James O'Malley... Living Legend

Speed as an allegory for Capitalism

James — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 23:35:08 +0000

Last night, I watched the seminal action-thriller film Speed, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and some other famous people. Obviously this isn’t the most cerebral thing that I could have watched – Hamlet was on today. But it did make me think – given the millions and millions of hours academics waste studying Shakespeare and reading too much into it, I think they’ve missed something. If only they’d stopped examining Hamlet from a post-modernist perspective, and had instead looked at Speed, they would have spotted the most obvious commentary on modern capitalism I’ve ever seen.

Think about it – the bus being unable to stop is a comment on capitalism’s need to constantly move forward and grow, and the jeopardy of the bus exploding is a metaphor for if the capitalist system slows down, the world economy will explode – taking many innocent civilians with it. No one being able to get off the bus is just like how it’s impossible for anyone – or any one country – to opt out of global markets and the capitalist system – because of the hold capitalism has upon everyone, whether they like it or not. Anyone who does try to escape – like one of the passengers – will just get destroyed for trying, not through the fault of the other participants in capitalism (the other passengers), but by the structure of the system itself.

Reeves’ saying “The bomb is big enough to blow a hole in THE WORLD” is not the clunkiest line in cinema history – far from it – it’s actually remarkably prescient, and is actually a commentary about the importance of capitalism in world society. If we were to lose capitalism overnight, society would break down.

The gap in the road that the bus has to jump is a metaphor for the occasional crisis that capitalism faces – and the extraordinary steps that are required to get past it (like bank bailouts).

The villain, an ex-cop out to make money is an allegory for the profit driven nature of the capitalist system – and the corrupting influence of money. The good guys in the film are the governments of the world – trying to correct the inadequacies of the free market and counter-balance the unfettered profit-driven motives of private industry.

And of course, Keanu Reeves’ wooden acting is an allegory for the destruction of trees and other natural resources in pursuit of consumption and the bus never stopping.

Look out for my thesis, Pop Quiz Hotshot: Speed, Society and Capitalism, in the new year…

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Post tags: buses, Films, Keanu Reeves, Movies, Speed

Killing Pigeons

James — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:58:32 +0000

One of the major creationist arguments against evolution is that no one has ever “observed” evolution happen, and therefore God definitely did it. The trouble with this argument is obvious – the creationists have never actually observed nature. Nature is horrible and if a deity were to create such a system, they’d have to be sick in the head. Today I was unfortunately a partipant a very vivid example of nature at it’s most horrendous.

Our next-door neighbours have a cat, and far from being adorable, it’s actually a vicious killing machine, and regularly deposits the corpses of pigeons in our garden – or worse still, their still living, half-mangled corpses. Earlier today I looked out of the window and saw a distressed, half-dead pigeon.

So we did what we thought was the most responsible thing – call the RSPCA. If anyone can fix a wounded animal, and cure it of it’s ailments, it’s probably going to be them. And this is when the most horrifying thing happened. The RSPCA turned up and decided that the best course of action was to put the pigeon out of it’s misery. So the man took the pigeon out to the van and killed it right there and then in front of our house. Or so I’m told anyway – I couldn’t bear to watch.

Of course, there was probably no other option – it’s probably pretty difficult to make pigeon-size wheelchairs, and helping all pigeons is probably uneconomic – the RSPCA man wasn’t just the death panel, but the executioner too. But it was still quite upsetting, because as the person who first discovered the pigeon’s plight and triggered the RSPCA being alerted and therefore hastening the pigeons death… did I kill it by proxy? Do I have blood on my hands?

It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions – I think I must feel like the general who orders troops into battle knowing they weren’t coming back alive. Or perhaps more precisely, the general who orders the doctors to treat a patient only for the doctor to instead go on a killing spree.

And I bet the RSPCA man wasn’t terribly happy either. I bet he grew up loving animals, finding them fascinating, enjoying trips to the zoo, and then training to be a vet because of his love of animals and wanting to help them… only to then find out he’ll spend most of his career murdering them.

I’m just glad I didn’t give the pigeon a name, or something that would make the story even more loaded with emotion. In fact, re-read this blog-post but imagine the pigeon’s name was Dale. Dale the pigeon.

Nature is horrible.

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Post tags: animals, nature, Pigeons

Another new project: Skeptical Voter

James — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:34:11 +0000

I’ve started a new project with Richard Wilson, author of “Don’t Get Fooled Again” and Craig Lucas – it combines two of my favourite things: politics and skepticism. Basically we want to create a database of MPs and candidates for the 2010 election’s positions on issues that skeptics care about – that is to say, things like evidence-based policy, teaching creationism and that sort of thing. It’s called Skeptical Voter, and you should definitely take a look, and ideally sign up and support it.

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What is Music?

James — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:26:52 +0000

We’re now six weeks into my new Podcast, The Pod Delusion, and I’ve finally got around to recording my second proper contributions (I present the links between reports every week, mainly). I put together a report on the question of “What is music?” – which you can hear fourth on the player below:

Also on this week’s show are:
The Ethics of Formula 1 by Duncan Stephen
Ubuntu and open source by Owen Duffy
The problem with conventional medicine by Simon Howard

See The Pod Delusion website for more.

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I think I hate East Midlands Trains

James — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:46:46 +0000

It’s a bit of a cliché to moan about the railways – the arguments and moans are always the same: “Cuh! The train is always late!”, “The trains are so expensive”, “The staff of East Midlands Trains are like the Stasi”. Clichéd though it may be, this isn’t going to stop me from having a lengthy moan about the,

Maybe that last complaint is uniquely mine – a few years ago I upset the Midland Mainline press office by writing a newspaper column when I likened their attitude to that of the Stasi. I got a rather frosty reaction from the people at my local station too. “Maybe I was a bit harsh”, I thought at the time, though once again I now feel fully justified, self righteous, and I’m about to mount my high-horse.

The other day I had to go down to London on business, as part of my new job (that’s right, I’m basically Don Draper now), so thinking it was the sensible thing to do I booked tickets online like I have done many times before. I went down to London, did the sort of jet-setting important business you’d expect someone of my stature to do, before heading back to St Pancras to catch the train home.

Because I’d booked online, I’d ended up with “Advance” tickets, assuming they worked like they always have – whilst the return train isn’t tied to any particular time, the seat reservation is, but that I could catch any off-peak train back with the ticket I’d paid for.

If any train spotters are reading, you can probably predict the horror that was about to unfold as I boarded the train. I put my advance ticket into the ticket-gates, they swung open, seemingly verifying my preconception, I boarded the train, found a seat and tried to decide whether reading New Humanist or The Guardian would make me look more important to the other passengers.

The ticket inspector came along the carriage checking tickets, I presented mine expecting no problems only to be told that my ticket wasn’t valid. I calmly explained that this had never happened before, but the ticket inspector wouldn’t budge – he insisted that I had to buy a whole new ticket. “Oh, fair enough, it’ll only be something like £11 as it’s a single in the middle of the day”, I thought. Then he dropped a bombshell: the ticket would cost me FIFTY-ONE POUNDS. I think I looked visibly shocked – and the woman sitting opposite me looked as horrified as I did. The ticket man explained that if I’d changed my tickets at the station it’d have been somewhere in the region of £14… but because I’d got on the train he was going to charge me £51 – this despite the ticket machine he was holding clearly being able to issue a variety of suitable fares. I asked him about railcards and the like, but he said it was “company policy” to charge the full fare.

I was furious, but remained calm as I handed over my card – before asking, in a sort of passive-aggressive way what the complaints procedure was, hoping that he’d let me off.

What enrages me about this whole experience is that East Midlands Trains were technically in the right, their small-print and “policy” had got me… but morally, I don’t know how Ian Dobbs, chief executive of Stagecoach’s rail arm can sleep at night. How can a company so ruthlessly enforce such arbitrary rules and metaphorically shit all over their customers?

At risk of sounding like a left-winger who’s much older than I am, the problem seems to be linked to nationalisation of the railways. Not the de-linking of infrastructure from train operation, or the impenetrable topography of who-owns-what, which has de-incentivised train operators from improving their service, but the complete removal of any accountability of the companies operating the trains. Because of the way the trains are operated, the commuters rage – our rage – is completely impotent.

One of the key ideas in capitalism is that it empowers the consumer by allowing them to “vote” with their money – if they don’t like a product or service, they can stop buying it and force the companies to change to win them back… that’s basic economics. The problem is that there is no competition for trains. Don’t be a smart-arse and say “what about national express?” or “what about walking?”, I mean actually plausible alternatives – and besides, bus and train operators are all eventually owned by a small handful of bastard parent companies anyway.

So basically East Midlands Trains have a free hand in treating their (whether they like it or not) loyal customers like shit, wringing as much cash as they can out of them for providing such a basic service. I feel completely powerless.

At least if we had a nationalised railway there’d be some political responsibility, and more crucially the whole ethos of the “business” would be about providing an affordable service and getting people to their destinations, not about maximising profits. Hell, a nationalised railway might even run services over night at a loss – something that they’re going to have to start doing for me to give up driving and enable us to achieve the “low-carbon future” that we so desperately need to do something about.

I wouldn’t even mind paying the penalty fare if the prices were not so wildly taking the piss – the ludicrous disparity in peak and off-peak ticket pricing, and the high prices in general create essentially an apartheid system, where if I want to catch a train earlier in the morning, I probably need to be earning a six-figure salary or I should forget about it.

I think essentially what I’m trying to say is that trains are very frustrating. And I loath East Midlands Trains with a passion.

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The Pod Delusion

James — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:06:20 +0000

I’m terribly excited as the pilot episode of my new podcast has just gone live. The Pod Delusion is a bit like From Our Own Correspondent, but with a sceptical/liberal/lefty/Guardianista slant. Have a listen:

The best bit is that I’ve managed to involve both my friends and work: Simon, Duncan, Niki, Crispian, Will, Carmen, Charlotte, Arthur, Jim, Steffan, Tom and Pete are all involved – and I’m hosting it on (where else?) ipadio.

Hopefully as there’s loads of us working together this will take off rather than sink without a trace, like, er, Two Minute Hate.

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Post tags: podcast, skeptics

A video I made for work

James — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:05:16 +0000

Ridiculously, my work thought it a good idea that they lend me a video camera to make tutorial videos and the like for them. So today I had a play with the camera to test some things out, like how to edit the video and that sort of thing, and in the process recorded myself doing something more amazing than Derren Brown. Have a watch for yourself:

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How Derren Brown predicted the Lottery

James — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:44:47 +0000

I’m posting this now on the off-chance that I’m right. Then I’ll be able to boast about being brilliant at figuring things out. If you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, earlier on Derren Brown “predicted” the lottery result live on TV – and got all six numbers.

Obviously, to rule a few things out, it couldn’t have been a delay or a pre-record as Camelot lottery rules are tight as anything, so the draw was definitely real. The bit about not being able to show the prediction before the results was obviously bullshit – not least because there’s nothing wrong with guessing some numbers, and they can’t worry about disproportionate ticket sales as machines stop selling lottery tickets at half seven in the evening.

The way I think it was done is through clever motion tracking camera trickery – I think the numbers were digitally imposed on the balls. Real time live digital tracking has been around for a few years now – like how the ITV News studio, which is mostly digital greenscreen background moves around with the camera and acts like a “real” backdrop would. This explains why the numbers on the balls looked so real.

Think about it – what is used in TV and film production to track camera movements? Ping-pong balls of course – its why they wear green skin-tight suits covered in ping-pong balls – and ping-pong balls are what the numbers Derren predicted were printed on. How easily tracked.

Rather horrifyingly, from the second the show started I knew it was being filmed at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith – I recognised the pallets just outside (!), and when Derren walked in and it showed the empty audience seating I recognised it from when I went to see Charlie Brooker’s You Have Been Watching being recorded a couple of months ago. A quick look on the Riverside Studios website confirms this. Now why would a TV production rent an entire empty studio?

Renting a studio is phenomenally expensive and thanks to advances in technology such as small cameras and digital production it is much cheaper to do things on location and stuff -massive old-style TV cameras aren’t needed. This is the reason BBC TV Centre is being sold off – studio production simply isn’t needed and isn’t economical (The One Show, for instance, isn’t a “proper” TV studio with lighting rigs and the like – it’s just some converted offices in the BBC Broadcast Centre next door to TVC). So why go to the expense of renting a big TV studio? Especially the biggest one in the Riverside complex… why would the hour long live show afterwards that has a studio audience be relegated to another studio in the Riverside complex?… Why not put them in the biggest studio?

Could it be that Studio 1 at Riverside Studios is the only one equipped to deal with digital motion tracking stuff?

Sure, the camera was shaky and stuff – some might say suspiciously so – but modern digital production techniques can get around this (it wouldn’t surprise me if the shake itself was artificial – steady-cams do exist after all).

The only thing that goes against this “theory” is that it doesn’t fit in with the theme of misdirection that Brown mentioned in the trails for it and stuff.

What do you think? Could I be right? Let me know in the comments.

Update: Peter Price, a man who unlike me actually knows what he is talking about, says that Riverside isn’t equipped for the sort of Free-D technology I speculate about. Though if it did, it would apparently easily put numbers on balls. I’m also well aware that CGI trickery isn’t really in the spirit of what Derren Brown does. But now I’ve speculated this, I may as well stick with it to save face for the time being. So I still think that I’m definitely right.

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How to break a story at midnight

James — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:31:47 +0000

Poor journalists. It must be a pain in the arse when a story breaks at around midnight, so you have to cut them some slack for, perhaps, not living entirely up to proper Woodward & Bernstein-esque journalistic practice at such an hour. Especially on a showbiz story…

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Religious TV channel in money-grabbing non-shocker

James — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 19:42:44 +0000

It’s Saturday night, I’m watching TV and on screen I can see a singing and dancing extravaganza that it making me feel a little bit sick. No, I’m not watching the X-Factor, as I’m far too elitist for it. And besides, I’m annoyed as it’s not fair that when I suggest they parade the mentally ill on TV to be laughed at I’m labelled a monster, yet when Simon Cowell does the same thing, it is apparently labelled a ratings smash.

No, I was watching one of the obscure religious channels on Sky, Inspiration TV. I know I shouldn’t be surprised at the transparent money-grabbing and the open contempt they show towards their viewers – after all, I compiled a video of much the same thing a couple of years ago – but it really reminded me just how sickening the whole thing is.

I tuned in to see a large man of about 60 wearing an expensive looking suit, hosting something akin to a church service on what looked like the set of Blind Date. At the bottom of the screen was prominently displayed phone number and a message soliciting for donations – or for viewers to “sow their seed” in religious channel parlance. Apparently a £120 donation will get you a free “Prophecy Bible”, because obviously the eternal love of God isn’t a big enough draw on its own.

What’s interesting about the language of “sowing seeds” to describe donations is that I’ve heard it before on other religious channels, where the on-screen charlatan will promise miracles in return for donations. Presumably there must be a loophole in the Ofcom broadcasting code that makes it acceptable to promise undeliverable rewards in exchange for money, as long as you express it as an agricultural metaphor.

What made this even more remarkable though was that the text occasionally changed to say that if the caller makes a donation of £1195 ($2400), then they are guaranteed to get a miracle that is ten times larger. That’s right: £1195.

So somewhat bemused by the precision at which indulgences were valued I sat and watched a large man, who must have been somewhere between 60 and 70 years old tell a long, rambling story about a trip he made, interrupting himself every few sentences to ask a man off-camera how many people had called in so far – as they were trying to find 12 people to make the big $2400 donation. What he lacked in charm and charisma he made up for in shouting.

To cut a long, rambling story short, the gist of it seemed to be that he got back something he gave away one time – the moral being that donating can only be a good thing. He said at one point: “Call in now and sow your seed of $2400! I’ll give it back…” which sounds surprisingly generous, but he then added “…but it’ll be by miracle”.

He kept referring to how he himself was a prophet, but I’m still sceptical that of all the people in the world that God would choose him, and even if he did, whether God would let this man write black miracle cheques as he seems to be doing.

The most enjoyable part though was as the end of the programme neared, he became more visibly anxious about not getting enough callers – the checks with the man off stage became more frequent and the presenter/reverend/pastor character became more visibly ratty. “You gotta act tonight” he said, slightly exasperated, “NOW!”.

He sounded pretty angry that people seemingly weren’t willing to send him over £1000 at the drop of a hat.

As the programme began wrapping up, the huge choir behind him started to sing “Yes Lord, Yes Lord” over and over whilst the man shouted “Pick up that phone! In Jesus’ name, pick up that phone!” repeatedly, whilst the cameras cut to the people taking the calls.

Having not hit the targets they were aiming for, right at the end another man appeared and informed us viewers (I’m assuming it wasn’t just me watching) that lines were going to remain open after the programme, and that we should “obey the voice of the holy spirit, obey the spirit of obedience”.

And at this point I got a little bit depressed thinking about the naked profiteering that these charlatans manage to get away with, and the poor, credulous people who buy into this shit and throw away their money.

It was still better than Children in Need, though.

Check out my video about religious TV if you haven’t seen it already.

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