Thought for the Day: Privacy

What is privacy?

Society seems to have lost the concept somewhat. You see, MC has a confession: in his real life he has no Facebook page. Nor anything on MySpace. Never been on Bebo. Never used LinkedIn. He has, initially accidentally but more recently purposefully, ensured that there is no interweb super highway footprint of his life.

Why, I hear you ask? Well, I’m not on the run for major crimes. Nor am I living a bigamous life. I just like my privacy. I don’t want to have images of me out there floating around in cyberspace for every forgotten friend to find. For every past enemy to pore over. For every client to view. For every competitor to twist. I just want to be left alone. I like anonymity.

But I appear to be in the minority these days. Every picture of one’s drunkenness is posted on one’s personal page. Every car accident, holiday photo, all new births, ‘fun times’ etc are issued for anyone and everyone to view. Sort of like placing a camera in your living room, switching it on and then letting anyone tune in.

When I challenge my younger friends/relations on this voluntary surrender of their privacy they say: “Oh I don’t MySpace anymore – so last year – and on Facebook you have to be my friend to view me.” Er, no actually. I had to just once be your friend to capture some of your life and save it and then it’s no longer controlled by you it’s controlled by me.

Anyhow, the term friend is somewhat suspect. One of my younger relations – a young man about town, shall we say – has about 8 zillion Facebook friends anyway. How does he know what all of them will always do with his past?

Yesterday, a teenager was reported to have lost her job because she moaned on the internet that her job was boring. My own company indeed did not offer a job to someone wanting to become a PA with us because as soon as she got home from the interview she blabbed about it on her MySpace page. How could we trust someone with sensitive information if she was happy to download her day onto the internet? (As standard procedure now, we check all prospective staff’s internet footprint to see what they say about themselves etc. Big Brother? No, just sensible precaution).

It is an intriguing concept that we now so easily and readily give away our personal details. It is changing the nature of our society. Most probably for the worse.

Fred

Am I the only one who can see sense? Is the media totally bloody blind to what is going on here? Are the dead tree press so craven that they just suck up the latest piece of Government spin without question.

Put aside for a moment the following:

• your natural British prejuidce of those that are successful
• your natural British prejudice of the rich
• your natural British prejudice of top businessmen being paid lots of dosh
• the ins and outs of 'who knew what and when' about Fred's payoff

Now - clear headed I hope - read this:

The Government is managing to carry off the greatest blame shift in bleeding history and all the media can waffle on about is one bloke and his rather exorbitant pension arrangements.

This is the most incredible piece of spin we have ever witnessed. The balls of it are just breathtaking. The spin men of Whitehall are totally locking us all onto a complete and utter distraction so that Gordy can get away with daylight fucking robbery of us the taxpayer. I've lost count of how much the Government have spent now. I used to think a million quid was a large sum. Now tens of billions seem minor stuff.

Captain Bloody Prudence and his one eye is doing what all Labour PMs have always done. Hurling taxpayers' money around like confetti, trying to spend his way out of any tight spot. Our children are going to be paying for this for years and years. Decades. Old Fred will be dead and forgotten, his pension long since drawn, whilst future chancellors are still trying to fathom how we can pay off the incredible debt created 20 years ago or more by a long discredited ex PM and his one eye.

And what are the media all focused on: Fred and his pension. Please, please, please someone write about what's really going on. Forget bloody Fred.

But if you really need a villain, add up the huge salaries, exorbitant expenses and outrageous final salary pension arrangements of Gordy, the eyebrow man and all the other assholes at the Bank of England and the FSA that actually got us into this hole. Trust me, it will make Fred look like a lightweight.

Welsh BBC Question Time

BBC Question Time is one of the most entertaining political programmes on TV. My American colleagues are in awe of it. Their politicians are just never held to account as effectively as we do here in the UK, what with Prime Minister's Questions, BBC's Question Time, Any Answers, Newsnight etc to name but a few.

But two things piss me off about BBC QT:

First, is when we have some entertainer, comic, actor etc as a panelist. Who cares what they think? It's just another example of the BBC promoting its own 'talent', another form of BBC advertising. They never add anything to the debate apart from cheap laughs and 'holier than thou' sentimentality. We don't elect them to lead us so why do they get a seat around the table? Recently, we had Will Young, a pathetic attempt to appeal to the 'yoof' audience. Dumbing down again.

But the second issue relates to tonight's episode. QT is broadcast all over the UK. And tonight, they're all Welshies. Why should 95% of the population have to listen to the representatives of 5% of the population? I'm all for adding in regular Welshies and Jocks for some regional balance in regular shows, but all of them in one go! Nauseating PC bollocks.

And if I was Welsh, I would feel so patronised. 'We're only allowed an occasional 'foreigners broadcast' by the English BBC apparatchiks in London!' It's just silly tokenism.

Update - As suspected. It was crap. Who gives a fuck what some windbag from Plaid Cymru thinks?

Fawning Condolences

First, apols for being offline for a couple of days. Crazy busy. Now, to the Camerons.

Obviously, like any sane person, one wishes the Camerons sincere condolences. I have yet to meet a parent who has buried a child, however old, who ever really recovers from it. It is just plain wrong, unnatural and unfair.

But three things to consider:

1. The over sentimentality of what has occurred today really fucks me off. Leave the Camerons alone to grieve. Please don't queue up to grandstand and weep fake tears to look good for the media reports. It's repugnant.

2. What about all the other parents whose children died today. This week. This month. This year. I could go on. I don't see Parliament stopping work for them.

3. And what about the young men and women that we send to their deaths in service of this country, in Iraq and Afghanistan? Four more today, in fact. Do I hear politicians falling over themselves to speak pious words of condolence?

Give us a fucking break you bunch of hypocritical tosspots.

Update: A friend spotted that Matthew Parris agrees with me.

The Moral High Ground

So we have just accepted back our last Guantanamo inmate. No doubt the Daily Hate will opine.

But here's the thing: nations and governments re-learn over and over again that if you move off the moral high ground, in many people's eyes you lose your right to criticize and thereby much of your support.

Israel regularly makes that mistake with overly aggressive military campaigns. We made that mistake in the 1970s in Northern Ireland with internment. And Guantanamo (aka imprisonment without trial) is the same.

You have to accept that you cannot bring all the baddies to justice all the time. Democracy and the right of law can be annoying but the alternative is always worse.

Things That Irritate Me On Mondays - No 2639

Every Monday morning on the Today programme we have to put up with a brazen advert for Panorama that evening. I would not mind if Panorama was the cutting edge investigative programme of yesteryear. But it is now just soft focus crap along with most other BBC TV news.

On that note, how pathetic is BBC Breakfast now. Total capitulation to dumbed down, 'sit on my sofa' GMTV along with endless packages trailing other BBC shows. The advertising for Strictly Come Dancing each morning when it was on was astonishing. It amazes me that this is allowed for a station that eschews advertising in favour of taxing us poor proles.

How low has the once mighty BBC fallen.

Hands in the Till

From today's media:

Sunday Times - MEPs fiddling expenses on an epic degree

News of the Screws - Michael Ancram, Derek Conway and Caroline Flint fleecing the taxpayer

Guido - Exposes other's who are raping the taxpayer

Sunday Mirror - Chris Grayling's at it as well

Hate on Sunday - More shit for Jacqui

Sunday Grauniad - Ashcroft funding probs for Tories

They're are all at it. And this is corrosive. It turns people off politics and mires the few good guys with the shit of those that are bad.

As I have said time and again on this blog (most recently here), until the poacher is not in charge of the chicken coop, politicians will serve their own financial interests. We need an independent regulator with real powers to police MPs. After all, they impose the same on everyone else.

The Jade Legacy

Usually, this is a 'reality star' free zone. I know that to be PC I am meant to swallow Max Clifford's latest breathless press release from the bedside and wax lyrical about how brave Jade Goody is, how she is committed to providing for her children before she dies and how magical it is that her convict husband has been given a dispensation to spend her wedding night with her, but I am strong and can resist these urges.

For the record, like any decent person, from the bottom of my heart I wish anyone with a terminal diagnosis all the happiness possible in their final days. Mrs C and I have been there with mothers and fathers etc. There is no good way to die. Some understandably crumble. Some achieve that rare ability to rise above the circs, be phenomenally brave and behave with the utmost dignity. My brother-in-law, who died recently, was one such person.

Honestly, he had not been someone I had admired until that point. But then, faced with the truly awful, this amazing, strong and stoical person shone through. How he handled himself in those final months have meant that his wife and children have had the best platform from which to grieve. None of us know how we will react. I hope that I don't disgrace myself.

But, putting aside my utter loathing for all things 'reality', Z list celebs and the shallowness of society's fascination for 'celebrity', the really good legacy to come out of Jade's tragic story is that apparently, according to The Paramedic's Diary, the blanket publicity of her ordeal has had a massive impact on women and the numbers now going for cervical smears.

This is Jade's real legacy.

England Expects...

Nelson: "Order the signal, Hardy."

Hardy: "Aye, aye sir."

Nelson: "Hold on, that's not what I dictated to Flags. What's the meaning of this?"

Hardy: "Sorry sir?"

Nelson (reading aloud): "England expects every person to do his or her duty, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious persuasion or disability - What gobbledygook is this?"

Hardy: "Admiralty policy, I'm afraid, sir. We're an equal opportunities employer now. We had the devil's own job getting 'England' past the censors, lest it be considered racist."

Nelson: "Gadzooks, Hardy. Hand me my pipe and tobacco."

Hardy: "Sorry sir. All naval vessels have now been designated smoke-free working environments."

Nelson: "In that case, break open the rum ration. Let us splice the main brace to steel the men before battle."

Hardy: "The rum ration has been abolished, Admiral. It’s part of the Government's policy on binge drinking."

Nelson: "Good heavens, Hardy. I suppose we'd better get on with it.. Full speed ahead."

Hardy: "I think you'll find that there's a 4 knot speed limit in this stretch of water, sir."

Nelson: "Damn it man! We are on the eve of the greatest sea battle in history. We must advance with all dispatch. Report from the crow's nest please."

Hardy: "That won't be possible, sir."

Nelson: "What?"

Hardy: "Health and Safety have closed the crow's nest, sir. No harness; and they said that rope ladders don't meet regulations. They won't let anyone up there until a full safety audit has been carried out and proper scaffolding can be erected."

Nelson: "Then get me the ship's carpenter without delay, Hardy."

Hardy: "He's busy knocking up a wheelchair access to the foredeck Admiral."

Nelson: "Wheelchair access? I've never heard anything so absurd."

Hardy: "Health and safety again, sir. We have to provide a barrier-free environment for the differently abled."

Nelson: "Differently abled? I've only one arm and one eye and I refuse even to hear mention of the word. I didn't rise to the rank of admiral by playing the disability card."

Hardy: "Actually, sir, you did. The Royal Navy is under represented in the areas of visual impairment and limb deficiency."

Nelson: "Whatever next? Give me full sail. The salt spray beckons."

Hardy: "A couple of problems there too, sir. Health and Safety won't let the crew up the rigging without hard hats. And they don't want anyone breathing in too much salt - haven't you seen the adverts?"

Nelson: "I've never heard such infamy. Break out the cannon and tell the men to stand by to engage the enemy."

Hardy: "The men are a bit worried about shooting at anyone, Admiral."

Nelson: "What? This is mutiny!"

Hardy: "It's not that, sir. It's just that they're afraid of being charged with murder if they actually kill anyone. There's a couple of legal-aid lawyers on board, watching everyone like hawks."

Nelson: "Then how are we to sink the Frenchies and the Spanish?"

Hardy: "Actually, sir, we're not."

Nelson: "We're not?"

Hardy: "No, sir. The French and the Spanish are our European partners now. According to the Common Fisheries Policy, we shouldn't even be in this stretch of water. We could get hit with a claim for compensation."

Nelson: "But you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil."

Hardy: "I wouldn't let the ship's diversity coordinator hear you saying that sir. You'll be up on disciplinary report."

Nelson: "You must consider every man an enemy who speaks ill of your King."

Hardy: "Not any more, sir. We must be inclusive in this multicultural age. Now put on your Kevlar vest; it's the rules. It could save your life."

Nelson: "Don't tell me - health and safety. Whatever happened to rum, sodomy and the lash?"

Hardy: As I explained, sir, rum is off the menu! And there's a ban on corporal punishment."

Nelson: "What about sodomy?"

Hardy: "I believe that is now legal, sir."

Nelson: "In that case…kiss me, Hardy.”

And The Winner Is...

'If it bleeds, it leads' seems to be the principle strategy of all our media. Never report the good and always exaggerate the bad. Last night's BBC Ten O'Clock news was a classic example.

Huw Edwards announced smugly that Sir John Gieve, the Deputy Governor of The Bank of England, had stated that the UK was destined for a Japanese L shaped depression lasting 10 years or more.

Small snag. He didn't actually say that. Even Stephanie Flanders, the BBC Economics Editor, who was doing the two-way had to concede it was just an off the cuff, light-hearted quip in response to a question at the end of a presentation. So much for responsible reporting.

But the wider issue here is that everyone is looking for the daily roll of bad news. No one is looking for the good, the light at the end of the tunnel. So let me be the first to pick some of the winners of our current economic woes:

1. David Cameron - No, really. Putting aside that frankly he could go on holiday for a year and with the drip, drip, drip of shit news for Brown over the next 12 months he'd still win the 2010 election, he really is going to be the winner here. Why? Because he is going to own a large chunk of the banking industry when the markets have improved enough to sell them back to the private sector. There will be massive windfalls for the Government of the day which will make the 3G licences bonus and previous Government flotations look weedy by comparison.

2. HSBC and Barclays - Again, no really. They have not had so many problems. They have not had to be bailed out by the taxpayer. With all the NuLab/union/media hype about bashing bankers and capping bonuses, in a year or two's time when things are considerably better, all the talent at RBS and Lloyds group will quietly slip off to HSBC and Barclays, where they will be able to be paid well. RBS and Lloyds will suffer the 1970s brain drain all over again.

3. Cash - 'Cash is King', now more then ever. If you have some of it, then you are laughing. What's that I hear you say? No one has any. Think again. If you are a public sector worker, working for example in the NHS or the education sector or in a Whitehall department or the military or the police and so on, is there any threat to your job? None. Zero. Null. So they have a steady income, not huge but some of these guys are not badly paid, and commodities have gone down, the mortgage has gone down. They have cash.

4. Property entrepreneurs - Those that are either cash rich because they sold assets at the right time or timed their rights issue well are going to win big. Right now those companies are rubbing their hands with glee. Land prices have tumbled so property is comparatively cheap, sites that were not viable for development in the last few years because the margin was not there now look attractive and there are many distressed assets that companies in trouble are/will be falling over themselves to sell off. My guess is that sometime around Easter we will see the really entrepreneurial companies hoovering up cheap assets. These guys don't make their money at the top or bottom of the market. They buy just before the bottom and sell just before the top. And then buy a new yacht.

5. Sir Phillip Green - He must be laughing himself silly at how little he is going to be able to pay for all the brands owned by Bauger, the Icelanders who have failed so terribly. Bauger owns House of Fraser, Whistles, Oasis, Karen Millen, Warehouse, Principles, Coast, Iceland, Mappin & Webb, Goldsmiths, Hamleys to name but a few. I predict it now: another £ billion bonus for Sir Phil in 2011.

6. Those of us with Middle Eastern wives - At last, I am a winner. You see, Mrs C likes to haggle. No, really she likes to haggle. A lot. Sometimes just for fun. It's in the genes. And she is saving Cragsbury plc lots of cash. She's haggled on the mortgage. She haggled on the new car purchase. Actually she has haggled on everything and anything really. She even haggled in Harrods the other day to get another £10 off a coat that was already marked down by 40% in the sale. And right now, if you are a haggler, your time has come.