Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Carrie’s books | Carrie’s band

Author: Carrie

  • “How private equity drained the record industry”

    As a rule of thumb, when a famous company goes under it’s usually because private equity firms bought it, hollowed it out and loaded it with so much debt that even a relatively small drop in demand made it unsustainable.

    As David Turner writes, private equity has had a huge influence on the music business too. What began with firms buying record companies has morphed; the firms are now buying copyrights too. “Nearly thirty years since Sony’s purchase of CBS Records, private equity can be found within nearly all aspects of recorded music,” Turner says.

  • Cherries, condoms and coronavirus

    During the AIDS epidemic, some people who didn’t want to wear condoms claimed that it wasn’t because they were selfishly putting other people at risk; it was that the virus was so small that it could pass through microscopic gaps in the material condoms were made from, so there was no point in people wearing them.

    During the coronavirus pandemic, some people who don’t want to wear masks are claiming that it’s not because they’re selfishly putting other people at risk; it’s that the virus is so small that it can pass through gaps in even the fabric of medical-grade masks, so there is no point in people wearing them.

    Both groups of people were wrong, because viruses don’t travel by themselves; they need a host. In the case of AIDS it was bodily fluids; with coronavirus it’s droplets. And in both cases, the hosts are much, much bigger than the virus – so condoms prevent the spread of AIDS and masks reduce the spread of coronavirus.

    This is technically known as the fallacy of incomplete evidence, although we know it as cherry picking. It’s when you carefully choose evidence that appears to support your position and ignore or discount anything that contradicts it. You’ll find it in climate change denial and creationism, anti-trans activism and racism and pseudoscience of all kinds, and it’s been with us for millennia.

    Or at least, all the evidence I choose to believe says it has been.

  • Doing the devil’s work

    According to STV and Glasgow Live, there are “mass gatherings” planned for Glasgow this weekend to protest against the lockdown.

    The story is interesting for all the wrong reasons.

    Reason number one is that it isn’t true. A couple of far-right yahoos [update: their group is a front for the racist Britain First] have shared their drawing of a “come to our demo” leaflet – they don’t even have a real leaflet, just a drawing of one – on Facebook. Describing this as “plans” for “mass gatherings” is rather like saying I have “plans” to marry the actor Emma Stone or to be a size 8.

    And reason number two is that this kind of credulous reporting runs the risk of creating something from nothing. The coverage could encourage people who’d otherwise be unaware of the yahoos to wander down to the proposed meeting either to support it or demonstrate against it – thereby turning a couple of yahoos in a park into a much bigger thing.

    This is happening far too often with far too many publications, not just here but in the US too: again and again one or two clowns come up with a social media account, a snappy name and a logo and they’re immediately taken seriously by reporters who don’t do even the most basic checking.

    This is what happens when you chase traffic, not accuracy; when you pay your reporters not because of the quality of their work, but the quantity of content they produce; when your publication encourages churnalism, not journalism. It’s easy to exploit, and there’s no shortage of bad actors happy to exploit it.

  • “What’s the deal with all the car selfies?”

    A great piece by Pam Mandel in Longreads about online dating in her 50s:

    When I can’t sleep, I pet the dog and listlessly scroll through profiles, feeling all the markings of my 55 years, looking for something — someone — to stop that feeling of loss. It’s bad for me, junk food for my psyche. I’m reminded how bad it is every time I feel that bump when there’s a match. In my head I understand that I am being manipulated to feel just this way. I know that coming out of a relationship takes time and I should probably resolve all the old stuff before embarking on anything new. I know I should turn off my phone and go back to sleep or get out of bed.

  • If you get coronavirus, don’t blame the Tories

    Jon Alexander, on Medium.com:

    The immediate response to the government’s new Covid19 messaging has been a mixture of confusion and outrage. Commentators and academics seem bemused, the only possible explanation being that the government is incompetent.

    But actually, I think it’s very deliberate — and if their ultimate goal is to retain power rather than save lives — very smart.

    …Covid19 will now become an inconvenient hindrance to our lives, but one that each of us needs to take personal responsibility for dealing with, and getting back to normal as best we can. In this story, government steps back and gets out of the way, because people are best left to look out for themselves. We are individuals, there is no such thing as society.

    The dark corollary of course is that if you get the disease, it will be your fault — because you will not have stayed sufficiently alert.

  • Hate crimes and political shenanigans

    Neil Mackay in The Herald writes about SNP factionalism:

    The SNP has always had a fractious, bitter, conspiratorial base, which some politicians have pandered to in the past. Now, it seems as if the base is coming overground, as if the base is set on taking the party over.

    …will I ever vote SNP again? What if I vote SNP in 2021, backing Sturgeon’s vision for Scotland, and end up with something very different if she’s dethroned, something which I’ve no trust in, and which, frankly, repels me?

    I reckon many moderate Yes voters like me – greatly discomfited by nationalism, but hopeful that a better Scotland can be forged away from the failed Westminster model – would think twice about voting for an SNP without Sturgeon at the helm.

    And in The Scotsman, justice secretary Humza Yousaf responds to lurid claims that the Hate Crime Bill will criminalise freedom of expression.

    The Bill’s provisions on freedom of expression provide reassurance that stirring up offences will not unduly restrict people’s right to express their faith, or to criticise religious beliefs or practices or sexual practices. Freedom of expression is not without limit, but this Bill will not inhibit controversial and challenging views being offered as long as this is not done in a way that is threatening or abusive.

  • It’s time to reopen Jurassic Park

    Carlos Greaves, writing for McSweeney’s:

    Hello, Peter Ludlow here, CEO of InGen, the company behind the wildly successful dinosaur-themed amusement park, Jurassic Park. As you’re all aware, after an unprecedented storm hit the park, we lost power and the velociraptors escaped their enclosure and killed hundreds of park visitors, prompting a two-month shutdown of the park. Well, I’m pleased to announce that, even though the velociraptors are still on the loose, we will be opening Jurassic Park back up to the public!

    Brilliant.

  • Ill communications

    When you’re trying to keep people at home over what’s likely to be a hot and sunny bank holiday weekend, it’s hard to imagine a worse headline than this.

    It’s from today’s Daily Mail (in England; the Scottish edition has Nicola Sturgeon saying the lockdown can’t be lifted yet). The Mail of all papers should be wary about headlines with “Hurrah” in them.

    The Mail is one of several tabloid newspapers who are promising an end to lockdown starting Monday and publishing it on their front pages the day after the UK death toll became the highest in Europe. There are officially more than 30,000 people dead; the real number is believed to exceed 50,000.

    Let’s see what the papers have to hurrah about.

    Has the UK reached its own testing target? Nope: the much-promised 100,000 tests per day hasn’t been achieved at all. The government attempted to pretend otherwise by counting 40,000 tests posted but not received; that worked for one day, but the daily number is back down to 80-something-thousand.

    Do front-line NHS workers have adequate PPE? Nope. The much-lauded order of PPE from Turkey is being sent back today because it doesn’t meet NHS standards.

    Do we have enough testers and trackers in place to know where the virus is and where to target resources? Nope.

    Do we have a trace, track and isolate system in place? Nope.

    The official stats are online. We are currently recording over 6,000 new cases a day.

    All of these things together mean that the lockdown shouldn’t and won’t be lifted on Monday in England; we may see some very minor changes, such as stopping the cops from shouting at sunbathers, but it isn’t safe to change things yet.

    That’s not what the papers are suggesting, though, and as a result we’re going to have a weekend of people flouting the lockdown because hey, it’s going to be lifted on Monday anyway.

    Apparently the government are deeply concerned about this; what I thought was a deliberate leak to distract tabloids from the death toll is reportedly an unsanctioned leak that’s been blown out of all proportion to produce front pages like this:

    If it’s true that this isn’t what the government wanted, it’s clearly a case of reaping what you’ve been sowing: this is what happens when you don’t communicate clearly with a country, when you share policy and plans not with Parliament but with your pet newspapers, when your government cares more about PR than PPE.

  • It’s not me, it’s you

    I’m careful when I shop. I wash my hands thoroughly before I go out, I use liberal amounts of hand sanitiser before I go in, I wear a mask at all times, I try not to touch anything I’m not sure I’ll buy and I go crazy with the hand sanitiser again when I come out.

    The mask isn’t for me; it’s for you. If I’m asymptomatic and potentially a spreader of the virus, the mask can catch the droplets that might go into the air. It doesn’t stop them altogether but the combination of masks and social distancing can reduce viral spread considerably.

    What a mask doesn’t do is protect me from the people who don’t wear masks and who don’t keep their distance in the supermarket. There are lots of them. They ignore the one-way aisles, pay no attention to the 2m distancing, barge in front of others and stand in the centre of the aisles so it’s impossible to get past while staying a safe distance away.

    I’m pretty sure that’s why I’m currently self-isolating with a temperature of 103.

    This is the problem with the people demanding “freedom” from virus restrictions. If they were campaigning for the freedom to blow themselves up in an empty car park somewhere, I’d be all in favour. But that’s not how this works. The people who won’t stay home, who won’t keep their distance, who won’t conform to even the most common-sense instructions are dangerous not just to themselves, but to the rest of us too.

  • Give me liberty and give me death

    Media Matters:

    Right-wing groups are using the same playbook against COVID-19 measures they’ve used to fight LGBTQ rights.

    …Influential right-wing and anti-LGBTQ groups have responded to stay-at-home orders put in place to protect Americans from the coronavirus by pushing for exemptions for churches and pastors, including by filing lawsuits, pressuring local and state governments, and working with the Trump-Pence administration.

    The names are awfully familiar: the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Church Council, the Heritage Foundation and the Christian Broadcasting Network, among others. It’s been clear for many years that they don’t care about the lives of LGBT+ people; this suggests that they don’t care about the lives of any people.