Fake News

Preambling: 

We generally think of  fake news  in terms of human speech (printed, written or spoken), and naturally that is mainly what I'm concerned with. However, someone in a comment on a Dead Good Blog about the topic earlier this week offered the observation that there is "nothing new under the sun", which is true in the sense that as long as there has been life on earth, deceptions have been employed to influence the actions of others. 

It is certainly worth pointing out that, human beings aside, many species (both animal and vegetable) have evolved clever mechanisms designed to trick either predators or prey in the interests of their own survival or ascendancy. We have only to think of life forms that use camouflage, mimicry or simple 'playing dead' for example. It seems to be an inherent existential trait to mess with the perceptions of others for personal or tribal advantage -  and human beings over millennia, as the most highly evolved of species, have developed traits of trickery up to the level of a sophisticated black art.

Odysseus

Fake news à la Grecque:

The recorded evidence for all of this only goes back about four millennia because nothing survives prior to that date, but we have some clay tablets from Sumeria, papyrus scrolls from Egypt and then a veritable wealth of myths, treatises and historic records from Ancient Greece, the most fruitful of early sources. Wasn't it Socrates who asked 'What is truth?' Wasn't it the Athenians who gave us the foundations of rhetoric and sophistry? Wasn't it Greek myth that provided us with role models of the art of the trickster e.g. Prometheus and Odysseus? The answer in all three cases is yes.

As chance would have it, just last month an academic study titled 'Fake News In Ancient Greece' was published by de Gruyter press. Subtitled 'Forms and Functions of False Information in Ancient Greek Literature', it runs to 415 erudite pages and retails on Amazon for £110 - and no, I won't be buying a copy (but you can check the website if you don't believe me). Instead, I'll summarise what I know, and what I suspect the book probably has to say.

Fake news was then, and is now, an untruth, a lie peddled with a specific purpose, a trick to deceive and to influence behaviour. Dissembling, rhetoric, propaganda and 'weaponised disinformation' (what a phrase) are all tools in the trickster's toolkit designed to fool, to cause uncertainty, to undermine ethical and moral principles. 

The book probably gives loads of examples. I imagine it references the fall of Troy. Most of us are familiar with the story of the Trojan horse, how Odysseus hatched a plan to defeat the Trojans after a decade of laying siege to the city. He led them to believe that the Greeks had given up and sailed for home (in truth they had only sailed just round the coast), leaving a giant wooden horse behind. The Trojans, being horse worshippers, dragged the horse into the city and celebrated the end of the war. Unbeknown to them, the horse was filled with the finest Greek warriors who were now inside the defences that they'd failed to breach. At night, they crept out, flung open the gates and set about destroying the Trojan army, burning the city to the ground and taking the women and children back to Greece as slaves. Trojan horse lives on to this day as shorthand for any kind of malware inserted into a computer system. Greek academics, philosophers, playwrights and poets used their mythic heritage to educate a largely illiterate population in the world's first great democracy to be aware of the dangers of being manipulated, tricked and turned by misinformation. Ignorance was no defence.

I'm sure it's no coincidence that 'Fake News In Ancient Greece' has just been compiled, as modern academics look to learn lessons from the past at a time when Americans choose to elect as a president - for a second time - a man with a character as questionable and a track record as dubious as that of convicted felon Donald John Trump.

Right here, right now:

On Monday, Trump and his nest of narcissists will formally take control of the United States of America as he plots to turn democracy on its head and install a self-perpetuating oligarchy to match those of China and Russia, his way of making America great again, it seems.. Heaven help the world. We are in for some mad times.

 

late Saturday edition of The Worst Times

And right in the middle of it all is an odious influencer with a toxic social media platform and more riches than he knows what to do with. Offering daily prizes of $1 million in a lottery for voters in swing states who signed up to the Trump ticket was not illegal, apparently. So financing Farage's UK Reform Party would be a breeze, conditional one assumes on certain policies being adopted. And even buying Greenland for Trump would probably be a snip.

But there's an unpleasant and essentially anti-democratic stench attached to all of this activity and we should be deeply disturbed by these tactics. Let me illustrate with just one example as it impacts the UK. It centres on the subject of grooming gangs and the comments being made by the owner of X, which are deliberately designed to foment distrust in the Labour Party and its leadership. . 

The grooming gangs misinformation ploy:
Musk posted on X earlier this month that "Gordon Brown sold those little girls for votes", that “Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain”. He also re-tweeted claims alleging that a 2008 Home Office document advised police not to intervene in child grooming cases because victims had 'made an informed choice about their sexual behaviour.'" Those social media posts have been seen, shared and very likely believed by over 25 million people.

Of course the grooming gangs scandal is shocking and the perpetrators are abhorrent, but fact-checking by independent journalists has concluded that the alleged Home Office memo never existed, that Starmer as Director of the CPS actually reformed the organisation and vastly improved its rate of prosecution of grooming gangs and that the claim about Gordon Brown is completely without foundation.

The whole thread has been based on hearsay, misinformation, and in some cases deliberate lies which have been repeated as supposed truth by people with agendas and amplified to the extent that they've come to be regarded as fact, and I suspect Musk has been disingenuously repeating these untruths because he knows there is a significant element among the UK population that is inclined to islamophobia and is easily triggered by such claims. If you want to read the whole fact-checking debunking of layer upon layer of politically motivated misinformation, it's linked here: How Elon Musk seized on baseless memo claim to fuel wave of misinformation.

    

He's being a bit of a dirty rat, and his rather one-sided spat with Starmer appears to stem from the fact that he was not personally invited to Labour's International Investment Summit last October (though representatives of his Spacex and Tesla companies were). He misleadingly and untruthfully claimed that Labour and Starmer in particular was not interested in him as a potential investor in Britain. There's nothing quite so spiteful as an overlooked narcissist.

purporting to be a portrait of Elongated Muskrat III (artist unknown)

I learned a new word the other week from watching the latest televised Cormoran Strike detective series. That word is 'anomie', meaning "a social condition defined by an uprooting or breakdown of any moral values, standards or guidance for individuals", a cold and sociopathic lack of empathy for one's fellow creatures. Money may be able to buy privilege, power, perhaps even Greenland, but as the Beatles famously noted, it can't buy love. 

A poem on theme:

Of course I had to write a poem about this, you'll understand. I know it's a cheap shot, but I'm taking it anyway. It's been dashed off in seven less than heroic couplets and could probably do with a bit of polishing, if you get my drift. It's had various titles, including Offluence, Poison Money, Stench and The Gutter Press Rat. In the end, it's simply...

Anus Horribilis

There's a real bad odour spreading from the west

fills me with disgust, makes me catch my breath.

Some people with agendas shoot the fetid breeze

cynically weaponising lies. Like flies on shit they

gather round their stinking little oracle, who can't

be named for legal reasons, though we might call

his outpourings 'offluence' - shit that rich men do,

hardly heaven's scent. With more than a whiff of

devilment, from under a musk-rat's tail, it hints at

Old Spite, Smells Like Libertine Spirit, the Decay

of  Democracy. He's the flatulent in the room and 

what kind of anosmic idiots must they be to relish 

such noxious expressions from a farting sphincter?

Fact check his scat and it turns out to be pure crap!

Now kindly wash your hands, S ;-)

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Ignorance - a Constant Source of Embarrassment

The older I get, the more I realise, with quiet despair, how many things have passed me by in  life. 

I thought I was a woman of the world. I've travelled a bit, I speak another language (not very well, but enough to get by), I'm quite well read, educated to degree level, interested in art and poetry and writing and I've had three children toboot. 

So why, as I enter my sixty sixth year, am I sat here, on a sunny afternoon when I shouldn't have a care in the world, frantically googling the word, 'clerihews'? 

For anybody as ignorant as I am, here's the definition taken from Wikipedia:

A clerihew (pronunciation: /ˈklɛrᵻhjuː/) is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The first line is the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person put in an absurd light, or revealing something unknown and/or spurious about them. The rhyme scheme is AABB, and the rhymes are often forced. The line length and metre are irregular. Bentley invented the clerihew in school and then popularized it in books. One of his best known is this (1905):

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, "I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls
Say I am designing St. Paul's."

Now, I don't know about you, but in the words of a well known song, 'That don't impress me much.'  I think if one of my year 6 pupils had presented me with that I'd have told them (in the nicest possible way, of course) to go back, have another look and see if they could improve on it at all. 

Maybe I'm missing something here and clerihews are hugely important to literature experts. Perhaps dear Edmund Clerihew Bentley was the Tracy Emin of the poetry world. Who knows? Certainly not I, in my ignorant little bubble. 

Do I feel I've missed out in my ignorance of clerihews? Nope. Has a lack of clerihews in my life held me back? Nope.  Will I need clerihews in the future?  I doubt it.  Am I glad I now know what a clerihew is?  Of course!  Knowledge is power (although I'm not sure this latest piece of knowledge will be massively empowering).  

I am genuinely thirsty for knowledge and for learning new things.  Today I have learnt what a clerihew is, and I'm sure that will stand me in good stead.  I shall attempt to squeeze the word into every conversation possible, whilst scrutinising the faces of the people I'm talking to, searching for puzzlement to match mine before today.  

Now I just have to write one.

Ignorance by Jill Reidy  

I was a Dead Good Poet

I just didn't know it

Ignorance of Clerihews

Really isn't merry news

Maybe it's not as easy as I thought....

Thanks for reading.........Jill

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The Great Masters, A Gap in My Education

I have a confession to make.  

I was thrown into a bit of a tizzy when I saw the title of this week’s blog.  Despite being a creative type of person for the whole of my life, attending art college for four years and graduating with a BA in Graphic Design, I am a total ignoramus where ‘proper’ art is concerned.  Art history at ‘A’ level consisted of our art teacher putting on a slide show, naming the artist and describing the image before us.  It scored a very high boredom factor.  My friend and I sat at the back, giggling (which was how I spent most of the sixth form).  The single fact I retained from those lessons was Mr Jackson announcing the title of one famous painting as something to do with cornfields.   My friend leaned across and whispered in my ear, “What? Cornflakes?”  We spent the rest of the lesson shaking uncontrollably (I know, I know – but it was hilarious to a pair of silly sixteen year olds, hell bent on making Mr Jackson’s life a misery.  I think we succeeded) And that is why I don’t know my Leonardo from my Raphael, unless we’re talking turtles, and I’m even losing that ability since my children grew up and became parents themselves.

What do you do when you need a bit of information and inspiration?  You google, of course.  The first thing I learnt as I desperately searched, was that the title ‘Great Master’ could be applied to experts with many different skills and talents, not just artistic ones.  Initially, that was a relief.  I would write about something other than art.  By the time I’d trawled through music, golf and darts I decided that art might be the best option after all.

Don’t get me wrong, I love art (in a philistinian ‘I like what I like’ sort of way) but having missed that early grounding due to the ‘cornflake incident’ I think I gave up on finding out about the great masters.  I did do a quick cramming session on  Michelangelo, Van Gogh and Picasso for my interview for art college, but this was the sixties and all the questions sounded like the interviewer was tripping on acid.  I think my portfolio (consisting of several scrappy pieces of paper with doodles on) was flicked through in a bored sort of way, and as far as I remember art wasn’t mentioned at all.  Which is obviously how I managed to secure a place.  As my journey through college progressed I somehow managed to fit in the practical sessions between partying and meeting the future husband, but, once again, the theory and the meaty facts seemed to slip through my fingers.

Up until the publication of this blog I think I’ve managed to keep my ignorance pretty well hidden.  All conversations about art have involved a lot of smiling and nodding knowledgeably, and all information about art and artists has been on a strictly need to know basis.  The husband is pretty hot on this subject, especially the older stuff, so, in the absence of Google, he is my ‘go to’ information point.  I have to say, he wasn’t particularly helpful this time, suggesting I wrote the whole article and then revealed at the end that it was about the Ninja Turtles.   That's the sort of man I married. You’ll be glad I didn’t take his advice.

 

The Gap in My Art Education

With the shame of my ignorance about 'great art' growing as I wrote my post this morning, I did a bit more googling and then composed the following poem.....

The Gap    by Jill Reidy

  

In my woeful ignorance

I spent an agreeable hour today

Familiarising myself with Michelangelo

His life and paintings

Those wonderful murals

I zoomed in on details

That looked impossible to create

I stared at that enormous ceiling

Followed its curve

And marvelled at a skill

Beyond my comprehension

Beyond my imagination

I studied the hands

From every angle

Those elegant fingers

Tentative yet strong

So near but still so far

That gap, unlike my own

Will be there for eternity

Thanks for reading        Jill

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Pastiche - It's All a Bit of a Miss Mash

Pastiche.  I like the sound of the word. I roll it around my mouth, savouring the feel of the letters. I say it out loud, slowly. I do this for several minutes whilst I ponder on its meaning. This is mainly because, to my embarrassment, I haven't got a clue what it means and I have a strong feeling I should know. I have a vague inkling it might be something to do with collage, but I'm far from certain. 

I ask the husband if he knows what it means. 

'It's a drink isnt it?' he ventures. I ponder for a moment.

'No, that's pastis' I reply, hesitantly, 'I think.'

My grandson comes in as we're still discussing the word.

'Pastiche?' he asks, 'isn't that like a pasty?'

I decide it's time to google. 

'A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, or music that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche celebrates, rather than mocks, the work it imitates^.'

Ahhh......I should have known the meaning of this word, not only as a writer but also an artist. I'm ashamed. I don't think I've ever needed to use the word, but then, who can say? Maybe if I'd known it sooner I'd have been peppering all my conversations with it.  I read on. 

'The word pastiche is a French cognate of the Italian noun pasticcio, which is a pâté or pie-filling mixed from diverse ingredients.  Metaphorically, pastiche and pasticcio describe works that are either composed by several authors, or that incorporate stylistic elements of other artists' work. Pastiche is an example of eclecticism in art.' 

It sounds like my grandson's pie definition isn't totally wide of the mark. And nor is my wild guess at collage.

I know I'm going off topic here but this got me thinking about vocabulary.  I've always loved reading, writing, the sound and meaning of words, but I realised when I returned to uni to study for a PGCE after a twenty year gap that I was out of touch with quite a lot of vocabulary.  Admittedly, some of it was jargon but there were other words and phrases which had come into use whilst I was busy wiping faces, bums and noses - that I just hadn't heard of.   I think I managed to catch up but then I had a few more gap years and I got left behind again.  This time I was re entering the art world, which had its own unique language, involving grants, funding, open exhibitions and curators. It was another steep learning curve. 

I might not have followed the brief this week but I've learnt the meaning of 'pastiche'.  I now know it's not a drink or a pie.  It's a start.....

Pastiche: not a drink, not a pie

In the absence of either a suitable poem - or the time to write one, I decided there could only be one song, here reproduced in it's entirety, that could sum up 'pastiche'.  I know this because Wikipedia tells me in no uncertain terms that: Bohemian Rhapsody is unusual as it is a pastiche in both senses of the word, as there are many distinct styles imitated in the song, all "hodge-podged" together to create one piece of music.

"Bohemian Rhapsody"

Is this the real life?

Is this just fantasy?

Caught in a landslide,

No escape from reality.

Open your eyes,

Look up to the skies and see,

I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy,

Because I'm easy come, easy go,

Little high, little low,

Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me.

Mama, just killed a man,

Put a gun against his head,

Pulled my trigger, now he's dead.

Mama, life had just begun,

But now I've gone and thrown it all away.

Mama, ooh,

Didn't mean to make you cry,

If I'm not back again this time tomorrow,

Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters.

Too late, my time has come,

Sends shivers down my spine,

Body's aching all the time.

Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go,

Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth.

Mama, ooh (any way the wind blows),

I don't wanna die,

I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all.

I see a little silhouetto of a man,

Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?

Thunderbolt and lightning,

Very, very frightening me.

(Galileo) Galileo.

(Galileo) Galileo,

Galileo Figaro

Magnifico-o-o-o-o.

I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me.

He's just a poor boy from a poor family,

Spare him his life from this monstrosity.

Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?

Bismillah! No, we will not let you go. (Let him go!)

Bismillah! We will not let you go. (Let him go!)

Bismillah! We will not let you go. (Let me go!)

Will not let you go. (Let me go!)

Never, never let you go

Never let me go, oh.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh, mama mia, mama mia (Mama mia, let me go.)

Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me.

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye?

So you think you can love me and leave me to die?

Oh, baby, can't do this to me, baby,

Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here.

(Oh, yeah, oh yeah)

Nothing really matters,

Anyone can see,

Nothing really matters,

Nothing really matters to me.

Any way the wind blows.

Thanks for reading, I've learnt a lot,    Jill

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What really gets my goat?!

Prejudice and ignorance!

In some small degree it could be argued that we are all guilty of those qualities, but when they come to the fore in a greater sense, that's what really gets my goat!

I was brought up to respect others, to realise that we are all VERY different, that everyone has their own opinion of things which may differ greatly from our own. I was brought up to understand that although I may not agree with that opinion, I should respect those beliefs however narrow minded they may appear.  When people voice opinions which are derogatory to my family and lifestyle however, I am just as guilty of rising to the bait as anyone else would be and give as good as I get.  I have a pleasant demeanour and a very long fuse, but you don't want to be on the wrong side of me when I reach the end of it!

Some time ago now, there was an "incident" whilst I was out shopping in a large well known Supermarket, with my son (who is Autistic) and my Mum. My little man was quite excitable that day and when he gets that way he makes humming sounds and flaps his arms around a bit. It is one of the ways he expresses himself as being happy.  As I was waiting to pay after putting my items through the checkout, my Mum was with my Son at the other end in the queue.  I noticed that the people stood behind were talking to my Mum and that she was replying in a more vociferous fashion. I could not hear what was being said, which is extremely fortunate for those other people. They had insulted my son and called him a "Spastic" and said that I should learn to control him. My Mum dealt with the situation admirably, doing exactly what I would have done, as did the lady on the Checkout who had heard the exchange and refused point blank to serve them. My Mum didn't tell me what had happened until we had left the store, perhaps just as well really. I wrote a poem not long after entitled "Ignorance", but it never quite felt like it got across my exact feelings about the matter.  I fully acknowledge that I am one of those people who can never seem to find the right words or insults at the very moment they are needed, always thinking later on: "Oh, I should have said ......".  So for this weeks theme, I've tried to better it:


Judge not, lest ye be judged:

Standing in judgement
Denigrating in a verbal assassination
Your words spew biliously
Through lips used to kiss your Mother.
Who are you to decide
Where I am going wrong?
Your intolerant behaviour towards my son,
Insults tearing at my blood,
Not just through my skin
But that of my Child's.
Contemptible and cowardly,
You've reached an all time low.
Barely pausing for breath
You deem him "subnormal",
Ignorant of the fact
He's more intelligent than you!
Are you really so perfect?
A flawless Adjudicator
Of what is "The Norm"?
NO!
Your pernicious persecution
Shows an inescapable pestilence
In your character!
Look down from atop your Ivory Tower,
Is it very far to fall?
For one day it will crumble
And you will be left
Being trodden underfoot
Of those you have scrubbed into the dirt
Beneath your despicable vindictive tread!


Thanks for reading. x

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