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It’s about time that big business changed its tone.
I recently saw a piece of Barclays marketing spiel which stated:
Hypocritical talk considering the high street bank is set to take £7 billion worth of public money to ensure its future?
It seems to me a systemic problem: big business simply disregards the government as a tax-pinching meddler which gets in the way and ought to be circumvented wherever possible. Simply look at the Guardian’s investigations into tax avoidance for a miriad of examples.
The corporate and civil worlds need reuniting so that companies look after peoples interests, not profits. As citizens, with a democrat voice in the way that the country is ran, we can ensure that our best interests are kept at heart. With the world of big business, it is the moneyed few – the stakeholders, which decide whose interests need protecting.
The government has to rein in capitalism and implement a fairer, socialist policy. If it lets business maintain this heady bravado, closed interests and disregard for society, we will simply keep banging our heads against the brick wall of recession; perennially, for time immemorium.
Twitter seems to be what everybody is talking about. So I’ll join the conversation too… how adventurous of me.
Heraled as the latest ‘next big thing’ in the forever changing new-media, social-networking market, Twitter has had a lot of hype. Is this rightly so? And why is it that newspapers just love writing about the thing?
Well, there are no hard and fast answers. All Twitter seems to be is Facebook lite: cutting out the crap of those cluttersome distractions; photographs, videos, wall posts, applications and a million other cunning office time wasting devices.
That said, Facebook; and it’s inferior, outdated, childish counterpart Myspace, quite often rack up column inches like nobodies business too, though perhaps less so in recent months. A little while ago it seemed that the equation: daft young middle class hoodlum + parents away for the weekend + facebook and/or Myspace event invite = sure fire press coverage of resulting bacchanalian orgy.
These days, Twitter is grabbing all of the limelight. Earlier this month a Liverpudlian entrepreneur who tragically died in a skiing accident was chronichled by the Metro free newspaper as the ‘man who was found dead after a rescue mission was played out on the Twitter website’; surely this is secondary to the fact that the businessman lost his life?
One reason the media may be barking up the Twitter tree is that they feel the need to be ‘in touch’ with current and changing trends in the youthful world of contemporary communication. The established media are always in a flap about being representative of their audience, so throwing in articles mentioning Twitter, Facebook and Myspace; or indeed peoples comments posted on the aforementioned sites, seems the perfect answer to make them current.
The Guardian are a perfect example, with editor Alan Rusbridger leading the charge for all things new media; insisting on the importance of online communities and new approaches to news production and communication.
However, it all feels a little contrite. Sure, the old school are trying to move with the new in an effort to keep current and representative, which is important and necessary, though their over zealous nature is perhaps too far ahead of the pace.
The established journos are perhaps worried that these forms of new media will drag audiences away, making them over zealous endorsers of anything ‘new’ or ’social’ media in the hope that they can cover all bases for the future.
Recently, it seems that the government have jumped on the same bandwagon (with the Guardian interestingly putting it front page…) by announcing that school children were to be taught how to use Twitter and blogs, rather than more traditional subjects such as the Victorians or the Second World War.
Sounds utter nonsense to me. Maybe the government feel they need to be in touch with the ‘latest trends’, though once again, they take it too far. Twitter and blogs are primarily SOCIAL, i.e. something you learn and mess about with in your own time. It certainly isn’t something which desperately needs teaching.
Can you imagine what school children might do with Twitter?
Jonny2k9 Paul just broke my Action Man! I hate him!
10 minutes ago from web
Paulreds4lyf Jonny smells of wee!
8 minutes ago from web
Amy2002 School is rubbish. I want to go home 
5 minutes ago from web
Productive, non?
‘Labour Party politics had become a variant of Conservatism, ‘revolutionary’ politics had become a game of make-believe.’
George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn (1940)
The death of reality TV star Jade Goody is stuck, like a rabbit in the headlights, in the public gaze. Though as with the death of any person, this blogger asks, surely a few steps back from the limelight and a level of grace and consideration ought to be taken?
Not to be so, it seems.
The cancer stricken star, who passed away on Sunday, has led the strangest celebrity life; perhaps one which is unique to her, though perhaps one which is also unique to our voyeuristic age.
Millions of people; including prime minister Gordon Brown and the Bishop of Greater London, Johnathan Blake, have rallyed around the star in mourning. Though it all seems a little much. After all, Jade has been vilified in the past and detested for her common nature and lack of intellect. Why has ‘the nation’ suddenly joined in arms to memorialise her in a positive light?
Jade was a different kind of celebrity, perfectly suited to the 21st century. Arguably, she reflected the working class (and some might even say underclass) backgrounds that millions of people across the country can associate with. She was ‘one of us’, would be an apt phrase.
Though what this says about 21st century British society ought to be a worry. Jade Goody did not represent, in my opinion, the best attributes found in the British as a nation. She stood for good luck, rather than hard work and ignorance, rather than intellect.
Her death, arguably, was the ultimate conclusion of the reality tv era. An era which Britain has been engrossed by for the past decade.
In my opinion, this is simply too much. Reality tv as a medium is one which captivates and disgusts in the same swathe. We watch it to reveal the unspoken truths in us all, and to remind ourselves that we are all only human, warts and all. Yet we also watch it like one might watch a car crash – with stark disbelief. It is an oft aired idea that the producers of the reality tv show Big Brother, deliberately attempt to throw together people who won’t get on in order to leave the consequences open for the viewing public to watch.
This type of voyeurism should not be applied to the death of a person. Some argue that it has been tasteful, or necessary, as it will pay for the future and education of Jade’s children. The latter might sound worthy, though considering the sums of money that will inevitably changed hands, it loses some credibility. The former, is most certainly not true. There must surely be nothing more tasteless than a memorial edition of a glossy magazine whilst the subject is still alive.
The death of any person is a harrowing and disturbing process for all involved. To have the whole nation involved takes something special, it takes the national mood to be captured. Jade has already been compared to Princess Diana; surely an over generous statement.
In my opinion, the media have manipulated Jade’s unfortunate, early and tragic demise and manipulated it to sell copy; in a visceral appeal to the reality tv loving, warts and all car crash voyeur nature hidden within us all, with a loose guise of wider significance; of national mood, of common ground and of good deeds to give an edge of credibility to the publicity.
I have no quibble with Jade, in spite of her flaws. I take issue simply with the way she has been used to sell copy. Yes, her death was tragic – as would the death of any young mother from a brutal and devestating disease such as cervical cancer, and we may sympathise with her family. Though it should be little more. Those who believe the greater significance of her passing ought to pause for thought. This, for all the above reasons, ought not to be an instance of national mourning.
The strange world of northern soul is making an unanticipated comeback and this time it’s gripping the imagination of many, rather than the traditional ‘chosen few’.
Born out of mid 1960s African American soul music, northern soul is an up-tempo, heavy-beat style of music that was once the dance genre of choice of northern England’s club scene.
The 1960s brought rock and roll, rhythm and blues and many other traditionally African American genres to the fore – with white artists covering the music to bring it into the mainstream. Soul music was one such genre enjoying the limelight in the 60s, and a series of independent record labels churned out a plethora of wannabee soul singers – some of whom were to become chart-topping stars, whilst others would be consinged to the footnotes of history.
As the era wore on, the soul sound began to change; from a beat heavy, energetic and fresh sound to a more measured, refined and smooth genre. Many soul fans’ tastes developed with the trends of the day – though in the north of England, dancers chose to stick with the raw sounds and styles of the early soul movement.
As a result of the American soul genre’s progression to a more sophisticated plain, the northerners found their supply of uptempo music running dry – gradually forcing them to dig out rarer soul sounds from the original era, revitalising the histories of the once commercialy failing soul singers. And so it was that the strange, collectioneering world of northern soul was born.
From the mid 1960s up until the early 1980s, clubs such as the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, the Blackpool Mecca, the Golden Torch in Stoke on Trent and the world famous Wigan Casino began to move to a rarer soul groove, refusing to move with the trends and prefering the original sounds – no matter how obscure.
The era was one orignal northern soul fans remember with pride, though some others of the same generation can often be found to critise the movement – with its sweat stenched dancefloors, baggy trousers, brogues and brummy bags all being memories some would love to forget.
However, northern soul is making a comeback. In spite of the older critics, a new generation are accessing the rare sounds of the 60s, and it’s not just in the north of England, but in the south and even accross the world.
In Liverpool – a city not well known for its historical role in the story of northern soul – there are a range of clubs playing the beat heavy tracks of a bygone era. These places are not however the dancefloor meccas of old – they are modern day nightclubs, looking for an edge.
It seems that, to an extent, the nightclub culture of today is tired of straight, down the line dance music – or even other popular genres such as rock and indie. Instead, many clubs are cashing in on the ambiguous soul sound – something which has an ever more proven appeal on a wide range of audiences. Clubs such as Heebiejeebies in Liverpool regularly play mainstream soul classics with great success – attracting a broad spectrum of party goers.
Though the rarer soul sounds are popular still too. Specialist clubnights can be found across the UK, though no longer in the small towns as much but in the city centres. Nights can be found across the world these days too – with specialist nights in Amsterdam, San Francisco and Sydney.
It seems now that what was once a strange, unknown world from the north of England has outgrown its original generation and location.
Today, northern soul is often found played alongside rhythm and blues, psdychedelia, beat and garage rock classics in an eclectic modish sample of the 1960s. It is enjoyed by a new younger generation of fans inspired by the music of their parents and danced to (perhaps with less aplomb than the wooden dancefloor obsessed soulsters of the 70s and 80s) in opposition to the repetitive thud of contemporary dance music.
It has ceased to be a strange, exclusive world of collecting rare records and has joined other historically alternative genres being sought en masse by a generation sick of being fed the musical endgame that is chart pop, indie, hip-hop and dance.
Northern soul is perhaps not ‘keeping the faith’ as it used to, though it is still very much alive.
