My vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself

Since the age of 16 all I've wanted to do is be a radio presenter. Specifically, I've wanted to end up presenting the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show but to be honest, I'll happily settle for drive time. Heck, I'd even have taken Greg James's slot in the afternoon.

No seriously, I'd have done anything to just be on some form of national radio. And don't get me wrong, I've always known that if I wanted to get there I'd have to work hard. I knew that you didn't just roll up and ask for a job; it takes years of 'networking' (*cringe*), slogging your way through crap shifts (hence the eponymous blog) and generally doing anything and everything you could.

But I'll level with you. I had belief. I still do. And what's more I knew that if I kept ploughing on like a b*stard, with the same goal in sight I should get there, or at least damn close enough.


The last week though, has been a bit rough on the system. The first five days of a broadcast journalism have, in factual essence not been too trying: Get there at 9.30, listen to some inspiring speakers (Sophie Raworth, Stewart Purviss, the creator of Who Do You Think You Are etc etc.), meet everyone and go to the pub. Lovely. Now, without exception, this has been great. Yet through almost each and every talk there was an undercurrent that said one thing: Guys, you're fucked.

Now, I get the point. Broadcasting is currently a very difficult profession to get into. In the current economic climate, constricting budgets mean personnel numbers are shrinking and salaries with them. What's more, the relentless growth of the internet has made more and more content available online for free, such that the services of a professional journalist or broadcaster appear to be slowly retreating into obsolescence.

But I know that. Even people who are not supposed to be following current affairs like some sort of media hound know that. My German grandmother of a very respectable eighty years old knows it.

Even so, were it simply the surplus information offending my inflated pride, I'd like to think I'd get over it. Genuinely. But here's what it does do: it cripples my sense of ambition.

I, and everyone else on this extremely competitive course, worked darn hard to be on it. What's more, the rest of the year we've now begun looks set to continue the trend. On top of that, I would genuinely like to think that having actually got in, I might have demonstrated something at least hinting of being broadcastworthy. Don't get me wrong, there's been more than enough reassurance that things might also be fine and 96% of graduates enter employment, etc. etc. but to throw these kinds of stats in amongst a general atmosphere of apocalyptic gloom just seems to crenate a mood of psychological schizophrenia.

I don't know, maybe I'm just sensitive. Yet I'd always considered a tenacious yearning for the potentially unrealistic as a particular feature of mine. And sure, it happened that these dreams got shot down but, by and large, after I'd striven for them.

So yes, perhaps they are simply using journalistic hyperbole and double-talk to bring me back down to a solid, earthly realism. Ultimately, it may even harden my resolve and doubtless this may even be their aim, separating people with real zeal from passing hopefuls with no more than a passing interest. But there's a danger there. I don't consider myself a passing hopeful and hopefully that's still the case. Equally, I was never too fussed about earning pot loads of cash but with every promise of penniless perpetuity, one does start to have misgivings. In essence, I appreciate the sentiment, but don't push it too hard. It's making me feel wobbly.

And so to other news! Doing rugby in my spare time looks set to be unachievable, my dictaphone has arrived and hopefully will see me interviewing everything with vocal chords, Peter Conrad was on Radio 4, and in music, Labrinth's new song Earthquake, is frickin' incredible. It dropped (YES DROPPED DAMMIT) 2 weeks ago but I've been busy. So go listen NOW.

ONWARDS!

Dodgson.

ps. wouldn't usually brag (too much) but I wrote this all on my new and first ever smart-phone. Take that gloomologists. 

First Day

So today was the big day. Postgraduate studies have now officially begun at City University London. Still not sure what to call it really - is it City University; London; just City - god knows, I'm just going with what's on the newly received student card...

Anyway, the day began with the typical sort of trepidation: "What will everyone be like, what if I don't know anything" that kind of thing. But then I realised, there's a reason it's not called fresher's week - no-one's fresh anymore. I'm well over 20, we're all postrgraduating and half the game is going to be making fun new friends so what the heck. That still didn't stop me arriving about half an hour early but never mind.  That done, I took myself on a nice little tour of the triangular building that is destined to be my home for the next year.

Facilities duly inspected and admired, the line into the lecture hall had already formed. And so we waited. In early expectation. Mind you, this was probably by and large due to an email we'd all received to the following effect:


"Lateness is totally unacceptable in a broadcaster and no-one in the industry has time to listen to your excuses." 

And so we chatted, discussed what we'd all been up to over summer, that kind of thing. And then 10am rolls around. And the lecturers rock up. Good-oh, the course begins now. Except the doors were locked. Ha! Lateness is unacceptable indeed...

The rest of the day was just sitting and being talked to really. Apart from the world's worst university card photo and a lecture from the very lovely Nicholas Owen, the day was pretty unexceptional. Don't get me wrong though, that's exactly what I want from first day. Nice, pleasant and meeting lots of lovely people. The fact we were all in the pub by 5.30pm didn't hurt either. Oh, and there was pizza for dinner. Hoorah.

In other slightly more humorous news, I reckon City could be a venue to try out stand-up comedy. I was thinking of possible topics, one being the 'Fictionality of real life'. That way I could wax lyrical about all the barmy crap we invent to make our everyday tedium slightly more bearable. The mythical joy of facebook statuses, the fantasy world of television, other things beginning with f like flamingos, fondue parties and fenugreek and, last of all, blog pseudonyms...

Dodgson.

Surprise Surprise

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,

who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.

– from 'Punishment', Seamus Heaney, 1975

Last night the ten o’ clock news announced that the BBC could definitively reveal collaboration between British security forces and members of Gaddafi’s regime. MI6, along with the US’ CIA, appear to have worked intimately with Gaddafi’s former head of foreign affairs Moussa Koussa, in order to apprehend and even torture terror suspects. All these revelations have been met with shock and apprehension.

My only question is, why?

I watched Jeremy Bowen listen to his source. The source told of how it was widely known that the anti-Gaddafi rebel (now leader of the rebels in Tripoli), Abdul Hakim Belhaj had been tortured by Libyan police. Furthermore, after this torture, he had been interrogated by the CIA. Bowen’s face was one of wide-eyed amazement. “Surely not the Americans?” his face suggested.

Likewise as the chummy messages sent between an MI6 agent and Moussa Koussa about Christmas lunch were disclosed, Bowen’s demeanour was one of similarly bemused puzzlement. “How could we have been involved with such people?” And even more astonishing we were led to believe, was the fact that not only were the British and Americans involved, but we were involved right until the decisive turn of the Arab Spring uprisings.

For more info on exactly how this is unraveling click here:

But, the point I’m getting at (and the reason I’ve linked to the above article as opposed to anything else) is the level of surprise that Bowen and others have shown. Even the above article’s title implies its shocking MI6 knew about Belhaj’s torture. I just don’t get it.

Even Bowen begrudgingly pointed it out: Our astonishment should not come from the fact that we were ever involved with Gaddafi or that we knew what he was doing; it should come at our realization of just how soon we switched our allegiance.

Let me explain. As usual, blunt economics goes a long way to explaining a fair amount. Libya is a country rich in resources. The West needs oil, gas etc. and was willing to work with a country in order to gain them. If this meant turning a blind eye to past crimes like the Lockerbie bombing then fine. If it meant ignoring flagrant breaches of human rights then fine as well. Libya is an independent North-African nation, it could ostensibly do what it wants. As long as that included selling us what we needed.

In the case of Lockerbie however, the revelation that vague threats were made lest Abdelbaset al-Megrahi should not be released are genuinely disturbing. Nevertheless, even this level of British (and, one assumes, American) submission is relatively easy to explain.

Libya is a North-African nation that, until recently, was led by a dictator in charge of ruthless police and military forces. Such forces, in the fight against terror, could no doubt have been considered valuable to Western nations.

This was a nation unafraid to use its regime’s ability to torture. Post 9/11 western nations, locked in an endless war on terror but bound to respect human rights by law, could freely hand over intelligence leading to the arrest of suspects, safe in the knowledge that any potential Al-Qaeda suspects would receive ‘appropriate’ treatment. Whatever the impact of Gaddafi’s control was on the Libyan people, it was deemed permissible in the light of its long-term gains.

Understand that the case I’m making however, is not one for a lack of repentance. Without question, our collaboration with Gaddafi’s regime led to its increased strength over the years and certainly helped in prolonging its life. This is a fact one might idealistically say we have sought to redress in the past year through the UN and must continue to redress in the coming years.

What I am saying though, is that we need not be surprised. In books, TV and films for years now the subject of doing deals with the devil has been trodden over, dug up and trampled on for so long that is has now become so hackneyed it’s second nature. Surely now we are almost instinctively familiar with the plot line where in order to get on with our comfortable lives, people high up in the authorities made pacts and agreements with people we might not necessarily like who do things ways we definitely wouldn’t do ourselves. Why then are we surprised when we encounter it in real life?

Added to that, the fact MI6 knew about Belhaj’s torture is at least evidence that our security services know about something. Yes, they let it happen and torture is wrong, but spare me the hyperbolous outrage. OF COURSE WE KNEW. They’re our secret service. They are in charge of information. We should be angry we let it happen, we should be angry the public of Libya had to suffer because of our inaction but for God’s sake what did we really think was happening in a country under a forty-year dictatorship?

This is a century that has seen Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and will doubtless go on to see much, much more. I suppose all I’m asking is if we are really surprised that this kind of double-standard policy still takes place? The most I could manage was a cynical shrug of unsurprised condemnation.

In the films, it’s always one of two things. The cynical chief of staff or politician who made “the hard decisions no one else could make” and the young, idealistic recruit who sticks to the rules because “the rules are there so we don’t become like them”. The message of the story unfolds: good and bad aren’t necessarily so clearly set apart. But in films we can try and sort them out and hopefully end it with a nice explosion and a kiss. Nowadays that’s called romantic.

All I can say is that I know that’s not how it works. I can desperately hope for a world in which everything is clear cut but I’m simply not naïve enough to believe that’s either the case or ultimately, likely. In short, if I go looking to expose corruption and injustice, I shouldn’t be surprised if and when I find it. Even if it's from our own side.

We should be angry we weren’t angrier before.