Words Dept.

For all BBC middle managers thinking of moving up north, of which there really aren’t that many, please be aware of these facts, all verifiable on Wikipedia:

• The last known “art gallery” closed in 1987
• The crime rate rose by 900% last year, driven by a shocking trade in aggravated pigeon theft
• Jack Duckworth reads the ITV regional news every night in a stupid northern voice, accompanied by a dancing ferret
• It rains 434 days of the year
• Going to the theatre essentially consists of a night at the bingo
• They eat KFC for breakfast. In a bowl. With milk and sugar on top
• Nobody watches the BBC

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A selection of my latest bookmarks. You could visit my Tumblelog for more stuff I’ve seen on the web.

• Journalism.co.uk: Trinity Mirror confirms proposed closure of Midlands weeklies
• Playing the game (real adventures in journalism) - Anonymous blog about newpaper journalism

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The concept of It Felt Like A Kiss isn’t especially easy to pin down in words. Which in my book is no bad thing. The production, developed by documentary film maker Adam Curtis, Felix Barrett and installation theatre company Punchdrunk, premieres at the Manchester International Festival tonight. It straddles the line between video documentary, theatre and art installation with extraordinary results.

(Note: This review does not contain spoilers. But if you want no hints at all about the contents of the show, you may want to look away now.)

At its centre is a new 35-minute documentary by Curtis, which, unlike much of his previous work, steers clear of a concrete ”storyline” and does away with the director’s trademark voiceover. That’s not to say there isn’t a theme: Curtis somehow manages to weave a plausible, if deliberately hazy, narrative connection between chimps in space and the collapse of the Twin Towers via Rock Hudson and Doris Day. The film, as one might expect, is a masterpiece of montage. Curtis revels in his trademark splices, which, as usual, are coupled with deliberately disarming sound effects and music. Fans, like me, will be blown away.

To reach the documentary, viewers must walk through the vacant office building where the show takes place via a series of spaces that are richly packed with items that hint at what’s to come. If I had one quibble, it would be that there was a tendency for participants to dawdle a little in the early stages, seeking to attach meaning to every object on show - like a game of live-action Cluedo - rather than take in the overall “feel” of what was being presented. This inevitably led to later bottlenecks and a “running time” that clocked in at two-and-a-half hours, rather than the 75 minutes suggested.

Curtis has said IFLAK is about “how power really works in the world. To show that power is exercised not just through politics and diplomacy - but flows through our feelings and emotions, and shapes the way we think of ourselves and the world.” It’s about both ”enchantment and menace”, he says.

At one point, the spotlight - literally - falls on Philip K. Dick’s 1959 novel Time Out of Joint, the story of a man whose existence is ultimately revealed to be a “constructed reality”, created by society’s powerful elite. While the early stages of the production force participants to consider this conundrum at a distance - poking around in safety and unearthing the nuggets that have been left hanging around for signs of some kind of meaning - the latter stages put them at the heart of a nightmare. B.F. Skinner and his idea of Relative Behaviourism loom large, while Curtis ultimately returns to the themes of individualism and freedom that were explored in Century of the Self and The Trap. After an astonishing sound installation in the building’s basement, one is forced suddenly into the night, wondering what the hell just happened.

While the content of the show is spectacular, it’s fair to say their were some teething troubles at last night’s preview. An unfortunate queue midway through left us stewing in a sweltering corridor with 15 other people for around 20 minutes. Air conditioning would have helped - unless, of course, borderline heat exhaustion was the director’s way of unsettling us for the final section.

Overall, though, IFLAK is a remarkable, ambitious and brilliant production. Curtis is a rare maverick genius of the video age. Entering this world is something very special.

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A selection of my latest bookmarks. You could visit my Tumblelog for more stuff I’ve seen on the web.

• Betty's Utility Room: Knickerless - A daft take on the departure of "Conor McKnickerless" (or is it George Lamb?) as editor of NME. Very funny.
• Guardian: Blogging: the long and short of it "Writing a blog post is a lot harder than posting a status update, putting a funny link on someone's Wall, or tweeting."
• NUJ calls on Trinity Mirror to “come clean” about plans to axe up to eight titles in the Midlands and reduce the frequency of publication of the Birmingham Post
• BBC: Disabled woman sues clothes store - Woman with prosthetic limb allegedly falls foul of Abercrombie and Fitch's "Look Policy"
• BBC: Redevelopment for 'ghost village'
• Guardian:The Brangelina industry Interesting piece on tabloid/celeb mag journalism. "The truth can be kaleidoscopic."

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As a conscientious citizen of Stockport, and since nobody else seems to have bothered themselves much with the subject, I thought I’d have a look at Stockport MP Ann Coffey’s expenses, as revealed last week, to see if I could find anything interesting.

The Manchester Evening News has already mentioned something about curtains and a £200 monthly cleaning bill, while the Stockport Express revealed the £5,000 that was spent on stamps. However, it also appears that Ms Coffey had some problems with the installation of blinds at her constituency office and ended up spending almost £400 in order to resolve the issue.

To explain. In October 2006, a claim of £86.50 is made for “blinds for office”.

Then, in December, someone called Paul Hammond is paid £50 to “remove existing Venetian blinds and replace with three customer supplied roller blinds”.

So far, so straightforward. But then, in January, a company called Abbey Blinds (their address is “redacted”, presumably to minimise the threat of terrorism, but a Google search reveals that they are based at 341 Buxton Road, Stockport) is paid £260 to supply and fit three Venetian blinds “in 25mm Oyster”.

Hmm. Venetian blinds replaced by roller blinds? Roller blinds replaced by Venetian blinds a few weeks later? I sense blood! After all, it’s hardly as though the office is some triple-glazed skyscraper with floor-to-ceiling windows and monstrous solar gain. It’s actually above the Debra charity shop on Bramhall Lane in Davenport. (I walked past it earlier and noticed the lovely Venetian blinds.)

An email to Ann Coffey’s office elicits a speedy response from an assistant, who says the original Venetians weren’t replaced “until one was actually broken and came away from the window”. (Horrible when that happens.) The roller blind replacements were chosen as “a less expensive option”. Unfortunately, that’s when everything went quite hideously wrong.

We have a lot of natural light coming into this office, and the roller blinds did not keep the sun off the computer screens or protect the staff from glare from the windows onto the screens. As you will realise, with Venetian blinds you can alter the amount of light which comes in by varying the slats. Even with the roller blinds fully down, there was too much glare at certain times of the day.

Therefore, having tried to adapt to this, we realised that the only solution was to go back to Venetian blinds, which were ordered and fitted by a local firm, Abbey Blinds. This accounts for the £260 invoice which was submitted for payment in January 07.

So, a rather farcical chain of events, rather than the Watergate scandal I was hoping for. Oh well.

Elsewhere, I was interested to see that Coffey spent a total of £2,916 in the space of six months on the distribution of leaflets - once in September 2006 (£1,448) and then in February 2007 (£1,468). The purchase of a £445 laptop in June 2006 is not accompanied by a receipt as far as I can see, although one is provided for the purchase of a £195 digital camera and 2GB SD memory card from Jessops in late 2007.

I also noticed her mobile phone bills are rather over the top. In most months she is claiming in excess of £100 for “O2 Mobile” or variations thereof. In October 2006 alone, Coffey claimed £242 (captured on the first screengrab, above). Unlike the BT landline, utility bills, stationery and other stuff, no mobile phone bills are provided. The assistant explains that at that time there was no obligation to provide receipts for sums under £250.

Like many other MPs, Coffey claims for her accountancy fees out of her “incidental expenses provision”. £681.50 is paid to HW Fisher Chartered Accountants for a “tax return” on a couple of occasions.

So, I can’t really complain about anything much, least of all the quick response from her office about my ultimately fatuous enquiries. On the other hand, I don’t agree with the Iraq war, ID cards, or the idea of 90 days’ detention without charge - all of which were very much supported by Ann Coffey.

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The Guardian reckons that people aren’t blogging so much any more, and much prefer the shorter, sweeter option of tweeting and updating their status on Facebook. A lot of it is based on anecdotal evidence but there’s some science behind it, according to Charles Arthur.

NetNewsWire, my RSS feed reader, has nearly 500 feeds. When one of them hasn’t been updated for 60 days, it turns brown, like a plant dying for lack of water. More and more of the feeds I follow are turning brown. Why? Because blogging isn’t easy. More precisely, other things are easier – and it’s to easier things that people are turning.

In my last post, I questioned why I was blogging and I’ve found myself writing less and less on here. The sheer effort it takes to come up with something interesting, research it and then sort all the links out takes bloody ages and, except for the odd moment of enjoyable Google/hits action, there’s little fun to be had. I recently wrote what I considered to be an exceptionally well-argued post about the 50% income tax rate. Less than 30 people have looked at it. I’ve also been badly shirking in my commitment to AdTurds.

Another problem is that I’m becoming worried that I’m just one of those argumentative web twats who carps on about how awful everything is but has little practical knowledge of what they are talking about. (Like a newspaper columnist, in other words.)

As such, I’ve tended to focus more on my Tumblr blog, which is orientated around quick image, video and music posts, and Twitter. I also like Friendfeed, which, among other things, collates everything you do on the web in one place.

Essentially, do I really need to write hundreds of thoroughly researched, meticulously-linked words if I see something annoying on TV? Or can the same effect be achieved with a withering Twitter update? If any of my 14 regular readers have any views on this, I’d be interested to hear.

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A selection of my latest bookmarks. You could visit my Tumblelog for more stuff I’ve seen on the web.

• Slate: Orphan tweets - People who sign up for Twitter, post once, then never return.
• The most incompetent politician of all time - Doncaster's new Mayor fucks up interview.
• Guardian: Leading historians on whether fascism is on the march again

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You might have noticed I haven’t written much here recently. That’s because I can’t think of anything interesting to write about. Each post takes quite a lot of time to write and research and, after two years of doing that, in the long run I’m not sure what the point is. Google ranking? Lots of hits? I have no real idea.

As I spend half my time slagging off newspapers and journalists, I doubt it’s really helping my career prospects.

Anyway, I’m going on holiday for a week. This should give me time to think of something to write about.

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A selection of my latest bookmarks. You could visit my Tumblelog for more stuff I’ve seen on the web.

• The Marple Leaf: Silver linings on dark clouds “There is light at the end of this dark tunnel. These people [the BNP] are nutters. They will now have to face the same level of scrutiny as other politicians for the decisions they make and the examples they set. Not just the things they have said.”
• Living with Rats: Living with a cancer - “Democracy won’t be renewed in the pages of the Guardian or through Facebook groups. These might help, but they won’t influence those who don’t read the Guardian, don’t use Facebook and don’t think - to use the BNP’s catchphrase - politics has any space for ‘people like you’.”
• The Daily Mash: THIS IS HOW THE NAZIS STARTED, SAYS EVERYONE - “As the British National Party achieved its first success in a UK-wide election, amateur historians said they would be amazed if this time next year people like you were not in some sort of camp.”
• Telegraph: Tetris turns 25 - Images from the history of Tetris
• Guardian: No new stadium. A huge debt. Despite their promises, Hicks and Gillett have ‘done a Glazers’ - Excellent piece by David Conn about Liverpool’s problems

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Here’s a link to a photo of the anti-BNP protest that’s taking place at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester as I type.

One question: Why, when the election was last week and two of the racist twats have already been elected?

Actually, here’s another one: Isn’t the idea of protesting against the outcome of a democratic election (however objectionable the winning candidate) a bit of an odd concept?

Perhaps it’ll get on the news, perhaps it won’t. But even if it does, the sight of a couple of hundred people waving rainbow coloured flags is unlikely to change the opinion of the million or so people who, for whatever reason, voted for the BNP last week. Nor, while we’re at it, is nailing your non-racist credentials to the mast on Twitter - since nobody who would even consider voting for the BNP is on Twitter anyway.

As this post on Julian Dobson’s blog points out, there must now be proper scrutiny of the BNP’s every move. There also needs to be proper engagement with people who vote for them. I guess this doesn’t include shouting slogans at nobody in particular while a bunch of people stand around agreeing with you.

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