I’m always surprised at the amount of personal feedback that appearing on BBC Radio 4 generates. Programmes like Today clearly have a greater influence than, for example, Resonance FM, another radio station I’ve recorded material for recently (and over the past few years). That said, while Resonance has a smaller audience than Radio 4, I personally spend more time listening to the lesser known station. A few days ago, 29 December 2008, I appeared on a pre-recorded Today feature about “what the avant-garde stands for in the 21st Century”. Tom McCarthy and Hari Kunzru were interviewed alongside me, and we’d all been invited along by guest editor Zadie Smith.
I find the way the BBC treats me in comparison to other guests interesting. I’ve been told in the past that I’ll never be taken seriously by the BBC because I have an unacceptable south London accent; some regional accents such as Cockney are considered okay, and others such as south London or Brummie aren’t. So little surprise that there was a lot less of me speaking once the Today piece had been edited than there was of Tom McCarthy and Hari Kunzru who don’t have regional accents.
Likewise, the questions I was asked showed that unlike the other two guests, I wasn’t to be taken seriously. So one question included the assertion that few people had heard of me. True, but few people have heard of Tom McCarthy or Hari Kunzru either; in fact few people have heard of much better known cultural figures such as Iain Sinclair or Andy Warhol. However, the assertion that I am an obscure figure was misleadingly framed to make it look like it didn’t apply to Kunzru and McCarthy. And while the BBC ran McCarthy’s and Kunzru’s answers pretty much as they gave them, mine were more heavily edited, with the start of my answers missing. For example, Today had me saying people can get narrative from kung fu and zombie movies. This was an observation that followed on from me pointing out that just as photography made realist painting redundant and led to abstraction, so we now got our fictional story narratives from cinema, and therefore novels need to do something that film can’t. The main point was lost, the subsidiary one retained.
No one was trying to set set me up; this is just how Radio 4 processes people. And it should surprise no one that I am treated shabbily compared to those who have public school and Oxbridge backgrounds. This is no reason not to appear on Radio 4 but it is worth pointing out. My view is that the producers, interviewers and editors are unaware of their own prejudice.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ – you know it makes (no) sense!
Comments
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-02 02:24:56 +0000
Oh nice one Michael K! But everyone knows the ‘real’ Mister Trippy is on MySpace!
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-02 11:19:54 +0000
Very funny Michael, everyone knows the MySpace Mister Trippy sites are clones.
Comment by PronetoClone on 2009-01-02 12:43:29 +0000
let us judge, “Michael K.” – is there a podcast?
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-02 13:06:51 +0000
I never like doing BBC links coz they seem to move the stuff around all the time…. but you could try here for the show:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g48pv/Today_29_12_2008/
Comment by PronetoClone on 2009-01-02 13:59:41 +0000
clumsy editing indeed. And the presenter’s assumption “I don’t know means no one else does” is absolutely unprofessional. Was is really BBC Radio 4?? lol
Comment by Dire McCain on 2009-01-02 14:12:39 +0000
As I was saying:
The world is infinitely vast and exquisitely vivid for those who possess the “fourth eye”, which enables one to see beyond the superficial – physical characteristics, educational background, etc. Tragically, the number of earthlings who have been blessed with this gift is infinitesimal. And nobody said it better than Leon Spinks, bless his heart: “I know a lot of people think I’m dumb. Well, at least I ain’t no educated fool.”
Need to give this a listen, as soon as time permits…
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-02 14:58:37 +0000
Yeah, weird isn’t it… well at least all that expensive private education gave ’em those cut glass accents and enabled ’em to get jobs at the BBC, but strange – or maybe not – they didn’t learn how to think at the same time… maybe too much competitive sport caused their brains to fall into their assholes…. there’s no fool like an over-educated fool!
Comment by Time Traveller on 2009-01-02 15:22:45 +0000
I’m really diggin the loops….
Comment by The Real Mister Trippy on 2009-01-02 16:19:02 +0000
Today does segment links now; this one’s at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7802000/7802697.stm
but it’ll go soon.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-02 16:20:12 +0000
Me too! They’re a groove sensation!
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-02 16:22:32 +0000
Oh, K butted in between me and Shaz after I approved his comment… but thanks Michael!
Comment by The ‘Real’ Roxanne on 2009-01-02 16:41:34 +0000
Hmm…unless I’ve been moonlighting as myself, I can’t see how I can possibly be responsible for all of this…unless of course I’m a rampant plagiarist hell-bent on repurposing the twentieth century under the guise of retro-futurism
Comment by Dire McCain on 2009-01-02 17:06:29 +0000
Rot yittmey ghom Hoch…
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-02 19:17:45 +0000
Moonlighting as yourself, it’s a groove sensation! I do it all the time. Wow and in the meantime I gotta work out how to install my avatar picture here… some nice little portraits would be ‘nice’…. And Dire, I love it when you speak with your mouth full, it’s sooooo sexy!
Comment by Dire McCain on 2009-01-02 20:14:13 +0000
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. Oui, pictures would be just lovely. And it’s common knowledge that the Man with the Yellow Hat wears the Double Yellow Boots…
Comment by Dire McCain on 2009-01-02 20:14:40 +0000
Far out, man! Dig the overlap…
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-02 20:24:30 +0000
Wow reminds me of MySpace back in 05 only better, nothing works properly, which is a complete groove sensation! I’ll look into how you get the avatar pictures shortly….. No man to put up with here…. it really is my space, my party, and I can do what I want… Tom can go suck a duck coz he’s got no influence here! And as for Forkbook, it reduced everything to Twitter like proportions, status is the big deal and usually in less than 10 words…. Yes WordPress software on our own websites rocks! This is what web 2.0 ought to be!
Comment by The ‘Real’ Roxanne on 2009-01-02 23:09:24 +0000
Soon, there was a huge outcry against all of these records. Soon a sort of moratorium was called on new Roxanne acts, and the response records finally died down. However, the battle continued among its core group of players:
UTFO would also add another response of their own; “Roxanne, Roxanne, Pt. 2: Calling Her a Crab,” also aimed loosely at Shanté, in which they take back all the compliments they gave to Roxanne in the first record, give out insults instead, and claim to have never really liked her in the first place.
Roxanne Shanté issued her follow up record “Queen of Rox,” which told the story of “how she got so fresh,” and faced “a little bit of hassle from UTFO about saying that I’m Roxanne,” and then takes a jab at the Real Roxanne (“Yeah, I seen that girl — she got a face like a man”).
In “Bite This,” Shanté disses a bunch of other MCs, including “the Real Roxanne, Sparky D, and all the other Roxannes imitating me”
Then, there was the one-on-one battle between Shanté and Sparky D: “Round 1 – Roxanne Shanté Vs. Sparky Dee.” The cover had a picture of both women challenging each other wearing boxing gloves.
The biggest successor to the Roxanne war was The Bridge Wars (in which Roxanne Shanté, as a member of Marley Marl’s Juice Crew, was loosely involved), which attacked the entire Queensbridge area. The tables were now turned, as this time it was a hit record produced by Mr. Magic and Marley Marl that garnered a response (MC Shan’s “The Bridge”), sparking off a whole new battle saga.
It was in the midst of this battle, in the song “Go On, Girl,” that Roxanne Shanté dropped the name Roxanne, and was thereafter known only as Shanté. (The opening line says “it’s ’88, y’all, so no more Roxannes…”) Likewise, The Real Roxanne dropped “Real” from her name, and went by the name Roxanne, and was even addressed as such by Shanté in the track “Big Mama” in a reference to their past battles! This lasted until her 1992 track, “Roxanne S*** Is Over”, where she relinquishes the name Roxanne for good, and dubs herself Jo-Anne With The Plan. The album this was released on, Go Down But Don’t Bite It, however, was her final record. Shanté likewise retired from the business a few years afterward.
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-02 23:51:34 +0000
i dont like your rap cause your rap is dead
educated rapper no sense in your head
so when you met me i paid you no mind
dictionary breath you’re one of a kind
you said your name was gary
didn’t choose to call you barry
didn’t care if your name was mother madda harry
i choose to call you sonny because you have a tummy
my fathers not a fairy you’re the one who was a fairy
you’re nose is always runny
you look like bugs bunny
all your raps are old ancient as a mummy
your house is so scummy
your clothes are so bummy
but now with your hit record all i want is your money
educated rapper you aint nothing but a dummy
you try to be chummy or you plays gin rummy
i bet makin love to you must really be crummy
you say its customary to give your commentary
i say its crap before … … …??
your rap is so weak and your face is so scary
you always find a rap like yours in any cemetary
so do you know you didn’t even pass
all you recieved was a kick in the ass
thats what you get cause i’ve had enough
aint that right mix master ice cream puff
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-02 23:58:49 +0000
You think you are God, but you do eat lard
Tryin’ to be cute, and you’re tryin’ to be fly
Don’t you know you wish you could be my guy?
So I can take you home, make you relax
And everybody knows that you’re out there, tryin’ to tax
Like corn-on-the-cob, you’re always tryin’ to rob
You need to be out there, get yourself a job
Yeah, you’re tryin’ to be in search of a Roxanne
But lemme let ya know–you’re not a real man
‘Cause a Roxanne needs a man, and yes:
Someone fresh who always address
Someone, yeah, who will never fess
And then I’ll say, yeah, the rest
‘Cause everybody knows how the story goes
There’s no ifs, no ands, no buts, or suppose
No coke up your nose, no dope in your vein
And then it won’t cause no kind of pain
But yet, and still, you’re tryin’ to be fly
I ask you a question, I wanna know why:
Why’d ya have to make a record ’bout me
The R-O-X-A-N-N-E?
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-03 00:05:51 +0000
She was walking down the street so I said “Hello
I’m Kangol from UTFO.”And she said “So?”
And I said “So?!? Baby don’t you know?
I can sing, rap, and dance in just one show
Cause I’m Kangol, Mr. Sophisticata
As far as I’m concerned ain’t nobody greater
From beginning to end and, to beginning
I never lose because I’m all about winning
But if I were to lose, I wouldn’t be upset
Cause I’m not a gambler, I don’t bet
I don’t be in no casino, and baby while you knizzow
The izzi is the grizzeat Kizzangizzo.”
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-03 00:09:46 +0000
but you’re just a boy you’re not even a man
the girls know your name, its getting around
doctor im sure you’re the laugh of the town
you tried to throw a game
but it wasn’t working out
you lied about the beach
you took me to your house
i said me the rox, give up the box
so you could brag about it for the next 6 blocks?
shee you must be crazy, you’re goin to fast
doctor i dont know where your hands been last
you can’t fool me cause i’ll be mean
you’re a hood, a crook, a liar, a thief
i know how you operate from the start
you like to breakdance and you like to break hearts
so listen up cause i dont say this everyday
ho girl……….?
the only operating that you do
is ripping off cars in a minute or two
you stole every last cadillac
sold it back and kept the hubcaps
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-03 00:11:26 +0000
That’s like so retro it must be the ultimate groove sensation!
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-03 00:12:51 +0000
So, then, after that came the Educated Rapper
His fingers started snappin’, and my hands start to clappin’
Every time-a that I see him, everything he say
A-every time he says, he says it dumber this way:
He said-a, “Yeah, you know your mother’s name is Mary,”
But all he wanna do is just-a bust a cherry
Every time that I see him, he’s sayin’ somethin’ new
But let me explain to him what he should do:
He should be like me, a fly MC
Don’t never have to bite, we’re always right
I have the freshest rhymes that I do recite
And after that, and you know it’s true
Well, let me tell you somethin’ else about the Doctor, too:
He ain’t really cute, and he ain’t great
He don’t even know how to operate
He came up to me with some bullshit rap
But let me tell you somethin’ ’cause you know it was wack
So when he came up to me, I told him to step back
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-03 00:40:36 +0000
This is very interesting because this WordPress software links you to a site when it can (if you hover over the name at the top of the comment, or click on it) based on the name you choose to use; but of course that means that once you’ve worked this out and realised that your email address doesn’t matter (as long as you’re not a scumbag coz the administrator can use it to trace you), then you can leave fake administrator replies like the one immediately above this… post-modern confusion is like such a complete groove sensation… all it takes is for the actual administrator of the Web 2.0 blog you’re playing around with to dig it enough to refrain from deleting comments pretending to be from them… Thanks Michael and Stewart for letting these stand here! Web 2.1 is about to begin…. And repetition is such a groove sensation too!
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-03 01:12:32 +0000
Well I might be locked out of my own website (which isn’t a funny situation anyway) but it’s outrageous to be misrepresenting my views on Sinclair’s hubcap action. My original blog, (which I had not yet published but which the hackers had obviously seen in draft from in my doodlebox) is actually here, if this posting actually makes it onto this blog
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-03 01:15:04 +0000
You Kango, I don’t think that you’re dense
Buy you went about the matter with no experience
You should know, she doesn’t need a guy like you
She needs a guy like me, with a high IQ
And she’ll take to my rap, cause my rap’s the best
The educated rapper MD will never fess
So when I met her, I wasted no time
But stuck up Roxanne paid me no mind
She thought my name was Barry, I told her it was Gary
She said she didn’t like it so she chose to call me Barry
She said she’d love to marry, my baby she would carry
And if she had a baby, she’d name the baby Harry
Her mother’s name is Baby, which is really quite contrary
Her face is really hairy, and you can say it’s scary
So isn’t not every, her father’s a fairy
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-03 01:17:01 +0000
Well I might be locked out of my own website (which isn’t a funny situation anyway) but it’s outrageous to be misrepresenting my views on Sinclair’s hubcap action. My original blog, (which I had not yet published but which the hackers had obviously seen in draft from in my doodlebox) is actually here, if this posting actually makes it onto this…erm…that blog
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-03 03:37:39 +0000
Oh very funny Michael… erm, I mean Stewart, erm I mean who am I? Erm, I mean who are you????? Post-modern confusion, it’s a groove sensation! And so nice we said it twice!
Comment by Michael on 2009-01-03 06:25:47 +0000
I’ve heard of Zadie Smith but who is this obscure South Londoner Stewart Home?
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-03 13:17:51 +0000
oh Stewart Home is that posh girl who wrote the bestseller “White Teeth”; and I think Zadie Smith is the real author of the Belle de Jour blog and books, as well as doing obnoxious underground novels with titles like “Cunt” and “Blow Job”…..
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-03 15:55:14 +0000
Well after some asurances from the Michael K that I actually have met personallly, I’m assured that he was not involved in this hack-fest (and in this case I’m not talking about Sinclair and Petit) which means that unknown hackers using the names Michael K and Mister Trippy have been responsible.
Hopefully there’s enough of them so that they’re confused as to who’s posting and this one will get through so that I can tell everybody who needs to know that I’m actually blogging over at http://www.myspace.com/avantgardeporn where I give short shrift to the idea that Sinclair’s actions are just a matter of being ‘forced to live out the contradictions of capitalism’
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-03 23:03:29 +0000
Well I’m certainly confused as to why you don’t still think Sinclair is a groove sensation! Toot Toot!
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-04 00:26:49 +0000
Oh Sinclair (smokes) rocks but if you’d suggested circa ‘Lights Out for the Territory’ that he’d be talking about ‘meditative overdrive’ and ‘the protection of the car’ while promoting Audi he’d have said ‘Are you drunk?’ and followed on with ‘Only if I’ve also been replaced by a zombie doppelganger after hanging out with Donald Sutherland on the set of Kaufman’s ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-04 01:54:11 +0000
Yeah but what’s gonna happen to me after I get to hang out with Jenna Jameson on the set of “Zombie Strippers II”… do you think I could get a gig with Norwich Union talking about “meditative domesticity” and “the protection of Home insurance”?? The kids will love it! A complete groove sensation! And then I’ll go on to star in a porno big screen version of “The Double Deckers” alongside glamorous grandmother Jilly Johnson and a wealth of other page 3 models from yesteryear….
For the benefit of younger readers: “Here Come the Double Deckers was a seventeen-part British children’s TV series from 1970/1971 revolving around the adventures of seven children whose den was an old red double-decker London bus in an unused works (junk) yard. It was a comedy adventure sitcom similar in look and feel to other late 1960s / early 1970s sitcoms such as The Monkees, The Partridge Family and the Banana Splits. The shows (without ads) were about 21 minutes long.”
A “double-decker” is slang for taking a dump in the top tank on a toilet. You put the lid back on and other users wonder why the loo smells so bad…
“Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – August 25, 1632) was an Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer, a versatile and prolific writer whose career spanned several decades and brought him into contact with many of the period’s most famous dramatists. He claimed credit for having written 240 plays.”
“Jilly Johnson (née Gosden) (born 17 November 1953) is a former Page Three girl. In the 1980s, together with Nina Carter, she was in the girl group Blonde on Blonde. She has been married twice and has one daughter by her first marriage. She has written a novel called Double Exposure. Johnson is now a housewife and grandmother.”
Comment by Mister Trippy on 2009-01-04 02:47:12 +0000
Eggs-actly!
Comment by mistertipsy on 2009-01-04 02:51:36 +0000
Waha! They look so guilty in that ad…as if they were thinking ‘Just a few more minutes and if nobody turns up “on the set”, we’ll have bagged the cash AND have a getaway car’
It’s a groove sensation!
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-04 03:51:18 +0000
You’re making me think of Chinese Rocks, “the plaster’s fallin’ off the wall, and my girlfriend’s crying in the shower stall, it’s hard as a bitch I should have been rich but I’m just digging a Chinese ditch…” and I still prefer the Heartbreakers version (when you hear a decent mix, not the original release) to the Ramones…
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-04 07:02:08 +0000
Home truthfully says, “No one was trying to set set me up; this is just how Radio 4 processes people. And it should surprise no one that I am treated shabbily compared to those who have public school and Oxbridge backgrounds. This is no reason not to appear on Radio 4 but it is worth pointing out. My view is that the producers, interviewers and editors are unaware of their own prejudice.”
Quite right — UK media is,from top to bottom,an arena of fakery. Mockney accents are welcomed, because the other media hacks that work on those TV stations/radio shows/newspapers instinctively pick up that underneath that fake “wurrrking class bravado: implicit in the mockney persona, beats an upper middle class LSE/St Andrews/ Oxbridge heart, with all its privelege and prejudice and ponciness.
Bizarrely, the great British Public often don’t notice the mockney fakery underneath their noses and therefore we actually get thousands of people actually believing that Jamie Oliver is an Essex Boy, and that Lily Allen is a council estate girl.
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-04 07:13:54 +0000
The irony is, if Home had affected a chirpy chappy phony MOCKNEY persona a la Jupitus and that ridiculous bloke who plays a pub landlord,and fat les Allen ( Lily’s dad) etc– he’d likely have been more readily accepted! But because Home’s accent is a genuine, unrehearsed , unpackaged London accent, albeit from South London, an area the middle class hacks can’t categorise, they don’t know how to “package” his views — the whole thing gets so convoluted it’s ridiculous.
Simualcra = UK broadcast categorising and stereotyping.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-04 11:25:43 +0000
And if Home had adopted a fake public school accent he’d probably be hosting the Today show, not to mention having even more schizophrenic split personalities than is currently the case (666 at the last count). Schizophrenia is the only sane response to capitalism and it’s a groove sensation! Simulacra = never knowing the difference between sexual ecstasy and being hit over the head with a baseball bat. It’s so post-modern!
Comment by Dire McCain on 2009-01-04 18:18:09 +0000
Toot toot…
Comment by Tom on 2009-01-04 20:21:13 +0000
This user disables html comments. All html comments will be removed and may be destroyed
Your friend,
Tom
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-04 20:25:36 +0000
Crunch crunch crunch! Eating html is a groove sensation. Beep beep….
Comment by tony parson on 2009-01-04 22:55:12 +0000
I thought the Radio 4 piece was good on the whole. You have to expect editors to edit if you do a prerecorded segment so you should really be having a go at Zadie Snith as she was that Today’s guest editor. I also liked the show edited by Jarvis Cocker. As you said noone was trying to set you up and only you would know if you were treated shabbily. Isn’t that a little bit of inverted snobbery to think that R4 is prejudiced against ‘regional’ accents or educational background? I just don’t think the evidence stacks up to substantiate that. John Humphries (Welsh) and Janes Naughty (Scottish) key anchor men of the show are identifiably not members of any such ‘club’ or ‘establishment’, well other than the Today establishment. As frank Zappa once turned on his audience whenthey were cheering him for taking the piss out of the police officers in attendance “Just remember, YOU are all in uniform too! Just my 0.0.2 euros worth! TP
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-04 23:18:32 +0000
Well look at the amount of time I got and the questions I got in comparison to the other two… and like I said some regional accents are acceptable and others aren’t… and I don’t think I’m the only one who knows what was going on… Take the Jarvis Cocker edition… Bill Drummond was the one who got the treatment I got on that edition… We’re just not on their wave length coz we’re not privately educated and we don’t pretend to be…. But they don’t know what they’re doing or why they do it… And look at the completely disproportionate representation of writers and ‘intellectuals’ in particular with private educations and Oxbridge backgrounds on the Today show (I’m the exception that proves the rule)…..
Comment by Michael K on 2009-01-04 23:24:59 +0000
What’s the point of going on Radio 4 anyway when the Steve Wright show on Radio 2 is available? Unless of course you’re saddling in with the bourgeoisie?
(and I’ll take all accusations that Radio 4 is designed to appeal to a cross-section of society unfavourably)
Comment by jim seventies on 2009-01-04 23:34:35 +0000
jesus – that whole show sounded like a satire. Bin hearing noises about McCarthy – I certainly won’t be reading him now! They both sounded like wankers from the london art scene. Rest assured Mr. Trippy, not even Zadie Smith can destroy you!
Comment by Dire McCain on 2009-01-04 23:55:26 +0000
Gamboge Polk Salad. And I need my acute accent, as in the diacritical mark that goes over the “i” in my name. My klone seems to have swiped it, though I suppose I could adopt a metal umlaut that needs a good home…
Comment by Díre McCain on 2009-01-04 23:56:24 +0000
Perhaps this will work, let’s give a go…
Comment by Díre McCain on 2009-01-04 23:57:31 +0000
“You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down.
Wordpress”
WOO HOO!!!!
Comment by tony parson on 2009-01-05 00:14:13 +0000
I can’t honestly say I haven’t done any stats on representation of Oxbridge ideopaths on Today. But in many establishments that tendency does tend to prevail, lecturers – particularly at Oxbridge :-), judiciary, secret service, civil service. But all homosocial networks are self propagating/perpetuating. Look at the incidence of doctors who are doctor’s sons? I have an eroded accent (Welsh) and I don’t feel particularly vistimised for it. Victimised by being Welsh, yes. But as a nation we have always been subjugated and sxploited by the mongrel English. Actually ask any Celt… Of course i don’t have a ‘born within the sound of Bow Bells’ accent so am not particulalry sensitive to it. I would like to think I can extract the content from the delivery and that is why writing in many repects is a purer medium IF you get published. I am currently interested n aggregation of syereotypes in social networks like FB, MySpace and ‘professional’ netwoks like LinkedIn and ki-work. My graph theory isn’t good enough to extend the formal mathematical representaion (academic) but conceptusally its not difficult. Oh, and for the record i am not a product of Oxbridge but did do collabrative research with a lab at CAmbridge (Scottish Prof and an Australian and American post doc) so i don’t really buy the regional/national arguments. Often it is percieved rather than actual but you would have to get the opinion of a social scientist on preception as it all rods cones and neurons to me 🙂 TP
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-05 01:31:10 +0000
Home is totally right — of course, it isn’t a conspiracy, as such — Sure, a few regional grammar school lads get through the net, and a few lads with regional accents do too — but you can be certain the majority of decision makers at the BBC , The Guardian, Independent,British Council, Penguin and other publishers etc, are from an LSE/Oxbridge/St Andrews and Public School background etc. I know that is so, because I have worked in these places and been around these people for years, decades in some cases of close friendships/family links etc. I have also been through the entire “Journalism/Publishing” education system ,right up to PHD level — I KNOW how it works.
Trust me , it’s a rigged game. England has been run like it for generations, and it isn’t going to change overnight. You are either in the “group” or you are outside the circle. Of course, now and again, some of those chinless wonders “on the inside circle” may sense instintively that someone “outside the circle” is willing to be subservient to their world view, or willing to do anything it takes to “be one of them” and they are occasionaly allowed in.
Also, sometimes the “inner circle” allow a handful of token people in who may look “hip” to be around. EG a tiny handful of “real working class people” may very occasionaly be allowed in, ( though middle class people with mockney accents are usually the preferred option a la Jupitus, Keith Allen and countless other frauds ), or a guy or two with dreads around the BBC offices is usually seen as “nicely hip”.
I know — I have worked in these offices.
It’s a very very controlled, coerced game, and as Stewart says, a lot of it is carried out at a subconscious level. Those who run the game aren’t even aware of the prejudice/fakery — it’s mostly subconscious/naively carried out — but it’s still there like a fucking wall, and has been in place since BBC newsreaders wore dinner jackets and bow tie to read the radio news in the 1930’s.
What was that Harry Enfield skit? Oh yeah, jolly nice, but dim.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-05 01:37:27 +0000
Oh but most of us don’t have a private education… taking the two other writers talking and the guest editor, I understand I’m the only one to go to a state school (secondary modern). I’m also under the impression the other three went to Oxford, whereas I didn’t attend a university and don’t have a degree… But my educational background would match the majority of those born in the UK if you took the average age of the writers (with me as the oldest), so why do those selected not match the educational experiences of most people??? Most of us didn’t have a private education, so how come those that did are so over represented both in this instance and in general in the media and publishing??
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-05 02:04:45 +0000
I agree with you Stewart, as I wrote above. The power rests with those who are upper middle class, and has done for generations and generations, and those people at the top only really and truly take seriously their own kind — those who live in similar houses,similar areas ( Kew, Richmond, Guidlford, Sloane Sq) , went to similar colleges and schools, have parents in similar ( rich) jobs such as company bosses, bankers, lawyers,media owners, advertising agency owners,army officers etc.
That’s the truth.
That IS the truth.
Now and again, some “rough untutored sorts” are allowed through the net, if they are subservient enough, or look to fit a role, but not often.
I really and truly believe that the old class roles we all used to be given in the past still hold sway, very powerfully so — upper class people join the army, banks, law,medicine etc, middle class are lowly clerks and office drones, perhaps at best, school or office managers etc, and the working class are , well they might as well fuck off somewhere for all anyone cares where they live or work…..
That’s why the “mockney figure” is so popular with the middle/upper classes — its a chim chimi-neee chim chim cheroo knees up muvva brahn stereotype the upper middle classes can live with and manipulate — but real working class men and women, white people, or black British people, are an all round too scary and unpredictable a propostion. I mean, who knows what those oiks and rough untutored sorts might actually do, our say on our airwaves and in our newspapers?
Comment by Michael K on 2009-01-05 02:26:44 +0000
I warned you about entering BBC property without a silver-lined crombie and a collander on your head. Clearly the effect has been to make you feel as you’ve stepped up even further into ‘serious author’ territory and will soon be guesting on ‘The Panel Show With A Thousand Names but the same licence-fee-paying empowered-bourge cast and listeners’. Smash The Archers NOW!!!
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-05 02:34:55 +0000
Oh but it was a hot day for the time of year and I wore my Harrington…. and now Sharon is sleep typing….
Comment by kncln on 2009-01-05 21:24:49 +0000
fuck those fake cocks man u are the real thing baby those prix wouldnt know wot avantegarde porn woz if it bit them on the arse holes . reminds me of when asher-d was on radio4 – and this wanker whiteman presenter was quoting his lyrics – and while he couldn’t say the word ‘fuck’ he had no problem saying ‘nigger’ – yes they are racist bourgeois idiot prix and they don’t even know it – well done for managing to go in to the belly of the shitty beast bruv. i’m not suprised that man who gets £1million advance for his books reckons that he has stepped outside history too. fuck em all man they gonna burn.
Comment by tony parson on 2009-01-05 22:13:36 +0000
Well I am clearly paddling in the shallows. Now where’s my towel…
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-06 01:58:09 +0000
Hari Kunzru is a Situationist wizard — I saw him danicng about in a shamanic trance in Tescos, pretending to be Hugo Ball,who was, as we know a true Dada Wizard.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-06 01:59:29 +0000
Hey Tone, you probably did the right thing going into science, less class prejudice about those there that cut the mustard but didn’t go to public school. Keep on keepin’ on!
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-06 02:00:28 +0000
Lucky it wasn’t Waitrose or you’d have all blown your credibility!
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-06 02:21:18 +0000
Yes, the sad thing is I saw him later in Marks and Spencer’s with a wig, pretending to be Madame Blavatsky — I mean, that’s just cretinous — he could at least have pretended to be, I dunno, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott.
Kunzru had a scrap with the check out lad because he hadn’t attended Oxford apparently. The bloke struck him about the head with an out of date banana.
Comment by marmitelover on 2009-01-06 02:28:41 +0000
hey, good to see you’ve started a blog, Stewart.
Colin Wilson, the occult writer, completely agrees with you. He believes he wasn’t taken seriously for exactly the same reasons.
The snobbery in this country is appalling.
Fuck ’em.
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-06 02:34:41 +0000
Phil Jupitus was also there — he has now developed a great Knees up Muvva Braaahhhn routine with Lily Allen’s dad and Skinner in Baddiel, who are also wuuuurrrrrkkking clllaassss.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-06 04:16:22 +0000
Oh I read with Colin Wilson once, but I’m afraid I don’t take him seriously either but not because of his background. However, he suffers from an unacceptable form of elitism when he uses phrases like “the average plumber or stockbroker” in “The Outsider” to differentiate himself from what in his sub-Nietzschean fantasies he presumably sees as “the many too many”, “the rabble” and “the butchered and botched”…..
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-06 05:51:20 +0000
Nietzsche,besides some undeniable insights, I find to be really overrated.Preposterous — I find his concept of the Übermensch irritating/annoying. A lot of what Nietzsche exalts as a higher being/overman/ Übermensch — I’d just call intolerant thuggery, elitism, or as representing the kind of morons who thought smashing Jewish shops in the Krystalnacht, and going in for book burning was “a great thing”. Also,in the intro to TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS Nietzsche makes it clear that he intentionally, frequently, enjoyed sending readers off on the wrong scent/trail in his works,contradicting himself, or setting up flawed arguments– WTF??? Sorry, I don’t have time to wade through his books to find out when “he meant it” and was saying something worth me devoting my time to — or when he was f**** with his readers.
Schopenhaur was a miserable misanthrope but far , far superior.
Comment by shrieking toad howling wizard on 2009-01-06 10:42:31 +0000
shrieking toad howling wizard
Comment by shrieking toad howling wizard on 2009-01-06 10:43:53 +0000
Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!
Comment by shrieking toad howling wizard on 2009-01-06 10:44:34 +0000
He is the shrieking toad howling wizard,loose on the world, free from his cave.
Comment by shrieking toad howling wizard on 2009-01-06 10:46:49 +0000
shrieking toad howling wizard,quivering with his chagrin at the world,let loose in woolworths,hooting and guffawing with a mystic gleeeeee……
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-06 14:12:56 +0000
toot toot!
Comment by Observe on 2009-01-06 14:26:28 +0000
Who is the blimmin Howling Wizard Shrieking Toad?
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-06 14:44:36 +0000
You tell me!
Comment by Will Self on 2009-01-07 01:51:00 +0000
Hi Stewart, I seem to remember you took the piss out of me once on a public chat show/discussion panel — I think,I in return called you a nasty Situationist skinhead. Oh well —
Oh, and yes, I did attend Oxford too.
See you at the next psychogeographic event old chap.
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-07 03:15:07 +0000
Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!
Comment by tony parson on 2009-01-08 00:29:56 +0000
Well that was very Selfless Will. I am interested in the notion that science is any less elitist, though I suppose it is more of a meritocracy, but peer review of scientific publishing is just as fraught. That after all was the reason for the concept of the thesis in that it is a form of protection to allow publication of what may be heretical expression. I was advised by an externalexaminer to remove a defamatory comment about a word processor manufacurer du jour (this was in the days of the daisy wheel printer) when it took a bloody lifetime to print even a realtively simple equation. I was allowed to keep it in because I felt I could defend the fact it WAS the most idiosyncratic word processor in the world. I was also allowed to keep the acknowledgement thanking my then girlfriend for allowing me to be a kept man, her lovely big smile and lentil bolognese on the grounds that scientists were allowed to express emotions 🙂 They let me off the cartoons as they didn’t really understand my statistical methods either. It seemed obvious to me to use models of diffuse light scattering in clouds in the field of astronomy and reflectance in photographic papers to the biophysics of the propagation of light in highly diffusing plant tissues (http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119530375/PDFSTART) , which also had implications in laser surgery so lateral thinking is a plus in science and why Richard Feynman is my hero!
That said, the ordering of authors on paper in learned journals (all my best stuff was collaborative) is a politically charged matter! i am now much more interested in the public understanding of science but Wiley didn’t like the various incarnation of my proto-book title of “Science: What if it’s all been a Big Fat Lie?” or “Sciconoclasm” which is still unique on Google. The latest idea is even more obtuse but I’m still working on it… TP
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-08 13:34:46 +0000
Tony, are you sure that wasn’t you coming on here as Will Self? I knew Will Self’s wife Deborah for years before he even met her… but I’d still be surprised to find him commenting on here… Besides look at the wags coming on here and leaving comments with my name on them…. Web 2.0 just multiplies the opportunities for anti-capitalist schizophrenia, it’s a groove sensation!
Comment by Steve Davies on 2009-01-11 14:53:22 +0000
Oh look, Radio 2 does cut-ups as well:
BBC sorry for ‘misquoting’ expert’s views – Edited broadcast was ‘opposite’ of original view
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/11/bbc-radio-religion
Comment by mistertrippy on 2009-01-11 15:29:32 +0000
looks like one of the editors must have been reading up on detournement!