Free Papers on Diana, Ryan Air, Private Eye, and Which? (Consumers Association) AGM

by Parsley on Fri, 2007/12/14 - 9:08pm Post to Twitter

PARSLEY'S COMMLOCK
Media News : Free Papers report Diana Inquest
When people complain about the media's prurient interests, they often say 'if people didn't buy it then the papers wouldn't print it'. We can see an enormous hole being blown in this argument by the fact that free newspapers, which clearly cost nothing, are covering the Diana inquest on their front pages. This means that they are either covering it because they think people want to read it or because their advertisers do. It's not because we 'buy' it.

Travel Update: Ryan Air
Since the trip where I had to wear most of the clothes in my luggage to avoid an arbitrary, in my opinion, excess baggage fee from Ryan Air, I have done my damnedest to avoid travelling with them. My knowledge of budget airlines is that with them, normal airline profits are reconstructed from every extra excuse they can find for getting you to spend money other than on the fare. Sometimes this leads them to be imaginative. Sometimes it means they are tricky and deliberately unhelpful. Keith from the Downliners Sect describes Ryan Air as flying from nowhere to nowhere.

Recently I had cause to use their services again as part of a gig in Rome. Their latest trick is that they sell you a yellow voucher so that you can be in the priority boarding queue for the plane. This means that people boarding with children are not invited to board first as they are with other airlines, unless they've paid for the privilege. I saw a woman held back with her child. The Ryan Air staff member was queried by a friendly queue member and replied 'that's how it is'. Then 'how it is' is wrong, I felt. Another queue member who had got the advanced queuing voucher gave it up to the woman with child. "That's not your name" the staff member responded, preventing her from advancing. The irony of it all was that the plane was half-empty, and the advanced queuing was a feeble luxury.

There is an overall problem with focusing on just money, as tempting people into bad behaviour finds reward. However, as I was thinking about all this I started thinking about the aeroplane's contribution to global warming. I think with perceived mounting climate chaos the same monetary signals that make travelling with budget airlines such a wretched experience, could easily be retargetted on energy or 'carbon' costing. Let me pay more for my heavy bag because it will take more fuel to move it and do more environmental damage as a result. I found myself wondering if budget airlines' atrocious amoral behaviour might yet become a model for encouraging responsible use of resources...but I won't hold my breath.

Show Review : An Evening With Private Eye, Lyttelton Theatre 4/12/07
My brother gave my Mum and I tickets to see this mini-show at the National Theatre. Basically, before the regular evening performance the theatre hosted an hour of parts of Private Eye from 2007 being performed by their authors and actors, including Harry Enfield and Jan Ravens. As a subscriber to Private Eye I had read quite a lot of the material, but it was definitely better/funnier to hear it performed live, particular when some real life characters were reasonably impersonated.

Apparently this is a regular yearly occurrence, partly to promote the Private Eye annual. Cast members were available to sign copies afterwards. Hearing the 'Dumb Britain' column (where the more stupid answers from shows like 'The Weakest Link' are listed) performed live was very funny. It ended with an audience singalong of a Gordon Brown interpretation of The Red Flag.

Meeting review : Which? (Consumers Association) Annual General Meeting 20/11/07
When consumer satisfaction is barely paid lip service by some purchases on the internet, we may depend on organised complaints to get any changes. The Consumers Association is 50 years old, and it's come a long way since it was run out of someone's garage. Long-term patron, former Chancellor Sir Geoffrey Howe was at this meeting.

Last year it was characterised by an audience of a fairly high age expressing a fairly large amount of collective outrage on a fairly wide range of topics. The meeting was held on a Saturday and everyone seemed up for it and genuinely interested. This year I spotted a new approach that I would say provided an object lesson in Stalinism. The meeting was held during the day immediately before lunch. Questions had to be sent in advance, and the floor was only allowed to raise questions in the meeting after it expressed outrage. Ironically this stage management was used to arrange automated membership intended to encourage more people to get involved in such meetings. I don't think they will be model democratic occasions if they are like this.

parsley@gardenrecords.com [www.gardenrecords.com]