New year, new layout

Happy New Year everyone!

As you can see I've changed the template for this blog for the first time in many years. The old template was getting too narrow for some images and videos and also is harder to adjust these days.

I'm going to experiment a bit further with other ways to enhance the look of the blog so if you have any suggestions please feel free to leave them in the comments.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

When marriage was "redefined" (sic)

And he shall prick that annual blister,

Marriage with deceased wife's sister.

Have you heard about the time when civilisation collapsed because the restrictions on who could marry whom were relaxed? When marriage was "redefined"?

No, neither have I.

It was the social issue that raged throughout the Victorian era - could a widower marry his sister-in-law?

It had been restricted under the old Marriage Acts but then was fully outlawed under the 1835 Act. But almost immediately a movement sprang up to remove the restriction and allow widowers to marry their sisters-in-law. The reasons why they might wished to do so could vary considerably - at one end of society high levels of maternal mortality meant that in many working class households unmarried woman found themselves taking on the maternal role from their deceased sister. At the other end it was common for families without male-line heirs to pass property through marriage and if the first daughter died young then remarrying her widower to another daughter would preserve the arrangements and keep the property within her family.

(Julian Fellowes, if you're reading this, please do not use this as a plot for a future series of Downton Abbey.)

The debate lasted many years with the first bill to change the law being presented in Parliament in 1842. Thereafter the issue came back almost every year, sparking the above verse in Iolanthe. In part the opposition stemmed from the view that marriage isn't just the union of two individuals but of their families as well. But it also stemmed heavily from religious interpretations, with many arguing it was wrong to go against the traditional Church list of forbidden unions.

Sound familiar?

Many widowers found themselves in this position, but perhaps the grandest was Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, the widower of Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria. After his wife's death in 1878, there was hope of his marrying her younger sister Princess Beatrice. This led to the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) making a rare Royal intervention in the House of Lords when he gave support to the reform but it still failed to pass. The head of the Church of England described the opponents as "those bigots".

There were many further attempts that were blocked despite clear majorities in favour in the Commons, although the Lords was a stonier prospect. One such attempt fell in 1902 due to a filibuster by the "Hughligans", a ginger group of young Conservative MPs centred around Lord Hugh Cecil and including Winston Churchill. Notably at the time they were all bachelors.

Eventually the law was reformed by the passage of the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Act in 1907, although the equivalent provision for widows to marry their brothers-in-law wasn't passed until 1921. The Act was straightforward in allowing the marriages, but also made provision to allow individual clergy to decline to perform such marriages themselves (and enable them to allow another clergyman in the same diocese to perform them in their own church or chapel).

Does anyone now find the idea of a widower being able to marry his sister-in-law objectionable? Who actually argues about this issue at all? Has the institution of marriage suffered because of this change?

And this is hardly the only reform whereby marriage is defined differently by religion and civil law. Divorcees cannot get married in some churches and only with special dispensation in others, yet the law did not stop Camilla marrying Charles in a registry office.

Let's hope the next reform of the marriage laws doesn't take another sixty-five years.

Get down, America!

This Presidential election is boring.

Yes it's easy to say that from afar. But despite all the coverage and all I hear from friends and family in the States, I'm left with my strongest feeling being "So What?" about the contest and both the candidates. If only there was something truly out of the ordinary out there.

It wasn't always this way.

Back in 1976 the US was faced with an exciting choice of either four more years of Chevy Chase doing the same joke all the time or a fresh faced outsider who some thought would make everything better again. Or there was another campaign in fiction that actually garnered thousands of votes in real life.

For many people if they've heard of "Howard the Duck" at all it's just as the name of a movie they've heard whispers of as one of the worst films of all time. Some may have heard of the intellectual property battles over the character, both the attempt by creator Steve Gerber to secure the ownership of the character and Disney's complaints about his similar look to Donald, forcing him into trousers. (Of course now that Disney own Marvel and thus ultimately Howard this should not be an issue. Has the duck finally dropped his trousers?)

But beyond the worlds of rubbish movies and IP battles, Howard the Duck was so much more. In 1975 he received his own comic book series that rapidly became a strong cult favourite. The key to understanding the series is that it's an existentialist satire in which the difference between seriousness and silliness is just a point of view. In it a foul tempered talking duck from another dimension wanders through our world, exposing and commenting on the absurdities around him.

Whilst travelling from Cleveland to New York, Howard and his human friend Beverley Switzler take jobs at the All-Night Party convention. Soon Howard finds himself as the party nominee on a platform of straightforward, honest offensive talking. He rapidly attracts the assassins and smear merchants.

With the slogan "Get Down, America!" and a managed campaign that tries to avoid saying anything, Howard could have swept to victory. But then on polling day the papers fall for a hoax and print an appallingly composited picture that purports to show Howard and Beverley in the bath together. These were the days before widespread early voting and the Clintons so Howard's chances evaporated. Nevertheless in the real world thousands of voters found a fowl talker from another dimension a better prospect than Ford or Carter (I can't imagine why...) and wrote-in votes for the Duck. Imagine if so many had done so and he'd actually won electoral votes...

But now in 2012 we have a boredomfest inflicted upon the entire world. If the media could leave the election to the States it would be okay, but when it fills the news everywhere one can't but express a rather loud yawn.

Is it too late to suggest people write-in Howard the Duck once more?

Tipping may not be a place in China...

...but that doesn't mean it should be compulsory.

The other night I was in a restaurant where the food was good but the service less than spectacular. In particular the waitress was invisible at some key moments such as when my friend wanted an additional item which took forever to ask for and then to come, and then when we needed to settle the bill in a hurry, due to one of us having a train to catch. (Given the restaurant's location, that can hardly be a novel situation.)

So I was not exactly amused that when the waitress came back to collect payment she paused to circle wording on the bill stating "Service not included" and asked one of us to write in a final total on the paper bill, in spite of the card reader including a stage to add such a tip discretely. She then proceeded to compound her errors by handing first the reader and then the card to the wrong person even after we'd manually corrected this.

Because of this poor service and upfront pushiness we opted to add nothing to the card payment and left no cash tip. In this decision we were unanimous.

Service should always be included in the upfront price - that's basic consumer transparency and employee protection. Staff wages should never be random amounts at the whim of how customers feel at the end and tips should be a bonus reward for good service, not an automatic hidden fee. And substandard staff who push their luck deserve what they get (or rather don't).

In fact making staff rely on tips is illegal in this country. "Service not included" is a very misleading form of wording that takes advantage of the unsure and encourages presumptions on both sides that tips are automatic. It is perfectly legitimate to refuse to give a tip, especially when the service is not up to scratch. And if the serving staff decide to drop utterly unsubtle hints then they deserve it to backfire.

Flashback: Ghostwatch

Next month sees the twentieth anniversary of one of the most controversial and scary television broadcasts in the history of the BBC - Ghostwatch.

For those who never saw it or have forgotten, Ghostwatch appeared to be a real life investigation of supernatural reports at a London house, hosted by Michael Parkinson and Mike Smith, with on the scene investigations presented by Sarah Greene and Craig Charles. A phoneline was set up on the standard BBC number of the day (081 811 8181) for viewers to call on with their own tales of ghostly experiences. One of the calls played into the studio told of the horrific tale of a past resident of the house. Then at the end of the broadcast chaos erupted as it seemed a poltergeist had taken over the studio, ending with Parkinson possessed.

Written like that one could wonder how anyone could be taken in. But many thought what they saw was real. The resulting furore saw the BBC tape of the show confined to a forbidden vault for ten years and it has never been repeated.

Now yes the show opened with a Screen One logo - but who pays attention to such logos and remembers which denote fiction only? And of course many tuned in after the opening moments so would have missed both that and the "Written by" credit. There may have been a cast list in the Radio Times but not everyone had a copy or paid attention if they did. Yes anyone who called the number and got through heard a message stating it was fiction, but most didn't phone and for others the lines jammed. And finally there may have been a warning on Ceefax (I don't know if there was or not) but how many would have switched over to check that? Plus many television sets in children's bedrooms didn't have text.

But more fundamentally the whole concept of the "mockumentary", made as though it's a real live as it happens occurrence with the realism of video cameras instead of the film used for most dramas, was a very novel concept back then. Through in some real life big name presenters, who in those days just did not do that sort of thing, and an interactive set-up and it's easy to see why it convinced so many.

I don't think the same trick could be pulled today. The internet would make it much harder to pull off. Users of Twitter itself during the transmission may be only a minority of the audience but word would spread both before and during, undermining any planned shock. Forums and text messages would also play their part in spreading the truth of what would happen. And there'd be a greater likelihood of a row before transmission that could be picked up on by the media. So less of the audience would be likely to assume the events were real.

But at the time many assumed Ghostwatch was real. Perhaps we at first thought the family occupying the house were faking and the BBC had been taken in, but that view was dispersed by the turn of events. Watching it at the time it was easy to be taken in and many were. I doubt such a phenomenon will ever happen again.

For those who hated summer camps and the like...

Yesterday while channel surfing I came across a rerun of Addams Family Values. And the very best scene is available online:
The perfect antidote to all the patronising smarminess of helpers and plastic artificialness that many a child has endured at one holiday activity or another throughout the ages.

Humans *will* walk elsewhere again

Neil Armstrong has died. And many have wondered if the Space Race is a thing of the past. It's forty years since the last Moon landing. Missions to Mars get routinely predicted and put back further and further. Heck even science fiction set in the future keeps putting the date back in the hope of seeming realistic.

But I believe it will happen. One day we will return to the Moon. And we'll go further. We'll go to Mars. We'll go all over the Solar System. We'll go to Alpha Centauri. We'll even go to the Andromeda Galaxy and beyond. And not just to explore but to expand, live, work and play.

It may take a bit of time, but we'll get there eventually.

30.15 million did *not* watch EastEnders on Christmas Day 1986

Last night ITV ran TV's Biggest Blockbusters, looking at the most watched shows on British television in several categories. It was an interesting programme, particularly when it highlighted shows that are now completely forgotten (e.g. Oh No it's Selwyn Froggitt, Market in Honey Lane or Mrs Thursday) or showing which comedians were more popular - it's a shock to discover that Mike Yarwood got slightly more viewers than Morecambe and Wise at their height when you consider the coverage each has got since.

However they repeated at least one big error in compiling their list - the claim that on Christmas Day 1986 30.15 million watched EastEnders (and thus Den giving Angie divorce papers was the most watched drama of all time). This is repeating a common misunderstanding of how the viewing figures worked, and reflects the BBC boasting at the time.

The given figure actually combines the viewers on Christmas Day itself with those for the omnibus repeat the following Sunday. About 19.5 million actually watched on Christmas Day - still a very impressive figure but not as good for boasting and often the media (and TV's Biggest Blockbusters researchers) overlooked the distinction. This was despite the point being made at the time - Granada complained more than once when Coronation Street, which then didn't have a repeat, get more viewers than the first screening of EastEnders but the latter got written up as the "winner" of the ratings battle. It's a pity that these myths get trotted out all these years later.

What was the most watched drama of the 1980s? It was in fact a movie - the January 20th 1980 screening of Live and Let Die with 23.50 million viewers.

So how many of the other figures and chart places can be taken as accurate? It's hard to say because there are several problems with viewing figures, not least the lack of a single industry wide system before 1981 and ITV counting households rather than heads until 1977. There's a further problem that the recording systems haven't always been very good at catching crowd viewers in pubs, schools, workplaces, open air screens and the like and so the precise figures for some shows may be undercounted. This most obviously hits live events like sport and Royal Weddings, but further down the charts could also hit current affairs shows and documentaries that might attract group watching with special parties at people's homes or discussion groups. Discussing Question Time live with other viewers didn't begin with Twitter!

One of the best written intros to how figures have been calculated historically that I've seen is Corriepedia: Viewing Figures (and no, I've never been a Coronation Street fan). It also highlights that back in the 1960s and 1970s Christmas Day was often one of the worst days for soap viewing figures, and there was a period in the 1970s when Coronation Street would actually skip Christmas Day altogether! How times have changed.

And other than live events we'll probably never see such high viewing figures again. Not only are there far more channels now, but with many shows having multiple screenings in a week plus the growth of one hour later channels and programmes on demand, audiences are becoming ever more fagmented. Timeshifting through digital and video recorders is generally incorporated into the final viewing figures for a show but with so many other opportunities to watch a programme there isn't a huge audience all at once.

But there are still exceptions when an event is live. Invariably they're Royal events.

Bill Mantlo and health insurance

As long-time readers of this blog will know, I'm a bit of a comics buff. But today I don't want to talk about a particular comic but about a creator and the horrific situation he faced, not just twenty years ago but since then.

Bill Mantlo was one of those writers who frequently forgot the limitations of the medium and the titles he was given. Assigned to write Marvel Team-Up, a disposable series of one-off stories featuring Spider-Man and any old guest star he instead turned out some epic masterpieces. Assigned to Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, a second headline title for the character that just served to met a public demand he instead began crafting a distinctive direction and identity for the book, at times making it the best Spider-Man title on the market. Then there were licensed titles like The Micronauts and Rom: Spaceknight, both based on shortlived toys. Instead of churning out simplistic tales to just advertise the product Mantlo instead crafted incredible complex sagas that sold so well both books outlasted their toys by many years and set standards for other toy based books. And there was so much more - one estimate is that he wrote over five hundred issues and for nearly every single Marvel title. He didn't just craft fantasies but also sought to use his writing to explore very real and serious issues in a way few others did.

But on June 17 1992 Bill Mantlo was seriously injured in a hit and run accident. And unlike the comics there was no miracle cure, no happy ending. The story of his life is told in LifeHealthPro: Tragic Tale and it's not pleasant. It's a tale of where the focus of health insurance really is, and the damage that has upon not only on a patient's chances of recovery, but the wider damage it wreaks upon families. One of the most horrible points is when the insurance company brought in their own doctor to get a different report from the hospital's own staff. But the worst is that this is not an exceptional case or an example of the system not functioning the way it was planned. It was the system working as normal.

It's a terrifying insight into a world where profit margins are the primary determinant rather than basic humanitarian need. I hope we never go that way.