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Panoramic views of North Korea

15/4/2013

Let's hope there are some spectacular revelations in tonight's television programme. Let's hope the risks, assuming that there were any, were justified. If I've got the argument straight, the civil-servant creatives of the BBC either did or didn't warn the LSE students on the trip that they were being infiltrated by state-sponsored broadcasters. No written record exists of whether warnings were issued (and understood), and apparently a trip organiser is married to one of the BBC people. Whatever that signifies.
    Once these stories start to unravel, they can't be managed. Love that detail that there's no paper trail, as if today's BBC could operate by word of mouth. [A contemporaneous scribbled record, even? These are journalists, aren't they?] Feel for the LSE bloke indignant that somebody at the BBC said something about the risk to the students being justified by the story. Not clear whether the BBC claims to have a mandate, democratic or otherwise, to make such judgements.
    Probably won't be watching. The argument is the only aspect of this programme to have made the news, apart from a short clip of somebody saying "Welcome to the real North Korea" and then being shouted at (so they saw you were filming and didn't arrest you?), and I'm guessing there's nothing to see that we don't know already.
    The brave students will be the ones who fly out on the next trip to North Korea. If they get arrested, the argument gets real.

Gone but not forgettable

14/4/2013

So many people have kindly gifted us with their opinions on Margaret Thatcher, that I feel excused from giving mine. Complex lady; complex times. Winner of three "landslide" general elections; wanted to call her (auto?)biography "Undefeated", the radio said. Some people prospered; some people - the opposite. Maybe everybody's right because they're all speaking from their own perspectives.
    Carol Thatcher spoke this week of "losing the second parent", which is of course how she sees it. And yes, that is a milestone in life. In truth, we might have been on our own separate paths for a while, but there's something about that second departure: we're on our own. Rendered a little more challenging by parenthood. You realise that there's nobody left for you to describe as "my parents" - while of course, you're occupying that slot for your children. Now you're the generation of "my parents" that will go next.
    It's one more intimation of mortality. But I'm grateful to have heard it in this context. The "Iron Lady" was a parent. Her children have just lost her. I take that as a reminder that she was as human, as flawed, as gifted, as right and wrong, good and bad, as the rest of us (okay, perhaps a bit more so). We hold public figures, politicians in particular, to a peculiar standard, fitting them into a kind of narrative that simplifies them into good/bad just as effectively as digital storage blunts music. It's the modern way.
    She was born, grew up, got married, had children, lost her husband, died. Along the way, she picked up some interesting karma, if you believe in that kind of thing. And now she's gone. End of story.

It's textbook social media, but does it print?

5/4/2013

I bought a printer a while back. Maybe six months. Cheaper than the old wreck, and lighter. Installed it, printed with it, cleared the first printer jam, cleaned the print heads, cleared the second printer jam, told it my first language was English (UK), printed some more, cancelled a pop-up offering an upgrade, then another one telling me the upgrade wasn't complete and was I sure I wanted to cancel, then another one asking whether I was sure I wanted to exit. Reminded it that my first language was English (UK). Printed some more.
    That's been the daily routine ever since. More paper jams than the old printer, but nothing outside my tolerance for machine incompetence. Fine for occasional letters and assorted print-outs. But after a while, the daily three pop-ups began to get me down. They'd come about mid-morning, just as I was getting into the swing of whatever I was writing. Did I want an upgrade? Do you want to exit before it's finished? Are you sure you want to exit?
    Yesterday, I took the upgrade, and sure enough, it took ages. At the end of the process, it asked me if I wanted to start a relationship. Share my secrets, get intimate, spend some time together in printer heaven. The company has a cloud for people like me. By that point, though, it had been stalking me for so long that I just wanted to get somewhere else. Cancel. Yes, I'm sure I want to cancel. Yes, I'm sure I want to exit. Go away. Your join-the-dots social-media colouring book is out of date; I don't like you.
    This morning - guess what? There's a further upgrade. No, no and no.
    I don't mind the paper jams. It's a machine, after all. I don't mind cleaning the print heads. Ditto. I know that the day will never come when I can just press the "print" button and it will print. Ha ha; what an idea. But I hate the interruptions. It's a piece of basic kit, not a lifestyle. I want to produce rectangles of paper with ink on them. If I want to make a high-concept movie, or populate an art exhibition with my family snapshots, I won't do it with a cheap printer.
    I went to a warehouse and spent fifty quid on a cheap printer. It's not really the basis for a long-term relationship.
    And anyway, I'm already shacked up with the toaster.

Could. Not.

1/4/2013

Astonishing, how frequently a BBC news broadcast can contain the words "could have" and "could be". Initiatives could have adverse consequences; just about anything could be damaging. I remember a few years back, a debate about cutting news budgets - the downside would be more journalists interviewing each other; fewer stories researched in depth. The cuts happened; now the journalist on the spot is interviewed about whatever's happening; new research says anything could have, could be, et cetera. Cheaper to report on "could" rather than to investigate what's actually going on.
    But it's self-defeating. When there isn't any actual news, the non-news most likely to get on air is the negative. Things "could" go wrong works better than a report saying that everything's fine. Human nature, right?
    So the government cuts the state broadcaster's news budget and the result is an increase in the number of gloomy reports effectively undermining the government. Priceless. Government as black comedy.
    The picture is the cover of a book published in 2006. Still available on Kindle or as a print-on-demand (POD) hardback from the publisher, Harriman House (HH). Or if you're really in the mood, I have a stack of them here. Retrieved from the warehouse when HH decided to go POD and thereby save storage costs. Bought them for free plus p&p. So maybe I'll sell them off cheap with the value-add of an autograph (get over yourself, William) or I'll do what I was thinking of doing anyway, and write a sequel to include rather more on e-media, social media, et cetera, than seemed necessary in 2006.
    Not that I've got that many, but boxes of books (I have my own allocation of other past titles here as well) can make very effective desk/table supports, or even very well insulated partition walls. Perhaps I should get creative about this.
    And perhaps I should be practical. I'll set up an online second-hand bookstore. Maybe that would be a first, ha ha? Per

Panoramic views of North Korea

Gone but not forgettable

It's textbook social media, but does it print?

Could. Not.

Dear Diary: The Archive