Alistair Cooke died last month only three weeks after retiring at the age of 95, and it’s difficult to distinguish cause and effect. Did he retire because the end was so near, or did he lose the will to live because he now had nothing to do? In a prescient statement a few years ago he said “I’ve noticed that if you retire you keel over” (Alistair Cooke’s first letter). “Speak for yourself” is what most of us are probably thinking, and that’s precisely what he did throughout his long career.
Apparently, he started out with ambitions to become an actor, but decided that telling America’s story was far more interesting than anything on the stage. He fell in love with America’s dynamic spirit of free enterprise, and became a US citizen in 1941. Given his subject, it’s highly ironic that he should succeed largely through non-profit, public broadcasting. Would his career have lasted as long had he been exposed to the harsh realities of the commercial world? I doubt it. Despite a publicly-subsidised audience of millions, Cooke still appealed to relatively few. Nevertheless, he clearly knew how to make the best of both his worlds: dynamic, aggressive America and inquisitive, but world-weary Britain.
Newsmap provides an interesting view of the news media’s priorities, as captured and classified by Google News.
The news in Canada, the UK and the US as displayed on Newsmap
Each news item is allocated screen space according to the number of stories published about it. More popular stories appear larger; less popular stories are smaller. The stories are also colour-coded according to the “section” in which they would appear in a newspaper: World – dark brown, Nation (domestic news) – light brown, Sports – olive green, Business – blue, Entertainment – teal, for example. It’s also possible to compare several of Google’s national versions, all of which means that you can use Newsmap to analyse cultural differences in the world’s news media.
And what do you find if you do?
Here are the top three priorities (as of earlier today) for three countries with which I’m familiar:
Canada: World, Sports, Business
UK: World, Sports, Business
US: Sports, World, Nation (domestic news)
A closer examination reveals some even more interesting differences. World news receives two and half times as much coverage in the UK than in the US, and even Canada publishes approximately 30% more World news (proportionally) than the US. Instead of World news the US devotes its attention to Sports (2.5 times more than the UK) and domestic news (Nation).
Domestic news (Nation) is lowest in Canada, which also gives the most space/time to Entertainment. Business and technology are very similar in all three countries. Health is the smallest category everywhere.
So what does this tell us? Well, it would seem that the stereotypical cliches are all true. America is obsessed with itself; nothing much happens in Canada; and Britain still believes it can punch above its weight on the world stage.
Yesterday shortly after leaving the National Portrait Gallery I came across the following scene in Trafalgar Square:
Click the image above for a larger view
Two people sitting in a glass box and alternately reciting dates (years only) to the perplexed crowd passing by.
This mind-numbing activity was explained on the back of a postcard, which someone was handing out, as follows:
On Kawara Reading One Million Years
Presented by the South London Gallery in Trafalgar Square
8am 29 March – 8am 5 April 2004
An epic work of conceptual art by the acclaimed Japanese artist, On Kawara, is presented in the UK for the first time in Trafalgar Square. A continuous reading lasting seven days and nights from the artist’s ten-volume work, One Million Years, takes extracts from Past, listing every year from 998,031 BC to 1969 AD, and Future, listing the years 1980 AD to 1,001,980 AD. On Kawara’s work speaks simply and directly about a subject relevant to us all, the passage and marking of time.
Some brief on-line research indicates that the work was reported in the Guardian last week. Performance art that’s defiantly dated, revealed that the recital is to be released as a four-volume limited edition boxed CD set. So if you miss the event itself, you know what to put on your Christmas list.
In the meantime, a selection of the public’s responses can be read in Let us begin. When asked if it made him think about time, John, 26, from Wimbledon, said “Well, I had a look at my watch a minute ago.”
British Summer Time came into effect last night, so this morning we conducted the biannual ritual of tracking down all our clocks and advancing them by an hour. These days the average home is so full of electronic gadgets that adjusting for BST is in itself a time-consuming task. A couple of our machines are clever enough to reset themselves (the PCs, the video tape recorder), but most require manual intervention. Here’s a list (largely for my own future reference) of all our devices that require resetting:
Time was standardised in 1840 to provide reliable railway timetables
three wristwatches
bedside radio
three mobile phones
electronic barometer/thermometer
television
Polar heart rate watch
three personal organisers
digital camera
microwave oven
coffee maker
hot water/central heating timer
five “old-fashioned” analogue clocks
If I’ve forgotten any, I’ll add them to this list when they next surface.
Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) was the 6th Duke of Devonshire’s gardener, and he became famous as the architect of the Crystal Palace, home to Britain’s first international exhibition of industrial accomplishment, The Great Exhibition of 1851.
The south façade of Chiswick House.
Initially Paxton worked for the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick House, which is approximately a mile from where we live in west London. According to English Heritage, which now manages the property, “Chiswick House is the first and finest 18th century Palladian villa in the country”. It was built in 1728, and was essentially the Duke’s country house closest to London.
Not much appears to be known about Paxton’s early career at Chiswick, but having read about its garden and greenhouse in his biography, Sudsy Dame and I walked over on Sunday to have a look. According to Colquhoun:
Conservatory at Chiswick House in west London.
When the 5th Duke of Devonshire inherited the house, he commissioned Wyatt to add two substantial wings to the building and, in 1813, the 6th Duke, wealthy enough to indulge his passion for building and for horticulture, gilded the velvet-hung staterooms and commissioned Lewis Kennedy to create a formal Italian garden. Samuel Ware — later the architect of the Burlington Arcade — built a 300-foot long conservatory in the formal garden, backed by a brick wall, with a central glass and wood dome. In time, it would be filled with the recently introduced camellias which, along with the exotic animals, captured the very height of Regency fashion.
Rows of ancient camellias at Chiswick House.
In a subsequent footnote, Colquhoun writes:
The Italian garden, the conservatory and many of the original camellia plants still exist at Chiswick House Gardens, London, W4. The first book on the subject of the camellia appeared in 1819, Monograph on the genus Camellia by Samuel Curtis, and listed 29 varieties being grown in England.
Camellia japonica Parksii at Chiswick House.
Well as you can see, the camellias are still blooming. It is amazing to think that these shrubs have grown here for almost two hundred years, but we saw one label stating 1823 and another citing 1795. Despite the genteel decay that now pervades Chiswick House and its garden, the flowers remain magnificent. It’s yet another example of how history is positively tangible in this crowded, over-developed part of the world.
The UK’s best-known Martha is Miss Martha Lane Fox, the co-founder of Lastminute.com, an internet travel agency that has prospered despite the IT crash. Earlier this week the 30 year-old doyenne of Britain’s dot com boom made the news yet again for selling two million of her Lastminute.com shares, worth 4.6 million pounds. Apparently, she suggested it might be time to buy a new home (amongst other things).
London is flooded with rental properties
The experts increasingly think otherwise. Almost a year ago the Economist was predicting a property crash, and since then more and more pundits have agreed that the time for a correction must be near. On Monday even Stephen Nickell, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (which sets the country’s prime interest rate) warned of the increasing risk of a dramatic fall in property prices.
I couldn’t help wondering about this latest boom last night as I watched the usual Wednesday night litany of property-buying and house-decorating programmes on television. What will the TV producers do once the market turns? Switch from how-to-buy to how-to-sell I suppose, but that’s not likely to be as much fun.
The anecdotal evidence for a bubble is also striking; TV channels are swamped with house-related programmes and there is a good business in seminars offering punters swift riches via the housing market.
But any sell-off needs a catalyst. Higher rates are an obvious trigger but, as Mr [Stephen] Nickell’s remarks show, the Bank is well aware of the dangers and is treading cautiously. Higher unemployment is another potential pitfall, but looks unlikely to be a problem this year. But the catalyst will eventually appear and when it does, the sell-off could be swift; as those buy-to-let investors, desperate to plug a cashflow shortfall, unload their surplus properties on a falling market.
So Martha may have timed her dot com business perfectly, but if she buys a new home soon it may turn out to be rather “last minute”.
The BBC does not have a good reputation for reporting business news, and despite my affection for In Business on Radio 4, I’m inclined to agree.
Today’s financial results from the online bank Egg provide a good example. In French woes double Egg’s losses the BBC focused on the bank’s negative performance in France:
Internet bank Egg has doubled its losses as its French business helped push the UK firm deeper into the red. The troubled group, which is 79% owned by insurer Prudential, said its annual pre-tax losses for 2003 had risen to
Last week the US Congress scared the living daylights out of Americans by denouncing Canada as a welcoming haven for terrorists (see Terror groups flourish in Canada: U.S. report).
Now there’s equally scary news for Canukistanis as it appears Texans have been caught taking all their bad habits into God’s Country accidentally. According to the BBC (Grenade closes US-Canada border):
There are two Vancouvers – one is a small American town, the other is the large Canadian city. On Monday, a woman from Texas trying to find the small town ended up at the Canadian border.
When officials there searched her vehicle, they found a hand grenade in the glove compartment. Within minutes, the border was evacuated and the bomb squad was on the scene.
Once the woman explained her story though, things quickly calmed down. A Canadian police spokesman says they are satisfied that the woman was simply lost and had never meant to go to Canada. They soon released her and reopened the border.
As for the hand grenade, police say, the woman had no idea it was in her vehicle.
I think that makes both countries even. I mean, terrorists or crazy Texans … which would you prefer?
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