Wasted Talent: Downhill Britain

If I am following the destiny of Andrew Marvell so well, chances are that, thanks to biographical hints from John Aubrey, I will have to develop a taste for the grapevine.

He kept bottles of wine at his lodgeing, and many times he would drink liberally by himselfe to refresh his spirits and exalt his muse.

Though [Marvell] loved wine he would never drink hard in company, and was won’t to say that he would not play the goodfellow in any man’s company in whose hands he would not trust his life.

But this development probably took place near the end of Marvell’s life when he had more powerful enemies in London than trusty friends. We are not surprised then to see one of those enemies call him, after his death, a drunken buffoon, ‘temulentus scurra’.

Pierre Leguois, Andrew Marvell: Poet, Puritan, Patriot (1968), 98.

It is not surprising that a man obsessed with privacy who was eventually elected as an MP had an understanding at least of public impressions. If alcohol was Marvell’s vice, in the context of the slanderous and wide-reaching seventeenth-century print culture, this is a limited trail of evidence, which suggests that his habit was, by and large, a private one. In the context of what is to come, I share a modicum of my own private life: Friday night.

Wasted Talent

I had not been out for a late Friday night for a long, long time; it reminds me of the psychological battles that waged inside my head at university [subject for a future post]. Despite being tired, it was a good night at Reflex 80s in London, and included a mild and good-humoured attempt to get me drunk for a first time, which failed.

I do not claim to be teetotal, although I seldom drink alcohol. Perhaps, observing also my preference for fiery cuisine, I have a tolerance which belies ‘inexperience’ with liquor. The main point to me is my inability to let go, and thus my ability to stay in control [two separate things?], which is the centre of my personal sovereignty.

On my way home, via Richmond, at approximately 1am, the antics that I deem more typical of an ‘English Friday Night’ started manifesting themselves. A group appeared rowdily at the bus-stop. The one male amongst them was particularly inebriated, and started hitting the bus shelter before sitting down and wailing hysterically. A bus came along that the rest of the group tried to pile onto, but then had to get off because the guy had not moved from his pitiful state. Cue noise, arguments, and more raucousness. The general mood of the occasion was not intimidation but total embarrassment.

Also by the stop were a group of four French folk in their early 20s, making a fine mockery of English drinking culture with their language being the safeguard. Perhaps, as per Family Guy’s ‘Wasted Talent’ (2000), a Smirnoff Ice or two had finally attuned my foreign language sensibilities/capabilities, and it propelled me into the longest (and most enjoyable) French conversation I’ve ever had. Amusing too, that the group entertained the thought that because I had spoken to them in French, that everything they said had been understood by everyone. Hardly!

[Full episode]

Discipline

It was all very good-humoured, but what was abundantly clear, to them and myself, from an 18 month stay in Switzerland, was how unruly this country is in general. Self-discipline has long gone out of the window, and perhaps that is why, as a PhD student who works on privacy and needs to survive from discipline alone, I value it so much.

And what is discipline? Possibly some combination between will-power and effort. And alcohol is continually at the centre of this crisis. We can surely call it a crisis when: over 20% of male deaths up to the age of 44 are alcohol related (and over 25% 16-24s), and 15% for women, and the NHS is spending £2.7 billion per year due to alcohol. Take into account costs to society, employers, et al, as the National Social Marketing Centre has done, and we’re looking at over £55 billion. Turns out that you can put a price on how out of control we are. [Sources: House of Commons Report; Times Online, Eureka Zone]

The main problem, as I see it, is a libertarian culture now so barbed that it is difficult to regain control. Children are becoming more belligerent in schools, aware that their actions have so little consequence. Thanks to Ed Balls, they can judge their own curriculum, and the power they are increasingly afforded is frightening. Spreading the seed is out of control; Britain has the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe, and exponentially rising rates of sexually transmitted infections. Popular politics has demanded increased liberty to drink. We’re spearheaded by bankers who genuinely seem untroubled by the idea of demanding and accepting significant sums of taxpayers’ money.

A society has been built around the ‘because I can’ mantra. With kids terrorising teachers by day; thugs terrorising elsewhere by night; people unable to keep their genitals under control; and alcohol being so prominent: it all surmises that in the familial, leisure, and professional worlds, we are out of control.

(I am humoured by the allusion in ‘Wasted Talent’ to Mel Stewart’s excellent adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic [with Gene Wilder's exemplary performance] precisely because the book and film focus so well on individuals out of control.)

Pronouns are important. ‘Because I can’ is exactly that. The civil liberties we have are astonishing, and yet what it procures is a selfishness that disregards the effect upon others. However, it is ‘we’ out of control because we are all caught up in this way of life, whether we choose to be or not, and all affected by the consequences. Might we get fewer people wanting to work for the ambulance service in the future because they are threatened and attacked by the people they turn up, free at the point of use, to help? Will we get fewer teachers (despite those in these times picking up the bursary for teacher training when fewer jobs are available) because of difficulties with discipline? Will it become perennially unsafe to walk the streets when this generation type covers the wider demographic?

Alcohol Costs Us Billions per Year

Control

What this shows is that we lack the capabilities to control ourselves. If there was a way to accommodate everyone, I think strategists would have discovered it. Take alcohol, where evidence of the consequences is most prominent. Any attempts to renege on these liberties we have: unit tax on alcohol or limiting drinking hours will be angrily met as ‘punishing the majority to spite the minority’. Is not the balance the other way around? Perhaps ‘punishing the majority to save the minority’ is more appropriate. In reality, without some real backbone, nothing will happen.

Breaking the contorting spine of drinking culture will have its real benefits. There are infinitely many better causes that the £2.7 billion per year can go towards rather than dealing with drunkenness. Vital drugs, public services, paying off debt… The fundamental argument should not be that people are crippled by the horror of paying more for a damaging substance, or having it controlled for them, but that so much public service money is used up in this way.

Other countries would never let this happen. In Switzerland, the obligatory private health insurance would rocket. Although the Swiss don’t need one, there is little better incentive not to go overboard. Moreover, Richmond on Friday was only a small taste of other countries’ perceptions on our barbarism. Parties of Brits are being targeted and even blacklisted from cities in the world for parties because of the collateral damage that we have caused there [Dublin (1998), Amsterdam (2002), Barcelona (2009), Riga (2009)] Everyone wants to show that they can enjoy themselves, but we are on the threshold of our solipsistic ways becoming a serious, international, diplomatic problem.

The common answer for this kind of issue is always education, but we are well beyond that stage. Most people know very clever people who lose control on a regular basis. Teenagers who are somehow legally savvy and yet claim ignorance of how pregnancy happens are being thoughtlessly naive and exploitative, especially given that efforts have been made to consider their views more in the electorate. Many of these ‘pleasures’ revolve around self-discipline, and that is not just taught, but engrained. We find ourselves with reactionary politics over preparatory politics. Less ‘education’, more rehabilitation. Education might feature, but measures must be legislation led. We’ve been educated about alcohol, smoking, drinking, and unsafe sex, and all has fallen on deaf ears. Are Brits a nation of hedonists? Most of us work very hard, but demand and expect pleasure in result, and pleasure the way we like it – ‘because I can’.

We are so far behind the cultural models of the likes of Switzerland and Holland, it is untrue. True, both have their own weaknesses, but generations are growing up into excellent frameworks for adult development, and everyone accepts a tighter state control because it doesn’t piss about with their civil liberties.

Alphaville, ‘Control’, from the album Salvation (WEA, 1997)

“Sackless”

That was one of my mum’s favourite disciplinary-based insults for me as a child. I suggested above that discipline is comprised of will-power and effort. If, so far, the issues have revolved around will-power, recycling is very much an effort factor. I fully believe in recycling. For a small amount of effort, it has greater benefit. I am stunned when I see how little attention is often paid to it. Why trains do not have paper recycle facilities, I have no idea. Somehow, I cannot see the 25 newspapers collected on a Grand Central service reaching any recycling facility after sharing a sack with Burger King remains.

For several years now, to some ridicule, I have carried plastic bags with me whenever I have reason to expect any shopping. I imagine that for my relatively little shopping, I could amass 120 bags per year. And that’s one slightly built male. In fact, the average is much, much higher than that, and the scale is terrifying. Plastic bags are like anything else: they all use resources, and all end up somewhere. I am proud of using as little as possible.

Hence, I was disturbed today to read the mass of arguments against Boris Johnson’s declaration to reduce the number of plastic bags by 2012. Any such changes might require a modicum of thought or effort to reuse plastic bags; God forbid that we might have to subject people to that.

Plastic Bags: No Problem for Some (Alas)

I don’t mean this to be politically significant, but personably significant. From promoting cycling, to banning alcohol on the tube, to recycling, Boris is slowly trying to force some measure of control and self-discipline back into Londoners’ lives. It doesn’t happen by choice. It’s not particularly popular. It’s a brave move to implement necessary correctives for what has been allowed to stray out of control. For that, he has my respect. If measures have proven success, domestically or abroad, [Republic of Ireland cut consumption of bags by 90% through charging 15 cents], any measure of common sense should accept them. Why, in restricted speed zones, are there complaints about speed cameras? Isn’t it because drivers know that their patience would never see them stick to such limits, while cameras ensure they do? Whether it is human nature overall, or British nature as it exists today, leaving us to our own devices would just be a disaster.

Measure for Measure

It’s sad that we will only react to measures that hit us in the pocket, and affect our own gain. It seems that, as a nation, we’re not focussed enough on the broader picture outside our own lives. There has been plenty said about Cadbury’s inherently ‘British values’, but those values have been treading water for some time. Bittersweet irony, then, that by jumping ship and surrendering to money, the company might just showcase these values on the way to drowning.

(I’m glad, too, to post in a place where masses of the general public will not come and give me abuse for my observations.)

“A Mirror Up To Nature”: Hamlet (2009)

"A Mirror Up To Nature": David Tennant in the RSC's Hamlet (2009)

Although not wanting to abscond from Roxette’s ‘air of silence’ previously, I am inspired to move from Sweden to Denmark, and from Lear to another fine play, Hamlet. Despite largely avoiding Shakespeare at undergraduate level, I taught this play, new to me then, to first-year undergraduates in a very nervous first term in Geneva. This production, that I watched on the strength of the main actor above any other specific merits, alerted me not only to the skills I have picked up since, but also a new sense of seeing theatre. Between theatre and film, between traditional and contemporary, between stolid culture and celebrity impasse, this version struck an excellent compromise for 2009. I felt like I was watching something unique – that kept me attached.

This Hamlet of 2009 is to tragedy what Shakespeare in Love of 1998 was to comedy (despite the latter, ironically, portraying a tragedy itself). A play is a play, a king is a thing; a stage (all the world) is a stage, and has its stage limitations. For all the intricacies not necessarily visible to the average human eye, stage productions can just be too alike. For classics of Shakespeare’s corpus, played endlessly at the finest theatres by the finest players, it has been time to bring the imagination alive again.

The greater the background world, the broader the context, and new story is forged. The attempts in the 1990s to picture Shakespeare the wanton young writer, struggling for ideas and inspiration, playing off patrons and theatre-owners, reinvigorated Shakespeare in popular culture. True, the exact factual details of Elizabethan theatre went astray. Women did not take to the stage until at least November 1660, when a play-text of Othello marks the occasion through a preface by Thomas Jordan. But these were not important. What was important was the idea of conjecture, beyond a play that has been performed to death, towards the processes of creation, scripting, performing and building that literary immortality. It is almost as though we could not before imagine the young and impervious Will Shakespeare unless shown to us convincingly before our eyes on screen. (The very same as I would struggle to believe that an Andrew Marvell who scripted the finery that he did would likely have sported a Hull accent).

Of course, part of that background world, context, and all, is the casting. Shakespeare in Love was cast perfectly. Joseph Fiennes, who continues to be sorely underrated, carried a mischievous twinkle with a profound gaze; Gwyneth Paltrow looked in love with her part; and the BBC comedy crew with their deadpan sketch expertise brought superb support. Ironically, it is Joseph Fiennes’ brother Ralph who holds the Shakespeare credentials. The sole recipient of a Tony Award for starring as Hamlet on Broadway, he also joins Patrick Stewart in receiving the William Shakespeare Award from the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC.

Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Patrick Stewart might just have been the interpretive flaw in this version of Hamlet for me. I saw the idea – the big-name leads… In theory, it was fine. The ghost was perfect, but for me, his brother, the king, was not. Not convincing enough to murder, cowardly though the murder is; at that, not cowardly enough; and not guilty enough. I hoped for something approaching an older Macbeth: someone capable of murder, capable of holding a facade (which Stewart does), yet has the capacity to nearly collapse from it. The prime candidate, at one thought, would be Antony Sher (bizarrely, I just learn that he is in fact the civil partner of director Gregory Doran). Claudius is a hard one to place, precisely because encountering a character who has already committed murder in the past but does not openly murder in the play has little to clearly pin down his character. Thanks, Shakespeare.

But what Stewart’s stalwart performance does is showcase the very best of David Tennant. Tennant’s Hamlet has it all: the terror, the anguish, the frustration, the sarcasm, and the cunning. Some of Hamlet’s lines in his feigned madness sound as indignant as to bend the copybook of some of Jim Carrey’s slapstick roles (Scene 4.3 in particular). As someone who has himself gone on to put together some of the finest performances in cinematic history (for where was ‘all the world’s a stage’ more true than The Truman Show?), Carrey has mastered the craft of, as T.S. Eliot puts it, levity intensifying seriousness. Without the Hollywood practice ground, David Tennant follows close behind. And with him, he brings an audience that might otherwise never entertain Shakespeare. Barely has the fate of humanities needed a superhero more.

But this might just be the key. This type of production, the stage play filmed on location, has barely any precedent. It wins by capturing the popular imagination. It is clear that this is not a film, but it is too open for theatre. The genre itself is an enigmatic one, and the play, despite its three hour duration, a perfect fit. Everything at the RSC led to this capture, and the maturity of each performance cannot be overestimated. Polonius grew on me: his prattle in the text is more enjoyable than on film, but having that interfering presence everywhere – at home, in the King’s court, in the Queen’s bedchamber – made me realise Ophelia much more as a particularly tragic victim rather than an aimless character. I learnt plenty about the play from watching this that I do not think will be overwritten again.

This production, as with many, has its selective differences, and critics are broadly divided on the merits of the production and of Tennant’s performances on stage. [See a more positive view here, and less so here]. For me, it is a great pity that 3.1.177-178 (Folger) was missing:

Love? His affections not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,
Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul…

If we’re not meant to read this as a double negative, it implies that Claudius begins to sense more to Hamlet’s behaviour. It is an important insight, particularly given his move to send Hamlet to England, which also lacked the coverage that this production form could have expanded. However, scenes across Acts 2 and 3 were dissected and merged cleverly; it gave a pleasing continuity to events (and deserves more textual treatment than I afford it now). The climax was the finest moment. Hamlet’s physical tussle with his mother in trying to assert his frustration is controversial in itself, but his conscious act of reaching for a gun and firing at the hidden Polonius, rather than an instinctive reaction in self-defence, places Hamlet in a darker plain.

With the disturbed new place of the Doctor at the end of The Waters of Mars, and of Hamlet firing at Polonius, David Tennant has made two prized roles his, and the world of Shakespeare in particular is greatly in his debt.

Some things you can't save. Others, Doctor, you can.

Silence is Silver

It is certainly no longer golden.

[Written in script one month ago.] I have managed it. I think. Through the trials and perils of 2009, I have managed to keep my mouth shut.

The real ‘temptation’ of the present is no longer the stray drink or takeaway (for this commentator, coffee), but new forms of social networking. Whilst I appreciate the social functions of these sites, I cannot understand the prerogatives for documenting daily existence, the new staple of daily existence.

Andrew Marvell’s few public poems express the same dilemmas. He criticizes the agents of the public, anxious of the new forms of public that have emerged through print in the revolutionary decades. His 1648/9 poem to Richard Lovelace subtly acknowledges its self-consciousness at contributing towards a saturated print culture which it is fundamentally against. Equally, Marvell’s lyric writing appears to be relatively consistent in withholding from the public.

Facebook and Twitter are as irrefutable in 2009 as publishing has been in previous centuries: their service is to disseminate one’s voice. Unlike LiveJournal or alternative blogging services, Facebook and Twitter cannot pass as serving any real diurnal function; their output can only be ephemeral and serve the trigger-happy. Publishing tends to imply a confidence in one’s own voice ~ that which many Facebook users exude several times daily. To some extent, that is all well and good, but the technicalities of authorship transfer across to give a more condemning view.

Facebook and Twitter demonstrate, more than any format has allowed before, that which J. L. Austen describes as public ’speech-acts’. This causes a cognitive problem when thinking about authorship with privacy, or about keeping a private diary. A ’speech-act’ may be made to oneself, as desolate as it may seem, but by and large, a ’speech-act’ requires a speech-act audience. This opens up a new set of presumptions, namely that those who indulge in the meaningless trivia of their daily lives in such a fashion do so presuming that their audience is interested.

"Silence is Golden, Speech is Silver"? Maybe not any more.

I might envy the day when I think anyone should give a damn about my peripheral daily activity. Perhaps it is right to feel proud about one’s every act, or perhaps normal people [which I use to my detriment] do have enough friends willing to engage in text-pamphleteering… but I say this in a space that has no direct followers [which has risen to 1 since composition]: that there should be respect for silence for those who participate less.

Silence can be troublesome, dangerous, or even fatal. Shakespeare’s logic comes to force, again, with irony, through King Lear, who turns out to be one of the most insane characters of the entire oeuvre. Cordelia’s “Love, and be silent” pledge is struck blind by Lear’s “Nothing will come of nothing”. Her modesty, or stubbornness, to the public sycophancy displayed by sisters Goneril and Regan is at first shown to be cold and naive, but her silence eventually proves to be true and substantial in the face of her sisters’ empty words and superficiality.

We are closer to the public than ever. For many, it is always within easy reach. But with that comes an easy complacency. Do we care about those who are not stood in front of us or not bombarding us on Facebook? Do we allow ourselves, in a world dominated by public spheres, to remember those dwelling outside those spheres, when every loss is swallowed by yet more publicness? Ouch: it is the kind of friendship that requires commitment. And, as shown in those revolutionary decades of the 1640s and 50s, when the agents of the public last undertook such major changes, and when the love of one’s own voice came alive and ran riot, commitment can become a fickle thing.

Thank you, Enigma. “Silence must be heard”.

Public Limited Company: Snooker

Refreshed by the thoughts on Circles previously, I am reminded this week of my first ambition in life, which was to be a professional snooker player. Snooker has always captivated me, and I remain, as ever, a ardent follower of Stephen Hendry (now, the old guard). The obsession with snooker perhaps helped to develop my patience. There is a great sense of calm to come from playing or watching a good session on the baize.

Stephen Hendry vs. Ding Junhui, World Championships 2009 (Getty)

It is not a sport that attracts a great deal of publicity. However, the last few months have seen the topic of the game’s uncertain future filter into public channels. This season sees a meagre total of just 6 ranking events, reduced from last year’s already slender 8. Part of this is down to what some see as complacency and mismanagement, and part is down to the branding problem that snooker has faced as society’s demands have, by and large, turned towards pace and excitement rather than stamina and strategy.

Snooker’s financial climate has probably suffered the most from the banning of tobacco advertising in 2005. I distinctly remember the Benson and Hedges Masters as a childhood favourite, particularly the 1991 final when Stephen Hendry overcome an 8-2 deficit to defeat Mike Hallett 9-8, and I still think of the tournament with its old sponsor attached. Since the advertisement legislation, there has been no consistency or coherence behind snooker’s sponsorship. The Masters became the Saga Insurance, a deal which expires this year; the UK Championships (current), which has traditionally had a more chequered sponsorship record, moved on from Maplin to seal a deal with Leciestershire firm Pukka Pies only last month; while the World Championships recovered from 888 severing a five year deal two years early to land a deal with online betting agent Betfred.

Moves have been made in recent years to stage more ranking events in Asia, and to host travelling tournaments across Eastern Europe with a faster format (fewer reds) to try and widen snooker’s appeal. But this doesn’t seem to have been enough. Earlier this month Sir Rodney Walker was voted out as chairman of World Snooker after he invited a vote of confidence on his leadership. Set to replace him is Barry Hearn, owner of Leyton Orient football club and the man seen to be the revitalising force behind darts. Joining him on the board will be six-time World Champion and commentator Steve Davis, who believes people may have ‘had their fill’ of snooker, but is eager to avoid the game ‘petering out’.

Steve Davis, a very highly regarded figure within the game, may now face a tricky liaison role.

Therein lies the problem. Huge in the 1980s, snooker has accrued a nostalgic function because of its extraordinarily fixed capital: the players. Relatively speaking, snooker sees very few new faces emerging year on year capable of competing. This decade, for example, has seen the likes of Ding Junhui, Marco Fu, Mark Selby, Mark Allen, Ali Carter, Stephen Maguire, Shaun Murphy and Neil Robertson coming in to compete at the highest level. Some, such as Liang Wenbo and Jamie Cope, are potential in the wings, but, by and large, the personnel remain familiar. BBC panellists and commentators include Steve Davis, John Virgo, Dennis Taylor, Willie Thorne, John Parrott, Neal Foulds, Ken Doherty, Dominic Dale, and Matthew Stevens. It is like a family from the 80s and 90s all growing old together. This is a cosy allegiance that Hearn might seek to break up. Like Charles Van Commenee, the new performance director of UK Athletics, known for his ruthlessness, there is the sense that Hearn would like to slim the ranks by upholding the rewards for the best, while letting everyone else slip away.

Hearn’s mantra is all about drama and excitement, and he is seeking to readdress the format of the game to appeal to the ‘new audience’. However, thinking of the baying audiences at Alexandra Palace, this seems a worrying notion. Are we seeking a game where Peter Ebdons and Ali Carters are leaping Andy Murray style through the air, or where Stephen Maguires are thumping the table or smashing tiles? While the players are supportive of Hearn’s directorship, the flamboyant Neil Robertson seemed to hold a slight ambiguity as he labelled snooker ‘a gentleman’s game’ that shouldn’t stray from its principles. Indeed, snooker is the sport where competitors show unfailing sportsmanship to their own detriment. If such discipline starts to slide from the most traditional of sports, as has been seen in cricket, for example, it is very difficult to recover.

Ideas of ‘Best of 3’ matches are proposed, akin to cricket’s 20-20 format, and dart’s Premier League which scores in legs rather than sets. This is, ultimately, a different game. The problem with this is the possibility that those who cannot, or would rather not, adapt to such a format might end up segregating like darts’ competing factions, the PDC and BDO, where players are attached to one or the other and only play in their affiliated tournaments. Such a segregation opens up bitter disputes between players and board members, and Hearn is seen by some in darts as destroying tradition. Forget ‘new fans’; snooker could not do a greater disservice to its loyal fan base than to separate players into bands who can only compete in certain tournaments. Imagine Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins, Mark Selby and so forth being given the choice to make big money in shorter formats, with the possible resulting caveats that they end up creating a separate alliance which removes them from certain majors. It doesn’t bear thinking about. One of the key things going for snooker at the moment is that there is no one player dominating snooker in the way that Davis did in the 80s and Hendry in the 90s, and as Phil Taylor currently does in the darts world. O’Sullivan, Higgins, Selby, Murphy, Maguire, Junhui and Robertson are all capable of winning tournaments, and nothing is a foregone conclusion. Natural progression is just about doing its bit to keep snooker’s current full format treading water.

But one of the other refreshing things about the ‘gentleman’s game’ is that it is played by decent, family orientated people who do not seek fame or back page headlines. Ronnie O’Sullivan is the most vocal and most celebrated of the current crop, but even he does not revel in the limelight and looks remarkably coy in marketing campaigns that accompany the Asian tournaments. There is a clash of opinions from both sides. Alan McManus has suggested that there is little the players can do to manufacture influence for themselves and the game, while Lee Doyle, one of the remaining directors on the board of World Snooker, speaks of his frustration that players put little back into promoting the game. The question is, then, how to make something of snooker without destroying the elegant balance between the game’s format and the etiquette associated with it.

[BBC Feature: Is the future of snooker secure?]

An excellent idea, noted by Al in his post ‘Branding Snooker’, is to look to reintroduce something like Big Break, the BBC’s humorous snooker based quiz show which ran from 1991-2002. The arrival of reality television onto our screens has left little room for the now dated gameshow format, but Big Break on a Saturday evening once again would give the players a chance to show personality away from tournament play without forcing them into something majorly uncomfortable or unfamiliar, and it allows a different format in a way that doesn’t affect the mainstream game. Perhaps Big Break ran its course. Perhaps the audiences did not stretch to the main snooker tournaments. Yet, the seven year break has allowed enough new players to come through to give at least one new season a trial run without regurgitating all the same old faces.

A sublime start to the O’Sullivan-Higgins semi-final shows what life there remains in the game. Clearly, something has to be done to take the game forward. Yet, I hope there is some way to make more out of what there is, rather than making radical changes. To me, that would be the death of snooker in the same way as if it was left to perish anyway.

Snooker: A Game of Private People

Circles

If the paradigm shift can be forgiven, I am nervously returning to the world of thought. Perhaps I mean sentiment, or perhaps, for me, the two co-exist. A case, maybe, of the impersonal neoclassicist yielding to the romantic. It has something to do with the temporal. Tomorrow morning (28th) marks the ten year anniversary of an event that shaped much of what I have become in this decade. The causes no longer reach me with their unexplained darkness, aside from the day permeating the calendar. For the effects, I’m glad to have the opportunity to address the case personally in Holloway’s The Founder.

But I’m also grateful for new avenues, catching up on lost time, being heard, and opening my mind to boxes locked by embarrassment. At the end of a long conversation with someone I trust unendingly, the thought just crept into my head. “It’s like …” I reached into my pocket and found two inauspicious copper coins, which became one circle of need, and another of asset love. A glimpse of a return to days of naivety, characterised by my little crackpot ideas, and crackpot instability.

What startles is that I could talk stoically about plenty of other emotional matter, but this was most difficult of all. What is so bashfully difficult about casting the mind back a number of years and feeling shame? As a more closed person now, perhaps reminders of times defined by openness, commited openness, the kind that wields vulnerability and elasticity of response from every shade of thought, feel like a tickle at old sores. This little analogy of circles, a philosophy for me back earlier in the decade, and a reacquaintance  now, was something from the core of my emotional being. I left the conversation feeling vulnerable, which was, paradoxically, reassuring. I have spent a lot of time working on mental safety and security: in the face of adversity and illness, it has been the defence strategy, but it has been to not feel, or not feel enough.

I am glad for Renaissance support for my circle appreciation. George Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie (1589) considers the properties of gemetric shapes in terms of ‘proportion poetical’:

The most excellent of all the figures Geometrical is the round for his many perfections. First because he is even & smooth, without any angle, or interruption, most voluble and apt to turn, and to continue motion, which is the author of life: [he] … for his ample capacity doth resemble the world or universe, & for his indefiniteness hauing no special place of beginning nor end, beareth a similitude with God and eternity. This figure hath three principal parts in his nature and use much considerable: the circle, the beam, and the center. The circle is his largest compass or circumference: the center is his middle and indivisible point: the beam is a line stretching directly from the circle to the center, & contrariwise from the center to the circle. By this description our maker may fashion his metre in Roundel, either with the circumference, and that is circlewise, or from the circumference, that is, like a beame, or by the circumference, and that is ouerthwart and dyametrally from one side of the circle to the other.

With this in mind, it is impossible not to recall John Donne’s A Valediction, Forbidding Mourning with its paramount conceit of twin compasses, and it’s self-reflexive compositional ending:

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

To reach full circle is always to return; to achieve full circle must be a form of harmony. I source early modern literature in hope this week. Circles return as time returns to an event that has had telling influence since October 1999. I do not expect a valediction, nor an absence of mourning, but I would like to find something to celebrate about this event in the hope that it wielded a moderately decent human being at the end of it all.

Body Schema

After a day like today, recent goblin reminiscence and all, the search for “taking nothing seriously” (relating to this post) rounds itself here. And I won’t tag this with Andrew Marvell; although this sentence in theory allows me to. I’m still just a boy at heart who finds the childish banal so very funny. The giggles are mild hysteria just before I’m not allowed any more.

So Marv: snog, marry, avoid? [And don't worry, old chap. Unless embedding a few links makes me popular, rich, or famous, I'll not leave this here around you. There are just times, you know, when there feels no respect left to lose. I'll blame it on Richings, because he's amazing, and I can.]

The truly amazing Matt Richings (left). His fault.

As an afterthought to this outburst of hilarity, there are precedents in earlier material. They come in fascinating shapes, forms, and stories, some of which I included in the syllabus for my English Civil War course in Geneva. Oxford’s Trinity College president, Ralph Kettell, kept to hardened traditions by reputedly spying on students through keyholes to see if they were studying, and labelled those he found slacking to be ‘turds’ and ’scobberlotchers’. I’m not so sure what to make of John Dougill’s description that he ‘carried scissors in his muff’ (44).

Early newspapers of the 1640s were very quick to turn to scandalous propaganda and scatalogical humour in their attempts to undermine the opposition. One particularly memorable story involves Thomas Atkins, crudely nicknamed ‘Tony Turd’, who had reputedly shat himself in shock over gunfire in the Civil War, and then again over hearing schoolboys regurgitating the tale, requiring him to return home and empty his breeches (86). Video 3, I imagine.

Such splenetic libel had come earlier in the century, during the reign of James I. The ‘Censure of the Parliament Fart‘ (1607) lands with wry affliction on the nose of the iconic ‘bodie-politique’, with an unbeatable observation from Hungerford on following through. This ode transforms farting into a speech-act, and therefore political statement. To talk out of one’s arse, figuratively speaking, may have been an epithet set in place long ago. The very literal was, for our amusement, hinted at by David Mitchell in his excellent column this week about research councils.

The circle would not be complete without the forbidden sport. I was contacted just recently by a friend teaching in this area with a reference offering particularly interesting overtones to the grand theme of privacy. In the 1650s, Samuel Pepys comes across several pornographic volumes. His attention is particularly drawn to L’Ecole des Filles, despite it being ‘rather worse than Puttana Errante‘, another he is familiar with. Attempts to resist the book are futile, and he concedes to buying it ‘in plain binding’ so that he could burn it once read to destroy the evidence. After drinking, he succombs to the book’s charms and keeps a hand free from the pages (“una vez to decharger“). The fascinating duel between shame and excitement, pleasure before pragmatism, is superceded by the need to voyeuristically document the experience, overriding the destroyed primary evidence with nostalgic confession.

There are witty and creative ways to keep bodily functions a pleasingly fresh source of humour, but we owe medieval and early modern predecessors a debt for circumventing decorum, censorship and rigidity. Who knows? Keeping a sense of humour alive 350 years ago might have allowed us to today.

The Stigma of Print

Illuminations. How far do they attract?

J. W. Saunders’ study, ‘The Stigma of Print’ (1951) touched an important nerve on the subject of publication. The premise is that with the advent of print in the Tudor period, the commercialisation of writing, the move from manuscript to print, was clearly regarded by many as a vulgar and defamatory practice. Literature was imbued with a mode of exclusivity; whilst the circulation of manuscripts around small coterie circles was a cultured activity, the opportunity to disseminate to a wider audience for fame, prestige, careers (although not profit) devalued the whole basis of writing.

My third PhD chapter considers why Marvell published 3 poems in 3 different collections in the late 1640s, but very little else besides. My argument follows that during this short spell, Marvell convinces himself that publishing is not his vocation. It is difficult to know his reasoning. One of the poems, praising Richard Lovelace’s Lucasta, is entered following problems with the licensing of the volume, and tackles two prominent issues with immaculate ambiguity. ‘Swarms of insects … of wit corrupted’, which are said to surround and harass the poet, could refer either to censors preventing material from being published, or else the hundreds of hack poets, critics and pamphlet propaganda artists who saturate bookshops and market stalls with their trash. With no barriers to entry, every publication not by an established name faces a harder battle to be read. To those ends, where would Lovelace’s elegant poetry stand amidst the clamour of the King’s execution and the country in turmoil? Later in his career, Marvell announced his hatred of the media, and there are signs that he developed an earlier distrust with the agents and consumers of publicity. Another perplexing suggestion is that Marvell’s own self-critical impulse led to insecurity at his own material in print. The question that remains is: can we imagine anyone writing poetry purely for themselves?

Richard Lovelace: The True Cavalier

As with the majority of issues that I encounter with this thesis and the enigmatic Marvell, I find myself enveloped in a solipsistic bubble with my own enterprises. Already this blog has threatened to become everything that I hoped to break free from. A scroll down the page, a sense of pride at the carefully crafted essays, and disappointment arises. Clearly, I do not write this just for myself – I could not justify the effort. ‘Fame’, as John Milton kindly points out, ‘is the spur’. I seem to envisage, in blinkered passion at the time of writing, an audience so in tune with me that they indulge my identical, lengthy paragraphs. It looks neat, even, considered, thoughtful … I then don’t update because I don’t want the most recent effort [Knightmare, in this case] to be uprooted by something less meaningful or less artistic. Yet, it is all in vain, for who reads this kind of material other than those who feel obliged?

Nothing is harder on the eyes than blocks of identical, lengthy paragraphs.

[alallday.cc]

There are fewer fine writers than Al, and yet even in bringing up this very subject, I regularly break a multitude of his suggestions. Simplicity: unlikely. Formatting: dense. Bad words: why on Earth is this blog found through the term ‘boy erection‘? Cliché: guilty. I’m used to listing my sources / inspirations, and the fine Al is mine here.

I am not a copywriter in my own space; I am a commentator. In the article I am working on for publication, I try to become an up-and-coming academic. My offerings here are like editorials, of which I have had some formal practice. My aim, governed by an over-complicated interdisciplinary PhD, is often to tie a multitude of dissonant ideas together seemlessly. Thus, grasshoppers become alive [*]; introverted musical behaviour brings together cultural theory, Gareth Malone and Libera [*]; and Knightmare becomes a form of counselling [*].

But what I have failed to grasp is versatility. My PhD is detailed academia; journal articles are succinct (and perhaps more tactful) academia. I have been fortunate that the Noted team in Geneva gave me the freedom to publish the likes of Crackpot Culture. But, out on my own, for my own purposes here, I am actually a copywriter. If this blog is ever to develop an outside readership, it can only do so by gaining interest. Another of Al’s teachings concerns self-branding, which is true to the word. I am likely to read the long and highly entertaining columns of a Caitlin Moran or John Sutherland, but not a great deal that I stumble across accidentally. Hence, the aesthetic style with full paragraphs and bizarre allegory that I cherish fails to advertise my writing to any but the most dedicated (and I’m not sure this space procures any).

When everything fights just as hard to be read in 2009 as 1649, how does Keith, in place of Richard Lovelace, stand any hope of interest over the rest of the seemingly infinite space that is the internet, less still without the marketing accolade of poetic testimony by the likes of Andrew Marvell? Perhaps the abrupt ending of Marvell’s last published poem of the 1640s, before he seemingly relapsed into private writing, says it all: ‘Art indeed is long, but life is short’.

Life is short? Too true, dear Whiteboard of Bewilderments.

Knightmare

Those who know me well enough will know that Knightmare is never far from my thoughts. It is a permanent feature, for better or worse, of my being. Knightmare elegantly punctuated my primary years. It introduced me to fantasy, encouraged me towards intellectual pursuit, and proved to be a strong enough source of a fair majority of my strongest friends. I appreciate criticism against this kind of thing, but I am neither a fanatic gamer, a regular role-player, nor a writer of fan-fiction; first and foremost, I just engage in nostalgic appreciation of revolutionary television, for a show which has transcended its particular era, demonstrated the exponential nature of technological change, and has provided millions with entertainment, discussion, and memorabilia; far more than ever will be said for the majority of today’s mediocrity.

To several of those ends, it shares a place with Andrew Marvell. What could the two possibly have in common? Well, let me explain in the following paragraphs. A few months ago, I alluded to my current state of mind as the character of a grasshopper from a poem by Richard Lovelace [Farewell Frost]. Not so long ago, I exchanged private comment regarding some of the issues of that piece, and was inspired enough that looking for novel ways for self-expression may be a sufficiently rewarding process. When I tried to refresh the thought, what came to mind was an image that encapsulates one of Knightmare’s most enigmatic in-game mysteries: a firestone cased in ice. The concept is not unique to me. I have often, in similar vein, sought inner counsel to Sir Thomas Wyatt’s antithetical sonnet; from an entry evocatively titled ‘Nirvana‘ in 2005, I nonchalantly labelled it a ’stock-epithet’ in ‘Maranatha‘ at the end of 2008.

I find no peace, and all my war is done;
I fear, and hope. I burn, and freeze like ice.
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise.
And naught I have, and all the World I seize on…

Attaching this to Knightmare has unique significance to me. For those not overly familiar with the show, it would require more space than I have liberty to take, but in short, it was a revolutionary and groundbreaking (labelled the world’s first) virtual-reality television gameshow, which ran in the UK between 1987 and 1994, and was also commissioned for shorter periods in France and Spain. The game, or quest, was undertaken by groups of four aged 11-16, with the objective of surviving three ‘levels’/stages of increasing difficulty, interacting with in-game characters, solving and navigating around tough riddles, puzzles and perils, and achieving an end-goal of, (with the odd exception), retrieving a magical, historical object. One player, blindfolded by a helmet, took the role of ‘dungeoneer’, and entered a chromakey blue-screen set, onto which was superimposed an atmospheric fantasy dungeon environment. Three companions remained in the central antechamber along with the Dungeon Master, and gave aid and directions.

One of the attractions of the game was its controversially graphic nature and its notorious degree of difficulty. The show was not without some political forbearance. Created in the uncompromising Thatcherite era of the 1980s, and intercepting trends favouring historicism, the show was fantasy escapism, that, in a sense, was no escapism. The vast majority of the participating teams met the ‘death’ of their dungeoneer, which was achieved in a variety of creative ways, ranging from falls, to bomb explosions, to piercings by spikes, to massacre by blades. There is a glint in the eye of Tim Child, the show’s creator, when he states in an interview in 2007 [accompanied by a clip from the final series in 1994]:

Some of the gameplay was really quite complex. It was always challenging, and also, it was quite scary. A dungeon is a dark, dank, dangerous place. It’s not the sort of place you would send six-year-olds in. Even in fantasy terms, with drawn environments, it’s pretty convincing. We scared an awful lot of children, but it made for great gameplay once they had been scared.

(Tim Child, ‘Children’s TV on Trial’, 2007)

Knightmare, refreshingly, did not suffer fools and often displayed exacting standards: failure, for example, to answer one riddle correctly in the final level, after 40-45 minutes of airtime, would withhold the vital information needed to complete the game, and rendered the team’s pending end inevitable. At the opposite end of the spectrum, several weak teams, especially in the early seasons, did not escape the first level. Near the beginning of each level, teams were presented with a choice of objects, of which two could be taken, often with clues as to what may be needed or prove helpful in the coming scenes. But from a series of more sporadic single-room challenges, as Knightmare’s audience swelled and the fantasy world and its characters began to formulate a television trademark, from its 5th series in 1991 the gameplay began to switch to greater background narratives and wider level synopses for each quest.

Knightmare Series 3 (1989). For one incorrect riddle in an earlier scene, the excellent Martin is foiled, or fried, at the death by the sorceress Morghanna

The evolution of the gameplay added a strong autopsic value to the legacy of the programme. It has long been argued amongst fans that there were elements of the show that were intrinsically unfair, and there are parallel attempts to try and decipher some of the tantalising mysteries behind some failed quests that continue to perplex its adoring fans 15-20 years afterwards. This is what begins to resemble the study of my favourite poet. The primary evidence is there, and so often it poses so many fascinating and intriguing questions that actively encourage the speculation, but it can only really be subjected to conjecture, with little chance of finding conclusive answers.

In this vein, I once declared that discussion of Knightmare was a science. I understand what was meant by that – a search for answers, with known facts and probabilities thrown in – but perhaps I am a little mistaken. The ‘field’ of my interdisciplinary PhD surrounding Andrew Marvell and seventeenth-century privacy falls into a strange category. A draft of my second chapter, which comprises the main historical synthesis, has recently been completed, and so I wait tentatively to learn how it is received, which directs my mind towards such methodologies. Literature fits within the humanities, while the history component falls between the humanities and social sciences. One objective, then, is to present the historical case as more conclusively factual, and then to offer a subjective reading of the poet within that context. The other is to present an original contribution to knowledge.

Applying that principle to Knightmare, to my regret, I have only been able to offer what I believe are two small contributions. The first is factual, related to my hometown: the shortest quest, in terms of airtime, was the first team of series 2, and not, as commonly thought, a later team of that same year. The second, true to form, is much more interesting in terms of conjecture, and relates to the quest featured here. One of the most seasoned of fans was left to consider, ‘This has got to be one of the best teams as far as wild speculation is concerned, since there are so many possibilities about what could have happened’. [The images are linked to clips, but this does not come close to representing Knightmare at its fiery best. The docile series 5 of 1991, plus a young team, has produced a mystery, not a thriller. These clips might help to follow the events].

"Fair Trade is No Robbery"

"Change" or "Switch"?

Backfire. The spell is a trick, and portends a gloomy end.

My interpretation of the synopsis of this level, to the best of my knowledge, has not been registered elsewhere relating to this discussion. The team learn that passage to the final level will require a firestone, and that one is frozen away in the level and will require magic to free it. The clue they receive along with the choice of objects in the level clue room is ‘Fair Trade is No Robbery’. The trader they encounter in the level is trickster Julius Scaramonger, who offers them a potion of impurity. When the team ask persistently about magic, he offers a choice of spells: Change or Switch. With little on which to base their choice, the team take Change, and attempt to cast it at the encased firestone, but it turns out to be a trick, and turns the dungeoneer, Chris, into a goblin. They are left to progress without their required object, and inevitably their progress is doomed. Their unique death is consumption by a Blocker. The discussion has all centred around the choice of spells. To me, ‘Fair Trade is No Robbery’ indicates that the initial offering, a rarity with Scaramonger, is the correct option, and that the impurity solution will dissolve the ice.

However, this does not solve all of the mysteries. In a later scene, the team encounter the monk, Brother Mace, for a second time. Mace hints, rather uniquely, at a second chance saloon, by advising them that with a jester’s stick (available to choose earlier from the clue room, but rejected), the team could summon the dungeon jester, Motley, who could reverse the spell. We learn after the team’s demise from the Dungeon Master that the jester would have provided them with the password to bypass the Blocker. Therefore, even though the team are lured into a trap and fail to retrieve the object needed for transport to the next level, there was still a potential synoptic route for the team to at least advance to the end and give themselves a chance. But there was no obvious clue that the team should choose the jester’s stick over any other. So, even had the team achieved the difficult element of the level in successfully retrieving the firestone, we might still be left to believe that without taking a gamble on the jester’s stick, their quest was bound to end in the same manner.

What this sequence of clues shows is that enough pieces of the synopic jigsaw were revealed to start forming an hazy image of how the level could be cracked, but not enough to be conclusive. If a dozen academically minded fans contemplating the case cannot conclusively decipher the fact, goodness knows how 12-13 year olds are expected to. But that, in a nutshell, was Knightmare.

The same degrees of mystery are true of the good poet. The end of the finest essay on Marvell’s finest poem, the equipoised and ultra-ambiguous ‘Horatian Ode’, says: ‘Reading the poem through once more, we think that Marvell has declared a commitment after all. Then we see the shadows closing in’ (Blair Worden, 1987). Meanwhile, the opening paragraph of the doctoral thesis of one of my academic inspirations, speaks of Marvell in a way that I have come to regard Knightmare as well:

his most distinctive poems are brilliant precisely because they perplex the reader, perhaps perplexed Marvell himself, and often tacitly make perplexity their subject.

(Dr. John McWilliams, ‘Andrew Marvell and the Act of Writing’, 2003)

Why I come to this in the first place is distinctly personal: something that I wish to underplay, but which may benefit from understanding in the exploration. I have been looking for that same brand of striking, iconic allegory, and find that the allusion runs deeper than an image, but an episode wreathed in perplexity. I find what I am looking for, not only in the thoughts surrounding perplexity, but in this wonderful antithesis of fire encased in ice. There is some icy kind of barrier inhabiting my fire, and it stops me from moving on, figuratively speaking, to the next level. And I don’t know how to break through it. Do I need medication? Do I need counselling? Do I need to go back in time and alter my choices? Perhaps the answer is ‘yes’ to all three, but I fear that to take the wrong option, I may start inflicting yet further damage that cannot easily be rectified. If only all such problems could be consigned to a gameshow, to remain on a pedestal for others to heartily discuss for decades to come.

Privacy, Print, and Politics

It is a fruitful time to be studying the intellectual history of privacy. Privacy has been connected with print and politics since the seventeenth century, and has become a permanent fixture in current news.

The scandal over MPs’ expenses, which has dominated headlines over a good number of weeks, has posed many moral questions about the jurisdiction of public and private information. Even without the revelation of expenses claims, the attempts to hinder the release of members’ claims, and the vilification of those who promoted it, actions which proved the downfall of speaker Michael Martin, may have been evidence enough that there was something rather dreadful to hide. Conservative MP Sir Patrick Cormack, approaching 40 years of service, remarked that “The times that we are living in are unprecedented as far as Parliament is concerned. What is at stake is the institution of Parliament and its integrity”. We witness a brand of secrecy so corrupt that the only way of maintaining any faith in parliament as a ruling body is to preserve that which is already unknown to the public.

The popular turn to history has centred right upon Oliver Cromwell (Conservative; Telegraph). However, in terms of the public and private nature of these practices, it is important to expand the context right to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The early Stuart kings had forged an impression of public transparency. At the turn of the century, James I’s model of kingship, the Basilikon Doron, declared that anything spoken ‘in darknesse, should be heard in the light’, that whatever ‘spoken in the ear in secret place, should be publicklie preached on the tops of the houses’, and that kings, ‘being publike persons, by reason of their office and authority are as it were set (as it was sayd of old) upon a public, in the sight of all the people’ must be ‘the more careful, not to harbour the secretest thought in their mind’. Intended as a private text, a leak led to hack publication of the Basilikon Doron, which prompted a legitimate published version in 1603. Certainly, the divulgence of the king’s intentions for public affront and transparency offered little to be afraid of, but an ‘authorised’ version may have been sharp to remove advice that it was sometimes necessary to deceive the people you serve. What emerged was the familiar discrepancy between words and practice. James’ distaste for publicity was made abundantly clear in the first instance during the coronation ceremonies. Upon a courtier reporting that a large crowd surrounding his carriage wished to see his Majesty’s face, the king’s retort was clear:

‘God’s wounds: I will pull down my breeches and show them my arse!’

James displayed tight, private control over foreign and military policy, which came under the realm of state secrets, the arcana imperii, and desired complete discretion over decision making, achievable through divine right. His successor, Charles I, privately vowed not to follow hypocritical elements of his father’s behaviour, but his predisposition showed obsession towards personal privacy. The capture of Charles’ private letters at Naseby in 1645, published triumphantly by parliament as a sign of victory and conclusive evidence in their efforts to discredit the king, demonstrated the ability of the public sphere, once it is able to penetrate, to blast apart the private.

As we appreciate that constitutional power has all but transferred from the crown to parliament, the public outcry at the revelations was completely justified, though I think it has been cleverly manipulated. This is not to excuse the actions of bankers nor members, but more to contextualise the reaction. Vast banking incentives, vast pensions, and glorious expenditure would not make such grandiloquent headlines in a period of strong economic growth. In the midst of recession, however, close investigation of such sums has not only covered recent ground, but largely the past 5 years. Interrogation in 2009 of sums from 2004-2007 are difficult to ignore, but there is a grain of hypocrisy in criticising now, with mass public attention, that which was branded less significant and yielded less public reaction then. Ways, means and ideas make up traditions, and so much depends on what is inherited. Comment and reaction has rekindled Oliver Cromwell’s speech in April 1653 to the Rump Parliament. This parliament was succeeded by what contemporaries labelled the Barebones Parliament, a failed experiment, which, in essence, served to prove that no man was necessarily exempt from the power, wealth, and corruption that could be accrued at Westminster, nor the tendency for damaging confrontation. If English history has shown that Westminster promotes itself as a lucrative haven or the place where good men are turned, it has also shown, arcana imperii through caveat emptor, that secrecy governs advantage. There are fundamental flaws in a system with tempting allowances so great that it actively encourages opportunistic and entrepreneurial behaviours.

What is almost as equally lamentable about the situation is the moral rectitude that comes forth, because I struggle to believe that the vast majority wouldn’t try it on in much the same way. A test of public spiritedness is not nearly the same as a test for public profligacy, which is not nearly the same as testing the average person with the allowances available to MPs, which must raise a sense of entitlement, to see how well they resist the temptation that comes, with the only requirement being – pre June 2009 – the prerogative to claim privately. Is there any way in which the television licence fee could be branded public money? Some of the salaries of TV celebrities are extortionate, and while it is lamentable that Lord Foulkes believes that democracy can seriously be undermined in a country led by an unelected prime minister, whose avoidance of an election speaks volumes, I do agree that MPs salaries, as such, are taken out of context when we consider that newsreading brings in £92,000. [4:45-6:00]

[Alas: not yet able to embed the BBC content through its own flash player]

However, even if we take into account press manipulation, and a certain degree of displaced overreaction, what is particularly hard to understand is the PM’s tight defences in trying to maintain that which is not only lost, but which is damaging in the flailing attempts to retain it. The mid-seventeenth century through 2009 has shown that privacy is the barricade or dam to a public torrent. Once there is a breach, or, more potently, a collapse, there is a certain folly in trying to patch this up. The first move was the attempt to recalibrate the expenses system to resemble that used in Brussels, which proves even less restrictive than the vilified existing system. The second, given the almost inevitable need to release the details of expenses, was to restrict the flow of sensitive information from the published expenses claims by blacking it out. The obvious flaw with this evasion, which eludes to earlier shades of government censorship that Milton respectfully began the campaign against in 1644, is that sensitive information, including addresses, could protect members against the most lucrative claims for the ‘flipping’ of second homes. From an EU summit in Brussels, the Prime Minister has stated that he is committed to “maximum exposure”, and that “while ensuring that security issues are addressed, as they have to be, our first principle must be maximum transparency”. David Cameron, on the other hand, believes that much more could be revealed without compromising “legitimate security concerns” (BBC). The third move, revealed this week, a ‘private’ inquiry into the Iraq war, shows how clearly the higher echelons have failed to understand how public and private domains operate in the relationship between leaders and their people.

MPs Expenses Blackout: 'Maximum transparency'?

So, politics and print (or the press) would contend that it was in the public interest to avoid privacy and secrecy in all matters of public life, and even to some degree the private lives of its servants. But the ethics surrounding privacy are particularly uncomfortable. For the purposes of this piece, I am defining ‘secrecy’ as a use of privacy, an action that intends to restrict information on a large scale. Secrecy is widely associated with subterfuge, and often spells malpractice. But where do we draw anonymity into this? The anonymous author of the now defunct blog NightJack, which provided insight into the inner workings and bureaucracy of the constabulary, was revealed this week. Inquisitive journalism procured the details and a judge rejected Mr Horton’s appeal against their release, ruling effectively that writers publishing material on the internet forfeited their right to withhold names and identities should they be in any way detectable.

Samples of NightJack available here.

The author’s response to the release here.

A legal view here.

Anonymity provides a thin veil between publicity and privacy. Detaching the identity of the writer disrupts the theoretical associations made for ‘speech acts’. Controversial speech acts these may be, but anonymous commentary has the power to propagate a new genre of information that would otherwise be unavailable. This specific case revolves around ‘public interest’, or, at least, this is the premise that has been used to justify the journalistic involvement. When we draw politics and print into the diagnostics of privacy, where do we draw the line at what constitutes public interest?

There are certain limits I think we are all prepared to adhere to with regards to freedom to speech; to some extent, those who publish in any sphere have their responsibilities. This is not to condone breaches of the law and of sensitive case information, but instead to argue that there is a degree of public interest represented in such content. Exposing a particular brand of voice, perspective, into the inefficiencies of our service, could use public exposure to instigate change in the way that only public exposure can. Whenever Pandora’s Box remains closed, there is often so little incentive for development and improvement in what is occasionally shoddy practice. If boardrooms and executives on large salaries are allowed to use protective boundaries of their institutions and repressive law to build barriers around comfort zones, we might expect little honesty, transparency and/or efficiency in overall management, and only a tightening around secret practices. The public tends to support the efforts of ‘whistle-blowers’ who aim to publicly outcry chronic failings in operations, but such actions come, more often than not, with self-sacrifice. One high profile example is UKIP’s Marta Andreasen, who was notably ousted from her position as Chief Accountant for the European Commission for persistent reporting of serious laxity in systems of accounting and expense. Inevitably, the author of NightJack has already been disciplined. It is worth noting that the blog did not receive mass interest until it was inadvertently recommended for, and won, the Orwell prize, which came after the blog had ended; nor was the award collected by the author.

Privacy has a complex relationship with the concept of authorship, and these pointers show that there is little way of attributing straightforward codes of authorship to this kind of literary format. Respected columnist Daniel Finkelstein has led the argument in favour of the exposure, but for a dead or dormant journal, it is difficult to believe that The Times’ priorities lay in any way as a moral crusade in the public interest. Journalistic interests have come first; however assuredly, justification has been concocted afterwards [Note the difference in sympathies from June 17th to June 19th]. Having looked back to Jacobean England, Guido Fawkes’ hugely popular blog, another victim of identity disclosure, argues that the press need to be equally transparent in their more subtle moves of anonymity [before, and after, response].

Publicity and transparency are the new popular political weapons, and privacy threatens to be transformed into a new brand of human selfishness. The calls for Cromwell to reform Parliament have, so far, missed the wider and more potent allusion. The PM seems to resemble Charles I in several ways: lacking charisma and interpersonal skills, an inclination towards Personal Rule, a lack of awareness of the public and private domains, and a damaging disposition towards secrecy. If The Kings Cabinet Opened , the publication of incriminating private letters in 1645, was the move that brought Charles to execution, the parliamentary revolution that threatens once again from the private affairs of expenditure made public may leave the prime minister thankful for enlightened times. The bleeding head held aloft in January 1649, reminding Marvell of that found on the Capitol Hill, ‘which caused the architects to run’, might remind the PM of his one resemblance of Cromwell. Did he, in fact, ‘by industrious valor climb / To ruin the great work of Time’? Milton’s 1648 sonnet to the leader of the New Model Army, Sir Thomas Fairfax, urging him to finish the job, contains a chilling omen.

a Nobler task awaits thy Hand,
For what can War, but Acts of War still breed
Till injur’d Truth from Violence be freed;
And publick Faith be rescu’d from the Brand
Of publick Fraud; in vain doth Valour bleed,
While Avarice and Rapine shares the Land.

Perhaps, then, it’s back to the private gardens and bergamots.

Hit and Miss

Thank you very much for visiting and supporting this space. It is a little quiet of late because our family is expecting a new arrival soon, and I am baring the brunt of the physical upheaval.

A fine Bordeaux red for the early hours (2003)

It is hard to judge whether this red sky was at night or in the morning, but I will miss the wholesome view either way.