I'M TRYING TO TELL YOU NOW, IT'S SABOTAGE [523]

NOTE: I wrote the following in 2023 – my work-life balance has since improved.

“I have only formed one idea for my next article, and I have realised I don’t have enough of an idea to last five hundred words, so I’ll have to leave it for something else. What I was trying to form was ‘the call centre as Hitchcock film’. Just as Alfred Hitchcock talked about inserting the idea that a bomb could go off into a scene, in order to build suspense, could be translated as the tension of the phone waiting to ring, from when you have to put your handset on your head at the beginning of the day... in fact, the phone doesn’t ring, the call just comes through without prior warning, like something hitting you in the face. I still think an article exists here, I just need to think more about it first.”

 

Well, the inverted commas containing spare moments from my diary mean I didn’t get too far. 

 

I am a writer, and I sometimes make videos. I work as an administrator, where my strengths are in “back office” processing, and after a particularly bad week in more of a front-facing customer services role than was really comfortable, my mind wandered back to Alfred Hitchcock, who once forgot his own edict that, after winding up tension in the audience, the bomb should not go off – there has to be relief. Hitchcock had a boy unwittingly take a bomb onto a bus in his 1936 film “Sabotage”, and he was castigated in reviews for letting the bomb go off, which he accepted was his error.

 

I would be much happier having this to think about during my work week – administration is my job, but writing is my vocation, and being creative is what I do.

 

“I don’t want the last week to force a decision to take a break, a thought I am wrestling with - it is like having a chance to salvage the last week, but not having the week to do anything about it... I still need to find a way to write these articles during the week. What I do need to do is make plans for future articles, instead of coming up with them almost at the last moment. I need to have another book where I can write ideas, adding notes and plans as I go - saying it is one thing, doing it is another.”

 

There should come a metaphor at this point linking Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense narratives to my dealing with work-life balance – something about stopping bombs from going off. I tend to take stressful work days home with me, and stress takes time from everyone. Until that resolves itself, this metaphor is To Be Concluded.

 

“I am doing my best at improving the quality of my writing, which usually results in finding ways to say the same things with fewer words, but it shows that I am not done with the form of the five-hundred-plus-word article after nearly seven years. Will that come after ten years, or will it come once I can make video production easier, or at all?”

 

“Never” was my answer, closing my diary for the day.

 

WORDS TO MAKE THE FIGHTING CEASE [522]

I still think that knowing how to write a letter is a very useful life skill, even when most letters are now e-mails. Writing well makes you taken more seriously, no matter how the recipient’s e-mail reader presents it to them.

However, form continues to matter more than content for some letter writers, beyond even whether you indent paragraphs, double-space at the end of sentences, or use “Yours faithfully” if the addressee’s name is not known. 

To that end, the US Secretary of State has mandated that diplomats use the Times New Roman font over Calibri in both internal and external correspondence, reversing a change made in 2023. The bulletin said this was “to restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful [diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility] program[me]”. The story reminded me of a 2019 story about former MP Jacob Rees-Mogg’s staff issuing a style guide for his letters, including banned words and rules on spacing, although no requirements for font usage was reported. One person’s decorum is another’s pretension.

In branding my website, YouTube videos and social media, I have seen my name in Futura Extra Bold for so long that I cannot imagine changing it. I had considered changing to Albertus, the woodcut-like font used throughout the TV series “The Prisoner”, but I like Futura’s presence as a clear, unambiguous typeface, regardless of how thick or wide you make it, coming from a Modernist, European tradition. It also happens to predate Times New Roman by five years, having first appeared in 1927.

The rounded ends of Calibri, contrasting with the ornate serifs of Times New Roman, were easier for people with certain sight conditions, and easier to read on a computer screen. I know the latter is correct, because regardless of how I start writing, my finished articles are saved on Microsoft Word in Calibri, a much easier choice for me to scan when typing and editing. Even after Microsoft replaced it, as the default font in Word, with the Helvetica-like Aptos in 2024, every new document I open in Word starts with changing the font back to Calibri. I use Arial when posting written articles online because, again, it is the clearest font available on the hosting software I use. I do not understand the use of Times New Roman on a computer screen except in large sizes, styling details becoming lost when made smaller.

Times New Roman, as the name suggests, had the very specific use case of being read on a printed page. When “The Times” introduced the font for the first time on 3rd October 1932, it acknowledged the reasons for the change to thicker lines and tighter spacing: “When it was founded, The Times was read in coffee-houses; in the nineteenth century, it came to be read in trains; to-day it is largely read in cars and airliners. Reading habits, dependent on social habits, will not remain constant. Neither must newspaper typography remain constant.”

Indeed, “The Times” only used Times New Roman until 1972, with each of the subsequent five “Times” fonts addressing changes in printing method, the paper used, and legibility concerns. The irony may well be that, for the perennially stuffy “newspaper of record” tradition in which “The Times” trades, the font in which it is read is the most progressive thing about it.

Meanwhile, If I know I am printing a letter, the font I use is Courier New, like I have used a typewriter. If in doubt, use a font that can be read from outer space. 

LISTEN TO THE MUSIC ALL THE TIME [521]

Sony Walkman NW-A45

With my sister deciding to ditch paying Spotify to stop interrupting her music playlists with advertisements, in favour of using an MP3 player to listen in comfort, we were surprised to find that a moderately-priced MP3 player, one that supports high-definition audio, no longer appears to exist, and there is no easy way to fill the gap created by this situation.

When I say “MP3” payer, it may be more accurate to say “personal media player” or, in my case, “Sony Walkman”, having owned an NW-A45 model since 2018 that plays my CD collection in a lossless format that streaming services would require me to pay a premium to access, providing they licenced the songs to begin with.

However, searching Sony’s website reveals that, if the bottom has not fallen out of their MP3 player range, the middle has: apart from low-end, low-storage devices that can only play lossy MP3 and WMA formats, and Android-based wi-fi-compatible models made with premium components that cost hundreds or even thousands of pounds, no mid-range device like my NW-A45 is available, with “Out of Stock” messages  for these being repeated on other online stores to the point where I believe production may have ended. Perhaps Sony are concentrating on publishing and owning the music instead.

Searching elsewhere produced similar results: Amazon either had a number of cheap MP3 players, from unknown brands that give no indication of their quality, or expensive devices by Astell & Kern or Fiio, while UK store chains Currys and Argos had either a cheap in-house brand MP3-only player, or CD players that can play MP3-encoded discs.

Streaming has not killed off the demand for devices that plays the music people own, although I do wonder if some people who junked their records and cassettes in previous years have since deleted their MP3s in favour of streaming. Pretty much everyone has a device that fulfils the job of playing music files stored to it: their smartphone. Apple guaranteed this by adding lossless FLAC playback to iPhones in 2017; discontinuing their final iPod, the iPod Touch, in 2022; and consistently increasing the available internal storage of iPhones into terabyte range. The next question is how to play the files: do you want the Apple Music app to access and subsume them, or play them from “Files”, which lacks the functionality of the dedicated app, or download a third app to keep things separate? 

This circles back to the desire for a dedicated device, and why I have not downloaded my FLAC files to my phone yet. For all that a phone can do in software, and most can do most things well enough, having a dedicated device geared to produce an optimum experience for a specific task is still appreciated where they can be found. The hardware in my Sony Walkman was made like you expect a decent hi-fi system to be made, instead of like a computer that can impersonate one. 

But I know I have not been using my Walkman full-time. I have referenced here a few times that I have used YouTube to listen to music, trading the quality of the audio for convenience, listening to music ad-free there being a by-product of paying to remove ads from videos. In some cases, those songs have been uploaded unofficially by any old person that had their own copy, so I have now found myself recently tracking down and buying CDs of those songs, so I no longer miss out on the quality I am currently sacrificing. Do I save those to my phone or Walkman, and will do so push me to use one or the other in future?

I am prepared to admit that this may all be just me, that I want something that doesn’t exist. But it used to exist.

DON’T GO FOR SECOND BEST [520]

David Fincher’s video for Madonna’s song “Express Yourself” (1989) ends with an epigraph: “Without the Heart, there can be no understanding between the hand and the mind." Inspired by the futuristic, utopian and dystopian of imagery Fritz Lang’s science-fiction magnum opus “Metropolis” (1927) – perhaps even down to Madonna’s monocle, although Lang never wore his on a chain – a similar epigram is displayed in capitals at the beginning, middle and end of that film: “THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE HEAD AND THE HANDS MUST BE THE HEART!”

The plot of “Metropolis” has become secondary to the visuals, not surviving the film’s being scattered to the wind following its premiere in Berlin. Its plot, a modified retelling of the Tower of Babel story, lost sub-plots and characters when it was re-ordered for Paramount’s US release by Channing Pollock, a playwright and sometime writer of the Ziegfeld Follies. Half an hour shorter than the original 153-minute length, this wider release was also seen across Germany, cut shorter still by Nazi Party censorship in the 1930s – this 93-minute version, archived by New York’s Museum of Modern Art, was pirated for low-quality public domain releases that blew out both greyscales and actors’ faces.

But the imagery shone through. Influenced by the Manhattan skyline, Art Deco and Modernism, the city of Metropolis can be found in “Blade Runner”, “Akira”, Superman and Batman comics, and Osamu Tezuka’s manga also titled “Metropolis”, itself later a film. The “Maschinenmensch” robot, designed by Walter Schulze-Mittendorf, is deliberately more human-looking for reasons explained later, and the underground workers’ city is stark in its comparative lack of detail, simple edifices below a concrete sky, the real sky only visible through grates.

The story is simple. Joh Fredersen, architect of the city of Metropolis, installed at the top of the New Tower of Babel, sees the underground workers that toil to keep the lights on above ground as “off where they belong”. His son Freder, entranced by the appearance of Maria, who came from the depths to show the underground children their “brothers and sisters” in the restricted Eternal Gardens, descends to witness the horror of the M-Machine, the “Moloch” devouring its workers, and works to bring hope. Maria, preaching from the catacombs, retells the allegory of the Tower of Babel, altered from its use as an allegory for why different languages and cultures exist: “But the hands that built the Tower of Babel knew nothing of the dream of which the head that had conceived it had been fantasising… The hymns of praise of one man had become the curses of others… The same language was spoken, but these men did not understand one another.” Freder knows he is the mediator from the start, and will link the hands of his father with the workers’ foreman at the film’s end.

The robot is the most startling image of “Metropolis”, and its reason for looking so close to human was lost among the cuts, along with scenes of the “Thin Man” enforcer trailing Freder, and scenes of the man who swapped places with Freder being tempted to join the hedonistic nightlife he previously could only imagine. The scientist that built the robot, Rotwang, is not the archetypal wild-haired, one-handed mad scientist that James Whale’s “Frankenstein” cemented, for his work to bring the robot to life was to resurrect the memory of a lost love, named Hel, who would eventually marry Joh Fredersen, dying after giving birth to Freder. Joh’s demand to turn the robot into a clone of Maria, to sew discord among the workers, is used by Rotwang as an opportunity to avenge Hel’s death by killing Freder, and to take the real Maria as a substitute. Just as Joh told Rotwang, “Let the dead lie, Rotwang… She’s dead for you as she is for me,” Rotwang’s reply is, “For me, she isn’t dead, for me she lives! Do you think the loss of a hand is too high a price for recreating Hel?”

I have previously mentioned watching four versions of “Metropolis” over the years. One was a 139-minute version on VHS, rented from a library, that undercranked the film to the extent I had to watch it on Fast Forward – that all silent films were made at sixteen frames per second is a misnomer. Giorgio Moroder’s pop music-laden version was comparatively quick, barely over eighty minutes, achieved mostly by replacing intertitles with subtitles, but the reincorporation of Gottfried Huppertz’s original hand-written score from the premiere, the original titles from German censor cards discovered in a film archive in Sweden, and many scenes from multiple sources, most importantly the rediscovery of a near-complete copy of the film in Buenos Aires in 2008, has allowed me to watch the film as near as possible to what was originally intended at its premiere.In terms of what I think about "Metropolis", I appreciate the visuals more now the full story is back in place.

I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY [519]

My umpteenth "Myra Breckinridge" reference

With the leaking to “The Times” newspaper of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) update of the 2010 Equality Act Regulations, instigated by the Supreme Court judgement in April 2025 that transgender women with a Gender Recognition Certificate are not women under the terms of the Act, it has been confirmed that requests for paperwork for some people to enter single-sex spaces that correspond with their gender, found in interim changes to these regulations that have since been withdrawn, have been replaced with perception-based assessments on appearance and behaviour. 

This attempt to avoid the policing of these spaces inadvertently creates what sounds like, to me, a beauty contest, because what a joy it is going to be having to pass the test to appear in the correct space at the right time. 

This remains theory for now, as the knowledge of what could become law stems from a leak of something the Government is assessing, but considering how often “The Times” reports on this issue, and with the EHRC imploring the Government to implement these new regulations as soon as possible, this new report raises questions for me about motivations I won’t get answers for, as I will only be affected by what the final decisions will be.

Years of experience as a human being, let alone as a trans woman, show that “passing” as the correct gender in any situation, for anyone and everyone, is as much in the eye of the beholder as bias and prejudice will be in other situations. In using a public toilet or a changing room, the regulations make clear that there will be circumstances where you present so well in your gender that you can reasonably be excluded from the space that corresponds to your sex, but it is made clear I cannot be left without any facility.

I hope people don’t talk about me like they would the cross-dresser from across the road, if they have one, or any person they see more than once without ever needing to talk to them. I am not “committing to the bit”, I am being myself, but if you don’t know me, you don’t know that, and your confidence in bridging the gap should not then leave me at your mercy.

The knowledge that months of waiting for clarification of the law is effectively to continue the status quo that existed for decades, after what has felt like a protracted abjectification of trans people in the media since the Supreme Court judgement, is a profound waste of my time and energy. By necessity, “gender critical” belief is included in the regulations, but also crucial wording about distinguishing the objectionable expression of beliefs.

If implemented as reported, the new Equality Act regulations codify a loss of trust, regulating what could no longer be left to people to decide. Good luck, everyone.

NOW THAT I OWN THE BBC [518]

I am compelled to support the British Broadcasting Corporation in what is either its most perilous moment, or only its latest predicament, because I lay as much a claim to owning a public corporation and cultural institution as any other member of the British public, and as one inspired and shaped by what it has broadcast.

At the time of writing, the President of the United States is expected to sue the BBC for an edit made to a speech made on 6^th January 2021, that was shown in an episode of “Panorama” just before the 2024 Presidential election – two sentences were linked together without making clear the gap in time between them, the resulting montage creating a more inflammatory statement than made at the time. The BBC apologised for the edit, promising the programme would not be shown again, but also made clear the programme had not been aired in the United States, that the edit did not intend to harm the President, nor did it ultimately harm them, and it was to be considered as twelve seconds of an hour-long piece. 

 

All this for whether a fade, or flash of white, could have been used to illustrate the passage of time – I don’t know when the latter became a device used on television, but I am sure that I saw it on the BBC first. My love of its comedy programmes and documentaries led to my being intrigued as much by how they were made, how they conveyed their message, as much as what that message was – it is why I write, why I have made videos, why I took a film studies degree, and why I visited BBC Television Centre in 2009.

 

The BBC has spent a century building a reputation as a trustworthy and impartial broadcaster by not just being as even-handed and thorough as humanly possible across its entire output – a good maxim to live by too – but by demonstrating that these are ideals that are worth striving for, proven by the high quality and reputation British broadcasting has across the world.

 

Unfortunately for the BBC, the apology to the President did not work. The “Panorama” episode had been raised in an internal document from an editorial oversight board, leaked to a newspaper, which then led to accusations of political bias in news reporting, ideological capture, complacency or ignorance of issues, and political interference in the governance of a public body. Both the Director-General and CEO of BBC News have resigned, just as the process of renewing the BBC’s Royal Charter begins, giving commentators in other media the chance to declare the BBC out of touch, in need of reform, or in need of destruction as an anachronism the country no longer needs. The irony that most of these commentators have appeared on the BBC at some point is not lost on me: “Two resignations won’t do. It has to be scorched earth at the BBC” is the title of a piece by Camilla Long of “The Sunday Times”, who has appeared on the primetime satirical comedy quiz “Have I Got News For You” nine times between 2013 and 2023.

 

I am clear that there will always be the need for a BBC, a national broadcaster where democracy of access and information is at its core of its foundation. I once put the BBC alongside the NHS, Penguin Books and free art galleries as institutions that make up my idea of what the United Kingdom is, and should continue to be, alongside queuing and complaining about the weather. I should have included Channel 4 in that list: the UK’s other publicly owned public service broadcaster, it has been threatened with privatisation many times, most recently in 2022-23, each time halted over how it would damage the distinctive, innovative and experimental output it is mandated to have, and the larger independent TV production sector from there.

 

That said, I don’t know how much the BBC should be doing to cater to everyone, or how the money for that should be provided. Any reduction or selling-off of parts of the BBC will need to be weighted against any effect it may have on the creative economy of the UK, and the reflection of the UK’s cultures and values across the world – the existence of the BBC helped make either of those considerations possible in the first place. 

 

An expectation that we should all pay in some way towards public broadcasting will continue for as long as people believe in its universal benefit as an aid to democracy, a way of preventing anyone from being left behind in the information age. Anyone that doesn’t have a reason to believe that should find one.

 

This is only what I think, but everybody has something that would make them dread for the future of their country if it were to disappear, and mine has touched every part of my life.

I GOT BILLS I GOTTA PAY [517]

The personal computer was our first portal to cyberspace, but the smartphone is the yoke that made us denizens of an extended reality, and regardless of how involved we become, our connection to that reality requires upkeep, trade-ups and trade-offs.

My first mobile phone, bought in 2000, was bought for under £100, was topped up with pre-paid cards, and replaced my using public phone boxes. Phone number thirteen, also my ninth smartphone and sixth iPhone, is a portable computer plied with cameras, sensors and antennas and, fitting for its having replaced the local branch of my bank, it is financed through a two-year contract with a credit agreement and monthly payments, rolling the trade-in payment for my previous phone into paying off the next contract, all for a device that needs to be continuously on the verge of being replaced for the business model that drives their ownership to continue.

Fortunately for Apple, and my service provider, I wanted to replace my phone: both it and its contract were three years old, and I had become thoroughly sick with both through overfamiliarity and a depleted battery. I am sure most owners of the iPhone 17, me included, did not pay £/$/€799 for one upfront, or ever contemplated doing so - the objective is squaring monthly costs with noticeable improvement over the previous phone.

It’s almost like becoming tethered to your smartphone, if not becoming addicted to using it, is required to justify the expense, and more reasons for that tethering need to be created to make such a device indispensable, from managing home heating and electrical items through to unlocking doors and starting cars - generative A.I. features are one more symptom of the need to progress.

Fortunately for me, and despite increases in processing power, storage capacity and camera ability becoming more incremental with each model, but the lavender-coloured iPhone 17 I now own is more enticingly tactile than ever. The device’s edges are more rounded than the iPhone 14 Pro it replaces, making it easier to hold for longer, while the extra “Camera Control” finally gives me a proper shutter button. I have selected the “Action Button” to seek out titles of songs amongst ambient noise via Shazam, prioritising a feature I often use that was buried in an app or menu.

But this is Apple’s problem: in their eyes, I have downgraded, from a Pro-level iPhone to a regular one, but the improvements they made across all their phones in three years, from screen resolution and refresh speed to camera sensors and battery capacity, means enough of a difference is still being made to my experience of using the device - but seriously, one-touch Shazam is the game-changer for me here, with everything else working that bit more quickly and snappily.

Most importantly for me, the three-year contract I saddled myself with to use a Pro-level phone - trading in at the end of the contract makes it hard to say I truly owned it - was less preferable to only needing a two- year contract for something just as good. Perhaps this defines my monetary limits, but also those of the phone I need - I am not missing anything, even after turning off all A.I. features, and doing that may have extended the life of the battery even further.

I have no remedy for anything I have talked about - it is the framework we have collectively agreed on to provide a creeping necessity in our lives, and so long as it has something to offer us, we will keep it going.

IT’S TIME TO SEEK OUT NEW TRADITIONS [516]

A frame from a digitised VHS copy I made of Man Ray's "Le Retour à la raison" (1923)

The time has come for a manifesto because, while we continually live in interesting times, I have realised now is the time for me to codify the lessons I have learned. This is a first draft of my creative viewpoint, not just rules to follow. I shall return to this.

FIRST VIDEO MANIFESTO 

“Video”: Latin, “I see”

 

This world is man-made. There is nothing else to blame.

 

This world is created with images, and the more of them you take in, the better.

 

This world is described by images. Add to them.

 

This world is remade using images. This habitually ties everything into politics.

 

This world is yours, not also yours.

 

This world excites you, so keep making notes. 

 

You have a duty to report that excitement, but impartiality does not mandate distance.

 

Create early, edit always, no matter the medium.

 

Crystallise your message in the opening moment. Let yourself and your audience know you are in the right place.

 

Make yourself fully understood, by all possible methods.

 

Make it concise, or keep it short.

 

Put your name on it. Your insight has value.

 

LJS, 01/11/2025

GIVE THE PAST A SLIP [515]

DEVO, part 1/3: https://www.leighspence.net/2025/09/its-not-to-late-to-whip-it-511.html

DEVO, part 2/3: https://www.leighspence.net/2025/10/what-we-do-is-what-we-do-514.html

Back in May 2018, I began an article like this: “When you can no longer tell yourself that all will be OK in the end, and how it can’t possibly get any worse, you confide in the relentless march of time: it must be over soon.”

This referred to the term in office of the 45th President of the United States, well before their replacement and re-election. I continued: “What I do know is that everything will find its centre, or equilibrium once more, even if it has to make a new one, as people take stock of where everything has reached.” I later clarified that, “I hope it is clear that this isn’t a repudiation of the way politics is currently conducted in the United States, but of the way conduct is currently conducted.”

The heavy subject matter was my recognising how the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s concept of “deconstruction” was confused with “destruction”, a continuing reassessment over wholesale replacement: “Derrida had to explain that the notion of there being a ‘centre’ was a functional one, as there had to be a centre that helped to form our understanding. Then again, when all you have is the text, the words, to hand, you have to see them in the sense of how they have been used.” This led on to the President’s choice of words in public, on social media, and so on.

The title I gave this article was “You’ll Never Live It Down Unless You Whip It”, incorrectly contracting “You will” from the lyrics of DEVO’s biggest hit in the United States – in the UK, it was their cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, but more about that later.

I always understood “Whip It” as being more than the cracking of a whip – the second line is “give the past a slip”, an immediate clue that something else is up here – but the song’s video, of a woman’s clothes being whipped away from them, was DEVO’s giving in to the literal and sexual interpretation made by people of the lyrics, rather than accepting them as faux motivational statements that mask the use of violence to solve problems. Infamously, the later song “Through Being Cool” is aimed at “the ninnies and the twits” that misunderstood DEVO in the wake of “Whip It”, the lyrics as playfully direct as possible: “Waste those who make it tough to get around”, and “Put the tape on erase / Rearrange a face / We always liked Picasso anyway”.

I am sure I have previously said that I use song lyrics to title these articles as a primitive mode of search engine optimisation, catching people searching for what they think they have heard. DEVO have also talked about using the tactics of Madison Avenue advertising in getting their message about de-evolution to people. But what both things appear to prove is that people don’t listen closely to lyrics, but those who do are justly rewarded.

One of the best song lyrics I have heard comes from “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards: “Well I’m watching my TV, and a man comes on and tells me how white my shirts can be, but he can’t be a man ‘cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarettes as me.” Richards was asked about this line in 1971, in an interview with “Rolling Stone" magazine, and he starts sounding like me talking about Jacques Derrida:

“A lot of them are completely innocent. I don’t think that one is. It might have been. I don’t know if it was a sly reference to drugs or not. After a while, one realizes that whatever one writes, it goes through other people, and it’s what gets to them. Like the way people used to go through Dylan songs. It don’t matter. They’re just words. Words is words.”

An ongoing theme on this website, since the first article in May 2016, is “all they have are words”, and everything that means. Now that writing about DEVO, a band for whom “In The Beginning Was The End”, has brought me back around to where I started, I feel that, next time, I need to see how I should follow another of their statements: “mutate, don’t stagnate”.

WHAT WE DO IS WHAT WE DO [514]

There is a lot going on here...

Following a new thrill down the rabbit hole is energising, and I am not ready to climb back out of the DEVO cave since writing about the artistic group a few weeks ago, because I am not done with comprehending the extent of their creativity.

This has been understanding the DEVO did not start as a band, but more as an exploration of agit-prop art – music was also among its members’ capability, both Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh having played in bands, and proved to be such a fruitful avenue for expressing their ideas that it became the major way of disseminating it, causing most casual observers to believe they were a band first... one that had a strong visual identity and philosophical grounding.

This has been realising how easy it is, in our current connected times, to get your own work out – DEVO Inc. was founded in 1978 as the group planned to self-release everything, divisions including Booji Boy Records; DEVO Vision for releasing the “video albums” they anticipated will become the norm; and Recombo DNA Labs, presumably the artistic equivalent of Laboratoire Garnier. They would later acquire a manager and record deals, but continued to make art among those compromises to the music industry as it then stood. Their latest album, 2010’s “Something for Everybody”, turned the capitalism, focus groups and press releases into part of the performance, bringing attention to the accepted parts of the industry machine. 

This is being confronted by Mothersbaugh’s crescendo of yeah-yeah-yeahs in “Uncontrollable Urge”, a song ostensibly about masturbation, while deconstructing two Beatles songs, “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. The jerky movement of the alien choreography of live performances for this song continue to this day, including the final formation at its end, Mothersbaugh and Casale sharing the microphone on the final yeah-yeah-yeah, cementing their claim as the de-evolution of Lennon and McCartney.

This has been dealing not with earworms, but earwasps, with irritatingly catchy bass and synth lines, glued together by Bob Mothersbaugh’s lead guitar, topped with wonderfully observed lyrics. A particular favourite is “Modern Life”, which may have been a demo recorded in 1982, eventually finished in 1998 for use in a video game, but it has infectiously catchy call-and-response lyrics: “It’s a modern life, but it’s not what you’re looking for”, and “It’s a modern life, but it reads better on TV”, followed by “wah-oh, it’s a modern life” or “wah-oh, like it came from a zoo”, with the later refrain of “Time to pay up for the fuck up”, one you could not have made.

This has been trying to find if the B-side song “Mecha-Mania Boy” has ever been released on CD. This synth-heavy piece has been a favourite for years, the story of a delinquent being: “In a crowd or all alone / No one's laughing anymore / Now he wants to know your human's name”. This may be a case of trawling the many compilations and re-releases of DEVO songs and albums over the years, an endless mixing and recontextualising of their back catalogue, before I find when it was made, and how much money someone wants for it.

This has been learning that, through many interviews that Gerald Casale has given that mention the massacre at Kent State University on 4th May 1970, that he considers himself lucky that, having concluded that protest had become a dead end in his country, he found a creative outlet for dealing with that, one influence by the subversive practices of advertisers on Madison Avenue than in organisations like the Weathermen. This makes DEVO’s eventual 2009 cover of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s “Ohio”, a song about the massacre finally performed by people that were there, all the more poignant and impactful.

This has been my thinking about what this means for the current moment. I began writing here in 2016, having recognised a febrile time of elections, the Brexit vote, and what felt like the death of a generation of pop culture – David Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Leonard Cohen, Sir George Martin, Sir Terry Wogan, Victoria Wood, Carrie Fisher, Muhammad Ali. That febrility has not subsided, instead exploited by opportunism: AI, far-right politics, clampdowns on free speech and civil liberties by all sides. The utopian view of the future didn’t arrive, so this must be de-evolution... but DEVO didn’t want to be right. I don’t think the group wanted to be interviewed in 2025 as sages of a world gone wrong, but here we are, and I am not done thinking about it.

Seriously, it's DEVO part 3 next time.

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE RIGHT BACK [513]

We already know nothing comes for free, and signing up to receive a free television has compromises for its viewer. 

The “Telly”, taking a generic, colloquial name for its own, and only available in the United States at present, is exactly that, a free TV, and one that receives channels over the air in addition to the internet. Furthermore, it has two screens: a 4K HDR “Theater Display”, and a second strip screen under the built-in soundbar, a “Smart Screen” that acting as an assistant for video calls, news, weather and other information, while acting as the settings menu for the device without overlaying the main picture...

It also constantly plays ads. They cannot be turned off. Turning off the “Theater Display” won’t turn off the “Smart Screen” – only turning off the entire unit will do this. Blocking that part of the screen violates the user agreement.

I first heard about the “Telly” through the technology website The Verge, and Emma Roth’s review of it that begins: “The last few months, I’ve felt like I’m living in a cyberpunk movie.” The delivery driver brought Roth’s Telly to her house queried her about it, saying he read that the device takes its user’s data: “‘I know,’ I said, ‘That’s basically part of the deal.’”

The “cyberpunk” nature of the device is in line with similar stories I have seen recently about some Chinese toilets purportedly requiring users to scan a QR code and see an advertisement before receiving toilet paper, and Samsung showing ads on screens embedded into their smart fridges.

The answer from Telly Inc. to the question, “If Telly is free, how do you make money?”, sounds reasonable at the very least: “All smart TVs come with ads. But you’re still paying for the TV. All of that changes with Telly. Telly is so smart, that it pays for itself with the help of advertisers and data partners. We think it’s well past time you got cut in on the deal.”

The ”Telly” user agreement is a long one: you must be at least eighteen years old, commit to using the “Telly” as the main TV in your house, keep it connected to the internet, and not use any software or other items that interfere with or block it, or make any modifications to it, or sell, transfer or dispose of it yourself.

Once you have the “Telly” in your house, you must also abide by a privacy policy, for the device automatically collects activity and viewing data, information collected by its built-in camera and motion sensor – although the camera does have a privacy window – along with any voice commands, purchases made through the device, along with details of the network it is connected, along with any other devices connected to that network. This is required to help Telly Inc. personalise and improve the service provided, monitor trends, detect and prevent security issues and comply with legal and financial obligations.

This is on top of any information collected about yourself through the viewing of the device, like your name, location, contact details, demographic details, professional or employment-related information, education, user preferences and choices made. This information will be required for further improving the user experience, but also for advertising and market research purposes. You will have already given some of this information when you set up your Telly profile: “During the profile creation process, we ask questions about you and your household to provide a useful and relevant ad experience. Brands, in turn, pay for the non-intrusive ad on the second Smart Screen. That’s how you get Telly for free. Plain and simple. We think it’s well past time you got cut in on the deal.”

One thing I have not done with Apple, however, is provide them with debit or credit card details to prove my identity to them, or to help with fraud protection, or confirm I am complying with their user agreement - Telly does require this, specifically for those purposes, even if you are not to be charged for anything. 

“Smart” televisions come with similar user agreements for use of its apps and programs – I instead use a separate device for those needs, an Apple TV box that effectively extends the agreements I already made by using other Apple devices. Curiously, the “Telly” comes with a separate Android TV dongle for accessing streaming platforms like Netflix or Disney+, for only Telly’s own services, and Zoom for video calls, are built into the device.

So long as you can square all the above, the “Telly” is free to use. The user agreement states that if you cannot, its service could be restricted, or your ability to use the device will be stopped. Failing to return the device to Telly Inc. following this authorises them to charge a thousand dollars for the device... at which point the TV is presumably yours, and you can do what you like with it, reconnecting and modifying it however you wish. If that price sounds reasonable for what it can do, you probably already spent that on a similar screen without so many obligations.

THAT’S NOT MY NAME [512]

Who was T.G. Jones?

Did they get their start by opening a newspaper stand next to W.H. Smith? Did they keep a beady eye on each other ever since? Did T.G. Jones also open TV channels and a DIY store chain in the 1980s, again to compete with W.H. Smith? Did T.G. Jones know John Menzies before they sold their also-similar store chain to W.H. Smith? 

Naming a business after someone implies both history and vision: Boots, Cadbury, Sainsbury’s, Selfridges, Debenhams, Cath Kidston, Charlotte Tilbury. Making a name up hopes to imply and aspire the same: the JD Wetherspoon pub chain combines a character from the TV series “The Dukes of Hazzard” with the surname of an ineffectual schoolteacher the founder once had.

But the renaming of the high street stores and retail website of WHSmith to “TG Jones”, prompted by their sale to the private equity group Modella Capital at the end of June 2025, created a name designed to sound close to the original. WHSmith is now being a separate chain focused only on appearing at railway stations, airports and hospitals.

But “TG Jones”? A similarly common name to “Smith”, it also recalls the jeans brand Smith & Jones, the food brand Smith & Jones, the TV series “Alias Smith & Jones”, and the comedy double act Mel Smith & Griff Rhys Jones. As for the initials, “G” is next to “H”, and “T” is close to “W” – my guess is the rhyming “tee gee” was a helpful discovery. But so obviously basing the new name on WHSmith is detrimental to it so long as WHSmith continues to exist elsewhere, a confidence trick that didn’t have to exist.

Name changes made by businesses, or people, usually imply new starts, new approaches. But from the name down, TG Jones is all about continuity: with no material changes to stores announced by the new owners, it remains a bookseller, stationer and newsagent that continues to stock WHSmith-branded products, with newspapers and magazines stocked by the distributor Smiths News, and their floorspace will continue to be shared with Post Office branches and Toys “R” Us concessions. Even the sign above the door is still white text on a royal blue background, the only break with WHSmith being its use of a sans serif typeface.

I had been recommended a documentary on YouTube made by NHK World TV of Japan, which explained that a boom in stationery sales to the general public happened after the 2008 financial crisis when businesses stopped providing employees with pens, paper and notebooks. Either this boom didn’t happen in the UK, or WHSmith couldn’t compete on range or price. 

I mostly use Uni Ball Eye rollerball pens, but these are mostly bought from discount retailer TK Maxx or the supermarket Tesco, and the notebooks I use usually come from Amazon because I want is usually in a particular range, size or page count so specific that a high street store cannot afford the space to stock it. WHSmith, or TG Jones, is there when I want a newsmagazine, which it is likely to have, even if it doesn’t seem to stock “The New Yorker” near me anymore, or if I need a Post Office, or indeed anything I cannot wait for, which is something for which I cannot think of an example.

This is the predicament that now needs to be answered by Modella Capital. They are already owners of the “big box” chain store Hobbycraft, which will have some overlap in their ranges of stationery and art supplies, but their website states, above a picture of their chairman, “successful transactions include... Paperchase”, a specialist stationer once owned by WHSmith, its brand bought by Tesco when it went into administration in 2023. Here’s hoping TG Jones can make something of its name this time around. 

IT’S NOT TO LATE TO WHIP IT [511]

"New Traditionalists" alternative album cover

Having only discovered the genius of David Bowie after he died, and becoming enamoured with Kate Bush out of embarrassment for not having any of her albums [https://www.leighspence.net/2024/01/do-you-wanna-know-how-it-feels-432.html], I have, at the very least, understood DEVO, the “de-evolutionary” New Wave band and multimedia project, while it is still possible to see them live. As their catalogue of videos are restored and re-released to their YouTube channel, their work remains as vital and relevant as ever.

I first encountered DEVO many years ago, having had the name “Mark Mothersbaugh” drummed into my head as a child through his opening theme for the cartoon series “Rugrats”, also writing the incidental music alongside his brother Bob. I was pleasantly surprised by the big hits, formed of spiky synthesisers and guitars, driving rhythms and direct lyrics: “Whip It”, “Jocko Homo”, their idiosyncratic cover of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, and “Through Bring Cool”, a song so soaked with smart-ass attitude over being misunderstood – “eliminate the ninnies and the twits” and “time to show those evil spuds what’s what” – that I will never let go of it.

If I only had DEVO’s songs, that would be enough. “Concept albums” are such a ubiquity that I hadn’t considered how much further DEVO took the notion of a “concept”. Indeed, co-founder and co-lead singer Gerard Casale described “de-evolution” as a “technique”, a philosophy informing the group’s outlook and work. 

Casale and friend Bob Lewis had already formed the initial idea that mankind was regressing, instead of continuing to evolve, through increasing dysfunction in society and herd mentality, when Mark Mothersbaugh brought to them a Christian anti-evolutionary tract titled “Jocko Homo: The Heaven-Bound King of the Zoo”, written by a Dr B.H. Shadduck in 1924. Having attempted to read it, I saw it was trying to say that the meeting of liberalism, rationalism and Darwinism had attempted to pass off skeletons as evidence of progress:

“Old bones only prove that brute races and families have passed and will pass. Rudimentary organs prove that equipment not used, be it a wing or a soul, becomes atrophied. THAT IS NOT EVOLUTION, it is the opposite. It is going the wrong way. Show us a species that is coming or an organ that is in the making. Show us how to grow wings where there are none.” [Capitals and italics are as per the original edition.]

The tract later states that “The scholar who believes the ‘fact’ of evolution, doubts the infallibility of the Bible. I know of no exception.” The DEVO song “Jocko Homo” provides its own answer: “All together now, God made man, but he used the monkey to do it / Apes in the plan and we're here to prove it / I can walk like an ape, talk like an ape, I can do what monkey do / God made man, but a monkey supplied the glue.”

The “Devolutionaries” that make up DEVO – its classic 1976-84 line-up is Gerald Casale (vocals/bass/keyboards) and Mark Mothersbaugh (vocals/keyboards), their brothers Bob Mothersbaugh (“Bob 1”, lead guitar) and Bob Casale (“Bob 2”, rhythm guitar and keyboards), and Alan Myers (drums) – present as identically-dressed agents of change, shedding light how humanity is devolving, while technology and cybernetic systems rapidly advance, encouraging people to recognise their plight, and recalibrate and reorganise as a result. 

I may have made this sound heavy-going for a very fun, surrealist and Dada-influenced band, but “Whip It” is a string of motivational statements about dealing with problems, its video only making the “whip” more literal. A further element is potatoes, referencing people and fans of the band as “spuds”, equating with a lowly vegetable often underestimated, as in the line from the song “I’m A Potato”: “I'm a spudman, I got eyes all around”.

While DEVO did not form in answer to it, the shootings by the Ohio National Guard of thirteen unarmed anti-war protestors at Kent State University in Ohio on 4th May 1970, killing four, loom large over the pre-history of the group – Gerald Casale was at the protest, one of his friends being killed there, while Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh were attending another campus at the university that day. Despite their proximity, there is no DEVO song specifically about the incident – this was left to distant observers like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, John Denver, Bruce Springsteen, the Steve Miller Band, The Isley Brothers, Genesis and so on – but it underlined the serious intent of highlighting “de-evolution”.

As early adopters of music videos, conceiving and producing them themselves, DEVO completed a short film in 1976 titled “In the Beginning Was the End: The Truth About De-Evolution”, building a narrative around performances that include characters General Boy and son Booji Boy. The film includes a “De-Evolutionary Oath”, adopting and repurposing a number of “Trick Rules” the “Jocko Homo” tract had “identified” as excuses for evolution theory, reappropriated as calls to action. For the sake of completion, these are: wear gaudy colours or avoid display; lay a million eggs or give birth to one; the fittest shall survive yet the unfit may live; be like your ancestors or be different we must repeat!

My favourite DEVO album is “New Traditionalists”, released in 1981 – it had to be, with “Through Being Cool”, a riposte to the band becoming “cool” after the release of “Whip It”, and employing a darker, more synthesised sound, albeit one caused by the master tape shedding oxide. “Beautiful World” may qualify as one of the best DEVO songs of all, a simple hymn to how great the world is... “for you, for you, for you”. The accompanying video creates a utopian montage of American cultural life, becoming darker and more menacing before the punchline of “It’s not for me” is reached.

I also love how they masqueraded as a corporation, press releases and all, for their most recent album, 2010’s “Something for Everybody”. I now know the famous red ziggurat “energy dome” hats were influenced by the work of scientist Wilhelm Reich, and that I would need to insert a hard hat liner not just for comfort, but to allow the hat to collect energy properly. I find it hilarious that they created the fake Christian pop band Dove, in order so they could appear as their own opening act, one that couldn’t be better than they were. I’m still not sure about the deliberately anaemic cover versions of their own songs in the “EZ Listening Muzak” tapes, originally created to stop live venues playing other bands’ songs before their concerts, but I think they are growing on me – the “EZ” version of “Come Back Jonee” sounds like I may have heard it in an episode of “Rugrats”.

This hasn’t been a case of me recounting lore or building a story. I have been genuinely fascinated by discovering DEVO’s vast body of work, and wanted to share my findings. At the same time, I hope it is as clear as possible that art and politics are not separate, and all art is political as a result – even if the group were just reflecting their current time, that engagement also confirms their intentions in creating that work, and in their continuing to perform it. This notion forms the basis of the art critic John Berger’s book “Permanent Red”, published in 1960:

“But why should an artist’s way of looking at the world have any meaning for us? Why does it give us pleasure? Because, I believe, it increases our awareness of our own potentiality. Not of course our awareness of our potentiality of artists ourselves. But a way of looking at the world implies a certain relationship with the world, and every relationship implies action.”

And so, I love DEVO, and I love how their work energises me. 

WHO ARE YOU? WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO [510]

Copyright: Spartina Productions / Busboy Productions / CBS Broadcasting Inc.

Following on from my discussion about “The One Show”, and with “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” ending in May 2026, I am not likely to become famous enough in time to answer the “Colbert Questionert”, a litmus test made of questions that makes a guest truly known, with a title punning on the pronunciation of the host’s name.

While I have already said I don’t usually watch the American chat shows for their interviews, I make an exception for this feature to see how various people answer the same questions, and whether they see each question as a need to make a snap judgement, or whether it gives pause to ruminate, or another chance to perform. Either way, I can see the “Colbert Questionert” continuing to the podcast that Colbert will inevitably do next - maybe I will be properly answer it someday.

I imagine some questions (or answers) are cut for time, so not all the following questions are heard being asked to everyone, and so I have no guarantee of this being a complete list of all the questions. I treated them as snap judgments, so these answers are as true as I can make them.

Best sandwich?

In alphabetical order: chicken, lettuce, salad cream, tomato.

 

What is the scariest animal?

If not man, then spiders.

 

Apples or oranges?

Oranges: messier to deal with, but a softer, less acidic taste. You don’t really get apple-flavoured chocolate.

 

What was your first concert?

The Cross, at Gosport Festival in July 1993. It was the solo / “other band” project of Roger Taylor, the drummer from Queen, with lots of guests. With it still not being long since Freddie Mercury died, it was undeniably thrilling to clap and hold your arms out to the chorus of “Radio Gaga”, as the man who wrote it sang it to you.

 

Cats or dogs?

Not a pet person, but cats.

 

What's one thing you own that you really should throw out?

A small circular pillow with a painting of a hedgehog printed on it, a runner-up prize from a family Christmas Day quiz some years ago.

 

Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?

Yes, from Paul Gannon & Eli Silverman of the "CheapShow" podcast for their vinyl album, but in a non-committal “if you want to” kind of way - of course they did.

 

What do you think happens when we die?

My energy is redistributed, and things carry on from there.

 

Favourite action movie?

“The Matrix”, a choice apparently shared with both Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon.

 

Window or aisle?

On a bus or coach: window. On a plane: aisle.

 

Favourite smell?

Real vanilla.

 

Least favourite smell?

Excrement of any kind.

 

Exercise: worth it?

Disguise it as a good walk, then I’m sold.

 

Flat or sparkling?

Flat - if a “still” Diet Coke ever comes to market, I will be first in line.

 

Most used app on your phone? 

Its web browser, for nearly two thirds of the time, constantly reading and searching for things.

 

You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it? (You can listen to music whenever you like, but when you do, it is only this song.)

“Station to Station” by David Bowie, specifically from his “Stage” live album – the exhilarating rush of “woo-hoo-hoo-hoo, it’s too late” by its end makes it a better version for me than the original studio version.

 

What number am I thinking of?

Fourteen. (I know it’s wrong, it’s always wrong.)

 

Describe the rest of your life in 5 words?

Wouldn’t I like to know.

 

Congratulations, I am known.

WE WERE RUNNING AGAINST THE WIND [509]

The Mercedes-Benz A-Class saloon

For someone that cannot drive, I talk about cars a lot, mostly about how they were designed, like the Citroën CX, or because they provoked a silly culture war, like Ford replacing the Cortina with the Sierra.

Both as an observer and passenger, little is left to do wrongly in building a car, decades of lessons having been learnt. This was what I thought upon seeing a Mercedes-Benz A-Class saloon, which purported to be a “sub-compact” version of their larger cars, while competing on size and price with the Volkswagen Golf, Audi A3 and Vauxhall Astra. All these cars have similar sweeping lines, rounded edges and recessed door handles, numerous attempts at achieving the most aerodynamic shape of vehicle producing an “average” shape.

And yet, the choices Mercedes-Benz made – the low, aggressive front nose, the rounded boot, and shutters that control air flow through the grille – meant they claimed, when it was introduced in 2018, that it had the lowest-drag co-efficiency of any production car. The hatchback version achieved a figure of 0.25, while the saloon achieved 0.22, which is better than a Tesla Model 3 or BMW 3-Series, while matching that of the Porsche Taycan.

If this had been the 1980s, the number “0.22” would have been written somewhere on the car, just as the 1982 Audi 100 had “Cd 0.30” emblazoned on its sides, such was the monumental achievement. That the A-Class has now been axed, without any further fanfare, by Mercedes-Benz, now preferring to focus on larger cars, without any further fanfare, speaks to how easy producing an aerodynamic shape is expected to be.

Drag co-efficiency, measuring the resistance on an object as it is moved through air, water or other “fluid” environment, was once a major selling point for a car. Put extremely simply, a drag co-efficiency score comes from measuring drag – the force opposing an object as it moves through an environment – versus the mass, speed and surface area of the object.

Car companies want to reduce the drag on their cars because it makes their cars faster and more efficient without needing to produce more power, while speaking to build quality through removing any areas where air can be trapped, by both smoothing out body panels and reducing or eliminating the gaps between them. The TV ad for the Audi 100 dramatised this as letting go of parachutes that were holding the car back. 

However, regardless of how the drag-co-efficiency score is produced, the fact that that the lower to zero the score is, the more aerodynamic the object must be, is enough to make use for marketing purposes. For example, the “jelly-mould” styling of the Ford Sierra was a major departure from the boxy styling of the Ford Cortina it replaced, taking some time to grow on British car buyers, but in reducing drag co-efficiency from 0.45 to 0.34, reducing fuel consumption from the engines that were carried over from the Cortina.

Computer-aided design advanced both the drafting and refining of a car’s aerodynamics over the testing of clay models and one-off prototypes. Citroën famously achieved low drag on a number of cars, including the SM coupé, and CX and GS saloons all achieving a figure of under 0.35 during the 1970s, but the British Leyland Princess range, later becoming the maligned Austin Ambassador, only managed around 0.40, typical for a 1970s car designed on paper, but also of poor fit and finish. The Austin Allegro has also been panned as a car more aerodynamic when driven backwards, but I could find no figures to claim either way.

Now that an “average” car shape has been reached – a child drawing a car would now draw an egg with wheels than a three-boxed shape – drag co-efficiency means little. The Ford Puma SUV, the biggest-selling car in the UK, achieves a figure of 0.31-0.32, like its competitor, the Vauxhall Mokka – I guess it is something about being that bit taller off the ground than a regular car. The Audi A3 couldn’t beat the A-Class with 0.28-0.29, but it is at least still in production. Even the latest Cadillac Escalade, essentially a large building moving at speed, has a figure of 0.36. Tesla, BMW and Mercedes-Benz can reach towards 0.2, but only with their saloon cars.

I had to look – the card game “Top Trumps” did not use drag co-efficiency in their car-themed sets, as doing so may require renaming the game.