Moore Than This

Gone to a better place

2007-09-06T17:06:00.000+01:00

Having suffered from a near-terminal case of couldn't-be-bothered-to-write-itis for most of this summer, I decided that to coincide with the resurection of my blog, I should move it to Wordpress. The new Moore Than This is now open for business, making the most of late summer sunshine permitting.

Journals!!!11!1

2007-04-19T23:38:00.000+01:00

In preparation for writing the big assessed essay for my Japan's International Relations module, I've spent the afternoon in the library, looking over scholarly journals on East Asian affairs for articles I can use. I have to say, the people who write these articles ought to make an effort to jazz up their writing. They are aiming for readership after all. Any publication that can switch its layout to day-glo covers and splash headlines about "Kim Jong-Il's HOT HOT HOT new hairstyle" and "Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in boozy after-hours press conference" stands to capture a substantial share of the market.

Jim Moore is a publishing industry professional. Honest.

Long absence report

2007-04-05T16:25:00.000+01:00

After my last post, the various deadlines at the end of term began to pile up so I didn't have to write anything. A few things happened in the interim though: a trip down to Leicester to see my mate Ed before he set to study in Germany, a conference at Leeds on East Asian relations where I listened to some very interesting discussions, catching up on the first series of the truly excellent TV show The Wire, and going to London to see the Hogarth exhibition at Tate Modern. The Easter holiday is going to end on a high note, as we set off for New York tomorrow. I'll be back by next week, hopefully with enough photos to send my Flickr stream into overload.

Respecting refugees, parading puppets, and a filmic Faversham

2007-03-05T22:17:00.000Z

Today I went down to the Union to help out at the stall for the Leeds Uni Amnesty group's latest campaign, run with the Leeds Student Action for Refugees group. We were campaigning against the destitution of asylum seekers as part of government policy (for more info, see here), and did a pretty good job of getting signatures for the petition, selling cakes to raise money for a local asylum seeker support group, and raising awareness. Some of the artier members of the AI group had made custom designed T-shirts and giant puppets to attract attention, and at one point I put on one of the puppets. While I thought it added a certain something to my outfit, its tendency to list to one side put terrible strain on my back. Still, it's not about me, is it?

During my stint on the stall, a guy came by who said he was going to be arguing for the motion "Should Britain close its borders?" at the debate on Thursday (also part of the events) and wanted to know if we could tell him how migrants enriched the country. I nicknamed him "Private Joker" because he was an enlistee in the military jacket fad that has swept the country, and because his views were pretty laughable. After he told me that Wikipedia didn't have an answer to his question (Zounds!), I asked him if he got all his political positions from Wikipedia. His answer was an admirably honest "yes". All in all, it's a pity I'll be out of Leeds on Thursday. Seeing him in the debate would be ... interesting, to say the least.

In the evening there was an screening at a relaxed watering hole just off campus of Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things. If you haven't seen it, you should - it's great as a thriller, a love story, and an exploration of a side of modern Western societies that doesn't usually get seen.

And on the way home, a giant rat scampered across my path. Bit of an incongruous ending, but there you go.

It's a luscious mix of words and tricks

2007-02-25T22:56:00.001Z

Got the new Shins album yesterday. I've been a fan since I bought "Oh, Inverted World" the summer before I went to Japan, and since then they've always been associated in my mind with that time and settling into my year abroad. The new album, "Wincing the Night Away", is just as good - a subtle album, but a grower. As well as writing some of the catchiest indie-pop tunes since the Housemartins, the Shins' music also features completely nonsensical lyrics. Which leads to some embrassing situations at times, where I have to stop myself singing about "the sacred lambs of Sunday ham" or some such gibberish in public.

Lenin wants your lovin

2007-02-10T01:45:00.001Z

lenin wants your lovin
Originally uploaded by moorethanthis.

Walking around Leeds campus, you'll always be sure to find posters for various left-wing groups and events. This one caught my attention because it was the first I'd ever seen to use humour. Of course, being an Alabama 3 fan makes the joke so much richer (but not in the financial sense, capitalist pig-dogs).

Downtime in the Den

2007-02-08T22:37:00.000Z

Just at a time when I was in need of distraction, BBC Two has threw some televisual gold my way last night with the new series of Dragon's Den. I'd call it guilty pleasure TV, but the fact is I learn more about business pitches, investing and running a company from it than I do from sources like the Economist.

The long-running formula involves hapless investors pitching their ideas to a bunch of entrepreneurs who do their best to fit the snarling, hard-nosed stereotype. The schadenfreude factor comes when they realise they haven't prepared enough/have no idea about their figures/have a product that no-one wants, and are subsequently ripped to pieces by the "dragons". It's an interesting presentation of entrepreneurship and business, as while you're entertained by the dragons, you don't admire them (and you're probably not meant to).

At the time when the US show The Apprentice was about to be adapted into a British version, I read someone's opinion that the UK had an anti-enterprise culture as opposed to the US (can't remember where, or I'd link it). Comparing the two shows, it looks like Dragon's Den is far more about individual enterprise than The Apprentice - after all, in the former contestants have to have a business or idea that they can build into a profitable organisation. With The Apprentice, it's all about following doing whatever Donald Trump (or Alan Sugar) tells you.

And even the choice of tycoon makes the show seem dated. Trump was presumably chosen on his reputations as the brash, go-getting businessman of the 1980s, and he plays it as if nothing had happened in the intervening two decades. The companies that make big money and capture the public imagination nowadays - the Googles and the YouTubes - are run on a completely different corporate culture. It would be quite interesting to see a show where a bunch of hopefuls work for a pair of web visionaries, getting pushed to think up the next hugely popular application and taking time out in the bean bag room or whatever they have at Google HQ. Still, given the choice between that and Duncan Bannatyne sneering at someone's flimsy business proposal, I go for humiliation and suffering any day.

"I've made a huge mistake"

2007-02-07T14:30:00.000Z

You know those days when you you realise just how badly you've messed up? I've been having quite a few of those days recently. So, here are a few clips from Arrested Development (my new favouritest US sitcom) to put across how I feel right now.

Warning: learning Japanese can lead to addictive behaviour

2007-01-30T16:24:00.000Z

...But at least the manfacturers of my new dictionary have recognised the threat and printed directions for help in the inside cover.

The New Nelson Japanese English Character Dictionary was recommended by our teacher at the end of last semester. At 1600 pages, it was certainly one of the heaviest presents I recieved this Christmas, but I'm just working out it might well be one of the most useful.

The handout for our translation module this semester included as the first of its objectives that students would be able to "read, translate, summarise, and discuss Japanese texts that are NOT altered for ease of comprehension." While the texts we were given last semester were fairly complex, last week's work (an extract from a book on General MacArthur and the post-war occupation of Japan) included some characters and vocabulary that completely defeated my trusty electronic dictionary. Working with my three-year-old miniature model and the newly acquired paper monster, I was able to work through the text and unearth the most obscure and specialist vocabulary, including this gem: 公娼制度, or the pre-war system of licenced prostitution. If that isn't specialist, I don't know what is.

In short, if like me you're at a fairly advanced level in Japanese study and know you're going to continue at it for a long time, the New Nelson or a dictionary like it is basically invaluable.

The Sun Says: Racism bad this week

2007-01-23T20:01:00.000Z

Anyone with half an eye on the UK press over the last week or two will have noticed that all national tabloids have been markedly loud in their condemnation of racism. All it took was the juxtaposition of someone as beautiful as Shilpa with someone as unappealing as Jade.

While the media reaction is on the whole a good thing, you have to question their motivations. The most violent condemnations of Jade come from the Sun, a paper that not only reports avidly on every run of Big Brother and arguably helped launch Jade's celebrity career with their coverage, but has been known to cast slurs on entire communities and make stuff up when it suits their agenda of demonising a given group. The coverage, as well as having in some cases a ugly undertone of classism, gives the impression that The Scum and others are having their cake and eating it.

To sum up in a simple way what I was trying to express in my original post, the question is what is more offensive:

1) Someone who has achieved public recognition from being stupid and loutish while appearing on television, again behaving in a stupid and loutish fashion on television, or:

2) The confluence of business and media interests that work together to ensure people like the example of 1) are kept in the public eye and their path to fame seen as something to emulate.

I, personally, go for the latter.

It's the little things we do, when you go out in the night

2007-01-22T21:54:00.000Z

No, no, no. Never again. No nay never, no never, no more. I am never drinking again - until the next time, obviously.

A housemate's birthday is always a big occasion, and Saturday was J's 21st. A bunch of J and S's friends came up from their hometown, and with most of my housemates elsewhere, hosting duties were down to me. What with their having started drinking early on, I was very well-lubricated by the time we went out to the Elbow Room. Make that completely smashed. I was dancing like a loon amongst all the trendy types on the dancefloor, getting odd looks and the occasional thumbs-up. I knew what a fool I was making of myself, but I didn't care. Self-awareness mixed with joyous abandon - it's a good combination, and the way I'd like to live all of my life. Shame I have to get terrifically drunk to do it.

Arriving back at the house a little after everyone else, I found my room turned upside down and my safe gone. It was a practical joke by one of our guests, who kept dropping me subtle hints for the rest of the night about whose room he'd left the safe in. This made me laugh in the morning. We weren't exactly in Da Vinci Code territory - I was having trouble understanding simple sentences, let alone coded messages.

The following afternoon, we braved the outside world to go to the pub and watch the football. I don't really support any team, but I can watch a football match and appreciate it. The trouble is, I do it in a rather detached way, which coupled with my hungover state meant I was the only person in a crowd of cheering Manchester United fans sitting down, clapping my hands at the goal and drawling "Fantastic. Jolly good show. Super-duper."

I have a feeling that they somehow had me pegged as a casual fan.

Unfortunately, today classes begin again and I have my nose to the grindstone once more. Expect more adventures to the furthest edges of ~~my sanity~~ Japanese grammatical forms, as 2007 rumbles on.

Oh noes! How did I miss this?!

2007-01-20T02:58:00.000Z

My friend Sam is off on his travels overland from Paris to Osaka, and has set up a blog to chronicle his epic adventures. Also blogging the journey are his travelling companions Raph and Johnson. Each of the three are worth a read, and the journey itself sounds absolutely amazing - the kind of thing I wish I had done a few years ago, if I had the initiative, the funds and like-minded friends to accompany me. Right now, in the middle of a degree and the financial obligations that entails, the best I can do is track their progress through the magic of teh interwebs. Hell, already the Foreign Legion is sounding a decent post-graduate career choice...

But everyone's doing it, ma!

2007-01-19T20:22:00.000Z

Yes, yes, I deplore reality TV in all its forms, and I know there are probably more important things going on in the world right now (China's entry into the space arms race being one of them). But as the whole blogocube and all the daily papers are talking about it, the Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy is stuck in the public consciousness as an uncomfortable reminder, not only of the underlying racism and prejudice in modern-day Britain, but also the adulation and celebrity status we reserve for complete halfwits. As the rather excellent (and newly-discovered) Obsolete puts it, a lot of the abuse may stem from the fact that Shilpa has more good looks, talent and genuine celebrity than her female antogonists.

The whole thing sits very uncomfortably with me, because while I don't think the comments by Jade et al have much to do with old-fashioned Alf Garnett racism, they are a logical outcome of ignorance and a complete lack of interest in the wider world and other cultures.

Over the past few years, I have never forgotten how lucky I am to have been able to meet people from so many different countries and cultures. I'd be a completely different person, but for a few chance occurences. As the person I am now, I look at the picture of modern Britain this show is presenting and feel ... well, very uncomfortable. However, most of the people I know and see on a daily basis are very open-minded and friendly towards people who come from a different background, country or culture to them. And the masses of complaints that Channel 4 has recieved show that people are less willing to put up with intolerance and abuse than might have been assumed.

I honestly hope that the moves towards an atavistic, tribal politics that I've written about before comes up against this wellspring of public opinion. Then again, if people paid more attention to politics than to amazingly stupid people raised to the level of public figurehead by the simple application of media power (insert comparison joke here), the country probably wouldn't be in such a state.

Science building

2007-01-17T13:18:00.001Z

IMG_0571
Originally uploaded by moorethanthis.

Taken while wandering around campus on Sunday. I guess this is what people thought the future would look like in the 1970s.

Compare and contrast

2007-01-08T23:50:00.000Z

I'm back at Leeds revising for the exams I've got this week, so I spend a lot of time listening to the radio. Here's an instructive review of my reactions to two new tracks:

On hearing the new U2 song for the first time: Hey, this is rather good.
On hearing it for the second time: OK, I'm bored of it now.

On hearing the Kaiser Chiefs's new song "Ruby" for the first time: Hey, this is rather good.
On hearing it for the third time, I was dancing around my room singing along. Now that's catchy.

Hate your next door neighbour, but don't forget to say grace

2006-12-29T18:09:00.000Z

Happy Christmas to everyone reading this, and I hope you all got what you asked for. (For anyone who asked for world peace like I did, yeah, I know. Bummer, eh?)

So I was in the pub last night, looking back over the year with some mates. For some reason, the conversation got onto politics (what were we thinking?) and I was launching into a triade of abuse about Jack Straw's kicking off the whole manufactured veil controversy back in October. The fact that people around me were willing to stand up for him I found unbelievable. As I wrote at the time, Straw's original piece was a thoughtful and considered reflection on where one's person's tolerance meets another's beliefs. For the record, I've always believed that you have the right in your house or workplace to make requests of people, as long as you're prepared to offer a decent explanation.

However, that wasn't really the point of it all. The point was to raise fear and resentment of British Muslims in an attempt by New Labour at raising some cheap populism. The tenor and management of it seemed very well thought out, so much so that I'm inclined to think the statements from various ministers had been got ready in advance. Straw's article was the kickoff point. He either knew what his masters expected of him and jumped, or had that end in mind all along.

The most dispiriting thing this year for me (apart from the meaning of the term "wag" degenerating from a witty and irreverent person into something I wouldn't want to be associated with in a million years) is the way the government and the right-wing press has again and again fallen back on the politics of fear, of hatred and division. They're incapable of admitting they're wrong, so they want us to be scared of our neighbours, scared of immigrants, scared of terrorist attacks. Every bullshit manufactured controversy, from the veil scare to the aircraft bomb plot (that wasn't) to the fake war on Christmas, fractures the country and plays into the hands of the far-right, who are more than happy to have matters of race and culture put on the political agenda. That's why Straw, and everyone like him who trades on hatred for political capital, will never be worthy of my respect. A happy new year to you all.

Big words in newspaper shock

2006-12-22T17:39:00.000Z

Today I did something I've never done before. I found a word in a newspaper I had to look up in the dictionary. (From this, you can obviously tell blogging has hit a low patch.)

David Marquand uses "tergiversations" in a splendid demolition of Anthony Seldon's shameless grovelling to Blair. Turns out it means "use ambiguous or evasive language" or "change one’s loyalties" - Marquand handily includes the link in his piece. I like to think that he didn't just randomly pluck it from the thesaurus, but was saving the word for something special, and slipped it in close to Christmas when nobody really reads the papers anyway.

To yet more verbosity, in a piece about blogs from the Wall Street Journal opinion page. While the place is usually a haven for barkingly extreme right-wingers, this article is remarkably even-handed. I did like his assertion that instant response, as a condition of blogging, "is also a coagulant for orthodoxies". What a splendid put-down. I almost feel like using it here. Which would you prefer: "Moore Than This: A coagulent for orthodoxies" or a line from an Elvis Costello song?

Some people bring SexyBack...

2006-12-15T16:19:00.001Z

So apparently my spur-of-the-moment decision to grow a beard about a month ago has coincided with facial hair suddenly becoming fashionable again. Glad to see that the mysterious arbiters of style in this country keep tabs on what I'm doing. And if you think this is strange, just you wait till next spring, when I single-handedly bring Elizabethan doublet and hose back in style.

On the merits (or otherwise) of the arse-kicking approach to education

2006-12-09T13:34:00.000Z

So, as a final goodwill gesture before term finishes, I agreed to be interviewed by some first-year students in class. The deal was to talk in Japanese about our years abroad. I made a pretty good fist of it, although since I got back from Japan my speaking ability has gone way downhill from simple lack of practice. Also present was Ilkka, from the infamous year abroad briefing (which has now assumed legendary proportions among people who were there), and a few others.

The session concluded with some advice from us to the new generation about the year abroad and the semester leading up to it. Among some questions from the floor (about how to recognise Yakuza, as well as more quotidian concerns), one student asked me how many students made it from our first year to the year abroad. I answered truthfully: "About half the class." Then I wondered why he looked so shocked. In fact, all of us advised the first-years to work harder, in no uncertain terms.

Tough love? Sure, but I felt good doing it. For one, it was funny as hell to watch their expressions when Ilkka told them "You can't just expect the Japanese language to magically pour into your head. Do the work, or you'll fail." But also, I think this kind of "motivation" (read: arse-kicking) was what is missing from the staff this year. In my first year, our year abroad director was a sarcastic, cynical Australian academic named Dr. Weste, who left at the end of last year. His sardonic asides during lessons and frequent threats of dire consequences if we didn't do the work did a lot to help shake me out of a rut and do better.

I'm of the opinion that everyone secretly likes the Dr. Cox-type character - someone who will mock, belittle and scare you into working harder, but genuinely does it in your own best interests. Not only will it motivate you, it shows someone cares far more than a diffident, impersonal response.

Badly thought-out headline of the week

2006-12-08T20:34:00.000Z

Umm, I think the word "myth" might well give you a clue on that one...

I know, I know, I'm pedantic and sarky. But if a I was a sub-editor/layout designer, even for a publication that's given away free on trains, I'd have a bit more pride in my work.

[N.B. The picture next to the headline is of Jordan, which concerns a (debunked) urban myth about silicone implants exploding at high altidues. Just as well - I didn't know if I'd be able to fly again with these spectualar new breasts of mine.]

Talking it over, Part 2: in which your hero finds his flow seriously messed wit'

2006-11-23T17:06:00.000Z

I'm looking forward to it - going over the experience made me realise what a great time I had over there. Considering how apprehensive I was in the run-up to my departure, I want to convince everybody that it will be as good for them as it was for me.

Oh, I had a plan. I had a plan alright. A plan that disappeared the moment I saw Ilkka had come to the meeting as well.

Ilkka and I were at Kansai Gaidai together. He was a professional cynic, and his heart certainly was in it. We'd had some great times together, but considering that he'd spent most of the year bashing Gaidai and its large American population, I wasn't looking forward to doing the presentation with him.

We got up and stood in front of the first years. After a brief introduction, I began telling them a little bit about Kansai Gaidai. As soon as I paused, Ilkka was ready...

Ilkka: You might hear that Kansai Gaidai is a Japanese university. It's actually an American university...
Me: Well, there are a lot of Americans th-
Ilkka: ...where the foreign students are kept separated from the rest of the students!"

And on it went. I was giving a presentation on Kansai Gaidai, and Ilkka was constantly interjecting with observations from the Twilight Zone. He said that Hirakata was a hellhole, and that Japan was the only country in the world where he'd been attacked on the street. (Given that I there at the time, I think the reference was a sly dig at me, as he thinks I was responsible for it).

Every one of Ilkka's asides met with shocked laughter from the first years, and sotto voce pleas from the teachers to say "something positive". I was out there on my own trying to hold the show together, as the presentation degenerated into a back-and-forth exchange of bizarre and contradictory statements like some twisted manzai routine. In fact, I wish it was manzai - at least then I could shout at Ilkka and slap him every time I wanted to. Which was a lot.

After the talk, I had a few first years coming up to me and asking if the stuff Ilkka said was true. I replied "No" to every one and tried to give them some real gen on Kansai Gaidai, to make up for the damage done. Everyone, from the teachers on down, seemed universally stunned. If there's any kind of lesson I can draw from this, it's that you have the best plan ever, but it won't work if you're confronted with someone determined to screw it up.

Talking it over

2006-11-22T15:07:00.000Z

The year abroad briefing meeting for first-year Japanese students is this afternoon. As part of it, students who have returned from their year abroad give small talks about their universities I've offered to talk about going to Kansai Gaidai. I'm looking forward to it - going over the experience made me realise what a great time I had over there. Considering how apprehensive I was in the run-up to my departure, I want to convince everybody that it will be as good for them as it was for me.

"It's ironic, this revolution. The rich are even richer now,"

2006-11-14T16:21:00.000Z

Good news from Venezuela!

President Hugo Chávez has warned that "capitalism will lead to the destruction of humanity" but seldom has there been a better time to make, spend and enjoy money.

The economy is surging at 9.4% and banks and credit card companies are reporting exponential increases in deposits and loans. Car sales are expected to more than double this year to 300,000, many of them luxury models, and property prices rival Manhattan.

Oh, come now. I didn't say who the news was good for, did I? If the main protion of your country's wealth is from rising oil prices, it stands to reason which portion of the population will become richer. (Clue: there aren't that many slum dwellers or rural peasants owning refineries and distribution centres.)

Chávez is an interesting case in present-day Latin America. He's treated by Westerners on both sides of the political divide as a resurrection of Cold War stereotypes, representing either a blood-soaked Communist dictator looking to turn his democratic neighbours red, or a heroic saviour cocking a snook to the evil imperialist Yanquis, depending on whether you have the National Review or Daily Kos in your bookmarks.

The reality is that Chávez is more of an old-school populist-nationalist along the lines of Juan Perón - ruling by charisma and personal appeal to the poor, strengthening his connection with them through personal largesse rather than genuine egalitarianism. This is all well and good when you're riding high on an oil boom, but relying exclusively on energy exports is a recipe for instability. However, something tells me the country's elite won't get hurt as much as the people at the bottom, who Chávez professes to care for so much.

Stop the war, I want to get off

2006-11-08T01:27:00.000Z

As the situation in Iraq increases in brutality, and outside commenatators look at the mess created and sustained within the country, the most enthusiastic neoconservative cheerleaders for war are again outdoing themelves in their eagerness to jump on a bandwagon, this time for the opposite cause:

As he looks into my eyes, speaking slowly and with obvious deliberation, Perle is unrecognizable as the confident hawk who, as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, had invited the exiled Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi to its first meeting after 9/11. "The levels of brutality that we've seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity," Perle says now, adding that total defeat—an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an anarchic "failed state"—is not yet inevitable but is becoming more likely.

More likely? Good Lord, Perle, where is your confidence in the End of History and inevitable triumph of Western democracy? Right now the general carnage in Iraq seems too widespread for even the really big lies to paper over. But, even at this terrible point, will they put their hands up and admit responsibility?

Sadly, No!

Know what, Richard? Go to hell. You brought Chalabi and his merry band of crooks to the White House and had them feed the CIA bogus intel. You kept insisting that the invasion was a success long after it was clear to all ... that it was an abject failure. And you and Frummy wrote An End to Evil, the ultimate book of neocon wingnuttery that recommended, among other things, that the United States declare France an enemy state. To say that you bear no blame for this sad human catastrophe is beyond reprehensible. You and your buddies need to be banished completely from the national discourse and be forced to beg on the street for food. Just go away. Never come back.

Reading through the excerpts, the neocons blame everybody (the President and the President's advisors are choice targets) except themselves for ramping up pro-war sentiment with dodgy intelligence. Still, I don't think much will be achieved from this turnaround. Just as with the mass recantation of the Decents, both the the recent rash of pro-war chest-beaters and the opponents waiting in the wings assume that it's all a game, the outcome of which is no more important than who gets the biggest space for their op-ed page, in which they outline what they would have done to make it all better, never mind the blood on the streets in the present day. I don't think anyone far from the bloodshed is entitled to finger-pointing, let alone a bit of a gloat. Given the amount of killing that has taken place as a direct consequence, this recantation is far too little, too late.

(Bearing in mind I'm writing this on the eve of the US midterm elections while listening to the Beeb World Service report on the voting, where Iraq is treated as just another talking point. Never mind the piles of corpses, what about the exit polls?)

Oh, my sweet potatoes

2006-11-04T23:48:00.000Z

So here I am, having been learning Japanese for seven years now, and I yet somehow I never happened to learn from a book like this...

(via)