I’m just going to say it…

It’s fashionable – compulsory in some circles – to knock Big Brother. In fact, the show is one of the small handful of genuinely indigenous forms thrown up by television. It’s important for all sorts of reasons: it wouldn’t be possible in any other medium, it adds much to existing formats, it changes the terms of the relationship between viewer and subject…

The celebrity variant is honestly even more compelling. If you’ve been avoiding it because you think it’s lowbrow, get off your high horse and tune in (and while you’re at it, think about how you might integrate a blog with the house… Should the producers add a ‘blog room’?).

Anti brand campaigners need context

UPDATE. Just read this post, in October 2022, and I’m kind of shocked. I so profoundly disagree with this post that it’s quite difficult to acknowledge that I even wrote it, twenty years ago. What a mug.

Anti-sweatshop campaigners have launched a campaign for a Christmas boycott of The Gap’s stores worldwide.

Gap is encouraging the exploitation of workers in six countries, the activists say. They presented a New York conference yesterday with documented evidence of “abusive working conditions” collected from interviews with 200 people in more than 40 factories making Gap garments in Cambodia, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Lesotho, El Salvador and Mexico for the company’s global network of more than 4,000 shops. “

The problem with these attacks is that they come from an intrinsically anti-business perspective. It’s impossible for the critics to see the progress the mega-brands are making and – worse – to imagine the brands ever making a positive contribution to the well-being of workers or economies. None of the press coverage (BBC, Newsday, WNBC NY, Guardian) for this new boycott can supply any context – what would Lesotho’s economy look like without Gap? What is the average hourly wage in Cambodia?

A rational approach to the brands would use their massive economic clout – within the developing economies and in home markets – to effect change. In China, Reebok (after decades of pressure from campaigners, naturally) is actually organising labour against the wishes of the authorities – using market clout to defy a repressive government. Nike, Gap, Levi’s et al have invested millions in monitoring and compliance. Many now work locally to improve conditions by bullying governments and entrenched power. Businesses, unlike some other institutions, are not monolithic – they can and do change.

NHS Obscure

Is this Britain’s worst web site? No. That would be an exaggeration. NHS Direct Online could be Britain’s least useful web site, though.

Trying to find out what the normal temperature range for a two year-old is, I search for a lot of different terms with no luck. Searching for ‘temperature child’ brings me 461 results, the first 55 of which are the same entry (about vomiting) repeated over and over again. The FAQ section, which sounds promising, is risible. The section labelled ‘First Aid’ contains one question (‘what should I keep in a first aid kit?’). The section on Ambulances, one question (‘when should I call an ambulance?’). I could go on… The telephone service is good. We’ve used it lots of times when the kids have been ill. It’s dreadful that it’s let down so badly by the web site, especially when the site could really lift the load for the qualified nurses who staff the phone line by handling routine enquiries like ‘what’s the normal temperature range for a two year-old?’. By the way, what is the normal temperature range for a two year-old?

Previewing books

The thing with book reviews is you’re supposed to wait until you’ve finished reading the book before you review it but anyway – the latest big book to land here is Peter Spufford’s Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe – a big, beautiful survey of economics, trade, infrastructure, manufacture and custom in the middle ages – all the stuff that came together to make what we now call capitalism.

A blogging injury

I’ve got some kind of RSI – pressure on a nerve in my neck makes my left arm numb (I’ve pretty much ruled out a stroke). My neck hurts and I can’t pick anything up. I’ve sort of fixed my stupid working posture and now I’m just waiting for it to get better. In the meantime, these things don’t work. They’re supposed to be mega-painkillers but they give me about an hour of relief maximum. This would be fine except I’m supposed to take them every eight hours. Worst of all, I think this might be a blogging injury. Incidentally, if you search for the words blogging injury at Google, you’ll learn quite a lot about Robert Schumann’s perplexing 1832 injury to his hand, caused by a ‘home-made mechanical contraption’ designed to strengthen his hands. The injury prevented him from becoming a concert pianist.

Freedom of the road

This German charity is teaching Afghan women to drive. What a breathtakingly practical way of helping a downtrodden group get going after decades of oppression. According to The Economist they have taught 100 women the theory so far but the practical element is more difficult because they only have one car. Sounds like a great Christmas PR opportunity for a car manufacturer to me.

Are you a Baconian or a Cartesian?

Freeman Dyson quotes Bacon in his NYRB review of a book about the importance of amateur astronomers:

All depends on keeping the eye steadily fixed on the facts of nature, and so receiving their images as they are. For God forbid that we should give out a dream of our own imagination for a pattern of the world.”

He contrasts the Baconian amateurs – focused on systematic exploration and minute observation – with the Cartesian professionals – always with their eye on the grand theory and the cosmic problem. By the way, did you know that Patrick Moore discovered Mare Orientale, “the biggest and most beautiful impact crater on the moon”?