Length DID Matter

Diversion. A few of my favourite things. Guests on the classic BBC radio show Desert Island Discs are allowed to choose eight records. I know it's only a hypothetical game, but it's not called "your eight top tracks". So why don't guests choose longer tracks to maximise enjoyment? My epic list here.

1. Bat out of Hell - Meat Loaf

Possibly Jim Steinman's best known song, but as already noted here, I could have taken almost any of his works.

2. Grendel - Marillion

Not just because it is 18 minutes of the finest interplay between keyboard and guitar ever recorded, but an interesting story too, the first great epic of English literature told from the perspective of the beast rather than the traditional hero.

3. Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Iron Maiden

Obviously fine poetry, but also the epitome of the new wave of British heavy metal.

4. Kowtow - Pendragon

I first heard it live at the Marquee Club back in the days when I went to gigs. Astounding.

5. The Future Just Aint What it Used to Be - Pandora's Box

Another Jim Steinman composition, but this time the rock opera equivalent of a soulful ballad.

I'll stop here. So that still leaves three songs for another time.

Absolute Drivel

Virgin Radio changed its name yesterday. I used to listen to it in the morning when Pete and Geoff did the breakfast show, then a cock took over and today I am back with the BBC. Yes I know that Geoff is back on evening drivetime now, but they've lost my goodwill.

The new name is Absolute Radio. It was an absolutely obvious choice, especially considering that the company who bought the franchise and frequency way back in April was called "Absolute Radio". So I found the recent hype about "you the listener will be the first to know the new name, text xxxx to yyyy to get the news first" to be absolutely pathetic.

The other reason that the name is absolutely predictable is due to the rise in digital radio. Once upon a time we tuned to a particular frequency. Or in a new area, we searched by frequency. Increasingly today we search by name. Alphabetically.

I'm going to rename this site to "Aaah so that's the way to the top of the blogroll".

Selfish Idiot

This morning's BBC thought for the day was particularly inspiring - of course I mean inspiring as in suggesting to me that I write something here, as opposed to being truly inspirational.

So today the speaker took off from the topical headline that crime rates for girls are increasing sharply. And the solution, justified with selected quotes from his sacred old book, was to make sure that the differences between the sexes are maintained. I notice that the quotes used to justify everything from physical assault to denial of voting rights were not used in this instance, though they would have been equally representative of his ridiculous book.

It's also funny how his special book does not even explain the fact that some people can be born with XXY chromosomes, that genes control the production of hormonal proteins and those proteins control the development of sexual characteristics, that neurological differences explain behavioural differences. But he still paraded his medieval nonsense as the source of unquestioned divine revelation.

But actually that wasn't the bit of his lecture that inspired me. It was his wilful and stupid misinterpretation of modern scientific thinking, blaming the apparent rise in individualism with the "selfish gene". Idiot. Only a nutcase could read Richard Dawkins and still not recognise that the selfish gene is precisely an explanation for co-operation and altruism.

Bursting Bubbles and Silencing Quacks

As usual, I listened to BBC Radio 4 this morning. They got the balance all wrong. Because some things just don't.

First they reported on the credit crunch. And to unbalance the news from journalists who talk of more difficulty borrowing, potential house price falls, impending recessions, etc. what they had was an estate agent! Obviously he talked about the need to always keep talking up prices; to maintain confidence in the market, not for his own job of course. So let's ignore the evidence and the underlying economic factors, instead let's just keep talking up prices so then we can all have a pretty mansion with a big garden full of dutch tulips. Yes journalists can be too sensationalist, but it was just ridiculous to expect a sensible comment from an estate agent here.

Then, even worse, the programme reported on an independent study from the Cochrane Foundation that amalgamated the results of various antioxidant supplements and found that, unsurprisingly, they don't do much good compared to a normal balanced diet. But to unbalance these facts they also alllowed equal time to well-known quack Patrick Holford. Patrick Holford sells pills. Please BBC, the balance to objective research is better objective research, not the prejudiced rambling of a discredited supplement salesman.

Incidentally, a salesman I know left his job today.

Auto-bituary

As I mentioned before, my drive to work spans the BBC thought for the day, which instead of being a genuine alternative viewpoint on the day's news is usually just a short snatch of religious dogma. And today the speaker gave a short lecture on organ donation.

There are victims who are suffering and dying every day because of a lack of sufficient people who are willing to donate organs after they die. Some members of parliament have proposed that we amend the process from the current "opt-in" system to an "opt-out" system - so you would still be allowed to insist that essential organs should not be removed from your dead body, but that denial option would no longer be presumed as it is today.

But instead of using his privileged slot to argue for the benefit of real diverse people instead of for the benefit of imaginary christian souls, the speaker blathered about "both sides being right" and came down with the recommendation that the opt-in process should stay. Pathetic.

Recently posted on the web was the obituary of a soldier who just died in Iraq. Interestingly, the obituary was self-penned, the soldier kept a blog, but had requested that one post be held back until after his death. But I think that things should be said while you are alive to hear the response to them.

I don't even know if I have a donor card. But when I am gone, do whatever you like with my body. Cut it, burn it, sell it, whatever. Please just wait until I'm dead first.

Tort for the Day

Yesterday I noted that my drive home often spans the 6:30 pm comedy slot on Radio 4. On this special day, it is worth noting that my morning drive also spans a comedy slot. 7:45 am.

Staying holistic, the Agency has many of the qualities of the mighty religious tomes. It is full of strange imagery and weird anecdotes that could easily be quoted out of context to justify almost anything. It suggests how life started and how it could end. It has an elusive "hero" whose background is mysterious but whose achievements are legendary.

However it just missed out. To become a great sacred text rather than a great novel, the book needed only two more sentences within it:

1. Everything contained herein is true - it is divine revelation and absolutely not a work of fiction

2. Thou shalt propagate this message - attempts to resist or mock are blasphemy and will not be tolerated

And then find some monks or monkeys who would fall for those lines. If only DNA had included those instructions …

The Wholy Book

My drive home from the client often spans the 6:30 to 7 "comedy" slot on BBC Radio 4. For the last six weeks, concluding yesterday, they have been playing the adaptation of, in my opinion, the finest novel ever written.

But the adaptation did not really work for me. The hero sounded more like a Harry Enfield character than the mysterious East-European that I remembered from the book.

The book is inexplicable anyway. It is a murder mystery, a ghost story, an exercise in philosophy, an English textbook, a discussion of religion, an historical novel, a magical tour. It covers the history of the world from the primordial slime of 4 billion years ago through Coleridge and Bach to quantum physics.

But I hope the novel is just a tiny bit like this blog. It is about detection. It is about finding incredibly simple answers to incredibly complicated questions. It is about a thousand different subjects. But somehow they all tie together. Just like the methods used inside it, the book itself is holistic.

However, unlike Dirk Gently, this blog is not going to save all life on this planet. And if it were to, I would invoice a lot more than he did :)

Touching the Cloth

Joe Simpson was the climber who shattered his legs when he was dropped down a crevasse descending a peak in the Peruvian Andes. His story was the subject of the film Touching the Void. It was a miracle that he survived the fall, a miracle that he dragged himself out of the ravine, a miracle that he crawled all the way down the mountain, a miracle that he was able to walk again. But there he was on TV this weekend, describing how he had resumed climbing and even ascended the Eiger.

A man of the cloth is a term used for someone who is considered to be close to God, or at least someone who helps the rest of us to get closer to Him.

Mr Simpson was invited onto Desert Island Discs recently. I listened. The interviewer grilled him about those times when he was very close to fading out, when he genuinely thought he was about to die - did he ever think of God or a possible afterlife at those times? No, he replied. Never. Even faced with imminent death, the idea of such a crazy Thing did not even cross his mind.

In addition to your chosen records, the programme lets you take a little reading material onto the desert island. It assumes that everyone will take the Bible, and so many people wanted the complete works of Shakespeare that they started allowing that too. So two hefty books for free, and one more of your choice. Joe took the Shakespeare, but politely declined to take the Bible. Even as toilet paper.

22.5 minutes

I love the BBC. I love sport. But when it comes to football, I can't stand the commentary on five live. It is true that one particular BBC commentator makes me green with rage and I turn off the radio whenever he is on. But this is a blog for common sense, not for personal dislike.

The BBC is constantly under cost pressure. They have claimed they cannot bid for sporting events because they do not have enough money. They are relocating to cheaper offices. They are making staff redundant. So why, unlike virtually every other radio station on the planet, do they feel that they must switch commentators halfway through a half? I'm not talking about the co-commentator, the guy who provides a foil for the main speaker throughout the game. I'm talking about the crazy switch that happens 23 minutes into the action.

It is ridiculous. Don't pretend that "it's radio so they need to talk more than TV guys, what if one guy loses his voice, there are no commercial breaks during a half, what if one guy gets eaten by an alien" ... other radio stations across the world manage fine. And if you've listened across the world, other commentators talk much much more than BBC ones.

But the thing that takes this scenario from wasteful (of which there are plenty of examples everywhere) to downright ridiculous (hence this note) is that adding the extra costs actually provides a worse service. While listening to a game, changing the main voice breaks up the flow. It spoils the game. A ninety minute football match is not a five day test match, one professional should be able to manage it.

By losing the second commentator, they would reduce costs and also provide a better listening experience. It's win-win. It's common sense.