Our economy itself is based on traders buying and selling things that don't exist instead of having industries making good things that people want to buy and can buy at reasonable prices.
- There is a corporation in the USA that has more cash than the country itself and has based this on selling lifestyle gadgets cheaply assembled in China to consumers on the false promise that ownership improves the quality of your life somehow.
- Owning stuff is the only way to demonstrate your personal qualities. If you have nice stuff, it follows that you are a successful and decent person.
- Anything that cannot be seen, for real or posted on the interwebs, has no value.
- Greed is to be celebrated. Fame and respect is to be achieved at any cost, not earned.
- Benefit culture makes not working more attractive than working for a living. In any case, any jobs going have been taken by immigrants.
- People who are not white or black are Asian. English people are neither black nor Asian. Black people cannot be trusted. Asian people secretly or overtly sympathise with radical Islamic doctrine. White people are basically decent but, you know, there is a limit.
- To white people, centuries of European ebb and flow into the British Isles is not immigration.
- We're fighting two overseas wars and no-one really can understand why. It's either about freedom/democracy or securing cheap, privileged access to natural resources. Or both.
And the answer to rioting? Heavy and sustained rain. The strongest-held political belief or the desire to go grab a free TV is no match for the British weather.
Bah.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Open letter to BBC Sport
The strength of feeling expressed in public forums by Formula One fans about the broadcast rights deal with Sky from 2012 indicates just how betrayed they feel by what is a significant reduction in the free to air coverage of the sport in the UK.
In summary, broadcast will be shared between Sky and BBC, with all weekend sessions on Sky and half the races and associated practice and qualifying sessions on the BBC. Those races not broadcast live on the BBC will be presented as a highlights package later on, in the way Match of the Day summarises Premier League football.
To watch a full season of live Formula One, a fan will have to take a subscription to Sky Sports at around £500 a year.
Maybe I'm not typical, but this has a profound effect on three generations of my family. I am a long time Formula One fan - not fanatical but I haven't missed a race unless under duress for nearly 20 years. The ITV coverage, while interrupted (German commercial tv, incidentally, carries the race in an onscreen window during ad breaks), was good but I welcomed the move back to BBC and the professionalism I hoped the Corporation could bring to the coverage. I was not disappointed. Race weekends have been special, particularly for the flyaway races. getting up at unreasonable hours, putting my McLaren merchandise on and enjoying the coverage has been an important part of my enjoyment of the sport. I cannot afford to attend races, I feel resentful that the implication is that 'true fans' would go to races or pay the Sky subscription. I am a fan, my status as fan is not for others to decide. My daughter, at 21, is in the middle of her studies at university. Her aim is to find employment in Formula One and all her studies and extra-curricular work is geared to this end. She writes free practice, qualifying and race reviews for her own website and race reports for a respected Formula One website. All of this relies on free access to the action as it happens, something she will no longer be able to afford from 2012. My mother, at 86, enjoys Formula One as much as we do. While not fanatical, she sits with us and has an engaged and knowledgeable enjoyment of the sport.
Not one of the three of us can afford the Sky subscription. As a fan, I would find it difficult to watch half the the races live and would have no intention of skulking around on the weekends that the BBC did not broadcast live hoping to avoid overhearing any results and spoiling my enjoyment of the spectacle.
So that's three committed viewers less, straight away.
Some questions:
The only winners here are Formula One Management and their investors. Sky will not inherit the BBC audience (100% non-uptake in this household), however professional their coverage.
Finally, the parallel with Premier League football is irrelevant and a distraction. I support Newcastle United but with a pay tv subscription I could not guarantee seeing my team play every Saturday, as there would be many matches competing for screen time. With Formula One my team is onscreen every race.
Formula One was an award-winning jewel in BBC Sports portfolio. The proposed output for fans - and the way it has been handled and reported, with none of the team (bar one quip) empowered to voice an opinion on air - has been a slap in the face for fans who are licence payers. The official response on the BBC complaints blog has been that 'some' fans have expressed opinions. Not from where I have been sitting. I have seen a high and sustained level of anger and disappointment which the BBC choose to ignore. If Barbara Slater is 'delighted' by this outcome, how come the good news wasn't even mentioned in the Hungary qualifying coverage? That's a rhetorical question, as it is clear the BBC did not anticipate the depth and sustained nature of the backlash and are now embarrassed by the outcome of their negotiations.
Shame on you BBC. Shame on you.
Peter Hough
In summary, broadcast will be shared between Sky and BBC, with all weekend sessions on Sky and half the races and associated practice and qualifying sessions on the BBC. Those races not broadcast live on the BBC will be presented as a highlights package later on, in the way Match of the Day summarises Premier League football.
To watch a full season of live Formula One, a fan will have to take a subscription to Sky Sports at around £500 a year.
Maybe I'm not typical, but this has a profound effect on three generations of my family. I am a long time Formula One fan - not fanatical but I haven't missed a race unless under duress for nearly 20 years. The ITV coverage, while interrupted (German commercial tv, incidentally, carries the race in an onscreen window during ad breaks), was good but I welcomed the move back to BBC and the professionalism I hoped the Corporation could bring to the coverage. I was not disappointed. Race weekends have been special, particularly for the flyaway races. getting up at unreasonable hours, putting my McLaren merchandise on and enjoying the coverage has been an important part of my enjoyment of the sport. I cannot afford to attend races, I feel resentful that the implication is that 'true fans' would go to races or pay the Sky subscription. I am a fan, my status as fan is not for others to decide. My daughter, at 21, is in the middle of her studies at university. Her aim is to find employment in Formula One and all her studies and extra-curricular work is geared to this end. She writes free practice, qualifying and race reviews for her own website and race reports for a respected Formula One website. All of this relies on free access to the action as it happens, something she will no longer be able to afford from 2012. My mother, at 86, enjoys Formula One as much as we do. While not fanatical, she sits with us and has an engaged and knowledgeable enjoyment of the sport.
Not one of the three of us can afford the Sky subscription. As a fan, I would find it difficult to watch half the the races live and would have no intention of skulking around on the weekends that the BBC did not broadcast live hoping to avoid overhearing any results and spoiling my enjoyment of the spectacle.
So that's three committed viewers less, straight away.
Some questions:
- Why did BBC knowingly enter into a contract with the rights holders originally, knowing how much it would cost, only to withdraw from it with a year and a half to go on a 'cost savings' excuse?
- What, if any, consultation was there with any interested parties, viewer groups or fan fora about the proposed changes to the contract and any resulting broadcast proposals?
- From a viewer/licence payer's perspective, how on earth can the resulting mix of live coverage and highlights be considered an acceptable solution?
The only winners here are Formula One Management and their investors. Sky will not inherit the BBC audience (100% non-uptake in this household), however professional their coverage.
Finally, the parallel with Premier League football is irrelevant and a distraction. I support Newcastle United but with a pay tv subscription I could not guarantee seeing my team play every Saturday, as there would be many matches competing for screen time. With Formula One my team is onscreen every race.
Formula One was an award-winning jewel in BBC Sports portfolio. The proposed output for fans - and the way it has been handled and reported, with none of the team (bar one quip) empowered to voice an opinion on air - has been a slap in the face for fans who are licence payers. The official response on the BBC complaints blog has been that 'some' fans have expressed opinions. Not from where I have been sitting. I have seen a high and sustained level of anger and disappointment which the BBC choose to ignore. If Barbara Slater is 'delighted' by this outcome, how come the good news wasn't even mentioned in the Hungary qualifying coverage? That's a rhetorical question, as it is clear the BBC did not anticipate the depth and sustained nature of the backlash and are now embarrassed by the outcome of their negotiations.
Shame on you BBC. Shame on you.
Peter Hough
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