I spent the afternoon of the 24th October this year listening to two instructive, entertaining and even illuminating editions of two standards of BBC Radio broadcasting.
Desert Island Discs, running continuously on the BBC since 1942, interviews each week a ‘castaway’ entitled to choose eight sound records, a book and a luxury to console them in the event of them following in the footsteps of such archetypal castaways as Robinson Crusoe and Tom Hanks.
My maternal grandmother was a big fan of the show, though it’s the kind of thing I would only listen to if interested in the guest. On this occasion I tuned in on spec, and found myself engaged and intrigued by the castaway and his choices: Michael Sandel, a noted political philosopher. I’ve just re-listened to the edition, including the bit at the start I missed. Well worth a listen, Sandel’s choices include Hamilton, from the musical of the same name, which he mentions listening to more critically recently in light of his own critique of the ideology of meritocracy, Billie Holliday’s Strange Fruit and Nina Simone’s Feeling Good, as well as other delights I’ll leave you to discover for yourself.
Radio 4 being primarily a station of the spoken word, a valuable commodity, nevertheless produces a slight weakness in DID‘s format: we only hear the briefest of clips from each choice.
Radio 3’s Private Passions, in which guests are invited to share their favourite recordings usually of classical music or poetry, has the luxury of longer excerpts, but otherwise in form resembles nothing less than a slightly higher-brow version of DID. Indeed the emphasis remains on the conversations. Scheduled after DID, the two together form a good solid hour of enlightening listening both to musical choices, perhaps unexpected or familiar, as well as to the perspectives of some notable and fascinating people. On this occasion, Private Passions interviewed the ever-interesting Rory Stewart, former diplomat, Tory MP, and possibly spy. Stewart talks most interestingly of how little he misses being a politician. He’s particularly good on detailing an insider’s view on exactly how the political system corrupts those involved in it, so that by the time you get to cabinet level and thus power, all your ability to think critically and with nuance and compassion has been eradicated from your political practice. He even goes as far as to suggest if he had succeeded in becoming Prime Minister, which he had a crack at in 2019, he thinks he would have been ‘corrupted’. The interview also gives an insight into Stewart’s experiences in the Middle East, as well as his cultural interests there and in Scotland, including an interesting excerpt from a recording of Scottish folk singing, as well as usual suspects Handel and Bach.
Both episodes remain available on BBC Sounds, and repay a listen:
A year or so ago there was a possibility I’d be interviewed for a story in the Daily Telegraph. I subscribed to the paper to check out the journalist involved, and have never got round to cancelling. The paper sometimes called The Torygraph, the paper of that party in effect, might be useful to read to keep an eye on what Britain’s most establishment political party is up to. It gave, to cite a relatively trivial but instructive example, the most in-depth coverage of the Handforth Parish Council episode featuring Jackie Weaver (if your memory stretches back that far), with the most detailed background information.
This week in the paper, an article on US politics caught my eye. The report, on Biden’s budget’s progress, seems to me a good summary. Though highlighting the views of billionaires and opponents to a proposal to tax unrealised capital gains, the details provide a more balanced view.
The headline reflects a plan, outlined in Biden’s budget proposals in the spring, for tax reform as a hedge against interest rate rises, which would increase the repayment burden on US debt. Biden is paying for renovations and additions to infrastructure, and social spending, with cheap debt; the new taxes ‘pay for’ the provisions by covering the risks of the debt becoming more expensive once interest rates rise. At least that’s the theory.
These tax reforms, in my understanding, include:
Biden’s global push for increased corporation tax
improving efficiency (that old favourite)
increasing reporting requirements for crypto-exchanges, including offshore entities, in a reciprocal international information sharing arrangement
income tax changes.
The Telegraph currently lead on the latter, with the Senate “poised to vote on a 5pc tax on earnings above $10m (£7.2m) a year, with an extra 8pc for incomes above $25m”.
The White House said the share buybacks tax was aimed at curbing a practice it claims is too often used by executives “to enrich themselves rather than investing workers and growing their businesses”.
Taxing ‘paper profits’ fails, but why not think about it?
The controversial proposal to tax unrealised capital gains, mentioned at the top of this summary, it turns out has been dropped.
The idea seemed to try to get round the problem of those with vast wealth paying no income tax, because they often don’t draw much of an income, preferring instead to borrow cash against their wealth, held in shares and other assets.
Authored by Democrat Senator Ron Wyden and backed by progressive former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, the proposals unveiled this week would apply to taxpayers with more than $1bn in assets or over $100m in income for three years in a row.
At the end of every tax year, billionaires’ tradeable assets would be appraised. The increase in their net worth over 12 months would be taxed at the top capital gains rate of 28.3pc.
Readers might feel entitled to ask: what is the issue with taxing the rich in this way? The Telegraph argues taxing unrealised assets opens “a hornets’ nest of issues.”
What issues?
The proposals, announced on October 25th by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, specified liquid assets; Yellen denied it should be considered a ‘wealth tax’.
A classical libertarian argument, militantly argues that taxing unrealised gains in this way is theft. I’m not so sure. But, is there something in the classical libertarian approach to consider, before dismissing it?
Venture capitalist Mike Novogratz made alternative suggestions: “maybe try eliminating step up basis first. And carried interest. That would be a start”.
Step-up basis apparently refers to a readjustment of the value of an appreciated asset for tax purposes upon inheritance. Carried interest means a share of profits that the general partners of private equity and hedge funds receive, regardless of whether they contribute any initial funds – a kind of performance fee.
Novogratz went on to argue taxing
“Unrealized gains on illiquid securities would be a unmitigated disaster” –
Something of a non-sequitur given Yellen specifies liquid assets only.
What of the ‘soft’ argument that the tax would force founder CEOs to sell shares, thus affecting the market’s valuation. We can’t know what the unintended consequences through the chaos of the markets would be. I think the proposal does raise complicated concerns around unintended risks, certainly at the highest capital gains rate; it’s a risky way to cover Biden’s debt. But what if the tax was at a much lower rate?
Perhaps we should consider this in context. Many factors are at play here. Tax avoidance by the wealthy, increasing the relative tax burden on the rest of us, seems ingrained in the whole structure of today’s capitalistic organisation. Are Novogratz’s alternative suggestions pointing to loopholes that could be closed before considering a straightforward tax on unrealised capital gains? On the other hand, if restricted to the 700 or so people planned, and at a lower rate to mitigate systemic risk, why not try it?
But opponents pose a challenging argument, pointing to creeping taxation: income tax, they point out, was originally ‘just for the rich’. Perhaps this is what Novogratz was hinting at by suggesting taxing illiquid assets might be a next step? Elon Musk, who reports estimate would pay $50billion over five years, took this line, suggesting that since the White House estimates this tax covers “~10% of the $3.5 trillion spending bill. Where will the other 90% come from? The answer is you.”
The Telegraph report, incisively, points out Musk
has raised few problems with government spending when it subsidised Tesla sales or funded rocket launch contracts for SpaceX – the other source of his paper wealth.
Indeed, the profitability of Tesla depends in part on US Government tax credits to the company for being ‘ecological’. This allows them to increase their profits at the expense of public funds.
I don’t believe all taxes are destined to creep and encroach. Political will can override that. We may then consider, free of events, taxing unrealised capital gains on liquid assets, but a more modest tax than the October 25 proposal, so as not to risk disturbing the markets systemically. But we may also consider what would theoretically stop a covenant restricting it to liquid assets over $1bn? How do we stop any creep in such a tax towards the rest of us? Questions worth considering.
A new/old deal
In any case, Biden has announced a framework deal which excludes the Oct 25 proposal, considered too radical for the Senate’s centre to agree. The game of ambitious, even radical proposals, led to haggle and a compromise, a new deal which may or may not be what the parties were aiming at.
On the table now is a revised $1.75 trillion spending plan. It remains to be seen if simply raising income tax on the wealthiest, alongside increasing corporation tax, can cover Biden’s bet. By the end of his first term, we should be able to discern an answer, when the political games have been won and lost, and the consequences play out.
Addendum – breaking news
As I write, further developments related to this story and issue have unfolded. The headline here is that “Elon Musk is ready to spend $6 billion to end world hunger, asks the United Nations to provide a plan”.
Billionaires are occasionally criticised for, as in the recent case of Jeff Bezos, spending their wealth created by their companies, on pleasure jaunts into space instead of, for example, ending world hunger. Of course it’s not necessarily that simple; world hunger and poverty are properties that emerge from the system as we know it – throwing $6bn at it would not necessarily solve the underlying problem. But it could be a start.
According to Business Insider India, this was prompted by David Beasley, director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), who tweeted commenting that one-sixth of the recent increase in Musk’s net worth, $6bn, could help save 42 million people who are suffering from famine. Musk responded, asking ‘exactly how’ the $6 billion will help solve world hunger. He pledged to immediately sell Tesla stock and fund the $6 billion, under the condition of “open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent”.
So to be fair to Musk, he seems to recognise the complications. To be cynical, we could read this as a PR effort from Musk to avoid being taxed, by suggesting he could liquidate some of his net worth to directly tackle world issues through international organisation, sidestepping left-wing efforts to raise the tax burden on his ilk. This is a developing story and may well be a PR flash in the pan, but worth keeping an eye on to see how this unfolds, as Dr Beasly indicated a willingness for the WFP to work with Musk to see if anything can be put together. Full story from Business Insider India here.
With an apparently innate antipathy to the internal combustion engine, I’ve always been a keen perambulator. I was born and brought up in Stourbridge, that strange interface between the industrial Black Country and the Worcestershire and Shropshire countryside. My beloved Grandfather was a great walker. In my late teens I journeyed to Birmingham to catch a gig and, not wanting to leave early to catch a last bus or train, and lacking any alternative, walked the twelve miles or so back home. I related this to my Grandfather, and it reminded him of the time he had some unexpected army leave, and had to walk a similar distance back home, only to find his wife saying “What are YOU doing here?”
Living on the edge of the town, we weren’t far from a small mature woodland, Norton Covert, once a working sand pit accessing the ice-age sand deposits in the area. The main access point to the Covert was on the junction of Sandy Road and the Sandy Lane bridleway. All this made for fine walking, and a valuable asset in my early years.
Anyone who’s engaged in country walks may have their own primal, formative experience of this. For me, walking brings up memories of those sandy lanes next to mature woodland, long straight roads leading to a topographically diverse Covert with great views of itself; an opportunity to observe nature. My first close encounter with a fox was in Norton Covert: a timeless moment between us where the fox, which had been rummaging in a pile of leaves, and I locked eyes for a moment before the fox remembered itself and scarpered. I remember some of my primary animistic experiences there, as well as observing how wildlife uses the canopy as a transport network, and observing the signs of human impact on the woods.
A walk, to me, is to embark on a journey of unpredictable possibilities. The word walk traces its history back to the Indo-European *walg- (“to twist, turn, move”), via the Old English wealcian (“to curl, roll up”), to the Middle English walken (“to move, roll, turn, revolve, toss”). I like this element of unpredictability in the word. As has been noted by such luminaries as Will Self, walking is political; the twisty-turny connotations of the verb ‘to walk’ leave the route to the destination – or even the idea of a destination at all – unwritten. The word is intimately bound up with political tensions around land, access rights, and liberty. Wikipedia contributors assert that:
freedom to roam takes the form of general public rights which are sometimes codified in law. The access is ancient in parts of Northern Europe and has been regarded as sufficiently basic that it was not formalised in law until modern times.
I’m curious as to the truth of this assertion. These islands historically are known for pioneering the practice of enclosure, erasing common land. This practice proved controversial in law and in letters, being criticised from Sir Thomas More to George Orwell. Tudor politicians were concerned about the effects of land enclosure on the well-being of the people and on the economy, and the people themselves also made their views known in a series of revolts, riots and rebellions.
Kinder Scout to Right to Roam
In 1932, an organised mass trespass of Kinder Scout in the Peak District took place, leading to violence as local landowners and gamekeepers tried to force the ramblers away:
several of the ramblers were arrested and imprisoned… over the following days and weeks much larger trespasses were held and public opinion started to sway in the trespassers’ favour
Today, we can see this as the beginning of a journey, taking in the establishment of National Parks, footpaths and trails, and the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, codifying the right of free access to certain types of land in England and Wales.
Meanwhile
Luminaries of the Enlightenment wrote on the value of walking. Thomas Jefferson, the essential American politician (intimate with revolution, nation-building, war, and slavery) wrote to his nephew advising a course of study, including two hours a day of physical exercise. Jefferson advised “the gun…it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind”. Jefferson continues:
Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion of your walks. Never think of taking a book with you. The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk. But divert your attention by the objects surrounding you. Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far. The Europeans value themselves on having subdued the horse to the uses of man. But I doubt whether we have not lost more than we have gained by the use of this animal. No one has occasioned so much the degeneracy of the human body. An Indian goes on foot nearly as far in a day, for a long journey, as an enfeebled white does on his horse, and he will tire the best horses. There is no habit you will value so much as that of walking far without fatigue.
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Volume I, pp298
In a similar vein, but more English mode, the English essayist William Hazlitt, celebrated in his time but little-read today, wrote:
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but…I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country. I am not for criticizing hedge-rows and black cattle. I go out of town in order to forget the town and all that is in it. There are those who for this purpose go to watering-places and carry the metropolis with them. I like more elbow-room and fewer incumbrances. I like solitude…
Hazlitt touches on the therapeutic value of walking
There is hardly anything that shows the short-sightedness or capriciousness of the imagination more than travelling does. With change of place we change our ideas; nay, our opinions and feelings.
We’ve explored the country walk as a journey without a destination, where in slowing down, and spontaneously exploring the sights and sounds, the mind can relax. Why not bring such an attitude to city walks too? The flâneur, from the French for “stroller”, “lounger”, “saunterer”, or “loafer”, emerged as a privileged and critical position in the project we call modernity, not unlike Auden’s Airman, emblematic of the changes of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The flâneur stands, or rather strolls, to this day, “casual wanderer, observer and reporter of street-life in the modern city”.
The figure emerged through the writings of Charles Baudelaire, whose flâneur “wandered the streets and arcades of nineteenth-century Paris looking at and listening to the kaleidoscopic manifestations of the life of a modern city. The flâneur’s method and the meaning of his activities were bound together, one with the other,” according to Bobby Seal of the Psycho-Geographic Review. As Seal explains
In the twentieth-century Walter Benjamin returned to the concept of the flâneur in his seminal work, The Arcades Project. This weighty, but uncompleted, study used Baudelaire’s flâneur as a starting point for an exploration of the impact of modern city life upon the human psyche…
Benjamin puts forward two complementary concepts to explain our human response to modern city life. Erlebnis can be characterised as the shock-induced anaesthesia brought about by the overwhelming sensory bombardment of life in a modern city, somewhat akin to the alienated subjectivity experienced by a worker bound to his regime of labour. Erfahrung is a more positive response and refers to the mobility, wandering or cruising of the flâneur; the unmediated experience of the wealth of sights, sounds and smells the city has to offer. Benjamin was interested in the dialectic between these two concepts and cited Baudelaure’s poetry as a successful medium for turning erlebnis into erfahrung
In working with vulnerable clients, we may find they lack access to green spaces within and outside the city. Services I work with have noted clients who have never, or rarely, been outside the city, and who are unaware or unable to access green spaces near them. Some clients have spoken of the benefits of breaks outside the city, and the benefits of walking in the green.
Liaison and Diversion Services in Birmingham work with clients with multiple health and social challenges referred from the criminal justice system. L&D Birmingham initiated a series of walks in green spaces in the city. Participants included staff and service users. The notion of peer support taking place in outside environments, on a walk, was thought might be beneficial, talking and healing while doing an activity – multi-tasking, in other words.
Walking, in the sense of free roaming in open green spaces, has a lot to offer in terms of improving the physical health and well being of clients on low incomes with multiple social challenges: turning erlebnis into erfahrung.
Walking as a post-trauma therapy has plenty of anecdotal evidence beghind it. Here for example is Jennifer Tennant’s essay “Walking Myself Home”, in which she writes
For me, walking makes space for reflection, much like church or meditation does for others.
Tennant argues walking may have physiological effects similar to eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, and thus effective for symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress.
The evidence seems conclusive. The conditions for well-being include the need for walking, for exploring both the twists and turns of our environment, the world we live in, and the possibilities of our souls.
Thanks to three individuals for their invaluable contributions to this post: Emma for initially linking walking with EMDR, Matt B for information under greener horizons, and James E for putting me onto the Hazlitt essay.
January. But not just any January. It’s 2018. On Jan 9th President Trump cancels a program allowing 200,000 San Salvadoreans temporary status to live in the US, the same day mudslides sweep away 100 houses in Montecito, California, killing at least 20, on land stripped bare by recent fires. On Jan 15th protests against the government in Tunisia marked the seventh anniversary of what’s popularly called the Arab Spring, but what some dared to call the World Revolution of 2011.
Yes, Winter 2018 was not, globally speaking, promising. In Britain, the long-running tragicomedy Brexit was approaching its third year, and no one talked about anything that seemed to matter. By this point, your humble author had just ended a seven-day fast with an improv jam, a spoken word performance and some Space Raiders, followed by a light salad. It remains, to this day, one of my favourite meals.
2017 had shown signs of life in the stand-up and open mic scenes in Birmingham, while a cluster-bomb of improvisational comedy had exploded in the city. Improvisational comedy can trace roots to early modern theatre and music. When American comic Dudley Riggs developed a form of improvised theatre incorporating audience suggestions, one critic labelled it ‘word jazz’. Around the same time, improvisational exercises for actors known as ‘Theatre Games’ were developed. Similar games remain a core element in improv, both in workshops and performances. In the late 1950s, The Second City, a Chicago-based improv group which still exists formed; alumni include John Belushi and Stephen Colbert.
Back in 2017 there were two improv comedy groups active in Moseley alone: Box of Frogs, which describes itself as “Birmingham’s Premiere Impro group”, and Fat Penguin Improv, both running weekly workshops in Moseley. Fat Penguin also added a regular performance at the Patrick Kavanagh pub, and anyone was welcome to join in at the end of the show.
I elected to join in all of that, and wrote a piece for Moseley B13 magazine commenting on this emerging scene. For research I interviewed Kate Knight, and you can hear the interview here, or see the original post for a transcript:
A sense of positive fun is summed up in the improv rule “Yes And”, which states that whatever someone says, one should respond positively rather than contradicting. Kate thinks one of the reasons improv is growing popular is not only the sheer entertainment value, but that the ‘principles that underpin improv can be really effective in life’.
I relished the chance to perform, and make people laugh. I found the experience great for my boosting my emotional intelligence.
My dips into improv had been satisfying, involving, and educational, yet terrifying. In public performance, I got one laugh. One. With the word ‘osprey’. My poetry had gone down well though, so I was hyped that year to do something more. I was on the lookout for something creative. Something bigger.
I’m not a fan of Facebook, or any third-party social web platform for that matter. I think it’s better for individuals to have autonomy online, and we have the technology to empower that. But I was on Facebook and this popped up:
Birmingham Opera Company is seeking volunteers (16+) for the actors and dancers’ groups of the newly commissioned ‘WAKE’. It will have its world premiere in March 2018. It plays to the strengths of volunteer participants as well as professional singers – a unique mix of local performers and opera professionals that create a world-class work together.Be part of something amazing and join us on Wed 17 Jan in Digbeth for The Taster Actors/Dancers workshop led by Associate Choreographer Johnny Autin, accompanied by singer and musician. No experience necessary – All training provided – 2 rehearsal sessions/week Travel expenses reimbursed
Now this caught my eye. I’d signed up to participate in the Birmingham International Dance Festival two years previously, but an unfortunate sequence of events put me in a sufficiently bad mood to make me decline the opportunity. Here though was a project with an admirable-sounding mode of operation: opera with the heart of the city.
Open rehearsals, no experience necessary? I fancy that, I thought. Was I ready? Was I ever.
I want to review CBS’s latest Star Trek series, Star Trek: Picard. But first I have to set the scene, about my relationship with Star Trek, and a potted guide to its history for those unfamiliar.
Prelude: Star Trek in a nutshell
When I was born, the BBC were three-quarters of the way through their first-run British broadcasts of the original Star Trek series, some two years later than their US broadcasts. Apparently a big hit in Britain, the series was repeated often through the 70s and early 80s. That success, now I come to think of it, may have influenced the commissioning of Blake’s 7, the BBC’s adult-oriented space opera, in 1978.
While I was an avid viewer of Blake’s 7, I never took much to Star Trek. The vision of a multi-national crew, represented by multi-ethnic Americans, nevertheless remains admirable for the times, and it was certainly politically engaged. The series stands as a curious and pioneering attempt to smuggle somewhat cerebral, literary sf concerns into a mainstream show, with a character-based warmth at its heart. It’s a good recipe, with some great ingredients. It addressed very American concerns of the late 1960s, but maybe felt a little bit dated for my generation.
Meanwhile, in the US, Trek also became a big hit in the 70s, re-run in syndication, bigger than it ever was during its original late-60s run on NBC. It grew not only its mainstream audience, but generated a qualitative change in the nature of audience itself, with the emergence of Star Trek fandom. The idea of an organised television audience, with their own voice and ideas, was so far outside of their reality tunnel, the story goes, that industry representatives, on seeing the much larger than expected numbers at the first fan convention, simply left the event, unable to deal with the implications and potential shift of power. The significance of this event for the changing nature of media audiences over the past 50 years bears consideration, as fannish cultural practices slowly, insidiously some might say, became mainstream. These days everyone binge-watches, over-analyses, reviews and makes their own fiction about their favourite TV show. That’s pretty much our culture now. But once, it was a sub-cultural sociality known as fandom.
The success of Star Trek: The Next Generation proved the importance of audience. The idea that Star Trek was a very liberal and progressive – and even in some areas a radical – enterprise, isn’t especially valid for the original series. Many of the ideas we associate with this interpretation of Trek derived from the fan culture of the 70s and 80s, who saw in Star Trek the potential for a radically inclusive and progressive futurism. The idea that poverty, hunger and racism have been eliminated in the future, within an enlightened, yet Earth-centred galactic federation, simply isn’t present in the original series. Indeed, it’s implied Earth is a colonial power. It’s now thought Roddenberry saw these more Utopian, progressive ideas emerge from the fan audience, and adopted them. The development of Star Trek was led by the remarkable creativity of its fan audience. The Next Generation also seems to me influenced by new age culture, surging in late 80s California, where as Dennis Potter once remarked, ‘every nut rolls’ sooner or later. By 1987, Paramount was still making $1 million per episode in syndication. The arguments for a new series were overwhelming.
Star Trek The Next Generation’s cultural influences can be read into the initial decision to dispense with a regular Chief Engineer, but insist upon a regular Counsellor character on the bridge of the new, pastel-shaded and softly furnished USS Enterprise. This reflects the caring, sharing, person-centred, eco-conscious culture of liberal America of that time.
Next Gen had a hard job convincing fans of the original series attached to the idea that Star Trek could only incarnate in the Kirk-Bones-Spock triumvirate. Indeed that idea had been established early in Star Trek fandom’s literature, that the heart and essence of the series lay in the interplay of these three characters. Mr Spock representing the emotionally repressed, logical, thinking element, Dr ‘Bones’ McCoy representing its counterpart, the emotional, feeling man. According to this theory, Kirk represents the perfect integration of feeling and intellect in a man, and thus is fit to both mediate between the forces represented by Spock and Bones, and lead them as their Captain.
The characters of the Next Generation were developed by Gene Roddenberry and DC Fontana, and thankfully don’t attempt to replicate this formula precisely. However, we have a female Doctor, hilariously named ‘Crusher’, and the android Data, who acts as a mirror of Spock in some ways. Unlike Spock, Data has no emotions to repress, so his desire is to become more human, not less. And so we come to Picard, who is presented as an idealised, integrated man. Cultured, intelligent, an explorer interested in poetry and drama, inclined towards the diplomatic and consensus solution, but entirely able to use maximum military force with ruthlessly effective tactics when necessary.
This triumvirate is backed by a slightly larger regular ensemble cast than the original series. By accident or design, the cast assembled had genuine chemistry with each other, forming close real life bonds which persist to this day, and this factor had a lot to do with the success of the series.
After a shaky couple of years, but with a base level of quality and moments of brilliance, Next Gen’s third season, with the writing drastically improving by the week, established the series in its own right. The events of that third season had genuine weight, affecting the characters, Picard in particular, in ways that are still being explored, most recently in the 10 part CBS series Star Trek: Picard that aired earlier this year.
There were times when Stewart had me crying my eyes out as Picard, most notably during the season 6 episode Chains of Command, in which Picard is tortured by David Warner. Picard gives an incredibly sensitive performance, informed by research undertaken with Amnesty International into people’s experiences of torture. Here’s a great Picard moment, from the best Star Trek movie, in which Picard reveals the extent to which his traumas still motivates him several years later.
The state of Trek
After the 2009 cinematic reboot, the Star Trek Universe split into two parallel universes. The new movies occur in the ‘Kelvin’ timeline, while the original universe maintains its existence as the ‘Prime’ timeline. As if mirroring this, the film and television rights split apart when Paramount Pictures’ parent company Viacom dispensed with CBS, who hold the television rights. It was in this environment CBS decided to return Star Trek to television, some 12 years after the last Star Trek TV show, the prequel Enterprise, ended after four seasons. The commercial circumstances were remarkably similar to those that conditions the return of Star Trek to TV back in 1987. The audience for genre film and TV had expanded, fandom now enjoying the kind of relationship with the industry which would have been a mad dream in 1972. Moreover, the back catalogue was finding a new audience on streaming services, just as the original series had found a new audience in syndication back in the 70s, increasing the commercial pressure for new content.
CBS hired Bryan Fuller, who’d worked in his younger days on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and who’d now made a name for himself as the showrunner of the Hannibal Tv series, to develop new Star Trek shows. His winning idea was to create an anthology show which would start in the years before the original series, but progress through the Prime timeline, giving fresh takes on different eras of the show. While there were creative tensions between Fuller and CBS, it seems his early departure from the production of Star Trek: Discovery was more down to scheduling conflicts, with CBS and Netflix keen to get the series quickly while Fuller was tied up on prior commitments to adapt Neil Gaiman’s American Gods for television.
CBS brought in Alex Kurtzmann, who’d worked on the new movies, to oversee Star Trek for them.
I’ve never seen Star Trek: Discovery, although I have seen a couple of the Short Treks anthology show that spun off from it, a show which seems to fulfil Fuller’s vision of a show that can explore any bit of Trek it likes. And Star Trek: Discovery, having explored and reinvented the back story of some of the original series characters (like Christopher Pike, Kirk’s immediate predecessor as Enterprise Captain, and Spock), has now been flung forward to a century after the time of Next Generation, much as previous prequel series Enterprise brought in a plot elements from the far, post-Next Generation future too. This also fulfils Fuller’s plan to have the early seasons set before the original series, and later seasons set in advance of the later spin offs. But much of this has passed me by. I gave up on Star Trek sometime during Voyager, a show with a lot of unfulfilled potential, and saw little of Enterprise. But a little bit of Star Trek, thanks in large part to Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard, stayed with me.
And so the announcement last year that Stewart would be reprising Picard, in a new TV series focused on that character’s life 16 years after the end of the Next Generation, excited me. I figured if Stewart was involved, that suggested quality, and the potential for surprising quality.
So what’s Star Trek: Picard like? Was it a joyful reunion, or a disappointing afterglow? Join me next time to find out.
This post’s featured image is by JD Hancock, and used under license.
In late 2015, after physically healing an injury I’d sustained in midsummer, I was looking for some psychological healing experiences. Laughter, of course, is often called ‘the best medicine’ and there seems to be some truth in this. I discovered laughter yoga, which I found an excellent tonic.
What’s the medical evidence for this? Somewhat inconclusive it seems. We know laughter produces endorphins, and seems to involve the limbic system, specifically the hippocampus and the amygdala. In other words, it’s ancient, something laid down early in our primate evolution, and indeed laughter has been observed in other primates.
On the other hand, there’s some evidence the cortex is involved: there’s a cognitive component. This makes intuitive sense. I’ve been told I have a very sophisticated sense of humour. I will laugh or smile along with the rest of humanity at funny cat videos, but I also laugh when others do not. For example, I recall watching the 1995 Judge Dredd movie, in my view an underrated film, and finding it hugely funny in the way it uses American cliches and mythologies to satirical effect. You can’t find that funny without a certain level of cognitive sophistication. My co-watchers were confused as to what I found so funny, while I found the film a fresh look at America. Christopher Hitchens was inclined to consider irony one of the consolations for the losing battle we are all fighting, and something he couldn’t live without; I’d agree irony and wit are precious jewels, producing such satisfying smiles.
Laughter seems to have evolved as a survival strategy for both individual and social health. There’s evidence it relieves stress, boosts the immune system, helps keep a healthy heart and blood flow, and even reduce allergic reactions. It may extend life. It also has social benefits, improving relationships amongst humans. It can also be used to reinforce social isolation of particular humans while improving bonding amongst those who join in the laughter, thus reinforcing shared social norms. The object of the laughter thus plays an important role in those relationships.
In these times, anything that can help our health, particularly the immune system, as well as improve social relationships, has a value that perhaps should not be understated. So I thought I’d share with you three videos that have made me laugh a lot recently.
Thinking about the first example, I guess this is a case of laughing at someone else’s expense, in this case Liam Gallagher’s. And who better? Here’s Sacha Baron-Cohen, on an American chat show, with a very funny story about him:
Chat shows, in amongst the tedium, can provide some spectacular moments of wit and humour. I’ve always been an admirer of Graham Norton. His early forays into the chat show format on Channel Four I thought constituted a quiet revolution in the chat show format. The way he re-focused the format away from the guests and onto the audience, facilitating their participation in the conversation, was very clever. Using early internet humour to widen the tired chat show format into something that could comment on our wider culture, stands as a genuine advance in the form, and he’s partly responsible I think for bringing internet culture to the mainstream.
Here are two examples of humour, again at someone else’s expense. Peter Capaldi and Tom Hanks seize a golden opportunity to make fun of David Walliams, who runs with it beautifully.
My final example is an example of self-deprecating humour, but also perfect timing. Lee Mack tells a very funny story of how he got sacked from Pontins, so perfectly told it even has John Cleese doubled up. Mack apparently regarded this as one of the proudest moments of his career:
Laugh every day, even if you don’t want to. One thing I learned from my laughter yoga experiences is that simulated laughter brings many of the same health benefits as the ‘real thing’, and can easily lead to ‘real’ laughter in ourselves and others.
Laughter, in fact, has been called one of the most contagious things known to humanity, and usefully is transmittable over a distance of more than two metres. Along with orgasm it’s also one of the most effective natural analgesic mechanisms available to us. Perhaps in addition to collectively clapping for those on the front line, we could engage in collective laughter at those responsible for the current crisis, as a way of excluding them from society, and improving social bonds amongst the rest of us?
We have nothing to lose but our pains.
This post’s featured image is copyright Amauta Fotografia, used under license.
Part Three: Another Overload The Boar’s Head, Kidderminster, 23 March 2019
Kidderminster, described by Pevsner, the art and architecture historian, as “uncommonly devoid of visual pleasure and architectural interest”, can claim some musical heritage as part of the Midlands scene. Robert Plant played some of his early gigs here, while attending King Edwards Grammar School in nearby Stourbridge, and went on to buy a farm just outside the town. Stan Webb, front man of the blues band Chicken Shack, and rhythm and blues singer Mike Sanchez, both lived in Kiddie – as it’s known locally – as well as Ewan Pearson and the late Tony De Vit, prominent producer-DJs.
Enhancing this history, X0M made their Spring 2019 sing-along appearance at The Boar’s Head, a Kidderminster pub which has distinguished itself as a live music venue and art gallery.
I’d last encountered the band for their Stirchley Christmas Sing-along, at the end of a stressful year. This spring event found me in a happier place. I had just finished a rewarding, but rather exhausting stint performing in Birmingham Opera Company’s acclaimed production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. With my birthday coming up, I was sorely in need of a knees-up, and where better than a town seven country miles from my birthplace?
I encountered the band in the beer-garden, and was warmly welcomed, with the caveat that the sound-check had been problematic. As the band took the stage, Mr Sandilands warned us to expect high volume.
They began reprising the encore from winter’s solstice, Linda and Paul McCartney’s Live & Let Die (probably not my favourite Bond theme but certainly one of the better movies), followed by U2’s Vertigo. If these were intended as two belting crowd-pleasers, they were followed with two perhaps lesser known songs.
XOM performed Queen’s Now I’m Here, written by Brian May. It was originally released after Queen’s breakout ‘power pop’ hit Killer Queen. Freddie Mercury felt Now I’m Here
was just to show people we can still do rock ‘n’ roll – we haven’t forgotten our rock ‘n’ roll roots. It’s nice […] I enjoyed doing that on stage
By this point I was dancing my heart out. In the opera I’d had a chance to try out what I hesitate to call pole dancing (see video), but the Boars Head venue had these pillars that seemed ideal for developing that particular art. And so the next song, Elbow’s Mirrorball, had me using them to help me dance in the most seductively responsive way I could muster.
I was not familiar, or even aware of Elbow and their music until this point, which reiterates the point I made in my first review:
good artists lead and educate an audience as much as merely entertain
One week into the UK’s so-called ‘lockdown’, and I thought it would be good to look at the UK response to the virus, and round up some political and social developments within this benighted territory over the past few weeks. Coming so soon after last year’s late general election, which confirmed the Johnson administration in power, it’s difficult not to see the Covid-19 crisis as a test of this government’s mettle and fibre, and it’s an interesting political story. But much more broadly, I’m solidly of the opinion that this crisis presents an opportunity to consider, and reconsider, where we are as a society and as a culture, and specifically to refresh our political vision and ambition. Personally I find the idea of ‘going back to normal life’ horrifying; to even consider that option I’d call tragic, and a wasted opportunity. Going back to the interminable boom of traffic; the illegally filthy urban air, a killer in itself; to go back to how we were: now that’s what I call a zombie apocalypse. This crisis, it seems to me, exposes very clearly where the unacceptable has been normalised. To expect to go back to accepting the unacceptable is to lower ones expectations so far one might as well have no expectations at all.
The gathering storm
Think back to another age: mid-March, just about half a lunar cycle ago, when pubs were open and I could go see XOM play Pink Floyd at the Dark Horse. I do some work with the NHS, chairing a monthly networking meeting for service users and professionals, and it was around this time all ‘non-essential’ meetings and training within the Birmingham and Solihul Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (try saying that after six jam sandwiches) were cancelled. Precautionary measures were being taken as the scale of the epidemic on the continent became apparent.
As an excellent round-up of the story of UK politics in the time of Covid-19, found of all places in the New England Journal of Medicine, reminds us, it was only around this time, March 12th, that Johnson held his first major press conference on the issue, but, despite increasingly concerned communiques since January from the UK’s public health community:
there was no appetite for banning mass gatherings, since we were told […] that doing so would have minimal impact […] there was no recommendation, far less any instruction, to shut down one of the busier weekends on the sporting calendar. Such inaction continued despite the prime minister’s warning that “many more families will lose loved ones before their time.”
[…]
In the absence of a government policy, the football authorities (both rugby and soccer) acted with admirable responsibility: they postponed the matches despite the financial losses…
Indeed, it now looks like civil society was way ahead of the government; but so were other governments.
Herd it through the grapevine
Sir Patrick Vallance, who going by the surname is affiliated with the followers of William the Conqueror, used to preside over R&D at big pharma company GlaxoSmithKline. These days however he slums it as the UK government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, and it was Sir Patrick who used the term ‘herd immunity’ to describe an aspect of the government’s strategy. Quoted in the Guardian, Sir Patrick argued:
“Our aim is to try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; […] to build up some kind of herd immunity so more people are immune to this disease and we reduce the transmission […] “
He added: “This is quite likely, I think, to become an annual virus, an annual seasonal infection.”
Regardless of the wisdom or otherwise of this approach, I think the term ‘herd immunity’ got people’s backs up: people don’t on the whole like being regarded as cattle. The public quickly got the impression the national plan was accepting “a large number of deaths soon, to ultimately get the population to a Covid-19–resistant state”. Some, including the Guardian, implied the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), the so-called ‘nudge unit’ which has been a feature of British politics since the ascendance of the Cameron/Osborne double-act, were partly responsible for fashioning a response based on behavioural psychology.
Regardless, the policy did seem out of step with other governments, as Eire and France had already by this point closed schools, universities, and moved to ban mass gatherings. The Guardian ran an Op-ed titled I’m an epidemiologist. When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire. Jeremy Hunt, former Health Secretary and the candidate Johnson had beaten in the final round for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and therefore the Premiership, registered his concern that more serious measures were not being taken, and government strategy at this point became politically untenable.
Their finest hour
In civil society, consciousness of what was before us became crystallised, focused. At the pub that weekend, there was talk of little else, and of making the most of a last opportunity to socialise. One colleague from another NHS Trust suggested that the usual tensions within the service had abated:
all parts of the service are now pulling together and coming into line in an unprecedented manner – co-operation and flexibility amongst front line staff has been extraordinary
Silver linings, unexpected consequences.
The Monday evening following I walked past the same pub, guitar in hand, and I caught sight of an MC of my acquaintance, so I went to over say hello. He was predicting the forthcoming lock-down, in characteristically Biblical tones. Noticing the guitar, he asked me if I had been practising. “No,” I replied, “I’ve just played an open mic in Kings Heath”. “We do what we do, don’t we” he observed stoically.
Johnson announced more stringent advice that Monday; the NEJM argues these vague announcements only added to the confusion. By Wednesday, March 18th, the government announced school closures for the end of the week. On March 20th, at the spring equinox, the NEJM could write:
Throughout the past few weeks, the U.K. mantra has been “we will act at the appropriate time according to the science.” Many clinicians and scientists have been pushing the panic button, but the alarm, if heard, was not acted on publicly until the third week of March. Everyone is hoping that their gut instincts, the experience of other countries, and now the models are wrong. What is not in doubt is that barring a miracle, a treatment, and ultimately a vaccine, the NHS in the United Kingdom is about to experience a challenge unlike any other in its 70 years of existence.
Four days later, the government announced the UK ‘lockdown’, to last a minimum of three weeks, with emergency legislation planned for later that week to enforce it. As has been pointed out though, these measures are less draconian than in other countries – there’s no actual curfew or travel ban as such, and the Civil Contingencies Act has not been triggered. The new regulations are however fairly strict, and and enforceable by new police powers:
Meanwhile, outside our island, news of riots and breakouts across prisons in South and Latin America reached me, as people began to take matters into their own hands.
Join me soon, when I’ll be looking at life since the ‘lockdown’ began. I’ll look at further political, social and cultural developments, as we begin week two, and try to ascertain what might happen next.
On becoming an undergraduate, I soon looked up Karl Marx’s well-known, and often quoted remark on religion: the opium of the people.
Nuance and subtlety drift over time. We may assume Marx dismisses religion as a soothing crutch, or more pejoratively as a harmful addiction. But we can assume nothing from one out of context quotation. For Marx and his world in 1844, opium’s connotations would have been so different from ours, it seemed to my new undergraduate brain trite and naive to assume anything at all about Marx’s remark. Besides, Karl’s pipe was tobacco-laden. It’s just a metaphor. I wanted to look at the whole text of the remark, and to understand, without prejudice, the whole argument.
The remark comes from Marx’s Introduction to his Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1844), which begins:
For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.
Part Two: The Greatest Gift
British Oak, Stirchley: 20th December 2018
Christmas comes but once a year, and as Christopher Hitchens remarked, you can’t get away from it then, like a one-party state, with its regulation songs, symbols and, ‘sickly Santa Claus obsequies’. Contrary to popular belief, even suicide rates decline in midwinter’s icy grip of good cheer, by order.
Having successfully batted away that pesky GBH charge, and completed my teaching qualification, I’d been looking forward to a pleasantly healing and productive autumn.
Yeah right. Turned out to be yet more unrelenting trauma, topped and tailed with all sorts of tiring idiots making outrageous and unacceptable demands on my liberties. Professionally it was full to the brim with “thoughtful and insightful work” writing and designing, as well as various interviewing and speaking engagements. And with my principle antagonist somewhat chastened I did get some peace and quiet, some rest, until Xmas, and was able to put more time into my stringed, percussive, and choral pursuits. So it turned out to be a musical fall, bound for winter’s ground cushioned by the comfy chair of XOM’s Xmas sing-a-long.
Earlier in the year I’d been asked to write some site-specific verse to be performed at one of Birmingham’s Oak trees, and came up with a serviceable enough piece of work that referenced the British Oak, Stirchley, a pub which turned out to be the venue for this event. I like Stirchley, and have been touting it as ‘the next Moseley’ for about eight years, so it was good to venture there with some good friends.
Once again, lyrics sheets for these classic rock ‘n’ roll anthems were distributed around the yard, singing along being encouraged. The songs for this gig danced around the decades, and seem thematically well sequenced:
Live and Let Die (by Wings) – the most rock and roll of all the Bond themes
Vertigo (by U2)
Are you gonna go my way (Kravitz) – as we discussed last week: ubiquitous, but fun and gutsy
You really got me (the Kinks; XOM add a note that they’re essentially doing the Van Halen verison
Just (Radiohead): written by Thom Yorke, supposedly about ‘a narcissistic friend’ (we’ve all been there), and apparently a competitive bid by Yorke to ‘fit the most chords into a song’)
Whole lot of Rosie (ACDC): I always enjoy a bit of AC/DC
Jump (van Halen)
Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple) – lovely tune,really good to hear this one
Another Brick in the Wall p2 (Pink Floyd)
Intermission
We will Rock You (Queen)
We Are the Champions (Queen)
Here I go again on my Own (Whitesnake) – last week I noted the interesting history of this song. Originally recorded in 1982, there’s the line ‘like a hobo I was born to walk alone’, but this was later changed to ‘drifter’ in the 1987 version, apparently to avoid the word being misheard as ‘homo’. I thought this was a terribly interesting moment of queer history, and wonder what it would be like to, as it were, reinsert the hobo into the lyric.
Don’t stop Believing (Journey)
Final Countdown (by Europe), a song which I suppose can’t be avoided in current political circumstances
Champagne Supernova (Oasis)
Smells like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
With a little help from my Friends (The Beatles/Joe Cocker version) – Joe Cocker
Living on a Prayer – Bon Jovi
Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) the third Queen number of the set, this again rather ubiquitous number has in some ways been a victim of it’s own success, its passage into jokey culture maybe masking something of how innovative and special it really is. One wonders, idly, what more could be done with this song.
Wish you were Here (Pink Floyd) – always good to hear
Here it is Merry Christmas (Slade)
Do they know it’s Christmas (Band Aid)
The band performed with their usual energy and passion. Once again, as Gary performed his vocal and keyboard duties, Jon Sandilands encouraged us to sing, Banks and Smalls on the rhythm section keeping us in time.
Ace rhythm guitarist Iain Davies, I believe the latest addition to the band, emerged somewhat into the light. Jon introduced him in his capacity as a vocalist, and as someone with more to contribute to the band. To be honest he seemed a little unsure of himself, but he acquitted himself with skill and grace, and this reviewer always appreciates a Monty Python reference.
Since this gig fell on Winter Solstice Eve, Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull, in contrast to either the Slade or Band Aid numbers, would have delighted me. As it was, that Geldof/Ure charity smash ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ sounded the clanging chimes of doom, or possibly last orders, and by this point however I don’t think anybody cared whether it was Christmas or not, let alone whether people in Africa were aware of it, or the possibility of snow in that rather large and varied continent.
XOM’s custom of reprising a song from the set, as an encore chosen by audience voice speaks to that great sense of participation that marks XOM out from the crowd. The popular vote, Live and Let Die by Wings, rounded off Solstice Eve with a flourish. Jon said it was a strange encore, and now I come to think of it there did seem to be a rather charged atmosphere, as the very sun came to the beginning of that three day standstill, nights at their very longest before the creeping dawn of Christmas Day.
Ring out, ye solstice bells. I emerged from the gig energised and ready to take on Christmas. I found it a lovely way to spend Solstice Eve, and choir the following day was all the sweeter for it.
