You are held in a queue until someone can be arsed . . . .

Moore’s Law postulates that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years, exponentially increasing computing power, lowering costs and putting Star Trek devices within the reach of the Kalahari bushman. Though I personally think Intel founder Gordon Moore was reaching for a soundbite when he made his famous prediction 46 years ago, the general principle has held true. The average mobile phone, much less smartphone, holds more processing power than the average desktop computer of a decade ago. Much good it does us.

The Thus Law of Modern Communications states that the ability to get a timely, logical, sensible answer to a phone call decreases according to the number of technology-enabled ways people can employ to avoid responding. In the mid 1990s, US researchers coined the phrase ‘Slamdown’ to describe the reaction of 65% of callers directed to voicemail instead of a human being. Since that time, ‘developments’ in voice recognition software, menu-driven automated roulette and general customer-hating jiggery pokery have made a routine call to buy or enquire about everyday goods and services, especially from banks, financial services providers, government, utilities and, most ironic, communications providers, a time of dread, humiliation and frustration for the majority of citizens.

If we don’t hear: ‘all of our operators are busy responding to other customers,’ there is a good chance that we’ll be charged to listen to a list of options followed by a robot voice advising that the most convenient way to deal with the query is online. Finding a telephone contact number online, meanwhile, has become increasingly and deliberately difficult, as ‘customer facing’ companies herd clients into the ether, deploying the hideous doctrine of ‘planned avoidance.’ For the companies, the principal ‘advantages’ are headcount reduction and the ability to log calls to serve as evidence in the event of a legal dispute. In many cases, the customer not only bears the cost of the transaction but pays to do the company’s work – giving a meter reading, entering credit card data, buying insurance, making a travel booking etc. Customer service doyens such as the lovely RyanAir innovated by charging a premium for telephone bookings – and now actually charge a ‘service fee’ for online bookings. Companies profit from transaction cost savings: the customer loses.

WB Yeats' visionary pose, anticipating mobile phone ennui by a good 70 years: Things fall apart; the (CALL) centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

Despite the fact that ‘We are helpless, helpless helpless, helpless’ should be the default call centre music on hold, instead of Vivaldi or Sounds of the Seventies, we replicate this crassness in our private lives.  Routine avoidance of personal conversation has become pernicious and commonplace – except, it seems, on public transport, where people babble on mobiles, whilst avoiding eye contact with fellow passengers. ‘Leave a message’ is the likely response to a dialled number, itself accelerating the trend towards ‘responding’ by text or email. I’m finding that increasingly people can’t be bothered to respond by email or text either. Perhaps I should change the header from: ‘Pick up the phone or I’ll chop your head off next time I see you you’ to something less strident.

In Victorian times, there were between ten and twelve mail deliveries a day, enabling multiple correspondences across the capital within 24 hours. Technology has enabled a near-instant response, but the Second Thus Law of Modern Communications states that getting a timely reply is in inverse proportion to the likelihood of finding anyone willing or able give one. We are well and truly wired into an Age of Rudeness, disabled by technology and heading inexorably towards digital oblivion. And no, the irony of writing this message on a computer hasn’t escaped me, nor has the sad fact that due to spamming ratbags, I’ve had to temporarily disable the comments feature on our website. You’ll have to Twitter. God help us.

John J Kelly

PS. Not that anyone should give a monkeys, but the twatter suing Twitter is flying down the wing in a red shirt at the age of 38. His opportunist should be red carded for giving him such bad advice and ruining his hitherto – deserved – reputation for level headedness in a world of airheads.

Will and Kate on the great day, as depicted by the Brick Lane Robot shop's artist in residence

Although not overtly monarchist –  the Brick Lane Robot Shop has nevertheless bowed to public pressure and issued its own unique Will and Kate souvenir wedding memorabilia. In line with our recent policy of shameless product placement, our Will and Kate wedding statuette has also been inducted to the rapidly-expanding Thus Quality Hall of Fame. Observant readers might note that the couple bear a passing resemblance to San Simon and Catrina, Oaxacan Dia de Los Muertos figurines also sold on the Brick Lane site and described as: ‘this middle-aged, loving couple are clearly middle class, happy and still in love. Pity they’re dead.’ Will and Kate are neither middle aged nor dead, and for all we know, they are happy and in love (with each other) unlike Will’s ma and pa on their great day. Kate was middle class but as of tomorrow will be catapulted to the apex of the Upper Classes. Will’s mum likewise, until she fell from grace, became a slapper, then an immaculata after dying in a paparazzi-induced Paris car crash.

The Brick Lane Robot Shop’s Will and Kate Wedding Couple have also been voted ‘Best Royal Wedding Exploitation merchandise’ by our team of judges. And they have added value. After the Royal Wedding, they may well become ‘Dodi And Di at Will and Kate’s Wedding’ souvenir statuettes, particularly since Di appears to be wearing Harrods Green – but am I veering off into the hinterlands of dubious taste here?

John J Kelly

Space Evil (aka Mars Demon), a Shogun amongst tin robots: 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair'

In my twin roles of Quality guru and tin robot tycoon, I’m in a unique position to settle the debate as to whether China will unseat Japan as the manufacturing powerhouse of the global economy. In terms of sheer volume, there is no debate: China is already big boss. But quality? If you want a wobbly plastic bucket, a t shirt with unintended underarm ventilation after two washes or a can opener that doubles as an instrument of digital amputation, then China’s yer man. If, on the other hand, you want a robot you can hand down to your children, then you need Space Evil. So there you have it.

In the world of tin robots, there is only one Space Evil. He is made in Tokyo by Katsumasa Miyazawa, the Hattori Hanzo of pressed tin roboteers, at Metal House, home of smoking robots. The company’s modest, succinct and – possibly mistranslated – mission statement is an understated summation of the Japanese concept of Kaizen:

“Metal House was founded in 1943 (it used to be MARUMIYA). We were the subcontractor of HORIKAWA, YONEZAWA, NOMURA,etc.The ex-president was well-known at the tin toy industry for developing SMOKY ROBOT. We succeed to his skill and dream, we put more effort into making tin toys from now on.”

Space Evil is a more evil version – insect eyes and basilisk head – of the Horikawa Star Strider robot, which Metal House also manufacture. The Chinese copy, known as Robot 2008 in the last incarnation I have seen, is admittedly less than half the price, looks superficially the same but rather like Chinese MIG fighters, is made for fewer sorties. It looks OK on the shelf but wouldn’t even save your living room, never mind the Galaxy, from imminent destruction.

On the strength of their unbending commitment to maintaining the highest standards of manufacturing quality regardless of cost and largely in the absence of a market, Metal House Robots have been inducted with full space honours to the Thus Quality Hall of Fame. I for one would spend all my disposable income, were I to have any, on limited edition robots, especially Mad Robot type M . Thus readers planning to invest in pension funds etc. should seriously consider buying a few Metal House robots instead. The value of investments can go up and down but Space Evil, Mad Robot, Piston and Engine Robots, not to mention Monster Robot 2 can go backwards and forwards, clanking, whirring, flashing and generally striking an attitude.

John J Kelly

Louis Vuitton doesn't even get to platform one in comparison to the Thus Sindhi hand painted tin trunk

Only a loony or a Hounyhym (Thus passim) could find any fault with these life-affirming and unique hand painted suitcases, made in Pakistan’s Sindh region, and coincidentally available at the Brick Lane Robot Shop. Lest you accuse the award judges of bias, I refer you to sub-criterion 32 section 3, which clearly states that ‘brilliantly-painted tin objects from troubled tribal regions that find their way to the Brick Lane Robot shop will be inducted to the Thus Quality Hall of Fame.’ Sub section 4 adds: ‘even if the Brick Lane Robot Shop is allegedly owned by Thus Media Ltd, administrators of the Thus Quality Award and even if the supplier appears to be a friend and crony of the proprietor.’ So there you have it.

Sindhi handcrafted soft toy rabbit, about as unique as you're likely to get, breeding like crazy in the Brick Lane Robot Shop

Anyone lucky enough to have travelled through the Hindu Kush to the Khyber Pass – and even luckier to have come back – could not fail to notice the vibrant and eclectic gypsy paintings on the trucks and buses. These suitcases are painted in the same style and manner. Surprisingly lightweight, robust (though a bit of a chore to get through airport metal detectors), adorned with real and imaginary animals, birds, butterflies, folk symbols and the occasional ocean liner, these objects are simply wonderful. I stack them up in my Coptic St Fortress of Solitude and use them to store towels, linen, t shirts and robots, which pretty much wraps up the inventory of my life.

If you can’t afford a tin trunk, or your imagination doesn’t run to big stuff, runners-up in the award include hand-painted Sindhi enamel mugs and Aladdin-shaped enamel teapots. You can also buy fanastical elephants, rats, rabbits and teddies, hand stitched and crafted from remnants of tapestry from equally incredible rugs, which Sindh ladies scavenge then blend to make surreally wonderful soft toys. I myself have several dozen.

My next post is likely to be about product placement. On the other hand, it might be a hymn of praise to the Middle East envoy, the saintly Tony Blair, who enjoyed a spot of product placement himself in the current issue of my former publication, Prospect, in a breathtaking example of awful timing. Watch this space and buy some tin stuff before Tony achieves his objective and the Third World War intervenes.

John J Kelly

One ring to rule them all . . . a blurry photo of my Great Frog Cyborg ring, inaugural item in the ThusMagazine Quality Roll of Honour

I rate the skull ring as one of my best and earliest business decisions of the new year. It will certainly enhance my status at the Brick Lane burger stand and in the soon-to-be defunct robot shop, and would give me a much-needed edge in a mano a mano with the petrol bombers, the middle classes or the Belgians. Though some have advised discretion in wearing the ring when pursuing my parallel existences as a Quality/Knowledge Management/Foreign Affairs/Publishing guru, I address these doubters to the wise words of  the Great Frog him/herself:

“Somebody had to be first to make Skull Rings, someone had to originate Skull Rings and that crown sits proudly upon The Great Frog. Since 1972, for nearly 40 years The Great Frog has been finely hand carving, crafting and casting Skull Rings in UK Hallmarked Sterling Silver. And not only has someone got to be first at creating Skull Rings, someone has got to be the Best at creating Skull Rings and once again after you’ve seen and felt the craftsmanship of The Great Frog’s collection of Skull Rings. It’s undeniable The Great Frog were not only the First but they are the Best.”

On the basis of that breathlessly, amphetaminely compelling self-citation alone, I proudly declare my Cyborg skull ring as the inaugural item in the Thus/Robot Shop Quality  roll of honour. Throughout the year (or until I get bored) Thus will dedicate itself to researching and showcasing examples of great British, European and indeed global, quality thingies which I/we/you feel have enhanced the human experience and demonstrate excellence, innovation and . . . you fill in the rest . . . .

More objects will follow as sure as night follows twilight. Right now I’m off to inspect some American Naturist postcards – with a view to selling them, I hasten to add. I bought them from my friend Lou in Oakland, California. If they pass our stringent criteria, they may well join the skull ring in the Thus/Robot Shop  Quality Hall of Fame. Your nominations are also welcome, but please, no blatant product placement. I paid for my blemming skull ring, I’ll have you know.

John J Kelly

Sex on legs: Venus, a rare ladybot, with telltale tin boobies and paperclip earrings

If my previous post gave the impression that any fool with an unhealthy knowledge of vintage robots and space toys, brightly coloured tin, Mexican death symbolism, a penchant for loud, obscure, smoking rhythm and blues, religious kitsch and clockwork automata could become a retail czar, then I apologise. Robot shopkeeping is no sinecure.  I recall dark days when the only customers to cross the threshold were shoplifters, Belgians or the middle classes – more about them later. There were days when the rain fell relentlessly, the robots refused to walk, when my closing pitch to a shop full of robot fanatic oligarchs was nuked by a leery Red-Stripe- toting transient crashing into the pecking chicken display. Pay days were terminated by the dreaded collectors – loud bearded middle aged know-it-alls declaiming the value of their collection ‘vintage’ robots – ‘not like this cheap Chinese crap.’ In my darkest hour Tower Hamlets’ Trading Standards Thought Police threatened to close the shop down on the grounds that the robots were a potential danger to small children, despite labels declaring ‘for adult collectors only’ on each and every box: ‘doesn’t matter – they look bright and shiny. Kids might try and play with them’.

Balanced against this were strokes of retail genius such as the brief but spectacular run on luminous rosaries, sparked by a single purchase by an exotic beauty, later joined by her sinuous posse. The rosaries were used, allegedly, not to amass afterlife novena credits but as props for a naughty nun turn in the dark recessess of a steamy Shoreditch strip club (of which there are legion). The lapdancers returned to buy robots for unspecified purposes, always paying cash and often hanging around at closing time prior to the early shift. The fact that I was left with a gross of unsold re-orders and no further visits from religious pole dancers is heavenly retribution, I suppose. Anyway, enough already with the sex part.

Terror, leaving aside Belgians and the middle classes, took the form of a visit from a representative of the local Bhangla boys who swaggered into the shop and asked if the robots worked on petrol. I answered what I thought to be a reasonable technical enquiry by telling him that no, virtually all the robots were clockwork, apart from a few battery-powered Japanese examples. He looked nonplussed, flashed the Manson Lamps and muttered something about the possibility of petrol bombs. I told him with no hint of irony that we didn’t sell petrol bombs – for all I knew, he might have been another undercover Tower Hamlets trading standards gumshoe – but that I’d get back to him if our policies changed. Then the penny dropped and I advised him that however slim the pickings might be in the protection racket industry, shaking down the local robot shop was at best a tangential strategy and that he was on CCTV. He didn’t return: probably a nutter, almost certainly the most incompetent gangster ever to strut his stuff on Cheshire St.

Far more trying were middle class rubber-neckers, fresh from holidays in the souks of Marrakech or Istanbul, who thought it infra-dig to haggle over the price of a £2.50 jumping frog or a holographic bleeding heart of Jesus postcard which morphed into the Virgin Mary. Worse were the Belgians, who would not only attempt to barter but would justify their parsimony by asking ‘but what is the point of this object?’ Belgians, of all people, should recognise the logic of charging surreal prices for a pointless service.

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past . . . selling religion to sinners and hopping frogs to Philistines, sidestepping petrol bombers, council jobsworths and Brussels on the street of dreams . . .

On the other hand, Jarvis Cocker has just bought a string of plastic skeletons and a tin heart pierced by an arrow for his bird for six quid. Life is sweet.

John J Kelly

Last October, former NL drug czar, the (perhaps) aptly named Professor David Nutt resigned/was sacked from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) for stating that so-called Home Secretary Alan Johnson must have been on one if he thought that upgrading cannabis from class C to B was a good trip. I was not surprised when Johnson later confirmed that Prof. Nutt had indeed been sacked, because his ‘advice’ cut across government policy to attack soft targets, such as weed-smoking kids, in order to maintain the pretence that the police, NL’s lard-arsed  political wing, were meeting their targets. Or something like that.

Nutt was sacked for arguing common sense. Alcohol misuse is linked to the overwhelming majority of violent crimes, ditto the number of admissions to hospital accident and emergency departments, breaks up families but is perfectly legal. Weed, and even Ecstasy are far less dangerous. Stoners can’t be arsed to do much more than flop around. Ecstasy becomes dangerous when taken in conjunction with alcohol. Banning one and not the other is a heavy trip down the road to – er  - somewhere else, man.

David Cameron as he might look were he unfortunate enough to become a Methadrone addict

But the Professor killed his own credibility when he strayed into the twilight zone of policy. A couple of his colleagues joined him and nobody apart from the Guardian gave a monkeys, until last weekend somebody called Dr. Polly Taylor also walked the ACMD plank. Speaking on the radio from Amsterdam yesterday – where he was possibly researching the wonders of legalised hash bars (despite what he was saying, there aren’t many left and it’s a load of bollocks to say that drug use in Holland is any less seedy than in the UK) – Professor Nutt reprised his theme that cannabis/weed is less dangerous than alchohol, criminalising it drives the price up, policing it costs money and wastes resources etc. Heavy.

Of course it is, but it’s a different argument. There is a time for expediency, and in the case of Methedrone, aka Mephadrone/M-kat, the time is now. I’m not a user myself, you may be surprised to know, but living in the ballsachingly trendy Bethnal Green/Shoreditch/Hoxton triangle, I know plenty of people with direct experience  - probably more than Alan Johnson or the nutty professor combined – who state categorically that this stuff is very, very bad indeed. Unlike the government or the squabbling scientists I’m happy to hear their unvarnished opinion that Methadrone is more moreish than Ketamine, Amphetamine Sulphide or Cocaine, can quickly reduce kids to a ‘feral’ state and, whether legal or not, creates a burning habit which sucks away money, energy and self-respect. Bummer.

Alan Johnson, as he may appear to David Cameron in his hypothetical state as a Methadrone addict

It is regrettable that political correctness, as represented by Professor Nutt and his grateful-not-to-be-dead academic colleagues, has fetched up against political opportunism, as represented by Alan Johnson and his soon-to-be-dead-in-the-water authoritarian bastard squad. I almost certainly know more about drugs on a first hand level than most of the boneheads in government – not sure about the Tories, though – but surely here is a clear case for decisive legislation. Regardless as to whether it played a small, middling or large part in the recent deaths of three kids, Methadrone is far more dangerous and nasty than weed and hash – think crystal meth and crack cocaine. Criminalising it may well create an underground black market and drive up the price, but it’s facile to argue that notoriety will add to its popularity, since it’s all over the news that the stuff is legal and relatively cheap. Banning its import and resale will only hurt those who wish to go out of their way to use it, and will almost certainly deter recreational/casual/impressionable drug fashionistas. Result.

Ban Methadrone with immediate effect, not because it may or may not have the potential to kill, but because it sure as hell doesn’t do anyone any good. Nor is this a Human Rights issue. If it drives the price up, then boo hoo for the prats who want to use it. And let’s not confuse this with the cannabis/marijuana debate, policy which is in itself influenced by Britain’s costly role as the 51st state of the USA.This is too serious a debate for the chatterati, so while we’re at it, bollocks to the Guardian and the Daily Mail. The drones who write for those rags should get out more. End of.

John J Kelly

Thus predicted that widespread fraud would take place in the Afghan elections, based on first source analysis on the ground allied to the hunch that the occupation forces would allow blind faith, optimism, expediency and an ideological fundamentalist belief in ‘democracy’ to triumph over common sense.  Kai Eide, Ostrich-in-Chief of  UNAMA and the EU clown troupe observers decreed the elections ‘fair but not necessarily free‘ before any votes had been counted. On the grounds alone that UNAMA spent an improbable $250 million engineering the mechanisms for this danse macabre on the grave of democracy in a failed state, Mr Eide and his money eaters should be declared unfit for purpose. Expecting the current process to produce a team with the credibility to tackle the insurgency and restore stability is, therefore, not realistic. It is more likely that a disenchanted population that now feels disenfranchised will tolerate an expanded insurgency, thereby endangering allied lives and assets, and significantly increasing the nature and dimensions of the challenge to NATO.

Should the election process be validated and the results accepted, the following consequences are probable: First, the government will become more predatory as the officials who committed fraud will feel emboldened by getting away with large scale corruption. Favours promised will be called in. Second, the population would be disenchanted with the process, the integrity and intentions of the Allied and international mission, and the new government, and withdraw further into devising ways to protect themselves from all sides.   Third, the insurgency, facing an openly illegitimate government, will have a renewed rallying cry and cause for recruitment. Fourth, the neighbours, particularly Iran, will become more assertive in Afghan affairs, and the struggle between intelligence services, particularly that of India, Pakistan and Russia, will increase significantly. Fifth, a weaker international community will not be able to take a strong posture vis-à-vis the government.

Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to Afghanistan, is meanwhile trying to backstop the mess by engineering a runoff between Hamid Karzai and ex-foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah (who declared the election fraudulent at an early stage). This is unlikely to enhance the legitimacy of the outcome, as corrupt chains of entrenched interests allied to both Karzai and Abdullah have already mobilized and near term measures will not suffice to loosen their grip on the levers of power and money. A rerun could consolidate and embolden those interests. Furthermore, an election in October will face major logistical obstacles. Given the discredit brought both on IEC and the UN agencies, proceeding with round 2 is likely to perpetuate some of the same symptoms. Moreover, according to complaints submitted to the Afghan Independent Election Commission, both candidates have engaged in widespread ballot rigging. Afghan sources speculate that if Karzai is disqualified (a big if) then the US should shift its backing to Abdullah on the basis that because he is weak he would be easier to control. The flaw in this twisted logic is that Abdullah has neither the strength, popular mandate nor ethnicity to keep the key warlords in check, his corruption might increase if mandated and once support was withdrawn he would be vaporised. Another option is a Karzai-Abdullah coalition – an infernal tag team if ever there was one.

Ashraf Ghani, whom, like Bashardost, ran on the anti-corruption ticket (as did Abdullah when he saw its potential) has proven experience in establishing governance and financial controls – he was finance minister in the last transitional government – has no presidential mandate (and originally stood reluctantly) but could play a key role as mediator, intermediary and Grand Vizier in a government of national unity, embracing all stakeholders, governed under strict, designed to restore sovereignty to the Afghans – an ostensibly ‘weak’ coalition, but infinitely preferable to a licence to steal for the next five years.

Thus has so far been the only site to point out the seeming anomaly between Karzai’s declaration of dubiously modest assets of $1000.00 plus $10,200 in family jewels‘ and his officially declared campaign war chest of a $2 million dollar interest free loan from the Bank of Ghazanhar. This sum represents 20% of the funds of this ‘bank,’ a philanthropic institution founded and run by the Ghazanfar family. How and when is this modest unassuming man on a salary of $487 per month going to repay the generosity of his altruistic supporters? Rather like the eponymous Producers in the Mel Brooks movie, he has already promised more seats in the new cabinet than currently available, to lovely men such as Dostum (Thus passim). He has polled 3000 votes in stations where observers only recorded 30 people voting. His brother Walid coincidentally hangs out with folks who allegedly control the opium trade while other family members, through sheer hard work no doubt, appear to run the country’s most  lucrative business franchises. He talks of having no truck with the Taliban but shamelessly passed the notorious wife-starving law shortly before the election. Is this a man ‘we’ can do business with? Though it pains me to say it, we have little choice. The most expedient figurehead leader would be Karzai, supported but not endorsed by the international community under strict and irreversible terms of conditionality.

The Taliban, meanwhile, have sat on their hands – having threatened to cut off the hands of anyone who voted – and shrewdly allowed the forces of ‘democracy’ to do their heavy lifting for them. They stand to gain from the continued uncertainty of a protracted runoff, a popular insurrection resulting from forcing through a blatantly corrupt result and a turf war between Tajik, Uzbek and Pashtun forces which would erupt if Abdullah is awarded the paper crown. Time is short: the results will be final on 17 September. So what to do? Clare Lockhart, of the Institute for State Effectiveness, summarises four options thus:

1. Accommodation with Mujahadeen: Accept Karzai’s claim of victory, and put together a Karzai-Abdullah coalition. This government could be stable in the short term, but is likely to be highly corrupt and unstable in the medium term. Some concessions could be extracted, including the inclusion of technocratic positions and commitment to the US 5-point agenda already discussed with candidates and the restoration of Afghan sovereignty. It is questionable as to whether concessions would be agreed upon or adhered to.

2. Formation of a national government headed by Karzai: Instead of waiting for implosion, action is taken now to put together a national government, with inclusion of broad stakeholder interest groups. A set of benchmarks and processes could be followed and the international community and the Afghan government could sign a binding compact.

3. Formation of a Transitional Government for a two to three year period: The election is deemed fatally flawed and the International Community declare it invalid and disqualify Mr Karzai. A Transitional Government is put together, along the lines of the Bonn Agreement 2002-4, with the key change that key figures will commit not to run for elected office in future. This Administration would be tasked with stabilizing the country and building the basic institutions that would allow for exit of the international presence.

4. Form a quasi-protectorate under an US/international driven agenda, creating governance bottom up, and marginalize the Afghan institutions for a period of time.

Option 2 is the most likely and the most expedient. The loser in this entire sorry process has been the notion of democracy, at least in its US interpretation. The bigger loser could be Barack Obama, who will be a one term President if his administration allows Afghanistan to become his Vietnam.

]]> http://thusmagazine.com/2009/09/a-government-of-national-unity-is-the-least-worst-option-for-afghanistan/feed/ 0 http://thusmagazine.com/2009/08/news-corp-is-losing-money-because-no-news-is-bad-news/ http://thusmagazine.com/2009/08/news-corp-is-losing-money-because-no-news-is-bad-news/#comments Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:26:41 +0000 John Kelly http://thusmagazine.com/?p=3900

DC Thomson sells the feelgood factor

Last week, News Corp, owners of the Wall St Journal, New York Post, (London) Times, Sunday Times, The Sun, News of the World, the Australian, BSkyB Television, Fox, Star TV Asia and others reported a 10.7% decline in revenue to $7.67 billion (almost $800 million) and quarterly net losses of $203 million. Bad as it sounds, it is a big improvement on the previous quarter’s losses of $6.4 billion (Thus passim) which were inflated by a huge writedown on the Wall Street journal. The ‘extraordinary item’ this time is kids’ social networking site MySpace, which lost $136 million and will never recoup its 2005 acquisition cost of $580 million, much less make a profit.

In the same week, UK Commercial TV network ITV announced first half losses of £105 million and sold mums and dads’ social networking site Friends Reunited at a loss of £150 million to a subsidiary of DC Thomson, Dundee-based of the Scottish Sunday Post, People’s Friend and iconic kids’ comics such as the Beano and Dandy. Don’t snigger: Thomson is one of Europe’s most profitable publishers. Friends Reunited will be integrated with Thomson’s geneology sites. Presumably, its new owners will revive the paid-for element of the site, which ITV dropped in a pointless race for advertising eyeballs just as the recession hit.

Unlike most of the jealous, self serving pixies in the World of Journo, I have long admired Rupert Murdoch’s commercial prowess and am not afraid to say so, even though I dislike his single-minded mission to dumb down media and most, if not all of News Corp’s lazy, sleazy middlebrow, overtly skewed output (and that’s just the upmarket stuff). I agree with Murdoch’s statement: ”an industry that gives away its content is cannibalizing its ability to do good reporting,” but see it as a damning self-indictment, not as a solution to his problems.

News Corp sells the feelbad factor

While it is true that most of News Corp’s profitable content is the result of never knowingly underestimating the public’s need for cheap, vapid soma, the internet is full of such claptrap and thus it is difficult to see why people would pay for it online. While in the past Murdoch has proved capable of exacting a premium for lowest common denominator jibberjabber – witness BSkyB and Fox – thus it would be foolish to write off the declared intention to make folk pay, but, at the risk of stating the obvious, the web has changed everything. People who surf the web for serious news and opinion are a tiny subset (estimated at less than 1.5%) and even so, they are looking for more depth, colour and controversy than the popular press brands are accustomed to provide. The success of ‘conventional’ US online news sites such as Huffington Post and Politicos shows that there are substantial audiences, but that delivering them is not particularly profitable. The BBC, meanwhile, has built a huge online audience but does not need to worry about how to pay for it while the estimated 1.8 billion audience for blogs of all varieties (including this one) is attracted by the diversity and independence of views on offer, virtually all generated free by idiots such as myself (Thus passim).

Leaving aside e-commerce, there are highly profitable models of paid content on the web, ranging from sex sites to iTunes to The Economist Intelligence Unit, but Murdoch’s strategy, which depends on choking off all other sources of free vanilla news, will require bullying, conning or cajoling all the major commercial players, including Reuters and Bloomberg into restricting their online newsfeeds while relying on the Tories in the UK to curb the online output of the BBC (Thus passim) once elected. While not inconceivable, this still assumes that web audiences will be sufficiently motivated to pay for the bland crap that passes for output in the News Corp universe. The odds against are high: despite boasting 3.5 million unique visitors, the costs of Guardian Media Group’s massive website, which offers high quality centre-leftish news, comment, opinion and arty stuff, theoretically more suited to the countercultural webwise generation, have unquestionably contributed to last week’s reported losses of almost £83 million which in turn threatens to close down the world’s oldest English language newspaper, The Observer, which can’t turn a profit on a circulation in excess of 400,000.

Murdoch’s success, as with all the media barons of the past, has been based on the Big Lie inherent in the adage: ‘half of my advertising budget is wasted -the problem is I don’t know which half.’ Unsurprisingly, people don’t buy generalist newspapers to read the advertisements, and remote controls give them the opportunity to skim past TV commercials, but hitherto the grey area has given publishers the benefit of the doubt. In the digital universe, there is no such ambiguity. Advertisers to precisely measure who is accessing content, when and for how long, and profiling can even determine precise demographics (Thus passim).  While unsophisticated advertisers may buy page impressions in the same way as old timey direct marketers sent out blanket mailshots, most advertisers buy qualified unique visitors and take context into account, placing generalist publishers at a distinct disadvantage.

While News Corp’s multi platform presence should be an advantage as digital technologies converge, when they try to aggressively charge for content, the thinness of their offering will be exposed, unless they genuinely up the ante. The Murdoch formula of sensationalist tittle-tattle, barebreasted stunnas, fantastical sports and pop rumours masquerading as fact and barely-disguised ultranationalism masquerading as comment pales by comparison with the no-holds barred porn, libellous celebrity weirdness and wild, untramelled speculation freely available on the web, thus it is difficult to see why the existing News Corp products could command a subscription premium or attract sufficient numbers to be viable as advertising moneyspinners. To an übercapitalist such as Rupert, this vindication of neo Darwinianism should be good news, but I doubt if he or his son James will see it that way.

John J Kelly

The Dearing Report, commissioned in 1996 under Tory PM ‘Sir’ John Major (who achieved only 3 O levels, didn’t go to university but won an election with the greatest margin in electoral history, published in 1997, recommended charging students 25% of their tuition costs. Newly-elected Labour ‘reluctantly’ introduced means-tested fees, claiming it as a Tory initiative. In 2003, a Labour-commissioned White Paper proposed that universities could charge students top-up tuition fees capped at £3000. In November of the same year, Tony Blair (educated free at St John’s College, Oxford) pontificated in the Queen’s Speech:

“A bill will be introduced to enable more young people to benefit from higher education. Up-front tuition fees will be abolished for all full-time students and a new Office For Fair Access will assist those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Universities will be placed on a sound financial footing.”

Professor Jugears, Chairman of the I'm Alright Jack Club

On the very same day, Norwich North MP Ian Gibson (yes, him Thus passim) tabled a motion on ‘top up fees’ signed by 185 MPs. Earlier that year, Tory Leader Iain Duncan Smith (Sandhurst, no university) pledged that Tories would abolish fees, to Labour claims (audacious even by the standards of spin at that time) that this would ‘disadvantage’ poorer students and cost 6500 academic jobs. On January 27, 2004, Education Secretary Charles Clarke (coincidentally MP for Norwich South  - educated free at King’s College, Cambridge) introduced the Higher Education Bill on the very same day as the Hutton Inquiry into circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly. Amid the muck and bullets, having bought off Labour rebels with last-minute concessions and support from right wing Tories, the bill was passed with a majority of only 5, the closest Blair came to defeat thus far. At a stroke, Professor Jugears and his cronies undermined the 1944 Butler Education Act, which had safeguarded the rights to a free education at primary, secondary and tertiary levels for 60 years. If they had tried the same trick on the NHS, another (rightful) sacred cow, there would have been bloodshed, but the bill was enacted on the premise that “Universities exist to enable the British economy and society to deal with the challenges posed by the increasingly rapid process of global change” (Charles Clarke).

Herein endeth the history lesson. As a product of the Butler Act – a poor kid lucky enough to get a great free education leading to Oxford, Manchester (and the school of hard knocks) – I despise the foul cant about ‘engineering social mobility’ belching from the arse of ‘five jobs’ Alan Milburn (Lancaster University), and the rest of his Blairite bastard squad, shameless elitist social climbers who have burnt the ladder behind them. It is an obscene insult to the intelligence to claim that career success in the professions is a direct result of the networks created at elite schools and universities. Of course it is, and always was. Blair’s clique was notoriously stacked with fellow lawyers, Oxbridge room mates, Scottish Public School kiltlifters, Trotskyite student union bores and a fat bloke who used to be a ship’s shop steward to appease the unions. Cameron’s Notting Hill Haw Haws reek of Eton, Oxbridge, Bristol. It’s debatable whether you could ever stop the tendency of elites to form, or whether it is ethical or even sensible to do so, but you certainly don’t go about it by erecting financial barriers to entry to higher education for ‘the less well-off.’ During Labour’s tenure, the percentage of middle class students has risen, as has the number of debt-burdened graduates.

The crisis in education funding is as much a product of the overweaning burden of administration, the 1992 (Tory) elevation of polytechnics to university status and the bewildering number of ‘new’ universities that nobody has heard of, whose qualifications are commensurately worthless but which increased the intake and number of academic posts. Bothering kids at primary and secondary level with endless tests, grade inflation, league tables burying teachers under mountains of target-inspired assessment programmes and whipping parents into a frenzy of fear that their kids will be ‘left behind’ are unforgivable and premeditated crimes of social engineering. Give us back our Butler Act, you lying hypocrites. And stop sniggering, Cameron. We hear you’re thinking of privatising state secondary schools. Have you learned nothing? What kind of education did you have, boy? Oh, Eton and Oxbridge.

John J Kelly