NORMAL LIFE

When I was at school, I was brilliant at maths.  It all seemed so straightforward that I didn’t really know why it was included in a lesson.  I mean who can’t add and subtract or convert everything to quadratic equations?  Consequently, I was often bored and never studied very much.  In my other lessons I tended to get bored anyway and didn’t study very much there either.  Everything seemed either obvious or irrelevant.  My teachers alternated between extreme pride and extreme irritation; reward and punishment. 

I was also shy in groups and nervous of people who stared.  I have of course now taught myself to overcome these weaknesses, as I have also learned empathy and other things I wasn’t taught at school.  These days I would probably be diagnosed as suffering from some syndrome or other and given special treatment or put in the IT class. 

There weren’t any syndromes in my youth (or IT!), just naughtiness or laziness or giftedness in one subject or another.  But, as an adult, none of this applies.  I am just normal.

Along with recognition that some children think differently from others has come a greater awareness that such differences are not bad, nor even necessarily worse than others.  A number of famous experts – musicians, composers, authors, etc,-  have been outed in recent years as probably being at some particular point on the autistic spectrum.  And, more recently, there has been a rash of dramas on TV, film and stage featuring main characters with ASDs.

I like the fact that society has come to terms with this and that it is so comfortable with the resultant openness.  There are of course examples of bullying, etc of those with ASDs, but that is not the point of this post.  I just find it so refreshing that we can recognise skills in those with ASDs and can even be comfortable laughing at situations in which they find themselves, whilst feeling sympathy and without actually being unpleasant towards them. 

The first dramatisation I took note of was Mark Haddon’s book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  This was a delightful book, narrated by Christopher, whom we gradually assume to have Asperger’s or similar, who sees the world in surprising and revealing ways.  He fixatedly pursues the mystery of the dog of the title and gets on with his difficult life in the process.  I was constantly chuckling at Christopher’s views and deductions and ended having enormous affection for him, rather than ridiculing him as might have happened at a time when I was his age.

The book is currently on the London stage and I believe Brad Pitt is making a film of it.  It is a very popular play such as might not have been the case before Asperger’s was recognised.

It is not a coincidence that the title echoes that of a Sherlock Holmes story. 

    Inspector Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

    Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

    “The dog did nothing in the night time.”

    “That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

I have only recently, thanks mainly to the TV series, begun to think of Sherlock as on some sort of spectrum.  Of course, half the characters in the TV series display autistic tendencies.  But the point is that the series is played with humour, as well as a great deal of reverence.  It is exciting, with many unexpected twists and turns, but also peopled with fascinating characters with a totally different way of approaching the world from you or me (well, me anyway).  Watson is of course the complete antithesis.  Nothing could have been funnier than Holmes’ attempt at a wedding reception speech, with almost complete lack of empathy or proper understanding of his role.  Despite the hilarity though of his awkwardness, there was absolutely no suggestion that we should have laughed ­at­ him.  Indeed we understood and suffered with him.  I wonder how Basil Rathbone would have played him today.

But by far the best example though is Saga Noren in The Bridge, played brilliantly by Sofia Helin.  Saga is also Asperger’s, although it’s never spelt out.  I guess it is not a new premise that an autistic detective might have special skills (viz Holmes), but, in addition, much of the second series of The Bridge features Saga struggling to learn how to laugh at jokes, how to interact with her boyfriend, how to tell white lies, rather than the painful truth, etc.  When she takes out a stack of post-mortem photographs to study whilst lying naked in bed after sex, or when she sits all evening at home reading books on relationships, we are highly amused.  And the dialogue, with her failing to grasp at all the emotional sub-text of any conversation, is hilarious.  Yet, again, there is no way we feel anything but sympathy for the character.  In fact this series might be all about the entertaining interaction between the pair – one highly emotional, trying unsuccessfully to recover from a breakdown, and the other emotionally bereft, but both equally in need of sympathy.  Indeed, in a neat twist, it is the Asperger’s detective’s blunt honesty that gets through to her ‘normal’ partner, rather than any amount of counselling. 

I hope that this uplifting change in the viewing of ASDs reflects a better popular understanding of the disorder, or at least contributes to a better understanding of its naturalness in society.  Indeed it would be nice to see other conditions featured in entertainment in this way.  But I fear we have a little way to go and we still seem to feel less empathy with people over their body size, appearance, mobility, mental health, etc.  Maybe we need more black humour about the minority of ‘normal’ people who feature in celebrity magazines?

ONE SCOOP OR TWO

I can remember when CNN was launched. At the time I was concerned about the advent of a 24 hour news channel.  Well, in the first place you know what happens - there isn't quite enough new to say throughout the 24 hours, so reporters and announcers keep saying the same thing in different ways, then they start talking inanities to waste a bit of time, and then editors start repeating earlier reports and items.  In the end, it's just a 12 hour news channel with lots of repetition.

But what really worried me was the distortion of actual events such a channel can present.  When an editor sends out a reporter, for example, he will always say something like, 'find a family whose house has collapsed in the earthquake and stand in front of them to make your report' or 'stand on the sea wall where the wind's blowing and the sea's breaking over', etc. 

So what should we make of these reports and images?  They're not untrue.  At least, they represent a certain sort of truth.  There is a poor family who has lost their house.  There is a big storm.  But the real story here is that the news channel got a man to the spot. 

And it's the same with the present situation in the Philippines.  We keep seeing reports from newsmen on the spot saying, 'here we are.  Everything's terrible.  Look.  These people need food and shelter.  But there's no aid being distributed.'  So we can see there's truth there, but what is the whole truth?

By coincidence, a friend of mine has just returned from one of the Philippine islands affected by the typhoon (they left before the typhoon hit fortunately).  To get there though, they had to fly via Hong Kong.  That took the best part of a day.  The next day they flew to Manila, where they changed to an internal flight to another airport, from which they took a bus to the coast and transferred to a boat to their resort.  In other words, it's more than 2 days travelling time to some of the islands affected by scheduled transport.  Ironically, direct flights from the EU (which had been banned for various reasons before) were started just a few days before the typhoon reached the islands.  I'm not sure whether it's possible to fly direct at the moment, but I imagine a reporter could manage  a travel time quicker than the Hong Kong alternative anyway, chartering a helicopter for example.  And I suppose we should be impressed that the various news channels have got their people in there already, into the devastation and the confusion.  That's what we see.  And that's the story really.  But does it tell us anything about what's really happening?

As if to underline that, tonight's news had a reporter standing in front of a line of people,  'See these people,' he said.  'They are waiting here in a line as far as you can see.  What are you queueing for?' 'Rice.'  'Ah, you must be hungry.'  'Yes.'  'Have you eaten today?'  'Yes.'

Oops.

INTERESTING TIMES

It is always fascinating to note how news items reflect the times in which they make it to the newspapers. There was a flurry of concern recently when it was announced that Wetherspoons were to open a pub on the M40. The licence granted to Wetherspoons allows them to sell alcohol at the motorway service area from 08.00 to 01.00. The road safety charity Brake said that the firm was "putting temptation in front of drivers". 

Well, it's a sign of the times that this is the first pub on a motorway and it's another that there is general acceptance of the opening.   Of course, Wetherspoons are as famous for their cheap meals as they are for being pubs and many consumers welcome the fact that there will be serious competition to the expensive fast food outlets currently in most service areas. But I wonder whether this really will be a temptation to drink. Shops selling bottles of wine are not uncommon in motorway service areas, which is a pretty strong temptation to me already, and of course pubs do exist just off motorway junctions where drivers can pull in when they want a break. Personally, I always make sure I've consumed my alcohol at home before I set out on a journey, so I have no need to stop at service areas. Although Wetherspoons are also well-known for their excellent toilets . . .

Down here, where I am at the moment, in the West Country, the urban seagull is a major problem – blamed for scattering litter, stealing food from picnics and café tables, damaging vehicles and even attacking humans. The debate between scientists and ornithologists over the best ways of dealing with the menace and checking a feared explosion in their numbers, including trying to disrupt their breeding patterns, continues. 

But in the midst of this problem, Torbay Council has decided to halt the demolition of a building in Brixham, which was planned as part of a vital town centre road widening scheme, after discovering that a herring gull was nesting on its roof. Despite the problems that gulls in general cause, especially in these seaside holiday resorts, the herring gull is a protected species and the proposed redevelopment will now have to wait another year! The building has already been under demolition order for 3 years; the gull problem has been around even longer . . .

But the article in the local paper that really does reflect the age in which we live was the account of bouncers at an Exeter tattoo convention being jailed for attacking customers. The judge was shocked at the CCTV images. He said “the CCTV shows graphic, prolonged and intentional violence” and was some of the worst he had ever seen. But the significant factor wasn't that this incident took part at a tattoo convention, or that it was captured on CCTV, nor even that the footage was used in evidence in the trial to show how dreadful the attack was. No, the point was that the newspaper article ended with a QR code and a note saying, 'scan here to view the CCTV footage'. Of course having a smartphone with a scan app is another sign of the times . . .

NO NEWS IS BAD NEWS

Jokes about the reports written by newly-engaged reporters, before they have honed their journalistic skills, are well-known.  These inexperienced writers are usually given assignments in the courts or local council meetings.  They end up writing reports like this:

“Mr Brown, asked whether he had been in the car at the time, replied, ‘No.  I was at home watching Coronation Street on television.  I had a curry for supper and a can of lager with it.’  The case continues.”  Such irrelevances often turn up again as jokes in Private Eye or similar humorous magazines.

There was a complaint on the radio the other morning that news reports in the media these days are always depressing.  If someone is rescued after a motor accident for example, so the complaint went, it never makes the news.  But a fatal car crash can be splashed across the front pages.  I suppose that’s inevitable.  Somehow ‘MAN IN CAR CRASH UNHURT’ doesn’t make for a very exciting headline and I probably wouldn’t read the whole article, even if a cub reporter adds information about what he was listening to on the radio at the time and what he had for lunch, etc.  But ‘M25 closed for 4 hours after man crashes through road barrier and dies on way to hospital’ has unfortunately more of a ring of a drama about it.

Anyway, in answer to the criticism about its news, the radio tried to issue a news bulletin with only positive and optimistic stories.  It included the ‘small earthquake in Peru; no one hurt.’ item, which rather spoilt it I thought, but otherwise it was OK.  I did feel better afterwards that, for once, seemingly there was no pain or suffering anywhere in the world.  But of course the bad news leaks out eventually and the bulletin was also one of the least interesting I had ever listened to.

But it is not just anodyne stories that make the news boring – sometimes editors add totally irrelevant information just to fill column inches.  This usually only happens in the local press; the stuff that never reaches the nationals, like “Man steals pair of socks from H R Taylor and Sons, men’s outfitters, 27 High Street, Haslemere.  Police took him into custody.  The socks were blue with red spots.”  Or “Mrs Emily Jones tripped over the step at the entrance of the Georgian Hotel on the High Street, Haslemere.  She was treated for a grazed knee.  Afterwards, she walked home.  When asked if she wanted a lift, she replied, ’oh, stop making a fuss’.”  And so on and so on.  You all know the sort of local news I mean.

But I wonder whether I have detected more such irrelevant writing in the press in recent days.  Are the newspapers, post-Leveson, scared of reporting information that might be a bit contentious or have they maybe run out of the exclusives they used to obtain earlier when they used more dubious news-gathering methods?

The thought first occurred to me when listening to a news report on the radio about a violin being offered for sale in Bulgaria by some gypsy possibly being the missing Stradivarius of classical musician Min-Jin Kym.  It was a fascinating story about how stolen goods, such as copper wire and lead roofing, passed through various travellers’ hands across Europe.  The musical instrument appeared to have followed a similar route, before turning up on the streets of Sofia.  But the report then ended with the sentence, ‘Miss Kym’s violin was stolen in Euston Station while she was buying a sandwich’.  My wife and I looked at each other and both burst out laughing.  It was such an incongruous statement after all the interesting stuff about itinerant European families.

In the last couple of days, there has been a flurry of Royal news.  We are always subjected to lengthy articles at such times from various royal watchers and experts, but this time the relatively minor incidents seem to have been an excuse for filling page after page of the newspapers.  Maybe there wasn’t any other news.  Or maybe this was another attempt to fool us with feel good stories.  Or was it simply the safest subject to cover?

One report discussed the hospital where The Queen recently spent a night.  However interesting the history and lay-out of the hospital is, the article rather fizzled out with the sentence, ‘One of the police guards on the door was Britain’s tallest officer, Anthony Wallyn, who stands at 7ft 2in.  His partner is Tony Thich, who is 5ft 6in.’  I could imagine the young cub reporter being sent to the hospital to get what information he could for the article and coming back with this tit-bit.  No attempt to telephone the hospital to ask a nurse for a report on The Queen’s condition this time though.

Then an article about Kate contained the information, ‘The Duchess of Cambridge wore a green double-breasted coat and matching high heels.  Experts advise against the wearing of high heels by women after the fifth month of their pregnancy.’  For goodness sake!  What are we supposed to do with this snidey aside?  Or perhaps this is the most controversial the paper felt it could be in the present climate?

Finally, an article about the Royal Princes on a skiing holiday.  It’s not as if this was a trip packed with off-piste shenanigans; at least one evening the Princes were invited to a ‘reception in a nearby hotel attended by 200 guests.’  But the article droned on and on about who was in town that week, whom the Princes spoke to, what they wore, etc, until the whole page was covered with words and photographs of snow.  And then, feeling something had to be added about Kate, the Royal all their readers are currently gagging to hear about, the paper ended the article with the sentence, ‘The Duchess of Cambridge had a traditional sledge made of wood.’  Obviously this information made an impact on me or I wouldn’t be writing about it, but equally clearly a one paragraph diary note that the younger Royals went skiing in the Alps just wouldn’t do.  And no suggestion of overhearing private conversations or telephone calls either.  I could see a whole team of cub reporters in the bar of the Gstad Hotel, scrabbling around to find enough information to fill a whole page.  Or perhaps we’re supposed to think, ‘oh no, surely she didn’t lie on a sledge on her tummy in her condition.  And could she drag the sledge to the top of the hill by herself without inviting injury, especially if it wasn’t a modern, lightweight plastic one?’ 

Is this the sensation and controversy and contentious discussion and provocative argument we must content ourselves with in this brave new world of media watchdogs underpinned by legislation?

PRESS FOR FREEDOM

Let's try and make some sense of the Levenson debate.  Can you call it a debate?  I will have to simplify things a bit, but, basically, Levenson wants better ethics in the press with some legislative back-up which he says wouldn't be control of the press.  The press don't want the legislation, although they admit they got carried away and became too intrusive before. They want stricter self-regulation.  The Labour party want all Levenson's recommendations implemented  regardless.  The Lib Dem part of the Coalition want them implemented too, including legislation.  But the Conservative part of the Government doesn't want legislation, which it sees as press control.  Meanwhile, those who had their phones hacked ('personalities' on the whole) want the press curbed.  And the active section of the public seems to be moving against press freedom too; some 100,000 have signed the petition calling for legislation.

I find all this a bit odd.

I can see why Levenson recommended tougher oversight of the press.  For a start, he had to, given his brief.  No one, not even the press, would have accepted a recommendation from him to do nothing.  The activities of reporters over the last few years had become totally unacceptable.  The argument at the time, from the offending press, was that public interest was being served.  And here we have a slight problem - is public interest served by publishing tittle-tattle about celebrities or are we just naturally avid gossipers and happy to read tittle-tattle?  Of course, if criminal activity or even simply hypocrisy is uncovered, I guess you could argue that such activities as phone hacking might be justified.  And, frankly, all that dramatic bleating by celebrities to Levenson (and interestingly to the press) about privacy didn't convince me at all.  Of course celebrities would like to be in the newspapers for what might be called good publicity only.  But that's not how it works.  The latest broadside from Hugh Grant, who assumes we have forgotten the press articles revealing his assignation in a car with a prostitute, is a case in point.  The more he blusters with affronted innocence, the more I remember how the fiction of his clean image was made known, and the less I am convinced that a watchdog backed up by legislation would have kept his seedy nightlife out of the news.  OK, so there is a limit to the amount of celebrity news we really want to read in even the mass circulation newspapers.  But surely it's legitimate to expose and show up a so-called clean-living film star.  Shouldn't it also be right to investigate other blustering innocents in the interests of finding the truth?

Of course we have some difficulties if the press insist on publishing innuendos, despite failing to find evidence.  This is where libel laws and a watchdog with teeth are an essential requirement.  It is also where legislative provisions would not help.

Having said that, I am not at all interested in pics of the Duchess of Cambridge's breasts or Prince Harry's bottom.  That doesn't mean that there should be no pictures of celebrities doing what they don't want us to see.  But I don't need to know private addresses nor details of their children.  I think I would be able to draw a line beyond which there is no real public interest.

But what exactly does Levenson mean by legislation that doesn't amount to control of the press?  He suggested that the legislation should be written in such a way as to show that it wasn't a curb on press freedom.  As The Telegraph succinctly put it - why does it need to be written in that way if there is in fact no curb on press freedom?  And I should here define my terms.  By 'press' I do mean TV and radio too - wherever reporters are out ferreting for information.  I don't use the word 'media' because I am excluding 'the new media'.  Even Levenson decided that the Internet was impossible to regulate.  He described it as an 'ethical vaccuum' and suggested that we all knew it wasn't reliable.  I'm not sure that's true.  But anyway half the recent press intrusion problems arose from the speed and coverage of the Internet.  A report or a picture in one news outlet is almost immediately available worldwide online.  So I exclude the Internet for the purposes of these comments, but the fact remains that a curb on the press, whilst leaving online media completely free is an anomaly in the inquiry's findings.  Levenson wrote 2,000 pages on press activities and measures to rein them in, but only one page on the whole Internet, which seems to me to leave rather a gap in the inquiry.

As far as public opinion is concerned, I fear we must, as we seem to need to increasingly these days, discount it.  There is such a knee-jerk reaction to the pronouncements and actions of authority these days, especially where the political parties are involved, that little thought is given to the implications of what people are asking for.  Having our legislators curb press activities is the last thing we really want.  We actually want journalists poking around in the affairs of state.  I am proud to live in a country where the press is unfettered.  Yes, it leads occasionally to excesses, but, as this time, we then do something about it.  And I don't see any problem in reporters pursuing celebrities either, especially those that make use of the press for their own purposes.  Should we accept without question the statements and views of those who appear in our newspapers or on our TV screens?  Where such activities are concerned, I think the press has a duty to expose hypocrisy.  Oddly, even the anti-phone hacking campaign Hacked-Off has said that phone-hacking could serve a public interest where a crime might be uncovered.  Does this sound like a fudge to you?  Not clear to me where they are drawing the line.  It only serves to underline the difficult of regulating press activity.

And of course where a crime is committed the whole matter becomes simpler; you don't need more legislation, existing provisions are strong enough - just take the culprits to court, journalists, editors, newspaper owners or whoever.  The same applies to intrusive publication of private information.  And we have another problem here.  How did the phone-hacking affair come to light in the first place?  It wasn't the police; they decided not to pursue the phone-hacking evidence.  It certainly wasn't the Government; they were much too cosy with the editors.  No, it was the Guardian newspaper that revealed all.  Now that's a blow for press freedom.  And maybe even for self -regulation.

So what of the political parties?  I am rather surprised that the Labour party and, more particularly, the Lib Dems, seem to be in favour of legislation to back up press regulation.  I thought this might seem an illiberal proposal to them.  But of course it's an easy position to call for implementation of the Levenson proposals without actually commenting on anything but the government's cold feet.  And the Government's hesitation is indeed a bit of a shot in the foot, since they set the inquiry up.

But let's see what the press come up with on Tuesday.  Sometimes, where civil liberties are concerned, arrangements have to be a little messy.  We have to put up with some things we don't like in other words.  I saw an episode of the TV programme The Hour the other day in which a black man was interviewed on a programme where a racist had just stated his views.  The black man said, 'this is the country I want to live in, where a racist that no one likes and very few agree with, can freely state his views in public, where the right of such a man to speak his views is respected and where he is not prevented from speaking'.  Amen.  Many other countries restrict their journalists (or pop singer protesters) in various ways or punish them afterwards.  I want us to criticise those countries and reform them, not teach them how to restrict freedoms in an acceptable way.

WAITROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Upmarket supermarket Waitrose ran a customer survey on Twitter, in which readers were asked to complete the following sentence - 'I shop at Waitrose because . . .'  This is a prime example of a fairly staid business trying to get with it and make use of the new-fangled social networking media.  And getting it rather wrong.  You may have seen some of the answers which appeared in the national press (the old-fangled paper sort).  Well, they amused me; so her are a few.

'... because I don't like being surrounded by poor people.'

'... because the toilet paper is made from 24ct gold thread.'

'... because Clarrissa's pony just will not eat Asda value straw.'

'... because, darling, Harrods is just too much of a trek mid-week.'

'... because I want to prove to Jeremy Kyle that I am not a 21-year old dole scrounging father of two.'

IN THE EVENT DAZZLED

Mixed feelings about the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics.  Apparently, 11m people watched it on TV (as well as 80,000 in a packed stadium).  I assume these viewers are all in Britain (in fact, was it screened in the US at all?).  With almost no exception, the media comments today are favourable, enthusiastically positive in fact.  And I suspect few, if any, of the 11m will not have enjoyed the spectacle.  But I have some misgivings.

I suppose it was comprehensible to everyone watching.  The commentary was quite good this time (the commentary at the Olympics Opening Ceremony was left off at Danny Boyle’s request - probably wisely) and it was needed (for me at least, since I found some of it a little obscure),  although at least one of my Multiply friends will have instantly recognised and been delighted by the paean to libraries. 

I also thought one or two pieces of the music a little inaccessible, but I guess every taste had to be catered for.  On the other hand, the music as the athletes came in (including of course ‘Heroes’!), Birdy performing ‘Bird Gerhl (with David Toole’s dancing making this by far the most delightful part of the evening), and of course Ian Dury’s ‘Spasticus Autisticus’ were all great (dare I say ‘inspired’) touches.

But the overall effect, the lighting in other words (oh, and the fireworks), was just fantastic.  The lighting installation was the most expensive part of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, but certainly gave value for money last night.  The Olympics is all so long ago now, but I think last night’s light show was probably better than that on 27 July.  It was brilliant anyway.

The one thing I found unnecessarily uncomfortable though was the giant representation of the Marc Quinn sculpture, ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’ which appeared at the end.  We all know this work from the fourth plinth and, now we have got over it, have accepted it as a remarkable icon of life with disability.  But presenting it in the middle of the arena with performers dancing around it, made it look a little like a graven image, an idol surrounded by worshippers in some sort of ceremony.  Maybe it’s just me, but I didn’t feel it added anything to the show.  And many spectators may have misunderstood its purpose here.

But the really difficult part for me was the commentary during the athletes’ arrival.  I thought just the right explanatory contribution was made during the performances, but where no explanation was needed, ie the athletes coming in, maybe no commentary was needed either

Commentators have a very difficult job with processions, particularly those that take several hours, like yesterday’s.  When the Olympians came into the arena a month ago, there were endless pointless, yet amazing facts reeled off about the countries represented, as though we hadn’t heard of them before (maybe we hadn’t, but it’s not hard these days to look them up).  They were mostly factoids rather than helpful information, and were delivered in that condescending ‘and did you know, Huw, this is the only country in the world . . .’ style, as though they actually knew the inane facts themselves and didn’t have in front of them the product of a team of equally inane researchers.  Something of this was evident this time too with particular comments on those countries with large numbers of disabled athletes through wars – factual, but perhaps unnecessarily political and downbeat on this occasion. 

The commentators were also singling out individual athletes of note this time, a really helpful approach to the rather tedious entry procession; it’s always useful at periodic international events to know who are the stars or the domestic stars or even the up and coming stars.  But I’m not sure we needed (and probably the athlete concerned would have been happy if they’d been omitted) the story of the athlete’s disability too.  I’m not shirking from knowing or pretending that the disability doesn’t exist, but we do know these athletes are disabled.  Maybe a better approach, than going emotionally through the difficulties they have faced in competing (in living even), would just be to describe in awe their prowess on the track or in the pool.  Again, maybe it’s just me, but I felt the miserable commentary didn’t quite square with the athletes’ jubilant entry into the stadium.

This is a problem though.  I have watched the first day of the Games today and marvelled at the skill of the Chinese swimmer without arms who won the gold, despite racing against swimmers with arms; and at the blind judo practitioners; and I cheered out loud at the men swimmers and the women cyclists.  But apart from initially noting the obvious disability, the competition quickly became the key focus of my attention.  There was a moment, seeing certain athletes, when I wondered what disabilities had made them eligible for the Paralympics, because none were obvious.  So clearly some sort of explanation can be needed.  But, here, the classification standard at the start of each event is the most important information.  And maybe that’s all we need.  But commentators probably have a fact sheet in front of them about each athlete and it must be tempting to read out the especially poignant stories.

I see there has already been a request for commentators to cut down on the number of ‘brave’s and ‘inspirational’s they use.  This is the same point really.  I enjoyed the events I have watched so far, but not once did I feel, nor want to feel, sorry for the athletes.  There is a danger, as I hinted in my last post on the subject, that we see them as disabled persons trying to overcome their disabilities, rather than as performers.  And I didn’t feel that at all today.  If I want to know how anyone became disabled for any reason, I’ll Google them.  Of course, in competing, they may not be brave exactly (although I guess they were when they had to begin to overcome their disability), but they are certainly inspirational.  Lord Coe said, "Prepare to be inspired, prepare to be dazzled, prepare to be moved."  I guess he had to say that, and it’s a good speech line, but ‘dazzled’ was perhaps enough.

Anyway, there we are – we’re off!  And we have won some medals already!!  I’m dazzled.

BARE FACTS

I said I would write something about THOSE pics that appeared on TMZ.  I have only just got round to it.  But there are issues here that are worth discussing.

I think it's fair to say that, outside of Britain, comments were mostly jokey and dismissive.  There were some who thought that the #3 to the Throne might behave better, but, frankly, the children of the Heir to Throne (and particularly siblings out of the real running) have traditionally behaved badly.  That might partly be because they have nothing to lose; it might partly be because they have lots of money and lots of time; it may be because everybody wants to party with Royalty and there is a good chance they might get to do so with a sibling (as opposed to the better protected Heirs); or it may just be an indolent descent into louche society, since they don't really have a role (once they've risen through the military ranks and done a bit of charity).  That's not to excuse Harry necessarily, but it is probably why most people here seemed merely to shrug their shoulders and raise their eyes heavenwards.  Even TMZ's capture of the photographs had an oddly jubilent note about it and was not at all judgemental or even salacious.  I therefore thought the incident was going to die a death.

Over here, the Palace alerted the Press Complaints Commission to the fact that publication of the photographs here might infringe Harry's privacy.  The press were informed of this contact through the normal procedures (not warned off, as some arch liberals asserted) and the press as one decided to publish the story but not the pictures.  Again, it seemed as though that would be it.  Nobody showed a great deal of interest in the story.  But then The Sun newspaper broke ranks and published.  They said they had done so, both in the public interest and because, since everyone had by then seen the photographs, there was no point anymore in holding them back.  They didn't say so, but the inference was that Harry's privacy had already been infringed and further propagation of the pics could not constitute an infringement by The Sun.

Although no one showed much interest in the affair before this, there have so far been several thousand complaints to the PCC about The Sun's actions.  It seems that the British public does feel that publication of private or intimate photographs of celebrities is an infringement of privacy.

I say 'celebrities', even though the term is much misused these days, because the whole point about the Leveson Inquiry is that the media overstepped the mark in trying to obtain and publish private information about famous people with a claim to celebrity.  Sometimes such gossip is justified and of public interest, such as when the celebrity's public stance is shown to be a fraud; sometimes it is merely self-serving, such as photographs of celebrities deliberately exposing themselves to gain publicity; and sometimes it is of no real interest at all, such as 'celebrity dumps boy/girlfriend and goes to party with someone else'.  Well, I suppose someone somewhere might find that last example really interesting, but the question is whether the newspaper with the biggest circulation in Britain should be bothering with such fluff.  Of course it is the accumulation of such fluff that probably sells The Sun, but that's another matter.

The point is that the Harry story became something much more here than a tale of naughty goings-on by a celebrity.  The Sun clearly took the view that, post-Leveson (or at least, since the Inquiry hasn't yet reached a conclusion, post-The Sun's evidence to Leveson) the media had to reassert its independence.  Not publishing photographs that were freely available, just because a possible infringement of privacy might occur, was clearly a step too far for the free press.  Having said that, it was only The Sun (and one assumes the slightly bruised Rupert Murdoch) that took that view.  Now we have to see whether the PCC has any teeth post-Leveson in the face of several thousand complaints from the public.  But, frankly, I'm not sure it matters either way.  The Palace has since not complained and said that the decision to publish is ultimately one for the editors.  Quite right.  And several thousand complaints is not actually so many from a population of many millions.  But none of those complaints has come from the Palace, Harry's legal representatives or anyone connected with the Royals at all.  So, bully for The Sun for showing that the press in Britain is still free.  But have they really done so in fact?
 
Do these photographs really shine a light on anything important?  We all knew of the story.  Many of us had looked in on TMZ's website. The decision smacks rather of Murdoch's continued power games.  He more than anyone suffered from the phone hacking and related scandals.  He clearly didn't want to remain cowed.  Yet publishing something that no one involved complains about seems to me not much of a bold disclosure nor much of a brave revelation by an unbowed campaigner.

But was privacy really an issue here?  There are two angles to this - one, should Harry have expected anything happening in his private suite to remain private?  Well, yes, he should.  And, two, in inviting up to his room a bunch of people he had just picked up in the bar, especially with everyone having a camera in their pocket these days, should he have accepted that he was giving up his right to privacy?  Actually, no, I think.  It is an unfortunate fact that almost any pic of Harry that night would have fetched a fair price from the gossip press.  So, if he insists on cavorting with strangers, he is putting his privacy on the line and must expect it to be infringed.  I think it is a sad reflection on today and I feel sorry that he can't really guarantee privacy, but that's the way it is.  What the newspapers decide to do about it is another matter.  He still has a right to privacy when he is off duty, but it's not a right that can be easily maintained.  No other British newspaper felt the need to flex its muscles in the way The Sun understandably did and they all presumably took the view that not publishing showed sympathetic restraint, if not a view that there was a lack of interest or even that publishing was a pointless gesture, once the story was out.  Personally, especially since the photographs were such poor quality and so unrevealing, I think they added nothing at all to the story.  And since the story was such a non-story, I think it was adequately dealt with on the first day, by referring to TMZ.  I'm not aware whether The Sun sold vastly more copies of its newspaper that day, but I suspect not.

Now, another question.  Did Harry do anything wrong?  Did that over-ride any claim to privacy and justify publishing the photographs?  OK, he's a senior Royal and maybe could be more stayed in his behaviour.  According to his friends, when the camera appeared, he was in fact gallantly, but probably foolishly, trying to shield the naked girl.  The two quickly left the room at that point to avoid further embarrassment.  But, whether that's true or not, he's single; he was understandably letting off steam before returning to arduous and dangerous military duty; he certainly wasn't doing anything illegal; I don't even think he let anyone down really.  Boris Johnson's Tweet was probably the view of most people here - "The real scandal would be if you went all the way to Las Vegas and you didn't misbehave in some trivial way.'  So, again, had there not been a freedom of the press issue, imagined or otherwise, the pics were best kept private and the story hardly ought to have deserved so many pages.

But the final point (at least it is one made by The Sun) is whether the public interest was really served by publishing the photographs.  I think we ought to distinguish here between 'the public interest' and 'public interest'.  I think these are different things.  I don't rush out and buy The Sun when I hear that there is a scandalous pic published in it.  But if there is a story (or maybe even a photograph) in the newspaper I buy, which refers to something I didn't know about or which sheds light on something currently being debated publicy, I think it's fair to say that there is public interest in that item.  And I guess I am interested in seeing pics of famous people doing silly things, even if I don't rush out to get hold of them (the pics, not the famous people).  But the public interest is served only when the newspaper reveals something that has been kept from public knowledge - a revelation about secret or illegal activity, the real reason for a Government policy, a new tax that has an effect not publicly announced, etc.  I might actually rush out and buy a newspaper carrying that story.  But I don't think a pic of a naked Prince is in that league at all.  I don't even think that publishing the pic against requests for privacy is in the public interest.  I do think that having the courage to publishing something that has been suppressed, in the face of some sanction or legal action, is a noble and legitimate act.  The Sun's action was about something else.

In fact I think it's a great pity the story is still being written about and given airtime.  Oh . . .

GAMES AT THE TWENTY12 OLYMPICS

So, now we’ve started to win medals, the media mood has improved a little.  

 

There is still a tendency to look on the black side.  Commentator in interview with silver medal winners : ‘so you didn’t win.  How are feeling right now?’  I was amazed to hear also on the radio news this morning that retail shops and hotels in London are complaining that the expected crowds of tourists haven’t materialised.  I’m not surprised about the shops incidentally – most people are either in the Olympic Park or sitting in front of a television somewhere.  Did anyone really expect tourists to come here during the Olympics and to spend all their time in the shops?  But they interviewed a hotelier who complained that he had just had to reduce his tariff from £500 a night to around £100.  I wonder whether putting his prices up 500% in the first place might have discouraged one or two people.

It may be true that there are not so many people about, but I am pleased to see that venues are on the whole packed now and there are few empty seats.  I think that the Olympics just took a while to get properly underway.  Or maybe there weren’t so many people wanting to watch unheard-of athletes in preliminary competitions.  But I was certainly struck in my one foray so far (to the tennis) by the feeling of there being such an entity as an Olympic family.  It’s a horrible term maybe, but there was a friendship and a sense of something shared at the matches I watched, with jokey rival chanting for GB or another team.  And on the next court to ours there was a match between India and the Netherlands, where half the audience was Dutch and half Indian (no doubt from the Indian community in Britain), and the noise was extraordinary.  It struck me then how much this Olympics is more than just Team GB performing in Britain.

But the radio news went on unwisely to add that visitors have been put off coming to London by stories of security concerns, transport problems or weather.  Hang on a mo, I thought.  Where did these stories come from?  Exactly.  This is another case of the media creating self-fulfilling prophesies, talking up issues and fears when they have nothing else to write about and then claiming there actually is a disaster when that story has run long enough.  

The same applies to the question I heard on one of those awful radio chat shows the other day.  ‘Do you think the Olympics is going to help Britain out of the recession or will it add to our economic burden?’  I don’t think these are opposites exactly anyway, but still I don’t recall, when we won the lottery to host the Olympics, anyone predicting that all our economic problems would now be solved either.  Similarly, I don’t think anyone predicted a retail boom.  What was suggested though was that in London this summer (if you can call it that) there was to be one long festival of arts and culture.  There are in other words many other things going on apart from the Olympics and it is then, when the Games have ended, that perhaps people will be wandering the streets and popping into shops and restaurants.  Let’s see if that happens . . .

But there is another question here.  I do understand a little how sponsorship works and how it pays to have a few ‘official sponsors’ rather than lots of competing companies at an event like the Olympics.  But I just wonder whether we have thought this through fully.  There have been so many cases of shops having window displays removed (for displaying the wrong company names with Olympic logos) or athletes prevented from showing the names of their own sponsors (where not official sponsors) or rival company names being obscured, that it is clear that sponsorship agreements have become too draconian.  See here for more details.

Apparently, even using the incorrect terms to refer to the Olympics can mean that you are breaking the law (hence the (safe) title of this post).  But it is the width of the ‘exclusion zone’ that is so extraordinary.  I thought it just plain silly at Wimbledon that Pimms was not permitted to display its brand name and therefore called itself ‘No 1 Cup’, as though that made some sort of difference.  Nearly everyone knew what it was anyway and simply asked at the bar for Pimms.  I heard one foreign visitor ask what No 1 Cup was and the barman said, ‘oh, it’s Pimms’.  So what did hiding the brand name achieve?  

But it became perfectly clear what sponsors’ aims are, when, at Lords cricket ground this morning (where the archery is being held), a BBC commentator had his umbrella confiscated because it displayed a company name that wasn’t a sponsor.  Isn’t this ludicrous?!  The most important objective for sponsors therefore is not the Olympics, nor even advertising; it is restricting the activities of its rivals.  This apparently is a benefit big companies are willing to pay up to £100 million for.  The fact that rival companies are paying good money to sponsor athletes or that totally unrelated and non-rival companies, such as construction companies, have won contracts to supply products to the stadia, is beside the way; they must all be penalised to ensure a clear passage for the official sponsors.

So, I come back to the point about the absence of visitors.  If it really is a problem, don’t you think one of the things sponsors could usefully have done, in exchange for their sponsorship rights, is to promote the Olympics as an attraction and London as a place to visit?  Instead they seem to have operated the other way round – every view of the Olympics must have their companies’ names in sight, and athletes compete under the threat of punishment if they don’t comply, police must be taken from their usual tasks to penalise non-sponsoring companies on the sponsors’ behalfs, and whenever we wish to eat or drink, we must have sponsors’ logos flashed in front of our eyes, as if claiming credit for the meal, even if we actually eat and drink something else.  None of this seems to benefit the Games or even London.  It is no help to the authorities, athletes or spectators.  And apparently not to hotels and shops either.  In fact, since the sponsors have so little time left from their war on rivals to promote either London or the Olympics, the opposite seems to be true.

The Olympics is of course an international event, so sponsors don’t have to be strongly associated with the country hosting the Games, but, given that we are trying to present a welcoming image of London and UK, it does seem odd to me that we can’t sell bitter, or Pimms (except under a pseudonym), or sausage and mash, or Marmite on toast, etc at venues - all those things in fact that make Britain the desirable place to visit that it is.  Sponsoring companies paid tens of millions for the privilege of displaying their names; we possibly spent all of those receipts on policing the sponsorship terms, penalising innocent members of the public, and obliterating from view names that the sponsors didn’t like.  Can it be so much worse if we have lots of local sponsors paying smaller sums each for the benefit of providing food and drink that we actually want and sports equipment that we actually use and maybe some hotels and shops that we want visitors to patronise too?