informage

(from Tom Tomorrow)

Well it hasn't quite gone yet, but the indications are that the island nation of Tuvalu (home of the .tv Internet domain) is gradually being consumed by the Pacific Ocean.

I don't usually feel called to write film reviews because those I lookup post-viewing tend to fulfill my need to absorb a deeper analysis, with Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian being my usual favourite. However all the reviews of Good Bye Lenin! that I've read seem to have missed the point; or at least the point that got communicated to me. (Incidentally I also don't write reviews because I have a bad habit of appreciating most films, and criticism with sparsely bestowed praise is apparently more credible).

(Note: spoilers follow, I recommend watching the movie before reading my review)

"They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years and hell, we're not using it anymore."

I haven't posted anything about the Tsunami in Asia, because I haven't had anything to write. I haven't even known what to say or think. Up until today I felt quite removed from it, feeling that it was a horror I should really feel, but not having access to any feelings. Today I received a personal account from my friend Adrian Frielinghaus, who was holidaying in Thailand en route to Hong Kong to study. I didn't actually know he had been there, which made reading this all the more impactful. Anyway I felt that his account, understated as it is, should be preserved.

There's been a war of words going on for some time about the value, or lack of it, of Wikipedia. Tim Bray's writings on the subject do a great job of summing up the arguments, and I'm with Tim all the way. Wikipedia has become my first port of call when I'm looking for data, and only if what's there isn't satisfactory, I look elsewhere. Of course, as with any summarising secondary source, I'm well aware that when it really matters I need to go further in my research.

One huge benefit of Wikipedia that I haven't really seen mentioned is the availability of metaknowledge. What I mean by that is that every page has 'discussion' and 'history' buttons so that beyond the 'finished' article I can see how the article has evolved over time, and what discussions have led to that evolution. In fact I've now taken to looking at the discussion page for most articles I read allowing me to instantly take the temperature of the intellectual environment around a topic.

I recently read a couple of engaging blogs, both of which can (and possibly should) be read as a contiguous whole, something with which to while away those mundane back-to-work January afternoons.

First, Bob Harris went on a mid-life crisis journey around the world and wrote about it. He has some fascinating insights as a progressive American on the move. For obvious reasons I particularly liked the stuff on South Africa - although I don't agree with every word. Bob Harris did some stand-in writing on Tom Tomorrow's blog.

Second is she's a flight risk by Isabella V, international fugitive. I first saw this just after she started somewhere around a year ago, and was reminded of it by Jamie Zawinski. It's a fascinating story of a rich heiress one the run from her powerful family, hacking into wireless nets with her Linux-running laptop, hanging out with smugglers on tropical islands and just generally living a life less ordinary. One can't help but have doubts about the veracity of the whole thing, but apparently an Esquire journalist has met her for what that's worth.

(Jamie Zawinski - or jwz as he's known - is a bit of a geek legend, one of the early Netscape developers who now runs a nightclub in San Francisco. His blog is a fairly continuous stream of links to web exotica).

A few weeks ago I wrote a piece that began "I was brought up by a Feminist and a Marxist". That's actually a very crude simplification of the complex drama that was my childhood. Inevitably one of the key players was upset: my stepfather Mick felt that he'd been edited out of the script of my life. After writing that sentence it did cross my mind that Mick might appear to be omitted but I decided, as he had also at times identified himself as a Marxist, that he was covered. He of course doesn't feel that way. In actual fact I was brought up by a whole gamut of people, including my mother Hilary above all others, my father Martin for a few years at the beginning and intermittently thereon, my grandfather Arthur until his death when I was fifteen, my stepfather Mick from the age of nine or so onwards, my grandmother Inez and all the other myriad adults who impacted upon the person I have become.

At first I justified my simplified account as deliberately archetypal; to be read as a personal fiction rather than literal fact-telling. For example, there's also much more subtlety and complexity to my mother than just 'Feminist' and my feminist influences came from several sources besides her. Whilst talking this through with Mick I realised there was something else at work: a deliberate duplicity that I have learned to adopt in conversation to avoid getting bogged down, or even embarassed, by my quagmire of parental relationships. In many ways I do this to fit in. 'Normal' people have mothers and fathers, and like almost everyone, in my mid-teens I wanted to be 'normal'. Mick has been such an important man in my life that I often refer to him as my father, whilst in other conversations I will refer to Martin as my father. Some friends have learnt this and developed a routine of asking which father I am referring to.