The Apprentice

I'm really looking forward to Wednesday's first episode of what is the only TV show that I enjoy at the mo (apart from Newsnight and Question Time, obviously!). And just as I fruitlessly apply to be in the audience of Question Time whenever I hear that it is going to be within hailing distance (and I count both Edinburgh and Birmingham as being within shouting distance of Lancaster), so I was also disappointed to learn that my application to be on The Apprentice this year was unsuccessful.

The thing that strikes me from browsing through the website is that I am certainly not that much less qualified than any of this year's contestants. Furthermore, as a sometime fan of the genre, I think that appearing on The Apprentice would be an enjoyable way to spend 3 months - living in a pleasant London mansion, taking part in engaging tasks every week and at least minor celebrity status to look forward to when I'm done. However, last night there was a documentary about last year's winner Tim, who as part of his 'prize' was assigned the role of trying to market useless Amstrad electronic tat to a sceptical public. I can't think of anyone I know who would fall for his 'electronic skin stimulation' scam, and quite frankly the criticism he comes in for from Sir Alan Sugar for failing to sell millions of units was unjustified. I can't think of a successful Amstrad product since the CPC 6128 which I used to play computer games when I was about eight years old.

Actually, I think that Sir Alan made the wrong choice in last year's series - if he really wanted someone to sell this useless equipment in bulk he should have chosen natural salesperson Saira as the winner. Tim seems a good natured, talented bloke but I think that the real reason that he was chosen is because he played the 'reality TV' game really well - that is to keep quiet in the early rounds, don't start arguments and generally keep your powder dry. Furthermore, Sir Alan probably saw something of himself in Tim's East End roots. This is a problem that worries me about recruitment - for all the objective tests and assessments, I think recruiters generally choose people with whom they most readily identify. This is why my heart sank when I arrived at an interview to find a panel of ladies from human resources awaiting me (why are all HR people female?). Not that I'm a chauvanist, just that since they were all from a non-technical background I didn't think that we all related that well. Though maybe I'm just paranoid and deluded... :-)

We are deranged

OK, now I'll wind back to last Thursday, where at approximately 4pm I am wandering around the Tate Modern, one of my favourite places in London, waiting to meet a friend at 5. I'd been at a Civil Service open day, and was also feeling worse for wear from the night before. All of the galleries at the Tate have recently been re-hung, and there are several darkened off rooms, with lots of chairs, that show experimental videos. I thought that such a room would be an ideal place to have a quick sleep.

Settling into one of the chairs, I found that my chosen piece of video art was not a relaxing array of rainforest scenes or waves crashing against the shore but a disturbing sequence of dusty hotel rooms, through which almost expressionless men and ladies walked with fixed expressions, ocassionally stopping to throw coats onto the floor, tie people up or adjust their clothing. What I found most unsettling however, was the creepy voiceover, parts of which are still stuck in my mind (I found the rest through a Google search, the piece is called Dictio pii by Markus Schinwald):

(man's voice) We are the perfume of corridors,
unfamiliarised with isolated activity,
traitors of privacy, utopian craftsmen,
pretty beggers not the product of poverty.
(lady's voice) We are pillared by mild sadness and polymorphic history,
eternally sceptical but we believe.
We are illiterates of perfection
We are deranged

It might not sound all that unsettling in black and white, but maybe it just did to me, in my tired state. The dialogue repeats many times over untill it becomes trance inducing, and I certainly wasn't put in the intended nice relaxed mood at all. Also what was interesting is that I've noticed that normally with these kinds of audio/visual installations people walk into the room for a minute or two, decide that they've seen enough and then leave. But I was watching the sequence for maybe twenty minutes, and by the time it was finished the room was packed full with perhaps thirty people, all similarly transfixed. Still wasn't sure what it was all about, though. I really want to know where I can buy it on DVD, to maybe freak people out!

... and he's back! (with a politics rant)

Well, well I think the sizeable gap between weblog postings goes to show that I am not organised enough to both hold down employment of any kind and still find the time to do anything creative. It's too much hard work... still, I have been made aware that there at least four people who loyally check by at regular intervals in hope of fresh tidings, so I thought that I would surprise them.

Anywayz, over the last month or so I have been engaged on various projects which may or may not improve my lot, and I will be reflecting on these in imminent future postings. Right now, however, I shall be whinging on the subject of ID Cards.

As people may know, I have a proud history of fruitlessly campaigning for or against various issues which have included university tuition fees, war on Iraq and global poverty. Modest aims, then. But the whole ID card debate has entirely passed me by, and so now the whole issue has all been sewn up and is safely on the statute books before I've even had the chance to wave a placard in anger. I had to read The Guardian all the way from cover to cover to calm down.

But I don't just object to things because I enjoy going on protests (though that is a factor). My objections in this case are several-fold:

1. The CPS use a lovely great Oracle database called COMPASS to keep a record all past state prosecutions in the country. If the database did not only contain easy to search information about prosecution cases (the purpose for which it was designed), but also debt ratings, education and medical records and even mobile phone and vehicular GPS tracking information I'm sure there would be no end to the fun and games I could have looking up people that I know. I can't assume that everyone who uses databases is as conscientious as me, and even if they were, they could still accidentally end up using personal information in a database inappropriately, that is for reasons other than for that which it was collected. When you have all the info you need in a nice big database it is all to easy to cut corners and save time. The standard reply is that 'if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear'. But I have everything to fear about incompetent officials let loose on their Windows PCs. The technology to track citizens fairly accurately through their mobile phones, for instance, is here already and I can see the day where me and my mobile phone being in the wrong place at the wrong time could automatically make me a suspect and needlessly disrupt my life. Whereas the actual villain will have had the foresight to leave his phone at home on the day of the crime, thus creating an alibi and throwing the police off track. As the Information Commissioner says 'The primary aim of the government with this legislation should be to establish a scheme which allows people to reliably identify themselves rather than one which enhances its ability to identify and record what its citizens do in their lives.'
2. The government claims that the ID cards (and its associated database) will cut down benefit fraud by eliminating multiple identities. But doesn't every person in the UK have a unique National Insurance number for this very reason? I know that some people are assigned 'temporary NI numbers' but this is just because the Inland Revenue are slack.
3. Nobody even tries to claim that ID cards will be a cost-effective way to fight terrorism anymore. The London Transport bombers were carrying excellent, comprehensive ID but quite frankly it didn't stop them that much.
   
4. Most of all, I am consistently losing my wallet, debit cards, keys, whatever. New keys cost about ten pounds from the key cutters. New debit cards are free. The government has proclaimed that a new ID card passport will cost £93 - a suspiciously precise figure that was probably made up on the spot, in an effort to sound authentic. I predict that it will be way, way more than that (as do the LSE, who expect it to be closer to £300), so that everytime I lose my ID card (probably about 3 or 4 times a year), I will have to shell out for a new one. I don't need another thing to lose in my life. Particularly something that I am expected to keep on my person at all times.

With this in mind, I was pleased to see that, in a concession, the new cards will not be compulsory. However, it will not be possible to apply for a British passport without also applying for a card (they will be one and the same document). This means that if I maintain my protest I will never be able to leave the country again. Unless I use my Australian passport. Then I could leave, but maybe not come back... hmmm.