Gertsamtkunstwerk

For the record

If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry about this blogpost

I know what I'm supposed to say. In a few days or weeks I'm supposed to do some confessional about 'sleepless nights' 'anti-depressants'. That would be a victory for the crusading investigating spirit of the downmarket Press. 

For what it's worth, I am not the author of the former @kjmezzo Twitter account. I followed it, and gained some moderate amusement from what is in effect an in-joke. I do not know the author, although we have exchanged 'Direct Messages', not least when I checked if I was failing to spot that it was actually someone I do know. 

I'm not sure how many followers the account had, tens rather than hundreds. And I 'know' several of them. Either in person or as a result of years of virtual inter-action. What is striking is how many were women, and even more so, women who describe themselves as feminist, as well as women I would characterise - fairly or not - as being 'a bit prudish'. Feminist or prudish, not the sort of women to tolerate misogyny and certainly not anything that contained a hint of a threat of violence, especially not sexual violence. Some of the people who  interacted with the account  would have ignored it if they had thought it was me.

Sensibly given the circumstances, the author removed the account. In nearly ten years of blogging I have seen this frequently - an individual writes something they believe to be true and are subject to  bullying & threats from someone more powerful. They remove the blogpost or shut the account. They're not admitting they are wrong, simply they don't have the time, energy or money to fight the rich bullies. That's how bullies operate, guessing, mainly correctly, that they will win by force.  

This person sent a question to a TV show which invited public questions to Katherine Jenkins. The question was 'What is the difference between a mezzo soprano and bel canto?'. This led to an outpouring  by Katherine Jenkins, accusing the person of being a misogynist stalker, even though it's doubtful she had ever previously encountered the word misogynist.

What prompted her to do this? Perhaps a series of articles in the Guardian and New Statesman by writers such as Helen Lewis-Hasteley and Laurie Penny, drawing on the experiences of women bloggers, some of whom describe themselves as feminist. The underlying theme is when they write about contentious issues, they receive comments that don't debate their opinion but are personally demeaning, threatening and, in some cases, violent. Threats to have their tongues ripped out, graphic narrative of how the commenter would brutally rape the blogger. Publishing of home addresses. 

These articles started a conversation, Helen L-H was on Woman's Hour. Many other women recounted their experiences of being threatened with graphic sexual violence. There was a buzz on this issue.

And Katherine Jenkins has a new album out which she needs to promote by endless appearances on 'light entertainment' TV programmes and local radio. And, of course, using the annual Service of Remembrance at the Albert Hall, organised that the families of dead service personnel can pay tribute to the war dead in the - deeply significant - presence of the Head of State and Head of Government. And Katherine Jenkins promoting her new album and showing off her latest 'designer' dress.

It seems that saying 'I have a new album out, it's full of banging good tunes' isn't sufficient to market a product anymore. In a post X-Factor society, a sob story is also essential. Katherine Jenkins invents a story of a 'misogynist stalker'. By joining in the buzz and trying to equate legitimate criticism of her shortcomings as a performer with the  violent threats experienced by other women, she is diminishing and trivialising their experience, subtly implying they're lying, so she can get more publicity for her album. By pointing out that she's lying, that she hasn't been the victim of a misogynist stalker, I almost feel that I am betraying the women who have written about their intimidation. I hate that feeling. She has grabbed the headlines, distracted away from the issue, and left people thinking it's all a fuss about nothing. It doesn't matter that some women get threatened with rape and beating, because Katherine Jenkins has been criticised for being a fake of limited ability.

The tabloid press write an article which - for its sloppiness, lack of attention to detail, factual inaccuracies, and downright lies - would never be acceptable in my work sphere, would be considered the work of an incompetent.

And now, for the next few months, if not years, Katherine Jenkins is going to roll out her story about a bullying Cyberstalker. I know that she is not telling the truth. I am, and I live very happily with the knowledge that basically, I'm not a liar*. Katherine Jenkins makes a big thing about being a Christian. Perhaps she should examine her conscience and reflect on whether she is telling the truth about being victim of a 'misogynist stalker' or, in fact, a spoilt little bully who wishes to silence anyone who criticises her.

* obviously, I'm as guilty as anyone at coming out with the petty 'sorry I'm late, it was the Tube...' when I ought to be saying 'Sorry I'm late, I didn't leave early enough to allow for even the most minor delay in travel'; also of the 'Of course, you look great!' insincere reassurance. 

On GFC2

I'm not going to carry out an analysis of the causes or implications of the latest Global Financial Crisis to hit. Don'tcha hate that when people who know eff all about eff all writing as if they are experts and have done some research?

I'm inclined to conclude that we're all doomed. But we were all doomed previously. And the easy availability of cheap credit was just a smokescreen to delude us that we're not doomed.

Coming so swiftly after the tidal wave of revelations and resignations from News International, it only serves to confirm what I knew instinctively as a young activist but conveniently forgot in the years of comfort - democracy is an illusion.

We go through the motions of participatory and representative democracy, discussing subjects that matter enormously to people's lives locally and internationally. But now we know, what we really should have known all along - the power lies with the unelected unaccountable elites, such as Murdoch and other press owners, who themselves are only following the dictates of 'the markets'

The supine state of some parts of the news media is just depressing. I ignore ITV news, and regard Sky News as unreliable, even though it has moments of brilliance. Channel 4 News seems consistently ahead of the curve with good, deep and reflective coverage of these stories,  and more. For example they have sent a British-Somalian journalist into a remote region controlled by Al Shabaab, whereas the BBC had a white public-school-educated reporter based in Mogadishu reduced to interviewing African Union peacekeepers.

Al Jazeera was the station of choice for the Arab Spring and for the Japanese Tsunami. The BBC's main Japanese correspondent (presumably appointed on account of having achieved being the son of a long-standing BBC newsreader) was clearly unable to speak Japanese and had to interview UK and US expats barely affected or reporting what AFP were reporting NHK were saying. Al Jazeera are said to have more reporters in Latin America than BBC and CNN combined, many of them from or connected to the countries they report upon.

Nothing in the main BBC news coverage of the Global Financial Crisis is designed to shed any light. Newsnight would be worth watching except that the reliable and thought-provoking Paul Mason is currently on holiday. So, the other night, in place of reasoned debate, we had a rude shouty American from deep within Wall Street effectively trying to argue that all of civil society should kow-tow to the infinite greed of 'the markets'.

Yet again the stock markets have caused calamity, and the BBC reports on them with the same unquestioning deference as they report on the Royal Family and the Church of England. Seen as supreme and benign, no suggestion that there could be an alternative, or that these are inimical to the decent lives that most ordinary people want to live.

I will never be a revolutionary socialist because I do actually support capitalism, if capitalism be the trading of goods and services for profit. And I suspect that most people would prefer to hang onto the little they still have  rather than risk losing everything, even if it means long-term gain for their descendants. I hate the huge parasitical bottom-feeding panoply that has grown up around trade, most of all the banks, hedge funds etc that have become the tail that wags the dog. 'Buying shares' is seen as 'investing'. Constantly trading shares in one big gambling game is seen as 'adding value'. Neither is true. (And yes, I do understand that the big investors are pension funds and insurance companies, and how that flows back to ordinary individuals).

Most people, when they give it some thought, have at least some attachment to and belief in democracy, some kind of sense that ultimately the will of the people will prevail, even when they appear to have evidence of the opposite occurring in certain cases. Even though it came as no surprise to me, I still found it shocking to learn how so many politicians of all political parties were so submissive to Murdoch. And now we are being told that entire democratic structures should be dismantled  in order to pacify 'the markets'.

The cost of borrowing for the US government, and thus the cost of providing government services will increase, because some unelected, unaccountable, set of commentators, called Standard & Poor have decreed that the US Government is a bad risk to lend to. Their opinion, their judgement, the consequences of which I can only guess. They are effectively dictating to a Government elected on broadly democratic principles, and, almost on a whim, dictating the course of human history for perhaps the next fifty years. 

There are some complex philosophical points that I don't pretend to understand, but I am angry that the mainstream news is reporting this as if it's the betting for the Grand National or something as much beyond human understanding as the latest tweet from CERN

Thanks to recent fine tuning, the LHC has delivered 2 inverse femtobarns of data already this year; peak luminosity is now over 2x10^33.

I don't know what the answer is, I certainly don't think taking to the streets in public show of impotence will help. But I would like the publicly funded BBC main TV news service, for once in their miserable lives, to remember it's the public who actually pays their salaries,  and stop singing the tune of the Murdochs and others who have demonstrably bribed them into compliance.

 

Irresponsible headline

It shouldn't surprise to me find some so-called journalist distorting a story in order to get a sensationalist headline. It also shouldn't surprise me to find these journalists running a distorting headlines without a thought for the consequences of their actions.

I would like to say that it surprises me that this has happened on the BBC News web site, but I am afraid that the BBC News website is a watchword for poorly - hastily - written pieces. Normally, I just spot grammatical errors, paragraphs in the wrong order or references to something 'above' which has subsequently been edited out. Irritating, indicative of sloppy standards, but, ultimately inconsequential.

Then I see the headline

'Rape victims to blame' - survey.

I click to the story, headlined in  bold:

Women say some rape victims should take blame - survey

The opening paragraph says

A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened, a survey suggests.

There is a massive difference between 'some...should take responsibility' to 'Rape victims to blame'

It's not just semantics to point out the massive difference between the initial headline on the front page and the actual substance of the story.

If you read the initial headline, you might subconsciously read it as ALL victims are to blame. 'Blame' is not 'responsibility'.

In reality most women - and men - take some responsibility for their own personal safety. Accepting our own personal responsibility can, I suppose, logically be transferred to criticising people who don't take that responsibility. But it's a very big leap of (illogic) to turn that into 'blame',  and a very very big leap to imply that all rape victims are therefore to blame.

When a crime is committed, the criminal is always to blame. We all have the opportunity from time-to-time to commit a crime against another; most of us don't.

There are many crimes of sexual violence where any detached observer can say "If she hadn't got into Situation A, Scenario B wouldn't have happened, and therefore Act C, the rape or assault wouldn't have occurred". Avoiding Situation A is about taking responsibility. Suggesting that the victim is to blame, because Act C is a direct and inevitable consequence of A, is downright irresponsible.

In any case, this only covers the fraction of rapes that are commonly known as 'date rapes'. If by writing that, I make it seem that a 'date rape' is trivial, I don't mean that. As long as it's properly defined.

Waking up in the morning regretting that drunken shag and calling it rape post-hoc is almost never justifiable, and that's where personal responsibility matters.

But to be on a date and to be violently assaulted, sexually or not, or to be violently assaulted within a long-term relationship. Well, we can all take a superior attitude, call it 'bad judgement', and so on, but to suggest that the victim is to 'blame' is generally unsustainable and unjustified. And, in any case, what we as individuals may say in private conversation, with the chance to discuss context for hours on end, is really quite different from writing a headline on the BBC News front page, especially when large numbers of the people who read the headline won't read the story.

Isn't it about the time that the BBC News online start taking responsibility or else I will blame them for reinforcing the widely-held belief that women are always to blame for being raped.

Religious nuttery and bad journalism combine in one article

Teenage girls to get contraceptive pill in pilot scheme

In a nutshell, there is a small pilot in Lambeth and Southwark to make oral contraceptives available from pharmacies rather than via a doctor.

I have read the article several times and I cannot find any specific reference to there being an upper age limit. Clicking through to the Q&A, I find that the scheme is available for any woman for whom an oral contraceptive is medically suitable. It doesn't take genius to work out that probably a 41-year old smoker would be refused oral contraception - but would be advised on more suitable methods. The Q&A says it isn't particularly aimed at women who don't have existing arrangements with their GP or Community Sexual Health team, so, in practice, it is aimed at much younger women. But there is nothing that specifically prevents a 30 year old accessing it, or even a 45+ woman, if they don't have existing contraceptive arrangements.*

I have several concerns that are partly addressed in the Q&A but not at all in the BBC article. This service is actually a contraceptive advice service which may lead to prescription of oral contraceptives. My instinct would be to say that for teenagers and any women who absolutely don't want to be pregnant under any circumstances, probably an injection or implant is more sensible than remembering to take a daily pill; also, it is extremely important to advise about barrier methods, for prevention of STIs which may cause infertility or other gynaecological malfunctions. None of this is discussed in the article.

Instead we get a rentaquote from the 'Christian Medical Fellowship', a self-appointed guardian of morals - in reality, some perverted dirty man who wants to control women's bodies, sexuality and fertility (sort of creep who ought to be locked up). He cites the lack of evidence that this will be effective. Gosh, it's a new scheme, it's being piloted! I guess that part of the pilot is to assess evidence which is yet to be collected.  (I hope - one has little faith in post-implementation reviews actually happening!)

Before the quote attributed to him is the following paragraph:

The pilot project is likely to attract criticism from those concerned that making contraception more readily available to 16-year-old girls might encourage them to have sex.

To which I can only say - your point is?

The age of consent in England is 16 (in fact, careful reading of the statute makes it 13 in certain circumstances). I fully accept that fear of an unwanted pregnancy is a major obstacle for many women, but the quote assumes or implies that 16 year old women having sex is a bad thing. 16 year old women having sex under duress and with inadequate contraception and/or STI prevention is definitely a bad thing, but this paragraph implies that basically 16 year olds shouldn't have sex, shouldn't have contraceptive advice and shouldn't be on the Pill.

If there are persuasive arguments to suppress the sexuality of 16-year-olds, legislate it. I think in practice the Christians actually don't want people to have sex unless married (and probably then only for purposes of breeding) and they will do anything to chip away at the freedom we have nowadays to express and fulfil our sexuality.

Back in the real world, teenagers have sex absolutely irrespective of the law, and Religious Nutters. I welcome any move that tries to make this safer.  I hope that there will be a full review of the pilot to see if, in practice, it has made the difference that is hoped, and whether it is cost-effective. I want it to determine which factors make the difference:  opening hours and proximity of appointments, or are there more profound reasons eg scared of going to a judgemental GP who is a friend of the parents or whatever.

It seems that the BBC, in its efforts to be impartial, whenever there is an article on sexual health and reproduction always have to have refer to religious-oriented pressure group obsessed by other people's sex lives (one suspects as a result of their own sexual frustration).

Where's the quote from Lambeth Youth Council, where's the investigative reporting on the possible drawbacks of the scheme, some of which I have outlined? Oh, wait, that would require more effort than merely rewriting the Southwark PCT Press Release and reproducing** a quote from this CMF that was probably spoonfed to them.

It disgusts me that an issue that is complex and important is reduced to a trade of sound-bites. It's a disservice to accountability and democracy and ultimately does nothing to advance the cause of sexual health.

* I realise it will be rare but not freakish for women to embark on their first sexual relationship with a man late in life, or maybe they're in a new relationship after being with a man who is sterile (through vasectomy or chemotherapy, say) or maybe they've been using condoms to prevent STIs but are now in a stable relationship and want to rethink their options

** see what I did there!

Technology is bad and scary

I was reading an article in last week's New Statesman Don’t sell me your dream: Far from liberating us, technology isolates us and makes us stupid.

It is a prime example of writing (and getting paid for) nonsense. Some small points that ring true - how Blackberries are just a way for employers to keep control over employees' free time - but are misused to 'prove' a greater fallacy.

He says

It is also important to remember that technology is not altruistic. Facebook and MySpace are ad sales scams. They get free content and demographic data from their members, then sell it to advertisers.

The New Statesman (funded mainly by Geoffrey Robinson - until last month ) is a bad example, but, in general,  the paper-based Press has depended on advertising for centuries.

I used to read Cosmopolitan regularly. There were numerous glossy adverts for all sorts of 'lifestyle' and fashion products, sitting alongside articles extolling the virtues and the route to happiness via the purchase of totally unrelated lifestyle and fashion 'must-haves'. I am not the greatest fan of capitalism, but as a democratic socialist, I can see advantages as well as disadvantages in the capitalist market. The disadvantages are how the advertising and acquisitive culture makes us stupid and isolates us from emotions and experiences that have little or no monetary value.

He slags off Wikipedia as being inferior to getting on one's bike and going to the library to get reference books. He clearly doesn't know that Wikipedia has been found to be as reliable as the Encyclopaedia Britannia. He obviously doesn't understand the difficulties of being a teenager and cycling to Manchester Central Library on a cold wet windy winter's school night on the off-chance of being able to get a reference book that isn't available in Trafford libraries but would help with that history essay, in the mid-1980s.

I am a massive fan of web-based technology. Since I took up blogging, I have transformed the way I take photos. I got a digital camera in 2001 but initially used it as I had used film camera - for snapshots of sights and people. Inspiration by other bloggers changed how I saw the art of photography. More importantly, I was inspired to take days out for the ostensible purpose of blogging and photography. The pleasure of those days out, inspired by technology, have been about the sensual and physical connection with place and - often - nature, and the companionship of my partner.

I never went to the Royal Opera House until they introduced online booking (although there is little direct cause and effect). I had swallowed the myth that tickets are impossible to get and extortionately expensive. I still meet older people who believe it will be impossible to get tickets for Plácido at the ROH in either Tamerlano or Simon Boccanegra next season. Extremely difficult, I think, to obtain one of the approximately 10,000  available. But not impossible. And made simpler by technology, specifically the world wide web.

I get to download recordings of operas and concerts broadcast on radio and TV in other countries, (or recorded in-house!) including some dating from before I was born. Perhaps this New Statesman 'journalist' would dismiss my interest in music (irrespective of taste and genre) as another pointless addiction to technology. But such a dismissal would make the article even less relevant, and isn't implied in it, anyway.

It is by 'meeting' people on the internet with shared interests (and often, meeting them in 'Real Life') that I have been emboldened to travel abroad for operas. But not just for operas. Take the forthcoming trip to Paris. The main reason for going is for Cyrano de Bergerac. But we are going for several days and intend to do some intensive sight-seeing. Despite, or perhaps because of Paris's proximity, I'm not sure I would ever have got round to organising a city break there. Opera tickets, train tickets, and hotel were all researched and booked on line, by electronic transfer of funds. All could have been done by post, but I doubt that I would have taken the initiative without the www.

One of the things I like about Facebook is that I have daily communication with members of mine and Jimmy's extended families, with slight acquaintances and old friends, government ministers and opera singers.  A Luddite would say that I should make more effort to keep up with them in Real Life (not the ministers and singers!). And that is undoubtedly true. But geographical and lifestyle separation makes this impractical. I like the age and generation mix; my Facebook Friends range from ten years old (unofficially - having sneaked in under her Mum's - my sister's - ID) to someone I think is 61 (his birthday is 29 February; if he was 57 that would make him the twin of someone else, such a coincidence would surely have been remarked upon in 1994 or 1998).

I think with just about anything one can think of - food, exercise, football, politics, opera, work, leisure, shopping, sex, DIY, religion, alcohol - social media are best in moderation. It's almost certainly unhealthy to define one's existence by just one of those things, and very stupid to see them as the ultimate panacea.

Daily, I see acquaintances in, outside or heading for the same old same old pub where they spend their entire leisure time, rarely venturing to neighbouring pubs, let alone far away Brixton, Streatham and Clapham town centres. If that's how they want to spend their time, fine, by I believe my life is infinitely richer because of my above-average internet use than it would be if my life revolved around my local.

I am certain I shall see more people I know in Paris than if I wandered into any local pub except those on my road. Stupid? Isolated? I think otherwise.

How not to write an article

Norman Lebrecht notches up an impressive list of inaccuracies in one short article

Are we down to our last tenor?

• Rolando Villazón...looked cheerful enough in a flowered shirt at an impromptu Covent Garden recital

almost certainly from the description the 'In Conversation with...' evening, which I attended

• What seemed to be an orderly succession to the semi-retired Placido Domingo with Villazon as front-runner has now become a very open question.

Semi-retired? Semi-retired? (I work with someone who's just a bit younger than Plácido, and is now working four days a week rather than five, but Dave is no more semi-retired than the thirty-something four dayers and me as a three-dayer)

• but what it takes a tenor to sustain an entire role is more than just a voice – as Andrea Bocelli, the former pop balladeer, discovered

I'm no Bocelli fan but what he has proved is that he can sing the occasional performance. Not great, by reports not very  good, but arguably not the worst tenor performing professionally (and isn't the worst thing about him his voice?)

• José Cura, 46, who flowered for a couple of seasons before deciding that he needed to be a conductor, a composer, a stage director, a visiting professor - anything other than a high-hitting tenor. His schedule over the coming year involves productions in Zurich, Liege and Oslo, no longer the heights of parnassus.

And this current season he has sung Dick Johnson and Calaf at Covent Garden to critical acclaim. If he chooses to sing at prestigious Zurich plus the lesser houses of Liege and Oslo he probably has his reasons. Perhaps they pay more than the bigger houses! (JDF alluded to this on the so-called Culture Show)

• His compatriot Marcelo Alvarez had even less time at the top before he began to market himself as Il Duetto with the unremarkable Italian, Salvatore Licitra.

in what parallel world is Marcelo Alvarez not at the top?* Il Duetto was several years ago, a CD and a few concerts. Marcelo picks his houses carefully; he won't sing at Vienna until Hollander retires, he's fallen out with the unprofessionalism at La Scala, he's disinclined to work at Mortier's Madrid, and family reasons mean he doesn't venture out of Europe too often.

• Rolando Villazon ...with a range that descended to low baritone

WTF? Having a dark colouring to the voice doesn't a baritone make

• That leaves just two lyric tenors still standing. Juan Diego Florez...

    two? Doesn't that contradict the headline

...is a hard-working colleague with no outsized ego – something of a backhanded compliment, since it implies a lack of strong charisma.

I get the sense from Stage Door/signings that JDF is quite a reserved person, but hasn't Lebrecht seen him perform? I would describe him as charming more than charismatic, but that's hair-splitting.

• It has taken the tousle-haired Jonas Kaufmann until he is 40 to become a heartthrob and his rise has been so swift that his record label has yet to launch a working website

wasn't Lebrecht aware of performances of La Rondine in November 2004, when Jonas was 35, newly discovered by Angela Gheorghiu. And what's heartthrob got to do with it.It wouldn't matter if he looked like the back end of a bus; has Lebrecht heard the voice and witnessed the Stage Presence

But even without these elementary mistakes, the article is flawed.

If his criterion is finding somone with the Superstar/name recognition of The Three Tenors, that isn't going to happen. Record companies have tried on numerous occasions to do the impossible - recreate a phenomenon.

If he is looking for attractive engaging tenors with the ability to bring something special to the roles they choose, he seems to have overlooked, for example, Piotr Bieczala and Joseph Calleja, both of whom have been round for quite some time (and Jospeh Calleja is still extraordinarily young considering it's ten years since he was an Operalia finalist).

There are plenty of lyric tenors who are still too young to be considered yet in their prime (names such as Saimir Pirgu and Dmitry Korchak spring immediately to mind). The likes of Barry Banks and Paul Groves are never going to be considered glamorous, but it would be fool who avoided their performances because of a perception of an absence of glamour. And there are always new names emerging. Some won't make it, but some will. Last year I especially noticed Ed Lyon, Ji min Park and Ismael Jordi.

* excluding the world of the senile unmusical thicko from New York who vents his personal vendetta against Alvarez in an increasingly repetitive manner on sundry newsgroups

Autonomy and fertility

A few weeks ago the Observer published a story UK baby shortage will cost £11 billion.

I wrote, but abandoned a blogpost about what a silly thing it was. I wrote

When newspapers report that women are delaying having children until, in some cases, it's too late, it conjures up to me an image of a twenty-four year old woman sitting down and writing a manifesto which reads something like "1) Achieve career goals; 2) find suitable sperm donor; 3) breed"

I abandoned the post because although I knew what I wanted to say, I was unable to express myself sufficiently eloquently and it was boring.

No doubt smug driven women - and men - do exist who are able to decide in their early Twenties exactly how their professional and private lives will unfold, and have the drive and the luck to meet that, and to fulfill a stereotype, most of us tend to take life as it comes, often the involuntary tools of happenstance. The existence of a stereotype doesn't mean that every relevant person fits into it.

I read into the Observer piece a berating and an attempt to induce guilt in people - or let's be straight here, women - who put off having children until they have sorted their career out and then find out they can't have children. The logical rejoinder would be a society that arranges a marriage for every sixteen year old and instructs her to abandon her education in order to breed. Or women who drop serial sprogs by random fathers and expect to be supported by taxpayers. Which are clearly ridiculous.

Not satisfied with scolding people - or, rather, women - who do not have children, it barely stops before it scolds those who do have some, but not enough. Apparently, most people end up having fewer children than they might have wished for in their childhood. Never mind practicality, wisdom, and common sense. Very few people can really cope with more than a few children unless very spread out in age. I think we can all find plenty of anecdotal evidence to find children from large families who suffered from a lack of parental attention even when there was no shortage of parental love.

I never posted but today appears another Observer article 'I never chose to be childless. I just never reached the let's-make-babies stage with anyone. Even when I was married' where the writer explains how, because she behaved in a sensible and responsible way she did not have children. Not because of some sinister arrogant plan as dishonestly caricatured in the same paper last month, but because she never felt it sensible to have a child with a father who was not interested or unwilling or unlikely to stick around. How terribly old fashioned.

Earlier this week we had the story of Natalie Evans A woman left infertile after cancer treatment cannot use frozen embryos to have a baby, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

A terribly sad story for her personally and for any woman who may be affected by any legal precedent that may be established. As far as I understand it, the case hinges on the refusal of her ex-boyfriend to give consent to the frozen embryos being used for fertility treatment.

My first reaction was that the man is a Selfish Bastard. He is quoted as saying "The key thing for me was just to be able to decide when, and if, I would start a family." How nice. He still has that choice and will continue to do so for another half a century or so. She does not have that choice. Except by unfreezing the embryos. He is denying her that choice.

Then being a balanced reasonable person, I thought, hold on, should this be forced upon him, without his consent, not least because he may be pursued for financial support.

But even when I see both sides of the story, I like to take the right, rather than wrong. That is the reality of life. Many men surrender the right to decide when to start a family and risk being pursued for child support when they take the decision to seduce a woman. The creation of embryos to be frozen must surely have been a decision taken with considerably more thought, discussion and research than the average decision to fall into bed. If he was not prepared to accept the consequences, he should never have committed himself in the first place. Most parents don't have the option to change their minds five years later. He insists on his rights yet he already exercised that right and made his decision when he contributed his part of the frozen embryos.

I was annoyed by the involvement of

Josephine Quintavalle of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, who said of the court's ruling: "It's an inevitable judgement, but a very sad one." She said Mr Johnston had "become a father" when the embryos were created, and should have compassion for Ms Evans.

In this particular instant our views happen to coincide, but she is also the person who a few years ago supported a legal bid by a man who was trying to prevent his ex-girlfriend from having an abortion. Quintavalle's argument at the time seemed to be that the man had rights over the women's fertility.

A few days ago for some inexplicable reason the BBC Radio Four Today programme covered attempts by some backwoods US state to outlaw abortion, attempts by the Right Wing Christian Misogynists to impose their agenda onto women.

Blue Witch covered this in a bit more detail a couple of weeks back. In the comments box, some anti-abortionist wrote:

...many girls are encouraged to have an abortion. Yet afterwards they can feel very disturbed mentally and may never completely get over it. And there are many people wanting to adopt who for one reason or another cannot have children. It seems to me encouraging the girls to have the baby and then put it up for adoption where they could continue to have some contact later in life would be a better solution all round. But I certainly agree that rape, incest and danger to the mother should always be included as valid reasons, I cannot see why that is not the case here.

I do not understand these anti-abortionists, or Pro-Lifers as they call themselves. If they believe in the right to life of the foetus, they cannot support any position that makes exceptions on the basis of their judgement that the foetus is inferior. Who are they to play god and decide that one foetus has the absolute right to life and the other should be condemned to 'death', just because its father happens to be a rapist or an incestist. And who is this "Debster" to determine what is 'danger' to the mother? Someone else suggested that the adoption argument is not as simple as this Debster made out.

I felt obliged to highlight the ludicrousness of allowing 'rape' as an exceptional circumstance for abortion, and I commented

How would you define rape? Is it when the woman claims she was raped? Or would it be allowed only after the perpetrator - alleged perpetrator, I should say - is arrested, charged, tried and convicted?

Do you know the (low) proportion of cases in which that happens? Do you know how long it takes to get the perpetrator to court, if at all? What about the numerous cases where the woman chooses not to pursue the case because of the trauma involved in the judicial process? What about cases where the woman genuinely and honestly believes she was raped, and the man equally genuinely and honestly believes the woman consented? How many women would claim they were raped in order to get an abortion, and how many innocent men would end up in jail and with a lifetime on the Sex Offenders register as a result?

In practical terms, it simply wouldn't work. And all policy-making and legislating should be concerned only with what is possible. The simple fact is that the anti-abortionists will try every tactic to abolish abortion. They know that they can't get away with outright abolition, so they try every tactic to erode availability of it. The fact is, and this is evidenced by what happened long before the 1967 Abortion Act, women will continue to abort regardless of legality. Except, when it's done legally, it's done safely.

If I were to leave this post as it stands I would probably get a comment saying "When I was x weeks pregnant I truly felt that my baby was a living being and therefore I cannot understand how anybody could abort a baby of that age..." to which I would reply - no one is suggesting that you should have aborted your baby, (which was either planned, a happy accident, or an initially unhappy accident that you were able to accept and welcome); in an ideal world most abortions would occur in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy, on demand.

Very many of the anti-abortionists also oppose wide availability of contraception and oppose the provision of adequate sex education in schools.

What all these articles and events suggest is that way too many people believe it is their right to control the fertility of individual women. The only person who can do that is the woman herself.

Futurology

The Observer asks How will you watch TV?

The year is 2016 and Chloe is 16.Chloe has never heard of CDs or DVDs

A fatal flaw of futurology. The article assumes that in ten years time Chloe's parents will be sufficiently rich and pro-technology that Chloe will have all the latest gizmos. Yet it implies that right now, at the age of six, poor little Chloe has no CDs or DVDs to call her own.

I first became suspicious of stupid journalists predicting future technological changes in the mid Eighties when someone proclaimed "By the year 2020 we will all be living to 150." I used my fingers and calculated that would be very reassuring for the hordes of 115-year olds watching it.

About 8 or 9 years ago a friend predicted that within ten years no one would go out to the cinema or any live shows or football matches because everything would be piped Virtual Reality style into people's living rooms. I said I doubted it. Many people are resistant to technological innovation, even if only on cost or round tuit grounds.

The article is interesting but it does seem very predicated on the expected behaviour of those born in the Eighties onwards. Yet all the actuarial predictions are that that generation will be working harder and longer to fund the pensions of all the rest of us who will be sitting round idle enjoying our not-so cutting edge technology.

News snippet

The Observer is a strange newspaper. Like most of the Sundays (and Saturdays) it seems filled with 'lifestyle' articles by vapid halfwits that make me sigh and exclaim "Who cares?". Sometimes it contains some excellent journalism, either of an investigating nature, or the reflective researched thoughts of someone who is knowledgable and intelligent. Sometimes, they just throw a small story in, without comment or elaboration, and sometimes that story has to be taken in the wider context of the current news agenda. Down at the bottom of 7 Days | A good week / bad week for is a tiny story...

Jewellery sales (Christian division)

British Airways staff on flights to Saudi Arabia were last week ordered not to wear crucifixes in case Muslim passengers were offended.

I have never met a Muslim who would be offended by someone wearing a crucifix. My understanding of Islam is that they see Christ as a prophet, and that the Christian tradition is part of the process toward Islam, and, therefore, logically, Christianity is unfinished rather than wrong.

I can't decide whether it's clever journalism to stick that snippet in, uncommented, or whether it's lazy journalism not to have asked "Why?"

Observer Monthly

Green Fairy brilliantly articulates my gut reaction Effulgence

The revamped newlook Observer, not content with having a Magazine called "Music Monthly" which covers a tiny, overtly commercial part of the music world, now has a Women's Magazine, which they lack the courage to call 'Monthly' - unlike their Sport and Food advertising features, and to quote GF

Mentions of politics, of any description: 0. Mention of the arts: 0. Mentions of business, money or jobs: 0. Mentions of science or technology, 0. Difference from any number of glossy women's magazines available that peddle emancipation and freedom because they can say 'blow job' while fetishing a level of forever unattainable perfect living that maybe, just maybe, next month's edition will have the secret to cracking: 0.

On holiday, sitting in a beach shack, I fell to reading the latest edition of Marie Claire, which has started a campaign against body-fascism, especially the pressure women feel under from advertising etc to maintain a so-called desirable figure, at the expense of actually living a rich and fulfilling life. I was not sure whether it constituted merely the end of irony or the most cynical piece of hypocrisy ever published in the name of profit-making.

How the media works

I often assume that I'm a cynical dried up old hag, thinking I know every trick in the book.

But once in a while even I can be taken by surprise.

A few weeks ago Norman Lebrecht wrote some article for the Sub-standard about the Festival Hall. I was contacted by someone on the Standard inviting me to write a letter to the said Standard commenting on Lebrecht's article. He explained that he had seen me refer to the Festival Hall on this 'ere blog, and, not unreasonably, thought I might have an opinion. He didn't actually know that I had given the Planning Permisssion, but nevertheless he used his nous and gumption and found my number in the Phone Book (I know it's not difficult, but it's beyond the capabilities of many highly educated people...!)

He stroked my ego and I sort of agreed to writing something, then things got in the way, you know real life time-consuming mundanity, too banal to even recall now.

The other day I received the following email:

This is name removed emailing from the Letters page of the Evening Standard. Hope you've been well since we last spoke about the South Bank; just getting in touch the to ask whether you might be interested in responding our story yesterday about Lynne Featherstone MP and her advice to Liberal Democrats to become councillors so that they can hire a cleaner. Please let me know if you might be and I understand completely if you're not! I'm particularly interested in the social mores of her suggestion and Featherstone's response that it is all about the situation many working single mothers find themselves in.

Best wishes,
etc

I think there is a story there. And his approach was measured, unobtrusive. But why commission, unpaid, a washed-up former councillor to tell the story, when a novice reporter, on relatively low pay, could sit and work through the publicly available list of current councillors in London, phoning them, asking for a soundbite, and turning it into a researched story I'm shocked at this soliciting letters for a letters' page that I assume most readers assume is filled mainly with spontaneous unsolicitied letters from random readers as well as identifiable formal responses from named individuals in well-known organisations.

For the record, my response follows in the next post. In the unlikely event of any publication wishing to pay me for an article, my phone number is in the book, and I will discuss terms...

Stan

Hundreds missing after Stan storm

You have to look for this on the BBC website, and it gets mentioned in the round-up of 'other news' on the TV and Radio.

News values?

Lives are always more valuable when there are English-speaking eyewitnesses in a country with lots of TV news companies.

I think it's obscene that the news media are practically ignoring this, in contrast to the blanket coverage that was given to Rita, and to Katrina in its early stage - by the middle of the week it became obviosu that the news story was about the callous incompetent lazy racism of the Bush 'small government' administration, and thus a different news story altogether.

When I was younger I used to think that news editors based their coverage on the relative importance of stories. I used to think that the celebrities who received coverage were the oens that mattered to the public, whereas I know mow that it is those with th emost proactive PR machines. Butit doesn't really matter.

Yet where it matters, in matters of human life, the British news media are attributing importance on the basis of entertainment value.

And I can't work out whether it's immoral or amoral.

Toynbee on the Pope

Although I don't actually disagree with a word or a sentiment in what she has written, nevertheless I shrug at her Not in my name comment piece.

What new insights has she to offer, exactly how many minutes at the typewriter did this piece take?

Knocking 'mediaeval religions' for being irrational is like criticising rain for being wet. What would be interesting would be a better analysis of why the majority of the world aligns itself to one or other of the irrational pre-mediaeval religions, and why Catholicism, for example, has equal draw for the uneducated disposessed of Sao Paolo and sub-Saharan Africa, and for supposedly intelligent feminists in Downing Street. I don't suppose Toynbee could begin to understand that. Without an inkling of that understanding, her words are just tonight's chip wrapper.

Leisure

Go to the pub? We'd rather see the opera

In the biggest survey of its kind, conducted by the Office of National Statistics for the Arts Council of England, it has emerged that participation and appreciation of the arts are more popular than sport and are widely indulged in across the social spectrum...according to the survey almost 90 per cent of English people attend some sort of art-related venue in a year...A day-to-day involvement with the arts appears to be such a core activity that it is not seen as a luxury...Armchair consumption of the arts is a staple activity

Mind you, you'd never guess from studying the media, where news bulletins and News 24 have their own dedicated Sports newsreader, and where minority sporting interests regularly hit the front pages of newspapers and Arts rarely do. And the newspapers and TV think politicians are out of touch. Pot meet kettle...

I think for all their talk of diversity the media in this country is controlled by a certain sort of nihilist who wants to spend his entire adult life apologising for his prosperous upbringing, fee paid education and opulent salary, and mixes exclusively with clones, rather than considering the tastes of the poor sods who do the unglamorous jobs and pay his salary, or the millions of older people (ie older than 23) who are not in thrall to the plastic-celebrity-consumerism-as-happiness culture. Besides, they're all so off their heads on coke they long ago lost the power of intelligent thought.

A couple of years ago I read an article about a local paper in Yorkshire, where the editor decided to strip out all the lifestyle articles and pseud-celebrity puffs, and instructed his reporters to go out and find news to report on. Sales soared...

Lazy journalism

The front page of The Observer online has a summary

To work or not to work is a vexed question for families

I think what they want to say is 'To work or not to work is a vexed question for mothers* of young children

* or fathers in those frequent enough circumstances where the female partner is the higher earner.

In my experience, work is not done by 'families'. On the other hand, most people I know are part of a family. For very many their family - partners, parents, siblings, adult offspring etc - has little or no impact upon their career/job decisions.

It seems that the word 'family' now has a specific meaning of 'young children'.

Has anyone informed the Oxford English Dictionary?

News values

I am sitting in the back room, perched in front of the PC. From the front room comes the sound of the TV inexplicably tuned to the inexpiable Sky News. They are giving extensive coverage to the Sumatran earthquake whose tsunami has caused loss of thousands of lives in Asia.

It seems that this is the biggest earthquake in my lifetime, so this is News, with a capital N. It is traditionally a slow newsday, so big news is even bigger. Although the repeating headlines are mentioning thousands dead, presumably amongst the poor indigent peasant population, the underlying and overwhelming focus is on the tourist areas and the effect upon tourism. Not the effect on the fragile economies of that region, dependent upon tourism from the rich and decadent West, but on the impact of tourists' right to go every playground the world can offer.

Of course this does not surprise me. News is always more newsworthy if it could affect me, or you, or someone we know, or someone that they know. Always has been, always will be. Let's forget the millions of Sky viewers with connections in Asia.

I don't know why it makes me feel so uncomfortable. I know how the media works. I know that the most important news stories are those that come with pictures, or with eye-witnesses that speak English. That's why stories from the US of relatively minor catastrophes get far more coverage than disasters in the third world.

And you know that by tomorrow the TV will be full of tourists making their returns to Gatwick and Ringway. Rather than the thoughtful and contemplative you know the soundbite will come from the know-nothing gobby fullovhimself who flings himself at the waiting news crew.

To me, it's oh so predictable. But fairly few people have studied the media even in the moderate depth that I have done. Today's news value is next week's global outlook.

By next month, it will be forgotten.

Your starter for ten. Where is Bam? And your follow up - why have I asked?

Stupid bitch

Why my little boy is downshifting

Some so-called journalist getting paid no doubt a tidy sum to winge in public about her tiny non-problem.

Her five year old so doesn't want to be hothoused and forced into hateful activity afetr hateful activity.

Her conclusion: Listen to what your child says. You don't have to make your child do things just because someone else's brat does it.

'I can feel a little protest movement gathering force,' said one. Let's see if it catches on.

File under 'Department of the Bleedin' Obvious...' and bang head against brick wall, because it's more fruitful than reading empty-headed bimbos in a so-called quality newspaper.

Lisa O'Kelly she's called, this ridiculous imitation of a journalist. I bet she drives a 4x4. she should try taking the brat for a walk in her local park. Hampstead Heath, no doubt.

More children murdered, more faux grief from tabloids

the two main red-tops both carry stories of murdered toddlers - Mum's Hit and Run Grief and Trucker fled as tot died. If they had been killed by paedophiles, this would be front page news, and Page 2, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, and an Editorial. The killers, rightly, would become infamous and be villified. Indignant mobs would firebomb the homes of paediatricians.

But let's not villify killer drivers. Let's protect their rights to speed, because it's such a basic human right. Man and machine in perfect harmony. Let's not install traffic calming or speed cameras, because they infringe the sacred rights of the holy motorists.

Of course, if I were to suggest that education and health organisations abolish criminal record and character checks, and don't take up references, because it infringes the employment rights of decent law-abiding teachers and nurses, I would be villified - and rightly so.

But nothing must infringe the right of a testosterone-fuelled driver to kill and maim cruise the open residential road.

Piers Morgan sacked

Bugger me backwards with a traffic cone.

Editor sacked over 'hoax' pictures

Too late for this week's HIGNFY, though...

In the sidebar on the same page is link saying Iraqi abuse claims dog Blair. Is it just me that had to read it three times to work out what it was saying?

No shit, Sherlock

Hot off the press - Women aspire to be housewives - without any of the housework

I am absolutely astounded to discover that there are people who would prefer not to go to work and prefer not to work in the home.

And here's me thinking it was just me...

Meanwhile, back in the real world, most of us go to work (or, at least, have a job...!) in order to, y'know, pay the bills.

Staten Island ferry crash

I am more than usually interested in Five dead in NYC ferry disaster because, when Helen and I visited New York in 1999, we stayed on Staten Island and used the ferry. Still, I don't think it merits lead story on the ITN News bulletin - if it had happened in a third world country ,or possibly even a European country, it would not have merited much of a mention at all. But UK news will always cover too much US news stories because, in the US, they are very good at getting footage, and most eye witnesses will speak English.

It was a bit silly of ITN to describe it as the ferry that tourists use to get to the Statue of Liberty, though. Basic factual inaccuracy.

Car crash

The Evening Standard headline screams London Train Crash. Let's set aside that the crash happened in Evesham, and the London connection was merely its destination. It was, technically, a road traffic accident, caused by the careless driver of a road traffic vehicle. It is, in my opinion, no more newsworthy than the accident at my local junction on Saturday, caused, no doubt, by one car driver jumping an amber, or red, light and another anticipating the green. The air ambulance attended the scene.

The Standard also reports flood on the M25. Drivers 'accidentally' drove into it. Would that have been because they were travelling too fast to anticipate and avoid hazards?