King of the Mountains

A regular source of entertainment for pretty much the whole planet, would be an accurate summing up of local newspaper letters pages. Being unable to string a coherent argument together and having political views that Stalin would have considered authoritarian are no barriers to expression in this media. Let’s look at some of the regular formats:

Anti-EU rant. Usually the same people every week. Their arguments are never rebuffed because nobody else can be bothered to wade through the irrelevant gibberish they include and blow large smoking holes in them. Generally they keep coming back and become more virulent if anyone is bored enough to attempt to engage them in battle. Popular with editors for their habit of writing reams of rubbish that can more or less be guaranteed to be both clean and acceptable to large numbers of Wail or Ex-press reading noddies. Let’s face it, if they believe the Wail they’ll swallow anything the local press can manufacture report.

Religious fruitcake. Often from a completely different part of the country and ranting about the stage version of Jerry Springer or a show suggesting that it’s actually prefectly acceptable to be gay. They’ve probably sent the same letter to local papers in every area that the touring show is visiting, which shows admirable research skills if little else between the ears. Alternatively you may find the general evangelical gibberish (extra points if it includes bible quotes) or the screeching about how Jonathan Ross/the Internet/men with long hair will lead to the moral destruction of the universe. The fact that most people could now be classified as Atheist, Agnostic, or just not giving a damn clearly passes them by.

Political bitchfest. Usually related to town councils or groups. Can be amusing if you know one of the participants and therefore trust their opinions rather more than those of J. Random Jobsworth. Another editorial favourite, guaranteed to fill pages for weeks if not months. Some can last for years. 

Anti-war/hippy. One word of advice: Study International Politics to degree level, then you will actually be qualified to comment. The world is not an episode of "Care Bears" and there are some unpleasant people out there who would respond to your offer of a cup of herbal tea by pouring the hot water over you and then beheading you with the organic biscuits. Mind you, after a few weeks of reading these letters a fair number of normal people might be moved to similar sentiments. 

Council bashing. Usually by people with ulterior motives. Especially amusing when local answer to slum landlords berates council for allegedly resettling ex-cons in the area. Amusing as landlord has made most of his fortune and position from renting dodgy flats to the very people whose existence in the area he is moaning about. Other favourites include hysterical shrieking about how a new policy will have Ghenghis Khan setting up his camp outside the bandstand within a week. Popular with editors who wish to make equally hysterical claims in headlines.

Generalised rambling. Our best codebreakers have as yet failed to understand the point these people are attempting to make. Preliminary findings suggest that their ramblings could be condensed to "things were better in the old days". If these were the same old days when people regularly died of flu and hospital treatments generally involved hot pitch and screaming then it’s uncertain how they could be better. Often includes an allegedly amusing anecdote which could well have inspired a Last of the Summer Wine episode. Evidence that greater care of the elderly is needed to keep their minds active. I favour mandatory nitrous oxide installations for drivers over 65 and free motocross lessons for all pensioners. 

The headphone socket on my MP3 player has become somewhat unreliable. Now, most people would just bin a four year old device. But I don’t intend to.

The battery still holds a charge. The hard disk is still turning quietly. The broken part, and I know this because I’ve managed to buy one or at least something similar in Maplin, costs 80p. As opposed to over £200 for a new player of the same standard. So in a few minutes I’ll find the soldering iron and start fitting it. 

Widget manufacturers have become very cunning at the repeat business game. From iPods where you have to return them to Apple for a new battery (another reason to buy a Creative instead) to devices that obviously have a design lifespan after which they will break in a manner that makes them unrepairable. But ehre is another insidious trick they’re pulling, and more people need to notice it. Enforced obsolescence.

A couple of years ago one of the big chains announced that due to lack of demand they would no longer stock floppy disks. Think briefly, when was the last time you saw a new PC with a floppy drive? Manufacturers have engineered a lack of demand by leaving the drives out of PCs.

I accept that a USB drive is a better bet, but for those of us who like messing around with old hardware a supply of floppy disks is somewhat essential. I even have a pile of the old 5.25in floppies, which are good for innuendo if nothing else.

The same thing is happening with CDs, although here it is slightly more sinister. One major high street chain has already announced that they will not be selling CD singles due to downloading, and commentators have been forecasting the death of the CD for some years. Mind you, they’ve been saying the same about vinyl since the 1980s and new pressings are still being released.

The sinister part is that once we move away from buying a hard copy to buying an intangible collection of data we lose a lot of control. With music or software on a CD we have a hard copy. In the event of a system crash we can just reinstall it from disk. If the data exists only on your hard disk and cannot be copied due to protection measures then what happens? Do you have to buy it all again? What happens if the media company decides to change their policy and lock all the stuff you have paid for, making it unusable unless you pay extortionate subscription fees?

It is obviously in their own interests to escape from hard copies. Making, transporting and selling a CD costs far more than putting the contents on a paid for download site, where almost all of the track price will be profit. It also gives them more control over how the consumer is able to use the music or software they have paid for. 

We seem to have turned into a society of mindless consumers who don’t care about the deeper implications of these things so long as we have our shiny new iWidget before the rest of our clique. If you’ve ever tried explaining why DRM is a bad thing for consumers to the average airhead then you will understand what I mean. People just don’t want to know, and giving a damn now makes you uncool.

Because it’s cool to spend £200 on a new device rather than 80p on a spare part… 

I recently came across a music channel on satellite TV, and being at something of a loose end settled down to watch. It was uniformly terrible.

I can only assume their target market was a male chav, judging by the number of permatanned plastic women in scanty outfits they seemed to feel the need to adorn it with. I realise that this is a common tactic for deflecting attention away from the lousy music, but it only works if the people you’re using are actually attractive. I’m reasonably certain "Bleurgh" was not the reaction they intended to get.

See, if you get it right you can do wonders with a music video. Treat it like a short film, make it funny, make it interesting. Bin the makeup, the hotpants, the gym bunnies, and follow the Stereophonics with their Italian Job-themed video for "Pick a Part That’s New" or the entertainingly lunatic Men at Work with "Land Down Under". I know there’s more money in appealing to chavs and cavemen but frankly, isn’t the challenge of making intelligent people laugh more fun? Posturing wannabe "gangstas" are comical, but we’re not exactly laughing with them…

On the plus side, we seem to have managed to get Men and Motors back along with large chunks of Channel 4, now this Freesat business has come on line. Whether we now get proper Channel 4 rather than S4C has yet to be investigated, but there was a great episode of The Saint on last night. 

I realise there are greater problems, such as zombies or somebody setting us up the bomb, but I feel one thing I’ve noticed of late does need to be mentioned: Ludicrous mark-ups.

I recently ordered, for £35, something that was originally priced at £105. Now, retailers do not make a loss. Neither do wholesalers, at least overall. So how much of a mark-up must there have been on these things to begin with? I can accept that there might have been some sort of thought process along the lines of "We’ve sold four thousand at full price, so we can afford to let these that won’t shift go for trade price" but still, what are they paying the people who put them together?

Which leads us to an interesting ethical conundrum. See, I think 98% of us feel at least a bit guilty about how some large companies have been seen to use sweatshop labour to make products, with the workers being paid a tiny fraction of the final price. The example I mentioned above won’t have been made like that, but this is one reason I won’t buy branded sportswear (apart from the fact that it makes you look an utter tit). 

The opposite end of the problem, that will be relevant in the case I mentioned, is that the cost of living in the countries where these things are made is much lower. If a Chinese plant were to start paying its workers the British minimum wage it would distort their economy, as suddenly everyone would be paid more and would cost more to employ. Outsourcing would end, and their economy would nosedive as production was shifted. We’re probably going to see that before too long anyway, as they seem intent on mixing brutal repression of political dissidents with a skewed free market economy. This is leading to some intriguing thoughts, such as the fact that the Chinese model railway market is now larger than that of the UK despite modelling being a very unusual hobby out there.  Clearly for those willing to knuckle down, cease thinking, and refrain from typing "Democracy" into Google there are rewards.

Whichever angle you look at it from, the fact remains that some people are making outrageous profits on things that must cost them pennies to have made. Outsourcing hasn’t led to lower prices in many cases. The only thing that seems to lead to savings being passed on to the consumer is competition, in another case it was most instructive to note the price difference between products that faced competition and those (from the same manufacturer) that did not.  

A bit of an odd title, I’ll agree. There are more action films hitting the screen now than for some time. One snag though, the heroes all appear to have had their brains surgically removed.

We’ve got a James Bond who is only marginally more intelligent than his shoes, and some witless American on TV who keeps letting the enemy catch him and do all sorts of nastiness. I’m beginning to wonder if he enjoys it in some perverse way. What on earth is going on?

I’ve commented before on the fact that idiots with muscles seem to be more popular than sophisticated intellectuals at the moment, and that this trend extends to films. Timothy Dalton, for example, might not have been as tough as the current Bond but, the point is, he didn’t need to be. Dalton’s Bond was a sly, cunning fellow who leant heavily on any advantages he had, rather than just wading in.  He certainly wouldn’t have rolled his car after seeing his female colleague in the middle of the road. Dalton would most likely have jumped his Aston clean over her using the rocket booster, shot up the villains with the concealed missiles, then returned to pick her up. Home in time for tea and medals.

I grew up watching classic war films, Sink the Bismarck was a favourite for a while but doesn’t really fit here other than its portrayal of land-based commanders as heroes too. Where Eagles Dare, on the other hand, does fit.

I maintain that this film has a lot to do with the popularity of the Wolfenstein series of computer games. The number of people who bounced around those corridors muttering "Broadsword calling Danny Boy" must be pretty high. 

There has yet to be an escape sequence on a par with their approach of stealing a post bus before running rings around large numbers of Wehrmacht troops. I think everyone who has seen that film secretly wants to have a go at knocking over the trigger posts with that gigantic snowplough and watching the telegraph poles fall over in the mirror.  As for the more heroic parts, can you see any of the current crop of numbskulls knowing how to operate a cable car, or clinging to the roof with only one fully-functional hand? Staying completely calm and convincing their captors that they’re a double agent, right up until the point when they were able to shoot their way out?

Moving on, The Avengers. A wonderfully surreal British spy series of the 1960s with the superb John Steed and rather lovely Emma Peel, in the versions I’ve seen repeats of anyway. Between them, they foiled assorted dastardly plots armed only with a sword umbrella, bowler hat, and some nifty fighting abilities on the part of Mrs Peel. I’m wondering if there would be a way to have Steed frozen in Austin Powers style and then inserted into 24. It would at least make it watchable, if only for the current lead character crying behind his desk about the old British guy who just bumped off all the terrorists without even losing his carnation. Civilisation returns to the counter-terror business. Come back Steed and Peel, you are both needed.   

I know, I know, I’ve already talked about the clueless rant groups on Facebook. But I’ve just sighted another one that I feel needs mentioning. I won’t name it as I don’t want them screaming at me, but a few pointers that apply to all protests.

Typing ENTIRELY LIKE THIS does not help get your point across. It makes the readers’ eyes hurt and they’re quite likely to walk off. It also makes you look like one of those sad individuals you see bellowing assorted religious works in shopping areas. They’re not terribly convincing and neither is the Caps Lock approach.

Learn to spell. Now, I know some people have genuine problems with dyslexia, but a spelling and grammar check program can be downloaded free of charge. It’s called Openoffice.org and works very well. If your intention is to win people to your cause then you will get further with reasoned, well written, logical arguments than with badly-written hysterical shrieking. Then again I suppose it depends on whether you want easily led tabloid-"educated" followers or intelligent sceptical ones who will question things that make no sense.

Check your facts. If you want a particular individual "off Facebook" then it’s advisable to check whether they are actually on there. Likewise use a modicum of technical knowledge. Calling for "their IP to be banned" is rather meaningless as most internet providers simply hand out IPs at random and will quite probably give you a new one when you reboot your router. You have to pay extra for a static one, as that would enable you to host a website. Banning a particular IP will just annoy the innocent soul who is handed it after a power cut.  

Don’t let the jokers who will inevitably set up fake accounts and join the group wind you up. Sick though they are, it is rather amusing watching the reactions they provoke with what is, at base, a misjudged school-age prank. There seems to be an even split between those that fall for it and demand assorted painful fates for the prankster, and those that realise it to be a joke and start screaming for blood. Neither sort of person reflects well upon the group. 

Finally, do not tolerate the borderline fascist vigilante types. Many of them are just as disturbing as the people the group is aimed at. Call me strange but I’d rather people weren’t encouraged to wander the streets carrying cricket bats with nails in and attacking anyone they suspect of being their target, as for some strange reason I wouldn’t trust them to find their own elbows let alone correctly identify a person.

I’ve been wandering ebay a fair bit of late, and have encountered some bizarre trends.

To start with the obvious, those special people who list something by brand, then put "like" and a whole bunch of manufacturers making similar stuff. I’m not even sure it grabs attention. If I want to see something from that manufacturer I’ll search for it, rather than ending up with a set of results stuffed with things I don’t want.

Putting "Rare" in a subject heading doesn’t make it so. However, it might well provoke a bidding war so I can’t say I blame the seller. I do wonder about the individuals who seem happy to pay twice the original price for something that is still readily available new though. Anecdotal evidence suggests that they really don’t care how much over the odds they’ve spent too.

Which leads us neatly onto the other problem. The "Must have it at all costs" bidder. Great news for the sellers, but downright annoying for the rest of the bidders as they will push prices to insane levels in their desperate efforts to be the winning bidder. I really don’t know what drives them. The rest of us, upon seeing an item rise to a silly price, will simply roll our eyes and think that there’ll be another one along before too long. But on planet crazy bidder something kicks in. I would suggest it’s macho posturing, but there seem to be a fair number of women who do this too. A re-awakening of the old fighting spirit that led our ancestors to prod each other with pointy sticks for the last piece of the kill maybe? I’ve even heard of rare occasions where the crazy bidder has been beaten and the winner has received a bile-filled email for having the nerve to outbid the crazed.

Some people just enjoy winding them up by making sure they pay well over the odds, but as that’s against ebay rules and quite possibly illegal I can’t condone it. If it is an attempt to ensure that nobody else bothers to bid on later auctions then it clearly isn’t working. You can’t intimidate the rest of us by showing that you’re willing to throw your money away.

Some of the best luck I’ve had, however, has been with lots where there are one or two rough items with a pile of decent ones. Nobody seems willing to bid on these, despite the fact that quite often all the unappealing items need is a bit of de-rusting. So for the price of a tin of WD40 and an old toothbrush you can become the sole bidder and snap up ludicrously cheap stuff.   

I just had my polling card for the local government elections here. Unfortunately they’ve neglected to mention a few crucial things. For a start, what on earth are we electing people to, and secondly, who is standing?

I have seen no adverts in the local press, no posters around town promising what a candidate would do if elected. Nothing to make me enthused enough to get out and vote for what is most likely a town council election. As these people have essentially no power here I’m not sure that is any great problem.

But saying that makes me feel truly awful. See, people die in some countries for the right to vote in free elections and here I am saying I might not exercise my right to vote. But if the candidates are essentially all the same (as they will be in this election) it really isn’t worth my time.   

A recent radio poll came to the conclusion that the essential problem with town councils is that they are invariably staffed by retired, comfortably off white men. Leave aside the "white men" part as I personally find the idea that the colour of my skin and my gender make me unable to treat everyone equally highly offensive. The same goes for social background. What I mainly object to is the way in which it is slanted in favour of older people.

If a younger person were to stand they would suddenly hit problems. They would most likely not have the time to spare due to working the usual mad hours, to say nothing of not having the social networks necessary to drum up votes. Before anyone trots out "inexperience", may I point out that the current incumbents usually have very little recent experience of being young, as it in their case it happened while the Beatles were still active. 

The change said radio show proposed was that the post of town councillor become a full salaried job, in the same way as an MP. While this would result in higher tax bills I might suggest that it could well be a solution to widespread apathy, as for a change we would see a genuinely representative selection of candidates. Make it a living wage, no allowances or perks beyond the odd genuinely necessary trip. It’d become a starting point for a political career, rather than the usual one of being drawn into London and slaving for years as an underpaid researcher before making a play for a seat you’d start off locally aged 25 or so representing your local ward. The prospect of sensible money and a chance to make a genuine difference would do wonders for stimulating interest.

The other problem however is with the kind of person usually drawn to stand for these positions. They are often annoying busybodies who nobody in their right mind would give real power. I have seen them destroy voluntary organisations before now as they did not have full control over said organisation, only an open invitation to be present at meetings which they failed to take up. Decades of careful construction and good management were wiped out overnight because of a few egomaniacs. But I digress. The principle that power should not be given to those that seek it is well known. At least their power is very limited, as in my experience they are invariably ignored by those higher up the chain where (unusually in government circles) common sense tends to prevail. Would younger candidates avoid this problem? Possibly. But there would still be the likelihood of ending up with the insufferable over-achieving head boy/girl type. The only way to avoid that would be to expect the electorate to bother to learn about the people they may be voting for and make an informed choice, which seems rather a lot to ask in a country where Big Brother is considered entertainment rather than a method for converting the brain to cream cheese.

Still, look on the bright side. Things aren’t so bad here apart from the complete lack of decent employment and the infestation of the terminally slow. This is unlikely to change. Extremists don’t bother with quiet towns in the middle of nowhere, so we’re unlikely to wake up and find UKIP or another similar group have taken over. All in all, it shouldn’t be so bad. I suppose I probably ought to go and put a cross next to someone sensible though, if only to make sure.          

I found a very funny website yesterday, part of which was devoted to cheap ‘n dubious Chinese-made toys. It’s here

What particularly caught my eye was the wonderfully naff "Titanic-Bot"

I really feel there should be an awards ceremony for toys like this. This one should get the bad taste award along with the supreme bizarreness award. I mean, it’s a ship that sank with around 1500 of her passengers and crew, but made in plastic and that can transform into a robot. I suppose it would have made the film somewhat better, as that site notes. Mid-way through one of the annoying soppy bits the ship turns into a 200 foot tall flying robot. It might even spare us that ghastly song.

Even more bizarre, the toy is clockwork. So you can indulge your inner Captain Smith by dodging the terrifying walls of foam in your bath and re-enact the sinking after colliding with a giant knee. Or have it turn into a giant flying robot that carries everyone to safety. Entirely up to you. Again, it would have made for a better film and would only be slightly more inaccurate.

"He’d had six pints and loads of vodka"

How often have you heard this, or a variation on it, after having had an evening ruined by a shouting drunken idiot? Too often I’m guessing. 

To dismantle the excuse, they’re effectively asking you to forgive their behaviour because they can’t hold their drink. Nobody forced them to drink that much, it was entirely their own choice. So you’re expected to excuse their boorish antics because they lack self control?

Excellent, next time someone complains about my driving too fast I’ll just say "I’d just been listening to a James Bond soundtrack". That should work. I mean, if you can use something you did voluntarily as an excuse for a lack of self control then it’s fine. Mine doesn’t even inconvenience anyone else so I don’t need as much of an excuse. Plus I get to keep my dignity.

I have no problem with drinking. I don’t drink, I don’t mind people who do. What I won’t stand for is the people who use it to mask a lack of social skills. Remove their inhibitions and hey, they can do whatever they want now. If someone reminds them about their antics the next day then that’s fine, it was the booze that made them do it. It’s rather sad really, as if they can’t manage to be themselves without help.

If they wouldn’t do it sober, why on earth are they doing it at all? Are they really such cowards that they need something else to blame for their actions? I can understand the simple mistake made by many teenagers who are suddenly hit by the effects, but when they reach their mid twenties and still can’t make a conscious decision to stop before they turn into loutish idiots you do have to wonder if there’s something lacking between the ears. Conversational skills maybe? I suppose it’s easier to impress people who’ve devolved to their most base instincts with your body than it is to impress sober people with your mind. Personally I prefer the challenge of the latter, if only because the former isn’t really an option for me!

Whatever happened to self control and dignity? The British Gentleman was a cultural icon, now he’s all but dead. In place of the amiable if dim Bertie Wooster we have the idiotic and unpleasant drunken ape-man. Not the best of things to represent us really. Sure, Bertie did occasionally drink to excess but he generally defaulted to stealing police helmets and paddling in fountains. That is at least amusing for the rest of us, as opposed to throwing tantrums like the average three year old which is just embarrassing and annoying.