We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Football, whether you love it or loathe it, is now a huge global business. It stands to reason, then, that the temptations on the part of some folk to bend the rules to make themselves rich are considerable. There are currently extremely serious allegations surrounding a number of big-name Italian clubs, including AC Milan and Juventus, to the effect that officials and others collaborated to fix games. And all this while the game’s main showcase, the World Cup, is going on.
And then there is this story today:
Juventus team manager and former defender Gianluca Pessotto has been seriously injured after falling from a building at the club’s headquarters.
“Gianluca suffered multiple fractures, but his life is not in danger,” said Juventus spokesman Marco Girotto. It is unclear where exactly the 35-year-old fell from – early reports suggested he had fallen out of a second-floor window, but now it seems he may have fallen from the roof of the building. Club officials said they were unable to give details and were looking into all possibilities.
Oh I bet they are. Consider the final paragraph of the story:
Juventus are currently facing charges relating to the massive match-fixing scandal rocking Italy. The scandal began last month with the publication of intecepted telephone conversations between former Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi and Italian Football Federation officials discussing refereeing appointments.
Italian clubs are now a major part of the corporate structure of that country. Questions about the trustworthiness of Italian corporate leaders have already been stirred by the scandal of collapsed food group Parmalat, a scandal that was a European equivalent of Enron or the Fannie Mae debacles.
Football needs trust to survive. The antics of players who writhe in fake agony after being tackled in a bid to get an opposing player sent off, or who fall over in the penalty area to get a goal (Italy arguably did this in the match yesterday against Australia) are part of a cancer eating at the game. I can put up with the antics of footballers off the pitch and I do not get upset at their huge salaries – they operate in a market after all – but without trust, without a sense that the players concerned are giving their all to win, then the game is in grave danger. Similar scandals have besmirched cricket and remain a shadow over horse racing. I hope the Italian authorities prosecute any guilty folk severely. If found guilty, some of the clubs could be relegated from the top-flight league and forced to sell some of their star players, presumably at a loss (I wonder if Ipswich Town can afford any of them?).
What a mess.
The American standup comedian and actor Denis Leary has a wonderfully raucous sketch in his Lock n’ Load show when he loses his temper, unable to get someone, anyone, to serve him a regular, ordinary cup of coffee. You feel for the irascible Irish-American as the fella goes on his folorn search (he fails).
Coffee. I drink the stuff every day and there is no doubt that in my brief lifetime, it has gone from being the nasty stuff brewed from ‘instant’ granules in a jar to a massive industry boasting tremendous variety and choice. Companies like Coffee Republic and of course, Starbucks, have played a huge part in this. Sometimes the sheer headspinning variety of choices and the names of some coffees bring out the Denis Leary in me, but on the whole I have to accept that this choice has done a lot for the consumer. There is a fine article here by Edward Hudgins of the The Objectivist Center defending Starbucks and other chains from the chidings of our modern-day health scolds. There is also a fine and detailed article here via Reason magazine about the Fair Trade coffee movement. While fairly friendly to the Fair Trade outfits, the article, written by Kerry Howley, also raises some uncomfortable questions about just who wins or loses from the Fair Trade business model, and whether it is really simply about feel-good consumerism, benefiting poor farmers or just raising the quality of coffee. However, it is a paradox that the Fair Trade model has become a hugely successful business phenomenon. The FT brand is ironically, pitched at precisely the sort of folk who might claim to despise brands generally, writes Howley, in a passage reminiscent of David Brook’s work, Bobos in Paradise:
“The hippie spilling buckets of ake blood may never break bread (or sip coffee with straight-laced businessmen talking quality, but the consumer has little to lose from a synthesis of strong words and strong lattes. Another Starbucks, a better coffee, a calmer conscience: What caffeine fiend can argue?”
Related thoughts here.
European steel giant Arcelor looks as if it is going to be bought by the Indian Mittal family company. If the ink is allowed to dry on this deal, it will create the world’s biggest steelmaker and do so at a time when metal prices have been rising strongly, as have pretty much most other commodities.
That India’s economy has been on the rise is pretty much a part of the received economic wisdom these days. What is clear, though, is that country is a lot more than about lots of call centres. It is becoming a breeding ground for a whole crop of entrepreneurs able and willing to take on the biggest businesses in the established industrial world and where necessary, put a few noses out of joint in the process.
Top of the Pops, a BBC programme that has shown Top-40 pop acts since the days of the Beatles, has been axed by the BBC. I grew up in the late 70s and 80s watching the show, including favourite bands of mine like the Stranglers, Undertones, Madness, Ian Dury (RIP) and the rest. Now it is all gone. Some of this must have been driven by shifting demographics. When ToTP started, there were relatively more folk under the age of 20 versus the rest of the population than is the case now, and the music industry tended to chase after what was thought to be a large and expanding number of young people with money in their pockets.
The development of new musical techologies, CDs, downloading and the Internet has also affected, and is continuing to change, the way that people listen to music and the sort of styles that get played. This is also affecting how folk come across music for the first time and how a band or act can make a “breakthrough”. The old music labels, under threat as they must be from the changing music industry, are no longer able to support something like a “Top 40” on which something like the old BBC programme could be based. This is neither a good or bad development, in my view, just a change driven by shifting demographics and technology.
So making it to “Number One” no longer has quite the same resonance now that it may have done in the heyday of the Beatles or Duran Duran. Some may regret the passing of all this, but I am indifferent to it. I increasingly hope that new technologies will make it possible for talented artists to circumvent Big Music and push their own offerings on to the Net, using such avenues as the wildly successful GarageBand route. (Uber-blogger Glenn Reynolds has written about this recently in a book).
Anyway, the demise of Top of the Pops should not lead one to conclude that a supposedly vibrant era of great music is going to be replaced by something worse. It is the error of any age to assume that whatever went before is better than what is happening now (a sure sign that one is getting old. I have just passed 40 and intend to resist that trap). This book by Tyler Cowen points out, for example, how the often wildly controversial music of the R&R era in the 1950s has taken on the mantle of classic music in the ears and hearts of many people (including me):
“Musical pessimists also have claimed that contemporary music provides an aesthetic that is overly accessible and directed at the lowest possible denominator. They view rock and roll and other genres as a succession of pop songs, well suited to catch the ear of the casual listener but of little lasting value. We should keep in mind, however, that many western creations have stood a test of time, one of the most significant indicators of cultural quality and depth. It has now been more than forty years since the release of the early classic works of rock and roll, such as Chuck Berry and James Brown.” (page 179)
Or this, (page 178)::
“Contemporary music, for the most part, encourages freedom, nonconformism, and a skeptical attitude towards authority. The totalitarian states of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union did not hesitate to permit Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Jazz, swing and blues were banned. The free and vital sense of joy communicated by these musical forms clashed too obviously with adherence to totalitarian ideals. Similarly, the communist and socialist leaders in the Eastern bloc saw rock and roll as a special threat to their authority, precisely because it was based on the personality of the individual performer.”
Rock on.
Well, I had to return to normality eventually. I have just come back with the new Mrs Pearce from Mauritius, an island in the Indian Ocean lying off the east coast of Africa and south of the Equator. An extremely interesting island with a mixed history and a heady brew of different cultures, part Anglosphere, part French, part Indian and part African.(Here is a good collection of literature linked to it). About 11 hours direct flying time from London, the island is pretty much geared these days as a “romantic destination in the tropics”. I liked the place and its people a lot as we travelled around the various nature parks, looking at the coral reefs, the fish, birdlife and assorted animals. If I have one grumble it is that, much to my amazement, the whole island is besotted with English football. Egads, I go all this way and they are still raving about the World Cup.
It is funny what sticks in the mind, often completely unexpected. I discovered that the island produces some of the finest and most fantastically detailed model boats I have ever seen. You can, for a fraction of what it would cost in Britain, buy a scale model wooden Victory, or Constitution, or Sovereign of the Seas, or an America’s Cup racer, WW2 battleship, cruiser or Blue Riband liner. There is a substantial industry of locals churning out these boats. The Napoleonic era – when Mauritius was seized by the British from the French – seems to provide the inspiration for most of the models. Unable to resist – I am an amateur sailor anyway – my wife and I bought a model of the 1840s U.S. schooner Albatros, now sitting proudly on the mantelpiece. Hardwoods are the base for much of the boats that are made and as a result, will last for years. The detailing on the rigging, sails, tiny cannon and masts are incredible. (Okay, I am an overgrown boy at heart).
And of course while on the island I read Patrick O’Brien’s The Mauritius Command. For a moment, sitting on the beach sipping a beer, I thought I saw Lucky Jack Aubrey walking along, staring out to sea to spot French raiders…
Anyway, it has been good to give blogging a miss for a while and re-charge the writing batteries. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes and messages. I really appreciate it.
I occasionally watch the Top Gear motoring-lads-having-a-laugh show on a Sunday evening, fronted by the bumptious Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson is a sort of British version of P.J. O’Rourke, (although O’Rourke is at his best in print, rather than on the box) in that he loves to mock cyclists, Greens, do-gooders and other earnest protectors of our public welfare. Excellent. It is amazing really that his show has run on the BBC for so long. His mails must include a fair share of rudeness from those he mocks and it looks like he has really got up the nose of veteran Green campaigner Jonathan Porritt, a person who at one stage was very much the “reasonable” face of environmentalism.
Porritt misses the point completely. He is part of a puritanical new establishment dedicated to the removal of fun, or at least that of those other than themselves. We have had more than a decade of this, and Clarkson is rather like a shot of brandy to the half-drowned. He may be overly laddish for some people’s tastes, but he acts as handy counterweight to the scolds. Long may he sing the praises of Ferraris, supersonic jet aircraft and other fast machines.
(I have classified this post under “Arts and Entertainment” since Top Gear is purely entertainment. Do not expect to learn a lot about practical car maintenance.)
It appears that so-called “animal rights” thugs’ targetting of scientists and attempted intimidation of investors has backfired, at least in terms of trying to win around public opinion to their cause. Well, it is true that the majority of Britons loathe such groups, but I don’t think these folk are really concerned about winning hearts and minds as so much working out their own damaged psychological problems through a “cause” that gives them a sense of power and fame. The sadness of it all is that the case for advancing animal welfare – hardly a trivial issue – gets lost in the noise. For all that I am an unapologetic meat-eater, I certainly think everything practical should be done to minimise suffering of animals. In fact, one of the great things about growing advances in the fields of biotech, genetic engineering and the like is that it reduces the need for animal testing, possibly removing it altogether.
Green terrorism is not something cooked up by science fiction. It is all too real and threatens immense damage to our economic and material wellbeing. Maybe the famously sentimental British animal-loving public are getting the point.
The Daily Telegraph reckons that global warming might advance the chances of England, or at least select bits of it, one day rivalling the wine producing prowess of France. Maybe. It has been rather hard to become convinced of the global warming thesis in what has been, by any standards, an exceptionally wet month of May. There is no doubt that a run of hot summers has got people thinking about the implications for agriculture. In my native Suffolk, there are a few quite famous wine producing farms, such as this one. The wine tends to be a bit too sharp for my taste, rather like the stuff produced in the Rhine area. (My favourite wine from the north European area is the very distinctive white wine from Alsace). Personally, I think the best booze in East Anglia is the cider, although it is very strong.
England produced quite a lot of wine in centuries past, when average temperatures were quite possibly hotter than now. The Romans produced a fair amount of the stuff (and no doubt their passion for baths and washing was partly driven by the desire to sweat away the subsequent hangovers). So maybe England could become a great wine producer again. Even so, it will have to go some way before it can rival the Lafites, Latours of Montrachets of France. Anyway, it is my 40th birthday today, so I may just have to find an excuse to do some tasting.
Blogger and friend Andrew Ian Dodge, at one of his many venues, Tech Central Station, offers this poser on the recent, ahem, bracing winners of the Eurovision song contest:
Does Lordi’s win reflect the rot in Europe, a final admission of rock’s power on the continent? Or is it merely an unintentional blip that Eurovision’s chiefs will seek to keep from ever recurring? Will heavy-metal find its way into Finland’s EU presidency? Is it just a silly music contest won by a bunch of rubber clad nut-cases? Oh no dear reader. It is far more than that.
Hey, heavy metal music is not exactly everyone’s cup of tea, although I often find that the most unusual sorts of people (mostly men, but some women too), will confess to a passion for the odd heavy metal track, played as loud as possible. I have had some of the funniest and most enjoyable nights out at gigs where such nutters play. Most of these people don’t take themselves remotely seriously. The very fact that their music offends “right thinking” people of the crusty left and the crunchy right only adds to the appeal. Rush, the Canadian rock band, were inspired by Ayn Rand. The Iron Maiden front man, Bruce Dickinson, is a qualified and working commercial airline pilot. Heavy rockers often seem to have an equal passion for gadgets and cars. I once visited a Royal Navy warship at London’s Docklands and went into the navigation/weaponry control room, and in the background, ACDC was playing (Very ideologically sound, if you ask me).
Meanwhile, on the subject of music competitions and the usual feelgood sense of life they tend to give out, this comment by Timothy Sandefur on the recently completed American Idol is rather nice:
Moreover, American Idol is a rebuke to those silly “crunchy conservatives” who insist that modern technology and mass production denigrates community, and so forth – in T.S. Eliot’s idiotic words, “The remarkable thing about television is that it permits several million people to laugh at the same joke and still feel lonely.” But that’s not true! The community has all joined in on this wholesome, fun, harmless moment to celebrate opportunity, singing, and lightheartedness. What could be more American than that? Lightheartedness is, I think, a profound and incredibly rare value, and one which our country has figured out how to mass produce. That may be among its greatest accomplishments ever.
Some recent court rulings show that marriage is turning into a nice little earner for certain spouses, as Tim Worstall discusses on his blog. He pinpoints a key problem in English law that it is not possible to have pre-nuptial agreements recognised as valid, although pre-nups might influence a ruling (he goes on to discuss how things are a bit different in Scotland). It seems pretty basic to me: the State has no business legislating at all on marriage. The way in which persons choose to form long-term contracts with another is for the parties concerned and no-one else, period.
If a rich entrepreneur, or musician like Paul McCartney, say, wants to shield himself or herself from being taken to the cleaners by a wife or husband, then it should be within their rights to do so. Of course, it may not be terribly ‘romantic’ to have pre-nups, but let’s face it, if rich people fear they will lose a huge chunk of their money to a cynical spouse on the make, it will raise calls for no-fault divorce to be abolished. It could prolong the divorce process at the expense of children’s happiness, foster further cynicism about the institution of marriage, and erode respect for an important part of civil society.
In the interests of the institution of marriage, then, I call on politicians to let consenting adults get on with whatever arrangements they please. It really is that simple. (Which is probably why it won’t happen anytime soon).
By the way, I will be getting married to a lovely woman in just over a week’s time in Malta. Just thought I would mention that.
The question I ask in the headline may not have an affirmative answer but the world’s stock markets have a decidedly shaky look at the moment. The British bluechip index is now at the level where it was at the start of the year, erasing all its gains. Some emerging market bourses have fared even worse. What is going on?
Inflation – which some economists had claimed was ‘dead’ – is possibly back, created as a result of the vast amounts of monetary liquidity sloshing around the global economy at the moment. For a while, red-hot growth in China, India and continued robustness to the U.S. economy may have bred a dangerous amount of complacency. We have a new head of the powerful U.S. Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. Bernanke is clearly keen to establish his own policymaking persona after the long stretch of the Alan Greenspan years. There is a sense that interest rates could be headed up further. Gold prices have been above $700 an ounce, rising rapidly to a degree that has got some old-fashioned ‘gold bugs’ like me decidedly nervous.
So should we fear a recession is on the way? Not necessarily. The enormous motor power of the U.S. economy repeatedly counters the doomsayers. But there are clear risks. China’s state-dominated banking sector is stuffed with bad loans and investment is often wildly misallocated. The price of oil is acting like a tax on growth, although in time it may weaken if new energy supplies come on stream to slake demand (assuming governments allow it).
The economic sea may be choppy for a while yet. However, to counter some of the gloom read this sharp piece at the Mises Institute.
Among the main reasons for opposing a compulsory state ID card is the risk, all too real in a country like Britain with shoddy state-run IT, of being wrongfully identified. For example, imagine the danger of being wrongfully described as a criminal, and having that error imprinted in a database.
The risk is all too real.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
