Misnomers

I am going to break two of my cardinal rules  at once over the course of this post, for it is the first in the history of this blog that could be adequately described as a whinge. I have something of a personal hatred against these on principle that they never improve anybody’s life or even the world in general, but I’m hoping that this one is at least well-meaning and not as hideously vitriolic as some ‘opinion pieces’ I have had the misfortune to read over the years.

So…

A little while ago, the BBC published an article concerning the arrest of a man suspected of being a part of hacking group Lulzsec, an organised and select offshoot of the infamous internet hacking advocates and ‘pressure group’ Anonymous. The FBI have accused him of being part of a series of attacks on Sony last May & June, in which thousands of personal details on competition entries were published online. Lulzsec at the time made a statement to the effect that ‘we got all these details from one easy sting, so why do you trust them?’, which might have made the attack a case of trying to prove a point had the point not been directed at an electronics company and was thus kind of stupid. Had it been aimed at a government I might have understood, but to me this just looks like the internet doing what it does best- doing stuff simply for the fun of it. This is in fact the typical motive behind most Lulzsec activities, doing things ‘for teh lulz’, hence the first half of their name and the fact that their logo is a stick figure in typical meme style.

The BBC made reference to their name too in their coverage of the event, but since the journalist involved had clearly taken their information from a rather poorly-worded sentence of a Wikipedia article he claimed that ‘lulz’ was a play on words of lol, aka laugh out loud. This is not, technically speaking, entirely wrong, but is a bit like claiming the word ‘gay’ can now be used to mean happy in general conversation- something of an anachronism, albeit a very recent one. Lulz in the modern internet sense is used more to mean ‘laughs’ or ‘entertainment’, and  ‘for teh lulz’ could even be translated as simply ‘for the hell of it’. As I say, the argument was not expressly wrong as it was revealing that this journalist was either not especially good at getting his point across or dealing with slightly unfamiliar subject matter.

This is not the only example of the media getting things a little wrong when it comes to the internet. A few months ago, after a man was arrested for viciously abusing a celebrity (I forget who) using twitter, he was dubbed a ‘troll’, a term that, according to the BBC article I read, denotes somebody who uses the internet to bully and abuse people (sorry for picking on the BBC because a lot of others do it too, but I read them more than most other news sources). However, any reasonably experienced denizen of the internet will be able to tell you that the word ‘troll’ originated from the activity known as ‘trolling’, etymologically thought to originate from fishing (from a similar route as ‘trawling’). The idea behind this is that the original term was used in the context of ‘trolling for newbies’, ie laying down an obvious feeder line that an old head would recognise as being both obvious and discussed to its death, but that a newer face would respond to earnestly. Thus ‘newbies’ were fished for and identified, mostly for the amusement of the more experienced faces. Thus, trolling has lead to mean making jokes or provocative comments for one’s own amusement and at the expense of others, and ‘troll’ has become descriptive of somebody who trolls others. Whilst it is perhaps not the most noble of human activities, and some repeat offenders could definitely do with a bit more fresh air now and again, it is mostly harmless and definitely not to be taken altogether too seriously. What it is also not is a synonym for internet abuse or even (as one source has reported it) ‘defac[ing] Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families’. That is just plain old despicable bullying, something that has no place on the internet or the world in general, and dubbing casual humour-seekers such is just giving mostly alright people an unnecessarily bad name.

And here we get onto the bone I wish to pick- that the media, as a rule, do not appear to understand the internet or its culture, and instead treat it almost like a child’s plaything, a small distraction whose society is far less important than its ability to spawn companies. There may be an element of fear involved, an intentional mistrust of the web and a view to hold off embracing it as long as possible, for mainstream media is coming under heavy competition from the web and many have argued that the latter may soon kill the former altogether. This is as maybe, but news organisations should be obliged to act with at least a modicum of neutrality and respectability, especially for a service such as the BBC that does not depend on commercial funding anyway. It would perhaps not be too much to ask for a couple of organisations to hire an internet correspondent, to go with their food, technology, sports, science, environment, every country around the world, domestic, travel and weather ones, if only to allow issues concerning it to be conveyed accurately by someone who knows what he’s talking about. If it’s good enough for the rest of the world, then it’s surely good enough for the culture that has made mankind’s greatest invention what it is today.

OK, rant over, I’ll do something a little more normal next time out.

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The Great Mr Adams

As one or two of you may be aware, my very first post on this blog extolled the virtues of one man- a certain Dr M von Vogelhausen of Amazon, internet, and his truly legendary reviews. He’s still a legend, check  his stuff out. However, since then I haven’t done a one-man profile again, but today that is about to change, as I review a man once described as ‘a possible fragment of the humour singularity’. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mr Douglas Adams.

Now, I am quite aware that Adams, being a bestselling novelist and general public figure, is quite more well known than Dr M is, and probably doesn’t need me to add to the chorus of voices who have extolled his virtues over the years. But bring him up I nonetheless do, for three reasons- firstly, there are STILL some new people I meet who have never heard of him, despite the fact that his earliest work is now 34 years old, secondly because I would like to reintroduce those who have been put off by his odd writing style and inability to tell a straight-faced joke and labelled him ‘unfunny’ to his world, and thirdly because I had something of a Hitchiker’s refreshment course yesterday evening. It was awesome.

So, Douglas Adams: born in Cambridge in 1952, his story really comes to be of interest in 1971, whilst hitch-hiking around Europe. Lying drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, with his copy of ‘The Hitchiker’s Guide to Europe’ beside him and staring up at the Milky Way above him, he thought that somebody really ought to make a Hitchiker’s guide to the Galaxy as well, showing the sparks of offbeat, eccentric genius that would typify his later work. After graduating from Cambridge University he headed to London to try and break into radio & TV as a writer, following his English degree and a passion for creative writing. Despite working with Monty Python’s Graham Chapman for a while and even appearing in a couple of sketches, he struggled to fit in with writing for his chosen media, and work was slow for much of the seventies. Then, in 1978, he began working on a six-part radio series called ‘The Ends of the Earth’, the idea being that each episode would end with the world being destroyed in a different way. Working on the first episode, Adams realised he had a problem. To make his story work, he needed there to be an alien of some sort on Earth, and more importantly a reason for him to be there. Eventually, his piece of 7 year-old inspiration came back to him, and his character became a roving researcher for a wholly remarkable book: The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The character became Ford Prefect (so named because, having not done his research properly, he thought that the name would be nicely inconspicuous) and, along with the tea-obsessed, dressing gown-wearing and very English main character Arthur Dent, would become a central feature of both that episode and, as Adams quickly changed tack to follow this new story instead of writing 5 new ones, the rest of the series of The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.

That radio series was broadcast in 1978, and catapulted Adams to fame. It was something of a love/hate thing- some thought Adams quirky, offbeat sense of humour was weird and unfunny, whilst others declared him a comic genius for the invention of, say, the Babel fish:

The Babel Fish is small, yellow, leech like, and possibly the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brainwave energy, absorbing unconscious frequencies and then excreting a complex matrix formed from the concious frequencies picked up from the speech centres of the brain- the practical upshot of which is that if you stick one in your ear you can instantly understand everything said to you in any form of language. The speech you here decodes the brainwave matrix.

Now, it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could evolve purely by chance that many races have chosen to use it as final clinching proof of the nonexistence of God*. The argument goes something like this:

“I refuse to prove that I exist” says God, “for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing”

“BUT” says man “the Babel Fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don’t, QED”

“Oh dear” says God “I hadn’t thought of that”, and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

“Oh that was easy” says man, and for an encore he goes on to prove that black is white and get’s killed on the next zebra crossing.

Meanwhile the poor Babel fish, having effectively removed all barriers of communication between species, has caused more and bloodier wars than any race in the history of the galaxy.

*It is worth mentioning that Adams was a staunch atheist

So… yeah, that’s Douglas Adams humour- my unfortunate friends have to put up with me spouting that kind of stuff a lot. That’s hardly an isolated example either, for Adams has proposed, explained or made mention of the concepts of spaceships powered by improbability (and, indirectly, tea), restaurant mathematics and bad news, exactly how to throw oneself at the ground and miss, custom-made luxury planet building, a restaurant at the end of the universe that works by being impossible in at least 6 ways, the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster (the effect of which is like having your brain smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick) the unimaginable usefulness of a towel, the Somebody Else’s Problem field, Vogon Poetry (and that of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings, a corruption of the name of someone Adams went to university with) and the Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe, And Everything (42, in case you’re interested- they just keep having problems finding the Ultimate Question). To name but a few. You get the general picture.

After the success of the first radio series, the BBC commissioned a second. Between and after this, Adams turned his attention to novel writing, and began a tradition of substantially rewriting the storyline with each new incarnation of it to, among other things, ‘annoy the fans’. The first part of what would later become his famous ‘trilogy in five parts’ was published in 1979, and was later followed by The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life the Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless (all of which are references to parts of the first book). He also produced a 1981 TV adaptation, and a few other projects including the novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, the little joke dictionary The Meaning of Liff, and a radio series and book entitled Last Chance to See, about endangered species.

But… what is it that makes him so special? Why the cult following? Why national towel day? Why do I know that Babel Fish quote above by heart? Well… I really don’t know. I can’t quantify the quirkiness, the jokes, the flashes of abstract genius that none bar perhaps Terry Pratchett have ever emulated, the way that every successive adaptation is sufficiently different that every fan’s experience is a little difference. I was indoctrinated through the radio series, think the TV adaptation is rubbish and that the books can’t quite capture the humour as well- but other people I know insist that the literary form is the greatest piece of writing in the universe. As for the film, I think it’s… different and not quite as amazing, but for some of my friends it’s their only dip in the ocean of Adams, and they loved every minute. Others thought it was terrible. It’s a funny old thing.

Adams died in 2002, long before his time. As Richard Dawkins said, in his passing “science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender”. But his stories will never die, so long as there are people willing to enjoy and remember them. They are not stories for everyone, but they’re something everyone should try, just in case they’re perfect for you. And remember, on May 25th: everyone should know where his towel is.

Engerlaaannd…

As you may have heard if you happen to live in the universe, the UEFA European Football Championship (or Euro 2012 to give it it’s proper title) is on at the moment and, as with every football tournament for the last half century, English football fans have been getting typically overexcited. Well, I say that, but this time appears to be the exception to the rule- whilst every major international tournament that I can remember has been prefaced by hideously optimistic predictions from a large proportion of fans as to the extent to which ‘We’re gonna trash everyone’, English fans appeared to have entered this tournament feeling rather more subdued. After the rather calamitous events of the last World Cup, the breakup of the hitherto successful Capello regime and the appointment of the relatively unknown owl-impersonator Roy Hodgson as the new Manager, everyone seems, for a change, rather dubious to accept the idea that England are actually going to be all that good, especially when coupled with a crop of players who I am told are not exactly the cream of international football.

To be honest, I don’t know any of this- that’s just what I’ve picked up from reading the papers and listening to people bang on about it. I am not a great follower of football (never have been), and don’t have too much interest in the workings of the football universe, but from a mixture of misguided patriotism and a desire not to appear hypocritical when I try to persuade people to watch the rugby, I have been keeping track of England’s progress in the tournament, watching some of the games when I can, and catching up on news and highlights when I can’t.

And I have, honestly, been pleasantly surprised.

Not so much with the quality on football on offer, not that I think it’s bad. What I saw of the Sweden match was certainly dramatic and exciting, with some great skill being showcased, and to see England winning and playing well against top-drawer sides makes a nice change from hearing of 0-0 draws with Luxembourg. No- what’s really impressed me is the attitude of the players.

There are a lot of labels and insults that we of the rugby-playing fraternity like to throw at our soccer rivals, partly in jealousy at their increased popularity and influence as a sport, and partly because we believe every single one of them to be true. Footballers are dubbed ‘wimps’ for their consistently entertaining dramatic falls from the most gentle of tackles, prima donnas for their rich lifestyles and expensive hairdos, morons for… well, Wayne Rooney’s  existence, and pretentious douchebags (or any other appropriate insult) for their disrespectful and often aggressive complaints towards the referee. All such things,  particularly the latter, are considered rather taboo subjects in rugby circles, and the ultimate insult for misconduct is to be accused of ‘acting like a footballer’ (although getting completely smashed in a pub and being carried out by your mates is considered fair game).

But… well, let me tell you of my experience of watching (admittedly only the end), of England’s first match against France. After a few minutes, Frenchman Franck Ribery got a flick in the face from Alex Oxlaide-Chamberlain’s hand and, predictably, went down like he’d just been slapped by a tiger. Since he couldn’t see the incident very well (and his linesman was presumably thinking of what he’d have for dinner this evening), the referee awarded the penalty to France. And Oxlaide-Chamberlain turned round, looked affronted… and then shrugged, turned his back and jogged away, without so much as a murmur. “That’s odd”, thought I, and I carried on watching, slightly intrigued.

Then, I seem to remember after a French corner, there was a scuffle in the box. A group of players challenged for the ball, it flew out from the crush and every player fell over. Each man summarily got up, dusted himself off, and ran off after the ball. A Frenchman or two may have been a touch miffed to have been denied a free kick, but other than a quick glance over at the ref to check he wasn’t going to award the penalty there was no real complaint. The commentators barely picked up on it. “Interesting”, I thought, and my intrigue rose.

There were other things too, small things. One player got tackled rather scrappily on a run at the defence, causing him to slip over- instead of appealing for the foul, he struggled to get up and keep going, keeping the move and the continuity flowing. And this kind of stuff happened regularly- other than the Ribery incident, I didn’t see a single player diving, indulging in melodrama, or even complaining at the ref for the entire period I watched (which admittedly was only for twenty or so minutes, but even so)

Some of this can, of course, be put down to the referee- in fact I think the man deserves credit for trying to keep the game moving and maintain some continuity, despite the BBC’s claims that he was biased towards the French. It certainly made for a far more interesting display than the usual stop-start, free kick orientated style of modern football. But I think credit is due to Roy Hodgson and his men, to every player, French and English (Franck Ribery excepted), on that pitch for those 90 minutes. From what I saw of the other two games, England have kept up their record of good behaviour on the pitch, concentrating on playing well and building their reputation in the tournament on the right things, rather than their misdemeanours. In fact I would go so far as to say that this England football side have looked after themselves and their reputation better than their rugby compatriots at the world cup in New Zealand last year, if only because they haven’t found a bar that offers dwarf-tossing.

Many a more experienced and more knowledgeable football commenter than me has offered their thoughts on this year’s tournament, and I know that they have found the festival of goals, skill and upsets before them a really enjoyable one, and rightly so. But from a more neutral perspective, as a non-footballer, I would just like to say: thank you England, for restoring to your sport some dignity.