Just to remind you that my blog has moved to http://katherinefaulkner.wordpress.com/
Visit for a new post of an animal rights feature.
Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Monday, 24 November 2008
New Blog
I have moved! My new blog is at http://katherinefaulkner.wordpress.com/
Visit it for a new post on aid in Africa plus evidence of pre-manuelgate phone prankstery by the Brandster.
Visit it for a new post on aid in Africa plus evidence of pre-manuelgate phone prankstery by the Brandster.
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Like trains? Hate Britain? Vote BNP
I think any journalist feels uneasy when coverage of an issue is completely one-sided across every newspaper, and this is never so thoroughly the case as with a story involving the BNP. Like most people, I have nothing but a vague contempt for this party, but I like to balance my media intake, and this week nobody was sticking up for them. So, in the interests of fairness, and fervently hoping that no one was looking over my shoulder, I decided to take a trip to the BNP’s own website.
Visit it and you cannot fail to notice that it is the most frequently visited of any political website in the UK. They simply adore this fact. No corner of their rubbish website is unadorned with a statistic of its own ‘popularity’. It’s almost endearing to see how fervently that they believe that their number of hits indicates a great groundswell of public approval. The theory becomes sadly unstuck when one examines the “most viewed” clips on youtube, which today featured the world’s fattest toddler and a two headed cat. The idea of googling something for a laugh clearly hasn’t occurred to the BNP, though presumably they wonder at the fact that, like some kind of anomalous electromagnetic force, their online ‘popularity’ has mysteriously resisted measurement in conventional democratic forms (like, oh, I don’t know, voting, for instance).
The remaining content of the website was no better informed. The BNP’s revered leader Nick Griffin clearly fancies himself as Winston Churchill, but unfortunately for him his statement about this week’s list debacle reads like an Al-Qaida podcast. “Nothing could show better just how frightened the liberal ‘elite’ now are of our coming breakthrough”, booms Griffin from his cave in Burnley. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but reading the full statement actually made me wonder whether he’d posted the list himself. “The publicity about the high quality of our membership has massively improved our image,” he insists gleefully. “The stunt has backfired big-time.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by “high quality” membership, so I decided I had no choice but to refer to the source material. For reasons best known to himself, my Dad had pasted the whole thing into a word file, so searching was swift and illuminating.
Media interest has centred upon the professional occupations of the members, but for me the hobbies and interests were far more intriguing. As well as the grimly predictable model trains, military aviation history and the collection of WW2 memorabilia, I found archery, saddlery and medieval longbow. Crikey, I thought. Just how old is this list?!
The prize for the most inappropriate use of “etc” goes to a Mr V, who had written in the hobbies section: “make kites with BNP logos, etc”. Whatever else is there in that general field of activity? Does he manufacture a range of kites affiliated to different fringe political parties? The mind boggles. Then, on a more tragic note, there was the sad character who had listed only one interest: visiting his local regimental museum. Naming this individual would be likely to seriously compromise his anonymity, as I very much doubt the place has more than one visitor.
I really don’t think this list has proved anything new about the BNP. The only surprising thing about the list was its length. The BNP pride themselves on being the only ‘patriotic’ political party. It’s ludicrous. Their website laments everything about Britain: our laws, our media, our diversity, our tolerance. This place they want to live, this Aryan paradise where people would rather make kites and celebrate St George’s day than live on equal terms amongst interesting people from all parts of the world, has got nothing to do with Britain. It’s nothing but the weird dystopia of a model train enthusiast.
Visit it and you cannot fail to notice that it is the most frequently visited of any political website in the UK. They simply adore this fact. No corner of their rubbish website is unadorned with a statistic of its own ‘popularity’. It’s almost endearing to see how fervently that they believe that their number of hits indicates a great groundswell of public approval. The theory becomes sadly unstuck when one examines the “most viewed” clips on youtube, which today featured the world’s fattest toddler and a two headed cat. The idea of googling something for a laugh clearly hasn’t occurred to the BNP, though presumably they wonder at the fact that, like some kind of anomalous electromagnetic force, their online ‘popularity’ has mysteriously resisted measurement in conventional democratic forms (like, oh, I don’t know, voting, for instance).
The remaining content of the website was no better informed. The BNP’s revered leader Nick Griffin clearly fancies himself as Winston Churchill, but unfortunately for him his statement about this week’s list debacle reads like an Al-Qaida podcast. “Nothing could show better just how frightened the liberal ‘elite’ now are of our coming breakthrough”, booms Griffin from his cave in Burnley. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but reading the full statement actually made me wonder whether he’d posted the list himself. “The publicity about the high quality of our membership has massively improved our image,” he insists gleefully. “The stunt has backfired big-time.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by “high quality” membership, so I decided I had no choice but to refer to the source material. For reasons best known to himself, my Dad had pasted the whole thing into a word file, so searching was swift and illuminating.
Media interest has centred upon the professional occupations of the members, but for me the hobbies and interests were far more intriguing. As well as the grimly predictable model trains, military aviation history and the collection of WW2 memorabilia, I found archery, saddlery and medieval longbow. Crikey, I thought. Just how old is this list?!
The prize for the most inappropriate use of “etc” goes to a Mr V, who had written in the hobbies section: “make kites with BNP logos, etc”. Whatever else is there in that general field of activity? Does he manufacture a range of kites affiliated to different fringe political parties? The mind boggles. Then, on a more tragic note, there was the sad character who had listed only one interest: visiting his local regimental museum. Naming this individual would be likely to seriously compromise his anonymity, as I very much doubt the place has more than one visitor.
I really don’t think this list has proved anything new about the BNP. The only surprising thing about the list was its length. The BNP pride themselves on being the only ‘patriotic’ political party. It’s ludicrous. Their website laments everything about Britain: our laws, our media, our diversity, our tolerance. This place they want to live, this Aryan paradise where people would rather make kites and celebrate St George’s day than live on equal terms amongst interesting people from all parts of the world, has got nothing to do with Britain. It’s nothing but the weird dystopia of a model train enthusiast.
Saturday, 15 November 2008
The 'ism' that dare not speak its name
Germaine Greer claimed this week that prostitution was less degrading than ‘stacking shelves in Tesco.’ Greer is one of the few people in public life who dares to call themselves a feminist, despite being faced with sneers and ridicule as a result. How particularly disappointing, then, to hear her join the recent chorus of voices seeking to trivialise the sex industry and downplay its serious impact on our society.
I work in a shop to keep my finances afloat during my journalism training. Anyone who thinks it would be more empowering for me to earn ten times the cash in half the time working as a prostitute is a deluded middle class moron who has watched far too much Belle Du Jour and has no idea how dark, dangerous and exploitative the sex industry really is. Prostitutes are eight times more likely to be murdered than the average person. I’m sure brothel owners can’t thank Greer enough for fooling stupid lefties into thinking that they’re merely employing a team of feisty English spice girls who can look after themselves, rather than exploiting vulnerable drug addicts and illegal immigrants.
Prostitution is almost as debasing to men as it is to women. Just as women are not just intellectually vacant sex objects, men are not just brutish one-dimensional cavemen driven purely by testosterone. Why, then, do the government think it’s really cool of them to classify lap-dancing clubs in the same way as cafes so that communities are powerless to curb their spread? Why, in the Max Mosley case, was this married father’s ‘right’ to sleep with five prostitutes in private so vigorously defended but the judiciary? Why is high achieving, if abhorrent, Sarah Palin criticised as a bad mother and hailed as a MILF (Mom I’d like to f*ck) in the same misogynistic breath?
I think it’s because we live in a society which is more sexist now than it has been for at least a decade, and which is getting worse. The cultural consequences of these worsening sexual double standards are undeniable. Twenty years ago the damaging impact of the sex industry on sexual equality was unanimously recognised. Nowadays feminism is a dirty word, about as cool as space hoppers and shoulder pads. The ‘cool’ young woman isn’t supposed to get cross about her boyfriend watching porn or her male colleagues socialising in a strip club. We’re supposed to tag along, and find the whole thing hilarious.
In the eighties, sexual liberation meant women’s dominion over their own sexuality and fertility. Today, it is increasingly conflated with the triumph of a masculine fantasy of woman: namely, the tireless nymphomaniac who wants constant sex. If women don’t love it in the way men do, they must need ‘liberating’ from their fearful, narrow minded cages. They need some furry handcuffs, or a rampant rabbit. Yawn. If this is liberation, you can keep it.
As a young female student, the disparity between today’s aspirations to gender equality and those of our parents are palpable. Male lecturers in their forties and fifties will listen to a young woman as an intellectual equal as a matter of course. But, as one of my fellow journalism students pointed out yesterday, some men our own age think it’s fine to patronise us and shout us down in serious conversations in a way they would never dream of doing to each other. My parents’ generation would be horrified. Who handed out these new codes of behaviour? Women? I think not.
There are people of both sexes who find these developments deeply disturbing. Unfortunately, there are far more people of both sexes who buy into the belief that sexism doesn’t really exist anymore, or, if it does, it’s not ‘bad’ enough to really matter, and that feminism is irrelevant. But as my generation’s young women enter the workforce, and find that the gender pay gap is now 17% (a whopping 39% in the city), that maternity leave is the worst in Europe, and that they can expect hostility and disbelief if they complain of sexism, I wonder whether they will feel the same for much longer.
I work in a shop to keep my finances afloat during my journalism training. Anyone who thinks it would be more empowering for me to earn ten times the cash in half the time working as a prostitute is a deluded middle class moron who has watched far too much Belle Du Jour and has no idea how dark, dangerous and exploitative the sex industry really is. Prostitutes are eight times more likely to be murdered than the average person. I’m sure brothel owners can’t thank Greer enough for fooling stupid lefties into thinking that they’re merely employing a team of feisty English spice girls who can look after themselves, rather than exploiting vulnerable drug addicts and illegal immigrants.
Prostitution is almost as debasing to men as it is to women. Just as women are not just intellectually vacant sex objects, men are not just brutish one-dimensional cavemen driven purely by testosterone. Why, then, do the government think it’s really cool of them to classify lap-dancing clubs in the same way as cafes so that communities are powerless to curb their spread? Why, in the Max Mosley case, was this married father’s ‘right’ to sleep with five prostitutes in private so vigorously defended but the judiciary? Why is high achieving, if abhorrent, Sarah Palin criticised as a bad mother and hailed as a MILF (Mom I’d like to f*ck) in the same misogynistic breath?
I think it’s because we live in a society which is more sexist now than it has been for at least a decade, and which is getting worse. The cultural consequences of these worsening sexual double standards are undeniable. Twenty years ago the damaging impact of the sex industry on sexual equality was unanimously recognised. Nowadays feminism is a dirty word, about as cool as space hoppers and shoulder pads. The ‘cool’ young woman isn’t supposed to get cross about her boyfriend watching porn or her male colleagues socialising in a strip club. We’re supposed to tag along, and find the whole thing hilarious.
In the eighties, sexual liberation meant women’s dominion over their own sexuality and fertility. Today, it is increasingly conflated with the triumph of a masculine fantasy of woman: namely, the tireless nymphomaniac who wants constant sex. If women don’t love it in the way men do, they must need ‘liberating’ from their fearful, narrow minded cages. They need some furry handcuffs, or a rampant rabbit. Yawn. If this is liberation, you can keep it.
As a young female student, the disparity between today’s aspirations to gender equality and those of our parents are palpable. Male lecturers in their forties and fifties will listen to a young woman as an intellectual equal as a matter of course. But, as one of my fellow journalism students pointed out yesterday, some men our own age think it’s fine to patronise us and shout us down in serious conversations in a way they would never dream of doing to each other. My parents’ generation would be horrified. Who handed out these new codes of behaviour? Women? I think not.
There are people of both sexes who find these developments deeply disturbing. Unfortunately, there are far more people of both sexes who buy into the belief that sexism doesn’t really exist anymore, or, if it does, it’s not ‘bad’ enough to really matter, and that feminism is irrelevant. But as my generation’s young women enter the workforce, and find that the gender pay gap is now 17% (a whopping 39% in the city), that maternity leave is the worst in Europe, and that they can expect hostility and disbelief if they complain of sexism, I wonder whether they will feel the same for much longer.
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Ebay and avatars should be the least of China's worries
I read in the Guardian today that the Chinese government wants internet addiction “officially” recognised as a psychological disorder. Honestly! That Graham bloke off Jeremy Kyle has diagnosed loads of hapless chavs as web addicts. How much more official does it get?
Admittedly most of the people on Jeremy Kyle are so weak willed- as their waistlines will testify- that there's not much they couldn't potentially get addicted to: the internet, hard drugs, penguin bars, stripped pine furniture... pretty much anything that enters their orbit. But nonetheless, I think the problem rightly deserves attention.
Unlike the Chinese government, though, I think obsessive internet use is a symptom of psychological disorder, rather than an illness in itself. Let’s face it, things can’t exactly be hunky dory in your life if you’re shopping for a “second life” on the web, or making an “avatar” of yourself to play with. In my humble opinion, the fact that this is enacted via the seemingly innocuous medium of keyboard and mouse distracts from how fundamentally disturbing it is. People would be a hell of a lot more worried if we were back in the 1950s and thousands of adults were sitting at their desks dressing up dolls and making up magical adventures for them.
There are serious issues here, though. Maybe the Chinese government should consider the real, day-to-day lives of their citizens before they start poking their noses into their virtual ones. Why is it that Chinese people are so desperate to get involved in virtual networks of people, or immerse themselves in wacky fantasy worlds? What are they escaping from?
Maybe the Chinese government should worry less about over-enthusiastic bloggers and more about the poor Chinese workers who spend 12 hour shifts on the internet in “second life” sweatshops, killing monsters and gnomes to harvest “gold coins” and sell them for real dollars to wealthy Americans who want to pay for an instant leg-up to the higher stages of the game. Yes, ironically, this cutting edge digital world seems to be spawning all the age-old exploitative trappings of unregulated capitalism, including a new global division of labour.
But no. As usual, the Chinese government’s attention is instead focused on the important business of curbing their citizens’ basic liberties. It seems it wasn’t enough to limit their access to information by replacing half the BBC with blank web pages. Now, those who spend too long on the internet in China will be diagnosed with a “clinical disorder” and subject to “military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks” as part of their treatment. However humiliating, I think I’d take an appearance on the Jeremy Kyle show over that.
Admittedly most of the people on Jeremy Kyle are so weak willed- as their waistlines will testify- that there's not much they couldn't potentially get addicted to: the internet, hard drugs, penguin bars, stripped pine furniture... pretty much anything that enters their orbit. But nonetheless, I think the problem rightly deserves attention.
Unlike the Chinese government, though, I think obsessive internet use is a symptom of psychological disorder, rather than an illness in itself. Let’s face it, things can’t exactly be hunky dory in your life if you’re shopping for a “second life” on the web, or making an “avatar” of yourself to play with. In my humble opinion, the fact that this is enacted via the seemingly innocuous medium of keyboard and mouse distracts from how fundamentally disturbing it is. People would be a hell of a lot more worried if we were back in the 1950s and thousands of adults were sitting at their desks dressing up dolls and making up magical adventures for them.
There are serious issues here, though. Maybe the Chinese government should consider the real, day-to-day lives of their citizens before they start poking their noses into their virtual ones. Why is it that Chinese people are so desperate to get involved in virtual networks of people, or immerse themselves in wacky fantasy worlds? What are they escaping from?
Maybe the Chinese government should worry less about over-enthusiastic bloggers and more about the poor Chinese workers who spend 12 hour shifts on the internet in “second life” sweatshops, killing monsters and gnomes to harvest “gold coins” and sell them for real dollars to wealthy Americans who want to pay for an instant leg-up to the higher stages of the game. Yes, ironically, this cutting edge digital world seems to be spawning all the age-old exploitative trappings of unregulated capitalism, including a new global division of labour.
But no. As usual, the Chinese government’s attention is instead focused on the important business of curbing their citizens’ basic liberties. It seems it wasn’t enough to limit their access to information by replacing half the BBC with blank web pages. Now, those who spend too long on the internet in China will be diagnosed with a “clinical disorder” and subject to “military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks” as part of their treatment. However humiliating, I think I’d take an appearance on the Jeremy Kyle show over that.
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Blame the Beeb, not Brand
Not since that Afghan family were given a £1.2m council house have the tabloids been so furious. Amongst the accusations they have levelled at ‘Wossy’ and Brand today, “filthy”, “foul” and having “no sense of shame” topped the bill.
If you want to know what horrible comedic material they are referring to, check the Mail’s website- most of it’s on there. In fact, the Mail’s moral outrage could be described as ironic, considering the degree to which they’ve amplified the offence caused to the public (and humiliation suffered by Sachs) by filling their newspaper with every detail of the broadcast. The Independent claims that there were just two complaints to Ofcom after the actual programme. The number of complaints now stands at 18,000 thanks to the extent of the media coverage.
If more proof were needed of the whole media’s complicity in poor Andrew Sachs’ embarrassment, the Mail and the Sun have provided a platform for Sexy Granddaughter Sachs to cause her grandfather further toe-curling embarrassment. On the Mail website, you can choose between Melanie Phillips fuming about Brand and Ross’s “foul vulgarity”, and Georgina Baillie’s thinly disguised kiss and tell.
Of course, the latter had the grubby handprints of one Max Clifford all over it. As soon as it emerged that the subject of Brand and Ross’s ill-judged prank was a burlesque dancer who called herself “satanic slut”, it was almost inevitable that this grimy character would somehow get involved. Fatefully, his books were a little on the empty side this week, Kerry Katona having dumped him after her GMTV slur-a-thon.
But if Clifford’s involvement is depressingly predicable, there is plenty about this debacle that is unprecedented: for one thing, the level of criticism heaped upon Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. This has been disproportionate and largely misdirected. In a free society, cultural life will be full of controversial and offensive figures. David Irving will spout rubbish about the holocaust, Bernard Manning will make racist jokes and Russell Brand will… well, be obscene. But no-one has to broadcast any of it. It is the responsibility of printers and broadcasters, who mediate between these people and the public, to make sound judgements about who should be given a voice, and where.
What Brand and Ross did and said was horrible, but no-one forced the BBC to air it. Comedic artists shouldn’t have to adhere to a broadcasting code. The BBC does, and so the buck stops with them. That most of the criticism has focused on Ross and Brand demonstrates how fully the rest of the media have allowed the agenda to be dictated by the Mail. Most notably, the BBC’s own judgement seems to have been absent from the entire affair. Rather than making a stand themselves, this historic public service institution has allowed the Mail to set the agenda of public decency. With the greatest of respect, that is the last thing we need.
If you want to know what horrible comedic material they are referring to, check the Mail’s website- most of it’s on there. In fact, the Mail’s moral outrage could be described as ironic, considering the degree to which they’ve amplified the offence caused to the public (and humiliation suffered by Sachs) by filling their newspaper with every detail of the broadcast. The Independent claims that there were just two complaints to Ofcom after the actual programme. The number of complaints now stands at 18,000 thanks to the extent of the media coverage.
If more proof were needed of the whole media’s complicity in poor Andrew Sachs’ embarrassment, the Mail and the Sun have provided a platform for Sexy Granddaughter Sachs to cause her grandfather further toe-curling embarrassment. On the Mail website, you can choose between Melanie Phillips fuming about Brand and Ross’s “foul vulgarity”, and Georgina Baillie’s thinly disguised kiss and tell.
Of course, the latter had the grubby handprints of one Max Clifford all over it. As soon as it emerged that the subject of Brand and Ross’s ill-judged prank was a burlesque dancer who called herself “satanic slut”, it was almost inevitable that this grimy character would somehow get involved. Fatefully, his books were a little on the empty side this week, Kerry Katona having dumped him after her GMTV slur-a-thon.
But if Clifford’s involvement is depressingly predicable, there is plenty about this debacle that is unprecedented: for one thing, the level of criticism heaped upon Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. This has been disproportionate and largely misdirected. In a free society, cultural life will be full of controversial and offensive figures. David Irving will spout rubbish about the holocaust, Bernard Manning will make racist jokes and Russell Brand will… well, be obscene. But no-one has to broadcast any of it. It is the responsibility of printers and broadcasters, who mediate between these people and the public, to make sound judgements about who should be given a voice, and where.
What Brand and Ross did and said was horrible, but no-one forced the BBC to air it. Comedic artists shouldn’t have to adhere to a broadcasting code. The BBC does, and so the buck stops with them. That most of the criticism has focused on Ross and Brand demonstrates how fully the rest of the media have allowed the agenda to be dictated by the Mail. Most notably, the BBC’s own judgement seems to have been absent from the entire affair. Rather than making a stand themselves, this historic public service institution has allowed the Mail to set the agenda of public decency. With the greatest of respect, that is the last thing we need.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
