The Conspiracy Review   

Once again the BBC looks like messing up its Glastonbury Festival coverage. From the start it looks like business as usual, all about the presenters and their in jokes and gossip. When will the BBC learn that what people want is coverage of THE FESTIVAL, not coverage of the presenters!

I can only hope the BBC learns soon and presents the Glastonbury Festival better. More music, visits to all the stages, and much much less of the presenters! BBC Glastonbury, a semi pro production at present.

PS Maybe I wrote in  haste, BBC2’s coverage IS much better, perhaps BBC 3 don’t get the budget of BBC2. Certainly more interesting stuff now, even if I do find Neil Young to be a bit of a moaner.

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Question : Is the new Coldplay album, Viva La Vida, a U2 album played by members of Coldplay, or a Coldplay album played by members of U2? I found it at times difficult to tell, especially on the guitars. But this review will attempt to explain why.

It appears somebody bought Producers Brian Eno, Markus Dravs, and Rik Simpson a brand new Lexicon 480 to overuse on the guitars, washing them away in a tumult of echoing reverb, as used on U2 albums, but more so here. But this review is not negative, I’m pleased that Chris Martin and his Coldplay cohorts included experimental tracks and sections which add colour and life to the songs, though how many of those are simply Brian Eno soundscapes flown in is a moot point.

This Coldplay review would not be complete without listing the best tracks. Life in Technicolor is an atmospheric and warm opening, and a great intro. The single Viva La Vida has reflective but striking lyrics, The extended EP Prospekts march is worth a listen too, Glass of Water is an excellent track, starting as a simple pub band song and then extending into a huge sound (there’s those huge reverbs again).

With good albums it is best to buy the CD and not the mp3’s. Up to 90% of the sound information is removed on mp3 downloads to minimize download size, missing information is artificially recreated by computer algorithms upon playback. It is amazing to review how sound quality has gone down since the 1980’s when the CD standard was set. (This was itself a compromise based on technology of the time). If you want to buy a good picture to hang on your wall, do you want the original in all its detail, or a heavily compressed JPG with a reduced color set and detail?

Review Ratings : Coldplay Viva La Vida : 8.5/10.  Producer : Brian Eno. Recommended : Yes

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After all the promises of reform following the banking meltdown, what looks likely to happen? The current UK government, well known for action filled rhetoric at the time of a crisis, followed by vacuous nothingness, is setting a trend of denial after the event.

Do they not realise that a few bankers nearly brought us all to our knees, and have cost millions their jobs? These greedy bankers continue to lie and intimidate governments to do their will, Jefferson was right, banks are more dangerous than standing armies.

The UK chancellor has dropped to his knees to kow tow to the bankers and hedge funds bosses. It is too pathetic for words to see how spineless Brown and Darling are when push comes to shove.

The UK Tories would be no better, the only party which has consistently shown mettle are the Liberal Democrats. They deserve a shot at power, not the crumby current two party system.

Popularity: 1% [?]

OK, I admit it, I bought an Xbox 360 on ebay last month. I had tried a PSP, the Sony Playstation portable, but found the screen too small and subsequently hardly played with it and sold it on ebay.

But, crikey, I saw how video games programming has advanced since the days of gameboy when I tried out Oblivion on the Xbox 360, the Bethesda Softworks piece de resistance, recently. The graphics and 3d rendering are spectacular, even though the game has been out for several years now, the fourth episode in Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls saga.

But one thing I find still not right is the rendering of human figures in these video games, whether Oblivion or Tiger Woods golf. What is it about the human form that is so difficult to reproduce in a video game? Is it the little muscle movements, the lustre of the skin? Can’t small subroutines be used in the programming to reproduce the intricacies of humans? It’s surely time for a break through in rendering humans in games, methinks. PS Oblivion is a great game, you can pick it up at Amazon for a good price.

Popularity: 12% [?]

It’s been clear since the 1960’s, when scientists began warning that if the world’s population continue to grow unchecked the planet would end up unable to support masses of people scrambling for every resource from water to food. Most wars in history have been fought over resources.

Even naturalist and humanist David Attenborough has realised this. The folly of trying to save 30% carbon emissions here, recycle your rubbish there, completely overlooks the fact that present world population is way too high and that an unsustainable increase in births will inevitably lead to calamitous wars in the future.

Take the UK, three times overpopulated. A land which can support around 20 million people as a maximum figure. The UK is uniquely vulnerable to resource shortages in the future. Forget playing around at the edges with carbon exchanges and similar greenhouse gas schemes and emphasise the acute need for smaller families, and to bring world population down to manageable levels.

Popularity: 19% [?]

I have been through an education system which left me believing without question that William Shakespeare was the greatest playwright in the English language. Only later have I discovered that this faith was that, a faith not based in evidence.

Shakespeare was in fact virtually illiterate, completely incapable of realising the complex politic of Richard III or Henry V, or visualising the sonnets attributed to him. Much more likely he was used by authors and politicians and nobles of the time as a front man, a virtual nom de plume, to express their convictions and agendas at a time when it could be dangerous to do so openly. The play was an important event for the intelligensia as there wasn’t so much TV then.

A vignette of interest from the King James Bible, a monumental work of translation of Hebrew Texts into English carried out by 46 leading scholars at the beginning of the 17th century and published around the same time as the plays and sonnets attributed to Shakespeare. Take a look at Psalm 46, count forwards 46 words from the beginning, and you get ‘Shake’. Count back 46 words from the end and you get ’speare’. Shakespeare.

Popularity: 23% [?]