New Popular Culture

I haven't listened to much new music for the last few months. I feel the loss but it was a decision, of sorts.

I think I have discussed previously the rule, as it relates to those of us with limited time to engage with cultural activities, of cyclical proficiency.

In case you haven't come across it, the rule suggests that developing knowledge of one area of culture can only be achieved by disregarding some other area temporarily.

Do you have a hierarchy of culture? I think I do, although it has flexibility. I read every day. I make sure I haven't gone to sleep without reading some of a book. Even if it's only a chapter of a pappy thriller before lights out, it is a rule of life for me. No TV or tablet in the bedroom last thing at night.

Secondly there is sport. In particular football and cricket. Not so much live these days but I make sure I keep up with the weekly TV updates.

What else is there? Theatre, cinema, music, art. I love all these things.

So it becomes quite awkward, when I am already lamenting that I haven't been to the cinema for six months or so, when something new and demanding pitches up. Podcasts are it.

I let them pass me by for a while, apart from occasionally catching up with a Radio 4 show I had missed. Then I started noticing reviews of podcast shows in the weekend newspapers. About Easter time this year people were writing and talking about S-Town. Presented by Brian Reed of This American Life (a programme on Chicago public radio that became a podcast once it could) it is a wonderful seven part story that introduces people not normally given air time so positively, heads off in all sorts of strange plot-twist directions and ends with a nice resolution.

It wasn't long before I discovered Serial, another spin-off which goes into an old news story in more detail over a longer period. It hunts for miscarriages of justice, or at least the truth about controversial carriages of justice.

Now I am into twenty two back years of This American Life and I may be gone some time. It is what is on the headphones as I walk about these days, or playing in the car on long journeys. Getting inside the skin of the USA and introducing intelligent, thoughtful stories is a real antidote to the news from Trumpton.

If it's OK, please nobody invent any new culture for a bit. Thank you.

2016 Review of the Year

So here we go with a look back at 2016. And it will involve a bit of  'Apart from that Mrs Lincoln what did you think of the play?' Elephants in the room, even if they stand quietly, tend to leave dents in the floorboards.

Album of the year? Well I remain of the view that in a year when Radiohead put out a new album everyone else should fight over second place. This is indeed the case. A Moon Shaped Pool is an astounding, magical, soulful, dramatic, creative and haunting piece of work. Best of the rest was Steve Mason's Meet the Humans.

Film of the year. Didn't spend as much time at the cinema as I would have liked which meant that much watching was last year's. Rogue One was excellent fun. Jack Reacher ignored the advice of the title Never Go Back and went back. People got hurt. I really enjoyed The Accountant though. I like maths, dialogue, thrills and espionage. All boxes ticked.

As previously noted I also have trouble reading books in the year of publication. So nothing from me about works that were actually published in 2016. My two favourite books of the year were as pictured.

Paul Mason was the only person I read who wrote a realistic guide to why Brexit might be a good idea - he then advised against it because the timing was wrong. In Post-Capitalism, he asserts that the era of the technological revolution has gone on too long and soon not everyone will need to work. But we will need to contribute and the world needs to work out how to pay us. I reviewed it here.

Everything Magnus Mills writes leaves me convinced I am being taken by the hand and led slowly somewhere very profound. At the end I wonder if I have read something deep, imaginative or a simple children's story. Any piece of writing that lets the reader decide what it was all about without comment - you read or hear few interviews with Mills - is a job well done. Reviewed here.

Eating out? It was the year we discovered Maitreya Social in Easton. As a seasonal, organic, local-produce, vegetarian restaurant in an ethnically diverse part of Bristol you might want to beware of catching right-onness. But the tastes are amazing. And if you don't contract a hipster beard there you certainly will do at WB at Wapping Wharf. Fish, chips and craft ale. I might have been its greatest fan/evangelist this year. By Saturday I will have taken almost everyone I like, who has visited the south-west with a mealtime to spare, there. (Takes quick break to issue another invitation.) Their Smokin' Barrels was my beer of the year.

Some honourable mentions. @porrdidgebrain entertained me on Twitter on a daily basis (sometimes hourly). Eddie Mair on Radio Four's PM made broadcasting seem an absolute breeze. As Did Danny Baker, both on Radio Five of a Saturday morning and as @prodnose on Twitter. Nacer Chadli restored my belief that there are players who will make a lung-busting run for the cause of West Brom (See his second goal in the 4-2 defeat of West Ham.)

See you at the end of 2017.

Sauce?

If you haven't read volume 1 of an autobiography series that is going to run and run then head off now and get a copy of Danny Baker's Going to Sea in a Sieve. You'll not regret it and, if you don't laugh, I'll consider giving you your money back. Shouldn't cost me that much as only people too stupid to work out how to contact me will fail to laugh.

I am reading Going off Alarming which is volume 2. I was unable to wait for the paperback or Christmas.

If you are unfamiliar with Danny Baker the broadcaster then, seriously dude, what is the matter with you? Radio Five Live on Saturday mornings - make that an appointment.

But if you are that dude you may not know that he offers a segment called 'The Sausage Sandwich Game' in which callers attempt to match the answers of celebrities to various questions, the last of which is about the colour of sauce that person would have in a sausage sandwich.

Now in chapter two of the book Danny Baker (calling him Danny sounds like I know him, calling him Baker sounds too formal, my entire life consists of these minor dilemmas) introduces the idea of a sausage and egg sandwich.

It is funny what catches your attention. Where do our prejudices come from? A bacon and egg sandwich would be good (no sauce at all). A bacon and sausage sandwich would be lovely (brown sauce, although my former colleague Mark insisted, and argued well, that the sauce should be red as it needed to match the bacon, the purer meat product - I can't agree but the logic is compelling). But a sausage and egg sandwich is just wrong. I was so bothered by the idea I had to stop reading for a bit and post this.

If forced to eat a sausage and egg sandwich or die I wouldn't go to the grave, although I would resist firmly any suggestions of sauce with same.

I expect my reader will have stronger opinions on this than any of the recent political or social matters I have attended to.

Volume 3 is promised and I expect the tweets from @prodnose will be entertaining during the wait.

Philosophy Rules

I really loved the series of Public Philosophy programmes on Radio 4 with Michael Sandel. Only three of them and they are over now but still available on the iplayer, maybe here. 45 minutes each.

This is not about the issues although, for the record, they were:

1. Should universities allow a certain number of people from poor backgrounds to access places, regardless of exam results?

2. Should a banker be paid more than a nurse?

3. Should you pay people to get healthy?

I want to comment briefly on why I loved the programme. We work in this country on a very legal model of debate. A case is put. It is countered. It is questioned until it squirms. That is seen as success. Paxman's famous assessment of his own work on Newsnight was, 'Why is this lying bastard lying to me?' It doesn't allow a case to be nuanced and tends to entrench the interviewee rather than allow them to change. I doff my cap in passing to Ken Clarke for being prepared to answer journalists' questions whatever brief he holds. He squirmeth not.

The Public Philosophy programme's approach was to take a straw poll and then ask a representative of the minority view to speak (if there was one) or to put an opening question. Sandel, always courteously and succinctly, summarised the point just made, using the contributor's name, and then either teased out the view a little more, or put it to someone who held a different view.

He set up examples to test theories. He retained good humour. No-one was put down.

It was just simply a joy to listen to and proof positive that people with differing viewpoints, arguing clearly, well-refereed and listening to each other, can make more progress than a cross-examination will ever make.

Public Philosopher 1 Moral Maze 0.

Alternative Worlds

I was interested in the discussion on Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosities about The Omega Point. This is the point to which all light will eventually converge and so, rather than being able to put it in a museum, the panel reached the conclusion that they should put the museum in it. It encompasses all possible alternatives and all possible worlds. Even if everything that can happen does happen The Omega Point still contains it.

It left me with the vaguely awkward feeling that somewhere there might be a world where Margaret Thatcher said something right but... No, it's too far fetched.

According to Wikipedia:

'In this (Omega Point) theory, the universe is constantly developing towards higher levels of material complexity and consciousness, a theory of evolution that Teilhard (de Chardin) called the Law of Complexity/Consciousness. For Teilhard, the universe can only move in the direction of more complexity and consciousness if it is being drawn by a supreme point of complexity and consciousness.

'Thus Teilhard postulates the Omega Point as the supreme point of complexity and consciousness, which is not only as the term of the evolutionary process, but is also the actual cause for the universe to grow in complexity and consciousness. In other words, the Omega Point exists as supremely complex and conscious, independent of the evolving universe. I.e., the Omega Point is transcendent. In interpreting the universe this way, Teilhard kept the Omega Point within the orthodox views of the Christian God, who is transcendent (independent) of his creation.

'Teilhard argued that the Omega Point resembles the Christian Logos, namely Christ, who draws all things into himself, who in the words of the Nicene Creed, is 'God from God', 'Light from Light', 'True God from true God,' and 'through him all things were made...'

Make what you wish of this theory but it does give a rather cunning answer to evolutionary scientists such as Richard Dawkins who insist that God cannot be a prime cause of life because life develops from the simple to the complex. Mr D. You're looking for God in the wrong direction.

In case anyone isn't aware, The Museum of Curiosities is a comedy programme.

Sunday Morning

I have discovered a new use for Radio 4's Sunday morning service at 8.00 a.m. I usually get up first (of two) on a Sunday and whilst sorting out washing and unloading dishwashers which have been working their technological magic on my dirt during the night I usually think in silence. Then I make coffee, sometimes putting on a tune to pick me up.

Today, with a slight change of routine caused by having 18-23 guests to lunch today, but still more by accident than anything else (or did I psychologically wish it was another day of the week?), I put on the Radio.

I now recall why I haven't done this for the last twenty three years but now wish I had. Somewhere in the midst of worship from a small, unheard of presbyterian community came an act of worship so appallingly not me that I found it in myself to commit my soul to a Sunday here. Here is lovely, people are supportive, Sunday worship is developing and I can imagine, one day, going to an act of worship I totally engage with (no-one else would come but that's another matter). Thanks dreadful church somewhere in Ireland. You have enthused me afresh. No disrespect intended. Just don't like the way you do what you do.

I will make this part of my Sunday routine in future. Whatever the day throws at me it can't be any worse than la di da Radio 4 morning services with its singy songy ministers' voices, its choral ghastliness and overwhelming theme of, well, worthiness. Yukk.

To work.

The Archbishop and the Broadcaster

It's a very vulnerable cleric who agrees to try and convert a sceptic on the radio so well done Archbishop Rowan for yesterday's 9.00 a.m. Radio 4 programme (listen again here) and I look forward to hearing Professor Tariq Ramadan, Muslim academic and author and Sir Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi over the next two weeks.

How do you respond to someone who openly says, 'Why can't I have your faith?' Archbishop Rowan chose the gentle approach, probing back at Humphrys to find out what exactly it was he thought he wanted. 'I want to believe in your vague God,' was the reply.

Is belief proof? I think, as J. John says, it's a matter of '...doing before you get it what you would do if you had it' (I used that at the weekend without attribution for which I apologise). In Acts Luke talks of Jesus giving many convincing proofs to the disciples which leads leads me to ponder what an unconvincing proof might look like. At the end of Matthew the risen Jesus appears to his disciples and some doubted. If there is proof there is no faith so I guess when our Bibles have the word 'proof' we are probably seeing a mistranslation of 'evidence'.

Is faith a gift? Yes. So if somebody hasn't got it then do they need to ask harder? Maybe, but at minimum wanting and not having does test how much you really want something. I have met so many people who don't believe in God because they don't seem to want to, however much they say they do.

Is faith clever? Humphrys put it to the Archbishop that, 'You don't go down the proof-text route but you use your very clever mind to find an answer.'

I enjoyed the conversation on the radio and, with Brian McLaren, ended up rejoicing in the existence of the conversation rather than the result of it.

But at the end of the day if someone says to me 'I want your faith' my response has always been to pray with them rather than try to explain it to them. We can talk about what it means later. A bit futher on in Acts a sudden outpouring of faith to a large group of people meant that people thought they were observing drunkenness. Faith first; implications second.

Genius

Every now and again the BBC Radio 4 6.30 p.m. slot hits magic; a programme so entertaining it was a privilege to be there. Find 'Listen again ' on the BBC web-site and listen (not again) if you missed it to last night's edition of Genius.

Now Dave Gorman is a genius and the programme encourages listeners to write in with their genius ideas to be assessed by Dave and a celebrity guest. Last night's guest was Johnny Vegas a man who places the war with his own inner demons in the public domain.

First up was a man who suggested that people who wanted to go metal detecting without the humiliation and stigma of being seen as metal detectors could have a device located under a small dog such as a dachshund. The lead could double as a er, lead and earpieces would give the impression you were a cool dog walker with an Ipod, not a metal detector.

Dave Gorman, 'I tend to avoid the stigma and humiliation of metal detecting by not metal detecting.'

Johnny Vegas, ''79% of the treasure in Britain remains undiscovered' is the sort of statistic you can make up without argument.'

Next up two guys who, with a scientific, male, systematising attitude to life asked for a new categorisation method for opposites. If you ask someone what the opposite of knife is they will say fork. But that, they say, is only a spacial opposite. In order to find the true opposite you need to analyse function. The function of a knife is to cut, so the true opposite is something that joins. How about glue?

That's only going to work so far, said Dave Gorman, chopping down a whole stag weekend in Milan's research with a single blow. What about a multi-functional thing such as a Swiss army knife.

Johnny Vegas immediately leaped in, suggesting that since a Swiss army knife had many purposes all of which were useful the obvious opposite was himself.

In order to test the theory Dave Gorman separated the two inventors and told them that if their system worked then they would both come up with the same opposites for random items. Thus separated they were asked the opposite of trousers and both came up with ice-filled trousers or ice-pants. The opposite of sausage? One suggested a dog turd and the other a fast-spinning kebab rotisserie.

Dave Gorman, 'Your answers are alarmingly similar again.'

Then a woman who suggested that gig tickets should require applicants to declare their height and this would decide the order in which they could stand.

Finally a guy who suggested that since we had so many heritage towns and villages such as Beamish or Ironbridge why didn't we save ourselves work in the future by deciding whose turn it was next and putting a wall round it, banning all further development and making it a living museum. We could go and gawp at the residents, trapped in a living past and banned from capitalising on any further technological advances. Dave Gorman thought this the best use for Bromsgrove he had ever heard.

Genius. Go listen. Now.