Tuesday 19 July 2011

It is not important

Just heard the Ad for a mature cheese, a new light version, where the slogan hook was 'No compromise'! A mature cheese is made mature so it has a bite and tang to it. That is the whole point of it being mature. So what it is only an advert. But is not, it a verbal role model for a new generation of children being taught, double speak, concealing truths is ok, even cool. This is how the dudes hang out. It is not okay. The hardest thing in all life is to keep close to the truth.

White lies are brushed off as necessary oiling of the social wheels. The suggestion that any lie demeans our society is shouted down. We need white lies is the chorus reply. No we don't, we need truth. Not in your full on face truth. Time and tact play important parts. Better to defer, to miss the point, to talk obliquely in another direction than the empty meaningless white lies, you are beautiful, you are a princess, you are looking so much better, you are so kind. The answer is not to square up and give full barrel critique, you are so childish, grow up and face the reality of your mean spirited life. But not lies, the audience knows the reality, pretending we live in some other mythical place, destroys the bonds between us. Our eternal search for truth.

When the pinnacles of our societies role models openly display a contempt for truth, from our Prince to our Police to our Politicians, society is in deep trouble. The Prince can publicly declare to the world his wedding vows whilst having a mistress at one and the same time off camera. The Police and Politicians can deny impropriety or worse refuse to answer as it might incriminate them, junketing with the Press and benefiting of Press freebies their salary and position gives them no entitlement too. Too eager to drink from the trough of corruption and too enthralled to notice truths lack.

Truth is not an optional extra. Trust is at the root of truth. Can I trust you, can I trust what you say, can I trust that you will be there to help when help is needed. This is the base cement that keeps us in a social bind. Of course we expect to be lied to, to be let down and for some people to pretend to be other than they are. But not the important people. Not the people close to us, the people we care about and most of all the people that have a duty to look after us. From them we expect the highest standards. Our social leaders used to have just a reputation for integrity, principle and honesty. The rot of misrepresentation, of double speak and standards, of weasely words disowning any sensible construction or over-hyped claims way beyond any realisable property, all these are now our common daily grist. The truth flew the nest a long time ago. How now trust? Who do you turn to that you can trust to mean what they say and do what they say they will do.

You are all on your own in a very cynical deliberately misleading world.



Friday 15 July 2011

South Sea Bubble pt3

Never met the guy, I am sure at a heart Rupert Murdoch is a perfectly decent person, but I am inordinately pleased that he is getting his comeuppance. I don't think I have been overcome with the British disease of knocking the successful. It is has been a very long standing revulsion for him and his style of operation.

Credit were it is due. The Unions and the Print Union had a strangle hold on UKplc. They were wedded to old technology, highly and overly protective to past working practices and were intent on winning at all costs against old inept management. Did one suckle the other or was it ever an unequal power struggle? Matters not. Murdoch with, I very strongly suspect, more than a helping hand from that woman, Thatcher, broke the unions strangle hold and enabled the press to re-invent themselves, fit for the C20.

What I did not like at the time was the ruthless, single-minded and utterly intransigent approach. Fine maybe for the new colonies but it grated in my craw. We have grown to be more sophisticated and subtle, more mindful all others right and proper concerns. That does not equate to pushover, let the bully boys win. There are win win answers if you take the time and adopt the right strategies. Let the gobby take themselves out onto a extended limb and then leave them there to hang. So no I was not a fan of Murdoch then.

Not too worried when he gobbled up the gutter press but then went on to gobble up all the Qualities as well, that was another nail in his coffin. His management style shows scant regard for sensibilities and displays a contempt for subtly, integrity or conscience. Not dynamic traits but not ones that help ensure the news you promulgate have a resonant ring of authenticity either. So his style gave me no assurance that the quality titles he tucked under his belt would prosper and grow their reputations. Editorial freedom matter little when either you provide the required slant, sales and profit margins or you are summarily dismissed and replaced with a more compliant editor. Murdoch sitting on top of the pile set the agenda and set the bar on what was acceptable. If he considered nothing was exempt from getting a lead over rivals, then that line was even more energetically pursued by all those under him. It was his role and position to set the moral bar, except he did not see the need for one.

So I really don't think my objections to him are based on envy, dislike of change or a desire to unseat a top dog but derive from a gut distaste for a style that just wasnt British. That he then went on to use his accumulated power and wealth to master mind the take-over of terrestrial TV. No doubt running at the same time a background campaign denigrating licence fee paid services, just served to raise my alarm even higher.

So I will not crow but I am mightily pleased he has had his comeuppance and I have every expectation that his bloated empire might crumple and vanish into a blackhole, all in a twinkle of my eye.




Monday 4 July 2011

Stolen

It has been a long time since I was so bored by a well-intended programme. The do-goody and moral indignation screamed at you at every so laboured and clumsy turn. The clichéd contrasts with social good life were banal and thin of any substance as to be an irritant. No wonder the scarcely one-dimensional characters struggled to fill their allotted space. No dialogue worth mentioning, no character to offer and a plot that struggled to make sense to all involved, other than the author. Credit where it is due, he surely, at some time must have believed in his story. Even the staged car crash, no not the programme but an actual scene, was so staged and hammed up that no one, crew, actors, extras least of all the audience believed, or cared. Thanks goodness for the mobile, that get me out of here plot changer, so heavily used, was there a scene change that did not rely on it? Such worthy actors, such a worthy cause and so wasted opportunity. Filmed in a city I know not where, even the guessing game of where on earth, England or a Eastern European cheapo location failed to keep my arm twitching as I checked my watch so frequently, yes, really yes the minutes dragged by. Hope against hope that finally something would be said that mattered. There you have it. A dismal failure of drama. Nothing of content to even launch a documentary and not even enough to puff up a docudrama. Just a miserable failure. But we do care, we want to understand the issues behind child trafficking. We want to know why the 'police', the agencies involved, are all so helpless, we want to know how the traffickers can get rich yet be beyond the law. There is a programme there, waiting to be made. But it certainly was not Stolen.