Julie Burchill’s Deptford 23rd October 2009
According to Julie Burchill (November), “there is a higher quota of drunkards, drug addicts and mentally deficient dullards in Debrett’s than there is in Deptford.” She’s absolutely right; yet she refers to Deptford as if it’s some kind of Dickensian slum. It may no longer be the cradle of the British navy or home to Trinity House, but there are still corners that Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn and Grinling Gibbons would recognise as their old haunts. And we’ve got more artists and musicians than you can shake a stick at. Even the New York Times thinks Deptford’s hip.Simon Cowderoy Deptford High Street, London SE8
The information curse 23rd October 2009
“In fact” (November) informs us that it took 17 days for news of the battle of Trafalgar to reach London, at an average speed of 2.7mph. But to judge by Stephen Nickell’s column, the information highway to Oxford operates under even more stringent speed limits. The term “resource curse” was, according to Wikipedia, coined by Richard Auty, an academic at Lancaster University, in 1993. Given that Nickell’s column contained nothing new, we can only conclude that news of this curse must have just reached his college in Oxford—taking 16 years or so to make the 168-mile journey (via every other university, development agency and multilateral governance organisation in the world), travelling at an average speed of 0.00119863mph. And people say the world is speeding up. Tom Nuttall London E8
Unbalanced climate 22nd October 2009
All of the contributions to Prospect’s climate change special (November) assume that human activities are affecting the natural rhythms of climate; that, unchecked, the effect will become increasingly powerful; and that the damage to life on Earth will be cataclysmic and irreversible. Yet there is a substantial body of opinion that challenges these assumptions, backed by an impressive array of scientific facts. Between the two extremes there are many people like me—educated enough to be thoughtful but unqualified to make serious scientific judgements—who are concerned at the lack of any impartial debate. I had hoped that Prospect, so well known for looking at both sides of contentious issues, might have put this debate at the heart of its coverage, or at least acknowledged the uncertainties that seem still unresolved. John Bishop Needingworth, Cambridgeshire
A new military 28th October 2009
The British defence problem that Lewis Page (November) writes about boils down to a gross mismatch between resources and ambitions. Realistically, how much of a serious contribution could 8,000 British troops, however professional, make in Iraq—an operation to which the US commitment was never less than 150,000? We should adopt an expeditionary strategy more appropriate to our diminished role in the world. We need a rather larger navy, a much smaller army and a policy of not intervening in large-scale land operations. Tim Morgan Via the Prospect website
The human time bomb 4th November 2009
Alex Renton (November) nicely shows how the combined animus of the politically correct left and bible-thumping right have conspired to prevent people in the developing world achieving their desired fertility. But he’s wrong to suggest that we should control rich world fertility. Since it is untenable to ask people having 1.5 children to reduce their birthrate, and deep cuts in developing world fertility do not make a big difference, the only possible alternative is to reduce global migration. The population of the rich world would already be in decline were it not for immigration—without it, the west’s population (including Russia) will fall considerably over the next century: the US population will be closer to 300m than 500m in 2050, slowing the spread of megalopolises like Houston and Los Angeles and putting a major dent in global carbon emissions. Along with reductions in long-distance trade, tourism and other forms of globalisation, this measure promises rapid, realistic cuts—however mean-spirited it may sound. Environmentalists realise this all too well, which is why the issue so seriously divides them. Eric Kaufmann London
We can’t do The Wire, 1 26th October 2009
Peter Jukes (November) offers good reasons for America’s television drama being better than Britain’s, but he omits a key problem. In the US, not only is there genuine competition for talent between the networks—both free-to-air and cable—but there are powerful independent distributors that can underpin a show-runner’s position and contribute substantially to the budget. The writer-producers are gods because the networks do not own them—so they can exercise real editorial and creative control, as well as make tens of millions of dollars. In Britain, the dominant distributors are owned by the BBC and ITV. Virtually the only wealthy drama show-runner is Phil Redmond, who made nearly all his cash from the soap Brookside. True, money is made from formats—quizzes, games, “reality”—but these are a far more debased form of creativity. The incentives we need for real writing are suppressed by our vertically integrated structures. It’s no wonder that US drama dominates the international marketplace. We have simply lost the plot. David Elstein London SW1
We can’t do The Wire, 2 3rd November 2009
Peter Jukes (November) is right to call for better drama on British television, but he glosses over a couple of important issues. For a start, HBO is a paid subscription niche broadcaster, which gives it more flexibility to invest in edgy, provocative drama. What constitutes a “good” audience on the network is very different to a mainstream channel; they aren’t reliant on either advertising revenue or public funding as British channels are, so 3-4m viewers on HBO is a big success; not so for a BBC primetime programme. And the HBO model isn’t strictly applicable because it never claims to be a mainstream channel catering for majority interests.
While the complexity, the pace and the cliff-hangers of American television are all wonderful things, let’s not forget that they are caused by having to write the story structure to fit the ad breaks. US writers have taken the necessity of multiple story beats and used it to fuel great storytelling, but they are always operating inside that fixed framework. As a DVD viewer it’s easy to forget that those moments of tension are there for a reason: to stop you switching the channel. AM Via the Prospect website
Fear of the avant-garde 27th October 2009
Philip Ball’s interesting piece (November) overlooks an obvious point: the real difference between Boulez and Barnett Newman is that you have to sit still and quiet for the former for a considerable time. As anyone who works at Tate Modern can tell you, the average time a punter spends in front of any canvas that isn’t baldly representational is about the time it takes to read the information card. The public no more “gets” avant-garde painting than it does avant-garde music. It’s simply that the former is easy to tick off the cultural experience chart—and make that a skinny latte. Christopher Bray Via the Prospect website
According to Julie Burchill (November), “there is a higher quota of drunkards, drug addicts and mentally deficient dullards in Debrett’s than there is in Deptford.” She’s absolutely right; yet she refers to Deptford as if it’s some kind of Dickensian slum. It may no longer be the cradle of the British navy or home to Trinity House, but there are still corners that Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn and Grinling Gibbons would recognise as their old haunts. And we’ve got more artists and musicians than you can shake a stick at. Even the New York Times thinks Deptford’s hip.Simon Cowderoy Deptford High Street, London SE8
The information curse 23rd October 2009
“In fact” (November) informs us that it took 17 days for news of the battle of Trafalgar to reach London, at an average speed of 2.7mph. But to judge by Stephen Nickell’s column, the information highway to Oxford operates under even more stringent speed limits. The term “resource curse” was, according to Wikipedia, coined by Richard Auty, an academic at Lancaster University, in 1993. Given that Nickell’s column contained nothing new, we can only conclude that news of this curse must have just reached his college in Oxford—taking 16 years or so to make the 168-mile journey (via every other university, development agency and multilateral governance organisation in the world), travelling at an average speed of 0.00119863mph. And people say the world is speeding up. Tom Nuttall London E8
Unbalanced climate 22nd October 2009
All of the contributions to Prospect’s climate change special (November) assume that human activities are affecting the natural rhythms of climate; that, unchecked, the effect will become increasingly powerful; and that the damage to life on Earth will be cataclysmic and irreversible. Yet there is a substantial body of opinion that challenges these assumptions, backed by an impressive array of scientific facts. Between the two extremes there are many people like me—educated enough to be thoughtful but unqualified to make serious scientific judgements—who are concerned at the lack of any impartial debate. I had hoped that Prospect, so well known for looking at both sides of contentious issues, might have put this debate at the heart of its coverage, or at least acknowledged the uncertainties that seem still unresolved. John Bishop Needingworth, Cambridgeshire
A new military 28th October 2009
The British defence problem that Lewis Page (November) writes about boils down to a gross mismatch between resources and ambitions. Realistically, how much of a serious contribution could 8,000 British troops, however professional, make in Iraq—an operation to which the US commitment was never less than 150,000? We should adopt an expeditionary strategy more appropriate to our diminished role in the world. We need a rather larger navy, a much smaller army and a policy of not intervening in large-scale land operations. Tim Morgan Via the Prospect website
The human time bomb 4th November 2009
Alex Renton (November) nicely shows how the combined animus of the politically correct left and bible-thumping right have conspired to prevent people in the developing world achieving their desired fertility. But he’s wrong to suggest that we should control rich world fertility. Since it is untenable to ask people having 1.5 children to reduce their birthrate, and deep cuts in developing world fertility do not make a big difference, the only possible alternative is to reduce global migration. The population of the rich world would already be in decline were it not for immigration—without it, the west’s population (including Russia) will fall considerably over the next century: the US population will be closer to 300m than 500m in 2050, slowing the spread of megalopolises like Houston and Los Angeles and putting a major dent in global carbon emissions. Along with reductions in long-distance trade, tourism and other forms of globalisation, this measure promises rapid, realistic cuts—however mean-spirited it may sound. Environmentalists realise this all too well, which is why the issue so seriously divides them. Eric Kaufmann London
We can’t do The Wire, 1 26th October 2009
Peter Jukes (November) offers good reasons for America’s television drama being better than Britain’s, but he omits a key problem. In the US, not only is there genuine competition for talent between the networks—both free-to-air and cable—but there are powerful independent distributors that can underpin a show-runner’s position and contribute substantially to the budget. The writer-producers are gods because the networks do not own them—so they can exercise real editorial and creative control, as well as make tens of millions of dollars. In Britain, the dominant distributors are owned by the BBC and ITV. Virtually the only wealthy drama show-runner is Phil Redmond, who made nearly all his cash from the soap Brookside. True, money is made from formats—quizzes, games, “reality”—but these are a far more debased form of creativity. The incentives we need for real writing are suppressed by our vertically integrated structures. It’s no wonder that US drama dominates the international marketplace. We have simply lost the plot. David Elstein London SW1
We can’t do The Wire, 2 3rd November 2009
Peter Jukes (November) is right to call for better drama on British television, but he glosses over a couple of important issues. For a start, HBO is a paid subscription niche broadcaster, which gives it more flexibility to invest in edgy, provocative drama. What constitutes a “good” audience on the network is very different to a mainstream channel; they aren’t reliant on either advertising revenue or public funding as British channels are, so 3-4m viewers on HBO is a big success; not so for a BBC primetime programme. And the HBO model isn’t strictly applicable because it never claims to be a mainstream channel catering for majority interests.
While the complexity, the pace and the cliff-hangers of American television are all wonderful things, let’s not forget that they are caused by having to write the story structure to fit the ad breaks. US writers have taken the necessity of multiple story beats and used it to fuel great storytelling, but they are always operating inside that fixed framework. As a DVD viewer it’s easy to forget that those moments of tension are there for a reason: to stop you switching the channel. AM Via the Prospect website
Fear of the avant-garde 27th October 2009
Philip Ball’s interesting piece (November) overlooks an obvious point: the real difference between Boulez and Barnett Newman is that you have to sit still and quiet for the former for a considerable time. As anyone who works at Tate Modern can tell you, the average time a punter spends in front of any canvas that isn’t baldly representational is about the time it takes to read the information card. The public no more “gets” avant-garde painting than it does avant-garde music. It’s simply that the former is easy to tick off the cultural experience chart—and make that a skinny latte. Christopher Bray Via the Prospect website
