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Articles Life Modest Proposals Technology

Essential Ephemera – should you keep old emails?

Sunday, November 08, 1998

As I write, John Glenn and his fellow astronauts are getting used to gravity again with the completion of their Shuttle mission. 

Amidst the discussion of Glenn’s return to space – take your pick:  heroic adventure, science experiment or publicity stunt – a small detail caught my eye.

It seems that Glenn was keeping in touch with his wife by email. On the one hand this shows how pervasive a form of communication email has become (forget ‘Houston, we have a problem,’ now it’s ‘Fwd: Top Ten things we want Samuel Jackson to say as a Jedi Knight’).

But it also raises a question about the lifespan of an email message.  What’s Mrs Glenn going to do with her extraterrestrial missives? They’ll likely sit in her inbox for ages, and then she’ll either delete them with a whole pile of junk when her mail program slows to a crawl, or she’ll put them in their own special folder, and lose them when she gets a new machine. 

We use email to keep in touch with old and distant friends, to flirt with people we hardly know, to send notes to our beloved to brighten their day at work . . .  to carry on any number of relationships that make us who we are. 

But when it comes to keeping the messages, we’re in a bind. Physical letters somehow demand preservation, and even if we don’t read them for years, we’re glad we’ve still got them. 

The same should be the case with emails. When I left my previous job, and again when I gave an old computer to my sister, I was faced with the task of removing any signs of my existence from the machines. The work-related stuff was easily deleted (who keeps memos from a former boss?), but the hundreds of useless jokes, website references and bits of trivia I’d collected seemed at once hugely useless and very important. 

These messages were snapshots of my life at various times (both the mails I’d received and the ones I’d sent), and I couldn’t throw them away. I toyed with the idea of printing them all out and storing them that way – somehow they seemed more permanent when given physical form even on fragile paper. 

But in the end I saved them onto a Zip disk, and have them still. Except I don’t feel sure that they’re really there. Not because I fear the data will be corrupted (although that’s a possibility), or that the format in which they’re saved will be unreadable to later programs (just as likely), but because it’s hard to feel nostalgic about the contents of Zip disk, however valuable its content. 

A friend of mine recently left his job, and another friend designed a spoof movie poster for his departure. The electronic version of this poster was soon bouncing round the planet as it was forwarded to people, and put up on the Web. But it was a framed printout of the file that somehow turned all the work into a real gift. 

It’s a similar problen with other images. I bought a digital camera on my arrival in America, thinking it would be a very practical way of showing people what I was up to. And so it’s proved, with rough and ready Web pages allowing me to share my experiences with my friends and family back home. But I still find it easier to think in terms of a shoebox stuffed full of photographic memories than a portion of my current hard disk (or a bit of space on a server somewhere). 

Maybe it’s just a question of adaptation, and we’ll soon come to treasure hi-tech storage media in the way we do family photo albums and collections of old letters tied with ribbons. But I’m certainly not there yet, and I doubt Mrs Glenn is either. 

(first published as a Modest Proposals newsletter, November 8th, 1998)

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Articles Ireland Salon Sport

Le Tour en Irlande

Friday, July 17, 1998

The preparations begin early, crowds gather and the excitement mounts. Suddenly there’s a flash of color, a burst of noise, and then it’s gone again, leaving people slightly unsure of what they’ve just seen. So it is that cyclists fly by as you watch from the side of the road, and so it is that the Tour de France leaves Ireland after three memorable days.

Continue reading the article on the Salon site

Posted by David in • Salon • Sport • Ireland

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Articles Books Life Modest Proposals

To David, with fear and loathing

Thursday, May 28, 1998

Not so long ago, I went to a public reading given by Hunter Thompson and Johnny Depp, promoting the new film of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 

The whole thing was a surreal experience – a hero of the counter-culture appearing at a media event in the Virgin Megastore in Times Square, New York – but one of the strangest parts about it was the realisation that the audience weren’t really there to see either Hunter or Johnny. They were there to get their books signed.

They were only politely interested during the readings, but as soon as someone mentioned forming a queue for the signing session, everyone was suddenly awake and rushing to take their places. 

Of course, the process of having your book signed gets you close to your hero, and allows you engange in some personal communication (always assuming you can think of something more original to say than, ‘Could you make it out to Biff, please?’). 

But I’m not sure that was what got people excited. As far as I could tell, their main concern was just getting that name in the book. (Or, in this case, those names, since Johnny Depp signed them as well, which struck me as a bit of a cheek.)

What makes us want to own signed copies of books? If we’re personally known to the author, and the book is a gift from them, there’s an obvious and special attraction – a friend of mine recently did the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney some small service, and received a couple of signed hardcover first editions, inscribed with thanks.  Brilliant. But if you’ve merely waited in line after a reading, then what real value has been added? 

In the same was as records, books are measures of your life, your changing situations and your developing interests. There’s a great moment in Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity, where the narrator arranges his record collection in chronological order of purchase. It’s a chart of his own history, and only he can tell you how he went from Deep Purple to Sam Cooke (or some such) in seven records. 

So in the same way, inscriptions in books help to fix a moment in time, and it’s certainly worth remembering that you met the author, however briefly. 

But what to do if the author is nowhere to be found, or the book’s not a gift inscribed by a friend? I’d argue for putting your own name and a date at the front. And add the place too; even if it’s not special to you now, you future self might be very grateful of the reminder that you spent some time in Shrewsbury. 

While writing this, I pulled out my copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (purchased primarily to gain admittance to the reading), and scribbled my own inscription on the first page. Would I have been better to wait in line for Hunter Thompson? I don’t think so – I’m still making memories without his John Hancock. 

(first published as a Modest Proposals newsletter, May 28th, 1998)

Posted by David in • Modest Proposals • Life • Books

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Articles Ireland Salon Travel

The New Dublin

Wednesday, March 18, 1998

Early morning in the Phoenix Park, and the mist sits on the tops of the trees, swirling around the stark white papal cross. From the ruined magazine fort you can see Dublin rising through the haze—the red neon of the sign on the Guinness brewery, the green dome of Rathmines church and the distant slim striped chimneys of the power station in Ringsend. Off to the south, the gray curves of the mountains watch over the city.

Continue reading the article on the Salon site

Posted by David in • Salon • Ireland • Travel

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Articles Modest Proposals Television

Office Liaisons – workplace romance in TV shows

Friday, January 16, 1998

Opinions vary wildly on the subject of relationships in the workplace, from ‘Don’t crap in your own nest,’ to wedding day ‘I do’s’ between work colleagues. But there’s definitely a difference between the real world and the world of tv. 

On TV, relationships in the workplace are a perfect way to build suspense and excitement – you don’t have to introduce any new characters, and the audience know both protagonists equally well.

Medical dramas use this device all the time – Doug and Carol in ER have waxed and waned, and while Doug was out of the picture, Carol and paramedic Shep were seeing each other. Even mild mannered Mark has ended up in bed with the odd nurse or receptionist (sometimes very odd). 

The BBC’s Casualty has an interesting spin on this Mills and Boon storyline, with Holby boasting two female doctors who are seeing male nurses. 

Top of the list of other professions blessed with a proclivity for intra-office athlectics are lawyers. This Life saw Anna, Milly, Miles, Joe, Ciara, Ferdy and Warren exploring each other’s briefs with pneumatic regularity, and US legal shows are little different. 

(In police shows, however, we’re mainly presented with dutiful wives or girlfriends who put up with the neglect from their men – until they can’t take it any more. ‘This isn’t how I wanted it to be,’ she laments.  ‘Well, when you married me, you married the job,’ he says grimly.)

Compare this extracurricular use of the office desk to reality, and what do you find? Apart from a lawyer friend of mine who assured me that her life was nothing like This Life before confessing she was seeing her boss, in my experience there’s very little going on in the office. 

It’s been suggested that I only took the job at an Internet company for material for my forthcoming blockbuster airport novel about the sexy high-flying computer industry. A cross between Jackie Collins and Micholas Negroponte, the gold-embossed tome is to be called ‘Web of Seduction’ or ‘Net Assets’ (or something similar). 

Were this the case, I’ve been sadly disappointed. There are lots of single people in the office, of both sexes, but give or take the odd aberration (and even here no-one will give me the full story), there’s been nothing to get the internal email buzzing. 

That’s not to say that there aren’t people who find others in the building attractive, it’s just that they don’t seem to be acting on it.  This is partly an Irish thing – ‘I wouldn’t kick them out of bed for eating biscuits, but, you know yourself, I’m not going to actually do anything about it.’

The closest I came to a workplace romance was years ago at college while I was revising for my exams. I’d sit in the same place in the main reading room in the University Library, a towering hall, with warm pools of light cast on the huge tables by the low brass lamps. Across from me on another table was another regular, who pored over weighty art books while her blond hair fell over her face and shone in the generous glow. 

We’d smile as we arrived and left, and eventually I slipped a note into her book on Versailles and we went for a coffee. Nothing really came of our relationship, but it was made by the place we were in – an impressive and elegant space in a 600 year-old university. Cube farms don’t really have the same ambience. 

Aside from this I’d be very happy if life started imitating art a little more. Even if I weren’t directly involved, it would spice up discussion round the coffee machine. But I’ve a feeling I’d stand a better chance in a different job – is that why my parents always wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer? Surely not. 

(first published as a Modest Proposals newsletter, 16th January 1998)

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Articles Modest Proposals Television

TV Dinners

Friday, January 09, 1998

Cooking programmes, I love ‘em. As if we weren’t stuffed enough already, over the holiday period, British TV was full of food being prepared. 

It used to be that cooking shows were just cooking shows – Delia Smith, the 70s queen of the kitchen – just gave it to us straight. ‘This is what I’m going to cook,’ she’d say, ‘And this is how I do it.’ We watched and learned, but we weren’t entertained. 

That was fine, if a little pedestrian, and heading into the 80s cooking as a spectator event faltered a little, being relegated to slots on daytime shows like This Morning or the fondly-remembered Pebble Mill at One.

It soon became apparent that the food was often of secondary interest to the chefs – we tuned in to watch the banter as much as the bain-marie.  The man who exemplified this shift was Keith Floyd. 

Keith was a larger than life character who constantly berated his cameraman, slurped at a big glass of red, and got huge viewing figures. 

As well as Keith’s personality, the show also had great locations going for it – France, Africa, Australia – and this marked another important shift, as we got into the cooking show as travel programme. 

Cookery started its move into other tv genres with this, and soon there were several imitators. Rhodes around Britain saw Gary Rhodes cooking lunch for the Manchester Utd squad, and cakes for a monastery in Northumberland. Gourmet Ireland gave us Paul Rankin getting a similarly good gig closer to home. 

But Gourmet Ireland also crossed into another genre as Paul travelled and cooked in tandem with his wife Jeanne. Here we had real-life family drama, as chef snapped at his talkative spouse sous – ‘C’mon, c’mon, I need the coulis now!’. 

Now we have cookery as game show as well. Masterchef rules early Sunday evening with its combination of preposterous menus from real people, and preposterous vowels from its presenter Lloyd Grossman. We marvel at the civil servants and schoolteachers who can create warmed woodpigeon salad with lemongrass and shitake mushrooms on a bed of rocket and organic watercress, with a balsamic vinegar and coriander dressing. 

Junior Masterchef is too scary to watch, however, as ten year-olds come on like they’re Marco Pierre White when they should be tucking into Jaffa Cakes and peanut butter sambos. 

Ready Steady Cook is another culinary gameshow with the perfect format – personality chefs, celebrity guests, genial host and a stern time limit.  The show wisely adheres to Aristotle’s dramatic unities, all events taking place within the actual time of the show (none of that, ‘and you just leave that to reduce for half an hour’). 

So we’ve had travel shows, real-life drama and gameshows. There are also magazine shows – the aged Food and Drink, RTE’s bootlegged Consuming Passions, and Channel 4’s recent cool upstart. 

There have also been culinary drama shows (Chef!) and even culinary detective shows – Pie in the Sky, anyone? Soon we’ll be getting the early evening news brought you by the Roux brothers, and a cookery-meets-Casualty show, where patients are delivered into the kitchen for some quick restorative work with a bouquet garnis. 

I’m just waiting for the time I can send my intelligent agent out over the Internet to get me some of the dishes created in the programmes – being so close to this stuff without able to taste it is proving too damn hard. 

(first published as a Modest Proposals newsletter, 9th January 1998)

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Articles Modest Proposals Television UK

Documenting Reality

Thursday, December 11, 1997

In the last month, the best tv shows I’ve seen have all been documentaries. And all of a particular type. 

Not for me the hard-hitting expose of big business corruption or political shenanigans, nor the tragic and moving story of an ordinary person’s fight against illness or adversity. Nor for me gutsy journalists on the front line in Bosnia, or with refugees in Rwanda. 

No, the only type of documentary I’m watching these days is fly on the wall programmes covering (supposedly) normal life.

I’ve seen the plummy stewards at work at race meetings, hyperactive couriers zooming round London in a maelstrom of rage and sexism, good-natured workers at a Liverpool hotel cope with a military marching band in their ballroom, and two Leeds girls out on the pull in Ibiza. 

These shows have minimal narration, and very few questions from interviewers, the idea being to immerse you in a new world without any mediation. Of course the programme makers get to ask questions we never hear, and to choose what we see, but the illusion of immediacy is maintained. 

The ‘story’ as such doesn’t matter; these programmes are at their best in giving an insight into the slightly warped personalities of even the most apparently normal people. In the series about the Adelphi Hotel, the manager has grown to be a star. When she’s not shouting at an unfortunate staff member or moving furniture she’s being hospitality itself to charmed guests (so long as they’re not trying to sneak a take-away up to their room). 

In Sky’s surprisingly good Ibiza Uncovered series, the stars were ordinary people engaging in extraordinary debauchery on holiday. We watched a woman who was a responsible marketing manager 50 weeks of the year discover the best place to meet men in clubs was the gents toilets.  Her policy of showing her pierced and chained nether regions to the clamouring hordes certainly paid off, and we saw it all. 

The popularity of these shows is easy to understand – we’re all curious, and of course the truth is much more dramatic than any fiction that we could believe in. But why people let themselves be filmed in this way is another question. Graham Taylor, the former England football manager, became even more ridiculed than he was before after a deeply unflattering Channel 4 documentary – ‘Do I not like that?’ we said. 

At least he was a public figure in a public role. The current crop of shows are powered by ordinary people letting the cameras into their lives. One series follows couples as they go through marriage guidance counselling. Suddenly you don’t feel like you’re just observing, you’re intruding. Can having a film crew in the room really help any? 

British tv is falling over itself to make more and more documentaries of this sort, based on the success of palpable hits like Modern Times and several brilliant Cutting Edge shows. How long before we have a film crew following a film crew around – a parasite on the fly on the wall? 

(first published as a Modest Proposals newsletter, 11th December 1997)

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Articles Life Modest Proposals

Advent adventures

Thursday, December 04, 1997

When I was very young my sister and I would both have advent calendars on the mantelpiece. The idea of sharing one was unthinkable, and so every December morning between the toast and Marmite, the tea and the Today programme on Radio 4, we’d dash into the living room and each open another window.

Some years we’d re-use them from the previous year, and so when we opened the doors, we’d have to be careful not to tear them off, as other more reckless friends did. That way, we could push them all flat again for next year.

Why was it so good to open the doors? Not because of the pictures behind, that’s for sure, as I hardly glanced at the Christmas tree, or snowscape, or Santa Claus. Re-using the calendars made no odds, because the enjoyment wasn’t in the richness of the images in the first place.

Part of the attraction was the ritual of the whole affair – this was the authorised countdown to the big day. Opening the first few doors, you felt the expanse of the weeks stretch out in front of you, but slowly the days passed.

But part of the appeal was also in the self-discipline. I spent hours in the build-up to Christmas searching for my presents, managing to find a 3’ snooker table between the mattress and base of a bed, and a bicycle in a box in my neighbour’s attic. I was indignant when Mum took the presents to work with her and left them there until Christmas Eve. 

Even when they were wrapped up, I’d still gingerly peel off Sellotape and peek inside. People started labeling my presents as if they were for someone else, but I still smelt them out. So when it came to presents, I felt like everything I did was fair game.

With advent calendars, however, I was much more self-controlled. It would have been so easy to open a few doors ahead (especially when they were being reused, and the flush machined fit of the door on the card had been loosened already), but I never did. I think the reason for this is that I didn’t have anything to gain from cheating. Because the picture didn’t matter, the only enjoyment was in resisting the temptation to spoil the fun. The suspense had to be self-imposed.

So the Internet advent calendars that don’t let you open the doors for future days might be technologically advanced, but they miss the point. Those that allow you to cheat (and then hope that you don’t) more accurately reflect the feel of the originals.

Most people seem to have grown out of advent calendars long before I did (but then again, I was still desperately searching for my presents when I was at college). Even though the holiday season itself might have lost something of its sparkle, the beginning of December (especially when the weather is as crisply glorious as it’s been in Dublin for the last 2 days) always makes me think of picking open little paper doors. 

(first published as a Modest Proposals newsletter, 4th December 1997)

Posted by David in • Modest Proposals • Life

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Articles Film Modest Proposals Television

Mad Max and Englishmen – the British in American film and TV

Thursday, November 20, 1997

The arrival of Dr Elizabeth Corday in ER set me thinking about the fate of English actors in US mainstream film and tv. Firstly, Corday is about as un-English a name as I’ve come across, which isn’t a great start.

Secondly, poor Alex Kingston is hidebound by playing a jolly hockey sticks plummy stereotype. She’s all pearls and spunk, and acts like she’s stepped out of a 1930s film.

Her character is a (worrying) representation of what American tv seems to think English people are like. Likewise, Hugh Grant’s limited success in Hollywood is because he always plays himself – a floppy-haired, Oxford-educated, well-meaning, slightly awkward Brit. Rupert Everett’s return to favour with My Best Friend’s Wedding was based on an entertainingly hammed up portrayal of ultimate English campness.

Most other English actors in the States end up playing these posh twits or villains with funny accents. From Donald Pleasance in You Only Live Twice to Alan Rickman in Die Hard, it seems English actors are largely denied the right to be the hero. (Daniel Day Lewis is an honourable exception, but round here they’ll tell you he’s Irish.)

Or they’re shunted into period drama. From Shakespeare to Jane Austen and E M Forster, it seems you can’t do better than classically trained English actors. But for anything after 1930, you can forget it.

However, on reflection, they might deserve everything they get, because while English people might be able to act, they can’t do action. When Englishmen try to get tough it just comes across as misplaced sexual frustration – Jeremy Irons with blond crop and singlet in Die Hard III will live long in the memory.

Compare and contrast the fortunes of Australian actors in America. Mel Gibson gets to destroy whole city blocks with wilful abandon, and Sam Neill gets chased by dinosaurs.

The deeply good LA Confidential boasts two antipodean actors among the major roles. Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe punch and shoot their way through the film in a way that would make Hugh Grant green with envy.

The English inability to strip down to undershirts and jump around is so acute that even when it comes to playing English heroes, such as James Bond, they have to look to their Celtic cousins to supply the necessary brio. Sean Connery, the best Bond, is Scottish, and the current incumbent Pierce Brosnan is Irish. They even miss out as extraterrestrial characters – Ewan McGregor worked at sounding like Alec Guinness to make sure that there are no English Jedi Knights in the forthcoming Star Wars movies.

So if the men are reduced to playing toffs or deranged Central European villains, how do English women fare in Hollywood?

Not much better, unfortunately. As better actors but with fewer surgical enhancements than their US colleagues, most end up in supporting roles, where they get the good lines but not the attention they deserve. In the same way as you can’t imagine an English Brad Pitt, Sly Stallone or John Travolta, similarly we see to be lacking the odd Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts or Demi Moore.

However, Kate Winslett is going to be huge after Titanic, and it’s to their credit that English actresses tend not to come from the shallow decoration school of acting – even Liz Hurley has the nous to laugh at herself in Austin Powers.

So if you’re going to be an English actor you can either don tights, develop a floppy haircut or practice a manic laugh. Or stay at home and make your big break in the States on Masterpiece Theater.

(first published as a Modest Proposal newsletter, 20th November 1997)

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Articles Life Modest Proposals

Postcards from the edge

Thursday, November 13, 1997

As attentive readers will recall, I’ve just taken a holiday, and as I sat in the Broome St Bar in New York City one evening I was moved to ponder the future of postcards.

It’s become an obligation to devote some of your time while away to writing two paragraphs of banality on the back of a cheesy picture of the area’s most famous landmark, and then mail it home. You will, of course, arrive back before the card.

Writing the words (known clumsily in the web world as the ‘content’), can be a real problem. I have nothing but praise for the long, thoughtful letter home from abroad, but when facing the back of a card, I can’t really summon any enthusiasm. It’s hard to avoid sneakily writing the same thing on all the cards.

Majella, via the discussion group, wonders why people bother.  ‘Their close friends know where they have been and take the ‘wish you were here’ factor for granted. Not so close friends really don’t need to have it shoved in their faces that they are at work while others are on the sunny beaches of the Costa del Sol.’

It’s as if you have to go through the hassle of writing the cards to apologise for enjoying yourself abroad.

Paul, also via the discussion group, makes a strong case for the existence of postcards, if not their sending to innocent bystanders:  ‘Postcards save me the hassle of taking snapshots. Why bother with the pursuit of legalized gambling, also known as photography, when some expert has already done the work? Why worry about exposing film to airport scanners? Why worry about old camera batteries leaking acid into landfills? Why worry about having my Minolta nicked from my motorcycle’s tankbag? No, postcards are fine with me.’

This is fine, except that heavily doctored images (John Hinde Limited, take a bow ) look nothing like real places I’ve ever been.

Another Paul on the discussion group has a more optimistic view of the worth of cards: ‘It may not be a la mode but I like receiving snail mail, and an unexpected picture on my doormat first thing in the morning always lights up my child-eyes. I like the idea of sending postcards to friends I see around anyway. It’s a good disposable way of giving someone a picture that’s interesting or funny, or just hoping to influence the direction of their thoughts temporarily . . .  ‘Postcards aren’t restricted to the ordinary four scene, greetings from Weymouth, a ‘cheeky’ girls on the beach in Marbella, or the endless XXX at night (ho ho). People should send more postcards, there should be random pictures floating about between people. Just get a good photo, stick a stamp on the back and you’ve made someone’s journey to work more interesting.’

This gets us into the right territory. Cards as a necessary part of a holiday may have had their day, but they have a much greater value as a well-chosen greeting when you’re at home and just want to say something.  The idea of little bundles of goodwill ‘floating between people’ is very attractive.

This works because you’re actually given the freedom to choose to send the cards – that you’ve taken the trouble to surprise the recipient is great. With holiday cards you have no choice as the sender, and in most cases, the recipient is not at all surprised to get the card.

So my vote is to boycott the sending of postcards from holiday locations (except for children, who probably still deserve them). And if this goes well, maybe we should move on to Christmas cards as well – reserving them only for people that we don’t see very often. The struggle starts here. 

(first published as a Modest Proposals newsletter, 13th November 1997)

Posted by David in • Modest Proposals • Life

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