TRUE BLUE, BABY I LOVE YOU [102]

For me, the easiest way to start is by recounting the story: last week, the French-Dutch company Gemalto, a digital security company that also manufactures mobile SIM cards and biometric scanners, emerged as the winner of a blind auction held by the UK Government for the contract to produce passports for ten years from 2019. The new passports will be blue in colour, but this turned out to be the least interesting part of the story. Gemalto will replace De La Rue, the British makers of banknotes and stamps, who themselves won the contract in 2009 from 3M Security Printing and Scanning, although the originators of Scotch tape and Post-it notes are no longer in this line of work.

Back to today: the “Daily Mail” newspaper, having fallen out of its bath chair upon hearing that a foreign company – a French-ish one, no less – may be awarded the contract to produce a symbol of British nationality, has received over 120,000 signatures to a petition demanding that the makers of British passports must remain British, regardless of the fact an American company has done it before. The argument forced by the “Mail” includes how Gemalto are to be bought by the French defence company Thales, which is partly owned by the French state, and that the company had apparently been subjected to hacking raids in 2010 and 2011 from the US National Security Agency, and from its British equivalent, GCHQ, that were aimed at stealing the encryption keys that could unlock the security settings in SIM cards, of which Gemalto is the world’s biggest producer.

I used my hundredth article to point out how the circulation of the “Mail” is falling, and I wish this story had broken then, for it clearly explains why the eventual demise of this newspaper will not be mourned. As the “Mail” pointed out, the information on the hacking raids came from documents released by the whistle-blower Edward Snowden, who had been working as a contractor for the NSA. In October 2013, when another newspaper, “The Guardian,” published information on what Snowden had leaked, the “Mail” labelled it, “a paper that helps Britain’s enemies,” that would put lies in danger. Another newspaper, “The Independent,” also spoke at the time about choosing not to publish leaked data that would have proved sensitive. I can only guess that, due to time having passed, any leaked information that now helps prove your point is now fair game.

Then, there is headline for the “Mail’s” comment piece, published in last Friday’s issue: “Today the Mail has a question for Britain’s ruling class: Why DO you hate our country, its history, culture, and the people’s sense of identity?” It is an extraordinary screed of bile and phlegm, which includes this magical passage: “As the EU pillaged our sovereignty, it also decimated the symbols of our sovereignty. Weights and measures went the same way as the passport.” Those metric bastards! The piece also references how, “while Remainers predictably sneered,” the new passport was announced to be blue in colour, for the first time since 1988, a symbolic shift from the burgundy colour adopted since 1988, when the UK voluntarily standardised its passport colour with the rest of the European Union – as someone who has only ever had a burgundy passport, this means absolutely nothing, but for others, especially the “Mail”, the symbolism of a return to something imperial means the entire world to them.

I thought the blue cover of the new passports was going to be my main point of conversation, a symbol of longing for a time that exists only in memory, as people only tend to remember the good things about the past – using the colour of a book to indicate a distinct national identity being one such thing, rather than hailing the less sexy fact that British citizens can access more visa-free travel than anyone else on Earth.

Instead, I am stuck talking about awarding government contracts. The prevailing argument since the news broke over Gemalto, propagated by the “Mail,” is that despite the award being the result of the free-market economics of which you imagine the “Mail” would be in favour, money should not have been the major thought, even if the Government could save up to £120 million. While De La Rue could lose jobs, Gemalto will create jobs, particularly at its offices in Fareham, not far from where I live. However, even if Gemalto proves it is secure in its management of data, just as De La Rue and 3M did, the simple fact that allowing a non-British company to deal with British biometric data is being considered as treasonous, giving a British national newspaper another chance to be xenophobic about those bloody foreigners again: page 7 of last Friday’s “Mail” carried a teaser for a later story, marked as “Mass walkouts cripple France – quelle surprise!” It’s almost like the French right to strike is part of their national identity or something.

IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD [101]

It is hard to talk about the genre of music known as vaporwave without understanding its intention. A bit like punk, vaporwave subverts the 1980s consumerist society by cutting up the music and images of the decade, and representing it as an ironic form of nostalgia, and yes, I am still talking about music.

The name “vaporwave” comes from two sources – “vaporware” is a term given to computer software that is announced, but never appears, while it also evocates “waves of vapour,” a term from Karl Marx denoting old ideas and conventions being swept away before they can solidify. It is not a bad way of describing a genre that popped up as a meme, on the social media site Tumblr in 2010, but its having lasted longer than the original burst of punk in the 1970s means the nostalgia for the failed promises of a 1980s consumer society clearly speaks a lot to people.

What does vaporwave do? Just as the postmodern practices of sampling, cutting and pasting, and nostalgia came to the fore in the 1980s, vaporwave takes what that decade gave us and cuts it up again, finding more connections. Most often, a passage in a song is slowed down and looped, partially for the disorientating and alienating effect, but also to focus on particular lyrics or melodies. A major example of this is the song “Computing of Lisa Frank 420 / / Contemporary,” by Macintosh Plus (aka Vektroid, both aliases of the DJ Ramona Xavier) – its original title is in Japanese, a country also borrowed for vaporwave iconography – by cutting up a 1984 Diana Ross album track, “It’s Your Move,” a slick three-minute song becomes a seven-minute brooding dirge, highlighting the refrain of “it’s all in your head.” It could be said to be post-music too, as little or no original music is composed for vaporwave, unless you are trying to recreate the effect by writing an original piece.

For the record, the albums to listen for the beginning of vaporwave are “Eccojams Vol.1” by Chuck Person, the cover of which cuts up the cover for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis game “Ecco the Dolphin”; “Far Side Virtual” by James Ferraro; and Macintosh Plus’s “Floral Shoppe,” which has an album cover that sums up the visual aesthetics – sorry, I mean A E S T H E T I C S – of vaporwave: a playful mix of pastel and fluorescent colours, cityscapes, patterns, along  with Roman busts and columns. For good results, the art should look like it was slightly unplanned, resulting from a glitch, found and revered, just like the music.

For many, this type of experiment makes a hard listen without context, and I first came across the genre through its use in series on YouTube like Dead Mall Series, Ace’s Adventures and Retail Archaeology, which have all used vaporwave as backdrops to video tours of deserted American shopping malls, where the shift to shopping online left the shopping meccas of the 1980s and 1990s to become vacant, deserted, and abandoned. With the accompanying vaporwave soundtrack sounding like it may be playing in the mall during the filming – indeed, background music from the Muzak Corporation is also used for vaporwave tracks – it feels like the utopian safe space of the shopping mall, and the aspirational imagery in advertising, were false promises, but that could just be the Marxist side of it.

Where does all of this effort go? For many, vaporwave will feel like a deliberate joke, an attempt to create something that purports to have depth, when it has none. But like any solid postmodern work, all the meaning is on the surface, and that meaning, at least to me, is to make something of the fractured world the 1980s has left us, and rejoice in it.

WE HAVE THE CHANCE TO TURN THE PAGES OVER [100]

This is my one hundredth article for “Leigh Spence is Dancing with the Gatekeepers,” probably the best blog title in the world, and I thank you all for reading what began as a weekly writing exercise in May 2016. I must have written at least sixty thousand words since then but, perhaps more importantly, sales of the “Daily Mail” newspaper fell by over two hundred thousand copies in that time. I know these figures are not related, but I have more to say about this later.

What I love about writing is the process, the build-up, the formation of an idea. This usually culminates in a frenzy of typing at the last possible moment, like this one has, especially if the ideas came later. For months, I assumed trying to equate the outlandish nature of the current political climate with Dadaist performance art did not work out, leaving me with lessons for next time, but that article, using a quote from Alfred Jarry’s absurdist play “Ubu Roi” – “That’s a beautiful speech, but nobody’s listening” – has become the most popular article so far.

Other moments of apparent madness included making blue pyramids of Quorn, making the food more attractive to children’ the assertion that “ain’t” is a proper word that adds punch to song lyrics; that our old family car, an Austin Ambassador with a brown interior, is now one of the rarest production cars in Britain; that people build super-basements so they no longer have to go out; that there are many types of Range Rover to help those that identify as Range Rover drivers, so they can live their life the way they feel; and that Donald Trump is the first world leader to restrict his own ability to speak, rather than restrict his own people. When there is always a next time, ideas come freely.

But what if time is running out? With endless space online, and a curious brain that won’t shut up, my writing has no reason to cease, but what if I was a newspaper, speaking with a one-track mind, in a country where newspaper sell fewer copies than ever?

The world knows “Daily Mail” as the most-read news website in the English, with a very showbiz-led mix on its brightly coloured front page, but UK residents also know it as a very conservative, populist newspaper that makes many people want to spit – you can buy t-shirts and badges saying, “I’m the one the Daily Mail warned you about”. It began in 1896, but its current form evolved in 1971, when the seriously-minded broadsheet “Mail” was merged with a more populist tabloid paper, the “Daily Sketch,” with “Sketch” staff effectively taking over the new compact “Mail,” building a fiercely confident, conservative voice that, within a few years, overturned fifty years of the “Daily Express” beating it at its own game – the “Mail” now sells as much as the “Express,” “Daily Mirror” and “Daily Star” put together.

So why did I mention the “Mail’s” sales had fallen? Looking at figures quoted by the “Press Gazette” website, its circulation peaked at 2.59 million copies in September 2001. By February 2018, that figure halved to 1.34 million, down eleven percent on the previous year. The global shift to online put printed newspapers into decline, and when Mail Online effectively gives you the same content for free, why bother with the “Daily Mail” at all?

After reading it for the last month, I wish I knew. I consider myself to be politically in the centre, but I am definitely to the left of the “Mail.” It reads like a magazine, using many double-page spreads of stories and opinion pieces in high-contrast black on white type, bellowing its points down to the reader in length and in depth. Using these pages to brand Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn an informant to a Communist spy, and ex-Formula One boss Max Mosley as much of a racist as his father, everyone with connections to them are also scrutinised and judged for their reactions, and the BBC is criticised for not covering either of the stories at the same length – when Mosley didn’t reply  how the “Mail” wanted, the next day’s headline was “STILL HE WON’T APOLOGISE.” Based on what was printed, both Corbyn and Mosley have some questions to answer, but the “Mail” has already found them guilty as hell, let alone guilty as charged, and any raising of their voices is a threat to a free press.

There has also been the A-Z of Millennial speak, the A-Z of Baby Boomer speak, the “witch hunt” against men by “Hollywood feminists,” how political correctness causes sense of humour failure, stories about the pro-EU bias by inbred left-wing taxpayer-funded BBC, and the usual stuff about politicians, tax avoiders, judges and investment bankers trying to thwart Brexit, preventing the will of the British people. The last of these included a page-length editorial comment with the headline, “They just don’t get it, do they? This elitist class imposing THEIR views on ordinary people…”

I think the “Mail” gets off on hearing itself rage. If the “Mail” were a person, I would run away.

The last months of screaming words has been overwhelming, the spectacle of the Metropolitan liberal elite being lambasted by the Metropolitan conservative elite seemed like an ironic and pointless bonfire, as the “Mail’s” sales continue to fall – Mail Online hides many of the double-page spreads under a link to “Columnists,” leaving the bigger stories to generate views and revenue. For all the outrage over the content of the “Daily Mail” as a newspaper, for how it currently uses acres of paper to tell us to stop using plastic, and for all the advertising boycotts by Lego, Paperchase and Center Parcs, there remains one thing: the figures show the newspaper is dying anyway. Unless the website can support it when printing on paper is too unprofitable to continue, we will live to see the end of the “Daily Mail” – it will happen, it will absolutely happen.

One day, just as in the dream that gave me the name for this blog, I may turn “Leigh Spence is Dancing with the Gatekeepers” into an album, where I will yell at those that tell you what to think, singing “all they have are words” until fadeout. I don’t know if that will be in the next hundred articles, but I will see where my mind takes me.

IT’S THE THEATRE OF FINANCIERS [99]

If I ever win the lottery, I would invest in premium bonds. I know the National Lottery is now the main way to win a cash sum, but having now looked further, I can maintain my fantasy.

Bonds are used by governments and businesses to borrow money from investors for a fixed period of time. Interest on the amount borrowed is paid to the investor at regular intervals, and the investor gets their initial sum back at the end of the term. Premium bonds are different in that the interest is instead issued as a monthly prize draw, and the bonds are held indefinitely by the UK Government, through National Savings & Investments, until you request your investment back.

This is all fine, so long as the business or government can pay back its debt to you. The Gibson Guitar Corporation, makers of the Les Paul since 1952, are currently facing bankruptcy, and not just because guitar-based rock music is currently not as popular as electronic-based rap or hip hop: it is running the risk of being unable to repay on bonds it issued to expand its business, which now includes audio brands like TEAC, TASCAM, Pioneer, Onkyo, and even the audio-video-multimedia arm of Philips, leaving the Dutch company to focus on its “health and wellbeing” products.

In other words, for a rock music singer and musician like David Bowie to issue his own bonds, in 1997, required an unsurpassable level of confidence, although this had been proven – in 1985, he became the first artist to release his back catalogue on CD, only two years after CD players became commercially available, and in 1996, “Telling Lies,” from Bowie’s  album “Earthling,” became the world’s first downloadable single, selling 300,000 copies.

The back catalogue was the reason for issuing the bonds, as Bowie sought to end his obligations to his former manager, Tony DeFries, who he had split from in 1975. DeFries owned 50 per cent of Bowie’s recordings from up to 1975, and a claim to half of Bowie’s share of the royalties for them, and a sliding scale of those recorded after it to 1982, which includes the “Low,” “Heroes,” “Lodger” and “Scary Monsters” albums. With these payments to DeFries due to continue in perpetuity, and with DeFries using the contract to release compilations of material without Bowie’s approval, such as recordings of old sessions for the BBC, Bowie would need to take full ownership of his catalogue to stop this exploitation of his work.

The investment David Pullman was the inventor of the “Bowie Bond,” and has since become head of his own company that has done similar deals for other artists. Under his idea, the next ten years royalties for David Bowie’s back catalogue would be secured, at an interest rate of 7.9 per cent – Premium Bonds only offer 1.4%. With all the bonds bought by the Prudential Insurance Company of America for $55 million, keeping them for the full period, despite their ability to sell them on, it was up to Bowie to preserve the value of the songs that were now his – more touring, and more playing of the hits. Bowie even branched out into further enterprises, with his own internet service provider, BowieNet, in 1998, and 2000 saw an online bank, BowieBanc, which only reached around 1,500 customers. More conventionally, 1999’s “Hours” album became the first album to be available for download ahead of its physical release (by two weeks).

Of course, Bowie was accused by his peers of selling out, of turning himself and his work into a commodity or utility, and the changing nature of the music industry, especially the threat posed by MP3 streaming sites like Napster, caught it out. The Bowie Bonds, as a result, were relegated to near-junk status by the credit ratings agency Moody’s, despite Prudential not selling them – Moody’s didn’t think Bowie would be able to pay Prudential back on time. Having said that, Bowie continued to look at the long game, as shown in an interview with “The New York Times” in 2002:

“The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years, and authorship and intellectual property is in for such a bashing… Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again.”

Having looked into this, I am unsurprised David Bowie went into semi-retirement for a few years, before springing “The Next Day” upon everyone in 2013. With his future secure, his future worth proven, and with familiarity probably breeding a little contempt, it was time to let the prophecies, and the marketplace, play themselves out. It is not romantic to talk about money and art together, but when one is needed to preserve the other, it becomes unavoidable.

NOR ANY DROP TO DRINK [98]

This is the story of how I come across something, and the thought process that came from it.

Opening up the latest issue of a magazine I received in the post, I am used to there being a number of sachets or cards glued to pages to advertise new perfumes, shampoos and conditioners. I am also used to getting perfume on my fingers each month when I try to pick them off, which is a sure-fire way to make me not want to buy them later.

I then came across a large see-through sachet marked “Garner SkinActive Micellar Cleansing Water.” Garnier paid a magazine publisher to affix a bag of water to the inside of a product made of paper, and it was posted to me without leaking? I also liked the clarification that this was “cleansing” water, as if this was an extra quality that Garnier have been able to bring to the water. Perhaps this is me being a bit facetious, as the “micellar” bit must mean that some molecular engineering must have taken place, but if you are essentially claiming to have reinvented water, then I will look at you with both eyebrows raised.

The water came with instructions: to apply it to a cotton wool pad, and to wipe my face, eyes and lips with it. Because it was water, I did not need to rinse afterwards. I put the sachet to one side, and waited to use it until a point when I would come home from a particularly strenuous walk. It was time: I used a pair of scissors to cut open the sachet, as my fingers proved not to be strong enough. Bubbles formed at the exit point, as the water was soaked into a cotton wool pad. As water should do, it felt fresh on my face as I worked the pad over it. I looked at the results: it had picked up quite a bit of dirt. In short, it had acted as both a skin cleanser and as a make-up remover.

Here’s the science bit: micellar water is so called because it contains “micelles,” found here as cleansing oil molecules. In the same way that washing-up liquid or detergent works, the micelles reduce the surface tension of the water, making it easier for the water to pick up dirt, attaching to the micelles. Micellar water was first popularised in France, after its introduction by Bioderma in 1991, because it uses soft water, so the skin should not be dried out the same way that France’s naturally hard tap water would. It appears that micellar water was known only to the French for many years, as the first “what the hell is this about?” articles start appearing in English from about 2015.

Would I buy a bottle of the stuff? Once I finish up all the other stuff I bought that is said to work for my skin, I may consider it.

JUST GIMME GIMME GIMME GIMME FRIED CHICKEN [97]

It may have been the use of “chaos,” “crisis,” and even “famine” in headlines, but it was definitely when Tower Hamlets Police, which patrols the traditional East End of London, used Twitter to tell people to stop calling them, while using the hashtag #KFCCrisis.

The short version of this story is that KFC, which hasn’t called itself Kentucky Fried Chicken since 1991, has moved the distribution of product to its restaurants from Bidvest to DHL, and to say it has been far from seamless may still be downplaying things: there have been pictures of crying children and angry mothers by locked doors to closed stores, with as many as three quarters of the near nine hundred branches being forced to close until stock came back, while another person was quoted to say, nonchalantly, “I guess I’ll have to go somewhere else.” Apparently, the GMB union warned KFC about this, as Burger King had the same problem in 2012, when they moved their distribution to DHL, but it looks like flame-grilled burgers did not capture the British imagination quite so much.

I confess to being bemused by this story, as I rarely eat at KFC, despite two branches being located in my home town – I prefer McDonalds or Subway, and we have one each of them too. I have walked past a different branch of Subway that remained open despite having no bread, and this was before they began pushing their salad bowls. Perhaps the sudden inability of prospective customers to act upon their impulse as they expected, which is the foundation of the business model for a fast food restaurant, is what led to the inordinate amount of attention this situation has received. However, when you factor in how the current diet of news stories consist of Brexit, things that Donald Trump said on Twitter, and accusations of sexual assault, you begin to see how important fried chicken can be as a momentary diversion.

In the absence of my own opinion, I did wonder what Colonel Sanders would think of this. Unlike Ronald McDonald, KFC had a real, breathing, salaried brand ambassador, who created the “secret blend of herbs and spices,” cooked by pressure frying instead of pan frying, in 1940, before selling the franchise, except for the Canadian division, in 1963 for $2 million. He also had cameo appearances in films with titles like “Hell’s Blooody Devils” and “Blast-Off Girls,” while remaining close to a bucket or a grill.  I make this point because when the face above the door, and on the buckets, starts telling you that the gravy tastes like wallpaper paste, in addition to pushing food he thought unpalatable onto the floor when visiting some restaurants, you may have a situation where a restaurant sues its mascot. The libel suit brought by KFC was ultimately unsuccessful but, then again, Harland Sanders had practiced law in Little Rock, Arkansas, as one of its many jobs before entering the restaurant business – a part of me still hopes he sought legal advice from Mayor McCheese.

Once all branches of KFC have reopened, it may be worth pushing their other menu options, as they appear to have rice dishes too. This year has already seen branches of the Wetherspoon pub chain have no steak on Steak Night, an incident that ultimately collapsed the distributor involved. Have something else instead, for there will always be a next time.

WHAT THE WORLD WANTS TODAY IS THE REAL THING [96]

As one of the most popular and ubiquitous products on Earth, Coca-Cola only needs to advertise its brand either to keep itself in the front of people’s minds, or when they need to tell us how many of their drinks have no sugar in them. The Coke brand is solid: its logo has barely changed since the drink was introduced in 1886, the bold colour red is used across all variations, and the silhouette of the “hobbleskirt” bottle is immediately synonymous. To that end, Coca-Cola advertising can be brilliantly straightforward: apart from American taglines like, “Coke Is It!” and “Red, White and You,” I remember a British poster ad, from a few years ago, of a Coke bottle against a red background, with the line, “And what would you like to eat?”

Haddon Sundblom

Then there is the “Yes” girl – the Coca-Cola Company’s website points out it would never say “girl” these days. The most famous “Yes” girl ad was from 1946, in a billboard ad painted by Haddon Sundblom, who had also been painting the Coca-Cola Santa Claus, the character’s face inspired by his own, since 1931. The ad features a woman in a bikini, sat on a beach, perhaps propping herself up after sunbathing, being handed a bottle of Coke by someone outside of the frame. Other than the Coca-Cola logo displayed on a red disc like an enormous button, the only other element is the word “Yes” - the woman is sitting on sand, but the background is white, as in blank.

I first came across this ad in the definitive history of the drink and the company, Mark Pendergrast’s “For God, Country and Coca-Cola” – this book also happens to print, towards the back, what is believed to be the secret recipe for Coke which, apparently, includes coriander, cinnamon and nutmeg. It just didn’t make sense to me: who is saying “yes” to what? Is it from the woman to the drink, or from the hand to the woman? Am I, looking at the tableau, supposed to be saying “yes” to the drink, or the woman, or both?

It should be noted that the Freudian, psychological approaches to advertising and consumer behaviour would only become commonplace in the next ten years, and Coca-Cola had its own rules on how people would be used in advertising, seeing as it is drunk by everyone: both women would be seen in roles as varied as men in Coke ads, especially in uniform during the Second World War, and even after a switch in advertising agency in 1950 meant painted ads were swapped for photo shoots. Perhaps, at that point just after the end of the war, a focus on being seen to enjoy life was paramount.

With 2018 eyes, the 1946 “Yes” ad does not look innocent, but it is only because we are wiser to practices used in advertising since then, surrounding the use of women as a glamourous garnish, that would be interpreted as sexist. Along with Sundblom’s other painted ads for Coke, the “Yes” girl occupies the same area of popular art as John Gilroy’s work for Guinness, including the famous toucan, but we know straplines like, “Lovely day for a Guinness,” and “Guinness is good for you,” are not claims Guinness would, or could, make nowadays. Having the single word “yes” is too oblique for an ad, and too open to interpretation one way or the other – perhaps Coca-Cola should have put the “yes” in quotation marks, like they did elsewhere.