June 2009 Archives

'People would trample over each other just to catch a glimpse of a legend'

When the "news" and images of celebrities in the media consist of stories about their lives in glossy magazines, you may just think that everyone in the public eye automatically start marrying goats, drinking their own urine, and throwing phones at paparazzi - only to go home and have cocaine shovelled up their noses by a trio of burlesque dancers.

Seeing a celebrity walking down the street obviously means they're going to meet Meg Ryan for lunch and not just going to the supermarket, and therefore it should make national news. The sky is falling down, Gordon Brown has just declared war on South Wales, and a nuclear power station has just exploded, but Helen Mirren has just bought some new earrings so that is what, of course, makes the News at 10.

We seem to be living in a celebrity-obsessed society where celebrities have a huge influence on people's lives.

A product that could turn saliva into gold would be dismissed as ludicrous unless it's endorsed in an advert with Jane Fonda and then it's flying off the shelves.

But for all the superficial celebrity attention, there's a rare time when one person, can have such a dramatic effect across the globe.

You know you've made your mark on society and on the world when the news channels show images of people of all ages coming together on the streets to sing your songs, people wear a single white exfoliating glove in the shower in tribute, and people all over the planet are trying to moonwalk from the dinner table to the kitchen sink - even if they look like a giraffe with a bowel complaint trying to wipe gum off the bottom of their feet.

The high activity of social networking websites and text messages at 400,000 per second last Thursday evening meant that the news of Michael Jackson was all over the world within hours of his death. Even faster than on the news channels. After the vast surge in text messages, the viewing figures for the Sky and BBC News rocketed as people rushed to confirm if the news was true.

Believing all information received in a text message could be a risk with so many people texting hoaxes like the statue of liberty has come alive and is in the process of terrorising New York or Gordon Brown has gone rabid and has bitten a chunk out of Harriet Harman's ear while dressed as a Nazi.

But either one of these rumours would have been less shocking than hearing that a music legend had died. By 10.30pm, last Thursday, with the news circulating the planet, the news channels still hadn't caught up. You would probably expect no mention of Michael Jackson on BBC News - they usually drag their feet and check the facts before they make any hasty announcements. You would have expected Sky News to be slightly bolder and have quoted the news of his death from another source under a Breaking News headline. And you would expect Fox News, being American, to have seen a rumour on Twitter, which was good enough for them, and to be already holding a live séance in the studio.

The following day, people awoke to the confirmed news that Michael Jackson had died and those at Glastonbury emerged from their tents looking like Worzel Gummidge to the sound of tracks from Thriller, the world's fastest ever selling album. All over the country, news rooms were interviewing people who were lining up to say that they had met Michael Jackson - who had been to his concerts, stood next to him in a lift or was once sneezed on by the man himself back in 1984.

It was in the up and coming days that the focus changed from that of shock to a lament of a lifelong tragedy.

When images of his transformation from a child star to the 50-year-old, unconventional man that he had become appeared all over the news and on entertainment programmes, the words "misfortune", "pity", and "sadness" cropped up - and they were words that were used to describe the life of Michael Jackson on so many levels.

With mass moonwalks taking place, live re-enactments of the Thriller routine, and thousands of people of all ages meeting in the street to sing his songs across the globe, Michael Jackson has cemented his place in history as the world's foremost pop star who had become a living legend when he was still only a child.

Despite some of the negative opinions of him - distorted by the medium that is the sensational speculation from the media that, ultimately, contributed to his downfall - the fact that people idolised his music, would trample over each other just to catch a glimpse of a legend, and the vast number of tributes all over the world shows that he meant something to a lot of people.

And yet, already, there have been people criticising him and even criticising his fans for their mass tributes as though all of the attention is exaggerated. But it's a rarity that someone's talent is celebrated on such a large, international scale - especially for a performer who, in life, was a troubled perfectionist who would never be satisfied with himself and who heavily criticised his own circumstances - even without the media doing that for him.

For anyone who is not a fan of Michael Jackson, the fact that his work is an inspiration to many people should not be condemned.

Michael Jackson; with his unique style, being the ultimate live performer that broke all music records, created his own genre, performing from the age of 4; gave his whole life to entertaining others and trying to instil happiness into many people's lives. He has developed into an idol, a cultural phenomenon in life and in death. His lyrics and dance moves have become globally renowned, and his songs have become a soundtrack to the lives of multiple generations of people, and will be remembered like anthems that immortalise parts of history in people's minds like the ghosts of a long-gone summer.

'The idea of space tourism has been on the agenda for many years'

It's called White Knight Two Eve and, within 2 years, it could be taking the first small group of passengers into space. The vessel is specially designed using carbon nanotubes (in layman's terms, that's nanotubes made from carbon). The high-altitude jet will take a spacecraft (SpaceShipTwo) containing two crew members and six passengers into orbit. More than 250 people have paid over £100,000 per ticket to be some of the first to experience space tourism, but they'll probably still charge you an extra £2.50 for the headphones so you can watch Apollo 13 as the in-flight movie.

It is, of course, Richard Branson who is behind the scheme and everyone who wishes to be a passenger must take a 3-day crash course in space travel - just so they know what to do in the event of an attack from Cybermen, and also to ensure that the force is with them.

White Knight Two Eve will act as the mothership, designed to cradle SpaceShipTwo under its wing and then release it at 15,240m in the air. The vessel itself has received some complaints from not having toilet facilities on board but reaching 2000mph in 25 seconds should ensure that any passengers have parted with the contents of their bowels before leaving the stratosphere, allowing last night's vindaloo to become a separate entity within 0.7 seconds of the launch.

The idea of space tourism has been on the agenda for many years and, only now, does it look as if it's actually going to happen. Over 30 years ago, the Voyager spacecraft were launched into space so they could transmit whale song, and messages from Jimmy Carter, as if any little green beings on other planets are going to understand the English language - especially that of an American president. The plan was, in essence, that some extraterrestrial beings would pick up the messages and pop down to Earth on a package holiday for a cup of tea and a custard cream.

If any aliens were to visit Earth they would more than likely see the recession, overpaid executives, knife crime, terrorism, falling education standards, job cuts, global warming, diminishing fossil fuels, illegal drugs, violent crime, poverty, and Amy Winehouse and head back to the galaxy far far away.

That is unless their planet is an exact replica of ours. With the only difference being that on their planet Alistair Darling has purple hair.

So the new space tourism venture is set to install some excitement back into the world outside our small planet. Since the Great Space Race between Russia and America, the most people have to get excited about is a new tea towel or the latest ringtone for their phone.

So White Knight Two Eve should begin to awaken some of the enthusiasm. The only problem is that nothing is going to be as big as the moon landings - they happened in a time when space was more exciting; it was new and strange and evocative and had only been explored in television and film up until this point. The moon landings had all the great catchphrases: "The eagle has landed", "One small step for man...". Back then, even the astronaut's names were better - they sounded like superheroes (Buzz Aldrin) or they had incredibly strong arms (Neil Armstrong).

Bringing the ventures into space is a bit like trying to remake The Godfather in that it can only be a disappointment or, at least, would lack the excitement and calibre of the original event.

But Dr. Richmond Vrmgh, a physicist who, after undergoing a complicated and tragic operation in which he had important vowels removed from his surname, said that "White Knight Two will be the gateway into space tourism and it is great news that a British man has beaten the rest of the world to commence the space tourism industry. This will be a big moment in history."

And while we are all looking to space for the future migration of the human race, recent reports have said that actually living in space and undergoing frequent space travel will leave you short and fat. Before this concept, people were looking forward to space travel even when they knew the vessel may explode on launch, they may get lost in space or have to have a lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. But the thought of arriving back into the Earth's atmosphere looking like John Prescott was so terrifying it put people off space travel and they're all at home clinging to the ground.

So in the coming years when Virgin begin offering their trips into space aboard White Knight Two Eve, it will only be a short amount of time until there will be package deals to the moon. The moon looks intriguing from Earth, when you're looking up at night-time, but when you're actually on the moon it's baron, bleak, and is fatal without protective clothing - a bit like Nottingham circa 1985.

Some argue that human beings should not go into space, it's just too dangerous. And some say that the Earth is too precious a basket in which to keep all of our eggs. But there's so much that has been left unexplored on our planet - the deepest depths of the oceans, the labyrinth of ancient ruins, and Castle Bromwich. Perhaps it's better the devil you know and to sort out the problems on this planet before we create new ones on others. Before we take out the Martians it's probably better to first sort out the corruption at home and, in doing so, boldly go where no man has ever gone before.

'There has been the emperor's-new-clothes effect concerning modern art'

If you've been keeping up with the news lately you may have been given the faintest inkling that the world is in financial meltdown. We've been constantly bombarded with stories about how everyone is out of pocket and, according to the headlines, people are selling their homes in exchange for rice. In fact, you're probably looking at your pets right now and wondering what they taste like.

So, in this tense economic situation, it could be considered a risk to be spending money on any elaborate pieces of public art - especially when it is of the "modern art" variety, and therefore not so well liked and appreciated by everyone.

People are obviously against the idea of their hard-earned money going towards something that offers little benefit. After witnessing the public reaction to the recent MPs expenses scandal that left the nation baying for blood, there must be council officials all over the country sweating and drawing short straws about who's going to have to appear on Newsnight and explain the £3million 40ft turd they've commissioned to be constructed at the local precinct.

Visiting art galleries is on the increase, presumably as most of them are free. It seems even people who would have never visited an art gallery before are becoming tempted by the cheap days out - even if it is looking at a painting and pretending to admire the lighting before an American tourist steps in your way. And then run off to buy a Monet fridge magnet to advertise your new-found culture.

Generally, the public believe that true "art" refers to the old-fashioned style, where you have some idea as to what the work is supposed to represent. They like to look at something like the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo for hours because the people look like real people and it's been painted on the ceiling - so they can sit and compare it to how they've never been able to paint their ceiling at home without getting paint in their hair.

A room where the lights go on and off would not necessarily be considered as art by everyone who saw it. Walking into a room to see the lights going off for 5 seconds and then coming back on for 5 seconds would not necessarily cause people to stare in amazement at how it represents the division in society and the divinity of human beings in the extensive magnitude or dimension that is the universe. They're more likely to walk in and say 'Is there something wrong with the lights?'

In general, people don't seem to like modern art. A television programme last week showed people offering their opinion on modern artists. Surprisingly, one of the most frequent comments from people was that artists look scruffy.

There would have been a time when you could walk into an artist's studio and see that he had white hair and spectacles and a waistcoat and you would assume that he knew his onions.

But people obviously don't seem to like the modern, open-toed approach to art as they see it as a move away from more respectful, traditional methods of creativity.

But there has been the emperor's-new-clothes effect concerning modern art. People used to stand and shout at the fact that the council have just paid £8million to see the "art" that is a chair in the middle of an empty room.

In order to impress the aloof critics, people have started to pretend that they actually see the reasoning behind the exhibits.

So now, people pat the artist on the head, call them "amazing, darling", and ask them how they got the ingenious idea to paint on a wall while wearing a blindfold and then urinate over it.

People used to have paintings of flowers and rivers and trees on their wall by artists who were creative enough to be able to represent flowers and rivers and trees to scale. But now there're going to feel like they should be keeping up with the times and staple one of their cats to the wall instead. Or cut off their own hand and mount it above the television. It's art, baby.

Some form of controversial art appears in the news every week. Last weekend, it was the new exhibition by Banksy - who is one modern artist that people often enjoy. This time public money was spent creating the exhibit and not taking it down as it usually is.

More notoriously, one of the most controversial pieces of "art" was announced under the headline "The Tate Gallery has paid £22,300 of public money for a work that is, quite literally, a load of excrement" - which referred to a man who left a personal touch by filling cans with...his, let's say artistic "vision".

An Italian named Piero Manzoni died in 1963, but not before ensuring that he filled a total of 90 cans with his vision.

If someone sent a can of vision to your door, you would most probably take offence and contact the police. But it seems if you send a can of vision to the local museum it gets you £22,300.

This does however; leave open the possibility of art fraud from millions of people having visions every day.

Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it and antiques, as well as art, are becoming a more and more popular investment.

There must have been a time in the middle of the 20th century when people suddenly thought that the past is 10 times better than the present and started to collect old things.

Presumably though, a Georgian desk would probably be of a much higher quality than a flat-pack desk that, if you tried to assemble yourself, would get covered with the contents of your arteries.

And giving someone a 40-year-old sofa would be an insult, whereas giving them one that was 200-years-old would be much more of a worthy gift.

It seems that in this economic downturn, people are investing more in antiques. While their own house may only be worth £14.50, their Victorian writing desk is worth a killing.

But it seems undecided yet as to whether people are going to embrace modern art or stick to their guns with the more traditional approach. Either way, it's not going to be the last we see of sawn-in-half cows and a pile of rubbish on top of a bed.

It seems the Mona Lisa is so last week. Poor Leonardo da Vinci (an avid reader of this blog); he's probably turning in his grave. It's not his fault he was born before the days of innovative art. We can only imagine what he could have done with empty rooms and a can of vision.

'Weather of mass destruction'

The bookies are taking bets as to whether this year will be a "barbeque summer" for Britain.

The phrase "barbeque summer" has been heard for the first time this year and it seems to have appeared out of nowhere - being splashed all over the news like a swarm of locusts on World Locust Day.

Where the phrase has come from, no one knows.

No one spent their childhood listening to adults talking about barbeque summers.

No one stood at the bus stop saying "I don't remember where I was when the Berlin Wall came down, when the Falklands War started, or who shot JR - but I'll never forget that cracking barbecue summer back in '76."

To many people, the phrase "barbeque summer" will signal the idea of quickly trying to grill sausages to the backdrop of an impending storm cloud.

In traditional British fashion, where everything has to relate to the weather, many news headlines have made some sort of a link between current events and the supposed barbeque summer.

Stories about sausage companies expecting to make record profits, of British package holidays to seaside resorts on the increase, and even reports that the good weather is somehow going to reduce the amount of violent crime.

So the barbeques come out and the excitement of eating outside outlines a summer of sun, paddling pools, and The Beach Boys' Greatest Hits.

But, as always it's difficult to pay any attention to weather forecasts. Especially when every weather reports involves the Met Office announcing another severe weather warning - that your skin will drop off in the intense heat, a massive flood will wash everyone into the Atlantic Ocean, or there will be such a dense fog that we'll all be attacked by werewolves and vampires that we couldn't see coming.

Having following the serious reports like murder and war in the news, the weather bulletins that follows doesn't want to have to just talk about drizzle and light winds. To create effect, they need to talk about how every day is the hottest/coldest/wettest day since the dawn of time and a "severe" wind and a flood is coming to wipe us all out - weather of mass destruction.

A severe wind and a flood in Cuba means the whole town has been blown into the middle of next Tuesday and people awaken in the morning to find themselves halfway up a tree in the Amazon.

Whereas a severe wind and a flood in Selly Oak means at least 4 leaves have fallen off a tree and the Ikea sofa has got a little damp patch.

So while we all know that the weather predictions of late seem very dramatic, everyone is still hoping that the prediction for a barbeque summer is one that is going to become a reality.

Event organisers are hoping to be raking in the cash with theme parks expected to take in over £4 million for this summer, even though plans to create another theme park have been rejected. Quite unlike the new sex-themed park that was supposed to be opening in China this October. The park features sex-themed rides including a 20ft statue of a female body from the waist down. If the plans go ahead, a male counterpart will also feature in the park - but it hasn't been erected yet.

So if the predictions are correct, with the leaves on the trees, the barbeques sizzling away, and the sun on our backs, the nation can kick off its shoes this summer and forget all the miserable news we've had lately and head to a theme park or spend those warm evenings in the summer.

But it's not just theme parks that are supposed to be popular with the barbeque summer fun.

Holidays in Britain are set to soar due to the expected good weather and the effects of the economy.

And also, it's been said that there should be fewer delays at airports due to the good weather as it's supposed to be the bad weather that is the number one cause of delays at airports.

But we'll believe that when we see it. When they say a delay is "due to inclement weather", it more likely means that the pilot has just been found in the cockpit holding a piña colada and wearing nothing but a leather thong.

'Advancing technology seems to give rise to new problems'

Last week the BBC made valuable use of licence fee payer's money to conduct a survey asking people if they feel that the proliferation of technology has benefited their lives.

38% said Yes and 62% said No.

It was also suggested that people would much prefer to live a less complicated, technology-free life and sit outside their homes like The Waltons, relaxing and playing with a piece of dust.

The enquiry then lead to a mini-debate as to the extent of the question, and also caused leading scientists to suggest that, to no surprise, Britain is no longer at the leading forefront of technological advancements and that technology that actually complicates things is unwelcome.

Now, unless you're an MP you probably don't catch sight of many £50 notes. But if you do, you will notice that the new £50 notes feature Birmingham's own Matthew Bolton, the engineer who formed a business partnership with James Watt in 1773 to make huge developments in the steam engine industry.

If you don't have wiry hair and wear comfortable shoes this probably doesn't interest you all that much.

But the larger subject at hand is Britain's contemporary input to the world's inventions and just how far the baton has been passed on to other parts of western Europe, America, China and Japan in terms of inventions, developments, and discoveries.

Britain has been home to many inventions and discoveries; including the fax machine, electric motor, steam and jet engines, light bulbs and, most importantly, perforated toilet paper.

But lately, things have started to slow down in terms of technological advancements from Britain, and, if there's such thing as the £50 note in the future, there's going to be no one to feature on it.

Unless they add Simon Cowell, Levi Roots, or What's-his-name from Eastenders.

And even in the world at large, technology can't seem to decide which direction it's moving in. It's difficult to come to a decision on whether we're actually technologically advanced.

When drawing on the debate as to whether we are moving backwards in terms of technology, the retreat of Concorde usually crops up.

There was a time when you could get to America in less than 4 hours on Concorde, and in a step back for technology, it now takes around 10.

But Concorde, as an advancement in technology, created large problems - the spelling of the name between the British and the French, the decided market portrayal and safety of the 4 subordinate engines, and the fact that the Americans said the sonic boom knocked over their cows.

Technology is expensive and even Concorde, in 1976 cost the taxpayer £1.34 billion - which, even in today's money could get a home for at least 2 MPs.

As always, advancing technology seems to give rise to new problems.

And there are also a considerably large number of people who have refused to embrace technology; people who spend their day dressed as Windy Miller to churn butter, who only consider spam to be a canned meat, and are just coming to terms with corduroy.

There was once the idea that technology was going to make life more simple and make complicated tasks easier to complete.

But every new piece of equipment comes with a new instruction manual the size of War and Peace and a remote control that is guaranteed to make your nose wrinkle every time you look at it.

And while DVDs are more convenient than VHS, they can, for some people, be more difficult to operate.

To the less technologically apt, playing a DVD is like guiding a Harrier Jet through a missile attack. Only more complicated.

Every time you watch a DVD, you're forced to watch a message telling you that you are only allowed to watch that film if you're at home, not in a public place, and you're wearing green.

And you also have to sit through messages about pirate DVDs - giving you the implication that the SWAT team is about to burst through your window and confiscate it.

And by the time all the messages finish, you're 191 years old and it's time for bed.

There's something interesting about the fact that people have suggested that technology doesn't make you happy - if anything it makes everything slightly more complicated.

Believe it or not, there are some people who just want a mobile phone to actually call a real human being - and not to send nude images to the Philippines, launch espionage satellites, or boil an egg.

But it seems that progressing with technology is actually going to mean taking a step backwards, turning away from the over-complicated nature of recent advances.

We may think we're advanced because we have a satellite dish on the wall of our house, because we can watch penguins falling over in documentaries on our plasma televisions, and check the weather on the other side of the world in over 100 languages.

But if there was the option for it to all disappear, how many people would ever choose that option?

Technology obviously isn't making everything easier.

For a world that has managed to launch rockets into space, put a man on the moon, and make high-tech machinery to prevent it from raining on the Olympic games, we still can't manage to print a document without the printer passing through hundreds of blank pages or saying "You have performed an illegal operation. This computer will now self- destruct."
Considering we can view images of robots looking for water on Mars, or can attach cameras to the back of a wasp, you would think you'd be able to watch something as simple as a television much easier than 30 years ago.

In the past you pressed a button the television came on.

Today, if you're trying to watch Deal Or No Deal (for reasons known only to yourself) the digital box will say that there is no satellite signal being received - only for you to have to call customer services, tell them your password, shoe-size, and the number of hairs on your head; so they can announce that the digital box isn't working because you've got to turn it on and off 17 times, take the viewing card out, sing to it, and then swipe it between your bottom cheeks.

You wouldn't expect your television to suddenly stop working in this day and age. If you were on the frontline of a military war zone or in the middle of nuclear fallout you may expect a small degradation in picture quality. And it would be OK if the picture cut off when something like Emmerdale was about to start.

The BBC study stated that people liked the technological advancements in the '80s - new, but not too complicated. If there's ever a time machine invented, it seems 62% of people will be packing up the computers, satellite navigation systems, and satellite-launching mobile phones to join Gene Hunt back in 1981.

Click here for a printable version