On In-Jokes...

As an outsider, trying to interact in a conversation where my closest friends and I are just casually talking as a group must be a pretty unfathomable thing to do. If you know me and have noticed this, I am sorry.

I would say my closest friends basically fall into three groups: one consisting of friends from university; one of friends from high school; and one comprising a couple of long-term friends from first school. I do realise that for anybody outside any of these groups, once we've started chatted, the forum is pretty impenetrable to virtually all other people, that includes people trying to interact across these groups, although I have been working on making the latter two groups interact more!

Part of the reason for this impenetrability is the custom slang we use. However, The biggest reason is the choice of conversation topic. Apart from standard small-talk and a small amount of sensible discussion his usually includes, but is not limited to:

1. Shared experiences - the foundation upon which friendships are made in my opinion. For example, memories of specific lessons at school.
2. Proposed ideas for future shared experiences - which often comically involve high degrees of implausibility.
   
3. Shared musical or sporting interests - which are often very technical and/or almanac-like in their nature.
   
4. Things we all find funny. For example, comedy shows on TV, YouTube Poop, internet memes.
5. Gossip or recollections about mutual friends and acquaintances, commonly involving over-exaggerated or completely fabricated extensions of their characters
   
6. Ridiculous long standing in-jokes based on all or none of the above...
   
7. J.J. STOKES!

(I know there exist only 2 or 3 people in the universe who could possibly find point 7. funny but hopefully I will have succeeded in making those people spit out their tea...)

The point is, the closest friends we have will be the people we meet and become friends with first of all because they share similar interests or experiences to ourselves. These people will then become the people with whom you will go on to experience life. Upon intricate memories of these experiences, long-standing cryptic jokes will be made, and these complex jokes in turn reward long-term friendship (just as running gags reward long-term viewers of a sitcom.)

Sometimes a group of 2 or more people will already be friends by the time you find out that you have a lot in common and start to become friends with them.

In this instance you have the option of either letting them carry on with the old in-jokes and inevitably end up forming new in-jokes with them as a way of cementing your blossoming friendship, or politely asking the origin of the old in-jokes and cement friendships that way.

Often, the latter process can be a frustrating affair and rely on one of those "you had to be there" moments we all find awkward. However, sometimes the process can be rewarding, and the act of retelling the story which led to the recurring gag can be rewarding in itself.

But then again, sometimes, especially in my circles of friends, the jokes are just too stupid...


TO BE CONTINUED...

On BBC News...

I know there are now lots of advocates for ITN news and now, more than ever, for Sky News and CNN, but I have always been a traditionalist when it comes news broadcasts and I always come back to the Beeb for my daily dose of journalism. I just think everything looks and feels more professional about their coverage compared to the tackiness of other channels and they really cover the big events well.

The BBC is obviously in a unique situation compared to virtually all news outlets in the world. The Government allows them to be funded through a television licence fee. In accordance with its charter the BBC is answerable only to the viewing public as to what it broadcasts within certain legal obligations. It is also unique in that, as part of its charter, it pledges impartiality from any political allegiance. In its news coverage, it must represent everyone yet no-one in particular - something that is overseen very stringently by OFCOM.

BBC News, and its programming, is constantly under scrutiny from other media outlets - online, in the newspapers, and from their competitors - none of whom needs to remain unbiased in their coverage. In any political or contentious issue, the belligerents on one side of the argument always seem to accuse the Beeb of being partial to and favourably representing the stance of the other side.

At the end of the day, resolutions to these accusations are rarely found as any alleged bias is usually so subtle that the any observed impartiality is largely deemed subjective. However, sometimes it has turned out that the BBC did indeed misrepresent one side of the argument, such as their reports that the Labour government "sexed up" a dossier about WMDs in Iraq, which were based on unreliable sources (notwithstanding how true the allegations actually were.) Of course, repercussions were felt all the way to the top and the relevant heads rolled.

However, these instances are few and far between. When presented with them, the BBC news team once again has a unique task - to report on its own mistakes impartially, something which they always do with great professionalism. It almost makes me feel sorry for the BBC that they are generally very good at remaining impartial and unbiased, and yet when they slightly stray, albeit just because of the personal bias of one of their employees, the consequence is that the whole corporation gets tarnished.

Still, I believe they are deservedly one of the most trusted news sources nationally and globally. As UK residents, we don't receive BBC World Service but it is apparently highly regarded all around the world and even though the BBC is regarded as "unsafe" and banned by West-hating regimes in some parts of the world, they still have correspondents in more countries than any other news service. At least, the BBC is once again legally broadcasting from Zimbabwe.

In addition to this, the BBC News website is one of the most viewed websites on this side of the Atlantic. In my opinion it really does provide the best coverage of the general happenings in politics, international news and sport. There's always something interesting amongst their recent science and entertainment articles as well. Also, it must be the single most linked-to website from my friends on Facebook barring YouTube.

One thing that really grinds my gears still is that awful theme music - the stuff that Bill Bailey describes as sounding like some sort of "post-apocalyptic rave". Why on Earth don;t they bring back the awesome music and graphics from the old Nine O'Clock News from the early 90s?

It really gives me chills at how good it is - that's the kind of music that makes people proud to be British!

On Daily Photo Projects...

Noah takes a photo of himself Everyday for 6 years...



Many of you will already have seen the above viral video comprising the first 2000-odd images of this project flashing by at a rate of 6 per second set to a haunting piano score. When i first watched it almost 3 years ago I must say I was enthralled by the beautiful simplicity of the idea. Every day he held a camera at arm's length and took a picture of himself with the same neutral melancholic expression in a range of locations in and around his home at at work.

For some reason I found this compulsive viewing, although the other people I showed the video to at university were divided as to its worth. Personally I find it amazing how a whole life can be condensed down to a few minutes of images. I also like the idea of maintaining a thread of continuity across such a long period of time, during which so many things in life will inevitably change, yet the taking of the photos and the person in the image remains constant. Perhaps though that's just the emotive music having an effect!

I suppose I can appreciate how it could be seen as boring. Noah's not exactly the most exciting person to watch seeing as between the ages of 19 and 25 his appearance doesn't really change all that much bar his fair flopping all over the place and even that seems to be kept within a length range of about 2cm for most of the shots. Still, by the look of his latest photos, he's looking a bit more haggard and sporting scruffy facial hair, so I shall look forward to his next video.

Anyway, like it or loathe it, from the number of views it has had on Youtube, he is probably one of the most successful Visual Arts graduates ever in reaching an audience. That, and the video has had what has been described as the greatest praise any visual media can have, to be parodied by the Simpsons.

Having been interested by this video, I started to look at others of the same ilk.

I must say that my favourite is this one by Jonathan Keller who actually started some time before Noah. I think this is made better by the speed at which the photos whizz by, which allows you to get a greater impression of the change in his appearance over a long span of time, made all the more clear by the precision with which he poses each day and centres his eyes for each shot making up the video. Furthermore, he experiments with his appearance a lot more than Noah, with glasses, and a variety of cuts to his hair and facial hair, especially near the end of the video.

Keller has also compiled a list of other notable obsessive photo projects, including this one of a man who has photographed himself every day for 17 years (!), which I encourage you to browse through if you have been interested by the above (and of course there are loads more on YouTube).

I must say I tried doing this for myself starting in January 2007, which made me realise just how much of a bother I would have found it to take one every day! I found it pretty hard to pose in exactly the same neutral (?) way all the time and I ended up missing a day before a month had gone by. I guess I'll just have to remember my youth through standard photos, but I can deal with that.

Besides, making a blog post every day has been more fun so far!

On Epic Beards...

Some people have the ability to grow really epic beards. In this context, epicness can constitute great length, great thickness, or great shape.

Some people do not have the ability to grow epic beards.

Some people may have the potential to grow an epic beard, but haven't yet reached the stage of their life where this potential can be fully realised.

I have a beard. I try to keep it neat. Sometimes it looks OK in the mirror. It always looks bad in photos which probably means it looks bad to everybody else. I hope that I am in the third category above and that it will one day look good!

Until then, it's coming off from tomorrow...

R.I.P. Billy Mays - you had a truly epic beard. Mine will never be as good as yours!

On the Simpsons Theme...

Danny Elfman is one of the most successful and most prolific television and film music composers of the last 30 years. However, amongst the majority of people who know that name already, seldom will not have discovered it through wondering who created that catchy theme at the start of The Simpsons.

To say it is a catchy piece of music is an understatement. I mean there can't be many people who haven't had the first five notes running through their head at some point in their life...

...which is probably something to do it's use of the jarring yet unforgettable tritone interval present between the first and third notes (C to F#) complemented by the angular underlying harmony.
At least it resolves itself to the more conventional harmony of a G so we don't get too put off my the tritone - the so called "devil" of music!

My own geekiness about music theory aside, The Simpsons Theme, is probably one of the public's favourite TV theme tunes, and even though it was originally recorded by a full orchestra (with frills such as a saxophone and a glockenspiel!) that hasn't stopped people around the world from recording their own versions, with various degrees of success, and posting them on the internet for our enjoyment. Now, I have spent many hours over the years watching people play this, I have collated the best ones here - so that we no longer have to fall victims! (By the way, the best one's at the bottom...)

Firstly, perhaps the most famous (at least the most viewed with ~10,000,000 views) - Zack Kim on not one, but two guitars!



Also with over one million views, Sean Gordon, showing us what is possible with one guitar and no amps...



We know that bassists hate guitarists getting all the glory. Well, not to be outdone, here is Steven Melensen with 80,000 views...



And to complete the rock band, here is Andrea Vadrucci on drums (although he does cheat a bit by using a backing track!)



Mixing things up a bit, we have the Carpe Diem String Quartet, albeit with only 1500-odd views...



And an even stranger quartet with only 400 views comprising tubas and euphoniums...



Now, to the bizarre, with an accordion arrangement by Sukun...



Of course, you don't need instruments to play the theme of The Simpsons, here's the a capella group Canvas...



And finally, the best of all the pianists (and in my opinion all musicians) attempting this piece of music, adding real flair and pizzazz (although I might be swayed by the addition of the Gracie Films jingle at the end) - Tal Zilber...

On Confidentiality...

I don't have any problem about this country's current confidentiality laws as far as I understand them. It does raise some interesting issues in my mind about the logical meaning of a sentence though.

For example, say Joe Bloggs brings his teenage son Fred into a GP surgery and waits outside the consultation room while Fred goes in to speak with the doctor about his (um...) genital herpes. The consultation goes fine but when the GP opens the door to let Fred out, his father is there, asking the doctor a question...

Father: Did Fred come in to see you about his genital herpes?
Doctor: Fred may or may not have come in to discuss genital herpes. I'm not obliged to disclose that information.

And this probably hasn't breached confidentiality law.
However, if the conversation goes as follows...

Father: What did Fred come into see you about?
Doctor: Fred may or may not have come in to discuss genital herpes. I'm not obliged to disclose that information.

The doctor's answer is the same logically. As much as you break down that sentence he has said exactly the same thing. Yet it seems he has disclosed extra information compared to the first answer. There is an implication, a subtext, that Fred has genital herpes, that didn't seem to be as present in the first answer. Therefore, I'd imagine that the second answer is more likely to be found to be breaching confidentiality laws than the first.

Interesting...

What do I conclude from this? That the logic that governs language can't deduce every implication of a sentence and is thus context-independent, whereas the law that governs what can or cannot be said through language is highly context-dependent...

At least that was my conclusion!


Edit: Apparently, there is a whole field of linguistics called Pragmatics devoted to the contextual differences we apply to language such as in my example above. Awesome!

On Team Kit...

The internet is a big place. I like to think I know good places to look if I want to find something I will find interesting or funny, but unfortunately, with the internet being so big, it's impossible not to let some things pass you by.

With this in mind I always keep a watchful eye over the Facebook homepage when I can, particularly the right hand "Highlights" column. This is the place where if one of my 600+ "friends" has posted something particularly funny, it will show up here having been commented and liked by a least a few of my other "friends". Two such links appearing here in the last few days have concerned new strips of sports teams, for reasons I will discuss shortly.

In Britain, the team sports which are followed by the most people are undoubtedly football, cricket, and rugby in its union and league codes.

Of these, only football and rugby strips are actually high profile in any way. (Cricket is either played in the traditional whites or the one-day cricket colourful pyjamas which are pretty tacky and horrible at the best of times so I'm going to largely ignore them, but the same principles basically apply.)

Of all the football and rugby team kits in the world, very few will ever feature any colours outside of red, blue, black, white, green, navy or sky blue, with the occasional splash of yellow, gold or claret. (I am very glad that Chelsea's away strip is no longer completely fluorescent yellow - euch!) Furthermore, an unwritten rule states that only Holland are allowed to play in orange.

Combinations of two or three of the above colours are largely acceptable. The rugby union side Harlequins are typically allowed to get away with more because they're, well... they're harlequins! I say combinations are largely acceptable because some combinations are so foul they defy common sense to choose for strips, which are usually a large source of revenue for a club, each of which usually has a devout fan-base who will go out to buy the latest shirt(s) every year before they attend the first game. Some clubs (insert Manchester United, Real Madrid, etc. here) are lucky enough to have supporters around the world to whom they can sell shirts.

Obviously the board of Newcastle United, who are losing money more quickly than the current government (disclaimer: that may or may not be true) aren't bothered about getting some money back through the sale of their new away strip, as they have come up with this ghastly concoction of yellow and orange stripes which makes them look a bit like bannoffee pie.


Even, though team strips dipped into the more unusual combinations of acceptable paints come and (usually pretty quickly) go, one team has done the unthinkable.,,

That team was Stade Français Here, because I can't phrase it any better than this, is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

"In 2005, [club president] Guazzini went further and chose to shock the ’’macho’’ world of rugby by introducing a pink away jersey, pink being one of the rarest colours used by sports teams."

So you will understand that, when I tell you that this rugby team were playing in shocking pink shirts, I mean it on about 3 levels! Yet apparently this seemingly crazy idea struck a chord with the apparently fashion-loving Parisian crowd, as they sold 20,000 of them for the 05-06 season (compared to about 3 for Newcastle's away strip this season - see above.)

Following this, they went on to stir up more discussion have pink lilies on their 06-07 season home shirts. However, having followed up a link on my Facebook homepage, as alluded to earlier, I have come to the conclusion that the kit designers for Stade Français's 2009-2010 season have really excelled themselves. While the home strip is pretty mundane by their crass standards, their away kit is pink (again) with a baby blue print of Blanche de Castille surrounded by stars. However, on seeing their third strip, I was astounded...

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you their alternate strip for the current season.

(I recommend sunglasses before viewing this image...)

WOOOW!