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As the “democracy village” are turfed out of their camp in the scorched and smelly square outside the home of democracy, I take the opportunity to review one of central London’s least impressive locations, an isolated and inaccessible grass and concrete traffic island — Parliament Square. Read it here.
This is another archival repost of something posted on the old blog in 2007.
What is it with Channel 4 and the examination of excretions? During How Toxic Are Your Kids (C4, Thurs 8pm) I had to check the television guide to make sure that Armando Iannucci (The Day Today, Brass Eye) wasn’t the producer. Apparently, this is episode two of two, and I’m so disappointed that I missed the first episode. The programme opens with presenter, Sarah Beeny, telling us that “on an average day alone, I’m exposed to over a thousand chemicals.” This is episode two: we’re onto the advanced level stuff. A token ounce of sense — “… natural chemicals (some good and some bad)” — is voice-overed in at one point, but mostly, “chemical” is a synonym for “toxin” and “natural” is a synonym for “healthy”. Indeed, the disclaimer comes after telling us that “prior to the 1950s, we only used natural chemicals.” There’s no evidence for this obviously nonsensical statement, but it’s a fact.
As is standard for mid-evening television “journalism”, we meet some wonderful characters. It’s so much easier to talk to some ordinary people — who are all very willing to play along, in return for their fifteen minutes — than to do some research, or find out some facts. There is the Scottish woman whose interior decoration mimics a neoclassical museum, and who has a selection of air fresheners in every room. “Some people might think it’s a bit excessive,” she tells us. The voice-over comes in with the fact that people who use air fresheners are more likely to suffer regularly from headaches, but the science behind this fact is never explained: do the chemicals in the air fresheners cause the headaches, or are headaches another symptom of the psychoses that these people are clearly suffering from? Journalists these days are so thorough in their investigating that they conduct studies and experiments. The data point in this experiment is a teenage girl who has her make-up and shampoo taken away, in return for some “natural” products. “Everyone’s looking at me like, ’she’s so ugly’.” No, dear, they’re looking at you like, “look at that girl being exploited by that film crew.” This is a scientific experiment, remember, and so an objective measure for results is required, and since it’s Channel 4, it has to involve analysing waste. But this crew is amateur: they stop at urine, rather going the whole Gillian McKeith. Then there’s the family that won’t eat any cooked food. “Don’t you ever just think, ‘oh, I really want some soup right now’?” Wow, yeah, soup. That’s exactly what I’d miss most if I gave up cooked food.
Pick a light-factual television programme from the archives and it should be possible to date it to within five years of its production merely by looking at the graphics. Graphics go through fashions, influenced by the latest technology. This one makes wonderful use of the virtual studio to create an amusing series of split screen scenes, for example. Either they just had so much to say and so little time that they had to resort to having two streams of information running at the same time, or it was simply the case that the presenter (left) was just so bored by what the scientist (right) was telling us that she had given up and was putting on her make-up instead. Another ubiquitous gimmick is to deliberately make the picture look bad. Bad picture quality is a way of immediately telling us “this is an informal ‘diary’ scene”: they’re the quality you’d get from cheap cameras of the variety one would use for home videos, or outside broadcasts from a cash strapped production company. Except they’re not. Cheap cameras have moved on since the early 1990s, but apparently, our expectations of picture quality haven’t kept up.
Everyone knows that alongside spectroscopic analysis of bodily productions, the way to do research is to conduct surveys. To the street! We get a montage of the people, who, after telling us that they never read the shampoo ingredients label (no shit, really?), all tell us that what they really want is more “natural”, “pure”, “essential oils” and “organic”. “It says 100% pure, therefore I know everything in there is going to be beneficial to me.” The presenter tells us: “nature is powerful stuff.” Yeah. As powerfully capable of harming us as synthetic chemicals. Still, it’s no good just telling us how bad chemicals are, clearly there is a demand for alternatives! “Although the levels of these chemicals aren’t considered dangerous, I’m going to see if I can reduce them.” And so, we get Aloe Vera for breakfast, and salt & lemon juice toothpaste. This is not science, it’s not journalism, and it’s not consumer advocacy. It’s classic infotainment. If Channel Four News is The Guardian of the television medium, the mid-evening slot is the Daily Mail. It’s not just health scares; it’s health scares with “kids” in the headline.
With Section 44 stop-and-search found to be in contravention of the declaration of human rights this week, the people of Photographer Not A Terrorist organised a victory flashmob at New Scotland Yard. For pictures, and to find out what it was all about, go over to cotch dot net.
I done a Critical Mass. Critical Mass provokes some interesting responses from people who are sure they know what it’s all about, and sure they disagree with that. But when you bring the best part of a thousand people together whose only common interest is their mode of transport, it can’t really have one particular point. It’s whatever people want it to be. And most people want a fun bike ride. As I explain at At War With The Motorist.
This is another repost from the old blog, for archival purposes.
I’m watching Peter Owen Jones’ Around The World In Eighty Faiths. You might recall Owen Jones as the public school hippy ex-ad man anglican vicar from Extreme Pilgrimage.
This time ’round, Owen Jones is on a world tour, looking at the beliefs and rituals of eighty different faiths. It’s fascinating. The beliefs held by these eighty faiths are not in any way compatible with each other, and Owen Jones acknowledges this by not attempting to conjure those pitiful explanations for why they are, in-fact, all the same belief. He’s very respectful of the beliefs as they are described to him. For much of the series, he whispers as though it is an Attenborough documentary, and he must not disturb the wildlife in its natural habitat. He stands at a short distance watching in awe of the rituals. Clearly profound things are up.
But when he goes to Moscow to meet the Russian Orthodox Christians, a brief and sudden angry streak displays itself. He is disgusted with what atheism — not communism, atheism — did to the Russian Orthodox religion under the Soviet regime. But, to tick off another of his eighty faiths, he goes to observe some atheists performing their ritual in a dusty old meeting room. He wants to know “what contemporary atheism has to offer.” What a fascinating way to approach the issue. Not whether an idea is right or wrong; what it has to offer.
Later he visits Damanhur, a “spiritualist” commune in northern Italy. Here he learns about spherocells and environmental transformers, and concludes that there is much creative energy in the vicinity. Hey, in Damanhur, you don’t even need to be sentient to get creative: “Plants can modulate sounds. By making them listen to classical music, they learn to use it better. There is an interaction between our thoughts and the vegetable’s.” To prove the point, Owen Jones strokes a leaf to help the plant with its latest composition.
“Most religions have some wacky stuff in them. We’ve just become socialised into believing that ‘there are some people who believe this, and that’s OK.’ Is that OK? I mean, I think that’s OK.”
Sure, Pete. If you think that truth doesn’t matter.
On At War With The Motorist, a short review of the London “cycle superhighways”, after a quick go on “CS3″. They’re exactly what you’d expect from the sort of “super” infrastructure that can be installed for pennies within a couple of months of being announced: pointless. Read it here.
(This is another archival repost of something written on the old blog a few years ago.)
I’ve been catching up with about a month of blogosphere this weekend, after travelling, and other distractions. I managed to catch a discarded copy of G2 with Ben Goldacre’s homeopathy article, so I was prepared for the torrent of boilerplate defences of homeopathy which came down the RSS feeds. The replies, I correctly predicted, would mostly consist of repeating the original claims, a little louder and more desperately than before, and pretending that Goldacre had not already refuted them. I therefore had no intention of participating in the cleanup, which has been provided by several other bloggers. But having caught up with these responses and counter-responses, I find there is one additional piece of advice that I think some of the apologists for homeopathy would benefit from. In a liberal newspaper like The Guardian, comparing your situation to homophobia makes you look like an whinging arse with an oppression complex, and will not do you any favours.
Homophobia, in case you wondered, is the idea that expressions of love between particular individuals is sufficient reason to exclude them from politics, exployment, and other parts of society, attack them in the streets, and kick them in the face until they die. Imposed by states, it ranges from exclusion from state provided services, through the murder of teenagers, to genocide. Inherited from confused herdsmen of 3000 years ago, it is coupled with delusional ideas of eternal life to threaten, blackmail, and drive teenagers into academic failure, depression, homelessness and suicide. It is ordered, systemic and systematic discrimination which infects even the most enlightened of nations.
Now, dear homeopaths. It has been pointed out that impartial tests consistently fail to indicate any efficacy for your woo. It has been explained that anecdotal evidence of recovery is not evidence of efficacy. It has been explained that merely creating a hypothesis is not the same thing as “doing science”. It has been pointed out that to claim a Kuhnian revolution, one requires extraordinary evidence. You have been told that if you wish to participate in a life-and-death profession you must conform to some basic professional standards. This is criticism. It is debate. It is a request for the justification that your profession requires (and medical practices require a lot more justification than, say, sexual preference). These are pretty standard things, which we apply equally to everyone in science, medicine, and quite a few other disciplines and professions. Most of us take account of criticism, participate in debate, and meet professional standards. We understand that criticism of our ideas or examinations of our competence are not meant as personal insults, discrimination or oppression.
You are not being discriminated against. You are not being oppressed. You are not being attacked with baseball bats or hanged by a mob with the blessing of the judiciary. Not even metaphorically. Comparing yourselves to people who are, for the sake of a cheap pun, is at best lame and its worst insulting.
A flurry of new posts this week to launch the blog that all the kids are already calling AWWTM:
On Tuesday, In pictures: Bollard collides with motor vehicle, an introductory post to a series that will discuss the complicated role of bollards in the history of the war.
On Wednesday, On Oxford Street asks whether it would help end TWOTM if we helped taxi drivers by banning them from the road they hate.
Later that day, the French sent naval support for the war, when they sailed this frigate up the river, halting rush hour traffic on Tower Bridge for half an hour.
Finally, the first weekly war bulletin rounds up this weeks traffic and transport news.
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AWWTM: Catch up with recent posts
Last week, a quick dig at crap websites trying to promote discounts for the Rube Goldberg railfares system.
And a review of a crap cycle path through Southwark Park.
And from the weekend, an exclusive exposure of the leftist conspiracy behind the War On The Motorist, at Tolpuddle Festival in Dorset.