A strange welcome

This is a lifeboat. If you got here on purpose (and not just by some kind of freaky web accident) you are probably desperate. What can I tell you? Not a lot, but probably as much as anyone else can. My greatest hope is that you can tell me something. There's a comment section below. The first thing that's worth knowing, is that the image of a hacker as some kind of nerd in his (yes, it's usually his) bedroom is a complete fallacy. Nerds do exist and they even have conferences and exhibitions where they strut their stuff, at least as much as nerds ever do anything like that. But nerds get no browny points for accessing your home computer. They don't care about you. You are not a target. Nerds want to hack into the computers of defence organisations or corporations. Not you. Most hacking. Probably almost all hacking is practised by governments. Of course, there are criminals out there who may try to plant ransomware on your computer. But if you have enough money to be a target you probably don't need this blog. You can pay for your own IT department or consultancy. Here, of course, it's worth mentioning the criminals who want to get some money out of ordinary people by threatening to expose them wanking while watching internet porn. Most of such threats are nonsense. If you get such a threat and think it is credible go to the police. They will take it seriously. But the best advice is don't watch internet porn and don't whatever you do, do anything in front of your computer screen that you wouldn't want your mother to see. The all seeing computer camera is dangerous and hard to turn off. The good news is that even if the hacker has got video of you doing something horrible, it's extremely unlikely this will ever be spread about because to do so would leave the hacker vulnerable to discovery. First don't do it. Second if you do do it, don't pay. So what is this blog about? It's about governments and government agencies. There's nothing you can do to stop surveillance. Every time you pay a bill with a card or have your teeth x-rayed, the state has dibs on you. Ask Edward Snowden. Google him if you don't know who he is. This blog is about those who are being harassed or abused by the state. Computers today are utterly vital for a normal lifestyle. They are not just desktop boxes; they are TVs, phones and pretty much every kind of domestic equipment you have. All of them can be hacked. Any state allowed to pursue its objectives without any form of public scrutiny, is out of control. There is no effective monitoring of the intelligence services. Only those who have been vetted and are deemed to be insiders, are ever allowed even a glimpse at what is going on. If you think your computer is against you, you may be paranoid, or maybe you have been targetted by this out of control state or most likely both things are true: you are paranoid and they really are out to get you. This is your lifeboat. Hop aboard and together we might be able to find a way to escape the clutches of an over mighty state.

Borderlands

When I went to The Gambia getting off the plane was like stepping into a warm shower. The humidity was tangible. The air was about as liquid as it was a gas. A little old man came up to us and offered to carry our luggage. I didn't really need his help and didn't like the idea of imposing on him, but we had read the guide book which said it was a good idea. And so it proved. We waltzed through customs while everyone else had their bags and property tossed about in a haphazard fashion. Borderlands can be hazardous to the unwary. When I was a kid I lived in Bow, a bike ride from the docks. At the time, the unions ran the docks and even, some years later, forced the government to release some prisoners they held for union activities http://www.aworldtowin.net/resources/Pentonville5.html . But all was not benign on the docks where there were many corrupt practices. I was reminded of this while watching an HBO/BBC production called Rome, in which the massive Rome docks is brought to a standstill as a result of a war between the various criminal gangs gouging a piece of the action out of the shipping trade. It was instantly recognisable even though it was 2,000 years ago and even though no-one said 'I could have been a contender'.

Vixen

It looks like the vixen who lives in my garden is on heat. Her Cubs, I think there are three of them, now seem to be full grown, and a dog fox has taken up residence in the garden. Oddly, the dog fox doesn't use the fox holes the vixen has tunneled, even though these are now a veritable warren. The vixen has three entrances to a huge cavern under my compost bin. Clearly vixens don't mind a smelly neighbourhood. Surprisingly, the dog fox just lays in wait in the garden. Probably he knows he would not be welcome if he poked his nose into the fox holes. Do dog foxes have fox holes?

Summer rain

This summer is beginning to remind me of the summers of my youth. My dad used to be a professional snake catcher for London Zoo in his youth, so he had done a lot of camping, especially in the New Forest. The snakes he caught were the commoner types: grass snakes and adders. The zoo valued them not because it could exhibit them, but because they formed an important part of the diet of several animals they did display to the public. Spending most of his weekends under canvas for several years made my dad think of himself as something of an expert camper and he was very proud of the army surplus tent we had, which he said was so big it was technically a marquee. But size was not the main issue. The point about this tent was that it could, and did on occasion, withstand hurricanes so he would pitch on a full camp site at night and find we were the only ones left in the morning, the other tents having presumably blown away. We were all weather campers. That meant I frequently got to hear the intoxicating sound of heavy rain beating down on the canvas. Each year we would head off to some distant part of the realm, usually managing to go via the Lake District. For some reason we always stayed a night or two at a tiny but magical camp site hidden from view by surrounding hills. I once asked my dad where this was, hoping to re-visit it. But he said he didn't know. Somehow the car always found it. And when we got there of course it rained. There is nothing that makes you feel safer and sounder than being inside a watertight tent listening to the drumming of a heavy storm. And here it is again. The constant sound of summer rain. Takes me back.

The thrill of the chaise

Well that was a close one. I came across a chaise longue someone had thrown out, as you do in Chatham. Since I am a dedicated freecycler, my running club, the Medway Rebel Runners, calls us scavengers, I simply couldn't pass it by. There I was sitting on it, thinking would this improve my life style enough to make up for the space it would take up, oblivious to the pressing feeling in my left buttock. I was sitting on my keys. Eventually I decided it was too much effort and reluctantly parted from it. But when I got home I was shocked to find my key had been bent out of shape and would not fit the lock. I was stuck outside wearing a sweaty t shirt and shorts. I had been running. So I set about finding a blunt instrument to hit the key to bend it back into shape. Success came eventually when I found a lump of concrete; but it is surprisingly difficult to straighten a key with concrete. If you see a chaise my advice is run on by. Note: with thanks to Tony Coll who wrote the title.

The dark arts

What is the purpose of public relations? Is it to make a company and its employees feel good about themselves and what they are doing? Maybe.

Or is it part of marketing, creating a climate in which people will buy?

The best PR probably serves both functions and many more (like making shareholders feel good)but sometimes you just can't have the best. Some companies are so incredibly unpopular that no PR on Earth is going to make them look good. The bank shortly after one or other financial scandal has come to light, the oil company that has polluted the bay of Mexico... No amount of glowing words is going to make these companies popular.

So what do you do? A public display of heads rolling probably helps. But when the old bosses are counting their millions in golden handshakes and the new bosses are imprinting their own individual bottom designs into the leather furniture, what do you do next?

Well, here's an idea! How about negative PR?

Sometimes you have to just listen to your customers and go with the flow.

It works.

Here's a video that has had ten million views:



FedEx Fundamentals - Annual Income Statement

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31/May/2013 ...31/May/2012 ... 31/May/2011

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$44,287m ......... $42,680m ......... $39,304m

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The company actually seems to have done rather well since the video was posted in December 2011, though of course the financial returns have to be read with caution especially in the context of a diverse group like FedEx. One thing is clear though: FedEx customers may have enjoyed sneering at the bad practice (and the subsequent humiliating apologies issued by the company) but they did not stop using its services. And given the huge amount of publicity FedEx got there is little doubt that far more people now the name and the sort of service the company provides.

And this is odd. For the most part people don't like big corporations and will say nasty things about them but all the same they prefer to do business with them largely because they know the name.

It's the Homer Simpson effect. There's a cartoon of Homer sitting in front of a tv showing an airplane bursting into flames. Pretty much all you can see is the logo of the airline on the tailfin. The rest is flames. Homer's on the phone ordering a plane ticket. When he's asked which airline he wants to use, he quotes the name he can see on the tailfin. It's a name he knows.

Leave it to Max

Take the example of the gay footballer who's terrified of being outed and having his career destroyed. He's squeaky clean. No-one could say anything about him. So what happens when he goes to a PR man who knows about the power of the dark side?

He gets photographed coming out of a nightclub with a half naked girl on each arm, possibly getting involved in a punch up.

You think the News of the Screws used to exploit and humiliate? Well, sometimes it did. But sometimes it was used and abused itself.

Small shopkeepers are not always beautiful

Then there's the Ronnie Barker strategy in Open All Hours. He deliberately makes spelling mistakes when he writes on his shop window. His idea is that when clever dicks are drawn into the shop to tell him he's got his spelling wrong, he gets the chance to sell them something.

Barker's intention (or the object of his fictional character) is to make money. It's not about achieving the high regard of his community or convincing people that he has a fantastic knowledge of the English language. He simply wants customers in his shop so he can sell them something.

You don't have to have a positive image to be a star. Villains have always made a living out of the dark side of life, but there's also a different kind of dark star. Consider the case of the late Jeremy Beadle. He was so 'unpopular' or had such a dark image, that people started creating Jeremy Beadle jokes:

What was Jeremy Beadle's favourite kitchen appliance?
A microwave.

But he exploited his image, even calling himself Beedlebum at one stage in his career. There are may similar artistes, quite few like Beadle former or present disk jockeys, but they all share one thing in common. You may laugh at them, possibly even despise them; but you respect or admire them for their professionalism.

Whatever you thought of Beadle, you also knew he was rather good at his job.

The Economist recently (October 12, 2013) reported on the phenomena of humour in public announcements. It quoted the example of funny videos created by Australian and American Airlines to make customers pay attention to the safety drills.

In fact it may be that some dark subjects can only be handled with humour. Ashesh Mukherjee and Laurette Dube of McGill Unniversity

Don't give up the day job

He told it as if it was a joke, but clearly Will Massa, British Council film advisor, had a serious purpose. He said: "Why does everyone want to be a film maker. Stop it. Put the cameras down."

He was probably trying to be provocative (it was at the Mud Wrestling session, devoted to trenchant comments and inflammatory exchanges). "That traditional route of making two or three shorts and then making a feature doesn't seem to be working any more," he continued. As a result, he opined, film makers need to have a second string to their bows. Don't give up the day job.

But Jason Sondhi, co-founder of the rather remarkable Short of the Week web site (devoted to films rather than alcoholic beverages or items of sports clothing), claimed he knew of 14 or 15 Hollywood projects that had started with short films.

Probably true, but the fact that the films made it is no guarantee that the film makers also jumped up a league!

After that it could have been either Will or Jason who said: "This is an incredibly competitive business and even the people with talent, 99% of them are not going to have the sort of stellar careers that they want."

Maybe I had a jaundiced view. The day started badly for me when I arrived at BAFTA (just a few yards away from London's Piccadilly Circus) and the receptionist seemed to be asking if I was there because I was short sighted.

I hadn't stumbled up the stairs so I was curious as to why there was a feeling that my eyesight might be less than perfect. But I'd really been asked if I was there to attend the Short Sighted event, a full day of seminars devoted to the art of making movies that last considerably less than 90 minutes.

Despite the pessimism and the fact that you didn't have to read between the lines to work out that for almost everyone short film making is a labour of love rather than a business, there was a heck of a lot of useful advice and information.

For example, I intend to join two Facebook groups: Cinematic Drifters and BAFTA Shorts (if they will have me). I was also astonished to learn that Shorts International has to obtain 3,500 short films a year to broadcast on its channel. That means that if you can't get one into its programme it is officially the 3,501st worst film issued that year.

Of course, broadcasting achieves recognition and the nice warm glow of realising that someone out there cares about the film you've just sweated blood to complete. What it does not get you is the money to pay the rent, or to allow you to make the next film.

To bring in the cash you need that second income stream, that day job.