This is a true story, and it happened in a telecommunications company. It happened to me some time ago. My head still hurts when I think about it.

A secretary sends out one of those emails which tells everybody to update their own details on the company’s intranet. It is the usual kind of thing: type in your phone number, upload your photo, and basically let people know things that are meant to help your co-workers get in touch and, hence, do work with you. The secretary’s email contains simple instructions explaining how to logon and change your contact details. I decide it is a good idea to have my contact details listed, and that it should only take a couple of minutes, so I start following the instructions.

To begin with, I need to get a password so I can log on and change my details. This involves typing my email address into a login screen and clicking “forgotten password”, and then an email will be sent to me with a password so I can log on. I type my email address in the box. An error message flashes up. I email the webmaster person and tell her what I did and that I got an error. She emails me back and tells me that I should type my email address into the box and click “forgotten password”. I email back saying for a second time that I did that already. She checks the database and my email address is missing, so she types in the email address into the database and sends me an email to let me know what she did.

I type in my email address, and click “forgotten password”, as before. I get the same error message. I try again, just to be sure, and I get the error message once more. So I look at the intranet and see what it says about me. An email address has now been added to my listed details, but the email address is wrong. My name is mispelled in the email address. So I type in the email address per the incorrect spelling. This time, there is no error message. However, no automated email arrives in my email box either. I deduce, pretty obviously, that the automated email cannot arrive in my inbox because the email is being sent to the wrong address. I try again, just to ensure it was not a fluke; again there is no error message but no email either. I explain everything that I did in an email to the webmaster. I also explain that she should just retype my email address and everything will surely be resolved. She emails back and tells me to type my email address into the box and click “forgotten password”. I reply and explain, yet again, that I did that. I explain, again, that she must have mistyped my email address and if she would just retype my email address correctly everything would be sorted. She sends me an email asking me what my email address is.

I give up.

Brit film “Atonement” may have disappointed with its meagre haul from the Oscars, but I think I know one good reason why. There is something deeply creepy about the movie, in a Freudian kind of way. Ian McEwan’s story and the adaptation are fine enough. What I find creepy, and am surprised that other people do not see immediately, is just how alike the two leads, James McAvoy and Keira Knightley are. They have the same bone structure, the same physique, the same hair colouring… they could be twins. Their characters have a sexual relationship, but give McAvoy a close shave and scrub the make-up off Knightley and they could be mirror images of each other. They are both rather androgynous too - thin, flat chested, pale skinned - suggesting that beauty has become increasingly sexless. If McAvoy and Knightley are the future of movie stars, then perhaps evolution is trying to give us an early warning about the future of the sexes. Take another look at them side by side and see what you think.

Good mate Guy Dickinson posed an interesting question the other day. Or rather, he repeated a quote that purports to be a fact, and asked me to discuss it. The quote was:

“Radio’s really big in the UK. A few years ago, in terms of hours listened per week, it overtook TV.”

It does not matter where the quote comes from or what the evidence is for it. All that matters is that it got my gray matter spinning in an unusual direction.

The problem with engagement is that it is very difficult to measure. There is a big billboard that I see on my drive to work. I do not “look” at it, but I do see it… I see the adverts between television shows, and hear the adverts on the radio - am I watching them and listening to them or not? How much attention is enough? When should you “count” me as a listener? When am I paying enough attention to be counted as someone who is paying attention? Right now, in the background, a film is playing on my home screen. The actors are saying words which are audible above the music. Guy is sat to my left, browsing the web on his iPhone and telling me things he is reading. I am typing this. Which, if any, am I paying attention to, and when am I paying attention to them? All at the same time, or does my attention swap backwards and forwards between them? By the way, to be completely honest, I did interrupt typing this to look up at the screen when a snippet of a sex scene played out…

[Fact, the relevance of which will become clearer later on:] hypnotists find it easier to hypnotize intelligent people, because intelligent people tend to be able to concentrate harder.

[Other fact:] robins (the little bird so beloved on Christmas cards) supposedly see red vividly, hence the redbreast… but they do not have cognitive faculties to see the world like we see it.

[Other fact, and question:] sunflowers are aware of sunlight in some sense, because they respond to it… but in what sense are they aware?

[Other fact:] Leonardo Da Vinci reportedly could look at an object or scene for an instant, then reproduce it perfectly from memory.

Philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote about the subjective element of consciousness in his famous essay “What is it like to be a bat?” If his arguments are right (and I consider them to be very persuasive) then it follows it would be impossible to have a totally objective externalized measure of whether one kind of species is “paying attention” or not. A bat would pay attention to its environment in a different way to how I would. Constructing an argument about different species - bats and humans, for example - is a neat way of recruiting our knowledge of different animals to an argument about the subjective nature of experience. Bats hear the sounds reflected back from the walls and objects around them, giving a very accurate account of where they are. If I was in a dark cave, my attempts to navigate by whistling, then listening to the echo, would be unlikely to succeed! So my experience and the bat’s experience of the cave are very different. But may it not be the case that I have a different experience even to other people?

None of us can truly imagine what it is like to be a bat. We can only imagine what it would be like to be ourselves, although we might successfully imagine flapping around and screeching. We may not be able to imagine, with complete success, what it is to be another person. It may be that one person can “pay attention” to a degree that another person simply cannot. If Da Vinci’s powers are not exaggerated, then I do not believe I can concentrate in the way he did. We do not even have a yardstick for comparison - is the difference between me and Da Vinci greater or less than the difference between me and a robin, or me and a sunflower, or me and a severely mentally handicapped individual judged to have a reading age of four, or between me and an ordinary child of reading age fourteen…?

What we can measure, as Wittgenstein might have pointed out, is the exterior. According to Wittgenstein, the person’s subjective “interior”, like the contents of a box that can only be seen by that person, cannot be described to others because language relies on what people have in common. The subjective aspects of each person that serve to make them unique would hence be ineffable - incapable of being stated in words. To measure whether I pay attention, the question should hence be reduced to: “do I look like I am paying attention?” Are the external responses in sync with the stimuli that provoke them?

So what do we expect from someone listening to the radio, or TV or whatever? Presumably the best measures of attention would be (1) facial and bodily reactions that coincide with the content and (2) their memory of the events. Neither is a perfect measure, but the meaning of words is not perfect either, so that is not a reason for complaint.

This turns the question about the numbers listening to radio into something objectively testable: how many hours do people spend having the appropriate responses? As television includes a visual sensation, but radio is solely oral, there can never be a perfect comparison - television will prompt some responses, enable some memories and require some behavior that radio does not. But we may find an appropriate analogue for comparison of whether people paid attention.

Sadly, I doubt anyone has gathered any data on this. So the question cannot be reliably answered.

But the seeming absurdity of the argument so far brings the real point into relief. The measure itself is meaningless. What prompts debate is not whether people pay attention. People want to measure how many pay attention to mass media because they want something from them. They want to influence people, and to influence as many people as possible. The reason to measure numbers of people would be because the goal is to maximize influence. Influence might take many forms: increased sales, popularity, votes. But this only shows that the real point is missed totally by the measure as to whether people listen or not. I am open to influence, because I have an open mind. Very stupid people cannot be reliably influenced by clever arguments they do not understand. I cannot be influenced by information presented in Urdu, because I do not understand that language. Some people are only influenced by what happens to immediately make their lives easier and more pleasant. So influence is specific to the individual, and not something measurable for a mass medium at all. The sun influences the sunflower, redbreasts the robin… we consider them simple because of the mechanically reliable nature of influence in their cases. Humans are interesting and complicated - they cannot be so reliably influenced.

A number of listeners may be one measure, but not a very interesting one. Suppose none of the listeners could be persuaded to buy a product promoted by an advert - then it hardly matters how many listeners there are. Spammers work by sending adverts to huge numbers of people, at no cost and on the assumption that a tiny proportion will respond. It hardly matters that most recipients hate and despise the spam they get. All that spammers care about is the number who do respond, which presumably is enough to justify their actions, at least to themselves. The same is true when selling a product or electioneering. What matters is not just the raw numbers of listeners, but the extent to which those people are pliable.

I would argue that when we use the word “human” we mean a species that we expect to exhibit individuality in a way not expected from animals. The word “human” gets its meaning in part by contrast to the word “animal”, and also to the word “machine”. The more individual we are, the more human we are. In contrast, the more standardized we are, and the more standardized the measures we comply with, the less human we are. Standardization is a way of removing our liberties, and of oppressing people. The irony with mass media is that it offers choice, but also seeks to identify and manipulate what we have in common, in order to influence us to act the same. If successful, we become a little less human, a little more like animals, or machines. We push the buttons to choose the channel, but the suppliers of media push the buttons to control our choices… My recommendation is that you avoid being measured by being ineffable. If you cannot control what you cannot measure, then it is best for a person not to be measured.

In the 1960’s and 70’s Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner performed a series of comedy interviews, often ad-libbed, with Mel playing the part of a 2000 year old man. In one interview, Reiner asks which country the 2000 year old man is from…

B: We weren’t nations, we was caves. I lived in Cave 76, a roomy cave with southern exposure and an unobstructed view of Cave 75. Back then a cave was important. It went beyond shelter. It was part of your identity. Every cave was like its own individual nation. We had our own flags and our own anthems.

R: Do you remember your cave’s anthem?

B: Of course! You don’t forget a national anthem in a minute. I’ll never forget ours. My mother wrote it. It had such passion and pride.

R: Could you sing it for us?

B: Sure. (sings:) “Let ‘em all go to hell… except Cave 76!”

The real cavemen may not have composed anthems, but they did paint on the walls.





This painting of a horse is from Lascaux in France. The funny thing about drawings like these is that they are often found in the most inaccessible caves. This suggests they were not for public display. Some theories think that the drawings were made by shamen, who retreated to the darkest caves, entered a trance, and painted their visions.


Having caught the blogging bug, I cannot help but notice how many people have launched their own blogs, and not just people with time on their hands. People blogging about their cats, hats and favourite bathmats is fine with me. The subject matter may not interest me, but that kind of blogger must have no illusions that their blog is anything more than a bit of fun for themselves, friends and family. Then there are blogs about the internet, computing, technology… it is pretty understandable that people into the internet will use the internet to communicate about the internet. The group that troubles me is the wannabe celebrity, or the person of substance, or the actual celebrity that uses the blog as a way to augment their fame or reach. There are some surprising people at it. Executives do it for the benefit of their employees. Rock stars do it. Even the CEO of the Institute of Chartered Accountants does it. The motivation seems to be that the blog is the internet equivalent of newspapers, television and radio - a communication tool designed to reach many people. But whilst their blogs can reach many people, your neighbour’s blog about her cat is just as accessible. So why would the elite, the semi-elite and the demi-semi-elite post their musings to the great leveller, where the thoughts of kings and commoners are equally likely to garner love and contempt?


It is impossible to know for sure why anyone does anything, but my guess is that blogging by the semi-elite (or rather the ghost writing of their blogs because of a certain lack of time/humility/imagination/writing skills) is a fashion that will fade. It offers the promise of strengthening an audience, a following… whatever motivates the semi-elite to climb up the their elitist ladder. But it is also a tedious chore. You have to write something on a regular basis. Because the aim is popularity, it has to encourage people to like you. And it has to say nothing that might make people like you less. In other words, you have to write a lot of things that are both bland and interesting at the same time. Guess what? It cannot be easily done. Pretty soon after most of these blogs start, you can see them tail off. The first post is the “first post” where the author desperately explains why they started blogging, without really admitting that it was born out of vanity. A few posts later and the rot sets in… the author is bored, and short of ideas and the posts get more and more sporadic. Eventually they stop altogether. The only reason they keep going as long as they do is to avoid the embarrassment of the blog’s early demise. You can sense the disappointment as the blogger realizes that what started as a mild curiosity not only failed to grab the attention of the majority, it no longer even holds the interest of the minority. So where did they go wrong?


The problem with popularity is that not many people can be that popular, just like not every tune can be an anthem. A few simple messages may strike a chord with the mass, which is why Brooks’ message of “let ‘em all go to hell” is not only funny but an apposite criticism of nationalism. For creative works to stand out from the crowd, they must be special. Their specialness may be because they are unique. Just as often, a creative work that seems little different to many others is arbitrarily selected for promotion. For example, national anthems tend not to be remarkable songs. They are special because they get selected, and they get selected because they are not remarkable. National anthems are the equivalent of the winners of Pop Idol and Big Brother; they represent an idealized version of ourselves (or at least of the people who care about such things).


Individual blog posts are not special but they may be unique. They are a stream of consciousness. They are like waking dreams, produced in a trance. They reflect the rich inner life of the blogger, not the superficial outer life of society. Blog writing is inspired by the darkness of the cave, not the bright lights of the stage. Only by accumulation over time does the blog become a work of meaning and substance. The writing of a blog comes from compulsion, like the shaman’s need to capture his visions. Compulsion may take many forms, but its direction is determined by the source, not from an ulterior aim. I am compulsive too, which is why I believe this blog will last. This is my inner life, to be suitably logged, blogged and scrawled on the walls of my virtual cave. It can be accessed by those willing to find it, but none of its content aspires to popularity. These are halfthoughts. They represent the waking dream that is a life. Perhaps none of these posts will ever mean that much, but perhaps, when strung together, they make for a work in progress. Much in the way that life is a work in progress. Feel free to come back and see how it progresses, if you like.