A message for various branches of the media…
It’s summer. It gets warm in summer. Some years are warmer than others. This year might break the records, but they’ve been saying that every year since 1976, and only 1990 was hotter. Now, if you haven’t got anything better to report, why not just fill fewer pages, knock off early and do some gardening?
Although it won’t be obvious to you, dear reader, the last two blog entries are related in a way. To clarify, here’s a brief anecdote from our walking trip in Kent a couple of weeks ago…
The B&B where we spent our first night was on the edge of Maidstone, so rather than heading into the city centre, we decided to explore the immediate area. Based on a two independent recommendations, we walked to Allington Lock, specifically for food and drink at the waterside pub (“much nicer than the Beefeater on the main road”, they assured us). The area was indeed beautiful… a real scene of idyllic English country charm. Expecting the cosy country pub that such a scene usually includes, we headed for the Malta Inn… only to find that it was another Beefeater Inn.
Now, if you’re not from the UK and wonder what was so bad about this pub… well, at the best of times, Beefeaters represent a bland, watered-down version of the traditional image of British pubs. This particular example went further… the total lack of decent beer or food was unfortunate but not unusual… many of our large pub chains are guilty of this. Likewise, the dingy, dirty interior of what could have been a fine old building was a shame, but hardly surprising, given the general lack of staff. And the pathetic service (food left unattended at the end of the bar for customers to collect it) could be improved through staff training. But when all these elements are combined, you have a miserable pub experience. Add to this the piped music… imbecilic Top-40 pop is not unusual in large chain pubs, but this one had a large beer garden… complete with an array of PA speakers mounted on a stand. No escape!
Anyway, rant over. If you come to the UK, be sure to avoid Beefeater pubs… that’s not what our pub tradition is all about.
Strangely, though, as we looked around us (the measly portions of food meant we had plenty of time for people-watching) everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. As we later walked along the pleasant canal path into town, people were walking from the nearby estates (up to a mile away) to the Malta Inn. Why? Surely we couldn’t be the only people there who expected more from their Saturday night pub experience?
Well, maybe that’s just it. Are people’s expectations decreasing? They attempt to make informed choices based on what they see as being available to them, but the all-pervasive influence of lifestyle advertising and televisual peer pressure confuses the concept of “quality”, and the consumer happily accepts less and less each time. The cycle is completed when, lulled by comfortable familiarity, the consumer ceases to look for better options; after all, this must be the best… it was on TV once. I don’t mean to sound patronising here; I’ve been in the same situation plenty of times. However, an inquisitive mind (not to mention too many hours sat in front of this shiny electronic box) means I’m usually unwilling to accept that there isn’t “something better” out there somewhere.
This, I believe, is why a huge number of people will happily sit in a dirty, overpriced, charmless pub, deafened by music they have no control over, seemingly unaware of the crushing contrast with the picturesque surrounding countryside. It’s what they’ve come to accept as The Best. The beer is cold, there’s somewhere for the kids to play, and they even do food. Chips! Free ketchup! Take this argument and read the last blog entry, on the illegal food trade… isn’t this just the same thing? These chickens are so cheap! We’ll buy five! Until people are prepared, en masse, to be cantankerous and argumentative, the gradual erosion of standards and expectations will continue, and the shops, cafes and pubs will continue to be piled high with worthless crap. It’s no use if just a few whinging university types (like me) get wound up; this has to be a mass show of non-acceptance. Someone get the ball rolling, please…
Saturday’s Guardian carried a story about the “food detectives” employed by the Food Standards Agency to fight the illegal meat trade. Given the paltry £200,000 of FSA money allotted annually for this campaign, it’s no surprise that criminal gangs are moving into the food trade.
Another reason, also pointed out in this article, is the far lighter prison sentences associated with illegal food trading. Why risk a longer sentence for drug trafficking, when you can deal in an equally lucrative but lower-risk business?
This is what I find unbelievable, and symptomatic of the general attitude towards food in this country.
Unless you’re an addict, recreational drugs are not a necessity. You only risk the effects of impure drugs if you choose to buy them. However (and I’m aware of the truism) food is a necessity for everyone. If we knew that we could avoid the risk of illegally treated or unhygienic meat, the problem could be marginalised. But we don’t… the stuff could be in respectable restaurants, high street supermarkets and any amount of processed food. Everyone risks illness or death from this stuff… yes, vegetarianism is an alternative, but only in the same way that homelessness is an alternative to having your house burgled (flippant, yes, but I’m trying to keep the ethics of meat-eating out of this).
Given the universal dangers of tainted meat, I see no reason why illegal food-trading crimes shouldn’t carry a life sentence.
Well, with all the excitement over what may be the biggest scandal of this government or just a private tragedy with no element of conspiracy, I’d almost forgotten about the fun I’d had last weekend.
Along with three friends, and coinciding miraculously with the recent heatwave, I spent three days walking a portion of the North Downs Way, one of England’s National Trails. Apart from the fact we wanted to do a long walk just for the fun of it, we were also intrigued by the various significances of this route. It’s been a pathway since Neolithic times and is thought to coincide with the route taken by pilgrims travelling from Winchester to Canterbury after the martyrdom of Thomas à Becket (although the “Pilgrim’s Way” track that often runs in tandem with the North Downs Way is a Victorian invention). And although the pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales took a different route, starting from London, the Canterbury link was still relevant to us.
So… you don’t need to hear the minor details of the walk, but basically we walked from Rochester to Maidstone (via Boxley) on the Saturday, spending the night at a B & B in Maidstone. After a quick train journey to Harrietsham on the Sunday morning, we then walked to the amazingly picturesque Chilham, staying in another B & B there. Finally, we did the last leg to Canterbury on Monday, finishing our pilgrimage with some devout and concentrated worship at the altar of the Beer God.
I love hot weather, but I just wish it wouldn’t be so damn humid at 1:00am when I’m trying to do some work in the hope of making myself tired enough to justify going to bed…
I made some new music…
Sparrows (5.7MB mp3)
So, the Great British Music Debate…
Organised by BBC Radio 2, this marathon broadcast filled R2′s evening schedule on 2 July. I rarely, if at all, listen to Radio 2, although I support their apparent attempt to cover the popular music interests of adults of all age groups.
[Note to non-British readers: during the 1970s and 80s (and probably 90s, although I'd stopped paying attention by then) Radio 2 was almost exclusively the station of easy listening, light pop and light classical, which rarely developed with the passing years; presumably the BBC realised that the inevitability of death was gradually eroding their audience]
On this occasion, though, I was sufficiently intrigued to listen to Radio 2 for most of that evening. I was looking forward to a debate, first and foremost, on whether there actually *is* any problem with British music, and then maybe some discussion of the pending changes in entertainment licensing laws. There’s vast scope for covering the whole downloading issue, as well as the broader question of how the internet is affecting the creation and consumption of music. Oh, and does it even matter whether music is British or not?
In retrospect, I now know that I made the wrong decision, although not as wrong a decision as was made by the BBC in deciding to waste five hours of prime broadcasting time. Despite an inquisitive and active studio audience, the whole programme came across as something of a fait accompli, a pre-packaged programme allowing the major record companies to…
(a) Mourn their decreasing profits as a result of evil downloaders
(b) Showcase their latest hopefuls (and in a public show of angst over the future of our music, the fact that all five new artists were firmly in the bland, sub-Coldplay coffee-table-pop camp was painfully ironic).
Oh, and…
(c) Encourage listeners to vote on whether the Single would survive. I mean, who cares?
Despite a promising mini-debate on the role of radio in the widening of public music tastes, the whole thing achieved nothing. Paul Weller bravely tried to inject some life into proceedings by calling all record companies “scum”, but to no avail. All I learned was… the record companies don’t like downloading, but have invested lots of lovely money in some new stars, whose records they’d like you to buy; the audience would like to hear more of X, less of Y on Radio 2; the panel of “experts” was, with the exception of Steve Lillywhite, incapable of approaching any subject outside of their own specialist spheres and personal business interests. Oh well.
It seems militant pro-hunt activists are planning a campaign of vandalism against railways and reservoirs.
Funny isn’t it? When the hunting debate is in the news, the pro-hunters always wheel out a few token “I’m a cheeky cockney bricky, me, and I love hunting” cases to persuade us that we’re not dealing with a class-based issue. But the alleged targets of this new campaign by the Real Countryside Alliance reveal the true social bias. They’ll target the public transport used by millions of people, many on limited incomes who have no access to private cars. Of course they wouldn’t damage any roads… wouldn’t want to risk scratching anyone’s 4×4, would we? And of course we all need the drinking water provided by our reservoirs… well, apart from the people who can afford to drink exclusively bottled water.
So, wouldn’t it be unfortunate if, every time the ‘Real CA’ carried out one of their attacks, a number of Bentleys, Rolls Royces and Range Rovers had bricks accidentally lobbed through their windows…? ;-)
Regular readers may know that I contribute to the Guitarist Home Recording Collective, a fun little Net community involving guitarists of all styles and ability levels. One of my Collective friends, Bill Jehle, has released an independent CD of his music, and is working on building up a little network of publicity, including an interview with his local newspaper. Go Bill!
With the entertainment industry hurtling ever closer to the “one world label”, fiercely independent music is our only hope of preserving the spirit of adventure which has existed throughout music history. While distribution was previously a major hurdle to the independent musician with no access to the carpet bombing approach of the major labels, the Internet is constantly opening new pathways, allowing for finely specified links between musicians and listeners.
Oh, and while I’m on this subject, remind me to say something about the Great British Music Debate which was on BBC Radio 2 last night…
Yeah, yeah… I know. It’s been nearly two weeks since I wrote anything here. I’ve been watching the tennis, okay?
Living in Britain, it’s impossible to escape the Henman-related hyperbole of the press, but I’m just not even going to speculate. On so many occasions in the past, Henman has demonstrated an ability worthy of the very best, only to fail to live up to that ability in the following round. So we’ll have to wait and see…
My usual attitude to Premiership football is “fun to watch, but don’t expect me to get passionate about it”. The two teams I support are both, in their own ways, a good distance from the English Premiership. However, you can’t really avoid the whole Beckham affair, which is highlighting some of the worst features of modern football.
In today’s news we hear of Barcelona vice-president Sandro Rosell criticising Beckham and his agents for snubbing transfer talks. Huh? Maybe that’s what “no” means. And at a club where his colleague has already used the spurious promise of a Beckham transfer to secure votes in his bid for presidency, Rosell is already on shaky ground. That Manchester United (or so we are told) agreed the deal in principle without Beckham’s blessing serves only to dirty the whole business even more.
Then there’s Alex Ferguson, still losing his grip on reality. Yes, we’ve all noticed that Beckham, since his marriage to Tone-Deaf Spice, has “… developed this ‘fashion thing’”, but what about “I saw his transition to a different person”? Love and marriage tend to do that to people, Alex, and let’s not forget how the “different person” hauled England into the World Cup, despite the lacklustre efforts of his teammates and, once there, scored the crucial winner against Argentina. And unlike the pre-marriage Beckham, he didn’t kick anyone.
Let’s not paint an idealistic picture of Beckham as the mistreated angel, though. As a superb footballer and a great ambassador for the sport, there must be a better way of supporting the “Beckham brand” than to be part of a vast international management agency, which in turn is part of the allergic-to-free-speech Clear Channel…
