Ged Carroll

Category: culture | 文明 | 미디어와 예술 | 人文

Culture was the central point of my reason to start this blog. I thought that there was so much to explore in Asian culture to try and understand the future.

Initially my interest was focused very much on Japan and Hong Kong. It’s ironic that before the Japanese government’s ‘Cool Japan’ initiative there was much more content out there about what was happening in Japan. Great and really missed publications like the Japan Trends blog and Ping magazine.

Hong Kong’s film industry had past its peak in the mid 1990s, but was still doing interesting stuff and the city was a great place to synthesise both eastern and western ideas to make them its own. Hong Kong because its so densely populated has served as a laboratory of sorts for the mobile industry.

Way before there was Uber Eats or Food Panda, Hong Kongers would send their order over WhatsApp before going over to pay for and pick up their food. Even my local McDonalds used to have a WhatsApp number that they gave out to regular customers. All of this worked because Hong Kong was a higher trust society than the UK or China. In many respects in terms of trust, its more like Japan.

Korea quickly became a country of interest as I caught the ‘Korean wave’ or hallyu on its way up. I also have discussed Chinese culture and how it has synthesised other cultures.

More recently, aspect of Chinese culture that I have covered has taken a darker turn due to a number of factors.

  • Jarhead by Anthony Swofford & other books

    I have been reading a number of books over the past few weeks, first up is Jarhead. This is the memoir of a marine sniper turned English teacher and his recollections from serving during the first Gulf War. Jarhead is well written and painfully honest.

    Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead exposes the tedium and the base attraction of war from viewpoint of an educated grunt. Highlights include Swofford’s disgust and realisation at being billeted in barracks that were built years before in preparation for American soldiers to fight for Saudi oil and then lain empty waiting for him.

    Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn is a classic chambara tale of honour, love, duty, retribution, sacrifice and revenge with a side dish of court politics. Hearn’s academic background and love of Japanese culture shines through the copy on every page. Part one of a trilogy, I will be certainly looking out for the next two books.

    The nightingale floor of the title is a specially constructed timber floor common in medieval Japanese castles that were designed so that it could not be walked on without creating some noise. Providing the castle dwellers with a type of zoned burglar alarm whilst they slept. Getting to an important person in the castle would require a Mission Impossible type plan, hence the almost supernatural skills and training afforded the ninja clans.

    I was attracted on a whim to the title of Bangkok 8 because of a colleague of mine Lucy was leaving to go travelling in Thailand. That choice was serendipitous. John Burdett’s book was a pleasant surprise, part murder mystery, part travel guide and reflection on Buddhism. The story centres around the death of a policeman and a foreigner in Bangkok. It unfolds in front of you, in an intelligent yet light read. Burdett has a good understanding of East and Southeast Asia, having worked as a lawyer based out of Hong Kong for a number of years. His knowledge and love for the region shines through in his prose.  More book reviews here.

  • Be nice to myself

    I received an email from my old partner- in-crime Si. I don’t know where he got ‘Be nice to myself’ and ‘I love every body’.  They sound like how a good Saturday nights in a club feels. Enjoy.

    From:

    To: ged carroll

    Date: Sun Jul 11, 2004 03:42:24 PM BST

    Subject: couldn’t have said it better myself……..

    Remind Me To Be Nice To Myself

    Tower block rises majestically above the picturesque plains, and ever-so-gentle rolling hills of Stepney and Poplar, Bethnal Green and BOW. Bears silent witness to the daily trials and tribulations of the noble plains-people of these ancient provinces.

    By the way, remind me to be nice to myself.

    Tower block by night. It has very bright white lights attached to its top surfaces as a security measure, I can’t imagine what against. These lights, they are wonderful, they serve to illuminate this monument to pointlessness.

    Yes, the night time’s the best time:

    The wind blows furtively, drives the rain irregularly against the windows.

    And all the time the short-wave drones. Beautiful isolation – hermetically sealed surrealism at tow hundred and fifty feet.

    By the way, remind me to be nice to myself.

    There’s a girl lives next door, been to India. She’s an American Swedish hippy at a bus station in Northern Holland sort of a person- vaguely opiate-like – Yeah! Sometimes I scream to her, From my nineteenth floor balcony:

    “I will not continuously qualify and justify what I say”.

    I smile benignly – return to my flat, imagine her demurely murmuring: “Don’t patronised me”. I feel, we’re both happy with this arrangement, as it’s cordiale enough without threatening our own individual, desperate loneliness with any degree of intimacy.

    By the way, remind me to be nice to myself.

    Tower block, external symbol of our inner desolation a scenario so bleak, it brings a tear to your eye. A nostalgic, sentimental tear, as if in vague subliminal remembrance of a barren airless landscape of a different planet,

    one million years ago. Tower block, Oh ancient timeless representative of all that is meaningful, oh nearer my God to thee.

    By the way, remind me to be nice to myself.

    I LOVE EVERY BODY

    And now the buildings change. Now the people change. Everything changing.

    Spirit and matter most apparent. Realised there never was anything to worry about, to doubt was insane. The limited, callow individuals living on housing estates in Chingford, Large detached houses in Kew Tower blocks on the Tottenham marshes, Become my gods. I see an accounts clerk from Tooting: I see Zeus. A sanitary inspector from the London Borough of Haringay, And Brahmin stands resplendent before me.

    For five minutes I love everybody. There is only love. All action ceases.

    The Mile End Road, once a blood-stained battleground of Bacchanalian excess, becomes the Garden of Gethsemane. A bitter, 72-year old ex-docker becomes the ever-compassionate Buddha. A Cypriot minicab driver becomes St Francis of Assissi. The 22-year-old Glaswegian checkout girl IS the divine mother.

    I love everybody. My spirit is free.

    I am limitless in space, time and matter, Simultaneously the planet Neptune, part of the structural support to Vauxhall Bridge. I am your left breast, I am Stepney, I am Peru, I am divine and so are you.

    I love everybody.

    I am nothing except a mere cluster of notes, a road sign in Skelmersdale.

    I ran the Roman Empire. I was a lavatory attendant in Hull. I am everybody and everybody is me. Spirit.

    Who put the spirit in matter? LOVE More related posts here. Si left us in the summer of 2016.

  • State of the Union

    State of the Union seems to be BBC Radio 4’s way of replacing the late Alistair Cooke’s Letters From America. Replacing Letters from America is a really tough role to fill. State of the Union has got really big shoes to fill.

    The 15-minute slot from 20h50 – 21h00 on a Friday and repeated from 08h50 – 09h00 on a Sunday is hosted by a different American journalist each week. You can have a listen here. I was a relatively recent convert to Alistair Cooke; but the short time that I experienced his programmes immediately made me realise what I had missed out on. Cooke was an institution and a relic of when Britishness meant life as a character in an Agatha Christie novel and acting like Cole Porter show tunes were still all the rage. State of the Union is very now, and a good way of ensuring that the presenter doesn’t get unfavourably compared to Mr Cooke’s legacy. It won’t be cult listening, but listenable all the same.

    The BBC’s own spiel: In this US election year, a new series, State of the Union tells the stories that define the American nation. Drawn from the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts, the deep South and the mid-West heartland, each week a distinctive American broadcasting voice reflects on everyday America.

    The first one was done by Betty DeRamus, a Pulitizer prize winning columnist from the Detroit News. State of the Union will continue until November. It will be followed by Letter, first-person reports from Beijing, Delhi, Johannesburg, etc, which already goes out on the World Service at 05h30 on Sundays. More related content here.

  • Spray can revolution

    If you live in London or have been to Shoreditch you’ve probably came across the spray can stencilled graffiti art of Banksy. Talent, anger, political statement and a black sense of humour via Andy Warhol to create provocative stencil art.

    In the interest of spreading spray can derived revoluton here is Banksy’s guide to creating creative grafitti:

    A guide to cutting stencils- First off, stencil anything. If you wait for the perfect idea you will be waiting for ever. Cleverness is never as entertaining as blatant stupidity, failure and public humiliation

    • Obtain a fucking sharp knife. Blunt knives result in fluffy pictures and make the whole process long and boring. Snap off blades of British steel are best.
    • Draw your artwork on paper, glue onto some card then cut straight through the both. Acetate is apparently quite good but any sort of free cardboard is okay. Stiff 1mm to 1.5mm board is ideal.
    • Get a small roll of gaffa tape, pre-tear small strips and stick them on your shirt inside your coat.
    • Find a suitable piece of card to act as a folder. For instance when using red paint cut the stencil into the bottom of a pizza box so when you get paint all over your fingers its not so suspicious.
    • Leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.
    • Spray the paint sparingly onto the stencil from a distance of 8 inches.
    • If you’re in a place with lots of security cameras wear a hood, move around the city quickly and act like a sad old drunk if you attract attention.
    • Be aware that going on a major mission totally drunk out of your head will result in some truly spectacular artwork and at least one night in the cells.
    • When explaining yourself to the Police its worth being as reasonable as possible. Graffiti writers are not real villains. I am always reminded of this by real villains who consider the idea of breaking in someplace, not stealing anything and then leaving behind a painting of your name in four foot high letters the most retarded thing they ever heard of.
    • Remember crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.
    • The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Any fame is a bi-product of making something that means something. You don’t go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit.

    This reminded me a lot of the golden rules we used to have whilst fly posting for events. More related content here.

  • Barcode turns 30

    The Boston Globe online has a mildly interesting article about the UPC (universal product code) or barcode that graces all our groceries. They give a potted history of the code and mention the various urban myths that rose around it including:

    • Some considered that the barcode represented the Anti-Christ
    • Others considered that the barcode was a corporate plot against consumers (though the lack of technology before the bar code had not stopped collusion).

    The article goes on about the inventory savings items, but neglects to mention other add-ons that came out of it including:

    • Near-real time sales data, which could be datamined for purchase paterns, this allowed Walmart to famously increase beer sales by putting a six pack and nappies (US Eng: diapers) together for stressed fathers
    • Increasing the power of retailers who can provide research companies and suppliers with data on product sales faster, fattening the coffers of AC Neilsen
    • Dramatically altered store design by being able to trial changes in layout or promotion and see the results through the tills, this was as dramatic as the spreadsheet allowing senior business folk to run what if scenarios
    • Loyalty cards, when you can analyse purchase patterns and inventories, match them both together to decide how to influence consumer behaviour

    A less documented feature of the barcode is that it revolutionised kick-backs for music shop workers. Record labels have been hot beds of interesting accounting practices at the best of times, which is why these practices could happen. When I DJ’ed far more (and had more time); I used to hang with a number of record shop assistants who worked in ‘chart shops’.

    Being a DJ meant tapping into a number of sources. I was signed up to promo agencies for white labels, but that wasn’t that great and a lot of the quality was pretty awful.

    I was also connected to the specialist shops for my imports, promos that I didn’t have access to and underground vinyl.

    The small chart shops was where I got some of the best British dance music cuts. The smaller independent chart shops got a lot of support from the major labels:

    • Cheaper records to sell on to the public
    • Items often arrived in their stores first, before the big chains
    • Exclusive access to limited edition remix records
    • Instore band signings (again often at the expense of big chains like HMV)
    • Promotional record label items: jackets, bags, gig tickets, artwork
    • One high selling record for free with every two hype items they put through the scanner (note that I did not say sell)

    I used to occasionally drive with friends to Fox’s Records in Doncaster, one of the largest chart shores. Closer to home I had a good relationship with Jez and Tony who used to run Penny Lane Birkenhead. Tony had been with the firm for time and had risen to be the store manager at this branch. Tony was a seasoned ligger. His assistant, Jez was a quiet dreadlocked skater kid who used to work in a secondhand dance vinyl shop in the Palace – at that time a trendy shopping complex on Wood Street in central Liverpool.

    This barcode revolution did not happen overnight, I still remember being in primary school in Liverpool and seeing sticky price tags and the guns being used in the local Tesco and Asda supermarkets. Bargain bucket department story chain TJ Hughes, only implemented a stock management system utilising bar codes less than five years ago after new owners discovered stock in their warehouses that may have been over ten years old. The local supermarket to my Uncle living in rural Western Ireland still uses sticky price labels with no barcode scanner in sight, a nod to our modern times came when the labels changed colour from white to fluorescent yellow. More related content can be found here.