The Daily Novel

Sitting in the rain in the car park at Tesco in Axminster at midday gazing out at a scene of total gloom. Not a refreshing April shower but an unrelenting downpour that has been going on all morning. And a sky which is promising that it will go on all afternoon. In front of me tanned young men, coatless and hatless, are running from their cars to the shelter of the store. Little old ladies are struggling to control their trolleys and their umberellas as they hurry out with their groceries. And one of the few carless shoppers, a middle-aged Chinese woman,  sitting on the seat beside, hoping against hope, that the rain would stop. After a wait of ten minutes or so, she shrugged her shoulders, took up her trolley, and walked off to the ramp that leads into the town. Not only did she not have a car, she did not have an umbrella. So she will got seriously wet.

This is the sort of weather which drives those prone to SAD (seasonal affective depression) to despair. And it plunged me into the glooms when I was a boy whenever it happened during the cricket season. Depression, as anyone who has suffered from it will tell you, is different from ordinary sadness. When it hits it leaves you with no energy to do anything, because the way you feel it seems like anything you do is not going to make any difference.

Back here in my bungalow the wind is up and rain is spattering the window panes. Portland Bill is hidden by the murk but I can see the beach, which is deserted, but the light brown sand relieves  the greyness. And the dark green sea is ligthtened by row upon row of frothy white horses.

Quite apart from the weather I have another reason to sink into depression. The chances are that most of the potential readers who happen upon this post via Google will not read it, because of the warning message that Google has put up, warning them that reading my blog may harm their computer. I have as yet had no useful reply to the emails I dashed off a couple of days ago asking for help and guidance as to how to get this warning removed, now that Spy Doctor has pronounced my computer free of even low risk dodgy software. And I realise it may take several days or weeks to get clearance. Or worse that I might not ever be able to move the mighty Google Goliath with my puny catapult.

But as of now I have not sunk into depression. My energy took me to the keyboard as soon as I returned from Axminster. To write, amoungst other things, about the paradox. One of the reasons I have chosen to live in Dorset, is that it does have areas like Egdon Heath, desolate exposed heathland that even today can be life-threatening if you get lost in the mist and have inadequate clothing. I knew that from the novels of Thomas Hardy, long before I had visited Dorset.

Though Hardy’s novels are depressing, in that many of his heroes and heroines come to a sorry end, because of fatal flaws in their own personalities, or because of  the forces of nature or because of the hostile behaviiour of other human beings, they did not depress me. On the contrary they helped me deal with my own teenage depression. I was inspired, for instance, by the story of that pregant Hardy heroine who has to get herself to hospital across Egdon heath on the bleakest of bleak days. Alone. She makes it by aiming for the next milestone, dragging herself along, clinging to it, while she rests, before setting off for the milestone ahead.

I still think of her now, when I am climbing a steep hill towards the end of the day, tired and short of breath. Like her, I target a place I can see ahead, where I can sit down and rest, to recharge my batteries before I press on towards the next milestone.

I thought of her when last Thursday night when I was listening to Claire Tomalin talking in Sturminster Newton about her biography, Thomas Hardy, The Time-Torn Man, now available in paper-back as well as hard-back. One of the main points of her talk, and her book, is that although Hardy lived long enough to win national and international acclaim, he died a disappointed man. He lived to write poetry. He wrote his novels to earn sufficient money to enable him to go on writing poetry. He wrote, some excellent poems, but even today he is has not achieved the five-star rating he longed for.

This mattered to Hardy. More than it should have done. Because he did not compromise his poet’s heart, when writing his novels. He was not attempting to write best-sellers, although several of the novels he wrote, became best-sellers. He had quite a battle with publishers to get his first great novel, The Return of the Native, published. Tomlin writes:

The greatness of The Return of the Native is that it as much the work of Hardy the poet as Hardy the novelist. All his novels have elements of poetry, but this is the first in which, although he had made his concepts into fiction, essentially he is setting down a poetic dream.

But not a Hollywood dream with a happy ending. As Tomlin notes:

Dreams, or nightmares. His tale ends in tragedy for most, three of the principal figures caught up in flight and disaster ending in death……….

Hardy wrote the Return of the Native in 1878, during the two years he lived in the house at Sturnminster Newton, pictured at the top of this blog, which we visited before the talk. Hardy did not much like the house, which is you can see is boring villa. But he loved the view over the Dorset countryside and down the River Stour towards the elegant bridge which leads into the centre of the town.

The picture below is of Claire Tomlin talking to three teenage girls, (who I did not get in the picture because I zoomed the phone too much to get a close up of the author). Yes, the teenagers told her, they were doing Hardy for A-levels.

But if it was a duty visit, they were clearly enjoying it. And their presence cheered me up. The book is not dead. These 2008 teenagers were not spending the evening drinking themselves into a stupor in the high street, or losing their money in New Labour’s casinos, or watching soap operas on one of the hundreds of channels showing them.

This cheered me up somewhat. Because I am writing this on the day all the media are full of stories about the Austrian man, who fathered children through incest with his own daughter, and kept her and them locked up in a cellar for more than twenty years. And all that time he was going out to do the shopping and chatting to neighbours, who, apparently, thought he was an ordinary human being, not the ogre he was. And all of it happening in a small town which is about the same size as Sturminster Newton, and where the houses are cheek by jowl.

Hardy, who wrote uncompromisingly about flawed human beings, who committed some atrocities against their nearest and dearest. But nothing in Hardy’s imaginings is anythting near to the inhuman behaviour of Jozef Fritzel.

As I wrote this paragraph I realised that the rain had stopped. The sun is now shining. I can just see the outline of Portland Bill through the mist. And there are three human figures on the beach. At least they look like human beings, but how can I be sure they are not inhuman beings taking a rest from abusing their nearest and dearest.

This photograph of Humphrey Lyttelton, who died today, aged 86, is nicked from The Guardian web site, who in turn,  nicked it from the BBC, with attribution, of course. The photograph shows Humph exactly as he was when I last met him, just under a year ago, at a charity jazz concert, which he has given for the last several years at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

If you look at it, you can see, behind the glasses the twinkle in his eye. And as I gazed at it, I was conscious of my debt to him. I first ‘met’ him in 1955 when, aged 21, I had moved to London in the hope of finding a life, which was more interesting and inspiring than what I had so far experienced in Wolverhampton and Birmingham.

In those years, I did not really ‘meet’ him. I was sweating on the dance floor at 100 Oxford Street, being liberated by the music of the band, led by Humph on the trumpet. As you will read in the honest obituaries, including that by George Melly, his fellow British jazz musician, and his dear friend, Humph does not quite rank in the world jazz greats, although he was extremely professional and more than competant on the trumpet and the clarinet, as well as in band leading.

But, for me, Humph was my first experience of high quality jazz live. Which is as different an experience as jazz listened to on the radio or the record player, as is watching Match of the Day on the television, compared with being at ‘the match’. But as I got to know him, through chatting to him, after the annual charity concerts he did for the Royal Free Hospital, I realised that my greatest debt to him, is that he helped to form my political opinions. Because he knew that jazz was the music of the oppressed classes in the United States, part of the long struggle of America’s blacks to free themselves from slavery. Not surprising that so many jazz musicians died early of drug over-doses. But Humph, although he identified with their cry for freedom, was protected from self-destruction, by his own very priveldged background. About which more later.

But as I gaze at his photograph, I realise that my debt to more than I have said.  Because, although I am an enthusiastic listener, I have no musical abilities. But I do have a sense of humour, which is, as I now realise, is in part unconsciously modelled, on his example. It is laconic and ironic, with not a small element of self-deprecation. Quite often, his jokes were delivered in a dead pan style, so that you were not sure whether he was joking or being entirely serious. Unless, you noticed the twinkle in his eye. But, since he was so successful in radio comedy programmes, he must also have developed the ability, to speak with a twinkle in his voice.

In this obituary I want to pay tribute to his qualities as a human being. His contributions to jazz and broadcast comedy will be covered in other obituaries by people better qualified to speak on such subjects.

He came from a highly priviledged family.To find out just how priviledged that family was you will you have to go to the Wikepedia biog of his cousin, Oliver Lyttelton, who I also encountered on my voyage through life. There  you will find that his ancestors include the Grenvilles, who helped to save Britain from the Spandiards with their tiny ship, the Revenge. And also the Spencers, who gave us Winston Spencer Churchill, as well as Princess Di, who became the People’s Princess, but who actually came from a family far more distinguished in British history, than the upstart Germans, of whom our dear Queen is a descendant.

(Far from being a commoner, Princess Di, was upper drawer. Although quite as mixed up in her own personal identity as Charles, the older man who fell in love with her, she provided Brits and the world with the fairy story of a dream wedding, that excelled Hollywood as a propaganda message for the the triumpth of romantic love, regularised by Holy Matrimony. That marriage went wrong, and even this year, the father of her last lover, Mohammed al Fayed, has been trying to persuade an inquest jury, that she was murdered by the British establishment, who were not prepared to stomach her marriage to a Muslim. In fact, the British establishment did not care two hoots about whom Princess Di married. Although, they might have had some strong views, if Prince Charles, had decided to marry a Musilm for his second marriage, instead of his chosen stalwart of the county classes, Camilla Parker Bowles.)

Humph, I think, would not mind me including these digressions in his obituary.

Because in our conversations I challenged what he said to me. Including his oft repeated comment to gentlemen of the press, that he was a ‘romantic socialist’, a typical example of his self deprecation. He was in fact a serious practical socialist, who stuck with the beliefs that he had adopted, despite his highly Conserative family. His dad was a master at Eton. But Humph did not fill his band, with old Etonians, he filled his band with the best musicians.

Quite unlike that other Old Etonian, David Cameron, who is filling his shadow cabinet with fellow old Etonians, in the belief that these are the best people to govern England in the twenty-first century.

Humph, by contrast,  was still doing developing talent irrespective of class background,  in the years I knew him at his charity Royal Free Concerts. Bringing on good young musicians, because they were good musicians.

I also talked with Humph about his cousin, Oliver, who was a close friend of Winston Churchill, and one of the last British ‘colonial secretaries’, and went on after politics to become a business tycoon, as head of one of Britain’s then biggest electrical companies. In that job he was a disaster, and his reign opened the way for Lord Weinstock to grab AEI and most of the electrical industry in the interests of profit, but aided by the Wilson Labour government.

Oliver Lyttelton, by then enobled as Lord Chandos, went on from that commercial disaster to bring the arts to the South Bank of the Thames, so that all Londoners could go to high quality theatre, and in theaters whose acoustics were so much better than those in the West End, that you can actually hear what the actors say.

Humph, when he found himself performing jazz in the Lyttelton theatre on the South Bank, made one of his characteristic jokes, by saying it was his first appearance in the theatre which had been named after him. Quite how many of his audience saw the real joke I don’t know. But they all laughed, as audiences were prone to do at Humph’s jokes.

But that joke says a lot about Humph and about the British establishment and British elites. Humph came from the old British elite. He had the same education as his older cousin, Oliver, who went on from Eton to Cambridge, but unlike him, he went to work after school in the steel works in Port Talbot in South Wales. That experience led him, working cheek to cheek with the lower classes, to become a socialist.

Later, when the Second World War broke out, he followed the family tradition and like his cousin Oliver, served in the Grenadier Guards and saw serious action. But when he came out of the war he was still a socialist, despite his communion in the mess with the officers of one of Britain’s most elite regiments. And unlike many other socialists, he turned down the offer of a knighthood.

Humph is being written about widely today because he was a very good jazz musician. But also because he understood, and adopted the political message of jazz. Which in my view led him to socialism. He also was a very successful comedy broadcaster, but his jests also conveyed the views he held.

The news of his death came to me while I was doing battle with the present ruling elite of Britain, the US and other parts of the world. The likes of Rupert Murdoch and Vint Cerf, who according to Google is ‘the founding father of the internet’. Has Google not heard of Tim Berners Lee?

The difference between Humph and young James Murdoch, is that young James does not seem to realise that he is a fully paid up member of the present British elite. Young James is still fighting his father’s battles. And Rupert, when he tried to buy British newspapers, did get short shift from the then ruling British newspaper elites.

Which hurt him. But it is so long ago, that it might as well have been in the Stone Age. Today’s powerful elites are the Rupert Murdochs and the new immensely rich Google type internet entrepreneurs.

This obituary is a faithful reflection of the man Hunphrey Lyttelton, whom I met and talked with. But it must end, with that part of his legacy which will go on forever. His music. My computer nouse is so inadequate that I cannot put some of his music on my blog.

But I can conclude with a picture, nicked from Wikipedia, which shows his total professional absorption in playing the trumpet.

Which he did rather well.

In the world of blogging journalism Google as powerful, or much more powerful, than W H Smith was for British newspapers and magazines. W H Smith was not only the largest chain of newsagents in the country, it dominated the wholesale distribution of newspapers and magazines. The nation had reason to be grateful to the high principled Smith family, because they protected the nation’s children by never stocking pornography. For that you had to go the sleazy newsagent in a sidestreet, and reach up to the top shelf.

But Smith’s also used their considerable marketing power to keep adventurous magazines which were challenging the conventional wisdom, like the satirical magazine, Private Eye, and ‘extreme’ left-wing publications, like the Socialist Worker, off their shelves. Which was of course a form of censorship.

Google as the dominant search engine has equivalent power. What their blacking means is that when my American readers key in ‘Obama left handedness’ they cannot read what I have said on this subject, because they are routed to the warning notice from Google. So Google is in fact violating my rights of free speech and my opportunity, via the internet, to have  my say on what is the most important American election of my lifetime.

Although, as I have disclosed as soon as I found it, there were the two questionable programs on my computer, they were not having any effect on my computer, nor on the computer of anyone else I know who has read my blog.

But when I go into newspaper web sites I frequently find annoying popup ads interupting my reading of the article I want to read. Notable offenders are The Times of London and the New York Times. Why doesn’t Google black them?

To return to the general issue. The web makes it possible for the citizen journalist to broadcast his views, but the chances of his getting heard are still very small, given the increasing domanance of the web by the big media groups. Google has a most important role in redressing the balance. And mostly they do that job well enough.

I am not sure how their ranking system works, but it does not seem to discriminate against the lone blogger. Thus, when you key in ‘Obama left hand’, my blog, written on 22 February, is number six of 388,000 references. (Now disfigured by the red ink telling you it may seriously damage your health!)

It is a myth that citizen journalists are powerful. That myth was fuelled by James Murdoch, Rupert’s little boy, in an article in yesterday’s Guardian. This is his opening paragraph:

We are in the middle of a tremendous and welcome shift in power - from elites to individuals and communities. For the media, that means a shift from content controlled by a few to that created, adapted, or distributed by a multitude.

Lower down there is this paragraph:

For many years, Britain had a vibrant and diverse newspaper sector but a stagnant dominant television oligopoly.

Young James writes without any awareness of the fact that his grandad, was a member of the Australian elite, and his fdad, Rupert, was a member of the British elite, tutored by Asa Briggs at Oxford, and taught the British newspaper trade by Ted Pickering at the Daily Express, which was then one of Britain’s most powerful newspapers.

Rupert Murdoch has made the British newspaper industry less diverse. He took over one of only two left wing national papers, The Sun, previously known as The Daily Herald. He converted The Sun to a tabloid and knocked the Mirror off its perch as the biggest mass circulation newspaper, a blow from which it has still not recovered. There is now only one left of centre newspaper, The Guardian, which has a big enough staff to cover international affairs properly.

Murdoch also controls, of course, The Times, and Sky Television, Fox Television in the US and Star in the east. His newspapers and television stations reflect his right wing, anti Europe and born again Christian views. From time to time he supports Labour Party leaders, but he uses his influence to pull them to the right. As he did with Tony Blair and still does with Gordon Brown, who spends more time talking to Murdoch’s men, than he does to trade unionists.

Much of today’s media is controlled by a few big companies, including media on the web, to which all the media groups devote huge resources, far beyond the pockets of citizen journalists.

Google, because of the brilliance of its technical expertise, is in an unrivalled position, to help counteract the power of Murdoch, and the other media barons. They should be using it to promote freedom of speech, not to limit it.

The Spy Doctor says that the suspect software on my computer, removed last night, was a program called Tracking Cookies and another called Adware Advertising. So far as I can glean from the log these programs were monitoring the statistics for my website.

That does not strike me as particularly dangerous.

But maybe it conflicts with Google’s Adsense, which I attempted to sign up for some months ago but was frustrated by the complicated instructions. Or maybe, what Google does not like about my site is the content of the words I write.

I shall continue to try and get some answers. But it may take weeks. Meanwhile I have something to say about Google from a general perspective, which is best done in a separate blog.

On the advice of a friend I downloaded a program called Spy Doctor last night. The Spy Doctor found that I had two suspect programs, which it rated at the lowest level of risk. So readers can be relieved that they will not have caught anything life threatening from reading my blog.

The doctor has now deleted the offening bits of software and pronounced The Daily Novel clean.

It will take me a good deal longer to get the Google black listing lifted. They want me to things that I don’t know how to do, even to find out their reasons for blacking me. And even when I have done all these things they say that it will take several weeks to remove the blot on my blog.

Will report when I have  made further investigations. 

Quite by accident when googling this morning I discovered that Google has blacked my blog. If you key in to Google anything on my blog at the URLs, www.thedailynovel.com and www.xcitybob.com you have a message in red saying that it may damage your computer. Not only that I discovered, when I went into the webmail of my internet provider, 1and1, that they have been blacking it since 17 April1!

They had sent an email telling me of their action to my 1and1 web mail. They gave one specific example of my malicious behaviour. This url: http://www.xcitybob.com/?p=442 refers to a blog which actually praises one giant company, the Daily Mail, for an article they did about the missing canoeist.

Like a good citizen I first tried to discover whether there was anything harmful in my blog. Any possible malicious software I mean, not words I might have written about George W Bush. I deleted a number of comments on my blog, which looked like possible spam which had got through the Word Press filter. And then I spent more time trying to find a way of getting in touch with Google that did not just get an automated response telling me to look at their web pages.

Finally I posted this comment on their Group Discussion on web crawling.

Just discovered that Google has blocked www.xcitybob.com and
www.thedailynovel.com, which are the URLs for my blog, The Daily Novel.
The warning says my blog may harm people’s computers. How can that be
because it has not affected the computers of my wife, children,
friends who read my blog?

The only thing I can think of is that Google is deeming the CONTENT of
my blog ‘malicious’. In some blogs I am highly critical of those who
hold power, including my own university and big companies, though I
cannot remember cannot remember making an attack on Google.

To black stuff like mine is censorship.

But equally obviously if there are things on my site which harms other
computers I would want to remove it immeditately.

So why on earth did Google not simply tell me what it is they think is
harmful in my blog.

Which would have saved me a lot of time this morning trying to find a
way of getting in touch with Google that did not get an automated
response.

Bob Jones

I am not too hopeful of getting anything done, because there seem to be quite a few other people with similar problems posting on the Google discussion group.

But maybe there are some readers who happen on my site who can tell me what is happening, before it is too late.

Because if there is harmful software on my computer, I maybe harming not only myself but my friends and readers too.

If there is not any harmful software on my computer, then Google is doing me considerable harm. I checked Yahoo this morning and they seem to think I am clean.

In cases like this Google should provide the evidence before they use their power to harm others.

Journalism and blogging may not be enough to get them to change their behaviour. So I hope those with similar experiences will get in touch with me.

 Maybe we can get together and consult our learned friends.

Frustrating late morning trying to do something for the daughter of our friends in Bath, who has to write her essays, using a combination of the knuckle of one hand on a conventional keyboard and a voice recognition system called Dragon Naturally Speaking. But when I was there yesterday I found that the Dragon software had been wiped and the wireless keyboard she was using had annoyingly stopped communicating with her computer.

So went into altkeyboards, the user group, which was inspired by August Dvorak, who not only designed a better keyboard layout than QWERTYin the 1930s, he designed Dvorak layouts for people with only one hand and for those with no hands at all, who used a stick, guided by their forehead. The last useful comment on voice recognition was in 2001, which is the Stone Age as far as the new technology is concerned. And I could find nothing useful at all about keyboards using a stick.

So I went into Google. Joy. The first reference was to MIT, which in my book is just about the best university in the world for computers. Sure enough they had a section on Dragon Naturally Speaking, the best in the world for PC’s, but NOT available for the Apple Mac. For the Mac the MIT lot suggested IBM Via Voice.

At that point I decided to give up, because yesterday I was sure that I was staring at a giant Apple Mac screen in front of the bed. Maybe I am suffering from the dread disease of too much early morning blogging.

So I opened the post. Joy. We have won the lottery for a beach hut. So off we went to inspect it, catching the beach superintendent just before he left for lunch. He gave us the key for the hut, which is the one he currently occupies himself. There is ample room for the kids’ buckets and spades. There is even enough room for a card table so that, if I am so minded, I can blog a pebble’s throw away from the ocean.

So my mood soared again. Maybe there are some Gods up there and maybe they do answer prayers.

I was too tired when I got back to do any more Googling. So I decided to take my cue from The Great Book. Ask and it shall be granted, or some such.

But just to hedge my bets I decided to put my question to the Blogosphere before I knelt down to pray.

Surely there must be some human being out there who knows of a viable stick type wireless keyboard and who knows whether Via Voice actually is a better alternative for someone with only one knuckle available to input a three thousand word essay.

This post is along the lines of those I have written about BT and npower on the basis of my own personal experience in dealing with large companies. It is also included in the Manic Depressive Diary category. Because what is common with all three is that they appear to doubt my own sanity, grasp of the facts and ability to find out ‘the truth’. And they activate my paranoid fears that these all powerful giants might get me locked up in the looney bin, or cut off my electrity or hack into my mobile phone.

O2, the latest Goliath who I have been taking on with my catapult-like emails, is actually a split off from the even bigger BT company. It provides the service for my Sony Ericisson mobile phone, which I dearly love because it is a mind-boggling example of the wonders of the new technology. It not only enables me to make telephone calls, it enables me to connect to the internet, download games and send and receive emails. And it allows me to take photographs, which are almost as good as those I used to take with my equally beloved Pentax. And with something the size of a small pocket calculator.

This is a copy of their latest email to me. It starts with ‘Hello Bob’ and ends with their wish that I enjoy the rest of my day. So perhaps they do love me as much as I loved them. But it is what is in between that concerns me.

It was my sister asking what time we would arrive. As quickly as possible I told her that we were half an hour behind schedule, and tried to end the call. And failed, partly because I could barely see the screen in the bright sunlight, partly because traffic was building up from all four directions, with drivers honking at us. In rising panic I pressed three or four buttons, without success, and then turned the phone off.

I did not check my phone until the evening, when I found that three messages thanking my for ordering three computer games, and telling me that £15 had been deducted from my Pay as You Go account. I concluded, mistakenly as it turned out, that this was all my fault, as a result of my panicky pressing of buttons.

So the next day I rang O2 customer service, and explained what had happened. About the minor crash, which had made me a bit shaky, and had caused me to press a few buttons accidentally. I furthermore explained that I never played computer games on my mobile and that I had not used the internet facility. O2 insisted that games could not be down-loaded accidentally. And kept on repeating that, until I gradually realised that they were accusing me of lying. I patiently repeated my story, only to be told that I was not listening to what O2 was saying. By this time I said that their behaviour was a disgrace, and rang off.

The next day, when I had recovered my cool, I emailed them with a patient written explanation couched in the most temperate language. In their first reply, they said that their records showed that one of the computer games had been downloaded twice, so they were refunding me £5, but I must pay the other £10 because the games could not have been downloaded accidentally.

Before I replied to this I checked the file manager on my phone. There were no downloaded games there. I also checked the times. The telephone call from my sister was at 12.47 PM but the messages telling me I had downloaded the games, came at 4 PM. I told O2 this in my reply. Their second email to me asserted that it was not possible to download games accidentally, because in order to do so you had to press four keys in an ordered sequence. My reply repeated that I had not done this, and asked them for an explanation of what had happened, including the discrepancy in the times. Their reply is the one I have printed above.

It convinced me that I was not going to get anywhere by writing emails.

But the matter should not be allowed to rest. It raises questions about what O2, and maybe other mobile companies do, which are far more important than the £10 at stake.

The O2 reply above includes this sentence:

We can clearly see from your account activity that you, or someone with access to your phone has requested and downloaded these games.

 If they look into my phone and send me messages they must also have the ability to download games even if I have not asked for them.

So I am writing this blog, in the hope that some employee of O2, or some reader of mine, will come up with a more satisfactory explanation of what happened.

If anyone has seen the mind of Professor Adrian Monck, head of City University’s journaliism department, could they return it as soon as possible, in a jifffy bag packed with lots of bubble wrap. His brain may not be very big but it is the only one he has got. And every minute he is without it, he is a possible danger to himself, and and a certain threat to alll journalism students, and would-be journalism students, at City University.The news broke in the newsroom of The Guardian in London, when many witnessed the breakdown he suffered in a debate with the renowned philosopher, A.C. Grayling.But readers do not have to wait to see the evidence.The crafty Guardian hacks have buried it in the education section of their web site, under the misleading headline, of ‘Is the Renaissance scholar dead?’ Monck’s speech was not about scholarship, Renaissance or later. The thinking was mindless Monck polemnic laced with one reference to the gospel of Netscape founder, Marc Andreessen.

Monck says he does not want to shut down English departments and forensic science departments en masse. He merely wants this:

For a take on what Monck, who himself studied history at Oxbridge, might have said before he lost his mind, follow this link, to a blog from the Vice-Chancellor’s office at Macquairie University in Australia, That blog does say something about what the Renaissance was about and its relevance to today’s world and apparently it was written by Vice-Chancellor himself, a bloke called Steven Schwartz. Schwartz is a former vice-chancellor of Brunel University, whose great strength is in teaching engineering. But imaginatively. Schwartz argues that;

While I was away from Dorset I was taken to task by an ex-student of City University’s Department of Journalism for my critique of this year’s Xcity magazine. The comment disputes the implication of my article that the students were too lazy to do the work necessary to track down where the hundreds of ex-City international students are now. His/her argument was that there were so many gaps in the international lists that it was impossible to track them down.

On re-reading my own post I can see that it might seem I was implying this. That was not my intention.

It has been a real concern for several years now that the gaps in the international records were a blight on the all-important listings. The international records contrast with the records for most of the home students, where the detailed job records of students as far back as 1977 are nearly 100 per cent complete.

What I should have made clear in my post was that omitting ALL the international student records is not a satisfactory solution to this problem. It means that the many international records which were up to date, thanks to the efforts of both staff and students over many years, are not now included and will not be updated. That is a wasting the efforts of past students, and it is not in the interests of the Department which wants to keep in touch with all its ex-students.

A satisfactory solution can only be found by management action. The present situation, which happened more or less accidentally over the years (and it was partly my fault) is that the bulk of the work on maintaining the student records is done by the periodical students. In other words, by thirty-odd students out of a total student body of several hundreds.

In my view the best solution is to re-instate the international records next year. And for the staff to ensure that students from all courses next year are caused to take part in tracking down where ex-students from their own course are now. Those efforts should be concentrated on up-dating the records of those ex-students for whom we already have pretty full records.

That would take care of my most trenchant criticism in my post, which was that this year’s Xcity records, got the student records of two of the most prominent home ex-students; William Lewis,  an ex-periodical student, who was made editor of The Daily Telegraph last year, and James Harding, who was made editor of The Times this January.

Maintaining these records is now a huge task. It needs the help of all the students. And it needs the help of all the staff at the proofing stage, when the directors of all the courses should be required to check the listing for all their ex-students. I can save them a bit of time by telling them that Dermot Murnaghan has moved from the BBC to Sky News, in case they have not noticed.