How do I work? (Do I work?!)

Quickie

After the post-literary socio-deconstruction of my last two posts, this one shall be the equivalent of your starter for ten. Imagine I’m on Mastermind, it might make it funny

 

And with me in the studio tonight, we have Mr Hector Benjamin Roddan, Student. And your hobbies include Doctor Who, student radio, Doctor Who and the Labour Party. For your specialist subject, you have chosen stress and other immunochemical reactions…. Starting now.

Q1. What …

A: Aaargh!

Time for bed I think.

Homage

Combining truth and untruth is a carefully honed skill most often demonstrated in the construction of the TV news. What I have attempted here (in the preceding post) is a none too skillful attempt to combine several banal features — my standing on a rooftop, unusual weather six months ago and meteor sightings from a variety of places round the world — into a single narrative. If anything, I hope to demonstrate the ease with which an allegedly coherent narrative or story can be put together from disparate elements.

I deliberately avoided aping the “constant present” tense of broadcast journalism, despite the nature of my sources, since (a) it tires me and (b) I love H G Wells’ (who is paraphrased in some ways throughout the piece). In particular, I wanted to have a go at the Wellsian retrospective commentator which he employs to great effect in War of the Worlds, the Time Machine and Island of Dr Moreau among others.

The second, and perhaps more interesting aim of the piece was to demonstrate the power of a narrative (even a contrived and fictive one such as this). Of course, using the “constant present” and all the other acoutrement of modern journalism imbibes a much greater truth-value to a given piece. However, I hope that in this limited article I have shown the significant role of narrative in hinting at a particular causal explanation for given phenomenon. 

As a wise man once said, the right words, in the right order at the right moment in the right broadcast can collapse the economy, overthrow the government…

Moments

What do you call fiction and fact combined? Faction? Fict? Fation? Perhaps the precise term varies dependent on the particular amount of fact or fiction included. It could go like this…

 

It was the Austen footage from that warm Sunday in February that confirmed it. Even though the signs had been there for quite some time…

Something was happening — up there, in the skies above us. Some power or force was making itself known. Of course, we know now that the warning signs had been there for months. But tucked away in the back pages of BBC News Online, that fateful February, nobody knew. The Swedish footage had been dramatic, but that had barely made a ripple on the international press. Who could’ve linked the approach of the fireball with the unseasonable weather preceding it? Who could’ve known that the disrupted summer of 2008 was the work of far more than mere global warming?

That, on the cusp of the 21st century, some great power beyond the detection of human science was making itself known to us is beyond question. Yet as I stood on the roof in the balmy calm of that February evening, I was utterly oblivious to these portents or the brave new world they heralded…

Good News?

I agree with David Cameron. There, I’ve said it. Now to add the significant list of caveats… Actually, sod it. Anyone wanting to know my views on teflon toff boy merely has to glance through the archives of this blog.

But in all seriousness, times have changed. This has become a hackneyed cliche pretty much overnight as a result of the massive economic downturn/recession/depression/cock-up. A telling demonstration of this came today as old Etonian stereotype Cameron announced (like a character in Yes Minister*) bonuses for his chums in the city were, well, y’know, really not on. Extraordinarily, he did not rule out the nationalisation of the indebted behemoth. He went further in saying that low-level bonuses for ordinary employees of Leviathan bank Lloyds TSB (or LTSBHBOSRBS + Gloucester) were to be encouraged. 

This is true on a number of levels, the most obvious being that it is unfair to punish an employee for the flagrant crimes of his or her employer. Secondly, such bonuses will go a small way to kick-starting the all-important consumer spending which (in the manner of four hundred men trying to hold onto one single straw) the Government assures us is the only way out of the recession.

However, not only does Cameron’s observation demonstrate the political sea-change which the current deprecession it also makes a pertinent (if cheap) political point that the current “Labour” government continued the Thatcherite financial deregulation which got us into this mess. Admitting the mistake of this policy can only be a vote-winner. Banks owned by the public should be run in the public interest. 

The time for light touch regulation is over.

 

* Maybe a spin-off entitled “Yes Leader of the Opposition”
^ Why use one term when you can use them all?

Valentines

Two posts in one day? I’m practically on fire… no wait, I am actually burning up.

So its the annual capitalist smooch fest which from a cynical point of view is probably only designed to boost the revenue of Clintons’ Cards in the February lull between Christmas and Easter. This point was brought home to me by the rather excellent News Quiz on Radio 4 (yes, I”m that middle class) where it was observed that one bastion of the card industry is now retailing Christmas cards not just to your husband, boyfriend, wife and girlfriend but also for your cat.

I was dubious about the point of this endeavour until, some time later, I walked past an entirely fictional local restaurant and saw a man and a cat staring lovingly at each other over a single candle.

You can’t make it up can you… Or perhaps you can?

Focus — Return to the Blogsphere

I sit at my desk to start work. This does not happen so I go on to something else. Its the usual Gmail – Gmail – Facebook – Mail – Gmail – Gmail – Facebook cycle. Only on the fourth circuit does this behaviour seem a teensy bit eccentric and maybe a tad compulsive. I check my library books are all renewed instead (they are) — so I do a fifth lap.

Work has now, shall we say, slipped some distance from my mind, enough for me to make lunch, tidy my desk and have a nap. Within half an hour of waking up I find myself browsing with alleged interest through the Cardiff Students’ Union Annual Report.

This is officially a crisis. I can procrastinate in many novel and interesting ways. A non-exhaustive list could include the following: I can cook, I can write nonsense verse. I could do something alternatively productive like plan an essay or prepare for next weeks show (on 87.7 FM across Cardiff or xpressradio.co.uk for the rest of the globe — Fridays at 11), I could answer the growing mound of emails, I could go for a walk. I could fix my printer’s permanent USB related stutter. I could put my DVDs in chronological order. I could make my bed or do the laundry. I could listen to the radio. I could even watch telly. I could clean my room — and believe me, it needs it. I could straighten the rug in my room. I could straighten the rug in the hallway. I could even do both at the same time if I stretched a little. I could hoover the living room or sit in the garden. I could even stand outside in a t-shirt and get a cold, then I’d have something to really moan about.

But no, I am even procrastinating against procrastinating. For those (non-existent) avid readers who have noticed the dearth of bloggy goodness on these pages of late, welcome back. If you’re new, then thrice welcome. The ultimate tool of productive procrastination is back.