gamboling.co.uk

I think it’s about time to check back in with the train station Andweep which I renamed in a previous post (It’s all over for Smitham). The train station used to be called Smitham and Smitham is a place so small that nobody even lives there. In fact the train station is where the hamlet of Smitham used to be.

Anyway I’m pleased to announce that the non-existent townsfolk seem to have taken to the idea and the first wafts of the winds of change are beginning to be felt on the cheek of indifference. Wikipedia mentions the proposed change! It’s serious now. Even though in the very comment on Wikipedia seems to question the seriousness we must fight for this change. Progress is being made, I can feel it!

The problem with social networks these days is that there’s too much and too little compartmentalising.

I have a lot of friends in several different groups. If I sign up to Facebook or MySpace then all of these groups will very likely collapse into one. Now I’m a lot less bothered about this than I once was but certainly I used to not like my cool music friends to meet my geeky programmer friends. Now my cool music friends are often as not married with kids friends and my geeky programmer friends go to more gigs than I do. Perhaps it’s a function of growing up or time changing things but I worry that on these social networking sites there isn’t a way to compartmentalise in this way.

I wasn’t willing to give up my first love of computers but I did deny it several times. And because people come to things at different times I probably you have had to de-friend my geeky pals to seem hipper had Facebook been around. Something I wouldn’t have wanted to do. I don’t see how you avoid it except to hope that all of your friends in one group use bebo and the others friendster.

But this leads to the second problem. Now that I don’t mind my friends meeting across the groups I want all of my friends to be able to find me easily. The fact that there is a new social network popping up every five seconds seems to be a bit of a barrier to this. It would be great if someone solved this problem but there seems to be almost too much personal self interest in that for that to work.

The final problem of social networks is the de-friending process. People naturally drift apart in the real world. They see less and less of each other and then you kind of stop being friends. Nothing harsh or dramatic it just happens. There is no equivalent on these systems. Here you have to declare that you have stopped being friends. Perhaps it’s less honest but it’s certainly more socially awkward. Perhaps friends you don’t interact for over a year should quietly fall off of the list?

As my feed from this blog gets repeated on facebook I would just like to add that if you are reading this on facebook then let me assure you that I’m not talking about you.

Although of course it doesn’t happen very often chez Andronov sometimes you are left in a situation where you have some wine left over. Because it doesn’t happen very often I never seem able to find a stopper to close the wine. I have recently been asked what to do in this situation so I came up with this handy list of dos and don’ts.

Don’t

• Pour the wine back in the bottle from the glass. The wine in the glass has had an awful lot of air near it and that air will all be going back in the wine. That will cause the wine in the bottle to continue opening up over night which is exactly what you don’t want. Oh and it’s probably got spit in it – urgh.
• Use the cork you just took out of the bottle (or any other cork for that matter). Because of the way the cork comes out you always end up with one end wider than the other. And the wider end is the end that used to be in the bottle. This leads to the temptation to put the dirty end of the cork into the bottle. The stuff on the cork mixes with the air inside the bottle and can make the wine go to vinegar very quickly.

Do

• use a vac u vin this solves all of the problems of air in the wine. Or if you don’t have one of these a glass or metal stopper is great too. But what if you don’t have a stopper?
• use cling film. It works really well and you almost always have some in the house.
• put the wine in the ice cube tray. Now you won’t probably be drinking it again if you do this but it is an excellent way to add wine while cooking later. And it also gets you out of the problem of having to open wine you don’t really want to drink just to cook. Thanks to Nigella for that one.

Or you could stop being such a wuss and just drink it.

I discussed this issue in a rather oblique way the other week and now I thought I’d have another crack at it in a slightly more concerted way.

Why is stealing music bad? I write and I give what I write away. But I wish I could make a living writing and currently that’s not feasible. I am writing this blog largely because I have always:

a) considered myself a writer

And

b) never liked the idea of having to say, “well I’m working on my first novel” like every other writer seems to say without ever really doing any work on it at all.

So this blog was a way that when people asked I could point at and say, “this is what I write, but I’m also working on a novel but don’t worry about that”.

But one day, I’d like to write my novel and I’d like you to buy it. I’d love to be able to give it to you but there are two problems with that

a) it’s really annoying having to wake up at 5:45 every morning just so I have time to write for you, much as I love you all. If writing was my job I’d be able to have a lie in. And writing can’t be my job if people won’t buy my book

And

b) there is the concept of ascribed value to deal with. People don’t like to value things in isolation. In fact untrained humans are terrible at this concept in all areas.* Basically it means that if I tell you that my book costs 12 pounds some people will say, “okay I’ll buy that” and some people will say, “no that’s too expensive I’ll wait for paperback” (of course a few people might say it’s cheap at half the price let me buy 100 copies) – but that’s unlikely. The point being that if you give something away people assume that pretty much it’s worthless. And similarly if you can steal something without risk of being caught then you assume the same thing, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Basically people think that it’s okay to steal music because it’s very difficult to be caught and also the music industry has been exploiting its monopoly position for far too long (each record label has a monopoly on their artist for example). There is a very inelastic demand** for artists which ignores the label they are on. I can’t say I don’t like X band because they are on Universal, generally I don’t even know what label they’re on – and further I don’t care. I want their song and I don’t want to be ripped off because they have a monopoly on X’s music.

My favourite argument for the stealing of music is the following: Music costs very little to record professionally now, musicians have the ability to sell live concerts, people who love making music will still make music, so lets force the music industry to it’s knees and we’d have far fewer crap acts. Only people who are committed to music and love it for itself will keep performing. Usually at this point, for some reason people invoke Britney Spears:

If you can tell me the world would be a better place without Toxic then you don’t appreciate good music. Honestly it’s a catchy piece of pop that certainly the world of music would be poorer without and I don’t care who knows it. And yes the song would not exist if the music industry was at its knees.***

The model also falls down the moment that you look beyond the music industry. Yes you can make movies cheaply now on digital formats. But there is no way that you can make a movie for anything like the price at which you could make an album. And even if you did only make cheap movies imagine how much of the scope of the world of cinema you would loose if you restricted yourself to only that. No epics, no stunts, just people in a room talking. Yes many great movies have involved people in a room just talking but it can’t be right the most stolen movies are exactly the movies that cost the most to make (Action / Adventure / Fantasy).

The problem, of course, comes back to externalities. Sorry for the economics lecture here but externalities are one of the most important things in our society. The economic system rules our lives pretty much, external costs (externalities) are the things that don’t have a value within the economic system. The things that fall between the cracks. Eg. The cost of driving a car is the cost of the car, the petrol etc, the external cost is pollution. Society pays (and you are part of society) but you don’t pay money cash when you drive your car. The petrol tax is an attempt in economics speak to internalise the externality, ie. To get you to pay for the pollution per gallon.

In music the externality is caused by the fact that each person thinks individually. You think that you are only one small person so how can you change the world. How can you stop pollution? Everyone has to do it before it takes effect right? Same in music. How can you change the music industry? You’re just stealing a couple of tracks, it’s not like they’re going to miss it. They’re all millionaires after all – right. But what if everyone else starts thinking the same way? Well the talented people will go and do something else.

The only problem is that unless people disrupt the network then there isn’t another solution? We don’t have a choice as we’re all inelastic consumers of music (we like what we like) and the price is set by a de-faco cartel. This protest is the surest way of bringing the price down to non-monopolistic prices. And it seems to be working. However you do have to worry about the community though. The community aren’t just in it to disrupt the market. The community want free music now they’ve had a taste for it. How do we know? Apple finally released DRM free music onto the internet. And most commentators slammed them for including the users details in the files that they were downloading. Why would any reasonable law abiding user be upset by this? The only reason to be upset would be if you were planning to by cheap pre-encoded files for sharing amongst your friends. A terrible own goal from the community.

I want music, movies and books to be cheaper. I want to be able to choose the format. And I want to be able to reasonable share them with my friends (if I lend a cd to a friend I can’t play it, why isn’t that how DRM works?). I’d prefer to be trusted by the company I buy from not told I’m a pirate (you only see the adverts if you aren’t). And I don’t think people should be able to milk the profits for ever. But I don’t want the industry to die. I want to be able to make money, survive, even do well in the industry. I don’t need to make millions to enjoy writing I just need to have some way of making money. Because if I don’t I’ll never be able to quit my job.

* You know that thing where you put your hand in some water and you can’t tell if it’s very cold or very hot you just know that it kind of stings. That’s the same thing, but if you put one hand in cold water you’ll instantly be able to tell which is hotter than the other. Same with weighing something same with value. Although the water thing is the one most likely to make you wet yourself if you’re asleep.

** People don’t stand stiff as a board when they’re ordering. Demand is on a scale of elasticicity. Which basically means for some things people are very sensitive to price (elastic demand) a small change in price means a big change in purchases and other things people simply have to have you can put the price up as much as you want people will still buy them (inelastic demand).

*** Don’t you love the way that I’ve included a pirated copy of a music video in an article supporting people paying for music? I do.

Adrian has a great strand over on his blog called overheard, a few of the things on there are even overheard things that been overheard saying. Here’s another one for the mix which was announced on my train as I was on my way into London Bridge:

“We are now approaching London Bridge Station which will be our final destination. Please take all of your belongings with you. Any left items will be removed and destroyed by the police if they aren’t stolen first.”

Check out Adrian’s list.

I would like to have smoking on bridges banned. I know smoking in all enclosed public places has been banned now and that’s obviously a good thing but what about smoking in windy spots like bridges. Most people would think that all the smoke will be blown away and so there’s not a problem, but having just had a lump of ash blown into my mouth I can tell you that I think it is.

Nick has raised an interesting point over at his film blog in a post about “Who are we“. He asks a question about what writers should do when writing a scene. Writers should always know who the focus of a scene is. There should always be a protagonist per scene (even in an ensemble performance). There should also although not touched on in the post always be a clear “want” or “reason for the protagonist to take part in the scene” and a conclusion, eg. Did the protagonist get what they wanted or not.

But on the particular point about protagonists there is a very clear argument that you should always have one protagonist. Most people don’t notice it, but there always is one in good drama. Things aren’t wishy washy. You must have a focus. In sitcoms its usually obvious, Seinfeld and Frasier are about the person in the title and the family around them. But what about the modern archetype of Friends. All of the actors had the same salary, all of them were given equal screen time and none of them were famous first (essentially). But in reality Rachel was the protagonist of the series. She was the most normal character so people could instantly identify with her, she didn’t really have any massive idiosyncrasies (Ross – Nerd, Chandler – Joker, Joey – Sex / Food, Monica – Obsessive Compulsive, Phoebe – Kooky). Rachel was the fish out of water. All of the other characters know each other before the first episode starts, and Rachel is the one who makes the decision to end the series by going and then not going to Paris, she hooks up with Ross at the end and then the premise set up in the first episode is sealed. As was said originally by Blake Snyder it was the promise of the premise. The side line that Monica and Chandler were moving isn’t the key that’s the writers ratcheting up the ticking clock of the ending, it isn’t even mooted as a concern in the first episode so can’t be considered. Most times in an ensemble the protagonist is the fish out of water, they help us understand the group. They draw us in, usually are near repulsed or excluded at the beginning and through the film or series learn to love the group as do we.

I’m writing an ensemble drama at the moment. I must say it is one of the hardest things to write for because of this particular difficulty. I think the essence is that you want at the beginning to leave things free and easy. Let the protagonist emerge or rather the balance emerge. I particularly want, like Friends, for it not to be obvious who the protagonist in the series is. But I have learnt through writing it that it is vital at the very least to have a protagonist per scene. And as I start getting into re-writes I’m going to have to do far more work to reshape the first episode because of an inability to commit to what effectively boils down to your “in”. The vessel through which the audience accesses your drama.

It doesn’t have to be the ing’enue who is the “in” to your drama but in many ways it better be if the series doesn’t have a clear main character. The only successful ensemble drama I can think of which has neither is “The West Wing”. Who is the protagonist? Charlie is the ing’enue so to speak, and the President is the most obvious main character. But actually Charlie doesn’t even appear until episode three, and the president isn’t the most on screen character at all. In many ways Sam Seaborn’s character is the protagonist because he is the one who is still learning the most. But could you guess that character who is in the most episodes? It’s CJ. It almost by default makes her the winner, but I think this has happened perhaps because Rob Lowe quit. CJ did have a transformative character arc but then almost everyone did. In fact in some ways Toby Ziegler is the only character who doesn’t change at any point and therefore should qualify for some kind of accolade – maybe not changing at all makes you special. Bradley Whitford’s character Josh Lyman (one less episode than CJ) is probably the most likely protagonist because he is the only one going on at the end whereas everyone else stops. But it’s pretty clear that the West Wing is one of the least clear cases of protagonist that there is.

Well I have tried to hide it in my series, but who knows if I will be successful. I think that whatever happens the key is that the author knows what is going on. That’s what the audience picks up on. They can tell instantly if the author hasn’t thought about it, if the author isn’t sure. If the author is sure but holding it back that creates a very different sensation for the viewer.

I may as well jump on the bandwagon here of writing articles about how everyone else is writing articles about Paris Hilton. The funniest thing is the unknowingness that these articles have. Basically the gutter press have the balls to go and report the incident directly. The mainstream press want to talk about it but know they can’t directly because even they know it’s not really news. So what they instead do is talk knowingly about how everyone else is talking about it – seemingly ignoring the fact that they are part of everyone. And I’d like to make it clear at this point that I know I am part of everyone as well, but the simple fact that I acknowledge it makes me at least slightly different than the others.

Anyway even though she’s as dozy as anything I can’t help but feel she probably doesn’t deserve the treatment she’s getting. She was pretty much hamstrung from the moment her parents named her. I mean surely they realised that “Paris Hilton” is the name of one of their own hotels (well “Hilton Paris” is at any rate). Surely they must have known? And in case you don’t believe me here’s the link. Paris Hilton has 15 meeting rooms, an Executive Lounge, a business centre and wireless internet access.

Surely her parents should have been stopped at the stage that they tried to name her after a hotel? Or maybe they are just as stupid as she is? I mean old Conrad Hilton didn’t want to let his family have access to his Hotel Empire. Maybe this was the reason? He tried to donate the whole empire to the Catholic church but after his death his will was contested and overturned.

He was pretty kooky himself though, his final words on his deathbed were, “Please keep the shower curtain inside the tub”.

For a long time, I suppose, it has been imagined that this would be the greatest contribution of the Hilton family to the world. A comedy quote on his deathbed. But Paris has finally gazumped him by actually making an even more amazing quote this week. And it is this quote that I leave you with:

“In the future, I plan on taking more of an active role in the decisions I make”

I was logging into blogger yesterday when I discovered a strange set of number combinations. The days in the year, 333 and 666.*

I mentioned this to Adrian (who was sitting beside me) and he said, “quick, stand on one leg”.

It’s important to point out that Adrian is a cricketer. And in the world of cricket they have some very strange customs. And one of them is known as the Nelson. If the score is three digits and all of those digits are the same then you have what is known as a Nelson. And the umpires have to stand on one leg to ward off bad luck. No really.

Supposedly it started off with 111 being bad luck because it symbolised the three sumps without bails, aka a wicket being taken. But the name comes from the idea that Lord Nelson lost an eye, an arm and a leg. But actually Nelson never lost his leg so the name is a bit silly really (well the whole thing is pretty silly so maybe that’s how the name thing snuck past – everyone was watching the umpire standing on one leg).

Although the practice had been carried out pretty widely in the upper echelons of cricket for some time it wasn’t really known widely because the umpires fearing the silliness only raised their foot a little bit. However umpire David Shepherd was far more flamboyant with his leg raising and so simultaneously raised the profile of the Nelson. And now everybody is at it.

The Cricketer magazine decided once and for all discover if there was any truth in the rumour and went back through the records to see if Nelsons were actually unlucky. It turned out to be false. In fact the score you’re most likely to get out on is 0 – a duck. Of course the problem the Cricketer has is that the official records presumably don’t indicate whether the umpire raised a leg or not during play. As this wards off the bad luck these instances shouldn’t be included in the stats. But presumably they were – bad statistics in my opinion.

And so I’ve had to stand on one leg ever since I discovered it yesterday. Luckily this post takes me over the edge.

*You may be wondering why there are 365 gamboling posts now and 555 the other week. There are 190 articles which are on gamboling but aren’t in blogger. They’re in the Older Archive section there on the left.