Rob, Rambling - A lot of things interest me...

Anonymous asked: If Samuel Pepys were around today would he use Tumblr?

I think he would blog, definitely, although not necessarily with Tumblr. Tumblr is perhaps too geared towards making it easy to post all forms of media, whereas Pepys seemed to thoroughly enjoy the written word.

Blogging, in general, is a form of writing a diary, is it not? I certainly treat it that way, and quite enjoy going back to look at what I was doing seven years ago, when I first started blogging.

There’s much more chance nowadays that the writing will survive, and get an audience. Previously, we relied more on luck for diaries to survive, whereas everything is cached pretty much instantaneously online. For better or worse, you could say, but it’s important to document what’s happening in the world, no?

In terms of Pepy’s writing on London life, I can highly recommend Diamond Geezer as a modern-day equivalent. His writing is brilliant, and he somehow seems to do an incredible amount every week.

kapi asked: What are your thoughts on Lady Gaga?

(I'm gonna need a long reply to this.)

You know, I don’t really listen to the radio, and I don’t have too many music channels nowadays, so by the time I hear of a pop artist or a particular song, it’s already pretty ubiquitous. This can mean it’s already reached annoyance level for most people, whereas for me it’s new.

But usually still crap.

When it comes to the genres I enjoy, then I’m absolutely always trying to hear something new, or eagerly awaiting a new album, looking out for it all the time.

With pop, it’s just not my thing. The only time I’ll hear that kind of music is in a bar or something, or on the car radio if the girlfriend is giving me a lift to the station. Even then, I usually have no idea who sings a particular song, nor their usual ouevre.

When it comes to Lady Gaga, it wasn’t really until last autumn that I really became aware of her, or realised that a couple of songs were hers. I remember being in a bar in Newcastle last year and seeing it go mental when Poker Face came on, and that was my first realisation that she was something big.

Musically, I guess I can understand the appeal. It’s fairly nonsensical, standard pop fare, ranging from the dancey stuff to the slower (yet still upbeat) ballads. It’s not really my thing, but as pop music goes it’s not bad. Better than the middle-of-the-road crap that we get from X-Factor and the like, but still pretty formulaic.

I wouldn’t say that she’s particularly turning the pop world on its head musically. Compare her stuff to Britney’s earlyish material: it’s basically the same style. I’ll grant that Gaga’s lyrics have a little more to them, but they’re still all about sex, love, relationships and fame.

Away from the music, and onto her image. It’s pretty clear that she fancies herself as a performance artist more than a music artist. And it does take a certain amount of confidence to wear some most of her outfits, so I’ll give her credit for that.

But there’s a fine line between being noticed for being outlandish, being on the bleeding edge of fashion, and just plain being ridiculous. She’s crossed it, for me.

Yes, I realise that she’s trying to make some sort of commentary on the public obsession with musicians’ looks and images, but she just looks like an idiot. I just don’t get the need to dress up loke that on a daily basis, or to go that far overboard with it all.

A coat made of Kermits? Really?

She’s canny and media-savvy in terms of milking publicity and infamy wherever she can (that video with Beyonce, for example), but too often she’s becoming what she’s in theory supposed to be satirising: she’s relying on her raunchiness and sex appeal to sell music, just like Britney, Christina, et al, before her.

Her videos are without doubt aimed to titillate as much as to entertain, as are most of her outfits and her stage shows. Take, for example, the crotch-tastic green thing she wore at the Brits. My eyes water at the memory of how tight that was downstairs, and I ain’t female.

It amuses me that so much of the media is in thrall to her, covering her every move whilst trying to say that they aren’t really obsessed with her. Gawker is particularly guilty of this.

Maybe the best thing I can say about her is that she really has made an impact on the public consciousness. I don’t listen to her music, nor the genres she operates in, and I don’t read celebrity magazines/websites, yet I still know a decent amount about her.

It’s a sign of her ubiquity, perhaps, that even people like myself are able to have an opinion about her, and in a fame-obsessed world, you have to applaud the amount of self-promotion that it’s taken for her to get to that level.

Anonymous asked: Have you voted Lib Dem (tactically) because Labour is a wasted vote in Putney or because The Guardian have just pledged allegiance to them?

Well, this question was asked (I’d love to know by whom, email me or leave a comment) whilst I was writing a big long post explaining my reasons for voting Lib Dem. Christ, even in the photo of my vote I said that I’d be explaining my reasons later on today.

I would never vote tactically. The statements yesterday and today by two leading members of the Labour party, pretty much telling supporters to vote Lib Dem so as to avoid the Tories winning particular seats, is nothing short of a disgrace.

To run a campaign based on fear (and the Tories are equally guilty of this in terms of their crowing about a hung parliament) is to lower yourself to the very bottom of political debate.

If your policies aren’t strong enough to beat the other guy, then you need some new policies. You can’t just become negative and try anything to keep the other party out of power. You have to merit being elected, not just get it by default because you’ve scared people into believing that the other party will fuck things up.

Negative campaigning is abhorrent, which is why the Lib Dems have been a fresh of breath air this year. For me, they have genuinely risen above the pooh-pooing of the other two parties and tried to present their own policies positively, correcting the falsehoods raised about them by the other parties.

In Putney, it’s actually more likely that voting for the Lib Dems is a wasted vote. Look at the notional voting split for the constituency: the Lib Dems are a long way back. Yes, Labour will no doubt lose some votes, but Justine Greening was a pretty clean MP in terms of expenses, and hasn’t really done anything wrong. There’s not a huge campaign to oust her, and she’ll probably get re-elected. It’ll have to be a big Lib Dem surge to unseat her, but I hope I’m doing my bit.

And in terms of voting for who the Guardian is supporting? I’d actually made up my mind to vote Lib Dems shortly after the manifestos came out. I didn’t even know that this weekend’s Guardian and Observer had published the editorials I linked to until the girlfriend pointed it out to me this afternoon.

Just because I read a newspaper doesn’t mean I agree with everything it says. The Guardian can be as bad as other papers from time to time. I happen to think it is less often though.

And yes, I probably do consider myself as smarter than the average bear for being able to see through the bullshit which masquerades as news for most media outlets. I have no problem with seeing myself as quite clever in those terms. You can take that as arrogance, ego or whatever, but I know where I stand in the food chain.

I view the media critically, rather than swallowing its crap whole. It’s a shame that a lot of other people can’t or won’t.

Anonymous asked: Were you happier with Gordon Browns performance during tonights debate?

I thought he did a lot better, definitely. He relied a little too much on the “I’m doing this job every day, therefore I know best” mantra, which would work if he hadn’t so comprehensively fucked so many things up in the last three years, but it was a good performance.

To be honest, I didn’t really feel that there was a massively outright winner of this debate, as there quite obviously was this time last week. All three landed some blows on the other two, and each had to take some hits from the others as well.

I was disappointed with the debate as a whole, because they spent so little time on foreign policy, despite the debate theoretically being on foreign policy. The final 40 minutes just felt like a rehash of last week’s topics, and the moderator let each candidate waffle too often.

It descended into petty party politics a little, which is a turn-off for many voters, including myself. Last week’s debate was a lot more ideological in basis, for the first time in bloody ages.

Hopefully the third debate will be a return to that style.

sabine asked: If you could choose a ride on a unicorn through a forest of golden apple trees (you were allowed to take one home as a souvenir) or a scuba adventure to Atlatis (no souvenirs allowed!), which would you choose and why?

Firstly, I have to admit to never having ridden a horse, and nor have I ever scuba-dived. I’m assuming that lessons for either of these are included, whichever I choose?

I think I’d take the trip to Atlantis, despite not being able to take anything home with me. When it comes to real-life holidays, I’m not big on buying physical souvenirs or sending postcards. I take a lot of photos, and video nowadays, and for me a holiday is about the experience of being there, wherever it may be.

Whenever I think of Atlantis (not that often, admittedly), I sort of see a Pompeii-esque town, frozen in time, with people on the streets exactly as they were when the city collapsed into the sea. It’d be cool to see that kind of image/setting, of a lost time and civilisation.

Whilst the financial gains of the golden apple tree forest is alluring, money isn’t everything, honestly. Although with enough golden apples I could afford to take a trip to Atlantis afterwards. Hmm.

And unicorns are just a bit girly, aren’t they? I’m thinking of that scene in Dodgeball when Vince Vaughn goes to Christine Taylor’s house and it’s full of unicorn paraphrenalia.

Having said all that, I’m going to wimp out and choose a middle ground. A middle ground, however, that is freaking awesome.

I would choose to ride a narwhal to Atlantis for a look round, even if I couldn’t take any souvenirs. Narwhals are probably my favourite animals, and they’re actually real too!

I’m visualising the narwhal talking to me (bear with me) as we descend to the bottom of the ocean, and then using its tusk to point out interesting things as we go through the aquatic streets of Atlantis. I’m sitting on its back, as it glides between the submerged buildings, turning corners and investigating everything.

I genuinely am visualising this, for what it’s worth, and it looks gooooood.

Am bored; ask me anything.