Reinterpreting The Classics

I don't imagine it will surprise anyone to learn that I don't follow X-Factor. I have a deep psychological aversion to any show that can plausibly have the word "reality" attached to it. I've mentioned before how a great deal of people who demand more realism in their television don't really know what the hell they're talking about, and this kind of show is the absolute nadir of that tendency. Watching the humiliation of an actual living person, seeing their tics and idiosyncrasies broadcast across the nation for the approval of the general populace, seems an act of outrageous voyeurism. And yes, the contestants are theoretically complicit, in that they all volunteered, but I know enough about television to realise that what they think they've signed up to and what actually ends up being broadcast is unlikely to be particularly similar. [1]

Having metaphorically washed my hands of such things, then, it took the Guardian to tell me that the winner of this series of X-Factor is releasing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah as a single in a bid for the Christmas number one.

Covers are an awkward business. There is a prevailing theory amongst music buffs that certain songs are simply to sacrosanct to be re-recorded by anyone ever. I've always thought that this was too simplistic an outlook. No doubt this is partially because it is almost unheard of for me to not prefer the first version of a given song I hear, no matter how bastardised it has become by consecutive iterations. I almost came to blows with Vomiting Mike over whether Kirsty MacColl's version of A New England is better than the Bragg original. I shall maintain to my dying day that it is, but I attribute it entirely to hearing her version first, and then finding the original to be fairly spare and stiff.

Sometimes people just attach to songs like ducklings do to the first living thing they see. If there was ever an art form designed to totally bypass rationality and take up residence in your emotions, it's music [2]. Thus, passions tend to run high over this sort of stuff, so it's arguable that there isn't much objective reason to care when someone shuffles into view and massacres one of your favourites.

On the other hand, though, I think sometimes there's more to the issue. I remember another argument with Vomiting Mike, in which he put forward the idea that no artist should ever receive money for their work, as anything as grubby as financial reward would inevitably taint the resulting work. Now, obviously, that's a totally ludicrous position to take (and in fairness to VM, this was a discussion held a decade ago and I doubt he still clings to the idea), but the outcome of the conversation is that a distinction should be made between people who are paid for their art, and people who create art in exchange for money.

This is not by any means an original idea, and it's one that is shared by some artists themselves. Congenital bastard and misery factory Lawrence Miles has lamented more than once the fact that he had to write The Adventuress of Henrietta Street purely in order to receive the money. It's hard to blame someone for whoring out their talent as an alternative to starvation, but Miles' dissatisfaction hailed from the fact that he hadn't woken up one day desperate to write the story, but because he woke up wanting something to eat, and thought he could slap something together in exchange for a tin of beans (which isn't to say he skimped on the book, by any means).

Intention matters. Needing to write a song to deal with tragedy is light-years away from wanting to write a song so that people will recognise you in the street. Sure, talent and ambition are not directly correlated (though they are sometimes indirectly linked), and some truly wonderful songs have been born entirely through someone deciding they're going to take on the world. In such cases, though, it's possible that the level of attitude involved in being, say, the Gallagher brothers, bleeds into and suffuses their work, that it is character that informs the song rather than the tawdry ambition. Needless to say, the characters themselves might be total bastards, but the trick still seems to work.

Here's the thing, though; you can't pull that trick off with a cover version. Taking a song from one side of the getting money for art/making art for money divide and applying it to the other genuinely is something that bothers me. I haven't heard Burke's take on the song, and for all I know it would cause me to weep openly at its sheer beauty, but it remains a short cut to achieving fame without actually producing anything of your own. In that sense, of course, it's a microcosm of the entire So You Think You're America's New Top Catwalk Idol sub-genre, an attempt to reach the big leagues whilst standing on the shoulder of as many giants as is humanly possible. [3]

Of course, it's just as possible that I don't really give a shit about singers, I only care about songs. Or that Simon Cowell is such an exceptional example of a shitty human being that everything he is involved with becomes tainted. It's a rich tapestry.

[1] This is another reason why the "reality" label is bullshit. The people behind X-Factor, or Pop Idol, or IACGMOOH, or any of the other pandemic of such shows, are paid to make a show that is entertaining. An unswervingly accurate portrayal of everyone featured in such programmes is not only very difficult to achieve, it's often antithetical to that goal.

[2] This is one of the big problems with writing prose. It can take pages of words and months of work to get across a message that a poem can manage in a few verses, and a song can manage in a single chorus. Also, if you spend a few days writing a song, and it turns out to be shit, it's no great loss. Spending years of your life putting a novel together and then realising it's total bobbins is a fairly demoralising experience. Maybe I should finally learn to play more than three chords on my acoustic guitar.

[3] I guess technically that would be two.

Keeping It In The Family

Today's birthday message goes out to my two siblings. Interestingly (slightly), they aren't twins, my brother just decided to arrive as my one of my sister's presents on her third birthday.

In honour of their continued attempts to grow up I present two videos from the tiny intersection between my music taste and theirs.

So, for my little sister:



And for my younger bro:

More Left-Overs

The third and final of the articles I wrote for The Player before it went dark. Since I hadn't finished it at the time they dropped off the web, I didn't feel the need to conform to their word count, so this one is (slightly) longer. I should also apologise in advance to the citizens of Jersey, which is a quite delightful island and wonderful holiday destination. Fact.

Not A Chance In Shell

Jersey is boring as Hell. Sure, it has picturesque beaches, swanky restaurants, and a crop-based labyrinth based upon the weakest pun since Girls Aloud, but with everything so expensive, and all their money apparently modelled on Monopoly: Retard Edition , what’s an urbane thrill-seeker and his shabby coterie supposed to do?

Faced with a week trapped upon the English Channel equivalent of Alcatraz, then, your intrepid reporter had little choice but to barricade himself inside his holiday home with an assortment of Wii games and enough alcohol to replace Robert Downey Junior’s entire circulatory system.

There was a definite upside to this arrangement, though. By day my associates would be absent boogie-boarding, or perhaps prancing around Nazi beachhead bunkers, but at night they would return to shatter my solitude and grasp the surrounding Wiimotes in their clumsy paws, desperate to elevate themselves to my level. The result was an excellent opportunity to flex my gaming muscles, and ruminate on the multiplayer experience.

We sampled many videogame sweetmeats over the course of the week, but the closest I came to a deep revelation on the nature of our obsession came during extended sessions of Mario Kart Wii. Specifically, it pretty much hit at the exact instant the third blue shell in the same damn race hit my hog-riding dinosaur in the back of his scaly head and knocked him flying into one of Toad’s crates on the inexplicable conveyor-belts-to-nowhere.[1]

For a few fleeting moments I was seized by a rage likely familiar to many of you, the reddening of vision that descends as the peasants beat you in your chosen arena, not because of any skill on their part, but because the game you’re playing seems intent on handing out the goodies in inverse order of talent, like Father Christmas guest-judging X-Factor. It’s the home entertainment equivalent of FIFA allowing fans to help out the losing team by tossing them rocket launchers.

The constant sting of outrageous favouritism did, however, lead to my question for my latest article: should the most talented player win all games, or only most games?I mean, we were the ones who put in all the damn effort, wearing our fingers to bleeding claw-like stumps against plastic control pads as we go through the electric analogue to having Mr Miagi punch us repeatedly in the face whilst reciting Taoist homilies. To the victor go the spoils. Right?

Wrong.

It’s likely no accident that it was Mario Kart that inspired this line of thought. Nintendo seems pretty sure as to which side of the fence it wants to stick itself. The chosen demographic; the endless novelty/party games; Hell, even the motion sensing control system itself; all scream out “This isn’t just for hardened gamers!” Which you knew already, of course. The point is that that there are three ways gamers can get screwed over: a new control system [2]; a handicap system; and, last but not least, sheer dumb luck. It’s my contention that MKW attempts to find the middle ground between the second and third method, and that the game is all the better for it.

One of the most interesting attitudes regarding video games is the expectation that they be in some sense fair. Endlessly re-spawning opponents? That’s not fair. Your own re-spawn happens to be inside the blast radius of a tactical nuke. That’s not fair.

Quick question. So. The. Fuck. What? What MKW (along with others) has done, and it’s genius and you people are peons for not noticing it, is to simulate the shit happens principle (also known as “life”). People trip inches from the finishing line. Stalin invades Poland. It turns out George Clooney already nicked it (seriously, what a shitty, shitty film). It’s not like any of this is new to games, either; pretty much any
activity outside of electronics that you want to mention involves endless chance, from where the goalkeeper is when you try to score through to the double you need to roll to get out of jail in Monopoly. It would be nice to think that there is something more that attracts us to our chosen pursuit than a simple fear that things might happen beyond our control [3]. We still have the tools and the talent, to paraphrase Winston Zeddemore, demanding we be free of the vagaries of probability in addition just makes us look small.

So what if MKW is kind enough to skew chance in favour of those who happen to be having a bad day, for whatever reason? That just makes it one of those performance-sensitive handicap systems that seem to be in vogue nowadays. It’s looking after the underdog, it's Ecclesiastes 9:11. It’s how, if we’re honest, we wish God would do things, instead of randomly setting fire to bushes whilst everybody gets cancer.

Of course, maybe you want to sit down, arms folded petulantly, and demand that your games are entirely devoid of random chance, driven only by the cold, uncaring realities of the respective skills of you and your opponent. Which is fine, I guess, as far as it goes. But you don’t want to hang out with your mates, you want to sit down and play chess. With yourself.

So piss off and leave us to it, would you?

[1] Seriously, what does Toad even make in that damn factory? He’s been suspiciously quiet all these years about his side-line interest in the textile industry or whatever. Or maybe his father runs the family business, and Toad is just a useless playboy competing in illegal street-racing for the hopes of snagging himself some mushroom ass. Daddy must be devastated. If only Toad’s elder brother hadn’t met his end in that damn shiitake omelette.

[2] Think back to how traumatic is was when someone told you to play a FPS with keyboard and mouse simultaneously, and that was a system that actually ended up being better than what preceded it, as oppose to simply weirder.

[3] And even when you do find yourself proof to the pseudo-randomness of a games programming, there will still be days when you’ve spent what feels like hours infiltrating the enemy base only for the contents of your head to be evacuated by some jittery thirteen-year old sniper on your own damn side.

Overheard...

...In my local swimming pool.

Rah #1: Did you know that a cubic litre of water weighs one tonne?
Rah #2: Really? 'Cos it doesn't feel that heavy when you're under the surface.

There's so much wrong here I don't know where to start. It would be nice to believe these two weren't our students, but I suspect this is a vain hope.

On the other hand, I swam my first mile today. I realise it could be considered slightly pathetic that it has taken me 28 years to have gotten round to it, but when my father was my age he couldn't swim at all, so I guess we're making progress as a bloodline.

Draw Your Own Conclusions

Between finishing my latest research paper and debating with S. Spielbergo, I haven't got the time today I'd like to discuss this article in detail. I'm just flagging it up because it links back to earlier thoughts about the various levels of plausibility regarding the nature of the universe. Decide for yourself how convincing it is.

Face My Wrath, Comments Section

A couple of people are wondering what exactly my problem is with the DNA database, so I figured I'd lay out my concerns in a post.

There are four reasons I am leery about a DNA database, and none of them are of the "what if the government are mean ol' clone-happy bastards" variety.

The first concern is the most banal: how much is this actually going to cost to create, maintain, and make sure is running the way it's supposed to? Whilst I'm not particularly concerned about government misuse of such an asset, bureaucratic incompetence is certainly something worthy of consideration.

Now, obviously when something is obviously a good idea, cost isn't something I'd be bleating about quite so much. Contra S. Spielbergo, I have a hard time seeing the obvious bonus to holding everyone's DNA on file.

That would be problem number 2: what are the benefits of the database? In the past I've likened DNA testing to the police searching your house. The police have the right, given sufficient reasonable suspicion, to enter my flat and search for incriminating evidence. It's understood that my flat is my property (well, not mine exactly, but for the sake of argument), and it can't be invaded by the authorities unless they have a pretty good reason.

As far as I can see, if my flat is mine, then my double helix is definitely mine. If the police want to test my DNA, they better have a court order with them. It seems to me an obvious no-brainer, as far as due process is concerned. And if you do need that order to test someone's genetic material, why not just get it when you need it? If the government takes my DNA from me at a point when I am innocent of any crime, then later I commit a crime, they test the DNA at the scene, and come arrest me on that and that alone, how is that not a violation of the idea that we should be free from self-incrimination? There's a reason we have the right to silence. In that sense, Big G's point that "no-one is going to get convicted on the strength of DNA evidence alone" is irrelevant. All that matters is that the chain of evidence gathering begins with a bullshit call, just in the same way that a case will be thrown out if it started with an illegal car search, irrelevant of whether that search had turned up three dead hookers and a keg of anthrax.

So you can't use the database to just drum up a list of suspects, or at least you shouldn't. You can do whatever tests you want on the DNA samples you find at a crime scene, but you don't get to just run it against a whole bunch of people, at most one of whom isn't entirely innocent, and hope you'll get a couple of juicy leads. Especially since DNA matching isn't nearly as precise as the movies try to make it look. Like every other human system, there are flaws and there are complications.

This ties into my third problem, which is a general one with the process itself. It's a tricky business, is DNA testing, with lots of tricky conditional probabilities floating around. There actually exists legal precedent on the amount of probability you are allowed to give to a jury (it being the subject of supermen), and all this stuff about false positives and population frequencies (to say nothing of the Prosecutor's Fallacy) can overwhelm a jury, and has on at least one occasion. All of which means I am worried about the possibility of relying upon DNA evidence in court. Again, this is the problem with Big G's argument; cases have existed in which DNA similarity was the strongest piece of evidence in a trial. If you present enough circumstantial evidence and then heap genetic testing on top of it, you may well get a conviction which you wouldn't have had with the circumstantial evidence alone. So, and whilst I realise this is simply a suspicion at this point, I'd be worried about an increased reliance upon DNA evidence that such a database might represent.

And finally, and this is pretty minor but relevant nonetheless, my genetic data belongs to me. Everyone has their own personal opinions on the relationship between the government and the individual, obviously. As far as I'm concerned, they can have my taxes (on the occasions that I'm actually required to pay them) as the price of living in a civilised society. They can have the details they need for me to have a bank account and travel overseas as the price of me not having to hoard gold under my bed or get slaughtered by invading Visigoths, respectively.

What do I get out of handing over my DNA? An increased possibility of recognising my body if I die in mysterious circumstances? If that's all we're talking about we could set up a far smaller data base of families who have lost members, against which John or Jane Does could be referenced.

Like I said, this last point isn't particularly major, but I do think that a cogent and compelling case needs to be made by the government before they receive anything from its citizenry, and I don't see that here.

In conclusion, then, it will be expensive, it would be outrageous to use it without the same due process required of other searches, it might well add to an already worrying problem regarding how the justice system deals with the technology, and it violates the idea that the government should only take from us what it truly needs.

That's my problem. Have at it in comments.

Oh, and just for the record, I agree entirely with Big G that increased detention times are a bigger problem. I also think my girlfriend murdering my family is a bigger problem than her cheating on me, but I reserve the right to be pissed if I find her in bed with some other guy.

400 Babies

I figured it would be rude to not finish the Powerthirst duology, especially since the second video is even funnier than the first.