A comparison

Premise: I am not idolising the English media – it is plenty flawed too. But the Italian media… well, it’s in a class of it’s own. This particular coverage struck me.

The news: Felipe Massa fractures his skull at the qualifiers of the Hungarian GP when a suspension spring bores through his visor and into his face.

I’ll check print newspapers tomorrow morning, but here are the front pages of some websites.

Guardian

Times

Planet F1

BBC (one of four pictures, all fairly similar)

Gazzetta.it

Tasteful, no?

Edit: The guardian carried the picture of Massa’s face the next day in its Sport section, at page 5, and the whole original picture, which includes a great deal more, not zooming in on his face.

“It was my first kegging party Bobby!”

Bonus points if you guess where the quote is from. The  movie is on tv right now. RIGHT.NOW.

So, went to Zavidovici, Zenica, and back to Sarajevo. 5 interviews later, the impression that people say one thing and think another is even stronger. But, my head is exploding, so for now, no harrowing stories.

The 80s are my nightmare

And I slept in them last night. The old hotel I stayed in in Zenica was basically built in Technicolour. WEIRDEST. DREAMS. EVER.

 Had a shower in the morning, but for the first minute the water ran red.

There was a splatter on the wall next to the window. I’ll go with “light brown” to describe it. To be fair to the hotel, the elevator was quite fast, and the receptionist covers two floors faster on foot. Or there may have been two of them. I don’t know, its all a bit blurry.

Congratulations to all the people in York who graduated.

Ladies, Gentlemen, Doctors….

“Can we be Christian dad? Just for a day?”

Apparently, a common thing said by Muslim children to their parents on Christmas day, when they see the lights, decorations, fake snow etc. I’ve had two fathers tell me the same thing, and a third person confirm that its quite common.

Apparently, its a common thing now for Muslim families with young children to have Christmas trees in their homes. But they call them “New year’s trees” …

To Mostar tomorrow. Should be the most interesting city of all.

The quote was from Scary Movie. Ungh.

y =/= z

Premise: Z and Y are switched in the keyboards here. This maz show in some of my writing.

Interviews:

Some harrowing stories have come out from my round of interviews in and around Sarajevo. Some saz ethnicity and religion is not a big deal to them, they are peopel and that is all that matters.

Others have prejudices, but are willing to talk. But one family I interviewed has been completely ostracized bz its neighbourhood.

There is no Kumsiluk.

That is, the idea of all being able to sit around a table, drinking coffee and talking regardless of nationality or religion. Some say its because of the shift from socialism to capitalism (ish).

But one family living in the outskirts of Sarajevo said it was entirely down to religion. They fled their home during the war, the father headed into Sarajevo proper while the family sought refuge in Germany.  

By 96, their neighbourhood was for the majority Muslim. The people who occupied their house, being legally forced to leave, tore it to bits and left “15 kilos of human excrement” in the kitchen, according to them.

Now, when the father walks down the street and says “Dobardan” (good day), he says the reply is “We do not say that here. If you want to speak Serb, go away to Vukovar.”

The family has asked me to blur their faces and not give their names when I upload their interview, for their own safety.

“I do not accept the term ethnically cleansed”.

Within Sarajevo, I interviewed a Muslim, a Croat and a Serb who work together in a charity. They all said there are problems, but they themselves hold no prejudice towards any nationality or religion. They simply see people, and take them for that alone.

It’s an odd balance being struck here, if its a balance at all, and I cannot find a theme for my website, given the wide difference in opinion.

On a lighter note: The kid next to me is playing World of Warcraft.

Today, a lunch lady (I wrote that laidi the first time round) recognised I was Italian.  I asked a friend of mine how she did it: “Well, you have dark hair. And you are small. You’re Italian.”

It’s a sort of tradition that pretentious travellers come up with some bullshit philosophy on life as they contemplate their own meaningless existence during their trip. So here’s mine: When the cannonball of life meets the elephant of time, shit’s gonna go down.

Greetings from Sarajevo.

A quick summary. The interesting stuff comes further down.

Arrived in Sarajevo this afternoon and was immediately welcomed by the Bosnians here. One student I met hadn’t even asked me my name when he was convincing the university lunch ladies to fix me up with something to eat – half an hour after the canteen had closed. The soup was very good. Thanks Daniel.

For those that don’t know, I’m here interviewing survivors of the Yugoslav wars who moved out and then back in, asking them about the process of reconciliation with their formerly “enemy” neighbours and how difficult restarting a normal life is when you’re living next to people who, a year ago, probably wanted to kill you.

“The last person who interviewed me went away crying. Why do you want to interview me?”

That’s how a war veteran from the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina opened conversation with me. For the record, the journalist crying was a woman from Der Spiegel, so hardly a rookie.

Between that and the 3 coffees I’d had in quick succession (its the social drink as anywhere else in the world, but about three time stronger),  I was a little jittery.  He was imposing, leanly built with a rough beard and long, unkept hair, all pitch black with a streak of grey. His face rough and tanned, he smoked throughout the interview, only occasionally looking me in the eye. I convinced him to talk, and his story was amazing, even more so when I switched the camera off again.

“I call other war veterans, Serbs and Croats. We chat and have coffee.”

Mernin fought in Sarajevo throughout the war, was here for the entirety of the siege and fired against both Croats and Serbs. Now, he says, through his studies in the Scripture and teachings of his God, he has realised he needs to reconcile himself with the people he fought.

Despite tensions, he sits down, and makes others sit down, opposite of the former enemy, to talk about the other point of view. Personal stories to personalise the conflict, to make people see the other point of view. He drives up to the Repubblica Srpska sometimes, calls his one-time adversaries and they talk of the past, face it, digest it, understand it.

He says he has discussion groups with both young people and veterans in trying to build peace. “I try to build peace at all times, everywhere I go, even as I’m walking down the street”

And then I turned the camera off.

“What happens if the war starts again, as you’re sitting in a room with these opposition veterans?”

“I’d immediately pick up a weapon.”

This is what’s worrying, according to my translator Dejan. That despite all the good will and rebuilding, there is always an undercurrent of violence, and of jumping to arms before the other person does. “Thats why there’s a war here every 50 years. Welcome to the Balkans.”

My translator is called Dejan, and has also been extremely helpful with setting up contacts and interview. If I hit the ground running in Sarajevo, this guy has made me run even faster. I could be done with my interviews in two days time.

More tomorrow. Sarajevo is beautiful and I hope to have some pictures next time.

Back from the Beeb.

Have been quiet for a while, but mostly cos I’ve been keeping busy. Will come back with plenty more soon, and a few projects to talk about.

I normally don’t like to talk about what I’ve been doing (“Dear Diary, nobody apart from you understands me”), but I have just spent two days working in the BBC, and I think that may warrant a post or two. I will write more later, but here is a summary.

In 16 hours at the BBC I:

- Got a glimpse of how huge and shambolic it is

-  Found out too much about tickers and “straps”. These are tv terms.

- Had an argument with a “Head of something” about the worth of twitter. He called my opinion “cock”. “Total cock”, infact.

- Had the second-worst coffee of my life (the first one was also BBC-related)

- Took the piss out of the BBC in front of my boss and aforementioned head of something.

- Had the chance/temptation to completely end my career in any sort of media with a huge, massive bang. You know I didn’t take it because if I had, trust me, you would have heard about it.

- Got lost.

the answer is… Green.

What’s the question?

Anarchy gets the juice

Turns out, my more successful posts, and the only ones that have been referenced by other blogs, are the ones with the anarchy tag.

Might as well talk about it then. I will do more research, but here’s a quickie.

Definition

The online dictionary says the etymology of Anarchy is “anarkhos”, Greek for “without a ruler”. This can be interpreted in many ways, as it has, but my interpretation, and the one I think thinking anarchists abide to, is “without authority”.

This is far removed from the image of chaos and violence that most people think of when they hear the A-word. However, the havoc is not necessarily excluded.

Explanation

In modern society, the concept of authority carries with it the assumption that it can rarely be questioned. If someone is in a position of “authority”, then in theory they have earned it through experience and skill.

Or at least the meritocratic principles of our society would have us believe. The truth is far removed from that ideal, and I don’t need to conjure up examples of corruption and cronyism.

The people in authority have the power to make decisions, and to question or go against their authority is breaking the law. This is the crux of what my interpretation of anarchy proposes.

In a system “without authority” (or, to maybe be more precise, without “forced authority”), just because a group of people believe that one individual is the authority on a matter, this does not mean that contrasting and not following his or her decisions is breaking the law – nor will the person who decides to go against the grain chastised for it.

For example – One man does not think that the best way to manage his farm is to have caps on his stock, and thinks all fields should be used at the same time. In modern Britain, DEFRA would rain hell upon him, he would be fined and possibly his land removed: he is breaking the law.

In an authority-less society, he can simply do as he chooses.

If his actions result in the harm of others, then this group of others can choose to exclude him, or sanction him. But this is not codified, nor is it necessary. People can choose to “prosecute” (or persecute?) or not, in any way they deem fit, if they do at all. It is society that punishes the damage-making individual, not the law.

Failure

Naturally, the system has many pitfalls. For starters, it simply would not work in governments as big as modern ones, over landmasses even as small as Great Britain. But then, I am a fan of decentralisation, so if to make anarchy work we have to stop thinking of England and the USA, and start thinking about Leicester and Chicago, so be it. The shrinking of government, while full of problems, is not something I instinctively oppose.

Secondly, there is the problem of HOW society reacts to punish the damaging individuals. The law protects the crowd from the individual as much as it does the individual from the crowd.

And this is why, while I am an anarchist in my heart, my head realises that it is not for all environments, people and contexts. Simply put, to believe anarchy would work, one has to have a strong belief in the good of human nature, and I cannot reconcile my cynicism with this.

Anarchy is a fundamentally human, and optimistic, philosophy. While there are examples of it working, such as in central Spain during it’s civil war (according to Noam Chomksy), there are plenty of others where it is simply carnage: Rwanda in 1994 comes readily to mind.

You make your own luck

Bit of a discussion started off in class two days ago about what exactly luck is. The viewpoints:

Undefinable

- You attract luck towards you with your attitude. If you keep thinking positive, and intensely want something, you will bring good luck upon you. It is not predictable, nor definable.

One of the people who put this view forward referenced the book “The Power of the Subconcious Mind”, by Joseph Murphy. I haven’t read the book, but from the way this person described it, it seemed to be toeing the line between making your own luck and something akin to… karma? Cosmological currents?

- Statistics

The mathematician agreed with the idea that you’re more likely to be lucky if you maintain a positive attitude and work hard, but he saw it as a matter of statistics. Someone is going to get that job. Someone will win the lottery. In 1986, no-one died… It just a matter of numbers, not luck – it has to happen to someone. It is predictable -  the recipient of it isn’t, but the event itself surely is.

To me these seem two sides of the same coin (apt). Statistically, an event will happen. If it’s possible, given infinite time it will occur, let alone if its a scheduled event like  the extraction of lottery numbers or the employment of staff. This is the holistic, objective approach.

The same event seen from a subjective point of view is seen as luck – why me? Was it down to chance? Yes, but the actual event had to happen. Once again, as so much amateur philosophy, it boils down to semantics. Luck, to me anyway, is merely a perception of an objective truth.

And that is without even beginning to think about what constitutes luck. As a friend pointed out to me, before you debate whether luck is merely a statistic or an actual fortuitous event, you have to define what luck is, as one man’s luck might be another’s misfortune.

Anyone else got any ideas?

Oh, and wikipedia does a much better job of explaining all of this too.

British and Irish Lions 2009 comment

So here’s a stab at punditry on the B&I selection.

The theme that seems to be running through the squad is that of “solidity”. Eddie Butler from the Guardian says mcGeechan has gambled, but it would seem to me that the only gamble here is Keith Earls, the Munster utility back who did not figure in the 6 nations.

There were no “fitness” gambles made on a politics wages. Gavin Henson was not picked, and neither was Ryan Jones, despite being two of the bigger names in Home Nations rugby. Because they are unfit and have recently underperformed. In 2005, picking Jonny Wilkinson was considered to be a gamble by many observers, the pivot having been sidelined for a long period after the 2003 world cup final. He did not perform to his world standards.

The choice of o’Connell as captain also reflect this. There are more skilled players out there, for sure, and even more skilled locks – Wyn Jones comes to mind for sheer handling abilities.

However, the huge Munster man is a tried and true combination with o’Callaghan, and as a captain, offers a no-bullshit, no-compromise approach. As has been pointed out, o’Driscoll is ruthless on the pitch, but o’Connell is ruthless throughout.

The selection shows that they have chosen a “third way” (and here I agree with Butler) – there was never a chance to outsize the South Africans, especially in the back row, and its a good thing mcGeechan didn’t try. He picked a combination of power, prowess and subtle handling skills, as well as what can be seen as a fairly disciplined pack – Schalk Burger may be amongst the toughest tacklers in the game, but it will be a rare occasion when he will baffle an entire stadium with wit and guile, like Martyn Williams did this weekend with his try-scoring pass to Halfpenny.

Nor does the selection concede that the Springboks are bigger and reverse in the opposite direction, trying to out-champagne them.

For every mercurial runner (Williams, Halfpenny, Bowe), there are players solid in defence and straight-running in attack (Roberts, Kearney, Jones). The scrum-halves were clearly picked with size in mind, or Mike Blair would have had a look-in, and more sporadic/genius fly-halves such as Hook or Cipriani were excluded. Stuart Barnes says this equals lack of magic, but against the Springboks, magic equals a flattened 10 and backs starved for the ball. The sleek running is simply going to happen further out afield.

McGeechan knows that taking the team to either extreme of the Flare-Grunt spectrum would have been squashed by the Springboks, who can adapt to any kind of game plan. This selection mixes things up, with players able to see holes, and others to punch through them. Perhaps a “third way” will be seen as wishy-washy by others, but to this commentator the selection looks varied enough to yield results.

British and Irish Lions 2009

Seems not that much comment has been made about the B&I Lions rugby squad to tour South Africa this summer being announced earlier this afternoon. I might as well do the whole “my opinion matters” bit and offer some comment.

So the squad is as follows, with Paul o’Connell the 8th Irishman to captain the Lions and Ian mcGeechan to coach:

Full-backs: Lee Byrne (Wales), Rob Kearney (Ireland).

Wings: Shane Williams (Wales), Leigh Halfpenny (Wales), Ugo Moyne (England), Luke Fitzgerald (Ireland), Tommy Bowe (Ireland).

Centres: Tom Shanklin (Wales), Jamie Roberts (Wales), Brian O’Driscoll (Ireland), Keith Earls (Ireland), Riki Flutey (England).

Fly-halfs: Ronan O’Gara (Ireland), Stephen Jones (Wales).

Scrum-halfs: Mike Phillips (Wales), Harry Ellis (England), Tomas O’Leary (Ireland).

No8s: Jamie Heaslip (Ireland), Andy Powell (Wales).

Flankers: David Wallace (Ireland), Stephen Ferris (Ireland), Alan Quinlan (Ireland), Joe Worsley (England), Martyn Williams (Wales).

Locks: Alun-Wyn Jones (Wales), Paul O’Connell (Ireland, capt), Donncha O’Callaghan (Ireland), Simon Shaw (England), Nathan Hines (Scotland).

Props: Gethin Jenkins (Wales), Adam Jones (Wales), Andrew Sheridan (England), Phil Vickery (England), Euan Murray (Scotland).

Hookers: Jerry Flannery (Ireland), Lee Mears (England), Matthew Rees (Wales).

Comment will follow in next post