Eclectic Trains

I've always taken a strange pleasure in a private fantasy that CCTV cameras might reach a finite numerical saturation point because the state would simply be unable to employ enough people to watch the footage. And a private fantasy this must stay because "hundreds of PhD students around the world" are trying to make CCTV smarter. The aim is to fully automate the tracking process by developing sophisticated computer software that can model human behaviour patterns. Smart dumbness for any fellow fantasists who still crave freedom, I reckon.

Well I hope you caught the show, Limmy's Show that is. I'm not going to bore you with a long, windbaggy review, suffice to say I was smiling and laughing from ear to ear throughout the show. It felt like an old virtual friend had jumped from the small small screen to the small screen and was talking to me right in my front room (are you talking to me?). Quite a shock for someone (me), who like Brian Limond (aka Limmy) has probably has spent far too many hours over the last 10 years staring at cyberspace. And what have we got to show for it? Well, Brian's got Limmy's Show and good luck to him.

Fellow Blogger, Antonine Plato, caught one of Limmy's rare gigs in London back in 2007 and wrote a nice little prophetic piece about how we might see this fella on the box. Blogtastic crystal ball usage Antonine! It must be getting late...

It is with great pleasure that I can announce the arrival of Limmy's Show to a telly (or Sky box) near you. Ever since I was sent a link by my brother to his Swearing Xylophone back in 2003, I have been a member of his fan club. Limmy, a Glasgow-based internet comedian, has a keen eye and ear for the absurd and plays with his audience's preconceptions of Glaswegian caricatures to hilarious effect. He had a brief outing on BBC's The Culture Show in 2007 and has performed at a few festivals, but now he is getting a long-awaited television series. Like all early-adopters of fringe artists, I hope he doesn't water down his material too much but I think in the current climate it might be unrealistic to expect a defensive BBC to let Limmy have full creative freedom. His website videos - www.limmy.com/blog/videos - are truly out there and certainly not to everyone's tastes. I have favourites and here are two of them and if you don't like these, don't watch the show.

Yes or No - Ever wanted to get violent with a contributor from the floor? Watch this.

What would you do? - Under extreme pressure from work, your family or the bank? Have a taste of this.

Limmy's Show
Wednesday 18th February, 10pm
BBC2 Scotland (Sky 990 / Freesat 970)

And repeated...
Monday 23rd February, 11:15pm
BBC1 Scotland (Sky 971 / Freesat 960)

And, of course, BBC iPlayer.

My review of Hitchcock's Notorious, which is re-released this week to coincide with the BFI's Ingrid Bergman season, can be read here: Wrapped around Ingrid Bergman.

Are you a Mechanical Turk? I am. This picture of a keyboard has come from a web service called acobox.com - a copyright free image hosting service. Acobox were offering any takers via Mechanical Turk $1 if they were prepared to host one of their images on their blog*. Well, here it is and I've done what was asked. I wasn't obliged to write anything nice about Acobox or anything about them at all in fact. I just had to use a photo. But, as it happens, it seems like a really simple and useful service for a blogger like me. A copyright free hosting source for photos of all varieties? I'm signing up.

Actually, this was part of an investigation I'm conducting into digital piece work (which sounds exploitative), or crowdsourcing (which sounds like an amazing social experiment) on Uncrunched.com, my anti-credit crunch blog. Amazon's crowdsourcing site, Mechanical Turk, has literally thousands of micro-jobs that can be completed by anyone with a broadband connection and a desire to "earn" micro-money.

That's 171 words and with these final words included - that's 228 in total - my assignment is complete. (Acobox wanted me to write a minimum of 150 words). Visit Uncrunched.com in a few days for an assessment of the whole experience of me becoming one of the growing millions of VPWs (Virtual PieceWorkers).

*Sponsored Post

The BFI have an Ingrid Bergman season on at the BFI Southbank this January. I have just seen a newish print of Notorious (which is part of the season) and I think Bergman's performance is worth the ticket price alone. Colm Tóibín's article, For old times' sake, captures some of the magic of Bergman's early and later work.

Yesterday was a nightmare waiting to happen and happen it did. I left the office early and on time at 1.15pm to travel back to East Ham to see my eldest daughter in her Xmas performance of Hansel and Gretel. I had my work bag (a Dell computer bag without a computer in it) and my video camera. (I intended to video the show, or at least key moments with my daughter in, so that my wife, at home with a sickly youngest daughter, could see the recording). I took the Central Line from Bethnal Green to Mile End and changed at Mile End to pick up the District Line to Upton Park. The District Line was, however, not happening. Someone had "fallen under a train" at Whitechapel and trains weren't moving. Sad, but how was I going to get to the Xmas show on time? I waited for 5 minutes and realised that the announcements advising passengers to take alternative routes applied to me. I hopped on the next Central Line train to Stratford and caught the only black cab in the rank to the school in E13. As I pulled up outside the school with 2 minutes to spare (and £10 lighter), I saw my daughters' former childminder (P) with one of her charges (C) strolling along and on her way to see the show. I said thanks to the driver and said hello to P and C as we walked into the school playground. I got through the reception door and then my small, fragile world fell apart...

...I had committed a Mr Magoo like atrocity on myself - the video camera was still in the back of the cab...

...to cut a very long and tiresome shaggy dog story short; the video camera has not been retrieved. I saw my daughter's show and very good it was too. (Although strangely I never saw my daughter, as she had decided, I think partly in protest of not being given a major role, to hide her face behind the back row of the choir. I could hear her recorder playing but not see her. A video camera would not have altered this odd situation. Ironic, you might say as I had no camera anyway). I managed to track down my taxi driver by some deft detective work. All right, I went back to the Stratford taxi rank and chatted to some drivers who recognised my description of the driver and said I must have been a customer of "Big John". I got Big John's mobile; texted him; he called me back and he said he would try and help but he had picked up 2 customers after me and the camera wasn't on the back seat any more.

THE PAIN, THE PAIN. Sure insurance may cover it (I haven't checked the policy yet). But the camera was pristine - a 3 year old, low tech memory machine. The tape inside it had my youngest daughter's Xmas show, as recorded by my wife which I still hadn't seen. Now do you understand? How could someone pick up that camera and not make an effort to return it? If they played the tape they would see immediately that someone's sentimental, personal family stuff was going to be sorely missed. The new "owners" of my camera could even work out which school my daughter went to, because, as my wife informed me, the headteacher's traditional welcoming speech to parents before "Whoops-a-Daisy Angel" kicked off the nursery kids' Xmas show, mentioned the school's name a number of times.

RETURN THE CAMERA TO THE SCHOOL, WHY DON'T CHA? Are you on the same page? Acute pain. I am a very careful chap. I guard my gear. A suicide, a delay, a freak diversion, a taxi ride and some recognisable faces could all be added into the mix of distractions but at the end of the day I just magooed. Plain Mr Magooed it. Magooed it big time!

Rectifying a situation like this isn't easy. You fight with yourself, you retrace steps and you make strange phone calls to lost and found warehouse operators. The line is a bit echoey...

...but then COMEDY COMES TO THE RESCUE. I didn't feel like drinking. COMEDY, that's what I needed. I believe great comedy can be truly cathartic.

I've been working through the first series (2000) of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm. My wife and I love it. Last week we did 2 nights, 2 episodes a night. But last night we did 5 x half hour episodes. We split our sides. We hardly moved from our seats. Larry David just walked from one catastrophe to the next. Most of his scrapes are generated by him speaking his mind combined with an uncouth and unreasonable attitude but he also gets more than his fair share of simple pure bad luck. Genius, absolute genius. I sat there shaking off a bad day just enjoying someone else's misfortune. Larry was having a worse time than me and I was so much happier because of it.

He made Series 6 last year and 2-5 are also out on DVD. Santa now knows what I want for Xmas. How I missed this the first time round is a mystery to me but this is one thing that is being retrieved from my cultural lost and found.

...Deep inside I know that I'm him...

...I need to get myself a HD camera anyway...

Nev got a moving send off on Friday (12/12/08). Bethnal Green was brought to a standstill as hundreds of well-wishers gathered outside Pellicci's cafe to pay their respects. BBC London caught the mood of the day whilst The Times had written a fitting tribute the day before.

A warm tribute to a much loved East Londoner and a video interview about the caff.

I hope everyone has enjoyed Channel 4's 'The Devil's Whore' - I certainly did (with a few qualifications). The last of this big budget 4-parter was broadcast last night (10/12/08) and I'm missing it already. At one stage it could have been a 10 hour series on BBC and if you read about the production's long gestation, it may never have been made at all.

I've written a review for the The Culture Wars website which you can read by clicking on this link: Passionate people at w…w…w…war!

The Devil's Whore has been watched and appreciated (with some caveats). I'm not sure about the devil, or the whore come to think of it, but I won't go into too much detail here as I intend to write a longer piece on the series. If you need to catch up on the first episode from last week, click here.

If you need to quickly swot up on the English Revolution why not read Christopher Hill's seminal 1940 essay, The English Revolution 1640. [All complaints about the poor standard of transcription should be made to the CPGB (do they still exist?) and/or Andy Blunden at www.marxists.org - it's enough to give Marxists who care about accuracy a nad mame!].

The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution was written by Hill in 1972 and is regarded as one of the classic academic texts on the Civil War and a major contribution to twentieth century historical analysis. I'm plodding through it now and am getting to know my Levellers from Diggers. The Devil's Whore would not have been written without Hill's contribution to our understanding of this period and the worm's eye view of history that he took.

See you after episode 2.

My expectations are being ramped up to the max before tomorrow's screening of The Devil's Whore on Channel 4. Co-writer and co-executive producer, Peter Flannery, was on Radio 4's Start the Week and actor John Simm was interviewed in today's Times. I am sure you blogged-out, newshounds have tracked down other stuff.

Anyway, the 4-parter has a time and that'll be 9pm. So, I would advise you to get the kids to bed on time (isn't government advice 7:30pm?), open a bottle of red and hopefully (I'm praying), sit back and enjoy an insightful journey into our revolutionary past.

The Devil's Whore is on tomorrow (that's Wednesday 19th November) night at 09:00. Live in the here and now by enjoying a bit of BIG TV now and then. (Of course I'm going to Skyplus it. All precatuionary steps are being taken).

Afterthought...

OMG, I've just earwigged someone in the pub recruit a new believer to the Socialist - Degenerated Workers' State variety - cause. The English Revolution must be in the air tonight...

We all know what's going down, but what's going up?

1. Fawlty Towers DVD sales soar

2. Egg Sales up by 22 Per Cent

3. Sales of The Communist Manifesto have risen by more than 700%

"I too rooted for Obama and I too was moved by his victory speech. I expect him to be far more liberal and successful than his predecessor. But he was swept to power on a wave of emotion - it was, albeit in happier circumstances, another "Diana moment" - from which almost nobody dared to dissent. As hard times approach, I do not think that augurs well for democracy and newspapers in either country."

Peter Wilby with some sensible words.

"I had a dream about Angelina Jolie, Barack and Michelle Obama last

The Devil's Whore is coming to Channel 4. It is difficult to contain my excitement. In a preview in The Sunday Times a whole list of treats are placed before us. First and foremost, this new television drama is written by Peter Flannery the writer of Our Friends in the North. All right, a very close second is that The Devil's Whore is about the Cromwell and English Revolution. Here's a list of other things to get excited about:

- the cast includes Dominic West (The Wire) as Cromwell
- there hasn't been a prime time civil war drama since 1983
- it was filmed in South Africa
- it has a big budget - £7m for a four-parter
- Flannery read the King James version of the Bible (1604) to research dialogue and the use of "muscular metaphor and simile" (it might not rock your boat but it's rocking mine)

Flannery unashamedly engages his audiences with big ideas, his characters are complex and he wants to take you on an unforgettable journey. What more could we want?

"I'm not selling this as a way of passing your GCSE in 17th-century history... I'm trying to write a thrilling story about those times and what the issues were..."

[England's civil war in The Devil’s Whore, The Sunday Times]

Bring on the English Revolution! See you at the Channel 4 barricades on November 19th. [I'm guessing 9pm but the online listings aren't giving up crucial information like that just yet].

The credit crunch has brought home to me how my reading habits have started to change, especially in respect to hard news. I buy The Guardian or The Times every day but my hunger for news from the blogosphere, from BBC correspondents to obscure US libertarians (read unhappy Republicans), is unsated. Get out more! Yes, I know I should but while I am not, I am going to carry on hunting and reading. Discovering a blog, maybe a gem that only a small number of people are reading, has a tragic equivalence with the under-the-bedclothes listening of the late John Peel Radio 1 show (10pm-midnight, Monday-Thursday in the late 1970s). I listened through hours of experimental dross just to catch that edgey, indie band that none of my mates might have heard of. Cassette tape in my Bush cassette tape radio recorder at the ready, great tracks would get recorded for later consumption and distribution. Today, Google Reader and Delicious are the modern equivalents of my cassette recorder for my news reading habits.

There is at least one Guardian journalist who has been prepared to swim against the Obama tide (of near hysteria) and his name is Simon Jenkins. In an article entitled: All the cliches about colour obscure the real challenges awaiting Obama, Jenkins lays down a gaunlet of liberal common sense. I think we should take up the gaunlet and start to get a grip.

"The most overheard media cliche is that "America will never be the same again". Yes it will, as it was when it last elected a Democratic president. Only if we break from the crypto-racist mindset that sees Obama as a black man first and all else far behind can the odds on a successful presidency be assessed."

John was woken at 2.30am on Wednesday 5th November by a telephone call from Mary.

"John! He's done it!" said a merrily drunk Mary.

"Who's that? Who's done what?" groaned John.

"Obama is president! It's Mary... it's amazing isn't it?" Mary carried on.

"It's 2.30am in the morning. I was asleep. You've got to be joking." John complained.

"Now don't try and get angry with me, John. This is history. Isn't it great?" Mary enthused.

"I'm going back to sleep Mary."

John put the phone down. Helen, John's wife, has woken up.

"Who was that, John?" asked a crotchety Helen.

"Mary. Obama's won."

"I'll kill her..."

[The names have been changed to protect my friends identities].

I imagine this script may have played out across the UK, if not the world, in the early hours of Tuesday morning [GMT]. My friends John and Helen have not been caught up in the Obamarama thing but Mary clearly has and at the moment the Obamaphiles seem to be everywhere. The hope that has been pinned onto Barack Obama's campaign, and now imminent presidency, is BIG HOPE for BIG CHANGE. I'm afraid some of us our suffering from extreme self-delusion and others are just going to be plain disappointed.

When I woke up on Tuesday morning [6.45am GMT] and turned on the television, there was the news: America elects its first black/mixed race/biracial - [delete as you feel appropriate] president. My wife was happy - emotional even. My 3rd daughter is 'planning to be born' 9 days after Obama's inauguration on 20th January 2009. My mixed race daughter will be born into a world with a mixed race leader of the free world. It would have been churlish not to reflect on this moment and recognise a sense of achievement, but now we need to move on.

Yes, move on. Snap out of it! Wake up! I've always believed in the human potential of all races to achieve at the highest level because I believe in racial equality. A non-white man has reached the highest political office proves in one simple sense what anti-racists have known along: that anything and everything is possible.

Unfortunately Obama's election promises don't fill me with hope: withdrawl from Iraq but puruse the war in Afghanistan with more vigour, being one of them. The hope invested in Obama has a lot to do with America's internalised self-loathing generated during George W. Bush's two terms in office. So, if Americans now feel freer to engage with the world about the best ways forward during these difficult times then we will all be enriched. However, the narrow, illiberal political agenda of the political class prevalent in the West from Barack Obama to Gordon Brown, fills me full of dread. Without any real economic solutions politicians tend to ramp up the control agenda and want to tell us 'how we all have a responsibility to tighten our belts for the good of the economy and the environment'. Ughh!

Reading across the blogosphere, I find libertarian fears described by American Republicans palpable (and entertaining).

"I want all these willing volunteers who are so eager to help Obama achieve his vision to leave me strictly alone. I prefer that they sink into apathy, or go off and get drunk or do drugs. I don't want to be part of Obama's corps of concerned citizens."

Obama's worker bees [Blog: Miriam's Ideas]

"I don’t need a cult leader and I have no interest in worshipping. Obama represents mob rule and I want no part of his cult of personality. I’m interested in human freedom. I’m interested in less government. I’m interested in choices, rational discussion and education. Where are my people? Where is my party?"

The cult of Obama [Blog: The will to exist]

'Miriam' goes on to describe a less liberal society where Big Brother drones (read former Obama supporters) police her eating habits and gasoline usage. Truly a nightmare. I think we might already be living in it in the UK!

For more in depth analysis, I regularly read spiked. Frank Furedi's article Obama and the fall of ‘the silent majority’, Brendan O'Neill's Voting for Obama: a badge of superiority? and The morning after History was made by Sean Collins raise serious questions about the real trends underlying Barack Obama's victory.

For a humorous take on what the young, and unemployed, Obamaphiles are going to do now the campaign is over, watch this clip from The Onion:

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

The coverage of the build up to the US presidential elections has had to compete with Brandgate (or Manuelgate or Sachsgate or Whatevergate). The US is about to elect a new leader and we have had another media scandal that engulfs the media in a cannibalistic feeding-frenzy. This alone is quite shocking.

I must admit my head has been spinning with issues that sometimes appear very trivial and then very serious, simultaneously. Ross and Brand weren't funny on this particular occasion - there seems to be a wide consensus on this one. (I'll come clean: I can find Ross funny and on occasions his cheeky childish wit can amuse but his rude, boorish, self-congratulatory shtick - a large part of his act - has started to wear thin. Or put another way, "sisters", I think if I were a female celeb I would think twice about appearing on his chat show. Juliette Binoche, Jane Fonda, Nicola Kidman and even our own Jade Goody have all been subjected to Ross's sexist, car crash sense of humour. Brand's humour has always been too obscured by his ego for me to appreciate his "talents").

Anyway... talk about a diverting issue. As some intelligent articles have pointed out this isn't about Ross or Brand. The column inches devoted to the subject aren't an extension of a public debate about the nature of humour and what makes us laugh. "Can the comedy of cruelty ever be justified. Discuss." No, the official liberal media response to "Brandgate" has betrayed a papable disgust with the thousands that have complained about the Brand-Ross Radio 2 show. Charlie Brooker's column - a very funny column that I read regularly - in The Guardian was entitled: "Want a rush of empowerment? Join the angry idiots registering their disgust with Ofcom". His opening salvo was: "So it's here at last. The dawn of the dumb has broken in earnest."

At the beginning of the week I must admit I was caught up in the fears of the liberal media elite (being a lesser member with aspirations). In particular, the worry that a "Daily Mail witchunt" against Ross and Brand might increase the likelihood of a knee-jerk and censorious response from the BBC, troubled me. But there was something else going on here...

...and then I stumbled on Neil Davenport's article on spiked: A revolt of the masses against the BBC?

Neil takes apart the issue and really explores the BBC's contempt for its audience. The Ross-Brand affair is set in the context of "the media’s low horizons and lack of faith in its audience". This article is a devastating critique of dumbing-down whilst also being a fresh clarion call for funny, and intelligent, comedy. I couldn't recommend it more.