How cynical should we be?

With Comic Relief on at the weekend, and Bono's (product) RED campaign in the media spotlight again, I've been thinking a bit about charity (just thinking rather than doing anything about it, in a kind of irritating, armchair critic sort of way). People seem to love criticising both of these, and I'm in two minds as to whether they have a justified argument.

The cynics argue that both Comic Relief and Bono's (product) RED are just a means of self-promotion for celebrities, to make them feel better about their egotistical, self-indulgent lives and to improve their image in the media by making them seem benevolent and altrusitic. They might argue that if these qualities were genuine parts of the celebrity's personality, they'd give up all their excess income, shun all media attention and high living, and dedicate their lives to building schools in Africa.

The problem with this argument is that it can be applied to the majority of people who live in Western Europe and America, if we really wanted to we could give up everything but, because we're not perfect, we don't.

The thing that bothers me most about the cynic's argument is that it seems to imply that unless you can do it perfectly (i.e. give up your whole life for a cause) then there is no point in doing anything, because that will make you a hypocrite.

This argument is hugely crap because it basically encourages people not to give money to charity. Yes these celebrities may be getting off on their on egoes, but they were doing that anyway so why not combine that activity with raising some cash for charity? The choices seem to be ego/publicity+no charity = no food for starving kids, or, ego/publicity+charity = food for starving kids. Surely the latter is best?

Bono's (product) RED scheme has been ripped to shreds by parts of the media, ( www.buylesscrap.com has been bitching about it for example, saying that all consumerism is bad, etc) for spending more on marketing (estimates range from $40m to $100m) than has been raised for the Global Fund ($25m).

Yep, fair enough, there's no denying that Gap, American Express, all the celebs involved, etc have enhanced their reputation through the process, and it would have been much better if $25m could have been raised by simply just giving to charity rather than the donations being an afterthought alongside our self-indulgent spending.

However there's no escaping the fact that without all this activity, the $25m wouldn't have been raised, and that Bono's initial idea of trying to bring charitable donations into consumerism is not a bad thing in itself, it is just, like many things, susceptible to people taking advantage. Also, RED claims that the reason for the big initial spend was to make a massive impact in the market, and that next year's advertising budget will be a lot smaller, while the profits hopefully will still be rolling in. Maybe they're fibbing, maybe they're not, but either way $25m is gonna go to charity, which is pretty cool.

I'm anticipating I might be getting some comments for this along the lines of "YOU'RE SO NAIVE!" and "WAKE UP!" Well, maybe, but I'm just trying to work out my own opinions on the subject before I jump on the cynic's bandwagon, which strikes me as a bit of a miserable bandwagon to be on.

Wisest is she who knows she does not know...

I've been reading an excellent book recently. It's called Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. It's about a young girl called Sophie (funnily enough) who starts getting letters from a philosopher, and becomes completely consumed by the fascinating history of ancient civilisation and the development of science, belief, society and philosophical theory.

I'm about a quarter of the way through now, and for me the most intriguing chapter so far has been on this chap Socrates.

Socrates was an Athenian philosopher who lived in the 5th century BC, some say he was the most enigmatic figure in the history of Western philosophy. Plato, another Athenian philosopher, was a student of his - although Socrates would have argued that he was noone's teacher, and that he merely held discussions on an egalitarian basis rather than passing down knowledge, as he never pretended to know the answers to life's questions.

Socrates used to spend most of his time hanging out in city squares and marketplaces and talking to people. He tried to understand the world through people, he said: "the trees in the countryside can teach me nothing" (unlike his predecessors the natural philosophers who were obsessed with science), and valued the opinion of a street sweeper as much as that of a King. He also used to publicly humiliate people. This was not out of spite, it was more the case that it was very easy for proud and ignorant people to fall into his trap.

He often employed a rhetorical technique now known as Socratic irony. This involved basically faking ignorance about a subject to try and get as much information from your interviewee and, more importantly, find out what they don't know. Naturally this type of treatment would be embarrassing/infuriating for many proud men in 5th century BC Greek society, and nobody enjoys public humiliation. But Socrates wasn't setting out to humiliate people, he was just trying to find out the truth about the world around him.

This got me thinking - was Socrates the first journalist? I'm going to run into a few problems here, not least the fact that Socrates never wrote a word in his life.

However two crucial things make me look at Socrates as a journalist. The first being that be devoted his life to asking questions. Despite his boundless intellect he repeatedly insisted that he 'knew nothing' and constantly badgered people into giving their point of view. He felt that the only way he could understand life was to understand the perspectives of others who were going through similar experiences.

Secondly, his commitment to finding the truth was so strong that he would rather die than depart from his quest for knowledge. And in the end he did die in the pursuit of knowledge - he was sentenced to death by poisoning for his subversive activities (not exactly radical by today's standards - we're not talking child pornography or international terrorism, he just held some discussion groups) by a jury of 500 Athenians (500!)

Socrates could have appealed against his sentence, or he could have simply left Athens to avoid execution, but he felt so strongly about his quest for the truth and the principles of right and wrong (he believed this was the only thing that separated us from animals) that he decided to martyr himself by facing execution instead.

Now I'm not sure how many journalists today are so dedicated to the Code of Conduct that they'd be prepared to drink poison for the sake of their principles, but as a whole I think many journalists end up in this profession because they're just, well, curious. We don't know all the answers, but we really enjoy asking the questions and finding out a little bit more from every person. It may not be the best paid profession in the world, but for people who love knowledge it's a pretty great way to earn a living.

The Experience of Working

I never did blog anything about work experience. How rude of me. Here's some boring drivvle about what I got up to...

Sunday Times Travel Magazine (Jan 15th-26th 2007)

I arrived at the offices for River Publishing in Leicester Square at 10am, which I think is a nice time to start work, and certainly more sociable than the vile 8am starts that were to follow at the Reading Evening Post two weeks later. I was met by the editorial assistant, Laura, who I sat next to for the duration. Had a quick whiz round the office, was introduced to the team, etc. This was great, however for some reason Laura and myself worked in a room with one travel freelancer, and a group of other River employees (i.e. not Sunday Times), whereas the bulk of the Sunday Times people were in another room. I would have preferred to be sitting with the whole team, but I did get the chance to go and talk to them a bit and pester them about what they were doing, etc. (I was determined to get something out of working for free) so that was ok.

The day to day work consisted of mainly fact-checking. The big articles are produced by the very lucky freelancers who get to trot round the world sampling beaches, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, etc. I would be given the copy, and every time a price/phone number/weird spelling came up, I would call up the airlines/PR companies etc and confirm that these offers were still valid, etc. Although not writing itself, this was quite good for brushing up research skills. However at times it did seem not entirely different from working in a foreign call centre.

One huge piece was on French food and I had many hilarious conversations with French people whereby I spoke no French, and they spoke very little English. Another time I spent a few hours trying to find out if a particular bar in Puerto Rico had been burnt down or not. This was not easy given that I had no contacts in Puerto Rico, the tourist board was not contactable, google threw up virtually nothing, and I speak no Spanish whatsoever, but somehow we got there in the end.

I did get to do a couple of bits of actual writing. They have a section called ‘Take Me There’ which is basically three double page spread, breathtaking photographs of some exotic location. I was given the title of the location (Eg. bamboo forest, Kyoto, Japan) then I had to go away and research the place, find out interesting stuff, preferably something rare that most people wouldn’t know, and write a short creative/enticing description of it. This was really fun, I found out some interesting stuff, and will get the bylines for it, which is always nice.

I also wrote a reader letter. The editor came over and told me the ones that had arrived were very boring, and could I invent something a bit more funny/outrageous, based on last month’s publication. I found a spa piece on colonic irrigation, which was marketed on the bizarre basis that Jade Goody was a fan, and based the letter on this. The editor came back over and said “Yep, great, that’s really funny” which I was quite pleased with.

The downside of this placement was that there was a fair bit of admin involved. I found it a bit cheeky that they asked me to do the post every day, although I did like reading about all the free holidays that were offered to the editor and deputy editor. I also had to update the PR database at times, and a couple of bits of filing. The main reason I found this cheeky is because I was basically helping the editorial assistant. The problem with this was that she was the same age as me, had not been on any journalism course (although she had completed a few unpaid placements), and of course she was getting paid.

Would I recommend doing a placement here? I guess if you’re interested in consumer magazines it is worthwhile for the CV, but I would strongly recommend that you only sign up for a week maximum. Two weeks is too much free labour to give to that stonking-rich corporation News International in my opinion.

Before this I had completed a couple of newspaper placements, which are much more useful as you get a lot more hands on experience. So if you only have time for one placement I would advise going for that. Also I did a week at a smaller consumer publication called Arts East, where they let me write a lot more content (book reviews, interviews, concert line-ups), so perhaps something like that would be a better investment of your time.

Reading Evening Post (29th Jan-1st Feb)

I spent four days at the Reading Evening Post, during which time I did absolutely no admin work. Lovely. However they do start at 8am, which is a bit harsh, especially when it’s a forty-five minute walk in the cold to get there.

I was given the most minimal induction ever. In fact, I don’t think I was ever given any instructions all week. But this was good in some ways as it forced me to find out everything for myself. I wasn’t even introduced to everyone so I had to work out who people were, as well as where the toilets and canteen were, but I just kept asking questions and it all worked out in the end.

I asked where they kept their press releases and was directed to a pile of paper, so I basically sat down, started working through these, and calling people up for quotes to fill in the gaps or see if I could get a better story, wrote them up and sent them to the news desk. I would occasionally get feedback from the news editor (once she realised that I existed!) about house style, etc. To be honest I think they were all quite surprised that I was able to write. When I was in the canteen one day the girl serving me asked how long I was working here for, I replied that I was actually on work experience, and she said “I’m not being funny but, aren’t you a bit old for that?” “Yes,” I replied.

They published about four of my NIBs/short pieces a day, and I got one or two bylines, which was nice, apart from them misspelling my name. My favourite part of doing work experience on a daily paper is seeing your work the next day, even when the subs decide to change it beyond recognition (although in fairness this happened more at The Hunts Post last year than at the REP, and it probably needed the changes given that I had no news training whatsoever at that stage).

I did get to go out on two stories (only because I kept nagging the reporters and asking them when they were going out – I’m not sure they would remember I was there otherwise!) Once to crown court to listen to crack dealers get prosecuted which was pretty juicy, with a reporter who was a year younger than me and getting paid (I know, I keep banging on about the pay thing) and another time to try and cover an animal rights protest. Unfortunately we arrived on the scene five minutes too late, and everyone had dispersed. Bit of a let down really, I had been quite looking forward to interviewing the nutters.

In conclusion, I would definitely recommend doing work experience at a local paper as you will do purely writing and no admin. However I would again recommend a week maximum, because you could make more money lying in bed and collecting the dole each week.

"Work experience: an arrangement whereby companies outsource their training costs onto middle class parents."
- Steve Lowe and Alan MacArthur, 'Is it just me or is everything shit?'

"Personally I wouldn't encourage students to work for free - if they don't value their skills enough to demand payment, who will?'
- Kiki, Journalism teacher at Uni of Westminster

"So let me get this straight, you want me - with my four years of university education and thousands of pounds of debt - to spend 40 hours a week producing content for your publication, as well as doing the odd shitty admin task, and pay my own expenses for the privilege, when you've got people on your staff who are younger and have less qualifications, and your corporation is one of the richest news agencies in the world? Is this how the economy works now? Am I eligible for the dole?"
- Me (in my head)

Exercise is bad for you, curry is a health food, it's shorthand that's really making you fat.

January's awful isn't it? All the fun of December has left you poor, tired, fat and hungover, it's freezing outside and there's loads of work to do.

So, to cheer us up, the mainstream media decides to bombard us with endless features about quitting smoking/drinking/eating/spending money/anything fun, how we should all detox our bodies and declutter our lives. These features all seem to hold an assumption that in our present state we our in some way inadequate - too unhealthy, not clever enough, not good enough at managing money - and that the only thing that can save us from a life of misery is a Self-Improvement Regime, to be implemented with dictatorial vigour.

Well I've had enough 'advice' from the mainstream media now - exercise five times a week, eat five portions of fruit and veg, etc, so I'd like to take this opportunity to demonstrate just how dangerous a healthly lifestyle can be.

One afternoon during the Christmas holidays, my common sense abandoned me and I decided to go for a 'nice run in the countryside'. I put on my trainers, my jogging bottoms and other suitably warm clothing and set out. This warm clothing included by brother's wooly hat, which I had borrowed without asking for. So the blazing row that ensued when I got back to the house is the first negative side-effect of my efforts to 'be healthy'.

I decided to run around the farms just outside my village, forgetting how utterly strange the people that live around there are. I was jogging along the road when a landrover pulled up next to me, and the driver asked if I'd like a lift. Oh ha ha, I thought, isn't she hilarious. 'No thanks' I said abruptly, and carried on. She stopped again, 'honestly I'm not being wierd, I just thought you might like a lift'. I then realised that she wasn't being sarcastic, she actually thought I was running as a means of transport. Our mutual embarrassment was negative side effect (NSE) two.

Run on a bit more...by this stage I was beginning to feel a bit sick - sweating vodka and coke and asking way too much of my marlboro lights-tainted lungs. NSE 3.

To try and motivate myself to keep going, I turned up my ipod. However bobbing along to the White Stripes meant that I was caught completely off-guard when a giant mutant pheasant tried to fly pretty much directly into my face. For someone with an almost morbid fear of birds this was really quite terrifying. NSE 4.

I tried my best to carry on, despite the ridiculous arsenal of setbacks, but then when I ran into a gaggle of geese (I'm not making this up) I decided to turn round and call it a day. (Geese-trauma NSE 5).

When I finally got home, I was freezing cold, tired, and in desperate need of some chocolate. So I sat down in front of the fire to watch telly and eat a fair few Christmas chocs, thus undoing all of my gruelling work (NSE 6).

When I got round to having a shower, I realised that there were no less than four blisters on my feet, which caused my pain for days (NSE 7).

So you see, smug feature writers, self-improvement isn't all that. Be careful about the advice you give to people. I don't want others to go through the harrowing experience of having a huge pheasant flying full-throttle into their face.

As for health food, has anyone considered the healing properties of curry? Chicken is full of protein, rice is a great slow-release carb, and herbs are great for vitamins and stuff.

I read a short self-improvement type article the other day on detoxing. One of the writers was describing her experience of colonic irrigation. She said: "felt a bit wierd, kinda how I feel the day after a bottle of chardonney and a nice curry." So, rather than shelling out for a 'beauty therapist' to insert a plastic tube up your bum, you could just go out and have a curry with your friends.

Shorthand. That never-ending task. When I was having a curry (practising what I preach) with the print people the other week, we started talking about how we never have enough time to do any exercise, because there's always something that needs doing, shorthand in particular. As you can never get to the end with shorthand, because there is no end. Just endless toil. Taking up our 'exercise time' and thus making us fat.

Yein

Hi bloggers, first of all happy Christmas Eve to you all, I hope you've all been good this year and that your good work is reflected in the treats that Santa leaves under the tree for you tomorrow.

But if by tomorrow morning you are not fully satisfied with your pressies, please bear in mind the truly impressive amount of work that good old St.Nick has put into getting them there for you.

Scientific research shows that, on the basis that there is at least one good child in every household, and excluding all those who do not celebrate Christmas, to get round the entire globe Santa has approximately one-thousandth of a second to spend at each house.

This includes parking the sleigh on the roof, getting down the chimney, selecting the right pressies, drinking the sherry, eating the mince pie, bringing the carrot back up the chimney for Rudolph, all in one-thousandth of a second.

Really rather impressive I'd say, especially for someone in such a state of ill health as Santa. To complete such aerobically challenging tasks (all that climbing up and down chimneys, hoping in and out of sleighs and so forth) in such a short space of time - while consuming one thousand mince pies and one thousand glasses of sherry per second - is quite commendable.

Research suggests that, on the basis that Santa weighs 25 stone (I suspect he weighs a great deal more than this, with a mince pie and sherry habit like that) the gravitational pull (if this is the correct term, please forgive my appalling knowledge of physics) a sonic boom would be created by the speed at which the reindeer would be travelling, causing a G7 force of wind to smack poor Santa baby in the face every time the sleigh leaves a roof.

So there we are. He's a bit rushed, poor chap. And on that basis I think we shouldn't hold him in contempt for the other 364 days when he sits on his arse, smoking his pipe and watching reruns of, erm, The Snowman?

So as much as I'm looking forward to unwrapping a brand new barbie doll to add to my collection tomorrow, if it happens to be a Sindy, I will try my best to accept it with grace, and bear in mind the sheer hell that poor St.Nick has gone through to get it there.

That's all, cheerio, have lots of festive fun :-)

P.S. The Yein thing. I've been in Germany this week for my friend's birthday, and this is a new word that his friends taught me. It means yes and no, a hybrid of ja and nein. I quite like it. They also have a quite funny birthday ritual for men who reach their 30th birthday and are not married, which I'll blog more about later cos I'm sick of staring at the screen now.

Blecing, Blogging, NoSpace and Enemies Reunited

I've just been reading Cherie's blog on 'blecing', the lovechild of the words 'lecturing' and 'blogging' that Chris Horrie and David Dunkley created at the beginning of term. Yes I did just say that Horrie and Dunkley have a lovechild together.

I was so pleased at what Cherie wrote that I decided to put it into a whole new blog rather than clog up her comment box.

Tinterweb is all well and good, even great in some respects, but I must say I share Cherie's sentiments. Here goes, I too Enjoy Real Conversations.

What a relief. Well now the cat is well and truly out of the bag, if the techo-police are coming after me, they'll convict me for that alone. So I may as well be done for a horse as a hare (is that a real phrase?)

Yes, I enjoy talking to people face to face. I also enjoy reading real newspapers that I can pick up, rather than straining my eyes staring at the screen, clicking away instead of turning the page, at the mercy of some evil, devil-worshipping server like Global Village that times out whenever it pleases.

I have no interest in watching television on my mobile phone. I'm not that fussed about telly as it is, I find phones are more useful for calling my friends. To arrange times so that we can meet up face to face.

I don't need 'Myspace' to talk to people, I can talk to people in any place I choose. In fact there's no 'space' involved at all really, if it's space you're after, why don't you go and meet a friend in a park? I don't need Friends Reunited as the ones that I actually liked are still my friends.

Like 'MySpace' the name is again a tad misleading, as I don't think you can call people 'friends' purely on the basis that they grew up in the same place or went to the same school as you. Luckily, we get to choose our friends on their merits, and there's nothing more excrutiating than having to pretend that you get on with someone just because of the convenient but annoying fact that they're from the same stomping ground as you.

Now, I wouldn't say I'm a luddite as such. I just don't like advancement for the sake of advancement. I think real social interaction is very important, in a life-enriching, fulfilling, human-being sort of way. But I think 'blecing' is a real threat to this.

I think it's no coincidence that obesity and technology have both risen disproportionately in recent years, people are sitting at computers by themselves eating junk food. All day. I don't mind doing this now an then, quite enjoy it in fact, but there's no way that it matches up to real, human communication.

Also, the direction technology seems to be going does strike me as rather circular. We're getting more interactive, so we can communicate with eachother via blogs etc. But don't we realise that we don't actually need computers to communicate at all? Sites such as MySpace go to great pains to create what is basically a party atmosphere. But why don't we all just go to a party instead? Am I going mad?!

Now the internet is great for many things - research, keeping in touch with mates, work, buying stuff, loads of positive stuff. But as with everything, I think it needs to be consumed in moderation. No more than 14 units a week. And no you can't have them all in one cyber-binge, small manageable doses please. No 'several blogs in one night' scandals or such like.

I'm going to blog off now and leave you with the words of someone cleverer than me. Valerie Grove's column in The Times yesterday:

"Look here, I'm no luddite. (Though I know plenty of people who prosper without a computer or a mobile phone). I don't mind if the web revolutionises the world...I just don't want to make 'friends' online or read their vacuous thought. If 'too much information' is now a conversational mantra, why unleash more of it?"

Night night.

P.S. Please do feel free to leave me comments. I'll read them whilst sitting here in slovenly squalor, bingeing on junk food and surfing (the irony that it should be named after a sport) the net begging for friends on myspace and friends reunited.

Mr Blair: Give Up, Grow Up and Get Out (You Thug)

The issue of investing £25 billion in replacing Trident, Britain's nuclear weapons system, has been in the news an awful lot this week.

Blair is saying that they are going to have a proper parliamentary debate about all the possibilities, and then a vote to make sure that everyone gets a chance to input and it's all democratic...

Really Tony? So what you're saying is that you havn't made your mind up about it yet? So, for instance, if evidence presented to you suggested that spending £25 billion on a weapon that can NEVER EVER be used is a bit of a waste of money, you'd be willing to back down? You'd be willing to climb out of your love-nest with George Bush, and actually think for yourself, maybe even fulfil your role of acting on the wishes of the British people?

Forgive me for being cynical, but I don't believe for a second that Blair is willing to consider anybody else's point of view on this. I think, like with Iraq and Afghanistan, that Blair is once again going to spend vast amounts of our cash on projects that not only fail to improve Britain in anyway, but actually make it a more dangerous place to live.

For over fifty years countries around the world have had nuclear capabilities. But, save Hiroshima and Nagasaki, noone has ever used them. Quite wise really, because the results would be total war, utter devastation, whole countries would be wiped out.

The only reason countries like Iran and North Korea are building up their nuclear arsenals, which are at present far smaller than ours or America's, is because, understandably, they view Blair and Bush as a pair of powerful, aggressive bullies, who are ready to lash out, unprovoked, at countries such as Iraq, on wholly flawed reasoning.

A bit like some thug in a pub, starting a fight with another man on a premise such as 'he looked at my missus'. Everyone knows nobody looked at his God-awful 'missus', but some thugs/politicians will say anything if it means they might get a chance to flash some muscle. Seriously, if you were an enemy of Blair or, worse still, Bush, wouldn't you want nuclear weapons too?

My point is that building a nuclear arsenal is an utterly pointless task. It can't ever be used in war, the only role it plays is that it allow countries to be smug about how powerful they are. It's a status symbol. A country with a nuclear arsenal is a bit like a gangster with a BMW. And I hate BMWs almost as much as I hate nuclear weapons.

But at least you know where you are with the thug in the pub. He dresses like a thug, acts like a thug, would probably be quite pleased if you called him a thug.

The problem with Blair is that he mocks us day in and day out by posing as an honest, respectable politician acting in the public interest. He outright denies that he is in fact a sleazy, corrupt, international gangster with about as much regard for his public as I have for nuclear weapons. Or BMWs.

What is worse, he won't even admit that we have nuclear bombs. He has the gall to label them 'nuclear detterents'. The implication being that of course we are far too civilised to ever use them, whereas those base savages in North Korea and Iran, they're building 'nuclear bombs'.

Please stop insulting my intelligence Mr Blair with your pathetic, transparent euphemisms. A bomb is a bomb is a bomb.

It's just such an injustice that we continue to be ruled by someone who is so preoccupied with his own status that he is prepared to squander vast amounts of public money on what is essentially a penis extension.

This is such a depressing pattern with men in power. The men that have ruled Britain since World War Two simply refuse to accept that Britain does not rule the world any more.

The Empire Is Over. Just get over it. No amount of sliming up to George Bush is ever going to bring it back. Like a pathetic, clingy ex-lover, Britain seems to think that the more it begs America to respect it, the further it will get.

Blair, you just look desperate. Stop trying to prove yourself. The Empire is over, and we're all fine about it. We're happy the way we are. We don't need to prove ourselves on the world stage. You're just making matters worse for yourself and everyone else.

It's getting embarrassing now. By all means go and buy yourself a BMW, you fool, but a £25 billion nuclear arsenal? Just grow up.