At The Prime Meridian

Britain has produced a lot of world-renowned musicians over the years. That often leads people to assume that we (people outside the country) know all the famous British musicians. But no: there are some artists that make it big in the UK but not in the rest of the world.

I’ve always been amused by the fact that the British themselves are kind of oblivious about this. You might see reporters on BBC World breathlessly reporting that Robbie Williams has hinted at a Take That reunion, unaware that much of the world has no idea who that is.

In most cases, the explanation of British-only stars is that there was an American substitute. For instance, Take That were around in the glory days of boy bands, so it’s not too surprising that they couldn’t pry Americans’ attention away from Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. But there are also situations where a British artist’s work just doesn’t translate well to outside audiences.

Which brings us to Blur. Music news sites have been buzzing that they have a new album coming out.

If you’re not familiar with the story, in the Britpop era of the nineties, Blur and Oasis were the two leading bands, sort of like, well, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC. Oasis made it big world-wide — like much of the western world, I still have “Wonderwall” going faintly through my head — while Blur scored a minor hit on the North American alternative charts with. “Girls & Boys.” Then, to make the story even weirder, Blur made a tongue-in-cheek fast rock song — "Song 2," probably better known as the “Woo-Hoo” song — and scored a transcendent, world-wide hit. So now most people around the world think they’re a grunge band, even though their music was largely a reaction to grunge, and this sort of odd band who would have been named, “Seymour” if the record execs hadn’t insisted on something more marketable, will forever be played in stadiums and included on lists of the best Jock-Jams.

If you listen to their music, it’s not hard to see why it didn’t translate outside the UK. It’s rather terribly British. Not British in the commemorative-royal-family-tea-set way, but in the dryly satirizing everyday life sense.

Of course, whenever I see something like this in another country, I naturally ask myself if there is any Canadian equivalent: If there can be a band so British that only the British really “get” it, can there be a band so Canadian that only we “get” it. Of course, we do have that: The Tragically Hip. Which then leads to the shocking revelation: The Tragically Hip is Canada’s answer to Blur? (Okay, The Hip started a few years earlier, so Blur is the U.K.‘s answer to The Tragically Hip, but still, the point is that it’s a weird comparison.) Really, they're bands that take very different styles to their music, with Blur's irony and satire and The Hip's cryptic can-lit and history references. It would be interesting to see someone take Blur's playful approach to life and focus it on Canadian culture. Although, arguably, those different levels of irony are themselves a reflection of the national identities of the respective bands. Okay, now my head hurts.

This leads me to wonder how many other countries are sitting on something like this: a band they love that never made it with the outsiders. Obviously, many countries have a language barrier that keeps local musicians from making it big world-wide. But this phenomenon even keeps some English-speaking performers local, even from countries that have produced world-famous musicians.  So I googled, “Australian bands that weren’t popular outside Australia” and found a list of the best Australian bands as voted by Australian musicians. In among the usual suspects, AC/DC, INXS, Midnight Oil, and Crowded House, there was Cold Chisel, whom I had never heard of. They’re described as a "pub band" who leaned in to the wild rock lifestyle of the 70’s-early-80’s and known for wild live shows. 

Reading the comments, Australians showed a feeling of nostalgia for their music that seemed reminiscent of The Hip, that they speak to the experience of growing up and living in the country. I guess every country does have that band that couldn’t be exported, even if they vary wildly stylistically. 

How Do We Stand When Our Pants Are Burning?

This week, The Guardian had an article about how the post-truth era will come to an end because Elon Musk is building the world's biggest battery. Huh? See the battery is going to be part of the power grid in the state of South Australia, so they can store electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind. And the article makes the case that this will be the final nail in the coffin for dirtier energy sources like coal: the costs of renewals have gone down, and now they'll have reliability on their side too.

Keep in mind that Australia has lots of coal, and has made lots of money selling it to China and other countries that need to ramp up their energy supplies quickly. Thus, Australians have been torturing logic and ignoring reality to convince themselves that coal isn't really that bad.

Personally, I don't think that a compelling case for renewables will be enough to stop post-truth discourse. There are lots of forces pushing people to believe falsehoods, and convenience is only one. There's also the need to save face; people have invested their reputations in arguments, so they won't just admit they were wrong and go away. And of course they've invested plenty of money too. Coal companies and their hired guns won't just give up when there's so much money at stake. And then there's tradition. There's plenty of inertia behind the way things are. Just look at how Donald Trump scored points by promising to bring coal jobs back. That energized people in a way that promises of growing future technology never could.

But still, this article does bring up a point that I - and I'm sure many others - had wondered about: what is the post-truth endgame? I mean, you can pretend all you want, but eventually reality asserts itself. Another great example of that came up recently, and it's also from Australia. (What is going on down there?) Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was discussing encrypted communications, when he said,

“Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia,"

Of course, this has lead to a global lambasting online. But the point is that however ignorant he and his laws are, at some point the rubber has to hit the road. The fact is that the only known way of breaking modern encryption is by time-consumingly impractical brute force methods. Eventually the government will be faced with the alternatives of changing the laws or attesting people for not doing the impossible, like a scene from Kafka or Italy.

Of course, most post-truth situations are less immediate. On, say, global warming, you could picture the deniers hanging on to their beliefs all the way down. Long-term trends can be easily ignored, and there will always be an excuse or alternate explanation for noticable things like sea levels. And in the case of competing power sources, people can always invent excuses why our past experience isn't representative ("If they'd just use the best way of burning coal, it would be better") or create unverifiable reasons things aren't as they seem ("the government is covering up the facts.") So I don't think anyone is going land a knockout in any post-truth argument, at least not by simply overwhelming the opponent's ability to delude.

Hey Abbott

Australia and Canada have a lot in common. British heritage, similarly sized lands and population. A peaceful nature save for what we did to our native peoples. But then there are distinct differences. They’re a long way from the rest of the English-speaking world, while we’re pressed up against the U.S. We have Quebec, and they don’t. Our climates are at different ends of the spectrum.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott might seem to be one of them. Australia’s conservative leader is an anti-intellectual populist, in contrast with ours, who’s an emotionless political strategist. But if you're thinking Abbott couldn't get elected here, I have a name for you: Rob Ford.

And like Torontonians, Australians seem to be waking up to the fact that their elected leader is not an entertainer or a statement against traditional politics, he is the actual guy in charge for the foreseeable future. One of the big stories in international politics is a leadership challenge against Abbott by his own party. I’m not sure what is up with Australian politics, since their previous government featured two Prime Ministers being overthrown by their own party. Suddenly it’s hard to blame Stephen Harper for his controlling manner.

Stories about the (eventually unsuccessful) challenge featured a quick rundown of unpopular things he’s done that have lead to poor polling and unrest in his own party. What’s stood out to me is that the final straw was his decision to give a knighthood to Prince Philip. First of all, yes, apparently Australia has its own knighthoods; I didn’t know that either. They're the highest level of the Order of Australia, which is similar to our own Order of Canada.

I really can’t imagine that happening here. If the Prime Minister decided to bestow an Order of Canada or something on a Royal, I doubt there’d be much complaining. Sure, sarcastic intellectuals would make fun of it - I know I’d write a post on it. But I’m sure most people would applaud it. Particularly conservative Canadians, so it definitely wouldn’t lead to trouble for the Prime Minister from his own supporters.

But apparently Australians saw the silliness in giving an honour to a guy who already has all the honours, occupies a ceremonial position, doesn’t really do anything, and is essentially a walking meaningless honour himself. It’s hard to believe that we can be so different despite our similar circumstances. It also makes me think I’m in the wrong sparsely-populated former British colony.

Why Aussie Rules, Rules

What's the deal with Australian Rules Football?  Back when channels dedicated to sports first appeared, they couldn't afford the rights to the popular sports, so they had to get creative.  Aussie Rules was one of the more extreme attempts to get something affordable on the air.  But as ESPN and TSN got richer, they went with the sports popular with the local audience, and the Australians were elbowed off the schedule.

But lately, it's making a comeback.  Usually it's late at night, but you are seeing it appear occasionally.  It does look like an entertaining sport, with a lot of scoring, big momentum swings, and I'm assuming some interesting strategy.

Of course, without knowing what's going on, its entertainment value is limited, but I want to watch it just because it contains one of the greatest innovations in the history of televised sports: when they're showing a replay, they keep a live shot in the corner of the screen. 

How is it that no one has thought of this before.  Soccer needs this more than any other sport, because there are fewer interruptions in the play.  So surely someone, somewhere in the world would have tried this.  But it would be great in virtually all sports where the TV directors insist on showing the reactions of players, coaches or fans.  I don't know how many times we've missed seeing a basket while the camera stays in a close up of the player who made a bad play at the other end.  Haven't they noticed that basketball players never have any expression other than an intense frown?

Probably the picture-in-the-corner developed first in Australian Rules Football because they want to show the coolest thing in the whole sport: the two-armed point the officials make when a goal is scored.  I don't have any reason to want either team to win, I just want them to score to watch that.

Anyway, I call on the people covering all sports in the world to look into this technology.  Now that we have big TVs, we might as well use that acreage.