Rudinblog

A Class Act?

The least surprising yet most revealing survey and report of recent times was the Alan Milburn led study into class and mobility. It was published the same day as the graduation ceremony for the Class of '09 journalism students at 'my' university. For my thoughts on all this, including the significance of the impact of feminisation of newsrooms, you will 'have' to download or at least listen to my Podcast which if you are listening some time after July '09 has the same title as this Blog. Sorry, but there it is!

A Night to Remember

I've been trying very hard to concentrate on urgent tasks and meeting urgent deadlines today but the anniversary of the first moon landing has been just a trifle distracting. I've just finished watching a replay of a BBC-4 (TV) special programme broadcast five years ago, which put together archive footage of the BBC's coverage, with other bits and pieces. The reason for the 'bits and pieces' is that, amazingly, the BBC did not archive a complete recording of its coverage and has had to rely to some extent on viewers' home recordings of the output. Outrageous! Those spools of two inch wide video tape were very expensive, and bulky to store (I know, I used to lug them around as part of my duties d with BFBS Television years later) but still..! The BBC did archive all its election night coverage and replays these from time to time on the Parliamentary Channel – absolute gold-dust for media historians and political anoraks like me!! - but I guess they thought that people would only want to see the footage of the landing and moonwalk, not all the rest of the stuff. How wrong they were! Even worse was the archiving of rival ITN's coverage. Their pride and joy was a then new 'caption generator' which could put up details of what was going on at the bottom of the screen without blabbing all over the radio communications to and from Mission Control. However, when the Eagle landed ("…there's a bunch of guys about to turn blue we're breathing again, thanks a lot...") it actually read 'Ouchdown' – the 'T' had failed to materialise! In the later Apollo missions, and when we had colour transmissions (colour TV was introduced on the main UK TV channels in November 1969) both channels had this device and the caption "Live From The Moon" must go down as the most remarkable of all time

 

But back to the achievement itself…the more distance there is from the event the more remarkable it seems. The on-board computer (which was the smallest of the time, leading the way to personal home computers) has just thousandths of the power as the one I am using to compose and send this. The determination – and finance- for such a risky operation was brought about of course because of the Cold War and the fear that the Soviet Union ( which had put the first man in space and whose exploits I eagerly followed as a very young child of four or five) would be seen to be scientifically and militarily superior to the United States. And standing at the back of the Control Room in Houston during Apollo 11 was Werner von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist, who had used slave labour to build the V2 rockets which landed in the south-east of Britain with such devastating effect in the last year of World War 11 (indeed, my Mum was in London during this period and remembers them VERY well!) Von Braun, along with others, had been given immunity from prosecution as a Nazi war criminal so long as he helped the United States with its military "hardware". But then, the most significant inventions and achievements have mostly been driven by the desire for military superiority, or the fear that the enemy, or potential enemy, might be about to launch a surprise attack. Certainly, radio was given a huge boost before and during World War One because of this and the Internet was developed because the Americans were terrified that the Soviets would explode a nuclear bomb over the country, not to devastate cities but to send an enormous Electric Magnetic Pulse, which would destroy its communications systems. So there was a need for thousands of alternative ways of transmitting messages and codes. Sorry for the history lesson but I thought it worth pointing out at this juncture!

 

Anyway, it was an astonishing achievement and certainly captured the world's imagination, and the ability to witness it simultaneously with millions of others around the globe through television made it all the more amazing. It's also worth pointing out that the first communications' satellite, allowing live television pictures between the United States and Europe, had only been in position for seven years, and now we were seeing pictures from the moon! It was of course vital for public relations terms that the American public could see how their $1.4 million of taxes in today's prices was being spent and indeed this was why the actual moonwalk took place earlier than scheduled. The reproduction of the special edition of The Times today quotes Neal Armstrong suggesting that the new time would be 8 PM in Houston. "That's peak viewing time, isn't it?" he said.

I was captivated by the Apollo programme and cut out all the newspaper articles and fact today I was just looking at the special flight plan which has survived in my grandly titled "Man on the Moon" folders which have travelled with me over the years. I guess at 12 years old I was about the perfect age for it; old enough to understand what was going on and to follow the detail of the missions but not too old to be cynical or to try and be "cool" about it. Needless to say, I was there recording the landing and moonwalk with my still relatively new and still very modern cassette tape recorder, sticking the microphone in front of the TV speaker (and so picking up some of the conversation of the family around me) both for the Lunar Module landing on the Sunday night and then for the first moonwalk in the early hours of the following morning.

It was very hard to go to sleep that night; the TV channels had been given special permission -- yes permission was needed! -- to stay on overnight (the first time that happened) and, after sneaking out to look at the moon with wonder, I reluctantly went to bed and set my alarm for very early the next morning. I remember tuning through the radio dial under the covers, listening to the various broadcasts from Europe, including the Voice of America, the American Forces Network and, for an alternative take on the news, Radio Moscow. I think it came third or fourth in the news bulletin there, after the usual boasts of increasing tractor production in the Ukraine or whatever! Anyway, I did doze off and awoke with a start at around 3.30 a.m., switched on the radio and heard that the hatch door was open! I scrambled downstairs and, as quietly as I could, put the TV on in time to see Armstrong step down from the craft and utter those immortal, if slightly disputed, lines.

I think my dad was a bit disappointed when he came in an hour and a half or so later. "Oh, they've already stepped out already have they?" he said. But, of course, it was an ordinary working day, indeed an ordinary school day. That really annoyed me -- surely we could have had the day off? I know now of course it would have been difficult to arrange; the local education authority would have had to make special arrangements, what if they project had been delayed or abandoned? Etc., etc. However, also that month there was to me utterly pointless and meaningless investiture of the Prince of Wales, for which we were given the day off, due to the fact that the Acting Headmaster was Welsh! This seemed to me a ludicrous way of prioritising these events and I don't think I ever quite got over that in terms of my attitude towards school!

Of course there had been a lead-up to the moon landing and to some extent at the time I think it just seemed like the logical next stage. And we just assumed that these remarkable things that were happening in the '60s -- England being world championships at football (sorry to rub it in but it just seemed quite natural at the time!), this most amazing music that was happening and now the moon shots – would just keep occurring. It seemed that my childhood and early adolescence was just one amazing thrill after another. I'm sure many would not have believed in 1972, when the last Apollo mission took place, that in all these years since we would never have gone back to the moon. Seeing the earth from the moon – this tiny, gorgeous blob hanging by invisible forces in space, lonely and fragile - also had an effect on me, as it did to many others.

I still become very emotional watching the TV coverage replays and indeed I get choked when I hear the audio of the landing and have it on my iPod for inspiration. It is the combination of the calm, matter - of - fact manner in the communications (e.g. the remark "picking up some dust" was MOON dust!), with the knowledge that something absolutely astonishing that had never been done before in the 100,000 years or so of man's existence was happening and we were all there witnessing it: right there, right then. We now know how close they were to disaster; that the "30 seconds" warning from Mission Control was that there was only that amount of fuel left; that Armstrong was guiding the craft manually and only just missed a very deep crater which could have been fatal (his heart-rate was 156 bpm at that stage); that President Nixon had prepared a broadcast to the nation in the event of the astronauts dying either on the moon or at some stage on the return journey - which seemed quite likely - and that Buzz Aldrin was terrified of shutting the Lunar Module door on his way out as there were handles only on the inside! That would have been a DOH! moment for sure.

 

And finally, so I can post this message at the exact time that the Eagle landed, I will conclude with the lyrics from Monty Python's The Galaxy Song, which I also find inspirational, as well as very funny. And you can't ask for more than that! Thanks, as ever, taking the time to read my witterings.

 

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

That conference – it’s History

Back now from a very stimulating conference at the University of Aberystwyth for the biennial get-together on media history. I'd never been to the town before and had a glorious drive down there. I passed through all skirted some of the areas though the guy had as my "patch" when I was a newly qualified newspaper journalist working for the Shropshire Star. (Naturally, while I was in the area I picked up a copy and was delighted to see that the gloriously named Shirley Tart, a columnist who in my time modelled herself very much on certain right-wing columnists of the period and was slightly less than fully supportive of the all-out NUJ strike during the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent, was reviewing a local production). It's part of the coastline though I was unfamiliar with. The conference was in the modern campus up the hill from the town and we had to study bedrooms which were on sweets and therefore somewhat better than my son had at Stirling University but still have the characteristics of Cell Block H!

Still, one doesn't spend too much time in one room at these events! Although the scholars were predominantly from the UK there was a fair sprinkling from other countries, including Germany and of course the Anglophone sphere. I was put in one of the panels that was the first slot of the first full day of the conference. Most people have arrived by then and considering it was at nine o'clock in the morning and there were three other competing panels there was a good audience and they were very receptive to the presentations made by me and my fellow panellist. (You can download a zipped file of the presentation, containing the PowerPoint slides and accompanying audio recorded 'live' at the event, by going to my Podcast page and clicking 'direct download' for the appropriate entry, uploaded on 13 July, 2009).

It is, of course, always gratifying to have support and interest from your peers. We are all thoroughly interested -- even obsessed! -- in our particular areas and it is so important though that others "get" what you're up to and think it is of value. With any research you get locked into your own area and there are times when even the most experienced and lauded academic must wonder if anyone else will ever be interested in this stuff! I was able to do the same for other academics who were equally grateful for someone else showing an interest.

I have to say that generally I find that academics are into history are very open and supportive of the work of others and although there is, I suppose, rivalry at some level, certainly in my field there are very few people in the same exact area but there are a significant number who are involved and interested in the same themes and so you gain so much from conferences like this. Other areas were very useful for my forthcoming book and not just from the historical angle, funnily enough, but it is always in trying to see the links, to connect the dots from historical perspectives to present-day concerns. Sometimes these are very transparent. On the first night we had as guest speaker Will Wyatt, the former managing director of BBC television, and award-winning TV documentary producer Edward Mirzoeff, who were able to talk about past and present clashes between the BBC and the government, notably the Real Lives dispute, in which the BBC had interviewed Martin McGuinness, a somewhat prominent paramilitary for the Republican movement and who has now caused the full cloak of democratic respectability as Deputy First Minister in the Northern Ireland assembly, but who at the time is almost certainly head of the IRA's Belfast Brigade. Anyway, this programme had shown McGuinness and a prominent Unionist in a sympathetic light, which coming as it did barely nine months after the IRA had tried to assassinate Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the rest of the Cabinet by planting a bomb in the hotel where the Conservative party was holding its annual conference, this sympathetic portrayal did not go down too well with Thatcher and others. The full "back story" to the row was discussed but both had been involved more recently in reports for the BBC on rows between the Corporation and the Palace and there was an entertaining account of the discussions between The Queen and the BBC over a documentary.

One of the most fascinating sessions from me was on the period between the fall of the Berlin/GDR Wall and the unification of Germany and how East German television acted as a kind of psychotherapist for the entire population of East Germany during this wonderful yet traumatic period and how they adjusted to suddenly losing the entire mechanisms and ideology of the Communist state. The research was part of an eight-year project at the University of Leipzig. My personal interest in this is due to the fact that I lived and worked in Berlin for 2 1/2 years between 1982- 1984 and indeed had my first married home there, at a time when the Wall is very much up and there were almost daily and frequently doomed attempts to cross it from the East, and we visited East Berlin on numerous occasions, once with a real-life spy (I mean, one of 'ours'!) and were chased through the streets by the 'People's Police'.

Most of the academics produced engaging presentations but I'm afraid there were one or two and insisted on simply reading their paper -- and in some cases not very well at that. Now, come on, we can all read so if you going to do is read a paper to send it by e-mail! Surely the whole point of doing a conference presentation is to talk round your research and to do something that works well for a "live" audience? A great example of this was in the final plenary session by Chas Critcher, who was carried on the work of Stan Cohen and his seminal text on "moral panics", a key theme of the conference. Critcher did a cracking 50 minute, rollercoaster presentation, full of insights, arguments and jokes. It is, of course, easier and more enjoyable for some people than others to be a performer – and, as will be readily understood from anyone who knows me, or has followed my blogs, podcasts or career in any way - I love having an audience!

 

Naturally, some of the best discussions come in the bar and other places of refreshment and sustenance and as always, renewing friendships from previous such events, such as Darrell Newton of Salisbury University, Maryland, Len Kuffert from the University of Manitoba and making new ones, such as Erwin Erhardt from Thomas More College, Cincinnati.

Evening events weren't just bout boozing and carousing – oh no! They included a fascinating – if bum-numbing two and half hours of viewing a silent movie on the Life of Lloyd George. There is an intriguing conspiracy theory – or theories - about why this 1918 hagiography was never released and was only discovered and restored in the last few years. One of the most likely is that 'they' were very worried that such a portrayal of the social injustices and poverty of pre World War One Britain and the portrait of such a radical politician might have stirred up the public, just a year after the Bolshevik Revolution and of course in the 'Land Fit for Heroes' atmosphere of post 'Great War' Britain. Even more impressive if anything was the live piano accompaniment by the extraordinarily talented (and, from meeting him in the pre-show reception I would say modest and charming man, who was more eager to talk about this new-born son than his many artistic achievements) Neil Brand. He played for these 152 minutes non-stop, without any score in front of him and was fully in synch with the action throughout. As well as his musical talent he is also a playwright and in fact wrote one of the best plays I've heard on the radio in years, called Stan.

The drive home was in slightly less good weather but still enjoyable. As usual on return after such conferences, my head is full of ideas, concepts, new information and new ways of looking at old issues. Now I have to try and get my head round everything I've learned, everything I've discussed everything I need to take forward into my own teaching and research -- and that's the hard part!

Born (again) on the fourth of July

Picture Copyright: Jeffrey Bange.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

 

Aside from the obvious significance (about which more below) July 4^th has a couple of personal connections for me. The first is that it is the date my Dad's funeral took place (28 years ago); the second and, linked to the first in that it was my Dad's job that took the family to Sutton Coldfield in 1968, it was the date just one year ago I met up with some of my old school mates, itself nearly 40 years since we had first met when we started at the Grammar School. As I've mentioned in previous Blogs, this reunion, which included a tour round the old school, sparked off some great renewed friendships after a gap of well over 30 years in my case. Nowadays we hardly ever talk about the school era, concentrating more about today's concerns and interests, not least in many cases both our own kids (often themselves older than we were when we were last all together) and over a surviving parent. Lots of other stuff, too. And having left the area in 1975 and my parents moving in '78 I only skirted that Royal Borough once in the intervening period until last year and now I think I have been back some eight times! Each visit has been brilliant. I guess some people might find it 'sad' in the modern sense; well, so be it. But the one thing we are not, it seems to me, is sad in the traditional sense. Sometimes acerbic, often piss-taking (of each other –always a good sign!), badly behaved, noisy and 'robust' in tone and content of our discourse, yes; 'sad' no, and certainly it is the most rewarding and unexpected twist of fate in my adult life. We're very different characters and have had very different 'life experiences' and have different views on a lot of things but I find this stimulating; who wants to be with people who are exactly like themselves and have the same 'take' on life?.

We are all recognisably the same personalities as we were in the late '60s and early-mid '70s and one of the things this whole experience has taught me is that whilst we may think that we have control over our lives pretty much 95% is determined for us by a combination of genetics and environmental factors, the latter including the period and place in which we were born and grew up. I realise this is hardly revolutionary or original thinking but when you understand this you can be much more relaxed about life. That isn't to say that you don't have a moral responsibility for your actions and have some choice in individual decisions, or that you should be over - fatalistic: it is, though, to recognise that our scope for diversions off the path determined for us is pretty limited and that the best we can do is to make the most of what we have and cherish relationships with those with whom we have shared parts of our lives, perhaps especially in those crucial years of childhood and adolescence; they are the ones with whom we do have a shared experience – good, bad or indifferent - and memory. There was a lot of unfulfilled potential though amongst my classmates, and it was that lack of 'talent spotting' and nurturing, rather than perhaps the more obvious and what now seem quite shocking ways in which the boys, at least, were treated (I've detailed elsewhere the corporal punishment, for example) that upsets me now. The lack of care and respect had more lasting damage than being beaten on our back-sides.

Still, it is never too late to grow and it is good to be able to support and boost people - they have certainly done this for me - and the only bad side of it as far as I am concerned is wondering whether I could have used whatever talents I have in a more constructive way, particularly fighting for the underdog and for those who are denied the 'voice' and platform that has been given to me. I'm sure that my experiences at school, both primary and secondary level, provided me with a fear and suspicion of arbitrary authority and misuse of power and so influenced my political thinking (see below!). I certainly have very powerful memories from those days and keenly associate music with it to provide "flashbacks".

Talking of which…(here's a link!) I was asked to put together a list of five tracks that were particularly significant in my life, along with a few other items, in a conceit that imagined that I was fleeing a burning house and had just time to collect a few such objects. This was for a radio programme on the new formatted City Talk in Liverpool. You can hear this programme -- Take Five -- on my podcast page; the music has had to be cut because of copyright restrictions.

I wasn't very happy with my performance on the programme and although it is a bit rich for such an ardent self chronicler as myself to state, it was a bit strange talking about my personal life and I got a bit tongue - tied on occasions and I seem to say "amazing" and "you know" quite a lot! My voice was also a bit scratchy with the studio environment but there is; it was flattering to be asked to do it especially considering that the first guest the day before was Cherie Blair/Booth! It is also strange to me as a broadcaster to have someone else was only asking the questions but controlling all the nonsense which is! I have to admit that I like to be in control and deciding on the timings, etc. This experience was similar to when I've been on Radio Four in that the producers know that I can rabbit on to a particular time (especially important of course in a 'live' programme), so if they say: "Richard, we need you to stop talking at 56 minutes 42 seconds" then I start trying cramming in too many points and I'm keen to make and end up making them not very well! Overall, I think I'm happiest asking the questions.

But back to the Fourth of July and the USA. It was a joy this week to host a tour of the same radio station and to be able to show off Liverpool from 450 feet above sea level, to a professor and students from North Texas University, who are in the UK for a few weeks, visiting broadcast stations and hearing guest lectures. I had a chat with some of them over lunch and you can also hear that on my podcast page (apologies for the rather desperate-sounding 'plugs' for this!). Aside from broadcasting issues, we got talking about the differences between the American and British political systems. When I have conversations like this with Americans I do realise just how antiquated and indeed feudal is the British system. How an American president would love to have the powers exercised by our own dear Prime Minister in the use of the Royal Prerogative! The fact that s/he can choose ministers without any Parliamentary approval and put whoever he likes in the Upper House of Parliament, without any vetting process within Parliament - let alone by the voters; to declare war, sign treaties, and take away our ancient rights and liberties using the "elective dictatorship". With no constitutional or Supreme Court protection, British citizens – or, rather, Subjects - are just playthings of those in power.

How very different in the USA where Barack Obama spent months getting Congressional approval for his Cabinet members and where free speech is guaranteed and revered, as is Habeas Corpus and all those other rights that the Founding Fathers took from Britain and codified in the Constitution but which we have compromised to the point of destruction; that government really is made the servant of the people, rather than the other way round.

Of course, it is so easy to criticise America and goodness me plenty in Britain do indulge in this -- it is no more difficult than shooting fish in a barrel, particularly as America make such claims of itself. Yes, I know that the Republic was founded after one of the most brutal genocides in human history; that it was consolidated by white European settlers dragging another race in chains and then abusing and segregating them for decades even after the end of slavery; that it espouses values of freedom and democracy around the world and yet has cynically and violently undermined many such emerging and tentative democracies; that, despite the fact that it is the most prosperous nation on earth it still has millions of people, including children, who live in terrible poverty, and even middle-class families often have to choose between a medical operation for one of its members or a college education for one of the kids, that the consumerist, material society, which dominates almost all aspects of life (not least in broadcasting) is founded on the evil triplets of greed, envy and fear, and that, as all prejudices are based on ignorance and all aggression on fear, this feeds into very malign factors in its society.

Yes, yes, yes, all this and more is true. And yet and yet. As President Obama - the "mongrel" as he described himself and the "skinny kid with a funny name" said on his election victory speech: "this is the only country in the world in which my story is even possible." And ask yourself, which of all the countries in the world has the greatest number of wannabe citizens, who ride across perilous oceans, stowaway in trucks and ships, and otherwise vote with their feet? No, it's not nice, welfarist, social democratic countries like Sweden, it's the USA. And it surely can't be just accidental that it is the most prosperous country in the world. Yes, it has fabulous natural resources, but so do many other countries, many of which are economic basket cases, whose rulers build palaces for themselves while the rest of their people starve.

There are many aspects of American self - belief that the British and Europeans in general do not get. They also confuse their lack of cynicism and their seemingly indefatigable optimism, with naivety or even stupidity. It is not. And unlike many Europeans – infected with the 'zero sum' Socialist mentality that you can only give some people more by ensuring others have less - they don't despise other countries because of their belief that they are the most fortunate country in the world. When Americans stand and sing their national anthem or "America the Beautiful" with their hands on their hearts and their eyes shining, it isn't an aggressive patriotism. It especially isn't support for their government -- a lot of American fervour is due to their joy that they don't have a powerful government, that they are free to pursue their own beliefs, their own lives, their own talents, in the belief that "if a government is big enough to give you everything you need, it is big enough to take away everything you have."

It is the only country in the world that has the "right…to pursue happiness" in its Declaration of Independence for Britain, this day in 1776 and takes that right seriously, and has a national holiday called Thanksgiving Day – not one based on saints or military victories, but one which does indeed, offer thanks for living in freedom. Given their overwhelming economic and military power for much of the last century it is, to me, only surprising that they used or abused it so little and that they are so anxious about their reputation – most other Empires (not least Britain, when it was numero uno) would have trampled over many more countries and not given a stuff what other people thought.

And ask yourself, if there has to be one major power in the world -- and history suggests that there always will be -- who else would you rather held that position? I'm afraid it's unlikely to be, say, Denmark or Sweden, so the choice really is really between the corrupt, cynical, destructive and distinctly undemocratic block of the European Union (which to act in unison would in any case means sacrificing what we have left of our rights and independence as a nation state) China, Russia, India, possibly the UAE -- until the oil runs out -- or the USA. If I live to be an old man it is likely I will see China as top dog and that is not something I look forward to with anything other than alarm and despondency. China already has much of the West by the economic balls (and, as President Johnson said, in typically blunt fashion, "When you have 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds tend to follow") and it has by far the biggest army in the world. I think we might still need and be glad of America's preparedness to sacrifice its own cities for those in Europe and elsewhere. And if you think America is a problem when it engages in the world, then watch what happens if it retreats into splendid isolationism. The most dangerous time in my life was, I believe, when the USA was humiliated and lost self-confidence following its defeat in Vietnam in the mid-1970s. The world was safest and most secure when it was the sole superpower in the 1990s.

So, every time I enter the country, I mentally kiss the ground and tonight I shall be raising a toast to you America. And be glad once more that I was born in "the American century".