Talk To Rex

A blog entry which provoked responses from both Mark Thomas and Dominic Cavendish clearly deserves some kind of follow up. Mark Thomas sent me a lengthy email about the ‘horribly positive review’ (admittedly I did push it in his direction), whilst Cavendish himself has left a comment on our blog, a huge improvement on the comments we normally receive, for all of its shortcomings.

In it, Cavendish advises me: ‘Do please carry on reading the Guardian – ideally suited to people who have a tin ear for journalistic irony.’

Journalistic irony??? Is that what it was?

Suddenly it all makes sense. The suggestion that the Telegraph might have changed the face of British comedy, the sentence ‘a good percentage of his latest show owes everything to the revelations this paper published earlier in the year’ and the conclusion that Mark Thomas’ triumph was won by the Telegraph, that’s all ironic!!! Let’s hope none of Cavendish’s superiors misread it as badly as I did, or he might accidentally get promoted!

Clearly Mark Thomas also has a tin ear, as he thinks that Cavendish ‘has not reviewed my show so much as given the Telegraph itself a glowing review. It is arselicking of the highest order, he should go far in journalism.’

We stand corrected.

Sadly, Cavendish’s undeniable talent for journalistic irony has compromised the accuracy of his review (perhaps not such a problem when you work for the Telegraph). Mark Thomas tells me the review fails to mention the real focus of the show which is not the issue of MPs’ expenses so much as the absence of a systemic approach to the problem and a legal means of redress (he uses the example of Margaret Moran, who has been off sick since the affair blew up but continues to claim full pay and pension rights as there is no legal or democratic way of making her resign) – however, he suggests that ‘the Telegraph doesn’t appear to be interested in genuine change for greater democracy and transparency their primary motive is flogging their caky rag.’ (And oh, how I wish it had been me who had used the phrase ‘flogging their caky rag’…)

Mark Thomas agrees with James Aylett that Heather Brooke deserved a mention, saying ‘She is a fine journalist and campaigner and for the Telegraph to ride in the on the back of a cheque book and claim the story as theirs is bending the truth somewhat and an insult to the work Heather has done.’ So he will be pleased that Cavendish promises ‘I will do my utmost to mention the self-effacing Heather Brooke (I can’t quite work out if that’s ironic, damn this tin ear) whenever possible because clearly the biggest domestic news story of the year – which Mark Thomas is rash enough to attribute to the Telegraph – owed next to nothing to the endeavours of the, don’t you just hate em, ‘right-wing press’.

Ah, yes. Mark Thomas had something to say about the endeavours of the Telegraph (or ‘caky rag’) as well. ‘I would be wary of the political agenda of the Barclay brothers (Telegraph owners), who are hardly stirling examples of transparency or indeed democracy given their recent shenanigans over in Sark […] The only way the Telegraph can claim to be altering the way in which political comedy is seen is by airbrushing out the bits they do not wish aired.’ And indeed it seems that certain aspects of Mark Thomas’ show have been conveniently airbrushed out in Cavendish’s review – amongst other things, it ‘doesn’t dwell on whole areas of the show that delve into tax dodgers and off shore regimes (something I would have thought the owners of the Telegraph the lovely off shore Barclay brothers would enjoy tremendously). Strangely he doesn’t mention the attack on non-domiciles either.’

So much for Cavendish’s review. But what about his far less positive conclusions about this blog? Even my tin ear can detect a hint of irony in ‘Best of luck with whatever it is you actually do’, but just in case you really are interested Mr Cavendish, so far this year I have written and directed the music for a sell-out Greek comedy, co-directed a pilot series for internet broadcast, composed several substantial choral and orchestral works and two organ voluntaries which were played in King’s College Cambridge at a service celebrating the university’s 800th anniversary, written a short feature film, the first 45,000 words of a novel, a multitude of sketches and even one short story, plus introduced the films of Buster Keaton to primary schools around Bedfordshire in a major composition project. Perhaps if you were to adopt my work ethic you would have less need to give yourself the credit for other people’s achievements?

I have already hinted at my hostility to The Daily Telegraph‘s largely hypocritical, unjournalistic and exploitative coverage of the MP’s expenses scandal – for every genuinely scandalous story about astronomical claims for dry rot in recently flipped second homes there were twenty stories about MPs accidentally claiming 36p back for fuses, which is comparable to running a dramatic exposé about how many drivers hit 80mph on a motorway. In protest at their ultimately rather boring series of ‘Expenses Files’ I deleted the Telegraph news application from my iPhone and have rather reluctantly become a Guardian reader, though nobody seems to have taken much notice.

So, in part one of this new series exposing the unpleasant fanfaronading of Telegraph journalists, I must draw attention to this piece of smug, self-satisfied shite in which Dominic Cavendish suggests that the quality of Mark Thomas’ Fringe show is entirely the achievement of his own unspeakable rag.

I quote: …if the show was a triumph, it was our MPs ire-inducing foibles, as exclusively revealed in this paper, what won it.

Aside from the continuingly dubious use of the word ‘exclusively’, Cavendish is making the disturbing assumption that Mark Thomas somehow owes his four star review to the paper in which it is printed. He might as well suggest that satirists owe the quality of their shows to the stupidity of MPs, which may be closer to the truth but is equally ungenerous; Mark Thomas, whose material is nearly always spot on, maintains a consistent level of quality by choosing targets deserving of mockery and satirising them in an informative and balanced way, which at the very least puts him in a league well above the Telegraph and its scattergun shame and blame policy.

As for this, Mr Cavendish: It might be overstating the case to say that the Daily Telegraph has changed the face of British comedy this summer…

Might? MIGHT??? Does he really think that some of us are likely to make such an overstatement, and need hauling back with a falsely modest warning that, ‘come on now, you might be overstating the case there…’? If the British comedy establishment decided en masse to burn down Dominic Cavendish’s office it would be no more than he’s asking for.

I would very much like to see Mark Thomas explore the hypocrisy of guttersnipe journalism in his next show – then, at least, Dominic Cavendish could take some credit, and Thomas might be able to explain how a paper whose journalistic quality (if not political standpoint) I admired but a year ago has so quickly sunk to the kind of sensationalism that is normally associated with The Daily Mail (and is so much worse for its continued pretence at respectibility).

If that last sentence sounds like a hypocritical piece of groundless sensationalism itself, this story demonstrates that it’s not just the Telegraph‘s theatre reviews and political coverage that are going to pot.

Of all the things that have made me cross this year, this has made me the crossest. Yes, even crosser than Doctor Who. Because as a former Cambridge music undergraduate I can only describe last week’s musical “celebration” of the University’s 800th anniversary in the Royal Albert Hall as a big pile of wank.

Well, actually as a former Cambridge music undergraduate I should probably be able to find a more eloquent way of putting it, but the contents of the prom suggest that expectations of the university have dropped.

What was in it? First the presence of Prince Charles was announced by a gloriously camp Willcocks arrangement of the national anthem, in many ways the highlight of the concert. This was followed by a couple of very insignificant works by a very significant dead Cambridge composer (Vaughan Williams), a couple of insignificant works by two fairly significant living Cambridge composers (Jonathan Harvey and Judith Weir), a very slight new work by, I fear, a completely insignificant Cambridge academic (Ryan Wigglesworth), a set of liturgical canticles by a composer significant only in the tiny field of Anglican music (Stanford)… and finally, AT LAST, a significant work by a significant composer who never went to Cambridge at all, viz. Saint-Saëns. Yes, he received an honorary degree from the university, but so did Mother Teresa, it doesn’t mean we can claim them as our own.

This cowardly programming would seem to suggest that Cambridge composers have produced so little of significance that, besides commissioning a new work from somebody that not even a regular concert-going audience would have heard of and falling back on some banal Anglican crap, we need to rely on a composer only tenuously linked to the university for a proper work.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. From giants of the rennaissance like Gibbons, to the greatest English composer of the first half of the 20th century, Vaughan Williams, through to extremely fine living composers like Jonathan Dove, George Benjamin and Thomas Adès, there ought to be enough music to fill a whole concert series before it becomes necessary to rifle through the list of honorary degrees.

For the non-musicians reading this let me try to find a way of putting it into context: imagine the BBC ran an evening of programmes celebrating 90 years of innovation and success. The inclusion of Stanford would be like running two episodes of My Family back to back, whilst Ryan Wigglesworth’s new work would be the equivalent of the BBC asking for a special celebratory edition of BBC 7’s satirical sketch show Newsjack. The decision to make the main event of the evening a symphony by Saint-Saëns would be like the BBC rounding off with an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So the question remains, what the fuck were they thinking??? If Stanford and Wigglesworth, why not Richard Vranch and Kit Hesketh-Harvey? At least the concert wouldn’t have been so bland.

Bland and conservative, that’s what it was. Qualities which aren’t usually associated with Cambridge University, but perhaps judging by both the concert itself and its enthusiastic sell-out audience, aspects which apply to more of its alumni than it might care to admit.

Robin Holloway (a very fine living composer himself) has written far more forgivingly about the debacle here.

All around Bedford’s branch of Marks & Spencer there are big signs talking about their 0% commission on foreign currency deal. I know this, because I spent a good deal of time this morning wandering around it looking for somewhere I could actually change my money.

Finally, I located a help desk and enquired as to where I could go to change my pounds sterling into Euros. The answer, it turns out, is Milton Keynes. This information is not proferred on the many big signs and leaflets dotted around the Bedford store, a good 40-minute drive from the one in Milton Keynes.

I commented at the time that the cost of travelling to Milton Keynes to change money would rather outweigh the benefits of the 0% commission. But what I now feel I should also have pointed out was that the benefits of going on holiday to the South of France would be potentially annulled by spending any amount of time in Milton Keynes.

This article on the new Doctor’s costume is well worth reading for the slightly hysterical comments at the end (my favourite is from Krycek: ‘I love the new costume, I just wish he had a hat. It’s been a while since The Doctor had a hat’ – oh Krycek, I feel your pain!).

Whether or not you feel the Doctor ought to be fashionable or eccentric or timeless or all three (and all I’m going to say is that I’ve been dressing like that since I started university), there is one statement that clearly displays the BBC’s (sadly increasingly) sloppy journalistic style, viz.:

Fans fondly remember Jon Pertwee’s bow tie, Tom Baker’s scarf and Christopher Eccleston’s battered leather jacket.

They fondly remember Christopher Eccleston’s battered leather jacket?? Really??? I’m probably a rather-too-critical-fan to be the benchmark on this, but I occasionally spend time (not too much time) with other fans and I’m pretty sure none of them were sad to see the battered leather jacket go.

Could it be that, far from it being a case of fans fondly remembering that item of costume, Tom Geoghegan of BBC News Magazine couldn’t remember any other item of costume worn by any the Doctor?

‘Hey guys! I’ve got Jon Pertwee’s bow tie and Tom Baker’s scarf but I need a third thing or the sentence doesn’t work – can anyone remember another thing one of the Doctors wore that fans would fondly remember?’

‘A hat?’

‘Which Doctor had a hat? It’s been a while since the Doctor had a hat. I’ll just go with Eccleston’s battered leather jacket.’

Apologies to anyone other than James who actually reads comments. Because usually there aren’t any.

This isn’t, however, because there aren’t any being submitted. Many, many comments are submitted on this blog, usually with a subject such as “WxjofieSDJDIj30”. We don’t publish those. In fact, we usually forget to publish any of them, and sometimes we reply to ones that we can see any no one else can.

Sorry about that.

At some point I’ll get round to upgrading the creaking old platform this site runs on, and maybe we’ll get better comment moderation. Or just better comments. I’m fed up with reading about WxjofieSDJDIj30.

The computer room in my secondary school had a witty poem on the wall which went:

I hate this damn computer
I wish that we could sell it
It won’t do what I want it to
Only what I tell it.

The joke (or possibly the lesson we were supposed to learn) was that computers would do exactly what you wanted them to do if only you had the appropriate knowledge to manipulate it to your advantage.

Times, I fear, have changed. Home computers are increasingly designed to be user-friendly, and telling them to do things has never been simpler. Unfortunalely, as technology grows capable of doing more and more complicated things, certain brands of computer have developed characteristic problems which can only be understood and resolved by somebody who will charge a lot of money for doing so. Thus, a more apposite poem for the 21st century:

I hate this damn computer
I’ll give it up for free
It won’t do what I tell it to
Because it’s a PC.

Last night I settled down in front of Elizabeth and a fine time I had, mostly thanks to Geoffrey Rush, though anything with lots of beards, silly trousers and melodrama tends to keep me happy.

On the downside, it took me about twice as long as the film’s two hour running time to get through it. Why? Because I had to keep looking things up.

I’m pretty bad at watching films at the best of times, because I’m constantly leaping up to check IMDB to put a name to a familiar actor’s face. Films swarming with aging English thespians are the worst for this, which already accounts for a chunk of my research over Elizabeth.

But more significant than this was my increasingly obsessive need to verify the historical inaccuracy of the film. I don’t mean the large-scale historical inaccuracies – as my A-level history came flooding back to me I had no need of wikipedia to chuckle smugly over the liberties taken with historical fact, like the bonkers chronology, or Elizabeth’s completely fictional meeting with Queen Mary, or the bit where Prospero dispatches James Bond to kill Queen Elizabeth.

No, it was the tiny details that got to me, questions like: did Queen Mary have a personal dwarf? (“Dwarves were not uncommon in European courts of the period”, apparently.) Or was the Duc D’Anjou a cross-dresser? (Nope; his older brother, who also courted Elizabeth, was rumoured to be a bit girly, but only by his enemies, so whichever way you look at it Elizabeth is Protestant propaganda).

By the time the film ended I had read up on most of the Medici family, the minituae of 16th century European history at my fingertips for the first time in ten years. Yet one thing continues to elude me, the answer to the question: isn’t that organ sound in the coronation scene rather inauthentic?

My first response was one of musical scorn: yes! that organ sound is completely inauthentic, just what filmmakers think music sounded like in those days, for this choral music would never have been accompanied at all! Then a seed of doubt made me check that fact and I found that, possibly, even in Elizabethan times an organ might have accompanied music in a Cathedral. I still felt the organ sound was considerably larger than the chamber organ sound I would expect from that era – my understanding is that the English didn’t start to get full-on huge organs until after the reign of Cromwell (who had all the old ones destroyed). Yet large organs did begin to appear on the continent as early as the 13th century, so perhaps England did have some?

If any organists out there have the answer, I’d be most grateful.

Fortunately I do have enough musical knowledge to spot that the underscore near the end of the film of Elgar’s Nimrod souped up with a female soprano and unsubtlely segueing into Mozart’s requiem was wrong, wrong, wrong. And not just historically.

I hadn’t noticed before, so perhaps it’s new, but our book is proudly advertised by Amazon as coming in an "illustrated edition edition".

I’m also entertained that someone is trying to sell it new for £41.08 plus shipping. I’ll do you a copy for a round £40, p&p included.

Who was it that decided the best way to read a news headline was to emphasise the very last word in the sentence, regardless of its importance? Am I the only person who feels like I’m being treated in a patronising way by the newsreader? (You can’t understand this unless I make it really clear.)

Aside from being really annoying, it can actually change the implied meaning of the story. These examples from Sky News this morning:

“A woman infected by swine flu has died in Scotland” – delivered in such a way as to imply that the real tragedy here is that the poor woman couldn’t have been moved to a more civilised part of Britain before her death.

Better still:

“Researchers have found that men are much more likely to die of cancer than women” – what, really? Men are more likely to die of women? That is an alarming statistic indeed…