spodgod

I wonder if 2010 will be the year that mainstream marketing starts to understand the reach of online publishing. A recent exchange I had doesn’t bode well for it:

“Hi Kyle,” barked the PR guy on the other end of the line, “[COMPANY NAME] accidentally emailed us your request to try out a [GADGET NAME]”.

“Um, OK,” I said.

“We represent [DIFFERENT COMPANY NAME] and were wondering if you’d like to look at a [ANOTHER GADGET NAME] too”.

“Um, OK,” I said.

“You could probably do a round-up in Spiffy Widgets Magazine,” he said eagerly, completely misunderstanding how technology journalism actually works.

“Well, actually, I just write for the web site,”

“Oh,” he said, a little sadly, “Do you think you can get something into print?”

“Not in Spiffy Widgets Magazine,” I said.

“Do you write for anyone else?” he asked, a little desperately.

“Yes, I do. Web Thing Monthly, Shiny PC, Computer and Video Insides…”

“Yeah, yeah,” he interrupted. Then, sighing, said, “OK, we’ll get a handset out to you by the end of the week. Bye, Kevin”.

“Cool. Do you need my address?”

Click. Brrrrrrrrr.

An open letter to everyone who has asked me to sign a petition registering my disagreement with Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time.

Dear Friends,

I appreciate and understand your stance.  I really do.  When I heard that Nick Griffin was going to be on Question Time, my knee jerked too – and when it jerked it told me pretty much the same thing yours did.  ”It shouldn’t be allowed! He’s vile and racist! Down with this sort of thing!”

But then I had a think and listened to my brain instead of my knee.  My considered conclusion, arrived at before I banged my head really hard on the edge of a cupboard door last night, is that Griffin’s appearance on Question Time – rather than giving him a legitimising platform to pontificate his risible ideology – will probably be his undoing.  Here’s why:

We live in an age in which television is still a powerful medium. It’s no longer at its three channel peak of influence, but TV still has authority and reach.

However, it is now joined by many other channels of communication – from YouTube to Twitter; media through which the BNP has been able to spread its propaganda unchecked and unchallenged. Freedom of information production is one of the beautiful and terrible things about the post-industrial era.

But public funded TV – wheezy and anachronistic as it is – is one of the last truly mediated mediums we have. The BBC may be rife with petty bias, but it usually gets the broad strokes right.  And one of the things it usually gets right is Question Time.

Question Time’s audience is chosen and screened carefully. They are politically active and motivated individuals. Have you seen the rough ride they give to politicians about relatively trivial things like parliamentary expenses, rubbish collection and the postal service? Can you imagine what they’ll do to someone proposing repatriation, the restoration of capital punishment and an isolationist economic policy?

And you can bet that Mr Griffin’s fellow panellists will be well prepared to challenge his views. Rather than legitimise the BNP with mainstream acceptance my hope – nay, my expectation – is that it will expose it as the vile organisation it is.  Griffin’s polemic may be as polished as a New Labour turd, but underneath that millimetre of marketing varnish lies the real stuff of the BNP. My guess is that it won’t take much scratching to show.

But – my friends counter – that won’t matter. The people who have been recruited by the BNP’s overt agenda, the disenfranchised white working class, probably won’t be watching.  Question Time? Not bloody likely.

Well, that’s where those other channels of communication come in.  YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. Even the good old tabs. You can count on them to drum up and amplify any snifter of controversy into a gallon of calamity.  If I were Nick Griffin’s advisor right now, I’d tell him to put on his seatbelt – because he’s heading for a car crash.

This could well be Nick’s Nixon moment.

Love,

Karl

I was in the last batch of students to enjoy a free education. Graduating in 1989 from my first degree, I received a full, means tested grant with my tuition fees included. What’s  more, my parents got tax relief on any contribution they gave me under Deed of Covenant rules, I was able to sign on and claim income support during the long, summer holiday and had my rent paid through housing benefit. As the 90s crested the horizon, all that disappeared – almost overnight.

Tax covenants between individuals were binned in 1988. The Conservative government decreased the value of grants and began phasing in “Top Up” loans in 1990. Housing Benefit was withdrawn from students in the same year. That was soon followed by the introduction of tuition fees and full loans.

Today, a CBI report suggests that Universities aren’t charging students enough for  courses. This comes at time when I am a student once again – so it’s no surprise that I don’t agree with their statement. It may be a surprise that I disagree with the main argument of those in opposition to the CBI; that raising fees will prevent anyone who wants an education from going to University.

Well, that’s just a silly argument. Why should everyone be entitled to a University education?

You may have forgotten this, but there was a time when degrees had real value, when your bog standard BA (hons) meant something.  Now it’s an entry level qualification.  And, though I’m ostensibly still a Labour voter, I believe it’s largely the fault of left wing educational policy.

Labour have been consistent in one aspect of their manifesto over the years; education is a right that should be available to everyone. They introduced the original maintenance grant system in 1946 (made mandatory by a Tory government in 1962). Labour established degree awarding Polytechnics in the 1960s as vocational alternatives to the academic focus of the old Universities.  Then, in the 90s, New Labour rewrote the old dictum to reflect their love of the free market. Higher education became seen as a right that should be available to everyone who can afford it.

Both positions, the original and the amendment, are flawed. They have at their heart the delusion of equality; the old school,  socialist denial of meritocracy. And while New Labour were and are far from socialist, they still cherry pick and laminate the bits of Marxist ideology that play best to the crowd.

If the CBI’s suggestion is given credence, the fact that poorer students will be excluded from education by ever-increasing fees isn’t the whole problem.  It’s more damaging to our country’s social mobility that rich, less able kids  get to go to university instead.  Tim Nice-But-Dim.  Jocasta Cash-Flow Thicke. That’s the inevitable outcome of a higher education system driven solely by free market economics.

What we really need is a smaller, free-at-the-point-of access system that caters specifically for those who will benefit most from higher education; the brightest students, regardless of economic background or ability to pay.

This should be combined  with more free, vocational training at Further Education level. Not degrees. Not academic qualifications. Modern apprenticeships and Higher NVQs.  Qualifications that give people a realistic chance of getting a job – and help to preserve the prestige of having an academic degree.

Which, funnily enough, is pretty much what we had in the late 70s and 80s before the Thatcher government screwed everything up.

And, by the way, I’m not suggesting that higher education should entirely be denied to less scholastic candidates.  The Open University is a superb institution – with a long established pay-as-you-learn model that’s ideal for self-improvers and educational hobbyists.  It should be expanded and funded further, promoted aggressively and cherished. As for the Tim Nice-But-Dims of the world – I’m sure they’ll find a way to thrive.  They always do.

“People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.”

So said The Investor’s Business Daily as part of an anti health care tirade on July 31st.

Thing is, Stephen Hawking is British and lives in England. At 67, he is the longest surviving sufferer of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ever documented – and that is in part due to the treatment he’s received from the NHS. Don’t take my word for it though; this is what the Prof himself said on the matter:

“I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high quality treatment without which I would not have survived.” — Stephen Hawking, August 11, 2009*

I don’t know which is more offensive, frankly; the inaccurate depiction of the NHS or the assumption that Hawking is American. I guess it must be his accent…

*source

Microsoft are beta testing a document sharing and viewing service that integrates directly with your desktop version of Office.  Office Live Workspace is sort of like Google Docs, except you have to buy £300 worth of desktop software to use it, because there are no online editing tools.  What you do get is some space where you can post Office documents and Outlook data and a handy plug-in that enables you to save files direct to your online repository.  There were blog mumblings before the launch that MS was about to birth a full version of Office online – competing comprehensively with Google’s growing roster of productivity offerings.  What we’ve actually got is a halfway house.  Office owners can effectively move much of their work online with this beta – especially if they’re already integrating Outlook with Live Hotmail.  If you’re looking for an alternative to the desktop suite though, you’re out of luck.  Better go and check out Zoho or ThinkFree instead.

Fan produced Star Trek series Phase II may not be as fannish as it first seemed. A statement issued by director Marc Zicree suggests a level of professional involvement in the “franchise” that was previously unsuspected…

Star Trek fans can’t get enough of their favourite show. There are ten movies already, with a high profile $160 million new project on the way, 600 TV episodes, a gazillion novels and a bunch of comics. And yet, fans still want more – so they make their own Star Trek.

Filmed with high resolution digital cameras on authentic looking replica sets, Star Trek: Phase II (previously known as New Voyages) takes over where the original Star Trek ended – co-opting the name that Gene Roddenbury chose for his failed attempt to revive the original series on the small screen. Playing out the archetypal fan fantasy, a plucky bunch of Trek-nerds recast themselves as their Sci-Fi heroes, facing the same jeopardy, saying the same lines, wearing the same velour jerseys and ill-fitting trousers as the original Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

Phase II isn’t the only Trek fan film on the block. Star Trek: Exeter and Star Trek: Hidden Frontier are also contenders as fan favourites. Still, the “series” which has so far released four episodes, is eminently notable for the talent it attracts. Former Chekov actor Walter Koenig appeared in the Dorothy Fontana penned episode To Serve All My Days. That’s the same DC Fontana who acted as script editor on the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Though the first two episodes of New Voyages were decidedly shaky, with amateur acting, fan fiction narratives and poor CGI, the series came on several leaps and bounds with the Fontana penned episode. There were outstanding performances from Koenig and young actor Andy Bray, both playing Ensign Pavel Chekov. Production values rose to match the quality of the script and talent on screen.

The latest entry, World Enough and Time stars George Takei reprising his role as helmsman Sulu and was written by former DS9 scribes Marc Zicree and Michael Reeves. The episode was so well received that it won a TV Guide award for best web based media – up against Lost and Battlestar Galactica. The screenplay has been nominated for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer’s of America’s highest trinket – the Nebula, in the same category as the Doctor Who episode “Blink” and dark fantasy “Pan’s Labyrinth”.

And there the controversy begins.

There’s a dispute bubbling among SFWA members as to the professional legitimacy of Star Trek:Phase II. From an outside perspective the argument seems a bit churlish – opponents say that World Enough… isn’t a professional production so it shouldn’t be eligible at all. One of the loudest voices is Keith R.A. DeCandido, a science fiction writer who specialises in tie-in novels – a category that the Nebulas have traditionally shown antipathy towards. In a post on his LiveJournal blog, Candido says:

“Look, this isn’t a knock on the fan films as such. But that’s what they are — they’re fan films. They are not professionally produced. What’s more, they’re unauthorized and, by the letter of the law, illegal. In fact, one of the reasons why they’re not prosecuted, is because they don’t turn a profit, which is one of the legion of ways that they’re not professionally produced…”

Now World Enough and Time director Marc Zicree has weighed in with his point of view in a statement prepared for the SFWA. The argument he constructs is interesting in itself… but what’s more interesting is how incredibly candid he is about how connected Phase II actually is. The show’s fannish producers, lead by Kirk actor James Cawley, have traditionally been tight lipped about the privileged position Phase II/New Voyages enjoys with the studio. Not Marc Zicree.

He tells us that World Enough and Time was produced with the full co-operation and knowledge of Paramount and CBS (from “Business Affairs on down”), that he was given directorial advice by no less than J.J. Abrams while shooting the show and that several key personnel were paid for their involvement – including George Takei, and Zicree himself. The show had many professional crew members on board, hired by Zicree’s own production company, including a professional editor, Chris Cronin, who worked at industry rates. He lists a couple dozen more cast and crew members, each with extensive working credentials, some with Emmy and other awards to their names. He also mentions that a day of shooting actually took place on the Universal lot.

This ultimately begs the question we began with; is Star Trek: Phase II/New Voyages the first professional fan film? When your free, web released movie uses copyrighted characters, but is endorsed by CBS and Paramount; when it features fans in acting roles alongside Trek alumni; when amateur producers rub shoulders with directors who worked on Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation – where do you draw the line?

Here at Den of Geek we think Star Trek: Phase II could actually be the beginning of a new kind of media. The Internet brought these fans together, enabled them to build a profile and pool their resources. Now that technology is moving on and TV studios are taking notice, this fan film series has become a different animal altogether. Like Star Wars tie-in novels and Big Finish audio, Phase II is creeping towards legitimacy as a licensed product.

Our prediction? Watch out for CBS endorsed fan flicks coming to iTunes or a similar outlet soon…

***

Further Viewing:

Keith R.A. DeCandido argues against the inclusion of Star Trek: New Voyages in the Nebula nominations at LiveJournal.

Marc Zicree’s rebuttal and statement for the SFWA is available in full on Lee Whitehouse’s SFTV blog.

Three episodes of Star Trek: New Voyages are available for download. Future episodes will adopt the Phase II monicker. The first outing “Come What May” is no longer being distributed and we recommend giving “In Harm’s Way a wide berth, but “To Serve all my Days” and “World Enough and Time” are as close to classic Trek as makes no difference on a wet Sunday afternoon… See them here: www.startreknewvoyages.com

Star Trek: Exeter works on a much slower schedule than New Voyages, but their current episode “The Tressaurian Intersection” captures the spirit of Star Trek’s original series better than any other. An earlier episode and the first bits of teh second are available at www.exeterstudio.com

Another fan film full of former Trek actors is Star Trek: Of Gods and Men. Directed by Tim “Tuvok” Russ and starring Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig and Alan Ruck, it should be more “professional” than New Voyages. It’s lovely to see so many Trek alumni on screen, but awful to hear them spout such truly terrible dialogue. And the plot? We’ve already seen Yesterday’s Enterprise, Mirror Mirror, Charlie X and City on the Edge of Forever. Great episodes on their own, but unpalatable when put in a blender and whizzed up into a fan-wank smoothie. Still, worth a look for curiosity value. Catch it at www.startrekofgodsandmen.com

(This entry was originally published at Den of Geek)

We develop a shorthand bag of semantic tricks over the years, don’t we? The one liners you keep coming back to ‘cos they worked well the first and second time.

I’ve been using one particular line as a description of a potential dystopian future for a donkey’s age… It goes like this; someone with young kids will moan about how cheeky their four year old is getting. And I’ll reply, “Just wait until they’re 16, listening to music made with chainsaws and getting their eyeballs tattooed”. Then we laugh because it’s a bit silly. No one will be listening to Einsturzende Neubaten in 2020 – and eyeball tattoos? THAT’S JUST DAFT.

Then UK tabloid The Sun reports this:

World’s First Eyeball Tattoo

And I weep for the future. Weep blue tears

Saw “Babel” last night – which is kind of like Crash, in that it’s a cinematic attempt to show that our difference makes us the same; we all suffer, grieve, make mistakes and are betrayed.  Everyone’s human and everyone’s connected.  All that shite.

Except for the Brits.  The only Brits in the movie are a bunch of cowardly English arseholes who want to leave Cate Blanchette to die in the middle of the desert so they can go back to their hotel before the buffet closes.  And, I mean a whole coachload of them; all arseholes, all English, not a redeeming feature among the lot of them.

***

Tangentially, British cult hit “Life on Mars”, a cop show about a police officer who believes he has travelled back in time to the less politically correct 1970s, is being remade for the US market.  For every UK to US remake success (The (American) Office, Pop (American) Idol), there are a dozen or so complete fuck-ups.  The US version of Cracker, for example (not edgy enough)  or Coupling (not edgy enough) or Fawlty Towers (just crap). The really odd thing about this remake is the casting.  Colm Meany and Jason O’Mara, the leads in the US version,  are a pair of Irish guys.  Not pretending to be Irish, plastic shamrock, extra cold Guiness drinking ”Irish” Americans either; they’re proper Dublin born and bred.  

Why?

Maybe the TV executives think that if they have a cop show with a pair of English leads, Americans will get confused and start wondering where Jack Bauer is and why he hasn’t shot them yet.  

***

Perhaps I’m being a little hasty in my condemnation of Stateside media.  After all, I can think of two current acclaimed US TV shows, and a promising new one on the schedules where the lead role is taken by a Brit.  Hugh Laurie in House, Dominic West in The Wire and Michelle Ryan in The Bionic Woman.  All British. 

And all pretending to be American.

OK – maybe they’re not such good examples…

An eighth of England is currently still under water – this coming just a month after a different eighth of it had been temporarily transformed into a boating lake by similar ”freak” weather.

Yesterday I heard two different views on the Government’s role in all this:

Watching BBC News 24 (imagine a more laid back CNN, with plummy accents and less cheese) an irate woman went into a live tirade about the lack of preparation made; the fact that the local council had recently dismantled flood prevention barriers, that she and her daughter’s business would take months to recover. I was quite sympathetic until she chose to finish with “…and what does the government spend all it’s money on? All these foreigners coming for “asylum” or whatever. They should think about the people that live here first”… The report switched quickly back to the studio…

Later I was waiting for a train. A chatty Eastern European chap started talking to Parsley and I, showing us a copy of the Metro, a free paper distributed at bus and train stations.  The front page picture showed the town of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire under water. Funnily enough, he said a similar thing to the woman on TV – but with a crucial twist;

“This is a country where it rains,” he said “The government should fix what’s wrong here first, before it goes spending all its money invading Afganistan and Iraq”.

Both of those exchanges, in their own way, seemed very British to me.  Even in a state of emergency, people still cling to their pet bête noires – blaming them for the situation we’re in. 

Coke have redesigned their cans for the Japanese market.

If anything, it’s a simple reduction of a slick and overstated 80s style;  a more classic approach.  Not according to Coke’s marketing trolls though…

“We live in a world where we make choices every day and ‘The Coke Side of Life’ encourages people to make those choices positive ones,” said Marc Mathieu, senior vice president for carbonated soft drink core brands, marketing, strategy and innovation. “This new campaign invites people to create their own positive reality, to be spontaneous, listen to their hearts and live in full color.”Interesting.  I think he may be onto something there.  You see, the new design, coupled with those inspiring words, makes me want to create a positive reality where Coke marketing executives are chained inside a vat filled with Coke, their heads barely bobbing above the syrupy depths as they gasp for breath.  In this reality, we leave them there until the acid first puckers their flesh, then flays their skin and finally, cooks them.

That’s what happens when I listen to my heart.