A Frogs Chorus

It looks like the sordid divorce of Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Heather is finally drawing to a close. It has marked the nadir of my opinion of a once great musician and songwriter, an opinion that has steadily degenerated through twenty-five years of dreadful decisions taken by the man (some important and usavoury; others less-so).

Let me take you back to an event that shortly preceded the divorce, when Heather McCartney was reported as being unhappy with Sir Pauls' continued use of marijuana. It was what I refer to as a 'Chinese Bang' of a story; a brief yet fairly amusing run in the tabloids that seemed to paint the picture of an ageing sixties pop-idol being nagged into old-age by a young demanding wife. I did not care about the story one way or the other, but was surprised at how little play the tabloids gave to it, seeing as how the drug-use seemed a little at odds with Sir Pauls' wholesome veggie image.

After a few months, things got a little nastier for Heather, as revelations emerged in the press of her shady, vile (and frankly exciting) past. Pictures of her in soft-porn poses were released to the newspapers, with assurances of further more hardcore images to follow. We were informed that Heather had been a prostitute in her younger days, hired out to rich 'Arabians' (sic) (because let us not forget, there is nothing more certain to get Daily Mail readers more upset than foreign men having sex with British women) without any proof of these events bearing more than the slightest resemblance to fact. Her reputation was in tatters. It began to look like the weed-nagging was a bad idea.

Remember that she was still ostensibly happily married to Sir Paul at this juncture. He even came out in the papers in support of her, despite rumours that his own daughter from a previous marriage, Stella, carried a dislike for his current wife. Shortly after these revelations, however, the marriage was all but over and the ugly divorce commenced in the full public glare.

But how did all this really come about? Is Sir Paul really as virtuous and gallant as he has appeared in the British press? Well, I would draw your attention to a few events, some from the dim and distant past and others from the near-future to explain how I think this man (and our news industry) operates.


When the Beatles officially split in 1970, the world looked for reasons for the break-up. Indeed, the rabid fans of the group were looking for someone to blame. Little by little, with no outright fact or quote from the Beatles themselves, it begun to be reported in the British press that Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono was the person that had disrupted the balance of the band. Later (and indeed right up to the present day), it became an accepted fact that this was the case. John Lennon later revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine (and in subsequent interviews) that the real reasons for the split were the increasing isolation between McCartney and himself, a disillusion with the musical direction of the band and a desire to 'start playing Rock 'n' Roll' and draw himself away from McCartney's insistence on elevating the cache of Rock music to that of opera. All pretty boring stuff. He also made reference to feeling betrayed by McCartney after he felt that he had used the music and broader press to discredit him and his wife. Whilst it was obvious that he still had affection for McCartney, he painted a picture of a man obsessed by popular success and global image. Tellingly, Lennon continued to perform with the other two Beatles, Harrison and Starr and went on to perform with other contemporary musicians, such as the Rolling Stones and Dylan, all of whom it must be said have no such love for McCartney. Sir Paul announced the dissolution of the Beatles (reportedly without telling his band-mates) a month before the release of his solo-album, a move that further upset Lennon and seemed to confirm his misgivings about McCartney.

Because of Lennon's reluctance to enter into a public argument with McCartney, however, Ono's role in the split has become part of our culture. Britain does seem rather ready to 'blame the woman' when it comes to things like this. Did Paul have anything to do with these rumours? To my mind, a fabulously rich man with an eye toward his public image is capable of anything, and to smear the reputation of a scapegoat in the press does not even approach the limit of such a man.

In later years, Sir Paul honoured the death of his former writing partner by legally changing the order in which his name appears in the writing credits on Beatles songs, a move that many have condemned as petty. But this slightest of changes to the historical order (one which was surely only ever laid alphabetically) not only puts McCartney first in the minds of future generations, but also guarantees him increased revenue due to the fact that Lennon is deceased. It will further benefit him when negotiations conclude as to the digital rights of the Beatles catalogue.

So, petty and greedy then.

It is rather alarming that history seems to be repeating itself with Heather. I obviously do not know the woman personally. She does seem rather incapable of keeping control under what are admittedly rather pressured cirumstances, but enormous amounts of attention have been centred around her in this whole thing, while Sir Paul (the father of her child, let's not forget) is getting away scot-free.

I am a fond reader of conspiracy theories. I don't believe them all, but I find them fascinating and usually as factual as the agenda-driven official lines spun by our lapdog press. One such theory is that Paul McCartney was actually killed in a road accident in 1966, only to be replaced with a lookalike (named William Campbell) by a terrified record and management company, to prevent a colossal loss of revenue. This would, on the surface, appear to be a preposterous tale.

But then there is the Frog's Chorus...........

Card Carrying Leftie

Whether or not you believe any of the conspiracy theories about our western governments surrounding us with fear and immobilising our populations with dread, there is something extremely sinister about how keen New Labour are to introduce identity cards to the U.K. As I've previously mentioned, an eager British government is an unusual beast and should be treated with the utmost suspicion.

I've had conversations with friends about this subject and the overall consensus appears to be that, while nobody really believes the party line about I.D. cards increasing security and foiling terrorists (Name: Mohammed Al-Faruq. Occupation: Career Terrorist.), equally nobody could see any harm in them being introduced anyway. Indeed, some actually thought that the system would increase the efficiency of governmental administration. Are these people correct in thinking this way?

It's rather complicated for me, because when one actually assesses the information that will be collected for the database, it doesn't seem like there is anything on there that isn't in some official file anyway. Most of us carry a National Insurance card, a driving licence, a pension book or a young person's I.D. The government has access to your finances (in theory!) when you declare taxable income, has knowledge of your geographical whereabouts when you move house and more and more employers now insist on background checks when taking on staff using information that is collected largely without your consent or awareness.

The liberties that can be taken by governmental offices are quite astonishing already. Did you know, for example, that the DVLA (or whatever it is called now) was criticised recently when it was discovered that it was revealing licence-holders details to 'unsavoury companies'? The firms revealed in the subsequent investigation were car-clampers, but further prodding showed a regular pattern of identity supply to insurance companies, loan sharks, motoring organisations and vehicle repair centres. Never mind about the type of companies involved, did you even know that government departments were allowed to give such details away? Did you, like me, believe that your details were sanctified by the Data Protection Act? This divulgence of information is completely legal and is still happening. At least you now know how all these junk-mail mountains appear on your doorstep.

All this serves to highlight a disturbing data-phenomenon: your personal details are quite literally winging their way through databases around the world, whether you have asked for this to happen or not. The assumption, when confronted with an unwanted call, or solicitation, is to think that you ticked the wrong box in a competition, or replied to the wrong email, but the fact is that even the most diligent of practitioners is subject to a deluge of unwanted correspondence.

Is this a worrying development? For me, not yet. But when New Labour begins to piece together all my most saleable info-assets into one master file (for their convenience), I will be terrified. You see, I have no choice in the matter. Preliminary details regarding the actual extraction of said information included 'Processing Centres' to which reluctant citizens like myself could be forcibly sent. Fines and prison sentences ultimately follow if information is not forthcoming or is intentionally corrupted. If all this sounds rather dramatic, that's because it is. The government wants these details and intends to get them whether we like it or not.

And when it has possession of them? Well, try to think of a national computer database that the government has introduced in the last fifty years that has come in on budget, worked satisfactorily and been operated without reasonable loss of integrity. You can't. There are none. Tales of laptops left in black cabs, CDs lost in the post and USB keys falling through holes in pockets are not just tabloid scare-mongering. It's happening, and on a much larger scale than anybody really knows. Why? Simple carelessness accounts for a certain percentage, but the main reason for all this leakage takes me straight to the reason New Labour wants the cards in the first place.

Money.

Your details are worth a lot of money and you will never see a penny of it. Now that Britain no longer actually produces anything to sell, we trade on what economists like to call the 'Service Industry', otherwise known as Scotch Mist. For a Service Industry-based ecomomy to really thrive, it needs an industry to serve and since we don't have one of our own, we have specialised in serving those of more productive countries with greater resources. History repeats, however and just as British industry leeched to the East and beyond, so have cheaper, outsourced alternatives appeared to take our call centres, I.T. consultancy and creative accountancy away (like a huge Mechanical Turk, one might say!). The U.K. needs more and more injections of capital to sustain her through to a brighter age.

£18* per person, per company. Around 35 million adults, multiplied by an infinite amount of Chinese, Indian and U.S. companies. That, I am afraid is all you are worth. It may not be strictly legal for the government to sell you at the moment, but that is what governments are best at; changing laws or finding DVLA-style loopholes to leap through. And if the choices of companies are as careless as have been so far; if gambling addicts begin to be bombarded by internet casino offers, impotent couples preyed upon by charlatan Chinese fertility clinics, or our children targeted by professional scam-artists who will know why? Who will argue? Have you, so far?

This is only the tip of the iceberg. I.D. cards are only as useful as the database that serves them and the database is vulnerable to the information fed into it. I don't think that even the government sees I.D. cards as an ongoing agenda. A system whereby citizens can be observed and monitored to the minute and second would not only provide valuable information on buying habits for foreign retailers, but would also have the added benefit of letting the government know exactly what services and benefits their populace are using and enabling them to tax them accordingly (always upward, never down, of course!).

This system has already been initiated. The U.K. already has the deepest penetration of publicly assigned CCTV in the world and 'stealth-taxes'; speed cameras, refuse inspection and the like have increased the average Britons' payoff by a substantial amount each year. But the most ominous development is happening in New Mexico (with increasing interest from various U.S. states), where a technology known as RFID 'Radio Frequency Identification' has reportedly been implanted into around 180 government staff to monitor access to restricted areas. You probably know where I'm going with this.........

It may seem ridiculous to think that wholesale chip-implants could ever be enforced in this country. You might even be confident enough to bet that it will never happen.

£18?

The author of this blog worked in data storage, recovery and retrieval for and in retail lead generation. He had no reason to question the Data Protection Act for all that time (having attempted to circumvent it for most of his career!) until he read a report about the DVLAs practices on the BBC website last year.

*Based on average cost to U.K. retail for gold standard leads. Subject to wholesale discounts and reduction for notorious governmental magic-bean negotiation skills.

Speed Bump Greed Hump.

Over the last ten years, the UK government has seen fit to introduce a raft of measures, ostensibly designed  to make our lives safer and protect us from......well, from ourselves. Many of these initiatives have centred around roads and the unfortunate motorists that use them.

Now, I'm a realist as far as driving in the UK is concerned. Our Kingdom is smaller than a lot of US states, with a road infrastructure that has benefitted from none of the organisation afforded to more recent efforts. If driving was ever truly a pleasure, then much of it has been lost due to jammed routes and aggressive drivers. Our road surfaces often resemble a patchwork quilt, as one shoddy botch-job is laid over another, to the benefit only of the companies that get the contracts to keep maintaining them. In short, I believe in trying to reduce the amount of traffic on our roads, for all manner of reasons (many of which will be dealt with in future articles).

With no realistic public alternatives available at present, however, we are pretty much stuck with our impacted hardtop. So what can we do to solve this congestion? Well, according to the government, we can install millions of lumps of tarmac on hundreds of thousands of roads to prevent vehicles from utilising shortcuts and reroutes on their journeys.

There are other such 'traffic calming' systems in use too: the chicane-style dodgem kerbs that are often placed on the brows of hills, obscuring the view of oncoming traffic and the increasingly common habit of simply closing routes through residential areas (apart from local 'access'). The devisors of these snafus have their own special place reserved in hell, but it is the speed bumps that deserve a closer look.

Car companies are at an important junction (if you'll pardon the pun) in their history, with fuel pricier and more elusive than ever and environmental concern amongst the public increasing, not to mention increasingly reliable cars engineered to last longer than ever, the industry was, until recently, entering somewhat of a doldrum. What was needed was a way to reduce the working life of the average vehicle. One that, for example, introduced a systemic trauma to every single component.......

Has our government (quietly entering into public/enterprise initiatives left right and centre on our behalves) offered tax incentives for car companies willing to invest in their 'Road Safety' schemes? My theory is that when there is a proliferation of do-good measures, done for the 'benefit' of the public, it is usually because one or more parties is getting a payoff somewhere down the line. In this case, is it too difficult to believe that a firm like Toyota would be all too willing to donate an amount of cash to New Labour in exchange for a device on the road that will reduce the working lifetime of their cars, thus ensuring a nice increase in sell-through mid to long-term, with a tax sweetener in the short?

If you think the idea of these speed bumps having such an effect is farfetched, ask your mechanic next time the car is in for service what these things are doing to the suspension, brakes, shock absorbers, engine mountings, wheels, steering, tyres, chassis and more. Not only do they reduce the working life of the motor (by up to three years according to the mechanics I have asked), but they often render the cars more dangerous in-between services from the ongoing damage done. Ask a cyclist how dangerous these unlit, inconsistent obstacles can be, especially on a dark evening's ride.

What does three years less life and associated damage mean to the car industry? Billions and billions of pounds. The government will tell you that these measures are designed to help prevent cars from driving past schools and areas of dense housing, but what choice have we got? They will say it is part of an ongoing investment in or road transport system, but how many times have you driven down an unkempt, pot-holed dirt-track of a road, only to have to bounce over countless shiny new sleeping-policemen and swerve around safety-chicanes with your newly-damaged handling system?

Suspicion should be aroused when the government pounces on schemes like these because it inevitably means that it has stumbled upon an uncomplaining cash cow. After all, like speed cameras (now renamed 'safety cameras') I don't recall the British public clamouring for them to be introduced, do you?